They are nothing like the old cotton handkerchiefs lying in your mom's wardrobe. Not your regular tissue papers, toilet rolls or Windex-infused cotton balls. I use top-of-the-line alcohol free screen wipes, one wet and one dry, every time I explode with laughter and spit all over the LCD screen of my laptop after reading a new blog post on AmuseBiatch. At times, I also spill the coffee mug that I bought in Nantucket this summer from The Bean. It replaced the one I broke from my favorite Seattle’s Zeitgeist.
If I were a gay Top Chef contestant turned judge wearing pink fancy pants rather than an average Internet mogul, would they be all over my case? Is Top Chef really coming to New York? Please welcome my favorite AmuseBiatche-s Charlus Baron and Miss XaXa.
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DB: I heard via the grapevine that Amuse-Biatch was born on Lake Geneva over a filet de perche and hours of staring at the famous fountain. True? What were you really eating?
CHARLUS: No, no, no. You're thinking of the other monster born on the shores of Lake Geneva. I really have very little in common with Frankenstein. Although, now that I think about it, there was a formative incident in Geneva that did scar me and that likely turned me into the monster I am today. I was in my late teens, at a nearby boarding school, and had gone to my first Geneva gay bar, a little rat cellar cum cabaret called La Garçonnière. I was in the audience, probably radiating fresh-scrubbed virtue. And then, from the shallow depths of the miniscule stage, a drag queen made fun of me. Over the microphone. I've yet to recover. Mind you, it was completely unprovoked; I hadn't so much as heckled her. I suspect it's because I looked — fresh-faced, innocent youth that I was — as though butter wouldn't melt in mouth. Perhaps she was just trying to prepare me for the harsh realities of life, I don't know. At any rate, that night we both learnt—she to her peril, and I to my delight — that not only did butter melt in my mouth, it also turned into vinegar. Suffice it to say, I have never again been insulted by a drag queen (not to my face, anyway).
DB: So Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and became Spider-Man, and you were insulted by a drag queen and became Amuse-Biatch?
CHARLUS: Well, that's one way of looking at it. But you musn't forget that Amuse-Biatch is a two-headed monster.
DB: XaXa, I think he means you.
MISS XAXA: Oh honey, he's called me worse things. As we're fond of saying, I'm the muse and he's the biatch.
DB: So why blogging?
MISS XAXA: Well, nobody would give us a radio show. Besides, it's cheaper than therapy, and it keeps Charlus off the streets, which means it's a benefit to society.
DB: So you think blogging is a kind of societal safety valve?
MISS XAXA: Absolutely. Besides, if we talked at our day jobs the way we write on our blogs, we would probably soon be unemployed.
DB: So why food blogging in particular?
MISS XAXA: Well, Charlus and I are creatures of appetite.
CHARLUS: I always think of that scene in Big Night where one of the guests starts crying in the middle of the banquet because her mother was a terrible cook. It may well be the most tragic, heart-wrenching scene in the history of film.
MISS XAXA: And that means something coming from someone who cheered in the theater when Leonardo DiCaprio went down with the Titanic.
CHARLUS: It was at that moment in Big Night that I realized the limits of sympathy and empathy, because both XaXa and I have mothers who are superb cooks, so it's impossible for us to imagine what the alternative might be. And in the old country, one grandfather ran a noodle factory and, later, an ice cream parlor where he made his own ice cream. The other grandfather was a renowned distributor of the cheese produced on the family ranch.
MISS XAXA: My Sicilian great-grandfather —
CHARLUS: No doubt a distant relative of Golden Girl Sophia Petrillo.
MISS XAXA: — made his own grappa, and my grandfather was a winemaker. So an interest in good food is a family legacy for both of us.
CHARLUS: I think that David Kamp is quite right that we have become the United States of Arugula, and for the most part that's a good thing, but what amazes XaXa and me is the humorlessness that so often accompanies that mindset. That very humorlessness suggests that people don't really enjoy food, which negates the whole point. Instead, food becomes a cultural bludgeon or a competitive event, or an arena for displaced anxiety about class.
MISS XAXA: Not us, though.
CHARLUS: No, not us. For example, I'll not soon forget the truffled mashed potatoes, lamb three ways, and Chartreuse soufflé at L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon, but that doesn't mean I'm immune to the charms of grape jelly on saltine crackers while watching the collector's edition of the Kirsten Dunst cheerleading masterpiece Bring It On.
MISS XAXA: I'm guessing Smucker's? Anyway, didn't Tom Colicchio say somewhere that people started becoming foodies when they gave up their cocaine habits? I wonder what Padma would say.
CHARLUS: I believe her exact words were, "I never toke and tell." Well, as you can see, the world of food and chefs is ripe for a little humorous skewering, and Top Chef makes for an excellent scratching post.
DB: Charlus, I have to applaud your literacy. But forgive my gay bashing attitude — could you have picked a more homosexual, vain or snobbish character?
CHARLUS: Well, that was rather the idea. Besides, if you follow the literary template, I'm certain to get my comeuppance. Marcel Proust being the out-and-proud, gay-positive Jewish homosexual we know and love, his Charlus has a stroke and ends up demented, abandoned, and having a relationship with a gold-digging violinist who cheats on him with his nephew. Having recently had a bad date with a violinist, I'm beginning to think dementia and solitude can't be far behind.
DB: Are there myths or misconceptions that you guys would like to clear up?
MISS XAXA: Oh boy, you shouldn't have asked that. It's a bit of a sore spot. But yeah, there's a couple.
CHARLUS: Oddly enough, they're both ontological and about pussies. Someone once wrote in, thinking that Miss XaXa was my cat, and that I was having imaginary dialogues with a furry, feline friend. Miss XaXa, let me tell you, is very real. For heaven's sake, there's photographic evidence. And if you have any doubts, just ask Mario Batali.
MISS XAXA: As for Charlus, a number of people seem to think he's a girl, I don't know why. Trust me, he's all man.
CHARLUS: Just ask the violinist.
***
You can find Charlus and Miss XaXa on FoodCandy or on the AmuseBiatch blog.