I'm in DOLLYWOOD!!   (Gatlinburg, Tennessee).  I'll be back later this week with a full recap.  Y'all come back now, y' hear!

THUNDERHEAD, the world's #1 wooden roller coaster

FUNNEL CAKE, my #1 amusement park eats!

This week, on a decadent summer Tuesday evening, 5 equally decadent ladies hit the town for some good & hearty Indian food.... and down & dirty vicious gossip!

We went to CHOLA, the oddly named Indian haute cuisine hotspot on East 58th & 3rd Ave.  We may not be mexican gangsta bitches (the definition of 'chola'), but we were definitely indian-guzzling bitches.  Look what we ate...

 

Dosa appetizer:  thin crispy crepe rolled around curried potatoes.  Dosas are to die for!

Garlic nan to accompany our meal.  There is just nanthing like warm soft nan.

 

I'm about to butcher these descriptions, and I never know the names of Indian dishes, but we had curried eggplant in a creamy tomatoey sauce, and also a saag (creamed spinach) with eggplant, cauliflower and other wonderful vegs.

 

A curried potato & cauliflower dish that the horny indian waiters gave us "on the house".  It pays to dine with 4 young ladies.

Tandoori chicken -- very tender and lemony with a lovely smoky grilled flavor. 

A plate of Indian food all fixed up is a beautiful sight to behold, and an even beautifuller medley to ingest.  Here on my plate surrounding the basmati rice are chicken tikka masala, as well as a phenomenal smoky okra/eggplant dish.  

 

Caroline, me, May, Dawn, Linda -- a buncha cholas if I've ever seen one.  We had so much fun gorging on the delicious dishes and vicious gossip.  All it took was a marvelous one-hour meal to catch all of us up on all the losers, leeches, low-lives, freaks, stalkers, chinks, and criminals we all know.  And after the Elisha topic was over, we talked about everyone else. 

 

SLAPOVER

After disbanding from dinner, Linda and I skedaddled uptown to her new apartment for the continuation of our city sleepovers.  There was nothing like an after-dinner summer evening stroll thru the city.  At the apartment, I finally met Linda's new little bundle of joy, BELLA!

 

 

Bella is soooooo cute!!   Like my brother's Buddie, I couldn't stop giggling everytime I looked into her simple innocent puppy face.  She is the sweetest little thing!! 

 

Napoleon and Bella.  The apartment has a fabulous spacious balcony, but my knees quivered when I stepped outside and looked down. 

Linda's new apt is awesome!  The living room has a spectacular corner view and tons of sunlight.  We're going to have some epic slapovers in the coming year.

Linda cleans up poop before we leave for work the next morning.  All in a day.

Just for the hell of it, I threw a big-ass BLOCK PARTY.  I put together the festive event for our closest Boatworks friends & neighbors.  We opened up our garages, cleared our driveways, and called upon a carefully selected group of folks.  Everyone came bearing food, drinks, and a party-all-nite attitude.  It's the party we've talked about doing for 3 years, and only this young skinny taiwanese social butterfly (all butter, no fly) could make it happen.

 

I made Guacamole from scratch -- 3 avocados, chopped tomatoes & red onion, jalapeno, lime juice.....but I forgot the fucking cilantro!  I had the cilantro soaking in cold water, but forgot to add it.  Note to self:  do not make guac while drunk.  I also threw together a veg platter with cucumber-dill yogurt dip.

 

bubbyMichael made his scrumptious cocktail meatballs with a marinara sauce and a vodka sauce for dipping.  Diana's fresh mozz/tomato/basil platter was also a hit, as was Jim's shrimp scampi. 

 

Annery's pesto.  I have to admit....her pesto is the besto!  Better than mine.  This pesto was for simple smearing on hearty italian bread.  There's nothing better!  Another neighbor made a pasta & beans summer salad.

   

Another neighbor who's a chef, made seafood paella, and a phenomenal penne pasta with broccoli rabe and sweet sausage. 

