It seems that some folks don’t know when they should look at the fast food menu. Perhaps they’ve never been inside a fast-food restaurant. This blog is dedicated to those people.
– 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.
It seems that some folks don’t know what to do on an escalator. This blog is dedicated to those people.
– 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.
Oh my gosh. It’s Friday already. Did you know there’s one every week? So, I shall once more be dispensing bad advice As usual, the advice will stupendously bad.
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JW asks: Should I really call my mom, or get her a gift or card, or visit her, or any of those other mother’s day things?
Dear JW: I think you should give the Mothers’ Day of Benedict Cummerbund. He’s handsome as anything, he’s rich, he has a career, what more could mother want? Ask Benadryl Cuminpatch if he’d like to spend the rest of his life with Mom. You’ll have to ask Benpicked Cucumber nicely as he is, as indeed all celebrities, used to people gushing up to him. If a lifetime commitment is too much, would he be willing to do whatever Mom wanted for one day. Should he complain of lost income from his movies, you’ll just have to rob banks until you’ve accumulated $100 million. Oh, and a grilled cheese sandwich. Make sure the cheese is gruyère. Celebrities have expenses tastes. This will be a Mothers’ Day Mom will never forget.
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SL Red, purple, or green?
Dear SL: The White House has been that uninspired white ever since its construction. I applaud your desire to spiff up the world’s most recognized building, to give it some character, to have some fun. Since, the color of the Republican party is often thought to be red, it would good to paint the White House red. I strongly suggest using spray paint for the job as the Secret Service is not going to give you much time to do a professional job with a roller and a paint brush. Indeed, they apt to be rather cross with you while hauling you away to ask such questions such as, “How did you get over the fence and so close to the White House without being spotted?” You’ll be able to answer with, “Why I went to the nearest circus and bought a cannon from the Human Cannonball. I then shot myself and my paint.” Maybe that will impress them. It’s worth a shot. (See what I did there?)
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JCA asks: Mayo, or Miracle Whip? Not for food, but for bedroom fun. (Asking for a friend).
Dear JCA: My natural inclination as a chef is to suggest mayonnaise as it is a purer food and less likely to be a chemical sh*tstorm. Indeed, try to get mayonnaise with all natural ingredients. Let’s keep our planet green. However in this case, spreadability and lubrication will be prized more than it would be in making a tuna sandwich, I suggest the scientific method. Have two bedroom romps with each volunter. Ask them if they preferred the mayonnaise experience or the one with Miracle WhipTM. You might need hundreds of volunteer partners before you become quite confident in your results. Should you have a spouse who balks at your scientific zeal, you might need to present your sweetheart with a nice box of chocolates and some lovely flowers when asking their permission. Oh, and make sure you always use fresh mayonnaise and Cool Whip. You don’t want to get false responses from your volunteers because you used something rancid. Check those expiration dates.
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KGV states: Thanks for the reminder. Being retired, I easily forget which day of the week we are celebrating.
Dear KGV: It is easy to forget the day of the week, isn’t it? Buy yourself a $600 cell phone, one that shows the day of the week. You don’t have to use the phone for anything. If opening the cell phone just to find the day of the week seems a bit weird, hire a butler. The butler will follow you around and will be pleased to tell what day it is no how many times you ask.
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LF asks: Why do ticks tick?
Dear LF: Not all ticks tick, only the explosive ones. Explosiveness was a defensive trait evolved by ticks during the Cretaceous period. Ticks of that time were forever getting trampled underfoot by tyrannosaurus rexes hot on the pursuit of a brontosaurus burger. A tick scout would raise the alarm whenever a T-rex approached. The explosive ticks would rush the killer dinosaur and explode themselves. The explosion would kill the tyrannosaurus, but the rest of the tick colony would be saved. Sure it would take a lot of ticks to fell a mighty Rex, but holy moly, there are a boatload of ticks. There’s a practical use to this as well. North Korea has not acting at all neighborly lately. To help the world, get on the plane to North Korea with a carry-on bag full of explosive ticks. Don’t worry about TSA, the ticks aren’t metallic and aren’t even on any list of prohibited items. The North Koreans, being a wary sort, might ask you what’s in your bag. They might even open your bag and ask, “What are those ticks doing?” You should say, “I don’t know. Do ticks talk?” (See what I did there?) Then head to the nearest military installation, the one where you can do the most damage. Tell the ticks that those North Korean missiles or fighter planes are T-Rexes. The ticks will blow up the entire installation or base. Oh I forgot, the North Korea security is a distrustful lot. Try to blend in as you make your way through the countryside.
