– 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.
How many times has this happened to you? You make a point of remembering a fact such as an address or your appointment, but forget it a day later. The information was important, that’s why you strained your brain and fretted about not remembering. But once more you forgot. All you did was diminish your self worth.
Why stress yourself? And this brings us to
TODAY’S AWESOME WORD
Awesome entry #31
– 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.
March 15, Ides of March: A bunch of Roman Republic lovers gathered to stab Julius Caesar. Caesar was dictator or king in all but name and he was taking steps to make it official. The conspiring senators couldn’t countenance such a step. So they surrounded the tyrant and stabbed him to death.
This social stabbing might have caught on. Unfortunately for the cause of merry murdering, Caesar’s generals and friends hunted down the Senate’s assassins and killed many of them. Caesar’s great friend, Marc Anthony, and his heir, vanguished the remaining assassins’ armies. Much blood was shed. The Marc Anthony and Octavian had a tiff that just couldn’t be patched over. Things were said that couldn’t be taken back. Political ambitions burgeoned. After a spell, Octavian’s army and navy crushed those of Anthony and, in a cameo role as Marc’s lover, Cleopatra. Much more blood flowed.
So, Octavian became the Roman Empire’s first emperor. The Republic now existed in name only. So the murders’ act to preserve the Republic sealed its fate. A bit of irony there. Anyway Caesar’s mob assassination proved too closely tied to assasination. The civil wars this deed spawned also welded the idea of social slaughtering to bloody civil wars.
Thus, group murders fell out of fashion for a long, long. But the human spirit is irrepressible. Solitary murders and assassinations stepped out from the shadows of group killing and flourished. No longer did you have to be a member of an elitest clique, everybody could now take up a knife and stab some oppressor. So, maybe a little of the Senator love of a republic survived because of this bloody and fatal political statement. I like to think so. Besides group stabbing sare a no-no in times of pandemics.
This Italian entree has all it needs to celebrate the Ides of March. It’s Italian, as were Julius Caesar’s and his assassins. The mozzarella circles represent the togas worn by all those involved in the great event. Slicing the tomatoes represents stabbing Julius Caesar. See? Combining history with eating can be quite fun.
INGREDIENTS
1 pound mozzarella cheese
4 vine-ripened tomatoes
¼ teaspoon peppercorns (or black pepper)
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
⅓ cup fresh basil leaves
¼ teaspoon sea salt
Serves 4. Takes 10 minutes.
PREPARATION
There aren’t many ingredients in this dish, so fresh ones are especially important. Slice mozzarella into ¼” circles. Slice tomatoes ¼” thick. Grind peppercorns. Put alternating layers of mozzarella and tomato slices on serving plate until they are all used. Drizzle olive oil over everything and evenly sprinkle your creation with basil leaves, ground pepper, and sea salt.
– 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 green bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
1 large onion
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons fresh thyme
3 tomatoes
2 pounds chicken pieces, bone in or boneless
1 teaspoon salt or fleur de sel*
¼ cup olive oil
3 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto or Bayonne ham*
¾ cup white wine
1 bay leaf
1 cup chicken stock
2 teaspoon Spanish paprika, paprika, or espelette*
1 tablespoon fresh parsley
* = You can find fleur de sel, Bayonne ham, and espelette online, but they can be expensive.
SPECIAL UTENSILS
mandoline
8″ * 12″ casserole dish
Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 15 minutes.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Seed bell peppers. Cut bell peppers and onion into ¼” slices with mandoline or knife. Cut slices in half. Dice garlic and thyme. Cut tomatoes into ½” wedges. If you are using chicken breasts, cut them in two. Rub chicken pieces with salt.
Add olive oil and prosciutto to large pan. Sauté for 2 minutes at high heat or until prosciutto becomes crispy. Stir frequently. Remove and drain on paper towels. Add chicken pieces to large pan. Sauté for 10 minutes at medium heat or until chicken turns golden brown. Flip chicken pieces every 2 minutes. Remove chicken and drain on paper towels. Add bell pepper, garlic, and onion. Sauté for 2 minutes at medium-high heat. Stir frequently. Add white wine and bay leaf. Simmer at low heat for 2 minutes. Stir frequently.
