The Fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays. It has no particular religious significance, it’s high summer here in USAmerica, there are fireworks, there are cookouts, there is beer and wine to be drunk out of coolers, there are sales at car dealerships, it’s fabulous. Since we’re in the run-up, I tried to think of the most American celebrity I could. I settled on John Wayne.
Marion Robert Morrison was born in 1907 in Winterset, Iowa, but when he was young he and his family, like half the Midwest it seems, moved to the LA area. You can still sense this if you look hard enough in LA, how Midwestern it can be. Certainly there are loads of restaurants that wouldn’t be out of place in Winterset, Iowa, and lots of the 2- and 3-story apartment housing looks like it belongs on Main Street, USA.
While in high school in Glendale, he was president of the Latin Society. Imagine a public high school having a Latin Society today. I would bet that a majority of NYC public schoolteachers don’t even know what Latin is, let alone the students. He applied to the US Naval Academy but because of poor grades didn’t get in so he had to settle for…USC! But his family didn’t pull a Lori Laughlin. USC didn’t used to be particularly competitive, and in any event he got in with a football scholarship.
He lost his scholarship after a bodysurfing (!) accident (and imagine a 20-year-old John Wayne bodysurfing. I’d pay money to see that video) but Tom Mix was a huge fan of USC football so he persuaded the legendary director John Ford to hire John Wayne as a gopher and a flunky, and then he got moved along into screen roles. He collaborated with John Ford for decades. This was a long, long process, but eventually John Wayne became the silver screen legend that we think of him as. He made dozens of movies, which I will not recap, and I don’t really like most of them because they’re Westerns or war movies, but True Grit was excellent. He also starred in 1956’s The Conqueror, as Genghis Khan of all people, so that’s worth a watch. Widely regarded as one of the worst movies ever made, it also stars Agnes Moorhead, who went on to play Endora on Bewitched. It also starred Susan Hayward, who went on to play Ethel Merman Helen Lawson in 1966’s Valley of the Dolls.
I think we’ve traveled far enough down memory lane, so let’s get to the casserole!
Ingredients
1 (16.3 ounce) can refrigerated biscuits
2 pounds ground beef
1 (1 ounce) package taco seasoning
¾ cup water
1 medium onion, halved and sliced
1 medium red bell pepper, halved and sliced (1 1/2 cups)
½ cup sour cream
½ cup mayonnaise
8 ounces shredded Cheddar cheese, divided
2 medium tomatoes, sliced
1 (4 ounce) jar sliced jalapeno peppers, drained (Optional)
Directions
Step 1 Gather the ingredients. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) and lightly grease a 9×13-inch baking pan.
Step 2 Place and press biscuit dough into the bottom of the baking pan and halfway up the sides.
Step 3 Bake in the preheated oven until lightly browned, 15 to 20 minutes. Leave the oven on.
Step 4 Meanwhile, heat a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat and cook ground beef until browned and crumbly, about 5 minutes. Drain fat. Stir in taco seasoning and water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Transfer cooked meat to a bowl and wipe out the skillet.
Step 5 Add onion and bell peppers to the same skillet and cook over medium heat until slightly tender, about 5 minutes.
It’s hilarious in John Wayne voice.
Note: Genghis is probably the world’s most prolific rapist. In Central Asia, it is rare for someone NOT to be a descendant of Genghis.
I get what John Wayne tries to represent, but it is tough to correlate that with his life. He bemoaned about hippies and draft dodgers yet didn’t serve in World War 2 (back issue) which he became well known for staring in movies about.
I’ve seen his response (Rio Bravo) to High Noon which he regarded as communist shit. High Noon is a much better movie in my opinion and plays out more in my experience. Few folks are willing to sacrifice to fight the power especially when it is dangerous. The only thing he got right was that most of the volunteers were idiots (see Jan 6.)
His John Ford stuff can be great, but that’s probably because Ford treated him the way he filmed his horses and landscapes.
