The MARY TYLER MOORE Show

The Dinner Party episode

The Mary Tyler Moore chapter in TV Dinners features The Dinner Party episode

The following recipe for Veal Prince Orloff is pretty close to Julia Child’s creation from her famous cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking (info here).

takes advantage of television’s “creative license.” Veal Prince Orloff wouldn’t “die” if Sue Ann left him in the oven to keep warm until the guests arrived. In fact, you should cook the dish in the morning, assemble it and reheat it just before serving your guests in the evening.

According to Julia Child’s original instructions, the veal is cooked, sliced and reformed with a spreading of onions and mushrooms between each slice. Then it’s covered with a light cheese sauce. Next, you reheat and brown it before serving. By the way, Sue Ann boasts that she uses only two cups of cream early in the episode, “I’ve outdone myself…and Julia Child says four cups of cream!” Well, again the writers use creative license, as Julia uses nowhere near four cups of cream. Still, this is not a real low cal dish…but it is elegant and tastes delicious. Your guests will be suitably impressed.

The esteemed Julia “bon appetit” Child suggests serving it with braised lettuce or endive and either a red Bordeaux wine from the Médoc district or, if you prefer, a chilled white burgundy. Hey, a zinfandel, cabernet sauvignon, or merlot will work too. Don’t sweat it. Nowadays a case (not a carton of twelve bottles, but a well founded argument) can be made for any wine to go along with practically any dish.
The recipe will serve 10 to 12 people unless, of course, you’ve got Lou coming over. Then you’d better figure on it serving 7 to 9.

Veal Prince Orloff
To roast the veal
4—6-pound veal roast (shoulder or breast), boned and tied
4 tablespoons peanut, olive, canola or other oil (your choice!)
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup white wine

Soubise (otherwise known as rice and onions)
1/4 cup white rice, uncooked
2 quarts boiling water
1 tablespoon salt

3 tablespoons butter
1 pound (3-1/2 cups) sliced yellow onion
1/2 teaspoon salt

Mushroom duxelles
1/2 pound (2 cups) fresh mushrooms, finely minced
3 tablespoons green onion or, better yet, shallots
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste


Velouté sauce
6 tablespoons butter
8 tablespoons flour
3 cups boiling liquid (the veal-roasting juices plus milk)
Dash of nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup whipped cream

To Finish the Filling
Another 1/4 cup whipped cream or more (if needed)
More salt and freshly ground pepper

Finishing Touches to the Velouté Sauce
Even more cream (about 2 to 3 tablespoons)
1/3 cup + 3 tablespoons Swiss cheese (grated)
3 tablespoons butter (melted)

Preheat the oven to 325°. Heat the oil in a Dutch oven and brown the roast on all sides. Pour the chicken broth and wine over the meat, cover it and cook it for 2 to 2-1/2 hours until the thermometer (a meat thermometer, not the one on the wall) hits 175°. Give it a rest for about 30 minutes.

While the veal is resting, strain the juices from the bottom of the Dutch oven into 1 quart saucepan. Put the pan in the refrigerator (or freezer) for 5 to 10 minutes. Take it out and skim the fat off the top and boil the remaining juices rapidly until you get about one cup of concentrated good stuff. Reserve this, it’ll go into the sauce.

After you put the veal into the oven to roast, prepare the Soubise and Mushroom duxelles.

Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil and drop in the raw rice. Boil it for just 5 minutes and then drain off the water.

Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a heavy, fire-proof (8 cup) casserole dish, stir in the onions, 1 tablespoon salt and the cooked rice. Cover and cook over very low heat (or stick it in the oven next to the veal) for 45 minutes to an hour. The rice and onions should be tender, not browned.

Now do the mushrooms. Extract the juice from the mushrooms. The easy way to do this is to put a handful at a time into a corner of a kitchen towel and squeeze the heck out of them. Next, sauté the mushrooms in a heavy saucepan with the green onions (or, better yet, shallots) in the 2 tablespoons of hot butter and 1 tablespoon oil. After about 5 to 6 minutes (or until the mushrooms start to separate from each other) season them with a little salt and pepper, take them out and set them aside.

When the veal is done roasting, prepare the sauce and filling.

In a heavy 2-quart saucepan, melt 6 tablespoons of butter and stir in the flour. Watch the mixture foam for about two minutes, stir it around and cook slowly without letting the roux change color. Remove it from the heat and slowly pour in the boiling juices and milk while you’re beating the heck out of it with a wire whip. Next, beat in the seasonings. Continue stirring while you bring the mixture to a boil for about a minute. The sauce should be quite thick. Taste it and add salt, pepper and nutmeg if necessary.

Pour 1 cup of the thick sauce into the cooked rice and onions. Into the rest of the sauce, beat 1/2 cup whipping cream and set it in a pan of simmering water to continue cooking slowly.

