Journal

A little more than two years have passed since I stated my desire to find employment as the guy who makes up names for new pharmaceuticals. I imagined at the time that such a gig would meet my newly acquired lifestyle of sitting around all day pondering the imponderables.

I assume that most of Big Pharma has read my plea for such employment. Because they’ve not contacted me, I’m guessing that others have beat me to the punch and are pulling down six figures to concoct one-syllable names using at least two Xs, one Y, a Z and no vowels. The fact that I could easily handle such a job leads me to believe that prospective employers are simply ageist. They see seventy-two as a stumbling block to achievement in such a specialty field. I see seventy-two as something that I can’t quite recall.

They don’t count as positive that much of the time I’m perfectly capable of distinguishing the proper use of the various remote devices that litter my confines. Once a day, maybe twice, is the most I try to adjust the television’s volume using my cell phone. (I’ve yet to discover what the little black one with a blinking red light does.) I have tried, obviously in vain, to change the channel on the television with the mouse that moves the cursor around my computer screen.

While still seeking some kind of employment that suits my less-than-lively lifestyle—remaining basically responsive while remaining erect in my desk chair—I’ve decided to offer my services to one of the television news outlets that could make good use of my vast stores of knowledge in any number of fields.

And what I don’t know, I can just make up.

To all that it should be added that I own a suit coat and several neckties, and have learned to embrace the magic that is Zoom.

MSNBC is my first choice as employer. Not to denigrate CNN, but the NBC-owned cable network has an interesting format for its reporting. First of all, the network’s opinion and its “breaking news” seem at odds. That might have something to do with the structure of its news reports.

First of all, the news segments are touted by anchors who provide introductions to any given story. The anchor then introduces two or three experts in whatever field the story might be found. They are usually retired politicians, admirals, and generals. Then the reporter is introduced to restate what the anchor has pretty much covered in the introduction. Then the anchor starts asking questions of the experts, each of whom lauds the anchor for asking an “important question.” After everybody has a word or two to toss in, the anchor then thanks the far-flung correspondents for their “expertise” in whatever field they might have worked.

I would position myself as a pundit and host of my website that frequently makes fun of the news and the people who bring it to us. And besides all the bullshit (MSNBC now allows the use of the word ever since Bill Barr blurted it out one day) that permeates the day’s news, I have actual expertise in literature, jazz, and the culinary arts—subjects that rarely come to the fore of the network’s broadcasts. From all my journalistic training and work, I can read things upside down and backwards, and I can ask really embarrassing questions of people in power.

Once again: What I don’t know, I can just make up.

In preparation of my becoming a pundit and receiving the undying gratitude of the anchors, I’m arranging three sets of backdrops to help propel the efficacy of my commentary as I join the other panelists in the obfuscation of any subject presented in the four-minute segments.

I’ve discovered that books scare the hell out of a lot of people who’ve never read one. Keeping that in mind, I’ve cleaned up the wall of books that are behind my place at the desk. Some of the titles can be read on the spines, but most are indiscernible.

A second set involves paintings that suggest nothing more than the splashes of color.

The final set, used best on those segments of jazz coverage, is sparse, with a guitar hanging from the wall and a drum set in front of it. (For the record, I’ve never played the guitar. I haven’t played the drums in more than forty years.)

I think I’m ready to take on what will no doubt be my last foray into the work-a-day world. Posing as an intellectual heavyweight seems a fitting end.

MSNBC: You’ve got my number. Call. And leave a message. I’ll probably be taking a nap.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Easy Beef Stew

For those days when you just don’t have time to cook, but want something to eat that makes it seem like you did. Delicious.

2 pounds seasoned stew meat, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 packet brown gravy mix
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup water
1 packet beefy onion soup mix

In a bowl, combine the brown gravy mix, cream of mushroom soup, water, and beefy onion soup mix. Stir well until the ingredients are thoroughly mixed.
Place the seasoned stew meat in a greased slow cooker.
Pour the prepared mixture over the meat, ensuring that it is evenly distributed.
Cover the slow cooker and cook on low heat for 6-8 hours or on high heat for 3-4 hours. The meat should become tender and flavorful.
Once the cooking time is complete, stir the beef tips gently to mix the gravy and serve hot over noodles or mashed potatoes.

The last substantive argument my sister initiated, unlike the little one about whether our cousin Nancy attended our grandmother’s funeral one November afternoon almost thirty years before, involved—as they frequently did—a dog. In this case it was about my dog Buddy, a Bichon Frisé whose pedigree might have been less than pure.

She, my sister, broached the subject on tippy toes. “Have you had the dog’s DNA tested?”

The test is a canine version of 23&Me, a rather ridiculous scam that claims 100 percent accuracy in tracing one’s ethnic and/or racial background. From what I can tell, after having been assessed by the company via a kit with which I had been gifted, is that the company is 100 percent accurate in finding my email in-box at least once a week hoping to sell me additional genetic forays into my biological makeup which the company had completely wrong.

“Why the hell would I do that?”

“To know more about the dog,” she said, adding that “it’s the responsible thing to do.”

The day after adopting Buddy, I looked on the internet to see what I could find out about the breed. It said that the breed is “merry” and “curious” and is renowned for its “gentle mannered, sensitive, playful and affectionate” being.

Since Buddy was all of those things, I decided that I had no need to know if the dog had its origins in the Swiss Alps or the Canary Islands. Besides, I knew that he came from Billings, Montana.

Why my sister chose to characterize my not getting the dog’s DNA test as “irresponsible” is a mystery. The dog doesn’t know anything about its ethnic background and would not care if I chose to tell him.

