Posts Tagged With: airlines

A Better World Through Pessimism

Optimism is overrated. Optimists always preach to pessimists,  “Stop being Dave and Debbie Downers. Just be happy. Life is too short to be downcast. You’ll never get anything done if you always dwell on the negative.”

Well, oh ho, let’s look at all the great life enhancing inventions pessimists have gifted the world.

1)) The first one is the parachute. Sure, optimists brought us the magnificient airplane. That gets shot down in war. Parachutes, concieved by pessimists, enable pilots to survive a crashing plane.

2) Fire extinguishers, neglected by optimists who built opera houses and movie theaters, help patrons to escape a fire.

3) Seat belts help drivers and riders to live through car crashes, sometimes unharmed. It took a look time for pessimists to win the battle on that one.

4) Air bags for cars. You had to be pessimistic about fatal automobile crashes to come up with that idea.

5) Backing up files on computer, on memory sticks, and the cloud. You had to be pretty darn negative here to think up that.

6) Hiring CPAs, tax attorneys, and the lot to do your taxes.  Depressed about doing your taxes correctly and avoiding an audit, weren’t you?

7) Insurance. Preventing you from being financially devestated by a unlikely distaster. Imagine, an entire thriving industry built on pessimism.

8) Our armed forces. We are indeed pessimistic that something horrible will happen to our nation and the world without a military to protect us.

9) Our police force. Our negativity constantly anticipates loss of property from thieves and murderers.

10) Antiseptics and ether. Would you chance surgery without them?

11) Locks on your house. The chance of your house being burgled is clearly less than 100%, yet we all get them and feel more secure as a result.

12) Alarm clocks. We don’t think we can get up in time without them.

13) Firemen. We can be pretty optimistic than we’ll never need a fire station. Yet thanks to pessimists they get built over and over. Homes and lives get saved.

14) Multiple engines on early airlines. Customers were so pessimistic about engine failure, that airlines were forced to add engines to the planes. Airline travel has flourished ever since. Can you imagine our world with air travel?

15) The eraser. Enough said.

There are many, many other life-enhancing inventions spurred on by pessimists. Please feel with ones that come to your mind. Thank you,

Anyway, three cheers for pessimists. I feel more optimistic knowing they’re around.

 

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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Comfort Rocks Banned on Airlines

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.

Categories: travel | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Piragi

Latvian Entree

PIRAGI

INGREDIENTS – DOUGHpiragi

⅓ cup warm water
1 teaspoon sugar (3½ more tablespoons later)
2 tablespoons yeast

¾ cup butter
1½ cups milk
1 teaspoon salt
3½ tablespoons sugar
1 egg yolk (1 entire egg later)
1 tablespoon sour cream
5 cups flour (2 more tablespoons later)

INGREDIENTS – FILLING

1 pound bacon
1 small onion
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt

INGREDIENTS – ASSEMBLY

2 tablespoons flour
1 egg

SPECIAL UTENSILS

2 cookie sheets
pastry brush
parchment paper

Makes 30. Takes 3 hours.

PREPARATION – DOUGH

Add 1 teaspoon sugar and warm water to mixing bowl. Whisk until sugar dissolves. Sprinkle yeast over sugary water. Let sit for 10 minutes or yeast becomes foamy.

While yeast foams, add butter to small pot. Melt butter using medium-high heat. Add milk, salt, and sugar. Heat until milk is almost ready to boil. Stir constantly. Remove from heat.

Add milk mixture into mixing bowl with yeasty water. Add egg yolk and sour cream. Gradually add flour. Blend with electric beater set to low until dough forms. Cover bowl with thin towel and let sit for 1½ hours.

PREPARATION – FILLING

While dough rises, dice bacon and onion. Add vegetable oil, bacon, and onion to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add pepper and salt. Remove from heat and let cool in refrigerator for 10 minutes.

PREPARATION – ASSEMBLY

While dough rises and filling cools, knead dough by hand or by bread machine for 20 minutes or until dough is elastic. Dust roller and flat surface with 2 tablespoons flour. Add dough to flat surfarce. Roll out dough until it is ¼” thick.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Separate egg. Make 3″ circles in dough. A drinking glass works well for this. Add 1 teaspoon to center of dough circle. Brush a thin strip of egg white along edges of dough circle. Fold dough circle in half. Use tip of fork to seal edges together. Repeat until all dough and filling is used. These are the piragi.

Put parchment paper on cookie sheets. Place piragi on parchment paper. Beat egg yolk with fork or whisk. Brush egg yolk over piragi. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Bake for 12 minutes or until piragi turn golden brown

TIDBITS

1) “Piragi” is an anagram for “Air Pig.” It’s a hidden bit of history, but many of our commercial planes were once flown by pigs.

