Posts Tagged With: cookbook

Spelt Bread

Posted on April 30, 2017 by pauldelancey

Swedish Appetizer

SPELT BREAD

INGREDIENTS

2¼ teaspoons (1 package) yeast
1½ cups lukewarm water
1 tablespoon butter (2 more tablespoons later)
2 tablespoons honey
½ tablespoon salt
4 cups spelt flour
1 tablespoon butter (1 more tablespoon later)
1 tablespoon butter (1 more tablespoon later)

SPECIAL UTENSILS

electric beater or stand mixer
9″-x-5″ loaf pan

Makes 1 loaf. Takes 2 hours 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add yeast, lukewarm water, and honey to mixing bowl. Let sit for 15 minutes or until water becomes foamy. While yeast sits, melt 1 tablespoons butter in small pot using low-medium heat. Add melted butter and salt. Stir gently until well blended.

Add 1 cup flour to bowl. Blend using low setting on beater for 1 minute. Repeat until all flour has been added. Dough should be slightly sticky. Cover with cloth and let sit for 1 hour or until dough doubles in size. Grease flat surface with 1 tablespoon butter. Transfer dough to flat surface. Press down on dough to push air out of it. Cover with cloth and let sit for 45 minutes or until dough doubles in size again. While dough is doubling in size a second time, preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease loaf pan with 1 tablespoon butter.

Bake dough at 425 degrees for 40 minutes or until dough turns golden brown and toothpick inserted in bread comes out clean. Gently remove bread from pan and let cool on wire rack for 30 minutes or until bread firms enough for slicing.

TIDBITS

1) On January 31, 1968, Hiraama Kamouda of the tiny U.S. island of Madrana spelt “heteroskedasticity” with a c instead of a k. That cost Hiraama the National Spelling Bee Championship. Kamouda’s supporters vigorously maintained their spelling, but to no avail.

2) Their island’s honor tarnished, the Mandranans seceded from America. But no one noticed because the North Vietnamese had just launched the Tet Offensive. Now no one can find the island nation because Happy MapsTM mislabeled it as What Island. Madrana’s tourism industry is suffering.

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

Ginger Millet Porridge

Posted on April 29, 2017 by pauldelancey

Equatorial Guinean Breakfast

GINGER MILLET PORRIDGE

INGREDIENTS

1 cup millet flour
1 tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon grated ginger (or ¼ teaspoon ginger powder)
1⅓ cups water
1⅓ cups milk
¼ teaspoon cinnamon

Makes 3 bowls. Takes 20 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add millet flour, sugar, and ginger to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Gradually add water. Stir with fork until well blended. Pour mixture into pot. Cook at medium heat. Gradually add in milk. Stir constantly to avoid lumps and to keep the porridge from sticking to sides of the pot. Cook for 10 minutes or until bubbles form and porridge thickens. Stir constantly with whisk.. Garnish with cinnamon.

TIDBITS

1) Ginger millet porridge is enormously popular wherever gravity exists, present-day Earth, for example.

2) Ginger millet porridge is not popular in space. Without gravity the porridge will simply not stay in the bowl. The authorities at the International Space Station fired their traditionally trained waters. They spent $1.3 billion dollars retraining waiters to carry bowls in weightless conditions without spilling porridge. There is, of course, gravity on Earth. So to simulate conditions of outer space, the waiters had to carry bowls of porridge while a transport plane nose dived. This was a frustrating experience for all involved. But after several thousand nose dives a staff of four waiters emerged who could serve porridge in weightless conditions.

3) Needless to say.

4) It was needless to say, so I didn’t say it.

5) Anyway, the waiters served porridge to the people on the space station. Without spilling! Hurrah!
But when the diners stirred their meal or raised their spoon to their mouth, ginger millet porridge went everywhere.

6) Some point to the $1.3 billion spent on the waiters as an example of government waste. Perhaps so, but that’s just water under the bridge or in this case, ginger millet in the ventilating system.

