I'm a bit ashamed to say it, but I absolutely hate Halloween. It has never been something that excited me, which may be the result of how downright terrible I am at putting together a costume. And there is nothing in the world that is more annoying than people repeatedly telling you how lame you are for not dressing up. Gross!
So instead of subjecting myself to such things, this year I had a quiet dinner with my dear friend Rostom, who made the most exquisite dessert I've tasted in years: Isle Flottante (Floating Islands). It's ridiculously simple, and basically involves a cooked meringue floating atop a pool of crème anglaise -- a mixture of sugar, egg yolks, milk, and vanilla. (The Barefoot Contessa has a recipe here that looks promising, but is different from Rostom's). Here's a (not so great iPhone) photo of the finished product:
And that was just the beginning. Sunday night, Maxime and I hatched our long-standing plan to cook Lapin a la Moutarde (Rabbit with Mustard Sauce). I've never tasted rabbit, nor have I ever cooked it, so this was a challenge. The recipe we followed was quite extensive, calling for the preparation of our own rabbit-vegetable-herb stock that would be used as a bubbling bathe of deliciousness for cooking the rabbit meat. We picked up some delicious Maille French Mustard (half "grainy" old-style Dijon, half finely ground traditional Dijon) that the meat marinated in for a few hours. The biggest challenge for me was to actually cut up the rabbit we got from the butcher downtown. That's right, they come whole and you have to butcher them yourself. I've never done this, but after having gone through this learning process, I think I can safely say it helps you to appreciate what you're eating. Here's a shot of me slicing up the second rabbit, with the first pieces already done (thumbnail so as to not scare you too much, click to embiggen):
It's actually not so difficult, once you get the hang of it. Kitchen shears help A LOT. I found these step-by-step directions very helpful. Here's Maxime, wearing his most appropriate shirt, covering the rabbit meat in mustard for marination and cooking:
I HIGHLY recommend trying this recipe out, if you've got some time on your hands. The stock takes quite a while to make (4-5 hours when done right -- we condensed the time down to 2.5 hours) and you should let the rabbit marinate for a few hours in the mustard. I have to say, though, it was a lot of fun and the rabbit was AMAZING and so effing delicious. If you can get your hands on some, do so!
After an outrageous delay, we're back! Maxime, Rostom, and I teamed up for this threeway edition of the show about gay men's health told from the perspective of three bottomless bottoms. We had to film the episode TWICE because of some foul play with the audio, and you'll notice the formatting is a bit funky via Youtube. Both of these things will be rectified in future editions. I think what we came up with still turned out pretty darn good! Enjoy!
I have to say, after picking up some fresh raspberries at the Farmer's Market, I felt compelled to try my hand at this recipe for New York-style cheesecake from Food Network's site in preparation for filming yesterday. It was absolutely delicious! Truly marvelous. I followed the recipe to a T, and the only thing I would have changed was reducing the time at 550 degrees at the start. I thought for sure it would overcook, but in reality the only change I think worth recommending is to reduce the time at high heat to 8 or 9 minutes (from the suggested 12 minutes). The crust burnt *just* a little bit -- not too bad. I also made some raspberry coulis to accompany it, which just required a quart of raspberries, a shot or two of raspberry liquor, sugar to taste, and a tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice. Cook it all over medium heat until it all comes together into a seedy sauce, let cool, chill in the fridge, and serve on top! Try it! It's lovely.
Last night, Maxime, Rostom, and I all sat down to film a new threeway edition of "The View From the Bottom"! Yea! It turned out splendidly -- even though we have to film it TWICE because the audio goofed during the first round. Alas, the fresh apple juice martinis I made were long gone by the time we filmed the second round -- but there was still raspberry coulis-topped cheesecake to go around! The episode will be up tomorrow morning!
Tonight for my "Sociology of Sexuality" class, I'm teaching a sizable chunk of David Halperin's important work on Foucault, Saint Foucault. I came across this quote while preparing that I thought was fabulous. Enjoy your Friday!:
"If there is something self-affirming and indeed liberating about coming out of the closet, that is not because coming out enables one to emerge from a state of servitude into a state of untrammeled liberty. On the contrary: to come out is precisely to expose oneself to a different set of dangers and constraints, to make oneself into a convenient screen onto which straight people can project all the fantasies they routinely entertain about gay people, and to suffer one's every gesture, statement, expression, and opinon to be totally an irrevocably marked by the overwhelming social significance of one' so openly acknowledged homosexual identity. If to come out is to release oneself from a state of unfreedom, that is not because coming out constitutes an escape from the reach of power to a place outside of power: rather, coming out puts into play a different set of power relations and alters the dynamics of personal and political struggle. Coming out is an act of freedom, then, not in the sense of liberation but in the sense of resistance."
-- David Halperin (1995). Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 30.
Whilst cooking dinner last night I cut my hand open. Ouch. Not a huge wound, but deep. Still bleeding when I woke up. On my way to doc now to prolly get stitches. Gross. More later!
