Man From Swans Neighborhood Gunned Down on 84th and Main Street

Family and friends of Joshua Brown, a "retired" Swans gang member and aspiring rapper, were baffled as to why the 30-year-old man would be anywhere near the Main Street Crip neighborhood where he was killed Sunday night.

"I can't figure out out what he was doing on Main Street," said friend Robert Williams, as he stood Tuesday night on 83rd and San Pedro streets and pointed to K.S. Market across the street. "All i ever saw him doing lately was walk from his mom's house to that store right there,"

Brown, once known as "Top Dog" and "QT", was convicted in 2008 of witness intimidation and threatening someone's life and served time in prison. He was a documented member of the 84 Swans, an infamous Bloods gang. But, his family said he had "retired" from gang banging and was concentrating on becoming a rapper.

Still, his past may have aided in his demise when two black males, according to sources, tried to intimidate him on Main Street near 84th Street.  When the two allegedly told Brown "You don't belong here," he replied, - once again, allegedly and according to sources  -  "I can go wherever I want to".

He was shot several times and transported to California Hospital Medical Center where he died. Police said the two shooters ran west toward Broadway. 

"They slaughtered my nephew like he was an animal," said his aunt, Ruby Brown, as she stood in front of a small duplex where Joshua grew up. "They shot him like he was a dog. We need to stop this black on black crime. These Crip and Blood killings have to stop. They are..."

"For nothing" added Brown's sister Nisha. "The killings are for nothing." 

Nisha numbly showed off a cell phone photo of Joshua, then, after about 20 seconds of silence. burst out laughing. 

Aunt Ruby walked her away then returned, explaining her niece laughter. "She's thinking about the good times with her brother."

"My nephew had left that gang life behind and all he did was work on his music," said aunt Ruby. "He made beautiful music. I wish you could hear his music."

I

The Original Wild Ones - Wino Willie Forkner and J.D. of The Boozefighters

 The Day That Kicked Bikers' Wild Image Into High Gear

"What's wrong with society today is there are no more fistfights."

--Sonny Barger, leader of the Hells Angels

Before there was Sonny Barger and the Hells Angels, before there was Marlon Brando and "The Wild One," there was Wino Willie and J.D. and a South-Central Los Angeles motorcycle club called the Boozefighters.

On the Fourth of July, 1947, the Boozefighters invaded the Central California hamlet of Hollister and, as Life magazine memorialized it, took over the town.

The incident set off a growing fascination with outlaw bikers, culminating in Brando's legendary "The Wild One" in 1954, with one exchange that still reverberates: "What are you rebelling against, Johnny?" Brando's character was asked. "Whatdaya got?" he snapped.

Today, 75-year-old Wino Willie Forkner and 80-year-old J.D. Cameron--the last surviving founders of the Boozefighters--look back on their legacy with amusement. To visit with them in Cameron's La Mirada home is to recall a distant time when postwar America was bursting with unfocused energy.

"It was a time when you could have a fistfight with someone and when it was over, you'd have a beer together," says Cameron, who made his living in the freight-unloading and trucking businesses, where he employed Willie. "This was way before all this guns and dope crap."

"Yeah, we just had a little fun," says Forkner, a barrel-chested World War II vet with pinkies as thick as thumbs who lives in Fort Bragg, Calif., and still rides his motorcycle. "We didn't do anything wrong."

What happened in Hollister, they remember, started with city-approved street racing on the main drag, San Benito Street.

Well, maybe a little more. J.D. allows that he may have had a few fistfights.

And then Wino Willie begins talking about a town drunk who came into one of the bars.

"Me, Kokomo and Gas House Wilson started buying him wine," Willie says. "After his third glass, he fell over. So we tied him to this wheelchair, tied the chair to some car and dragged him around town. I looked back and he had fallen out of the chair.

"So we put him on the hood and started driving again. Slowly. But he looked like he wasn't breathing, so we thought he was dead. We dropped him in an alley, covered him up with papers and took off.

*"Man, later that day, when I was in jail, I looked over, and there he was, making a ruckus. It's damn hard to kill a drunk."

Wino Willie, who got his nickname as a 7-year-old boy in Fresno when he would visit local wineries and indulge in the latest vintage, had landed in Hollister's jail on the charges of inciting a riot. Of course, he tells a different story.

