Journal

I had been in Los Angeles for less than a week. An old friend from New York had moved his music publishing business to the Coast and a brief telephone conversation was all it took to arrange a lunch. We were to meet at an Irish-themed restaurant in Westwood, a mostly commercial neighborhood abutting the campus of UCLA.

I took the 405 freeway out of the San Fernando Valley, an area ridiculed by those who lived in such exotic places as Bel Air, Beverly Hills or Santa Monica. West Los Angles had yet to earn bragging rights that go with a designated area. I exited the 405 at Sunset Boulevard and traversed the winding thoroughfare to the UCLA campus. I found the restaurant and spent the next 30 minutes circling the area for a parking spot.

“So Jay,” I ventured when he finally got seated. “Do you believe in circling or waiting for a parking space?”

“Neither,” he said. “I have a driver.”

He would not be the only person I came to know in L.A. who had a driver. But that’s beside the point, although a woman I worked for had a limousine with a sunroof which, I understand, is akin to lowering an off-road vehicle. Anyway, it turns out Jay had had a driver in New York as well.

Who knew?

Looking around the room I could see that the necktie I had chosen to wear—a club tie with my alma mater’s colors—displayed the awkward fact that I was overdressed for what was purportedly a business lunch. Apparently, gold chains had replaced the necktie. A friend of Jay’s who happened to be the business manager of some rock ‘n’ roll band soon joined us. I had heard of the band, whose members Jay’s friend called “my animals.” I didn’t much care for the band. I also didn’t know anything about them that would merit the name “animal.” I wasn’t, however, going to argue with Mr. Manager.

We had barely begun reading the menu when a man stopped tableside to speak with Jay and Mr. Manager. I stood up and shook the man’s hand. He had a firm handshake, and he was introduced as Jerry West.

I sat down. Jerry West walked across the room to join a couple of other men.

“Who’s Jerry West?” I half-whispered to Jay.

“You really don’t know?” Jay asked, his sneer similar to what I might expect if I failed to recognize Richard Nixon.

“No,” I answered. “Should I?”

“He’s one of the greatest basketball players who ever lived,” Jay said.

“He’s an animal, man,” Mr. Manager said. “An absolute animal.”

It was at that point that I recognized that being called an animal by Mr. Manager was a good thing. It had nothing to do with poor table manners, inappropriate language, or sinking automobiles into motel pools.

“I don’t follow basketball,” I said, sheepishly. But I had an excuse. “I grew up with Danny Issel and for four years it was as if Danny held our town hostage. Nobody else was credited with doing anything as important as sinking rubber balls through a net—not even the kid who was translating Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets into Sanskrit.”

My lunch partners failed to laugh at my joke. I thought they’d be just a tad impressed with my knowing how many sonnets the Bard wrote. The waiter arrived to take our drink order. I was thinking gin-and-tonic. They each ordered a Perrier. I followed suit.

We ordered our lunch and when the waiter disappeared, we toasted each other with our Perriers. After a couple of sips of the clear liquid bubbling away in a frosted glass, I ventured an observation.

“This is like water, huh?”

That, at least, got a laugh.

Jerry West died this past week at 86, and the eulogies came gushing out—as well they should. Obviously, his performances on the nation’s basketball courts were recounted. So too were the kindnesses he’d shown to his fellow players, coaches and managers. He apparently tolerated children.

Danny Issel was 6-foot, 9-inches when he left Batavia, Illinois, for the University of Kentucky. I learned a lot about basketball from him. The most important lesson that I learned was that I should abandon the sport because I had less-than-no talent for the game. This, despite the fact that I was 6-foot, 3-inches tall when Uncle Sam briefly considered me for the B-Team in Vietnam.

Jerry West was 6-foot, 3-inches when he dominated play in the NBA. Had I some kind of innate ability to get the ball into the basket just wasn’t to be, despite my being as tall as he was.

I have always pledged my support for Chicago teams, except for the White Sox. Go Cubs. Pro basketball didn’t come to Chicago until I was living in Cleveland. Naturally, I became a Cavaliers fan. I never went to a game, and I don’t remember watching them on television or hearing them on the radio. After all, Cleveland couldn’t afford to have Chick Hearn call their action. I listened to Hearn call Lakers games without regard to the sport; Hearn was a pure professional.

For three years I had access for tickets to sit in the Senate seats (cocktail service, cigars welcome) at the Great Western Forum. Once, I had settled into my seat and lit a cigar that would last at least 60 minutes. Jerry West could be seen sitting on the Lakers bench. Jay and Mr. Manager were two rows behind me.

We could have called it a reunion. We should have raised our glasses to Jerry West with a Perrier.

We can all do that in his memory. Cheers.

Montage by Courtney A. Liska

al fredo

When we lived in California one of our favorites places to eat was Rosati’s in Calabasas. It was a typical red-sauce pasta and pizza joint: brightly lit, vinyl, red-checkered tablecloths, paper napkins. They also had a few pastas and salads. I would always order the fettuccine all’Alfredo, which was made tableside. It was the best. Papa Rosati would shuffle out to the table and work his magic. I repeatedly asked him for the recipe, which he finally gave me (sort of) when I told him we were moving to Montana.

