Posts Tagged With: murder

Food to Die For: Paul’s 365 Meals of Murder, Mayhem, and Mischief – March 15

Posted on March 19, 2023 by pauldelancey

March 15, Ides of March: A bunch of Roman Republic lovers gathered to stab Julius Caesar. Caesar was dictator or king in all but name and he was taking steps to make it official. The conspiring senators couldn’t countenance such a step. So they surrounded the tyrant and stabbed him to death.

This social stabbing might have caught on. Unfortunately for the cause of merry murdering, Caesar’s generals and friends hunted down the Senate’s assassins and killed many of them. Caesar’s great friend, Marc Anthony, and his heir, vanguished the remaining assassins’ armies. Much blood was shed. The Marc Anthony and Octavian had a tiff that just couldn’t be patched over. Things were said that couldn’t be taken back. Political ambitions burgeoned. After a spell, Octavian’s army and navy crushed those of Anthony and, in a cameo role as Marc’s lover, Cleopatra. Much more blood flowed.

So, Octavian became the Roman Empire’s first emperor. The Republic now existed in name only. So the murders’ act to preserve the Republic sealed its fate. A bit of irony there. Anyway Caesar’s mob assassination proved too closely tied to assasination. The civil wars this deed spawned also welded the idea of social slaughtering to bloody civil wars.

Thus, group murders fell out of fashion for a long, long. But the human spirit is irrepressible. Solitary murders and assassinations stepped out from the shadows of group killing and flourished. No longer did you have to be a member of an elitest clique, everybody could now take up a knife and stab some oppressor. So, maybe a little of the Senator love of a republic survived because of this bloody and fatal political statement. I like to think so. Besides group stabbing sare a no-no in times of pandemics.

The meal you should serve to commerate this day: Caprese

This Italian entree has all it needs to celebrate the Ides of March. It’s Italian, as were Julius Caesar’s and his assassins. The mozzarella circles represent the togas worn by all those involved in the great event. Slicing the tomatoes represents stabbing Julius Caesar. See? Combining history with eating can be quite fun.

CAPRESE

INGREDIENTS

1 pound mozzarella cheese
4 vine-ripened tomatoes
¼ teaspoon peppercorns (or black pepper)
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
⅓ cup fresh basil leaves
¼ teaspoon sea salt

Serves 4. Takes 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

There aren’t many ingredients in this dish, so fresh ones are especially important. Slice mozzarella into ¼” circles. Slice tomatoes ¼” thick. Grind peppercorns. Put alternating layers of mozzarella and tomato slices on serving plate until they are all used. Drizzle olive oil over everything and evenly sprinkle your creation with basil leaves, ground pepper, and sea salt.

– 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.

Categories: food to die for, history, international | Tags: assassins, caprese, Chef Paul, Comic Chef, cookbook, food to die for, Julius Caesar, mayhem, meals, mischief, mozzarella, murder, pandemics, recipes, Republic, Roman, stabbing, thriller, togas, tomatoes | Leave a comment

Loving Poetry – Weeds

Posted on March 4, 2023 by pauldelancey

Is it safe to visit?

Weeds

If you kill a neighbor,
You’ll die for murder.
If you kill a weed,
You’ll never bleed.

I do good deeds
When I’m happy.
I attack my weeds
When life goes crappy.

If the garden looks like sin,
By all means, please come in.
No weeds! Don’t knock on my sill
Without writing your will,

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: poems | Tags: Chef Paul, Comic Chef, cookbook, garden, good food, hunks, loving poems, Lutheran, murder, murders, Paul R. De Lancey, poetry, weeds | 2 Comments

Libyan Stuffed Onions (Basal Mashshi)

Posted on November 27, 2022 by pauldelancey

Libyan Entree

STUFFED ONIONS
(Basal Mahshi)

INGREDIENTS

5 large onions
1 garlic clove
2 Roma tomatoes
1 pound ground lamb, beef, or combination
3 tablespoons flour
½ teaspoon mint
¼ teaspoon oregano
¼ teaspoon fenugreek powder
½ teaspoon parsley (1 teaspoon more later)
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon turmeric
1 tablespoon ghee or olive oil (½ tablespoon more later)
½ tablespoon ghee or olive oil
½ cup water
1 teaspoon parsley

SPECIAL UTENSILS

potato peeler
pot just large enough for 5 large onions to just fit snugly inside

Serves 5. Takes 2 hours.

