The White Peril 白禍

It's interesting that Alice should tag me with something food-related, given that my stomach is having more trouble than the rest of me adjusting back to life in the States. I'm not sure my answers will say much, but here they are.

What’s your favourite table?

My father made a beautiful oak trestle table for my parents' dining room. (It is the table itself we're talking about?)

What would you have for your last supper?

My mind would probably be too distracted for me to enjoy really good lamb or venison or beef, so I'll say vegetable tempura, which is heavenly when the batter and frying oil are perfectly prepared.

What’s your poison?

My favorite whisky is probably Laphroaig 10. Not a particularly highfalutin choice, but the one I reach for most. I like them peaty.

I do most of my drinking in merry, boisterous crowds, though, and I find that vodka and tonic (the well vodka wherever I am, unless it's particularly nasty) is both tasty and non-staining when my arm gets jostled. I had a nail-biting near miss with a negroni the other night that I don't care to repeat.

I like wine, too, of course, but I'm no geeky oenophile, and I generally find that whatever group I'm in has at least one person who's far more informed than I am, so I just go along with whatever he or she recommends we get.

Name your three desert island ingredients.

Peppercorns, sweet red bell peppers, unsalted butter.

What would you put in Room 101?

I guess it would be cheating to count strawberries, since I'm physically allergic to them.

I find the texture of globe onions repellant, though assuming Julia's like everyone else I know, she likes them and wouldn't mind having to eat them in my place.

Oh, and watermelon. I adore pink and green together, but I'm sorry--fruit should not be corky. (Don't bother telling that good watermelon doesn't have a corky texture. Yes, it does.)

Which book gets you cooking?

This may surprise some people, but in my case, Jane Brody's Good Food Book. Yes, I think Brody's too high-strung about nutrition and unproven dangers to health, but she genuinely seems to believe food should be enjoyed, and her approach in adapting recipes is often designed to bring the flavors of the star ingredients to the fore.

What’s your dream dinner party line-up?

I like large gatherings for parties, but not for dinner. Too many people makes lively shared conversation and pleasurably wicked confidences difficult, especially if several are new acquaintances.

All of that is a roundabout way of saying I like dinner parties with close friends.

What was your childhood teatime treat?

The Pennsylvania Dutch make great sticky buns, with lots of nuts and moist yeasty cake and enough syrup to make the entire population of the Northeastern Seaboard diabetic.

What was your most memorable meal?

Hmm. Probably when I was eleven and we were visiting my Auntie June in England, because it was the first time I realized that my parents and family elders thought I was ready to start being introduced into the adult world in public. No, I wasn't given a cigar and two glasses of port...just permission to order a main that came with artichokes and then after-dinner coffee. I like to think I still have my youthful energy, but I'm grateful I had the kind of family that still believed grown-up pleasures were something children should be taught to aspire to.

What was your biggest food disaster?

3 May 2001. Atsushi and I were giving a party over the Golden Week holiday for a few dozen friends in the afternoon. At about 10:00 a.m., I was julienning carrots for primavera sauce and lopped off the tip of my ring finger. I didn't cut it off at the joint or anything, but there was blood everywhere. Emergency room, painkillers, huge bandage, stern admonition from doctor to keep hand elevated above heart for the rest of the day. Luckily, gay guys know how to pull together in a genuine catering emergency, so we had five or six friends who finished my prep while I tried to be useful with one hand and an addled brain.

What’s the worst meal you’ve ever had?

Let's see. There was the Christmas dinner hosted by the owner of the bar that was kind of my local in Tokyo two years ago. It was oyster season, so the restaurant gave us its special ten-course oyster-themed prix fixe party menu. Have I mentioned that I can't eat shellfish? There were oysters in everything: oyster miso soup, oyster stew, oysters au gratin, raw oysters on the half shell, grilled oysters--it was like the Spam episode in Month Python, only with oysters.

I ended up snagging the two or three pieces of tuna and yellowtail sashimi that had found their way to the table, and then for the rest of the dinner subsisting on shochu and oolong tea and the occasional shiso leaf. When it was over, I collared my best friend and marched us to a little dining cafe in the middle of the gay district, where I demanded servings of their chicken karaage and steak-cut fries before they'd managed to get us sat down at a table.

Who’s your food hero/food villain?

My hero is whoever figured out that whipping cream turned it into whipped cream. My villain is the inventor of the no-taste tomato.

Nigella or Delia?

No offense to Nigella, but she's always going on and on about how sloppy and casual and unstudied she is while cooking, and see how I made this lovely soufflé by just pitching some eggs and flour into a ramekin and shoving the lot into the oven without getting so much as a smudge on my cashmere twinset? Just wait for your friends to arrive, pluck the perfect complementary wine from your little wine cellar, and there--instant party!

The problem is, a lot of cooking is engineering, and while it's not as hard as running a nuclear reactor, it really isn't as artless as all that. I haven't seen anything Delia Smith has done in the last decade or so, but from what I've read and watched of her, she's good at breaking down complex recipes into series of manageable steps and combinations of compatible ingredients.

Vegetarians: genius or madness?

Hold on--when I swallow this mouthful of steak, I'll tell you.

I don't make a practice of passing judgment on other people's dietary choices. I'll only note that, IIRC, lack of milk and meat aren't good for children's early development.

Fast food or fresh food?

You will not get me to apologize for my once-weekly trip to Burger King for a Whopper w/ Cheese combo with the largest fries and Coke. There's nothing quite like it to give you that pleasurable feeling of being at the very tippy-top of the food chain.

