I had a tough day today. Adulting proved more difficult than usual. I needed to see two parrots cuddling. The internet did not disappoint me. See the picture just below. I am happier. I hope you are happier too.
– 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.
We were told in a recent election that electing a certain presidential candidate would result in taco trucks on every corner. Fantastic! This great news decided me. I voted for the taco-truck party. But they lost. America didn’t get all those trucks selling yummy tacos. Life is hard.
But this visionary idea got me to thinking. We need fresh-produce trucks. I mean how many times had nine of ten ingredients needed for an elegant meal? And that missing item was produce. It could be an herb, a tomato, two green onion, etc. But the thing is, you’re usually missing a bit of produce. Then you have to drive to the supermarket and back. This takes 40 minutes. By the time you get back, you no longer feel like cooking. Or if you had already started to cook before discovering you needed an herb, your meal will have been ruined.
No, we all need fresh-produce trucks. And why can’t we buy produce in smaller amounts? I mean, how many times do we needed to buy an entire head of lettuce, 20 green onions, or even four cups of fresh parsley? Never.
If I had my way, we’d be able to buy only the amount of produce we want and from a door-to-door truck.
I might even run for president on this platform.
– 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.
UFOs, aliens, they’re out there! Scary, very scary. They’re inside our homes, our castles, as well. I’m terrified. Look at the pictures below. The photo on the left caught a UFO beaming up people for their hideous purposes. But at least that incident took place outside and at night where and when it’s always dangerous. But look at picture on the right. It’s a UFO. Indeed, it even looks like a whitewashed Starship Enterprise. I found it in my bathtub.
OMG, OMG, OMG. UFOs and aliens are even coming for us in our homes. My heart is racing. I need to take a nice, relaxing bath.
Oh wait . . .
– 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.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. A stressed out, dull boy. A crabby, stressed out, dull boy. A strong candidate for a heart attack or stroke, crabby, stressed out, dull boy. Doctors pretty much agree that strokes or heart attacks are a bad thing. They’ll tell you to reduce your stress right away. How?
Well, one of the best ways to calm yourself is to pet a kitten or just watch them. But suppose you’re chained to your desk, finishing a knotty project with a rapidly approaching project. Your tyrannical boss is not going to take kindly to you unleashing a litter of frenetic kittens at the office. What to do? Copy the picture in this post to your screen saver. Just looking at this picture, from time to time, will by itself lower your blood pressure. And when your supervisor saunters slyly by, simply tap any key and the kittens will disappear.
You’ll be happier. You’ll be healthier. Download this picture. Do it now.
– 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
5 teaspoons baking powder
3 cups flour (1½ tablespoons more later)
¼ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons softened butter
1⅓ cups buttermilk
1 tablespoon flour (so more later)
flour to dust rolling pin, about 1 tablespoon total flour to dust pastry cutter, about ½ tablespoon total
SPECIAL UTENSILS
baking sheet
2″ round pastry cutter or cookie cutter
Makes 15. Takes 50 minutes.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Add baking powder, 3 cups flour, and salt to large mixing bowl. Mix gently with fork until well blended. Cut butter in ¼ cubes. Fold in butter cubes.
Use fist to make a well in the middle of the flour. Pour buttermilk a bit at time into well. Knead gently with hands only until dough is sticky, but doesn’t stick to hands. (Use only as much butter as is necessary. Also don’t over knead.) Dust flat surface with 1 tablespoon flour. Add dough ball to flat surface. Dust rolling pin with flour as needed. Gently roll out dough until it is ½” deep. Use pastry cutter to cut out rounds. (This is why this dessert is called cut rounds.) Dust pastry cutter with flour as needed.
Place cut rounds on baking sheet. (Don’t let them touch.) Bake in oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until rounds have risen and tops have turned golden brown. Rounds go well with cream and jam on them. Or put cream and jam between two cut rounds. Use clotted cream if you can get it.
TIDBITS
1) Cut rounds are round. If the jam and the cream that often go inside them were replaced with surveillance devices you could conduct a 360˚ observation. In general, enemy countries are always on the alert for our eavesdropping. But no one would ever suspect a Cut Round. It’s so yummy. So, I propose that the CIA put cameras and listening devices in Cut Rounds and leave them wherever they need to glean foreign intelligence. You could ask the CIA if they already employ Cut Rounds, but they tend not to tell the public things as it is., after all, it is a top-secret organization.
– 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
8″ baguette (optional)
1½ pounds provolone cheese
¼ cup olive oil
1 tablespoon oregano
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
¾ teaspoon salt
grill spray or cooking spray
SPECIAL UTENSIL
outdoor grill
Serves 4. Takes 20 minutes plus optional 5 hours.
PREPARATION – OPTIONAL
Dry cheese out on a rack for 5 hours. This helps the cheese keep its shape when grilled.
