Journal

It is a thin line drawn in the sand that separates madness from sanity. As the tide ebbs and flows, the line vanishes and the two worlds collide.

There was a time when various actions and events occurred that seemed like minor distractions, momentarily removing our focus on the big picture as we narrowed our view to a tiny aspect—a brush stroke that might well have gone unnoticed had it not been pointed out on the broad canvas.

Today, it seems that there is no longer a series of minor distractions. Today, it might appear that our current state of affairs is nothing less than one giant distraction appearing in a blur, their contents merged or piled up like dirty laundry. Like a child whose attention span can be measured in nanoseconds, the deluge is too rapid-fire to gain a foothold long enough for consideration, let alone contemplation or understanding.

In the quirky French comedy, The King of Hearts (1966), director Philippe de Broca weaves a vibrant tapestry of fantastical characters that deftly blurs the worlds of madness and sanity, blending them in such a way that nothing makes sense, and nothing doesn’t.

Alan Bates plays a kilt-wearing British soldier at the end of World War I who is dispatched—with the pigeons he trains—to a small French village to disarm a bomb that had been placed by the retreating Imperial German Army. The citizens, having learned of the bomb’s placement, flee their town, inadvertently leaving open the gate to the asylum, thereby allowing the colorful, happy lunatics to roam freely about the town.

When Charles Plumpick (Bates) arrives, he is bewildered by the scene. He finds it odd that the citizens, who he doesn’t know are inmates, are oblivious to both the danger of war and about there being a booby-trapped town square in which they gleefully cavort. Plumpick is dubbed The King of Hearts in an elaborate ceremony. His confusion continues unabated.

There is no shortage of perplexing distractions as Plumpick grows more and more frantic about finding the bomb, set to go off at midnight, and diffusing it.

His attention is constantly diverted, however, by a charming madness from the matter at hand.

If there is anything about the movie that is analogous to the current state of affairs—besides the obvious notion that the lunatics are running the asylum—it is that our collective attentions seem to change with the urgent movements of an irritated gnat.

The pandemic, of course, has fueled much of our national anxiety. The current administration has handled it poorly from the get-go; denying it as being anything more serious than a head cold, elevating it a Democrat-inspired hoax, and blaming Obama for leaving Mother Hubbard’s cupboard bare. The latest trick is granting the status of Dr. Anthony Fauci of being both hero and goat in a game that is far from over.

In the meantime, Trump took time from his busy golf schedule and daily public tête-à-tête with the press corps, to trumpet the efforts of a Dr. Stella Immanuel, who sided with the president in his distrust of masks. Immanuel is a Houston-based physician and pastor of the Fire Power Ministries church, which, along with her clinic, is housed in a suburban strip mall. Presumably, that is also the home base of America’s Frontline Doctors, a widely unrecognized group that registered its website a few days before launching its video, produced by Breitbart News.

Immanuel has used social media to make strange medical claims, including that sex with “tormenting spirits” is responsible for gynecological problems, miscarriages, and impotence. (Of course.)

“Many women,” she claimed, “suffer from astral sex regularly. Astral sex is the ability to project one’s spirit man into the victim’s body and have intercourse with it.” (Who didn’t know that?)

Trump, who seems to rely on Twitter for both information and the dissemination of his random thoughts, admitted he knew nothing about Immanuel, but that she sounded “interesting” in her echoing of his claims that hydroxychloroquine was a miracle coronavirus cure.

Trump’s base, meanwhile, is swallowing the miracle cure by the handful. At the same time the anti-vaxxers of his flock (there’s a huge crossover) aren’t interested in a vaccine, which leads me to suggest that the only way they’ll ever shut up is if they step on rusty nails. Lockjaw is a bitch.

He was silent on Immanuel’s assertion that the government was run by “reptilians,” which just might be the only thing she said that made any sense.

Trump, of course, plays the blame game with all the deftness of a defiant little boy whose errant throw broke the neighbor’s window. He always gets caught but doesn’t seem to either care, or, perhaps, even notice.

Of course, Trump is most worried about the November elections. Depending on which polls one might care to believe, he’s falling significantly behind Joe Biden, the presumptive Democrat nominee. Claiming that the polling places will be too hazardous for the Americans to visit, he has suggested postponing the election. And yet, he is insisting that Dick and Jane return to school as soon as possible. If they don’t, no federal education funds will be distributed to them.

So then the Postal Service comes into play as untrustworthy and a source of corruption that needs to be dismantled, especially in states run by democrats who Trump fears will spend the next 90 days stuffing mailboxes with fraudulent ballots, many of which will bear the distinct markings of voters named Fido or Rover.

His using secret operatives to quell what he sees as riots, plays to the imaginations of those who believe that this is a dress rehearsal for his full-scale take-down of the Government should he lose.

No one man can create all of the havoc that we’ve witnessed recently. He’s had help from such stellar citizens as Tom Cotton, the junior Republican Senator from Arkansas, which has become a hotbed of COVID-19 spikes because the people of his state seem to like spending time with each other in public swimming pools.

Last week, Cotton asserted that “slavery was a necessary evil.” His overt racism was further echoed by his belief that federal funds should not be allowed to fund the teaching of history as expressed in the New York Times’ 1619 Project, a highly acclaimed program that traces the history of the United States from the year the first enslaved Africans were settled here from their homes in Africa. The Project seeks to explain how pertinent slavery was to the founding of the country with particular regard to America’s economic strength.

In the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement, Cotton denies the existence of systemic racism and argues that “America is a great and noble country founded on the proposition that all mankind is created equal.”

Well, that should quell the protests.

And then, apparently wanting to leave no racist stone unturned, Sen. Cotton told The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that “the Holocaust was also a necessary evil.”

A graduate of Harvard Law School, Cotton noted, incorrectly, that “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.” He went on to credit Adolph Hitler with the murder of six million Jews that helped keep “the Chosen People” from being “scattered all over the world.”

Then Cotton showed his evangelical Republican stripes by claiming that the book of Revelations shows that “it is absolutely necessary for the Jews to be in Israel” so that “the Beast can be destroyed at the Second Coming of Christ,” which, apparently is coming during the battle of Armageddon “during the 70th week of Daniel.”

I’d like to prepare for this event, but Cotton did not specify exactly when it would be.

And just to add insult to injury, all of this nonsense came during a week when much of the nation was mourning the death of Rep. John Lewis, a man of great character who dedicated his entire life to fighting for civil, human, and voting rights. His blood was spilled after crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge while marching for freedom from hatred and bias.

On the morning of his funeral service, Trump announced the aforementioned idea for the postponement of the 2020 elections, and waxed poetic about the death of Herman Cain whose considerable wealth came from hawking pizzas; the irony being his dying from COVID-19.

As if there was some shortage of distractions, one of the idiot commentators at Fox News, as well as Stephen Miller, the Nazi mastermind in the Trump administration, characterized Barack Obama as a greasy politician who showed a lack of character by mentioning the political trials and travails of Rep. Lewis during his eulogy.

What the hell did they expect? An “Ode On a Grecian Urn”?

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Pastitsio
Derived from the Italian, the Greek pastitsio translates to “a mess.” That seems only appropriate considering that many might find our current situation a mess. I love this dish, despite my typical disdain for cinnamon.

For the filling:
1/2 cup olive oil
2 lbs. ground beef or lamb
1 large yellow onion (chopped)
1 cup dry white wine
1 (14-oz.) can tomato puree
3 Tbs. fresh parsley (chopped)
1/2 tsp. ground allspice
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
Salt, freshly ground pepper to taste
3 tbsp. breadcrumbs

For the Pasta:
1# pkg. penne or rigatoni
1/2 cup unsalted butter
4 egg whites (reserve the yolks for béchamel sauce)
1 1/2 cups Parmesan cheese or Kefalotyri, (grated, divided)

For the Béchamel Sauce:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 quart milk (warmed)
8 egg yolks (beaten lightly)
A pinch of ground nutmeg

Heat olive oil in a large sauté pan.
Add ground beef and cook over medium-high heat until the pink color disappears about 5 minutes.
Add onions and cook until they are translucent, about 5 minutes more.
Add wine, tomato sauce, parsley, allspice, cinnamon, salt, and pepper and allow the sauce to simmer over low heat for 10 minutes.

While sauce is simmering, put water on to boil for pasta. Cook pasta noodles according to package directions and drain well.
Rinse noodles in a colander under cold water to cool them slightly.
Melt butter in pasta pot and return the cooked noodles to the pot.
Stir in beaten egg whites and 1 cup of grated cheese and toss lightly, being careful not to break the noodles.

