[♪♪♪] -Well, hi, everybody.

[laughs] -Hi, how are you doing?

-We're Hollywood stars.

We look like two wrestlers.

[laughs] -I wanna be in movies.

-Yes, you should.

And I know you've been in some because we've all heard about 'em and seen 'em at the bookstore.

[laughs] -I swear he's already started.

We haven't got one minute into the show yet.

Hey, listen.

-Yeah.

-Look at this.

Boy, is this something?

-Isn't it pretty?

Everybody has asked-- -Woo, I'm a little dizzy.

-Listen to this.

-What?

-Everybody has asked, they've been millions of people who have been writing in sayin', "Just where are you all when you do the show?"

Well, we're in Roanoke, Virginia, and this is it right behind us.

-And for those of you who thought it was just some old podunk place, look at that.

Isn't that beautiful?

Isn't that gorgeous, huh?

Huh?

Huh?

[Laban] This is our city, and we are darn proud of it, too.

-Are we gonna admit it now?

-[Laban] Yeah, yeah.

[Larry] That this is really just a big paper backdrop.

This has been done in the studio.

-They've been up taping all night long.

-[Larry laughs] -No, and we're standing at the foot of the star.

That's why this is called Luncheon Under the Star .

-I'm standing at the foot of the grave.

I've been a little sick lately.

-[laughs] No.

-Oh, it is the Roanoke star.

-[Laban] Roanoke has the largest man-made star in the world.

It's over 100 feet tall.

It's neon and lights up at night.

And we're here on the top of Mill Mountain in Roanoke, and that's the star.

It's an amazing piece of sheet metal.

-Started out as a promotional gimmick way back when.

-[Laban] In 1949.

-And it stayed around so long, that now instead of a promotional gimmick, it's just here.

And people swarm to see it.

So, maybe you'll swarm to see it sometime, too.

Anyway-- -Right, 40 years ago.

-So, bringing Cookin' Cheap up on the mountain top-- -Fifty years ago, what did I just say?

I don't know, 40.

-I don't know.

I'm gonna do Saffron Rice Salad.

-Ooh.

Well, I'm gonna do a Topopo Salad.

It's sort of a Mexican chef salad.

-Topopo.

-Uh-huh.

Topopo.

-Okay.

-[hums] And let me just start because this is tedious.

-All right.

-All right, this is a bag of tostados-- tortilla corn chips.

-Oh, let me have one of those.

-All right, help yourself.

-Thank you.

-That will sound good on the microphone.

-Mm.

-And we're gonna spread these out on each one of our salad plates over here.

We set an extra plate in case somebody comes by.

And after I spread these corn chips out, I'm going to smear them with refried beans.

So, this is just your old can of refried beans.

-I went into a Mexican restaurant recently and told 'em I wanted three fried beans.

They said, "What?"

I said, "Well, you know, I don't want any of that twice fried stuff.

I want it fried three times."

-Oh, and I'm sure they smacked you, as well they should, and sent you right on your way.

-Right, yeah.

They smacked me right into kingdom come.

-All right, anyway, here they are and you just take 'em right out of the can.

-Now, don't hurt yourself on that can.

-They are cooked.

-[laughs] It's not a pretty sight.

-Well, no, it isn't.

-I'm not sure you're being very delicate about that.

[Laban] Well, I mean, how can you?

-Well, that is the question, how can you?

There must be a better way to do that.

[Laban] No, I don't think so.

You just have to smear 'em around on here.

So that's what I'm gonna do now for a little while.

I'm gonna smear these refried beans on these corn chips.

-[Larry laughs] Ooh.

-I'mma tell you right now, this is a good salad, so don't cast asparagus on it too much.

[Larry] Oh, anything Mexican is good for me.

Good with me, good about me, good for me, I like it.

I'm gonna do Saffron Rice Salad.

And what Saffron Rice Salad would be complete, Chump, without saffron rice?

Doesn't that look pretty?

-Ooh, it does.

-I did that up last night.

-Is that real saffron or some of that phony stuff?

-This is real - no, sir.

