Author Archives: pauldelancey

Bacon & Chocolate’s Concession Speech

Posted on November 13, 2016 by pauldelancey

Dear Americans,

The voters have spoken. Ms. Clinton won the majority of the vote. Mr. Trump won the majority of the electoral votes. He will be our nation’s next president. We wish him well and hope that he will have success in helping this country. I, the presidential candidate for the Bacon & Chocolate Party, would have conceded earlier but I went into shock when the election results came pouring in. I went on a near-bear and root-beer bender. I am just now coming out of this funk.

How did this shattering loss occur? Poll after poll after poll of people typing this blog or ever the more widespread poll of B&C voters had us winning it all by a comfortable margin. There is, alas, the possibility of widespread rigging in this election. I mean after all, how can anyone explain how we were not on the ballot in any state or the District of Columbia. How easy it would be the raise the divisive howl of, “Fraud, fraud, fraud.” However, we must do all we can to avoid tearing our great nation apart even more. Therefore, B&C will not contest the election result, preferring instead to drown our sorrow by watching old reruns of “Get Smart” and drinking root beer.

What can Bacon & Chocolate’s supporters do for the future? Well, we can make sure that we turn in those sheets chock full of signatures to the state electoral commissions. Did this happen? Was there voter fraud? Who can say? Did we even collect signatures at all? It’s all very cloudy. We must be vigilant and diligent in the future.

On a more serious note, Bacon & Chocolate Party started as a joke. As the election dragged on and on, it became less and less of a laugh and more of a real alternative to the shrill politics of hate. B&C never put out anything hateful. On the main, we were a consistent island of decency out there. I personally feel that one candidate and party and one set of supporters stirred up more hate than did the others. Many of my supporters in the B&C would no doubt disagree. And that was the glory and beauty of Bacon & Chocolate. It was for everyone. Everyone was valued by B&C. There was a place for every American.

Bacon & Chocolate party only took stands of a few things. We wanted to promote bacon and chocolate and to protect the supply and protection of the same. We wanted to save our bees. We took up the cause of the taco truck owners. I mean, tacos are wonderful. For the most part though, we would have looked at what the majority of Americans wanted on any issue and adopted that as our policy. What other political party in America can say that?

I am sad that Bacon & Chocolate Party was the only party that could bridge the divisiveness that is the current America. We were the only party that liked and embraced everyone. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to eat a chocolate doughnut.

– 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: Bacon & Chocolate, humor | Tags: America, bacon, chocolate, Clinton, cookbook, District of Columbia, election, Get Smart, recipes, root beer, taco, taco truck, Trump, voter fraud | 4 Comments

Qurotob (Bread salad from Tajikistan)

Posted on October 30, 2016 by pauldelancey

Tajik Entree

QUROTOB
(Bread Salad)

INGREDIENTS – SALAD

2 pita loaves
1½ tablespoons olive oil (1½ more tablespoons later)
1 onion
2 green onions
1½ tablespoons olive oil
2 cups Greek yogurt
½ cup hot water
1 teaspoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon dill
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon sugar
½ cucumber
4 tomatoes
1 tablespoon fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon fresh parsley
8 non breads (See above recipe) or other flatbreads such as fatir or pita

SPECIAL UTENSILS

cookie sheet
large serving plate

Serves 8. Takes 40 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, Brush pita loaves with 1½ tablespoons olive oil. Break loaves into small bits. Place pita bits on cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-to-20 minutes or until pita bits turn golden brown. (The time varies with the thickness of the pita loaves.)

While pita bits bake, dice onion and green onions. Add 1½ tablespoons olive oil, onion, and green onion to pan. Sauté at medium high heat for 5 minutes or until onion and green onion soften. Add Greek yogurt, hot water, lemon juice, coriander, dill, salt, and sugar to large mixing bowl. Whisk until well blended. Seed cucumber. Dice cucumber, tomatoes, cilantro, and parsley.

