Tag: piefolk

TuesDATE

by piefolk, posted in Uncategorized

Sometimes people ask me on dates.  They see me on the internet and they think that I’m the answer to their life problems, or loneliness.  Or maybe they think I am cute.  Invariably, I prove them wrong.

Him: Wanna get some food?

Me:  Sure.  There’s lots of restaurants around here.  What are you in the mood for?

Him:  I don’t care.  You pick.

Me:  Hm…  there’s high end Mexican up the street at Mesa Coyoacan .

Him:  You should know better than to ask someone for Mexican food on a gay date.

Me:  Why?  Oh.  EW.

Him:  But yeah, I don’t care…

Me:  There’s a seafood restaurant called Sel De Mer….

Him: Ew.  NO.  I never trust them to have fresh ingredients.  Gross.

Me:  That’s kind of their thing.  The menu is mostly specials that they bought at the fish market that day.

Him:  I’m not sure if I trust that.  Try again.

Me:  There’s a French place called Fanny.  It’s cash only.

Him:  I never carry cash. (gives me a knowing glance, as if I’m supposed to know what that means)

Me:  Well, I would buy dinner, but I am poor.

Him:  All that pie.

Me: Huh?

Him:  You’re spending too much money on pie.  Not enough on your living expenses.

Me:  Hold up… Financial advice??  That’s SECOND date material, Mister.

Him: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  I don’t get it.

Me:  There’s an Asian fusion place up the street called Sakura.

Him:  Yeah.  I’ve read  your blog.  We get it.  You like ‘Asian food‘.  (long pause where I don’t laugh)

Me:  I’m not that hungry, actually.

Him:  Wanna make out?

Me:  No.

Enjoy the TuesDATE, Jerks!

photo by Erwin Caluya

Cupid Arrives

by piefolk, posted in Uncategorized

What’s wrong with you?

Put your tongue back in your mouth.  That’s just Robbie Fowler.

Hm?  What?  He’s gorgeous?

I’ll let him know you said so.  Now focus:

So, first of all – congrats are in order.  Robbie’s boyfriend James proposed to him.   They’re getting married!

But, they’re getting married in New York, since that’s where they solidified their love.  Which means they’re waiting for it to be legal.  But they’re engaged!

They will be married, some day.  Soon as you kind straight folk start voting the right way.

Listen up:

Robbie is a popular New York actor.  He does theater and television.  Which is not to say you shouldn’t cast him in your movie.  You totally should.  He photographs well.

Robbie wanted to make a red berry pie, for Valentine’s day.  He brought over raspberries, strawberries and blackberries.   Good call, Fowler!  It made a kick ass pie.  We didn’t put very much sugar in it, because we wanted it to taste sharp and tart.  We spiked the crust with a little powdered ginger.

I sat down with Fowler to chat while the pie was baking:

PF: What do you do for a living?

RF:  I act…  swiffer my apartment…  take care of my puppy….

I’m an uncle…  for a living…

PF: How’s being engaged?

RF: We both have rings and we walk around a little taller, I guess? We would like to get married in our home state, so we’ll wait…  It affects me a lot.

PF:  How did you learn how to bake pie?

RF:  I learned from my grandmother.  Ernestine Nowlan.  My mother’s mother.  She was hilarious.  Taught me how to make a pie crust.  She was an actress when she was younger and she played Polly Darton in a Kansas musical review.  She was 75 or 76 when I was born.  They would take me to get haircuts – my grandparents.  And to theater camp.

PF:  Can you talk about the pie you selected?

RF:  Sweet, messy, juicy – just like Valentine’s Day.

PF:  Tell me an odd story about auditioning?

RF:  I went in for a show, right after moving here.  The audition was run by a reputable company – I sang my face off – belted those high B (flats).  The choreographer was yelling sass at us the whole time.  I went home, felt good about it, logged onto the Facebook, and I get a message from the director.

He found me, but my info is not at all on my resume.  He didn’t care to talk about my audition at all – he was just like ‘oh, what were those tattoos?’

