By Bonnie Fishman / San Francisco Bay Area Not really. I can’t see my hand in front of my face as we sail on a ferry up the Inside Passage from Sitka to Juneau, Alaska’s state capital. The Inside Passage is a narrow route through the dramatic coast of steep mountain peaks and many small islands. It’s August and we’re experiencing an unseasonably atmospheric river. What does that really mean? Beautiful wilderness vistas of pine tree forests and mountains? Nah, just ceaseless gray rain and fog. I’m glued to the expansive windows, hoping for a glimpse of a bear, a moose, a whale, or a wolf. Nope. I’d take a squirrel at this point. Nada. My husband Bob and I have always wanted to visit Alaska. We’re not cruise people, so I carved out an itinerary traveling around on the large ferries of the Alaskan Marine Highway system. It’s more complicated than boarding a cruise ship, where you don’t have to think about anything except what’s being served at the dinner buffet. But I made it happen. Planning trips is a favorite hobby of mine. We love nature, beautiful vistas and wildlife, so we chose the Alaskan frontier. We landed in Sitka, a town of about 8,000 people on a small island. Other than when tour ships drop off thousands of visitors from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. there isn’t anyone around. Really. What a charming spot, situated right on the ocean surrounded by snow-capped mountains covered with evergreen trees. We stayed in an apartment right on the main street of Sitka. There was only one street light. No one was around and it was summer! What does desolate winter look like around here? The people (when you find them) are very friendly and helpful. The Native American population is made up of members of the Tlingit tribe, who are very much integrated into the town, its businesses, and its schools. Learning about their history and culture was a real highlight. Tlingits still live off the land and sea to a large extent. Many fish, hunt, and forage. I happened upon a wonderful small business, Alaska Pure Sea Salt, owned by Darcy and Jim Michener, a local couple. They accidentally discovered that they could harvest their own sea salt while staying in a remote cabin along the Alaskan Pacific coast. Through years of trial and error, and after creating a proprietary method in 2007 for sanitizing and drying salt right from the Sitka shores. The Micheners have established their company as one of the few American purveyors of natural flake culinary sea salt. Darcy’s delightful shop on Sitka’s main street offers a variety of sea salts infused with natural products. One of her most unusual and popular salts is Sitka Spruce Tip. Other flavorings are vanilla, wild blueberry, and smoked alder. The shop also sells unique salt cellars and gift items. The knowledgeable staff introduces you to all the flavors via a salt tasting. It was very exciting to sample the subtleties among the different infusions. I learned that flake salt is made up of pyramid shape crystals while coarse salt is a cube. There is nothing added to sea salt as there is to table salt, so it has a pristine clean taste. When I travel to new places, I try to identity the flavor profiles and common ingredients that show up in restaurants. Let’s say you eat something with tomatoes, garlic, basil, and Parmesan. You think Italian. Alaska seemed to be devoid of specific seasonings and foods, other than fish, seafood, and reindeer, and forageable produce such as mushrooms, fiddlehead ferns (in spring), and wild berries. I really couldn’t get a handle on what Alaskan food tasted like. When I was in Santa Fe, N.M. last month, I knew where I was because the flavors were quite specific to that region. Here in Alaska, not so much. I would sum it up by saying it’s “earthy” or “from the sea”. After spending time tasting the different infused flake sea salts in Sitka, I chose a steak entrée to highlight them in today’s recipe. Keep in mind, that flake salt is a finishing salt so it can be enjoyed on salads, vegetables, and desserts. When seasoning steak, I start with coarse salt. Just before serving, I finish with the flake salt. I’m using the steak of all steaks, tenderloin filets, but feel free to substitute the steak cut that you prefer. I also am using button mushrooms. You may choose to use portobello or crimini, for example. I just HAD to do some roast potatoes with it, the whole meat and potatoes thing! Go out and buy some flake sea salt if you don’t already have it in your pantry. Tell us here at The Insider in your saltiest language about your culinary experience! Spicy Beef Tenderloin Filet with Mushrooms Yield: 4-6 servings 4-6 6 oz. beef tenderloin filets Marinade rub: 2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil 2 tsp. minced garlic 1 1/2 tsp. coarse salt 1 1/2 tsp. fresh ground black pepper 1 1/2 tsp. chili powder Sauce: 2 slices bacon, chopped fine 1/2 medium onion, chopped fine 6-8 oz. button mushrooms, diced into 1/4” pieces 3 garlic cloves, minced 1/8 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes 1 c. chicken stock 2 Tbsp. fresh chopped parsley 1 Tbsp. pure maple syrup 1 Tbsp. fresh lime juice Mix the marinade ingredients together in a small dish. Rub thoroughly on both sides of the filets. Marinate for 1 hour at room temperature or up to 4 hours in the refrigerator. Preheat oven to 400°. Heat a large heavy skillet, preferably cast iron, over moderately high until hot. Add the filets. Sear on both sides for about 2 minutes per side, or until nicely browned. Put the steaks in a shallow roasting pan; reserve. Turn skillet down to moderate heat. Add the bacon and cook until the fat runs and the bacon is cooked but not crisp. Drain off as much fat as possible, leaving about 2 tablespoons. Add the onions to the bacon. Cook until the onions are tender. Add the mushrooms, garlic, and red pepper flakes. Cook for 5 minutes. Pour any collected juice from the meat into the skillet. Put the beef in the oven. Add the stock to the mushroom sauce. Bring to a boil; reduce for 3 minutes. Add the parsley, maple syrup, and lime juice. Adjust the seasoning. Remove steaks when desired doneness. (See chart below.) Use an instant-read thermometer if desired. Put a filet on each dinner plate. Cover with the mushroom sauce. Sprinkle with additional parsley garnish. Serve at once. Steak Doneness: Temperature: Medium rare 130-135° Medium 135-145° Medium well 145-155° Well done 155° + Bonnie Fishman attended the Cordon Bleu Cookery School in London. Later, she owned and operated Bonnie’s Patisserie in Southfield, Mich. and Bonnie’s Kitchen and Catering in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. She has taught cooking for over 35 years and created hundreds of recipes. She is now living in Northern California.

