Posts Tagged With: chickens

Lemon Chicken Soup (Avgolemono)

Posted on June 10, 2022 by pauldelancey

Greek Soup

LEMON CHICKEN SOUP
(Avgolemono)

INGREDIENTS

8 cups chicken stock
2 pounds chicken breasts
1 cup arborio, other rice, or orzo
3 eggs
½ cup lemon juice
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup fresh parsley

Serves 6. Takes 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add chicken stock to large pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Add chicken breasts. Lower heat to medium. Add arborio. Simmer for 20 minutes or until chicken breasts can be pulled apart with 2 forks. Stir enough to prevent burning, Remove chicken breasts to large bowl. (Keep chicken stock.) Shred chicken with forks. Return shredded chicken to pot. Stir until well blended.

While chicken simmers for 20 minutes, add eggs and lemon juice to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Take 2 cups chicken stock from large pot and add to measuring cup. Drizzle chicken stock from measuring cup to mixing bowl. Whisk continually as you drizzle in the stock. Add this egg/lemon/stock sauce to the large pot. Add pepper and salt. Simmer for 15 minutes or until soup thickens. Stir enough to prevent burning.

Dice parsley. Garnish with parsley.

TIDBITS

1) Wolves like to eat chickens. Isaac Newton’s chickens were the best. So, it’s no surprise that numerous gangs of unemployed, teenage wolves attacked his chicken coops night after night. Newton first reasoned with the wolves, but his “Now, see here” was met with scorn. He even tried making scary faces. The wolves yawned briefly, then continued their attacks.

2) Desperate, Newton climbed his lemon trees and threw lemon after lemon at the wolves until he had no more. “Deuced wolves, take that.” And the wolves couldn’t take that barrage. They scurried away. Wolves have feared lemons ever since. This is why most chicken ranchers surround their coops with lemon trees. Eventually, culinarily minded lemon tree/chicken ranchers made this dish.

3)Anyway, Newton saved his chickens, but the loss of his lemons ruined him financially. He turned his mind to scientific observation and mathematical theory. Which is why we’ve heard of him.

 

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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Butter Chicken

Posted on October 5, 2021 by pauldelancey

Indian Entree

BUTTER CHICKEN

INGREDIENTS – MARINADE

2 pounds boneless chicken breasts or thighs
1 cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 garlic cloves (3 more later)
1 teaspoon chili powder (1 teaspoon more later)
1 teaspoon cumin (1 teaspoon more later)
2 teaspoons garam masala (1 teaspoon more later)
½ teaspoon turmeric

INGREDIENTS – SAUCE

3 garlic cloves
1 medium onion
1″ ginger root
2 tablespoons vegetable oil or peanut oil
1 tablespoon butter (5 more tablespoons later)
5 tablespoons butter
1 bay leaf
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon garam masala
½ teaspoon salt
1 15-ounce can crushed or diced tomatoes
1 cup cream
4 naan loaves or rice

SPECIAL UTENSIL

blender

Serves 4. Takes 2 hours 15 minutes.

PREPARATION – MARINADE

Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Mince 2 garlic cloves. Add all marinade ingredients to large mixing bowl. Mix with fork until thoroughly blended and chicken cubes are thoroughly coated. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

PREPARATION – SAUCE

Add marinated chicken and vegetable oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high for 10 minutes or until the chicken cubes brown on all sides. Remove chicken and set aside. Mince 3 garlic cloves and onion. Grate ginger root. Add 1 tablespoon butter, garlic, and onion to pan. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium-high heat or until garlic and onion soften. Stir frequently. Add ginger. Reduce heat to medium. Sauté for 1 minute or until fragrant. Stir frequently.

Add 5 tablespoons butter, bay leaf, cayenne pepper, chili powder, cumin, garam masala, and salt. Simmer at low heat for 1 minute or butter melts and absorbs into the spices. Stir frequently. Add crushed tomatoes. Simmer at low heat for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally. Empty contents of pan into blender and puree them.

Add puree back to pan. Add cream and chicken cubes. Simmer on low heat for 12 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink inside. Stir occasionally. Serve with naan bread.

TIDBITS

1) In 1948, Stalin, the brutal dictator of the Soviet Union decided to force the Western Allies out of Berlin by blockading all rail and road access to the city. He figured that the Allied armed forces and Berlin’s citizens would give up in weeks as they’d have to leave to eat. Then the Soviets could take Berlin without fighting.

