William Joseph Carter – RIP
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William Joseph (Bill) Carter died peacefully in his sleep at the start of the new year. Bill was the oldest child of the late William Joseph Carter and Ruth Morrison Carter.
Bill was a graduate of Bloomsburg High School in 1966, was a Rotary Exchange student in New Zealand in 1967 and a graduate of Antioch University in Yellow Springs Ohio in 1973. During his early school years, Bill had his share of dealing with bullies. He was the smartest child in the class and he was different. Through it all Bill always remained true to himself and loyal to his friends.
Bill was a gifted student and an avid reader. He had a keen memory and was able to quote from memory lines from books he read or movies he saw.
Politically, Bill was a member of Teen Age Republicans and supported Barry Goldwater in 1964. He was later part of the Antiwar movement during the Vietnam War and his politics shifted to Eugene McCarthy in 1968 and George McGovern in 1972. Bill was a strong advocate for Women’s Rights and later Human Rights in general. Bill lost friends and acquaintances in the Vietnam War and then even more to the AIDS epidemic.
As a child of the 60’s Bill did have some experience with the use of substances that were not exactly legal. Bill once shared a story about how he had smoked weed with Big Bird from Sesame Street. When pressed for details, Bill later admitted that it may not have been The Big Bird, but he definitely smoked something with a seven foot man wearing a suit made out of yellow feathers.
Bill attended Woodstock in 1969 and he shared the story below…
After we left the festival and walked what seemed like miles and miles [Editor: It was] to get back to the car–or was it a Mr. Softee truck? Details are a little vague–we started for home, but soon realized that we had to get some sleep before we went too far. We pulled off the highway and onto a grassy area next to some woods.
But then someone realized we had a problem: We were parked next to a well-traveled road. The Zimmerman Farm Road that led to a festival that by now had become a national news story about drugged-up hippies violating all the laws of god and man. And we were transporting certain, ah, chemicals that were frowned upon by The Authorities. Someone came up with the kind of brilliant solution that always seems so perfect at the time. Bubble gum. Fortunately, we had a supply.
We took our little plastic bag full of contraband and stepped into the woods. Once we were out of sight, we chewed the bubble gum and used it to fasten those pills and capsules to trees, on the side away from the road. Problem solved, and vehicle now fully legal and searchable.
We napped.
And when we woke up, we happily drove off, not remembering that we’d stashed a largish quantity of party favors to trees until we were 20 or so miles down the road. Trees that would now be impossible to find and identify.
I can only hope that somewhere in New York State, a family of squirrels had the best time of their lives.
Bill’s degree from Antioch was in Communications and during his university years he had work study assignments with NBC and Newsweek Magazine in New York in 1968 and with KQED Television in San Francisco in 1970. When Bill was in New York he lived in a small studio apartment in the East Village. There was one memorable weekend that Bill spent at The Factory as a guest of Andy Warhol, but his memory of the details were sadly clouded. In San Francisco he shared a two-bedroom apartment with four other adults. The apartment was located in lowest Nob Hill and was one block away from where Dashiell Hammet wrote “The Maltese Falcon”.
During Bill’s time in the Bay Area he also did some volunteer work. Bill once worked as an associate editor of the Black Panther Press. The newspaper was printed in an Oakland garage that was on the same block where Gertrude Stein was born.
After his university graduation he took a job as a stringer for a small regional paper. He attempted to introduce Gonzo Journalism into coverage of county commissioner’s meetings. His final published story involved a report by a local farmer who claimed he and his cow were abducted by space aliens.
Bill moved to Washington in 1974 and resided there for the remainder of his life. In Washington, Bill found employment with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He advanced with the organization and had greater responsibilities within the publication of Science Magazine. Bill said that he was hired for the job because he and the hiring manager both admired the writings of Hunter Thompson. Bill had become a Senior Editor when he retired from AAAS in 2010.
Bill loved the museums in Washington and he frequently visited the Smithsonian Museums and the National Portrait Gallery. His favorite museum in London was the V&A – The Victoria and Albert Museum. One traveling exhibit that Bill raved about was “David Bowie is”. Bill traveled to Brooklyn to see the exhibit. He had long admired the music, the art and the style of Bowie.
