Journal

New Year’s resolutions are, for the most part, ridiculous…rarely more than inane exercises in futility.

Though well-intentioned, they quickly become empty promises made in the hopes of improving various aspects of one’s life: lose weight, get in shape, make more money, quit beating the dog, visit really old people you don’t know on Tuesday afternoons, read more, watch less television, limit your daily Facebook time to seven hours, try to understand a cricket match.

Okay. We all get it. And, ultimately, we all fail. After all, not even the Brits can explain a cricket match, a game they foisted on India as punishment for leaving the United Kingdom.

Since New Year’s Day I have heard from no fewer than six people—each of whom I find to be intelligent and reasonable folks who seem also to bathe regularly—that they had resolved to “declutter” their lives.

I don’t believe I had ever heard the word “declutter,” although I sensed correctly what it might mean. The Oxford English Dictionary defined it as a verb, “to remove unnecessary items from (an untidy or overcrowded place).”

It seems like an awkward way of saying “getting rid of stuff,” as in “this year I’m getting rid of stuff.” The idea of decluttering one’s garage or office is one thing, but one’s life seems somewhat dire. For instance, can one’s spleen be considered “an unnecessary item” in an overcrowded place?

Merriam-Webster, which has been explaining words and their usages since 1828, noted that the word was first used in 1950. How they know that is anybody’s guess. Maybe some British guy said it first in 1933 in a London pub but nobody thought to write it down.

What I can’t believe is that declutter is a whole year older than me and I’ve never heard it until this year.

My mother kept a tidy house (with the help of a maid who came on Tuesdays) and she insisted that my sister and I maintain a level of cleanliness in our rooms that would have impressed God. But she never said, “Go declutter your room or there’ll be no dessert.”

Merriam-Webster, which still publishes dictionaries in book form so that short folks will have something to sit on during meals, has a feature on its website that lists, by year, when words and phrases were first used. Once again, I don’t know how they know this stuff but it’s mildly entertaining to note some of the entries.

For instance, the phrase “funny farm” was first used in 1950 to commemorate the Surgeon General’s acknowledging that “being a whack-job” was a real thing. So too was “empty suit” coined, which no doubt refers to politicians. “H-bomb” also came along in 1950, which is totally understandable. “Test-drive” came into use that year as well. Was this phrase a marketing device? Were customers once not allowed to drive a car before they bought it? Maybe a “trial spin” was allowed.

That mid-century year also saw the phrase “training wheels” come into use. What were they called before that? Seriously, I want to know.

“Pastitsio” also made its American debut in 1950. The Greeks, who derived both the word and the dish from the Italians, had been using that word even before they got around to inventing democracy. It was Socrates’s favorite brown-bag lunch, which he frequently ate on the steps of the Parthenon during his Tuesday dialogues with the Cretans.

I’ve read that the typical American spends the first two-thirds of life accumulating stuff and the last third getting rid of said stuff. Apparently, these phenomena are unique to Americans, as I’ve not seen any mention of Hungarians, for instance, in these studies.

The math is problematic since it’s nearly impossible to accurately divide our lives into thirds. I have no idea when I’ll slip from this mortal coil nor do you. If you miscalculate, you might have a good time accumulating stuff until you’re 50 and not make it to 75, which will leave a house full of crap for your kids to deal with. On the other hand, you might accumulate stuff until you’re 50 and start getting rid of stuff on the 75-year plan and live to 90, which leaves you living for 15 years with nothing but a pair of flannel pajamas, a thread-bare Barcalounger and a tea kettle.

Now, to answer your question from a paragraph ago: Yes, there have been actual studies about this stuff.

I haven’t read too deeply because I don’t have to. Some things in life are clearly obvious. I remember when Senator William Proxmire (D-Wisconsin) handed out his monthly Golden Fleece Awards which commemorated wasteful government spending. One time, he skewered the Office of Education for spending $219,592 in a “curriculum package” to teach college students how to watch television. Perhaps it’s needless to say, but most of us had learned to watch television by the time we got to college.

I put that in the same category of the Trump children being Court-ordered to take classes in how not to steal from a charity. “Don’t do it,” seems to be about the only thing that can be said about the matter.

I would like to spend the rest of my life being paid to discover the obvious and then make the talk show circuit to talk about it.

“Well, Conan, you probably have stuff you could get rid of,” I’d say with commanding authority. “At least that’s what my research has shown.”

Then he’d laugh and cut to a commercial begging the television audience to buy stuff.

Decluttering is a necessary step in life, I guess. I’ve found myself decluttering from time to time, like when I take out the trash every afternoon.

I recently read an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about an elderly couple who have lived in a Georgetown brownstone for forty-five years. They are moving to a smaller, one-level apartment just a block or so away. To help facilitate their move, they needed to “downsize,” a word first used in 1975, although do we really know that?

Anyway, this couple decided to declutter by hosting a downsizing party.

They had food and mimosas and they invited people they knew and people they didn’t know to come to their brownstone and help themselves to the books, lamps, dishes, glassware, candles, table linens, collectibles, political campaign buttons and bumper stickers, and cook ware that had been accumulated over forty-five years. No money exchanged hands and the couple didn’t have to set up displays on folding tables in the driveway, not that Georgetown brownstones have driveways. They also didn’t have to gather up what didn’t sell and schlepp it to the local thrift shop.

Karen and Fritz Mulhauser, the hosts of this party, told the reporter that they had fun and had accomplished their goal of decluttering as they downsized. It was what might be called a “win-win” situation, a term first used in 1962.

Chances are pretty good that I’m in the last third of my life, so I’m doing a bit of decluttering every day. The problem, of course, is the amount of time spent having wistful moments of nostalgia with every item I pick up. One of these days, maybe, we’ll “Mulhauser,” a term I coined just this past week.

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Pastitsio

Regarded by many as a Greek lasagna, pastitsio is based on the Italian pasticcio, which means “mess.” This recipe is adapted from The Food and Wine of Greece by Diane Kochilas.

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 onions, diced
1 ½ pounds lean ground beef
1 large garlic clove, minced
3 cups diced tomatoes
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
Pinch of ground allspice
4 whole cloves, minced
10-15 black peppercorns, crushed
Salt
1 ½ pounds penne
4 oz. Kefalotyri or Parmesan cheese, grated
4 cups béchamel
2 egg yolks, beaten
1 cup fresh ricotta, or myzithra, drained

In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil and sauté the onion until translucent, 5-7 minutes. Add meat and continue stirring until meat begins to brown. Add garlic, tomatoes, spices, pepper and salt. Lower heat and simmer, covered, for 35-40 minutes, until liquid has been absorbed and meat is cooked. Remove pan from heat, let meat cool slightly. Remove whole spices.
While meat is simmering, boil the pasta to al dente. Remove, drain and toss with a little of the oil and half the grated cheese.
Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly oil a large (9×13) baking pan.
Make béchamel. Melt 4 Tbs. butter, add 4 Tbs. flour, stirring to make a roux. Slowly add 4 cups of warm milk, stirring until fully incorporated. Whisk in the egg yolks, ricotta cheese and half the remaining grated cheese.
Toss the pasta with a little of béchamel. Spread half of it on the bottom of a large baking pan. Pour in meat sauce, spreading evenly over pasta. Sprinkle with 1 – 2 tablespoons grated cheese. Make a second layer of the pasta. Pour béchamel over pasta, making sure it’s evenly spread over top of pan. Sprinkle with remaining grated cheese.
Bake for about 45 minutes, until béchamel thickens and swells and a golden brown crust forms on top.

My Tom Cruise moment came not in tighty-whities and stocking feet with an air mic performing Bob
Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll,” but pajama-clad in the bathroom mirror playing Mendelssohn’s Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 on my air violin.

Perhaps I was raised to be a snob. There was jazz and there was classical music in my family home. My sister once commandeered my father’s stereo to play a Beach Boys album she had acquired. His angered response was to buy her a record player so he would never again have to hear “Surfin’ Safari.” Wanting a record player of my own, I bought The Shape of Jazz to Come by Ornette Coleman and had it playing when Dad came home one evening. Manhattan in hand, he announced liking it well enough for me not to get my own record player.

I readily admit to my haughty ways. As a panelist on a PBS television show in Los Angeles I reminded the rock critic with whom I was sharing the sound stage that while he covered sociological phenomena, I covered art, i.e., jazz.

Though I draw the line at country music, which is actually named in my permanent health record as an allergy, I have had moments of great enjoyment and satisfaction with so-called popular music. As a drummer I played a lot of rock, folk and blues. It seems that my interest in much of that music today provides a sense of nostalgia; I’ve listened to little pop music since sometime in the mid-‘70s.

My bad.

Assembling a Top-20 list has been an interesting exercise because at the core of each selection is a sense of art that transcends its category. Much of it reflects both the jazz and classical music on which I was raised. After a couple of weeks revisiting the following albums I realized that to a great extent, they reflect the various parts of my youth. And most of the songs are really just fun to sing along with.

In no particular order, the following represent my Top-20.

Traffic > The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys (1971) A British band led by Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi, Traffic featured different forms and offshoots of rock including jazz rock and progressive rock. Drummer Jim Gordon and saxophonist Chris Wood enhance the effort.

