Angry Man #16
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.
Crime is bad. Let’s get rid of it. Is our present system of incarceration working? No. Who was responsible for this? Who will fix it? I will. How? I’m glad you asked. Here is my thirteen-step program.
1) Convicted criminals will never get bacon or chocolate. Our current system allows prisoners to enjoy socialized bacon and chocolate. That’s no deterrence at all. Geez!
2) Criminals will eat lutefisk at every meal. For beverages, they will have a choice of lutefisk tea and castor oil
3) Convicted criminals will download software for all the law-abiding citizens in their community. They will work with customer service until the myriad of issues are resolved.
4) Convicted criminals will be forced to shop WalMart(tm) on holiday weekends. Municipal, county, state, and federal governments will save billions and billions of dollars on prison construction costs, prison maintenance, and prison staff.
5) Criminals who leave WalMart will be sent to maximum-security cells for life. It bears repeating, these ne’er do wells will still be without chocolate and bacon for life . They will still do software downloads for life.
6) These ne’er do wells will also be forced, in their short free periods, to read and re-read James Joyce’s Ulysses until their minds explode trying to understand it. Moreover we will, if allowed, by human rights organizations, serve lutefisk everyday to our hardened criminals.
7) The prison TV will only show ESPN’s Canadian Curling Highlights.
8) Jailers will give the inmates paper cuts every day.
9) You will be put in Facebook(tm) jail whenever you use the word “the.”
10) These baddies will eat all those Christmas fruitcakes that people insist on giving, but nobody wants.
11) Convicts will seed and dice the hottest of hot chile peppers then immediately rub their foreheads. (Don’t try this at home.)
12) Prisoners must keep places in line for the elderly at the DMV. Twice a week too.
13) Criminals will be forced to listen to every high-school and college commencent speech within a 50-mile radius of their prison. This includes all speeches by students, faculty, and guest speakers. Yes, this is a severe punishment, but we must have a credible, strong deterrent against crime.
No person alive would even contemplate committing any crime when faced with the above thirteen consequences. Crime would disappear from our great country within the year. Money spent on law enforcement could be used to balance budget and distribute free bacon and chocolate to all Americans.
Now behave, don’t make me come back there.
– 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.
Slovenian Dessert
POTICA
(Nut Roll)
INGREDIENTS – YEAST
¼ cup warm milk (1 more cup later)
2 tablespoons yeast
4 teaspoons sugar (¾ more cup later)
INGREDIENTS – DOUGH
½ cup butter (6 more tablespoons later)
6 tablespoons sugar (6 more tablespoons later)
3 egg yolks (reserve 3 egg whites)
1 cup warm milk
¾ teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons vanilla extract (½ more tablespoon later)
4 cups flour (3 additional tablespoons later)
1 tablespoon butter (5 additional tablespoons later)
INGREDIENTS – NUT FILLING
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
5 tablespoons butter
½ cup honey
5 tablespoons milk
6 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon lemon zest
3 cups minced walnuts
½ tablespoon vanilla extract
½ cup heavy cream
3 egg whites
INGREDIENT – FINAL
3 tablespoons flour
SPECIAL UTENSILS
electric beater
3 9″-x-5″ loaf pans
about 4 mixing bowls depending how much cleaning you do along the way
sonic obliterator
Serves 8. Takes 3 hours 30 minutes.
PREPARATION – YEAST
Add ¼ cup warm milk and yeast to a small mixing bowl. Stir until yeast dissolves. Add 4 teaspoons sugar. Stir until sugar dissolves. Lit sit for 15 minutes or until mixture doubles in size.
PREPARATION – DOUGH
While yeast rises, add ½ cup butter, 6 tablespoons sugar, and egg yolks to a large, mixing bowl. Use high setting on electric beater until butter becomes creamy. Add 1 cup warm milk to small pot. Cook on medium-high heat until milk is almost ready to boil. Stir constantly. Add yeast mix, hot milk, salt, and 4 teaspoons vanilla extract to bowl with creamy butter. Mix with whisk or fork until thoroughly blended. Add 4 cups flour, ½ cup at a time, mixing with wooden spoon, or until dough is a ball and no longer sticky.
