elizabethkirby's Open Salon Blog

A Letter to Mom

Thu, 9 May 2013 17:05:20 -0400

Dear Mom,

I miss you and your roadside potatoes.

Though you slipped the surly bonds of suburbia 28 years ago, your frothy memory remains front and center. If you were here, you’d tell me to worry about other things, like my messy closets, but I can’t. You were too impossible, too outrageous to ignore.

Who else could polish silver, dance the Charleston and whistle Knuckles O’Toole’s version of the “Maple Leaf Rag” all at the same time?

And while you described Mother’s Day as a stupid damned day for selling sappy cards with dreadful cabbage roses and a bunch of annoying glitter, I know you loved it. Like when I made Chinese pot stickers in your lead frying pan circa Charlemagne and picked every stinkin’ sticker out.

Or when I blended margaritas and froze your brain right up through your perfectly coiffed French twist. Or when I bought that soft pink yummy practical robe from I. Magnin, which you returned for a Judith Leiber purse. Or when I made artichoke soup and you emptied your signature bottle of sherry to zip it up, baby.

So here’s my zippy card for you wherever you are or whomever you are harassing. No roses. No glitter. No sappiness. Not written by hand on fine bond or even that cheap crappy stuff, as you called it.

First, a few questions. Okay, Mom, if you made it to heaven, did you touch the face of God? If so, please don’t tell me that you asked him to cut his dreadful stringy hair or described his gown as something from the feed store or questioned why he didn’t straighten the Pasadena freeway.

You’re going to sully my limited shot at eternity.

Regarding your limited celestial wardrobe, I hope you didn’t demand a closet full of Ferragamos because you hate those hippie dippy strappy numbers he wears. I’m sure you told him to get rid of that bozo with the harp and get a decent Steinway and someone who really knows how to play it.

As for us, we’re still playing in Thousand Oaks, Mom, and we haven’t burned up. Yes, 30 years ago you described the Conejo Valley as the end of God’s forsaken earth, a tinder box community ready to vanish in a flash fire, a primitive pit hole without sidewalks, devoid of fine art or . . . anything fine for that matter.

You’ll be happy to know there is no horse pucky in the streets. I no longer carry a feedbag purse, as you so gingerly called it. But when I wear your clip-on earrings along with your ladybug pins and flash your Judith Leiber satchel, everything becomes a little finer.

Your piano has quite a view of Wildwood Park, Mom, and the metronome that sits near the keyboard is there just for effect. I’d like to shoot it but I’m afraid you’d show up at the door with another one. And no, the last time I did a finger exercise was the fifth grade. So I’m lousy at legato, freewheeling with the pedal, and when I get really frisky I even change a few of Chopin’s notes. Please, no earthquakes or plagues.

Now for your other obsession: hair. At one point, I wore mine in a French twist, Mom, but my husband hated it, so you lose. Neener neener neener. Now it’s short and kind of funky, and I even like to wear some of those hippie dippy kinds of clothes, as you called them. But I’m clean, so get used to it.

Remember the waiter at the Chronicle in Pasadena who said after you kicked the bucket, he’d put your ashes on the dessert platter? Well, the restaurant is gone and so is he. And your ashes are fertilizing Monet’s garden as requested. Besides, the chocolate eclairs at the Chronicle were lousy.

Gosh. You were only 63 years old when we said goodbye. You told me that you’d never be a good old lady. True. You would have been a great one.

So, as you can see, Mom, I’ll never forget you or your nuttiness. This crazy letter is going to be printed in the paper, but the sentiments are written in my heart. Tonight I’ll do the Charleston, but there’s not a chance I’m polishing the silver. I might even attempt to rustle up some roadside potatoes for dinner. And can you hear me whistling that I love you? Off key. Yes. Sorry.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

Courtesy - The Acorn

A Letter to Mom

Thu, 9 May 2013 17:05:04 -0400

Dear Mom,

I miss you and your roadside potatoes.

Who else could polish silver, dance the Charleston and whistle Knuckles O’Toole’s version of the “Maple Leaf Rag” all at the same time?

You’re going to sully my limited shot at eternity.

