Posts Tagged With: Antarctica

The Great Latch Hook Project – Part 8

Posted on April 27, 2024 by pauldelancey

I just finished solved a rather ugly mess with my CPAP company. I’ve decided to and been forced to take more care of my body lately. I’m taking two exercise classes a week. I am getting a back massage once a month and I will be taking a yoga class once a week once my back is up to it.

Last Latch-Hook update saw adverse winds preventing the penguins from invading the rest of the world. The penguins, alway a fractious lot, got bored waiting to board their invasion armada. Tempers flared. Words that couldn’t have taken back were said such as, “Your mother is a communist vegan.” Face slapping escalated quickly. Two penguin demagogues emerged. The one-time cute critters took sides. Penguin civil war broke out. The lights have gone out in Antarctica.* We shall not see them again in our lifetime.”

Well, I know it’s winter in Antartica so there are no lights anyway. Let’s just take this sentence as a powerful metaphor, shall we?

Anyway, I’ve done 94+ out of 113 rows. Here is the work so far.

4/27/2024 Latch hook #8

 

 

 

– 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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The Great Latch Hook Project – Part 7

Posted on April 2, 2024 by pauldelancey

It has not been the happiest of times lately with me taking seven extra days to fix my taxes. Then I shall have to spend $200. Sigh. It is indeed fortunate that adverse winds prevented the penguins from invading the northern six continents as I was simply too busy to pay any attention to these Antarctic adversaries.

Number Two Son made a tasty beef stew. I made Chinese Black Bean Chicken. Good culinary day.

Anyway, I’ve done 82 out of 113 rows. Here is the work so far.

Latch Hook, 4/02/24

 

 

 

 

 

 

– 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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Amchoor Chutney

Posted on December 17, 2023 by pauldelancey

Indian Appetizer

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AMCHOOR CHUTNEY

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INGREDIENTS
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½ cup jaggery* or dark brown sugar
¼ cup amchoor powder** or tamarind powder or citric acid powder
¼ chili powder
¼ teaspoon ginger powder
¾ teaspoon roasted cumin powder* or cumin powder
1 teaspoon black salt* or salt
½ cup water
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* = Available in Asian supermarkets or on line.
** = Available in Asian supermarkets or on line. Amchoor powder is powdered mango. Mango is a fruit. Fruits are important to chutney. So, please try to find amchoor, or amchur, powder.
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Makes ½ cup. Takes 20 minutes.
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PREPARATION
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Add all ingredients but water to small mixing bowl. Mix with fork or whisk until well blended. Add this mixture and water to pan. Bring to boil using medium-high heat. Stir constantly. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.
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This chutney goes well with curries, cheese, lamb, and poultry. Amchoor chutney also makes a good sandwich and even is tasty just by itself. It’s quite versatile.
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TIDBITS
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1) On December 31, 2022, Ayansh “Armchair” Chandra became, by far, the richest man in the world with an estimated wealth of $1.3 trillion dollars.  He was immediately deluged with spam mail and calls from sons of Nigerian dictators and penny-stock, dessert-topping speculators.
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2) How did he get to be so rich? Simple, the International Patent and Trademark Board (IPTB) mistakenly awarded him the above sum for violations of his armchair patents and trademark on the word “armchair.” However, late on January 1, the IPTB realized its mistake and cancelled the award. A suitably chastened director, Pieter van Poffertje, commented, “Jeetje, that’s the last time we have such a big New Year’s Eve party.”
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3) To atone for such a serious gaffe, the IPTB decreed for one day to give “Armchair” Chandra all  royalties derived from all amchoor chutneys sold in Antarctica. Of course, the IPTB possesses no enforcement powers there, but Chandra appreciated the thought. And so, everything was settled.
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– 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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Do Penguins Dream in Color?

Posted on October 29, 2023 by pauldelancey

A penguin’s dream

– 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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Paul’s Awesome English Dictionary – Today’s Word, Weedery

Posted on May 15, 2023 by pauldelancey

A weedery

The English language possesses –Isn’t that cool, a word with five “s”s? – multiple words that end in “ery.”

1)  Perhaps the most commonly known is “nunnery.”
n. nunnery: A building that houses a convent of nuns.
Paul’s Amazing English Dictionary
“Get thee to a nunnery.”
– Hamlet, some act and some scene. Written by Bill Shakespeare.

