– 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.
Emma, your tour guide
March 8 to 29 – Festival of Animated Objects -Held in Calgary, Canada. See puppet shows and performances with other animated thingys touch on dark, troubling themes. Even though, many of the shows are supposed to be family friendly, it all seems rather ominous. Watch animovies projected onto a historic grain elevator. A historic one, no less. Programming includes live performances, screenings, lectures, workshops, and exhibitions for all ages.
Last Weekend in July – Nanaimo Marine Festival and Bathtub Races – As always, there will be amazing firework displays, decorations, and food everywhere. Arts and crafts stalls will dot the landscape, as well an entertainment stage, and a children’s tent. Visit the farmers’ markets, and do other stuff. Let’s face it the highlight of this festival is, and will always, be the stupendous bathtub race. It’s known appropriately enough as the Great International World Championship Bathtub Race. The race crosses the 36-mile Strait of Georgia.
Last Weekend in July – Elvis Impersonator Festival – Perhaps the best Elvis impersonator festival in the world occurs in the summer at the Collingwood Elvis festival which thank goodness, is held in Collingwood, Ontario. This festival draws a variety of people . . . Oh heck, no it doesn’t. Only lovers of Elvis’ music will go. Oh, and Elvis impersonators. Expect to see lots and lots of Elvis impersonators. This is a good thing, however, if you don’t love Elvis’s music and if you don’t love his songs, then why are you attending an Elvis festival? And eat the food the King ate. See how many fried banana and peanut butter sandwiches you can devour during the festivities.
July 30 to August 2 – Icelandic Festival in Manitoba – Embrace your inner Northern European spirit by raiding your way to the Icelandic Festival in Gimli, Manitoba. You’ll find tasty Icelandic food to eat. See the Icelandic fashion show. Visit musicians and artists who offer up Icelandic music and Icelandic crafts. But really the most exciting part of the festival is the Viking Village. See people dressed up a Viking warriors. Go to every single Viking Combat Demonstration. And oh my gosh, oh my gosh, don’t, just don’t, let your children miss the half-hour long Kiddie Shield Wall event.
September 2 to 4 – Poutine Festival – Make your way to the Poutine Festival in Drummondville, Quebec. Poutine, perhaps Quebec’s most famous dish, consists of French fries, beef gravy, and cheese curds or mozzarella. Listen to wonderful music while tasting caloric culinary greatness. Heart specialists are standing by. The highlight of the event is seeing which poutinier food truck will win the coveted Gold Fork for making the festival’s best poutine. * = If history is anything to go by, next year’s excitement will take place anytime from July to September.
September 13 to 14 – Accordion Extravaganza! – Clear your musical palate by attending the Accordion Extravaganza! in Edmonton, Alberta. Pop in on all sorts of concerts, workshops, dances, and competitions, all featuring the accordion. Accordion lovers will melt in ecstasy here.
– 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.
Himari, your tour guide
Third Saturday of February – Saidaiji Eyo Naked Man Festival – Men, clad only in loincloths race toward Saldaiji Templein in Okayama to collect lucky sticks. Register in advance with Saldaiji temple and buy a loincloth. Then you run around the temple for two hours and through a fountain of frigid water. This purifies your body and soul. Fully purified, the race becomes competitive. Indeed, the event has become quite a team sport with many teams sponsored by local businesses. The goal is to catch one of two wooden sticks, shingi, thrown into the racers midst by a temple priest. Catching a shingi confers good fortune for a entire year. Spectators vie for 100 lucky items thrown in the crowd. Amazingly enough, there’s a more subdued version of this for the local children. This strengthens the bonds between residents. Tourists can shop at the excitingly named street of Go Fuku Dori.
