Hi everyone and welcome to the blog. This week is definitely singing in the changes, commemorating the birthdays of two singing pioneers Dean Martin and Sir Tom Jones, amongst other pioneering events during history. This week’s recipes are old favourites with a twist, they are My Fish Pie, Barbequed Fajita Steak, and Vegetable Tagine. The herb of the week is Angelica.
Dean Martin, (June 7, 1917 – December 25, 1995), born Dino Paul Crocetti, was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin was born in Steubenville, Ohio, to Italian parents. His father was from Abruzzo, Italy, and his mother was an Italian of part Neapolitan and part Sicilian ancestry. At the age of 15, he was a boxer who billed himself as "Kid Crochet". His prize-fighting years earned him a broken nose (later straightened), a scarred lip, and many sets of broken knuckles (a result of not being able to afford the tape used to wrap boxers' hands). Of his twelve bouts, he would later say "I won all but eleven." For a time, he roomed with Sonny King, who, like Martin, was just starting in show business and had little money. It is said that Martin and King held bare-knuckle matches in their apartment, fighting until one of them was knocked out; people paid to watch. Eventually, he gave up boxing and began working as a roulette stickman and croupier in an illegal casino behind a tobacco shop where he had started as a stock boy. At the same time, he sang with local bands. Calling himself "Dino Martini" (after the then-famous Metropolitan Opera tenor, Nino Martini), he got his first break working for the Ernie McKay Orchestra. He sang in a crooning style influenced by Harry Mills and in the early 1940s, he started singing for bandleader Sammy Watkins, who suggested he change his name to Dean Martin.
He worked for various bands throughout the early 1940s, during which time he flopped at the Riobamba, a high class nightclub in New York, when he succeeded Frank Sinatra in 1943. He met comic Jerry Lewis at the Glass Hat Club in New York, where both men were performing. Martin and Lewis formed a fast friendship which led to their participation in each other's acts and the ultimate formation of a music-comedy team. Their official debut was at Atlantic City's 500 Club on July 24, 1946, but didn’t go down too well. The owner warned them that if they did not come up with a better act for their second show later that night, they would be fired. Huddling together in the alley behind the club, Lewis and Martin agreed to "go for broke" and to improvise. Martin sang and Lewis came out dressed as a busboy, dropping plates and making a shambles of both Martin's performance and the club's sense of decorum until Lewis was chased from the room as Martin pelted him with bread rolls. They did slapstick, reeled off old vaudeville jokes, and whatever else popped into their heads. This time, the audience were doubled over in laughter. This success led to a series of well-paying engagements on the Eastern seaboard, culminating in a triumphant run at New York's Copacabana. Patrons were convulsed by the act, which consisted primarily of Lewis interrupting and heckling Martin while he was trying to sing, and ultimately the two of them chasing each other around the stage and having as much fun as possible. The secret, both said, is that they essentially ignored the audience and played to one another.
The team made their TV debut on the very first broadcast of CBS’ Toast of the Town programme (later called the Ed Sullivan Show) on June 20, 1948. A radio series followed in 49, the same year Martin and Lewis were signed by Paramount as comedy relief for the film My Friend Irma. Their agent negotiated for them one of Hollywood's best deals: although they received only a modest $75,000 between them for their films.
In Dean & Me, Lewis calls him one of the great comic geniuses of all time. But the harsh comments from the critics, as well as frustration with the formulaic similarity of Martin & Lewis movies, which producer Hal Wallis stubbornly refused to change, led to Martin's dissatisfaction. He put less enthusiasm into the work, leading to escalating arguments with Lewis. They finally could not work together, especially after Martin told his partner he was "nothing to me but a dollar sign". The act broke up in 1956, 10 years to the day from the first official teaming. Martin's first solo film, Ten Thousand Bedrooms (1957), was a box office failure. He was still popular as a singer, but with rock and roll surging to the fore, the era of the pop crooner was waning.
Never totally comfortable in films, Dean Martin wanted to be known as a real actor. Though offered a fraction of his former salary to co-star in a war drama, The Young Lions (1957), he was ecstatic to receive the part because it would be a dramatic showcase with the two most intriguing young actors of the period Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift, from whom he could learn from. Tony Randall already had the part, but talent agency MCA realized that with this movie, Martin would become a triple threat: they could make money from his work in night clubs, movies, and records. Martin replaced Randall and the film turned out to be the beginning of Martin's spectacular comeback. Success would continue as Martin starred alongside Frank Sinatra for the first time in Some Came Running (1958). By the mid '60s, Dean Martin was a top movie, recording, and nightclub star, while Lewis' film career declined. He was acclaimed for his performance as Dude in Rio Bravo (1959) alongside John Wayne, teaming up again with him in The Sons of Katie Elder (1965).