"They had arrested Red [another of the Boozefighters] for drunk and disorderly, and a bunch of the guys had gone over to the jail to break him out. Man, I went over there and told the fellas, 'Let's forget this Wild West stuff. Red needs a rest.' But, of course, the cops figured I was the leader, and they grabbed me. Later that day, the judge says he'll let me out if I listen to my wife. I told him, 'Hell no. I haven't listened to her yet and I'm not gonna start,' " he said, laughing.

What caused a national stir was not the incident itself, or a San Francisco Chronicle article that described the events as "the worst 40 hours in the history of Hollister," but a single photograph in Life magazine. It showed a large, leather-jacketed man guzzling beer on a Harley with a pile of broken beer bottles lying near his front tire. J.D. and Wino to this day are infuriated by the photograph, saying it was staged.

Life's one-page layout led to a Harper's Weekly article by Frank Rooney, "The Cyclist's Raid," which led to the Brando movie, which sent the image of bikers downhill faster then a wheelie on a steep hill climb.

"I hated that movie," says Cameron.

The most glaring discrepancy between the actual event and the movie was that, unlike the film, in which a sleepy town is stunned by an unexpected invasion of a motorcycle gang, Hollister was waiting with open arms for thousands of bikers to converge there.

For more than a decade the American Motorcycle Assn. had sanctioned an event in Hollister. So on the Fourth of July weekend in 1947, an estimated 4,000 motorcyclists descended on the city of 5,000.

What set that year's event apart from the others was that this time 15 members of the Boozefighters rode north from Los Angeles.

Although the Boozefighters were never mentioned in the Life spread or the Brando movie, word of mouth spread. Their name was a perfect fit, and soon all the biking world knew.

The Boozefighters had been formed in 1946 at the All American Cafe, a small beer joint on Firestone Boulevard near Hooper Avenue, just north of Watts. Many of the members, including Cameron and Forkner, were married. They were, by and large, a bunch of guys who loved to race motorcycles and drink beer.

John Cameron was born in 1915 in Oregon and began racing motorcycles when he was 15. He was rejected for the war because of injuries from a series of crashes. He came down to Los Angeles and bought a small freight train unloading business, where he met William Forkner in 1942.

Forkner, five years younger, had grown up in Fresno, where he expanded his early appreciation of fermented grape juice. Survival in the Pacific during World War II developed his zest for kicks. One day, the Army Air Corps took him off his B-24 bomber because it needed him on another. While on a mission over Iwo Jima, he watched in horror as his regular B-24 exploded and crashed.

"When I came back, we were hanging out at the club and we figured, 'Let's have fun. This is what we fought to protect,' " Forkner said.

The days after the vets came back were "a special time," added Cameron. "People were happy the war was over and we just wanted to enjoy life."

Goldie Miller, a Fremont High graduate, met Cameron and Forkner at the All American Club.

"They were some real characters," says Miller, 74, herself "a free spirit back then. They just loved to party. They wanted to be big-time professional racers, but that never happened. Sometimes they'd go out to the parking lot and duke it out, then come back in for another beer."

Miller was at the Hollister event, but her recollection is fuzzy at best.

"I don't remember a whole lot. I was into having fun too. If I was making book, I wouldn't have given any of them a chance to make it to 40. But, really, they were very nice people. And you knew nobody was gonna mess with you if you were with them."

The next year in Riverside, another ruckus promoted the Boozefighters' reputation for wildness. The club continued to be active through the 1950s, then simmered down. By 1970 the aging members had scattered throughout the country. Cameron bought a trucking business and kept in touch with Forkner, who was working as a trucker.

Forkner--and Cameron, if heart problems don't hold him back--may be heading back to Hollister.

Now a city of 24,000 that bills itself as the earthquake capital of the world, Hollister is already vibrating about the 50th anniversary of the "invasion" next year. Police and merchants believe that as many as 100,000 motorcycle enthusiasts from around the world may converge there on the Fourth of July weekend in 1997. Several groups are vying to put on a trial run celebration this summer.

At Johnny's, one of the bars the Boozefighters patronized in 1947, owner Charise Tyson is looking forward to the day when the bikers return to Hollister.