Add contents of pan, thyme, chicken stock, and chicken pieces to casserole dish. Sprinkle chicken pieces with Spanish paprika. Place tomato wedges between chicken pieces. Bake for 20 minutes at 425 degrees or until sauces thickens. While chicken bakes, dice parsley. Remove casserole dish from oven. Remove bay leaf. Place crispy prosciutto slice over chicken. Garnish with parsley.
TIDBITS
1) It is well known fact that the Basque word for basket is saskia
2) The Franks who overran Gaul, modern day France, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire loved peaches.
3) Indeed, they invaded purposefully to pick prized perfect peaches produced by the innumerable peaches orchards to be found there.
4) At first, frenetic fresh Franks gathered peaches with their hands.
5) But one can only carry off two peaches that way.
6) The ravenous ravagers ranged right to the Rhone valley. The Rhone Valley had for reasons unclear to current culinary historians had a surplus of over a million peach baskets.
7) An advance party of Franks plundered the valley and carried off all the peach baskets. Indeed, everyone of the frightening Franks walked away with maybe twelve baskets; we don’t know the exact number.
8) The First Franks never went anywhere without their baskets. The enraged basketless Second Franks chased them to southwest France.
9) The locals called them Saskia after the First Franks word for basket.
10) In time the Saskia lost their original language. A new language required a new name. The medieval French dubbed these people, Basques.
11) The Basques loved sports. In particular, they loved to play Basquaise Boule. The object of this game was to pass a ball around and try to toss it into a peach basket. Sometimes the players fashioned the ball out of chicken breasts, hence the name Chicken Basquaise. Chef Jean Paul La Grange created this dish to honor the new sport.
12) But wait! There’s more! In 1890, YMCA director James Naismith toured the land of the Basques. His synapses fired and he determined bring this sport back home. It’d be just the thing to tire out restless school kids. The game proved popular, at first, in his town of Springfield. But the kids eventually grew bored of having to climb up a ladder to retrieve the ball from the peach basket. Late one night, a gang of hoodlums calling themselves The Epic of Gilgamesh Haters cut the bottom off all the baskets.
13) But far from ruining the game, this vandalism, made the game much faster. Indeed the tempo of pass, shoot, score, pass, shoot, score now prevailed. The kids loved the game now. So did their parents. A year later, a senior taking Basque studies opined that as we’re living in America, why not call the name something American like basketball.
14) America embraced basketball and soon became a superpower. Now you know how.
– 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 – MARINADE
2¼ pounds beef, chuck, top round
3 garlic cloves
3 lemongrass stalks or 1 tablespoon lemongrass paste
¼ teaspoon annatto powder
2 teaspoons Chinese five spice
½ tablespoon minced ginger
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons fish sauce
1½ tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon palm sugar or brown sugar
INGREDIENTS – STEW
3 carrots
3 shallots
1 tomato
1 green chile or Thai chile
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cinnamon stick
3 kaffir, curry, or bay leaves
3 star anise pods
2⅓ cups coconut water, beef stock, or beer
¼ cup fresh* Thai basil or basil
⅓ cup fresh** mint leaves
* = or 4 teaspoons dried Thai basil
** = 5¼ teaspoons dried mint
Serves 4. Takes 2 hours 10 minutes.
PREPARATION – MARINADE
Cut beef into 1″ cubes. Mince garlic cloves. Remove white outer leaves from lemongrass stalks. Mince remaining green part of lemongrass. Add all marinade ingredients to mixing. Mix with hands until well blended and beef cubes are well coated. Marinate for 30 minutes.
