A few days ago, I got an email from our editor here at Bay Area Bites asking me if I would incorporate "in my own very special way" a Halloween theme into this week's post. Rather than over think it I decided to do the first thing that popped into my head:

A Jackie O. Lantern.

As far as I'm concerned, creating this lantern satisfies three important Halloween criteria: 1.) It allows me to dress inanimate fruit in drag, 2.) It caters to the modern obsession with celebrity (the fact that said celebrity is dead and was a Roman Catholic is pure holiday gravy), and 3.) It gives an appropriate nod to the centuries-old tradition of warding off evil spirits. Of course, the only spirit a Jackie O. Lantern might ward off is that of Maria Callas. Or Christina Onassis.

I Googled images of Jackie O. Lanterns and was shocked-- there weren't any. Yes, there were a few that called themselves Jackie O. Lanterns, but they were either just female jack-o-lanterns or, more dishearteningly, Jackie-o-lanterns wearing pink pillbox hats.

And that's wrong, I tell you, just wrong. That pillbox hat-- that's not Jackie O., that's Jackie Kennedy at the moment of her first husband's death. I wanted to convey a more cynical Jackie (or practical, depending upon your point of view)-- I wanted the Jackie who cashed in her status as American royalty to marry an aging stallion/obscenely wealthy Greek shipping magnate in order to protect what was left of her family and garner unheard of shopping privileges.

So I borrowed a wig, big sunglasses, and a scarf from my friend Natalie, who likes to play dress up more than any other adult I know, and tarted up a little sugar pumpkin.

To make your very own Jackie O. Lantern, you will need:

Big sunglasses. It's all about the sunglasses.

A long brown wig

A sugar pumpkin. (Note: take the sunglasses with you while pumpkin shopping. If the glasses fit around the pumpkin's girth, you've got your pumpkin.

Some sort of carving instrument, like a small, sharp knife.

A spoon

A votive candle

A vintage scarf. (Purely optional, but it does complete the look. Pucci's nice.)

Preparation:

1. Cut out a lid on the top of the pumpkin at a 45 degree angle so that the lid will remain in place when pumpkin is hollowed. This opening should be just large enough to allow access to your clenched fist. The smaller the hands, the better.

2. Scoop out seeds and stringy bits of pulp from the inside of your pumpkin with a spoon, preferably made of sterling silver. It's even better if you are using a dessert spoon that has been stolen from the Plaza Hotel in New York. Since I have no such spoon, I had to settle for one I stole from the Algonquin Hotel instead. I am not advocating stealing-- I was just pretending I was Robert Benchley and was therefore necessarily pickled. Reserve the pumpkin seeds for later roasting, since the seeds of the sugar pumpkin are the best for toasting, which is something I learned from Elise Bauer's always helpful Simply Recipes.

3. Situate sunglasses onto the face of the pumpkin to determine the best placement for the eye holes. Cut out small holes with the tip of a sharp knife, then enlarge the holes with the same, stolen silver spoon you used to scrape out the pumpkin's insides. (Note: Holes should not be larger than the sunglasses.)

4. Put your now-naked Jackie O. Lantern upon some sort of pedestal (I used one originally intended for cakes) which, now that I think of it, seems entirely appropriate. Dress up your pumpkin doll with wig, sunglasses, and a purely optional scarf-around-the-neck. Presto! You've got an international woman of glamour sitting on a cake stand in your kitchen.

Lighting Jackie's Fire

To add an inner glow to your Jackie O. Lantern, remove the wig and lid from the pumpkin, place a votive candle inside her, and light. Replace lid and wig. Adjust hairstyle, if the need or desire arises.

For a delicious bit of added fun, summon the spirit of Aristotle Onassis with the help of your Ouija board. Once you have his full attention, blast a Maria Callas aria from your surround sound speakers, then sit back and feel the tension. Voi lo Sapete from Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana would do very nicely. I recommend hiding all valuable, breakable objects.

I do not recommend leaving your Jackie O. Lantern burning with fire from the inside unattended, unless you wish to melt your wig or set your house ablaze, but lighting it does make her eyes shine bright and wide, which makes sense, if you think about it:

That woman saw things that no woman should ever have to see.

Let's say you're at a party, hovering over a gooey white puck of Mt. Tam, canape-concerned, ignoring the guests swirling around you, when a stranger sidles over and sizes you up.  "Hey," he says, a wide, knowing grin spreading across his face as he gestures at the cheese-covered knife you're determinedly sliding across a good cracker.  "You're a real foodie, aren't you?"   "No, I'm just hungry," you say, wincing -- because you hate that word.  

You're not alone.  To its detractors, the term "foodie" brings to mind Yelp--happy yuppies prone to infantile rhapsodizing on the subject of beloved foodstuffs.  Yet to its advocates, the word merely characterizes a commitment to eating well -- less prissy-sounding than "epicure," without the Anton Ego-esque pomposity "gourmand" evokes.  According to etymologist Barry Popik, former New York magazine food critic Gael Greene  first used it in print in 1980. A few years later, Paul Levy and Ann Barr inserted "foodie" into the title of their book "The Official Foodie Handbook."  Since then, it's appeared in countless cookbooks and memoirs, and thoroughly penetrated our vernacular.

A lot of people think arguing about what words mean is a silly preoccupation.  Given life's great challenges and the limits clocks and calendars impose, this particular linguistic scrap is not, in the big scheme of things, a fantastic use of time, but if enough people harbor strong opinions about the term's use and meaning, it's by nature worth addressing.

We all know people who truly don't care what they eat, much less where their food comes from, or who makes it.  These folks backpack through Europe proudly subsisting on jug wine and potato chips.  They eat peanut butter sandwiches for lunch every day.  They forget to eat at all unless they're reminded to do so.  Food is just fuel, nothing more.  Identifying yourself as a "foodie" is a way of saying you're different.

Of course labels define people in overly simplistic and easily adjustable terms.  People don't necessarily have a problem with the existence of "foodie," just with its ubiquity and the vague jumble of ever-evolving potential meanings it implies.  If you're a "foodie," do you eat for pleasure?  Do you talk about food all the time?  Do you think eating is a political act?  Do you dutifully follow food trends?  Are you knowledgeable about food?  Are you a fan?  An aficionado?  An adventurer?   Do you spend too much at restaurants?   Do you buy organic and local?  Do you really have the time to track down every Twittered street food cart in town?  "Foodie" may have been conjured up with a positive meaning in mind, but most word configurations ending in "ie" that describe people -- alkie, druggie, yuppie, even hippie -- tend to have disparaging connotations, and this one is no exception.

