Make More Pie

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com

Jessie Burke - former champion fencer, business owner, mother of three, and now-candidate for Multnomah County Commissioner - is one of my favorite Portland people. Courageous, loyal, no-b******t, we’ve worked together, eaten together, maybe not drank together (gotta fix that…) and together watched what was poised to be the next great American city start to crater around 2016 and, to many eyes, reach full catastrophe in 2021, with spikes in homelessness, murder, drug addiction, and citizens taking flight.

"We're really bottoming out. This has become a city run by children," Jessie told me that year, of local politicians equivocating as Portland literally burned.

That Jessie has now set her sites on fixing a host of public safety issues should surprise no one. She spearheaded the revivification of North Portland’s Kenton neighborhood in 2008 - her bakery, Posies, became an anchor tenant on what was then a tractor-trailer corridor - and in 2015, opened the Society Hotel in downtown Portland’s Old Town. A bright anomaly among the area’s many missions, the hotel and its staff now navigate a record number of overdoses and people in mental health crises - Jessie relays several horrifying stories of women in extremis - due in part to Oregon’s experiment with drug decriminalization, and years of political infighting that took precedence over the needs of citizens.

“There’s a lot of ideological posturing rather than the performing of services,” said Jessie, of leadership in conflict with itself. “You cannot live in a society that is all carrots and no sticks, and that’s sort of what we’ve created, we’ve created an incentive-only society.”

Also discussed:

* Dirty dealings at the Olympics

* The time Jessie’s employees would not serve a guy in a MAGA cap

* “I travel a lot to remember what normal is.”

* Why Jessie thinks Portland might be on the hero’s journey

* A naked woman is crying in the street and Portland outreach workers bring her… a cookie?

* What Jessie thinks of former Mayor Sam Adams saying he would nor run against and then, changing his mind

Learn about Jessie’s campaign at jessieburke.com.

This is the first in a series of conversations with candidates running for office in Portland, including the hotly-contested (or not?) race for district attorney, between DA Mike Schmidt (readers of this newsletter know I’ve had lots to stay about him) and Senior Deputy DA Nathan Vasquez. To hear the full episodes and bonus videos, become a paid subscriber or consider making a one-time donation.

Walk-on/off music: “Kid Dynamite” by Matt Welch

Narrated version of this article is up. Totally stealing the “we use every part of the buffalo” from my pal Ethan Strauss at House of Strauss, which my pod partner Sarah Hepola named her favorite Substack of 2023.

A lot of content coming your way, including from Israel, where I will head on the 15th, so many stories, so many people reaching out. Keep sending me your ideas and what you want to know more about. Also, please consider becoming a paid or free subscriber; you can “name your price!” in the Israel Reporting Fund option.

For those following the resignation of Harvard president Claudine Gay, I mean, just wow, or wow on my Twitter feed. Elon Musk is still apparently having a fit about Substack’s introduction of the (Twitter-like) Notes feature, so I cannot drop in the tweets from Conor Friedersdorf and Nikole Hannah Jones; Kmele Foster and Ibram X. Kendi. I can turn to beloved and brilliant friend Kat Rosenfield, who always always adds the honey to the vinegar.

Off to arrange more Israel reporting for you, including popping in for a pre-departure visit with a Druze restaurateur on the Upper West Side, who my journalist’s nose tells me is going to lead to a story in Galilee…

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com/subscribe

Waking up to the news that Hamas attacked Israel and that the country is now at war, I immediately texted my friend Yael Bar tur, who lives in NYC but is home in Tel Aviv visiting with family, a family I know and love.

I had not yet read anything else, but for her tweet below. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow Yael, who will assuredly be posting updates.

Ten minutes before I checked in with Yael I’d gone through the handwritten recipes I have sitting on top of the microwave, to choose what I would write about today. It would be kugel, because it’s delicious and easy; because October is a month of Jewish holidays, and because I had a funny story about the first time I ate it and got the recipe. Also, the last time I made one, it was for a Passover this spring hosted by Yael and her parents. Today, I told Yael I was sending all love and courage and faith, and that overnighting cookies seemed beside the point but…

“Can I have the cookies when I get back?” she wrote.

