Yearly Archives: 2012

Banana Chocolate Peanut-Butter Milkshake From Cookbook

Posted on March 8, 2012 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

BANANA CHOCOLATE PEANUT-BUTTER MILKSHAKE

INGREDIENTS

3 bananas
2 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup chocolate syrup
1/2 cup peanut butter

ORDINARY UTENSIL

blender

PREPARATION

Peel the bananas. (Sometimes a banana is just a banana, especially in a recipe.) Put bananas, milk, chocolate syrup, and peanut butter in blender. Use “milkshake” setting. Blend until shake is sufficiently smooth for your taste.

This delicious milkshake also is a diet buster. Drink with care. Aw, what the heck, have two glasses. You can burn off the calories climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

TIDBITS

1) Chocolate is good for you! It contains over 300 mineral properties that help your health.

2) Chocolate is good for you! Dark chocolate has more antioxidants than green tea.

3) Chocolate is good for you! Eating chocolate gives you the same squooshy feeling as falling in love.

4) Chocolate is good for you! Chocolate melting in your mouth can produce a stronger sensation than you get from kissing. What were the makers of M&MsTM thinking?

5) Chocolate is good for you! Chocolate can ease menstrual cycles. Who knew?

6) Chocolate is good for you! Chocolate can help blood flow to lungs and assorted organs.

7) Chocolate is good for you! Eating chocolate increases your ability to think.

8) Chocolate is good for you! Eating chocolate can increase your life span.

9) Chocolate is bad for you. It can cause you to gain weight.

10) Bicycles are good for you! Bike riding makes you lose weight.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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The Wonder Dog – Part Two

Posted on March 6, 2012 by pauldelancey

Captain Pizarro surveyed the yellow-orange expanse and announced that we were going to eat those hot dogs or die. Pale-faced Lieutenant Kelso staggered to his feet to voice his support before pitching forward into a huge bowl of papaya-bisque soup. Corporal Conigliaro timidly suggested that eating rotting hot dogs might kill us, or worse, give us diarrhea. Sergeant Gagliano put both of his powerful hands on Conigliaro and volunteered the Corporal for the honor of tasting the hot dogs.

Conigliaro said that although he was aware of the immense honor, he was reasonably sure that army regs stated that a certified medical doctor had to test all suspect foods. He was only an unregistered quack and so, respectfully declined.

It appeared that some stupid health regulation written by some desk-bound, pencil pusher in the Pentagon was going to deny us this wondrous, alternate source of food. However, our Sarge immediately volunteered Private Romero, a veterinarian, to taste the frankfurters.

Bilko accepted the assignment but said that he was such a good vet that he could determine the quality of the franks just by looking at them. He headed straight to the Hut of Hell, stopping only at the infirmary to put on a gas mask. Moments later he returned, ashen and trembling, stating that they were safe to eat. Though I did hear him mumble as he headed back to his tent hot dogs should not display internal movement. The other airmen just heard our cook announce hot dogs for tomorrow’s lunch.

Around eleven o’clock cookie started boiling the franks. Fortunately, a strong wind from the south blew the fumes away from the camp toward the town of Lake Harbor. About that time in an unrelated incident, Bert Taylor, a tea tester from that town, suddenly pulled his own head off and died.

We all lined up at the mess tent to eat our hot dogs in shifts of one hundred which was also the number of gas masks on hand. Well, the first shift manfully ate their hot dogs and immediately fell to the floor suffering from violent convulsions. Then Private Owchinko’s stomach burst open flinging his guts all over the mess hall. Soon, everyone’s guts erupted just like cooking popcorn. Owchinko turned his hideously contorted face toward me and said, “Dang, at least it wasn’t papaya.” He then died with a look of complete serenity on his face; well, at least as serene as one could get with an exploded stomach.

