Wander Wunder wonders “Lye is used to unclog drains. Who thought putting it on olives would make them edible? Who tested this idea?”
Wanda Wunder
– 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
½ pound noodles, rice vermicelli or bean thread
4 cups chicken broth and water as necessary to cover noodles
1 medium onion
1 fresh bok choy or 2 cups Chinese cabbage
1 pound chicken breast
2 tablespoons peanut oil or vegetable oil
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1¼ teaspoons minced ginger
1 cup soy sauce
¼ cup kecap manis or soy sauce
3 spring onions
SPECIAL UTENSILS
colander
kitchen scissors
Serves 4. Takes 45 minutes.
PREPARATION
Add rice noodles to large pot. Add hot chicken and as much hot water as necessary to cover noodles. Drain in colander, reserving 1 cup chicken broth from pot. Dice onion. Shred bok choy. Cut chicken into ½” cubes.
Add oil and green onion to pot. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add chicken cubes, minced garlic, and minced ginger. Stir until well blended. Reduce heat to medium. Simmer for 10 minutes or until chicken cubes brown. Stir enough to ensure even browning.
Add reserved 1 cup chicken broth from pot, cooked noodles, bok choy. soy sauce, and kecap manis. Reduce heat to low-medium and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir frequently. Snip noodles into manageable bits with kitchen scissors or regular scissors. Dice spring onions. Garnish chop sui with spring onion.
TIDBITS
1) Pause and reflect.
2) Meditate.
3) Now look at the following pictures.
boulette roulette
4) They look amazingly similar, don’t they? This is no accident.
5) The picture on the left is a boulette wheel.
6) The one on the right is a roulette wheel.
7) Boulette and roulette are both games of chance.
8) They are both played with a bowl.
9) The two games are fun ways to lose money quickly.
10) Boulette means little bowl in French. Roulette translates as little wheel.
11) If these two gambling ventures are so similar, how is it that we only play roulette?
12) Both games involves spinning.
13) In roulette, a finely balanced wheel is spun within a bowl. However in boulette, the entire bowl is spun. Spinning a bowl works fine when it sits on a well oiled table. Well sort of. An over enthusiastic spin will send the bowl off the table where it will shatter into a million pieces.
14) Also, it is remarkably hard to spin a bowl of chop sui that’s atop tablecloth. Go ahead, try it. On second thought, no. And then, and then, so many games of boulette ended when a hungry gambler ate the chop sui. No chop sui, no pointer green onion to point at a number, no game. And so, boulette rapidly fell out of favor. Long live roulette.
– 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.
Independence Fireworks
By far, the greatest number of nations achieving independence has occurred in my lifetime. It’s true. You can look it up. I am, of course, rather humbled by this knowledge. I don’t recall having much direct influence on this march to freedom but nevertheless, it has happened concurrently with my existence. I can only surmise that my life has always been a beacon of hope to people in downtrodden lands.
I see a Nobel Peace Prize in the near future.
For the record, countries achieving independence since my birth are:
Togo
Guinea
Madagascar
Mali
Senegal
Ivory Coast
Niger
Cameroon
Togo
Madagascar
Democratic Republic of Congo
Somalia
Benin
Burkina Faso
Chad
Central African Republic
Republic of Congo
Gabon
Nigeria
Mauritania
Sierra Leone
Tanzania
Uganda
Burundi
Rwanda
Algeria
Kenya
Malawi
Zambia
Gambia
Zimbabwe
Rhodesia
Botswana
Lesotho
Mauritius
Eswatini (Swaziland)
Equatorial Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Mozambique
Cabo Verde
Comoros
São Tomé and Príncipe
Angola
Seychelles
Djibouti
Namibia
Eritrea
South Sudan
Antigua and Barbuda
Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
Dominica
Grenada
Guyana
Jamaica
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Suriname
Trinidad and Tobago
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Brunei
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Malaysia
Singapore
Maldives
Palestine
Tajikistan
Timor-Leste
Turkmenistan
United Arab Emirates
Uzbekistan
Yemen
Belarus
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Croatia
Czech Republic
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Malta
Moldova
Montenegro
North Macedonia
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Ukraine
Fiji
Kiribat
Nauru
Samoa
Palau
Papua New Guinea
Solomon Islands
Tonga
Tuvalu
Vanuatu
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Cyprus
Georgia
Abkhazia
South Ossetia
Kazakhstan
– 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.
Jane the Judgmental Cat says, “I know I’m beautiful, but if you’re looking at me, you’re not doing laundry. You have a Mount Everest of laundry in your closet. Fill the washer. Move your washed clothes to the dryer or I’ll biff you.”
Jane
– 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.
Serious man watching a serious show
Here is the third installment of my favorite, serious TV shows. I’m probably forgetting some great shows. Some I never saw.
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1984-85)
Band of Brothers
Bomb Girls
Cheyenne
*Cisco Kid
Combat
Cosmos
Dora the Explorer
Elementary
Frankie Drake Mysteries
French Chef
Have Gun, Will Travel
Last Detectuve
Miss Fisher’s Mysteries
Murdoch Mysteries
Pacific, The
Perry Mason
Rise of Empires: Ottoman
Roots
Rose and Maloney
Sharpe
Shogun
Time Tunel
*Top Gear (2002 – 2014)
Virginian
Winds of War
Yancy Derringer
* = Primarily serious, these shows have a strong element of humor as well.