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

Bad Advice Friday, 4-28-17

Posted on April 28, 2017 by pauldelancey

Oh my gosh. It’s Friday. So, I shall once more be dispensing bad advice As usual, the advice will stupendously bad. You know it will be so as I had overwritten the file with my previous answers and to re-answer. I mean how can you trust advice from a person who does that?

JBL asks: Will this be on the test?

Dear JBL: Yes, it will. Unfortunately, you don’t know what test. I strongly urge you to go to every school you can and take every test. If you don’t answer the question, you will get a zero for it. Indeed if you miss the test completely, you’ll fail the test and fail the course, and get kicked out of your university. And you paid a lot of money getting into that university. You won’t graduate. There will go your dream of becoming an astronaut and of being the first person on Mars. Oh, and here’s foolproof way of acing every test. Simply tattoo every fact and theorem you’ve run across onto your body. Now it’s quite possible, that the tattooed answer will be under your clothes. In this case, you’ll have to strip. If the teacher complains, say you’re allergic to clothes. If the answer is on your butt, ask the student behind you (See what I did there?) to read the answer. Ask nicely; manners are always in fashion.

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MA asks: Can yard bunnies do multiplication problems?

Dear MA: Oh yes. But they’re shy. They just don’t talk to anyone. You have to gain their trust. You have to get down to their level. This means crawling up to them and feeding them pellets. Rabbits are terrified if they talk to people as they fear by doing will stop the supply of pellets. So talk to them in a soothing voice. Tell them that you will provide gourmet pellets if they solve multiplication problems for you. This is known in economics as incentivizing the bunny.

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RAS asks: How do I teach my dog Trotsky to play chess?

Dear RAS: You must learn to speak dog. This is not as hard as it might seem given the smallness of the canine vocabulary when compared to English. Conjugating verbs verb in Dog is much easier than in Dog than in English and, my gosh, much easier than in French. To illustrate, for “Am Hungry.”

French:
J’ai faim.
Tu as faim.
Il a faim.
Nous avons faim.
Vous avez faim.
Ils ont faim.

English:
I am hungry.
You are hungry.
It is hungry.
We are hungry.
They are hungry.

Note there are six different conjugations in French: ai, as, a, avons, avez, and ont. English is easier with only three different conjugations: am, are, and is. However, Dog conjugation for “am hungry” has an elegant simplicity to it.

Dog:
Woof!

There are no cases for you (familiar or polite), for we, it, or they. That makes learning the dog vocabulary easy. Indeed the word, “woof,” is the words for literally dozens of nouns and verbs. Dog convey meaning by intoning their “woof” differently for each instance. You will need to practice your canine intonations and indeed, inflections as well. Get practicing.

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

LF asks: Why can’t pigs fly?

Dear LF: They can! They can! You just need a big enough catapult. Try getting your catapult at CostcoTM; they carry everything. Get your catapult while you can. As of press time, there’s no government regulation about flinging pigs great distances in your neighborhood, but how long can that last given the government has seen fit to regulate commercial aviation.

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BRW asked: I point a red laser light at the neigbhor’s blinds when they are gone. The cats destroy the blinds chasing the red dot. Am I evil? (Taken from a meme.)

Dear BRW: Only if your neighbors are annoying. And if they’re annoying to you, they’re likely to be annoying to others on your street as well. In this case, wait until your irritating neighbors leave their house with lit candles. Point the laser beam at the candle. The cats will attack the red dot on the candle. The candle will fall to the ground. The rug will catch fire. The house will burn down. The neighbors will leave. (Gosh, neighbors is a hard word to spell. Another reason to see them go.) It’s much better to be proactive like this then to let your resentment against them fester into something serious. That benefits no one.

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LHH asks: Over the top, or under the weather: which is best for a Hump day? And are there differences by season?

