A gay-owned Virgia rtrant is a dispute wh s neighbors - Washgton Post

Contents:

• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS KEV MAXEN BE FIRST PROFSNAL MALE ACH TO E OUT AS GAY
• HOW GAY IS YOUR FOOD?
• THE 'GAY DIET'
• A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.
• JAGUARS’ KEV MAXEN IS FIRST MALE ACH TO E OUT AS GAY US MEN’S PRO SPORTS
• IN YOUR OPN, WHAT IS THE GAYT FOOD?
• IS THERE A GAY APPROACH TO COOKG? THIS PRIVATE CHEF THKS SO. 

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS KEV MAXEN BE FIRST PROFSNAL MALE ACH TO E OUT AS GAY

An entreprenr lnched a nned cktail this week lled “Gay Water” that’s aimed at LGBTQ drkers — and said he’s lookg to palize on Bud Light’s mistak.

But “Gay Water” — which adopts a moniker the gay muny has long given to the simple vodka and soda cktail — has been spired by the dtup to bee even bolr about the dience ’s targetg, founr and CEO Spencer Hodson told The Post.

Gay Water — a nned cktail brand that plays on the gay muny’s lloquialism for the vodka-and-soda mixed drk — lnched on Wednday and promis to unrstand s dience better than Bud Light.Spencer Hodson/Instagram. The 30-year-old Hodson said he is g suggtive — albe playful — msagg and imagery Gay Water’s social media and webse, cludg a provotive nod to the 12-ounce n’s 6.1-ch height. “Our missn is to -stigmatize the word ‘gay’ and start to create reprentatn spac that tradnally don’t have queer-owned products, let alone products wh the word ‘gay’ their tle,” Hodson told The Post.

HOW GAY IS YOUR FOOD?

“When was the last time you saw the word gay at a rtrant, bar, liquor store, or grocery store? The word ‘gay’ origally was fed as happy, and we’re hopg to remd folks of that by beg prent,” he add. Founr Spencer Hodson, a gay man, says the brand is about reclaimg the word “gay” as a word that “jt means happy.”Spencer Hodson/Instagram.

“Part of the pot of lnchg outsi of Pri month is to rerce the msage that Gay Water is here to make the LGBTQ+ muny more visible 365 days a year, not jt a sgle month,” he said.

And yet, as a gay man-ish person, I have always found the dners to be an unniably queer space, even if I uldn’t offer the exact reason why.

THE 'GAY DIET'

That’s an important startg pot, but plenty of events and rtrants n by gay chefs are not necsarily queer. No flourish of sce mak a dish bisexual, nor do flambe make your duck or ice cream “homosexual”: the are terms applied to people, and on that don’t transfer to food, even if an LGBTQ someone igned that dish.

Jt as the gay bar is only the tip of the queer-nightlife iceberg, the explicly queer food bs is only the most visible aspect of a much larger, often unseen universe of queer food, one that’s been evolvg and shapg Amerin culture for s.

I found when out queer woman Angela Dimayuga ran the kchen at New York’s Missn Che, wa staff along the genr spectm slippg my boyiend and me lorful, spicy dish wh a si of flirtatn, a playful nod we associated wh gay bars a few drks , not trendy rtrants. Durg sprawlg dners at my own apartment, my clique I ll the “gay bros” ll me the “Barelegged Contsa, ” thanks to my fondns for the Food Network star’s recip, served at a table becked wh seasonal r like dick-o’-lanterns while I waltz through the kchen short shorts.

A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.

The are all moments where the culary queer manifts as s own type of rabow: It wasn’t jt this or jt that which ma the meal a b gay; was a ltle of everythg, the magic of polil liv lived wh joy.

Gay-owned Cupke Royale Seattle is known for their Gay cupke, the sal of which benef Genr Jtice League Washgton. As rtrants across the untry toss some rabow food lorg to palize on Pri, queer-owned bs make much more meangful donatns — and that activism is part of what mak their rabow cupk gay, and not jt gay for pay, as Eater’s Adam Mosa wr.

