Monthly Archives: March 2014

Finnish Dilled Beef Stew

Posted on March 28, 2014 by pauldelancey

Finnish Entree

DILLED BEEF STEW
(Tilliliha)

INGREDIENTSDilledBeef-

3 pounds boneless chuck roast
1 onion
3 tablespoons butter
3 ½ cups beef broth
1 teaspoon allspice
½ tablespoon coarsely ground pepper
1 bay leaf
½ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons flour
2 ½ teaspoons sugar
2 ½ teaspoons red wine vinegar
½ cup cream
4 teaspoons dill

SPECIAL UTENSIL

Dutch oven

Serves 6 (How big are your bowls?) Takes 2 hours 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cut chuck roast into 1″ cubes. Mince onion. Put roast and butter into Dutch oven. Sauté for 5-to-10 minutes on medium-high heat or until chuck-roast cubes turn brown. Stir occasionally. Add beef broth and bring to boil. Reduce heat to low. Add onion, allspice, pepper, bay leaf, and salt. Cover and simmer on low heat for 90 minutes. Skim off foam as it occurs. Remove meat from Dutch oven and set aside.

Add flour, sugar, and red wine vinegar to broth and increase heat to medium. Stir continually until sauce thickens. Add cream and dill. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.

TIDBITS

1) Ronkainen, a legendary Finnish robber of the 1700s, had would-be gang members carry a heavy woman over an obstacle course to prove their strength. The annual wife-carrying championships in Sonkajaarvi, Finland derive from this test. Wife carrying is not an Olympic sport. However, synchronized swimming is.

2) Finns excel at non-traditional sports as well. Be sure to make your way to Savonlinna, Finland during August for its prestigious Cell Phone Throwing Championship. Participants throw the cell phones over their shoulders and are judged by distance and techniques. Cell-phone-throwing mania is going global having caught in the rest of Europe and in the United States. This would be one Olympic event I would watch. Contact the proper agency for rules of competition. Despite the obvious tie in, I don’t believe Nokia is an official sponsor.

3) Air guitar enthusiasts won’t want to miss the Air Guitar season. Prestigious events are held in Germany along with Japan’s own elimination tournament. However, the crème de la crème of air guitardom is the World Final, held in Oulu, Finland in late August. Don’t forget to pack your air guitar or you’ll be forced to buy one at the local Ouluan shops and you’ll know what high prices you’ll see there.

4) The Mosquito Swatting Championship is held each year in Finland. Contestants try to swat the most mosquitoes in 5 minutes. Over thirty is a good number. I don’t know when the event takes place, but I imagine it is in the mosquito season. Visitors who attract mosquitoes like flies, hee hee, will be asked to sit in the back rows as the mosquitoes biting them diminish the number of mosquitoes available to the contestants.

5) Finland hosts the Ant Nest Sitting Competition. Athletes–whom am I kidding?–sit on an ant hill for as long as they can stand the ant bites. Okay, this one is weird.

6) Relax while competing! Enter the Finnish Sauna World Championship Simply stay the longest inside Finnish sauna in a temperature 110 degrees centigrade, 240 degrees fahrenheit. Held in August in Heinola, Finland, this contest makes a natural companion to tourists taking in the Air Guitar final.

7) Love soccer? Love mud? Head on over to Hyrynsalmi., Finland where over 200 teams from all over the world vie to win the Swamp Soccer World Cup. It’s held during Finland’s mud season.

8) If the idea of bodies writhing in mud gets you hot and bothered, be sure to take in the Kutemajarvi Sex Festival and Matchmaking Festival held in the towns Kangasniemi and Kurikka, Finland. If you are interested, please visit the Rakkausfestivalli’s website where a knowledge of the Finnish language helps a lot.

9) Speaking of speaking Finnish, consider attending the Finnish Dialect Speaking Championship held in early July in Kuopio, Finland. Past winners have usually demonstrated a strong command of this Nordic language.

10) Can’t speak Finnish, but still love to make yourself heard? Alapitka, Finland, puts on the renowned Cattle Calling Championship. Techniques of the champions are closely guarded secrets.

11) Lost at the Cattle Calling Championship? Want to take out your frustration from months of wasted practice? Redeem yourself by entering Milk Stool Throwing contests held all over rural Finland in early summer.

12) But above all else behave yourself while visiting Finland. Finnish prisoners are only allowed to use the sauna once a week. Scared straight, you bet.

