"..."
Unsure what awaited them at the bottom of their clattering bags, Fred, Daphne and Velma glanced at one another before opening and reaching in to pull out a seemingly random kitchen utensil. The kind of utensil that spends most of their time in that one misc drawer that most houses tend to have. The random sized or shaped tools of the kitchen trade that are useful at times, but also a pain to store in a normal fork, knife, spoon drawer. So these tools tended to live in their own junk drawer (or three as in Shaggy and Scooby's case) to await their time to shine.
"What the...?"
Pulling out a strange object, Fred peered to look at it. It reminded him of a pie serving... server? Paddle? Fred wasn't sure what its official name was. But it wasn't that, as most of those were plastic and didn't have this sharp looking hole in the middle. At least all the ones his mom used, were like that. Looking over, It seemed the girls were equally confused with their first pulls out of the bags. They each seemed to have several utensils, and just pulled out one to get an idea of what they were looking at.
"Is that what I think it is?" Velma said, having gotten something a bit more recognizable. Using her tongs in her hands to point at the odder tool that Daphne had. Drawing everyone's attention to the little handheld gadget.
"It's my avocado slicer."
Daphne had managed to get one of her own tools. Though Shaggy did love to use it as well. It was black and green in color, plastic that fit mostly in her hand. The top had a small wing looking cutter, and then there was a gripping hole for removing the seed of the avocado. And then back grate looking bit was good for carving out of the meat of the fruit for eating.
"So, we have to use these in our bags, as the only utensils for eating? Hm?"
Fred looked back in his bag and sized up his options. His paddle thing in his hand could not only scoop up things like a flat spoon, but he bet he could use the side of the metal tool to cut into things if he needed too. He just had to make sure he was avoiding the sharp middle bit. But all he needed was something to stab food with, like a fork or...
Plucking a pair of chopsticks out of his bag, he was actually set for almost all food. "Well, ok. This isn't going to be as hard as I thought."
"Oh, that is so cheating, Freddy!" Grumbled Daphne when she saw him pull out the chopsticks. Shaking a whisk at him, which was the second thing she had pulled out. Not half as useful as the chopsticks, or Velma's tongs.
"We like' tried to make sure you guys could eat the meal with all the things we put in there," Shaggy said with a grin, pulling out a small pizza cutter and spinning it with his other hand. "Though some are going to be more creative. Heh."
"R'im A ralwrus!"
Looking over to Scooby, he was holding a pair of kabob skewers in his mouth like tusks. Making the group burst out into laughter. Scooby waddled around, making silly noises and hamming it up for the rest of their amusement. Certainly adding to the 'hilarity' of the day. Though, the idea of food was slowly growing on Daphne.
"What are we having to eat anyway?" Daphne jingled her bag in the direction of ovens, wonder what Shaggy had in mind which this weird but amusing holiday party.
"I'm like' glad you asked!" Wandering over to the metal tree, Shaggy and Scooby got on either side of it. Doing their best Vana White impression, they jazz handed their way to show off the odd centerpiece.
"Tahdah!"
"Rahdah!"
The duo said again. Calling the others over to look at the metal tree in confusion.
The metal tree was mainly just branches of a tree in winter. So there were no leaves on the branches. Just various colored bits of something that looked similar to string, but more solid than that. Or at least less fuzzy. Though they were various lengths, thicknesses and some were more round while others were flatter.
All of a sudden, Velma burst into laughter. She had been peering intently at the strands until something clicked into her brain. Making Shaggy beam a smile. With the rest of the gang staring at the woman as she outright chuckled. Getting something that they obviously didn't.
"I thought you would get it." Which just earned a look between Daphne and Fred. Lost in what it meant.
"Oh my... You did, didn't you... ah hahaha." Velma tried to contain herself, but she was just tickled pink at the idea that Shaggy was making nods to. Making an effort to calm herself down, she almost snorted as she tried to explain since Shaggy hadn't in the time she was laughing.
"Heh... Oh boy. Ok." She gathered herself. "Ok, so some time in the 50's, the British Broadcasting Corporation, or BBC as it's more well known as... Pulled off the largest, recorded April Fools gag that has been documented. On April 1st, 1957. BBC did their current affairs program called Panorama."
"Oh wait, this is sounding familiar," Daphne mentioned, trying to recall it but let Velma continue. Squinting a bit as her mind tried to recall as they talked.
"Ah, yeah. So they had a serious program where they made various segments about things that went on in other parts of the world. And so on that day, they pulled off the biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled. It was a three to five minute short of a place in Switzerland, following a family of Spaghetti farmers. Showing Spaghetti that was 'growing on trees' and harvest festival that went on there." Velma laughed more, adding in proper air quotes when she could.
"Yep, the people in Britain didn't really know spaghetti and how it was made. Being not common in most households in the UK at the time." Shaggy took up the story, adding in what he knew. "Millions of people watched what they knew to be a serious news program tell them tales of how to grow spaghetti on trees and how they work to get it to just be the perfect length."
"And hundreds phoned in the following day to question the authenticity of the story or ask for more information about spaghetti cultivation and how they could grow their own spaghetti trees at home." Velma added, giggling more. Trying to picture the grins on the faces of the crazy people behind that program, as hundreds called to ask about proper planting techniques for spaghetti trees.
