I prefer sex with strangers. I don't want to have sex with someone I know. It seems much too intimate. How do people manage to have sex with their boyfriends? Why would they even want to do that? Wouldn’t a snuggle be enough? Could it be any fun? How did I ever acquiesce to it when I had a boyfriend? I like the hunt, the chase, the kill, and the departure. Cum and then go, SVP.

The last day of private chef work. To start, a chilled pea soup* (a marvel if I say so myself). I stuffed some artichoke bottoms (no sniggering), and I made a lobster salade, chicken cacciatore, romano beans, polenta, and a nectarine gratin. Chocolate chip cookies too, for those Friday-afternoon longueurs.

Vancouver tomorrow. My last visit was coincident with the nuptials of Charles and Diana in 1981. It seemed very Oakland then.

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 * Cook a little leek in buttery, salty water. Add fresh peas. Boil until the peas are just a little underdone. At that moment, but not before, throw in a little flat-leaf parsley. Immediately transfer everything to a metal bowl set in a larger bowl of ice water. Stir until the soup cools to near room temperature. Blend, and let the blender run for a long time, 1-2 minutes at least, so that everything is pulverized. Strain through a fine-mesh strainer back into the metal bowl in the ice bath. Let it chill completely. This will profit from a dollop of crème fraîche and a pluche of chervil. Figure 4-6 oz. of water and a handful of peas per person. Forget not the salt.

Daddy’s tired. Another 11-hour day of shopping and cooking. I couldn’t find any fresh squab, so I stuffed a chicken under the skin with ricotta and spit-roasted it. Today we had dinner party. The poor housemaid spent hours polishing sliver. I had to reset the table twice because I was off-axis (and I forgot the red wine glasses (1982 first-growth Bordeaux)). The menu: tomato tart with tarragon & mustard; grilled filet of beef (which the cute butcher at Café Rouge kindly tied for me. Was he flirting?) with a lovely sauce, shell beans, spinach from the garden, and a squash gratin; and then a blackberry and red currant soup with peaches. I’m learning how to grill with briquettes*. I try not to think about what’s in them. I don’t know of a better butcher shop than Rouge; the filet was tender, marbled (!), and very tasty for filet. Rouge also has lovely beef dry-aged five weeks or more. Mmm. Capitalism does have its benefits.

Favorite bumper sticker: if we aren’t supposed to eat animals, how come they’re made out of meat? It’s better than my previous favorite: I love animals – they taste great!

Foolishly I scheduled a session with my trainer early in the morning.

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* Another innovation from Henry Ford.

24 July 2003

I flirted with my crush by feeding him the crispy fried potatoes I was making.

Crushes on straight guys and crushes on unavailable guys: I must not want a boyfriend.

22 July 2003

Mr. Geekslut has a nice post about gay life in NY in the late ‘80s, when I lived there. Dancing, sex, and ACT UP defined the borders of life for everyone I knew. Anything else we did had to fit inside that triangle.

My sluttiness came into full flower then. Before I moved to New York, I had had sex with a handful of guys, but by the time I left I could no longer count them. I found the nicest chums that way. It was like this: messing around for the first time in a back room at the Rock 'n' Roll Fag Bar, on E. 2^nd, half a block from my apartment; being woken up by my roommate, who wanted me to have a three-way with him and the 19-year-old straight Puerto Rican kid he had just picked up at the World; sex in the train tunnel under Riverside Park; fucking on a rooftop at 3 AM (with a neighbor watching) because it was too hot inside; the Meat Rack;  the trick who took me on as his adopted little brother (neither of us have a real brother); Sunday night showers at the campus gym, where the lights were mysteriously always out; and the Tunisian my other roommate picked up on a subway platform. He lived with us for awhile, alternately fucking her and eating hardboiled eggs.

On another note, dear Google visitors, don’t look here for information about the whereabouts or current disposition of Graydon Locke. I wish I could tell you what became of him, but alas I know nothing.

The catering went well. My sauce didn’t quite come together, but a liaison au beurre manié saved the day. The guests included a captain of French industry (you probably have some of his products in your home) and his wife. As I expected, they took no notice of me whatsoever (who would expect them to speak to the servants?) and appeared slightly shocked when I was introduced to them. They had the quaint notion that the U.S. allowed 9/11 to happen and that no plane hit the Pentagon. Our host, who had been in Washington that day, set them straight.

20 July 2003

One of the key people I hoped would write me a letter of recommendation agreed to do so Friday. He has been my mentor; he took a chance on me when I was very inexperienced and helped me into a new career. I hope one day I can do the same for someone else. Another of example of the teacher appearing when the student is ready.