– 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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Almond Pork Stir Fry

Posted on March 27, 2014 by pauldelancey

Chinese Entree

ALMOND PORK STIR FRY

INGREDIENTSAlmondChicken-

1 pound pork loins
½ red onion
2 scallions
½ cup blanched, silvered almonds
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 ½ tablespoons chicken stock
1 tablespoon sherry
1 teaspoon sugar
1 pound bean sprouts
1 teaspoon Chinese five spices
1/2 tablespoon freshly grated ginger

PREPARATION

Cut pork into ½” cubes. Dice red onion and scallions. Rinse bean sprouts. Add almond, red onion, scallion, and soy sauce to wok or pan. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently.

Add pork, chicken stock, sherry, sugar, bean sprouts, Chinese five spices, and ginger to pan. Cook for 5 minutes on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until pork is no longer pink inside. (X-ray vision would be useful here. If you aren’t a super hero, it’s okay to slice open a pork cube and look.)

TIDBITS

1) In 1764, Spain worried about Russian encroachment on the west coast of America planted almond trees along El Camino Real (The Royal Road) from San Diego to San Francisco.

2) These trees did not significantly deter the Russian military which was generally equipped with ships, horses, cannon, and muskets.

3) The Spanish then tried planting all manner of cacti in Arizona. This failed as well. The Russians weren’t interested in Arizona and the cacti proved remarkably vulnerable to flanking maneuvers.

4) In 1769, the governor of California, Don Antonio Pico de Gallo, came up with the happy idea of building missions along El Camino and staffing them with priests and soldiers. The Russians saw that the price of conquering the Golden State would be too high and left.

5) President Clinton ate almonds at both his inaugurations. Some say he did this to send a message to the Russians, but it is more likely he just like to eat them.

6) Eat the almonds, not the Russians, for goodness sake.

– 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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Danish Meatballs in Curry (boller i karry)

Posted on March 23, 2014 by pauldelancey

Danish Entree

MEATBALLS IN CURRY
(boller i karry)

INGREDIENTS – MEATBALLSMeatballsCurry-

4 garlic cloves
2 small onions
½ pound ground beef
½ pound ground pork
1 cup bread crumbs
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 cups beef stock

INGREDIENTS – CURRY SAUCE

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons curry powder
1 leek
1 medium onion
4 tablespoons flour
3/4 cup cream
1 teaspoon chives
1 teaspoon parsley

Serves 6, particularly if everyone eats 1/6th of this.

PREPARATION – MEATBALLS

Mince garlic cloves and 2 small onions. Mix ground beef, ground pork, bread crumbs, garlic, onion, egg, pepper, and salt with hands in mixing bowl. Make 1″ meatballs.

Add beef stock to large pot. Bring beef stock to boil on high heat. Carefully add meatballs to pot. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes or until meatballs begin to float. Remove meatballs from pot and set aside. Save the beef broth in pot.

PREPARATION – CURRY SAUCE

While meatballs simmer, dice leek, and medium onion. Add butter, curry powder, leek, and diced medium onion. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until diced medium onion softens. Stir frequently. Add flour. Mix well with spoon. Gradually mix in 2 1/2 cups of broth taken from pot or until sauce thickens. Add cream and meatballs. Reduce heat to low. Simmer for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally. Sprinkle chives and parsley on top. This dish goes well over rice.

TIDBITS

1) The meatball is really a smaller version of meatloaf. Some people have meatballs as a topping for their pizzas.

2) Wouldn’t a meatloaf pizza be exciting? Imagine getting a 16″ pizza topped with three 9″ by 6″ meatloaves. It would feed an army.

3) The Roman Empire is known for its all conquering armies. It’s less known for its culinary achievements. That’s a shame as Rome is the birthplace of the meatball. Rome rocks.

4) Okay, ancient Rome didn’t rock for everyone, the slaves, for example, come to mind as do the people of the many conquered nations.

5) One might wonder how the Roman Empire kept all its conquered peoples from continually revolting. After all, the legions marched everywhere and took longer than waiting in lines at Disneyland to get from their barracks to disaffected regions.

6) The answer is in the massive stockpiles of meatballs kept at all the crossroads of the Empire. As long as the Roman authorities could rush meatballs to its conquered peoples, no riot ever grew so large the slowly arriving legionnaires couldn’t handle it.

7) Rome almost fell to barbarians, in the third century A.D., when they lost the province of Dacia with its rich cattle lands. Fewer cattle, fewer meatballs. Fewer meatballs, more riots. More riots not stopped with meatballs, more revolts. And that meant legions got withdrawn from the frontiers to put the revolts. Barbarians poured across the sparsely defended border.

