Since my recent diatribe this morning about conservation "recipes" I received the following message forwarded by a colleague from Utah!  

This is a stellar combination of bad, really - really bad writing, and an extraordinarily bad cookie recipe.  Does this remind you of a recent bad best-seller from a few years ago? (hint: a quest for ten insights set in the South American jungle!)


        The MacGyver Cookbook

Well, folks, here it is. I didn't have time to cook this stuff myself
for you the way Paul Newman does, so I just wrote up this cookbook to
give you all the recipes, tried and true just like I make 'em in my
own kitchen at home.

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES:

  Frequent flier coupons
  One medium paperclip (not plastic coated)
  One movie ticket stub

Now remember that chocolate-chip cookies are supposed to be a nice
relaxing kind of food, so the first thing you'll want to do to make
them is to go somewhere where you can kick back and relax.  Ecuador is
good, so use your frequent-flier coupons to pick up a round-trip
ticket there. The stewardess will hand you a couple of bags of
peanuts, but don't eat them, since we're going to need those for the
cookies.

You'll find yourself sitting next to an attractive woman who teaches
archaeology at Cornell; she'll explain that she's going to Ecuador to
try to find her father -- a biochemist by trade, but he dabbles in
archaeology as a hobby -- who went down there to find the lost pyramid
of Sesquichachloride, well known in archaeological circles as the
fabled storehouse of the god Valhequesal who, according to myth, rode
down from the skies on a pillar of fire bringing with him a wealth of
powerful but somewhat failure-prone magical devices that, according to
the priests of the day, were pretty darn all-around nifty.

Now her father, after examining several stone tablets depicting the
god Valhequesal, discovered that he is always shown wearing a curious
bracelet on his left wrist that looks surprisingly like a digital
watch, leading him to the conclusion that Valhequesal did actually
exist, but he was really an advanced space traveller with
comparatively poor taste in accessories, and that the lost pyramid of
Sesquichachloride must contain his spacecraft and untold other devices
from his world. About this time, the stewardess will bring by the main
meal and you'll want to be sure to save the little packets of salt and
butter that come with your meal -- the woman next to you will be too
worried about her father to eat and so you'll want to take her packet
of butter and go ahead and keep her crackers too.

When you get off the plane in Ecuador, just go out to the front of the
airport and try to locate a cab. There won't be any, for some reason,
so you'll go inside to inquire about where transportation might be
found and some guy will stumble against you and when you look at him,
you'll notice that he's been stabbed in the left side and is bleeding
pretty profusely. With a weakly shaking hand, he'll thrust the key to
a safety deposit box into your hand, gasp something about "be careful
of the poison ivy" and expire messily on the floor of the terminal.
You'll decide that maybe waiting for a cab is the better part of valor
and head back outside -- on the way, though, be sure to stop at the
concession stand and ask for a half-pound of chocolate chips.  The
clerk will measure the appropriate amount and put it in a bag for you.
Be sure your movie ticket stub is visible in the handful of change you
pull from your pocket to pay her. She'll reach down under the counter
and then surreptitiously drop a roll of microfilm into your bag along
with the chocolate chips, then hand you the bag, saying, "On the
house."

At this point, speed is of the essence -- get back outside the
concourse before a swarthy man with a mustache strides up to the snack
shop holding a movie ticket stub. Moments later he and the clerk will
run out the door looking for you, just as the woman who sat next to
you on the plane drives up in her rental car and offers you a lift.
Cheerfully accept, and hop in before the man with the mustache
disconnects the safety on his gun. If all goes well, you'll both be
out of the parking lot and on your way before he has time to squeeze
off more than one shot -- and he'll miss on the first one anyway and
the woman driving the car will think it was just another vehicle
backfiring. She'll be kind enough to offer to let you stay in her
hotel room, but she'll need to stop off at the bank first to take care
of a little business. While she's talking with the bank
representative, you casually wander back to the safety deposit boxes
and open the one that matches the key. In it, you'll find a fair sized
paper bag containing bags of flour, sugar, baking soda and a large
bottle of calamine lotion; take this along with the folded piece of
paper lining the bottom of the safety deposit box. Go back to the
lobby just as she's getting ready to leave.