Grease another mixing bowl with 1 tablespoon butter. Add dough ball to this mixing bowl. Turn dough until it is well coated. Cover and let rise for 1 hour 30 minutes.
PREPARATION – NUT FILLING
While dough rises, cinnamon, ground cloves, 5 tablespoons butter, honey, 5 tablespoons milk, and 6 tablespoons sugar to small pot. Cook on medium heat until butter melts and ingredients blend. Stir constantly. Add lemon zest, and walnuts to another mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well blended. Add walnuts to mixing bowl. Pour butter/honey/milk mixture and ½ tablespoon vanilla extract over minced walnuts. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Fold in heavy cream with spoon. Add egg whites to cup. Beat with whisk. Fold in egg whites into butter/honey/milk/walnut /heavy cream mixture. Let cool until dough has finished rising.
PREPARATION – FINAL
Dust large flat surface with 3 tablespoons flour. Roll out dough onto dustedt surface until it is 24″ long, 18″ wide, and ¼” thick. Ladle cooled nut filing evenly over dough. Start with 18″ side and gently roll up the dough to form a 24″ long dough long. Cut 24″-long loaf into 3 8″-long loves. Put loaves in loaf pans. Cover pans and let rise for 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Bake at 325 degrees for 25 minutes or loaves turn golden brown and toothpick stuck in center comes out clean. Use sonic obliterator on impatient guests
TIDBITS
1) The Sonic obliterator is an essential item for the serious home chef. It gets rid of door-to-door salesmen who interrupt you right when you take the chicken Florentine dish out of the oven, causing you to drop the casserole dish which shatters into a million pieces. Also, zap oafs who complain that dinner is taking too long. You don’t need that negativity in your kitchen.
2) Be advised that although owning a sonic obliterator is not illegal as of press time., obliterating someone might be. One never knows with law enforcement. So to be safe, please ask your local police officers in advance.
– 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.
Today is once more Bad-Advice Friday. I, Doctor Paul, shall be dispensing bad advice to all comers. The advice will stupendously bad.
LF asks: Why do we have middle names?
Dear LF: To distinguish ourselves from crocodiles. Crocodiles have no middle names. Crocodiles are naturally upset about this lack, so be sure to pet them when discussing this with them.
PMC asks: Why do French live in France?
Dear PNC: Sheer coincidence. The French could have just as easily lived in the Antarctica with the penguins living in France instead. This is why French nuns, and indeed nuns everywhere, are sometimes called penguins. Let your local religious know about this. Also, fly all the penguins over to France, they will appreciate the way the French chefs prepare fish. Don’t bother with permits, action and speed are paramount.
JW asks: Should I buy Paul’s book?
Dear JW: Oh yes, buy many. One to read, one to prop up a table with a short leg, one to send to your senator–you’ll be amazed by the influence it will buy you, and as many as needed to put under your mattress. You really need to support your back. It supports you. Only my book is approved by the AMA, American Mattress Association.
MA: Did Steve Beshear say ONE THING to make you think he actually WATCHED the President’s speech?
Dear MA: Who is Steve Beshar? Does his mother know he was out after 10 p.m.? I didn’t watch the speech. I was watching a documentary about bees. It was fascinating. I suggest you send him a box full of bees so he can learn about their habbits as well. Oh, many thanks for saying I think. It is by no means a universal opinion. Meanies.
DZ asks: Spray tan, tanning bed, natural basking, or clammy vampire-esce pallor?
Dear DZ: Don’t limit yourself. Do all four. Dress yourself in an adult-size onesie, spray-tan one arm, tan the other, bask one leg, and leave the other clammy white. People will love it just like the three-in-one flavors of Neapolitan ice cream. Warning, do not buy adult-sized onesies off the rack. Get a fitted one from ArmaniTM. Sure, it will cost more, but think of all the heads you will turn.
