Dear Customer Service,
If you repeat, “Please Hold. Your call is very important to us,” every minute for an hour, I will not believe you.
Sincerely,
Paul R. De Lancey
– 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.
INGREDIENTS – STEW
1½ pounds boneless chicken or lamb
½ teaspoon cinnamon
⅛ teaspoon clove powder
½ teaspoon coriander
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt (⅛ teaspoon more later)
1 medium onion
2 cups chicken or lamb stock stock*
1½ tablespoons tomato paste
1 large carrot
1 zucchini
2 tablespoons olive oil (9 total teaspoons later)
2 tablespoons olive oil (7 total teaspoons later)
INGREDIENTS – COUSCOUS
1 cup couscous**
⅛ teaspoon salt
7 total teaspoons olive oil (3 times with 2 teaspoons and 1 time with 1 tablespoon)
about 1 cup water
1 cup cooked chickpeas (also called garbanzo beans)
* = This is an approximation. There should be 1″-to-2″ of liquid of space from the top of the liquid in the base pot to its lid. The couscous will get mushy if they come in contact with the water below.
** = This is couscous, the grain. Confusingly enough, the whole entree is also called couscous.
SPECIAL UTENSILS
double boiler (Similar to the more authentic couscousiere, but much easier to find.)
sonic obliterator
Serves 6. Takes 2 hours 15 minutes.
PREPARATION – STEW
Cut meat into 1″ cubes. Add meat, cinnamon, clove powder, coriander, pepper, and ½ teaspoon salt to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until lamb cubes are well coated. Dice onion. Trim and cut carrot into and zucchini into 4 pieces each. Add meat cubes and 2 tablespoons olive oil to base pot, bottom part of double boiler. Sauté at medium-high heat for 10 minutes or until meat cubes are browned on all sides. Turn enough to ensure even browning. Remove meat cubes and set aside. Leave oil in base pot.
Add 2 tablespoons olive oil and onion to base pot. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Return set-aside meat to base pot. Add chicken stock and tomato paste to base pot. (Again there should be 1″-to-2″ of space from the top of the liquid in the base pot to the bottom of the steamer basket.) Stir until well blended. Bring to boil at high heat.. Stir occasionally. Cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 20 minutes. Add carrot and zucchini. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally to prevent burning.
PREPARATION – COUSCOUS (the grain)
While stew simmers, add couscous and ⅛ teaspoon salt to medium mixing bowl. Mix by hand. Add 2 teaspoons olive oil. Mix by hand until couscous are well coated. Add water to bowl, about 1 cup, until couscous are just covered. Gently fluff couscous and let sit for 10 minutes.
Coat steamer basket, the top part of the double boiler, with 1 teaspoon olive oil. Put steamer basket on base pot. (It should fit snugly.) When steam comes into basket, add couscous. Cover and let entire double boiler steam for 10 minutes. (This is the 1st time the couscous will be steamed.)
Remove steamer basket. Let stew simmer uncovered while you perform the following steps. Remove couscous. Add couscous and 2 teaspoons olive to medium mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well coated. Add ½ cup water. Mix with fork until well blended.
Add couscous to steamer basket. Gently fluff couscous. Put steamer basket back on base pot. Do not cover. Continue to simmer at low heat for 10 minutes. Remove steamer basket. Add chickpeas. Stir once. (This is the 2nd time the couscous will be steamed.)
Remove steamer basket. Let stew simmer uncovered while you perform the following steps. Remove couscous. Add couscous and 2 teaspoons olive to medium mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well coated. Add ½ cup water. Mix with fork until well blended.
Add couscous to steamer basket. Gently fluff couscous. Put steamer basket back on base pot. Do not cover. Continue to simmer at low heat for 10 minutes. Remove steamer basket. Add chickpeas. Stir once. (This is the 3rd time the couscous will be steamed.)
