Category: Food

Posted on

Pizza, Tales, Gigggles, 21 Year Olds

Can there be a better pizza in town than Little Star? (I’m talking deep dish here.) The crust is like running through the corn fields at dawn with nothing on except a chopped tomato and mozarella blanket. I had 4 pieces last night–half of a large pie. Since Viccolo closed, I’ve been in pizza limbo, yet Little Star is a little slice of heaven right here in San Francisco.

Reese and BC and I have been watching “Tales of the City” on Friday nights. Reese gets kind of bored and starts doing contortions on the floor, and covers his eyes during the nudes scenes. When it was broadcast originally on Channel 9 (the year Reese was born, I keep telling him) I remember they used some sort of optical zoom to crop the nude parts out. Reese resists his time as much as we yearned for it.

I finished my sound piece for my show yesterday. It’s an hour of me giggling, that I plan to play as a loop during the course of the show. I love the idea of it catching, and everybody giggling at my opening. Since I’ve never sold a sound piece, I plan to distribute free CDs, “Chris Komater Giggling,” at the opening, so you can giggle along with me in the privacy of your own home and think of my furry flowers. And for nothing!

I have a 21 year old chasing after me. A 21 year old. I keep telling him that my stepson has more in common with him, and that he should chase after his boyfriend, the one he already has. That seems to turn him on more, my repeated rejections. And he keeps asking for pictures. Like everytime I see him online, “Do you have any pics?” I don’t get it. And he’s always always horny. What is that nogoodnick boyfriend for? I tell him, more or less, look, grasshopper, we’ll have a few laughs, and then what? I’ve had my laughs, I want a boyfriend, you already have one, now scram. “lol, UR hot!”

Posted on

Life Munches On

Life munches on.

I spent last weekend at Dean & Doug’s Inverness pad. We picked huckleberries, which turned into a delicious ice cream topping, donned our netting and fed the bees. Dean did the best Queen Bee imitation. I brought up an apple pie that I made from apples that they had brought to my house the previous weekend. Apples, apples, apples–everywhere apples! I made about 3 pies with them and still have more! We spent the bulk of the weekend picking fruit and cooking and eating and drinking, like what people used to do before TV. They recently put up a deer fence, so they toss spent apples over the fence for the deer to nibble on. And nibble they do. It’s like putting out used furniture on 20th street in front of my house–gone in 15 minutes. Where are the deer when there are no apples for them to eat? How do they just suddenly appear? They are so adorable, I don’t see how people can shoot them, their swirling pink tongues and quivering little white tails and (real!) doe eyes.

We took a walk after dinner on Saturday night–an incredible vegetarian dinner involving artichokes, barley, cauliflower, corn, and love–a walk “around the block.” It was so dark from the dense canopy of trees that I could only make out a slightly less-dark trapezoid under my feet that was the road. Everything was blurry, like walking in a cartoon. I could hear the crunch of my feet on pavement, but couldn’t see my feet. I’d stick my hands out in front of me and they’d melt into the less-dark-ness of the road. Then I’d turn to the side and see trees disorientingly silhouetted against the night sky in remarkably sharp focus, and then look straight ahead again into the blurry abstraction of the road. It was thrilling. Sleeping was like that, too, pitch black and hallucinatory. I could hear every sound of the many creatures visiting the improvised feed lot outside my window–munching sounds and cracking twigs. Were I not surrounded by my dear hosts and dear deer, I would have thought I was in a horror film.

Caitlin Mitchell-Dayton had a show at Paule Anglim that was pretty dynamite last month–very large caricatured portraits of her contemporaries on scrolls of linen, big bold blobs of color. She’s my kind of painter–expressive and gestural. If Fat Albert had a painter friend in the ‘hood, it would be Caitlin, master portraitist of the new Cosby kids.

Nick Dong finally returned my Inter-Personal Masculinity Evaluator, so line up to be evaluated.

