Many book holders cost about $25, at least the one I saw at Barnes & Noble did. And they are bulky. And you can’t have them over the stove. What can be done? I’m glad you asked. Take a plastic pants hanger, one that you get when you buy a pair a pants from the store. Simply place your recipe in the pants hanger and hang it above the stove. You can now cook without dashing back and forth between the kitchen table and your stove. Hurray!
Grit magazine is still around. I saw hundreds of their ads in darn near every comic book that came out when I was growing up in the 60’s. But they never gave any indication of promoting culinary adventuring. Until now. Please enjoy the following pictures. The first one is from Sad Sack and the Sarge magazine, July, 1969. The second is from Grit magazine’s website. Enjoy.
Suppose you simply must lose weight in the next two days. How is this possible you ask? I am glad you asked. I am here to help. The best thing to do is give up desserts for the next 48 hours. However, when desserts look like the following it is clear an alternative path to quick weight is needed.
May I suggest the following?
1) Do nothing. Your cells are busy doing all sorts of tasks. This takes energy. Making energy depletes your fat cells.
2) Brush your hair. Dandruff is excess weight.
3) Cut your hair. Hair is excess weight.
4)Dice an onion. Tears are excess weight.
5) Have sex. Bodily fluids are excess weight. Good aerobic exercise, too.
6) Worry a lot. Worrying uses up energy.
7) Weigh yourself in the morning. It’s been quite a while since you’ve eaten anything.
8) Visit the toilet before weighing. Which brings us to a great, sure weight loss method.
9) Get a colonoscopy. A proper colonoscopy is good for an easy six-to-eight pound loss. Be sure to set aside a full twenty hours before the colonoscopy for Toilet Day. Kinda gross, but are you dedicated or not?
10) Oh wait, wait, wait, this is critical. The weight reading on your scale varies considerably depending on where you stand on it and how you stand, upright or listing to the side. Indeed, if you do this simple trick well enough, you can eat all the yummy desserts you want and skip all those pesky suggestions above.
Bon appetit.
– 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.
Statistics made simple.
American Dessert
INGREDIENTS
CAKE
1/2 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon orange zest
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup milk (2 tablespoons more later)
FROSTING
2 cups confectionary sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons milk
SPECIAL UTENSILS
muffin tin with 12 holes
12 paper baking cups
electric mixer
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Assemble all ingredients. This will give the butter time to soften as it approaches room temperature. (Of course the butter really softens when you must go muttering to the store and back for a missing ingredient.)
Put softened butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, and orange zest in mixing bowl. Use “blend” or “cookie mix” setting on mixer to combine these ingredients.
Add flour, baking powder, and milk to another bowl. Use “cake” setting on mixer. Add this mixture to the concoction in the first bowl, fire up the mixer again using the “cake” setting.
Put baking cups in holes in muffin tin. Pour the mixture into all baking cups. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes or until a fork poked into a cupcake comes out clean.
While cupcakes are baking, mix confectionary sugar, butter, and vanilla extract with blender.
Remove cupcakes from oven and put them in the refrigerator to cool off. After cooling, top cupcakes with frosting. Serve to adoring public.
Okay, okay, maybe you couldn’t wait for the cupcakes to cool down enough to be covered with frosting. Maybe they smelled so good you accidentally ate one. Why then, tell everyone this is your recipe for Eleven Vanilla Cupcakes.
TIDBITS
1) Thomas Jefferson brought vanilla to America. He also wrote the Declaration of Independence, and made the Louisiana Purchase.
2) Those worthy achievements took him a lifetime.
3) You can make these cupcakes in an hour.
4) You can also eliminate musty car odors by placing a vanilla bean under the driver’s seat.
5) It is said that some fishermen put vanilla extract on their hands so that fish won’t smell them.
6) Why they would think fish would be jumping out of the water to smell any passing human hand, I’ll never know.
7) A few hundred years ago, noblewomen used vanilla extract to smell nice.
8) Then came soap.
9) Now you can get soap with vanilla in it. It’s all part of the great circle of life.
– 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.
Our nation’s teachers are underpaid and overworked. Millions of parents shirk all responsibility for raising their little ogres, shipping them off to school so that Miss Brooks or Ms. Othmar may tame them for free for six hours. What do these harried pillars of our educational system get in return? Continual salary cuts and the occasional Granny Smith apple.
