FEEDING WITH PHIL

It was midnight and raining in Bakal 2 when Phil fetched me with a Firebolt to get fed, arriving in Israel by noon through Tel Aviv and from there hugged the Mediterranean coast for the last 113 kilometers to Akkon where Landry waited at Uri Buri, the poached eggs in the shakshuka softly breaking into the spiced tomato and pepper sauce as shadows swallow ancient walls that would reemerged for fleeting moments but enough for us escape to Venice, at Cantina Schiavi where an array of cichetti, both sandwiched and plated, are being garnished with Parmigiano-Reggiano leftovers and drizzles of balsamic vinegar from Modena, the Michelin stars of Lisbon eclipsed by Ponto Final's rendition of the bacalhau a bras and pastel de nata paired with tawny port, a celebration that whisked us to London for fish and chips at Ken's Fish Bar and take aways of bubble and squeak plus a toastie from the Borough Market to soak James Bond's signature martini at DUKES Bar, shaken not stirred, not as bubbly as a Guiness but neat as an Irish whiskey that complimented the baked potato pancakes from Dublin's Boxty House, like what a shot of snap did with the smorrebrod from Aamann's Deli in Copenhagen after which we flew to New York through a much slower Nimbus 2000 that tooks us straight to the Peter Luger Steakhouse for lamb chops, to Totonno's for pizza before crossing over to Montreal where Schwartz's Deli whipped up a smoked meat sandwich, poutine and Agrikol's Haiti-style rum sour which got us teleported to the end of the world in Buenos Aires, right into a huge plate of ruvuelto gramajo at El Obrero's where we swam in a sea of potatos, eggs, cheese and vegetable hash like those who worked in the bodegons and the portenos who smelled like the asado from Don Julio Parilla that was our ticket to Seoul and a hot pot of tteokbokki at Mabongnim, a classic chimaek, and a lethal somaek for a night cap. 

Phil fed me well and out of gratitude, I confessed to him of using Harry Potter's invincibility cloak to slip through the immigration at Chicago's O'Hare Airport for a quick lunch of Jim's Original Polish sausage sandwich and Pequod's deep dish pizza, that I once vied for a world record of sorts in New Orleans by devouring a huge cochon de lait Po'Boy from Cochon Butcher and a platter of Willy Mae's Scotch House fried chicken in under a minute, that I was kidnapped by El Chapo while attending COP 16 in Cancun and was ransomed in Mexico City with a basket of El Hueqito's taco al pastor and a pot of Tepito Market's migas la guera, that it was actually my hologram that was seen at COP 17 in Durban because I was in Cape Town all the time, at the Gugulethu Township where I indulged in a daily feast of Gatsby sandwich and Mzoli's braaied meat, then reincarnated 5 years later in Marrakech for COP 22 where I shared with the head chef at Chez Lamine the secrets of an excellent pinapaitan from the offal of sheeps roasted whole.

Back in Bakal 2, the wife sent me to buy pots for her plants.

Petur's body was never recovered from Reykjavik's icy Faxafloi Bay.

And the culprits behind the Valhalla murders will never get caught because these were committed by Hitler's circle of evil who roamed the earth 60 years ago, give and take a few years, and partly due to Kata's failure to seduce Arnar who fell for the man at the bar. 

The murder plot was hatched by the ideology of Dietrich Eckart who nursed the devil from episodes of the failed Munich Beer Hall Putsch that led to an incarceration at the Landsberg Prison where Mein Kampf was written, the tragedy of Ernst Rohm and Rudolf Hess, Hermann Goering's pompousness, Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Gooebbel's hatred of the Jews, the sinister minds of Reinhard Heydrich and Martin Bormann, and the denseness of Albert Speer.  

But it was the "victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance" that prevailed which the Phantom Bikers celebrated with a Deepavali feast of roti canai, mutton curry with thosai, an assortment of Indian sweets, and biryani which I offered to Phil in the spirit of reciprocity.