Finally I had to ask – hey, did I make the cast of the show?

PF:  DID you?

RF: Oh.  Yeah, I did.  It was a lot of fun.

PF:  Do you have any advice for other young actors?

RF:  Take it as it comes.  If you need to take a break, do it.  Take care of yourself before you take care of your career.  You have to stay sane.  If you need to take a pottery class take a fucking pottery class.  Bake a pie.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.   Thanks, Fowler.

Guys, I hope you’re happy this Valentines day.  Whether you’re together or alone, I hope you’re having fun.

I love you.  Jerks.

SaturDATE!!!

by piefolk, posted in Uncategorized

Sometimes I meet people online.

Sometimes they like me enough to ask me out on dates.  They think I’m the answer to their problems and lonliness, a lot of the time.  I have a tendency, inadvertently, to prove them wrong:

Him:  You are dressed really sharply!  I can tell you’re successful just from how your dressed.

Me:  Ha.  Actually, I’m very poor.  I just take good care of my clothes and have a credit card.

Him: Oh, man. It must really suck to be poor, emotionally.

Me:  You don’t have time to worry about that, when you’re poor.

Him:  What do you mean?

Me: You’re too busy doing laundry and dishes all the time to pity yourself.  Plus you lose weight from being hungry.  It’s great for your self esteem, actually.

Him:  It’s getting late…

Enjoy the SATUR-DATE, Jerks!

Johnny T

by piefolk, posted in Uncategorized

Johnny T came over.  He’d seen my chalkboard walls and he wanted to draw on them.  He’s a good artist!

Jonny T is an architecture student here in New York City.  Enjoy the drawing, jerks!

Kazu’s Birthday

by piefolk, posted in Uncategorized

Kazu turned 25!

He blackmailed me on Facebook.  He shamed me into making a pie for him.  Plus, he re-posted my Barack Obama video a few times, so I kind of owe him.  Plus, he’s kind of like my adopted Japanese little brother.  I look out for him.

No I don’t.

But I would.  I feed him sometimes.  He likes my food.

We got a little playful this time around. Kazu has a delightfully free spirit, and it’s contagious. We got a little carried away.

I’ve never done a chocolate banana cream pie before.  That makes me a dummy,  because as you can imagine, it’s amazing.

Just trust me.  I know this picture looks like a dump you might take after a barbecue where you had too much Keystone, pulled pork, and Mexican corn on the cob.  But just trust me.  This pie is, well…  the shit.

I sliced the bananas really thin.  I wanted the layers of hand made chocolate custard and bananas to get sort of confused with each other.  Like the stagehands must feel – every night – at  Spider Man Turn Off the Dark. Don’t click that link.

I told you not to.  It’s a horrible website. 65.  Million.  Dollars.  Folks.

Uhhhh…

Well like I said, things got carried away.

Yes.  I know what this looks like:   An Easter chocolate version of Bunnicula bit me on the face.

Yes.  I know what it also looks like:  I was changing a particularly messy diaper and didn’t notice the shit on my face yet.

It was around this time of the evening I decided that this blog entry was going to be full of shit jokes.  What?  Oh, you’re sweet.  You’re welcome for all the shit jokes.  It’s no less than you deserve.

Sidebar: They’ve just gotten L.A.’D

L.A.’D.  L.A.’D…  L – A -I – D  They’ve just gotten laid!

AH – HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HA….

HA.  Ah, heh…  ha.   ha.

Asshole.

Back to the pie!

I’m not going to tell you the recipe for this one.  I haven’t perfected it yet.  Plus, part of the fun of learning how to cook is doing your own research.

But here’s HOW I made it.

I baked the crust, duh.  then i let the crust cool.  Then i made some custard.  Just regular vanilla custard.  Except that, during the milk simmering phase of the custard I melted chocolate into the milk during the two minutes you’re supposed to simmer it.  Don’t ask me how much.  I don’t know.

For me, the crust is always very precisely measured, but the fillings I FREQUENTLY eyeball.  I’m a renegade like that.