This is the real thang.

And boy, I want to tell you, just a couple of threads - in fact, you can see the threads going through it there.

Yup, it's just lovely, full of loveliness.

And I did this stuff up late last night and just got so hungry, I ate some of it.

So I'm not sure there's two cups here now because I think I ate some of it.

But anyway, that is saffron rice.

And long grain!

Don't use that fake stuff.

You go out and buy the real thang, okay?

The real rice, it takes 20 minutes to fix.

This calls for long grain and about the only way you can do that is to start out with some real good quality.

I'm afraid to set anything down, it might be in the way.

Okay, now, what we gotta do now once you start with two cups of that, we start out with red and green peppers.

And these, we're doing this at the end of our fall season here.

Doesn't matter when you see this, you'll just know that as a reference point.

So these are the last two of these from my garden at the end of season, Johnson.

-[Laban] Hmm.

-A red one and a green one, something like that.

So anyway, what we gotta do now is you take about a half of one of those and you start slicing them thinly.

First thing to do is to get rid of that inside.

Oh, I hope I didn't put out any spectators.

-Uh-huh, I know you did.

-Oh, boy!

You know, we do have a lot of people here looking around off in the star.

And the first thing you start doing is just real thin, slicing.

now, this is gonna take a little while.

And whilst I get started on it real well and what have you, I'm going to go back to Mr. Johnson who may or may not have a thing decent to say.

-Well now, I have a big old fat thing of head lettuce.

-[Larry] Lettuce.

-And I'm gonna shred it, so I've washed it all, and I really did.

[Larry singing] ♪ You love to see like I love to see ♪ [both singing] ♪ Love to see, oh, oh, oh, what a cabbage ♪ -[Larry] Anyway-- -Now, throwin' it down here because we gotta toss it here in a little bit.

And you just wanna shred it real in little thin slices.

-People are really excited about the city back here.

[Laban] I know, look at them over there.

They're going crazy.

Oh, no, that old woman is trying to jump.

-[Larry laughs] -No, don't, honey.

It's not worth it.

We won't make you eat it.

[both laughing] -I'm just sorry we couldn't get the Mayor up here.

He's always a lot of fun.

-He's afraid of heights.

That's why he won't come up.

[Laban] The Mayor is a Reverend, you know.

A lot of people out there are probably very interested in that.

But he is a Reverend, and highly Reverend about everything.

[Larry] Now, they're gonna read about the star - oh, those two are going off into the bushes.

-[Laban] That's a [indistinct].

-Did you notice that?

[Laban] They gotta be at least 70 years old.

-I say never too old to go out in the bushes.

Anyway-- [Laban] Well, maybe they're gonna go look for squirrels.

-Now, let me show you this.

What you're supposed to do is just thin slice those that way and I guess if you wanna be real prettified, you do that.

But I'm gonna just cut 'em once this way because I just don't like those long things.

I think they're too difficult to deal with.

Throw those in there.

This is gonna get real pretty and you only need half of this, so save the other half.

Now, I'm gonna take a green one and cut it in half.

[Laban] That green one is going over to the red.

-Just a little tad bit.

-[Laban] Well, that's fine but it's still good looking -But it's still a green-- there's no difference between a green one and a red one.

-Now, wait a minute.

You have thrown those seeds down there, we'll probably have to be pulling up pepper plants all next year.

I swear.

-[laughs] Pepper inflestation is what you're gonna have next year.

So anyway, we're gonna start doing the same thing to that.

We're going to start just thin slicin' those just a tad little bit, tad little bit.

And we'll continue doing that for a while, Mr. Johnson.

-Okay, thank you.

Now, I've got my shredded lettuce down in this bucket and I'm now going to chop some green onions.

[Larry] Those look like fresh spring onions.

[Laban] Well, they're not because it ain't spring.

[Larry] They look like fresh fall onions.

[Laban] Right.

And we're gonna need about oh, a half a cup or so of these.

So, and you just cut right on up that green stalk.

What's wrong?

-I was just lookin' around.

-Oh, and see what's going on?

