Monthly Archives: July 2015

Chicken Prosciutto Sandwich

Posted on July 22, 2015 by pauldelancey

Fusion Entree

CHICKEN PROSCIUTTO SANDWICH

INGREDIENTSChickenProscuitto-

4 chicken breasts
1 cup aioli sauce
6 ounces mozzarella
1 Roma tomato
4 sesame-seed hamburger buns
1 cup bread crumbs
8 slices proscuitto
4 lettuce leaves
no-stick spray

SPECIAL UTENSILS

kitchen mallet
parchment paper
3 cookie or baking sheets

Takes 1 hour 40 minutes. Makes 4 sandwiches.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Flatten chicken breasts with kitchen mallet. Add chicken breasts and aioli sauce to large mixing bowl. Turn chicken breasts by hand until chicken is thoroughly coated. Put in refrigerator and marinate for 1 hour.

While chicken marinates, cut mozzarella and tomato into 4 slices each. After marinating, add bread crumbs to 2nd mixing bowl. Place a mozzarella slice on each hamburger-bun top. Remove chicken breasts from 1st mixing bowl, saving the remaining aioli sauce. Dredge chicken breasts through bread crumbs until they are completely coated. Spray 1st cookie sheet with no-stick spray. Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes. (You will be adding two more cookie sheets after 13 minutes.)

While chicken is baking, place parchment paper on 2nd cookie sheet. Place proscuitto on top of parchment paper. Place all hamburger bun halves, including the ones with cheese, on 3rd cookie sheet. After the chicken has baked for 13 minutes, add the proscuitto and the cheese-covered buns to the oven. Continue baking for another 7 minutes or until chicken crumbs are golden brown, proscuitto is starting to become crispy, and the cheese on the buns has melted.

Spread saved aioli sauce on hamburger-bun bottoms. Place lettuce leaf on bottom hamburger bun. Put chicken breast on lettuce leaf, then add 2 prosciutto slices. Complete with cheese covered hamburger-bun top.

TIDBITS

1) Have chicken prosciutto sandwiches always been round?

2) No! Prior to the siege of Picanza, Italy by Napoleon’s troops in 1813, they were triangular. The Picanzans found that shape easy to hold while eating.

3) The triangular sandwiches were also deadly weapons in the hands of the town’s ninjas, particularly after the snack had hardened from being left out in the hot Italian Sun for two weeks.

4) Oh! Don’t forget to go to Picanza’s annual Ninja Chicken Prosciutto Sandwich Toss Festival every April 1. Teams from all over the world compete for the Golden Sandwich Trophy, although Italy and Japan have done all the winning. Be sure to get out of the way of the tosses!

4) The odor from two-week old prosciutto often drove away invading armies just by itself. Well, at least until 1767 when it became standard for armies to carry pumpkin-spiced incense sticks.

5) But in 1813, the clever Napoleon constantly moved his troops upwind from the city. The gale forces winds of that summer continually blew the chicken-prosciutto-sandwich-death triangles back into the city whey dealt widespread carnage among the cafe drinkers. To this day, Picanzans always drink their espresso inside.

6) It looked bad for the Picanzans. The French would fire cannon balls into the city. The Picanzans unable to hurl their hardened sandwich resorted to making scary faces at the besiegers. It was an unequal struggle.

7) Thank goodness for the annual Bowling Ball Festival. Unlike most bowling festivals, this one took place on the precipitous Strada Ripido. Why was it held on such a steep street? The competitors used Parmesan wheels as bowling balls and those 200 pound rounds are heavy. Francesco Poblano suggested they crush the French army by rolling Parmesan cheese at them. The mayor said, “Are you crazy! How will we make eggplant Parmesan?” The ever-clever Franceso said, “Why not make our chicken prosciutto sandwiches round. That way, when they don’t get eaten, we can roll the hardened sandwiches down our steep hills and crush the French down below.”

8) The mayor and other notables proclaimed Francesco a genius and erected a statue in his honor made of bread crumbs and eggs. That statue is still there.