1 cup heavy whipping cream
2 Tbs. unsalted butter
2 egg yolks, well beaten
2/3 cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese
salt
black pepper
whole nutmeg
Golden Cream Sherry (this was the Rosati secret)
1-1/2 lbs. fettuccine, cooked al dente and drained

In a skillet large enough to hold all of the pasta, put in about 2/3 of the cream, all of the butter and the egg yolks. Turn heat to medium, whisking until smooth and thickened. Add a pinch of salt, some pepper and a tablespoon or so of the sherry. Whisk to incorporate.

Add the pasta and cheese to the skillet and, using tongs, gently mix. Serve with pepper and extra cheese for sprinkling.

Words, it might seem, lose power as the sentences in which they appear diminish in length. “Go fuck yourself” carries more weight than the mere utterance of the stand-alone “fuck,” unless the latter usage comes in the wake of smashing one’s thumb with a hammer or dropping one’s wedding ring into the garbage disposal.

Both usages, I would argue, gain more power when offered as “Go f**k yourself” or the simple “f**k.” The reason for that is that while trying to protect the reader from such words, we make them consider the spelling and give it more attention than it deserves. With the right letters replacing the asterisks, the word floats by with nary a thought.

Norman Mailer struggled with the asterisk issue as early as 1948. He used the F-word liberally in The Naked and the Dead, but at his publisher’s insistence he changed the spelling to “fug.” When Dorothy Parker was introduced to Mailer, she said, “So you’re the young man who can’t spell fuck.”

I’m expecting a pair of sunglasses any day now. I’m worried about the order in that the company has identified my home address as being S***TH***S***. There’s no part of my address that merits any coding or censuring, so the reason for doing so to my address remains a mystery.

There are, however, people who scour the library shelves in search of books with any number of “dirty” words that might warp the unsuspecting minds of innocents.

Asterisks by themselves don’t challenge the reader as much as the phrase “expletive deleted.” In 1966, the comedian Lenny Bruce was arrested for identifying nine words as expletives, two more (“ass,” “balls”) than George Carlin, who famously spoke of the seven words you can never say on television or radio. Today, Carlin’s list holds the line at six, what with “piss” now being generally accepted usage.

“Bullshit” didn’t seem to move Bruce or Carlin. And yet, it wasn’t that long ago that Bill Barr, an attorney who has spent much of the Trump administration as a part of it, serving two stints as Attorney General. His use of the word (“bullshit”), was to describe something-or-other that Trump either said or did. It also paved the way for MSNBC anchors to start peppering their stories with the word. Most of them snicker after saying it, much like a child saying “poo-poo”; one doesn’t use it—or any other such word—because, well, it is television.

Sadly, nobody bothered to tell said anchor that cable is not governed by any authority, let alone the Federal Communications Commission. That is why so many comics appear on cable networks and why, when Robin Williams was approached to co-host Comic Relief with Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg, he insisted it be on a cable network so that he could say “penis,” which made neither Bruce’s nor Carlin’s lists. It’s difficult to read the minds of comics, especially when it comes to slang uses of body parts.

Richard Pryor was one of the greatest comics to have ever lived. He couldn’t utter a sentence without using a handful of expletives. Bill Cosby, another of the comedic greats, never resorted to what we call “blue” language. The same could be said of Bob Newhart, whose best friend was the blue-streaking Don Rickles. Don’t say I didn’t warn you about how comics think.

Just yesterday I finished reading Erik Larson’s The Demon of Unrest. He’s one of my favorite historians and this volume was 500 pages detailing the historical events between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War. It is a moving account that takes the reader to that time of Lincoln’s most pressing issue of slavery.

There are missteps in Larson’s writing of the story: n****r appears as does Black. “Nigger” is a horrible word that should only be used in referencing that time when the word was commonplace; Black would not become used until a quarter of the way into the twenty-first century. If accuracy counts in the telling of history, then the words become important and powerful.

I used to cringe when I would hear my father use the word “colored.” I came to understand that it was merely a word belonging to his generation. Many Blacks of his age used the same word.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is set along the Mississippi River in pre-Civil War times. In it, Twain used the N-word 219 times. To some people, the word gets in the way of the story’s powerful message against slavery; to others, Twain is simply capturing the way people talked back then. I wonder about those who conduct tallies instead of reading the book for content that challenged authority, poked fun at religion and was accused of leading children astray.

“There’s no real consistent standard,” noted George Carlin. “These words have no power. We give them this power by refusing to be free and easy with them. We give them great power over us. They really, in themselves, have no power. It’s the thrust of the sentence that makes them either good or bad.”

Illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Fried Catfish

The flavor of Southern cuisine lies in fried catfish. This is simple dish that should be accompanied by Cole slaw and hush puppies.

1 to 2 pounds catfish fillets
Buttermilk for soaking
3 eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour or cornmeal
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
3/4 cup oil

Place fillets in a pan and cover with milk or buttermilk. Let soak for about an hour in the refrigerator. In a large bowl mix flour, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. In a smaller bowl whisk eggs until smooth.
Remove fish from milk and discard the milk. Dip fillets in egg and then in flour mixture. Make sure you have about 1/2-inch of oil in a skillet. Fry on each side until golden brown; about 6 or 7 minutes.

Many of the men of my father’s generation were not wont to tell the stories they’d lived as soldiers during World War II. My father was one of them.

Every now and then some thing or event would trigger his memory to recall some snippet of a story that was a stand-alone recollection, lacking both beginning or end.

