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One of the great parts of growing old is knowing that everybody in the room listens intently to the ridiculously delicious stories we tell about ourselves. At least they don’t look like they’re pretending. The stories I’m talking about are those filled with exaggeration and hubris, the most familiar one being about how we had to walk three miles to school through snow and ice, uphill both ways.

I often wonder about what kind of stories today’s kids will tell when they enter geezerhood. Will they tell about slogging those same three miles we had to walk? Probably. It’s unlikely that they’ll tell any good stories about buying their first cars. After all, now you can pick a car out an internet lineup, pay electronically, and have the thing delivered to your driveway.

Where’s the romance in that? Where’s the fun? There’s no travel involved. It’s hardly a tale to be told over and over, and there’s no room for embellishing any part of the story.

My curiosity about buying a car online was satisfied by hearing about the process from a friend. (I was afraid to look for myself lest I hit a wrong computer button and then having a 1964 Camaro delivered to me.) Anyway, my friend discovered that the experience is quite good, but you pretty much pay an arm and a leg for the convenience. It’s cheaper to buy from a dealer.

My first car purchase entailed an overnight train ride from Chicago to McCook, Nebraska, and a two- hour ride to Imperial, Nebraska, in the very car I had come to purchase. My grandmother drove, and I was about to learn that the car had never been driven faster than 30 miles per hour. I did the math. McCook and Imperial are 60 miles apart.

I spent a couple of days in Imperial, a non-descript rural community of about 1,200 people—exactly the kind of place a 16-year-old boy likes to spend his time—and when I was about to leave, I paid a non-negotiable price of $300 (in crisp twenties) for a 1962 Chevrolet Bel Air sedan. It featured an under-powered four cylinder engine and an automatic transmission. It was sort of a gun-metal gray and basically looked like a box of Saltines with windows. To call it a “chick magnet” is an understatement if ever there was one.

I don’t remember what the speed limit on Route 6 was in 1967, but I pushed it, leaving a trail of burnt carbon hovering across three states—Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois. I wouldn’t be surprised if that trail of smoke is still hovering above the Midwest.

It was a wonderful car in that it would carry my entire drum kit and still have room for five passengers. I was working in a quintet in those days, and I became the band’s chauffeur.

Cut to Cleveland. The band moved into a house, along with several others who didn’t pay rent. One day, my much beloved car started doing something in the engine department that didn’t sound right. One of the guys hanging around the house seemed to know something about cars. He told me it was the carburetor and that I should go to a parts store and buy a kit to rebuild it.

Having this job done by a professional was out of the question. Funds were limited to say the least. The entire household in this crummy part of Cleveland lived on Kraft mac and cheese. One of the guys, a guitarist named Duck, was good at pilfering cans of tuna that greatly improved the quality of our 19-cent dinners.

I went to the auto parts store. I was the only guy in there who was wearing a collared shirt. It was almost as bad as being the only man in an obstetrician’s waiting room. Every woman there hates you.

I meekly told the clerk what I needed. As he was ringing up the sale, he assured me that rebuilding a carburetor was easy. Maybe it was the collared shirt.

I removed the carburetor from atop the 4-cylider engine and took it to the kitchen table. Following the instructions to the letter, it only took me about twelve hours to complete this “easy” task. I had three tiny pieces of the kit left over. My friend who seemed to know about cars advised me to re-install the carburetor and see what happens.

I kept those three little pieces in an envelop in the glove compartment. I never did need them. The car performed about the way it did before I heard whatever it was that led to what, in retrospect, was a fairly traumatic mechanical experience.

If I haven’t already, I’ll someday tell you about time my 1973 Pinto station wagon ran out of oil in Malibu Canyon.

Perplexed by this, I asked Geri where the oil could have gone. That’s when she called me “dipstick.”

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Rock ‘n Roll Mac ‘n Cheese

This was our deluxe version of the classic pasta dish. The recipe was widely used by rock bands on their ways to stardom. Or not (the stardom part).

1 box Kraft Macaroni and Cheese
3 Tbs. minced red onion
1 can (5 oz.) tuna, drained

Make the Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese according to package directions. Saute red onion in some butter. Add tuna and cook until warm. Stir into mac ‘n cheese. Put on a Grateful Dead record and enjoy.

If there’s anything viewers could take away from the fight for House Speaker this past week is that watching the recording secretary call the roll of the U.S. House 15 times is really lousy television. The only drama of the seemingly endless exercise in how our country really works was by how many votes Kevin McCarthy might have lost in the game of legislative seesaw.

The fun part was recognizing how much of the power of the Speaker was being diminished with each of so-called Freedom Caucus’s flipped votes. The attraction of the House gavel is, after all, power. At the end of the day, McCarthy would have the equivalent power of a middle-school hall monitor—no actual authority but a built-in late pass for every class.

And on the second anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, isn’t it ironic that the party complicit in the storming of the capitol can’t find a way for an orderly transfer of Congressional power within its own body—a body housed in the very chamber that men in funny costumes once commandeered?

