Die, Vampire, Die.

Posted on August 16, 2011 by Michael Procopio

There is a moment in the musical “Title of Show” in which its creators, Jeff and Hunter, find themselves stuck in a quagmire of frustration and creative self doubt. Why should they bother putting on a show at all? What the hell were they thinking?

To the rescue comes their friend Susan, who tells them that vampires are eating up their confidence and creativity by way of a song entitled, appropriately enough, “Die Vampire, Die!“

According to her, “a vampire is any person or thought or feeling that stands between you and your creative self expression, but they can assume many seductive forms”:

 

1.) The Pigmy Vampires– “They’ll swarm around your head like gnats and say things like: ‘Your teeth need whitening’, ‘You went to state school?’, ‘You sound weird’, and ‘Shakespeare, Sondheim, (and) Sedaris did it before you and better than you.’”

2.) The Air Freshener Vampire– Who “doesn’t want you to write about bad language, blood or blow jobs… which will leave your work toothless, gutless, and crotchless, but you’ll be left with two tight paragraphs all kittens that your grandma would be so proud of.”

3.) The Vampire of Despair– “The Mother of All Vampires”. “It’ll wake you up at 4am to say things like: ‘Who do you think you’re kidding?’ ‘You look like a fool.’ ‘No matter how hard you try, you’ll never be good enough.’”

“Why is it that if some dude walked up to me on the subway platform and said these things, I’d think he was a mentally ill asshole, but if the vampire inside my head says it, it’s the voice of reason?”

With apologies to the second type of vampire, this last question is one that has seized me by the balls. It was important for me to hear that I’m not the only one who is plagued by them. The fact that the message was conveyed through the magic of musical theatre made it all the more resonant, because that’s how I learn most of my life lessons.

We all have our demons– ghosts that haunt us, ogres who hide under our beds, vampires that swarm around our heads. I know I’ve got them and, if you’re the least bit introspective, I know you’ve got them, too.

Or, if you happen to be one of those people completely untroubled by the monsters of self-doubt, I’d love to know how you’ve managed it, though I probably won’t believe you.

For me, this has been The Summer of Vampire #3. There is no logical explanation for his presence. No traumatic events have occurred in the past months; my life has been calm, stable, and full of small pleasures. I certainly didn’t invite him in intentionally.

But I must have left a window open somewhere.

My particular vampire sits on the edge of my bed in the morning and tells me there’s little point in getting up. He rides the bus with me to work and says, “I hope you love waiting tables, because that’s what you’re going to be doing until your body gives out. After that, you’re totally screwed”. He peeks over my computer screen to say things like, “You have nothing interesting to say, so why even bother? It’s not like you can ever make a career out of writing.”

After a while, I start to believe the things he says. I stay in bed too long. I feel trapped inside my white shirt and black waiter’s apron. I shoot down my own ideas. I avoid writing.

And then, I remember this little song and understand that I am old enough and (hopefully) sane enough to realize that this vampire is full of shit. (Again, sorry, #2). I play this song repeatedly to remind myself of that.

Clearly, this soul-sucking incubus has overstayed his welcome, if there was ever any welcome to have overstayed in the first place. I’d love to drive a wooden stake through his heart, but he lives inside my head, so the operation would more than likely be fatal for both of us. So I have decided to do the next best thing, which is drive him away. As a fallen Catholic, I no longer have any crucifixes hanging about, so I’m opting for garlic.

Lots and lots of garlic.

It’s about fucking time I got rid of the bastard.

Chicken with 42 Cloves of Garlic

There is a traditional Provençal dish that calls for 40 cloves of garlic. I have upped the number by two for extra protection. And I have peeled each clove, so that I have easier access to them, should the need for them arise, which it will.

The beauty of this dish is threefold. One: the raw sharpness of the garlic mellows into sweet softness as it cooks, making it Two: extremely delicious and easily eaten by those of us without fangs. And Three: it’s extremely simple to prepare.

Wait. Make that fourfold, because the soft, sweet garlic is traditionally mashed over toast, which is my favorite part of the entire endeavor.

With each clove of garlic you pull out if its skin, think of something sharp or unpleasant that has stung you over the years. That rejection letter from Martha Stewart Living? Drop it into your work bowl. Not skinny enough for skinny jeans? Toss that in, too. Continue to do so until all your cloves and cares have been peeled and thrown into the pile. Knowing that their power weakens with each moment of cooking makes the process almost as sweet as the garlic will be when you’ve finished.

Now I realize that the typical vampire is traditionally repelled by raw garlic, but never have I read anything indicating his tolerance for it cooked. So I’m taking my chances. If, for some reason, the vampire comes back to roost, I will immediately plunge myself into a large vat of skordalia for safe measure.

Serves 2 to 4 Vampire Offenders

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cups olive oil
• 4 whole chicken legs– thighs and drumsticks attached (Many recipes call for whole chickens to be used, but I prefer to use dark meet exclusively because it has more flavor than white meat and it’s less expensive. Besides, breast meat tends to dry out faster than a 50 year-old wet nurse…)
• 42 cloves of garlic, peeled and emotionally processed
• 3/4 cups chicken stock
• 1/2 cup dry white wine (or vermouth)
• 6 to 8 branches of fresh thyme, about which I refuse to allude to philosophically in this post
• About 1 tablespoon of fresh lemon zest
• About 1 tablespoon of butter, salted or unsalted– it doesn’t matter which.
• Salt and pepper, to taste.

Procedure:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 375 ºF. Rinse chicken, pat dry with paper towels, liberally apply salt and pepper to them, and let them come to room temperature.

2. In a large skillet or dutch oven, heat oil over a medium fire. Add chicken legs two at a time, browning well on both sides– about 3 minutes per side. Do your best not to tear the skin. Remove chicken to a plate and set aside until needed later.

3. Let the chicken fatty oil cool down a little, then add your garlic cloves and cook them over medium heat again, stirring and shaking the pan all the while to let then dance about inside. The goal here is to give them a little color– something for which vampires seem to have no appreciation, given their well-known views on daylight.

4. When the garlic is sufficiently browned, add the chicken stock and wine. Arrange your chicken over the garlic cloves, toss in the thyme and lemon zest and bring to a simmer. Do not under any circumstances cross the chicken legs– this is no time for false modesty.

5. When a simmer has been achieved, cover your pan with its accompanying lid or, if you have no lid, aluminum foil, making certain you have a tight seal. Pop the pan into your already-hot oven for about 1 1/2 hours.

6. When the chicken is finished cooking, remove the pan from the oven and place it on your stove top. Take the chicken from the pot and place on a warm plate, covered. Remove, too, the garlic cloves and place in a bowl, also covered for warmth’s sake. Discard the thyme sprigs. Let the pot liquid simmer gently over a lowish medium flame until it has reduced by about half. Turn off the heat, add butter and stir in well. Your sauce should have the consistency of something slightly less than brown gravy. Taste and adjust seasonings to your own, particular preferences.

7. To serve, place chicken legs on a platter, scatter the garlic cloves around them and pour over the sauce. Or just grab a chicken leg, shake it violently at your now-weakened, fleeing demons, and eat it over the sink. However you choose to eat it, just remember to serve it with toast. Lots and lots of toast.

For the sweet, soul-saving garlic, I mean.

Posted in Meatness, Savories, Stage, Film, and Television | Tagged , , , , , , | 31 Comments

Danish Modern

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Michael Procopio

PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A SPONSORED POST*

These days, my email inbox is filled with requests from people and companies begging for my advice and endorsement, knowing full well that even a casual mention from me will send their page views and/or sales into the stratosphere.

But I have always graciously declined their offers of money and immoral personal services because I have standards. I cannot be bought for the price of a new immersion blender or a bag of frozen peas– even if they do come with a happy ending.

So when Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark sent me a touching letter on such lovely (and expensive) -looking note paper, I was thrown into a great moral quandary:

My dear friend Michael Procopio of the Anaheim Procopios,

I hope this letter finds you well. I realize it’s been ages since my last letter, but I’ve been very busy as of late what with studying climate change in Greenland and siring heirs. I understand your time is very valuable and that it takes much effort and brain power to come up with delicious, career-reviving celebrity-themed recipes, so I will get straight to the point:

My country needs your help. As you know, we are a well-educated, introspective people; our climate is cold and grey. And we’ve never quite gotten over losing Schleswig-Holstein, so we are, as a nation, in a bit of a funk. 