Dear LHH: If you want to be over the top for weather, you need to go to the North Pole. But with global warming, you can’t guarantee solid ice for your lawn chair. On the other hand, you could be the first person to surf the pole. In contrast, you’ll under the weather at the South Pole. While the South is over a mile thick layer of ice, it is under the Earth. There is nothing underneath you. Nothing! You’ll fall. You see because of gravity, everything falls down. At the South Pole, there is no more down. The scientists at this pole meet this existential threat by constructing buildings. The ceilings on these upside down buildings prevent the people there from falling off the planet. The fear, however, persists as in this line from an angst-filled song, “Put our hands in the air like the ceiling can’t hold us.” Some polar scientists hew to a more devil-may care philosophy as evidenced by the line, “dancing on the ceiling.” If you must go outside when at the South Pole, you must, must wear boots with VelcroTM soles and stay on the Velcro paths. Otherwise, you fall off the Earth. This is true for Hump day, the other days of the week, and for the two seasons of day and night. The Laws of Physics never sleep.

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LF states: A question for Bad Advice Friday? I can’t think. (This is from memory. I overwrote the file where I answered this.)

Dear LF: Thinking is overrated. Millions of people in a few select professions never think, politicians and human billiard balls (A surprisingly popular sport) come to mind. But if you’re really having trouble thinking and would like to start again, I have two suggestions. First, join the French Foreign Legion. You’ll have plenty of undisturbed time to conjure up a thought as you’re marching under the hot Saharan Sun. However, as people join the Legion to forget, you’ll immediately forget what idea you created. But you will have started thinking again and that’s the main thing. Second, commit a crime, a crime so horrible that you will be spending years in solitary confinement. The serene, tranquil, undisturbed aura of your own is enormously conducive to thought. Try it and see!

– 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: bad advice Friday | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Make Me The Replacement for Bill O’Reilly

Posted on April 25, 2017 by pauldelancey

Bill O’Reilly, the hugely popular and controversial host for Fox, was recently fired by Fox TV. They need a new host. I need a new platform beyond this blog for my views. So, I humbly ask my readers request Fox TV to hire me to fill Bill’s time slot. Here’s why you should do so.

  1. Bill O’Reilly was fired for multiple allegations of sexual harassment. I was raised to hold doors open for women.
  2. Bill was not funny. I am funny. Q: Why did the chicken cross the Mobius strip? A: To get to the same side. See what I mean.
  3. I would be an invaluable political analyst having run for the presidency in 2012 and 2016. In the last election, I won all but 50 states.
  4. I’ve written two cookbooks.
  5. Funny cookbooks.
  6. In certain demographics, my books have outsold Bill’s.
  7. My show on Fox, will include a Bad Advice Friday where I give bad advice to all callers.
  8. One show a week will be on cooking. With really good food. Mmmm.
  9. My show will have bunnies.
  10. And dogs.
  11. And cats.
  12. I have over 150 spices and herbs.
  13. I command Paul’s Flying Squirrel Squadron.
  14. I bicycled from the North Sea to the Mediterranean.
  15. My vase was in the prestigious Gemeentemuseum in Den Haag.
  16. I have been to Slovakia.
  17. I know how to say “Where are the bunions?” in Spanish. “Donde estan los juantes?” See.
  18. I can spell Cincinnati.
  19. I have a recipe for a North Korean hamburger, so I can speak on developments in that country.
  20. I’m caught up on my laundry.
  21. My favorite food is the taco.
  22. My office faces south.
  23. I can count to 23.
  24. And more!
  25. I can ties my shoes and hold my booze.
  26. Mainly because I only occasionally have a near beer.
  27. I look both ways before crossing a road.
  28. I clean dishes while cooking fancy meals.
  29. I make hospital corners while making beds.
  30. I never ever block the aisle with shopping cart.
  31. I don’t tailgate.
  32. I can name every country that isn’t an island.
  33. I know that soup backward is puos. Puos is the plural form of puo.
  34. I’ve never been bitten by a mosquito.
  35.  And I played Snoopy in a 5th grade production of “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown.”

See? I am qualified. Please call Fox TV and put in a good word for me. Thank you very much.

