Food for the Thoughtless

Cooking shows have sprung up like so much unpleasant fungus in the past decade. Thank you, Food Network. Some are truly instructive, even mildly entertaining, but few are actually really interesting. A recipe here, a perky, annoying host there. Thirty minutes and several jarring jump cuts later, you’ve got two to three dishes presented that you’re, more likely than not, never going to make yourself.

Oh, how I miss Julia Child.

Where is the drama? Well, there’s The Next Food Network Star, Top Chef, or Iron Chef, but I regard them as mere stress-related entertainments. I want real conflict. I want character-driven tension. With the exception of perhaps watching Jacques and Claudine Pépin, I find the cooking world an emotional wasteland. At least with them, I get to witness some fascinating inter-family dynamics. Claudine can never quite live up to her father’s expectations, and it shows. One gets the feeling he has never let her win at anything, but I still keep rooting for her just the same. It makes me cringe, but I keep watching because, one day, I hope she’ll have a breakdown on camera and finally tell him what he can do with his aubergine farci.

So where do I turn for food-related drama?

Posh Nosh.

Posh Nosh is difficult to describe without giving too much away, so I will just have to let you judge for yourselves.

It’s good, I swear. Do watch. And when you’re done with this one, watch some more. It’s not as though you’re actually getting any work done.

Summer is a tricky thing in San Francisco. A morning in July here often feels like a morning in February, much to the consternation of shivering tourists. We grab what sun we can two days here, three days there, until the fog rolls in and we’re grabbing our sweaters and pashminas instead, shrugging our pasty shoulders all the while. If one never leaves the City, one has but few clues as to what life is like on the hot, sticky Outside. And I like that just fine.

I always know it’s summer when I see berries flooding the markets. I grab baskets of them– strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, snozberries– and challenge myself to eat them all before they rot in my fridge, which happened last year, much to my shame. I decorate my cereal with them, never quite looking as well-placed as on the cereal boxes I never buy. I pretend I’m putting them in the wood chipper as I drop them into my blender to make smoothies. I sprinkle them over ice cream. I eat them out of hand.

If I want to put a little effort (and I do mean little) into doing something with berries, this year, I’m making berry pudding, one of the easiest and reasonably healthiest desserts around. If I were forced to give this dish human form, I would vote for Betty White. Rose Nyland-sweet, Sue Ann Nivens-tart, and just about as quick and clever as all Miss White’s snappy answers on The Match Game. Put a little whipped cream on her and she’s good to go. She’s always good to go.

This is a recipe that is wonderfully simple in both preparation and outlook. Berries in, berries out. I was going to say it was easy- breezy but, unless eating raw fruits has a certain effect on your G.I. tract, it is merely easy. The only real time involved is the time the berries and bread must spend in the refrigerator, getting to know each other.

Berry Pudding

Many of the recipes I’ve read for Berry Pudding call for the berries to be cooked with sugar. I strongly object. Not to the sugar, mind you, but to cooking the berries. One might as well be using frozen fruit, and that, my friends, is a capital “C” crime in my book– at least in high season.

I might suggest letting your berries ripen a bit before making them into pudding. They will thank you for it.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup strawberries, chopped

1/2 cup blueberries, whole

1/2 cup raspberries, whole

1/2 cup blackberries, whole

2 tablespoons sugar, taste the berries to determine their sweetness before adding sugar. Adjust accordingly.

8 one half-inch slices of white bread, brioche, or other neutral starchy vehicle, cut to the shape of whatever molds one is using.

A splash of complementary booze (blackberry brandy, Cointreau, etc.) Complementary as in “will complement the flavor of the berries”, not complimentary, as in “free”. Of course, if your alcohol is both complementary and complimentary, I say bravo to you.

A pinch of salt

Procedure:

Wash berries well, but gently. Chop strawberries to the approximate size of the other berries. Place all berries into large bowl and sprinkle with sugar, salt, and booze. Let sit for five or so minutes.

