I personally believe that cooking is more than an act that enables us to feed our bodies. It nourishes our souls, allows us to offer love to our partners, connect with our friends, and dance in the decadence between the bites. We are questing magi with olive oil and garlic in hand, shamans armed with flour and nutmeg to ward off angry spirits.

Thus I believe in the art of edible alchemy. We have the power to transform base ingredients to a higher purpose, and in my recipes I prefer to thus share more than the ingredients that went in. This first recipe in the Edible Alchemy series thus came to me when given an opportunity to sustain the lives, friendships and joys of friends and more of mine in Maine.

Needed for this recipe:

• 30 minutes (or an hour if you will be reading a book or simultaneously dealing with email while doing the initial food prep)

• 3 people whose hearts and lives you want to feed (hopefully including yourself)

• 6 asparagus stalks (7 if one of them reminds you of an ex-boyfriend that you once had back in London... long, hard, straight...)

• 3 slices of smoked bacon (best if obtained from a corner shop where people know your name, and if not possible, drooled over for a few days so that the potency of your desire for more tasty bacon is boiling in your blood)

• 6 eggs from happy chickens

• One tomato

• A handful of cilantro

• Bag of mixed spring greens

• Sourdough bread leftover from last night's feasting

• Parmesean cheese

• 3 splashes of milk

• Olive oil

• Applewood smoked sea salt

• Cracked black pepper

• 2 cloves fresh garlic

• One nonstick saucepan

• One nonstick frying pan with lid

• One mixing bowl

• One garlic press

• One slotted wood spoon

• One whisk

• One flipper/turner

• a heap of love and sense of humor

Wander into the kitchen while your friends who have been hosting you for the week are upstairs packing their bag for the conference you are all heading towards. It is best if you packed your bags the night before so that after breakfast you can do the dishes and they can continue their panic with full bellies and full hearts. Once in the kitchen get yourself a beverage of your choice (I recommend Moroccan mint tea) and take a deep breath. Absorb one last day in their space and say a prayer under your breath for coming back to Maine and visiting them again. Obviously, if you are not in Maine, insert a location that gives you pleasure... especially if it is your own home- for our own homes should give us pleasure.

Clear off the food prep space and set dirty dishes in the sink to do later. Or do them now, but if so, adjust cooking time above. Run your fingers over the wood cutting board and thank the tree that gave its life as you set out your ingredients and begin your work.

Cut the bacon into small chunks. Bite-size or smaller. This is an art, not a science. As it sticks to your fingers laugh under your breath at the voices upstairs asking where the books that need to be taken were stored. Peel the garlic and set them aside.

Heat up the saucepan with some drizzled olive oil in it to some middle temperate and be amazed at how nifty their flat topped stove is. Press the garlic into the heated oil and mix it around with the wood spoon, being delighted as the garlic hits your nose and the folks upstairs proclaim “yum” within seconds of oil and garlic sensually embracing each other in the pan. Toss in the bacon once the garlic is tan like the girl you had that secret crush on back in Austin. Enjoy the crackle of their threesome, stirring regularly.

While the bacon crisps, start cutting up the asparagus into chunks that make you happy. Be amused about the one that looks like your ex boyfriend. Cut it up anyway. Toss it in with the bacon/olive oil/garlic to create an orgy for the senses.

Put a lid on it, adding a splash of water as you do so to help steam the asparagus while it fries. Keep the eyes on the back of your head on it to make sure nothing sticks or burns to the saucepan... you will have to use that spoon and mix it up from time to time.

Slice up the tomato. Rinse and mince up the handful of cilantro. Slice the 3 pieces of bread from the sourdough round and set these all aside. Check on the orgy.

In the mixing bowl, crack two eggs and add a splash of milk. Make cute patterns in the milk if it makes you happy.

The add some flavored salt. I prefer the Applewood Smoked Salt, but any flavorful smoky salt will work. Brands I enjoy include Artisan Salt Company in Washington and Auntie Arwen's in Connecticut.

Whisk with abandon. Take the orgy off of heat and let it lay in its own afterglow.

