Thank you for reading my blogs. I’m grateful.
– 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.
This really happened. An early edition of the King James Bible urged the faithful to commit adultery. King James was not amused and fined the publishers rather heavily. If only they had hired an editor. Be an editor! Keep the world moral.
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.
INGREDIENTS
1 cup rice
3 garlic cloves
1 green onion
1 small yellow onion
1 carrot
1 zucchini
¾ pound beef steak or round
⅓ pound peel, deveined shrimp
2 tablespoons butter
4 eggs
¼ cup olive oil
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1½ tablespoons oyster sauce, fish sauce, hoisin sauce, or Worcestershire sauce
Note: This is a very chef friendly dish. Really any combination of chicken, beef, pork, or shrimp may be used as well as any veggie you have in your pantry or crisper.
Serves 4. Takes 1 hour.
PREPARATION
Cook rice according to instructions on package. While rice cooks, dice garlic cloves, green onion, and yellow onion. Slice carrot into thin rounds. Julienne zucchini; that is, cut it into thin sticks. Cut beef into short, thin strips. Cut shrimp in to ½” cubes.
While rice cooks, add butter and eggs to large pan. Fry eggs at medium heat until done to your liking. Remove from heat. Add olive oil and beef strips to large pot. Sauté strips for 5 minutes at medium-high heat. Stir enough to prevent burning. Add carrot, garlic, green onion, yellow onion, zucchini. pepper, and salt. Reduce heat to medium and sauté for 5 minutes or until yellow onion softens. Stir frequently. Add shrimp, soy sauce and oyster sauce and sauté for 3 minutes or until shrimp turns pink or orange. Stir occasionally.
Place 1 fried egg in each bowl. Add equal amounts of veggie/beef/shrimp mixture to each bowl. Top each bowl with equal amounts of rice. Place plate on top of each bowl. Gently turn each bowl and plate over. Gently lift bowls. Veggie/beef/shrimp/rice mixtures should keep the shape of the bowls.
TIDBITS
1) As of press time, Rice Bowl was in Witness Protection and could not give interviews.
– 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.
This a third installment of my favorite funny TV Shows. I sure forgot a lot of them in the previous two lists. I look forward to finding more gems.
* = Shows that were side splitting and I would very much want to see more episodes.
All in the Family
Dennis the Menace, 1959 to 1963
Derry Girls*
Dobie Gillis
Horrible Histories* (Oh my gosh, how did I ever forget this hilarious show?)
Kids in the Hall
My Family*
Our Miss Brooks
Patty Duke Show
Rocky and Bullwinkle, 1959 to 1964. This show goes by various names.
Please let me know your favorites. Thank you.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., critic
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.
Love soccer? Lover a shorter game? Love mud? Head on over to Finland and Scotland.* The last Swamp Soccer World Championship (SCWC) I could find took place in Finland. It might have even been held in Hyrynsalmi, Finland At any rate, the SCWC is usually held in Finland in the middle of June (Sorry, you missed it this year.) 200-to-300 teams from all over the world compete. The SCWC which has been organized by the so-called Swamp Barno Jyrki Väänänen** since 1998. There are five different ways to compete: men’s, women’s, mixed, men’s hobby, and Masters of Swamp.
The Soccer World Cup is usually held in Scotland on the last weekend of June, just after the World Championship in Finland.. There are rumors of it being held in China, India. and Turkey.
Six players are on each side. Each half lasts for 12 minutes. There are no offside penalties. This is fantastic for all those who never understood the rule in the first place. Other little rules abound. As of about 2018, no Polish team had ever competed.
For my Italian readers, these four sentences translate as Ami il calcio? Ami un gioco più breve? Ami il fango? Dirigiti verso Finlandia e Scozia.
For my English speaking readers, this translates as Swamp Baron Jyrki Väänänen who got the whole thing started. Yay Jyrki!
Swamp soccer arose from the practice of Finnish cross-country skiers to train in swamps.
Mud soccer is lots of fun. Be sure to register for the next Swamp Soccer madness, whether in Finland, Scotland, or whenever. Let me know how it turns out.
– 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.
INGREDIENTS – MINCE FILLING
1 medium potato
2 garlic cloves
1 large onion
1 tomato
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon curry powder
⅔ pound ground beef
2 tablespoons chutney, mango or other fruit
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
½ cup water
INGREDIENTS – FAT CAKES
3¼ cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
½ tablespoon yeast
1½ cups warm water
2½ cups vegetable oil
SPECIAL UTENSIL
Dutch oven
Serves 5. Takes 2 hours 20 minutes.