Once the two of you get back into the car and start driving, unfold
the piece of paper -- it's a map leading to somewhere deep in the
Ecuadorian jungle.  Look more closely at it just as your companion
notices the map, gasps, nearly runs the car off the road, and exclaims
"That's my father's handwriting!"  From this point on, it's pretty
straightforward -- just trek through the jungle with her for a few
days, evade the occasional drug lord and that guy with the mustache,
locate the hidden temple and descend down a long pole into its depths,
and locate the treasure room.

There'll be a large golden idol in the northwest corner with huge
rubies for eyes, a golden bowl in his lap, and a bird's nest on his
head. Put the butter from the plane into the bowl and stir until
softened. Get the gold cup to the left of the idol and add two cupfuls
of sugar to the butter, stir until creamed. And two eggs from the
next, one swiss army knife spoonful of baking soda and two-and-a-half
cups of flour, being sure to remove the large plastic bag of cocaine
that was hidden in the bag of flour first.  Mix well, add the peanuts
from the flight and the chocolate chips from the bag, pocketing the
microfilmed list of drug contacts first, and place by swiss army knife
spoonfuls onto the silver tray propped up against the back of the
idol.

Once the cookie batter is on the tray, your companion will ask to lick
the bowl, but in doing so will bump against the gold torch held in the
idol's right hand and there will be a low grinding sound as the stone
block that forms the doorway to the drug smugglers' lab slides out of
the way and you'll see her father chained to a lab table being forced
to refine drugs for the smugglers. While they're having a beautiful
and happy reunion, pick up a strange device from the outer room and
bring it into the lab where there's better light for a closer
inspection. Be sure to bring the cookie sheet too and set them next to
each other on the lab table. Your companion and her father will be
trying to figure out how to get him unchained while you note that the
device in question is clearly of extraterrestrial manufacture and
appears to be some sort of highly powerful laser cutting device --
except that it shows signs of being dropped, breaking the actuator
wire and misaligning the front partial mirror.

Tell them to be quiet for a moment as you use the fish scaling blade
from your swiss army knife to realign the partial mirror to one
quarter wave and then unfold the paperclip, using it to reconnect the
high-voltage trigger to the laser firing mechanism.  Have him stand
back while you use the high-powered laser to cut through the chain
holding him to the table and, incidentally, the wall on the other side
of the room, alerting the drug smugglers to your presence. They'll
burst into the room and one will fire a pistol at you, missing you but
hitting the laser, forcing it permanently on and cracking the rear
reflector, bathing the area -- the cookies in particular -- with
high-energy radiation. Now get chased around the interior of the
temple for a while and, just after the second brief romantic moment
where you kiss her and think "Gosh, for someone who's been running
around the Equadorian jungle for nearly a week, her hair's not greasy
at all" the cookies should be done.

Run back through the drug lab, grab the cookie sheet, noting that the
cooling system for the laser has failed and it's about to explode, and
run to the outer room where the three of you scale the pole with the
bad guys in hot pursuit. By the time you reach the top of the pole,
the bad guys will be halfway up it already, so uncap the bottle of
calamine lotion and pour it onto the pole, causing them to fall back
into the temple as you and your companions escape into the jungle
depths just moments before the entire secret temple explodes,
destroying the drug smuggling operation along with all the
extraterrestrial artifacts.

By now the cookies should be cool enough to eat. Enjoy. Your
companions will have a few too, wistfully sighing over the loss of so
much knowledge so senselessly, as you take another cookie and notice
that the metal sheet you baked them on has etched onto it the plans
for what appear to be some sort of space drive.

Anyway, this is the best chocolate-chip cookie recipe I've ever tried
-- I've made it dozens of times and haven't had a single bad batch
yet.