Posts Tagged With: elephants

Beware of Legjacking

Posted on November 16, 2022 by pauldelancey

A simulated legjacking

With the explosion in the numbers of people competing in long-distance races, runners are looking for any edge they  can get. For a while, runners took performance enhancing drugs, PEG. (Note, here PEG is an anacronym, not any woman named Peg.) Anyway some weeks ago, marathoner Carl La Fong up and grew a third leg overnight. He reduced his race time by 39 minutes.

As of press time, no marathon organizers have addressed the issue of a third leg. So many unscrupulous marathoners are looking for a third leg. As there aren’t many legal ways to acquire leg (Contrary to common belief, Costco(tm) doesn’t carry everything), runners are turning to violence.

Leg jacking. They’re procuring their fifth limb by legjacking, where the foul fiend knocks you down and pulls off your leg. Isn’t this painful?

Yes.

And you can kiss goodbye your own chances of winning a marathon.

What can you do to avoid legjacking?

Keep a healthy distance between yourself and all fit people with legs as long as yours.

It’s not always possible to do that because of crowds and stampeding herds of escaped elephants. So, I recommend carrying garlic cloves in your hands whenever  you go out. Simply pop the garlic cloves into your mouth and munch away whenever you see a likely leg thief. Your strong garlic breath will deter any legjacker. Besides, garlic repels vampires as well. And that’s good.

Be sure to join me for future health tips. Bye bye now, Stay healthy.

 

– 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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Eggs Padang In Spicy Coconut Milk

Posted on July 5, 2021 by pauldelancey

Indonesian Entree

EGGS PADANG IN SPICY COCONUT MILK

 

INGREDIENTS – GARNISH

6 shallots (6 more later)
½ cup – vegetable oil (2 more tablespoons later)

INGREDIENTS – SPICE PASTE

1″ galangal root* or ginger root
1″ ginger root or 2 teaspoons ginger powder
½” turmeric root* or ½ teaspoon turmeric powder
6 shallots
5 Thai chiles (also known as bird’s eye chiles) or Fresno chiles
5 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon coconut milk (2 more cups later)

INGREDIENTS – REST

10 hard-boiled eggs
1 stalk lemongrass or 1 tablespoon lemon zest
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 kaffir lime leaves* or bay leaves, or 1 teaspoon lemon zest
2 cups coconut milk
1 tablespoon tamarind juice*, tamarind paste*, white wine, or rice vinegar

* = You can get these items at Asian or world supermarkets, or use the substitutes listed above.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

mandoline
spice grinder
food processor
wok or pan with tall sides
sonic obliterator (No modern kitchen should be without one)

Serves 4. Takes 2 hours 5 minutes.

PREPARATION – GARNISH

Peel shallots. Use mandoline or knife to thinly slice 6 shallots. Add shallot slices and ½ cup vegetable oil to pan. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium-high heat or until shallot becomes crispy and turns golden brown. Remove crispy shallot from pan. Drain and reserve.

PREPARATION – SPICE PASTE

Use spice grinder to make paste of galangal root, ginger root, and turmeric root. Peel 6 shallots. Add all spice-paste ingredients to food processor. Blend until you get a paste.

PREPARATION – REST

Add enough water to cover 10 eggs to large pot. Bring water to boil using high heat. Carefully add eggs. Boil from 6 minutes (for soft-boiled eggs) to 12 minutes (for hard-boiled eggs.) Remove shells.

While eggs boil, remove white, hard part of lemongrass. Dice the green, inside part.. Add 2 tablespoons oil, diced lemongrass, and kaffir lime leaves to pan. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium-high heat or until the sautéed ingredients becomes fragrant. Stir frequently.

Add 2 cups coconut milk to wok. Bring to boil using medium heat. Stir frequently. Add spice paste and sautéed kaffir leaves and lemongrass. Cook for two minutes. Stir frequently. Carefully add eggs. Bring to boil again using medium heat, stirring frequently. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 12 minutes or sauce. Stir enough to prevent burning. Add tamarind juice. Stir gently until well blended. Remove kaffir lime leaves. Garnish with crispy shallot slices. Use sonic obliterator to zap guests who complain your substituted ingredients or anything else. You don’t need their negativity in your kitchen.

