5 Questions. 5 Answers.

A little more than a week ago, my mate Al tasked me with answering his “5 Questions.” As he put it:

"The rules dictate that I tag a few more so... eeny meeny.. I pick Blanco, Scott and Squeezy and set five random questions for you to answer. Pookie, you didn't think I'd forget you huh? Jump on board poppet ;)"

As is typical for me, I could not let it stand with a couple of dashed off answers, instead spending too much time in reminiscences and contemplation for thoughtful and deep answers. Well, at least I think I did. I’m happy with them. Without further ado, here they are.

1. What’s your signature dish when cooking?

Actually, I’m a pretty crap cook, but I am a mean baker. For most family occasions, I am the appointed pie-maker. Though I am known best for my pumpkin pie [the secret is Allspice], it’s not my favorite pie to make.

Glazed Strawberry-Raspberry Pie

Crust:
3 cups all-purpose flour, preferably unbleached
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter
1/2 cup or more ice water (or not, I’ll explain later)

• With knives or fingertips, cut batter into dry ingredients as quickly as possible until mix resembles coarse bread crumbs.
  NOTE: I prefer to make a spicier crust. To achieve this, add about 1/2 a teaspoon or more of freshly grated nutmeg or ground cinnamon, cloves, or ginger to the mixture.
• Sprinkle 1/2 cup of ice water over mixture and combine with fork or fingers just until dough holds together.
• If dough seems too crumbly, add more ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time.
  NOTE: I deviate here. I was advised once by my father’s girlfriend’s mother, a blessedly wonderful baker, that more water leads to harder crusts whereas less water makes the crust lighter and fluffier.
• Turn half of the mixture onto a sheet of waxed paper, gather into a ball, and press into a flat disk about 5” in diameter.
• Bring the paper around to enclose the dough and refrigerate for about 15 minutes to relax the dough
• Remove from the refrigerator and place in the middle of waxed paper about 12” square.
• Cover with a second waxed paper sheet.
• Allow to soften for about 5 minutes.
• Roll dough from center towards the edges, reducing pressure as you near the edges, to form a circle about 1/8” thick (Use an empty pie pan as a guide; the dough should be 1-2” larger than the top of the pan).
• Discard the top layer of waxed paper. Invert dough into pan and peel away waxed paper.
• Beginning at the center of pan, work toward edges and up sides, pressing dough lightly into pan with fingertips.
• Cut the edge of pastry so that it hangs about 1” past the outer edge of pan.
• Roll overlap back over itself so that it is even with the edge of pan.
• Chill in refrigerator or freezer for about 30 minutes before baking or filling.

PRE-BAKING

• Brush the inside of the chilled, uncooked crust with lightly beaten egg white to seal the pastry against softening from the filling.
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
• Cut a sheet of baking parchment or foil 2” larger than the diameter of the pie.
• Press the sheet into the pastry shell and fill with pie weights, dry beans or rice (I prefer rice because its provides a flat, even filling).
• Bake until the rim feels set to the touch, about 7-10 minutes.
• Remove and carefully lift sheet and filling from crust.
• Prick bottom and sides of crust in several places with a fork.
• Return to oven and check crust several times during baking, pricking with fork if crust puffs up.
• Cook until crust is golden brown, about 15 minutes longer.
• Position strips of foil around the edge of crusts, if it begins to get too brown.

Filling: 3 cups strawberries
2 cups raspberries
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch

• Place 2 1/2 cups of berries in a large heavy pan and mash with the back of a wooden spoon
• Sprinkle with the lemon juice and stir in the cornstarch and sugar.
• Place over medium-low heat and cook, stirring constantly until the mixture comes to a boil and thickens (about 8 minutes, give or take).
• Remove from heat and cool to lukewarm.
• Slice remaining strawberries and fold them and the remaining raspberries into the cooled berry mixture.
• Spoon into the cooled pie shell.
• Serve at room temperature.
  NOTE: It is best when served with unsweetened hand-whipped whipping cream.

Makes on 9 inch pie.


2. If you had a time machine, but only the ability to jump forward or back 5 times, where would you go in time and why?

01. 1960 Las Vegas, NV during the heyday of the Rat Pack and the filming of the original Ocean’s Eleven. I have a love affair with the Rat Pack and this period of American history. It was a heady mix of entertainment, politics, organized crime and Cold War intrigue. Growing up, I watched nearly all of the Rat Pack movies; Robin and the Seven Hoods, Ocean’s Eleven, 4 for Texas as well as many of their solo efforts.