Bill enjoyed a good meal and he loved to travel. During the past 20 years, his passport is stamped with visits to London, Paris, Barcelona, Rome, Prague, Geneva Montreal, Toronto. Berlin. And Detroit.
A few years ago, Bill started sharing information on this blog. He reported on his travels and dining experiences. His writing was filled with passion and humor. Bill was a private individual, but these blogs offer insight that he might not have shared otherwise.
Bill was an anglophile and he very much enjoyed his visits to London. At times Bill thought that our country might have been better off if we remained a colony. Bill had once hoped that one of his nieces would marry Prince Harry. Sadly that was not meant to be.
One quote that Bill often shared involved the last words attributed to Oscar Wilde
When Wilde was reflecting on the room in which he would later die Wilde said
“I am in a duel with the wallpaper and one of us must go”
In the end, Bill may have lost the duel but he gained peace.
Bill requested that there be no memorial service. Rather than sending flowers, Bill would more likely encourage you to enjoy a good meal or make a donation to the charity of your choice.
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2022 Cookery Project — Coronation Chicken
Anglophile and monarchist that I am, I decided to make Coronation Chicken to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Central Weekend. As so often happens, I got distracted and delayed. So here it is, either a couple of months late or 70 years overdue.
Constance Spry, an English food writer and flower arranger, and Rosemary Hume, a chef, both principals of the Cordon Bleu Cookery School in London, are credited with the invention of coronation chicken.[3][4] Preparing the food for the banquet of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, Spry proposed the recipe of cold chicken, curry cream sauce and dressing that would later become known as coronation chicken.[5]
From Wikipedia
Coronation Chicken is made with mild Indian curry paste, tomato paste, chopped onion, red wine, lemon juice, heavy cream, sugar, apricot jam, chicken stock, lots of mayonnaise, and chicken.
With toasted sliced almonds sprinkled on top.
It’s a versatile dish. You can use it as part of a salad or (my preference) as a sandwich filler between two slices of good bread.
You can find plenty of recipes on line. I’m not including the one I used, because I’ve since found a couple of variations that look more interesting.
Joni Mitchell at the 2022 Newport Folk Festival
Joni Mitchell and friends perform her classic “Both Sides Now” at this year’s Newport Folk Festival. The concert was recorded live by SöPa Productions.
Joni Mitchell, still frail after a long and devastating illness, thrilled an emotional audience with a surprise appearance last weekend at the Newport Folk Festival. She last performed at the Newport Folk Festival fifty-five years ago, in 1967.
The concert comes after Mitchell, perhaps America’s greatest living singer-songwriter, was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor last year.
CBS’s Anthony Mason did this beautiful report on the concert and its significance.
Here’s the playlist from the Newport concert, with links to the videos.
Mitchell also has been posting full versions of her albums on her website.
2022 Cookery Project — The Return of the Bastille Day Cheesecake
And a tradition is restored.
I make a cheesecake every year on 14 July in honour of Bastille Day. While I’m preparing it, I wear my little red “Souvenir of Château de Chenonceau” cap, and put Édith Piaf and La Marseillaise on heavy rotation.
After a three-year absence, the annual Bastille Day Commemorative Cheesecake celebration is back!
Ghosts of Cheesecakes Past
From left to right, the 2016, 2017, and 2018 Bastille Day Cheesecakes. There were no Bastille Day Cheesecakes in 2019, 2020, or 2021, for reasons that are too depressing and obvious to explain.
I liked the 2017 version the most.
An Appropriate Musical Interlude
Judy Collins sings a medley of revolutionary songs from The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, aka Marat/Sade.
Here’s the Royal Shakespeare Company’s full film version of Marat/Sade, featuring Ian Richardson, Patrick Magee, and Glenda Jackson.
An Even More Appropriate Musical Interlude
Galaxy Cluster SMACS 0723 as It Appeared 4.6 Billion Years Ago
This image, captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, is the sharpest and most detailed infrared image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 taken to date.*
“Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe is approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.” — from NASA’s Webb Delivers Deepest Infrared Image of Universe Yet.
