queer stuff: love, suffering and dancing
19 Oct 2010 1 Comment
in narrative Tags: aids, autumn, Brooklyn, dancing, eating disorder, garlic, gay, gay marriage, HIV, home cooking, justice, new york, peoria, queer, sexuality
i stood in the little cheese etc. shop watching yet another mom wrangle her Sports Utility Stroller through the door, like a camel through the eye of a needle, and public radio repeated…kidnapped, beat, tortured and sodomized. Young men in the Bronx by other young men in the Bronx. Over my eight hours behind the counter through the trickle of customers, that was the refrain of the day. Each hour: kidnapped, beat, tortured and sodomized. They did not say raped; I keep wondering why.
this drawn out headline followed by NY governor candidate Paladino’s speech about “gays brainwashing our children…” corrected with a talk show tour where he clarified that he is no homophobe, he just doesn’t think gays should marry. There’s a People magazine sprawled on the backseat of the preacher eater’s aunt’s car: cover story, bullying and teen suicide. Mostly queer kids.
gay men saved my life.
against all the recent news of suffering, I vividly recall:
the fire circle. after the talent show. drums cradled between knees in a ring in the dark.
standing woodside, pushing my hips off the beat, side to side, minidress sliding up black tights; the ground hard and cold under my thin soled boots, the laces tight. Wide-kneed stomping, he comes around the circle, naked from the waist down, pale cock half flopping, side to side, in a short formal jacket, wild white-faced with peaked sparkling eye make up glittering over his beard, over his big smile. The fire belches up sparks into the black, spraying light on his shiny elbows flapping. I step over the tarp where voyeurs curl up watching; he makes room. Slide into his square clapped out into the air for me, framing my body, we churn something older than us in the air, old like dirt. Snake through the warm pockets, sweating, long sweater sliding off. Turning, stomp hard at each other; asses jiggling. Beyond us, men share flasks of Wild Turkey, smoke out of an apple. Beyond them, a cluster of three slim figures stroke each other. My lover stretches on the blue tarp behind me into the folds of a big bearded man’s toga, glitter falling between them.
years ago, the back dance floor of DJ’s place, after the drag show, falling against the cook from the café where we all seemed to work, freckled, thin in his old jeans and white tee shirt. His arm curving around my hip and waist pulling me close, step to step, hips locked. His lips slid up my neck, “I never met a woman who loves food like you do.” “Talk to me about Garlic,” I hissed and bit his tongue.
i had a horrible eating disorder, lost whole days to it. Queers helped me get over it. All that affection. New scales for sexual desirability. New performances of femininity. All that unapologetic pleasure.
perched on a stool in the burgundy China Doll dress he had picked out for me, I looked up at his perfect cupid’s bow lips as the ice skater lined my eyes. We’d make-out with only lips touching in the parking lot before going into the Red Fox, the after hours gay club with the old high school lab tables. Kissing like the thirsty drinking water, crystalline, simple. He held me when I melted down after taking his boyfriend/my housemate’s ex-lover to the hospital when his mother had a heart attack he blamed himself for. After the little gay mechanic’s dad put his head through a windshield, and the opera singer went back in the closet so his parents would let him stay at home and in touch with his younger brother. After we unlisted our phone number because of the creepy calls. After my girlfriend’s gay sister was dragged to the front of the family church to be exorcised.
perched in the dirt at our campsite, I closed my eyes as the drag queen glued false lashes like pink polka dotted butterfly wings to my lids. Slipped into the circling conversations of foreclosure politics, fabric dying, and perverse non-sequiturs. After the majority of my closest gay men friends sero-converted to HIV-positive, and I remain relieved most live in cities with access to services and community. After the young violinist jumped off the bridge. After all the break-ups, layoffs, depression, and drama. After taking my friend to the emergency room to have a sex toy removed from his ass that, although beginning pleasurably enough, had been up there over 24-hours and another 24-hours at the hospital before surgery.
okay, the last incident was really one of the highlights of my year so far since it all turned out happy hinney. (sorry, bunny, but it was rather exciting…)
there was a Love-In in Times Square on Friday evening in response to the spasm of anti-queer hate crimes. I was in the boug-box, and Loved-In from there. I hope you’ll Love-In from where ever you are.
