Posts Tagged With: Nobel Prize

Neil deGrasse Tyson and Strawberries in Uranus

Posted on July 6, 2024 by pauldelancey

Uranus is on the right

This blog derives from quite a similar blog called, “How Many Strawberries Will Fit in Uranus?” There, I calculated the number to be 9.626 * 10^27 strawberries. Afterward, my mind naturally thought of a way of confronting my arch enemy, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Why is he my arch enemy? He helped engineer the downfall of our beloved Pluto from planet to mere dwarf planet. Such a debasement of celestial status!

How would I confront Mr. Tyson? By attending a conference of astromers and engaging in the following conversation:

Me: Mr. Tyson.

Tyson: Yes, do you have a question?

Me: Yes, I do. Thanks (Always start out respectfully.) Did you know Uranus was originally called George?

(People titter. Mr. Tyson looks both annoyed and a tad worried.)

Me: Did you know that 9.626 * 10^27 strawberries could fit in Uranus?

(The auditorium erupts into laughter. The shaken man recognizes the absurdity of his views on Pluto. He withdraws his assertion that Pluto is a dwarf planet. The other astronomers follow his lead. They vote again. The magnificent Pluto regains its rightful place in the heavens as a proud, glorious planet. I’d then bask in the knowledge that I had righted a grievous wrong.)

Well no. In “How Many Strawberries Will Fit in Uranus?” I had used the figure of 6.83 * 10^13 cubic miles for the volume of Uranus. This was incorrect, Uranus’ volume is 6.83 * 10^27 cubic kilometers. The true volume of Uranus in miles equals 1.639 * 10^13 miles. This adjustment lowers the number of strawberries fitting in Uranus to 2.311 * 10^27.

Oh gosh, I’m ever so glad I didn’t cross words with Mr. Tyson back then. Eventually some astronomer would have checked my calculations and detected my error. He, probably Bob, would have published my error. The whole community of astronomers would have laughed and laughed at me. I’d have be mortified. The astronomer cabal would have taken my humiliation to dethrone Pluto, once again, to dwarf planetar status. And once again, life would have been bereft of joy.

But I didn’t see Mr. Tyson at such a conference. My goof has gone unnoticed. (Unless, of course, the learned man reads this blog.) Now, I have the opportunity to alter one line of my conference conversation to:

Me: Did you know that 2.311 * 10^27 strawberries could fit in Uranus?

And the conference will surely erupt into laughter. Pluto will once more be a planet. And I will win a Nobel Prize. Yay! The Sun will again shine over our lives.

– 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: Nobel Prize, science | Tags: astronomers, celestial, Comic Chef, de Grasse, dwarf, joy, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Nobel Prize, planet, planetary status, Pluto, strawberries, Sun, Tyson, Uranus | 1 Comment

Paul’s Awesome English Dictionary – Today’s Word – Tempid

Posted on April 4, 2024 by pauldelancey

We are all brilliant, every last one of us. We have scintillating ideas all the time. So, why aren’t we given more credit for our intelligence? Why hasn’t the world been turned into a paradise? Why aren’t a hundred Nobel prizes given out every year?

Because we didn’t write them down the moment our glorious idea illuminated our brain. Something happened. Something distracted us. Taxes perhaps or plain, old, ordinary chores needed to be done. And we forgot. The world will never be improved. People won’t ever look at us and say, “He made our lives ever so much better, what a wonderful person.”

These events brings us to

TODAY’S AWESOME WORD

TEMPID

Awesome entry #33

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

Categories: Paul's Awesome Dictionay | Tags: brain, chores, dictionary, English, ideas, intelligence, light bulb, Nobel Prize, paradise, Paul's Awesome English Dictionary, recipes, self cleaning, tempid, temporary, today's word | Leave a comment

Nobel Peace Prize Winner for 2022

Posted on December 9, 2022 by pauldelancey

Too often Nobel Prize winners are given to people, worthy though they may be, who have done nothing to affect the lives of any of us. Many of the awards in quantum physics come readily to mind, just as they are as readily forgotten. Many of the winners for the Nobel Peace Prize, pleasant folks everyone of them, didn’t bring about lasting peace. They just gave the cause of peace the good college prize.