"I can't wait. We're gonna do big business," Tyson said. "I'm not really concerned about violence. Heck, even the Garlic Festival (in nearby Gilroy) has its problems."

Across the street at Bob's Video, owner Bob Valenzuela is also in favor of the event. "People will be coming here from all over the world because they know about Hollister from the movie," he said. "This is truly holy ground for motorcyclists. It is Mecca."

Today, the Boozefighters motorcycle club still exists, but it is centered in Fort Worth. Comparisons to the original club are like comparing the cushy, soft-tailed, muffled rides of today's bikes with the rigid framed, roaring Harleys of old. The club, with chapters in Virginia, New York and California, has strict rules of conduct and members include doctors, lawyers and law enforcement officers.

Wino Willie and J.D. sneer at the new leadership. "When I met them they came dressed like business people," Wino Willie says. "Today, it's all about greed. We never made a dime off of this whole thing, and we don't care either."

Wino Willie visited J.D. again last week.

"He told me, 'Well, Wino, I'm dying,' " Willie said. "And unless he gets this pig valve operation, he will. But he's not a complainer."

Cameron, a tall, well-built man, says merely that he's going in for an operation Tuesday. Then he says, "We just wanted to have some fun. And we sure did."

One more question lingers. What were the real Wild Ones rebelling against?

J.D. pauses for a few seconds.

"Well, I guess I'm rebelling against discrimination. Ya know, all kinds, but for me, just because someone's a biker, they got rules against you."

And Wino Willie?

"I guess it's the establishment that I spent three years fighting for," he says. "You take off the khakis and the blue and put on some jeans and a leather jacket and immediately you become an asshole."

http://articles.latimes.com/1996-05-02/news/mn-65134_1_wild-west

Critics Hail Dana's Bytes As "Restaurant of the Future", But Protesters Mar Grand Openng

Inside the gates of Lambert Ridge Winery in Healdsburg this weekend, the lucky 25 people who finagled their way to the grand opening of Dana's Bytes - the most anticipated new American restaurant of 2015 - were marveling at its delicious food, its conviviality and its innovative concept that does not employ servers, sommeliers, busers, or even dishwashers. 

Outside however, more than 200 servers, soms, busers and dishwashers were staging a loud - and at times even vitriolic protest - fearing the new restaurant of Boulevard's chef de cuisine Dana Younkin would so revolutionize the restaurant industry they would soon be standing not on the kitchen firing line, but rather in the unemployment line. 

As patrons filed in, dozens of dishwashers loudly chanted  "You've got a date with an unclean plate" and scores more servers yelled  "Dana's bytes will not delight"  Sonoma County Sheriff's were on hand to keep the peace, but six protesters were arrested on disorderly conduct and failure to disperse charges.

"They have wiped out the entire front of the house," said Alysabeth Alexander, vice president of politics for SEIU 1021, a service employees union local for San Francisco. "Maybe it's good thing. They will see how much service employees will be missed."

But, no one seemed to be missing the front of the house at Dana Bytes. In fact, the mood on the sloping yard inside the winery could not have been more celebratory. Fortunate diners simply approached chef Dana as she was cutting a prime rib of Thompson River Ranch beef, sliced off a gloriously marbled piece and - while still on the knife - handed it to the nearly salivating crowd

Diners, glasses of wine in hand, mingled about like they were at a terrific house party rather than a restaurant, stopping by the outdoor kitchen island where Younkin, assisted by Nancy Oakes and Nancy Silverton, handed out the superb beef as well as Maine lobster claws and lamb chops cut from a rack, all finished off in two wood burning ovens behind them.

Platters of morels, asparagus and "day-dug" potatoes were laid out on the kitchen island.

Nancy Silverton, who provided to mozzarella-based  appetizers for the opening,   said this is the way she's been eating for years.

"I love this way to eat. standing up in a kitchen or before a outdoor grill, giving out bites to friends," said Silverton. "I'm glad somebody is finally taking it to the public. I am going to open a similar place in the Green Meadows area of Los Angeles. "

With San Francisco's minimum wage set at $12.25 an hour and set to go $15 per hour on July 1,  2018, many restaurants analyze predicted more restaurant would be going to the Dana's Bytes format which has already come to be known as "Goin' Younkin"

"I think at my next restaurant I might be Goin' Younkin," said Dominique Crenn, of San Francisco revered Atelier Crenn. "I think at certain restaurants there will always be a need for the front of the house, But, at others, like at Dana's Bytes, they may not. We are constantly hearing about farm-to-table. Why not from the chef's hand-to-the-diner's mouth?"

