Prepare to drool as Mario Batali gives us his Thanksgiving making turkey porchetta recipe ... We meet a woman who’ll spend Thanksgiving organizing dinner for her huge family, taking care of her elderly parents, and being the caregiver for a 91-year old woman ... Rosalie Atkinson explains how the late Leon Russell’s music helped her meet her mom ... The Friends of the Rockhaven Sanitarium in Glendale are celebrating after the city council approved their preferred plan to preserve the historic site.
Mario Batali shares his yummy turkey porchetta recipe for Thanksgiving
"What really good cooking is all about is sharing something from your heart, your soul, and your hands. There's nothing better that you can give to someone than something you made with your own hands." -- Mario Batali
Chef Mario Batali told Off-Ramp geographic themes allow him to experiment with new flavors, but still keep classic Thanksgiving ingredients.
"The idea that you would make exactly the same meal every year is kind of exciting," he says. "And challenging. I kind of make the same meal every time but I change it up by theme every year. Last year my Thanksgiving was New Orleans-themed. The year before it was Alsace-Lorraine. This year it is Umbria. Each year changes the flavors and the components of the side dishes but there's always cipollini, there's always Brussels sprouts. There's always turkey and some kind of sausage-y something."
Batali's Thanksgiving dinner takes a bit longer than most people's: "I'm a planner. I know my Thanksgiving menu by the middle of August. I shop for it, plan for it. The excitement I get from sharing a classic menu with a group of 20 to 25 friends: it's why you cook. And if you don't like cooking, I can't imagine how you can find joy in life."
But how do you make an Umbrian Thanksgiving? It starts with de-boning the turkey and making a porchetta:
"I stuff it with fennel and fennel sausage. I rub it with fennel pollen and I cook it in a pizza oven. I get two 20-pound turkeys, like torpedos, bruiser turkeys. I get them from Heritage - they are lighter on the breast and bigger on the leg, because I think the leg is better. So I get two breasts, two legs from each turkey stuffed and rubbed in fennel pollen so they get super crisp and crackling on the outside. Then there's a layer of the sausage and bread stuffing- then the succulent meat. So every slice is like a roll of everything best about Thanksgiving."
When it comes to gravy, Batali gets a head start, "And because I get to take my bones out before- roast them before to make my stock and virtually start my gravy, which is made with Vin Santo and black truffles. So I get it all started and then just dump the juices from the pan in last minute, then strain it out."
But the buffet doesn't stop there:
I make something like a cannelloni but instead of making it with pasta, I make it with something called necci, which is a chestnut crepe traditional to Tuscany. I stuff it with Swiss chard and béchamel then layer it almost like a lasagna. I coat it again with the béchamel and Parmigiano-Reggiano on top.
But what about the veggies? "I do a shaved Brussels sprout salad with Pecorino and lemon juice and olive oil."
We would love to see your Thanksgiving creations! Send us a photo on
Vincent Price's daughter on fear, love and 'The Fly,' at Vincent Price Art Museum
In a new exhibit at the Vincent Price Art Museum at East LA College, artist Peter Wu uses the 1958 The Fly and the 1986 David Cronenberg remake to examine fear: fear of the other, new tech, nuclear war, and disease.
And who better to help kick off the exhibit than Victoria Price, Vincent Price's daughter and biographer, who spoke Friday night at VPAM.
Price's talk was ostensibly on the new exhibit, but it carried a strong message on the 2016 election.
"My dad always felt that horror movies provided a catharsis. You could go into the dark and you could face your fears, and you could come out emboldened by them. However, we are in a very different world right now ... To be excluded, to be bullied, to feel Other ... and I have felt, despite my privilege, that I never fit in.
I've learned from horror fans what it is to have a tribe. And that the antidote to Other thinking is "both and" thinking. We could go down our own rabbit hole of fear, and it is a very scary time. But I really feel that all of life comes down to two choices, love or fear. And one of the ways we can manifest love, is to keep making art that speaks against fear."
Victoria Price also stressed that humor is an excellent weapon against fear, and says one of the reasons her dad was popular for so long was that there was always a little humor in his horror work that "provided a release. And there is a way that laughing at fear, breaks its mesmerism. It's hard right now to see that, but I do promise that laughter is an important part of our healing."
And so, for fans of the original "The Fly," she says, watch the absurd ending.
"My dad told me, that last scene they could not film. He said they all thought this is the most ridiculous thing, a fly talking, and they had to shoot it so many times. And they're doubled over almost peeing their pants. So watch the last scene, and you will see that they are all just barely holding it together."
