Vampires, are the modern ones a sulking sort?

Photo by Luc Viatour

I must admit I have not watched True Blood or Twilight. I have just not had the desire. I much prefer David Boreanaz as Boothe and not Angel. I like my vampires sick and twisted; I like my heroines to be bad girls; Anita Blake is the uber tough girl par excellence. I realized, however that I am criticizing what I have not seen. So, here it goes. I will watch both True Blood and Twilight and reflect not react. Stay tuned, I may eat some crow, or just smile my wry smile a bit longer.

'Cause baby it's hot, hot, hot (peppers, part 1)

As July closes, this is the time of the grill, the arrival of some wonderful warm weather produce, and all of us are wondering where summer is going--for Labor Day will arrive soon. This is the season of tomatoes, summer squash, sweet corn and peppers. Of course, I am referring to "green peppers," which go beyond green and have forever been given a bad rap by over-cooked back of the box stuffed peppers from the 1960s and 1970s! Beginning with the Bell, peppers (Capsicum) include a range of varieties of colors, shapes, heat and flavor. Their heat runs from the incendiary (scotch bonnet) to the intriguing poblano and pasilla. Like the other New World wonders of corn, tomatoes and potatoes, peppers have been adopted, cultivated, celebrated and tweaked the world-over, impacting Asian, European and African cuisine.

As one of the fruits of the Colombian voyages, chilies were readily adapted in Spanish and Portuguese cuisine. Losing the West, but for Brazil, the Portuguese brought peppers to East Asia where they became incorporated into cuisines familiar with using spices, such as peppercorns, ginger, turmeric and cardamom. Ironically, Columbus had been looking for way to the East by going West and one of his commercial goals was to establish a spice trade! Peppers became widely cultivated and the cultivars of India, Thailand and China became part of the "classic" dishes we know now such as Samosas, Pad Thai and Hunan Beef.

In Europe itself, the pepper moved east, from Spain to France and Italian, and then further east yet again to become a key ingredient in the cooking of Hungary, where paprika means both the spice made from ground peppers and the peppers themselves. In the rest of the Balkans, peppers became the key ingredient of "Balkan Salad," a mixture of eggplant, garlic, sweet peppers, tomatoes and vinegar.

In Africa, the pepper is essential ingredient in West African and Ethiopian cuisine. In West Africa, an essential element of cooking is a trio of onions, tomatoes and peppers, usually the hottest of the bunch--habernero and scotch bonnets. This is the West African mirepoix or holy trinity ( a al Cajun cooking). Jollof Rice and Groundnut (peanut) Stew are two regional dishes that rely on red peppers and scotch bonnets for their piquancy. In Ethiopia, ground chilies and other spices are combined to form Berbere, the seasoning that is key to several Wots (stews).
Another Ethiopian chili powder is Mitmita, a key ingredient in Kitfo.

In Latin America, the cradle of pepper cultivation, the pepper plays a key role in creating the flavors that wrap around the tomato, corn and potato. In a mole, being able to taste one of the 20 or so ingredients distinctively means the mole hasn't been made correctly; however, even so, part of the richness is the contrast of chocolate and chilies and the counterpoint they create on the tongue. Speaking of chocolate, the earliest preparation of cacao was not as a sweet bar, but a savory drink of ground, roasted cacao powder, ground chilies, cornmeal and vanilla.

In the United States, we have been the beneficiaries local intelligence and European innovations. In Taos and Santa Fe, green and red chili sauce is as common as salt and pepper on the table. From Cajun Country comes tabasco sauce, with McIlhenny's as the best known. Although a host of other "hot sauces" abound, McIhenny's Tabasco is the standard, from table to bar world-wide. A lesser know but just as important Cajun condiment is Chow Chow, made with chopped vegetables and vinegar.

In between Taos and Thibodaux is Texas, where TexMex can be sampled in all its various forms from fast food to homemade tamales. Emblematic of TexMex is the basket of chips and salsa. But TexMex is the mother of Chili con carne, with dried, ground chilies serving as the base spices, for many North Americans may have been our first foray into TexMex, no matter how remote it may have been in spirit.

Ole for the chili, celebrate this versatile vegetable by attending a chili festival, cooking Kung Pao Beef or TexMex or by putting a few drops of Tabasco Sauce in your next Bloody Mary!

Getting Dracula on Film

With the release of the latest Twilight movie, I was reminded of the fact that it took 35 years for the original and "official" Dracula to make it to the Big Screen. Bram Stoker's Dracula was published in May of 1897; the Universal Studio's Production debuted in 1931. A veiled production of Dracula, Nosferatu (1922) appeared in 1922, only to be met with litigation by Florence Stoker and the destruction of many copies of the film. Let's look at the long path from the published novel to the official film print.