I believe McCarthy was staging the whole thing, just to hear fifteen of his colleagues laud him for being some sort of visionary of America’s future. In actuality, he strikes me as a neo-Nazi who would like to see the federal government brought to its knees and power returned, irrevocably, to the states, counties and municipalities. The twenty or so turncoats in the Republican Party represent McCarthy’s truest colors—colors he didn’t necessarily want the core Republicans to see. C’mon Kevin, they’re not that stupid.

What last week’s fiasco indicates to me is that it’s time to toss out the documents describing our government and start all over.

I’m not sure how one goes about writing a constitution. It seems like a big job for a big committee that would take many months. Maybe borrowing from the ways other countries operate would be the best route.

But we should start with the tax code. Throw the whole damn thing out and find a suitable percentage of income as the tax base. No deductions, no paperwork beyond a W2 indicating income. Enclose a check for however much you owe. Done.

I know that this would be a great hardship on the world of accounting and all of its bean counters. But remember that nothing lasts forever. Notice how we don’t have any wheelwrights anymore?

Public service must be part of the new way to run a government. Two years, right out of high school. The service can be in the military or picking up garbage on the streets. It doesn’t matter. The experience should be humbling.

Every time I’m in France or Italy, I find myself wishing I could live there. Both countries have interesting takes on what is legal. For instance, in Italy there are strict rules about pizza, pork, and wine production, and they are enforced rigorously. Traffic lights, on the other hand, seem to be optional.

In France, wine and cheese production is strictly controlled, as are the baguettes. Of course the country produces more than four hundred varieties of cheese and God-only-knows how many kinds of wine. The French seem to be in love with round-abouts, but they also know how to maneuver their ways around them. The French also seem to love going on strike, frequently shutting down public transportation, schools, and even the government.

I also like how both the French and the Italians take a three-hour lunch break.

Immigration and crime seem to be hot topics in the world of politics. Immigration is especially problematic for every country except for those countries whose citizens are fleeing. America has long claimed to have open arms for the huddled masses. We should probably either go back to that principal or take the statue down. There’s not a store or factory that doesn’t have a “Now Hiring” sign out front. Our new constitution should provide jobs and temporary housing for those seeking refuge.

Each of our current constitutional amendments should be studied and re-written to make each provision make sense. Do we really want a separation of church and state? If so, make it clear and make it so the Bible-thumpers will shut up about prayer in school.

There’s a lot of hard work in creating a new constitution. I think I’ll start a religion.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

FRENCH MUSHROOM SOUP

1/4 cup butter
1 lb. fresh mushrooms, thinly sliced
1/3 cup flour
6 cups chicken stock
1/2 tsp. dried thyme leaves
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup chopped green onions
2 large egg yolks
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 Tbs. minced parsley
White pepper

In a large pot, melt butter over medium heat; sauté mushrooms for 5-6 minutes or until moisture has evaporated; sprinkle flour over mushrooms and cook 1 minute.

Gradually stir in stock; bring to boil, stirring constantly. Add thyme, bay leaf and green onions; reduce heat and cover. Simmer 15- 20 minutes. Remove bay leaf.

In small bowl whisk egg yolks with cream; stir 1cup hot stock into cream mixture and add to pot. Heat over low heat until hot about 5 minutes; add pepper to taste. Serve sprinkled with parsley.

It’s that time of year when those arbiters of taste—those pundits, essayists, bloggers, satirists, and other derelicts who have just enough skills to avoid ever having to have a real job, independently look back to determine the best and worst in every category known to humankind.

Why we are so enamored with one-to-ten ratings will remain a mystery for time eternal.

Since I don’t get around very much anymore, I have limited opportunities to offer much in the way of valid responses to American culture. What responses I do have come filtered through various forms of media. For instance, if I were to put forth a list of last year’s ten best songs, such a list would have come from hearing them on the radio. But because I mostly listen to classical music, it’s doubtful that the year’s best would include anything by either of the Justins or Bad Bunny, whoever that is.

Gustave Mahler would again top any top-ten music list of mine, followed by Antonin Dvořák and Igor Stravinsky.

By definition, there can’t be any top-ten list of country music.

It’s so easy to look for the bad in almost every corner. This past year, the Third Year of the Plague, there was no shortage of bad stuff. Take the 1/6 Select Committee hearings. Repetitive and tedious, unless it was Jamie Raskin being his articulate self or Liz Cheney acting like a Democrat, the hearings produced little of value. The Orange Menace is still not imprisoned while the people who did his dirty work are in jail, left to wonder whoever conspired to make them become members of the Proud Boys.

Because commercial television is the only service I seem capable of operating, I see more than my fair share of commercials. While I tend to watch news, sports, and reruns of Chicago PD, I see ads for medicines, insurance, Medicare Part C and this generation’s version of Popeil kitchen gadgets. The best of the worst for 2022 begs the question: “Who needs 180 batteries?”

