Do data entry. Do it now.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., motivator
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
8 slices rye, crusty deli bread, or French rolls*
⅓ cup Russian dressing
1½ pounds sliced pastrami**
4 slice Swiss cheese
2 cups coleslaw
SPECIAL UTENSIL***
aluminum foil
* = rye bread is by far the most popular bread for this sandwich. However, I’m listing substitutes as some people can’t abide rye.
** = This is a simple recipe, so the quality of the pastrami is particularly important.
*** = Omit this if you wish to eat a cold sandwich.
Serves 4. Takes 10 minutes if sandwiches are served cold, 30 minutes if the sandwiches are hot.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Wrap bread in aluminum foil. Bake at 300 degrees for 10 minutes. (Skip this step if you’re making cold sandwiches.) Spread Russian dressing over 2 slices. Add pastrami to bottom bread slice. Place 1 slice of Swiss on pastrami. Top with coleslaw. Complete sandwich by adding the top slice of bread.
TIDBITS
1) Look at the sandwich in the above picture. If you were to turn one of the sandwich halves upside down, you would still have a pastrami sandwich half. In fact, if you hadn’t done the flipping yourself upside down, you never would have been able to tell.
2) This very thing happened to the budding artist, Auguste Renoir. In 1859, he labored all summer painting the best pastrami sandwich the art world had seen or even would see. He painted with such style and such élan that the directors of the Escalier Galerie asked to display his masterpiece.
3) But quelles horreurs, the oaf in charge of exhibitions hung Renoir’s brilliant “Le sandwich au pastrami” upside down. None of the visiting art lovers nor any of the heads of France’s Académie Française noticed this mistake. No, not enough to articulate their artistic uneasiness. But mon Dieu, their psyches did. The viewers’ souls recoiled. The masses, without knowing why, turned away from Renoir. The painting elite also shunned the young Auguste. Renoir shook his fists at the heavens. “Bah, never again will I faithfully painting reality. Mais non, I shall quickly paint my impressions of life. Nothing more. He did and to his lasting amazement, he became one of the pillars of the impressionist movement. Now you know.
– 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.
French Dessert
INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoon butter (3 tablespoons more later)
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese (¾ cup more later)
3 tablespoons butter
¼ cup flour
1¼ cups milk
1 cup grated gruyère cheese
¾ cup grated Parmesan cheese
4 egg yolks
¼ teaspoon paprika
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
6 egg whites
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
SPECIAL UTENSILS
4 ramekins or 1 souffle dish
electric beater with whisk attachments, if available
baking sheet
flying monkeys, just in case
Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 15 minutes.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter each ramekin with an equal part of 1 tablespoon butter. Coat each ramekin with an equal part of 1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese. (This is a good time to separate egg yolks and whites if you haven’t already done so.)
Add 3 tablespoons butter to pan. Melt butter using medium heat. Add flour. Stir flour constantly until you get a flour paste. Gradually add milk, stirring constantly with whisk until mixture is smooth. Bring to boil using medium heat. Stir constantly. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 3 minutes or until you get a thick white sauce. Remove from heat.
Add gruyère and Parmesan to pan. Stir until well blended. Add eggs yolks, paprika, pepper, and salt. Stir gently until well blended. Transfer flour/egg/cheese mixture to 1st large mixing bowl and let cool.
Add egg whites and cream or tartar to 2nd large mixing bowl. Beat egg whites with electric beater set on low. Beat until egg whites become foamy and form peaks. Gently fold in ¼ of the egg whites into the flour/egg/mixture. Then gently fold in the remaining egg whites until well blended. Pour this blended souffle equally into the ramekins. Gently smooth souffles with spoon. Place ramekins on baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until souffles puff up and turn golden brown.
Do not open the oven the door while baking the souffles. NO, NOT EVEN ONCE! OPENING THE OVEN DOOR WILL MAKE THE SOUFFLES COLLAPSE. YOU WILL FALL SOBBING TO THE FLOOR. NOT ONLY THAT, YOU WILL RELEASE VICIOUS FLYING MONKEYS ALL OVER THE WORLD.
Serve immediately to adoring guests. If they’re unappreciative or late to table, by all means, release the flying monkeys. Those critters need exercise.
TIDBITS
1) With the proper type of internal combustion engine, cars can run on cheese souffle.