We carried the men outside and buried them properly. We put on all their tombstones, “He wouldn’t eat papaya.” Since bullets were scarce at our base, we gave our departed comrades ten hot-dog salutes. Most of these franks exploded in air giving off the same noise as rifle shots. However, some didn’t explode until they hit the ground. One hot dog, in particular, landed on a latrine and exploded, scattering its contents for hundreds of yards. Private Franco noted that the smells of the latrine improved the smell of the hot dog. However, Captain Pizarro displayed true genius when he stated these franks could be terrible weapons of war.

We drifted along in papaya hell until we received orders to fly over to Europe. The Germans had just broken through our lines in a massive offensive now known as the Battle of the Bulge. Disaster loomed and every airman was needed. We armed our bombers with our hot dogs, which now had been rotting for an additional four months in the hot, humid Hut of Hell.

Our 800th Bomber Group arrived just as the Germans seemed poised to overrun the heroic defenders of Bastogne. None of our infantry or armored divisions could get to them in time. None of the other bomber groups could get off the ground due to bad weather. However, we could and we did.

We bombed the hell out of those Nazis. A Tiger tank can take a direct hit from a Sherman tank just twenty yards away and drive away only mildly annoyed, but just one hit from our franks just ripped those tanks to bits. Down they fell, ton after ton of freedom franks. The foul, poisonous vapors from the exploding dogs suffocated the supporting German infantry. Our hot dogs created a huge hole in the German lines into which poured General Patton’s troops. Patton, that glory hog, claimed full credit for the American victory at Bastogne.

However, we knew better and so did many others. In fact, Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain praised us saying, “This was their finest meat product.”

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The Wonder Dog – Part 1 – Originally Published in Community of Voices, 1999

Posted on March 3, 2012 by pauldelancey

We won the war. We brought the Nazis to their knees, not some namby-pamby foot soldier who probably counted dodging Spam thrown in the mess halls as combat experience. Yes sir, it was me and the airmen of Okeechobee. Young man, I’m gonna tell you our story.
Okeechobee, Florida then was only known for its millions of bugs; huge bugs the size of baseballs. But it was there, in 1944, that the Army set up the 800th Bomber Group, captained by Henry Pizarro.

Well, we were out in the middle of nowhere in a state often forgotten by the rest of the Union. Supplies never did get to us in a regular manner. Sometimes we’d go weeks without any supplies. Sometimes, we got a lot of stuff we didn’t really need. One week they sent us one million scarves, and 22,187 bird feeders stamped “U.S. Army bird feeder, Red-Headed Woodpecker Only.” Antonio Cedeno, Army Head Scratcher First Class, scratched his head and said, “That’s army for you.” Oh, we also received eight hundred tons of papayas. It seemed that although our nation’s scientists were still failing with the general concept of refrigeration, they had miraculously found a way to refrigerate papayas several months ago.

Well, around August, we had run out of all food but papayas for two months, and no one wanted to eat bugs. Hell, the bugs had been biting us so much that some of us figured we’d be cannibals if we’d eat them. So, we approached Lieutenant Kelso, who was in charge of food supplies. Kelso said that he was mighty sick of papaya soup and papaya burgers. He said he’d raise heaven and earth to find some new food.

The next day we heard a terrible ruckus all around us. Every flea-bitten mutt in the flea-bitten state of Florida was barking, yelping, yipping, and scratching his balls. Sergeant Niekro went out to investigate. Apparently, Kelso planned to use these dogs to sniff up some food for us.

Well, I decided to follow the dogs. They headed away from the mess hall as even dogs get tired of papaya biscuits. Those mutts made a bee line toward the swamp where bugs felt particularly secure and ornery. Way in the distance I could make out that huge ominous, gray, metallic building so forbidding that even the chaplain called it “the Hut of Hell.” The Hut of Hell housed our chemical supplies, used oil drums, and various pleasant poisons.

Those dogs just ran to the Hut and barked something fierce. Kelso, opened the door and immediately the dogs keeled over in agony. Kelso doubled over and proceeded to vomit big yellow chunks of papaya loaf. Sure, it was up to me, Robert Carbo, the man with the big sniffer. I dodged a stream of papaya spew from Kelso and went inside.