of cabbages and kings (there were shoes in that bit too)
19 Jun 2010 1 Comment
in beets, casseroles, cheese, greens, lemons, pasta, recipes, vegan, vegetarian Tags: bread crumbs, Brooklyn, cabbage, Community Supported Agriculture, cooking, CSA, dinner, gardens, garlic, health, kim chee, kimchi, Napa, Savoy, summer, sustainable, tempeh
scape handler
Diogenes advised the young man, “If you lived on cabbage, you would not be obliged to flatter the powerful.” To this, the courtier replied, “If you flattered the powerful, you would not be obliged to live on cabbage. “
we still had a pound and a half of cabbage after the preacher eater’s adventure in kimchi. The fermenting project netted us a huge jar of fruity-peppery, gingery pickled cabbage and carrots with plenty to gift to the neighbors, but half a head of Savoy and an entire red cabbage began accruing squatter’s rights in the left crisper drawer.
virtuous, humble and reliable, cabbage earned accolades in ancient Rome and held its own among the French Court of Catherine de Medici. It plays mythical roles from beau diviner to baby-maker to faerie land wormhole gateway. Ubiquity and poor handling put this staple out of favor. Outside of the obligatory 4th of July coleslaw and a few dedicated sauerkrauters, we mostly avoid cabbage, rumored to generate stink as it cooks and after you eat it. Like so many misunderstood foods, these unfortunate experiences are not really the cabbages’ fault, yet the stigma remains.
so she was gasping when she called me from the farm share pick-up, Guess what’s in the share? Cabbage!
we almost swapped that cabbage out. Our CSA site has a box to trade stuff you might not want: hate broccoli? take your neighbor’s unloved turnips. One cook’s trash is after all…
we had a cart like that in grade school in the gym turned lunchroom. I kept my much maligned salami sandwiches to myself but always took a cruise around the table for anything interesting. It was perpetually teaming with inside-out pb&j sandwiches mangled in transit, bashed up bananas, and overly red apples that you knew were mealy despite stiff and shiny skins. Disappointing. Although the CSA swap box held far more promise, the farmer was giving us Napa cabbage, a new variety for our growing collection. Humbled to fate, perhaps, we decided to confront our cabbage surplus head on.
as soon as our newest cabbage arrived home, we went right for the heart, putting away 3 bunches of outer leaves and pulling the central leaves for instant salad. We also shredded that lingering red cabbage, mixing half with shredded new beets and olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper—jarred this.
for Instant Gratification CSA Salad, combine a quarter of a red cabbage, shredded, with the innermost pale green leaves of Napa cabbage in a huge glass bowl. Rinse a handful each of the finest of spinach and beet greens. Stem the spinach and roll the beet greens up like a cigar, slice them and add to the other greens. Scrub and slice thin three Japanese radishes—not those leg of lamb sized Daikon, these were round like typical red radishes but pure white and milder—and add to the salad.
then come the scapes, wonderfully loopy and green, like bracelets. Discard the stringy tips at the bulb end then slice the bulb just below the neck then slice it open lengthwise. Slice a few inches of the green stem the same way, long, elegant, on the diagonal. Rinse off a handful of pea pods, pop off the stem end if it is tough (ours were utterly edible). Slice in half if they are long then lengthwise, right through the peas, split their tiny equators. The cutaway of the inner landscape is pretty like the scapes. Heat a small frying pan over a medium flame and pour in a few slugs of olive oil. Toss in the scapes and the peas, salt and pepper and toss them around over high heat for a few minutes, until the peas are bright green. Dump right from the pan into the salad bowl and toss. Squeeze half a lemon over the whole thing, toss some more and serve. This salad accompanied BBQ tempeh sandwiches to our table.
