He-e-e-ere Comes Cookie!

After many years of slavery in Egypt, the Children of Israel finally escaped from the Pharoah. They crossed the Red Sea and traveled for many days in the wilderness. When they ran out of food, Yahweh provided them with some sort of food they called manna that fell from heaven at night with the dew.

Now there was a young Israelite in the camp who was known as Cookie, the Goshen Gourmet. Back in Egypt he had his own cooking show. Now he was left with nothing but this sickening manna to eat. He said to Mrs. Cookie, "If only we had meat to eat! I remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at." Numbers 11:4-6

Mrs. Cookie remembered that garlic breath that Cookie had every night. "This is why we have no children," she said. "I cannot stand your breath when we go to bed at night. Maybe now that your breath smells of manna, we can pitch a little woo and have some children."

But the Goshen Gourmet would not give up. He went to see Moses about getting some meat. Moses took his complaint under advisement and went to talk to Yahweh. But Yahweh was sick of the complaining that was going on in camp. He said to Moses, "Alright Mo, I'll give them meat, but they'll be sorry." The next day a mighty wind blew a bunch of quail in from the ocean. They piled up more than a foot deep. The people went nuts trying to gather the quail. All day long the dead quail lay in piles under the desert sun. That evening, they went to Cookie to get a recipe for cooking them.

Cookie said, "When you prepare your birds, put them in a skillet and sautee them with some of the manna since we have no garlic." That night, the people got deathly sick from eating the rotten quail sauteed in manna. The next morning they went to complain to the Goshen Gourmet. It turned out he was the sickest of them all, and kept running to the bathroom all night. From that time on, people called him the Galloping Gourmet. He used that name for many years, and his show eventually went into syndication. But he never could bring himself to cook those doggone quail again. Although the people never forgot that famous saying, "A bird in the pan is a pain in the tush!" I think that's how it went, or did it? Perhaps Benjamin Franklin will get it right.