Is this missing some steps? The last five ingredients are MIA, possibly in a North Vietnamese POW camp.
The Green Berets is one of those movies that is so bad it doesn’t even work on a kitsch level like some of John Wayne’s robes and sandals stuff. The 60s were full of WWII movies which were like that — just dull, throbbing like a toothache.
Oh shoot, they must be, and I can’t even remember where I found this stupid thing. It’s all over the Internet, though. Hang on.
Here we go. This is from another recipe:
I have actually made this and it’s pretty good and Tex-Mex-ish and I totally glazed over the sour cream spread that you put on this. But it was a long time ago. Sigh.
It must be the midwesterner in me, but I didn’t even notice the directions just stopped. I was just reading along like ope that makes sense betcha just dump everything in and bake at 350 for 45 minutes.
This is why I am CONVINCED I would love the Midwest. I love casseroles. Do you have “hot dish” down in Missouri? They’re basically casseroles but they’re called this in Minnesota and I think Wisconsin.
I also love the accents. The French dog walker and I are becoming extremely close, and the dog just adores her at this point. We got talking about my (bad) French accent and the Parisian one. I told her that in New York there is a very special group of accents, depending on your ethnic affiliation, that are very New York. BH and I don’t have one, we were trained to speak like MSM news anchors, but sometimes when BH is a little drunk and/or angry or excited he will start dropping his Rs.
I will sometimes lapse into a stereotypical Nu Yawk accent when I get riled up with a New York-based service rep over the phone. “No, this is not foine! Fuggeddabout it. You owes me [X dollars] and I will not let this go. Do you unnastand me?” I come off sounding like My Cousin Vinnie. But it works. You have to fight fire with fire.
St. Louis doesn’t have hotdish as a thing, but unsure about northern Missouri. St. Louis is a very Southern city in some ways and even driving an hour north feels like a very different Missouri than where I live.
I’m a lifelong Midwesterner, and I did the same thing!
“But his family didn’t pull a Lori Laughlin.” Cousin Matthew, that was a comedic gem and I am still chuckling at the delivery of it.
I was hoping someone remembered Aunt Becky and the USC scandal. You don’t hear much about the two daughters anymore. I wonder what happened to them. Part-time waitressing jobs at Hooters maybe?
Daddy is a fashion designer so I assume they’re “assistants” or some obviously fake job title that has no real importance but gets them on the company dole.
I’ve definitely had this casserole at family events. You add chopped green onions when serving if you’re feeling fancy.
Also it would be called “taco casserole” which probably makes people cry on the inside every time a white person utters it.
I think I’ve told you (all) that I have embraced American takes on different cuisines. Did you know that Chipotle has a test kitchen? They do. Or did. It’s down in Chelsea. We used to cart back all kinds of stuff they hadn’t rolled out yet, and get survey cards. We stopped going once the pandemic set in and a decent and more authentic Mexican place opened up within walking distance of our little hacienda.
I still have never been to a Taco Bell but I’d be willing to give it a shot. I’ve managed to cross “Eat an Olive Garden Meal” off my bucket list, so that’s something to be proud of. I also, about three months ago, went to a Five Guys. I’d never been, but the Herb Spamfellow-ized Takeout talks about them incessantly, and we do have them. Fine. Expensive. Order a small fries and you get an avalanche, so that’s weird.
I’ve also been to a Carl’s Jr. once, against my will. BH and I were driving to Santa Monica, I can’t remember why, but right off Santa Monica Boulevard is a Carl’s Jr. so we drove through and he ordered a couple of burgers. I held off, because Santa Monica has amazing restaurants We found a place to have lunch, and while I was consuming my own body weight in fresh-catch sushi he was feeling a little bloated and gassy.
I’ll give you all a piece of advice: if you travel with me, eat where and when I tell you to.
