Friday, January 31, 2020

Mixner Chicken


This restaurant-fancy chicken recipe can really impresses! The layer of mushrooms and bits of ham in a sauce really adds an extra-special flair. Reminiscent of The Outback's: Alice Springs Chicken, just done with a twist. Dedicated to our LGBT hero David Mixner.



Chicken breasts, mushrooms with ham, and a touch of mustard with white wine. It cooks in just about 30 minutes. One casserole dish to cook in and clean up after.





For the marinade:
½ cup Dijon mustard
½ cup honey
¼ cup mayonnaise
1 cup white wine

For the chicken:
2boneless skinless chicken breast (about 1 1/2 pounds)
2 tablespoons butter
8 ounces mushrooms sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ cup small diced ham
1 cup shredded Colby Jack cheese
2 tablespoons fresh parsley for garnish, optional




In a small bowl, whisk together mustard, honey, mayonnaise, and white wine. Reserve ¼ cup sauce in a covered container and refrigerate until serving time.
Place the breasts into zipper bags with the sauce. Refrigerate for at least
30 minutes or even overnight.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large skillet over medium-high heat
oil and mix in butter.




Add mushrooms and ham bits, sauté until they have released most of their liquid and have started to turn brown, about 5 to 7 minutes. Pour the marinade into the pan with any left-over wine. Cook stirring until mix is reduced.


Sprinkle the crated cheese over the chicken pieces and spoon the mushrooms on top. Cover the baking dish and place in the oven.
Bake until the chicken reaches 160°F when tested with an internal thermometer at the thickest part, about 20 to 25 minutes. 


Slave was also fixing fresh asparagus, so they were trimmed and drizzled with olive oil and placed on a lined tray to roast along side the chicken.


While that cooked a bit of white rice was fixed.
Remove from oven and let sit, still covered, for 8 minutes.






So happy to be serving 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



============================
David Mixner



David Mixner is a civil rights activist and best-selling author. He is best known for his work in anti-war and gay rights advocacy.

Mixner was born in 1946, and grew up in the small town of Elmer in southern New Jersey. Mixner attended Woodstown High School, where he got involved in the Civil Rights Movement, by picketing and sending his own money to Martin Luther King Jr. In his bestselling memoir, Stranger Among Friends, Mixner explains that his parents were "livid" over his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, claiming his activism embarrassed them.

In the fall of 1964, Mixner enrolled at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, where he soon became heavily involved in civil rights and anti-war activism. Mixner organized the first of many protests he would organize over the next thirty years.

Mixner also experienced his first same-sex relationship at ASU, with a man whom he refers to as Kit in his memoirs. A year into their relationship, Kit was killed in an automobile accident. Mixner did not attend the funeral, and Kit's parents never discovered that their son was gay.

Soon after Kit's death, Mixner decided to transfer to the University of Maryland in order to be closer to Washington, D.C., where he would be able to get more involved in anti-war protests.

Mixner found more interest in activism than in pursuing a college degree. He dropped out of college and began working for the presidential campaign of Eugene McCarthy. Mixner and other members of McCarthy's campaign team went to Georgia to help select an alternative delegation to send to the national convention in Chicago, challenging Governor Lestor Maddox's hand-picked delegation.

At the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Mixner was beaten by police during the protests held outside the convention center. He soon befriended Doris Kearns Goodwin, who introduced Mixner to Senator Ted Kennedy, who would become a lifelong friend.

In 1976, Mixner began the process of coming out of the closet, and soon thereafter was a founding member of the Municipal Elections Committee of Los Angeles (MECLA), the nation's first gay and lesbian Political Action Committee. Mixner turned his focus to fighting Proposition 6, an initiative placed on the California ballot by Orange County State Senator John Briggs that would make it illegal for gays and lesbians to be schoolteachers. In creating the “NO on 6” organization to fight it; he would publicly come out of the closet. Mixner and his lover Peter Scott secured a meeting with then-Governor Ronald Reagan, whom they convinced to oppose the initiative publicly. As a result, through his and San Francisco City Councilman Harvey Milk work, Proposition 6 was defeated by over a million votes, the first ballot initiative of its sort to be shot down. 

As a result of this huge success, Mixner and Scott built up a political consulting firm, Mixner/Scott, and were asked by Bill Clinton, then running for governor of Arkansas, to host a reception for Clinton at their Los Angeles home.