The BatterieDaddy is a plastic carrier for batteries in all shapes and sizes. The commercial for this product shows a black-and-white video clip of some guy madly digging around in a junk drawer before giving up his search as the world turns to color with all the sensational beauty of Dorothy arriving to the Emerald City.

What the makers failed to show was that same guy actually finding two batteries, loading them into whatever device needs power and discovering that they don’t work. He then throws them back into the drawer.

It goes without saying that of all the insurance ads, the worst of the worst remains Liberty Mutual. Half of their ads seem like they were created by somebody suffering a bad trip.

My top-ten list of best movies of 2022 has no entries because I failed to see any new movies. There are some that look good, but I have no clear access to them over the seemingly dozens of new ways to see them. During the plague, I’m hesitant to go to a theater and share the air.

My top-ten list of books published last year has one entry. I read a lot, just very few new ones. So, by default, the winner is Booth by Karen Joy Fowler. It is a well-written piece of historical fiction about John Wilkes Booth and his family. If you’re interested in how truly dysfunctional a family can be, you’ll not want to miss reading this book.

Oh, wait!

A new way of pronouncing dysfunctional is “George Santos.” The Representative-elect from Queens, New York, lied about practically everything during the campaign. A Republican who has attended rallies hosted by the former President, he has claimed to have been a graduate of Baruch College (he isn’t), claimed to be Jewish (he’s not), claimed to have worked for two large Wall Street firms (he didn’t) and has tried to convince constituents he was straight (he’s gay).

I’m withdrawing my nomination for Idiot of the Year from Herschel Walker. Santos clearly takes that cake.

Photo artistry by Courtney A. Liska

New Year’s Lentils
Eating lentils is a tradition that dates to ancient Roman times. To mark the New Year and to wish friends and neighbors prosperity, the ancient Romans would gift a scarsella, a leather purse full of lentils, with the wish that they would turn into gold coins. The coin-shaped lentils symbolize prosperity and once cooked, increase in size, evoking the idea of abundance.

1 ½ cups (250 grams) dried brown lentils
1 onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
3-4 Tbs. olive oil
1 bay leaf
1 sprig rosemary
1 sprig thyme
2 Tbs. tomato paste
5 cups water
Pinch of salt
Flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Place the onion, carrot, and celery in a large saucepan with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Sauté gently on low heat until the vegetables are very soft and the onion is somewhat translucent, but not colored. Add the bay leaf, rosemary, thyme, tomato paste, dry lentils, and 5 cups of water.

Bring to a boil and then turn the heat down to a gentle simmer and cook until the lentils are tender but retain their shape (20 to 35 minutes) depending on the lentils.

Keep checking them and add more water if necessary. Add salt to taste only once the lentils are tender, otherwise, they will remain tough. Stir in the chopped parsley and serve. Happy New Year.

Just when I thought I had my quota of internet friends, along comes a request from Jasper. More than just a prospective friend, Jasper has a three-tiered price tag for his friendship. He also has a spokesman by the name of Austin Distel.

An email invited me to watch a ten-minute video about Jasper. That’s when I met Austin, who appears to be in his late teens, has unruly dark hair and was holding a robot-like action figure which, as it turns out, is Jasper. Austin speed-speaks, and after not understanding a word the guy said, I turned off the sound.

I thought the fast-paced graphics might tell me all I needed to know about Jasper, but I was wrong. They flew by as fast as Austin spoke.

As it turns out, Jasper, who is gifted with “artificial intelligence” (AI), wants me to pay him not to be my friend but to do my work, such as it is.

Why I would do that is something of a mystery. If Jasper wants to write my weekly columns for me, then what the hell am I supposed to do?

I’m suspicious of the whole AI thing and am concerned about where it might be leading us. I don’t much mind if a robot makes the hamburger I might pick up from the drive-thru or a car from some place in Detroit, but I like a more personal touch when it comes to such things as medicine, driving a car, or kitchen remodeling.

Considering the lack of genuine intelligence, artificial intelligence seems to have a place in our world. It can be used to code all sorts of programs to perform all sorts of tasks. The Roomba Robot Vacuum is one primitive example. It looks like a space-age footstool, as it scurries about sucking the dirt out of carpets and up from bare-wood floors. Some cats like to ride around on them while dogs seem happy just to bark at them. I’m in line to buy one as soon as they can climb stairs.

But back to Jasper.

He makes some fairly unbelievable claims. For instance: End writer’s block with ideas from a robot. I don’t know if Jasper knows what kind of ideas I’m being blocked from, but I kind of doubt it. I don’t even know what kind of ideas I’m being blocked from. Whenever I’m suffering from writer’s block, I watch ten minutes of Cris Collinswoth announcing an NFL broadcast. It clears my head.

Stuck staring at a blank page? Jasper asks. Relax and let Jasper write creative copy for you. Staring at a blank page is just the beginning of the writing process. Relax? Hardly. There’s no relaxing until blood from the forehead drips steadily onto the blank page. Then write 600 words and relax with alcohol—the hard stuff.