JBL asks: Is it Friday yet?
Dear JBL: Yes, it is, but only because we outlasted Thursday. Since you clearly enjoy Friday so much you will need to buy two homes, one just east of the International Dateline and the other just west of it. When it’s Thursday in your Western hemispheric home simply hop into your CessnaTM propeller plane–you will need to buy this as well–and land in your Eastern hemispheric home where it will by Friday. Then when it becomes Saturday there, fly back across the Date Line to your original home where it will be Friday. There, you will have back-to-back Fridays. You’ll have to give up Thursdays forever, but that’s what you wanted, right?
JC asks: Can a chainsaw be used to slice bread?
Dear JC: Absolutely! It’s your kitchen. A chainsaw will slice your bread lickety split. And as bonus, a running chainsaw will discourage the heck out of door-to-door salesmen disturbing your culinary preparations.
DZ asks: Can I submit two? Because I also have trouble remembering people’s names, even when it’s only been a few seconds since they were introduced. Need help.
Dear DZ: Of course, I am here for you. Clearly you can’t count on your memory. You’ll have to write their name with indelible ink on their face. Proper etiquette demands the color of the ink match their hair.
RJ asks: Should I spray tan the cat?
Dear RJ: Only if the tan matches the cat’s eyes. Otherwise, you’ll irritate the feline to no end; they’re very image conscious.
MO’M asks: Should I shake well before using, or expose to open fire or flame?
Dear MO’M: Always, always, have marshmallows already on wooden skewers before exposing anything flammable, including hair spray, alcohol, or your hair to a fire. You’ll feel bad when you wake up in a hospital bed and realize that you missed a good marshmallow roasting. The regret will kill you.
SWW asks: What should I do during the Lenten season? Btw, I’m not Catholic. Maybe petition the pope to make it White Meat Fridays? Then, KFC would get a boost. Or perhaps you have another recommendation. Beaver, alligator, and capybaras are already allowed on Fridays.
Dear SWW: You have to give up something even if you’re not Catholic. Sorry, them’s the rules. Let me be your shining example. I’m giving up lutefisk and liver. Yes, I’m that strong. I think you need to give up plates for Lent. Will this mean you’ll have to juggle your food while eating? Yes, it will. You don’t want to ruin your food by having it land on the tablecloth, because who knows when it was last washed.
WK asks: The chart said to prick the patient’s boil and I get everything backwards. Anyway, how can I do a cover up with little to no money?
Dear WK: Pretend to be a statue until everyone goes away. Eat as much as you can before law enforcement arrives as they will be looking for clues for months. Don’t forget to hold your breath until they go away.
– 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.
Greek Appetizer
INGREDIENTS
8 green onions
2 medium brown onions
2 pounds fresh spinach
½ cup butter (½ cup more later)
½ cup olive oil
3 eggs
1 pound feta cheese
2½ tablespoons dill
¼ teaspoon salt
2½ tablespoons lemon juice
½ cup butter
1 pound phyllo pastry sheets
SPECIAL UTENSILS
9″ x 12″ casserole dish (You’ll need to trim the phyllo sheets if they’re larger than the casserole dish.)
sonic obliterator.
Makes 24 triangular spanakopitas. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Dice green onions and brown onions. Remove stems from spinach. Add ½ cup butter, olive oil, green onions, and brown onions to pan. Sauté at medium-high for 5 minutes or until onions soften. Stir occasionally. Add spinach. Sauté at medium heat for 10 minutes or until spinach is completely soft and liquid is nearly gone. Stir frequently. Remove from heat and let cool
While spinach mixture cools, add eggs to mixing bowl. Beat eggs until well blended. Add eggs, feta cheese, dill, salt, and lemon juice. Whisk thoroughly. Add sautéed spinach to bowl. Blend thoroughly with fork. Add ½ cup butter to small pot. Melt butter using low-medium heat. Stir frequently. Remove from heat.
