Posts Tagged With: Afghanistan

A Tale of Three Countries

Posted on June 19, 2019 by pauldelancey

Dear People of South Sudan and Afghanistan,

Your reading my blogs validates my self worth. However, you are not reading blogs even though they are brilliant and funny, a triple hee even. What is wrong with you? I know you’re both undergoing lengthy civil wars, but so is Syria and it has managed to read my blogs. I know this is an oversight on your part and you will be soon chortling along with Syria and, indeed, every important country in the world. I look forward to meeting you and to feeling better about myself

Thank you,

– 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: international | Tags: Afghanistan, apocalyptic, civil wars, Comic Chef, cookbook, good food, hunks, Lutheran, mushrooms, Paul De Lancey, recipes, South Sudan, Syria, The Comic Chef, thriller | 3 Comments

Bad Advice Friday, 4-21-17

Posted on April 21, 2017 by pauldelancey

Oh my gosh. It’s Friday. I forgot to ask for more good questions seeking bad advice. It’s Friday? Really? Again? Did anyone see this coming? Anyway, I shall be dispensing bad advice to the three people who were Friday ready. As usual, the advice will stupendously bad.

Dear NF:

The best way to serve chicken is in stew. Ladle the chicken stew into a FrisbeeTM turned upside down. Toss the Frisbee still upside down. (If you toss it upside down, the stew will fall out. Gravity and all that.) At any rate, a clumsy toss or a klutzy catch will, by the law of inertia, result in the stew flying out of the Frisbee and onto your guest. Repeated practice for the two of you is a must.

The worst way to serve chicken is as slave or indentured servant. This plain sucks. The hours stink, chickens are always hungry. You’ll work for chicken feed. (See what I did there?) And your neighbors will laugh at your horrible plight. “Why don’t you just walk away and go home?” Like it’s that easy. Once a chicken has established its dominant position in the pecking order (See what I did there again?) your morale will be broken to such an extent that flight will be impossible. You really do have to win the inevitable staring contest that happens whenever you meet a chicken. So, stay away from chickens until you have practiced with a cat.

************************

LF asks: Do I have to turn on an oven to bake?

Dear LF: First, try waiting. Patience is a virtue. If after three hours nothing has happened, it’s time for plan B. Take an axe. Chop down a tree with it. Chop the felled tree into kindling. (By the way, axes are really good for ending those festering domestic disputes. I mean who wants to go to bed angry every night? Be sure to wash those bloody sheets in cold water or else the blood will stain your sheets forever. If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.) Anyway, rub two sticks from your kindling together until you get a good flame going. Throw the burnings sticks and the rest of the kindling in the stove. Soon you’ll have a good flame going. The smoke from the burning wood will set off your smoke detector, so be sure to disable that. If your cake is soaked in rum, you’ll have a pyrotechnic display that you and your guests will never forget. And you will have done all this without turning on the oven. Well done!

************************

ME asks: What should I do next?

Dear ME: Join the French Foreign Legion. I met a young man years ago while bicycling in France. He was on his way to enlist in the Legion. He seemed like a nice guy. So there you go. Also, don’t forget France always sends the Foreign Legion first to any foreign conflict. It always get to fight. Many times, the Frenchmen in the French army never get to fight. This means they never get to visit foreign countries. So, they never get to get to sample exotic cuisine served to the Legion while on patrol. Indeed, the qorma lawand (chicken stew) of Afghanistan alone is worth several firefights. So join up and eat well.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: bad advice | Tags: Afghanistan, apocalyptic, bad advice, bad advice Friday, chicken feed, chicken stew, cookbook, De Lancey, Doctor Paul De Lancey, French Foreign Legion, Frisbe, good food, hunks, indentured servant, Lutheran, mushrooms, patience, qorma lawand, recipes | 2 Comments

Doctor Economics – America Needs to Expand

Posted on April 18, 2015 by pauldelancey

America’s last bit of expansion, from the 1840s to the 1890s was a great period for dime-novelists and newspaper reporters. Yep, those people went to work with a smile knowing their country was strong and their jobs secure.

Then we gave up the Philippines and various bitty islands in the Pacific. As a result, Americans stopped reading and turned to cat videos on the internet. What should we do? I’m glad you asked. We need to expand.

How? By force? Oh heavens, no. The world these days frowns on aggression and what with all those nuclear weapons stashed all over the world, conquest is a might dangerous.

Expansion by war – bad!

