ARE YOU HUNGRY TONIGHT?

ARE YOU HUNGRY TONIGHT?

Today, August 16th is 33 years since the death of the King, Elvis Aaron Presley.

Elvis Presley was the first real rock and roll star. A white southerner who singing blues laced with country and country tinged with gospel, Presley brought together music from both sides of the color line. Presley performed this music with a natural hip swiveling sexuality that made him a teen idol and a role model for generations of cool rebels. Presley was repeatedly dismissed as vulgar, incompetent and a bad influence. However the force of his music and image signaled to the mainstream culture it was time for a change.

Born January 8, 1935, in East Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley was the son of Gladys and Vernon Presley, a sewing machine operator and a truck driver. Presley's twin brother Jesse Garon was stillborn, and he grew up as an only child. At age three, Vernon was sent to prison for forgery. It seems that Vernon, Travis Smith, and Luther Gable changed the amount of a check from Orville Bean, Vernon’s boss, from $3 to $8 and cashed it at a local bank. Vernon pled guilty and was sentenced to three years at Parchment Farms Penitentiary. Vernon's boss, Mr. Bass called in a note that Vernon signed to borrow money to build the house and Gladys is forced to move in with Vernon's parents. Vernon would only serve eight months. Afterward Vernon's employment was spotty and the family lived just above the poverty line. The Presley’s attended the First Assembly of God Church whose Pentecostal services always included singing.

FOOD, and not music, was Elvis Presley’s first and most lasting love. Nothing was more important for the King of Rock n Roll than his daily menu: buttery biscuits, six-egg omelettes served with a pound of burnt bacon, pecan-crusted catfish, smoked back ribs, ground beef burgers, smoked pork sandwiches, fried dill pickles, grits and cheese, bologna cups, sweet potato pie, barbecue pizza, turnip greens, fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, 16 lb T-bone steaks, 8 oz filets of salmon, banana pudding, triple-layer fudge cake.

Elvis’s cuisine reflects his life — both innocent and fabulous — and, in the end, possibly just too much. Elvis cuisine is artery-clogging Southern American cooking raised to baroque new heights. Elvis cuisine is snacking without guilt. Elvis cuisine is eating whenever, whatever and however much you want. Elvis cuisine is literally food lust.

His breakfast was of 5,000 calories and he consumed it at 5 o’clock in the evening, which is generally when he woke up. Elvis had six large eggs cooked in butter with extra salt, one pound of bacon, half a pound of sausages, 12 buttermilk biscuits. Dinner (or lunch) was five hours later, at 10 p.m., and went up to a scary 84,000 calories. It included two "Fool’s Gold" sandwiches: each sandwich was made of a jar of peanut butter, a jar of strawberry jam, one pound of crisp-fried bacon on a baguette cut into two. Elvis had supper at 4 a.m. It was of 5,000 calories. Five double hamburgers and deep-fried peanut butter, and mashed banana sandwiches.


Elvis Presley's Hot Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich

Ingredients
2 tablespoons peanut butter (preferably smooth)
2 slices white sandwich bread
1 small ripe banana, mashed with a fork (about 1/4 cup)
2 tablespoons butter

Method
Spread peanut butter evenly on 1 slice of bread, then spread mashed banana on other slice, leaving a 1/4-inch border around edge.

Close sandwich, gently pressing bread slices together.

Heat butter in an 8- to 10-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat until foam subsides, then fry sandwich, turning over once, until golden brown, about 2 minutes total.

Eat immediately with a knife and fork.

AND FINALLY… After the New Jersey Supreme Court voted to legalize gay marriage in the state, former President George W. Bush restated his position that marriage is a "sacred institution."

Meanwhile in Las Vegas, a drunken homeless man picked up a crack whore at Jiggles strip club at 3 a.m. The two went to a wedding chapel where an Elvis impersonator on crystal meth joined them in said sacred institution.

CHEF GILLIGAN {has left the building}