ABOUT JOHN CHUCKMAN

      

ME, ROUGHLY: THE DECLINE IS SO RAPID NOW

John Chuckman is former chief economist for a large Canadian oil company. He has many interests and is a lifelong student of history. He writes with a passionate desire for honesty, the rule of reason, and concern for human decency. John regards it as a badge of honor to have left the United States as a poor young man from the South Side of Chicago when the country embarked on the pointless murder of something like 3 million Vietnamese in their own land because they embraced the wrong economic loyalties. He lives in Canada, which he is fond of calling “the peaceable kingdom.”

John’s writing appears regularly on many Internet sites. He has been translated into at least ten languages and has been regularly translated into Italian and Spanish. Several of his essays have been published in book collections, including two college texts. He has published a book, The Decline of the American Empire and the Rise of China as a Global Power, published by Constable and Robinson, London. John also writes book reviews.

Apart from his writing since retiring from the oil industry, John has taught university courses in economics, done a good deal of private tutoring, served as a professional newspaper restaurant reviewer (he likes cooking), followed his favorite hobby of photography, and created a popular family of image blogs on the Internet.

John may be reached directly at:  formersouthsideboy@gmail.com

SOME OTHER INTERNET SITES FROM JOHN CHUCKMAN:

CHUCKMAN'S PLACES ON WORDPRESS: FEATURING THE BELOVED URBAN VILLAGE OF SOUTH SHORE CHICAGO

https://chuckmanplaces.wordpress.com/

CHUCKMAN'S PHOTOS ON WORDPRESS: CHICAGO NOSTALGIA AND MEMORABILIA

https://chuckmanchicagonostalgia.wordpress.com/

CHUCKMAN'S PHOTOS ON WORDPRESS: TORONTO NOSTALGIA

https://chuckmantorontonostalgia.wordpress.com/

CHUCKMAN’S MONTREAL

https://chuckmanmontreal.wordpress.com/

CHUCKMAN'S PHOTOS ON WORD PRESS

https://chuckmanphotos.wordpress.com/

CHUCKMAN'S KODACHROMES ON WORDPRESS: JOHN AND BOBBY LONG AGO

https://chuckmankodachromejohnandbobby.wordpress.com/

CHUCKMAN'S PORT STANLEY

https://chuckmanportstanley.wordpress.com/

CHUCKMAN'S BAYFIELD

https://chuckmanbayfield.wordpress.com/

CHUCKMAN'S GODERICH

https://chuckmangoderich.wordpress.com/

CHUCKMAN'S ILES DE LA MADELEINE (MAGDALEN ISLANDS)

https://chuckmanmagdalenislands.wordpress.com/

CHUCKMAN'S ART

http://chuckmanart.blogspot.ca/

CHUCKMAN'S ROBOTS

http://chuckmanrobots.blogspot.ca/

CHUCKMAN'S GALLERY OF GROTESQUES

http://chuckmangrotesques.blogspot.ca/

CHUCKMAN'S CARTOON COMMENTS

http://chuckmancartoons.blogspot.ca/

CHUCKMAN'S PHOTOS ON WORDPRESS: 1920s ARCADE CARD BEAUTIES – THEIR CHARM AND GRACE AND WHIMSY

https://chuckman1920sarcadecardbeauties.wordpress.com

CHUCKMAN'S WORDS ON WORDPRESS: POLITICAL ESSAYS

https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/

CHUCKMAN'S WORDS ON WORDPRESS: COMMENTS FROM THE WORLD'S PRESS

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/

CHUCKMAN'S MISCELLANEA OF WORDS

http://chuckmanmiscellanea.blogspot.ca/

CHUCKMAN'S NON-SPORTS TRADING CARDS OF THE 1950S VOLUME 01 (OF 4 VOLUMES)

http://chuckmannon-sporttradingcards1950s.blogspot.ca/

JOHN CHUCKMAN: PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN

      

JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: CHICKEN, RED PEPPER, AND NOODLE NON-ASIAN STIR-FRY TURNED INTO A NUMBER OF DISHES – SOUP – HUNGARIAN – ITALIAN FRITTATA – ALFREDO SAUCE – INDONESIAN – HOW FOOD-LOVERS THINK

CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: CHICKEN, RED PEPPER, AND NOODLE NON-ASIAN STIR-FRY TURNED INTO A NUMBER OF DISHES – SOUP – HUNGARIAN – ITALIAN FRITTATA – ALFREDO SAUCE – INDONESIAN – HOW FOOD-LOVERS THINK

Here is a fairly simple and tasty dish that I develop several ways. The exercise offers not only a number of recipes, but I think some insight into the way food-loving people think about cooking.

We start with a non-Asian stir-fry, strips of sautéed chicken and sweet red pepper tossed with egg noodles

 

BASIC STIR-FRY

INGREDIENTS

Four boneless Chicken Breasts, cut into short, slightly thickish strips.

Two very large, or equivalent, Red Sweet Peppers, cleaned and cut into short strips.

Flat Egg Noodles of medium width. Something like Barilla Tagliatelle will do nicely. Use enough pasta so that it will be an important ingredient when combined with chicken and peppers, like rice in fried rice.

 

METHOD

IMPORTANT NOTE: you will need a very large pan for the quantities given here. As is always the case, too, when you toss a large amount of noodles.

Prepare the pasta according to package directions. When ready, al dente, drain thoroughly.

Oil a sauté pan generously and stir-fry chicken and peppers over reasonably hot burner. Salt and pepper lightly and turn frequently with spatula.

When chicken and peppers are nearly done, add some oil to the drained noodles and toss lightly, and then add them to the chicken and peppers. Begin turning and mixing vigorously until noodles are all heated and chicken and peppers are well distributed.

It is ready to serve immediately.

Simple and delicious, but there are many things we can do with this basic stir-fry.

 

SOUP

Although it is not the way I normally make Chicken Noodle Soup, this stir-fry makes a quick and tasty one. Simmer some Chicken Stock with a bit of White Wine in it for some minutes. Then simply add some portion of the stir-fry to the broth, making a soup as thick as you like. Simmer briefly.

 

HUNGARIAN

We can make quite an imitation Hungarian dish of this.

In this case, before you add noodles, sprinkle chicken and peppers well with Paprika, either mild or hot, as you prefer. Make sure you add the Paprika only while there is plenty of oil in the pan, at the early stage of cooking. Paprika mixes with the hot oil and nicely coats meat and peppers while cooking itself. Some extra salt is appropriate. Then toss in the noodles, just as you did before.

Use a half container of whole-fat sour cream and add half a cup of flour (or double both, if you prefer). Whisk thoroughly together and toss into the Paprika-ed meat and pepper and noodles. Stir together well. Add some chicken stock to thin a bit, stir in well, and simmer for about twenty minutes. Voila, the dish is ready. Hearty and delicious.

 

ITALIAN - FRITTATA

Frittatas are among the tastiest and most useful of all relatively simple dishes. They suit both formal and informal meals.

I think we could do an interesting, slightly oddball Frittata with this stir-fry. Yes, noodles have been used on Frittatas, although they are not common. Since potatoes are among the most common ingredients, noodles do not seem so out of place.

 

FRITTATA RECIPE

A basic Frittata – a kind of open-faced baked omelette which gets cooked ingredients on top just like a pizza – is simple.

Six large eggs

Quarter cup of heavy cream

Whisk egg and cream and cook in a well-oiled heavy, oven-suitable skillet in a 350-oven on the order of 8-10 minutes. Sometimes longer with lots of ingredients. All toppings are cooked ahead, as is our stir-fry. They are placed on top of the raw egg mixture before baking. Quite typically, a cheese is sprinkled on last.

And a nice grated cheese suits our stir-fry ingredients handsomely.

 

ITALIAN – ALFREDO SAUCE

Alfredo Sauce does sound a little overly elegant for this kind of food, but the ingredients are suitable, so why not?

 

ALFREDO SAUCE RECIPE

1 cup of heavy cream

1 and a half cups grated Parmesan

2 tablespoons butter

1 small garlic clove, finely chopped

 

Melt butter in a pan over medium heat. Add garlic and cook one minute without browning.

Whisk in the Heavy Cream and gently heat for about 5 minutes.

Remove pan from stove and gradually whisk in Parmesan cheese.

Heat the sauce gently for about 5 more minutes.

