Kitty tries to intimidate flowers. Will the flowers back down?
You Need to See, #28
– 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
2 pounds pork ribs
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1½ tablespoons paprika
2 teaspoons salt
¼ cup barbecue sauce
SPECIAL UTENSILS
smoker
electric thermometer
wood chips (oak, apple, hickory, pecan, cherry, or mesquite)
Serves 4. Takes 5 hours. Time includes preheating the smoker. Times vary with smokers.
PREPARATION
Preheat smoker to 250 degrees. Add wood chips to smoker. While smoker heats, use brush to spread ribs with yellow mustard. (This helps keep the following rub on the ribs.) While smoker preheats, add brown sugar, chili powder, onion powder, paprika, and salt to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Rub mixture evenly over both sides of ribs.
Add ribs to smoker rack. Insert electric thermometer in the middle of the ribs. Avoid the bones. The ribs are done when the internal meat temperature reaches 190 degrees or when the meat retracts . Remove from heat. Brush ribs with barbecue sauce. Return ribs to smoker. Smoke for 15 minutes. Remove from heat. Tear pork into individual ribs.
TIDBITS
1) The pork ribs shown above look like a butterfly. Indeed, pigs often hide in swarms of butterflies. Since they spend so much time together, it is important to compare pork ribs with butterflies.
BENEFIT PORK RIBS BUTTERFLIES
Pollinate flowers no yes
Boost tourism no yes
Provide antibiotics no yes
Keep insects under control no yes
Are Tasty yes no
There you have it, a surprise 4-to-1 victory for the butterfly.
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.
Is it really this simple?
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., and travel advisor
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.
Life’s unending troubles and obstacles grind us down and make us miserable. Sometimes we even think we’ll never smile again. Perhaps we’ve even forgotten to smile. But there are things in life that make us happier just by looking at them. A happy little girl, an arrangement of flowers, and butterflies always lift our spirits. Combining these three things, as shown below, will bring a smile to your face, guaranteed. Okay, you might have to look twice, but is that so bad?
Smile Makers At Work
– 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
1 pound Edam cheese or Gouda
2 eggs
1½ tablespoons milk
⅛ teaspoon salt
⅔ cup flour
1 cup breadcrumbs
4 cups olive or vegetable oil (Enough to cover fried cheeses)
Serves 4. Takes 30 minutes.
SPECIAL UTENSIL
Frying pan large enough to cook four cheese squares. I know a large frying pan is not normally considered a special utensil. But it really helps makes fried cheese look nicer when you can cook them all at once. Bits of breadcrumbs can blacken succeeding batches.
PREPARATION
Cut cheese into 4 slices ½” thick.. Add eggs, milk, and salt to mixing bowl. Beat with whisk or fork until well blended. Add flour to 1st plate. Add breadcrumbs to 2nd plate.
Heat oil using medium heat. Oil is hot enough when a breadcrumb dropped in will start to dance. Dredge cheese slices through flour until completely coated. Dredge cheese slices through eggs until completely coated. Dredges cheese slice through breadcrumbs until completely coated.
Gently place coated cheese slices in oil. (Carefully, the hot oil might splatter.) Fry using medium heat for 2 minutes on each side or until it turns golden brown. Remove immediately and pat dry with paper towels. Goes well with tartar sauce as a dipping sauce or with French fries.
TIDBITS
1) The human race abounds with geniuses. Some of them make medical breakthroughs. Others invent devices that make space exploration and planetary excursions ever easier. Then there are the culinary geniuses that find news foods to deep fry.
2) The following is a partial list of foods deep fried by these visionaries: bacon slathered with mayonnaise, bubble gum, butter, Cadbury Cream Egg(tm), cookie dough, corn on the cob, flowers, gravy, guacamole, jelly beans, Mars(tm) bars, Nutella(tm), salsa, sauerkraut, watermelon, and White Castle(tm) burgers. My pick for the most innovative deep-fried dish is the tarantula. It does exist, really.
Paul De Lancey, 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.
Chinese Soup
INGREDIENTS
2 green onions (1 more later)
1″ ginger root
½ teaspoon brown sugar
½ pound ground pork
2 teaspoons Chinese rice wine or sherry
1 tablespoon soy sauce (2 teaspoons more later)
24 wonton wrappers
4½ cups chicken stock
1 green onion
2 teaspoons soy sauce
Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 10 minutes.
PREPARATION
Thinly slice 2 green onions. Grate ginger root. Add 2 sliced green onions, grated ginger, brown sugar, pork, rice wine, and 1 tablespoon soy sauce to large mixing bowl. Mix with fork until filling is well blended. Let marinate for 20 minutes.
Place 6 wonton wrappers at a time on flat surface. Keep remaining wrappers covered with wet towel to keep them from drying out. Place ½ tablespoon filling in center of wrapper. Use a finger to lightly wet the edges of the wrapper. Bring 2 opposite corners together to form a triangle. Firmly press edges together. Bring the 2 corners of the long edge together so that they overlap to get a round stuffed wonton with a flat triangle at the top. Repeat for remaining wrappers.
Thinly slice 1 green onion. Add chicken stock to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Add wontons to pot. Reduce heat to low-medium. Simmer for 5 minutes or until wontons start to float. Stir occasionally and gently. Garnish with 1 sliced green onion.
TIDBITS
1) French women, for the last thousand years, have gone for men who are handsome and give them flowers, chocolate, and wonton soup. This held especially true for French queens. Poor old King Phillip II Augustus (1165-1223) had great trouble getting his wife Isabelle of Hainault into a frisky mood. Phil got himself nipple rings. Izzy simply used his rings for coat hangers. Phillip II even gave her flowers, chocolates, and French onion soup. “Not now,” as she gazed at her soup. “Not now.”