TIDBITS

1) It almost goes without saying that eggs are egg shaped. That’s because they are eggs. Elephants, however, are not egg shaped. Indonesia has both elephants and eggs. Indonesia has the Sumatran elephant. This elephant is the smallest Asian elephant. Indonesia also has small eggs.

2) So, we can conclude that the existence of eggs is a necessary requirement for elephants to live. It’s doubtful that elephants eat chicken eggs or any other egg type for that matter. So why do elephants only flourish around eggs? No consensus among the world’s culinary scientists. However, we can answer the age-old riddle, “Which came first, the elephant or the egg?”

3) It’s the egg.

4) Eggs are shaped like the bottom of bowling pins. Indeed eggs bowling was popular in Indonesia in May, 927. But its appeal waned rapidly as the egg pins always fell over and rolled into the gutters. Egg bowlers took to bowling one gutter ball after another. The easy success of knocking down an egg pin that was already down led to constant, lengthy disputes about scoring. Also striking an egg with a bowling ball inevitably shattered the egg. Indonesian bowling leagues used up eggs at a prodigious rate. Only the nation’s leaders could afford to eat eggs. This egg shortage made the common people restless. Indeed, egg anger rose to such a fever pitch, that the elite banned egg bowling. Serenity returned to Indonesia’s beautiful islands but, it had been a near run thing.

5) Then in 1299, Oswaldo Wooden came up with the happy idea of making bowling pins out of wood. The sport of bowling has thrived ever since.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., critic

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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A Fun Renaming of the Bird World

Posted on April 5, 2021 by pauldelancey
 

How in the world did someone come up with the idea of calling a flock of crows a murder of crows? Were they pickled to the gills? Why not call a flock of crows a FLOCK of crows? However, it is unlikely we will be able to change everything to flocks with the Supreme Court busy deciding cases of great import and chaos in our federal government. And with people arguing on Facebook(tm) and Twitter(tm), no one is noticing what we do. We can get away with changing the little stuff.

Let’s do it!                                                                                                      A burrito of burrowing owls.

Let alter the names of the types of birds to something more interesting and alliterative. I humbly propose the following:

A Murder of Crows becomes A Cacophony of Crows

We can now have:

bird                           – flock name
——————————————————–
blackbirds              – blintz
bobolinks              – Big Mac(tm)
boobies                 – booger
budgies                 – bean dip
buntings                – bunion
burrowing owls     – burrito
ducks                     – DNA
elephants              – finch (an elephant is technically not a bird.)
falcons                   – fallacy
finches                   – elephant
hawks                    –  hemarrhoid
jays                        – jackhammer
larks                       – lithograph
loons                      – lutefisk
pigeons                  – pizza
starlings                 – strawberry
swans                     – sarcasm
woodpeckers         – wart

You’ll have to excuse me, a bunion of buntings just flew by.

– 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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Elephants Graveyard – Part 2

Posted on March 14, 2021 by pauldelancey

“Yep, but that won’t do me no good. That ‘phant will just hunt me down and crush every car I drive.”

“Surely, you are blowing a little tiff by that elephant all out of proportion.”

“No, I’m not. An elephant never forgets.”

The cabby remained inconsolable, and so, I waited quietly for AAA to bring the new cab. I then spied the smashed meter, and so, waited contentedly for the new car.

We got into the new car when it arrived, and sped eastward. A few blocks later, we turned into Beauvoir, the last home of Jefferson Davis, only president of the Confederacy.

“Is this the Elephants’ Graveyard?”

“No, it isn’t. Well, okay, there’s one elephant buried here.”

We got out of the car and headed toward the guide stationed at the gate.

“I hear you have an actual elephant buried on the grounds.”

“Yes, it’s true,” responded the guide. “His name was Hector, and he’s buried right beside Jefferson Davis under the shade of the oak tree where he used to read.”

“What’s this, an elephant that could read, hard to believe?”

“I’m sorry,” mumbled the blushing guide. “I meant to say where President Davis used to read. But look here, notice how Hector’s grave comes between Jefferson’s grave and that of his wife, Varina.”