Dump the rice and onions into a food processor and puree them. Add the pureed onion/rice mixture to the mushrooms, add 1/4 cream and simmer the mixture for five minutes until quite thick. If it’s too thick, add some cream. If it’s too thin, boil it some more. According to Julia, it should “hold its shape quite solidly in a spoon.” Check the seasoning, and correct it, if necessary.

Okay, we’re getting near the end. Are you ready for the final assembly?

Carve the veal into “neat” slices. Julia suggests that they be 3/16th of an inch. Grab your ruler and start measuring. Problem is, you can’t really draw a line on the meat to indicate where to cut it. So, just cut it into very thin slices, keeping them in the order in which you did the slicing because you’re going to re-stack the slices in the same order in which you originally cut them. Put the last piece on a large plate, sprinkle it with salt and pepper and then spread it with spoonful of the filling. Slide the next to last piece you sliced on top of the first piece of veal (overlapping it a bit) and repeat the process (salt, pepper and filling) until all the veal is on the serving platter. Spoon any extra filling on and around the veal.

Next, remove the simmering sauce (it should be pretty thick) from the heat and beat in the 1/3rd cup of cheese. Spoon it over the veal and sprinkle the 3 tablespoons of extra cheese over the sauce. Then dribble the melted butter over it. All of this can be done far ahead of your guest’s arrival. Put it aside uncovered.

Now here’s where the show’s writers took liberties. Not only should you reheat the roast in a 375° oven about 30 or 40 minutes before serving (until the sauce bubbles and the top is lightly browned) but you can hold it in the oven with the heat turned off and the door ajar for another 20 to 30 minutes. So, you see, it’s pretty tough to kill Prince Orloff. Just be sure that you do not overcook the veal as it will dry out and, as Julia notes, “lose character.”

The only problem you might encounter in this whole dining experience is if one of your guests asks if there is a real Prince Orloff. We don’t know. So, take a hint from the Mary Tyler Moore writers, make something up…doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not, only funny.
For historic purposes, we’ve included the “real” Veal Prince Orloff a la Julia Child/Sue Ann Nivens. But, as we all know, in some circles veal is not politically correct. Besides, it’s expensive! The above version, although quite tasty, also takes a tremendous amount of time and cooking talent. You can easily entertain your guests with our revised — easier — version using a whole, boneless turkey breast.

CASTING CALL
Fill in the journalistic inverted pyramid of information on the invitation below. After Who print your name, What refers to a Mary Tyler Moore Show Party, Where is where your address goes, When should state the date and time, Why is up to you, and you should list your phone number after R.S.V.P. Next, make copies of the invitation on a copy machine and glue (or spraymount) them to blank note cards or post cards.

We’re Having a Merry Mary Get-together!
Who ________________________________________________________
What ________________________________________________________
Where ________________________________________________________
When ________________________________________________________
Why ________________________________________________________
So be our guest…come dressed as one of the WJM team or MTM gang (Mary, Lou, Murray, Ted, Sue Ann, Gordie, Rhoda, Phyllis, Georgette or a special guest?) and join the fun.
R.S.V.P. ________________________________________________________



STAGE DIRECTIONS
Set up your party room to look like the offices of WJM-TV. Place two desks side by side to emulate Mary and Murray’s desks. Mary’s desk should be decorated with all the traditional office accouterments such as a phone, rolodex, yellow-ruled pad of paper and pencils. It should also be the place to feature some “typically Mary” elegant appetizers. Murray’s desk, on the other hand, should be piled with papers and include an old-fashioned manual typewriter. His desk can have your beer, chips and dip. Off to the side, set up Lou’s office. This is the spot where the hard stuff (booze-wise) should be stationed.

WARDROBE
Guests who want to come dressed as Lou should wear a wrinkled white shirt (over a pillow, if necessary), rolled up sleeves, wide tie…loosened and too long. A garish plaid sport coat in earth tones can complete his look. Murray imitators should wear anything polyester, so long as it’s casual but not loud. A brown print shirt and light brown pants will work well. Ted was either wearing his powder blue news jacket with WJM emblem…or a leisure suit with a wide-collared shirt underneath.
Georgette was all-girl, and her demure dresses were icky pastels and plaids. Sue Ann typically wore frilly, even low-cut dresses, topped with an apron when she was on set or in Mary’s kitchen. Phyllis liked colors that flattered her Nordic blond good looks, and with her tailored casual look usually wore pants with a matching vest or belted jacket, a feminine version of the leisure suit. Rhoda was the fashion victim with her gypsies,tramps and thieves multiethnic look (don’t forget the kohl-rimmed eyes), so anything that’s paisley, Indian gauze, fringed, especially if all these looks are layered (to disguise the figure), will work. She particularly liked wrapping long scarves with busy prints very tightly around her head, so she’s the perfect cast member to go as if you’re having a bad hair day. And Mary, well, she was always at the height of fashion, for the ’70s. Her office attire was a two-piece knit ensemble, pant suit or trousers with a contrasting blouse sporting a wide collar finished with a vest or blazer and jaunty scarf as an accessory. But if you go as Mary, remember to keep your posture perfect!