As God is my witness, I have never seen so many hot dogs in my life. These hot dogs were arranged in huge columns. Each column was twelve feet long by ten feet wide and stretched at least fifty feet up to the ceiling. There were thousands of these majestic columns.

Well, perhaps not majestic, more like tons of decaying, larva infested, grayish-green beef shapes. How long had they been sitting in that metal building in Florida’s fine, humid, 120-degree weather? However, stench worse than Private Aparicio’s pits after a twenty-mile hike, prompted to me continue this thought outside. I wrenched my boots free from some hot-dog ooze and bolted outside.

I carried Kelso all the way back to the infirmary. Unfortunately, our doctor was away in Miami picking up popsicle sticks off the sidewalks as we had run through our last shipments of tongue depressors. Corporal Johnny Conigliaro, a quack in civilian life, prescribed a dose of deadly nightshade, a rather poisonous, purplish flower. Kelso nearly died from this treatment but did not complain, saying, “It’s worth risking death to eat something that’s not yellowish orange.”

A week later Captain Pizarro, arose from his desk and put on his papaya-woven flak jacket and walked to the mess tent. The cook had outdone himself with a gourmet feast. We started off with a snappy papaya fondue and a Waldorf salad where the apples, celery, walnuts, and mayonnaise were substituted with papaya, papaya, papaya, and papaya sauce. For the main course he regaled us with a choice of: barbecued papaya sandwiches on papaya bread with a papaya sauce or chicken cordon bleu, where instead of chicken, ham, gruyere cheese, breading, and butter, he substituted papaya, papaya, curdled papaya juice, papaya crumbs, and melted papaya. For dessert we could choose either the papaya balls or the papaya flavored ice cream made with creamed papaya instead of cream. We washed down this feast with good ol’ papaya juice.

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Blueberry Cheesecake

Posted on March 2, 2012 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE

INGREDIENTS

CRUST

4 tablespoons butter, usually a half stick
1 1/4 cups graham crackers, usually about 1 package
1/4 cup sugar

FILLING

4 8 ounce packages of cream cheese
5 eggs
1 cup white sugar (don’t put sugar away, you’ll still need it again)
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt

TOPPING

2 1/2 cups, about a 16 ounce bag, of fresh or frozen blueberries
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 1/2 cups sour cream
3/8 cups or 6 tablespoons white sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup water

PREPARATION OF CRUST

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Melt butter in small saucepan, one designed specifically for butter if you have it. Turn the graham crackers into crumbs by using food processor. (If you have the urge to make the crumbs with a hammer, it’s probably time to take a deep breath, pour yourself a nice, cold glass of root beer, sit down, and listen to few songs by Alvin and the Chipmunks before continuing.)

Pour the melted butter, crumbs, and sugar into a baking dish at least 9-inches wide. Mix thoroughly with fork. Press firmly and uniformly on the mixture. Bake at 325 degrees for about 10 minutes or lightly browned. Let cool, on a baking rack if you have one.

PREPARATION OF FILLING

Place cream cheese, eggs, sugar, cornstarch, and salt in large mixing bowl. Use electric beater to combine ingredients. Start on lowest setting and gradually increase the speed of the beaters to “cream,” or almost the highest setting. (Your kitchen walls might resemble modern art if you immediately start with the highest setting.)

Bake for 70 minutes at 325 degrees or until cheese center barely moves when baking dish is moved. Let dish cool down. Chill completely in refrigerator.

PREPARATION OF TOPPING

Combine blueberries and cornstarch in food processor and chop and grind away until mixture is pureed.

Pour mixture into mixing bowl. Add sour cream, sugar, vanilla extract, and water. Blend with fork or electric beater set to “blend.”

Pour this topping into saucepan. Bring to boil while stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium and cook for about 5 minutes while stirring.

Pour topping on top of cheesecake and spread evenly. (Yes, you will wash dishes with this dessert.) Refrigerate until chilled.

