Men, you’d better listen to Lucy.
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
6 eggs
2 cups cottage cheese
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
1 cup sour cream
¾ cup (1½ sticks) butter
1 pound filo (phyllo) dough
SPECIAL UTENSILS
9″-x-13″ baking pan or casserole dish
Serves 8. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.
PREPARATION
Separate eggs. Beat egg whites until fluffy. Add egg yolks, cottage cheese, feta cheese, and sour cream to mixing bowl. Blend thoroughly with whisk or fork. Fold in egg whites. Preheat oven to 360 degrees. Melt butter using low heat. Brush baking pan with 2 tablespoons melted butter.
Place 2 sheets filo dough in baking pan. Drizzle 2 tablespoons melted butter over filo. Spread ¼ cup egg/cheese mix on top. Gently crinkle 2 filo sheets into accordion-like balls. Dip accordion balls into cheese/egg mix from bowl until lightly coated. Place coated accordion-like filo balls over flat filo sheets in pan. Repeat until you have 2 filo sheets remaining.
Top with remaining 2 filo sheets. Brush top filo sheets with remaining butter and cheese/egg mix. Bake in over at 360 degrees for 50 minutes or until top is reddish, golden brown. Serve warm or let cool.
TIDBITS
1) Many different groups of people settled America’s Old West. The most obvious types were men and women. It’s obvious now, but no historian before me had ever mentioned it.
2) Chinese settled Western America, but Irish, Swedes, and Germans left Europe to come to the New World’s eastern shores and kept going until they hit the Great American Plains. For a body in motion tends to stay in motion. Long-ago settled Americans from the east pulled up stakes and joined those traveling west. For such a drastic measure as the only way to avoid house calls from salesmen offering to extended their wagon’s extended warranty.
3) However, Serbian cheese pie makers did not participate in the Great Western Movement as their eggs, cottage cheese, feta cheese, and sour cream never survived the months-long journey.
– 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.
Ecuadorian Appetizer
INGREDIENTS
8 limes or ¼ cup fresh lime juice
3 oranges or 1 cup fresh orange juice
1 large red onion
3 tomatoes
2 pounds shrimp, peeled and deveined
¼ cup fresh cilantro
⅓ cup ketchup
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 45 minutes.
PREPARATION
Squeeze limes and oranges to get juices. Cut red onion into long, thin strips. Dice cilantro and tomato. Add enough water to cover shrimp to pot. Bring water to boil using high heat. Add shrimp to pot. Boil until shrimp turns slightly pink, about 2-to-3 minutes. Do not overcook, letting it turn completely red, as it will make the shrimp mushy. Remove shrimp with slotted spoon and let cool. Add lime juice, orange juice, red onion, cilantro, tomato, ketchup, pepper, salt, and vegetable oil to large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Add shrimp once it has cooled. Mix with hands until shrimp is well coated. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.
TIDBITS
1) Shrimp ceviche is reddish-pink and tasty. Many Vikings had reddish hair and loved good tasting food. However, Vikings ate oatmeal all the time, bowl after bowl. This drove the Norsemen crazy. They started cheating at checkers and saying, “Sez you” to everyone they met.
3) The Viking women took to cooking lutefisk. the foulest smelling, most evil dish ever rather than cook another yet bowl of oatmeal. Some wives had even thrown themselves into fjords instead of doing that. Fortunately, lutefisk’s horrible smell drove the menfolk to raid foreign lands for tasty food and even gold, sometimes. The women stayed at home and played Runeble, basically ScrabbleTM with runes, and ordered Chinese takeaway.
4) In 1284, Bjorni Thorvald, discovered Ecuador, while looking for a Pokemon GoTM character. This news electrified all Scandinavia. Whole clans of blood-thirsty Vikings moved to Ecuador. This is why there are so many blue-eyed redheads there.
5) Thus, the Viking raids stopped. Relieved Europeans came out of hiding to build the Renaissance.
– 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.
Czech Dessert
INGREDIENTS
1 teaspoon baking soda
1½ tablespoons warm water
1 cup brown sugar
1¼ cups molasses
½ cup shortening or lard
4 cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¾ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon mace
½ teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons flour
no-stick spray
SPECIAL UTENSILS
cookie cutter
4 or so cookie sheets (You might have to bake in batches.)
Makes 36 cookies. Takes 2 hours 40 minutes.
PREPARATION
Add baking soda and warm water to pot. Stir with fork until baking soda dissolves. Add brown sugar, molasses, and shortening. Cook at low-medium heat until all is melted. Stir frequently. Remove from heat..