A crisp new version of Lang’s Scarlet Street came out a while back and I finally watched it, having seen it many times over the years as a fuzzy scratchy worn out print. It’s the story of my life, rich with gender ambiguities and frustrated attempts to love the person that you eventually have to kill. Chris Cross, played by Edward G. Robinson, is a meek clerk who, in his spare time and in the bathroom, paints naive portraits of “what he feels.” The film opens with Chris being feted for decades of service to the firm, with no hopes for advancement. He glances out the window to notice the boss’ beautiful mistress waiting in a limo outside. He says to his colleague, “I wonder what it’s like to be loved by a woman like that.” Not “I wonder what it’s like to LOVE a woman like that,” but “I wonder what it’s like to BE loved by a woman like that,” establishing his passivity. He finds out alright, and ends up homeless, unable to claim his identity as the painter of his own masterworks that were improperly (but with his blessing) attributed to the woman he desires most but kills; Kitty, who led him to his downfall, the love that he can never attain, but whose voice calling out to her lover–who gets blamed for her death and is fried in the electric chair–will haunt him for eternity. It’s a sublime masterpiece.

I’m getting into Top Chef. I developed a big crush on Joey, the chunky italian, who was asked to pack up his knives and hit the road last week. He breaks down and cries, it’s so heartbreaking. I’ve watched the last 10 minutes about 5 times already in reruns, and I cry each time, hoping that this time he’ll be spared, that it won’t be the last time I’ll see him. He even says, “This isn’t the last you’ll see of me,” but come on. The other hot chunky guy, Howie, is a thug, and while cute, he’s a thug, really, with no inter-personal relating skills. The other chef-testants cower in fear when they have to break up into groups, fearful that they’ll end up in his group and have to deal with his misanthropic dictatorial take on group dynamics. Still, I’d boink him. And eat his food, of course.

What else? Reese turned 14–Bob made a volcano cake that spewed lava. Many contestants on The Dating Game, but none worth mentioning. I drove D to Reno to visit his mom and discovered that everybody there is overweight and limps. No dates, though. I’m having dinner with Thomas Hardy tonight. I didn’t get ANY of the grants that I applied for. But you haven’t seen the last of me…

Posted on

The Dating Game: Bachelor #13 Has Not Quite Left the Building, Which is on Fire

Bachelor #13 and I went out last night for Valentine’s Day. As friends. He’s made a big point–ever since I told him that I preferred to pursue a relationship with him that doesn’t include exchanging body fluids–to mention the word in relation to everything we do. “A friendship date,” “a movie with my friend,” “galleries with my friend, Chris,” etc… I had been to his house a few weeks ago to meet his brother and his brother’s boyfriend. They made homemade cavatelli (“cava-tell,” pronounced like Carmella Soprano), served with one meat ball each. I devoured two servings, and handing them my plate for more I pleaded, “Just give me three meatballs this time, please.” As I munched through my succulent fifth big meatball, more meat than I think I’ve eaten in my entire life, my pleasure gave way to foreboding as a whiff of something burning drifted to my nose and suddenly everybody was running to the kitchen to put out the fire that had engulfed the simmering pot on the stove. “Save the meatballs!” I shrieked though my half-full mouth. Salt was tossed on the stove and the boys, relieved, headed to the window to smoke with the other guest, a friend of theirs with the cutest little dog I have ever seen. It’s the dog in those posters with the head cocked to one side that puts its paw on your lap to abjectly plead for your affection. While the boys were smoking, #13 turned to me and said, “I really like your art.” Then gravely, “I wouldn’t want it on my walls,” then brightly, “but I can appreciate it!” Later, little Fluffy turned Cujo and bit one of the boys on the nose. The poor guy had to go to the hospital to get stitches to stop the bleeding. “Bye Chris, it’s been fun!” he nasally squealed at me while pinching his nose with a kitchen towel as he jumped into the cab to the hospital.

So Valentine’s Day was considerably less dramatic. South Indian food at Dosa. We each had the prix-fixe meal, so we shared a total of 8 mouthwatering inventive spicy dishes. He wore red and I wore pink. Was it Diane Von Fursternberg who said that all reds go together?

