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Sad News to Share: Jesse Kornbluth passed away peacefully on April 3, 2025 7 Apr 7:50 AM (28 days ago)

 You can read more about Jesse’s life and achievements here. Know that the 20 years that he was the creator of Head Butler — and your reactions to what he shared here — brought him such joy. If you want to share a memory of him, you can do so here on Facebook, or write his family using this address.

From the family of Jesse Kornbluth

The post Sad News to Share: Jesse Kornbluth passed away peacefully on April 3, 2025 first appeared on HeadButler.

“How Lucky I Am to Have Something That Makes Saying Goodbye So Hard” — A. A. Milne 28 Oct 2024 1:36 PM (6 months ago)

Readers of Head Butler:

As many of you have noticed, the site has not been updated since late April. Jesse Kornbluth, the site’s creator and editor, first launched HeadButler.com in 2004. However, over the last year, he has experienced a neurological condition that has affected his mobility and reduced his creative output. Consequently, we do not foresee any further updates to the HeadButler.com site or future newsletters.

Jesse is now living in an assisted living facility in New York City where he is comfortable and well taken care of. He, his family, and his friends appreciate the outpouring of concern and affection that many of you have shown over the past months. We know from your notes and comments that you are grateful to Jesse for his friendship and the twenty years that he shared his wisdom and wit on HeadButler.com.

From the family of Jesse Kornbluth

The post “How Lucky I Am to Have Something That Makes Saying Goodbye So Hard” — A. A. Milne first appeared on HeadButler.

After the Wedding 27 Apr 2024 7:00 AM (last year)

SUPPORTING BUTLER: Head Butler no longer gets a commission on your Amazon purchases. The only way you can contribute to Butler’s bottom line is to become a patron of this site, and automatically donate any amount you please — starting with $1 — each month. The service that enables this is Patreon, and to go there, just click here. Thank you.

THIS WEEK IN BUTLER: “My Notorious Life.”  The Lamed Vav and “The Last of the Just.”  “Jules et Jim.” Weekend Butler.

The first time I saw “After the Wedding,” I didn’t see all of it — like just about everyone else in that theater, for the entire last half hour I was afflicted by a bout of silent sobbing that wouldn’t quit.

I cherish that amazing, unforgettable experience: several hundred people weeping together.

And then — I’m not spoiling the movie here — came a “happy ending” that is perhaps the most satisfying conclusion of any film I saw in that decade.

Satisfying because the characters earned it. There was a huge price for each of them to pay, and they stepped up to it. They earned the right to better. And, because you have lived their struggles with them, you leave the movie with the kind of satisfaction that no studio-financed, movie-by-committee-and-focus-group can give you. [To rent the video stream from Amazon Prime, click here.]

On a low budget, with no-name actors and a less sensitive script, “After the Wedding” would be right at home on Lifetime. Consider the plot. Jacob (Mads Mikkelsen), a Dane in his 30s, works in an orphanage in India. He hasn’t been home in 20 years, and that’s just fine with him. Bad news: The orphanage is running out of money. Good news: Jørgen, a philanthropist, wants to write the large check that will save it. On one condition: He wants to meet the recipient. The woman who runs the orphanage can’t go. Well, Jørgen is Danish, Jacob is Danish. Jacob should go.

Reluctantly, Jacob flies to Denmark. Jørgen listens to his pitch for only a few minutes before seeming to lose interest — it’s the weekend of his daughter’s wedding. To which Jacob should come. It’s not, after all, like he has anything else to do.

At the wedding, the first surprise: Helene (Sidse Babett Knudsen), Jørgen’s wife, was once Jacob’s lover — the lover who broke Jacob’s heart, the lover who sent him scurrying off to India, an orphan hiding among orphans. Watch the trailer. 

Other surprises: I’ll spare you. And encourage you to read not a word more about the story — let the twists and turns sear you as they roll out. But I’ll go this far: The rich and poor, the white and the colored, Europeans and Indians — the moral lessons are so easy, aren’t they? Or are they? Is Jacob’s moral purity really an emblem of superiority? Is Jørgen’s privileged life a sign of a rotting soul? You’ll judge — you can’t help it — but along the way, you’ll live the emotions.

“After the Wedding” was Denmark’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2007 Academy Awards. It lost to the German film, “The Lives of Others.” I would have voted differently. (The Academy did in 2011. Bier’s next film, “In a Better World,” won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Read the Butler rave here.)

There are movies you stream, and you think that you got the amusement you paid for. But sometimes, very rarely, there are movies that stay with you, that you want to press on someone you love and say, “Here. This. A life-changer.” That, in every possible way, is “After the Wedding.”

