I got to the stop sign first.
Please do not kill me.
DRIVING HAIKU #2
You have a big car.
I’ve a sonic obliterator.
You will yield to me.
– Paul R. De Lancey, Bad Artist
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.
“Insiders buy stocks for only one reason. They think the prices will go up.”
– From an online advertisement.
“Heat rises in Holland.”
– Dutch real estate agent
Whoa, slow down. Let me absorb this.
– Paul R. De Lancey – historian
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.
GRAMMAR HAIKU #1
It is a truism.
Good grammar and chocolates
Will impress your date.
GRAMMAR HAIKU #2
Remember tonight,
Lust is fleeting but grammar
Endures forever.
– Paul R. De Lancey, Bad Artist
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.
Iraqi Entree
INGREDIENTS
6 medium brown potatoes
½ teaspoon turmeric
2 garlic cloves
1 onion
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 pound ground beef or lamb
3 tablespoons parsley
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
no-stick spray
2½ tablespoons butter
½ tablespoon cinnamon
SPECIAL UTENSIL
9″ x 13″ casserole dish
Serves 117 square inches
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Peel potatoes. Cut each potato into eight pieces. Put potato pieces into large pot. Add enough water to cover potato bits. Bring water to boil on high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes or until potato is tender. Drain potatoes. Mash potatoes with potato masher. Add turmeric to pot. Use whisk to blend mashed potatoes and turmeric together.
While potato is cooking, mince garlic cloves and onion. Put garlic, onion, and vegetable oil in pan. Sauté at medium-high for 5 minutes. Stir frequently. Add ground beef, parsley, pepper, and salt. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes or until beef is no longer pink.
Spray casserole dish with no stick spray. Cut butter into tiny cubes. Add ½ of mashed potatoes to casserole dish. Smooth mashed potatoes with spoon or spatula. Add ground-beef mix. Smooth ground beef. Add remaining ½ of mashed potatoes to casserole dish. Smooth mashed potatoes. Sprinkle tiny butter cubes and cinnamon over top layer of mashed potatoes.
Bake casserole at 350 degrees for 30-to-40 minutes or until top of casserole turns golden brown. Cut casseroles into squares, diamonds, or rectangles and serve to lovers of good food and friends of geometric shapes everywhere.
TIDBITS
1) This entree is Iraqi.
2) Iraqi food is great, however Iraqi is poor word for making anagrams.
3) You can use the word Iraqi to form the anagram “Qi air.”
4) Qi is a word that is only used in ScrabbleTM games. I don’t know what it means. I don’t play Scrabble anymore.
5) There is a persistent suspicion among culinary wordsmiths that wars and all types of fighting in that country occur to justify the use of the words Iraq, Iraqi, and Iraqis in Scrabble.
6) But what if Iraq were to split into separate countries?
7) Iraq and Iraqi would be taken out of the Scrabble dictionary.
8) And what if you had the tiles IRAQISW in your possession, and you could use the “q” for a triple-letter score and the entire word could be doubled?
9) And what if you were playing the leaders of the superpowers for world domination, the game was about to end because one of the leaders wanted to eat a lutefisk sandwich at the table, and the points from I1R1A1Q10I1S1 are enough to give you the game?
10) Well, you’d lose because Iraq wouldn’t exist anymore in Scrabble. You’d have to go back to your spouse in your tiny apartment who’d ask you where you’d been.
11) You’d say, “Honey, I’ve been playing the nations’ leader Scrabble for world domination.”
12) You’d be told, “Like I haven’t heard that one before. Did you get the milk like I asked you?”
13) A dark mood would envelop you. You’d head to KwikiMart thinking, “If I were the world’s dictator, I could send someone else out to get milk.”
14) On the way home, you’d realize that if Iraq were to split into three nations, the country of Kurdistan would come into existence.
15) What if you had the tiles K5U1R1D2I1S1T1S1 and you could place them in front of AN already on the board for triple K and triple word?
16) Why you’d win the game for sure! You’d be the Earth’s El Supremo. You’d have a milk fetcher on your permanent staff. Chocolate malteds anytime you want! World domination is great!