the next night, several bunches of Napa leaves went into a skillet pie reminiscent of stuffed cabbage rolls but far less work:
break dried spaghetti into 1-inch lengths for about a cup of broken noodles; boil and drain them. Cook a cup of quinoa for about 15 minutes in 2 cups of boiling stock. While the grains and pasta cook, chop several scapes (or garlic) and shell some peas. We had about ¼ cup of peas and saved the pods for miso soup. Toss garlic and peas with the pasta and grains in a big bowl along with salt and pepper. The stock we had on hand was deep with mushroom flavor, which I think made this the best sort of comfort food, a dish that draws the eater in to pause then wraps you in thick, familiar flavor, smelling really good.
in a big, cast iron skillet, sauté half an onion, chopped, in a bit of butter and olive oil. Add ½ a pound of tempeh, chopped, along with salt, pepper, red pepper flakes and paprika, turning and cooking until it begins to brown. Ladle in about a cup of stock and a few stalks of spicy basil or other herbs then bring to a simmer, steaming the tempeh. When the stock has evaporated, turn the tempeh in with the grains and stir. Let this all cool just a bit then crack in an egg, stir.
preheat the oven to 400° and wipe out your heavy skillet. Melt 3 tablespoons or so of butter and spread a layer of bread cubes (about 3 slices of bread, cubed) along the bottom of the pan. Season and toast the bread over high for a few minutes, turning to coat all sides in butter. Smooth out the bread layer and cover with the grain/tempeh and over that layer several rounds of Napa cabbage leaves. Crumble fresh feta and shred some parmesan cheese over the leaves; dot with butter and sprinkle with paprika. Bake the whole thing for about 20 minutes, until the leaves are soft and cheese is melted. In a bigger casserole, there could be a few layers and, I imagine, delectable.
summer jewelry
we have some of the remaining cabbage earmarked for miso soup, and surely the last bit of red cabbage will go into our daily lunch salads, or maybe this kale and cabbage slaw. Getting through all this cabbage was originally about conquering it, but this affair turned out much tastier triumphs. And we still have kimchi.
** with affection to alice & her creator, who gave me so many things to talk about then eat
soupe bonne femme avec faggot
26 Mar 2010 2 Comments
in carrots, mushrooms, potatoes, recipes, soup, vegan, vegetarian Tags: Brooklyn, cooking, french, garlic, new york, one bowl cooking, spring
“Many recipes call for a faggot.” — Louis Diat
mais oui—everything is tastier with a dash of faggotry! I’m not talking buggery— although many of us could use a soupcon of that too, survey says up to half of gay men never do it up the butt anyway — but the joie de vivre, the je ne sais quoi of a fabulous queen. In the radical muffin kitchen, cooking gusto evokes a certain make-do and then some learned at the hip of sassy men who could out stomp me in their platform shoes and draw suitors to them through the din of crowded bars with their eyes. Certainly, a femme is better with a faggot.
this is perhaps not what monsieur Diat had in mind. No, the French born chef was the head at the New York Ritz-Carlton kitchens, where he not only trained many chefs in the U.S. but also made it his life’s work to translate French cooking techniques into English. In Gourmet’s Basic French Cooking: Techniques of French Cuisine, published for the first time in 1961, he includes among Tricks of the Chef:
Faggot Many recipes call for a faggot. To make a faggot, cut a stalk of celery in 2 pieces 3 or 4 inches long. In the curve of one piece, tuck a few sprigs of parsley, folding in the ends, lay on this a bay leaf, and sprinkle with a little thyme. If the recipe does not include carrots, a small piece of carrot is sometimes tucked in with the parsley. Place the other piece of celery on top very firmly and secure the faggot by winding a long piece of string closely around it. Unless you assemble a faggot firmly and bind it tightly with plenty of string, it is apt to roll apart during the cooking.
