Journal

I know that this might border on the heretical, but I must confess to you, dear readers, that I don’t like basketball.

I didn’t like playing the game as a kid on the playground or in the gym. This may or may not have had something to do with the fact that I couldn’t jump, run, dribble or shoot very well. It might also have had something to do with the fact that the uniforms in the school-sanctioned version of the sport weren’t particularly flattering to my physique which was shorter and rounder then. I didn’t like college basketball, either, despite my having been paid by UPI for two seasons to sit on the sidelines at the University of Illinois’ Assembly Hall to photograph the action. You’ve got to be a really good photographer to capture basketball on film. In retrospect, I might have played the sport better than I photographed it.

For a few years in the mid-1980s, I went to a lot of the Los Angeles Lakers’ games at the Fabulous Forum, which really wasn’t all that fabulous, in Inglewood. The Lakers had some great teams in those days, with players like Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bryon Scott and James Worthy. While I’ll admit that it was pretty damned exciting watching those guys play, I went because I had free tickets.

Like most people, I like free stuff, even if it comes in the form of basketball tickets with VIP valet parking.

But my tickets to the Fabulous Forum, which really wasn’t all that fabulous (I know I already said that but trust me, it is important to remember), weren’t just any old nose-bleed section tickets where the peasants sat spilling Velveeta-laden nachos and cheap beer on each other for no apparent reason. My tickets came courtesy of a couple of companies that sold paper to The Hollywood Reporter, a trade paper for the world of show biz, where I toiled as an Important Industry Insider, Power-Broker and Deal-Maker. They were Senate Seats. Situated at mid-court, this exclusive section is where I sat with other Important Industry Insiders, Power-Brokers and Deal-Makers—just two rows behind where a typically harried-looking Jack Nicholson paced frantically in front the Lakers’ bench.

Poor Jack. He might have been court side on the floor, but he had no designated space to set a drink and when he chose to sit and agonize over every aspect of the game he had only a folding metal chair with no seat padding.

The few rows of Senate Seats at the Fabulous Forum, which really wasn’t all that fabulous, featured comfortable seats that were padded and had armrests you didn’t have to share. There was also a little table-high counter where you could place the adult beverage of your choice that attractive cocktail waitresses brought to you. You could also smoke there. Cigarettes were tolerated but big, fat contraband Cubanos were, shall we say, de rigueur. We “Senators” all wore dark suits, our yellow or red Power Ties loosened at the neck for that “it’s-time-for-recreation” look that doesn’t come naturally to guys who wear Power Ties and “do” lunch as opposed to “eat” lunch.

There wasn’t a lot of jumping or cheering in the Senate, which is what we called it for short. Most of our overt hand gestures were reserved for the waitresses to indicate that we were thirsty. And most of us sat watching the action as if we were assessing the box-office potential of a bad Michael Cimino movie. Every now and then, one of us might furrow a brow and roll our eyes to express some emotion that may or may not have pertained to the game. There was a lot of whispered talk about foreign distribution rights, runaway production and product placement.

Despite my aversion to the sport, I must admit that there were times when I listened to Lakers basketball games on the radio of my Mercury Topaz as I traversed the 405 and the 101, the two major arteries that took me in and out of the heart of Los Angeles. Chick Hearn called the games on KABC-AM and he was nothing short of incredible. I’ve never heard anybody talk so fast, even when I lived among Italians in New York. Lakers basketball was wonderfully entertaining on radio, despite my never being sure if Hearn was actually calling the game or auctioning cattle.

AS I SEE IT, THERE ARE SEVERAL problems with basketball, the first of which concerns the sounds the players’ shoes make on the hard maple wood used to floor the court at the Fabulous Forum, which I assume you’ve heard wasn’t so fabulous. That sound of rubber on wood was like one an eight-year-old might make if given an oboe with a broken reed—times ten. In retrospect, it was almost as annoying as a Trump press conference, though there weren’t as many lies. In Los Angeles, that sound of shoes-on-wood was pervasive during most of the first quarter because there was never enough crowd noise to drown it out. Angelenos tend to arrive to events—sports, concerts, the theater—late and leave early because of traffic and parking concerns, unless you have VIP valet parking.

Another problem with basketball is that the first forty-six minutes of the forty-eight minute game are completely unnecessary to determine a winner of any given contest.

Compared to football, basketball moves along at a fairly decent clip what with the players running up and down the court and rarely stopping to pat each other on the butt or form a huddle to plan the next four seconds of proposed action. When there’s a break in the action in a basketball game the players grab towels and wait for floor attendants to mop up the measurably deep puddles of sweat that threaten to warp the hardwood floor.