This recipe can be made in various ways: with or without sour cream, or with the sour cream separated out into another layer. Experiment and enjoy.

TIDBITS

1) During the Roaring ‘20s, “cheesecake” meant a woman showed her legs.

2) Marshall Bernadotte of Napoleon’s Grande Armée was known as “Belles Jambes,” or “Beautiful Legs.”

3) Rod Stewart sang the hit song, Hot Legs.

4) Chicken Legs are deep fried in hot oil.

5) America is dependent on foreign oil.

6) But it wasn’t in the ‘20s when “cheesecake” meant a woman showed her legs.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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The Great Chicken Invitation – Short Story – Part 2

Posted on February 27, 2012 by pauldelancey

But the reason for their poor performances lay in the chickens themselves. Remarkably, no one had considered the possibility that a twenty-ounce chicken using a four-inch club would drive a regulation golf ball a considerably shorter distance than would a two-hundred-pound man with a regulation club. Furthermore, for all their attentiveness to their swings, the chickens’ lack of hands proved to be a major obstacle to getting firm grips on their clubs.

Two weeks later, eighteen hardy chickens reached the green. Two chickens hit their balls into sand traps and couldn’t get out even though they remembered to use their chicken-sized wedges. Ten other chickens ended their brief golf careers by running into the adjacent woods to search for worms, and disappeared forever.

Play picked up considerably on the green. It turned out that chickens are natural born putters. Aided by cleverly-designed putters, made small enough to be held in their beaks, they dazzled the crowd with one precise putt after another. “I wish I could putt like those chickens,” said Norm Gregson of the PGA.

Observant golfers noticed that the chickens stand so close to the ground that they can figure out exactly which way their putts would break. One of these golfers, John Hona, later suggested to the PGA that chickens be used as “designated putters” in human-golf tournaments. It turned him down flat, “The answer is no.”

Official scorers added up the strokes at the end of the first hole. Roxanne led the pack by thirteen strokes with a score of 397. Technically, Roxanne shot a tricentinonadecadouble bogey, but the press just called it a “chicken bogey.”

Around the third week, while the chickens were half way through the second hole, sarcastic geeks ruffled the plucky poultry by yelling, “Cacciatore,” “Southern Fried,” or by calling their clubs “drum sticks.” The chickens flinched under the pressure of these specieist remarks, slicing more balls than usual. The organizers resorted to handing out free, fresh eggs from the competitors to keep them quiet.

Froussard golf club celebrated the Fourth of July in grand style. Organizers labored all week setting up a spectacular fireworks display. The remaining eleven chickens then contributed to the crowd’s enjoyment when they put on a snappy, morality play based on the daily life of a chicken. Afterwards, all sorts of chicken dishes were served to a hungry audience. “That’ll teach you to miss the cut,” growled Bob Banks as he bit into a hot-and-spicy chicken wing.

Three chickens exited the tournament in August. Vain and high-strung, Sandra, up and left the course clucking about a bad feather day. Nadine, suddenly felt the need to establish her roots and departed to seek her biological mother. Spontaneous combustion claimed the life of Martha as she prepared to putt out the eighth hole. “If she was going to blow up, she should have done it during last-month’s fireworks display,” sniffed organizer, Beverly Hatcher.

Rain fell heavily in late October. The downpour bothered none of the chickens, who clucked, drove, and putted as if nothing was wrong. Seeing this, a golfer’s wife remarked, “They’re just like human golfers.”

Snow fell heavily in the middle of December, and so, play deteriorated rapidly when chickens swung their clubs with difficulty through snow that came up to their beaks. Many chickens could no longer find their balls in the snow drifts. Indeed, the tournament’s officials lost several chickens in the deep snow.

By New Year’s Day, only two chickens remained, Agatha and Roxanne. These two had reached the green and were within only a few hours of finishing the course. Tension and excitement coursed throughout the golfing world as the two chickens were tied, each having a score of 6,127.

