set the night before at a neighborhood bar named the Salty Frog. “And people followed us home afterwards,” Jean- nie says. “And we didn’t get to sleep until about six this morning.” She remains coiled on a nearby sofa. “Garlic,” Lando
says. “I don’t use that much. You don’t want that much of a garlic taste.” He comes up with a single glistening clove: “This much.” Martinez shipped out with the U.S. Navy when he was 17. He stayed in for 20 years. He works for them as a civilian now, moni- toring access to secured areas. “They first sent me to Italy,” he says. That’s where he learned to cook. “I got to hang out
with Tim Pyles today. He does a 91X thing at
Pit Bull Audio. He gives Hocus a shout-out on his radio show now and then.” Lando continues chopping, dicing, slic- ing ingredients into a large pot. “I’m mak- ing a calmer chili,” he says, “because Jeannie doesn’t like it too spicy. I’m using bell peppers to give it zing. Not a spicy zing, but a zing.” Ground beef browns
in a skillet. “I guess I’ve been making this all my life, this chili. By the way,” he says, “some people drain off the bean juice. Not me.” It all cooks down for another 30 minutes, and then we each try a bowl with a side of Fri- tos, seated under the Christmas lights, watch- ing a vid of Cheap Trick performing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club from front to back. Heav-
enly — Lando’s chili is heavenly.
Two-stage Italian cuisine with Picus Maximus The sauce: Pork loin
Tomato sauce Tomato paste Italian sausage Heavy cream
White onion/red bell pepper Salt/pepper to taste The pizza: dough
prosciutto
provolone cheese pear slices
arugula, chopped
“No, we never actually ate any of this at the Ball- room, but we had it at home when I was a kid.” Jim Soldi stands over the range in Rick Sparhawk’s kitchen, working on a pot of pasta sauce he says was his mother’s recipe. Soldi’s
parents owned a stake in the famous Bostonia Ball- room during the 1950s; they also owned Valley Music in El Cajon. Both enterprises are long gone. The sauce’s secret ingredi- ent? Pork roast. “You let it cook in the
tomato sauce with a little tomato paste and chopped white onion and chopped red bell pepper for about five hours. Then, you take it out so as not to dry out the meat. Italian sausage goes into the sauce next.” Soldi’s sauce pot is
balanced over the burner on the flat side of a brick. “So it doesn’t burn,”
he explains. Sparhawk says,
“That’s a Ramona brick, by the way. I lifted it out of my walkway before I came over here tonight.” Soldi lives in Ramona
with his wife, dog, and some chickens.
HEALTH AND BEAUTY
During the 1970s,
Sparhawk and Soldi were members of a popular touring band that home- based here — Mont- ezuma’s Revenge. Post Revenge, Soldi went on to gigs with Ricky Scaggs, Johnny Cash, and Eve Selis. In 2005, Sparhawk and Soldi reunited as a duo for which they bor- rowed the Latin name of an extinct woodpecker: Picus maximus. Sparhawk kneads a
ball of dough into a flat oval, then presses it onto a round baking sheet. He’s making pear-mozzarella- prosciutto pizza with fresh arugula from his garden. The pears are the size of bocce balls. They, too, came from his garden, as did the basil. The chopped purple leaves smell both sweet and woodsy. Does Sparhawk still own those classic lamb’s wool chaps
he wore in Revenge? “No. I lost them. And
my really good ones, the spotted cowhide chaps? I loaned them to a friend for Halloween once. Never got them back. I do still have my Stetson, though.” Soldi: “I wore a lot of
my dad’s old stuff back then.” Soldi’s dad’s nick- name was Cactus. “Nudie suits, things like that. Sparhawk: “You still have that stuff?” Soldi: “No. I gave it to Marty Stewart.” Sparhawk: “They
fit him?” Soldi: “No. I think
he was just collecting all that stuff.” Picus Maximus has
two CDs out and one in the works. “But we’re not very conventional,” Sparhawk says. “We don’t gig anywhere.” Soldi: “We’re like
Steely Dan.” They both
28 San Diego Reader April 21, 2016
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