A Fly in the Microwave

FOOD AND CULTURE
A FLY IN THE MICROWAVE: Fun on the Farm When No One's Around
by Roy Mackay (2007, Self-Published)


Is this comfort food or is it a form of artistic expression?

Think what you like, but metal sculptor Ray Mackey seems to believe that a first step towards living a free life in an unfree world comes when you unfetter yourself from standard expectations regarding suitable spreads for your breakfast toast.

This photo of "Mexican Toast" comes from an entry on his blog entitled "Delicious Low Fat Sandwiches" and its simple formula of cayenne pepper, ketchup, cottage cheese and peanut butter on Wonder bread, although unorthodox, is a refreshingly innocent journey to a landscape outside the culinary lines. Indeed, only your kids could likely come up with something so economically creative or so joyously revolting. (That is, unless you are old enough to remember Kraft Theatre recipes.)

Mackey's other variations on the theme --butter, honey and garlic powder or honey and super blue-green algae -- take us back to our own childhood favorite, the "peany bomb", so named because of its resemblance before the final step of assembly to a hand grenade, and often due to the look of one's shirt front afterwards. It's evolution involved taking a slice of bread, adding half a cup of crunchy peanut butter, an equal amount of strawberry jam and/or honey, and half a ripe banana to a slice of bread, rolling the whole thing up into a bloated tube shape and then hammering it flat with your clenched fist. A kitchen counter road kill, if you will.

Come to think of it though, Mackey's recipes may have less to do with natural childlike art than the sort of financial insecurity at play when one is a starving artist existing in a prime-for-condo-development Gastown loft.

Anyhow, the reason we bring up Mr. Mackey, other than the inexplicable fact that he is a CityFood reader, is that he will be one of the artists opening his studio at the upcoming East Side Culture Crawl coming up November 16 - 18.

To paraphrase Yoda, crawl to it, you should. Mackey will not be making religious icons out of toast to sell on eBay, but instead will be plugging first edition copies of his new book entitled "A Fly in the Microwave: Fun on the Farm When No One's Around", a "humorous and slightly twisted collection of memories about growing up on a small farm in the Rocky Mountains".

To quote from the book's pages: "My sister and I both loved animals, though for slightly different reasons. I guess she saw their free spirited beauty that inspired contentment. I saw a moving target and a piping hot meal."

Good lord. Contemplating toast toppings born of pantry desperation was bad enough. Hopefully he has developed more tender sensibilities since viewing Ratatouille.

Or maybe his book's title is all the warning you are really going to need.