– 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

Carne Asada Tortas

Posted on April 22, 2017 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

CARNE ASADA TORTAS

INGREDIENTS – MARINADE

¼ cup fresh cilantro
3 garlic cloves
1½ pounds flank or skirt steak
½ teaspoon pepper
¼ cup lime juice
¼ cup olive oil (2 tablespoons more later)

INGREDIENTS – OTHER

1 medium onion
1 Roma tomato
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 bolillo, telera, or French rolls
grilling or cooking spray
½ cup refried beans
1 avocado
¼ cup crema Mexicana or mayonnaise

Makes 4 tortas. Takes 2 hours 40 minutes.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

mandoline (optional)
outdoor grill

PREPARATION – MARINADE

Dice cilantro. Mince garlic cloves. Add all marinade ingredients to mixing bowl. Mix by hand until steak is well coated. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours. Let excess marinade drip off steak. (If not, you will have some rather exciting flames coming from the outdoor grill.)

PREPARATION – OTHER

Preheat outdoor grill to high. Use mandoline or knife to cut onion and tomato into ¼” thick slices. Add onion and 2 tablespoons olive oil to pan. Sauté onion at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Add steak to grill. Grill steak on high heat for 5-to-10 minutes on each side, depending on your desired level of doneness. Remove steak. Spray the cut side of roll halves with grilling spray. Put roll halves spray side down on grill. Grill on high heat for 1 minute or until grilled side of roll halves turn golden brown. Watch carefully. Remove from heat. Cut steak against grain into 4 pieces.

Add refried beans to pan. Cook on medium-high heat until beans are warm. Remove from heat. Peel and cut avocado into 4 slices. Spread crema Mexicana on all roll halves. Add steak strips to bottom halves of rolls. Add onion, tomato, and avocado slices to bottom halves. Make an indentation in top halves of rolls. Place refried beans in indentations. Carefully turn over top halves with refried beans onto the bottom halves with the meat and veggies. Olé.

TIDBITS

1) The Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920 revolved around exceedingly complex issues such as: democracy versus oligarchy, large landed owners* versus impoverished peasantry, the authority of the Catholic church versus secular governments, and the ambitions of powerful generals and local strongmen.

2) * = This is not to imply the land owners were large, perhaps from the eating of too many too many burritos stuffed with shredded beef, lettuce, queso fresco, guacamole, and crema Mexicana. No, they had large estates, haciendas, that ran** for many miles in many directions.

3) ** = Land cannot run. A really big earthquake, 9.0 on the Richter Scale for example, can send shock waves through the ground that look like an ocean wave to any bystander***.

4) *** = Not that you’ll be able to stand up during a 9.0 earthquake. Most likely you’ll be toast.

5) I’ve used my daily allocation of asterisks – *. Life moves on.

6) Anyway, toast in Spanish is tostada. Tostadas are made mostly with beans and corn tortillas, which are cheap. This is revolutionary bands in Mexico ate quite a bit of tostadas.

7) The factions uniting, however briefly, behind successive central governments always had much more money than the rebelling peasants. The authorities could afford steak. Their armies ate well, often dining on carne asada tortas, the dish featured here.

8) The Mexican civil war was a lengthy, bloody affair. Armed bands and their leaders, jefes, shifted allegiances like the wind. Sometimes they fought for the rights of the peasants and sometimes they deserted to the government, the desire to devour a juicy, scrumptious carne asada torta proving too strong the resist.

9) Of course, the Mexican vegetarians stayed true to the cause of the bean tostada. Sometimes, even the most carnivorous soldiers in the Federal army felt the need to cleanse the palate with the delightfully simple bean tostada. When this happened, they deserted back the rebels.

10) And so it went. Battles went this way. Battles went that way. It all came down to which side would strike the decisive blow, to which side appeared the fiercest.

11) Both the Federales and the rebels used people. That was kind of a tie. The forces searched for something else. Then in an accident of fate, Pancho Villa and El Presidente Carranza both hit on the idea of using giant inflatable balloons made from MylarTM. Villa’s soldiers brought huge inflatable squirrels to the battlefield of Celaya. Carranza’s men, however, carried enormous inflatable snakes with them. Snakes are much fiercer than squirrels. Villa’s army broke and ran. The Mexican Revolution was effectively over. This is also why there’s a snake on the Mexican flag. There you go.

