Crave the action, the adrenaline rush of a Die Hard(tm) movie, but with the elegance of live ballet?
Come see Poway Ballet Company’s hard-hitting updates of beloved ballet classics.
Get your tickets now.
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.
Planet: Mercury
Does it have tacos? No.
Does it have life? No.
Weight of two hypothetical tacos: 0.38 pound
Planet: Venus
Does it have tacos? No. Looks like an overcooked egg yolk. That doesn’t count.
Does it have life: No.
Weight of two hypothetical tacos: 0.91 pound
Planet: Earth
Does it have tacos? Yes. Billions and billions
Does it have life? Yes. Billions and billions of people. Lots of other living thingies.
Weight of two tacos: 1.00 pound
Planet: Mars
Do it have tacos? No. It does have Mars Bars(tm), but those are not tacos.
Does it have life? No.
Weight of two hypothetical tacos: 0.38 pound
Planet: Jupiter
Does it have tacos? No.
Does it have life? No.
Weight of two hypothetical tacos: 2.36 pounds (This is gaseous planet. Your tacos would fall all the way to the planet’s center.)
Planet: Saturn
Does it have tacos? No.
Does it have life? No.
Weight of two hypothetical tacos: 1.06 pounds (This is gaseous planet. Your tacos would fall all the way to the planet’s center.)
Planet: Uranus
Does it have tacos? No.
Does it have life?: No.
Was it once named George?: Yes
Weight of two hypothetical tacos: .89 pound (This is gaseous planet. Your tacos would fall all the way to the planet’s center.)
Planet: Neptune
Does it have tacos? No.
Does it have life? No.
Weight of two hypothetical tacos: 1.13 pounds (This is gaseous planet. Your tacos would fall all the way to the planet’s center.)
Planet*: Pluto
Does it have tacos?: No.
Does it have life?: No.
Weight of two hypothetical tacos: 0.08 pound
Did this plucky celestial orbiter have its planetary status callously stripped in 2006 and only given reluctantly given back the wienie status of dwarf planet soon afterward because of widespread outcry?: Yes.
MAJOR CONCLUSIONS
1) Life only exists on planets with tacos.
2) Don’t drop your tacos on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune. They will continue to fall until they reach the planet’s center.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., and astronomer
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
¼ teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
¼ cup vegetable oil
½ cup whole milk yogurt
½ pound Bulgarian white cheese, sirene, or feta
no-stick spray
½ pound phyllo sheets
1 tablespoon butter
SPECIAL UTENSIL
9″-pie pan
Serves 4. Takes 1 hour.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add baking soda, eggs, cup vegetable oil, and yogurt to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Crumble white cheese into bowl. Mix with hands until well blended. Spray pie pan with no-stick spray.
Gently unroll phyllo dough. Drizzle 2 tablespoons yogurt/feta mixture onto phyllo sheet. Gently smooth mixture over entire phyllo sheet. Gently roll up the covered sheet into a log. Repeat for each phyllo sheet.
Place a phyllo log seam-side down along edge of pan. Gently shape phyllo log into a spiral. Place end of next phyllo log at the end of first log. Shape this phyllo log so as to continue to spiral started by the first one. Repeat until pie pan is completely filled with phyllo logs. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until pie turns golden brown.
TIDBITS
1) In 1946, Bulgaria came under the control of the Soviet Union. Culinary historians note that Russia pretended to let Bulgaria rule through a council known as the Karfeni Glavi. This, of course, translates to “Potato Heads.” So, you can see how little the average Bulgarian though of the council. But by the late 1980s the Soviet Union was teetering on collapse. A few Potato Heads, sensing independence, while not yet ready to challenge Russia directly, started abstaining. But not many. Few wanted to stick his neck out. Then in 1989, Potato Head Iliev, noted Bulgaria’s national dish “Banista” was, in English, an anagram for “abstain.” He’d bring banitsa every time he abstained saying, “I’m hungry.” He’d let his fellow Potato Heads in on his secret. Soon, all the Heads were bringing banitsa and abstaining. Russian rule collapsed in the face of such a united opposition. Yay.
Paul De Lancey, 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.
short sleeve weather
The following statements about Poway’s weather are generally true all year and especially so now.
You can forecast the weather simply by looking out the window.
If the sky is clear, it’s already warm outside. It will stay warm all day. Wear a short-sleeve shirt.
If the sky is completely cloudy, it is cool outside. It’ll probably stay cool. Keep warm; wear a long-sleeve shirt. However, just to be safe, check the sky later in the day. If the clouds dissipate or blow away, the temperature will rise. You could change into a short-sleeve shirt. In times of such changes in the weather as these, however, I recommend a thin, long-sleeve shirt. It doesn’t pay to take chances.
Well, that’s you need to know about forecasting the weather in Poway, CA, my fair city.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., and meteorologist
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.
The very latest fashions are in from the center of fashion, Montenegro! Montenegro is hip! Montenegro is now! Montenegro is wow! Montenegro is a small country near Italy and Albania.
Montenegro may be small in size, but it’s huge in the fashion accessory industry. You know the saying, As go Montenegro’s fashions, so go the World’s.
What are the fashion geniuses of Montenegro telling us? Why, accessories, accessories, accessories. And if you’re going out in public, you simply must accessorize with a tote bag and cell phone.
