Wanda Wunder #30
– 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.
I’d like to see her and everybody else be happy.
Today has been a really frustrating day, so here is this post.
THINGS I’D LIKE TO SEE
Note: These are not necessarily in order of importantce A feware light hearted. Some are deadly serious. Okay, here goes.
1) Countries stop invading other countries. No excuses. Especially incredibly transparent lies.
2) If a country must invade, stop making deliberate targets out of civilians.
3) People having respect for other people who hold opposing political views.
4) People and groups forgoing lying when advancing political views.
5) People accepting the fact that democracy means that sometimes you will be outvoted.
6) Prosecution of all rapists. Stop turning the raped woman into the victim.
7) End of racism. There really are enough people to hate in this world based on individual merits without casting a wider net.
8) More competition in the market place. For capitalism to benefit everyone, we really can’t have conglomerates controlling huge swaths of the economy.
9) The end of lying in news programs.
10) More competition in news station. As it stands now, it’s so easy for mega-news station to drown out all other views.
11) Stop thinking five minutes of research on the internet overpowers a collected hundreds of thousands of hours of scientific research.
12) Stop whining when society asks you to do something you don’t want to do. Okay, I have problems here. Mea culpea.
13) Being outvoted doesn’t mean your rights are being violated.
14) Cover your mouth when coughing.
15) Buy the blinker package when buying a car. You don’t need to expend a lot of energy to signal.
16) Know that a red light really does mean to stop.
17) Realize that if you’re the fifth person to go through the intersection after the light changed, that you really are a dick.
18) Keys that automatically fly back to a prearranged peg on a wall or a hutch, no matter where you left them.
19) Delivery people who know how to install a refrigerator.
20) No more school children gunned down. How is this still happening?
21) The end of all harrassment in the workplace? Why is being a dick there still okay?
22) The end of littering.
23) The end of plastic-litter islands in the Pacific Ocean. Two such islands are thousands of square miles in size.
24) I’d like to not be perpetually tired or in pain.
That’s all for now. God bless you all. May tomorrow find you to be a happier person.
Behave. Don’t make me come there.
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.
People-free paradise
You say you’re an introvert? You say you really hate crowds? You hate them more than lutefisk, filing taxes, and paper cuts? Are you oh so wary of catching a pandemic virus, or even a three-week cold? But you also like to travel?
I’m glad you spoke up. Here are the most beautiful, least tourist-ridden spots in the world. My rankings:
1. Naru
This island paradise gets only 200 tourists a year. Granted that’s 199 visitors a year more than you’d like, but you have to remember that you’ll be one of the 200. People don’t go there because it’s tiny, covering 8 squares miles. Although, this means you don’t have to go far for anything. The beaches are incredibly beautiful and uncrowded. Go there. Go there!
2. Tuvalu
This beautiful speck of land, hardly bigger than a burrito, manages to take in only 1,000 tourists a year. It would receive more visitors, but it’s so hard to get there; only a few sporadic flights connect it with Fiji. That’s great news for us. It keeps the riff raff away. Very few loud oafs infest the island oh so gorgeous beaches and the locals are so laid back that it’s quite easy and stress free to avoid them. Go there soon as global warning may drown this introverts’ paradise. Tuvalu would have easily gotten out number-one rankings if its annual mob of tourists hadn’t exceeded Nauru’s by 800.
3. Kiribati
Kiribati’s splendidly attractive. The life style is relaxed. The beaches are pristine and mostly uninfected by clamorous tourists. The gently swaying palm trees lull you into blissful tranquility. Unfortunately, the atoll-nation attracts 6,000 tourists per annum. That’s too many for us. We must regretfully assign a low ranking to Kiribato. Even so, you might want to go there once before rising water levels submerge the country forever. (The government actively considers relocation to other islands for its people.)
4. Montserrat
A huge volcanic eruption devastated this island in 1995. The southern half of the island was covered in ash and declared uninhabitable. The thriving musical culture got wiped out. So, fewer tourists came to once-island paradise. However, this will make a visit here more attractive. On the other hand, 7,000 clods visit the site every year. Fortunately, they tend to only clog up spots near the volcano. Apparently, people like to see towns and countrysides blanketed with ash. On the third hand, this strange behavior is a boon to us. We get the beautiful beach and wondrous scenery in the untouched north all to our selves.