There are dog people. And then there are DOG people. I’m a member of the first group, so earned by my liking dogs better than cats. It makes me feel good when the dog is glad to see me, and I like to rub them behind their ears. My sister, obviously, was a member of the second group. For years she owned borzois, large dogs who seem to be skeletons with thin layers of wispy hair. I didn’t much care for her dogs. At some point she stopped giving shelter to them and started giving shelter to dogs that had been abandoned.

When she died, she had a border collie mix with a back leg once broken and never tended; it dragged the leg. The other dog was a Jack Russell terrier who exercised his vocal cords enough to create a high-pitched, shrilled screech that only ceased when the dog took a nap. He made me like the other dog.

Mankind’s relationship to dogs as pets is based largely on the environment in which the two live. This is great science I made up when I happened to reminisce about all of the dogs I’ve owned. When I lived in New York City I didn’t have a dog. Most of the people who did had at least a dozen of them. Then I learned that there were profitable businesses that walked the dogs and picked up after them. Since everybody in New York lived in apartments, dogs tended to be small and quiet or huge and showy.

During my first semester in college in Champaign-Urbana I found a German Shepard puppy who was cute and cuddly. I named him Ralph and he held court with several coeds idling on the Quad between classes. I got a couple of dates that way. After a long winter, Ralph was a full-grown dog who was handsome but un-cuddly. He attracted no coeds. And that was my Spring: lonely with a big dog who growled a lot.

Geri and I each brought a dog into our marriage. Hers was a white husky with all the brains of a rock. Mine was a Cairn terrier whose personality was that of a street fighter. That was in Los Angeles where it became de rigueur for women to have dogs that would fit in their purses. It was a curious state to be enjoying a fine luncheon with at least one dog sticking its head out of its purse at every table.

Because of the state of high anxiety that characterizes a town dependent on film success, Los Angeles also became home of “service” pets. These dogs wear vests that warn against petting them. Their owners get to take them on airline trips. Counterfeit vests can be purchased at most pawn shops.

Montanans enjoy dogs on multiple levels. First, there are the ranchers whose dogs tend to be working breeds. In the back of every pickup truck, except for those that have never been driven on a two-track, is a border collie or a blue heeler. Both are agile breeds who like to herd sheep or cattle.

Bird hunters have a wide variety of retrieving dogs, some of which point and flush as well. Golden and black retrievers are mostly used as adorable pets for people with small children. The other ones belong to hunters whose SUVs are generally made by Mercedes-Benz and whose quarry—small as it might be—is celebrated with single-malt bourbon.

My current dog is a silky terrier who earns his keep by letting me know whenever somebody walks past the house.

I’m glad we live on a quiet street.

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Roasted Parmesan Cabbage

1 large head of green cabbage, cut into 8 wedges
2 Tbs. olive oil
3 Tbs. soy sauce
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Heat your oven to 425 degrees and line a large sheet pan with parchment paper.
Place the cabbage wedges on your prepared baking sheet.
In a small bowl, combine the oil, soy sauce, and all seasonings.
Brush your cabbage wedges with this oil mixture on all sides.
Sprinkle with the parmesan cheese.
Roast for 25-30 minutes, flipping halfway.

For those of us whose pipe dreams include that of holding political office or merely working in the federal government, there’s a sure-fire way of getting selected to occupy one of the cubicles in the legendary West Wing.

All you’ve got do is fill out the application for the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, which, if selected, paves the way for your becoming part of an effective conservative Administration’s Presidential Personnel Database. From there, it’s anybody’s guess how far and fast you might advance in what will emerge as a conservative plank of an Administration that could only be imagined.

While you may start off opening the mail, you could become that person who will lead a national farm bureau that will require that all Americans consume three pounds of animal protein per week. In that spirit, other departments of the new conservative party will also be able to dictate almost every aspect of human behavior. For instance, if you want to purchase a new car it must be one powered by oil or some other extracted stuff that Democrats say will continue to ruin our environment.

The new American Right denies Climate Change and believes that using oil and coal whenever possible is admirably patriotic and will, ultimately, prove the bible-thumping right wing hypocrites right. They also have other preposterous beliefs involving guns, vaccines, voters’ rights, and Mattel’s introduction of Hamas Barbie—a doll which cowers under a state-ordered black Burqa.

All of this, plus plenty more, comes from an organization called Project 2025. Its mission statement is as follows: “The actions of liberal politicians in Washington have created a desperate need and unique opportunity for conservatives to start undoing the damage the Left has wrought and build a better country for all Americans in 2025.

“It is not enough for conservatives to win elections. If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on day one of the next conservative administration.”

But wait! There’s more! Namely there’s a publication called Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, published by the Heritage Foundation, an organization that endeavors to put a coat and tie on a Proud Boy or Jim Jordan.

“This book is an invitation…to come to Washington or support those who can. Our goal is to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State.”

Well, that is certainly a refreshing suggestion, despite its ringing reminder of the people and events of January 6th.

The founders of this multi-tiered organization are Paul Dans, a dead-ringer for Goober and former chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) during the Trump administration. He serves as the director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. Spencer Chretien, who looks like a shelf stocker at his parents’ IGA, is a former special assistant to the president and associate director of Presidential Personnel. He serves as associate director of the project.

On the surface, Project 2025 appears to be a simple pyramid scheme. Either that or it’s a Ponzi scheme that is attempting to pick the pockets of non-MAGA Republicans.

It’s all rather humorous until further research reveals the following: “Project 2025 is a plan to reshape the Executive Branch of the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 United States presidential election.”

It gets even worse: “Established in 2022, the project seeks to recruit thousands to come to Washington, D.C., to replace existing employees to restructure the Executive Branch of the federal government and to further the agenda and policies of Donald Trump. The plan would perform a quick takeover of the entire U.S. federal government under a maximalist version of the unitary executive theory – a theory proposing the president of the United States have absolute power of the executive branch – upon inauguration.”

What I read in all of that is that this ultra-conservative organization wants a modern-day Hitler to lead an American Third Reich.