UPDATE: Yep, it's stitches. Ugh! I hate blood / surgery / etc. See a gross photo of it in all its glory after the jump!
I am LOVING the new turquoise-blue color I painted my bathroom this past weekend (it looks pretty blue in the photo -- but it's got just a touch of turquoise). It used to be the most godawful color of dead flesh / grey-white nastiness. Ugh. I hated being in my bathroom -- so depressing. So I went out and bought me a quart of paint and got down to business. And my efforts paid off. It looks beautiful! Sigh. God bless color!
And what better present than to have my blog back up and running. Thank goodness!
Tonight I get to teach Gayle Rubin's "Thinking Sex" article alongside a chapter from Michael Warner's "The Trouble With Normal" for my Sociology of Sexuality class. Fun times!
It's been around since 1835, but this July Ann Arbor News will cease publication and reopen as an online newspaper that prints a twice-weekly print edition. A curious choice of restructuring, for sure. Obviously, many lament news like this as sign that society is further self-destructing. Others have surely run down to the store to hoard copies of their precious NY Times before it too becomes a thing of the past.
I've never been sold on the idea that newspapers disappearing was quite as catastrophic as people make it out to be. I certainly appreciate the value of an in-hand analysis of world events and politics. That I get. But it's not automatically clear that we won't still have access to this kind of information via the Internet, or that new technologies won't emerge to fulfill that need. Such as an in-hand, digital newspaper that updates itself and resembles paper -- which has been proposed but is obviously many many years away.
Some have argued that investigative journalism is one of the things that has been cut back on since newspapers began to gut their budgets -- and this seems to ring true. There will be things that will change as technology shifts. And we do indeed stand to lose some things. That's for sure. But we need to grow up and realize that technological change is NOT the first sign of imminent apocalypse. We're smack dab in the middle of a radical shift in the way information is produced, shared, and consumed -- the kind of shift not seen since the invention of the printing press. It makes sense that we have anxieties about that change, as people generally do in any time of radical social transformation.
But while some of these anxieties may be well-founded, most of it amounts to a senseless moral panic. Really people: get off your pretentious intellectual, NY Times-reading, self-righteous crusade about the death of intellectualism and forthcoming end of the world. I promise that the world is not ending. And that there will be smart people still when things settle. They may just not be as able to stash a copy of the NY Times in their messenger bags to evidence their intellectual superiority.
Wew-hew! I just got news that I was admitted into The University of Michigan's School of Public Health for their Masters in Public Health program! For all my "Resisting Public Health," this may seem to be an odd choice to some -- but I've got three primary reasons for applying:
1) Ethnographic: If I'm going to "resist" public health -- or offer new strategies for rethinking its goals, strategies, etc -- then I'd better understand how PH folk think.
2) Legitimization: Folks in PH can easily write of my critique if they think I don't know what I'm talking about. Having an MPH will help legitimize my analysis to those within the field.
2) Job Market: And then on the "real world" side of things, having an MPH will make me an even stronger candidate when I (eventually) finish my PhD. Current grad date: 2014. Sigh. That's a long time from now!
To celebrate my French friend Rostom's birthday, me and some friends are headed down to Chicago for a week of fabulousness. Expect some fun photos to come! Yay!!! I can't wait to get the FUCK out of Ann Arbor! Even if the high temp in Chicago tomorrow is supposed to be 10 degrees. Sigh. Can't win 'em all! At least it'll be snow-free.
So perhaps one of the only luxuries available to us as graduate students in Ann Arbor is the lovely little establishment "Oasis Hot Tubs," which rents out themed outdoor tubs that are quite lovely. It's quite fabulous, and I insisted that after we thoroughly enjoyed our last trip the first week back we make a return to celebrate MLK weekend. Let's face it: when it's negative 17 degrees outside, a bit of steam and bubbles in necessary to survive! As the photos prove, we had a *fabulous* time. Lots of smiles and laughter. The photo of Maxime above is truly magnificent. I'm proud to have taken it. Here's some more photos I liked from the day:
My friend Maxime popped over today for a delicious tranny movie night. First, Myra Breckinridge, featuring Raquel Welch (and a pseudo-lesbian scene with a new actress by the name of Farah Fawcett) and Mae West. Then, a bizarre slasher flick by the name of Sleepaway Camp. Ridonc. But Mae West in Myra was fantabulous. See for yourselves:
My sincerest apologies to my neighbors. I believe Nat and I were dancing to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" at this point.... 2:30 AM? Oy. But isn't that photo kinda fierce? Totally worth disturbing the peace.
You won't believe my butch yelling! This video tracks the end of the march, with 400-some Michiganders filling the Diag to protest inequality. "What do we want?" "Equal rights!" "When do we want 'em?" "NOW!"
Some more of my butch yelling! :) And protesters, too!
Organizers addressing the rally before the march, including a city councilwoman!
Oh but there's more! I shot a lot of footage today! Want more? Here's the links:
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Pam's House Blend
She's a fabulous North Carolinian blogging about politics, LGBT and women's rights, the influence of the far Right, and race relations. What more can I say?
