A Must Read (and Must See to be?)

After finishing Patricia Volk's delightful novel "To My Dearest Friends" late last night, I'm still basking in the afterglow, and wondering if a film version is in the works. Volk's vivid and memorable characters would provide meaty roles for some great actresses--Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon, Stockard Channing, perhaps. If Volk doesn't want to do the adaptation herself, I'd be glad to take it on.

"I don't do fear."

After regaling members and guests of New York Women in Film and Television with stories from her amazing career, Nora Ephron was taking questions. "What is your greatest fear?" someone asked, and weeks later, I'm still thinking about her answer: "I don't do fear."

Thinking about it and saying it, like a fear-banishing mantra.

What I need to start saying is "I don't do procrastination," because I do do it--and am long overdue to mend my ways.

Here goes--"I don't do procrastination."

How about you?

Chicken Neck Soup

Trying to shake a lingering chest cold earlier this month, I craved chicken soup, homemade not take-out, but felt far too tired to make it. Till passing the poultry section of the local Whole Foods, I noticed some packages of chicken necks. What if I just bought some of those and cooked them in a lot of water for a few hours? It might not produce much of a soup--would likely be about as minimalist as Stone Soup--but it would be warming and surely at least a little therapeutic.

And the idea of having a bunch of chicken necks all to myself felt oddly luxurious. Roast chicken is one of my favorite dishes, and the neck one of my favorite parts, but growing up, I was one of four siblings and two parents contending for that neck. Usually two or three of us shared the neck, for which we relinquished our interests in heart, liver, and gizzard. Had I ever in my life actually eaten two chicken necks at one meal?

The bunch of necks turned out to be five once I opened the package, which weighed less than a pound. I filled a pot of water, threw them in, and started cooking. After maybe an hour, I took out the necks, let them cool a bit, broke them in halves or thirds, and threw them back. Then added a large onion cut in eighths, carrot, celery, and bay leaf, and ground in some pepper.

After another half-hour or so, too hungry to wait longer, I scooped out two pieces of neck and a cup of liquid. Expecting little more than minimally flavored hot water, I savored instead fresh, delicate essence of chicken that set my tongue dancing.

I added another carrot and a quarter cup of French lentils to the simmering broth, and an hour later called it done. The flavor was more intense now, but still delicate--not your typical chicken soup. I ate more that night, more the next, and froze the rest.

Two weeks later when Jim was next in town, we polished it off. "Eating soup with your fingers--that's different," Jim said between bites of neck. We used toothpicks to extract the soft shreds that clung to the bones.


Chicken Neck Soup (5 or more servings)

Five or more chicken necks
10 or more cups of water
One large onion, cut into eights
Two or more carrots, cut into pieces
One stalk of celery
One bay leaf
Fresh-ground pepper to taste
1/4 cup lentils, preferably French, or rice

Optional stuff I might try next time: parsley, other herbs, green onions, radish, turnip, jicama, lemon juice (though the charm of this soup is its simplicity).

1. Add chicken necks to water and cook to the boiling point over medium heat. Reduce heat and simmer. Skim off the foam once or twice (there won't be much).

2. After 45 minutes or so, remove necks, cool briefly, break into two or three pieces each, and return to pot. Add onion, celery, half of the carrots, bay leaf and pepper, and simmer another hour or so.

3. Add lentils or rice and the remaining carrot pieces, and cook until done (at least half an hour for lentils).

Overlooked by Oscar

On my way to the greenmarket on Saturday, I overheard this behind me:

She: "It's such a great movie."
He: "Yeah."
She: "Jeffrey Wright was so brilliant."
He: "Yeah."
She: "Honestly, I wasn't sure he could play Muddy Waters--"
He: "But he sure did."

I'm guessing they, like me, wondered why Cadillac Records didn't receive a single Oscar nomination.

Beside Wright as Muddy, the film was full of indelible, Oscar-worthy performances: Columbus Short as Little Walter, Eamonn Walker (Howlin' Wolf), Beyoncé Knowles (Etta James), Adrien Brody (Leonard Chess), in particular.

Granted, writer-director Darnell Martin took a few liberties with the facts--combining the two Chess brothers into one, leaving out Bo Diddley, etc.,--but no more than Hollywood films typically take with history. She brought a bygone world powerfully to life, and I left that world moved and exhilarated, feeling I'd seen one of the great movies of the year. I assumed it would be an Oscar contender in many categories, including script and direction, and was shocked when it didn't receive a single nomination.

What didn't Sony do to help this film find its audience? And why wasn't it on the Academy's radar?

Script First

Jack Webb may have been one of the world's most wooden actors, but as director of Pete Kelly's Blues, he had some pretty cool moves. One memorable shot early on is from inside a pizza oven, beginning as a pie is pulled out, flames coyly dancing at the left of the Cinemascope frame--as if from the point-of-view of the alchemy that turns dough into bread, or weaklings into toughs.

