Posts Tagged With: North America

Great Arctic Eats – Nome, Alaska

Posted on June 20, 2021 by pauldelancey

Great Arctic Eats – Nome, Alaska

Are you a diner who loves to eat, but is skittish around people? Do you feel naked going outside without a parka or, at the very least, a good sweater? Do you want to see huskies race across a finish line? If you answered yes to these questions, then you owe it to yourself to fly to Nome, Alaska where the beaches are never crowded and the seafood is oh so fresh.
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There are 15 restaurants listed in TripAdvisor(tm)! Let’s dine at the top five eateries.
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The most exciting establishment is Pingo Bakery – Seafood House. This eatery really is the place to go to if you only have time for one meal in Nome. (Although why you’d travel all the way to Nome for just one meal is beyond me. However, to each his own.) It has charming service, quaint atmosphere, fresh items in their outstanding bakery, and homemade ice cream. However, their seafood remains the star of this establishment. They serve seafood omelettes, for goodness sake.  (You can even order a half-size omelette.) You get a choice of roasted halibut or red king crabmeat. And there’s three seafood pizzas: salmon and artichoke heats, roasted halibut, and crab with roasted garlic and mushrooms. Can you get these culinary wonders at your local pizzerias? No, I didn’t think so. They also serve Belgian waffles and if you’re adventurous, the Chef’s Surprise Breakfast. Go there!

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Second on our restaurant tour is Bering Tea Co. They earned a perfect 5.0 rating. Congratulations, Bering Tea! They are known for their great coffee and tea. Especially their coffee. People love their coffee. They will make coffees to your specifications and with your choice of toppings and other ingredients. They offer wonderful handmade snacks. Go there early for tasty omelettes as they sell out quickly. Bering Tea has a reputation for being the friendliest eatery/cafe in town. And it’s next to Pingo Bakery. Is this a great town or what?
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Winning the bronze medal is Milano’s Pizzeria. This restaurant serves the best pizza in all of Nome. The atmosphere is rustic and local. Milano’s serves up many other cuisines beside pizza including sushi, Korean, and lobster. If you want to tour the world without ever leaving your table, this is the restaurant to visit. And it’s all served up by a friendly staff.

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Next on our Arctic food-lovers tour is the wonderfully named Polar Bear Cafe, a favorite with the locals. You can’t beat its view. It’s only a few feet away from the turbulent Bering Sea. It’s known for its large servings of crab legs and breakfasts all served  by a friendly and efficient staff.
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Special mention goes to Board of Trade Saloon.  Apparently, you haven’t had the full Nome experience unless you drink beer here and then go outside to pee in the frigid Bering Sea. Honest.
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The best way to reach Nome is by air, probably Alaska Air.

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Be sure to visit Carrie M, McLain Memorial Museum. Don’t let the lack of official, accessible websites fool you, visitors love it. It’s charming, informative, and multi-sensory. Well, visual and audial. You’re on own about touching the exhibits. Find out about the fascinating traditional and Gold Rush times of Nome.

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Then hop, skip, and jump or even take an all-terrain vehicle to the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve (BLBNP). But the most popular way to get there is by bush plane. There’s also trekking or sledding if you’re really resourceful. It sports great, informative displays. The staff is friendly and helpful. And there is no better place to learn about mammoths and mastodons. You can see a remnant of the great land bridge connecting Asia and North America. Our Asian ancestors used this land bridge to settle the Americas. But why, I keep asking myself, what possessed these worthy humans to go so far north? It had to be double-dang cold even back then. It’s a mystery, but one you can investigate at the BLBNP.

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Then get a friend in an ATV to take you to the White Alice Site. You can even hike there if you’re hardy enough. I have no idea why it’s called White Alice. Were they talking about Alice’s ethnicity? And why Alice’s heritage? Why not someone else’s? Did Alice see a ghost? Did Alice run naked here after taking an oatmeal-milk bath? It would have been cold for poor, mad Alice. And no one would have been brave enough to brave the frigid air to see her, just like Lady Godiva. Anyway, the site boasts of beautiful scenery and a panoramic view of Nome and the Bering Sea. Be sure to investigate the Cold War early warning communication site.

