In which Michael comes out of hibernation

I seem to have reached that threshold — about 2 weeks — at which readers begin dropping hints that it's been perhaps too long since I last posted.  I am not proud to have to admit that I am enjoying being begged to return to the spotlight.  (Well, "asked" is perhaps a more accurate word, and the only spotlight I've been in recently was at my gym, where the lighting has been designed for maximum drama.  My fellow gym members are so jaded by the over-the-top environment that I'm sure nobody even bothered to glance in my direction as I performed yesterday's perfectly lit set of single-leg squats in front of the huge mirror, while Gaga belted out how she was born this way in the background.  She may have been born that way, but I have to work hard to achieve glorious glutes.)

Seriously, it warms my heart to discover that certain of you miss my posts enough to write in when I'm silent for a time.  But one of you (Mae) has outdone herself, not only expressing her concern over my busy schedule, but also leaving a detailed comment (scroll down to her April 27 comment) about quick-and-easy cooking that practically qualifies her as a guest blogger AND giving me, as a not-so-subtle kick in the pants, a suggestion for my next post.  So, out of gratitude for Mae's information and inspiration, I am going to take her suggestion and blog about quickies.

Not that kind of quickies.  Boy, you people always seem to have sex on the mind.  I am referring to quick MEALS that can be prepared in minutes when your schedule is as crazy as mine has been lately.

For you crackpots who are here only for the titillation factor, this picture should get your juices flowing.  The rest of us will focus on the juices bubbling in our crockpots.

Back in the Kitchen with Michael: Capellini w/Salmon and Mushrooms (and a Salad!)

Has it really been 3 whole weeks since I've posted a cook-along recipe?  Boy, how time flies when one is attending Broadway openings with a renowned fashion model on one's arm, experimenting with French methods of home-scenting, and chasing towel-clad dancers around the locker room.  (Hi, George, if you're reading this — I'll be at the gym later this morning!)

[Note: do not read this caption unless you are George.]  Hi, George — remember me?  If this picture isn't ringing any bells, you could try imagining me in a towel.   (Oh dear, now I'm imagining you imagining me in a towel......)

Not to mention inaugurating a new teaching space, starting a program of working out under the guidance of a personal trainer, and walking the dogs for longer periods now that the weather is getting milder.  Whew!  It's actually a respite to enter the kitchen and spend some relaxing time cooking a meal.  The seed idea for today's project was the container of garlic scape pesto I'd discovered in the freezer yesterday.  What fun, to discover a few tablespoons of this heavenly stuff left over from almost a year ago — garlic scapes appear early on in the growing season, so we get them in one of our first CSA deliveries each year, in late May or early June, and I always make pesto out of them.

In which packages are eagerly anticipated

I want to start out by assuring Treadle27 that her chocolatey prize will soon be winging its way to her home.

That's all the varieties my prize-winner did not select as well as her chosen Maple Pecan all packed up in the envelope underneath, which Peter has kindly agreed to drop off at the post office later today.  Don't you just love the gorgeous papers that the Mast Brothers use to wrap their bars?

In which Michael greatly exceeds the recommended maximum time in the steamroom

The explanation for the before-and-after transformation illustrated below has got to go in the only-in-NYC file. (And probably in the only-in-Chelsea subdirectory.)

Me at 10:00 am on Wednesday

Me at noon on Wednesday

What happened to turn me from a happy (if a little 7-dwarves-ish) man into a shriveled prune?  Read on, dear friends.....the truth is beyond belief.

In which Michael swoons and creates lovely aromas

OMG, readers, you'll never believe who commented on my post from yesterday:

Jeffrey, my other obsession of the hour

For those of you who do not recognize this studly being, he's the OTHER hunky dancer in pleather shorts from last Saturday's concert!  I still have no idea how he found my blog, but I am hoping that more leather- and pleather-wearing hunks, dancing or not, stumble my way.

(Mom, if you're reading my blog today, please know that I am totally inventing this infatuation with partially nude muscle boys for the sake of entertaining my readers.  Rest assured that my priorities are still pleasing you and finding inventive ways to use up leftover beans.)