2) The next entry of the “ery” hit parade is “winery.”
n. winery: A place where they make or sell wine.
Paul’s Amazing English Dictionary
“Get thee to a winery.”
– Hamlet the Drunk, by Bea Sotted

3) Not to forget, “rookery”
n. rookery:  a colony of seabirds such as penguins or seals.
– Paul’s Amesome English Dictionary
“Get thee to a rookery.”
– Hamlet of Antarctica by Amos Keeto.

And NOW, TODAY’S FEATURED WORD

WEEDERY

n. weedery: (1) a place where weeds are: grown, whether by design or by lazy gardeners.
(2) a place where marijuana is grown or sold.
– Paul’s Amesome English Dictionary*
“Get thee to a weedery.”
– Hamlet’s thesis, Can Total Weed Acreage across America, 2019-2020 be Fully Modeled Using ARIMA Analysis. Written in partial fulfillment of his doctoral requirements in agricultural economics.
SPECIAL NOTE: There is a tiny park on a street corner near the Agricultural Economics campus of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. It started out as most weederies do; nobody cared enough to pull the weeds. Finally, people got serious. They formed discussion groups. It transpired that this minisule patch of weeds had an incredibly large variety of weeds. What’s more, many of these weeds were incredibly rare. Agricultural economists, who study the effect of weeds on the farming industry had an incredibly accessible source of rare weeds to study. Who says agricultural economics can’t be incredibly sexy?
* = Paul’s Awesome English Dictonary, best in the world.

Now show off your knowledge. Talk about weederies to the first person you meet today. They’ll think you’re smart.

 

– 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: Paul's Awesome Dictionay | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Orange Chicken

Posted on March 6, 2023 by pauldelancey

Chinese Entree

ORANGE CHICKEN

INGREDIENTS

RICE BED

1½ cups rice
3 cups water (1½ cups more later in SAUCE)
1 green pepper

MARINADE

2 ½ tablespoons rice vinegar (⅓ cup later in SAUCE)
1 green pepper
1 cup flour
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon Poultry MagicTM spice
1 tablespoon cornstarch (3 tablespoons more later in SAUCE)
4 chicken breasts

SAUCE

1½ cups water
⅓ cup orange juice
⅓ cup rice vinegar
¼ cup soy sauce
1 cup brown sugar
½ teaspoon ginger
1 clove garlic
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
½ teaspoon sesame oil

2 tablespoons water
3 tablespoons cornstarch

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT

hammer (If brown sugar is brick hard.)

PREPARATION OF RICE BED

Cook rice according to instructions on accompanying bag. This should take about 30 minutes. Add diced green bell pepper to top of rice while cooking.

PREPARATION OF MARINADE

Cut chicken breasts into 1-inch cubes. This is best done when the chicken is partially thawed. Mince garlic. Dice green pepper. If the brown sugar in its box is as hard as a brick, pound the box until the sugar fragments into little bits or individual granules, or until it cries, “Uncle.”

For the marinade, combine the rice vinegar, flour, salt, poultry spice, and cornstarch in large bowl. Mix thoroughly with whisk or fork. Add chicken cubes to bowl. Mix the chicken cubes with ingredients already in the bowl with your hands until the cubes are thoroughly coated. (Your hands will be considered icky for handshaking, so wash them before greeting anyone except door-to-door salesmen.)

PREPARATION OF SAUCE

Combine the 1½ cups water, orange juice, rice vinegar, soy sauce, pounded-into-submission brown sugar, ginger, garlic, red pepper flakes, and sesame oil. Cook over medium-high heat. Stir frequently. Bring to boil.

Gently-–to avoid being splattered by heated sauce–add the coated chicken cubes until the saucepan is full. Cook on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes, or until the coated cubes are golden brown and the chicken is no longer pink inside. Remove cubes with a spoon with holes in it so as to keep the sauce in the pan. Add remaining chicken cubes until all are cooked.

Add 3 tablespoons cornstarch and 2 tablespoons water to sauce remaining in pan. Stir thoroughly with fork or whisk.

Put rice in bowl. Put cooked chicken cubes on top. Spoon sauce over everything. This is great.

TIDBITS

1) Chickens are eaten all over the world because they are tasty and can be found on all continents except Antarctica.

2) Penguins are only found on one continent, Antarctica. Nobody on the upper six continents eat penguins. Perhaps penguins are protected because they come from a continent that since 1959 has been claimed by no nation.

3) After the British-Argentine war over the Falklands, British fighter pilots flew patrol after patrol over the retaken islands. To relieve boredom, they would fly back and forth over penguin colonies. Thousands and thousands of eyes followed them. After a few minutes of this, the jets would rocket straight up into the air. Thousands of penguins would tilt their heads farther and farther back to follow the jets until they all fell over like bowling pins.