Although there can be wild fluctuations in scoring by up to three or four points at any point in the game, when the game clock shows that there are two minutes remaining, the game is always tied. Always. Always, always, always. I’m not kidding. Google it. At that two-minute point is when the game really begins and you are guaranteed another forty minutes of timeouts and intentional fouls, most of which are limited to the pushing, shoving, elbowing or ceremonial pantsing of an opposing player. These infractions are punished by allowing the pushed, shoved, elbowed or ceremoniously pantsed player to attempt a free throw or two, the second one sometimes predicated on the player having made the first one. Nobody is sure how that works, actually.

Don’t let anyone tell you differently, this is a complex game played with all the subtlety and grace one might expect from ten, seven-foot-tall men playing in an area equal in size to eight parking spaces at the local mall.

Sometimes the fouls cross the mere threshold of intentional, like when one player picks up another player and heaves him over the scorer’s table. That’s called a “flagrant” foul, which results in the fouler being ejected and sent to the locker room where he can shower without having to share the soap with the rest of the team. In the meantime, the foulee is allowed as many free-throw attempts as he’d like from the comfort of the gurney that will soon help transport him to a nearby hospital for X-rays and the mandatory concussion protocol, which actually may be a football thing. I really don’t know.

There is a subset of basketball fouls called “technical” fouls that seem somewhat arbitrary but always involve a referee having his feelings hurt. Those fouls might entail a player’s noticing—and then pointing out—that a referee is short, stupid, blind or unkind to his mother in an intimate way. Coaches, managers, water-boys and Jack Nicholson can commit technical fouls as well, the punishment for which is to sit on the court in a pool of sweat until they apologize.

After time runs out, one of the two teams will have won by a single point. Always. They all then shared sweaty hugs with each other, the coaches, their stock brokers and members of their legal defense teams. Those who happened to be thinking of a career in show business after their basketball careers ended would wander up to the Senate and high-five us Important Industry Insiders, Power-Brokers and Deal-Makers as they handed out scripts, movie outlines and ideas for new television game shows.

For the record: With Senate Seats, VIP valet parking and a Power Tie, the Forum was Fabulous.

East L.A. Nachos

Preheat oven to 350°.

On a baking sheet, evenly spread an entire bag of tortilla chips.
Squeeze the juice of one lime over the chips.

Layer Mexican-style cheese over chips, followed by a layer of shredded beef (see below). Spread one can of refried beans (heated) on top. Then add another layer of cheese, another layer of shredded beef and more cheese. Top with diced tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, and sliced black olives taste.

Bake until the cheese is thoroughly melted (15-25 minutes).

Serve with guacamole and sour cream.

Nacho Shredded Beef

Mix together:
1 Tbs. chili powder
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. ground cumin
A pinch or two kosher salt

Add spice mixture to 1-1/2 cup of salsa and splash or 2 of water or beer.

Pour mixture over 1 – 1 1/2 lb. beef chuck roast in a slow cooker and cook on low for 7-8 hours.

Drain excess liquid and shred beef.

Photography and Nachos recipe by Courtney A. Liska

The time and place where I had the best French toast of my life was once each year in the Dining Car of the eastbound Denver Zephyr starting in 1956 and ending in 1967, six years before the end of train’s 40-year run.

The Dining Car on the old Denver Zephyr presented a high standard of elegance in a time of elegant travel. White linen tablecloths and napkins, heavy silverware, bone china tastefully emblazoned with Burlington insignia, and sparkling glassware were set at each of the tables, and each table was gracefully adorned with a single red carnation in a crystal bud vase. China finger bowls on silver trays would be delivered between courses.

People dressed up in those days. In fact, men, even little boys (I was five years old in 1956), had to wear a sports coat or suit and a tie to be seated, even for breakfast.

Like the Pullman porters in the passenger cars and sleepers, the waiters were African-American men of considerable girth, unbounded grace and beaming smiles that may or may not have hidden some of their lives’ disappointments, as smiles often do. They were an underpaid, overworked group of men who were only a generation or two removed from slavery. And yet, they had some of the best jobs black men could have at the midway point of the twentieth century. I knew nothing about such matters at the time; but I knew that their smiles made me genuinely happy because I was treated as my own little person rather than as some adjunct to my parents.

The breakfast menu was not too extensive and each entrée was accompanied by something appropriate. With the French toast, which is what we always ordered, you got fresh-squeezed orange or grapefruit juice and coffee, the latter of which I had yet to start drinking in 1956.

