I don’t know. Do you?
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.
This will keep your brain up at night.
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.
Fair point, Genghis.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., and historian
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 – STUFFED CABBAGE
¾ cup fresh cilantro
⅔ cup fresh dill
1 medium tomato
1 large onion
1 cup chopped chestnuts*
1 pound ground lamb or beef
⅓ cup rice
⅛ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 large cabbage head
INGREDIENTS – BROTH
1 tablespoon butter
2 teaspoons sugar
1¼ cups lamb or beef broth (Broth should match meat used above, if possible.)
1½ tablespoons vinegar
* = Chopped chestnuts can be found online.
Serves 6. Takes 2 hours.
PREPARATION – STUFFED CABBAGE
Dice cilantro, dill, and tomato. Mince onion. Add cilantro, dill, tomato, onion, chestnuts, lamb, rice, cinnamon, pepper, and salt to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended.
Cut off bottom of cabbage head. Cut out as much of the white, solid core as you can. (Doing these two steps will make peeling off leaves later much easier.)
Add enough water to cover cabbage head to large pot. Bring water to boil using high heat. Carefully add cabbage head. Reduce heat to medium and continue to boil until leaves can be pulled back with a fork. Carefully remove cabbage. Drain. Wait until cabbage is cool enough to peel off the cabbages leaves.
Peel off cabbage leaf. Put 3 tablespoons lamb/chestnut mix from bowl in middle of cabbage leave. (The exact amount will vary with the changing sizes of the cabbage leaves.) Shape mix into a log, leaving 1½” uncovered along edges. Fold the short ends of the leaf to cover lamb/chestnut log. Then tightly roll leaf from the bottom. Repeat for remaining leaves save one. Reserve one leaf.
PREPARATION – BROTH
Melt butter in pan using low-medium heat. Stir enough to prevent bubbling, Remove from heat. Add sugar, butter, lamb broth, and vinegar to mixing bowl. Stir until well blended
Place reserved cabbage leaf in large pot. Add stuffed-cabbage logs to pan. Place them as closely as possible to each other to prevent unfolding. Slowly pour broth over cabbage logs. Place a lid over cabbage logs. (The lid should be a bit smaller than the pan so that it sits on the cabbage logs. (This also prevents unraveling.) Simmer at low heat for 45 minutes or until cabbage leaves are tender and the filling becomes tender.
TIDBITS
1) You can cook chestnuts in a pot.
2) You can cook them quite a lot.
3) You can cook them on a beach.
4) You can cook them with a peach.
5) You can cook them in an oven.
6) You can cook them with a coven.
7) But not one with witches.
8) For though they might grant riches.
9) They like their meat raw.
10) And that you can’t unsaw.
11) You can speed them in an electron collider.
12) Or something even much, much wider.
13) You can heat them with a torch.
14) You can heat them on a porch.
15) You can cook them in a house.
16) You can cook them for your spouse.
17) You can cook them while on a chair.
18) You can cook them everywhere.
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 had to use this. My photo of Biden didn’t look like Biden
I have invited every president to a debate or a dinner. I see no reason to stop this fine tradition. So,
Dear President Biden,
I am officially inviting you and whomever you wish to come with you to have a gourmet five-course meal at my humble abode in Poway, California. My wonderful wife, many friends, and I eagerly await your appearance. As you know, Mr. President, Poway is the hot point of all political campaigns and legislation. The saying runs, “As goes Poway, so does the Presidency.”
You’ll have have a great time in Poway with its many streets, walking trails, theaters, library, and the site of the proposed Candyland(tm) Museum. So, please come. It will help your approval rating. And heck, you’ll have fun chowing down on home-style gourmet cooking.
Sincerely,
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
P.S. I even have the complete collection of The Adventures of Robin Hood with Richard Greene. We could watch that after dinner.
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.
Is it really this simple?
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., and travel advisor
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
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups flour (3 more tablespoons later)
3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons raspberry jam
2 9-ounce bottles pink cookie icing (Not cake icing)
SPECIAL UTENSILS
electric beater
1 cookie sheet
parchment paper
1½” cookie cutter (Must be a cookie cutter)
sonic obliterator
Makes 20 cookies. Takes 3 hours 30 minutes.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 335 degrees. Add butter and 2 cups flour to large mixing bowl. Blend with electric beater set or medium until butter and flour form a dough ball. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons flour on flat surface. Roll out dough until it is about ⅓” thick. Cut out dough circles with 1½” cookie cutter. Make them as level and smooth as you can. (I cannot stress this enough. Smooth cookie sides will make proper icing much easier later.) Cover cookie sheets with parchment paper. Place dough circles on parchment paper.
Bake dough circles at 335 degrees for 20 minutes or until the middle of a circle is no longer soft when pressed. Don’t let the circles turn brown! They should remain pale. Gently life parchment paper with circles and let cool on a wire rack or plate. (Leave circles on parchment paper.)
Once circles have cooled completely, spread ½ teaspoon raspberry jam over a baked circle. Gently place another circle over the jam to make a cookie. Repeat until all circles have been used.