After the berries have macerated a bit, lightly crush them. I feel I was a bit too excited when it came time to inflict harm upon mine. Stir.

Cover the bottoms of your molds with your most attractive bits of berry, since this will be the top of the dessert when it is unmolded. Place one piece of bread on top. Add more berries, a second layer of bread, then more berries.

Cover tightly with plastic wrap, pressing gently down upon the filled molds to remove any major air gaps.

Refrigerate for at least four hours or overnight.

To unmold, gently run the tip of a sharp knife between the outer edge of the filling and the inner edge of the mold. Hopefully, you have been clever enough to have removed the plastic wrap before doing so. Place serving plate over the top of the mold, invert, and gently giggle the pudding free of its form. Repeat with the remaining puddings, if you are serving them all at once.

Top with whipped cream, ice cream, or bacon. Whatever makes you happy.

Serves 4.

A man recently came to dine at my place of employment. When he made his reservation, he alerted the hostess to the fact that he was a restaurant critic and would, therefore, expect a free meal. The day he was to dine, he called back, reminding the reservationist of his own importance and how necessary it was that he dined “on the house”.

He sat alone, ordered his meal and an expensive bottle of red wine, pulled out his notebook, passed out his cards, and talked about himself in, not surprisingly, an inflated tone. He mentioned something about his girlfriend being a model. When he had finished, he left $20 for the server (and, before you ask, it wasn’t me), and left. The price of his meal? About $170. Both the server and the manager rolled their eyes and scratched their heads, metaphorically speaking.

Everyone took his status as restaurant reviewer with a grain of salt– he may have dined at our expense, but some of us laughed at his. Perhaps he was just a sad figure of a man– slightly delusional or, at least, in need of some attention paid to him. Whatever the case, his behavior as a critic is reprehensible.

Fortunately, I got his card.

I went to the website when I got home– iLLogicalnews.com. My first thought was that it should have read uninteLLigible.com since, as I quickly discovered, the writing was just so odd and so, well, bad, that I simply had to share it with you all. Here are some excerpts from some San Francisco restaurants he has blackmailed reviewed.

First off, is a bit from his review of Myth (R.I.P):

“I asked the chef to give me a vegetarian tasting, and what I received was pasta with Chinese brown sauce, which you can get in Chinatown at any time… Mandonna and Giorgio Armani, who are vegetarians, might have walked out.”

Mandonna? Well, she’s buff, but I don’t think anyone would accuse her of being a man. But I’m glad to see that Mr. Curatolo has the sensitivity to empathize with world-famous vegetarians.

Next up is a sampling of his review of Kokkari, which he spells “Kokarri”:

“White, rare grapes make up Santouni Island wine. The grapes are planted in crisp, volcanic soil that is unknown to the America’s.”

First of all, grapes are never white, they are green. These grapes are used to make a wine that is referred to as white. I know I am nitpicking, but when he refers to them as “rare” grapes that “make up Santouni Island wine”, I am beside myself, not only with giggling, but with a real irritation at his carelessness. I can only assume the island in question is Santorini and, if you’ve ever been to that island, those grapes seem to grow like weeds– they’re everywhere. I am saddened, however, to know that crisp, volcanic soil is unknown to usin the America’s (sp). God knows there aren’t any volcanoes in North America.

And, finally, a gem of a snippet from his take on Farmer Brown:

“On the edge of Mason where Mason meets Market, the concierge, Brian Miller at Hotel Vitale suggested Farmer Brown, and says he is cautious of what guests he sends to there. Being from New York from different stages of my strength, I would say that if you are afraid of a little edge, go to the mountains. Great cities are made up of edge…

Farmer Brown has a lot of edge…good southern sweet edge that is comfortable cuisine.”

I love edgy comfort food. And I would be very excited to hear about Mr. Curatolo’s discovery of an edge-free mountain. I would call that fantastic. Or I would call it something flat, like a prairie.

