Sometimes our lives get too stressful. Sometimes bad things happen. Sometimes we forget how to jump for joy.
The girls shown below came by to remind us how. “Come join us,” they say. “It’ll be fun.”
Come join us.
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.
Sports have gotten boring. Even football. Sure there are great bursts of excitement. I mean, what can rival a 95-yard pass in getting your heart pumping? But this thrill lasts for a few seconds. Half-minute huddles precede each and every play. Watching paint dry is more exciting. And then there are the team time outs. And then there are theTV timeouts. I tell ya, evenwatching plate tectonics at work provides a stronger adrenaline rush.
At present, there’s only two teams on the field at any one time. What’s up with that? Only one team to root for. Only one time to boo.
What is the solution to this dreary state of affairs?
Simple.
But four teams on the field. As before, Team A wins by outscoring Team B. But now Team C plays against Team D.
Huzzah!
With four teams competing, there’s bound to be a play going in at any one time.
Note that the teams lining up for a play are not obligated in any way to get out of the way of the play in progress. Sure they can, but only if they want to.
This brings up instant strategy considerations. Suppose you’re on defense for Team A. A wide receiver for Team D catches the ball and eludes all of Team C’s defenders. Do you let the wide receiver go by you and score? After all his touchdown won’t affect your game. Suppose your team needs Team D to lose to get into the playoffs. In this case, you tackle the receiver.
Wow! Total excitement! Exclamation points galore! Talk about cardiovasular excercise. Will a defender tackle that player with the ball or won’t he?
The thrills work just as well on offense. You’re a tight end for Team A trying to catch a poorly thrown ball by your quarterback. But wait! C’s QB has thrown a pass that is nearer to you. You catch that one and run all the way to the end zone. Bad for C’s receiver, but maybe he can haul in your QB’s toss. It’s easy to construct a scenario where Team A will find it easier to pass to Team C’s receiver. Or vice versa. If you’re on defense whom do you defend against, Team A or Team C?
I tell ya, it’s like combining the intellectual challenge of chess with the non-stop action of a marathon, while still keeping football’s bone crushing hits of football.
And can you imagine the bee-hive activity on the field when someone fumbles? All four teams will be going for the ball. What if the other two teams are in the middle of a play as well? If this isn’t Excitement City, then nothing is.
We need Football Football. Once watched, you’ll never go back. Join me in making this happen. Then tell me what you like about Football Football.
Below is a picture of a Football Football game. Doesn’t your heart thump a bit faster just looking at it?
Football Football
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 boneless chicken parts or 1⅓ pounds with bone in
3 garlic cloves
1 jalapeno (optional)
1 medium onion
3 tablespoons olive oil or vegetable oil
¾ teaspoon cayenne
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ tablespoon coriander
½ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon paprika
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon turmeric
3 tablespoons tomato paste
5 cups water
¾ pound elbow macaroni or other pasta
1 cup canned and drained garbanzo beans or diced carrots
Serves 6. Takes 45 minutes.
PREPARATION
Cut or divide chicken into 8 pieces. Mince garlic. Seed jalapeno and cut it into long, thin strips. Dice onion. Add oil, garlic, and onion to large pot. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add chicken, cayenne, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, paprika, pepper, salt, and turmeric. Sauté at medium-high heat for 4 minutes or until chicken pieces brown on all sides. Stir frequently.
Reduce heat to medium. Add tomato paste. Cook for 3 minutes. Stir enough to prevent burning. Add water and jalapeno strips.. (The water should completely cover the chicken.) Bring to boil using high heat. Stir enough to prevent burning. Add macaroni and garbanzo beans. Reduce heat to low. Simmer for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.
TIDBITS
1) Many avant-garde diners want to eat their Imbakbaka while using a force field. In this scenario, the chef tosses the contents of the pot into the air. The force field prevents gravity from bringing the food down to the table. The diners simply scoop up the food dangling in the air with their spoons. With no food hitting the table, the need for dishes disappears. Clean up becomes much easier. This advantage is no small thing to busy restaurant owners. However, the energy needed to maintain these force fields for one chef will use up the energy supply of the entire world. Bummer.
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 cassava root (Also known as manioc or yucca)
1 garlic clove
1 green onion
1 small yellow onion
¾ cup coconut milk
⅓ pound ground pork
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
2 banana leaves
SPECIAL UTENSILS
grater
double boiler
toothpicks, if necessary
sonic obliterator
Serves 8. Takes 2 hours 30 minutes.
PREPARATION
Peel and grate cassava root. Dice garlic, green onion, and yellow onion. Add, coconut milk, garlic, green onion, and yellow onion to pan. Cook at medium-high heat for 2 minutes. Stir frequently. Add pork, pepper, and salt. Lower heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes or until milk has been absorbed. Stir enough to prevent burning.