-Actually, I wanted everybody out there in TV land know that I still have eyes, and the eyes have it.

-And you only have eyes-- -For them, that's right.

-So, we're now, we're putting our chopped green onions over in here.

And I hope they're chopped all the way through.

I'd hate to get a whole one but, you know.

funnier things have happened on this show.

[Larry] Uh-mm.

[Laban] And let's see, that oughta be about a half a cup.

-These are wonderful recipes to do outdoors because all you have to do is just prepare your rice in advance and everything else can be taken to the field and very cleverly put together.

-Sure.

Now, I've got my lettuce in there.

And now, I've got a - look at this, Lar.

This is a jalapeño.

-Jalapeño.

-Jalapeño.

And I would like to say where it came from but the guy that gave it to me works as an engineer at another TV operation.

And you know they're all in trouble around here now.

-[Larry chuckles] -So, we can't mention them on the air.

But he was real kind to offer me this out of his garden.

And I'm gonna treat it very carefully because these things-- -That doesn't constitute some kind of collusion or anything-- [Laban] I know.

I'm afraid I'll end up in federal court.

-[Larry] Yeah.

-But anyway, these are highly dangerous because they will burn you for days if you get it on your skin.

-Well, I thought I saw a fed hanging out of that bush over there a minute ago.

-So, I am not going to-- -Probably went in there with that old woman.

-To do anything where this will touch me because I don't wanna burn for days.

I'm gonna burn for years.

[laughs] -You're gonna burn anyway, but.

-Eventually, but.

-Okay, I'm gonna take the green ones and pop them into the salad.

Next thing I'm gonna start doing now - do you think I should give this to some of these spectators over here?

-No, let me give them the other half of this one.

-[laughs] Why don't you put some of that in this one?

-Uh-huh.

-Anyways, I'm gonna start coarse chopping a tomato.

This is the last tomato of my garden this year.

I'm just so.

[sniffles] I'm shook up about it.

I'm gonna coarse chop it.

So I'm gonna start doing that right now.

[Laban] While I'm chopping up this jalapeño.

And this thing has gotta be minced, I mean, big time.

And I know we'll get thousands of people writing us letters about our chopping and mincing techniques.

[Larry] Mm-hm.

-I know I don't wanna ever be caught doing it improperly.

[shift whistle blows] [Laban] Oh, did you hear that, everybody?

-Well, it sounds like it's time to go home.

I'll be seeing you all.

[Laban] That's the shift whistle down at the railroad.

-Don't we get off now at this point?

-No, we have to finish doing this show, whether we like to or not.

-Oh.

All right.

[Laban] All right.

Now, my-- I have not even got a whole jalapeño because I don't wanna burn everything up.

I was talking to Doris a while ago and she said she had some chili that liked to set her free the other night.

And I don't wanna hurt her too badly.

But this is finally minced, jalapeño, raw jalapeño pepper.

And that is going to go over into the salad greens.

And now, let's see, what else do I have to add to it?

All right, now, I'm going to add a can of red kidney beans.

-Woah, we're talking trouble right here in Magic City.

-Now, I opened these kidney beans up previously and rinsed them off real good.

You wanna rinse them off.

And you're gonna throw these over into your salad.

-Uh-huh.

That's to get all of the natural syrup and everything.

-Right, because that will get kind of floury and a lot of starch, so you wanna get that off of.

And now I'm going to toss this with my bare hands.

down in here a little bit.

And this is only the first part of this.

And you gotta toss it up real good so you mix up that jalapeño down in here because you don't wanna have anybody get a big whole-- -[Larry] Load of it.

-Load of jalapeño.

That could be very disastrous.

But this is the best way to toss this particular salad is with your God-given hands.

Now-- -Those are your actual and natural hands?

-These are my natural hands.

-Yeah, okay.

-And I'm going to now dress this salad just a tad with some oil and vinegar dressing that I made up.

And it's just a good olive oil.

-He had a cute little jumper suit on it earlier but now he's done messing.

-And a little bit of vinegar, and I'm gonna throw that in here and dress that right now and start - and we're gonna toss this real good.