After having read more than enough of this man’s reviews and cringing more than my shoulders could bear, I had one question in mind and no surprise came when I received the answer. “Did Mr. Curatolo have any discernible accent?” I asked his server later. “Well, it was hard to tell since he spoke very quietly, but he did have trouble pronouncing his “r”s. Just as I thought– he is not a native English speaker. That bit is only relevant to his terrible, error-infested writing. I know that, say, if I tried writing restaurant reviews in French, my sentences would be laughed over and cried upon by Les Immortels of the Académie Française. I applaud his efforts at self-expression.

What I cannot abide, however is his blackmailing of businesses into giving him free meals and services in exchange for a good review. That, my friends, is called extortion. And that is why I am nailing him today.

His unethical practices and poor writing skills give serious, above-board critics a bad name– both professional and amateur. And he is not alone.

I’m not going to rant any more today, but rather direct Mr. Curatolo and the rest of you to a couple of online resources:

For an excellent example of an amateur food critic, complete with sound statements of ethics and transparency, visit Becks & Posh.

For inspiration from a great professional food critic on how to, well, write well, I might suggest reading Frank Bruni.

Thanks for reading. Now if you will excuse me, I must read on at iLLogicalnews.com, for some deep thoughts on life and love…

“Know this and be protected: If you meet a good person you leave feeling happy. If you meet a bad feel ikky, most likely bad.”

Today’s post is directed at my waiter brethren, should there be any reading. The rest of you, of course, are most welcome to read.

The other night, I waited on a rather handsome European couple. Spanish. First time in San Francisco. They were youngish, well-dressed, and very polite. They ordered wine, three courses of food, and bottled water. So far, so good. When I checked in with them at each course, they seemed happy. The temperature of their wine? Excellent– they even thanked me for asking. My dessert suggestions? They took them and loved them. These were not menu-pointers, miming their way through a meal because they lacked the local language skills.

When I brought them their check, they examined the bill, slipped in some cash and said, “Thank you, that’s fine,” indicating that they would not need change.

I examined the cash inside the bill folder. $130. Their meal was $126.25. I rushed to the bar and rather hurriedly asked one of our bartenders to make me some change, and quickly, because “I’m about to get “f—ed by table 10,” I said. In front of my boss.

I received the change and gently placed the remaining $3.75 back in the bill folder with the three little bills neatly peaking out of the corner back on their table. Perhaps, I thought, there had been a mistake in their calculation. They might examine the contents and increase the 2.97% tip they were unwittingly leaving me. During the next half hour, during which I refilled their waters, folded their napkins, and asked if they had suitable transportation home, they never re-examined the contents of the folder. As they stood up to leave, I felt the anger swelling up behind my eyes. But I smiled, tilted my head and knitted my brow in such a way that would indicate that I was slightly perplexed to the marginally perceptive, and said, “Good night,” with such a subtle questioning at the end of it I am uncertain as to whether typing a question mark is deserved.

They didn’t so much ignore me as act oblivious to my words. I thought the best thing for me to do was walk away before I did something foolish, like stick my foot out as they approached the steps to the exit.

I stood by the hostess stand at the front door as they approached, giving them one more chance. I tried to obtain eye contact with the man, but he would not meet my eye. Instead, he held out his coat check. Fortunately, the hostess on duty took it before I had the opportunity to ignore his gesture or reply to it with one of my own. I followed her to the coat closet.

“Spit in it,” I said. “I think you should spit in his coat.” I’m sure she thought I was joking. “Or, at least, drop-kick it when you hand it to him.” The sad thing is, I wasn’t joking– not totally, anyway.

Well, that moment at the coat check served as a little reality check for me.

At our shift meeting earlier in the evening, my boss had warned us that summer was approaching. Our regular customers would be crowded out by out-of-towners, both of the American and foreign variety. Cranky travelers and people for whom American-style tipping was, well, a foreign concept. The announcement brought down the mood of the staff, but he was speaking the truth, and the point of his little speech was that we needed to basically suck it up and treat these new guests with the same warmth we treat our regulars. We needed to kill them with kindness, regardless of what kind of tips a Spaniard, German, or Canadian might leave. I briefly wondered which type of insecticide added to coffee would be considered kind.