One film journalist’s stream-of-consciousness cinematic journey through the pandemic, Part 97 By Laurence Lerman / New York City Three weeks ago, on August 1, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that it was “shelving” the release of Batgirl, a $90 million film adaptation of the famed DC Comics character. The shelving of the movie, or “canceling,” to use a buzzier term, means that it will not premiere on any of the studio’s platforms—neither theatrically nor on its leading streamer HBO Max. The powers that be at Warner Bros. Discovery, the media and entertainment conglomerate that was formed as a result of the merger of Discovery, Inc., and WarnerMedia in April, announced their decision as Batgirl directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah were nearing the end of post-production work on the film. Batgirl stars rising talent Leslie Grace in what is (was?) her second movie, following a turn in the critically acclaimed 2021 film version of In The Heights, Lin Manuel-Miranda’s Broadway musical. The film also features J.K. Simmons, Brendan Fraser and Michael Keaton, who reprises his role of Batman, whom he last played in 1992’s Batman Returns. Reportedly, Warner Bros. Discovery was dubious about a costly theatrical rollout for the nearly finished $90 million film, and equally unsure about a streaming release due to the crowded streaming landscape. Canceling any kind of release of the film and taking a tax write-down might be the best way to recoup costs, or so the studio is probably thinking. Hollywood was abuzz over the announcement, with studio insiders claiming that the decision to cancel Batgirl was not driven by the quality of the film or the commitment of its creative team, but rather the studio’s goal to create DC Comics features on a blockbuster scale. Initially budgeted at $75 million and unofficially slated for release on streamer HBO Max (the budget shot up to $90 million due in part to Covid-related delays and protocols), Batgirl was never intended for a major global theatrical release, according to reports in the industry trade papers, and had turned into a bigger risk than they anticipated. Whatever the initial intentions for the film may have been, the decision for the cancellation appears to be primarily driven by business reasons rather than creative or quality factors. A number of theories have been floated, and just as many criticisms leveled. The fall of Batgirl is as high-profile a shelving as I’ve seen in decades, but it pales next to 1972’s The Day the Clown Cried, the Holy Grail of shelved films as it is one of the only ones that movie connoisseurs have been clamoring to get a glimpse of for nearly five decades. The unreleased Swedish-French co-production directed by and starring actor/comedian Jerry Lewis tells the story of a washed-up German circus clown during World War II who is imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he is ultimately used by the camp’s commandant to assist in leading Jewish children to their deaths in the gas chamber. Principal photography for this truly bizarre Holocaust drama began in the summer of 1972, but the producers ran out of money before completing the film. Other rights and payment problems quickly emerged and Lewis eventually ended up paying the production costs to finish shooting the film with $2 million of his own money. But threats of lawsuits, breach of contract accusations and other legal complexities overtook everything, leading Lewis to grab a rough cut of the film (the studio retained the entire film negative) to ensure that it wouldn’t be lost. Though Lewis, who died in 2017, initially vowed the film would be released in America after it was edited and then shown at the Cannes Film Festival in May, 1973, his opinion reportedly changed after he saw the finished product "I was ashamed of the work, and I was grateful that I had the power to contain it all, and never let anyone see it,” Lewis stated in a 2013 online Q&A published on Yahoo. “It was bad, bad, bad…" But even though Lewis insisted that The Day the Clown Cried would never be released, he later donated an incomplete copy of the film to the Library of Congress in 2015 under the stipulation that it would not be released for 10 years (until June, 2024). Stills and snippets of the film have surfaced here and there over the years—the goodies always seem to pop up!—but the thought of seeing the title The Day the Clown Cried on a movie-house marquee in a couple of years would truly be shocking. Or maybe it’ll be on one of the streamers. HBO Max, perhaps, where it can share a double-bill with Batgirl if that shelfie ever sees the light of day. Actor/comedian Harry Shearer claims to have seen a cut of The Day the Clown Cried in 1979 and wrote about it in 1992 in Spy magazine. What he had to say could be the final word on a film whose very name and plot description summons up unfathomable images. “This movie is so drastically wrong, its pathos and its comedy are so wildly misplaced, that you could not, in your fantasy of what it might be like, improve on what it really is,” he wrote. “’Oh My God—that’s all you can say.” While the shelving of completed films or ones that are near completion is a rarity, it’s definitely more common to hear about releases being postponed or delayed for legal reasons. The pandemic has been the most common reason for a slew of postponements over the past two-and-a-half years, but Batgirl is the first fully-shot film to be shelved (for now) since the 2018 biographical drama Gore, a Netflix production starring Kevin Spacey as the writer Gore Vidal. Gore was co-written and directed by veteran filmmaker Michael Hoffman (The Last Station, Soapdish) and as fate would have it, Spacey wrapped shooting on the film just a few weeks before first being accused of sexual harassment and sexual assault in the fall of 2017. A month after those allegations were raised, Netflix severed its ties with Spacey completely, firing him from House of Cards, the hit Netflix series in which he starred, and dropping the all-but-completed Gore. Adding a dash of unseemly humor to the situation, Gore reportedly contained scenes of Spacey’s Vidal attempting to seduce younger men and a graphic scene involving two transgender sex workers. Not the kind of material that would have helped matters, considering the sexual charges leveled at Spacey, which include four charges involving men. Around the same time, a similar fate befell the release of 2017’s I Love You, Daddy, which was directed, written, and edited by its star, comedian Louis C.K. The movie was scheduled to be released in theaters on Friday, November 17. But on November 9, the New York Times published a story in which five women described incidents of C.K.’s sexual misconduct, one involving the comedian blockading woman in his room, taking off his clothing and then “performing” inappropriate actions on himself. The very next day, film distributor The Orchard announced that it was canceling the release of C.K.’s new movie. As with Gore, the subject of the movie undoubtedly played a role in The Orchard’s swift decision: I Love You, Daddy is about a New York writer-producer (C.K.) who grows concerned when his 17-year-old daughter (Chloë Grace Moretz), becomes romantically involved with a 68-eight-year-old filmmaker (John Malkovich), who also happens to be the father’s own idol. While the film has sneaked its way out over the years via online torrent files, bootleg DVDs and underground screenings—and garnered generally positive reviews!—I Love You, Daddy has never officially been released. And it doesn’t look like it will be any time soon, though it was reported that C.K. purchased the film’s global distribution rights back from The Orchard a month after its shelving. For her part, co-star Chloë Grace Moretz, who was 19 years old when she acted in the film, told Variety in 2018 that she thinks the movie should “just kind of go away.” “I don’t think that it’s a perspective or a story that needs to be told in this day and age, especially in the wake of everything that’s come to light,” she added. There have been a handful of similar film casualties over recent decades, primarily shelved for business reasons. Black Water Transit, a 2007 crime thriller directed by Tony Kaye (American History X), and the 2012 comedy Killing Winston Jones starring Richard Dreyfuss and Danny Glover are the two most notable examples. Then again, just exactly how notable are such shelvings? There’s the obvious disappointment of the cast and crew involved in the canceled films’ production, which they were presumably paid for. But for audiences that weren’t anticipating these films—if they even knew of their existence—they are, sadly, collateral damage in a high-risk business. Laurence Lerman is a film journalist, former editor of Video Business--Variety's DVD trade publication--and husband to The Insider's own Gwen Cooper. Over the course of his career he has conducted one-on-one interviews with just about every major director working today, including Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, Kathryn Bigelow, Ridley Scott, Walter Hill, Spike Lee, and Werner Herzog, among numerous others. Once James Cameron specifically requested an interview with Laurence by name, which his wife still likes to brag about. Most recently, he is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the online review site DiscDish.com.