At heart, I’m probably more of a cook than a baker.

Kazu and i  took some of our clothes off while we were baking and had fun with the camera. It was all very innocent.  Except when it wasn’t.

Yes.  Then we made out afterward.  Do i have to draw you a picture?

Enjoy the voyeurism, jerks.




Old Ladies on the Bus

by piefolk, posted in Uncategorized

BLIZZARD!!!

A blizzard can mean only one thing:  I’m not going to bake a damn pie because I can’t get to the store.

Also:  I’m going to take the bus to the bank tomorrow.  Those are the things a blizzard means.

This is not to say that I won’t bake SOMETHING, so stop hyperventilating, okay?

Seriously.

You need to get an inhaler or something.  That sounds like asthma, or a severe smokers cough.

Well, see a doctor, anyway?  Oh I DON’T? I sleep next to you!  I should know what a death rattle sounds like.

Okay, you know what?  I’m trying to blog right now.  I’m not going to ARGUE WITH YOU.  Because.  You’re IMAGINARY!!!

I’m sorry.  I know that’s not playing fair.  I’m sorry.  Yes.  I know it’s not fair to create you as a narrative device for my blog and then resent you.  Okay.  You’re right.  CAN WE MOVE ON?

Thank you.  Where was I?  Oh, yes.  Taking the bus.

Beware, intrepid New Yorkers.  Beware the bus.  It’s a great mode of transport and everything.  It works well, and it tends to run on schedule, as far as my experience has shown me.  But at least be aware.  You’re entering the territory of the Old Bus Lady. You might notice that I’m getting a confused look.  It not because I’m covertly photographing them.  Old Bus Ladies love to be photographed.  And anyway, they didn’t notice.  What they DID notice is that i sat in the first six seats.  They DID NOT like that.  There’s a sign!  It says, please give this seat up to Old Bus Ladies! Boy.  There was a big to-do about me sitting there. I should mention that we were the only people on the bus.  Old Bus Lady! You’re so silly!

But I respect your territory and pretend I’m Polish.

What’s creepier than Old Bus Ladies on a Wednesday afternoon?

Nothing.

But finding ripe, cheap blueberries that taste good in the dead of winter can run a close second.  It really creeps me out.  But what could i do?  It was more than a pint for less than 5 bucks.  Had to take the mutant hot-house blueberries.

I didn’t have the ingredients to make a pie, so I whipped up some blueberry quickbread for myself and a friend who came to visit.

 

 

 

This was after enduring the outrage and scorn of the ancient Italian Old Bus Ladies.  One of them made deep eye contact and whispered ‘Thinner!!!!”  Right as I left the bus.  Haven’t felt exactly myself since, but I’ve dropped 10 lbs in two days…

People are calling it the SNOWPOCALYPSE and SNOWMAGEDDON and SNOWLOCAUST.

People are being dramatic.  People LOVE to be dramatic.  Look at the media.  They can take a phrase like ‘health care reform’ and change it around to read ‘death squads.’   Ta da!

That’s called ‘pushing paper’ in the journalism biz.  You take the most dramatic, most terrifying angle on something and then act like your hare brained half-theory is FACT.

Watch – I’ll show you how it’s done:

Look at this!  Amid all the warnings about white flour and fat and an ever expanding, girthy America – SOMEONE is making duck fat  and heavy cream gravy to go atop buttermilk biscuits.

Why would he ever serve that to a guest?  No one can know for sure, but here’s a theory:  He wants to clog the arteries of his young guest because he’s jealous of him – his beauty, his youth, his energy and light-hearted verve.

What a bitter aging fairy – making a sludge filled breakfast of biscuits and gravy!

See.  I just sensationalized it!  That’s called ‘being a good journalist.’  But don’t blame the journalists.  They’re just putting food on the table.  Blame yourself.  You’re the one reading it.

Wow.  Tangent.

This is not on the floor.  It’s cooling on a metal stool.

It only looks like it’s on the floor.