He was right, of course. So what was I angry about?:

1. The money. My service merited at least another $20 in gratuity.

2. I let these two people get under my skin on the very night my boss had warned us, as though he had somehow jinxed me.

3. The fact that I let any guest get under my skin.

I consider myself fortunate in terms of my experience as a professional waiter. I work at a wonderful restaurant. It’s upscale without being over-the-top, has a fun vibe, and is always packed with people– it’s not easy to get a last minute reservation, though we will bend over backwards to try to accommodate. The guests, by and large, are either affluent and willing to spend money or, at the very least, enthusiastic about dining with us. I almost never just wait on people, but act more like the host of a dinner party at every table in my station– offering my suggestions, painting verbal pictures yet-to-be-seen food items, getting people to relax and open up. I work in a place where a handshake normally accompanies the “good nights”, and a hug or even a kiss from the women is not at all uncommon. “Goodbye” is almost never said, but rather “see you again, soon.”

And, normally, my tips reflect my service. Twenty percent is the norm, but twenty-five or thirty is not unusual, either. Am I spoiled? I don’t think so. I work hard at what I do, and I am frankly very good at it.

But I allowed the two idiots who gave me a 2.97% tip to get to me. I had tied my own sense of worth to money. $3.75, to be exact. It colored my outlook for the rest of the evening. Fortunately, they were my last table, so I brought no thundercloud to my other guests.

I sometimes find working exclusively for tips a bit harrowing. There is a vagueness of income that is frustrating– never knowing exactly how much one is going to earn in a month makes budgeting difficult. Waiters have nights when they’re on fire and making money hand-over-fist, others when their sections are populated by women who bring photo albums with them and haven’t seen each other in years– splitting salads and making two hundred substitutions.

The fact that my income is wholly dependent upon how much a stranger feels I am worth is rather frightening if I stop to think about it for long. So I don’t.

The fact that I sometimes allow my own sense of worth to be determined by strangers is even worse. I feel validated when a group of business guys leaves an extra hundred dollars on top of an automatic 20% tip. I feel utterly deflated when Spaniards screw me.

It’s crazy-making. I do the same thing every night with mostly rave reviews. Sometimes, I get the shaft. And in my calmer moments, I can shake it off easily.

But the summer season is upon us, complete with the usual unprepared tourist who freeze their asses off in their shorts and hastily- Wharf-bought San Francisco sweatshirts in the middle of July. As a member of the hospitality industry, I need to remind myself that I cannot give lessons in tipping etiquette to the ignorant, but merely accept them as they are. I’m not a bad waiter if I receive a %2.97 tip, I’m a bad waiter if I am, well, inhospitable. In the meantime, I’ll have to accept the occasional bad tip along with all the good ones and dream of the day after Labor Day, when our summer really begins and the tourists go back to the non-tipping lands from which they came.

If you leave everything to the last minute like I do, then you don’t have dinner plans tonight.

Actually, I do have dinner plans tonight, but at the home of a friend– one of only two I have that will actually cook for me. If you have no willing friends, are just not up to fending for yourself, you might want to take advantage of Dine About Town– especially if you want to, well, dine about town but are on a budget. There are more than 100 San Francisco restaurants participating.

Personally, I have rather mixed feelings about the program. While Dine About Town is a great opportunity for diners to give a new-to-them restaurants a go without much financial or emotional investment, the pre-determined prix fixe menus don’t always show what makes a restaurant really shine.

For example, I dined with friends at RNM last week, for the specific purpose of participating in the program. While the three-course meal was quite good– especially the tomato soup with pre-dunked grilled white cheddar sandwich chunk (above) was fun– the finishing chocolate mousse lacked the sense of fun and imagination that makes their regular menu such a joy to explore.