Gosh. You were only 63 years old when we said goodbye. You told me that you’d never be a good old lady. True. You would have been a great one.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

Courtesy - The Acorn

Frat House Chili

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:01:14 -0500

When Dad gimped out of Walter Reed Hospital in 1945, he knew he’d rather make a living playing stride piano than return to engineering school in the tundra. He also knew that his stern Swedish mother didn’t raise her son to hang out in jazz bars with guys who don’t have teeth and smell like spittoons. What he didn’t know was that a bombshell from Duluth would make life worth living at Michigan Tech and rock his frat house chili recipe into the 21^st century.

On the train ride home to Duluth, his mind was elsewhere. He kept replaying a moment at the hospital. No, not war stories because he had none. In a football game at Officer Candidate School in Grinnell, Iowa, he shattered his leg, putting him on the permanently disabled list for a year and sending him to Walter Reed for multiple surgeries.

No, the story that consumed him concerned Art Tatum, accomplished stride piano player who visited the hospital to cheer up the soldiers. They shouted, “Ya gotta hear Neil. He ain’t good for much but man, can he play the piano!”

Graciously, Mr. Tatum invited Neil to crank out a few standards on the old upright in the cafeteria that hadn’t been tuned since 1928. Making the most of this moment, Dad avoided screwing up the bridge in “Sweet Lorraine” like he usually did. Mr. Tatum told him he really had talent. Talent. “Me…a big dumb Swede.”

When the big dumb Swede was settled at home, he let mom know about the blessings of the GI bill for college tuition, and then, gently dropped the bomb about his forthcoming jazz gig.

At “The Flame,” Neil could play anything he wanted. On a Bosendorfer overlooking Lake Superior, the keyboard became his oyster. A Lucky Strike with an ash about 2 inches long burned deliberately while ice cubes diluted a short, stiff Manhattan. Dad always said a cigarette plus a good belt equals critical foreplay required by a jazz piano player.

Because he never screwed it up, “You Took Advantage of Me” was the first out of the block.

I'm a sentimental sap, that's all

What's the use of trying not to fall?

I have no will, you've made your kill

'Cause you took advantage of me

Gershwin, you’re up next. “Someone to Watch Over Me” followed but Neil always got stuck on the bridge. Damn. No one in the bar could tell the difference, though. He loved to play Gershwin, he figured, you can’t go wrong with George. But the tune’s little melancholy since the war just ended and everyone’s trying to pull their lives together. Including him.

“Limehouse Blues” next. Crank up the joint.

Oh, Limehouse blues, I've the real Limehouse blues
Can't seem to shake off, those real China blues
Rings on your fingers and tears for your crown
That is the story of old Chinatown…

This was his dream, playing until the chairs turned upside down, until the cigarette butts were swept out the door along with a few lushes, all the while keeping time with his left foot. He approached the keys the way his father caressed a pipe organ at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church. But his father was bolstered by lilies, incense, Bach, and the Good Book. Not martinis, beer steins and Cole Porter.

Over the summer, he met someone “nice and fine” and he managed to improvise Sweet Lorraine to her Chopin. You see, their eyes met over a couple of Steinway Concert “B’s” in her living room and..wow.

Just found joy
I'm as happy as a baby boy
When he's playing with his choo-choo toy
When I'm with my sweet Lorraine
She's got a pair of eyes
That are bluer than the summer sky
When you see her you're gonna realize
Why I love my sweet Lorraine
When it's raining I don't miss the sun
'Cause it's in my sweetie's smile
Just think that I'm the lucky one
Who will lead her down the aisle
Each night how I pray
That nobody steals her heart away
I can't wait until that lucky day
When I marry my Lorraine

Debussy met Duke Ellington. And the two, yes, actually made music. . . Once September rolled around, Dad hated going back to school without her. He despised the bitterly cold, grungy air at Michigan Tech and joked that when the world got an enema, they’d put the nozzle in Houghton.

But he returned to engineering school, began putting the pieces of his professional life together, living in a frat house where one of his buddies cooked up a great pot of chili every weekend when the cook was off. He loved it, lived on it, named it “chili gop” and wrote down the recipe for Jean to learn.

Which she did until she died in 1985, cranking out frat house chili on call. It’s pretty basic, highly primitive and what you’d expect from a fraternity house circa 1945. Carrying on the tradition, my sister and I have renamed it “Fart House Chili” and think of the “big dumb Swede” with every pot.

While it’s simmering, I find it always tastes better if I listen to Sweet Lorraine, keep time with my left foot, sip a short, stiff margarita, and gimp around the kitchen.

Here it is…the basic, one and only, Chili Gop, Fart House Chili or….