Can I count on you to bring a little sunshine into our otherwise clouded consciousness? I have done my part by marrying an Australian, but we need something more. It is my wish that you dream up a delicious apéritif using our delightful-but-under-utilized cherry wine, Kijafa**? My mother, The Queen, is very impressed by what you’ve done for the careers of two of her favorite entertainers– Shirley Temple and Blossom Dearie. (She sends her love and asks if you still have that little table she sent you from the summer house. She never heard back from you about it.)

Enclosed is one bottle of Kijafa. Do not hesitate to ask for more, should it be needed. Please say “yes”.

Yours very sincerely,

Frederik André Henrik Christian, Kronprins til Danmark, Greve af Monpezat

How could I say no to such a plea? And I do owe his mother a big thank you for the Danish Modern coffee table, though I’ve never dared to ask what those oily stains are around in the middle. I’m just going to assume it’s herring and leave it at that.

It appears that I can indeed be bought for a bottle of liquor and a flattering letter from a Crown Prince.

And, though I may now be a whore, at least I’m a royal whore.

Denmark in its heyday

The Danish Modern

I struggled with the naming of this drink. “The Melancholy Dane” first came to mind, but it’s not exactly what the Crown Prince had in mind when he asked me to cheer up his country. One look at the cherry sunk at the bottom of the glass inspired “The Drowning Ophelia”, but even that was still a bit grim– almost necrophilic.

And so, I fear the best I can do is call it “The Danish Modern” as a much belated thank you in recognition of The Queen’s kind furniture bequest. It has the sleek, clean lines of Danish mid-century design, only not quite-so-sober.

The people of Denmark, V & S Wine Importers, and I hope you enjoy this delightful summer drink.

The Danish Modern

Serves One deep-thinking, deeper-feeling drinker

Ingredients:

4 parts very cold Italian prosecco. A good one.
1 part Kijafa
1 Amarena cherry for garnish. Or if you happen to have some decent Danish ones or, better still, Finnish cherries laying about, use one of them.

Preparation:

1. In the glass of your choosing, pour the Kijafa. Next, pour in the prosecco. Gently drop a cherry into your glass and watch as it sinks to the bottom, much like that sweet, innocent little girl who went crazy in that play by that man about that prince who killed everybody.

2. Sing a few lines of both “Kong Christian” and “Der er et yndigt land”, lift your glass to Good Queen  Margethe II, and enjoy.

* Please tell me you don’t believe a word of this. I have never once taken money from a corporate sponsor for writing a post. I’m not saying that I cannot be bought, because I can. I’m merely waiting for the right offer.

** It should be noted that Kijafa may very well be enjoyed in Denmark, but it is produced in Finland, which possibly the one bit of Scandinavia over which the Danes have had no physical control in their long history. It should also be noted that Kijafa is also the first name of one Ms. Frink, who is (or was) the long-suffering fiancé of Michael Vick, noted football player and dog lover. Whether or not there is a direct link between Ms. Frink and V & S Wine Importers is, at this time, uncertain.


Posted in Liquids | Tagged , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

John Wayne’s Meatballs

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Michael Procopio

John WayneWhen I was a boy, my father owned a little cabin cruiser named “Cope”. It was the name the boat came with, but it suited him– and me– just fine, since it is both the emphasized syllable of our last name and a verb my family has always worked very hard to master.

He kept the boat moored at a slip in Newport Harbor in exchange for dental work with one of his wealthier patients. Occasionally, he would take the boat out deep sea fishing. In my memory, however, its sole purpose was to take me to see the opal fish that swam around Catalina Island.

On one of our excursions, my sister took me by the hand and lead me out to the bow of The Cope as my father steered the boat through the harbor in the early morning haze, hugging the watery edges near the houses where people with money and boat slips of their own lived. As we approached one such home, my sister noticed an old man leaning his terrace railing. Pointing at him, she exclaimed, “Hey, that’s John Wayne!” It got his attention.

The most famous movie cowboy in history was standing a few yards from me, sipping coffee in an old burgundy-colored robe. I waved to him and smiled. He waved back. It should have been a simple, brief encounter between a movie star and a five year-old boy except for one, important detail:

He wasn’t wearing any briefs. Or boxers, for that matter.

Sizzling BallsAs he waved back at me, he crouched down on his haunches to get closer to my eye level, as adults often do when responding to friendly advances of adorable children. Unfortunately for him, his robe opened slightly. It was a subtle parting– the material that covered his legs spread wider than it should have, revealing the impression of something bulbous dangling between his thighs. He was clearly unaware of what happened. But it happened. I am certain of it.

I saw John Wayne’s balls.

My first glimpse of another man’s genitalia was from an aged, Oscar-winning icon. I didn’t know what to do with the information, so I filed it away in my memory. It had no scarring or fetishizing impact on my life beyond dreaming about taking baths with Michael Landon (as Little Joe from Bonanza). In these dreams, we wore nothing but our cowboy hats and played with my Fisher-Price house boat in the bathtub.

You do the math.

A few years ago, my sister told me she didn’t remember the incident, which lead me to think my mind had played some voyeuristic trick on me. Was it all in my head? Why would a five year-old make something like that up? I was beginning to distrust my own memory. That is, until life handed me a random moment of confirmation.

One evening at work, a couple was seated at one of my tables ten minutes after our official closing time. I hid my annoyance as best I could. They apologized for being late– their plane flight was delayed and they just got engaged that evening. The woman extended her hand and flashed her newly-won diamond ring. Under the circumstances, there was no way in hell I was going to rush them. I coursed their food and filled their glasses. I left them to enjoy their meal in loving peace.

At the end of the meal, however, I asked them where they flew in from. “Orange County,” the man replied. I told him I was from Anaheim, he told me he was from Newport Beach. And then the woman blurted out something random-sounding, but extremely helpful:

“His grandfather was John Wayne!” He seemed a little embarrassed by the outburst, but she seemed very proud to be marrying into the family.

I told him about how my father kept his boat near his grandfather’s house. I even went so far as to mention that my brother is his grandfather’s current neighbor at Pacific View cemetery. But I made absolutely no mention of genitalia.

I did, however, take the opportunity to get some sort of confirmation of my childhood glimpse.

“I remember seeing your grandfather out on his terrace when I was a kid, sipping coffee and wearing a ratty old burgundy robe.”

His eyes widened. “Oh my god. I remember that robe!” was his nostalgic, but memory-verifying response. I knew I didn’t imagine it.

I may forget names, I may forget faces, but I can tell you one thing: I never forget a naked celebrity. Now please remind me to tell you about the time I woke up to find Clint Eastwood naked.

What is it about me and unclothed famous Western cinematic icons?

John Wayne Meatball Sandwich

I’ve kicked this meatball idea around for ages, but was never certain how to approach it. Which genre to apply to a recipe that is to represent the œuvre of a movie legend? His naval films didn’t seem correct– soaking meatballs in brine just felt wrong. Do I salute his turn as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror by making a Mongolian- inspired dish brimming with carcinogens? That would be in very poor taste and no one would eat it. The Quiet Man-wich? That is an idea too intriguing to leave alone, but it isn’t right for this particular posting.

No, a Western-themed meatball sandwich seemed in order. Rio Bravo-meets-The Alamo. Tex-Mex on white bread. It’s what I imagine cowboys would make if they had a lot of time on their hands to bake sandwich rolls and go cilantro-picking. And, though it’s meatballs we’re talking about, I have done my best to steer clear of anything smacking of Spaghetti Westerns. I’ll leave that for my Clint Eastwood post.

Makes 17 meatballs. 16 regular-sized balls and one that is slightly larger, which my doctor says is perfectly normal.