But my favorite moment in this atmospheric film has nothing to do with camera moves or plot twists or acting moments. It's part of the credits. They begin with Warner Bros. (of course) and Webb--but as actor, not director. Nothing is said about "a Jack Webb film" or anything else of that ilk. Instead, right after "Jack Webb as Pete Kelly" come words to warm this writer's heart: "in a screenplay by Richard L. Breen." Not "in a film by Jack Webb" or "in a Mark VII Production." It's an acknowledgment, rare these days, that the script comes first, that without it there would be no film: no producing, directing, gripping, gaffing, editing, and photographing; no roles for Jane Leigh, Peggy Lee, Lee Marvin, and their fellows.

They don't make 'em like that anymore, but I'd sure like to see somebody try. Maybe one of these days, a generous and innovative director will relinquish the usual vainglorious opening credit and put the script first again.

Where the Heart Is

Some years ago, I was extolling the pleasures of eating doves my dad had shot, when someone exclaimed, "You ate the bird of peace!" I wish I'd had the wit to answer: "And I enjoyed every bite!" I didn't think of those doves as birds of peace, but as succulent morsels--and a rare treat (or more likely, given his cooking style, well done).

I grew up eating quite a few things friends find yucky--like brains and eggs (swimming in butter) when visiting Grandma Paulsen..

Now and then Dad cooked kidneys (lamb, I think), and although the predicable smell that filled the house was hard to take, the results were tasty.

One of my favorite dishes as a child was Heart Soup--another special treat. My sister Joanne thinks we'd have it maybe twice a year, but I remember it as dinner on Christmas Eve.

In my early days in New York, I sometimes bought a veal heart, sliced it, and sauteed it, but I've never actually made the soup, though I must have asked my mother for the recipe.

Here it is as I found it recently on a yellowing page that included other family favorites:

Heart Soup

For the amount that you would want, buy a veal heart if possible, and a soup bone with some meat on it. Put in your dutch oven, probably, and cover with cold water. Cook for several hours, at least 2 to 2 ½ to get the broth strongly flavored. Add the last hour some onion, carrot, celery, parsley and anything else you want. The last 20 min. or so of cooking I add some canned tomato or you could add several small fresh tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. If you cannot get a soup bone, several pieces of beef ribs, it just adds additional flavor to the soup, especially when you use only 1 or 2 hearts.

Especially when you use only 1 or 2? If Mom were still with us, I'd ask just how many hearts did you use, and how many should I?

Not that I'm going to make it anytime soon. Unfortunately, I'd probably have to eat it all myself.

I Paid for It .

Jim and I were making Caldo Verde, a Portuguese soup, to take to Jim's parents' place for Thanksgiving. The beans were on, the onions were in, Jim was rinsing and tearing the kale, and I was slicing the chorizo--the dry kind, from Spain--more thinly than I usually do so that 14 diners could all perceive a satsifying amount of sausage in their bowls.

"Please don't cut the fat out," said Jim. "I figure I paid for that fat."

He was eluding to the habit I'd developed, when making the soup by myself, of using the tip of a paring knife to extract whatever globules of fat I could from the chunks of chorizo.

What about the casing, I asked? I usually peel it off. He said he'd paid for that, too.

I can't say I noticed that our full-fat soup tasted any different from my lightened version, and I realize that the amount of fat I typically remove is likely neglible. So back home, making the soup alone this week, I did it Jim's way, except for the casing.

Though my obsessive/compulsive side kind of missed the delicate task of fat extraction, the process of sausage prep went a lot faster.

When it came time to do the kale, Jim's words leapt to mind: "I paid for that, too." So shouldn't I use the kale stems instead of dumping them? I thought about chopping them and adding them to the soup, but there were plenty of kale leaves in there, so I bagged them and stuck them in the freezer.

One of these days I'll throw them into a vegetable stock pot, or maybe chop them and use them as the chicken replacement in mock chicken rice soup. I tried that once, and it wasn't bad.

You can find many versions of Caldo Verde online; here's mine:

Portuguese Kale Soup (from Carol Ames and Philippe Perebinossoff)

1 pound of pea beans (or navy)
10 cups of water
1 pound of sausage or less (I use one package of spicy Spanish chorizo, around 8 oz), sliced if you like
1 medium onion, chopped
1 pound of kale
2 cups of chopped potatoes
salt and pepper if you like

Bring water to boil with beans. Add onion and sausage, and simmer 2-3 hours. Tear kale leaves from stems, and add them about 3/4 to 1 hour before the soup will be done. Then add the potatoes, and finish cooking.