Gaybombay events have been described as 'tea and gossip parties', and for those who think of us in that way, this series of mails will be confirmation. What could be more like a bunch of prim and proper aunties than exchanging our favourite recipes and cooking tips!

 But exchanging recipes has more going for it than just being an activity for aunties (not that there's anything wrong with that, I love my aunties and have written about them in the past on GB). Our Ultimate Auntie Ashok (Row Kavi) has always maintained that cooking has to be a survival skill for gay men.

 The reason is quite practical. After all, one hopes for the best, but we have to consider that we may never find that man of our dreams who's hunky, hung, has a good sense of humour, is willing to love/adore/take care of you and can also cook like a dream. Most men who chose to live gay lives face the prospect of living on their own at some time and while cute Nepali servant boys is obviously the solution for some, its best to know how to cook up at least a few things.

 But there's more to food and cooking for gay guys than such functional reasons. Perhaps this is more a reflection of my love of both, but I seem to associate so many of my experiences of the community with the enjoyment of food and drink. Most people, of course, are only too happy to talk about food (the only articles I always get feedback about are my food related articles), but for most people in the community it always seems to mean a little more.

 Perhaps its because food is a sensual experience and it seems to me you need to be at least a little of a sensualist to risk all the problems that go with affirming your sexuality. Food is satisfaction and lets be honest, for most its a more readily available and reliable form of satisfaction than sex (of course, food and sex can be combined for even greater satisfaction...)

 Food is power; cooks are always respected. Knowing the secrets of seasonings and spices, the vagaries of vegetables and the mysteries of meats, to have power over knives and the other implements of the kitchen, is to have real mastery. Food is comfort; we all have these times when life seems too much for us,. The best solution then is to retreat into yourself and your kitchen, and to cook and eat something simple and soothing in its familiarity.

 But above all, food is friendship. Group sex may have its proponents (or solitary eating), but food is the one sensual experience that's best enjoyed with other people. When you meet with just one other then sex might be enough, but when its with the community food and drink is never far away. So many of my experiences of the community seem inextricable from the food which came along with them.

 Like my very first meeting with the community. I'd just decided to explore coming out, and I'd identified myself as gay to my lesbian friend Lesley. She dragged me off at once to meet her friend Ashwini at Bastani's at Dhobi Talao. Over glasses of their special coffee (a glass of milk with a spoon of Nescafe and enough sugar to make you choke) I listened half fascinated, half scared as they tried reassuring me about my fears and plotted about how to introduce me to gay men.

 Like so many meetings these days when I'm on the other side of the table, meeting guys who want to meet with the GB group for the first time, talking to them, as Lesley and Ashwini did to me, but the coffee is at Gaylord, Barista, the Ritz.

 Like hot baida roti at Bade Mian on Saturday nights, before catching a few drinks at Gokul's next door, before its time to go on to Voodoo's. Like Goa sausage at Martin's, also not far from Voodoo's, where Ashwini insists I take her everytime she's in Bombay again.

 Like listening to Ashok, as he dashes between the kitchen where he's screaming instructions at his boyfriend who's helping him cook pomfrets, and the living room, where he's regaling us with the latest scandal. Like film nights at Jay's where batata nu shak and Brendan Fraser in God's & Monsters is a combination to dream about.

 Like coming out to my mother in an expensive Mexican restaurant.  My calculation: she's less likely to start throwing things at me in such a public place. There's a moment where her hand hovers over the guacamole, but the moment passes and we settle down to a fairly civil discussion (though she tells me today that she's never been able to eat Mexican food again).

 Like wonderful dinners at Sopan's place, at John's, at Neville & Nandu's, so much great food, so much drinking, so much gossip and bitching... (and Nandu I'm still waiting for that recipe for prawns and baingan). Like at a GB meeting trying to order pizzas for 20 gay men each with their own idea of what they want on top (don't try doing this, its a nightmare), and then listening to Dee flirting massively with the order taker at Domino's. Like potlucks at GB where Hardley's mother's dhansak saves the day because everyone else has brought sweets.

 Like eating at the White Party, after the police raid, and when they started telling us to line up and give our names and addresses. Dee had the brainwave of getting the caterers to start serving the food anyway, and while no one was feeling like eating, the hot food helped. Just the act of eating it like at a normal party, calmed people and gave them the pause to realise that there wasn't much the police could get us on and the best thing was to stop being frightened like they wanted us to be.

 Like drinking wine and wheat beer in Amsterdam watching all the gorgeous men on the boats in Amsterdam's Canal Pride sail past. Like pakoras cooked for my boyfriend and me by a gay Pakistani friend in London because he felt we might be getting homesick. Like so many meals in so many restaurants, in India and abroad, with gay people we'd just met and become friends with simply because we were also gay.

 Like with Lesley again as she helps me shop for the kitchen I use now, dragging me around Crawford Market as she lectures me on what pots and pans I'll need, the merits of non-stick cookware, how to use a pressure cooker and how to choose chickens for cooking. Like listening to her later as she gives me further lectures on how to cook country captain, on how to make tzatziki sauce, and why exactly she thinks I'm fucked up.

 Like cooking myself these days for friends coming over, realising how making good food for people one likes is one of the best pleasures food can give. Like cooking for my boyfriend, who, however unwillingly, has eaten his way through some of my early experiments and amazingly says he still loves me (yes, yes, I promise not to put too much salt next time).

 These are some of my memories and I'll be passing on some of the recipes I associate them with. I also asked a number of friends to do the same and many responded. Those recipes and mine will start coming on the list, one a day and after a bit perhaps they could also start appearing on the website.

 My real hope though is that this will prompt others on the list to share their own memories of food, their favourite recipes and what makes it special for them. Look at it, in a way, as an attempt to link two forms of sustenance, the physical one that is food, and the less tangible, but no less important one, which is this community we are trying to create.

 You can post them on the list directly or to me at vg_d@yahoo.com So keep those knives chopping and get those recipes coming online. Many thanks to all those who'll send and to all who already did, particularly Devdutt, whose idea this partly was, and Sandip Roy, who shared the recipes from Trikone's food issue some years back.

 Above all though, a big personal thanks from me to Lesley, for being my first friend in the community, and in the kitchen as well.

Back to Cooking Index !