La Fin du Monde Cafe & Denial
Reservations recommended.
by Melanie Chartoff & Joe Janes
Greetings! Welcome to La Fin du Monde Cafe, which is French for “We’re screwed…Cafe.” The apocalypse sounds way cooler in a romance language. Is this your first time dining with us? Well, it might also be your last. No need to wear a mask. All of our dining is considered “outdoors” since the roof collapsed during the hurricane. Allow me to go over our specials as we’ve dispensed of tree-squandering menus. The few trees that are left are also on fire.
For your appetizer, we have seasonal cicada crisps. Sun-dried locust corpses with a hint of exhaust fumes from gasoline-powered automobiles. I highly recommend them. We won’t have them again for another 17 years. We also probably won’t be around to try them.
Feeling adventurous? Of course, you do! You’re eating out. Try our Mystery Meat Paté. Recycling isn’t just some fanciful idea with a nice logo. We believe in using and re-using all the parts of all the animals on our menu. Who the heck knows what leftovers comprise this savory medley flavored with fine wine backwash salvaged from wasteful entitled customers.
For your entre, may I point out that it is still wildfire season. As long as people have explosive gender-reveal parties or insist on boiling their bear urine, it’s wildfire season. We give two-dollar-an-hour convicts fighting forest fires an extra buck to salvage any animals that have been scorched and smoked to (Chef’s kiss) perfection. Today we have what looks like part of a deer fused with raccoon and leg of firefighter–a mixed grill. C’est magnifique!
If you prefer seafood, we are fresh out of dolphin jerky. However, we have over-farmed salmon riddled with hull-scraped zebra mussels served with a side of Asian carp ceviche featuring mutant eleven-legged octopi. The whole dish has been marinated in crude oil from a leaking pipeline.
Our other entre is a tribute to science. I-Can’t-Believe-It-Was Ever-Chicken. Headless fowl bred with all breast, no wings, no drumsticks, no neck, roasted on a spit, basted in spit, sprayed with chicken-flavored reduction broth. If you are watching your waistline, this dish creates negative calories because it will fight you as you chew.
Make sure you save room for dessert! Our house specialty is the Three Mile Meltdown Fruit Compote. Malformed peaches grown in compost on the site of our local nuclear disaster, pulverized by centrifuge into sweet, inhalable foam, served on a gluten-free, sugar-free, fat-free, substance-free—nothing-but-air pseudo crust that makes a joyful crunch when you pantomime nibbling it. Not recommended if you are pregnant. Not recommended you be pregnant, period…Just sayin’.
Here is your bill. Oh, let me explain. I leave you your tab now with an estimate of what your dinner will cost. Before you order, you need to debate whether or not climate change is real and how you will pay for it if it is. By the time you are done doing that, it will be too late to order. Bon appétit!
Our ovens just sort of happen.