Stirring It Up with Molly Ivins (36 page)

“For the most part our foods were pretty basic—stews and one-pot meals; no red wine reductions here. We even made quesadillas. Molly jerry-rigged this contraption and hooked it up so we could haul it behind us so that when we arrived at wherever we were going to camp, there was a cool one waiting. I don't know how she did it, but I don't think we ever lost a can of beer.

“Then there was the time Molly was invited to speak to the Anchorage ACLU—which I thought was pretty funny, like, where were they meeting, in a closet? But, hey, it was a trip to Alaska.”

As it turned out, the meeting was in a filled-to-capacity auditorium and Flash did join Molly—who insisted on a side trip for a little salmon fishing.

“So I say to Molly, ‘And what the hell do you know about salmon fishing?' And she says, ‘I know that if we catch any, the skipper will kipper, smoke, poach, grill, or freeze it in individual packages so we can take it home and feed friends.' I felt further compelled to point out that when you add up the cost of getting to Alaska, hiring a boat and crew, paying the freight for shipping it home, the price tag comes out to about five hundred dollars a pound. Molly thought about it for a minute and said, ‘Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.' And off we went.”

Among the names in that atomic Rolodex of Molly's were those of what she liked to call her “gal pals,” women of extraordinary distinction who, to her, were buddies. This trip was memorable for several reasons, not the least of them being in the company of Fran Ulmer, former mayor of Juneau, former lieutenant governor and environmentalist and now chancellor of the University of Alaska Anchorage. Coupled with the exquisite goodness of fresh-caught salmon drizzled with a touch of melted butter and a bit of citrus, it was Molly's concept of an ideal vacation.

“For some reason, folks were always coming up with one-liners,” Flash continued. “So one day we're trolling for halibut in Glacier Bay National Park. Everybody's oohing and aahing over otters and these magnificent glaciers when Molly turns to me and says, ‘Ya know, if they chopped up that ice for one Texas cocktail, the only thing you'd have left up here is something the size of Ohio.'”

In yet another highlight, a fisherman was holding up an enormous king crab destined to become dinner. Flash leapt to her camera to capture the moment uniting Molly, the fisherman, and the great big crab.

“All of a sudden the goddamn crab clamps down on one of Molly's fingers and draws blood. I thought we were gonna have to shoot it. Anyway, we showed it who was boss when we ate it that night with drawn butter and lemon. Molly said she had never tasted better crab in her whole life. Sitting on the deck of that boat taking in this fabulous vista was all it took for us to make another trip.”

This time Flash insisted that the two of them try fly-fishing.

“Molly took to fly-fishing like a duck to water. She even caught a salmon in midair. The instructor said he had never seen anything like it in all his years. Meanwhile I'm hooking the boat and the deck and everything but a fish. And there's Molly catching a twenty-pound salmon in midair. Unfortunately it was catch-and-release and we don't have photographs, but that's the honest-to God truth.”

After more than three decades in the news business, Emmy Award–winning Ellen Fleysher was named Frances Wolfson Chair in Broadcast Journalism at the University of Miami, settling down after a career that had crisscrossed the globe for CBS, CNN, and NBC.

34

MOLLY
'
S FRIEND MYRA MACPHERSON
swears she and Molly planned to write a book about their respective kitchen disasters, but for whatever reasons that never happened. It was to be called
Burnt Offerings
. Myra figures she's the only friend Molly ever had who had absolutely no facility for, or interest in, cooking.

“It was as though she instinctively knew that cooking was for me a foreign language,” Myra said. “We had always planned to write the book with me providing the ‘burnt' and Molly the ‘offerings.' We ate all over the country together—Miami, Tallahassee, DC, North Carolina, Dallas, Austin, New York, Boulder, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles—and I'll be damned if I can remember one thing we ate. Lots of times there were people in awe of Molly and she felt responsible for being the entertainment. All I can remember is great conviviality.

“Once, recognizing the supremely bad dinner I was preparing for guests in DC, Molly snuck out to the local fine-food emporium, found the smallest, sweetest haricots verts, and returned to the kitchen to steam them and added a wonderful fresh touch to the meal. That, plus her personality, saved the dinner.”

Molly told of the time she decided to make her first duck with orange sauce. She got everything down pat, except the part about (a) putting the duck in a roaster instead of a shallow baking pan, (b) reducing the oven temperature from 450°F to 375°F, and (c) not taking a catnap while the bird is roasting. Ducks have lots of fat. When the fat spills over into a 450° oven, smoke—lots and lots of smoke—follows. If duck fat smokes for too long, fire is not far behind the
smoke. Fortunately Molly woke up in time to avert flames, but as she liked to say with her characteristic flair for ironic humor, “Well, so much for the notion ‘where there's smoke there's fire.' There was just smoke and more smoke. I had it under control.”