Late April to May – Steamed Buns on Bamboo – The festival takes place in Hong Kong on or around Buddha’s Birthday. Contestants climb a giant bamboo tower covered in Chinese steamed buns. Buns picked from the top of the bamboo tower or taken on the backs of the contestants to the top are consider luckier than ones at the bottom. Climbers try to grab as many lucky buns as they can in three minutes. Hard to reach buns give extra points. Or you could simply go for the prestigious Full Pockets of Lucky Buns award. This is won by the climber who grabs the most buns in three minutes. There is also a rather exciting team-relay event. The week-long festivities includes incense, prayers for prosperity and health, and offerings to festival’s god, Pak Tai. Wander the grounds and sample the incredible variety of steamed buns. See the festival’s spectacular parade, elaborate lion and unicorndances and marching bands. Witness the martial arts demonstrations. Don’t miss the “Floating Children” parade where children dress as Chinese deities. They sit on stands so high that they appear to be floating.
– 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.
Aleta, your tour guide
Have fun! Come travel with me.
First Weekend in July – The International Witches Fair – Watch reenactors capture witches and heretics. Watch the lost souls get tried. Be enthralled by their torture. Be entranced by lovingly recreated witches’s covens. Listen to the excommunication of the entire town. Watch as Pope Julius II curses the entire village of Trasmoz, Spain. The festival sports an authentic medieval market place and medieval camp. There are parades, magic shows, musical shows, and medieval combat. You’ll want to go year after year just to see everything. Learn about medieval plants. Learn how to poison someone. Or maybe you’ll want to heal people with medieval medicinal plants. To each his own.
Note: festival dates are prone to change. Check before you book. You don’t want to lug your broom all the way to Spain only to discover the International Witches Fair won’t take place another two weeks.
– 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.
Aamu, your tour guide
Come with me and see the fun festivals of Finland.
June – Mosquito Swatting Championships – The Swedish town of Övertorneå holds its own event when the town was denied permission to use chemicals to kill the little, flying biters. So the good Swedes made a festival about killing the pests. Contestants here get 15 minutes to kill mosquitos. The record for this town is 135. Finland has its own such festival, which is held sometime during the mosquito season.
Mid June – Swamp Soccer World Cup – Love soccer? Lover a shorter game? Love mud? Head on over to Hyrynsalmi, Finland. 200-to-300 teams from all over the world compete. There are five different ways to compete: men’s, women’s, mixed, men’s hobby, and Masters of Swamp. 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.
Summer – Ant Nest Sitting Festivals – Finland hosts Ant Nest Sitting Competitions. Contestants sit on an ant hill for as long as they can stand the ant bites. This competition is held all over the country during the summer months. It truly helps to have a high threshold for pain or an ass harder than bronze.
Summer – Wife Carrying Championships – It’s in Sonkajaarvi, Finland Sonkajaarvi, Finland Couples race around a track well stocked with obstacles such as logs and a deep pool. At one time, the woman in the event had to be the man’s wife, but neighboring women are allowed. The designated wife must weigh 49 kilograms or 108 pounds. You might think a good wife for this race would be as tiny as possible. But no, the winners earn the wife’s weight in beer.
July – Cattle Calling Championship – Can’t speak Finnish, but still love to make yourself heard? Alapitka, Finland, puts on the renowned Cattle Calling Championship. Techniques of the champions are closely guarded secrets. However, successful participants tend to know the names of the cows. Courtesy while chatting with your cow goes a long way to winning the championship.
August – Finish Sauna World Championship – Held in Heinola, Finland. Simply stay the longest inside Finnish sauna in a temperature of 110 degrees centigrade, 240 degrees Fahrenheit. Maybe you have a competitive nature, while having the inactive disposition of a rock. Then this competition is for you. Compete! Maybe you like the idea of thousands of spectators and TV audiences watching your nearly naked, sweaty body, covered with only a towel. Compete! It’s held in August, when it’s outside anyway.
Mid August – Cell Phone Tossing – 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.
Late August – Air Guitar World Final – Air guitar enthusiasts won’t want to miss the Air Guitar season. Prestigious events are held in Germany along with Japan’s own elimination tournament. However, the crème de la crème of air guitardom is the World Final, held in Oulu, Finland. The Final’s aim is to promote world peace. With this in mind, organizers have banned holding a gun while performing your air-guitar number. The winner goes home with the unique Flying Finn guitar, handmade by the great Mr. Matti Nevalainen. Dedicated air-guitar fans really must obtain advanced tickets to the VIP Area. These tickets give you the best views of the stage and a truly tasty buffet well stocked with local delicacies.