PREPARATION – MINCE FILLING
Peel potato. Cut potato into ¼” cubes. Mince garlic cloves, onions, and tomato. Add garlic, onion, and vegetable oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add curry powder and ground beef. Reduce heat to medium. Cook for 2 minutes or until beef browns. Stir frequently.
Reduce heat to medium. Add potato, tomato, chutney, Worcestershire sauce, and water. Cook for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to low. Partially cover and simmer for 25 minutes or until liquid thickens to a sauce. Stir enough to keep filling from burning. Remove from heat.
PREPARATION – FAT CAKES
Add flour, salt, sugar, and yeast to large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork. Add water, a little a time, mixing with spoon until a soft dough forms. Knead dough with hands for 5 minutes or until you get a smooth dough ball. Cover and let sit for 40 minutes or until dough doubles in size.
Form 10 smaller dough balls. or magwinyas, with hands. Stretch the magwinyas until they become oval, Add vegetable oil to Dutch oven. Heat oil at medium heat. Oil is hot enough when a bit of added dough will start to dance. Add 3 or 4 magwinyas at a time. Cover. Deep fry for 2 minutes or until bottom of magwinyas turn golden brown. Turn over with spatula or fork. Deep fry for 2 minutes or until the new bottom of the magwinyas turn golden brown and fork inserted into them comes out clean. Remove with slotted spoon and place on plates covered with paper towels. Repeat for successive batches.
PREPARATION – FINAL
Wait until magwinyas cool enough to be touched, about 10 more minutes. Slice magwinyas along their length almost to the bottom. (It should look like an open hot-dog bun.) Push the sides of the magwinyas in from the inside. (This lets it hold more.) Place ⅓ cup filling in magwinyas. Close magwinyas.
TIDBITS
1) Look at the above photo for this dish. The mince filling sits securely in the fat cake. It doesn’t fly up to the ceiling However, if you were to turn the magwinya with mince upside down something dramatic would happen. The mince would fall out of the fat cake and fall onto the plate.
2) The plate is just a wee bit closer to the center of the Earth than in the picture. Perhaps there’s a reason for the falling mince filing.
3) Spoiler alert, it’s gravity.
4) In 1686, Isaac Newton and his sweetheart were sitting under a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g when an apple fell on his head and stopped all the smooching.
5) “Ow,” said Isaac. “I wonder why the apple fell,” said his amour. “Perhaps some unseen force acted on it.”
6) “Wahdu,” said Isaac. (Wahdu is an Indonesian word expressing amazement. You’ll have to excuse the great scientist lapse into Indonesian. It’s likely he suffered from a temporary conclusion.) “I’ll bet it’s one of the elemental forces of the universe. I shall call it gravity.”
7) Isaac left his love in the lurch and scurried back to his study to write up his theory on gravity and other basic forces. He called his magnum opus, his great contribution to scientific understanding, Principia Mathematica. He presented his worthy work to the Royal Society of London.
8) Who promptly turned it down. They had no money having blown their entire publishing budget on “The History of Fishes.”
9) Thank goodness, for the great astronomer, Edmund Halley, who paid for the printing of Principia Mathematica. Isaac never did marry, but the world was made safe for the study of physics.
– 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.
My old Printer had achieved consciousness and taken an instant dislike to me. Now it’s dead. I ordered a new printer eight days ago. It got lost in transit. I ordered a second printer. This printer should arrive tomorrow. “But what about all those days you were without a printer?” I hear you say. Don’t worry, whenever my computer printer goes AWOL I fall back on my trusty 6921-2 PencilWriter(tm). Sure, it’s not as fancy as my old HP OfficeJet Pro 6978(tm). But it always works and possesses many clear advantages over computer printers as the picture below demonstrates.
6921-2 Pencil Writer
– 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.
Become a culinary saint. Become a caterer.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., motivator
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 – DOUGH
2¼ teaspoons yeast
½ cup white sugar
1 cup warm water
⅔ cup softened butter (⅓ cup + ½ cup more butter later)
4 cups flour (¼ cup more later)
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
¼ cup flour
⅓ cup melted butter (½ cup more later)
2 tablespoons brown sugar (1¼ cups more later)
no-stick spray
INGREDIENTS – CARAMEL SAUCE
½ cup melted butter
1¼ cups brown sugar
1½ cups heavy cream
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
½ tablespoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
SPECIAL UTENSILS
electric beater or bread maker
2 9″-x-13″ cake pans
sonic obliterator
Serves 12. Takes 3 hours.