I cooked Friday and Saturday nights. Sliced my thumb wide open on the mandolin Saturday in the middle of the first rush. I bled everywhere when I was trying to get a glove on. No stitches. I went straight from work (read: sweaty and bandaged) to a housewarming party of a friend of a friend. Everyone was agog at the scale of the place and stupefied that they knew someone their own age who owned a house like that. A Victorian mansion that had been tastefully remodeled in the 50s by a couple who liked to entertain; at least 250 people were there, but it never felt crowded: 12-foot ceilings, curved hardwood floors, a dome, and new bathrooms so marvelous that a few people decided that they had to take a bath during the party (doors open) . I want my bathroom countertop to be made of white stones embedded in clear acrylic. The kitchen was beautiful but thoughtlessly impractical. The police came to shut down the party at 4:00AM.

I woke up today with a bourbon hangover but I went for a curative five-hour sail on the bay. Thirty-five knot gusts, whitecaps, salt spray, sunshine, and friends. I’m too tired now to french the racks of lamb for tomorrow’s party. Besides, my thumb hurts.

Perhaps it’s only the effect of oolong late in the day, but I’m in a good mood. I went to New Langton Arts to see Ari and Shane’s video, which was by far the best: imaginative, funny, visually appealing. It’s the only one I’d want to see again. Some of the others featured screechy music and endless shots of desert landscapes from a moving car. What’s wrong with narrative? Is it too hard? I wish I had been sitting close enough to the projector to press the fast forward button.

And I sit here worrying that I’m being frivolous. The next time I drive to L.A., I will film the pavement of Highway 5 at 90 mph and submit it to a “curator.”

I came home in time to get a call from a recent client (M. Bonhomie et sa femme) asking me to do a dinner on Monday for them. They have converted from pasta to Atkins and are watching the pounds melt away.

16 July 2003

Retrospection. I’m working on my personal statement for my application to trade school, and I have to find a way to bring coherence to the zigzags in my autobiography. Should I mention Steve’s death and how it affected my work? How to explain the shift from academia to the stove? And then I got a call today from the Mellon Foundation. It was a long survey about why I didn’t complete my PhD. It had too many ambiguous questions (“Was there solidarity amongst the students?” Well, yes, but it was solidarity against the department, which was not the answer the survey anticipates). I’ve never regretted dropping out; I wish I had done it sooner and saved thousands in tuition. I’m not the only cook with a graduate degree in an unrelated field. At least five of the other cooks at work have Ivy League degrees. The conversation at staff meal can cover a lot of ground.

And then I’ve been exchanging e-mail with an old friend from high school to catch up on the last ten years. So many changes: jobs, loves, babies, careers, deaths, sobriety, boyfriends. She came to dinner with Steve and me at Chez Panisse about eight months after Steve and I started dating. They got along spankingly. Since we had had too much to drink to drive home across the bridge, we all snuck into the Berkeley Rose Garden and wandered down to the mouth of Cordonices Creek. Perhaps it was the wine or our young love, but she decided that she had to marry Steve and me right there, in the moonlight.

My day: chicken, chicken, chicken. Browning it. Braising it. Simmering it. Reducing the sauce. Boning the breasts. Warming it for service. Carving it. Plating it. Shampooing my head twice to get the smell out of my hair.

Even though I don’t always like cooking on a big scale, it is so completely absorbing that I never have time, or rather, the mental capacity to think about how I’m drifting through life like a leaf in a gutter.

14 Juillet 2003

I stopped by to see the Bastille Day celebrations and have a glass of rosé to mark the dawn of the modern era. 1789 is the beginning: the French Revolution, the Constitution, the proposal of the Bill of Rights, and the publication* of Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads, which gives birth to Romanticism (art as Self-Expression of the Soul** rather than art as the product of superior technique and taste). Without Romanticism, no Freud, no Modernism, no solipsistic wailing posing as song (viz. “I am Beautiful”), no Conceptual Art, no mistaken partiality for the gritty and seamy because they are more “real” than a refined milieu***, etc., etc. (That sound you hear is the stamping of my Gucci loafers against the 18th-century kilim under my desk.)

On another note, I am looking for love in the wrong places.

____________

* True, the famous Preface didn’t come until a little later.
**  “What is a Poet? to whom does he address himself? and what language is to be expected from him?—He is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind....” from the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads
*** “Low and rustic life was generally chosen because in that situation the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language…; and lastly, because in that situation the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature.” Ibid.