Ingredients:

For the meatballs:

• 1 pound ground beef
• ½ pound ground veal
• ½ pound ground pork
• 2 whole eggs
• 1 cup fresh white bread crumbs soaked in…
• 2 tablespoons of whole milk
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 3 tablespoons finely minced Anaheim chilies
• 1 ½ teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• ½ cup olive oil (for frying)

For the tomato sauce:

• 2 cans of fire-roasted tomatoes (56 oz)
• 1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
• 3 cloves of garlic, finely minced
• 1 tablespoon ground New Mexico chili powder
• 1 teaspoon ground toasted cumin seed
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper
• 2 whole bay leaves
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil

For the sandwich assemblage:

• 8″ sandwich rolls
• Monterey Jack and Cotija cheese (the amount is entirely up to your discretion)
• Cilantro leaves– as many as you like

Preparation:

1. In a food processor, purée tomatoes until a fairly smooth consistency is achieved. Some lumps are to be desired. Set aside.

2.In a large sauté pan (I’m using an 11″ pan, which is able to fit all 17 meatballs), heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onions and gently cook them until softened (about 3 minutes). Add minced garlic and sauté for 1 minute longer. Next, add tomatoes. Bring to a simmer, then add chili powder, cinnamon, cumin, salt, pepper, and bay leaf. Keep the sauce at a gentle simmer, covered.

3. To make the meatballs, place all three ground meats in a large work bowl, creating a well in the center into which you will add the eggs, milk-soaked bread crumbs, diced chilies, salt, and pepper. Mix thoroughly but sparingly with your hopefully-clean hands.

4. To form into uniform balls, it is best to weigh your meat. The specific weight chosen for John Wayne’s meatballs is 69 grams. The reason for this number is obvious and not at all what you are thinking, so you can just stop that right now. John Wayne received an Oscar– his only one– for his 1969 role as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit. It is the same weight I would give to Maggie Smith’s balls for her performance in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, should I ever bother to make them.

5. Cup the balls gently in your hands to form, one at a time.When all are nicely shaped, heat 1/2 cup of olive oil in a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil begins to sizzle, add half of the meat balls to brown– 3 to 4 minutes on each side. When they are as brown as nuts and thoroughly crusty, you may place them into your simmering tomato sauce. Repeat with the other half of the meatballs. AT THIS POINT, ADD ABOUT 3 TABLESPOONS OF HOT COOKING FAT TO THE TOMATO SAUCE. Stir in. Let the meatballs cook in your gently-simmering sauce for at least 30 minutes before serving.

Before you begin to assemble your sandwiches, it is important to grasp the idea that you are essentially making them upside down. Why are you making them upside down? Because that is the best way to make them. Now, if you would please stop interrupting me, we can get onto our lunch much more quickly.

6. Slice your rolls in two. Hollow out the top half of the bread and either discard or eat its innards. Turn on your oven to broil and place rolls under the flames until they are warm and lightly toasted.  Remove from oven.

7. Fill the top half with tomato sauce and a mixture of shredded Monterey Jack and crumbled Cotija cheese. Place this half of bread back under the broiler until cheese is sufficiently melted. Remove from oven.

8. Take two meatballs* and slice them in half. Lay them cut-side-up into the top half of your roll. Cover them with fresh, clean cilantro leaves. Slather the bottom part of your roll with tomato sauce and then place it, sauce-side-down onto your meat-filled top.

9. Invert and enjoy. If you are eating this particular sandwich in private, have fun. However, if you choose to do so in public, make certain to carry with you plenty of napkins. I’d hate to think of the explaining you’ll have to do when someone asks, “What’s that on your chin?”

It is to be avoided.

* I had considered using three meatballs for this recipe, but the third one kept slipping out of the bread. Feel free to stuff your sandwich with as many as you dare.


Posted in Celebrities, Meatness, Rants and Stories | Tagged , , , , | 37 Comments

Gin Blossom Dearie or, What I Learned from Schoolhouse Rock.

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Michael Procopio

Blossom DearieOnce upon a time, when the world was young, there existed an animated educational series which aired on Saturday mornings entitled Schoolhouse Rock. If you are anywhere near my age– or younger, perhaps– you know it well. The songs were catchy, fun and informative. It is the sole reason that many of my generation know the Preamble of the United States Constitution by heart.

There was one song in the series, however, that unnerved me. Ostensibly a memory aide for multiplication, “Figure Eight” is a surreal look into a classroom-bound girl’s daydream of figure skating, which includes: a little boy’s near-death from hypothermia, a muffler-clad octopus, and finding herself wedged between the legs of Uncle Sam. I sensed a darkness to this song, which surfaced like the blinking, periscope-encased eyes that emerge from the cartoon’s broken ice. And the voice that lent itself to the lyrics was unsettlingly childlike. It was so creepy to me that I felt the need to leave the room every time it aired.

Many years later, my college roommate Craig came home with a compact disc he said I absolutely had to listen to– Needlepoint Magic by Blossom Dearie. “It’s the woman who sang the adjectives song from Schoolhouse Rock!” was all he said. I planned to listen politely in order to humor him. I was going to sit there for a few minutes with a fake smile on my face, pretending that I didn’t loathe this woman whose name was as childish as her voice; this woman who had historically sent me running away from my much-beloved television.

And then it took about 30 seconds to realize that I actually loved everything about this woman’s voice. Sure it was childlike, but there was clearly an adult behind it. It was witty and wistful. It was thin– almost fragile-sounding– but it was beautiful.

Scabiosa Blossom

The Scabiosa is not technically a blossom, but its name was irresistible. Please forgive.

Someone once said of Miss Dearie that her voice couldn’t reach the second story of a doll house, but I could care less. Anyone who can take a song as saccharine as Tea for Two and turn it into something seductive earns a permanent place in my heart.

We listened to her all summer long.

On a trip to New York one Autumn several years later, I conned my boyfriend into seeing Miss Dearie at the now-defunct Danny’s Skylight Room– a small, dingy cabaret space tucked behind Danny’s Seafood Palace on W. 46th Street.

As we walked in from the cold, I noticed a tiny blonde woman in a pale yellow twin set standing up from her stool at the bar after polishing off a plate of food. She made her way to the host desk, where my boyfriend immediately handed her his coat and scarf. She hesitated a moment at the gesture, then smiled and asked for my coat as well.

“For God’s sake, that was Blossom Dearie, not the hat check girl,” I said, more than a little mortified.

“How the hell was I supposed to know who she was?” he replied. I couldn’t think of a good answer before she returned from the closet with our ticket.

All I could think of to say to her was “thank you.”

As we sat in the back of the darkened, tiny cabaret, I looked at the other members of the audience as we listened to Blossom play. I was struck by the fact that my boyfriend and I were the only couple in there who could not qualify for AARP. More importantly, I was also struck by the idea that all of these couples seemed to be very much in love. I looked over at my boyfriend, who looked attentive, but bored.

I pushed the stale New York cheesecake I’d ordered around in its strawberry goo with my fork. We weren’t in love. It hit me that we would never grow into an old couple who sat holding hands, listening to cabaret singers. I downed what was left of my second two-drink-minimum gin martini.

I felt trapped both inside and out. If a fire had broken out, we would all have burned in its flames. Much more than could be said for my relationship, I thought, which never caught fire in the first place. I wanted to drown myself in another martini, but thought better of it. Instead, I let myself be taken in and under by the music.

There was no one song that caused it, but it was there in that awful room that I finally understood what it was that made me uncomfortable listening to the “Figure Eight” song as a child.

It was the sense of longing , the trap of reality, and the idea that the only way to satisfy the longing and make the escape in childhood was through one’s own imagination. I couldn’t have articulated it as a boy, and I didn’t dare articulate it then. But I understood.

I know what you’re thinking– that I’m reading too much into a math-based cartoon. I’m sure I am, but I always do. I’ve been both blessed and cursed with an active imagination.

And the final take-away from my little epiphany in the back of Danny’s Seafood Palace? It certainly wasn’t the cheesecake. In fact, it didn’t occur until this week, when I decided to sit down and really think about Miss Dearie’s music and the effect it’s had on me, so hear it is:

Daydreaming is a great, if temporary, escape from an unsatisfactory life. It’s healthy exercise for one’s imagination, but spending too much time in a Walter Mitty-like state only makes one’s reality all the more unsatisfying.

The trick, I suppose, is turning the daydreams into reality.

It may have taken me several decades to figure that out, but I am grateful that I have. And, in a roundabout way, I have Blossom Dearie and the fine people behind Schoolhouse Rock for that. Who would have thought I’d find more to learn from them than multiplication, grammar, and civics?

