The Craig Rodwell Memorial “Turn This City Upside-Down” Pizza Casserole

Ingredients

 

• 1 lbs lean ground beef
• ½ lbs Italian style sausage
• 1 medium onion chopped (about ½ cup)
• 1 green pepper diced
• 1 can sliced mushrooms
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 can pizza sauce
• 1 ½ cups shredded mozzarella cheese (6 ounces)
• 4 Tbs Worcestershire sauce (low sodium)
• 4 Tbs yellow mustard
• 1 10 ounce package prepared dough*
  * a cardboard tube of biscuits, or crescent rolls, or better yet pizza dough

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. OR the temperature stated on the tube of dough that you select! Slave used one for a thin crust pizza dough.

Spray a large frying pan. Over medium low heat start “sweating” the chopped onion, set timer for 6 minutes, stir occasionally: if it sizzles when you add onions, the pan is too hot. When timer goes off, add the minced garlic cloves stir for a minute then add in the diced green pepper. Continue to sweat the vegetables until they are very fragrant and peppers are still vibrant! (no more than 2 additional minutes)

Remove with a slotted spoon to a medium bowl and set it aside. Boast the temperature up to medium high.

Crumble in the Italian sausage so that it is loose. Stir and cook over medium high heat about 4 minutes, then add the loose hamburger, again break this up as you add. Stir and cook for at least another 8 minutes so that neither the sausage nor hamburger is pink.

This step is called browning for a reason, not “graying”, so make sure the meat is brown! 

Add the mustard and stir it in (Keep your head back because when the mustard hits the heat it will really hit your sinuses!) As you stir and cook that for about 2 minutes the aroma will start to drive your family wild! Its been known to stop a man in mid stroke!

Now have the skillet lid handy and pour in the 4 Tbs. of Worcestershire sauce, put the lid on, and turn the heat off. Let it sit for about 4 minutes! Remove about a half of this meat mixture to cool and latter freeze – it will come in handy.

Now the first two elements of many different dishes are done and you can cool and bag these to freeze and use in just about any of those “helper – box) dinners to replace the standard “1 lbs of ground beef”. By having these on hand you will be able to impress the hell out of dinner guests!

 

Let us continue! Turn the burner back on to medium. Carefully stir in the onion mixture. Then add the mushrooms, tomatoes and sauce. Stir this slowly until the flavors blend, all this needs is to heat up – about 4 - 5 minutes.

This is a good time to turn on the oven set to 400 or what ever the temperature indicated on the tube of dough that you bought!

Spray a 9 x 13 baking dish and have it ready.

When the oven signals that it is ready, pour the meat and sauce mixture into the baking dish. Sprinkle the grated cheese over the top so that each bite will have the taste.

 Cover the counter you are working on with a sheet of wax paper larger than the baking pan. Sprinkle about a Tbs or two of corn meal on that and kind of spread it around. Open and unroll the dough on that.

Transfer the dough on the wax paper to the top of the casserole. Then peel back the wax paper off. With a table knife trim the dough so that it lays flat against the meat and cheese mixture. Lightly spray with your cooking spray. Don't worry if it is not perfect, it will taste great!

Bake in that preheated oven about 15 minutes or until crust is golden.

Serve with a large spoon and dump each upside-down on the plate

Wonderful fun taste!

Slave continues honoring the Heroes of the LGBT Movement. Tonight is Craig Rodwell

Craig Rodwell

Craig was born toward the end of 1940 in Chicago. As soon as he was old enough he was boarded out to daycare where he had to do kitchen and laundry work to pay for his keep. By the time he was six, his mother feared the authorities might take custody from her, so she arraigned for him to go to a school for "problem" boys. Conditions were like something you could read by Charles Dickens. Rodwell was described as both a “rebellious child” and a “sissy”. During his seven year stay there he discovered not only his sexual identity, but also that everybody else did not feel the same way!

He kept this in mind as he went off to high school. By 18 years old, he managed to get out and make his way to New York City. It is hard for us to imagine what it was like for a very young homosexual in 1958. Craig discovered the “Mattachine Review”, a publication distributed by The Mattachine Society. He quickly became a controversial figure in that group. Being young and idealistic, he had not experienced the years of oppression others in the group had seen.