In 1985, after helping defeat Proposition 64, a ballot initiative proposed by Lyndon LaRouche that would require quarantining people with AIDS, Mixner learned that his long-time lover and business partner, Peter Scott, had AIDS. Scott would fight the disease for four years; he died on May 13, 1989. 

While Scott fought the disease, Mixner formed an organization that spearheaded legislation that would create a California alternative to the FDA, enabling California to deal more aggressively with the AIDS epidemic than the federal government.



Four years after a fundraiser for the Dukakis campaign told Mixner that Governor Dukakis would not accept the million dollars Mixner and his friends planned to raise for him, Mixner found hope in the candidacy of his old friend, Bill Clinton.
After Clinton promised Mixner that he would support both an end to the ban on gays in the military and increased funds to find a cure for AIDS, Mixner began raising money for Clinton enthusiastically. Clinton's campaign, soon asked Mixner to join the National Executive Committee of the Clinton for President campaign, the first openly gay person to become a public face of a presidential campaign.

After Clinton was elected, Mixner helped with the transition team. Mixner soon thrust himself in the middle of the furor over the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy proposed by Clinton, which represented a total betrayal to Mixner and many in the gay community.

When Mixner went on Nightline to complain about Clinton's rapid shift away from allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, his calls to the White House stopped being returned and his consulting business began to tank, as he was no longer perceived as someone who had influence with the new administration.

Mixner organized another march and was very publicly arrested outside the White House, for which he received a great deal of publicity because of his personal relationship with Clinton. Mixner and Clinton later healed the rift, but Clinton never again revisited the policy during his presidency.

In 2006, Mixner moved to Turkey Hollow in Sullivan County, New York, where he lived in a bright yellow house with his two cats, Sheba and Uganda. Three years latter Mixner moved to Hell's Kitchen in New York City. He posted blog entries daily on his website, davidmixner.com.




In 2011, the Theater at Dixon Place announced a one-man show starring Mixner, From the Front Porch. The show is a benefit for Dixon Place and the Ali Forney Center, an organization benefiting LGBT homeless youth.

Mixner released a memoir of his time in Turkey Hollow, At Home with Myself: Stories from the Hills of Turkey Hollow, in September 2011. The memoir is published by Magnus Books.





On October 27, 2014, David Mixner premiered Oh Hell No! at New World Stages at 340 West 50th Street in New York. The autobiographical show, a one-night-only event to benefit the Point Foundation, featured Mixner revealing intensely personal details about the struggles he had faced, including the pain of losing 300 friends to AIDS in the 1980s.

Mixner's original play 1969 was staged at the Florence Gould Hall Theater in New York City on March 6, 2017. In that production, Mixner reveals the deep personal struggle of being a closeted gay man in that time and a blackmail attempt that threatened to out him.

In this last October, Mixner announced that after 60 years of activism, his new play, “You Make Me Sick,”will be his public swan song. And then he’s going to retire, write, travel and “have some David time, “I am going to retire in some way due to a combination of reasons,” Mixner says. “My first action was in June 1959 when I did volunteer work every weekend for John Kennedy. And I’ve been of service for 60 years as of this past June, which is a long time.”

Health is also a major factor. “I’ve had 11 surgeries and eight stays where I was critical in intensive care — some of them pretty brutal — and that’s taken a toll on me and my ability and my energy. And I have some other illnesses that I’m struggling with” he says. “But my voice will still be there and my writing, even though it takes a little longer and it’s a little more difficult to focus.”
I wake up, I feel 21, laying in bed,” he says. “I move a leg and suddenly I feel 40. I put the legs on the floor, I feel 69. I stand up and I feel 73.”


Mixner does have a problem with the current use of the word “queer,” though — a term he still considers a slur.

However he laughs it off. “This is just a sign of our success. We wanted the right to be who we were and we’d been so successful at it, people are fighting for themselves exactly how they want to be viewed.”

Still, “I will always hate the word ‘queer’ because it was a derogatory term all my life. If people want to embrace it and remove the power from it, more power to them. I’m just not one of them. And I have the same right as everyone else does: I can define myself the way I want to define myself. And it can still be a work in process, even if 73.”

Though not in good health, Mixner says “I’m happy as can be. I’m very spiritual.”

He has written a book with Brad Goldfarb called “From Fear to Dreams” that he hopes to get published next year.