We learned from my father that he was shot—this for the third time—and he climbed into a trench to take cover. Water had accumulated into shallow pools that froze his legs on that early Holland January day. In a Paris hospital, where he’d be a resident for six months, a surgeon visited him bedside to discuss the amputation of a foot. My father wanted no part of this plan and told the doctor that this was unacceptable.

“Yes,” said the doctor, “but I’m the doctor and I know what’s best.”

“You might be the doctor,” my father said, “but you’re a second lieutenant and I outrank you. Find another treatment. And that’s an order.”

Captain Liska got to keep his foot, which grew numb in cold weather as he aged. That was enough for Dad to justify his spending winter months in Florida or Arizona, finally settling in Palm Desert when his first, and only, granddaughter was born in nearby Los Angeles.

He loved to tell a brief story about the coldest place he had ever been was Yuma, Arizona. There were no details, beyond learning that he and his best friend from Officers Candidate School, Ed Letnovitch, had been sent there for advanced training in desert warfare.

Dad’s next stop was Colorado Springs, where he and Ed were put in charge of developing an Army training camp. After the war, the camp was designated to become the Air Force Academy. His story included the fact that he and Ed were bivouacked in a luxury suite at the Broadmoor Hotel, a vacation destination whose rooms today approach a four-figure daily charge.

My mother had graduated Denver University and as a present, her boss at the insurance company where she had worked throughout her junior and senior years, bought her a round-trip airplane ticket (plus one for her best friend, Ruth) and a three-day stay at the Broadmoor. Neither of them had ever been on an airplane which, in this case, was a jaunt that probably lasted fewer than twenty minutes.

And neither of them had ever stayed at a “luxury resort.”

The manager of the hotel was a friend of my mother’s boss, and he was given strict orders to find escorts for the two girls. They were to be, first and foremost, gentlemen. Dad and Ed were the gentlemen the hotel’s manager chose to show the young women a good time. Which, apparently, they did. Their three days were enough to warrant several months of letter-writing between the two couples. They became engaged, with weddings to follow their overseas assignments in North Africa, for which they had trained in the Arizona desert.

The Army being the Army, Dad and Ed were sent to London to participate in the planning for the D-Day incursion. Dad used to say that the desert training must have been in anticipation of a beach landing. “There was lots of sand in both places,” he’d joke.

He loved his story about meeting his future wife. It was one he told frequently, always with a big smile on his face, frequently with a detail or two changed.

He smiled remembering his time living in Montmartre, Paris, telling us about living above a saloon whose owners had vacated their apartment to aid in the American war effort. He regaled us with his story about having been assigned a driver and the sidecar he rode in next to his driver’s motorcycle. He dreaded left turns as the sidecar would lose touch with the pavement.

There were few things my father dreaded or feared. Topping the list were motorcycles, followed by guns, fireworks, heights, roller coasters and Ferris wheels, the latter of which he recalled going on with his first date with my mother. My own dreads I learned from him, and we’d stand next to each other at KiDDieLand and watch Mom and my sister ride the roller coaster and soar into the sky on the Ferris wheel. No thanks.

Dad never told me how he got his assignment for the June 6 incursion onto the Normandy shore. But he and Ed were both given charge of Higgins boats, landing crafts that would spill its soldiers onto Omaha Beach. They took on fire as the soldiers tried to get to the sand. There were few points of safety and most of the men died in the lapping shoreline waves of the English Channel.

Ed made it to shore, his head rolling past my father’s feet.

That’s the most Dad would say about losing his best friend, who seemed like part of our family. When I visited Omaha Beach a few years ago, I stood on the sand and looked inland and back to the sea to imagine that day.

I couldn’t.

Photo montage by Courtney A. Liska

Pommes Château

Chateau potatoes are potatoes with the shape of a barrel or an olive, I choose the finger potatoes, so I don’t need to shape them. This dish is a perfect accompaniment to roast meats.

8 – 12 Fingerling peeled potatoes or small potatoes
Salt
Whole 10-12 black peppercorns
One bay leave
One sprig of thyme
Two garlic cloves (crushed – don’t need to peel them)
Water

Make sure all of the potatoes are the same size so that they will cook evenly.
Put the potatoes, salt, whole black peppers, bay leave, thyme, and garlic in a pan and cover them with cold water until the potatoes are just submerged. Then turn on the heat and bring the water to a boil. After five minutes, turn down the heat and boil the potatoes for 20-30 minutes or until you stick a fork in a potato and it goes in easily, the potatoes are done.
Remove the pan from the stove and pour off the hot water.
Put the potatoes in a skillet, warm them for few minutes, drizzle the butter mixture over them.
Sprinkle with the parsley, capers, salt, and pepper and serve immediately.

In case you haven’t noticed, the days of the fourteen-course tasting menus have gone the routes of the mink stoles and platform shoes. Sanity, some would argue, has been restored to the culinary arts.

The French, Italian and Spanish cuisines have been exhausted by foodies with black American Express cards. The $1,200 designed dining experiences—wine not included—are passe. The last person to have had such an experience had to suffer the tuxedoed waiter who offered suggestions (demands, actually) of the proper way to eat a single olive from a spoon carved out of an Italian cheese with actual worms coursing through its semi-soft structure.