Note: festival dates are prone to change. Check before you book. You don’t want to lug your air guitar all the way to Finland only to discover the Air Guitar World Final took place a week ago.
– 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.
Paul De Lancey, circumnavigating
On September 8, 1519, Ferdinand Magellan and 238 seamen of various ranks left Spain to circumnavigate the Earth. It was a long ocean voyage! Just over two years. Only 30 of the 239 returned home. Then out of those 30, twelve had spent some in a Cape Verde prison.
We can draw two conclusion from this.
1) You are more likely to survive sailing around the world if you go to prison en route.
Survival rate, no prison sentence = 7.9% (18 sailors out of 227)
Survival rate, prison sentence = 100% (12 sailors of 12)
Noting this, NASA plans to equip all long-range spaceships with prisons.
2) It takes a lot of time and a lot of people dying just to get back to the spot where you started. I mean, what the heck? If getting back to the same spot is circumnavigating, then I’m doing it right now. And no one’s dying, either.
You too can go around the world. Just stand still and say, “I’ve gone around the world.”
Congratulations, you world traveler, you.
– 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.
Who built the Egyptian pyramids? Giant prehistoric aliens. Why did they build the pyramids of Giza? So they could play ring toss. Ring toss is a fun game. Always has been. Always will be. How do we know all this? The aliens left the below photo behind. Archeologist Carl La Fong found it. It’s proof you cannot deny.
– 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.
Banned Comfort Companions
It was bound to happen. Today, all the major airlines banned the use of rocks as comfort companions.
“It was getting out of hand,” said Carl LaFong, CEO of Duluth Airlines. “First it was comfort dogs, then comfort cats–boy did they hide everywhere. Then it was comfort mice–boy oh boy, didn’t they cause a lot of shrieking. Then it was a comfort rhino. It caused an incident the very first time onboard. We had to ban them all.”
“Then about a month ago, Farine du Ble, traveling from Duluth to Paris, brought a painted rock onboard. She held it in her hand, turning it over and over. The passenger in the middle, Amos Keeto, said a rock companion was stupid. Ms. du Ble took offense and hit Mr. Keeto in the head with it. We had make an emergency landing in Gary, Indiana of all places. Comfort rocks are now banned.”
Indeed the Airline Safety Council took preemptive action and banned the following pets from comfort companionship:
ants
bats
bees
crocodiles (they mess the passenger count)
giraffes (not even if you can put them in the overhead bins)
lutefisk (not even a creature, still don’t try it)
snails
Additional pets may be added as needed.
– 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.
Tromsø, Norway
– 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.
How many times has this happened to you? You’ve spent the Christmas bonus on a week-long vacation on the sun-lit beaches of Hawaii. You’re up earlier than your spouse, rather earlier as you’re just so excited to splash in the warm ocean water. But it’ll be two hours before he wakes up. What to do? You decide to play solitaire to pass the time. Only the game takes so freaking, but find you can’t ever leave anything unfinished.
He arises and cajoles you to take to the beach. Enthralled in your game; you do not. He pleads again. You do not hear him. He says he is heading to beach and asks you to join him later. You favor him with a perfunctory wave. He leaves.
Finally, the game is over. You look at your watch. Oh my gosh, is that the time? Oh my gosh, is that the day? Horrors, you have played the entire vacation away. Your plane leaves in hour. You shout for your husband. He does not respond. There is a note on the table. He found a beautiful mango heiress while you were playing solitaire. He’s going to spend the rest of his life with her on the French Riviera.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Now we all know the object of Solitaire is place the right cards on an ace. This, as we have seen above, can take a lot of time. My brilliant idea is to shrink the 52-card deck down to one, the ace of spades. As you soon as you play this card, the game is done. You can get one with your life. You and your wedded love remain inseparable. Life is good.
I show to the right a simulated game of Ace of Spades Solitaire. You’ve won!
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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