The unseasonably warm weather may not be cooperating for roaring fires and snuggly sweaters, but winter is still the season that makes us crave comfort food — simple, hearty meals that both soothe and satisfy.
Don’t feel like cooking at home? Here are 10 of our favorite comfort food meals from LGBT-friendly local eateries. Some are praised by the foodies, some are mainstays of the gayborhood, but all will leave you ready to cuddle up.
Robert got out of bed and walked to the bathroom. About a year ago, when he turned 49, he started doing his usual morning grooming virtually without looking in the mirror.
It made shaving difficult at first and he considered growing a beard. But it became easy –a unique skill worthy of performance in a geriatric gay freak show, as he told friends.
But Robert knew that the evidence of aging was not just his own mirror reflection. It was also reflected in the faces of others. A few days after Thanksgiving, he went to the Backstreet reunion party at Jungle where he ran into a few men with whom he partied when he was barely 20. There was a moment of hesitation before they recognized one another for certain, followed by laughter.
“Is it spiiiicy?” a man at the second meeting of the Food Porn Supper Club whined to the server. They were at Stir It Up in Little Five Points and the whiner was determined to find the blandest thing on the menu.
“Jamaican food is by definition spicy,” someone at the table said. “But it’s not all spicy-hot.”
Robert, host of the club, wanted to tie the whiner up and torture him with Scotch Bonnet chili peppers, the world’s hottest. Nothing annoyed him as much as people’s aversion to spicy food. He’d given up taking most friends to ethnic restaurants along Buford Highway, for example.
Robert looked around the dining room of the new Watershed on Peachtree and marveled at how dark and woody it was compared to the original restaurant in Decatur. Indigo Girl Emily Saliers, the owner, had closed that one and reopened in this new south Buckhead location.
“I hear it looks very different,” said Robert’s date, Brandon.