Frat House Chili

1 ¼ lb. ground turkey (or beef – which was the original ingredient)

1 diced onion

1 diced green pepper

3 stalks celery, diced

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 tsp ground cumin

3 Tb or so, Gebhardt’s chili powder

2 cans, 14.5 oz each, classic stewed tomatoes, undrained

1 can red kidney beans, DO NOT DRAIN…the juice is important.

Spaghetti – about a quarter in diameter

Salt (very little required because the juice in the beans has quite a bit of salt) and pepper

Serve with:

Crushed Frito Corn chips (I told you this was basic)

Grated cheddar cheese

Shredded iceberg lettuce

Diced red onion

Diced avocado

Sour cream - optional

Diced cilantro - optional

In a good, heavy pot, brown the ground turkey. Add the onion, celery, and green pepper – continue sautéing until transparent.

Add the spices at this point – chili powder, oregano, and cumin. Sauté for a few minutes to bring out the flavor of the spices. Chili powders vary tremendously in “heat” and taste – for this recipe, I always use the Gebhardt brand to get the same taste. It’s up to you. My family gets upset if it’s too spicy so I keep it calm.

After the flavors have developed, add the cans of tomatoes and UNDRAINED kidney beans. Yup…just dump those suckers in there in its entirety. Remember, they made this in the fraternity house. If you feel you need more liquid, you can add a bit of water if necessary. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes.

Grab a handful of spaghetti out of the packet, about the diameter of a quarter. Does that make sense? Break it in half, yes, break it in half and DUMP it in the pot. I told you this was basic.

Bring to boil, stir occasionally and cover for about 20 minutes more.

And here's what my kitchen looks like when the kids find out I'm cooking Chili Gop...

Serve with toppings, cheese first to melt. And Sweet Lorraine. Don’t forget her.

When I Die: Two Things My Kids Want to Know

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:01:07 -0500

When I kick the bucket, my kids will ask two questions: 1) how much cash is left in the mattress for them and 2) who’s going to make artichoke soup when the old broad is pushing up geraniums?

Oh, might be ugly but it’s true. Once the moolah is in their mitts, assuming I haven’t managed to bounce my last check, they’ll move on to number two. And when my babes realize their soup slave has relocated to that great bouillabaisse in the sky, their agitated faces will make Munch’s Mr. Scream look like he’s just returned from a week at the Golden Door.

How did I create such a jambalaya? About 33 years ago, I enrolled in a cooking class with Chef James Sly of L’Orangerie, a swankily stupendous Los Angeles restaurant sporting cuisine à la française, eclipsing my tacos à la crapola. Neither a swanky nor a stupendous cook, I figured it was time to amp up my game from bean dip to something with more syllables.

Entrée Crème Purée D’Artichaut aka Artichoke Soup......

This was the first course on the recipe manifesto. And after Annihilating the Fine Art of French Cooking, I was an eager student. Oh yeh, I had Julia’s book and worked over a few of her numbers. Worked ‘em good. Fried my eyebrows as well as the chicken when I flambéed the Coq au Vin. And by the time I got the Ratatouille on the table, I was underneath it, lying prone in the dead bug position after swirling those veggies like a tarantella. To say nothing of the sponge cake which was as light and frothy as the village smithy’s anvil.

Back to class. At age 26, with my hair in a “Farrah” and the rest of me poured into something impractical, I had Chef Sly’s attention. Bonjour, Monsieur.

Noting that I needed specific direction, zee Chef tossed an artichoke to me along with a knife that would make Jack the Ripper drool. He (not Jack – he wasn’t in the class) told me I was only as good as my utensils. Now that’s a line for the ages. At which point I recalled Mom rolling out that pie crust with a vodka bottle just minutes before she flung it (the dough, not the vodka of course) across the room. I refrained from sharing how a Smirnoff bottle was considered a useful tool in my house and decided I’d let my tight sweater do all the talking.

Mano a mano with a mean looking artichoke, I began to work. I couldn’t pare a banana, let alone something green, coarse and prickly, with fifty leaves and a bad attitude. Reminded me of an old boyfriend.

Vigorously, with coaching from the big Kahuna in the tall white hat, I trimmed that puppy down to the heart, then using a melon baller (how do they say that in French?), I scooped out the choke. Voilà. I was au courant. Au proficient. Au boobalicious. Julia, you might be a master but I look better in a tight sweater and I can tap dance, too. Neener neener neener.

