Overwhelmed Woman #2
– 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.
– 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.
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.
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.
Emma, your tour guide
March 8 to 29 – Festival of Animated Objects -Held in Calgary, Canada. See puppet shows and performances with other animated thingys touch on dark, troubling themes. Even though, many of the shows are supposed to be family friendly, it all seems rather ominous. Watch animovies projected onto a historic grain elevator. A historic one, no less. Programming includes live performances, screenings, lectures, workshops, and exhibitions for all ages.
Last Weekend in July – Nanaimo Marine Festival and Bathtub Races – As always, there will be amazing firework displays, decorations, and food everywhere. Arts and crafts stalls will dot the landscape, as well an entertainment stage, and a children’s tent. Visit the farmers’ markets, and do other stuff. Let’s face it the highlight of this festival is, and will always, be the stupendous bathtub race. It’s known appropriately enough as the Great International World Championship Bathtub Race. The race crosses the 36-mile Strait of Georgia.
Last Weekend in July – Elvis Impersonator Festival – Perhaps the best Elvis impersonator festival in the world occurs in the summer at the Collingwood Elvis festival which thank goodness, is held in Collingwood, Ontario. This festival draws a variety of people . . . Oh heck, no it doesn’t. Only lovers of Elvis’ music will go. Oh, and Elvis impersonators. Expect to see lots and lots of Elvis impersonators. This is a good thing, however, if you don’t love Elvis’s music and if you don’t love his songs, then why are you attending an Elvis festival? And eat the food the King ate. See how many fried banana and peanut butter sandwiches you can devour during the festivities.
July 30 to August 2 – Icelandic Festival in Manitoba – Embrace your inner Northern European spirit by raiding your way to the Icelandic Festival in Gimli, Manitoba. You’ll find tasty Icelandic food to eat. See the Icelandic fashion show. Visit musicians and artists who offer up Icelandic music and Icelandic crafts. But really the most exciting part of the festival is the Viking Village. See people dressed up a Viking warriors. Go to every single Viking Combat Demonstration. And oh my gosh, oh my gosh, don’t, just don’t, let your children miss the half-hour long Kiddie Shield Wall event.
September 2 to 4 – Poutine Festival – Make your way to the Poutine Festival in Drummondville, Quebec. Poutine, perhaps Quebec’s most famous dish, consists of French fries, beef gravy, and cheese curds or mozzarella. Listen to wonderful music while tasting caloric culinary greatness. Heart specialists are standing by. The highlight of the event is seeing which poutinier food truck will win the coveted Gold Fork for making the festival’s best poutine. * = If history is anything to go by, next year’s excitement will take place anytime from July to September.
September 13 to 14 – Accordion Extravaganza! – Clear your musical palate by attending the Accordion Extravaganza! in Edmonton, Alberta. Pop in on all sorts of concerts, workshops, dances, and competitions, all featuring the accordion. Accordion lovers will melt in ecstasy here.
– 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.
INGREDIENTS
1 pound medium shrimp, frozen, peeled and deveined (41-to-50 count)
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1 garlic clove
¼ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
½ teaspoon white pepper or pepper
1 egg white
2 teaspoons corn starch
½ teaspoon vegetable oil
8 4″-sugar cane sticks (fresh or canned) *
* = I suggest using canned sugar as fresh sugar cane needs to be peeled and cut into 4″ sticks. Canned sugar cane can be found in Asian supermarkets. Fresh sugar cane can be found there as well or online.
SPECIAL UTENSILS
food processor
electric grill pan
no-stick spray
Serves 4. Takes 40 minutes. Allow for up to an extra hour if using fresh sugar cane. In this case, cut the sugar cane apart around the joints. Then use knives and cleavers to remove the hard outer shell of the can.
PREPARATION
Add shrimp, fish sauce, garlic, salt, sugar, and white pepper to food processor. Blend until ingredients form a shrimp paste. Add egg white to mixing bowl. Whip egg white with whisk until frothy. Add shrimp paste and corn starch to egg white. Mix with whisk until shrimp is again well blended.
Preheat grill to medium high. Dip hands in vegetable oil. Take 1½ tablespoons shrimp paste and press it evenly around the middle of a sugar-cane stick. Leave ¾” sugar-cane stick exposed at both ends. Brush shrimp paste on sticks lightly with oil to prevent sticking. Add shrimp-covered sticks to grill. Grill for 8 minutes or until shrimp paste is golden brown on all sides. Turn gently, at least every 2 minutes, Bite into the sugar cane a bit as you eat the shrimp. This will add sugar juice to your bite.
TIDBITS
1) Wherever the well loved Chef Tomasso went, everyone said, “Ciao, Tomasso.” Then one day he left his hometown of Padua in search of some squid ink for his next meal. He should have gone to Venice. Instead ended up in Hanoi as he was way too proud to ask for directions. Fortunately, the locals took him in. In gratitude, Tom, as he is now called, created this dish. Now, the Vietnamese greet him with “Chao, Tom” in honor of his cooking style .
