Brick Hut 3: Kwan and Rami. Photo by Ace Morgan

Part 2: The Food... (Part 1: The Story)
Having a cafe was nobody's dream, but it sustained us in our other
endeavors.

The Brick Hut was a place for us all to create a space in the world
where we could be our complete selves.

The food was the community, the edible fare was our way of bringing it
all together, with love.

Brick Hut 1: 1975-1983 "Women Invented Cheese"
In the beginning, it wasn't all about the food. For us, owning our work place was about opportunity, self-determination, sanctuary. Every person did every job.

The Brick Hut was our anchor, as well as an anchor for our community.

Brick Hut 1: Something Moving album cover with menu

The menu was small, painted by Peggy Mitchell of the band BeBe K'Roche, on a board attached to the hood above the stove. It is featured on the cover of Mary Watkins' album, Something Moving which includes the song Brick Hut.
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The food was simple. Comfort food: Eggs, waffles and pancakes, hash browns, toast, bacon, ham and sausage links, one kind of cheese -- cheddar. A bottomless cup of coffee was 70 cents and customers could help themselves while waiting to be seated. And, bless them, wait they did.

In fact, waiting for a seat became a good time to meet old friends or make new ones, hold lively discussions or maybe just flirt with somebody.

Our specialty signature item was a spiced whole wheat batter for our delicious waffles and pancakes. Pure maple syrup was extra.

Our food evolved along with the business and the times. Debi Thow wanted to make muffins. She brought in a recipe from Gourmet magazine that we modified over time and the famous Brick Hut blueberry muffin was born. Amey Shaw showed us how to make a gorgeous Hollandaise sauce and brunch exploded in a bevy of Hollandaise dishes.

Hash browns became home fries and we saw our options were limited only by our imaginations.

People had ideas, we experimented.

We created omelets and named them for inspirational women: Sister Marion for a marathon-running nun; Ruth Reid for an early 20th Century lesbian poet and activist; Seven Sisters for the Berkeley feminist construction collective and the Mendocino omelet for the herb blend we ordered from a woman owned business.

What's in a Ruth Reid Omelet?
• Avocado
• Green chili
• Jack cheese
• Sour cream

Hut 2: 1983-1995 "Pancakes, Eggs and Fun"
When we expanded to a new location, the menu expanded too. More space meant the ability to offer more fresh foods: salads, fruit bowls, better breakfast meats, artisanal sausages, higher quality meat and poultry.

Seasonal fresh fruits topped the waffles and pancakes.

The Tofu Saute with fresh sautéed vegetables was a vegetarian favorite.

We made soups, improved our chili, made salsas, offered a beautiful variety of baked goods, some house-made, some from Berkeley's Nabolom Bakery.

We installed an espresso machine to round out our epic breakfast experience. There was still a line down the street.

We played with our food. We joked that we cooked 50 items 500 ways.

One day, I thought it would be fun to offer something completely new: eggs scrambled with pesto. It was an immediate sensation and was copied by several other cafes in the area, as well as a few in other parts of the country, thanks to customers who had moved away and talked their local eatery into trying it out.

Occasionally, the brunch board offered one special: the Mystery Omelet. I think I started that just to avoid having to make a million of my least favorite omelets (the Ruth Reid-- too many moving parts, too many substitutions!)

We just asked if the customer was vegetarian or not and proceeded to create a whatever omelet on the fly—no two alike all day.

Kids loved our Mickey Mouse pancakes and it wasn’t unusual to see a server carrying around a baby so mom could eat unencumbered.

People came in for breakfast during the times of the Iran-Contra hearings or when Anita Hill was testifying at the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings and ended up joining people at other tables for discussion and, eventually, lunch.

If a customer asked for something different, we did our best to make it happen.

Tofu Saute
• Cut medium/firm tofu into 1/2" thick triangles
• Cut, blanch and shock: carrot, broccoli, zucchini, set aside
• In heated sauté pan, add: Chopped garlic and ginger
• Add tofu
• Add tamari or soy,
• Add sliced onions and mushrooms (shiitakes are best for this)
• Add vegetables, a little salt and black pepper
• Cover to finish
• Drizzle a little sesame oil to flavor
• Top with toasted sesame seeds, maybe some chopped scallion
• Serve on rice or with home fries and toast

Brick Hut 3 kitchen chaos: Sharon, Rami, Monica, Luana, Kaja. Photo by Ace Morgan

Hut 3: 1995-1997 "Girl Town"
Once again we moved and our menu expanded into dinners. We served pastas, using old family recipes, pizzas, using a cornmeal crust by none other than Sophia Loren. We offered fresh fish, grilled veggies. We made our desserts in house or supplemented them with items, like our sorbet, from local businesses. We served wine and beer (featuring St. Supery, a woman-run winery and Lost Coast Ales, by Master Brewer Barbara Groom).