– 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
¼ cup shelled pistachios (36 more later)
2¾ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ tablespoon cardamom
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
⅔ cup vegetable oil
⅓ cup butter, softened
2¼ teaspoons rose water, orange water, or lemon
no-stick spray
36 shelled pistachios (1 for each cookie)
SPECIAL UTENSILS
spice grinder
electric beater
cookie sheet
Makes 36 cookies. Takes 1 hour.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Use spice grinder on ¼ cup shelled pistachios until you get little bits. Add flour, baking powder, cardamom, and confectioners’ sugar to mixing bowl. Stir with whisk or fork until well blended.
Add oil to pan. Warm oil using low-medium heat for 90 seconds. Gradually blend in oil to mixing bowl with beater set to low. Gradually add in butter with beater still set to low. Add rose water. Blend for 5 minutes with beater set to medium or until you get dough.
Spray cookie sheet with no-stick spray. Form dough into 1″ balls on cookie sheet. Don’t let them touch each other. Make imprint in middle of dough balls with thumb. (Hold sides of cookie as you do. This prevents the cookie from crumbling.) Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes or until cookies are crumbly, start to crack, and are just starting to brown around the edges. Sprinkle pistachio bits over cookies. Gently push a shelled pistachio into the imprint of each cookie. (Hold sides of cookie as you do. This prevents the cookie from crumbling.)
TIDBITS
1) Cardamom cookies are fun looking. See them in the picture above playing “Guess the herb.” There is no rule against the cookies bringing books on herbs. Cardamom cookies can’t read. Can other cookies read? I don’t think so and and anyway, they’re not talking.
– 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
6 Italian pasta nests*
6 premade meatballs
9 tablespoons Alfredo sauce
½ teaspoon Italian seasoning
1½ cups mozzarella cheese
2 teaspoons parsley
* = Found in supermarkets with a large pasta section or online.
SPECIAL UTENSIL
sonic obliterator, how have you gone so long without one
Serves 6. Takes 20-to-40 minutes.
PREPARATION
Cook pasta nests according to instructions on package. Cook meatballs according to instruction on package Place nests on plate. The nests might need some gentle reshaping to look like a nest again.
.
Spoon an equal amount of Alfredo sauce into the middle of each nest. Place a meatball in center of each pasta nest. Sprinkle an equal amount of Italian seasoning over each meatball.
Add mozzarella to pan. Heat at medium heat until it becomes gooey. Spoon 1/6th of the mozzarella over each meatball. You might need to reshape the mozzarella so that it totally covers the meatball and not much else.
Sprinkle an equal amount of parsley over each egg. The whole thing should look like a speckled, white egg in a nest. Use sonic obliterator to zap any oafish guest who says your cheese-covered meatball doesn’t really look like an egg. You don’t need negativity in your kitchen.
TIDBITS
1) The photo for this recipe is a Rorschach test.
2) Do you see a bird’s egg or only a meatball covered with Alfredo sauce?
3) Or did you see a space alien with two small eyes, one large pointy ear, a big nose, a slightly open mouth, a shoulder, part of a chest, and a glorious mass of tangled blond hair? Me neither.
– 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.
Do you love movies? Do you jump for joy when Hollywood updates old classics? If so, you’ll need to see:
– 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.
Looking for something to do after your significant other combusted? Then make your way to the Poutine Festival in Drummondville, Quebec.* Poutine, perhaps Quebec’s most famous dish, consists of French fries, beef gravy, and cheese curds or mozzarella. Listen to wonderful music while tasting caloric culinary greatness. Heart specialists are standing by.
This year’s festivities occurred from September 2 to 4. So, you missed it unless, of course, you have a time machine. If history is anything to go by, next year’s excitement will take place anytime from July to September. Keep checking, because 2021’s event only allowed 1,500 festivalgoers per day.
The highlight of the event is seeing which poutinier food truck will win the coveted Gold Fork for making the festival’s best poutine. See if you agree with the judges by sampling as many poutiniers as you can. It’ll be an experience you’ll long remember.
Reflect for a moment that this festival honors poutine. Ah, poutine. Tasty.
The festival is also called la Festival de la Poutine for those who only speak French.
* = Well, 1 hour 15 minutes from the city.
Again, there will many exciting musical groups to hear. I don’t recognize any of them, but I’m not up on my acts from Quebec. The winner of the 2020 Francouvertes attended this latest festival. What is a Francouverte? I don’t know. My imperfect French tells me it means “Green French Thing” or maybe “Open French.” Google translate(tm) is no help at all. It translates “francouverte” as “francocouverte.” However, winning the Francovertes is probably a good thing.
Go there next year and find out what a francouverte is. Please, let me know. And eat lots of poutine. It’s really, really good.
– 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.
Paul De Lancey, circumnavigating
On September 8, 1519, Ferdinand Magellan and 238 seamen of various ranks left Spain to circumnavigate the Earth. It was a long ocean voyage! Just over two years. Only 30 of the 239 returned home. Then out of those 30, twelve had spent some in a Cape Verde prison.
We can draw two conclusion from this.
1) You are more likely to survive sailing around the world if you go to prison en route.
Survival rate, no prison sentence = 7.9% (18 sailors out of 227)
Survival rate, prison sentence = 100% (12 sailors of 12)
Noting this, NASA plans to equip all long-range spaceships with prisons.
2) It takes a lot of time and a lot of people dying just to get back to the spot where you started. I mean, what the heck? If getting back to the same spot is circumnavigating, then I’m doing it right now. And no one’s dying, either.
You too can go around the world. Just stand still and say, “I’ve gone around the world.”
Congratulations, you world traveler, you.
– 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.
Paul De Lancey's Blog 