2) Then, alas, tragedy struck.
3) Chef Tomasso fell off the edge of the edge of the Earth on July 1, 2018.
4) Apparently, he walked farther than normal and got lost.
5) He again refused to asked for directions and so, fell off the edge of the Earth.
6) Let this be a cautionary tale for all men.
7) This demise demised dumbfound all the physicists, who thought the Earth’s gravitational field would surely keep the good chef securely on terra firma.
8) Okay, the previous tidbit contained some ambiguity. It would be perfectly logical to wonder if, at some point, the physicists lost their dumfoundedness after Tomasso’s plunge into the interstellar abyss.
9) Let me clear up this confusion. These learned scientists remain perplexed by Tomasso’s misfortune.
10) It is amusing thought to think that Chef Tomasso truly lived life on the edge.
11) And if the word “dumfoundedness” from tidbit 8) is not a word, it ought to be.
12) Write your Miriam Webster and Oxford English Dictionary editors and ask them to include “dumbfoundedness” in their next editions. Thank you.
13) Tomasso’s great fall, shown on the 10 o’clock news, also flummoxed cartographers who, pretty much unanimously, agreed that our Earth is round like the globe in your fifth-grade classroom.
14) Meanwhile, maritime insurance rates have soared. If Tomasso, through no fault of his own, happened upon a spot that was the edge of the Earth, who’s to say that a freighter carrying wheat or a tanker bringing oil couldn’t fall off the edge of the Earth as well?
15) Can you imagine the following conversation?
Shipping CEO: Sorry, but your wheat will be a little late. Our freighter went over the Earth’s edge.
Food Importer CEO: Yeah sure, like I haven’t heard that one before.
16) As of yet, Chef Tomasso has not returned. His fate is still unlearned. I hope he will and that he’ll have a rattling good yarn to spin. In the meantime, watch your step.
– 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.
Aleta, your tour guide
Have fun! Come travel with me.
First Weekend in July – The International Witches Fair – Watch reenactors capture witches and heretics. Watch the lost souls get tried. Be enthralled by their torture. Be entranced by lovingly recreated witches’s covens. Listen to the excommunication of the entire town. Watch as Pope Julius II curses the entire village of Trasmoz, Spain. The festival sports an authentic medieval market place and medieval camp. There are parades, magic shows, musical shows, and medieval combat. You’ll want to go year after year just to see everything. Learn about medieval plants. Learn how to poison someone. Or maybe you’ll want to heal people with medieval medicinal plants. To each his own.
Note: festival dates are prone to change. Check before you book. You don’t want to lug your broom all the way to Spain only to discover the International Witches Fair won’t take place another two weeks.
– 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.
A large frozen item like a turkey requires at least a day (24 hours) to defrost in the refrigerator for every 5 pounds of weight.
If you are pressed for time, use this quicker defrosting method. Keep turkey in packaging and add it to a large pot. Cover turkey with ice-cold water. Let turkey sit in cold water for 30 minutes per pound. Drain water.
– 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.
A simulated legjacking
With the explosion in the numbers of people competing in long-distance races, runners are looking for any edge they can get. For a while, runners took performance enhancing drugs, PEG. (Note, here PEG is an anacronym, not any woman named Peg.) Anyway some weeks ago, marathoner Carl La Fong up and grew a third leg overnight. He reduced his race time by 39 minutes.
As of press time, no marathon organizers have addressed the issue of a third leg. So many unscrupulous marathoners are looking for a third leg. As there aren’t many legal ways to acquire leg (Contrary to common belief, Costco(tm) doesn’t carry everything), runners are turning to violence.
Leg jacking. They’re procuring their fifth limb by legjacking, where the foul fiend knocks you down and pulls off your leg. Isn’t this painful?
Yes.
And you can kiss goodbye your own chances of winning a marathon.
What can you do to avoid legjacking?
Keep a healthy distance between yourself and all fit people with legs as long as yours.
It’s not always possible to do that because of crowds and stampeding herds of escaped elephants. So, I recommend carrying garlic cloves in your hands whenever you go out. Simply pop the garlic cloves into your mouth and munch away whenever you see a likely leg thief. Your strong garlic breath will deter any legjacker. Besides, garlic repels vampires as well. And that’s good.
Be sure to join me for future health tips. Bye bye now, Stay healthy.
– 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.
INGREDIENTS
¾ pound flat rice noodles
2 Chinese sausages
3 ounces fish cake (optional)
3 garlic cloves
1 cup garlic chives*
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce or soy sauce
2 tablespoons light soy sauce or soy sauce
½ tablespoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon oyster sauce or fish sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
¼ teaspoon white pepper
2 eggs
¼ cup vegetable oil
¾ pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 cups bean sprouts
* = Can be found in Asian supermarkets. Or substitute with garlic, chives, shallots, or combination.
SPECIAL UTENSIL
wok or Dutch oven.
Serves 6. 50 minutes.