We bought a fryer and made French fries, chicken wings, and anything that we could make up that we thought our customers would like.

There really was something for everyone.

Still, there was a line down the street, but mostly on weekends.
People were surprised when we closed our doors forever, believing that that line happened all week.

I am grateful for all of the folks who came through those doors, to work or to eat. Every one of them created a part of the Brick Hut.

To this day, we hear from old customers that they really miss us and that they wish there was a Brick Hut. My old friend and business partner, Sharon Davenport usually replies, "There was a Brick Hut."

Join the Remembering The Brick Hut Cafe group on Facebook. Share your memories, thoughts and photos.

Sophia Loren inspired pizza dough
• 5c. warm water
• 8T active dry yeast
• pinch sugar
• mix lightly to dissolve yeast

gently stir in:

• 1.5 c. sweet olive oil
• 1/4 tsp salt
• freshly chopped herb blend (or just rosemary)
• 2T chopped garlic (can also be roasted)
• 8c. pizza flour
• 2c. corn flour (medium grind)
• mix thoroughly, cover, let rise
• punch down dough, divide in 1/2
• cover and let rise again
• after second rise, divide into 12-15 11 oz. dough balls
• stretch, form crust, sprinkle coarse corn meal on pizza pan,
  add whatever toppings you like
• bake at 450 degrees for 6-8 minutes

Sharon Davenport and Joan Antonuccio at The Brick Hut Cafe (3). Photo: Ace Morgan

Part 1: The Story... (Part 2: The Food)
For nearly 22 years, from 1975 to 1997, The Brick Hut Café was a popular destination for the LGBT community in the East Bay and beyond. It was for most of its life a lesbian-feminist owned and operated community café. I was one of the founding members.

BRICK HUT 1
In February of 1975, the Brick Hut Café Collective was a worker-owned, feminist collective located at 3017 Adeline Street in Berkeley, CA across the street from the Berkeley Flea Market. The original members of the collective were Cheryl Jones, Claudia Hartley, Helen McKinley, Karen Ripley, Marshall Berzon (left in 1977 to open the Homemade Café), Randi Hepner, Sharon Davenport, and Wendy Welsh. By 1976, the collective included Joan Antonuccio, Cynthia La Mana, and Teresa Chandler.

The first Brick Hut was small: three booths and nine counter seats. We welcomed everyone who was an ally in our common cause of social justice and inclusion. The weekend crowds spilled out into the street even after we built a backyard patio where we served a limited menu of blueberry muffins, coffee, and tea.

We were a haven for lesbians and gay men, an information center for LGBT activists, an anchor for a diverse community that included working girls, bad-boys, suburban queens, transmen and transwomen. We were the Dyke Diner: the Lesbian Luncheonette: the Chick Hut: the Brick Hug. When AIDS hit a group of customers affectionately named the Shattuck Street Fairies (SSF) we became a refuge and an information outlet for AIDS awareness. Sometimes we were the last stop: as when Ron, one of the SSF housemates, was lovingly carried in on the arms of his friends for his last Brick Hut meal.

The Brick Hut Cafe contingent at the 1984 San Francisco Pride parade. Enjoy Life...Eat Out More Often!

We always closed on what was then called Gay Day and we closed to attend political demonstrations and rallies. We left a sign on the door, JOIN US AT the parade, rally, or demonstration. We supported through contributions of food and energy to anti-nuclear demonstrations, anti-war rallies, and the feminist causes of Inez Garcia, Norma Jean Croy, Joan Little, and Yvonne Wanrow. We closed and attended the vigil for the assassinations of Harvey Milk and George Moscone. We closed to protest the Dan White verdict.

We worked to maintain the Brick Hut as a viable business in spite of threats and intimidations. We invited all our customers to cross the demoralizing barriers of class, race, and gender differences, and join us at the community table. We had our share of broken windows, vandalism, and public harassment. In one instance, we placed a poster in our window announcing we were boycotting Florida orange juice because of the Anita Bryant Campaign to repeal the anti-gay discrimination law in Dade County and our windows were broken.