Of course, I told her, that today’s Pie Talk would be kugel, at which she responded with today’s subtitle: “Pies for peace!”

Cross-posted at Smoke ‘Em if You Got ‘Em, where Pie Talk is a weekly Sunday paid subscriber bonus but considering the day’s events, is free for all. Pies for peace.

Episode notes and recipe:

The Bad Mother: A Novel, by Nancy Rommelmann

Michael Moynihan, yours truly, Yael Bar-Tur and Matt Welch at Israel Supreme Court, 2022

The light in Israel, plus Michael shows appreciation for the Israeli military

Reporting from Israel 2022:

* T-1: Israel

* The Rabbi Offers His Broccoli

* 15 Meals in 36 Hours

* The Olive Trees

* Hebron

* You Don’t Know Anything

* Yad Vashem

Bill Schulz reads at Yael’s family Passover in NYC, 2023

American Playhouse’s Roanoak, on which I met my daughter’s dad. We built those villages in swampland, weathered one hurricane and 10,000 chigger bites; I crashed a truck into a tree and got chased up a different tree by a wild boar. Two marriages ended, one baby was born, and I fell in love so hard I thought a train had fallen on me. Tim is not in any of the scenes of this clip (which I’ve never before seen), but during the opening scene (or one like it), he and two other guys in the longboat fished me out of the river when my over-the-shoulder hip-waders filled up and pulled me under. At 2:43 you can see, rear right carrying the wounded man, the man who would become my daughter’s godfather, and at 3:03, Tim’s dad and my daughter’s grandfather Will comes in, as the Chief, always cast as the Chief, both because that’s where Natives in film were back in 1985, and also, maybe, because he was 6’7”.

Just after Tavie’s baptism, with her two non-Catholic godmothers

I misspoke when I said, the priest pressed $220 into my dad’s hand. It was of course the other way around!

Alison Segan’s Mother’s Kugel

* 1 12-ounce bag egg noodles

* 8 ounces cream cheese, softened

* 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter softened, plus more for buttering the pan

* 1 cup milk

* 4 eggs

* 1/2 cup white sugar

* 1 teaspoon vanilla

* 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

* 1/2 cup white raisins

* Frosted Flakes cereal

Boil noodles in boiling salted water until just cooked. While noodles are cooking, with a hand-mixer or standing mixer, blend the cream cheese and butter. Add all remaining ingredients (except noodles and Frosted Flakes) and blend until smooth. Combined drained noodles and cream cheese mixture, toss, and pour into an 8 x 12 (or so) buttered dish. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 350F. Unwrap noodles, sprinkle with a generous amount of Frosted Flakes, and bake for 1 hour, 15 minutes. Serve warm or cold.

Subscribed

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com/subscribe

Hensci! Or for you non-Creek speakers - which would be me - Hello! I am here with Robyn Whitecloud, who is running to represent the Muscogee (Creek) Nation National Council, Okmulgee District- Seat A. Election is September 16; get those absentee ballots in, Creeks! (My kid did.) Let’s meet the candidate…

But first! If you’re in New York City this Monday, September 11, come on down to P&T Knitwear, 180 Orchard Street. Five readers and I will read short essays starting at 6:30pm. I’ll also have a few copies of To the Bridge for sale, in case you want a signatcha…

Robyn and met in July 1990, when she was a teenager and her Uncle Tim - my daughter’s dad - and I drove from LA to Okmulgee, OK, bringing with us our 9-month old. I recall Robyn as one of the older kids that tumbled around our car as we pulled up to Grandma’s; also, quiet, watchful, responsible. Robyn went on to become an accountant and has spent all but five years of her life in and around Okmulgee, which some of you may better know by its fictionalized name, Okern, home of the characters on the show Reservation Dogs.

Okmulgee is also my daughter’s grandfather Will Sampson - whom Robyn knows as “Uncle Sonny” - and Tim grew up, and where Tavie has spent the past three years filming Reservation Dogs, which I have written about here several times, most recently after what I thought was a near-apocalyptic storm but which several of Robyn and Tavie’s aunties seemed not-much-never-mind, or that’s the way I took it when they called me “Chicken Little.”