So,The next morning I made these puppies.  Look at them.  They were quick and easy and full of butter and buttermilk.

I learned a lot on my trip to the bank and the fruit market.  I learned that Old Bus Ladies are not to be trifled with.  They’ve lived longer than you, they know more about the world.  Some of it good, some bad.  They can put a gypsy curse on you.

They’ve worked hard to raise their children and slowly poison their husbands with butter and sour cream and whole milk and flour and heavy cream and lard and duck fat and other mysterious poisons like anti-freeze.

And sometimes, fags – sometimes you gotta respect that.  Sometimes you have to move to the back of the bus, like Rosa wouldn’t, even if there’s nobody else on the bus.

At least, until you’re an Old Bus Lady yourself.

God willing.

Enjoy the Blueberry Quick Bread and Biscuits and Duckfat Buttermilk gravy, jerks!!

Keep on Shitting, Ray Ray.

by piefolk, posted in Pie, Uncategorized

www.ariscott.com

Okay, see this guy?  What?  No that’s not a puppet.  It’s Chris Gethard.

Why would you ask me if it was a puppet?  It’s clearly a person.  Weird question.  Stop asking weird questions and listen:

Okay.  Chris Gethard is a local comic.  He’s a good guy, and he’s done nice stuff for me.  One time this sketch show was looking for gay comics and he got me seen for it.  I didn’t know him very well at all, he just got me seen because he thought I was funny.  He’d seen me in a show.

If you’re not in show biz, that’s a big deal.  Actors and comics don’t often go out of their way to get friends seen for stuff, much less acquaintances.   I never forgot that.  I doubt I ever will.

Sidebar: I made a gluten free quiche over the holidays that nobody in my family will ever forget.

Looks great, doesn’t it?

It was terrible.  It was really not a success.

The filling was fine, but the crust was just…  let’s not talk about it, okay?

Back to Gethard:

Okay, so Chris is a downtown comedy icon.  He’s been on the scene for more than a decade, and he’s a respected teacher and performer at the UCB theater.  He booked a sitcom in 2010 called Big Lake with Horatio Sanz  and Chris Parnell.

Who’s Chris Parnell?  Don’t you dare say that to me, ever.  He was on SNL (fired and re-hired more than once) and he’s widely regarded as one of the most talented, underrated sketch comics of his generation.  Seriously.  Stop asking weird questions.  It’s annoying.

So, Chris Gethard has a show, The Chris Gethard show, at UCB theater.  Usually he does crazy stunts with his ragtag group of funny friends.  Once in a while they pull a nice prank.  But every so often they do something totally inspiring.  You should check out The Chris Gethard Show – it’s worth it.

What?  Oh.  Here’s the thing with a gluten free crust.  Apparently you can’t just substitute your regular pie recipe.  Things should be tweaked, or you should do some research on the internet.  I followed my normal white flour recipe and the crust was nearly inedible.

Some of my family pretended to like it.  Some did not.

HEY.  I said I didn’t want to talk about it.

Him?  That’s Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs.  Puff Daddy.  P.Diddy.  Diddy.  Flapjack and the Doodle Gang.  Sean John.  He goes by many names.

But you know who he is.  Stop acting like you don’t.

Here’s what he has to do with all this:

About a year ago Gethard made a video asking Diddy to come on his show.  I think it might have started as a joke, but maybe it wasn’t.  With Gethard you never know.  But he makes these crazy things happen.  He sets his mind to stuff and he doesn’t ever let go.  Just like Diddy.  Gethard and his friends started hounding people on Twitter to bother Diddy into doing the show.

Seriously.  It was a shitty quiche.

It was really bad.

My family ate it though.  And I’ll tinker with the recipe.  A lot of my friends (including my sister in law, Robin) have gluten intolerance, and a tasty gluten free pie should ABSOLUTELY be in the arsenal.

What?  No that’s not a puppet.  It’s clearly a shitty quiche.

Clearly.

