In which Michael forges a relationship with Mariah Carey's husband

First I run into George the sexy pleather-clad dancer at the gym.  (Well, he was towel-clad when we "met.")  Then, yesterday, a world-famous fashion designer/fragrance purveyor who shall remain nameless was — Bang! — changing at the locker next to mine in the very same gym.  (How rude of you to wonder if I was tacky enough to snap surreptitious photos of this fit and tattooed but here-unnamed celebrity in his blue and white undies with my phone.  And, no, I'm not going to post them on my blog.)

Well, my encounters with the glitterati continued into today, when I had a long, meaningful 47-second conversation with Nick Cannon — radio and TV personality, actor, comedian, rapper, and husband of Mariah Carey.

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.

April Fool's Day Quiz Results — Blogger Revealed as Inadvertent Liar!

[Note: If you want to try the quiz for yourself, go back and read my April 1 post before continuing on to this one.]

Many savvy readers were correct in suspecting that the April Fool's Day posting date of my quiz (not to mention its title) indicated that something was queer about this one.  (And not just the author.)

As several commenters surmised, all 12 statements contained truth.  In two cases, however — one inadvertent — the truth was only partial.  Read on to find out which statements diverged from actuality, and to find out who won the chocolate.

In which Michael indulges his vanity via a rapidly growing blogging convention

When I first encountered the acronym GPOY, I assumed it was a new gender/sex identity option I hadn't heard of before.  (There are a bewildering variety of ways to "identify": LGBT, FTM, MSBD, and myriads of other options the very thought of which would have tied your great-great-grandmother's bloomers in knots.  Unless you had a really cool great-great-grandma.)

Actually, as I came to discover, GPOY stands for the relatively innocuous "Gratuitous Pic of You," which it has become common for bloggers to post on Wednesdays.  (I think GPOM would make more sense, but who can dictate the direction that linguistic winds will blow?)

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.

Back in My Own Little Corner

Now I know how Cinderella must have felt the day after the ball, when, with memories of her glittering gown and her handsome prince and her night out among the VIPs still fresh in her mind, she found herself back at the hearth, scrubbing her fingers to the bone.

Not that my pretty wonderful life feels like hearth-scrubbing, but I am suffering from a sort of withdrawal from the heady, glamorous, rather unreal-seeming activities of last night.  On most Sunday evenings, I find myself lying on the couch in my sweats, reading a mystery novel while my chihuahuas groom themselves underneath the tatty old afghan they share with me.

So how on earth did I find myself yesterday evening, well past my usual bedtime, dancing to classic disco hits alongside Broadway stars and drinking glass after glass of champagne with a gorgeous dame on my arm?  And was that enormous pink sparkly high-heeled Manolo pump merely a figment of a temporarily delusional state?

Michael decidedly outside his element.  (But looking pretty happy about it....)

Kitcheree & Picture-me Updates

Thursday night we learned of another benefit of kitcheree — it stretches take-out Indian farther!  To make a very filling dinner, I ordered just one vegetarian dish and an onion kulcha (bread) from our favorite South Indian restaurant, and served them with reheated kitcheree and some spicy pickle.  A very satisfying way to round off a busy teaching day.  There's still enough kitcheree in the fridge for another meal over the weekend, I think.  Perhaps I'll serve it along with a tomatoey chicken stew that's simmering in my brain, if not yet on my stovetop.  I'm thinking tons of onions and garlic — and saffron and sausage — I seem to be in a Cajun state of mind.  Come back in a day or so to find out what became of my Amish chicken legs....

Earlier on Thursday, our mailman had delivered a care package from Debbie, who reads Peter's and my blogs regularly.  This box contained treats for the dogs — note to self: an entire chicken-leg treat in one sitting engenders copious poop in a tiny chihuahua — some wonderful natural grooming products, and — ta da! — the gorgeous shirt that Debbie has been working on for me as part of Peter's mens shirt sew-along:

Temporary Silence Explained

Hi, Readers.

I've missed blogging over the past week.  Our neighborhood is currently experiencing a widespread Verizon outage — phone and internet service — so my only connection to the web has been my iPhone.

It's a little unwieldy to type more than a few words on my phone, so I'm not going to resume blogging until the outage has ended.  The phone company promised (ha!) that our service will be restored no later than March 17th.

So much for having a landline to fall back on in case of a cell connectivity problem.....

Please continue to enjoy Peter's blog in the meantime; he's been going across the street to blog from the wi-fi hotspot at the Brooklyn Coffee and Bagels.....another reason to love that place!