Some people add a touch of grated Nutmeg and/or a small bit of chopped Parsley.

 

The sauce is finished. Now is the time to turn warm pasta into the sauce. Serve immediately.

I’ve not tried this, but it just has to be good.

 

INDONESIAN

I have long relished Indonesian food, and I’ve cooked many of its dishes. The delightful and extremely savory Indonesian condiments – Oelek, Brandal, and Manis – are available in many specialty stores and readily available on-line. So, we could easily do with one of these what we did with Paprika, above.

This is not wildly inappropriate, a noodle dish being a national staple. One of these condiments would be added at the stage when frying the meat and peppers so that it spread in the oil. I think Oelek might be most suitable. Careful, it is pretty hot. In this case, it would be appropriate to serve the stir-fry with a couple of fried eggs on top. Yum.

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: PENNE RIGATE IN HOT SAUCE WITH SAUSAGE MEAT

CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: PENNE RIGATE IN HOT SAUCE WITH SAUSAGE MEAT

 

Prepare some of my basic red sauce, but season it with a fair bit of dried red pepper flakes. Careful, these can quickly create something very hot. Let simmer.

Remove casings and break up some Italian sausages – either hot or sweet – and sauté.

You may sauté some chopped onion and sweet red pepper with the sausage if you like.

Place the meat – and vegetables, if you are using them – into the red sauce and simmer a short while.

Boil some Penne Rigate pasta to al dente and drain.

A plate consists of a serving of pasta smothered with the hot meat sauce. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan.

Great with some crusty bread and a salad.

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL ADAPTATION OF A RECIPE FOR A WEDGE SALAD FROM A RESTAURANT WHOSE NAME I DO NOT REMEMBER

CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL ADAPTATION OF A RECIPE FOR A WEDGE SALAD FROM A RESTAURANT WHOSE NAME I DO NOT REMEMBER

 

Instead of the usual rather massive deep-cut hunk of Iceberg lettuce, this salad offers several shallower-cut wedges whose size comes closer to large dill pickle quarters.

Some people sneer at Iceberg lettuce, but I think it a silly thing to do. No less a culinary genius than Jacques Pépin has said he quite likes it with its crunch, and I quite agree.

 

FOR A SINGLE SALAD

Hard boil two large eggs and set aside to cool.

Four of the lettuce wedges make a plate, or more if you wish. You can arrange them almost like a little pile of campfire logs to give the plate some height.

Dress the lettuce with any of the creamy-style salad dressings – Thousand Island, Ranch, Blue Cheese, Creamy Italian, or other. Swirl the dressing around a bit across the lettuce and the plate for appearance.

When the eggs are cool, mash them using a potato masher, the kind that has a large number of small round holes. This will produce pretty egg bits which resemble Mimosa flowers.

Sprinkle these gracefully over the dressed lettuce and onto the plate.

Simple but delicious.

JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: DELUXE MACARONI AND CHEESE

CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: DELUXE MACARONI AND CHEESE

This has long been one of my signature dishes. Some people actually develop a craving, as for a kind of soul food.

There are two general approaches to macaroni and cheese. One is just cooked macaroni in a Cheddar cheese sauce, often used as a side dish, much like mashed potatoes. Popular in diner-style eating with meat loaf, for example.

The other approach is more elaborate, a loaf-like casserole that is the meal’s featured item. Done well, it has a variety of textures in one dish. It is very satisfying and eye-appealing. This is the one I make.

 

INGREDIENTS

Decent pinch of Dry Mustard

2 modest splashes of Worcestershire Sauce

Heavily-reduced Chicken Stock, two standard boxes, reduced to just a fraction of their volume - this is a key ingredient not usually found in these sauces. Also, one box of chicken stock not reduced.

Milk

Flour – white and whole wheat both work

Butter

Panko Bread Crumbs

Good Cheddar Cheese, and lots of it.

 

IMPORTANT NOTE

La sauce, c’est tout, as they say.

 

While I made this many times, I have not made it in about five years. I also often made two casseroles at the same time, freezing one (it freezes well).

I never did make this with measuring, nor did I keep notes. It was the kind of instinctive, natural cooking used in my Eggplant Parmesan, a sensational dish and made without measure.

So, bear with me as I write something descriptive and accurate but inexact.

 

You might be guided by the following considerations.

If you wind up with too much sauce, there is no problem. It makes a terrific kind of Welsh Rarebit to be served on toast any time. Fabulous on fresh, steamed or sautéed Asparagus.

And if you have some of this sauce on hand, you can prepare at any time some of the simple, side-dish Macaroni just by boiling up pasta and stirring it into some hot sauce.

Too little sauce simply ruins the dish.

You must judge by appearances as you make this recipe, but you can’t do that well without adequate material at hand to adjust, and especially sauce.

So, I’ll be generous with the sauce estimates.

 

The sauté pan in which I used to make sauce I no longer have. It was extremely large, far larger than the average sauté pan.

The casserole dishes I used for baking are 8 inches x 10.5 inches x 3 inches, oval Pyrex. I have also used others. There are no rules.

 

You start by making a White Sauce, but contrary to popular belief, you do not need to make a roux. It is indeed better not to do so.

I read from a very famous chef that the best way to approach White Sauce was to whisk the flour directly into the milk, then pour that mixture into a pan with heated butter, whisking it, and I have followed his advice for years.

You will never have lumpy White Sauce this way. It will come out like silk. The method also allows moderate adjustments in amounts to be easily made.

 

To start the sauce, melt some butter or buttery (buttermilk) margarine in the bottom of a large saucepan, enough to coat the bottom well. Don’t make the pan very hot.

Pour a half cup of flour into a quart of milk and whisk together well. Pour into heated pan and whisk. The proportions I’ve given, flour-to-milk, are too heavy for normal white sauce, but normal white sauce is not quite what we are making. We are adding a good deal of chicken stock. You can always add some more milk if it is just too dense, but we do not want a thin sauce.

Add the box of undiluted chicken stock to the white sauce and let it all simmer on low heat for ten minutes to reduce starchiness. The flavoring ingredients are next. Cheese comes last.

Worcestershire, Dry Mustard, Reduced Chicken Stock.

 

To reduce the chicken stock, just bring it to a gentle boil in a saucepan and leave it until it is where you want it. This takes a little while. Keep your eye on it. You want no more than about a fifth of the original volume from two boxes of stock. Use salted stock. The salting is desirable.

 

When sauce ingredients are all nicely blended, start adding cheese. Slice the cheese up so that it dissolves more easily. Keep gently stirring while dissolving the cheese. Soon, you will have a lovely pool of the most delicious cheese sauce. You will add a minimum of a pound and a half of Cheddar. Taste it, see if it needs more cheese because here we are working with rough estimates.

 

In a large saucepan, start some water boiling and add the dry macaroni. Make plenty. I don’t have an amount to give you, but be generous and learn from your first effort. Stir occasionally. Don’t overcook. The pasta will become soggy, losing its texture and effectively diluting the sauce. Drain well.

Reserved cheese is shredded with a grater to use for lining sides and bottom of casserole dish and covering top of Macaroni.

 

Prepare the casserole dish or dishes.

Butter all the sides. Sprinkle in grated cheese and Panko breadcrumbs and swirl around until nicely coated. This is going to form a nice crust when baked.

The top of the Macaroni gets the same treatment at the end, only thicker.

Place the dish or dishes on a lined cookie sheet – baking them this way can prevent a big oven mess

 

To fill the casserole (remember, we do not want to disturb coating on sides), start by ladling a modest layer of sauce into bottom of the dish. Then, ladle a moderately thick layer of pasta evenly over it. Ladle more sauce on top of the pasta, allowing it to seep down through the pasta. Continue until you just barely cover the pasta with sauce. Repeat with a new layer on top and repeat again until you are at the top of the dish.

Now, prepare the top. Dot with tiny dabs of butter and sprinkle with lots of grated cheese and lots of Panko bread crumbs. Break into a third pound of cheese, if required. Don’t skimp. Cover the top with foil – not loose, but snug.

Set cookie sheet and covered casserole into a preheated 350-oven. Bake for 1 hour. Remove foil and return to baking until the top looks inviting.

Great with coleslaw or any crisp salad.

JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL ADAPTATION OF A JACQUES PEPIN RECIPE FOR BAKED BEANS

CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL ADAPTATION OF A JACQUES PEPIN RECIPE FOR BAKED BEANS

 

I have always loved well-made baked beans and salt pork. They were a dish you often found in Chicago of the early 1960s. The best I ever had was one of the weekly offerings at the Marshall Field’s Department Store employees’ cafeteria. I never missed them. Just seeing one of the ladies behind the counter in the cafeteria slide out a new tray from the wall oven or warmer and catching the aroma made your mouth water. At least it did mine.

This adaptation of a Jacques Pepin recipe comes as close as I’ve had since.

 

4 16-oz cans of white “Navy Beans,” also called “Pea Beans.” Leave the liquid of two of the cans in the  recipe. Drain the other two.

2 large onions or equivalent – fairly finely diced up.

One-half cup of tomato ketchup. 

2 and a half teaspoons of dry mustard.

One-third teaspoon cayenne pepper.

1 and a third teaspoons of dried oregano.

One-half cup dark brown sugar.

4 tablespoons of molasses.

1 pound of very thickly-sliced fatty bacon 

In a large flat casserole dish, whose sides and bottom you have buttered, assemble all the ingredients - except for the pork – and mix thoroughly.

Then cut the bacon into squares or rectangles that will blanket the entire top of the bean mixture, almost like a quilt.

Place the casserole on a parchment-covered cookie sheet for oven protection and cover the top with aluminum foil.

Bake, covered, in a 350-degree oven for two hours.

Remove the foil covering. Do not disturb the beans and pork.

Bake for at least one more hour. Until the top looks nicely done and appealing.

Fresh baked brown bread and butter are heavenly with it. Delicious with homemade coleslaw.

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: GRILLED SALAMI AND SWISS SANDWICH – AND A NUMBER OF OTHER HOT SANDWICH IDEAS - THE DEFINITIVE REUBEN SANDWICH

 

CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: GRILLED SALAMI AND SWISS SANDWICH – AND A NUMBER OF OTHER HOT SANDWICH IDEAS - THE DEFINITIVE REUBEN SANDWICH

It is such a simple concept, and an extremely tasty one. I am sure many have done this at home, but I have never seen it noted anywhere. Here is an opportunity to discuss a number of related hot sandwich ideas.

 

INGREDIENTS

Hard Salami - slices of any good variety, although other “softer” salamis are good too.

Emmenthal Swiss Cheese – only the real thing will do, with its uniquely nutty flavor.

Rye Bread – the German-style crusty loaf. This exceptionally tasty bread is not commonly found in supermarkets, but carried by specialty stores. If unavailable, another rye will do.

Butter or the kind of buttery-tasting margarine made with buttermilk.

 

METHOD

Butter one side of two slices of bread. These will be the outside, frying sides.

In a skillet, assemble the sandwich with as much salami and cheese as you like on top of the unbuttered side of one slice of bread. Place the other slice, buttered-side-up, on top.

Set burner for medium high. Use a spatula to turn the sandwich shortly. Also use it to press the sandwich down as the cheese begins to soften. You may turn it several times. You do not want any scorched bread. For turning, before the cheese has become gooey to behave as glue, use a fork in your other hand, pressing against sandwich on spatula to hold the still-dry sandwich together as you turn it.

ThIs is the method I use for simple grilled cheese sandwiches, which I make with a good many different cheeses and breads.

This sandwich is excellent all by itself. It is even better with a great dill pickle, and it is delicious with an appropriate soup, such as white pea soup.

But it becomes something very special served with a large soft-boiled egg broken on top so you must eat it with a knife and fork. The soft-boiled egg is a superb touch for many hot sandwiches.

 

NOTE ON SOFT-BOILED EGGS

I find an “extra-large” egg, the largest grade, is perfectly soft-boiled by exactly four minutes in boiling water. A smaller egg, as a “large” one, needs three minutes. For the timing, do not leave the egg in the water as it heats up. Lower it into the water, very carefully with a spoon (they crack easily), once the water has lightly begun to boil.

 

VARIATIONS

Ham and Swiss are also excellent. I like the Westphalian-style (dry-cured) hams best, although any of a number of hams are good. With the egg on top, this sandwich begins to resemble a breakfast/brunch offering.

Even further along the lines of breakfast/brunch is substituting Cooked Bacon for the ham. This makes something pretty special with the soft-boiled egg.

When preparing sandwiches with ham or bacon for breakfast/brunch, you may prefer replacing the rye bread with something like slices of French Country Loaf or a lovely Brown or Multi-Grain loaf.

The basic Salami and Cheese is also good on a sliced Bagel, although cooking with two halves of a bagel is awkward. It definitely requires a fork in the other hand when turning. Also, just a bit of first mashing down the bread’s bumps.

 

THE REUBEN SANDWICH: HOW I MAKE THIS TRADITIONALLY-GRILLED SANDWICH WITHOUT GRILLING BECAUSE MY REUBEN SANDWICHES ARE TOO MASSIVE AND MESSY FOR ORDINARY STOVETOP COOKING

For such a famous, and relatively simple, sandwich, it is remarkable how many different ideas there are for its preparation. Here is a small list of common differences in recipes:

Rye Bread versus Pumpernickel Bread.

Pastrami versus Corned Beef.

Russian Dressing versus Thousand Island Dressing versus Mustard.

Thin, hand-held sandwiches versus massive piles that must be eaten with a knife and fork.

Frying in a skillet versus either broiling or baking.

The order of the ingredients in the sandwich.

The amount of sauerkraut, some reducing it to almost a tiny relish, others keeping it as a primary ingredient.

Some of these differences do not matter. Pastrami and Corned Beef are really two versions of the same thing. Overwhelmingly, Rye Bread seems to have displaced the Pumpernickel I knew many decades ago.

Dressing very much does matter. Mustard no more belongs in a Reuben than ketchup belongs on roast beef. Russian Dressing is the correct and most delightful ingredient. Many use a close relative, Thousand Island, because it is easily available. You usually have to make Russian Dressing.

Both dressings start with a mayonnaise-and-dollop-of-ketchup base. Thousand Island tends to be sweet while Russian has spicy ingredients with a good deal of horseradish, very suitable for beef. Here is a Russian Dressing recipe:

 

RUSSIAN DRESSING

Adjust to your taste:

1/2 cup of Mayonnaise

3 tablespoons of Ketchup

2 tablespoons of Horseradish

2 teaspoons of Worcestershire Sauce

1 tablespoon of Sugar

1/4 teaspoon of Paprika

 

I very much like these sandwiches on the massive and messy side, and while that is possible to do on a large restaurant grill, it pretty much precludes frying them in a skillet. The method I’ve arrived at is baking on a cookie sheet with a loose foil covering. The bread is buttered on the outside just as you would butter it for a fried sandwich. With the butter, the bread pretty well “fries” in the heat of the oven.

 

INGREDIENTS

Pastrami or Corned Beef, as available.

Emmenthal Cheese - again, only the real stuff from Switzerland. All the domestic efforts I’ve tried in the past fail to capture the special taste and texture of the original.

Sauerkraut - I recommend Kuhne from Germany. It is the best bottled or canned kraut I have ever eaten, and I have eaten many. It is not at all watery, which many are, making it perfect for piling on a sandwich.

Russian Dressing and no substitute.

Rye or Pumpernickel Bread, your choice. Pumpernickel stands up better to many wet ingredients, but Rye has a texture and taste most prefer.

 

METHOD

On parchment-lined cookie sheets, lay out your bread and butter well the side which will be outside the sandwich. Put the bottoms of the sandwiches butter-side-down to begin building them.

Mound sauerkraut on each one generously. While Kuhne brand is not at all watery, you might give each dollop a light squeeze before putting on the bread. Maybe two inches deep. Next comes the meat. Be very generous, making sure the slices are placed individually if they have all been packed tightly together, as is often the case.

Now, the cheese. Again, generosity is key to a great sandwich. The melting-down of the cheese onto other ingredients is important.

Finally, the Russian Dressing. Slather it on top heavily and, if you like, drizzle sides lightly. Now put the tops on the sandwiches, butter-side-up.

There is a reason for this order. During cooking, both the cheese and the dressing will be running down onto other ingredients.

Cover loosely with foil and bake in a preheated 350-oven. They should take about 15 to 20 minutes. Check them after 10 minutes.