Put cookies on large plate. Do not let them touch each other. Pour icing from bottles over cookies. Make sure to pour icing over the edge of the cookie tops so that the icing will flow down and coat the sides of the cookies. Do this all in one go. Let sit until icing hardens completely.
This is a hard one to do perfectly. There’s a reason dessert chefs differ from the other chefs. So appreciate why some things, particularly these cookies, can be expensive. And for the insensitive oafs who give you guff about your cookies, zap them with your sonic obliterator. You don’t need their negativity in your kitchen.
TIDBITS
1) Napolitaines look a lot like UFOs.
2) By the way, Napolitaines is pronounced Napolitaines.
3) I’m glad I cleared that up.
4) UFOs really do resemble Napolitaines. There’s a reason for that.
5) Having a successful space program brings enormous international prestige.
6) If you were to ask people what are the ten greatest things about America, 93.6% would say, “NASA.” The remaing 6.4% couldn’t find a No. 2 pencil and so, couldn’t fill out the questionaire.
7) So what do you if you want to develop a space program but simply do not possess the vast resources of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration?
8) Well, what do you if you want to make crab salad, but you haven’t the money to buy crabmeat?
9) Why, you purchase krabmeat, a crabmeat substitute. It’s made of various seafoods and costs much less than the real thing.
10) Similarly, if you wish to fling manmade objects into space, you send up something small. Dispense with lunar modules, the Hubble telescope, space stations or other enormously heavy gadgetry.
11) Fling Napolitaines from the Earth instead.
12) A batch of Napolitaines is easy to make. All you need is butter, flour, raspberry jam, and pink cookie icing.
13) While even the simplest of Hubble telescopes involve: miles of circuitry, rare metals, scads of computing power, and other complicated gizmos.
14) The Apollo Program required gigantic rockets, specialize fuel, more frigging circuitry, with all of its parts engineered with incredible precision, and a reinforced launching pad to hurl its lunar modules to well, the moon.
15) What does it take to fling Napolitaines into outer space?
16) A really big slingshot.
17) So that’s what thrifty Mauritius did. It slingshotted hundreds of Napolitaines into space. Some made it to the moon, some to Neptune, and some even exited the Solar System. However, many Napolitaines never left our atmosphere and orbit our planet a few dozen feet in the air. The cookies in this recipe, at that altitude, resemble alien space ships. Except for the color. Orbiting UFOs are grey or off white. Napolitaines are pink. Now you know.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., and travel advisor
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’s 1953. Europe is in a state of flux. The Cold War becomes chillier. Then Prime Minister, Winston Churchill vanishes while in Berlin. Britain’s already shaky prestige and power seems vulnerable, especially without the man who led it through World War II. Churchill needs to be found and be retrieved. However, the government can only do so much without admitting Churchill’s disappearance. MI6 turns to the resourceful Jake Weaver, a man they have found useful. Jake and his daughter Ilse’s secret trip to Berlin becomes fraught with danger as his friends prove less useful than expected while his enemies lie waiting in the shadows.
As in all his previous novels, Conlee’s research is meticulous. This action-packed adventure remains compelling throughout. It is a real page turner. Fans of history will love it. I recommend it highly.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., and travel advisor
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.
Angry Man #2
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., and travel advisor
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 – STEAK
1 pound steaks, skirt, flank, or ribeye
½ tablespoon minced garlic
¾ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
INGREDIENTS – SANDWICHES
4 sandwiches rolls, hoagies
1 cup guasacaca (See previous recipe)
1 cup lettuce, shredded
⅓ cup carrots, shredded
⅓ cup Parmesan cheese
1 tomato
½ cup potato sticks
ketchup (optional)
mayonnaise (optional)
Serves 4. Takes 40 minutes.
PREPARATION – STEAK
Cut steak into strips ½” wide. Add steak strips, garlic, and salt to mixing bowl. Rub garlic and salt into steak strips. Add seasoned steak strips and vegetable oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 3 minutes or until strips brown. Stir frequently. Add Worcestershire sauce. Sauté for an additional 3 minutes. Stir frequently. Remove from heat.
PREPARATION – SANDWICHES
Split sandwich rolls in half. Spread guasacaca on all halves. Divide shredded lettuce and carrot evenly between the bottom roll halves. Top lettuce with carrot. Place steak strips on carrot. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese on carrot. Cut tomato into 8 slices. Put 2 tomato slices on each sandwich. Sprinkle potato sticks on tomato slices. Spread ketchup and mayonnaise, if desired, on bun tops. Assemble sandwich.
TIDBITS
1) Little Pepe was known throughout Venezuela for wearing sandals and being clumsy. One day, for reasons that are lost to history, Pepe carried all the ingredients to a post office. As he opened the door, Pepe dropped guasacaca on his left big toe and all the other ingredients on the right big toe. “Whoa,” said the postmaster, “the same food on your toes would look delicious between two sandwich rolls. And so the Pepe Toe sandwich was born. Soon, it shortened to the Pepito Sandwich.
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.
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