As a singer, he emulated the styles of Harry Mills, Bing Crosby, and Perry Como until he developed his own and could hold his own in duets with Sinatra and Crosby. Like Sinatra, he could not read music, but he recorded more than 100 albums and 600 songs. His signature tune, "Everybody Loves Somebody", knocked The Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" off the number-one spot in the United States in 1964. This was followed by the similarly-styled "The Door is Still Open to My Heart", which reached number six later that year.
As his solo career grew, he and Frank Sinatra became close friends. In the late 50s and early 60s, Martin and Sinatra, along with friends Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford, and Sammy Davis, Jr. formed the legendary Rat Pack, so called by the public after an earlier group of social friends, the Holmby Hills Rat Pack centred on Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, of which Sinatra had been a member. The Martin-Sinatra-Davis-Lawford-Bishop group referred to themselves as "The Summit" or "The Clan" and never as "The Rat Pack", although this has remained their identity in the popular imagination. The men made films together, formed an important part of the Hollywood social scene in those years, and were politically influential (through Lawford's marriage to Patricia Kennedy, sister of President John F. Kennedy). The Rat Pack were legendary for their Las Vegas performances. Their act (always in tuxedo) consisted of each singing individual numbers, duets and trios, along with much seemingly improvised slapstick and chatter. In the socially-charged 1960s, their jokes revolved around adult themes, such as Sinatra's infamous womanizing and Martin's legendary drinking, as well as many at the expense of Davis's race and religion. Davis famously practiced Judaism and used Yiddish phrases onstage, eliciting much merriment from both his stage-mates and his audiences. It was all good-natured male bonding, never vicious, rarely foul-mouthed, and the three had great respect for each other. The Rat Pack was largely responsible for the integration of Las Vegas. Sinatra and Martin steadfastly refused to appear anywhere that barred Davis, forcing the casinos to open their doors to African-American entertainers and patrons, and to drop restrictive covenants against Jews.
In 1965, Dean Martin launched his weekly tv series, The Dean Martin Show, which exploited his public image as a lazy, carefree boozer. There he perfected his famous laid-back persona of the half-drunk crooner suavely hitting on beautiful women with hilarious remarks that would get anyone else slapped, and making snappy if slurred remarks about fellow celebrities during his famous roasts. The TV show was a success. He prided himself on memorizing whole scripts – not merely his own lines. He disliked rehearsing because he firmly believed his best performances were his first. The show's loose format prompted quick-witted improvisation from Martin and the cast. On occasion, he made remarks in Italian, some mild obscenities that brought angry mail from offended, Italian-speaking viewers. This provoked a battle between Martin and the NBC censors, who insisted on more scrutiny of the show's content. Despite Martin's reputation as a heavy drinker — a reputation perpetuated via his vanity license plates reading 'DRUNKY' — he was remarkably self-disciplined. He was often the first to call it a night, and when not on tour or on a film location liked to go home to see his wife and children. More often than not, Martin's idea of a good time was playing golf or watching TV, particularly westerns – not staying with Rat Pack friends into the early hours of the morning.
By the early 1970s, The Dean Martin Show was still earning solid ratings, and although he was no longer a Top 40 hit-maker, his albums continued to sell steadily. His name on a marquee would guarantee casinos and nightclubs a standing-room-only crowd. He found a way to make his passion for golf profitable by offering his own signature line of golf balls. Shrewd investments had greatly increased Martin's personal wealth; at the time of his death, Martin was reportedly the single largest minority shareholder of RCA stock. Martin even managed to cure himself of his claustrophobia by reportedly locking himself in the elevator of a tall building and riding up and down for hours until he was no longer panic-stricken. Martin retreated from show business. The final season of his variety show in (73–74) would be reworked into one of celebrity roasts, requiring less of Martin's involvement. After the show's cancellation, NBC continued to air the Dean Martin Celebrity Roast format in a series of TV specials through 1984. In those 11 years, Martin and his panel of pals successfully ridiculed and made fun of these legendary stars including the likes of: Ronald Reagan, Hugh Hefner, Kirk Douglas, Bette Davis, Johnny Carson, Monty Hall, and many others. For nearly a decade, Martin had recorded as many as four albums a year for Reprise Records. That stopped in November 1974, when he recorded his final Reprise album - Once In A While, released in 1978. His last recording sessions was for Warner Brothers Records, an album entitled The Nashville Sessions, released in 1983.