2) This actually happened from 1937 to 1940.
3) For on July 14th, Bastille Day, 1937 a very inebriated Chef Auguste Oeuf accidentally staggered to his Renault, unscrewed its gas cap, staggered back to his restaurant, grabbed a tray of cheese souffles, staggered back to his car, and one by one threw the souffles into his gas tank.
4) What are the odds are doing all those things while drunk? And in that order?
5) Small.
6) Less than half.
7) Any way, Chef Oeuf needed to go to the market and buy some chickens for his plat du jour. He turned the ignition. The engine roared into action. He used the newly untamed fury of his Renault to make to the market in record time.
8) He would make trip after trip for ingredients. His customers loved the unparalleled freshness of his cuisine. Ouef’s restaurant, Le Chaton D’or became the most popular restaurant of all Paris. Other chefs of the city noticed this. They too would get rip-roaring drunk and whip up a batch of cheese souffles for their cars. The culinary reputation of Parisian food reigned supreme.
9) The secret of drunken chefs feeding souffles to their cars soon spread to every corner of France.
10) There was though a distressing period, though. when some chefs didn’t get sufficiently soused. Miles per souffle (MPS) suffered. And in consequence, so did the vital culinary/automotive industry.
11) As a result, an anagramist in French government required all cheese-souffle chefs to enter the Fuels Of Cheese (FOC) association.
12) Mais zut alors, in 1940, the Germans conquered France. The long horrors of the occupation permanently sobered up all the country’s chefs. The dried-up cooks retained no memory of how to make souffle fuel. This is why our cars now run of gas.
– 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.
Are you a restaurant dick? Do you make other diners so miserable that they wish they were at the dentist instead? Take this test and find out.
Do you:
1) Yell at the waitress? (1 point)
2) Have the waiter take your picture, but don’t tip extra? (1 point)
3) Use the restaurant’s free wi-fi long after you’ve finished your meal even though the place is jammed and don’t extra-tip the waitress? (2 points)
4) Sit at a table with a friend for several hours drinking cup after cup of coffee, only to leave a 50 cent tip? (2 points)
5) Not tip the waitperson anything? (2 points)
6) Leave a note explaining you, “I can no longer afford” to leave tips (although you can still eat out) because the state raised taxes to help the poor? (1 point)
7) Do the same as 6) but say, “I don’t tip illegal Muslim immigrants to a Catholic waiter from Arizona? (2 points)
8) Pinch the waitperson’s behind? (2 points)
9) Have the pianist/singer/other musicians perform a special request for you and don’t give them a tip? (2 points)
10) Ask the singer/pianist/other musicians to be quiet so that someone at your table can read a special poem or other piece of sappy literature for the benefit of someone else at your table? (1 point)
11) Talk on your cell phone at your table? (1 point)
12) And so loudly that nearby people’s heads explode? (1 point)
13) And at fancy restaurant where people are trying to celebrate an anniversary? (1 point)
14) Constantly send back food, but never compliment the chef? (1 point)
15) Order for your partner without even consulting? (1 point)
16) Wait in line at McDonald’s for ten minutes and look at the menu above for the first time when you get to the cashier? (1 point)
17) Take two spots when parking your car? (1 point)
18) Bring a screaming child to a fancy restaurant where people are trying to be romantic and propose and other adult things? (1 point)
19) Make no attempt to take your shrieking baby outside or quiet it in anyway? (1 point)
20) Do nothing when your older kids throw tantrums? (1 point)
21) Make no attempt to corral your free-range children? (1 point)
22) Bring all the neighbor’s kids, making prevention of school-recess behavior impossible? (1 point)
23) Man-spread on the waiting seats? (1 point)
24) Loudly blow you nose? (1 point)
25) Pick your nose? (1 point)
26) Clear your throat like you are hacking up a lung? (2 points)
27) Talk loudly about your stomach surgery? (2 points)
28) Brush your hair at the table? (2 points)
29) Wear so much perfume or cologne that it destroys the taste of the food for everyone around? (2 points)
30) Set phone and/or keys on the table, because you’re frickin’ BatmanTM, and Commissioner Gordon needs to know you’re at the ready? (1 point)
31) Insist on dividing the check evenly between everyone at the table, even if there are people who did not expect this and whose meals cost considerably less than the average? (2 points)
32) Show up smelling like an unhygienic Dragon ConTM attendee? (1 point)
33) Talk with food in your mouth and smack, slobber, and slurp? (1 point)
34) Use profanity in conversion? (1 point)
35) Shout your conversation? (1 point)
36) Ask for an unlisted appetizer or entree? (1 point)
37) Order a signature entree, but making so many changes that it’s now an entirely different dish. (no mushrooms, chicken instead of shrimp, hold some of the onions but not all, baked instead of broiled, add blue cheese sprinkles but not too much, “instead of angel hair pasta, can I get that other kind?”) (1 point)
38) After 36) or 37), complain loudly and demand to speak to the owner? (1 point)
39) After 36) or 37), stiff the server? (1 point)
***********************************************************************
What does your total score mean?
