Understand, that chocolate and peanut products have always been a pair. It’s seen in peanut butter cups that date all the way back in 1928, and the Aztecs often added ground peanuts to their chocolate drinks. While peanut butter and jam have always been a famous pair, the jam should be swapped with nutella, a hazelnut varient of peanut butter. This leads me to my first point: nutella and peanut butter both come from some sort of nut. This means that nature has already said that they are alike, that their fates as a super pair have already been selected. Jam, often comes from fruit. I ask you: when was the last time you saw a strawberry and thought: that would taste good with peanut butter. When was the last time you saw grapes and thought: peanut butter would make that taste better? Never. The only mainstream fruits that go well with peanut butter are bananas and apples. Not the “strawberries” or “concord grape” flavors that are the most popular jams, as stated by sweetyhigh.com. But think, how many times have you seen commercials of Reeses Peanut Butter Cups? They’re just one form! How many times have you searched your Halloween bag for candy, and saw tens of hundreds of peanut butter cup products? They’re the true pair. My second point is on texture and consistency. Peanut butter, as we all hopefully know, is slightly thick, and depending on what kind of peanut butter you get, can be crunchy. This goes great on bread, as the bread won’t get soggy and will stay firm due to the thickness of the peanut butter. However, jam is more like slop, or mud. It’s a wet liquid, and thus leads to soggy bread. The texture isn’t uniform, and often times you can get chunks of fruit of globs of sticky jam. This. Isn’t. What. We. Need. We need something that can match the perfect texture of the peanut butter. What we need, is Nutella. It’s creamy. It’s thick. It won’t get your bread soggy. It’s the perfect matchup for out perfect peanut butter. Nutella and Peanut Butter are great for each other.

They’re the Perfect Match™.

The booming steps of man shake me. I realize that they are now aware of the fourth creature in the room. I’m on window next to the TV, and a child points at me. I’ve been spotted. I spread my clear wings, and fly away - only to land on the TV after four seconds in flight. my body reflects the images portrayed on the screen, concealing me from the people. I’m hidden, once again.

Now five minutes later, I’m awoken by a screech. A child, wielding what seems to be a bendy spatula hurtles herself at me, and her spatula pulls my left wing off. Shooting through the sky, I crash straight into a potrait of a fat lady, and crumble to the ground. I look up to pray to fly jesus, so he can show me the way out. But right at that moment, the giant green frog in the corner of the room zips it’s tounge out, and tags me.

Perfect Chinese Steamed Eggs

Ingredients:

1) Two Medium Sized Eggs

2) Approximately 1/4 or 1/2 Cups of Chicken Broth (natural if possible)

3) A Pinch of Fine Salt and WHITE Pepper (asian cuisine always uses white pepper)

4) A Pinch of Slightly Bigger-Grained Salt (to season the bottom)

5) Approximately an Eighth of a Spout of Scallions - Washed and Chopped to about a

Millimeter in Width

Preparation:

1) Fill a Pot with About Half an Inch of Water

2) Find a Bowl that is Large Enough to Fit in this Pot and also Big Enough to Fit all Ingredients

Directions:

1) Crack Both Eggs in Bowl - Beat Furiously for 20-30 Seconds

2) Pour Chicken Broth into Bowl with Eggs - Mix

3) Add Chopped Scallions to Bowl - Mix

4) Add Salt and Pepper - Mix

5) Place Bowl in Pot, Place Pot on Stove

6) Cook on High with Pot Lid on for 10-12 Minutes

7) Let Sit for 1-2 Minutes

8) Enjoy

Cold and depressing aren't words you should expect from an elf on christmas. Not from the Shoe Making elves, not from Santa's elves. No one talks about the Cookie Making elves. The cookie factory is quiet. Cookies should be happy, uplifting. Our supposedly "homemade" cookies are no longer such. While the humans are on break, their factories are shut down. We become the providers. We work as you rest. We get no break, no pay, no health benefits, not even insurance. While you humans are enjoying your hot chocolate, and playing with snow, we work twenty hours a day in a factory that value their products more than the safety of their workers. Temperatures of less than -49°C, with no heaters, no doors - they don't even let us stay in the oven room, the only room that has heat. No, the North Pole is not like it seems. No legends or stories of us cookie elves. The others get to stay inside, while we work in non-insulated oak trees. There is no safety, no love, no care. The Cookie Making elves have it the worst. But we power dear old fat Santa. We make the cookies that Mrs. Claus say are hers. No recognition, not from Mr. Claus himself. No one even knows why the elves that disappear and get kidnapped are also the elves that appear in the Cookie Oak Tree. No one cares.