Fred Plotkin, a pleasure activist and passionate Italy and culinary expert, speaks each Friday with leading people in the arts FRED PLOTKIN is one of America’s foremost experts on opera and has distinguished himself in many fields as a writer, speaker, consultant and as a compelling teacher. He is an expert on everything Italian, the person other so-called Italy experts turn to for definitive information.  Fred discovered the concept of "The Renaissance Man" as a small child and has devoted himself to pursuing that ideal as the central role of his life. In a “Public Lives” profile in The New York Times on August 30, 2002, Plotkin was described as "one of those New York word-of-mouth legends, known by the cognoscenti for his renaissance mastery of two seemingly separate disciplines: music and the food of Italy." In the same publication, on May 11, 2006, it was written that "Fred is a New Yorker, but has the soul of an Italian."

By John Rolfe / Red Hook, N.Y. Pardon me if I sound sexist, but there was a time when I believed that women were inherently superior to men. I’d witnessed more than enough boneheaded behavior by members of my gender (I plead guilty in some cases) to think that a woman’s mature, intelligent, nurturing, responsible and stabilizing influence was sorely needed in many areas of life, politics especially. Sadly, I have been proven wrong by the Republican Party’s distaff division. Don’t get me wrong. Women deserve a full, robust role in the affairs of the nation and there are many who are doing a fine job. It’s just that ongoing events have served to remind me that no group of human beings has a monopoly on virtue. The case of Liz Cheney brought this fact into stark relief. Though I disagree with many of the Wyoming congresswoman’s conservative views, I admire her courage and integrity in standing up to her dangerously unhinged party and its villainous leader at great cost. It’s a sad commentary that Cheney was soundly rejected by her state’s GOP primary voters in favor of Harriet Hageman, an attorney who conveniently switched from being an opponent of Donald Trump in 2016 to an unabashed supporter who calls him “the greatest president of my lifetime.” The GOP is now overrun by appalling women who make an election denier like Hageman — notorious for her work against environmental protection — look tame. We can start with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, the Bellatrix Lestrange of American politics. Not a day goes by without her issuing some kind of wildly ignorant, bizarre and inflammatory comment. Who can forget: “Not only do we have the D.C. jail which is the D.C. gulag, but now we have Nancy Pelosi’s gazpacho police spying on members of Congress, spying on the legislative work that we do, spying on our staff and spying on American citizens.” Or her claim that wildfires in California had been started by space lasers controlled by Zionists. Or her open call for an overtly Christian nationalism that embraces fascism. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado is not much better. With the country awash in gun violence, she saw fit last year to have her kids proudly pose with rifles for a Christmas photo. She has also said, "The church is supposed to direct the government, the government is not supposed to direct the church. I'm tired of this separation of church and state junk." Lovely. It’s only one of our country’s founding principles. Then we have Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, who has transformed herself from a reasonable moderate into a reliable lackey for Trump. Stefanik zealously defends Trump’s every questionable action, including his likely illegal possession of highly classified documents that were the target of the FBI’s recent search of his Mar-a-Lago estate. “If the FBI can raid a U.S. President, imagine what they can do to you,” Stefanik tweeted, conveniently ignoring the fact that it is long-established procedure that the FBI can search anyone if it has probable cause to believe a crime has been committed and a proper search warrant has been secured. But never mind. Let’s sow some more misinformation that is likely to incite violence against law enforcement personnel. Further down this unsavory totem pole we have Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who recently derided President Biden with a malaprop tweet: "From June to July, fentanyl seizures were up 203% at the southern border. Biden's open border is crippling your community." And lest we forget, their Big Mama Whack-a-Doodle prototype, Sarah Palin, is back in play, having advanced in a primary to run for Alaska’s lone seat in the House. There’s also an alarming viciousness to be found in right-wing media mouthpieces like Laura Ingraham and Anne Coulter. Ingraham has gone as far as mocking the injuries and suffering of officer Michael Fanone of the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police, who was injured in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. This from a supposed advocate of backing the blue. Coulter has called outspoken widows of 9/11 victims “harpies” and “witches.” "I've never seen people enjoy their husbands' deaths so much," Coulter wrote in her book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism. Outspoken, confrontational female politicians on the left — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in particular — are regarded by the right as boogeywomen, and you may have strong negative feelings about them. But there’s a difference between advocating for particular policies and making garden-variety political statements that assail one’s opponents and supporting efforts to overturn a certified election without legal or even truthful grounds and undermine the rule of law. That any ostensibly rational, mature adult would continue to stoke the flames of ignorance, anger and civil unrest for personal gain is a grave tragedy in these troubled times. That any woman would worship at the altar of Donald Trump, given his infamous “grab ’em by the pussy” statement on an Access Hollywood video, the accusations of sexual misconduct by 26 women, and his countless sexist remarks) is astounding and depressing. But we have Arizona’s female gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake hailing Trump’s BDE (big dick energy). “To be a handmaiden of Trump and get a little pat on the head from Trump is not a leadership move,” former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-VA) told Time.com while referring to Elise Stefanik, who is regarded in the GOP as a rising star. “It’s embarrassing. It’s sad.” Again, I’m not saying there aren’t honorable women in politics or the Republican Party. And pardon me if I sound sexist again, but my own sainted mother used to tell me that the female is the fiercest of the species. Mom may well have been right. It’s just sad to see so many of them of the Republican variety vying to be the most dangerously stupid as well. John Rolfe is a former senior editor for Sports Illustrated for Kids, a longtime columnist for the Poughkeepsie Journal/USA Today Network, and author of The Goose in the Bathroom: Stirring Tales of Family Life. His school bus drivin’ blog “Hellions, Mayhem and Brake Failure” is parked on his website Celestialchuckle.com (https://celestialchuckle.com) with the meter running.

