Often we think of French onion as being the beefy variety. Here is a chicken version of this favorite taste. We dedicate this to a brave survivor of the NAZI Holocaust. One of the untold number who were forced to wear the pink triangle of homosexuality. This group is often overlooked, yet suffered unbelievably. More, when the camps were liberated, were forced to stay in prison (since they were “real” criminals).
Here we offer a creamy onion sauce for our chicken and pasta.
Ingredients
2 TBS olive oil, divided
2 TBS butter, divided
1 pound chicken thighs cut into pieces
½ teaspoon salt, divided
½ teaspoon ground pepper, divided
1 large yellow onion (1 pound), halved and thinly sliced
1 small can mushroom bits & pieces, drained
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
½ cup half & half
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
Chopped parsley for garnish
Egg noodles
Directions:
Slice the onion in thin slices carefully with a mandolin slicer. Cut up the chicken thighs into 1 inch pieces and roll in ¼ cup flour with paprika mixed in.
Heat 1 TBS oil and 1 TBS of butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Spread out the onion in the hot oil and sprinkle with thyme and pinches of salt & pepper to taste. Saute this for 15 mins or until browned and limp.
Add the chicken pieces and cook until browned. Remove to plate.
In a small bowl mix the half & half with 2 Tbs of flour into a slurry. Stir into the skillet. Add the pasta and stir to make sure each piece is coated well.
This is important to make sure it all cooks.
Stir in the mushrooms, and peas.
Lay the chicken pieces on this bed in skillet and cover. Let simmer for at least 20 mins, stirring occasionally until the pasta is cooked.
Serve sprinkled with parsley and Parmesan cheese if desired.
For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRvcrWGUmR4 This Old House
So honored to be serving 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
Rudolf was born 1913 to parents originating in Bohemia. The family had emigrated to Saxony to earn a living. After World War I, he became a Czechoslovak citizen, owing to his parents' origins in that newly established country.
In the early 1930s, prior to the Nazis' accession to power, he was able to live his sexuality openly, thanks to relative tolerance in the last days of the Weimar Republic. In the summer of 1933, he met Werner, his first companion. Together they shared a sublease in the house of a Jehovah's Witness landlady, who was fully aware and tolerant of the bond existing between them. In the following two years, despite the Nazi accession to power and the subsequent reinforcement of Paragraph 175, they led a happy life, befriending other male homosexuals.
As of 1935, the Nazis extension of legal provisions criminalizing homosexuality generated a dramatic increase of lawsuits against homosexuals. Thus, in 1937, following police investigations into the lives of his gay friends, Brazda was suspected and remanded in custody. In Altenburg, he was eventually tried and sentenced to six months in prison for breaching the terms of Paragraph 175. Werner was tried and sentenced elsewhere and circumstances led to them losing sight of each other in the ensuing months. Werner is rumored to have died in 1940 while on military duty on the French front, in the battles raging against Britain.
Having served his sentence, Brazda was soon to be expelled from Germany in October 1937. In April 1941, he was imprisoned again on suspicion of homosexual activities, and later charged by a court in the town of Eger in the Czech Republic, following a new trial. In June 1942, instead of being released at the end of his second prison term, he was remanded in "Schutzhaft", or protective custody, the first measure leading to his deportation to a KZ (Konzentrationslager).
Brazda was deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp on 8 August 1942 and remained there until its liberation, on April 11, 1945. He was prisoner number 7952 and started with forced labor at the stone quarry, prior to being posted to the quarry's infirmary. Several months later, he joined the roofers unit, part of the "Bauhof" kommando, in charge of maintaining the numerous buildings that constituted the camp. On many occasions, Brazda saw first hand the Nazi cruelty towards homosexuals as well as other detainees, aware it was not uncommon for sick or disabled prisoners to be executed by lethal injection at the sick bay.
With the help of a kapo who hid him in the early days of April 1945, shortly before the camp's evacuation, Brazda was able to avoid being sent away with thousands of prisoners. These forced evacuation measures turned into death marches for nearly half of them, who were shot on the spot if they were too weak to sustain the pace.
Within the roofers' kommando, Brazda had been able to make friends with other deportees, mostly communists, and in particular with Fernand, a Frenchman from the Alsace province. After finally being released from the camp, instead of returning to his place of birth, Brazda decided to follow the Frenchman to the latter's home country. In May 1945, both eventually arrived in Mulhouse, shortly after VE Day.