So I’m saying thanks again, Blossom but, this time, I’m buying you a drink. Make that two. Minimum.

Gin Blossom Dearie

The Gin Blossom Dearie

Cool as a cucumber; as floral and sweet as her name, but with a little bit of a bitter edge. The blossoms of Spring may have faded and dropped their petals but this, dear readers, is my blossom of Summer. I plan on having several, though not all at once. Ideally, I’ll find a refreshing breeze and someone to peel my grapes for me as I lounge and sip; happy to know that The Best Is Yet To Come.

Makes one Gin Blossom Dearie. If you need to make more– and I know you will– please refer to Schoolhouse Rock if your ability to multiply is shaky.

Ingredients:

2 ounces dry gin
1/2 ounce St. Germain liqueur
1/2 ounce simple syrup
3 dashes of orange bitters
2 slices of cucumber
A good squeeze from a lime
Ice for chilling
Superfine sugar for garnishing the rim*

Preparation:

1. In a cocktail shaker, place  two slices of cucumber. Muddle the hell out of it. Next, add ice cubes, simple syrup, St. Germain, gin, bitters, and lime. Stir well, but gently, my dear, gently.

2. Wet the rim of your cocktail glass (I prefer a coupe as seen in the above photo) on a damp paper towel. Place the now-wet rim of the glass upside down onto a plate of superfine sugar, to achieve a thin, even coating.

3. Having made certain that your cocktail glass has been returned to its upright position, strain your Gin Blossom Dearie into its cold, gaping, glassy mouth.

Pour into your own gaping maw. Repeat as often as necessary.

*I am currently taking my Gin Blossom Dearies without the sugar rim. However, it does dress up an otherwise naked cocktail. I follow the mixology dogma of Mame Dennis, who feels that olives take up too much room in such a little glass. I extend that philosophy to nearly all of my cocktails, including this one, so no garnishes.

Posted in Celebrities, Liquids | Tagged , , , , | 38 Comments

The Critic’s Choice

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Michael Procopio

My 2-for1 Muppet avatar, according to friends

One early summer evening in the Miracle Mile district of Los Angeles, some friends and I found ourselves sitting around the living room of the apartment I shared with my roommate Craig. The shades of the curved bank of Streamline Moderne windows were pulled down to keep the heat outside in check, but a bottle of tequila was passed around which seemed to stoke our inner fires, causing us all to examine our lives in the deep, meaningful ways that only those just old enough to legally drink can do.

“If you were a muppet,” our friend Halle asked, ” Which muppet would you be?” She then clarified, for some unspecified, fermented agave-driven reason, that said muppets must be chosen from The Muppet Show and not from Sesame Street or Fraggle Rock which, I assume were considered too juvenile an idea to be entertained by such newly-minted adults as ourselves.

Halle chose Scooter, Kermit the Frog’s gofer-cum-stage manager; Craig went for Fozzie Bear, which was appropriate at the time because he was entirely lovable and told corny jokes. Our friend Doug, I believe, was the serious-looking Sam the Eagle; Craig’s girlfriend Shannon, who was not present, was branded Miss Piggy for no discernible porcine reason. When the time finally came for me to choose my muppet avatar, I came up blank.

I thought I might make a good Kermit because I was accustomed to emceeing events, avoided the attention of pursuing females, and was rather inclined to moody self-reflection. However, before I could announce my decision, Craig did the choosing for me:

“Oh, you’re definitely those two old guys who sit up in the balcony criticizing everything.”

“Totally!” Everyone present agreed. We were all from Southern California, so the choice of affirmation was fitting.

Was this what my friends really thought of me? Did I come across as some prematurely-aged curmudgeon, sitting apart from the action– above it all– hailing down criticism? Apparently so.

There was no use getting defensive about it, because I knew Craig had nailed it– and me. Of course, he didn’t even know their names. None of us did at that moment.

Statler and Waldorf– those were the names.  Two for the price of one. And I knew why they were right for me.

Having many friends in the theatre department, I quickly developed a reputation for giving honest appraisals of the acting ability of anyone who dared to asked. And they all asked because actors are, by necessity, masochists. None of them, it should be noted, are acting today. Perhaps if Jack Black, who was starring in a number of one-act plays on campus had come to me, the world of cinema might have been a safer, funnier place without him. But he didn’t, because I did not know him.

Making enemies in the audience.

I had also shared with them an anecdote about the time I had written a short play in high school about two retired theatre critics who described in graphic detail the ways in which they would like to torture bad playwrights. This very much upset everyone present, including Edward Albee, who with barely concealed anger called me up to explain my work. When he realized I wasn’t mocking him, but rather everyone else in the room, he laughed and chatted me up, much to the continued horror of the audience.

It is one of my most cherished memories, however much it branded me for life. But I didn’t much enjoy seeing myself as the guy who could rip anyone or anything apart, just because he could. Or, more correctly, because he needed to posture himself as superior whenever he felt threatened or inferior.

Oh, the joys of adolescence.

Given the fact that Statler and Waldorf reserved some of their most withering heckles for Fozzie Bear, I am now doing a mental search of my years living with Craig and wonder if I was somehow unduly harsh to one the the kindest people on the face of the planet. If I did, he probably wouldn’t tell me– he’s much too nice a guy.

It’s interesting to see how people change over the years. Craig is just as kind as he was twenty years ago, but his humor is deeper and richer than anything Mr. Bear would ever come up with. And– get this– Halle is Executive Vice President of Children’s Entertainment at The Jim Henson Company. True story.

Scooter, indeed.

As for me, I’d like to think that the man I am today is much more diplomatic and secure than the man-boy I was twenty years ago. Though I’ll never totally rid myself of my Statleresque/Waldorfian nature, I have high hopes of greening myself with a dash of Kermit. Or maybe I could add a whiff of Animal, just to keep things exciting.

Just never, ever refer to me as The Swedish Chef or I will rip you to shreds.

The Statler and Waldorf Salad

This is, of course, essentially a classic Waldorf salad. The major difference is that the sweetness of the apple and grapes is counter-attacked by a delightful dose of bitterness from frisée lettuce. If this doesn’t appeal to you, feel free to criticize. I know I would, if I were you.

I had considered adding rotten tomatoes to be thrown directly at the salad, à la messers. S & W but, since this salad is named for them, it hardly made sense, since they would never dream of doing such a thing to themselves.

Serves two prickly people.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup red seedless grapes, halved as though one were about to feed them to a baby one does not wish to make choke.
• 1 sweet-tart apple, cored and chopped, but not peeled. I’m a Northern Californian, so I like Gravenstein.
• 1/2 cup celery, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup toasted walnuts, sliced in half as if performing a radical, emergency lobotomy.
• 4 tablespoons of mayonnaise. I live west of the Rockies, so I cannot use Hellman’s.
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon honey, if there are still enough bees alive to produce it.
• Frisée lettuce for garnish
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

In a medium sized bowl, whisk mayonnaise, lemon juice, and honey until well incorporated. Add salt and pepper to your own heart’s desire and personal sense of taste. Toss in grapes, apple, celery, and walnuts. Toss well, then heap upon a bed of frisée.

Serve cold, naturally.

Posted in Celebrities, Salad, Stage, Film, and Television | Tagged , , , , , | 27 Comments

Calamity in the Kitchen

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Michael Procopio

Martha Jane Cannary Burke

When I was a little boy, my grandmother would occasionally tell me stories of my rich, Wild West heritage. More correctly, she would make statements about it, since her stories weren’t very involved. They were more like out-of-nowhere utterances. Tall Tale Tourette’s is how I prefer to think of them.

She’d swoop upon our household once or twice a year from Arizona– where she moved “for her health”– to teach us card games, bake a couple of pies, plunder my stuffed animal collection “for the Indian children”, and pepper her speech with grand statements like “You know you’re related to Calamity Jane and Crazy Horse, don’t you?”

Being young and susceptible to sensationalism, I believed everything she told me. I would imagine Calamity Jane and Chief Crazy Horse sitting together outside of Mr. Horse’s teepee, sometimes sipping frosty mugs of  root beer, other times talking about how special I was, and what I would be and look like when I grew up.