2) But by agreement, the Western Allies had access to Berlin via three air corridors. The American and British, by herculean efforts, air lifted millions upon millions of tons of coal to the city. They did the same for foodstuffs, flying in untold tons of: flour, fat, meat, fish, dried potatoes, sugar, powdered milk, yeast dried veggies, salt, and cheese.

3) But no butter.

4) Without butter, it’s impossible to make buttered toast. It’s hopeless to make tasty cookies without butter. Without tasty cookies, the way to live ebbs away. Without cookies, people grow listless and indifferent. President Truman realized that without cookies, the Berliners wouldn’t lift a finger to resist any Russian invasion.

5) But there was no room on the air transports to bring in butter.

6) So Truman in conjunction with German chicken farmers organized the Butter Chicken Brigade, Butterhühnerbrigade in German. They really do have a word for everything.

7) The German chicken handlers loaded their chickens with panniers brimming with tubs of butter. The Soviet soldiers surrounding Berlin couldn’t stop the chickens from running the blockade. Have you ever did to catch a chicken? It isn’t easy.

8) Anyway, Berliners, their resolve stiffened by the now possible cookies, united against the Russians. The Russians knew they could face them down. Soon afterward, Stalin lifted the blockade. The Butter Chickens of Berlin had preserved their city. Indeed, they’d saved the world.

9) Said to say, their only recognition came, strangely, enough from India which developed this dish in honor of the Berlin’s plucky chickens.

 

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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Hatch Chile Onion Pie

Posted on September 28, 2017 by pauldelancey

American Entree

HATCH CHILE ONION PIE

INGREDIENTS

3 medium onions
4 tablespoons butter
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons flour
¼ cup milk
1 cup sour cream
4 Hatch chiles, 1 can Hatch chiles, or 4 Anaheim chile peppers
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
2 9-inch pie shells
6 ounces white Mexican cheeses or any desired white cheeses

SPECIAL UTENSIL

mandoline

Serves 8. Makes 2 pies. Takes 1 hour 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Use mandoline or knife to slice onions ⅛” thick. Seed and dice chiles. Add butter, onion slices, and chile to pan. Sauté on medium-heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Add onion and chile and their drippings, eggs, flour, milk, sour cream, pepper, and salt to large mixing bowl. Blend well with whisk. Pour into pie shells. Sprinkle pies with cheese. Bake in oven at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Lower temperature to 325 degrees and bake for an additional 20 minutes or until center of pies are firm.

TIDBITS

1) Cro Magnon chefs felt unfulfilled serving the same old berries year after year. One day a caveman chef pointed to a mastodon. “Why not eat that?” he asked. “Yes, let’s,” said his tribe. So, the Twofoot Tribe organized mastodon hunts which became more successful when they attacked with rocks instead of berries. And the tribe would dine on raw mastodon chunks.

2) A century later, an enfant terrible chef pointed to some chickens. “Why not eat those?” “Yes, let’s,” said the Hatch Valley clan. And the cavemen started to herd chickens.  Later, through a series of fortuitous accidents, the H.V. Clan invented pie crusts. It was a natural step to get their chickens to lay eggs into the pie crusts, add a few Hatch chiles, onions, and sour cream from sour cows. Then cook the pie over an open flame, thank goodness for the invention of fire. And so Hatch Chile Onion Pies were first made. You can see finger paintings of them in the famous Lascaux Caves.

– 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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Grandma Anna’s Spritz Cookies

Posted on June 15, 2017 by pauldelancey

Swedish Dessert

GRANDMA ANNA’S SPRITZ COOKIES

INGREDIENTS

1 cup (2 sticks) butter*
⅔ cup sugar
3 egg yolks
2½ cups flour
1 tsp almond extract (optional)

SPECIAL UTENSILS

electric beater**
cookie gun, aka cookie press
2 cookie pans

* = This was also made with NucoaTM. It’s hard to imagine how fiercely devoted some people were to this margarine.

** = Grandma didn’t use an electric beater. She used a hand-held one. However, those beaters are mighty hard to find these days.

Makes 80 cookies. Takes 50 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 360 degrees.  Add butter to large mixing bowl. Use beater set on high until butter is light and fluffy. Add sugar. Mix with beater until butter and sugar are well blended. Add 1 egg yolk at a time, blending each instance. Gradually add flour, mixing all the time. Add almond extract, if desired, and mix briefly with electric beater.

