Posts Tagged With: rice

Tofu Rice

Posted on May 19, 2023 by pauldelancey

Chinese Entree

TOFU RICE

INGREDIENTS

1 cup rice
6 hard-boiled eggs
3 garlic cloves
3 stalks green onion
1½ pound package extra-firm tofu
2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
⅓ cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
3 tablespoons olive oil
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper

SPECIALTY UTENSIL

Wok (If you have one.)

Serves 4. Takes 35 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cook rice according to instructions on package. Boil 6 eggs. Mince the garlic cloves. Mince green onion. Cut tofu into strips ½ inch wide. Cut these strips into ½-inch squares. Mix in bowl, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, soy sauce, and sugar with whisk.

While rice and eggs cook, heat olive oil in wok or saucepan, preferably non-stick, medium-high heat. Sauté garlic and green onion. Add tofu, salt, and pepper. Cook until tofu is golden brown on both sides. (Pay attention or your tofu can dry out faster than your printer jams paper.)

Add sauce from bowl. Cook for a few minutes or until tofu absorbs the sauce. Serve with rice. Peel eggs and crumble. Cover plate with rice. Top rice with egg. Add tofu squares.

TIDBITS

1) I don’t how many times I accidentally typed “bowel” instead of “bowl.” Don’t worry; I corrected the two or three mistakes. Yes, those typos would change the recipes considerably.

2) China has over a billion people and is growing by millions each year despite having an official policy of one child per family. It sounds as if some couples are cheating. In feudal Japan, tax collectors took rice as payment. All sorts of meat substitutes are made with tofu. One of the best known is TofurkeyTM. This springs up in health-food stores around Thanksgiving and is surprisingly tasty and expensive.

3) Would there have ever been the first Thanksgiving if the Pilgrims and the Native Americans had to eat TofurkeyTM?

 

– 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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Toasted Rice-and-Bean Burrito

Posted on April 22, 2023 by pauldelancey

Mexican Entree

TOASTED RICE-AND-BEAN BURRITO

INGREDIENTS

¼ medium onion
½ red bell pepper
1 avocado
¾ cup rice
1½ cups water
1 15-ounce cans pinto beans with jalapeno peppers
1 7-ounce can diced tomatoes
2 ounces Cotija cheese
¼ cup sour cream
¼ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon onion powder
½ cup grated Four Mexican Cheeses
8 medium flour tortillas
8 teaspoons Parmesan cheese
4 slices Swiss cheese

 

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Dice onion and bell pepper. Peel avocado, remove pit, and slice the good part into thin slices. Cut each Swiss cheese slice into 3 strips.

Cook the rice according to instructions shown on bag. (Unless, of course the instructions are in a foreign language. In this horrible case, take the appropriate intensive three-minute foreign language course.) If you are fortunate to own a rice maker, follow its instructions. (If you don’t own a rice maker, ask for one for Christmas. Make gentle hints as well for a gun to protect the first gift from increasingly desperate gangs of rice-maker thieves.)

While rice is cooking, drain water from pinto beans and diced tomatoes. Add onion, bell pepper, pinto beans, diced tomatoes, Mexican cheeses, Cotija cheese, sour cream, cumin, and onion powder to large frying pan. Cook on low-to-medium heat. Stir occasionally. (Unless, of course you are a hibernating polar bear, then just chill.)

When rice is ready, add it to frying pan. Stir. Put about 4 tablespoons of frying-pan mixture in lower-center part of tortilla. Fold edges in and roll up from the bottom. Spray cookie sheet with no-stick spray. Put burrito on cookie sheet with folded side down. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top of burrito.

Put cookie sheet with burritos on it in pre-heated oven. Bake for 10 minutes, or until tortilla or most of the Parmesan cheese is turning golden brown.

Remove cookie sheet from oven and cover the top of each burrito with thin avocado slices. Add a half slice of Swiss cheese on top of each burrito. Bake for 2 minutes or until the Swiss cheese turns brown or begins to melt.

TIDBITS

1) Avocado comes from a Native American word meaning “testicle.” Apparently, they thought avocados looked liked that. My Gosh, these early Americans must really have bulged in their loincloths.

2) Rocky Mountain Oysters are beef testicles. Yuck. Who would eat them? Deliberately?