I tossed that artichoke heart into a pot of simmering chicken stock with a few other goodies à la française, then pureed, while whisking a little of this and a little of that. Un peu et un peu. Edible music appeared. The Rach 3 was translated into the first course.

And the taste …oh the taste….was something way beyond Campbell’s vocabulary. Or mine. It was as smooth and sultry and delicately sensuous as anything I had ever devoured and I couldn’t wait to make it for my family, who would be impressed that I could not only sing all the words to the UCLA Fight song but I could ALSO cook.

Thus began my soup saga which flourishes today. And when I kick the proverbial bucket, my kids who order out, order in, and fall into the “clueless cooks” category, will be soupless.

It’s not my bod they’d want to cryogenically preserve. Rather, my ravenous offspring would prefer I get to work making massive batches of the stuff, transferred into the deep freeze right next to Ted Williams and the Cherry Garcia.

So here, for the ages, is my Crème Puree D’Artichaut. Labor intensive but oh, très merveilleuse! C’est formidable! No tight sweater or vodka required. Still, an endangered species in my house. C’est la vie.

Crème Puree D’Artichaut

Per person:

1 large artichoke

½ cup of chicken stock

½ cup of crème fraîche

1 oz. sweet butter

½ egg yolk

2 T. dry sherry

1/4 tsp thyme

1/2 bay leaf,

salt, pepper, cayenne to taste

Crème fraiche

It’s easy to find crème fraîche in grocery stores today, but Chef Sly taught us to make it ourselves. So I do. I whisk several tablespoons of plain yogurt with a quart of cream, let sit at room temp (a day or two depending on how hot your kitchen is, baby) and suddenly, you’ll find that it thickens, considerably, like sour cream. Crème fraîche doesn’t “break” as easily as sour cream, that’s why it is used. Up to you…or ….buy it.

Artichokes

The time “intensive” part is prepping the chokes. Find the fattest, freshest, nicest artichokes available.

Wash the chokes well. Prepare a bowl of acidulated water – that’s water with a bunch of lemons to toss the prepared “hearts” in while you are cleaning the other artichokes. Don’t be alarmed as the trimmed raw chokes turn “brown.” They taste the same and for the most part, the color of the soup won’t be too terribly affected.

With a sharp knife, begin trimming the choke down, carefully, until you get to the center. The heart. The good stuff.

One you have a clean heart, remove the choke with a spoon or melon baller.

Drop into the acidulated lemon water to prevent discoloration.

Once all the chokes are cleaned, drain from the lemon water and drop into chicken stock with bay leaf, and thyme.

Simmer until very tender - about 20-30 minutes.

Let cool slightly, then puree in batches.

At this point, you've made "the base" which freezes perfectly. So that means when artichokes are in season, cheaper and more plentiful, you can make the base to be used at a later date.

On the day I plan to serve the soup, a few hours before, I will whisk the egg yolks with half the crème fraîche and set aside. Then in a large pot, I'll drop in the soup "base" to begin heating, along with the remaining crème fraîche and the sherry, while whisking and warming. Once the soup base is warm, I'll add a bit of the warm soup base/creme fraiche mixture to the egg yolk/creme fraiche mixture, tempering the eggs. Then return the entire egg mixture into the pot and warm gently. Do not boil. Bring to a barely simmering point, cooking the egg mixture for about 7 minutes, and now...time to taste. Add a knifepoint of cayenne or just enough to give it a slight kick. Add butter to taste. (I actually add very little butter - I don't think you need too much.) Taste for salt and pepper. And I always add a bit more sherry. And a swirl of paprika. Bon appetit!

Sans Office

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:01:36 -0500

My feet are firmly planted in midair. Unresponsive to a desk, my continuous flight of fancy is fueled by Ravel waltzes and chocolate. When inspiration drags me from ennui to the easel, this is the view from my corner of the world.

When I need a new visual fix, I throw a few things together in the light of my downstairs studio...

Or try a new perspective from a child's eyes:

Or continue annihilating that Debussy Arabesque I've been thrashing around for about 20 years...

Or trim those wiley hydrangeas for a beauty shot...

Or head for the kitchen to heat up the joint in the evocative light of dusk...

Or strut upstairs to file that post for Salon. It's winter in California.

Perhaps take one more shot at that Arabesque:

Sans office, life is much sexier.