Strachey Casserole

Working on a recipe to use up some left over pork, this casserole fell into place. We honor a LGBT Hero, former actor Chad Allen – who is now a clinical psychologist! A personal favorite are his movies portraying Donald Strachey private eye. 

Cooked pork, is enlivened by addition of shrimp cocktail sauce in this casserole. Easy to assemble and a quick clean-up!

Ingredients:

1 lbs of cooked pork cubes

½ cup chopped onion

½ cup chopped celery

1 can mushroom soup

2 carrots, grated

12oz. Bottle of shrimp cocktail sauce

½ package wide noodles

Directions:

Spray a 9 x 13 baking dish and pre heat oven to 350

 

Put the water on to boil for the pasta. Chop the onion and celery. Peel and grate the carrots. Crush the cup of potato chips.

Heat 1 Tbs oil in a large skillet and add the onions and celery. Stir and let that cook for about 4 minutes before adding the pork. Mix that in well.

Cover and let heat for another 4 minutes. Pour in the 12 oz of shrimp cocktail sauce and mix well.

Let heat up then add the carrots, ¼ cup of mayonnaise and the can of condensed mushroom soup. Stir well.

Cover and let that cook for 8 minutes.

Drain the noodles and stir in the pork mixture.

Spoon into the baking dish.

Sprinkle the crushed potato chips over the top and cover with foil

Bake for 40 minutes.

Serve this with a green vegetable for best presentation.

For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuUpOerfT2I

Proud and happy to be Master Indy's slave.

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

Chad Allen 

Chad Allen, born in 1974, is a former American actor, now a clinical psychologist. Beginning his career at the age of seven, Allen is a three-time Young Artist Award winner and GLAAD Media Award honoree.

Allen was a teen idol during the late 1980s as David Witherspoon on Our House and as Zach Nichols on My Two Dads before transitioning to an adult career as Matthew Cooper on Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman.

He’s the youngest of four boys, and his parents were hoping for a girl. They got one, in the shape of Chad’s twin sister, Charity. Chad was the “extra change”, as he puts it. Chad got his start in show business when his mother started entering him and his twin sister Charity in “twin contests” at fairs. People kept telling his mother that she should try to get the them into acting.

Charity didn’t much like show business at all, but Chad was bitten by the acting bug.

It was decided that Chad Lazzari sounded like a name for a dark-haired Italian, not a blond, blue-eyed boy, and he started out on his acting career as Chad Allen instead. His first job was in a McDonalds television commercial, at age four.

His first dramatic work came at age six, in a pilot for a television series that never went into production, Cutter to Houston.

TV offers followed and gave him jobs on successful TV shows like: Webster (1985-1986), Our House (1986-1988) and My Two Dads (1989-1990).

During these years, he became one of the biggest and most popular teen idols of the day, thanks to, as he later said, “a mega publicist, who put out an image of me that seemed ideal.” He couldn’t go anywhere in public without being pursued by his numerous fans.

By the time My Two Dads ended in 1990, Chad was unsure about whether he wanted to go on with acting. He was 16 years old, and even though he had gone to a normal primary school, he hadn’t been to a regular school since age 12, instead being taught by private tutors on the set.

“I left the business, went back to high school, joined the swim team, became vice-president of my class, did everything. I tried to be a normal teenager.”

He now describes it as “probably one of the best decisions I ever made”, even though his fame initially made life difficult for him in school. “In high school I was sneered at a lot. I was the teen magazine guy, half the kids followed me around like disciples and the other half were going to kick my ass”.

After high school, Chad was accepted as a student at New York University, however he decided to put off college when he was offered the part of Matthew Cooper on Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman. With this new role he became one of the few former child stars to successfully make the transition to a career as an adult.

Courageously, in an issue of The Advocate, Chad came out as a gay man. He also acknowledged past problems with drugs and alcohol.

He also has spoken to a number of groups and at events about gay rights issues including taking part in a forum on Larry King Live on the issue of gay marriage.

He has also lent his support to a large number of charities over the years, including The American Diabetes Association, The March of Dimes, Project Angel Food, the Autistic Children’s Foundation, the American Cancer Society, the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, AIDS Project Arizona, and AIDS Project Los Angeles.

In 2001, the same year as he came out in the Advocate issue, Chad proved to all the critics were wrong that said he would have a hard time finding work as actor. Three movies followed that year –A Mother’s Testimony (co-starring with Kate Jackson) the horror movie Do You Wanna Know a Secret and the critical acclaimed independent movie What Matters Most. The latter one earning him several nominations in the best actor category.