“Varina often complained, ‘Jefferson, I do declare you love that beast more than you love me, your own wife.’ Jefferson would respond with the factoid that Varina meant ‘over-the-hill elephant’ in Swahili. Varina then invariably threw a hissy fit which, if she was five foot ten inches tall, instead of her occasional four foot nine, ended with her decking the great man with a solid, right hook. When he regained consciousness, Jefferson would ride Hector over to the home of his great friend Edward Hurlyburly to eat peanuts and drink delicious grape-citrus coolers.”

I listened entranced for hours to many great tales of Mr. Davis and his elephant. “You know, you all won’t find these stories in the history books,” said the guide as I took my leave.

The cabby and I fought our way back through the thick forest and shrubbery of Beauvoir to the cab. I took the lead and held any branches that got in our way.

I suddenly remembered the meter that was no doubt astronomically high.

Thwack! “Ow!”

I turned around and noticed the cabby lying on his back spitting hazelblatt leaves.

“Hey, I know many parts are edible, but let’s get moving. I want to see that Elephants’ Graveyard.”

“Grumble, grumble, Yankee, grumble, ‘phant, grumble.”

Soon, we sped eastward. We turned left at Peters Street and headed toward Keebler Air Force Base. The sight of guards leveling their rifles at us prompted the cabby to stop. The guard knocked at the cabby’s window just as he pushed the button to roll it down.

“Ow, why’d you do that?” complained the cabby as he rubbed his head.

“I’m sorry sir. This is a restricted area. You’re not allowed inside.”

“I don’t want in. I just wanted to show this Yankee those elephant statues.”

The guard then waved to the sergeant on duty who put down his sausage, onion, and hot pepper sandwich to come over. The two airmen talked briefly before the sergeant came over to the car. The sarge, a man of few words, leaned inside the car and talked across the cabby.

“Well sir, those two statues are memorials to Castor and Pollux, two brave elephants, who gave their lives for their country. Back in January 1942, a German U-boat landed a platoon of marines to blow up this base. Security was disorganized back then and the Germans managed to get within just a few yards of the fuel dump when all of a sudden, Castor and Pollux, two wandering elephants charged. They routed the Germans but not before taking hits from a marine, who just happened to be carrying an elephant gun. They saved hundreds of airmen.”

“Gosh, what heroes,” I said.

I revived the wilted cabby and we soon continued eastward on Beach Boulevard. There, just beyond Mameuse Street, on the North side of the street was it, the Elephant’s Graveyard. I would soon understand one of history’s greatest mysteries.

“Son, you’d best stop right there,” said the guard at the entrance. “See, that herd inside. Well, that’s a herd of elephants holding a funeral. It’s not smart to disturb elephants when they’re grief stricken and edgy. You might start a stampede and you just might get stomped and killed. We’ve lost far more than a tolerable amount of tourists that way.”

We argued with the guard but eventually I turned away disappointed. The cabby seemed contented, but then the meter read $350

– 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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Elephants Graveyard – Part 1

Posted on March 13, 2021 by pauldelancey

“The Elephants’ Graveyard is right there in Biloxi.”

The cabby’s assertion startled me.

“Biloxi, Mississippi? Are you sure about that? It seems hard to believe.”

“It’s true all right. You have my word as a cabby.”

“Come now, I don’t see any elephants here.”

“We’re not in Biloxi, friend. We haven’t left the airport. We gotta go east to Biloxi to see any elephants. The FAA don’t let no elephants into Gulfport. Dangerous to landing planes, you know.”

The meter ran as he talked and I was anxious to make my meeting, but I couldn’t resist saying,

“But the government is shut down again. Who will keep the elephants out of Gulfport now?”

“Damn!” The cabby slammed on the brakes to stop the cab, which wasn’t hard to do as we weren’t moving. He jumped out of the car. “Ow!” Chastened and little more cautious he opened the door and then got out. He retrieved a massive weapon out of the trunk and made his way back to the cab.

“Here, take this,” he growled as he hurled the gun at me. Minutes later when the ringing in my ears subsided I replied,

“How is it that I never read about it, anywhere?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I guess the local reporters just got used to ’em, and just never wrote ’em up.”

“But surely, the migration of elephants to Mississippi would have made front-page news?”

“You’re wrong, friend. The elephants came here in 1862, right in the middle of the war. Folks round were just too preoccupied with the fighting to notice them right off. But soon enough, General Lee enrolled them into his army. The ‘phants, as some call them, were in Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg. We would have won the battle, but them Yankees let loose thousands of mice. Those mice scared the ‘phants, who turned around and stampeded the Rebel men. That’s how we lost the war.”

