THE HUNGRY GHOST

Watching as the camera glides down the path to the front door of our recently incinerated home (“vaporized” as the FEMA inspector dubbed it, so intense was the fire), I am a Hungry Ghost. This video was downloaded to my computer from the thumb drive my husband retrieved from the Bank of America safe deposit box weeks after that building was also reduced to rubble. I am happy to report that the video, done as a home inventory nearly 10 years ago for insurance purposes, is still viable. I am sad to say I can’t watch it. Our home is still alive in this video and it makes me feel dead.

It has been nearly 3 months since we fled our coastal canyon home of 18 years, and as I watch the video that brings it all back to life, I die. I am no longer in that room reaching for a pen, a paint brush, a book (1,300 volumes lost, my husband once counted them years ago, no doubt there were more than that consumed by the flames), a sauce pan, tools of my life as a writer, a painter, a reader, a teacher, a gardener, a cook. That home we made does still exist–we visit it in our dreams, when we are able to sleep. And now it exists in the video downloaded to this computer with which I managed to escape.

There was so much more I couldn’t even think of as we prepared to flee. There were the telescoping water color travel brushes I bought on my honeymoon 40 years ago. I tell this to all the outlets I’m contacting in search of a replacement set, a sympathetic story to tug at human heartstrings. I’m looking for humans in this decimated landscape.

I confess I didn’t use the brushes as much as I regularly fondled them, thinking how much I cherished them, what they represented of my longing to become that water colorist blithely capturing the world in veiled pigments, rather than the writer so challenged by language and crippled by knowing none of it ever gets easier. That is my lament. I could sit down and cry, but instead, I just want to paint.

Writing for me has done its job, saved me at so many turns, but it didn’t, couldn’t save us from this fire. Now I can honestly say words fail me. Now I can honestly say this disaster is unfathomable. Now I agree with those who proclaim it unimaginable. But let’s, for a moment, try to imagine it. Think of a war zone, World War II, Dresden after the allied bombings. That is what our community of 46 town homes surrounded by more than 4 acres of gardens at the edge of a wilderness now looks like. Cremated. The immolation, actually, of our entire town, the village center, the surrounding neighborhoods. Our opponent in this war is nature, and to paraphrase Pogo from back in those mid-century comic days, the enemy is us. These days, though, there’s nothing comic about it. Nature is fighting back with wild fires, deadly winds, rising oceans. Nature is out to get us and just might yet.

See for yourself. The glazed green pot that held the Santa Rosa plum tree outside our now obliterated front door survived, as have others. The plants they held have not. The plum tree we drove back in our Subaru Forester, also lost to the fire, from Luther Burbank’s Santa Rosa nursery, is now a charcoal stick railing at the sky. That tree took me back to my childhood, when its ruby fleshed fruits infused summers with a tangy sweetness, as did a companion Blenheim apricot tree. In our no longer standing canyon community, a close neighbor had a prolific Blenheim tree. They gifted us with the fruit, we gifted them with the resulting jam.

This tree, this home, was a reworking of my challenging childhood. As an adult, I was finally getting it right, had gotten myself to a place where everything was in it. You know the saying–a place for everything and everything in its place? Well, this now vaporized home was where everything was in place for me.

I succeeded in imagining it into being–once. With the video’s aid, I will imagine it again. But I can’t bear to watch it just now. I’ll have to nibble at it a few moments at a time, over weeks, if not months, like the last bits of a chocolate bar when stranded on a desert island. I will find myself imagining for a fleeting moment that it still exists, until I reach out in longing for something I see there, in that place it once was, then remember, with a flip of reality’s wrist, it no longer is there. It no longer is anywhere. Then it will vaporize again, this time in the flames of my desire.

In the video, my husband opens the door, enters the living room and describes simply, matter-of-factly, as if everything will always be there, the furnishings immediately inside–the Tibetan rug, that painting over the mantel capturing the essence of another neighborhood, the vibrant orange patio cushions from a shopping expedition with my no longer living sister, who two years ago joined the ranks of my no longer living parents. Every object holding memories of the no longer here, a ribbon unfurling of that life it is said will flash before our eyes as we pass from this existence into the land of non.

So, profuse apologies, but the best I can do today is get just inside our front door. This Hungry Ghost cannot venture any further into the past. Reality is failing her, like the cliffs fail above the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. She must get on with her life, this day, what is left of it, for that is all any Hungry Ghost truly has.

Hello, how are you and thanks for asking–I’m busy prepping for another iteration of Creative Cafe: Food & Writing for UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program. I’m especially excited as it’s being held two half-days, February 5 & 6, in the Extension’s new downtown L.A. building at 433 S. Spring Street. Even more exciting than gathering in person for the first time since Covid, will be our first ever field trip to the nearby Grand Central Market for lunch and tons of food writing inspiration. So, while I get ready for that, you just go on and enjoy this particularly appropriate rerun from 2017. It contemplates the direction the restaurant world was taking back in someone’s first administration. Unfortunately, it’s ripe for another slice of contemplation. Thus I give you What’s Eating Us, Part 1 (Redux),from May, 2017.

What is eating us? By that I mean what is going on with food in restaurants, markets, homes, our mouths, these days? Why has fine restaurant dining become such a brutal experience? When did it become all about the photograph of what you’re eating rather than the food? When did all manner of food restrictions, both real and imagined, become the norm and the formula get flipped from living to eat to eating to live? Those are just some of the questions I’ve been muddling over for a while now, with the best of intentions to write on, but am finally writing up after enjoying the new documentary Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent and reading his reissued 2015 memoir, California Dish, now titled Start the Fire: How I Began a Food Revolution in America.  

I profiled Tower, one of America’s first celebrity chefs, in 1984, for West Magazine, shortly after he opened the late, great Stars in San Francisco.The article titled “The Star of Stars,” opened with him  tenderly turning rust-and-cream-colored chanterelles for that night’s marrow-and-chervil cream sauce in brioche, then, when sufficiently tanned the next day, their own savory ragout. He was cool, collected and the real epicurean deal. Plus he had sex appeal. “The Ronald Colman voice,” I wrote, “the ‘sad Escoffier eyes,’ classic WASP profile and a chin strong enough to wear a pork chop panty have earned him a name as the Cary Grant of the cuisine scene.” Everybody wanted some of his sizzle.

The Harvard architectural school graduate without any formal culinary training started his cooking career at Chez Panisse in the ’70s. Answering a chef wanted newspaper ad placed by a desperate Alice Waters, he was hired on the spot when he saved the night’s soup (a little salt, a little cream). He left after years as a partner to Waters, to revamp San Francisco’s Balboa Cafe and Berkeley’s Santa Fe Bar and Grill. He soon made his own mark with Stars, one of the great restaurant scenes of San Francisco in the ’80s, only to then disappear, both the restaurant and the man, in the ’90s. Earthquakes, both literal, personal and professional, were to blame. Now he’s making a comeback with the aforementioned movie and memoir while living between New York, where he does restaurant consultation, and Mexico, where he flips houses and scuba dives.  

Reading Start the Fire, I am now up to the ’90s and his bitter parting with the San Francisco’s delicious decadence, I haven’t answered my questions but I have been reminded of what I once found so deeply engaging about the food scene, what I fear the culture has lost in the intervening decades. Tower in his youth and young adulthood was after the experience of food, reveling in it, savoring it, seeking out the sublime. It was a way for him to consume the world, to experience life, but it was also about quality, not quantity.

