City Gay and Country Gay

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Booty booty booty booty booty errywhere

Hey Country Gay,

Love the gnome. Love the super feminine stance. He's a fitting new member for the blog.

So anyways, enough about you and your gay gnome.

I never was a big Chuck E. Cheese gal (another mouse already had my heart), but I LOVED Showbiz Pizza. Always slightly frightened and bewitched by the keyboard-playing gorilla vocalist (Fatz Geronimo) of the Rockafire Explosion animatronic band, I kept my distance while the other more obnoxious children danced right up in his grill.

I was delighted to find on a pizza blog called Slice that not only is Rockafire Explosion alive and well in several people's homes, they have been given great new material to work with:



I want one.

- City Gay

I get by with a little help from my friends

A little friend may very well appear now and then in the Country Gay posts. He seemed ready to help himself to beer and cake this afternoon.

Happy Birthday Country Gay!

Monday, July 30, 2007

First thing's first

Hey Country Gay,

As you may recall, our newly purchased townhome came with a disgustingly (ew ew spit gross) filthy oven. After living there for two months, we have yet to cook food in it because, really, would you want your food stewing in the steaming juices of whatever the hell this is:


As you also may recall, I came mighty close to outsourcing the dirty dirty job of cleaning that shit, but LO, I got a bee in my bonnet yesterday (not even a proverbial bonnet!) and went to town.

My main concerns were the noxious fumes that are typically associated with oven cleaners. And then I discovered this aerosol can full of a magical cleaning serum.


See! Just like Mad Max, except Fume Free Max instead. But I bet it's STILL beyond the Thunderdome because it kicked my oven's grody ass!

It doesn't require you to turn the oven on at all. In fact, it forbids it. It doesn't require rubber gloves. And it only made me feel a titch more funny in the head than I normally do. So I sprayed it in the oven and went to see the Harry Potter movie while it did whatever it does.

By the time I came back, it was a simple matter of wiping it out of the oven with several paper towels and vacuuming out a strange assortment of glass chards I discovered in the back of the oven. I assume the chards were a result of the previous owner's mysterious cooking rituals and NOT of the magical serum.


Now I can finally try my hand at this cooking thing! It should be noted that this is the only oven I have ever cleaned in my life as I've normally allowed the heat coils to burn off the dirty nastiness of my previous ovens (flavor!).

Peace out,

City Gay

DVR Alert - Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations


Country Gay! Alert!

Season 3 of No Reservations begins tonight at 10 p.m. on the Travel Channel. Bourdain kicks the season off in Shanghai. Next week: NYC.

Yay!

Hold the cow-tippin' phone -- do you even get the Travel Channel in Southern Idaho?

- City Gay

Hott or Not? Giada de Laurentiis

Dear Country Gay,

I find myself flip-flopping between attraction and repulsion when it comes to Giada de Laurentiis. She is undeniably beautiful, but it's in an uncomfortable and self-conscious way. That unusually-white forced smile makes me want to smack her in her "five head," but I can't help enjoying the rest of the package. Neither, apparently, can this talented YouTube artiste:



Great, right?

But then I happened upon Giada's latest photo shoot with Esquire Magazine in which she is dripping with tomato sauce and suddenly my eyes felt tainted and dirty. The most disturbing part is the inclusion of GDL's recipe for "homemade sauce" below the photos. Check out the photo of her pouring the "homemade sauce" down her leg. There's something so menstrual cycle about it AND she's conjuring up Lisa Marie Presley in the face.

My conclusion? Not hott. Mostly.

Yours,

City Gay

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Take That, Seattle

Dear City Gay,

For my first official post on our new blog, I decided to go with a topic near and dear to your city's heart: coffee. While coffee certainly isn't unique to your city, it seems to have a stronghold on the drink, and many people automatically associate Seattle with coffee. However, I sometimes find Seattle coffee to be a bit too stout. (Yes, stout as if it were an ale.) I'm sure this is because most of the country coffee shops I am used to overdo the chocolate aspect of a mocha or avoid using espresso that is too strong. However, one coffee drink choice that cannot seem to be replicated in your big city is the Bowl of Soul.

While Java has shops in bigger cities, it is a mainstay of coffee social life in Twin, and one of the most popular drinks, as you know, is the Bowl. While other coffee shops simply offer mochas, the Bowl of Soul steps up the basic mocha by incorporating coffee with the espresso and Mexican hot chocolate. The bitterness of the coffee is a nice complement to the espresso, and the sweetness of the Mexican hot chocolate provides a balance to the bitterness. When one is lucky to get a talented barista who knows the perfect amount of coffee to use, the end result is perfection. Often, the sweetest part (literally and figuratively) is the whipped cream and sprinkles (chocolate sprinkles and cinnamon), and the crunchiness of these crystals works nicely with the homemade whipped cream. (This certainly is a good thing compared to the sugar crystals formed with the meringue of your lemon tartlette.)

Coffee is an integral part of my trips to Seattle, but I will always look forward to getting home to a hot Bowl of Soul, even on a day when the temperature is nearing 100 degrees.

Love,
Country Gay

*I apologize for the ridiculous size of the picture of coffee. I am lacking in some photo shrinkage software.

Saturday, July 28, 2007

There oughta be a lemon law

Dear Country Gay,

I took the liberty of signing us up on Blogger and I chose what I felt to be the most homosexual of all the default templates from which one can choose. As you know, I have the technical know-how to create my own template and may do so in the future. For now, I have neither the heart nor the time nor the Mountain Dew to make this a priority. I hope you understand.

Given that the main focuses of this blog are the (gay) triumphs and (gay) heartaches associated with eating, drinking and cooking, I thought it prudent to report back to you on the miniature lemon meringue pie we purchased together at Whole Foods during your visit to my fair city.


Firstly, I apologize for not making the time to consume this tartlette together while you were visiting. But really, I blame your grieving process for the confusion. Next time, let's try not to have a family tragedy during vacation, hm? But I forgive you and will now explain in mediocre detail how I felt about my lone consumption of the tangy mini pie.

In short, Whole Foods disappointed me this dessert go-round. The crust was quite delectable for a very small two-day-old refrigerated pie, despite the fact it was too thick and heavy for such a petite dessert. Oddly, I felt grateful for the girth (Yes, I said girth. I'll say it again.) of the crust after getting a taste of the unnecessarily tart, dense filling and the barely-there meringue. The crust helped dull my overly-excited taste buds.

The real disappointment was the meringue itself. Even though there was a mere quarter inch of it on the pie, it ruined the experience for me. Perhaps I expect too much from meringue, but here's where it went south for my mouth: I could actually feel the sugar crystals within the meringue exfoliating my tongue. No, this didn't seem to be an intentional technique used to give the top of the pie a brulee-like consistency -- this was within the depths of the meringue.

Because of the texture, I immediately started feeling guilty for how much sugar I was consuming. I did, however, continue to consume it until a sad quarter-moon shape was left. But I didn't feel good about it. I regret not photographing the subject, but I promise to try harder to gain visual evidence in the future.

In closing, I look forward to hearing your rural culinary tales of joy and woe, my sexually deviant friend. Until then, stay strong and know you and your gastrointestinal experiences are in my thoughts.

Love always,

City Gay