9) Anyway, the Picanzans rolled chicken-prosciutto sandwiches dried out to death dealing hardness at Napoleon’s forces. The bowled over French fled the surrounding hill in terror. Napoleon suffered an irreversible blow to his prestige. Nations all over Europe took courage from his humiliation and rose up against him, swamping the French armies by sheer force of numbers.

10) By 1815, the once great French emperor was exiled to the remote island of St. Helena, where he eked out a tenuous living selling French-style hot dogs out of a vending cart.

11) Oh! Don’t forget to go to Picanza, Italy for its annual Bowling Ball Festival. It’s exciting, particularly if you watch the event at the bottom of Strada Ripido. I suggest paying extra for seats at the top of the steep road.

– 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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Flatbread From Somalia (Sabaayad)

Posted on July 21, 2015 by pauldelancey

Somali Appetizer

FLATBREAD
(sabaayad)

INGREDIENTSFlatbread-

2⅓ cups flour
⅔ cup wheat flour (another ⅓ cup later)
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil
1 to 1½ cups water
4 tablespoons vegetable oil (another 4 teaspoons later)
⅓ cup flour
4 teaspoons vegetable oil

SPECIAL UTENSIL

electric skillet

PREPARATION

Add flour, wheat flour, and salt to large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk. Add ghee. Mix again with whisk. Gradually add water to bowl. Knead flour and water by hand each time. Add water until dough becomes smooth and flexible. Let dough sit for 45 minutes.

Make 8 equal dough balls. Dust hard surface with ⅓ cup flour. Roll out dough ball into a circle 8″ wide. Spread ½ tablespoon oil evenly over dough circle. Fold edges of dough circle in so that four parts meat in the square. You should now have a square.FlatbreadDough-

Roll out square until it is again 8″ wide. (This gives the bread layers and makes it flakier.) Repeat for 7 remaining dough circles.

Set skillet to 325 degrees or medium. Place 8″ dough square in skillet. Let dough square cook for 1 minute or until dough square starts to puff. Flip the dough square and add ½ teaspoon oil evenly to the top. Cook for 1 minute. Continue to cook 1 minute per side until each side turns golden brown Repeat for the remaining 7 dough squares. Drain the golden brown flat breads of paper towels.

Serve warm with: fried eggs, honey, curries, or other stews

TIDBITS

1) The top picture on the previous page looks like a sock. The bottom picture on that page appears to be a sock puppet. These similarities are not an accident. There are an homage to the great Rome-to-Somalia olive-oil-for-socks trade.

2) This trade started in 31 BC after Caesar Augustus secured his position as emperor with his victory over Mark Anthony in the battle of Actium.

3) Rome desperately needed a new source of socks for its vaunted army. Without good socks, the legionnaires developed foot blisters. No soldier can march far with blistered feet. If the Roman legionnaires couldn’t march, they couldn’t catch the invading barbarian hordes before they looted and fired the Roman towns. Unfortunately, the long series of Roman civil wars, 83 BC – 31 BC had completely destroyed the once vibrant sock industry. Things looked grim. The Roman Empire was readt to collapse. The plays of Plautus, Terrance, and Maccius would have been replaced by barbarian reality plays.

6) Fortunately, in 18 BC, Primus Secundus Tertius, a goat herder set out from the tiny village of Perdiem in the southern Egypt to find a missing goat. He headed south, because all good goat herders know that goat only go missing in the south.

7) He walked for years looking for that goat. He was no quitter. Finally, he came across some villagers in Somalia. They were cooking lamb stew. The villagers didn’t give their real names upon meeting Primus for the first time. After all, Somalia is an anagram for Mo’ Alias.

8) While enjoying a delicious meal, Sam and the villagers engaged in pleasant conversation and swapped witty and urbane anagrams. Eventually, Sam handed his empty bowl to the villagers; his mother had raised him to always bring his dirty dishes to the sink. As he did so, he noticed a goat tag at the bottom of his bowl. It read, “Daphne, owned by Primus Secundus Tertius.” The villagers had killed his own goat. The fact that Daphne tasted great after being marinated in lemon juice and pepper only eased his rage a tiny bit.