In which Michael tries to butch it up with a big pot of okra

I wonder if it's possible for a male couple to become too gay?

I mean, all stereotypes aside, our lives are mostly similar to that of any other family — well, maybe any other slightly kooky family of outside-the-box-thinking, artistic mavericks with demented Chihuahuas.  But our proximity to the nucleus of gay American culture — Chelsea 10011 — brings us into frequent and intense contact with all sorts of queer influences.  (I'm using that Q-word in its co-opted, political sense.  You aren't allowed to use it in this way unless you're queer too.  Oh, and please stop using "gay" to mean "stupid," as in "That's so gay."  There I am, on my soapbox again!)

Following on the (high) heels of last weekend's fabulousness — attending the opening and after-party of Priscilla, 50% of us in a dress — Peter and I were given tickets for this past Saturday night's "Big Gay Sing 3D" concert of the New York City Gay Men's Chorus.  (One of my voice students is in the chorus and had an extra pair of tix.)

This choral extravaganza — actually more of a variety show — made Priscilla look like an NFL football game by comparison.  The evening was chock-full of everything gay men (well, ones like me anyway) hold dear: hunky tenors, drag queens in beaded gowns, showtunes, emceeing by a huge out Broadway star, a diva songstress with pipes of gold, hunky men in pleather shorts, hunky baritones, hundreds of costumes and wigs, hunky men in Prince Charming outfits, campy humor, bawdy humor, hunky basses, Donna Summer songs, sequins, sequins, sequins, and hunky men in the audience.

(Oh, and hunky men wearing MPB apparel and the Debbie shirt, respectively.  I gayed up Debbie's gorgeous creation with my tightest skinny Levi's and a pair of motorcycle boots.  If only she'd made me a gingham codpiece to match.)

In which Michael resigns himself to forever cursing the darkness

I like my living/teaching environments (they're highly overlapping) to smell good.  To me, it is important that every one of my 5 senses — and those of my visitors/students — gets triggered with pleasant stimuli.  (Or at least 4 out of 5.  Ironically for a food blogger, taste is the sense that I invoke the least in my professional work.)  I have gone to great lengths to choose restful colors for the paints and fabrics in my teaching room, to provide soothing white noise that masks harsh sounds from outside, to touch my clients with respect and gentleness, and to make the room agreeably, but not overpoweringly fragrant.

This last step, to bring about a pleasing olfactory environment,  has not been easy to bring about.  In short, most of the scenting products out there stink.

In which Michael restructures the food pyramid

A blogger (who will remain nameless to protect my identity), famished from his afternoon workout today, did the inadvisable and went grocery shopping in this ravenous state.

And I — er, the blogger — didn't even remember to sing to himself that old hymn of abstemiousness from the AFN public service spot: "Don't shop when you're hungry — no, no, no!"  And now I'm singing the blues.

I mean, the blogger is singing — oh, never mind.  I screwed up.  I'll own my error.

In which Michael seizes the day and the saffron

In yesterday's post I described an uncomfortably close brush with Death that inspired me to make a covenant with myself — and with Life.  My chosen metaphor for my resulting new attitude towards life is not saving the saffron.  I chose to interpret this quite literally on the inaugural day of my covenant, and created a saffron-rich chicken stew that I will show you how to make...

...that is, if you, too, are ready to use up your saffron.

Go ahead; DO IT.  What better way to acknowledge that today is special?

Don't I look like I'm saying, "Go ahead; DO IT!" in this picture?  In my boomingest voice?

Before we get to the stew recipe, though, I have to make a confession.  I fear I have been interpreting carpe diem as license to spend every crappy dime.  In my eagerness to display lust for life, I recklessly engaged on a brief binge of monetary spending:

And now: a public service announcement

I just got back from Whole Foods. . .where my shopping was Wholly Foolish. What went wrong?