Add couscous to large serving bowl. Fluff the couscous with a fork. Add meat cubes to center of couscous. Use slotted spoon to ladle chickpeas and veggies over meat and couscous. Serve to appreciative, adoring guests. If any person at the dining table gives you any guff at all, zap him with your sonic obliterator on him. You don’t need that sort of negativity in your kitchen. And you won’t be convicted, either. (See Courgette v Rhode Island, 1973)
TIDBITS
1) You really need a sonic obliterator in your kitchen. Sure, you could off a sassy guest with a kitchen mallet. But there would be a mess everywhere. You certainly don’t need a disorderly kitchen when you’re upset. With a sonic obliterator, the unappreciative oaf disappears completely, leaving your kitchen nice and tidy. And isn’t what all chefs want at the end of the day?
2) I also recommend strongly, Culinary Law and Precedents, 1973. It really is a must-have resource for the high-strung chef.
– 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.
INGREDIENTS
5 garlic cloves
6 piri piri chiles of 6 Thai chiles or 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper)
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 bay leaf
10 tablespoons peanut oil
2¼ pounds shrimp (16-to-20 per pound, shelled and deveined)
1 lemon (optional)
SPECIAL UTENSILS
blender
outdoor grill
6 skewers
Serves 6. Takes 10 minutes, then 6 hours marinating, and 10 minutes more.
PREPARATION
Mince garlic cloves and chiles. Add all ingredients except shrimp to large mixing bowl. Stir with whisk or fork until well blended. Add shrimp. Mix with fork until shrimp is well coated. Cover and let marinate in fridge for 6 hours. Keep marinade.
10 minutes before marinating is done, heat outdoor grill to medium heat. Thread 6 shrimps onto each skewer. Grill shrimp for 2 minutes or until it turns pink. Flip skewers over and grill the other side for 2 minutes or until it to is pink. Cut lemon into 6 slices. Serve with lemon slices.
TIDBITS
1) Everyone dueled everyone else in Early Renaissance Italy. These scheduled acts of violence, of course, don’t include impromptu acts of deadly sword fighting that lurked outside your door, in the town plaza, and all points in between.
2) Seafood restaurants suffered the most. They were the farthest businesses from people’s homes. No diner ever got there and back alive. Then in 1493, Giuseppe Carpaccio of Venice, came up with the idea of putting the shrimp he sold on his diner’s swords. His customers couldn’t finish his large portions and staggered home, their sabers still covered in shrimp. You, of course, can’t stab anyone with shrimp. You don’t even feel like killing anyone when your tummy’s filled with yummy shrimp. A golden age of peace descended upon Italy, or until the French invaded a year later. Oh well.
– 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.
INGREDIENTS
½ pound French fries
1 aji amarillo chile or jalapeno
½ red onion
1 large tomato
¼ cup fresh cilantro
1 pound sirloin or ribeye
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon soy sauce
3 tablespoons vinegar
SPECIAL UTENSILS
mandoline
wok or large pan.
Serves 4. Takes 45 minutes.
PREPARATION
Cook French fries according to instructions on package. While French fries cook, use mandoline or knife to cut aji amarillo into ¼” rings and red onion and and tomato into ½” slices. Dice cilantro. Slice sirloin into ¼”-thick strips. Rub pepper and salt onto sirloin strips.
Add oil to wok. Heat oil using high heat until a tiny bit of onion in the oil starts to dance. Add sirloin strips. (Don’t let the strips touch each other. You might have to cook in batches.) Sauté each batch at high heat for 2 minutes or until meat browns. Stir occasionally. Add browned batches of sirloin strips, aji amarillo, red onion, and tomato. Reduce heat to medium and sauté for 3 minutes or until tomato starts to soften. Stir frequently. Add soy sauce, vinegar, and French fries. Sauté for 3 minutes or until sirloin is done to your liking. Garnish with cilantro.
TIDBITS
1) This recipe is from Peru. Peru is a country on the planet Earth. The outer part of Earth is its crust. The crust covers oceans of hot magma. Volcanoes occasionally spew out magma. The magma that flows along the ground, lava. incinerates all its path. The magma that flies into the air blocks the Sun and kills crops. When that happens, we get a winter that lasts for years. Mass extinctions occur. Peru is part of the Earth’s crust. Thus, when we wish for Peru to disappear because our luggage has disappeared when we flew out of the country, we are indirectly wishing for a large section of our planet’s crust to disappear. Then all of the horrible things in the above tidbit would happen. We’d all die! That’s bad. Be careful what you wish for!