Oh wait, I didn’t mention Bob’s 60th birthday party, did I? Well, everybody was there–Kevin & Dodie, Bill & Connie, Norma & Rob, Dean & Doug, Michael, Denny, Jocelyn, Francesca… and most frighteningly, his mother and sister. I was super freaked about seeing everybody for the first time in 3 years, especially his mother and sister, who make mush of exes with their cold hard quiet feminine stares. Did they all think I was a jerk for leaving him? Had they speculated all along that I’d abandon him? Had he been discussing my super top-secret personal things with all of his friends over tea served in those fabulous little blue and white tea cups? I made sure to at least look fabulous. I wore my chartreuse Dolce & Gabbana velvet jacket, with a superman-blue shirt, black corduroys, and shiny black Beatle boots. If they were going to snicker to themselves, “There he is, that homewrecking chubby-chaser,” they’d at least add, “He’s hot!” But everybody made me feel very welcome, like being with family again. The cakes–yes there were two, one coconut meringue, the other chocolate, both from Tartine–were fantastic. The chocolate cake was just chocolate and butter, and nothing in between, like our relationship, all sensation.

Posted on

Lucky Bachelor #13: Anxiety, France vs. California

Last night I enjoyed a delicious dinner at Bistro 1689 on Church Street with Lucky Bachelor #13. The cuisine is “French/Californian,” and from what I sampled, bistro cooking at its best. We both had the duck confit. The skin was crispy, and the meat just fell off the bone. The sauce served with it cradled the essence of the meat in a smooth richness that didn’t distract or enhance. It just let it be–a little ducky that gave its sweet little life to me. The wine that I had with it did exactly the same thing, stimulating just a small portion of my palette, but with an amazing array of flavor and experience packed into that little corner of my mouth. I find a lot of French wines to be that way, quite different from the California style of assaulting the taste buds from every which-a-way. My salad, of baby romaine lettuce with sauteed mushrooms, was drizzled with a coarse-grained mustard vinaigrette. And love.

So back at #13’s pad, making out on the sofa with the TV blaring in the background, I heard something on TV about the Unabomber and started laughing. “What?” he asked. “I was just thinking about the Unabomber…” but he cut me off before I could complete my thought, mock-offended that my thoughts could so diffused–like a Sonoma County Pinot, and not the French bordeaux that he thought he was sipping. Somehow my thoughts about the Unabomber led to a discussion of sex, and I told him that I wasn’t in a hurry to hop in the sack, having spent 6 months with a guy whom I didn’t really like, but liked having sex with, and very limited sex at that, but still, limited sex within the confines of a relationship structure that had no meaning or substantial content. This time I want to get to know the person first, and see if there’s something relationship-y that can support a sexual exploration. If not then maybe we could be friends. Or just have sex anyway. I just don’t want sex to cloud important things that I need in a mate, like an appreciation of mid-century lighting and Joan Blondell. Or maybe that’s a bunch of bunk and I’m just experiencing anxiety around his fear of more challenging endowments. Just what is too challenging for him, anyway? I know I’m making too much of it, for if he really loved this other guy he would have worked–or nibbled–his way around the problem, but still.

Calm blue waters, calm blue waters, calm blue waters…

Posted on

Dinner with Emily; The Dating Game: Juicy Forgotten MM#1 Details

Emily treated me to dinner at Chez Panisse Wednesday night, my second such treat in the last two months. While we didn’t get to sit at the Chef’s table, we did enjoy an equally memorable meal upstairs in the Cafe. I had the fixed meal: mixed greens; porcini mushrooms and polenta; ice cream and chocolate sauce. Getting the simplest-sounding dishes is key to understanding what they’re up to over there, and indeed, everything that could have been expressed in a salad of “mixed greens” seduced and wooed my tender taste buds into complete submission to flavor and freshness.