The shining, stainless steel Denver Zephyr, twenty-eight cars long in its standard configuration, zipped along its track at 60 miles per hour, creating a rhythmic motion that fascinated and delighted the five-year-old me. The water sloshing neatly back-and-forth within the confines of the stemmed glass, always stopping just shy of the lip, was more mesmerizing than the flat, greening landscape of Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois that blurred as it passed in either direction.

My mother’s parents lived in Imperial, Nebraska, a town of about 1,200 which was the county seat of Chase County. There was no passenger rail service. McCook, Nebraska, home to the nearest train depot to my grandparent’s adopted home, was sixty miles to the southeast and it was there that we disembarked when we traveled west from Chicago each spring.

The annual trip was more duty than pleasure. My grandfather, the editor/publisher/owner of the town’s newspaper, The Imperial Republican, and its leading Democrat, would have his right-hand man take his annual vacation when we came to visit each spring. My father performed Loral’s printing-shop duties with sort of a resigned half-smile.

The recreational opportunities in Imperial were slim—pretty much limited to my fishing for bluegill and sunfish in a nearby reservoir, my father golfing with borrowed clubs on a course with oiled sand greens, and the whole family going for interminably long rides in the country to gaze through the windows of my grandfather’s 1949 two-door Plymouth at great oceans of wheat fields and herds of Hereford cattle.

Unless tornado season had gotten off to an early start across the Great Plains in any given spring, which it did from time to time—the sudden stillness of the air, the drab green the sky would turn, the ominous sense of peril was exciting—the actual train travel was the highlight of our annual vacation.

Getting there was half the fun. Getting back was clearly the other half.

The trip west began at around 4 p.m. when we’d walk down the wide platform to the door to our train car. A conductor, always a white man in a dark-blue coat with polished brass buttons and a hat adorned with braided gold plaits like a French legionnaire, would check our tickets and direct us to board. There was a little step-stool leading to the steel stairs that swung down from the car. A smiling porter would take my mother’s makeup case and then her hand to help her board. We’d follow. He’d lead us down the blue-and-gray colored hall to our quarters. My father would tip him generously and we’d busy ourselves with settling into the bedroom we’d been assigned in one of the Slumber Coaches. It was an awkward space, though ultimately comfortable once our things had been stowed. I’d make a fuss about wanting the floor-level single bed so my sister wouldn’t insist on the upper berth which, of course, was what I really wanted. Passive-aggressive behavior was fully developed—it just hadn’t been assigned a name yet.

As the train pulled out of the station, we’d make our way to the nearest Vista-Dome car, taking our time passing through the noisy vestibules that connected the cars and presented a sense of great adventure and potential danger. My sister and I would scurry up the carpeted stairs to get the best seats up top (the front seat gave me a sense of driving the train). The train wended its way through the steep canyons of Chicago to the low-profile suburbs and, finally, the sprawling countryside. My parents would have joined us by then, cocktails in hand. As my mother smoked cigarettes, we’d sit watching our world pass by until almost dark, when we’d make our way to the Dining Car where my father had made a reservation and a table would be waiting.

After dinner, we would retire to the bedroom and soon fall asleep to the gentle side-to-side rock of the train and the oddly comforting clickety-clack of the steel wheels over the evenly spaced connecting joints of the rails. I’d awaken during the night at various station stops, peeking out the window from my upper berth to see where we were. My father would wake us up in the morning darkness as we approached McCook. We would disembark at dawn. Granddad and MeMa would be waiting, the car still running to keep warm against the spring morning chill.

Because of the train schedule, breakfast was not an option traveling west, but in a week or so, we’d be making the return trip and the French toast—light (despite its inch-and-a-half thickness), crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, and served with whipped butter, maple syrup and fresh berries —would be awaiting us.

It would be good to be going home.

WHAT WE KNOW AS French toast is not what the French call it (they call it pain perdu); nor is it particularly French. Evidence of people consuming bread that had been soaked in milk and then cooked dates back to the Medieval Period throughout Europe. There is no shortage of modern recipes for concocting this confection-like breakfast staple.

I repeat without hesitation that the best French toast ever made was on the Denver Zephyr. I personally know three other living people of my generation who agree, thereby confirming my assertion. All others I‘= have tried in the ensuing sixty years have failed by comparison and will continue to do so because I’ve failed, even in this day of at-your-fingertips instant information, to discover the railroad’s 1956 secret. In Dining by Rail: The History and Recipes of America’s Golden Age of Railroad Cuisine by James D. Porterfield, there is a recipe from the Fred Harvey kitchen that supplied food to the Santa Fe Railway and it is just fine. But it is not what I remember eating on the Zephyr.

