Meals on wheels

A cook's tour:  Not a lot of people know this, but afore my days as an embittered hack, I earned my crust as a chef. Contrary to what TV would have you believe, there was nothing glamorous about it.

I eventually quit the trade after being fired once too often. Literally. A grill went up in flames, singeing my whole head. I walked out in a puff of burnt-hair smoke, never to return.

I saw many a kitchen nightmare back then. Chefs stabbed in mini-race riots. Steaks stamped on. Soup scraped off floors. Intimate body piercings retrieved from pots of pomme purée. But never did I see a possum baked on an inlet manifold.

Which is exactly the kind of delicacy you'll find in Manifold Destiny. Penned by crazed petrol- and paté-heads Chris Maynard and Bill Scheller, it is a bizarre cookbook. Apparently, they cooked up the idea for the book after a stage of the One Lap rally between Montreal and Boston, during which they kept a slab of smoked meat warm by leaving it wrapped in foil on their car's engine block.

Reviews say the authors serve their recipes up with their tongues firmly in their cheeks. Reading them left mine hanging out. How about Cajun Blackened Roadfish (tie on to engine, drive 40 miles) or Hyundai Halibut with Fennel (wrap in foil, cruise 50-85 miles depending on thickness)? Or, if you are lucky enough to own a Jaguar E-Type, a pork tenderloin slow-roasted to knee-melting tenderness on the car's long V12 cylinder head? Apparently, rather than your food ending up tasting of brake fluid and anti-freeze, your car will smell of food.

Not that I've any intention of trying any of the recipes. The closest I've ever come to carburettor culinary capers was nearly cooking my head gasket. Anyway, all this is well and good for the intrepid cross-Continental adventurer, but perhaps less practical for the frazzled Irish commuter. Perhaps your significant other would be somewhat unimpressed if you arrived home with a string of blackened bangers that you had shoved up the exhaust.

Which is where I come in. I've concocted a recipe of my own to suit the Irish palate better. It's called Noel's Humble Pie. Mix one part of shattered hopes and dreams, one part fury and one part resignation - yours, not the Minister's, obviously. Beat senseless. Wrap up in a copy of Transport 21. Leave on your engine to die a slow, lingering death before hurling it with all the strength you can muster out of the window as you pass the Department of Transport office on Kildare Street. Best served on an old hubcap with a side order of sour grapes and some hard cheese, all washed down with an overflowing cup of bile. Lovely. Told you the cheffing wasn't wasted.