Brush the bottom and sides of a lasagna pan with olive oil. Layer the bottom with half the pasta noodles and press down so that they are somewhat flat.
Add the meat filling in an even layer.
Top with remaining pasta noodles and flatten top layer as best you can.

Heat the oven to 350 F while you prepare the béchamel sauce.
Melt butter in a saucepan over low heat.
Using a whisk, add flour to melted butter whisking continuously to make a roux.
Allow the flour-butter mixture to cook for a minute, but do not let it brown.

Add warmed milk to mixture in a steady stream, whisking continuously. Simmer over low heat until it thickens but does not boil.
Remove from heat and stir in beaten egg yolks and a pinch of nutmeg.

Pour the béchamel over the pasta noodles making sure to pour sauce down into the corners as well.
Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup of grated Parmesan cheese.

Bake for 45 minutes or until the top is golden.

The only prerequisite for entry into the restaurant business is a level of insanity for which there is no cure or treatment, let alone a vaccine. The only thing that will hold the condition at bay is to get into the business and hope to develop a herd immunity as a protection from wanting to open a second or third restaurant.

At least that’s what Dr. Fauci says.

The hours are long, the work is brutal and, as Adam Gopnik noted in his 2011 book The Table Comes First (Vintage), “aside from the ventures of a handful of those entrepreneurs essentially indifferent to the food they serve, how tiny is the hope of profit.”

“Sale métier,” the cook says. Filthy occupation.

A restaurant is the product of a dream, usually that of one person but oftentimes shared with kindred souls. During the course of bringing that dream to fruition, the details are so meticulously planned that by the time financing is secured and a proper location is found, the owner(s) knows how he(they) wants the napkins folded.

Last week I met one of the three owners of Campione, which will soon open in the space where I had my restaurant, Adagio, for nearly 12 years. I chose not to offer any unsolicited advice, even after his telling me that the process was akin to giving birth to a teenager who wanted to kill you. Jeff Galli struck me as a personable young man with a sense of humor; he was wearing a mask. (Concern and caring for people are pretty much the cornerstones of the hospitality industry.) He and his partners, I assume, have grand plans for the corner space and I wouldn’t want to interfere.

Not everybody thinks like that. In fact, it seems that at times anybody who has actually eaten in a restaurant knows exactly how one of them should be run, what should be on the menu, how the place should be decorated, and how the staff should dress. Typically, they don’t hold back.

My first foray into food service began in 2000 at the long-gone Peterson’s Spirits & Eatery in the Murray Hotel. Scott Peterson was a decidedly talented chef who had trained at the New England Culinary Institute and had served an internship in Chamberry, France.

Scott had a precise vision of what he wanted his first restaurant to be. High-end fine dining with French-inspired cuisine; three courses from a limited menu that would change seasonally. Prix fixe.

That was his plan. He spent hours scribbling worm-like things on paper to inspire his plating.

“So,” said an acquaintance during what would turn out to be about a five-month build-out and remodel, “tell Scott that where he’ll make the most money is with lasagna. It’s cheap, it’s easy. Make a big tray every day.”

I answered that the restaurant would be serving French cuisine.

“So what?” he said as he rolled his eyes and shook his head. “You gotta make money.”

“This is Montana,” another acquaintance noted. “We like beef and you’d do well to put steak on the menu…you know, a big 24-ounce T-bone, ribeye, prime rib on the weekend.”

At the time, that list of steaks was on the menu of at least three or four other restaurants in town.

But the suggestions ran on to include fried shrimp, pork roast, ribs, lobster, crab legs. Macaroni-and-cheese was a popular suggestion, as was the creation of a kids’ menu that would, of course, offer hot dogs, grilled cheese, and tomato soup.

Most of these suggestions I never let get to Scott, who would not have reacted kindly to them.

I doubt that any of the suggestions would have offered any salvation. The restaurant lasted less than two years, which is not uncommon at all for start-up operations.

It is a tough business.

Somewhere along the line I had become infected with whatever disease it is that makes one fall head-over-heels in love with the restaurant business. There is an almost imperceptible energy that comes from the tasks of food preparation and service. The cast of characters is interesting at the least, as are the customers.

It’s exciting, and it’s a daily risk-taking endeavor to create a menu, execute it, and maintain an atmosphere that exists for the simple concept of making people happy.

And so I threw my hat into the ring and came out the owner of a corner pizza joint. I had big plans whose details I would work out on my off hours. Namely, I wanted Adagio to offer casual fine dining, with an emphasis on the cuisines of Northern Italy. I wanted as little as possible to do with red-sauce and checkered tablecloths of what was Italian-American cuisine. I was going to offer polenta and risotto, thick veal-chops and osso buco.

I got plenty of unsolicited menu advice, little of it much different from those ideas I had fielded at Peterson’s, right down to the lasagna.

To this day, people ask what I miss the most about the business. My answer is always, “The heat.” The heat generated on the cooking line is intense. So is the work. Five four-tops whose tickets come in at the same time with fourteen different menu items, three with no starters or salads. Six specials: four fish, two lamb.

“You’re killing me, here.”

The adrenaline is rushing at its peak. It will sustain us for another, three or four hours, until we have a shift wine and do the cleaning for tomorrow’s lunch service. And that adrenaline would frequently accompany me to bed, my head spinning with what went right and what went wrong and what tomorrow might bring.

“Chef, table four would like to speak with you about a wine suggestion.”

I was attending my sister’s sixtieth birthday in Bloomington, Indiana, in 2008. I drove downtown to get an espresso and picked up a copy of the New York Times. The failure of Lehman Brothers was front page news that signaled the beginning of one of the worst economic downturns in our history. The next day I was home, walking to the bank from my corner store. The little boutique next door had closed and there was a for rent sign in the window. I reached my landlord from my cell phone and made a deal for the space.

An economic downturn called for new approaches to business, new opportunities, I thought.

“A wine bar,” I told a disapproving Geri. “We can open the place days and make a really casual place for lunch. Soups, salads, sandwiches.” In contrast to Adagio, which was greatly modeled after the Slow-food movement, we named the bar an up-tempo Allegro.

Slow food fast © became both our premise and our promise.

Again, there was no shortage of nifty ideas for making the wine bar reflect someone else’s vision. I took it all in stride and moved forward.

Allegro didn’t last long, not quite three years. I don’t know why, but I suspect it was because I couldn’t provide the nurturing it needed. My heart was in Adagio, and I began to resent the time and efforts the place was demanding and, therefore, distracting me from what was most important—my executing Italian cuisine.

It also coincided with an illness that, in time, would prevent me from working in the business I had come to love. The needed energy was gone. And a third joint, Pronto, a tiny lunch place I opened a couple of years later, was just getting going when my health took another downturn.

And so to my new friend Jeff, I’ll not offer any advice, and I most sincerely wish you and your partners the best of luck in your new venture. I’d like to see that place become vibrant and successful once again. I’m eager to become a customer.

Oh, in case you need a great recipe for porchetta—so prevalent as street food throughout Rome—here it is.

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Porchetta

As is true with all Italian cuisine, there is no one recipe for any dish. They vary from village to village, with fresh ingredients, not technique, driving the creative process. I’ve enjoyed porchetta in Rome, Florence, Rappalo, Asti, and Modena. Each was different; each was delicious.

Traditionally, the dish calls for a suckling pig, deboned, skin on. The carcass is then stuffed with herbs (sage, basil, thyme, oregano, parsley, fennel), lemon, bread, various ground meats, currants, pine nuts, cheese, wine, onions, garlic…you get the picture. I cook mine over a bed of carrots.

Few have access to young pigs. Some can find a pork loin with the belly attached, which is ideal—especially if the skin is still on the belly. Although the cracklings are wonderful, a pork loin without the belly will work. Last night, I made an improvised version of porchetta with a pork tenderloin. I butterflied it, like you would with any of the cuts, and seasoned it generously with salt and pepper. I took a single link of mild Italian sausage, uncased, and fried it with some onions and garlic. I deglazed the pan with white wine (vermouth, actually). Off heat, I added some fresh oregano and basil from Wendy’s garden, and a little olive oil. Add to that I added a little lemon zest, a dash of wine vinegar, and a handful of Asiago cheese.

I spread the mixture onto the pork, rolled it up, and tied it securely with butcher’s twine. I seared it in a hot skillet for a couple of minutes on each side and placed the whole thing in the oven at 425° for 15 minutes. It was delicious.

