"Hangtown Fry" (1922); OT: Fair Grounds files for bankruptcy

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"HANGTOWN FRY"

  Oh, hang it.  I've been looking for "hangtown fry" and it's not in the LOS
ANGELES TIMES.
   So I tried "oysters" and "eggs' and "bacon" and got this.  It appears to
be the same thing, without the famous name.


      PRACTICAL RECIPES
       Chef Wyman A L, M.C.A..       Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File).
    Los Angeles, Calif.: Nov 18, 1922.                   p. II7 (2 pages)
(First page--ed.)
      _SCRAMBLED OYSTERS_
   Drain the juice from two cups of California oysters, cover them with
flour, seasoned with pepper and salt, shake off all of the flour that will not
adhere to them and dip in beaten egg and milk, cover with fine bread crumbs, and
place in a saute pan in which has been melted four tablespoons of butter.  Fry
a nice light brown on both sides and then turn into the pan four eggs beaten
with two tablespoons of rich milk, stir until the eggs just start to set, cover
the tops of flour slices  of toast with mixture, set on a hot plate, over the
top of each serving place a strip of broiled bacon, and spinkle over all a
little finely chopped parsley

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OT: FAIR GROUNDS FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY
("THE BIG APPLE" BIRTHPLACE)

  In today's (Sunday's) newspapers is a story that the New Orleans Fair
Grounds race track has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
   This is not just any old race track.  It is perhaps the OLDEST race track:

http://quickstart.clari.net/interpages/ad-pu1.html?1
The Fair Grounds is the original royal seat of winter racing, third oldest
track in the country, dripping with so much history that real horseplayers treat
it as a place apart.  Actually I think you can even make a case for it being
the nation's oldest track, if you combine its history with its predecessor,
the Union Course, also called the Creole Course, which had racing at the same
location as early as 1852. Saratoga Springs, normally regarded as the nation's
oldest track, didn't come along until 1864. Pimlico opened in 1870. Churchill
Downs is a spring chicken, debuting in 1875. This is such an ancient location
that the Bobtail Nag, of "Camptown Races" fame, raced here in 1859. (The
horse's real name was Flora Temple.)
(...)
The days when the Fair Grounds was the winter haven for the wealthiest owners
in New York are long gone (the Morrises werethe last blueblood East Coast
family to race here), but the track still has that elite cachet.

   The Fair Grounds winter racing gave us "the Big Apple."
   Ten years ago, I went down to New Orleans and personally gave the Fair
Grounds director my work.  For free, of course.
   It was a sad moment that should normally have been happy.  No one would
pay for my hotel room.  No one would pay for my airfare.  I would never make
that much money ever.
   But more than that, no one in New York City would even give me a kind
word.  And I'd give my work to the mayor, and then the mayor's office for African
American affairs (since abolished), and then the Manhattan borough historian,
and then the Manhattan borough president, and then my city councilman, and
then the Museum of the City of New York, and then the NY Historical Society, and
then NY Public Library, and then the NY Convention and Visitors Bureau, and
then the Amsterdam News, and then the NY Daily News, and then the NY Post, and
then the New Yorker, and then New York magazine, and then the New York Times
"On Language" writer, and then the New York Times letters, and then the New York
Times sports section, and then the New York Times city section...
   Not a kind word!  My father's in a nursing home, my nephew is born with
autism, my home is going bankrupt, and I'm flying down here after 70-hour weeks
of parking tickets, and then I'm flying to Texas, and I'm going to visit the
grave of Shep Friedman, who gave us "the Great White Way"--WHO ELSE DOES THIS
FOR NEW YORK?
   The director told me that they planned to build a small museum of Fair
Grounds history, and he'd add my information.  I haven't heard back in all these
years, so I assume that my work was not used.
   Sunday's NY TIMES and NY POST both have the AP story of the bankruptcy,
without adding why this particular race is important.
   That will always be the memory of my trip to the Fair Grounds of New
Orleans.