But wait! There’s more! Tell Jasper about what you want and then watch the AI write paragraphs in seconds. I hope it can do a better job than that sentence.

The artificial intelligence that Jasper has came from being trained by the world’s best SEO and Direct Response Marketing experts. And it can do it creatively and clearly in 25+ languages.

I suppose there will come a time when blog posts, newspaper articles and novels will be generated by computers equipped with advanced forms of AI.

In the meantime, I’ll just continue slogging through writer’s block, bleeding onto the blank page, and grinding out sentences word by word, right up until happy hour.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Shrimp Scampi

This is a classic dish from the Italian-American repertoire. It is super easy and delicious.

2 Tbs. butter
2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup dry white wine or broth
3/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/8 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
Freshly ground black pepper
1-3/4 pounds large or extra-large shrimp, shelled
1/3 cup chopped parsley
Freshly squeezed juice of half a lemon

In a large skillet, melt butter with olive oil. Add garlic and sauté until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add wine or broth, salt, red pepper flakes and plenty of black pepper and bring to a simmer. Let wine reduce by half, about 2 minutes.
Add shrimp and sauté until they just turn pink, 2 to 4 minutes depending upon their size. Stir in the parsley and lemon juice and serve over pasta or accompanied by crusty bread.

It’s that time of year when a certain breed of people has grown tired of the heat and begun to pine for the snow-covered slopes to which a second mortgage will provide access, if only for a half-day.

“Skiers” these people are called. Over the years I’ve made detailed notes about skiers. We’re talking “downhill” skiers as opposed to cross-country skiers. Those who prefer downhill have wardrobes of puffy clothing to keep them warm and dry which, of course, they don’t. Cross-country skiers are those who prefer to ski wearing the same clothing one might wear to feed cattle.

Despite their obvious differences, both drive Subarus.

I believe that skiing began someplace where it is desperately cold and mountainous. Norway comes to mind. Ancient Norwegians lived on the tops of mountains—mostly because they liked the views—but needed to shop at the bottom of the hill where the stores were—mostly because delivery vehicles could reach them with fresh supplies of lutefisk, potatoes, lingonberry cream, and the occasional sheep’s head.

The Norwegians would tie lengths of 1x4s to their feet and zoom down the hill, where they’d purchase all the stuff most of us would not eat unless you found yourself trapped in the basement of a Lutheran church, surrounded by ladies in floral-print dresses. Anyway, the Norwegians would schlep all the stuff up to their mountaintop homes and, one week later, they would repeat the process.

Nobody really liked this, but being Norwegian, they didn’t complain.

Downhill skiing grew in popularity once Sven Pinnekjøtt invented the towrope. A couple centuries later, somebody invented the chairlift and skiing became so popular as to warrant its own glossy magazine, Downhill Methodology and Theory, and be recognized as an Olympic sport with no fewer than 33 individual categories of competition, many of which involve being airborne for several minutes.

Ski hills, those snow-covered places where skiing takes place, began popping up in the most unlikely of places. Abu Dhabi, for instance.

Ski Dubai is an indoor ski resort in the middle of the desert. Actually, it’s in the middle of a mall. The mall is in the middle of the desert. An amusement park unlike any other, there is skiing and snowboarding, in addition to bobsledding, snow tubing, snow play, the Zorb Ball and an ice cave. There are also penguins. The whole thing is as preposterous as golf in Siberia.

I tend to think that skiing belongs where there are tall mountains and an abundance of snow. It seems untoward for it to be anywhere else. Sort of like ice hockey in Tampa Bay or Anaheim: it just seems wrong.

The Rocky Mountains are full of ski hills. Montana, Idaho, Utah and Colorado come to mind. Montana has a handful of what are called “local” hills; it also has the Yellowstone Club that requires proof of a personal wealth of untold billions of dollars.

The local hills of Aspen, Colorado, are akin to the Yellowstone Club, except there are strict dress codes.

The New England region of the United States have hills similar to the Rocky Mountain region, the difference being that Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont have snow that is actually ice. Skiing in New England is fast and furious—dangerous because there are no soft and fluffy places to land after losing your balance getting off the chair lift.

California, which has dozens of ski resorts sprinkled throughout the Sierra Nevada Mountains, is where I learned that skiing and I would never be friends. On one of my four attempts at downhill skiing, I got slammed in the back of my head by the chair lift because I dallied on the little ramp thing that gives you the sense that you’re skiing. It hurt. A lot.

I grew up in Illinois. There weren’t enough slopes in the terrain to allow a decent sledding adventure, let alone one that called for skis. There are now, however, five ski resorts in Illinois—four of which are within spitting distance of Chicago. Like I said, I grew up in Illinois, mostly within spitting distance of Chicago. The landscape was as flat as flat can be. We named mounds of dirt and the depressions along riversides. While the weather was certainly conducive to winter sports, if something froze in our great outdoors, it was probably flat enough to play hockey.