8) It really appeared as Rome was going to fall. Fortunately the cattlemen of Dacia organized cattle drives to still safe provinces such as Cisalpine Gaul and Thracia. “Head ‘em up, move ‘em out.” Meatball production bounced back within a few decades and the Empire recovered.

9) In 405, however, the health sage, Atticus Bananicus, convinced the legionnaires to go vegetarian. As a result, many of Rome’s cattlemen switched to raising free-range chickens.

10) But in 406, Bananicus was seen by legionnaires eating a meatball pizza. The dormant meatball tastes of the Roman soldiers came out of hibernation. All at once, every soldier demanded meatballs. But there were no longer enough meatballs for the army and the peoples of Rome. The army garnered all the meatballs, leaving none for the restive populace. Unquenchable revolts erupted everywhere. The entire Roman army abandoned the frontier, getting decimated putting down the ferocious uprisings.

12) Alaric and the Visigoths–that sounds like a 60s rock band doesn’t it?–sacked Rome in 410 A.D.. The Roman Empire never rebounded from this disaster and soon collapsed. Always keep meatballs in your refrigerator. It’s frightening to contemplate what would happen if our supermarkets ran out of that peace-ensuring food.

13) Food connoisseurs are invited to read book II of Marcus Gavius Apicus’ “De re coquinaria libri decem (Cuisine in Ten Books)” to see the world’s first recipe for meatballs. And feel at peace.

– 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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Great Arctic Eats – Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada

Posted on March 20, 2014 by pauldelancey

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Hankering for the siren call of Canadian-Arctic cuisine? But also want to trace the failed footsteps of early explorers seeking the fable Northwest Passage? Well then, Iqaluit is a must stop for you.

The highest rated restaurant according to TripAdvisor is 

The Gallery with its superb and varied dishes is the town’s highest-rated restaurant. While dreadfully lost tourists from Indonesia might appreciate its nasi goreng, most connoisseu rs rave about its local dishes such as: musk-ox stew, Arctic cassoulet made from caribou, musk ox, game sausage, bacon, and duck, and of course, its Arctic bouillabaise.

French-food gourmands will certainly want to make the will-sappingly long and expensive flight to Iqaluit to dine at The Granite Room at Discovery Lodge Hotel. And my gosh, burgers lovers take note. The Snack–yes that is its name–has the best burgers ever.

The best Lebanese cuisine in Iqaluit is still found at Yummy Shawarma. Why go all the way to the tumultuous Middle East? Drop in at the Stonehouse & Grill for the artists’ hangout and great bar. Don’t leave  without sitting down at the wonderfully named Kickin’ Caribou for the best poutine in town.

Iqaluit’s restaurants

Enjoyers of dog-team racing and igloo building cannot afford to miss Toonik Tyme. This annual festival runs from April 11 to April 20 and celebrate the Sun’s return. Good morning indeed! The Allaniat Arts Festival goes from June 27 to July 1. Enjoy art, music, film, dance, theater, and … Circus Acts. Arctic Circus! And don’t forget, Iqaluit celebrates Nunavut Day on July 9 with throat singing!,  drum dancing, and traditional cuisine.

– 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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Bean and Bacon Soup

Posted on March 19, 2014 by pauldelancey

American Soup

BEAN AND BACON SOUP

INGREDIENTSBean&BaconSoup-

1 pound dry navy beans (4 cups)
4 cups water
1 pound bacon
1 medium carrot
1 celery stalk
1 yellow onion
1 garlic clove
1 pound tomatoes
1 bay leaf
½ teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon thyme
3 cups chicken broth
1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Makes 6 bowls.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

Dutch oven

PREPARATION

Put navy beans and water in large pot. Bring to boil on high heat. Turn off heat, cover, and let beans stand in hot water for 1 hour.

Get busy while beans are standing. Cook, fry bacon on medium-high heat in Dutch oven until crispy. (Contemplate image of beans standing at attention.) Remove bacon and put on paper towels. Remove all but ¼ cup grease from Dutch oven. When cool, crumble bacon or cut it into ½” squares.

Dice carrot,  celery, onion, and garlic clove. Puree tomatoes. Sauté carrot, onion and garlic at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Add bay leaf, celery, tomato puree, paprika, salt, thyme, chicken broth, and Worcestershire sauce to Dutch oven. Drain beans. Add beans to Dutch oven. Bring to boil on high heat. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 2 hours or until beans are tender. Ladle soup into bowls and sprinkle with bacon.