Buon appetito!

It was early on Monday, a day I no longer dread as each day of confinement seems about the same as the one before. I had my espresso and a small plate of salami, olives, and cheese (Comté, left over from last night’s gratin dauphinois.) A small glass of pinot noir stood at the ready.

I sat at the edge of the deck, admiring God’s work in the bumper crop of knee-high weeds that had overtaken the yard. I was also thinking about why some people spell God’s name with a hyphen rather than the “o.” Is it pronounced the same?

I took my last slug of the syrupy espresso and reached for the wine. Suddenly, a great exhalation of hot air blew sweeping across the yard. It blew a paper-thin slice of prosciutto into the weeds. Damn. It reminded me of the Santa Ana winds that each summer would make Angelinos fall into moods that were tense, uneasy, and wrathful. Sometimes, violence ensued.

“Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks,” wrote Raymond Chandler in his 1938 novel, Red Wind. “Anything can happen.”

I went into the house and found more red wine. A mere three ounces, I could sense, would not suffice on a day like this.

I turned on the radio, hoping that a news broadcast would tell what I had just experienced.

It did.

Described as a phenomena previously unknown by man, it was the whooshing sound of our nation’s collective sigh of mass relief that the President had finally convinced Chuck Woolery to join the White House pandemic team. Already, through an exchange of a series of highly articulate Tweets about hoaxes and the evil Left Wing radical commie-bastard Democrats, Trump had begun drawing on the former emcee’s encyclopedic knowledge about everything except women’s shoes, an area in which he is sorely lacking.

Trump assured Chuck that it wouldn’t be a problem. “That’s why we keep Ivanka around.”

And who better to replace Jared Kushner, who was busy perusing promotional pamphlets from Federal prisons? You know, just in case.

Already the pundits were asking if there might be roles for Steve Harvey, Pat Sajak, Drew Carey, or Alex Trebek.

In case you haven’t noticed, the Trump Administration has had the highest number of staff turnovers in recorded history. Actually, that may or may not be true, but I really don’t care to do the research, so you’ll just have to run with it like I have.

One of the reasons for this record-setting turnover rate is that the people charged with vetting applicants to various jobs haven’t a clue about the kind of people Trump wants at the table. Until now. With his surprise announcement of a love for Chuck that was once reserved only for Kim Jong-un, Supreme Leader of North Korea, Trump welcomed the former game show host by mumbling something like, “Will amco ta da, Chicky.”

And in less than a week, Woolery was gone from the Admistration, presumably because he lost the endorsement deal from Goya beans to his boss.

Himself a veteran has-been from the world of game shows, it appears that Trump really likes celebrities. If they are well known and Trump gets a picture with them, his status (in his eyes) goes up several poll points because each member of his base subscribes to People magazine. Not even his staff reads The Economist.

Trying my best to be a good citizen, I’m willing to help Trump fill his cabinet posts, even if many of them are dead (like he’d know) or Democrats (agents in this subterfuge) so he can play 18 holes of uninterrupted golf every day for the next four months

In order of succession to the Presidency:

Vice President of the United States
Buh-bye Pence. You’ll be replaced by anybody with a pulse who finds some kind of macabre pleasure in attending funerals of the leaders of tiny nation-states and who doesn’t call his wife, Mother.
Department of State
Paul Lynde, whose rather flamboyant style of expression will keep world leaders both amused and confused, will also improve international relations just because they can’t make sense of whatever it is that we might be doing.
Department of the Treasury
Secretary Jimmy Stewart once played a banker with a heart of gold. I mentioned that this was fantasy, right?
Department of Defense
Secretary Richard Roundtree. He revives his role as “Shaft.” Any questions?
Department of Justice
Attorney General Raymond Burr looks enough like Bill Barr that Trump will never even notice. Unlike Barr, Perry Mason was likeable and he has never lost a case.
Department of the Interior
Secretary Dixie Carter, as the team leader in Designing Women, Ms. Carter—a name Trump doesn’t trust—will remove all of that tacky gold crap and replace it with muted tones and Shaker furniture.
Department of Agriculture
Secretary Eddie Albert. Who else is better suited to oversee food production and trade than Eva Gabor’s television husband? It’s the also the only cabinet post with a theme song: “Green Acres is the place to be…”
Department of Commerce
Secretary Redd Fox should have no trouble understanding the junk bonds that will be Wall Street’s only surviving commodity.
Department of Labor
Secretary Tennessee Ernie Ford pretty much covered America’s labor condition when he sang, “Sixteen tons/what do you get/another day older and deeper in debt…”
Department of Health and Human Services
Secretary Robert Young, who revives his role as Marcus Welby, M.D., a controversial doctor who employed an Hispanic receptionist before it was even required, and who is not afraid to wear a mask.
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Secretary Bob Vila has a plan to remodel every house in America with sponsorship money from tool manufacturers and the Weyerhaeuser Company, including use of WC’s embalmed trees for atrium decorations.
Department of Transportation
Secretary Danny DeVito. Any dispatcher with five drivers and three cabs in his charge should have no problem dealing with our transportation issues. The FFA, by the way, is under his oversight. His daily report is usually, “Nothing fell out of the sky today, boss. We good?”
Department of Energy
Secretary Richard Simmons is the very embodiment of energy. Besides, he’ll make a lot of people in the West Wing really uncomfortable.
Department of Education
Secretary Karen Valentine. She’s smarter, more articulate, and far prettier than Betsy DeVos. But then again, so is Minnie Pearl.
Department of Veterans Affairs
Secretary Jim Nabors was the first victim of the Clinton Administration’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” directive. Trump knows nothing about this.
Department of Homeland Security
Secretary Clint Eastwood. Really? You have questions? When he’s not verbally assaulting a chair, he’s on the case—armed and ready.

The following positions have the status of Cabinet-rank:

White House Chief of Staff
Ann B. Davis, who kept the Brady Bunch in line, will easily handle the idiocy of the West Wing.
Environmental Protection Agency
Administrator Jim Fowler, star of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, will make regular visits to the Oval Office with exotic and endangered species, such as Republicans.
Office of Management & Budget
Director Bob Newhart was trained as an accountant who thought rounding figures off was good enough.
United States Trade Representative
Ambassador Marlon Brando will make deals nobody could refuse. Enough said.
United States Mission to the United Nations
Ambassador Mr. Fred Rogers. If you’ve ever seen the video of him defending PBS before a Senate panel, you’ll understand this selection.
Council of Economic Advisers
Chairman Karl Marx. While known for his work creating communism, he actually was a London-based economist who might actually explain why “trickle-down” doesn’t work.
Small Business Administration
Administrator Joe Conley. As Ike Godsey, the man who had the smallest retail operation on Walton Mountain, he gained vast small business experience. He also understands that “trickle-down” doesn’t work.

Photo montage by Courtney A. Liska

Gratin dauphinois (Potato Gratin)

Butter to grease the baking dish
2 cups heavy cream
1-1/2 cup whole milk
1 Tbs. salt
1 tsp. ground black pepper
2 tsp. ground nutmeg
2 cloves garlic, peeled and bruised
3-4 large Russet potatoes (about 3 pounds), peeled and sliced very thin
1 cup shredded Comté cheese

Heat the oven to 350°F. Grease an 11x7x2-inch baking dish with butter.
After slicing the potatoes, soak them in cold water for 10-15 minutes.
In a large saucepan, place all of the ingredients (except the cheese).
Bring to the boil, reduce heat, and let simmer for about 15 minutes.
Using a slotted spoon, remove the potato slices and make a layer in the baking dish. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, nutmeg and about one-third of the cheese. Repeat process twice more.
In the meanwhile, boil the milk-cream mixture and reduce slightly.
Pour over the potatoes, place in the oven and bake, uncovered, for 45 minutes to an hour, or until the potatoes are tender when pierced with a knife and golden brown on top. Let the dish settle and cool for about ten minutes before serving.

By the standards of the service industry, my mother would have not passed muster with many restaurant servers. She was demanding, her manner brusque and impatient. And she didn’t tip.

Well, she tipped. But sparingly, to say the least. If the bill was $20, her tip was maybe $1. The five percent tippers of the world are rarely welcomed back.

My mother was smart, well-educated and she spent much of her adult life working to help foster educational opportunities for minority women. She was an accountant and taught business in various night schools in Chicago. Her politics were progressive, and her sense of justice was easily bruised by the unfairness she saw visited upon some people. Somehow, her empathy for all mankind seemed to fall just short of including the people charged with serving her.