Peter Wu: Rise of the Fly II is at the Vincent Price Art Museum through March 18, 2017.
'Need does not take a holiday': A caregiver's Thanksgiving
November is National Caregiver's Month, which is cold comfort for folks who juggle orchestrating Thanksgiving dinner and caring for a loved one. According to The Los Angeles Caregiving Resource Center, 66 percent of caregivers are women, and 6 in 10 have jobs apart from their caregiving duties.
Montebello resident and Lincoln Heights native Barbara Cano falls into both these categories. This is the first Thanksgiving where she will be taking care of both of her parents, in addition to a 91-year old client that, like her parents, requires 24-hour care. Cano's mother and her client share the fact that they both suffer from Alzheimer's and have recently broken a hip.
On the steps of Sacred Heart Church in Lincoln Heights, Cano maps out her Thanksgiving.
"I'll probably start at around 8 o' clock in the morning. I'll prepare the turkey — put that in the roaster. Then I'll prepare the stuffing and the gravy."
After that it's time to take care of her mother.
"In the mornings we have to give meds, give my mom a sponge bath change her, get her dressed for the day and give her her breakfast."
After that it's off to her shift as a professional caregiver.
"If she can handle the crowd we will come out to the dinner table, if not I will take her to her room."
This means that Cano may be spending Thanksgiving dinner with only one other person whom she's not related to. When asked what might go through her mind during the meal, she says with concern, "I hope my mom eats, sometimes it's hard for her to swallow."
She adds, wiping away tears, "This might be my mom's last Thanksgiving. And in my heart I just believe my father will not last much longer when my mother is gone."
Cano's employer would not give her the day off to spend with her family, which is typical for caregivers. Need does not take a holiday.
"My husband and I have already talked about if we have to get a reverse mortgage so we can have long-term care so that nobody has to take care of us this way," Cano says. "Even though I have promised my parents that I would never put them in one, I think I would go into one rather than have a family member take care of me like this."
How Leon Russell helped me meet my mom
Off-Ramp intern Rosalie Atkinson on the death of Leon Russell and his place in her life. Russell died Sunday at 74.
I'm a teenager. It's five o'clock and a glow from kitchen lights is spilling out the open front door, guiding my feet up the 4 stairs into my childhood home. Like most nights, I enter to find my mom, Tanya, dancing in front of the stove.
"Stranger in a strange land! Whoaaa-ooooh!" She sings at me, squinting, spinning around our kitchen.
She points at me and I join in. Together we sing, "Stranger in a strange land!" as I dip a finger into a pot of pasta sauce, a cloud of garlic and tomato sauce harmonizing alongside us.
I don't reflect on these moments much because nothing's changed: I know if I were to walk in the door somewhere around dinner time, I'd still find her singing these love songs to her pots and pans. But with the death of musician, songwriter, and fixture in our lives, Leon Russell, I'm forced to issue a letter of gratitude for what his music did to my life.
On Sunday night, in his Nashville home, Leon joined Heaven's band peacefully in his sleep. A member of session musician collective "The Wrecking Crew," Russell quietly tied together albums of the heavy-hitters in American music history: Bob Dylan, George Harrison, B.B. King, Herb Alpert, and so many more. His first commercial success came after writing "Delta Lady," popularized on Joe Cocker's 1969 self-titled album. From then, Russell's songs went on to be performed by the Carpenters, Willie Nelson, the Temptations, and Amy Winehouse.
He was a proud cornerstone of the Nashville music scene, and Leon's experiences in music transcended racial barriers. His music danced across rock, blues, country, pop, and gospel. This versatility helped him build his entirely unique sound; not afraid to bellow crushing minor notes, or screech out twangy ballads through quivering vocal chords. This is the sound wafting through the background of my childhood and memories of my mom that make those moments so important to me now.
Leon Russell was different, unclean, unencumbered by success, unlike so many highly decorated, popular artists. I can remember sitting at the dinner table, tracing the outline of his gray top hat on the cover of Leon Live, watching my mom.
Last summer, I saw Leon perform in Oakland with my mom. We squished into a tiny table at the end of his giant, white grand piano, and watched him as he used his cane to meander to his bench. Without looking at the keys, his hands found their place, his voice found amplication, and my mom and I found joy.
I can still see it today: During Leon's biggest hit "A Song for You," I turn to my mother and I mouth the words, "I love you in a place, where there's no space or time. I love you for my life, you are a friend of mine."
