Appetizers

Gays at Gelson’s

A few years ago, Gelson’s, an upscale Southern California supermarket known for overpriced produce, opened wine bars at several of their locations. While bewildering to most, Jonathan (“not -o-n”) Newhall, a flight attendant based in L.A., saw an opportunity: he started hosting gay parties at the Silver Lake store’s wine bar that became known, via his perfect Instagram account, as “Gays at Gelson’s” (aka G@G). Last night, I popped by to investigate.

“It’s, like, the saddest bar on the planet,” Jonathan admits. “There’s fluorescent lighting, they’re playing Jeopardy!, and there’s like two sad people drinking alone with their groceries next to them. But I love it here, and I just thought it’d be kind of stupid.”

I arrive with FRoG (Friend of Gourmet) Frank Anderson at a crisp 7 p.m., and the bar area, politely cordoned off near the store’s entrance, is already full. Jonathan greets us warmly, immediately informing everyone within earshot that the press has arrived. (Gourmet is breaking this story.) He explains that he usually starts with a glass of Whispering Angel rosé and makes his way to a Louis Jadot Burgundy (“because Louis Ja-do, honey”), but he lets us in on perhaps the most genius hack any “guerilla pop-up moment” has ever exploited: you can buy a bottle of wine (and anything else you desire from Gelson’s) at retail price and bring it to the bar, sans corkage. 

Frank and I decide that a buttery Chardonnay would be appropriate and opt for a label we’ve never heard of. Her name is “Hanna.” I ask Jonathan what he thinks is the best thing to smuggle in from the store’s abundant aisles. “I always tell people to get a Lunchable,” he says. “Why not? You’re at a bar: it’s like a charcuterie but better.”

Jonathan says the parties have gotten wild a few times—he asks me to strike several anecdotes from the record—but Gelson’s has declined to address G@G at all, much less ban them. Something about the environment is clearly hitting for people. “Someone asked to D.J. tonight. I said, ‘Baby, this is a grocery store. There’s Bounty and Charmin on sale over there.’” —A.T.

Do the Doudou

A few months ago, a bisyllabic murmur echoed in a corner of my local watering hole, Peg’s Cavalier: doudou. Fellow patrons were asking barkeep Will to make a special shot. They asked if I wanted one. I obviously said yes, as I’m not one to turn down a new drink—let alone one that’s free. The contents of this shot were shocking: it was one ounce vodka, half an ounce lemon juice, a good five seconds’ worth hearty shakes of hot sauce, and one olive. It produced a gradient moving from clear to yellow to deep red, with a glowing green center.

I am not one for savory drinks (famously I hate most cocktails), and while I enjoy an olive from time to time, I’m not partial to a dirty martini. But this here doudou was quite enjoyable. The lemon tempers the burn of the vodka, the hot sauce gives it a kick, and the olive—which you’re supposed to chew as a chaser—is the perfect finish. As soon as the shot went down, I wanted another (and, indeed, I got one maybe fifteen minutes later).

The doudou was introduced to us all by my neighbor and FRoG Rania Dalloul. The drink hails from Beirut, and she spent her twenties downing quite a few doudous. (One night in her youth, Rania says, she drank a record twenty-one.) The doudou, Rania says, “has a contested origin story.” That is, numerous bars in the Lebanese capital claim to have invented it, and no one knows whom to believe. The Lebanese capital is teeming with bar owners claiming the doudou their creation: “Many of them have been feuding about who actually invented the shot.” What Rania does know is that its origins are firmly in Beirut, and it was likely created during wartime. 

Rania calls out two specific Beirut spots for exceptional doudous. The shot at Captain’s Cabin in Ras Beirut, whose owner claims to be the doudou’s Da Vinci, is notable for its spiciness. The owner of this beloved dive is one of the alleged doudou Da Vincis. Then there’s Torino, in the neighborhood of Gemmayze, where she had her famed twenty-first shot some fifteen-plus years ago. At the time, the bartender said “‘I think that’s a record for this bar’…but that was in 2010, maybe 2011, so maybe somebody’s broken my record.” —C.G.W.

Let It Mellow

Back in 2021, the first time I partook of asparagus, my all-time favorite vegetable, after the first time I got COVID, the all-time worst coronavirus, something unusual happened: for the first time, I could smell the distinct odor of asparagus pee. Until this moment, I had been blessed with the inability to detect this effect, or maybe produce it—some people can do one but not the other, and the jury is out on whether this is genetic. In briefly losing and then regaining my sense of smell from COVID, did something happen to change what I could whiff? Or did COVID inflammation change something deep in my guts that makes me break down asparagusic acid (a real compound!) differently? 

Either way, my love has not dimmed: this spring it’s asparagus every night, raw or steamed or roasted or grilled, ’til the season ends. —N.S.