Interest in this tournament had grown so feverish that the television networks pushed the New Year’s Day bowl games back one week. Tens of thousands of people lined the rope around the eighteenth hole while helicopters from scores of television stations, domestic and foreign, circled above. “Those chickens upstaged us,” complained Bob Gallina, quarterback of the top ranked, LSU Tigers.

The crowd cheered every well-executed putt of the dueling chicks. Excitement reached a peak when Roxanne holed out with a score 6,157. But Agatha was only four inches from the cup, needing to make her putt for a sudden-death tie.

Agatha intently bent down, surveyed the green, picked up her putter, and set herself to putt. Then, disaster struck! A red fox burst onto the green and snatched Agatha in his hungry jaw. Hundreds of people ran after the fox into the trees to save Agatha, but found only a pile of feathers and a tiny putter.

The crowded peeled away from the course in horror and rage. Its hero had been eaten, an unprecedented event in golf. Things got ugly when many yelled threats at the tournament’s organizers. The more rabid fans produced nooses and proposed hanging the hated organizers. Hearing this, the objects of their hate took off in a flash, jumped into their cars, and sped away.

That was the end of the Great Chicken-Golf Invitational. From nearby Canby, Montana, the organizers declared Roxanne the winner, by default.

The carnage of the tournament appalled golfers and people everywhere. The American Wildlife Federation and corporations withdrew their sponsorships of a proposed second tournament. Interest in chicken golf died off rapidly after that. Now only a few people still think back to the days when chickens had a tournament of their own.

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The Great Chicken Invitational – Short Story – Part One

Posted on February 25, 2012 by pauldelancey

Golf had long been a bastion of people, its exclusivity maintained by a silent gentle folk’s agreement. But no longer, for on January 1, 1974, in Kippen, Idaho, chickens finally integrated the game.

The top thirty chickens in Idaho arrived at the prestigious, private golf club, Froussard for “The Great Chicken Invitational.” Earlier, in late August, Froussard enrolled a chicken to qualify as the host.

Skeptics everywhere had maintained that chickens do not have the necessities to play golf. Other critics had argued that even if physically able chickens could be found, they would not have the mental skills required to converse and to make business contacts.

Nevertheless, the Great Chicken Invitational came to pass. The Invitational’s organizers invited the most athletic chickens for miles around. Intrepid entrepreneurs designed full lines of chicken-sized golf clubs. Chicken owners everywhere got into the spirit and demanded full sets of these clubs for their tiny friends.

Golf enthusiasts from all over the world yearned to see the momentous event. Sven Fjaderfa, CEO and owner of mammoth Swedish Furniture, up and left work a day before the start of the tournament. “I want to see chickens play golf,” he told his employees. Thousands of other golfers joined him at Kippen, Idaho, for the greatest exhibition of golf the state has ever seen.

At seven in the morning of January 1, the organizers trucked in the chickens to the golf course. While the officials spent an hour assigning starting times, the spectators admired the chickens’ traditional tartan knickerbockers. “They look darling,” stated Heather Anders of Fashion Magazine.

At eight o’clock, the organizers unloaded the chickens near the first tee. The chickens immediately scattered to peck for worms in the recently mowed course. Eventually, an official, Tom Purdue, caught Agatha and plopped her down at the tee. He gave the chicken a number one wood, as this was a 476 yards, par 5 hole.

The crowd watched in anticipation, as Agatha surveyed the fairway. She carefully held the driver in the traditional chicken grip, the top wing just touching the bottom wing. All expected Agatha to be a serious competitor, as she never smiled. She looked down the fairway once more, clucked a few times, moved the club back, keeping her left wing straight, and then rapidly brought it forward to hit the ball.

Sarah Dindon, was there for the tee off. “I was lying down on the ground looking up at the blue sky, as I have always found this the best way to view chicken golf.” Sarah watched Agatha’s ball soar above her head into the clouds. The ball then came down, landing a yard down the fairway. At this effort, some unsympathetic fans hooted in derision. Agatha reacted angrily by pecking her nearest tormentors.