3) Rocky Mountain Chocolate Company is, not surprisingly, famous for its chocolate.

4) Chocolate has been confirmed to have a slight–-slight means slight, guys-–effect on women. This is why, over the decades, men have given women chocolate when going on dates.

5) And if the woman refuses the chocolate, it wasn’t meant to be and the man has something to eat.

6) But, at least, the man has much higher chance of success with his date if he offers chocolate instead of Rocky Mountain Oysters.

 

– 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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Jamaican Mild Red Beans and Rice

Posted on February 16, 2023 by pauldelancey

Jamaican Entree

MILD RED BEANS AND RICE

INGREDIENTS

1½ tablespoons olive oil
1 white onion
3 garlic cloves
2 stalks green onion
3 cups cooked brown rice
2 15-ounce cans small red beans
1 15-ounce can unsweetened coconut milk
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon allspice
½ teaspoon thyme
½ teaspoon sea salt
¼ teaspoon pepper

PREPARATION

Cook rice as directed on package.

Drain cans of red beans. Mince white onion, garlic cloves, and green onion. Heat oil in pot. Add white onion, garlic, and green onion. Cook on medium-low heat until white onion is soft and is starting to turn golden.

Add rice, beans, coconut milk, brown sugar, allspice, thyme, salt, and pepper. Cook for about 15 minutes on medium-low heat until rice absorbs most of the coconut milk. The rice and beans should be moist.

This dish can be made as spicy as you want. Jamaicans often add Scotch bonnet pepper which is one of the hottest peppers in the world. This spice is also hard to find.

TIDBITS

1) Jamaicans like to cook with allspice.

2) Swedes like to cook with allspice.

3) The Mayans of Mexico built vast stone temples and cities. They were superb ancient astronomers.

4) The Mayans also loved allspice.

5) My grandmother always cooked with allspice.

6) Eva, a Swedish friend of my mother, said allspice was, “nature’s spice.”

7) Where did this tidbit go?

8) The evidence has amounted to such a point that we must conclude that ancient mariners carried themselves and allspice all over Europe and North America.

9) But in which direction? America to Europe or vice versa?

10) There is no evidence that ancient Mayans or Jamaicans ever crossed the Atlantic Ocean.

11) However, there is considerable evidence through sagas and the unearthed remains of a Viking village in L’Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland that Vikings visited and settled the New World.

12) Thus, we must conclude that the Caribbean and the eastern part of North America were not only discovered and populated by ancient Swedes, but were culinarily enhanced as well.

13) The discoverer of America was Leif Ericson.

14) My grandmother’s name was Erickson.

15) My ancestors discovered America.

16) My it’s been a long time in the hot kitchen.

 

– 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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Japanese Rice Omelette

Posted on November 17, 2022 by pauldelancey

Japanese Entree

RICE OMELETTE
(Omurice)

INGREDIENTS – FRIED RICE

3 ounces boneless chicken
1 small onion
1½ tablespoons butter (1½ tablespoons more later)
1½ cups cooked rice (warm)
¼ cup ketchup
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt

INGREDIENTS – OMELETTE

4 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1½ tablespoons butter
1 ketchup bottle for squirting

SPECIAL UTENSILS

no-stick pan
paper towels

Serves 2. Takes 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – FRIED RICE

Slice chicken into ½” cubes. Mince onion. Add 1½ tablespoons butter and onion to regular pan. Sauté onion at medium heat for 3 minutes. Stir frequently. Add chicken. Sauté for 2 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink. Add rice, ketchup, pepper, and salt. Reduce heat to medium and sauté for 2 minutes or until rice is hot and coated with ketchup. Remove and cover to keep warm.

PREPARATION – OMELETTE

Add eggs and milk to mixing bowl. Blend with whisk. Add 1½ tablespoons butter to no-stick pan. Melt butter using medium heat. Add ½ of the blended eggs. Tilt pan so that egg mixture covers the surface. Cook egg mixture using medium heat for 1 minute or until egg starts to set on the bottom, but is still runny on top. Sprinkle ½ of the fried rice onto the setting egg mixture, leaving 2″ of egg uncovered on the left and right sides. Use spatula to fold uncovered sides over the rice as far as they can go.

