Stirring It Up with Molly Ivins (29 page)

Case in point: When my daughter was in her mid-twenties, I think she and Malcolm's television were the same age. Perhaps in response to merciless chiding from friends, he has since bought a flat-screen color TV and subscribed to cable. He also owns a cell phone, thanks to his partner, Stan, and, after a two-year deliberation, he replaced his old convertible with a new one. Used, of course.

He might own two suits, but I can only recall seeing him in one. You always know when he has to appear in court. The suit and tie or a jacket, tie, and slacks come out. The volume on his home stereo system hasn't worked for years, so he listens to NPR on two small radios—one in the bathroom and one in the kitchen.

Instead of spending on, oh, say, a third suit, for the longest time he took a six-week vacation every year—usually to unusual destinations.

On one of his trips to what was once the Soviet Union, he sought out his mother's village, now part of Ukraine. Fluent in Spanish, he's traveled to Mexico a dozen times, once encountering a gringo scam artist from Muleshoe, Texas. He lived with a family whose political activist daughter got crosswise with Mexican authorities and was jailed for her activism. Greenstein intervened by notifying Amnesty International of her plight. She was subsequently released.

When the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings were held, on one occasion he was the only white person in the room. He who is in no way handy with tools nonetheless volunteered to help build homes for Global Village in Uganda (each volunteer was asked to bring a tool that could be left behind for future construction; he brought a level—as it turned out, that was the only one). Had all hell not broken out in Iran, he had planned to go there in 2010.

In 2005, Malcolm and Travis County Court judge Eric Sheppard were recognized as the driving forces behind renaming the Travis County Courthouse for Heman Sweatt. In a historic case decided by the US Supreme Court in 1950, the
Sweatt v. Painter
lawsuit changed the way Texas (and the country) dealt with race and education and set the stage for desegregating the University of Texas School of Law.

(Heman Sweatt was a graduate of Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, one of the oldest historically black colleges west of the Mississippi. His initial 1946 application to law school at UT was rejected. This refusal was at the core of a “separate but equal” challenge that the NAACP successfully brought before the US Supreme Court in its historic
Brown v. Board of Education
[which struck down segregation in public schools].)

Once ensconced in Austin, Malcolm was among those who made their way to Final Friday gatherings at La Zona Rosa. It was called the “out-of-power happy hour” because the crowd pretty much consisted of Democrats adrift in what was then a sea of Republicans. Malcolm met Molly through that crowd
and they became friends. Which brings us back to Molly and me contemplating the anniversary of Malcolm's birth. What a good idea, she opined, to have a surprise birthday party.

We knew Malcolm was a big Leonard Pitts fan, and Molly had read somewhere that the syndicated columnist was to speak in Austin. Intrepid reporters that we were, we agreed that I would track Pitts down at the
Miami Herald
, where he worked, find out when he would arrive and how long he'd stay, and we'd invite him for dinner with Elliott, Del Garcia, Doug Zabel, Malcolm Greenstein, Molly, and me.

As it turned out, the same weekend Leonard Pitts was due was also the weekend political consultant Ed Wendler and his partner, artist Mercedes Peña, were having a pig roast at their rambling house in Lockhart, about twenty-five miles south of Austin. So much the better, we decided. We'll fetch Brother Pitts, swoop down to Lockhart with him, and boy, won't Malcolm be surprised.

Only someone got the weekend dates wrong.

No Leonard Pitts.

Mercifully we hadn't told Malcolm, so we just wished him happy birthday and that was that. If he suspected anything he never let on.

Fast-forward a year or so. Pitts was coming to Austin again, this time to speak at UT. Once more, and with great resolve, we made plans.

Grand, glorious, meticulously orchestrated plans.

I hopped in my trusty burnt orange Nissan and hightailed it south on I-35. Molly and I developed a menu. Hearts of palm salad with champagne-shallot dressing;
boeuf bourguignon
with buttered noodles sprinkled with freshly chopped parsley. Molly made one of her favorite desserts, a fresh pear tart. Red wine, Pellegrino, and Belgian beer would be poured.

Molly and I shopped the day before, this time with The List intact. No fooling around. This was serious business.

Leonard Pitts was coming.

We had it nailed this time.

Molly was up at 8 a.m., chopping shallots, browning meat, slicing mushrooms. Throughout the afternoon the kitchen windows remained steamed from one aspect of the meal or another: parboiled pearl onions, scraped carrots, baby potatoes. There were pears to be peeled and dough to be rolled.

This would be a meal to remember. We even had a seven-member guest list: Elliott, Malcolm, Del Garcia, Mercedes Peña, Ed Wendler, Molly, me. Leonard Pitts would be
número ocho
.

This time I was the sous-chef, cleaning behind chef Molly, following her instructions until, at last, the salad greens were rinsed, wrapped in paper towels, and refrigerated; the beef burgundy rested comfortably; the pear tart sat beautifully browned. The table was set with the good china and shiny sterling flatware.

No effort was spared for this much-admired syndicated
Miami Herald
columnist.

A nicely pressed white linen cloth with matching napkins covered the table. Courtney Anderson's hand-painted wineglasses sparkled, positioned at the tip of each dinner knife. With considerable anticipation we all assembled in the living room, sipping wine and waiting.

7.

7:30.

8.

No Leonard Pitts.