Jefferson Airplane > Surrealistic Pillow (1967) The quintessential work of psychedelic rock represented the 1960s counterculture era—a San Francisco bohemian scene transitioning from the ‘50s Beats to the ‘60s Haight-Ashbury counterculture. The album was the first album by a band featuring Grace Slick and Marty Balin.

James Taylor > Sweet Baby James (1970) If you were alive in 1970, James Taylor probably played a significant part of your personal soundtrack. I know he did for mine. He has a natural sense of phrasing—the hallmark of any singer—and sincerity in his interpretation of his, and others’, songs.

The Beatles > Rubber Soul (1965) A mix of pop, soul and folk musical styles characterize what I find to be the band’s best effort. Period. For my ears, the album was transformational in taking a pop group to a level of conceptual art that would pave the way for Sgt. Peppers and the White Album.

Laura Nyro > Eli and the Thirteenth Confession (1968) Elton John was exquisite in his assessment of the singer-songwriter Laura Nyro: “The soul, the passion, just the out and out audacity of the way her rhythmic and melody changes came like nothing I’ve heard before.” “Eli’s Comin’,”” Stoned Soul Picnic” and “Wedding Bell Blues” are tunes we all know and love.

Temptations > Anthology (1978) Groove and harmony define the best street-corner group there ever was. “Papa Was A Rolling Stone,” “My Girl,” “Ball of Confusion,” “Just My Imagination.” Any questions?

Crosby, Stills & Nash > Crosby, Stills & Nash (1969) I had listened to this album a dozen times before seeing the group make its concert debut at Chicago’s Auditorium Theater on August 16, 1969. The vocal folk-rock supergroup made up of singer-songwriters David Crosby and Stephen Stills and English singer-songwriter Graham Nash, created a catalog of songs noted for their intricate vocal harmonies and political activism. I found “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” to be an astonishing feat of artistry.

Lou Reed > Transformer (1972) I lived on New York’s Lower East Side (7th and D) at the dawn of the punk-rock era, though nobody knew it as that at the time. The Fugs, the avant-rock group whose specialty seemed to center around vulgarity, worked regularly at a joint on St. Mark’s Place. Lou Reed was the Prince of the East Village though, his songs conjuring images unique to the time and place, none more so than “Walk On the Wild Side,” a song depicting a world of transsexuality, drug addiction, male prostitution and oral sex.

Stevie Wonder > Songs in the Key of Life (1976) Soul, funk, R&B…whatever you want to call it, Songs in the Key of Life is masterful piece of musical effort. “Sir Duke” remains a favorite cut.

Joni Mitchell > Court and Spark (1974) Her most successful album shows both a writing and singing talent that is hers alone. It is a folk-rock endeavor with loads of jazz inflections that she would use from this point on. “Help Me” and “Free Man in Paris” are ageless classics.

Siegle-Schwall > Say Siegle-Schwall (1967) A Chicago-based blues band that never went too far but made memorable music.

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band > East-West (1966) This seminal album reflects a sense of jazz-infused blues from the modal style of Miles Davis, to the hard bop of Nat Adderley (“Work Song”) and John Coltrane’s Indian raga. Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop play key roles, as does keyboardist Mark Naftalin, right down to Muddy Waters’s “Two Trains Running.”

Mother Earth > Living with the Animals (1969) An American roots band, Mother Earth displayed influences from gospel, r&b, jazz, country and even a touch of psychedelia. Singer Tracy Nelson lent an earthy quality to this band that had once featured Boz Skaggs, guitarist Mike Bloomfield and keyboardist Mark Naftalin.

Marvin Gaye > What’s Going On (1971) If Marvin Gaye had recorded nothing else, he would still stand tall among the giants of soul. This album was a concept album in which thematic ideas were presented in a song cycle. The album is something of a social protest, its ideas centered around narrative of hatred, suffering, drug abuse, poverty and injustice in the Vietnam War era. He was once quoted as saying he wanted to “write songs that reach the souls of the people.”

Donny Hathaway > Donny Hathaway (1971) If singing were a cure for manic-depression this Chicago-born singer might still be with us. He was 33 when he took his life, but he left this incredible album of pop, gospel and soul tunes that do no less than astound. The most prominent of the covers were his rendition of Leon Russell’s “A Song for You” and a gospel-inflected cover of Gladys Knight & the Pips’ “Giving Up”, written by Van McCoy.

Seatrain > Seatrain (1969) An earthy roots band that deftly fused rock with bluegrass. It’s a feel-good album, with violinist Richard Greene adding vibrant colors to a list of tunes that includes Lowell George’s “I’m Willing.”

Atomic Rooster > In Hearing of Atomic Rooster (1971) A British hard rock band with a revolving door of personnel that included drummers Carl Palmer and Ginger Baker, and singer Vincent Crane, created a music of intense excitement. Personally, I loved the drum tracks.

The Rolling Stones get two spots on my list: Let It Bleed (1969) Beggar’s Banquet (1968). From the first album, “Gimme Shelter” is simply the best rock ‘n’ roll song ever recorded. It is an incendiary anthem that speaks to its time. From Beggar’s Banquet comes “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Street Fighting Man,” two more classics from the quintessential rock band.

The Band > The Band (1969) On its own, after being the backup band for Bob Dylan, The Band offered an appealing blend of folk music and early rock and roll. Each of its members—Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson, and Levon Helm—brought a certain virtuosity to a unique musical form.

The problem with lists is not what’s included, but what isn’t. For that I apologize to scores of pop artists who have brought joy to all of us.

Photo montage by Courtney A. Liska

I’ve been told, by my wife no less, that I worry about things that wouldn’t occur to many others to worry about. I blame my faith; she blames my mother.

This was evidenced this past week when I was awakened at 3:30 one morning wondering why there don’t seem to be any aquariums in doctors’ offices anymore. What had changed? And, why? Was this some kind of dream?

When I was a kid every doctor and dentist had fish tanks in their waiting rooms, just as every barber shop had a myna bird that whistled at the women who walked past. Obviously, the #MeToo movement is responsible for the myna bird becoming extinct. But that’s another story because we have bigger fish to fry. So to speak.

While the aquarium enigma might invite dark-state conspiracy theories, I prefer to simply allege foul play on the part of Big Pharm and Moscow Mitch.

Elaborate aquariums—many of them salt-water—were installed to help patients pass the wait with calm visions of angel fish, red cap orandas and other colorful denizens of the miniature deep rather than reading three-year-old editions of National Geographic or Readers’ Digest.

These installations were extravagant and far more interesting than the one or two goldfish or black mollies that lived in bowls with fake flora and a ceramic castle that were on every kid’s dresser. The aerated aquariums featured exotic flora that shimmied in the backlit tank; fish swam around the plants, seeking to hide from the predatory baby barracudas and hammerhead sharks that were an inch or so longer than their prey. Frequently, there were scenes of the Miami skyline painted across the back of the tank.

These tanks helped regulate people’s blood pressure while they nervously awaited their appointments during a more innocent age that had far fewer diseases than we do now. Nobody was gluten-free, for instance. Like the fish, Big Pharm helped regulate people’s blood pressure but with little pills that cost a lot. To protect its profits and build an audience of hypertense men who would soon need Viagra, Big Pharm replaced the fish tanks with television sets that broadcast Fox News, which Big Pharm owned until selling out to Rupert Murdoch, the Australian media magnate.

It’s only appropriate to note here that the Pulitzer Prize-winning Mike Royko, Chicago’s Voice of Irreverence for more than 30 years, once noted that “no self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in a Murdoch paper.”

See how that all connects? Fish, Beta-blockers, Big Pharm, Murdoch, Fish…

My father sold goldfish and I, as the dutiful son, fished the little fry out of the big tank at the back of his store, dropping them into plastic bags that fit perfectly inside the same kind of box used for fried rice at Chinese take-out places.

I should note here that Dad wasn’t really a pet fishmonger. He owned a few Ben Franklin stores. It was at his flagship store that he had a large tank stocked with fan-tailed mollies in three colors: gold, black and mottled. “Mottled molly” was always fun to say out loud when some kid chose that as a pet. They cost 35 cents each; or, maybe it was 15 cents. It wasn’t much. And it cost a lot less than trying to win one by tossing a ping pong ball into a little bowl at a carnival. Dad also sold fishbowls in three sizes, ceramic castles, tiny chips of stone in four colors for the bowl’s floor, and several kinds of plastic flora. We also had fish food that came in little orange boxes. Everyday after school, I’d fish out the dead fish with a little net and flush them down the toilet in the employee’s rest room.

For a very brief time, my father also sold birds. Parakeets, canaries and myna birds, all of which created a horrible mess as they eyed the fish tank hungrily. They were also loud, what with their constant chirping and the myna’s high-pitched whistle. (My grandmother was gifted with the store’s last bird, which outlived her. She had taught it to swear in Bohemian.)

He also got into the turtle trade. We sold a lot of them because their life expectancy could best be measured in hours (usually due to over-handling or dropping them), whereas fish could survive for several days in stagnant water. In retail terms, the turnaround was pretty quick, the margins high.