Then how do we expand? By purchasing Leichtenstein, that tiny country in the middle of Europe. It would be a bargain. If we paid each of Liechtenstein’s 35,000 citizens a million dollars, it would cost only $35 billion, lock, stock, and barrel.

But we don’t have that money what with continued fighting in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. However, these conflicts are really an opportunity in disguise. Simply stop the fighting in these hot spots until we’ve saved $35 billion. How did we get the enemy insurgents to lay down their arms?

By giving them soft ice cream cones. Admittedly your average Joe Desert Fanatic will not stop shooting, bombing, and carrying on forever for soft ice cream. But he will for a few months, especially in those hot summer months, when the sun bakes the sand, bakes you and all you can think of is a nice, cool, creamy chocolate/vanilla swirl served up in a sugar cone.

Voila, the conflict stops for a spell. We spend the savings on Leichtenstein. What are the benefits? First, it helps our national pride. Second, we could use the vast forests of that tiny land to print billions and billions of novels, providing steady employment to thousands of needy writers. Third, we could join the European Union. Our farmers would become eligible for those legendary EU subsidies handed out to thistelwort farmers. But most importantly, our tourists could visit Europe and never leave America. Life doesn’t get any better than that.

– Paul De Lancey, Dr. Economics

Categories: humor, international, politics | Tags: Afghanistan, America, cat videos, desert, European Union, internet, Iraq, Leichtenstein, manifest destiny, novels, Pacific, Philippines, shooting, snad, soft ice cream, sugar cone, Syria | Leave a comment

The Chicago Cubs, The Greatest Threat to World Peace

Posted on September 15, 2014 by pauldelancey

The greatest threat to world peace is the Chicago Cubs. They last won a world series in 1908. Since then America has fought two world wars, and other wars while not as big as these two, still replete with distressing levels of violence.

Since the last Cubs’ last World Series win our boys have fought in: France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Italy, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Russia, South Korea, North Korea, China, Philippines, Micronesia, Romania, New Guinea, Indonesia, Burma, Haiti, Santo Domingo, Grenada, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, USA (against the Japanese), Japan, Somalia, Vietnam, and Panama.

This doesn’t even count all the countries where our Air Force has fought nor all of our special ops. My apologies to veterans who fought in a country that escapes my feeble memory.

But the unassailable fact remains; America has been doing a heck of lot of fighting since the Chicago Cubs last won the big one. The conclusion is obvious. Because of the Cubs steadfast avoidancel of excellence, violence stalks the globe. If ever there were a time for a global-prayer day, it is now. Pray for world peace. Pray for a Cubs Series win. It is the only way it will ever happen.

And did you know that the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 is closer to the Cubs’ last world championship than it is to present?

– Paul the Historian

Categories: history, humor, international | Tags: Afghanistan, air force, Belgium, Beneficial Murders, Chicago, Christmas, Cubs, France, Germany, Haiti, Luxembourg, Micronesia, Morocco, Netherlands, North Korea, Panama, Philipines, Romania, Somalia, thriller, Vietnam, world peace, World Series | 4 Comments

Stan the Man, Stan the Country

Posted on April 1, 2014 by pauldelancey

Tired of being dismissed by the world as being politically and culinarily important, the nations of: Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan have decided today to unite and become one nation. Stan. Said President Stan Asid, “Maybe now the nations of the world will respect us or at least spell our country’s name correctly.”

Stan, the world’s newest nation, as shown on this nifty map. President Stan Aziz Azed

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Afghanistan, Karakhstan, Kyrgyztan, map, Parkistan, politically, Stan the Man, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan | Leave a comment

National Stereotypes on Google

Posted on February 5, 2014 by pauldelancey

Here is how Google completes your search question when you type in the words, “Why is (some country) . . .?” Presumably the first completed choice by Google mirrors peoples’ stereotypes about particular nation.

The following stereotypes garnered more than one country:

Poor countries were: Indonesia, Mexico, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Romania, Vietnam
Expensive countries were: Argentina, Brazil, Britain, Fiji
Happy countries were: Denmark, Sweden
Rich countries were: Germany, Norway, Switzerland
Dry countries were: Australia, Peru, Turkey
Big countries were: Greenland, Russia
Why so important countries? were: Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Greece
Violent and dangerous countries were: Colombia, Iraq, Pakistan, South Africa

And now, stereotypes for the first fifty countries that popped into my mind. Okay, many of the following countries were chosen because I love their cuisine. or I enjoyed traveling there. My favorite is, “Why is Greenland so big?”