5. Niue
This pretty little island is just the place for people-hating adventurers. It’s splendidly isolated from the world’s people-teeming nations. It’s beaches are few, small, and hard to get to. But how beach do you need when you’re by yourself, and at most, with one significant other? This little speck of lands is just the thing for divers. Nowhere else on Earth can you explore as many uncluttered underwater tunnels and caves. Supposedly, there’s internet connection all over the island. So if you must contact someone, you can do it at a blissful distance. However, 7,000 tourists manage to get there every year. So, Niue only manages to beat out Somalia and North Korea.
6. Somalia
This African nation is just the spot for tourist-hating travelers. Just 500 people visit the land’s beaches and haunting landscapes. Since, Somalia is a fairly big nation, this means the probability of running into any of the perhaps dozens of tourists there at any one time. On the other hand, it’s not much of a nation. The authority of the central government remains quite limited. The downsides to visiting Somalia are: political instability, extremists running amok, and military coups. Still there are many forsaken, beautiful landscapes to behold if you’re willing to stock up and rent an all-terrain vehicle. Hey, it’s better than North Korea.
7. North Korea
You might be surprised that we included this country in our introverts’ must-see sites. This country steadfastly remains at the top-of-the-top list for its capricious, brutal dictatorship, rampant human rights violations, and annual food shortages. Paradoxically, these factors earn it a spot on our lists as these frankly horrible attributes keep the number of visitors down to 6,000. Oh and I forgot, you can’t go anywhere without a guide. If you talk to locals, the omnipresent police will kick you out of the country and possibly jail the local you spoke to. You should also assume your hotel room will be bugged. There are no palatable restaurants. It’s airline, Air Koryo, consistently wins the award for the world’s worst burger. It’s strange to say then that Air Koryo is North Korea’s primary attraction. There is simply no other airlines that give you a glimpse into what budget air travel was 70 years ago. Still, it’s hard to overcome the nation’s faults and the fact that you will be traveling in an airplane rife with tourists. We easily gave North Korea our worst rating. I mean, it’s like Somalia with 5,500 extra tourists. Brr!
– 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 – POTATOES
½ small white onion (½ small onion more later)
2½ pounds russet or brown potatoes
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (additional ¼ cup vegetable oil later)
½ tablespoon achiote powder
3 green onions
¼ teaspoon salt (¼ teaspoon more later)
1 cup queso blanco, queso fresco, quesillo, or mozzarella cheese
¼ cup vegetable oil (or ¼ cup per batch)
INGREDIENTS – SALSA DE MANI
1¼ cups milk
½ small white onion (See? I told you it would show up again.)
1 cup smooth peanut butter
¼ teaspoon salt
SPECIAL UTENSIL
potato masher
Serves 4. Takes 2 hours.
PREPARATION – POTATOES
Dice ½ small white onion. Peel potatoes. Cut each potato into eight pieces. Put potato pieces into large pot. Add enough water to cover potato bits. Bring water to boil on high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes or until potato is tender. Remove potatoes and let cool.
While potatoes and then cool, add 2 tablespoons oil, onion, and achiote powder to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Drain potatoes Mash potatoes with potato masher. Mince green onions. Add white onion, green onion, and salt to mashed potatoes. Mix with fork until well blended.
Form mashed-potato mix into 16 balls. Insert 1 tablespoon queso blanco into center of each potato ball. Close hole in potato ball and flatten slightly to make llapingachos. Add ¼ cup oil and llapingachos to pan. Heat oil using low-medium heat. Do not let llapingachos touch. Sauté for 7 minutes or until golden brown. Gently turn over once. Repeat for each batch.