There were many times when I would leave something at the table just so I could return to augment my mother’s miserly tip.

Mom had never spent even an hour waiting or busing tables. She never worked behind the counter at a deli or bakery. She never made beds and cleaned guest rooms at a hotel. She never pumped gas or picked up trash on the side of a roadway. She wasn’t in the armed forces nor did she work directly in the war effort.

I spent fourteen years in the restaurant industry as a manager and then as chef-owner of a small Italian eatery. I had never worked so hard. The 16-hour days were stressful, and the job demanded intense concentration and attention to detail. It made me keenly aware of the needs of others and of my own failings. From waitstaff and back-of-house workers to the customers whose only ambition was to have a pleasant dining experience, the concerns and efforts were great.

We hated it when a customer would under tip. The servers felt cheated, and so did the cooks. It offered no validation to our efforts.

America changed dramatically with the crash of the stock market in 1929. The Great Depression brought high unemployment and financial ruin to countless thousands. The economy had failed, and the public looked to the government for financial salvation and steadfast leadership.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt offered the American people a New Deal that included the establishment of the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration that put workers directly on the government payroll, keeping the struggling economy afloat while also expanding and fortifying the infrastructure of the United States.

Those times saw our government grow dramatically while echoing Abraham Lincoln’s notion that we should have only the government we need, but have all the government we need.

The WPA paved roads, built bridges, and constructed Camp David and the Tennessee Valley Authority. But it went beyond these physical public works to enhance America’s human infrastructure via Federal Project Number One, which employed writers, musicians, and actors. The Federal Theatre Project, part of Federal Project Number One, funded live performances and acting classes.

Carl Reiner—the actor, writer, and director who died last week at age 98—was a recipient of the training that was offered through that program. He credited FDR with his success in comedy.

As a country, we’re at a new crossroads where there is ample opportunity to employ new approaches to dealing with the highest unemployment in our history. There were many factors behind the Great Depression, including a lack of public faith in the market, failure of the banking system, and a drought that turned much of the Midwest into a dust bowl. Our situation today has been created by a pandemic that the current administration ignored until it was well out of control.

As if to buy forgiveness from the American people, the bumbling Trump and his troupe of toadies, in its protestations of what it thinks the Democrats are doing to advance socialism, gave away a few trillion dollars in the forms of a one-time payment of $1,200 to tax-paying citizens, and “bail-out” funds to those too-big-to-fail corporations, and the mega-churches that don’t pay taxes—not even on the private jets that seem to be the preferred mode of transportation for evangelical charlatans. Maybe a Gulf Stream brings them closer to God than Delta can. (Can’t wait until the KKK finds out Trump gave the Catholic church a few shekels.)

Oddly enough, nobody has to repay the government for this “stimulus” package. And more might be on the way.

Republicans love to paint FDR as the poster boy for socialism. Just whisper “New Deal” and many will wet themselves. But please note that the WPA paid its participants to work, as did several other New Deal programs. There were no free lunches. No welfare. (If you happen to find the funding of the arts to be frivolous or non-essential, just remember what goes into creating our favorite television shows.)

Many countries on this planet have required service stints for each of its citizens, regardless of gender or position. We would do well to look to their examples and follow suit.

I’ve long thought that a two-year gap between high school and college or trade school would allow for one year of public service in the armed forces or other public services established by cities, counties, or states. Except for those opting for military duty, the second year could be spent walking in another’s shoes as servers, maids, valets, bartenders, cab drivers, sky caps, care givers, nurse’s aides, et cetera.

Many of those jobs may not necessarily be pleasant but they are essential, and by learning first-hand what’s involved in the performance of those duties will maybe provide a new appreciation. Empathy, if you will.

Currently, Congress is proposing a big idea for the next stimulus package: a bi-partisan proposal to expand national-service programs to create jobs, help contain the coronavirus pandemic, and begin to unify a greatly divided country. In what sounds like a first cousin to FDR’s WPA, it is called the Cultivating Opportunity and Response to the Pandemic through Service (CORPS) Act. It would provide $16 billion over three years to double the number of AmeriCorps positions to 150,000 in the first year, and then increase to 200,000 and then 250,000 in the second and third years.

AmeriCorps programs, coordinated through the Corporation for National and Community Service, exist in all fifty states. The newly commissioned national-service volunteers could work at anything from building houses through Habitat for Humanity to feeding hungry people through the Agriculture Department’s Anti-Hunger Corps.

The bill’s co-sponsors are Senators Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith, both Mississippi Republicans, and Senator Christopher A. Coons, a Delaware Democrat. It’s up to them to get Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to heed the call of this legislation.

National service isn’t a cure-all for what ails the nation, but it would go a long way toward solving some of the challenges during this time of the pandemic and help overcome our divisions and revisit the notion of serving a common purpose.

Racial and economic injustice will not be eradicated by any single act, effort, or program. Service to and with others, however, is a start. It may help more Americans to work together for the sake of the republic. Though I would urge that such service should be mandatory, it at least should be introduced as an expectation.

There is much to be learned from the examples set by our military, first responders and front-line health-care workers. Their sacrifices are great, and we would do well as citizens to emulate their efforts.

It couldn’t hurt.

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Gazpacho

Summertime is a great time for cold soups. Gazpacho originated in Andalucia in southern Spain. Some people like their gazpacho pureed, which is traditional. I prefer it chunky.

4 ripe tomatoes, peeled
2 red bell peppers
1 English cucumber
1 medium sweet onion
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 tsp. salt
1/3 cup sherry vinegar
black pepper, to taste
5 cups tomato juice
1 tsp. Tabasco, or to taste

Trim and seed the vegetables. Cut into 1/4-inch dice. Combine with vinegar and pepper. Let rest for 5 minutes. Add tomato juice, hot sauce and 8 large ice cubes. Chill for at least four hours.

Against the advice of many of those in my innermost circle (my cabal, really), I traveled this past weekend to an undisclosed, secret location in upstate New York to participate in the annual two-day ANTIFA meeting/be-in/chili cook-off. There were too many participants to actually count, but the Fire Marshal estimated that there were somewhere in the neighborhood of a half-million people, all of whom were wearing masks and singing along with Canned Heat, whose members were using walkers.

As an organization, ANTIFA has an interesting history dating back to the 1967 “Summer of Love.” At that time, there were about 100,000 people who had gathered on the corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets in a seedy part of San Francisco where there was no shortage of illicit, yet quite alluring, drugs. Pretty much everybody had come to that famous corner to follow the advice of Timothy Leary: “Turn on, tune in, drop out, and remember the Alamo.” I’m actually not sure about the “Alamo” part.

As you can only imagine, the scene was, well, different. Needless to say, it was a very crowded street corner. Everybody there was in desperate need of a bath and more leather clothing. Most people had either a guitar they couldn’t play very well, a tambourine, or a pair of tabla drums—basically bongo drums, but more exotic because they came from the Indian subcontinent that was governed at the time by Ravi Shankar and George Harrison. There was a lot of dancing and singing and hugging because everyone was stoned out of their gourds, as it were. Peace, baby.

Both the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane got their starts there. The monuments built to both of those seminal bands have been removed by the Trump Administration, citing that their mere presence makes people want to ingest a couple of tabs of Owsley’s Monterey Purple and intensely watch things that aren’t there, all the while mumbling “far out, man, far out.”

There was a subtle political movement afoot—a subtext, perhaps—that showed serious disdain for the Vietnam War, fascism, and the Dave Clark Five. At the end of the summer, about one-third of the original gathering disappeared in what was called the Great Hippie Diaspora. Life magazine covered it, with illustrations by R. Crumb. Many moved north to Humboldt County to become millionaire pot farmers. Still others started garage bands in Seattle or opened vegan food trucks in Portland. And a smaller group, inspired by the orange-clad Hare Krishnas and accompanied by the novelist Norman Mailer, went to Virginia to perform an exorcism on the Pentagon, and at the same time levitate the building 300 feet in the air.

These were extraordinary times.

The political faction, wanting to shun the hippie image, bought collared shirts and khakis, enrolled in college, and formed Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Known for being almost as organized as the Democratic Party, SDS members wrote manifestos demanding an end to the War and calling for justice for everybody. Many wandered through suburban neighborhoods with petitions to ban iceberg lettuce. They also participated in a variety of efforts to close colleges just before finals.

And then, the Democratic Party held its convention in Chicago in the summer of 1968 and most of hell broke loose.