Looking over his long life of activism, he feels his time spent in 2006 in his remote bright yellow house at Turkey Hollow in Sullivan County, N.Y., was crucial. “It was the most important thing I ever did,” Mixner says. “Nature healed me of the trauma of HIV/AIDS, which I hadn’t dealt with in reality. I was able to make the transition from a major fundraiser, which everyone kept insisting that I be, to a writer through the blog.”

But trauma is hard to shake. “I kept a roll of my friends who died and it ran to 308 people,” says Mixner. “I lost the most valuable people in my life. I gave 90 eulogies over those years for young men under 40 because I was a good speaker. So, you can’t come out of that where you literally go from someone’s funeral to visiting someone else in the hospital and not be scarred.”

No, “you don’t ever heal,” Mixner says. “What you do is find a place for the grief so it doesn’t interfere with the rest of your life — whether it’s meditation or spiritual or conversations like this every once in awhile. And writing. All my plays have been done since I’ve been in intensive care.
So I refused to live in the past,” says retiring activist icon David Mixner. “I refuse to be a victim. The best way to heal is to be into the future, to make things better for other people.”



Mixner Quotes:
I often laugh and say I should go down to the Department of the Interior and register as an endangered species. I'm a gay man over 60 and I'm alive.

All of my peers died of AIDS, and I have no one to celebrate my past or my journey, or to help me pass down stories to the next generation. We lost an entire generation of storytellers with HIV.
=========================
Newsweek once named Mixner the most powerful gay man in America, and he has been a highly regarded leader in American politics and international human rights for over 40 years.

Still with an active eye on politics, in just the last few days Mixner has issued an endorsement for Pete Buttigieg:
Mayor Pete’s gentleness is his power. His ability to speak many languages and intellect will reestablish our alliances and America’s place around the globe.
For LGBT(Q) Americans, he has already shattered the glass ceiling. Any young LGBT(Q) person growing up can now hope to run for President of the United States.”





Monday, January 27, 2020

Sargent's Lemon Cream Cheese Bars


These easy desert bars are a lemony delight between two flaky crusts. Here we tried to make it a bit healthier by using a sugar substitute and you can cook with. Also the dough and the cream cheese are lower fat. This is to honor our LGBT Hero, Dick Sargent.



Cut these bars into 12 wonderful chewy deserts for any gathering. They go great with the Super Bowl!



Ingredients:
cooking spray
2 (8 ounce) packages refrigerated crescent roll dough (lower fat)
2 lemons, zested and juiced, divided
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened (lower fat)
½ cup sugar substitute
2 tablespoons butter, melted Butter
3 tablespoons sugar substitute
2 eggs

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line the bottom of a 9x13-inch baking dish with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray. 



Notice I left an overhang on each end to help in removal of the bars.

Press 1 can crescent roll dough into the bottom of the prepared baking dish, stretching to the edges. 




Beat 1 of the eggs and brush it lightly all the way to the edges.
Bake for 15 minutes, then cool for 20 minutes.



Zest 2 lemons, and save juice from 1 of them. Set aside zest from about ½ lemon for the topping. Mix most of the zest and juice from the lemon in a bowl.





Beat in 1 egg. Beat cream cheese and ½ cup sugar substitute into lemon zest mixture using an electric mixer until smooth and creamy; spread over cooled crescent roll dough layer.



Unroll the second can of crescent roll dough onto a piece of wax paper. Invert this on top of cream cheese mixture, gently stretching dough to the edges. Brush rest of egg wash.





Mix remaining lemon zest and 3 tablespoons sugar substitute together in a bowl; sprinkle over top.


Bake in the preheated oven until top is golden brown, about 30 minutes. Allow to cool for about 20 minutes.
Then refrigerate until chilled, at least 1 hour.

Lift dessert from baking dish using foil; transfer to a cutting board. Cut into squares, leaving on foil. 



What a sweet surprise for my Master!

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



Dick Sargent



Richard Stanford Cox, known professionally as Dick Sargent, was an actor, notable as the second actor to portray Darrin Stephens on ABC TV's comedy Bewitched. He took the name Dick Sargent from a Saturday Evening Post illustrator/artist of the same name.

Sargent was born in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, 1930, to Ruth McNaughton. She appeared under the stage name of Ruth Powell, and had important supporting bit roles in such films as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and Hearts and Trumps with the great Nazimova. Sargent's father, Colonel Elmer Cox, who served in World War I, later became a business manager to such Hollywood alumni as Douglas Fairbanks and Erich von Stroheim.