In the early 1950s, at a costume ball, Brazda met Edouard "Edi" Mayer, who became his life companion. In the early 1960s, they moved into a house they built in the suburbs of Mulhouse, where Brazda resided until not long before his death. He tended to Edi for over 30 years after Edi was crippled by a severe work accident, until his death in 2003.
In 2008, he heard of the impending unveiling of a memorial to homosexual victims of Nazism in Berlin, he decided to make himself known. Eventually, an invitation was extended to him to attend a ceremony on the morning of the Berlin CSD gay pride march. Brazda was then invited to attend a number of gay events, including Europride Zurich in 2009 and some smaller scaled events in France, Switzerland and Germany.
In 2010, Rudolf Brazda took part in Mulhouse in the unveiling of a plaque in memory of Pierre Seel and others who were deported because of their homosexuality and was a guest of honor at a remembrance ceremony at Buchenwald.
Brazda was symbolically present on the site of the former Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp on the occasion of a plaque unveiling ceremony. The plaque reads, "In Memory of the Victims of Nazi Barbarity, Deported Because of Their Homosexuality."
Brazda was determined to continue speaking out about his past, in the hope that younger generations remain vigilant in the face of present-day behavior and thought patterns similar to those which led to the persecutions endured by homosexuals during the Nazi era. He received the gold medals of the cities of Toulouse and Nancy in recognition of his commitment to bear witness locally and nationally in France.
In recognition of his numerous contributions to public debates, media interviews and research articles, nationally and internationally, not least his involvement in a citizens group promoting awareness of homosexual deportation in France, Brazda was appointed Knight in the National order of the Legion of Honour, in the 2011 Easter honors list. He received his Knight insignia four days later from Marie-José Chombart de Lauwe, president of the French Foundation for the Remembrance of Deportation, in Puteaux (the city whose gold medal he also received on that occasion).
Brazda supported research work by the French citizens group Les « Oublié(e)s » de la Mémoire who made him an honorary member on 3 October 2008.
His original biography, Itinéraire d'un Triangle rose (A Pink Triangle's life journey; currently available in French, Portuguese, Spanish and Czech) is the only book he personally verified and authorized. It is the testimony of the likely last survivor of those men who were marked by a pink triangle and shows how Nazi repression of homosexuality directly impacted his life path. For the first time a book discloses the details of minute police investigations led to convict him and other homosexuals who had come under scrutiny. It also deals with issues such as human sexuality in concentration camps.
A longer, more scholarly German-language biography of Brazda was published later: "Das Glück kam immer zu mir": Rudolf Brazda—Das Überleben eines Homosexuellen im Dritten Reich by Alexander Zinn (Campus Verlag, 2011). The book is currently available in German only.
Brazda died on 3 August 2011, at the age of 98, at Les Molènes, an assisted living facility in northeastern France. Brazda's funeral was held on 8 August 2011 in Mulhouse, France. After a remembrance service attended by approximately 40 people, his body was cremated, and his ashes interred alongside those of his late partner Edouard Mayer, in the Cemetery of Mulhouse.
Immediately following Rudolf Brazda's death, numerous organizations and officials in France paid tribute to his memory.
Obituaries of Rudolf Brazda appeared in publications and on websites worldwide. English-language obituaries published by the Associated Press; Czech Position (Prague); the Los Angeles Times; The New York Times; RFI (France); The Telegraph; The Independent (London); UPI (United States); and numerous other media outlets.
In September 2011, a national tribute ceremony to Rudolf was organized by Les « Oublié(e)s » de la Mémoire. It was held at Saint-Roch's Church, Paris, which houses a memorial chapel to victims of Deportation. Officials, diplomacy representatives, as well as militants and association representatives were in attendance. In the last three years of his life, Rudolf had become a unique witness, and remembering homosexual deportation today remains essential in the struggle against discrimination.
In a statement, Mémorial de la Déportation Homosexuelle, a French organization that commemorates the Nazi persecution of gay people, said that Mr. Brazda “was very likely the last victim and the last witness” to the persecution.
It will now be the task of all LGBT's to keep this memory alive,
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