Though nobody knows why, turtles were popular in the 1950s, maybe even later. I had lost interest in pet turtles by the time The Beatles arrived in 1964 because, when you think about it, turtles make really lousy pets. They lived in plastic, dish-like things that had a water pond and a curving staircase leading up to a platform decorated with a plastic palm tree. Every now and again they’d amble down to the water and climb back out. That took about an hour or two in a bowl the size of a dessert plate. The rest of the time they seemed content to hide inside their shells dreaming about catching insects or something. I really don’t know what turtles dream about.

Sometimes you do something really stupid as a child that you only remember because it’s become a part of the family lore and you’ve been reminded of it for most of your life. According to my family’s lore, when I was about two, I took the family’s turtle apart. It was alive when I started, so I’m told, its legs and head next found floating lazily in a small bowl of milk I had procured for what I can only assume was to be a two-year-old’s version of cream of turtle soup. It didn’t get that far.

My sister screamed hysterically, which eventually caught the attention of my father whose job it was to deal with this reptilian crime scene. I don’t remember anybody talking about any punishment I might have received, but I do know that the turtle pieces were swaddled in Kleenex and placed in a Barnum’s Animals Crackers box that was buried with great ceremony under the juniper bushes next to our front stoop. There were prayers and songs, and the whole neighborhood seemed to have gathered to mourn this tragic death and pay their respects.

Apparently, I was so impressed by this new-found ritual that I suggested we get another turtle, kill it, and have another funeral.

Geri doesn’t like fish. That’s not completely accurate. She likes halibut—provided it is grilled after marinating in mayonnaise, Worcestershire, teriyaki and soy sauces. She likes fish and chips, provided there is malt vinegar and we happen to be in England. She also likes Pepperidge Farms Goldfish® Baked Crackers which, by the way, smile…but only about 40 percent of them. Isn’t that interesting?

But Geri’s had bad experiences with fish during two noble efforts at trying it. At a restaurant in Burbank she once ordered trout. It was served with its head still on. At first contact with the trout’s cloudy gray eye, she was done. At an ocean-side restaurant in Kona, Hawaii, she ordered a fish garnished with almonds. One of the almonds bore a striking resemblance to a cockroach which, in fact, it was.

And then there was Paris. Ah, Paris. The corner hamburger joint in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine was packed and we were a hungry group of six. A little restaurant on a quaint side street offered, as its plat du jour, petit friture poisson avec frites, or, as it was explained, fish and chips. France is pretty close to England so we ordered the fish. Of course, we had no choice because that was the only thing on the menu. That’s a very French thing, by the way. And why, for even a moment, would I think that French and English food had anything remotely in common?

Our lunch consisted of fried blanchaille, which, roughly translated, means “shiny guppies with eyes.” They were served whole. We were each given a large bowl of about a hundred of them. I heard people at the table utter the word “bait.”

Lunch that day ushered in a whole flood of memories about doctor’s offices and goldfish and turtles and my father, who was a dealer in pet fish, yet so much more. Lo these many years I had managed to suppress those memories until awakened that recent morning I mentioned earlier.

And then I began wondering what kept me from having turtle soup while we were in France. After all, turtle soup in France would have to have cream. Right? I knew that when I was two.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Soupe de tortue (Turtle Soup)

1/3 cup grape seed oil
2 pounds turtle meat, diced
2 shallots, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 leek, diced (white part only)
1 Tbs. Kosher salt
1 Tbs. onion powder
1 tsp. ground white pepper
1 tsp. celery seed
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. dried thyme
6-8 c. chicken stock
2 russet potatoes, diced
2 carrots, diced
5 Tbs. butter
4 Tbs. cornstarch
3/4 cup cream sherry
1 cup heavy cream

Season turtle meat with salt and pepper.
In a large soup pot, heat the oil, over medium high heat and add the turtle meat.
Brown the turtle meat for 5 minutes or so, then add the shallots, minced garlic and leeks, and sauté 5 minutes longer.
Add chicken stock, kosher salt, onion powder, white pepper, celery seed, cayenne pepper, bay leaf, and thyme.
Bring to a boil, then turn down to very low heat and simmer for about an hour, until the turtle begins to soften.
Melt the butter in a large frying pan, over medium heat and add the diced potatoes and carrots, and sauté for about 5 minutes. Sprinkle the vegetables with the corn starch and stir. Add the sherry and stir until the cornstarch is dissolved.
Add mixture to the stock pot and stir until the soup is thickened, and bring to a medium simmer.
Once the potatoes and carrots are fork tender (7-10 minutes), turn heat to low and add the cream.
Serve hot.

Before moving to Montana some twenty-six years ago, I found a handbook that seemed just the ticket for the whole family to read. An Idiot’s Guide to Montana had as its subtitle, “How to behave in the Last Best Place and not piss off the natives.”

Initially, I thought “natives” was in reference to indigenous people. I was wrong. The word was used to describe people who had been born here and therefore had special privileges that nobody else would ever enjoy. Birth rights, if you will. Many advertised their specialness with bumper stickers that read, NATIVE.

I find the whole native thing bewildering because, as has been noted, many natives can trace their lineage to a great-grandmother who simply couldn’t turn enough tricks to get to the coast.

That being said, the book came in handy with well-thought cautionary advice we’ve endeavored to heed.

There was a chapter about driving, for instance. It explained how real Montanans didn’t need four-wheel-drive vehicles, let alone any of those made in a foreign country. Up here, Ford and Chevy have ardent admirers; Toyota, Subaru and Volvo were listed under a section called, “communist cars.” A sub-chapter was titled “We don’t use turn signals,” followed by another called, “I’ll park wherever I damn well please,” that explained that Montanans had been parking long before anybody had thought to bother with all that yellow paint.

There are several references to the land in Montana, such as, “Do not call your 20 acres a ranch, even if you have a breeding pair of alpacas.” “Ranchette” would be more appropriate, but sounds stupid—like something a realtor might say.

The book also warned against calling farm subsidies “rural welfare.” And it advised that when listening to a rancher talk about life in the Big City, it’s best to just look down and scratch the dirt with the toe of your boot or Birkenstock, whichever might be the case.

Unless you own a cow, you aren’t allowed to wear a cowboy hat. The only exception is rodeo night, to which attendance is mandatory or you won’t be allowed to vote in the next general election, an action that tends to deter Democrats who wince at team roping and are more likely to be vegan.

Cowboy shirts with sleeve fringe are only for tourists and country singers with at least one gold record. Jeans are worn outside the boot, unless you’re from Texas which presents a whole host of other problems. Wearing clothes made by L.L. Bean, Patagonia or Armani is ill-advised; Levi’s, Carhartt and Filson are acceptable brands. New blue jeans are to be weighted down and dragged wet behind a horse for several hours before wearing. (This is a time-honored tradition to keep one from looking like a dude.)

Other than to complain, nobody talks about the weather. You’re allowed to say, “If you don’t like the weather, wait ten minutes,” but only after you’ve lived here through three winters—all of which may happen concurrently. One just never knows. And remember that Montana has three seasons: Snow, mud and tourists. Outdoor grilling is a year-round activity. Baseball is typically played in the rain, unless it’s snowing.

Montana is a drinking state. In the old days before there were cup holders you could drink in your car or truck, even if it was moving and you were behind the wheel. If you were suspected of being drunk behind the wheel, whoever suspected you of such would just give you a ride home. Finding your vehicle the next day was your punishment.

Bar etiquette is important to know. Feel free to order a Cosmopolitan but be prepared to suffer the consequences. The same is the case with wine, unless it’s boxed white zinfandel. Best to stick with a “ditch,” typically a Canadian or bourbon whiskey with just enough water to make it look like it was siphoned out of an irrigation ditch. Know that “brew pubs” are what gave rise to the popular expression, “Die Yuppie Scum.”

Everybody over the age of 12 is armed but not dangerous; they are a friendly lot who do the two-finger wave when driving.

The state bird is a Western meadowlark; its flower, the Bitterroot; its tree, the Ponderosa pine. There are a lot of elk, except during hunting season. And there are wolves that some people believe eat children. There are grizzly bears that, once dead and stuffed, make handsome welcoming mannequins in hotel lobbies. The state food is the pasty, sort of a calzone stuffed with chopped beef, potatoes, rutabagas and onions that was first served to miners in Cornwall, England. Smothered in a quart or so of gelatinous brown gravy, they’re a lot better than they sound.

Music is important in Montana, especially the kind you hear around campfires or in bars where Coors Light is the most popular beer. People frequently line dance. Frank Zappa submitted his song, Montana, as the state song. It was rejected, probably because of the song’s focus on dental floss. Elvis is truly loved here (still) and it would be unwise for anybody to say what I once wrote shortly after his death: “The saddest part of his funeral was that they didn’t bury his records with him.” Never, never say that aloud.

Montana does have its sacred cows, but the Idiot’s Guide made no mention of the Moss Mansion. I double-checked just to make sure.

I’ve never been to the Moss Mansion, although I thought I had been, which is what lead me to disparage it as the “tackiest place in Montana” on Facebook recently. What I actually was disparaging was the Alberta Bair house. Either way, a whole lot of people let me know that I had pissed them off.

As young people tend to say these days, “My bad.”

The Moss Mansion, which is suspected of being haunted, is in Billings and it is where I’d like to go now just to see how wrong I was in thinking it was that other place. But what I had to say mistakenly about the Moss Mansion does apply to the Alberta Bair House.