Heat up the frying pan to medium heat. Pour in the egg mixture so that it is even across the base. Let it bubble a bit. Put some water in the edge of the lid (not much at all) then pour it slowly down the side of the pan and quickly put the lid on top. This steams the eggs.

Once the eggs look firm, Take the slotted wood spoon (to drain off the oil) and take about a third of the asparagus bacon mix to put on the left side (right side if a lefty) of the omelet. Add a few pinches of cilantro. Add some slices of tomato. Add some Parmesan cheese. Take a picture (optional).

Grab the flipper and slowly slip it under one side, make an offering to the universe to have this go well, and fold the omelet. I tend to break one out of five or so... so have the broken one be yours when you sit down to eat. Its just as tasty.

Lay out your plates, put on a handful of salad on each, and slide the first omelet onto the first plate. Accidentally drop the bag of salad as you try to put it back in the fridge and have the dogs descent upon it all. This is of course when one of your hosts will come in and let out a howling laughter at it all. Curse it all and ask him to grab a broom. While you repeat the omelet making steps above (minus dropping the salad as that is all done)- bowl, whisk, pour, steam, layer, fold, plate- let him know that its his job to make coffee if the house wants it as he has the coffee magic. Put laughter in kitchen on repeat.

Plate the 2^nd and 3^rd omelets. While the 3^rd one is steaming, throw the bread in the toaster. Set the flavored salt and the pepper on the table and do other table prep. Tell everyone that food is served in 1 minute. Correct yourself and say 2 minutes.

Tell them out loud how much they mean to you. Smile and consume each others joy between bites of asparagus bacon omelet. Leave with a full belly and a full heart.

Technorati Tags: cooking, DIY, edible alchemy, home, how-to, meditation, recipe

On Monday, I learned how to knit and it feels absolutely liberating! I'm pretty awful at it so far, but I'm just plugging along getting better the more I work at it. Is knitting a queer thing? Is it just a feminist thing? Why do so many queer/feminist people knit? I've heard people talk about Western society collapsing, and going back to a society where everything is pretty much done by hand... Is that why people knit? So that we will have clothes after the demise of machinery? That's pretty unlikely though...

Well, for whatever reason, queers and feminist are learning to stitch and I think it's fantastic. I thought needle crafts would be a femme thing, given that it's been a pastime dominated by females for lord knows how long, but it's not! My lovely butch lady and I spend many hours cross-stitching, a butch couple we know also spends quality time together crocheting, and tonight I met all manner of people on the gender spectrum at knitting circle. It has come pretty easily to me, since I have crocheted, cross-stitched, and sewed for so many years. So, after my first five days of knitting, I give you my top five reasons for loving needle crafts:

5. It's communal - stitching alone is sorta like drinking alone... it just shouldn't be done.

4. You can talk and stitch at once, so you have lots of time to plan world domination using needles and yarn/fabric as your only weapons.

3. There's always someone new, and sometimes it's you! I don't make friends easily, but if nothing else, you can talk about stitching!

2. Stitching takes your mind off the craziness of the world, it's rhythmic, repetitive and methodical and I find that very soothing.

1. The final product was made by your hands every step of the way. Your crafts make special gifts and they give you a sense of pride in your own handiwork.

After this week, I think I'm starting to see how stitching can be a kind of feminist activism, where we are making things for ourselves rather than buying into consumer culture. Read up on the feminist power of knitting in "Stitch n Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook."

Technorati Tags: activism, book, Craft, DIY, feminism, feminist activism, femme, femme clothing, gender, needle crafts, quality time, queer, society, world domination

If you listened to my interview with Trouble (creator, owner and photographer for NoFauxxx.com) on RadioDentata (you can go directly to my player here), you already know what I'm about to say.

If you missed it, you can listen to it tonight at 9pm EST (6pm PST), or again at 3am EST (Midnight PST). She has lots of great things to say about the concepts of queer, of feminism, of sex-positivism, and so much more.