Not so this year.

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, Joe Thorvald has developed easy-open, every-time, plastic bags to be used in the produce section. You know how you want to protect your Roma tomatoes. So you try putting them in those sheer plastic bags that the supermarkets offer. The plastic adheres to itself with the relentlessness of the Borg, wind erosion, or a five-year whining for an ice-cream cone. You just can’t open the plastic bags. You give up. You never buy produce again. Your diet becomes nutritionally deficient. This affects your brain. You enter politics. You become your country’s leader. The vitamins that would have kept your brain functioning properly just aren’t there. You declare war on six countries in the morning alone.

Not anymore.

Joe Thorvald’s Plastic-Produce Bags (PPB) open easily everythime. We can now all buy produce. We can now all think clearly. We will no longer declare war on anyone.

Yay.

Joseph Thorvald accepts his prize. His wife, Brida Thorvald, applauds

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

Categories: food, Nobel Prize | Tags: apocalyptic, Borg, Chef Paul, Comic Chef, cookbook, De Lancey, good food, grocery, hunks, ice cream, Lutheran, mushrooms, Nobel Peace Prize, Nobel Prize, Paul De Lancey, Paul DeLancey, Paul R. De Lancey, plastic bags, produce section, quantum physics, recipes, supermarket, Thorvald, thriller, war, whining, wind erosion | 1 Comment

Are There Culinary Force Fields?

Posted on September 8, 2022 by pauldelancey

I don’t recall why I tried to find out about http://www.CulinaryForceFields.com or even why I thought the company Culinary Force Fields existed. At any rate, Google seems think Culinary Forces Fields is a thing. See below.

This is exciting! As far as study of physics holds, the known forces in the universe are: frictional, tension, normal, air resistance, applied, spring, gravitational, electric, and magnetic. Culinary force is not listed. I have discovered a new force. Wow. I look forward to receiving the Nobel Prize for Physics. You are welcome to attend the award ceremony. There will be drinks, snacks, and cookies afterward. I look forward to seeing you.

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

Categories: Nobel Prize | Tags: air resistance, appetizer, Chef Paul, Comic Chef, cookbook, coookies, culinary, De Lancey, electric, entree, force fields, forces, friction, good food, gravitational, hunks, Lutheran, magnetic, murders, mushrooms, Nobel Prize, Paul De Lancey, Paul R. De Lancey, physics, recipes, Spring, tension, thriller | Leave a comment

Cuban Cascos de Guayaba (Guava Shells with Cheese)

Posted on July 21, 2022 by pauldelancey

Cuban Dessert

CASCOS DE GUAYABA
(Guava Shells With Cheese)

INGREDIENTS

1 15-ounce can guava shells in syrup*
8 ounces cream cheese

* = Found in Hispanic supermarkets or online.

Serves 4. Takes 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Remove guava shells from syrup. Keep syrup. Add ½ tablespoon to 2 tablespoons cream cheese to guava shell. (Amount depends on size of guava shell.). Drizzle 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon syrup over each guava shell with cream cheese, again depending on the size of the shell. Repeat for each guava shell. Goes well with saltine crackers.

TIDBITS

1) I had to go online to order guava shells in syrup.

2) They traveled the entire country by truck. They arrived by truck. The whole process took days. Fortunately, I planned to prepare this dessert for family. They were willing to wait days.

3) But if instead, I am regaling my business associates about Cascos De Guayaba. I’m really selling how great it tastes when I made it. I can see them starting to drool.

4) Finally, my boss snaps. “Dang, that sounds great,” he says, “I sure could go for some good Cascos de Guayaba. Whip me up a batch right now and I’ll make you vice president. And if you can’t, well . . .” He draws a finger across his throat. I’ll be clearing out my desk tomorrow.

5) But it doesn’t have to end this way. What if I could launch millions of bags of Cascos de Guayaba into the outer atmosphere? Higher than where planes fly, of course. I am nothing, if not careful.