It was a good meal for $31.95, no doubt about that, but the fact that RNM serves its own non-Dine About Town prix fixe menu Tuesday through Saturday from 5:30 to 7:00 pm for $28.00 made me a little sad. Not because of the extra $3.95, but because I felt that my participating in the program was both self-limiting and pointless.

But, hey. No big loss. The program did manage to get me in the door of a restaurant to which I’ve been meaning to return for some time. Only next time, I’ll eschew the prix fixe and head straight for wild mushroom and caramelized onion pizza with truffle oil that always makes me salivate.

In case you’ve been living in a well-stocked bomb shelter for the past few weeks, you’ve most likely heard that the California Supreme Court voted 4-3 to legalize same-sex marriages.

Well, hooray and all that, but it’s got me a bit troubled. I’m not so much bothered about those clowns at Save California and their terribly irritating November ballot measure because, for some extraordinary reason, I’ve recently been instilled with an unreasonable amount of faith in the majority of California voters. For now.

No, what troubles me is this–

What on earth does one feed a banquet hall full of homosexuals? That’s a dilemma that would strike any sane wedding planner apoplectic. Individually, a gay man might respond to foodstuffs in a manner similar to that of a straight man, but get five or more in a room together and watch out. Have you ever baked a birthday cake for a gay man’s birthday party, only to find thirty or so other gay men moaning about carbohydrates, telling you that while the dessert you’ve just put your heart and soul into looks great, they’ll just have to pass on it, while patting their stomach? Well, I have, and what I have since learned is this: Guzzling vodka = good carbs, eating a tiny sliver of polenta cake= It-will-make-me-fat-and-then-no-one-will-love me-or-think-I’m-hot bad.

No, cake is out of the question. Perhaps a wedding protein shake would be more fitting. Of course, there’s the problem of slicing.

How does one approach a gay reception? For one couple I know, I imagine there would be a chilled Ketel One fountain splashing about. Would others prefer a Teddy Bear Picnic motif? I think the traditional menus might need a going over. Instead of fish or chicken, the invitations should request a preference for either no-carb or sauce on the side.

And what on earth do you feed a roomful of lesbians? There is only so much quinoa to be had in any given season, you know.

Entertainment? If Melissa Etheridge is too busy with her own wedding or too highly priced to perform at yours, will gym teacher-turned-songbird Ann Murray do? I don’t know for certain if she is a lesbian, but she’s Canadian and not as busy as she used to be, and that often works in a pinch.

If you are planning a wedding and you want it gay-officiated, gay photographed, and gay-catered (I’m going to assume you’d be picking a gay dee jay anyway), one resource with possibilities I’ve found is the Golden Gate Business Association. Hound them. While there is so far no specific section of their website dedicated to gay wedding needs, I think it would be wise for them to throw one together. Like now.

Of course, chances are, your wedding planner might be a gay man with some inside channels, one might hope. And then there’s the gay florists and caterers, who tend to be busy in the June wedding season anyway. Citizen Cake, for example, has been flooded with wedding cake orders this month– gay and straight.

Hypothesizing same-sex wedding scenarios is time well spent, but this is what really bothers me…

When I contacted the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Center of San Francisco for information, I was told by the gentleman who assisted me that the Center was “so overwhelmed with Pride” at the moment to do anything about same-sex weddings. So overwhelmed with Pride. It’s as busy and as gay a month as anyone can imagine. And so emotional, apparently.

The Big Gay resource centers do not yet have a handle on this new marriage business. I can’t say I don’t understand, since it was all rather unexpected and came at a time when everyone was already too excited by the selection of Charo as our Gay Pride Grand Marshall to think of anything else. But time’s a-wasting. The weddings start happening in on June 17th. Or, as rumor has it, the evening of the 16th.

The fact of the gay wedding matter is our selection of go-to wedding assistance is very limited. There’s always GayWeddings.com. It’s a good starting point, certainly, but they’re Washington-based. What we need is something local. So you’ll just have to go through the traditionally straight channels to plan that day you’ve always dreamed about but never thought would actually happen.