Add toasted pita bits to large serving plate. Pour yogurt mixture over pita bits. Top with sautéd onion and green onion, cucumber, and tomato. Garnish with cilantro and parsley. Guests use their non bread to scoop up the yogurty, veggie, bread salad from the communal serving plate. Alternatively, spread all the fixing over a non bread and use a knife and fork.

TIDBITS

1) How did this wonderful entree come about? Here is the time line.

2) 4,500 million years ago (mya): First single-celled organisms come into existence. So does the first spam e-mail involving Nigerian dictators and their money.

3) 4,000 mya: A woman named Sally shows up at the DMV without an appointment.

4) 3,500 mya: Earliest oxygen molecule. It’s name was Bob. There were no last names that long ago.

5) 2,500 mya: Oxygen crisis. Oxygen has mid-life jitters.

6) 1,200 mya: Earliest sexual reproduction. Single-cell dating sites occur. First pickup lines invented.

7) 800 mya: Multi-cellular organisms hit the world scene. Sally’s still in line.

8) 440 mya: 86% of all species are exterminated. First known appearance of DaleksTM.

9) 350 mya: Sharks with rows of nasty, pointy teeth show up. Dun-dun, dun-dun.

10) 275 mya: Theraspid synaspids branch off from pelycosaur synapsids; no idea what this means.

11) 225 mya: The world’s first dinosaurs come from out of nowhere. They aren’t met with thunderous applause;. no life forms have hands.

12) 220 mya: Gymosperm forests dominate land life. This is not as dirty as it sounds.

13) 219 mya: It takes life 1 millions years to spot the first typo. The correct spelling is gymnosperm.

14) 160 mya: Mammals show up. Life is great until …

15) 155 mya: Mosquitoes do also.

16) 65 mya: Dinosaurs get wiped out by gigantic meteor. Mammals begin their ascent to global supremacy. Did mammals engineer this event? Who knows? They leave no written record.

17) 63 mya: Creodonts, not to be confused with orthodontists, spontaneously appear.

18) 52 mya: First bats show up.

19) 51 mya: First balls appear.

20) 50 mya: Baseball becomes popular when organisms finally agree on rules.

21) 250 thousand years ago: Humans pop up in Eastern Africa.

22) 300 years ago. Human chefs create qurotob, bread salad. Sally gets her license. Life is good.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: Africa, baseball, bread salad, Chef Paul, cookbook, creodonts, Daleks, dinosaurs, DMV, entree, flatbreads, Greek, mammals, meteor, mosquitoes, non, orthodontists, oxygen, pita, qurotob, recipes, sexual reproduction, single-celled, synaspids, Tajik, yogurt | 2 Comments

Jasha Maroo (Diced Chicken)

Posted on October 18, 2016 by pauldelancey

Bhutanese Entree

JASHA MAROO
(Diced Chicken)

INGREDIENTS

1 cup Bhutanese red rice or regular rice
½ pound chicken breasts
½ pound chicken thighs
3 garlic cloves
1 green chile
1 small onion
2 shallots
1 medium tomato
1″ ginger root or 1 tablespoon fresh ginger
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ teaspoon pink Himalayan salt or regular salt
1 cup chicken stock

Serves 4. Takes 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cook rice according to instructions on bag. While rice cooks, cut chicken breasts and chicken thighs into ½” cubes. Dice garlic, green chile, onion, shallots, and tomato. Grate or mince ginger root.

Add vegetable oil, green chile, ginger, onion, and shallots to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add chicken cubes and tomato. Sauté at medium heat for 5 minutes or until chicken turns white on the outside. Stir frequently Add salt and chicken stock. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Boil for 10 minutes or until liquid is mostly gone. Stir occasionally. Serve hot alongside rice.

TIDBITS

1) “Jasha Maroo” is an anagram for “AJ has a room.”

2) Well, that’s one less worry for us all. Good for you, AJ.

3) Though why someone thought it necessary to put that in code is beyond me.