What can we do to make the lives of our noble educators better? Raise their salaries? Not likely in this economic climate? Is there an answer? Yes, there is and it’s so blindingly simple that everyone has overlooked it.
Until Now.
Install trapdoors in all our classrooms and give our teachers the remote. This is the ideal solution. It’s a punishment. It’s a caution for the remaining students. It lightens your work load. The school still gets paid for the students in the dungeon below the trapdoors; after all they are still present on the school grounds. The few eager children remaining in the classroom gain a quiet contemplative atmosphere conducive to learning. It’s difficult to see a downside to trapdoors at school.
– 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.
American Dessert
INGREDIENTS
CUPCAKE
6 tablespoons butter
6 tablespoons confectionary sugar
3 tablespoons granular sugar
2 eggs
3 tablespoons milk
1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
FROSTING
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
6 ounces cream cheese
UTENSIL
cupcake pan
12 paper cups
electric beater or mixer
PREPARATION
Take butter out and let it soften. Beat eggs lightly. (They rarely ever beat you. They don’t even seem to try.) Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Put softened butter, eggs, confectionary sugar, and granular sugar in mixing bowl. Use beater set on mix until butter and sugars have blended. Add milk, chocolate chips, flour, baking powder, salt, and cocoa. Use same setting on beater to blend all the ingredients.
Spoon an equal amount of the batter into each paper cup. Put the cups onto the cupcake pan. Put cupcake pan on center rack and bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes or until toothpick stuck into cupcake comes out cleanly. Remove pan from oven and let cool for 15 minutes on wire rack.
Make frosting while cupcakes are cooling. Put white chocolate chips in small pot. Cook on low heat and stir constantly until all chips have melted. Remove from heat. Put cream cheese in mixing bowl. Add melted white chocolate chips. Blend with electric beater set to cream. (Some electric beaters have a “burst of power” button. It’s cool, like accelerating a FerrariTM. Well, maybe not. But a cool electric beater costs tens of thousands of dollars less.)
Spread an equal amount of the white frosting on top of cupcakes. Serve to joyous, clamoring guests.
TIDBITS
1) Chocolate comes from the Aztec word “xocolatl” meaning bitter water.
2) My spell checker does not recognize “xocolatl.” Perhaps this is fair as the Aztecs didn’t recognize what sugar could do for cocoa.
3) But the 15th century Spaniards did. So, the Spanish royalty sent conquistadors and chefs to the new land.
4) After a generation of bloody conquest of Mexico, the sugar isles of the Caribbean were safe for hot chocolate.
5) Lacking minimal amounts of No DozTM or even Red BullTM energy drinks, Napoleon carried chocolate with him on all his military campaigns.
6) Napoleon’s energized armies racked up victory after victory until his enemies starting carrying chocolate as well. Defeat for the French became certain when chocolate rich Switzerland defected from the Gallic side.
7) The world today remains in a state of precarious peace, based on equal access to chocolate for all nations.
– 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.
French Soup
INGREDIENTS
1/3 cup rice
2/3 cup water
2 russet potatoes
1 red potato
2 garlic cloves
1/3 large yellow onion
1 2/3 cups chicken broth
1/3 cup water
1/3 tablespoon Poultry MagicTM Spice
1/6 teaspoon lemon pepper spice
UTENSIL
potato masher
PREPARATION
Cook rice separately according to instructions on package. While rice is cooking, peel russet and red potatoes. Cut both types of potatoes into eighths. Peel and mince garlic cloves and onion.
Put potato eighths, garlic, onion, chicken broth, water, Poultry Spice, and lemon pepper into large soup pan. Cook at low-medium heat for about 50 minutes or until all the potato eighths are completely soft. Stir occasionally. Mash the potatoes constantly until you feel no resistance. (No, there is no masher for human relationships. No. No! I said no.) Stir frequently. Add cooked rice to potato soup.
Supermarket potatoes cost almost the same whether you buy five pounds, two pounds, or just one microwavable tater. So, we all purchase the economical five-pound bag, leaving us with a lot of potatoes. This tasty recipe reduces your spud surplus wonderfully.
TIDBITS
1) The nutritious potato almost single-handedly kept European peasantry alive during the Thirty Years War in the 17th century.
2) Deadly nightshade is related to the potato. Unlike, its cousin, the tater, this plant is a deadly poison.
3) Which is why my recipes never include deadly nightshade.
4) Nor any other poison for that matter.
5) I do, however, use tomatoes frequently. Tomatoes are related to both the potato and deadly nightshade and were considered poisonous by American settlers in the late 17th century.