And then we're gonna put it on here.

And then we'll be about half-way through.

[laughs] -Well, that's good because we're about half-way through, so that works out real nicely.

Just take your time, just take your time.

Things are just goin' along real well.

-But you wanna make sure your greens and your onions and your beans are all.

tossed and dressed.

And now, I will.

delicately.

-[Larry laughs] Plop.

Well, this is starting to look like a very beautiful salad.

-[Laban] Yeah.

Real tasty.

-Very lovely.

-I'll put a few more beans over here on this one.

and spread it out.

Now, remember, these are on your chips that have your refried beans on 'em already.

Normally, this would make a salad for four but this is, you know, a TV salad.

So we're making 'em a little bit bigger.

We're out here, out of doors, and people can't see quite as well.

-Alright, now.

-[laughs] I know I can't.

I haven't seen anything since we been on the air, all this sun shining in my eyes.

-All right, now that takes care of all of that particular step.

And you wanna do something over there?

-Oh, yeah.

I guess I will.

I'm gonna add to this mess.

Of course, we've got the saffron rice, and we've got the red and green peppers and now, I've taken one tomato.

Fresh from my garden, last one there is, and I've rough chopped it.

That's rough chops and I'm gonna put that in there right now, too.

This is getting to be a rather formidable salad.

-You got into that rough chopping right after the Karate Kid , right?

-It was right after the karate, rough chops, just like that.

-You liked that old geezer and he taught you all that you know about rough chops.

-Now, the next thing we add to this thing is we need to add some chickpeas.

-[Laban] Ooh.

-Oh, the very lovely - you don't like chickpeas?

-I don't care for garbanzos.

-Yeah?

[Laban] No.

-Well, I'll tell you what I'll do.

I'll make a little deal with you.

I'll go real light on the chickpeas.

[laughs] -Well, I don't think you'd go too heavy on them anyway, you don't have that many.

-I - well, but I'm not supposed to have that many, I'm supposed to just have a few.

I hate to be indelicate about this.

I'm gonna have to get rid of it.

-Oh, no.

Oh, please don't look.

I hope the police don't find out you're littering.

[laughs] -Well, we are after all outdoors.

I think we're gonna be covered up.

-Well, it's biodegradable.

-And we're just gonna throw a couple of those in there.

-But there might be a deer or a bear around here that will have bad gas tonight.

[laughs] -[laughs] It must have been a good year for garbanzos.

Look at the size of those things.

Do you think that's enough?

-That's natural.

-Will that make you nervous?

-Yeah, they're about like that.

-Take a look at that.

Isn't that pretty thus far?

-Oh, that's amazing.

-[both] Hmm.

Hmm.

Hmm.

-[Larry laughs] -Oh, they look good.

[Larry] Oh, it does.

It does.

What you got now, Mr. Johnson?

-All right.

I have now got a half a pound of these little shrimps.

-Oh, well, look at those.

They do give shrimp a whole new name.

They are right tiny.

Were those pre-frozen, some of those little pre-frozen?

-[Laban] No, they weren't.

-They were pre-fresh.

-They were formerly fresh and then canned.

-[laughs] And now dragged out here.

[Laban] Right.

-And we all hope we live to tell it.

-I hope they haven't got bad.

-[laughs] There's nothing worse than a bad shrimp.

-Uh-huh.

Anyway, you put your shrimps.

And you could use - if you don't like seafood, you could use cooked turkey on this.

Just like for any chef salad, you could use a lot of-- -That would be a lot cheaper, too.

Wouldn't it?

-Actually not, if you use the old canned shrimps.

They're not too bad.

Now, the next thing is I'm gonna put an avocado on here but I gotta peel it first.

-Oh, no.

That's such a misery.

-So, I'm gonna undress this avocado and you go ahead and do whatever it is that you feel that is necessary for you to do while I show these people how I am deftly able to peel this 'cado.

-Well, the next thing I got to do is I've got to put in some olives thinly sliced.

[laughs] I want you to see these thinly sliced olives.

