CHOPPED! A TRUE TALE

I'm in my truck, having just dropped a young boar off to be castrated (that's another story altogether).

Cell phone rings. Woman's voice. 

She: "Hi, this is Susie from the Food Channel. Are you Stefan?"

Me: "Ah.. yes. Who is this?"

She: I'm calling from the Food Channel, I'm calling from Chopped."

Me: "What? Chops? Like 'lamb chops?'"

She: "CHOPPED. We're the top-rated cooking show on the ..."

Me: "OK. What can I do for you?"

She: We were wondering if you'd be interested in being on our show. We're doing an episode about baking. Bread. You know, we're going to have proof-boxes and baskets and linen and all that stuff.

Me: "Uh?"

She: "There's prize money! 10 thousand dollars. You compete against other bakers. You have to use the ingredients in our mystery basket to create an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert. And if you don't get 'chopped' you win."

Me: "OK. But I don't see how you're going to do that. Baking takes time."

She: "We're working on that. We really want to do this show on bread and bakers."

Me: "Uh huh. But when I make bread I ferment the dough for 30 HOURS. How do you do that for a one-hour show?"

She: "Well.. can't you make some.. ah.. bread-thing.. that you don't have to ferment.. to make an appetizer maybe? 

Me: "Bread-thing?... ah... Thanks for calling."

-Stefan Senders