   

Nhi, our vietnamese neighbor made a refreshing almond/olive/cucumber greens salad with ginger dressing.  She also makes the best fried shrimp & pork wontons.

 

View from the balcony. 

 

Me with Annery(pesto) and Nhi(wontons).  Me with Claudia(hummus).

 

me with uber-neighbors, Madeline & Frank.  They're the best folks to have as party co-conspirators.  They cover all the bases and they add life and energy to the mix. 

In the right pic we have Gosia&Keith(pasta bean salad, brownies), Annery (pesto, shrimp scampi), Tommy&Jamie& cutelilThomas(fruit salad, cookies, Heineken keg), Natasha&Ray(liquor)

 

Michael made a new friend -- little Bryan, the vietnamese baby who was almost born in our living room on New Year's Eve a year and a half ago.  He's so big and adorable.  Michael spent so much time with Bryan, I think I started ovulating. 

 

MOJITOS

 

That's right...I made MOJITOS, bitches.  Lychee martinis are soooo 2 years ago.  It was time to move on to muddled mint/limes/sugar, rum & club soda.  See the muddler going down to the mint, lime & sugar.  Mush mush mush.  See the rum join the fun.  See spot run.

My mojito presentation.  LORI, our dear friend and sales agent who sold us our home 3 yrs ago, made a special guest appearance at our party.  She helped me with the mojitos, and I made her take this pic.  Out at the party, I laid out all the cups, dropped a few mint leaves, lime wedges and dash of sugar into each.  Then I poured from the ready-made pitcher, and fluttered around forcing everyone to enjoy one.  I even got non-drinkers to drink!  Next I'm going after recovering alkies.

 

The party goes well into the night, and jealous uninvited neighbors have gone into hiding.  In the background on the far left, there's mega-celeb radio dj Cubby from 103.5 KTU (formerly of Z100).  He stopped by to have a few of my mojitos.  Sitting on the far right is Lori, who was contemplating having another plate of food or another mojito.  She went for both.

Me with Annery.  At this point of the evening I've had about 5 mojitos and 2 glasses of wine and 3 plates of food.  Very drunkadoo.

A late-summer night's fiesta.  It was Frank's idea to line the driveways with these paper bags filled with sand and tealights.  Nice touch!  Although his original layout of the chairs made the event look like an AA meeting.  I rearranged the seats to minimize the institutional ambiance and to maximize conversation niches and eating corridors. 

The party was a tremendous success, and there was no doubt in my mind it would be.  It was much better than the community pool party a few months ago, because the food was high quality gourmet, the people were relevant, and the best part...at midnight when it was over, we brought everything into our garages, closed the doors, and crawled up to bed.  The next morning we did massive cleanup, hosed down the driveways, returned people's bowls & platters, and citronella candles...and did our morning-after summation and gossipping while neighbors drove by yelling "woo-hoo...great party last nite!"

I met Buddie last nite!  Cousin Jenn and I went over to Yud's apt where mom & dad bought a big sushi-roll/sashimi platter for dinner.  After scarfing down dragon rolls, we scarfed down this irresistible cutiepie.

 

So cute in his cage.  Buddie is actually a shih-tzu, but not the ugly kind that most people have with wide, bulging eyes and dirty white faces.  Irresistible cuteness and impeccable grooming run in our family, and Buddie is no exception.

 

I love my nephew!  So much fun!  He's so skinny.  His body cavity is like a toilet paper cylinder core.  His fluffy puffy fur makes him look not-too-tiny.  His paws are like little limp flippers...it's fun to flip & flap it. 

 

Buddie & daddy.  He's teething so he likes to bite (Buddie, not Yud).  He likes to nibble on fingers and toes, but gets sidetracked by jeans and bag straps. 

Ticklefest!!!   teeheeheeheeheeeeee......

 

I'M OFFICIALLY AN UNCLE!!  (or an Aunt, depending on how you wanna play this game).  This weekend my brother Yud & Rosa adopted this little ball of furry cuteness!  His name's BUDDIE, and he's the cutest thing since kittens playing with yarn in a basket.  I haven't met him yet, so we're all gonna have to rely on these pics for the time being.