The organizers hoped for better results from Roxanne, a fierce, muscular chicken, who spat gravel at the poor official who carried her to the tee. Roxanne followed Agatha’s lead by selecting a driver from the tiny bag on her back. She exhibited perfect form, as a lifetime of looking for worms in the ground had given her the enviable ability to keep her darn, stupid head down. Although her drive nearly doubled Agatha’s in length, this still meant she was 474 yards short. Nearly all the attending journalists agreed that her chances of parring the hole were remote.

Chicken after chicken followed the pattern of Agatha and Roxanne. Something had gone wrong. Apologists for the fowls suggested that the media circus attending this first professional contest unnerved the flock. Indeed, Bob Banks, owner of Francine, slugged a reporter who badgered chickens in rather one-sided interviews.

But the reason for their poor performances lay in the chickens themselves. Remarkably, no one had considered the possibility that a twenty-ounce chicken using a four-inch club would drive a regulation golf ball a considerably shorter distance than would a two-hundred-pound man with a regulation club. Furthermore, for all their attentiveness to their swings, the chickens’ lack of hands proved to be a major obstacle to getting firm grips on their clubs.

(To be continued)

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Official Dinner Invitation For President Obama

Posted on February 23, 2012 by pauldelancey

Dear Mr. President,

I am officially inviting you and whomever you wish to come with you to have a gourmet five-course meal at my humble abode in Poway, California. My wonderful wife, kids, and many friends eagerly await your appearance. As you know, Mr. President, Poway is the hot point of all political campaigns. The saying runs, “As goes Poway, so does the Presidency. ”

You will have have a great time in Poway with its many streets, walking trails, two live theaters, the proposed Candyland Museum,  cinemaplex, a library. So, please come. It will help your chances of winning the election. Lord knows you need help with that. And heck you’ll have fun chowing down on home-style gourmet cooking.

Sincerely,

Paul De Lancey

P.S. May I suggest you invite your wife to come along with you. You don’t want to get in trouble.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Turkey Burgers From Cookbook

Posted on February 22, 2012 by pauldelancey

American Entree

TURKEY BURGERS

INGREDIENTSTurkBur-

1 1/2 pounds of ground turkey meat
1 onion
1/4 green bell peppers
2 green onion stalks
2 tablespoons garlic salt
1/2 tablespoons cumin
8 potato hamburger buns – top and bottom
1/4 head of lettuce, washed
1 cup of grated four-cheese blend
1 ketchup bottle
water
extra virgin olive oil

SPECIALTY UTENSILS
spatula
sonic obliterator
four-slice toaster

TOASTING THE BUNS

You really need a four-slice toaster. You simply cannot feed turkey burgers to a hungry horde of anguine’s with a two-hole toaster. Don’t do four bun halves, two whole buns, and rest on your laurels.

(You say you need more immediate motivation? Pretend the members of your brood have become ravenous cannibals ready to sink their razor-sharp canines into your haunches unless they get their turkey burgers.) Keep on toasting.

(And DON’T, DON’T, microwave anything while toasting. You’ll trip your circuit breaker and you’ll have to dash outside and flip the circuits. This is one reason against cooking in the nude. The other being that grease splatters.)

PREPARING THE ONION

Remove the skin. It adds nothing to the taste, is papery, and gets stuck between your teeth. How can you concentrate on your boss’s story about mango harvesting in Tahiti when you have onion skin between your first and second molars annoying the heck out of you? Remove the skin, now.

Also cut off the root part at the bottom. It’s edible ,I suppose, but hardly tasty. If the onion has a big, green sprout in the middle, it’s because you bought it when Nixon was in office and is no longer edible.

PREPARING THE GREEN BELL PEPPERS

It really helps if you have a prepared green bell pepper left over from last night’s culinary extravaganza, made from the chapter on stuffed green peppers, for example. If not, cut the top off the green bell pepper and discard, or at least discard the stem. Scoop out the innards of the pepper seeds and those four vertical, soft whitish columns and throw them away. Chop up the pepper and put it in a pan. Coat the pieces with olive oil. Use extra-virgin olive oil. (That’s the most virgin you can get, unless you went through school studying economics.)