I imagine most people reading don’t know a lot about Native politics or the arts. I don’t know much either! I didn’t even know Okmulgee and the surrounding area had been declared a reservation back in 2020, after McGirt v. Oklahoma. Robyn explains its origins and implications, the economic impact of casino gambling, what’s going right on rez and could be going righter (that’s why she’s running!), and what locals think of seeing the way they live depicted on the celebrated TV series. “Everything’s on there,” Robyn mentions. “The Deer Lady…”

Fair warning: Family stories ahead. Mvto! for listening.

Episode notes:

Muscogee to English Translation. Tafv, which means “feather” (rhymes with “lava,” and pronounced “dava” by old-timers) was named when she was three months in utero by her great-grandmother, in a phone conversation that went like this:

Tim: “Grandma, Nancy’s going to have a baby.”

Mabel Hill: “Uhnhn. She’s going to have a girl, and her name is Tafv.”

I cannot express for how long and how hard Will and Tim pushed the rock up the hill so that Natives could be portrayed simply as people - living people! - on film. That their kids and grandkids are doing it, I am ever overcome.

Zahn McClarnon plays Officer Big, a Lighthorseman, on “Reservation Dogs.”

The Sterlin Harjo movie Mekko floored me.

Circle Cinema, showing the episodes for free every week in downtown Tulsa. Skoden!

Robyn mentions Erica Tremblay, director of Fancy Dance, which Tafv set decorated.

Lily Gladstone, who stars in Fancy Dance as well as Killers of the Flower Moon, appeared in Reservation Dogs in a scene with my daughter, who was NOT supposed to act - and good lord, hates to be in front of the camera - but when the actress tapped to do the role caught COVID, Sterlin said to Tafv, “Okay, cuz, you’re it.”

“Following in Uncle Sonny’s footsteps…”

Good luck Robyn!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com/subscribe

(Crosspost alert!) The hosts behind the podcasts The Unspeakable and Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em were just sitting around being all heterodoxy when lo! The call came from the newly formed University of Austin: Want to come to Dallas to discuss the current state of media, whether feminism has impacted the desire to raise children, how we treat the work of artists whose behaviors we don’t agree with, and to answer student questions along the lines of, for instance, how are you a “feminine woman”? Yes please!

And so Meghan Daum, Sarah, and Nancy took the stage last Thursday at Old Parkland, an eye-popping and glorious campus founded in 1984 and now owned by real estate billionaire Harlan Crow (yes, that Harlan Crow). The conversation was hosted by the Mill Institute, an initiative that works in “educational settings to explore and challenge the entrenched thinking that leads to a breakdown of conversation on contentious issues.” Our moderator was Ilana Redstone, the faculty director of the Mill Institute and associate professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

See if you can guess which one of us remembered to take pictures!

It was 15 minutes before sound check when my daughter and I decided to scoot around Old Parkland for a few minutes. I mean, the place is crazy gorgeous, very grand, we get a few steps out of the building and …

“Is that a bar?” my daughter asks. It is, right there on campus and a stone’s throw from where we will be speaking, and I mean, we do have 15 minutes.

It’s a Negroni for Tavie, a glass of rose for me, which we might have had plenty of time to sip but for the bartender, a guy who had many many stories to tell before making the drinks. Which was fine! He was entertaining and sweet and very funny, and if I had to lay money, I’d say he might also do stand-up (or should). As he went finally to grab the drinks, Tavie looked at who was at the bar with us, maybe 15 people, all dudes, in button-down shirts but not fancy.

“These guys are probably younger than me,” said Tavie, who is 33. Maybe so. Also, we were definitely not in Fort Greene.

“I like preppy guys,” she said. Me too.

We brought our cocktails with us for sound check. The camera guy told me I better keep my legs crossed, because the way the cameras were positioned, below the stage, made it, um …

“It is kind of Sharon Stone,” said Sarah, referring to the then-scandalous scene in Basic Instinct, and you know what? She was right!

Anyway, Stone is not the beautiful girl I referred to above. That would be my girl. Thanks for subscribing!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com

After sustaining “the atom bomb I needed to follow my passion” (her imminent layoff, her husband having an affair), Lisa Schroeder went to cooking school and, in 2000, opened Mother’s Bistro in Portland, Oregon. From day one the place was packed, everyone wanting what Schroder calls “Mother Food” – meatloaf and gravy, chicken & dumplings, and a brunch t…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com

The streets of Portland may be calmer than during the 108 straight nights of violence in 2020, but are things better? Or are they just as bad but in different ways?