2004/2005 Chad continued to focus on acting, and landed a most important role as Donald Strachey, in Third Man Out. Here TV a gay and lesbian television network approached Chad with the detective story written by Richard Stevenson, and Chad signed on to do 6 movies in the Donald Strachey Mystery Series.

“My life experience has become so great, and I think that really fuels the acting,” says Allen. “You know, I’ve been working on my craft since I was five years-old, and now that I’m another 10 years into it, I have the experience of being open, and I can truly put all my experience into a character without any hesitation or supplementation – ˜Third Man’ is perhaps one of the most honest portrayals I’ve ever been able to give as an actor. Stage experience has been right up there, but creating Donald Strachey was just oozing out of me.”

The sequel, Shock to the System (2006), was followed by On the Other Hand, Death (2008) and Ice Blues (2008). Allen noted that Strachey is the first gay character he had ever played outside of theater and that, though his career is "different" since coming out, he finds it "more interesting and fun for me than it has ever been."

The Los Angeles Daily News wrote in passing that Allen's partner, Jeremy Glazer, was also in the film Save Me. In May 2009, Allen was the recipient of a GLAAD Media Award. In his acceptance speech he said he had met Glazer, his partner, exactly four years earlier. They broke up in 2015.

In April 2015, Allen announced in a video his retirement from acting, saying that he plans to become a clinical psychologist. "It's been an exciting journey...working on the shows that I got to work on over the years. I am incredibly grateful today, I have been and always will be," adding "My life has taken me on a very different trajectory and after 30-plus years as an actor, I made a decision a couple of years ago to begin letting that side of my life go and I've been focusing on my education." 

He is now a clinical psychologist and continues to help those struggling with LGBT issues. Surely a hero by any definition.

Simple Summer Mélange

“Mélange” comes from the French word for “mix”. A fancy name for a stew.

Seems like every time slave plans a stew, the weather warms up! If only I could count on this, I'd fix stew every week! Here is a great bowl of comfort that can make a weeks worth of lunches when on a diet. Surprising how little cravings you get when your tummy is full of warm stew.

Here we combine pieces of pork roast, white beans, onions and some stewed tomatoes. Throw in some left-over vegetables and voila! If you wish, this could be made without the meat and still be hearty and good.

Ingredients:

2-3 lbs pork roast

1 onion, chopped

2 cans great northern beans, drained

1 can stewed tomatoes

32 oz vegetable broth

Before we start, don't get in a stew over a stew. 3 things to remember.

Please use a broth instead of water. Just do it!

Pre-cook the vegetables before adding. This does not have to be long, just what is called “sweating”. This brings out the flavors.

If you are using beef or pork, please slow roast them first. This breaks down the collagen and turns a tough piece of meat into the consistency of softened butter. (Pork should be marinated in brine even for a short time).

Brining on a salt restricted diet:

Brined meat doesn't absorb all that much salt

We brined pork for for an hour and sent it to an independent lab for sodium analysis. 6 oz of cooked boneless pork chops had 218 milligrams of added sodium, or less than 1/8 teaspoon.

If this is too much for you just skip this step.

Directions:

Find a dish that the meat fits into. Add 2Tbs of salt and 2Tbs brown sugar. Fill the dish halfway up with hot tap water. Stir to dissolve. 

While that comes back to room temperature, open the package of roast. You will find a “fat cap”, thick layer of fat that melts into the roast normally. We don't need this for the stew, so trim this off. If the meat does not submerge, just plan on turning it over halfway through the marinating time. (about 2 hours total).

This gives plenty of time to chop the onion.

Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees.

When the marinating is done, remove the meat and rinse it off, pat dry with a paper towel. 

Now cut this up into 1-2 inch cubes. Spray a dutch oven and pour in the chopped onions. Lay the pork on top of this, cover it tightly and let slow roast for 2 hours. 

Test the meat, it should be done and very tender by now. 

Remove with slotted spoon. You will have plenty of meat, so set back about half the pork, bag and freeze. It makes a fantastic Stroganoff ! Also for Saint Patty's day: mix with cubed potatoes and fresh green beans, toss with olive oil and roast in 400 degree oven for 40 minutes! Wonderful.

Pour off and throw away the juices.

Place on medium heat on stove top. Add the drained beans and pork.

Pour in the stewed tomatoes and stir in the carton of vegetable broth.

Lower heat to a slight simmer. Cover and let this cook for 45 minutes.

Add the leftover vegetables. Taste test and adjust seasoning. Let cook for another 20 minutes.

