I cook the occasional dinner for my friend The Irish Rose, better known as "The Rose." He travels a lot, and he's not in town that often, but we do manage to get together every month or two for a bland dinner of creamy foods followed by an hour or two of Star Trek. I have always had nerdy male friends and cool male friends and somehow he combines the best of both camps, someone so side-splittingly funny that he can make me howl over his original lines but also someone who can imitate the best of Captain Kirk. What he can do with The Transformed Man will make you laugh yourself into a coma, not that Shatner needs any help with that. I cook. He eats. We drink. We watch something, mocking it severely, our own version of MST 3000. He leaves. I wash the dishes and start planning the next meal. Sometimes we meet up at swank hotels--the Raffles Bar is a favorite--and we are working our way through the cocktail menu at Paul's. After he's fully loaded he gets up and goes home to the wife and kiddies, who are all adorable and are probably used to Daddy coming home from Zanne's house full of cream sauce, potatoes, and bourbon. (At least he's smiling.) I have yet to see him vomit, but I do know he once got so drunk he couldn't walk, a story best told live.
So, we're having our monthly dinner, and he texts to tell me he's bringing a friend. Mild panic due to two reasons: first, I have just thrown out my back and am hobbling around using a cane for support, and two, I have just moved into a new unfurnished flat and while I have three kitchen chairs and a small table, I have no sofa and only one armchair. I texted back, suggesting we meet downtown. He replies that they're in the mood for home cooking and that they can sit on the floor. This is what sweetens the pot: the other guest, someone I have met a handful of times over the past ten years, is a male gigolo. (Why the "male" is added, I don't know: aren't female gigolos simply called whores?) He's gorgeous, he's British, he speaks fluent Chinese, and he's a London boy toy for the Mayfair set.
I'm not sure what to serve. The local market has chicken, but they don't have very good potatoes. I know The Rose was hoping for mashed potatoes and some sort of white sauce, but they don't have cream around here (I live in the sticks) and more than that, what DO you serve a gigolo? Isn't he used to champagne? Does pasta seem right to you? Surely beef steaks, filet mignon, foie gras, bleu cheese? Not here at the local Carrefour's. Plus, my back is killing me and I want to take it easy.
Well, the market downstairs has cucumbers and tomatoes, so I can make a simple marinated salad of fresh cukes and tomato slices splashed with Mint Sauce (really, just malt vinegar, mint, and a bit of sugar.) That will go well with just about anything and no one hates it (yet.) I'll make mashed potatoes, since I have a very good ricer, and I guess I can get chicken breasts and drumsticks (white and dark meat) and make a simple dish, chicken first simmered with a bay leaf with a bit of water until almost done, then fried in butter until it's golden all over. Easy enough to do on a two-burner gas stove (which I refer to as "cooking on blow torches".) Starters? Screw 'em. The Rose doesn't particular like cheese and both of them will be into the family sized bottle of Jameson's I've kept for such an occasion the moment they walk through the door. I wish I could get a loaf of decent bread--wish I had more butter, more cream, time to make a head of curried cauliflower...But I don't, and my back hurts, and the hell with them for making me cook. Plus, even if I had wonderful resources, I don't know what Gigolo boy likes to eat. I'm guessing that like many Brits he prefers the creamy and bland to a dish like my spicy Chile Con Carne, which uses beef and pork and takes two days to cook. I could make a killer curry dish, but Rose has stated he wants "nursery food" and that's what he'll get. I do have one good thing going, however: I made my famous 1-2-3 cake last night, in chocolate, each cupcake with a secret filling of raspberry jam, with a discreet bittersweet chocolate glaze. There's a bottle of dessert wine too that my gay boyfriend Scott brought back from Paris. It should do, right? If only I had wine glasses (not yet unpacked.) Or better pain killers. Or...
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