Photographers Chelly (@hunnybadgermom on Twitter) and Michelle (@cocainemichelle) cover the city, including the current rise in homelessness and drug addiction, the uptick in crime, and the exponential shredding of the social fabric. They chronicle the deterioration of downtown, where the vacancy rate is set to hit 40%, and speak with those filling the void. Lifelong Oregonians, they see citizens variously unwilling to see these issues as problems, and fleeing the City of Roses because of them.

How did Portland get to where it is? Have decisions based on presumed compassion - to not prosecute property and some violent crimes; to provide support if not treatment to drug users — led to bad outcomes? And are better days two years away, or two decades?

Episode notes:

Video I took while driving Thomas Chatterton-Williams, February 2022

One Michelle took, January 2023

Rebranded Foster-Powell, Felony Flats was a great neighborhood name

From Measure 110, which decriminalized personal-use amounts of drugs:

“On November 3, 2020, Oregon voters passed Measure 110, approving two shifts in how the state deals with the use of illegal drugs. First, the measure reduces penalties for drug possession, making Oregon the first state to decriminalize the personal possession of illegal drugs. Secondly, the anticipated savings achieved from the current cost of enforcing criminal drug possession penalties will be combined with marijuana sales revenue to fund a new drug addiction treatment and recovery grant program.”

Emphasis mine. Oregon ranks second-highest in rate of substance abuse and 50th in access to treatment. Since the passage of 110, “funding has been slow getting out of the gate and instances of drug abuse and overdose deaths have increased,” and agencies are currently fighting over who gets to siphon off funds earmarked for drug treatment.

“A Murder in Portland,” by Nancy Rommelmann (Washington Examiner Magazine)

“Destruction and Hope in Portland,” which I wrote for Persuasion, featured North Portland resident Kurt Martig who, like Michelle, was shocked at how many people on NextDoor are willing to reimagine the destruction of other people’s property as no big deal. (NB: Martig and his family moved out of Portland last year.)

“I go on Nextdoor.com and I’m seeing things like, ‘People have insurance, things are less important than lives,’” Martig said. “I’m like, guys, you’re hurting innocent bystanders, the business owners are getting hurt, the employees are going to get hurt, the customers, it’s all the way down.”

Others disagreed. Someone at the dog park told Martig he should factor in “the decades and centuries of oppression and understand why people are doing what they’re doing.” A friend told him that the cops were always worse.

“It kind of breaks down to, you can either be one way or the other,” Martig said. “Which is a false choice.”

“Nike Offers to Pay Police to Guard Portland Store From Shoplifters,” by Mike Impelli (Newsweek)

“Portland, Ore., Once Among Safest U.S. Cities, Struggles to Cut Homicide Rate,” by Zusha Elinson (Wall Street Journal)

“We looked at Portland's crime rates. Comparatively, they're not so bad,” by Andy Giegerich (Portland Business Journal)

About that bucket of diarrhea sloshed into a police station…

We are talking feeding people this week, and Portland, and who counts as family. Yes that’s the little one in the pic, and me in the ‘stache. What a weird party that was! We wound up in a long conversation with an editor from another city, a visitor who tried to laser-beam you with his charm. “Don’t you know the effect you have on men?” he later said, to one of us, a line I found kind of hilarious, like something from a book called, “Ninety Things To Say To A Woman That Might Get You in Her Pants.” The guy’s life later went up in flames, and pretty publicly. I’m not throwing a log on that fire but will say, I was less than surprised.

We are also talking this week’s literati flare-ups (the stealth editing of Roald Dahl, the never-ending crusade against of J.K. Rowling, dust-up #609 at the Times) and their opposite, the people who come to your aid. Why not also feed them some chicken?

Pie Talks drop Sundays at 9am at Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em, for paid subscribers only. Since this one is free, I’m cross-posting here!