2) Oil prices soared during the Oil Embargo of 1973 So did the price of aviation fuel. Airlines became frantic in their search to reduce fuel costs. One way was to reduce of a fully-loaded plane. So, for a brief time, stewardesses threw passengers out the emergency door, starting with those who didn’t listen to the pre-flight safety instructions. The technique worked! Fuel costs plummeted.

3) So did ridership. A dead passenger is not a return passenger. Plus, people became skittish about booking a flight when it might mean being ejected over the Atlantic. Passengers became downright resentful toward stewardesses. Indeed, the very word “stewardess” became a curse word. This is the reason they are now called flight attendants. It’s kinda like calling used cars “pre-owned.”

4) The average feral pig weighs 125 pounds. (Only wild pigs can be trained to fly jets. Who knew?) The average man tips the scale at 170. A small difference to be sure, but enough over the course of millions of flights to cut fuel costs to the point of keeping air travel economically viable. Whew.

5) Unfortunately, the pig pilots buzzed workers at pork rendering plants. In 1974 alone, four crashes resulted from such behavior. This being the 70s, airlines listened to customer concerns and fired their pig aviators. There are persistent whispers, however, that shadowy governmental agencies still employ pig pilots in covert operations. These critters are tough. Don’t discuss bacon around them.

– 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: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Chivito, Uruguayan Sandwich

Uruguayan Entree

CHIVITO

INGREDIENTSChivito-

2 5 ounce steaks (London-broil, rib-eye)
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 slices bacon
1 onion
4 hard rolls (Portuguese, Kaiser, Italian)
1/4 cup mayonnaise
4 or 8 eggs
4 slices ham
4 slices Provolone cheese
4 leaves lettuce
1 tomato

PREPARATION

Fry bacon on medium-high heat until crispy. Remove bacon. Slice onion into thin rings. Sauté onion slices in bacon fat on medium-high heat for 4 minutes or until onion is tender. Remove onion slices and put on plate with towel to remove grease.

While onion is sautéing, trim steak and ham slices until they fit the size of the hard roll. Sprinkle each steak pieces with pepper and salt. Put the steak in pan. Sauté steak in bacon grease on medium heat for 2 minutes on each side or until it reaches your desired level of doneness. Remove steak. Add ham pieces to pan. Sauté ham in bacon grease on medium heat for 2 minutes on each side.

Toast top and bottom halves of hard rolls. While rolls are toasting, slice tomato. Fry eggs in bacon grease at medium heat for 5 minutes or until they reach your desired level of doneness. Spread mayonnaise on both halves of each rolls. On the bottom halves, place a half slice of steak, then a ham slice, Provolone slice, fried egg, bacon slice, lettuce slice, tomato slices, and onion slice, and finally the top halves of the rolls.

Because of the fried eggs, this chivito recipe is “a caballo,” or “on the horse.” Serve with a lot of napkins.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe really should be made with Portuguese rolls. First, that is the roll they use in Uruguay. Second, this roll can really handle the juices of the wonderful meats inside better than say, an overmatched hamburger roll which would explode in seconds.

2) Portugal claimed Brazil in 1494. The Americas have been safe for juicy sandwiches ever since.

3) This is a huge sandwich. It combines a BLT with a Philly cheese steak and a ham sandwich.

4) Dagwood Bumstead of the comic strip, “Blondie,” ate gigantic sandwiches. Some of them appeared to be two or three feet high. The comic strip first appeared in 1930 and has been translated into 35 languages. Dagwood and his wife, Blondie, starred in movies from 1938 to 1950. Here is a movie clip showing the ever-late Dagwood rushing off to work.

5) Oh crudness, unless you got the e-book version or are reading this as a blog, pushing “movie clip” with your finger will be an exercise in frustration. Wouldn’t it be way cool if I knew how to make one of those little squares with the little black squares? You know the one where you scan it with your hand-held device and a website about the product pops up?

6) If I were savvy enough to do this, I could rule the world.

7) Here are a few things that would happen if I ruled Earth:

A) People would no longer be able to block aisles with their shopping carts.

B) Since the NSA knows everything about us, it will fill out our tax forms.

C) Bacon for everyone. Chocolate for everybody.

D) Bluegrass and Dixieland bands will perform continually at all airport security lines.

E) People will be given time machines so that they will not have to do laundry. Simply go back in time to a moment where your clothes are clean.

F) Car keys will come with a homing beacon so you will always be able to find them.

G) People must give their order at the fast-food counter within ten seconds of getting there. If they have more than fifteen minutes to decide what to get and still need to look at the menu when it comes their time to order, they will go to jail for a week.

H) People will be given clickers for pointless red lights at intersections. If you are waiting for a red light to change when there are absolutely no other cars around for a hundred yards, simply click the clicker and the light will change to green.

I) Ice-cube makers on refrigerators will always work. Always.

J) Bus drivers who pull away while you are banging on the door will spontaneously combust.

K) Airlines will give you a partial rebate when they land more than fifteen minutes late.

– 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: cuisine, international, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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