9) With all the wonderful books deliberately burned in Alexandria’s magnificent library in 395 AD, it’s amazing and perhaps ironic that we have amazing that we have a partial, written record of the following conversation:

Primus: You killed my Daphne?
Villager #1: Who is this Daphne? No woman around here is called Daphne.
Villager #2: I think he means his goat. Roman goat herders like to name their goats Daphne.
Villager #3, Good Primus, are referring to the goat that was in this stew?
Primus: (Shows the goat tag.) I am.

10) The villagers, as was their custom, agreed to compensate Primus with ten pairs of socks. Primus was ecstatic. Emperor Augustus had promised to give a million denarii to any one securing a sock source for the empire. So Primus became fabulously wealthy, the legionnaires got their socks, and the empire became well defended again. It was only when the olive-oil-for-socks trade route got permanently disrupted in 476 AD, that Rome fell. Today, the production of socks is protected everywhere by an international treaty.

– 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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Peanut Butter

Posted on July 20, 2015 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

PEANUT BUTTER

INGREDIENTSPeanutButter-

4 cups roasted peanuts (1 cup then 3 cups)*
2 tablespoons peanut oil (½ tablespoon at a time)
½ tablespoon honey
¾ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon sugar

* = 4 cups peanuts weigh about 1 pound. Purchase peanuts with the skins still on for added flavor and fiber. Buy skinned peanuts if you prefer a smoother peanut butter. And, oh gosh, buy shelled roasted peanuts. It takes forever to shell enough peanuts to make this recipe; just as long as a lecture in theoretical economics lasts..

SPECIAL UTENSILS

blender
mason jar

Makes 1½ cups. Takes 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add 1 cup peanuts in blender. Blend on lowest for about a minute or until the peanut bits are the size you desire. (People’s preference for the chunkiness of their peanut butter and the power of their blender vary considerably, so you’ll need to keep a close eye on the blending.) Remove and set aside.

Add remaining 3 cups peanuts, ½ tablespoon oil, and honey to blender. Set blender to lowest setting that works. (A weak blender will just make plaintive whirring noises and do nothing if it’s on too low a setting. Gradually decrease the speed of the blender to low as it becomes more and more to blend. (I think I can. I think I can. ) Blend on low setting until mixture becomes quite smooth. (The oil should be coming out of the peanuts.) If mixture is too dry to spread, add another ½ tablespoon oil and puree again. Repeat as needed with oil until mixture is easy to spread. Add salt and sugar. Fold in salt and sugar with wooden spoon.

Store in refrigerator. It should be good for 2 weeks to 2 months, depending on the seal of the jar used for storage. I prefer mason jars. Oil might rise to the top over time. Simply mix the oil back into the peanut butter with a wooden spoon.

TIDBITS

1) Each American eats seven pounds of peanut butter a year. It’s a federal law dating back to the drafting of the Constitution. Georgia simply would not sign the great document unless its mighty peanut industry was protected. After much negotiation, the states agreed on seven pounds per person per annum. Georgia signed and America had a basis for strong government

2) Some people spread out their required peanut-butter consumption evenly over the entire year. This comes out to .3068 ounces per day. To achieve such precision, people need sophisticated scales. This need explains why American kitchen scales are the envy of the world. Indeed, NASA uses these scales in its space programs.

3) Other people eat all their peanut butter in one day. Pause and reflect.

4) Americans could fill the Grand Canyon with all the peanut butter that eat in one year. This actually happened on April 1, 2000. It was a glorious occasion with millions of loaves of bread being flown and trucked in. Thousands and thousands of trucks that normally hauled crude oil were converted to dispense grape and strawberry jelly. And the toasters! Oh, they were everywhere. People said nice things to each other except, of course, for those with peanut butter stuck to the roof of their mouths.

5) Unfortunately, this happening could not become an annual event. Many tourists, especially those from countries with low peanut-butter consumption, insisted of seeing the Grand Canyon in its peanut-butter free glory.