TIDBITS

1) According to culinary lore, Lord Sandys once asked two chemists from Worcestershire to recreate an Indian sauce. Why Lord Sandys didn’t ask two cooks instead is a mystery. Anyway, the two great men’s effort resulted in a particularly malodorous liquid; it might have stunk worse than lutefisk. The chemists moved the stinky sauce to the basement. Why didn’t they just throw it out? Years later, they tasted it again. These men truly did not fear death. But it tasted great.

2) Okay.

3) Worcestershire sauce is made from fermented fish. Fish contains glutamates. Glutamates improve your mood.

4) Beer is made from fermented grain. Fermented grain improves your mood.

5) There are lot more establishments selling beer than ones offering fermented fish.

6) Or even lutefisk.

7) Oh my gosh, further research suggests that tidbit 1) is actually true and that L&P still make their sauce that way. I guess fermenting fish is pretty much like aging wine. Who knew?

8) In 1919, Worcestershire sauce was advertised as a way to grow beautiful hair.

9) I would think rubbing Worcestershire sauce on your head would make you smell like steak. Dogs would love you.

10) A famous photo from 1938, shows dictator Benito Mussolini and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain alongside one of Lea & Perrin’s bottles.

11) It’s quite unlikely Mussolini rubbed the steak sauce on his head. The despot was entirely bald.

12) For Worcestershire sauce rubbed onto a man with a full head of hair isn’t visible. Oh sure, you can smell it, but you’re never quite sure if you’ve pinpointed the location to the right person.

13) On the other hand, Worcestershire sauce, or any other brown sauce for that matter, would have been quite evident on Mussolini’s bald dome.

14) One can imagine the rulers of Ethiopia and Albania pointing at the Italian dictator’s sauce-smeared head and laughing.

15) Mussolini would have wanted revenge for these insults. As a dictator, he could get it too. So, Benito had his armies conquer these countries.

16) Hitler saw how easy these conquests were and in 1939 invaded Poland. Great Britain and France declared war in response. And so, World War II began.

17) This is a cautionary tale. Always use good manners. Never make fun of people. The welfare of the world is at stake.

– 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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Book Review of Reina Menasche’s Silent Bird

Posted on March 15, 2014 by pauldelancey

Wonderful Novel

Pillar Russell leaves New York to flee disturbing childhood memories and relationships. Afraid of commitments, she settles in southern France to start over in a place where no one SilentBird-knows her, where she doesn’t even know the language.

Pillar’s plan for anonymity gets tested when she takes to her beguiling Gallic village and most importantly when she meets the earnest and sensitive Jeannot. These two friends and lovers are good for each other, so good marriage seems inevitable. But, the memories in Pillar’s life and disturbing xenophobia of the town and Jeannot’s family threaten their relationship.

The author’s style is sensitive and compelling. She skillfully balances disturbing thoughts with uplifting enthusiasm and heart-wrenching sadness with deft touches of humor. Reina Lisa Menasche is a darn good writer. I heartily recommend Silent Bird to everyone.

– Paul R De Lancey

 

pauldelancey.com

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Chicken in Pineapple Boat

Posted on March 14, 2014 by pauldelancey

Tahitian Entree

CHICKEN IN PINEAPPLE BOAT
(Takia Ni Toa Painaviu)

INGREDIENTSChicken pineapple-

2 large pineapples
3 chicken breasts
½ small onion
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup chicken stock
3/4 cup coconut milk
½ teaspoon parsley
2 tablespoons cream
1/3 cup dry white wine
½ tablespoon slivered almonds (optional)
add pineapple leaves as decoration

PREPARATION

Cut pineapples in half lengthwise. Carve out inside of pineapple. Cut carved out pineapple flesh into 1″ cubes, throwing out pulpy parts.. Cut chicken into ½” cubes. Mince onion.

Add onion and butter to large frying pan. Sauté for 5 minutes on medium-high heat or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to medium. Add chicken and fry for about 5 MINUTES or until chicken is no longer pink inside. Do not brown chicken. Stir occasionally.

Reduce heat to low. Add flour and chicken stock to pan. Cook for minutes or until sauce thickens Add pineapple cubes, wine, and cream. Cook for 5 minutes on low heat. Stir occasionally Remove chicken/sauce from heat.. Ladle chicken/pineapple/sauce into pineapple halves. Sprinkle with parsley and almonds.

TIDBITS

1) The letter “B” does not exist in the Tahitian language. Tahitians would have a tough time ordering burgers at the Bob’s Big Boy restaurants in America. On the other hand, Tahiti has no poisonous snakes or insects.