The Bair place was built by Mr. Bair, a sheep rancher known as Mr. Bair. (It’s rumored that he and Moss might have been friends.) From what I recall, the Bair place, which is not a mansion, started out as a simple clapboard farmhouse to which addition after addition was made in the form of a single room for every thousand sheep the Bair family sheared. The rooms dump into each other without the benefit of a single hallway.

I should mention that the house is located in the middle-of-nowhere. Unless you’re already there, it takes a minimum of four-and-a-half hours to get there from wherever else you might be, unless you have access to a helicopter, in which case you’re more likely to visit Bill Gates’ place in Big Sky.

Mr. Bair had a couple of daughters who spent the Great Depression in Europe, buying up tchotchkes from monarchs and tyrants who were going belly up and dumping their stuff for mere pennies on the dollar. A lot of the stuff was gilded. They’d send the stuff home and Daddy would shear some sheep and build another room to house what he famously called “crap.”

On the side, Mr. Bair amassed an impressive collection of Western art and Indian artifacts by trading lamb chops with the likes of Charlie Russell and a few tribal chiefs. And that really upset Mr. Moss whose Mansion needed artwork that wasn’t impression-era oil paintings of lilies or renderings of Jesus on black velvet. (I made that up.)

This whole Moss-Bair thing has been an embarrassing situation I’ve created for myself, however unwittingly. Notice how that didn’t stop me from writing about it, however. (Most essayists would gladly sell their mothers for a story idea.)

In closing, I’d like to apologize to those who I offended but who really owe me an apology because I didn’t call anybody names—they did. And they’re the ones who thought the use of the word “tacky” somehow defines someone as nouveau riche.

I should also mention that I didn’t shed a single tear when Elvis died. And I really don’t much care for Butte, either.

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Pasty
One of the most mispronounced words in the Montana dialect, the pasty is featured on the official seals of many small Montana towns. Although it can be stuffed with almost anything—I’ve heard of them being stuffed with carrots, peas, parsnips, turnips, pepperoni—the official Cornish pasty, after which the Montana version is widely modeled, has been given Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) in Great Britain. Producers are restricted to making the stuffing with onion, potato, rutabaga and beef.

They’re not difficult to make and I would suggest avoiding the frozen ones altogether.

For the Pastry:
1 cup all-purpose flour
Pinch salt
2 ounces butter (or half lard and half butter) cubed
3 to 4 tablespoons water (cold)

For the Filling:
1/4 cup onion (finely chopped)
1/2 cup potato (cut into 1/4-inch dice)
1/2 cup swede/rutabaga (cut into 1/4-inch dice)
1/2 cup rump steak (cut into small cubes)
Salt (to taste)
Freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
1 large egg (lightly beaten)

Place the flour, salt, and butter into a large bowl.
Using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour and salt until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs, working as quickly as possible to prevent the dough from becoming warm.
Add the cold water to the mixture and stir until the dough binds together, adding more cold water a teaspoon at a time if the mixture is too dry.
Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill for a minimum of 15 minutes and up to 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 425 F.
Divide the pastry into 4 equal pieces and roll each piece into rounds the size of a salad plate.
Place the onion, potato, rutabaga, and meat into a large mixing bowl and combine thoroughly. Season well with salt and pepper.
Divide the meat mixture evenly among each pastry circle and place to one side. Brush the edges with beaten egg.
Fold the circle in half over the filling so the two edges meet. Crimp the two edges together to create a tight seal. Brush each pasty all over with the remaining beaten egg.
Place the pasties on a greased baking sheet and bake for 45 minutes until golden brown.
Serve hot or cold.

If passive-aggressive behavior is your thing (and at this time of year isn’t it everybody’s?) then we would all do well to look into those special holiday gift possibilities that subtly remind the recipient of their perceived shortcomings. Figuratively speaking, it’s just a little twisting jab of two fingers into a vulnerable back area just below the rib cage.

Books make wonderful gifts because collectively they cover so much territory on every conceivable subject. It does take some malice aforethought to be effective in this endeavor, but a couple of late evenings on the internet and a few quick trips to your local bookstore will make the giving truly worthwhile, not to mention amusing and playfully evil.

Here’s one: Your sister and the creep she married have just completed remodeling their kitchen. Why not scour the DIY Home section and find a title like Think Twice about Colors for Your New Kitchen. Believe me, they won’t begin to know how to thank you.

If there’s a cook in the family who takes inordinate pride in his or her ability to cook in the French tradition and who mentions Escoffier in a way that would suggest they were close friends, then any French cookbook that has the words “bistro” and “easy” in its title will be spot-on perfect. If there’s a whole chapter on haricots verts amandine, so much the better.

For any relatives who happen to be Trumpers and therefore are not invited to this year’s Christmas gathering, the Psychology section of any quality bookstore should have the latest edition of How to Recognize Cognitive Dissonance in Yourself and Others.

Of course, be sure to inscribe each book so the gift keeps giving.

The gift of music can be magical. A snare drum for a favorite nephew whose parents you don’t like, is always a big hit. And remember that kazoos and Jew’s harps make wonderful little stocking stuffers that annoy almost as greatly as an accordion at a mere fraction of the price. And since nobody has ever sounded good playing a clarinet within the first two years, you can pick one up cheap at almost any reputable pawn shop to bring great joy into someone else’s house.

And while we’re thinking about music, wouldn’t this be the perfect time to introduce Uncle Ralph to a little heavy-metal to contrast his usual jam of pre-war Glenn Miller? And for Tiny, the dope hipster in the family who now insists on being called Lil’ Tiny, how about some Barbershop quartets?

For reasons that escape me and probably others, tools are always on sale at Christmas. Especially expensive power tools and other, powerless tool sets for which most people will have a single use during the course of an entire lifetime. By giving everybody on your list a 121-piece socket-wrench set, for instance, you’ll be gently pointing out their mechanical ineptitude while suggesting that they perhaps do something about it.

For your Facebook friends, wall posters are available that gently point out the proper usage of “there, they’re and their.”

A gift box of personal hygiene products presented to a co-worker can be both suggestive and remedial, but always provocative. If it’s a Secret Santa situation, only include deodorants.

And if you’d like to challenge an elderly relative’s mental standing, such as it were, simply give him/her exactly what he/she gave you last year and watch them drift into a confused reverie of thought.

Most people do care deeply about the welfare and well-being of their families. Or not. But nothing suggests such concern as gifting your adorably pudgy cousin Sofia and her not so adorable husband, with a gym membership or a piece of outrageously expensive exercise equipment that doubles as a coat rack when not in use, which is most of the time after its initial three days.

In an ever-so-subtle way, both are gifts that say, “Yo Sofia, Bert! Y’all gonna die if you don’t shed some pounds! Dude!” Or something like that. I don’t know. I’m tired. I don’t do youth-speak.

One might have thought that by now anybody who was going to invest in a home gym would have done so. But there’s always a new generation willing to prove themselves fit by investing heavily in gym equipment. Buy a stationary bike, a set of barbells, maybe a jump rope or a full-length mirror to monitor the progress you’re making sculpting your body and you’re in business. The reality is, or course, that a StepFaster, even with the optional television, is boring, and the progress you made in those first three days wasn’t satisfactory. By now, of course, it’s been a coat rack for at least two years.

So you buy something else to replace it. Except you keep the StepFaster, not for sentimental reasons or any notion that you might using it again, but for the simple fact that there is no market for used exercise equipment, much like there is no market for used pick-up trucks in Beverly Hills.

That’s why there is always a treadmill next to any public dumpster.

I have a friend who, over the past three decades, has purchased every piece of exercise equipment known to man. A large part of his house looks like a gym, except that cobwebs have taken up residence over each piece of equipment like tinsel on a Christmas tree. It is an eerie sight. It also smells like a locker room.

January is the busiest month for fitness centers. Bolstered by New Year’s resolutions to get in shape, lose those extra pounds and trim whatever it is that needs trimming, people pay the initiation fee, the first six months of dues, find a locker currently under rent control, and become friends with a 20-year-old trainer who looks like Adonis with acne and sounds like a drill sergeant.

After a single session of being screamed at by Sgt. Adonis while your eyes fill up with so much sweat that you can’t read the pithy signs that decorate the spaces among enough mirrors to make it seem like there are at least eight of you (No Pain, No Gain; Use It or Lose It; Do or Die; Exit), you mutter some unmentionables in front of your locker as you plop your weary and sweat-soaked butt onto the bench. Briefly striking a pose worthy of Rodin, albeit less sculpted, you stuff your gear into the $300 gym bag you recently bought, walk to your Porsche and gently make an obscene gesture at the gym as you drive off.

Unless the fitness club has a bar. Then you stay long enough for one vodka-and-beet-juice cocktail on ice.

Six months later, you decide you’d better get in shape for the summer beach season, so you return to the gym, pay for another six months and meet your new trainer, a Venus di Milo with arms who also has a voice like a drill sergeant, but an octave higher.

Then you go to the bar for a gin-and-carrot juice-cocktail, neat, but with three anchovy-stuffed olives.

Geri and I are, perhaps to your surprise, fitness freaks. Seriously. We have a staircase in our house that we travel up and down at least two, sometimes as many as three or four times a day. We have a pair of 3-pound barbells for all the obvious reasons, and we have a box full of wide stretchy rubber strips in a rainbow of colors that we’re not sure how to use, except as not-very-effective weaponry.