But one of the most exciting things she said? She's going to give away a three-month membership to NoFauxxx.com. THREE MONTHS. That includes all the photo sets and videos on the site. And because I just shot with them while I was in San Francisco, it means you get to see really cute pictures of me naked in a kitchen...and masturbating on the stove!

How do you enter? Comment here, or on my podcast, or shoot me an email at essinem at gmail dot com. Trouble and I want to know what queer means to YOU. You can write it out, you can send a video, a picture, etc. Please know that if you submit, your definition of queer may be posted here, read on my show, etc.

I need a name (doesn't have to be your real one for the submission), and an email where I can contact you. You'll need to be willing to give Trouble all your info, should you win.

THREE MONTHS OF HOT, NAKED, QUEER and ALTERNATIVE people. Does it get much better than that?

So comment, email, what have you. Because we want to get lots of responses, you have until February 28th to enter. A whole month. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your partner(s). My set goes up around the 14th, so if you win, you'll definitely get to see me naked (and if you don't want to wait, or if you don't win, you can always sign up for affordable memberships as well!)

Ready. Set. Go. We can't wait to see what you have to say about what queer is to YOU.

And make sure you check out my show tonight, if you haven't heard her interview already!

-Essin' Em

Technorati Tags: contest, Essin' Em, femme, gender, giveaway, nofauxxx, queer, swag, trouble

Well, we didn't end up with a female president but Iceland is going to have a female Prime Minister...at least for a few months until elections can be held...and get this, she's gay!

Johanna Siguardardottir, Iceland's social affairs minister, is set to become the country's interim prime minister after month's of governmental struggles following the country's banks collapse last fall . The AP's story led with the fact that she is a  former flight attendant, union organizer and that she is openly gay.However, I found it much more interesting that she has a long background in Icelandic liberal politics. She has been a member of Althingi (the Parliament) since 1978, was Minister of Social Affairs in 1987 until 1994, and again in 2007. She is one of the most popular politicians in the country as noted in a recent Gallup poll that revealed 73 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with her work. She is also the only minister whose popularity had increased compared to a similar poll undertaken in December 2007.Which all leads me to wonder if the AP headline of flight attendant was a slur...(why would they do that, when being a flight attendant is a highly respected field?)...or that they were just trying to make a point that she started out life as an average Jane? (Just to be clear, she was actually a flight attendant in the late 60's, early 70's for Loftleidir Airlines now Icelandic Air)

Let's face it, politics are politics and prejudices are prejudices; and until our media sources can get over their prejudices, we are going to be stuck when them molding the ideas and viewpoints of generation after generation. I'll try to not get started on that soapbox since I try my best to not allow the media to make my choices for me and it so greatly angers me that so many people I know are so easily led...I'll save that for another post and just glory in this monumental feat for a bit longer...

So, at the moment Johanna Sigurdardottir, is being touted as the nation's most popular politician and will lead Iceland until new elections are held. Possibly in May. It is a sad note that few expect her from going from Interim Prime Minister to status as an elected Prime Minister.

So, what else could I find out about Sigurdardottir? She is the mother of two grown sons, is married to Icelandic writer and playwright Jonina Leosdottir, and by appearance appears to be Femme.

Links to more info:
Huffington Post
AOL
*photo credit: Vidskiptabladid

This April I'm going to be in Boston facilitating a queerly feminine storytelling workshop and would love to see you there!  I'm really excited about teaching this specific workshop and getting to spend an afternoon focused on creativity around femmes and queer femininity!   If you are in boston, or know folks in the Boston area who might be interested *please* pass the word along to them about the class!

xoxo

So admittedly I get a little bit dorky when I see anything butch/femme in the media-- I actually looked at butch/femme cinimatic represenation as part of my senior project as a women's studies undergrad. For me seeing butches and femmes in the media holds a special place in my heart in a world where I feel like the mediated representations of my community is so horribly skewed. 

I should admit that I have a LOVE of really cheesy lesbian movies.  One of the best things I have recently found (which is of course dangerious given the amount of writing i need to be doing) is netflix instent view----it's now mac compatable and means that i have hundreds and hundreds of movies right at my fingertips every day!!!!! it doesn't hurt that a ton of them are LGBTQ specific- which means i take way more movie chances when i know i won't have to wait two days for the mail to bring me a new one if it's a bad film. 