I know enough to eat something hearty before going to the grocery store, because my internal hunter-gatherer becomes indiscriminate when he's hungry. If I have an appetite, every densely caloric treat in the store looks like a good idea, and soon, my cart is overflowing with marginally necessary items like breads, cakes, cheeses, beers, and snack foods.

Where did I learn this wisdom? Believe it or not, on TV. I still recall vividly a public service announcement from the Armed Forces Network (AFN) that was broadcast frequently in the 1980s on the U.S. military bases throughout Europe, where I was stationed. Its catchy rap-style tag line went, "Don't shop when you're hungry — no, no, no!"   I couldn't find this gem on Youtube, but I was able to find a clip containing other spots from that era, just so you'll know I'm not making this up. [Update in Jan 2021: a reader posted a link to the hungry shopping video in the comments below!]

Spicing up your life the Bengali way

Talk about good timing!

No, no — shut up, everyone! — I did not mean to literally talk about it.  "Talk about" as used here is not so much an imperative as an idiomatic expression indicating the writer or speaker's desire to. . .oh, never mind.  I'll just wait until I have your attention again.

OK.  That's better.  The good timing I was referring to was the coincidence between Monday's arrival of Debbie's fennel-containing package and my intention (stated on Monday's blog) to write up a recipe involving a fennel-containing Bengali spice mixture known as panchphoran:

One man's trash. . .is sometimes another man's trash

I am not too proud to admit that our entire apartment is furnished with cast-aways.

Oops!  I meant cast-OFFs.

In fact, it gives me a lot of pleasure to rescue still-usable items from an eternity in the landfill.  It allows me to feel that I am doing my part for the planet, to own things I might not otherwise be able to afford, and to enjoy that exquisite thrill that comes from getting something for nothing.

You need to develop an eye for finding just the right garbage, however, and I have studied under the master — my partner, Peter.  Peter was born with a highly discerning eye (I think it's the left one) — and a huge dollop of good luck.  He has found countless treasures in the trashpiles of our neighborhood: a navy blue cashmere sweater and a pair of men's dress shoes, both by Ralph Lauren, in like-new condition, and IN MY SIZE; three enormous bolts of black knit fabrics, including one of pure silk; a working Brother sewing machine; Italian designer lamps retailing for hundreds of dollars. . .I could go on and on.

Let's make every day a holiday

Happy second Monday in February, everyone!  Around here, we don't pay much attention to Valentimes Day or any other market-driven "holiday" with irony quotes, but I grab any excuse to share some love on ANY day of the year.  Or some chocolate.

I actually consider it appalling to think that lovers would reserve their most special treatment of each other for a single day of the year.  Why not be all lovey-dovey whenever the inspiration hits — and hope that it hits often?  Does anyone really think that some little fairy with a bow and arrow is out there only on February 14th, authorizing romantic gestures with his magic love weapon?  Get real.  Grab your honey EVERY day, plant your juiciest kiss on those lips, and do something to make his/her day a little sweeter.

And wait to buy your roses when they haven't been marked up 75% to take advantage of the retail delirium that ensues whenever "they" proclaim a holiday.

Happy Birthday, MPB!

Yes, folks, it was one year ago today that I came rushing in from my dog walk to find Peter soaking in the bathtub, and handed him the little scraps of paper on which I'd scribbled some potential blog titles I'd brainstormed on his behalf.  "He Sew Fine" didn't get the acknowledgement I thought it deserved for cleverness and a sense of fun, but I was gratified more than you will ever know when "Male Pattern Boldness" got a smile and a thumbs-up.

It's a year later, and I think all of us who follow Male Pattern Boldness (dot com) are astounded by the richness of Peter's first year of blog archives.  It's really amazing that almost every day for the past year, Peter has come up with an interesting spin on some sewing-related (more or less) topic, and has illustrated it with found photos as well as his own — and not a few of my shots of the glamorous if not exactly law-abiding Cathy Lane.  I don't have to tell you that Peter's work has brightened the lives of a lot of people over the past year.  A lot.  Including mine.

Here's to you, my brilliant Domestic Partner!  May you have many more years of blogging, and half a million followers by your second blog birthday.