Daydreaming about my famous ancestors made me feel less suburban and very special– as if I were in line to inherit the throne of The Great American West. Or something to that effect. It was my fantasy, after all, and I enjoyed every moment of it, however short-lived.

And it was short-lived.

On another visit, my grandmother lead me into the living room, sat me down on the good couch, pressed a coin into my little hand, and said with great, whispered solemnity, “Now Michael, I want you to take real good care of this. It’s two hundred years old. Worth a lot of money.” And then she wandered off into the kitchen.

I examined the coin. It was  a 1976 Bicentennial quarter. She saw the date 1776 embossed beneath George Washington’s beefy neck and discarded the rest of the information. It was at that moment that I understood that was was more likely to be descended from a crazy woman than a Crazy Horse. But she meant well, showered me with attention, and baked an excellent pie.

Doris Day as Martha Jane Cannary Burke

I did my best to overlook her eccentricities, but I never again took any of her stories as gospel. I just took them with a heavy pinch of salt, since I didn’t think a mere grain of it would be enough to counteract my grandmother’s imagination. I left Calamity Jane where I thought she best belonged– out of my family tree and onto the back lot of Warner Bros. Studios, played by Doris Day (which in itself was a total fabrication). Since Doris Day happened to by my aunt and uncle’s next door neighbor at the time (though I never saw her), I figured that was about as close to Miss Calamity as I would ever get. And that was close enough for me.

Thirty-three years later, however, a random encounter got me to rethink my relationship to this gun-toting wildcat.

At the end of an endless-seeming evening at work, I fell into conversation with a couple who were on their way to Montana for a little getaway.

A silver baby cup from Livingston, Montana. Filled with whiskey, surrounded by quarters.

“Montana?” I asked. “I’ve never been there, but I’ve always meant to visit because that’s where my grandfather’s from.” When they asked what town, I told them the name of what I imagined to be a small town they’d never heard of. “Livingston,” I replied.

“Oh my god,” said the woman, “That’s where we’re going! We love Livingston.”

“Seriously?” I thought that my grandfather had fled the town because it was such a shit hole and I said as much to this couple sitting at my table, unable to understand why on earth they would choose such a place to holiday.

“Oh, it was a shit hole,” said the man. “The town was so poor, it couldn’t afford to tear down the old buildings and put up new ones, like all the other places in the area. But now it’s an artist colony and all the old buildings have been refurbished. It’s a really special place.”

To which the woman added, “And Calamity Jane lived there.”

“Well I’ll be a… ” I realized I was too far-removed from pioneer life to come up with an appropriate homey simile, so I stopped myself. Instead,  I thanked them for the information, wished them well, and called them a cab. I ran home and Googled “Livingston, Montana” and “Calamity Jane”. It turns out she did live in Livingston periodically. My great-grandfather ran the general store, which was the only game in town in terms of dry goods purchases at the time. They had to have met,  if only in passing.

So there was a grain of truth to my grandmother’s tall tale–however tiny.

I thought about that same great-grandfather who ran the general store. He was half Lakota, but could pass for white with his Irish freckles. Could a really be descended from the man who lead the raid which killed General Custer? Maybe, maybe not. There is no existing proof to back up the story, but I’ll tell you one thing:

I’ll bet you anything that I come from people who may have met him, too. And that’s good enough for me.

It’s unimportant that Calamity Jane did not (or that Crazy Horse may or may not have) contributed to my gene pool. What matters to me is that my grandmother’s stories didn’t just come from the movies. Or Outer Space. There was an ounce of truth to them, however far she may have stretched it to suit her own needs.

And that, I think, is how all tall tales evolve–around fact. An alcoholic, gun-toting, Wild Bill Hickock-pestering army scout walks into a general store looking for a sack of flour and–presto!–eighty years later, she’s family.

The truth is relative. Or not, as the case may be.

I’d like to wax philosophical about that idea but, right now, I’d rather make something to eat. Something that Calamity Jane (née Martha Jane Canary) might have made cooking breakfast at the inn she kept just outside of Livingston, Montana. Something like flapjacks. Or, in this case:

Calamity Flapjanes

Martha Jane Cannary was no stranger to tall tales. She spent a good deal of her existence distancing herself from that which was painful and exaggerating the things of which she was most proud. She worked as laundress, a cook, and a prostitute. She scouted for the U.S. Army, she saved the lives of stagecoach passengers from Indian attacks, and she nursed smallpox victims backed to health.

And, of course, she was no stranger to nursing a bottle of whiskey.

She (falsely) claimed to have served under General George A. Custer (that would have been an uncomfortable connection, had I been truly related to both her and Chief Crazy Horse). Nor did she ever marry Wild Bill Hickock like she said she did. She is, however, buried next to him. Having said that Calamity Jane was of no use to him alive, Hickock’s friends thought it would be amusing to see if he might change his opinion of her in the Sweet Hereafter.

In honor of my non-relative, I’ve made something as straight-shooting, hardy, and boozy as a Wild West woman in leather pants: buckwheat pancakes liberally sprinkled with rye whiskey and doused with salty, sweet syrup. It’s sure to be a real crowd pleaser, provided the crowd is populated by cattle ranchers, army scouts, and prostitutes.

And that’s no lie. Or not much of one, at any rate.

Flap Janes

(Adapted with permission from Elise Bauer’s Buckwheat Pancake recipe from Simply Recipes. Bless you.)

Serves 2 to 3 Tall Tale Tellers, or 4 to 5 Little White Liars

Ingredients:

  • A small amount Vegetable oil for coating the pan
  • 3/4 cup (100g) buckwheat flour
  • 3/4 cup (100g) all-purpose flour
  • 3 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 egg
  • 2 cups (475 ml) buttermilk
  • A liberal sprinkling of whiskey (rye, bourbon, or illegally distilled in your yard)
  • 3/4 cups maple syrup
  • 2 good pinches of salt

Preparation:

1. Place an old, trusty griddle or cast iron skillet over your wood stove that has been fired with 4 3-pound pieces of hickory wood. Should you lack this most basic amenity, warm it over medium heat from your gas or electric burner. If you want to be extra sissified, hitch up your petticoats and break out your non-stick skillet. Whichever pan you use, it should be ready for the batter as soon as it is mixed.

2. Whisk together the dry ingredient–both flours, sugar, salt, baking soda–in a bowl large enough to double as a protective helmet, should an Indian attack occur. Pour the melted butter over the dry ingredients that you may or may not have purchased from a striking gentleman with freckles and prominent cheek bones from that delightful little general store in Livingston, Montana and start stirring. Beat the egg with a fork and stir it into half of the buttermilk.

3. Next add the buttermilk/egg mixture to the dry ingredients, then carefully add the rest of the buttermilk to get the right consistency for your batter. (Hint: it should not be so quick to pour as the brown fox who jumped over the lazy dog, but neither should it be a slow as molasses in January.)

DO NOT OVERMIX. A few lumps are just dandy, thank you.

4. Put a small amount (about half a teaspoon) of vegetable oil on the pan, using a paper towel to spread the oil into an even coating. Ladle 1/4 cup of batter into your pan, reduce heat to medium-low, and let the pancake cook for 2-3 minutes. When air bubbles start to rise to the surface at the center of your pancake, flip it. Cook for 1-2 minutes on the other side, or until nicely browned like a cowboy’s neck. Only not as leathery.

5. Keep your flap janes warm on a rack in the oven set to very low as you are making them. Spread more oil as needed in the pan as you go. Cook until all the batter has been used or until you are so bored with the process that you decide to stop.

6. To serve, add two good pinches of salt to your maple syrup. Taste it. Is it salty-sweet? If not, add more salt, since that’s what we’re aiming for here. Set aside. To plate, stack 4 to 5 pancakes, sprinkling a small amount of whiskey as you go. You know, the thumb-over-the-bottle-mouth shaking method. Gentle-like. You don’t want your breakfast swimming in booze. Think: functional alcoholic. Eat with generous pats of butter and salty maple syrup.

Posted in Breakfast Time, Celebrities | Tagged , , , , , , , | 37 Comments

Touchscreen Dining: Out of Touch?

Posted on April 21, 2011 by Michael Procopio

Have you seen this contraption? It’s a 7 inch tall interactive, touchscreen restaurant menu tablet from E La Carte.

And it might very well be part of your dining future.