PREPARATION
Soak dried noodles in warm water for 45 minutes. Drain. Cut Chinese sausage into ½” diagonal slices along their length. Cut fish cakes into ½” wide strips. Mince garlic cloves. Cut garlic chives in 2″ long pieces. Add dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, and white pepper to medium mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well blended. Add eggs to small mixing bowl. Beat with whisk until well blended.
Add oil, Chinese sausage, fish-cake strips, garlic, garlic chives, shrimp. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until garlic softens. Stir frequently. Add noodles. Stir until well mixed. Add liquid from medium mixing bowl. Mix with wooden spoon until well blended.
Push sausage/fish strips/noodles to one side. Ladle egg from small mixing bowl to newly made space on wok. Scramble eggs. Let everything fry until egg nearly sets. Cook for 1 minute, stirring frequently. Add bean sprouts. Cook for 2 minutes. Stir frequently.
TIDBITS
1) String theory replaces the point-like particles of particle physics with one-dimensional objects called strings. Scientists could have thrown over the point-life particles for Hula Hoops(tm). But they didn’t. Culinary physicists have discovered why the mainstream physicists chose strings.
2) Look below for a rendering of string theory. The alluring spiffiness of this image hides its inspiration.
3) Let’s put a red and white bowl around the center of this picture.
4) Doesn’t that look a lot like Char Kway Teow? Let’s put it next to this recipe’s photo.
5) Wow! Char Kway Teow clearly provided the inspiration for String Theory. Proof you cannot deny.
6) But unlike String Theory you can eat Char Kway Teow. Whenever travel takes you to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, be sure to dine at Carl La Fong’s House of String Theory. His Char Kway Teow tastes divine. Perhaps it will inspire you as well.
– 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.
INGREDIENTS
6½ tablespoons butter, softened
½ cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup flour (2 tablespoons more later)
½ cup wheat flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons flour
½ pound fig jam
SPECIAL UTENSILS
electric beater
14″ x 10″ cookie sheet
parchment paper
Makes 32 bars. Takes 2 hours 15 minutes.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add butter and brown sugar to large mixing bowl. Mix with electric beater set on high until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla extract. Mix with electric beater set on high until light and fluffy.
Add 1 cup flour, wheat flour, baking powder, and salt to small mixing bowl. Mix with fork or whisk until well blended. Gradually add in flour mix from small mixing bowl to egg/sugar mix in large mixing bowl. Mix with electric beater set on high until light and fluffy. Use hands to form a round dough ball. Cover and place in refrigerator for 1 hour or until firm.
Dust 14″ x 10″ flat surface with 2 tablespoons flour. Add dough ball. Roll out dough ball until it’s ¼” thick. Cut dough along its length into 10″ x 3½” strips. Spread ¼ of the fig jam down the middle of a strip until it’s 1″ wide. Carefully fold both edges of the dough over the fig jam. Pinch seam together to complete fig/dough log. Repeat for each dough strip. Cut each log into 2 shorter mini-logs to make transferring them to the parchment paper easier.
Place parchment paper on cookie sheet. Use spatula to carefully place mini logs seam side down on parchment paper. Use fingers to smooth together any tears in the mini logs. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until mini logs turn golden brown and feel slightly firm. Cut each mini log into 4 fig bars. Let cool on cookie sheet for 15 minutes or until slightly warm. Store in airtight container.
TIDBITS
1) Be sure to mark your calendar for January 16. That’s International Hot and Spicy Food Day.
2) It’s also National Fig Newton Day.
3) So eat hot-and-spicy food and fig bars on that day (IHSFNFND).
4) You might not want to do anything else.
5) Indeed. The Super Bowl used to held in January, but the prospect of having their biggest game of the year fall on International Hot and Spicy Day AND National Fig Newton Day terrified National Football League Executives. They knew the NFL would lose the match up.
6) This is why recent Super Bowls have been held in February.
7) Baseball, for decades, held its World Series in October for the very same reason.
8) Now, World Series Games spillover into November.
9) November is still two months away from IHSFNFND.
10) But the end of the World Series is getting ever closer to that eventful culinary day, because of ever increasing rounds of post-season play.
11) The World Series might eventually coincide with IHSFNFND. If that happens, television executives will simply throw up their hands and stop broadcasting the Fall Classic. This is something even World War II could not do.
12) This must not happen. Contact your senator. Now.
13) It’s worth noting that fig bars’ existential challenge to professional sports in America derives from their many great attributes.
14) Fig bars are high in fiber. Football and baseball are not.
15) Fig bars have many vitamins. Football and baseball do not.
16) Fig bars have many minerals. Football and baseball do not.
17) Fig bars are a tasty snack. Football and baseball do not.
18) Fig bars help digestion. Football and baseball do not.
19) Indeed, footballs and baseballs are even difficult to eat.
20) Oh crudness, National Fig Week runs from November 1 to November 7. The same time as the World Series. Stock up on fig bars; we live in dark, troubling times.
– 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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