PREPARATION – MAIN
Cut baguette into circles 1″ thick. Cut cheese into slices ¾” thick. Place olive oil into mixing bowl. Add cheese slices. Turn cheese slices until they are thoroughly coated with oil. Sprinkle cheese, then gently press oregano, red pepper flakes, and salt into cheese slices.
Spray grill liberally with grill spray. Set grill to 450 degrees or medium heat. Grill for 2 minutes or until bottom side browns. Lift cheese slices off grill and spray grill again. Flip cheese slices. Grill for another 2 minutes or until the new bottom browns. DO NOT let cheese slices fall apart or even lose their shape.
While cheese browns on both side, toast both sides of the baguette slices. Eat cheese by itself or on toasted baguette slices. Provoleta goes well with Argentinian chimichurri sauce,
TIDBITS
1) The Mormons first settled Utah in 1847. Mormon leaders soon realized that their colony needed many more settlers to survive. The word went out from Utah for Mormons in the U.S. and around the globe to make their way to this new dessert sanctuary. Indeed, many Mississippian Mormons mounted covered wagons and headed west. But the original message became more and more corrupted the farther it went. By the time it reached Leta, Argentina, the decree simply said, “More men.” So lusty, Argentinian cheese making men headed to Provo, Utah thinking the message meant Utah had too many unwed señoritas. The cheese makers liked what they saw in Provo and decided to stay. They made a new cheese which they called Provoleta to honor their new and old homes.
– 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.
Let’s face it, life can be stressful. Stress dramatically lowers the quality of your life. Indeed, stress can shorten your life. You need more comfort in your life. Add comfort by going out for a nice meal, taking a relaxing bath, or lying down on the sofa and watching television. This increases your increase your Net Comfort Index which equals comfort minus stress.
As you probably guessed you can up your NCI by getting rid of your stresses. What stresses you out? Mean inconsiderate people. How do get rid of them?
I’m glad you asked. May I recommend getting a comfort animal that rids your world of stress-making people? What comfort pet does that?
The comfort crocodile. Simply unleash your hungry* crocodile, I call mine Alfie, at the hateful human/meal. Your crocodile with its long, sharp, pointy meal will make short work of the offending oaf. You will have one stress-making person in your life and the croc will have had a nice meal. It’s a win-win situation. Also, your dining croc will leave no stray body bits behind for your municipality to clean up. There’s really no downside to all this.
Comfort crocs run at 20 miles per hour. This means they’re road legal on all roads without posted minimum speed limits or where your 20 mph croc would seriously impede the flow of traffic. But with the average speed of 8 mph in congested urban centers, that’ll never happen. And no driver will even try to face down your croc car. Crocodile pets keep getting better. Other uses for a croc pet come to mind: negotiating a raise with your boss, settling lawsuits, and getting to the head of the line.
You need more net comfort. You need a comfort crocodile. You need one now.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
P.S. Don’t let you crocodile get too hungry; it might eat you before you even get out the door. Crocodiles like to dine on: snakes, fish, deer, baby elephants, cows, gazelles, wild boars, and buffaloes. So make sure stock your fridge and pantry with them.
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.
Who built the Egyptian pyramids? Giant prehistoric aliens. Why did they build the pyramids of Giza? So they could play ring toss. Ring toss is a fun game. Always has been. Always will be. How do we know all this? The aliens left the below photo behind. Archeologist Carl La Fong found it. It’s proof you cannot deny.
– 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.
INGREDIENTS
1 green bell pepper (1 more later)
10 garlic cloves
2 pounds skirt steak, flank steak, chuck, or chicken breast
1 onion (2 more later)
1 green bell pepper
2 onions
5 tomatoes
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2⅓ cups masa harina or 12 corn tortillas
3 tablespoons sour orange juice or lemon juice
1 teaspoon achiote powder or sweet paprika
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons fresh mint, spearmint, or cilantro
SPECIAL UTENSIL
sonic obliterator
Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 50 minutes.
PREPARATION
Seed 1 green bell peppers. Cut each garlic clove into four pieces. Add meat, garlic cloves, 1 green bell pepper, 1 onion, and enough water to cover to large pot. Bring to boil using high heat . Reduce heat to low and simmer for 1 hour 30 minutes or until meat is tender to the fork. Strain and reserve meat/garlic/bell pepper/onion. Save broth.
30 minutes before meat should be tender, seed 1 green bell pepper. Dice 1 green bell pepper, 2 onions, and tomatoes. Add diced bell pepper, onion, tomatoes, and vegetable oil to large pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until bell pepper and onion soften. Add reserved meat/garlic/bell pepper mix, masa harina, sour orange juice, achiote, pepper, and salt. Stir constantly while adding enough reserved broth it obtains the consistency of a thick stew. Simmer on low for 10 minutes or until there are no flour lumps. Stir constantly. Dice mint. Garnish with mint. Use sonic obliterator on guests, who after you’ve cooked for three hours, complain that this dish would go well with rice or fried plantains.
TIDBITS
1) Your kitchen needs a sonic obliterator, like the one here. Buy one now.
– 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.
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.
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