4) Perhaps AJ has been hired by some evil foreign power to foment revolution in Bhutan and “AJ has a room is secret message saying he is ready to incite violence against the country’s government.

5) Dang AJ, you seemed so nice and forlorn. So I found you a hotel in Bhutan. Geez, AJ, never again.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, international | Tags: Bhutan, Bhutanese, Bhutanese red rice, Chef Paul, code, cookbook, diced chicken, entree, jasha maroo, recipes, red rice, revolution | 2 Comments

Bacon & Chocolate Party’s Principles and Stuff

Posted on October 16, 2016 by pauldelancey

My fellow humans,

What with the Cubs quite possibly heading to the World Series for the first time since 1945, news about Bacon & Chocolate Party has been crowded. People starved for a real political party are asking, “What ever happened to the great Bacon & Chocolate Party?” and “What do they believe in?” Ok, here’s the scoop.

1) Bacon & Chocolate Party is on the ballot in all but fifty states and the District of Columbia.

2)) B&C is within 50% of the votes of winning every state’s and DC’s electoral votes.

3) B&C is corruption proof. We have accepted no contributions from any special interest or lobbyist.

4) Or lobbist, i.e., a professional tennis player.

5) B&C’s presidential candidate, Paul R. De Lancey, is amazing. The vice-presidential candidate, Candace C. Bowen, is crackerjack, too.

6) We believe in the tastiness and healing properties of bacon and chocolate.

7) Save our bees.

8) We believe much of the deadlock in D.C. is due to the rancor between the political parties.

9) We will enforce mandatory nap time every time cranky Congress fails to legislate anything.

10) We will take massive national polls on everything. Those issues getting the highest percentage of yeses will get passed.

11) Ms. Bowen and I and the B&C cabinet will take frequent naps as well. We don’t like getting cranky either.

12) We’ll have great big, super tasty barbecues every week on the White House lawn. One guests, picked randomly from all Americans, will attend these food fests.

13) Anything that adversely affects our bees and our bacon and chocolate supplies will be dealt with.

14) Funding for Paul’s Flying Squirrel Squadron will be increased. It does wonderful work protecting this great nation.

15) And stuff.

Presidential candidate Paul R. De Lancey

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: Bacon & Chocolate, politics | Tags: B&C, bacon, Bacon & Chocolate Party, barbecues, bees, Candace C. Bowen, candidate, chocolate, Congress, cookbook, corruption, Cubs, De Lancey, hunks, lobbyist, Lutheran, mushrooms, nap time, Paul's Flying Squirrel Squadron, presidential, recipes, tennis, White House, World Series | Leave a comment

Kulu’wa (Beef tomato stew)

Posted on October 14, 2016 by pauldelancey

Eritrean Entree

KULU’WA
(Beef tomato stew)

INGREDIENTS

1 pound lamb or beef stew meat
2 garlic cloves
1 onion
3 tomatoes
2½ tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon berbere spice
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt

Serves 4. Takes 40 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cut meat into ½” cubes. Dice garlic, onion, and tomatoes. Add butter, garlic, and onion to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add tomato, berbere spice, pepper, and salt. Stir until well blended. Add meat cubes. Sauté at medium-high for 15 minutes or until meat is tender. Goes well with injera, Eritrean or Ethiopian flatbread.

TIDBITS

1) When objects recede from you at a very fast rate, say 43.7 miles per second, they will look redder than they really are. Astronomers call this display a “red shift.”

2) The entire universe is expanding. This is why some marriages fail. The partners are literally getting farther apart from each other every second. And that brown freckle? The expanding universe makes it looks redder as well. The freckle now looks like a hickey to your already suspicious spouse. Harsh words get said, words that can’t be taken back and soon you’re on your way to divorce court when a cop pulls you over for going 43.7 miles per second, which is way more than you thought your Honda FitTM could do even with high-octane gas. You try to tell the lawman that your speed comes from the expanding universe. He shakes his head. “Like I haven’t heard that one before.”