– 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.
Moldovan Entree
MINCED MEAT CROQUETTE
(Parjoale)
INGREDIENTS
3 slices white bread
3 tablespoons milk
1 small potato
1 large onion
2 tablespoons butter
½ pound ground beef
½ pound ground pork or veal
2 eggs
1 teaspoon dill
1 teaspoon parsley
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup bread crumbs
⅓ cup lard or vegetable oil
Makes 12 croquettes. Takes 1 hour 20 minutes.
PREPARATION
Add white bread and milk to small mixing bowl. Let sit for 20 minutes. Press gently on soaked bread. Pour out any milk. While bread soaks, grate or mince potato. Mince onion. Add onion and butter to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens.
Add all ingredients except bread crumbs and lard to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended. Shape meat/potato/onion mixture into croquettes 4″ long, 2″ wide, and 1″ thick. Add bread crumbs to plate. Dredge croquettes through bread crumbs until they are well coated on both sides.
Add lard to pan. Melt lard at medium heat. Reduce heat to low. Add croquettes to pan. Sauté at low heat for 10 minutes on each side or until croquettes are golden brown all over. You will most likely need to cook in batches.
TIDBITS
1) It’s easy to confuse croquet with croquette; they’re spelled nearly the same. Croquet is played with wooden mallets. Minced meat croquette is played with mallets made of minced meat.
2) Wooden mallets do not break when you use it to hit a wooden ball. The ball goes far. You need an entire lawn to play croquet, which is sometimes called lawn croquet. A mince-meat mallet will disintegrate if you use them to hit a wooden ball. Use a meatball instead. Still, a meatball hit by a mince-meat mallet will not go far. Mince-meat croquette is often played on a napkin. So remember.
– 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.
Oh my gosh. There was a Friday this week. So, I shall once more be dispensing bad advice As usual, the advice will stupendously bad. Sorry, it’s a day late. I was whooping it up on my birthday. So, you had an extra day to do things right.
SF asks: If I pour boiling water on my face to help me wake up in the morning, will the power outlet I’ve plugged my toe into electrocute me?
Dear SF: The scientific method is a must. Try plugging your toe into an outlet. If that act alone electrocutes you then you’ll know, if only for a brief moment. If however, nothing happens then try the boiling water on your face. Should you survive electrocution after this second step, take heart in the knowledge you won’t need to take a shower. The germs and bacteria won’t survive the hot deluge.
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LHH asks: I wanna know: Who’ll stop the rain?
Dear LHH: Congress can, but they won’t. They’re too busy with health care, fund raising, and vacations to tackle this problem head on. Ask your congressman to support the building of mile-wide umbrellas. Or as more promising research suggests, get them to provide seed money for the building of five-mile-high fans that will blow rain from areas that don’t need it to ones that do. Call your representative today. They love to get citizen input.
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RTC asks: I want to go to a viewing and funeral of a family member. It is 8 hours driving round trip. I can barely stay awake 2 hours in a moving car. Should I stay home or should I go? No one else is able to go with me and share the driving.
Dear RTC: This is a toughie. Family duties push you to go, but you don’t want to crash and die. I mean how many people want to go to back-to-back funerals. No, the thing to do is ask your relatives to catapult the deceased to your home. Pay your respects. Catapult the body back as I strongly suspect the dearly departed will be buried where all the mourners are. Iimportant, don’t forget to send a condolences card! Manners are always in style. There is a small silver lining in all this. Enclose your condolences card with the deceased before catapulting back. A penny saved is a penny earned.