Not just any cell phone and tote bag. No, no, no, no, no. The cell phone simply must come in a blue-and-black protective case if you want to be chic and current. And if you really want to stand apart from the teeming masses of fashionista wannabes, buy yourself a cat tote bag from the House of Kotor. Buy this, buy this, buy this. Take out a second mortgage if need be, but buy a Kotor Cat tote bag.
Buy these fashion musts right now, before fashions change again.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., fashionisto
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 Edam cheese or Gouda
2 eggs
1½ tablespoons milk
⅛ teaspoon salt
⅔ cup flour
1 cup breadcrumbs
4 cups olive or vegetable oil (Enough to cover fried cheeses)
Serves 4. Takes 30 minutes.
SPECIAL UTENSIL
Frying pan large enough to cook four cheese squares. I know a large frying pan is not normally considered a special utensil. But it really helps makes fried cheese look nicer when you can cook them all at once. Bits of breadcrumbs can blacken succeeding batches.
PREPARATION
Cut cheese into 4 slices ½” thick.. Add eggs, milk, and salt to mixing bowl. Beat with whisk or fork until well blended. Add flour to 1st plate. Add breadcrumbs to 2nd plate.
Heat oil using medium heat. Oil is hot enough when a breadcrumb dropped in will start to dance. Dredge cheese slices through flour until completely coated. Dredge cheese slices through eggs until completely coated. Dredges cheese slice through breadcrumbs until completely coated.
Gently place coated cheese slices in oil. (Carefully, the hot oil might splatter.) Fry using medium heat for 2 minutes on each side or until it turns golden brown. Remove immediately and pat dry with paper towels. Goes well with tartar sauce as a dipping sauce or with French fries.
TIDBITS
1) The human race abounds with geniuses. Some of them make medical breakthroughs. Others invent devices that make space exploration and planetary excursions ever easier. Then there are the culinary geniuses that find news foods to deep fry.
2) The following is a partial list of foods deep fried by these visionaries: bacon slathered with mayonnaise, bubble gum, butter, Cadbury Cream Egg(tm), cookie dough, corn on the cob, flowers, gravy, guacamole, jelly beans, Mars(tm) bars, Nutella(tm), salsa, sauerkraut, watermelon, and White Castle(tm) burgers. My pick for the most innovative deep-fried dish is the tarantula. It does exist, really.
Paul De Lancey, 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.
Dora Duckling says, “Hi.” She invites you to go swimming in the pond woth her.
Now, don’t you feel warm and fuzzy?
– 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 give a big salute to all of America’s servicemen and servicewomen who paid the ultimate sacrifice on battlefields and battle seas around the world. May they rest in peace. May we always remember them.
My father fought the evil Nazis in Germany in 1945. After the war ended there, his division, the 86th infantry, was transferred to the Pacific Ocean to fight the Japanese. It is likely he would have been in any invasion of Japan as his division had had amphibious training. He did not die in Germany and he did not die in Japan as the war ended before his division could have been sent into action.
The fact that he came to pick up his life again, to marry, and to have kids, my brother and I, makes me appreciate even more our men and women who never made it home.
I am proud of them.
(The bottom of the picture, I believe, is of his unit conducting invasion exercises.)
Paul De Lancey, proud citizen and 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 give a big salute to all of America’s servicemen and servicewomen who paid the ultimate sacrifice on battlefields and battle seas around the world. May they rest in peace. May we always remember them.
My father fought the evil Nazis in Germany in 1945. After the war ended there, his division, the 86th infantry, was transferred to the Pacific Ocean to fight the Japanese. It is likely he would have been in any invasion of Japan as his division had had amphibious training. He did not die in Germany and he did not die in Japan as the war ended before his division could have been sent into action.
The fact that he came to pick up his life again, to marry, and to have kids, my brother and I, makes me appreciate even more our men and women who never made it home.
I am proud of them.
(The bottom of the picture, I believe, is of his unit conducting invasion exercises.)
Paul De Lancey, proud citizen and 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.
Many, many recipes are for too many people. What do you do in these cases? For example, if your recipe serves four and you’re cooking for two people, you’ll need to cut the amount of each ingredient in half. If the recipes calls for two tomatoes, use just one. But what do you do if the recipe asks for three eggs? Half of 3 eggs is one and a half eggs.
How do you get a half an egg?
It would be nice if your local supermarket sold half eggs. This remains unlikely to happen as these food stores don’t even let you buy purchase individual eggs. Back in my youth, we had a woman who raised her own chickens in her backyard. She would let us buy any number of eggs. Then the town shut her down. However, even she didn’t sell half eggs. Her hens just never produced eggs half the size of normal ones. Whether they were unmotivated, conservative, or just plain unable to lay tiny eggs, we’ll never know.
Perhaps half-sized chickens could produce half-sized eggs.
Perhaps a laser beam followed immediately by a thin blast of air, the temperature of absolute zero, could produce an egg that is not only cut in half but also keeps the yolk and the white inside. Future research is indicated. However, I doubt that this idea, however successfully concluded, would prove commercially viable. I’m guessing that such a half egg would cost a million dollars. Most consumers would balk at such a price.
No, I’m afraid that the making of a half an egg falls squarely on our shoulders. Crack an egg open into a small dish. Scoop out half a yolk the best you can with a spoon. Do the same with the egg white. Now you have your half an egg. You can proceed confidently with the newly reduced recipe. The above photo shows a fried half an egg.
Bon appétit.
Paul De Lancey, 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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