You’d be surprised how useful the following checklist can be. Carry multiple copies to hand out to those who would come between you and your one true love.
– 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.
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.
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
2½ pounds lamb, beef, or goat
2 cups water.
¾ red onion (¼ red onion more later)
2 stalks celery
4 garlic cloves
1 jalapeno pepper or red chile pepper
1 bay leaf
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ tablespoon coriander
½ tablespoon cumin
1 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
¼ red onion
1 tablespoon lime juice
¼ cup arugula (aka rocket leaves)
SPECIAL UTENSIL
mandoline (optional)
Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 15 minutes.
PREPARATION
Cut meat into 1″ cubes. Add to large pot, enough water to cover meat with 1″ to spare. Bring water to boil at high heat. While water comes to boil, cut ¾ red onion into ¼”-thick slices. (A mandoline helps.) Cut each celery into 4 pieces along its length. Dice garlic cloves. Dice jalapeno pepper. (Seed it first, if you want this dish to be milder.)
Add all but the last 4 ingredients to pot. Cover and cook at medium-high heat for 35 minutes or until water has evaporated, but meat is not yet falling apart. (Stir enough to prevent burning.) Remove bay leaf.
Add oil and ingredients from pot to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 15 minutes or until meat browns all over and becomes crispy. Stir frequently enough to prevent meat from burning and sticking to pan.
Add meat to serving plate. Cut ¼ red onion into ¼”-thick slices. Drizzle lime juice over meat. Garnish with red-onion slices and arugula.
TIDBITS
1) I suspect that many readers of this recipe buy their lamb, beef, or goat at the supermarket. This meat comes in nice, little plastic wrapped packages.
2) All we have to do to hunt the meat for our Shaiyah is to sally forth in our little FitTM, BMWTM, or F-150, armed only with a credit card or cash.
3) There’s no danger in that at all. Especially we if remain properly vigilant for stupid oafs running red lights at busy intersections.
4) Hunting safaris are one step closer to getting our own food than moving our carts to the butchers or to the frozen meet section at our supermarket.
5) But not by much, is it? Such hunters arm themselves with high-velocity rifles, equipped with telescopic lenses.
6) It would be something if these safaris had our prey armed with heat-seeking missiles that fired at us whenever we came with 100 yards, or even meters, of them.
7) I mean fair is fair. It’d make hunting safaris unambiguously more exciting as well.
8) But as of press time, this adrenaline-pumping idea remains unlikely to be occur anytime soon.
9) So we don’t know what is was like to say, hunt a mastodon for our meal. How did cavemen bring down their meals on feet or hooves? Sad to say, I don’t know if mastodons have toes or hooves. There aren’t any mastodons in my fair city of Poway.
10) Anyway, Ogg, tried to eat a mastodon by the simple expedient of gnawing on its leg. The mastodon took offense at Ogg’s faux pas and removed him from the human gene pool.
11) Ogg Junior, played a lethal game of rock, stick, stomp with his mastodon. He lost as well.
12) Ogg III, his synapses firing, grabbed a mastodon’s tail. He had hoped to hurl the critter at a fatal speed into a rock cliff. Ogg III did not.
13) Ogg IV tried to frighten a mastodon to death by making scary faces. Another frustrating failure.
14) Indeed Ogg IV to Ogg XIII all met their ends from the mastodon’s tremendously sharp and long tusks or from their massive feet.
15) “What if we turned ourselves into massive feet by letting mud dry on ourselves?” asked the nearly clever Ogg XIV. Many agreed with him. And so Ogg XIV to Ogg XIX would have passed into history had history had only existed back then.
16) Finally Ogg XX postulated making spears out of sticks and sharp flints. OMG, the idea worked! We could have any meat we wanted, including lamb, beef, or goat for our Shaiyah. We all owe a debt of thanks to Ogg XX. Well done, sir.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D. (but not with cell phones)
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 not been the best of times lately. I went to the ER because I got blinding pains whenever I moved my head in the slightest. You’d be surprised just how many times the neck absorbs stress from head movement. I got an imjection on muscle relaxers. I also got muscle-relaxer bills and super Ibuprofen. It’s mostly better now as long as I’m careful; such as in remembering to lean forward with my head anytime I accelerate the car. I’ll probably start physical therapy, again, on Thursday. Oh and I have eye therapy every week. I’ll have different tests for other ills next month.
Then I decided maybe two weeks back to change banks. I won’t go into it now, but it has been unceasing nightmare.
I want to run away. Is the Wild West still open?
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D. (but not with cell phones)
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.
My cell phone stinks to high heaven. It is superb at doing random things it wants to do. Doing what I want to do . . .
not so much.
I want a cell phone to do the following:
1) I want it to work all the time.
