Good Saturday morning, or I guess Sunday for you, from Buena Park, California, where the Knott’s Berry Farm rollercoaster shushes past every few minutes, accompanied by screaming. It’s like being in a Jordan Peele movie!
Being in Los Angeles reminds me of coming to Los Angeles, which reminds me of Tim and what, as a rural Oklahoma boy, he wanted with every meal, an item a New York City ate maybe twice a year, at the holidays, namely: Gravy.
But not this kind!
Cleaning out my mom’s pantry earlier this year I found a can of this and, more as a science experiment, decided to see what might be done with it. After adding salt, pepper, a splash of sherry and some butter, my best solution was to pour the stuff down the drain, really, save yourself the trouble (and the money!) and make homemade, recipe in episode notes.
As I relate in the episode, I met Tim Sampson on the PBS miniseries Roanoak, about the lost colony thereof. I am not sure whether this opening canoe scene is the same one I tell you about, the one where Tim saved me from drowning. But maybe!
I mention here that, after Tim and I fell in love, I followed him out to California. I bought a used station wagon in upstate New York and slept in truck stops on my way west. My first stop was somewhere west of Pittsburgh. It was late, and the all-night diner was open. I sat at the serpentine counter and ordered a grilled cheese and watched the waitress pout coffee for a man in a Carhartt (or similar) jacket and watched them quietly talk, watched as she lingered holding the coffee pot. My impression was that there was intimacy here, maybe not a relationship so much as a conversation picked up each time he stopped in. Or maybe it was just this one time. Maybe this was her gift, her job. I am sure I had some sort of reading material that I ignored as I watched them.
It was not until four years later that I wondered whether I always somehow knew the work I was headed for. By that time, the drive cross-country yielded what’s below.
Episode notes:
“The neighbors at Curson Avenue in West Hollywood were mostly Armenian, including the dozen or so housedress-clad older women in the apartment complex next door, women who would verily ululate at our fence when they realized we were having another get-together for two hundred. On the other side was a two-story complex where my brother’s friend Todd lived. Todd was a plumber who shared an apartment with his mother-in-law, an Armenian widow in black, and his SoCal, short-shorts-wearing wife. At twenty-four, Todd already had two kids, the first born blind. Todd spent every afternoon in our yard smoking pot, and that’s where he was when his wife banged open the screen door and stood on their balcony.
“TAHD!” she screamed, “I’M PREGNANT AGAIN!”
“Cool,” Todd squeaked, trying not to exhale. - “Meet the Neighbors,” from Forty Bucks and a Dream, Stories of Los Angeles, by Nancy Rommelmann
Dances With Wolves was a pretty massive cultural event, especially so for Native actors, as many more historical westerns were about to be made and provide employment.
Many of these young actors started down to LA from the rez, some of whom wound up hanging at the home in Hollywood where Tim and I lived with our baby girl.
These included Rodney Grant and the late Steve Reevis. Tantoo Cardinal had appeared in an earlier movie with Tim called War Party.
Will Sampson talking about how all the Indian heroes for kids are dead.
I’ve told the story (scroll down) of how my daughter Tafv wound up playing the part of “Gram” on Reservation Dogs. The below does not include her opening scene with Lily Gladstone:
Tafv went on to set decorate an independent film called Fancy Dance, which also stars Lily, who also stars in another movie you might have heard of.
You see this trailer, and her appearance in Rez Dogs, and it does not need to be explained that her acting is otherworldly.
Writing about Josh Drum and all the other young Native actors who passed through our home and whom I cooked and cooked and happily cooked for, in 1990-1992.
“Taking My Ex Back In (for His Own Good),” by Nancy Rommelmann (New York Times “Modern Love”)
I cannot carve out the video of Tim going “Mmmm!” but it’s here, scroll through. The second to last image is from our daughter’s wedding day, when we knew Tim was terminal.
Okay okay, let’s make some gravy. It’s flexible, just remember the ratios and up them depending on how much you want to make:
2 tablespoons fat or meat drippings, 2 tablespoons flour, 2 CUPS stock or other liquids. (I accidentally said tablespoons in the audio.) You can play with this in any number of ways; add some wine or sherry or fresh-chopped herbs. It’s super-easy and makes dinner festive!
Gravy
Add chicken fat or beef drippings to a frying pad. Heat over medium heat until bubbly. Using a rubberized whisk, add flour. Cook two minutes, stirring constantly, until flour takes on a bit of color. Add about a 1/4 cup of liquid and whisk, Mixture will seize up. Add another 1/4 cup and keep whisking until gravy loosens. Continue adding and whisking until you have a smooth gravy. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Gravy is very flexible! Using cream for up to half your stock in a beef gravy is lovely.
And please, I beg of you, send me your best biscuit recipes xx
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