Stoker was an Anglo-Irish civil servant turned theatre manager turned author. While working at the Castle in Dublin, Stoker published The Duties of the Clerks of the Petty Sessions in Ireland (1879). While his day job was as a government clerk, he dearly wanted to be a theatre critic and became a reviewer for Dublin University Magazine, whose former co-owner, Sheridan LeFanu, was the author of Carmilla. During his career as theatre reviewer, he critiqued an 1876 Dublin performance of Hamlet, by the English Actor Henry Irving. This began the long relationship between Irving and Stoker, which led to Irving inviting Stoker to be his personal assistant and theatre manager in London at the end of the decade.


In 1878, Stoker married Frances Balcombe. Ms. Balcombe had more than one suitor, as would Lucy Westerna. In a case of reality being more interesting than fiction, Stoker's rival for Frances was Oscar Wilde. Florence had turned Wilde's offer of marriage down.


Bram Stoker would publish would publish 12 novels, but none would be as successful as Dracula. In essence, Dracula was his biggest legacy both culturally and financially. Stoker had staged a reading of Dracula at the Lyceum in May 1897 to preserve a theatrical copyright and his estate retained copyright on the novel in Berne Convention signatory nations. And Mrs. Stoker was vigilant in protecting copyright.


Although Stoker appreciated the modern technology of the 1890s and greatly understood both the performance and business of theatre, it seems odd that a film adaptation would take so long. For instance, Frankenstein had its first cinematic version in 1910. Part of the story may be the "success" of Dracula as a play, adapted by Hamilton Dean (1924) and later by John Balderston, both under Ms. Stoker's strict legal control.


In Dean's adaptation, the action is set totally in England. As translated to the stage by Balderston, the number of characters is streamlined and their roles are changed. Balderston rewrote John Seward to be not a young suitor, but the father of Lucy Seward, a metamorphosis of Lucy Westerna and Mina Murray. Arthur Holmwood and Quincey P. Morris are eliminated totally from the script. This adaptation set the screenplay for Universal's 1931 English and Spanish productions of Dracula on screen.

Both plays were a success even though they departed from the text of the novel. Dean's adaptation was a hit in English Theatres outside of London, and eventually became a popular audience favorite there as well eventhough the critics didn't think much of it. Part of this was pure marketing...the original nurse on hand to help swooning audience members. Dean at one point had as many as three traveling companies producing the play at one time in England.

Dean and Balderston were very careful to respect Mrs. Stoker's wishes and with good reason. In 1922, F.W. Murnau directed Nosferatu. Nosferatu is the story of the Transylvanian Graf Orlock buying a house in Bremen with the help of an attorney and future neighbor, Waldemar Hutter. After the real estate transaction is concluded, Orlock attacks Hutter and travels to Bremen via ship. One by one, the sailors on the ship die. Meanwhile, Hutter's superior Knock has gone insane and is admitted to the asylum run by Dr. Bulwar. Orlock's animal to call is the rat, and when Orlock arrives in Bremen, his rats bring the plague. Hutter recovers and returns to Bremen. While at Orlock's castle, Hutter had discovered a book that explains that a vampire can be destroyed by sunlight in conjunction with the actions of a virtuous woman. Ellen sacrifices herself and in the process, Orlock dies as the rising sun shines through the bedroom window.


For those close to the story, the parallels and plagiarism are self evident. Graf Orlock = Count Dracula; Hutter = Harker; Knock = Renfield; Bremen = London; and the ocean voyage. Even Hutter's journey to Orlock's castle is by coach from a bridge parallels Harker's (Renfield's) ride from the Borgo Pass to Dracula's Castle. Mrs. Stoker got it too.


She sued.


Albin Grau, F. W. Murnau and Henrk Galeen, the films co-producer, director and screenwriter, neither asked Mrs. Stoker permission to use the story or paid for it is use.


Mrs. Stoker sued Prana-Film and won, but Prana-Film was by then in receivership. With no money to pay creditors, let alone for damages, Prana-Film was finished. Mrs. Stoker and the British Incorporated Society of Authors then sought an alternative means of compensation: that all the copies of the film be destroyed. The receivers destroyed the copies of the film in their possession, but other copies existed. They would stay "underground" until Mrs. Stoker's death in 1937.


Universal was very careful in negotiating with Mrs. Stoker and secured the rights in 1928, including employing Bela Lugosi, who starred in the Balderston adaptation, to work with Mrs. Stoker. In the end, Universal obtained several extant prints and destroyed them between the time they secured the rights and the production of Tod Browning and Carl Leammle Jr's Dracula in 1931.