2) I want it to work all the time.
3) I want it to work all the time.
In particular, I DON”T WANT IT TO DO:
1) Switch to RTT mode when I’m talking. I have never nor will I ever want to text people while I’m talking to them.
2) Switch to random screens when I’m trying to do something else, anything else. This happens all the time.
3) Prevent me from hanging up after a misdial. As of now, the only way to stop this is to hang up and restart.
4) Freeze. This happens all the times. Again, as of now, the only way to stop this is to hang up and restart.
5) Randomly disconnect.
In particular, I WANT IT TO DO:
1) I want it to dial correctly the first time everytime.
2) Make it easier to see if I have voice mail.
3) Make texting easy. Making it easier to type the key I want, not one near it.
4) Make using Google Maps easy.
5) Nothing else. If my cell phone just doesn’t do the five things I want it not to do and only the four things I do want it to do, I shall be ecstatic. I prefer a relatively inexpensive phone, but if the only workable cell phone is one that’s expensive, then please tell that too. My current phone makes me so miserable.
Please help. I’m so miserable. Thank you,
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D. (but not with cell phones)
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 garlic clove
1 medium onion
1¼ pounds pork spare ribs
9 cups water
1 bay leaf
1 large carrot
2 medium potatoes
¾ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
4½ cups sauerkraut
1 tablespoon minced onion
1½ tablespoons vegetable oil
3 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons sour cream
2 tablespoons dill or parsley
Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 45 minutes.
PREPARATION
Mince garlic clove and 1 medium onion. Add pork spare ribs, water, bay leaf, garlic clove, and onion to large pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 50 minutes or until meat can be pulled of the bones with a fork. Stir occasionally. Remove pork ribs.
While pork ribs simmer, peel potatoes and chop them into ½” cubes. Pull pork off ribs with fork. Chop pull pork into ½” cubes. Mince carrot. Add pulled pork, carrot, potato, pepper, and salt to simmering pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Add sauerkraut. Reduce heat to low-medium and simmer for 25 minutes or until potato softens. Stir enough to prevent burning.
While sauerkrautn/pork/potato soup simmers, add vegetable oil and 1 tablespoon minced onion to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add flour. Reduce heat to medium and sauté for 5 minutes or until flour browns. If necessary, add just enough stock from pot to prevent the flour from clumping.
Add minced onion/flour mix from pan to pot. Stir until well blended. Fold in sour cream to soup in pot. Ladle soup into bowls. Garnish with dill or parsley. Goes well with guests who appreciate your culinary exploits.
TIDBITS
1) Kapusniak is served in a bowl.
2) That is on a table.
3) Which is below your head.
4) Because of that you have to bend your head down to see the bowl.
5) You have keep your head down as you guide your spoon to the bowl.
6) Sure, that action is a snap. You probably have been doing successfully for years.
7) But that very act of bending your head forward places a strain on a your neck.
8) And you look down at your food multiple times a day for every day of your life,
9) The stresses on your neck builds up every time you eat like this.
10) Then one day, later on in your life, you wake up with a blinding pain in your neck.
11) You might even have to go to your doctor for a muscle relaxer.
12) How did this pain happen to you? And all of a sudden.
13) It did not happen all of a sudden. You brought this painful event forward every time you ate from bowls and plates that rested on the table.
14) But the bowl doesn’t have to sit on the table.
15) It’s better to have your bowl hover at mouth level.
16) Then you won’t need to bend your noggin down as much.
17) You’ll find yourself getting fewer and fewer neck pains. Less severe too.
18) How do you make your soup bowl hover?
19) Simple, attach an anti-grav device to it. Frustratingly, these gizmos remain hard to find as of press time. CostcoTM doesn’t even carry it, even though people say they have everything.
21) No problem. Buy yourself a drone. Attach a rope holding a cradle to the drone. Place your soup bowl in the cradle and set your drone to hover such that the soup bowl is continually at mouth level, and Bob’s your uncle.
22) Bob really is nice to have gifted your with a soup-carrying drone. Be sure to thank him.
– 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.
Himari, your tour guide
Third Saturday of February – Saidaiji Eyo Naked Man Festival – Men, clad only in loincloths race toward Saldaiji Templein in Okayama to collect lucky sticks. Register in advance with Saldaiji temple and buy a loincloth. Then you run around the temple for two hours and through a fountain of frigid water. This purifies your body and soul. Fully purified, the race becomes competitive. Indeed, the event has become quite a team sport with many teams sponsored by local businesses. The goal is to catch one of two wooden sticks, shingi, thrown into the racers midst by a temple priest. Catching a shingi confers good fortune for a entire year. Spectators vie for 100 lucky items thrown in the crowd. Amazingly enough, there’s a more subdued version of this for the local children. This strengthens the bonds between residents. Tourists can shop at the excitingly named street of Go Fuku Dori.