  

Yud tells me:  Buddie's really tiny (probably 3 lbs), 11 weeks old, he doesn't bark (thank god), does funny things like flips around, has short legs you can barely see, and doesn't look like a dog.  He looks like a stuffed animal! 

 

The red pics are from the breeder; the last one is in the car ride home.  He looks different in the pics.  I'll get to the bottom of it all when I meet my new nephew later this week!  *gushing*

I feel like all I do is eat and eat, and post pics of....(I feel like I've said this before)

Perhaps the most supreme food-whore friends we have, Julia & Jamis, invited us over last weekend for a BBQ housewarming.  They just moved to Cliffside Park, NJ (near Fort Lee) and they wanted us to warm their house by filling our tummies.  Well okay then! 

 

Julia is a master griller.  A Grill-Mistress!  Her specialty is korean bbq, like you would find in restaurants.  She marinates her own thin beef slices and grills them kalbi-style.  It's better than the restaurants because she does all the cooking outdoors and you don't have to do laundry afterwards.   

 

Grill-mistress Julia's kalbi is head and shoulders above anything I've had.  Whereas restaurants will use fattier cuts of beef, and sometimes with the bone in it, Julia's doesn't skimp -- it's indescribably delicious and most importantly, plentiful!  She taught me a new way to eat it too -- instead of wrapped in lettuce leaves, we used pickled white radishes as the sweet succulent wrappers.  Accompanying the meat were yellow sweet potatoes and corn on the cob, grilled to effortless perfection. 

Not to be out-done, Jamis offered his own delicious delight:  Ribs 2 ways!  Spice-rubbed & honey-glazed babyback and spare ribs!  These beauties look grilled, but they were actually secretly slow-cooked in the oven for 3 hours (I was none the wiser until I found the empty roasting pans in the kitchen afterwards).  Yummazing!!

 

Annery & Jim were on board for the BBQ.  (Michael and I are both freshly haircutted, finally.  We felt so gross and shagadoo before, and now we're gorge again.)

 

Julia's mom and another couple proved to be fierce eaters as well.  Look at all the empty plates.

 

Their backyard came with these luscious grape vines.  Real grapes!  Jim was salivating at the thought of homemade wine. 

Me with Julia's adorable mom, Lucy.  She is the sweetest, and really warmed up to us.  Maybe it's because she realized we'd be (baby)back often for more food.

 

Julia & Jamis' new home is immediately warm, comfortable, colorful, tasteful, and wonderful!  You know how at some people's houses you just can't wait to get the fuck out of there?  Well, not here.  Here, you feel so at home and you could hang out there all day.  I already envision us frequenting their backyard bbqs, crowding around the dining table to scarf down more guacamole, sitting in front of the fireplace after korean dumplings.  My food visions are never wrong.

 

Korean bakery chocolate-strawberry cake.  This cake was SO GOOD!  It was light fluffy asian baking chocolate (different from american choc cake in that the asian bakers use a tiny bit of cocoa powder so it's not overwhelming).  I had 2 slices.  And then custard cups, from the Portugeuse bakery in Bayonne.  An assortment of coconut custard with powdered sugar, coconut macaroon custard, and regular eggy custard.  Everyone loves these things...I've OD'd on them, so I took a pass.

The dessert spread was most gorgeous, complete with French-pressed (strong) coffee that was just divine. 

 

(left)  I loved this cow-creamer, filled with condensed milk for the espresso-like coffee.  The poor drooling cow dispensed the condemned milk so slowly, it was amusing and sad.

(right)  2 more cows, filled with condensed milk....and cake, coffee, custards, kalbi, spareribs, corn on the cob, sweet potato, babyback ribs,...

 

I feel like all I do is eat and eat, and post pics of what I eat, and talk and talk about what I eat.  What's my point really?  None.  Feast your salivating sights on these, jealous fatties:

Last Friday night we were invited to the Secaucus home of our new friends, Gloria & Tim.  We met the effervescent duo thru Gary & Aaron (the Gaarons), and I am intent on poaching on the Gaaron's friendship with Gloria & Tim.  They are fabulous and fun, and Gloria's food is to die for! 