3) This is also why many people haven’t eaten this recipe’s red entree. Kulu’wa. The redness means it is moving away from you at 43.7 miles per second. You really have to be a speedy eater to get even one delicious spoonful in your mouth. Why, in just one minute your kulu’wa has made across the country. Most of my red soups end up at my brother’s kitchen table. He says, “Thank you.”

4) One of my tomato soups ended up at Cape Canaveral. NASA quickly bolted it down and is currently investigating its possibilities in powering intergalactic space travel.

Chef Paul

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, international | Tags: astronomers, Berbere, Cape Canaveral, Chef Paul, cookbook, De Lancey, divorce, entree, Eritrean, Ethiopian, expanding universe, flatbread, Honda, injera, intergalactic, kickey, kulu'wa, lamb, marriages, NASA, recipes, red shift, space travel, spice, stew | Leave a comment

The Gigantic Bunny of Central Asia

Posted on October 8, 2016 by pauldelancey

Look at that white spot in the middle of the map to the right. It is the country of Tajikistan. It also looks like a bunny, You can see its two floppy ears and cute little nose. It is facing left. A small rock obscures its tummy. Of course, it really is a bunny. A dormant bunny, a horrifically large bunny, but still a bunny.

Eons ago, before iPhones(tm), before typewriters, and even pencils, before humans, jellyfish, and even telemarketers, giant bunnies hundreds of miles long hopped the Earth, flourishing along side dinosaurs. Then an inconvenient asteroid slammed into our planet obliterating many species instantly. (What species were obliterated? I don’t know. We have no traces. They were obliterated.)

You know, our parents told us they had to walk seven miles through a foot of snow to get to school. Well na ha, the T-rexes and gigantic bunnies had to walk hundreds of miles through TWO feet of dust trying to find a meal. Many species died out completely. Some evolved into much tinier things such as birds. And so it was with the huge bunnies. They kept getting smaller and smaller until they reached their present cute size. Except for Tajik. Seeing no hundred-long bunny babes to mate with, he just laid down and hibernated. Dust settled upon him over the eons, so much so that no traces of him remain of him save from world mals.

Tajik is not dead. He will wake up from his great slumber when the bunnies of the world are in their greatest need. And so we wait. We wait.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: history | Tags: babes, bunnies, bunny, Chef Paul, cookbook, De Lancey, Earth, hunks, iPhones, jellyfish, Lutheran, mushrooms, parent, recipes, T-rexes, Tajik, Tajikistan, telemarketers, typerwriters | 5 Comments

Bajan Baked Chicken From Barbados

Posted on October 5, 2016 by pauldelancey

Barbadian Entree

BAJAN BAKED CHICKEN

INGREDIENTS

½ teaspoon allspice
2 tablespoons softened butter
3 garlic cloves
½ teaspoon ground cloves
4 stalks green onions
¼ cup lime juice
½ teaspoon marjoram
1 large onion
½ teaspoon parsley
2 tablespoons peanut oil
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 red bell pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
1 Scotch bonnet or jalapeno pepper
1 teaspoon thyme
½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 pounds boneless chicken breasts or thighs

SPECIAL UTENSILS

9″ x 13″ casserole dish
blender or food processor

Serves 4. Takes 5 hours.

PREPARATION

Add all ingredients to blender except chicken and cilantro. Blend on medium speed or until ingredients form a paste. Place paste and chicken pieces in large mixing bowl. Turn chicken pieces around until they are thoroughly coated with paste. Cover and marinate in refrigerator for 4 hours. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake for 20-to-40 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink inside. Baste every 20 minutes.

TIDBITS

1) Even roosters like my recipes. To impress hot hens, they dance around, repeatedly drop and pick up tidbits of food, and make food calls. This ritual is called “tidbitting” after the Tidbit section of my recipes. Wow, I’m honored.

