Paul De Lancey's Blog

Hurricane Hilary Thoughts From Poway, California

Posted on August 20, 2023 by pauldelancey

1. I’m glad that Hurricane Hilary wasn’t at all terrifying in Poway, CA.

2. It’s prudent to make precautionary measures in advance of a hurricane.

3. Not driving during a huricane is prudent. So is making plans to stay inside. Closing your windows to keep your carpets and furniture from being soaked from possible rain that comes down in sheets.

3A. However, it is prudent to drive away from your home if you live in valley subject to flash floods.

4. Buying up all the toilet paper, water, and canned food goods the day before the expected hurricane is just plain hysteria. Did none of you read about the expected severity of the hurricane? Did you look at any forecasts? Well did you? Did you think ravioli, cleanly wiped butts, and water were all that stood between you and a looming Southern California apocalypse?

5. Full disclosure here. Yesterday, I was at the supermarket gathering fresh ingredients for the tonight’s homemade ravioli. Also, I completely ran out of distilled water for my CPAP machine during the height of the COVID crisis. All drinking water was bought up. None left. All distilled water disappeared from the shelves. I woke up one morning with no distilled water for my CPAP machine.(Fortunately, a friend of a friend 30 miles away scored some for me. If I can’t run my CPAP machine, I will get much less sleep and the sleep I will get is much shallower. And there is always a small, if unknown, chance that I could simply stop breathing without the CPAP. So, I am incredibly dismissive and angry toward panic buyers.

6. You can follow the path and severity of the hurricane by television, radio, and internet. They are quite good at that, really.

7. The hurricane was not bad at all in Poway. Honestly, I went through many much worse rains in Wisconsin.

8. What did I do today? I stayed inside and worked on getting better at making homemade ravioli.

9. News alert: The wind just knocked down a neighbor’s garbage can. Not to worry, Poway will rebuild.

10. I want to thank all of you who worried about me today. I realize that conditions here are often not clear thousands, or even hundreds, of miles away. I feel quite humbled and touched by your concern.

– 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.

Categories: observations | Tags: Covid, CPAP, distilled water, don't drive, forecasts, hurricane, Hurricane Hilary, Poway, precautionary measures, rain, Southern California, stay inside, television, toilet paper, Wisconsin | 1 Comment

You Need to See a Butterfly

Posted on August 19, 2023 by pauldelancey

Butterflies are beautiful. Just looking at them calms us down. Some say butterflies are our ancestors checking in us, to say they’re are all right and that we should pay attention to beauty in the world whenever we can. So here’s a beautiful butterfly. Enjoy.

You need to see #30

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: you need to see | Tags: ancestors, apocalyptic, beauty, butterflies, butterfly, Comic Chef, cookbook, hunks, Paul R. De Lancey, recipes, thriller, you need to see | 2 Comments

World Marbles Challenge

Posted on August 18, 2023 by pauldelancey

Akeem “The Thumb” Hassan, this year’s favorite

Yes indeed, sports fans, the 47th World Marbles Challenge starts tomorrow in Kotzebue, Alaska and ends in Durban, South Africa. This course shall be quite the challenge for the globe’s top marbleists with: freezing blizzards, snow blindness, sheer icy cliffs, thirst, starvation, encounters with the Yukon’s very few remaining mastodons, rapids, rush hour in Seattle, cars passing them at 90 miles per hour on freeways, lutefisk vendors, border walls, Black Friday sales, jungle diseases, boa constrictors, gangs of apes, the New York Times(tm) sunday crossword, poisonous snakes, terrorists, pandemics, kidnappers, blow darts, storms in the Atlantic Ocean, crossing the Atlantic in tiny rafts purchased by collecting labels from Ovaltine jars, collisions with oil tankers millions of times larger than the tiny rafts, fishing for fish and pulling up sharks and killer whales, bicycle couriers, more jungles, traversing lands bloodied by unrelenting civil war, Walmart(tm) parking lots, carrying the tons of water needed to cross the Sahara dessert, salesmen, plunging down the world’s greatest waterfalls, poisonous spiders, scorpions,getting eating by crocodiles, getting crushed by hippos, lack of internet connection, and murderous gangs.

Then the Marbles Challenge gets difficult. It’s no picnic moving your marble forward twelve hours a day for six months. What if you lose your shooter? What if you get thumb-tunnel syndrome? It’s best not to dwell on this.