Unfortunately, similar one-word alternatives to "foodie" flop for other reasons:  phonetically speaking, "foodist" is one letter away from "nudist;" a "foodster" sounds like a runaway hot-dog cart souped up with a diesel engine.

A house party in the Mission: Are these guys foodies? Photo by Michael Chopko

My house:  What about this lady? Photo by A. Simmons

"Foodie" makes me think of hedonists with healthy appetites and strong opinions, but only a fleeting, superficial interest in food as anything more than a source of sensory delight.  I'm not prescribing any Michael Pollan.  The unexamined sandwich is still sometimes worth eating, but to me, "foodie" as a label implies frivolity when food is actually quite serious:  an essential human requirement in which we've merely evolved to seek and derive incredible joy.  Our relationship with what we eat shapes a text as rich as any other, a tapestry of taste woven across time through history, language, science, and art -- reflective of, as is the case with most of what's really important, everything humans have experienced.  From fire-pits to Ferran Adria, food preparation is much older than music, art, and theater; it's right up there with sex and violence.  Being in touch with the role it plays means you're engaged, not elitist.  Seeing a dude on the bus with a grease-smeared McDonald's bag in his lap and sneering because he doesn't appear to value good food is elitist -- and presumptuous.  Maybe that guy knows more about food than you.  Maybe he's more passionate about his quarter-pounder than you are about Mission Street Food.  Maybe he eats those weak burgers and, with every savored nibble, whips up waves of fond memory -- road trips, family vacations, burger-y smells filling up the car and fogging up the windows, styrofoam folders of steaming breakfast munched on the school steps before homeroom -- and puts him back in places he likes to keep close.  Maybe he's not what some people would call a foodie.  Maybe he's more than that.

Last week, I enjoyed a dinner with dedicated eaters.  As the first course landed, I asked them what they thought of the word "foodie".  Predictably, a few embraced the term, a few dismissed it, and the rest shrugged and said they did not care.  The newish Mission Burger came up an hour later, right after dessert, once a bottle of whiskey had begun making the rounds.  "Oh, you should check it out," I said, perking up.  "It's in a market, next to the meat counter."  I went on.  "Sounds like something a foodie would say," a friend immediately remarked wryly once I'd paused.  "Right -- and then blog," said another.  

People vulnerable to the foodie label like to discuss food and break news of hidden favorites.  As we sat in my dining room, stuffed, half-drunk, talking about food, I thought of my late great-aunt Florence from Barlow, Kentucky.  A large, funny woman with a tiny kitchen and pecan trees out back, she used each meal as an opportunity to plan the next.  Sitting at the table tucking into bacon, eggs, and toast, she'd wonder aloud:  "now, we'll have green beans for supper, with potatoes and maybe a little ham."  She wouldn't have known the difference between gazpacho and a can of Campbell's, but she really liked to eat and talk about eating.  Was she a foodie?

The foodie compulsion to share obsessively can irritate, but if food has the capacity to enrich lives, help forge relationships, and enlighten perspectives, then by passing it along, such fervent consumers -- whether they be writers, food industry professionals, or laypeople -- might be doing a service by sharing those possibilities with others.  Sure, haughty critics and tastemakers (as well as discerning consumers) often spout off snark with no personal creative perspective -- like a know-it-all modern furniture buff who doesn't own a hammer, or an avid record collector who has never set foot in a studio.  All the same, an intelligent thoughtful discourse about something meaningful elevates that something.  People preserve things by paying attention to them, and what we preserve says a lot about us.  Food is no exception.  Every little bite counts.  A burger is not just a burger, and anyone who doesn't get that isn't looking hard enough.  Writing and talking about food isn't dancing about architecture -- not that dancing about architecture is a particularly bad idea -- once you think about it.   

When it came to food, my grandfather prized quantity. Maybe it was something about being a kid during the Depression and then an adult during World War II rationing, but he relished, like little else, walking into the dining room of a second-rate hotel restaurant, and seeing brunch laid out: a legion of steaming metal tubs on tables in rows, like shining shields, their handles swathed in white cloth napkins. There'd be a d.i.y waffle station to the left, a man shaking omelets to the right. Cascades of silly, under-ripe fruit would pile on circular tables here and there. There'd be a roast beef carving counter, little sausage links, pancakes, scrambled eggs, and lunch-like dishes -- baked chicken-y things, bad salads, mysterious gratins -- no one ever seemed to actually eat. He loved brunch, specifically buffets, because he could eat anything he wanted, in whatever sequence and amounts he desired. Brunch was freedom in the form of phony opulence. It reminded him of the cruises he adored, I think, an earthly manifestation of those magical floating worlds where dedicated gluttons could dine four times a day and hop freely from one bastardized culinary tradition to another.

In San Francisco, buffets are more luxurious than those I knew in Kentucky as a kid. On Sunday mornings, from 10:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m., you can enjoy $68 worth of omelets made to order, sushi and sashimi, pasta, dim sum, crepes, breads, pastries, and desserts -- along with posh digs and about 800 tourists -- at the Court Garden of the Palace Hotel on the corner of Market and New Mongomery. The most trumpeted neighborhood brunch spots, typically buffet-less, are usually no less packed with locals. Brunch isn't breakfast. Breakfast happens on a walk from BART to work, right after a stop at Specialty's, or at a diner in the middle of Wyoming at 5 a.m. You eat breakfast because you're hungry. More than sustenance, brunch is a time to linger, a special occasion you get used to, even if you're having it around the corner from your apartment.

The ultimate slow feed originated in Britain, close to the end of the 1800s. Since the dawn of civilization, the privileged and wealthy had enjoyed leisurely, pleasurable meals at an expense of money and time unsustainable for poorer people. Brunch was a trendy expression of this long-running culinary tradition. While the meal itself would gain great popularity in the United States well after the turn-of-the-century, the name was coined in 1895 by Hunter's Weekly contributor Guy Beringer. In an article entitled "Brunch: A Plea", Beringer advocated the adoption of a new meal, offered around noon, to replace early Sunday dinner, that daunting afternoon ritual of gravy-sauced roasts and meat pastries Beringer found unduly rough on a booze-imbued stomach. "Brunch is cheerful, sociable and inciting," Beringer wrote, thinking of good toast, fine jams, and languorous mugs of coffee to precede heartier indulgences. "It is talk-compelling. It puts you in a good temper, it makes you satisfied with yourself and your fellow beings, it sweeps away the worries and cobwebs of the week."