AcTVties
Remember the beginning of the show. It featured Mary strolling the streets of Minneapolis while the credits rolled. At the end of the opening, a happy Mary whirls around and tosses her tam o’ shanter into the air where it remains suspended in a freeze frame. Well, here’s a couple of games your guests will enjoy:

• The Tam O’ Shanter Toss
Attach a piece of velcro to the ceiling as well as to the tam o’ shanter. Have your guests toss the cap up to the ceiling (just like Mary did during the opening credits) and try to get it to stick to the strip of velcro.
Award frozen pepperoni pizzas to the winners (you don’t have to toss them).

(ILLUSTRATION OF TAM O’ SHANTER WITH VELCRO TAPE)

• Bang the Tam Slowly
To amuse your more boisterous guests, suspend a tam o’ shanter upside down from the ceiling with a string. Fill it with candy, gimcracks or whatnots, then blindfold a guest at a time, arm them with a baseball bat, and have them swat at it like they would a pinata.
Award the winner a prize of another tam filled with office supplies (preferable taken from your office). Mary always was practical.

(ILLUSTRATION OF GUEST WHACKING TAM O’ SHANTER SUSPENDED FROM CEILING.)


AWARDS
The Mary Tyler Moore Show won 27 Emmy awards including:
• Outstanding Comedy Series (’74/’75, ’75/’76, ’76/’77)
• Actress of the Year — Mary Tyler Moore (’73/’74, ’75/’76)
• Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series — Mary Tyler Moore (’73/’74)
• Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Comedy Series — Mary Tyler Moore (’72/’73)
• Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Support Role in Comedy — Ed Asner (’70/’71, ’71/’72, ); Ted Knight (’72/’73, ’75/’76)
• Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Support Role in Comedy — Valerie Harper (’70/’71, ’71/’72, ’72/’73, ’74/’75); Cloris Leachman (’73/’74)
• Outstanding Continuing Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series (for a regular or limited series) — Betty White (’74/’75, ’75/’76)
• Outstanding Continuing Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (for a regular or limited series) — Ed Asner (’74/’75)


It Was A Very Good Year
The 1975/1976 was not only good for Mary (having won Emmys for Best Comedy, Best Actress and others) but two spin-offs of the show scored big, too. Phyllis was the number 6 rated show and Rhoda was the number 8 rated show. Even though Mary Tyler Moore won several Emmys, the show only rated number 19 in the ratings.


Where are they now: three spinoffs and more.
• Valerie Harper — was the first to leave the show for her own spinoff appropriately titled Rhoda. In the late ’80s, Valerie played a mother in Valerie, later called The Hogan Family when she was replaced by Sandy Duncan.
• Cloris Leachman — She starred in the Phyllis spinoff and now guest stars in movies and TV.
• Ed Asner went on to star in Lou Grant which won numerous awards. He also starred in Thunder Alley and has also appeared in lots of TV mini-series including the ground-breaking Roots. Asner also served as president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG).
• Ted Knight — played a cartoonist in Too Close For Comfort.
• Betty White — was one of the popular Golden Girls.
• Gavin MacLeod — gained even more fame as Captain Stuebing of the Love Boat. Surprisingly MacLeod’s Love Boat reached #5 in the 1980-81 annual ratings, higher not only than any of MTMs spinoffs, but higher than the MTM show itself!

You can write Mary at 927 Fifth Avenue, NY 10021 -or- c/o MTM Enterprises, 4024 Radford Avenue, Studio City 91604.

Valerie was born August 22, 1940. Write to her at 616 N. Maple Drive, Beverly Hills 90210.

Lou Grant — He was born November 15, 1929 and can be reached at P.O. Box 7407, Studio City 91614.

• Ted Baxter — “Hi, guys!” Ted Knight was born (Tadewurz Wladzin Konopka) on December 7, 1923. “It all started in a 5000-watt radio station in Fresno, California, a $65 paycheck and a crazy dream….” After several years of playing the moronic and vapid newscaster, Ted threatened to quit complaining that the character was too one-dimensional. The producers agreed to let his character grow. “Bye, guys.” Ted passed away in August 1986.

• Murray Slaughter — Sarcasm was head news writer Murray’s middle name. When asked by Ted what sort of publicity shot he’d like to see of the anchorman, Murray replied: “How ’bout a chalk outline on the floor?” Gavin MacLeod was born on February 28, 1930.

• Phyllis Lindstrom — The landlady who was as phony as a three dollar bill. She left the show in 1975. Cloris Leachman was born on April 4, 1926.

• Sue Ann Nivens —. Betty, who was married to game show host Alan Ludden until his death, was born on January 17, 1922. Join the Betty White Fan Club. Contact Kay Daly, 3552 Federal Avenue, LA 90066. Or you can reach Betty at her home: P.O. Box 3713, Granada Hills, CA 91344.

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