A Song for You (1971) by Leon Russell
After the concert, we hang around the stage door. Eventually, Russell and his entourage emerge and mingle with fans. Many drunken baby-boomer's asking him about working with Elton John, asking to try on his stark white cowboy hat, ambition strikes me and I push through them, with my ticket in one hand and my mom's hand in the other, and I manage to get some important words out:
"Leon, my mom is a huge fan and she played your music for me growing up and now I am a big fan too. Will you sign our tickets?"
Almost animatronic in his movements, he looks at me, and he looks at my mom, then says, "Well gee, I appreciate that. I'll sign 'em right now. You got a camera? Let's take a photo."
Without Leon Russell's music, I wonder if I'd ever have really met my mom.
Before my mom had my brother and me, and she got the moniker "mom," there was a woman who loved vinyl records, who loved Southern rock, and who deeply loved Leon Russell. He introduced me to her spirit and allowed me to share something meaningful with her, besides genetics. He shared with me the woman that slept dormant in her, to be awakened by the sentimentality of a certain album or vocal twang.
For these reasons and more, I will miss you, Leon Russell. But I will always thank you more.
Song of the Week: "Sombras" by: Generacion Suicida
Happy Thanksgiving everybody. Offramp's 'Song of the Week' this time around comes by way of South L.A. punk outfit Generacion Suicida with the song, "Sombras." Spanish for "shadows," Sombras is a surprisingly bright number that showcases the band's melodic sound: a dreamy Smiths-reminiscent guitar solo, punchy drums akin to Marky Ramone, and a lead bass that's front and center in the sound mix.
Generacion Suicida will be opening for Trash Talk the Union Nightclub this Saturday, November 19th. Doors at 7pm. Click here for tickets.
Blacklist LA: Running Los Angeles 1 piece of art at a time
Running is one of those things you either love... or love to hate. In Los Angeles, some dedicated runners are trying to transform your perceptions of exercise and the city through the art that inhabits it. Michael Radcliffe is a writer and reluctant runner in L.A.
There’s a group of runners, several hundred strong, trying to make you fall in love with both running and Los Angeles at the same time.
Blacklist LA takes people out of the congested traffic and gets them on the streets. Los Angeles is not short on places to run, but where to start? That's why Blacklist LA switches it up. It meets multiple times a week and the location changes. This way, a lot of the city is seen.
“There are parts of the city that I’ve never seen, prior to running with Blacklist,” said Marcus Rentie. He’s a pacer with Blacklist. Pacers act as guides for the run, and even play dj, running with small speakers to set the rhythm.
10 p.m. on a Monday may not seem like an ideal time to draw a big for anything, let alone running, but Blacklist LA has a secret weapon: the group’s Instagram account. That's how Markie Sandoval found out about the group. “I saw the pictures that they take. I saw these runners and I’m like, ‘I’m not ready to be there yet,’ said Sandoval.
But now she’s here training for her first marathon.
The object of every run is to visit a mural in the city. And with hundreds of murals, street art and graffiti across town, the city is ripe with pieces to discover.
Erik Valiente is Blacklist LA’s founder. Tonight he gathers the runners together and announces the night's route through a megaphone: a nearly four mile loop with the prized destination/mural in between. Then, the runners take off as onlookers stared questioningly.
Trayvon Tillis is a recurring runner with Blacklist. He brought his own speakers and music to run along with him. Rick James’ “Superfreak” blasted as he ran. “My time-- when I first started running, it was 14:58 a mile and I got to 7:17 a mile,” Tillis boasts. Other runners motivated him to keep going.
Then as promised, about halfway along the route, Valiente squaks to the runners through his megaphone about the street artist duo known as DOURONE.
Valiente explains when DOURONE visited L.A. last year, the artists fell in love with the city. The corresponding mural depicts the duo's affection for L.A.'s architecture and its people. The runners rest as they take in the mural. A photo is snapped for Instagram posterity. Then, it's time to head back.
A big group waited for the runners at the finish line. Cheers and congratulations echoed along the urban trail. “You are amazing!” Chimere Washington shouted to anyone within earshot. A recent L.A. transplant, she's quickly made Blacklist a part of her life.
“You’re not leaving here the way you came!" She belted out. "You just built wings. You just built integrity. You just built determination, it’s amazing!”
To check out free training programs for long distance independent runs and info on upcoming group runs, check out Blacklist LA.