And of course, there’s the pièce de résistance of our fitness world: the stationary bike.

It hasn’t moved in years.

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Eggnog
A traditional yule-time drink dating back hundreds (maybe even thousands) of years, eggnog is made with eggs (hence the name) and, of course, nog (hence the rest of the name). Based on having had it once, I found it to be moderately disgusting and a not-so-nice thing to do to perfectly good alcohol. Then again, it isn’t as bad as your run-of-the-mill $35 fruitcake, which 40 percent of all Americans use as doorstops.

6 egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups milk
2 whole cloves
Pinch of cinnamon
1 cup heavy cream
1 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
1-1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 Tbsp. each of bourbon and rum, or brandy to taste
4 egg whites (optional)

In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to beat egg yolks until light in color. Continue beating and slowly add the sugar. Beat at high speed until fluffy.
Combine the milk, cloves, and cinnamon in a thick-bottomed saucepan. Slowly heat on medium heat until the milk mixture is steamy hot, but not boiling. (God forbid you should curdle this stuff and make it worse.)
Slowly add half of the hot milk mixture into the eggs, whisking constantly. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan.
Cook the eggnog on medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the mixture begins to thicken slightly. Again: Do not allow the mixture to boil. Remove from heat and stir in the cream.
Strain the mixture through a mesh strainer and allow to cool for an hour.
Stir in vanilla extract, nutmeg, and alcohol. Chill.
If contracting salmonella poisoning doesn’t bother you, beat egg whites with an electric mixer until they peak. Add a teaspoon of sugar and continue to beat until they reach stiff peaks. Gently fold into eggnog. Dispose of properly.

With barely 11 months to go before we’re asked to go to the polls and vote our conscience, our pocketbook or whatever our sense of what the lesser of two evils might be, it’s time to take seriously the options being paraded by us.

On the incumbent’s side, we have the President, who this past week seemed most concerned about how many times Americans have to flush their toilets. Many of the Washington pundits view this as a diversionary tactic from the more important question of leaky faucets. Either way, we’re using too much water.

The Democrats currently have somewhere between five and 103 candidates trying to define their party in an effort to win the nomination. It doesn’t seem to be going well.

The candidates seem not to have noticed that Will Rogers, who died in an airplane crash in 1935, defined the party by answering a reporter’s question if he belonged to an organized political party. “No sir,” Rogers said proudly, “I’m a Democrat.”

It’s understandable, of course, that no reference is generally made of Rogers since no Democrat candidate has shown any sense of humor except for Amy Klobuchar, whose dating life seems both humorous and noteworthy.

It seems that every other day or so, somebody drops out and a couple more enter the race. Each of them endorses the modern equivalent of Herbert Hoover’s promise of a “chicken in every pot,” without regard to payment for said chicken or what a suitable substitute might be for vegans. It’s important to note that Hoover made that promise in 1928, before there were any vegans. He also said that if elected he would make sure there was a “car in every garage.”

Since everybody wanted both a chicken and a car—especially the car, provided it had power steering and four-wheel-drive—the Republican Hoover beat Alfred Smith in a landslide. Less than a year later, Wall Street operatives were leaping out of their windows as the nation entered into what became known as the Great Depression. Hoover, a Prohibitionist, was a man who clearly needed a drink just to unwind enough to not seem like Calvin Coolidge’s body double. In 1932, Hoover, who was the scion to the vacuum cleaner family (motto: “We Suck”), handed over the election to FDR with the caveat that the electorate “isn’t very nice.”

As far as I can determine, no Broadway musical was ever based on Hoover’s life, although two minor planets, 932 Hooveria and 1363 Herberta, are named in his honor.

I am a big fan of Broadway musicals.

I co-wrote an adaptation of one that might have bombed in New Haven had it even gotten that far. Commissioned by Cleveland State University, the show was the first theatrical presentation at the Kennedy Center and enjoyed a record-breaking run at the Cleveland Playhouse. We even got “optioned” for Broadway. The night before we were trying to entice investors at a backer’s audition at a Greek restaurant in midtown to give us about half a million dollars, Melina Mercouri opened in Lysistrata and destroyed our chances of becoming the next “big thing” because her show was a flop in the making. Clive Barnes added insult to injury by telling his New York Times readers that Aristophanes could never be adapted to the modern stage.

The show I was involved with was a rock ‘n’ roll treatment of Aristophanes’ The Birds.

The Birds was a political/social satire that took place in Cloud Cuckooland, which is synonymous with the Kingdom of Heaven. Or something like that. Our version took place inside of what looked like a giant birdcage, with the actors all dressed like birds with glittering feathers. There was a lot of cawing and singing, and enough slapstick to embarrass Soupy Sales. The show was much better than I could ever describe. Take my word for it. But we were dead in the water because in 1971 whatever Clive Barnes said was gospel.

The Broadway theater, whose distinction has little to do with the Great White Way and everything to do with seating capacity, has been the setting for many shows and musicals based on classic literature.

Man of La Mancha jumps to mind. Based on the writings of Miguel de Cervantes, the musical version of Don Quixote was an international hit in the sixties.

The Producers, though not strictly based on the works of Franz Kafka, the Bohemian writer whose world view was just to the left of cheery, nonetheless conjured imagery from The Metamorphosis that had a lead character wake up as a giant cockroach.

Camelot, a big hit with Kennedy Democrats, was based on the King Arthur legend as adapted from the T. H. White novel The Once and Future King. Godspell was based on the Book of St. Matthew, the first book of the New Testament. And Annie was fashioned from the panels of the Little Orphan Annie comic strip. OK, so that last one isn’t really literature. Then again, name another Broadway hit based on a comic strip.

Clearly, Neil Simon was influenced by significant works of literature. During the Great Depression, Simon, a young Jewish boy from The Bronx, was grappling with notions of God, free will, morality and patricide as he worked his way through Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. Inspired by the dynamic established by the author between Dmitri and Ivan (there was a third brother who is best not mentioned here), Simon, whose real name was Simon, created Oscar and Felix and lightened things up enough to create The Odd Couple.

The movie, by the way, was better than the play which was better than the television show.

As an aside to the subject at hand, Kurt Vonnegut once said that if “there is one book that can teach you everything you need to know about life…it’s The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, but that’s not enough anymore.”

And then along came Pickwick, a musical based on The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, the British author best known for Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, and countless other books none of us have ever bothered to read because they’re really long and mostly boring.

Pickwick had a pretty good run in London, but only lasted for 58 performances on Broadway. All of that was in the mid-sixties.

Although dated, Pickwick carries a message that should be considered as we move into the next phase of American democracy. Leslie Bricusse, the lyricist of Pickwick, I believe encompassed what is important in that effort. Although dead and British, I would nonetheless vote for him based solely on his vision as expressed in “If I Ruled the World.”

However naïve and wistful, his words are what I’ll choose to believe as we move forward.

If I ruled the world,
Every day would be the first day of spring,
Every heart would have a new song to sing,
And we’d sing of the joy every morning would bring.

If I ruled the world,
Every man would be as free as a bird,
Every voice would be a voice to be heard,
Take my word we would treasure each day that occurred.

My world would be a beautiful place,
Where we would weave such wonderful dreams.
My world would wear a smile on its face,
Like the man in the moon has when the moon beams.

If I ruled the world,
Every man would say the world was his friend,
There’d be happiness that no man could end,
No my friend, not if I ruled the world.

Every head would be held up high,
There’d be sunshine in everyone’s sky,
If the day ever dawned when I ruled the world.

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Chicken Stock

To me, a chicken in every pot translates to chicken stock.

3½ – 4 pound chicken
2 leeks, coarsely chopped
2 carrots, coarsely chopped
1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 stalks celery, coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic, unpeeled
8 whole peppercorns
4-5 sprigs of parsley
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 bay leaf

Place all of the ingredients in a stockpot and cover with four quarts of cold water.

Bring to a boil and simmer, partially covered, for about 3 hours. Be sure to skim the fat and foam.

Strain through a fine sieve and let cool. Remove all of the fat that rises to the surface.

Though hardly an authority on any religion of any stripe, I do have a few ideas about the connection between the birth of Christ and Black Friday.

Jesus, rest his soul, was a man who found religion a tad repugnant and would probably have passed on the idea of a religious movement, replete with the traditional tyranny and wars, that used his surname. He would probably have guessed that his teachings would be twisted around by some to fit their own agenda.

As the bumper sticker informs us, Jesus was a Jewish carpenter, which was a tough business in those days before power tools and multiple listings. He also had a decidedly Puerto Rican name, which seems a bit suspect. The religion he found a tad repugnant was his own. As a follower of that ancient and somewhat archaic faith myself, I can understand much of his displeasure—especially with all the rules in Leviticus which includes a ban on bacon.

But all of that is purely from a theological sense.

He, of course, didn’t have access to Woody Allen movies, the Catskills, Philip Roth novels, or the thousands of Jewish comedians who have woven a rich tapestry of the secular Jewish life to tell head-scratching goyim. He hadn’t seen Fiddler On the Roof or heard Barbra Streisand sing. He, God bless him, did not know the pleasures of pastrami-on-rye, bagels with a schmear, or chicken soup with matzoh balls because he died before the Steiner family had opened a branch of the Carnegie Deli at the Ben Gurion Airport.