6) This fear by early colonials of the mighty tomato completely explains the lack of pizza parlors in early America.
7) Salem, Massachusetts became notorious for its Witch Trials of 1692.
8) In 1905, Lombardi’s in New York became the first restaurant licensed to sell pizza.
9) So, the Witch Trials delayed the licensing of American pizza by 213 years.
10) This explains resistance to capital punishment among many chefs.
– 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.
Sad Sack comic book from about 1967.
French Dessert
INGREDIENTS
1/2 teaspoon flour (1/2 teaspoon more later)
1 teaspoon butter
1/2 teaspoon brown sugar (1/2 cup more later)
1 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup milk
1 1/4 teaspoons orange flower water
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
UTENSIL
9-inch cake pan
electric mixer
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon of flour along the sides and bottom of cake pan. Do the same with a teaspoon of butter. Sprinkle ½ teaspoon brown sugar over the flour.
Put 1 1/2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt in first mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork.
In second mixing bowl, beat 2 eggs, but not so much they lose their dignity. Add sugar and brown sugar. Mix with whisk. Melt 1/2 cup butter. Combine contents of second mixing bowl into first mixing bowl. Add melted butter, milk, and orange flower water. Mix with whisk or electric mixer on “cake” setting. Pour entire contents into cake pan.
Put cake pan in preheated oven and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Allow cake to cool before topping cake with whipping cream.
TIDBITS
1) Many American beers are 3% alcohol. A twelve-ounce can contains .36 ounces alcohol.
2) Orange extract, a fair substitute for orange flower water, is 79% alcohol. My two-ounce container contains 1.58 ounces alcohol, the same as nearly 4.4 cans of beer.
3) I’m breaking out the orange-extract. Woo hoo! Party at my place!
4) “Honestly, officer, I only had a one-ounce bottle of orange extract.”
5) The officer rolls his eyes. “Like, I never heard that before.”
6) My Mexican vanilla extract is only 1.9% alcohol. This is why it isn’t as popular at Mexican parties.
8) Consumption of cough syrup soared during the Prohibition Era. Perhaps the alcoholic content of 50% or more contributed to this surge.
9) Why didn’t Al Capone simply open orange-extract tasting centers? People would have gotten their alcohol and Chicago would have been spared a crime wave.
10) But I can’t picture him behind an apron.
– 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.
American Dessert
INGREDIENTS
1 cup pastry flour or regular flour if not available
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons milk
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
6 tablespoons creamy milk chocolate frosting
sprinkles (optional)
SPECIALTY UTENSILS
doughnut mold, or tray, for 6 doughnuts
no-stick spray.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in medium mixing bowl until all ingredients appear to be well mixed. Add milk, eggs, and vegetable oil to another medium bowl. Blend with whisk until mixture starts to get foamy. Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture and mix until all is combined.
Spray doughnut mold with no-stick spray. Scoop combined mixture into each dough form until half full. Put in oven and cook at 375 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. Doughnuts should be done when they spring back when gently poked.
Remove doughnut mold from oven. Let sit for about 3 to 4 minutes. Gently pry doughnuts from mold with knife or small wooden spatula. Use wooden spatula to gently (Yes, today’s cooking word is gently) spread chocolate frosting on top half of doughnut.
(Lots of people love doughnuts. The primal drive of the caveman to pounce on a bison has nothing on the modern person’s urge to eat a doughnut. This urge is so intense that your doughnuts might get eaten before they are even coated with chocolate. That’s okay. They’re happy and you will have less to clean up.)
TIDBITS
1) So many places proclaim themselves to be “Donut Shops” that I ever open one of those stores, I will say that my doughnuts are made with “real dough.”
2) “Dough” as American slang for money dates back to 1851.
3) I’ve heard that some economists claim that the size of the doughnut hole correlates with the health of the economy. When the economy booms, more dough gets used and so the doughnut hole becomes smaller.
4) My degree is in economics and I’ve never seen such studies, not even in my wilder classes or in the most blood-stirring journals of economics.
6) The exciting Gertrude Stein once used the phrase, “the hole of the doughnut,” to describe people personalities or souls.
7) Empirical economists use multiple equations replete with Greek letters to examine hypotheses.
8) During such examinations we economists like to eat pizza. However, we never turn down a good doughnut. In this way, we are like people everywhere.
– 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.
Paul De Lancey's Blog 