Needless to say, Project 2025 stands firmly against anything that isn’t desperately conservative. It is opposed to clean energy, any and everything that is reflected by the LGBTQ+ community, and, of course, anything that might appear to be anti-gun.

In short, Project 2025 has been characterized as a plan to install Trump as a dictator, warning that Trump could prosecute and imprison enemies or overthrow American democracy altogether.

We live in increasingly dangerous times that should be met with our vigilant opposition to those very things that threaten our democracy.

Halloween isn’t nearly as scary as Project 2025. Boo!

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

INSALATA RUSSA – RUSSIAN SALAD

This is a wonderful salad for any season. Feel free to add vegetables to your liking. This recipe makes 6-8 servings.

1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup frozen peas
4 oz. fresh green beans
2 carrots
2 medium potatoes
2 Tbs. capers
salt and pepper to taste
3 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
1-2 Tbs. red wine vinegar
2-3 hard-cooked eggs, sliced
1 can of tuna, well drained (optional)

Trim and wash the green beans. Fill a large saucepan two-thirds with water. Bring water to a boil, add salt and the string beans, carrots and potatoes. Cook 5-8 mins over high heat, test beans and carrots and remove when tender but still firm. Set them to drain and cool in a colander. Cook potatoes an additional 10 to 15 minutes or until tender. Remove from water and let all vegetables cool a bit. Meanwhile in a separate saucepan heat water and cook peas until tender. Drain and cool.

Dice the potatoes, carrots and string beans. Place diced vegetables in a large bowl. Add half of the capers and all of the peas. Add the tuna (optional). Season with salt and pepper. Add the oil and vinegar; mix carefully until blended. Taste salad for seasonings.

Gently mix in 1/2 cup of mayonnaise. Keep adding more mayonnaise until all of the vegetables are well covered in mayonnaise..

Cover and refrigerate the vegetables several hours or overnight. To serve you can turn the salad over onto a platter, it should keep the shape of the bowl or you can leave it in the bowl. Garnish with the remaining capers and slices of hard-cooked eggs. Serve slightly chilled and enjoy!

“Jazz Composer, Arranger and Provocateur” read the headline atop the obituary of Carla Bley, 87, in The New York Times this past week.

I knew her as a musician—a pianist and band leader whose influential effect on jazz was fully demonstrated in such works as A Genuine Tong Funeral and Escalator Over the Hill. Nate Chinen wrote of her compositions in the Times: ‘[W]ith delicate chamber miniatures and rugged, blaring fanfares, with a lot of varied terrain in between. She was branded an avant-gardist early in her career, but that term applied more to her slyly subversive attitude than to the formal character of her music, which always maintained a place for tonal harmony and standard rhythm.”

It was that “slyly subversive attitude,” as well as the provocateur that led me to wanting to meet her for an interview.

We met on a sunny Spring morning in 1981 at Duke’s, a diner popular with Hollywood’s creative underworld. The restaurant—crowded, smoke-filled and noisy—was an integral part of the Tropicana Motel, a flea-bag institution with 74 rooms on Santa Monica Boulevard. It was to Los Angeles what the 250-unit Chelsea Hotel was to New York.

The Chelsea had Sid Vicious and the Sex Pistols; the Trop, Lee Ving and Fear.

I sat alone at a table for four, my elbows absorbing some of the grease that had accumulated over the years. Ms. Bley’s entrance was widely noticed. Tall, with a shock of reddish-blonde hair coiffed into a boxy Page Boy, her very presence commanded attention.

Seated across from me, we exchanged pleasantries. Suddenly, she lurched forward in her chair and spoke in a decidedly commanding voice: “Revenge!”

I hadn’t a clue what she meant, although I briefly entertained the rather romantic notion that, as a journalist, I could be counted on to somehow avenge the wrongs so evident in our society. I was eager to join the underground’s rank-and-file.

“Revenge,” she extolled. “Revenge, Jim, revenge.”

She picked up her menu, stabbing at it with her index finger.

“Revenge!”

Little did I know that “revenge” was the name of one of several omelet options.

I ordered it, ate it over the course of a couple of hours, and lived with its daunting effects for at least three days.

The few times we met after our initial interview, she never failed to speak “Revenge” in a seditious tone. I liked how her utterance might confuse any who’d overheard her.

Although the memory might not have been as great, my digestive tract would have fared better had I had the egg salad.

I love a good egg salad sandwich and as a child I would devour those made by relatives on my father’s side of the family. Those were the only egg salads I was allowed to eat. It was based on some farkakte idea that anybody else’s egg salad was bound to bring on a case of food poisoning that would lead to certain death. That was the reason that I wasn’t allowed to order egg salad at the lunch counter at Woolworth’s in Oak Park, Illinois, where we frequently had Saturday lunch.

My mother had similar bans in place for tuna fish and chicken salad.

The best I can figure is that Mom was perhaps traumatized by an open jar of mayonnaise when she went off to college in the big city. (As much as we can tell, there was no mayonnaise in the Nebraska of her youth.)

I remember longing after the egg salad contained in the metal bowls as I chewed with little conviction on the turkey club which, by the way and for the record, had mayonnaise.

There is something inherently funny about egg salad—not the food, but the name. Imagine Mel Brooks saying it: his gravelly Brooklyn lilt would forever change the way you heard it. Robert Young (“Father Knows Best”) would never have had that effect.

Woody Allen appreciated egg salad, as both a food and a subject matter. That’s what led to his making his first movie, What’s Up, Tiger Lily?, in 1966. Allen took footage from a Japanese spy film, International Secret Police: Key of Keys (1965), and overdubbed it with completely original dialogue. He changed the tone of the film away from a James Bond spy clone to a comedy about the search for the world’s best egg salad recipe.