The post After the Wedding first appeared on HeadButler.

WEEKEND BUTLER: Jackie O’s favorite poet. The Beatles tell all (or most). Judi Dench recites Shakespeare. George Clooney mouths off. Jamie Oliver’s chicken. 25 Apr 2024 7:18 AM (last year)

BORN: APRIL 29, 1863. DIED: APRIL 29, 1933.  WHO AM I?

Who is the poet? Click here.

TOP OF THE POPS

“All You Need Is Love: The Beatles in their Own Words,” by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines,” is the number #1 non-fiction best seller. To buy it on Amazon, click here.

ONLINE COMMENT OF THE WEEK

‘Men in dresses playing in women’s sports take priority over Jews.

A MINUTE OF SHAKESPEARE

Judi Dench recites a sonnet.

SEAN DOORLY: THE AVEDON OF FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHY

In 1997, Sean was the first hire of the Book Report. He was a prize: reliable, unflappable, able to leap problems in a single bound. He married, became a father, moved to Los Angeles, worked for Disney, where he ascended. Then Disney needed to cut 7,000 jobs, and he discovered he was a number.

Sean is a fantastic father, and his Facebook page is the proof. He and his daughter are out every weekend, hiking miles to photograph nature, his delighted child, and birds. In 2023, he launched Sean Doorly Photography to serve Los Angeles and Glendale. He specializes in family photography and corporate events, He’s low stress, high fun, huge empathy. And conscious –Sean Doorly Photography offers special discounts to non-profit and charitable organizations, helping those who do good look good. Visit SeanDoorlyPhotography.com to view his portfolio.

GEORGE CLOONEY

Surprised? Don’t be.

WEEKEND RECIPE: JAMIE OLIVER’S CHICKEN IN MILK

Sam Sifton, in the Times: “The British chef and cooking star Jamie Oliver once called this recipe, which is based on a classic Italian one for pork in milk, “a slightly odd but really fantastic combination that must be tried.” Years later he told me that that characterization made him laugh. “I was hardly upselling its virtues,” he said. The dish’s merits are, in fact, legion. You sear a whole chicken in butter and a little oil, then dump out most of the fat and add cinnamon and garlic to the pot, along with a ton of lemon peel, sage leaves and a few cups of milk, then slide it into a hot oven to create one of the great dinners of all time. The milk breaks apart in the acidity and heat to become a ropy and fascinating sauce, and the garlic goes soft and sweet within it, its fragrance filigreed with the cinnamon and sage. The lemon meanwhile brightens all around it, and there is even a little bit of crispness to the skin, a textural miracle. It is the sort of meal you might cook once a month for a good long while and reminisce about for years.”

Yield: 4 servings

1 (3 to 4 pound) whole chicken

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

¼ cup unsalted butter

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 small cinnamon stick

10 cloves garlic, skins left on

2½ cups whole milk

1 handful of fresh sage, leaves picked — around 15 to 20 leaves

2 lemons

Preparation

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Season the chicken aggressively with the salt and pepper. Place a pot that will fit the chicken snugly over medium-high heat on the stove and add to it the butter and olive oil. When the butter has melted and is starting to foam, add the chicken to the pot and fry it, turning every few minutes, until it has browned all over. Turn the heat down to low, remove the chicken from the pot and place it onto a plate, then drain off all but a few tablespoons of the fat from the pot.

 Add the cinnamon stick and garlic to the pot and allow them to sizzle in the oil for a minute or 2, then return the chicken to the pot along with the milk and sage leaves. Use a vegetable peeler to cut wide strips of skin off the two lemons and add them to the pot as well. Slide the pot into the oven, and bake for approximately 1½ hours, basting the chicken occasionally, until the chicken is cooked through and tender and the sauce has reduced into a thick, curdled sauce. (If the sauce is reducing too quickly, put a cover halfway onto the pot.)

To serve, use a spoon to divide the chicken onto plates. Spoon sauce over each serving. Goes well with sautéed greens, pasta, rice, potatoes or bread.

The post WEEKEND BUTLER: Jackie O’s favorite poet. The Beatles tell all (or most). Judi Dench recites Shakespeare. George Clooney mouths off. Jamie Oliver’s chicken. first appeared on HeadButler.

Jules et Jim 23 Apr 2024 1:23 AM (last year)

SUPPORTING BUTLER: Head Butler no longer gets a commission on your Amazon purchases. So the only way you can contribute to Head Butler’s bottom line is to become a patron of this site, and automatically donate any amount you please — starting with $1 — each month. The service that enables this is Patreon, and to go there, just click here.  Thank you.

