What Would Jimmy Do?

When we were much younger and living overseas, we had a well-stocked liquor cabinet because (1) liquor was very cheap (no taxes) and (2) we entertained a lot and for some reason back then people seemed to consume more mixed drinks or “cocktails.” At just abut any dinner party, guests usually had a cocktail of some kind and usually had wine with dinner. 

Anyhow, we knew how make lots of mixed drinks and discovered many others that were unique to the particular location where we were living/visiting. One of the more interesting drinks that I discovered while in Africa is called Dawa — it’s a legendary cure for ancient ailments. The first time I had a Dawa was in the Congo — later on the same trip when I visited Nairobi and asked for a Dawa, everyone was very surprised that I knew of the drink. Apparently they thought it was unique to Kenya. 

Dawa means “medicine” or “magic potion” in Swahili. The recipe that I have came from a restaurant in Nairobi, Kenya, called “The Carnivore.” It’s (was) a pretty cool restaurant —I’d call it a barbecue joint. But when I was there, it was licensed to serve gazelle, giraffe, and zebra. 
By now, you’re probably anxious to try a Dawa — so, as a public service, here’s the recipe:
Ingredients:
8 tots vodka (a “tot” is a small amount of a strong alcoholic drink such as whiskey or vodka.)
8 ounces lime juice
4 teaspoons honey
Rub the rim of old-fashioned glasses with a lime and dip the rim into a saucer of sugar.
Mix, in a separate glass, all the ingredients and stir well. (I use a swizzle stick or Dawa stick.)
Warning:  Do not add ice,because it will congeal the honey and be difficult to stir. 
When thoroughly mixed, add ice to the glasses and pour in the finished Dawa.

I think you’ll probably like this drink and I think I should mention that it goes extremely well with Elephant Stew. I highly recommend it.
And to save you the trouble of searching, here’s my favorite recipe for Elephant Stew:
Ingredients:
1 elephant
200 gallons brown gravy
30 rabbits
1 ½ gallons bottled hot pepper sauce
salt and pepper to taste
Cut elephant into bite-size pieces; cover with gravy and cook over fire at 465ª F. for 4 weeks.
This serves 3,800 people. If you are expecting more, add rabbits. But, this should be done only if necessary — people don’t like finding hare in their stew.
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Years ago, when our son was probably about 3 years old, we visited my parents in Oklahoma. On Sundays we always went to church with my mother. One Sunday, my mom gave David a fifty-cent piece and told him to “give this to Jesus when we’re at church.” Well, we went to church and the kids sat between myself and Claire. I didn’t know that my Mom had given Dave the money and when the collection plate was passed he didn’t put anything in it — I didn’t expect him to. Anyhow, after church we went home and had “Sunday dinner” — a tradition at my parents house. During the meal, Dave was playing with the fifty cent piece my mom had given him. My mother said, “I thought you were going to give that to Jesus.” Dave’s reply was, “He never showed up.”
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Quite a long time back, I wrote about ketchup — I chose the subject because when  our daughter was little she insisted on putting catchup on everything she ate. Anyhow, if I remember, I discussed kind of how ketchup came about — it was originally made from fish brine, and even today, all ketchup isn’t made from tomatoes. 

But when I sat down here, I intended to write not about ketchup, but mayonnaise. (If you’re interested more in ketchup, just type ketchup in the search box for this blog.)

There was a time when mayonnaise was a celebrated — even noble — sauce and not just some glop that you put on sandwiches. That time was 1756; the place was Mahon, a city on the Spanish island of Minorca. The city of Mahon was captured by the forces of Louis-Francois-Armad de Vigneron du Plessis, duc de Richelieu. That resulted in the expulsion of the hated English from the island. 
Well, after a hard day fighting the English, Louis decided they should celebrate, so he ordered his chef to whip up a feast.