Tilt pan to the right so that the right side of the omelette gets curved slightly by the pan. Then tilt the pan to the left for the same result. Put serving plate on top of pan. While holding plate, turn pan upside down so that the egg side of the omelette is on the top. Cover with paper towel to remove oil and to gently shape omelette into the shape of an American football. Remove towel and artistically drizzle omelette with ketchup. Repeat for the second omelette.

TIDBITS

1) The above picture of Omurice looks a lot like a triangular sail. This is no accident. Look at the Viking ship shown in the picture below.

 

 

 

 

 

2) Now, add a happy face to the triangular sail.

 

 

 

 

 

3) Let’s put those two pictures together.

 

 

 

 

4) Whoa! The pictures are nearly identical.. The Vikings did get the idea for their sail from the Japanese rice omelette. These pictures prove the Erik the Happy saga is true beyond all questioning.

5) In the Happy saga, Erik and his crew of oarsmen set off from Sweden to raid Northumbria. But, he refused to ask for directions and ended up in Japan. While there, Erik dined on a rice omelette. His synapses fired and he made the sail you see above. Voyaging back to Sweden with a sail was a snap.

6) Erik the Happy told Ragnar Lothbrok how easy sailing can now be, Just two months later, in the summer of 792. Ragnar built a long boat and added a triangular sail. He sailed to Northumbria and sacked the monastery of Lindisfarne. Much bloodshed and looting ensued. The age of the Vikings had begun. 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.

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Egyptian Roz Bel Laban

Posted on February 24, 2022 by pauldelancey

Egyptian Dessert

ROZ BEL LABAN

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.

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Iranian Sholeh Zard (Saffron Rice Pudding)

Posted on February 15, 2022 by pauldelancey

Iranian Dessert

SHOLEH ZARD
(Saffron Rice Pudding)

INGREDIENTS

1 cup rice
6 cups water (2 teaspoons more later)
½ teaspoon saffron or turmeric
2 teaspoons water
¼ cup butter
¼ cup rosewater
1¾ cups sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons slivered almonds or pistachios

SPECIAL UTENSILS

colander
3 quart no-stick pot
8 ramekins or dessert cups

Serves 8. Takes 3 hours.

PREPARATION

Wash rice thoroughly in colander. (This removes the starch.) Add 6 cups water to large no-stick pot. Bring water to boil using high heat. Add rice. Stir with spoon. Reduce heat to low and simmer uncovered for 1 hour or until rice become completely tender. Stir just enough to prevent burning.

Add saffron and 2 teaspoons water to small cup. Stir. Add saffron/water, butter, rosewater, and sugar to pot. Simmer at low heat for 40 minutes until mixture becomes a pudding. Stir occasionally to prevent burning.

Ladle pudding into ramekins. Garnish with cinnamon and slivered almonds or pistachios.

TIDBITS

1) Life is hard, full or minor irritants. Life is very hard, filled with disasters.

2) If there were only same way or some phrase we could utter to make things magically better.

3) There is! It used to be “Abra cadabra” until it passed its Use By Date.

4) Now we must say, “Sholeh Zard.” Okay, I’ll go first. “I want a Mercedes(tm). Sholeh zard!” Wow, a Mercedes just appeared in my driveway. Now, it’s your turn to say the magic words.

 

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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Madagascan Rice Bowl

Posted on July 23, 2021 by pauldelancey

Madagascan Entree

RICE BOWL

INGREDIENTS

1 cup rice
3 garlic cloves
1 green onion
1 small yellow onion
1 carrot
1 zucchini
¾ pound beef steak or round
⅓ pound peel, deveined shrimp
2 tablespoons butter
4 eggs
¼ cup olive oil
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1½ tablespoons oyster sauce, fish sauce, hoisin sauce, or Worcestershire sauce

Note: This is a very chef friendly dish. Really any combination of chicken, beef, pork, or shrimp may be used as well as any veggie you have in your pantry or crisper.

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour.

PREPARATION

Cook rice according to instructions on package. While rice cooks, dice garlic cloves, green onion, and yellow onion. Slice carrot into thin rounds. Julienne zucchini; that is, cut it into thin sticks. Cut beef into short, thin strips. Cut shrimp in to ½” cubes.