PREPARATION – SALSA DE MANI
While potatoes cook and then cool, slice ½ small white onion into 4 pieces. Add this white onion and milk to pan. Simmer on low for 10 minutes. Stir frequently to keep milk from burning. Remove onion and discard. Add peanut butter and salt. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes or until peanut-butter sauce, salsa de mani thickens. Spread warm salsa de mani over llapingachos.
TIDBITS
1) Ever get deja vu? Like you read this recipe some twenty years ago? Or maybe you knew tonight’s dinner would be pot roast? Okay, maybe you knew that because today is Tuesday and you always have pot roast on Tuesday. But what about the time you saw Spiffy the Squirrel win the Boston Marathon and only you had known he’d win because you somehow had seen it happen a week ago?
2) Anagram scientists know now that deja vu is not merely a feeling but instead that alga, the stuff that grows on the surface on ponds, are trying to communicate to us from the future. It’s true! Fishermen, golfers, and politicians will tell you the same. Look at the name of this dish, Llapingachos” That word is an anagram for “alga phonics.”
3) In 2032, internet providers, locked in ever increasing competition search looked frantically for faster and faster ways of data transmission. On April 2nd , Timothy “Timothy” Harris, Ph.D and CEO. of Harris Labs dropped his cell phone in an alga-ridden pond. To his surprise, it still dried out instantly! It still worked! It even worked 38% faster than before! Timmy’s brain swirled with exclamations marks. He’d win a Nobel Prize! Then his phone stopped transmitting. The screen stayed on, but the wallpaper switched to pond scum. Dr. Harris slapped his forehead. But, of course, the alga now in his phone had dissolved and replaced its the precious metals. The phone would now only send forth images and concepts the alga understood.
4) Indeed the alga, relatively dim witted due to their single-cell existence and, to be frank, lack of any secondary education to speak of, couldn’t comprehend even the simplest text messages such, “lol” or “smh.” Clearly, alga needed to up their linguistic skills. But how to do this?
5) Timothy had another “aha” moment. Didn’t there, wasn’t there, a program called “Hooked on PhonicsTM? Did they ever make a version for alga? They had! It was still out there on EBayTM. Would this program work on specific single-celled organisms? It would! Harris Labs’ revolutionary cell phones took the communication world by storm. However, Dr. Harris feared industrial espionage and never wrote down the specifics of his invention. But how would he remember to process to make his phones? After all, he was scatter-brained after all.
6) Simple. For in 2033, he had a flash of insight. Could phonics-enabled alga send messages back in time to people’s brains if they were first coded in anagrams? Yes, yes, it proved to be so! Who knew? All you had to receive this message was to walk by a stagnant pond. So yes, whenever you experience deja vu, it is really coming from alga way into the future.
7) “Remember, alga phonics,” thought Dr. Harris. What was an anagram for “alga phonics?” Why no other than the Ecuadorian dish, llapingachos! The great scientist fed this word to his alga who keep forwarding the recipe back in time to us. This is why we keep hankering for this recipe.
– 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 large onions
4 pounds beef brisket (first or flat cut with fat trimmed to ¼”)
4 garlic cloves
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
½ tablespoon thyme
2 cups beef broth
2 teaspoons parsley
Serves 8. Takes 7 hours.
SPECIAL UTENSILS
mandoline
slow cooker
PREPARATION
Cut onions into ¼” slices with mandoline or knife. Dice garlic cloves. Rub pepper, salt, and thyme onto brisket. Add onion slices, garlic, brisket, and beef broth to slow cooker. Cook and cook on high for 6 hours or until brisket is tender to the fork. Cut brisket against grain into 8 or 16 slices. Add brisket to bowls. Ladle liquid from slow cooker over brisket. Garnish with parsley.
TIDBITS
1) No one has ever found the buried treasure of Pierre le Fou, The Terror of the Caribbean.
2) Many historians and treasure hunters have combed dusty books found in nautical libraries. Ambitious souls have prowled bazaars, estate sales, and abandoned castles in search of le Fou’s maps. Still others have surfed the internet for clues before getting distracted by pictures of kittens and even hamster-powered model railroads.
3) However culinary historians believe that the path to Le Fou’s gold and pearls lies through the reading of recipes, this one in particular.