4) I’d bet chickens would like to move en masse to Antarctica where they too would be protected.

5) Of course, that assumes that chickens have the brains to think up such a scheme, could cooperate enough to pull it off, and have enough money to book passage for all of them to Antarctica.

6) As of publication, chickens have shown no such abilities.

 

– 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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My Not-To-Do List – Part 3

Posted on July 11, 2015 by pauldelancey

NotToDo1

It’s an awesome responsibility with millions of people looking to me for guidance on what no to do today, so I approached today’s list with great thought. So, here are the things I won’t be doing.

1) I will not take my paints and easel to the DMV to paint still-life scenes.

2) I will not move to Antarctica. It’s winter down there.

3) I will not get into any political discussion with a mime. That sort of thing always gets out of hand.

4) I will not check cans at the supermarket for “high fructose corn syrup.” I need a break. I’ll stay away from food buying today.

5) Oh gosh, see what 4) can do. I’m craving a TwinkieTM.

6) I will not repost anything that says, “Repost this.”

7) I will not buy a Twinkie.

9) I will not ask chickens, “Why did you cross the road?”

10) I will put aside my work on a Mobius-strip roller coaster.

11) I will not try to make sense of Middle-Eastern politics.

12) I will not read any of the on-line agreements that I must check before buying anything.

13 I will not buy a Twinkie.

– Paul R. De Lancey, great no-doer

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: humor | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Peanut Soup

Posted on July 4, 2014 by pauldelancey

Cameroonian Soup

PEANUT SOUP

INGREDIENTSPeanutSoup-

1 red chile pepper
1 yellow onion
2 tomatoes
2 garlic cloves
1 green bell pepper
⅓ cup unsalted peanuts
2 tablespoons peanut oil
4 cups vegetable or chicken broth
1 cup peanut butter (smooth or chunky)
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup baby spinach

SPECIAL UTENSIL

spice grinder

PREPARATION

Remove seeds from red chile pepper. Dice onion and tomatoes. Mince garlic cloves, green bell pepper, and red chile pepper. Grind peanuts in spice grinder.

Add peanut oil, garlic, onion, green bell pepper, and red chile pepper to pot. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Add vegetable broth, peanut butter, tomato, pepper, and salt. Stir until peanut butter dissolves into soup. Reduce heat to low. Simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add spinach. Simmer on low for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Ladle soup into bowls. Top soup with ground peanuts.

TIDBITS

1) In 1472, Portuguese explorers named one of Cameroon’s rivers Rio dos Camarões after all the shrimp in it. This is how the country, Cameroon, gets it name. Way cool. I wish where I lived could be renamed Taco. I love tacos.

2)In 1931, Cameroon sent $3.77 to America’s starving. Or they could have sent shrimp.

3) The world’s biggest specie of frog lives in Cameroon. One of them is called Jeremiah.

4)The yellow stripe in Cameroon’s flag represents sunshine. Antarctica, if it ever becomes a country, should have a white stripe representing snow and a beaker in honor of all the scientists living there.

– 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, food, humor, international, recipes, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ice Cubes and World Peace

Posted on April 25, 2014 by pauldelancey

Antarctic Entree

ICE CUBES

INGREDIENTIceCubes-

water

SPECIAL UTENSILS

glacier
pick axe
Siberian husky
panniers
Van Gogh painting
Twinkie
monastery
Porsche

PREPARATION – If you live near a glacier.

Take pick axe to glacier. Shatter a square foot of glacier ice into little ice cubes with your pick axe. Put panniers on Siberian husky. Put ice cubes in panniers. Have husky follow you back to your home. Will the lock on your door freeze up before your get your key in it? I hope not.

PREPARATION – If you have automatic ice maker in your refrigerator.

This method is much easier and safer than the above method. Many people get refrigerators just for this reason. Simply put your cup or bowl in the proper opening (Consult your refrigerator manual for proper placement of said cup or bowl.) Press the ice maker’s lever back. Ice cubes will fall into your cup. You will be happy.

Note, there will be an option with your ice maker for crushed ice. Use this daring option only when your are ready. In the meantime, play it safe and use the factory setting for ice cubes.

PREPARATION – If your refrigerator does not have an automatic ice maker.

