TASTY DISH

By Bonnie Stansfield

Whether served in a thick black tarp or wrapped up in garbage bags, dinner was always something special at the Dunsler household. Mother and chef extraordinaire Janet Dunsler made sure of that!

But husband Rich didn’t know quite what to make of her latest creation. At first glance it appeared to be a slain prostitute – nothing terribly outlandish about that – but when he poked his fork at the milky white flesh, a look of confusion crossed his face.

“What is this?” he asked. Janet and daughter Karen exchanged nervous glances.

“It’s tofu, mostly” Janet said. “Karen’s decided to become a vegetarian, and I thought this would be a great way for us to show our support.”

Rich grimaced. He was a meat-and-potatoes-hold-the-potatoes guy if there ever was one, but he had to give his wife credit: It certainly looked like the real thing. The ersatz corpse was dressed in a miniskirt and torn, sequined halter top. It had a coiffure of angel-hair pasta and long, curved fingernails made from thin slices of red bell pepper. A convincing slash of tomato gravy ran across its throat.

“These ears,” he said, tearing off a lobe and running his fingers over its cartilage-like texture, “how did you–"

“Braised tempeh,” Janet said proudly. “And check out the eyes: They’re radish rosettes!”

“They look a little bloodshot,” Rich deadpanned, stabbing them vigorously with the carving knife. “She must have had a very long and terrifying night!”

The Dunslers all had a good laugh, and then Rich set about slicing up the tofu whore – just like it was the real thing.

(Many years ago, on the advice of a local psychopath, Bonnie Stansfield killed and devoured her social studies teacher in order to acquire the woman's life force. Little did she know that the seemingly innocuous event would come to inform her long and illustrious writing career.)