PREPARATION – STEW
Dice carrots, shallots, and tomato. Seed and mince chile. Dice Thai basil and mint. Add vegetable oil to large pot. Heat oil using medium-high heat. Oil is hot enough when a little bit of shallot starts to dance in the oil. Add marinated beef cubes. Sauté at medium-high heat until beef cubes turn completely brown. Stir enough to ensure even browning. Add shallot. Sauté at medium-high heat until shallot softens.
Add tomato, chile, cinnamon stick, kaffir leaves, and star anise. Stir until well blended. Add coconut water. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Stir until well blended. Reduce heat to low. Simmer for 30 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add carrot. Simmer for 30 minutes more or until beef cubes and carrot become tender. Remove cinnamon stick, kaffir lime leaves, and star anise pods. Garnish with Thai basil and mint.
1) The Western Roman Empire fell in 476.
2) Too many barbarian armies attacked Rome for its vast supply of eggs.
3) The barbarians loved to eat Pionono.
4) For every single meal.
5) This meant they needed Rome’s eggs.
6) Rome had lots of eggs and chickens. All civilizations have them.
7) So, the invading hordes destroyed Rome. The lands descended into anarchy.
8) With the collapse of Western Civilization, came the disappearance of the poultry industry.
9) Hardly anyone had eggs.
10) If word got out that you had a chicken ranch, cutthroat gangs would raid your lands and carry you off to lead a hard existence in some faraway land.
11) And you’d never eat another egg.
12) Not ever. And without eggs, you could never eat Pionono again. Who’d want to go through life knowing that?
13) Clearly, this was an untenable existence.
14) But would could be done?
15) As we all know, the gene that directs some people to chicken ranching, also makes them extremely poor fighters. These ranchers needed brave, sturdy fighters to protect them.
16) Indeed in the sixth century, strongmen emerged all over Western Europe to protect the chicken ranchers in return for eggs. This arrangement soon extended to all aspects of agriculture. This system became known as feudalism.
17) Now, no inventions occurred under feudalism as thinking stagnated. But hey, eggs.
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
2 cups heavy whipping cream
5½ tablespoons sugar
2¼ teaspoons vanilla extract
⅛ teaspoon salt
2 cups whole strawberries, fresh or frozen
Makes 3 cups. Takes 15 minutes to make and 3 hours to firm in freezer.).
SPECIAL UTENSILS
food processor or blender
3 cup Mason jar or other airtight container
PREPARATION
Puree strawberries. Add all ingredients to Mason jar. Make sure that the lid to Mason jar is screwed on tightly. Shake jar for 5 minutes or until mixture thickens to the consistency of batter. Put jar in freezer. Let sit for 3 hours or until firm.
TIDBITS
1) Mason Jar Strawberry is fantastic. It’s so yummy. Only people who hate: whipping cream, sugar, vanilla extract, salt, and strawberries will dislike this dessert. That means billions and billions of people love it. People have adored this dessert for millennia. Lands without strawberries conquered surrounding peoples in a never ending quest to find wild strawberries. This is how the Roman Empire and the Mongol Empire, among others, grew to be so big.
2) Alas, the Romans and the Mongols despite their mighty armies never did manage to find, much less conquer, a land with strawberries. Their subjects grew sullen and defiant. Finally, their peoples rose up and overthrew their non-strawberry-providing rulers. (Okay, with a little help from invading foreign armies.)
3) Rulers then sent expeditions to find strawberries. This is really how Columbus sold Queen Isabella on finding the Americas. The idea that the Spanish went exploring to find gold was just a cover. The conquistadors wanted the real wealth, strawberries, just to themselves. Seeing the Spaniards’ success, other nations sent our their explorers to find their own La Fresado, The Land of Strawberries. Pretty darn quick, the entire globe got explored. International trade boomed between the old countries and the new strawberry-growing lands. We owe it all to the yummy strawberry.
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.