6) Anyway, I’ll have billions of freezer bags full of this delicious dessert orbiting the Earth. All you have to do is order. With seconds a package of Cascos of Guyaba will be directly over your house. A little parachute will deploy. Your dessert will drift precisely to your doorstep. You will be able to make this dessert for your boss. You will become vice president. Your life will be good, very good.

7) But won’t billions of bags of Cascos de Guayaba in the atmosphere block out the Sun, at least to an extent? Won’t that temperatures to fall? Yes. But that what’s needed to stop global warning. I see a Nobel prize in my future.

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D

Categories: cuisine, Following Good Food, international | Tags: apocalyptic, atmosphere, cascos de guayaba, Chef Paul, Comic Chef, cookbook, Cuban, dessert, Earth, global warming, good food, hunks, Lutheran, mushrooms, Nobel Prize, orbiting, Paul De Lancey, Paul R. De Lancey, recipes, thriller | Leave a comment

Kitchen Explosion and the Big Bang Theory

Posted on November 20, 2021 by pauldelancey

They sure don’t make plastic bags to hold tamarind bags like they used to do. I took my tamarind bag out of my plastic-grocery bag and it ripped open sending tamarind pods everywhere. Many of the pods burst open sending tamarind-pod shrapnel everywhere. If this incident isn’t indicative of the moral decline and malaise of our current society, then I don’t know what is.

On the plus side, however, the pattern of the pods and pod shrapnel provides a solid confirmation of the Big Bang Theory. A rather compact bag of tamarind bag exploded rapidly flings its contents over a much wider area, just as is hypothesized in the Big Bag. I immediately contacted NASA and as many as astrophysicists and astronomers as I could find. They all expressed gratitude and admiration for my research. Some even mentioned a possible Nobel Prize for me. I feel rather humbled by all this acclaim.

Tamarind research confirms the Big Bang Theory

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

Categories: observations | Tags: apocalyptic, astronomers, big bang, Comic Chef, cookbook, explosion, good food, hunks, kitchen, Lutheran, NASA, Nobel Prize, Paul De Lancey, physicists, plastic bags, recipes, research, tamarind, theory, thriller | 4 Comments

Corned Beef Cakes

Posted on November 12, 2021 by pauldelancey

Sierra Leonean Entree

CORNED BEEF CAKES

INGREDIENTS

1 pound potatoes or yams
1 teaspoon salt (1 teaspoon more later)
1 small onion
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon parsley
1 teaspoon pepper
1 12-ounce can corned beef
1 egg (1 more egg later)
3 tablespoons milk
1½ cups bread crumbs
1 egg
6 tablespoons peanut oil or vegetable oil (2 tablespoons per batch)

Makes 12 cakes. Takes 1 hour 10 minutes.

PREPARATION

Peel potatoes. Cut each potato into 4 pieces. Add potato pieces to large pot. Add 1 teaspoon salt and enough water to cover potato pieces. Bring water to boil using high heat. Boil for 15 minutes or until potato pieces are soft. While potato bits boil, dice onion. Remove pot from heat. Drain water. Mash potatoes with potato masher or fork. Add onion, 1 teaspoon salt, cayenne pepper, parsley, pepper, and corned beef. Mix with whisk until well blended.

Add 1 egg to small bowl. Beat with whisk or fork. Add milk. Mix with whisk until well blended. Add egg/milk mixture and corned beef/mashed potato mixture to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended. Make 12 patties.

Add bread crumbs to a 3rd bowl. Add 1 egg to a 4th bowl. Beat egg with whisk or fork. Add patty to bowl with egg. Coat both sides of patty with egg. Add egg-coated patty to bowl with bread crumbs. Dredge patty through bread crumbs until patty is completely covered. Repeat for remaining patties.

Add 2 tablespoons peanut oil to pan per batch. Heat oil using medium-high heat. Oil is hot enough when a breadcrumb added to the oil starts to dance. Carefully add 4 bread coated patties to the hot oil. Sauté patties for 1 minute using medium-high heat or until patties start to blacken on the bottom. Carefully flip patties over; they can be crumbly. Sauté for 1 minute more or until the new bottom side of the patties start to blacken. Remove patties from heat. Drain on paper towels. Repeat for remaining batches.