Emily might be showing with me next October at Mark Wolfe. I hope it works out, she’s hot! Her abstractions are painterly in a way that my work isn’t–gestural and worked, all about surface and color–but her use of line and the grid will play nicely against and with what I’m constructing.

So did I tell you? I’m having a solo show next October at Mark Wolfe Contemporary, 49 Geary, 2nd Floor. Mark your calendars! It’s my most ambitious project yet, and it’s going to take me about 8 more months to get it all shot, printed, and framed. The show seeks to expand the current bear stereotype of the Carhart-clad he-man: “tee-hee-heee” instead of “yeaaaaah.” Stay tuned for more details!

Oh. I forgot to mention one of the most memorable things about my recent rendezvous with Married Man #1. Well, it turns out that he’s a bear porn star! I made him turn on one of his movies while we were defiling his marriage bed. Every so often I’d see through a jumble of legs and arms and thises and thatses and see our positions mirrored by what was happening on the screen, like one of those mirrors that replicate their reflections to infinity. He said the same kinds of things that porn stars say, too, like, “Yeah,” and those instructive comments that always crack me up, and of course the astute “you like that blankety-blank, yeah” observations. His star quality was apparent, and with a smoldering kind of warmth and understatement that had me believing everything he said–and clapping!

Posted on

Mangia! Mangia!

Sisters Sue and Carol; Carol’s husband Bruce; their kids Megan and Aimée; and Aimée’s boyfriend, Jeremy are out for a Thanksgiving visit. I’m learning how to let go of the spatial tension that I’ve created in my bachelo-sphere, letting them spill all over the house. I’ll spend several hours figuring out which angle the new Cobra Lamp should be in relation to the curve of the Milo Baughman chair, so it’s a test to have things randomly moved to fit some need other than aesthetic tension. It’s the problem with being me at the moment. I need a sloppy husbear to disrupt and challenge my obsessive compulsive feng shui illusion of harmony.

Prior to the family’s arrival, birthday activities occupied much of my time. BC took me to the Last Supper Club, where I am sad to say, and despite Big Chrissy’s charming company, the food was only so-so. The fried artichoke appetizer, for instance, should have been about artichoke, salt, extra virgin olive oil, and fried-ness. Instead, they mucked it up by drowning everything in a sugary raspberry vinegar. Some italian mamma ancestor of mine is rolling in her grave, cursing misguided American innovation. The pasta with the pork ragu was pretty tasty, though, as was my salad.

Moving forward in time, but backward as the stomach churns, D treated me to a nice Thai lunch and lots of pink roses. And then Philip treated me to some tasty pancakes at a birthday breakfast the next morning at It’s Tops. Blueberry buckwheat. Yum-babba!

I’ve been listening to teen emo-chick music lately. I’m totally in love with Camera Obscura, and their sweet ballads about heart ache & break.

Meanwhile, the family and I loudly munched along towards Thanksgiving. For the big day, Brother Mark made a turducken–a duck stuffed in a chicken, stuffed in a turkey. It was so very strange and delicious. I was an appetizing dish myself by evening’s end–a plump and juicy tur-Coco-ducken! I made a wild mushroom pate as appetizer, and a salad of arugula, fennel, and persimmon. Aimée shocked me senseless with her chocolate crinkle cookies and kiwi and raspberry goat cheese tart. While we were cooking, Aimée never noticed when the timer went off, seemed distracted by having fun, and then, as if completely by random, out pop some of the most tasty treats I’ve had this millennium.

I hope you all had lots of Thanksgiving goodness, and are enjoying the tryptophan-driven groggy stupor that we’ll all be in for the next few days!

Posted on

Showtime, Tut, Helen Keller Mole, Kiss Me Kate

I’ve started sending out packets to galleries, feeling good about my new work and ready to work with a new dealer. I got a nibble from one of the 49 Geary dealers, who wants to meet with me and discuss a proposal for an installation. It’s in THE coolest space in the building, so I’m pretty psyched. Cross your fingers, pray to Allah, light a candle… I’m already thinking of doing some super gigantic piece that covers an entire wall, my obsession writ large, but of course accompanied by gorgeous and affordable little things. I tend to work better once I’ve established a structure or context for my art, and this space is a humdinger, so the creaky wheels of my creativity are turning once again.