4) First of all, what about the title of this recipe, “Brisket with Onions?” I mean how likely was it that this dish was chosen out of thousands upon thousands of choices. Clearly, this recipe holds the clue to the French pirate’s loot. Indeed, the two nouns in the title, brisket and onions is an anagram for “Be No Skirt Ions.” If that isn’t pirate talk, then I don’t know what is. And “Be No Skirt Ions” clearly means gold. That’s proof you can deny. Now, all you have to do is decipher the hidden code in this recipe for the location of unimaginable wealth. Go for it!
– 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.
America’s last bit of expansion, from the 1840s to the 1890s was a great period for dime-novelists and newspaper reporters. Yep, those people went to work with a smile knowing their country was strong and their jobs secure.
Then we gave up the Philippines and various bitty islands in the Pacific. As a result, Americans stopped reading and turned to cat videos on the internet. What should we do? I’m glad you asked. We need to expand.
How? By force? Oh heavens, no. The world these days frowns on aggression and what with all those nuclear weapons stashed all over the world, conquest is a might dangerous.
Expansion by war – bad!
Then how do we expand? By purchasing Leichtenstein, that tiny country in the middle of Europe. It would be a bargain. If we paid each of Liechtenstein’s 35,000 citizens a million dollars, it would cost only $35 billion, lock, stock, and barrel.
But we don’t have that money what with continued fighting in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. However, these conflicts are really an opportunity in disguise. Simply stop the fighting in these hot spots until we’ve saved $35 billion. How did we get the enemy insurgents to lay down their arms?
By giving them soft ice cream cones. Admittedly your average Joe Desert Fanatic will not stop shooting, bombing, and carrying on forever for soft ice cream. But he will for a few months, especially in those hot summer months, when the sun bakes the sand, bakes you and all you can think of is a nice, cool, creamy chocolate/vanilla swirl served up in a sugar cone.
Voila, the conflict stops for a spell. We spend the savings on Leichtenstein. What are the benefits? First, it helps our national pride. Second, we could use the vast forests of that tiny land to print billions and billions of novels, providing steady employment to thousands of needy writers. Third, we could join the European Union. Our farmers would become eligible for those legendary EU subsidies handed out to thistelwort farmers. But most importantly, our tourists could visit Europe and never leave America. Life doesn’t get any better than that.
– Paul De Lancey, Dr. Economics
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.
I got an internet ad enticing me to fly a plane, no experience necessary. Darn exciting offer, yet I declined. I fear my piloting would end up as high-impact aerobics. Also, property values along my proposed flight path would likely plummet as soon as word got out. On the other hand, this is a mistake I could only make once.
“He flies through the air
“with the greatest of ease,
“The daring young man
“With the flying machine.”
– Paul R. De Lancey, Intrepid Birdman
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.
Mexican Soup
POTATO EPAZOTE SOUP
INGREDIENTS
½ pound potatoes
1 medium white onion
1 Serrano chile (2 more later)
3 tablespoons butter
4 teaspoons epazote
4 cups chicken broth
2 Serrano chiles
¼ cup fresh cilantro
½ cup toasted tortilla squares
Makes about 4 bowls.
PREPARATION
Peel potatoes. Mince potatoes and onion. Dice cilantro. Seed and dice 1 Serrano chile. (For goodness sake, wash your hands thoroughly after handling Serrano chiles.)
Combine potato, onion, 1 diced Serrano chile, butter, and epazote in pot. Sauté on medium heat for 5 minutes or until potato or onion starts to brown. Stir frequently. Add broth. Cook on low-medium heat for 15 minutes or until potato softens. Stir occasionally. While soup simmers, seed and dice 2 Serrano chiles. Dice cilantro. Ladle soup into bowls. Garnish with 2 diced Serrano chiles, tortillas squares, and cilantro.
TIDBITS
1) Respect the herb epazote.
2) Epazote is an acquired taste for many. Some people like its lemony smell. However, its detractors compare epazote’s aroma to petroleum’s.
3) Epazote is a digestive and carminative.