[Laban] Oh, my gosh.

-These are lightly chopped, not thinly sliced.

But what can you do, folks?

-[Laban] You could slice 'em, you could get big ones and slice 'em.

-I picked up the wrong can.

No, I didn't wanna do that.

It's too much work, I'm out here in the middle of nowhere.

I don't have time to deal with it.

That looks like the greatest of plenty.

And we're gonna add - this thing is kind of a strange - oh, we have to add some fresh peas.

I just picked these right out here a few minutes ago.

-Liar, liar, pants on fire.

-[Larry laughs] Well, they look fresh.

-Well, so did you when you went out this morning.

-And they're not still frozen either.

That's the wonderful thing about 'em.

We're gonna put some of those in there.

-Either God is frowning on us or the sun has hit that big pine tree.

[laughs] -[laughs] I believe it's hit something up there, I don't know what.

And this thing calls for whole almonds.

And I don't understand that, it looks like you could break your tooth on something like that.

You know what I'm gonna do?

-[Laban] What?

-I'm gonna take some - I'm sorry.

I'm gonna vary just a little - you can use whole almonds if you want to, it doesn't matter.

I won't be offended if you do.

But I'm gonna use just some.

some slivered almonds.

I think it'd be real nice and I won't choke and kill my cooking partner accidentally out here in the middle of nowhere.

-You certainly wouldn't wanna do that.

-Now, what we're gonna do is toss this, that saffron rice and all that.

Boy, I tell you, this is a pretty salad and a very colorful salad.

-And look at that, ladies and gentlemen, that is a perfectly peeled avocado.

-Oh, that is wonderful.

-Now, I'm gonna halve it.

-[laughs] -I'm gonna half it.

-And I'm just tossing this and we're gonna wait for Mr. Johnson to finish up with that, then we're gonna make a nice little vinaigrette dressing.

[Laban] Well, if I can do it here.

I don't know whether I can or not, Bly.

-I have a secret to getting the seeds out of those things.

-Oh, I'm scared to ask.

I don't wanna hurt it because I wanna grow it.

I haven't done one of those for a long time and I've decided I would do it on this recipe.

How do you do it?

-Well, I always take the two halves and twist them, but you're a little late for that now.

-Oh.

Yup, and I wanna see if I can prise it out.

There it goes.

-Don't put your eye out now.

-Okay.

Now, I'm gonna take that home and grow it.

Oh, it's cut just a little.

-Next year, we'll have avocados in everything we cook.

[Laban] Uh-huh.

Now, you have to slice this baby and I'm gonna do that into little thin slices and put that on our salad.

So, Bly, I'll continue to do this, if you've got something else to do there.

-Well, what we gotta do is we gotta make up a little vinaigrette dressing and I actually remembered to bring a container around to do it with.

And what we do is we start out with four tablespoons of real wine - red wine, not real wine, vinegar - red wine vinegar.

Oh, Lord.

[laughs] -What's wrong?

You didn't get the real?

-Oh, I did.

But I can't get it open.

Do not adjust your set.

[laughs] -Well, I'm sorry.

I don't wanna laugh but-- [laughs] -Oh, go ahead, you're dying to laugh.

Oh, there we go.

And thank heavens it doesn't have a cork in it.

That would be the next obstacle that we would have to deal with.

-Oh, I've got a corkscrew in the car.

-Oh, Lord.

It's got one of these shaker tops.

-Oh, I thought they were dying out.

-[laughs] Where'd that lid go?

-I don't know.

-Where'd that lid go?

-I don't know, but I've got vinegar all over my feet.

How'm I'm gonna explain that at the office?

-[laughs] Those things are not supposed to fly out of there like that, but it did.

And I can assure you, I want you to witness there is no top down inside.

That's so none of us will die.

-You know I'll get it.

-Well, you won't.

A little bit of salt.

-I always do when I come to your house.

-Just a little bit.

[laughs] Virgin olive oil, just enough to make it look real pretty, and some corn oil.

I'm just guesstimating this but I know it's gonna be wonderful.