These were politically active times for lesbians. “We are the women that men have warned us about” (Robin Morgan, 1970, Goodbye to All That (pdf)).

There were other women-owned and operated collectives and businesses:
• The Olivia Records collective located around the corner from the Hut. The Brick Hut song with words by Pat Parker and music by Mary Watkins was part of Mary Watkins first album with Olivia, Something Moving, which featured the enormous talents of Vicki Randle and Linda Tillery. We fed some of these musicians and cultural activists and were sometimes repaid with a song. Customers still remember the day Linda T. spontaneously sang a cappella for the masses. The women of BeBe K'Roche, an all woman electric rock band worked at the Brick Hut from time to time.
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• Seven Sisters Construction, a feminist collective, would help us with carpentry projects -- sometimes in exchange for breakfast.
• A Woman’s Place Bookstore and the Women's Press Collective were sources for books, publishing, and networking with artists and writers like Judy Grahn, Wendy Cadden, Willyce Kim, and Pat Parker to name only a few of our customers and allies.
• There were the bars: Ollie's Bar, the Bacchanal, and the Jubilee and across the street from Mama Bear's Bookstore, Thursday nights at the White Horse.

There was a brief appearance of the Night Hut, with Chef Amy Shaw making her culinary debut cooking and serving dinner.

Between 1976 and 1983, Brick Hut collective members Karen, Helen, Randi, Cheryl, Teresa, and Wendy left to pursue other careers and interests as cultural activists, healers, and educators. Marie Della Camera joined the collective around 1983.

BRICK HUT 2
In 1983, with the financial help of the Cheese Board Collective, and the efforts of customers and friends, the Brick Hut moved to a new location at 3222 Adeline Street. Seven Sisters Construction, a feminist collective helped remodel the new space. The Brick Hut became a community gathering spot for local merchants, Berkeley City Council members, writers, musicians, and artists. We also continued to support feminist and queer causes and activities like the Lyon-Martin Clinic, Queer Nation, and East Bay Act Up. KPFA Radio broadcasted their International Women’s Day program directly from the Brick Hut. With our larger wall space, we featured community artists' work. Amana Johnson, Grace Harwood, Barbara Sandidge, Kyos Featherdancing, Cathy Cade, and Wendy Cadden were some of the artists who filled our walls. Once a year, we featured the work of the children of Berkwood-Hedge School to benefit their program.

In subsequent years, Cynthia, Claudia, and Marie left the collective to pursue other careers. At the second location, the Brick Hut was robbed and vandalized over 17 times in eleven years. With the ownership of the Hut left to Joan and Sharon and the neighborhood falling to the ravages of crack, we initiated plans to move the Hut to a safer location.

BRICK HUT 3
In 1995, the Brick Hut moved to a new, expanded location at 2512 San Pablo Avenue. The new space was constructed primarily by O’Malley and Latimer Construction (formerly members of Seven Sisters) and included a performance, meeting, and gallery space. We also opened for dinner. Our first salon featured writer Dorothy Allison and singer/songwriter Alix Dobkin hosted a regular open mike night. Women artists once again filled our walls: Franna Lusson, Mariella de la Paz, and Grace Harwood to name a few. We wanted the new, larger Brick Hut to be an attractive and active space for our community. Other women-owned businesses opened on the same block: Good Vibrations, West Berkeley Women's Books, and It's Her Business. Collectively we were known as Girl Town.

In 1996, the Brick Hut fell into serious financial difficulties; we filed for Chapter 11 status. In 1997, we filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and closed our doors for the last time at 2pm on March 24, 1997. We had a big, crowded, raucous party.

At the Brick Hut, I believe we celebrated difference. We were visibly different, we forefronted difference, we encouraged difference, we hosted difference. We did not try to assimilate, disappear into conformity, or become mainstream. We did not build The Brick Hut Cafe so we could have jobs, although that was good. We did not build it to have careers, or support career-moves, although that was a possibility. We did not build it only to make money for ourselves, although we wanted to maintain a viable business that supported our friends, our fellow workers, our causes, and ourselves. We built it to create the possibility of a workplace and a community where no one's politics or cultural affiliations were left at the front door. We built the Hut to celebrate difference, to celebrate YOU. It was a home for a while and we still mourn its passing. Thanks to everyone who contributed to and supported the Brick Hut (1975-1997).