6) We also cannot forget the frenzied riot that took place between the smooth-peanut-butter fanatics and the chunky-peanut-fanatics. Culinary historians still shake their heads when they contemplate how close America came to civil war. It certainly affected the presidential election.

7) Speaking of presidents, Thomas Jefferson and Jimmy Carter grew peanuts. Mr. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. Two peanuts growers, one Independence writer. We can conclude from this that every other peanut grower in America would write a Declaration of Independence.

8) Or can we conclude this? Thomas Jefferson declared independence from Great Britain. Jimmy Carter couldn’t do the same; we had already severed connections from the mother country.

9) So, who could have Mr. Carter declared independence from?

10) From America. Jimmy Carter could have penned a declaration of independence for Georgia from the United States. He didn’t, of course, but it was a near run thing.

11) In 1980, American lawmakers mindful of the horrifying carnage of the War Between the States in 1861-1865, passed a law requiring all peanut farmers to sign an annual pledge not to make their state secede from the Union.

12) Or at least to grow onions as well. No onion farmer has ever written anything advocating independence. Onion farmers are a rather down to earth sort of folks. Thank 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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Beer Pizza

Posted on July 19, 2015 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

BEER PIZZA

INGREDIENTSBeerPizza-

1 beer pizza crust (See above recipe.)
1 small onion
1 Roma tomato
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
½ pound ground sausage
¼ cup beer (additional ¼ cup later)
½ cup pasta sauce
¼ cup beer
1¼ cups tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
no-stick spray

Takes 30 minutes.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

pizza pan

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray pizza pan to keep the pizza from sticking. (It’s not a good feeling to have your great looking, great smelling pizza fall apart because it sticks to pan when you try to serve it.) Put crust on pan.

Thinly slice onion and tomato. Add Italian seasoning and ground sausage. Mix with hands and form several small meatballs. Add meatballs and ¼ cup beer to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes. Stir a couple times to ensure even browning. Remove meatballs.

Add pasta sauce and ¼ cup beer to liquid already in pan. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes. Ladle beer/pasta sauce evenly over crust. Sprinkle onion slices, tomato slices, meatballs and Parmesan cheese over sauce. Put pizza in oven and bake at 400 degrees for 10-to-15 minutes or until cheese or crust in golden brown.

TIDBITS

1) Old King Arthur’s knights loved beer pizza. When the blessing of the food was over, all hands shot out to grab a big piece. However, the Knights of the Square Table who sat at the corners were at a severe disadvantage over the knights who sat at the sides. Hence the saying, “As hungry as a corner knight.” These hungry knights invariably challenged the pizza-chomping side-of-the table knights to mortal combat. King Arthur found his army of knights so depleted by pizza-fired duels, that his kingdom was wide open to foreign invasion. Then, he hit upon the happy idea of making a round table for pizza eating. All knights were equidistant from the pizza. All Knight of the Round Table were equally fed and content. It was a glorious time.

– 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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Lamb Stew From Western Sahara

Posted on July 17, 2015 by pauldelancey

Western Saharan Entree

LAMB STEW
(Mreifisa)

INGREDIENTS – BREADMreifisa-

4 cups flour (1 additional tablespoon later)
1½ cup water
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon flour

INGREDIENTS – STEW

1 pound lamb
2 garlic cloves
2 medium onions
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup beef broth
1 cup water
½ teaspoon salt

SPECIAL UTENSILS

rolling pin
cookie sheet
Dutch oven

Makes 3 bowls. Takes 55 minutes.

PREPARATION – BREAD

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Add 4 cups flour, water, and salt to large mixing bowl. Knead with hands for 5 minutes or until ingredients become a well mixed ball of dough . Dust flat surface with 1 tablespoon flour. Add dough to flat surface. Flatten dough with rolling pin until it is ½” thick. Place flattened dough on cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until bread starts to brown. Set aside.

PREPARATION – STEW

While bread bakes, chop lamb into ½” cubes. Dice garlic cloves and onions. Add garlic, onion, lamb, and olive oil to Dutch oven. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens and lamb cubes brown. Add beef broth, water, and salt to Dutch oven. Bring to boil using high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 45 minutes or until lamb is tender.

