Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Hello and welcome to the “Cooking the Books” show, where you too can learn to create amazing literary works of art! Today, your hosts Jenners and Sandy will be demonstrating their culinary prowess by preparing a most complicated dish, but one well worth the effort and sure to impress your friends.

Recipe for Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

1 cup of Greece
2 cups of Detroit
1/2 cup of San Francisco
1/4 cup of Berlin

Mix thoroughly in a bowl and set aside.

Obtain a new copy of Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews. Carefully remove the evil grandmother and spooky old house and delicately extract the incest story line. Place the story line on a greased 13×9 baking pan.

In a food processor, grind one U.S. history textbook, one genetics textbooks, and The Greek-Turkish War by Stravos T. Stravidis into fine powder. Sprinkle over the incest story line removed from Flowers in Attic.

Using a mandolin, slice the chrome from vintage Cadillacs into small cubes and mix with the hair of Howard Stern and three silkworms. Drizzle with the sweat gathered from the locker room of a girl’s boarding school and the tears of immigrants. Then blend in a dollop of your choice (depending on your tastes) of tragedies of the ancient Greeks and 3 ounces of moonshine delivered by rum runners during the Prohibition. Fold gently into the bowl containing Greece, Detroit, San Francisco and Berlin.

Let the bowl sit for three generations. It will rise into a dough that has the scent of crocuses and the glimmering fish scales of a mermaid. Roll out the dough on a floured work surface and place the textbook-covered incest story line into the center of the dough. Roll the dough into an architectural shape that is pleasing to the eye but unfit for everyday life.

Melt the family scenes from My Big Fat Greek Wedding and brush onto the outside of the dough.

Bake for for as long as it takes you to listen to “Dude Looks Like A Lady” by Aerosmith, “The Immigrant Song” by Led Zeppelin, and “Pink Cadillac” by Aretha Franklin or until golden brown. Garnish with a Pulitzer Prize.

Yields: 544 pages or 17 discs of pure literary delight!

Notes from Chef Jenners: This wasn’t my first recipe by Eugenides; I sampled his Virgin Suicides Family Platter a few years ago and found it not to be to my taste. But this recipe!!!! Mamma Mia … what a wonderful glorious meal it was! Never before have I tasted Prefetal Omniscient Narrator … such a delight! And the “Let’s Progress Time Through A Series of Snapshot Phrases” was succulent and tender. I’ll definitely be sampling more of what Eugenides cooks up for us to enjoy. Bon Appétit!

Notes from Chef Sandy: If you would like to prepare the audio version of this recipe, you mustn’t be intimidated. Simply add a new pair of tennis shoes, an MP3 player, and the voice of Kristoffer Tabori (who I believe was put on this earth solely for the purpose of this recipe variation) to the initial Greece/Detroit/San Francisco/Berlin mixture and blend well. Serve with a bottle of vintage 2003 Audie Award. Enjoy!