By Andy Borowitz August 17, 2022 CHEYENNE, WYOMING (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump became enraged after a visibly inebriated Rudolph Giuliani held a press conference in which he called the G.O.P. primary in Wyoming “rigged” and demanded a recount. Trump had been celebrating the defeat of his nemesis, Representative Liz Cheney, when Giuliani popped up on TV, claiming “widespread fraud and abuse” in the Wyoming vote. Giuliani, wobbling from side to side and slurring his words, made the allegations in the parking lot of Ritz-Carlton Total Cattle Feed, an establishment on the outskirts of Cheyenne. As the former mayor of New York spewed his tirade, Trump threw a bottle of ketchup at the TV screen, turning Guiliani’s televised image into a hideous mélange of dripping red condiment and dark-brown hair dye. Reportedly, the former President is now hoping that Georgia’s probe of the 2020 election will result in legal jeopardy for his erstwhile attorney. “Lock him up,” Trump was heard muttering.

By Judi Markowitz / Huntington Woods, Mich. On March 13th, 2020, my adult daughter, Lindsay, became a hostage of coronavirus. For someone with special needs, this date marked an imprisonment that had far reaching effects. Lindsay’s day program, New Gateways, in Waterford, Mich., closed along with every other program in the state that serves the developmentally challenged community. Covid had tentacles that were tearing at the delicate fabric of Lindsay’s world. How do you explain this absurdity to your daughter who is severely mentally and physically challenged? What can be discussed to make sense of the incomprehensible? The van that arrived at our house every morning to take Lindsay to her program suddenly was not there. Vince, the driver, who Lindsay looked forward to seeing daily, vanished. The people that she interacted with on a daily basis were no longer visible. It was as if The Twilight Zone were airing a new episode and we were caught in it. Lindsay was born with Marshall-Smith syndrome in 1979. According to the sparse medical literature at the time, it was a death sentence. There were only two other children documented with this syndrome and they both died by the age of 20 months. Marshall-Smith syndrome is an extremely rare condition that causes multiple anomalies (birth defects), one of which is advanced bone age. Lindsay’s bones were aging faster than her chronological age. At two months her bones were those of a three- to five-year-old child. What chance did she have to grow, let alone live? There were also distinct facial features which those children shared–large eyes, a small, underdeveloped chin, an upturned nose with a flat bridge, and a prominent forehead. The list of birth defects was inconceivable to me as a new mother and comprehending it even more unfathomable. As the months passed, it became apparent that one of the biggest medical issues Lindsay faced was her airway. It was very narrow and producing lethargy for Lindsay. She was a noisy breather, and it was determined that she needed a tracheostomy. This decision was made when she was 13 months old and labeled a “failure to thrive” baby. As Lindsay adjusted to this new device in her throat, I adjusted to the new routine of suctioning and clearing her airway. She spent nine weeks in the pediatric ICU where she finally began to blossom. Lindsay had an radiant smile, and it was a relief to see her so animated. Being able to breathe was the key that unlocked her potential, and we were determined that Marshall-Smith syndrome was not going to take her from us. Every credible type of therapy became part of her new routine. At three months Lindsay was able to receive early intervention services. Physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy (this did not go well because the tracheostomy kept Lindsay from making any sounds), and swim therapy. All food had to be pureed to avoid choking. Fortunately, when Lindsay was four years old, the trach was removed. We could finally hear her voice and the nice sounds she projected in order to communicate. Lindsay eventually was able to say a few words and “hey good” was her mainstay. We then started feeding therapy so she could eat solid foods. As time progressed, Lindsay learned to ambulate with the help of a walker, which enabled her to become more independent. She navigated well for many years until her scoliosis made her feel off balance and insecure. Lindsay quickly discovered that she could use us as her walker to get to her intended destination. Lindsay is now 43 years old, and the tracheostomy definitely saved her life. She is believed to be the oldest person in the world with Marshall-Smith syndrome. There are about 30 other people currently known to be living with this condition and they have varying abilities. Lindsay requires 24/7 assistance with her daily living routine, and she receives great care and love from our family. But Lindsay’s world was shattered when the pandemic began, as every single thing she looked forward to ceased. People living with developmental disabilities function best when there is structure and routine, but Lindsay’s life was upended. The residual effects crept in slowly. Soon she came to realize that we were no longer able to go to her favorite restaurants, movies, taking long walks in the mall (I would push her wheelchair as she delighted in the sights), or visit with family and friends. Even her physical therapy stopped. Every vestige of her former life was gone. My husband and I decided that each day we would take Lindsay on long car rides. We were probably among the few people still using our cars just as much as before the pandemic. While most people were contacting their insurance companies to inform them of a change in mileage for leisure activities, we were filling up the tank regularly. Our weekly consumption was unchanged. Living in Michigan there are many inland lakes, and we were definitely on a mission to visit them. The surrounding neighborhoods and attractive homes were stimulating, and Lindsay liked these adventures. Some days we would comment that we could have driven to Toronto with all the miles we were racking up. Many times, we would end our excursion by stopping at the grocery store. We used to like going to the Dairy Queen, but none were open anymore. Since ice cream and cookies are one of Lindsay’s favorite treats, we had to be sure we were well stocked since merchandise was constantly flying off the shelves. Going into the market was no longer an option for Lindsay, so she would sit in the car with one of us while the other went into the store. She used to anticipate the seat belt being unbuckled and the door opening for her to be lifted into her wheelchair. Now, Lindsay had to look out the window and watch one of us disappear into the store. I know this was extremely frustrating for her. As the weather improved this spring, we could finally walk around the neighborhood. When greeted by neighbors, naturally standing six feet apart, Lindsay could no longer reach out to hold a hand or hug anyone. Since Lindsay does not have expressive language, physical contact is a means for her to show affection. I watched with sadness as she tried to inch closer to people, as they pulled away. But nonetheless, being outside and enjoying the fresh air was uplifting. We would either push Lindsay in her wheelchair or walk with her. Lindsay needs assistance walking and, in the evenings, she developed a routine to soothe her soul. After dinner, Lindsay would walk around the house with me or Jeffrey for about forty-five minutes to an hour. We have a perfect setup for her, which enables Lindsay to move easily from one room to another. Her path is structured like a mini track. This new, prolonged walking exercise was an outlet for my daughter. She was venting emotionally about this new routine. Lindsay had no other means to express her displeasure with the current situation and pounding the pavement, or wood floors had a calming effect. As this routine continued for many months, Lindsay’s attitude changed, and her irritation was heard clearly. Just because Lindsay does not speak doesn’t mean she can’t vocalize her anger. At first these sounds were low and tempered, but as time moved forward, Lindsay’s irritation with this new normal mounted. She began to scream at unpredictable times. One minute she could be happy and affectionate, and then her mood would change abruptly. My hair was her main target, and she could grab it with uncanny speed and twirl it around her small hands with profound accuracy. I would attempt to talk her down from the ledge, and sometimes I was successful, and other times Lindsay was in another zone all together. And then, as if that weren’t enough, she added in grinding her teeth. Lindsay would look at us afterward as if to say, “I know you hate this, but I’m really pissed off.” My husband Jeffrey would intervene and Lindsay paid attention to him. Typically, this stopped the craziness. The meltdowns were infrequent, until they weren’t. Interestingly, these performances, as Jeffrey and I called them, were basically