Cook the green bell pepper. This process is called sauteeing. (See, you’re picking up the vocabulary. Mais oui. C’est magnifique, n’est ce pas? Ho, ho, ho.)

CHOPPING UP THE VEGGIES

You really must get yourself a food processor, big or small, one with two little whirling blades. This little gizmo will make chopping up or mincing the veggies so much faster than cutting them up with a knife. If your knife is blunt, this task takes forever. And a sharp knife is just too tempting for a spouse sulking over your latest big purchase.

Get a food processor. Mince the green onions. Mince the onions. Onions are big. Be sure to cut it up into at least four sections before putting it into the processor. Chop up the bell peppers.

SPICING

The above list of spices assumes you like the same amount of spices as I do. So experiment. Once you become adept at cooking, you’ll be able to smell the correct amount of spice to add as you mix.

PREPARING THE BURGER

Get a big bowl. Put the ingredients except the bun and water into it. Mix. Mix with your hands until everything is thoroughly mixed. Your hands will get extremely messy.

(Midway through the mixing is, of course, the time someone will knock on your front door to ask you if you want your trees trimmed, even if you don’t have any. In the meantime you have dropped turkey meat all over that hard-to-justify-buying Persian carpet and of course, on the front doorknob.

This is the time to say, “Excuse me, I’ll just be a moment.” Go back to the kitchen table, pick up the sonic obliterator, and annihilate the would-be tree trimmer. Wipe up and pick up all bits of turkey meat on the way back to the kitchen.)

THE TURKEY-BURGER PATTIES

Make four patties and put them in your pan. The patties should not be much bigger than your spatula or they might fall apart when turned over.

Turn the heat to high to get things going and gradually turn it down to medium or medium high. The higher you set the temperature, the more closely you’ll need to watch the patties and turn them over.

Turkey meat turns white when cooked. The outside turns white before the inside does. So how do you know when it’s done? It’s perfectly acceptable for a chef, particularly one that’s starting out, to cut a small piece near the edge and look at it and taste it. If the inside of the piece is white, then it is done. Remember, if no one saw you taste the burger, then it didn’t happen.

(By the way, it is a matter between you and your God about what to do if you should drop an entire patty on the floor. Consider the cleanliness of your floor and the likeability of your guests in making your decision.)

You must flip the burgers repeatedly with your spatula. If you do not do so, the water will rise to the top of the burger and evaporate, making the burger too dry to eat. Flipping puts the water that has almost escaped on the bottom of the burger again.

Consider occasionally sprinkling water on top of the patty and pouring a thin layer of water into the pan. This adds moisture to the burger and a moist burger is a yummy burger.

ASSEMBLING THE TURKEY BURGER

Put the bottom bun–it’s flat–on the plate. Put the cooked patty on the bun and the lettuce atop the patty. (There are some heretics who put the lettuce on first, but they are being hunted down without mercy.) Sprinkle the cheese on next. If you are adventurous, pour on some ketchup. Place the top bun–-it’s dome- shaped–-on next.

You are now a culinary hero to your guests.

TIDBITS

1)A Hamburger is someone from Hamburg, Germany. The term “hamburger” derives from this city. A Berliner is someone from Berlin. Berliner is also the name of a jelly doughnut. Some people think when President Kennedy said in that famous Cold War speech, “Ich bin ein Berliner,” he was actually saying, “I am a jelly doughnut.”

2) The first official listing of a hamburger on a menu occurred at Delmonico’s in New York in 1826.

3) Cheeseburger In Paradise is a great song.

4) “A turkey” is not someone from Turkey. It is a bowling term.

4) The turkey was one of the first animals in North America to be domesticated.

5) Turkeys were called turkeys in the 1500s by English merchants because they thought turkeys came from India and that Turkey owned India. Bozos.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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