Tower’s gastronomic training came from a childhood spent traveling the world, being left alone in grand restaurants and dining rooms, on luxury liners and in deluxe hotels, where his favorite literature became menus, menus that told him stories of the meal, the people and the places partaken of. A teenage Tower learned to save the day when his drunken hostess mother passed out before dinner was served. At Harvard, he ate, drank, cooked and made merry with all the other bright young things crowding that Ivy League campus.

He brought Old World elegance and style to the hippies-cooking-for-their-friends ethos at Berkeley’s Chez Panisse in the 70s. But for the most part he lived in San Francisco. When I read that, I realized why his life stint at Chez Panisse wasn’t meant to be forever. I lived in San Francisco in the ’70s, as well, and San Franciscans back then made fun of Berkeley’s Birkenstock and plaid flannel shirt ways. With Stars, Tower  created something never experienced before in Northern California. Taking inspiration from French bistros such as Paris’ beloved La Coupole, he created a place where people from all walks enjoyed setting foot, whether San Francisco’s social aristocracy, major media characters, politicians or just hungry-for-sophisticated-fun folks. Everything was aimed at the diners’ pleasure, from the posh and lively menu to the elegant decor to the jazz pianist. My memory is of a place where all who entered felt celebrated.

Now, compare that to today’s “hot” restaurant experience. The noise level is so high, you cant hear a word of conversation and leave with a sore throat for trying to be heard. Or the dining room is uncomfortable by design for faster table turnover. Or, there are NO tables, like the award winning latest best Venice thing where you ate the expensive little plates of exquisite victuals on tables and chairs you made in the parking lot from stacked milk crates. Seriously. As for the food, the more absurdly complex and mysterious a dish, supposedly the better. Like molecular-gastronomy, which was fun for about a minute, but really, smoke and foam can only go so far. And if you can’t do complex/mysterious, go for big, as in the hottest chilies or the loudest bacon, bacon being the culinary equivalent of “Look, a squirrel!” Tower sought out the best ingredients, cooked them with a deft and subtle touch and grilled a lot. He kind of got the mesquite wood grilling thing going. Now everyone has their wood fired ovens, and those are great fun, but boy, reading his book, makes me want to start a bring back mesquite movement. 

Hey, I know a lot of you might say these are first world problems. You might say that there are other things we need to deal with immediately, if not sooner, like our dangerous “Look, a squirrel!” president. A man who doesn’t drink and therefore will never know the apparently exquisite pleasures of a Chateau d’ Yquem enjoyed with roast beef. Well, neither will I, but that’s because 1) I can’t afford the esteemed Sauterne and 2) I haven’t eaten beef since the aughts, but that’s another story. My point is that our current POTUS is a gold plated vulgarian. To the extent he reflects the loud, crass, vulgar, dangerous culture that we’ve become, I would say, that’s a problem. For all of us.

What I will also say, before I head off to try Tower’s Grilled Garlic and Ancho Chili Sauce (p. 178) for the fish that I do eat, that we could all benefit by tuning in and turning our senses back on to the subtleties of truly great food. That begins with incredible ingredients waiting in vast array at Farmers’ Markets, returning to our kitchens, even if only occasionally, and reminding ourselves of the exciting creative adventures to be had there, and going to restaurants that not only make exciting food but make us feel exciting and heard and seen and appreciated while we are there. Hey, I’ve got a list, “e” me and I’ll share it. And no, the table is no place for a cell phone or an iPad or a laptop when in the company of others. These few simple steps can start us back in the direction of the humanity and civility of yore, or even the ’70s, where that food revolution began, at the table and in the kitchen and in our mouths.  

Nancy Spiller and Jeremiah Tower, Los Angeles, April 2017

What a relief to discover the thumb drive was viable, the video playable! What a surprise, as well, to find I couldn’t bring myself to watch it. It was just too painful. I need to watch it to make the inventory list of everything we lost for insurance to payout our policy in full. I have three years to do it. Up until downloading that video to the laptop I evacuated with and hitting play, I’d been powering through a post disaster marathon with its multitude of moving parts. But I couldn’t watch the video once my husband, the cameraman, walked through our front door to scan the contents of that house we so loved. All the things in it, a lifetime of gatherings, and the lives we’d lived there were gone. Reduced to rubble and memories.

I will watch it, eventually. The list will get done. Meanwhile, the piece, titled The Hungry Ghost, will be out in September.

Now, to that other thing I came here to write today:

Until It Wasn’t Anymore:

In case you didn’t know, I’ll share the sad news: we lost our coastal canyon home of 18 years to the Palisades Fire. Yes, we had decorative wood siding on our buildings, that’s why we were called the Upper Woodies. Yes, we were living at the edge of the increasingly flammable wilderness. Yes, we were kindling just waiting for the flames. But truly, I could not have continued living in Los Angeles if we had not been living there. Call me an urban hillbilly, but I had to be that close to nature for my sanity and equilibrium. I also had to work at home and this was the home I could work in. I wrote and published two books there, I illustrated one, I painted and made art that I shared with the world. I needed the trees and open spaces to survive both physically and psychically. I once remarked, back in the late ’90s, on how disconnected Los Angeles was from nature. That was until we moved to the Westside.

For 20 years prior we lived in an older, single family home in a more congested and densely populated neighborhood. Towards the end of that tenure, I had begun to fantasize about the relief I’d feel if that highly problematic house burned. We had a true love hate relationship with it, and my days were variously soaring with delight at the views, the quirky charm (before the quandary column took over), the gorgeous garden we’d planted, and the immediate aftermath of the one year we spent (it was just supposed to take a few months…) on a wonderful architect-led remodel. We were totally sold on that being our Dream House and recommitting to the neighborhood, I kept telling myself and the neighbors, through gritted teeth. What I couldn’t tell them or even myself was I wanted out, but didn’t know how to do that. It was a failure of imagination that was sucking the life out of me. Then, after the gorgeous, expensive and lengthy remodel, the house demanded more work, and more of our time and money. Big Time. I was walking around actively loathing my life there. I couldn’t get anything done beyond maintenance projects and dinner parties–my effort to cut through the social isolation I felt living in a single family, hillside neighborhood, or at least that one. It was time to go.

I’d first visited the Palisades Highlands more than a decade before we began looking there in early 2006. It was night time and our writing group that came from all corners of the L.A. sprawl, were meeting at a member’s house on Michael Lane, just up the road from where we ultimately bought. Their townhome faced a mountainside of open land across the street. I considered the place new construction, built sometime in the 70s, versus our elderly hillside abode, built in 1924. I filed it in the back of my mind as an interesting place to revisit should we ever choose to divorce our South Glendale recycling project.

Then, around 2005, when I’d really had it up to my eyeballs with the “charming” house’s demands, I lunched with a Westside woman friend who I enjoyed a lot but was never really clear on where she lived–I’d just never asked. And who even visited the Westside anymore, what with the increasing challenges of traffic getting back to the East. Over that lunch I described to her the canyon I’d kept in the back of my mind. “That’s where we live,” she said before going on about the grand natural beauty there, the feeling of safety leaving their townhome behind for travel. And on and on. The idea of high density townhome communities clustered in a canyon and surrounded by open wilderness, in this case Topanga State Park, struck me as smart development. The world couldn’t keep building single family homes with their private yards and gardens. We couldn’t keep carving up paradise. Also, believe it or not, I was attracted to the idea of these micro-democracies that were the HOA’s. Large scale government (city, county, state, federal) was increasingly ineffective, paralyzed by bickering, polarized political parties.