2) At his wits end, King Phillip II told his chef to go wild making a new soup. His chef came up with this very same recipe. Isabelle loved it. Indeed, it made her so amorous that the royal couple made whoopee all night long. Nine months later, little Louis VIII was born. Ever since then all French kings who served their queens “Won ton” soup, the opposite of “Not Now” produced future kings; the clods who didn’t, produced no heirs. Something to think about when ordering 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.
Oh my gosh. There was a Friday this week. So, I shall once more be dispensing bad advice As usual, the advice will stupendously bad. Sorry, it’s a day late. I was whooping it up on my birthday. So, you had an extra day to do things right.
SF asks: If I pour boiling water on my face to help me wake up in the morning, will the power outlet I’ve plugged my toe into electrocute me?
Dear SF: The scientific method is a must. Try plugging your toe into an outlet. If that act alone electrocutes you then you’ll know, if only for a brief moment. If however, nothing happens then try the boiling water on your face. Should you survive electrocution after this second step, take heart in the knowledge you won’t need to take a shower. The germs and bacteria won’t survive the hot deluge.
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LHH asks: I wanna know: Who’ll stop the rain?
Dear LHH: Congress can, but they won’t. They’re too busy with health care, fund raising, and vacations to tackle this problem head on. Ask your congressman to support the building of mile-wide umbrellas. Or as more promising research suggests, get them to provide seed money for the building of five-mile-high fans that will blow rain from areas that don’t need it to ones that do. Call your representative today. They love to get citizen input.
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RTC asks: I want to go to a viewing and funeral of a family member. It is 8 hours driving round trip. I can barely stay awake 2 hours in a moving car. Should I stay home or should I go? No one else is able to go with me and share the driving.
Dear RTC: This is a toughie. Family duties push you to go, but you don’t want to crash and die. I mean how many people want to go to back-to-back funerals. No, the thing to do is ask your relatives to catapult the deceased to your home. Pay your respects. Catapult the body back as I strongly suspect the dearly departed will be buried where all the mourners are. Iimportant, don’t forget to send a condolences card! Manners are always in style. There is a small silver lining in all this. Enclose your condolences card with the deceased before catapulting back. A penny saved is a penny earned.
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MA asks: “I am” is reported to be the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be “I do” is the longest? Please advise…
Dear MA: Clearly, your problem is that your irresistible. So they say yes to you. But relationships are hard; hard as cheese that’s been left out for two weeks and perhaps just as moldy. You need to cut down on your attractivetudinous. Experiment. Grow dreadlocks. Some women hate them. If that special someone adores that hair style, consider wearing a tutu. Don’t give up. Keep trying. If however, she hopelessly dotes on you, you’ll have to rub lutefisk all over your body. The stench will drive away even the most ardent lover. There is a chance, however, the odor might be so bad that you’ll tear your own head off. That’s okay; this act also solves the problem of your overpowering desirability.
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WK asks: Where have all the flowers gone? Long time passing.
Dear WK: They’re in Greenland. What with global warming, conditions there are now favorable for flowers. Not many flower munching bunnies there either. So for decades now, flowers have been slowly migrating to Greenland. We simply been too busy, what with our hectic lifestyle, to notice. Go to your local travel agent to book a Greenland tour. Do it today. Herds of feral flowers are sights that will make your soul sing.
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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.
South African Entree
INGREDIENTS
2 potatoes
1 yellow onion
1 red onion
2 cups fresh spinach
4 small tomatoes
4 cloves garlic
2 chile peppers
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh ginger
2 tablespoons curry powder
1/2 tablespoon turmeric
1 tablespoon garam masala
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
PREPARATION
Peel potatoes. Cut potatoes into cubes smaller than 1/2″. Peel and dice yellow onion. Peel and dice red onion. Dice spinach and tomatoes. Mince garlic and chile peppers. Add onion and vegetable oil to large pot. Sauté onions on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onions soften. Stir frequently. Add spinach, tomatoes, garlic, peppers, ginger, curry powder, turmeric, garam masala, and ground beef.
Cook for 5-to-10 minutes on medium heat or until beef browns. Add potato cubes. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 30 minutes or until potatoes are soft. Stir occasionally.
Goes well with rice or Indian bread such as roti. The Guyanese version of roti is in this cookbook.
TIDBITS
1) Recipes for meat in a spicy sauce date back 3,700 years to Babylonia. Recipes were kept on clay tablets. Carrying around a hundred recipes would have required a wheelbarrow.
2) Did ancient Babylonia possess wheelbarrows? If not, that would explain why the Babylonian empire fell to invaders. The population was too busy carrying clay recipe tablets in their arms to defend themselves.
3) Two-third of all food eaten at restaurants in Britain is Indian. Wow. There are more Indian restaurants in London than in Bombay and New Delhi.
4) People will begin to crave for curry because the spices arouse and stimulate the taste buds. Sorry, people that’s all curry arouses.
5) In America, many more women appreciate a box of chocolates from their date than a bowl of curry particularly if the bowl has no lid and she’s holding it on her lap and your take the corner really fast or you accelerate really fast and the curry gets all over her dress and she kicks you out of the car and you have to walk home even though it’s your car and you never see her or your car again.
6) No, guys, it’s a much better idea to give your date a bouquet of flowers and box of chocolates and take her out to an Indian restaurant, for goodness sake.
– 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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