Freeze Frame Photo Of Bad Man’s shot
Watching movies and television shows can be a pleasant way to pass the time. They can even be great fun. However, the logic and laws of physics are so often thrown out the window, leaving me the think, “Why even an amoeba could more realistic and better entertainment.” Here then, as they occur to me, recurring mistakes in movies and shoes,
Enough ranting for now. Carry 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.
Ancient Roman Dessert
INGREDIENTS
1½ cups spelt flour or regular flour
1¼ teaspoons baking powder
1¼ teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon coriander
1/8 teaspoon pepper
2 eggs
¾ cup liquid honey (2 tablespoons later)
¾ cup milk
⅓ cup sweet wine
¼ cup slivered almonds or hazelnuts
2 tablespoons liquid honey
no-stick spray
NOTE: Spelt flour is the closest you can get to what the ancient Romans used. The Romans used the herb “rue” instead of coriander. However, some people are extremely allergic to it; feeling queasy smelling it or getting blisters just by touching. The Romans used pine nuts instead of other nuts. However, many people have allergic reactions to it. Clearly, the Romans were dare-devil eaters. Dare-devil eaters became all-conquering soldiers. This is how the Roman Empire became so big.
SPECIAL UTENSILS
9″ cake pan
wire rack
Serves 8. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, coriander, and pepper to medium mixing bowl. Mix with whisk. Add eggs, ¾ cup honey, milk, and wine to large mixing bowl. Whisk ingredients until well blended.
Gradually add dry ingredients from medium bowl to large bowl. Whisk until well blended. Use spatula to fold in nuts. Spray cake pan with no stick spray. Pour mixture from large bowl into cake pan. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees or until toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Drizzle with 2 tablespoons honey. Let cool on wire rack for 20 minutes before serving
NO TIDBITS! I ran out of space with the above rather tidbitty NOTE.
– 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.
Tanzanian Appetizer
INGREDIENTS – DOUGH
3 cups flour (2 tablespoons more later)
½ teaspoon salt (¼ teaspoon more later)
1 cup water
⅔ cup vegetable oil (2½ tablespoons more later)
INGREDIENTS – FILLING & ASSEMBLY
2 green or red chiles
2 garlic cloves
1 red onion
1½ tablespoons vegetable oil (1 tablespoon more later)
¾ pound ground beef
½ teaspoon curry powder
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons flour
¾ cup shredded cabbage
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
chutney or tomato sauce as desired
SPECIAL UTENSILS
bread maker (optional)
no-stick pan
Serves 8. Takes 2 hours 30 minutes.
PREPARATION – DOUGH
If USING BREAD MAKER, add 3 cups flour, water, and ½ teaspoon salt to bread maker. Set bread maker to “dough” setting for 10 minutes. (IF KNEADING BY HAND, add 3 cups flour and ½ teaspoon salt to mixing bowl. Mix with fork until well blended. Add water and knead by hand for 10 minutes or until dough is smooth.) Divide dough into 6 balls. Add dough balls to shallow bowl. Drizzle ⅔ cup oil over dough balls. Turn dough balls until they are thoroughly coated with oil. Cover and let sit for 1½ hours.
PREPARATION – FILLING AND ASSEMBLY.
While dough sits, mince chiles, garlic cloves, and red onion. Add chile, garlic, red onion, and 1½ tablespoons vegetable oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until red onion softens. Stir frequently. Add beef, curry powder, pepper, and salt. Fry at medium-high heat for 3 minutes or until beef browns. Remove from heat.
Dust flat surface with 2 tablespoons flour. Add dough ball to flat surface. Flatten dough ball until you have 8 8″-dough circles. Push in edges of dough circles to make a wall high enough to prevent egg from running out. Add beef mixture equally to center of dough circles. Top beef mixtures equally with shredded cabbage. Add raw eggs equally over shredded cabbage.
Fold top and bottom of dough circles to the center. Then fold left and right sides to the center. These are the pizzas. Pinch sides as necessary to keep egg from seeping out. Add 1 tablespoon oil to large no-stick pan. Add as many pizzas as possible without having them touch each other. Cook on medium for 5 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Flip once. You might need to cook in batches. (Cooking times tend to go down with successive batches.)