Grease cookie pan lightly with paper from butter. Choose a disk for the cookie gun. Add dough to cookie gun. (Follow instructions that come with cookie gun.) Use cookie gun to press out dough onto cookie pan. Be creative. Make whatever shape you want. (My grandma favored the letter s.) Bake at 360 degrees for 10 minutes or until cookies start to brown. You might have to cook in batches. Gently remove cookies from cookie pans using fork. Gently, gently, as some cookie shapes crumble easier than others.

TIDBITS

1) Why are there so many towns in the western America named after Sweden? Culinary historians hold it is because of the wondrously sturdy wheels the immigrant Swedes used in their covered wagons. While others used wooden spokes in their wagon wheels, the Swedes made theirs from spritz cookie dough. Egg yolks were much stronger back then, making for more durable spokes than ones made from wood. Indeed, chickens were buffer in the 1800s, being able to bench press a 200-pound man.

– 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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Kedjenou (chicken stew from Ivory Coast)

Posted on December 28, 2014 by pauldelancey

Ivory Coast

KEDJENOU
(chicken stew)

INGREDIENTSKedjenou-

2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 eggplant
3 tomatoes
2 jalapeño or other hot peppers
3 garlic cloves
2 onions
3 tablespoons peanut oil
¾ cup chicken stock
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon ginger
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon thyme

Takes about 2 hours
makes 8 bowls

SPECIAL UTENSILS

large oven proof pot or casserole dish with tight fitting lid
tin foil, if lid does not fit tightly

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cut chicken into 1″ cubes. Peel and cut eggplant into ½” cubes. Seed and dice tomatoes. Dice chile peppers, garlic cloves, and onions.

Combine all ingredients into large, oven-proof pot. Stir. Cover pot with lid. If the lid doesn’t make a tight seal, cover pot with tin foil and then the lid. DO NOT remove lid while baking. Bake at 325 degrees for 90 minutes. Use oven mitt to shake pot every 10 minutes to prevent chicken and other ingredients from sticking to the bottom and sides.

After the 90 minutes of baking has passed, check to see if ingredients are tender. If not, replace foil and lid, bake for another 30 minutes, and check once more for doneness. Again, use oven mitt to shake pot every ten minutes. Goes well with rice or attiéké, made from grated, fermented cassava. Attiéké can be found in African food markets.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe call for skinless chicken breasts.

2) It would have been exciting if one of the ingredients were shinless chickens.

3) I don’t know if chickens have proper shins.

4) Or even improper shins.

5) You need to wear shin guards if you play soccer.

6) This advice holds if you are human or a chicken.

7) Have you ever beheld a chicken playing soccer without shin guards?

8) No, I don’t think so.

9) Ivorians, people from the Ivory Coast, love to play soccer and often play in the World Cup.

10) They also love chicken.

11) So we can conclude they love to see chicken play soccer.

12) Of course, chickens can play soccer. Their tiny size enables them to dribble the ball easily through the legs of any defender.

13) And my gosh, chickens sure can head the ball into the net. Their brain is so tiny that concussions really can’t damage their intellect. And the best chickens can fly for up to  200 feet. They can indeed get to any ball in the air. One flick of the hen’s head and there’s another goal for poultry.

14) Ivorian chicken soccer is of the highest level.

15) Ivorian chickens would play in the World Cup except for the fact that the men’s national soccer team is still somewhat better than the poultry squad and a nation may only enter one team in the tournament.

16) Greenland’s human soccer team garners few victories and never qualifies for any international tournaments. The land’s chickens hatch from the shell with moves that would have put Pele to shave. One would think that the Greenlandic chickens might have a good chance for soccer fame.

17) Unfortunately, it’s a tough life for any chick yearning for soccer glory. Actually, it’s a short life. Greenland’s arctic freezes one chicken after another. Sure, they could survive playing indoor soccer, but as of press time, no Greenlandic municipality has budgeted for an indoor poultry soccer arena.

18) This isn’t so much of a concern for human soccer players, but Greenlandic chickens are terrified of being eaten by polar bears on their way from the coop to the indoor soccer arena.