—

Paris in the Spring. Well, perhaps not this year, with the prices jacked up for the Olympics. Maybe this Paris: A Half Hour from Paris: 10 Secret Day Trips by Train
Its author, Annabel Simms, is a Brit who moved to Paris and developed a deep knowledge of the fifth arrondissement. Business took her to the modern, soulless inner suburbs. Then an urge “to get into the countryside, any countryside” led her to discover France’s excellent network of commuter trains — and what she was looking for. The 21 daytrips of this book, which has been revised and updated several times, are the happy result.

 Or, perhaps, a film. A romance. Two men and a woman. Not exploitative. On Amazon Prime. You don’t even have to leave home….

Jeanne Moreau was immortal long before she died. First, for her acting — when Orson Welles called her “the greatest actress in the world,” he spoke for many. And then, as a term of respect, as the first woman to be inducted into France’s Academy of Fine Arts. Her greatest roles were deep in the past, and if you’re not of a certain age or a raging film buff, they’re unfamiliar to you; consider reading the Times obituary and the Sight & Sound appreciation. Or consider the short answer, two films, “Elevator to the Gallows” and “Jules and Jim.”

“Elevator” was a film she shouldn’t have made. Louis Malle was 24, a nobody; she was already Jeanne Moreau. Her agent told her to turn it down. She fired her agent. To read my piece about the film and the Miles Davis soundtrack, click here.

The film that you’ll be asked about on the final exam is “Jules and Jim.” It was a dream collaboration: Moreau and Francois Truffaut. Her part was free-wheeling, liberated, feminist before there was a name for it. The 1962 film pulsed with life. Some critics say it’s Truffaut’s best film; many say it’s one of the best films ever made.  [To buy or rent the streaming video, click here.]

What I didn’t know when I saw it: first there was a novel.

The story is compelling. In 1907, Jim, a young French writer, meets Jules, a young Austrian writer. They share everything: “They taught each other their languages; they translated poetry.” Some people assume they’re lovers. But their hobby is women, and in the Paris of the Belle Époque, they collect quite a few. Then they meet Kate, who is of another level of magnitude. Jules marries her. They have two children. But love cools, and there is Jim.

First, though, an all-male love triangle: Henri-Pierre Roché, Francois Truffaut … and me.

Henri-Pierre Roché wrote the novel — his first — when he was 76. He’d spent his life in the avant-garde; he introduced Picasso to Gertrude Stein. His other interest was women. He married twice, but there were many, many more lovers; as Truffaut writes, “He made a work of art out of his love life.” And his novel is more than a little autobiographical. [To buy the paperback from Amazon, click here.]

Truffaut read the book when he was 23. He fell in love with it; Roché wrote even better than his hero, Jean Cocteau. Short sentences. Everyday speech. The book read like a telegram. Truffaut knew he had to film it, and when he was 29, he did. The style is fluid, exuberant, efficient — Truffaut effortlessly tells a story that spans three decades. No wonder Warren Beatty wanted him to direct “Bonnie and Clyde.”

In 1962, when the film was released, I was 16 years old and new to a boarding school in the suburbs of Boston. My interests, then as now, were writing, music, movies and my social life — that is, girls. On Saturday afternoons, you could find me at the Exeter Street Theatre in Boston, devouring foreign films. Ingmar Bergman was my god. Then I saw “Jules et Jim,” and fell in love both with Truffaut and the way Roché had constructed a story that explained everyone and “blamed” no one.

All these years later, I read the novel. It is astonishing. Not just crisp and fast moving as a thriller, but acute in its wisdom about people, about women, about love. At 240 pages, it spins its wheels only occasionally; mostly, I slowed down to mark passages I wanted to think about later, or steal. Like this:

An early lover took her time over everything she did, so that other people found every moment endowed with the same abundant value as she conferred on it.

Odile was happy all the time. Jim bathed in her blondness at night and the sea by day

Jules no longer slept in the same room as Kate. She treated him kindly but strictly.

Her gospel was that the world was rich and that you could cheat a bit sometimes.

Sex? It perfumes the book. But it is never more explicit than this:

She was in his arms now, sitting on his knees, and her voice was deep. This was their first kiss, and it lasted the rest of the night. They didn’t talk; they let their intimacy take hold of them and bring them closer and closer together. She was revealing herself to him in all her splendour. Towards dawn, they became one. Kate’s expression was full of an incredible jubilation and curiosity. This perfect union, and the archaic smile, more accentuated now — Jim was irresistibly drawn. When he got up to go he was a man in chains.