Over a hundred years later, in his career-making 2001 book "Kitchen Confidential", celebrity face-stuffer Anthony Bourdain (I'd like to leave him be but he keeps popping up like a Whac-A-Mole at the county fair) notoriously took brunch's modern, evolved form to task:

"Brunch menus are an open invitation to the cost-conscious chef, a dumping ground for the odd bits left over from Friday and Saturday nights. How about hollandaise sauce? Not for me. Bacteria love hollandaise. And nobody I know has ever made hollandaise to order. And how long has that Canadian bacon been festering in the walk-in? Remember, brunch is only served once a week -- on the weekends. Cooks hate brunch. Brunch is punishment block for the B-Team cooks, or where the farm team of recent dishwashers learn their chops."

From outside the kitchen, the view is still a little bleak, or significantly brighter -- depending on where you stand. Stale bread breakfast casseroles, hash, and whatever-with-eggs may be unabashed second chances for unpopular dinner specials, leftovers slopped together by the bored, hung-over chefs inhabiting Bourdain's tableau. Yet the brunching masses greet them with enthusiasm all the same, dropping dinner-sized wads on scrambles, stacks, and the odd strata. For some urban professionals, a Sunday morning wouldn't be quite right without lingering al fresco at some cafe over granola, crumbly biscuits, vegan gravy, and a bottomless mimosa. For others, weekend mornings and early afternoons are times for errands and exercise. On their paths to such less idle pursuits, they worm their ways through throngs of shades-wearing folks holding out for coveted tables, seemingly with nothing better to do save wait. Brunch isn't just a meal, an enduring dining convention white people like -- along with modern furniture, Apple products, and other stuff. Today, it's a state of mind, and a polarizing one at that. Brunch-positive people work hard and play hard. They see brunch as a soothing extension of the partying they did the night before, a necessary putting back together of things that were dislodged -- a ritual well worth the inflated price of pancakes and a lengthy wait. Brunch-negative people think waiting for food they could make at home for a fraction of the cost is a waste of a day's best hours. There are two sides, and San Francisco's boutique-lined streets -- Haight, Church, Valencia -- are divided between them.

The blogger (Andrew on right) captured in a rare moment of brunch-positivity. Photo by Rich Good.

Last Tuesday, S.F. Chronicle writer Trey Bundy tackled brunch-positivity in his People Meter column, opening with the following salvo:

"San Franciscans are a vocal lot when it comes to waiting on Muni, but apparently don't mind waiting half the morning to order breakfast."

He'd sidled up to crowds of hopeful patrons at Boogaloos and Dottie's True Blue Cafe two days prior, and peppered them with the sorts of questions brunch-negative people often contemplate posing: How long are you willing to wait for this brunch? What makes waiting for so long worthwhile? What would you do with more free time, assuming you spent less of it waiting for brunch?

Reading the responses, I was surprised to find that the waits were even longer than I'd imagined, and the reasons for doing so seriously non-compelling. The great Millie Jackson once sang that "anything worth having is worth waiting on." She wasn't talking about the green gravy with carrot chunks at Boogaloos. This substance is not one of Sam-I-Am's less successful forays into the culinary world; to a few of the quoted, it's a real treat deserving of an hour-long dally on the sidewalk. I've had it, and though it is reasonably palatable, it is, unlike a pig roast, a trip to Hog Island, or a mammoth fish fry, not a food around which to plan a day.

Thankfully, brunch-positives are not waiting for food at all. The soft, crunchy, creamy, salty, and sweet kinds of food enjoyed at brunch are signifiers of the desired experience, not the whole of it. At such a time, when Beringer's cobwebs droop low, whether from a hangover as wicked as the cook's or the queasy dregs of a tough week at work, the waiting to eat is probably as valued as the eating itself, not to mention the obvious habit-shaped act of sitting down, ordering, getting coffee, passing the paper, observing other tables, and conversing with your companions. You're supposed to wait. Brunch is satisfying because you know what you're waiting for and what to expect. There are no surprises. The cafe is loud, swollen with chatter and the clatter of a hundred plates. Water is slow to arrive, and when it does, you finish it quickly and want more. Your head throbs, but help is on the way. Godot is a criminally-overpriced mess of eggs, nothing more, but if you order him, he really will come, and everything else will fall into place -- while the rest of the world whizzes by.

Avec poultry

For every exuberantly stylish and special "Tampopo," a few dozen "No Reservations" sail into theaters to sully the food flick sub-genre: bland, safe, commercial fare smothering run-of-the-mill romance in warmed-over foodie platitudes. The tradition is troublesome, by nature, a challenge. Food engages many senses; apart from the best singularly dedicated cooking shows, the characteristics of a great meal aren't easily palpable to a viewer deprived of taste -- especially when the meal unfolds within the context of a scene in a larger narrative. Food might look okay on-screen, but it rarely comes off as particularly delicious, even in decent movies. Actors can munch on some food stylist's pretty concoction, roll their eyes, and moan embarrassingly with hammy delight, but, so frequently, even the most sumptuous footage -- hyper-real and luscious -- falls flat beneath the weight of woefully unnatural theatrics.

For the newish "Julie & Julia," Nora Ephron supposedly insisted that the food both look and taste right. In this movie, the food being cooked and eaten was clearly conceived as a character, something alive and provocative, ripe for interaction: the actors must enjoy what they're spooning up, so their enthusiastic oohs and ahhs ring truer with audiences. The whole thing theoretically hinges on faith in the food's ability to convincingly express itself, which is interesting, considering the film, at its core, isn't so much about food at all. Or at least that's how I saw it at the Kabuki on Saturday afternoon.

In "Julie & Julia," two stories, separated by continents and over half a century, congeal in parallel narratives: In 1949, Julia Child discovers fine food in Paris and ventures towards the brink of a soon-to-be mighty culinary career; in 2002, Julie Powell, a younger woman, exiled to Queens, directionless and dissatisfied, parlays a therapeutic tear through Child's ultra-famous "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" into a popular blog, and ventures towards the brink of writerly success in the form of a book deal.

