A majority of Americans, in the nation's 235-year history, have known times when it became necessary to eat low off the hog. Americans in the spring of 2009 were entering another such era.
American tables at dinnertime have always reflected the economy realities of the day. In the long run, this is not a bad thing, having to make a little go a long way. I call it "stretch cooking," whose principles I learned from my grandmother, Susie Foote Grant, who learned them the hard way. Her husband Roy dropped dead of a heart attack, at age 44, on July 4, 1929, not quite four months before the financial crash that began the Great Depression. Susie was left with six children, only two yet old enough to work, and she brought them through the worst years on a menu fashioned, on the worst days, from not much more than beans and meal and grit.
The worst days were over, by the time of my birth in 1943, and all the Grant children were old enough to work. But by then we were in the middle of a world war, the Grant sons were overseas, and the Grant girls were secretaries. The Grant table still featured stretch cooking, with certain luxuries. Susie could afford to put something new on the table almost every night. She set up a rotation of one new thing and three leftovers each day, with today's new thing becoming a leftover tomorrow.
I had no reason to complain. I loved that cooking. Still do. And that is the primary reason for this collection of recipes. Yes, you can survive, if you have to, with some dried beans, some cornmeal, some water, and salt and pepper. But the recipes in my collection are not survival recipes. They yield delicious meals for distressed times, or the best of times. Susie possessed survival, but also wondrous, skills. Every time I sit down to Smothered Steak, Pinto Beans, Corn Bread Thangs and sliced tomatoes, I consider myself a beneficiary of those skills.
I love to cook, and stretch cooking was not my starting point in the kitchen. But I have lived and cooked my way through several economic downturns, none as severe as the circumstances of 2009 and beyond, and every time I have returned to Susie's style, learning more and creating versions of my own. The results have been in fact cheap and also very, very satisfying.
In 1978, I began writing a column for The San Diego Union. Naturally I bragged about this kind of cooking. Eventually readers invited me to put up or shut up, and that is when one thing really started to lead to another. I wrote a cookbook, catchily titled "Michael Grant's Cookbook," which was published in 1987. Some of those recipes you will find here in weeks and months to come, and some are new. There will even be some vegetarian recipes, and technique breakthroughs such as scorching an onion. You can find them under the label: "Stretch Cooking."
I think about Susie a lot when I am cooking. I see myself standing by her electric stove in the early 1950s, watching her make beans and greens and Corn Bread Thangs. One afternoon, I looked up at her and said, "You know, Susie, someday I am going to live in San Diego, California, and write a newspaper column and talk a lot about Texas cooking. And then one morning I am going to cook your Corn Bread Thangs on a television talk show."
And she looked down at me and said, "You're crazy as a loon, boy." It turns out that I wasn't. It's the times that go crazy, sometimes. The cooking stays stable, and good.
April 14, 2009
April 13, 2009
Tigerized by a nice afternoon of flog
My God, I’ve been Tigerized.
It is true that for several years, the likelihood of my watching a golf tournament on television went way up if Tiger Woods was playing. Ninety percent of the time, if Woods was playing, I could count on something unusual, or outright bizarre, happening.
But I think that was only a natural reaction, one that all, or practically all, humans are born with. It is standard human equipment to react to unusual events. “Novelty,” to a media professional, is one of the 12 basic media values, and I believe it is totally reasonable to suggest that Tiger Woods is a novel golfer. Bobby Jones in 1965 said of the young Jack Nicklaus, “He plays a game with which I am not familiar.” Dave Anderson of The New York Times used that line, after Woods won the 1997 Masters at 18-under, to set up his own line: “Woods . . . played a game with which even Nicklaus was not familiar.”
That was the kind of novelty on my mind that drew me in again yesterday for the Masters final round. Woods was seven strokes behind the leader, but pfsssh. Tiger could wipe out that lead by the fourth hole. He didn’t, ultimately, but anyone, including Woods, who has ever swung club at ball knows that in the long run, the course always wins. (There is a little-known historical fact why “golf” is “flog” spelled backward, but more about that in a minute.) Woods gave it a good run, though, all the way to the 17th hole. And that’s when I got Tigerized.