Crumble bread and divide equally among bowls. Pour equal amounts of stew into bowls.
TIDBITS

1) Mreifisa is an anagram for “I fire Sam.”

2) Sam is not a common name in Western Sahara.

3) In fact, Sam is a tour guide. He lead a group of foodies to Western Sahara to eat mreifisa, all perfectly normal.

4) But he headed east to rebel-held territory and got captured. Why did Sam take his charges east?

5) Because someone asked Sam, “Would he eat mreifisa on a beast. Would he eat in the east?”

6) “Yes,” said Sam while being held in a snake-filled pit. “I would eat on the sand. I would eat if it’s bland.”

7) “Would you,” said his captors, “eat it in the sky? Would you eat it while you die?”

8) “I would eat it in this life. I would eat it with my wife.”

9) “Would you eat it with a lord? Would you eat it on a sword?”

10) “I would eat it with a whisk. I would eat it with lutefisk.”

11) His blond, blue-eyed captives blanched at that. “You eat lutefisk?”

12) “Yes!” said Sam. “I’d eat lutefisk with a gnu. Do you want some lutefisk, too?”

13) “No, lutefisk does so stink. If we ate lutefisk, we’d need a shrink.”

14) Sam said, “Try it, try it I implore. If you don’t, I’ll bring more.”

15) “No,” said the leader Abu, “A thousand years hence, our tribe left Sweden. No more lutefisk we’d be eatin’.”

16) “Would you eat lutefisk in a tree? Would you eat it with a bee ?”

17) Abu said, “We would not eat it in a car. To not eat it, we’ve traveled far.”

18) Sam brightened when he said, “You’re not giving it a chance, that is plain. I’ll get you lutefisk flown from Spain.”

19) “Oh that lutefisk makes us ill We’ll release you, yes we will.”

20) Even though Sam and his tour group got released from the snake pit, some of the tourists seized on that event to demand their money back. So, I had to fire Sam.

21) Would you, could you fire Sam? Would you, could you eat this stew of lamb?

– 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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My Not to Do List – Part 4

Posted on July 16, 2015 by pauldelancey

NotToDo1

Since I’ve been so gosh darn successful at not doing the previous things I’d set out not to do, I thought I’d continue with my virtuous inertia and not do some more things. Here are things I won’t be doing today.

1) I will not eat eggplant.

2) I will not snack between snacks.

3) I will not call my congressmen to say, “Well done.”

4) I will debate anything with any penguin.

5) I will not untangle any cords.

6) I will not fry an egg in zero gravity.

7) I will not count my pennies.

9) I will not do any weeding.

10) I will not order spices over the internet.

11) I will not clean toilets.

12) I will not ride around my neighborhood on an elephant. Not even when the temperature drops in the evening.

13 I will not mix root beer with horseradish.

– Paul R. De Lancey, great no-doer

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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Five Things You Must Do in Boston

Posted on July 15, 2015 by pauldelancey

 

Ship

Too many visitors to Boston forget to do the following, essential things.

1. Breathe.

2. Eat.

3. Drink.

4. Sleep.

5. See the U.S.S. Constitution, “Old Ironsides.” It’s a famous wooden ship from the War of 1812.

– Paul R. De Lancey, travel adviser

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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Beer Pizza Crust

Posted on July 14, 2015 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

BEER PIZZA CRUST

INGREDIENTSPizzaCr-

2 cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup beer
½ cup water
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1¾ teaspoons active dry yeast
no-stick spray

SPECIAL UTENSILS

bread maker
16″ pizza pan

Takes 1 hour 20 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add flour, beer, water, oil, sugar, salt, and yeast to the bread maker. Do not put the yeast directly on top of the salt. Salt is bad for yeast and yeast makes the dough rise. “Ask not what your yeast can do for you. Ask what you can do for your yeast.” Set the timer or the menu on the bread maker to “Dough.” Wait for the required time, about an hour. In the meantime preheat the oven to 400 degrees and liberally spray the pizza pan with no-stick spray. This will prevent the crust from forming a glue-like bond with the pan.

