Food You Can Eat: Celebrity Sunday Matinee: Peggy Lee’s Jade Salad

Is that all there is? you might ask, once you finally get to Peggy Lee’s culinary offering. Yes, I’m afraid so, but Peggy Lee’s story makes it all worthwhile.

She was born Norma Deloris Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, in 1920. She started earning money by singing very early on, possibly as young as 10 or 12, traveling around North Dakota as part of a college dance band on Fridays after school and on weekends. By 16 or so she had her own 15-minute radio show and then started appearing on North Dakota’s most popular radio station, which hired her after she agreed to change her name to Peggy Lee.

So that’s where that came from. At 17 she went to, where else, Hollywood. That didn’t seem to bear fruit and she found work on Balboa Island, Orange County (south of LA) at one point becoming a carnival barker at the Balboa Fun Zone. Yes, Peggy Lee was a carny. But still, she’s only a teenager and living on her own. She finally got a gig as the MC at The Jade in Hollywood, which is where this recipe might come from. Then in 1940 she worked as a singer at The Doll House in Palm Springs. Those California nightclub venues had a knack for catchy names. So she’s doing her thing at The Doll House and she’s discovered by the guy who owned the Ambassador West Hotel in Chicago, and she picked up sticks and began performing at the hotel’s nightclub, The Buttery Room. There, she met Chicago native Benny Goodman.

A note about Benny Goodman: at this point he was “affianced” (sleeping with) the wife of a British MP. The MP sued for divorce and Benny married the woman, who, by the way, was a fifth-generation descendant of Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Peg joined the Benny Goodman Orchestra at the age of 21 and that’s where it really all began.

Her first hot hit was 1943’s “Why Don’t You Do Right?” and she also appeared in two movies with the Benny Goodman Orchestra, The Powers Girl and the seminal Stage Door Canteen (where she performed “Why Don’t You Do Right”, as shown above). If you’ve never seen Stage Door Canteen you’re missing out. Peg fell in love with a BGO guitarist, Dave Barbour, and married him in 1943. The only glitch was that Goodman had a rule that members of the orchestra couldn’t date (“date”) the female singers so he fired Barbour and Peg left too. Mind you, Benny Goodman, recently married to the woman whom he stole from a sitting Member of Parliament of our closest World War II ally, Great Britain.

So for the next 50 years there’s not much to tell. She wrote or co-wrote over 270 songs and recorded hundreds more. She wrote the songs for Johnny Guitar, which I never knew, and also the songs for Lady and the Tramp and voiced four of the characters. I’ve always loved her song “Mañana,” because it sums up my life philosophy perfectly, and of course “Fever,” that came out in 1958. I was startled to learn that the song “Is That All There Is?” only came out in 1969. I thought it was decades older. She sang all kinds of stuff, and didn’t shy away from music from young up-and-comers, including the Beatles, Carole King, and James Taylor. She released God knows how many albums and used to drop a contemporary hit or two into each of them. She is immortalized in pop culture in a strange way but most people don’t know this. When The Muppets were first thought up Miss Piggy was named Miss Piggy Lee and based on her. Then The Muppets became their own huge thing and the “Lee” was quickly dropped. Peggy Lee was married four times and maybe this provides insight into her emotional life to explain why.

She was a trooper performing to the very end, and the end came when she was 81, in January, 2002.

Peggy Lee’s Jade Salad

2 heads romaine lettuce

2 bunches green onions
1 1/3 cups olive oil
2/3 cup red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup sliced almonds

Wash and thoroughly dry lettuce, cut into julienne strips and place in a large bowl. Chop green onions into 1/4-inch pieces and mix with oil, vinegar, mustard, garlic powder, pepper, sugar, sesame seeds and Parmesan cheese. Pour dressing over lettuce and toss thoroughly to coat. Sprinkle with almonds. Serves 6.

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Yes, friends. This is julienned lettuce over which you pour a homemade dressing and top with almonds. I guess Peg didn’t spend a lot of time in the kitchen.