Jessica Sweedler, chief development officer of Meals on Wheels of San Francisco who was at the opening of Dana's Bytes, said she was considering ways to implement the Goin' Younkin format into the organizations fight against the neglect and malnutrition of seniors.

"I can envision chefs all over town knocking on doors and handing delicious - and nutritional  - bites to our seniors," said Sweedler as she stuffed morels and peas into her mouth. "Who needs dirty dishes?"

Technically Dana's Bytes did employee one front of the house worker, Richard Crocker, chief of staff at Boulevard where he oversees 500 employees. Crocker was seen running about, picking up wine glass, refiling them, piling up dirty plates and rushing them off to a small cleaning station inside  the winery.  By the end of the evening, the haggard-looking Crocker was seated off alone in the now-empty yard drinking a Negroni,   "I'd tell someone to get me another drink," Crocker said, "But, there's not a god damn server in sight." 

server amy woho mae mor than 450000 a year sare epxected to ak et the new minume wages. 

Are There Other Amtrak Conductors Who Are Gay? Congress To Launch Probe

I have never given a great deal of thought to whether a train conductor could possibly be gay. Or not, for that matter.

But, after learning that the conductor on the Ferrari-wannabe Amtrak train that crashed this week near Philadelphia appears to be a homosexual,  it certainly makes one wonder: Are there other gay train conductors?  Or is Brandon Bostian, who apparently supports gay marriage, the only one?

.Well, thanks to Indiana governor Mike Pence, we will soon find out. Reacting with the speed and leadership desperately needed in these trying times, Pence has initiated an emergency bill in Congress to determine the sexual orientation of all Amtrak train conductors operating in the United States. 

(The bill, which already passed the Senate last night during midnight session and is expected to pass today in the House. also marks the first time a governor has been allowed to introduce a bill in both houses of congress.)   

Pence addressed a pro decency gathering held this morning in Gary, Indiana.

"We need to know what the train, the train. what's is it? A driver? It's not a pilot, I know that.  Whatever it is, Oh, wait, It's a conductor. We need to know what the train conductor is thinking about when he goes into a tight, dark corner," said Pence as he stood in front of a Gary liquor store where two people were shot and killed two nights ago.

But, is a study about train conductors enough?  There are some jobs you just don't figure gays would be good at, or even want. But, could they be employed at these jobs secretly?

Take, for example, coal miners. 

One would think coal miners are all  hetros. But, when you really give it some thought, the gig of a coal miner would be a good place to be a homo. You're with a bunch of guys. Most of them in good relatively shape. It's dark. There's that hard hat everyone has that seems like it could be used for all sorts of gay activity. 

Will Pence, or maybe Ted Cruz or Jeb Bush introduce a bill to study the secret desires of coal miners?  Or Astronauts. Hey, is gay marriage even legal on Mars?. Or Saturn?  Or Neptune? Everyone knows what's up in Uranus.

Man, to quote Tony Montana, "What the fuck difference does it make?"

.. . 

Thuglandia - Los Angeles Magazine Article on the State of L. A. Gangs

As a journalist who has covered the street gangs of Los Angeles off and on for the past 17 years, I have often stated, with perverse pride, “L.A. has the best street gangs in the United States,” the way someone might boast about Yosemite’s waterfalls. Big and gaudy and violent, they’ve been rapped about and emulated the world over. But lately if you don’t live in a gang-infested neighborhood, you’d be forgiven for thinking that thugs are forsaking the thug life. Annual city homicide totals are down dramatically from the early 1990s, when there were more than 1,000 killings (nearly half of them gang related), to fewer than 300 in 2012.

But don’t be mistaken. The gangs are still here causing nightly heartbreak. They just aren’t as flagrant as they once were. Among the reasons: the huge drop in crack use, intense gang intervention efforts by former gang members, and police strategies that include upping their presence (along with surveillance cameras) in the Watts projects and bettering their relations with community leaders. There’s also the sheer number of dead and imprisoned gang members to consider as well as the exodus of thousands of others to “expansion cities.”

