[Jayne Osborn]

Here's the latest challenge.

Who's going to be the next Spherian to win lots of dough?
It was no recipe for disaster last month - we were "cooking with gas", thanks to having Chris and Martin in the line-up. Good luck with mixing those ingredients and turning out a good poem.

Please write, in verse form, some sort of recipe. Poems should, as always, rhyme and scan, in twenty-four lines or fewer. Send them to reach these offices (by email if you must/live abroad) by 29 November.

(By post: The Literary Review, 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW
By email: editorial@literaryreview.co.uk)

[Martin Parker]

Jayne, I doubt if this is the "good poem" for which you were hoping ! But it was great fun to write.

Discomfort Food

To a tin of baked beans add some chilli.
Do not stint; spoon it in willy-nilly
with, should you so please, cloves of garlic in threes
for gilding this culinary lily.

Use that fiercest of chillies, the Naga.
Let it simmer for hours on the Aga
till the reinforced steel of the pan starts to peel.
Then serve with a great deal of lager.

The effect on one’s gut is corrosive,
cathartic, intense and erosive.
It’s a dish to appeal to a masochist’s zeal
to blow himself up with explosive.

[Jerome Betts]

And great fun to read. Don't see why it shouldn't do well.

[John Whitworth]

Bravo, Martin. Have you read the recipes in 'Inside Mr Enderby' by Anthony Burgess?

[Jayne Osborn]

Martin,

I agree with Jerome.
I love it, and the very clever title. Naga chillies have a gorgeous 'smokey' flavour, which I adore. (I can eat hotter stuff than anyone I know; it's been put to the test many times. My husband reckons I just have no nervous system! )

[Roger Slater]

Jayne, do I remember correctly that only subscribers are eligible to collect the big money prizes? I hope I'm wrong about that, although I seem to recall someone saying that at one point.