He seemed to suffer a mid-life crisis. In 1972, he filed for divorce from his second wife, Jeanne. A week later, his business partnership with the Riviera was dissolved amid reports of the casino's refusal to agree to Martin's request to perform only once a night. He was quickly snapped up by the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, and signed a three-picture deal with MGM Studios. Less than a month after his second marriage had been legally dissolved, Martin married 26-year-old Catherine Hawn on April 25, 1973, a Beverley Hills hair salon receptionist. They divorced November 10, 1976. Eventually, Martin reconciled with Jeanne, though they never remarried. He also made a public reconciliation with Jerry Lewis on Lewis' Labor Day Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon in 1976. Frank Sinatra shocked Lewis and the world by bringing Martin out on stage. As Martin and Lewis embraced, the audience erupted in cheers and the phone banks lit up, resulting in one of the telethon's most profitable years. Lewis reported the event was one of the three most memorable of his life. Lewis brought down the house when he quipped, "So, you working?" Martin, playing drunk, replied that he was "at the Meggum" – this reference to the MGM Grand Hotel convulsed Lewis. This, along with the death of Martin's son Dean Paul Martin a few years later, helped to bring the two men together. They maintained a quiet friendship but only performed together again once, in 1989, on Martin's 72nd birthday. His final Vegas shows were at the Bally's Hotel in 1990. Martin's last two TV appearances both involved tributes to his former Rat Pack members. In 1990, he joined many stars of the entertainment industry in Sammy Davis, Jr's 60th anniversary celebration, which aired only a few weeks before Davis died from throat cancer. In December 1990, he congratulated Frank Sinatra on his 75th birthday special. By early 1995, Martin had officially retired from performing.
A life-long smoker, was diagnosed with lung cancer at Cedars Sinai Medical Centre on 16 September 1993. He died of acute respiratory failure resulting from emphysema at his Beverly Hills home on Christmas morning 1995, at the age of 78. The lights of the Las Vegas Strip were dimmed in his honour.
Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE (born 7 June 1940), known by his stage Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer, particularly noted for his powerful voice. Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records. Tom Jones was born in Treforest, Pontypridd in South Wales. His parents were Thomas Woodward, a coal miner, and Freda Jones. Despite appearances his family was mainly of English descent, with both of his paternal grandparents being born in England and his maternal grandmother born in Wales to English parents. Most of his ancestral roots appear to lie in Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Somerset. He began singing at an early age: he would regularly sing at family gatherings, weddings, and in his school choir. Jones is dyslexic and he did not like school or sports, however, he was able to gain confidence through his singing talent. At age 12, he was struck down by tuberculosis. Many years later he said, "I spent two years in bed recovering. It was the worst time of my life." During convalescence, he could do little else but listen to music and draw. In March 1957, he married his high school girlfriend, Melinda Trenchard. The couple had a son named Mark, who was born the month following their wedding. To support his young family, Jones took a job working in a glove factory and was later employed in construction.
His bluesy singing style developed out of the sound of American soul music, his early influences being blues and R & B greats like Little Richard, Solomon Burke, Jackie Wilson, and Brook Benton. Jerry Lee Lewis’s music also influenced him from a rock and roll perspective. In 1963, he became the front man for Tommy Scott and the Senators, a Welsh beat group. They soon gained a local following and reputation in South Wales. In 64, Tom Jones recorded several solo tracks with producer Joe Meek, who took them to various labels, but with little success. Later that year, Decca producer Peter Sullivan saw Tommy Scott and The Senators performing in a club and directed them to manager Phil Solomon, but their partnership was short-lived. The group continued to play gigs at dance halls and working men's clubs in South Wales. One night, at the Top Hat in Cwmtillery, Wales, Jones was spotted by Gordon Mills, a London-based manager originally from South Wales. Mills became his manager, and took the young singer to London. He contrived the stage name, "Tom Jones," which not only linked the singer to the image of the title character in Tony Richardson's hit film, but also emphasised Jones' Welsh nationality.