A year and tens of thousands of Tweets later, and Diddy appeared on Chris Gethard’s show.  Sounds easy?  I’m sure it wasn’t.  Sound exhilerating?  I’m sure it was.  Diddy did the show.  All hour long.  He participated in all the bits just like a regular cast member.  Everyone in the community was super psyched that Chris made this happen.  It was hilarious and emotional.

Chris.  Thanks for inspiring me.  Here’s some pics from the show.  Enjoy it, jerks.

Oh look.  It’s my internet (and real life) stalker, Alan Starzinski.

Late Night Baking

by piefolk, posted in Pie, Uncategorized

Let’s face it.  Winter can really make you stir crazy.  Like really.  Stir.  Crazy.

Okay.  So it’s not that bad, obviously.

I don’t have ‘the Shine.’

I don’t chase my wife and child through a hedge maze.

I’m not best friends with two dead twins, a creepy Bigwheel poltergeist ghost, or a drowned granny.

But I decided to make a midnight quiche, anyway, to ward of the stir crazies.  Remember that movie?  Richard Prior and Gene Wilder.  They don’t make that kind of film anymore.

Now it’s all about high schoolers having sex with pies. Not the same.

I mean.  It can get to you.  Cooped up in your apartment, waiting to book the next acting or comedy gig.

You start having dark thoughts.  Like, what’s the meaning of life?  And, why don’t I poop more often?  Five times a week?  Is that enough?  Am I giving myself colon cancer?

Why does that one bus driver keep looking at me weird and striking up conversations?  Is he a stereotype from a heartwarming movie?  Is he gay?  He seems rugged and un-gay.  Maybe he’s stalking me for his first kill as a serial killer?  Why don’t I poop more often?

I made a mushroom and bacon quiche.

I have been improvising the quiche recipes lately.

Now’s it’s just, mix whatever eggs with whatever cream i have and then throw in some meat/vegetable combo.

Sautee them first.  BECAUSE!!  I ALREADY TOLD YOU!!!   THE BAKING ALONE WON’T SOFTEN THE VEGGIES OR COOK THE MEAT!!!

God.

Oh.  Sidebar.  I allow myself one off-topic non sequitur per blog entry:

When the Oxygen channel launched, I thought to myself, oh, that’s good – there’s finally going to be a channel that takes women seriously.  Someone’s going to correct the mistakes made by the Lifetime network.  Someone’s finally going to push an anti-misogynist agenda.

Well, score one for feminism.

Good job, Oxygen!

Okay.  Before I hack the bathroom door open with an axe, here are some pics of the quiche.

Stop being so NEGATIVE

by piefolk, posted in Uncategorized

AIDS.  There I said it.

AIDS.

Oh, wait.  Sorry.  I wasn’t making a cheap AIDS joke.

I was merely thinking aloud.  I have to get an AIDS test today.

My friend Kazuyoshi and I have been talking about going to get HIV tests together, mainly because we’re both single and both TERRIFIED to go alone.

Also, he’s been bugging me to make a pie for him.  He’s heard about the PIEMAN OF GRAHAM AVE (i just coined that phrase) and he wants in on the action.

Anyway.  Why not make a day of it, I said to myself?

This is a picture of a crystal skull vodka bottle that i filled with coffee.  It has nothing to do with this blog entry, but I felt it was manipulative and ominous.

FORESHADOWING!!!!!!

I’ve been blind baking pie shells lately.  A real NIGHTMARE.  It’s totally different than baking a double crust pie.  You use a blind shell  when you make pies that use a chilled or non cooked filling.  Like custard pies, silk pies, key lime…  That sort of stuff.  I SAID KEY LIME!!!  KEY.  LIME.   WHY DO YOU ASK A QUESTION AND THEN LEAVE THE ROOM????  DRIVES ME CRAZY!!!

So you roll out the crust, line it with tinfoil and then weight down the inside to keep the crust from rising, and making a dome shape instead of a pie crust shape.  Most bakers use ceramic weights that you can buy.  I use change from my dresser top.  Six of one, half-dollar of the other, I never say….