My feelings toward it are mixed, at best.

I am historically resistant to technological change. I quietly mourned the compact disc’s triumph over the long playing record; I didn’t see the necessity of a laptop computer when my desktop one worked perfectly fine; I was forcibly enrolled in Twitter by a friend; and the only reason I purchased a cell phone was because I would not be able to find my boyfriend in a crowd of 20,000 people 500 miles from home without one.

And yet I have come to embrace all of these technologies. In fact, I am physically embracing my computer as I type this on top of my lap. With my phone in my pocket. Playing downloaded music. The Twitter feed, however, is turned off. I have my limits.

I have the feeling that ordering from a touchscreen menu is one of those limits.

It isn’t as though I haven’t done it before. Anyone who has taken a Virgin Airlines flight has seen these screens. We pull up the food menu, place our index fingers to the screen to make our choices, then swipe our credit cards along the bottom of the tablet. Shortly thereafter, a flight attendant appears with what we have ordered.  It isn’t exactly magic, but it is certainly efficient.

However,  I do to miss being asked the question “Chicken or fish?” I may get my cold falafel sandwich quickly, but I never feel very good about it. There’s a subtle but important different between being handed a tray of food and being served it.

The people at E La Carte state that their menu tablet isn’t meant to replace those who serve. Rather, it is “meant to make the hospitality experience more convenient, social, and fun for the guests and more profitable for the restaurant operator.”

With the tablet, guests can “order, pay, play games, and give feedback straight from their seats.”

According to the product’s makers, there are three main benefits for the restaurant:

1. Boost average check size by up to 10% through up-selling, pictures, and impulse orders.

2. Improving customer retention with easy-to-use loyalty and survey interactions.

3. Improve service by quick payment, retaining customer order history, and games at the table.

How on earth can a computer up-sell better than a human being? I think I need this explained to me.

When my friend Roy alerted me to this new piece of technology, my first reaction as both a career server at a fine dining establishment and someone resistant to new technology was to view the E La Carte tablet as vilely impersonal and a threat to my profession. Over the last 24 hours, however, I have calmed myself as I weigh what I imagine the cons– and the pros– this particular piece of equipment.

There are three important components a good restaurant must supply in order to provide its guests with a great dining experience (just pick up a Zagat guide and look at their rating criteria if you don’t believe me:

1. Great food

2. Congenial décor

3. Excellent service

Though the menu tablet aims to provide photos of all the menu items, I am wondering if its creators have taken into account the fact that someone is going to have to style, photograph, photo edit, and upload a photo every time a new dish is created.

Substitutions? E La Carte states that guests can make alterations to their chosen menu item through this product. Simple enough when a guest might prefer mashed potatoes to french fries with their Porterhouse, but what about more complex– or outrageous– requests? Is it time then for a server to appear at the table with the bad news?

Computer says no.

As for décor, I get irritated when the people I eat with leave their smart phones on the table, so I’m not going to want a 7 inch piece of electronics shining at me as I dine. A candle on the table and the smiles of my companions are all the glow I need, thank you very much.

And what about the human component of the dining experience that this gadget swears it is not intended to replace? As a server, one of the most important parts of my job is to form a personal connection with my guest. Argue all you like, but there is a certain amount of server/guest bonding that happens within the first few moments of interaction. When I say hello and ask someone if they’d like a drink or if they just want to settle in a moment and catch their breath, I’m not just offering to go fetch them something– I’m giving them the sense that they are going to be well taken care of.

The nuances of human vs. computer interaction are too many to get into in this post.

I understand that both restaurant owners and restaurant guests can benefit from such a menu in cases where one is looking merely to satisfy one’s hunger quickly and efficiently, like at a corporate chain restaurant such as Applebee’s (which is rumored to be adopting the tablets). Such venues already have standardized menu items that are photographically illustrated.

Touchscreen menus might also be a terrific boon for people who, for varying reasons, are unable to communicate well with spoken words. I’ve seen what an iPad can do for kids with autism. Could such interactive menus also help them gain confidence in ordering dinner? It’s an idea that intrigues me.

They may also be helpful to those unfamiliar with a particular cuisine and/or language (ever been to a Vietnamese restaurant and felt entirely helpless?). The idea of a computer with a built in glossary of terms and ingredients (or a translator) is an intriguing one.

And just think about how it could transform a wine list. 86′ed items could be immediately removed from the menu. Can’t remember what grapes are in that Grüner Veltliner (hint: it’s Grüner Veltliner, but you would be spared the humiliation of asking such a question of you could simply click over to a glossary or related link)? Of course, the draw back is that one could get so lost in so much information, that one might never be able to choose. Or put the damned menu down.

I think a tool such as the E La Carta has some excellent possibilities, but not in the way it’s being marketed. In addition to the ideas previously mentioned, I think that such a product used as a menu would cut down on the need for paper menus that must be thrown away or otherwise recycled every time they are either dirtied or in need of updating.

But then you should give your order to a human being and remove the electronic device from the dinner table.  Talk to him. Ask for her opinion. Just interact. Technology can be a wonderful thing, but not at the expense of interpersonal exchange. It has its time and its place.

The other day I was riding to work on the bus. When I had taken my seat,  I reflexively pulled out my iPhone to play a game of cribbage or stare at Facebook updates or do something– anything– to shut out my surroundings. Then something wonderful happened:

My battery died.

I was alarmed by how helpless I felt and my immediate thought was “Now what am I supposed to do?” And then I felt like a fool. I looked at my fellow passengers on the bus. Every person on it my age or younger was using their smart phone. None of them were smiling. It was just the old Chinese ladies at the front who were chatting and laughing away. I had no idea what they were saying, but they seemed to be doing perfectly fine without a touchscreen at arm’s length.

It struck me then that this is precisely what we’re all doing when we can’t manage to pull our eyes away from our gadgets– we are keeping people at arm’s length. And that personal computers aren’t, well, personable.

We spend so much of our time in front of computers– I know I do. Working as a waiter is a marvelous antidote to technology because every night I am forced to talk to people I’ve never met before. I ask them questions like “How are you?” and “Where are you from?” Granted, I get paid to do so, but it’s something I actually look forward to. It pulls me out of myself and, for a few hours every evening, my focus is on the welfare of other people.

And I look for the same thing when I am the one who is dining. I want to feel welcomed as a guest, not merely a customer. However much of a fantasy that might be at times, I want to believe it. I want to thank the person who placed that martini in front of me. I want to talk to a human being, not press buttons (unless they happen to the the emotional buttons of my dining partner). I want to feel as though I am being taken care of.

I just don’t happen to think that’s possible with a computer.

What are your thoughts? Like the idea? Hate it? If you’re one of those people who only comment because you can’t stand waiters, you will be cheerfully ignored. Or, if you’re extra offensive, deleted.

Posted in Rants and Stories | Tagged , , , , , , , | 29 Comments

On Toast

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Michael Procopio

Some mornings, when I am awakened by the sound of my alarm clock or my grumbling stomach, I do what millions of others do–  I crawl out of bed, head for the kitchen, and make toast.

I was going to say that I make it  without thinking, but that would be untrue, since I do not own any appliance specifically designed to do the thinking for me in terms of heating and browning bread. I do without these appliances because they are a luxury I cannot afford in terms of counter space.

So I make my toast in the oven. There is a certain amount of thought that must go into the process, but nothing so mentally taxing it would send me back to bed.

I crank my oven up to broil and place two pieces of bread on the middle rack to let them dry out a bit as I wait for my tea kettle to boil. Just before the kettle has a chance to express itself audibly, I remove the bread slices from the oven and place them under the broiler to brown. It is a fairly straightforward process on most days. Unless I am either too tired or too distracted to be properly watchful, in which case not even dental records could prove that the charred remains at the bottom of my broiler ever bore the name bread.

If my toasting mission has been a successful one, I will pour my tea and slather my freshly-carbonized breakfast with whatever is most handy. I eat it absentmindedly as I sit with my tea and read the news.

If ever a thought of mine was given to toast beyond its making, it has been merely to wonder what should be placed upon it: butter, cheese, peanut butter, bacon, tomatoes. I have always regarded my toast as a platform upon which to place other, more interesting things.