– 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.
Find the best beer at Godthaab Bryghus. One person couldn’t find the bar, perhaps the beer drinking started before leaving the hotel.
Want free wifi? Then make you way to Cafe Wok, the only eatery that has it.
“I want pizza,” you say. “But I want Filipino food,” says your date. Wait! You’re both right at Mary’s Kitchen.
IGGU serves the best Greenlandic pizza.
Brugseni Nuuk is a specialty food market and has a little bit of everything.
Fjord lovers will certainly want to tour the magnificent and oh so nearby fjords.
Exercise lovers really must take the town’s two-hour walking tour. The single person will find its cost a tad pricey at $632. However, this price remains the same for groups up to fifteen people. So why not bring along fourteen of you closest friend?. Indeed some of Nuuk’s other activities seem tailored for large groups. Just a heads up here.
Be sure to take in the town’s fabulous Northern Lights. They’re not 100% reliable though. However, seeing them at Nuuk is probably your best bet. You get fewer and fewer displays as you head farther and farther south. They’ll be no Northern Lights by the time you get to San Diego.
Take a trip to one of the oldest permanent settlements in Greenland. You’ll meet a family living there. I don’t know their names.
And as always, “Have fun traveling.”
– 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.
American Entree
INGREDIENTS
2 slices white bread
1 glop* marshmallow fluff**
1 glop creamy peanut butter
* = A precise scientific term meaning the amount of peanut butter, or fluff, that you want to spread with a knife.
** = See preceding recipe for marshmallow fluff. Or buy it at stores if you live in Massachusetts or its neighboring states. It can also found online.
Serves 1. Takes 3 minutes.
PREPARATION
Spread peanut butter on one bread slice. Spread marshmallow fluff on other. Put bread slices together.
TIDBITS
1) It takes a little skill to cut a fluffernutter sandwich in two. If you slice too slowly or press down with a dull knife, you will most likely squoosh the marshmallow fluff out of the sandwich.
2) “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” – Newton’s Third Law of Motion.
3) Isaac Newton invented the fig newton.
4) On July 18, 1673, Isaac tried to cut a fig newton in half with a dull knife. The slow impact of his knife pushed two halves apart. Figgy stuff came out of the newton pieces. “Wow,” he said, “this gives me an idea. With a big enough knife, perhaps 100 yards long and a large enough fig newton, perhaps 50 yards by 50 yards, I could propel my mansion to the moon.” Space travel looked to be a few years away.
5) But no, just a few minutes after having this brainstorm, his comely maid, Sarah Bellum, sashayed by wearing a tight-fitting dress. Sir Isaac’s blood flowed away from his brain and space travel would be forgotten for three centuries.
6) Then in 1958, Pedro Erickson, head chef at NASA’s two-MichelinTM star restaurant served fluffernutter sandwiches to the engineers. He cut a sandwich in half. The two sandwich halves moved ever so slightly apart while marshmallow fluff oozed out the cut. “Aha,” cried Peter Pepper, “we can use solid-state fuel to propel our rockets. If not with marshmallow fluff, then with something else.” And with that explosive idea, NASA’s mission to space would really take off.
– 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.
French Dessert
INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoon butter (3 tablespoons more later)
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese (¾ cup more later)
3 tablespoons butter
¼ cup flour
1¼ cups milk
1 cup grated gruyère cheese
¾ cup grated Parmesan cheese
4 egg yolks
¼ teaspoon paprika
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
6 egg whites
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
SPECIAL UTENSILS
4 ramekins or 1 souffle dish
electric beater with whisk attachments, if available
baking sheet
flying monkeys, just in case
Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 15 minutes.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter each ramekin with an equal part of 1 tablespoon butter. Coat each ramekin with an equal part of 1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese. (This is a good time to separate egg yolks and whites if you haven’t already done so.)
Add 3 tablespoons butter to pan. Melt butter using medium heat. Add flour. Stir flour constantly until you get a flour paste. Gradually add milk, stirring constantly with whisk until mixture is smooth. Bring to boil using medium heat. Stir constantly. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 3 minutes or until you get a thick white sauce. Remove from heat.