Over the weekend I watched the 2005 collection "The Ultimate Lesbian Short Film Festival" and as I expected it wasn't super great.....until I got to Meredyth Wilson's  "The Black Plum" and was completely transfixed.  The film revolves around a tomboy from a home that doesn't understand her.  There is a beautiful femme----- full of performativity down to the lace gloves!  She's watched out for by a magical femme from the moment of her birth. After the 'young one' falls picking fruit from a tree our femme hero drives the young tomboy off in a gorgious car to her mysterious home to introduce her to someone she 'might like to meet.' 

There the young tomboy meets the femmes' incredibly handsom  butch partner. Together they make a potion to heal her wounds from the fall, and she is given something even more important by the couple. The story has beautiful moments of survival, 'family,' and community.  It's a gorgious film that speaks to the importance of intergenerational queer kinship. Besides it's not everyday that you find a movie (even a really short one) where where the chemistry of butch/femme dynamics  is so visible and even rarer an actress performs femme in such a beautiful and authentic way.

this morning, I got called a whore by some girl on the street.  while the sentiment was not a nice one coming from her, I couldn’t help but appreciate that she had recognized me as someone different.  and not just different because I’m a blue-eyed gringa in this southern Mexico town.  different because of that little extra… brazenness.

I think it was the brazenness she picked up on anyway.  today I’m decked out in red and black.  red cowboy boots, matching red bracelets lining my arm, big rings and low cut shirt that shows off just the right amount of cleavage, a bird taking flight from my collar bone in a sea of coppery red.  not exactly standard issue around here.

of course, the best femme accessory I have is my walk: decidedly not standard issue anywhere.  the way I move is what I consider the most noticeable part of my femme attire: a confident, not-hurried-but-I’m-going-somewhere, swing-the-hips-my-bubbe-gave-me, don’t-fuck-with-what-you-can’t-understand, swagger.  it is also what most frequently gets me into trouble.  coming or going, a confident walk garners more commentary than all the fabulous skirts and flashy heels in the world.

it is also what earns me the most looks of shielded or not-so-shielded disdain from women in this town, along with observations far more direct than the whistles and stares of men.

but the truth is, on some level I appreciate it. yes, it would make every day worlds better if I did not have to do self check-ins every morning against the clothes I choose to make sure I have the brain space to deal with all the attention I don’t want (I don’t always).  certainly I would prefer a world in which I could be femme as I am and also easily read as the queermo I am.  but if I can’t have the visibility I want as I want it, I can at least distinguish myself in some ways. “not normal” is better than “average” and as a femme I have always reveled in all the ways I can distinguish myself simply by being comfortable in myself.

honestly, when I moved here from NYC almost a year ago, I didn’t think I could feel much more invisible.  I carry few of the markers that butches and queers claim to look for to distinguish femmes: no tattoos, long (perhaps boring) hair, a personal abhorrence for rainbows.  I have piercing, but that is hardly a distinguishing marker these days.  I fancy my attitude and presence altogether telling of the fierce, hussy femme I am, but that does not appear to be a shared sentiment among the homos I pass on the streets, in the subway, even at meetings and trainings at queer organizations (oh!  how nice to have an ally here…)

i used to lament all of this with my femme friends at great length, but now i have passed through to a whole new realm of invisibility that makes my old, where-are-all-the-butches-who-appreciate-high-heels-and-lace laments seem laughable.  my darlings, I did not know what I had.  got ignored by butches at a gay bar?  at least there were butches and gay bars!

now, why a fierce, hussy femme would move from NYC to a small, conservative town in southern Mexico is of little importance.  call it an overdeveloped and desperate need for change (it was my 15th move in 4 years), but here i am.  what was not apparent to me, in the two months i took to transition from decision to reality, was how much of my identity would be, suddenly, erased from view.

