People cuss so much that we take it for granted. But how did people way back when learn this fine art? Wanda Wunder wonders.
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
3 avocados
1 green chile
2 garlic cloves
⅓ cup fresh cilantro
½ cup fresh parsley
1½ tablespoons lime juice
⅛ teaspoon pepper
¾ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons olive oil
2½ tablespoons white vinegar
SPECIAL UTENSIL
food processor
Serves 8. Takes 15 minutes.
PREPARATION
Peel and seed avocados and green chile. Add all ingredients to food processor. Blend until you get the desired consistency. Store in a Mason jar in the refrigerator.
TIDBITS
1) Guasacaca, wait, wait, wait! How the heck does my spell checker know the word “Guasacaca?”
2) Does everybody in America and the rest of the English speaking world know what guasacaca is? Do people know where to find guasacaca in their supermarket? Or if not, do they ask the employees for help in finding it. Hint: it’s usually in aisle 7A.
3) Oh great, just great I saved this file to look up something. Now that I’ve come back, the spell checker doesn’t recognize the word “guasacaca” anymore. I tell you, there are dark forces lurking in every hidden crevice of our world.
4) Well now, I don’t have much space left to expound on how to find gusacacaca if you don’t feel like making it. Guasacaca resides in vast pools in the Earth’s mantle. It then gradually and gently percolates upward and through Earth’s crust in much the same way coffee percolates.
5) If you’re lucky enough to live above subterranean pools of guasacaca, then all you have to do is go to a guasacaca lake, scoop some up with a bucket, and take it home. However, if you reside above great pools of lava, then you will suffer through endless cycles of volcanoes and lava flows. Choose the location of your home wisely.
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 hot dogs or sausages
1 medium onion
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 tablespoons flour
1¾ cups beef broth
¾ cup cream
3 tablespoons ketchup
½ teaspoon pepper
Serves 4. Takes 30 minutes.
PREPARATION
Cut hot dogs into circles ½” thick. Dice onion. Add onion and vegetable oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently. Add hot-dog circles. Stir until well blended. Sauté for 3 minutes or until hot-dog slices brown.
Lower heat to medium. Add flour. Fry until flour turns browns. Mix until well blended. Add beef broth. Stir with whisk until there are no lumps. Bring to boil using medium-high heat. Stir frequently. Add cream, ketchup, and pepper. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally. Goes well with mashed potatoes.
TIDBITS
1) Culinary historians tell us this Finnish dish actually came from China some thousands of years ago and that it was originally called Yin Yang. Indeed, culinary philosophers maintain that Yin Yang is a Chinese philosophical concept that describes how apparently opposite forces may actually be complementary and interconnected in the culinary world. Later Chinese philosophers extended this concept to the entire natural world. Now everybody, not just chefs, can have big thinks about how things fit together.
2) Just so you know, it’s extremely windy outside my window.
3) For some 217 years, 9 months, and 26 days, Chinese debated on what were the grand universal twin powers from which flowed all opposite and complementary forces. Then Chef Tai Chi Pei piped up, “The twin universal powers are Hot Dog Sauce and Mashed Potatoes.” All the philosophers agreed at once. It’s just one of things that had been hard to see, but became incredibly obvious once presented. This revolutionary idea made its way to Finland via the Silk Road. Inner-truth seeking Finnish chefs gave culinary shape to this philosophy with this dish. Now you know.
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.
You are now at peace with everything.
Carrots are nice to eat, healthy too. Saguaro cacti are nice to look at. But you’ve always truly yearned to see a carrot that looks like a saguaro cactus. There’s been a deep void in your soul because you haven’t. You haven’t noticed your aching emptiness, but that’s just because you never thought of gazing upon a Saguaro cactus. Well, now you can. Look at the picture. Now, you feel at peace with the world. Nothing but blue skies for you from now on.
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.
xxx
INGREDIENTS
1 cup rice
2¼ cups water
3½ cups whole milk
¾ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon allspice
½ teaspoon orange blossom water or vanilla
½ teaspoon rose water, orange blossom water, or vanilla
½ teaspoon cinnamon
Serves 6. Takes 1 hours 45 minutes.
PREPARATION
Add rice and water to pot, Set heat to low-medium and simmer for 12 minutes. Stir frequently to prevent burning. (Always, in this recipe, add water or milk if the liquid in the pot dries up.)
While rice simmers, add milk and sugar to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Add to pot. Simmer at medium heat for 12 minutes or until mixture starts to thicken. Stir constantly. Add allspice, orange blossom water, and rose water. Simmer at medium heat. Stir constantly until mixture has thickened and rices softens and becomes creamy. Gently spoon rice mixture into individual serving bowls. Chill in refrigerator for 1 hour or until pudding sets. Sprinkle cinnamon over each bowl.
TIDBITS
1) Roz Augureau’s sparkling eyes and beautiful face bedazzled men everywhere. So much so that men made rash decisions. In 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm II and President Poincare attended a society ball at the same time as Roz. The German and French leaders both professed undying love for her. Neither ruler would clear the field for the belle Roz. Words were said. Poincare slapped Wilhelm. The Kaiser had the choice of weapons. If only he had picked pistols, instead of millions of soldiers as the duelllng weapons, the world would have been spared the horrors of the First World War.