“Fascinating, but why did they choose here of all places?”

“For the peanuts.”

“But they don’t grow peanuts in Mississippi, they grow peanuts in Georgia as you well know.”

“Well, those ‘phants didn’t know nothing about that, did they? You’re not as smart as you looked, Mister. I’m fixing to take you there, right now.”

“But, I simply must be at a meeting in Long Beach, to the West!”

He ignored my feeble protests, gunned the engine, and soon we hurtled eastward at speeds up to 20 miles per hour. Soon the fair gulf regaled us with its shimmering beauty.

“Thalassa! Thalassa!”, I shouted to the cabby, “That’s Greek for the ‘The Sea.’ The Sea.”

“Yea, whatever. Look, there’s Peanuts Pavilion. Right next to that is the Planter’s dock and peanut refinery.”

“Ooh, that looks quite interesting. May we stop and investigate?”

“No.” He stomped on the gas pedal as way of protest and soon we were pushing the edge of the envelope at 25. “We’re looking for ‘phants. You gotta problem with that?”

“No,” I meekly replied. Since I was at the cabby’s mercy, I resolved to endure the best I could and would resolutely scan the horizon for the noble beasts whenever I wasn’t following the soaring meter.

Soon we crossed the border into Biloxi and immediately the clouds parted to reveal glorious, golden shafts of sunlight. I could almost swear I could hear angels singing melodious hymns of joy. The cabby belched.

Soon, the traffic in our lane slowed and eventually stopped at Eisenhower Drive, while in the lane to the bookstore, traffic ground to a halt. All the while, the meter merrily climbed. We noticed state troopers inspecting the cars, talking to all, waving some on, and pulling over others. Soon, one made his way to the cabby’s Honda Accord.

“Transporting any illegal elephants with you?”

“No,” the cabby explained at length as he handed over his license.

The trooper examined the license and then carefully pointed his flashlight inside the cab. Eventually, he seemed satisfied by our serene demeanor and waved us on. Whoosh, aided by a tail wind, we again darted eastward, leaving even the most vigorous pedestrians far behind. I turned to watch the Miss-Elephant-Rider-of-the-Mississippi-Gulf-Coast contest taking place on the beach; so did the cabby.

Crash! After shaking off the shattered glass, I looked up to behold a most angry pachyderm. Instinctively, I knew the elephant’s name to be Felix.

“What ho, Felix! How’s it hanging?” I bantered cheerfully to the gray skinned beast breathing in my face. Evidently, this was not proper elephantine etiquette as Felix trumpeted loudly as he crushed the front of the cab with one mighty stamp.

“Damn,” gushed the rattled cabby and then moments later, “I’m ruined.”

“My goodness, it’s not as bad as all that,” I opined. “Aren’t you covered by AAA insurance? I have it and it explicitly states that they will replace any one car crushed by a rampaging elephant.”

“Yep, but that won’t do me no good. That ‘phant will just hunt me down and crush every car I drive.”

“Surely, you are blowing a little tiff by that elephant all out of proportion.”

“No, I’m not. An elephant never forgets.”

The cabby remained inconsolable, and so, I waited quietly for AAA to bring the new cab. I then spied the smashed meter, and so, waited contentedly for the new car.

– 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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Beef Smore From Sri Lanka

Posted on February 25, 2021 by pauldelancey

Sri Lankan Entree

BEEF SMORE

INGREDIENTS

2 pound piece of sirloin or beef chuck
2 tablespoons vinegar
½ teaspoon pepper
3 garlic cloves
1″ ginger root
1 large onion
1 small green chile
1 stalk lemongrass (tender inner bottom part only)
2½ tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil
2″ cinnamon stick
¼ teaspoon fenugreek seeds
10 fresh curry leaves or ½ teaspoon dry curry leaves or curry powder
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1¼ cups coconut milk
1 tablespoon lemon or tamarind juice

Serves 6. Takes 2 hour 30 minutes

PREPARATION

Make holes in beef with fork. (This will aid in marinating.) Add beef, vinegar, and pepper to bowl. Marinate for 1 hour.