While pork simmers, cut banana leaves into 10″-to-12″ squares. Run hot water over leaf squares. This will make them easier to roll up. Add 2 tablespoons of cassava to center-bottom of banana square. Gently flatten cassava, leaving a depression in middle
Put 2 tablespoons ground pork in cassava depression. Cover pork with an additional 2 tablespoons of cassava. Gently flatten cassava a bit. Fold in edges of leaf square. Slowly but firmly roll up banana square. This will be a tuluk. Repeat until all cassava, pork, or banana squares are used up.
Add water to bottom part of double boiler until it is 1″ from where top part of double boiler will be. Add tuluks, open side down. Use toothpicks if necessary to keep banana coverings in place. Pute tuluks next to each other. Put lid on. Bring water to boil. Reduce to low and steam for 1 hour or until the outer cassava of the tuluk is firm. (Check about 40 minutes into this hours to see the bottom will need more water. If there’s no water left, the tuluks won’t steam as well and you’ll burn your pot.) Serve to appreciative guests. Zap uncouth complainers with sonic obliterator. You don’t need negativity in your kitchen.
TIDBITS
1) Do you hate to go to parties? If forced to go, do you find yourself gravitating to the meatballs, shrimp cocktails, and Tuluks? Do you do this because you don’t know what to say, that the other guests will find you boring?
2) Well be shy now longer. Everybody loves a good joke about the ever so tasty Tuluk. Simply recite Tuluk jokes from this magnificent book. Soon, a crowd of partiers will be hanging on every joke. You will be become wildly popular. And wait there’s more. The opposite sex is drawn like a moth to a flame by Tuluk-joke tellers. Be admired. Be loved. Buy 1001 Sure-Fire Tuluk Party Jokes. You’ll be glad you did.
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’m stopping the spread of colds.
At the start of the Covid pandemic, many of us wore masks. I certainly did. I am getting up there in years and I have a weak immune system. So, I think I would be a goner if I caught Covid. So I wore a mask whenever I went out.
And then something wonderful happened. The mask stopped me from getting colds. With my weak immune system, I had never gone that long without coming down with the flu. I had never even made through a year without getting sick. Sometimes I would get a cold four, or so, times a year. And my colds often last two-to-three weeks.
Recently though, I had to spend time with people who were sick who don’t any precautions whatsover. I came down with a nasty cold. I once spent three hours coughing continuously. Not once every ten minutes, continuously. No, I coughed every five seconds, ten seconds if lucky. I remember thinking is this going to be the Big Cough?
Fortunately, it wasn’t. But now, I am going to wear a mask indoors if someone else is coughing or if I am coughing. No matter what anyone says.
That’s all for now. This blog will go back to food blogs and funny blogs tomorrow.
Thank you for your understanding.
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.
Honestly, it’s almost enough to make one start eating lutefisk.
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
½ tablespoon yeast
½ cup warm water
1¾ cups flour
¼ teaspoon salt (1 teaspoon more later)
1 pound beef chuck, round roast, or rump roast
2 garlic cloves
2 medium onions
9 dates. (If fresh, remove pits)
4 tomatoes
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (2 tablespoons more later)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cup tomato sauce
¼ teaspoon aniseed
1 bay leaf
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1⅔ cups water
Serves 5. Takes 2 hours 20 minutes.
PREPARATION
Add yeast and ½ cup water to small mixing bowl. Mix with fork until yeast dissolves. Let sit for 15 minutes. Add flour and ¼ teaspoon salt to medium mixing bowl. Mix with fork. Make a small depression in the middle of the flour. Pour yeasty water into depression. Knead flour/yeasty water until you get a big, non-sticky dough ball. Cover medium mixing bowl and let dough sit for 1 hour.
While dough sits, cut beef into 1″ cubes. Mince garlic cloves and onions. Dice dates and tomatoes. Add beef and 2 tablespoons oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until beef is completely browned. Stir enough to ensure even browning. Remove beef from heat.
Add 2 tablespoons oil, garlic, and onion to pot. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add tomato paste and return beef. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 2 minutes. Stir frequently. Add tomato sauce, aniseed, bay leaf, cinnamon, cumin, pepper, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1⅔ cups water to pot. Stir. Add diced dates and tomatoes. Cover stew and simmer on low heat for 25 minutes.
While stew simmers, divide the dough into 8 small dough balls. Cover with damp cloth and let sit for 30 minutes. Gently add small dough balls to pot. Simmer at low heat for another 40 minutes. Stir occasionally and gently. Remove bay leaf and serve.
TIDBITS
1) Tukasu is a stew.
2) “Stew” is an anagram for “wets.”