TIDBITS

1) The continents and other bits of land are constantly in motion.

2) Does this mean you’re going to get whiplash just by sitting in a chair watching TV in the den? Or will your television suddenly separate from the rest of the den and rapidly recede into the distance? And what about the giant chasm between you and the TV?

3) What if you are near sighted and suddenly your program “FriendsTM” is on a screen 100 yards away and you need to get your glasses and they are in your bedroom which is on the other side of a 100-yard-wide chasm and although you were a crackerjack long jumper in college and could leap 26 feet, you still know that your longest jump is still 274 feetshort of the width of the chasm and you are so distraught that you’ve just composed your longest run-on sentence ever?

4) What if you’re on the famous pier in Santa Monica and California’s entire coast falls separates from the rest of the continent and plunges into the ocean and you can’t help wondering if you had locked the front door or not?

5) What if you’re driving on a country road and all of a sudden the ground beneath you lurches forward so much so that you exceed the speed limit by 200 mph? A traffic cop pulls you over. You tell the officer, “The movement of the Earth’s crust made me go this fast”. The cop shakes his head. “Like I haven’t heard that one before.”

6) Well fret not, dear friend, the previous four tidbits are currently quite unlikely. The Earth’s plates currently move at a rate of about ¼” a year.

7) How long would it take for your television to move 100 feet away?

8) 400 years. The sitcom “Friends” would be over by then.

9) Let me further calm you down. Your TV and your chair are almost certainly on the same Earth plate. So now matter where your huge bit of the planet moves, you always be the same distance away from your show. You’ll not need to get your classes. Any 100-foot chasm. will be dozens of miles away.

10) So how do we know all this? How did the study of plate tectonics come about?

11) In 1946, Kadie Mansara of Makeni, Sierra Leone, served this entree, Corned Beef Cakes, for her little boy, Patrick. Now Patrick liked to play with his food. His three corned beef cakes were originally all next to each other. However, the little scamp moved the corned beef all over the plate until they were positioned as shown in the above photograph. Ma Kaide gazed at the new configuration

13) She had an epiphany. Great sections of the Earth must move in the same way. We don’t see the movement, but it happens. Slow continental movement would explain mountains, earthquakes, even why the west coast of Africa looks like the east coast of South America. Mrs. Mansaray would go on to found the prestigious Sierra Leone Plate Tectonics Institute. 40 years later she received a Nobel Prize for her ground-breaking research. Now you know.

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

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: Africa, apocalyptic, cakes, California, chasm, continents, cookbook, cop, corned beef, Earth, earthquakes, entree, epiphany, Friends, glasses, good food, Lutheran, Makeni, moutains, mushrooms, Nobel Prize, officer, Paul De Lancey, plate tectonics, plates, recipes, Santa Monica, Sierra Leone, Sierra Leonean, South America, speed limit, thriller, TV | 2 Comments

I Simplify the Federal Income Tax Form

Posted on August 15, 2021 by pauldelancey

I hate paying taxes. Everybody does. I do, however, realize we need taxes to pay for many necessary things such as the military and infrastructure. No, what really gets my goat is that frigging complicated tax form. With all the schedules that go along with the main page, a taxpayer could easily fill out over 30 pages. You’ll need to hire a tax preparer. That’ll run you hundreds of dollars. And that’s after spending three days assembling all the information. What makes it even more horrible is that the IRS scans all the returns looking for mistakes.

Looking for mistakes. Let that sink in. That means they already have the numbers you need to type in on the forms. And they will tell you when they think–no, when they now–you are wrong. What can be done to fix all this madness and frustration?

I’m glad you asked. Let the IRS do your taxes for you, They know what they want on your forms, schedules, and attachments anyway. I hereby propose a new and quite simple form to replace all the tree-devouring pages you used to submit.

It’s called the 1040-P. (P stands for Paul, me. I created this glorious, time saving, liberating page. I deserve some recognition.)

Anyway, I give you the 1040-P

I see a Nobel prize in my future.