While beef marinates. Mince garlic cloves, ginger root, green chile, and onion. Seed and mince green chile. Thinly slice lemongrass. Add ghee to pan. Heat ghee at high heat until is hot enough to make a fenugreek seed dance. Carefully add beef to pan. Sauté for 2 minutes on each side or until browned all over. Remove meat to plate. Leave beef juices in pan.

Add garlic, ginger, green chile, onion, cinnamon stick, fenugreek seeds, fresh curry leaves. and lemongrass. Sauté for 3 minutes on medium heat. Stir frequently. Add beef back to pan. Add beef, red pepper flakes, coconut milk, and lemon juice. Lower heat to low and simmer 40 minutes or until the beef reaches your desired level of doneness and coconut milk reduces to a gravy. Turn beef over every 10 minutes. Slice beef to your desired thickness. Spoon onion gravy over beef slices.

TIDBITS

1) At first, Sri Lankan Beef Smores were cooked on a handy twig over an open flame.

2) But the weight of the meat made the twig snap

3) The sirloin would fall into the ashy fire pit.

4) Chefs then shouted, “I need more sirloin.”

5) So many sirloins landed on ashes that this requested shortened to, “I need smore sirloin.”

6) Then eventually to “Smore” by the Monosyllabic Chef Association (MCA).

7) And so it went. Sirloin after sirloin fell into one campfire pit after another.

8) This food wastage bankrupted one restaurant after another.

9) Clearly, the food-service industry needed a new idea.

10) And in 1619, Chef Kasun Perera revolutionized everything when he said, “Why not move this meal indoors? We won’t get rained on.”

11) “Or even stampeded by elephants.”

12) Sure, moving the meal to avoid getting crushed by wild beasts seems obvious now.

13) But isn’t the way with all new ideas?

14) No, not all new ideas arise from Stampeding Elephant Fear Syndrome (SEFS). Rather, all new ideas will eventually seem obvious.

15) You could have skipped to this tidbit from tidbit 11, but it wasn’t obvious then. It is now. See?

16) Or even have skipped to here. Any way, moving fire pits inside dramatically lessened the number of deaths due to elephants.

17)However, way too many restaurants burned to the ground from the flames in the open pits.

18) Customers look askance at fleeing a burning restaurant.

19) The restaurant industry needed another fertile mind.

20) It got with Tharindi Bandari, when in 1878, he said, “How about cooking things on a pan on a metal stove?” They will be no fires when we cook our beef smores this way.”

21) It’s impossible to overstate how this brainstorm transformed cooking.

22) Now, the entire world enjoys fire-storm free dining.

23) America came up with a different solution to the ashy sirloin problem. In 1958 little Timmy Perkins replaced the ingredients of the Sri Lankan Beef Smore with marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate saying, “The weight of melting marshmallow will never break our twig.” It worked! It tasted great. “I’ll have smore,” said Timmy’s dad. And in 1997, Timmy’s brilliance would win him the Noble Price for Culinary Achievement.

– 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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Sweet and Sour Shrimp

Posted on September 23, 2018 by pauldelancey

Thai Entree

SWEET AND SOUR SHRIMP

INGREDIENTS – SAUCE

3 garlic cloves
1 small onion
2 tomatoes
1 tablespoon corn starch
2½ tablespoons water
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (1 cup more later)
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon fish sauce or Worcestershire sauce
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Sriracha sauce or ¼ teaspoon cayenne
1 cup vegetable oil or enough to cover shrimp

INGREDIENTS – SHRIMP

1 egg
⅔ cup fine bread crumbs
1 pound shrimp (24-to-32 count), peeled and deveined
1 tablespoon sesame seeds

Serves 4. Takes 40 minutes.

PREPARATION – SAUCE

Mince garlic cloves, onions, and tomatoes. Add corn starch and water to cup. Mix with fork until well blended. Add garlic, onion, and 2 tablespoons vegetable oil to pain. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add tomato, sugar, fish sauce, and white wine vinegar. Bring to boil. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low-medium and simmer for 10 minutes or until sauce reduces by one-fourth. Add corn starch/water and Sriracha sauce. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Remove sauce and set aside.