17) Did you keep the phone numbers of the world’s leaders? Great. Be sure to get those honey-mustard potato chips that Madame President likes.
– 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.
LAUNDRY HAIKU #1
Laundry, oh laundry
I hate you. I will hate you.
’till the end of time.
LAUNDRY HAIKU #2
You, pile of laundry,
I so wanted to eat out.
But then I saw you.
– Paul R. De Lancey, Bad Artist
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.
eDating the Old School Way
Maura Stone, the Bubbameistah, gives hilarious advice to those looking to the internet for matchmaking. Beware! Okay, okay, that’s a bit too succinct. But you will laugh out loud. You will find out that you are a catch, people out there are crazed murderers who want to see naked pictures of yourself and even worse than will want to meet you at a Dunkin Doughnuts. How do you avoid this fate? By listening to the Bubbameistah. She’ll tell you such secrets as how people make themselves sound better online than in real life and that if it’s meant to be, your e-dating sweetheart will call you back within three days. It’s twue!
Written in such a way that even a economics nerd can relate, eDating the Old School Way is sprinkled with such sage topics as “E-Women are Lunatics.” And on the other hand, what woman would not want the know the following motherly advice, “Would your interest be piqued when he markets himself with “I put the toilet seat down”? If that’s the best he can say for himself, then you know his bar is set way too low.”
eDating the Old School Way is the only self-help book I’ve read all the way through and the world is a better place for it. And the world will still be a better place after the Zombie Apocalypse, for Ms. Stone navigates us through the treacherous waters of eDating for zombie men and Dunkin Doughnut dating.
eDating the Old School Way is available on amazon.com
Check out her author page on HOPress-Shorehousebooks.com
– Paul R. De Lancey, author of Beneficial Murders and Eat Me: 169 Fun Recipes From All Over the World
Bangladeshi Entree
INGREDIENTS
4 chicken breasts
1 medium onion
1 ounce cashew nuts
4 large garlic cloves
1½ ounces ginger root
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
1 teaspoon cardamom
¾ teaspoon chili
½ teaspoon coriander
¼ teaspoon mace
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon turmeric
½ tablespoon lemon juice
¼ cup milk
¼ cup plain yogurt
2 cups basmati rice
3½ cups water
2 bay leaves
1¾ cups water
1 cinnamon stick
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ cup ghee or butter
1 gram saffron (.035 ounce. Tiny but mighty, you bet.) or ½ teaspoon safflower
SPECIAL UTENSILS
spice grinder
sonic obliterator (essential for all sensitive chefs)
Takes about 3 hours. Serves 4.
PREPARATION
Cut each chicken breast in half. Dice onion. Put the following ingredients one at a time in spice grinder and grind until you get four different pastes: cashew nuts, garlic cloves, ginger root, and poppy seeds.
Add chicken, onion, ginger paste, cashew paste, garlic paste, poppy-seed paste, cardamom, chili, coriander, mace, nutmeg, salt, turmeric, lemon juice, milk, and yogurt to large mixing bowl. Mix by hand until chicken pieces are well coated with spices. Marinate in refrigerator for at least 1 hour.
While chicken marinates, add rice and 3½ cups water to large bowl. Let rice set in water for 30 minutes, then drain water. Add bay leaves, cinnamon stick, and 1 cup water to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Boil for 5 minutes. Remove bay leaves and cinnamon stick with tongs. This is the spicy water.
Add marinated chicken and vegetable oil to pan. Sauté chicken on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until chicken starts to brown. Stir occasionally. Remove from heat. Add ghee, saffron, and drained rice to second pan. Sauté rice for about 5 minutes or until rice starts to splutter. Stir constantly.
Add chicken, sautéed rice, and spicy water to large pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer for 20 minutes or until rice is tender. Serve to adoring quests. Sonically obliterate the unappreciative; it just means more for those who like this entree. And besides, you don’t need negativity.
TIDBITS
1) The similarities between Bangladesh and Tennessee are astounding and many.