The chef decided to make a cream sauce for the meats he was preparing, but he discovered that there was no cream to be found. So the chef grabbed some eggs, olive oil, and a whisk (and probably said a prayer.) The result of the chef’s inventiveness was Mayonnaise — named for the captured city. 
The French love that sauce so much that they’ve invented over 50 variations of it.

The basic difference in American-style mayo and French-style is that American-style uses whole eggs, lemon juice, oil and is seasoned with salt and sometimes a bit of sugar. French-style uses egg yolks as well as mustard in addition to lemon juice and oil and is seasoned simply with salt.

Robin Williams once said, “Gentiles are people who eat mayonnaise for no reason.” I’m not sure I quite understand what that means, but since I don’t know any more about mayonnaise, it seems like good place to stop. 
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With the coming of Artificial Intelligence, all the scams on the phone and Internet, and the political rhetoric, it seems like we’re living in fact-free world. Of course whether they were for fun, notoriety, or profit, hoaxes have been around almost forever. 

When I was little I remember hearing about the famous radio broadcast “War of the Worlds” that caused widespread panic because people really thought aliens were invading the Earth. It turns out that on September 19, 1994 a similar incident traumatized an entire city in northern China. On televisions in Taiyuan, China a scrolled message warned people about the gruesome Sibuxiang Beast, a creature with a deadly bite. “It is said that the Sibuxiang is penetrating our area from Yanmenguan Pass and within days will enter thousands of homes. Everyone close your windows and doors and be on alert!”

Taiyuan residents panicked — some even barricaded themselves inside their homes. Local officials were soon swamped with anxious telephone calls. 
But it was all a giant misunderstanding. The Sibuxiang Beast was real, but it wasn’t an animal — it was a new brand of liquor. The townspeople had been watching a commercial. 

The creator of the ad was fined the equivalent of $600 for causing a public panic, but the incident turned Sibuxiang liquor into a household name virtually overnight. Three months after the incident, the owner reported that his client base had quadrupled. 

It’s hard to believe that in this day and age, people would react like that. But then again, politicians and congress apparently think the human race is pretty gullible.
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When I lived in Saigon, I had an apartment downtown on Tu Do Street. I basically only slept there, because during the height of the war, we worked long hours and often didn’t come home for several days. But I had a really great maid that took care of the apartment and looked after me — as best she could. Rarely was I home for dinner and she seemed to “worry” that I wasn’t getting enough to eat. She would always ask in the morning if I would be home for dinner. I usually said no, but occasionally I told her that I might…. in those cases she always prepared a very good meal and always much more than I could eat. If I didn’t make it home for dinner when she was expecting me, she always left it all prepared for me to just heat it up. 

On one occasion, I was “up country” for a few days and the day that I was returning, she was going to prepare dinner. Well, as was kind of normal back then, I didn’t get back until later than expected and an associate that I was traveling with suggested we go out for dinner when we returned. I told him that I was sure my maid had prepared dinner, so I invited him to my place — he accepted, and even though we were both dirty and tired from the trip, went to my place to have dinner. We had a couple of drinks and decided it was time to eat. We went in the kitchen and there was a pan on the stove with some big lumps of meat and some rice in it. I turned on the burner and  sat the pan on it — my friend said he though it was supposed to be soup and we should add some water. I figured that it was some kind of meat over rice and we should just heat it… but — my friend convinced me, so we added some water and had another drink, or may three, until it was heated. We dished it out and it actually had a pretty disgusting taste — which I thought was unusual, because the maid was a very good cook. We both decided that we should just go out for dinner, or at least look around the kitchen for something else. We opened the oven door and there was a really good-looking casserole, or something that looked like a casserole. Anyway, we turned on the oven, had another drink, or three, and whatever she had prepared and put in the oven was really good — I think we ate all of it. 

