– 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
4 eggs
2½ teaspoons dashi (Japanese soup stock. You might have to make it using dashi powder.)
1¾ teaspoons mirin
½ tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (½ tablespoon at a time)
SPECIAL UTENSILS
8″ square, non-stick skillet
measuring cup
bamboo mat (If you have one.)
sonic obliterator
Serves 2. Takes 20 minutes.
PREPARATION
Add eggs to 1st mixing bowl. Beat eggs with whisk or chopsticks. Add dashi, mirin, soy sauce, and sugar to 2nd mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Add dashi/mirin mix from 2nd mixing bowl to eggs. Mix gently with whisk or chopsticks until well blended. Add egg/dashi mixture to measuring cup. (You will need to measure it out later in equal amounts.)
Add ½ tablespoon oil to skillet. Heat using medium heat until oil ripples. Ladle ¼th of egg/dashi mixture to skillet. Tilt skillet to make mixture form a thin layer. (Lift mixture, if necessary, to spread it evenly.) Heat egg mixture until sets on the bottom, but is still soft on top. Poke a hole in each large bubble as it forms.
Roll setting mixture, omelette, into log shape from one side of the skillet to the other with 3 or 4 flips from a spatula. Gently move omelette log back to the side where you started.
Add ½ tablespoon oil to pan. Tilt pan to ensure oil spreads evenly. Gently lift omelette log with spatula to get oil underneath it. (You will be making a 2nd coating to this egg log.) Ladle ¼th of egg/dashi mixture to skillet. Tilt skillet to make new layer of mixture spread evenly. Again, gently lift omelette log to get new layer of egg mixture underneath it. When new layer of egg/dashi starts to set, roll it up from the same starting side with 3 or 4 flips from a spatula. Repeat these steps one more time. Poke air bubbles as they happen.
Add completed omelette logs to bamboo mat or cutting board. Shape logs into a brick. Cut into 1″-wide slices. Serve to adoring guests. Use sonic obliterator on the others.
TIDBITS
1) Eggs are amazing! They are good for so many things. Their applications are
Bouncing eggs: This use is by far my favorite use after eating them. Simply put an egg in a glass. Cover it with vinegar. Change the vinegar after one day. You should find that after six more days that the egg shell will have dissolved. However, the egg will now have a pliable skin. This egg can be bounced. How cool is that? Egg handball, anyone?
Cleaning leather: Rub egg whites into dirty leather. Wipe with a damp cloth. The rubbed-in egg whites now provide a protective base for your leather.
Compost: Crushed eggs provide essential calcium to the soil being made.
Eating: They are great just by themselves, as in scrambled eggs. They are also essential to cakes, meatloafs, and omelettes, and this tasty entree, Tamagoyaki.
Family picnics: What family picnic would be complete without raw-egg tosses and racing with an egg in a teaspoon?
Family rated rioting: Throwing stones and shooting people to express grievances against the government and the economic system is dangerous. Make rabble rousing safe and fun for the entire family. Next time, vent your rage with eggs and scary faces only.
Gardening: Placed crushed eggshells around tender plant shoots. Slugs and other soft-skinned insects will shy away as the shell’s sharp edges hurt the plant-eating pests. Take that, plantacides.
Glue: Make glue with eggs. Make your own today. Earlier times found eggs indispensable for this process.
Hangovers: Eliminate your hangover by drinking a Prairie Oyster. Add raw egg, hot sauce, pepper, salt, TabascoTM, and Worcestershire sauce to a glass. Stir vigorously. Drink.
Healing burns: First, cool down the burn immediately, any way you can. However, if the burn still swells from blood rushing to the site, try using a newly hard-boiled egg. Remove the hot eggshell and rub it on your burn. This dissipates the blood causing the swelling. Back, back, blood, I say.
Metaphors: You have egg on your face. You can’t make an omelette without breaking an egg. This was quite the popular saying among revolutionaries some hundred years ago. The rate of revolutions dwindled after this adage passed from common speech. Coincidence? Perhaps.
