Posts Tagged With: global economy

What I Did Today

Posted on October 11, 2024 by pauldelancey

Venus. It’s hot.

Woke up, got up, showed, and dressed. I graciously accept a medal for Achievement in Adulting.

Went to my office. Saw no bunnies outside my window. Got bored. Dabbled in finance. Accidently destablized the entire global economy. Restablized everything before anyone noitced. So no harm, no foul.

Then I went to physical therapy for problems with my lower back. I really got a work out. All sorts of muscles were stretched. I felt as fit as Achilles, before an arrow shot into his heel killed him. Culinary historians call this problem an Achilles’ Arrow.

Any way, I felt fit! After 30 minutes of intense exercise, I was prepared to conquer the Summer Olympics. I called the International Olympic Committee, IOC, to tell them I was ready. They said sorry, that the Olympics already took place earlier this year.

What a bummer. I swallowed my disappointment by eating a huge meatball sandwich for lunch; no need to keep in shape. I discontinue my excercise regime.

I got groceries. I bought a pair of slip-on shoes. May they’ll help me win gold medals in the next olympics

3:22 pm: I activate my time machine. I wait 60 seconds for it to function.

3:23 pm: It’s exacly one minute later. My time machine works.

I am so proud. I shall call it a time piece.

3:25 pm: I drive home, taking full use of the miracle of internal combustion.

5:57 pm: America gets invaded by Venusians. My home is the site of the initial invasion.  They say that they’re conquering our planet because it’s so much cooler than theirs. I offer them some homade ice cream. They like it very much. So much so that they call off their attack with the proviso that I give them ice cream every year. I agree and even offer to throw in a big bag of homemade chocolate chips with each visit. They can’t believe their good luck. We part, having become the best of friends.

My frenetic day left me exhausted, so I relaxed by watching mind-improving comedies on TV.

I do hope you behaved yourselves while I was preoccupied.

 

– 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.

Categories: about me, what this country needs | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Vanilla Pudding 2

Posted on April 5, 2023 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

VANILLA PUDDING

INGREDIENTS

2 egg yolks
3 tablespoons cornstarch
⅛ teaspoon salt
½ cup sugar
2⅓ cups whole milk
1½ tablespoons butter, softened
½ tablespoon vanilla extract

SPECIAL UTENSILS

4 dessert dishes or ramekins
plastic wrap

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Beat egg yolks in mixing bowl. Add cornstarch, salt, and sugar to saucepan. Mix with spatula. Add whole milk slowly, while stirring gently with spatula. Cook using medium heat until mixture boils and thickens. Stir constantly to prevent burning. Boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly.

Add ½ of the cornstarch/sugar/whole milk mixture to egg yolks. Mix with whisk until well blended. Add this mixture to saucepan. Bring to boil using medium heat. Boil for 1 minute. Stir constantly and gently.

Remove from heat. Add butter and vanilla. Stir gently until well blended. Pour pudding into dessert dishes. Cover with plastic wrap. Chill in refrigerator for 1 hour mixture firms into pudding.

TIDBITS

1) Stars are made from vanilla pudding. How do we know this? Stars are white. So is vanilla pudding white. The Sun is hot. That is because it’s yellow and not made from vanilla pudding.

2) If you were somehow able to catapult your vanilla pudding millions of light years away it would be far too small to be seen, even by the Hubble telescope. Indeed, you would need to buy trillions of pounds of: cornstarch, salt, sugar, milk, butter, and vanilla extract to fling a visible vanilla-pudding star into the far reaches of space. But don’t do it. Every van in the world would be needed to deliver your ingredients. The global economy would collapse. Oh my gosh, we’d have nothing left to make cake! For millions of years! What would we do for birthdays? I beg of you, reconsider this giant-star project!

 

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.

Categories: cuisine, observations | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tarragon Chicken – Poulet à Estragon

Posted on May 12, 2018 by pauldelancey

French Entree

TARRAGON CHICKEN
(Poulet à Estragon)

INGREDIENTS

3 chicken breasts
⅛ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
1 shallot
3 green onions
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup dry white wine
⅔ cup crème fraîche or heavy cream
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3 tablespoons fresh tarragon leaves (1 tablespoon if dried)

Serves 3. Takes 40 minutes.

PREPARATION

Rub chicken breasts with pepper and salt. Dice shallots. Thinly slice green onions. Add butter, olive oil, and shallot to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 3 minutes or until shallot softens. Stir frequently. Add chicken breasts and green onion. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes for each side or until chicken starts to brown. Stir occasionally. Add white wine and crème fraîche. Stir until sauce is well blended. Bring sauce to boil. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to medium. Cook for 5 minutes or until sauce has been reduced by half. Stir occasionally. Spoon lemon juice over chicken breasts. Sprinkle with tarragon.

TIDBITS

1) In 1922, the Agricultural Department, finding itself with an extra twenty-billion dollars decided to help the American farmer. Specifically, the American tarragon farmer. Why the tarragon growers? It had a really, really, really good lobby back then.

2) That amount of money bought quite a lot of tarragon seeds back then, enough to plant the entire Great Plains. Farmers gave up costly corn and wheat seeds in favor of free tarragon. USA became a global tarragon powerhouse. Tarragon farmers in other lands, however, faced bankruptcy. Foreign nations protected their farmers with prohibitively high tariffs on American tarragon. The United States retaliated with fees on European cheeses, even the non-stinky ones. European countered with tariffs on American wheat. Things got out of hand, with agricultural departments saying, “Na, nana, poo, poo” to each other and finding new ways to destroy each others commerce. Soon the global economy collapsed and we had the Great Depression of 1929-1939. Tens of millions of people were thrown out of work, including America’s tarragon farmers. This was bad; no tarragon on chicken for ten long years. But America survived. Its people are resilient.

Leave a message. I’d like to hear from you.

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, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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