Add baking soda/brown sugar/molasses mixture to large mixing bowl. Add 1 cup of flour. Knead by hand. Repeat until all 4 cups of flour have been added. Add cinnamon, ground cloves, ginger, mace, and nutmeg. Knead once until dough is stiff and smooth. Cover and place in cool spot for 1½ hours.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Use up to 2 tablespoons flour to dust flat surface. Roll dough out until it is ⅛” thick. Cut dough with cookie cutter or with knife. Spray cookie sheet with no-stick spray. Bake at 350 degrees for 5-to-10 minutes or until cookies harden around the edges or a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Let sit for 10 minutes.
TIDBITS
1) Molasses flows slowly. Hence the saying, “As slow as molasses.”
2) Slowness is relative of course. Plate tectonics, the shifting of the Earth’s plates, is even slower than molasses. Much slower. Yet no one ever says, “As slow as plate tectonics.”
3) Even so, plate tectonics is much faster than the lines at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
4) This title usually gets shortened to DMV. The department even has a long name.
5) Many people assume that the glacial pace at the DMV is a result of ever increasing swarms of people wanting to get driving permits, driver’s licenses, and to change their names.
6) Name changing arises when recently married women take their husband’s last name.
7) People who have committed murders often change their last name to avoid detection by the police.
8) Black widows, women who marry men and murder them shortly afterward for their money, are especially avid name changers.
9) Law enforcement knows this. Which is why the DMV includes in the section under name changes the following question, “Do you marry and murder for money?”
10) This tactic worked for a while. Then would be money murderers realized they could avoid detection by simply answering, “No.”
11) So these black widows and other killers compound their crime of murder with the one of lying.
12) Soon they feel nothing about jaywalking or looking up the answers at the back of a book of crossword puzzles.
13) The downward moral spiral continues. Pretty soon the tortured soul looks at the hamburger on his plate, his second one when another guest hasn’t even had her first. He wonders how such an off-the-cuff action as murder could have such an impact on his life.
14) This is a critical moment in the murderer’s life. Confess, oh my goodness, confess. Confess and break the downward ethical spiral. Confess that you took that second hamburger. Offer it back to that hamburgerless sweetheart looking down at her empty plate.
15) Your act of self abnegation will bring a smile to her face. The fact of getting of a yummy burger will swamp her body with joy-filling endorphins. She’ll regard you as a knight in shining armor.
16) Soon the two of you will be chatting up a storm and before you know it, you are engaged to be married.
17) Now is the time when you must hold firm. Do not kill her for her money. This is your soul mate. Murder someone else. Do the murder with you new spouse. The couple that slays together, stays together.
– 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.
Nigerien Entree
INGREDIENTS
3 chicken breasts
1 small eggplant*
1 leek
1 medium onion
3 potatoes
4 tomatoes
4½ tablespoons peanut butter
2½ tablespoons peanut oil
1 cup chicken broth
1 pili pili pepper (or Thai chile, Fresno chile, bird’s eye pepper, or ½ teaspoon cayenne)
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
* = Not everyone loves eggplant. Don’t worry though if you hate eggplant. You don’t have to put it in the recipe and you needn’t worry about being unauthentic for excluding it. Most of the time cooks use whatever vegetables are at hand. If a guest queries you about the missing eggplant–and how many people do you know have knowledge of Nigerien cuisine?–simply say, “Sorry, this recipe comes from a region of Niger where they simply don’t have eggplant.” If the guest still complains, zap him with your sonic obliterator. You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life.
PREPARATION
Cut chicken breasts into 1″ cubes. Cut eggplant into ½”-thick slices. Dice leek. and onion. Cut potatoes into 1″ cubes. Remove seeds from chile pepper. Dice chile pepper.
Peel skins from tomatoes. A good way to do this is by boiling the tomatoes. Add water to pot. Bring water to boil using high heat. While water is coming to boil, make a cut all the way around each of the tomatoes. Put tomatoes in boiling water for 20 seconds. Remove tomatoes and place them in a bowl of ice water. The skins should come off easily. Now dice tomatoes.
Add chicken cubes, leek, onion, and peanut oil in large pot. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until chicken cubes and leek and onion soften. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low Add chicken broth, eggplant, peanut butter, potato, tomato, chile pepper, pepper, and salt. Cover and simmer for 40 minutes or until potato cubes are soft. Peanut chicken stew goes well with white rice.
TIDBITS
1) Niger’s women give birth to 7.37 children. That’s an average, of course. Still, it makes you think. Nigerien women eat eggplant. They have lots of kids. Presumably, one could practice birth control by not eating any eggplant.
– 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.
Take my beautiful, adoring women. Please!