PREPARATION – SHRIMP

Add egg to small bowl. Beat egg with whisk or fork. Add bread crumbs to medium bowl. Dip shrimp in egg. Dredge shrimp through breadcrumbs. Repeat for all shrimp. Add 1 cup oil to pan. Heat oil using medium heat. Oil is ready, when a bread crumb will dance in the oil. Add shrimp. Deep fry at medium heat for 4 minutes or until shrimps are golden brown.

Add sesame seeds to pan. Toast sesame seeds on medium heat for 4 minutes or until they start to brown. Ladle sauce over shrimp. Garnish with sesame seeds. Goes well with rice.

TIDBITS

1) Sweet and sour shrimp is one of the world’s tastiest dishes.

2) If you are served this in America, you are a valued guest indeed. If your boss invites over and cooks sweet and sour shrimp for you.

3) However, If you’re served this in Thailand, you might or might not be asked to formally unite your family and their family in a marriage alliance. That’s how tasty this entree is.

4) Of course, people and nations change their outlooks all the time. Nowadays, a repast featuring this shrimp might just mean, “Wow, you are the best folks we’ve ever met. We’ll buy the neighboring house for you so we can all play bridge on Fridays and race elephants on Sunday.”

5) Then again, it might mean that marriage pact. In this case, your family and theirs will naturally try forming a new ruling dynasty.

6) Are you ready to rule Thailand?

7) Think it over carefully. Thailand already has a king and a military that is tied in closely with the monarchy. You will have to defeat them.

8) This means overcoming the King’s hundreds of thousands of supporters.

9) You and your Thai family allies will number ten to hundreds, depending whether on not you count all those in-laws that you don’t really like.

10) You will have to count heavily on the element of surprise.

11) All in all, it seems a rather risky endeavor just for the sake of one meal, no matter how tasty.

12) This is why I’ve written this recipe for you.

13) For serving sweet and sour shrimp in America simply means, “You seem nice. Enjoy my hospitality.”

14) In Britain, it means, “What ho, you’re a splendid sort.”

15) This is why a million Thai tourists travel the US and the UK. It’s just so relaxing to eat your food without the worry of fomenting revolution or making your host thinking you’re gauche in some other way.

16) As Sigmund Freud once said, “Sometimes sweet and sour shrimp is just sweet and sour shrimp.”

17) I know, I know, many people thought he said a “banana” instead of “sweet and sour shrimp,” but that is just a typo. An extraordinary typo, yes, but still a typo.

18) It’s a lot to take in. May I suggest reading What to Serve If You Don’t Want to Start Wars by Raymond Burr Ito.

Chef Paul

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

Bringing Order To The Bird World

Posted on June 26, 2012 by pauldelancey

How in the world did someone come up with the idea of calling a flock of crows a murder of crows? Why not call a flock of crows a FLOCK of crows? However, it is unlikely we will be able to change everything to flocks with the Supreme Court busy deciding cases of great import and gridlock in our Federal government. But we can legally change the names of the types of birds to something more interesting. I humbly propose the following:

A Murder of Crows becomes A Cacophony of Crows

We then have a, or an

bird                           – flock name
——————————————————–
blackbird               – buboe
bobolinks              – Big Mac
boobies                  – booger
budgies                 – bean dip
buntings                – bunion
burrowing owls     – cacophony
ducks                     – DNA
elephants             – finch (an elephant is technically not a bird.)
falcons                  – fart sack
finches                  – elephant
hawks                  –  hemarrhoid
jays                       – jock itch
larks                     – lithograph
loons                    – Facebook
pigeons                – pizza
starlings               – lutefisk
swans                   – sarcasm
woodpeckers       – wart

You’ll have to excuse me, a bunion of buntings just flew by.

Good news, we are almost on the ballot in all fifty states and D.C.

– 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 Elephants’ Graveyard – Part 1

Posted on March 17, 2012 by pauldelancey

“The Elephants’ Graveyard is right there in Biloxi.”

The cabby’s assertion startled me.

“Biloxi, Mississippi? Are you sure about that? It seems hard to believe.”

“It’s true all right. You have my word as a cabby.”

“Come now, I don’t see any elephants here.”

“We’re not in Biloxi, friend. We haven’t left the Airport. We gotta go east to Biloxi to see any elephants. The FAA don’t let no elephants into Gulfport. Dangerous to landing planes, you know.”