Rodwell did not care if J. Edgar Hoover did have a “file” on him. As the Mattachine Society neared its first 10 years in existence the organization was slowly changing its tactics and methods. The fresh energy supplied by the likes of Rodwell spurred them to make bolder demonstrations. The success of the Civil Rights Movement, was itself empowering to the whole network of small clubs that Mattachine had sponsored and nurtured across the country. The framework of organization had been built over time and the political climate was changing. The kindling was drying as it were, and was waiting for the right spark.

 

Craig Rodwell tried to get the society to start a book store where people could meet and organize. Finally when his efforts failed, he started one himself. By 1967 the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop opened. It was the first “homophile” book store in the country.

By this time Rodwell had already made a name for himself by organizing and holding “the Annual Reminder picketing of Independence Hall” for 2 years running! He was organizing “Homophile Youth Movement in Neighborhoods rallies”.

 

Then in 1969, the right people with the right skills were in the right place and knew what to do when that spark happened.

The explosion of anger on the night of June 27th-28th in retaliation to the Stonewall Inn being raided could have been a flash in the pan. However that night, sitting on the steps watching this explosion happen was: Craig and a few of his friends. He recognized immediately the momentum and importance of the protests. Rodwell phoned the press and ran home to grab his camera. This brought the only coverage that was allowed, even that was quickly clamped down on. They cheered the rioters on and gave them direction that kept the warfare going for six days.

Rodwell recalled: "A number of incidents were happening simultaneously. There was no one thing that happened or one person, there was just... a flash of group, of mass anger."
"There was a very volatile active political feeling, especially among young people ... when the night of the Stonewall Riots came along, just everything came together at that one moment. People often ask what was special about that night ... There was no one thing special about it. It was just everything coming together, one of those moments in history that if you were there, you knew, this is it, this is what we've been waiting for."

Rodwell was quick to follow-up with pamphlets calling for a specific list of demands, including ridding the bars of the mafia influence and ending the raids and harassment by the police!

His skills went to work day and night at the book store and by November his group proposed:

"That the Annual Reminder, in order to be more relevant, reach a greater number of people, and encompass the ideas and ideals of the larger struggle in which we are engaged-that of our fundamental human rights-be moved both in time and location.

We propose that a demonstration be held annually on the last Saturday in June in New York City to commemorate the 1969 spontaneous demonstrations on Christopher Street and this demonstration be called CHRISTOPHER STREET LIBERATION DAY. No dress or age regulations shall be made for this demonstration.

We also propose that we contact Homophile organizations throughout the country and suggest that they hold parallel demonstrations on that day. We propose a nationwide show of support.”

The first Pride March was held on Sunday, June 28th 1970. Officially titled the Christopher Street Liberation Day after the street on which Stonewall and other gay bars were located, hundreds of people marched for liberation. This time not only were gays picketing, but heterosexual women and their children were there marching alongside their allies. There were public displays of ‘homosexual affection’, hand holding, and a general feeling of relentless activism. In other words people were tired of being oppressed and it was possible because of a man named Craig Rodwell who realized that his “Annual Reminder” march could segue into something bigger and better: What we know today as Pride!

Take a moment to remember, as TabooJive wrote in Stonewall: Freedom Overdue. In 1969 you could expect as a “homosexual”:

• Your name (along with all of your friends and family members) would be put on a list by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, because as a homosexual you were “prone” to blackmail and “overt acts of perversion”
• The United States Post Office also kept your name on a list to monitor any homosexual “paraphernalia” you were receiving so they could tip off the police and have you arrested
• You would be dishonorably discharged from the military, fired from your government job or job as a teacher or professor at a college if you were suspected of being gay with no legal recourse
• Your neighborhood would be “swept” periodically to arrest you and anyone else who was a presumed homosexual or wore clothes not “for” their gender
• The American Psychiatric Association classified homosexuality as a sociopath personality disturbance and you were considered mentally infirm (this did not change until 1973).

You could be arrested for holding hands in public with your partner!

These conditions did not just disappear, they were not changed overnight. It took the hard and disciplined work by heroes like Craig Rodwell and hundreds like him for us to reach the path we are on now. So lets remember them and their protests as we march this month.

Slave's pride is always reinforced by its ability to serve its 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