No doubt driven by financial opportunities, places like Alabama, Tennessee and Texas have ski resorts. Of course, many of those states have homemade hills with snow blown out of machines to give the illusion of winter. So far, there are no ski resorts in Florida or Louisiana.

But skiing is big business, so I imagine that plans are being made as we speak to open indoor ski resorts in Miami and New Orleans.

If only Sven Pinnekjøtt could see what he started.

Photo Illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Chicken and Mushrooms in White Wine

A simple weeknight dinner that we can’t seem to get enough of.

4 tbsp butter, divided
¼ cup flour
2 cups chicken stock, lukewarm
½ cup dry white wine
4 Tbs. heavy cream
1 tsp. lemon juice
Salt and pepper
1 lb chicken or turkey breast, cut into chunks
8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
Handful of finely chopped tarragon or parsley

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in large pan over medium heat. Add flour and beat hard until you have a smooth paste. Continue to beat until roux begins to have a golden color. Take off heat and gradually add stock, whisking constantly.

Place pan back over medium heat and simmer gently for 10 minutes, whisking frequently to ensure none of the sauce burns on bottom of pan. If sauce becomes too thick, whisk in a little more stock.

Add wine and continue simmering for 10 minutes, then take off the heat and whisk in cream and lemon juice. Taste for salt and pepper.

While sauce is simmering, melt 2 tablespoons butter in large frying pan until sizzling. Add chicken and fry for a few minutes until golden. Add mushrooms and fry for another 5 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.

To serve, mix sauce with chicken and mushrooms and sprinkle with some fresh tarragon or parsley.

It has been my privilege—in many cases, an honor—to have known movie stars, television personalities, politicians from both sides of the aisle, activists, decorated soldiers, criminals, business czars, and just about every jazz musician who has lived during my lifetime.

There are ten people I would have liked to know. Sadly, those ten lives were the latest victims of an eighteen-year-old, antisemitic, white supremacist armed with a modified AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. His name is Payton Gendron. It is my fervent wish that his name will soon be forgotten. Folk tales about racist murderers are nothing we need in our national conversation.

We need to not forget about the victims of this most heinous of acts.

Roberta A. Drury, 32, Buffalo, N.Y.; Margus D. Morrison, 52, Buffalo, N.Y.; Andre Mackneil, 53, Auburn, N.Y.; Aaron Salter, 55, Lockport, N.Y.; Geraldine Talley, 62, Buffalo, N.Y.; Celestine Chaney 65, Buffalo, N.Y.; Heyward Patterson, 67, Buffalo, N.Y.; Katherine Massey, 72, Buffalo, N.Y.; Pearl Young, 77, Buffalo, N.Y.; Ruth Whitfield, 86, Buffalo, N.Y.

Like most of us, they led remarkably unremarkable lives, except to those who called them friend and neighbor, dad, or brother, or sister, mom, grandma, grandpa, cousin, aunt or uncle. To their survivors, the victims were the stalwarts of their families and in their communities. They showed their humanity by their various acts of kindness, the survivors recalled.

Their work was not yet finished.

Robert Donald, 75, the owner of Vintage Firearms in Endicott, N.Y., told National Public Radio that the firearm was purchased earlier this year. He said that he had run a background check on the18-year-old suspect, but that the report showed nothing.

The purchase took place mere months after New York state police briefly took Gendron into custody after he made a threat about a shooting, as authorities have described.

Last June, state police investigated the alleged shooter and ordered a psychiatric evaluation. After a day and a half in a hospital, he was released, authorities confirmed. Afterward, he did not remain on law enforcement’s radar.

The timing of the gun purchase, along with Donald’s report of a clean background check, raises questions about why a police-ordered mental health evaluation would not have appeared on the report. It seems to me that a red flag should have been raised.

The alleged perpetrator of Saturday’s mass shooting planned to continue his attack beyond the Tops supermarket had he not been stopped by police, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told ABC News on Monday.

“We have uncovered information that if he escaped the [Tops] supermarket, he had plans to continue his attack,” Gramaglia said. “He had plans to continue driving down Jefferson Avenue to shoot more black people…possibly go to another store [or] location.”

Eleven of the 13 people who were shot — including all 10 who died — are Black.

The alleged shooter was arraigned on a first-degree murder charge hours after he was taken into custody, according to law enforcement officials.

The FBI is investigating the shooting as a hate crime and “an instance of racially motivated violent extremism.” Federal authorities are also looking at potential terrorism charges, according to reports.

In this instance, and in seemingly countless others, the background checks are clearly lacking in providing much useful information. It is obvious that a more proactive approach to background checks is warranted. We should be clamoring to establish more meaningful waiting periods. And the conversation about ownership of weaponry whose sole purpose is to take human lives needs vigilant action.

We owe it to ourselves and others to establish effective gun laws that will keep any armaments out of the hands of criminals and the mentally disturbed.

Let’s not forget those whose lives were taken.

