For
our holiday offering here is an alternative for grilling outside. It
is a chicken bake chocked full of vegetables for you and your
neighbors. We name it after the most famous American male actress in
the first half of the Twentieth Century, “Eltinge”.
For
a better tasting dish, roast the chicken first, then make the
casserole.
Ingredients:
1
lb. medium shells pasta, cooked and drained
3
chicken breasts bone-less, skinless
4
Tbs favorite salad dressing, (used
a butter-garlic I found in seafood section)
1
can Cream of onion soup
1
can cream of bacon soup
½
cup sour cream
6
slices chopped cooked bacon
1
pkg frozen mixed vegetables
2
cups shredded Colby Jack cheese (8 oz)
Chopped
parsley, if desired
Directions:
Split
each breast lengthwise horizontally. Rub with salad dressing and
roast in pan for 25 – 30
minutes until temp reaches
165 degrees.
After
all you want the chicken to have taste, otherwise you could just use
the canned stuff.
Prep
the pasta. Let it cook for 10
minutes in boiling water,
drain well.
Take
the chicken out and cut it into 2 inch pieces. Lower the oven to 350
degrees.
Line
a large baking pan with foil and spray it well.
While
that cooks: do your bacon on a paper towel lined plate in the
microwave for no more than 2 mins on high. Let drain on more paper
towels.
Cut
into 1 inch pieces.
In
large bowl, place the drained pasta, cooked and diced chicken, the
undiluted cans of soup, and sour cream. Stir to combine.
Stir
in the frozen vegetables and the cut up bacon. Pour mixture in pan;
spread evenly.
Sprinkle
with 2 cups shredded mixed Colby jack cheese (8 oz).
Bake
15 to 20 minutes
or until hot and bubbly. Let stand
5 minutes before serving.
Sprinkle with chopped parsley if you wish.
What
a great meal for my Master Indy.
For
our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zstZkoGyZS4
Now
then since this makes so much unless you are serving a pot luck
dinner, plan ahead.
Portion
the left-overs in containers and freeze!
These
can either be taken to neighbors or just used another day.
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
============================
Eltinge
May
14, 1883–
William Julian Dalton was born. He was to become one of America's
biggest stage and film actors. He elevated the art of female
impersonation. He never presented a caricature,
nor over embellished image but rather an illusion of a woman.
Using
the single name of Eltinge became the highest paid actor on the
American stage. So popular was he
that during the Korean War a troop ship was named in his, or rather,
her honor.
The
Eltinge Theater on New York's 42nd Street was designed by noted
theater architect Thomas W. Lamb. He also had his own magazine, in
which he advised women about makeup and promoted his cosmetics line,
which was highly regarded for its cold cream. He even had a line of
cigars!
Forgetting
Julian Eltinge in American culture is arguably equivalent to
forgetting an actor like Mark Wahlberg, or Dwayne “The Rock”
Johnson, two of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood in 2019.
At
one point, Eltinge was absolutely everywhere, and his method of drag
— going back and forth from male to female characters multiple
times within a single performance — became a comedic trope that
continued into the cultural mainstream for decades to come.
With
Eltinge, drag became a more cultural experience. At the height of
Eltinge’s fame in particular, it lifted female impersonation to
great respectability where it previously had very little.
Eltinge's
career began when he was a child in Butte, Montana. Dalton was
interested in dressing up early on, which his mother apparently
accommodated. When he started dressing as a woman and performing in
local saloons, however, his father found out and was enraged, so his
mother sent him back East to Boston to live with her sister. He did
continue to preform.
Eltinge
soon became a professional, contracted actor, and made his stage
debut in New York in 1904
with the play Mr. Wix
of Wickham.
Eltinge
would go on to play a set character throughout his career — men who
had to dress as women to achieve their goals, claiming a massive
inheritance, or what have you. Eltinge actively sought to lend a
higher-class status to female impersonators, whose performances were
often otherwise confined to dive bars.
Eltinge
also sought to differentiate himself by cultivating an especially
“butch” public image, because even a hint of homosexuality
would have destroyed his career: He participated in staged boxing
matches and lit cigars after performances.
Because
it was said that Eltinge knew how to manipulate the press, rumors of
his sexuality were mostly averted, though Eltinge was a lifelong
bachelor. He designed many of his own garments and had a personal
dresser.
During
this time Eltinge began performing in vaudeville. Unlike many of the
female impersonation acts that existed at that time, like Bert Savoy
or George Fortesque, Eltinge did not present a caricature of
women but presented the illusion of actually being a
woman. He toured simply as "Eltinge" which left his sex
unknown and his act included singing and dancing in a variety of
female roles. At the conclusion of his performances, he would remove
his wig, revealing his true nature to the surprise of the often
unknowing audience.
