Stalking Michael Bauer

Obligatory Apologetic Note (OAN): I'm in the process of writing up a third post about the Midwest trip. I've written about 2/3rds of it, and it's about TWICE as long as the second post. In the interim, here's another post. I'll post about the midwest trip more, but really, it mammoth sized....just be warned....I'm actually in the middle ofwriting a few posts, so we'll see what gets put up next.
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When I was a young gay man (back in the day) I had habit of stalking people. I would become slightly obsessed with them, think about them a lot and then make mix tapes to send to them.

It usually did not end well.

Today at work I went on SFgate.com to kill some time. I was rather bored, and ended up clicking on some of the blogs that the Chronicle staff has. I was entertained by the staff writer that was trying to do the Master Cleanse Fast (the one where you only drink spicy homemade lemonade for 10 days) but after 5 days she had to stop. Apparently she never reached the peaceful nirvana where you stop being hungry and crabby and everything becomes crystal clear and in focus. I have contemplated doing the Fast myself, but I have never gotten around to it. One of these days. Perhaps.

Either way, with no more fasting exploits to read about, I ended up at the food critic's blog by Michael Bauer. Mr. Bauer was complaining in his blog that he has a hard time finding people to dine with who were accommodating in thew ay that needs them to be when he goes out to review a restaurant. It turns out that people are always asking him, but in the end when he does invite them out, they inevitably are picky and want to order something like the Ribeye Steak, but he needs them to order the fish instead, as he already tried the steak last time round.

A more difficult issue is when he tells his dining companion that he/she needs to have the pig's feet terrine or the trippa ala Fiorentina (stewed tripe) for an appetier instead of, say, the more safe House Salad.

Well my immediate thought was, HEY, I'll eat anything. Especially if the meal if paid for. So my thought is this... Why doesn't Michael Bauer have me as a dining companion?

I posted as much on the comments section of his blog, stating that I was available as a dining companion, and I have the added bonus of being Asian.

Now why does this matter - me being Asian? Well (as I wrote in the comment) it's usually the white people that I am friends with that have a limited palate. Sure there's the occasional vegetarian buddhist Asian guy, but on the whole, it's my friends that are "people of color" (meaning latin, black or asian) that will eat anything. We don't have a limited palate - and as I pointed out on in my comment - if there were to be some sort of giant catastrophe to occur, it's the people of color who would survive. We'll eat the WHOLE ANIMAL. Hands down, we win when it comes to utilizing anything edible off of a living creature.

And that's when I got busted by my friend Felisa. She apparently trolls the SFgate blogs as well, and emailed me and said she had read my posting.

I told her I really only posted because I was trolling for a free meal. I'm cheap that way. And she agreed, and said that we should stalk him together.

And so that's what I going to do. I'm stalking Michael Bauer - in the hopes that he'll take me out for a free meal. I figure I can work the Asian angle (because, you know, there aren't that many Asians here in San Francisco.). And if the Asian thing doesn't work out, I'll work the gay angle (One person who posted alluded to the fact that Mr. Bauer had a "partner" who he brought with him to his meals - and though it's true that "partner" could be either sex, and in fact could be something as mundane as a business partner or a food critic partner, I'm just going to assume that Food Critic + San Francisco = Gay Man).

Of course, the gay angle probably would be just as successful as the Asian angle (what with the lack of gay men in the bay area). But you gotta work with what you have. On top of all that, I have my wit, my gregarious nature, the fact that I am relatively social adept (I'll have to be, because let's face it, it's not as if I can ask him when we get together over a meal "So... what do you do for a living?"), and have a fair amount of knowledge of food (though he has said this doesn't matter, at least we would have something in common to talk about) though I have a diverse amount of interests (as shown on this blog) that we would just have to talk about food.

Plus, added bonus, by no means am I snooty about food. I'm comfortable eating at French Laundry as I am eating at the local tacqueria. Hell, I ate a Burger King a week after I read Fast Food Nation a couple of years ago just to prove to myself that I could still eat fast food (though really, I was just craving a Whopper).

I actually don't eat at Burger King anymore now that I think about it. I'd rather go over to Burger Bistro and get a burger there. It's made from Niman Ranch cows (I believe those cows are the ones that are referred to as "the California happy cows") and I feel they are less likely to have mad cow disease. Well, at least that is what AJ tells me to think. Plus Burger King doesn't offer a brie and bacon burger like Burger Bistro does.

So maybe I am a little snooty about food, but I doubt that fast food chains are to be reviewed in the Chronicle. So we're safe on that front.

And mostly it's the fact that I will eat and try anything pretty much once, that I am hoping will convince Mr. Bauer (okay, okay, Michael - after all if we're dining together we might as well call each other by our first names). So email me Michael, and let's do lunch. Or dinner. Or hell, let's do breakfast. I'm not picky.

Just a long as I don't have to resort to making you a mix tape.