Nineteenth century photography: The eggs made for precise photographs. So much so that commercial establishments kept chickens on site.
Painting eggs: Ukrainians and Poles have been particularly adept at painting eggs. It’s called pysanky. You need skill and patience to triumph at this, but my gosh, the results can be spectacular. And what else are you doing with your life?
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 didn’t have time to write a usual blog as I was busy doing medical stuff and paying Number Two Son’s tuition.
Back to normal tomorrow.
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 HOLD HAIKU #1
You put me on hold.
What’d I ever do to you
To be put on hold?
ON HOLD HAIKU #2
I am still on hold.
I feel my will to live leave.
I grow old waiting.
SPAMMED
You spammed me again.
I want to send you to Hell,
If they’ll accept you.
– Paul De Lancey, 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.
GRAMMAR HAIKU #1
It is a truism.
Good grammar and chocolates
Will impress your date.
GRAMMAR HAIKU #2
Remember tonight,
Lust is fleeting but grammar
Endures forever.
– Paul R. De Lancey, 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
2¼ teaspoons yeast
1 cup water, lukewarm
3½ cups flour (2 tablespoons more later)
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons flour
4 cups vegetable oil
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1⅓ cups shredded cheese (Gouda, Edam, or your choice)
1 cup sour cream
Serves 8. Takes 2 hours 10 minutes.
PREPARATION
Add yeast and lukewarm water to mixing bowl. Mix with fork until yeast dissolves. Add 3½ cups flour, salt, and sugar. Mix with spoon until well blended. Knead mixture until it becomes a dough ball and is no longer sticky. Cover and let rise 50 minutes or until it doubles in size.
Dust flat surface with 2 tablespoons flour. Divide raised dough balls into 8 mini dough balls. Add mini dough ball to flat surface. Use hands to press mini dough balls into 6″ wide dough circles.
Add vegetable oil to large pot. Heat oil using medium heat. It is hot enough if a tiny bit of dough in the oil starts to dance. Carefully place a dough circle in the hot oil. Cook for 3 minutes until bottom side turns golden brown. Flip dough circle over. Cook for 2 minutes or until new bottom side turns golden brown. This is your fried bread. Reduce heat a bit if sides turn golden brown in fewer than 2 minutes. Raise heat a bit if it turns brown in more than 3 minutes.
Repeat for remaining 7 dough circles. You might need to reduce to heat to low with succeeding breads to prevent to dough circles browning before the inside is still doughy. Place fried breads on plate covered with paper towels. Pat dry. Spread sour cream equally over the 8 fried breads. Sprinkle mince garlic over cream cheese. Sprinkle shredded cheese over garlic.
TIDBITS
1) Everybody loves Lángos. Including soldiers of invading armies. Defending armies use this to their advantage. Whenever the wind blows toward the attackers, the defender cook thousands of fried breads. The attackers smell the alluring aroma and stampede the Lángos frying in oil. Just as the advancing soldiers reach the pots, the boiling oil bubbles over and scalds their hands. No one likes an oil owie. The attackers retreat. The war ends. Peace breaks out. All is good again.
Paul R. De Lancey, 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.
INSURANCE HAIKU #1
I call insurance.
I see continents drifting
While I wait, wait, wait
INSURANCE HAIKU #2
The check’s in the mail.
Your call is very important.
We’ll be right with you.
– Paul R. De Lancey
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 semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 cups heavy whipping cream
5 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
⅛ teaspoon salt
SPECIAL UTENSILS
food processor or blender
3 cup Mason jar
Makes 2½ cups. Takes 20 minutes to make and 4 hours to firm in freezer.