Their sacrifice need not be forgotten. May their memories be for blessings.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Count Basie Beef Pie Cobbler Recipe

Bessie M. Gant was a prominent African American Pittsburgh caterer in her day who cooked for celebrities like Count Basie. In her newspaper column “Bout Good Things to Eat,” she celebrated Basie’s tour and her love for his music with several recipes. She wrote, “when Count Basie stops in your town on his tour, prepare this dish for him. But follow the directions carefully or the Count will count me out of his long list of friends.”
 
2 pounds steak
1 1/2 cups sliced onions
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tsp. salt
½ tsp. pepper
1 Tbs. chopped parsley
1 Tbs. flour
2 1/2 cups water
2 cups diced raw potatoes
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
a good pie crust pastry recipe

Cut meat into 1-inch cubes and sauté in olive oil until browned. Add onions and cook until softened. Stir in seasoning, parsley, flour and mix well. Add water slowly stirring constantly. Add potatoes; cover and simmer for about 30 min. Pour into greased 8-inch casserole. Cover with pie crust pastry rolled 1/4 inch thick. Prick with work to allow steam to escape. Bake at 450 for 20 minutes until golden brown.

Something that I’ve always wondered about is, if the traditional Thanksgiving dinner of “turkey and all the fixins” is so great, why do most of us only have it once a year?

Actually, I only started wondering about it when I began casting about for this morning’s essay a couple of days ago. I do, however, wonder about the “all the fixins” phrase that makes anybody saying it aloud would suggest that Mayberry might be a significant part of their backgrounds.

I’ve always been fond of Thanksgiving—not for its rather inauspicious beginnings and the signaling of the genocide of Native Americans—but for its celebration of food and family.

Sadly, the traditional Thanksgiving food that is generally celebrated tends to be mostly bland. There also tends to be an enormous amount of it, rendering that first celebration of bounty to one of abundance.

The sameness of it all is echoed on end aisles of grocery stores. The shelves are piled high with canisters of Durkee fried onions, cans of green beans and cream of mushroom soup, the three of which are blended together to create a casserole nobody will eat on any other occasion.

There are cans of pumpkin, yams and both cranberry sauce and jelly. Bread stuffing, in a seemingly countless variety of configurations, also get end-aisle display, replacing that space usually reserved for tortillas. Along side are the boxes of chicken stock needed to help moisten the dressing, dressed up with onions and celery.

Not everybody likes the same dressing (stuffing if it’s in the bird) and so having three or four dressings—traditional, cornbread, oyster, sausage—is not uncommon. And since not everybody likes turkey, there is frequently a ham or a brisket. There are also the obligatory mashed potatoes, potatoes au gratin, candied yams (with or without marshmallows), roasted carrots, brussels sprouts, creamed spinach, creamed onions, sauerkraut, biscuits, dinner rolls, tanker-trucks of gravy, and, of course, macaroni-and-cheese.

Don’t even get me started on desserts.

Everything is served at least an hour late. The food grows cold as the never-ending passing of each dish takes place. And then we’re expected to eat all of this at the same time.

What, I ask, would be wrong with chicken ala king, spaghetti and meatballs, or the classic Greek moussaka?

There are no courses in the traditional Thanksgiving feast which, along with some serious alterations to the menu, is something I’d like to suggest.

First of all, let’s replace the pathetic relish tray and ranch-dressing dip with a charcuterie board worthy of oohs and aahs. A variety of sausages, salamis, olives, mustard, and pickled vegetables, served with crusty bread, is sure to please. Add some chutney, nuts, fresh grapes, and strawberries to take it to an epic level.

Next, there should be a fish course. It would seem likely that shellfish would have been served at the original Thanksgiving, as it allegedly took place on the New England coast.

A fish course can be something as simple as Provençal style steamed mussels simmered in white wine, butter and garlic cream broth, or something more elaborate such as sole meunière, a delicate dish of sauteed fish with a sauce of butter, lemon, and parsley. My preference would be oysters Rockefeller—oysters on the half-shell topped with garlic, green herbs, breadcrumbs, and Pernod and then baked. Then again, there’s always Coquilles St-Jacques, a French dish of scallops poached in white wine, placed atop a purée of mushrooms in a scallop shell, covered with a sauce made of the poaching liquid, and gratinéed under a broiler.

The salad course should be something light and refreshing—lettuces with herbs, marinated shallots and a fragrant vinaigrette of oil, lemon juice and mustard. Or, thinly sliced cucumbers with a sprinkling of sugar, salt, pepper and fresh dill, dressed with some white wine vinegar.

While French onion soup is wonderful, it is also quite filling. For the soup course, I’d go with a light and brothy miso.

If you insist on turkey as the main course, I suggest a turkey roulade—a roasted breast stuffed with bread, sausage, and herbs. It’s easy to make and is wonderful with some simple sides such as mashed potatoes and roasted asparagus.