2) Sultry biddies prefer males who tidbit often. They also go squooshy for roosters with brighter, large combs atop their heads. Size matters, even in the poultry world.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, international | Tags: bajan, Bajan baked chicken, baked chicken, Barbadian, Barbados, biddies, breast, Chef Paul, cookbook, entree, hens, hunks, Lutheran, recipes, roosters, scotch bonnet, size matters, squooshy, tidbit, tidbitting, Worcestershire | Leave a comment

Paul’s Pizza

Posted on October 4, 2016 by pauldelancey

American Entree

PAUL’S PIZZA

INGREDIENTS – PIZZA CRUST

2⅔ cups all-purpose flour
⅓ cup beer
⅔ cup water
2⅔ tablespoons vegetable oil
¾ teaspoon sugar
¾ teaspoon salt
2½ teaspoons active dry yeast

no-stick spray

INGREDIENTS- TOPPINGS*

10 mozzarella sticks
6 tablespoons pasta sauce
12 ounces ground pork sausage
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1½ cups grated mozzarella cheese

* = All of these toppings are divided equally between 2 pie tins.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

bread maker
2 8″-pie tins

Makes 2 8″ pies. Takes 1 hour 45 minutes.

PREPARATION – PIZZA CRUST

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 pie tins with no-stick spray. This will prevent the crust from forming a glue-like bond with the pie tins.

Take the dough out of the bread maker and divide it into two lumps. Roll out one lump until its dough cover will cover the bottom and sides of the pie tin and still have 1″ of dough hanging over the edge of the pie tin. 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 pie tin or coat it with a thin layer of flour before spreading the dough. Repeat for second dough lump. When 30 minutes are left on the bread maker, preheat oven to 400 degrees.

PREPARATION – TOPPINGS

Place 5 mozzarella sticks end-to-end and as close to the edge of the pie tin as possible. Fold the dough that’s hanging beyond the edge of the tin over the mozzarella sticks. The mozzarella sticks should be completely enclosed by dough.

Add 3 tablespoons pasta sauce to the pie tin. Spread with spatula. Flatten 6 ounces ground pork sausage until it is wide enough to cover the pasta sauce. Cover pasta sauce with ground pork sausage. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning and 1 teaspoon minced garlic over pork sausage. Spread ¾ cup mozzarella cheese over ground pork sausage and minced garlic. Repeat for second pie tin.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or until cheese starts to brown.

TIDBITS

1) The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, prohibited the sale of alcohol. Beer has alcohol. Thus, the sale of beer was prohibited.

2) It didn’t take long for beer drinkers to realize if beer couldn’t be sold, it couldn’t be bought.

3) But what about if beer were combined with other legal things. Like anesthesia? Soon surgeries all over the nation were adding beer mist to the ether they administered to patients. Beer mist made drifting off into unconsciousness easier, pleasurable in fact.

4) So much so, that people in all the big cities, Chicago, in particular, took to shooting each other, so they could go to hospitals for their beer misted anesthesia. Aren’t you impressed I spelled unconsciousness and anesthesia correctly and on the first try?

5) Municipal governments started to look askance at all this violence.

6) Then in 1920, Bee R. Barley told her friend Al Capone, “Why don’t you sell beer illegally?” And her idea was good. With the Chicago police busy investigating emergency rooms, Al was free to open one speakeasy after another. Beer sales boomed. Al went big time into selling beer. So did other hoodlums. Everyone wanted a piece of the lucrative illegal beer trade.

7) Competition for the beer trade became fierce. Things were said. Bullets were fired. Soon gang wars raged all across Chicago. For a while, the underworld told city officials that all the shootings arose from people really, really wanting beer anesthesia. Then the Saint. Valentine’s Day massacre happened. Seven murdered men. Dead men want no beer anesthesia. The gig was up. Eliott Ness and his Untouchables closed all the breweries. Cleaned up the surgeries as well.

8) But people still needed their beer. And so pizzas with beer crusts came about. Peace broke out in Chicago. Fragile yes, but enough to keep the city going until Prohibition ended in 1933. I offer up this recipe in the cause of worldwide peace. Can a Nobel Prize be far behind?