The sandwich is a complete meal itself, but a dill pickle is nice. So are buttery mashed potatoes.

 

ANOTHER SUGGESTION – ROASTED VEGETABLE AND CHEESE GRILLED SANDWICH

Using some of the roasted vegetables from a previous recipe here, create a Roasted Vegetable and Cheese Grilled Sandwich. A cheese such as Fontina is very suitable, but there are many others.

Use a French Country Loaf Bread or you can use a sliced baguette with some effort, like mashing the halves down a little first. You can avoid the shape problem by cutting the baguette into slices at, say, a forty-five-degree angle, but you get smaller sandwiches. Butter the outside and fry in a medium hot skillet.

An aioli – a mayonnaise flavored with garlic, and sometimes other ingredients, is a nice condiment to offer with this sandwich. It is also nice with roasted vegetables generally.

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: COUS COUS AND ROASTED VEGETABLES

CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: COUS COUS AND ROASTED VEGETABLES

A Middle Eastern and Mediterranean-inspired dish – savory and beautiful and simple to make. You may eat it alone – it is an excellent semi-vegetarian dish – or serve it with some roasted meat.

Cous cous is a terrifically flexible staple food. It cooks very fast (5 minutes), much faster than rice, and many people who like rice end up liking cous cous just as well. It offers endless variations just by changing the liquid in which it is cooked, apart from what else you may add.

Almost any broth or vegetable juice may be used. You may add nuts or raisons or peas or any other bits that take your fancy. You may just cook it in a previously prepared soup, as, say, a vegetable soup, so long as the soup is dilute enough. Adding bits of leftover meat works well.

I adore roasted vegetables, but I like them cooked down perhaps more than is typical, say, in restaurants. It intensifies their flavor, and I like to see some dark golden portions.

Roasted vegetables, too, offer great variety through both the mix of vegetables and the seasoning used. You may add meat broth reductions, too, to the oil and seasoning you use over the vegetables.

Here, I reduce chicken stock and use that as the liquid for the cous cous. It is not strictly vegetarian of course, but it is very good. Just moderately boil off part of the chicken stock you start with before using it as the cooking liquid for the cous cous.

Because well-roasted vegetables suffer great reduction in volume, you must start by using a greater volume than you might at first think suitable. Some vegetables, like tomatoes, reduce more heavily than others. You may want to take account of that.

The vegetables suggested here are tomatoes, onions, red sweet pepper, eggplant, and zucchini.

Cut them into fair-sized chunks – the “drier, harder” vegetables should be cut into somewhat smaller pieces - and lay them out on parchment-lined cookie sheets. Drizzle well with oil and sprinkle with a seasoning combination you like. Just sea salt is nice.

Set the oven for 400 degrees. After the first half-hour, do a periodic check. They take a while.

Serve with a generous amount and variety of vegetables draped over a nice mound of cous cous.

Also nice sprinkled with roasted sesame seeds.

JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: COATED, PAN-FRIED FISH – BATTER AND METHOD

CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: COATED, PAN-FRIED FISH – BATTER AND METHOD

 

An excellent method for all coated, pan-fried fish. Especially good with perch.

Set fish fillets in a very shallow milk bath. I always soak them just for a bit, advice from a renowned English fish’n’chips cook many years ago.

In a second dish, crack and beat three extra-large eggs, or equivalent, dilute just slightly for workability, and lightly salt.

In a third dish, add one cup of panko bread crumbs, one cup of corn meal, and one cup of white or whole wheat flour. Add a tablespoon of baking powder. Mix thoroughly.

The fish fillets are drained from the milk, dipped into the egg mixture, and gently coated with the dry batter mix. Put them aside until you finish all that you are going to cook. A large sheet of waxed paper is a good way to hold them ready. Note the coating is somewhat fragile.

If you run short of one of the ingredients, just prepare a little more. It is not possible to be really accurate on batter amounts since its adequacy will be affected by how neatly you work and the size of the fillets.

When all the fillets are nicely coated, start heating a large skillet with a moderate amount of oil. Medium high heat. I tend to use Canola, but any other light oil is fine.

Carefully lay the prepared fillets in the pan with a spatula or two forks. Do not crowd.

Fry briefly and turn. If fried side is not golden enough, you will turn again afterward. The ideal look is golden.

Set the fried fillets on a plate covered with a couple of layers of heavy paper towel to absorb excess oil.

Note, never overcook fish. It loses its wonderful succulent and tender qualities. Overcooking fish is undoubtedly one of the most common errors of home cooks.

Fish cooked like this is to be eaten almost immediately, so all other meal preparations should be in place.

Excellent with a home-made coleslaw or chief’s salad. Buttery mashed potatoes are terrific. Of course, French fries are wonderful, but what a job they are to make properly with their two fryings (required for best crisp results) and all the cleanup. I rarely make them. Also nice with rice or cous-cous. Also, great fish sandwiches with baguette or other fine bread.

JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: TUNA MELTS

 CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: TUNA MELTS

These are serious food, not just “pub grub,” hot open-face sandwiches as complete meals. They are beautiful to the eye and very satisfying.

 

THE BASIC SALAD

In assembling the salad, keep in mind for proportions that the ideal is for each tuna melt to have the full range of flavors and textures and colors in it. A bit demanding, but worth the effort.

Solid Light canned tuna – broken up finely with a fork or potato masher. Two or three cans, or whatever amount tastes right to you.

Avocado – de-pitted, skinned, and diced into small chunks.

Celery – moderately thick slices, cut across the stalk – a generous amount.

Small pimento-stuffed green olives – sliced or cut into quarters – a generous amount.

Mayonnaise – no substitutes. You must use the real stuff – a generous amount – vary according to how “wet” you like your salad. Remember that baking will dry it out a bit, too.

Ripe cherry or grape tomatoes (grape tomatoes are sweeter but not always available) – cut into quarters or halves depending on their size - a generous amount.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Mix ingredients in a bowl thoroughly, being careful not to smash things together because we want the individual items to remain individual. Set aside and allow to warm to room temperature.

Note: this basic salad, minus the avocado chunks, is also excellent as a filling for avocado halves served cold or at room temperature.

Cheddar cheese – grated roughly – the real thing – no substitutes – a generous amount.

Pitas – either Greek or Middle eastern – or bagels – either New York style or Montreal. If you use Montreal-style bagels, it is a bit difficult to mound up the sandwiches because of the bread’s large hole. It can be done, but it is a bit of extra fuss. If using pitas, cut them into quarters ahead. Bagels are just cut in half.

If using bagels, ones with seeds or other coatings add still more eye-appeal and taste to the sandwiches.

 

OPTION

Salsa – whatever temperature you like – La Costena from Mexico is the best bottled one

 

Line cookie sheets with parchment paper and begin building your sandwiches. Arrange the bread bases.

Pile a generous helping of the salad onto each piece. The sandwiches should be fairly tall to feature the variety of ingredients, not flat like pizzas.

If you are using the salsa option, now is the time to dab some on the top of each pile of salad. While I very much like this, I do not suggest making them all this way. Some people do not like it.

Next is the cheese. Sometimes, you have to play a bit to make sure each sandwich gets a goodly amount of cheese. You are trying to pile loose shavings on a little hill. A bit of patting and shaping help. Extra on top is good, as it will run down.

The cookie sheets are placed in a preheated 350-degree oven until all the cool ingredients are heated and the cheese nicely melts. This should be about ten to fifteen minutes.

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: BEEF AND BARLEY SOUP

CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: BEEF AND BARLEY SOUP

A hearty and delicious meal in a bowl



4 quarts of beef stock or broth with a good splashing of dry red wine brought to a simmer in a large soup pot.

True stock is best, but broth is fine and far more readily available.

2 pounds of good beef stew cut to bit-size pieces. More if you like it meatier.

Sprinkle the beef lightly with flour and salt. Sauté briefly in a hot well-oiled frypan.

Add golden beef to simmering stock.

Dice up one very large onion, one large green pepper, and two or three large carrots. Sauté these briefly and then add to stock and beef.

Add one large can of diced tomatoes to stock and beef and vegetables

Add about a tablespoon and a half of pot barley to the simmering stock mixture. Experiment to see how much you favor. Careful, because too much barley can literally absorb the stock and produce a porridge.

Cover and let gently simmer for at least half an hour.

Absolutely delicious served with garlic bread (see my spaghetti and meatball recipe).

JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: OLIVE AND NUT SPREAD FOR SANDWICHES OR CANAPES

JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: OLIVE AND NUT SPREAD FOR SANDWICHES OR CANAPES

There was a wonderful ice cream parlor and snack shop on Chicago’s Northwest side in the 1960s called The Buffalo. A charming place in an old-fashioned apartment-building neighborhood with two movie theaters nearby. On a Friday or Saturday night, there was a long line-up of people, stretching down the block, waiting for tables. The place had a charming and buzzy atmosphere.

One of things they served, the one I relished and always ordered, was an olive and nut sandwich. It consisted of thick layer of an extremely savory spread with thin slices of tomato on toast, cut in the fashion of a club sandwich.

I experimented many times with duplicating the spread and was successful.

The spread makes absolutely wonderful canapes, and I never served them to anyone who wasn’t impressed.

Green pimento-stuffed Manzanilla olives and walnuts and a real mayonnaise, buzzed together in a food processor. Experiment to see what proportion of olives versus nuts you prefer. Start with two-thirds olives. Be generous with the mayo, but don’t add so much that you lose some texture of olive and nut bits.   

You can use this spread for a zesty sandwich, with tomato slices and/or lettuce leaves, or for canapes. For the canapes, use any favorite cracker or biscuit with a generous dollop of the spread and add a decorative little topping, such as a slice of olive or a sliver of pimento.

The original recipe used walnuts, and they are excellent in it, but in my experiments, I discovered a mouth-watering substitute, cashews. The cashews make an extremely rich spread, but the taste is divine.

JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: TRUITE MEUNIERE

JOHN CHUCKMAN’S TRUITE MEUNIERE

An absolute favorite


Use whole Rainbow Trout, either fresh or frozen (moderately thawed).

Cut off the heads but not the tails, which are delicious when cooked. You must slit the gut side of each fish the full length if it has not been done (as it will have been with frozen fish).

Dust the outer surface lightly with flour and sprinkle with salt.

Sauté in a well-oiled pan of moderately high heat, Use two-fork method. Do not brown the fish.

When golden on both sides, set aside. Lift side of fish with fork in slit on each serving plate to reveal bones. Grip bones at head-end and gently lift out of flesh. Use fork as required to assist.  It will come out nicely when fish has been properly cooked.

Drain cooking oil from cooking pan.

Add a few globs of butter or a good buttermilk-flavored margarine to pan and melt.

Squeeze a fresh lemon, cut in two, into the melted butter.

Simmer a few moments and pour over golden trout.

Serve immediately.

Absolutely best with a great salad.

JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: SPAGHETTI AND MEATBALLS - GARLIC BREAD

JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: SPAGHETTI AND MEATBALLS

Always a favorite dish of mine. My ideal was what was served at a charming little Italian restaurant called Manzo’s on Chicago’s North Side in the 1960s. It was a sweet little place with checkered table cloths and Chianti-bottle candles on the tables. With subdued light and candles and family-like staff, it had a homey, friendly atmosphere I quite loved.

The spaghetti and meatballs came as a large plate of pasta covered with thick tomatoey sauce and two large meatballs, the size of small fists, on top. I never ordered anything else. Just its appearance was mouth-watering. That memory was my guide over the years in developing a recipe.

Squeeze sweet Italian sausages out of their casings into a bowl. Match with an equal amount of ground beef.

Add a generous amount of breadcrumbs - preferably Panko and salt and pepper to taste.

Two whole large eggs. Hand-squeeze the mixture until is homogenised.

Form into very large meatballs and sauté in in a frypan until golden on all sides. My favorite method is to use two forks, turning the meatballs frequently.

When browned, carefully drop them into a pot of simmering red sauce (see my recipe). For spaghetti and meatballs, I prefer the sweeter version of the sauce. Simmer slowly for a good hour.

Serve two meatballs and a generous drizzle of sauce top of a small mountain of al dente spaghetti.  Sprinkle with fresh grated Parmesan and serve with my garlic bread and glasses of dry red wine.

Note: the meatballs also work nicely with a generous dollop of the garlic puree prepared (below) for garlic bread, but I prefer not using the garlic for spaghetti and meatballs.

_______________________

JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: GARLIC BREAD

Place several large, peeled buds of fresh garlic in a mortar-and-pestle.

Sprinkle with a bit of salt, which adds flavor and gives the texture needed for successfully crushing the garlic.

Smash the garlic thoroughly, and add to some olive oil or other oil. I find simple Canola oil works nicely. It is my go-to basic cooking oil.

Generously paint this mixture onto slices of thickly-cut baguette or other crusty bread and set on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Place in a 375-degree oven until just lightly golden. Serve immediately.

An option is to sprinkle each piece of coated bread with some freshly-ground Parmesan before baking. I like it both ways, but prefer it without cheese to accompany spaghetti and meatballs.

JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: CHICKEN PAPRIKASH

JOHN CHUCKMAN’S CHICKEN PAPRIKASH

A little different than the classic and absolutely delicious


Bring some chicken broth, with generous splashes of dry white wine in it, to a simmer in a large stew or soup pot.

Salt and rub generously with sweet paprika some chicken breasts – ones with the skin on.

Sauté the breasts in oil until they are nicely turned orangey golden all around. Set aside.

Rub the vegetables – thick carrot slices, thick green or red pepper slices, and thick onion slices - with sweet paprika, salt, and lightly sauté the vegetables in oil. Set aside.

Add chicken and vegetables to simmering broth. Let simmer gently for a half hour or so.

Use a large container of full-fat sour cream and mix into it about a cup of white flour. Stir and mix thoroughly.

Remove the chicken and vegetables from the broth. Stir in the sour cream-flour mix until it is smooth. This is the sauce. Return the chicken and vegetables to the sauce.

Best served with Spätzle, the tiny German or Hungarian noodles.

JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF DUNCAN JONES' MOON

I regard this as one of the strongest science fiction movies.

Here is a movie, quite unusual for science fiction, with something rather deep to say about the human condition. That is what sets it apart.

In the opening sequence of the film, we are watching a commercial for a large corporation which runs lunar mining operations to provide energy back on earth. The announcer puts emphasis on clean and virtually limitless energy. The mining operation is where the story is set, and this way of introducing it is brilliant. We’ve all seen such PR from corporations. The tone is just right. Very convincing.

The story is about a man who works alone at the lunar mining operation, a man approaching the end of his three-year contract, something to which he very much looks forward. His only companionship on the moon is an odd but very sophisticated robot and the occasional video of his family from back home on earth. Live communication with earth is not permitted, supposedly for unavoidable technical reasons.

He busies himself with a number of hobbies and pastimes, highly-focused small-scale gardening and the construction of a beautiful and elaborate table-top wooden village model, the demanding nature of the activities telling us that this is a man of some intelligence and focus, and not just an industrial worker.

His job is the regular collection of canisters filled with the element helium-three, canisters filled by gigantic processing machines, resembling in scale the kind of massive machines used in the Alberta tar sands. They run continuously, striping the lunar surface and processing the material to extract the helium.

Sam Bell, the character’s name, keeps track of the gigantic machines back at the base/living quarters, heading out in full astronaut gear and special vehicle to unload full canisters while the machine remains in operation. He returns to the base and regularly shoots the canisters back to earth.

That certainly sounds like a dull, uninteresting situation, but the fact that that proves not to be the case is part of the film’s strength.

We have an outstanding performance by Sam Rockwell, the performance of a lifetime one might think. We become interested in this man and invested with what proves to be a far more complex and mysterious reality than what we first see.

Rockwell, in the tradition of a lot of Hollywood “twins” films of the 1940s, plays two characters. He does so convincingly. They really are two characters, not just an actor changing his facial expressions.

We are taken for a bit of an emotional roller-coaster ride with these two as they clash over personal differences and as we see assumptions about the nature of their situation gradually stripped away.

This peeling away of layers of apparent reality during the story is an effective way of holding our interest. We discover the full and unpleasant truth right along with the characters. Corporate echoes about clean energy come back to haunt.

The key to all good stories, whether in films or books, is getting the reader or viewer involved in the character’s situation. Here is a film that does that extremely well, and the more we learn, the more emotionally involved we become.

Gerty, the robot in the story, is given a character quite different than the menacing ones so often attributed to artificial intelligence in science fiction movies, from Colossus in “The Forbin Project” to HAL in “2001.”