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

Categories: I simplify | Tags: apocalyptic, Comic Chef, cookbook, forms, good food, I simplify, IRS, Lutheran, Nobel Prize, Paul De Lancey, recipes, schedules, taxes, thriller, trees | 2 Comments

Roast Chicken in Pomegranate Date Molasses

Posted on June 12, 2021 by pauldelancey

Israeli Entree

ROAST CHICKEN IN POMEGRANATE DATE MOLASSES

INGREDIENTS

½ cup date molasses or syrup* or honey
¼ cup pomegranate molasses* or cranberry juice concentrate or grenadine or lemon juice with honey
⅓ cup olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
3½ pounds chicken thighs, thighs with legs, legs – all with bone in

* = May be found in Middle Eastern or kosher supermarkets

SPECIAL UTENSILS

baking pan
baster

Serves 6 or 1 person per chicken piece. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Add date molasses, pomegranate molasses, olive oil, and salt in large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Add chicken pieces. Turn chicken pieces until thoroughly coated. Cover and marinate for 30 minutes.

Add chicken to baking pan. Ladle marinade over chicken. Roast at 425 degrees for 45 minutes or until skin is crispy and browned. Baste with juices from pan every 10 minutes.

TIDBITS

1) When I was growing up, milkmen would deliver milk to your doorstep. They also sold, eggs, butter, and cream. They saved so many trips to the store when only when of these ingredients was missing. And who wants to go to the store for just one thing when baking? When I lived in the Netherlands, the milkmen would deliver all that to your home. They’d also sell soup, jam, and beer. Yes, beer. Who wants drunk people driving to the store when their party runs of beer?

2) We really do need to bring back the American milkman. The Dutch milkman would be even more appreciated. But we need more. For how many times have you gone to the store just for flour? Just for lettuce or tomato? And especially just for one herb? We need a culinary mobile, making door-to-door delivers of: herbs, spices, and produce. We’d, of course, also want dairy products. I’d nominate any one who’d provide this service for a Nobel Prize. I can conceive of no worthier cause.

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

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: American, apocalyptic, Comic Chef, cookbook, dairy, date, doorstep, Dutch, entree, good food, herbs, hunks, Israeli, kosher, Middle Eastern, milkmen, molasses, mushrooms, Netherlands, Nobel Prize, Paul De Lancey, pomegranate, recipes, roast chicken, spices, thriller | 5 Comments

Motivational Poster #3, Successful Anthropologists

Posted on June 8, 2021 by pauldelancey

The world of anthropology is a rough and tumble one. Heated discussions abound. It’s quite common to hear such charged phrases as “So’s Lucy of Olduvai’s mother” or “You look like a Neanderthal and think like a homonid” abound.

Sure, you could take up mathematics where everything can be proved or disproved. But where’s the fun in that?

Real men and women flock to anthropology where fossils are rare. Where painting on caves are rare. And don’t even get me started on the lack of cookbooks from the Cro Magnon Era. Either these early humans never learned to write or if they did, their recipes were written on media that just couldn’t survive hundred of thousands of years of exposure to the elements. We’ll just have to wait for a cookbook chiseled in stone by flint tools. In the meantime, we can only speculate what sides Cro -Magnon chefs served with their mastodon steaks.

Let’s face it, there isn’t a lot of evidence. Conjectures must be made. Some are brilliant, some are reasonable, some are demented. But who’s to say which theory is the best. Reasoned discourse only goes so far.

Eventually, you’ll have to fight for your view. You need to take up boxing. Every full professor in every major anthropology department across academia won his position by knocking out a weaker, slower hitting colleague.

It goes almost without saying that Nobel Prize winners in anthropology could turn pro in boxing.

Anthropology, it’s not for sissies.

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

Categories: motivational | Tags: academia, anthropologists, anthropology, apocalyptic, boxing, Comic Chef, cookbook, Cro Magnon, full professor, good food, homonid, humans, Lucy, mastodon, mathematics, Neanderthal, Nobel Prize, Olduvai, Paul De Lancey, steaks, thriller | 3 Comments

Posts Tagged With: Nobel Prize

Neil deGrasse Tyson and Strawberries in Uranus

Paul’s Awesome English Dictionary – Today’s Word – Tempid

Nobel Peace Prize Winner for 2022

Are There Culinary Force Fields?