Simon Doonan. Photo: Albert Sanchez

Simon Doonan (Twitter @simondoonan) has long rocked the window dressing for Barneys New York, where he is currently the Creative Ambassador-at-Large. Doonan--who is known as much for his wit as his fashion prowess--has appeared on Iron Chef America, America’s Next Top Model, and VH1’s I Love the 80s series and is a columnist for Slate.com. He is the author of the new book Gay Men Don’t Get Fat, (Blue Rider Press, $24.95) which is a twist on the 1970s book Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche and the more recent book French Women Don’t Get Fat.

The book premise?

“There are only two food groups, straight and gay, and a balanced diet (and the concordant trim figure) means some of both.”

His other books include Wacky Chicks and Eccentric Glamour.

The fashion phenom married his partner, designer Jonathan Adler in California in 2008, and the two reside in New York City. He told Bay Area Bites that “I cannot imagine living anywhere else, except maybe Fresno which people tell me is lovely in the springtime.” Doonan will be signing books at Barneys San Francisco on Saturday, January 21 from 2 to 4 p.m.

What are the rules for eating gay?
The trick is to balance your gay food and your straight food. It's about equilibrium. 
Straight men get fat because they eat too much lardy straight food. On the other hand, if you eat too much gay food you will.... Simply put: eat too many macaroons and you will probably go into a diabetic coma.
 
How do gay bear men fit into this?
Gay men do get fat and they are called BEARS. I have an entire chapter -- a chunky chapter -- devoted to Bears. It's called Operation Goldilocks. Guess who's Goldilocks? Oui, c'est moi!
 
...and what are the guidelines for eating straight?
Straight food is often thick and phallic and protein-rich. Think Burritos.

...lesbian?
Lesbian food is organic and honest and peasant-y.  Think organic olive oil. Think trusty community tables. Think crusty whole-meal bread. 

What is your typical weekday breakfast, lunch and dinner (at home or on the go)?
For breakfast I eat very fibrous hetero granola with a handful of blueberries to add a little gay panache. For lunch I usually ingest a big bowl of soup. This has given rise to rumors in the Barneys office that I wear dentures and can only eat soft food. It's not true. For dinner we often hit one of our local glam eateries. Il Cantanori on 10th street is a fave.
 
Where did you celebrate when you were married in California in 2008?
We had dinner at Chez Panisse and Alice picked up the tab, which was incredibly sweet of her. I worship her. Her food is, and has always been, the perfect combo of gay and straight -- hearty protein with fluffy veggies.
  
Guacamole shows up on San Francisco taqueria menus everywhere. You say it’s a no-no...why?
Let me put it to you this way: if you were to get kidnapped in Mexico and they fed you on guacamole for a week, you would explode out of your holding cell. THAT's how fattening it is.
 
What are your favorite San Francisco food spots? How gay/straight are the menus there?
I love Zuni -- a perfect balance of gay and straight, ditto the clientele.
J'adore Boulette's Larder -- fresh and chic, with a top-note of lesbian.
And of course, Chez Panisse, where it all started.

 How did you come up with the book idea?
I thought it was time for me to take all my gay nuggets and nuances of wisdom and fling them at the straight world. I want to liberate the women -- and men too -- and show them how to live with the fearless stylish bravado of we homos...and weee homos like Me. 
 
I was scolded for asking for a beer at a SF fundraiser populated by gay men. The crowd was enjoying vodka and vodka cocktails. What are your thoughts on alcohol?
I am a tea-totaller. Alcohol scares me. When people get boozed up they start doing insane things and, worse still, eating everything in sight. Naughty naughty.

What can Bay Area folks expect at your book signing on Jan 21? 
I love SF and am always happy to come visit. I will be radiating gay positivity.

What’s next for you?
My Jonny (Jonathan Adler) has won a design award in Madrid and so we are zipping off to collect it in February. I have not been to Spain in decades. Am looking forward to assessing the gay-ness of the paella.

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.