Can You Spare Me a Rib, JK? :)

Howdy Everyone!

The 4th of July is almost here, which means it's time for fireworks and firing up the grill.

As I've noted before here in TDS, Jack Kelly got a real kick out of cooking. And, I found a vintage newspaper story which tells of his love for barbecuing. (Love that goofy pic of JK with wife Donna Kelly/May Wynn!):

"Jack is great at cooking meats either at the barbecue or in the kitchen," Donna told the reporter.

Jack added, "Our barbecue is a popular place. Even in the winter or rainy season we cook things out there and bring the food in and sit on the living room floor at the fireplace to eat it."

The story even includes JK's special recipe for glazed spareribs:

Unfortunately, I don't have a grill, but if anyone else is able (and brave enough) to fix these mouth-watering ribs, let me know and you can tell us all about it in a guest post in TDS! So, toss on your toque and "Kiss the Cook" apron and get grillin'! :)

A Maverick Meal :)

Hello Everyone!

You may want to consider adding "Subrosa Chilies Rellenos" to your Memorial Day menu. The recipe comes courtesy of James Garner and The All-American Cowboy Cookbook, a tasty tome which recently joined the Kellection:

Although Jack Kelly was renowned for his culinary talents, strangely none of his recipes are included in this book, which contains plenty of other celebrity-submitted dishes. However, if you recall, the name of Joe Wheelwright's spread in JK's Maverick episode "Three Queens Full" was the Subrosa Ranch. ;)

There's always something cookin' in TDS--please stay tuned! :)

"The Kook-Krazy Kellys" :)

Howdy!

My neighborhood looked like a wintry wonderland this weekend after a storm left a few inches of snow on the ground, with more flakes forecast to fall.

The Bartistamobile's doors were frozen shut (thankfully, I finally got them open) and the snow plow made it only half-way up my street. So, it was a good weekend to just stay indoors, keep warm and nosh on comfort food. I whipped up a big pot of chili on Saturday afternoon and made a pork roast on Sunday evening.

Speaking of cooking: I've written about Jack Kelly's culinary skills before, and here's a wonderful 1960 newspaper story about "The Kook-Krazy Kellys":

"To Sunday night western TV fans, he's Bart 'Maverick', but to his lovely wife Donna Kelly, he's 'Jack the Giant Cooker'. Jack and Donna, known to their friends as 'the cooking Kellys', live in a small honeymoon cottage in the Hollywood hills, the kitchen of which is a his and her's workshop for their at-home hobby--cooking.

But cooking for the Kellys is actually more than a hobby. Jack and his wife qualify as 'gourmets' in the absolute definition of the word. 'We don't cook for just ourselves,' says Donna, 'we practically run a small restaurant'.

The More The Merrier 

Hardly a weekend passes at the Kelly home that they don't serve dinner for ten, or more often, twenty people. Friends, calling on the phone, who ask Jack 'what's cooking?' mean it literally.

'Although we're both Irish,' says Jack, 'we love Italian food. Donna called me one Friday at the studio and said she was in the mood to start cooking up an Italian dinner for Sunday and asked if I would call my mother and ask her to come. We had planned for just three people but every time somebody called and found out that we were cooking our 'Italian-special' they somehow got an invitation. It started a chain reaction and at two o'clock Sunday afternoon, sixteen people sat down to a meal it had taken us three days to prepare.'

The twelve-course feast took almost eight hours to eat. At eight that evening everyone was full and there were still two courses to go.

'We don't eat like this all the time,' Jack told his friends when they had finished. 'We go on a health-food kick about once a month. If we didn't, I would get so fat I couldn't fit into any of my Maverick clothes.

On the other hand, Donna, known professionally as May Wynn, tips the scale at a delicate 105 and doesn't worry about gaining weight. 'I grew up in an Italian-Irish section of New York. I was the most famous kid in the neighborhood because I could eat more than anyone else in my family. To my Italian friends that was the best compliment one could give them.'

Culinary Courtship

Jack and Donna are currently writing a cook book which will be published in the near future. All of the recipes are original and since cooking for each other was, and has been, an important part of their courtship and marriage, they are writing their own love story around the different dishes. Appropriately, they have titled the book, 'Love 'N' Oven'.

'When I was dating Jack,' recalls Donna, 'we didn't like to go out for dinner very much. It was more fun to cook for each other and when he would call I'd tell him to bring a steak and we would have a bar-b-que.'

'This was great', retorts Jack, 'but more often than not she would call me back and tell me to bring enough steak for eight people. She was always having friends drop by unexpectedly. It got so expensive I finally had to marry her. Now I'm lucky if we get away with serving only eight.'