The cheese, called casu martzu, is a traditional Sardinian sheep-milk cheese that contains live insect larvae (maggots). This came as no surprise to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., whose doctors just last week removed enough of the anti-vaccine man’s brain to host a quiet cocktail party for people with a penchant for innards or other disgusting foods.

We’re in the third step of the three-step visits through cuisines. In most cases where food is considered something more than mere fuel (Germany, England, Ireland and Switzerland don’t count) we dined on a simple spaghetti, graduated to handmade spaghetti with a sauce made from canary livers, and returned home to simple spaghetti.

For the French it had everything to do with foie gras; the Spaniards, not to be outdone, focused on any foodstuff that would fit on a plate the size of a silver dollar.

We’ve sorely neglected one of the world’s great cuisines, that belonging to the American South. Earthy, wholesome and challenging, Southern food is as full of attitude as an Alabama Trump rally: not very nourishing but somehow short of putrid.

Joe’s Vittles Shack, housed in a clapboard—you guessed it—shack on the side of a blue highway near Derriere, Mississippi, has just debuted its first tasting menu. The chef/owner, whose name is not Joe, is hoping to attract food writers from the North, excluding New York, whose food writers just make fun of stuff, to introduce the rest of the country to a cuisine that is widely considered almost palatable.

That, according to Bubba, will change when his patrons have their first of four tastes of okra, a vegetable whose name is frequently found in crossword puzzles.

Boiled okra comes first. Its delicate slime oozes from the pod and falls into a dressing of Thousand Island dressing, laced with siracha and mushroom powder.

Any tasting menu worth its salt offers a palate-cleansing refresher before moving on to the next entree. Joe’s is no different. Each of those courses is a congealed salad, whose varied flavors best erase from both tongue and memory the taste of the course itself.

The first happens to be raspberry.

The second course of okra is prepared in the too-popular method of sous vide. This course is easily prepared at home by purchasing a bag of frozen okra and boiling said bag in water. Once upon a time this was called “Boil-In-the-Bag.” This steaming mass can be plated atop a spread of horseradish and Saltine crackers.

Peach.

A third course of broiled okra also preserves the desired slime texture while capturing the mushy texture of over-cooked cauliflower.

Anise.

The fourth and final presentation of okra is made by deep-frying the pods and serving them with Heinz’s Cocktail Sauce.

Watermelon.

A favorite Southern lunch is a tomato sandwich made of white bread (crusts left on), mayonnaise and tomatoes. For the most adventurous eaters, the sliced tomatoes are salted.

Pecan.

No Southern meal would be complete without fried chicken, biscuits, mac ‘n’ cheese, and corn fried in bacon grease with garlic and onion. Thus, our latest menu additions number five through eight.

Chocolate, blackberry, avocado and peanut brittle will both cleanse and  confuse the palate.

A root vegetable seems in order. Say the phrase “root vegetables” and most people think of potatoes, carrots, onions, and beets. Few, if any, would come up with salsify. There’s a reason for that. No self-respecting Yankee would give up the common root vegetables for one that tastes like oysters and makes okra seem a delicacy.

Nutmeg.

Shrimp and grits is a popular dish in the Deep South’s low country. So is crawfish étouffée, the closest your average redneck will ever get to lobster. At this point, it is reasonable to ask what “low country” means and where might one find it.

SEROquel.

Ham and collard greens are a typical breakfast for those who might have had three too many servings of some kind of backwoods distilled hootch. Red-Eye Gravy completes the cure.

Red clay.

An all-time, every-place-in-the-South favorite is red beans and rice. A Monday night staple in New Orleans, its unique richness and spiciness makes for a perfect dinner. Here, the tasting calls for one tablespoon atop a Ritz cracker.

Aluminum.

And finally, to complete our Southern tasting menu, we offer peach cobbler. You don’t even have to be from the south to love this fruity, crumbly dessert, though it helps.

For the record, congealed salad is Jell-O.

Beverages: 7&7, cold beer, iced sweet tea, RC cola.

Photo composite by Courtney A. Liska

Red Beans and Rice

1 (1 lb.) package red kidney beans
1 green bell pepper
1 medium onion
4 celery ribs
1 tsp. salt
1⁄4 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. seasoned salt
1 1⁄2-2 Tbs. Creole seasoning or Cajun seasoning
3 garlic cloves
2-3 Tbs. tomato paste
8 cups water
1 lb. smoked sausage (I have used chorizo which is good, but andouille is best)
cooked rice (at least 3 cups)

Soak kidney beans overnight or rinse beans, add to pot, cover with 8 cups water and bring to boil. Boil for 2 minutes, turn off heat and let sit, covered for one hour.
Pour out water and add 8 cups fresh water.
Chop onion, bell pepper, celery and garlic. Add to simmering beans.
Add salt, pepper, thyme, seasoned salt, and Creole or Cajun seasoning.
Cover and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium low and cook for 2 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally. When you stir, be sure to mash the beans against the sides of the pot. This creates a creamier texture.
Slice the sausage into 1/4 inch pieces and add to beans. Cook for an additional 30 minutes.
Serve Red Beans over hot, steaming rice.

Despite his faults and flaws, of which he and the rest of us have in no short supply, I happen to believe that Joe Biden is a competent and effective President of these United States.

His life reflects the lives of so many Americans, its components including tragedy, failure, intellectual mediocrity. He grew up like much of the middle class that has slowly withered. His father had trouble holding down a job, finally enjoying financial success as a used car salesman.

