Eating Out: A Queer Blog

Celebrating Liz

2010-05-01T16:26:00.000-07:00

Our friend Liz is coming over tonight to celebrate news of her impending tenure/promotion. There'll be champagne, sure, but before that there will be chana masaladar, raita, sambhara, and a dish full of mascarpone-stuffed dates. Try them: Buy a pound of dates; if you don't want to get sticky digging the pits out, buy pitted dates (d'oh!). Split the dates open so that you have little date clamshells. Meanwhile, mix a teaspoon each of sugar and cinnamon into a small tub of mascarpone. Each date gets a blob of this lovely mélange along with a mint leaf. Simple and sexy, those are the best dates.

Chiles from Christi

2008-09-08T21:18:00.000-07:00

Christi (aka Hossy) just got back from a long weekend trip to the Hatch Chile Festival, which is truly one of the finest things on god's parched, dry, heteronormative earth. That's her trunkful of roasted chiles, nestled in plastic bags and tucked in ice chests. I received a share, for no other reason than Christi knows I appreciate the wonder that is the Hatch green chile.

New Mexican Green Chile Relish
6 fresh (roasted) Hatch green chiles
3 finely chopped garlic cloves
Small onion, minced
Good pinch of coarse salt (the eating kind, not the kind you use to dissolve ice up in Washington state)

Directions: Mix it all up. Don't puree it or mash it too much--it's relish! Let it sit for half an hour, then it's ready to eat. Usually, you'd put this alongside roast meat, but if you're not much of a beastie-eater, you can always put it on....um, anything else except chocolate cake (and even that's a possibility, I guess). Refrigerate what's left over, but if you keep it longer than a couple of days, squirt some lime juice in to brighten the flavor.

Hammerheads

2008-08-29T15:48:00.000-07:00

I love 'em. Three or four shots of espresso, fill it up with coffee. Sure, after a couple of weeks of daily hammerheads, my eyelids start twitching from a potassium deficiency, but at least I'm awake to enjoy the light show. For a summer afternoon, they're iced. Today's cold little lovely comes from Fox Coffee, right here in downtown Redlands. The LAW and I have been poaching the free wireless connection here, since our home connection has better things to do than hang out with us.

A question: in the world of lesbian coffee dates, is caffeine level a measure of one's desirability? Hey baby, look at me, THREE shots, yes MAMA. I doubt it--I mean, you might as well be saying "HEY! HEY! HEY! I'm PERKY but I'll have to PEE at any moment!" Not cool. Luckily, I'm married.

Chana Masaledar, officially [and really]

2008-04-12T13:18:00.000-07:00

I'm handing you the official recipe and my variation. I'm not eating out tonight unless somebody invites me over.

6 oz chickpeas, soaked overnight || 2 cans. Drain 'em.
4 – 5 tbsp. vegetable oil || no, no no...use ghee. Or regular butter, in a pinch.
quarter tsp. whole cumin seeds || a half-thumb
1 medium size onion, peeled and chopped || medium, large, whatever. Don't chop it too finely.
one – one and a half tsp. garam masala || a thumb, and you better be using homemade garam masala!
1 tsp. ground coriander || half-thumb to thumb, freshly ground seeds
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced || oh no, at least four. Don't be a pussy.
piece of fresh ginger, about half an inch square, peeled and grated || thumb-to-knuckle, and really, who has a ginger grater? Chop it extra-small.
1 tbsp. tomato puree || or a couple of chopped tomatoes. Whatever.
1.5 tsp. salt || great big grainy kosher sea salt, if you have it. And why don't you?
1.4 tsp. cayenne || Oh fergawdsake. Toss in two or three dried chiles. See note on "garlic" re: pussy-ness.
1 tsp. ground amchoor OR 1 tbsp. lemon juice || no, no, no. There's no OR. Why don't you have amchoor? Sigh. In a pinch, use lemon zest, not juice.