And, though I sometimes take my toast with jam, I almost always take it for granted. That is, until a friend of mine caused me to look at the stuff in a different light.

“You know, I think you should write about toast,” he said. His choice of venue was fitting, since these words were uttered near the bread station of our restaurant, which is conveniently located in front of a giant heat source– a large fireplace that was currently blazing and sending its heat out toward the stacks of fresh loaves. Before I could wonder aloud if toast could ever be made interesting, he added:

“It was the first food Gabrielle Giffords asked for and it’s sometimes the only thing I have an appetite for myself.” Since this statement came from a man who has been battling brain cancer with surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy for the past seven months, I took notice.

And now, for the first time in my life, I am giving proper thought to toast.

I’ve never had to fight off death, but I have often wondered if I would have the emotional and spiritual strength to beat back the brutal savaging done to me by a bullet or a mass of cancer cells or any other life-threatening agent. I know that I am fortunate enough to have the all support necessary should I need it– a good doctor, my family, my friends– but none of these externals would be of any real avail unless I had within me the powerful and indomitable urge to live. Battling death is not for the weak-willed.

I’m sure I have it within me, but it has never needed to come out and show itself, like it has for Giffords and my friend Doug. Both of them have stared death in the face. Both of them have made a slow-but-steady crawl back to life, though their bodies and appetites have been weakened. And both of them have expressed their recovering hunger by asking for toast.

It makes perfect sense that they should ask for such a thing. Toast is basic, comforting, and easily digestible– something which can be quickly made with ingredients readily at hand. It is bland, yet appealing to nearly everyone.  To those of us struggling to regain our health, toast presents itself to us as a sort of gustatory life raft we can hold onto until there is enough strength to pull ourselves out of the deep.

In another sense, the asking for toast is a symbolic act, however unintentional. Freshly-baked bread has a relatively short shelf life– it hardens and stales and is generally rendered unfit for eating unless it is ground up into crumbs and re-purposed or thrown to hungry birds. Yet if that same bread is sliced up and heated, it is given a new lease on life, but with a deeper, richer texture and flavor than it had before it was held to the fire.

Before it became toast.

I went for a walk with Doug shortly after his brain surgery. As we strolled around the park, he told me that having a brain tumor was–oddly– one of the best things that ever happened to him because it caused him to concentrate on what was most important to him– spending time with his family.  He added that every day he is given on this earth is a gift not to be wasted.

It was a hard-earned lesson I knew I would do very well to heed. Thinking about toast, of all things, has reminded me of that.

So thank you for that reminder, Doug. You’ve been sliced up, held to the fire and come back to life. Every time I put bread in the oven in the morning, I will think of you and do my best not to squander the new day I’ve been given.

And I will certainly never take my toast for granted again.

Or you, for that matter.

Posted in Breakfast Time | Tagged , , | 73 Comments

Manicotti, Dad-style.

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Michael Procopio

Boardwalk, Atlantic City. 1934-ish

See this young fellow? It happens to be his eightieth birthday today.

And before you crack wise about his Shirley Temple ringlets, I can assure you this is a male child.

I know because he’s my father.

Just look at him! He doesn’t look a day over three. And at the present date, he doesn’t resemble anything approaching what eighty typically looks like. For some reason, he’s never looked his age.

How does he do it?

I can tell you one thing: it certainly didn’t come about from eating his vegetables. Dad’s a meat man, through and through. It makes perfect sense, really, because he was born above his grandfather’s butcher shop in South Philadelphia. He’s got meat in his blood.

Dad, mom, and Uncle Walt, Griffith Park. 1953-ish

He’s also got some incredible genes, which delights me to no end because a) I’m his son and b) I look a hell of a lot like him.

Except I’m taller.

When I was growing up, one of the few constants in my life was this: if dad was cooking dinner, we were going to be eating beef. A typical meal cooked by this man consisted of: grilled steaks served with steak sauce, steak hollandaise, and a lovely little steak salad served on the side.

If we dined out, we’d head to The Sizzler or The Black Angus.

I think you get the picture.

If I went to my father’s house and there was not a) Glenn Miller or Frank Sinatra on the stereo, b) a scotch in his hand, c) a deck of cards primed for gin rummy or cribbage, and d) a steak on the grill, I might have slid into a quiet panic, certain that he had been inexpertly replicated and begun a search for my real dad among my stepmother’s incredibly well-arranged closets.

There was almost as much tradition and ritual to a dinner made by my father as there was a holiday feast. My father was a grill man. I never thought of him as anything else, cooking-wise.

And then one day, he blew my mind.

It was a holiday dinner. My great aunts and grandmother, who traditionally did all the cooking, were either getting too old to whip up multi-course feasts, or they had passed on. My father stepped in to make the pasta dish which, in my opinion, had always been the main event. There were perhaps two or three times a year I got to eat my grandmother’s translucent ricotta-stuffed ravioli. I was felt deprived and saddened that I might never eat them again, ashamed that they were something I had always taken for granted.

“They’re letting dad make the ravioli?” I said to my brother. A man making pasta? In our family? The old broads never let the men hang around the kitchen, let alone cook it it.

“What’s he going to do, grill them?” I thought.

When I inquired after the health of the ravioli, I was informed by the gentleman who sired me that we weren’t having ravioli this time, but manicotti. The word “heretic” popped into my head, but I kept it to myself.

Manicotti. Of course he made manicotti. Tell a man to make a pasta dish and you end up with a cheese-filled phallic symbol. I think that may very well be the reason they aren’t referred to as ladycotti.

When he added that he made crepes instead of using dried manicotti tubes, I would have hit the floor if I hadn’t been concerned for the welfare of the drink I was holding and in great need of.

“Crepes, huh?” I said.

“Yeah, I thought it would be nicer to have something not quite so heavy,” he replied. Or something to that effect.

When in the history of the universe had this steak-and-potatoes man ever before uttered such a thing? I was about to start searching the closets for my real father, but I realized that such a search would be futile, since we were at some one else’s house.

As we sat down to dinner and I looked around the table at what was left of my family– most of the older generation had passed on by then– I felt ashamed of myself for my selfishness and shocked at how, as the token liberal at the table, I was the one so bloody resistant to change, so inwardly bent out of shape by a simple, practical streamlining of the menu. My father had volunteered to make the pasta dish in order to help, to make things easier on his elders. I felt foolish.

And then I tucked into a plateful of his manicotti. They may not have been my grandmother’s ravioli, but they were every bit as delicious– and delicate– as something she would have made. It was the same filling, the same sauce. The ingredients for the crepes were essentially the same ingredients as her pasta dough, but with different proportions, a different approach, a different shape.

The way I now think of it is very much how I think of familial genetics. My grandmother had certain DNA to work with. She mingled it with my grandfathers and out came my father– same ingredients, similar essence, but completely his own person. It made perfect sense that my father should maintain the essence of his mother’s pasta dish and yet make it something completely his own. To try to recreate her ravioli precisely would be a compliment to her, but it would be akin to seeing my father dress up in her clothes. An interesting idea, certainly, but the result would be utterly unconvincing– he’s got hairy legs.

No, he had the right idea. Manicotti made his way with her ingredients.

Since it’s his day today, I wanted to make what I now consider his signature dish– the one that most took me by surprise, the one that isn’t steak (and do not get me wrong– I love it when he cooks steak).

And, of course, when I make my father’s manicotti, it comes out not exactly as his, which is how it should be. Again, we’ve got the same ingredients to work with, but different outcome. I may look a hell of a lot like him, we both love Sinatra and Miller, we drink scotch together, we both play a mean game of cards, but we are very distinct people.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So Happy Boit-day, Pop. I hope it’s a great one.

Love,

Michael

Crepe Manicotti

First off, I would just like to announce to the world that I find it an incredible challenge to make delicate, baked manicotti look attractive. I don’t (much) care, either, because they are delicious.

I should also like to state that getting the recipe without my father’s knowledge proved no small task since he and my stepmother share the same email address and always seem to be together whenever I telephone. My stepmother hurriedly jotted down the recipe and wisely told me to destroy all evidence of it.

Use whatever you like to sauce the manicotti, since you’ve more than likely got your own preferred one. I used my pasta alla gin sauce. You could probably pour Elmer’s glue over them and they’d still be delightful.

