Culinary Arts

Went out to eat this past weekend more times than in an average month. On Thursday granddaughter Rebecca called to invite us to help celebrate her being named student of the month. At first she wanted to go to Cici’s Pizza buffet but then decided she wanted ribs, so we went to Longhorn Steak House near Portage’s Bass Pro Shop. I was expecting peanut shells on the floor, but Longhorn’s was quite classy, and my 18-ounce steak was delicious and so plentiful I had leftovers enough for lunch the next two days.

On Saturday evening son Dave was honored at a banquet sponsored by the LakeShore Chamber of Commerce (formed as a result of a merger between the Hammond and East Chicago’s chambers) and held at the Horseshoe Casino’s ballroom (the Venue). It was my first visit to a Northwest Indiana “boat” and to get to the Venue we passed through very crowded gaming rooms (there might be a recession going on but you’d never know it, at least this Saturday evening). There was an open bar, and we were seated at a table next to Hammond teacher of the year Allen Bild, a friendly fellow who teaches Culinary Arts at the Hammond Career Center (formerly Hammond Tech). Also at our table were Purdue Calumet chancellor Howard Cohen and his wife, who were very pleasant and sociable. Dave had been interviewed on tape previously, and when the winners of the awards (policemen and firemen were also honored), they played excerpts from the interviews on a big screen. It was quite impressive. After dinner a 10-piece band played dance music and during their breaks a deejay put on songs that lent themselves to people doing the electric slide and whatever else is presently in vogue.

Toni’s birthday falls on Valentine’s Day, and she usually prefers not venturing out among the throngs but I talked her into going to The Bistro in Valparaiso at 4 p.m. with Dave and Angie. Last year daughter-in-law Beth gave Toni a hundred-dollar Bistro coupon that was due to expire soon, and we thoroughly enjoyed the meal and the excellent service. The crab cake appetizer was as delicious as the ones at the Miller Bakery Cafe. I had the lamb stroganoff plus various bites of crab cake and steak that Dave and Angie ordered. They got the two-person Valentine’s special, which came with a delicious dessert sampler we all shared. Once again I needed a doggie bag and probably brought home more stroganoff than I consumed, having pigged out on rolls and salad. Toni described to us what a sous chef is. Rather than just some underling who chops and peels, he is second in command to the head chef and in charge of things in the chief honcho's absence. For instance Bakery Cafe chef Gary Sanders might plan the menu and order the ingredients but often lets a sous chef handle on the scene operations. With the recent demise of longtime Miller restaurants Ming Ling and Beach Cafe as well as short-lived ventures Four Four Four and La Dolce Vita the Bakery Cafe has the local fine dining field virtually to itself.

My Nineties Steel Shavings issue, “Shards and Midden Heaps,” contains an article by Daniel Gesmond entitled “Culinary World.” While in high school, the author worked for a catering chef aptly named John Cook. Then he worked at The Spa, my family’s favorite eatery when Phil and Dave were young (especially the Friday buffet with crab legs). While working at the fancy Brio Restaurant at the Blue Chip Casino, Gesmond spent a year as a student at the Chicago Cooking and Hospitality Institute but then gave up his ambition to be a chef, burned out and, as he put it, “sick of smelling like food even after a shower.”

For lunch today the venue was the IU Northwest cafeteria with “the boys.” Geology professor Kristen Huysken joined the table and someone asked her about the 4-point earthquake that many of us felt a few days ago at four in the morning. She said that scientists don't know that much about that particular fault and minor quakes enable them to learn new things. With Biology professor Amy Bishop killing three colleagues at the University of Alabama at Huntsville being the big story in the news, Alan Lindmark made a joke about professors shooting colleagues who deny them tenure. Last year Mondays usually featured tacos, but today I went with the chicken salad and bread. Reminds me of the LBJ quote: “Gentlemen, I may not know much, but I know chicken shit from chicken salad.” He also said that in politics, “overnight chicken shit can turn into chicken salad.” Unlike JFK, whose salty language usually referenced sexual activities, LBJ’s preferred words that referred to bathroom functions.

English professor Alan Barr teaches a film class and invites the faculty to view the Monday film, which today was the 1967 film “Belle de Jour” directed by Luis Brunuel and starring the great Catherine Deneuve. The title literally means “daylight beauty” and is the name of a flower, a morning glory, that only blooms in the daytime. It’s about Severine, a mixed up married woman who has masochistic nightmares and goes to work as a prostitute afternoons from two to five, calling herself Belle de Jour. In a flashback it appears that the woman was molested as a child and associates sex with sin. French movies usually go over my head, and this one was no exception. One man takes her to his estate, has her get into a coffin dressed as his dead wife, and afterwards a servant kicks her out in the rain. While in the brother Severine meets a young gangster who seems to cure her of her frigidity but then in a possessive rage shoots her husband. Young and sexy in this movie, Deneuve was still sexy 25 years later in the classic movie “Indochine,” scenes of which I used to show in my Vietnam War class.

Alan wrote a question on the board that students were expected to answer by Wednesday. It had to do with how the director used Deneuve’s body parts and clothing symbolically. In the course of being a prostitute she went from being reluctant to disrobe to stripping without a second thought. Similarly, once she starts getting comfortable with sex she literally lets her prim and proper hair down. There isn’t any frontal nudity (had the movie been made a year or two later it would have been de rigeur), but we see Deneuve’s ass as she walks to get into the duke’s coffin in a see-through outfit. In the film’s most shocking scene, the duke’s servant throws her out into the rain as if she were a lowlife slut, messing up her carefully made up face and hair.

News flash: Indiana Senator Evan Bayh just announced he won't run for another term as Senator in the fall. Is he scared of the Republicans or what? He blames a "dysfunctional Congress." Former Senator Dan Coats recently announced he'd run as a Republican but has lived out of state for several years. Bayh looked unbeatable, but then so did his dad 30 years ago when Dan Quayle defeated him. The timing of the announcement is suspicious. Would-be Democratic candidates now only have a very short time 24 hours - to gather 500 signatures from all of Indiana's Congressional districts, otherwise the party's central committee will select the nominee. Bayh might have done it with a successor in mind for the central committee to rubber stamp.