Posts Tagged With: Israel

A Modest Proposal for Peace in the Middle East

Shakshuka, a weapon for peace.

shakshu-

Things remain chronically unstable and unpleasant in the Middle East. The Arab nations and Israel just haven’t gotten along as well as one might have hoped. Indeed one cannot look at the following incidents: 1948, the war for statehood, the war in 1967, the war in 1973, more than one intifada, the bombing of Iraqi nuclear facilities, the suspicion of what does facilities were meant to do, the suspicion that Iran’s nuclear program is designed for use against Israel, hundreds and hundreds of rockets fired against Israeli population centers, Israeli incursions in Gaza to fight Hamas, suicide bombers, and more without concluding that ill feelings have persisted over the years.

Meanwhile El Salvador has had its own problems, a really nasty civil war comes to mind. Also, while most people can find Israel on a map, hardly anyone knows the location of El Salvador.

But there is a solution. According the CIA World Factbook, the population of Israel in 2008 was 7,112,000 while the inhabitants in El Salvador numbered 7,066,000. Darn close. The size of Israel is 20,770 square kilometers, while the land area of El Salvador is 21,040. Darn close again.

Why not have Israel and El Salvador switch places? It would be a new beginning for both peoples. We could have a one-to-one swap of homes. What could be simpler? The Israelis would lose hostile neighbors and gain instant access to some of the best coffee in the world. The El Salvadoreans would be surrounded with ample supplies of the best shaksuka and hummus in the world. Who doesn’t doesn’t like good, tasty shakshuka and hummus? Nobody.

So there you go. Peace in our time. And you would be able to find the new El Salvador on a map.

– Paul the peace maker

4novels

Check out my latest novel, the Christmas thriller, Beneficial Murders. My books are available in paperpack or Kindle on amazon.com, 

or on my website-where you can get a signed copy at: www.lordsoffun.com

 

Advertisement
Categories: history, humor, international, politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

National Stereotypes on Google

Here is how Google completes your search question when you type in the words, “Why is (some country) . . .?” Presumably the first completed choice by Google mirrors peoples’ stereotypes about particular nation.

The following  stereotypes garnered more than one country:

Poor countries were: Indonesia, Mexico, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Romania, Vietnam
Expensive countries were: Argentina, Brazil, Britain, Fiji
Happy countries were: Denmark, Sweden
Rich countries were: Germany, Norway, Switzerland
Dry countries were: Australia, Peru, Turkey
Big countries were: Greenland, Russia
Why so important countries? were: Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Greece
Violent and dangerous countries were: Colombia, Iraq, Pakistan, South Africa

And now, stereotypes for the first fifty countries that popped into my mind. Okay, many of the following countries were chosen because I love their cuisine. or I enjoyed traveling there. My favorite is, “Why is Greenland so big?”

Country      Stereotype
———      ————
Afghanistan – important
America – fat
Argentia – expensive
Australia – dry
Brazil – expensive

Britain – expensive
Canada – nice
China – polluted
Colombia – violent
Cuba – important

Denmark – happy
Egypt – important
Fiji – expensive
France – gay
Germany – rich

Greece – important
Greenland – big
Iceland – peaceful
India – poor
Indonesia – poor

Iraq – violent
Ireland – green
Israel – important to us
Italy – racist
Jamaica – violent

Japan – clean
Kenya – good at running
Mexico – poor
Mozambique – poor
Netherlands – liberal

Nicaragua – poor
New Zealand – free
Nigeria – poor
North Korea – bad
Norway – rich

Pakistan – dangerous
Peru  – dry
Poland – weak
Romania – poor
Russia – big

Saudi Arabia – stupid
Scotland – cold
South Africa – violent
Spain – empty
Switzerland – rich

Tibet – important to China
Turkey – dry
Sweden –  happy
Vatican City – small
Vietnam – poor

– 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.

 

Categories: humor, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pepper Jack Birds in a Sesame Blanket

American Entree

PEPPER JACK BIRDS IN A SESAME BLANKET

INGREDIENTSPepJackBirdsBlank-

4 ounces pepper jack cheese
8 turkey dogs
12 ounce package buttermilk biscuit dough
3/4 teaspoon Poultry MagicTM spice or poultry spice
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons sesame seeds
no-stick spray

SPECIAL UTENSIL

cookie sheet

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Grate pepper jack cheese. Spray cookie sheet with no-stick spray. Divide dough into 8 pieces. Roll out or flatten each dough piece until it is sufficiently long and wide to wrap around a turkey dog. Sprinkle each dough piece with an even amount of cheese and Poultry MagicTM. Press cheese and Poultry MagicTM into dough.