PREPARATION

Peel onions. Cut off the root and enough of the bottom of an onion so that it can stand upright. Remove the top ½” from the top of the onion. Save the onion top. Use knife to cut onion on one side through to the center of the onion from the top to the bottom. Use potato peeler, or small spoon to remove the inner layers of the onion until about ⅓” or 2-to-3 layers of outer layers remain. Repeat for each onion. Save half of the hollowed-out onion bits. Discard the rest.

Mince garlic and hollowed-out onion bits. Dice tomatoes. Add garlic, onion bits, tomato, lamb, flour, mint, oregano, fenugreek, ½ teaspoon parsley, pepper, salt, and turmeric to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended. Fill the hollowed-out center of onions with mixture from bowl. Grease bottom of pot with 1 tablespoon ghee. Pack onions into pot. Place the onions’ tops on onions. Add ½ tablespoon ghee and water to small mixing bowl. Mix together with whisk. Baste onions with ghee/water. Cover. Simmer at low heat for 1 hour. Remove and discard onion tops. Garnish each onion with 1 teaspoon parsley.

TIDBITS

1) Many people like to get the animals they shoot stuffed by a taxidermists. Indeed, stuffing large animals shot while on safari are considered to be a trophies. Who wants a trophy?

2) I do! I do!

3) But Paul, could you shoot a magnificent beast of the Veldt?

4) Mumbles, “No.”

5) Do you even think you could bring down a charging Bengal tiger?

6) Mumbles, “No, I might just wing it.”

7) So, you’d just enrage the tiger, wouldn’t you?”

8) “Yeah, I guess so.”

9) Can you outrun a Bengal tiger?

10)“No.”

11) Mightn’t you miss and bring down one of your fellow safari hunters?”

12) “Yeah, I suppose so.”

13) You’re aware that murder is wrong?”

14) Hangs head down. “Yeah.”

15) And that you’d probably go to jail for life, if not worse. Do you want that?”

16) “It’s not fair. It was an accident.”

17) Still . . .

18) “Could I have a do over?”

19) No! There are no do overs in shooting people.

20) “What if I said I was sorry?”

21) No!

22) “What if I stuffed onions and served them to guests as Libyan Basal Mahshi?”

23) That’ll do, Paul. That’ll do.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: cuisine, international, observations | Tags: apocalyptic, basal, Bengal tiger, Chef Paul, Comic Chef, De Lancey, do overs, entree, ghee, good food, hunks, hunters, lamb, Libyan, Lutheran, mahshi, murder, murders, mushrooms, onion, Paul De Lancey, Paul DeLancey, Paul R. De Lancey, recipes, safari, stuffed, taxidermists, thriller, trophy, veldt | Leave a comment

Angry Man Rants About Word Processing and Other Web Sites – Part 2

Posted on November 4, 2022 by pauldelancey

Angry Man says if you don’t hear from Paul in a while, he was probably driven mad by one errant-keystroke taking two hours to fix on his word-processing site. Then, having taken leave of his senses, he went on a low-key murder spree, most of them justifiable. Law enforcement caught up with him and threw him in jail. He requests that you send him cakes with a file baked in them.

Thank you,

Angry Man, Paul’s provisional spokesman while incarcerated.

Angry Man #16

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: Angry Man | Tags: accidental, Angry Man, apocalyptic, Chef Paul, Comic Chef, cookbook, correcting, De Lancey, jail, law enforcement, Lutheran, mistakes, murder, murders, murderspree, Paul De Lancey, Paul R. De Lancey, thriller, web sites, word processing | Leave a comment

Murder Loses Its Appeal

Posted on May 20, 2022 by pauldelancey

Honestly, it’s almost enough to make one start eating lutefisk.

