802.11me

Straight Eye for the Straight Guy

In which I make minor straight guy edits to some of the suggestions made on the most recent "Queer Eye..." episodes I've seen.

First of all, my general comment is that the Fab 5 are injecting a little too much metrosexual into these guys, but I suppose that's the point....or something. Personally, I don't think women want their men doubling the overall number of cosmetics in the bathroom, but whatever. Plus, i wash my face with "just soap", and it hasn't fallen off yet, although i am starting to look a bit too much like nixon after a rough night in the oval office, but anyway.... I'm generally fine with the overall concept of the show as a campy makeover hour, so I'll just pick nits.

Ok, in the Ross Episode, I have a couple major issues. First, Ross notes that his girlfriend's favorite food is chocolate souffle, and Ted thereby suggests that Ross make her a chocolate souffle as part of his "be a better boyfriend" goal. BAD IDEA! First of all, Ross is no chef, and chocolate souffle is hard to get right. There are only three possible outcomes for a novice making a chocolate souffle:

a) It will look like hell and be generally lumpy and mushy
b) It will look like hell but taste 'ok'.
c) Through some miracle, it will look 'not horrible', and it will taste 'ok'.

There is no way you are going to make a restaurant quality chocolate souffle, and even if you do, the thing is going to deflate in about three minutes anyhow, so you've got to rush it to table. Furthermore, making your girlfriend a chocolate souffle sends the following message: "If you think i'm ever cooking for you again, you are out of your damned mind". You don't go from not cooking to "whisking egg whites to soft peaks" in one day. Plus, what was for dinner? nothing? Ross' girlfriend comes over for a big date and they're just gonna have dessert wine and souffle? Sounds romantic but impractical...bet she got one of those street vendor gyros on the way to the dance club afterward. Much better for the "out to impress in the kitchen" beginner is a quick but impressive italian dinner....italian salads are awesome and easy to make and they've got great salads for all seasons. Make one alongside an easy pasta dish in which you just saute some garlic, broccoli rabe, italian sausage, and cannellini beans with some olive oil as a sauce and serve with penne or orechiette or something (you can mix and match the sauce ingredients easily...remove the sausage and add pancetta, remove the rabe and add spinach, whatever). Looks fabulous, tastes great, hard to mess it up, everybody's psyched. grab a simple bottle of italian wine, some fresh parmesan, and hey, you might even do this cooking thing again....ok, NOW we can go out dancing.

Next issue I had is with the outfit Ross wears out for the night of dancing. Jeans, with a dress shirt tucked in, and a john varvatos tuxedo jacket over the shirt. Come on, a tuxedo jacket with jeans? this is WAY too affected. The only people that are allowed to wear tuxedo jackets with jeans are Lenny Kravitz, and people dressed up as Lenny Kravitz for halloween. Nobody else should attempt this. It's way too "i'm casual, and yet, I'm also very elegant, check it out". you wanna dress up jeans? do it with shoes and shirts, not tuxedo jackets.