A few years earlier, we’d bought into a townhome community in Ventura, at the beach, 450 plus units. We could afford it and we needed that escape from L.A., the tensions and concerns its growing population presented. The Stats: L.A. County had 10 plus million people in 2006 and is considered the most populated county in the U.S., L.A. City had nearly 4 million. Ventura County is still under 1 million, with plenty of open space, active agriculture fields and a benevolent climate. The day I discovered the community we bought into, it was an August heat wave and more than 90 degrees in Glendale. When I came over the Reyes Adobe Pass on the 101 freeway, descending into the Oxnard Plain, the temperature dropped to 70. I whooped with delight. At the local beach park, it was a Sunday in August, and the parking lot was barely half full. In L.A. it would have been cheek to jowl, with drivers waiting in line for a spare parking spot.

So we bought a two story unit filled with light and space in a condo community that was, when walking, “7 minutes to the sand.” It was our L.A. getaway, our refuge.We also discovered the joys of communal living, including friendly encounters with neighbors and major and minor maintenance concerns that we weren’t on our own to handle, either the HOA took care of it or neighbors could recommend someone to fix it for us or advise on DIY.

And much to the contrary of the bad press HOA’s get, ours was well-organized and professionally managed. Yes, there were monthly fees, but in the long run I believed they were less than the random, expensive nightmares our decrepit Glendale home regularly surprised us with. I liked the predictability of the place. And the silence it provided. I had a quiet, well lit place where I could get my writing and painting done rather than supervise painters, carpenters, plumbers and the occasional thug. And there was a security patrol which prevented people from letting their dogs bark incessantly or run off leash, an increasing concern in our wild west of a neighborhood. I have the bite scars and PTSD to prove it.

Meanwhile, the climate continued to warm on the Eastside. And the air was getting worse while pollution preventing restrictions were being loosened. My cat had asthma on the Eastside. She didn’t on the Westside.

My canyon dwelling friend put us in touch with their realtor. We looked at the Lower Woodies and the Upper Woodies. I considered their decorative wood exterior not the best choice for the setting, but fundamentally a harmless, optimistic, ’70s touch that, after all, hadn’t burned in all those years. It also went well with the California shed architectural style I considered mid-century cool.

We explored the canyon below those two communities, fell in love with the flat, shaded path that meandered alongside a year round stream. It all reminded me of my native Northern California, specifically Marin County, where this East Bay girl had longed to live since childhood. It was my dream home tucked amongst the trees at the edge of a forest, with access to a major metropolitan region. I’d struggled to have a California native garden in my Glendale backyard. Even the fellow at the native plant society acknowledge how challenging that could be. Here the entire canyon was natives, and I didn’t have to water or trim it. It was nature’s garden and it would just be–for me and everyone. Until it wasn’t.
(To be continued).

I come to you today fresh off the high of my Words and Pictures: Creative Writing from Visual Art class taught on Zoom for the UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program. It was a terrific group and they honored me not only with their compelling pages of ekphrastic writing, but some of the most glowing teacher evaluations I’ve yet to receive. The flushed cheeks and all over warmth I felt, I’m happy to report, was not a hot flash, but the good feelings engendered by their generous assessments.

I’ve taught that class for the Writers’ Program since 2009. Another class I’ve taught since that time is Creative Cafe: Food and Writing. This past October, I ran a new expanded version of it, held four consecutive half-Saturdays on Zoom. I’m thrilled to be running it again this spring, again on Zoom, four half-Saturdays, April 13 through May 4. Click here for more information and to enroll, or look under my “classes” tab at the top of this page.

As for my own food-centric writing, I’ve been racking up the Substacks with my Cake Papers at Nancy’s Kontent Korner. They started this past November with a bummer of a trip to a beloved spot, Santa Monica’s Sweet Lady Jane’s on Montana Ave. It was where I went for a big slab of their celebrated triple berry cake (yellow cake layered with whipped cream, strawberries, blueberries and raspberries), coffee and catch up conversations with friends. It was one of those things that helped make up for the challenges of living in a big city like L.A. But I hadn’t been there for a while and that visit I was shocked to find the prices raised, the portions significantly smaller and counter help encouraging me to complain to their bosses. The result was Blowing the Icing Off Late Capitalism Cupcakes, my November 13, 2023, Substack post.

That December 31, the owners announced their closing of the six storefront bakery chain in an Instagram post that surprised not only L.A.’s cake loving cohort, but SLJ’s own employees. The New Year’ found them not only without jobs, but locked out of their work place, some with personal belongings still inside. January 10, I posted Let Them Eat Cake, or Whatever Happened to Sweet Lady Jane?, my further investigations into the crummy reality of Late Stage Capitalist Cupcakes. It was a glimpse into the rough and tumble world of commercial bakeries.

In its aftermath, my devoted Substack subscribers were advising where to find replacement versions of the triple berry cake and offering to ride along on my research. I ended up taking a whole Whole Foods whipped cream berry cake to my own Birthday Brunch and driving a rainy Saturday morning to Manhattan Beach for a Lido Bakery version of the triple< berry cake many assured was the closest thing to SLJ’s. Much to my surprise, Lido’s owner, Ernesto, started the bakery with his mother after she quit SLJ in a salary dispute. After years of devotion and hard labor, she had risen the ranks from unskilled worker to head pastry chef. Lido benefitted from her triple berry expertise, becoming its own destination bakery.

Their cake was was quite good, as was the more affordably priced Whole Foods version. Feeling responsible for igniting cake hunger in my subscribers, I drove multiple slices around to them across the vast expanse of L.A., then wrote The Cake We Ate: Final Thoughts on Life and Cake After Sweet Lady Jane. That posted February 10. I thought I was done. I thought I could go back to watching my sugar intake and rare cake escapades, but noooooo. No sooner had I posted, than the announcement was made that SLJ had been sold and would soon reopen.

Last Wednesday, I made it my mission to hit the Beverly Hills shop, one of the only two I knew to be open, according to their online information, followed by fact checking phone calls. It was heaven. Stunned and gleeful customers circled the full display cases, chatting with other SLJ fans, ecstatic at Jane’s return.  Then, on the way home, my cake-dar told me to swing by Montana Avenue. Lo and behold, that SLJ was open as well! They just hadn’t announced yet online. You had to be there!

A fortune was spent on lovely giant slabs of the returned to excellence triple berry cake and other goodies, all in the name of research. A sugar fugue state was induced. Only now has my brain returned to near normal and I can consider writing what I hope will be the fourth and final installment of my Cake Papers. While you’re waiting on that, I invite you to head over to Substack for the three installments so far. Grab your own slab of triple berry or other favorite cake, the perfect companion while reading Nancy’s Kontent Korner.

Thanks for stopping by!

         Our culinary highlight this summer was our Faux of July: grilling Impossible Burgers, swilling non-alcoholic beer and inhaling strawberry shortcake, the biscuits made with cultured vegan butter, piled high with plant-based “heavy whipping cream,” sweetened with erythritol  instead of cane sugar. All enjoyed on the deck of our ersatz Tuscan condo.

         I haven’t always been this keen on imitation foods. I was once a passionate, admittedly privileged, omnivore, seeking authenticity in a range of earthly delights: Philippe’s French dip sandwiches and Rori’s organic ice cream in Los Angeles, panforte and Brunello di Montalcino in Italy, Peking duck in Beijing, cassoulet and Sancerre in France, paella in Spain. But that was when I loved to travel and lived to eat. Now, I hate getting on an airplane, if I can even afford it, and I eat to live. Now I’m equally concerned with my health and food chain ethics. Now my entertainment is the hunt for “real” food replacements. Instead of fake it ‘til you make it, my new mantra is make it ‘til you fake it.