Enjoy! Store in refrigerator for up to a week for delicious lunches. Stews always taste better reheated.

For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJF6xSpDdZs

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_vAT4sb0934RTM via @amazon

Alecks Bake

Here is an interesting twist on the old Shepherds Pie meal featuring a BBQed chicken and Mac & Cheese! It is to honor one of the greatest LGBT writers of the early 20^th century Alexander Wollcott. Read about him after the recipe. 

Here is also a lesson on how to carve a rotisserie chicken! Also the best way to harvest the pulled meat for any and all recipes. Remember that 3 oz of rotisserie chicken breast meat contains 279 mg of sodium or 19% of daily recommendations. Thigh meat is 318 mg of sodium!

About one-third of the fresh chicken found in supermarket meat cases has been synthetically saturated with a mix of water, salt, and other additives via needle injections and high-pressure vacuum tumbling.

READ the fine print on the package!

Ingredients:

1 rotisserie chicken (directions on how to harvest the meat follows)

1 can Sloppy Joe mix

1 small can peas & carrots

1 onion chopped

1 cup shredded Cheddar Cheese

Directions:

Here is how to carve a rotisserie chicken and harvest the pulled meat for recipes. It can be messy but not difficult. Forgive the internet pictures but slave just can't take pictures on his phone with hands covered with chicken! Wear gloves!

Place a cutting board in a sheet pan to catch any drippings and Use a good sharp knife.

A well cooked chicken may be tender enough to just pull apart with your fingers, wearing gloves of course! First remove the string.

Cut or pry between the breast and the leg & thigh, pry it open and the joint will pop, then cut on right through.

Hold the leg by the “foot” and run the knife right down cutting the drumstick free from the thigh. You will find a thin line of fat to show you where to cut.

Peel off the skin, watch out for gristle and the tiny bone that runs down the side of the leg. There is a short piece of gristle on each leg, pull or cut that off.

REMEMBER you want NO BONE or Bone fragments, gristle or any thing your guest could bite down on!

Roll your fingers around the thigh bone and again the meat will just pull away.

Repeat on other side

Pull the wings away from the bird and cut through the joint, repeat for other side.

Turn the cavity toward you.

Peel off the skin to show the breast meat. You will see the breast bone. Pull out the “wish bones” over the cavity opening.

Sometimes the meat is so tender you can run your fingers right down the side as you pull the meat away. OR

Cut right down one side of the breast bone, pulling the meat away as you cut. Cut as close to the bone as possible, your knife will ride the ribs down. Cut down to one side of the back bone and cut right through.

On the other side of the breastbone just cut down through to the other side of the back bone.

Again you can just pull the meat apart in about ½ to 1 inch pieces. OR you can pull it apart with two forks!

ON the back, where the thigh was connected, you will find a small piece, about the size of the end of your thumb. It is called the “oyster”. The best piece on the whole chicken. (cut this out and eat it yourself! This is your reward for dissecting the bird)!

Once again check through the pile of chicken pieces for any bone or gristle.

Chop the onion and any pieces of chicken that are too large.

Bag and freeze any meat you don't need for later use.

Clean up the mess and wash your hands!

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and spray an 8 x 8 baking dish and set aside.

Start the water for pasta and fix the box of Mac & Cheese according to package directions. 

Once that is done. Heat some oil in the skillet. Add the chopped onion and stir occasionally until it starts to turn transparent. Add 2 cups of pulled chicken and stir in the drained ½ can of peas and carrots.

Pour in the sloppy joe mix stirring from time to time to heat and blend flavors.

Spoon the chicken into a layer on the bottom of the 8 x 8 baking dish.

Now stir the cup of shredded Cheddar Cheese into the prepared mac & cheese. You want it to be thick with cheese, otherwise the pasta will just soak up the sauce.

Spoon this on top making a thick layer over the chicken. Place in oven for 35 – 45 minutes. Everything is already cooked, this just “sets” the dish and melts the cheese.

When finished, remove from oven and let rest while you microwave a green vegetable side.

What an unexpected twist on the ole “Shepherds Pie”! 

For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhdtSDDay6I

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

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

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

Alexander Woollcott

Alexander Woollcott (January 19, 1887 – January 23, 1943) was an American critic and commentator for The New Yorker magazine, a member of the Algonquin Round Table, an occasional actor and playwright, and a prominent radio personality. Woollcott was one of the most quoted men of his generation.