See why Truffaut memorized long passages of the book, why he used so much of it in his movie? See why this story was ripe to be branded on the psyche of an impressionable boy? See why I think you’ll read it as if it was written — by a master — only yesterday.

The post Jules et Jim first appeared on HeadButler.

My Notorious Life: A Novel 22 Apr 2024 1:52 AM (last year)

“My Notorious Life: A Novel” is everything I say I don’t want. 434 pages. Set in the 19th century. Told in the first person, in 19th century speech. Based, in part, on the life of Ann Trow Lohman (1811-79), also known as Madame Restell, who practiced midwifery in New York for almost forty years.

I started to read:

It was me who found her. April 1, 1880. The date is engraved on my story same as it is on the headstone, so cold and solid there under the pines. What happened that morning hurts me to this day, enrages me still, though many years have passed.

The time was just before dawn. She was there in the tub. It had claw feet, gold faucets. Marble was everywhere in that room, so magnificent. A French carpet. A pair of velvet settees, a dressing table, candelabra, powders and pomades, all deluxe. I knew something was wrong right away. When I knocked I knew. There was not no noise of bathing, just that slow drip. That plink of water landing on water, so dreadful. I went in and there she was. A scarf of red across her shoulders, down her chest. The water was red and cold with all her life leaked out. A bloodbath. My hands were trembling. Terrible sounds strangled in my throat, quiet so as not to wake the house. My little daughter and my husband were fast asleep. The maid was not yet up.

19th century prose? No barrier. I pressed on, and soon found myself riveted by the story. Axie Muldoon — her real name is Annie, but her mother calls her Axie “because I was forever axing so many questions” — is the child of a poor, one-armed woman, trapped in New York’s filthy, airless slums. Her mother dies in childbirth, her brute of a stepfather couldn’t care less about her, and Annie and her siblings are shipped off to foster families in the Midwest. Years later, 14-year-old Axie returns to New York, where she’s apprenticed to a midwife and taught the art of birthing. But although Mrs. Evans is said to be able to “fix a girl up,” Axie doesn’t see her do any abortions.

Suddenly I was on page 110.

Axie has a suitor, Charles Jones. He’s as poor as she is, and ambitious, mostly, it seems, to have his way with her. “One evening, when the night was thick with the smell of warmed garbage and the heat was trapped down amongst the buildings” — there’s a romantic setting for you — he shows up, bearing wine, “a hard swooning taste new to my tongue.” He’s about to be drafted. He begs. And she succumbs.

A sex scene from 1860? Yes. And I succumbed too.

Women come, all pregnant, all in trouble. At first Axie is disgusted by the work, but she never gets tired “of the drama and the miracle.” When Mrs. Evans dies, Axie takes over. Charlie becomes her husband and partner. She is unsure of love, but she trusts money — it “did not go off elsewhere in the night drinking hops and gin and coming home to fondle a woman and call her names only to pass out.” Tart, she is. Cheeky. And a compelling storyteller. [To buy the paperback from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]

A smart woman has said that the world’s biggest drug problem is testosterone, and that is never truer than when the subject is women and their reproductive freedom. In the late 19th century, men imposed codes that made sure this freedom didn’t exist, so Axie Muldoon works in the shadows, using euphemism as her first language.

A villain appears, taken from real life: Anthony Comstock (1844-1915). In the Army, “he refused to drink his ration of whiskey and delighted in pouring it on the ground in front of his comrades in arms.” Later, he turned his attention to “vice.” Axie finds him a “hideous” man. And knows that “we two, me and Comstock, was barreling toward each other, each one on a mission.”

Comstock lives on. We used to see him as an outlier on Sunday morning political shows and the sidewalks in front of family planning centers. Now he’s on the Supreme Court. Kate Manning wrote this book as a warning and metaphor. It’s a different book now, a Dickensian reading experience, our Bleak House. But it has something the Dickens novel lacks —Axie Muldoon is a heroine and a half. I cheered her on every page.

The post My Notorious Life: A Novel first appeared on HeadButler.