The Pentagon raisers, led by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, called themselves Yippies, which translated to Hippies with a ‘Y’. The Yippies deplored fascism, but they were party animals and a lot of focus was lost as they turned politics into farcical theater.

The SDS, meanwhile, was forced to go somewhere to seek shelter from the threatening political storm building on the Republican horizon. Well, some of them, at least. Those who did became known as the Weather Underground, which, oddly enough, had nothing to do with meteorology and everything to do with Bob Dylan who, at the time, was dating Joan Baez whose son Javy (Ha-vee) would become a star shortstop for the Chicago Cubs and ultimately learn how to ink his own skin.

But I digress.

And then, on a rainy day in August of 1969, the original core of ANTIFA, plus all of those from the Great Hippie Diaspora, recent high school grads, and disenchanted Wall Street lawyers, gathered in upstate New York to drop acid and sit in Max Yasgur’s muddy cow pasture for three, rather tedious days that celebrated rock ‘n’ roll music that about nine-tenths of the audience couldn’t hear.

It was an odd experience in trying times, but survivable as long as you stayed away from the brown acid. There were few fights, nobody died; there were many pregnancies. What was attained was a rather uncomfortable utopia to which fascists clearly weren’t welcome. Famously, there were three nuns there.

See how this ANTIFA thing works?

The Vietnam War raged on after Woodstock, but the anti-fascists continued their struggle against everything that could be considered mainstream, including John Denver, who claimed to have seen it “rain fire in the sky.” I’m guessing he had found some of the elusive Monterey Purple.

A utopian society projects the absolute ideal as a reality. It might have been achieved that weekend had IHOP not run out of pancake batter. A new diaspora ensued, with hungry people going back to wherever they had come from. Along with the return home though, many brought with them their anti-fascist resolve to keep America aware of and away from the doctrines of Hitler and Mussolini, the two guys who the hippies’ parents (the first ANTIFA) had fought during WWII.

The second-generation ANTIFA continued to grow, with advocates starting local chapters in almost every burg. Like the Kiwanis, they held secret meetings. Unlike the Kiwanis, who are dedicated to improving the lives of children, ANTIFA has no dues structure because George Soros pays for everything. Anyway, this ragtag troupe plotted how to peaceably destroy the evils lurking under sheets and bandoliers, and hiding behind the Confederate flag. In a sense, the Kiwanis and ANTIFA do have something in common.

Claiming success in helping defeat Richard Nixon, the ANTIFA moonbats laid fairly low from the Reagan Era through the Obama Era, arising only to protest American involvement in a series of senseless wars in which the goal was to police the Middle East on behalf of American oil companies. In return, the oil companies got tremendous tax breaks and subsidies. ANTIFA was also quick to point out that the “trickle down” theory of economics doesn’t work—not since Hoover, the first president to employ this woefully flawed theory on behalf of the rich, for whom it wasn’t flawed. They also noted that it was inherently racist.

ANTIFA also protested injustice and discrimination, and voiced concern for the environment, education, clean energy, healthcare, hunger, poverty, endangered species, civil rights, human rights, voting rights…the list goes on and on.

It is difficult to even imagine an organization more sinister.

ANTIFA roared back to life in 2016, the year the Cubs—with the help of Joan’s kid—won the World Series after a 108-year drought. (Remember: Anybody can have a bad century.) Come November, it was clear that the President-elect would pose a serious threat to everything ANTIFA had stood for since its inception.

As an organization, ANTIFA started to align with other radical groups: BLM, ACTblue, Greenpeace, the ACLU.  Labor unions, book clubs, community activists, Little League coaches, choirs from every denomination, Native Americans, soccer moms, NASCAR dads, the PTA, the NEA, the CDC, WHO, NPR, PBS, educators, Pope Francis, most of Hollywood… At every level, they’re all part of the plot to keep America fascist-free.

So when somebody like the Orange Menace says he doesn’t like ANTIFA and refers to our vast membership as thugs “looking for trouble,” what he is really saying is that he likes fascists. In fact, he thinks some of them are “very fine people.”

They’re not.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Vegetarian Chili

What’s the point? you might ask. There really isn’t one, but this is really quite tasty.

1 Tbs. olive oil
1/2 medium onion, chopped
2 bay leaves
1 tsp. ground cumin
2 Tbs. dried oregano
1 Tbs. salt
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 green or red bell peppers, chopped
2 jalapeno peppers, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 (4 oz.) cans chopped green chile peppers, drained
2 (28 oz.) cans whole peeled tomatoes, crushed
1/4 cup chili powder
1 Tbs. ground black pepper
1 (15 oz.) can kidney beans, drained
1 (15 oz.) can garbanzo beans, drained
1 (15 oz.) can black beans
1 (15 oz.) can whole kernel corn

Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Stir in the onion, and season with bay leaves, cumin, oregano, and salt. Cook and stir until onion is tender, then mix in the celery, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, garlic, and green chile peppers. Reduce heat to low, cover pot, and simmer 5 minutes.
Mix the tomatoes into the pot. Season chili with chili powder and pepper. Stir in the kidney beans, garbanzo beans, and black beans. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer 45 minutes. Stir in the corn, and continue cooking 5 minutes before serving. Serve with rice and cornbread.

I’m fortunate to be the father of two magnificent kids (Courtney and Daniel) who make me proud everyday. Being a part of their lives on so many levels is all I could ever have dreamed of or asked for. This is a story about one of them.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said a softly feminine voice, tinged with a quiver of emotion. “We have a very special passenger aboard this evening. Her name is Courtney. She’s seven-and-a-half months old and the flight attendants on this flight have all become very attached to her. She’s a sweet and beautiful baby.”

Geri and I looked at each other, surprised to hear those words float so casually from the overhead speakers. The plane grew eerily still, its passengers attentive. The silence finally jarred by the mechanical sounds of the landing gear dropping into place.

It is this father’s prerogative to agree that Courtney was sweet and beautiful. Her radiant blue eyes sparkled beneath a smooth brow; her head was topped by long wisps of fine strawberry-blonde hair. She had a milky white complexion. Her smile seemed incessant.

Dressed in a new, frilly pink dress, Courtney sat cradled in the infant seat between us. That seat—yellowed, its padding worn and misshapen—had been her confines since she was born. She napped and slept in it, sitting up, its adjustable wire stand fixed to its most upright position. It looked odd when set up in the white, lace-covered wickerwork bassinet; the contrast between modernity and a more gracious past was startling.

We hated that worn seat. In some inexplicable way, it had been complicit in Courtney’s illness. She was not allowed to lie prone. We never got to tuck her in, other than to crudely manipulate blankets in and around the plastic straps that held her in a contraption that seemed medieval.

Outside, the twinkling lights of Boston grew closer, brighter. Its still-distant skyline was vague and undistinguished in cast shadows. Courtney was kicking her legs, her arms waving like a symphony conductor’s during a quiet passage. Her eyes darted about in that familiar yellowed glow, that semi-darkness of a night flight.

Boston, then as now, was a city rife with renowned medical facilities and a reputation as a place where miracles were served up as just so much routine. It offered promise, and we had come to collect.

Nearly eight months of extraordinary memories flooded my mind. Constant panic from sleepless nights and endless hospital corridors, emergency actions, and daily trips to nearly twenty specialists searching for what was wrong with Courtney. Nearly eight months of medical terror and uncertainty filled our lives.

Courtney, her two pediatricians announced along the way, was failing to thrive. At nearly eight months, she had gained less than three pounds since birth. It had been less than a month since her two pediatric cardiologists had discovered that she had multiple VSDs (ventricular septal defects).

“Courtney is coming to Boston from Los Angeles for open-heart surgery on Wednesday morning,” the plaintive voice continued. “And we thought that since there about 250 of us aboard the craft this evening—if we all sent out our good thoughts and prayers for her, we can pull her through this together.”

Geri and I never cried at the same time. It was a rule. One could cry; the other, offer comfort. It worked. But at that moment, we broke our rule, averting our eyes from each other to not see the tears. I remember staring numbly at the five tanks of oxygen under our row of five seats—grim reminders that at any moment, our baby could suddenly stop breathing. It had happened before.

A small part of our lives flashed before our eyes. We had met a lot of people during our journey—strangers with nothing more in common than sick children of their own with whom we bonded. Our friends and family offered hope and support. There were lit candles and prayer chains in churches and temples we had never visited. We knew people whose faith had been awakened by our pain, and others who, out of frustration and uncertainty, had abandoned theirs. Still others had opened their hearts and rolled up their sleeves to host a star-studded benefit at the Hollywood Palladium to help defray our medical expenses.