Join the Remembering The Brick Hut Cafe group on Facebook. Share your memories, thoughts and photos.

Joan Antonuccio and Sharon Davenport remembering The Brick Hut Cafe. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend

There is no dinner there at Dinner, a performance happening at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in conjunction with its current exhibition, Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories, part of a summer-long, city-wide celebration of Stein and her artistic legacy. (There are 2 more performances of Dinner today, June 5th, at 1pm and 4pm.)

Such sly sleight-of-hand may have pleased Stein, who loved to upend even the simplest of words, and the most basic of readers' expectations, until they were stretched out, turned around, repeated ad infinitum to become something utterly new, intentionally teetering between poetry and profundity, banality and babble.

Then again, Stein and her lifelong companion, Alice B. Toklas, loved a good dinner, as any reader of The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook would know. With their taste for both solid American home cooking and (to contemporary eyes) unimaginably elaborate French cuisine bourgeoise, the ladies might have found it hard to get through 2 hours of clamorous jazz and spoken word on the wee buffet provided by Bar Bambino. On a side table were deviled eggs, slivers of frittata, and tiny olive-and-mozzarella crostini, followed at intermission by one-bite polenta-kumquat cakelets and matchbook-sized wedges of Tcho chocolate cake.

Unless, of course, Alice had slipped a couple of sticky pieces of her cookbook's infamous Hashish Fudge into her purse. That's right, fudge, not brownies, and not the tourist-trap chocolate kind, either, but a much more Moroccan-minded mixture of dates, figs, almonds, and spices, plus a dusting of enough cannabis sativa to provoke "euphoria and brilliant storms of laughter; ecstatic reveries and extensions of one's personality on several simultaneous planes are to be complacently expected."

However, as the surrounding exhibit revealed, Stein and Toklas had a high tolerance for eccentricity, their own and those of the many genius Bohemians they cultivated and whose work they collected. Dinner, therefore, is organized around the idea of a dinner party populated by an odd lot of history's eccentrics, half known (Virginia Woolf, Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday, Hart Crane, Salvador Dali, Stein herself), half lost to footnotes, if that.

These quirky folk were too preoccupied by art, higher math, the invention of anti-gravity boots, the location of Shakespeare's bones, and more to give any thought to a menu; instead their imagined monologues, rants, and overlapping conversations were spoken and played by San Francisco writer Jesse Nathan (voice) and artist/musician Chris Janzen (guitar), with Tyler Cravines (drums) and Curtis Buettner (saxophone).

What's it like, this guest-by-guest performance in 14 parts? As if an all-guy free-jazz combo had hooked up with the poetry editor of McSweeney’s, poured a round of Red Bulls for a few choice members of Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party, then set 'em loose (outnumbered two-and-a-half to one by a bunch of crazy dudes) at a Saturday-night free-for-all in the basement of Viracocha. Sometimes, like Stein's work, the effect was ravishing (especially the lyrical saxophone solos); other times, also much like Stein's work, a little of looping, loud, repetitive, and nearly-unintelligible business can go a long way. There's a reason this kind of stuff is usually performed in close proximity to a willing bartender.

So, actually, it wasn't a bad thing when, three-quarters of the way through the show, Nathan's microphone suddenly went dead. ("The kitchen has just blown up!" he joked). As a team of stylish museum staffers scrambled to find a replacement, Nathan and Janzen took the chance to do an informal Q&A with audience members. The criteria for this imaginary party's guest list? First off, remarked Janzen, potential guests "had to be dead." Then, they had to have walked that fine line between genius and madness. Some changed the language of art, music, literature, or dance forever; others had great potential or massive contemporary popularity, but were overtaken and sunk by their own obsessions. Drug addicts, provocateurs, two suicides by drowning, a mathematician who refused to bathe: hardly a cozy group to gather around the table, but certainly stimulating subjects for art.

By the time the microphone was restored, we knew a lot more about what was going on onstage. Or perhaps the coffee and chocolate had kicked in; whichever it was, it finally seemed like the kind of party at which Stein, Toklas and her own gleefully idiosyncratic cohorts would have felt right at home.

