Posts Tagged With: recipes

Why Editors Are Important – #1, Trump Awards . . .

Whoa, I wouldn’t expect to get much production out of a company that has been given $1.3. Suppose the CEO gets a coffee from the company cafeteria for $1.25. Subtract that from the award of $1.30 and you get a nickel. The company’s research and development department would burn through five cents in particularly no time at all. And then the project would necessarily shut down for lack of funds.

I know, I know, if you read further, the article does say $1.3 B, which makes the shock value of getting nothing in return somewhat greater that it would be for $1.30. Still, that’s what the headline said and it made me 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.

 

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You Need to See a Smiling Quokka

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quincy Quokka says, “Hi.”

Now, don’t you feel better.

 

– 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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Syrian Meatloaf

Syrian Entree

SYRIAN MEATLOAF
(lahme bil sanieh)

INGREDIENTS

1 tablespoon butter, softened
1 large onion
2 pounds ground beef
1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper or black pepper
2½ teaspoons pomegranate syrup*
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 Roma tomatoes

* = Found in Middle Easter or World supermarkets

SPECIAL UTENSILS

8″ casserole dish
mandoline (optional)

Serves 4. Takes 50 minutes

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat casserole dish with butter. Dice onion. Add beef, onion, Aleppo pepper, pomegranate syrup, and salt to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended. Add beef/onion mix from bowl to casserole dish. Smooth surface with spatula. Gently poke about 30 shallow holes in meat. Drizzle vegetable oil over meat. (The shallow holes you made let the oil get into meat.) Slice tomatoes ¼” thick with mandoline or knife. Arrange tomato slices over meat. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.

TIDBITS

1) 1,000,000 B.C. – 1519: Nothing happens in history on in cooking.
1519 – Conquistador Cortez brings tomatoes back to Spain. People don’t eat the pretty plants.
1595 – Europeans note that tomatoes are part of the poisonous nightshade family. The French also believe that tomatoes, pommes d’amour, have aphrodisiacal properties. Tomatoes still aren’t eaten.
1872: Tomatoes first appear in an ingredient in a American recipe for tomato chowder.
1870s: The modern American meatloaf appears on the scene.
1894: Joseph Campbell cans condensed tomato soup. This proves wildly successful.
1929-1939: The Great American Depression forces starving family to extend precious protein to great lengths. Making meatloaf ensures that everyone gets some beef. All Americans eat meatloaf.
1949: LegoTM starts producing Legos. Legos look like squares with four raised dots.
1962: Syria gains its independence. Syria starts making meatloaf. Its meatloaf squares have four raised tomatoes slices. Was this meatloaf inspired by Legos? I like to think so.

 

– 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.

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Common Sense Solutions To Ending Crime

Crime is bad. Let’s get rid of it. Is our present system of incarceration working? No. Who was responsible for this?  Who will fix it? I will. How? I’m glad you asked. Here is my thirteen-step program.

1) Convicted criminals will never get bacon or chocolate.  Our current system allows prisoners to enjoy socialized bacon and chocolate.  That’s no deterrence at all. Geez!

2) Criminals will eat lutefisk at every meal. For beverages, they will have a choice of lutefisk tea and castor oil

3) Convicted criminals will download software for all the law-abiding citizens in their community. They will work with customer service until the myriad of issues are resolved.

4) Convicted criminals will be forced to shop WalMart(tm) on holiday weekends. Municipal, county, state, and federal governments will save billions and billions of dollars on prison construction costs, prison maintenance, and prison staff.

5) Criminals who leave WalMart will be sent to maximum-security cells for life. It bears repeating, these ne’er do wells will still be without chocolate and bacon for life . They will still do software downloads for life.

6) These ne’er do wells will also be forced, in their short free periods, to read and re-read James Joyce’s Ulysses until their minds explode trying to understand it. Moreover we will, if allowed, by human rights organizations, serve lutefisk everyday to our hardened criminals.

7) The prison TV will only show ESPN’s Canadian Curling Highlights.

8) Jailers will give the inmates paper cuts every day.

9) You will be put in Facebook(tm) jail whenever you use the word “the.”

10) These baddies will eat all those Christmas fruitcakes that people insist on giving, but nobody wants.

11) Convicts will seed and dice the hottest of hot chile peppers then immediately rub their foreheads. (Don’t try this at home.)