Those aren’t the only theories. “I think it’s more about business,” says Los Angeles Police Department sergeant Richard Lozano, who works in the Rampart gang unit that oversees the area around MacArthur Park. “The violence brings too much attention from us, and that ruins the potential for making money.” In the park itself several gang factions manage to sell their drugs without killing one another. You’ve got the Columbia Lil Cycos, the most notorious clique of the 18th Street Gang, in the northeast quadrant. Almost half the park is held by two large factions of Mara Salvatrucha, aka MS13. Another large chunk belongs to the Crazy Riders, and several other gangs exist in the surrounding area. This year’s death toll so far? Zero. 

Miles south of MacArthur Park, the quest for illicit financial gain has produced some strange partnerships. “It’s not unheard of anymore for some guy from Grape Street to team up with a Hoover [Street Criminal] to go rob someone or break into a house,” says LAPD detective Chris Barling, head of homicide at the 77th Street Division. Acting on street intelligence that no one will be at a residence, members from two or three gangs clean the place out—what they call “flocking.” Or they might get together for a little “OTM,” as in Outta Town Money: Someone has connections in, say, Phoenix, and L.A. gangsters go there to burglarize houses with the local as their guide. 

Gangs aren’t just less openly hostile to one another, though. They’re less specialized than they used to be, too. In the 1980s, the Rollin 60s and Rollin 90s were infamous for brazen bank robberies. Inglewood Family Bloods did “smash and grabs” at jewelry stores. The Bounty Hunters, operating out of Nickerson Gardens, robbed motorists along Imperial Highway on an hourly basis. In Boyle Heights, Big Hazard from Ramona Gardens earned a reputation for their convenient “drive-ins,” where customers copped drugs without leaving their cars. Home invasions? They were a trademark of Asian gangs. But these days “there’s no secrets in the gang world,” says Cleamon “Big Evil” Johnson, who led the 89 Family Bloods and won an appeal in 2011 after spending 14 years on death row and is now in county jail awaiting retrial. “When other gangs heard that someone was doing good with a crime, they’d be on it, too.”

That said, no gang can do credit card or medical fraud like Armenian Power (I’d recommend paying cash at a 99 Cents-Only store). The Avenues have a notorious specialty as well: The region’s preeminent gangster racists, they’re known for trying to rid Highland Park of blacks through intimidation and murder. 

But no matter how heinous the Avenues’ crimes, for sheer violence Highland Park can’t compare to the LAPD’s Southeast Division, which encompasses Green Meadows and Watts, among other neighborhoods. During the first four months of this year, there were 16 killings in 11 of the LAPD’s 21 divisions. In Southeast there were 17. In fact, the last gang-related funeral I went to, back in February, was for a guy from Southeast, and I can tell you nobody at the church that day was celebrating that gang deaths are down.

One Park, Three Worlds

Macarthur park is too big, crowded, and profitable for a single street gang to control. So for many years a détente of sorts has existed that allows three or four gangs to run the drug trade—nowadays mostly meth—in a park that in the 1990s saw several killings a year.

Northwest Corner
The Wanderers had a presence in the northwest portion of the park, but this less-trafficked area has been taken over in recent years by cliques of the Mara Salvatrucha, aka MS13.

Southwest Corner
Running the quadrant at 7th and Park View streets, the MacArthur Park Locos and the Rampart Locos are factions of MS13, the gang whose members are as well known—and feared—for their face-covering tattoos as for their violence.

Northeast Corner
The busiest section of the park, by 6th and Alvarado streets, has long been the bastion of the Columbia Lil Cycos, a clique of the 18th Street Gang. Though 18th Street is considered L.A.’s largest gang, with as many as 15,000 members, it’s actually an amalgam of 20 cliques. 

Southeast Corner
The Crazy Riders, a mix of mainly Mexicans and Central Americans but also some blacks and whites, control the park’s southeast section. Far smaller than MS13, they began as a group of guys who played American football in the park.