In the beginning, Meryl Streep's guffawing party-gal of a gastronomic icon just wants something to do. She likes many things, including hats, but food is the latest fancy, her greatest since arriving in Paris with her husband Paul. Encountering a sprinkling of sexism and a healthy dose of anti-American resistance, Julia studies at Le Cordon Bleu, begins teaching classes, and starts work on what will become her seminal tome.

Julie is about to turn 30. She's not a selfless person, but she works a selfless job, answering phones in a cubicle for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation post-9/11. Like bleak shades of Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha, her crummy friends from college torment her over tedious Cobb salad lunches, bragging about the money they make and the professional coups they score, pausing only to scream into cell phones at beleaguered assistants. A failed novelist, Julie also wants something to do, something more, something bigger for herself to give her purpose, an important project to complete -- because, in her mind, she's never been much good at that, the finishing of things.

The film doesn't sufficiently sell Julie's decision to blog about cooking her way through Child's celebrated book. That on-screen moment is weak, her impetus glossed over like ripples in a cake's frosting. Once Julie gets going, her resolve blossoms into a slightly creepy, worshipful obsession. Julia becomes her imaginary friend, a beacon guiding her through recipe after recipe, challenge after challenge, building and shaping her confidence. I start to become concerned when she dresses up like Child for her 30th birthday party, standing smartly before the gathered company, practically saluting, looking a little like a girl scout pretending to be a totalitarian dictator. She's mean to her husband, a sweet, easy-going guy with little cinematic heft. In a nod to gender roles, he kills lobsters when her hand falters, and willingly suffers through indigestion and his wife's marked disinterest in sex. Again and again, he tries to understand as she flies off the handle, frenzied and emotional, whenever a recipe goes wrong, when she's too whacked on gimlets to hear the timer, or, most memorably, when a stuffed chicken slides awkwardly off the kitchen counter and plummets to the floor in a heap of translucent muck, bone, and splattered forcemeat.

Slightly creepy, right?

This movie is about women's lives in transition, journeys unfolding across unfamiliar terrain. Even though food is not overly sensualized here, tastes only rarely poured over and described rapturously and richly, it's a movie dependent on the power of food, not just to galvanize our appetites and inspire the actors, but to spur on the characters they inhabit, to drive the narrative. In Julie's case, her love of food merely flickers in comparison with her pressing compulsion to broil, stew, and steam her way through the book, for the sake of the blog. When Julia cooks, she's on a journey in a purer sense, without a fixed deadline, only fretting over the fruits of her labor once they've slid into view. Cooking is passion for her, as wild and satisfying as sex, to which she doesn't hesitate to draw parallels. "These damn things are as hot as a stiff cock," she bursts out giddily in Streep's best Child-ese, as she juggles a piping hot cannelloni. At both discoveries, her joy bubbles over in ribald exaltation, whereas Julie, while acknowledging Child's chronicled passion, both in the kitchen and with Paul, the "butter to [her] bread", is too busy counting down the chapters to approach her journey with a similarly holistic vigor.

I didn't love the movie, but it was wonderful to see Child rendered so Child-like by a great actress, especially pre-fame, many decades away from becoming the quirky, charming old lady I grew up watching spar with Jacques Pepin every Saturday morning. By comparison, the Julie sequences sink like leaden quenelles. They simply prove a point: in this story, or gathering of stories, recipes are vessels. Over the course of the film, three different characters -- Julie, Julia, and Judith Jones, Child's first publisher -- make boeuf bourguignon. The same recipe comes to life in different kitchens, under different circumstances. Everyone who cooks it owns a memory of it; each individual effort passing through the recipe as if it were a conduit of experience. As many millions of cookbook owners can attest, Julia Child, or more accurately, what she represents, is a moveable feast. "I have conversations with her when I cook," says Julie, and she's right. Following a recipe is like having a conversation with convention across time and, maybe, depending on how crazy you are, the person who devised it. Like aspics, recipes can be shaky propositions; they're not infallible. For a variety of reasons, they don't always work the way they're supposed to; they require the flexibility, improvisation, and intuition only continued evolution through personal experience can provide.

Julie despairs when, on the precipice of major media triumph, she finds out the real Julia, not the clucking, whisk-brandishing fairy toque-mother of her fantasies, thinks less than highly of her blog. I'm not surprised; the idea of blogging alone probably couldn't bridge that multi-generational gap, though Child's purported sentiment has been echoed, unjustly or not, by many of Julie's blogger contemporaries. In the movie, Julie describes blogging as "yelling into the void." She goes from wondering if anyone is reading at all to worrying about what to write because so many people are reading. "Julie & Julia" is the first movie I've seen with a built-in blogging debate: are people who share their personal lives online inherently narcissistic and self-indulgent? Are they disingenuous? Are they presumptuous, like some stuffy twit way back in the pre-Internet era, dutifully keeping a diary with the idea it'll later be pored over by fascinated contributors to the New York Review of Books?

What if Julia Child had fallen for Chinese food when she lived there just a few years before moving to Paris? Would American housewives have had to come to terms with "Mastering the Art of Mandarin Cooking," "Handling Hunan," or "Szechuan From Scratch"? Might Julie be a directionless, dissatisfied San Franciscan, sequestered in the far reaches of the Richmond District, dashing down Clement Street in search of exotic ingredients, pondering Child's secrets to a sublime Shanghai soup dumpling?

That's another blog for another day.

Yes, Swish Steak.

Among my cookbooks, there is a recent acquisition I consider to be the jewel in my crown-- a must-have for anyone who fancies herself (or, of course, himself) Queen of the Kitchen: The Gay Cookbook by Chef Lou Rand Hogan* (Sherbourne Press, 1965).

The Gay Cookbook: "the complete compendium of campy cuisine and menus for men... or what have you" was first brought to my attention by Celia Sacks of Omnivore Books on Food, who had a copy proudly displayed in her store window the last time I visited. She always seems to know what will pique my interest.

A gay cookbook? Pre-Stonewall? I never thought any such thing could exist. I was transfixed. I just had to have a copy for my library. I mentioned the book later that evening to friends over drinks. One month later, those same friends placed a copy in my not-so-little hands. It was probably the most perfect birthday present. Ever.