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

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.

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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!

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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

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: bad advice | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Cuban Hamburger (Frita Cubana)

Posted on April 16, 2017 by pauldelancey

Cuban Entree

CUBAN HAMBURGER
(Frita Cubana)

INGREDIENTS

4 garlic cloves
1 onion
2 tablespoons olive oil
¾ teaspoon cumin
½ tablespoon Spanish paprika or paprika
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons ketchup
¼ chorizo (no casings)
1 pound ground beef
¾ pound ground pork
½ cup bread crumbs
2 tablespoons olive oil
1½ pounds shoestring potatoes (And cooking oil as well if deep frying or pan frying.)
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
12 hamburger rolls

Serves 8. Takes 50 minutes.

PREPARATION

Mince garlic cloves and onion. Add garlic, onion, and olive to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion and garlic soften. Add sautéed onions and garlic, cumin, paprika, pepper, salt, ketchup, chorizo, ground beef, ground pork, and bread crumbs. Mix with hands until well blend. Shape meat mix into 12 patties.

Cook shoestring potatoes according to directions on package. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil to pan and as many meat patties that will fit. Cover. Sauté meat patties at medium-high heat for 5 minutes on each side or until meat is cooked to your desired level of doneness. You might need to cook the patties in batches. Top patties with Worcestershire sauce. Warm or lightly toast buns. Add patties to bun bottoms. Top patties with shoestring potatoes. Place bun tops on shoestring potatoes.

TIDBITS

1) The most common geometric shapes drawn by the cavemen was the triangle. So, it’s no surprise cavemen engineers chiseled stone into triangular wheels. This shape proved to be quite useless for transportation. The PorscheTM line of high performance cars would have to wait. But then the Cubanhamburgerpithicus tribe invented the Cuban hamburger. Little prehistoric diners thrilled hunter-gatherers with this avant-garde culinary creation. Soon, an engineer, Ogg Edsel Yugo, had himself a Cuban hamburger. It was tasty. It was round. It inspired him to make a wheel, to make a car. Edsel Yugo’s car flopped. Humanity would wait several millennia for Porsches. Bummer.

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

Anise Bread

Posted on April 15, 2017 by pauldelancey

Burundian Appetizer

ANISE BREAD

INGREDIENTS

2¼ teaspoons yeast
½ teaspoon sugar (5 teaspoons more later)
¾ cup warm water
1 cup flour (2½ cups more later)
7 teaspoons anise seed
1 teaspoon salt
5 teaspoons sugar
2½ tablespoons peanut oil or vegetable oil
2½ cups flour
½ cup water (or as needed)
1 egg yolk

SPECIAL UTENSILS

bread maker (optional)
cookie sheet
parchment paper

Makes 4 bread rolls. Takes 2 hours 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add yeast, ½ teaspoon sugar, and warm water to large mixing bowl. Stir with fork until yeast dissolves. Let sit for 15 minutes or until yeast becomes foamy. Add 1 cup flour. Stir with fork until well blended. Let sit for 30 minutes or until mixture doubles in size. Add anise seed, salt, sugar and oil. Knead mixture with bread maker or by hand until blended. Add 2½ cups flour gradually. Knead by bread machine or by hand for 10 minutes. Add ½ cup water, or as needed, to get soft, pliable dough. Cover and let sit for 1 hour or until dough doubles in size.

Place parchment paper on cookie sheet. Separate dough into 4 balls Add balls to parchment paper. Flatten dough balls slightly with hands. Cover with damp kitchen towel. Let rise for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Add egg yolk to cup. Beat egg with whisk. Use kitchen brush to coat dough balls with egg yolk. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes or until dough balls turn golden brown and their surface hardens. Serve warm or let cool.

TIDBITS

1) In 2200 B.C., King M’bokong of Burundi ordered his subjects bring him a dish to celebrate his 50th birthday. By incredible coincidence, everyone made anise bread. The people further honored their monarch by building a great pyramid three times as tall as the later pyramids of Egypt out of the leftover bread. However, the Pharaohs’ pyramids are made from stone. Stone resists rain. Bread does not. The pyramids of Giza remain. The Burundian pyramid is no more. Bummer.