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MA asks: “I am” is reported to be the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be “I do” is the longest? Please advise…
Dear MA: Clearly, your problem is that your irresistible. So they say yes to you. But relationships are hard; hard as cheese that’s been left out for two weeks and perhaps just as moldy. You need to cut down on your attractivetudinous. Experiment. Grow dreadlocks. Some women hate them. If that special someone adores that hair style, consider wearing a tutu. Don’t give up. Keep trying. If however, she hopelessly dotes on you, you’ll have to rub lutefisk all over your body. The stench will drive away even the most ardent lover. There is a chance, however, the odor might be so bad that you’ll tear your own head off. That’s okay; this act also solves the problem of your overpowering desirability.
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WK asks: Where have all the flowers gone? Long time passing.
Dear WK: They’re in Greenland. What with global warming, conditions there are now favorable for flowers. Not many flower munching bunnies there either. So for decades now, flowers have been slowly migrating to Greenland. We simply been too busy, what with our hectic lifestyle, to notice. Go to your local travel agent to book a Greenland tour. Do it today. Herds of feral flowers are sights that will make your soul sing.
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– 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.
Swedish Appetizer
INGREDIENTS
2¼ teaspoons (1 package) yeast
1½ cups lukewarm water
1 tablespoon butter (2 more tablespoons later)
2 tablespoons honey
½ tablespoon salt
4 cups spelt flour
1 tablespoon butter (1 more tablespoon later)
1 tablespoon butter (1 more tablespoon later)
SPECIAL UTENSILS
electric beater or stand mixer
9″-x-5″ loaf pan
Makes 1 loaf. Takes 2 hours 45 minutes.
PREPARATION
Add yeast, lukewarm water, and honey to mixing bowl. Let sit for 15 minutes or until water becomes foamy. While yeast sits, melt 1 tablespoons butter in small pot using low-medium heat. Add melted butter and salt. Stir gently until well blended.
Add 1 cup flour to bowl. Blend using low setting on beater for 1 minute. Repeat until all flour has been added. Dough should be slightly sticky. Cover with cloth and let sit for 1 hour or until dough doubles in size. Grease flat surface with 1 tablespoon butter. Transfer dough to flat surface. Press down on dough to push air out of it. Cover with cloth and let sit for 45 minutes or until dough doubles in size again. While dough is doubling in size a second time, preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease loaf pan with 1 tablespoon butter.
Bake dough at 425 degrees for 40 minutes or until dough turns golden brown and toothpick inserted in bread comes out clean. Gently remove bread from pan and let cool on wire rack for 30 minutes or until bread firms enough for slicing.
TIDBITS
1) On January 31, 1968, Hiraama Kamouda of the tiny U.S. island of Madrana spelt “heteroskedasticity” with a c instead of a k. That cost Hiraama the National Spelling Bee Championship. Kamouda’s supporters vigorously maintained their spelling, but to no avail.
2) Their island’s honor tarnished, the Mandranans seceded from America. But no one noticed because the North Vietnamese had just launched the Tet Offensive. Now no one can find the island nation because Happy MapsTM mislabeled it as What Island. Madrana’s tourism industry is suffering.
– 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.
Equatorial Guinean Breakfast
INGREDIENTS
1 cup millet flour
1 tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon grated ginger (or ¼ teaspoon ginger powder)
1⅓ cups water
1⅓ cups milk
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
Makes 3 bowls. Takes 20 minutes.
PREPARATION
Add millet flour, sugar, and ginger to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Gradually add water. Stir with fork until well blended. Pour mixture into pot. Cook at medium heat. Gradually add in milk. Stir constantly to avoid lumps and to keep the porridge from sticking to sides of the pot. Cook for 10 minutes or until bubbles form and porridge thickens. Stir constantly with whisk.. Garnish with cinnamon.
TIDBITS
1) Ginger millet porridge is enormously popular wherever gravity exists, present-day Earth, for example.
2) Ginger millet porridge is not popular in space. Without gravity the porridge will simply not stay in the bowl. The authorities at the International Space Station fired their traditionally trained waters. They spent $1.3 billion dollars retraining waiters to carry bowls in weightless conditions without spilling porridge. There is, of course, gravity on Earth. So to simulate conditions of outer space, the waiters had to carry bowls of porridge while a transport plane nose dived. This was a frustrating experience for all involved. But after several thousand nose dives a staff of four waiters emerged who could serve porridge in weightless conditions.
3) Needless to say.
4) It was needless to say, so I didn’t say it.
5) Anyway, the waiters served porridge to the people on the space station. Without spilling! Hurrah!