Reportedly, in his early twenties he contracted the mumps that left him sterile, but not impotent; in any case, his sexual confusion began much earlier. During his teens, he regularly cross­-dressed, signed his letters “Alicia,” and was nicknamed “Cream Puff.” In college, Cream Puff became “Putt”, the jocks beat him up regularly, and he contemplated suicide. He got through it all by reading Krafft­-Ebing, Havelock Ellis, and Oscar Wilde on “inversion,” and decided to accept himself.

With the help of a family friend, he made his way through college, graduating from Hamilton College, in 1909.

Woollcott joined the staff of The New York Times as a cub reporter in 1909. In April 1917, the day after war was declared, Woollcott volunteered as a private in the medical corps. He soon became a sergeant when the intelligence section of the American Expeditionary Forces selected him and a half-dozen other newspaper men to create the Stars and Stripes, an official newspaper to bolster troop morale. As chief reporter, Woollcott was a member of the team that formed its editorial board. Using humor, he reported the horrors of the Great War from the point of view of the common soldier. 

After the war he returned to The New York Times.

From 1929 to 1934, he wrote a column called "Shouts and Murmurs" for The New Yorker. His book, While Rome Burns, published by Grosset & Dunlap in 1934, was named twenty years later as one of the 52 "Best Loved Books of the Twentieth Century." 

Among Woollcott's classic one liners is his description of the Los Angeles area as "Seven suburbs in search of a city". Describing The New Yorker editor Harold Ross, he said: "He looks like a dishonest Abe Lincoln."

Woollcott was renowned for his savage tongue. He dismissed Oscar Levant, the notable wit and pianist, by observing, "There is absolutely nothing wrong with Oscar Levant that a miracle can't fix."

Dorothy Parker once said: "I remember hearing Woollcott say reading Proust is like lying in someone else's dirty bath water.”

He long claimed the Brandy Alexander cocktail was named for him.

Some of his best known quotes:

• "All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal, or fattening."
• "Many of us spend half of our time wishing for things we could have if we didn't spend half our time wishing."
• "There is no such thing in anyone's life as an unimportant day."
• "His huff arrived and he departed in it."
• "A hick town is one where there is no place to go where you shouldn't go."
• "The English have an extraordinary ability for flying into a great calm."
• "At 83, George Bernard Shaw's mind was perhaps not quite as good as it used to be, but it was still better than anyone else's."
• "I have no need of your God-damned sympathy. I only wish to be entertained by some of your grosser reminiscences."

Alexander Woollcott fell in love with Harpo Marx the first time he saw him. The Marx Brothers were making their Broadway debut in the musical comedy I’ll Say She Is. Woollcott was there, reluctantly, to review it for the Sun.

It was an evening of chaos, double entendres, and gender confusion, especially during the show’s centerpiece—a takeoff on the Napoleon and Josephine story in which Napoleon (Groucho) is forced back to Paris again and again to thwart the not unwelcome advances Josephine receives from his three ministers, Gaston (Harpo), François (Chico), and Alphonse (Zeppo). Everyone ends up groping everyone else. Woollcott loved it all, but was especially transported by Harpo, as the title of his review the next day testifies: “Harpo Marx and Some Brothers ­ Hilarious Antics Spread Good Cheer at the Casino.” We should be grateful, he said, for these four “talented cutups,” but especially for the “silent brother, that sly, unexpected, magnificent comic among the Marxes.”

                                                    Harpo

The review was more than a rave, it was a mash note, for Woollcott was gay and suddenly smitten. Like a nervous stagedoor Johnny, he called Harpo the next day and wrangled an invitation backstage, using his review as a calling card.

Their meeting was rocky at first. But Harpo liked the way Woollcott laughed and decided to accept an invitation to a poker game at the Algonquin.

Here already was the tug­-of­-war, the teasing and the battle of wits that would characterize their relationship for the next two decades. From that first night until his death in 1943, Woollcott focused most of his considerable desire on Harpo.

Harpo’s own characterization of their friendship was tender: “I could never figure Aleck out completely, nor he me. He was too complicated and I was too simple. Our friendship was a lifelong game of ‘Who Am I?’ It was frustrating, exasperating, and sometimes downright silly, but it was a good, rewarding game…. He was a true friend.” Harpo was not, however, so simple, and the game they played was as much “Do You Want Me?” as “Who Am I?”

The two men formed an odd couple in the constellation of oddballs that was the Algonquin Round Table. Woollcott was pudgy, fastidious, and bookish, a dandy with an acidic, modern wit. James Thurber called him “Old Vitriol and Violets.” Harpo, on the other hand, was Harpo, a real-­life version of his goofy, horn-­honking self. He was all libido, always “on,” seemingly up for anything. The affection the two men shared was real. They were the “Odd Couple,” Felix and Oscar, locked in a long flirtation. Woollcott scolded, Harpo teased.