Go luck marbleists! May this be the year that one of you crosses the finish line.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: sports | Tags: Alaska, blizzards, Civil War, diseases, gangs, hippos, marbels, mastodons, New York Times, pandemics, poisonous snakes, rapids, South Africa, sports, terrorists, Walmart | Leave a comment

My Kitchen Gizmos – For Ravioli

Posted on August 17, 2023 by pauldelancey

Good heavens, ravioli sure taste yummy. Homemade ravioli are even tastier. But gosh, making the pasta for the ravioli completely by hand is so time time consuming and leads to pasta with uneven thickness. That’s why I like my ravioli gizmos.

Look at the picture below. The hand-crank pasta machine is second to the left. Feed pasta in at the top. Turning the crank will turn out a pasta sheet on uniform thickness. The extra attachment on the far left helps make spaghetti.

The ravioli mold is on the right. It yields 21 small and even ravioli. It also makes assembly much easier.

And remember, spending money of gizmos isn’t frivolous when the gadgets are for the kitchen.

Ravioli gizmos

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: cuisine | Tags: Chef Paul, Comic Chef, gadgets, gizmos, good food, hunks, kitchen, Lutheran, pasta, pasta machine, ravioli, ravioli mold, recipes, spaghetti | Leave a comment

My Sequel to Barbie

Posted on August 16, 2023 by pauldelancey

Barbie(tm) sounds like a great movie. It deserves a great sequel. And I have one ready.

Well, it could happen.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: you need to see | Tags: apocalyptic, Barbie, brie, Chef Paul, Comic Chef, cookbook, good food, hunks, Lutheran, movie, recipes, sequel, thriller | 1 Comment

Strawberry Balsamic Chicken

Posted on August 15, 2023 by pauldelancey

American Entree

STRAWBERRY BALSAMIC CHICKEN

INGREDIENTS

⅔ pound (about 2 cups) strawberries

4 chicken breasts

½ teaspoon pepper

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup balsamic vinegar (½ cup more later)

½ cup balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

½ tablespoon minced garlic

1 teaspoon cornstarch

1 tablespoon fresh basil

SPECIAL UTENSIL

8″ * 12″ casserole dish.

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Remove stems from strawberries. Cut each strawberry into 4 pieces. Rub pepper and salt over chicken breasts. Add chicken breasts and ½ cup balsamic vinegar to mixing bowl. Turn chicken breasts until they are completely coated. Let marinate in refrigerator for 1 hour. Add chicken to casserole dish. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink inside.

Add strawberry bits. Simmer at low heat for 4 minutes or until strawberry bits start to lose their shape. Add a chicken breast to each plate. Ladle strawberry glaze over chicken breasts. Goes well with rice or spinach.

Add strawberry bits. Simmer at low heat for 4 minutes or until strawberry bits start to lose their shape. Add a chicken breast to each plate. Dice basil. Ladle strawberry glaze over chicken breasts. Garnish with basil. Goes well with rice or spinach.

TIDBITS

1) At the first Iowa Caucus, the Iowa Strawberry Growers Association (ISGA) made a mad attempt to showcase their strawberries to the nation. In return the “strawberry candidates” wore strawberries on their lapels. Political analysts counted strawberries distributed to determine the ISGA’s strength. This was the first strawberry poll. Strawberry poll got shortened to straw poll to save newspaper ink. Now you know.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: cuisine, history, recipes | Tags: American, balsamic, basil, Chef Paul, chicken, Comic Chef, cookbook, entree, glaze, good food, Iowa, Iowa caucus, straw poll, strawberry, vinegar | Leave a comment

You Need to See a Child Playing in Mud

Posted on August 14, 2023 by pauldelancey

Like can be stressful. Too stressful. A small child relaxes by playing in mud. You need to do the same.

You need to see #29

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: you need to see | Tags: apocalyptic, Chef Paul, child, Comic Chef, cookbook, good food, hunks, Lutheran, mud, recipes, relax, scare, stress, thriller, you need to see | Leave a comment

Newton’s Four Laws of Motion

Posted on August 13, 2023 by pauldelancey

Space rat

All of us who stayed awake in high-school learned about Newton’s Four Laws of Motion. They are:

1) A body at rest remains at rest, or if in motion stays in motion at a constant speed in a straight line, unless acted upon by a force or Forest Gump.

2) When a body–or thing, it could be a beach ball or an intergalactic rat–is acted upon by a force, the rate of change of its momentum equals the force. Teachers lost many of students to sleep with this law, unless of course the young learners daydreamed about space rats fighting each other with lasers.

3) If two space rats exert forces on each other, these rats have the same magnitude but opposite directions.