Sargent attended the San Rafael Military Academy in Menlo Park, before majoring in drama at Stanford University. As a student, he appeared in more than two dozen plays with the Stanford Players Theater.




After graduating, he won a bit part in the 1954 film "Prisoner of War," with Ronald Reagan, and appeared in the films "Bernardine" and "A Touch of Mink," starring Cary Grant.

Sargent appeared in the 1959 feature film Operation Petticoat again starring Cary Grant and The Ghost and Mr. Chicken starring Don Knotts in 1966. His later movies included the crime drama Hardcore (1979) as Jake Van Dorn's strait-laced brother-in-law, Wes DeJong, and as Dr. Jameson in the sci-fi horror film Parts: The Clonus Horror (1979).



He also played Sheriff Grady Byrd on two 1979–1980 season episodes of The Dukes of Hazzard.



Sargent continued to work in film. He played Harry in Live a Little, Love a Little (1968) opposite Elvis Presley and Michele Carey and made guest appearances on various television series including: Gunsmoke, The Rat Patrol, I Dream of Jeannie, Three's Company, The Waltons, Charlie's Angels, Knots Landing, Family Ties, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Adam-12, The Streets of San Francisco, Ellery Queen, Baretta, Switch, The Six Million Dollar Man, Marcus Welby, M.D., Trapper John, M.D., Alice, Taxi, Benson, Diff'rent Strokes, Here's Lucy, Love American Style, Murder, She Wrote and L.A. Law. In 1990, he also portrayed himself on an episode of Columbo.

In the mid-1980s, he landed the steady role of Richard Preston, the widowed father, in the TBS sitcom Down to Earth. He also appeared in the fantasy comedy Teen Witch (1989).



Throughout the 1980s, he joined actress Sally Struthers as an advocate for Christian Children's Fund, which brought relief to children in developing nations.

In 1991, on National Coming Out Day, Mr. Sargent announced he was gay. The high rate of suicide among young homosexuals was the main reason, he said, jokingly referring to himself as a "retroactive role model."

He recognized that his ill health may have led people to assume he had AIDS.
Sargent had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1989.
"I don't have AIDS," he said. "I am HIV-negative. But if I did I would wear that badge as proudly as everybody else who has it."
In a television interview by March of 1994, a frail-looking Mr. Sargent said the disease had spread.
"I don't know how much longer I have, and nobody can seem to predict it, he told "Entertainment Tonight."


Mr. Sargent was best known for his role, from 1969 to 1972, on "Bewitched." He played Darrin Stephens, a "mortal" coping with marriage to a charming witch, Samantha, played by Elizabeth Montgomery. His predecessor as Darrin, from 1964 to 1969, was Dick York, who died in 1992.
The series was one of top shows in its day. Sargent was originally offered the role in 1964, but turned it down to due the short-lived sitcom Broadside.

The National Enquirer Ran a story stating that Montgomery felt uneasy around Dick York because he had developed a crush on her. She lobbied her husband series producer, Bill Asher, to dump York and replace with the gay actor Sargent. The newspaper also alleged that Agnes Moorehead (Endora) was also gay along with series regulars Maurice Evens (who played Samantha's father) and Paul Lynde.
Doctors were initially optimistic that it could be treated. However, the disease continued to spread and, by early 1994, he had become seriously ill.
He lived with his domestic partner, Albert Williams, until his death.
Sargent died from the disease on July 8, 1994, at age 64. His body was cremated.

Former Bewitched co-star Elizabeth Montgomery commented, "He was a great friend, and I will miss his love, his sense of humor and his remarkable courage." Montgomery herself died of colon cancer less than a year later.



Sunday, January 26, 2020

Spaghetti with Sauce arrostiti di schiavo


This wonderful sauce uses the tried and true method of roasting the vegetables in the oven. It gives the great taste of having been simmered on the back of the stove for hours, with nearly constant stirring to keep the pot from burning. 



This uses what was found in the pantry. A can of diced tomatoes, an onion, garlic, some mushrooms, and a large can of ready made sauce as a base. Just do not over season, use what is there and only add sparingly, so you don't screw up.



Ingredients:
1 lg. can (24 oz.) diced tomatoes, well drained
2 large onions, chopped into good sized pieces
8 oz fresh mushrooms, rinsed, dried, and sliced
5 cloves garlic
1 24 oz can of spaghetti sauce
1 lbs ground pork, browned
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
olive oil, salt + pepper (to taste -- see note!)

