Ok, lets close this review up

Final stretch...

Four meals in the Toughest Strip Club in LA is just what it sounds like.  Honestly, not that much about food here, but I did learn a new cocktail.  The ingeniously-named "Adios, Motherfucker", a long island with blue curucao instead of triple sec and 7up instead of coke.  According to one of the dancers, its 'all the rage in Paris.'  That was the single best thing I read in this mag.

The Breast Giveth- Is a discussion of milk and food that comes from it, with recipes.  Forgettable, but there is a cool frozen yogurt version of Key Lime Pie i'd like to try.

Make Yourself Useful- is a kind of unsettling story about a trek through the jungle killing and stuffing exotic birds.  Not really for me, but you might find it interesting.

Meat Maids is a nasty photo-essay of some butcher women in Ho Chi Mihn's Chinatown.  They must not like ice or refrigerators there.

Amaranth is a short story about a girl in an awful situation taking control of it in a very negative way.  A good read, but frankly disturbing.  Don't see what it was doing in Lucky Peach, but I read it and I'm glad I did.

Then, a couple of mom's meatloaf recipes.  Pretty standard, but I love the way they are written.  Real cooks talking to real cooks.  You should check this one out.  Ignore the photo of the dude in red trunks.

Then a really, really weird article about sexual reproduction from Harold McGhee.  A little too technical for me, but it raised some interesting points about the future of genetically modified produce.

And lastly, a bizarre little piece about turtle scrotum tea, which Jamaicans (apparently) drink for enhanced sexual male performance.  Should have been on the man side.



That's all babe.  Some of it was a little silly, but there was good in there.  I can't wait to talk about the next issue.

Lucky Peach Gender Issue Review Part II

Ok, we continue.

Next feature (continuing on the male side): The First Cut is the Deepest
-Okay, this one is a little gross, but culinarily, it is the most interesting of the issue so far.  It discusses the capon industry.  (A capon is a rooster that is castrated as a chick.  They grow big, mild, and tender.)  The article talks about what to do with all of the extra testicles.  This is a little nasty, but I sincerely believe that as custodians of meat, we need to understand the nasty parts of the business, too.  And after that, there is a food feature with a chef from Quebec, and I am really, really into Quebecoise cuisine these days.  Good recipes, even if one of them is rooster-testicle cassoulet.


-Food Ain't Nothing but Sex Misspelled- This is a series of vaguely pornographic drawings featuring food and sex.  Kind of a waste of paper.


And then, the feature that bridges the gap between the male and female sides, appropriately, an article about sea creatures that spontaneously change sex.  Not interesting in the slightest, once you get past the initial shock of the concept.

And then I started the female side:

-As Alice Sees It- A short piece on Alice Waters and being a woman running a restaurant.  Not that cool. I feel like it would have been better to interview a woman who is in the kitchen NOW, not the 1970s.  Her story has already been told.

-Great Chefs Around the World- By Naomi Duguid (one of the all-time great cookbook authors OF THE WORLD), a short piece celebrating the accomplishments of Burmese housewives, who make literally everything from scratch, every day, with no gadgets or anything.  Makes one feel great respect for women, but the sexism is a little hard to swallow.  Not that that is the fault of the article, she is just reporting the way it is.

Then a piece on the Haenyo Divers, Korean old women who dive for abalone.  Not super interesting, but it is cool to read about such a roughneck job that is traditionally girls-only.

Next, Pussy Rules- An interview with a big bad black lady that works the night shift at The Wiener's Circle in Chicago.   This was cool to read, because these girls are LEGENDARY.  Being from Chicago, I have heard all about this place, its been around forever.

And I will end on this one,

Dick Soup, by Fuchsia Dunlop.  She is an authority on regional Chinese cooking (she is British, but whatever).  I like her writing and have a bit of a crush.  Anyway, she wrote a long article about eating soup made from animal penis, which the Chinese are into.  Kind of a funny article, with a recipe that starts out by calling for Stag Penis.