Hope to be back in touch soon!

Michael

Getting some color

As you can see in this picture that I took on my way to the gym, today is very grey here in Manhattan:

I decided that if Mother Nature was not going to provide us New Yorkers a glorious springtime palette, I would take it upon myself to dabble in color.  So what follows today is just a bit of silliness....a polychromatic pictorial panoply of brightly colored images.  I hope it makes you smile, whatever the weather in your neck of the woods.

We interrupt this food blog...

...to bring you hot news from the world of sewing!

Yesterday's mail included a package from Florida from my reader Debbie.  "My reader" is perhaps not so accurate here.  The package has much more to do with Debbie's being a Male Pattern Boldness reader...and even more, a participant in Peter's mens shirt sew-along.

By some bizarre stroke of good fortune, it turns out that I am Debbie's sewing muse.  (Which is especially hard to understand when you see how hunky certain men in her life, like her son and his friend, are.  Check out her blog if you like pictures of handsome guys in Marine uniforms and/or renaissance doublets.  Now there's a sentence that's probably never been uttered before.)  As strange as it may seem, without the inspiration of creating clothing for me, her living Ken doll, Debbie could never have propelled herself to these heights of sartorial splendor:

Anybody got a Dolly to cart away this crap?

If you're new to my blog today — well, first off, I'm happy to have you here! — please be advised that I'm in the middle of an all-week exploration of the reasons I've kept some of my kitchen equipment and carted away some other things.  You might want to scroll down and read all the posts starting on Monday, February 21.  Well, you could skip the brief one about me turning into a woodland creature, as it doesn't address the main theme of the week.  But it would be a shame to miss some adorable pictures of Willy and, well, me.  [embarrassed blush]

We've already talked about items that we love because they do one thing and do it well:

One-hit Wonder Woman

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.

Cold-weather heater-upper: Brrrr - itos

¡Olé!  I managed to create a dish using my leftover pinto beans that transformed them into something completely new and unrecognizable.  ¡Cool!

Actually, warm.  For dinner last night, at 7:30 following my last voice student of the day, we had pinto bean & ham burritos that were quick, easy, and delicious — and warming.  During a break earlier in the day, I started dinner preparations by grinding homegrown whole wheat into flour, then forming it into tortillas, which I cooked on a heated cast-iron griddle, singing traditional Mexican canzones de tortilla all the while.   Or maybe I just opened a package from Whole Foods — I really can't remember the details after such a busy day.

Help! What do I do with all these beans?

Oh dear, I'm feeling a little like Ann-Margret in the surreal champagne-and-baked-beans scene from the movie Tommy (particularly around the 4:05 minute mark):

Well, now.  That clip either amused and intrigued you. . .or left you needing a course of therapy.   I, on the other hand, after my latest baked-bean-without champagne scene, am left needing a little guidance — and so I am reaching out to my readers today.

Please give me your suggestions for creative ways to re-use the remaining 47 gallons of my pinto beans with ham hock.

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.

Weekend Plans: Implementing Reader Ideas

Right now in the American Northeast we are in the middle of the dreariest time of year.  For the past several weeks, the temperatures haven't gotten above the low thirties. . .the memory of which is going to seem balmy in retrospect over the coming weekend, when the temp is expected to dip down near the single digits.  Brrrrrrrr!  And, to top it all off (literally), it snowed again last night:

The wintry view from my kitchen window this morning

During these dreary, sunless months until spring finally arrives, we have to find alternative ways to bring brightness and warmth into our lives.  Luckily, many people in my circle have been contributing their own rays of sunshine this week.

A Look Back at Today's Meals

I'm feeling paradoxically better and worse today.  My energy level has improved and nothing hurts today, but my nose will not stop running.  (I am so blog-crazed that I actually just now contemplated including a photo of my tissue-filled trashcan.  You can breathe a sigh of relief that I decided you would probably be happier with a shot of Freddy and Willy.)

Better than a hot water bottle!

A Look Back at Today's Meals

Breakfast: My usual (for over a year now) bowl of chopped fresh fruit with raw nuts and raw-whole-milk yogurt.  This concoction is much more exciting during the summer months, when berries and stone fruits are in season.  In winter, I make do with the ubiquitous bananas, and whatever Urban Organic has brought us.  This morning, a particularly bland apple and pear needed help (and sweetness), so I threw in a handful of hunza raisins — left over from making my holiday chutney — along with the cashews.  Golden Darjeeling tea drunk plain.