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, history | Tags: Al Capone, alcohol, anesthesia, anesthesiologists, beer, bread maker, breweries, Chef Paul, Chicago, constitution, cookbook, Eighteenth Amendment, Eliott Ness, entrees, massacre, mozzarella, municipal governemt, Nobel Prize, pizza, police, Prohibition, recipes, shootings, speakeasies, St. Valentine's Day, Untouchables, violence, Volstead Act | 3 Comments

Bunny Chow

Posted on September 30, 2016 by pauldelancey

South African Entree

BUNNY CHOW

INGREDIENTS

1 medium onion
3 medium potatoes
4 cardamom pods
1 cinnamon stick
½ teaspoon fennel seeds
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tomatoes
2 pounds chicken breasts or lamb
3 fresh curry leaves
3 tablespoons Durban masala (See recipe)
⅓ cup chicken stock
2 1-lb whole white loaves
1 tablespoon fresh cilantro

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

Dutch oven

PREPARATION

Dice onion. Peel potatoes. Cut potatoes into 1″ cubes. Add onion, potato, cardamom pods, cinnamon stick, fennel seeds, and vegetable oil to Dutch oven. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir constantly. Remove from heat.

Dice tomatoes. Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Add Durban masala, Add tomato, chicken, curry leaves, and Durban masala to Dutch oven. Cook using medium heat for 5 minutes. Stir frequently. Add chicken stock. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes or until potato is tender and chicken is no longer pink inside. Remove Dutch oven from heat. Discard cinnamon stick.

Slice bread loaf in half along its length. Use sharp knife to cut off most of the soft white bread from each half. Leave ½”-to-1″ of bread crust along the edges and bottoms. (The scooped out bread can be made into bread crumbs.) Ladle potato/tomato/chicken mixture into each hollowed-out loaf half. Garnish with coriander. Repeat for second bread loaf.

TIDBITS

1) Bunnies are naturally fierce fighters. Armies everywhere had them. Napoleon wouldn’t have dreamed of conquering Europe without his corps of bunny irregulars.

2) But you say, “Aha, Napoleon didn’t conquer Europe. See, you’re wrong. Bunnies aren’t so fierce.” Ho, ho, they are. Napoleon won victory after victory up until 1808 with his beserker bunnies.

3) Then, Napoleon invaded Spain. Spain had guerrilla fighters. More importantly, it had battle hardened bunnies. Conquistador bunnies. Bunnies that pushed Moors out of the Iberian positions during the centuries of La Reconquista. Bunnies that had accompanied Cortes to Mexico, Pizarro to Peru, and Albondigas to Greenland. Bunnies that terrified conquered peoples into quiet submission for centuries.

4) The French army never had been on the receiving end of a bunny charge. Never had seen those twitching noses and the unreasoning terror that engendered. Never had to see a sea of bunny tails popping up and down as they stamped toward them . . .

5) where they nibbled your shoes and your shoelaces and so you tripped and your comrades laughed and laughed at you and felt so ashamed that you deserted the army and ran home where you sold sprigs of cilantro which tastes like soap to some people which was okay because all life tasted like soap to you and you spent the rest of your life thinking in run-on sentences.

6) And even if you managed to man up and stand your ground after all that, the bunnies would bite your ankles repeatedly which often hurt, particularly so when their teeth actually broke your skin.

7) Suppose you were a stalwart sort, a man among and you were still fighting bunnies crazed beyond belief by sangria, you’d still have to deal with the bunnies’ powerful rear legs, legs that could kick a potato twenty feet.

8) Imagine. You’ve seen their twitching noses, their bobbing cottontails, had your shoelaces nibbled in two, had your ankles bitten, and now they’re hurting your shins and they won’t stop. And then, and then, they keep your potatoes twenty feet away where they get smooshed in the heat of battle.

9) You have no food. So, you confiscate some local food, some paella perhaps, but your body hasn’t faced Spanish food bacteria. So, now you’re a French soldier in Spain fighting for an emperor who only cares about himself and you have the mother of all stomach aches. You throw thrown your musket and flee.