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

Famous Sayings

Posted on April 9, 2017 by pauldelancey

“I see,” said the blind man as he picked up his hammer and saw.
– anonymous

“I hear,” said the deaf man as he gathered his flock and heard.
– Phil Anderer

“I feel,” said the numb haberdasher as he picked up his cloth and felt.
– Ann Dover Michigan

“I taste,” said the taste-challenged policeman as he pointed he weapon and tazed.
– Amos Keeto

“I smell,” said the smell-challenged fisherman as he pulled in his cod and smelt.
– Barb Ell

“Able was I ere I saw Elba,”
– Napoleon

“Sacre bleu, then why didn’t you win at Waterloo?”
– Private Escargot, veteran of Waterloo,

“How much wood can a woodchuck chuck
“If a woodchuck could chuck wood?”
– anonymous

“How much ground could a ground hog grind
“If a ground hog could grind ground?”
– Al Bondigas

“How much fly could a fly paper fly?
“If a fly paper could fly paper?”
– Anne Thrax

“How much melon could a watermelon water
“If a watermelon could water melons?”
– Mel A. Tonin

“How much dog could a hot dog heat
“If a hot dog could heat dogs?”
– Deb U. Tant

“How much Sun could a sunscreen screen
“If a sunscreen could screen Sun?”
– Amber Waves

– 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: obsevations | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Bad Advice Friday, 4-07-17

Posted on April 7, 2017 by pauldelancey

Today is once more Bad-Advice Friday. I shall be dispensing bad advice to all comers. The advice will stupendously bad.

RP asks: Pop Tart wine pairings, please.

Dear RP: While many people and all wine connoisseurs and cannibals know that white wine goes with white food and red wine goes with red food, it’s amazing how few people are aware that blue wine pairs with blue food, as in blueberry Pop TartsTM, brown wine with brown food, such as root-beer Pop Tarts. If you are unsure of the color of the paste inside the Pop Tart, may I suggest adding sprinkles to a fine rose? Sprinkles in wine always pair well with sprinkled food.

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KM asks: Can you make ice cream from Coffeemate?

Dear KM: Yes, if you have a sufficiently powerful energy source. We in Southern California have a nuclear reactor in San Onofre doing absolutely nothing. Go inside the complex while the guards are celebrating. (Well of course, their partying. It’s my birthday.) Be sure to have all the necessary ingredients for brewing before you start. You’d feel awful if you fired up a hurriedly decommissioned nuclear reactor only to discover you forget the coffee filters.

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LHH asks: Cheese Whiz or organic palm oil for that get-away weekend?

Dear LHH: It all depends. If your sweetheart is the type who prefers Cheeze WhizTM or even VelveetaTM then by all means take the Cheez Whiz. There’s nothing so arousing as having your body scented like a good burger. Also, Lots of rain forests are being cut down to produce palm oil. This is a turn off to environmentally concerned lovers. However, guys whose dates cancel at the last moment should probably bring along palm oil
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SWW asks: I’m going to interact with others, this weekend. So which should I bring up–sex, politics, religion, or all of them? If it’s all, can you give me a sentence or two that combines them?

Dear SWW: Any topic is okay as long as your suitably armed. There is nothing so frustrating as to listen to some ignorant clod go on and on incorrectly on some topic and having no way to stop the rant. Many people carry an assault rifle for this very reason. However, if you’re anti-gun, that’s okay, too. In this case, I suggest carrying a kitchen mallet. It’s dual purpose. It tenderizes meat as well as dispatching people. If however, your heart is set on offending people with the minimum of words, may I suggest the following sentence? “God demands you have frequent sex with Democrats.” (Be careful though to substitute in the word “Republicans” if talking to a Democrat. There’s nothing worse than an avoidable faux pas.)