When I returned home, I opened the book and was immediately struck by how much times have changed since 1965. Not only our food ways, but our slang, too. Especially what I would call gay-speak. The "girlfriend" tone has remained, but the terms have certainly changed. There is a self-mockery that may be horrifying to some readers; others might find the embracing of extreme stereotyping fun and, in a sense, freeing. The last two paragraphs of the book's introduction leave no doubt as to what the reader is in for:

Yes, in that magic hour 'tween day and dark, after effacing the ravages of the day's toil, and before the night's serious cruising, ya gotta take on some food. Man, woman, or child, a girl has got to eat!

So we'll offer here a sort of nonsensical cookbook for the androgynous (don't bother to look it up, Maude. It means "limp-wristed"), and while we can't guarantee the quality of the guests these dishes may be set before, we do not hesitate to assure the reader that all preparations and recipe details are honest and practical.

Here then is the GAY COOKBOOK, which some queen will promptly call FAGGOT'S FARE.

Fierce! At least we have been warned.

I knew I just had to make something from this book. But what? Something from Chapter Six: That Old, Tired Fish? Chapter Five: The Shell Game; Oysters, Lobsters, Shrimp, and What To Do With Crabs? I finally settled on the dish I feel best exemplifies this time capsule of Camp: Swish Steak-- a dish that just may have been served in many a home among the Swish Alps-- otherwise known as the Hollywood Hills.

Swish Steak

Serves 4.

The recipe is delivered to you as originally written. The curly parsley is my own photographic addition. I happen to think that this is an unintentional omission of the author. What gay chef in his right mind would not add a splash of color to a monochromatic dish?

I did, however, omit the MSG. My concern is not for my own health, but for yours. And for the health of Dr. Joyce Brothers. If she happened to wander into your kitchen uninvited and took a bite of MSG-laden Swish Steak, it would kill her. I know this for a fact because she told me so. If you are too young to remember Dr. Joyce Brothers, then you are certainly too young to remember this cookbook.

It really does taste like the 1960's. Or, at least this is what I imagine them to taste like. I was only there for about five months. And on bottle-fed formula.

I suggest you pop this little number into the oven, pour yourself some Cream Sherry, and sit back to enjoy a careful watching of The Boys in The Band. By the time you've finished, dinner will be ready.

Go on, gurl. Dish it out like only you know how to do.

Ingredients:

4 Steaks (for swishing)

3 medium onions, sliced

3 pts. gravy--OR-- part gravy, part rich stock

6 buds garlic, minced

1 tsp. coarse-ground Black pepper

1 tsp. salt

1 ½ tsp. MSG

4 Tbs. flour

4 Tbs. fat (bacon if possible)

(opt.) small can mushrooms 'stems & pieces'

(opt.) small can Tomato sauce

(opt.) 1 Tbs. meat extract (V.V., Boveril, etc.)

Preparation [No paragraph breaks]:

Lay each steak flat; pound lightly with a meat tenderizer (a sort of mallet-like thing with a big and peculiar shaped head), or give each steak a dozen or so whacks with the blunt back of a heave knife, sort of criss-cross on either side. These blows should just cut the surface of the meat but not too deeeply [sic]. Dredge each piece in the flour; heat fat in heavy skillet to very hot. Sear (Brown... as if you didn't know...) meat on both sides in fat in skillet. Take meat out of skillet, put into roast pan (one with a cover). Toss sliced onions and garlic into fat in skillet, cover, cook 3-5 minutes; then dump it all into the roast pan onto the steaks. Add salt and pepper, the MSG, the leftover flour, the mushrooms and tomato sauce if used. Pour stock and gravy (any left-over, rich, brown gravy, except 'sweet-sour' or sauerbraten gravy), into roaster over and around the meat. Cover and cook in 325° oven until tender. This may be 2 or 3 hours. For last half hour, take cover off roast pan, but gravy should still just cover the meat. When meat is real tender, carefully take steaks out of the gravy and set aside on a platter or pan in a warm place. Why not the oven with the heat turned off? Scrape out all the sauce, etc. from the roast pan into a small sauce pot, getting every bit of it. Let this sit for a while on the stove until all the fat-- and there'll be quite a lot of it-- rises to the top. Skim this away. The gravy, full of onion, mushrooms, etc. should be thick enough; taste for seasoning, and you're ready for chow down! Serve the Swish Steak with some of the sauce over each piece of meat. This is wonderful with hot buttered noodles, or with mashed potatoes, etc. Men just love this one, though whether it's the 'swish' or the 'steak' would be hard to say. But-- keep 'em happy...

* Lou Rand Hogan was also the creator of what is believed to be the first gay detective in print (the sexual identity of that perennial bachelor, Sherlock Holmes, is open for debate), Francis Morley, in Rough Trade (originally titled The Gay Detective), also from 1965. The Gay Cookbook, incidentally, was written right here in San Francisco.

SF Chefs. Food. Wine. Ribbon Cutting: Linda Lim, Mayor Gavin Newsom, Kevin Westlye, Tyler Florence

To quote Mayor Gavin Newsom, "Aspen, eat your heart out."

An epic event 2 ½ years in the making, SF Chefs. Food. Wine. was like a food-lover's Disneyland with over 200 of the Bay Area's finest chefs, 450 wineries, and mixologists aplenty strutting their stuff.

Over the past four days, Union Square was transformed into a playground of tastings, seminars, and demonstrations from a who's who list of culinary legends, rising stars, artisans, and experts.

View from the top: Charles Phan, Thomas Keller, Douglas Keane

Sara Moulton and Cindy Pawlcyn

Martin Yan, Yan Can Cook

Top Cheftestants Jennifer Biesty and Ryan Scott

It sometimes feel like a blessing and a curse to live in a city with so many amazing restaurants to try because let's face it, who can afford to try them all? One can read about them, drool over descriptions and photos of them, and then place them on an ever-growing bucket list of places to try. The Grand Tasting Tent at SF Chefs provided the rare opportunity to hone that list, allowing participants to really taste, touch, see, and feel for themselves, a sliver of what some of these heralded restaurants are all about. The air was electric and the excitement palpable, as the wine flowed and the bites were dished out.