0 points: You are in no way a restaurant dick. Congratulations.
1-3 points: It’s still okay for you go into a restaurant unsupervised. See a doctor about your dickish traits while they’re still treatable. You will be seated by the kitchen.
4-6 points: Cause for alarm. You may still enter a restaurant unattended. You will, however, be seated right by the men’s restroom.
7-9 points: You’re awful. You will be given a menu consisting only of kale/beet juice and lutefisk.
10-12 points: Your groin is starting to tingle! You will not be allowed inside any restaurant. The greeter will taze you if you try.
13-15 points: You’re nearly erect! You will have your have your mouth wired shut .
16-18 points: You dick! Stiffed waitresses will circumcise you. They’ll finally get their tip.
21 points and up: You throbbing dick! You will not be allowed inside any restaurant. You will be fitted with an ankle device that will incinerate you if you even try.
– 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.
Citizens of America,
Marco Gutierrez says that if Donald Trump doesn’t win, there will be taco trucks on every corner. Whoa! That’s wonderful. That’s awesome! Tacos are the best food in the world. And we can have them if Trump loses. Whoa. There you have it, America, yet another reason to vote for me, Paul De Lancey, presidential candidate of the Bacon & Chocolate Party. Do you want tacos as close to you as the nearest street corner, whenever you want? Of course, you do.
Show your support for the incredible taco. Show your support for the incredible chefs who, in the hot, cramped quarters of their trucks, turn out one delicious taco after another. This Tuesday, just three days from now, go out and patronize your nearest taco truck. Drive for hours if need be. Surf the internet, talk to stranger after stranger, but find that taco truck. Bring back tacos for neighbors. Do a good deed and buy truck tacos for shut ins. Helping others, isn’t that why were put here on Earth?
So buy those street tacos. And don’t forget to get a picture of you eating that taco in front of that taco truck. So, show your support for tacos. Show your support for taco makers. Make your neighborhood at new Eden by encouraging the mobile taco makers to come to your corner. Oh gosh, I shiver at the prospect.
Remember this Tuesday, this Taco Truck Tuesday. Buy that taco. Get a picture of yourself in front of the truck or least a picture of the truck. Post the photo here. Post it on Facebook. Post it on Twitter #TacoTruckTuesday, and any other social media you can thing of. Do it for yourself. Do it for your neighborhood. Do it for America. Especially on Tuesday, November 8, the Taco Truck Tuesday where you vote.
MAKE AMERICA TACOS
– 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.
Japanese Appetizer
INGREDIENTS
2½ cups vegetable oil (or enough to cover shrimp)
1½ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ cup cornstarch
¼ teaspoon salt
1 egg yolk
1 cup ice-cold water
1 pound shrimp, 21-30 count, peeled, deveined, with tails left on*
* = Don’t worry if you removed the tails. This dish will taste as good. You’ll need forks; it will be hot.
SPECIAL UTENSILS Oops, I removed the tails. I was distracted
deep fryer or electric skillet by earthquakes and T-Rexes.
Bushnell 303 Hand Held Time MachineTM.
Serves 6. Takes 30 minutes.
PREPARATION
Add oil to deep fryer. (Make sure there is enough to cover shrimp.) Preheat oil to 375 degrees. While oil heats, add flour, baking powder, cornstarch, and salt to large mixing bowl. Beat egg yolk in small bowl with whisk. Add beaten egg yolk and ice-cold water to large mixing bowl. Mix with fork until combined mixture turns to batter and is still slightly lumpy. Dredge shrimp though batter until completely coated. Don’t batter shrimp tails.