Serve with
1 firm tomato, washed and quartered

medium onion, peeled, and cut into coarse slivers || I go for green onions here. Easier to get ready, and by now dinner's probably running late and you're running out of beer
4 fresh hot green chiles || Serranos. Jalapenos. Slice 'em thin.
good handful of fresh cilantro, chopped
chunks of lemon

Cook the chickpeas. Put them aside. Heat the fat, add the cumin....add the onion. Pause. Pause again (you're browning the onions, silly.) Lower the heat: add garam masala, coriander, garlic, ginger. Pause. Add tomato. Pause. Add everything else: chickpeas, salt, chiles, amchoor. Cook for half an hour; stir it every once in a while so it doesn't burn. Invite me over while you're setting the table, and crack me open a beer. Serve the chana with all the extra vegetables; every bite can be different....

Tonight: Soleil Westwood

2008-04-10T13:04:00.000-07:00

Soleil is a bistro in Westwood, slightly south of UCLA. The LAW and I are going on a double-date with the Fusenet-Boyz: dinner, then the Laurie Anderson concert at Royce Hall. I'm jacked about the concert--the food is just extra fun for the evening.

Soleil's menu looks so French it's Fransh, as Tater might say--y'know, escargot, pâté maison, meat with sauce. I used to eat escargot with the Finn, but that was part of her mission to "civilize" me 20-odd years ago. My sense of snails is tempered now by the multitude of them that swarm over and under the candytuft in the back yard. I make the LAW deal with them--so much for butchness. Les escargots dans mon jardin sont vraiment terrifiants!

And what can I say about pâté? I have a longstanding aversion to organ meat. I don't even like my own guts. And yet, after a number of fine pâtés de campagne in France, I've embraced my shameful desire for the innards of little feathered beasties. Still, after traipsing about in food cities like Portland and New Orleans in the last month, I feel the need to recover a sense of my, hmmmm, "ludic Buddhism." While that means that I can take delight in my physical body and the fun things one can do with it, I shouldn't eat other animals.

However, as Sarah Turnbull says in Almost French: "France has this effect on foreigners. It turns your eating habits and food principles upside down so that before long you're rhapsodizing about the delicate silkiness of foie gras entier without a thought for the fat content, let alone the poor goose or duck who was force-fed through a tube down its throat. The damage is irreparable--there's no turning back to muesli after flaky pastries filled with ribbons of dark chocolate" (257). I don't know if that's true, since the LAW still maintains a healthy interest in muesli after a number of flaky-pastry tours of France, but I do know that my opinion of pâté changed somewhere outside of Rabastens (that's the walled city, below).

But that's French pâté. The last pâté I had was a generous serving at Chez Loma (on Coronado Island), and there was just this whiff of, I dunno, wet dog to it that put me off. So. No more squished-innards-on-crackers until Paris.

I officially love Portland.

2008-04-09T19:50:00.001-07:00

I was so turned on by the wild salmon hash at Mother's Bistro & Bar (in Portland, OR) that I decided to write about it--I'm much in favor of using language to get at what turns us on, after all. I was tired of my own bellybutton over at Shehun's House of Why, and I thought it might be time to focus. And, so, welcome to the new blog, complete with the cast of characters (and then some) from the old blog. I have so many foodie friends with varying levels of expertise that I should have material for weeks and weeks. Tater's knowledge of coffee alone would keep us occupied through spring '08.

Thursday, April 27: The LAW and I walked through drizzly downtown Portland to get to Mother's, a place she'd tracked down on some online eating guide. I'd just wanted to go there because I'd seen an advertisement in the promotional crap in the hotel. The ad boasted a rather, hmmm, severe-looking woman reminiscent of my Great-Aunt Pencie, who I only met once, on a Thanksgiving, and who spent part of the day spitting nonchalantly into the kitchen sink. More on that later. Maybe. Or wait, no, that's enough on Pencie. Anyway, in the Mother's ad, the woman was saying, "Give me dumplings or give me death." I'll tell you, after several weeks of trying to eat with my health in mind, death-dumplings were mighty appealing.

