Monday

Have You Dined With Us Before? Super.

Because She Would Ask Me Why I Loved Her
by Christopher Brennan (1870-1932), Interspersed with Items from the Cheesecake Factory Menu, and Let’s See Which You Like Better



If questioning would make us wise
No eyes would ever gaze in eyes;
If all our tale were told in speech
No mouths would wander each to each.

Breast of chicken coated with a romano-parmesan cheese crust
served with pasta
in a light tomato sauce.

Were spirits free from mortal mesh
And love not bound in hearts of flesh
No aching breasts would yearn to meet
And find their ecstasy complete.

Spaghettini with smoked bacon,
green peas,
and a garlic-parmesan cream sauce.

Available with chicken.

For who is there that lives and knows
The secret powers by which he grows?
Were knowledge all, what were our need
To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?

Black beans topped with cheese quesadillas, sunny side up eggs, spicy ranchero sauce, salsa, sour cream and avocado. Certified Angus beef ribs slow roasted until almost falling off the bone, then grilled and glazed with our barbecue sauce. Served with french fries and onion strings.

Black,
green,
or
tropical iced teas.

Tiramisu.

Then seek not, sweet, the "If" and "Why"
I love you now until I die.
For I must love because I live,
And life in me is what you give.

Wild mushroom burger - our great glamburger challenge winner!
We will gladly honor requests
to modify your order
to suit specific health or dietary needs.

Thursday

The Blower of Whistles Springs Into Action

Okay. Okay. I want to remain very calm as I write this. I wasn’t sure if I should even reveal what I’ve discovered, if maybe it would be better to keep this secret locked with me until I reach my big comfy deathbed, but I find myself unable to hold it in. Undoubtedly there will be dire recriminations for my actions here on the blog today, and if anything should happen to me, if I should meet with some unfortunate “accident,” please know that my demise was certainly caused with extreme prejudice by those who wanted to hold onto this information for all eternity. The mysterious crashing of a news helicopter into my Jetta, a screaming foul ball off the bat of a little-used Toronto Blue Jays utility infielder named “John Smith” that somehow connects with my duodenum, a sudden rain of deadly molasses from a seemingly cloudless sky--these are the things you must not accept as mere happenstance.

Here goes--and if I’m signing my own death warrant, then I’ll believe it was worth it even as I’m suffocated by an invisible pane of glass laid quickly and perfectly over the surface of a swimming pool into which I dove without a second thought for a refreshing afternoon swim that instead became the very last experience of moisture of my tragically edited life.

You know how when you go up to a candy machine, check out the selections, put your money in, and then press the buttons for the food you want? Try this: go up to a candy machine, check out the selections, and skip Step 3. Press the buttons before you put the money in. The Twizzlers come tumbling down without it. There is not, and has never been, any need to actually insert your coins. Stop assuming you won’t get the Snickers bar, or even the Mike & Ikes, without them. Think of it: have you ever once tried this?

My God, do I feel relieved. It’s out! It’s out and there’s nothing that can be done about it! Any moment now I expect a bored Filipino Girl Scout to discover my body near the unforgiving banks of the Patapsco River, crushed inside a crudely constructed nine-foot waffle iron that somehow bears no fingerprints, but I no longer care. Justice has been served, and the world will now be held hostage to one less industry legally offering goods in exchange for money, as is the custom of the free market!

I don’t know if this works with soda. Haven’t tried it. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. I don’t have buckets and buckets of free time, you know?

Friday

We Can Work It Out

Fellas, let me just apologize to you both right now for what I did on Tuesday, and I can promise you that if you let me back on the air, just for the final week of episodes, it’ll certainly never happen again. Rick and Tony, you both have been there for me since I walked into this office twenty-nine years ago with an idea and a bit of gumption, and you have my word that I’ll never embarrass you again. The thing is, I just snapped. I mean, I have six thousand and twelve tapings of Was Liam Neeson in Lord of the Rings, Yes or No? under my belt, and I’ve asked that question of our fine contestants approximately two hundred and forty thousand times, and on Tuesday I simply lost it. I don’t know what to tell you. Seriously, you would think that in this age when Google 7 can tell you anything you want to know just by pointing a barcode scanner at the part of your head where the question is being formed, people would have kind of figured this one out by now and wouldn’t need a minute and forty-five seconds of video conference deliberation with their spinster aunt in St. Louis to crack the freaking code. But this show is my life, and if you’ll just let me close out the final taping with a little dignity, I’d be indebted. And of course I’ll both apologize to the FCC and make full restitution to Mrs. Shrebnikov out of my own pocket for the blouse I ruined when I threw those hot dogs at her. If it reassures you, as of yesterday I’m on a drug called Zalpepitol-G which soothes my nerves and sort of flattens out all foreign accents so they’re not so jarring.

Onward and upward, I always say--what I’ve envisioned for the series finale is kind of special. First of all, the curtain rises on a dark set, after which I come out in a spotlight flanked by young children and sing a rousing version of “We Built This City.” Then Liam Neeson himself emerges and I ask him the famous question personally, and when he answers, the set is suddenly lit up by a rushing circle of fire! Men dressed in firefighters’ garb rush out to douse the blaze, and after the applause has died down, they take off their hats to reveal--you’ve got it--the starting lineup of the World Champion 2005 Chicago White Sox. It’s at this point that I shout to the audience, “There’s nothing that a dream can’t conquer!” and the staff of the show joins me on stage for a ritual milk bath to wash away twenty-nine years of togetherness, comraderie, and sexual tension. The most interesting part? None of this will be in color.

I may have taken more Zalpepitol-G than I was supposed to, now that I think about it. The dosage size is sort of confusing because it comes in pasta form.