19) An obvious solution would be to send Greenland’s soccer chickens to a country without a top-level human team, Albania for example. However, the process of navigating the bureaucratic mazes to get poultry visas to Albania has stopped everyone so far. We can only dream.

– 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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Mayonnaise

Posted on October 6, 2013 by pauldelancey

American Appetizer

MAYONNAISE

INGREDIENTSmayonnaise-

1 medium egg
1 egg yolk
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 teaspoon mustard powder

SPECIAL ITEM

blender

PREPARATION

Put egg and yolk of another egg in blend. Blend on mix setting for 30 seconds. With the blender still on mix, slowly add vegetable oil. Blend until mixture becomes thick and creamy. Add apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, salt, white pepper, and mustard powder. Blend for 2 minutes.

TIDBITS

1) People have been using vinegar for 10,000 years. One wonders what for? Couldn’t have been for Easter eggs. No Easter back then. No domesticated chickens either. Could prehistoric people have been following herds of wild chickens? Maybe this exciting thought was the inspiration for the wildly popular TV series, Rawhide. “Head ‘em up, move ‘em out.”

2) And, of course, there is no archaeological–Woo hoo, spelled it right on the first try–evidence that primitive society produced apple cider vinegar, salt, white pepper, and mustard powder, all necessary for the making of mayonnaise.

3) It is not possible to make a proper Venezuelan hot dog without mayonnaise, which we have seen early hunter/gatherer societies did not have. This absence alone hindered the development on the modern Venezuelan nation state for nearly 10,000 years.

4) Pantyhose lasts longer when rinsed with diluted white vinegar. Did dawn-of-time women use pantyhose? What if they didn’t have vinegar? Visit the International Vinegar Museum in Roslyn, South Dakota and find out.

– 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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Pepper Jack Birds in a Sesame Blanket

Posted on August 5, 2013 by pauldelancey

American Entree

PEPPER JACK BIRDS IN A SESAME BLANKET

INGREDIENTSPepJackBirdsBlank-

4 ounces pepper jack cheese
8 turkey dogs
12 ounce package buttermilk biscuit dough
3/4 teaspoon Poultry MagicTM spice or poultry spice
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons sesame seeds
no-stick spray

SPECIAL UTENSIL

cookie sheet

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Grate pepper jack cheese. Spray cookie sheet with no-stick spray. Divide dough into 8 pieces. Roll out or flatten each dough piece until it is sufficiently long and wide to wrap around a turkey dog. Sprinkle each dough piece with an even amount of cheese and Poultry MagicTM. Press cheese and Poultry MagicTM into dough.

Put a turkey dog near one end of a dough piece and wrap the dough around the turkey dog. Put this creation on a cookie sheet so that the dough overlaps on the bottom Otherwise, the dough might break apart. Egads. Brush dough with butter. Sprinkle dough with sesame seeds. Gently press seeds into surface of dough-wrapped turkey dogs.

Bake in oven at 400 degrees for 8-to-13 minutes (Yes, there is a lot of variation between ovens) or until dough is golden brown. Be sure to watch your pepper jack birds in a sesame blanket to make sure they don’t burn or cook unevenly. You might need to turn them over once if they appear to browning too quickly on the top while remaining doughy on the bottom.

Remove from oven and let cool for several nanoseconds before eating. ☺

TIDBITS

1) The cardinal is a bird. The St. Louis Cardinals use bats when they are at the plate.

2) Bats always turn left when leaving a cave. Why? Is this convention? Manners? Is there no room for artistic expression within the bat community? Is this why we never see bat art collections in the finest galleries? Does Batman always turn left when exiting his hideaway in his Batmobile?

3) The New Zealand Kea bird feasts on rubber strips around car windows. Can we use this knowledge to dispose of discarded rubber?

4) More than 10,000 birds a year die from colliding with windows. On the other wing, bird collisions have been known to bring down airplanes. Israel has lost more fighter planes to birds than it has in all its wars.

5) Chickens can run at a speed of 9 miles per hour. This figure is for short distances only. Chickens do not possess the stamina for the marathon or even the mile. The human record for the 100-yard dash is 9.2 seconds, or 23 miles per hour. So even if you are only half as fast as that, you will be able to outdistance any enraged chicken.

6) Well, as long as they don’t fly. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds. The longest distance for a solo chicken flight is 301 feet. Watch a chicken fly in this video for SmirnoffTM: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/160787/flying_chickens/.