Put a turkey dog near one end of a dough piece and wrap the dough around the turkey dog. Put this creation on a cookie sheet so that the dough overlaps on the bottom Otherwise, the dough might break apart. Egads. Brush dough with butter. Sprinkle dough with sesame seeds. Gently press seeds into surface of dough-wrapped turkey dogs.

Bake in oven at 400 degrees for 8-to-13 minutes (Yes, there is a lot of variation between ovens) or until dough is golden brown. Be sure to watch your pepper jack birds in a sesame blanket to make sure they don’t burn or cook unevenly. You might need to turn them over once if they appear to browning too quickly on the top while remaining doughy on the bottom.

Remove from oven and let cool for several nanoseconds before eating. ☺

TIDBITS

1) The cardinal is a bird. The St. Louis Cardinals use bats when they are at the plate.

2) Bats always turn left when leaving a cave. Why? Is this convention? Manners? Is there no room for artistic expression within the bat community? Is this why we never see bat art collections in the finest galleries? Does Batman always turn left when exiting his hideaway in his Batmobile?

3) The New Zealand Kea bird feasts on rubber strips around car windows. Can we use this knowledge to dispose of discarded rubber?

4) More than 10,000 birds a year die from colliding with windows. On the other wing, bird collisions have been known to bring down airplanes. Israel has lost more fighter planes to birds than it has in all its wars.

5) Chickens can run at a speed of 9 miles per hour. This figure is for short distances only. Chickens do not possess the stamina for the marathon or even the mile. The human record for the 100-yard dash is 9.2 seconds, or 23 miles per hour. So even if you are only half as fast as that, you will be able to outdistance any enraged chicken.

6) Well, as long as they don’t fly. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds. The longest distance for a solo chicken flight is 301 feet. Watch a chicken fly in this video for SmirnoffTM: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/160787/flying_chickens/.

7) It’s quite possible air forces everywhere have nightmares about flying chickens. If birds can accidentally decimate the Israeli air force, can you imagine what would happen if chickens took to the skies filled with blood lust?

8) An uneaten chicken can live to be eight  years old, an eaten one goes earlier. The popularity of chicken in cuisines around the world might really be prompted by nervous air force commanders.

9) Moles cannot fly. They are never found on the menus of air-force bases.

10) Moles, however, can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night. If you could put a mole on the day shift and on the swing shift, the mole team could excavate a tunnel 900 feet long in just one twenty-four-hour period.

11) Compare that achievement to the construction crew that’s torn up that important street near your house for two months just to dig a tunnel for sewer pipes. I say fire the human crew and replace them with moles who will get the excavating job done in no time. We will probably still need humans to place the one-ton sections of sewer pipes into the ground. As of press time, moles have shown no real inclination to operate heavy machinery.

– Chef Paul

4novels

My cookbook, Eat Me: 169 Fun Recipes From All Over the World,  and novels are available in paperpack or Kindle on amazon.com

As an e-book on Nook

or on my website-where you can get a signed copy at: www.lordsoffun.com

 

Categories: cuisine, food, humor, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Shakshuka, Israeli Breakfast Soup

Israeli Breakfast Soup

Shakshuka

IINGREDIENTSshakshu-

1 sweet red pepper
2 hot green chiles
1 white onion
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
24 ounces tomato sauce
1 tablespoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 eggs

PREPARATION

Mince red pepper, green chiles, onion, and garlic. Put in skillet along with olive oil. Sauté on medium high heat for about 5 minutes or until onion is tender.

Add tomato sauce, oregano, and salt. Heat on high until sauce begins to boil, stirring frequently. Turn heat down to low. Add eggs. Cook until eggs are done to your satisfaction. Stir occasionally. This soup is often eaten directly from skillet.

Simple and quick with an impressive sounding name.

TIDBITS

1) People made soup as early as 6,000 BC.

2) Even then kids said, “Is it ready, yet?”

3) In 1772 BC Hammurabi of Babylon set down his famous set of 282 laws. Most of them dealt with business contracts and the family. None of them dealt with soup.

4) Current Nebraska law states a bar owner must be making soup at the same time beer is being sold.

5) So we’ve addressed the glaring soup admission in Hammurabi’s Code.

6) It took humanity over 3,700 years to do this.

7) In the meantime we’ve: discovered America via the land bridge from Asia, invented the printing press, and witnessed the creation and demise of the Twinkie.

– 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.

 

Categories: cuisine, food, history, humor, international, recipes, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Blog at WordPress.com.

%d bloggers like this: