Salty

Sex and food--what else is there to think about in the summer? Eggplant slices are sweating on my kitchen table, in preparation for being turning into caponata, with onions, garlic, peppers, celery, and three kinds of salty: capers, olives, and anchovies, plus sherry vinegar and plumped-up currants. The sweet-salty-tart-savory combo is very Sicilian, and perfect in so many ways--mixed with parsley and feta in a pita sandwich, tossed with hot fusilli and ricotta salata, eaten cold standing naked in front of the fridge. Dill is drying for making pickled green beans (those bloody-mary-ready 'dilly beans'), mint is drying for tea, and three jars of apricot jam just went into the jam cupboard.

But what I'm really doing is watching Phyllis Christopher's amazing DVD Sextrospective, a 300+ photo retrospective though Christopher's nearly 2 decades behind the camera in SF. Since 1988, she's transformed so many different scenes into spectacles of glamour and passion, raw heat and humour. Posing for Phyllis is a ridiculous amount of fun, and I've been lucky enough to model for her a bunch of times over the years--in plaid flannel, in red lace and gingham on her stove, in a bikini and a rabbit-fur coat on chilly autumn beach, in a piled-high beehive wig and pearls and a bathtub full of bubbles... Fire-eating strippers, activists in bustiers, butch, boi,drag king, top, bottom, high femme and everything in between. You can get your own copy, and see some of her images, at The Sexy Stuff. And if you're in publishing, you should jump at the chance to make this into a book.

OK, now back to the eggplant....