And that’s a big, crying shame. The fact that the Gay BLT Center or whatever it’s called is too “overwhelmed” with, um, Pride tells me that they really don’t have their priorities, um straight. From an historic point of view, this is a big, big, BIG moment for San Francisco’s Lesbians and Gays. From a financial point of view, same-sex weddings are a booming business. Tens of thousands of gay couples will be flocking to our state– and our city– to get married to the tune of nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars over the next couple of years. Sure, parades are fun– wave a flag, wear some hot pants, and shake your ass on a corporate-sponsored float all you want– it’s a damned parade, for Christ’s sake. I just don’t want us to miss the real parade that might be passing us by.

Or the gravy train.

Of course we won’t really miss it. Businesses will pop up like so many mushrooms: gay wedding planners, gay photographers, gay divorce lawyers. Perhaps The Midnight Sun will rent itself out for receptions. I just hope that, after the drunken haze of Pride Season clears, we can focus on what should really make us proud (Sorry, Charo, it isn’t you)– that we are finally equal under California State law. We can have our own weddings and, even better, attend those of our straight friends and families without that sad, nagging “I can never have this” feeling– whether you want your own wedding or not.

Until November, anyway, when we’ll have to fight again.

You know why I’m fighting? Because the next time a guy introduces is “hus-bear” to me, I can ask to see the rings as proof of their wedded bliss. I only hope to God they show me the ones on their fingers.

A few weeks ago, I was watching To Be or Not To Be at a friend’s house where, after the film, I wandered into the kitchen to help myself to a glass of water. As I was drinking, I spied an oddly-titled book on the kitchen table– Muscle Chow. I picked it up and began to thumb through…

I barely had the chance to scan the recipe for Muscle Meatloaf before my friend walked in, shouted something about his not wanting me to see the book, and tried to rip it from my hands. I had a fairly firm grasp on the thing, but it was clear he was determined. Though the idea of a playful round of kitchen wrestling was appealing, I let go– I could see the red fires of shame burning his eye sockets.

My pleas for a longer look at the thing were met with a firm “No.”

Muscle Meatloaf? God, I thought, no wonder he was embarrassed. But why mortifyingly so? The level of alarm he displayed would have been appropriate if I had, say, found a bottle of poppers, a traffic cone, and can of Crisco accidentally left lying about in the dining room. But, no, this was just a little cookbook left among the stack of papers and news weeklies on his kitchen table. What was the big deal?

It felt as though I had stumbled upon his secret stash of porn. In a sense, I did, but it was food porn. Gay food porn. Perhaps it was the embarrassing admission that he, too, had fallen victim to the gay curse of body dysmorphia. I should have known something was up when he wanted to stop on the way to dinner and buy a bottle of flax seed oil.

I just had to get a hold of a copy for myself, so I did. In fact, I have two, thanks to my not understanding the Click-and-Buy feature at Amazon.com. And next time, I will make certain my purchases aren’t sent to my rather perplexed ex-boyfriend.

Ready, Set, Cook.

Before I start complaining about the writing of this cookbook, I must state that it’s actually a good resource for those looking to eat well, build muscle, and burn fat. Really. And it’s hard not to like any diet-related book that warns against not eating enough. That said…

If ever a cookbook could grunt, it would be Muscle Chow, published by Men’s Health. Filled with enough manly posturing to make a professional wrestler uncomfortable, the recipes are straight forward and fairly sound. I suppose the creative team had no choice to pump up the He-Man tone of the book– how else are you going to get He-men to eat things like Strawberry Salad or Cucumber-Lime Gelatin? You hide them between recipes entitled “Fix ‘N’ Eat Sardine Sandy” and “Ultimate Muscle Stacks”, a muscle-boy riff on pancakes– that’s how.

It’s really the names of the recipes that leave me simultaneously amused and disgusted. Ripped Chicken? I picture a violent death. Muscle-Bound Chili? I should think the kindney beans would be more likely to un-bind. Cherry Custard Protein Pie? That just make me feel so dirty I want to take a shower.