Add gruyère and Parmesan to pan. Stir until well blended. Add eggs yolks, paprika, pepper, and salt. Stir gently until well blended. Transfer flour/egg/cheese mixture to 1st large mixing bowl and let cool.
Add egg whites and cream or tartar to 2nd large mixing bowl. Beat egg whites with electric beater set on low. Beat until egg whites become foamy and form peaks. Gently fold in ¼ of the egg whites into the flour/egg/mixture. Then gently fold in the remaining egg whites until well blended. Pour this blended souffle equally into the ramekins. Gently smooth souffles with spoon. Place ramekins on baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until souffles puff up and turn golden brown.
Do not open the oven the door while baking the souffles. NO, NOT EVEN ONCE! OPENING THE OVEN DOOR WILL MAKE THE SOUFFLES COLLAPSE. YOU WILL FALL SOBBING TO THE FLOOR. NOT ONLY THAT, YOU WILL RELEASE VICIOUS FLYING MONKEYS ALL OVER THE WORLD.
Serve immediately to adoring guests. If they’re unappreciative or late to table, by all means, release the flying monkeys. Those critters need exercise.
TIDBITS
1) With the proper type of internal combustion engine, cars can run on cheese souffle.
2) This actually happened from 1937 to 1940.
3) For on July 14th, Bastille Day, 1937 a very inebriated Chef Auguste Oeuf accidentally staggered to his Renault, unscrewed its gas cap, staggered back to his restaurant, grabbed a tray of cheese souffles, staggered back to his car, and one by one threw the souffles into his gas tank.
4) What are the odds are doing all those things while drunk? And in that order?
5) Small.
6) Less than half.
7) Any way, Chef Oeuf needed to go to the market and buy some chickens for his plat du jour. He turned the ignition. The engine roared into action. He used the newly untamed fury of his Renault to make to the market in record time.
8) He would make trip after trip for ingredients. His customers loved the unparalleled freshness of his cuisine. Ouef’s restaurant, Le Chaton D’or became the most popular restaurant of all Paris. Other chefs of the city noticed this. They too would get rip-roaring drunk and whip up a batch of cheese souffles for their cars. The culinary reputation of Parisian food reigned supreme.
9) The secret of drunken chefs feeding souffles to their cars soon spread to every corner of France.
10) There was though a distressing period, though. when some chefs didn’t get sufficiently soused. Miles per souffle (MPS) suffered. And in consequence, so did the vital culinary/automotive industry.
11) As a result, an anagramist in French government required all cheese-souffle chefs to enter the Fuels Of Cheese (FOC) association.
12) Mais zut alors, in 1940, the Germans conquered France. The long horrors of the occupation permanently sobered up all the country’s chefs. The dried-up cooks retained no memory of how to make souffle fuel. This is why our cars now run of gas.
– 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.
Montenegrin Entree
MONTENEGRIN BURGER
(Pljeskavica)
INGREDIENTS
4 garlic cloves
1 small onion (1 more small onion later)
1 pound ground beef
1 pound ground lamb
2 teaspoons paprika
¾ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
⅓ cup sparkling or fizzy water
6 pita* halves (optional)
1 small onion
1 Roma tomato
* = It’s most authentic with lepinja, a Montenegrin flatbread. It can be powerful hard to find.
SPECIAL UTENSIL
outdoor grill
Makes 6 burgers. Takes 2 hours 30 minutes.
PREPARATION
Mince garlic and onion. Add garlic, onion, beef, lamb, paprika, pepper, salt, and sparkling water to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours.
Make 6 patties from meat. Add patties to grill. Grill at medium heat for 6 minutes. Flip patties and grill for another 6 minutes or until meat is done to your liking. Cut onion into 6 slices. Cut tomato into 6 slices. Insert patty and onion and tomato slices into each pita half.
TIDBITS
1) The Montenegrin Burger is eerily similar to the famed Pac-ManTM . Is this a case of parallel development or was one of the two inspired by the other? You decide.