If I eat that way every day, though, I start to feel clogged up and crave steamed vegetables and rice for a few meals. And as Alice said, some very quick meals are among the most wholesome and satisfying. I love buttery scrambled eggs on toast with some black pepper as a light dinner, and it takes ten minutes if that to prepare.

Who would you most like to cook for?

Uh...my mother cooked most meals I ate until I was eighteen, and my father worked to pay for the ingredients, so I guess it wouldn't hurt to return the favor. I think they order in or eat out most of the time now, though.

What would you cook to impress a date?

I'm not sure "impressive" is what I'd aim for. It seems to me that a better precedent to be setting with date food is "luscious." Maybe grill up lamb chops and rinse the pan with a glass of wine? And make some mashed potatoes, which are one of the best-tasting foods imaginable when fresh from the ricer and fortified with butter and cream.

Make a wish.

I wish for development of more and better GM crops, and for less sanctimony and skittishness on the part of governments about introducing them.

Hello, nice gentlemanly Woofie-boys.

Why are you staring at me with those molten eyes?

I know you missed me while I was out all afternoon, but you'll have to wait before you curl up next to me while I read. Right now I'm trying to eat this hot pastrami sandwich. Yes, with all these puddles of gravy. And the french fries. It is as good as it smells, thanks for asking--aren't you happy for me? Num-num-num....

Now, come off it. You have the better lives by far in this arrangement. No one keeps a bowl in a special place for me and sends half my weight in kibble raining into it twice a day, like manna from heaven. I have to go out and get my own food.

Okay, fine, if you're going to be all technical, I didn't go out and get it--I was feeling lazy and called the diner and had that nice man with the nice calves deliver it. I know you noticed the calves, too, because when he appeared you started shouting, "Woof!" Well, it came out "Arp!" as always, but I know what you meant. So I didn't go out with a stone-tipped spear and hunt for my food and stuff, but I worked for it. And I had to get up and buzz him in and pay for it, which at least earned me the calories in the milkshake.

Must you sharpen your claws on my favorite Diesel jeans? There, that's better.

No, for the last time, I can't share food with you anymore. You know when Mommy took you in the cab to the man in the lab coat with the big, scary needle the other day? Well--

Don't you dare growl at me. If Mommy carefully avoided mentioning the big, scary needle so you wouldn't freak out when she packed you up in the pet carriers, it's not because I told her to! You didn't ask whether there would be needles involved, did you? Thought not. (I mean, really! "We're going to take a very special trip in the cab to see some pretty buildings uptown! Yes, we are! Yes, we are!" You seriously bought that?) So really, can you blame anyone but yourselves for having let your guard down?

Anyway, when you hear what the vet told Mommy, you may think the shot wasn't so bad by comparison: he said you're a porker and need to eat less. Yes, you, Blond Woofie. You don't think Daddy's giving you less food at a time this week because he suddenly decided to economize, do you? You don't want to turn into a dirigiwoofie, do you? The Goodyear Woofie. The Hindenwoofie.

Fine, that was a little uncalled-for. Sorry. Just trying to drive the point home. It's for your own good.

Oh, for Pete's sake, don't give me the teary-eyed routine. Most of us don't get to spend all day every day doing nothing more demanding than snuggling in while someone draws a blanket over our furry, sinewy little bodies and whispers that we're adorable and should just lie still while he gets us breakfast.

I am not a liar! I clearly specified "all day every day." Sheesh. You know, you can keep your eyes and snouts glued to every morsel of pastrami I convey from plate to mouth, but you can't listen to a thing I say. The last time I snu...never mind. It's none of your business. You just sit there thinking your coarse, untoward thoughts. I can't stop you.

There's just no reasoning with you two.

Oh, for the love of...here. A quarter-inch square of pastrami for each of you. And NO MORE. Just the lean part so your Daddy doesn't yell at me too much. Now stop staring!

A few years ago, my buddy gave his wife a pair of chihuahuas as a present. Now that I'm staying with them, they've become my companions.



Don't they look adorable?

Of course--in still photographs. In real life, though, they move.

I call them the Millicujos.

They open their little jaws and bark at the slightest noise, often for close to a half hour before settling down. Usually, it's the elderly elevator in our brownstone that sets them off, but sometimes the stimulus appears to originate somewhere around the kitchen skylight--a creak caused by the wind? the piping of a bird? Usually I can't make it out. No trouble making out their response, though.

The blond with the limpidly innocent gaze is, you shouldn't need to be told, the more implacably hostile of the two when the public isn't around to observe. Not by all that much, though. His darker, younger brother is a willing accomplice.

J. and his wife have nicknamed them "the Woofies." This is a courtesy title, about as connected with reality as "Princess Di." These two wouldn't be able to produce a butch, baritone, thrillingly menacing "woof!" if they sold their souls to Cerberus. Even "yap!" errs somewhat in the direction of resonance, as far as I'm concerned. My conclusion--borne of repeated and lengthy exposure--is that "arp!" is the best transcription of the noise they make (and make and make and make and make).

They've grown accustomed to me now, so they'll sometimes jump up into my lap when I'm trying to type. Mostly, though, they still eye me with deep suspicion. Unless I've just cooked something along the savory/buttery/meaty axis, that is. Then I become their new best friend. Their little eyes liquefy, and (I swear) they pout. For those who've been wondering why they're not hearing more about how adjusting to New York has been, a major reason is that I'm too busy defending my breakfast eggs.