7) It’s quite possible air forces everywhere have nightmares about flying chickens. If birds can accidentally decimate the Israeli air force, can you imagine what would happen if chickens took to the skies filled with blood lust?

8) An uneaten chicken can live to be eight  years old, an eaten one goes earlier. The popularity of chicken in cuisines around the world might really be prompted by nervous air force commanders.

9) Moles cannot fly. They are never found on the menus of air-force bases.

10) Moles, however, can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night. If you could put a mole on the day shift and on the swing shift, the mole team could excavate a tunnel 900 feet long in just one twenty-four-hour period.

11) Compare that achievement to the construction crew that’s torn up that important street near your house for two months just to dig a tunnel for sewer pipes. I say fire the human crew and replace them with moles who will get the excavating job done in no time. We will probably still need humans to place the one-ton sections of sewer pipes into the ground. As of press time, moles have shown no real inclination to operate heavy machinery.

– Chef Paul

4novels

My cookbook, Eat Me: 169 Fun Recipes From All Over the World,  and novels are available in paperpack or Kindle on amazon.com

As an e-book on Nook

or on my website-where you can get a signed copy at: www.lordsoffun.com

 

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Tomato Drop Soup

Posted on October 11, 2012 by pauldelancey

American Soup

TOMATO DROP SOUP

INGREDIENTS

1 10.75 ounce can condensed tomato soup
10.75 ounces of any water from tap to bottles from Norwegian glaciers
1/2 teaspoon Vegetable MagicTM spice
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cups Monterey Jack cheese

PREPARATION

Pour condensed soup in pot. (This is easy on a planet with gravity.) Fill empty tomato can with water. Pour water into pot. Sprinkle in vegetable spice and garlic salt. Stir and heat at medium-to-high temperature. Add the eggs as soon as the soup looks like it’s fixing to boil. For consistency’s sake, make sure you break the yolks after you put them in. Stir in the cheese.

Soup is ready to serve when egg yolks are done and cheese is melted. This is so easy. Try it.

TIDBITS

1) This dish is called “Tomato Drop Soup” because you could drop everything into the tomato soup base. I do not, however, recommend dropping the raw eggs into the soup at any great height. Hot soup does nasty things to your skin when it splatters onto you.

2) The cans listed at 10.75 used to be 11 ounces. They might have been 12 ounces at one point. Soup companies and canners in general often prefer to shrink their products rather than raise prices. Fine, but we recipe writers and readers hate this practice.

3) Now that I’m in a slightly foul mood, let me rant about the chickens’ complete inability to lay even the simplest of fractional eggs such as 1/2. I might have made this recipe with 1 1/2 eggs, but the lazy chickens pig-headedly lay entire eggs.

4) When my mother was a young girl, her mother raised chickens. Often Grandma would let the chickens peck for their own food in the backyard lawn. Since the grass was normally too high for the chickens, Grandpa would cut half the lawn one week, as that was all the lawn the chickens needed to inspect, and half the next week. Mom grew up thinking that’s how everyone mowed their lawns.

5) Once rain water got into the chicken feed. The feed fermented. The chickens ate the fermented feed. The chickens got drunk and staggered around, often falling. That would have been something to see.

6) I wonder if that counts as marinating the chickens.

– 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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Egg-White Burrito

Posted on March 24, 2012 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

EGG-WHITE BURRITO

INGREDIENTS

1 8 ounce can red beans
6 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon Berbere spice (See recipe for Berbere if needed.)
1/2 cup Four Mexican cheeses
2 8-inch flour tortillas

UTENSIL

no-stick frying pan

PREPARATION

Cook red beans on medium-high heat for about 3 minutes or until sufficiently warm. (If they burn your tongue, they’re too hot. Let them cool.)

Combine egg whites and Berbere spice in mixing bowl. Beat egg whites with a whisk. (Sometimes all it takes to defeat an egg is a short but stern look.) Put whites in no-stick frying pan and cook on medium heat until egg whites solidify.

Divide the red beans, egg whites, and cheese between the two tortillas. Fold in the sides of the tortillas and roll up from the bottom.

This simple, but tasty dish is a favorite among the tight-knit Moroccan-Mexican community of Poway, California. Olé, ens Allah.

TIDBITS

1) White shelled eggs are laid by hens with white feathers and white ear lobes.