The next day, my maid was terribly annoyed with me and finally she told me that I had totally messed up her cat’s dinner…..
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When we lived in Manila, there was a hotel that had a restaurant on top. The views at night from there were, needless to say, very pretty. We didn’t go there often, but some friends of ours went quite regularly. One of the soups on the menu was corn and crab — not particularly unusual for that part of the world, but I have to admit, that restaurant’s version was particularly good.

The wife of the couple that made the restaurant a regular stop told us numerous times that she would love to have the recipe, but it was apparently a closely guarded secret. She even told a story that some famous magazine, like Gourmet, had requested the recipe and been refused. We went to that roof-top restaurant a number of times with the couple — always ordering the soup — but after about a year, their tour was up and they left, being assigned back to Washington.

Some time after they left, we went to the restaurant by our selves one night — and of course, ordered the soup. Claire remarked to the waiter how much she liked the soup and wished she had the recipe. A few minutes later, he brought her the recipe with the compliments of the cook.
(Claire did mail the recipe to our friends.)

A couple of years after we were married, I was working in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. I had been there a week or so and Claire was going to meet me in Singapore when I was done in Kuala Lumpur. But it turns out that she got an earlier flight to Kuala Lumpur the day before I was due to leave and we had decided to take the train from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore. The afternoon that she arrived, I picked her up at the airport and took her to the Embassy while if finished up there. She left her suitcase at the embassy because the embassy driver was going to pick us up and take us to the train station the next day. She only took her “overnight” bag with her to the hotel.

Since I’d been there for a week, all the hotel staff knew me and they all greeted Claire with a smile and a bow. We went out to dinner that night and when we came back to the hotel, the room boy knocked on the door and wanted to know if we’d like to have some champagne or something. Since we’d just had dinner, I said no.
As luck would have it, during the night, I got a phone call that something had gone wrong at the embassy and I’d have to stop by before I left. The next morning, I told Claire to go ahead on to the train station with the driver and the luggage and I’d catch up. After she left, I went downstairs to wait for another car to take me to the embassy. While I was waiting, the room boy came up to me and said that the next time I wanted a Western woman to visit me, to let him know, because he could arrange something much better than I had done on my own last night.

I couldn’t wait to get on the train and tell Claire what the room boy had said. I think her response was something like, “I doubt that very much.” 
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To say I’ve led a blessed life would be a major understatement. Right now, with the loss of Claire, my mind is just all over the place and it’s hard to sleep or concentrate on anything. But thinking of all our experiences and adventures together has brought back memories of all the friends we’ve met over the years. Some I hadn’t thought of for a long time, some I can’t even tell you that I remember them, but they’re all a part of our lives and we often talked about them when we were alone.

Yesterday, while I was remembering things about Claire, I thought of a friend of ours that was one of the more unique people I’ve ever met. I can’t tell you his name, or where we met or even some of the things we experienced together…..

He had been many things in life. A young war hero, he had a scandalous love affair and was a military attaché that was sent to jail as a war criminal, he had a law degree, and was a diplomat, among other things. He spoke several languages. He was also a great cook — he taught cooking and wrote a cookbook. 

He was also a spy — working in lots of places all over the world. He worked very hard to defeat the Communist movement. Those of us who knew him and worked with him, remember him with admiration. He was one of a kind — like no one I’d ever known — before or since. We learned of his passing a few years ago. That’s one of the sad things about some careers — people come and go, and it’s almost impossible to stay in touch for a number of reasons. I often wonder if any of the “group” attended his funeral. I suspect some kind words were spoken at his farewell, but certainly nothing was said, or even whispered, of his real accomplishments.
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We’re beginning to hear a lot about the Olympics in the news as the opening ceremonies grow closer. I guess now would be a good time to talk marathons. If you check the archives of this blog, you can find out how the official distance of a marathon came about. But today I’d like to talk about maybe the “original” marathon runner in whose name the modern marathon was established….

To start at the beginning, Marathon was a place before it was a race — consisting of ten square miles of open land just northeast of Athens. During the summer of of 490 B.C., it was a battlefield where the soldiers of the Greek army fought the Persians. The Greeks were the underdogs, being outnumbered by the Persians by more than two to one.