It is important to note that food is possibly just one part of what makes a memory and missing from other French toast experiences might be the train, in the way that Farmer John Official Dodger Dog Hot Dogs taste remarkably better at Dodger Stadium than anywhere else.

So, to best approximate and accommodate my memory, start with a day-old brioche loaf, challah, or any other loaf of white bread of exceptional quality. (The Burlington might well have used a uniformly square white bread called, appropriately enough, a Pullman loaf.) Slice four pieces of whichever bread you choose to a thickness of one-and-a-half inches. In the meantime, make a batter by vigorously whisking 4 large eggs, ½ cup whole milk, ½ cup heavy cream, 1 Tbs. sugar, 1 tsp. vanilla extract, ½ tsp. of cinnamon and a large pinch of salt.

Preheat an oven to 400 degrees and place a wire rack over a sheet pan. Put equal amounts of butter and vegetable shortening in a heavy pan over medium-high heat. Dip the bread slices, cut diagonally, into the batter until well soaked. Transfer to the frying pan and cook, about 2 minutes per side. Cook in batches. Place bread slices on a rack in the oven and bake for 4 to 6 minutes. Serve with any or all of these toppings: butter, jam, syrup, fresh fruit. A light dusting of confectioner’s sugar provides a festive touch.

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Of the seven drawers in our kitchen, no fewer than four are junk drawers. Two of the remaining three are arguably junk drawers. Only one is vestal.

Junk Drawer #1 was designated as such twenty-four years ago when we moved into the Third Street manse and is appropriately chockablock with batteries, place-mats, pens, some odd tools, rubber bands, electrical cords and adapters. Junk Drawer #2 is pretty much the same as the aforementioned, sans place-mats, but with several decks of playing cards, a box of crayons, envelopes, a lint roller, Scotch tape, Band-Aids and more rubber bands.

A third drawer is the largest and plays host to many food-type things: tiny plastic packets of condiments we’ve collected over the decades, several varieties of cough drops, breath mints, dog treats and several rolls of small plastic bags for cleaning up public places after the dog has had his treats; it’s also where we keep twist-ties, even more rubber bands, packaged mixes for dips, boxes of lemon Jell-O from the turn of the century, toothpicks, cupcake liners, birthday candles, herbal teas, straws, champagne bottle stoppers and operating manuals for appliances, weed-whackers and automobiles we no longer have.

The fourth drawer is my favorite because it is home to cooking-type things that provide unique opportunities for serious hand injuries. It is less a junk drawer than a purgatory for utensils—they are not currently useful but we haven’t decided where they should go. Actually, we’ve never talked about where they should go—they’re just there, in limbo awaiting judgment day.

We had a fondue party in 1979. It was fun in an “aren’t-you-glad-we’re-not-Swiss” kind of way. In Drawer #4, there are two sets of six fondue forks. There are no fewer than two nutcrackers, which might come in handy should Tchaikovsky drop by for an aperitif this holiday season. There are several things that would seem to be more at home on a dentist’s tray than in a kitchen. We have egg molds! And broken corkscrews! There are measuring cups made of both aluminum and plastic, with and without handles that do not nest comfortably.

There are bench scrapers, pastry bags, cheese graters, turkey basters and injectors, any number of thermometers, bamboo skewers, chopsticks, fruit ballers, rubber bands and two different sizes of squeeze-y things that were designed to form and eject meatballs. There is also a pair of stainless steel, petite pitchforks to help hoist a 32-pound turkey from a roasting pan should that need ever arise.

We have what is technically not a junk drawer because its primary use is to house our flatware. However, there are several Sharpies, pens, parts of a socket-wrench set, a screwdriver, pliers, scissors and rubber bands, all of which go to sully the drawer’s reputation and standing. A second drawer that is technically not a junk drawer is where we keep plastic bags and Saran wrap, aluminum foil, parchment paper, wax paper, three different kinds of tape, twist-ties, pens, Sharpies, a tiny pair of channel locks, two butcher’s knives, throat lozenges, breath mints, a spool of 12-lb. monofilament fishing line, to-go menus and rubber bands. It too, is on the verge of becoming a designated junk drawer.

I am disturbed by the number of rubber bands we have accumulated and I can’t help but wonder why they are kept in six different places, not counting the doorknob closest to our kitchen.