3) It is also as anagram for “west.”
4) Culinary anagramists will note that stew can be rearranged to form the word “stwe.”
5) Stwe is rarely used in normal conversation.
6) Oh my gosh, there’s a bunny outside my office window.
7) Bunny wants me to tell you there’s no such word in the English. Not even in medical terminology. Which is why none of the medical TV shows even say, “stwe.”
8) Bunny also says it not a French word, a Dutch word, nor even one in Latin.
9) Why did Bunny help me with this information? Because I feed him carrots and raisins.
10) My fair city, Poway, is justly proud of its multilingual rabbits.
11) Another arrangement of stwe is “twes.”
12) Twes is the plural form of twe.
13) As in, “Shall I take two twes or just one twe to the party?
14) My word! I forget the anagram “stew.”
15) Every word is its own anagram.
16) Like “onion” is an anagram for “onion.”
17) Oh sure it’s blindingly obvious now, but did you know that before you got to tidbit 16?
18) If you know of any real anagrams for “stwe” existing in other languages, please inform me.
21) And I’ll pass on your discovery to Bunny. Bunnies devote nearly all of theirs life searching for rabbit and watching out for hawks. The only real pleasure rabbits indulge in their rare leisure moments is creating new anagrams or finding out about new ones. Bunny and I thank you in advance for your help and consideration.
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.
Be flexible.
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.
The writer hard at work.
Thinking Up a Plot Twist
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 – DOUGH
2¼ cups flour (3 more tablespoons later)
1 tablespoon olive oil (1 tablespoon and 3 more cups later)
½ cup water
INGREDIENTS – FILLING
1 bunch chard leaves (maybe ¾ pound)
enough water to cover chard leaves
1 small white onion
1 tablespoon olive oil (3 more cups later)
⅔ cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 eggs (1 more egg later)
INGREDIENTS – ASSEMBLY
1 egg
3 tablespoons flour
3 cups olive oil
Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.
PREPARATION – DOUGH
Add 2¼ cups flour to large mixing bowl. Gradually add oil and water. Knead by hand with each addition. Stop adding water when you form a dough ball that isn’t sticky. Put in refrigerator for 30 minutes.
PREPARATION – FILLING
Remove chard leaves from stems. Slice chard leaves into ½” squares. Add enough water to cover chard to large pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Add chard to pot. Blanch chard for 5 minutes. Drain. Mince onion. Add onion and 1 tablespoon olive oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minute or until onion softens. Add chard leaves, onion, Parmesan, and 2 eggs to 2nd large mixing bowl. Mix with fork, or by hand until thoroughly mixed.
PREPARATION – ASSEMBLY
Add 1 egg to cup. Beat egg with whisk. Dust flat surface with 3 tablespoons flour. Roll dough out on flat surface to 0.1″ thickness. Make 3″-wide circles from dough. (A glass cup works well for this.) Add 1 teaspoon filling to the middle of each circle. Fold dough circles in half to make half moons. Brush edges with egg. Press down on edges to seal half moons. Add 3 cups olive oil to deep, large pot. Heat oil using medium-high heat. Oil is hot enough when a bit of dough dances in the oil. Carefully add half moons to pot. Fry half moons until they turn brown and blister. Flip half moons enough to prevent burning. Drain on paper towels.
TIDBITS
1) The little known opera, The Barber Juan, also known as Barbajuan, opened and closed on May 5, 1795,
2) The great opera, The Barber of Seville, by Rossini, premiered in 1815.
3) Europe’s decades long, Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815.
4) Coincidence?
5) Perhaps.
6) Look! Look! Two one-word tidbits in a row.
7) Alas, the single-word tidbit streak was broken by the tidbit immediately above.
8) Let this be a lesson to us all. Think before you type.
9) Think before you drink and drive.
10) If you really must do something after getting pickled to the gills, may I suggest drinking and typing?
11) The great American novelist, Ernest Hemingway was supposed to have said, “Write drunk. Edit Sober.”
12) But, in fact, he never said that. Indeed, he always wrote while he was sober.
13) Why?
14) He probably knew that if he wrote while drunk, the quality of his writing would plummet.
15) How far would his prose fall?
16) Probably to the point where he’d be writing such memorable lines as, “Iggy piggy poo. Q1c3 4fvt, 7jmk, UIo97*.”
17) It is worth nothing that any human could type the bon mots, “Iggy piggy poo, and the illustrious Hemingway certainly thought he could write better than any human.”
18) But even more damning to Hemingway’s literary soul was the undeniable fact that all the words after “Iggy piggy poo” could have been made by one of his cats walking from left to right across his typewriter. And Papa Hemingway was certainly vain enough to want to out write his cats. So, he always wrote sober. Now you know.
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