The Lamed Vav and “The Last of the Just” 20 Apr 2024 6:54 AM (last year)

Passover. We were spared the obsessive preparation for this holiday: the special plates, the bitter herbs, the family gathered around the TV for the ritual viewing of the Cecil B. DeMille movie, the line that always cracked us up (Edward G. Robinson taunting Moses, “Where’s your God now?”), the scratchy wool pants — it wasn’t a holiday that generated reverence for us. I turned to the esoteric, and, at a tender age, learned about the Lamed Vav and “The Last of the Just,” said to be “the saddest book ever written.” When I was writing my novel, “The Next Dalai Lama,” I was able to use that special knowledge. I pass it along here, in the spirit of magic which is at the heart of Jewish holidays but which didn’t touch my teenage soul at Passover in a Philadelphia suburb. 

I could share some scholarly writing about the Lamed Vav, but the cheat sheet is an easier read. It’s a conversation in my novel between the teenage Dalai Lama, Billy DeVito, and his friend Benji. They’re 13, trying to figure out what they believe when Benji shares this bit of Jewish lore.

“The 36 Lamed Vavs are the most important people in the world,” Benji said. “Literally, they keep it going, and if even one of them disappears, the world will end. We don’t know who they are — if someone claims he’s one of the Lamed Vav, that automatically means he’s not. But what’s really amazing is that the Lamed Vavs don’t know they’re Lamed Vavs. It’s like they’re walking down the street and they see someone suffering and they kind of inhale the trouble, and… poof… it’s gone, and they go back to their lives.”

“So how do we know about them?”

“There are stories.”

“Know any?”

“My parents have a book.”

“If they’re unknown…”

“The stories are second-hand. This is my dad’s favorite: A man comes to the rabbi to beg for the life of his sick son. The rabbi goes out and finds the ten biggest thieves in the city. The rabbi’s friends ask why he didn’t look for decent men to help with the healing.  The rabbi says, ‘I saw all the Gates were not only closed to this boy, they were locked. I needed ten thieves to pick the locks… to break open the Gates of Heaven.’”

“The boy was healed?”

“Even before his father arrived home.”

Billy, thinking logically: “The rabbi made a miracle. He blew his cover.”

“That’s what I said. My dad said, ‘No, the rabbi was the miracle.’ But that’s an exception. The stories are usually about people no one notices — bus drivers, garbage men, the bum on the corner. And that’s the coolest thing about them. They’re God’s reminder that we should treat everyone with dignity and respect. Because you just never know.’”

That’s exactly right: you never know. And the Lamed Vav-niks don’t know either. That is, they don’t know they’re one of the 36 who hold the world in balance. And they don’t know any of the others. Tradition has it that if someone claims to be a Lamed Vav-nik, he isn’t, and he knows he isn’t. They have virtue that “precludes against one’s self-proclamation of being among the special righteous. The 36 are simply too humble to believe that they are one of the 36.” A more learned Jew than I informs me that the Hebrew word “Lamed” has two syllables. And that Lamed is the Hebrew letter L, whose numerical value is 30, and Vav has a numerical value of 6, which explains the phrase, Lamed Vav.

What is the lesson for lesser mortals? Behave as if you are a Lamed Vav-nik. That is, “lead a holy and humble life and pray for the sake of fellow human beings.”

There is a big, expensive book of Lamed Vav stories. They’re charming and short, and you’ll smile at the wit behind them. [To buy “Lamed Vav: A Collection of the Favorite Stories of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach” from Amazon, click here.]

There is also a great book, “The Last of the Just,” by Andre Schwarz-Bart, the son of a Polish Jewish family murdered by the Nazis. The story follows the “Just Men” of the Levy family over eight centuries, ending with a scene in a concentration camp that gives new definition to heartbreak — this book has accurately been described as “the saddest novel ever written.” In 1960, it won the Prix Goncourt. [To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]

Do I believe there’s verifiable truth here? I’m agnostic. But ever since I read about the Lamed Vav and wrote about them, I’m consciously thanking bus drivers and grocery clerks and nodding to cops and giving thumb’s up to people struggling at the high school track — I’m more attentive to shared moments. I get smiles back and, on my block, fist bumps. If I keep this up, I may yet be someone who brightens our darkening world just enough to make a small difference in someone’s life.

The post The Lamed Vav and “The Last of the Just” first appeared on HeadButler.

