(jfw original recipe) a pocalypsmackin' good stew!

I have been given the task of providing a recipe in honor of Ashley "Number Six" Finley's victory in the 2004 NFL pool. Admittedly, while I may have considerable experience inventing recipes, I don't have much experience devising recipes in honor of particular persons. What sort of dish is appropriate for someone whose nickname is "Number Six"? Six, six, six, I kept thinking, six, six, six. Then it hit me like a Revelation: rather than a recipe that might also have a tie to this year's Super Bowl, why don't I throw the long ball and come up with a recipe appropriate for the Great Super Bowl of Eternity--the confrontation between good and evil, God vs. Satan, for the fate of the souls of all humankind. (Or whatever, my recollection of end-days details from Sunday School are now pretty fuzzy, and I haven't taken the Left Behind refresher course.) Anyway, without further delay, I offer you the opportunity to get your kicks with Ashley Finley's Stew 666:

Get:

a bat, caged
a ouija board
a small yellow onion, sliced into quarters
a tomato
little zesty bits of lemon and orange
salt, pepper
some lemon juice
2 small yellow bell peppers, sliced thin
2 zucchini, sliced
3 garlic cloves
6 (or more) teaspoons of butter, sculpted into the shape of a goat's head
6 (or more) teaspoons of olive oil
6 mushrooms, sliced to look like little cloven hoofs
6 ounces yellow wax beans, cut into pieces 3 inches long
6 teaspoons of herbs like marjoram, basil, myrrh, thyme

Do:

1. Put a bunch of water in a pot and get it boiling. Add the beans and salt. Cook until cooked. Scoop beans out of the boiling water and arrange them into a pentagram on the ouija board.

2. Put the tomato in the same water for 10 seconds or so. Then peel it and cut it into six pieces. Put one piece on each corner of the pentagram and one in the middle.

3. Chop up the garlic with the herbs and the lemon and orange bits. Sprinkle over the pentagram while chanting, in chronological order, the names of everyone who has ever broken up with or jilted you.

4. Put the olive oil in a big wide pan. Warm it up (not too warm). Put bat cage on counter next to stove. Do NOT taunt the bat.

5. Add the onion and the garlic-herb-lemon-orange stuff. Add the peppers, zucchini, mushrooms. Add about 1/4 cup of water. Say "Soon you will be free, Dark Lord" to the bat. Add a little salt. Cook about five minutes, or until the vegetables start getting soft.

6. Add the green beans and the tomato, in reverse order from the order that you placed them on the ouija board. Cackle and rub hands with sinister glee. Cook for awhile.

7. Turn up heat. Stir in butter. Shake the pan back and forth to make sure everything gets mixed together. You'll know you've done things correctly if you begin to hear thunder and hail outside.

8. Release the bat. Add lemon juice and pepper to taste.

9. Serve, eat, wait for apocalypse.

Sound good? I know arm-a-geddon hungry just thinking about it! Enjoy!