As defined by The New Food Lover's Companion, an "amuse bouche" [ ah-mewz-BOOSH ] is a French derivative for "appetizer," typically referring to a small one- or two-bite portion of something special or exotic to tickle the tastebuds. Such offerings are not on the menu and are presented to diners before the meal begins.
Just as the definition explains, this column, Amuse Bouche, is meant to inspire your appetite, getting you out of your daily hum drum routine of turkey sandwiches and bar food, and into the world of culinary exploration. We live in the age of five-dollar foot longs and over-priced restaurant experiences, paying to wait in overcrowded rooms for a taste of something over-processed and unhealthy—completely forgetting about family, friends, and the simple joys of cooking at home. Instead of bringing you reviews of the latest and best restaurants, this column is meant to shed light on what food means to the LGBT community.
Entering the kitchen in earnest nearly 10 years ago in order to relieve some of the pressure of parenting from her partner, Ames writes from a queerly traditional notion of family and what it means to cook and to create home. Ames considers cooking to be a definite form for gender expression, believing that nurturing others with food is foundational to making family. Having, during this decade, come to consider genderqueer, transgender and lesbian to be alternately suitable labels for her personal experience, Ames believes that food can always provide a cornerstone for community.
Working in restaurants since the age of 16, Greg Perrine, 22, has seen his fair share of rude bosses, roaches and ridicule when it comes to the food industry. Finally fed up with wasting money on things he could make better at home, he took to exploring food and wine, coming up with The Perfect Pair, a food blog at www.pairperfect.blogspot.com . Having a boyfriend of three years, and finally coming out to his father this past summer, Greg is exploring what it means to be young, gay, and hungry.
Because it is our intention to provide the reader with more than recipes or reviews, we have decided to present a series of columns that, though capable of standing alone, also work together to address a particular them or idea associated with cooking and food. Writers Ames Hawkins and Greg Perrine will alternate columns in nine-week cycles, offering their differing perspectives and recipes associated with a particular thematic arc. As our first focus, we offer stories, recipes and reflection that serve to reframe a definition of family, how the notion of family is connected with community. How family tastes to us both, how we use it to season our lives, to satisfy our hunger in what we hope to share.
All people eat, but we want you to know how we understand what it means to cook queer! It is our goal to inspire you to choose to perhaps stay home a little more often, cook for your friends, those you consider to be family; for family who you feel could be your friends. We write out of a conviction of the power of food to bring people together, to create community, to form family.