Carefully lay out a phyllo sheet in casserole dish . Gently brush melted butter onto phyllo sheet. Repeat until half of the phyllo sheets are in the casserole dish. Gently spread spinach mixture onto top phyllo sheet. Carefully–yes carefully and gently are definitely les mots juste for this dish–lay on phyllo sheet onto spinach mixture. Gently brush phyllo with butter. Place another phyllo sheet in the casserole dish. Gently brush sheet with butter. Repeat until all the phyllo sheets are gone.
Bake at 350 for 30-to-40 minutes or until top layer of casserole is golden brown. Cut casserole into 12 3″-wide squares. Cut each square along a diagonal to make two triangles. Serve to appreciative, remaining guests.
TIDBITS
1) It takes a lot of care to make spanakopita. Those phyllo sheets can tear apart faster than a politician’s campaign promises. Or you rip the sheets while brushing them with melted butter. You’re already fit to explode faster than a land mine. Then some oaf makes a comment like, “I don’t like these thingies. They taste too spinachy.” What is the proper response for the gauchery?
2) Eliminate the miscreant. You don’t need that negativity.
3) But how?
4) My favorite weapon of choice is the sonic obliterator. The serious home chef simply cannot afford to be without this implement. Not only does it dispatch crabby diners to the nether world, but as the name suggests, it obliterates all evidence of the evil eater. Law enforcement rarely pursues murder charges when it cannot find the body.
5) Sadly, most supermarkets and department stores do not carry sonic obliterators. You have to buy them on-line. The best sale prices tend to occur on Black Friday, the week before Christmas, and just before Valentine’s Day.
6) Culinary statisticians have also found a high correlation between forgotten birthdays and anniversaries; so remember your sweatheart’s important days.
7) May I suggest a personalized plate? If your loved’s birthday is June 12 and you got married on November 19 get a license plate with, “J12N19″ on it.
8) You could also tattoo the same sequence of letters and numbers on your forearm. However, you really should make sure your wedding is rock solid. Because your next sweatheart will surely want you to remove the old flame’s important days from your arm. This is painful, more painful than the original tattoo. Then you’ll need to re-ink your skin with your new boo’s dates. Which is painful.
9) Heavens to Betsy, if your subsequent relationships goes south and your find a third, fourth, or fifth love, you will be in a world of constant pain. Loves hurts, but tattoo removals hurt even more. Monogamy does have its advantages.
10) Don’t write sweatheart in a love note.. The correct spelling is sweetheart. Calling your soul mates “sweatheart” might get in trouble, especially if they are stay-at-home chefs and possess a sonic obliterator. Having multiple soul mates can also get you zapped into nothingness.
11) As you can see, life is fraught with perils. You might get obliterated for dissing someone’s spanakopitas You could get annihilated for misspelling a term of endearment. This is why it is so important to follow proper etiquette. This is why your grammar-school teachers drilled your constantly in correct spelling.
12) Be kind. Be careful. Stay alive.
– 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.
New Zealander Entree
INGREDIENTS
1 small onion
1 Roma tomato
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound ground lamb
½ teaspoon lemon zest
½ teaspoon marjoram
1½ tablespoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon mint, crushed
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon rosemary
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 avocado
4 hamburger buns
4 lettuce leaves
4 slices beetroot (Optional? Depends on whom you ask.)
PREPARATION
Cut onion and tomato into thin slices. Add onion and olive oil to skillet. Sauté for 5 minutes on medium-high heat or until onion softens. Add lamb, lemon zest, marjoram, mayonnaise, mint, pepper, rosemary, and Worcestershire sauce to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands.
Make four patties. Fry patties at medium-high heat with lid on for about 6 minutes or until the insides of the patties are done to the desired level of pinkness or brownness. Flip patties once.
