There is no better way to start any morning than breakfast at Barneys New York [especially when it isn't open to the public]. I started off my Thursday at genes@CO-OP Café where Simon Doonan [Barneys Creative Ambassador-at-Large] hosted an intimate reading of his latest book, Gay Men Don’t Get Fat. On the breakfast menu? Berries, yogurt & granola. How fitting!

[[ Simon Doonan, chatting it up // sharing a few blurbs // my kind of breakfast // getting started on my new years resolution.. read more // Simon called my loafer/sockless combination daring. Why? It was 38 degrees outside ]]

 

Apparently, Mirelle Guiliano wrote a bestseller a few years ago titled French Women Don’t Get Fat. Doonan took the concept to the next level. I’m still readying [what, I was busy enjoying the spring weather!] but if you’d like a preview, The New York Times offers a glimpse of what the book is about [the vast range of the world’s culinary options can be boiled down to two core categories: gay food and straight food], and who Simon Doonan is [slim and sprightly at 59], in Pass the Large Grain of Salt. I have to say, it had me laughing out loud. I mean..:

“Gay foods are more decorative; they’re more frivolous,” he said. “The macaron craze is the ne plus ultra of gay fooderie. I can’t believe any red-blooded straight guy can even walk into a macaron shop. If you wanted to ruin a politician’s career, just publish a picture of him shopping for macarons.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Doonan freely uses “lesbian” to describe certain earthy, healthful foods.“Organic olive oil, thick porridge, heaping helpings of wheat germ,” he said. “A crusty loaf of whole-grain bread is both ferociously lesbian and wildly heterosexual.”

“I have a lot of straight friends,” he said. “And a lot of them are a very different shape. The word ‘burly’ springs to mind. And that’s a function of eating too many meatloafs, too many steaks, too many jumbo burritos.”

Basically, the lesson to be learned is:

  1. Seek out a balanced diet of both [gay and heterosexual] to stay svelte.
    1. Think of it, if you must, as bisexual eating.“Mix it up,” he said. “Gay men don’t stay trim because they only eat gay food. I don’t live on macarons and lettuce.”

Will you take on Simon’s diet strategy?