On Mon., June 6th at 10AM, KQED's Forum with Michael Krasny discusses The Life and Work of Gertrude Stein with Janet Bishop, curator of painting and sculpture at SF MOMA, and Wanda M. Corn, guest curator and Robert and Ruth Halperin professor emerita in art history at the Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco.

Chloe Harris and Frankie Frankeny. Photo by Keeney and Law

Power couple Chloé Harris and Frankie Frankeny are well known in the LGBT and creative worlds. Texas gals by birth, Chloé is from Dallas and Frankie from Austin. Harris is the managing editor of StyleBistro.com and a writer whose work has appeared in publications including The Advocate, Advocate.com, InStyle Home, C Magazine, L-Word’s OurChart.com, Bond Alternative Wedding Magazine, 7x7 and California Home + Design. Since 2007, Chloé has been a member of the San Francisco Leadership Council for GLAAD (the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and is co-chair of the GLAAD 2010 Media Awards in SF.

Frankie Frankeny is a photographer and film director who has worked in the fields of fashion, lifestyle and food. She knows a lot of chefs and hospitality stars, and was once named among Entertainment Weekly’s Most Creative People in the US. Frankie has collaborated on more than 60 books including award-winners The Art of the Bar and Demolition Desserts. She is also owner of the marketing communications agency Piper/Keller. In 2008, she directed Everything Must Change, a music video in support of marriage equality. Frankie is also a founding member of dot429, a social network for LGBT professionals. Frankeny answered questions about their favorite spots via email.

Marriage two ways: Paris and San Francisco

DATE NIGHT
For date nights we love the perfect Caviar and champagne at the bar at Jardiniere. We were married there. We love the casual elegance of Barbacco (polpette we must have every time) and we way too often eat the Orson burger with duck fat french fries along side a nice glass of red.

WEEKEND BRUNCH
When we have time on the weekend day to have a long brunch we can usually be found at Slanted Door eating the glass noodle with crab dish and their perfect papaya salad. We lean very French bistro for brunch and like the croques at Cafe De La Presse, The Butler and The Chef Bistro and at Chez Papa we gravitate to the mussels and butter lettuce salads. All with sparkling and water.

WINE COUNTRY EATS
When we can get away, we love Yountville. You are in walking distance to an amazing array of special restaurants when you visit. There is Bouchon Bakery; Chloé loves the chocolate bouchons. Bistro Jeanty has the most remarkable tomato soup ever. You have Redd, Ad Hoc and Bardessono. In addition, my new love is Bottega. I just finished shooting Chef Chiarello's book on the place and can't seem to get enough! It is a really special place. You must have the burratta, gnocci, polenta and the amazing porchetta.

MOM AND POP JOINTS
We love Pazzia on 3rd (we love the pizza). Also, South Park Cafe for heirloom tomato salad in season pig salad. Marlowe for spiced prawns and steak tartar and I can be seen too regularly eating lunch and working at Mijita. I love it all there but am hooked on the nachos at the moment. This place is definitely my guiltiest local food pleasure. I eat way too much of it!

GROCERY SHOPPING
I do all the shopping, and love to grocery shop, so here is a short re-cap of my usual places in the Ferry Building:
For fresh produce, it’s the Saturday market. Then Cowgirl Creamery for cheeses. Miette because Chloé has a passion for their pistachio macarons. I like going to Far West Fungi for mushrooms, although I love to forage with my pal Matt. At Boulette's, I usually get a duck confit leg, some of their special salts, and if they have the fava bean cake, get it!

Frankeny & Harris have were first married in Paris in 2006 in a non-legal ceremony. Their full story is here: justmarried.us, and the two are working to make marriage equality a reality.

Frankeny says:

“Then we had our 2008 legal ceremony at Jardiniere, another reason we love it so much. And we couldn't have done either wedding without Traci Des Jardins who literally did most everything for us for both ceremonies. I hope to marry Chloe again when we can have a marriage that is not just recognized in nine states, but in every state and country around the world.”

Photography: Arturo Cosenza, Stylist: Pablo Pavia

Ejector Report: Where do Ben Holder and Ricky Terry go to eat when they aren't performing and producing a new album? Holder and Terry make up the local band Ejector, an electro-pop duo behind the original title song for Billy Clift's Baby Jane? film that premiered at the Castro on Tuesday night, for San Francisco's Frameline LGBT Film Festival.