4) A can of soda in a extreme state of agitation–from being thrown and kicked down the hall–will spray fizz all over when opened, unless the soda drinker tapped the can multiple times before opening it.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: observations, science, Secrets of the Universe | Tags: a body at rest, Chef Paul, Comic Chef, cookbook, fizz, Forest Gump, high school, lasers, laws of motion, Newton, rat, soda, space rat, students, teachers | Leave a comment

Digaag Qumbe (Coconut Yogurt Chicken)

Posted on August 12, 2023 by pauldelancey

Somali Entree

DIGAAG QUMBE

(Coconut Yogurt Chicken)

INGREDIENTS

½ cup rice

2 garlic cloves

1 red onion

1 carrot

1 small potato

1 pound boneless chicken thighs

1 jalapeno

1 red bell pepper

2 tomatoes

¼ cup olive oil

2½ teaspoons ginger

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons Xawaash spice (See above recipe or buy online or at Middle Eastern stores.)

½ cup coconut yogurt or plain yogurt

1 tablespoon ghee or butter

2½ teaspoons tomato paste

¾ cup coconut milk

¼ cup fresh cilantro

6 bananas

Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 25 minutes.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

food processor

mandoline

PREPARATION

Cook rice according to instructions on package. Mince garlic and red onion. Use mandoline to cut carrot into circles ¼” thick. Cut potato into ½” cubes. Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Add jalapeno, bell pepper, and tomatoes to processor. Puree until smooth. Add olive oil, garlic, and red onion to large pot. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium-high heat or until onion softens. Stir frequently.

Add ginger, salt, Xawaash spice mix, and mixture from blender. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low-medium. Simmer for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add coconut yogurt, ghee, and tomato paste. Simmer for 3 minutes. Add coconut milk, chicken, carrot, and potato. Simmer for 35 minutes or until chicken, carrot and potato are tender and sauce thickens. Stir occasionally. While chicken, carrot, and potato simmer, dice cilantro. Add rice to plates. Top with coconut yogurt/veggies/chicken. Garnish with cilantro. Serve alongside a peeled banana.

TIDBITS

1) According to Google Translate(tm). digaag, part of this entree’s name, translates into English as “digaag.”

2) Digaag translates into French as “digaag.*”

3) Digaag translates into Spanish as “digaag.”

4) Tiny Luxembourg has its own language. It’s Luxembourgish. Digaag translates into Luxembourgish as “digaag.”

5) Digaag even translates into Swahil as “digaag.”

6) What can we conclude from this?

7) That “digaag” is an important word to humanity.

8) How important?

9) So important that when humanity fractured into different group when they marched out from their common birthplace, Africa, they all hung onto a few common concepts. These common concepts remind us that we share common ground with our brothers and sisters all over the Earth.

10) When an American man says, “digaag” to a French woman living in Paris, she will understand him just as clearly would any listener in Colorado, Columbia, or Germany.

11) When we understand our foreign neighbors, we realize just how much we resemble them.

12) When we know just how much other nations’ peoples resemble ours, our fears of them evaporate.

13) When our fears evaporate, world peace breaks out.

14) And that’s a good thing.

15) So if you hear people speaking in a foreign tongue, go up to them and say, “Digaag.” They will appreciate your effort to communicate to them. They will even smile. You’ll smile back. And just like that, you’ll have new friends.

16) And that’s a good thing, because one of your old friends still owes you money.

17) Great news! Other words are the same* in other languages. They are: banana, coffee, computer, dollar, euro, film, gram, huh, internet, kilometer, mama, no, okay, papa, stool, sauna, sushi, and taxi.

18) The possibilities for talking to people of other languages are endless. You could say, “banana, coffee, sauna, sush” or alternatively, “Internet, film, papa, taxi” and you’d be understood!

19) You’d be taking one small step for new friends, one giant step for world peace. Yay!

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: history, international, recipes | Tags: digaag, entree, French, Friends, German, ghee, qumbe, sauna, Somali, Spanish, spices, taxi, world peace, Xawaash, yogurt | Leave a comment

Wanda Wunder Wonders About Parsnips

Posted on August 11, 2023 by pauldelancey

Wanda Wunder #32

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: Wanda Wunder | Tags: apocalyptic, Chef Paul, Comic Chef, cookbook, good food, how much, hunks, Lutheran, murders, par, parsnip, parsnips, Paul De Lancey, recipes, thriller, Wanda Wunder | Leave a comment

Hurricane Hilary Thoughts From Poway, California

You Need to See a Butterfly

World Marbles Challenge

My Kitchen Gizmos – For Ravioli

My Sequel to Barbie