According to Jack there is only one drawback to their three-day Italian cooking sprees. Being Catholics, they don't eat meat on Friday so they can't taste the sauces while they are being prepared. The aroma really tortures them.

'But you should see us on Saturday morning,' says Donna. Kelly and I race for the cooking pot to be the first to taste our concoction.'

The Kelly kitchen, which is very large considering the smallness of their one-bedroom cottage, is well-equipped for their cooking artistry. But in the space meant for a large modern range, there stands a small stove. 'There are only four burners on top,' explained Jack, 'but take a look at that 30-inch oven. We used to have a seven-hundred dollar range but we gave it away to charity because it had a normal-sized oven. We picked up this 30-inch job on sale for a hundred and fifty bucks.' This little-big oven, which is their pride and joy, has seen the lion's share of use. Last year, Donna cooked a 30-pound roast beef in it.

'It was a monster,' Donna remembers. 'I could hardly lift it and it was bigger around than I am. We took a picture of it.'

So, in the evenings after a day on the golf course together, when Jack isn't working, Jack and Donna are usually busy before their huge fireplace compiling recipes, checking ingredients or experimenting in the kitchen with new ideas.

All of their recipes include one thing, says Jack: 'Taste frequently and season with lots of love.'" :)

It's a shame that Jack and Donna's cookbook was never published. Oh well, there's always something cookin' in TDS--please stay tuned! :)

Bon Appetit, JK! :)

Hello!

When researching Jack Kelly, it quickly becomes obvious that the man loved cooking and food. Mentions of his culinary interests are peppered throughout old newspaper and magazine stories, such as this tasty tidbit from 1961:

"...But a real Irishman, Jack Kelly, the Bart of Maverick fame, passes up such things as Irish stew for Mexican dishes. He is a real lover of enchiladas."

Here's a rare color shot of JK and wife Donna (a.k.a. May Wynn) whipping up something yummy at the kitchen stove:

Learning more about JK's love of cooking has also helped me to discover other interesting foodies. For example, below is a 1959 press photo of JK demonstrating how to slice Italian bread length-wise (and, as Crocodile Dundee would say, "Now that's a knife"). There's Donna again, and the woman in the center is identified as Mary Hart.

Obviously, that's not the Mary Hart who used to host Entertainment Tonight. A bit of research revealed that this lady was actually named Mary Sorensen. She was a food columnist for the Minneapolis Tribune/Star-Tribune for over 40 years and "Mary Hart" was her pen name. Celebrities such as JK were featured in her column from time to time. (A photo at this link shows her in 1961 with famed TV emcee Art Linkletter.) Incidentally, Ms. Sorensen's husband was a food chemist who helped invent the instant version of Cream of Wheat cereal!

I've also learned a little bit about the Los Angeles restaurant scene in the 1950's, since when he wasn't cooking, JK frequented establishments such as the Valley Casa D'Amore in North Hollywood (dig those prices!):

Now, how do I know JK ate there? Because he signed the back of the menu above. I have no idea who the "Greene girls!" (to whom he wrote, "I sure hope we'll always be friends") are, however:

Trivia: The original Casa D'Amore opened on Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood in 1939. It was the first pizzeria in Southern California and was owned and named for brothers Franklyn and Pasquale "Patsy" D'Amore, immigrants from Southern Italy. Patsy D'Amore later opened the Villa Capri, a favorite hangout of stars such as Frank Sinatra. (Franklyn D'Amore's daughter, Connie Ruel, has a very nice blog here.) 

More Los Angeles-area restaurants visted by JK:

A pre-Maverick JK at a French bistro in Santa Monica, CA, in 1956.

JK and wife May Wynn (Donna Kelly) enjoy "a leisurely Sunday brunch" in 1957

This last photo below, dated March 1960, shows Donna and JK about to enjoy a home-cooked meal (and, yes, that is a poodle on his lap!) The snipe on the back of this vintage photo reads, "THE COOKING KELLYS--Jack Kelly, he's Bart Maverick of the television series, and his wife Donna prepare to sample a bit of their own kitchen handywork. The Kellys, who are good cooks, frequently cook the dinner when entertaining guests at home in Hollywood."

 

 

Well, I hope this post whets your "appetite" for more about JK, because there's lots more to come. I'm working on a series about some of JK's stage roles. Recently, I was fortunate enough to find a truly rare (and maybe even one-of-a-kind) document which provides a behind-the-scenes peek at one of JK's Broadway appearances. I also found a similar document for one of JK's television appearances, so, please stay tuned! :)