On the West Coast, the Masters was scheduled to end at 4 p.m. As Woods was walking off the 16th green, my eye caught the clock on the TV cabinet. It was a few minutes before 2. I went into one of those space-time disconnects that always happen when I think about the International Date Line. How could Tiger be walking to the 17th tee with two hours left to play? Adding to the confusion, the picture switched to something that players were doing on the front nine. How did they get back there?
Then I understood. On Sunday afternoons, I tell time by how close Tiger Woods is to the 18th hole. Sociologists spend a lot of time studying, and worrying about, the cultural influences of media. Do people become the events, the content, they consume in the media? I tend to think no, people only imitate media content without any actual change in behavior. Many times have I imitated golfers without actually ever becoming one. I was amused to note, by the way, another circle closed between me and a famous person. Two weeks ago it was Bill Cosby, who won a Mark Twain award, just as I won a Mark Twain award in 1990. During this Masters, Padraig Harrington set a Master’s record – or perhaps a professional golf record – by hitting the same tree twice on the same hole. Pretty good, but well short of my personal best of hitting MYSELF twice, on CONSECUTIVE SHOTS, including the second shot that had to hit a ball-washer post exactly right to come back and nail me in the left thigh.
That was utter simplicity, though, compared to gaining two extra hours on a Sunday afternoon because my cultural geography had shifted into Tiger Time. I didn’t say anything to Karen. No sense making her worry. She doesn’t particularly like golf, but she likes to watch Tiger for the usual novelty value. We were in the mountains over the weekend and left in plenty of time so we could, as she said, be home in time to “watch the flog.” In this case, she was imitating me. I like to call golf flog. But I wasn’t sure she knew the whole story.
“Do you think that ‘flog’ is a typo?” I said. I know that she, like me, likes to speak in typos sometimes. “Yes,” she said. “Actually,” I said, “’flog’ is ‘golf’ spelled backward,” and I told her the history of the early Scots, going out to the heath with a stitched-leather ball and walking sticks with which to hit the ball. They called it “going out for a flog.” Later, as the game caught on, the founders decided that “flog” may not be the most distinguished label for their new sport, so a committee was formed. At a national meeting of the Royal Flog Committee, a member happened to look at his nametag in the mirror in the men’s bathroom. And that’s where golf came from. You see why Karen might worry.
It is true that for several years, the likelihood of my watching a golf tournament on television went way up if Tiger Woods was playing. Ninety percent of the time, if Woods was playing, I could count on something unusual, or outright bizarre, happening.
But I think that was only a natural reaction, one that all, or practically all, humans are born with. It is standard human equipment to react to unusual events. “Novelty,” to a media professional, is one of the 12 basic media values, and I believe it is totally reasonable to suggest that Tiger Woods is a novel golfer. Bobby Jones in 1965 said of the young Jack Nicklaus, “He plays a game with which I am not familiar.” Dave Anderson of The New York Times used that line, after Woods won the 1997 Masters at 18-under, to set up his own line: “Woods . . . played a game with which even Nicklaus was not familiar.”
That was the kind of novelty on my mind that drew me in again yesterday for the Masters final round. Woods was seven strokes behind the leader, but pfsssh. Tiger could wipe out that lead by the fourth hole. He didn’t, ultimately, but anyone, including Woods, who has ever swung club at ball knows that in the long run, the course always wins. (There is a little-known historical fact why “golf” is “flog” spelled backward, but more about that in a minute.) Woods gave it a good run, though, all the way to the 17th hole. And that’s when I got Tigerized.
On the West Coast, the Masters was scheduled to end at 4 p.m. As Woods was walking off the 16th green, my eye caught the clock on the TV cabinet. It was a few minutes before 2. I went into one of those space-time disconnects that always happen when I think about the International Date Line. How could Tiger be walking to the 17th tee with two hours left to play? Adding to the confusion, the picture switched to something that players were doing on the front nine. How did they get back there?