For years they vacationed together and exchanged notes on the anniversary of their meeting.

                                            Alexander and Harpo

One day, while on a trip to France, Woollcott took him to meet Somerset Maugham at Maugham’s villa, lecturing him all the way about good behavior. When they arrived, Harpo was surprised to find Maugham younger looking and less swishy and stuffy than he’d expected. He greeted them, Harpo recalled, looking “lean and brown” in “only shorts and sandals,” and “sizzling with energy and good cheer.”

Maugham showed them the master bedroom, positioned so he could dive from its window straight into his pool. While Woollcott and Maugham were turned away discussing a painting, Harpo stripped and made the dive. Woollcott acted appalled, but the Englishman quickly shed his shorts and sandals, and followed Harpo through the window!

Another afternoon, Woollcott invited Mr. and Mrs. George Bernard Shaw for lunch. He fussed over arrangements all morning (“jittery as a girl on her first date,” said Harpo) Harpo said “to hell with the whole affair” and went for a nude swim. As he dozed in the sun, the Shaws pulled up.

They missed Woollcott in town and hired their own driver out to the villa. Harpo just managed to get a towel around himself as the guests came up the walk, Shaw yelling “Where the devil’s Woollcott? Who the devil are you?” As Harpo introduced himself, Shaw reached down and yanked the towel away, laughed, and nonchalantly introduced himself. By the time Woollcott arrived, Harpo and the Shaws were fast friends. The three of them spent the next month palling around —much to Woollcott’s apparent chagrin. “Harpo Marx and Bernard Shaw!” he sniffed. “Corned beef and roses!”

Harpo knew it was an act, noting that Woollcott “loved playing the game of Strange Bedfellows.” Harpo didn’t mind that game, but he “didn’t exactly care for the type of dog Aleck put on, on the Riviera” and his escapades were designed to bring Woollcott back down to earth. According to Harpo (in Harpo Speaks!), Woollcott admitted that “every man as pretentious as old Alexander” needs such friends “to remind him of what really makes the world go round, and that everything else is just pretending.”

Thurber in The Years With Ross also reports Woollcott describing himself as "the best writer in America," but with nothing in particular to say; Woollcott was primarily a storyteller, a retailer of anecdotes and superior gossip, as many of his personal letters reveal. His letters also reveal a warm and generous heart and a self-effacing manner distinct from his waspish public persona, and his many lasting and close friendships with the theatrical and literary elite of his day. 

Woollcott appeared on his last radio broadcast in 1943, as a participant on the CBS Radio program The People's Platform. Marking the tenth anniversary of Adolf Hitler's rise to power, the topic was "Is Germany Incurable?"

"The German people are just as responsible for Hitler as the people of Chicago are for the Chicago Tribune," Woollcott stated emphatically, and the panelists noted Woollcott's physical distress. Ten minutes into the broadcast, Woollcott commented that he was feeling ill, but continued his remarks. "It's a fallacy to think that Hitler was the cause of the world's present woes," he said. Woollcott continued, adding "Germany was the cause of Hitler." He said nothing further, but reportedly took a notepad and wrote the words, "I am sick." The radio audience was unaware that Woollcott had suffered a heart attack. He died at New York's Roosevelt Hospital a few hours later, aged 56, of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Woollcott is remembered almost exclusively as “The Man Who Came to Dinner.” His friends George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart patterned their play’s central character, Sheridan Whiteside, an annoying New York critic and radio celebrity, after him. Forgotten now is the fact that Woollcott was one of America’s most popular writers during the 1920s and 1930s. He published screenplays, biographies, and collections of essays, wrote numerous profiles and the “Shouts and Murmurs” page for The New Yorker, and hosted a popular CBS radio show, “The Town Crier.” If he is remembered more today as a personality than as a writer, it is because his great talent. “Nothing Woollcott did or thought escaped notice,” said E.B. White. “He saw to that.” The persona that Woollcott created and promoted was the quintessential version of a certain modern gay style, a style that fends off sadness with wit and uses double entendres to hint at the double life. It is the mix of sentiment and bitterness, of nostalgia and high camp, that one finds in the lyrics of Cole Porter and Noel Coward.

He was buried in Clinton, New York, at his alma mater, Hamilton College, but not without some confusion. By mistake, his ashes were sent to Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. When the error was corrected and the ashes were forwarded to Hamilton College, they arrived with 67¢ postage due.