Country Stereotype
——— ————
Afghanistan – important
America – fat
Argentia – expensive
Australia – dry
Brazil – expensive

Britain – expensive
Canada – nice
China – polluted
Colombia – violent
Cuba – important

Denmark – happy
Egypt – important
Fiji – expensive
France – gay
Germany – rich

Greece – important
Greenland – big
Iceland – peaceful
India – poor
Indonesia – poor

Iraq – violent
Ireland – green
Israel – important to us
Italy – racist
Jamaica – violent

Japan – clean
Kenya – good at running
Mexico – poor
Mozambique – poor
Netherlands – liberal

Nicaragua – poor
New Zealand – free
Nigeria – poor
North Korea – bad
Norway – rich

Pakistan – dangerous
Peru – dry
Poland – weak
Romania – poor
Russia – big

Saudi Arabia – stupid
Scotland – cold
South Africa – violent
Spain – empty
Switzerland – rich

Tibet – important to China
Turkey – dry
Sweden – happy
Vatican City – small
Vietnam – poor

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: humor, international | Tags: Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Denmark, Egypt, Fji, Germany, Google, Greece, Greenland, Israel, Kenya, national, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Scotland, Spain, stereotypes, Sweden, Switzerland, Tibet, turkey, Vietnam | Leave a comment

Authors Supporting Our Troops

Posted on January 28, 2014 by pauldelancey

Thank you to Armand Rosamilia for organizing this event for America’s armed forces. Please visit the Authors Supporting Our Troops page on Facebook.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Afghanistan, armed forces, Authors Supporting Our Troops, books, donating, Kuwait, Paul De Lancey, Paul R. De Lancey | Leave a comment

Philly Cheese Steak

Posted on September 12, 2013 by pauldelancey

American entree

PHILLY CHEESE STEAK

INGREDIENTS

1 pound rib-eye steak
5 ounces provolone cheese
1 green bell pepper
1 large yellow onion
4 cloves garlic (2 teaspoons)
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 hoagie rolls (or Italian rolls or Kaiser rolls or baguettes)
2 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil

PREPARATION

Slice steak, provolone, bell pepper, and onion as thinly as you can. Mince garlic. Put vegetable oil in skillet. Heat oil using medium-high heat. It’ll be hot enough when a bit of onion causes the oil to sizzle. Add onion, bell pepper, garlic, and salt to skillet. Sauté for 5 minutes or until onion becomes tender. Stir frequently.

Add steak slices and cook on medium-high heat for 3 minutes or until meat browns. Place provolone slices over steak mixture. Heat until provolone melts. Spoon cheesy/steak mixture into hoagie rolls.

TIDBITS

1) Many believe Pat and Harry Olivieri invented the Philly steak sandwich in the early ‘30s. Their original sandwich consisted of chopped steak on hoagie rolls. Joe “Cocky Joe” Lorenza, one of their managers, later added cheese.

2) John Kerry ran for president in 2004. He might have won but for a widely publicized gaffe where he tried to order a Philly cheese steak with Swiss cheese instead of the traditional provolone, American cheese, or Cheez WhizTM.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “In Philadelphia, that’s an alternative lifestyle”

3) And so George W. Bush won a second term. Barack Obama was elected in 2008 in what could have been Kerry’s second term. And in that time we’ve had a major global recession, terrorist bombings, nuclear weapons programs by Iran and North Korea, global warming, the proliferation of high-fructose corn syrup, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

4) So careful when ordering your Philly cheese steak. The fate of the world depends on it.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, bell pepper, cheese steak, Cheez Whiz, CheezWhiz, George W. Bush, global recession, global warming, high fructose corn syrup, hoagies, Iran, Iraq, Italian rolls, Kaiser rolls, North Korea, nuclear programs, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Inquirer, Philly, Philly cheese steak, provolone, rib-eye steak, terrorist bomings | Leave a comment

Swedish Sliders

Posted on September 30, 2012 by pauldelancey

Swedish Entree

SWEDISH SLIDERS

INGREDIENTS

1 onion
1 parsnip
1 beet
3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil

1 pound ground beef
1/2 pound ground pork
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon capers
1/2 teaspoon ground mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 teaspoon allspice

1 1/2 tablespoons cider vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons butter

8 slices potato bread

PREPARATION

(Sweden is at peace with the world, but not with the culinary community as you will see.)