         I’m a faux foodie and this is a golden era for imposter foods. Following are some of my biggest changes and best finds.

2. MEAT

         When asked, my husband identifies us as cis-gender pescatarians. Meaning we’re attracted to each other and like to eat fish. Except for octopus. Too smart—tell any you know they’re safe with us.

         The first time I tried to stop eating meat I was a sullen, sensitive teenager ordering lunch at San Francisco’s legendary Hippopotamus Hamburger joint. It was huge, circus themed, and overseen by a smiling cartoon hippo wagging a humongous, pink bowed behind. They served French, Mexican, Italian and Tahitian burgers, even a Sundae burger topped with ice cream, hot fudge, nuts, a cherry and a pickle. Suddenly repulsed by the thought of killing and consuming animals, I asked for a cheese burger, hold the burger. Next up, an angry “chef” came flying out of his kitchen threatening our waiter with a meat cleaver. Who dare ask him to hold the burger? It was my first and last meat free day for a good long while.

         Fast forward decades. I’m a sullen, sensitive, middle-aged adult blithely consuming all kinds of meat until I’ve heard one horror story too many about Big Agriculture’s abuse of animals, and smelled one too many times those fetid feedlots along Interstate 5. When asked, I say I no longer eat “industrial raised protein.” I eat fish, wild caught. I roast salmon for Thanksgiving and call it Fish-giving.  I made friends with tofu, turned it into a crumbled, neutral stuff that could pass for ground beef in chili, tacos and Bolognese sauce.

         In 2013 I tested meat recipes like my mother’s barbecue spare ribs and osso bucco for a memoir. I sought humanely raised meat, replaced veal shanks in the osso bucco with buffalo shanks. The buffalo were raised by a lovely Northern California couple who sold at the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market. I sensed they’d thanked each animal for its service before killing it. The shanks were good, but also huge, kind of tough and, ultimately, buffalo needed their shanks more than I did.

         Then came my increasing awareness of global warming. Nearly 20 % of the greenhouse gases threatening the planet are said to come from some 90 billion domestic food animals. And here I’d been worrying about the 7 billion people! Eating a plant based diet was one way I could make a difference.

         Then came Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger to satisfy any lingering cooked flesh longings. I thought it a mistake when I bit into my first plant-based Impossible Burger at a fast-food grill. It wasn’t. That convincing pink on the inside patty was made mostly of pea protein and delicious. It’s now our go to for beef.

3. DAIRY

         I avoided meat but enthusiastically indulged in dairy until my animal activist neighbor shared a video of a dairy calf freed from its farm and gamboling as playful as a puppy. Add to that the stories of confinement, cows kept in a constant state of pregnancy to produce milk, and fed growth hormones to maximize milk production. American milk from cows given Monsanto’s FDA approved growth hormones, rBGH and rBST, is banned in Europe. I switched to plant-based milks like oat, coconut, almond and soy. But I was loath to give up my beloved Reggiano Parmesano, rationalizing cows were treated better in Italy.

         Then came news of plant-based cheeses made with an innovative new “library” of bacteria cultures for fermenting. Fermentation was key, as prior fake cheeses tried to achieve their flavors with additives. Top among the new cheese mongers is Miyoko’s Creamery, based in Petaluma. Advising “Milk plants, hug cows,” their convincing cultured butter and tangy cheeses are sold in stores like Erewhon and Whole Foods. Even Trader Joe’s now carries alternative cheeses, including a passable grated “parmesan,” but their sliced cheddar is very meh.

         The greatest discovery, though, was plant based heavy whipping cream, generally available at major supermarkets. A favorite dessert was piling real whipped cream on strawberries. Now I indulge my favorite brand Silk, labeled as a Whipping Cream Alternative, for guilt free fun.

4. SUGAR

         When I was a child, C & H pure cane sugar from Hawaii meant love. Mad housewives like my mother offered it instead of real affection. I became addicted to sweets and started baking for myself, ramping it up for those challenging December holidays. By age 9, I was surviving the month on an army of ginger bread men, and as an adult, my ritual became an annual fruitcake blitz. Testing those sugary recipes for my memoir made me morose. Had all that pure cane love as a kid contributed to my misery back then? Thanks C & H.

         Then December, 2019, I was diagnosed with a medical condition that was treated, in part, with a hospital nutritionist’s advice to cut out sugar. Entirely. I’d long heard how sugar caused inflammatory diseases like arthritis and cancer, but forgot all that as soon as the next cake or cookie came along. If it meant beating my condition, though, it was good bye sugar, hello sugar alcohols!

         I celebrated my new diet with a box of See’s Candies nut clusters robed in sugar free “chocolate.” Sweetened with maltitol, they were good, but came with the warning it can cause gas, bloating, or even diarrhea, if enjoyed in excess. Trader Joe’s used to have well-priced maltitol sweetened chocolate bars, but unfortunately have stopped carrying them, while supermarkets now commonly sell bags of granular white erythritol, another sugar alcohol, to replace cane sugar in baking. I used it for a batch of my ancestral sugar cookies and they came out fine. My pioneer grandparents would have been proud.

         But the fruitcake factory is closed. While my recipe was half dried and half candied fruits, the candied were soaked in high fructose corn syrup and deathly sweet. And while I know there must be a YouTube video on DIY fruit candying, I won’t be googling that any time soon.

         The gastro intestinal concerns caused by sugar alcohols made me wonder about their long term health effects, even though there was no literature warning against them. Still, I started using plant derived Stevia instead. No gas! I carried packets in my purse to sweeten the world when out and about. Then, just recently, the World Health Organization, while warning against such alternative artificial sweeteners as sucralose and aspartame, also called out the heavily processed Stevia as a possible carcinogen.  Sugar alcohols, it concluded, were preferable.

         My new bestie for baking and other sweet needs is date sugar made from nutrient packed ground dates. Finally, there’s always fruit. Simple, delicious, fabulous fruit. Nectarines can be an anti-depressant. “It’s a helluva fruit,” as Mel Brooks’ 2,000 year old man would say.

5. ALCOHOL

         My hospital nutritionist pal also advised kicking alcohol to the curb. Plenty of recent literature now warns against even mild drinking, especially for women.

         I once loved celebrating summer with sparkling French Rose, cozying up in winter with bold Italian reds, and sipping prosecco with my popcorn when they began selling it in movie theaters. It made even the worst Hollywood formula flick endurable.

         But I said goodbye to all that. Mostly. My doctors assured an occasional glass was okay. Problem is, and this could be an aging concern, a single glass of wine with dinner can have me up for hours in the middle of the night, not to mention feeling hungover in the morning. I now treasure those mornings too much to sacrifice them to alcohol and look forward to my first cup of coffee the way I used to anticipate that evening glass of wine.

         As with cheese, there’s a whole new crop of innovative non-alcoholic wines on the market, some fairly decent. Until you look at the sugar content. For those trying to avoid sugar, it’s alarming. But the winemakers say added sugar is how they achieve the delicious and real wine taste.

         My current favorite non-alcoholic drink is German Bitburger beer, a refreshing, dry adult beverage with only 70 calories and no sugar in a bottle. It goes great with popcorn!

6. CLEVER CONCLUSION

         My make it until you fake it credo serves me well. Without sugar or alcohol, my emotions are on a more even keel; without meat and dairy, my ethical mind is at ease. Now when I go to Eataly, where I once haunted the wine department and drooled over the pastries and gelato, I take the money I’m saving to splurge on $30 a bottle vinegars. They lend a transcendent note to salads, roasted vegetables and tofu chili, adding plenty of real fun and flavor to my happily faux life.

