Note on the Fridge

Calpurnia:

I’m off to Pompey’s Theatre and then to the Senate.  Much to do before I take the army to crush the Parthian Empire.  Meantime, before I leave I have to bring the Senators to heel.  And before I crack the whip, I need something festive to distract them.

I have sent invitations to Longinus, Brutus, Casca, Cimber and a few other Senators to a casual soirée at our place tonight.  Be a dear & organize the evening for me.

The menu –

For starters… ten dozen oysters, a wheel of Jarlsberg cheese, a couple boxes of saltines and maybe a hundred or so “pigs in the blanket.”

Then on to… three saddles of venison, twelve guinea fowl, twenty quail, a brace of pheasant (make that five braces of pheasant and a coach), enough partridge eggs to fill a bath, four wild boar, one tame boar (you don’t want to know), a crashing boor (that’s a joke), a dozen joints of mutton, three kid goats bathed in milk, the things that look like small lobsters – crayfish! We need two hundred.  Make that three hundred – Brutus loves crayfish!  Twenty oxtails for braising (Calpurnia, tell the butcher that I want the rest of the oxen cut up for our freezer into whole filets, medallions, bone-in rib eyes, shoulder roasts, briskets, flanks, top rounds, porterhouse, New York strip, London broil, skirt and ground top sirloin.  And save the belly skins – send the hides to my sandal maker.  I want ten pair above the calf, fifteen pair to the ankle, two pairs of flip-flops & a brief case.  If there is anything left make yourself some pocket books).  Oh – don’t forget the sauce for the crayfish – not too spicy! (it gives me gas)… Maybe some parker house rolls?  You decide.  And then two veggies and a starch.  If you can’t find a starch ground rhino horn will do.  Biscotti and espresso for dessert.

Seven cases of La Tâche Vintage 60 BCE… if you can’t find that, 58 BCE will do (but I won’t be happy).

For entertainment –

We will need twenty courtesans of the first rank (use the “Wink and I’m There” Agency), fifteen prostitutes from “Dockside Paradise and Bait House”, the Roman Legion 100 Lute Orchestra, that comic that we saw when we went to the mountains for our vacation (I forget his name) and the Punch and Judy Puppet Troop.

That should do it!

Oh – I almost forgot!  Take my Imperial toga to the cleaners and tell those idiots that they better get the wine and vomit stains out of it this time or they will be food for the lions!

Thanks!

xoxoxo Julius

p.s. And don’t forget! No calamari! Ever!! They give me a rash, and besides they look and taste like rubber bands!

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