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Visit Katirvik Cultural Center. It’s in the same building as the McLain Memorial Museum. Hit two must-see places at once, Learn about native ways from the past millennia. The center has great interactive exhibits. The staff is friendly and helpful

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Finally, shop at Maruskiya’s. Buy amazing Alaska Native bead work and walrus-ivory carvings for your loved ones and dear friends. Buy the inevitable touristy t-shirts for everyone else.

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As always, “Good eating. Good traveling.”

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– 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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Orange Beef

Posted on November 6, 2015 by pauldelancey

Chinese Entree

ORANGE BEEF

INGREDIENTSOrangeBeef-

1 orange (Keep peel)

12 ounces flank steak
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 egg white
1 tablespoon rice wine (sometimes called mirin) or pale sherry

1⅓ cups white rice

1″ fresh ginger (or 2 teaspoons fresh)
1 garlic clove
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons beef broth
2 tablespoons soy sauce
⅛ teaspoon pepper
½ tablespoon sugar

5 dried red chiles
1½ cups peanut oil
Fresh zest from 1 orange or 2 teaspoon dry zest

SPECIAL UTENSIL

wok or Dutch oven
zest peeler or potato peeler

Makes 4 bowls. Takes 1½ hours.

PREPARATION

Remove peel orange. Save orange slices. Remove zest, the orange part of the peel, with zest peeler. Dice zest. (If you want to have a more authentic taste and can afford to plan ahead, spread the zest evenly over wax paper and let sit for 1-to-2 days until it is dry and brittle. Or just buy orange zest.)

Cut flank steak into strips 2″ long and ¼” wide. Add cornstarch, egg white, and rice wine to mixing bowl. Toss strips until they are well coated. Add steak strips. Put in refrigerator and marinate for 1 hour.

While beef marinates cook rice according to instructions on package. Mince ginger and garlic clove. Add sesame oil, ginger, and garlic to skillet. Sauté at medium-high heat for 3 minutes or until garlic turns color. Stir frequently. Remove sautéed ginger and garlic to mixing bowl. Add beef broth, soy sauce, pepper, and sugar to mixing bowl. Blend with whisk.

Dice red chiles. Add peanut oil and steak strips to wok. Sauté on medium-high for 2 minutes or until steak strips start to turn brown. Remove steak and drain on paper towels. Reserve 1½ tablespoons of peanut oil Add 1½ tablespoons reserved peanut oil, orange zest, and red chiles to wok. Stir frequently. Sauté on medium-high heat for 2 minutes or until chiles darken and oil smells fragrant. Stir frequently.

Add ginger/garlic/broth/soy sauce from mixing bowl to middle of wok. Return steak strips back to wok. Sauté at medium-high heat for 1 minute or until the steak strips become crispy, shiny, and have absorbed most of the sauce. Serve on top of rice. Garnish with orange slices.

TIDBITS

1) Orange beef originally came from orange cattle roaming the Painted Dessert in Arizona. Their orange hide helped the beeves, or cattle, blend in with the Dessert’s orange rocks. This camouflage technique helped the beeves escape voracious giant carnivorous beavers.

2) Things looked bad when the vicious beavers began Beaver Dam, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient Animal World. The water level in the Painted Dessert began to rise. Then rose even more. The beeves moved higher and higher up the canyon walls. Soon they would reach the green rocks where their orange hides would stand out starkly against the green rocks. The toothy beavers began salivating.

3) Then in a fortuitous stroke of fiction, humans, the Rohohoe tribe, in fact, arrived in the Painted Dessert, bringing commas for run-on sentences and arrows for hunting.

4) And hunt they did. Giant beavers tasted great when sauteéd in a lemon-basil sauce. Life was good for the Rohohoe. It was even better for the beeves. Their feared predator gone, their numbers rebounded or soared, whichever metaphor works best for you.