But when the diners stirred their meal or raised their spoon to their mouth, ginger millet porridge went everywhere.
6) Some point to the $1.3 billion spent on the waiters as an example of government waste. Perhaps so, but that’s just water under the bridge or in this case, ginger millet in the ventilating system.
– 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.
Oh my gosh. It’s Friday. So, I shall once more be dispensing bad advice As usual, the advice will stupendously bad. You know it will be so as I had overwritten the file with my previous answers and to re-answer. I mean how can you trust advice from a person who does that?
JBL asks: Will this be on the test?
Dear JBL: Yes, it will. Unfortunately, you don’t know what test. I strongly urge you to go to every school you can and take every test. If you don’t answer the question, you will get a zero for it. Indeed if you miss the test completely, you’ll fail the test and fail the course, and get kicked out of your university. And you paid a lot of money getting into that university. You won’t graduate. There will go your dream of becoming an astronaut and of being the first person on Mars. Oh, and here’s foolproof way of acing every test. Simply tattoo every fact and theorem you’ve run across onto your body. Now it’s quite possible, that the tattooed answer will be under your clothes. In this case, you’ll have to strip. If the teacher complains, say you’re allergic to clothes. If the answer is on your butt, ask the student behind you (See what I did there?) to read the answer. Ask nicely; manners are always in fashion.
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MA asks: Can yard bunnies do multiplication problems?
Dear MA: Oh yes. But they’re shy. They just don’t talk to anyone. You have to gain their trust. You have to get down to their level. This means crawling up to them and feeding them pellets. Rabbits are terrified if they talk to people as they fear by doing will stop the supply of pellets. So talk to them in a soothing voice. Tell them that you will provide gourmet pellets if they solve multiplication problems for you. This is known in economics as incentivizing the bunny.
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RAS asks: How do I teach my dog Trotsky to play chess?
Dear RAS: You must learn to speak dog. This is not as hard as it might seem given the smallness of the canine vocabulary when compared to English. Conjugating verbs verb in Dog is much easier than in Dog than in English and, my gosh, much easier than in French. To illustrate, for “Am Hungry.”
French:
J’ai faim.
Tu as faim.
Il a faim.
Nous avons faim.
Vous avez faim.
Ils ont faim.
English:
I am hungry.
You are hungry.
It is hungry.
We are hungry.
They are hungry.
Note there are six different conjugations in French: ai, as, a, avons, avez, and ont. English is easier with only three different conjugations: am, are, and is. However, Dog conjugation for “am hungry” has an elegant simplicity to it.
Dog:
Woof!
There are no cases for you (familiar or polite), for we, it, or they. That makes learning the dog vocabulary easy. Indeed the word, “woof,” is the words for literally dozens of nouns and verbs. Dog convey meaning by intoning their “woof” differently for each instance. You will need to practice your canine intonations and indeed, inflections as well. Get practicing.
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LF asks: Why can’t pigs fly?
Dear LF: They can! They can! You just need a big enough catapult. Try getting your catapult at CostcoTM; they carry everything. Get your catapult while you can. As of press time, there’s no government regulation about flinging pigs great distances in your neighborhood, but how long can that last given the government has seen fit to regulate commercial aviation.
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BRW asked: I point a red laser light at the neigbhor’s blinds when they are gone. The cats destroy the blinds chasing the red dot. Am I evil? (Taken from a meme.)
Dear BRW: Only if your neighbors are annoying. And if they’re annoying to you, they’re likely to be annoying to others on your street as well. In this case, wait until your irritating neighbors leave their house with lit candles. Point the laser beam at the candle. The cats will attack the red dot on the candle. The candle will fall to the ground. The rug will catch fire. The house will burn down. The neighbors will leave. (Gosh, neighbors is a hard word to spell. Another reason to see them go.) It’s much better to be proactive like this then to let your resentment against them fester into something serious. That benefits no one.
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LHH asks: Over the top, or under the weather: which is best for a Hump day? And are there differences by season?
