April 24
Barbara Joan Streisand's Birthday

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Barbra Streisand has had a unique, multifaceted career as a singer, actress, screen writer, film producer, director, and Democratic fund raiser, She has earned two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, an American Film Institute Award, a Peabody Award and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award. It all began when seventeen-year-old Barbara Joan Streisand decided to change the spelling of her name to Barbra one week after launching her cabaret singing career in 1960 in a New York City gay bar. She quickly got more gigs at local clubs such as the Bon Soir and Blue Angel. After several more club dates, she landing her first part in a Broadway show, I Can Get It for You Wholesale in 1962 for which she won the New York Drama Critics Award and received a Tony nomination for her performance.

Barbra released her first album, The Barbra Streisand Album in 1963 which earned her two Grammy Awards, and launched one of the greatest recording careers of all time with more than 140 million albums sold worldwide making her second only to The Beatles for records sold.

In 1964, Barbra went back to Broadway as the star of Funny Girl, in which she appeared for more than two years. in 1965 with My Name Is Barbra, the first of five network specials. In 1967, Streisand went to Hollywood to film Funny Girl, for which she would win an Academy Award. This launched her film career with several major successes and a few flops. Her successes included What's Up, Doc? (1972)..The Way We Were (1973), A Star Is Born 1976, and Yentl (1983) which she also directed and wrote the screenplay.
One of Barbra's ex-boyfriends, former hairdresser turned producer Jon Peters whose producing career has recently bottomed out has tried to get some media attention with a proposal for his bio titled "Studio Head:" ln a questionable tell-all book about his life and affairs including his relationship with Barbra. In his proposal to a potential publisher, he is quoted by the New York Post in claiming that ""Barbra may have had her neuroses and insecurities, but getting men, the men every woman wanted, was not one of them." He claims she confided in him that she'd had "life-imitates-art affairs with Robert Redford on The Way We Were, and Ryan O'Neal on What's Up, Doc? and had just ended another with Kris Kristofferson, then at his hunkiest" in A Star Is Born."

Pot roast is a recurrent subtext in several of Barbra's films. In The Way We Were, Barbra tries to entice Robert Redford to stay for dinner when she blurts out "I make a terrific pot roast." In Yentl , Barbara sings "No Wonder" which has some famous pot roast recipe lyrics:

The question's "to roast or to not roast?
Or better yet maybe a pot roast?
Tomatoes? No.
Potatoes?
No wonder he likes it-
It's perfect this way.

But Barbara and pot roast became permanently connected in the screwball comedy For Pete's Sake (1974) in which she plays a ditsy housewife whose her husband, Pete, drives a cab. When Pete gets a tip from another driver to to invest $3000 in pork bellies, Barbara's character goes through an implausible series of escapades to get the loan including prostitution and cattle rustling. But there is a running joke throughout the part film on Barbra's choice of a pot toast for a dinner to impress her in-laws . She goes to a bank teller about a bounced check who notices a pot roast in her grocery bag and says, "Fiscally speaking, you're eating over your head." She then goes to the phone company to explain that she will not pay a bill for a phone call that she did not make to Yugoslavia. The Phone Company lady then says, "Strange you won't pay us, but you have money for a pot roast." Because of the running joke, the film producers printed tens thousands of promotional cards distributed a supermarket chains titled "For Pete's Sake Try Barbara's Pot Roast Recipe" with Barbra's photo and this recipe below.

Although For Pete's Sake is not one of her best films, there are still plenty of laughs. So we a we recommend viewing it on her birthday and making Barbra's pot roast.

Barbra's Pot Roast

Ingredients

5 lb pot roast
5 large onions sliced
4 cloves of garlic crushed
3 carrots, diced

2 green peppers, sliced
i can beef bullion
6 potatoes, peeled and halved
salt and freshly ground pepper

Instructions

1. Heat oil in Dutch oven and add onions. When onions are golden, remove them.
2. Wipe pot roast with a paper towel and brown on both sides (about ten minutes) before returning onions to [Dutch] oven.
3. Add peppers, garlic, carrots, potatoes, bullion, salt and pepper to taste.
4. Reduce heat and allow to simmer for about 3 hours, stirring once in a while and adding water if sauce evaporates considerably.
Meat is done when a two-prong fork goes into it easily.
5. While meat is cooling, place sauce in a blender for a few seconds. If it is not fairly thick, mix a little flour with the sauce from the
sliced meat and add to the sauce.
6. Returned sliced meat and gravy to Dutch oven for additional simmering (about 20 minutes).
7. Serve meat slices, covered with sauce and vegetables from the Dutch oven.
8. Freeze left-over meat, gravy, vegetables for later use. It tastes better the second time around.