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: murder | Tags: apocalyptic, Chef Paul, Comic Chef, cookbook, De Lancey, good food, government, lutefisk, Lutheran, murder, murders, Paul De Lancey, Paul R. De Lancey, recipes, thriller | 2 Comments

What the Way People Cut Their PBJ Sandwich Says About Them

Posted on January 11, 2022 by pauldelancey

Life is scary. So scary that we develop ways of coping with our daily world. Some ways are good, like looking both ways when you cross a road. Some responses to problems or fears are a bit extreme, like burning down your house to kill a spider. Sorry, but that’s true; you’ll just get another spider in your next house, if you can afford it. How do you know what type of person are you? How do you know what sort of carbon-based life form is sitting next to you on the bus? You need to know if he is an axe murderer or not? How can you find out? Like right now.

Fret not, I know how to psychoanalyze the person in question. Look at his PBJ (peanut butter and jelly) sandwich. No matter how demented the fellow, he cannot hide his personality when cutting apart his PBJ. Just can’t. Anyway, here are the six basic PBJ sandwiches.

The Uncut PBJ – Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. This PBJ eater shuns complexity. He’s easy going. He shrugs off adversity and generally turns out to be a rather pleasant fellow. Or it could be he doesn’t trust himself with knives.

The Vertically-Cut PBJ – This PBJ eater can be counted to do what the majority of the people around are doing. This is great when the two of you are attending a garden party. It’s deadly, though, when you are in the midst of full-scale urban combat. In this case, the PBJ eater will kill you. And what are you doing at Battle of Stalingrad, anyway?

The Diagonally-Cut PBJ – This PBJ eater will generally do what the majority does. But he can also think for himself. If all his neighbors are rioting, he’s likely to absent himself from the chaos. He’s apt to be a problem solver. This places him in high demand. He might even become the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

The Horizontally-Cut PBJ – This PBJ eater is fundamentally decent sort. She just wants to do things her way. Sometimes she acts differently just for the sake of doing things differently. She can’t, however, abide being forced to do what the authorities tell her to do, particularly if she knows them to be wrong. Consequently, she is the primary fomenter of rebellions.

The Double-Diagonally-Cut PBJ – This PBJ eater is brilliant, but may also be erratic. He’s likely to be an impressionist painter. If he’s stable, he’ll be like Monet. If he’s erratic, then he’ll act like Van Gogh. Watch out for your ear. This PBJ may also show a scientific bent. If he’s stable, he’ll design a rocket that takes astronauts to Mars. If not, he’ll try to breed 60-foot tall rabbits.

The Squiggly-Cut PBJ – This PBJ eater is totally demented. If we’re lucky, she’ll merely rob, maim, and murder. If we are not, she’ll design and manufacture printers.

There you have it. And remember, this method is infallible.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: observations, proof you cannot deny | Tags: apocalyptic, axe murderer, chaos, Chef Paul, Comic Chef, cookbook, coping, De Lancey, Federal Reserve, garden party, good food, hunks, impressionist, Lutheran, maim, majority, Mars, murder, painter, Paul De Lancey, Paul R. De Lancey, PBJ, peanut butter and jelly, printers, problem solver, pyschoanalyze, rabbits, rebellions, recipes, rob, rocket, sandwich, sandwiches, scientist, simplicity, spider, Stalingrad, thriller | 2 Comments

Liboke Ya Mbika (Chicken with Pumpkin Seed Flour)

Posted on September 4, 2021 by pauldelancey

Congolese Entree
(Democratic Republic of Congo)

LIBOKE YA MBIKA
(Chicken with Pumpkin Seed Flour)

INGREDIENTS

¾ pound boneless chicken parts
1 garlic clove
1 small onion
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 bay leaf
2 cups vegetable stock
1 cup pumpkin-seed flour* or almond or all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ginger
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon parsley
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
½ pound fresh banana leaves**

* = Finding pumpkin-seed flour in stores can be difficult. It can be ordered on line.

** = Finding fresh banana leaves is impossible whether you live Fargo, North Dakota or even in my fair city, Poway, California. In this case, buy the frozen banana leaves from specialty markets. If that too is impossible, use tin foil instead. Life can be hard, sorry.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

8-quart pot
aluminum foil, about 10 square feet
cookie sheet
sonic obiliterator

Serves 4. Takes 2 hours 20 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cut chicken into ½” cubes. Mince garlic clove and onion. Add olive oil, chicken, garlic, onion, and bay leaf to 1st large pot. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium-high heat or until garlic and onion soften. Stir frequently. Add 2 cups vegetable stock or enough to covered ingredients in pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Remove chicken. Shred or crumble chicken. Reserve broth with garlic and onion. Discard bay leaf.