In Part I of What’s Eating Us, first posted May, 2017, I revisited Northern California’s food scene circa the 1970s and ’80s, while contemplating our current irksome eating habits. Restaurant dining had come to feel  like  an extreme sport with dishes competing for Instagram fame while table talk was lost to a brutal din. To top it off, It seemed no one was cooking real food at home. My solemn advice at the end: “we could all benefit by tuning our senses back to the subtleties of truly great food.” I suggested revisiting farmers’ markets for inspiration, returning to our kitchens and reminding ourselves of the adventures waiting there. I further suggested going to restaurants where the guests are made to feel as exciting as the food. I suggested such simple steps might return us to  “the humanity and civility of yore, or even the ’70s, where that food revolution began, at the table and in the kitchen.”

Well, look at us now, April, 2020. The world is in global pandemic quarantine, the restaurants have  all closed and folks have been forced back into their kitchens. Most all of those inspirational farmers’ markets have been shut down until further notice. Anyone over 65 is taking their life in their frequently washed hands shopping in a supermarket. We are lucky if we can snag a home delivery and what gets delivered is often the luck of the draw. We are making do and making up our menus as we go along.

Personally, I’m enjoying that part of this otherwise painful and challenging time. I am hunkered down in Oxnard, an agricultural beach community, with my older sister, my husband and my dog. My last trip to Ralph’s was Sunday, March 15, about 30 minutes after the governor ordered all citizens over the age of 65 to stay home. My sister had been jonesing for the Ralph’s tangerines she virtually lives on (along with tortilla chips, her T Diet) and I thought I’d get out before word spread and senior arrests began. Inside the supermarket I was hit with our new reality: shelves empty of paper products and cleaning supplies. The  bins of the most popular produce items were empty, as well, leaving the more mysterious ones to explore.

A man stood by the specialty section, where the odd things I can’t often  name bide their time. He was laughing. I caught his glance, was touched by his humanity–a light heart in the midst of this grim scene. He was looking right at me and I wanted to ask him what was so funny? Then I noticed he was holding a dark, long, fat stick like thing, some kind of a root or tuber. I hesitated: the last old guy who tried to strike up a conversation with me in a produce aisle made a lewd comment about a cucumber. I didn’t let that stop me this time. Everyone was on edge. I could use a laugh. So, I asked.

“I was just over at the potatoes,” he said. “They’re all out, but nobody’s bothered with these and they’re just as good.” “What are they?” I asked. “I’m not sure.” “Taro root, maybe?” I offered. “Maybe,” he said, with a shrug, “I’m not sure.” I knew vaguely of taro, but had never done anything with it. Poi, that much maligned luau offering was the only dish that came to mind. “What are you going to do with them?” I asked.  “Boil them, steam them, eat them like potatoes.” And it started with a T, maybe my sister would eat it. Sold! I grabbed a couple and tossed them in the cart.

Long story short, I got them home, did some taro root research, saw warnings about handling them raw (something in the dark brown outer peel irritates skin) and cooking them could leave a tough to get off sludge on pans. Plus, no online recipe sounded worth bothering with. Cakes, mashed, chips? The simplest was the furthest I was willing to go: boil them for an hour and a half. Promising to get back to them, I put on  rubber gloves, broke them into multiple pieces, tossed them in a bag and threw them in the back of the fridge. 

I had better things to do. We had discovered two open, bounteous produce stands entirely absent of crowds at the edge of Oxnard’s farm fields. Our cache of fresh fruits and vegetables included pineapples and a pineapple corer. I hadn’t eaten fresh pineapple since the ’70s. Too much trouble, too sweet, etc. But, now that I am avoiding refined or added sugar, AND I have my $2 stainless steel corer, I’ve decided pineapple is nothing less than a gift from the gods (and Costa Rica). My best invention yet: baked plantains (also from said produce stand) doused with lime juice and a finely minced gremolata of fresh pineapple and black garlic. The black garlic was another Ralph’s find, I stumbled upon it by the taro root. I thought it was a new variety of garlic that grew black. No, it’s a fermented item, 3 weeks in low heat, turns it black with a sweet taste like roasted garlic and molasses. It can go either sweet or savory, as can plantains, as can pineapple, et voila! Pandemic cooking at its finest.

My sister wouldn’t touch it, of course, nothing on the plate started with a T.  

Last Friday night it was TGIF and what sounded truly exciting after a couple of weeks of self isolation? How about boiling taro root! Besides, all the pineapples and plantains were gone. So, an hour later my taro were tender, splitting open like ecstatic sea cucumbers in their brown roiling waters, and decidedly done. I don’t know what would have happened if I’d given them the extra 30 minutes as instructed. I didn’t bother tasting them, it was late, I’d already eaten, and they frankly didn’t look so good–fibrous, white and blah. The thought occurred that the man in the produce section might be home  laughing at me, the woman he got to buy taro root a couple of weeks ago.

Back in the fridge they went. The pot soaked overnight and took some serious scrubbing to get the schmutz off. Then it was time for the tasting. I removed the dark, bark like skin and put the white chunks on a plate. Into the microwave, 30 seconds or so, doused them with butter, salt, sour cream and a sprinkling of green onions. YES–they do taste like potatoes! And like all great potatoes, they are the perfect neutral medium for all sorts of things. Maybe even a fine dice of black garlic and pineapple.

But you know what was the most surprising thing of all? It wasn’t really taro root. When I looked for an image to post, all the taro shots were of stubby, squat tubers. The long, thin guys were tapioca! Or maybe they were cassava, or maybe even yuca. It’s hard to tell, the names seem interchangeable, I guess it depends on where you’re coming from and you go figure! If it’s ever safe to go back to Ralph’s, I’ll ask them what they call it. Whatever it is, I can vouch it’s a fine substitute for potatoes, just like the laughing man said.

Taro Root

What’s Eating Us? Part 1

What is eating us? By that I mean what is going on with food in restaurants, markets, homes, our mouths, these days? Why has fine restaurant dining become such a brutal experience? When did it become all about the photograph of what you’re eating rather than the food? When did all manner of food restrictions, both real and imagined, become the norm and the formula get flipped from living to eat to eating to live? Those are just some of the questions I’ve been muddling over for a while now, with the best of intentions to write on, but am finally writing up after enjoying the new documentary Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent and reading his reissued 2015 memoir, California Dish, now titled Start the Fire: How I Began a Food Revolution in America.  

I profiled Tower, one of America’s first celebrity chefs, in 1984, for West Magazine, shortly after he opened the late, great Stars in San Francisco.The article titled “The Star of Stars,” opened with him  tenderly turning rust-and-cream-colored chanterelles for that night’s marrow-and-chervil cream sauce in brioche, then, when sufficiently tanned the next day, their own savory ragout. He was cool, collected and the real epicurean deal. Plus he had sex appeal. “The Ronald Colman voice,” I wrote, “the ‘sad Escoffier eyes,’ classic WASP profile and a chin strong enough to wear a pork chop panty have earned him a name as the Cary Grant of the cuisine scene.” Everybody wanted some of his sizzle.