5) The ancient Chinese loved orange beef, having acquired a taste for it years before. Unfortunately, the abominable snowman, yeti, hunted their own orange beeves to extinction. Orange hides really made hunting in the snow-covered mountains of Tibet overly easy.

6) Fortunately, the ancient Rohohoe loved Chinese jewelry. Trade talks, smoothed by a mutual love of ScrabbleTM proceeded rapidly. And so began the great orange beef cattle drives.

7) Until global warming caused sea levels to rise to such an extent that the land bridge between North America and Asia disappeared. Snap. Just like that.

8) Deprived of Chinese jewelry, the Rohohoe economy dissolved into anarchy. Traces of this once proud people show up only in the finest cookbooks. Bereft of fresh orange beeves, Chinese founded culinary schools. They would rely on their own ingredients. No longer would Chinese caravans ply the world’s continents. No longer would their tradesmen paint, “Cho was here,” on stones all over America’s Southwest. Oh, I guess I should tell also those archeologists, sweltering in the hot Arizonan sun, what those petroglyphs mean.

– 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.

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Suaasat – Greenlander Soup

Posted on February 12, 2013 by pauldelancey

Greenlander Soup

SUAASAT

INGREDIENTSSuaasat-

1 chicken breast (1 pound reindeer if you can get it)
1 onion
1 carrot
1 quart water
1/2 cup pearl barley
1/4 cup millet
1/4 teaspoon coriander
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon rosemary
1/2 teaspoon sage
1/2 teaspoon thyme

Makes 6 bowls

PREPARATION

Chop reindeer meat or chicken into 1/2″ cubes. Dice onions and carrots. Add cubes, onions, carrots, water, barley, millet, coriander, salt, pepper, rosemary, sage, and thyme to large pot. Cook soup on medium heat for about 1 hour or until chicken or reindeer cubes are fully cooked and barley and millet are tender.

TIDBITS

1) A Viking called Gunnbjorn discovered Greenland in 876.

2) Why does Gunnbjorn get all the credit for discovery when thousands of Eskimos had been living there for hundreds of years?

3) Because Gunnbjorn sounds a lot like GummiTM bears and everyone likes those.

4) Leif Erikkson discovered North America in 1000.

5) Why did Leif get all the credit when North America was discovered thousands of years by peoples crossing the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska thousands of years before?

6) Because Leif sounds exactly like leaf. The maple leaf grows on the maple tree. Maple trees produce maple syrup. Everybody loves maple syrup.

7) Proper branding is a must for all discoverers.

8) Erikkson is variant of Erickson. Erickson is the name of my Swedish born grandparents who settled in America about 100 years ago.

9) I don’t believe the Erikksons and Ericksons ever relinquished their claim of discovery.

10) So North America quite possibly belongs to me.

11) As long as North Americans love maple syrup.

– 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.

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Cuban Stuffed Peppers

Posted on October 5, 2012 by pauldelancey

Cuban Entree

CUBAN STUFFED PEPPERS

INGREDIENTS

4 garlic cloves
1/3 medium onion
1 cup cooked rice
2 cups water

1/2 pound ground beef
1/2 pound ground turkey
2 teaspoons olive oil

1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 7 ounce can diced green chiles
1/4 cup chicken broth
3 tablespoons tomato sauce
2 tablespoons oregano
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1/2 teaspoon pepper

2 green bell peppers (3 total green peppers, 2 here and 1 below)
2 yellow bell pepper
2 red bell pepper (3 total green peppers, 1 here and 2 above)

1 green bell pepper

GUEST APPLIANCE APPEARANCES

microwave
microwavable dishes
sonic obliterator

PREPARATION

Mince onion and garlic cloves. Cook rice according to instructions on package.