The image shows stars that are more than four billion light-years away from Earth.
It’s a crowded universe. It seems highly unlikely that we’re the only ones in it.
*At least by Earthlings.
“Clerks III” — Official Trailer (2022)
I liked the original Clerks, and thought Chasing Amy was one of the best, most original movies of the late 1990s.
But this is just sad. Sad, and painful to watch.
Hard pass.
2022 Cookery Project — Sri Lankan Chicken
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you might notice that with this posting, I’ve revived the old format for notes on my continuing adventures in home cooking. During my own personal “Lost Years”, from May 2019 through the very recent past, I let a lot of things slide, this blog very much among them.
For this initial entry under the revived format, I made a dish representative of a cuisine that was literally foreign territory for me. I’ve never been to Sri Lanka,* and while the country is represented here in DC on the menus of several of my favourite Indian restaurants, there’s no stand-alone dining spot specializing in Sri Lankan food.
I got this recipe from a website called 30Seconds Food, where it was titled “Amazing Sri Lankan Deviled Chicken Recipe Is a 20-Minute Wonder“. As you can see, the recipe isn’t complicated, but it requires a lot of chopping and slicing of chicken, broccolini, onions, garlic, ginger, jalapeno pepper, and lime.**
It took me two tries to get it right. The first time through, I made the chicken breast bite-sized pieces too big and overcooked the broccolini, but the result was good enough to make me want to give it another try.
The second time around was the charm.
Rating
★ Disaster. Inedible. Poisoned the cat.
★★ OK, but once is enough.
★★★ Mixed results. Something went wrong, but might try this again.
★★★★ Good, but lacks that special something.
★★★★★ Excellent. Goes into my “This is a winner” file.
*Formerly known as Ceylon and now officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. That name may change soon, since the country’s economy has collapsed and the government is unable to afford to import food, fuel, and medicines. Sri Lanka defaulted on its foreign debts in May, which total over $51billion. Over the weekend, the home of the prime minister set on fire by demonstrators, and protesters broke through police barriers and charged into the president’s official residence. The president then announced he would step down on 13 July.
**As with a lot of recipes, this one grossly underestimated the time it took to prepare the dish. It seems as if cooking instructions often assume that prep time for ingredients doesn’t count, or that those onions and chile peppers will slice themselves, that limes come pre-zested and pre-juiced, and that spices are stored in pre-measured teaspoon and tablespoon portions.
Unless you’re working in the kitchens of Hogwarts, mise en place can’t be created by magic, and recipes should reflect that.
“Three Thousand Years of Longing” First Trailer
“There’s no story about wishing that is not a cautionary tale.”
All you really need to know is that it stars the infinitely fascinating Tilda Swinton.
That line in the trailer that reads “From the Mad Genius of George Miller” might make you wonder “Who on Earth is George Miller?”, since the name “George Miller” is almost as, uh, generic as “John Smith”. This particular George Miller is most famous as the director of the Mad Max movies. Mad Genius indeed.
The plot, according to the trailer’s note: “Dr. Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) is an academic – content with life and a creature of reason. While in Istanbul attending a conference, she happens to encounter a Djinn (Idris Elba) who offers her three wishes in exchange for his freedom. This presents two problems.
“First, she doubts that he is real, and second because she is a scholar of story and mythology, she knows all the cautionary tales of wishes gone wrong. The Djinn pleads his case by telling her fantastical stories of his past. Eventually, she is beguiled and makes a wish that surprises them both.”
Looks like fun. It’s slightly reminiscent of Everything Everywhere All at Once, isn’t it.
Three Thousand Years of Longing is scheduled to be released in the US on 31 August 2022.
*There’s a fifth film in the Mad Max franchise being filmed right now. It’s called Furiosa and it’s set for release in 2024. Furiosa stars Anya Taylor-Joy, who was so very good in The Queen’s Gambit.
Sorry about the Multiple Postings
Having a little trouble trying to get the headline to show up correctly.
I’m giving up for now.
More Songs about Buildings and Food 