The Harvard architectural school graduate without any formal culinary training started his cooking career at Chez Panisse in the ’70s. Answering a chef wanted newspaper ad placed by a desperate Alice Waters, he was hired on the spot when he saved the night’s soup (a little salt, a little cream). He left after years as a partner to Waters, to revamp San Francisco’s Balboa Cafe and Berkeley’s Santa Fe Bar and Grill. He soon made his own mark with Stars, one of the great restaurant scenes of San Francisco in the ’80s, only to then disappear, both the restaurant and the man, in the ’90s. Earthquakes, both literal, personal and professional, were to blame. Now he’s making a comeback with the aforementioned movie and memoir while living between New York, where he does restaurant consultation, and Mexico, where he flips houses and scuba dives.  

Reading Start the Fire, I am now up to the ’90s and his bitter parting with the San Francisco’s delicious decadence, I haven’t answered my questions but I have been reminded of what I once found so deeply engaging about the food scene, what I fear the culture has lost in the intervening decades. Tower in his youth and young adulthood was after the experience of food, reveling in it, savoring it, seeking out the sublime. It was a way for him to consume the world, to experience life, but it was also about quality, not quantity.

Tower’s gastronomic training came from a childhood spent traveling the world, being left alone in grand restaurants and dining rooms, on luxury liners and in deluxe hotels, where his favorite literature became menus, menus that told him stories of the meal, the people and the places partaken of. A teenage Tower learned to save the day when his drunken hostess mother passed out before dinner was served. At Harvard, he ate, drank, cooked and made merry with all the other bright young things crowding that Ivy League campus.

He brought Old World elegance and style to the hippies-cooking-for-their-friends ethos at Berkeley’s Chez Panisse in the 70s. But for the most part he lived in San Francisco. When I read that, I realized why his life stint at Chez Panisse wasn’t meant to be forever. I lived in San Francisco in the ’70s, as well, and San Franciscans back then made fun of Berkeley’s Birkenstock and plaid flannel shirt ways. With Stars, Tower  created something never experienced before in Northern California. Taking inspiration from French bistros such as Paris’ beloved La Coupole, he created a place where people from all walks enjoyed setting foot, whether San Francisco’s social aristocracy, major media characters, politicians or just hungry-for-sophisticated-fun folks. Everything was aimed at the diners’ pleasure, from the posh and lively menu to the elegant decor to the jazz pianist. My memory is of a place where all who entered felt celebrated.

Now, compare that to today’s “hot” restaurant experience. The noise level is so high, you cant hear a word of conversation and leave with a sore throat for trying to be heard. Or the dining room is uncomfortable by design for faster table turnover. Or, there are NO tables, like the award winning latest best Venice thing where you ate the expensive little plates of exquisite victuals on tables and chairs you made in the parking lot from stacked milk crates. Seriously. As for the food, the more absurdly complex and mysterious a dish, supposedly the better. Like molecular-gastronomy, which was fun for about a minute, but really, smoke and foam can only go so far. And if you can’t do complex/mysterious, go for big, as in the hottest chilies or the loudest bacon, bacon being the culinary equivalent of “Look, a squirrel!” Tower sought out the best ingredients, cooked them with a deft and subtle touch and grilled a lot. He kind of got the mesquite wood grilling thing going. Now everyone has their wood fired ovens, and those are great fun, but boy, reading his book, makes me want to start a bring back mesquite movement. 

Hey, I know a lot of you might say these are first world problems. You might say that there are other things we need to deal with immediately, if not sooner, like our dangerous “Look, a squirrel!” president. A man who doesn’t drink and therefore will never know the apparently exquisite pleasures of a Chateau d’ Yquem enjoyed with roast beef. Well, neither will I, but that’s because 1) I can’t afford the esteemed Sauterne and 2) I haven’t eaten beef since the aughts, but that’s another story. My point is that our current POTUS is a gold plated vulgarian. To the extent he reflects the loud, crass, vulgar, dangerous culture that we’ve become, I would say, that’s a problem. For all of us.

What I will also say, before I head off to try Tower’s Grilled Garlic and Ancho Chili Sauce (p. 178) for the fish that I do eat, that we could all benefit by tuning in and turning our senses back on to the subtleties of truly great food. That begins with incredible ingredients waiting in vast array at Farmers’ Markets, returning to our kitchens, even if only occasionally, and reminding ourselves of the exciting creative adventures to be had there, and going to restaurants that not only make exciting food but make us feel exciting and heard and seen and appreciated while we are there. Hey, I’ve got a list, “e” me and I’ll share it. And no, the table is no place for a cell phone or an iPad or a laptop when in the company of others. These few simple steps can start us back in the direction of the humanity and civility of yore, or even the ’70s, where that food revolution began, at the table and in the kitchen and in our mouths.  

Nancy Spiller and Jeremiah Tower, Los Angeles, April 2017

The Dogs of L.A.

Besides a car, there are two required accessories for survival in L.A. (acronym for both Los Angeles and Legendary Alienation)–a therapist and a dog. I’ve had two each in the years I’ve lived here and I never questioned the efficacy of the latter.

L. A. itself has an off-leash energy. Ever since its founding, Angelenos have struggled to get it under control while quibbling over who’s going to feed and clean up after it. The result: while it has oodles of charm, it can feel all over the place. But our canines help us navigate. Dogs are our mobile comfort zones and portable neighborhoods. Wherever our dogs go, we go with greater enthusiasm, purpose and sense of adventure. And unlike our agents and editors, they almost always take our calls.

We love our dogs as much as we love ourselves. Whether it’s a rescue pit bull or a purse size chihuahua (said to be the city’s most popular breed), they are MVPs on our self-care teams and we reward them accordingly: Canine Rekei (Japanese energy healing to lower stress, ditch “emotional blockages” and “calm racing minds”) Massage, Intuitive Healing Therapy and Sound Healing (to cleanse those stinky chakras). Welcome to Doggy Lotus Land. I won’t tell you how many dog psychics and communicators I’ve met here, a popular second or third career for aspiring creatives, nor will I share, thanks to canine-client privilege, what we’ve discussed.

Personally, I would recommend sheepherding for your working dog’s racing mind. It’s offered at multiple rural locations throughout the region, but we prefer the secluded ranch in Malibu. 

Our dogs remind us of the need to get out of our cars and onto the sidewalks and trails, where the winds are famously warm and the characters can be cool, but almost everyone melts to our four pawed friends.

Thank Hollywood for the dogs of our dreams. The film and television industry gave us Rin Tin Tin, Toto, Lassie, Old Yeller, Frasier’s Eddie, Marley and beyond. Human stars have fallen hard for their furry co-stars, with everyone from Judy Garland and Toto to Robert Downey, Jr.  and a French bulldog co-star, asking to adopt them. Few handlers ever agree, no matter how big the star. Dogs have their careers to think of!

Angelenos love to name drop and L.A. dogs provide enough celebrity six degrees to satisfy. My late Tibetan Terrier’s groomer cared for Marlon Brando’s pup, my HOA had to ask the adult child of a celebrity to boot their problem pooch, my mini-Aussie and I did therapy visits with a famous elder activist and when we marched with the Patriotic Pups in our local Fourth of July Parade, I admit, it was as much to see the famous faces sitting curbside as it was about canine pride.

 In our suburban city, where it’s easy to get used to being uncelebrated, it helps immeasurably if your dog greets you like a rock star just for making a trip to the mailbox. Dog parks here are like AA meetings were in the 90s, a place to network and socialize, and all the country club dog lovers need.

The homeless, of which the city has far too much of the nation’s share, often have dogs as companions. They can be their family, a vital form of emotional shelter, and something they have in common with the housed. It’s a reason those of us with roofs over our heads can’t look away. Dogs make all of us more visible and more human.