Henry Winkler, the actor best known for his playing of Fonz on television’s “Happy Days,” wandered into my restaurant one day. He was starring in a kids’ movie that was filming in our little town and he was hungry for lunch. As luck would have it, he ordered the egg salad sandwich. He returned the next day and had the chicken salad. On the third day, he ordered both—eating half of each, we learned, while saving the rest for dinner in his hotel room.

He told me that my chicken salad was the best he’d ever had, adding that “And I’ve eaten a lot of chicken salad.” He didn’t comment on the egg salad, but since he ordered it every day for two weeks it must have been at least up to par.

At least he wasn’t afraid of it.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Egg Salad

8 hard-cooked eggs
½ cup mayonnaise
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
2 Tbs. finely diced celery
2 Tbs. finely diced green onion
1 Tbs. sweet pickle relish
¼ teaspoon paprika
¼ teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper

Peel and chop the eggs and transfer them to a medium mixing bowl. Add the mayonnaise, mustard, celery, onion, dill, onion powder, paprika, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine the mixture.

Before the next time you order a pizza for delivery, take a few minutes to understand the training and effort that goes into making the process of delivery even possible.

For instance, hiring a local doesn’t necessarily guarantee that such a person will know his/her way around the town in which he/she was born and raised.

While I had seen such a display more than once, one stood out from all the rest. A local native and graduate (I think) of the local high school, I hired this young man (mid-twenties) to deliver pizzas and wash dishes—two compatible chores in an Italian restaurant. On his first day, we had a delivery order of three pizzas to a local bank that was less than a block away. Our little town has five banks and a credit union. It’s not hard to find any of them and I just figured that if one had lived here for more than a few months, one would know where they were.

Wally was that one who didn’t. I told him where it was. He left with the pizzas and went to his car which was across the street. He drove to the bank to deliver the pizzas, turning that less-than-a-block walk into a four-block drive. I suggested he make future deliveries to that bank on foot.

As luck would have it, the bank called in an order—three pizzas—the very next day. Wally asked where the bank was.

“You don’t remember from yesterday?”

“Not really.”

“It’s around the corner, down the alley. Can’t miss it. It hasn’t moved.”

Wally took the pizzas, got into his car, and drove down the alley to the bank.

On the third day, he remembered. He walked.

Now, you may find all of this unbelievable, but trust me it’s true.

My delivery-dish guy actually asked the location of the high school from which he might have graduated. Who knows? Nor did he know the location of the City/County building—our little town’s place where government business is conducted.

“It’s where you got your driver’s license,” I told him.

“I don’t have a driver’s license,” he said.

“And now you don’t have a job,” I explained.

Next up on the delivery hall of fame was an oldish woman whose daughter was a friend of mine. While Donna had a great sense of knowing where she was and where she was going, it took several delivery attempts to convince her not to carry the pizzas tucked upright under her arm. She was something of a vegan who didn’t know (or had forgotten) that the toppings would slide right off a pizza held in her preferred way.

Delivery continued in some fairly amusing ways but became prohibitive as worker’s comp and liability insurance became too expensive for our business. More than ninety percent of our business was dine-in or pickup, so I wasn’t doing the restaurant any harm by ceasing the service. I was pleased to do so.

Adagio had thirty seats—a small restaurant by any estimation. Our kitchen was small, as well. On any day when I had the full complement of back-of-house (kitchen) workers it seemed really small. I had designed my kitchen based on an idea expressed in a magazine article about a restaurant in Paris. The mantra, as reported by Thomas McNamee, was a chef explaining why his kitchen was so small; “When we want to hike, we go outside.”

Keeping all that in mind, I realized that a set of kitchen skills was less important than who the potential hire might be. Basic skills could be taught; personalities were a different ballgame.

My job application, while collecting necessary data, featured a few questions that left applicants shaking their heads: What’s the best restaurant you’ve ever eaten in? Create a menu for a family gathering. Do you always wear your seat belt? Never? Do you like to participate in or watch sports? Which ones?

Each question provided insights into the applicant. Both the best restaurant and family gathering, though skewed by personal economics, were interesting for the obvious reasons. The answers to the seat belt question demonstrated levels of respect for self and authority. Sports? Many of my best employees were high school boys who played team sports: they knew about teamwork, hard work and discipline. My worst front-of-house hire was a snowboarder who hated team sports, never wore his seat belt, and showed no respect for his fellow workers.

Dinner at Adagio took about an hour-and-a-half. One server I had hired came from the giant tourist restaurants in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He was adamant that dinner should take no longer than 45 minutes. His battles with me—chef/owner—were relentless. I suggested he apply for work at Outback or Applebees. He didn’t last long.

I saw a lot of potentially good cooks. One was a high schooler I was willing to underwrite for a year’s apprenticeship in Italy. He had already earned a fine set of knives and would have had a great start to his career. Sadly, an affinity for drugs put an end to that career—before it had even really started.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Crépinette

Crépinette, ground or minced meat patties seasoned with herbs and wrapped in caul fat, are a decadent treat. Although pork is the most common meat used, any animal protein will work well. You’ll have to go to a butcher’s shop to special order the caul fat.

1½ cups pork meat, ground
3 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
1 egg
1 tsp. freshly chopped thyme
1 tsp. freshly chopped parsley
1 tsp. dried marjoram
1 Tbs. flour
1 Tbs. salt
1 Tbs. pepper
1 Tbs. dried breadcrumbs
120 grams caul fat or little more than ½ a cup, tightly packed
1 onion sliced
Butter to fry

Add the chopped garlic, egg, the chopped thyme parsley and savory, the dried marjoram, the flour, salt, pepper and the breadcrumbs to the ground meat in a bowl. Mix it all well and leave to marinate for a minimum of 15 minutes.