At that time in Las Vegas, you could go to any of their individual shows and most likely the rest of the crew would show up. The marquees of the hotels at which they were performing as individuals might read “DEAN MARTIN - MAYBE FRANK - MAYBE SAMMY.” They ran the Strip and were instrumental in making Vegas the destination that it is today. Besides, I’ve always thought I’d look sharp in a cerulean blue shark-skin suit with a thin black tie.

02. 1927 Berlin, Germany; Paris France and New York, NY, USA. The world was in a flux of creative energy and economic wealth. In Berlin, the Weimar Republic led to a flourishing of art, music and film. Fritz Lang produced Metropolis in 1927. Two years later, Alfred Doblin published Berlin Alexanderplatz. The Bauhaus movement was in full swing and such luminaries as Carl Jung and painter George Grosz dominated the cultural scene.

Meanwhile, Paris was seeing the rise of the Lost Generation. Writers such as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, John Dos Passos, and T. S. Eliot were inhabiting the Left Bank and producing their seminal works of fiction.

Which leads me to New York and the famous, perhaps infamous Algonquin Round Table. Can you imagine being able to sit at a table in conversation with Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley and Harpo Marx?

03. Roughly from 461 to 429 BC, the “Age of Pericles.” This period in Ancient Greece lasted roughly from the end of the Persian Wars in 448 BCE to either the death of Pericles 429 BCE or the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 BCE. Pericles fostered arts and literature and gave to Athens a splendor which would never return throughout its history. He executed a large number of public works projects and improved the life of the citizens creating the Athenian Golden Age.

To see a society crawl out of the depths of war and rebuild itself into a shining achievement of civilization that would cast a shadow down to our modern day would be a sight to behold. Also, to meet an historical figure of such stature and legend as Pericles would be life-changing.

04. June, 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. Lou Rawls, The Animals, Simon and Garfunkel, Steve Miller Band, Moby Grape, Hugh Masekela, The Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, Ravi Shankar, Buffalo Springfield, The Who, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, The Mamas & The Papas; need I say more? I spent most of my twenties around new and old hippies and I’ve often regretted not having been born early enough to experience the Summer of Love.

05. 1721. To have sailed the Pirate Round at least once in my lifetime would be an enchanting idea. Specifically, in 1721, John Taylor and Oliver La Buse reaped the greatest prize in the history of the Pirate Round with the plunder of the Portuguese East Indiaman Nossa Senhora Do Cabo at Réunion, netting diamonds and other treasures worth a total of about £800,000. I’m sure the celebration that evening was out of control.


3. What’s the most attractive feature, physical or otherwise in a person?

Well, though the question says “person”, I am going to take that to mean someone you are attracted to which, being straight would mean a woman. I’ll admit to my head being turned by an impressive chest or shapely bum, but I think those are just deeply ingrained responses that are innate to our species.

The things that I find enduringly attractive though are features that make a person unique. I’m a bit weird in my preferences, from what I’ve been able to glean from other people. For one thing, I’m absolutely entranced by women with short hair. The shorter, the better. Bald women especially are insanely attractive to me.

Also, I love it when a woman has that distinctive aquiline bump in the bridge of their nose. There is something so antithetical in it to the generic pug nose that the media glorifies. The Roman nose actually serves to make a woman stand out from the crowd rather than blending in to a blurred canvas of blond-haired, blue-eyed monotony.

Lastly, I have a fascination for a woman’s thigh. I suppose it might border on fetishistic. I like a well-developed, muscular thigh; the kind that you might find on a female athlete. Perhaps it’s because I’ve dated collegiate swimmers, softball and soccer (football) players that I’ve been impressed with this preference. Perhaps it is that, in addition to being attractive, this feature evokes a sense of strength and solidity of character.


4. When at high school, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be a writer. Growing up, I was always was always told that my brother was going to grow up to be the artist in the family and I was going to be the writer. It’s a myth that continues to this day. I’ve always had a facility with words and a natural affinity to books and reading so I suppose it was an easy supposition to make. Throughout high school I wrote for, edited and published an underground newspaper with a friend. Because we did all the work ourselves on a Mac, I developed skills with layout and design as well as writing. As it is, I ended up falling into a career in Graphic Design working with my brother. Now, though, I am back to pursuing writing.

This year I joined a group of comic book creators, I am a member of the Comicbook Artists Guild and have been working on several story pitches for comics and graphic novels as well as pursuing more personal writings like this blog. I guess it might still happen. Only time will tell.


