There is an Easter Bunny. Here’s proof.
Now that you know, behave. You don’t want to disappoint the Easter Bunny.
– 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.
Life can be hard. Adulting can take you down. Many times you need sympathy, understanding, and care. When the discord and noise of your lives triggers depression, you require the silent comfort of an understanding soul.
You need a comfort tiger.
– 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
7 teaspoons baking powder
3¼ cups flour (4 tablespoons more later)
⅓ cup milk powder
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup softened butter
1⅓ cups buttermilk
2 tablespoons flour (2 tablespoons more later)
2 tablespoons flour
SPECIAL UTENSIL
baking sheet
Makes 12. Takes 50 minutes.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Add baking powder, 3¼ cups flour, milk powder, and salt to large mixing bowl. Mix gently with fork until well blended. Rub butter into flour until you get tiny breadcrumbs.
Use fist to make a well in the middle of the tiny breadcrumbs. Knead gently with hands only until you just get a dough ball. (Don’t use electric beater.) If the dough is dry, add just enough extra buttermilk to make dough soft. Dust flat surface with 2 tablespoons flour. Add dough ball to flat surface. Roll dough out into a log that is 3″ wide. Cut round log into 12 pieces. (This is why this dessert is called cut rounds.) Press pieces into a round shape ¾” thick.
Dust baking sheet with 2 tablespoons flour. Place cut rounds on baking sheet. (Don’t let them touch.) Bake in oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until rounds have risen and turned golden brown. Split rounds in half. (This is why they are sometimes called splits.) Rounds go well with cream and jam on them. Use clotted cream if you can get it.
TIDBITS
1) Cut rounds are round. If the jam and the cream that often go inside them were replaced with surveillance devices you could conduct a 360˚ observation. In general, enemy countries are always on the alert for our eavesdropping..
2) But no one would ever suspect a Cut Round. It’s so yummy. So, I propose that the CIA put cameras and listening devices in Cut Rounds and leave them wherever we need to glean foreign intelligence. You could ask the CIA if they already employ Cut Rounds, but they tend not to tell the public things as it is, after all, a top-secret organization.
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.
Hi! This a picture of my brother, John, and me. I was three years old.
According to my mom’s writing on the back, “Paul is in nursery school Tues. morning and is just delighted with it. His first love is trains, however.”
The pencil lines were my contribution to the photo.
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.
Who wants to make the world a better place? We all do. How do we accomplish this? By making people laugh. People who laugh frequently simply don’t have time to take two parking spots, commit heinous crimes, or even enslave the world. Can you think of a brutal dictator who had a mirthful sense of humor? No, I didn’t think so.
How do we engage in the har-dee-har-har crusade? I’m glad you asked. Simply print out the picture below, sign your name, and date it. Congratulations, you are now a member of the prestigious Lords of Fun(tm). “Together, we shall make the world laugh!”
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
¾ pound boneless chicken parts
1 garlic clove
1 small onion
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 bay leaf
2 cups vegetable stock
1 cup pumpkin-seed flour* or almond or all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ginger
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon parsley
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
½ pound fresh banana leaves**
* = Finding pumpkin-seed flour in stores can be difficult. It can be ordered on line.
** = Finding fresh banana leaves is impossible whether you live Fargo, North Dakota or even in my fair city, Poway, California. In this case, buy the frozen banana leaves from specialty markets. If that too is impossible, use tin foil instead. Life can be hard, sorry.
SPECIAL UTENSILS
8-quart pot
aluminum foil, about 10 square feet
cookie sheet
sonic obiliterator
Serves 4. Takes 2 hours 20 minutes.
PREPARATION
Cut chicken into ½” cubes. Mince garlic clove and onion. Add olive oil, chicken, garlic, onion, and bay leaf to 1st large pot. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium-high heat or until garlic and onion soften. Stir frequently. Add 2 cups vegetable stock or enough to covered ingredients in pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir occasionally. Remove chicken. Shred or crumble chicken. Reserve broth with garlic and onion. Discard bay leaf.
While vegetable stock boils, add pumpkin-seed flour, ginger, nutmeg, parsley, and red pepper flakes to mixing bowl. Gradually ladle stock from pot to mixing bowl. Mix with hands. Keep adding water until you a firm but pliable dough. Add chicken. Knead dough once more.
Cut banana leaves into 6″ squares. (Use aluminum foil as a substitute.) Add 1½ tablespoons of the chicken/onion dough to each square. Close banana leaves around dough to make a banana-leaf ball. (If banana leaves don’t close well, wrap banana leaves with foil.)
Preheat oven to 225 degrees. Add enough water to pot to cover the banana-leaf balls you will be making. Bring to boil using high heat. Add banana-leaf balls to pot. Let boil using high heat for 45 minutes. (Add water as necessary to cover banana-leaf balls.) Remove banana-leaf balls. Place these balls on cookie sheet. Bake in oven at 225 degrees for 15 minutes to remove moisture from the dough inside the banana leaves.
Serve to appreciative guests. If they give you any guff at all about this magnificent creation of yours, zap them with your sonic obliterator. You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life.
TIDBITS
1) As a chef, you stimulate your creative forces by creating one dazzling dish after another.
2) Cooking is also immensely therapeutic. It simply gives you no time to dwell on all the woes in your life. Those moments where you failed at something and those times where strife entered your life all melt away when you assemble your latest culinary masterpiece. You will lift your face to the heavens and thunder, “Yes. Cooking is good. Life is good. Yes, yes, yes.”