Sticking with fowl, my next preference is roasted duck. My Bohemian grandmother, who was an incredible cook, made a roast duck seasoned with salt, pepper and caraway seed. Beneath its crispy skin was moist meat that she served with boiled potatoes with parsley, bread dumplings, red cabbage, and sauerkraut. Of course, there was a rich gravy made from the drippings. We weren’t big on green sides.

Osso buco, the famed veal dish from Lombardy, Italy, is rich and delicious. It is a slice of the veal shank, braised in vegetables and stock until falling-off-the-bone tender. It is traditionally served over risotto Milanese, a rice dish flavored with saffron. I like to garnish it with horseradish gremolata.

For dessert, I would forgo the fruit and nut pies for a selection of cheese, served with fresh pears and apples.

So there’s my Thanksgiving food fantasy. It is a counter to the open-faced turkey sandwiches I’ve had alone on this holiday, as well as lasagna I’ve enjoyed with a large, loud Italian family whom I loved.

Even those unfortunate enough to not be able to enjoy a cornucopia of blessings on their own tables, there is no shortage of organizations whose members and volunteers donate time and money to ensure everybody can get a meal.

That is perhaps worthy of being thankful for—our neighbors, friends and families willing to sacrifice for the good of others.

In the meantime, I’d better start thawing the turkey.

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Oysters Rockefeller

Created at Antoine’s in New Orleans in the late 1800s, this is a decidedly decadent dish that was my father’s culinary contribution for every celebratory dinner.

1/3 cup unsalted butter, divided
1 small shallot, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
2 cups fresh spinach, chopped
1 Tbs. chopped parsley
2 Tbs. Pernod
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
24 raw oysters, shucked
4 lemon wedges

Melt half of the butter and add the shallot, garlic, parsley, and spinach. Cook briefly over medium heat. Deglaze with the Pernod. Melt the remaining butter and add to the breadcrumbs. Off heat, add the cheese and breadcrumbs to combine. Arrange the oyster shells on a baking dish covered with rock salt.

Divide the breadcrumb mixture over the oysters. Bake for 10-12 minutes at 400 degrees.

To put into perspective the 22-1/2 year sentence of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd is to understand that our nation’s prisons are filled with Black men serving longer sentences for drug possession or for stealing loaves of bread to feed hungry families. This is the essay I published in the aftermath of Floyd’s death.

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

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

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

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

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

I cannot think of another time in my life that I felt such horror and outrage. Like most of us, I hope, I was numbed by the gross disregard for a human life, disgusted by this heinous police action, sickened by the smug look on the face of his accused murderer, Derek Chauvin, as he knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9-1/2 minutes, crushing the life out of a prone man in handcuffs. I screamed at the television screen, pleading for somebody to do something.

I wept.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Signage by Courtney A. Liska

There was a time in America when soccer was considered to be a Commie sport and that’s why the kids on the west side of Chicago in the mid-to-late fifties and early sixties did not play soccer.

Maybe that’s why. I’m not sure. The fact that none of us had ever seen a soccer ball, let alone have access to one, might have had something to do with it. A contributing factor could have been that nobody knew anything about soccer back then. We also didn’t have a lot of large green spaces on which to play the world’s most popular sport.

Communism or the mere threat of it was at the root of most of American fears back then and our parents wanted no part of us playing any of the Commie games, with the possible exception of Cossacks and Thieves, which was sort of a Stalinist version of Monopoly except that it was played outdoors without dice and no possibility of property ownership. Commies, we had learned, were those terrible people who won that part of WWII that we didn’t. They threatened us with nuclear bombs, although our safety from such attacks was assured by the wood-and-steel desks we were instructed to hide under.

While this was what many of us had heard, nobody knew from whom we heard it. I actually don’t remember ever having a discussion about soccer with my parents. I don’t know that they had an opinion about soccer or its politics. I don’t know that they knew what soccer was. Nor do I remember having any discussion about any sport that might have involved politics of any stripe. We played ping-pong knowing only that China seemed to be a faraway country seemingly in desperate need of all the broccoli American children wouldn’t eat. Nobody ever mentioned Mao.

We had a guy in our neighborhood who sold snacks and candy to local stores. He wasn’t French, but he had a French-sounding last name, sported a modest handlebar mustache, wore a beret and lived with his wife in a small house on a corner lot. A lot of us hung out at his house for the free snacks and to watch soccer matches on the 9-inch black-and-white television that sat on a small table in a corner of his finished basement. The matches were broadcast on a UHF channel in Spanish, and featured a one-camera view of the action that seemed a mile or so away from where the actual camera might have been. Bob, the French guy, got excited when somebody maybe scored. It was hard to tell.

None of us were inspired to play soccer after watching these games.

In school, our mandatory recesses and physical education classes involved our playing dodge ball, kickball, climbing ropes, shooting hoops, tumbling and, after a requisite number of calisthenics, wind sprints. If any of us failed to pay proper respect to the prescribed regimen of activities, we ran laps until the hour was up.

Exercise was–in my era–punishment. In many ways, it still is.