Terry confessed via phone interview that the Baby Jane? song was “one of the fastest recordings we’d ever done,” and that the two were excited about being able to see the audience reaction when the song played at the close of the film. One of Clift’s requirements for the song was that the audience feel like dancing when they heard the song. Because Ejector is in such a busy and creative phase, Holder said that being involved with the Baby Jane? film project was an accomplishment, but that “we haven’t had time to think about it,” and that they were needing to figure out logistics for the premiere like “what to wear, and where to meet (before the film). We’re thrilled.” Ejector will be playing at the Main Stage on Sunday afternoon at the San Francisco Pride celebration, and have been featured at the Folsom Street Fair; they are booked for two SoCal shows for the San Diego Pride celebration as well.

Baby Jane? Music Video (warning: some explicit language)

Holder and Terry both live in San Francisco. Holder said they consider themselves lucky to have Richard Doyle ("Big Red") who will cook for them "a lot when we are working. Often it’s 'to order.' His food is healthy, organic, and fresh." The duo shared with Bay Area Bites the restaurants and eateries that they like to visit together, as well as solo (or with a date). The duo’s picks have been edited for length and grammar.

EJECTOR'S FOOD PICKS

Green Chile Kitchen
1801 McAllister (Baker) Map
(415) 440-9411
Hours: Monday-Friday: 11:30am to 9pm
Saturday-Sunday: 11am to 9pm

Ricky: “Just around the corner from my apartment. Organic veggies and free range meats. Best breakfast burritos, super chicken! Crispy taco plate and home style chicken enchilada plate, and they now have a New Mexican version of a hamburger AMAZING!!! We lived off this menu while recording our album.”

Ben: “You can tell when we’ve worked on something (music-wise) and eaten Green Chile Kitchen. The (resulting) music is playful and light.”

Escape From New York Pizza
508 Castro Street (at 18th Street) Map
(415) 252-1515
Hours: Daily 11am to 12am

Ricky: “Best sin ever; get a slice at 12am just before heading home after a grand night out.”

Barracuda Sushi
2251 Market Street (between Sanchez Street and Noe Street) Map
(415) 558-8567
Hours:
Lunch Monday-Friday: 11:30am to 3:30pm
Dinner Monday-Friday: 5pm to 10:30pm
Saturday-Sunday: 11am to 11:30pm

Ricky: “Spicy garlic edamame, Rainbow roll and that wonderful brewed sake!
Strange thing, we always end up here for spur of the moment band meetings.”

Ben: “I like to order my rolls with rice paper or soy paper, which they do.”

DeLessio Market & Bakery and Falletti Foods
302 Broderick Street (at Oak Street) Map
(415) 552-8077
Hours: Sunday-Saturday: 8:00am to 9:00pm

Ricky: “Neighborhood bakery, best desserts in town!! Oh, and the chocolate tower cake…YUM!!!!!!!”

Ben: “Their hot plates to go save us.”

Orphan Andy's Restaurant, for "after hours survival"
3991 17th Street (at Castro & Market Streets) Map
(415) 864-9795
Open 24 hours

Ricky: “The Monte Cristo sandwich, with sour cream and strawberry jam on the side!”

Ben: "We lovingly call it Orphan Andrea’s," adding, "It’s a no-brainer. Such a local staple, and always reliable."

BEN HOLDER'S FOOD PICKS

Toast Eatery on Church Street
1748 Church Street (at 29th Street) Map
(415) 282-4328
Hours:
Monday-Friday: 7am to 9pm
Saturday-Sunday: 7am to 5pm
Ben:

"My comfort food pick is a ham-cheddar-tomato omelet. I'm kinda traditional."

Bur-Eat-Os No. 2 Restaurant
345 Spear Street (between Folsom Street & Harrison Street) Map
(415) 362-1384

Ben: "During the week, this is where I go religiously for their breakfast burrito with coffee."

Recchiuti Confections
One Ferry Building (on the Embarcadero), Shop #30 Map
(415) 834-9494
Hours:
Monday-Friday: 10am to 7pm
Saturday: 8am to 6pm
Sunday: 10am to 5pm

Ben: "Dark chocolate is my favorite. Recchiuti's toasted sesame burnt caramel is for when I’m shopping, feeling good, or… not so good. To be able to sit by the water and watch the antics there. We live in heaven, and I can’t think of anything more heavenly."