Big Chrissy flew out to Chicago with me last week, for my cousin Dawn’s wedding, and to visit his family. We saw the King Tut show at the Field Museum. At one point I got choked up, remembering how I had ached to see the Tut show when it came to the US in the 70’s but had to settle for the National Geographic issue and the Steve Martin ’45. Aside from the elegance and intricate beauty of the objects, there was also a simplicity, in either expression or execution that touched me, particularly a portrait bust of Nefertiti that captured nobility, humanity and godliness, all at once, voluptuously. Seeing the various little sarcophogi for this pharoah’s viscera and that pharoah’s organs, I thought how sad it was that the egyptians spent so much time and energy preparing for an afterlife in Chicago.

We had a few good meals out, no Alinea this time, but one memorable meal at a Mexican restaurant in Boy’s Town, or whatever they call the gay ghetto over there. Oh, and the boys are pretty hot. Like milk-fed steak-eating hot. Anyway, I had the chicken mole, and the sauce, in the dim light of the restaurant, was so black that no light was reflected. A dark plate was set in front of me on the table and I couldn’t see anything in it, only empty nothingness, which I prodded with a fork until I found chicken. It was like Hellen Keller’s trip to Mexico.

Katherine Hepburn was interviewed by Dick Cavett tonight on TCM. It was her first televised interview, from 1973. I’ve been watching the Cavett interviews and they’re fascinating. He chats with these stars for a full hour each. You feel like you really get to know them, relaxing into normalness with them. Hepburn was an amazing contrast to Bette Davis, interviewed a few weeks ago. While Davis seemed fully aware and in control of being and being seen as an icon, speaking cleverly and wittily, and clearly to future biographers, Hepburn seemed like somebody totally enmeshed in family life, just a lucky dame who made movies for a living, oblivious to being one of the greatest actresses of the 20th Century, her legs spread apart, one propped up on a table, hair a mess. At the end of the hour, Cavett started to say that the interview was coming to an end and Kate just hopped up and said “Okay, bye,” and ran off the set. Cavett didn’t even have time to finish his sentence. As he pleaded, stunned, asking “Aren’t you going to wait while I…?” she paused for a moment and said, “No, you take it from here,” and disappeared behind a curtain with a quick wave. He just looked at the camera and mumbled something about the interview continuing with Part 2 next week… Can’t wait!

Posted on

40th Birthday Dinner #7: Philip Calls it Chez

Philip and I had dinner at Chez Panisse last night. He’s buddies with one of the cooks, so we ate in the kitchen at the “chef’s table.” After sticking our noses in the fridge to see all the little piggies hanging from hooks, and being seated, everyone, one at a time, came up to us and greeted us and chatted as they shuffled about to prepare their dishes. They were all calm, having fun, no sweat. There seemed to be no exertion at all in preparing what was one of the most memorable meals I’ve had.

We started off with a salad of heirloom tomatoes served with a grilled sardine and couscous. The couscous, we both agreed, didn’t make much sense, other than as a diverting texture, but actually, come to think of it, the other flavors, which were bright and fresh, were made in a way more brilliant by the couscous, and it served as the perfect medium to carry the juices and olive oil from plate to mouth, so never mind what I just said about it not making sense. A lamb course followed, marinated lamb served with okra, wild greens, beans and a hint of coriander. The sauce was light and infused with soft lambiness. The wine that was paired with it was a dynamite Spanish wine, a 2000 Rotllan Torra priorat reserva. It smelled of earth, a soft sulfuric volcanic nose that led to blissful cherriness and soft fruit, like rolling around in a dusty field while kissing a spanish youth and slowly unbuttoning his shirt while eating an apple. Sue, the pastry chef, really knocked my socks off, transforming the ordinary with such little gestures into the extraordinary. She served us deep fried mission figs served with a ginger-infused cream, raspberries, and drizzled with honey. Simply amazing. Every taste bud sang a song of love. Thank you Philip! Do you have any buddies at The French Laundry??