It’s 12:07. I’ve been watching a guy call himself “PewDiePie” for about fifteen hours now. Too Long. Way too long. I feel my stomach grumble. It’s been twenty three hours since my last meal. I’m starved. Like, really starved. Another grumble. I Have to get food. I think to myself. But what if they come? They scare me. They only come out at night. Why at night? How cliché is that? I can’t think about what they would do to me if they found me. They will always try to stop me. I can’t live without food… My mind reasons with me. They might not come out today… My mind wants me dead. I need food. Now. I force myself up. My legs feel like lead. One step. Two steps. Three steps. Four steps. They are not here! I shout in my head. They had never let me get past the third step. Today was a big day. But that’s when I noticed the subtle breathing behind me. Quiet, yes, but there. I slowly turn, anticipating the pain that would surely come, but I only see a little girl. She looks up and says something in a cute girly voice. “Mommy wont like you staying up so late…” and with that, she flys across the room, and latches onto my legs, scraping my skin blindly. Pain flairs throughout my body. I feel her fingernails digging into my legs. With all my strength, I pull her off my body, and push her to the ground. She falls, and freezes on the ground. I limp towards the living room, in desperate search for food now. I hear the barking of a dog.

I don’t have a dog. They must have let their dog out today. I look to my right, and see a blinding flash of light, as I feel pain on my right cheek. Immediately, the dog disappears, leaving me practically drowning in my own blood. I have no more hope. I need food. I will die in the next minute without it. I’m on the ground, literally dragging my two damaged legs. I’m ten feet away from the refrigerator. So close, yet so far. Eight feet. Seven. Five. Three. Two. One. I’m at the fridge, clasping the promising handle in victory. I have won again. I have beat them. And with a silent countdown in my head, i open the fridge, only to find the worst thing I could possibly think. It. Was. Empty. Shoot.

Once apon a time, there was a knight. This knight was famous for two things. The first was slaying the mighty dragon of the south. The second, was taking the dragon’s horn, and creating a mask. But both those tasks were completed fourty years ago. The knight was no longer a knight now. He was a king, looking after four thousand people in a massive village. His daughter was only nine. She still spent hours in the meadows, picking flowers, and chasing rabbits. The village was a perfect place. The villagers were happy - and so was the king. That was, until one day. There were reports of giant fires in the woods. The king knew exactly what was going on. Dragons don’t stay dead. They rise up roughly thirty five years later. Undoubtedly, this dragon had been plotting his revenge.

The king ordered all the villagers to stay indoors, and to n dauot leave until further noticed. Exactly three hours later, the king heard a knock on the door followed with heavy breathing, and the smell burnt hair. It was the dragon. Grabbing his sword, he charges for the door. Outside, the dragon was gently sitting down, with a flowerpot next to him on the ground. A peace offering. There was no argument, no fighting - not even an insult. Only a greeting. The king was suspicious, but he accepted the gift anyway. Only later did the king realize, that dragon had three horns. The king had only broken one horn in his youth. And back then the dragon only did have one horn. It confused the king, but he though nothing of it.

It wasn’t until the next day that the king noticed something wrong with the dragon’s peace offering. When he woke, the king noticed a thick green fog the flower had been emitting. Poison - and judging by the kings light-headedness and urge to puke out his intestines, he figured if was deadly. But if the fog was this bad in the hallway, how much was in his daughter, the princess’s room - the actual location of the flower? The king risked going into the princess’s room. Inside the room, you could barely see a thing. Thick, green fog covered the entire room. The king rushs out, carrying his unconscious daughter with him. But apon evacuating the palace, he realized that she is dead. The flower was deadly.

Struck with grief, the king sought out the dragon. He found the dragon in a cave, sleeping peacfully. The smell of smoke and ashes filled the air.

I walked into the restaurant expecting nothing. What I hadn't known, was that when I exited that building roughly 33 minutes and 17 seconds later, I would have had the craziest, roughest dining experience ever.

It seemed normal at first, dimly lit tables, rosy colored tablecloths - a very warm and inviting room. But the second you opened the menu and started reading, you would know something was terribly wrong. Piggy Pie? Jack Attack Salad? Beast Meat?

Simon's Seafood Sailboat? They had regular names, but if you looked at the other tables, you could see the dark twist that was there. Pies with a pair of glasses sticking out the middle, a salad with a huge conch shell thrown on top, a meatloaf that that dark patches of fur? Something clearly was out of place. And I wanted to be the one to stop this.

When I took one step into the kitchen, I was almost hit with a small rock. It was instantly clear that the kitchen was absolute chaos. Fires started randomly, you could hear a mix of growls and loud conch blowing. Quickly, I stepped out and shut the door. I took a mental note to NEVER come to this restaurant ever again.

~Eric Chen