Secularly speaking, he was barely a Jew.

We’re fast-approaching the day that about 33 percent of the world’s population celebrates the birth of Christ. There is also significant number of non-believers who celebrate Christmas because they think having a dead tree in the living room is festive. Statistically, non-believers spend more money on consumer electronics during the holiday shopping season than do believers. Actually, that’s just my guess.

My knowledge of the particulars of Christianity is limited to information I’ve received from several Episcopal priests (and one Catholic Monsignor) I’ve known in the course of my life. They were all scotch drinkers which, along with the little white collars and erudition, makes them inordinately trustworthy.

But my truest expertise comes from my having been a drummer in the musical, Godspell, which was a rock ‘n’ roll version of the Gospel of Saint Matthew. By that same reckoning, I can answer most of your questions about the outlaw James Gang from my tenure playing drums in the first country & western musical, Jesse James, which ran for what seemed an eternity in an off-off-Broadway theater on 4th and Bowery. Prior to that, I learned all about the pre-War Berlin theater scene when I played Cabaret in summer stock.

And while we’re on the subject of amusement and knowledge being interchangeable, you can learn an awful lot about insects from watching the documentary-like story of apocalyptic prophecy in The Hellstrom Chronicle.

The Book of Matthew contains more than the simple beauty and wisdom expressed in the Beatitudes; it also tells of the three Magi—aka the Three Kings or the Three Wise Men—who brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the Christ child.

There is some controversy and a lot of confusion about this story that appears only in Matthew.

First of all, is Magi pronounced with a soft or hard “g”? What is a baby supposed to do with those gifts? And there might have been up to twelve Wise Men in the collective Magi. I’ve done considerable research on this subject and have come to believe the theory that there were actually four Kings: Balthasar, the King of Arabia; Melchior, the King of Persia; Gaspar, the King of India; and, Sherwin, the King of Retail, whose gift to the Baby Jesus was a dreidel from Dreidels “R” Us, his flagship toy store in nearby Lod, a town whose Aramaic name translates to “go away.”

Sherwin’s retail empire included a jewelry store that sold gold, frankincense and myrrh, as well as hand-drawn postcards of King Solomon’s temple; a textile outlet that made and sold yarmulkes, prayer shawls and hair shirts; a traveling caravan that sold wooden mallets (it later became Snap-On Tools); and, three vegan falafel stands that, according to Yelp, served the best baba ghanoush in the Middle East.

He also owned an inn that had never had a vacancy, due mostly to the French toast with imported yak butter they served at breakfast.

The advent of the internet was nothing Sherwin could have foreseen, and it hurt his businesses; except for the falafel stands which, with the menu addition of meatless shawarma, have proven themselves as recession-proof.

Desperate, Sherwin decided that to honor the newly born King of Kings he would encourage people to buy stuff to give to each other. To accomplish his mission, he hired a Mad Ave team of PR and marketing specialists, and thousands of people to create and build all this new stuff that would be of little use or value but could be sold for a lot of money.

Given the limited skills of his employees—the only jobs they had held were in construction, textiles and hospitality—most of the new products were made of wood, wool or garbanzo beans. Dreidels “R” Us expanded its toy line to include Pegos, little blocks of wood that snapped together to make stuff that would help kids forget that they had no video games. Since nobody wore shoes in those days, Pegos caused a lot of foot injuries.

His textile firm, Schmatta, introduced the cardigan sweater. Sherwin also started a foot ware outlet, Rubber Soles, that made sandals from garbanzo beans.

And then one fateful day—a Thursday actually, though nobody knew that since Pope Gregory had yet to be born—everybody decided to be thankful for what they already had and call it good. Except for the falafel stands, Sherwin’s businesses tanked. Bankruptcy attorneys started flocking to his side. Creditors refused payment in Pegos; for good reason, kids had lost interest in dreidels. Anybody who prayed already had a shawl.

After waiting for what might have been a year—it was anybody’s guess—the whole thankful schtick came up again. A little light bulb went off in Sherwin’s head, which was a deeply disturbing vision since Edison had yet to be born, and he envisioned a new store he called Lot O’ Crap, where he could dump all of his inventory at half-price after first doubling the price.

“Brilliant!” he exclaimed. His bean counters cheered, “Ole! Ole!”

People bought into it, this new event he named שוואַרץ פרייַטיק, and they started camping in front of Sherwin’s store to be at the front of the line to buy as much crap as they could. People were hurt, run over by chariots in the crowded parking lots, or stomped to death by fellow shoppers eager to get their hands on Insta Cookers, flat-screen TVs and World Cup memorabilia.

And on that first Black Friday, Sherwin took his rightful place as King of Retail.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Falafel
1 16 oz. can of garbanzo beans
1 large onion (chopped)
2 cloves garlic (chopped)
3 tablespoons fresh parsley (chopped)
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon cumin
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon salt
Pepper (to taste)
Safflower oil for frying

Drain garbanzo beans, place in a pan with water and bring to a boil.
Allow to boil for 5 minutes, then let simmer for an hour.
Drain and cool.
Combine beans, garlic, onion, coriander, cumin, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Add flour.
Mash mixture into a thick paste.
Form into small balls, about the size of a ping pong ball. Slightly flatten into thick patties.
Fry in 2 inches of oil at 350 F until golden brown (5 to 7 minutes).

While not subject to rites of passage that need commemoration with such tribalistic traditions as scarification and branding, we in the western world do have at least one ritual that is noteworthy. That, of course, is the matriculation from the kids’ table to a seat at the table where the adults celebrate Thanksgiving.

Children are generally stupid little creatures who don’t know a good thing when they see one. This is especially true when it comes to holiday seating arrangements, which always include as many degrees of separation from grown-ups as are possible in any enclosed area. Children are seated at folding card tables that have been erected over thick sheets of plastic drop cloths. Food—from a kid-tested and kid-friendly menu that includes both hot dogs and SpaghettiOs®—is distributed on paper plates. Plastic cutlery is provided, as are spill-proof cups for the sparkling apple juice that is considered festive by those who have never tasted it.

At the kids’ table, there is little fuss about etiquette. Napkins, though needed, are optional and rarely used. The conversation is typically limited to whatever it might take to make cousin Laura cry. There is a lot of farting—both real and imitated using either mouth or armpit—and usually a burping contest that cousin Laura finds amusing enough to stop crying.

God only knows why any kid would aspire to the adults’ table when there is so much pure, unadulterated joy to be had squishing cranberry sauce between one’s toes and recreating John Belushi’s inspired mashed-potato scene from Animal House.

But we all do. And we live to rue the day.

I can’t quite remember how old I was when I was given a place of honor at the adults’ table. But I do remember that my “place of honor” was sitting between Aunt Bernice, whose mustache was the envy of most men, and Uncle Earl, whose eyebrows reached up toward what had once been a hairline. Each year Uncle Earl amazed everybody by eating an entire meal without ever closing his mouth, stopping talking, or removing the cigar from the corner of his mouth.

He called his beloved cigars “she-rootz,” which had a decidedly vulgar tone.

It is abundantly clear that Uncle Earl belonged at the kids’ table. While the adults found Uncle Earl’s table manners enough to make them wretch, we kids were at once wide-eyed and spellbound by his oral agility. Plus, he used words we weren’t allowed to say.

Sitting next to him at the grown-ups table was a different story.

Nobody knows for sure how Uncle Earl came to be part of our Thanksgiving festivities. We’ve always assumed he was related to our family, but nobody quite remembers how. It’s more likely that nobody wanted to lay claim to him.

For many years Uncle Earl just showed up on Thanksgiving to eat and drink more than his share. Before he left, he would manage to create at least one incident that would result in somebody’s emotional meltdown.

To say that Uncle Earl was unpleasant is to say that rain is wet. An egomaniacal drunk, he was sexist, misogynistic and spiteful, with political views unrecognizable on any political spectrum known to man. He had a crude nickname for just about everybody, especially politicians and children. He could wax idiotic on any subject. He believed that professional wrestling was real. He wondered aloud once if Idi Amin had ever dined with the Donner party.

Uncle Earl was rotund in build, to say the least. To say the most, he was remarkably obese. In fact, he wore his belt buckle on the side of his waistband so he could at least have a fighting chance at reaching it should some need arise.

Sitting next to Uncle Earl that first year of my joining the adults was when I finally grasped the full meaning of the descriptive noun “putz.” It was also the occasion when, because I was at the adults’ table, I introduced a new word to my vocabulary. That didn’t turn out as I had planned.

Memories of Uncle Earl notwithstanding, I like Thanksgiving. The cause of the celebration is repugnant, but I enjoy the fact that it is a holiday based on an entirely predictable menu of comfort food whose inclusions can reveal where you grew up. Seriously. I read a story some thirty years ago in the Los Angeles Times about some guy who could do that within 50 miles. For instance, if you had tamales…well, you get the picture.

