Fair point, Genghis.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., and historian
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.
INGREDIENTS – STUFFED CABBAGE
¾ cup fresh cilantro
⅔ cup fresh dill
1 medium tomato
1 large onion
1 cup chopped chestnuts*
1 pound ground lamb or beef
⅓ cup rice
⅛ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 large cabbage head
INGREDIENTS – BROTH
1 tablespoon butter
2 teaspoons sugar
1¼ cups lamb or beef broth (Broth should match meat used above, if possible.)
1½ tablespoons vinegar
* = Chopped chestnuts can be found online.
Serves 6. Takes 2 hours.
PREPARATION – STUFFED CABBAGE
Dice cilantro, dill, and tomato. Mince onion. Add cilantro, dill, tomato, onion, chestnuts, lamb, rice, cinnamon, pepper, and salt to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended.
Cut off bottom of cabbage head. Cut out as much of the white, solid core as you can. (Doing these two steps will make peeling off leaves later much easier.)
Add enough water to cover cabbage head to large pot. Bring water to boil using high heat. Carefully add cabbage head. Reduce heat to medium and continue to boil until leaves can be pulled back with a fork. Carefully remove cabbage. Drain. Wait until cabbage is cool enough to peel off the cabbages leaves.
Peel off cabbage leaf. Put 3 tablespoons lamb/chestnut mix from bowl in middle of cabbage leave. (The exact amount will vary with the changing sizes of the cabbage leaves.) Shape mix into a log, leaving 1½” uncovered along edges. Fold the short ends of the leaf to cover lamb/chestnut log. Then tightly roll leaf from the bottom. Repeat for remaining leaves save one. Reserve one leaf.
PREPARATION – BROTH
Melt butter in pan using low-medium heat. Stir enough to prevent bubbling, Remove from heat. Add sugar, butter, lamb broth, and vinegar to mixing bowl. Stir until well blended
Place reserved cabbage leaf in large pot. Add stuffed-cabbage logs to pan. Place them as closely as possible to each other to prevent unfolding. Slowly pour broth over cabbage logs. Place a lid over cabbage logs. (The lid should be a bit smaller than the pan so that it sits on the cabbage logs. (This also prevents unraveling.) Simmer at low heat for 45 minutes or until cabbage leaves are tender and the filling becomes tender.
TIDBITS
1) You can cook chestnuts in a pot.
2) You can cook them quite a lot.
3) You can cook them on a beach.
4) You can cook them with a peach.
5) You can cook them in an oven.
6) You can cook them with a coven.
7) But not one with witches.
8) For though they might grant riches.
9) They like their meat raw.
10) And that you can’t unsaw.
11) You can speed them in an electron collider.
12) Or something even much, much wider.
13) You can heat them with a torch.
14) You can heat them on a porch.
15) You can cook them in a house.
16) You can cook them for your spouse.
17) You can cook them while on a chair.
18) You can cook them everywhere.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
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.
I had to use this. My photo of Biden didn’t look like Biden
I have invited every president to a debate or a dinner. I see no reason to stop this fine tradition. So,
Dear President Biden,
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, many friends, and I eagerly await your appearance. As you know, Mr. President, Poway is the hot point of all political campaigns and legislation. The saying runs, “As goes Poway, so does the Presidency.”
You’ll have have a great time in Poway with its many streets, walking trails, theaters, library, and the site of the proposed Candyland(tm) Museum. So, please come. It will help your approval rating. And heck, you’ll have fun chowing down on home-style gourmet cooking.
Sincerely,
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
P.S. I even have the complete collection of The Adventures of Robin Hood with Richard Greene. We could watch that after dinner.
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.
Is it really this simple?
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., and travel advisor
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.