13 July 2003

She is wearing the top half of a bridesmaid’s dress. That’s the only way I could describe the outfit of a woman I saw last night at Sugar. Ellen Ferrato spun; I danced. I found a drag-back (not memorable). I also got the number of a shaved-head little fox, G., and I will screw up the courage to call him tomorrow. My thoughts strayed to G. when I was with the drag back. I hope it wasn’t evident to him. T. is also a shaved-head little fox. My theme for July.

Another summer dish for your repertoire: salmon with pesto: steam some wild salmon (don’t bother with farmed salmon; it’s vile-tasting and bad for the environment) and serve it with a light pesto (easy on the garlic, no cheese). Make the pesto with a mortar and pestle if you can; the pounding is soothing work after a long day in the sun and the explosion of flavor never fails to ravish.

It’s good to be gay. Two pool parties in one day! The first was in the hills north of Mount Tam at the compound of a local industrialist. The 50-foot pool had been carved high up on  the side of a hill, with views into the next county. A hedge of white roses borders one side of the pool, live oaks the other. Little d. and I had a Spanish rosé with our sandwiches. The pool house was bigger (and nicer) than the house I grew up in. I never did find the main house, only the guest house, the Japanese tea house, the half-covered dining pavillion, and the citrus allée. My ex-boyfriend brought me there; an ex of his was the host (and house-sitter). It’s good to be gay. Do straight people bring an ex to a party hosted by another ex?  The second pool party — at the Phoenix Motel — included all of the cute younger gay guys in the city. I was easily the oldest guy there. And then I went a-catering at  a lipstick lesbian cocktail party to earn a little money. Daddy's poor.

I found the website of my high school’s 20^th reunion, complete with yearbook photos. My biggest crush all four years, B, was working on a pregnant-lady-style pot belly at the 10-year reunion. His best friend, L, who describes himself now as “very conservative,” is probably still a closet case; he favored Cool & the Gang and cropped t-shirts in high school. Neither have posted current pictures. I wonder if the “best friends” R and J ever came out. They were jocks, very popular and inseparable;  everyone recognized the closeness of their bond and teased them, I think rightly, about being lovers.

Adolescence has more of an impact on a person’s development than infancy and early childhood. I still think of myself as the scrawny kid that I was, even though, thanks to the gym, I weigh 35lbs more than I did at graduation. I wasn’t out in high school, though everyone probably knew. All of my pre-college best friends were gay; two are dead of AIDS.

I think I want to attend the reunion out of revenge. I was a geek, a misfit, and an ugly duckling. I didn’t begin to come into my own until my late twenties, when I was with Steve. I haven’t decided whether to send in a current photo or just let them be surprised. Almost no one recognized me at the 10-year reunion, thank god.

9 July 2003

A simple vacuuming effort this morning left me uncarpeted and injured. Moving the sisal rug out from under the Eames sofa (one arm lifting, one arm tugging) was harder than I thought it would be.

So, B. went over to T.’s place tonight to see the silkscreen. B. phoned me clandestinely as soon as he realized he was on a date. They had a lovely time. B. said that he’d steal me a pair of T.’s underpants the next time he’s there.

8 July 2003

Catering report: our host had the expansive bonhomie of someone who, after long toil, has met with worldly success and professional acclaim. Our hostess was relaxed and good-natured. Our young heir was more affected by Harry Potter than he cared to admit. Our cook did a good job, especially considering that he had signed on for a dinner party for 12 and found out only this afternoon that it was going to be a dinner for 20. His romesco was delicious, though, perhaps, too piquant. His cherry galettes were delightful.

Back to the first person. I love the Berkeley hills in the summer: it’s warm and quiet, and when it’s still, the air has a certain smell of petunias perhaps, nasturtiums certainly, a little magnolia, roses, jasmine, other flowers, with eucalyptus in the background. The view from our hosts’ oval terrace is a marvel. It’s like the one at the top of his page, but wider and brighter: San Francisco and Marin are two dusky fingers suspended in a sea of blue water and blue sky, with bridges, and islands, and the sun for punctuation.

As I was stuck in traffic on the bridge driving over there, B. calls me to replay a voicemail he had just received from T.: “Hey B.! I want you to come over tonight. We’ll have a beer or some wine and I’ll show you the cool stuff I got. And then we can go over to your place and you can show me your stuff. Call me.” Of course. I suggested to B. that T. is just using him to get close to me since T. finds me too intimidating. B. laughed and hung up.