The meter ran as he talked and I was anxious to make my meeting, but I couldn’t resist saying,

“But the government is shut down again. Who will keep the elephants out of Gulfport now?”

“Damn!” The cabby slammed on the brakes to stop the cab, which wasn’t hard to do as we weren’t moving. He jumped out of the car. “Ow!” Chastened and little more cautious he opened the door and then got out. He retrieved a massive weapon out of the trunk and made his way back to the cab.

“Here, take this,” he growled as he hurled the gun at me. Minutes later when the ringing in my ears subsided I replied,

“How is it that I never read about it, anywhere?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I guess the local reporters just got used to ’em, and just never wrote ’em up.”

“But surely, the migration of elephants to Mississippi would have made front-page news?”

“You’re wrong, friend. The elephants came here in 1862, right in the middle of the war. Folks round were just too preoccupied with the fighting to notice them right off. But soon enough, General Lee enrolled them into his army. The ‘phants, as some call them, were in Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg. We would have won the battle, but them Yankees let loose thousands of mice. Those mice scared the ‘phants, who turned around and stampeded the Rebel men. That’s how we lost the war.”

“Fascinating, but why did they choose here of all places?”

“For the peanuts.”

“But they don’t grow peanuts in Mississippi, they grow peanuts in Georgia as you well know.”

“Well, those ‘phants didn’t know nothing about that, did they? You’re not as smart as you looked, Mister. I’m fixing to take you there, right now.”

“But, I simply must be at a meeting in Long Beach, to the West!”

He ignored my feeble protests, gunned the engine, and soon we hurtled eastward at speeds up to 20 miles per hour. Soon the fair gulf regaled us with its shimmering beauty.

“Thalassa! Thalassa!”, I shouted to the cabby, “That’s Greek for the ‘The Sea.’ The Sea.”

“Yea, whatever. Look, there’s Peanuts Pavilion. Right next to that is the Planter’s dock and peanut refinery.”

“Ooh, that looks quite interesting. May we stop and investigate?”

“No.” He stomped on the gas pedal as way of protest and soon we were pushing the edge of the envelope at 25. “We’re looking for ‘phants. You gotta problem with that?”

“No,” I meekly replied. Since I was at the cabby’s mercy, I resolved to endure the best I could and would resolutely scan the horizon for the noble beasts whenever I wasn’t following the soaring meter.

Soon we crossed the border into Biloxi and immediately the clouds parted to reveal glorious, golden shafts of sunlight. I could almost swear I could hear angels singing melodious hymns of joy. The cabby belched.

Soon, the traffic in our lane slowed and eventually stopped at Eisenhower Drive, while in the lane to the bookstore, traffic ground to a halt. All the while, the meter merrily climbed. We noticed state troopers inspecting the cars, talking to all, waving some on, and pulling over others. Soon, one made his way to the cabby’s Honda Accord.

“Transporting any illegal elephants with you?”

“No,” the cabby explained at length as he handed over his license.

The trooper examined the license and then carefully pointed his flashlight inside the cab. Eventually, he seemed satisfied by our serene demeanor and waved us on. Whoosh, aided by a tail wind, we again darted eastward, leaving even the most vigorous pedestrians far behind. I turned to watch the Miss-Elephant-Rider-of-the-Mississippi-Gulf-Coast contest taking place on the beach; so did the cabby.

Crash! After shaking off the shattered glass, I looked up to behold a most angry pachyderm. Instinctively, I knew the elephant’s name to be Felix.

“What ho, Felix! How’s it hanging?” I bantered cheerfully to the gray skinned beast breathing in my face. Evidently, this was not proper elephantine etiquette as Felix trumpeted loudly as he crushed the front of the cab with one mighty stamp.

“Damn,” gushed the rattled cabby and then moments later, “I’m ruined.”

“My goodness, it’s not as bad as all that,” I opined. “Aren’t you covered by AAA insurance? I have it and it explicitly states that they will replace any one car crushed by a rampaging elephant.”

“Yep, but that won’t do me no good. That ‘phant will just hunt me down and crush every car I drive.”

“Surely, you are blowing a little tiff by that elephant all out of proportion.”

“No, I’m not. An elephant never forgets.”

The cabby remained inconsolable, and so, I waited quietly for AAA to bring the new cab. I then spied the smashed meter, and so, waited contentedly for the new car.

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