Gerty proves empathetic and helpful. Of course, it has been programed to keep lonely workers company over three-year assignments, and that programming in the end overrides restrictions from the mining company.

JOHN CHUCKMAN DEFINITION OF LOVE

Love means that it makes you feel good just to see a person.

He or she has become an integral and vital  part of your existence.

JOHN CHUCKMAN LINE OF POETRY

Spring comes, trailing robes of purest sunlight, to press her warm and fragrant breast to earth.

- A line of poetry written at about 19 years old.

JOHN CHUCKMAN ORIGINAL RECIPE: MY BASIC RED SAUCE FOR MANY ITALIAN DISHES

MY BASIC RED SAUCE:

Use crushed canned tomatoes (two large cans), a generous addition of dry red wine, a couple of anchovies or equivalent anchovy paste, a small can of tomato paste, a finely chopped onion, a sprinkling of Basil, a small sprinkling of red chilies (only enough to hint - sauce is not to be hot), and a couple of tablespoons of sugar (I leave this out these days, but it is good for Eggplant Parmesan). A splash of olive oil in the pan. Bring to boil and simmer over low heat, covered, for maybe an hour.

Many variations are possible - certainly I often use a bit of chopped garlic - but this is a pretty satisfying general purpose sauce. You may substitute a can (or even both) of crushed tomatoes with diced, giving the sauce texture for some pastas.  Of course, you can add a lot more chili flakes to make it hot which suits penne rigate. This is nice too with bits of sauteed spicy sausage.

Some always lightly saute onions and garlic first, but that isn't essential except in sauces which you simmer for only minutes, which is not the case here using wine. In simmering a longer time the ingredients literally will melt together.

One of my favorite versions is a Putanesca for spaghetti. Add some Kalamata olives and capers and substitute Oregano for Basil. You can throw various other ingredients into a Puttanesca sauce, as bits of sauteed sausage. A bit of diced green pepper is nice, but not for Eggplant Parmesan.

Best sauce to use for Eggplant Parmesan is the simple, somewhat sweet, basic.

JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW: THE SET OF COMPLETE HAYDN PIANO TRIOS PERFORMED BY THE BEAUX ARTS TRIO

Haydn, while always enjoyable, in some forms - as in his string quartets, at least for me - does not quite make it into the Mozart-Beethoven-Bach Pantheon.

But he was an immensely gifted and prolific musician, and he sure does reach that level at times, and his set of piano trios is absolutely one of them.

These are delightful - joyful, uplifting, relaxing, lilting, and elegant in turn.

The quality of the playing by the Beaux Arts Trio is flawless to this music-loving but musically-inexpert ear.

The recording quality is fine.

I think I’ve played the entire set ten times since getting it.

It is among my most treasured sets.

JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW: THE ALBUM "RECTO VERSO" BY FRENCH SINGER-SONGWRITER ZAZ

In my earlier review of the album, "Zaz," I somewhat diminished "Recto Verso" by saying that it was good, like "Paris," but wasn't quite up to "Zaz," which is, for anyone who likes this kind of French music, one of the most attractive albums ever made.

Well, I apologize, having listened more to “Recto Verso.” It truly is every bit as good as “Zaz,” a rare thing in popular music to do two albums to such high standards. “Recto Verso” is genuinely excellent throughout and quite moving in parts.

Of course, for all really fine music – classical or popular – being able to listen to it a number of times, still getting something from it, is almost a defining characteristic.

This is an extraordinarily talented woman. She writes fine songs, and she sings any song with great feeling, which, to my mind, is what this kind of French music is all about. I have a small collection of the great chanteuses, and Zaz ranks with the very best.

Again, just as with the album, “Zaz,” she moves me to tears in a couple of numbers. And that’s on top of all the purely pleasant music here. The arrangements always are agreeable and never intrusive. There is simply not one track on this album that does not please in one way or another.

That’s high praise, and she deserves it.

JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF STEPHEN KOTKIN'S STALIN: WAITING FOR HITLER

How can a major biography be both a real disappointment and perhaps of some significance to read?

If you want to understand that, you should read Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin. I found I could manage only getting through Volume Two: Waiting for Hitler, as I will explain.

Or I should say, try to read it, because Kotkin is part of that special class of writers with the academic style one finds in social studies journals filled with articles from academics trying to notch up one more publication. It is almost as dry and lumbering as some of the stuff one can read from the Soviets.

Imagine using awkward neologisms like “dekulakization” over and over? There’s several of them repeated here often, like unwelcome old friends. I also object to the author’s invariable use of “regime” for Stalin’s government. Yes, it was what many of us do indeed think as a “regime,” but that word selection in a biography is unnecessarily loaded.

It was, no matter what, a “government,” and its actions, if skillfully related, should speak for themselves. Show, don’t tell, is the master story-teller’s motto. But Kotkin is pretty much incapable of doing so, and that is a weakness of the book.

Stalin was an interesting figure (I’ve read several biographies) and his era was filled with huge and tumultuous events, so you couldn’t ask for better material. But Kotkin manages never to bring any of it to life. His recitation is rather lumbering. Bringing an important historical figure and his or her era to life, always providing the author is also accurate with facts and displays a good sense of perspective and relative importance, is my idea of the ultimate achievement in biography.

I can think of any number of fine biographies that achieve this, but Kotkin simply fails to do so. We never for a minute forget we are reading a rather dry academic’s summarizing of a huge volume of old documents.

I am not exaggerating when I say that only in some of the many letters and notes quoted from Stalin do we get a sense of life. Stalin was a pretty good writer, and it comes through, even in translation. Of course, it is also a bugbear of mine when an author quotes too much, my view being who needs the author then. We could just as well be given a series of selected documents. I wouldn’t say Kotkin goes too far in this, but the thought does cross your mind while reading, and it shouldn’t.
Kotkin is associated with an extremely right-wing institution, the Hoover Institution, so I attribute things like using the word “regime” to that bias.

Sure, Stalin was terrifying creature, but I avoid authors who in any way preach or sermonize, as so many at the Hoover Institution indeed do.

Its very name, like so many privately endowed American think-tanks, is often a guarantee of nothing that an open mind wants to be exposed to.

But I had read in a Russian source that there was balance in this new biography. So, I decided it must have value.

After all, no matter what you think of communism or Russia, Stalin was one of the giants of the 20th century, a man who greatly shaped the world into which we were born.
It is important to understand how that came to be and what are the factors which made such a role for a single human being possible.

But the way that the biography disappoints comes as a surprise.

It is packed with facts, it reflects scholarship, but it is not well-written, and it just doesn’t quite “gel” in creating a vivid, living portrait.

It has too much of the academic thesis in its writing, which is a very limited type of writing, interesting to a very limited number of people.

So, I cannot say the book is not worth reading, but it is nevertheless quite disappointing and not a little boring. If you want one that is not, read Montefiore. He may not have enjoyed quite the same access to archives, but he paints a lively and interesting portrait.

JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF DENIS VILLENEUVE'S BLADE RUNNER 2049

Have you ever seen Ed Wood’s “Plan 9 from Outer Space"?

It is undoubtedly one of the worst movies ever made, but you know that before seeing so much as a single frame because it is known for having been cheap beyond description, almost a kid’s effort at making a movie.

It has a bit of a cult following because it is so laughably bad. We all have a bit of a soft spot for something like that, with no redeeming qualities beyond its absurdity. But you cannot achieve such status if you have big pretensions, something “Blade Runner 2949” has in greater abundance than anything else. It literally drags truckloads of pretensions through scene after tedious scene.

Well, my best first go at a description for “Blade Runner 2049” is as a remake of “Plan 9 from Outer Space,” a remake with an obscenely large budget and vast pretensions. It is undoubtedly one of the worst films I have ever seen. It has literally no redeeming quality, not even its absurdity.

It has no real story to tell, terrible writing, and virtually all of the actors offer abysmal performances. The star, Ryan Gosling, walks through his role with two expressions, grim and grimmer. Even the cameo near the end with Harrison Ford is a performance you will only want to forget.

Ryan Gosling reminds me a bit of comedian Chevy Chase in his general appearance with eyes uncomfortably close together, something that the constant beard stubble on his face in this role serves to distract us from. This is not my idea of good casting, and that judgment holds for pretty much the entire company. This guy isn’t funny or even pleasantly light, ever, as Harrison Ford, the star of the original “Blade Runner” could very much be. He is relentlessly dull.