The Dean/Balderston/Browing Dracula became a cult hit of stage and screen, ushering in Universal's golden age of horror pictures. By the of the decade, Universal released The Mummy, The Invisible Man, Dracula's Daughter and Frankenstein, even though the Hays Office had imposed a production code that required edits in all of the films after 1934 to be acceptable for public release or re release.

Enjoy and rejoice Twilight Fans, that you didn't have to wait until 2040 to see the latest movie in the series.

Weather: the Ultimate Reality Show

Given the waves of thunderstorms that have swept the Midwest and Great Lakes the last few weeks, and then our recent heatwave, I have realized that weather is the ultimate reality show. Of course there is a cable channel devoted to it, which would have made us scratch our heads thirty years ago. I shouldn't have been too surprised, however, when I remember my youth in small town Iowa. When we lived in Denison, our first cable TV bundle was the most basic of basic: ABC from Sioux City (KCAU), NBC from Sioux City (KTIV), CBS from Sioux City (KMEG), Iowa Public Broad Cast System, ABC From Omaha ( KETV) NBC from Ohama (then KMTV), CBS from Omaha (then WOWT) and, later, TBS, from Atlanta...but more about that another time.

In addition to the above, we had a channel, which in living black and white, was a closed circuit camera panning back and forth on analog wind gauge, thermometer and clock! All day every day. No talking heads, no commercials--that I can remember--just the constant sweep of the camera at the instruments. And we watched it! not for any great length of time, but it just always showed up as we were channel surfing!

Now, 30 odd years later, in the Detroit Media Market, we have weather, weather everywhere. First, there is the Weather Channel itself, now in addition to forecasts, the programming includes Storm Stories, Wake Up with Al and Storm Riders. The Weather Channel has its own version of instrument weather--but with Radar sweeps and satellite images: Weather Scan.


Local News Stations have two subjects that are reported by all the stations in a given market: Sports and Weather. With weather there seems to be two over riding themes: speed and technology. In the morning, we know to expect the weather on the 2's or 4's, etc. depending on the channel's original analog signal. The reporting of the weather is more predictable than the forecast! In addition, doppler radars, storm trackers, lightning trackers and computer simulations all figure into the technological "arms race" in local weather forecasting and reporting. And then there are the times when weather itself is news: power outtages due to weather events, floods, drought, tornadoes, hurricanes and blizzards.



Stay tuned, hurricane season is upon us....and that unfortunately can be the exemplification of tragedy and a breaking news story.

You say tahmato, I say tomahto

In honor of the first blossoms on the Sweet 100 cherry tomato, a little epistle on the fair red or yellow fruit! The little yellow flowers opened on Thursday.

About 500 years ago, gold and silver from the New World were not only things that would transform the daily life of Old World Natives. This may sound corny, but Columbus discovered maize, chili peppers and chocolate on his voyages, thus ushering in the first wave of new staples to Europe. When the shirttail cousins Cortes and Pizarro pierced Central Mexico and Peru, they found with newly opened European Eyes the tomato and the potato. We will save the potato, chili peppers and chocolate for the future!

The Spanish saw these berries being consumed by the Native Americans; seeing that tomatoes had no adverse effect, the Spanish were early adapters of the tomatl...elsewhere on the Continent, however, people were a bit slower on the uptake. For, tomatoes--like that other great New World import, tobacco--are a member of the Nightshade family, which also includes belladonna, mandrake, and Jimsom weed. There is some truth to this, for the green leaves and vines of the tomato are poisonous...but thank heavens, the fruit is not. Even if their wholesomeness as food was suspect, they were grown as ornamentals. Fortunately, from Spain, the tomato spread to Italy, changing a cuisine that we now deeply associate with tomatoes. From there they moved northward to the cuisine of France. Later, an early American advocate of tomatoes was our future president, Thomas Jefferson, but whether he acquired his taste for tomatoes in Paris or Virginia is a matter of conjecture.

On these shores, outside of Greater New Mexico, our Yankee forbears were not keen on the tomato until the 1820's onward, but in the South, the tomato entered Creole cuisine and then spread north. And to this day, in South Louisiana, the key difference between Cajun Gumbo and Creole Gumbo...is that Creole Gumbo contains...tomatoes!

Surprisingly, although Southern Italians had been eating sliced tomatoes with salt, pepper corns and oil since the 1540s, the first documented tomato pasta sauce dates from 1839! Thank goodness someone had the insight to make red sauce! I love bechamel or butter and garlic, but sometimes I just need pasta with a long simmered marinara!

