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Wanda Wunder #27
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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.
INGREDIENTS
1 slice white bread
2 teaspoons butter, softened
1 tablespoon chocolate sprinkles or Dutch chocolate sprinkles, hagelslag, if you can find it
Serves 1. Takes 3 minutes.
PREPARATION
Spread butter all over bread. Sprinkle with sprinkles.
Ponder on what an amazingly versatile and speedy chef you’ve become.
TIDBITS
1) In 1633, little Pieter van Voorburg went outside to play.
2) He got hungry. He went inside for food. Mama took time to give Pieter a slice of bread.
3) He ate the bread. Little bits of bread fell from his mouth on to an ant hill.
4) The black ants swarmed the crumbs and took them back to their hill. The ants’ antics entranced the little boy for over an hour. Then he grew hungry once more. He went inside for more food.
5) “Oh Pieter!” cried his very busy mother, “Here, have two slices and some butter too. Now leave me be.”
6) Pieter buttered the bread with his fingers. But now he also wanted meat on his bread. He started back to the house. Then he remembered how cross Mama had been. What to do? Aha! Ants were meat, weren’t they?
7) He grabbed some ants and spread them on the buttered bread. Pieter, ate his slice. It was good. He’d give the other ant-smeared slice to Mama. She’d be pleased at his thoughtfulness.
8) Mama’s scream told Pieter she thought otherwise. Once the shrieking abated, she said in between sobs, “There’s so many black ants that they look like chocolate sprinkles..”
9) Pieter and Mama looked at each other. Looked again. Mama said, “Why I declare, bread with butter and chocolate sprinkles would be very tasty.” And so, a national breakfast was born.
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.
Wanda Wunder turns her fertile brain to a long-standing problem.
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.
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.
Was it a sign of the end of the world? Should we stocking up on mini-tacos? All I know for sure is that in my town of Poway, cultural an and capital of San Diego County, the ant population plunged last week. Specifically, they died in my refrigerator, in my freezer.
Why did they do that? Was it a long-postponed attempt to lay a guilt trip on me for that childhood ant farm where they all died? Honestly, I didn’t mean it. Perhaps I filled my farm with soldier ants from differing colonies. I’ll just have to live with the horrible uncertainty for the rest of my life.
Why did they commit suicide where they did? For a full day they streamed into the freezer section to meet their icy deaths. Who among us can really feel an ant’s angst” Were they exo-skeletal weary of the daily, relentless onslaught of spiders, lizards, Rustler’s Round UpTM ant traps, and the terrifying stomping action of the human’s foot? Did they finally say, “Enough, cruel word!” The Ant’s Graveyard
Or was Norway stirring things up again? After all, this country brought us Viking raids and lutefisk, the worst-tasting, smelliest, glueist food the world has even seen. Perhaps Norway’s dysfunctional lemmings infected Poway’s ants with their morose attitudes? Before the days of cable TV, I doubt may Powegian ants ever heard of suicidal lemmings. Now, look what happens.
Mass extinctions of species by suicide. It might be the end of the world. Bummer. Or maybe, I’ve just invented a better ant trap.
– Paul De Lancey, Mighty Hunter
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.
Chinese Entree
INGREDIENTS
4 boneless and skinless chicken breasts
MARINADE
2 teaspoons peanut oil
1/2 cup soy sauce
3 tablespoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ginger powder
1/2 cup honey
4 teaspoons corn starch
2 teaspoon malt vinegar
MAIN
2 cups cashews
1 stalk green onion
4 green bell peppers
1 medium white onion
3 teaspoons soy sauce
3/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
2 1/2 teaspoons sugar
2 1/2 malt vinegar
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1 cup rice
PREPARATION
MARINADE
Cut chicken breasts into 1-inch cubes. Place cubes in mixing bowl. Add soy sauce, chili powder, ginger powder, corn starch, and malt vinegar. Mix thoroughly with hands or until chicken cubes are completely coated with this mixture. Let marinate from 30 minutes to several hours, the longer the better. (That is if your stomach stimulated by the wonderful aroma received by your nose will let you.)
MAIN PART
While waiting for chicken to marinate, add cashews to saucepan and cover with water. Bring water to boil and simmer for about 6 minutes until cashews become soft. Remove pan from heat, drain water, and set softened cashews aside. Dice green onion.
Mince green bell peppers and white onion. Sauté bell peppers and onion in saucepan until onion become soft and clearer. Add in: marinade, soy sauce, water, white pepper, sugar, malt vinegar, and sesame oil. Heat on medium high until all the chicken cubes are no longer pink inside. Determine the color by cutting a cube open. (Unless, of course, you are SupermanTM and have x-ray vision.) Stir frequently.
While chicken is cooking, prepare rice according to instructions shown on bag. Combine chicken cubes, marinade, green onion, and cashews. Serve on top of rice and enjoy.
TIDBITS
1) Ancient Babylon’s women ate sesame seeds and honey to prolong health and beauty.
2) Ancient Roman’s soldiers ate the same things to get strength and energy.
3) I wonder how many times the sesame seed/oil mixture gave beauty to the Roman soldiers and strength to Babylonian women. I mean sesame seeds and oil aren’t smart at all. I could very see how these inanimate objects could confuse these two missions.
4) Danged ants keep running across my keyboard. What do they expect to find here? There’s no food here. Stupid ants.
5) Great! Now, I’ve lost my train of thought. Stupid ants.
6) I wish I could make a deal with them. Stay out of my house forever and I’ll dump every morsel of food that doesn’t get cooked–such as fat, yum–-or eaten.
7) But ants aren’t that smart. That’s why they sometimes crawl over my keyboard looking for food. Stupid ants. Whap! One fewer ant. One fewer ant for Paul’s office, one great victory for picnickers everywhere.
– 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.
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