PREPARATION – DOUGH
Add yeast, white sugar, and warm water to large mixing bowl. Blend with fork. Let sit for 10 minutes. Add ⅔ cup softened butter, and eggs. Gradually add 4 cups flour while mixing with electric beater until you get a smooth-and-slightly-sticky dough ball. (If using a bread machine, use the dough setting for 10 minutes.)
Dust flat surface with ¼ cup flour. Add dough ball to flat surface. Roll out dough until it is ⅛” thick. (This should require about 2 14″-x-8″ surfaces.) Brush dough with ⅓ cup melted butter. Sprinkle dough with 2 tablespoons brown sugar. Roll up dough. Seal edge of dough by pressing it into dough roll. Cut dough roll into 12 equal pieces. Spray cake pans with no-stick spray. Cover with damp cloth and let rise for 1 hour.
PREPARATION – CARAMEL SAUCE
While dough rolls rise, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add ½ cup melted butter and 1¼ cups brown sugar to pot. Heat using low-medium heat. Stir constantly until brown sugar melts. Add heavy cream, light corn syrup, cinnamon, and vanilla extract. Stir with spoon until well blended. Pour this caramel sauce over risen dough rolls. Bake dough rolls at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or they turn golden brown Serve immediately from the cake pans or wait 5 minutes, loosen rolls with knife and invert cake pan onto serving plate..
This is a long and possibly messy recipe what with flour dust flying everywhere. So, if your guests give you any guff about the rolls or for that matter anything really, zap them with your sonic obliterator. You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life, certainly not in your kitchen.
TIDBITS
1) I list the sonic obliterator as an essential utensil in many recipes. But can’t it be used as a weapon? Yes, yes it can. However, like many dual-use kitchen utensils, it started out with only a culinary role.
2) Everyone knows that Italian chefs have brought us many great inventions. The balloon comes to mind. In 1791 Paolo Sforza let an enormous cow stomach hang over a pot of steaming clams. Still, he was smart enough to realize its military potential. He sold the idea to the new French Republic of 1792. France then made balloons to watch for approaching armies. The monarchial powers of Europe could never catch the French forces by surprise. The French Revolution remained. Democracy’s spread became inevitable. America owes its democracy to the French Republic and, by extension, to an Italian chef inadvertently steaming a cow stomach.
3) But so many other kitchen utensils gave birth to weapons and vice versa. Here are some of them:
Knives: Stone knives were used to slay and eat mastodons. Stone Age raiders used them to attack villages. Early, early chefs carved bison steaks with long knives. Long knives became swords. Rome built its legendary empire with swords.
Spears: They arose from the wooden skewers cavemen used for mastodon kebabs.
Can Openers: English pikemen carried armor openers to get plate armor off French knights. Armor openers changed into can openers. So, whenever you open a can of Chef Boyarditm mini ravioli, give a moment to thank the victors of Agincourt in 1415.
4) In 2015 Chef Conti grew so tired of lugging beef fat to the bins outside that he invented the sonic obliterator. He’d make an entire tower of fat disappear with just one push of a button. Yay.
5) A few years later an American tourist so insulted Chef Cavour of La Mucca Ubriaca restaurant in Venice that obliterated the offending oaf. The oaf’s family had the police arrest the chef for murder. However Italy’s culinary courts acquitted the chef in the landmark case Oafs v Cavour, 2017. So behave yourself when you dine out.
6) Armies all over the world are frantically developing the sonic obliterator into a long range weapon suitable for modern combat. And so it goes.
– 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.
Anja Heino practices tossing cell phones
Be sure to make your way to Savonlinna, Finland during mid August* for its prestigious Cell Phone Throwing Championship. The traditional part has participants throwing the cell phones over their shoulders. The longest toss wins. Cranky folks, such as myself, who have never quite adjusted to the new technology and hurl one phone after another, are usually the tournament favorites. However, in 2012. it was a well-adjusted man named Eric Karjalainon won. He said he prepared for this event mostly by drinking.
Artistic types will be drawn to the freestyle cell-phone tossing part of the championship. Participants are judged by their creativity. Contestants have been known to do acrobatics or juggling while throwing their cell phones.
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’d watch. Contact the proper agency for rules of competition. As of press time, Nokia is still not an official sponsor.
* = August is almost upon us. Make you travel arrangements right away!
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., travel guru
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.
Paul De Lancey's Blog 