Seven Dining Highlights In Chicago, Spring 2015, James Beard Weekend

Twenty minutes before our dinner reservations at Next, we made a stop at Publican to eat. That's how it was gonna be in Chicago, the weekend for the 2015 James Beard Awards, the first ever held in the "City with Big Shoulders". (Check out the Carl Sandburg poem "Chicago" below.) 

Here are the dining highlights of that three-night trip last weekend with Nancy Silverton, chef Dahlia Narvaez, chef Chris Feldmeier, chef Liz "Go Go" Hong and Chicago legend chef Matt Kim.

1. Tournedos Rossini  at  Next -  The theme for Next, Grant Achatz's sometimes futuristic/sometimes throwback brilliant restaurant on West Fulton Market, was Paris Bistro. When I saw this Careme or Escoffier ( debatable, still) classic tribute to the composer on the enticing menu  I told the server "bring whatever you think, but just make sure one of the plates is Tournedos Rossini."  The kitchen, led by executive chef Dave Beran and chef de cuisine Jenner Tomaska came on strong with about half of the menu. But, the peak was the Rossini, the heart of the filet of beef on buttered toast, topped with foie gras and black truffles bathed in a  veal stock, butter, truffle, foie gras and Madeira sauce as dark as the Southside and as rich as the Gold Coast.

The dish was described by Jeff Gordinier in a 2012 New York Times article "A Pool of Memories", as "...if you want a phrase that summons all the voluptuous pleasure of haute cuisine in its heyday, “tournedos Rossini” does the trick." 

It did the trick at Next.  Liz "Go Go" Hong kept repeating "The steak. The steak. The steak" like she was a,gourmet Col. Kurtz.         The current menu is Tapas.   https://www.nextrestaurant.com/website/faq       

2. Stuffed Parpardelle  at - Nico Osteria -  When our lunch crew saw this on the menu at Nico Osteria, Feldmeier said "How the fuck do you stuff a parpardelle?" (Or maybe I said that.)  I'm still not sure. Maybe with a razor blade, like the way Paulie sliced the garlic in "Good Fellas". How ever chef de cusine Erling Wu-Bower did it at this Rush Street newcomer, he did it right. Stuffed with milk-braised pork, it was pasta dish of the trip, and a contender for the prestigious POTS** award,. 

Nico Osteria is from the team of executive chef Paul Kahan and Donnie Madia, who won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurateur  in the United States this year.    http://www.nicoosteria.com/

3. Sopa Azteca at Frontera Grill -  Where do you take Dario Cecchini, the world's most famous butcher, to dinner in Chicago? To a Mexican restaurant, Nancy figured. So it was Frontera Grill,the less cutting edge of Rick Bayless' two adjoining homages to the food south of the border. The other is Topolobampo.

There was much to enjoy (Nancy ate nearly a half  liter of guacamole (with chips) at the bar before Dario and his storied wife Kimberly arrived), but these little sopa stood out. They were tortilla cups with pasilla broth, chicken, avocado, some local cheese and crema.      http://www.rickbayless.com/restaurants/frontera-grill/

4. Gerry's Adobo Dog at Publican Quality Meats - GerryRuiz is one of the butcher's at Publican Quality Meats  - and nephew of George "I'll Stuff My Chorizo in Your Dates" Ruiz -  and he makes a mean "Latinized" version of the classic Chicago hot dog. It's adobo sausage, chimichurri, avocado, cilantro pickled cucumber, onion and mojo rojo on a lobster roll.

Chef de cuzine Missy Corey had previously rejected Gerry's idea of a Gerry's adobo soda pop, a Gerry's adobo gelato, a Gerry's adobo Wellington and a Gerry's rack of adobo before admitting he was finally on to something with the adobo dog     http://publicanqualitymeats.com/

5, Assorted fett' unta at Nico Osteria. - These, thick-sliced, olive-oiled brushed bread, one topped with baccala, dungeness crab and celery another with brussels sprouts and some cheese, were resistible, but barely.  