Biden grew up in household where the most important family decisions and discussions were held sitting at the kitchen table, no doubt a laminate with a pattern of what appear to be boomerangs. It was held up by four straight aluminum legs, its edges adorned with a Chrysler-inspired bumper that wrapped around the table.

This was in the years following World War II and most Baby Boomers can remember, or least identify, with poorly designed kitchens that would accommodate a table.

A young Joe Biden learned of his father’s desires and failures at a kitchen table, a place where major decisions were made. It was also where the kids would speak of their days and express their concerns.
President Biden has used the imagery of the kitchen table throughout his political career. He referenced it in his first presidential run in 1988 and in subsequent campaigns. A champion of the working class, Biden sensed that his supporters were average.

Americans seeking the advice of each other and making plans together talked over casseroles and pot roasts. He also spoke of the kitchen table during his State of the Union address in March.

To me, the kitchen table evokes multiple memories, including playing cards with my paternal grandparents as they squabbled in languages I couldn’t understand. The kitchen table must have fallen out of favor at some point, being replaced by bar-like counters providing a view of kitchens designed first and foremost with efficiency in mind. There’s no room for a kitchen table, unless a breakfast nook is designed.

If I had my druthers I would design and build a small house with room for a table smack dab in the middle of the kitchen. There I could sit with the morning’s paper, awaiting the family to gather noisily as they gobble down their muffins and breakfast burritos, stopping just long enough to mention what the new day might present.

The cacophony ends after twenty minutes or so. Back to the newspaper, some juice, and another coffee—a dark espresso with just enough sugar to sweeten the bitterness of the bean.

Growing up on Chicago’s West Side, the house I best remember was a small, split-level bungalow. The largest room was the kitchen. As I think back to that time, I can only imagine how terribly difficult it must have been to cook in it. It was a horseshoe shape. There was a mudroom next to the side door (the front door was reserved for company). The stairs to the basement were right there. The kitchen table, as described above, was in the middle. My sister and I would come from school and throw whatever it was we were carrying onto the table. We’d scrounge for a snack and return to the table to do our homework, cookie crumbs falling into a book’s seam.

When our mother started dinner, we’d banter about, telling stories and speaking of some teacher’s harshness in her demands. When my father got home from work, we’d clear the table of books and papers and help set the table for dinner. Over dinner would be more conversations about the day’s events. Despite my mother’s limited abilities in the kitchen, it was the highlight of every day.

In his book, The Table Comes First, Adam Gopnik quotes the British chef Fergus Henderson: “I don’t understand how a young couple can begin life by buying a sofa or television. Don’t they know the table comes first?”

“The table also comes first in the sense that its drama—the people who gather at it, the conversations that flows across it, and the pain and romance that happen around it—is…essential to our real lives,” Gopnik writes.

Since reading the book several years ago, I’ve asked straw poll questions of my friends’ first furniture purchase. Beds hold the number one position, followed closely by sofas. Televisions seem to be a given, perhaps brought into the relationship from an earlier time.

The relationship between the television and the couch seems anathema. Eating on a couch while scarfing down dinner precludes conversation as one’s attention is focused on the spin of the Wheel of Fortune. Questions are acknowledged with inattentive answers, frequently delivered in monosyllabic grunts and groans.

Joe Biden understands the role of the kitchen table as a place where families gather to discuss the days and offer solutions to the problems of the family. Decisions are made there as the mere presence of the table is an invitation to conversation.

If I ever had the opportunity to speak with President Biden, I would ask that we sit at a kitchen table somewhere in the heartland of this country. I have some questions and a couple of suggestions.

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Provençal Vegetable Gratin (Tian)

6 Tbs.. extra-virgin olive oil, plus more
2 large white or yellow onions, thinly sliced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp. chopped thyme
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb. medium zucchini, cut into 1/4-inch slices
1-1/2 lbs. small eggplant, cut into 1/4-inch slices
1-1/2 lbs. ripe tomatoes, cut into 1/4-inch slices
Basil leaves

Put oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions and season with salt and pepper. Cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add thyme, red pepper flakes, and garlic. Cook 2 minutes more.

Heat oven to 400°.

Spread the cooked onion mixture in the bottom of a large earthenware baking dish, about 9 by 13 inches. Arrange the zucchini, eggplant, and tomatoes in alternating rows: Start by making a row of overlapping zucchini slices, standing them vertically on edge. Follow with a row of eggplant, then a row of tomatoes in the same manner, packing the rows tightly together. Continue until the baking dish is filled. Sprinkle the surface of the vegetables generously with salt and pepper, and drizzle with olive oil.
Bake uncovered for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350° and continue baking for 45 minutes to an hour, or until the vegetables are quite tender. Let cool to room temperature to allow flavors to meld. Serve, garnished with torn basil leaves

It’s been brought to my attention that there have been several predicted days on which the “rapture” was to occur. As far as I can tell, such a monumental event has not happened. I look to the skies frequently, but I have yet to notice the true-believing people floating upwards, shedding their clothes to facilitate a naked arrival to the heavens—apparently some kind of a celestial strip club.

Does that signify St. Peter as being some sort of pervert? I’m not one to judge.