Take the dough out of the bread maker and roll it out until the dough covers the pizza pan. If you do not have a rolling pin, any canned food can will do as long as it is at least six inches tall. It is best to use no-stick spray on pan or coat it with a thin layer of flour before spreading the dough.

TIDBITS

1) Ancient Egyptians invented the pizza crust to honor their sun god They made the crust round and flat because the Sun looked, and still looks, to be flat and round. Whenever the Egyptians drew a map of the world, they did so on a crust. They then covered it with: grapes, fish, and asps (venom removed) and ate the whole thing. Hence, the famous saying, “I could eat the world for lunch.”

2) Folks over the centuries drew so many pizza-crust maps that people came to believe the Earth had to be flat. Then in 1488, Christopher Columbus’ mom made a pizza topped with great big, round meatballs. He thought, “Hey, I think the world is round, just like these meatballs.” Four years, came Columbus’ great voyage of discovery. The world be changed forever.

– 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.

Categories: cuisine, history, humor, international | Tags: , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Palaw (Pilaf) From Turkmenistan

Posted on July 12, 2015 by pauldelancey

Turkmen Entree

PALAW
(pilaf )

INGREDIENTSPalaw-

2 pounds steak (rib eye, round, or chuck)
3 medium yellow onions
6 large carrots
¾ cup vegetable oil
4 cups basmati rice
6½ cups water
2 tablespoons salt

Makes 12 bowls

SPECIAL UTENSIL

Dutch oven
Food processor for thin slicing

PREPARATION

Cut steak into 1″ cubes. Dice onions. Cut carrots into thin slices 3″ long. (A food processor that does thin slicing is a big help.)

Add beef cubes and oil to Dutch oven. Sauté beef for 10 minutes on medium-high heat or until beef starts to brown. Add onion and carrot. Sauté for 10 minutes or until onion and carrot soften. Stir occasionally.

Add rice, water, and salt. Raise heat to high and bring to boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 30-to-40 minutes. Stir three times. Be careful when stirring, especially if the food is near the top of the Dutch oven.

TIDBITS

1) This dish, palaw, is the inspiration for the hit TV show, PA Law. In this series, Detectives Donna Goreng and Ed Dejaj investigate rice crimes in the greater Philadelphia area. It’s not easy work for the bold and dedicated duo. The crimes are perpetrated by the Jell-O,TM Mold Militants, JMM!

2) Prior to 1970, every homemade dish was a Jell-O mold. These concoctions were often quite strange and offputting, like the tuna, oyster, Rocky Mountain oyster, bacon, peanut butter, sautéed eggplant and other science-fiction-like molds that graced the dining room table in that era.

3) Naturally, these molds made Americans cranky, resulting in many riots during the 1960s. Then we discovered palaw from Turkmenistan, hamburgers, and ice cream. Things calmed down something considerable. Except for the JMM. They hate our culinary freedoms.

– 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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My Not-To-Do List – Part 3

Posted on July 11, 2015 by pauldelancey

NotToDo1

It’s an awesome responsibility with millions of people looking to me for guidance on what no to do today, so I approached today’s list with great thought. So, here are the things I won’t be doing.

1) I will not take my paints and easel to the DMV to paint still-life scenes.

2) I will not move to Antarctica. It’s winter down there.

3) I will not get into any political discussion with a mime. That sort of thing always gets out of hand.

4) I will not check cans at the supermarket for “high fructose corn syrup.” I need a break. I’ll stay away from food buying today.

5) Oh gosh, see what 4) can do. I’m craving a TwinkieTM.

6) I will not repost anything that says, “Repost this.”

7) I will not buy a Twinkie.

9) I will not ask chickens, “Why did you cross the road?”

10) I will put aside my work on a Mobius-strip roller coaster.

11) I will not try to make sense of Middle-Eastern politics.

12) I will not read any of the on-line agreements that I must check before buying anything.

13 I will not buy a Twinkie.

– Paul R. De Lancey, great no-doer

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.

 

Categories: humor | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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