Posted on

Release the Sausages

The gay film festival has so far been the exact same film festival that I’ve gone to since but a wee gay laddy. It was nice to finally meet Alonso and his fabulous husband Dave, though. Alonso presented film clips and comments from his recent 101 Must-See Movies Blah Blah that surely you’ve all read by now, and if you haven’t, be a good little homophile and pick up a copy today. Alonso, have you seen Black Lizard? It’s the 1 Film That All Gay Men Should See–and for literature buffs, you get to see Yukio Mishima dipped in wax for the infamous transvestite jewel thief Black Lizard’s wax human doll collection! I must know if this oversight was intentional, and why!

Anyway, back to the festival—no wait, first back to Alonso and Dave… Philip once again failed to live up to his user name (foodpoisoningsf) and this morning whipped up some tasty victuals for our hungry guests from LALA land and their 8 greatest San Francisco fans. I had 5 sausages. The pancakes were like the kind that usually have little fish eggs on them in really expensive restaurants, but with blueberries instead. Can we just call my life La Grande Bouffe?

So the film festival, yeah, I remember now why I haven’t gone the past couple of years. Gay filmmakers just don’t know how to make movies. Sorry, that’s “un-repressed” gay filmakers. They make gay film festival movies, with insipid twists on coming out and being all muscly. The week’s films are all a blur, what I’ve had to sit through… I could write Alonso’s anti-book, 1001 Films That Every Gay Man Should Never Have to Pay to See and Really Should Just Avoid at All Costs. There are a few promisingly bright cinematic points on the horizon, though, so all hope is not yet lost…

Posted on

The Dating Game: Art School Confidential, #4 and #8 again

#4 and I went to see Art School Confidential tonight. We both wondered what people who hadn’t been to art school would think of it. We agreed that to us, all of the insightful and accurate observations about art school intrigued and delighted us more than the plot, but to others, the siting of the story in art school might be secondary to considerations of things like plot and narrative. People coming out seemed to dislike it pretty intensely. “I want my money back,” someone pleaded as The End came up on the screen, and three couples each chanted “Horrible” as they shuffled out. In San Francisco!

Well, I thought it was great, with that kind of purposely bad acting that Todd Solondz and his generation have woven into their bleak abstractions of reality. I love that kind of artificiality in film. It’s different from the John Waters School of bad acting–which seems an extension of camp–drawing our attention to the inherent fakeness of movies.

We had a fantabulous dinner at House of Nanking afterwards, as usual asking Mr. Pokerface to take care of us with three dazzling dishes of his choice, including a dish of calamari strips lightly fried and served in a coconut milk, vinegar and hot oil sauce. Omigod. We walked back to #4’s usual parking spot in the city, off of 6th Street near the Chronicle. There are always parking places there because of the broken bottles, needles, piss, and crack ho’s. I don’t think the Meter Maids even go there.

We seem to be getting along smashingly, #4 and I, although I’m still not feeling anything related to a spark, more like a warm fuzzy feeling that most likely is a friendly warm fuzzy feeling and not a lovey dovey warm fuzzy feeling.

#8 spent the night again last night, the hottest night of the year. I do not do well in heat. When I see sweaty couples making soupy love in movies set in Vietnam, I get a rash. When I have to actually be in that kind of heat, and have sex in it, I just want to get the whole uncomfortable thing over with and push him over to his side of the bed as fast as possible. Plus I had to watch Charmed. “Now, why are they hurling fireballs at each other again, honey?” I pleaded with him to give up Desperate Housewives so that we could watch The Sopranos, and chat about the warped duality at the core of the Cosa Nostra’s sense of morality. “But ‘leading a good life’ excludes on-the-clock murder and extortion, honey.”