On a board, spread out the caul fat, add 1-2 handfuls of the meat mixture into the center and wrap the caul around the meat to create a patty and to seal the meat. Cut extra parts of the caul off. Repeat the procedure for the rest of the meat mixture.

Then heat up a big pan with butter and some of the crépinette parcels into the hot pan. Fry first for 5 mins on 1 side, then turn and fry on the other side. The caul will melt away but keep the patty together and that is the aim. Fry an all sides slightly light brown.

Serve hot with a simple cream sauce, roasted vegetables, rice, mash potato and a salad of raw red radishes.

In theory, deterministic chaos suggests a paradox because it connects “two notions that are familiar and commonly regarded as incompatible.” In other words, we are taught to expect the unexpected.

Examples of chaos theory ran rampant this week, from the gibberish escaping the mouths of Ryder Cup participants (both past and present) about God-only-knows-what to the gibberish tumbling from the mouths of many of our elected members of Congress about shutting down The Government.

The Ryder Cup golf tournament controversies had something to do with the caps the millionaire golfers are required to wear during competition. And the commentaries by former pro golfers suggest a difference between patriotism (USA) and nationalism (Europe). Unless all of the governments of Europe had folded into one, nationalism is hardly the correct term for the golfers’ emotional connections to politics and geography.

I’m generally opposed to patriotism as it seems to focus initially on waving a flag or banner. From that grows nationalism, which seems to suggest elements of politics that lead to war. I’m pretty much against war.

Congress is generally more simplistic. A shutdown comes when the parties in control can’t gather enough votes to do what it wants the government to do. Shutting down The Government, closes federally operated stuff, with millions of government workers not getting a paycheck, being furloughed, or, in the case of essential workers—most of whom work in support of the airline industry—being forced to work without the benefit of wages.

In another time, the latter job description would include the word “slavery.”

One Republican defended his not refusing a paycheck by saying that he was coming to work every day and therefore deserved to be paid. He later recanted his position after one of his staff press agents pointed out that air traffic controllers and TSA agents would be working everyday with no possibility of reward, let alone any choice in the matter.

The whole drama on the Hill was courtesy of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a spineless Republican from California who traded fifteen of his governing dreams for fifteen Republican votes to gain the office. One of those traded votes was with Matt Gaetz, the junior Nazi from Florida. In return, Gaetz decided he would try to take over control of Congress by demanding that McCarthy’s seat would be vacated.

A last-minute passing of a measure to keep The Government from shutting down was followed by a quick adjournment, thereby keeping McCarthy in place until at least Monday.

But let’s turn our attention to the important work of the Republicans in their effort to impeach Joe Biden for his high crimes and misdemeanors. The only thing the GOP has actually found is that once, in the early-‘70s, Biden kept the change from a telephone booth that was mistakenly returned to him after his completing a call home.

Somewhere in this mix of cheap shots was the Republican primary “debate.”

I took a mandatory speech-and-debate class in my sophomore year. Nothing I learned in that class has ever been demonstrated by the professional politicians. I remember getting a subject matter to study and then role play as pro or anti to a classmate on the other side. Nobody yelled out insults or promises. We were cordial and didn’t interrupt. That perhaps is also because the topics we presented focused on such things as Alligator or Crocodile: You Decide.

Congress had its moments on Friday when we learned of the death of Dianne Feinstein, the longtime Democratic Senator from California. One of the great political minds of our time, her law-making efforts were humanistic—favoring gun control, abortion, and LGBT rights. Most members of Congress eagerly crossed the aisle to sing her well-earned praises.

It’s doubtful that many will be singing any praises of Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the former football head coach at Auburn. Tuberville, whose name translates to “potato town,” never served in the military but somehow thinks he should hold sway in its operation. He’s holding up promotions and appointments until some abortion issue is stricken from the military’s list of services.

“Our military is not an equal opportunity employer,” the Alabama Republican said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. Had he researched his subject, he’d have learned that President Harry S Truman, in 1948, signed an executive order desegregating the military and guaranteeing “equality” to all without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.

Finally, Congress is wrestling with its enforcing of or creating a dress code. Yep. You read that right. A dress code. Apparently, there are some people who think that Rep. Jim Jordan should invest in a suit jacket and then wear it. The Senate passed a resolution defining a dress code requiring its members dress in business attire. John Fetterman, the 6’8” junior senator from Pennsylvania who typically wears shorts and hoodies, was clearly the target of the resolution.

The code will be extended to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the 5’7” Ukrainian president who typically wears T-shirts and fatigues when he comes seeking support to defend his country from the illegal Russian invasion.

We need to support his effort.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Chicken Cacciatore

The Italian hunter’s chicken is easy and delicious. Adjust the seasonings to your taste.

8 chicken thighs
salt
freshly ground black pepper
all-purpose flour, for dredging
olive oil
1 large red bell pepper, chopped
1 large green bell pepper, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
2-3 stalks of celery, chopped
3-4 garlic cloves, diced
1 cup dry white wine
1, 28-oz. can diced tomatoes with juice
1 cup chicken stock
1 1/2 tsp. dried oregano leaves
1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh basil leaves

Generously season the chicken with salt and pepper.
Dredge the chicken pieces in the flour to coat lightly.
In a large heavy sauté pan, heat the oil over a medium-high flame. Add the chicken pieces, skin side down, to the pan and sauté just until brown, about 5 minutes per side. Transfer the chicken to a plate and set aside.
Add the peppers, onion and celery to the same pan and sauté over medium heat until the onion is softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another minute or two. Season with salt and pepper. Add the wine and simmer until reduced by half, about 3 minutes.
Add the tomatoes with their juice, broth, and oregano. Return the chicken pieces to the pan and turn them to coat in the sauce. Bring the sauce to a simmer. Cover and continue simmering over medium-low heat until the chicken is just cooked through, about 30 minutes.
Transfer the chicken to a platter. If necessary, boil the sauce until it thickens slightly, about 3 minutes. Spoon the sauce over the chicken, then sprinkle with the basil and serve.