  

They have a huge backyard. And with a huge backyard comes a huge BBQ grill.  And with a huge BBQ grill comes my undying leeching friendship.  Gloria's bbq chicken legs were phenomenal!  I moaned first & loudest upon taking a first bite.  The meat fell off the bone, and the squeeze of lemon during grilling confirmed what my mouth has been recently discovering:  chicken + lemon = heaven.  Our hostess backed up her grilling prowess with a summer salad of marinated tomatoes & cucumber, fresh picked from her own garden.

 

Roasted potatoes to round out the splendid meal.

 

(left):  Couch-hubbies:  Steven, P.diddy, bubbyMichael

(right):  Aaron in gray, Scott in blue. The gaysians flock to P.diddy like slutty moths to a flame.  Must be the year-round tan and the short shorts.

Tim (far left) crashes this gaysian totem pole group photo.  Bennifer thinks my ear is a BBQ'd drumstick.  I don't blame him. 

 

Gloria, our fabulous hostess, with Aaron.  I'm getting sleepy here since it was a friday nite and all, but there was dessert to be had...

 

3 of the hubbies had birthdays in July, hence the cake.  It was chinese taro cake someone brought.  Normally I love chinese taro cake, but this one was inedible.  The mashed taro and cake layers were way too thick (should be light & fluffy) and too sweet, even for me.  Although I ate 3/4 of a huge slice before deciding it wasn't good. Whatever.  I was all about these Italian pastries!  I pretty much had a bite of everything.  When everyone had had their fill of dessert, I was still going.  They all stood around and watched as I went for another piece of Napoleon, another piece of chocolate-shell cannoli, another bite of tiramisu,...  The expected looks of amusement & disbelief mixed with horror on people's faces no longer bothers me.  I still have my cake and eat theirs too.

 

Linda's company threw a SUMMER PARTY to end all summer parties.  The fete was held at The Lighthouse at Pier 61 at Chelsea Piers, an ideal summer venue for its waterfront locale and gorgeous sunset vistas over the Hudson River.  The party reunited me with all 3 gorgeous L's:  Linda, Lenore, and Lobster tails.

 

The haute cuisine buffet line started innocently enough:  some sort of fish, chicken skewers, roasted eggplant, asparagus spears, fresh mozzarella & tomato, filet mignon....then out of nowhere, a chafing dish full of LOBSTER TAILS!  I couldn't believe it.  We all sat and devoured our lobster tails, moaning with each beautiful buttery bite.  Then we went back for seconds.  Then thirds.  It was a dream come true.

Linda, Lenore, me and some of Linda's office mates.  The party was insane -- 5 open bar stations (I had 3 cosmos and a chardonnay), 5 food stations (I had 3 lobster tails, 5 slices of filet mignon), a dessert spread that featured custom ice cream sundaes with all the toppings (I had 2 bowls).

 

Linda and Tammy; me with Tammy.  I was technically Tammy's date because Linda bumped me for another pretty gay.  Thank god for Tamm-Tamm.

Lenore -- I haven't seen this little hummingbird in a long time.  What a beautiful young woman she's become.  Her Carrie Bradshaw dress was stunning!

Hudson River sunset backdrop.  I took this pic with my camera phone...not bad, eh?  Nothing says summer in the city like sipping a cosmo (and scarfing down a lobster tail) with some lovely ladies on a late July evening on the Manhattan waterfront.

 

Last nite I went to Linda's company Summer Party at the posh LIGHTHOUSE at Chelsea Piers.  The party was absolutely phenomenal!  Think sunset vistas over the Hudson River, think hundreds of people, think 5 open bar stations, think LOBSTER TAILS!  I didn't have my camera with me, so I'm waiting for others to send me pics for a proper entree.  In the meantime, the party also featured ingenious photo booths, which we didn't even think to use until the end of the nite.  Nonetheless, Linda, her lil sis Lenore, and I did our glamour shoot... 