6.  Garrett caramel popcorn tin  in the hotel room  -  This was in a goodie bag Nancy got from the James Beard people and was devoured late at night in our hotel room. Say what? Oh, what hotel did we stay at?  The Waldorf Astoria.  (Always wanted to say that, even if this one ain't on Park Avenue.)     http://www.garrettpopcorn.com/

7. Fritos,   Original  - I flew , damn, I really am blanking on the. oh , yeah Frontier Airlines. Don't. Two night flights provided no food or drink except some room temp water.  So the 50 cent bag of Fritos I had in my computer case were relished like they were, like they were tournedos Rossini. Well, not quite.    http://www.fritolay.com/snacks/product-page/fritos/

What? I can't hear you. Speak up, G. Oh, what hotel did we stay at? The Waldorf.

** POTS - Pasta of the Spring

Parpardelle stuffed with pork. What a gig. A parpardelle stuffer

Tournedos rossini

Chicago

BY CARL SANDBURG

Hog Butcher for the World,

   Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,

   Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;

   Stormy, husky, brawling,

   City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.

And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.

And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.

And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:

Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,

   Bareheaded,

   Shoveling,

   Wrecking,

   Planning,

   Building, breaking, rebuilding,

Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,

Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,

Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,

Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,

                   Laughing!

Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

Michael Singer's Back Operation To Remove Crankiness Hailed As "Medical Miracle"

When New York City doctors announced last summer they were going to attempt remove a 25-pound lump of pure crankiness from Michael Singer's back, fellow surgeons around the world were united in their skepticism, many calling it a blatant publicity stunt.

"This is absurd," said Dr. Erich Manstein, of Germany's prestigious Back Off Medical Centre in Dusseldorf. "Everyone knows Singer's crankiness is permanently embedded in his bones. What are those so-called surgeons in New Quack City going to do? Remove his skeleton?"

So, when Singer's wife, the lovely Ruth "The Polar Opposite of Cranky" Reichl,  announced to the world Friday morning that the operation performed at the Hospital for Special Surgery on East 70th Street in Manhattan had been a wonderful success, those very surgeons were scratching their noggins, calling it a "medical miracle"  and lining up their own patients to perform what has quickly become known as a "Singer Crank Out" operation.

Authorities first became aware of Singer's ACD, (aggressive crankiness disorder) when he was a student at University High School on Oakland Avenue in St .Louis during the Eisenhower Administration. Midway through a class on the Second Punic War, the history teacher, Mr. Barca,  caught young Singer dozing and tapped him with a ruler. Singer awoke and - according to University High School archives - bellowed the following "Why the hell shouldn't I fall asleep? You're teaching us stuff we already know.  Do you actually think all of us don't already know that Hannibal took some elephants over the Alps? Everyone on Earth knows that. Even drunk men in small Armenian villages know that Hannibal took some fuckin elephants over the goddamn Alps."

(The teacher alerted the authorities at that point and Singer was transferred to the Webb School) 

Still, Singer's ACD continued to grow. As a news producer at CBS, he became notorious for criticizing "feel good" stories. . He infamously refused to air the "Miracle on Ice" - the storied ice hockey game in the 1980 Olympics when team USA scored a stunning victory over the Russian team - instead dismissing it as the "Slip on this, motherfucker" game.  

In the early 1990s, Singer became the only human ever to officially complain about the ending to "The Wizard of Oz", the John Coltrane solo on "But Not For Me" and the very notion of the Easter Bunny, all  within a 48-hour period.. 

So it was understandable the dubious thoughts of surgeons around the globe had when the staff at the Hospital for Special Surgery announced they would remove the crankiness. 

After Reichl released the news that the surgery was a success, his friends were quick to react with jubilation. 

"Great news" emailed Robin Green. "Fantastic!" said Susan Kamil. "Fabulous" replied Dinitia Smith. 

Still, one of Singer's closest friends reacted with the same touch of skepticism that Dr. Manstein had before the surgery 

"I  think this is terrific, but do you know if they got all of the cranky out?," said Henry Weinstein.  "I kinda hope not. .i mean Michael Singer without  any crankiness, well, that wouldn't really be Michael Singer. I just hope they left a few pound of cranky in them old bones."

At Long Last Love; Nancy's Fancy Goes On Sale Thursday At Gelson's

There are jackets, then there is the Marni runway coat. There's grape juice then, there is the  '47 Chateau Cheval Blanc. There are watches, then there is the Rolex Paul Newman Daytona. There are cars and there is the 1962 Ferrari GTO. These are the “zultra premium” options. 