Garlic bread:
1 French garlic bread baguette
1 cup grated provolone cheese or any white Italian cheese
4 cloves garlic
4 Tbs butter
Spaghetti pasta

Directions:
Pre heat oven to 250 degrees F. Spray a Dutch oven well.


Do your cutting: Rinse and cut the mushrooms, dice the onion, peel the cloves of garlic.


Place mushrooms, onion, and garlic in large bowl. Drizzle with olive oil. Add Italian seasoning and sugar, stir well. Open and drain the tomatoes. Add these all together in the dutch oven and mix.




Cover and roast for 3 hours.

During this time, brown the ground pork in a large skillet and drain well.
Pour in the can of pre-made sauce.




Carefully open the Dutch oven and add the meat and sauce. Stir well and re-cover. Back to the oven for 1 more hour.

By now your kitchen will have the aroma of a fine dining Italian Restaurant.



Now to finish:
Line a baking sheet with foil.
With a serrated knife, slice the garlic bread into 1 inch pieces. Arrange on baking sheet.





Press cloves of garlic through a press:

Add butter and microwave for about 20 seconds, stir and brush each piece of bread with garlic butter. Spoon the grated cheese on each piece.

When you take the sauce out of the oven, switch the oven from bake to broil. Carefully slide in the upper rack so that it is on the top position. Broil the bread just long enough to heat and melt the cheese. Watch carefully so it doesn't burn.

Cook the spaghetti pasta according to package directions. Drain but do not rinse!



Serve the pasta and sauce in separate bowls so your guests can add what they want. Always have some good old fashioned Parmesan cheese on hand if they wish to indulge.
Brush up on your Italian love language and serve with a kiss!


Happy to serve 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_vAT4sb0934RTMvia @amazon



==========================
William Higgins




William Higgins (also "Wim Hof") was a pioneering director of gay pornographic films. 

Gay adult erotic art has been much maligned. However, even if you don't talk about it, it has played an important role in our lives. Here we simply refer to it as an art form that has shaped our lives and our outlooks. 


Higgin’s first film, “A Married Man” stared porn legend Jack Wrangler, was produced in 1974. He had since produced over 140 internationally distributed titles. His films have won several Grabby awards. These are presented annually to honor work done in the gay adult erotic video industry. He is also in the GayVN Awards Hall of Fame.


William Higgins founded Catalina Video where he directed of such gay adult film classics as Sailor in the Wild (1983), Pacific Coast Highway (1981), Pizza Boy: He Delivers (1985), Young and the Hung (1985) and many more.





Higgins launched his career in the mid 1970’s when other major porn studios stopped shipping films to several states in the south of the USA.
New laws had made it illegal to send pornographic materials across state lines, and in response Higgins started in his own studio in Florida, one of the areas affected by the new laws.

In interviews he would share that he started to make his own films because the films being created by competitors were so bad.

After his studios were raided in 1988, the resulting charges were later dropped, Higgins decided to look overseas for locations that were more accepting of his work.

He settled in Amsterdam and started using European models. He later relocated his business to Prague for nearly 25 years. Here, up until his death just before Christmas last year, he produced works under his own name brand William Higgins.



He can be considered one of gay adult film's founding fathers.

"William Higgins gave me my start. He believed in me the second I walked in the door," Chi Chi LaRue said. "I will never forget getting on the plane and flying to San Francisco for the first time to direct. He was very private and introverted but we had a bond, a special bond. He came to see my drag shows, and we'd talk to boys together; I'd ask them if they wanted to do porn movies. When I went to Prague, he would take us around to all these fabulous places. He started to look like Santa Claus in his later years but he was always fashionable and chic."
Bill loved porn. He really, really loved this industry. That's hard to find these days."

C1R's Rob Novinger described Higgins as "the pioneer of gay porn."
"Bill continued to direct and produce movies for Catalina through 2018," said Novinger. "He will be missed but his legacy will always live on."

Former performer and veteran producer-director Jamie Hendrix says: "He was a pioneer, along with Chuck Holmes and John Summers, who both gave me my start in the gay industry in 1988. I learned and grew watching his work, adapting my own style, and having mentors who did work closely with him. Thank you and RIP to William Higgins and all of our lost iconic gay XXX pioneers."

Director Lucas Kazan speaks of Higgins' indelible influence. "I miss Bill," he said. "His movies awoke me to my identity as a gay man first, and then as a filmmaker. I can't think of anyone with this long a career, these many iconic movies, this big a legacy."