I knew he had the address; I'd given it to him, along with specific directions for the cab in case the driver was unfamiliar with the crazy way streets can zigzag in and out of pattern.

We glanced alternately at the front door and then at one another. Small talk got smaller and smaller and finally descended into uneasy silence.

About an hour past his anticipated arrival time, I retreated to Molly's office to call the hotel. He hadn't checked in.

I had his home number.

I called.

He answered.

Damn.

Alas, Malcolm remembers the evening too well.

“I had plans for that Friday, and Molly kept saying, ‘No, no, you have to cancel, you have to cancel. So I did. I had no idea what the big deal was, I just knew that when we finally were about to sit down, I noticed there were seven of us but eight place settings. It wasn't until much later I found out Leonard Pitts was supposed to have been there.”

Apparently the person who was supposed to organize the arrival had botched the weekend dates.

He was scheduled to come the following weekend.

Botched? Again?

Ouch.

How could this be? Were we really that incompetent? (And here I hear that Tonto voice intoning, “What's with this ‘we' shit, Kemosabe?” There was no “we.”
I
got the date wrong.)

Mea culpa.

As in the best American psychodrama, which this had become, the dinner plan ended as well as could be expected. The meal was delicious, albeit slightly subdued. Molly's glare didn't help. I haven't organized a celebratory dinner for anyone since then.

The following weekend, the one when Pitts really
was
in town, Molly had to give an out-of-town ACLU speech. I had yet another crisis with my ninety-year-old mother and had to go to St. Louis. Mercedes and Ed had other plans. No one was falling for this Leonard-Pitts-is-coming-to-dinner nonsense again.

At least Malcolm and Pitts finally met. In his usual measured way, Malcolm had done due diligence and learned that Pitts, who easily stands six foot one, was a Lakers fan. An NBA game was to be broadcast that Sunday, and Malcolm invited the soon-to-be-Pulitzer-prize-winning columnist to his house to watch the game. On Malcolm's twenty-four-inch television, the one with an intermittent semblance of color and no working remote control.

Molly decided that from that year forward we would have an annual commemorative dinner. We would set the table for eight, but have only seven diners, sort of like setting an extra place for Elijah at Passover.

Her inscription in my copy of
Who Let the Dogs In?
reads, in part, “For many years of laughter, hospitality and Leonard Pitts–less dinners.”

27

MOLLY HAD WAY TOO MUCH FUN PLANNING
meals for others, especially people she really, really liked. They were a diverse group whose common thread was concern for making life better for those least able to do so for themselves, people like political strategist Harold Cook; environmental advocate Doug Zabel; civil rights attorney Dave Richards and his wife, Sandy;
Texas Observer
publisher Carlton Carl; attorney Shelia Cheaney, executive director of Jane's Due Process—Texas's only nonprofit dedicated to providing legal advice and assistance to pregnant teens; and multimillionaire philanthropist Bernard Rapoport, who with his wife, Audre, were ardent Molly fans and have been most generous.

Sometimes there was a plan, a purpose, a theme for meals at Molly's house. Once, in casual conversation about ethnic foods, I mentioned the fact that the Greek salads we eat in the United States bear only passing similarity to the salad that Greeks eat—there's no lettuce in their version—and she promptly decided we should do a Greek dinner—some elements store-bought, some homemade. No point, for example, in trying to improve on the stuffed grape leaves from Central Market.

We fearlessly tackled braised lamb shanks and white beans on one evening, then roasted chicken thighs with fresh rosemary and artichoke hearts the next. For once we agreed that potatoes roasted with lemon and garlic would work better than rice—well, rice pilaf, a blend of long-grain rice and orzo. Our meals were often spontaneous and unrehearsed. Dinners just tended to evolve. Every now and then, however, synchronicity occurred wherein plan and purpose collided in a good way. As it did with African Chicken.

Just as I enjoyed making Molly's favorite French meals with her, Molly was almost always game for sampling my ethnic culinary explorations. One was a hit I created from melding two recipes for chicken and peanut stew: a Bahian one called Ximxim de Galinha from Heidi Haughy Cusick's
Soul and Spice
cookbook, and the other, Senegalese
mafe
from Jessica B. Harris's
The Africa Cookbook
. Both books have been used so often they fall open to the pages where preferred recipes reside.

I call my amalgamated concoction African Chicken. We decided to make it and invite people we knew to be receptive to new tastes and flavors. The evening's purpose ended up being twofold. We had heard through the grapevine that our friend Malcolm was smitten with a new flame.

All we knew about this special person was that her name was Stan. We figured we were sure to like a woman named Stan. That she had captured Malcolm's undivided attention was impressive. We held our collective breath, hoping he would bring her along. Sure enough, he asked if he could invite a “friend.”

As nonchalantly as possible, Molly assured him it would be fine. Okay, he added, but there might be a hitch. One of Stan's dearest friends was gravely ill. If he died, she for sure wouldn't come. If not, well, she probably would because the December day we had chosen for our experiment in African dining was her birthday.

Now that Malcolm was
maybe
bringing her to us, we had to make her feel welcome. Wait a minute. Did someone say birthday? All of a sudden our plan had an even bigger purpose: minimize sadness. Oh, yeah, and hope she didn't have a peanut allergy. We now not only had a new dish to sample, we had a big fat reason for sampling a new dish with a new friend.