PREPARATION
Add chocolate chips to pan. Melt using low-medium heat. Stir constantly. Add melted chocolate chips and all other ingredients to 3 cup Mason jar. Make sure that the lid to Mason jar is screwed on tightly. Shake jar vigorously for 5 minutes or until mixture thickens to the consistency of batter. Put jar in freezer. Let sit for 4 hours or until firm.
TIDBITS
1) Family dinners can often be quite contentious.
2) Why?
3) There’s always someone who doesn’t like some dish that you made for the gathering on the clan.
4) And you spent up to two days making your feast.
5) And someone always brings up politics, which always gets people riled.
6) But this argument gets forgotten when someone offers to help and puts your grandmother’s cast-iron skillet in the washer. 30 minutes your angel of a daughter, Sally, looks up at you with soulful eyes. Tears drip down as she quavers, “Mommy, you were going to give that skillet one day.” Her distress punches you in the feels as you review the ingratitude and argument of the dining room. You wish, you really wish that just once serenity could prevail while eating with those oafs.
7) With this recipe your wish is granted. Everybody, absolutely everyone loves chocolate ice cream. Eating this dessert makes everyone so happy that they become strangely pleasant. Furthermore, this dish takes almost no effort to make and is so easy to clean. What more could you want?
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.
Moby Dick was to be portrayed by a whale in the movie with the same name. There are, of course, sperm whales that can be hired for the role. However, sperm whales know they have no serious competition from human actors, not even the ever superb and ever versatile Tom Cruise. Sperm whales realize this and charge $100,000 a day while on the set. White sperm whales are much rarer and command acting fees of $10,000,000 a day. No motion-picture studio can afford such a cost.
This is why the movie Moby Dick starring Gregory Peck did not film actual white sperm whales. The studio simply could not afford to cast Spanky the Sperm Whale.
So what did they do? There answer was ingenuous. They simply boiled some far-cheaper weisswursts. German white sausages, and drew mouths and eyes on them with a black marker. You really can’t tell the difference unless you see the white sperm whale and the weisswursts side by side and motionless as can be seen below
Of course, Hollywood always wants a sequel to any blockbuster. It never happened in this case, because the studio’s coffee lady moved to New Zealand, However, my sources told me the sequel would have been called Caleb Dick, Moby’s son. The above picture on the right was a promotional poster for the never-materialized second movie. Now you know.
Oh, and it took more time than I care to reveal to come up with the above pictures. However, that time would have surely been spent by me fomenting revolution in the streets. And we don’t need that.
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
2¼ cups quinoa
3 garlic cloves
1 medium onion
1 tomato
¼ cup vegetable oil
¼ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon oregano
¼ teaspoon pepper
1¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
½ teaspoon salt
⅔ cup chicken or beef broth
½ cup grated Chihuahua or mozzarella cheese
¾ pound medium-large shrimp (36-40 count) peeled, deveined
3 tablespoons fresh parsley
SPECIAL UTENSIL
fine-mesh colander
Serves 6. Takes 35 minutes.
PREPARATION
Rinse and drain quinoa in colander. Do this 2 more times or until the run-off water is clear. Add quinoa to medium pot. Add enough water to cover quinoa. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir enough to prevent burning. Cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 12 minutes or until quinoa absorbs all the water. Stir enough to prevent burning.
While quinoa simmers, mince garlic, onion, and tomato. Add vegetable oil, garlic, and onion to large pot. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low-medium. Add cumin, oregano, pepper, red pepper flakes, and salt. Stir with spatula until well blended. Add broth, quinoa, tomato, and cheese. Simmer for 3 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add shrimp. Simmer stew for another 3 minutes or until shrimp turns pink or orange. Stir occasionally. While quinoa stew simmers, mince parsley. Garnish stew with parsley.
TIDBITS
1) If you’re going to propose after dinner, make a dish that’s just enough for two. Some recipes don’t say how many people they’ll serve. You have to guess. But if it the entree actually feeds 5,223, you’ll be too busy cooking to propose. And you’ll be eating leftovers for a long, long time.
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.
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