Our seventh drawer is pure. Only towels live there. No rubber bands. I just checked.

I don’t know anybody who doesn’t have at least one drawer devoted to the containment of miscellaneous- items-of-limited-value-that-we-think-we-might-someday-need-and-therefore-will-not-throw-out.

Actually, my mother never had a junk drawer, which means I didn’t have one growing up. Having my own junk drawer as an adult isn’t as emotionally liberating as it might sound.

Anyway, as my mother wandered through her rigidly disciplined life, she would discover something she hadn’t used or noticed in six months and throw it away—even if it wasn’t hers—without ceremony or sentiment. That included family photographs and heirloom furniture. I was all of fifteen when I left home and six months later she celebrated the occasion by throwing away my collection of baseball cards (which could have provided for my retirement as early as 1989—I had the complete A.L. & N.L. cards from 1959 through 1966), four pairs of shoes, and all of the clothes that I had left in my dresser. When I came home for a visit, my old bedroom felt like a motel room missing only a Gideon bible and brochures from nearby attractions and restaurants that offered free delivery.

My mother was averse to clutter and neurotic about pretty much everything else. Before anybody had even heard of OCD, she had taken the practice of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder to new heights. Taped on the inside of the door to each of her kitchen cabinets was a list of what was in the cabinet. I asked her once if she couldn’t just look in the cabinet and see what was there. She told me I was missing the point. I had to agree.

Kitchen junk drawers exist because we have too much stuff for which we have no need. And now that the holiday season is upon us, there are ample opportunities for our gift-giving friends and family to give us even more stuff for which we have no need—stuff that will find its way into a junk drawer within mere weeks.

Geri and I used to celebrate Valentine’s Day by gifting each other with things that might be useful to our interests. Geri liked gardening and I gave her gardening things. I used to like to working in my shop and after getting five chalk lines in five years I suggested that perhaps we find a new gift-giving approach.

Those of us who like to cook are apt to receive thoughtful, yet absurdly useless gifts that are intended to make our kitchen lives easier. Actually, most of us who like to cook don’t care that much about making things easier, unless it’s a covered wastebasket with a foot pedal or an immersion blender.

In a brief search of the internet I found, for instance, three different banana-slicing devices. These devices must appeal to those who either don’t like knives or are afraid of them because they were forced to watch “slasher” movies as very young children. For that same crowd there are a couple of different gadgets to “split, pit and slice” an avocado. There’s also the Amco Adjustable Apple Corer & Slicer. It appears to be a plastic ring with metal parts that, when placed over an apple and then pushed down, produces eight slices and a throw-away core. For $27, it can join the Magic Mushroom Slicer and the plastic Lettuce-Only Knife in the junk drawer.

Still thinking about gadgets designed for people afraid of knives, there are the ten-blade Herb Scissors (imagine trying to clean that sucker) for a mere $12, and the OXO Good Grips Chopper, a one-cup, $16 chopping device that might bring back fond memories of playing Whac-A-Mole at Chucky Cheese’s.

For $46 you can buy the Berry Buddy, a hand-crafted stoneware strainer that is guaranteed to inflict carpal tunnel syndrome should you have an exceptionally good berry season. And on the flip side of the Stone Age colander are two high-tech devices that deserve mention. First, there is the Anova Sous Vide Precision Cooker that, for only $109, allows you to heat your food via Bluetooth connectivity with your Smartphone. I’m not sure what that means, but it sounds like it might be a cross between boil-in-a-bag and take-out.

Not to be outdone, Williams Sonoma, where everything costs a mere 38% more than anywhere else in the free world, is offering the Smart Thermometer 2, a $100 device that features a “Wi-Fi smart” app that allows you to monitor your meal from anywhere in the known universe. I think Elton John should write a song about this.

Tomorrow’s Kitchen Instant Marinator is a steal at $40. There’s no description to accompany the picture, but it appears to be a squarish Tupperware-like container big enough to hold two, five-ounce salmon filets. It comes with a lid.

This season’s hands-down winner for completely, over-the-top useless kitchen gadgets is the Gourmet Pepper Grinder for a suggested retail price of $39. It is, truth be told, a pepper mill but, to quote the catalog, “rather than a novelty pepper mill, this allows the bottom dial to select an exact grain size, [thereby] avoiding any over-seasoned surprises.”

With all that is going on in the world in these tumultuous, stressful, uncertain, wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-screaming times, I’m deeply grateful that somebody out there understands that any “over-seasoned surprises” just might be my emotional undoing.

Photography of her own junk drawer by Courtney A. Liska