Then I understood. On Sunday afternoons, I tell time by how close Tiger Woods is to the 18th hole. Sociologists spend a lot of time studying, and worrying about, the cultural influences of media. Do people become the events, the content, they consume in the media? I tend to think no, people only imitate media content without any actual change in behavior. Many times have I imitated golfers without actually ever becoming one. I was amused to note, by the way, another circle closed between me and a famous person. Two weeks ago it was Bill Cosby, who won a Mark Twain award, just as I won a Mark Twain award in 1990. During this Masters, Padraig Harrington set a Master’s record – or perhaps a professional golf record – by hitting the same tree twice on the same hole. Pretty good, but well short of my personal best of hitting MYSELF twice, on CONSECUTIVE SHOTS, including the second shot that had to hit a ball-washer post exactly right to come back and nail me in the left thigh.
That was utter simplicity, though, compared to gaining two extra hours on a Sunday afternoon because my cultural geography had shifted into Tiger Time. I didn’t say anything to Karen. No sense making her worry. She doesn’t particularly like golf, but she likes to watch Tiger for the usual novelty value. We were in the mountains over the weekend and left in plenty of time so we could, as she said, be home in time to “watch the flog.” In this case, she was imitating me. I like to call golf flog. But I wasn’t sure she knew the whole story.
“Do you think that ‘flog’ is a typo?” I said. I know that she, like me, likes to speak in typos sometimes. “Yes,” she said. “Actually,” I said, “’flog’ is ‘golf’ spelled backward,” and I told her the history of the early Scots, going out to the heath with a stitched-leather ball and walking sticks with which to hit the ball. They called it “going out for a flog.” Later, as the game caught on, the founders decided that “flog” may not be the most distinguished label for their new sport, so a committee was formed. At a national meeting of the Royal Flog Committee, a member happened to look at his nametag in the mirror in the men’s bathroom. And that’s where golf came from. You see why Karen might worry.
April 09, 2009
Sunset, moonrise
A couple of times a year, the sun sets at Alta Mira, and the moon rises, almost at the same time. But only every two or three years, if we are lucky, does the sun set and the moon rise in a way that forces us to make a choice. Last night was such a night. The sun and moon were both so compelling, in their departure and arrival, that you had to choose your compulsion. As you did, you had to turn your back on the other. No way to have both at the same time. These events represent proof of something my grandmother Susie always said. "You can't have it all." I don't know if she learned that by watching sunsets and moonrises in her native Alabama, or adopted Texas, but I can speak to her from Southern California and tell her what she said was true.Actually, I missed the best shot of all. I was watching events from the glider when I looked at the clouds in the east and thought I saw something huge and white. I wasn't looking for it, so its size shocked me. I realized it was the moon, emerging. I ran for the camera and got the image above, which isn't half as dramatic as what I had seen seconds before. But it wasn't bad. Then I turned my back on the moon and shot the sun. Moon and sun, looming through clouds and trees.
And back to the moon, starting to emerge. The moon plays optical tricks, depending on what it is near. Here, it does not appear nearly so large as when I first saw it. At that moment, it looked as big as a planet.
And up she came.
Another evening like this will be along again in a couple of years. Maybe sooner. The planet, in presenting its grandeur, always likes it to be a surprise.
April 05, 2009
Sonic boom
Tomorrow is a big day in the San Diego area. A Sonic is opening in Santee, which is an eastern suburb of San Diego.
Better an eastern suburb than El Centro, which before tomorrow has been the closest Sonic to us. There's another one in Anaheim, roughly 100 miles north. It reminds me of the days back in Abilene when we had to drive 100 miles for a six-pack of beer. Then 60. Then 40. Then, finally, two, when the famous hamlet of Impact was incorporated inside the city limits of Abilene, for the sole purpose of selling booze.
The Santee Sonic is like the Impact of San Diego, for those who are addicted to Sonic's line of drive-in goodies. It is a true drive-in, too, window service from carhops wearing roller skates, just like in "American Graffiti."
I am not particularly excited by Sonic's arrival, though there were years in the 1970s when I felt that way about Whataburger, which at that time sold the best hamburger on the planet. But it didn't sell them west of Texas, until outlets opened in Phoenix, then Yuma. That was tantalizingly close, but still over a range of low mountains, down to the desert, and then an hour's drive across the desert to Yuma. I never made the trip. I found a reasonable substitute, in a Burger King Whopper, no mayo, no catsup, extra mustard. But Whoppers are flame broiled, you know, instead of off the griddle, like the Whataburger, so my yearning was real.