NEWSFLASH!!!!!  In deference to you, I have been scouring this magazine for anything actually insulting or offensive, and this is the first I have found.  The article itself was well-written and respectful, but I protest it going onto the women's side.  Penis soup is made of male parts, and traditionally eaten by men.  And yet, they put in on the female side of the issue, presumably because female readers are more interested in having dicks in their mouths?  Which is, admittedly, heterocentric.  So I admit, darlin, I did find one thing that was actually disrespectful for gays, lesbians, and anyone else who might have a non-traditional stance on dick-sucking.

Thats all for now.

Lucky Peach, Gender Issue Part 1

Okay, so here is the deal.  Lucky Peach has always meant a lot to me, and not in the least because I was turned on to it by my sweet little sister.  And now, my sweet little sister, playing to stereotype as the easily offended gay woman, has gotten her little tail-feathers in a ruffle and I must defend the Lucky Peach.  It is too emblematic of our friendship to be dismissed so easily...

So what I'm doing is reading each article, and letting you know what you just can't miss.  A lot of it is silly, kinda shoe-horned in to fit the theme, but some of it is cool and so far, none of it has been offensive in the slightest.

Do I think the concept on the whole was kind of dumb?  Yes, of course.  But I think they just got the idea for the cover and went for it.  And as far as you not wanting to see naked men or whatever, please remember that 90% of the population is totally at peace with encountering both sets of equipment throughout our lives.  So lets not be homocentric, my darlin' dear...  :-)

I started with the male side (because I am a chauvinist, of course)

1) The Ten Manliest Meals In America- Tony Bourdain writes an essay about the futility of discovering the 'Manliest' food in the country.  Cute, but skippable.  Interestingly, it sort of makes the point that gender-fueled food journalism is silly by definition.  An intriguing way to start a collection of gender fueled journalism...

2)Dad #1- A long, boring piece on how an Australian chef is able to balance home life and work.  Dullsville.  Don't read this one, not because its offensive, but because you could be reading something engaging instead.

3)America, Your Food is So Gay- A fun little essay about how American cuisine was shaped by 3 gay food writers, Craig Clairborne, James Beard, and Richard Olney.  Read this, and then consider reading some of those guys' works.  Clairborne's stuff is kind of dated, a lot of New York Times cookbooks, not a lot of soul.  However, Richard Olney's stuff is great in that it shows real attitude about the French country gastronomic way of life, kind of like Elizabeth David, who you should also check out.  And James Beard's American Cuisine is THE definitive work on the subject, from the era of the founding fathers up until the gastronomic revolution of the 1970's.

4) In Bloom- A piece about cooking with flowers (which is on the male side because flowers are plant penises...I think).  Interesting.  Nothing earth-shattering about flowers, but they do touch on some cool techniques in practice.  Worth reading, if only to drive home the point that flowers don't taste like much, and require flavorful dishes behind them to highlight them.

5) Wow, this Guy Can Really Cook-  A kind of pointless essay on how John Ritter's character on Three's Company helped push the image of the male chef in America.  I'm too young to remember Three's Company, so I can't imagine you'd get much out of it, plus you and I have grown up in an era where male chefs are the norm.  A historical footnote, nothing more.

6)Horseradish: A Gentleman's Condiment- Fluff piece about a guy that makes handmade horseradish at a market stall.  Inspirational in a do-it-your-self kinda way, but hardly fits the theme.  Good pictures.

7)Deliverance- A collection of interviews with Chinese food deliverers.  Nothing unexpected here.  Just tales of bad tippers, low wages, and long hours.  I was expecting something crazier.  Kinda boring.

8)Hieronymous Beef a la Orange, Christmas Pudding, and the Supernatural Food of Bachelor Mountain Ascents- A trippy piece about mountain climbing.  I don't know why this went on the male side.  Im sure there are female climbers, too, and their camp cooking is just as rough.  The recipes were kind of fun.  Recipes for orange beef and christmas pudding using only trail supplies...  If that grabs you, check it out.

AAAAAAAAAaaaaand, thats as far as I've gotten.  Let me know if you read any of these, and I will post again in a couple of days.