WEEKEND BUTLER: O.J. Simpson: a story never told before. Francis Coppola’s “best film” (not “The Godfather”). Best Russian film. Romantic song: Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. Sesame Chicken with Cashews and Dates. 18 Apr 2024 4:44 AM (last year)

AN O.J. SIMPSON STORY THAT’S NEVER BEEN TOLD

by Nicole Minet: I’ve been waiting 29 years to tell this story about OJ and his days at USC. Now that he’s dead (may he burn in hell) I have a story that I signed an NDA for that is no longer valid. I was a junior at USC working in Topping Student Center on campus in 1995. I was an administrative assistant to the President of Student Affairs that semester in the work/study program. In early 1995, Robert Shapiro and Robert Kardashian (USC Alumni) walked up to my desk and said they had an appointment with my boss. I was studying to be a criminal defense lawyer with a dual major in PoliSci and International Relations, so I knew who they were. The meeting lasted about 30 mins. After they left, I looked at my boss like: “WTF was that all about!?”  He walked me outside. We sat by the old sprawling big tree outside Topping, and my boss lit a cigarette for the first time in years and told me I had to sign an NDA because I could confirm OJ’s lawyers were there for a meeting. Then he told me what the meeting was about. Before OJ could graduate from USC, the university paid off the families of two blonde girls that he had dated and battered. They had both gone to the LAPD to report it. One claimed he also sexually assaulted her in their relationship. The school had a vested interest in OJ going far in football and protected him at all costs. OJ had been in custody for 6 months and lawyers were in the discovery process for the trial. OJ’s friend Robert Kardashian, who knew OJ from also being a student at USC, thought it would be best if those stories never saw the light of day. So a large check was written, given to my boss, and they left. I’ll never forget holding that check. Now, did you hear about this before now? Nope. That’s how much power money enables. This is why I abhor the Kardashians. They’re rich thugs. Nothing more.

WEEKEND MUSIC: MARVIN GAYE AND TAMMI TERRELL

My review. Rare video: “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”

WEEKEND MOVIE

“The Conversation,” often called “Coppola’s best film.” “The Conversation” received three Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Sound. It did win the Palme D’Or at Cannes, but it was a commercial disappointment, and unless you’re a film fanatic, you may never have heard of a film a New York Times critic called “Coppola’s best movie, a landmark film of the seventies and a stunning piece of original American fiction.” [To watch the streaming video on Amazon Prime, click here.]

BEST RUSSIAN FILM

Alexander Nevsky. The greatest score in all of film — so good that it inspired John Williams’ shark theme in “Jaws” and James Horner’s music for “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.” One of the greatest battle scenes in film — so good that Mel Gibson surely went to school on it before shooting the “Braveheart” war scenes. Want your heart to pound? Stream it!

WEEKEND RECIPE

Sesame Chicken with Cashews and Dates

Dates add a touch of sweetness to this savory chicken and scallion stir-fry. If you don’t have a wok or a 12-inch skillet, you might want to cook this in two batches in a smaller pan. That will ensure a nice, browned crust on the meat. And if you want to substitute chicken breasts, stir-fry them for only 2 minutes in Step 2 before adding the rice wine.

4 to 6 servings

4 tablespoons toasted (Asian) sesame oil

12-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and cut into about 12 “coins”

6 to 8 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed

1 bunch scallions (white and green parts), cut into 2-inch lengths

3 to 4 dried red chiles, or ½ teaspoon chile flakes

2 pounds boneless chicken thighs (preferably skin on, but skinless is O.K.), cut into 2-inch chunks

½ cup toasted cashews

⅓ cup rice wine or dry sherry

3 tablespoons dark soy sauce or tamari

4 pitted dates, thinly sliced

3 cups fresh basil or cilantro leaves, or a combination

Rice vinegar or lime juice, to taste

Cooked rice, for serving

PREPARATION

Season the chicken with salt and pepper while you heat a 12-inch skillet or wok over high heat until it’s very hot, at least 2 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons of the sesame oil and swirl the pan; the oil should thin on contact. When the oil is hot, add the ginger, garlic, scallions and chile. Stir-fry until the garlic is golden at the edges, 2 to 3 minutes.

 Add the 2 remaining tablespoon oil, chicken and cashews, and stir fry until it starts to brown, 4 to 5 minutes (turn down the heat if the cashews are browning too quickly). Add the rice wine, soy sauce and dates; simmer until the sauce reduces to a syrupy consistency and the chicken cooks through, 5 to 7 minutes.

Stir in the herbs, sprinkle with rice vinegar or lime juice, and serve over rice.

The post WEEKEND BUTLER: O.J. Simpson: a story never told before. Francis Coppola’s “best film” (not “The Godfather”). Best Russian film. Romantic song: Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. Sesame Chicken with Cashews and Dates. first appeared on HeadButler.

Trattoria: Simple and Robust Fare Inspired by the Small Family Restaurants of Italy 16 Apr 2024 2:15 AM (last year)

SUPPORTING BUTLER: Head Butler no longer gets a commission on your Amazon purchases. So the only way you can contribute to Head Butler’s bottom line is to become a patron of this site, and automatically donate any amount you please each month — starting with $1. The service that enables this is Patreon, and to go there, just click here.  Thank you.