I am a queer femme of course.  but also a feminist, a Jew, a community and labor organizer, a sex educator, an actress, a writer, leather and motorcycle fiend, an occasional sex worker.  I’m committed to anti-oppression organizing as a way of life, I believe theory is useless without practice, I challenge and expect challenges in return, I’m political and engaged.  I’m sex-positive, independent, working class and proud…  and if I didn’t advertise all of this every place I went while living in the US, I was also not ashamed or closeted about any of them, either.  like I said, brazenness is part of my so-called charm: you ask, we answer.

since moving here, though, things have changed.  it’s not that I have shed my shameless self, but now, I am careful.  I am now finding new ways to negotiate invisibility and self.  it’s the oldest femme game and now I find myself connecting it even more to the stories my bubbe has told me being “too Jewish and too loud”,  of being too ethnic or too ambitious or too passionate or too free.  here, I am dancing on the razor blade not only of sexuality, gender and expression, but also of religion, work, philosophy, rights, way of life.

when I talk loud, laugh out from the belly, I know I am sometimes seen as a loud gringa.  when I first moved here, I did all I could to curtail those impulses, to not be like one of those damned spring break types.  but, with time, I realized that wasn’t being fair to myself.  I’m a respectful, bi-lingual, loud-laughing person.  belly laughs are not the same as being an entitled, drunk, unthinking (la tipica) American.  shameless is not inherently the same as rude.

moreover, laughing loud, talking direct and with honesty is something I associate with almost all the admirable women I’ve ever known.  I am not going to shave that off in exchange for ‘women are to be seen and not heard’.  honey has things to say, you know?

the same happens when I talk about the jobs I used to do, the things I know and do.  like so many before, I applied for a job working at a vidrieria, working with glass and wood.  I was offered a secretarial position despite my experience in building and proficiency in more tools than the workshop contained.  later I found myself teaching some of the workers the right way to use L-brackets (they go under, not over) and quit shortly after.  a person has limits and my arguments with the boss lady to actually use my skills were unappreciated.  she didn’t believe I could possibly know what I was doing.

so I started to tell people about what i used to do: lead protests in big NYC hotels, for grocery workers in Arizona, for queers in Oregon, queer youth across the country, people living with HIV and AIDS in Boston.  the fact that I have ever done more than be a secretary or waitress is never asked about.  and, while it makes me uncomfortable to volunteer too much information about my past to anyone I don’t know, I have learned to, as another way to stay true to myself.  there is so much more to this complicated mess than what a person sees standing in front of them on any given day.

of course, there are struggles—this femme is not tefflon.  many days I wonder what the fuck I’m doing here, so far from family, from a place where, at least if I’m not always seen as femme, I’m seen as some of the parts of who I am.

but there’s always hope.  getting called a whore in the street wasn’t exactly the effect I was going for when I got dressed this morning, but when my gay bf calls me fierce I know at least someone gets it.  if no one understands what “Jewish” means, it is a chance to think about how I embody it, how I explain it, how I practice and who I invite in to see.  if I’m a marked feminist in a place where that is overwhelmingly a damning word, well, that’s nothing new.  there is a certain comfort in being reviled for something so infinitely yourself.  and if I’m femme in a place where “gay” is hardly spoken, at least I am still able to find ways to be flamboyantly me, myself complete.

I walk too freely to claim my body as my own. I am direct and empowered in my speech and actions, in my opinions, in my appearance, in my desires to do something very femme indeed: explore who I am and project whatever that is today into the world with as much strength and truth as I can.  and if I sometimes get called whore on the street, at least I am unrepentantly and shamelessly me.

"I love being fancy. My favorite color is fuchsia. That's a fancy way of saying purple. I like to write my name with a pen that has a plume. That's a fancy way of saying feather...Nobody in my family is fancy at all. They never even ask for sprinkles."

Some of my favorite mediated representations of femmes involve the ones that appear on the bright pages of picture books.  My favorite little bunch (who I'm planning on memorializing as part of a tattooed sleeve on my left arm) is Eloise, Olivia, and last but certainly not least the one and only Fancy Nancy.  These little darlings are the sorts of baby femmes that I wish I had been allowed the freedom to be! They are precocious, and eccentric, and oh so very very fabulous.