12) Prisoners must keep places in line for the elderly at the DMV. Twice a week too.

13) Criminals will be forced to listen to every high-school and college commencent speech within a 50-mile radius of their prison. This includes all speeches by students, faculty, and guest speakers. Yes, this is a severe punishment, but we must have a credible, strong deterrent against crime.

No person alive would even contemplate committing any crime when faced with the above thirteen consequences. Crime would disappear from our great country within the year. Money spent on law enforcement could be used to balance budget and distribute free bacon and chocolate to all Americans.

Now behave, don’t make me come back there.

 

– 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.

 

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Omani Chips Sandwich

Emirati Entree

OMAN CHIPS SANDWICH

INGREDIENTS

4 teaspoons cream cheese
1 sub roll, hot dog bun, or flat bread*
1 tablespoon chili sauce.
1 package Oman potato chips**
1 scrambled egg (optional)
1 cooked hot dog (optional)

* = The authentic roll is the samoon , while the flatbread used in the Emirates is the paratha. Paratha can be ordered online. Samoon is powerful to find.

** = Please, please try to get Oman chips. They are available online. If the fates are against you and you cannot score these chips, take a deep breath and buy chili flavored chips.

Serves 1. Takes 5 minutes.

PREPARATION

Spread cream cheese over both roll halves. Sprinkle chili sauce over cream cheese. Sprinkle potato chips on bottom bun. Scrambled egg or hot dog may be placed on chile sauce. Put top roll half on chips. Press down on top just enough to crush potato chips.

The order of ingredients when flatbread is used is the same. Simply roll up the flatbread.

TIDBITS

1) Sometimes, the checker at the supermarket will ask, “Did you find everything you needed?”

2) I have learned to just say yes. These stores will never have Omani chips. No, not ever. Nor even paratha flatbread, Appenzeller cheese, Harzer cheese, fresh banana leaves*, marshmallow fluff**, yak butter, and pumpkin-seed flour.

3) * = Fresh banana leaves are often readily available at your local botanical garden. However, the staff of these places look askance at banana-leaf theft. It’s a trait acquired from working there.

4) ** = Marshmallow fluff while easy to find in some parts of America, it’s powerful hard to get out West.. If you live near San Diego, you’ll have to move.

5) And then there’s that authentic herb I wanted that can only be found in remote parts of northeast China and only in season. So, it’s best to reply yes to the checkers and try ordering online. That or go to jail, move, or wander aimlessly the Chinese wastelands.

– 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.

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The Return of the Bad Advice Column

 

Dear Readers,

I feel a slight disruption in the force as if millions of people are crying out for bad advice. Why do we feel this need? Because we don’t follow good advice. We are contrary. We has filled this void of bad advice? No one, not for years. Your cries have called me back from retirement. I shall help you. I shall once more dispense bad advice. Oh, it will be stupendously bad, but your needs will be fulfilled. You will once again be happy. And what is wrong with that?

All you, dear reader, need to do is the comment on this blog with your questions. I shall reply with bad advice in the next column, probably once a month.

Or post your question on my Facebook(tm) page
Paul De Lancey

Your questions, please!

**********************************************
Gentle Reader,

below is the last Bad Advice Column. Enjoy.

**********************************************

TLR asks: Should I put a nasty note on this truck?

Dear TLR: No, as tempting as that might be, you can’t out puswad a puswad. Unless, of course, you have access to a particle accelerator. First, rent a large tow truck. Put the puswad’s truck on the tow truck. You might need to buy and speed read, The Complete Freaking Moron’s Guide to Operating a Tow Truck. You should also buy, The Complete Freaking Moron’s Guide to Speed Reading. Okay, the offending truck is ready to be towed.

Drive your tow truck to a site with a large particle accelerator. Ask to be let in. Note: your chances of success go up if you say please and thank you. If they say no, you can probably bash down the gate with your heavy tow truck. One inside, get the mean person’s truck into the particle accelerator. You will have to work quickly if you bashed down the gate. Press the button marked, “Accelerate,” and whoosh, the meanie’s truck will soon reach a velocity close to the speed of light. Any collision between the truck and particle accelerator’s walls will disintegrate the truck. Sweep up the atomized bits of truck–cleanliness is always in style–and go back to the parking lot. Place the back of atomized truck pits where the truck originally took up four spots. Add a sign that reads, “Next time it will be you that gets atomized if you park like a jerk.” Now that will get the jerk’s attention.