While vegetable stock boils, add pumpkin-seed flour, ginger, nutmeg, parsley, and red pepper flakes to mixing bowl. Gradually ladle stock from pot to mixing bowl. Mix with hands. Keep adding water until you a firm but pliable dough. Add chicken. Knead dough once more.

Cut banana leaves into 6″ squares. (Use aluminum foil as a substitute.) Add 1½ tablespoons of the chicken/onion dough to each square. Close banana leaves around dough to make a banana-leaf ball. (If banana leaves don’t close well, wrap banana leaves with foil.)

Preheat oven to 225 degrees. Add enough water to pot to cover the banana-leaf balls you will be making. Bring to boil using high heat. Add banana-leaf balls to pot. Let boil using high heat for 45 minutes. (Add water as necessary to cover banana-leaf balls.) Remove banana-leaf balls. Place these balls on cookie sheet. Bake in oven at 225 degrees for 15 minutes to remove moisture from the dough inside the banana leaves.

Serve to appreciative guests. If they give you any guff at all about this magnificent creation of yours, zap them with your sonic obliterator. You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life.

TIDBITS

1) As a chef, you stimulate your creative forces by creating one dazzling dish after another.

2) Cooking is also immensely therapeutic. It simply gives you no time to dwell on all the woes in your life. Those moments where you failed at something and those times where strife entered your life all melt away when you assemble your latest culinary masterpiece. You will lift your face to the heavens and thunder, “Yes. Cooking is good. Life is good. Yes, yes, yes.”

3) Then there are those other culinary moments, the time things go wrong, when guests complain, when the red mist descends upon you. You must disintegrate that stew that accidentally got two cups of salt instead of 2 teaspoons. Or even those cases where you want to off uncouth guests who complained you didn’t use pumpkin flour or fresh banana leaves in your Liboke Ya Mbika.

4) But murder is wrong. You’ve known that most of your life. That’s a major reason why you became a cook. All your murderous impulses sublimate themselves in the pounding of the bread dough, in the slicing of the onion, in and the grating of the cheese brick.

5) But yet some guest will carp over the tin foil you used. You yearn to do him in. Of course, the police will find the guest’s’ body. Unless the officer on the spot is also a cook and knows what you went through, it’s best not to leave a body behind

6) This downward spiral explains why all kitchens carry a sonic obliterator. The sonic obliterator, well, completely obliterates the offending oaf. No body. No jail time. Easy peasy.

7) But in your heart of hearts, you really don’t want to obliterate rude guests. No! Simply obliterate that glass of wine they’re holding. That’ll get their attention. I guarantee they’ll stop complaining. Serenity will return to your kitchen. The now quiet guests will tuck into your Liboke Ya Mbika and, lo and behold, notice how absolutely tasty it really is. “Why, this is the food of the gods,” they’ll say. You will become their best friend. They will become your pals. Together, you will solve all the problems of the world. Life is good. Life is good. And we will all owe it to your judicious use of a sonic obliterator. Now you know.

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: cuisine, international, murder | Tags: banana leaves, Comic Chef, cookbook, Democratic Republic of Congo, entree, Fargo, gods, good food, hunks, liboke ya mbika, Lutheran, murder, North Dakota, Paul De Lancey, pumpkin seed flour, recipes, therapeutic, thriller | Leave a comment

I Simplify Checkers

Posted on August 9, 2021 by pauldelancey

Has this happened to you? You’re playing the part of Jean Valjean for the Broadway premier of Les Miserables. Curtain goes up in about a hour. You’re a bit nervous. Who wouldn’t be? So you ask the actor for Javert to play a board game with you. He agrees. He’s nervous as well. The two of you vote against chess. It’d take way too long. So you play checkers. You become engrossed in the game. Neither of you hears the five-minutes call. The producer, frantic with worry, gives your roles to your understudy. Neither of you will ever act again. What could have been done?

Play Paul’s Simplified Checkers. It’s played on a three-by-three board. Each side get two checkers. Now let’s look at a truly exciting game.

