Classifieds
Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com
AVAILABLE FALL 2019
905 Church St (near Hill St). Newly
re
modeled three bedroom apartment
with Granite, SS appliances, and
hardwood floors. Parking and laun‑
dry available. Free Heat. $2395/mos.
keysmanagement.net
STORAGE FOR STUDENTS
studying abroad. Indoor, clean, safe,
closest to campus. AnnArborStorage.
com or (734)‑663‑0690.
PERSONAL ASSISTANCE
NEEDED
Currently Seeking a Full or part time
As
sistant to join our team...
Positive Attitude.
Computer experience helpful.
Must be able to follow instructions.
Monday‑Friday, $650.00 weekly
resume should be emailed to
rostc65@gmail.co
FOR RENT
HELP WANTED
HAPPY
TUESDAY!
By Michael Krebs and Theodore Krebs
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
12/11/18
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
12/11/18
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Tuesday, December 11, 2018
ACROSS
1 With 18-Across,
R.E.M. guitarist
6 Microscope glass
10 All snuggled in
14 Support piece
15 1998 Sarah
McLachlan hit
16 Black-and-white
cookie
17 Anglo-__
18 With 35-Across,
10-time “SNL”
host who was
Belushi’s straight
man in samurai
routines
19 Restaurant
handout
20 Gritty film genre
22 “We are gathered
__ today ... ”
24 “Say that’s
true ... ”
27 Speedway event
29 Entertainment
award quartets,
for short
33 Swiss skiing spot
34 Pops, to tots
35 With 44-Across,
hitter of 755
home runs
36 “Perhaps I’m
wrong”
38 Takes effect
39 What six people
in this puzzle
might be said to
possess
41 Climbs, as a cliff
42 Staggered
44 With 57-Across,
“Breaking Bad”
actor
45 Gives (out)
sparingly
46 Passé TV
accessory
47 Sediment layer
48 Courtroom cry
49 Big Apple team
50 Weak end?
52 Anti-cruelty org.
54 Green gemstone
57 With 68-Across,
Garfunkel’s
partner
59 Zest
63 Big Aussie birds
64 Taj Mahal city
65 Worker, briefly
66 Ocean motion
67 Depend (on)
68 With 1-Across,
one of the Twelve
Apostles
DOWN
1 “Arthur” TV station
2 Notable time
3 Withholding __
4 Lodge opening?
5 Nevada casino
city
6 Chocolate dog
7 Emory email
ender
8 Wall recesses
9 “For heaven’s
__!”
10 Impatient after-
school text to a
parent
11 Salem is its cap.
12 Buddhist sect
13 “__ busy?”
21 Tehran residents
23 Warms up, as
leftovers
24 Dr. Seuss’
Sam-__
25 Sideless train
unit
26 Invasive
computer
program
28 Scratching-post
attachment
30 With no breaks,
as a tennis set
31 Cut into four-inch
pieces, as a
footlong sub
32 Dict. entry
34 Pass rusher’s
team
37 Meaty spaghetti
sauce
38 React to dust
40 Script for TV
41 Down or blue
43 Rx writers
45 Rx quantity
49 New Zealand
native
51 Prepare for a
boxing day?
53 A++
54 Airbus
product
55 French buddy
56 Failed
firecracker
58 Clickable link
60 Boo-boo
kisser
61 Gaza Strip gp.
62 “An egg’s way
of making
another egg”:
Samuel Butler
The trees are shaking off
their browned leaves, there
is a distinct chill in the air,
everything is peppermint and
gingerbread and all about Santa
Claus. It feels as though our
hands are always cold. The
pinkness in my cheeks, chapped
lips and transition to warm cups
of coffee has me nostalgic. I’m
not sure if it feels the same for
you, but for me, when the air finds
a chill, something in me starts to
crack open and head toward the
sentimental. Maybe it’s the end
of the year — looking back on
12 calendar pages tossed in the
trash with wistful remembrance.
Or maybe the month of Dec.
ignites an evocative, half shell of
emotion in all of us.
Much of this sentimentality
finds its roots in tradition. The
stories of our life, the trifles of
our upbringing and the pieces
of history we pack in our bags
even when we move far away are
grounded in tradition. For my
family, tradition starts with food.
I’m sure it’s simply in our Italian
blood, and the knack for cooking
and inherent love for flavor
were all curated somewhere in
Southern Italy ages ago. But ever
since I can remember, traditions
were always centered around
food. Every holiday and event,
every means for celebrating
— even if it was just a Sunday
afternoon where we all had the
privilege of being together — beat
along with the idea that food and
wine and good company could be
the antidote to the world. If you
paged through the scripture of
my family history, you would be
advised to always invite anyone
inside who had nowhere to go
and always celebrate with good
food and good wine. You would
be reminded that salt, reggiano
parmigiano, heat and red wine
are your friends when you are
bent over a stove. You would
learn about the selfless act of
cooking for others. Somewhere
in there, you would learn about
me.