According to the advertisements I get on line, there are literally dozens of beautiful women eager to have me invest in foreign currencies. Of course, this is all understandable as I know the purchasing-power parity condition, e.g.,
Price of Big Mac (denominated in dollars) = ($/Euro) * Price of Big Mac (denominated in euros)
However, I already have a wife who would love me even if I didn’t understand foreign exchange. So, I don’t need these beauties and their euros and yen. I’m sure my wife would feel the same as well.
So, visit me on Facebook and claim one of my admirers. It would be nice, if at the same time, you purchased one of my novels. I mean, fair is fair.
I could have had a really cool photo of a 5 lempira note from Honduras but I’m having problems with my scanner. Sorry.
– Paul R. De Lancey, Dreamer
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.
Spanish Entree
(spicy potatoes)
INGREDIENTS
3 garlic cloves
½ onion
2 Roma tomatoes
1 tablespoon flour
½ cup water
5 medium russet potatoes
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
2 ½ tablespoons olive oil (½ cup more later)
¾ teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons Spanish paprika (or paprika)
¼ teaspoon thyme
½ teaspoon sugar
½ cup olive oil
½ tablespoon parsley
PREPARATION
Mince garlic cloves, onion, and tomatoes. Add flour to ½ cup water. Stir until flour dissolves. Put potatoes in large pot and cover them with water. Bring to boil using high heat. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 20 minutes or until potatoes are soft. Carefully remove potatoes and let them cool. Cut potatoes into 1″ cubes. Add potato cubes, pepper, and salt to mixing bowl. Turn potato cubes until they are coated with pepper and salt.
Add 2½ tablespoons olive oil and garlic, onion, and cayenne pepper to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onion softens and garlic browns. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low. Add tomato, paprika, thyme, sugar, and dissolved flour. Simmer on low heat for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.
While tomato/garlic/onion/spice mix simmers, add ½ cup olive oil and potato cubes to second pan. Sauté on high heat for 5-to-10 minutes or until potatoes turn golden brown. Stir constantly Remove potato cubes and place them on paper towels to remove excess oil. Put potatoes in bowls and top with tomato sauce. Garnish with parsley.
TIDBITS
1) Gerona, Spain has a dating agency for pets. Happy Animals caters to lovelorn dogs, cats and birds. The mind boggles.
2) You are more likely to be robbed in Spain than anywhere else.
3) Sure, with all those cash-strapped Spaniards needing to pony up big Euros for their animals’ social lives.
4) However, Spain started paying women around a thousand dollars for each baby they have. If they want, the señoras can spend their money at Happy Animals. Maybe with all that extra cash, the robbery rate will fall.
5) If robbery rates fall, people can spend the money they would have spent on alarm systems for their homes on romantic dinners.
6) If Spanish couples have enough romantic dinners, they will have more babies.
7) It costs money to raise babies. A lot more than $1,000. The money to pay for these kids will have to come from somewhere.
9) From cutting out Doggy Dating Centers or taking up robbery. Tough choice.
10) Most Spanish women will curtail their dogs’ love lives.
11) But not all. Home burglaries will soar. Spanish families will have to spend more money on home security. Where will they get the money for all these alarms?
16) From robbing people’s homes. Spaniards will spend ever more money protecting their abode.
17) This will spiral out of control. Lawlessness will stalk the land.
18) The Spanish government will have to step in. The army will have to patrol every home on every street to keep order.
19) But not for long. Spanish families will have no money to pay their taxes. They will have spent it all on burglar alarms. The Spanish government won’t be able to pay its army. Mutinies will break out among the soldiers. This will occur in small units at first. Nothing will coordinated. But the trend will be unmistakable.
20) Where will the authorities get the money to pay its fighting men?
21) From saffron. Saffron costs seven dollars a gram. It’s far more expensive than oil.
22) How will the Spanish get enough saffron to pay its army?
23) By invading Iran. Iran is a huge producer of saffron. Won’t Iran fight back? Yes, it will.
24) And that’s bad. Iran could very well develop nuclear weapons in the near future. Iran also has lots of enemies who will inevitably be drawn into the Spanish-Iranian War. The war will spread until it becomes global. We will have Armageddon.
25) That’s bad. So, let your pets find their own soul mates. It’ll be character building experience for them and save the world as well. Remember, the culinary arts will the first to go after the apocalypse.
– 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.