Many record companies found Jones' stage presence, act, and vocal delivery too raucous and raunchy. Eventually, Mills got Jones a recording contract with Decca. His first single, "Chills and Fever," was released in late 1964. It didn't chart, but the follow-up, "It's Not Unusual" became an international hit. The BBC initially refused to play it, but the offshore pirate radio station Radio Caroline promoted it. The heavily orchestrated pop arrangement perfectly meshed with Jones' swinging, sexy image, and in early 1965, "It's Not Unusual" reached number one in the UKand the top ten in the US. During 65, Mills secured a number of movie themes for Jones to record, including the themes for the films What's New Pussycat? and Thunderball, culminating in him being awarded the Grammy for Best New Artist for 1965. In 1966, his popularity began to slip somewhat, causing Mills to redesign the singer's image into a more respectable and mature crooner. Tom Jones also began to sing material that appealed to a wider audience, such as the big country hit "Green, Green Grass of Home". This strategy worked and sending him back to the top of the charts in the UK and hitting the Top 40 again in the USA. For the remainder of the decade, he scored a consistent string of hits on both sides of the Atlantic. In the early 1970s, he had a number of hit singles, including "She's A Lady", "Till", and "The Young New Mexican Puppeteer", but by the mid 1970s his popularity declined.
After Jones' long-time manager Gordon Mills died of cancer on 29 July 1986, Jones' son Mark became his new manager. Mark recognised that Jones was incorporating modern music in his live shows and suggested that he should start to record songs from a fresh genre and leave country music behind. In 1987, Jones re-entered the singles chart with "A Boy From Nowhere", which went to #2 in the United Kingdom. The following year, he covered Prince's "Kiss" with The Art of Noise. The song was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic, reaching #5 in the UK and #31 in the US. The video for "Kiss" was seen in heavy rotation on both MTV and VH1, and it won the MTV Video Music Award for Breakthrough Video. In 1992, he made his first appearance at the UK's Glastonbury Festival, and in 1993, he appeared as himself on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, a television sitcom, and in animated form for an episode of The Simpsons. Tom signed with Interscope Records in 1993 and released the album The Lead And How To Swing It. The first single, "If I Only Knew," went to #11 in the UK. In 1999, Jones released the album Reload, a collection of cover duets with artists such as The Cardigans, Natalie Imbruglia, Cerys Matthews, Van Morrison, Mousse T, Portishead, The Stereophonics, and Robbie Williams. The album went to #1 in the UK and sold over 4 million copies worldwide. Five singles from Reload hit the UK top 40.
Tom has remained married to his Linda since 1957, despite his many well publicised infidelities. His philandering once led her to beat him black and blue. She snapped after reading about one infidelity in a newspaper, she punched and kicked him, but he did not fight back. He moved to the United States in 1974, buying Dean Martin's former mansion in the East Gate, Old Bel Air in Los Angeles. In 2009, after 35 years in America, he revealed that he and Linda were planning to move back to the United Kingdom. "I've had a great time living in Los Angeles," Jones said, "but after all these years, we think now is the time to move home."
My first recipe is My Fish Pie, original recipe first appeared in Olive Magazine Dec 2006.
Serves 4, takes 10mins to prepare and 45mins to cook.
1 tbsp x Butter
1 tbsp x Flour
250ml x Semi-Skimmed Milk
350g x Skinless White fish and/or Salmon Fillets, cut into cubes
500g x Floury Potatoes, peeled and cut into even-sized chunks
50g x Cheddar, grated (optional)
Heat oven to 200Cfan,180C/gas 6. Melt the butter and stir in the flour, let it foam for a minute and then gradually whisk in the milk, and add the bay leaf. Bring to a simmer and cook for 2-3 minutes or until the mixture thickens. Fold in the fish, prawns and parsley, and cook gently for 5 minutes or until the fish has cooked through. Tip into a warmed pie dish.
Boil the potatoes for 20 mins. Drain, season and mash. Use to top the pie, starting at the edge of the dish and working your way in - push the mash right to the edges to seal. Fluff the top with a fork, sprinkle with cheese (if using), then bake for 30 mins.
My next recipe is Barbequed Fajita Steak, courtesy of GoodFood Magazine July 2011.
Serves 4, takes 5mins plus marinating to prepare and 8mins plus resting to cook.