The start of the game.

End of first move. Red player has moved from End of second move. Black player has jumped
A1 to A2. Red’s checker, C3 to A1 and was kinged.

End of third move. Red Player has moved from End of fourth move. Black played has jumped
from A3 to B2. Red’s, A1 to C3. Black player wins.

My goodness that was exciting. And it was quick. You needn’t ever again lose a Broadway acting job because you checker’s game took too long. In fact, all games will last exactly four moves. What more do you want?

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

Categories: I simplify | Tags: apocalyptic, checkers, chess, Comic Chef, cookbook, good food, I simplify, Javert, Jean Valjean, kinged, Les Miserables, Lutheran, murder, Paul De Lancey, recipes, thriller | Leave a comment

A Fun Renaming of the Bird World

Posted on April 5, 2021 by pauldelancey

How in the world did someone come up with the idea of calling a flock of crows a murder of crows? Were they pickled to the gills? Why not call a flock of crows a FLOCK of crows? However, it is unlikely we will be able to change everything to flocks with the Supreme Court busy deciding cases of great import and chaos in our federal government. And with people arguing on Facebook(tm) and Twitter(tm), no one is noticing what we do. We can get away with changing the little stuff.

Let’s do it! A burrito of burrowing owls.

Let alter the names of the types of birds to something more interesting and alliterative. I humbly propose the following:

A Murder of Crows becomes A Cacophony of Crows

We can now have:

bird – flock name
——————————————————–
blackbirds – blintz
bobolinks – Big Mac(tm)
boobies – booger
budgies – bean dip
buntings – bunion
burrowing owls – burrito
ducks – DNA
elephants – finch (an elephant is technically not a bird.)
falcons – fallacy
finches – elephant
hawks – hemarrhoid
jays – jackhammer
larks – lithograph
loons – lutefisk
pigeons – pizza
starlings – strawberry
swans – sarcasm
woodpeckers – wart

You’ll have to excuse me, a bunion of buntings just flew by.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

Categories: humor, obsevations | Tags: apocalyptic, bean dip, Big Mac, blackbirds, bobolinks, boobies, booger, borrowing owls, buboe, budgies, bunion, buntings, burrito, Comic Chef, cookbook, crows, DNA, ducks, elephants, falcons, fallacy, federal, finches, good food, government, hawks, hemarrhoid, jackhammer, jays, larks, lithograph, loons, lutefisk, murder, Paul De Lancey, pigeons, pizza, sarcasm, starlings, strawberry, Supreme Courts, swans, thriller, Twitter, wart, woodpeckers | Leave a comment

How to Commit a Yummy Murder

Posted on April 4, 2021 by pauldelancey

If you’re thinking of committing murder, why not use Twizzlers(tm)? They’re yummy and fatal if used correctly as shown below.

1) Buy several bags. Don’t worry about this, there is no waiting period for buying Twizzlers as can happen for guns.

2) Interweave the short, weak Twizzler pieces into a massive, sturdy candy rope. E Pluribus Unum. “Out of many, one.” This used to be the motto of our great country. By constructing a Twizzler rope you are paying homage to our nation’s founding fathers.

3) Choke your victim with the Twizzler rope. Did your murder make society better off? Did your victim annoy the heck out of everyone he met? If so, give yourself a pat on the back.

4) Eat the Twizzler rope. This act neatly disposes of the murder weapon and honestly, can you really stop yourself from eating all that yummy candy?

5) Call the police and say you found the victim dead and you just don’t know what happened. They might not believe you but without a murder weapon what can they do?

I hope you’ll find this little household tip useful.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

P.S. Murder is actually wrong. Just say no.

P.P.S. Even though murdering spouses eliminates the need for going through nasty, prolonged divorce proceedings, it is still wrong. Just say no to murder. Don’t make me come back there.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: apoclayptic, Comic Chef, e pluribus unum, good food, guns, household tip, how to, Lutheran, murder, Paul De Lancey, police, recipes, thriller, Twizzler, weapon, yummy | Leave a comment

Posts Tagged With: murder

Food to Die For: Paul’s 365 Meals of Murder, Mayhem, and Mischief – March 15