Thursday, August 13, 2020

Leslies Chops & Potato Sheet-Pan Dinner

Over the years I have lost count of the recipes for oven frying potatoes. The secret to having potatoes come out fluffy from the oven is to pre-cook them in the microwave. Tonight's meal is to honor LGBT hero Leslie Gore. You might remember her great songs from the early sixties, but not know of her work as an advocate.


Pork chops,Yukon Gold potatoes, some corn starch and green beans will give you the best oven dinner ever.



Ingredients:

4 pork chops (bone in – ½ inch)

3 - 4 Yukon gold potatoes

1 lbs green beans

2 tbs kosher salt

1 tbs pepper

1 tbs smoked paprika

2 Tbs brown sugar

1 tbs cornstarch


4 TBS oil divided

cooking spray

2 tsp corn starch



Directions:

Heat oven to 425°F. Spray 18x13-inch rimmed sheet pan with cooking spray.


Cut into the fat side of each chop a few times so it wont cup up as it cooks.


Mix the salt, pepper, paprika, brown sugar and 1 Tbs cornstarch use to rub into each chop both sides. Cover and let sit.


Scrub the potatoes, and cut lengthwise once, then crosswise into planks.


Arrange potato in a 1-quart microwave-safe dish. Add water, and cover. Microwave at HIGH 8 minutes or until tender. Remove to a colander to drain and let cool.


In a large bowl mix well, 2 tsp corn starch in ¾ cup water

Cook this 1 minute in microwave, stopping to stir every 20 sec. This cooks the cornstarch, into a pudding like consistency. Yes I know how it looks!


When it is slimy, dump the potatoes into this so that they have a slight coating on each.

Spray the cooking tray then add 3 Tbs oil and tilt to coat.



Arrange the potatoes into two columns leaving enough room for the chops to go in latter.

Roast for 18 minutes. Remove and flip each piece over.


Lay the chops down the center. I found the chops were bigger than expected, so I lined another tray with foil for the green beans.

Mix the green beans with some olive oil and spread on the tray, sprinkle with salt.


Roast 12 to 18 minutes or until pork is no longer pink and meat thermometer inserted in center reads at least 145°F, and potatoes are browned and tender.

Remove and let the chops rest for 5 minutes before serving.


For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTpvirQ-hPA

So excited to discover this for my Master Indy.

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

..I cook!


Please buy slave's cookbook:


The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White 

 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTM via @amazon



==============================

Lesley Gore

Lesley Sue Goldstein (1946 – 2015), known professionally as Lesley Gore, was a singer, songwriter, actress, and activist.

She was born in Brooklyn, New York City, into a middle-class Jewish family. Her father was the owner of Peter Pan, a children's swimwear and underwear manufacturer, and later became a leading brand licensing agent in the apparel industry. She was raised in Tenafly, New Jersey, and attended the Dwight School for Girls in nearby Englewood. 

 


At the age of 16 (in 1963) she recorded her version of "It's My Party" with Quincy Jones. She was a junior in high school. It became a number-one, nationwide hit. Gore's record sold over one million copies and was certified as a gold record. It marked the beginning of her fame.

"It's My Party" was followed by many other hits, including the sequel, "Judy's Turn to Cry" (No. 5); "She's a Fool" (No. 5); the feminist-themed million-selling "You Don't Own Me", which held at No. 2 for three weeks behind the Beatles' "I Want To Hold Your Hand"; "That's the Way Boys Are" (No. 12); "Maybe I Know" (No. 14); "Look of Love" (No. 27);. In 1965 she appeared in the beach party film The Girls on the Beach in which she performed three songs: "Leave Me Alone", "It's Gotta Be You", and "I Don't Want to Be a Loser".

Gore recorded composer Marvin Hamlisch's first hit composition, "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows",in 1963, while "It's My Party" was still climbing the charts. Her record producer from 1963 to 1965 was Quincy Jones. Jones' dentist was Marvin Hamlisch's uncle, and Hamlisch asked his uncle to convey several songs to Jones. "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows" was released on the LP Lesley Gore Sings of Mixed-Up Hearts, but did not surface as a single until June 1965.

Hamlisch composed three other songs for her: "California Nights", "That's the Way the Ball Bounces" and "One by One".