Dear LHH: If you want to be over the top for weather, you need to go to the North Pole. But with global warming, you can’t guarantee solid ice for your lawn chair. On the other hand, you could be the first person to surf the pole. In contrast, you’ll under the weather at the South Pole. While the South is over a mile thick layer of ice, it is under the Earth. There is nothing underneath you. Nothing! You’ll fall. You see because of gravity, everything falls down. At the South Pole, there is no more down. The scientists at this pole meet this existential threat by constructing buildings. The ceilings on these upside down buildings prevent the people there from falling off the planet. The fear, however, persists as in this line from an angst-filled song, “Put our hands in the air like the ceiling can’t hold us.” Some polar scientists hew to a more devil-may care philosophy as evidenced by the line, “dancing on the ceiling.” If you must go outside when at the South Pole, you must, must wear boots with VelcroTM soles and stay on the Velcro paths. Otherwise, you fall off the Earth. This is true for Hump day, the other days of the week, and for the two seasons of day and night. The Laws of Physics never sleep.
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LF states: A question for Bad Advice Friday? I can’t think. (This is from memory. I overwrote the file where I answered this.)
Dear LF: Thinking is overrated. Millions of people in a few select professions never think, politicians and human billiard balls (A surprisingly popular sport) come to mind. But if you’re really having trouble thinking and would like to start again, I have two suggestions. First, join the French Foreign Legion. You’ll have plenty of undisturbed time to conjure up a thought as you’re marching under the hot Saharan Sun. However, as people join the Legion to forget, you’ll immediately forget what idea you created. But you will have started thinking again and that’s the main thing. Second, commit a crime, a crime so horrible that you will be spending years in solitary confinement. The serene, tranquil, undisturbed aura of your own is enormously conducive to thought. Try it and see!
– 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.
Mexican Entree
INGREDIENTS – MARINADE
¼ cup fresh cilantro
3 garlic cloves
1½ pounds flank or skirt steak
½ teaspoon pepper
¼ cup lime juice
¼ cup olive oil (2 tablespoons more later)
INGREDIENTS – OTHER
1 medium onion
1 Roma tomato
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 bolillo, telera, or French rolls
grilling or cooking spray
½ cup refried beans
1 avocado
¼ cup crema Mexicana or mayonnaise
Makes 4 tortas. Takes 2 hours 40 minutes.
SPECIAL UTENSILS
mandoline (optional)
outdoor grill
PREPARATION – MARINADE
Dice cilantro. Mince garlic cloves. Add all marinade ingredients to mixing bowl. Mix by hand until steak is well coated. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours. Let excess marinade drip off steak. (If not, you will have some rather exciting flames coming from the outdoor grill.)
PREPARATION – OTHER
Preheat outdoor grill to high. Use mandoline or knife to cut onion and tomato into ¼” thick slices. Add onion and 2 tablespoons olive oil to pan. Sauté onion at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Add steak to grill. Grill steak on high heat for 5-to-10 minutes on each side, depending on your desired level of doneness. Remove steak. Spray the cut side of roll halves with grilling spray. Put roll halves spray side down on grill. Grill on high heat for 1 minute or until grilled side of roll halves turn golden brown. Watch carefully. Remove from heat. Cut steak against grain into 4 pieces.
Add refried beans to pan. Cook on medium-high heat until beans are warm. Remove from heat. Peel and cut avocado into 4 slices. Spread crema Mexicana on all roll halves. Add steak strips to bottom halves of rolls. Add onion, tomato, and avocado slices to bottom halves. Make an indentation in top halves of rolls. Place refried beans in indentations. Carefully turn over top halves with refried beans onto the bottom halves with the meat and veggies. Olé.
TIDBITS
1) The Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920 revolved around exceedingly complex issues such as: democracy versus oligarchy, large landed owners* versus impoverished peasantry, the authority of the Catholic church versus secular governments, and the ambitions of powerful generals and local strongmen.
2) * = This is not to imply the land owners were large, perhaps from the eating of too many too many burritos stuffed with shredded beef, lettuce, queso fresco, guacamole, and crema Mexicana. No, they had large estates, haciendas, that ran** for many miles in many directions.
3) ** = Land cannot run. A really big earthquake, 9.0 on the Richter Scale for example, can send shock waves through the ground that look like an ocean wave to any bystander***.
4) *** = Not that you’ll be able to stand up during a 9.0 earthquake. Most likely you’ll be toast.
