When I was thinking about what to name this collection, “Best-Loved Shoe Recipes” came to mind. Except it’s hard to call these recipes the “best.” And it’s even harder to call them “loved.” More accurate descriptors might include:

• Not palatable
• Inedible
• Dangerous
• Unhealthy
• Not fit for human consumption
• Not suitable for man nor beast
• Disgusting
• Putrid
• Nauseating
• Vomit-inducing
• Toxic
• Cancerous

But you know what? It’s hard to sell a cookbook when you use words like “disgusting” and “dangerous.”  Publishers reject the book. Consumers won’t buy it.  Medical professionals are screaming about how these dishes could cause serious injury or even death.

Yeah, I know. That’s why I only advise you to COOK these recipes, but I strongly advise AGAINST eating them.  So all you ambulance-chasing attorneys can go away, because I’m telling everyone right now to not eat these dishes.

Frickin’ $500 an hour lawyer says to make it more obvious. OK, fine…

WARNING: Do NOT eat these shoe recipes. Do NOT serve them to others. 

Well, unless you’re a hit man and you’re getting paid like $50k a pop to take out some dude. But even then, I’m not sure these recipes are the right way to go. It just makes you look like a total amateur.  Think about it: you’re not going to get any testimonials or “word of mouth” business if you mess this up. And you’re not going to get your $50k if your intended victim is all like, “I’m not eating this – it taste like boiled shoe leather.”

Anyway, enjoy the recipes…

Rebecca the Shoe Chef

Shoe Wellington

Does anyone invite their boss over for dinner anymore? If so, this would be an awesome dish to make – especially if you make a “screw you, I quit” champagne toast during dinner.  Otherwise, here’s a little something fancy to make for the mother-in-law who won’t stop with the bitchy, backbiting remarks.

Manolo Blahnik crystal satin pumps

1 package frozen puff pastry

8 oz of mushrooms, minced

1 med onion, minced

1 lb leather loafer pate

3 tbs red wine

2 tsp milk

1 large separated egg (divorced is okay too)

½ tsp pepper

½ tsp salt

Bordelaise sauce

Parsley for garnish

Cut the heel off the shoe. You can also wear the shoes and run late to an appointment, because that usually results in a broken heel.

Or, slip the shoes on and go for a walk in Central Park after midnight. You’re sure to have a serial killer chase you, in which case you’ll get a broken heel for sure. Though if you go that route, it’s best if you’re dressed in just a t-shirt, panties and your Manolo Blahnik shoes. Because isn’t that how horror movie victims always dress? Frilly panties and high heels?

Well, that’s how lame horror movies do it. And I suspect if Dan C. Rinnert ever wrote a horror novel, that’s how he’d do it.  And he’d probably call it “Dan’s Lame Horror Novel,” because then people who bought “Dan’s Lame Novel” would all rush over to Amazon and… well I don’t know what they would do.  And we’re really falling way off the topic of Shoe Wellington anyway.  Focus, people.

Next, put the rest of the satin pumps in a baking dish and heat at 425 degrees until you hear some rich women in Manhattan gasp. Or, if you’re near a cemetery, you’ll hear dead rich women roll over in their graves.  Which is weird, really, because you wouldn’t think they’d have enough muscle tone to do that. But I guess if a person is properly embalmed, then they’ll retain the muscle. Huh.

Meanwhile, combine the onion, mushroom, wine and seasonings into a frying pan and fry lightly.  Combine with the loafer pate.

Next, roll out your puff pastry in sheets big enough to over the pumps. Spread the pate mixture evenly on the inside of the pastry.  Fold it over, seal it, and crimp the edges. This is sure to impress your guests (well, until they actually bite into the shoe Wellington, that is). Finish by brushing butter over the pastry.

Now bake until the pastry turns golden brown and looks delicious.  Pair with a nice red wine or a bottle of Pepto Bismol.

Cornish Game Shoes and Rice

Why do people even bother with Cornish game hens? Cause they’re snoooooty, that’s why. And now you can look down your nose at all the common folks who cook regular shoes while you prepare this delightful Cornish game shoe dish. So put away the Cool Whip bowls and use some real serving dishes, ok?

4 Cornish Blowfish wedge shoes

1 cup uncooked rice

3.5 ounces of dry Italian seasoning mix

2 cups of hot water

1 can cream-of-shoe soup

Combine the water and rice into a shallow baking dish and put into 375 degree oven for about 15 minutes. 

Note: If you stop with this recipe right now, you’ll actually have something edible. So if you’re like on your last dollar or something – maybe because the fridge broke and the kid needed orthodontic work and then your mother-in-law wanted to move in, but you said “hell no, I’d rather buy her a condo in Orlando than have her move in here,” and you did, and now you’re paying two mortgages, but it’s soooo worth it because the mother-in-law is like 700 miles away – well, in that case you better just stop cooking this dish now and eat the rice. You can’t afford to waste it.

Now, if you don’t mind wasting money, then the next thing you need to do is slice the shoes in half and place them cut-side-down in the rice. Then mix together water, the dressing and the cream-of-shoe soup and stir that into the rice.

Turn the oven down a smidge and bake the dish for about an hour – that’s two episodes of Seinfeld reruns. Unless you’re watching the reruns on DVDs, which of course don’t have any commercials. Then it’s like two episodes and an extra 16 minutes that you need to kill.

Uh oh, confused about what to do with that extra 16 minutes? You should have thought about that before you started watching the DVD.

But I suppose you can pass the time quickly by calling all your friends. And as soon as they answer, do your best Soup Nazi impression by saying, “NO! No Cornish Game Shoe for you!” Then hang up.