2) But he didn’t and anyway, hindsight is 20/20. However, the French could forgive Roz Augureau for starting the War to End All Wars. Afier all, “L’amour, toujours l’amour.” They could not ignore, however, her effect on French cuisine. Every time the Belle Roz sashayed by restaurants, the besotted chefs made mistakes. It all came to a head in 1915 when the very sight of Roz so charmed the chef making this very dish, that he unwittingly substituted sardine water for vanilla. This atrocity outraged the French nation. What, if anything, was France fighting for if not for the purity of its cuisine? So, France passed a law banning the belle Roz from walking by any kitchen. In honor of this law, Le Monde called this dish, “Roz Belle La Ban.” Later this became, Roz Bel Laban.
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
1½ pounds ground beef
2 teaspoons seasonings (garlic salt, pepper, etc.)
4 hamburger buns
optional toppings (cheese, lettuce, sliced onions, ketchup, etc.)
SPECIAL UTENSILS
smoker
electric thermometer
wood chips (hickory or mesquite)
Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 20 minutes for rare to 2 hours for well done. This time includes preheating the smoker. Times vary with smokers.
PREPARATION
Preheat smoker to 230 degrees. Add wood chips to smoker. While smoker heats, add ground beef and seasonings to mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended. Form beef into 4 patties. Patties should be about 1″ thick. Make an small indentation in middle of patties. (This helps keep the juices in the patties.)
Place burgers directly on smoker racks. Cook until internal temperature of burgers reaches your desired level of doneness. (Rare = 120 degrees, medium = 140 degrees, well done = 160 degrees.) There is so need to flip patties. Toast buns. Assemble bottom buns, smoked patties, toppings, and top buns.
TIDBITS
1) There are many ways to determine direction. The most obvious one is the compass. It however, don’t work well if you’re near one of the Earth’s magnetic poles. They also become completely useless when you forget to bring one. Then you and your friend, Bart, find yourself completely lost at the northern magnetic pole. Bart finally realizes he had a compass with him all the time. But now his compass doesn’t work because, well you’re at a magnetic pole.
2) Bart pipes up, “Say, moss grows on the north side of trees. That’s how we’ll find our direction.” Not quite, moss mostly grows on the north side. And there are no trees at the North Magnetic Pole. You resolve there and then to never again hike the Everglades with Bart.
3) If only you had had lettuce, onion, tomato, and a smoked hamburger patty. The veggies will always point to the southwest and the patty to the northeast. Now you know.
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.
Everyone knows by now of my daily existential war with my printer. One day it may very well triumph. Police will find my body near my gloating printer.
But not today!
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.
Russia may very well invade Ukraine quite soon. America’s politics remain frightening. Your printer achieved consciousness and took an instant dislike to you.
You need something to soothe your wearied soul. You need to see something that’ll make you smile, something heartwarming.
You need to see chicks cuddling and here they are.
We will make you smile.
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
Spot the Volkswagen Beetle
2 eggs
2 slices sourdough bread
1 avocado
½ tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon fresh, chopped chives
⅛ teaspoon pepper
Serves 2. Takes 20 minutes.
PREPARATION
Add each egg to a ramekin or a cup that is not much larger than the egg. Add enough water to pot to cover egg. Bring water to boil using high heat. Gently slide eggs into boiling water. Poach eggs at high heat for 2 minutes for soft, runny egg yolks and for 5 minutes for eggs with firm yolks.
Remove eggs with slotted spoon and set aside.
Toast sourdough bread to your liking. While bread toasts, peel and remove pit from avocado. Add avocado to mixing bowl. Mash with potato masher or fork until avocado becomes creamy. Add lime juice, chives, and pepper. Mix with fork until well blended.
Top a sourdough slice with ½ of the mashed avocado. Spread avocado across bread. Press down with spoon slightly in the middle of the avocado mash. Place an egg in the depression. Repeat for the other sourdough slice.
TIDBITS
1) Australians love sports. They go crazy over soccer or football as they call it. I even played there in league soccer when I was little. Every year, the town where I lived, Earlwood, shut the town down for the annual soccer parade. I was the proud standard bearer for the Green Grasshopper. *Swells with pride*
2) Aussies also love cricket. I understand a lot of it. However, there are gaps in my knowledge. If these gaps ever come up in conversation, I will nod sagely in agreement. This is a good tactic for all sorts of topics and I’ve used it to good effect.
3) Australians also play a lot of tennis and rugby. Some of them even play baseball and American Rules Football. However, a new sport is taking the splendid country by storm. It’s called Hide the Volkswagentm Beetle. Two teams of four have one hour to hide a Beetle or Bug. Then the teams race to find the other players’ hidden Beetle. The team that wins this part get two points. You also gain a point for having the most creative camouflage. The photo above shows a Beetle hidden in a giant avocado and egg toast.
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 world of commerce becomes ever more cutthroat by the day. The motto of money is “Go Big or Die.” Small businesses simply can’t compete against the resources of mega-corporations. Sometimes small businesses just go bankrupt. Sometimes the big companies merely buy out the smaller ones. Mostly though, companies merge to form one bigger unit. Airlines merge all the time. So do accounting firms. And now, so do scammers.
Face it, the scammers’ audience shrinks every year as more and more people become hip to scams. There’s simply not enough innocent customers out there to justify keeping the same level of scam callers and spammers on the payrolls. So the scammers are merging. Expect to come across the scam shown below very soon.
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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