Sonic is not a bad joint, for a drive-in. They are second- or third-generation, following on the cruiser joints that started it all in the late 1940s and early '50s, when boys, girls, cars, drivers licenses and hamburgers converged to satisfy the various appetites of late summer evenings when gas was 15 cents a gallon. The Abilene original was the Dairy Delight, then came Mack's, and much later a Sonic appeared, after – for me – cars and cruising and girls in bobbysox had dropped off the appetite list, gas was $1.50 a gallon, and the Sonic hamburger standing alone wasn't really worth it.
Steak fingers, though, are another matter. I will cruise this Santee Sonic at some point, and check out the menu, and if I find steak fingers on it, with cream gravy, fries, and Texas Toast, I will pull into a space and press the call button. If they still have call buttons. It won't be the same, if the drive-ins of today use some GPS technology to know you've pulled in. Bad enough imagining hip-hop booming from 400-watt speakers two cars over. I wonder if Whataburger execs will be watching the Santee Sonic experiment. Maybe, baby. Well, that'll be the day.
Better an eastern suburb than El Centro, which before tomorrow has been the closest Sonic to us. There's another one in Anaheim, roughly 100 miles north. It reminds me of the days back in Abilene when we had to drive 100 miles for a six-pack of beer. Then 60. Then 40. Then, finally, two, when the famous hamlet of Impact was incorporated inside the city limits of Abilene, for the sole purpose of selling booze.
The Santee Sonic is like the Impact of San Diego, for those who are addicted to Sonic's line of drive-in goodies. It is a true drive-in, too, window service from carhops wearing roller skates, just like in "American Graffiti."
I am not particularly excited by Sonic's arrival, though there were years in the 1970s when I felt that way about Whataburger, which at that time sold the best hamburger on the planet. But it didn't sell them west of Texas, until outlets opened in Phoenix, then Yuma. That was tantalizingly close, but still over a range of low mountains, down to the desert, and then an hour's drive across the desert to Yuma. I never made the trip. I found a reasonable substitute, in a Burger King Whopper, no mayo, no catsup, extra mustard. But Whoppers are flame broiled, you know, instead of off the griddle, like the Whataburger, so my yearning was real.
Sonic is not a bad joint, for a drive-in. They are second- or third-generation, following on the cruiser joints that started it all in the late 1940s and early '50s, when boys, girls, cars, drivers licenses and hamburgers converged to satisfy the various appetites of late summer evenings when gas was 15 cents a gallon. The Abilene original was the Dairy Delight, then came Mack's, and much later a Sonic appeared, after – for me – cars and cruising and girls in bobbysox had dropped off the appetite list, gas was $1.50 a gallon, and the Sonic hamburger standing alone wasn't really worth it.
Steak fingers, though, are another matter. I will cruise this Santee Sonic at some point, and check out the menu, and if I find steak fingers on it, with cream gravy, fries, and Texas Toast, I will pull into a space and press the call button. If they still have call buttons. It won't be the same, if the drive-ins of today use some GPS technology to know you've pulled in. Bad enough imagining hip-hop booming from 400-watt speakers two cars over. I wonder if Whataburger execs will be watching the Santee Sonic experiment. Maybe, baby. Well, that'll be the day.
April 01, 2009
Bill Cosby and me
I see in today’s paper that a circle has closed, between Bill Cosby and me.
We both now have won Mark Twain awards. His award is a teense bigger than mine. His is presented by the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Mine was presented (in 1990) by the western division of the Associated Press News Executives. But it is a Mark Twain award nevertheless. It weighs a ton, and there is a bust of Mark Twain right there on it.
Bill Cosby won his Mark Twain award for humor, and that is part of the circle closing. I once contributed to his humor, on an evening in 1961 when we both happened to be at the old hungry i, in San Francisco. He was starting his stand-up comedy career, and I was starting at Stanford University. I think my mother and my aunt were there, but I am not sure. I know for a fact that I was wearing slacks and black loafers and white socks.