At this time of year, these
thoughts take me to the holidays,
namely, Christmas Eve, which in
and of itself is a larger tradition
for my family than Christmas
day is. I wonder often where
traditions begin. We seem to
accept them as fact, much like
mathematical equations. All of
us have some piece of tradition,
be it shattered or whole, be it
long gone or still with us. Certain
things we just know. At our home
on Christmas Eve, anyone who
doesn’t have somewhere to go is
invited. Once you’ve been invited
you never get removed from the
invite list, even if we haven’t
spoken in a year, even if you’ve
moved away and moved on. You
can simply never be uninvited.
That’s just tradition.
So even if it’s the only time all
year I see them, I can expect the
same motley, loveable crew every
year — same time, same place.
There’s dancing and drinking
and gift giving and perhaps most
importantly, food. So much food
that I often wonder if we’ll ever
learn our lesson and prepare less
than the outrageous amount we
do. But the more the merrier
seems to be the motto of the
whole night every year — in
regards to food, chilled glasses
of wine and good company. If I
could bottle up a feeling, it would
be the one inside the white house
on River Road every Christmas
Eve. It is the epitome of what
warmth feels like.
I wonder where this all began,
where a tradition so specific and
idiosyncratic in its nature found
its beginning. My father, the
spearhead of the bubbly, lively
Dec. 24 affair is half-Jewish,
half-Catholic and perhaps the
most fond of Christmas anyone
has ever been. This Christmas
spirit
began
when
he
was
raised by a Jewish mother and
a Catholic father who didn’t
believe in going to church. My
dad tells me my grandfather
found God in his kitchen every
day. On Christmas Eve, our home
is a non-denominational affair —
with people identifying as every
religion
coming
together
to
celebrate. If you don’t celebrate
Christmas, if you believe Jesus
roamed the earth and pray to him
every morning, or you’re waiting
for him still, or you don’t believe
in him at all — you are welcome.
It’s a peculiar and spectacular
sight to see — an amalgamation
of languages and cultures and
ideas and love and music all
pouring from the cracks in our
walls. Merry Christmas, indeed.
When I traced my father’s
history, which required light
prodding and sweet memories,
I found it all started with the
Feast of the Seven Fishes, or
Festa dei Sett Pesci, which is the
Italian-American
celebration
of Christmas Eve which is a
meal supplemented with dishes
of seafood. The meal typically
consists
of
seven
different
seafood
dishes,
originating
in Southern Italy, where it is
known simply as The Vigil or
(La Vigilia). The tradition of
eating seafood on Christmas Eve
began from the Roman Catholic
tradition of abstaining from
eating meat on the eve of a feast
day. Observant Catholics would
instead turn to fish, and today,
the meal has become a feast of
seven, eight or even nine specific
fishes that are considered to be
traditional. Most Italian Fish
Feasts commence with white
fish in lemon and garlic, followed
by clams and mussels mingling
with ropes of spaghetti spattered
in spicy tomato sauce, and a
number of other fish dishes that
may feel without end. I should
tell you that I’ve never celebrated
Christmas Eve with a traditional
Festa dei Sette Pesci, but it is
important in bringing you down
the line of my life, nonetheless.
Before I was born, when my
father and his brother were
boys, they celebrated with a
traditional Feast of the Seven
Fishes, cooked by their father at
the home in which they grew up.
Much like my family’s festivities
today, their Christmas Eve had a
doors open policy — the strategic
over-preparation
of
food
to
ensure they wouldn’t run out.
Everyone leaving full of love
and food, balancing tupperware
containers
of
leftovers
on
their way out. My dad tells me
my grandfather believed that
people, no matter who they are
or what they are, should have
somewhere to go on Christmas
Eve, to be around people who
love them. Around good food and
good wine, which in our family
scripture are said to be the
ultimate offerings of peace and
harmony. I’m trying to imagine
what this would look like — a late
’70s picture in my mind, perhaps
cigar smoke and laughter fills
the air; seven, eight, nine, 10 fish
dishes lining the dining room
table; white fish buttered and
sauteed and fried and glazed to
perfection; pasta with basil and
crab sauce; a loaf of haphazardly
torn
crispy
baguette
sitting
among a pool of grassy olive oil,
all crackling as they cool, with
my grandfather’s grace echoing
into the warm air. I wondered
what my grandmother did as my
grandfather spent his afternoons
and evenings with God in the
kitchen, mixing and praying.