Think of the average American Child or Manchild without ketchup.....is it possible? Our ketchup is a variation on fish sauce, via mushroom and and walnut pickle sauces, with tomato ketchup arising in the period between 1800 and 1840. The high acidity of tomatoes made it one of the first and safest produce to preserve and can. By 1876 Heinz was offering bottled ketchup and by 1899 condensed soups were developed by Campbell's, thus cementing the presence of the tomato on the American table, in the pantry and later the icebox.

Let's sing praises to the tomato! As the Robin is to spring, the tomato is to summer!

Good Guys and Lone Wolves

I must confess. Maybe, I was in the mood for something cheesy. Now, don't get me wrong, I know that I have a tiny bit of arrested development, so finding the sophomoric humorous and satisfying is one my little quirks (if I am generous, a sin if I am judgmental). All in all, I found the Good Guys just as outrageous, outlandish and cartoonish as I thought would be. AND I liked it.

I must admit, I only watched The West Wing sporadically in its original run. But since catching a number of episodes on Bravo, I have really developed a passion for the series. And Bradley Whitford as Josh Lyman is a great actor with a great story, cast and script. While he is an exceedingly sharp political operative when it comes to strategy and tactics, he is sometimes arrogant and immature in the limelight: Press Briefing Room or on talk television. He is a man who can steer a presidential campaign to victory, but who also can not resist trying to one-up the press only to have his jokes and gaffes go over like a lead pigeon in a windstorm.

Yes, Josh Lyman is a snappy dresser, mostly well mannered and serious about his job; Detective Dan Stark thinks he is a snappy dressy, is only concerned about being semi-welled mannered to the ladies, and the only thing he takes seriously about his job is "busting punks," by what ever means necessary. And since the Good Guys is a "buddy" show in addition to a police procedural, Colin Hanks plays Jack Bailey, who in this Mutt and Jeff pairing, is a young and by-the-book detective dragged about by Dan against his better judgment. Cop/Detective series, stories and novels have often relied on the "Buddy Theme:" Dragnet's Friday and Gannon; Law and Order's Greevey and Logan; Holmes and Watson; Tommy and Tuppence; Poirot and Hastings; and Wolfe and Godwin. Sometimes the paring forms a narrative device or sometimes the characters' interplay helps drive the action in the plot.

Off the force and on this side of the pond, however, for all of the buddies and sidekicks, there are plenty of lone wolves. Guys who may have been on the force or are a force to be reckoned with: The Continental Op, Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. (Yes, Sam had partner, Miles Archer, but when we begin looking for the black bird, the only partner Sam is interested in is Mrs. Archer.) They drink. They work around the police. They lie when they need to and violence is part of the job, sometimes a pleasurable part of the job. They have a sense of right and wrong, even if they don't want to show it. In the end, solving the crime is not so much about justice; it is just finding out what the damn truth is.


And they are good guys too, and definitely not cheesy.

The Dude in Indian Territory

Mattie Ross: [watching Rooster load his revolver] Why do you keep that one chamber empty?
Rooster Cogburn: So I won't shoot my foot off.

As I surfed the web looking at Dennis Hopper's career, I discovered, much to my surprise, that the Coen Brothers are in the process of remaking True Grit. True Grit is one of my favorite movies: the counter play of John Wayne, the smiling Glen Campbell, and the gumption of Kim Darby's character teamed with Robert Duval as Ned Pepper, Dennis Hopper as Moon and Jeff Corey as Tom Chaney (all a string of superb villains) makes for a great two hours of cinema. While we think of Indian Territory, Oklahoma, as a Great Plains swath of Red Clay, the scenery of Fort Smith and Indian Territory reminds us that the Ozarks spill over form Missouri and Arkansas into Eastern Oklahoma.

The Coen Brother's Barton Fink, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Fargo and The Big Lebowski are modern masterworks, forgive me if I didn't pick your favorite film. In their reprise of True Grit, Jeff Bridges is cast as Rooster Cogburn, Matt Damon as the Texas Ranger LaBoeuf and Josh Brolin as Tom Chaney. Which reminds me, I need to see No Country for Old Men, and Josh did play the villain of Milk, Dan White.

We have already seen Jeff Bridges in one Post-Modern Western, Wild Bill. Lawman/Gunman/Hero/Heel? a la the Earps, Holliday and Masterson: depends on what point in what life one is judging? As with current Hollywood, the lens of popular culture, wishful thinking, dime novels and the legend of the West, all of our heroes either larger than life or smaller than legend. And, in another interesting side note, Jeff Corey, Tom Chaney in the original True Grit, played Wild Bill Hickok in Little Big Man.

I can only wait for this to hit the Screen!