– 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.
Gabonese Entree
INGREDIENTS
3 garlic cloves
2 onions
3 tablespoons olive oil
6 boneless chicken breasts or thighs
¼ cup lemon juice
½ cup Dijon mustard
Serves 6. Takes 50 minutes.
PREPARATION
Mince garlic cloves. Dice onions. Add oil to large pan. Heat oil using high heat until a tiny bit of onion will dance in the oil. Carefully add chicken breasts to pan. (You might need to cook in batches.) Sear chicken for 2 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Remove chicken and set aside. Keep oil.
Add garlic and onion to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until garlic and onion soften. Stir frequently. Add garlic, onion, chicken, lemon juice, and Dijon mustard to pot. Mix with fork until well blended. Cover and simmer at low/medium heat for 25 minutes or until chicken is tender and no longer pink inside. Stir occasionally. Put chicken breast on each plate. Ladle mustard/onion sauce over chicken breasts. Goes quite well with rice.
TIDBITS
1) “Mustard” is an anagram for “Drums rat.” And it almost goes without saying that “chicken” is an anagram for “chicken.” So, “Mustard chicken” by an extension of logic, an anagram for “Chicken drums rat.” Indeed, “Chickens drum rat” is the first complete sentence in English. In fact, a newly discovered fresco at St. Camembert’s church, dating before 1000 AD, shows chicken pounding drums with their wings. Beneath the painting are the words, “Chickens drum ‘rats’.” And whenever farmers heard “rat” being drummed out, they rushed back and shooed off the ravenous vermin.
2) Unfortunately, English farmers never taught their chickens to drum out “Normans.” So when in 1066 Duke William of Normandy landed his army, a perplexed chicken sentry didn’t know what to do. Eventually, she drummed out “rat” to England’s king. King Harold Godwinson didn’t give a fig about rats and instead scurried north to defeat Harold Hardrada. Meanwhile, back on the southern English beaches, the Norman forces assembled unmolested into a coherent, compact army. The two forces met as Hastings. The tired English lost to the fresh Normans. Duke William became the new English king. However, William knew what a near-run thing his invasion had been. His barons went through the realm slaying every single chicken-drumming teacher. Now, no chicken knows how to drum. It’s a pity as the Chicken Drumming Festival at St. Albans was something to behold.
– 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.
Italian Appetizer
INGREDIENTS
5½ cups chicken broth
2 garlic cloves
1 onion
2 tablespoons fresh Italian parsley, or oregano
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups Arborio* rice
½ cup dry white wine
¾ cup shredded Parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons butter
* = The properties of Arborio are important to this dish. The best substitute for Arborio is Carnaroli, with regular short-grain rice to be used only in a pinch.
Serves 10 or 5 if served as an entree. Takes 45 minutes.
PREPARATION
Add chicken broth to pot. Simmer at warm heat. While broth simmers, mince garlic cloves and onion. Dice Italian parsley. Add garlic, onion, and olive oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently
Add rice. Reduce heat to medium. Sauté for 3 minutes or until rice smells toasty and turns translucent. Stir frequently, making sure rice is thoroughly coated with olive oil. Add wine. Sauté until rice absorbs all the liquid. Stir frequently. Add broth 1 cup at time. Stir gently after each addition until the rice absorbs the broth. This should take about 25 minutes with the rice being creamy and al dente, just a little bit firm. Remove from heat and gently stir in butter and Parmesan cheese. Garnish with Italian parsley. Serve immediately.
TIDBITS
1) Karl Marx visited lovely Florence in 1848. While waiting forever for an espresso, Crabby Karl listened as workers at the next table complained loudly and endlessly about the oppressive Austrian rule over their city. His patience exhausted, he yelled at the workers, “So, riot.” They did. Fortunately, the chef had been whipping up a new rice dish. He served the workers just as they were about to go and throw bricks at the constabulary. The workers loved their risotto. They completely lost their urge to run amuck. The anagramist among them said, “no ‘so, riot.’” He lifted up his bowl of rice. “Risoto.” A typo turned that into “Risotto. Oh, and Karl would go on to other things.
– 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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