4) And a carminative is….Looks up carmnative….Oh crudness, it causes farts. So don’t consume vast quantities of epazote before a big date or job interview.
5) According to internet, “Often times it can be considered an evasive weed as it can be found growing voluntarily in gardens and fields.” Wow, it can evade people, people who want to pull it because it’s a weed. How does it evade people? By walking? Crawling? Flying? Regrettably the website is mute on this exciting point.
6) The “growing voluntarily” part is exciting. “Dear epazote, would you like to grow here? I won’t force you.”
“Oh yes, your garden looks most inviting.”
– 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.
Turkish Entree
INGREDIENTS
1 cup brown rice
2 cups water (1/2 cup more later)
1 1/2 tomatoes
8 red or green bell peppers
2 tablespoons pine nuts (see note below for substitutions)
2 medium onions
1/2 cup water
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon dill
2 teaspoons mint
2 teaspoons parsley
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons olive oil
Many people are more allergic to pine nuts than other types. Substitutes for pine nuts are: walnuts, almonds, pistachios, cashews, and peanuts.
SPECIAL UTENSIL
spice grinder
casserole dish
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cook rice according to instructions shown on bag. Mince tomatoes. Cut off tops from bell peppers. Keep tops for later. Remove seeds. Grind nuts. Mince onions.
Put olive oil and onion in frying pan. Sauté for about 5 minutes or until onions soften. Stir frequently.
Add 1/2 cup water, tomatoes, pine nuts, onion, allspice, cinnamon, dill, mint, parsley, black pepper, salt, lemon juice, and cooked rice. Cook on low heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Put bell pepper bottoms, open-end up, in casserole dish. Fill bell peppers with rice/tomato/spice mix. Put bell-pepper caps on top of bell-pepper bottoms. Add 1″ water to casserole dish. Put casserole dish in oven. Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes or until bell peppers are soft.
Discard bell-pepper tops before serving this entree to adoring family or guests.
TIDBITS
1) I looked up “fun facts about Turkey” and found the country is a member of the Council of Europe (1949), NATO (1952), OECD (1961), OSCE (1973) and the G20 industrial nations (1999).
2) I guess some people have different ideas about fun.
3) The Turks introduced coffee to Europe during some three-hundred years of invasion. Bad for the Europeans of that time, but really good for us now when we need to wake up.
4) The mighty croissant was invented in Vienna in 1683. Viennese bakers preparing breads and pastries in the wee hours in the morning heard the Turks tunneling under the city. The bakers sounded the alarm. The alerted Viennese defenders defeated the tunnelers and the city was saved. The bakers celebrated the event with pastries shaped like the crescent on the Turkish flags, hence the name croissant.
5) Isn’t tidbit 4) much more fun than tidbit 1)?
6) The Turks haven’t invaded anyone for about three centuries bringing that mode of culinary enlightenment to an end.
7) We now discover Turkish culinary recipes at bookstores and from the internet.
8) There is no more need for war.
– 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 Soup
INGREDIENTS
3 medium brown potatoes
1/2 onion
1 medium carrot
3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 1/4 cups vegetable broth
3/4 cup milk
2 teaspoons chervil
1/2 teaspoon French four spice (Muntok white pepper, nutmeg, ginger, powdered cloves)
1/4 teaspoon parsley
PREPARATION
Peel potatoes. Dice potato, onion, and carrot. Put potato, onion, butter, and olive oil in large pot. Sauté potato and onion on medium heat for about 10 minutes or until potato and onion begin to soften. Stir frequently.
Add diced carrot, vegetable broth, milk, chervil, French four spice, and parsley to the pot. Cook for 20 minutes. Start at medium heat reducing to low when soup starts to boil. Stir occasionally.
TIDBITS
1) People use chervil a lot more during the Lenten season than other times as it symbolizes new life and rebirth.
2) People often give up foods for Lent.
3) I always give up lutefisk.
4) Successfully.
5) During all the non-Lenten times as well.
4) I looked up fun facts for chervil on the internet. I found chervil improves the taste of radishes growing next to it.
5) Fun fact, you bet.
– 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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