Why this rapture occurrence is important is something I can’t begin to fathom, although I’m hoping I won’t be mistakenly taken. But then again, I do not understand the concepts of much of the evangelical movement, whose believers give oodles of money to such people as Joel Osteen—the self-acclaimed holy man, book author and sideshow huckster. Salvation will come to donors.

In my faith, we have rabbis who will never see wealth. We gather mostly to complain about stuff, which is why we wear yarmulkes so God can’t tell us apart. “Thou shall know that there’s safety in numbers” should be a commandant (if it isn’t already) added to our list of 613.

Which makes me wonder: Why would believers in the rapture double as survivalists? This might be called hedging one’s bets by playing the odds.

At best, it’s a craps shot.

But there are those who can’t see this paradox as being paradoxical except, perhaps, the hucksters peddling generators, tactical clothing and gear, and freeze-dried food whose expiration dates are early in the next century. Most of this hustle is delivered to afternoon television viewers who have nothing better to do than, well, watch afternoon television seeking bargains for those things we’ll need in case the rapture morphs into an apocalypse.

While it would make more sense for the rapture to be an event after the apocalypse, nobody knows for sure. Such is the case with all Biblical events, predictions and promises. If it does come after the apocalypse, one can bet that the survivors will have dodged the bullets of the four horsemen: Conquest (Zelus), War (Ares), Famine (Limos), and Death (Thanatos) before their ascent.

This Bible stuff is really confusing.

The evangelical right, of which many are MAGA Trumpers, are buying generators as if there’s no tomorrow. It seems only logical to ask that if there is no tomorrow, why buy a generator? There are what seem to be generators that are expensive. They have legitimate uses in cases of power outages that might last for far longer than a day or two. If you don’t go rummaging around in a freezer, your frozen food should be good for up to four or five days.

The ones being hawked by bearded guys in olive-green T-shirts are cheap appliances meant to power a dorm-size refrigerator and a small reading lamp. Maybe. And for how long? Who knows? While the big generators are powered by natural gas, the survivalist ones are powered by solar energy.

Now, if that isn’t ironic, then I don’t know what is.

Trumpers are the “drill, drill, drill” folks who think that solar power is the work of Satan. Who but the devil could have created windmills as gas-spewing bird killers?

And yet a single solar panel is what the generator buyer gets for free—a single panel that can deliver a couple of hours of energy.

I once saw the threatening bumper sticker (“Don’t Tread On Me”) on a Prius. Now, that’s both funny and ironic.

Tactical gear is what was once found in Army/Navy stores of which there are few anymore. Today, tactical gear is made with strange fabrics that you have to buy online. The gear, mostly made in China, range from little boxes to store cyanide capsules to coats lined with yak hair to tolerate -80 below zero temperatures. In between are all the fashions modeled by the January 6 insurrectionists.

Combat boots like the ones your mother used to wear are widely available, as are asbestos-lined hockey gloves.

To gain stature of a true survivalist is to make a commitment to horrible food unless the aspirant has already sworn off fine dining at Jack-In-the-Box and to express the joy of Cream of Wheat without cream and dehydrated SpaghettiOs.

Hermetically sealed dining kits are not cheap. The reason is that if you find it necessary to consume its contents until it’s all gone, the world’s monetary systems will have collapsed. At that point, people will be killing each other over a few packages of dried lutefisk.

A company called 4Patriots, offers a “3-Month Survival Food Kit” for $699.95.

“This Good-For-25-Year Survival Food Kit is actually in stock! After being “sold out” for more than a year, the Deluxe 3-Month Survival Food Kit is back on the menu. And it’s better than ever. With exclusive recipes that are so yummy, you’ll swear your grandma made them.”

The ad says it’s rated 5 stars. I wonder by whom.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Mushrooms on Toast

Hard to beat this hearty, earthy dish that works well as both a tapa and a bruschetta. Pair with a Pinot Noir.

2 Tbs. unsalted butter, plus more as needed
1 pound thinly sliced portobello or cremini mushrooms
1 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
2 small garlic cloves, minced
Salt and pepper
Splash of sherry or Marsala (optional)
¼ cup crème fraîche
4 thick slices crusty bread, toasted and each slice cut into fours
2 Tbs. chopped parsley

Heat a wide skillet over high heat and add butter, swirling pan. When butter begins to sizzle, add mushrooms and cook over medium heat, stirring, until lightly browned, 6 to 8 minutes.
Add thyme and garlic, and stir to coat. Season well with salt and pepper and continue to sauté for a minute more, then add sherry, if using. Add crème fraîche and let mixture simmer 2 minutes.
Meanwhile, toast bread slices until golden. Lightly butter them and place on individual warm plates.
Spoon mushrooms and juices over toast points. Top with chopped parsley.

It’s not like we voted or anything, but at close of the monthly book club meeting I attend it was apparent that the literature known as science fiction or Sci-Fi should now be called “speculative fiction.” This is akin to learning that the 110-story Sears Tower, from its opening in 1973, would, after losing its naming rights in 2009, become part of the Willis Group.

The Willis Tower is called that by tourists. Chicagoans know that Sears Tower is the rightful name for all eternity.

This effort at accepting change compounds in difficulty as we age. While many things might need changing, muddying the waters of literature with New-Age titles seems both complicated and unnecessary. It’s also downright irritating.

While there might be some stigma associated with Sci-Fi, the acceptance of speculative fiction as a stand-alone genre displays a willingness not to rid whatever it is that’s stigmatic but to create an umbrella genre that covers a slew of subgenres. Guess what? Sci-Fi tops the list of the new subgenres.

