Jeff Greene   Online Marketing...
I love a good practical joke and I have admittedly pulled off a "stunner" or two in my day...

Most people who know me also know that I'm a great cook with a gourmet flair...

I even read food styling websites and magazines, and I used to review restaurants for a living, I still do the Zagat thing, even now...

In the restaurant business, there is something called "Display" or "Practice" food... it's made of plastic that's been artisticly cast and printed to create absolutely real-looking representations of cuisine from all over the world...

Well, the evening before April Fool's day, ( Pre-Fool?) I was sharing a glass of fine Scotch whiskey with my Muse, who does have a sense of Humour, (despite the flaming arrows) who came up with this great idea... which, of course, I had to implement immediately, lest I recieve one of said flaming arrows in my "Money Maker", as it were...

The next morning (April Fools day, for real), I took a bus ride downtown and paid a visit to my friend's restaurant supply store and proceeded to select the goods for my "April Fools" celebration dinner:

There was "Roasted Stripped Bass Cutlets", "Thick New York Strip Steaks" accompanied by "Grilled Gold And Red Potatoes" with assorted "Diced Vegetables" and "Fruits"...

My buddies ( We took turns cooking meals for each other and watching football every weekend) would never suspect what was gonna happen...

Now, in order to pull off this prank properly, you have to actually cook the real meal, so that the air will be lush with all of the mouth watering scents of great cooking, when your intended "victims" enter your home... I prepared the exact "real" meal and placed it in the breakfast room, and set up the fake "meal" in the dining room,(beautifully, I might add)so the guys could see it from the living room when they arrived...


My guests/"vics" came through the door looking hungry, as I had whetted their appetites with my invitational phone calls a couple of hours earlier and I poured each of them a warming shot of that excellent Scotch Whiskey, that I had mentioned earlier... this was to delay them in the living room, and whet those appetites even more...

Finally, I couldn't hold out any longer and shouted a hearty "Let's Dig In!"...

My buddies rushed to the dining room and took thier places at the table, each one seated before an excellently presented "meal"...

I made a toast to them and downed my drink, and prepared to duck for cover!

The look on their faces was one of total, well, the phrase "Dumb-Struck" comes to mind...

Then I recieved an immediate enrichment in my collection of "descriptive invectives", and several assignments, that of course, would be physically impossible for any human being to perform...

Oh, and not to mention, the bracing shower of cutlery and other tableware...

But, after their laughter started to shake the walls, I was glad to have pulled this one off!:)

I made ammends by serving my pals with the real meal and recieved compliments for it as well as the best practical joke, ever!:)

This was a couple of years ago and we still laugh about it when we get together...

I'm still watching my back, too!:)
Oct 12th 2007 15:26