Real Men Love Brunch

In an Absolut world, real men could eat quiche.
-- Michael Sonsteng, one of the candidates for One Man Minneapolis, a charity benefit and grown-up pageant.

Admittedly, I laughed at the quote. The juxta of Absolut and quiche? Moar lyk some fruity permutation of Smirmoff Ice and quiche, according to the demographic at HoCo stein clubs.

Then my mind drifted to the relationship between men and brunch. As How I Met Your Mother points out, it's awkward for just two men to get brunch together. Brunch is a couples thing, brunch is a girls-post-mani-pedi thing, brunch is for family to gather after the one Sunday you attended church this year. Let's broaden that Absolut world, okay?

More than when they sit through all six hours of Pride and Prejudice, more than when they get friendzoned for months on end, I'm impressed when two guys are actively willing to get brunch, and not because of a girl.

Three quick observations about the Food Channel

(Apologies - it looks like this didn't post through the first time.)

1. As much as I love Food Channel (and despite the fact that it makes everyone hungry), it strikes me as a little strange that they don't call their hosts "cooks" or "foodlovers," they're personalities.

2. Tyler Florence kind of looks like Bobby Flay.

3. I read this article in the New York Times about the growing trend of female food personalities to wear V-necks (cashmere and three-quarter sleeves) in order to allude to some sexuality. We don't note that most men on the Food Channel are in chef's whites or plaid button-downs, but rather, the article's interesting to think about in juxtaposition with the fact that despite the idea of the kitchen as a "female domain," the majority of executive chefs at restaurants remain male. I doubt this piece will ever be a controversial moment in the NYT, but to what extent does it really help the advancement of female cooks (or food personalities)? And does it have to?

Female Food Writing (part two)

This week, it was back to food reading...as well as the trip to the library. In searching for "food writing" in the catalog, Through the Kitchen Window: Women Writers Explore the Intimate Meaning of Food and Cooking (ed. Arlene Voski Avakian) was on top of the list.

Unfortunately, that was kind of a misnomer, because this book related more to gender studies than food. (The editor is a associate professor of women's studies.) Don't get me wrong - I love how food intertwines with everything, including gender, and as a female, I think it's incredibly important to observe how such a basic function like eating relates to identity. But in my opinion, the majority of this anthology was overly ambitious by attempting to tie the relationship between food and gender into one neat bow. Ultimately, the food writing portion suffered. Pieces that focused exclusively on narrative or on an academic perspective tended to be better reading - standouts included "Laying on Hands through Cooking: Black Women's Majesty and Mystery in Their Own Kitchens" by Gloria Wade-Gayles, and "Follow the Food" by Barbara Haber. But for the most part, no piece was particularly memorable. I was also uncomfortable with the explicit material in some essays.

On the other hand, I'm in the first half of Cornbread Nation 1 (ed. John Egerton), an annual anthology of Southern food writing. While its Southern nostalgia overwhelms me at times as I read, each cook's profile draws me in. The writing doesn't have as much "sparkly metaphor" as Through the Kitchen Window, but the storytelling paints a vivid picture nonetheless. The food is not necessarily the main character here - sometimes dedication is - but it plays a meaningful role. Interestingly enough, it's easier for me - a teenage girl who has never been to the South - to identify with this compilation.