Cosby spotted the white socks. I was sitting in, like, the second row. For a couple of minutes, he had great fun with those socks, giving the audience some laughs and me something to brag about to this very day. I am almost positive that he asked my mother – which is why I think she was there – if she had knitted me a reindeer sweater, to go with the white socks. But I may be mixing memories, which I am getting better at all the time. I do know that early in his career Cosby was very big on reindeer sweaters.
I got into the humor business myself, eventually. You could even say I was in the humor business at the time. Later, as a newspaper columnist making speeches, I would tell the audiences that I began at Stanford as a pre-med major. Then I flunked freshman chemistry. Then I flunked it again. “I didn’t leave a mark on it, and it didn’t leave a mark on me,” I said. They laughed like crazy.
So as a pre-med major, I made a good student of English, which was the first step toward a newspaper career during which I wrote a humor column for many years. I am trying to write humor right now. I try to write humor all the time. But my Mark Twain award was not for humor. It was for a long feature story I wrote in 1989 about, at age 46, meeting my father for the first time. That was a once-in-a-lifetime event, and I am glad the Associated Press News Executives thought I did it justice.
Bill Cosby, in the newspaper piece today, said Mark Twain inspired him, and he cited several of his favorite Twain pieces, one of which – “How to Cure a Cold” – I would also select. Cosby did not mention my two favorites, which are a special telling of “The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” translated into French and then back into English by Twain, and “A Hundred and Ten Tin Whistles,” an account of an evening spent by Twain at the home of Brigham Young. Mark Twain was one funny writer, and he stayed on top of the events, politicians and highly placed low-lifes of his day. I can’t bring myself to imagine how good he might have been as a blogger in 2008-09.
Cosby will receive his Mark Twain award on Oct. 26, at the Kennedy Center, before a live audience. I should try to wangle a second-row ticket, and wear white socks, and see if he remembers.
We both now have won Mark Twain awards. His award is a teense bigger than mine. His is presented by the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Mine was presented (in 1990) by the western division of the Associated Press News Executives. But it is a Mark Twain award nevertheless. It weighs a ton, and there is a bust of Mark Twain right there on it.
Bill Cosby won his Mark Twain award for humor, and that is part of the circle closing. I once contributed to his humor, on an evening in 1961 when we both happened to be at the old hungry i, in San Francisco. He was starting his stand-up comedy career, and I was starting at Stanford University. I think my mother and my aunt were there, but I am not sure. I know for a fact that I was wearing slacks and black loafers and white socks.
Cosby spotted the white socks. I was sitting in, like, the second row. For a couple of minutes, he had great fun with those socks, giving the audience some laughs and me something to brag about to this very day. I am almost positive that he asked my mother – which is why I think she was there – if she had knitted me a reindeer sweater, to go with the white socks. But I may be mixing memories, which I am getting better at all the time. I do know that early in his career Cosby was very big on reindeer sweaters.
I got into the humor business myself, eventually. You could even say I was in the humor business at the time. Later, as a newspaper columnist making speeches, I would tell the audiences that I began at Stanford as a pre-med major. Then I flunked freshman chemistry. Then I flunked it again. “I didn’t leave a mark on it, and it didn’t leave a mark on me,” I said. They laughed like crazy.
So as a pre-med major, I made a good student of English, which was the first step toward a newspaper career during which I wrote a humor column for many years. I am trying to write humor right now. I try to write humor all the time. But my Mark Twain award was not for humor. It was for a long feature story I wrote in 1989 about, at age 46, meeting my father for the first time. That was a once-in-a-lifetime event, and I am glad the Associated Press News Executives thought I did it justice.
Bill Cosby, in the newspaper piece today, said Mark Twain inspired him, and he cited several of his favorite Twain pieces, one of which – “How to Cure a Cold” – I would also select. Cosby did not mention my two favorites, which are a special telling of “The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” translated into French and then back into English by Twain, and “A Hundred and Ten Tin Whistles,” an account of an evening spent by Twain at the home of Brigham Young. Mark Twain was one funny writer, and he stayed on top of the events, politicians and highly placed low-lifes of his day. I can’t bring myself to imagine how good he might have been as a blogger in 2008-09.
Cosby will receive his Mark Twain award on Oct. 26, at the Kennedy Center, before a live audience. I should try to wangle a second-row ticket, and wear white socks, and see if he remembers.
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