Dizzy Gillespie gave us the use of his suite at the old Copley Square Hotel. A local bookie familiar to the jazz world chauffeured us around in his ’67 Impala.

The doctors had been writing Courtney’s baffling medical history and we were fearful and anxious about the next chapter, which was to be written by one of only two pediatric cardiac surgeons in the U.S. who had any experience with the procedure. The odds were not good. Charlie, our bookie-chauffeur, would not have taken the bet.

We wondered if we might be returning to a home left cold and empty by the absence of a young life we were so eager to nurture. All the kindness and concern offered couldn’t balance with my thoughts of our daughter being stripped of a chance at life—running on the beach or eating too many hot dogs at the ballpark; flying kites or cuddling with a puppy; the scraped knees and hurt feelings, the cries of “higher” as I pushed her on the playground swing. Those are the slow-building memories that develop an adult perspective and provide for the enjoyment of success and the toleration of failure and disappointment. We wanted desperately for a chance of her growing up.

We were dazed, lost in our thoughts. But we could feel the warmth of a planeload of strangers that built faith not in something unknown and mysterious, but in the empathy of others, the humanity.

There was no rush to disembark American flight #11 that cold November evening.

Passengers who, ordinarily, would have hurried to meet awaiting family and friends, circled back from their seats to come meet Courtney and extend their good wishes.

Later, at the airport’s luggage carousel, a woman, perhaps too fragile or afraid to meet Courtney offered Geri the rosary beads she had received from Pope John Paul II during a papal audience she had had the previous summer.

On Wednesday, the switchboard at Boston’s Children’s Hospital was flooded with telephone calls from people wondering how “Courtney, from flight #11” was doing. Willing to put their very faith on an uncertain line, they wanted to know that their prayers and good thoughts had worked.

They had.

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Boston Baked Scrod

Scrod is young cod, so this can be made with codfish. Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston is where I first had this dish and I loved it. The next night I had it at Antoine’s.  My take is to use crumbled fried onions rather than bread crumbs.

2 Tbs. butter or margarine
1 clove garlic
1 small can of Durkee’s crispy fried onions, ground
4, 4-6 ounce pieces of scrod or cod fillet
2 Tbs. fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp. salt
1 Tbs. chopped fresh parsley
Lemon wedges

Heat oven to 450°. In a skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add garlic; cook until golden. Add ground onions and cook, stirring frequently, until lightly toasted. Remove skillet from heat.

In a buttered baking dish, arrange fillets in a single layer; sprinkle with lemon juice and salt. Press ground onions onto the fillets. Bake until fish is just opaque throughout, 10 to 15 minutes.

Sprinkle fish with parsley and serve with lemon wedges. Boiled potatoes with butter and fresh parsley are an excellent accompaniment, as is a rice pilaf.

This is Day 93 of my self-imposed quarantine. Like many people who are giving the coronavirus pandemic serious attention, I’ve been washing my hands every twenty minutes, just like the CDC and the unfunded-by-us WHO told us to do, since March 13. (Before that, I washed my hands whenever it seemed prudent or necessary.) I’m generally awake 18 hours each day, which means that I currently wash my hands 54 times a day, give or take.

Over the course of this time period, my hands have been worked into a lather for somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,022 times which took a combined total of 27.9 hours or so.

More significant is that I have now sung “Happy Birthday” 5,022 times. Actually, it’s been 10,044 times because I sing it twice through to make sure I get my full twenty seconds worth of disinfecting soap.

I hate “Happy Birthday.” The song, not the sentiment.

It’s a really dumb song, penned sometime around 1893 by a pair of spinster sisters who taught school in Louisville, Kentucky, and since they couldn’t just turn on Sesame Street for the little tykes they mentored, they sang “Good Morning to You” as a class every morning, which contributed to the somewhat alarming 36 percent dropout rate of Kentucky kindergarteners at the end of the 19th Century. The happy birthday lyrics (if you can call them that) appeared in print in 1912, as sung to the original melody of “Good Morning to You.”

Nobody knows for sure about who wrote what, mainly because any idiot could have written either of them.

And as if we didn’t have more important things to worry about, there is even some controversy that the schoolmarms even wrote the song. Had they given it much thought, they would have copyrighted it and collected royalties. Some forward-looking thief at the Summy Company did exactly that and obtained a copyright in 1935, which was subsequently bought by an entertainment conglomerate that charged $700 for each public performance they could track down.

The copyright was due to run out in 2030, but it ran out in 2016 when the ever-probing Supreme Court asked the all-important legal question: “You actually charge real money for that?”

I don’t know anybody who likes the song. Most of us are embarrassed each time it’s sung because it’s always sung by group of people who can’t sing, and then amended by bratty children with some dumb reference to Channel Four that just delays cutting the cake.

Few songs can be sung in total in 20 seconds, let alone twice. As a public service to those with better things to do than I can currently claim, I’ve selected excerpts of some memorable songs that take about 20 seconds to sing. Each is a far cry better than the aforementioned “Happy Birthday.”

My first selection, perhaps fitting for these times, was a hit for Nat King Cole in 1961:

There may be trouble ahead
But while there’s music and moonlight and love and romance
Let’s face the music and dance —Irving Berlin

This next tune was a big hit for Frank Sinatra and it is the only song I know all the words to. My kids used to beg me not to sing the “skin song.”

I’ve got you under my skin.
I’ve got you deep in the heart of me.
So deep in my heart that you’re really a part of me.
I’ve got you under my skin. —Cole Porter

Try as one might, how could anybody who’s seen South Pacific, forget this little ditty?

I’m gonna wash that man right outa my hair,
I’m gonna wash that man right outa my hair,
I’m gonna wash that man right outa my hair,
And send him on his way.

I’m gonna wave that man right outa my arms,
I’m gonna wave that man right outa my arms,
I’m gonna wave that man right outa my arms,
And send him on his way. —Rodgers & Hammerstein

And of all the songs from West Side Story, this is the one that is best enjoyed looking in a mirror while washing your hands.

I feel pretty,
Oh, so pretty,
I feel pretty and witty and bright!
And I pity
Any girl who isn’t me tonight.
I feel charming,
Oh, so charming
It’s alarming how charming I feel!
And so pretty
That I hardly can believe I’m real.
—Music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Unless you really do feel pretty, your next selection could be this song from the 1962 musical Stop the World—I Want to Get Off. Sammy Davis Jr., had a huge hit with this tune.

What kind of fool am I
Who never fell in love
It seems that I’m the only one
That I have been thinking of
What kind of man is this
An empty shell
A lonely cell in which
An empty heart must dwell
What kind of fool am I —Anthony Newley & Leslie Bricusse

And what’s life without a little Elton John thrown into the mix?

You know I’m still standing better than I ever did
Looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid
I’m still standing after all this time
Picking up the pieces of my life without you on my mind
I’m still standing yeah yeah yeah
I’m still standing yeah yeah yeah —Elton John & Bernie Taupin

And what repertoire doesn’t need an old-fashioned torch song? Julie London first recorded this one in 1955.

Now you say you’re lonely
You cry the long night through
Well, you can cry me a river, cry me a river
I cried a river over you —Arthur Hamilton

Diana Ross & the Supremes, anyone?

Stop in the name of love
Before you break my heart
Stop in the name of love
Before you break my heart
Think it over
Think it over —Lamont Dozier

From the 1966 Broadway hit, Sweet Charity, comes this show-stopper. It was sung on the stage by Gwen Verdon; in the 1969 movie adaptation, it was sung by Shirley MacLaine.

If they could see me now
That little gang of mine
I’m eating fancy chow
And drinking fancy wine
I’d like those stumblebums
To see for a fact
The kind of top-drawer, first-rate chums
I attract
If my friends could see me now —Dorothy Fields & Cy Coleman

And then there’s this bubble-gum hit from Simon & Garfunkle with “The 59th Street Bridge Song.”

Slow down, you move too fast
You got to make the morning last
Just kicking down the cobblestones
Looking for fun and feeling groovy
Ba da-da da-da da-da, feeling groovy —Paul Simon

Although Joni Mitchell had a hit with “Twisted,” the original was from the jazz vocal trio, Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, the latter of whom wrote the lyrics.