Episode notes:

“Taking My Ex Back In (for His Own Good),” by Nancy Rommelmann (NYT Modern Love)

I misspoke when I said You Must Remember This is Kat Rosenfield’s second book. It’s her fifth! But the second I’ve read, and which I love love love love love.

Paloma-cam during Kat Rosenfield’s party for No One Will Miss Her

My Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em partner, Sarah Hepola, went on record saying “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling” will be the Podcast of the Year

I think we are all coming to realize that late 2020/early 2021 was a time when certain segments of the media and the public-at-large became absolutely possessed with a desire for the blood of their colleagues. I’ve written and talked about Donald G. [I accidentally said “J.”] McNeil Jr. a dozen times. He and Andy Mills, an original creator of the NYT’s “The Daily” as well as its once-crown jewel podcast “Caliphate,” were both ushered out of the Times in February 2021. McNeil now writes on Medium, and Andy is working with Bari Weiss’s The Free Press, including on “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling.” Good work will out.

And speaking of not canceling people…

Katie Herzog and Jesse Singal update the NYT flame-wars on the most recent episode of Blocked & Reported, “Times Wars, Episode IX: The Normies Strike Back.”

Signs of the tide shifting? Penguin Random House to publish 'classic' Roald Dahl books after censorship criticism, by Theara Coleman (The Week)

“NPR to Cut 10% of Its Staff,” by Katie Roberson (NYT)

Hoisin Chicken

This recipe is very easy to double or triple. Cooking time will depend on the size of the chicken thighs and how many you have in the pan.

* 8 chicken thighs, skin on

* Salt and pepper

* 3/4 cup hoisin sauce, Lee Kum Kee brand preferred, thinned out with 3 - 4 tablespoons soy sauce

Preheat oven to 375F.

Salt and pepper the chicken thighs on both sides and place them, skin side up, on a rack inside your baking pan or sheet. The rack will prevent the thighs from sitting in the cooking juices and becoming less crisp. No problem if you don’t have a rack!

Bake until chicken skin starts to brown, about 25 minutes. Pour and brush on hoisin-soy mixture. Make about another 20 - 25 minutes, until thighs are nicely shellacked.

The drippings from the pan can be poured as-is over rice or, better, heat them in a small saucepan until somewhat reduced and yummier, about 5 minutes.

Serve chicken with sticky rice and a cucumber salad: peeled and seeded cucumbers, sliced and mixed with rice wine vinegar and a large pinch of sugar and a smaller pinch of salt. Add some chopped fresh basil, mint or cilantro if you’re feeling fancy.

Three ways to make sticky rice! (Also called glutinous rice, sushi rice, and sweet rice.) I have not had great luck making sticky rice in the rice cooker, and have never tried the microwave method. Let me know if you do!

Everything is more delicious when you become a paid or free subscriber

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com/subscribe

Portland's current judicial system/activist class could not have rolled out any more of a red carpet to the man who murdered Rachael Abraham, a mother of six, three of whom were in the next (or the same) room as their mother was stabbed and strangled to death. Which begs the question: What are we willing to give up on the road to criminal justice reform?

A reading of "The Collateralists," by Nancy Rommelmann, published on Make More Pie Substack on January 18, 2023.

Related: "A Murder in Portland," by Nancy Rommelmann, published in Washington Examiner Magazine on December 29, 2023.

"A Pox Upon Portland: Progressivism is Killing the City," by Jonah Goldberg, published in The Dispatch on January 20, 2023

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com/subscribe

A reading of “Meet the Neighbors,” from Forty Bucks and a Dream, Stories of Los Angeles, because I sense what you really need this holiday season is to hear about ululating Armenian widows in West Hollywood, Amway-selling Scientologists in Atwater Village, gunplay in Silver Lake, and Evian-filled swimming pools in Beverly Park.

Speaking of holiday giving, Substack makes that a super-snap.

Thinking about an upgrade to paid? Please do! You’ll get 30 days free and access to new reporting from Portland; one such story, and a devastating one, dropping any day. I’ve also been summoned, by the Hutnyks of Lviv, back to Ukraine, to celebrate the end of the war. My thanks to everyone whose paid subscriptions helped me get there last time, and may I be going back soon.

Happy holidays all, may your days and nights be merry and bright xx

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com/subscribe