Add shrimp to deep fryer. Don’t let the shrimp touch each other. Fry shrimp at 375 degrees for 1½-to-2 minutes or until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Repeat for successive batches.
TIDBITS
1) So many recipes tell you to preheat. What if you don’t have time to preheat? What if your sweetie is coming over? What if you see monstrous, rolling earthquakes just outside your window and you had wanted to make something special for him on his birthday, probably the last one by the looks of it? Simply use your Bushnell 303 Hand Held Time MachineTM to travel back in time and preheat your oven. How far back? As far as the Cretaceous Period if you like**.
2) ** = Be sure to look out for carnivorous dinosaurs. Also, hold onto your oven when you time travel. Otherwise, it won’t go with you and you’ll will have risked by eaten by a T-Rex for nothing. And then, won’t you feel foolish? Oh, and your electric bill will be high.
– 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.
– Paul R. De Lancey
Future president of the United States of America.
Check out my latest novel, the hilarious apocalyptic thriller, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms? It’s published by HumorOutcasts and is available in paperback or Kindle on amazon.com.
South African Entree
INGREDIENTS
2 slices bread
⅔ cup milk (½ cup more later)
1 Granny Smith or other sour apple
1 large onion
3 tablespoons butter
2 pounds ground beef
2¼ tablespoons lemon juice
1½ tablespoons curry powder
½ teaspoon pepper
¾ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
¾ teaspoon turmeric
2 cups almonds, quartered or slivered
½ cup raisins
5 bay leaves
1 egg
½ cup milk
SPECIAL UTENSIL
8″ x 8″ casserole dish
Makes 8 plates. Takes 1 hour 20 minutes.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add bread and ½ cup milk to small bowl. Let bread soak. Peel, core, and dice apple. Mince onion. Add butter, onion, and beef to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens and beef browns. (The universe is continually expending, things are getting farther apart from each other, hence the extra two blank lines after this paragraph.)
Add beef, onion, diced apple, soaked bread, lemon juice, curry powder, pepper, salt, turmeric, almonds, and raisins to casserole dish. Evenly insert bay leaves, tips standing up, throughout casserole dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.
Remove casserole dish. Add egg and ½ cup milk to mixing bowl. Beat with whisk. Ladle egg/milk mix over casserole. Bake for another 15 minutes or until golden brown. Bobotie goes well with rice. However, it goes really, really well with chutney. Omit the chutney and you’ll risk a visit from the culinary police.
TIDBITS
1) There are no gourmet restaurants in space. There once was that orbiting fast-food restaurant called The Outer Limits. It relied heavily on drive-through traffic. It failed. You probably never heard of it.
2) New owners reopened the eatery. This time they added space ports, hoping to get dock-in business from space-shuttle pilots and passengers to and from the International Space Station.
3) It failed as well. Indeed, it never opened. Costs did in this project. The parts necessary to building an up-to-date space docks surprised the eager entrepreneurs. And my gosh, the transportation costs for the materials. Out of this world! Who knew that NASA charged so much to blast off with even the most modest kitchen appliances?
4) Oh, and here is a tip for would be extraterrestrial restarauteurs. When hiring a private company to carry your culinary supplies to your orbiting eatery, don’t hire the shuttle on a mileage basis. The cost will eat you alive. Overtime wages for the shuttle operator are pretty horrific as well.
5) Anyway, there’s a hamburger joint, up there that is fully equipped and ready for business. Make an offer to the bank holding the mortgage. you’ll find it quite easy to work with.
6) I fear I’ve dwelt too long on the costs of operating an off-Earth restaurant.. There are benefits as well. You really don’t need a refrigerator. Simply place your meat, ice cream, etc. outside. The food won’t go bad; the temperature is nearly absolute zero out there. Your restaurant being the only thing of any size in the neighborhood will generate enough gravitational field to carry the food all with it.
7) I do recommend putting all your food in a giant mesh. Picture this. You’re trying to bring inside a rack of ribs. Instead of hooking the ribs you poke them away. The ribs fall out of orbit and hurtle to Earth. Except the ribs don’t make it to Earth. They crash into a satellite on the way down.
8) Only it’s not just any satellite. It’s the one people use to transmit photos of babies, kittens, and puppies to each other. Deprived of their cute pictures, billions of distraught people get into their cars to get the one thing that can ease their pain, a really good burger. And if billions of people turn on their cars at once, the resulting exhaust will cover the world asphyxiating everyone.