Combine garlic, onion, cooked rice, beef, turkey, and oil in frying pan. Cook on medium-high heat until beef is no longer pink. Stir occasionally. Add in diced tomatoes, green chiles, chicken broth, tomato sauce, oregano, salt, coriander, and pepper. Bring to boil while stirring frequently. Reduce heat to low and cook uncovered for 15 to 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Meanwhile back at chopping board, cut the tops off 2 green peppers, 2 yellow bell peppers, and 2 red bell peppers. Scoop out seeds and white soft part of peppers. (Get rid of these seeds and all with your sonic obliterator.) Put as many bell-pepper halves in a microwave-safe baking dish. (You might need more than one such dish.) Add water to baking dish until water is level with tops of bell peppers. Fill the insides of the bell-pepper halves with water as well. Microwave for about 8 minutes or until bell-peppers are crisp-tender.

Remove peppers from baking dish and drain the water from them. Put equal amounts of meat mixture into and on top of each pepper half.

If desired, chop remaining green bell pepper into small strips for garnishing the filled bell peppers.

TIDBITS

1) Christopher Columbus brought cattle with him on his epic voyage of discovery in 1492. Cuba probably had cattle by 1493.

2) However, Hernando Cortez was the first to bring cattle to North America in 1519.

3) So, Cuba had a twenty-six year head start over North America in the race to develop the first hamburger.

4) The hamburger patty was developed in the German town of Hamburg in the early 1800s. The culinary world was indeed standing on a mountain gazing into the promised land of the hamburger.

5) German immigrants brought the hamburger patty to America. American can-do spirit applied itself and the first complete was first served at Delmonico’s in New York in 1826 or 1834 or perhaps even 1871 in San Francisco, depending on which historical research you trust. Culinary greatness had been achieved.

6) Oh sure, America has done bad things as well. Slavery, fill-in-the bubble tests, and long lines at the DMV come to mind.

7) Cuba has had its problems as well with slavery and dictatorship and although it didn’t discover the hamburger it can hold its culinary head high with its Cuban sandwich and this recipe’s dish, the Cuban stuffed peppers.

– 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.

Categories: cuisine, history, humor, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Turkey Burgers From Cookbook

Posted on February 22, 2012 by pauldelancey

American Entree

TURKEY BURGERS

INGREDIENTSTurkBur-

1 1/2 pounds of ground turkey meat
1 onion
1/4 green bell peppers
2 green onion stalks
2 tablespoons garlic salt
1/2 tablespoons cumin
8 potato hamburger buns – top and bottom
1/4 head of lettuce, washed
1 cup of grated four-cheese blend
1 ketchup bottle
water
extra virgin olive oil

SPECIALTY UTENSILS
spatula
sonic obliterator
four-slice toaster

TOASTING THE BUNS

You really need a four-slice toaster. You simply cannot feed turkey burgers to a hungry horde of anguine’s with a two-hole toaster. Don’t do four bun halves, two whole buns, and rest on your laurels.

(You say you need more immediate motivation? Pretend the members of your brood have become ravenous cannibals ready to sink their razor-sharp canines into your haunches unless they get their turkey burgers.) Keep on toasting.

(And DON’T, DON’T, microwave anything while toasting. You’ll trip your circuit breaker and you’ll have to dash outside and flip the circuits. This is one reason against cooking in the nude. The other being that grease splatters.)

PREPARING THE ONION

Remove the skin. It adds nothing to the taste, is papery, and gets stuck between your teeth. How can you concentrate on your boss’s story about mango harvesting in Tahiti when you have onion skin between your first and second molars annoying the heck out of you? Remove the skin, now.

Also cut off the root part at the bottom. It’s edible ,I suppose, but hardly tasty. If the onion has a big, green sprout in the middle, it’s because you bought it when Nixon was in office and is no longer edible.

PREPARING THE GREEN BELL PEPPERS

It really helps if you have a prepared green bell pepper left over from last night’s culinary extravaganza, made from the chapter on stuffed green peppers, for example. If not, cut the top off the green bell pepper and discard, or at least discard the stem. Scoop out the innards of the pepper seeds and those four vertical, soft whitish columns and throw them away. Chop up the pepper and put it in a pan. Coat the pieces with olive oil. Use extra-virgin olive oil. (That’s the most virgin you can get, unless you went through school studying economics.)