Geri and I are on our forty-second year of having the same Thanksgiving dinner she designed—bland, pale in color, enough starch to require that a cardiologist be present, processed vegetables with little onion rings or marshmallows on top. It is a meal usually served at least an hour late, at room temperature; it is mostly admired for its vast quantities. Oh, boy. (Just for fun, I’m thinking of making a risotto with sun-dried apricots, capers and minced lamb’s tongue with a mole sauce. Don’t tell Geri.)

Turkey is, of course, the meal’s main attraction. (I’d like to institute a holiday that requires you serve a standing rib roast.) But back to what could have been our national symbol, had Ben Franklin had his way. The Bird. Uncle Tom. The President’s pardon. Memories of the “WKRP Thanksgiving Turkey Drop,” the funniest two minutes in television history. Where was I? Oh yeah. The turkey—dried-out breasts, under-cooked thighs, tendon-filled legs, and skin charred black. And to think we place this almost-recognizable creature in the middle of the table to admire for just enough time to convince us it’s not made from tofu. That’s a good thing. Nobody likes tofu. It’s bad for you, and it tastes like liquid cardboard seasoned with bleach and rubber cement.

If, by the way, your turkey weighs in the neighborhood of 24 pounds and it’s not yet properly thawing, you’re screwed. You’ll be having Thanksgiving dinner sometime after Black Friday. Or, you can sculpt a turkey out of the aforementioned tofu.

Before we met, Geri cooked a turkey for Thanksgiving. She hadn’t thawed it because that step was not specified in a recipe she found for turkey that promised to remind one and all of Depression-era Kansas provided you ate if off of tin pie plates while sitting on the running boards of a ’27 Chrysler. Anyway, her guests were arriving in less than six hours. Always the clever one, Geri hung the 24-pound frozen turkey carcass over the shower head by the little wire doo-hickey thingy that keeps the turkey’s legs modestly closed and turned on the hot water. Nobody died. It was reportedly very moist. Everybody sang several choruses of “(Somewhere) Over the Rainbow” while banging together pie plates. Another Thanksgiving success!

And that, of course, is why many people pray before dinner. (Stay with me; I’m almost done.)

In France, nobody says grace because the French know how to cook. In Italy, everybody knows how to cook too, but they are the most religious people on the face of the earth, so they pray between bites, which is why dinner in Italy takes no less than three hours, unless you’re having more than one course. In Ireland they pray that the potatoes didn’t overcook or take on any flavor during the process. “Ah, sure Jesus, Mary and Joseph, these potatoes have salt! Feckin Eejit!”

Those three countries don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, by the way, although Italy might still celebrate Columbus Day. They don’t know the joy of sitting slumped over worn furniture like tryptophan junkies on the verge of death in an episode of Chicago P.D., currently my favorite police drama…a show that celebrates good guys doing really horrible things to bad guys without any interference from the courts.

Speaking of which, did everybody enjoy the Impeachment Hearings?

I’m guessing that by now Uncle Earl has gone on to meet his maker, whoever that might have been. We don’t expect his presence at this year’s Feast of Genocide against the people who were nice enough to teach us how to grow corn—an indigestible food with no nutritional value that is no longer served at Thanksgiving. Look who’s laughing now.

But I’m not taking any chances. On Thursday, I’m sitting at the kids’ table. Please pass the SpaghettiOs®. And the ketchup. Brrrp!

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Mashed Potatoes

The directions for most Thanksgiving entrees and sides are typically printed on the packaging. Not so with the mashed potatoes. This is my favorite.

3 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled
Kosher salt
1 1/2 cups whole milk
6 Tbs. unsalted butter
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Cut the potatoes into 1-inch cubes and place them in a large pot. Cover the potatoes with cold water and add a tablespoon of salt. Bring to a boil; lower the heat and simmer, uncovered, for about 10 to 12 minutes, until the potatoes fall apart easily when pierced with a fork or other sharp utensil.

Meanwhile, warm the milk and butter in a small saucepan, making sure it doesn’t boil. Set aside.

When the potatoes are tender, drain them in a colander. Using a food mill or ricer, process the potatoes into a glass bowl. As soon as the potatoes are mashed, slowly whisk in enough of the hot milk/butter mixture to make the potatoes very creamy (not soupy). Add 2 teaspoons of salt, the pepper and the sour cream. Whisk to combine. Taste for seasoning and serve hot. Serves 4-6.

There must be a special school where politicians go to learn how to run for office, a place that features such courses as Baby-Kissing and Hand-Shaking as entry level offerings; intermediate studies in Saying-Exactly-What-You-Think-the-Voter-Wants-to-Hear; and, advanced seminars in identifying Hot-Button Issues and Trend-Setting Developments as they appear on the political horizon.

I assume there are also lectures and demonstrations on how to speak, dress and style your hair in ways that do not remind constituents of Bella Abzug.

The reason I believe such a place exists is because the candidates all tend to sound about the same—give or take. They speak of the same issues using the same buzz words and offer the same solutions. The only differences are in the netherworld of financial impact and the projected date of accomplishment (“within the first 100 days” or, “before the end of my second term”).

One candidate can get us Universal Health Care for $800 a year in increased taxes; another acknowledges that while the actual cost will be close to $8,000 a month, it doesn’t matter because Bill Gates and three of his richest friends will pick up the tab for everything except vaccinations and acupuncture.

While missing the irony, they embrace the late Senator Everett Dirksen’s shoulder-shrugging commentary on a spendthrift Congress. “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you’re talking real money,” noted the Illinois Republican.

Besides its ardent desire to dump Trump at any cost, the Democrats are speaking at an alarmist volume about jobs, the economy, health care, college education, military spending and the environment. So, too, are the Republicans, just from the other side. However warranted that volume is, there are other key issues that get little attention from the candidates.

Although I do other things than sit around listening to political rhetoric, I’ve yet to hear any candidate weigh in very much on agriculture, housing, or the impending economic crisis that we, as a nation, will face as we grow older and leave a workforce without a corresponding number of replacements.

It’s been estimated that in the next ten years, 30 percent of the current workforce will be retiring. Fewer and fewer of those retirees will enjoy their so-called Golden Years as they once imagined them. More and more of them are working longer than they had hoped and many will be forced to look for part-time employment as Walmart greeters and school crossing guards to make ends meet. Their houses may have gained value, but not enough to parlay into a down-sizing move with anything much left over. Upkeep and taxes will continue to rise faster than Social Security benefits. Many pension plans have been devalued or have disappeared altogether due to mismanagement and malfeasance.

The impending housing crisis alone begs for concerted attention that will have to come from the government. And that attention will have to be accompanied by investment without regard to return. There is a reason, a friend once observed, why poverty-law attorneys drive 16-year-old Volvos.

For all his babble about revolution, Bernie Sanders has given short shrift to the one thing that will change the world most decidedly and effectively. Perhaps it’s because of his urban heritage, but I’ve yet to hear Bernie talk about agriculture, unless it’s in concord with the environment or in reference to the farmers and ranchers going bankrupt.

He’s missing the boat. And he’s sitting at the dock with the rest of the 300 or so who’d like to lead our nation. (If he’s ever given a chance to be heard, I suspect that Steve Bullock would address agricultural concerns.)

Unlike the rest of the slate of candidates who have toiled in law, academia and industry, Bernie is kind of well, an old hippie, a grass-roots politico who specialized in community organizing that would end a war, redistribute wealth and guarantee civil rights. As did I, he inhaled while listening to Joni Mitchell exhort our generation to return to the garden—a place of sunshine, peace and earthly promise.

If ever there is a rock ‘n’ roll theme park, Woodstock—that garden of song—will be a vast muddy acreage of tribalistic youth whose primary bond is LSD and a tolerance for 90 minutes of the Grateful Dead riffing on “St. Stephen.” It was not the garden Ms. Mitchell had in mind.

But the garden is, in fact, the place to which we would be wise to return—with or without a rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack. Although the back-to-the-earth movement that coincided with the birth of Woodstock Nation was off-putting in the way veganism might be today, growing our own food would have almost-unimaginable effects on our world.

A few rows of lettuces, beans, carrots and tomatoes brings great satisfaction to the grower. It feels good to root around in the dirt for an hour or so in the early morning, and the flavors of those home-grown foods render the mass-produced as barely edible. A few chickens provide eggs and meat whose quality cannot be found at the local Kroger’s.

Over time, of course, such exposure changes the way one thinks about food in the way that many think of subsistence hunting and fishing. It develops respect for what shows up on our plates by thinking about food’s origins and sources, and gratitude for those whose labors provide it, especially if those labors are one’s own.

In 2015 Americans spent $29.1 billion on lawn care, not including water. Imagine the environmental impact and dollar costs of fuel consumption just to power the lawnmowers, leaf blowers and weed-eaters that intrude on the weekend’s silence. I cannot think of a single expenditure of private or public funds that is more useless or wasteful.

Other than in public spaces like urban parks, athletic fields and, perhaps, golf courses, there is no reason for the vast lawns that stretch across suburbia. Even golf, in its ancestral home, is not played on manicured lawns but on wind-swept terrains with native grasses.

One study I read recently found that 75 percent of the respondents found their front yards to be a “reflection of [their] personality.” That’s about as pathetic as seeking an identity in the car one drives.

So ingrained in our psyche are lawns that it is common for some communities to restrict front yards to specific kinds of ornamental greenery. Lawsuits have had to have been brought to allow vegetables to be grown on private property. The decisions regarding property covenants have not been unanimous.