Here’s a cut-and-paste steal from Wikipedia that clarifies the new name game:

Speculative fiction encompasses all the subgenres that depart from realism, or strictly imitating everyday reality, instead presenting fantastical, supernatural, futuristic, or other imaginative realms. This catch-all genre includes, but is not limited to, science fiction, fantasy, horror, slipstream, magical realism, superhero fiction, alternate history, utopia and dystopia, fairy tales, steampunk, cyberpunk, weird fiction, and some apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction.

During my days of studying literature, we didn’t have so many choices of category.

We had non-fiction (history), fiction, science fiction, biography and memoir, crime (detective), and poetry. We also had comic books, which have now morphed into “graphic novels.”

Life just gets harder.

I don’t know if I want to go to the trouble to learn about “slipstream.” I think that “alternate history” was created by Kelly Ann Conway, one of Trump’s many advisors whose advice he ignored. (Actually, her phrase was “alternative facts.” Frankly, I don’t see much of a difference.) I have a hunch that I’m too old to read books that might be labeled steampunk or cyberpunk (my punk years were too long ago).

I’m guessing that “superhero fiction” is best exhibited in the aforementioned comic books, which I read until that transitional age when I discovered MAD magazine. (At least he’s reading, my father would tell Mom.)

But I digress.

I have, however unwittingly, read quite a bit of “weird fiction,” not knowing that wackiness, synonymous with weird, qualifies as a subgenre.

Cloud Cuckoo Land, a novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Anthony Doerr, might qualify for that last subgenre. A book my book club read for discussion, it is 600 pages whose settings come from modern-day Idaho, fifteenth century Constantinople and an interstellar ship many years from now. The cast of characters flit about like flies on a griddle as they plumb the depths of ancient philosophy and futuristic imagery.

It never occurred to me to join a book club. I also was never asked to join one. My mother belonged to one in which the ladies read romance novels, ate crust-less cucumber sandwiches, and drank copious amounts of chardonnay. Most of them smoked Benson & Hedges cigarettes and complained wildly about their spouses. This I learned from eavesdropping.

The book club I belong to was started by my “cousin” John Interlandi. Our fathers were best friends and John, a semi-retired physician, and I have known each other since infancy. He lives in Nashville, as do most of the other members (although I’m not sure). I joined two-and-a-half years ago, at the height of the pandemic. Our meetings are accomplished by Zoom.

I’m not sure what the other fellows do, but some look like they’re retired. One, I believe, is a molecular biologist who traded in a microscope for a psychologist’s couch. Another is a non-practicing lawyer who provides tech support to a private academy. Each is slightly foul-mouthed. None are Trumpers.

I like them all.

I tried to attend the February meeting in Nashville. I got as far as Seattle when I learned that two inches of snow in Tennessee is enough to bring life to a standstill. Apparently, there are no snowplows or shovels in Opryland and my flight was cancelled. I had a delightful dinner with my son and flew back to Montana the next afternoon. I tried to forget about how costly a trip to essentially nowhere was.

Most of the guys in the club seem to be Sci-Fi aficionados. I’m not. Although a believer, I have little aptitude or interest in most things scientific, so I don’t know what parts that I’m reading are real or fake. It’s unsettling. Truth disguised as fiction—without the methodology of in-lab discovery—is more up my alley.

But I accept the challenge, hoping that someday, something might click and the three Sci-Fi novels I read before my first year in college will suddenly make perfect sense. I’m not holding my breath.

Outside of the Sci-Fi subgenre, we’ve read some great stuff. Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime was delightful, as well as it was informative about South African apartheid. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles was one of the best novels the group has tackled. And Walter Isaacson’s The Code Breaker, a biography of Jennifer Doudna, was a page-turning exploration of gene editing.

If you love to read and like to explore a wide range of writing, I suggest you either join or start a book club. The challenges are great, the rewards even greater.

And, while not preferred, chardonnay is perfectly acceptable.

Photo composition by Courtney A. Liska

Beef Goulash

Passover begins tomorrow night at sundown. It’s a joyous holiday commemorating the exodus of enslaved Jews from Egypt. It is a celebration of freedom, renewal and the resilience of the Jewish people. Chag Pesach sameach (Happy Passover).

2 tsp. unsalted butter
2 medium onions, peeled and thinly sliced
2 Tbs. sweet Hungarian paprika
1 tsp. caraway seeds
1-1/2 pounds beef stewing meat, trimmed and cut into 1-inch cubes
¼ cup all-purpose flour
2 cups beef broth
1 Tbs. fresh lemon juice
2 tsp. salt, plus more to taste
¼ tsp. freshly ground pepper

Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring frequently, until wilted, about 10 minutes. Stir in the paprika and caraway seeds and cook 1 minute more. In a bowl, toss the beef with the flour to coat well. Add the beef to the onion mixture. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes.
Add 1/2 cup of the broth, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pot. Gradually stir in the remaining broth. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a slow simmer. Cover and cook until the beef is tender, about 1-1/2 hours. Stir in the lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste.
Serve over wide egg noodles.

It occurred to me recently that I have failed to weigh in on the difference between fashion and style as regards the schmatte trade. Schmatte, for those whose grasp of the Yiddish language is less than elementary, means “rags.” It can also be used to define a bad haircut, as in “where did you get that schmatte haircut?”

