Johnny Mac: Pork Chops and Gravy

Johnny promises you'll have something good in your mouth in just five minutes.

In recent months, M.P. and I have become fans of Johnny Mac, the Sauce and Gravy Guy on YouTube.  Not only does he really know his stuff (he has a diploma from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris), but he's a Southern boy like us and really loves what we call home cooking.

It grieves M.P. and me no end to hear of so many people today who have no idea how to cook for themselves, and are afraid to try.  So they send off for factory-made food that comes in a box, and spend twice as much money to eat half as much food!  I tell you, we sometimes sit around the kitchen table and just cry our eyes out, thinking of the terrible waste and ignorance afflicting this country.  It's so sad!

So as a public service, I propose to present some of Johnny Mac's videos here to encourage all the poor, helpless non-cooks to give it a try.  Cookery is NOT HARD.  (Baking is tricky, but that's another story.)  And the beautiful thing about Johnny Mac - apart from his studly big beard - is that he shows and tells you all you need to know, quickly and simply, without fuss or fanfare.

As the first in what may become a series on this blog, here's a simple, delicious dinner idea that anyone can make who can cut butter with a knife:  first the pork chops, and then the gravy to go over them.  This is something our mamas used to cook often, only they made a much simpler gravy from just oil, flour, milk and/or water.  If you want to learn to cook for yourself, this is a great place to start.

Here's how to fry pork chops - but if you don't have a meat thermometer as Johnny does, just cook the chops until they begin to brown and all the meat inside is white, but not longer; pork chops get tough when overcooked.

And here's Johnny's deluxe gravy recipe:

For a simple side dish, make a box of mac & cheese, or some instant mashed potatoes; easier still is to bake a potato or two in the oven or microwave.   For your second veggie, open a can of beans, peas, greens, carrots, or corn, which are already cooked and only have to be hotted up on the stove or in the microwave.  Butter a piece or two of plain bread, pour yourself a beverage, and there's your dinner - for less per person than the cost of burgers and fries at McDonald's.  Enjoy!

P. S. -- For an even quicker and simpler dinner:  when your pork chops are about done, open a can of pork & beans, blackeyed peas, or creamed corn, and pour over the pork chops. Stir around in the hot oil and let bubble a couple of minutes until all is hot, then turn off the fire and help yourself.  This method mingles the pork flavor with the veggies in a delicious way.  

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Sunday Drive: Debussy, Clair de Lune

As performed live by Liberace, 1983.  Somewhere along this same time, I took my mom to see him when he brought his show to our town.  I knew she would enjoy it, but didn't think I would get much out of it - Liberace was very old hat by that time . . . and besides, he was more a than a little, um, flamboyant.  You know what I mean, fellas?  I wasn't comfortable with that.  Just keep it to yourself, I thought.

But we went, and both of us had a grand time.  He truly was Mr. Showmanship - a consummate entertainer, and from the moment he stepped onto the stage in a glittering sequined suit and fur-lined cape, he enthralled everyone in that huge arena, individually and collectively, and held them spellbound until he played his last note.  Virtuosity.  Spectacle.  Magic.  

I've never seen anything like it, before or since.  Not a dull moment in the whole show, musically or visually, and the outfits kept getting more and more flamboyant - oh Mary, don't ask!  But never a hint of vulgarity, and the audience just begged for more, blue-haired ladies and manly men alike.

So this is for you, my darling red-haired Mama. I miss you so.

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Waitin' for the Weekend

"Shape of My Heart" by Osvaldo:

Music by Sting.

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R. I. P. Ted Turner, 1938-2026

There's just something about a man with a cigar . . .
Ted Turner, 1977 

Ted Turner, the colorful billionaire and philanthropist, 6 feet tall with a rakish mustache and a cocky, Rhett Butler swagger, has died at the age of 87 at his plantation home in northern Florida.  A shrewd, talkative businessman full of boyish exubarance, with big dreams and big wins, he was called "The Mouth of the South" for his sometimes outrageous public comments. Among many other accomplishments, he was the father of CNN and Turner Classic Movies, and for some years was the owner of the champion Atlanta Braves baseball team.  He wasn't born in the South, but we'll claim him anyway.

I recollect when he started his first TV station in Atlanta, where I was living at the time.  Channel 17 was a low-budget start-up that I chiefly remember because it would play Top 40 songs all morning? / afternoon? on Saturday - producing the first music videos, all done in-house by using special effects with the TV cameras - like mirror images, upside-down dancers, a rain of polka dots, and so forth.  Primitive, but fascinating at the time.  I watched them on my nifty little Sony TV with a 5-inch screen, which was the last word in cool back then.

He was married three times and had five children.  His third wife, from 1991 to 2001, was Jane Fonda, who has written this lovely tribute:

He swept into my life, a gloriously handsome, deeply romantic, swashbuckling pirate and I’ve never been the same. He needed me. No one had ever let me know they needed me, and this wasn’t your average human being that needed me, this was the creator of CNN, and Turner Classic Movies, who had won the America’s Cup as the world’s greatest sailor . . . 