BREAKING NEWS: My daughter, a lycopene addict, would chose arrabbiata pasta every night. Until recently, she favored Rao’s arrabbiata sauce. When I realized I could make it in one pan in just a few minutes, I made a batch. Mine is, she will attest on any legal document, superior. The other night, I showed her how to make it. Her proud father watched her create a superior sauce. Light bulb moment: cook with her again.

I’ve cooked from Patricia Wells’ books for several decades now.

So what stopped me from buying her book of Italian trattoria cooking?

Two words: Marcella Hazan.

I thought I didn’t need another Italian cookbook.

Teenage years later, I surrendered to Trattoria. And I am chastened.

You want simple? This is it. Easy? Forget about it. Organized? Unless you’re dedicated to an exploration of Italian cuisine, this book could be the last time you’ll ever need to think about an Italian menu. [To buy “Trattoria” from Amazon, click here.]

A trattoria is just where I’d like to be tonight — an uncomplicated, modestly decorated, family-run establishment featuring traditional regional fare. You drink the house wine. You tend to order whatever special is being pushed. And you leave satisfied and possibly sated.

Wells begins with a large selection of antipasti, moves on to grilled vegetables and hearty soups. Then she reaches pasta. There are 17 pasta recipes — and that’s just the dried pasta. There are also 15 recipes for fresh pasta.

There are lovely recipes for entrees. But here’s a bargain dinner that rips the torpor from you taste buds. That means spices — garlic and red-pepper flakes. And what Wells calls “a young Italian red table wine.”

PENNE ALL’ARRABBIATA
Serves 6

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
6 plump fresh garlic cloves, skinned and minced
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
sea salt
28-ounce can peeled Italian plum tomatoes or a 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes in puree
1 TBS tomato paste
1 pound tubular pasta
1 cup flat leaf parsley, snipped with scissors

In a large skillet, combine oil, garlic, crushed red pepper flakes and a pinch of salt. Stir to coat with oil. Cook over moderate heat. Remove from heat when garlic turns gold, but not brown.

If you’re using whole canned tomatoes, chop them before adding to skillet. If using pureed tomatoes, just pour into skillet. Add tomato paste. Stir, then simmer until sauce begins to thicken, about 15 minutes. Adjust seasoning.

In a large pot, boil 6 quarts of water. Add three tablespoons of salt and the pasta, cook until tender but firm. Drain.

Add the drained pasta to the skillet. Toss, cover, cook over low heat for 1-2 minutes to allow the pasta to absorb the sauce.  Add the snipped parsley, serve in soup bowls.

“Traditionally, cheese is not served with this dish,” Wells notes. Gotcha.

Start the water and the sauce at the same time, dinner is on the table in 30 minutes, Wells advises. That’s including cooking time for the pasta. Pro tip: If you put the sauce in the blender, you get the smoothest arrabbiata this side of… well, Rao’s.

The post Trattoria: Simple and Robust Fare Inspired by the Small Family Restaurants of Italy first appeared on HeadButler.

Stephen King: On Writing 14 Apr 2024 10:00 PM (last year)

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LAST WEEK IN BUTLER:  Weekend Butler.  Boubacar Traore

—-

I have one more test to pass to convince the hospital’s insurance company that I’m not likely to die on the operating table and they’ll have to pay my heirs the hundreds of millions of dollars I would have earned from the novel I’m writing now. It’s a stress test, and it’s well-named — it lasts four hours, much of it waiting for my system to calm down between stresses. Choosing a book to read is crucial. I’ve read Stephen King’s memoir, and I remember laughing a lot and crying a little — it will be good company tomorrow. As I look at the headlines, I grasp I’m not the only one getting stressed this week. This book will heal and amuse. And if you ever need to write anything, it’s gold. 

Reader Review: ‘I got this book for an airplane read. Sat next to the window and started in. That book had me laughing so hard that tears were pouring down my face. I did my best not to make any noise, but wasn’t completely successful. The woman sitting next to me thought I was distraught and in the midst of a total breakdown.’

Stephen King, about this book: Why did I want to write about writing? What made me think I had anything worth saying? The easy answer is that someone who has sold as many books of fiction as I have must have something worthwhile to say about writing it, but the easy answer isn’t always the truth. Colonel Sanders sold a hell of a lot of fried chicken, but I’m not sure anyone wants to know how he made it. If I was going to be presumptuous enough to tell people how to write, I felt there had to be a better reason than my popular success. Put another way, I didn’t want to write a book, even a short one like this, that would leave me feeling like a literary gasbag or a transcendental asshole. There are enough of those books — and those writers — on the market already, thanks.