Just try, Brett Easton Ellis taunted with a billboard in his L.A. based novel Less than Zero, to “Disappear Here.” Even if we wanted to, our dogs won’t let us.

I began to see remarkable displays of laundry hanging out windows, across the canals or draped alongside buildings. I saw paintings from a 100 and more years ago featuring some of the same buildings, archways and laundry I myself was witnessing. It was quite a wash day! I began taking pictures. When I put them all together, along with my experiences and knowledge of the city, this poem was the happy result.

It’s an example of  turning words into pictures, as I will be teaching others to do this coming July 31-August 1, via Zoom, for the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program in my class Words and Pictures: A Weekend Workshop in Creative Writing From Visual Art. More info and a link to enrollment can be found under “classes” on this very page!  

Venetian Laundry

By Nancy Spiller

Dripping culture, legendary as

Atlantis, the city sinks

As these line-caught domestic displays

Wave defiant above the Adriatic’s fingers,

Spirited as the damp flags of Grand Dukes,

Kings and Emperors,

Personal shouts of color,

Cleansed and vulnerable above

This floating catacomb.

Did Tiepolo take his pink

From such tenderness?

This fluttery nonchalance,

Like his Rococo flourishes.

What Italians call sprezzatura,

The art of seeming artless.

Did Laundry Day in the

Dark Ages signal a cleansing hope,

As the city rose like a fortress

From the mud

And marauding hordes?

The same drape of finery

Now slung beneath a courtyard arch,

Impressionist Pendergast painted

As a fresh rinsed insouciance

Drying for more than a century

And Vivaldi’s Spring, 

Is sprung from these

flowered sheets

Blooming amidst the stone.

A row of jeans sags

Below shuttered windows

Like a worker’s dark smile.

They are Venetians,

Do not call them Italians,

These flapping with importance

People long betrayed by the

Need for such public airs.

Striped shirts stretch above 

A gondolier’s head, 

Clothes pin proud heart,

Scurrying beneath the Playboy bunny

Beach towel hung too close

To children’s socks

And a chorus of girly thongs,

In Turner’s yellow desire.

Ah, Venice, spread beneath a numinous sky,

Like a hand-laundered Oriental rug,

A milky skinned concubine waiting

For her dainties to dry.

Your velvet mask fades

To a memoried mist

Of what was worn

And what was washed

And what really never was.

As women gained greater independence from the kitchen, working outside the home and building careers instead of baking cookies, American industry stepped in with tempting, easy to make eats. My mother’s community of cooks never had a chance. Their charming but dutiful, if not downright dull offerings, exotic in name only, helped prime the public for the postwar onslaught of advertisers hawking their alluring wares. Having survived the Great Depression and war time rationing, home cooks were ready to abandon their prune cakes parading as Prussian and nut-less nut bars for exciting processed conveniences from Kraft Foods, Pillsbury, General Foods, General Mills and Nabisco. Ours was the greatest country to ever walk the earth and our reward was Campbell’s Soup, Sugar Frosted Flakes, Cheez Whiz and Minute Rice. Kraft’s party planning television ads were the most tempting to me. Avuncular announcer Ed Herlihy was the hostess’s Pied Piper, his warm velvet voice like a vat of melted Kraft Caramels. Whether a holiday-buffet, football bowl celebration or teenage dance fest, Kraft’s tribe was always cooking up a dazzling spread. Worries about atomic war, riots and political assassinations were kept at bay with copious amounts of Kraft American Singles, Miracle Whip, Miniature Marshmallows and caramel dipped apples. Our greatest fear in Kraft’s America of the 1960s was a sudden shortage of fat and sugar. Anything could be survived as long as Kraft’s fount kept flowing.

While I salivated at the ads, neither my mother or I ever actually made anything they touted. I did harbor a secret longing to live, like so many of my friends did, on Kraft Macaroni and Cheese dinners. I wanted to be like all the other kids instantly making a glowing bowl of macaroni bathed in an other-worldly orange of Kraft’s powdered processed cheese food.

But my inconvenient mother insisted on making her own from scratch version of macaroni and cheese. She’d use actual cubes of cheese cut from a block, Colby or cheddar, Kraft’s Velveeta on occasion, cooked macaroni, butter, translucent onion bits, milk and rubbery slices of broiled bacon that made for a leaky, squishy, separated out and all too real repast. There was an actual brown crust that formed on top of her macaroni and cheese, which was pulled from the oven after a leisure baking time, not whipped up in a trice on a stovetop. Her version took several hours to produce. It was not a dish for the impatient or the squeamish.

My mother remained steadfast in her pre-world war II culinary practice, while we, her hungry, cranky baby-boomed spawn begged her to come with us into the 20th century’s second half. She clipped some recipes from commercial sources, but never made them. Her leap into food’s industrial future cut to the chase, adopting artificial convenience foods NASA designed for outer space journeys or bomb shelter visits, such as Folgers freeze dried instant coffee crystals and Cool Whip, that synthetic, non-dairy dessert topping that comes frozen in tubs. I knew the woman who had once proudly devoted herself to whipping real cream with a hand cranked egg beater was ready for the space station when a container of Cool Whip became a permanent fixture in our refrigerator.

By that time, she was long past the need for such quick fix hors d’oeuvres as “mushroom tempter,” or “lobster delight” or “bacon and peanut butter” treats detailed on Golden State Dairy Products cards, kept on hand for guests who never dropped by.

Among the commercial recipe offerings my mother saved was an insert from a sack of Gold Medal flour featuring “Pat-in-the-Pan Pie Crust.” Perfect for either beginning or burned-out pie makers, it promises a “tender cookie-like pastry that needs no rolling, no special skill.” The easy crust could be filled with “Betty Crocker Ready-to-Serve Pudding.” With tongue possibly in cheek, the copywriter added “There’s a Gold Medal Memory for you!”

By law, a pie, and one’s memories of it, should be more than a can of pudding dumped into a crust that’s been patted into the pan. Any cook as unskilled or exhausted as that should find a nice bakery from which to purchase dessert.

Of my mother’s few recipes representing that era’s commercial food industry, the one I chose to make was Cheesecake Pie with Florida Orange Glaze. It was from another Betty Crocker’s Pie Ideas insert (both having been salvaged from 10-pound sacks of “Gold Medal, the White Thumb Flour”) which encouraged bakers to “swing into spring with a shower of Pie Ideas!”

One reason for choosing the recipe was that its author, Betty Crocker, was a hugely influential, entirely fictional corporate character who had become the second most popular woman in the United States by 1948. Eleanor Roosevelt was then number one. The widowed former first lady was a liberal social activist who urged women to be strong, independent and involved in their communities beyond the kitchen. Betty Crocker encouraged women to believe in a world best served by dessert.

Eleanor Roosevelt, as if feeling pressure to compete with Crocker, the invented industry flogger, officiated at the first Pillsbury Bakeoff, held in 1949, which she endorsed in her syndicated newspaper column as a “healthy, all American project.”

My mother saved only one Pillsbury Bakeoff recipe. But the clipping for Mrs. Helen L. Pentleton, of Mattapoisett, Massachusetts’ “senior second prize winner” praline crunch cake from Pillsbury’s 9th Grand National Recipe Baking Contest, had deteriorated to the point of illegibility. It looked like someone had either folded it too many times in aborted urges to make it, or nibbled it in a reverie while imagining the results. Whatever the truth was regarding Pillsbury’s lack of influence in our house, for as long as I knew her, my mother’s white thumbs belonged to the marketing behemoth Gold Medal.