INGREDIENTS
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups flour (3 more tablespoons later)
3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons raspberry jam
2 9-ounce bottles pink cookie icing (Not cake icing)
SPECIAL UTENSILS
electric beater
1 cookie sheet
parchment paper
1½” cookie cutter (Must be a cookie cutter)
sonic obliterator
Makes 20 cookies. Takes 3 hours 30 minutes.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 335 degrees. Add butter and 2 cups flour to large mixing bowl. Blend with electric beater set or medium until butter and flour form a dough ball. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons flour on flat surface. Roll out dough until it is about ⅓” thick. Cut out dough circles with 1½” cookie cutter. Make them as level and smooth as you can. (I cannot stress this enough. Smooth cookie sides will make proper icing much easier later.) Cover cookie sheets with parchment paper. Place dough circles on parchment paper.
Bake dough circles at 335 degrees for 20 minutes or until the middle of a circle is no longer soft when pressed. Don’t let the circles turn brown! They should remain pale. Gently life parchment paper with circles and let cool on a wire rack or plate. (Leave circles on parchment paper.)
Once circles have cooled completely, spread ½ teaspoon raspberry jam over a baked circle. Gently place another circle over the jam to make a cookie. Repeat until all circles have been used.
Put cookies on large plate. Do not let them touch each other. Pour icing from bottles over cookies. Make sure to pour icing over the edge of the cookie tops so that the icing will flow down and coat the sides of the cookies. Do this all in one go. Let sit until icing hardens completely.
This is a hard one to do perfectly. There’s a reason dessert chefs differ from the other chefs. So appreciate why some things, particularly these cookies, can be expensive. And for the insensitive oafs who give you guff about your cookies, zap them with your sonic obliterator. You don’t need their negativity in your kitchen.
TIDBITS
1) Napolitaines look a lot like UFOs.
2) By the way, Napolitaines is pronounced Napolitaines.
3) I’m glad I cleared that up.
4) UFOs really do resemble Napolitaines. There’s a reason for that.
5) Having a successful space program brings enormous international prestige.
6) If you were to ask people what are the ten greatest things about America, 93.6% would say, “NASA.” The remaing 6.4% couldn’t find a No. 2 pencil and so, couldn’t fill out the questionaire.
7) So what do you if you want to develop a space program but simply do not possess the vast resources of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration?
8) Well, what do you if you want to make crab salad, but you haven’t the money to buy crabmeat?
9) Why, you purchase krabmeat, a crabmeat substitute. It’s made of various seafoods and costs much less than the real thing.
10) Similarly, if you wish to fling manmade objects into space, you send up something small. Dispense with lunar modules, the Hubble telescope, space stations or other enormously heavy gadgetry.
11) Fling Napolitaines from the Earth instead.
12) A batch of Napolitaines is easy to make. All you need is butter, flour, raspberry jam, and pink cookie icing.
13) While even the simplest of Hubble telescopes involve: miles of circuitry, rare metals, scads of computing power, and other complicated gizmos.
14) The Apollo Program required gigantic rockets, specialize fuel, more frigging circuitry, with all of its parts engineered with incredible precision, and a reinforced launching pad to hurl its lunar modules to well, the moon.
15) What does it take to fling Napolitaines into outer space?
16) A really big slingshot.
17) So that’s what thrifty Mauritius did. It slingshotted hundreds of Napolitaines into space. Some made it to the moon, some to Neptune, and some even exited the Solar System. However, many Napolitaines never left our atmosphere and orbit our planet a few dozen feet in the air. The cookies in this recipe, at that altitude, resemble alien space ships. Except for the color. Orbiting UFOs are grey or off white. Napolitaines are pink. Now you know.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., and travel advisor
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.
It’s 1953. Europe is in a state of flux. The Cold War becomes chillier. Then Prime Minister, Winston Churchill vanishes while in Berlin. Britain’s already shaky prestige and power seems vulnerable, especially without the man who led it through World War II. Churchill needs to be found and be retrieved. However, the government can only do so much without admitting Churchill’s disappearance. MI6 turns to the resourceful Jake Weaver, a man they have found useful. Jake and his daughter Ilse’s secret trip to Berlin becomes fraught with danger as his friends prove less useful than expected while his enemies lie waiting in the shadows.
As in all his previous novels, Conlee’s research is meticulous. This action-packed adventure remains compelling throughout. It is a real page turner. Fans of history will love it. I recommend it highly.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., and travel advisor
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.
Angry Man #2
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., and travel advisor
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.