5. Where in the world are your 5 all time favourite places and what makes them so special?

01. Lucerne, Switzerland. In 1988 I went on a senior school trip through Europe and one of the stops was in Lucerne. I almost immediately fell in love with the city, the scenery and the pace of life. One of the days that we were there a group of us rented a couple of paddle boats to peddle out to the middle of Lake Lucerne. Before setting off from the dock, we bought some cheese, a round of bread and a bottle of red wine. When we were far enough from shore, we threw our legs over the sides of our two boats, linking them together, and had a picnic lunch as we drifted lazily in circles. It’s a moment of tranquility that stays with me even now some 20 years later.
Part of it may also be due to the looming presence of Mt.Pilatus. I had heard that Mt. Pilatus was supposedly the home of the nine Muses of Greek myth. Though I later found that Mt. Helicon in Greece holds that title, the romantic notion of those legendary women peering down from on high still persists in my imagination.

02. Santiago and Pucon, Chile. In 2000 I spent a month traveling through Chile on a summer ski/snowboarding trip. Since I speak Spanish, getting around and communicating was not a problem. I found that by my second week in Chile I stopped speaking English almost entirely. The trip itself was a guided 10 day affair, but I had befriended our guides. After the last day asked if I could stow some of my gear at their apartment in Santiago and continue exploring the country. I crashed on their floor and passed a few days exploring the city.

Then I hopped a 14 hour bus southbound to Pucon. Pucon is a sleepy little resort town that is dominated by an active volcano close by. The volcano actually has a ski resort on its slopes. There’s nothing quite like slaloming downhill while the crater above you is puffing out steam. For this leg of the trip I was accompanied by Brenda, the girlfriend of our guide Aaron. He had to take the next tour group out, so she was alone in Santiago. Brenda and I got along famously and, if she hadn’t been with Aaron and I didn’t like him so much, I could have easily fallen head over heels for her. One of my fondest memories is of the two of us eating lunch and having a beer at a sidewalk café and practicing our Spanish with each other.

03. Vancouver, BC, Canada. In 1994, I decided on a whim to take a road trip from Los Angeles to Vancouver for a week. This trip was seminal in my life. So many good times, so many great stories came out of this trip. I can’t even begin to recount them. Suffice to say that, though I am a skeptic with most things mystical and spiritual, too many a lucky happenstance and improbable thing happened to completely ignore. In addition to being absolutely gorgeous, there is a mood and a feeling to the city that invites you to settle down. All those things combined lead me to believe that there is something inexpressively important about Vancouver for me.

04. Paris, France. Ah, the City of Lights. I’ve visited Paris four times in my lifetime and each time has been special for me. The last trip was the Fall of 2003. I feel completely at home there, despite not being able to speak the language. I never experienced the fabled rudeness and dismissive attitude for which the French accused. Quite the opposite in fact. Several times I was mistaken for a native and had to embarrassingly stumble through my memorized phrase, “Je ne parle pas francais.” There is a sensuous quality to the city that speaks to my artistic side.

05. Las Vegas, NV. I love Las Vegas. I don’t think I could ever live there, but it is a great getaway. Unlike most, I revel in the utter plasticity and artificiality of the town. Vegas is whatever you want it to be. It’s always in a state of flux. My friends say that there is a definite “Vegas Scott” that comes out whenever I touch ground at the airport. I stand a little taller, lift my chin a little higher and square my shoulders more. I always dress my best when I’m there. In Las Vegas, everyone is a celebrity. If you carry yourself well and treat the locals decently, you can get and get away with almost anything. It’s delightfully dirty to wallow in sin for a weekend and not have to worry. Get a massage. Drink top shelf liquor. Visit a strip club. Eat in a fine restaurant. I like a little spoiling once in a while. I NEED a little spoiling once in a while. Plus the fact that it runs 24 hours a day is a bonus for a night owl like me.

HONOURABLE MENTION: Tehachapi, CA. I could not make a list like this and not include my best mate Patrick’s cabin. He and his wife own this little cabin in the mountains 2 hours outside of Los Angeles at a bout 12,000 feet. I often take weekends off to trek out there with them and just relax. For all intents and purposes, they have no phone, no Cable of Satellite television and very few distractions. We stay up late, sleep in and lounge around. Most of the time we’ll make some cocktails and play cards or backgammon on the deck. In the evenings we cook dinner and will watch a movie or two on DVD. We walk their dogs through the neighborhood and have a cigar or two. Every Winter I head up there with the two of them and his mother-in-law (a fantastic woman in and of herself who has become a good friend). We usually leave the day after Christmas and do not return until after New Years Day. In direct contrast to the jet-set activities of a Las Vegas trip, going up to the cabin is like stepping into a Norman Rockwell painting. It helps me unwind and get my head together. They even refer to the guest bedroom as “Scott’s Room.”


I hope you enjoyed that, Al. I would inflict this on another group of people, but I’m afraid that I don’t have the readership (yet!) to make it worth while. I’m toying with the idea of posting this as a MySpace blog as well, but I rather like the idea of keeping the two trains of thought on different tracks.