Serve with chutney or tomato sauce.
TIDBITS
1) IEC, Intertemporal Enforcement Commission, is powerful. Frighteningly so. Consider the following salutary tale.
2) Around 260 AD, a Roman expeditionary discovered the island of Flutoj off the east coast of Africa. The merchants in the force waxed rapturously–I spelled it correctly on the first try; beams with pride–over the abundance of spices found on the island. Why not conquer it for Rome? It’ll be easy they said. And it was. Centurion Pomodoro won the island in a game of rock, paper, scissors.
3) The Romans named it Zanzibar after their Emperor Zanzi who loved to frequent wine bars. Within two days of the renaming of the island to Zanzibar, the British company, MarsTM, filed a trademark infringement complaint with the Intertemporal Enforcement Commission. Mars–the candy maker, not the Roman god–claimed Zanzibar was a rip off of Mars BarTM. Mars asseted that the Romans, renowned engineers, had clearly used a time machine, visited a twentieth-century candy store, saw Mars Bars on sale, made minimal changes to the name when coming up with Zanzibar.
4) How did the news of the renaming of the island to Zanzibar get back to Rome so quickly at a time of communication was limited to the speed of horses and oar-driven ships? Time machines, as well know the Intertemporal Enforcement Commission has time machines.
5) IEC ruled against Emperor Zanzibar and held a contest, So You Want to Be an Emperor? General Courgette did well on this and won the right to overthow the Emperor. And indeed, the plucky Courgette prevailed after a brief civil war marked with great slaughter.
6) This civil war proved so popular with the Roman armies that these conflicts became a weekly event. Courgette’s reign, in fact, was so brief that only culinary historians remember hir.
7)Anyway, these wars so depopulated the Roman Empire that it so fell to barbarian armies. The Dark Ages descended on Europe. People became so poor that they would have no money to spend on candy bars. People wouldn’t buy candy bars until 1932 when the Mars company made it. IEC realized it’s overreach and disbanded in 1998. We’ve fought no wars over candy ever since. Yay.
– 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.
British Dessert
INGREDIENTS
1 cup flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup water
¼ cup seltzer water
¼ teaspoon baking powder
5 chilled Mars bars (worldwide version) or Milky WayTM (American version)
4 cups vegetable oil or enough to cover Mars bar in deep fryer
SPECIAL UTENSILS
deep fryer Two aliens on a flying saucer
tongs
Serves 5. Takes 50 minutes.
PREPARATION
Add flour, salt, water, seltzer water, and baking powder to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Cover and let sit for 30 minutes.
Pour batter into tall glass. Add oil to deep fryer. Heat oil to 375 degrees. Use tongs to dip Mars bar into tall glass. Remove and let excess batter drip off. Use tongs to place coated Mars bar in deep fryer. Fry for 2 minutes or until bars turn golden brown and become crisp. Remove from oil with tongs. Place deep-fried bar on paper towel and pat dry. Repeat for remaining bars.
TIDBITS
1) MarsTM was first produced by Forrest Mars in 1932. It’s sparked religious interest ever since.
2) Mars is the Roman god of war. Technically, the deity could have sued Mr. Mars for copyright infringement, but didn’t. Many culinary theologians have argued that a living god of war would certainly challenged Forrest Mar’s logo appropriation. Therefore, Mars doesn’t exist. Once we accept Mars non-existence, belief in all the other Roman gods dissolves. And indeed, the number of people worshiping Roman gods after 1932 has been pretty darn close to zero.
3) The American Mars bar ceased production in 2002, came back, stopped production in 2011, and finally came back online 2017. Its composition and size has varied over the decades. Culinary theologians hypothesize that these observable events led to widespread believe in reincarnation.
4) Currently, the Muslim community of Australia is debating halal certification for Mars bars.
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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