The extra-curricular activities in the alleys of my neighborhoods included shooting craps and pitching pennies, both of which were potentially profitable. Stoop ball and stick ball were popular as well. We also played sandlot baseball on vacant lots, which was every boy’s favorite game in those days.

None of this prepared me for the late 1980s when, as a father in suburban Los Angeles, I was forced to become a soccer dad. Geri went along with this and we bought a van which allowed us to participate only as chauffeurs for Courtney’s team. A couple of years later, everybody in our neighborhood had bought a van and the competition to do as little as possible in pee-wee soccer became more intense.

I was late by mere minutes to the organizational meeting of Daniel’s first introduction to soccer. I was hoping to provide snacks, first-aid, shuttle service or condom distribution, but my tardiness was rewarded with the job of assistant coach. Jay, the head coach, was a great guy who golfed more than Trump and loved sports with a passion typically reserved for more intimate activities.

“Uh, Jay,” I said, sheepishly, “I don’t know anything about soccer. Nothing. Nada. Besides, I think it’s a Commie sport.”

“Oh, Jim,” he said, as he slapped a clipboard against my chest and hung a shiny whistle around my neck, “this will be fun.”

And then he gave me that reassuring one-arm shoulder hug and requisite pat on the butt as he renewed his promise that “We’ll have fun.”

Although not quite as amusing as girls T-ball, six-year-old boys soccer provides an entertainment value equaled only by watching small outbreaks of crowd bedlam. Practices were interesting, with each of the team’s members exhibiting unique abilities to focus on certain tasks for upwards of 6-7 seconds. Of course, every kid wanted possession of the ball. To that end, they played something we called “Swarm Ball,” in the which the entire practice squad gathered around the ball and moved it inches at a time in various directions.

In time, the boys started to look like actual soccer players, despite the occasional lapses into daisy picking or somersaulting.

Put 22 six-year-old boys in shiny jerseys on a very large grass field, toss a soccer ball somewhere in the middle and you’ve got the equivalent of a FIFA match: four or five players actively involved in kicking, dribbling, advancing the ball; the rest waiting for something to come their way.

At some point I became something of an avid soccer fan, even to the point of getting daily updates on Facebook about the various goings-on of AC Milan.

In 2006 we traveled to Italy, where every kid we saw had a soccer ball. We noticed that there were stores selling soccer stuff on almost every block in both Rome and Florence. Kids practiced their ball-handling skills up and down the Spanish Steps.

At dinner one evening in a delightful trattoria north of Florence, the telephone rang and great excitement ensued after learning that members of the national team that would represent Italy in the World Cup were on their way in for dinner. A small group soon arrived with what appeared to be girlfriends and hangers-on. We got to meet a couple of them, including Marco Materazzi, the only player to score for Italy and the man who received the headbutt from France’s Zidane. We also met Fabio Grosso, who scored the winning penalty kick.

Perhaps that is when my interest in the Beautiful Game peaked.

I like the balletic qualities of the sport, the athleticism and the robust attacks on the ball. I like that the sport requires patience on the parts of both player and viewer. I also like the bad acting required to draw a foul and how quickly that player recovers when the foul isn’t called.

I picked France to win this year’s World Cup, which is scheduled to start in mere minutes. Vive la France!

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Beef Stew with Dijon & Cognac

¼ pound salt pork, diced
1 large onion, finely diced
3 shallots, chopped
2 to 4 Tbs. butter, as needed
2 pounds beef chuck, in 1-inch cubes
2 Tbs. flour
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ cup Cognac
2 cups beef stock
½ cup Dijon mustard
4 tablespoons Pommery mustard
4 large carrots, peeled and cut into half-moon slices
½ pound mushrooms, stemmed, cleaned and quartered
¼ cup red wine

Place salt pork in a Dutch oven or a large heavy kettle over low heat, and cook until fat is rendered. Remove solid pieces with a slotted spoon, and discard. Add onion and shallots and cook over medium heat until softened but not browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer to a large bowl.
If necessary, add 2 tablespoons butter to the pan to augment fat. Dust beef cubes with flour, and season with salt and pepper. Shake off excess flour, and place half of the meat in the pan. Cook over medium-high heat until well browned, almost crusty, on all sides, then transfer to a bowl with onions. Repeat with remaining beef.
Add Cognac to the empty pan, and cook, stirring, until the bottom is deglazed and the crust comes loose. Add stock, Dijon mustard and 1 tablespoon Pommery mustard. Whisk to blend, then return meat and onion mixture to pan. Lower heat, partially cover pan, and simmer gently until meat is very tender, about 1 1/2 hours.
Add carrots, and continue simmering for 30 minutes, or until slices are tender. As they cook, heat 2 tablespoons butter in medium skillet over medium-high heat, and sauté mushrooms until browned and tender.
Stir mushrooms into stew along with remaining mustard and red wine. Simmer 5 minutes, then taste, and adjust seasoning. Serve with egg noodles or mashed potatoes.