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KD asks: Will it ever be acceptable to openly roll one’s eyes when one sees someone do something ridiculous like hold up entering the bus to finish a text? O_O

Dear KD: Oh yes, it already is. However, just rolling your eyes is no longer enough. The texting doofus needs to be taught a lesson. Simply throw a loosely wrapped package of lutefisk, five pounds should be heavy enough, at the texter. The force and stench of the hurled lutefisk will knock him backwards and onto the sidewalk. He’ll a nasty bump on his head that he’ll never forget. Don’t worry about the people on the bus. They’ll be happy that the bus will no longer be delayed. They’ll also never have to smell that lutefisk again. It’s a win-win outcome for everyone.

************************

CA asks: What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Dear CA: The metal thingy hanging from the metal of a giant six-foot high church bell is called a clapper. This is your clue. Simply climb up the side of a church–the Spanish missions in California are good places to try–and get inside. You’ll need to wear clothes that match the color of the church’s walls or you’ll be spotted and stopped. Once inside the bell, smash your hand into the side of the bell. The sound you’ll hear before becoming permanently deaf will be the sound of one hand clapping.

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CC asks: What’s a good date plan for a couple that have been married for over 30 years?

Dear CC: After 30 years, you’ve probably done every possible type of date there is. Except, sky diving over an active volcano. Hire a pilot to fly you over the center of the lava spurting volcano. You might have to ask around a lot before you find one willing to do this. Be persistent.

Simply strap on your parachutes and jump out the plane. Be sure to wait for the pilot’s signal. Safety, as always, is important. When the time is right, pull the cord and your parachute will deploy. Did you take parachuting lessons? I hope so. Twist so that at the last moment you will veer away from the death-vomiting volcano.

Is this dangerous? Yes, it is. But if all goes well, you and your sweetheart will have drawn closer together, your love forged even stronger by fire. And sitting close to each other on a couch looking longingly into each other’s eye will be just what you’ll want to do for the rest of your lives.

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MA asks: If you write a book about failure and it doesn’t sell, would it be a success?

Dear MA: I’m not equipped to answer such a deep philosophical question. But the Tibetan monks would be. Now, the Chinese government is really a super huge dictatorship. Millions of members are in the ruling Communist party. I wouldn’t be surprised at all, really, if Guinness Book of Records(tm) lists the Chinese government as the biggest dictatorship ever.

Anyway, being a dictatorship and all, the Chinese government tries real hard to suppress all discontent against them. They are indeed very thorough about this. And it’s an atheistic ruling body as well. So, it’s real hard to believe they’d let you see a monk. So you’ll have sneak your way to one.

Two possibilities exist. First, fly to Shanghai. Slip by customs without being noticed. May I suggest pointing at the sky and yelling, “Look, Halley’s comet!” Continue to be invisible as you ride trains and busses to a monastery. Ask a monk. Get an answer. Revel in the enlightenment before sneaking your way back home. Second. fly to Bombay, now Mumbai. Take the train to the Tibetan border. Hire a Sherpa guide. Bring oxygen canisters to help you breathe as you cross the Himalayas. Oh and a warm fur parka will help you with the intense cold. Don’t forget to watch for bullets. The Chinese and Indian armies are currently skirmishing with each other. As above, get your answer and come back home.

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– 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.

Categories: bad advice, humor | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Matthew’s Pastrami Sandwich

American Entree

MATTHEW’S PASTRAMI SANDWICH

INGREDIENTS

8 slices rye, crusty deli bread, or French rolls*
⅓ cup Russian dressing
1½ pounds sliced pastrami**
4 slices 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 paint 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.

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How To Use #5, Clothes Washer, The Second Steps

Dear readers,

Congratulations for getting this far! You’ve the mastered the art of moving your clothes from the closet floor to the clothes basket. Pace yourself. Take a deep breath. Visualize your self doing heroic deeds. Ok, let’s go.

1) Open the door to the laundry room. You’ll be amazed by the number of people who forget this humble but necessary step. Take it from me, you simply cannot get yourself and your filled laundry through a closed door. As of press time, the molecules of your clothes, even when not in a basket, cannot pass through the door. Nor yours for that matter.

2) Walk through the open door, like a boss, holding your basket.

3) Put basket down on dryer. You can’t put the clothes into the washer if you put it down on top of its lid.