Mince onion, parsnip, and beet in food processor. Melt butter. Add olive oil. Saute onion, parsnip, and beet in frying pan on medium heat for about 5 minutes.

Put sauteed onion, parsnip, and beet in large mixing bowl. Add beef, pork, yolks, heavy cream, capers (diced), mustard, salt, pepper, and allspice. Mix thoroughly with fork.

Make patties about 1 1/2-inch to 2-inches wide. Melt butter in large frying pan. Add olive oil and cider vinegar. Cook on medium heat for 4 to 6 minutes or until done. Turn over every 90- to-120 seconds. (Be sure to use a spatula bigger than the patties as they are more “liquidy” in the first few minutes than a traditional American burger patty.)

Toast 8 slices of potato bread. Put a patty on one side of the bread, fold over the bread, and voilà, you have a Swedish Slider.

TIDBITS
1) How did the Swedes come up with idea of putting beets and heavy cream in hamburgers? I don’t know.

2) As far as I know the first Swede to put a beet in a hamburger patty did so in 1862.

3) Sweden has been at peace since 1862.

4) America’s first known hamburger was served sans beets in 1826 and has been beet free ever since. We’ve also had the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, Spanish-American War, two World Wars, Korean War, Vietnam, and two Gulf Wars. We are currently fighting in Afghanistan.

5) Might we not try making our hamburgers like the Swedes? All I am saying is give beets a chance.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, food, humor, international, recipes | Tags: Afghanistan, allspice, America, beet, Civil War, cookbook, De Lancey, entree, Gulf War, Korea, olive oil, parship, pork, recipes, sliders, Spanish, Spanish-American War, Sweden, Swedes, Swedish, Vietnam | Leave a comment

Sugar Cookies

Posted on September 11, 2012 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

SUGAR COOKIES

INGREDIENTS

3 cups flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
½ cup white chocolate flavored cocoa, or an extra ½ cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Makes 55 cookies. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

cookie gun (optional, it’s faster without it)
cookie sheet

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Preparation is easier if the butter is already soft. You can accomplish this by simply taking the butter out of the refrigerator an hour before you’re ready to start. (Or you can pretend you’re Rocky Balboa getting ready for a big fight and batter those butter sticks into submission with your fists of steel.)

Use whisk to blend flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a large mixing bowl. Set aside. Place butter, sugar, flavored cocoa, egg, and vanilla extract in another mixing bowl. Mix with hands or electric beater set on “cookies.” Gradually add in the blended flour mixture. Again, blend thoroughly. If you have a cookie gun or cookie press to make shapes, great. If not, roll dough into little balls 1″ wide. (Keep dough covered until ready to use in a batch.)Place dough onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown. Let stand on cookie sheet for 2 minutes and then cool on wire racks for faster cooling. If you don’t own a wire rack, either let the cookies cool for a long time on the hot sheet or transfer them with a spatula to a cold plate. And who says you have to wait until the cookies are completely cold to eat them? Just as long as the cookies aren’t hot enough to burn your fingers or your tongue.

TIDBITS

1) Don’t try to go through airport security with a cookie gun. I just have a bad feeling about it. Does airport security like doughnuts as much as local police?

2) Britain invaded Afghanistan in the 19th century. Russia invaded it in 1980. Both countries got kicked out. Neither nation’s army carried chocolate doughnuts. However, America there in 2002 with 100,000 soldiers armed to the teeth with chocolate doughnuts. We’re still in Afghanistan.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: cuisine, international, recipes | Tags: Afghanistan, airport security, apocalyptic, Britain, butter, cocoa.vanilla, Comic Chef, cookbook, cookies, De Lancey, dessert, doughnuts, laureates, Lutheran, Nobel, recipes, Rocky Balboa, Russia, soda, sugar, thriller, United States, vanilla extract | Leave a comment

Posts Tagged With: Afghanistan

A Tale of Three Countries

Bad Advice Friday, 4-21-17

Doctor Economics – America Needs to Expand

The Chicago Cubs, The Greatest Threat to World Peace

Stan the Man, Stan the Country

National Stereotypes on Google

Authors Supporting Our Troops

Philly Cheese Steak

Swedish Sliders

SWEDISH SLIDERS

Sugar Cookies

SUGAR COOKIES

Follow Blog via Email

Paul’s archives

Posts Tagged With: Afghanistan

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SWEDISH SLIDERS

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