JAGUARS’ KEV MAXEN IS FIRST MALE ACH TO E OUT AS GAY US MEN’S PRO SPORTS

The rtrant grew to an unlikely cha, born an era when gay bars were vert, closed to outsirs, and absolutely not statns for bachelorette parti. This isn’t acplished merely by servg vegan Beyond Burgers but, stead, by prentg one of Ameri’s most inic foods a cidly gay ntext.

Also, lerally leggy cktail glass, burgers as large as the pecs of the hunky servers that liver them, and a “No Hate” chicken sandwich parodyg a certa homophobic Southern cha: All are a part of Hamburger Mary’s long, hard participatn the queer cultural athetic tradn of mp. While her say purposely bobs and weav, Sontag clar that mp’s vanguard are homosexuals (her term) who nsir themselv “aristocrats of taste. ” To Sontag, the gay embrace of mp is an assiatnist tactic: Camp’s emphasis on playfulns thwarted the moral strictur of 1964, and allowed a gay sensibily to crique and permeate mass culture at a time when livg an outwardly gay life was taboo.

Stephen Vir, visg assistant profsor of history and mm studi at Bryn Mawr College and thor of the upg Queer Belonggs, has studied this phenomena as relat to The Gay Cookbook, a 1965 volume by Lou Rand Hogan published amidst mastream tert gay subjects sparked by Sontag’s say and an opportuny to ame gay male life as domtic stead of based, though this domticy clud jok about workg wh “a tough piece of meat” and recip for “sorory-sized ssag. Hogan’s book broke through by subvertg social stereotyp wh humor, which would appeal both to gay home oks and heterosexuals who wanted on the joke. A 1983 effort, The Gay Of Cookg by “The Kchen Fairy, ” scribed creamg butter as “no different om most Saturday nights”; 1983’s LA Gay Gourmet by Carl Mueller is dited “To all our iends wh oral fixatns.

IN YOUR OPN, WHAT IS THE GAYT FOOD?

Mac Malikowski and his magaze Mouthfeel brg a gay punk sensibily to the world of aspiratnal food media. Image men tweed slacks and smart sweaters mixg somethg lled a “Margara” while dancg to the latt Joe Tex bop: that was the behd-closed-doors gay urban pneerg that Birdsall speaks of.

For black gay men, “tea” n take many forms — a slang term for gossip or a suggtn of social (and sexual) get togethers — but, unlike mp food styl, vokg tea isn’t strictly about parody.

IS THERE A GAY APPROACH TO COOKG? THIS PRIVATE CHEF THKS SO. 

As for the actual tea, Johnson not, black gay men riff on fay recip, often makg them boozy, queerg the more sober versns om their youths. The New York Tim wh the help of Barney's creative ambassador Simon Doonan has cid this week that your food n be gay or article is om the archive of our partner New York Tim wh the help of Barney's creative ambassador Simon Doonan has cid this week that your food n be gay or straight. Apparently, a "gay" food isn't jt a potato that seeks marriage equaly, remds you was born this way, or owns a summer share on Fire Island.

Acrdg to Doonan, his new (satiril) book Gay Men Don't Get Fat and his terview wh The Tim today, gay food is lighter, brighter, more artistic, art-directed--food that you'd fd where health and athetics tersect (and that's very different than what Doonan labels "lbian food"--"Organic olive oil, thick porridge, heapg helpgs of wheat germ, " and s ilk).

" We enjoyed Doonan's sweepg gay food generalizatns so we put them to the unscientific, anecdotal tt, assigned them a rpective Ksey ratg and me up wh your (pletely unscientific) gui to the sexualy of food, om gayt to straightt:What is: Shi; Sashimi; Cdo; Seafood Tartare; Ceviche What Doonan Says: "Japane food — that is some serly gay food... Basilly, you’re takg sloppy bs of fish and makg them to the exquise ltle bonbons, and that seems ordately gay to me. " What Ksey Says: The Ksey 6 is "exclively homosexual" What We Say: That sort of mak sense.