4) Open container of laundry detergent. Fill little plastic cup that comes with container with laundry detergent.

5) Pour detergent into washing machine.

6) Wipe detergent off closed washing-machine lid. Resolve to see this through. Excelsior!

7) Open washing machine.

8) Repeat steps 4) and 5).

9) Pause and reflect.

10) Load clothes into washer. DO NOT WASH WOOLEN CLOTHES. This is an advanced step. (See step 17 below.)

11) Close lid to washer.

12) Look at the control dials on the washing machine. OMG, OMG, it’s like a NASA space shuttle. Hyperventilate.

13) Breathe into a paper page. Think soothing thoughts, like monarch butterflies flitting over a field of yellow marigolds.

14) Look at the dials again, this time calmly.

15) Realize that the last person who set the dials probably knew what she or he was doing.

16) Leave dials alone.

17) Relax, you’ll be perfectly fine unless you’re washing wool sweaters and the last person to wash clothes set wash temperature to hot. If so, you will shrink your sweaters down to gerbil size. Do you know any gerbils that need woolen sweaters? I didn’t think so.

18) Press start button. Well done, you!

And as always, cleanliness is next to godliness.

– 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.

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How to Commit a Yummy Murder

If you’re thinking of committing murder, why not use Twizzlers(tm)? They’re yummy and fatal if used correctly as shown below.

1) Buy  several bags. Don’t worry about this, there is no waiting period for buying Twizzlers as can happen for guns.

2) Interweave the short, weak Twizzler pieces into a massive, sturdy candy rope. E Pluribus Unum. “Out of many, one.” This used to be the motto of our great country. By constructing a Twizzler rope you are paying homage to our nation’s founding fathers.

3) Choke your victim with the Twizzler rope. Did your murder make society better off? Did your victim annoy the heck out of everyone he met? If so, give yourself a pat on the back.

4)  Eat the Twizzler rope. This act neatly disposes of the murder weapon and honestly, can you really stop yourself from eating all that yummy candy?

5) Call the police and say you found the victim dead and you just don’t know what happened. They might not believe you but without a murder weapon what can they do?

I hope you’ll find this little household tip useful.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

P.S. Murder is actually wrong. Just say no.

P.P.S. Even though murdering spouses eliminates the need for going through nasty, prolonged divorce proceedings, it is still wrong. Just say no to murder. Don’t make me come back there.

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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Brown Sugar Smoked Salmon

American Entree

BROWN SUGAR SMOKED SALMON

INGREDIENTS

3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon dill
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
2 pounds salmon fillets
vegetable oil

SPECIAL UTENSILS

smoker
electric thermometer
wood chips (apple, cherry, and alder are the most popular)

Serves 6. Takes 3 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add brown sugar, dill, pepper, and salt to small mixing bowl. Blend thoroughly with whisk. This is the rub. Cut salmon into 6 fillets. Pat salmon fillets dry. Rub an equal amount of rub all over the meat sides of each fillet. Let fillets sit in refrigerator for 2 hours.

30 minutes before fillets have finished refrigerating, brush grills in smoker with vegetable oil. This prevents the fish from sticking. Preheat smoker to 220 degrees. When temperature of smoker reaches 220 degrees, place fillets meat side up on grills. Smoke salmon until its internal temperature reaches 150 degrees. It should take about 1 hour 15 minutes, depending on your smoker. The salmon fillets should be pink and flaky.

TIDBITS

1) Plates are round because alien spaceships were round. Alien UFOs were living things. Aliens conquered Earth 66 million years ago. The outer spacers treated our dinosaurs most horribly. A scant million years later the dinos formulated their plan of rebellion, “Rush ‘em, crush ‘em, chomp ‘em.” The uprising was succeeding! Hooray! All the dinosaurs looked up and did a happy dance.

3) But the huge mother spaceship, it really was a mother, beamed a huge death ray at the rampaging dinos. The ray, however, merely reflected off the rebels’ cat-like eyes, disintegrating the mother ship. Circular living bits fell to Earth. Whenever the dinos laid eggs they did so on these bits, for the smarter dinosaurs knew round things can’t grow if weighed down. Today, we weigh down our round plates with food, just in case they are spaceship babies. When we’re not using our plates, we stack them in the cupboard for the same reason. You can’t be too careful with space aliens.

– 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.

Categories: cuisine, history, humor | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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