Another reason for choosing to make Crocker’s orange glazed “pie idea” to represent the industrial revolution in America’s post war kitchens were its main ingredients of cream cheese and frozen concentrated orange juice. The orange juice in the recipe was designated as being from Florida, as if there were any other, and as I have found out, there is not.

But first, to the cream cheese, specifically Kraft’s Philadelphia Brand, in its singular silver foil wrap. This turn of the 20th century industrialized American food creation was a staple of our kitchen. Like Kleenex stands for facial tissues, the brand name Philadelphia now stands for cream cheese internationally. In Spain it is queso filadelfia.

Cream cheese is a pure white block of endless possibilities. My mother didn’t need a recipe to put a chunk of it to work. All she did was throw it in with some mayonnaise and room temperature butter and pressed cloves of garlic for an instant party, with her legendary, long lingering garlic cream cheese dip.

I grew up believing cream cheese was essential to human existence, an infinitely compliant cushion against the blues. Countless tangy, ingratiating bricks of it disappeared in our house. We had both the savory and sweet sides covered when my teenage sister learned in home economics class to make a fine New York-style baked cheesecake. Kraft’s Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese gets much of the credit for my childhood thunder thighs and gently doubling chin.

As for orange juice from Florida, as specified in the recipe, this was the ‘60s and the post war Florida juice industry had crushed the citrus trade. As a native California kid, I was left to wonder what was wrong with our state’s juice? The entirety of Southern California was planted in oranges. My grandfather grew them. I cannot smell an orange blossom without picturing the front yard of his Santa Ana bungalow.

As a child I fretted at the winter news reports about killer frosts threatening the state’s citrus crops. I knew at a tender age that a smudge pot was a device holding a fire in the midst of the groves while a fan blew warm air through the trees to keep the crop at a safe temperature. I pictured the smudge pots glowing red in the middle of the orchards and I worried about the crop and our state’s economy. But what worried me the most was why were we, Californians, forced to drink orange juice from Florida?

Was California juice inferior? Unsafe? Illegal? My father taught me how to peel an orange by cutting off the top and bottom, and scoring the fragrant bright skin into sections that peeled easily away, leaving delicious traces of orange skin and its pungent oil beneath my fingernails and on my hands. We did this outdoors on sunny mornings during our summer vacations at cabins in the Sierras. The sight and smell of pine needles are indelibly mixed for me with this exercise.

Orange juice, on the other hand, was a hard, cold, cardboard cylinder that had to be defrosted and combined with sufficient water to consume, or it was drunk with breakfast at a Formica table-topped diner. Orange juice, frozen and concentrated from Florida was not a sensual experience.

When I thawed a can to make this pie, I was reminded of the sharp, chemical taste of frozen concentrate orange juice that I hadn’t experienced in years. For decades now the only orange juice I’ve drunk has been fresh squeezed with its bright, natural, real flavor. I prefer to eat a whole orange bought from the farmers’ market, which I slice for my morning fruit and enjoy one beautiful, shimmering wedge at a time. Sometimes these oranges are wonderful, occasionally remarkable, with delicate, complex and nuanced tastes. Other times they are disappointingly flat, dry, and maybe even, worst of all, sour, the victims of drought or frost.

This unpredictability in oranges is an intimate reminder of the authentic world. I become concerned for where I buy my oranges, their variety, where they were grown, and that year’s weather. I keep mental notes on which growers and supermarkets care more about quality and which care more about price. A frozen cylinder filled with flavor corrected juice can’t begin to provide this. It’s the difference between a real friend and a frozen, concentrated Facebook one.

An orange peel can be as valuable as the fruit’s juice, adding zest to a stew or with butter and garlic for broiled fish or chicken. Recently I discovered the technique of drying orange zest in a slow oven and grinding it into powder for a pungent note to add to pies, whipped cream or savory dishes. I’ve also enjoyed bouts of making candied orange peel, best done from organically grown fruit, for eating bare or dipping in chocolate. Good luck trying to get any of those from a can!

The condensed juice industry’s post war creation is a textbook illustration of technology’s triumph over nature. When John McPhee profiled the booming Florida juice industry in the New Yorker in 1966, he told how scientists found a way to boil orange juice in a vacuum until “highly viscose,” separate it into multiple parts, flavor and reassemble it for packaging and freezing in small, round cans. As McPhee explained, Florida’s hot, wet climate produced a high water content fruit ideal for juice, while California’s drier climate produced sweet, thick-skinned oranges low in juice and best eaten fresh. He further noted that oranges had once been the most popular fresh fruit in the country. By 1966, consumption of the fresh fruit fell 75 percent. “Fresh oranges have become,” McPhee wrote, “in a way, old-fashioned.”

Today it’s the concentrated juice that seems old fashioned. The frozen juice section in my local chain supermarket has nearly disappeared. Our farmers’ markets and supermarkets are piled high with multiple varieties of the fresh fruit. Vendors stand at our freeway off ramps selling cheap bags of oranges. The concentrated juice is relatively costly. With such affordable fresh options at every turn, at least in Southern California, frozen concentrate seems absurd.

For the most part and on top of that, the commercially processed juice business has been taken over by bottles and cartons of fully constituted juice labeled as “natural” and “not from concentrate.” But these juices are at least pasteurized and at most flavor corrected to a disturbing degree of conformity. And most of the juice known as orange no longer comes from Florida, but is now shipped via tanker from Brazil.

Betty Crocker’s Cheesecake Pie with Florida Orange Glaze also calls for a can of chunked pineapple for the glaze, another once popular mid-century item now off the radar. Pineapple, the legendary tropical fruit, represented luxury and hospitality in Europe beginning in the 1600s. It was a trophy served at royal courts. But for California suburbanites in the 1960s, pineapple meant Hawaii. To me, Hawaii meant orgasmic television game show contestants winning all expense paid vacations. Pick the right door or guess the right price and be greeted on sandy shores by grass-skirted natives bearing pineapples.

Today, I rarely eat pineapple, whether canned or fresh, the former being too sweet, the latter being too acidic and too much trouble to wrestle to the plate. Their association with tired fruit salads and Jell-O has further ruined both options for me. As an adult, I’ve made multiple trips to the Hawaiian Islands, and they were nice, but never as exciting as they seemed to those game show contestants. Mango is now my fresh tropical fruit of choice and numerous other destinations are of greater interest than Hawaii. I now wonder if the natives whose islands have been consumed by the travel industry would rather throw pineapples at tourists than serve them.

This pie is a fine example of American Industrial Eats, a tangy reminder of factory food’s shining mid-century promise. For extra tang, make it as I did, with a graham cracker crust. But don’t tell Betty Crocker, lest she string you up by your other than white thumbs.

cheesecake pie

2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, softened
2 eggs
½ cup white sugar
1 6-ounce can frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
9-inch baked pie shell

Heat oven to 350°. In large mixer bowl, beat cream cheese. Beat in eggs and sugar until smooth. Mix in ½ cup of the concentrate, reserving remainder for glaze. Pour into baked pie shell. Bake 30 minutes. Spread warm Florida Orange Glaze carefully over hot pie. Chill at least 8 hours.

florida orange glaze

½ cup sugar
¼ cup flour
½ cup water
¼ cup reserved orange juice concentrate
1 can (8-1/2 ounces) crushed pineapple, drained

In saucepan, blend sugar and flour. Combine water and concentrate; stir into sugar mixture. Cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir 1 minute. Stir in pineapple.

Note: Original recipe called for Gold Medal flour and Florida Orange Juice concentrate.