2) Chicken have ear lobes! My goodness, who knew. Do hens wear earrings?

3) Brown shelled eggs are made by hens with red feathers and red ear lobes.

4) I can’t get over it. Chickens have ear lobes. Why?

5) According to Genesis 1:20-22, the chicken came first.

6) Chinese chickens lay about 160 billions eggs a year. American chickens produce 65 billion over the same period.

7) There are 6 million people in Libya. If all of China’s and America’s eggs were exported to Libya, the people there would need to eat 3,667 eggs a year, or 10 a day.

8) I suspect Libyans would get tired of eating that many eggs and would start having egg fights all over the place.

9) May I suggest visiting Morocco instead?

– 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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The Great Chicken Invitational – Short Story – Part One

Posted on February 25, 2012 by pauldelancey

Golf had long been a bastion of people, its exclusivity maintained by a silent gentle folk’s agreement. But no longer, for on January 1, 1974, in Kippen, Idaho, chickens finally integrated the game.

The top thirty chickens in Idaho arrived at the prestigious, private golf club, Froussard for “The Great Chicken Invitational.” Earlier, in late August, Froussard enrolled a chicken to qualify as the host.

Skeptics everywhere had maintained that chickens do not have the necessities to play golf. Other critics had argued that even if physically able chickens could be found, they would not have the mental skills required to converse and to make business contacts.

Nevertheless, the Great Chicken Invitational came to pass. The Invitational’s organizers invited the most athletic chickens for miles around. Intrepid entrepreneurs designed full lines of chicken-sized golf clubs. Chicken owners everywhere got into the spirit and demanded full sets of these clubs for their tiny friends.

Golf enthusiasts from all over the world yearned to see the momentous event. Sven Fjaderfa, CEO and owner of mammoth Swedish Furniture, up and left work a day before the start of the tournament. “I want to see chickens play golf,” he told his employees. Thousands of other golfers joined him at Kippen, Idaho, for the greatest exhibition of golf the state has ever seen.

At seven in the morning of January 1, the organizers trucked in the chickens to the golf course. While the officials spent an hour assigning starting times, the spectators admired the chickens’ traditional tartan knickerbockers. “They look darling,” stated Heather Anders of Fashion Magazine.

At eight o’clock, the organizers unloaded the chickens near the first tee. The chickens immediately scattered to peck for worms in the recently mowed course. Eventually, an official, Tom Purdue, caught Agatha and plopped her down at the tee. He gave the chicken a number one wood, as this was a 476 yards, par 5 hole.

The crowd watched in anticipation, as Agatha surveyed the fairway. She carefully held the driver in the traditional chicken grip, the top wing just touching the bottom wing. All expected Agatha to be a serious competitor, as she never smiled. She looked down the fairway once more, clucked a few times, moved the club back, keeping her left wing straight, and then rapidly brought it forward to hit the ball.

Sarah Dindon, was there for the tee off. “I was lying down on the ground looking up at the blue sky, as I have always found this the best way to view chicken golf.” Sarah watched Agatha’s ball soar above her head into the clouds. The ball then came down, landing a yard down the fairway. At this effort, some unsympathetic fans hooted in derision. Agatha reacted angrily by pecking her nearest tormentors.

The organizers hoped for better results from Roxanne, a fierce, muscular chicken, who spat gravel at the poor official who carried her to the tee. Roxanne followed Agatha’s lead by selecting a driver from the tiny bag on her back. She exhibited perfect form, as a lifetime of looking for worms in the ground had given her the enviable ability to keep her darn, stupid head down. Although her drive nearly doubled Agatha’s in length, this still meant she was 474 yards short. Nearly all the attending journalists agreed that her chances of parring the hole were remote.

Chicken after chicken followed the pattern of Agatha and Roxanne. Something had gone wrong. Apologists for the fowls suggested that the media circus attending this first professional contest unnerved the flock. Indeed, Bob Banks, owner of Francine, slugged a reporter who badgered chickens in rather one-sided interviews.

But the reason for their poor performances lay in the chickens themselves. Remarkably, no one had considered the possibility that a twenty-ounce chicken using a four-inch club would drive a regulation golf ball a considerably shorter distance than would a two-hundred-pound man with a regulation club. Furthermore, for all their attentiveness to their swings, the chickens’ lack of hands proved to be a major obstacle to getting firm grips on their clubs.

(To be continued)

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