He’s grim and boring and you couldn’t care less what happens to him. The impression is not helped by some truly dumb lines not worth opening his mouth for. But the lines he delivers are no worse than those given other major characters. The language is so dumb, sometimes it reminds me of one of those old, early Toho monster movies that were dubbed in with English lines like, “Don’t be a wet noodle!”

He lives in a world that has the same dark look of the original Blade Runner, but the effort to create an ugly environment here has been put into hyperdrive, and you can only ask yourself why anyone would want to live there for even a day. Mass suicide – whether by humans or replicants - I should think would be this world’s greatest risk, not the activities of various malefactors or no-longer desired models of replicants.

Gosling drives around in a flying car that reminds me of a concept from a cheap 1940s movie serial. It flies, but it still has doors, it still has a windshield (and, yes, complete with windshield wipers for the rain), it still has seat belts, and, amazingly enough now at the dawn of the self-drive era, it still has a driver driving. This is a perfect example, typical of many in the film, of imagined gizmos or special effects without any imagination. Glitz without content, and really without interest for the viewer.

And they spent plenty on some of these gizmos trying to amaze us – the film’s budget having been the best part of 200 million dollars - but none of it does, it is all so completely lacking in imagination. There are many scenes with gimmicky special effects that have no meaning, none whatsoever, nor is there even a hint of trying to explain them – as with the golden ripply-looking walls of a company or a tall cement tree complete with guy wires.

It’s all tedious. There isn’t even a worthy villain in the whole long effort, as the original “Blade Runner” had in the fine Rutger Hauer, one of that film’s real high points. We understood his motives, and he played his almost-tragic role wonderfully. Here we have intense, shrieky women in weird, ugly clothes and make-up, trying to kill people for reasons we can’t be quite clear about.

This is a truly terrible film, and I cannot understand some critics’ references I read as to its quality, references which aroused my interest. Some said it needed editing, but editing wouldn’t help this, except through the sheer fact of there being less of it to sit through. The film did not do well at the box office, but I have never considered that a standard of measurement, some of the better films in history having achieved that same distinction.

But this is not another “It's a Wonderful Life,” which did not do well at the box office despite the huge affection in which it is held today, it is more like Michael Cimino’s “Heaven’s Gate.” Just appallingly bad

JOHN CHUCKMAN MEMORIAL: FOR MY DEAR MOTHER - AS PRINTED IN CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Death Notice in the Chicago Tribune, Sunday, December 3, 1995

PARA (CHUCKMAN)

Etta Lucille Para, in Quartzsite, AZ, Nov. 30, after a long struggle. Born Sept. 19, 1923, Clinton, IN, the daughter of William N. and Nellie McIntosh. Etta came to Chicago for opportunity after high school, a working girl with big dreams about the city. Not many years later, she was left alone to raise two young sons, a task to which she devoted herself, earning their living and creating a loving home, first in Hyde Park and later in South Shore.

Her bravery, devotion, and fierce honesty in the face of great obstacles were remarkable. The last quarter century of her life was blessed with a loving husband, “Wayne” Joseph Para, who cared for her to the end. She is survived by her husband in Arizona; her two sons, John and Bill Chuckman, three grandchildren, John, Bob, and Julie Chuckman, in Canada, and sister, Wilma McIntosh, in Chicago. Her ashes will be buried in Indiana at a later date.

JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF RIDLEY SCOTT'S THE MARTIAN

I'm quite sorry to have to say that “The Martian” was a great disappointment.

I am a long-time fan of director Ridley Scott, both of his science fiction films, “Alien” being one of best ever made, as well as some of his other films, such as “Someone to Watch Over Me” and “Thelma and Louise.”

I looked forward to the release of this film.

The first segment of adjusting to life on Mars is pretty good. Matt Damon is well cast as an astronaut type, and his behavior will remind viewers very much of the old MacGyver television show with a number of ingenious survival tricks and jerry-rigged apparatus.

I like Damon, but his role and performance are not demanding enough to warrant any award. I do very much like the little touches of humor scattered in this segment. Some viewers seem to have objected, but I think the humor was a good choice.

Then the film begins to fall apart. Scenes back at NASA sometimes are just plain tedious with orders being grunted and scads of people running about and grimacing. The casting for the Director of NASA is poor, entirely unsuitable. The dialogue is all second-rate, at best, yet writing has been nominated for an award.

The staged whole world’s interest, eventually, in one man stuck on Mars quickly tires too. It reminds me of some of the cheaper sci-fi films of the 1950s with news reel crowd scenes spliced in. No, these aren’t news reels, they’re carefully constructed new footage, but what a tedious waste of time they are. It simply fails to capture us in the drama which it claims is going on.

Good God, and then officials in China take an interest and offer a now-secret rocket system of their own to help. This is absolutely unbelievable. Great powers do not behave this way, motivated by sentimentality – certainly the United States never would.

I won’t go into details, but the actual escape from Mars is close to ridiculous and highly unsatisfying. Yes, it is all superficially plausible, but it is not truly believable. There is a difference.

Since the tedious portion of the film is at least half its length, I just cannot recommend it, and not by any stretch of the imagination is it a "best film."

By the way, there is a pièce de résistance bit of droning boredom tacked-on at the end. Damon, now famous, goes to speak to a group of aspiring students. The scene is literally silly and reminds me of a sermonette on self-reliance, which, of course, as any reasonable person knows is not something you can teach. You either have “the right stuff” or you don’t, and only real-life challenge will prove it one way or another.

This film definitely does not have “the right stuff.”

I believe Ridley Scott is now 78 years old.  Quite possibly, he has passed his productive years?

Maybe the award nominations reflect this fact. After all, they gave an Oscar to Elizabeth Taylor for one of worst performances in another, almost unwatchably boring film, "Butterfield 8," years ago because she was very sick at the time and of course was a big money-earner for the studios.

Some smaller points.

First, the escape ship, from Mars’ orbit, seems to me impossibly large and complex, given the huge engineering efforts always put in to minimize such things by NASA.

Second, in the early scene of the crew leaving Mars in their lander and leaving their comrade behind, the reason is a massive sand storm. Surely, planners would anticipate such storms. We know right now that you couldn’t go and stay any time there without adequate preparations.

  

JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW (COMMENT) ON EDWARD J. EPSTEIN'S ASSASSINATION DIARY

EDWARD J. EPSTEIN'S THE ASSASSINATION DIARY BY JOHN CHUCKMAN

I've not read this volume, but I read all of the books involved in making the diary.

Epstein is one of the more dishonest writers on the Kennedy assassination, using a terrible old technique of granting critics of the Warren Report some of their due in his first volume, thereby gaining credibility to forge ahead in his second and third volumes to assert the Warren Commission got it right in all the details that matter.

No one who has seriously studied the assassination - no one independent of certain interests and connections, that is - can possibly agree with Epstein' s so-called analysis..

His approach quite likely has something to do with the CIA connections we can infer from the publications for which he has written, all part of the CIA's "great Wurlitzer" whose keys are fingered to get "the message" out there, and the nature of what he has written.

Considering the books this diary served, it cannot possibly be worth reading.

But if you want to know how far an organization like the CIA goes "to get its story out there," then by all means read it.

JOHN CHUCKMAN REVIEW OF SYLVIA MEAGHER'S ACCESSORIES AFTER THE FACT

I don’t know how I missed it, having read most of the good early critics of the Warren Report, but I never read Sylvia Meagher’s “Accessories After the Fact,” and that is a pity because this book is one of the most important ever written on the Kennedy assassination.

Ms. Meagher’s topic is exclusively “The Warren Report,” its contents and the means and methods used to arrive at them. Ms. Meagher had a unique advantage over some other critics and analysts: she not only studied the entire 26 volumes of “Hearings and Exhibits” published to support the single-volume summary report, she had undertaken the monumental task of creating an index to “Hearings and Exhibits.” The Commission, as was its bizarre and confusing way in so many things, published this massive collection of evidence separately with no meaningful organization and no means to search or study it, just tens of thousands of documents jammed into 26 covers like a tidy pile of recycling.  The summary volume, “The Report,” therefore does not follow the most elemental academic practice of citing an organized body of evidence for its claims and assertions. It was almost as though the supporting documents were published to impress and reassure the public, safe in the knowledge that few would ever try studying them and that the few who did would find the task impossibly frustrating.