While patties are cooking, cut tomato into ⅛” thick slices. Peel avocado and remove pit. Cut avocado into four slices lengthwise. Toast hamburger buns. Put a patty on bottom bun. Put tomato and sautéed onion slices and 1 lettuce leaf on each patty. Top with beetroot slice, if desired. Add top bun. Combine the bottom and top parts of the burger. Repeat for the next 3 burgers.
TIDBITS
1) Sheep is an anagram for . . . sheep. Lamb is an anagram for balm. Lambs do not use lip balm. They do not have opposable thumbs, so they can’t hold the tubes of lip balm.
2) Sheep can be shorn for their wool. Wool makes nice clothes and blankets for people to use. People get haircuts. However, sheep do not wear wigs made from human hair, not even if they wonder what it would be like to be a redhead.
3) Law enforcement can track you with your cell phone’s GPS. Smart sheep can do the same, so Mary’s little lamb doesn’t need to follow Mary anymore. This is why you don’t hear the nursery rhyme anymore.
– 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.
Madagascan Entree
INGREDIENTS
4 chicken breasts
4 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon lemon zest
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
2 medium onions
2 Roma or small tomatoes
4 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons coconut oil or butter
½ tablespoon ginger
13½ ounce-can coconut milk
3 cups cooked rice
SPECIAL UTENSIL
Dutch oven
PREPARATION
Cut chicken breasts into 1″ cubes. Add chicken, lemon juice, lemon zest, cayenne pepper, pepper, and salt to mixing bowl. Marinate chicken cubes in lemon juice/spice mix for 45 minutes.
While chicken marinates, dice onion and tomatoes. Mince garlic. Add onion, garlic, and coconut oil to Dutch oven. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add marinated chicken. Cook on medium heat for 12 minutes or until chicken is only slightly pink inside. Stir occasionally.
Add tomato and ginger. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 3 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add coconut milk. Simmer on warm heat for 30 minutes or until sauce starts to thicken and chicken is no longer pink inside. Stir occasionally. Serve over rice.
TIDBITS
1) Madagascar produces more vanilla than any other country.
2) However, Madagascar’s vanilla shacks invariably seem to be on the other side of the stream.
3) But Madagascar’s streams often have crocodiles in them.
4) Crocodiles have been known to eat people. In all fairness though, people often eat crocodiles.
5) However, this is not to say you want to be eaten, far from it.
6) But you still want that vanilla on the other side and a vanilla substitute won’t do.
7) Hence the Madagascan proverb, “If you cross the stream in a crowd, the crocodile won’t eat you.”
8) At least not the people in the middle of the crowd.
9) The previous two tidbits explain why it is considered bad manners to ask people to cross rivers with you.
10) So there you have it. You can’t cross a Madagascan river to get vanilla, but you can’t ask someone to cross with you.
11) Bummer.
12) Now, however, AmazonTM is apparently considered producing drones to fly products from one spot to another.
13) Critics pooh pooh this idea, saying America’s skies are too crowded for the safe use of commercial drones.
14) However drones would be ideal in Madagascar for shipping bottles of vanilla from the wrong side of the crocodile-infested river to you.
15) This development would be great for Madagascans who want to live. Bad though for the country’s crocs who wish to dine out.
16) So where would Madagascar’s hungry crocodiles go to eat?
17) Tennessee. Tennessee has lots of rivers and not only that the locals there know nothing about even the most basic anti-crocodile measures. Lots of people would be eaten.
18) Being eaten while crossing a river would be a great excuse for not turning in homework.
19) But you could only use this excuse once.
20) The state of Tennessee does not consider breast feeding to be nudity. Crocodiles don’t have breasts. They are reptiles. Only Mammals have breasts.
21) So an undressed crocodile would be arrested by Tennessee’s law enforcement.
22) Let’s hope crocodiles never develop a sense of modesty.
– 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.
Nearly fifty of the world’s finest authors contributed to Bump Off Your Enemies.
Available on Amazon Kindle. Free days are May 5, May 12, May 18, May 19, and May 26.
Oh, this is a work of fiction.
– 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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