"According to the BBC, they told callers to 'place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best'. So hearing about that, I had to use that for the spaghetti! And Red was nice enough to help me make the metal tree."
"Oh, so this is his handiwork?" Fred commented, leaning close to look at the metal tree.
"You got a problem with that?" Muttered a voice from the dining room. Wandering in, Red beamed a smile at them all. He had been invited to the party since he had been nice enough to donate his time and creative acts to the celebration. Though he didn't have anything too crazy on. Mainly his silken PJ's, in a rich mahogany color and topped by a spare Shaggy nightcap. Which looked silly perched upon the mass that was his curly red hair. Thought the mix of green and red kinda felt like it made Red a Christmas elf... just a really big one. In jammies.
"Red!" Came several calls, wandering over to give the man a welcoming hug. He accepted all in kind and made sure to give a deep bear hug to Fred to crack his back. Feeling honored to join them for this crazy shindig that Shaggy and Scooby came up with. Glad to help in his own way.
"So, getting back to the grub. Now that I got my hugs in. What is this crazy spaghetti masterpiece on my tree?" Red beamed, gesturing to his tree with a potato peeler in one hand from his bag.
"Well, so going with the April Fools theme, I made you guys several different Spaghetti options. But!" He paused for dramatic effect, with Scooby echoing his gesture. "There is more then meets the eye for the spaghetti. Notice that they are all in different colors?"
Drawing the rest of the gang's attention to the tree again, it was something that was noticed before that the strands were all sorts of lengths, colors, and thicknesses. But taking a closer look, they really didn't look like pasta. Or at least not all of them. The textures were off, but hard to see for sure without grabbing one and handling it.
"Scooby... if you will?"
Offering towards the Dane, he dove into his bag until he was able to find what looked to be a normal fork. But it was no ordinary fork, as it extended like a teachers pointer. Which Scooby used in a similar fashion as Shaggy spoke. (Though a bit fearful to be giving Scooby something that increases his reach by several times. Not that the dog needed an advantage.)
"As you can see, there are several shades of Orange Spaghetti. Starting with this one, these are butternut squash, trimmed down to a thin strands. The orange next to that is a Carrot one, made by peeling it into sheets and then cutting them into individual strands. And this more watery one, is Pumpkin. Done with a spaghetti tool that we got on the QVC channel. And the final one, looking a bit shorter than the rest, is a sweet potato spaghetti."
Surprising them all, it wasn't something they expected to be several, non-pasta veggie options for spaghetti. But it wasn't too surprising, given the duo and their love for experimenting with food in weird ways. With Italian cuisine taking the most common hits to their recipes. But honestly, the options did sound pretty good so far. A bit weird, but that was pretty 'normal' when it came to those two.
"We then have several green options for you to try. One is a normal vegetarian pasta spaghetti, but this one is cucumber and that one is leek. I use an 'As seen on TV' tool for those ones. And me and Scoob hand cut the Zucchini ones into thin strips for these."
"Also these kinda curly red ones, are from some beets. And this yellow tinted one is from a normal squash. But prepared different from the Butternut, so it should be a nice compliment if you try them together. And we have some Angel hair, and normal spaghetti as well." Shaggy beamed, proud of his collection of alternate pasta options that draped the tree. Normal was good too, but it was fun to experiment with other options.
"All of these options can be gotten out of the dishes they were prepared in. I think the ones on the tree got a bit cold. But Scooby can probably handle those if you guys want some warmer ones out of a normal serving dish then the tree."
"Hey, my tree is lovely." Red snorted with a smile. Just pretending to be mad. As cool as his metal tree was, it really didn't help keep the spaghetti from cooling off.
"So, is there any meatballs to go with this? Or are we just indulging on faux pasta pasta tonight?" Daphne said with a smile, earning a groan from Velma and a thumbs up for the bad pun from Fred.
"Fear not, Protein is on the way as well. It just looked silly being stabbed on the ends of the tree branches to include them this way. But they too are color coded."
Taking a second, Shaggy pulled out a small sticky note and peeked at his scribbles to check what each color was, for which. He wanted to be more precise with the meats, since he had a veggie option in there for himself, and didn't want to mix it up.
"Even the master needs cheat sheets, heh." Red chuckled, not missing that Shaggy had to check. Earning him an elbow from Daphne, and a shake of the head.
"It's ok, I just wanted to double check everything." Shaggy admitted, proud he recalled all of the anti-pasta options but needed to take another look with the meatballs. Plus, he changed around the colors in the last minute,since he added another flavor in the line up.
"My Tempah is purple." He now openly checked his noted, since they called him on it, and waved to the meatballs in question. "The normal beef meatballs are blue, with the ground chicken being Pink. And a late addition was some Turkey that I colored green. Giving four choices for you guys. Making lots of complicated math combinations! But no less tasty!"
"Can you each grab one of the dishes? I have some pot holders and some trivets on the table for you to put them on the dining room table. We're eating fancy tonight!" Chimed Shaggy, putting on some of his official kitchen mitts and taking up one of the larger pots of spaghetti.
The rest of the rang moved to line up and help transport the food into the also fancied up Dining room. Though as Fred lined up in front of Red, he leaned back to whisper. "...Do you know what 'Trivet' is?"