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KD asks: What should I do if I come in contact with a one-eyed, two-toed flying purple people eater (not to be confused with a trump supporter).

Dear KD: It was never clear to me if the song referred to a purple monster that ate all people or merely a monster that ate purple people. If the later interpretation is true, than I am safe as I am note purple. However, I never ever take blueberry baths. I don’t want to look purple in case I run into a purple-people eating monster. However, things get existential if the monster devours everyone. You have two options. One, spout theoretical econometrics at the flying monster. You will rapidly put the critter into a coma. Don’t know theoretical econometrics? Surprisingly few people do. Two, smear yourself all over with lutefisk. That is the nastiest smelling stuff on God’s green Earth. The monster will stay far away from you as will all other nasally equipped beings.

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JAS asks: Is there life on Mars?

Dear JAS: There’s only one way to know for sure. Go to Mars yourself. Of course, once you arrive, there will be life on Mars as you will be there. Oh, I suppose you could look for pre-your-trip-to-Mars life. Honestly. Okay, you’ll need a powerful rocket to get there. NASA has powerful rockets. If, as I suspect, their rockets as scheduled already for future missions, you’ll have to create your method of space travel. Your space capsule should be a Smart CarTM. They’re small and have a radio and a CD player. Attach thousands upon thousands of bottle rockets underneath and along the sides of your car. Light the bottle rockets and quickly, oh my gosh quickly, get in your car and close the door. Put on your seat belt. Safety is important. And away you go.

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MH asks: Donut holes? What gives? Why should I pay more just for a bag of holes separately?

Dear MH: This is a contentious issue. Deep, secret societies are at work. President Bush wouldn’t touch this issue. Neither would Obama. His health care plan was a just an excuse to avoid tackling the doughnut-hole issue. President Trump plays golf every time some brings this up. Clearly, you’re going to have become president if you hope to find out. And be brave, be very brave.

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OM asks: Are we there yet?

Dear OM: No, we are not there yet. We want to visit the Sun. This will not happen as long as the Earth continues to orbit it. Honestly, it really seems as if we are really just going round and round. The only way to get to the Sun is to shove our planet out of orbit. To do this, we simply need to get about two billion people to jump sixty feet to the ground at the same time. Clearly, we need the cooperation of the Chinese and Indians. Travel to those countries, flash your winning smile and persuade those nations’ leader to cooperate. Should their rulers balk for some unforseen reason, they’re foreigners after all, threaten them with nuclear weapons. Don’t have nuclear weapons? Tsk, tsk, it always pays to be prepared. In that case, break into the White House and steal the attache case that launches everything. If security stops you say, “Oops, forgot this. I’d forget my head if it weren’t attacked.” Make your getaway while they laugh at your joke,

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KE asks: Is the moon really made of cream cheese?

Dear KE: Only the Cream Cheese Association (CCA) knows and they won’t tell without a million dollars in unmarked bills. If you have that much money fine, ask them. Otherwise, you’ll have to save up through hard work, rob a bank, or make counterfeit bills. Do a good job though, the Treasury Department takes a lot of interest in high quality counterfeit $100s. And gosh darn it, you should be taking pride in your work for its own sake.

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KM asks: Will masturbation really make you go blind?

(long pause)

Dear KM: No. See? I’m typing this. Ok, with touch typing I don’t need to see, but no.

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LHH asks: What happens when you smoke the filters?

Dear LHH: You see God. Do this only if your conscience is clear as you will get judged right there and then.

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NB asks: When a stranger asks me – what do I do? – how should I answer. (I think you know what I do.)

Dear NB: Oh my gosh, don’t tell them the truth. Their eyes will glaze over. Their life force will escape shrieking from their nose. Tell them you taste test artichokes. That’s what I say. Unless, of course, you can’t abide the questioner. Then by all means, tell the truth. Honesty is the best policy.

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WK asks: Where was the clock that Bill Haley rocked around?

Dear WK: No one knows for sure. It was once spotted at a flea market in Stockton, California back in 1989. Time to follow up this lead. There can’t be more than 10,000 flea markets in America. Right?

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– 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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