Monterey Squid, Chef Justin Simoneaux, Moss Room

Thai Wrap, Chef Toi Sawatdee, Lemongrass Thai Cuisine

It was interesting to see the chefs do riffs on many of the same ingredients that are in peak season right now: corn, heirloom tomatoes, melons, figs, and refreshing preparations like gazpachos and ceviches.

Bruleed Fig with Kaffir Lime Oil and Vanilla Salt, Chef Jenn Puccio, Cortez

And, there was no shortage of parties…all benefiting good causes of course: the Golden Gate Restaurant Association Scholarship Foundation, Meals on Wheels, Project Open Hand, and the San Francisco Food Bank (a member of Feeding America).

Thursday night reunited Rising Star Chefs and Bar Stars named by the San Francisco Chronicle, and a special dinner prepared by Arnold Eric Wong (E&O Trading Co.), Charles Phan (The Slanted Door/Heaven's Dog), and Martin Yan (Yan Can Cook).

Friday night honored America's Culinary Pioneers, Emily Luchetti (Farallon/Waterbar), Judy Rodgers (Zuni Café), Patricia Unterman (Hayes Street Grill), Joyce Goldstein (author and restaurateur), and Chuck Williams (Williams-Sonoma). There was also Out in the Fog, a celebration of the diverse LGBT community, at Elizabeth Falkner's Orson. It was chic, it was sexy, and it had a giant projection of Julia baking a cake on the wall.

Party time went strong through Saturday night, and the tasting tent was bumping with DJ Chef Hubert Keller laying down some beats at the Urban BBQ. Rock Star.

DJ Chef Hubert Keller

God forbid that dancing put anyone in a negative calorie count. The night continued at a Chocolate Enchantment after-party, complete with a floor to ceiling spinning display of chocolate decadence.

SF Chefs chocolate enchantment

This weekend's festivities were a true celebration of the unique culinary spirit of San Francisco, bringing together a community of both industry and non-industry people through a common love of food. It was a treat to have executive chefs live and in person, serving their dishes and chatting about their food, or seeing them interact with one another and catching a glimpse of that intriguing "chef's world" that has captured our imagination. We are a city that loves our food, and by direct association, honors the craftsmen and -women who bring joy through food.

SF Chefs. Food. Wine. hit on a winning combination of accessibility to hometown celeb-status chefs, utterly delicious food, fine wine, education, and awareness of important issues in food politics. It was fun, multi-faceted, and full of passion. It was, in a nutshell, San Francisco.

Ding-ding

I am suddenly turned on by the thought of graham crackers. And that is just the sort of attitude that would make Reverend Graham turn in his grave, since I am undoing all of his good work. Not Billy Graham. He's still (barely) alive, though he also may not approve. I'm talking Sylvester Graham, the inventor of the eponymous cracker.

The graham cracker was created in tandem with the Graham Diet, which advocated fresh fruits and vegetables, whole wheat, and lots of fiber, and denounced meats, alcohol, and spices. Dairy was to be used sparingly. A forefather of Dr. Kellogg and his cornflake-fueled sanitarium, Graham firmly believed that a bland diet would prevent people from having impure thoughts, therefore preventing masturbation (which Graham believed lead to blindness and insanity).

Yes, that is correct. The graham cracker was originally invented to curb sexual desire. I think that is a lot to ask from a cracker, don't you?

Small wonder graham crackers play no major role in my adult life, save at the bottom of the occasional pie or cheesecake, but they were an ever-present staple in my household throughout my childhood. It's enough to make me think my crafty mother was fully aware of this cracker's mystical, anti-inflammatory powers.

How clever, too, the scoutmasters of this country for popularizing the s'more. Leaving a group of adolescent boys out in the wild seems to be asking for trouble, but stuff them with enough graham crackers and parents can rest assured that the only sticks those boys will be rubbing together will be to make a campfire.

If you uncover any more graham cracker-related conspiracies, please contact me. I need to know.

If the heat of summer has got you all sweaty and lathered, I propose cooling your jets with some homemade graham crackers. For extra measure, substitute saltpeter for cinnamon in the topping as listed in the recipe below.

Graham Crackers

Everyone seems to be in agreement that Nancy Silverton's recipe for these beauties is the very last word, so who am I to argue? Here is her recipe, more or less. Mostly more.

Makes about 10 4" crackers or 20 2" ones. The math is easy.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons unbleached pastry or all-purpose flour. Unbleached. Dr. Graham loathed bleached flours, so please bear that in mind.
1 cup dark brown sugar, lightly packed
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes and frozen
1/3 cup honey (mildly flavored, like clover)
5 tablespoons whole milk
2 tablespoons vanilla extract

For the topping:
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preparation:

1. In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade, combine the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt. Pulse just enough to incorporate the ingredients. Add butter and pulse until mixture is the consistency of coarse meal.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the honey, milk, and vanilla extract. Add to the flour mixture and pulse until the dough just comes together. Don't worry, it's supposed to be sticky.

3. Turn dough onto a lightly-floured work surface and pat the dough into a rectangle about 1 inch in thickness. Wrap in plastic and chill until firm; anywhere from 2 hours to overnight.

4. Prepare the topping by combining sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Set aside.

5. Divide the dough in half and return the unused half to the refrigerator. Sift an even layer of flour onto your work surface and roll the dough into a long rectangle about 1/8" think. The dough will still be sticky, so flour as needed. Trim the edges of the rectangle to 4" wide. Working with the short side that should be facing you, cut the strip every 4 1/2". (I chose to make mine 2" wide, but that is a personal preference.) Place crackers on a parchment-lined baking sheet, sprinkle with topping, and refrigerate. Repeat rolling and cutting actions with the second half of the dough. If you are frugal and not lazy, gather the remaining dough scraps, re-form, refrigerate and repeat. The crackers should chill to firm for another 30 to 45 minutes.

6. Preheat your oven to 350º F and adjust the oven racks to the upper and lower positions.

7. Make a vertical line through the middle of the crackers, being careful not to cut all the way through the dough. Score them. That's the better word. Prick the dough in decorative rows. But not too many. Mine look rather like dominoes.

8. Bake for 25 minutes, until browned and slightly firm-to-tough. Rotate baking sheet (or sheets, depending on how many you are making) half way through baking to ensure an even doneness.