10) The rest of your comrades see that you, a man among men, are fleeing. They realize the fight is lost. They flee as well. Your army is routed. Bunny-fear demoralizes the other French armies. French forces reel back to France. Allied hordes attack Paris and storm the Montmarte. France capitulates. Your flight from the Spanish battlefield brought all this about.

11) The French Emperor Napoleon gets exiled to Elba. The long-time leader gives a farewell to his Old Guard, “Adieu mes amis, nous sommes battus vaillamment et aurions gagné mais pour ce lecteur de recette et sa peur des lapins.”*

* = “Good buy my friends, we fought valiantly and would have won but for this read reader of recipes and his fear of bunnies. (Sorry, apparently Napoleon’s French is only as good as mine. Weird.)

12) So you’ve changed history. Awesome responsibility, isn’t it?

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: bacteria, beserker, bunny, bunny chow, Chef Paul, cilantro, cinnamon, cookbook, Cortes, Cortez, curry, Durban masala, Dutch, Eat Me, Elba, emperor, entree, Europe, fighters, France, French, Greenland, guerilla, Mexico, Montmarte, Napoleon, Old Guard, oven, Paris, Peru, Pizarro, recipes, run-on sentences, sangria, South African, Spain, Spanish | 3 Comments

Durban Masala

Posted on September 25, 2016 by pauldelancey

South African Appetizer

DURBAN MASALA

INGREDIENTS

½ teaspoon cardamom
1 teaspoon Cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1¼ teaspoons coriander
1¼ teaspoons cumin
¼ teaspoon fenugreek
¾ teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon mace
⅛ teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons turmeric

Makes ¼ cup. Takes 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add all ingredients to mixing. Mix with whisk until well blended.

TIDBITS

1) Durban is a city in South Africa. Durban rhymes with Durban. This is useful when constructing rhyming poems. In much the same way, gnome rhymes with Nome, a city in Alaska. Over 20,000 gnomes live in Nome, admired for their strong work ethic. They’ll guard your garden for amazing lengths of time and everyone knows much polar bears fear gnomes.

4) Gnomes first came to Massachusetts on the Mayflower, fleeing persecution from waffle eaters. Later, they worked their way south, guarding spice gardens along the way. The little guys eventually settled in Chancellorsville, Virginia–Why not?–to lead a safe, if not totally accepted existence.

5) Tragedy struck in 1863. General Stonewall Jackson was shot after the battle of Chancellorsville. Enraged townsfolk held a gnome fired the fatal shot and drove the wee ones out of town.

6) The gnomes drifted ever northwestward, until they reached Nome on the Bering Sea. They could drift no longer. They wore parkas to keep warm. The parkas covered their faces, just like the natives. You couldn’t tell the gnomes and the people apart. Sure, gnomes are much shorter than people, but you always keep your face to the ground during a blizzard. And 19th-century Nome always had blizzards. The townsfolk didn’t even notice the little folk until 1941, when World War II broke out. People. after kneeling, worked shoulder to shoulder with the gnomes to defeat the common foe. The gnomes gained acceptance into one career after another. Today, Nome’s the gnome genome sequencing capital of the world.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, humor, international | Tags: Alaska, apocalyptic, Bering Sea, blizzards, Chancellorsville, Chef Paul, cookbook, coriander, Durban, Durbin masala, genome, ginger, gnomes, hunks, Lutheran, masala, Massachusetts, Mayflower, Nome, parkas, polar bears, recipes, sequencing, South African, Stonewall Jackson, thriller, turmeric, Virgina, waffle, work ethic, World War II | 3 Comments

Author Archives: pauldelancey

Bacon & Chocolate’s Concession Speech

Qurotob (Bread salad from Tajikistan)

Jasha Maroo (Diced Chicken)

Bacon & Chocolate Party’s Principles and Stuff

Kulu’wa (Beef tomato stew)

The Gigantic Bunny of Central Asia