Soupe Bonne Femme is simply potato leek soup, although all the following “bonne femme” recipes in his magnum opus seem to be “with mushrooms” and how this all relates remains a mystery to me. The soup would probably be delicious with mushrooms, but as it is or rich with cream, Soupe Bonne Femme is perfect fare for blustery March weather.
scrub clean 4-5 potatoes. chop them and put them aside in a bowl of cold water. Slice the greens and roots from 4 medium-small leeks, clean them well in cold running water. Dice the white part of the leek along with 1 small onion and a few peeled garlic cloves. Melt a tablespoon or so of butter in a big, heavy pot, add the leeks, onions and garlic, and cook until soft but not brown, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon.
drain the potatoes and stir them into the leeks, turning to coat with butter; cook for about 5 minutes. Pour in 4 cups of hot water or stock. Assemble and bind a faggot of celery, carrot, parsley and thyme. Add this to the soup pot along with a dash of salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for ½ an hour to 45 minutes or until the potatoes are beginning to fall apart.
serve as is or…stir in another tablespoon of butter and 2 cups of whole milk or 1 cup of cream. If you add the cream or milk, be sure not to return to a boil but only gently reheat. In the alternative, to go entirely vegan, cook all the veggies in olive oil.
vol au vent mushrooms
25 Feb 2010 4 Comments
in cheese, garlic, mushrooms, recipes, vegetarian Tags: antipasti, Brooklyn, casserole, cooking, dinner, garlic, italian cooking, marcella hazan, moscato d'asti, mushrooms, parmesan, paul stamet
vol-au-vent: a large shell of light, flaky pastry for filling with vegetable, fish, or meat mixtures.
origin: 1820–30; < F: lit., flight on the wind
marcella hazan writes that mushrooms are nature’s own vol au vent.
begging to be filled and bedded and baked together.
these are not flaky bottoms, no, but succulent and earthy with notes of ancient witchiness.
for our most recent feast, i translated this nonna di cucina’s cappelle di funghi ripiene recipe for the radical muffin kitchen. so I omitted the pancetta and anchovies, but I did add the egg, which I think binds the whole thing together and is hazan’s best advice. i also left out the parsley, only because i forgot, and it wasn’t missed.
with just a dry towel, we wiped off about two dozen mushrooms, a mix of cremini and shitake, then chose those with the deepest, sturdiest hollows for stuffing. Any casserole of an accommodating size will work, and we had a wonderful piece: a round shallow, terra cotta casserole with a glazed interior and raw exterior. Sweep your casserole with olive oil and nestle the mushrooms in side by side, touching but not over lapping. You won’t use so many mushrooms – i think a baker’s dozen fit in our pan- so save some for the filling and some for something else wonderful. Unless, of course, you have a huge pan then double the recipe for the filling and have a grand fete…
mince half a red onion and begin sautéing it in a hot fry pan with melted butter, about 4 tablespoons. Use 1/3 cup olive oil if you want less dairy fat. Mince and add 4 or 5 mushroom heads and 3 or 4 cloves of garlic. Salt a bit; pepper a bit. Find your zen. When the onions are translucent turn off the heat and add several stripped stems of thyme.
in a bowl, mix together ¼ cup each ricotta cheese, shredded parmesan and bread crumbs. Add a beaten egg then the cooled onion/mushroom mixture along with several shredded leaves of basil. Pack each of the mushroom heads generously with the cheese mixture.
in a smaller bowl, mix about ¼ each of bread crumbs, shredded parmesan, and chopped and whole pine nuts. Sprinkle this over the stuffed shrooms. Dash with paprika if you like. Bake at 375° for half an hour or until the top is beautifully crusted and golden. Partway through baking, it is lovely to splash a little moscato in the pan if you are drinking it anyway. Turn the pan at least once for good measure. Serve to friends just out of the oven or throughout dinner; they sit fairly well.
manga manga!
miso awesome soup
26 Dec 2007 2 Comments
in greens, mushrooms, recipes, soup, vegan Tags: asian cooking, ceramic bowl, chopsticks, cooking for one, everything & anything, garlic, ginger, london, miso, noodles, radical muffins love good food, weeknight dinner
The amounts here are for a generous bowl for one voracious feminista yogi. This soup is quite adaptable by size – feed your feminista yogi flock!
Bring a pot of water to boil and cook a handful of udon noodles. The corner health mart carries an organic brand that comes in 8 oz packets with three bundles of noodles, and one bundle is just right amount for a big bowl. (One big bowl eating is typically friendly cooking for one eater, one broke but taste-conscious eater. Those inspired, sexy soups, pastas, and salads you whip up for dates with your one true one want a roomy, gorgeous bowl. Right now my favorite is a ceramic piece that heats up comfortingly in my lap when I sit cross legged on the couch. This bowl, runny with glaze in cinnamon, oatmeal and cream, is my flat mate’s handmade treasure. I gotta find my own perfect piece; I will let you know how the quest goes.)