I always say that.

And a little bit of fresh ground pepper also goes in there, and I brought my fresh ground pepper mill along.

-[Laban] Oh, well, good.

-And yes, it is working.

I think it's working a lot better than the last time we went out.

And just shake it all up and you'll be ready to serve this stuff.

-[Laban] Shake it up, baby.

-And that's what I'm gonna do.

We wanna look at the recipes or you still got something to do?

[Laban] I've got to slice these tomatoes, but we can start to look at the recipes while I'm doing the job on these very, very hard first-of-the-winter tomatoes.

-[Larry] I'm shaking this up.

Saffron Rice Salad, one and a half cups or two cups long-grain rice, a half a teaspoon of saffron threads and you do that all together.

That makes your saffron rice.

One-half of a sweet red pepper, half of a green pepper, one ripe tomato chopped roughly, one cup of cooked chickpeas, one cup of cooked fresh peas, third cup of black olives thinly sliced or smushed as they were in my case, one-third cup of whole almonds or you can get the almonds all just finely sliced.

And then you make the vinaigrette dressing with four tablespoons of red wine vinegar, a quarter of a teaspoon of salt, six tablespoons of virgin olive oil and two tablespoons of corn oil and a little bit of freshly ground black pepper.

And that's what you got.

-[Laban] Mm.

And in my recipe, you have to have a bag of tostados, one half to one cup of refried beans Mexican style, a minced jalapeño pepper, just a teaspoon of it, a half cup of chopped green onions, an eight-ounce can of red kidney beans that should be washed.

Not the can but the beans.

A half pound of cooked shrimp, not raw.

You might have a half-a-pound of cooked turkey.

An avocado that has been peeled and sliced, and two medium tomatoes in thin wedges, oil and vinegar, and the final thing will be some shredded Romano cheese.

-Ooh.

I tell you, now this salad is looking prettier all the time.

And also, this Saffron Rice Salad would be real lovely if it wasn't for the fact that Johnson has just made this big concoction with millions of tons of stuff on, makes mine look real piddly but it's not, it's real good, I'm sure.

-No, it's because you ate so much of it last time.

-Now, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take a little of my vinaigrette dressing and we're just gonna pour that right over top of it, just a little bit.

This is a schnappy dressing, real schnappy.

And that's it.

You've got yourself a wonderful salad and so pretty, too.

-Now, I'm gonna grate my cheese, oops.

That just went real well.

-[Larry laughs] -All over the top of this.

This is Pecorino Romano.

[Larry] Ooh.

[Laban] And that just goes all over the top of this.

Just a veritable snowflakes, snowstorm of the Pecorino Romano.

And.. Larry, look at that.

Oh, goodness gracious.

They look awfully good.

Let's have a fork and try some.

I brought extra ones because you know how the crew is.

Well, let's try yours first.

-All right.

-I'm really anxious because I love saffron rice.

-Uh-huh.

[laughs] -It's always so tasty.

Oh, look.

I managed to get a fork-full without a garbanzo bean on it.

Mm.

-Mm.

That's a right respectable salad.

Very interesting.

-Mm, that's real tasty.

-Mm.

-It's got some real good crunch to it.

Well.

-[Larry] Hmm-mm.

-Oh, what a small salad this is.

This is beautiful.

This would be a meal unto itself.

-It would, it would.

And it will, it will.

-It will.

[laughs] Would, would, will, will.

Well, hey.

I wanna get down to those chips and all that refried beans and stuff.

-Mm, this is tasty.

-Mm, this is wonderful.

-Well, you know, we're doing all these parties this year and we've gotten some sad news.

-What?

-Well, there's gonna be some retirements around.

And now, some people don't know they're gonna be retiring but they are.

And next week, we're gonna have a retirement party.

-Oh, isn't that nice?

-Isn't that nice?

-I hope we can send off someone we're tired of.

-Right, uh-huh.

Well, listen, everybody.

We are so glad you could be with us today here under the star on Mill Mountain in our home, Roanoke.

See you soon.

-Bye.

[♪♪♪]