It is also used to refer, in the broadest sense, to the garment industry.

Fashion is a catch-all word that describes those clothes paraded by stick-figure models on the runways of Paris and Milan that nobody with any self-respect would be caught dead wearing. They were created by a cadre of fashionistas who seem to be known by a single name. And they ply their trade of haute couture—French for “high sewing,” whatever in hell that means— with a flair typical of RuPaul’s.

Style, on the other hand, is far more elusive.

For men, style might be displayed with accents of dress—a designer tie, cufflinks, a camelhair overcoat. It could be an outfit of gray slacks and a navy blazer, or a well-tailored pinstriped suit. Style does not include inflatable knickers or anything that might be seen on a golf course full of weekend duffers.

For women, style is that little black dress with a single strand of pearls.

What brought all of this to my attention was learning that Juli Lynne Charlot recently died. She was 101. Though hardly an Armani or Halston or Gucci, she nevertheless laid claim to a moment in the fashion sun by designing the poodle skirt, a below-the-knee skirt made of felt and decorated with appliqued silhouettes of poodles and flamingos. (No matter the applique, they are all poodle skirts.)

While her success was considerable, what her fellow fashion designers couldn’t claim was having performed with the Marx Brothers.

Created in 1947, the poodle skirt was less an example of fashion than it was of rage—as in “all the rage.” Or you could simply call it a fad. Today, the skirt has been relegated to 50’s sock-hop revivals and Halloween.

My sister had a poodle skirt. She wore it relentlessly. As I recall, it was a muted pink in color with a black poodle decorated with spangles. The poodle carried an umbrella. If I saw her coming down the stairs wearing it, along with the de rigueur saddle shoes, I would duck out the back door and travel the back alleys to school. She was a major embarrassment in my youth and, for different reasons later in my life.

I don’t remember anybody other than my sister who wore a poodle skirt. My mother might have—a demonstration so traumatic that I’ve erased it from my memory.

My mother’s fashion statements were made via hats. She wore them a lot and couldn’t walk past the State Street windows of Marshall Field without ducking in to buy yet another one. Most of the ones I remember were shaped like beehives. An occasional pillbox hat was worn rakishly over her left brow. For funerals, she would add a netted veil.

At her father’s funeral, she wore a red dress. It shocked the community of Callaway, Nebraska—a bedroom community of Broken Bow—to such an extent that they still might be talking about it. They, of course, had the good sense to wear clothing that lacked both fashion and style, but were at least black in color.

I don’t remember what I had to wear, but I do recall with great disgust the lime Jell-O with suspended pieces of carrots. Many of the casseroles seemed scary as well. Whatever it was that I wore must have met both the funeral standards of rural Nebraska and displayed enough cuteness to cause completely strange women to pinch my 10-year-old cheeks.

My father never owned a suit. He wore sports coats, most of them with some sort of pattern in the cloth. He liked plaid. He wore slacks, short-sleeved shirts, and neckties that were muted in both color and design. For the country club, which he visited almost daily, he had a rack of trousers in wild arrays of color and pattern. I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that he did his clothes shopping at the Barnum & Bailey thrift store.

I’m curious, though not so curious as to research the subject, when the concept of dressing came to rely on the impressions it made on others. Initially, clothing consisted of materials that would help protect one from the elements. That was the pragmatic view that changed with the advent of air conditioning. As a species, getting cool after a hard day of laboring in the sun was essential. Nobody could afford AC in those days, so we went to movies whose marquees advertising the atmosphere was more inviting than the actual movie.

Of course, a lot of our clothing makes no sense.

When, for instance, was the ascot replaced by the necktie? And why was there ever an ascot? Have you noticed lately that few of the men on MSNBC and CNN wear them anymore?

Another oddity is to consider the cuff link. It was replaced by buttons that have now been replaced with cuff links if you can afford a dress shirt with French cuffs.

At my funeral, which I hope isn’t any time soon, I want to be the only guy wearing a black suit. I’d like the women to wear red with black hats. The girls should wear, obviously, poodle skirts. There are to be no Jell-O salads, casseroles with corn flakes or cream of Campbell’s anything.

There should be a no-host bar.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Tuna Noodle Casserole

This crowd-pleaser works well for post-funeral receptions.

12 ounces farfalle (bow ties) pasta
4 Tbs. unsalted butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 Tbs. all-purpose flour
3 cups whole milk or half-and-half
1 1/2 cups frozen baby peas
3/4 cup fresh piquillo or red-bell peppers, chopped
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
Two 5-ounce can solid white tuna in water, drained and flaked
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs

Heat the oven to 450°. Cook the farfalle pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente. Drain.
In a large saucepan, melt 3 tablespoons of the butter. Add the onion and cook over high heat, stirring, until softened (about 3 minutes). Add the flour and cook, stirring, for a minute or so. Add the milk slowly and bring to a boil. Cook the sauce over moderate heat, stirring frequently, until thickened (3-5 minutes).
Add the pasta, frozen baby peas, sliced piquillo peppers, Parmigiano cheese and tuna and season with salt and pepper. Transfer the mixture to a large baking dish.
In a small skillet, melt the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter. Add the panko and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until golden, about 1 minute. Sprinkle the panko over the casserole and bake for 10 minutes.