What was it about the hash? I'll admit that I figured the hash would be like the gooey corned-beef-hash paste that you get in cans, only with salmon. I ordered it anyway (I don't mind the paste so much, since it reminds me of camping in the Canadian Rockies in '86 with the Finn--my taste in food tends to be heavily influenced by memory and tendresse). Actually, however, Mother's potatoes and salmon chunks were discrete, marble-sized, in a very light cream glaze and sprinkled with leeks. I ate the hash, along with two eggs (over medium, thanks very much), and drank a lot of strong coffee that, really, you can only get in the Pacific Northwest. And then, the next day, I came back for more. And two days later, I went back with a new group and had a third serving. As Tater might say, it was foodgasmic.

Cheese, Grommit!

2007-07-22T00:33:00.000-07:00

Brin de paille. A cheese that, to translate from the back of its little package, "surprises everyone with its melting heart and the finesse of its aroma." It comes on a round of wood, atop a little bundle (brin) of straw (paille). Air it out, smear its melting little heart on some crusty coarse bread, and you will have a new love in France. It's like butter's sexy older sister.

Below, from YouTube, "Le chat avec un brin de paille!" You'll get the idea.

Last night, we took a long walk, from our apartment here in the 13th arrondissement down to the 5th, where we had dinner at the Foyer Vietnam (my current favorite Vietnamese restaurant); and then down to the Seine, crossing at Pont Neuf; then going down to the river itself on the right bank, since it's plage season in Paris. That's right, two miles of beach constructed next to the Seine each summer. In the evening, it's not particularly full, but the people who are there are making the most of it--artists crafting fabulous sand sculptures (next to the sculpture, a box with a few hopeful euros and a handwritten "MERCI" above); kids playing in big temporary fountains; a group with guitars and a hookah.

We're off to Honfleur for a couple of days. A revoir (until Wednesday).

Catching up, parts 3, 4, 5

2007-07-18T16:04:00.000-07:00

Minou, a prince of a cat, who occupied Sharon's apartment and who charmed me instantly.

Montpellier, de 9 juillet à 12 juillet:

The dorm room was even less than one expected, in terms of size at least. Our room was designed for two people--two people who really, really like each other, since the bed was barely wider than a single and had just one long pillow. The LAW and I managed, but those conference attendees who'd reserved rooms with colleagues were a bit alarmed ("My God," said one, "I like my colleague, but the bed is too small for even just me to fit in. If we share, I'd roll over and kill her."). The bathroom, as another colleague put it, was one of those "ass-in, front-out" affairs, manufactured in one piece. At any moment in the bathroom, one was in constant simultaneous contact with the toilet, the sink, and the shower curtain. "Stupid, stupid bathroom," I took to saying.

N.B.: Yes, I know that hotel rooms (and dorm rooms, and apartments) are generally much smaller in Europe, at least in my price range. I'm just saying--this was an extreme in spatial economy.

After that, and after going to the mostly deserted Place de la Comédie, where we stumbled upon a young woman pissing in a planter outside the Opera, watched a number of drunk/crazy men play in the fountain and follow female passers-by across the square, and were assaulted by insistent accordion players and their tambourine-holding, begging-for-change accompanists, I found myself channeling Bette Davis in Beyond the Forest: What a dump.

As we discovered more of the city, my opinion changed, and it turned out to be a good week. First, for the food: we ate twice at the same restaurant asiatique with its charming waiter, electric green and pink cocktails maison complete with a speared lychee as a garnish, the spring rolls (rouleaux de printemps), etc.; twice at the same Italian place, the Café Délice, with its ravioli with gorgonzola, or its gnocchi in Roquefort (and always a pichet de vin rouge); and once at this fabulous hole-in-the-wall named Le Tomate.

The "fabulous" here is the fish soup--I wish we'd had time to go back a second time just for the soup:the bouillabaise Languedoc, saffron-scented, tomato-based, served in a cheap steel tureen and with a bowl of shaved parmesan, a bowl of rouille, and a pile of giant croutons. How to eat: No, no, don't dump it all together and shovel it in your mouth; take a crouton, plop some rouille on top, add some parmesan--then drop the thing into your bowl of soup, where you'll leave it until the crouton softens. Then shovel it in your mouth.

The second reason to like Montpellier: the company. We had a lot of fun with Sharon. More on all of that later.