Makes about 12 manicotti.

Ingredients:

For the crepes:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup water
2 whole eggs
A pinch of salt

For the filling:

1 1/2 pound of ricotta cheese
2 whole eggs
2 to 3 tablespoons of finely chopped parsley (it’s entirely up to you)
1 cup of freshly grated pecorino romano cheese. Use more or less, I just happen to like all things cheesy, if you hadn’t gathered that by now.
A pinch or two of freshly grated nutmeg (This is not part of my father’s recipe, it is just something I find wholly enjoyable)

Preparation:

1. Place ricotta in a fine mesh sieve or cheese cloth to remove some of the excess water, then put into a medium sized work bowl, add the rest of the filling ingredients and stir well until everything is incorporated nicely and there are no streaks of egg yolk. You’ll know when it’s ready. Set aside.

2. To make the crepe batter, whisk eggs until they are well combined, add water and whisk until further combined, then add flour and salt until everything is even more combined and there are no lumps. The batter should be loose and pourable.

3. To form the crepes, pour 2 ounces of batter into a small nonstick pan, rolling the batter over the bottom surface to coat it thinly and evenly, and place over medium heat. Let the crepe cook until the edges just barely lift themselves from the pan (about 1 minute), then flip it just as you would a pancake, since that is essentially what you are dealing with. Cook for another minute on this flip side and remove crepe to an awaiting plate. I find it best to let the pan cool a bit before proceeding on to the next one. Continue this process until you have run out of batter.

4. Prepare your baking dish by covering the bottom of said dish with sauce. To fill the manicotti, pipe filling into the center of the crepes, then roll gently as if making, say,  taquitos. Gingerly place your manicotti seam side down into the baking dish as you make them. And do position them as close together as possible. When your dish is full, cover the manicotti with more sauce, sprinkle on scads of grated cheese, then pop into the oven at 350º for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the dish is bubbling and the cheese on top is melted. If the dish is bubbling but the cheese is not melted to your liking, pop it under the broiler until you are well pleased with the results. Remove from oven, let stand a few minutes to cool slightly, then serve up to your guests or, in this particular case, virtually to your father, since you can’t physically see him on his 80th birthday.

Posted in Holidays, Savories | Tagged , , | 23 Comments

(Irene Irene) Cara Cara Granita

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Michael Procopio

It’s Oscar time again, in case you hadn’t noticed.

Which is pretty much what I wound up doing this year. Not noticing, I mean. I somehow managed to see only one Oscar-nominated movie over the past twelve months and I am not about to make a heaping pile of grits to celebrate it, no matter how much I enjoyed the film.

So instead of discussing the current cast of award hopefuls, I thought I might celebrate those marvelous singers of Academy Award-winning singers of yesteryear.

I mean, why not?

As I ran down the list of songs, I realized that there were a handful of artists who introduced not one, but two Oscar-winning tunes to the world: Bob Hope, Judy Garland, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, disaster film songstress Maureen McGovern, Barbra Streisand, Bing Crosby (who sang a record four), Fred Astaire (if you count his whistling to The Continental), and…

Irene Cara. Remember her name?

I thought long and hard about which singer to single out and pay tribute to. Judy Garland? Too obvious. And the only thing I could think of doing for her was making a meal comprised entirely of pills, which is beyond my scope as a home cook. Bing Crosby? I suppose I could have taken some young, tender chicken, beaten it mercilessly, and marinated it in Minute Maid® orange juice, but I didn’t have the stomach for it. Barbara Streisand? I worried that whatever I chose to make would spring to life from the counter top and try to wrest from me total creative control.

I almost gave up.

Then I remembered the Cara Cara orange and how every time my chef would utter its name, I would quietly insert two “Irenes” into his sentence, as in “I’d like to have the Irene Irene Cara Cara orange salad, please.” My chef seems to love this fruit so much, he says things like, “It’s so nice, they named it twice.”

Twice.

And, since Miss Cara sang an Oscar-winning song not once but twice, I just had to go with it.

When I realized that she was one of the original cast members of the best children’s show of my generation, The Electric Company*, there was nothing else I could do but pay this woman tribute.

So I set about to make an Irene Irene Cara Cara sorbet.

Referencing a recipe for blood orange sorbet by the rather solid David Lebovitz (Solid as in his recipes. I have never once asked him to flex for me.), I did everything with precision. I measured my juice in milliliters and weighed my sugar in grams, I made a perfect little syrup, I added just the right hint of alcohol to make it scoopable.

I did everything right except allow my ancient ice cream maker’s freezing element to get cold enough. When I set my sorbet to churn, it went round and round but, instead of firming up into a silky sorbet, all it managed to do was make itself dizzy. I would have thought three days in a cranked up freezer would have done the trick, but I think it decided do kill itself after bearing witness to my last ice cream experiment, which will more than likely never see the light of day on these pages. I was filled with the same emotion that was conveniently printed on label of the Campari whose content I had so tenderly splashed into my sorbet base:

What a feeling. I was also undeniably frustrated but, search as I might, that word was nowhere to be found on any of my ingredient packaging.

I had half a mind to just throw everything away and pour myself a drink, but I thought better of it. There was to be no drinking in my immediate future because my creditors are counting upon my showing up to work sober.

And I couldn’t let Miss Cara down. Her comeback is entirely dependent upon the success of this dessert.

So I placed my motion sick sorbet base into my refrigerator, and returned to it in the morning. I have to admit that I was rather pleased by the outcome.

Irene Irene Cara Cara Orange Granita

I don’t care how much you groan at the name because it’s a dessert as refreshing as Miss Cara’s voice and as perky as those breasts of hers she so reluctantly showed to that guy with the video camera in the movie Fame.

As I have said before, this recipe is based upon the blood orange sorbet recipe of David Lebovitz, who has a much better ice cream maker than I do, but is nowhere near as perky as Miss Cara’s Cara Caras.

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 2 cups (500 ml) freshly squeezed Cara Cara orange juice
• 1/4 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons, plus 3 tablespoons (for soaking citrus segments) of Campari
• About 1/2 cup of Cara Cara orange flesh, hacked into little pieces

Preparation:

1. Put your sugar into a small, non-reactive saucepan. When one says “non-reactive” when referring to sauce pans, one means a pan that is made of a material that does not react adversely to acid, such as stainless steel, glass, or ceramics. If you think your saucepan is non-reactive simply because it shows no emotion when you fill it with ingredients and put it over high heat, you are either hopeless in the kitchen or you are an entirely fascinating, innocent creature and I would like to get to know you better.

Add just enough juice to saturate you sugar, then heat–stirring frequently– until the sugar is completely dissolved and you have a lovely little syrup.

2. Stir this syrup into your Cara Cara orange juice. Add three tablespoons of Campari and stir well. Pour the mixture into a shallow dish and set in your freezer or the freezer of a good friend or neighbor who will allow you frequent access to his or her kitchen. Let stand in said freezer for about 45 minutes.

Toss your chunks of orange with the remaining Campari and place in your refrigerator to chill and marinate, covered.

3. When the juice mixture begins to for ice crystals, break them up with a fork, then leave it be for another 20 minutes. Fork the juice again. Repeat until all the juice is frozen. The texture should be grain, which is why the Italians call it granita.This should take roughly 2.5 to 3 hours, depending upon your freezer.

If you are lazy, you can simply freeze the juice into one, solid block and shave it up, but then it wouldn’t be granita, it would be a sno-cone.

And everyone would know how lazy you were.

Or, if you’re really, really lazy, don’t bother to freeze anything at all, but simply pour the mixture over ice (which someone would have to have pre-frozen), but then it would be called a cocktail.

4. When you feel your granita is ready for its big night, stir in the Campari-soaked orange pieces, spoon into chilled glasses, and serve immediately.

And, as you and your guests are eating it and you are receiving their accolades, do your best to come up with ideas for a Maureen McGovern-inspired dessert. Clue: it should be served either flaming or upside down.

Do get back to me. And soon.

*That Electric Company was some sort of genius Oscar-winner mill. Rita Moreno, Morgan Freeman, Irene Cara. There is something to be said for groovy literacy programming.

Posted in Celebrities, Stage, Film, and Television, Sweets and the Like | Tagged , , , , , | 23 Comments