He was a good-looking rascal, but straight as a board, and therefore typically boring:  not someone I kept track of; I hadn't thought about him in years.  But as far as I know, he wasn't hateful or malicious, nor was he a thief or a rapist, as we hear so much about today.  And looking over his obituaries, I am struck by all the many good things he did or tried to do for the country and the world.  He actually cared about other people - what a concept - and had a big heart.

If you can spare the time to look at some of these retrospectives, you will see that, unlike some other big-mouthed billionaires, he actively promoted world peace, nuclear disarmament, environmental regulation, wildlife protection, responsible journalism, and other noble causes.  He put his money where his big mouth was, too - lots of it.

So I have to say, Good on you, Ted.  You used your time on earth wisely and well, and your treasure too.  Rest in peace.

TCM: 

PBS: 

WSB (Atlanta, 1988): 

 

And a 52-minute interview with Charlie Rose from 2004 - it's most interesting to hear Turner's condemnation of Bush's invasion of Iraq, and contrast that with the insane, homicidal ravings of the current occupant of the White House:

P. S. -- Turner was no dummy, either.  He wanted to major in classics (Latin/Greek literature and history) in college, until his daddy threw a fit and made him choose something else.  In one of the videos above, Turner quotes from memory a famous passage from "Horatio at the Bridge" by Macaulay:

To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late;

And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,

For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods . . . .

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Sunday Drive: Strolling through the Park One Day

. . . in the merry, merry month of May!

And I know what you're thinking.  I was, too.  Here's a compilation of those Looney Tunes we all remember:

 

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Waitin' for the Weekend

It's May Day!  "Oh Happy Day . . . To Be Gay" by Clint Collide:

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The King's Speech

Screen capture of the speech from the Associated Press broadcast.
Queen Camilla, in white, is seated to the King's left.

King Charles III addressed a joint session of Congress yesterday, as his mother had done in 1991.  Surveying the whole field of our common heritage from Magna Carta to the present, and displaying a deep understanding of American history and politics, his eloquence and humor went over well with the assembled representatives, who interrupted him with standing ovations a number of times.   A lovely speech by a kindly old friend, full of warmth, wisdom, and gentle warning - well worth heeding by those now in power.

If only they would!

The Associated Press transcipt of the speech can be found here.

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Sunday Drive: (You're My) Soul and Inspiration

This gold single by the Righteous Brothers was #1 this week in 1966 on the Billboard charts.  It holds up very well, I think.  They had a unique sound, a masculine sound that must have appealed to every gay boy and man in America.  It certainly appealed to me, just beginning the mysterious ascent to manhood.  Enjoy.

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Waitin' for the Weekend: Gay Swim Party, 1946

From the collection of Harold T. O'Neal, a gay home movie buff who made many films of gay life in California from 1939 to 1989.  This one begins with a well-dressed but rather dull garden party, followed by scenes of several beautiful young men splashing about in various states of undress somewhere along the American River.  A lovely glimpse of what seems a much more innocent time.

Double-click the screen to go full size; hit escape to exit.

Once again, I state what M.P. says, and he ought to know:  if they're only swimming, it's not porn.

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First Gay TV Movie, 1959

This popped up in my YouTube feed the other day:  South, a surprisingly early gay drama shown on British television in 1959 - long before there was any such thing in America.  Newspaper critics were hostile to the display of "perversion" on the small screen, but the fact that it was shown at all proves that the British were ahead of us in that regard.  

The first gay-themed TV movie over here that I recall was That Certain Summer in 1972; Hal Holbrook and Martin Sheen played the lovers.  Young people today would not understand the trepidation of watching something so taboo and forbidden.  I watched it with fascination - and no little repugnance.  I was attending college, but still deep in the closet, and terrified of actually encountering any of those wicked ho-mo-sexshuls.  (Oh but I fantasized often . . . then begged God to forgive me . . . over and over again.  An absurd agony that blighted all my teenage years.)

The play was written by Julian Green (1900-1998), born to expatriate American Southerners in Paris.  (The family home in Savannah is now a museum.)  He was a prolific writer, mostly in French, among whose many honors and awards was election to the Olympic heights of the Académie Française in 1971, the first non-French person to be chosen.  Besides which, to judge by the contents of his meticulous lifelong diaries - published in 19 volumes after his death - he was, shall we say, rather energetically gay.  Perhaps, as a Catholic, he had his own struggles with l'absurdité.

The full movie can be seen here (1:19:31).

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King Charles Commemorates 100th Birthday of Queen Elizabeth II

A lovely tribute and an inspiring one.

P. S. - I must say, I'm disappointed and a bit shocked that the UK Government has not yet erected some kind of memorial to their late beloved monarch, who served them so long and so well.  Shame on them!

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