RICKY TERRY'S PICKS

Marina Submarine
2299 Union Street (at Steiner Street) Map
(415) 921-3990

Ricky: "At lunchtime the line is out the door and this is a one man sandwich-making operation. I think this guy has a photographic memory or something. He takes several orders at a time and remembers my order from the last time I was there… over a month ago?!! Turkey sub, lettuce, tomato, Swiss cheese, with oil and vinegar."

Tsunami Sushi
1306 Fulton Street (at Divisadero Street) Map
(415) 567-7664
Hours:
Monday-Wednesday: 6pm to 12am
Thursday-Saturday: 6pm to 1am

Ricky: "Volcano Roll with spicy tuna avocado, New Yorker Roll with smoked salmon avocado cream cheese. Best cocktails and a fabulous date night spot!"

Slanted Door
1 Ferry Building #3 Map
(415) 861-8032
Hours: Daily 11am to 12am

Ricky: "I could go on for days about this place. First birthday dinner after moving to SF from LA, was absolutely the most spectacular meal I have ever eaten at a restaurant. The Ginger Lemonade was too easy to drink! This is a very special restaurant! Seasonal and organic, local veggies, meats, seafood, even local organic alcohol! The staff is AMAZING! Courteous, gracious, generous, a class act from A-Z!!"

Star India
3721 Geary Avenue (at 2nd Avenue) Map
(415) 668-4466
Hours: Daily 10:30am to 10:30pm
Ricky:

"Vegetable Samosa, naan, raita, chicken Tikka Masala, best saffron rice. I have mostly ordered take out, but have eaten in a couple times. Either way, the food is consistently wonderful!"

Ejector performing at Folsom Street Fair in 2009. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend

Guess who's coming for din din? William "Billy" Clift is the director of the upcoming drag-parody film, Baby Jane?, which is scheduled to premiere on Tuesday, June 22, at the Castro Theater. Baby Jane? is a definite wink and nod to the original 1962 cult classic with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford starring as a pair of miserable sisters. Davis, playing Baby Jane, even serves up her dear Sis a cold-hearted lunch dish of rat in one of the most memorable scenes:

San Francisco's Frameline LGBT Film Festival will be the platform for Clift's Baby Jane premiere, with Matthew Martin and J. Conrad Frank in the lead roles. Frameline's festival site saucily sums up the film as:

"Bette and Joan, eat your hearts out! This drag-studded recreation of the 1962 classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? drops us back into the depths of sisterly detestation. Baby Jane has seen better days, but her paralyzed sister Blanche is still oh-so-perfect. The two has-been movie stars have turned into recluses with axes to grind --literally -- over their sordid pasts."

Ethel Merman and Heklina also show up in the black and white Baby Jane? film. Ejector is a local electro-pop band that wrote an original title song for the movie. BAB will feature the food loves of band members Ben Holder and Ricky Terry in an upcoming post.

Clift shot Baby Jane? locally, and is a Noe Valley resident. He is also a writer-producer who styled hair and make-up in L.A. for twenty years. Yes, he's second cousin to that Montgomery Clift, and remained close friends with Bewitched star Elizabeth Montgomery after the two bonded on a photo shoot. Montgomery passed away in 1995.

"She was my dearest friend," Clift told Bay Area Bites via phone interview. From that long lasting friendship, Clift decided to develop a "big budget" biopic film of Montgomery starring Christina Applegate. Pending financing, Clift plans to shoot in Canada next summer.

Bay Area Bites caught up with Clift via phone interview to get his favorite San Francisco food-centric picks.

FOOD FAVORITES

Le Zinc
4063 24th Street (between Noe Street and Castro Street) Map
(415) 647-9400
Hours: Tues-Fri 11am to 10pm
Sat-Sun 9:30am to 10pm

"I know I'll be happy at Le Zinc. It's typical French food. Clean and normal. I stick to the French onion soup."

Chouchou
400 Dewey Boulevard (at Laguna Honda Boulevard) Map
(415) 242-0960
Hours: Monday - Saturday 5:30pm to 10pm
Sun 10am to 2:30pm and 5pm to 9:30pm

"The owner Nick treats everyone like a long lost best friend. The duck (dish) is so tender and amazing."

Thai House Express
599 Castro Street (between 18th Street and 19th Street) Map
(415) 864-5000
Hours: Monday - Sunday 11:30am to 10:30pm

"Their take-out Thai is the most consistent I've had."