Mixing and praying. I never met
her, my dad and uncle lost her
when they were my age, but a
lot of people think she and I are
quite similar. Isn’t it strange that
our eyes came from someone
long gone? I asked my dad what
her role in this Christmas Eve
production
was,
especially
considering being Jewish, she
didn’t
grow
up
celebrating
Christmas herself.
“She
was
the
master
of
ceremonies,” he said without
much of a thought, and I wished
to plug a cable into his mind and
watch his memories project on
a drop down screen. “She made
people dance. She made people
stay. She was the reason the
evening would run past 10:00
or 11:00 at night.” I could feel
his nostalgia effusing from the
other end of the phone, from
nearly one thousand miles away.
“She was the best happy person
in the world.” I feel as though
her spirit must still be alive in
the hardwood floor of our family
room, where all of our hooligans
and family members, friends
old and new, twirl and dance to
brassy Bruce Springsteen tracks
and
holiday
classics
before
dinner on Christmas Eve every
year.
My uncle tells me the story
of a year he was sent out with a
wad of cash from the restaurant
to pick up a mink coat that my
grandfather
was
giving
my
grandmother
for
Christmas
Eve. They always exchanged
gifts on Christmas Eve because
much like a small child, the
anticipation
killed
her.
My
grandfather wrapped the coat
in a garbage bag. My uncle said
he remembers her face when
she opened it, she cried and then
slept in it.
When
my
grandmother
passed away, my father, uncle
and grandfather moved into a
different home — one that I can
remember visiting as a small
girl. It was in this house that the
tradition first began to mold and
shift. It is here that my mother
and her family were invited
in, bringing with them their
own customs and scripture.
Interesting how the people we
meet and fall in love with have
traditions too, the marriage of
two holiday traditions gives
birth to a completely new one,
all fresh-faced and sparkling.
My maternal grandmother says
some of her first memories of
my paternal grandfather are at
his home sharing the Feast of
the Seven Fishes. She told me
about the table — a stark image
— being as long as it had to be in
order to fit every guest around
it. My grandfather vehemently
opposed splitting up the family
for meals, so instead everyone
was elbow to elbow. Italians
believe in closeness. I think most
prominently in her memory,
and perhaps the most special
moments of her first Feasts of the
Seven Fishes was how fully her
family was invited to be a part
of my father’s. My grandmother
says her favorite memories of
Christmas
Eves
passed
are
the table settings, a strategic
element to my Grandfather’s
success as a celebrator and a
gatherer. He always sat my
mother’s grandfather right next
to him, bridging the two families
together at a deeper level than
just the union of my parents.
As time evolved, the table in
my grandfather’s house grew too
small. Suddenly with children
and spouses and new friends
to invite inside, the Feast of the
Seven Fishes didn’t fit at his
table. Once more, the tradition
took a new shape, a new face,
always keeping the same beating
heart as it forged on through the
years. My grandfather relocated
the Christmas Eve celebration to
his Italian restaurant, shutting
the doors to the public, which
is a rarity as the restaurant
business thrives on Christmas
Eve. Here he could fit more
friends, a growing family and
more spirit than he could before.
But with new palettes and small
children the tradition of seven
fishes didn’t feel right either. He
altered the menu — still holding
a candle to the past and those
lost, but reconfiguring to fit a
newer group — serving a variety
of fish dishes, adding chicken
and pastas, fresh veggies and red
meat, and of course, thick, soft
layers of lasagna and crispy, salty
eggplant parmesan. My uncle
remembers enormous shrimp
cocktail, which makes me smile,
because we still have that at my
house every year. He tells me
about snow crab claws the size
of your hands, a mountain of it,
piled high on ice. He tells me
about clam sauce. His intention
always that there would be
something for everyone when
they stepped into his front doors,
wherever those front doors were,
whomever the folks were coming
in from the cold.
It makes more sense to me
now where this Christmas Eve
came from — how it was born,
who gave it breath, who gave it
life. Why I’ve never had a Feast
of Seven Fishes, despite the fact
Our traditions in
food and festivity
DAILY FOOD COLUMN
that I feel entitled to one. How
we mix grief and sentimentality,
love and trifles of history and
come up with new ways to
celebrate ancient whisperings.
What is a meal but nourishment?
What
is
nourishment
but
necessity? What is a dish but
ingredients on a plate? What is
seven fishes that is not crispy
eggplant
parmigiana
and
gigantic shrimp cocktail? Do
we find God in the kitchen? Do
we find Him in our floorboards?
