Strangely Socialised

Or, Why I Wasn’t Keen On This Week’s Top Chef

My problem wasn’t that they used a wedding theme, because a) historically they’ve done it before, including a gay wedding, and b) they are in Vegas. I don’t think it was inappropriate or disrespectful to the chefs, though I certainly see Ashley’s point. (Being Canadian, the issue is not the same here, but it wasn’t always that way.) It bears mentioning that I thought she was very articulate and well-reasoned in her objections, and after making them then went and did the best possible job for the happy couple that she could without ever for a moment being disrespectful to them.

And my problem wasn’t that they had a boys vs. girls challenge, even though I don’t particularly like them and in a male-dominated profession they seem particularly out of place, even when the numbers on the actual show allow for it. Jen’s argument, while brief and pointed, was well said. But on a show like Top Chef, where they use any number of ways to divide the chefs into teams, it wasn’t unexpected.

My problem was that they used a boys vs. girls challenge in juxtaposition with a marriage challenge. As a viewer, I think they would have to have tried very hard to make a more pointed statement that marriage is between a man and a woman. I don’t think that was their intention. I think that someone had – as Tom Colicchio points out in his blog post about this episode – the cute idea that men entertain at the women’s party and women entertain at the men’s party and no one ever stopped to actually think about how sexist that in itself is, or how these choices kept underlining the point that only (heterosexual) men are on one side and only (heterosexual) women are on the other, and that’s the way it is.

As a queer viewer, while I enjoyed the rest of the elements of the show – I’m in this for the cooking after all, and there was plenty of good food to be virtually had – I was taken aback at how ill-thought-out and, frankly, classless, this whole challenge was.

So I just made some Jell-O. This probably wouldn’t be a notable event, except I’ve never made Jell-O before. I’m twenty-eight years old and I’ve never found occasion to mix up a batch of Jell-O. Even when we were making Jell-O shots, I was in charge of the booze, not the jelly bits.

Turns out it’s not too difficult, as boiling water is not beyond my kitchen skills. That is, making it is not difficult. Checking it every five minutes, jiggling the bowl, asking ‘is it done yet?’… that’s difficult.

No wonder I usually make instant pudding.

Have come to the conclusion that I drink too many chillattes from Second Cup. But they’re so good! I have bad luck with getting watery Frappuccinos from Starbucks (well, all two of them, since we never used to have Starbucks here) but the chillattes from the place right across the street from my office are to die for. I need to be independently wealthy, and skinny, so I can have one every day and not feel the slightest twinge of guilt about it.

Spent the weekend out at mom’s farm, which is always nice, even though the actual reason I was there was for a board meeting yesterday. A board meeting that was short by our standards (“only” four hours) but which did not go well. Trouble is brewing and I don’t think I’ll be able to stay out of it, much as I would like to. Not much sense going into it here, since it is both uninteresting and not something I’m going to want to remember about years down the road, but it involves a board member taking advantage of her position and that’s just not cool.

It was 35 yesterday, without factoring in humidity, and I was longing for just one air conditioned room in the place. I had to settled for stripping down naked (uh, after the meeting) and lying in front of a fan. It did the trick, even though there went an hour I didn’t get to spend with mom. My visits there are never long enough, but there’s a fine line, for us, between enough and too much. The wedding is next Friday, though, so I’ll be back there soon.

Which reminds me, should probably start seriously thinking about finding myself something to wear to that.

Wrote a couple of new scenes for a story I’m working on during my trip. Which sounds good, but really isn’t when you consider I was on the bus for a total time of about five hours, and should have been able to write a hell of a lot more than a couple scenes. But a couple scenes is better than none, and I should probably be thankful for that. Sometimes these things come, and sometimes they just don’t.

Had an intersting conversation at lunchtime the other day. Went to Big Al’s for burgers with the work crew (great burgers, man) and Jason was talking about his weekend jaunt to Carlos and Murphy’s with Stephen. Apparently Stephen knew one of the guys who worked there, who took them down the basement and showed the a tunnel that ran right under Osborne. It was blocked up, and the health department wouldn’t let them open it, for very good reasons.

Which got us to talking about downtown Winnipeg. Beneath the streets, there’s just a labyrinth of tunnels which have been constructed over the last hundred or hundred and fifty years. In a city like this, you want to stay indoors as much as possible, and at one point everything was connected. There are still underground tunnels that I use every day to get to and from work, but they’re only a tiny, tiny porition of what’s out there, just the reinforced parts that are still in use, and have been made into, basically, a shopping mall.

I always think about those kinds of things being in cities that aren’t here, being in old European or Middle Eastern cities where there are catacombs and all nature of forgotten passages. Abandoned subway tunnels in NYC. Things like that. But there’s a lot right here in my home city, too. Things that are forgotten until someone stumbles across them again. And me with a huge fascination for forgotten things.

Just did a quick yoga workout, about fifteen minutes or so, mostly back stretches, and it did wonders for my tension headache. Not getting rid of it completely, since part of it is allergy-triggered, but enough that I can function again. God bless yoga.