Slice two or three scallions (green onions). Peel and mince an inch of ginger and two cloves of garlic. Slice three or four thin slices of chili. Chili is highly subjective; know thyself.
In a medium sized sauce pan, heat a few teaspoons of vegetable oil and sesame oil. When a flick of water sizzles in the oil, lower the heat and add the chili, garlic, ginger, and scallions along with some sea salt and black pepper. Add two to four tablespoons of tamari.
Clean off your mushrooms—any kind you like, of course. I used the smallest possible shitakes and creminis, carefully de-stemmed and cleaned with a paper towel. Sauté the mushrooms briefly in the fiery oil, about five minutes, until their heads are glistening and glossy brown.
Pour broth over the frying mushrooms, about 3 cups. Bring broth to a boil.
Halve a lemon. Snip a cup or so of watercress and add it to your bowl.
Lower heat and with the soup at a low simmer, squeeze in the lemon juice from both halves and stir in two tablespoons of miso. Bring back to a fine simmer and pour over the delicate greens.
I eat this with two tools: chopsticks and a big, shallow spoon.
cannellini bean & roasted garlic soup
18 Jan 2007 1 Comment
in beans & lentils, recipes, soup Tags: Brooklyn, cooking, dinner, garlic, italian
- cannellini beans
- dried rosemary
- dried oregano
- 2 bulbs of garlic
- water
- veggie stock
- white wine
- sage
- rosemary
to cook the beans
Pick over the dried cannellini beans: run your fingers over and through them in a colander, bowl or on a cookie sheet, looking for & tossing beans that are shriveled or darkened. You can be more or less meticulous about this based on time & personality. At minimum, make sure there are no pebbles or grit.
Rinse the beans in cold water a few times then soak them, covered generously with cold water, overnight. The following day, dump the beans into a colander and rinse them a few times.
Transfer to a large, sturdy pot and add water. Cannellinis, like most beans, take 3 cups of water per cup of dried beans. Bring to a low boil, angle the lid to only partially cover the pot, and let simmer away. Toss in a small handful of dried rosemary and oregano. Cook the cannellinis for about 45 minutes. The beans should be just about tender but not quite as done as you’d like them if you were going to eat them right away.
Reserve 2 cups or so of the broth; pour it into a measuring cup or other container. Drain the beans. Let cool and toss with olive oil. Stash any beans you aren’t using immediately in the fridge until you are ready to use them.
to make the soup
Roast one bulb of garlic. Rub off the top layers of papery skin, slice the top and bottom flat, set it in a square of foil, drizzle with your best olive oil. Seal the foil and roast in a 375 degree oven for about an hour, until it is soft and carmelly.
If you are cooking beans and making soup all in one go then start the garlic before you start the beans. This creates time for it to cool for handling.
Peel and mince 4 cloves of garlic. Mince about 2 tablespoons worth of rosemary and sage.
Now it gets tricky – put everything in the pot and simmer for hours.
In a big, heavy pot, combine about 4 cups of the beans with 2 cups of veg broth, 2 cups of wine and 2 cups of water. Add the minced garlic. Over medium-high heat and covered, bring the soup to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer.
Reserve some of the oil from the roasted garlic to drizzle over the soup later then squeeze the roasted garlic cloves into the pot. Cook for at least an hour; you want the level of the soup to drop a few inches. Add more liquid if you like. Stir lazily but frequently with a wooden spoon, squishing some of the beans against the side of the pot to mush them. Mashing the beans thickens your soup, so mush more or less depending on your personal tastes. If it is a fancy sort of occasion and you have the equipment – you could run the whole lot through a blender for a beautiful, velvety white soup. You might want to keep out the fresh herbs and stir them in after you’ve reheated the puree.
To serve as they would in Tuscany, ladle over a slab of toasted Italian bread and drizzle with the garlic oil. I humbly recommend a rosemary loaf or sourdough.