Gore was featured in the T.A.M.I. Show concert film, which was recorded and released in 1964 by American International Pictures, and placed in the National Film Registry in 2006. Gore had one of the longest sets in the film, performing six songs including "It's My Party", "You Don't Own Me", and "Judy's Turn to Cry".

Gore performed on two episodes of the Batman television series, in which she guest-starred as Pussycat, one of Catwoman's minions. In "That Darn Catwoman", she did the Bob Crewe-produced "California Nights", and on another episode "Scat! Darn Catwoman" she did "Maybe Now".

"California Nights", which Gore recorded in 1967, returned her to the Hot 100. The single peaked at No.16 in March 1967 and stayed for 14 weeks on the chart. It was her first top 20 since "Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows". Gore also performed "It's My Party" and "We Know We're in Love" on the final episode of The Donna Reed Show, which aired on March 19, 1966.

This all happened before she graduated High School in 1968.

 

 Gore signed a contract with Mercury Records but did not have her previous success. “He Gives Me Love (La La La)", only rose to #96! She was then paired with successful soul producers Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff and Thom Bell for two singles: "I'll Be Standing By" and "Take Good Care (Of My Heart)." However these soul songs just did not her image, and the singles were not played. Her contract with Mercury ended after the release of "98.6/Lazy Day" and "Wedding Bell Blues" failed to make headway on the charts.

Gore’s string of hits ended when girl-group pop gave way to psychedelia. But she kept performing — in movies, on television, on theater and club stages. 

 

 

Ms. Gore did not write her early hits. But after she was dropped by Mercury, she worked on becoming a songwriter. She moved to California in 1970, and her 1972 album, “Someplace Else Now,” was full of songs she wrote herself or with the lyricist Ellen Weston.

Leslie Gore moved on composing songs for the soundtrack of the 1980 film Fame, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for "Out Here on My Own", written with her brother Michael. Michael won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for the theme song of the same film.

She played concerts and appeared on television throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

Gore returned to New York City in 1980 and continued to sing her oldies on the nostalgia circuit. She also performed in musical theater, including a stint in the Broadway production of “Smokey Joe’s Cafe.”

Gore co-wrote a song, "My Secret Love", for the 1996 film Grace of My Heart. The film includes a subplot about a young singer named Kelly Porter, who is based in part on Gore and is played by Bridget Fonda. The character, who is a closeted lesbian, performs "My Secret Love" in the film.

In 2005, Gore recorded Ever Since (her first album of new material since 1976). The album received favorable reviews from The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Billboard Magazine and other national press. The album also included a revised version of "You Don't Own Me", about which the New York Daily News wrote: "In Lesley Gore's new version of 'You Don't Own Me'—cut more than 40 years after its initial recording—she lends a pop classic new life." Gore commented: "Without the loud backing track, I could wring more meaning from the lyric". And: "It's a song that takes on new meaning every time you sing it."

According to Gore: “When I heard it for the first time, I thought it had an important humanist quality. “As I got older, feminism became more a part of my life and more a part of our whole awareness, and I could see why people would use it as a feminist anthem. I don’t care what age you are — whether you’re 16 or 116 — there’s nothing more wonderful than standing on the stage and shaking your finger and singing, ‘Don’t tell me what to do.’” 

 


Beginning in 2004, Gore hosted the PBS television series In the Life, which focused on LGBT issues. In a 2005 interview, she stated she was a lesbian and had been in a relationship with luxury jewelry designer Lois Sasson since 1982. She had known since she was 20 and stated that although the music business was "totally homophobic," she never felt she had to pretend she was straight. "I just kind of lived my life naturally and did what I wanted to do," she said. "I didn't avoid anything, I didn't put it in anybody's face."


 On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Lesley Gore among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

Gore had been working on a memoir and a Broadway show based on her life when she died of lung cancer on February 16, 2015, in Manhattan, New York City, at the age of 68. At the time of her death, Gore and her partner, Lois Sasson, had been together for 33 years.

Her New York Times obituary stated that "with songs like 'It’s My Party,' 'Judy’s Turn to Cry' and the indelibly defiant 1964 single 'You Don’t Own Me' — all recorded before she was 18 — Gore made herself the voice of teenage girls aggrieved by fickle boyfriends, moving quickly from tearful self-pity to fierce self-assertion."














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