This is a re-posting of an essay I wrote four years ago. It is a quiet appreciation of our natural world, a celebration of faith, a respect for worship, the sadness of loss, the hope for the future. My little dog, Buddy, has left us, but his memory—like those of so many—is for a blessing that sustains me. Yom Kippur for Hebrew Year 5784 begins at sundown today and ends at nightfall on Monday, 25 September 2023. L’Shanah tovah. Stay well. Stay safe. Have a sweet New Year and an easy fast. Shalom. Sadly, Courtney’s photograph of Tony is in limbo, a land that won’t allow access.

Even early tastes of winter cannot diminish the beauty of autumn. While spring may offer the promise of renewal, it is fall that provides a sense of timely reflection—a gentle lead-in to the harsh dormancy of winter.

I like the colors of fall—brilliant shades of yellow and red that soften over the weeks to muted tones of burnt amber, ruby and gold. The leaves fall into a lush, deep-pile carpet to cover lawns and gardens, sidewalks and streets. It is a satisfying melody played by shuffling through the leaves before they are damped by early snow. The sun usually shines bright through patches of clouds this time of year and my little dog, a snow-white Bichon Frise, digs his nose deep into the leaf piles, coming up for a satisfied intake of the cool fresh air that we know will grow colder as the calendar pages turn.

Sunday is the best time to enjoy this wonderland; the other days seem to pale by comparison. Sunday mornings along the banks of the Yellowstone River move at a slower pace. Few are on their ways to work, getting in that run or breath-taking power walk before the clock strikes a certain hour. We’re slowed because we can be. We can stop to visit with the friends and neighbors we meet during this respite from the wearisome world. I take the time to watch a piece of driftwood from far upstream float by our stand on the gravelly bank.

Buddy and I prefer the quiet. He sniffs out of an inherent curiosity, joyously taking in the wonders of a world of myriad aromas sensed only by him; in contrast, my breaths are labored and concentrated, my focus on the inhalations and exhalations that must be taken at a measured pace, in a prescribed manner.

It is only in the last couple of years or so that I’ve had to think about breathing.

In dog years, Buddy is much older than I am and I’m not sure I like the active comparisons. He still prances and runs, jumping on and off the couch with style, grace and ease, and he rolls about the carpet with admirable zeal. I, on the other hand, have not pranced in years (if ever, really); I stand up from a couch using both hands like a ski jumper uses poles coming out of the starting gate; if I find myself on the floor it is not by choice.

In all fairness to me, Buddy does sleep considerably more than I do.

I don’t know what Buddy thinks about as we make our way together on Sunday mornings. Probably not much. His life is sensory and reactive, any gleaned information a mere product of repetition and his genetic imprint. His cognitive skills are suspect at best. He seems uninterested in the day’s news. I am slowed by age, my senses still sharp, but my reactions only as quick as I can turn a somewhat arthritic neck. I’m not complaining, mind you. Walking is faux exercise; retention the goal.

I have a friend who has lived in this little southwest Montana town his entire life. When he ambles through familiar neighborhoods, he is haunted by childhood memories. Friendly ghosts meet him at every corner, he says. Every street and alley that served as a passage to some long-ago destination has become a private Memory Lane, each house a home to a part of his life. I’m envious, knowing that for me Thomas Wolfe was right: You Can’t Go Home Again. It’s a different story for those who never left.

My years here represent about one-third of my life. I have no childhood memories belonging to these streets and schools and the downtown that have become part of my very being. My childhood is left frozen in time in Chicago; the next batch of memories divided unevenly between New York and Los Angeles.

Some of my earliest memories of here were made before I had a dog I cared to walk. I’d walk alone on Sunday mornings and enjoy the tolling of the church bells.

THE MEMORY IS A FAULTY PART of the brain, frequently exaggerating the actual events or burying the unpleasant. Hubris and humility are intimate; hyperbole, their happy companion. We remember most fondly what we want to and express it as we wish. And so it is that I remember there once being more church bells than can be heard today.

Unlike the noon whistle heard in many a small American town, the church bell’s chime is a call to worship, arguably a more noble call than the siren that announces lunch. Our bodies aren’t always hungry at noon; our souls need tending at any hour.

I’ve never answered the call of a church bell, although I enjoy their peals as if they were a symphony of resonant brass playing in some distant hall. In my faith, a shofar is blown to announce that God is ready to listen to prayers and pleas. The sound of the shofar varies, determined by its player. A church bell’s sound was determined when the bell was hammered from bronze by skilled artisans. Time doesn’t change its key.

I doubt there are many bellfounders left. Too bad. It seems like a worthy craft and calling, one inspired, perhaps, by a greater good—not unlike building the spires that reach so majestically to the heavens from European cathedrals.

What I find appealing about the Christian tradition is one deeply ingrained in the imagery of Norman Rockwell. His work was exemplary of an ideal that was empathetic, inclusive and diverse—for the time. People we knew as archetypal characters graced the covers of The Saturday Evening Post. The themes were often simple, but they celebrated complex stories, among them the freedom to worship and the enjoyment of companionship and family, the pain of a scraped knee, carefree skaters on a frozen pond. There always seemed to be more than met the eye.

In my mind, I often see what seems like a Rockwell painting in motion. Families newly defined by the times make their ways through the streets. The elderly with their walkers; a pair of women clutching each other’s arms for balance and strength; a young couple with only the future in view. They make their ways to the churches made of bricks or wood, their interiors pulling one’s eyes from the entry to the stained-glass imagery designed to invoke piety and devotion.