7 July 2003

So I’m at the gym, working out with B. (legs), when T. comes over, all excited. (You will recall that T. snubbed me at a party before the Parade.) I want to lick T.  right there in front of the calf machine. He tells B. that he just got a silkscreen print that B. has to see. He describes it  and how he got it. We have a little general conversation. B. is playing it up because he knows that I want very badly to go for the pony ride with T., that T. isn’t interested, and that neither B. or T. are interested in each other.  I ask T. if he knows my neighbor, who works for the same company as he does, in the same line of work. T. says no, and then turns to  B. and says, “you must come over real soon—this week—to see the silkscreen and the other new art. I want to show you my apartment. I’ll give you my number before we leave.” I am clearly not part of the invitation.  T. comes over later to offer even more details about the silkscreen and its frame, blah, blah, blah. Sure enough, T. stops by as he’s leaving to give B. his number. B. promises me that if anything happens between them, he’ll discretely call me, set the phone down, and let me listen in.

A few years ago all of my friends simultaneously declared a moratorium on “The Conversation,” which was the rant we all had about the state of San Francisco, the horrors of the dot-com siege, real estate prices, assholes in flat-front khakis and blue shirts, etc., etc.  The new Conversation is the rant about how boring San Francisco has become: tired, provincial, expensive, cold, unfriendly, unbohemian, full of speed freaks and aging hippies, und so weiter. B. and I had the new Conversation with three different guys at the gym today, and we didn’t even start it.

6 July 2003

I’m back from L.A. I got up this morning and relit the pilot light on the heater. Welcome to summer in San Francisco: it's 59F in my apartment. And no, I’m not in South America.

I only went over 105 once or twice each way, both times to pass a knot of sheep. A blond in a black Nissan and I recognized each other’s purposeful pace and became driving buddies for a bit yesterday, helping each other pass slow-movers, going fast enough so that we both could pass and get back in the lane before ramming a slow-moving American sedan, and letting each other in when a passing attempt failed. I lost her an hour after lunch when we finally cleared a bad patch and she continued on at 110. Why is it that the Chief Offenders are always red minivans or white full-size pickup trucks?

At my cousin’s wedding, the DJ played “Y.M.C.A,” which is surely the biggest joke gay people have ever played on straight people. It is a feature of almost every wedding I’ve been to or catered. Everyone dances and sings the words without listening to their import. I warned my little sister about this before her wedding, but it wasn’t an issue since she had hired a swing band, figuring that good music was more important than big flowers, fancy dress, or hard alcohol. I donated the two cases of Tanqueray vodka that had been sitting in my closet (thank you, Ms. SF nightclub promoter, for being such a bitch).

The good mood from L.A.(and from getting picked up at a gas station at Fountain and Highland) lasted until 280 merged with 101; I was back in town, and back to the same ennui I fled from four days ago. If I don’t unpack my suitcase, perhaps I’ll be able to leave again soon. Lots of cooking this month, both at the restaurant and privately. In a few weeks I will be filling in as private chef at the house of someone whose name you’d recognize (a friend of Our Leader’s) but I’m forbidden to mention it.

4 July 2003

Despite the depredations of Our Leader and his puppet masters, I’m still proud that it’s independence day.

A nice-enough dinner last night at the Spanish Kitchen on La Cienega. Packed with hipsters, but not for the food. After we sent back the margaritas three times (impermissible use of sour mix instead of lime juice, lack of salt, and something else I forget now, since it wasn’t our first margarita of the evening), things went a little better. Guys making out in a corner booth. And then Y.’s Tapatio friends came over with a case of Miller, which led to Tempo at Santa Monica and Western. So loud. I struck out entirely.

This morning, breakfast and shopping at Barney’s (nothing for me, thank you, though I did fall in love with a Miu-Miu shirt that was the price of a round-trip ticket to NY), and then the beach at Santa Monica. Struck out again. I’m afraid that I’d never get laid if I move to L.A. Like Oedipa Maas in the San Francisco gay bar*, I feel the angst of being sexually irrelevant to everyone around. Y. made perfect capirinhas tonight to start our dinner  of grilled skirt steaks, fresh (i.e., green) chick peas, haricots verts, and then a tarte aux abricots sans croûte. An Italian rosé kept us company. We may essay ourselves upon the shores of WeHo if I can reactivate the gel in my hair.
______________________
*Pynchon’s Crying of Lot 49

You can tell that you’re at a gym in L.A. by:

(a) the absence of clocks

(b) the number of guys who’ve given their colorists free rein

My favorite Angel is still Drew Barrymore.

Cherries: this has been the best year for California cherries in ages. Get them while they last.

Apricots: Blenheims (aka Royals) should be ripe this week. It’s the best apricot around. Don’t bother with the larger or prettier varietals: they have as much flavor as a sponge.