Muscle Chow is a fun read, if just for those recipes alone. And the number of “‘N’” recipes– Tofu ‘N’ Whey Surprise, Oat Peaches ‘N’ Cream, and On-The-Go Cottage Cheese ‘N’ Bananas (which is listed next to On-The-Go Cottage Cheese And Preserves) suggest just that– that a muscle man is too on-the-go to have time to write out the letters a-n-d. It also suggests a certain self-consciousness about spending too much time in the kitchen, which is disappointing.

In fairness to my friend, I think this book was purchased with a desire for greater health and well-being in mind. I don’t think he’s planning on turning himself into the next Colt Men cover boy. (Please, say it isn’t so.) So I wish him luck in his muscle chow and I shall salute his efforts by raising my spoon and digging into a hearty baby food-infused helping of Vein-Poppn’ “Tapioca” Pudding.

Cheers.

Peanut Butter Muscle Bombs

I chose to make this recipe because of the name, naturally. That and the fact that I was glad I could use up another 1/4 cup of the molasses that’s been sitting in my cupboard, neglected. I was shocked by how absolutely addictive they are. Really.

Ingredients:

2 cups all-natural unsalted crunchy peanut butter, drained of separated oil

2 scoops vanilla whey protein powder (a measuring scoop is included in every can)

1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon molasses

2 tablespoons whole flax seeds.

Procedure:

1. In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients. This takes some muscle (their words, not mine).

2. Form the mixture into walnut-sized balls. Place in a container lined with waxed paper or parchment, separating each layer with another sheet of waxed paper or parchment.

3. Chill in the freezer or fridge for at least two hours before serving.

Makes 25 bombs.

Notes:

I was uncertain as to just what “walnut-sized” meant. Shelled or unshelled? Given the problem of steroid use within the bodybuilding community and it’s resultant testicular shrinkage, it isn’t surprising they managed to squeeze 25 of these out of the recipe. I only got 20 out of it.

Also, I decided to place the flax seeds on the outside of the balls, since the whey powder lends a very unpleasant-looking greenish tinge to the brown of the molasses and peanut-butter, which made the resulting balls roughly the color of a dog’s fecal matter after he’s eaten too much grass. Rolling the bombs in the seeds not only disguises this, but makes their handling much easier, too. Talking about the bombs with my friend Jay, he warned me that eating too much flax would aid not only in the pumping up of one’s muscles, but the pumping out of one’s bowels.

“Like a duck down a slide,” he said.

Enjoy.

Smoothies– they’re everywhere. For some reason, that troubles me.

I have nothing against the style of drink itself. I think smoothies are an excellent source of nutrition for the ill, the lazy, and people just too on-the-go to be troubled by such time-wasting activities as chewing. They are simple to ingest, simpler to digest.

I am troubled primarily by the name. Smoothie. On the one hand, it’s self-consciously cute, which is terribly annoying in and of itself. On the more upsetting hand, however, rests the fact that I can’t now help but think, thanks to too much time spent Googling, about an alternative meaning of the word. In nudist terminology, a “Smoothie” is a person who prefers a clean-shaven look. Especially in the nether regions. Further research caused me to examine a photograph of a very happy-looking sixty-something nudist couple whose age-appropriate faces and bodies starkly contrasted their pre-pubescent-looking genitalia. I won’t comment further on the photo, but the thought of these two stopping by my place for a nutritious blended fruit beverage caused me great stress– I was uncertain if I had enough clean towels to put down over the sofa.

Where on earth did these smoothies come from? The beverages, not the nudists– though that does lead one to wonder about who can claim first use of the name. According to Wisegeek.com, the proto-smoothie is the Orange Julius, which first appeared in the 1920s– decades before the franchise would find its true niche in the yet-to-be-built malls of America.

With the advent of Fred Waring’s blender in 1939, Americans found a new love for puréed items, sometimes called “smoothees”. The blender also proved popular for making homemade baby food.

