So, I cooked frantically for two hours and this is what I came up with:
Cucumber Raita (you can find the recipe here)
Chicken Tikka Masala (the recipe here is similar)
Indian Rice Pudding (recipe at foodnetwork.com)
Dinner Guest 1 showed up perfectly on time. I was not ready for him. Yes, the meal was finished and yes, I was dressed, but after having not felt nervous all day, the moment the bell rang, I had a mini-male, premature, heat flash.
But I went to the door and ushered my guest in. He's a thirty-year old, half-Filipino guy with glasses and a jacket with a graphic spider on it. He's a bit shorter than me and a little chubby, but it gives his face and smile a happy-baby roundness. I was so nervous that I could barely look at him as I showed him to the kitchen and fluttered around, gathering plates and utensils, opening wine, and firing, as well as, answering all those awkwardly placed, get-to know-if-you're-a-creepo questions: Why are you doing this? Where are you from? Where exactly do you live now? What do you do? Why did you answer the post?
After getting the basics out of the way (to his relief I didn't seem to be someone to poison the food) we started our meal. We realized that we are both obsessed with food. I was almost intimidated as he told me about Indian cooking classes he'd taken and all the different Indian dishes he could make including roti, Saag Paneer and some delicious puffed-rice desert I can't remember the name of. It looked like I had some competition. Luckily, he said he like my food (and had seconds).
The topic stayed on food for a while and he told me this story:
While he was visiting New York, he walked down the street and saw some guy sitting on a bench that he thought was kind of hot. As he got closer he thought, "That looks kind of like Anthony Bourdain" (the host of the Travel Channel's 'No Reservation'). After he had passed the man, he realized that it was Anthony Bourdain, just sitting on a bench checking his e-mail on his phone. My guest kept walking, but then got up the courage to go talk to him, since Anthony was alone and not doing anything. By the time my guest got back to the bench, Anthony had got up and crossed the street. My guest noted which door he had gone in, and later checked to see what Anthony got up to on his days off. The door had two bells: one was a therapist's office and the other was a swanky health spa. Both seemed likely options for the hardcore food critic.
My dinner guest is a product manager for an insurance firm. At first this made no sense to me and he realized he had never explained it to anyone. All the people he worked with knew already and his friends didn't really care. Products aren't just physical. Insurance is a product that needs to be tweaked for every state that it's used in. Different states have different requirements for coverage and he manages a team that figures all that out.
Needless to say, he's not thrilled about his job, but the pay is good. Between compliments of the food ("I'm easy to please) and several glasses of cheap wine ("I'm not picky"), he tells me all the other stuff he does in his free time. Besides cooking lessons, he's been taking voice lessons for a year, just started guitar lessons, is about to take a yoga teacher's training class, and has studied Spanish, Portuguese and German at various times in his life. I was curious about the vocal lessons. Who just decides to up and take singing lessons when you're thirty? He said that he felt like he could never do it before. Growing up, his family was weird about stuff like that. They're Catholic (I was also raised Catholic, so I get it).
We also talked a lot about San Francisco. He lives in an all-queer building in Hayes Valley: a bear couple who just got a little cub; a group of cute, young gay guys; a middle-aged couple; and the obligatory creepy, old gay man. My guest loves going to Aunt Charlie's because there are always freaks there ("you would like them because you go to art school"). One night he went outside of the bar for a smoke with friends: crack heads were running by while a man wearing a little skirt and a huge hole in the ass of his pantyhose pranced about, and a group of gutter punks who just got their outfits from JC Penny sat on the curb. Classy.
By desert (he ate slowly and politely, while I ate quickly and sloppily), we were talking about books (my favorite subject because I'm a writer). We debated the virtual book. I, of course, took the old school side and argued that books were necessary in paper form, and it would take many more years to phase them out. He agreed but liked virtual books because you could carry all the books you wanted in just one hand-held screen, and it wouldn't be a problem to read big, heavy books. We both frowned at the un-perfected digital screens for reading. Writers, we still have hope.
I knew this dinner wouldn't go any further and luckily, so did he. So after desert, my gracious guest said he had a meeting the next day and needed to get home. I showed him the door and we parted with only a mildly awkward handshake and a non-committal "maybe I'll run into you."
I proceeded to collapse on the floor in exhaustion. Entertaining is straining.
I remember hating olives. One Christmas my family had them as appetizers and to force me to eat them, my grandmother told me that I would like olives if I ate seven of them in a row. I fell for it and choked down all seven, but I still hated olives. Although now I love them.
I would be a corossol, which is the French word for soursop. This is a fruit that was common when I lived both in Mexico and Madagascar. It has a spiky green outside and a pure white inside with large black seeds. The flavor is unlike any other fruit. I'm not trying to say that I'm super unique, but sometimes I can't even figure myself out: spiky, sweet, sour.
Savor in Noe valley. Their savory crepes have really great flavor combinations and for the price, the servings are huge.