Nobody ever asks me about language. They ask the DeLillos and the Updikes and the Styrons, but they don’t ask popular novelists. Yet many of us proles also care about the language, in our humble way, and care passionately about the art and craft of telling stories on paper. This book is an attempt to put down, briefly and simply, how I came to the craft, what I know about it now, and how it’s done. It’s about the day job; it’s about the language.

“On Writing” is two books, both excellent, for the price of one.

The first is a memoir, maybe the closest to an autobiography we’ll ever get from Stephen King.

It’s also a lesson in writing.

From paragraph two: “I lived an odd, herky-jerky childhood, raised by a single parent who moved around a lot in my earliest years and who — I am not completely sure of this — may have farmed my brother and me out to one of her sisters for awhile because she was economically or emotionally unable to cope with us. Perhaps she was only chasing our father, who piled up all sorts of bills and then did a runout when I was two and my brother David was four.”

Lesson one: Tell the truth. And skip the charm if none belongs.

At six, Stephen wrote a story. Or, rather, copied it. His mother praised it. Stephen was forced to admit it wasn’t original. “Write one of your own, Stevie,” his mother said. “I bet you could do better.” He did. His mother praised it.

“Nothing anyone has said to me since has made me feel any happier.”

The young writer was launched.

His high school newspaper adviser was his next big influence.

“When you write, you’re telling yourself the story,” he told King. “When you rewrite, your job is taking out all the things that are not in the story.”

I underlined that; you should too.

King married. Two kids in three years. On a teacher’s salary. Meanwhile, he wrote and wrote. Men’s magazines paid for his kids’ medicines. Two novels made not much of a dent in the book world. His wife never wavered: she believed. His third novel was “Carrie.” It sold to a hardcover publisher for $2,500 — King had no agent; what did he know about advances? — and then to a paperback house for $400,000. He got the call on Mother’s Day; $200,000 of that advance was his. He looked around his dumpy apartment and cried. Then, in a Maine town where you really couldn’t find anything to splurge on, he went out and bought his wife a hair-dryer. [To buy the paperback of ‘On Writing’ from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]

How do you follow a story like that? Well, if you’re Stephen King, you go right on to this: ‘I got drunk for the first time in 1966.’ And to where that leads. Alcoholism. His mother dies, sadly, badly. Cocaine addiction follows. His family intervenes. He cleans up. And now — after a hundred inspiring and brutal pages — he’s ready for Part II, which is his book about writing.

Subject, verb, object: that’s one “secret.” Verbs are active, not passive. “I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs.” Want to be a good writer? Read! A lot! And then write! A lot! And write fast: The first draft of a novel should take no longer than three months. Rewriting: If you haven’t removed 10% of your previous draft, you haven’t done it.

And this:

Put your vocabulary on the top shelf of your toolbox, and don’t make any conscious effort to improve it. (You’ll be doing that as you read, of course … but that comes later.) One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for a long words because you may be a little bit ashamed of your short ones. This is like dressing up a household pet in evening clothes. The pet is embarrassed and the person who committed this act of premeditated cuteness should even be more embarrassed. Make yourself a solemn promise right now that you’ll never use “emolument” when you mean “tip” and you’ll never say John stopped long enough to perform an act of excretion when you mean John stopped long enough to take a shit. If you believe “take a shit “would be considered offensive or inappropriate by your audience, feel free to say John stopped long enough to move his bowels (or perhaps) John stopped long enough to “push”). I’m not trying to get you to talk dirty, only plain and direct. Remember the basic rule of vocabulary is use the first word that comes to your mind, if it is appropriate and colorful. If you hesitate and cogitate, you will come up with another word — of course you will, there’s always another word — but it probably won’t be as good as your first one, or as close to what you really mean.

As the book ends, Stephen King takes us through his late-life trauma — getting hit by a careless driver as he walks along a Maine highway. His recovery is long. And painful. The idea of writing seems very distant.

One day, his wife helps him to his desk. He lasts an hour and forty minutes. He writes 500 words. When he stops, he’s dripping with sweat and howling with pain.

But none of that is the point. The point is that he did it. And, the next day, did it again, a little longer. And, eventually, finished his book — which is this book.

“The scariest moment is always just before you start,” he tells us.

Oh, what a friend we have in Stephen.

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