Catching up, part 2

2007-07-17T16:02:00.000-07:00

Okay, the chronology is messed up; after the day at Café Jade, you'll remember, there were two days at the Louvre, then another day traipsing about, and then on the 8th of July, we took the train to Montpellier

dimanche 8 juillet: Montpellier
Take the 4 from Odéon to Chatelet, switch to the 14 to Gare de Lyon, look for voie 'A,' voiture 16...

On the train, the LAW reads something scholarly and I doze with my iPod on. I'm listening to a Librivox recording of The Prince. I have the LAW listen to part of it and we laugh about how Machiavelli's take on the French government (prince and barons) could be applied easily to departmental (and university) politics.

...

The landscape is lovely: acres of sunflowers (les tournesols); an occasional field of lavender; chateaux; old stone farmhouses; white horses; a sustained glimpse, in the distance, of the Massif Central. The train ride is 3.5 hours long; I sleep through two hours of it.

...

In Montpellier, Sharon heads for the apartment she's been staying at for the last month and we get tickets for the tram (blue line--Mosson). We're to meet up later at the central square, the Place de la Comédie, for dinner (the picture above is of the opera house on Comédie).

At our tram stop (Boutonnet), we get out and realize that we've reached the end of any useful information that the conference organizers might have provided. We know, that is, that the dorm is a 5-minute walk from the tram stop, but not in what direction.

This situation calls for the French "système D," that is, a cobbled-together "system" of luck, self-reliance, guesswork, and stubbornness that each person in France must develop for him/herself. Apparently, the French are so used to the official channels of information not working--if by "working," one means for the individual rather than for the staggering French bureaucracy--that système D has become a situation-specific version of c'est la vie, or (for the Doris Day fans out there) que serrà, serrà.

In this case, we must develop a système de trouver la dortoire, which we do by (1) wandering for 10 minutes, baggage in tow, and then (2) flagging down a student, who helps us with the luggage and points out the accueil, or welcome station, where we get a key and an envelope of meal tickets.

Catching up, part 1

2007-07-17T16:00:00.000-07:00

So here I am, back in Paris after a week away and reconnected to the internet world thanks to my friend Marie-Paule's wireless connection; let me back up to an earlier time.....

Café Jade, 4 juillet 2007, 13:55

Une crème et une farandole des fromages.

Je suis seule. The LAW went to meet Sharon at noon and I hung out in one of the Gibert bookstores for an hour or so. Two Tintins to complete my set (I think), plus several other bandes dessinées, and a three-pack of Moleskine paper pads. After that, some wandering, and then some more wandering--back and forth in the Latin Quarter; over to Ile St. Louis and back; past the Crèperie des Pecheurs, which I thought about visiting on my own. Really, though, I just wanted a café to sit at. And so, I'm now outside Café Jade on rue de Buci, looking out, resting my tired feet. It is almost 2 p.m. and I think I have exhqusted my capacity for solo adventure today. Start small.

My coffee is here. Note to self: remember to order une grande crème. I wish I had a cigarette.

...

First, a drop, suggestive; then another, to confirm. Then the downpour, blowing sideways rain under the café awning, and we all scurry inside. I'd hoped to 'rent' an outside table for a while; now it seems I'll leave somewhat sooner.

The farandole is here and quite lovely, by the way.

The Café Jade is supposed to be trendy, urban, edgy. The waiters wear tight black t-shirts and jeans, and the Jade's decor is black with red, yellow, and blue chairs, plates, lettering on the walls...a muted primary palette.

The walls: all the vertical spaces are covered with names--how does one's name get picked?--of the ultra- or even ur-hip. Freud. Jackson Pollack. Lucian. Helmut Newton. Max Jacob Corneille. Diego Rivera. It is an international mix--international male, that is. Not many women's names on this new Pantheon; even when edgy, it seems, the French have their canon.

I'm eating my cheese under the auspices of Jackson Pollack (all caps, 18-inch letters) in yellow, Henri Michaux (all caps, 6-inch letters) in blue, and a host of others.

The cheese is quite fine (oh my, this camembert is ripe), the coffee lukewarm, my shoes very wet.