9. Let the them and your passions cool, put on a nice Andy Williams album, place a cracker or two in the unhairy palm of your hand and enjoy with a wholesome glass of milk.

As California's road trip season begins, it's time to pull out that list of foods that are worth a detour or two. If you're passing by or through tribal land, allow time in your day and space in your stomach for a stop at roadside stalls offering fry bread or, even better, Indian tacos. Many of us are all a-twitter about the mash-up of Korean bbq and tortillas. But this much quieter and long established blend of taco toppings on soft, still-hot flatbread is better than anything I've tasted from digitally hyped menus.

For the taco aficionados among you: Do not pepper me with hate comments about what constitutes a "real" taco. Take it up with the Indian Nations. For the politically minded, I acknowledge that the physical and cultural repercussions of making refined white flour a daily staple, is not something to celebrate, especially in communities stranded both literally and figuratively in the middle of vast food deserts. Like many foods we love, from latkes to lumpia, eating more isn't eating better.

But for those who are open to the culinary creativity of everyday folks, then this is food worth savoring. During your summer travels, look for stands located on busier strips near post offices, grocery stores or tribal councils. For the best fry breads, plan on arriving earlier in the day, as they will sell out. Peek around and see if there are cast iron pans at the ready. Each round of dough should be patted by hand and fried to order, and if it's your first time, order a plain one to enjoy fry bread at its humblest. If you like funnel cakes, doughnuts, angel wings, or those little bits of leftover pie dough that your mom fried up just for you, then you'll be right at home.

Many give Navajos of the Southwest the blue ribbon for making the best fry bread, but tribes all across the country have perfected their own versions. Some use baking powder; others have developed yeasty variations. Big or small, round or square, thin or hefty -- everyone has their favorite way of making it.

I wish I could say that fry bread has a happy history. Stories that includes broken treaties, prison camps and reservations, surplus commodities and starvation are not the ones usually passed around while we're stuffing our faces. But like bitter parsley and unsalted bread, times of suffering are also passed from table to table with pride. We are here. We survived. We are together. We will prevail.

Pow wows are one of the best places to enjoy native foods. Celebratory gatherings, these were banned by our government until the 1960s, but fortunately, they now appear annually in every region. Search this pow wow calendar for California to see if you'll be near one this year. Be sure it's open to the public, and check for special events that the kids will especially enjoy.

Fry bread is super easy to make, and kids will enjoy patting their own rounds. For a healthier version, try grilling the bread, another trick that is family friendly and even easier.

FRY BREAD

This recipe is adapted from one that appears in the excellent book, Foods of the Americas, by Fernando and Marlene Divina, published in partnership with the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Fry bread is usually cooked until golden, without deep browning or char marks. You can sprinkle the rounds with cinnamon and sugar for a sweet treat, or wrap your favorite sandwich fillings for a savory meal.

Makes: 8 small rounds.

Ingredients:
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/4 cups warm water
Vegetable oil, for frying

Preparation:

1. In a bowl, combine and stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. Make a well and then pour in the water. Form a soft dough, and then knead very gently and briefly to form a ball. Roll into a log, cover with a clean towel and let rest for 10 minutes.

2. Cut the dough crosswise into 8 pieces, keeping the pieces covered while you're working. Patting with floured hands and using a rolling pin, form rounds that are about 1/4-inch thick. Dust both sides of each round evenly with flour, stack and cover with a cloth until ready to cook.

3. To fry: Heat 1 inch of oil in a deep, wide pan over medium-high heat. Cook 1 to 2 pieces of dough at a time, taking care not to overcrowd. Cook, turning once, until golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes on each side. Cook one first, and test for doneness before continuing with the other rounds. The fry bread should be dry and crisp on the outside, moist on the inside. Drain on paper towels and serve will still warm.

4. To grill: Prepare charcoal or heat a gas grill to medium-high. After forming the rounds, place the dough on the grill rack and cook until bubbles form and the dough has risen slightly, 2 to 3 minutes on each side. The surface of the bread should be dry to the touch.

I've currently got Paris on the brain. I'm about to invade that city for a week of eating and drinking and wandering and thinking.

So, naturally, the first thing to pop into my head for today's post was, "Oh, I should do something German."

Because that's how my mind works.

Oh, it's not what you're thinking. My mind has been on the Franco-Prussian War, naturally enough, since I'm currently re-reading The Seven Ages of Paris by Alistair Horne.

Paris is a city that has been, at least historically, in perpetual turmoil. It started with the Norsemen pillaging and burning the town until they were bought off with a big chunk of land in the North (Normandy). Only to see those same Normans a couple of centuries later restyling themselves as Englishmen and setting the country afire during a little conflict known as The 100 Years War.

Then, of course, there were several plagues, internal revolts, sieges, and revolutions-- 1789, 1830, and 1848 (twice in three months), World Wars I and II, and a near-revolution in 1968.

But never did the city of Paris suffer more than during what the French refer to as L'Année Terrible, 1870-1871.

The Year in Review

A sickly Emperor Napoleon III declared war on Prussia on July 19th, 1870, hoping to distract people from the problems at home in his dying Empire. It was a bad move, but one made with characteristically Gallic flair. The French were trounced, the Emperor was captured six weeks later at Sedan, and that was pretty much that.

Or so the Parisians thought. They celebrated the fall of the Empire with a lot of cheering and declared The Third Republic two days later. The war was lost, but at least it was over.

Or not. The Prussians, with the iron-willed, iron-fisted, all-around Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismarck forging policy, kept on coming. The French, Bismarck felt, needed to be taught a lesson.

So they marched on Paris.

Surrounding the city, the Prussians sought to starve Paris into capitulation. For five months, the only contact Paris had with the outside world was via hot air balloons floating up and over the enemy filled with letters and dispatches from those trapped inside. The only messages in came from an occasional carrier pigeon. Rats, horses, house pets and nearly every animal in the zoo (one exception being monkeys because, apparently, the Parisians embraced Darwinism) were consumed by the hungry Parisians in their effort to fend off starvation*. By the time the French surrendered, Germany had united over the near-dead body of France and declared itself an empire. At the palace of Versailles, of all places. Nice touch.

But that wasn't the worst part.