While rice cooks, add butter and eggs to large pan. Fry eggs at medium heat until done to your liking. Remove from heat. Add olive oil and beef strips to large pot. Sauté strips for 5 minutes at medium-high heat. Stir enough to prevent burning. Add carrot, garlic, green onion, yellow onion, zucchini. pepper, and salt. Reduce heat to medium and sauté for 5 minutes or until yellow onion softens. Stir frequently. Add shrimp, soy sauce and oyster sauce and sauté for 3 minutes or until shrimp turns pink or orange. Stir occasionally.

Place 1 fried egg in each bowl. Add equal amounts of veggie/beef/shrimp mixture to each bowl. Top each bowl with equal amounts of rice. Place plate on top of each bowl. Gently turn each bowl and plate over. Gently lift bowls. Veggie/beef/shrimp/rice mixtures should keep the shape of the bowls.

TIDBITS

1) As of press time, Rice Bowl was in Witness Protection and could not give interviews.

 

– 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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My Favorite Restaurants – Mother’s, New Orleans

Posted on April 27, 2021 by pauldelancey

New Orleans is chock full of superb dining establishments. However, my favorite one, the one I always go to whenever I have the good fortune to visit the Crescent City is Mother’s Restaurant.

Mother’s claims it serves the “World’s Best Baked Ham.”  I have to agree. However, I am a sucker for dipped, hot sandwiches. I nearly always go for their Ferdi Special.

As you can see from the picture on the right, the place displays a modest decor, while the many photos on the brick are of celebrities who made a point to going to Mother’s.

The omnipresent long line outside to get into the restaurant, shows the enduring popularity of this historic eatery.  Be sure to pick out your dining choices as you make way in the line to the counter; there are lots of people behind waiting to get in.

As I mentioned above, my favorite dish at Mother’s is the Famous Ferdi Special. It’s a po’ boy with ham and roast beef. Be sure to ask for it with “debris.” Debris is the bits of roast beef that fall into the gravy while carving. This po’ boy is so good that ordering any of their other fine dishes feels like having an affair on the Ferdi Special. But what an affair, it would be. I recommend trying the World’s Best Baked Ham Dinner, the Ham Po’ Boy, the Gulf Shrimp Po’ Boy, Red Beans and Rice with ham, and Shrimp Creole.

Google Maps(tm) describes Mother’s Restaurant as “Greasy spoon with Southern comfort food.” And how! I’m getting rather hungry writing this blog. So let me leave after listing their tasty sides: cabbage, turnip greens, red beans & rice, Jake’s green beans with tomatoes, grits, cheese grits, potato salad, and French fries.

I want to go back to Mother’s Restaurant. You should go too.

 

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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Risotto

Posted on November 16, 2019 by pauldelancey

Italian Appetizer

RISOTTO

INGREDIENTS

5½ cups chicken broth
2 garlic cloves
1 onion
2 tablespoons fresh Italian parsley, or oregano
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups Arborio* rice
½ cup dry white wine
¾ cup shredded Parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons butter

* = The properties of Arborio are important to this dish. The best substitute for Arborio is Carnaroli, with regular short-grain rice to be used only in a pinch.

Serves 10 or 5 if served as an entree. Takes 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add chicken broth to pot. Simmer at warm heat. While broth simmers, mince garlic cloves and onion. Dice Italian parsley. Add garlic, onion, and olive oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Stir frequently

Add rice. Reduce heat to medium. Sauté for 3 minutes or until rice smells toasty and turns translucent. Stir frequently, making sure rice is thoroughly coated with olive oil. Add wine. Sauté until rice absorbs all the liquid. Stir frequently. Add broth 1 cup at time. Stir gently after each addition until the rice absorbs the broth. This should take about 25 minutes with the rice being creamy and al dente, just a little bit firm. Remove from heat and gently stir in butter and Parmesan cheese. Garnish with Italian parsley. Serve immediately.

TIDBITS

1) Karl Marx visited lovely Florence in 1848. While waiting forever for an espresso, Crabby Karl listened as workers at the next table complained loudly and endlessly about the oppressive Austrian rule over their city. His patience exhausted, he yelled at the workers, “So, riot.” They did. Fortunately, the chef had been whipping up a new rice dish. He served the workers just as they were about to go and throw bricks at the constabulary. The workers loved their risotto. They completely lost their urge to run amuck. The anagramist among them said, “no ‘so, riot.’” He lifted up his bowl of rice. “Risoto.” A typo turned that into “Risotto. Oh, and Karl would go on to other things.

