A life of chasing butterflies

Since Gary Cotti's been gone for months on a film shoot, zombietruckstop has been custodian of the the GC red truck. ZTS had the truck cleaned, detailed, oil-changed, and put a really great baking soda air freshener on the dash. This is a shift from the usual way that thing rolls around town, sputtering and stinky, and it was an actual pleasure to ride in it on Saturday to get our Christmas tree from Home Depot.

Trees are cheaper at Home Depot, and I also like the mystery of the ones you purchase there. They're bound up in cord and unless you cut them and let the branches fall right in front of you, which can take more than just a few minutes, you actually have no idea what you're buying. That's how I pick a tree, roulette-style. I explained this to ZTS while we waited in line to have the trunk trimmed and the guy in front of me with a completely opened up (and unwieldy) tree said, "But what if you get a Charlie Brown tree?"

I said, "Then I'm virtuous. I gave something ugly a home."

A tall modelish lady in expensive-looking knee-high boots swanned up to the line we were in, looked at it, looked around at the trees and snooted to no one in particular, "Let's go." Because it's important to drive all over Los Angeles looking for the most chic tree lot with the prettiest customers. She was right about our line, though. It was full of scrubbly people in ripped up sweats and Uggs and overly-festooned fancy-jeans with emaciated entertainment industry faces. The trees were cuter than any of us.

Our tree came with a tag on it saying it was sustainably forested and there's a number to call to have it recycled. I saved the tag. After Christmas we'll figure out how easy that process is. I don't trust it.

When I got to the trunk trimming guy, I had him cut off this curvy bend at the bottom of the trunk. But it wasn't quite enough. The trunk turned out to be pretty significantly warped. Now, in the stand, it leans to one side like it's going to fall over. But it doesn't. It's secure but tilty. And I don't care. Its flaws will be covered in ornaments and lights soon enough.

After tree-getting we went to Arby's because I love the triangle-shaped potato cakes. ZTS declared his love of the empty food there because it's like "eating roast-beef-flavored air."

Go read my TV column at Advocate.com. Last week was a big news week for gays so it's up a little late. But who cares. I'M STILL SUPER-RELEVANT.

http://www.advocate.com/Arts_and_Entertainment/Television/The_Year_Without_an_Oprah_Claus/

http://www.movies.com/movie-reviews/film-reviews/dave-white

Armored
Everybody's Fine
Serious Moonlight
Brothers
The Last Station
Up In The Air

Written by me, obviously.

Up in The Air
Brothers
The Last Station

I also saw Armored, Everybody's Fine and Serious Moonlight. Those reviews will post soon.

http://www.movies.com/movie-reviews/film-reviews/dave-white

Out Magazine's Popnography blog is making me watch "Launch My Line," Bravo's latest attempt to have another "Project Runway."

This one is about people who aren't fashion designers who try anyway. Has more Supergays on it, naturally. But the contestant selection is so random that I might as well be one.

Even if you're not watching it too, you should be reading my short little recap. Every click counts. Remember that.

http://www.popnography.com/2009/12/launch-my-line-faking-fashion.html

moroccomole is still writing his book about Christmas movies. It's due to his publisher at the beginning of January. This means I'll be doing all the housework this month.

Right now he's looking at a shitty UK Christmas horror film from 1984 called "Don't Open 'Til Christmas." Any of you people over there remember this one? I keep expecting a teenage Samantha Fox to show up. He just said, "This entire movie looks like a Mike + The Mechanics video."

"Wrong," I replied. "Mike + the Mechanics music videos had better production values than that. This movie resembles the filmed output of Fun Fun."

He didn't know what I meant. So I showed him:

10 AM - Made french toast with day-old challah, Nutella and whipped cream. You know what else is good if you don't think about it too much? Those Jimmy Dean pork sausage patties that you heat and serve. Did that and then, like it was meant to be, the Jimmy Dean float went past on my TV screen and people were dressed like sticks of butter.

11 AM - My new thing of turkey is simpler than it was before. Normally I wrap the whole bird in bacon so that it doesn't need basting, put garlic cloves under the skin, apple and onion and rosemary in the cavity, thyme and sage and root vegetables in the pan. But last week I watched Martha Stewart shove softened butter under the skin and then just salt and pepper it. So I tried that. Two sticks of softened butter evenly distributed under the entire breast area of the turkey. Then I coated the whole thing in kosher salt and pepper. Stuffed the cavity with fresh thyme, sage, rosemary, flat-leaf parsley. Basted it every 20 minutes for like 3ish hours (14.5lb bird). When it came time to eat the turkey, butter had saturated every cubic centimeter and turned it narcotic.

12 PM - Chopped yams, carrots, parsnips. Olive-oiled and salted. Oven for an hour.

12:30 - Made green bean casserole with Cream of Mushroom soup and those crispy canned onions.

1 PM - Rolled out thawed pie crust that my friend Jonathan and I had made on Sunday. Made other people chop Granny Smith apples. Sugar and cinnamon and nutmeg and ginger and flour and butter added. The pie crust kept falling apart and separating as I rolled it out, so I patchworked it into the dish and on top. A Frankenpie. Wound up delicious anyway.

2 PM - Tried a recipe for white cheddar cheese biscuits. Totally easy. Made mattycub grate the cheese and we talked about which bands angered and scared the congregations of churches we attended as teenagers. Punk ran a close second to metal, which had the edge of being from the actual devil instead of from dudes who were just philosophical nihilists.

3 PM - Sat down to eat all the food. xtreem_aaron made a gang of mac+cheese and his man Brian brought fancy beers and wines. Neighbor Jill contributed homemade stuffing. zombietruckstop brought a lasagna. fidgetcub somehow pulled brussels sprouts and carrots and I forget what else from out of his hat because I didn't see them when he walked in the door. Cranberry sauce from the can that retained its perfect can shape when removed. Gravy that was half store-bought and half pan drippings. moroccomole made garlicky mashed potatoes and a chocolate pie to go with the apple and pumpkin ones I'd already done up.

Somehow in the middle of all this, a wooden cutting board sitting on the stove caught fire a little. I have no idea how the burner got turned on but it did and when ZTS said, "What's that I smell?" I didn't know. But then I figured out that shit was burning. Nothing was destroyed and we lived to eat more foods.

Then we all sat around, food-drugged. Watched "UHF."

I will be posting food prep and meaningful parade insights today on Facebook or Twitter because all I'll have time for in between eating and making more food to eat is short comments.

Me on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=name&id=623912186

Me on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/dlelandwhite

Just went to the grocery store. I was going because I wanted to make this caramelized figs recipe I found. Last week they had fresh awesome looking figs. Today they had none. And the place was packed. And then I saw this guy whose face I recognized. He was tall, unshaven, wearing a baseball cap. Handsome face. And somehow I knew he was famous, not just because it was Gelsons and there's always someone famous in there shopping, either Reese Witherspoon or Lauren Ambrose or the guy who played Joe on "Rhoda" or Vinnie Jones or Jody Watley or Shane from "The L Word" or the closeted (and totally old) male star of a 1960s sitcom who hit on me once. But I couldn't figure out who this person just now was. Which meant he couldn't be that famous, really, just probably reality-show-famous.

And then I thought, "You're Australian. I don't know how I know you're Australian. But you're Australian. And I can't figure out who you are."

And then in the check-out line, it popped into my head. It was this guy. The woman who should have won that season will announce him at about the 45 second mark: