Life on the ornamental gourd farm can be pretty dull--until Heidi Klum comes to visit, that is.
We look forward to it every Fall. Since 2006 she has attended our annual Ornamental Gourd Farm Banquet. This year we were especially excited because she was bringing Tim Gunn. Zac Posin’ was going to attend, too, but Zac Posin’ had to call off, busy like he was posin’ for pictures.
Long have I been an admirer of Tim Gunn, and even though this story is only a dream I had last night after drinking a bunch of vodka and lemonade, I have often imagined having my very own personal Tim Gunn IRL–a wind-up version, if you will, that I would keep in a closet or behind a curtain somewhere. Whenever things got difficult or overwhelming, he would emerge, a calming presence, and tell me to “make it work”.
This year, Heidi had a special request: my world-famous olive tapenade. Apparently, I make the greatest olive tapenade, even though I have only made it once before, well over a year ago, and I was the only person who ever tried it. I remember deeming it “pretty good”. I have no idea how Heidi heard about my olive tapenade, or why she raves about it so, but YOU try saying no to Heidi Klum.
My mission was simple: duplicate the batch of olive tapenade I had made over a year ago and which nobody ever tried but me and which Heidi Klum was requesting to be served at our annual Ornamental Gourd Farm Banquet.
I went into my cookbook library, which, like my penis, was vast. There I found a couple recipes for olive tapenade, but couldn’t remember which one I had used. It didn’t much matter. I never follow a recipe exactly anyway, using them more as guidelines or even just inspiration. I would have to experiment, and was thankful the Ornamental Gourd Farm Banquet was still a few days away.
Over the next 36 hours, without sleep or rest, I made batch after batch of olive tapenade. No matter what I did, however, it always ended up tasting like hummus. Frustration grew with each new batch. “What the fuck?” I kept saying. “Hummus? Why’s it always taste like hummus?”
Before I began the Great Olive Tapenade Marathon of 2015, I had gone into town and bought both a metric and standard shitload of olives. Or so I thought. Looking in the box, however, I realized I had gotten chickpeas instead. Duh. No wonder it always came out tasting like hummus. What a colossal bonehead I was!
With slumped shoulders and tears in my eyes, I hauled all the olive tapenade that was actually hummus out back and fed it to the hogs. As I stood there under the endless Midwestern sky, watching the hogs snort and root, it dawned on me that I wasn’t an ornamental gourd farmer at all, but actually a hog farmer.
What would Heidi say? For years she had been coming to my Ornamental Gourd Farm Banquet and the whole time I wasn’t even an ornamental gourd farmer, but a hog farmer. I could just see the disappointment in her ice blue German eyes.
Back inside, I cleaned up the kitchen, then turned off all the lights. I was going to pretend I wasn’t home until she and Tim went away. It was something I was doing more and more lately. If you’re knocking on my door and no one is answering, you can be sure I’m peeking at you from behind the blinds, rifle in hand, brain squirming like a toad, waiting for you to please, go the fuck away.
I sat in the dark, pretending to read GQ magazine, pretending to want all the techie little gadgets and precisely trimmed facial hair it wanted me to want.
Eventually, a knock came at the door, and I knew it was them. I knew it was them because I was peeking from behind the blinds and could see the limo out in front of the house.
They knock knock knocked. I heard muttering, then watched as the limo drove away, vanishing behind a swell of endless Midwestern land.
I went out on the porch and there stood my very own personal Tim Gunn, somewhat creepy because it was motionless and kind of plastic-looking. A note was pinned to its impeccable lapel.
“Mike,” it said. “Sorry we missed you. Next year? Here is something you’ve always wanted. Hope it comes in handy.
Auf wiedersehen,
Heidi”
I picked the Tim Gunn up, surprised at how light it was, and took it inside. I stood it in the middle of the living room and turned on the light. I sat down on the couch and stared at it, wondering if it was anatomically correct.
“Boy,” I said, “could I have used you earlier!”