– 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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Hainanese Chicken Rice

Posted on August 1, 2018 by pauldelancey

Singaporean Entree

HAINANESE CHICKEN RICE

INGREDIENTS – CHICKEN

2″ ginger root
4 cups chicken stock (4 cups more later)
4 cups water
2½ pounds boneless chicken
1 tablespoon sesame oil

INGREDIENTS – RICE

4 cups chicken broth
3 pandan leaves*
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups long-grain rice
4 garlic cloves
3″ ginger root
3 tablespoons vegetable oil

INGREDIENTS – FINAL

¼ cup fresh cilantro
1 cucumber
1 green onion
¼ cup chili garlic sauce
¼ cup soy sauce

* = This is quite hard to find outside of Asian supermarkets. You can also order dried pandan leaves online. Or substitute part of a banana leaves for the pandan leaves. But banana leaves are just as hard to find as pandan leaves. Or omit the pandan leaves altogether; this is a simplified recipe after all. If guests complain that your Chicken Hainanese Rice isn’t authentic without pandan leaves, biff ‘em good with your fists of fury.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

rice cooker
fists of fury (See above note.)
x-ray vision (It helps to be a super hero.)
up to 12 dipping bowls, bowls, or small cups

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 10 minutes.

PREPARATION – CHICKEN

Cut 2″ ginger root into ¼” slices. Add ginger root slices, 4 cups chicken broth, water, and water to large pot. Bring water to boil in large pot at high heat. (The recipe gets harder after this.) While water comes to boil, cut chicken into 1½” pieces. Coat chicken with sesame oil. Add chicken to pot. Cover, reduce heat to warm and simmer for 20 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink inside. (You can check this with x-ray vision or by slicing open one piece of chicken.) Remove chicken from pot and add to mixing bowl. Save chicken stock.

PREPARATION – RICE

While the water for the chicken comes to boil, tie pandan leaves into a knot just like you would with a string. Add 4 cups chicken broth, pandan leaves, and rice to rice cooker. Cook according to instructions for rice cooker. (Probably, just push the “cook” button until it stops cooking.) While chicken simmers, mince garlic and dice 3″ ginger root. Add garlic, ginger, and vegetable oil to pan. Sauté at medium for 5 minutes or until garlic and ginger browns and becomes fragrant. Stir frequently. Add rice and stir fry at low-medium for 3 minutes. Stir enough to prevent burning.

PREPARATION – FINAL

While water for the chicken comes to boil and rice cooks, dice cilantro and green onion. Cut cucumber into thin slices. Add diced green onion and chicken stock from large pot to a small dipping bowl for each guest. Each guest also gets a dipping bowl for the chili-garlic sauce and the soy sauce. Add chicken to plates. Garnish chicken with cilantro. Add rice to plates and shape into dome. Place cucumber on plate beside chicken and rice.

TIDBITS

1) “Hainanese” is an anagram for “I, a sane hen.”

2) Sane hens are safer than insane hens.

3) You don’t have to lock your doors if you’re raising sane hens.

4) However, if you’re raising insane hens, oh boy! Insane hens naturally form gangs and terrorize the countryside. Indeed, a particular brutal gang of Rhode Island reds went on a car-jacking spree in Hicken County, Colorado back in 1969. You can imagine the difficulty the Colorado Tourism Board had in hushing that up.

5) By 2006, intelligent, insane hens had penetrated all the major American banks and brokerage houses. Their coop smarts and the fact they could lay fresh eggs without even taking time off from work gave them an irresistible leg up on all other applicants. I mean omelettes need fresh eggs.

6) In turn, the hens wanted worms. As they climbed the corporate ladders, they wanted ever more costly worms and ever fancier worm meals. By late 2008, the demand for pricy worms and gourmet-worm chefs had far outstripped the supply. More and more, the large financial firms were forced to feed ordinary mash to their top-revenue-generating hens.

7) Mash ticked off the executive layers, so much so that they engineered the Great Recession of 2008. Now prospective chicken hires must assert their mental stability with the oath, “I, a sane chicken . . .”

Chef Paul

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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