9) Social media companies have a reserve satellite permanently on call on a launching pad for this very occasion. They can get a new satellite functioning in space in fifteen minutes.
10) People will probably realize this. Enough of them to avoid suffocating the world. Probably, but do you want to take that chance? So for the future of all of us, please place your out-of-shuttle food in a secure mesh net. Thank you.
11) In the meantime, those wishing to enjoy a fine meal far from the madding crowd, might want to consider heading north, way north. The culinary scene in Svalbard, Norway is vibrant despite being in the land of four-month-long nights and having only 2,642 people. Indeed, the town of Longyearbyen has thirteen fine restaurants. According to TripAdvisorTM, the highest rated restaurant is Huset. It’s also the northernmost gourmet restaurant.
– 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.
How often has this happened to you?
You: Gah! I wish we had enough money to buy yogurt-covered pretzels.
Spouse: We can’t. You have a lousy job.
You: I wish I could find a better one.
Me: Well now you can. With Republican candidates dropping by the wayside, and the Democratic rivals in a fight to the end, the time has come for the Bacon & Chocolate Party to sweep to victory. With his imminent landslide election I, President Paul De Lancey, am going to need lots of help running the government. It’s a big thing. Heck, I hope I don’t get lost in the White House. Hee! Hee!
Anyway, dozens of federal agencies and departments are going to need new secretaries to lead them. Why not claim your spot? The pay is good. You won’t have to do much. Simply promote bacon and chocolate and save our bees. And take naps. Where else can you get paid for taking naps? C’mon, what are you waiting for? Be the first on your block to head a federal department. And don’t forget, we have plum ambassadorships around the world. Simply respond, “I want to head this department and give your name.” You’ll be glad you did.
Note: The following positions are taken.
President: Paul R. De Lancey
Vice President: Candace C. Bowen
Speaker of the House: John Rucker
Agriculture: Launa McNeilly
Avoiding Labor: Stephen Parrish
Crisper: Michelle Hickman
Education: Jan Buckner
Event Organizer: Christine Olewiler
Extraterrestrial Welcoming Committee: Denise Hemphill
Food and Drug: Lee Diogeneia
Health Human Services And Cooking: Shauna Roberts
Interior: Kathi Gorecki Voskuil
State: Mark Kennet
Secret Service: Mike Allsopp
Treasury: Betty Ponterio
Tsar of Holidays: Kathleen Smiley
Ambassadorships:
Cuba: Daphne Anne Humphrey
Fiji: Amy Buckheister Gettinger
Luxembourg: Donna Cavanagh
Switzerland: Elizabeth Dickinson
– Paul R. De Lancey
Future president of the United States of America.
– 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.
Candidate De Lancey
I’m tired of relentless attacks on the candidates. In the spirit of reconciliation and togetherness, here are positive things to be said about all the candidates.
Clinton: My father’s first name was Clinton.
Sanders: I love how Sanders made fried chicken popular and available across the nation:
Cruz: Nice, short, easy to spell last name. Cruz was a scrappy infielder for the Toronto Blue Jays.
Trump: I played some bridge in grad school. Trump cards are good in bridge.
O’Malley: Last name is similar to malted. I love malteds.
Rubio: Love his national chain of restaurants.
Carson: Just said no to arson, a crime by the way, by adding “C” for chocolate in front of arson. Everybody loves chocolate.
Fiorina: A great name for a nutritious breakfast cereal.
Jindal: That game with those wooden stick towers, has given millions of hours of fun to Americans. Jindal! Jindal! Jindal!
Christie: Last name is close enough to Krispies to associate him favorably with Rice Krispy squares.
Huckabee: The name ends with bee. Without bees polinating plants and flowers our entire food chain would disappear.
Kasich: He’s from Ohio. Without Ohio, there would be a dangerous void between Indiana and Pennsylvania. Would you like to fall all the way to the Earth’s molten nickel core? Not I!
Paul: Rand Paul’s last name is my first name. We have to stick together.
Santorum: The Inner Sanctum was a really cool radio show some years back.
De Lancey: Of the Bacon & Chocolate Party: What a sweetheart!
– 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.
Paul De Lancey's Blog 