 

I love photo booths and I love how all these came out!  We totally freestyled, not synchronizing our "stick-out-your-tongue" or "make-kissy-face" or "get-half-your-face-cut-off" poses.  Although trying not to appear drunk was a challenge for us all.  It was an amazing night with my lovely Ma sisters, and these photo strips are the perfect souvenir (well, this or a lobster tail carcass).

 

FEAST IN FLUSHING
Long before Ugly Betty made "being from Queens" into something quirky and cute, many of us were already living it.  Queens has always had a lot going on.  There's Jamaica (the blacks), Jackson Heights & Corona (the hispanics), Forest Hills & Kew Gardens (the Jews with money), Bayside (the other white people).  And then there's Flushing (the Chinese).  As disgusting as the name is, Flushing is irrevocably evocative of everything from the atrocious 7-Train to bustling Main Street to many of our childhoods growing up asian in Queens.  And now, in my adult pig-life, it is an epicenter of eating activity.

A Flushing favorite of my family's is RED CHOPSTICKS restaurant, serving authentic Taiwanese cuisine at outer-borough prices.  Last weekend was a spinster weekend for me (hubby was away), so my NJ gays grabbed me to take them to this restaurant.  Bennifer, along with his hubbies Patrick and Keith, set a course straight for the stinky tofu.

4 people, 10 dishes...you do the math.  We ordered everything that came to mind -- fried flounder, cold crunchy cucumber, drunken chicken, fried pork chop over rice, oyster pancake, sauteed shredded pork with bean curd, garlic sauteed spinach, shrimp with soy beans, some kind of soup...   Our table was covered!  We had no room for anything else.  As the plates piled on, the waitresses (shiao-jhe) worriedly asked each other in chinese: Is this all of it?  Is there more?  IS THERE?

 

STINKY TOFU.  This dish is not for the faint of heart, or the capable of scent.  This tofu fucking reeks!  But damn, it tastes so good...as long as there's soy sauce to smother it.  If you've never had Stinky Tofu and don't know what it is, it's best you keep it that way.  Before it's an acquired taste, it has to be an acquired smell.  Imagine the remarkable reek of moist sweaty socks buried in hot dumpster garbage.  It's that bad!  I practically ate the whole plate.  (I'm going to allow "EWWW" comments on this one because I know that's all many of you are creatively capable of). 

 

P.diddy, Bennifer, Keith.  I'm very proud of Keith for trying all the foods, and even a stinky tofu for the first time.  I had predicted instant vomiting from him, but it didn't come to that.  I'm pleased that P.diddy loves our taiwanese cuisine so much.  And Bennifer....he's just a fucking pig.  It was his idea to travel on a Saturday evening, from the depths of NJ to the outer reaches of Queens....just for Red Chopsticks.  (No wonder he's my gaysian best friend).  Also of note, we managed to cut the deplorable 7-Train out of this equation.  We took the LIRR!  It was only 18 mins from Penn Station.  Sheer genius!

After dinner, we had to try out the new PINKBERRY that opened up in the heart of Chelsea.  Right smack on the gay runway (8th Ave & 18th), this chic new frozen-yogurt-with-fresh-fruit joint is the newest concept chain that's sweeping the city.   My friend Eva had raved about the wonders of Pinkberry just weeks before, and now I had to try it!

 

This is the plain Pinkberry with 3 toppings.  There's also a Green tea flavor, also available with toppings.  Describing Pinkberry as frozen yogurt with fresh fruit is not doing it justice.  There is a reason why we and hordes of others, stand on line for 30 minutes for a taste of this tantalizing treat.  You MUST treat yourself to this yummy phenomenon.  It's low-fat, low-carb, and guilt free.  No wonder the gays are loving it.  The 4 of us stood outside the store that evening sensuously devouring our Pinkberrys, moaning with each bite.  Between spoonfuls, we made catty judgments about every fugly gaysian and hideous queer that sashayed by.  The combined decadence of Pinkberry + bitchery was simply overwhelming!