3) Then there are those other culinary moments, the time things go wrong, when guests complain, when the red mist descends upon you. You must disintegrate that stew that accidentally got two cups of salt instead of 2 teaspoons. Or even those cases where you want to off uncouth guests who complained you didn’t use pumpkin flour or fresh banana leaves in your Liboke Ya Mbika.
4) But murder is wrong. You’ve known that most of your life. That’s a major reason why you became a cook. All your murderous impulses sublimate themselves in the pounding of the bread dough, in the slicing of the onion, in and the grating of the cheese brick.
5) But yet some guest will carp over the tin foil you used. You yearn to do him in. Of course, the police will find the guest’s’ body. Unless the officer on the spot is also a cook and knows what you went through, it’s best not to leave a body behind
6) This downward spiral explains why all kitchens carry a sonic obliterator. The sonic obliterator, well, completely obliterates the offending oaf. No body. No jail time. Easy peasy.
7) But in your heart of hearts, you really don’t want to obliterate rude guests. No! Simply obliterate that glass of wine they’re holding. That’ll get their attention. I guarantee they’ll stop complaining. Serenity will return to your kitchen. The now quiet guests will tuck into your Liboke Ya Mbika and, lo and behold, notice how absolutely tasty it really is. “Why, this is the food of the gods,” they’ll say. You will become their best friend. They will become your pals. Together, you will solve all the problems of the world. Life is good. Life is good. And we will all owe it to your judicious use of a sonic obliterator. 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.
Gentle Reader,
If you’re like me, it sometimes takes a while to get up of your chair, straighten up, and make your way to a different room. Once you get there, you’ve forgotten why you went there in the first place. It’s so demoralizing. “Can anyone be slower and more forgetful than I?” you think.
Why yes, there is. Turtles. This is where the good folks at Slow Turtle Friends, STF(tm) come in. They will sell or rent you one of their highly taught turtles. Indeed, you should really watch their video on the turtles rigorous training program.
Slow Turtle Friends’ turtles are guaranteed to:
1) Instantly follow you.
2) Get to your destination after you.
3) Immediately forget your reason for going to some room, no matter how many times you told Trudy Turtle when you got up.
This will make your spirits soar. You’re not the slowest. You’re not the most forgetful. Your friend the turtle is. And it will always be that way.
Oh, the turtle will always make it back to you at your starting point. It just might take a while. And:
4) Turtles are really good listeners. Good listeners soothe your soul and lower your blood pressure.
Get yourself a Slow Turtle Friend today. Do it for your self esteem. Do it for you health. Just do it.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
The Indy 500 would be one of the most exciting races ever, if you could see it. If you manage to attend the event, the cars will be too far away. They’ll look like differently colored ladybugs. And the race is so noisy. Sure you could watch the 500 on TV. But then you get to see only one or two cars at a time where they tend to keep pace with each other. What’s the excitement in that?
No, you need to see all the contestants at one time to appreciate all the drama. How about people running? We can rule out the longer distances such as the mile. In this case, the camera takes a wide view where the runners look like brightly colored, running lady bugs or it takes a close up, where we again see only two of the contestants.
How about sprinting? Hoo boy, Usain Bolt sure is fast and darned exciting to watch. But in these races, the whole thing is over in seconds. What do we do then with the rest of the day? We require a sport where we can see all of the entrants at any one time. We need a race that lasts minutes.
Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you Snail Rock Racing!
On your marks, get set, go!
– 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
½ cup fresh cilantro
1 medium red onion
4 tomatoes
½ cucumber
1 red chile
1¼ teaspoons salt
1 cup water
1 avocado
1½ tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
Serves 4. Takes 20 minutes.
PREPARATION
Dice cilantro, red onion, and tomatoes. Peel and dice cucumber. Seed and mince red chile. Add diced red onion and salt to small mixing bowl. Mix with hand until red-onion bits are well coated with salt. Add water. Let red onion soak for 10 minutes. Drain red onion.
Peel, seed, and dice avocado. Add all ingredients to large mixing bowl. Toss with fork until well blended.
TIDBITS
1) One of the most unsung trade routes of the Late Middle Ages, according to culinary, historians, was for Kenyan Kachumbari in exchange for Florentine wool. The Kenyans, or another name for Kenyans as historians had another name for the natives who lived then, prized Florentine wool.
2) For the Kenyans, made excellent KevlarTM type vests out of this most excellent wool. These vests proved impenetrable to all spears, arrows, swords, and knives. Kenya could never be conquered as long as it preserved the secret to making their vests. Unfortunately, in 1632, a kitchen maid, Machupa Mwangi, used the papers containing the secret vest formula to line her pie tins. These papers did not survive the baking. A few years later, Omani Arabs conquered Kenya. Kenya would not regain its independence for over 300 years. Bummer.
3) Florentine painters used Kachumbari to make vibrant landscapes. Unfortunately, these paintings had to be small as the ingredients of Kachumbari were quite perishable. (I don’t know how the Kenyan caravaners kept their avocados, which normally go bad in a few days, fresh on their months-long trek north. Modern scientists are eager to rediscover this lost art.) But one morning, Lorenzo Rotini, discovered paints could be made from minerals and plants. And they would last long enough to produce even the largest paints. The Renaissance began the very next day. Huzzah!
– 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’re at a student union and you want a place to pray quietly, but you’ve drunk too much coffee. You want a restroom close by. In fact, you want one right next door. Well this university’s student center is just the place for you.
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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