There are songs and readings in those houses, announcements, prayers, a homily and a benediction. There is an offering and perhaps communion is offered and accepted. The congregants shake the minister’s hand on the way to coffee and donuts in the church basement.

I consider myself a pious Jew who is convinced of the spirit of God if not the existence. The first Commandment of our 613 mitzvot demands a belief in God, and the second that He have no competition in the form of other gods; the rest prescribes the way to live as a Jew, from business dealings to grooming to diet. As Rabbi Hillel said, “that which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow, this is the whole Torah, and the rest is commentary, go and learn it.” We don’t believe strictly in an afterlife and therefore are expected to do good for its own sake. Try as we might, we are fallible; our failings human and therefore profound.

I’ve spent much of this week thinking about the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, which began last Sunday. At sundown on Tuesday begins Yom Kippur—a day of fasting, prayer and reflection as we atone for the sins and transgressions of the previous year. It is the holiest day on our calendar and it demands attention. I went to the Yellowstone River for a private tashlikh, a tradition that asks us to cast our sins to the depths of the sea. In time, my sins will settle in the Gulf of Mexico.

And today my thoughts are about Tony, whom we lost just one year ago. When he died, he was thirteen—the age of a man, according to my faith. I miss him, as do all who knew and loved him. None will ever understand why he left us, and I wonder often about the future he will never have. I imagine it as fine and productive, full of warmth and love. I had stories to tell him, and I wanted to listen to his. I weep for what was lost, what would never be.

These days have emerged as an untidy convergence of sorrow and regret, gratitude and hope; there is an ongoing need for solace, respite from the rigors of life.

My temple offers views of snow-covered mountains, the sounds of the river in motion, the wisps of wood smoke from warming fires spiraling from red-brick chimneys, people walking at a snail’s pace to take it all in, kids zooming by on their bicycles and skateboards. The pews are the benches and retaining walls scattered about; the altar a stand of cottonwoods where the river parts. This is a vivid expression of life, framed by trees in an arboreal cathedral. It may or may not have anything to do with religion or a greater being, but it is valid to seek answers in their expressions. It is an acceptance of faith no matter how defined.

There is great spirit actively at work. To take an hour for quiet contemplation or to sit quietly in a sanctuary to sing a hymn, greet a stranger or friend with a heartfelt smile, think about the needy and the infirm, or say a prayer for peace is a blessing. A mitzvah.

And to walk among the bowed flowers and the fallen leaves of a bright autumn, to cast a sin to the river, to listen to the world’s soul in the wind, to be included in the next year’s Book of Life…each is a blessed reward.

A morning walk seems in order.

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

As you must know by now, my mother was not what one would call a good cook. Not by a long shot. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Not by anybody’s measure.

To borrow from Red Skelton: “If I could say one good thing about my wife’s cooking, she sure broke that dog from begging at the table.” And to continue in that great stream of thought: “My wife’s cooking is so bad that the flies took up a collection to fix the screen door.”

Those pithy comments I lend to my late father. He loved great food and, unable to satisfy that love at home, we went out for dinner a lot. Some might have called it cheating. He called every dining experience a break for Mom; in all reality, it was a break for the rest of us from Mom’s attempts at dinner.

But Mom did have a couple of signature dishes that brought satisfied sighs as we ate them.

One of those was fried chicken. Hers was sublime, superb, succulent (although not necessarily in that order). For a few weeks every fall, she’d apply her fried chicken technique to pheasant. We knew about pheasant under glass, but we loved it fried, served with mashed potatoes and a rich, gamey gravy. Frequently there were peas or green beans.

Mom learned to cook fried chicken from her mother. MeMa’s repertoire was comprised of fried chicken and roast beef. She extrapolated from her chicken technique one that could apply to pheasant. My mother didn’t like roast beef, so she only learned to make fried chicken and pheasant from her mother.

Presumably, my grandmother’s chicken was fried in a cast iron skillet that was coated in years’ worth of crud—oils and fats that accumulated over many years. The pan had never seen soap and water.

How then, did Mom figure out how to fry chicken in an electric skillet? Or why did she?

The electric skillet, made of cast aluminum and coated in Teflon, was created in 1953 by Sunbeam Corporation, a Chicago-based company that had established itself as the Chicago Flexible Shaft Company by manufacturing mechanical horse clippers and sheep shearers. The Multi-Cooker Frypan, as it was called, came to be for reasons I can’t figure out.

I was unable to find a patent registration, but I could identify dozens of copy-cat models. By 1953, Americans were flocking to the suburbs, each settling into homes that had four-burner ranges. Perhaps Sunbeam’s R&D execs recognized that there was a need for what was simply another burner.

When my mother started to divest herself of various things, I got her electric skillet. After all, she wasn’t about to make fried chicken for one. And my sister’s lack of interest in cooking was well demonstrated when she got rid of her stove to make more room for her cats.

In my inherited electric skillet I have only ever made fried chicken, as well as the gravy for the mashed potatoes.

When we bought the pizzeria that I wanted to grow into a full-fledged restaurant, there was none of the equipment I would need other than the menacingly large ovens. I had to improvise by using a couple of free-standing burners and an electric skillet that was rectangular rather than square.

Though hardly the kitchen of my dreams, it worked pretty well. There were some things that I could not do in my “kitchen,” but I could make soups and sauces, pasta and lasagna if I was careful in my timing.

One afternoon I was busy at the skillet making a béchamel sauce for that evening’s dinner service. My cell phone, an old-fashioned flip phone, was on a shelf above the counter where the skillet was. An employee was going about her afternoon business of par-cooking three or four pastas. For reasons I don’t know, she reached across me for something and knocked my phone into the béchamel sauce.

I knew instinctively that my phone was ruined, but I never-the-less removed it from the white sauce and took it to the Verizon store across town.

