Make Room for Dinner Father may have known best on classic TV shows, but never in the kitchen. The breadwinner was never the bread baker in the '50s and '60s. Maybe TV was just reflecting the gender roles of the day, but cooking was usually a woman's job. You didn't see Howard Cunningham (Tom Bosley) at the stove on Happy Days. That was Mrs. C's bailiwick. (The show premiered in the 1970s, I know, but it was set in the 1950s.)
If a family was lucky, or a wife was liberated, food preparation was the domestic's duty. Mike Brady (Robert Reed) and his wife Carol (Florence Henderson) had Alice (Ann B. Davis) to whip up pork chops and applesauce on The Brady Bunch. Danny Williams (Danny Thomas) charged Louise (Amanda Randolph) with making everything from lasagna to matzo ball soup on Make Room for Daddy. And Mrs. Livingston (Miyoshi Umeki) saw to it that Eddie (Brandon Cruz) and Mr. Eddie's Father (Bill Bixby) didn't starve on The Courtship of Eddie's Father. If you didn't want to hire someone, you could always play the widower card and rook a relative into kitchen duty. Steve Douglas (Fred MacMurray) and his Three Sons not only had Bub (William Frawley), but when he split, they got Uncle Charlie (William Demarest) to cook for them. Off screen, though, TV dads did cook. The men whose recipes appear in this chapter were secure enough in their manhood to don an apron, grab a spatula, and do it. If they can, so can you, Daddy-O.
T V lovers remember him as the soft-spoken father on My Three Sons, but filmgoers know him best cast as the insurance agent in on the con in Double Indemnity. Working from the late 1920s to the late 1970s, MacMurray appeared in such varied fare as The Absent-Minded Professor and its sequel Son of Flubber, the stylish sex comedy The Apartment, and the killer-bee disaster movie, The Swarm. He is said to have valued time spent with his own family so much that he made sure all of his scenes for My Three Sons were shot first. That may have made life hell for his cast mates, but he sounds like a pretty good real-life dad. His pot roast is enough for three sons or more.
Fred MacMurray's Flemish Pot Roast
In a heavy Dutch oven, brown meat in oil, turning to brown both sides. In a separate pan, sauté onions until pale golden color. Sprinkle with flour and cook 2 minutes. Pour in beer and bring to a boil, stirring. Then pour over meat. Add brown sugar, vinegar, bay leaf, garlic, and salt. Cover and simmer 2 hours, or until juices are slightly thickened. Strain juices into a bowl. Spoon onions into a vegetable bowl. Carve meat. Pass sauce and onions at the table with the meat.
4-5 pound beef
chuck roast 1 tablespoon oil 4 medium onions, sliced 2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons flour 1 (12-ounce) can of beer 1 tablespoon brown sugar 1 tablespoon vinegar 1 bay leaf 2 cloves garlic 1½ teaspoons salt 2 tablespoons parsley
Danny Thomas 1912-1991
As Danny Williams, the nightclub Comic and father on the long-running sitcom popularly known as Make Room for Daddy, Danny Thomas was a fixture on television for more than a decade, surviving one wife (Jean Hagen), getting another (Marjorie Lord) and, for a while, even playing pop to an Italian exchange student portrayed by Annette Funicello. He was dapper and funny and loud; and no one has ever done a better spit take. Behind the scenes, he was an executive producer on such TV series as The Mod Squad, The Andy Griffith Show, and The Dick Van Dyke Show. As a real-life dad, he had an effect on television, too, by producing three children, two of whom, Marlo and Tony, went on to work in the business. Marlo starred in the early feminist sitcom That Girl, while Tony executive produced The Golden Girls. Danny Thomas's greatest accomplishment, though, was probably his founding of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, a legacy to which his children dedicate themselves today. He was a proud Lebanese-American and his recipe for fatayer reflects that.
Last Bites
Thomas liked to make cameo appearances on the series he produced. His most famous was on The Dick Van Dyke Show in an episode called 'It May Look Like a Walnut!'--a sci-fi spoof featuring a closetful of walnuts and written by series creator Carl Reiner. Thomas played Kolak, an alien from the planet Twilo, in the 1963 installment of the classic comedy.
Danny Thomas's Fatayer
Combine flour, oil, salt, dissolved yeast, and water and mix well. Knead until smooth. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 1½ hours. While dough is rising, combine lamb, onions, lemon juice, yogurt, pine nuts, and spices. Roll dough thin and cut out in 3-inch rounds. Fill dough patties with meat mixture. Shape into half moons, and score a vent for steam to escape. Place on a greased baking sheet, brush tops with oil and bake in a 375° oven for one hour.
8 cups flour 3 tablespoons oil 1 tablespoon salt 1 packet cake yeast,
dissolved in 2 tablespoons warm water 2½-3 cups lukewarm water 3 pounds lamb, coarsely ground 4 medium onions,
chopped fine 1-2 cups fresh lemon juice ? cup plain yogurt ¾ cup pine nuts, sautéed lightly in butter Salt, pepper, and allspice,
to taste