As happened so often in Paris, the working class sparked a revolt, leading to a government take-over. In a nutshell, The Paris Commune was set up, socialist reforms were attempted and things went generally crazy. The Tuilleries Palace was burned to the ground, the Vendome Column toppled, even Notre Dame barely escaped destruction-- it's benches had been piled up and doused with kerosene but was saved at the last minute.

The Commune ultimately failed-- stamped out by the what was left of the French government and army in the bloodiest moment of the city's history-- 20,000 Parisians were slaughtered in just one week alone. The city was shattered.

Or was it?

What has always amazed me is the resilience of Paris. Each time it is beaten down, it seems to come back a little bit stronger. After a year of alienation, isolation, the pounding and ensuing humiliation by a stronger enemy, self-destruction, and thanks to a 5 billion franc war reparation bill, crippling debt, Paris rebounded into one of the most brilliant (or at least, fondly remembered) periods of its history-- La Belle Epoque, which lasted nearly 43 years. Solidly, it returned to and confirmed its status as the cultural capital of Europe, if not the world.

It's as though Paris can historically shake off its woes with its world-famous shrug.

So why the history lesson today?

Well, I'm coming out of my own p'tit année terrible-- one that strangely mimics the year Paris faced, but on a much smaller, human scale. So I'm off to see how the Parisians manage it; to do a little shrugging of my own, you might say. I will eat and wander and observe the natives in a place that is more than likely Bismarck-free both in terms of the pastry and the guy who brought Paris to its knees. Or the one who brought me to mine, for that matter.

And maybe I'm hoping for a little belle époque of my own to begin. 43 years? Yeah, I think that will do. That will do nicely.

I will be back blogging June 19th.

* On the bright side, the Parisians were never in any danger of running out of wine.

Bismarcks

Bismarck is the Canadian/American name for the German pastry Berliner, as in John F. Kennedy's famous declaration, "Ich bin ein Berliner." In Berlin, however, they are referred to as Pfannkuchen.

Call it whatever you like.

Apart from the time spent allowing the yeast dough to rise, these doughnuts are relatively simple to make. And delicious-- the unfilled pastry being light and airy and not especially sweet. Fill them with whatever you like, sweet or savory. Hell, toast one and use it to bookend a hamburger, while we're eating things named after German cities.

It's a good thing Kennedy wasn't in Hamburg when he decided to make that speech. Or worse, Vienna.

Makes: 12 Bismarcks

Ingredients
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole milk
2 packages of yeast
4 tablespoons of sugar
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
8 egg yolks
a pinch of salt
Raspberry Jam for filling
Powdered sugar for dusting

Preparation:

1. In a saucepan, bring milk to a boil. Turn off heat and stir in butter and sugar. Cool to lukewarm. Sprinkle yeast over the top of the milk mixture and leave it to bloom and reanimate for about 10 to 15 minutes, until it starts to foam up.

2. Add this yeasty liquid to a large bowl in which the flour and salt have been patiently waiting. Stir and fold to combine into a sticky mess of dough. Cover with a damp, clean cloth and set in a warm place to rise for two hours.

3. With floured hands, turn dough onto a lightly-floured surface and roll to a 3/8-inch thickness. Cut into circles (I used a 3 1/2- inch cutter). Place them on a baking sheet or what-have-you and cover with the same damp cloth to rise for another 30 minutes or so.

4. Fry the Bismarcks in 350° F vegetable oil or lard for 4 minutes. I find flipping them every 30 seconds helpful for some reason. Drain on a paper towel-lined rack to cool.

5. If you are filling these pastries (and you should be or they're not Bismarcks), if you lack a pastry syringe, cut a small opening into the side of each bun and wiggle your knife or (what I used) scissor blade around the inside to create a small pocket into which the jam might find purchase.

6. Put jam into a pastry bag with a plain tip. Place the tip into the pastry's hole and pipe in the jam until it starts to spill out the side like some mortal flesh wound. The jam should be cold, like the blood of Bismarck himself.

Serve fresh, and not over anyone's white carpeting.

Photo by geminder

Post by Brian Underwood

Anthony Bourdain does not come off as a man easily rendered speechless -- but he may have met his match.

His talk on Thursday night at Flint Center brought out an eclectic crowd of spirited and often rowdy foodies, many of whom seemed quite capable of getting into a bar fight over the relative merits of Anderson Valley Pinots versus Amador zin. Fortunately no fists flew, just steady waves of enthusiasm at Bourdain's dynamic dissertation of Food Network gossip, friendly bashing of Alice Waters and Rachel Ray, and tales of his culinary philosophy and many testicle-eating adventures.

"No Reservations" often details some of the bizarre foods he ingests when traveling abroad, which he explains in terms of social propriety: often he is the guest of local families, who often have very little material wealth, but who generously put forth some of their most cherished cuisine. If they were to offer their honored guest the platter of poached puppy dog heads that would normally feed the family for the whole month, then it would be unconscionably rude to refuse the gift on the grounds of pickiness, squeamishness, or heaven forbid, vegetarianism. He professes a more rabidly inclusive form of gastronomic diplomacy.

While taking audience questions, he called on one fellow who had been interjecting various yells throughout the talk -- "F--- EMERIL!", for example -- addressing him as "you, the angry, belligerent dude in the hat." The Mr. Belligerent said something about a tattoo, and Bourdain invited him onto stage to provide proof.

The madly grinning Mr. B took the stage and lifted his pant leg for all to see. His entire right thigh was tattooed with Bourdain's face, looking brusquely cherubic as a softly lit Stevie Nicks in a biker bar.

Clearly Bourdain sees many unusual things in his travels, but his own face on the body of someone he didn't know left him looking some combination of flattered and mortified. It may have at least been reassuring to note that the other limbs bore similar portraits in ink, a walking Pantheon of Food Network personalities: Mario on the forearm, Alton on the shin, Fieri not visible in polite company...

Mr. B, having leveraged his unique opportunity to win over the roaring crowd, handed his idol a Sharpie and asked him to autograph the leg. Bourdain could have easily signed at the knee or even refused and called security, but instead, reaffirming his unflappability, urged Mr. B to hike the cuff up a little further, to get the scribble right onto the bikini line.

I can only assume he will remember the incident as Cupertino's gift of poached puppy dog heads.

Related Links:
Anthony Bourdain's blog
No Reservations on Twitter
No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain on Facebook
Anthony Bourdain books and DVDs on Amazon.com