reserved for me. However, Lindsay then took the show on the road. She started to slide out of her wheelchair while in motion, and she was buckled in. We could walk with her and then she would lift her legs and we had to hold her midair under her arms to keep her safe. She thought of every irritant to let us know her anger about our upside-down Covid-dominated world. Fourteen months after the pandemic began, Lindsay was able to return to her day program. She was delighted to ride the van once again and see all the people she missed. Lindsay was definitely sick of being with us. However, these new behaviors began to creep into her daily routine at the program. They told us they had never seen her in such a state before this. The residual effects of the coronavirus, sad to say, keep marching forward. Modifying Lindsay’s disposition is a work in progress. When the mask mandate was no longer required for entering stores, Lindsay was reintroduced to all her favorite haunts. One by one, Jeffrey and I took LIndsay back to the places she had been locked out of for so long. She was not able to wear a mask due to respiratory issues and a resulting inability to keep it on for more than five minutes. So, she was placed in double jeopardy and thus had to wait longer than most people to re-enter the land of the living. Last February. our family decided to take a trip to Florida. Lindsay enjoyed air travel, and we were all looking forward to a relaxing trip. However, the relaxation component would only come to fruition when we were clear to fly with Lindsay unmasked. Just one more hurdle that Covid presented. The airlines were still following CDC guidelines and masks were mandatory. Lindsay could only obtain permission to fly without a mask once we had purchased our tickets, appeared at the airport on the day of travel, and were interviewed by a medical professional via the phone. This presented a major issue–what if they denied Lindsay? I contacted Delta and made the rounds with ticketing, supervisors, managers, and then onward to the executives. They informed me that, given Lindsay’s medical history, she would most likely be permitted to fly without a mask, but they couldn’t guarantee it. I asked if they could meet with Lindsay prior to the date of our trip, of course, once we purchased the tickets. The answer was a resounding “no.” So, we had a dilemma. We could secure the tickets, pay for our house rental and roll the dice with Delta’s medical staff, or we could drive and not have to worry about this insanity. However, driving from Michigan to Florida in the winter was not ideal. We gambled and won: We purchased the tickets and were able to use them. Florida was a nice respite! Looking back, like most people. I never could have imagined our world changing so drastically because of the pandemic. But Lindsay has ultimately thrived during this difficult passage and surpassed all the predictions that were laid at our feet so long ago. She has wonderful brothers who encourage and love her unconditionally. Her sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins all treat her with the utmost respect and understanding. I knew when Lindsay was quite young that I had to write about all of our experiences. Even before Covid. whose spark hadn’t been ignited yet. I wrote about our family, encounters with the medical community, the school systems, societal scrutiny, and our daily triumphs and disappointments in a memoir, The View From Four Foot Two, which was published in December, 2013. But the story hasn’t ended, and Lindsay’s journey continues. This is another chapter in her story. Judi Markowitz is a retired high school English teacher of 34 years. She primarily taught 12th grade and had the pleasure of her three sons gracing her classes. In addition, she taught debate, forensics, and Detroit film. Judi has four adult children and seven wonderful grandchildren. She is married to Jeffrey Markowitz, whom she met in high school. Judi grew up in Oak Park, Mich. which had a stellar school district, with excellent teachers. The city provided activities for all–and there were even sidewalks. Judi moved to Huntington Woods as an adult, which is a half mile from her childhood home. She wanted the same experience for her children as she had growing up, and Huntington Woods provided that. The View from Four Foot Two is Judi’s first book.

Opinion by Jeffrey D. Sachs | CNN.com August 19, 2022 Editor's Note: Jeffrey Sachs is a professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia Universit and president of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. His most recent book is "The Ages of Globalization" (Columbia University Press, 2020). The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author; view more opinion on CNN (CNN) - The Democrats are celebrating the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act over unified Republican opposition, claiming that the legislation is a historic breakthrough. Sadly, it's not. Though the new legislation takes some steps in the right direction on climate and drug prices, it falls far short of what is needed. The Democrats, with control over the White House and both houses of Congress, squandered the historic opportunity for a progressive breakthrough. There are four big reasons to be skeptical of the Democratic Party's self-congratulation. 1. Despite its title, the new legislation will have essentially no effect on reducing inflation during the next few years. Today's inflation, running at 8.5% year-over-year in July, results from economy-wide imbalances of supply and demand. Even the small steps on drug pricing in the new law -- allowing Medicare to negotiate the prices of some drugs as of 2026 -- will have no effect on current inflation, and only tiny effects later. One study at Penn Wharton, for example, expressed "a low level of confidence that the legislation would have any measurable impact on inflation." Calling the legislation the "Inflation Reduction Act" was a marketing ploy, not reality. 2. Most of President Joe Biden's original social agenda was left out of the legislation. Unlike the first draft of the legislation (under the original banner of "Build Back Better"), the new law stripped out most of the social programs in Biden's original program, essentially because conservative Democrats blocked all of the proposed tax hikes on the rich that would have paid for such programs. The Dems abandoned earlier proposals for universal pre-kindergarten and subsidized child care, paid family and medical leave, free community college and expanded child tax credits, among other initiatives. 3. Democrats once again sided with campaign donors and lobbyists over everyday voters. Biden's initial plan called for at least partly reversing the unjustified giveaway to the rich in former President Donald Trump's 2017 corporate tax cut. It also called for raising personal income taxes on the richest Americans and on ending some egregious tax loopholes. These tax objectives were abandoned when conservative Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona protected the rich rather than their own constituents. They went with the campaign contributions, not the voters. With no meaningful tax increases on the rich, the federal government will continue to run chronic and irising budget deficits as a share of GDP, even with the legislation stripped of important social initiatives. Federal outlays as a share of GDP are rising over time as the US population ages, health care costs rise and as money continues to be squandered on record military budgets and overseas wars. Direct outlays on wars since 9/11, including the current war in Ukraine, have cost $2.3 trillion and many trillions more in other costs, such as veterans' care. The long upward march of the debt-to-GDP ratio will therefore continue. When former President Ronald Reagan assumed office in 1981, the federal debt was 24.6% of GDP. He sold the American people on the idea that they could have their social programs and tax cuts at the same time. Yet the real result has been a 40-year build-up of public debt. In 2021, the debt was 96.9% of GDP. According to the most recent projection of the Congressional Budget Office, the debt will grow to a staggering 185% of GDP in thirty years on the current tax and spending plans. 