Cook the green bell pepper. This process is called sauteeing. (See, you’re picking up the vocabulary. Mais oui. C’est magnifique, n’est ce pas? Ho, ho, ho.)

CHOPPING UP THE VEGGIES

You really must get yourself a food processor, big or small, one with two little whirling blades. This little gizmo will make chopping up or mincing the veggies so much faster than cutting them up with a knife. If your knife is blunt, this task takes forever. And a sharp knife is just too tempting for a spouse sulking over your latest big purchase.

Get a food processor. Mince the green onions. Mince the onions. Onions are big. Be sure to cut it up into at least four sections before putting it into the processor. Chop up the bell peppers.

SPICING

The above list of spices assumes you like the same amount of spices as I do. So experiment. Once you become adept at cooking, you’ll be able to smell the correct amount of spice to add as you mix.

PREPARING THE BURGER

Get a big bowl. Put the ingredients except the bun and water into it. Mix. Mix with your hands until everything is thoroughly mixed. Your hands will get extremely messy.

(Midway through the mixing is, of course, the time someone will knock on your front door to ask you if you want your trees trimmed, even if you don’t have any. In the meantime you have dropped turkey meat all over that hard-to-justify-buying Persian carpet and of course, on the front doorknob.

This is the time to say, “Excuse me, I’ll just be a moment.” Go back to the kitchen table, pick up the sonic obliterator, and annihilate the would-be tree trimmer. Wipe up and pick up all bits of turkey meat on the way back to the kitchen.)

THE TURKEY-BURGER PATTIES

Make four patties and put them in your pan. The patties should not be much bigger than your spatula or they might fall apart when turned over.

Turn the heat to high to get things going and gradually turn it down to medium or medium high. The higher you set the temperature, the more closely you’ll need to watch the patties and turn them over.

Turkey meat turns white when cooked. The outside turns white before the inside does. So how do you know when it’s done? It’s perfectly acceptable for a chef, particularly one that’s starting out, to cut a small piece near the edge and look at it and taste it. If the inside of the piece is white, then it is done. Remember, if no one saw you taste the burger, then it didn’t happen.

(By the way, it is a matter between you and your God about what to do if you should drop an entire patty on the floor. Consider the cleanliness of your floor and the likeability of your guests in making your decision.)

You must flip the burgers repeatedly with your spatula. If you do not do so, the water will rise to the top of the burger and evaporate, making the burger too dry to eat. Flipping puts the water that has almost escaped on the bottom of the burger again.

Consider occasionally sprinkling water on top of the patty and pouring a thin layer of water into the pan. This adds moisture to the burger and a moist burger is a yummy burger.

ASSEMBLING THE TURKEY BURGER

Put the bottom bun–it’s flat–on the plate. Put the cooked patty on the bun and the lettuce atop the patty. (There are some heretics who put the lettuce on first, but they are being hunted down without mercy.) Sprinkle the cheese on next. If you are adventurous, pour on some ketchup. Place the top bun–-it’s dome- shaped–-on next.

You are now a culinary hero to your guests.

TIDBITS

1)A Hamburger is someone from Hamburg, Germany. The term “hamburger” derives from this city. A Berliner is someone from Berlin. Berliner is also the name of a jelly doughnut. Some people think when President Kennedy said in that famous Cold War speech, “Ich bin ein Berliner,” he was actually saying, “I am a jelly doughnut.”

2) The first official listing of a hamburger on a menu occurred at Delmonico’s in New York in 1826.

3) Cheeseburger In Paradise is a great song.

4) “A turkey” is not someone from Turkey. It is a bowling term.

4) The turkey was one of the first animals in North America to be domesticated.

5) Turkeys were called turkeys in the 1500s by English merchants because they thought turkeys came from India and that Turkey owned India. Bozos.

– 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.

Categories: cuisine, food, humor, international, recipes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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