INGREDIENTS
1 24″-baguette (ficelle style, if you can find it)
¼ cup salted butter, softened
9 ounces ham, sliced
9 ounces Gruyère or Emmental cheese (optional)
Serves 3. Takes 10 minutes.
PREPARATION
Cut baguette open lengthwise almost all the way through. Open baguette. Spread butter evenly on top and bottom. Place ham evenly along baguette bottom. Distribute cheese, if used, evenly on top of ham. Close and press baguette. Divide into 3 8″-long sandwiches.
TIDBITS
1) In 1972, Neil Diamond recorded the song, “Song Sung Blue.” It is a great song and has remained justly popular for 50 years.
2) If you substitute the words “Jambon Beurre” for “Song Sung Blue” you still have a truly great song. Okay, sing the song in your head with the new lyrics. See? Ya see? The song’s still superb.
3) Jambon Beurre is a simple, yet great sandwich. French sandwich lovers have eaten them for many, many years.
4) How many?
5) I don’t know.
6) But I do know that the French devoured a little over a billion jambon beurres in 2013.
7) That’s not current. That’s from about nine years ago, as of press time.
8) But it takes a long time to count that high. If a French woman, say Farine du Ble were to count one such sandwich every second, it would take her about 33 years to complete the tally. Clearly, the task is more than a one-woman job.
10) Perhaps France could eliminate all unemployment by hiring all those without jobs to count the jambon beurres being consumed. In February, 2022 had 2,977,000 out of work people. If these people were hired by the state to count a billion jambon beurres and took ten seconds to count each sandwich, it would take them about an hour. Maybe longer if the counting involved travel.
11) Now you know how important arithmetic can be.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
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.
Wanda Wunder turns her fertile brain to a long-standing problem.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
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.
On a roll
How many times have you had to run to the toilet? How many times has the toilet sped toward you? None. But it gets you thinking. Wouldn’t it be nice if the scenery would change while you’re doing your business? Of course, it would. Look at the immense popularity of dinner trains or cruises. People on these touristy getaways love to see the great outdoors slowly move by as they eat.
People on toilets are no different. They’d dearly love to see the outdoors move while they move their insides. Let’s face it, this isn’t going to happen with our indoor toilets. Doing so would require extensive structural damage to our home.
But it is possible with outhouses. Simply place the half-moon shed on runners or skis, get something to do the pulling, and Bob’s your uncle. Poetry in motion.
Why not make mobile outhouses fun and competitive?
You can at the Outhouse Races held during the Fur Rondy Festival in Anchorage, Alaska. Sure there are other outhouse races, but Rondy’s is the biggest. Go big or go home.
Would-be participants should know the rules. You need a port-a-potty. You need to put the pooper on a pair of skis. The port-a-potty must be structurally sound. It’s really no fun at all and most embarrassing to be in a exploding or collapsing crapper. Registration costs $100 per team.
Then decide if you wish to enter in the traditional or unlimited divisions. Are you an old-school race pooper or are you a visionary?
Go there. Have fun.
You got to move it, move it.
Register by February 22 to compete in this year’s race. Um no, unless you have a time machine. And if you really had a time machine, would you really use it to compete in an outhouse race? The bright side is, of course, that you have about 354 days to register for next year’s race. Mark the calendar. Don’t be caught with your pants down.
But wait, there’s more! Other events include:
Fur Rendezvous Royal Tea & Coronation
Alaska State Snow Sculpture Competition – (Carving)
ALL Alaska Native Fur Rondy Basketball Tournament
Sled Dogs Downtown
Frostbite Foot Race Bib Pickup
Curling Bonspiel
Rondy World Championship Sled Dog Races
Carnival
Snowshoe Softball
Frostbite Footrace and Costume Fun Run 8am
Ice Bowling
Grand Parade
Blanket Toss
Fireworks Extravaganza Party, Tickets were limited, but you missed it anyway.
World Championship Outdoor Hockey Tournament
Blizzard Bash Concert
Cornhole Ice Breaker Tourney
Family Skate / Skate with the Critters
Running of the Reindeer
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., and travel advisor
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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