2) Tahiti is way cool, Bread is more important than getting mail. Bakeries deliver fresh loaves twice a day to bread boxes outside residents homes. Maiil must be picked up at the post office.

3) Oh my goodness, I just found that the Tahitian alphabet now as only 13 letters, 13 fewer than the English one. And when I did the first tidbit, it apparently had 25. Where did those 13 – 1 = 12 additional letters disappear to and in two tidbits. I’m stopping the tidbits right now before the Tahitians lose any more letters. Goodness.

– 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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Sausage and Pepperoni Pizza

Posted on March 12, 2014 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

SAUSAGE AND PEPPERONI PIZZA

INGREDIENTSSausagePeppPizza-

1 pizza crust
2 cups pasta sauce (see recipe)
8 ounces sausage meat
4 ounces sliced pepperoni
1⅔ cups mozzarella cheese

SPECIAL UTENSIL

16″ pizza pan

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put pizza crust on pizza pan. Spread pasta sauce over entire crust. Make ½” sausage balls. Put sausage balls and pepperoni slice evenly over sauce. Bake pizza in oven at 400 degrees for 10-to-15 minutes or until cheese turns golden brown.

TIDBITS

1) Pizza has a long and rich history. So does the game of rock, paper, scissors.

2) The game started as rock, rock, rock in Vivaldi Gorge in the year 3,200,010 BC.. The game was played with real rocks and always ended in a tie. Caveman Ogg never lost. He even considered going pro, but stopped from a lack of corporate sponsors.

3) Ten years later Ogg accused Lucy from Olduvai Gorge of cheating. The enraged Ogg used the rock to brain his foe. Ogg fictionalized the account of his bloody deed on his cave’s walls. This was the start of the literary crime genre. So some good came out of it.

4) Lucy’s kin attacked Ogg’s family, driving them far away. In 1949 Drs. Leakey started looking for human bones in Vivaldi Gorge. Ten years later, they switched to Olduvai Gorge and found the bones of Lucy next to a tablet inscribed with the cryptic code of W-0, L-0, T-1,723. Oh, a baseball was found as well, but that’s almost certainly an artifact.

5) In 1845, Alexander Cartwright formalized the rules of baseball. Baseball with its clear victor took America and much of the world by storm. Dr. Simon Iota did change the game of rock, rock, rock to rock, paper, scissors, paper in 1867. But the new rules came too late. Baseball would reign supreme. Rock, paper, scissors is hardly played and is never shown on T.V., except maybe on ESPN4 at 4 a.m. on Tuesdays.

– 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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29 Lifechanging Quesadillas You Need to Know About

Posted on March 12, 2014 by pauldelancey

Reblogging from Skipping Stars Production

Skipping Stars Productions LLC

29 Lifechanging Quesadillas You Need to Know About.

View original post

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Pasta Sauce

Posted on March 8, 2014 by pauldelancey

Italian Appetizer

PASTA SAUCE

INGREDIENTSPastaSauce-

2 garlic cloves
2 pounds Roma tomatoes
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon marjoram
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon savory
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon thyme

makes 2 ½ cups

SPECIAL UTENSIL

blender

PREPARATION

Mince garlic cloves. Puree tomatoes in blender. Add remaining ingredients to large saucepan. Bring to boil on high heat, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for about 45 minutes or until sauce thickens. Cool.

TIDBITS

1) It’s helpful to know whenever you’re at an anagram convention that pasta sauce is an anagram for: cause a spat, a cat’s pause, sautes a cap, and cue ass pat.

2) A pat is a small slice of butter. A stick of butter is much longer than a pat.

3) When German soldiers invaded the Netherlands in 1940, they confiscated the locals’ butter. Culinary historians suspect the main impetus behind Germany’s patently unpleasant wars of aggression was a massive butter shortage in the Fatherland. The Netherlands has ample stocks of butter, so it was overrun by its larger bread-spread lacking neighbor to the east.

4) Sure, Germany invaded other nations as well, but that was mainly from inertia. Once you start invading other countries, it’s kinda hard to stop. Besides, Belgium had fries, France had cheese and baguettes, and Russia had beef stroganoff.

5) Eight nations met in Toronto, Canada in 1953 to sign the Ample Butter Supply Treaty (ABS.) To remove all temptation for aggression, signatory countries pledged to main large supplies of butter. America maintains its emergency butter supply in a climate controlled cave near Butte, Montana.

– 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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