The free, anonymous clinic is on 28th and 9th.  The one I go to is at least.  I want the test to be anonymous, or semi anonymous, because I want to decide how public I want to be about it, if I ever do contract HIV.  I opted for semi-anonymous, which means you get written results, but they take your driver’s license number and probably hound you if you turn up positive.

Still.  It’s nice to have those papers, as ephemeral proof that you don’t have a hard-to-identify super virus attacking your immune system.

I get the idea the people in this poster are not ready to have children.  I hope they don’t have the baby, because they don’t look like they trust each other a lot right now.  Actually, it occured to me that the man feels like he was molested or raped.  He’s not AT ALL glad to have had sex last night.  He didn’t plan it.  Did she rape him????

WHAT HAPPENED?!!??!!??

NO.  NOT YOU.  NOT!!!!!  YOU!!!!!!  GO BACK INTO THE OTHER ROOM.  I’M BLOGGING.

This was a custard pie, which involves bringing milk and sugar to a simmering boil, then adding egg yolk and chocolate and vanilla. Essentially it’s making chocolate pudding, but much better pudding than that crap you can get in the grocery store.

I chilled the custard in the fridge.

On the way to the clinic I met up with a number of straight people I know.  It was one of those serendipitous days in New York City where you meet just about every goddamn person you ever did comedy with, went to college with, or used to work at a bar with.  They all asked ‘where are you headed.’ Now, mind you:

Most of the time that I’m on the way to the Aids clinic I don’t run into people – but IF I DO, and if they are straight, I usually don’t tell them where I’m going.  I don’t know why, exactly, but I’ve heard a lot of my gay friends say the same thing.  Maybe it’s some internalized shame over being gay, or maybe we’re just trying to spare the straights the quarterly horror of us having to face our own mortality – being in a ‘high risk’ group for AIDS.  I don’t know.  What I do know is ON THIS DAY, I told all the straights i saw where i was going.

This pie was a nightmare.  I had some extra crust leftover, but I didn’t have enough for a full pie.  I thought i would just roll the crust out thinner.  Mistake.  It shrank, and buckled and basically acted like an ASSHOLE.  Plus look at it.  It’s clumsy and hideous.  But it was tasty.

I was surprised at the reactions I got from straight people.  Most looked surprised.  Mostly this was my fault.  “Where are you off to?” they would inquire in a balmy tone of voice.  “Off to the AIDS clinic,” I chirped back, trying to mimic their tone of voice as if to say, oh, you know, bank, AIDS clinic, food shopping – ERRANDS!!!

P.S.  Sidebar – American Apparel is making a t.v. show?  I bet it’s not as good as the British version, which I’m still not totally sold on.

But yeah.  Straight people.  I guess on some level I want them to know and hear about my AIDS test.  I want them to know that I live in constant fear for my life, just for expressing love.  And I know EVERYONE can say that. And I know that EVERYONE should get tested every three months.  And I know that ONLY GAY AND BI PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO.  Because we (along with prostitutes and heroin/meth addicts) are the high risk group.

I whipped cream and then broke chocolate chips up into fragments for the topping.

I’m tired of feeling ashamed that I’m going to the clinic.  I’m tired of feeling like it’s gauche to bring it up to my straight friends.  I’m tired of them acting panicked when I DO bring it up.

I hope the gays reading this blog will be a little more visible/audible about practicing safe sex.  Straight people need to realize that going to get an AIDS test doesn’t make you slutty or depraved – it makes you responsible.  We need to shed our shame about it, straights and gays – so that we can acknowledge the fundamental fact that our lives are very different.  Being straight can be harder than being gay in ways that gays cannot fathom (childbirth, child rearing, sex with the opposite sex – ew).  But being gay ain’t no cakewalk.

Though.  Sometimes, there’s pie involved.

Kazu and I both came up negative.

The pie was hideous, but delicious.

Thanks for asking, jerks.


Subtext: If you get Syphilis, make sure it’s WORTH it.