free association with AKAs

I wore my Queen T-shirt on Saturday. The Trader Joe's clerk struck up a conversation with us about Queen's "A Night at the Opera." That led to a comment about how she still can't understand how people thought Freddie Mercury (aka Farrokh Bulsara) was straight and another conversation about Liberace (Wladziu Valentino Liberace). I told her that his real name was Walter Soucek something-or-other (something "ethnic, maybe Polish").

What I didn't realize is that I was trying to call him Walter Sobchak. If the name's familiar, it's because he doesn't roll on Shabbos and has all sorts of advice, including the infamous "this is what happens Larry ..." line.

In any case, it all comes together when you stop and think about it. Gay men with different stage names, and the whole matter of anatomy and getting off ... brings me to another form of pleasure, "The Joy of Liberace" (it's a cook book, people), that I heard about on NPR this weekend.

Retro Cooking with the King of Bling
All Things Considered, May 5, 2007 · The book for kitchy cooks has arrived.

Liberace — the rhinestone-studded pianist who was known for his candelabra, charisma and dazzle — was also a chef whose recipes were as over-the-top as his clothes. He loved to cook for his friends and his mother, and at one point even owned a restaurant.

Now, 20 years after his death, authors Michael and Karan Feder have compiled more than 80 of his favorite recipes in their new book Joy of Liberace: Retro Recipes from America's Kitschiest Kitchen.

Many of the dishes are the same ones "Mr. Showmanship" himself featured on 'The Liberace Show' in the '50s and '60s. There's the bejeweled Angel Bling Cake Pie, as well as Celery Victor/Victoria and Flamboyant Flambe of Sirloin, among others.

The blinged-out culinary classics are enough to have cooks laughing all the way to the Las Vegas buffet table.