Now, at long last, the world of frozen treats has a zultra premium option: “Nancy’ Fancy”, the gelato and sorbetto of Nancy Silverton and it will be available this Thursday, May 7th at Gelson's Markets throughout Los Angeles. Soon, markets throughout America will be offering Nancy's Fancy .

You may have noticed Nancy’s Fancy was defined simply as “the gelato and sorbetto of Nancy Silverton”.  Superlatives on Nancy could be used lavishly – and with truth.  But, like the '47 Cheval or the '62 GTO, time and coolness will soon prove that the mere mention of Nancy’s Fancy shall simply come to mean the best.

But, since Chef Silverton, co-founder of Pizzeria Mozza, Osteria Mozza and Chi Spacca, is not a “TV chef” and not a household name across America, let me boast about her. Check this out. Nancy Silverton is the only chef in the United States to win the James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef in American and the James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef in America. Like Muhammad Ali used to say, “It ain’t bragging if it’s true.”

When we asked 20 of the greatest chefs in America to give their comments on the prospects of having gelato and sorbetto made by Nancy readily available across America, every one of them replied with great anticipation, to put it calmly. Mario Batali responded in less than two minutes with a tantalizingly poetic preview for what gelato and sorbetto lovers across the land will soon be able to enjoy. World famous master chef Daniel Boulud poured on the praise. San Francisco’s Dominique Crenn, the only female chef in America with two Michelin stars, responded with a text so titillating only adults over the age of 35 should be allowed to read it.  Chris Bianco, the master pizzaiola from Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix, echoed Roy Scheider in the movie “Jaws” and announced “I’m gonna need a bigger spoon.”

Silverton and Dahlia Narvaez, herself  a James Beard Award winner in 2016 for best pastry chef in America, worked for months sourcing, mixing, freezing, tasting, tuning, tasting, refining and tasting ensued.  The glorious result is Nancy’s Fancy.

Scoop into the FLAVORS page of Nancy's Fancy site to see what frozen treats will be waiting for you in stores soon

1962 Frank Sinatra "At Long Last Love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4GfV0pf_zQ

"At Long Last Love"
Is it an earthquake or simply a shock?
Is it the good turtle soup or merely the mock?
Is it a cocktail, this feeling of joy?
Or is what I feel the real McCoy?

Is it for all time or simply a lark?
Is it Granada I see or only Asbury Park?
Is it a fancy not worth thinking of?
Or is it at long last love?
 

The Glorious Return of My Favorite Lunch, Osteria Mozza Reopens and Staff Meal is On

After nine days of actually buying or preparing my own lunch, the thighs have returned to Hancock Park. 

At 12 40 p.m. Saturday, April 18, the driver of a 2011 Toyota Tundra  pickup, traveling southbound on Highland Avenue at - according to the LAPD - an unsafe speed,  swerved to avoid a 2013 Honda Civic whose driver was beginning to make - again, according to the LAPD - an unsafe left hand turn from northbound Highland onto westbound Melrose Avenue.  The truck, weighing in at about 5,000 pounds, crashed into the front doors of Osteria Mozza during staff lunch.

Alex Rivera Vasquez, 36, a Mozza prep cook. was hit by debris - a falling pillar -  knock to the floor where he laid - comforted by co-workers - until paramedics took him  to Cedars Sinai where he was checked out and released. He is fine.

But, the front of the restaurant was in shambles. Twenty, thirty minutes after the crash, a city inspector appeared out of nowhere and said the restaurant would be closed a month. In stepped Tom Penna of ITX Construction, project superintendent Wayne Neuenhaus and their crew.  Ten days later, today, Osteria Mozza reopened for dinner.

"I'm, opening up Osteria Mozza," said legendary server Ralph Waxman, as he and others waited for the first customers to arrive. "For the second time." 

Today, April 28, also marked the return of my favorite lunch in town. the staff meal, which, is often - some fools say too often - roasted chicken thighs. I had grabbed the thighs on crash day and stepped outside when the boom! happened.  This is a meal I am privileged to eat often, but today I savored it with a little extra appreciation and thankfulness because this crash could have been so much worse.

trucks are not welcome at osteria Mozza or any of the mozzas. .  note  the orange clogs off to the left.  when he was texted the above photo,  mario batali quickly texted back "anyone hurt?"