Late April to May – Steamed Buns on Bamboo – The festival takes place in Hong Kong on or around Buddha’s Birthday. Contestants climb a giant bamboo tower covered in Chinese steamed buns. Buns picked from the top of the bamboo tower or taken on the backs of the contestants to the top are consider luckier than ones at the bottom. Climbers try to grab as many lucky buns as they can in three minutes. Hard to reach buns give extra points. Or you could simply go for the prestigious Full Pockets of Lucky Buns award. This is won by the climber who grabs the most buns in three minutes. There is also a rather exciting team-relay event. The week-long festivities includes incense, prayers for prosperity and health, and offerings to festival’s god, Pak Tai. Wander the grounds and sample the incredible variety of steamed buns. See the festival’s spectacular parade, elaborate lion and unicorndances and marching bands. Witness the martial arts demonstrations. Don’t miss the “Floating Children” parade where children dress as Chinese deities. They sit on stands so high that they appear to be floating.
– 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.
Aamu, your tour guide
Come with me and see the fun festivals of Finland.
June – Mosquito Swatting Championships – The Swedish town of Övertorneå holds its own event when the town was denied permission to use chemicals to kill the little, flying biters. So the good Swedes made a festival about killing the pests. Contestants here get 15 minutes to kill mosquitos. The record for this town is 135. Finland has its own such festival, which is held sometime during the mosquito season.
Mid June – Swamp Soccer World Cup – Love soccer? Lover a shorter game? Love mud? Head on over to Hyrynsalmi, Finland. 200-to-300 teams from all over the world compete. There are five different ways to compete: men’s, women’s, mixed, men’s hobby, and Masters of Swamp. Six players are on each side. Each half lasts for 12 minutes. There are no offside penalties. This is fantastic for all those who never understood the rule in the first place.
Summer – Ant Nest Sitting Festivals – Finland hosts Ant Nest Sitting Competitions. Contestants sit on an ant hill for as long as they can stand the ant bites. This competition is held all over the country during the summer months. It truly helps to have a high threshold for pain or an ass harder than bronze.
Summer – Wife Carrying Championships – It’s in Sonkajaarvi, Finland Sonkajaarvi, Finland Couples race around a track well stocked with obstacles such as logs and a deep pool. At one time, the woman in the event had to be the man’s wife, but neighboring women are allowed. The designated wife must weigh 49 kilograms or 108 pounds. You might think a good wife for this race would be as tiny as possible. But no, the winners earn the wife’s weight in beer.
July – Cattle Calling Championship – Can’t speak Finnish, but still love to make yourself heard? Alapitka, Finland, puts on the renowned Cattle Calling Championship. Techniques of the champions are closely guarded secrets. However, successful participants tend to know the names of the cows. Courtesy while chatting with your cow goes a long way to winning the championship.
August – Finish Sauna World Championship – Held in Heinola, Finland. Simply stay the longest inside Finnish sauna in a temperature of 110 degrees centigrade, 240 degrees Fahrenheit. Maybe you have a competitive nature, while having the inactive disposition of a rock. Then this competition is for you. Compete! Maybe you like the idea of thousands of spectators and TV audiences watching your nearly naked, sweaty body, covered with only a towel. Compete! It’s held in August, when it’s outside anyway.
Mid August – Cell Phone Tossing – Be sure to make your way to Savonlinna, Finland during mid August for its prestigious Cell Phone Throwing Championship. The traditional part has participants throwing the cell phones over their shoulders. The longest toss wins. Cranky folks, such as myself, who have never quite adjusted to the new technology and hurl one phone after another, are usually the tournament favorites. However, in 2012. it was a well-adjusted man named Eric Karjalainon won. He said he prepared for this event mostly by drinking.
Late August – Air Guitar World Final – Air guitar enthusiasts won’t want to miss the Air Guitar season. Prestigious events are held in Germany along with Japan’s own elimination tournament. However, the crème de la crème of air guitardom is the World Final, held in Oulu, Finland. The Final’s aim is to promote world peace. With this in mind, organizers have banned holding a gun while performing your air-guitar number. The winner goes home with the unique Flying Finn guitar, handmade by the great Mr. Matti Nevalainen. Dedicated air-guitar fans really must obtain advanced tickets to the VIP Area. These tickets give you the best views of the stage and a truly tasty buffet well stocked with local delicacies.
Note: festival dates are prone to change. Check before you book. You don’t want to lug your air guitar all the way to Finland only to discover the Air Guitar World Final took place a week ago.
– 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's Blog 