You will have to go to an antique store and buy an ice cube tray. Fill tray with water. Open freezer door on refrigerator door. Spill water from tray. Leave door open. Fill tray again with water. Put tray in freezer. Close freezer door. Wait several hours while water in tray freezes and the moisture you let in the freezer when you left the door open too long forms into layers of frost so thick you could hide a wooly mammoth in it.

Open the freezer. Remove wooly mammoth. Remove ice cube tray. Try to remove ice cubes by lifting that lever. Bust lever. Curse. Hit counter top with ice cube tray. Chip counter top. Shatter ice cube tray. Watch ice cubes fly all over. Watch an ice cube hit your Van Gogh painting. (Why didn’t you buy a refrigerator with an automatic ice cube maker if you can afford a Van Gogh?) Watch ice melt on painting. Watch paint run. Assess the value of your new Van Gogh finger painting. It’s not high. Collapse to the floor crying. If you do not have a TwinkieTM nearby to calm you down, you will withdraw from society and join a religious order.

PREPARATION – if you have a car

Drive to the supermarket and buy a bag of ice. If you can afford it, go to a gourmet foods store and buy the brand, “Grandma’s Recipe.”

TIDBITS

1) Ice is frozen water

2) It’s harder than water, but not as hard a diamonds.

3) You can’t cut glass with an ice cube like you can with a diamond.

4) However, you could let your ice cubes partially melt and refreeze them into one big, weirdly shaped ice cube. You could shatter a window by throwing this huge cube at it.

5) You can’t do the same with diamonds. Diamonds don’t melt when taken out of the freezer. Not even if you live in the Saharan Dessert.

6) The French made great efforts to conquer and colonize the Sahara from the late 1800s to early 1900s. With every step taken into the great sandy interior, the French infantry found itself farther and farther away from its sources of ice.

7) Sure, the French possessed lots and lots of ice houses in mainland France. What civilized nation of that time did not? However, these French ice houses were far, so far away from the sand dunes of the Sahara and its relentless Sun.

8) No ice houses in the Sahara, no ice cream. No ice cream, no soldiers willing to enlist in the French army. The French army found itself reduced to enlisting the scum of the Earth in a special unit, the French Foreign legion. These men were so beyond accepted social norms that some of them had never ever put an ice cube in their root boor, let alone dine elegantly on three scoops of vanilla ice topped with chocolate syrup. Oh, oh, I can’t go on…

9) Just let me note that the United States acquired Alaska in 1867 and the Philippines in 1898. For various and manifold reasons which are beyond the scope of this recipe, we were forced to relinquish control of one of these two lands. Alaska has millions of square miles of ice. The Philippines do not. The United States kept Alaska.

10) Indeed, the untapped supply of ice cubes in Antarctica, estimated here at 1,456,000,000,000,000 ice cubes is so tempting, that in 1959 all the great nations of the world signed a treaty pledging themselves never to claim this frozen land.

11) And now the world is happy. Well, mainly.

– 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: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pumpkin Pie

Posted on November 28, 2013 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

PUMPKIN PIE

INGREDIENTSPumpkinPie-

2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon cardamom, ground
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cloves, ground
3/4 teaspoon ginger, ground
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
1 15 ounce can pumpkin mashed or puree
1 12 ounce can evaporated milk
2 8″-to-9″graham-cracker pie shell or 1 9″ deep dish graham-cracker pie shell
whipped cream for topping

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Add eggs, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, salt, and sugar to large bowl. Beat eggs with whisk. Add pumpkin. Mix with whisk. Add evaporated milk. Mix again with whisk. Pour mixture into pie shell. Put filled pie shell in oven and bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350 degrees. Bake an additional 40-to-50 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the pie’s center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 2 hours. Serve with whipped cream. Yum.

TIDBITS

1) Pumpkins are grown on every continent except Antarctica.

2) Morton, Illinois is the Pumpkin Capital. Go visit its Pumpkin Festival in mid September.

3) Pumpkin seeds have been used to remove freckles.

4) Linus from the comic strip Peanuts believed in the Great Pumpkin. See the lyrics for “I’m dreaming of the Great Pumpkin” and other pumpkin songs.

6) In 2009, motorcyclists in Nigeria wore dried pumpkin shells on their heads to circumvent laws making them wear helmets.

7) Irish lore says Stingy Jack was too miserly to get into Heaven. But Jack had tricked the devil so he wasn’t welcome there either. Jack roamed the darkness between Heaven and Hell with a lit, carved pumpkin. This is probably the basis for pumpkin carving on Halloween. That and freckle fear.

– 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 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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