Ms. Meagher’s admirable indexing work not only created a powerful tool for her own use and that of others but gave her in 1967, the first publication date for “Accessories,” an almost unrivalled knowledge, perhaps matched only by Harold Weisberg. But Weisberg was a fairly poor writer, and his books, most famously, “Whitewash,” often are awkward and replete with typographical errors. Ms. Meagher (at least in this edition) is almost the polar opposite: she was a clear, logical writer, often quite forceful, writing analytical reports having been part of her career work. She is a bit dry at times, but that is in the nature of the material.

Ms. Meagher brought at least one more special talent to the task of writing this book: she had eyes which missed almost nothing in the way of detail. So much was this the case that there are points in the book where you will simply feel a degree of awe for the threads she manages to pull together. Time and time again, she marshals bits of material from the supporting documents which contradict summary words in “The Report” they supposedly were intended to support.

You might ask how is it relevant to read a book nearly fifty years after its publication when so many new facts have emerged in the case. My answer is, read her and find out: her judicious and detailed evaluation of parts of “The Warren Report” has not been surpassed. Her words echo with acute unanswered questions. She also demonstrated a remarkable prescience at times, most of her best observations and conjectures being as fresh as they were when she wrote. Altogether, an amazing feat of scholarship.

As to new evidence and facts, there actually is far less than many assume. Yes, the Church Committee (1975) gave us some insights into the CIA’s dirty work which Ms. Meagher did not know when writing, and, yes, the House Select Committee (1979) developed some new evidence, and, still further, the Assassination Records Review Board (1990s) published boxfuls of documents. But what those who do not follow the assassination case do not know is how remarkably little new material of genuine usefulness has appeared.

The House Select Committee on Assassinations (1978), while uncovering important technical evidence of another shooter on the grassy knoll, still feebly drew more or less the same conclusions as the Warren Report, and their second-shooter evidence has been thoroughly muddied by other technical claims about the recording. More importantly still, the huge release of documents by the Assassination Records Review Board (1990s) is filled with redactions and incomplete documents and a great many simply trivial documents such as the fate of Kennedy’s original damaged bronze coffin. To this day, few people realize that the most crucial documents remain buried in government agency files, including information about the intelligence agency behind Oswald’s phony defection, information about how his wife (daughter of a senior Soviet police official at the peak of the Cold War) was permitted to migrate to the United States, information about Oswald’s informer work for the FBI and about the kind of people on which Oswald was informing both in New Orleans and Dallas, information about Jack Ruby’s past (including his anti-Castro gun-running) and his frenzied activities close to the assassination, information about the sickeningly-corrupt Dallas Police and those who acted either to assist in, or cover-up details of, the crime, information about the relationship (and there very much was a relationship) between Oswald and Jack Ruby and David Ferry, information about why the presidential limousine was quickly rebuilt to destroy ballistic evidence, information about the pseudonym, A. Hidell, information about ex-FBI Agent Guy Bannister’s dark operations in New Orleans out of a building Oswald frequented, information about Oswald’s supposed visit to Mexico (genuine CIA observation pictures and recording having never been released), and information about a great many other things.

Perceptive readers will understand that those are “red meat” matters in the case and that it is simply absurd to ask people to accept that clear documents around them do not exist. We also need information on so basic a matter as why the distinguished members of the Commission thought it was appropriate to selectively ignore witnesses, to alter the printed version of other witnesses’ testimony, and to write what is almost a complete fabrication from start to finish. Lyndon Johnson’s suggestive stuff, reportedly whispered to convince some recruits to join the commission, about “if you knew what I knew” and tens of millions of “lives at risk” strikes one as unconvincing rubbish even then.

Remember, the most profound question ever asked about the assassination goes unanswered to this day: Betrand Russell, after publication of “The Report” asked, "If, as we are told, Oswald was the lone assassin, where is the issue of national security?"

Perhaps the most outstanding yet little asked issue around the Warren Commission is why, instead of doing a straightforward investigation of facts, it saw fit to conduct the prosecution of a single individual, “The Report” being literally nothing more than a prosecutor’s brief, and a fairly poor one at that. In a normal legal procedure, there is also a defence brief, the opportunity to cross examine, and there is a judge and/or jury acting as impartial receiver of all evidence. But the Warren Commission acted as prosecution and jury combined. Indeed, as is not widely understood, the Commission itself did almost no investigation (investigation being its true mandate) and depended almost completely on the FBI for investigative work. So the FBI, a poisonously political organization at the time under J. Edgar Hoover, collected selected pieces of evidence and selected witness accounts, and the Commission conducted selected questioning of selected witnesses and assembled a dodgy prosecutorial brief. Nothing that could be called a true investigation ever occurred.         

Readers should understand that this book is not the kind of gripping narrative of, say, Anthony Summers’ “Conspiracy.” It is a brilliant dissection, although a bit dry at times, of what remains the government’s foundation document explaining the assassination. “The Warren Report” does not explain the assassination, as Ms. Meagher so amply proved in this book nearly fifty years ago.

This book is recommended without qualification for all people interested in the assassination, in American history, in the integrity of America’s political or judicial institutions, and in the dark workings of powerful government institutions.

Here is a footnote for those interested in how twisted the assassination literature has become with unhelpful books now regularly dumped into the market. Ms. Meagher cites Edward Jay Epstein’s “Inquest,” another critique of the “The Report” published before hers. She treats him, given her knowledge in 1967, as a fair-minded and able critic. And to a considerable degree he was in that single instance, but Epstein wrote two more books after “Inquest,” “Counterplot” and “Legend,” both serving only to reinforce the main observations and conclusions of “The Report,” so much so, they are embarrassing for a knowledgeable and critically-minded person to read. “Inquest” served the purpose of what intelligence agencies call “chicken feed,” accurate but non-essential information given by a spy to the other side in order to establish bona fides. Following a number of pioneering and well-received critical books, “Inquest” granted some of the flawed nature of the “The Report” and even seemed to break a little new ground. But when you read the other two Epstein books and some unrelated stuff he has churned out over the years, you conclude he is part of what one retired CIA propaganda operative once called his mighty Wurlitzer Organ, a huge console of keys sending all kinds of misinformation through legitimate publication channels.

And so it continues today. Not only has Epstein written yet another book, but a steady stream of books is published whose main purpose is to support the Warren Commission’s “findings.” This is done along two paths. First there are the Epstein-type books, supporting the Commission through a semblance of analysis and investigation. Then there are the truly flaky anti-Warren Commission books with all kinds of outlandish claims (i.e. Oswald was a KGB spy or he was a Castro-hired assassin) and absolutely no evidence, intended to spread a shadow of discredit across even legitimate critics. Both kinds of books are produced by publishing channels friendly to the CIA, and their authors often may not even realize that they are being used, it being a common practice to use non-CIA assets with or without their knowledge as the case may seem appropriate. Sadly, the author of one of the best books ever written on the subject, Anthony Summers (“Conspiracy”), in his recent update of “Not in Your Lifetime” seems to this author, wittingly or not, to have gone over to the dark side in some of his observations and suggestions, just as he very much did in his unfortunate book on 9/11 (also reviewed).  

It is thus a rare thing to find a book on a highly controversial public issue in the United States that is an honest effort to analyze (and what else would you expect at the heart of a great empire which is constantly working to deceive people about its purposes and methods?), and Ms. Meagher’s book is one of a small number of them on the assassination.

The extent of American secret operations of all kinds was not appreciated in 1967. Today, they march in platoons across the news - Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Guantanamo, Diego Garcia, Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, and others – but still the dark workings behind them are never acknowledged. America’s intelligence agencies have gigantic budgets and operate with almost no accountability, murdering and torturing and overthrowing like the secret police serving a police state. America’s Congress questions and opposes almost nothing done. America’s mainline press now never pretends to report as it did during at least part of the Vietnam holocaust (the word being justified by the killing of an estimated 3 million Vietnamese). Elected presidents seem little more than figureheads formally authorizing the dark establishment’s work, the public not being able to distinguish an Obama from a Bush. The unexplained death of a president and the government’s contempt for the understanding of America’s citizens has gone a long way to making this world possible.