4 x Beef Steaks, preferably rib-eye (approx. 250g each)
8 x Flour Tortillas, to serve
150ml x Soured Cream (optional)
For The Marinade
6 x Limes, juice of
2 tbsp x Olive Oil
4 x Garlic Cloves, crushed
2 tsp x Dried Oregano
4 tsp x Ground Cumin
2 tsp x Freshly Ground Black Pepper
Small Bunch of Coriander, finely chopped
Mix all the marinade ingredients in a bowl. Lay the steaks in a shallow dish or tray, then pour over the marinade. Turn to coat the steaks all over with the mix, then allow to stand for at least 1 hour, or cover and chill for up to 24hrs. Heat the barbeque. When it is hot, wipe any excess marinade from the steaks, then cook for 3mins each side for medium-rare or longer if you prefer it more cooked. Allow the steak to rest for 5mins, then cut into thick slices.
To assemble the fajitas, warm 8 large flour tortillas on the barbeque. Spread with mashed black beans, then pile slices of steak, some onions, peppers, guacamole and soured cream if you like. Roll it up and enjoy.
Herb of the week – Angelica
Angelica is a genus of about 60 species of tall biennial and perennial herbs in the family Apiaceae, native to temperate and subarctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere, reaching as far North as Iceland and Lapland. They grow to 1-3 m tall, with large bi-pinnate leaves and large compound umbels of white or greenish-white flowers. Some species are grown as flavouring agents or for their medicinal properties. The most notable of these is garden angelica (A. archangelica), which is commonly known simply as angelica. Natives of Lapland use the fleshy roots as food and the stalks as medicine. Crystallized strips of young angelica stems and midribs are green in colour and are sold as decorative and flavoursome cake decoration material, but may also be enjoyed on their own. The roots and seeds are sometimes used to flavour gin. Its presence accounts for the distinct flavour of many liqueurs, such as Chartreuse.
It is used to treat indigestion, anaemia, coughs and colds; it has antibacterial and anti-fungal properties. It is said that a tea made from the young leaves is good for reducing tension and nervous headaches and that a decoction made from the roots is soothing for colds and other bronchial conditions. Reputedly crushed leaves freshen the air in a car and may help travel sickness.
My final recipe is Vegetable Tagine, this is my vegetable version of a Chicken Tagine recipe that first appeared in Olive Magazine April 2010.
Serves 4, takes 30mins to prepare and 1hr to cook.
1 x Red Onion - chopped
2 x Garlic Cloves – crushed
1 tbsp x Root Ginger – grated (or a tablespoon of Ground Ginger)
1 tsp x Ground Cumin
2 tsp x Smoked Paprika
1/2 tsp x Mild Chilli Powder
Ground Black Pepper
Sea Salt (use the salt sparing and to taste after cooking, as some vegetable stock can be salty)
1 x Tin of Chopped Tomatoes
1 x Tin of Chickpeas
1 x Tin of Pinto or Borlotti Beans
1 x Courgette, chopped into small chunks
1 x Small Butternut Squash (or Sweet Potato, if the squash is not within your budget) – chopped into cubes
700ml x Hot Organic Vegetable Stock
2 x Cinnamon Stick
A Handful of Fresh Coriander – chopped
Olive Oil or Fry Light (if on a diet)
Fry the onion, garlic and ginger in a sauce pan until soft. Add the cumin, paprika and chilli powder, cook for 1 minute. Then add the courgettes and squash/sweet potato, cook for 5mins ensuring all the chunks are coated in the spice mixture. Tip in your chopped tomatoes and hot stock, tuck in the cinnamon sticks and simmer for an hour. Stir occasionally to ensure that the mixture doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan. Once cooked, add the chopped coriander before serving.
This meal, alone will feed 2 people, however served along with a rice dish, it will be sufficient to feed a family of 4.
Events being remembered this week are Roquefort Cheese was first created 4th June 1070. We sadly saw the commemorate the assassination of Robert F Kennedy 5th June 1968. On the 7th June 1975 Sony introduced the Betamax videocassette recorder and one of the world’s first PCs, Apple 2, goes on sale on the 5th 1977.The Girl Scouts were created on the 10th June 1915 and 6the June 1944 saw the start of the D Day Landings. Other famous birthdays being remembered this week are on the 7th of June – Prince; 8th June - Kanye West, Nancy Sinatra, Joan Rivers; 9th June - Johnny Depp, Michael J Fox; 10th June - Judy Garland, Elizabeth Hurley.
Apologies for the lengthy blog, unfortunately some subjects can’t be edited or cut short.
If you have enjoyed my blog, or have tried out the recipes I have included and wish to comment, please feel free to comment using the comment button or by visiting my guestbook, all comments and suggestions will be gratefully received.