My analyst told me
That I was right out of my head
The way he described it
He said I’d be better dead than live
I didn’t listen to his jive
I knew all along
That he was all wrong
And I knew that he thought
I was crazy but I’m not
Oh no —Annie Ross & Wardell Gray

From the world of commercials, circa 1958, comes this memorable jingle from Procter & Gamble:

Mr. Clean gets rid of
Dirt and grime
And grease in just a minute
Mr. Clean will clean
Your whole house
And everything that’s in it
Mr. Clean, Mr. Clean, Mr. Clean

And saving the high-brow for last…from Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot comes “Nessun dorma.”

Dilegua, oh notte
Tramontate, stelle
Tramontate, stelle
All’alba vincerò
Vincerà
Vincerò

Photo montage by Courtney A. Liska

Summer Chicken

This is something of a non-recipe for a dish we’ve enjoyed a few times over the last few weeks. It’s easy to throw together, and will provide for some splendid flavors.

Roast a small (3-1/2—4 lbs.), trussed chicken in a 425° oven after seasoning the bird with salt and pepper. Cook the chicken on its side in a cast iron skillet for 20 minutes; turn and cook on its other side for 20 minutes. Finally, turn it breast side up and cook other 20 minutes, or until its juices run clear. Cover and let rest for 10 minutes.

Alternately, buy a rotisserie chicken from the market and use that.

The carved chicken should then be placed on a bed of Romaine lettuce, and garnished with tomatoes, hard-cooked eggs, roasted red peppers, asparagus, green beans, olives or whatever else is to your liking. I then add some boiled potatoes and carrots, still warm, to the mix. Top with garlicky croutons.

The dressing is made from mayonnaise, a good dollop or two of Dijon mustard, a dash of fresh lemon juice or red wine vinegar, some finely minced garlic and whatever herbs that might be fresh from the garden—parsley, chervil, tarragon, thyme, chives, etc.

Serve with a crusty baguette and a brightly flavored Pinot Grigio from Italy, or a Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand.

In its request that Donald J. Trump resign his office, the editorial board of the Portland Press Herald, Maine’s largest daily newspaper, found him to be lacking “the character, maturity and judgment to lead the country in a perilous time.”

While I find myself agreeing that the Trump presidency has been disastrous by almost any standard on virtually every level, it is indeed his reckless conduct that has ushered in this “perilous time.” His seeming disregard for even a modicum of decency, let alone the truth, has inflamed and sustained it.

Not counting the threat of nuclear war, various natural disasters and my near-miss with the Draft Board in 1970, in the almost sixty-nine years I’ve been around, any real peril I might have faced was probably of my own doing.

I’ve had an interesting career that has allowed me to see behind the curtains and up into the fly system of the mise en scène that is this country’s theater. I’ve witnessed my fair share of both human tragedy and unfettered joy, having been given wide berth as a reporter, writer, and critic spanning five decades. Curiosity has failed to kill this cat.

I’ve attended the aftermath of violent crime and watched too many people draw their last breath. I suppose I became inured to such things, but I was careful to try to not lose my sense of empathy, my humanity. Last week, along with millions of people all around the world, I witnessed the murder of George Floyd on a street corner in Minneapolis.

I cannot think of another time in my life that I felt such horror and outrage. Like most of us, I hope, I was numbed by the gross disregard for a human life, disgusted by this heinous police action, sickened by the smug look on the face of his accused murderer, Derek Chauvin, as he knelt on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, crushing the life out of a prone man in handcuffs. I screamed at the television screen, pleading for somebody to do something.

I wept.

And in my mind, I heard the imagined voices of those who would celebrate that moment as a victory, and take some unwarranted pleasure in the errant thinking that because George Floyd was Black, he was probably doing something wrong in a place he didn’t belong.

Such is the nature of the systemic racism that grips much of this country, ravaging its very soul and using as its tools fear, ignorance and injustice.

Ours is a nation struggling under a pandemic made worse by the willful ineptitude of a president who values property over people, who lies about a pandemic being a political hoax, and who worries more about his retention of power than the welfare of the people he vowed to protect with his hand placed on a book he’s not read. More than 110,000 Americans have lost their lives to the novel coronavirus. Forty million have lost their livelihoods and are facing financial ruin. Others have lost their businesses; still others, their homes. Our recovery may not be complete should another wave of COVID-19 occur. And yet, Trump’s rampant vanity allows for him to self-evaluate his own performance as a “10.”

This disease has placed in the spotlight the Black and brown communities that are suffering the highest per capita rates of infection and mortality. Scientists asked, “Why?”

The answer won’t be found in a test tube or on the workbench of a laboratory. Rather, it will be detailed in the analyses of data that address the economic, educational and employment issues facing people of color—people who have suffered under the tyrannical rule of racism for generations. The signing of the Emancipation Proclamation might have granted freedom to the enslaved, but it did not assure equal opportunity to the freed.

We have an administration that scorns scientific discovery and has empowered racists, encouraged their disobedience (if not their outright lawlessness), and led by example to making meaner the spirit of some part of the American people.

Trump finds fascism to exist as an attitude and practice held by some “very good people,” and through gesture and speech has made light of any sense that love and compassion for our fellow man might lead to a celebration of a higher order, to a greater understanding of our neighbors, to a better appreciation of our own lives and the myriad contributions of others toward making our society better for all of us.

We are bearing witness to what the NAACP has found to be “civil unrest that is a direct consequence of the racism, bigotry, violence, and subjugation against Black people that has festered in this country for too long.”

For nearly forty years I had the great pleasure of writing about jazz music—America’s only original art form—for two Los Angeles newspapers, Playboy, and the industry’s bible, Downbeat.

Historically, jazz is a Black art form evolved in part from the call-and-response field hollers of slaves. Its evolution from rural to urban embodied the blues—that woeful expression of hard times that nonetheless evoked an enduring sense of optimism—and the rhythms of Africa and the island nations of the Caribbean. People once feared jazz, thinking it a licentious music that encouraged discontent, crime, promiscuity, and drug abuse.

I practiced what is called “advocacy” journalism, proudly and passionately embracing and advocating the music and its players, and urging my readers to do the same. “Great music isn’t as bad as it sounds,” I would joke in my efforts to draw people to the sounds of jazz.

But I was serious from the soap box on which I stood. I abhorred those who cheapened its artistry and its legacy with attempts to make the music “popular” without regard to its integrity and its history, and I let them know it in print. My labors were gratifying, and I have yet to pass up an opportunity to preach the gospel of jazz to anyone who might listen.

During those years, I got to know countless numbers of jazz musicians—Black, brown and white, a proud and vibrant rainbow of talented men and women working together to create music. Most were more than willing to share their stories—stories told with humility and humor. Many of those stories were centered around the issue of race, with most shrugging off some experiences because “that was then.”

But up until the end of the last century and twenty years into this one, “that was then” is, in reality, “this is still.” In the days following the death of Mr. Floyd, it is quite obvious that we’ve not as a nation done much to stem the tide of racism.

Benny Carter was one of the most innovative men in all of jazz. Few know his name. He was an alto saxophonist and composer who wrote big band arrangements beginning in the ‘30s, and led his own bands and combos in concerts around the world. He wrote movie and television scores for which he received no screen credit because of the color of his skin.

I first met Benny in 1969 and we maintained our friendship until his death in 2003, at the age of ninety-five. He was a proud, dignified man who exuded eloquence in both his demeanor and his music. He did not suffer fools gladly. He, like so many of his generation, endured the indignities of being made to enter through the back doors of establishments to perform for all-white audiences. And at the end of the night make their ways to hotels where Blacks were allowed.

Once, while playing a solo with his big band at a Hollywood nightclub, a woman in the front row beckoned to him and asked if the piano player was Black. Benny said that he didn’t know because it had never occurred to him to be so rude as to ask.

As a nation we have an opportunity to change the course of history. No, we have an obligation to change the course of history. As Americans we have to ask ourselves what kind of people we want to be, what kind of society we want to be part of. And we have to ask what kind of future we want to create for our children and our grandchildren and their children. It’s not enough to hope for a better future. Aspirations carry no quarter without the hard work, heart and determination needed to see them come to fruition.

We can no longer afford for our dreams to be deferred.

In 1984, New York Governor Mario Cuomo addressed the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. It was a stirring speech that I found to capture the spirit and hopes that all Americans might one day share.

“We believe in civil rights, and we believe in human rights,” the Governor said.

“We believe in a single fundamental idea that describes…what a proper government should be: the idea of family, mutuality, the sharing of benefits and burdens for the good of all, feeling one another’s pain, sharing one another’s blessings—reasonably, honestly, fairly, without respect to race, or sex, or geography, or political affiliation.