Shoestring Spaghetti

Awww, cute – here’s a recipe you can use to recreate that famous scene from the movie “The Lady and the Tramp.” Except that if you actually eat the shoestring spaghetti, you’re likely to choke. And if you don’t choke, then the shoestring will get twisted up in your intestines. That will choke off the healthy tissue and kill a good 18 inches of your guts.  And then you’ll need surgery to cut out the dead parts of your intestines.

People will all be like, “Oh, you had surgery?”

And you’ll be like, “Yeah, necrotic intestines.”

Except your grandma will hear “erotic,” and she’ll be like, “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

The recipe:

Two dozen pairs of shoelaces, cut into shorter strands

A pair of ground tennis shoes

1 jar of spaghetti sauce

Brown the ground tennis shoes in a frying pan.  Add the spaghetti sauce and simmer for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, start heating a pot of water so that can boil the laces.  I mean really, if I have to explain this to you, then you’re just not the chef I thought you were.

But of course in real life if I told you that you were a bad cook, I wouldn’t be mean about it. Instead, I’d say, “It’s not you… it’s me.  It’s not your fault that you don’t know how to make shoestring spaghetti. It’s my fault that I wrote such crappy directions. You really deserve a better cookbook author. You deserve someone who will give you actual, edible recipes. And that’s why I think we should break up.” And you know what? I’d even say it to your face.  Because it sucks when your cookbook author breaks up with you on Facebook. One day you’re all happy and “In a Relationship,” and the next day your cookbook author has switched her relationship status to “Single.”  Ouch.

Shoe Smoothie

Some people think veggies are vile, so they blend them into fruit smoothies and chug them down like a college kid drinking beer at a frat party.

News flash: shoes taste even worse than veggies. So if you want to eat shoes, then you might try hiding them in a smoothie. But I really doubt the concoction is going to be smooth. Well, maybe “smooth” in the way flying through a thunderstorm in a hot air balloon is “smooth.”

1 patent leather pump

Handful of strawberries

One peeled orange

Handful of grapes

Handful of ice cubes

Two shots of vodka

Toss everything into a blender and blend until smooth.

Of course you do realize that a patent leather pump isn’t going to blend easily, right? If you’re using your regular blender, you’ll hear a high-pitched squeal right before the whole thing shorts and starts smoking. It might even catch on fire, so stand back if you’re sipping the vodka while blending.  Or sell tickets to the show if you’re a bit of a dare-devil exhibitionist.

Special private instructions for Leslie in Belgium: Is your name Leslie? Are you from Belgium? If not, then you are seriously breaking book etiquette by reading this paragraph. I mean do you open other people’s mail? Do you hack into their emails? Because this is the same thing. Private means private and you shouldn’t be reading these lines.

OK Leslie, here are your private instructions: skip everything else in this recipe and just enjoy the vodka.  You’re welcome.

Shoeburger Helper

Betty Crocker doesn’t actually make Shoeburger Helper, as I’ve only ever seen Hamburger Helper in the stores. In fact, I doubt that the real Betty Crocker makes anything, except for money.  I mean think about it: if you were a gazillionaire, would you feed Hamburger Helper to anyone? Me neither.

Oh, and never mind that “Betty Crocker” isn’t even a real person. Let’s not quibble over details.

1 high top sneaker, ground up

1 box Hamburger Helper

Brown the ground sneaker. Add the Hamburger Helper according to package instructions.  Then take the package and send it through a paper shredder. If you don’t have a paper shredder, give it to your dog to rip up into tiny pieces. If you don’t have a paper shredder or a dog, then either run to Staples or to the Humane Society – your choice.

Back? Ok, now that you have the box ripped to shreds, add that to your skillet. Cook until the tiny cardboard bits are soggy.

The cardboard isn’t going to add any flavor to your Shoeburger Helper, but it sure can’t hurt. Plus, it helps you destroy the evidence that you ever made Shoeburger Helper. Cause making Shoeburger Helper is the kind of thing that can get you kicked out of country clubs and shunned by voters if you ever run for local office.

Pro Tip: Don’t tweet about making Shoeburger Helper. And for the love of shoes, don’t take a pic of Shoeburger Helper to pin on Pinterest.  Evidence, remember? You may not want to run for president today, but 20 years from now this is the kind of shit they’ll dig up and blast all over the airwaves.

Shoe Crescent Roll Roll-Ups

You know what’s kind of weird? The Michelin Man looks a lot like the Pillsbury Doughboy. That worries me.  I mean what if I buy Pillsbury stuff and expect dough, but I end up with ground-up tires instead?  Not that it would matter for this recipe…

1 chopped up moccasin (the shoe, not the snake)

1 package of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls

1 small onion, sautéed

Your favorite kind of cheese (unless it’s Cheez Whiz, cause that’s just gross)

This recipe is really easy – just roll out the dough into individual triangles, place a bit of moccasin, cheese and onion on each piece, and then roll up into a crescent roll.  Bake until golden brown.

Easy, right? Except for just one problem…

The first thing you need to do is open the damn Pillsbury Crescent Roll tube. That requires you to pull on that little strip of paper until the tube pops. Except for some reason it never feels like it’s just going to “pop” nicely. It feels more like it’s going to explode. And that scares the hell out of you, even more than that stupid puff of air the optometrist uses to test for glaucoma.

The faint-of-heart tend to open the tube so tentatively that they end up peeling off tiny strips of paper without the tube ever popping. Then you have a naked, paperless tube and no access to the dough inside. Which really isn’t a bad thing, because at least you didn’t hit the floor and yell “INCOMING!” when the tube exploded.

My advice? Find a bomb disposal expert to open the tube. He’s probably the only one steady enough to do it the right way.