Brazil over Germany. I’m feeling very hemispheric right now. I’m also upset about the vicious tackle that took out a Brazilian star. I didn’t see it, but still. I just got reminded how 
West Germany and Austria effectively colluded in a World Cup match in 1982 to keep Algeria from advancing. Grr! Besides I like Brazilian food a lot more. BRA is the three letters internet reports use for Brazil or Brasil. Women wear bras. I like women. GER for Germany, is one letter away from being germ. Germs make us sick. Advantage, Brazil.
Netherlands over Argentina. I’m not feeling hemispheric loyalty anymore. Besides, I lived in the Netherlands and enjoyed it very much. My brother played soccer in the Netherlands for the American International School. No one in our family has even been to Argentina. Got to love those orange uniforms. The Dutch monarchy is descended from the House of Orange. A popular drink in the Netherlands is Oranjeboom, or Orange Tree. There’s also Dutch ovens. I love Dutch ovens. They make cooking so much easier. There’s no such item or beer, that I know off that has anything about Argentina in its name. Poffertjes is a great Dutch dessert. Sure, the Argentinian barbecue is great, but I’m in a mood for dessert. Oh, and hot air rises in Holland. A real estate agent once told my mother and I that. I have no such confirmation for Argentina.
– sports reporter, Paul De Lancey
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.
South African Entree
INGREDIENTS
2 potatoes
1 yellow onion
1 red onion
2 cups fresh spinach
4 small tomatoes
4 cloves garlic
2 chile peppers
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh ginger
2 tablespoons curry powder
1/2 tablespoon turmeric
1 tablespoon garam masala
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
PREPARATION
Peel potatoes. Cut potatoes into cubes smaller than 1/2″. Peel and dice yellow onion. Peel and dice red onion. Dice spinach and tomatoes. Mince garlic and chile peppers. Add onion and vegetable oil to large pot. Sauté onions on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until onions soften. Stir frequently. Add spinach, tomatoes, garlic, peppers, ginger, curry powder, turmeric, garam masala, and ground beef.
Cook for 5-to-10 minutes on medium heat or until beef browns. Add potato cubes. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 30 minutes or until potatoes are soft. Stir occasionally.
Goes well with rice or Indian bread such as roti. The Guyanese version of roti is in this cookbook.
TIDBITS
1) Recipes for meat in a spicy sauce date back 3,700 years to Babylonia. Recipes were kept on clay tablets. Carrying around a hundred recipes would have required a wheelbarrow.
2) Did ancient Babylonia possess wheelbarrows? If not, that would explain why the Babylonian empire fell to invaders. The population was too busy carrying clay recipe tablets in their arms to defend themselves.
3) Two-third of all food eaten at restaurants in Britain is Indian. Wow. There are more Indian restaurants in London than in Bombay and New Delhi.
4) People will begin to crave for curry because the spices arouse and stimulate the taste buds. Sorry, people that’s all curry arouses.
5) In America, many more women appreciate a box of chocolates from their date than a bowl of curry particularly if the bowl has no lid and she’s holding it on her lap and your take the corner really fast or you accelerate really fast and the curry gets all over her dress and she kicks you out of the car and you have to walk home even though it’s your car and you never see her or your car again.
6) No, guys, it’s a much better idea to give your date a bouquet of flowers and box of chocolates and take her out to an Indian restaurant, for goodness sake.
– 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.
Hawaiian Entree
SIMPLE HAWAIIAN PANCAKES
INGREDIENTS
8 frozen waffles
4 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1/2 cups pineapple juice
4 ounce can pineapple chunks
PREPARATION
Toast waffles according to instructions on package. Cut butter into 16 pats. Combine in mixing bowl: sugar, milk, and pineapple juice. Place equal amounts of butter and mixed juice and 2-to-4 pineapple chunks of each toasted waffle. Aloha!
TIDBITS
1) In 1869, women of Wyoming got the right to vote. The waffle iron was first patented in 1869. It was a good year.
2) One-hundred years later, the amazing New York Mets won their first World Series championship after years of last place finishes. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
3) The waffle began its illustrious culinary journey during the Middle Ages. The waffle! So if someone calls this era the Dark Ages, waggle your finger at the fool and say, “Nooooo!”
4) The waffle became so popular that bloody fights became common between waffle vendors seeking prime locations. So much so, that a King of France took off time from wars and mistresses to decree a minimum distance between the warring vendors.
5) It has been said the French Revolution started in 1789 in part by disgruntled vendors seeking to throw out royal enforcement of the waffle decrees.
6) America annexed Hawaii in 1898 to ensure a steady supply of pineapple chunks in juice for its burgeoning appetite for Hawaiian waffles. A drastic measure perhaps, but it is worthwhile to note America has never since been involved in any military conflict over foreign pineapples. The same cannot be said for oil.
– 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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