I fucking love Taco Bell and when people hate on it, it really is sad to me. I know you’re not saying mean things, I just think Taco Bell gets a bad rap.
For decades, Taco Bell was the only fast food chain with decent vegetarian options. And it’s not like some weird fake meat patty, nope, it’s just things like bean burritos.
Taco Bell also used to be the only fast food place open super late by me except the 24 hr places like Steak’n’Shake.
I’m not hating on Taco Bell at all! I would love to go to one, but for some reason my town never had one growing up, nor did my college area. (They did have a Popeye’s, though, and I’ve been a fan ever since.)
The nearest one to me is, ironically, in Spanish Harlem, which has no lack of delicious Hispano-Caribbean restaurants and holes-in-the-wall. That neighborhood does not have a lot of Mexicans, they’re mostly in Queens, so I guess our Puerto Rican and Dominican friends are going there for some reason?
I really should go. Or see if they’d deliver. Or a delivery service would deliver. The Takeout loves Taco Bell and covers their introduction and withdrawal of menu items the way the tech press covers the latest iPhone rollouts.
Skip the tacos at Taco Bell.
Get yourself a Crunchwrap Supreme, which is the best thing on their menu and I think one of the best fast food ideas of the last 30 years. I fucking love a Crunchwrap Supreme.
The Beefy 5-Layer Burrito is a surprisingly tasty monument to cardiac blockages.
Duly noted, Brighter! I actually have a cardiologist (and two stents! but no cardiac surgery yet) and we talk about embracing a low-sodium diet. I don’t actually cook with a lot of salt. It’s unnecessary if the ingredients are pretty good and there are tons of ways to spice up meals without shaking a lot of salt on the food. I go through tons of garlic, which supposedly has health benefits, in lieu of salt.
My parents, who smoked like chimneys, would grab the salt shaker and liberally dust their meals. My mother wasn’t the greatest cook and the food was usually kind of bland but I still had my non-smoking sense of taste.
I get confused with sodium when it comes to things that can be rinsed.
Like I can see how using a seasoning mix can be be salty as hell (like an onion soup mix). Or adding a cream of whatever soup to a casserole.
But I made a 3 bean salad this week and rinsed the beans for a few minutes before adding them. Did I reduce the added sodium or not?
I also have no understanding of the dark magic used to get restaurant and fast food so salty. Even places like Panera Bread where it’s like how the fucking fuck did they get a salad so salty???
There is this amazing science behind getting industrial fast and fast casual food so salty. I remember some time in the last century getting first diagnosed with high blood pressure (hypertension). I thought I was going to drop dead on the spot. So I filled the prescription but then the next day, or two days later, we flew to LAX.
We used to take these really early morning flights out of JFK, and they used to be far more frequent than they are now. We’d land around 9 or 10 am. This was before the 9/11 security theater nonsense and when the American airline industry was functioning.
BH and I picked up the rental car and he said, “I’m still a little hungry. There’s a McDonald’s.”
California, or McDonald’s, or maybe America, had just rolled out those menu descriptions that go into great detail about calories and sodium. Having just gotten my diagnosis and lots of printed material to study at my leisure, I was absolutely horrified to learn how much sodium is in a McDonald’s food product from the wall menu.
“Better Half, I can’t eat any of this. Let’s go to the Denny’s we usually stop in at on our way out.”
So we went there, but that wasn’t much better. But I did order the fruit platter, which was ridiculously huge and “value priced” and contained all kinds of California produce, so I was happy. I don’t care if the Central Valley is draining the Sacramento and Colorado Rivers dry. Keep planting those water-intensive crops and shipping the undocumented around to harvest them and it’ll be a win-win-win.
Right?
Between the booze and the heat and the ballpark food, anytime I go to a baseball game I feel like I have sausages for fingers the next day from all the swelling!
Yet another example of the versatility of Pepperidge Farm rolls, biscuits, etc.
Indeed. There’s nothing they’re not capable of.