2) Morog Polao, this Bangladeshi entree, has four vowels, o, in it.
3) Tennessee has four vowels in it as well, e in this case.
4) Morog Polao is served at Bangladeshi weddings.
5) Food is also served at Tennessean festivals, including deep-fried ice cream and deep-fried Caesar’s salad.
6) Julius Caesar never made it to either Bangladesh or Tennessee.
7) Bangladesh is an anagram for bagel hands. Tennesseans eat bagels with their hands.
8) Tennessee is an anagram for seen teens.
9) Teenagers have been seen in Bangladesh and in Tennessee.
4) Uh oh!. We’ve already seen 4). I hope this is just a typo, not an indication that we are going back in time. In which case, my twelve-minute eggs will never get ready. I mean they’ve been cooking for eight minutes now and pretty soon they’ll be three-minute eggs because we’re going back in time. My gosh!
10) Ah! 10). We are not going back in time. It was just a typo.
11) Typos occur in both Bangladesh and Tennessee. If all these similarities can occur in two widely separated spots in the world, who’s to say involuntary time travel can’t happen? Watch your eggs.
– 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.
My wife pointed to a dish with cheeseburger remnants.
“Why did you eat that when you knew we were going out for lunch?”
I riposted, “I wasn’t thinking.”
“How come you weren’t thinking?”
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“You should have been thinking you weren’t thinking so you could have been thinking,” she said.
“”I,” said I, “couldn’t have thinking I wasn’t thinking so I could have been thinking because I wasn’t thinking to think I could have been thinking I should have been thinking I wasn’t thinking.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay,” I said.
I wonder what sort of conversations did Mr. and Mrs. Rene Descartes have. Oh, for the record I only ate a half a cheeseburger as I had begun to think.
“I think I should be thinking about this cheeseburger, therefore I am.”
– Rene Descartes in his first attempt at proving his existence
– Paul R. De Lancey – culinary thinker
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.
THANKSGIVING HAIKU #1
Defrost, damn turkey!
The guests will be arriving
In only one hour.
THANKSGIVING HAIKU #2
Feck! No potatoes!
Dear, will you go to the store?
What again? You dope.
THANKSGIVING HAIKU #3
Crudness, I forgot
To make the mashed potatoes
Will the guests notice?
– Paul R. De Lancey, Bad Artist
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.
Serbian Soup
INGREDIENTS
3 garlic cloves
1 large onion
1 carrot
1 pound smoked sausage or other smoked meat 2½ tablespoons vegetable oil
2 bay leaves
1½ tablespoons flour
½ tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon parsley
½ teaspoon pepper
4 peppercorns
15-ounce can cannellini or white kidney beans
2 tablespoons tomato paste
4½ cups water
½ teaspoon salt
Makes 8 bowls. Takes about 1½ hours to make.
PREPARATION
Dice garlic cloves and onion. Cut carrot and smoked sausage into ½” thick slices. Add vegetable oil, garlic, onion, and sausage to large pot. Sauté for 5 minutes on medium-high heat or until onion softens and sausage starts to brown. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low. Add bay leaves, flour, paprika, parsley, pepper, and peppercorns. Mix to form a paste.
Add water to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Add beans, carrot, and tomato paste. Stir until paste blends in completely. Reduce heat to low. Simmer for 1 hour. Add salt. Mash the beans near the side of the pot to thicken the soup. Now you know beans.
TIDBITS
1) On June 28th, a Serbian nationalist assassinated the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. This event triggered the horrific First World War. The Archduke had taking a carriage ride.
2) It would have all turned out much differently if the Archduke had been eating Serbian bean soup instead. No one gets assassinated in a restaurant that serves good bean soup. Suppose, you could normally kill someone, just hypothetically mind you. Once you entered the restaurant, the wonderful aromas wafting their way from the soup pots would make you so hungry you’d postpone your murderous deed until you’d have just one bowl, thank you, of wonderful bean soup. And then you’d be so full of good will to all humanity, you couldn’t kill any one. Nor under tip, even. Which is why world leaders always frequent restaurants with good bean soup.
– 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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