For many, Monsanto has become synonymous with an evil whose purity is without peer. The multi-national company has created and vigorously marketed products that at the very least threaten the health of people and the planet we call home. There is a recognition of that to the extent that Bayer, the German-based multi-billion-dollar company that bought Monsanto, is no longer using its acquired name and is sponsoring a rigorous campaign on social media to suggest that the company is hosting welcoming parties for honeybees.

Maybe it is trying to make amends and change its ways. I just tend to be a skeptic.

My wife is part of a clique of women with dirt under their fingernails. Their guru, who wisely advised that growing your own food was like printing your own money, died this past spring, just weeks before she’d have been turning the earth to plant her diet and stores. This group spends cold winter nights thumbing through the seed catalogs that arrive each year. There are dreams at work—visions of raised beds with produce begging nurture and harvest, flowers anchoring the fence lines and corners with bright displays of colors and hues that bring contented smiles.

The simple act of small-plot farming can change the world. Industrial farming will lose its stranglehold on the consumer and stop its merciless land grabs if its profits are threatened. We can provide for our families, friends and neighbors deliciously, cheaply. It will allow us to dictate how we grow what we choose to put in our bodies—even if only for a few weeks’ worth of tomatoes and peppers at the end of summer.

It will help to put us back in charge.

Photo montage by Courtney A. Liska

Squash Sauce with Saffron

This was one of our most popular pasta dishes at Adagio Trattoria during the fall and winter months. It is one of my own creations and it was always gratifying to hear how much our guests enjoyed it.

2 medium butternut squash
Fresh sage (8-10 leaves)
Butter & extra virgin olive oil
½ cup onions, chopped
½ cup celery, chopped
½ cup carrots, chopped
1 cup dry white wine
2 cups vegetable or chicken stock
Saffron
Penne, #1 cooked to package directions
Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled
Poppyseeds

Peel and cube the squash. Season with salt, pepper and a few leaves of sage. Toss with some olive oil. Roast at 400° until soft. Heat butter & oil, and sauté the vegetables until soft. Add wine and cook until it evaporates. Add squash (remove sage leaves) and stock seasoned with saffron (a few threads) to taste. Puree. Stir in gorgonzola cheese and add to pasta. Stir. At service, top the sauced pasta with crumbles of the cheese and a light sprinkling of poppy seeds. Serves 4-6.

The California courts and the NCAA are currently grappling with the question of whether college athletes should be paid for their services. It is a story that deserves to be reported. But because it involves numbers and is not as sexy as covering the election of a new Pope, most are reluctant, even afraid, to tell it.

I am not afraid because I have sources I trust and people with calculators on my payroll, plus one guy with an abacus. And I don’t care who the next Pope is, although I wouldn’t mind an all-expenses-paid trip to Rome to be on the lookout for white smoke billowing from the Vatican, which means that the College of Cardinals, aka the Redbirds, have elected a new dictator without any suggestion of quid pro quo or extortion and that by then there’s just enough time for one more bowl of cacio e pepe and a bottle of fruit-forward Aglianico del Taburno with a charming soft-tannic finish before flying home. (Note: Faulkner could not have penned that sentence any better.)

Few people know the secret I’m about to reveal. Even fewer are likely to believe a word of it. But in fact, I became a professional athlete—a baseball player to be exact—when I turned nine. You read that right. Nine, as in an x-to-a-higher-power number—an equation my team is currently trying to solve.

I was the catcher for the West Side Weasels, a ragtag outfit of underprivileged (so we were told) neighborhood youths. Our sponsor was Big Nick’s Saloon and Spaghetti House—a neighborhood joint that few of its neighbors dared to frequent. Nick’s customers were men who drove black Cadillacs and wore black suits with white neckties. Some of them might have had guns. (One can’t be too sure of these things.) They all had colorful nicknames that often referred to missing fingers, and really fancy-looking girls who made funny coo-ing sounds.

Big Nick was everything one could imagine and then some—from the scar down his left cheek and ears that looked like roasted cauliflower to a pinky ring with a diamond the size of a pistachio. Because he was found bound-and-gagged in the trunk of his 1963 Coupe de Ville in Las Vegas (his death was ruled a suicide), it is safe to reveal certain other facts about him.

Nick was big. Hence, the name. His last name, translated from a Sicilian dialect, meant “Who wants to know?” He had wavy black hair pomaded fast to his scalp. He had a way of speaking English without ever uttering the “th” sound, although that can be said about most Chicagoans. And stuffed in the corner of his mouth was an ever-present cigar the size of an enchilada, a food item we hadn’t heard of in the late-50s. Nick loved baseball and let everybody know he did by keeping several bats in strategic locations under the long bar at his West Side establishment. The story was that when he batted, he never struck out. Sandwiched between a bad Chinese restaurant and a Martinizing Dry Cleaners, Big Nick’s had its motto printed on the front door: “Don’t Ask.”

The long-form version was “If Yuse Knowz Whazz Goot fer Yuse, Don’t Ask.”

Big Nick treated us well. He bought the Weasels brand-new equipment that first year, and black T-shirts and black baseball pants. Each numbered shirt was emblazoned with “Big Nick’s” across the back. We had fitted baseball caps and new gloves, all the latest catcher’s gear and shoes with steel spikes that were sharp enough to cut open a second baseman’s leg from ankle to knee, which we were encouraged to do.

We had everything the Chicago Cubs had, but we had better pitching.

After each game, we went to Big Nick’s for bowls of spaghetti and meatballs. After Friday games, we’d have linguine with clams. We’d eat at a big table in a big back room that had the biggest chalkboard I’d ever seen—floor to ceiling, with numbers scrawled on a grid by some guy named Eddie whose pock-marked face had earned him the nickname of Moon. He always had a wad of papers in his hand. I thought it must have something to do with insurance because he kept saying something about “policies.”

Anyway, while we Weasels were eating the spumoni tartufo we always got for dessert, Big Nick would walk around the table, giving each of us congratulatory noogies. Then he’d give each of us a ten-dollar bill. One time we lost a crucial game and Big Nick gave us twenty-dollar bills, big steaks and warm zabaglione spooned over French-toast slices of orange-flavored baguette with fresh strawberries that was simply divine, not to mention lushly fragrant. He and Eddie then shared a private moment, during which we all heard the phrase “sports book.”

Gah fig-ya, huh?

The NCAA would like to keep organized crime out of college athletics, although we all know it’s too late for that. And the NCAA would also like to ignore the fact that baseball, track and field, wrestling, lacrosse, swimming, tennis, rugby, soccer and beach volleyball, as well as all women’s sports, even exist. The NCAA likes basketball and football because they are the big money tickets, especially football.

In the meantime, the NFL would like to keep every single one of the billions of dollars it collects from television rights, ticket sales, franchise fees, parking, team jerseys, beer and smokeless tobacco. The NFL is so greedy and cheap that when a field goal or extra point is attempted, they put up a big net so God-forbid some fan who paid in the neighborhood of a semester’s worth of college to sit there in sub-zero weather won’t be able to claim a $35 football as a souvenir.

Major League Baseball has testified that it operates its own farm system to grow its players at its own expense, and allows fans to keep foul balls and home runs, to which NFL commissioner Roger Goodell—in court and under oath—uttered the word “chumps.” For the record, Goodell makes in the neighborhood of $35 million a year to tell his bosses what to do. (Where do people find these jobs?)

The NFL argues that it wants its future players to remain pure until their days as dedicated scholars in the demanding world of academia are over and they transition to the professional gridiron. The real reason for this approach—other than money—is so that when the players’ likenesses are shown on television, the player can proudly state “Stanford” or “LSU” rather than the more accurate “San Quentin” or “Leavenworth.”

As a compromise, the NFL has convinced the NCAA to band together in several lawsuits seeking to prevent college athletes from being compensated in the form of salaries, expenses, benefits, bribes, luxury automobiles, hookers, sex-change procedures or bail bonds. The two entities have suggested to the Court that a third party be allowed to pay the athletes in the form of endorsements. So far, the Court is “considering” the motion, thereby giving the NFL and the NCAA continued access to all the money they can grub.

What this boils down to is that a starting linebacker for South Delaware College of Farriers can make any deal he wants with Nike or Pete’s Clam Shack, which in all likelihood is zip, but will not be compensated by the responsible parties for a 60-hour work week or the injuries that seem to accompany repeated blows to the head over the course of four years.

I wish Big Nick was still around. After a nice bowl of spaghetti and meatballs, Nick could take a little batting practice. Eddie could make book.

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Zabaglione

8 large egg yolks
½ c. granulated sugar
¾ c. sweet marsala wine
1 tsp. vanilla extract
¾ c. whipping cream

In a copper or stainless steel bowl and using a whisk, beat egg yolks with sugar.
Blend in the wine. Place bowl over a saucepan with simmering water, stirring in one direction with a wooden spoon, until stiff peaks form.
Stir in vanilla.
If serving warm, fold in cream that has been whipped until soft peaks form. Serve spooned over small slices of orange-flavored French toast and garnished with fresh fruit and orange zest.
If serving cold, chill egg mixture in ice water. Whip cream and fold in with cold egg mixture. Serve in parfait glasses, topped with a dollop of whipped cream.