The Greek general, Militates, knew he was outnumbered and decided what he needed was some Spartans (Greece’s best trained and fiercest soldiers.) The army had a stable of messengers — runners who were the elite athletes of the day, trained to cross difficult terrain in a short amount of time. The general sent his strongest messenger, Pheidippides (fi-DIP-uh-dees) to go for some Spartans. 

 Pheidippides ran nearly 100 miles, up and down hills in the summer heat, through enemy territory to the Spartan camp. When he arrived, the Spartans were in the middle of a religious ceremony, so the Greek army would have to wait a few days for reinforcements. Pheidippides then ran back to camp to give Militates the bad news. 

So, without reinforcements, Militates waged a brilliant attack on the Persians by using smaller, faster, lighter units of troops to surround the slower, more numerous Persian troops. The Persians retreated back to their ships.
Turns out that the Spartans arrived later that same day.

Obviously, Militates was pleased with his victory so he dispatched his best runner to bring the good news to Athens — a distance of almost 25 miles. Pheidippides raced to Athens, entered the city, and exclaimed, “Nike!” (which means “victory”) — I’m pretty sure the shoe company had heard this story…. but — then Pheidippides collapsed and died.
The modern marathon was established in Pheidippides’s honor.
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When I was in Vietnam, due to lack of any reliable telephone service, we all had multiple radios in our houses and ones we carried with us. I was on several “official” radio nets, but the relatively small number of “common” guys had their own private net — the Whiskey Net…. with call signs like Jack Daniels, Johnny Walker, Old Grandad, etc. One of these days I’ll get around to posting some Whiskey Net stories.

But — back to today’s story…. My first trip to Can Tho (located near the mouth of the Mekong Delta, south of Saigon) turned out to be pretty interesting. I went down to repair a piece of equipment in the communications center of the American Consulate and to consult with a fairly high-ranking ARVN general about upgrading their communications in Can Tho. I was assigned an “apartment”  on the ground floor of a four story building across the street from the consulate. And I was given a radio — the consulate’s radio net was the Charlie Net — I was assigned the call sign Charlie Ten.

I had just barely walked into my apartment the first night, when the sound of exploding ordnance caught my attention. There was the first explosion, then a second, and a third….  my newly acquired radio started squawking and hissing continually. People were asking if anybody knew what was going on, and it seemed like no one did. From the sounds, I figured it must be a mix of mortars and rockets — but there didn’t seem to be any letup in the shelling. The radio was blaring things like, is everybody alright and what’s happening? Then suddenly, I heard, “Charlie Ten. Get up on the roof. We need damage reports.” In case you forgot, I was Charlie Ten. The radio was still babbling and I couldn’t make much sense of all the noise. 

Now during a rocket attack, the last place you want to be is in the open up on a roof — you want to be under cover, near the ground. But I was told to go to the roof, so I went to the roof. It looked like about half the city was burning — some of the embers from the fires were falling on the roof — I stamped them out the best I could. The building I was staying in was surrounded by a wall and I could see big crowds of people approaching from the direction of the fires to get away from the shelling. There was an armed guard at the gate in the wall, but I didn’t see how he could do much if the crowd decided they wanted to come in to the courtyard.

So having gone to the roof and assessed the damage, I went back down to my apartment. The radio was still squawking and suddenly I heard the demanding voice of the Base Chief, “Where’s Charlie Ten?” “Anybody know if he’s ok?” I keyed the mike and said, “This is Charlie Ten.” “All’s well here.” The Base Chief, clearly annoyed, said, “Where have you been?” “Why didn’t you report in sooner?”
I made up some story about the door being stuck and I couldn’t get off the roof.
Luckily, I was able to repair the equipment in the consulate and the meetings with the general went well, so my less than acceptable damage reporting was kind of forgiven.
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