Cha Cha Cha
2327 Mission Street (at 19th Street) Map
(415) 648-0504
Hours: Monday - Thursday 5pm to 11pm
Friday-Saturday 5pm to 1am

"It's hard to find sangria in town, and theirs is good. The plantains and jerk chicken are good."

2223 Restaurant
2223 Market Street (between 15th Street and Sanchez Street) Map
(415) 431-0692
Hours: Monday – Thursday, Sunday 5:30pm to 10pm
Friday and Saturday, 5:30pm to 11pm
Saturday 11am to 2pm
Sunday 10am to 2:30pm

"2223 is the best for desserts. I love a good crème brulee, 2223's bread pudding, too."

Citizen Cake
2125 Fillmore Street (between California Street and Sacramento Street) Map
(415) 861-2228

"I just love them. Am so happy to visit here for crème brulee." (Clift often visited the Hayes Valley original location and hasn't yet seen the new, soon to open Fillmore Citizen Cake, whose site said: "Not open yet, but soon.")

On set, Clift said he doesn't eat a lot and loses weight. "I'm way too focused. I'm so anal retentive and trying to make sure everything is going right." Once he gets in the editing room, it's a different story: "I'm sitting there, with the munchies. I definitely don't eat well… I feel like a fat pig." He shops a lot at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods ("for something a little cleaner"). Baked chips are snacks when he's "trying to eat good," and he likes vanilla ice cream from Bi-Rite Creamery. "It's boring but true," Clift said of his preference for vanilla.

Related Links:
KQED Arts LGBT Film Festival Report: Frameline34: Locals Make Good

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.

Happy Pride! The Gay High Holy Days—or week, or month, depending on your stamina and affinity for dance music, tank tops, rainbow balloons, sign-waving, marches, guys in banana thongs, and standing in line, endlessly, for tickets, beer, and/or bathrooms—are coming to their sunny, sweaty close today. Time to get off the Blue Angel-martini-and-popcorn diet and put those silver latex shorts back in the closet, at least til the Folsom Street Fair.

Or that's how it might be in other cities, where Pride comes around but once a year. Here in our lovely fog-bound burg, though, we can be prideful every day, even if we still-still!-can't get married in City Hall.

But there is something particularly fabulous in seeing the typical straight-to-gay ratio of just about everything upended this month. I still remember walking into 2223 Market one night near the end of June last year, and feeling like everyone there was gay. Gay couples, gay friends, gay parents--it was just like being in the straight world, except this time it was all ours.

Naming all the LGBT chefs and business owners who have made the SF food scene what it is would turn this column into a faygelah version of Adam Sandler's Hannukah Song, but still, let's raise a glass to Traci des Jardins, for running a fancypants place in Hayes Valley and a taqueria with a conscience, and never turning down the chance to help out a good cause; to bad boy Jeremiah Tower, for making Stars sparkle; to Elizabeth Faulkner and her partner Sabrina Riddle, for giving the dyke food mafia an official clubhouse, first at Citizen Cake, now at Orson; and to food photographer Frankie Frankeny, because she shoots what we want to eat, and finds a way to sneak her daschunds into every shoot.

And let's not forget a toast to vinologist Pamela Busch, of the late Hayes and Vine and the current Cav Wine Bar, and to Absinthe's Jamie Lauren and her Top Chef Team Rainbow, for making "hot chef" replace "folk singer" as the default lesbian occupation. Also heating up the room is Gialina pizza diva Sharon Ardiana, turning Glen Park into Naples, and Celia Sack of Omnivore Books, for bringing us cookbook-browsing perfection with nary a 30-Minute-Meal or celebrity diet in sight, just up the street from the ever-charming Lovejoy's Teahouse, run by Muna Nash and Gillian Briley. Were we getting married, we might just drag pastry chef Yigit Pura of Taste Catering out to Iowa with us, just so we could show that corn-fed state just how divine his chocolate-hazelnut daquoise with passion fruit filling wedding cakes can be.

And thank you Rainbow Grocery, for letting us shop for veggie dogs on the 4th of July but closing for Pride Sunday, so your collective members can be out and proud rather than stuck restocking the spirulina. Even Food Not Bombs gets into the spirit now, serving up free eats (in tuxedo shirts and fake mustaches) at their mobile Chez Gay Cafe in Dolores Park before the Tranny March. We're here, we're queer, let's eat!