“We believe we must be the family of America, recognizing that at the heart of the matter we are bound one to another, that the problems of a retired school teacher in Duluth are our problems; that the future of the child in Buffalo is our future; that the struggle of a disabled man in Boston to survive and live decently is our struggle; that the hunger of a woman in Little Rock is our hunger; that the failure anywhere to provide what reasonably we might, to avoid pain, is our failure.”

If one of us can’t breathe, then none of us can.

Signage by Courtney A. Liska

If the pandemic has taught us anything it is perhaps that most of us have way too much time on our hands.

Suddenly, we’ve taken to paying close attention to things we barely knew existed just three or four months ago. Some people have developed acute cases of OCD, which compels them to clean everything in sight and compose lengthy lists of things-to-do and things-to-buy. The lists seem to focus on cleaning and purchasing things with which to clean.

Others have developed an urge for homemade bread and now spend countless hours nurturing little bowls of sourdough starter, naming each after Gold Rush towns in California. Others have taken to making skillet flat breads because in their haste to horde toilet paper and hand sanitizer they forgot to buy yeast, thereby helping create a black market that is now demanding up to twenty-six dollars for one of those little packets.

Even Amazon, which has the corner on every commodity known to man including ones we don’t even know about yet, has run out of yeast.

I’ve been spending some of my time on-line, feigning interest in odd products and then timing how long it takes for the first volley of advertisements about those products to reach me on Facebook. It’s usually under 15 seconds.

And to think, just a few short years ago we thought an algorithm had something to do with music.

One ad that came out of the blue said I was eligible for disability payments. Foolishly, I asked how much. It’s been almost a month now that I’ve been getting three, sometimes, four emails a day from somebody named Christy Collins. Because I didn’t fill out the disability form, Christy has been offering to get me into college, refer me to a dating service for the elderly, or provide me the names of local yacht cleaning services.

I’m beginning to suspect that Christy Collins might not be a real person.

In the meantime, I discovered a menu option on my email thingy that says “More.” I clicked on it and it responded, “Less.” This went on for a few minutes—more, less; more, less; back-and-forth, back-and-forth—until I conceded that Bill Gates does have a sense of humor.

And then one day, I joined an internet “community” that is international in scope and focuses, albeit not too clearly, on food. It’s a free site hosted by a big newspaper on the East Coast that won’t let you access its food section without an expensive subscription that does not even include the crossword puzzle.

One day last week I watched a video of a baby sitting in a large bowl of spaghetti, gnawing on a baguette. He/she/it was wearing a toque. Seriously.

Yet another reminder that you get what you pay for.

Pictures and videos of kids doing odd, yet somehow compelling, things with food is far more interesting than watching anything that any cat might do. Although there was a pretty funny video of a stoned cat miscalculating a jump to the couch that I saw recently.

The site asks that people be nurturing, civil, and not mention politics or religion, which makes it unlike any other community in all of history. That might be its appeal. People are genuinely interested—in one way or several others—in food. Some to the extent of ruining dinner by placing an infant in bowl of spaghetti. It does, after all, take a village to make dinner. Or something like that. Whatever.

Participants in this cooking community pose questions that are responded to by others in the community who know more than the person asking the question, which is usually how that whole Q&A thing operates.

For instance, one day somebody asked what she should do with two large packages of dried tofu. I was just trying to be helpful when I suggested using them as door stops. I learned that some people are really sensitive when it comes to tofu. And some people are that way about fruitcakes, too, which have been used as door stops long before anybody had ever heard of tofu.

Lots of people post pictures of whatever it is they’ve concocted in their kitchens. Just yesterday somebody put up a picture of a poached egg. It was breath-taking! An egg! Poached! Its yolk was broken, cascading over a crust of toast like yellow lava.

Taking pictures of food is a relatively new thing. Many restaurants in Chicago in the 1950s had photographers with cameras like the one Sonny Corleone smashed to pieces at his sister’s wedding. These photographers would take pictures of the dining parties and then try to squeeze them for ten bucks for a copy of the shot. It never occurred to anybody to ask the guy to take a picture of the food.

Of course, nobody would have wanted a black-and-white picture of their Steak Diane or Bananas Foster, both of which were very popular restaurant dishes in those days—probably because people liked to watch their food go up in flames right there in the dining room. (Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise; the 1950s were exciting times. The cars had fins, there were four television channels, and everybody looked like total dorks, especially if they wore glasses.)

The other day somebody asked what was the most dangerous piece of equipment in a kitchen? I wanted to answer, “Any cookbook by Rachel Ray or Sandra Lee,” but I refrained and answered, “A dull knife.” Anybody who has spent time in a kitchen knows this is the correct answer unless you happen to have a commercial deep-fryer. The reaction to my response was seventeen little laughing emoticons. I’ll never understand why that was funny.

And then, somebody wanted to know how to sharpen a knife. Apparently that person has yet to hear about YouTube, which currently offers somewhere in the neighborhood of seven thousand knife-sharpening videos, including several that demonstrate how to sharpen a knife using a rock. I then told the community that I have my knives sharpened annually by a professional who comes to town every summer in a broken-down camper with Ron Paul bumper stickers. Three people wanted to know where I live.

An unscientific poll of favorite ingredients was started the other day. It has a plus or minus accuracy variant of six percent. Why this would be of interest is anybody’s guess, but I did find it curious that a guy with a seriously Italian name said his go-to ingredient was star anise, which in all likelihood is nobody’s go-to ingredient. It barely qualifies as a spice. Garlic and onion were pretty much neck-and-neck in the poll.

Unlike a lot of what one sees in general on Facebook, this cooking community is happily missing a vegan neighborhood whose inhabitants want everybody to suffer as they do. Of course, that only makes sense. People who are serious about food are generally uninterested in eating hamburgers made from a chemically enhanced mixture of Cream of Wheat and grass clippings.

But my favorite experience in this utopian society of eaters is about the woman who was seeking advice about what she should eat to remedy a broken heart over her boyfriend’s dumping her. Several people suggested that the boyfriend was a worthless ne’er-do-well (or worse) and that she’s better off without him. How those respondents knew that is a mystery. Most of them suggested chocolate and alcohol.

There was no mention of tofu.

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Steak Diane

I don’t know why this dish has all but disappeared from restaurant menus. It’s really quite wonderful. It’s easy to make and delicious.

2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
2 Tbs. unsalted butter, divided
4 (3 oz.) filet mignon steaks, pounded to about 3/4”
1 1⁄2 cup beef or veal stock
1 clove garlic, minced
1 shallot, minced
4 oz. mushrooms of any kind, torn into small pieces
1⁄4 cup cognac or brandy
1⁄4 cup heavy cream
1 Tbs. Dijon mustard
1 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce
Dash or two of Tabasco
1 Tbs. minced parsley
1 Tbs. minced chives
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Season steaks with salt and pepper, add to skillet; cook, turning once, until browned on both sides and cooked to desired doneness, about 3 to 4 minutes for medium-rare. Transfer steaks to a plate and tent with foil.
Return skillet to high heat, and add stock; cook until reduced to 1⁄2 cup, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and set aside. Return skillet to heat, and add butter; add garlic and shallots, and cook, stirring, until soft, about 2 minutes. Add mushrooms, stirring until they release any liquid and it evaporates, about 2 minutes. Add cognac, and light with a match to flambé; cook until flame dies. Stir in reserved stock, cream, Dijon, Worcestershire, and hot sauce, and then return steaks to skillet; cook, turning until warmed through and sauce is thickened, about 4 minutes. Place the medallions on two serving plates. Pour sauce over the steaks and garnish with parsley and chives.

Bananas Foster

There’s a long and boring story about the origins of this dessert at Brennan’s, a touristy eatery in New Orleans. In the ‘50s, this dessert, prepared table-side, ruled at fine restaurants all over America. This is Brennan’s original recipe.

1/4 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup banana liqueur
4 bananas, cut in half lengthwise, then halved
1/4 cup dark rum
4 scoops vanilla ice cream

Combine the butter, sugar, and cinnamon in a skillet.
Place the pan over low heat and cook, stirring, until the sugar dissolves.
Stir in the banana liqueur, then place the bananas in the pan.
When the banana sections soften and begin to brown, add the rum.
Continue to cook the sauce until the rum is hot and then ignite the rum.
When the flames subside, lift the bananas out of the pan and divide over each portion of ice cream.
Generously spoon warm sauce over the top of the ice cream and serve immediately.