ICELAND

WheelTug picked up its eleventh airline yesterday — Icelandair. I know the Arctic is not technically a continent — just frozen water — and that probably the folks at the Iceland Tourism Department would rather identify their country with Europe than with the Arctic anyway. But if the Arctic were the eighth continent, and the island of Iceland were on it instead of just sort of rising up out of the ocean near it, that would allow us to say “11 airlines on four continents.”

QUICK CORN

Just in time for summer, Cooking Like A GuyTM, part 63. I haven’t posted a recipe in a long time because since we switched to WordPress I haven’t figured out how elegantly to insert the TRADEMARK symbol. And still haven’t, but I trust you. [UPDATE: Thanks to Mark L., I now do! Cooking Like A Guy™.]

So here, to compensate at least a little, two new recipes. Starting with corn.

Step one: buy corn.

Step two: microwave to taste.

Seriously, it’s that simple. If it’s good corn, just three or four minutes, husks and tassles and all, and it should be amazing. When it cools down a little, shuck, salt, pepper, eat.

INSTANT BAKLAVA

The simplest way to cook baklava is just to buy some. But who ever thinks to do that? Instead:

1. Pour a little granola into a small bowl. Or corn flakes, raisin bran — whatever.

2. Dip a spoon into a jar of honey. I know, honey is not that manly, but everyone should have a jar – it’s honey. How can you not? Bears love honey, and bears are manly. You could name a football team after bears. So just dip the damn spoon into the damn jar and then . . .

3. Putting the base of the spoon onto the floor of the bowl, push some of the granola on top, and then – still holding the now-honey-and-granola-laden spoon level with one hand, take a small knifeful or forkful of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Light (or actual butter, but I’m trying to delight you, not kill you) and dab it on top of the granola, scraping it off the knife or fork with the edge of the spoon.

4. Put the spoon in your mouth, close your lips, and, as you pull the spoon back out, leaving all the granola and ICBINBL in your mouth — but just some of the honey to swirl around and just make you crazy it’s so good, just as baklava does, but without having had to bake anything or clean anything (read on).

5. Repeat until all the granola from the bowl and all the honey from the spoon are gone and you’ve licked the spoon and any honey that dripped onto the bowl, so everything is perfectly clean, as if you were a cat – though, being a guy, you have a dog. By which I mean a dog – a large, sloppy Labrador retriever or somebody, not one of those dogs that really are so tiny and (let’s just come right out and say it) French, they’re barely dogs at all.

And that, my friends, is how a guy makes baklava.