The modern smoothie is said to have been created by a drugstore employee named Steve Kuhnau who, thanks to his own lactose-intolerance, wished to create a milkshake alternative that was both healthy and delicious. He later created the Smoothie King. Now you know who to thank. Or blame.

I was prompted to wonder about smoothies recently by a friend who finds them rather appealing. In the middle of one of our outings, he wanted to stop by the market and pick up a bottle of flaxseed oil. For his smoothies, he explained. I later found out that he does not yet own a blender, so he uses baby food to get that thick, “smoothie” consistency. Baby food– which I assume he purchases. For someone who is known to make his own lip balm from scratch, I was unsurprised by his ingenuity, but the thought of him eating baby food struck me as rather comic, if a tad unsettling, because he is neither lazy nor is he lacking any of his adult teeth.

So, with the best of intentions, I’ve both bought him a blender (photo, top of page) and included a delicious flax-infused recipe to go with it. Enjoy, though I cannot bring myself to call it a, well, you know.

Blended Fruit and Supplement Beverage.

Ingredients:

1 banana, ripe-ish

the juice of one orange

1/2 cup mango purée

1 scoop vanilla whey protein powder

1 tablespoon flaxseed oil

Procedure:

Place all ingredients into blender. Press the “smoothie” button after ensuring the blender lid is firmly in place and the appliance is plugged into a nearby wall socket. Blend until smooth, of course.

Garnish with a sprinkling of whey powder, if you want to use up as much of your $14.99 container as possible, and flaxseeds. Serve with Peanut Butter Muscle Bombs (watch this space for recipe).

Notes: The green hue of the drink is derived from the vanilla whey powder. Since green= health in smoothie circles, it is to be desired.

Serves one.

Or should I say “listen“…

Back in April, I flew up to Seattle to read my story, The Sound of Musicals, from the book Can I Sit with You? along with several other writers at the Annex Theatre. NPR’s local station KPLU was there to record it.

Yay.

Thank you, Squid. Thank you, Jennyalice. Thank you both for making things happen.

If you want to read my story, buy the damned book. Proceeds from your purchase benefit SEPTAR, The Special Education Parent Teacher Association of Redwood CIty.

Okay, it’s waaaaayyyyy past my bedtime.

Goodnight.

There are times in everyone’s life (okay, mine) where one shrugs his shoulders, looks heavenward, and says– if only to one’s self, “Lord, I need a drink.” You know it’s true.

One heads for an old standby– a dry gin martini, a beer, rubbing alcohol– whichever it is one names as one’s preferred poison. Though comforting, the same old same old can get a little boring. Friends coming over? What do you serve them? Vodka and soda? Pinot Noir? Please say it isn’t so. I have nothing against either of these choices, naturally. It’s just that they’re so… uninspired. So where does one go to get inspiration?

Please don’t tell me Sex in the City. If I hear one more person order a cosmo, I shall cry bitter tears. Mine, of course, would be of the Peychaud variety.

I have found my personal cocktail muses in Anita and Cameron over at Married…with Dinner, where they have been posting their Drink of the Week feature for nearly two years. From classic-but-nearly forgotten gems like the Millionaire Cocktail (No.1) (upper, right) to the simple, playful Bee’s Knees (lower, left), Anita and Cameron show-and-tell you what they’re drinking.

The writing is amusing and learned, the photography can be drool-worthy at times, and the choices are often inspired. One of my favorites is Sweeney’s Cocktail– a brandy and pineapple concoction with an appropriate amount of (Angostura) bitter and just enough Maraschino liqueur to give it a faintly morbid feel.

Like revenge, it is a drink best served cold.

The Married…with Dinner duo have, over time, amassed a wealth of cocktail knowledge and know how: cocktail news, drink recipes, and hard-to-get ingredient resource information. Hell, it’s just a great place to get lost for a little while.

To get inspired yourself, pay them a little visit. Now, if you’ll please excuse me, I’ve got a batch of Bee’s Knees to mix.