Peter at his Pfaff 30 with his "birthday" cupcake on the ironing board in the foreground

I wasn't going to blog on the weekends, but since I've already logged on to post these birthday wishes, I might as well tell you about my excursion to Whole Foods.

Whole Foods vs Urban Organic — Big Weekend Show-down!

Michael considers abandoning Urban Organic to create his own produce delivery system. . . .

I'd like to start by thanking my reader Debbie for injecting a bit of sanity into my thinking.  For weeks, I'd been living with a low-grade stress brought on by my dissatisfaction with the Urban Organic produce delivery company.  We were certainly enjoying the high-quality fruits and veggies they brought to our door every Wednesday, but the high level of error in their procedures was creating a lot of follow-up headache for me.

In my consternation, I guess I'd lost sight of the main reason we'd joined Urban Organic in the first place: to ease the post-harvest dejection we typically feel after the last weekly CSA delivery of the growing season, which happens just before Thanksgiving every year.  Well, this goal was achieved — we definitely were distracted from our melancholy by the fun of opening our weekly boxes from UO.  But over time, the frustration out-weighed the fun.  Time to move on!  Thanks, Debbie, for reminding me that, with Whole Foods only a block away, we have no need to rely on an error-prone delivery system for our organic produce.

But I wanted to be sure before opting out of UO that I could indeed get a superior consumer experience from WF.  So I set up an experiment — kitchen scientist at heart! — to give me a means of analyzing the two produce sources.  My challenge would be to see if I could create a box of organic produce at Whole Foods that would rival in quality, variety, convenience, and price the weekly boxes we received from Urban Organic.  Read on to find out how I fared. . . .

My review of Urban Organic

What level of vexation are you willing to endure in the pursuit of good ingredients?  Recently, I've come up against my limits.  Here's the story.

Urban Organic is a delivery service which, at a very reasonable price, brings a box of organic produce to your door every week.  Great concept, huh?  Without having to leave your home, you get an assortment of fresh fruits and vegetables — organic, for personal as well as planetary health — as well as a Christmas-like excitement upon opening the box each week.  You can find out more about them at their website, urbanorganic.com.

As I stated in my very first post on this blog, I am ambivalent about the Urban Organic experience.

Food — exceedingly good.  Two (green) thumbs up!

Service — friendly and well-meaning, but incompetent.  I sadly bring my thumbs back down.

Now I'm Cooking! — Baked Fish w/Greens & Citrus Sauce

As promised in my last post, in which I explained my love affair with Connie, my counter-top convection oven, today I am going to guide you through making a meal using her.

The meal I am about to describe occurred as dinner on Saturday evening.  Saturday began already very cold, with the promise of snow later in the day, so I really wanted to put together something warming.  I had potatoes and kale on hand, which I was keeping in mind as possible ingredients when I went out to go to Whole Foods and to do some other errands.

First, I got my hair trimmed by Mike at my barbershop.  Today he styled my usual crazy wild hair into a well-tamed part, saying my hair was perfect for such a do.  What do you think — do I still look culinary?

A Look Back at Today's Meals

Inconveniently timed meals and an afternoon bout of lassitude that quashed all desire to cook combined to make today's eating experience a little unsatisfying.

I puttered around too long this morning, postponing breakfast (yogurt w/fruits and nuts, of course, and tea) until later than usual, so I wasn't hungry enough for a real meal when my window of opportunity for lunch rolled around.  So, before heading uptown for my voice lesson, I grabbed a couple slices of sourdough, toasted them, and slathered them with PB and butter, respectively.

Where I get my ingredients

The ironic truth is that here, in the heart of New York City, we have easy access to as much fresh, wholesome foods as we would if we lived on a farm in the heartland.   Our situation might be even better than that of rural inhabitants — I've been to small-town grocery stores and noted that the produce on offer has rarely come from the local farms, but was mostly shipped in from large-scale corporate farms, just like the produce in our local Gristede's markets.

Thank goodness we aren't limited to Gristede's.  Or even to grocery stores.