One of the things that I especially love about Fancy Nancy  is the way in which her excessive and weird femininity is so very very clearly performed.  I'm a big gender geek and for me femme isn't just about being "feminine" but it's bout doing so with intention. Her construction of gender bypasses the norms of appropriate femininity, which ultimately in my mind queers her as a character. She is performing what she calls "fancy" and what I would call "femme" through her eccentric behavior, dress, and views on the world she is making the world just a little cuter for the queerly feminine of all ages.

Alas like most things she was much better before she started getting somewhat popular (now there are a ton of "easy to read" stories which aren't as good as the original) but she's still pretty darned incredible.

I get sent a lot of sex toys to review. But as much as I love sex toys, I also love reading. I like reading erotica, I like reading sex writing, and I like reading educational books. SexToy.com understands my love and need for words on paper, and was kind enough to send me Two Knotty Boys -- Showing You the Ropes, another book for my collection on rope bondage.

I recently review Midori's book, the Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage, and I was excited to get another book on rope bondage for a different viewpoint, and new ideas.

The intro to this book wasn't very long, but it has the important bits. A mini-background on rope bondage, a well written list of "Dos and Don'ts" that I found easy to read and comprehend, and a few pages on the types of rope. I liked this section, as I don't know much about rope, and it gave an easy overview of the different materials (including their uses, pros, cons, etc), the best ways to clean and cut different types of rope, etc.

Next off, we have the rope itself. I really appreciate the step by step pictures. While I'm very good at visualizing things, it was awesome to have a guide to go along with the words, to make sure I was doing the right thing, and was on the right path. I also was excited to learn chain braiding, ideal for rope storage.

The rest of the book was divided into sections; the Knots (decorative and functional), Basic Bondage, Decorative Bondage (my favorite part-- there are some really interesting and really pretty ties in this section!), Dominance Bondage, and Sex Bondage. Each section has about seven or eight different ties, and shows you step by step, with both instructions and pictures, exactly how to accomplish that particular tie. Also, each tie tells you a little bit about how it should be used, whether it is ok for newbies or should be saved for seasoned (and/or bratty) rope veterans, what length of rope is needed, and what diameter of rope should be used.

Behind all of the ties is a reference section and a glossary, which really is a must for any type of kink or sexuality book, in my not so humble opinion.

I really like how the ties are laid out. It's easy to read, and to understand, and if I happened to need to keep a copy of it by my bed to check in as I did the ties, it's super simple to follow, even with a squirming partner right next to you.

I'm not the biggest fan of rope bondage...at times, it is beautiful, but to me, it is also very time consuming, and I tend to lose circulation very quickly, so for me it seems like not a lot of result for so much time and effort. However, after reading this book, I really want to learn more of these decorative knots and rope wear, as I think they are absolutely beautiful, and completely worth it. I'd give this book 5 stars out of 5.

You can never have too many books! If you want your own copy of this incredibly detailed, amusing, and helpful book, you can get it here.

-Essin' Em

Technorati Tags: bondage, book, book review, Essin' Em, review, rope

Those who know me well know that there is a very special place in my heart for queer history. I'm especially passionate about butch/femme history. For me, there is something incredibly powerful about the knowledge that there are others like me, that my community is part of a powerful legacy etc.

I do a lot of writing about that it means for me to have queer family, queer community, and queer history. My journey to femme was a rocky one. Many of my struggles involved not seeing other femmes. I feel a great solidarity with other femmes, past and present who have had the strength to walk through the world true to themselves, their lovers, chosen families, and communities.

Femme history is a big part of some of my writing--one of my most recent pieces appears in the Homofactus Press anthology "Visible: A Femmethology" that will be released in March 2009. the piece is called "Searching for my History" and I made a video of myself reading it this past weekend:

Searching for my History

p.s.

if you go to www.homofactuspress.com you should sign up for the newsletter—in the february newsletter they will give a discount code worth 28% off the cover price for both volumes!!