4. The much-touted climate actions will deliver modest results despite the headline promises and bravado. Here's a hint why: Sen. Manchin, owner of two coal companies and darling of the oil lobby, let the bill pass. He knows the truth that the Democrats won't admit. This bill will not come close to putting the US or the world on the path to energy decarbonization. According to much-touted claims, the new law will direct nearly $370 billion to clean energy and will reduce US greenhouse gas emissions as of 2030 by around 40% below the 2005 level. Yet this claim is easily misunderstood. The Princeton study used to support it actually asserts that the legislation will reduce emissions by around 15% of 2005 emissions, with the remaining 27% reduction as of 2030 predicted to occur based on pre-existing trends, even without the new legislation. Yet there is more worrying news. The Princeton study also comes with the following small print: "Several constraints that are difficult to model may limit these growth rates in practice, including the ability to site and permit projects at requisite pace and scale, expand electricity transmission and CO2 transport and storage to accommodate new generating capacity, and hire and train the expanded energy workforce to build these projects." Put more simply, the actual reduction of emissions under the new law is likely to fall short of the widely advertised 40% relative to 2005. What the US truly needs is a decarbonization plan involving public land use, the national transmission grid, limits on new deployments of fossil-fuel infrastructure and more -- not simply a set of tax incentives, as provided in the new law. The new legislation includes no energy plan, and the Supreme Court recently struck down the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to put forward any such plan. In short, despite some steps for a safer climate -- almost all revolving around tax credits for clean energy -- we are almost surely stuck with an inadequate pace of decarbonizing the energy system. Global warming is likely to hit very dangerous levels, and US efforts to cajole other countries to decarbonize faster will be stymied by insufficient action at home. Yes, the legislation marks a small step forward. It is better than not having it. But Biden certainly shouldn't have handed his signing pen to Sen. Manchin as a mark of honor. It was Manchin, with Sinema and probably Democratic Party conservatives behind the scenes, who scuttled the country's once-in-a-generation chance for the progressive change we need to achieve a prosperous, fair and sustainable society. We could have had a progressive breakthrough of the kind that Biden proposed last year but later abandoned, when conservative members of his party sided with the rich and powerful lobbies rather than the interests of the working people of this country. A staggering 85% of Americans say that the country is on the wrong track. We are often told that this is because America is divided. The real reason is that our political system represents narrow interests, not those of the vast majority of Americans. Alas, there is far too little to celebrate in this regard with the new legislation. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/19/opinions/inflation-reduction-act-falls-short-sachs/index.html

The Insider: Hi Charles! You’re on vacation now, right? Charles: Hi Andrea! Yes, I am The Insider: Where are you? Charles: On Fire Island in the Pines The Insider: Nice! How long have you been out there? Charles: Four days so far The Insider: Is that a vacation from work? Charles: Yes, a vacation from daily life The Insider: In Manhattan, you sure need that! Charles: There is great sense of sky. Being by the ocean, talking walks and just taking in the view. The light is amazing as the day changes from morning till evening. Sunset and the full moon are pretty amazing. The Insider: Last week, you talked a bit about being gay in NYC. Fire Island for decades has been a gay mecca. Is that part of your interest in being there? Charles: Yes, I do enjoy the gay presence here. Being at ease with the fact that it feels safe here to be oneself. The Insider: It sounds like a wonderful place to spend time! Is it crowded out there now? Charles: Yes, it’s high session. Everyone is taking as much summer as they can get. The weekend is much busier than weekdays. The Insider: Are most of the people visiting there from NYC, or do people come from all over? Charles: It’s a big New York crowd but you do get people from all over. The Insider: As we talked about last week, I’m curious about how the gay community is being impacted by monkeypox and fear of it. Is that a big topic of conversation this year? Charles: Yes, everyone is talking about it. The conversation is about if you got the vaccine, how to get it and so on. The Insider: I read that monkeypox vaccines are now available on Fire Island. Have you seen that? Charles: Yes, I got one this weekend. The Insider: Wow! Tell me about that. Charles: Northwell Health is out here giving it. The Insider: Was it free? Charles: Yes. The mainland has made it a priority to bring the vaccine to Cherry Grove and The Pines The Insider: Where did you go to get the vaccine? Charles: They had a setup at the community center here on the island The Insider: Was it just like getting the Covid vaccine, or was it different in any way? Charles: The same. Everyone was very pleasant The Insider: That’s good! Were there long lines? Charles: There were about seven people in front of me. It went quickly. I think a lot of people out here have been diligent about getting the vaccine. The Insider: That’s interesting, of course, because there are millions of people who refuse to take a Covid vaccination. Do you know gay men who say they won’t take it? Charles: I don’t. Some people want to just be safe and get the vaccine The Insider: What have you heard about how well the vaccine is supposed to work? Charles: I heard an interview on NPR that there is not significant data. So, I guess we will see what happens in a month or so if cases keep rising. The Insider: Do you know anyone personally who has gotten monkeypox? Charles: A friend of mine has it and they are in isolation and it was not a pleasant experience The Insider: In what way not pleasant? Charles: It was painful The Insider: The lesions? Charles: From the discussions I’ve heard online, the lesions sound very painful The Insider: I’m sure many people out there well remember the AIDS crisis. Is this affecting the community in the same way? Charles: There is a comparison but you’re not going to die from it and there’s a vaccine now. The AIDS crisis was devastating to this community The Insider: Very true. Do you get a sense being on Fire Island that monkeypox is making gay men less sexually active? Have you heard people say that it’s not worth the risk? Charles: Yes, I have and I feel that way. The Insider: So this will affect your own lifestyle? Charles: I will wait to get the second dose and assess the situation. Right now, I’ll enjoy the view and the flirtation! The Insider: LOL. Is it two doses? Charles: Yes. Four weeks until the second dose The Insider: Have you also heard men say, “Life’s short! Monkeypox is not going to ruin my life!” Charles: Oh, yes--people are doing their thing! Low Tea at the Blue Whale is the popular activity in the harbor from 6-8 p.m (photo credit: Charles) The Insider: Do tell! Charles: People are hooking up and having sex. They have the vaccine and feel safe The Insider: I guess some people even did that during the AIDS crisis. Charles: Yes, no one knew what was going on at the time. People thought you were getting it from the water on Fire Island. Urban legends. The facts now are saying, you can get monkeypox from having anonymous sex. The Insider: That seems like a good reason to slow down! Charles: Yes. But the flesh is weak and there are lots of temptations all around! I think a few weeks ago people were in a panic but I think that eased up with the vaccine. People like to party and enjoy good times here. The Insider: Where does most of the partying go on? Charles: In town, there are venues, bars and dance spaces. People gathering in groups, drinking, dancing, pool parties. There are also house parties. It’s part of the culture here. The Insider: Have you been to Fire Island many times? Charles: I’ve been coming for over 20 years The Insider: Really! Has it changed a lot? Charles: No, I think it’s the same. The people change but the same stuff happens. Real estate is more expensive The Insider: Great! I’m done being nosy! Charles: Haha The Insider: Of course, I’m not. I would love to know more, but I’m not going to be obnoxious! Charles: You’ll have to wait for my memoir. 🤣 The Insider: LOL. I bet it will be fabulous! Well, enjoy your time out on Fire Island! Thanks so much for talking with us. Much appreciated! Charles: You’re welcome. The sun finally came out and I’m heading to the beach! Read Our First Interview with Charles here

Fred Plotkin, a pleasure activist and passionate Italy and culinary expert, speaks each Friday with leading people in the arts FRED PLOTKIN is one of America’s foremost experts on opera and has distinguished himself in many fields as a writer, speaker, consultant and as a compelling teacher. He is an expert on everything Italian, the person other so-called Italy experts turn to for definitive information.  Fred discovered the concept of "The Renaissance Man" as a small child and has devoted himself to pursuing that ideal as the central role of his life. In a “Public Lives” profile in The New York Times on August 30, 2002, Plotkin was described as "one of those New York word-of-mouth legends, known by the cognoscenti for his renaissance mastery of two seemingly separate disciplines: music and the food of Italy." In the same publication, on May 11, 2006, it was written that "Fred is a New Yorker, but has the soul of an Italian."