Eltinge’s
audiences were primarily entranced women. “Women went into ecstasy
about him,'' the comedian W.C. Fields once said. ''Men went into the
smoking room.'' And for those who were so entranced, the experience
of seeing the performer was never a moral question of Eltinge’s
sexuality, but rather a fascinating, magical illusion they wanted to
see again and again.
There
is a long tradition in entertainment that goes back to Shakespearean
times. In fact, even further back to the times of ancient Greek
Plays. Women parts on stage were played by men. In Elizabethan times
it was against the law for a woman to appear on stage. In more modern
times, for a man to dress as a women, even on stage, he had to be
mocking them.
In
their limited hetreocentric world, people ask why would a man want to
look like a woman (a lessor person). Maybe that way a man could have
deviant sex. If the object of his lust LOOKED like a woman. Thus an
effeminate aspect was linked to being a sexual monster who was
somehow “after our children”. In the early 1900s, In the UK
especially, the homosexual took on very effeminate gestures as a way
of “signaling” to others what they were looking for.
In
popular entertainment appearing in drag often was a comedic tool. An
obvious buffoon to make fun of. Around the turn of the twentieth
century “drag shows” at least in the USA focused on over the top
presentations. These were diva's; over-feminine, over made up, and
over acted.
Eltinge
however offered an illusion of becoming a woman! An image unique to
the culture of the time.
Hollywood
beckoned Eltinge and in 1917 he appeared in his first feature film,
The Countess Charming.
This would lead to other films including 1918s
The Isle of Love with
Rudolph Valentino.
His
role in the film was again a double role with him playing both a male
and said male in female garb.
By
the time Eltinge arrived in Hollywood, he was earning on stage an
unheard of $3,500 a week!
By
1920,
Eltinge was an intimate of the top Hollywood stars and a
wealthy
man. He built Villa Capistrano, one of the most lavish villa’s in
the Hollywood area, where he lived with his mother and entertained
lavishly. He also built a ‘dude ranch’ for men in Alpine, CA near
San Diego.
After
filming, Eltinge continued touring onstage and would do so until
1927.
Eltinge
was one of many show business figures to be hit hard by the 1929
stock market crash. By the 1930s, the female impersonations that he
had built his career on had begun to lose popularity, as did
vaudeville in general. Eltinge resorted to performing in nightclubs.
Crackdowns on cross-dressing in public – an attempt to curb
homosexual activity – prevented Eltinge from performing in costume.
His shows were always the epitome of good taste but this moral
crackdown led to his decline.
Eltinge
experienced a personal bout of depression, having spent lavishly on
homes and cars with failed investments. Then in his 50s, he began
drinking heavily when work became scarce.
Eltinge
resorted to performing in nightclubs.
Passing
away just before WWII, Eltinge leaves a legacy as one of the greatest
female impersonators of the 20th century.
Though
the details of his professional life are widely known, Eltinge's
personal life is shrouded in mystery; mystery partly due to the
passage of time, but really more likely to Eltinge's own hand.
Aside
from the graceful femininity he exhibited onstage, Eltinge used a
super-masculine facade in public to combat the rumors of his
homosexuality. This facade included the occasional bar-fight, smoking
cigars, and drawn out engagements to women (though he never married).
He was also known to physically attack stagehands, members of the
audience and others who remarked on his sexuality.
As
to his homosexuality, there is some question. Milton Berle and many
others who worked with Eltinge believed that he was indeed gay. There
is no existing record of a lover of either sex, though stories did
abound.
The
legal oppression prevented Eltinge from performing in costume.
At
one appearance in a Los Angeles club, Eltinge stood next to displays
of his gowns while taking on his characters.
Eltinge’s
final performance was at Billy Rose’s Diamond Horseshoe Nightclub
in New York City in February of 1941. He died ten days later at his
apartment on West 74th Street. His death, like his much of his
personal life remains a mystery, leaving behind a bustle full of
questions and, undoubtedly, many spectacular black veils.
But
who was Julian Eltinge? Today he would be a hybrid of Oprah, RuPaul
and Cher, as he was the original one-named wonder: ELTINGE!
He successfully branded himself not only with a namesake theater, but
also a magazine (“Julian Eltinge’s Magazine of Beauty Hints &
Tips”) where he offered make-up and lifestyle suggestions to his
adoring fans of both sexes.
“it
is not how much paint you put on, it is where you put it”.
An
impossible persona to typecast, Eltinge greatest gift was perhaps his
ability to not merely play a woman with complete believability, but
to also somehow become one. This is why audiences claimed him
to be one of the greatest
living actresses of his time.
The
signature “reveal” ending of his act was the mainstay at
Finocchio's
Night Club of San Francisco up
until they closed in 1999.
For
Eltinge it wasn’t so much “an act” as a metamorphosis.