After telling the service clerk my sad story, she asked “What’s a béchamel sauce?” I felt obliged to give her a quick cooking lesson. I had hoped it would have saved me from having to pay for a new phone.

Oh, well.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Béchamel Sauce

One of the “mother sauces” of French cuisine, béchamel sauce can be used as the base for many other sauces, such as Mornay, which is béchamel with cheese, or as is in dishes such as the Italian lasagne al forno or mac and cheese.

2 Tbs. butter
2 Tbs. flour
1¼ cups milk, heated
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
Fresh nutmeg

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the flour and cook, stirring constantly, until the paste cooks and bubbles a bit, but don’t let it brown — about 2 minutes. Add the hot milk, continuing to stir as the sauce thickens. Bring it to a boil. Add salt and pepper to taste, and a few scrapings of nutmeg, lower the heat, and cook, stirring for 2 to 3 minutes more. Remove from heat.

To turn your white sauce into cheese sauce, stir in ½ cup grated cheese during the last 2 minutes of cooking, along with a pinch of cayenne pepper.

It wasn’t long after the concept of sustainability by Hans Carl von Carlowitz (1645–1714) was first introduced that I decided owning a restaurant would be fun.

Originally, the concept referred to forestry as it related to the production of board feet of standard cuts of lumber needed to meet the demands of developers creating something that would become known as the “suburbs” outside Berlin. In 1972, Ernst Basler gave a series of lectures at M.I.T. that broadened the scope of sustainability to a point that it became necessary to speak German. He published the lectures into a book. Strategy of Progress: Environmental Pollution, Habitat Scarcity and Future Research was not a New York Times bestseller, losing, as it were, to Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but it paved the way for others to examine Earth Day as something more that just an excuse to sit outside and get high.

Sustainability, like all things best not questioned, soon outgrew the mere planting of trees, and went on to have its very own Venn diagram. Environment, economy, and society each fit neatly into overlapping circles with sustainability dead set in the middle.

That, dear readers, is how best to explain both sustainability and Venn diagrams, the former being characterized as a normative concept that is mostly fuzzy. Al Gore is deeply involved and has promised to explain to me what I just wrote.

Those of us whose parents lived through the Great Depression and World War II, grew up not understanding sustainability but knowing that we could not get a tomato in December if we lived north of the Mason-Dixon line. Chicago is where I grew up and from what serves as my memory, I don’t recall getting to eat anything that hadn’t been grown within a few bus stops from my family’s front door.

There were exceptions, of course. I remember always having bananas and oranges—two foods I didn’t much care for as a child. Root vegetables were also always available, which explains why I was raised on a diet of sauerkraut (cabbage is not a root vegetable but can withstand early frosts), potatoes, onions and garlic. I’ve often wondered where we got our eggs. Actually, I’ve never wondered about that until about three minutes ago.

I had grand plans for featuring sustainable products at the restaurant we bought in 2003. Those plans were thwarted by the restaurant being located just a tad over the 45th parallel. Summertime was when we suffered an embarrassment of produce riches. I made friends with a local truck farmer and most summer mornings I could be found wandering among rows of fresh vegetables that would be served that evening.

I learned early on that I wanted to streamline my purchasing into as few outlets as possible. I also learned that almost every product I bought came from a fair distance away from my front door.

Although I had no real complaints about the two food services I employed, I just didn’t like the concept.

The first food show I attended was at the rather large convention center in Billings. I registered at the door and was handed a tote bag and a map of the center. (It appeared to me that to see everything the show had to offer I was in for a four-mile trek.) There wasn’t a food brand I’d ever heard of that wasn’t represented—each strategically placed next to a small, independent supplier.

At the outset, I was pleased to learn that I was eligible to win a year’s supply of Armageddon Fry Oil.

“What is it?” I asked, clutching a coupon with my lucky number.

“It’s what you use in your deep fryer.”

“I don’t have a deep fryer,” I explained.

With that, she took the coupon from my grip with the grace of a Bald Eagle snaring a trout from a river.

In all fairness, both of the major food services I used treated me well. When I told Geri that I wanted to add veal to my menu, she flipped out. This came from some report she had seen that showed the sometimes cruel methods used to raise the veal. I had my sales rep go on a search for veal that would meet my standards. It took a while, but I finally found a supplier in Pennsylvania whose calves were allowed to roam freely until they showed an interest in pasture lands. That’s when they became groceries.

Similarly, my pork products came from a co-op of farmers in Iowa. Their standards of production were high and the pork, marbled with enough fat to disallow it being called “the other white meat,” was consistently delicious.

A couple of years into this venture, Geri accompanied me to one of the food shows. Geri has never met a processed food she didn’t love, and she was in hog heaven wandering the aisles and tasting foods whose salt content was on par with the Salton Sea.

Leaving the arena with tote bags full of pens, notepads, and refrigerator magnets, she stopped and looked back for a panoramic view.

“If you have a microwave oven, a deep fryer, and three sinks,” she noted, “you could open a restaurant.”

Her observation was spot on.

“It’s just no restaurant I’d care to patronize.”

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Beet Carpaccio

This was one of the restaurants most popular appetizers. I like to make it with golden beets, but red beets are just as good. Although there’s not much to do to create this dish, it does take a fair amount of time. Enjoy.

6 large beets, trimmed
3 medium yellow onions, thinly sliced
3 Tbs. butter
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. sugar
2 tsp. balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup e-v olive oil
Parmigiano-Regianno cheese

Roast beets in foil for 1-1/4 — 1-1/2 hours at 400° Let cool.
Over low heat, cook onions in butter, covered, for about 20 minutes.
Add salt, sugar, vinegar; cook, uncovered, for another 20 minutes.
Increase heat. Add wine and reduce. Puree.
Slice beets. Place puree on plates, beets on top. Drizzle with oil
and serve with shaved cheese.