By Andy Borowitz August 12, 2022 PALM BEACH (The Borowitz Report)—Amid fears that he might have possessed information helpful to building nuclear weapons, Donald J. Trump sought to reassure Americans by declaring that he “couldn’t even build a wall.” “This business of me building nuclear weapons is a joke,” he said. “You look at my record. I had four years to build a wall and I didn’t get it done. I put my record of not building things against anyone’s.” Further reassuring the public, Trump added, “From what I understand about building nuclear weapons, it involves a lot of reading. There’s math, there’s science. Not gonna happen.” Trump said that if “there’s anyone you should worry about building nukes, quite frankly, it’s Joe Biden.” “Sleepy Joe has been on a building tear,” he said. “He’s building roads, he’s building bridges, he’s building microchip factories. This should never be allowed to happen in our country.”

By Laurence Lerman / New York City Actress Anne Heche’s talents were apparent from her very first role in 1987. It was dual roles, actually, as good and evil twins Vicky and Marley in the TV soap opera Another World. But as critics and fans noted at the time, the “good” and “evil” characters were more complex, more shaded, than the ones usually seen in daytime dramas. Heche would always add layers to her characters, even the less tricky ones, just to keep things a little off-center, a little more surprising. It’s that aspect of her identity that made last week’s news even more upsetting. Heche passed away on Sunday, Aug. 14, from injuries she sustained after crashing her car into a home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Mar Vista nine days earlier. Left in a coma and in “critical condition” following the fiery crash, Heche was declared “legally dead” from a severe brain injury before being taken off life support at Los Angeles’s West Hills Hospital on Sunday. Heche’s four years as a fan favorite on Another World led to a number of featured and leading roles in the Nineties in such films as the John Grisham-based legal thriller The Jury (1996), the indie rom-com Walking and Talking (1996), the lava-filled disaster epic Volcano (1997), the mob thriller Donnie Brasco (1997), the political satire Way the Dog (1997) and Gus Van Sant’s remake of Hitchcock’s Psycho (1998), where she makes the mistake of taking a shower in the wrong place at the wrong time. Clearly, the actress was on the fast track. It was in the late Nineties that Heche enjoyed her highest profile in Hollywood. A lively and attractive screen presence, she seemed comfortable in all genres. And even if the films in which she starred were rarely referred to as “Anne Heche movies,” she was able, effective and natural in them. From the popular horror-mystery franchise launcher I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) to the romantic tropical adventure Seven Days Seven Nights (1998) opposite Harrison Ford, Heche was never a grandstander but rather an assured and poised performer. Even when she appeared in such outlying projects as the bizarre erotic thriller Wild Side (1995) with Christopher Walken and Joan Chen and the made-for-Showtime cult favorite Women in Prison (1994), she was always at ease and seemed like she belonged there. The grandstanding, if one wants to describe it as that, came in the form of Heche’s personal life and private affairs, which became the stuff of tabloid fascination just as her career was kicking into high gear. It began when Heche became romantically involved with comedian/TV star Ellen DeGeneres in 1997, a relationship that garnered widespread media coverage. In 2000, Heche left DeGeneres for Coleman “Coley” Laffoon, a cameraman she met the previous year on DeGeneres’s stand-up comedy tour. They had a son, Homer, in 2002. Five years later Laffoon filed for a divorce, which was finalized in 2009. Since that time, Heche has spoken openly of the problems she encountered during her relationship with DeGeneres, which Heche said was the first time she had ever been with a woman. (Previously, she was in relationships with comedian/actor Steve Martin and musician Lindsay Buckingham.) The Heche-DeGeneres pairing was one of the highest-profile lesbian relationships of its day. Notably, Heche announced to the New York Post’s Page Six celebrity gossip column that her “bosses” told her not to take her then-girlfriend DeGeneres to the 1997 Volcano premiere. “I was told if I took Ellen, I would lose my Fox contract,” Heche told Page Six. Heche didn’t lose her escort for the evening—nor did she lose her contract. Heche also had a known history of mental problems. Following her separation from DeGeneres in August, 2000, Heche drove from Los Angeles to Cantua Creek, Calif., and clad in only a bra and shorts, knocked on a stranger’s door and asked if she could take a shower. The homeowner didn’t realize that Heche was under the influence of alcohol and drugs and allowed it, but after the actress wouldn’t leave after a half hour, the police were called. The actress later told the deputies that she was “God” and was “going to take everyone back to heaven in a spaceship.” She continued in that vein over the next couple of years on various televised interviews. In her 2001 memoir Call Me Crazy, she claimed she was “Celestia,” the daughter of God and the half-sister of Jesus Christ (the Ohio-born Heche’s actual middle name is Celeste). She also said that as Celestia, she had had contacts with extraterrestrial life forms. Most disturbing was Heche’s insistence that she was “insane” for the first 31 years of her life, a state that was triggered by being sexually abused by her father during infancy and childhood. Heche’s estranged mother denied these allegations. For the 20-plus years following the publication of her memoir, Heche’s career continued to be one of consistence and quality, albeit in projects that were not quite as conspicuous. Her personal life showed signs that she was on a healthier track, led by a long-term relationship with Canadian actor James Tupper, with whom she had a second child, her son Atlas. In 2002, Heche made her Broadway debut in a production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Proof, followed up by her receiving a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the Lifetime Movie Grace’s Choice. The same year, she acted opposite Alex Baldwin in the Broadway revival of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s 1932 play Twentieth Century, for which she received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress. There were a handful of other well-received films, like the 2011 ensemble comedy-drama Cedar Rapids and the 2017 biographical drama My Friend Dahmer, in addition to more television. Between 2006 and 2022, Heche