Is this recipe always evolving,
as things ebb and flow, always
standing firm in its roots? Is
that my grandmother’s laugh,
is it her eyes? What is tradition
without loss? Without love?
Without reshaping and growing
and pushing past and pushing
towards?
What did the 24th look like
back in 1977, and what is the
same now as then?
The details have changed.
They always do. The faces have
changed too, because that is just
the way the wind should blow.
There is no Jewish grandmother
in a mink coat wrapped in a
garbage bag, dancing till she
falls. There is no grandfather
with worn hands, serving seven,
eight, nine fishes. But the truth
in it is the same; the flavors are
the same. It all comes back to
the scripture, the recipes, the
food, the knowledge that in
ingredients and wine and flavor
we grieve, we love, we celebrate,
we come together. It is still an
open doors policy: You are still
always welcome, all of you, any
of you. There will be something
to eat, something to drink,
someone to talk to who you’ll
only see once a year, every year.
I hope you can come. Everyone is
invited.
Season one of “The Marvelous
Mrs. Maisel” ended in a flurry
of lights and applause. Midge
Maisel
(Rachel
Brosnahan,
“Crisis in Six Scenes”) was
high off the end of a successful
stand-up
performance.
Amid
her crumbling marriage and
her feuding parents, she was
rising above it all as a star. It
was an inspiring ending, one
that seemed to be the catalyst to
a continuation of Mrs. Maisel’s
ferocious fight to become a ruling
presence in the male-dominated
industry of stand-up comedy.
Yet, it seems that season two of
the period comedy had different
plans. Midge’s heroic stampede
towards a career in comedy has
become more a stifled shuffle as
she has become a backdrop of her
own starring role. The spotlight
no longer has a clear target; it
swings from Maisel’s estranged
husband Joel (Michael Zegen,
“Boardwalk Empire”) searching
for an apartment and purpose,
to her disillusioned parents Rose
(Marin Hinkle, “Speechless”)
and Abe (Tony Shalhoub, “Tales
from Radiator Springs”) ruining
and rebuilding their marriage.
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” is
more “The Sad Boy Joel Maisel”
or “The Delusional Abe and
Rose Weissman,” with little
opportunity to see what’s so
marvelous about Mrs. Maisel.
Frustrations with the show
can be summarized by a single
scene in episode five. The Maisels
and Weissmans are away in the
Catskills, with our star being
more concerned with trips to the
salon and swimsuit competitions
than the variety of gigs her
driven, sharp manager Susie
(Alex Borstein, “Family Guy”)
booked for her. Midge is willing
to skip the comedy opportunities
for her break in the Catskills, but
when she gets the call that the
department store she works at
needs her at the Revlon counter,
she practically jets the 120
miles back to Manhattan. This
makes for a short yet wonderful
little scene, as Midge imitates
monotone,
depressing
news
radio on the ride back with a
spunky potential love interest,
Benjamin
(Zachary
Levi,
“Tangled: The Series”), but it
sadly highlights what the show
has become, and where it could
have gone.
That’s still not to say that
“Mrs. Maisel” has lost its edge;
it’s just juggling with it. The
scenes
are
still
beautifully
shot, the dialogue still witty
and quick-paced. Each scene’s
gaud, movement and backing
music make for an experience
that feels as close to a classic
Broadway musical as television
can
get
(Louis
Armstrong’s
“What a Wonderful World”
soundtracking a walk through
1950s Paris with your betrothed?
Um, yes please?). The sophomore
season isn’t muddled, it isn’t bad,
it’s just exasperating. Every time
Midge so much as glances at her
former husband, you just want
to scream and remind her that
he cheated on her even when
she did everything right, with
his secretary nonetheless. He
couldn’t even cheat in a unique
way, and still his pity party gets
screen time.
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”
continues to be better than
90 percent of everything else
on television, which is why it
can afford its stumbles. There
are glimpses of the old “Mrs.
Maisel” throughout the first
half of the sophomore season,
enough for the audience to
root desperately for it to break
through
completely.
Faith
should not be lost in Midge and
her quest for comedic glory, the
camera just needs to find its way
back to her. For now, find some
joy in Joel’s misery and fondness
in the Weissman’s revitalized
marriage. They are just simple
opening acts to an up-and-
coming,
astonishing,
smart-
mouthed comedian.
‘Mrs. Maisel’ must return
the spotlight to its true star
SAMANTHA DELLA FERA
Daily Arts Writer
TV REVIEW
ELI RALLO
Daily Food Columnist
“The Marvelous
Mrs. Maisel”
Season 2, Episodes
1-5
Amazon Prime
Video
6 — Tuesday, December 11, 2018
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com