5) I’ve used my daily allocation of asterisks – *. Life moves on.
6) Anyway, toast in Spanish is tostada. Tostadas are made mostly with beans and corn tortillas, which are cheap. This is revolutionary bands in Mexico ate quite a bit of tostadas.
7) The factions uniting, however briefly, behind successive central governments always had much more money than the rebelling peasants. The authorities could afford steak. Their armies ate well, often dining on carne asada tortas, the dish featured here.
8) The Mexican civil war was a lengthy, bloody affair. Armed bands and their leaders, jefes, shifted allegiances like the wind. Sometimes they fought for the rights of the peasants and sometimes they deserted to the government, the desire to devour a juicy, scrumptious carne asada torta proving too strong the resist.
9) Of course, the Mexican vegetarians stayed true to the cause of the bean tostada. Sometimes, even the most carnivorous soldiers in the Federal army felt the need to cleanse the palate with the delightfully simple bean tostada. When this happened, they deserted back the rebels.
10) And so it went. Battles went this way. Battles went that way. It all came down to which side would strike the decisive blow, to which side appeared the fiercest.
11) Both the Federales and the rebels used people. That was kind of a tie. The forces searched for something else. Then in an accident of fate, Pancho Villa and El Presidente Carranza both hit on the idea of using giant inflatable balloons made from MylarTM. Villa’s soldiers brought huge inflatable squirrels to the battlefield of Celaya. Carranza’s men, however, carried enormous inflatable snakes with them. Snakes are much fiercer than squirrels. Villa’s army broke and ran. The Mexican Revolution was effectively over. This is also why there’s a snake on the Mexican flag. There you go.
– 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.
Oh my gosh. It’s Friday. I forgot to ask for more good questions seeking bad advice. It’s Friday? Really? Again? Did anyone see this coming? Anyway, I shall be dispensing bad advice to the three people who were Friday ready. As usual, the advice will stupendously bad.
Dear NF:
The best way to serve chicken is in stew. Ladle the chicken stew into a FrisbeeTM turned upside down. Toss the Frisbee still upside down. (If you toss it upside down, the stew will fall out. Gravity and all that.) At any rate, a clumsy toss or a klutzy catch will, by the law of inertia, result in the stew flying out of the Frisbee and onto your guest. Repeated practice for the two of you is a must.
The worst way to serve chicken is as slave or indentured servant. This plain sucks. The hours stink, chickens are always hungry. You’ll work for chicken feed. (See what I did there?) And your neighbors will laugh at your horrible plight. “Why don’t you just walk away and go home?” Like it’s that easy. Once a chicken has established its dominant position in the pecking order (See what I did there again?) your morale will be broken to such an extent that flight will be impossible. You really do have to win the inevitable staring contest that happens whenever you meet a chicken. So, stay away from chickens until you have practiced with a cat.
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LF asks: Do I have to turn on an oven to bake?
Dear LF: First, try waiting. Patience is a virtue. If after three hours nothing has happened, it’s time for plan B. Take an axe. Chop down a tree with it. Chop the felled tree into kindling. (By the way, axes are really good for ending those festering domestic disputes. I mean who wants to go to bed angry every night? Be sure to wash those bloody sheets in cold water or else the blood will stain your sheets forever. If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.) Anyway, rub two sticks from your kindling together until you get a good flame going. Throw the burnings sticks and the rest of the kindling in the stove. Soon you’ll have a good flame going. The smoke from the burning wood will set off your smoke detector, so be sure to disable that. If your cake is soaked in rum, you’ll have a pyrotechnic display that you and your guests will never forget. And you will have done all this without turning on the oven. Well done!
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ME asks: What should I do next?
Dear ME: Join the French Foreign Legion. I met a young man years ago while bicycling in France. He was on his way to enlist in the Legion. He seemed like a nice guy. So there you go. Also, don’t forget France always sends the Foreign Legion first to any foreign conflict. It always get to fight. Many times, the Frenchmen in the French army never get to fight. This means they never get to visit foreign countries. So, they never get to get to sample exotic cuisine served to the Legion while on patrol. Indeed, the qorma lawand (chicken stew) of Afghanistan alone is worth several firefights. So join up and eat 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.
Paul De Lancey's Blog 