acted in leading, featured or recurring roles in nearly a dozen TV series, including the critically embraced romantic comedy-drama Men in Trees (2006-08) and audience favorite Chicago P.D. (2018-19). She even hoofed it across the stage in the 29th season of Dancing with the Stars (2020). Heche was never honored with any of the big show business awards before her demise, though she did pick up a Daytime Emmy and a pair of Soap Opera Digest Awards for Another World. But her record of steady, respectable and at times outstanding work, particularly during what seems to have been some exceptionally fraught years, is a fine accomplishment in a profession filled with potential landmines. I've always enjoyed watching Anne Heche and with the upcoming release of her remaining projects, the upcoming HBO series The Idol and the big screen action-adventure Supercell, there will at least be a few more pleasures to enjoy. Laurence Lerman is a film journalist, former editor of Video Business--Variety's DVD trade publication--and husband to The Insider's own Gwen Cooper. Over the course of his career he has conducted one-on-one interviews with just about every major director working today, including Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, Kathryn Bigelow, Ridley Scott, Walter Hill, Spike Lee, and Werner Herzog, among numerous others. Once James Cameron specifically requested an interview with Laurence by name, which his wife still likes to brag about. Most recently, he is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the online review site DiscDish.com.

By Bonnie Fishman / San Francisco Bay Area It was plum season here in the Bay Area in June. These Californians don’t take this lightly. They are all in when growing their plums. Or should I say, when the plums flourish on their own? Plums are one of those crops that you can have enough of a good thing. Fortunately, friends and neighbors are generous about spreading the wealth. “Please come over and pick some plums.” “Could you use some plums, like a bushel?!” Or there’s the “dive bomb” method: bags of plums show up on your front porch, seemingly from nowhere. Plums originated largely in Japan and China, and in Europe. In general, plums in the U.S. are from Asian descent, and are juicier and hardier, and consumed mostly as raw fruit. In Europe, they tend to be of European origin: these include prune, damson, and Victoria plums. Eastern Europeans drink Slivovitz, a brandy, which is derived from fermented plums. The Italian prune plum is used to make, you guessed it, prunes. Plums have appeared throughout art history, music, and folklore. Most notable is Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite with The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Let’s not forget the nursery rhyme about Little Jack Horner who stuck his thumb in a pie to pull out a plum. There’s Eduardo Manet’s 1877 oil painting “La Prune” (The Plum) featuring a woman in a cafe hovering over a plum soaked in brandy. The Japanese artist Ogata Kōrin used plum blossoms as a subject on his mid-19th century screens titled “Red and White Plum Blossoms.”. Plums have been hybridized with other fruits, some of them becoming quite popular. The most common combo is Japanese plums and apricots, called pluots or plumcots. They come in various colors and sizes. I personally think they taste like plums, but that’s me. A more exciting hybrid is a sweet cherry and an Asian plum called cherry plums. They are a little larger than cherries and are quite sweet. They have a short growing season and can be hard to come by. Fortunately, we have a few of those trees growing in our “produce aisle.” This is our affectionate name for an old horse trail, now a walking path, which meanders through the neighborhood across the street from us. This one path has a plethora of different fruit and nut trees. The rule around here is that if the tree branch hangs over the trail, it’s free to pick. Last summer, my sister, Marcia and I picked so many cherry plums that we made a massive amount of jam. One hot June afternoon, I was invited over to our friends Marilyn and Barry’s home, to pick plums from their old tree. The tree’s trunk was almost split apart but this baby kept right on growing plums, year after year. “Please take them. Take more!” See what I mean? Hobbyist fruit tree owners end up with more fruit than they need or can use, unlike commercial farmers. Now that I had the plums in my kitchen, the decision of what to do with them was the question of the day. I will admit, plums are my least favorite stone fruit–raw that is. I prefer them in baked goods or savory dishes. They add such a luscious character to cakes, strudels, chutneys and jam. Raw, in my opinion, not so much. They are beautiful though. Often the color of the flesh is nowhere near what the skin shows outwardly. After stewing up some plum barbecue sauce for grilled chicken, I went the dessert route. Today’s recipe is a very simple hazelnut kuchen (German for cake), often served with coffee. The beauty of this recipe is that you can interchange the nuts (toast them before using for added flavor!) or change the fruit to peaches, nectarines, apples, or pears depending on the season. I happen to love it with plums. Your plum assignment is to share your own plum recipe with The Insider! Fresh Plum Kuchen Yield: 10 servings 12-15 ripe, firm plums, cut in half and pitted 3 oz. butter, room temperature 1 c. + 2 Tbsp. sugar 2 lg. eggs, room temperature 1 1/2 c. flour 1 Tbsp. baking powder pinch of salt 2/3 c. milk 1 tsp. vanilla 1/2 c. toasted ground hazelnuts cinnamon sugar for garnish Preheat oven to 350°. Spray an 8-9” springform pan with pan release. Reserve. Using an electric mixer, blend together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Mix in the eggs, one at a time, making sure that the first one is fully incorporated. Toss together the flour, powder, and salt.  Blend the dry ingredients into the batter in thirds, alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with the dry. Add the vanilla. Fold in the nuts by hand using a rubber spatula. Pour batter into prepared pan.  Arrange the plum halves, cut-side up, in concentric circles, beginning with the outer row.  Sprinkle the plums liberally with cinnamon sugar. Bake for about 40 minutes until the cake is set. When fully cooled, remove the cake from the pan.  Serve at room temperature or warm with vanilla ice cream. Bonnie Fishman attended the Cordon Bleu Cookery School in London. Later, she owned and operated Bonnie’s Patisserie in Southfield, Mich. and Bonnie’s Kitchen and Catering in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. She has taught cooking for over 35 years and created hundreds of recipes. She is now living in Northern California.