Absolutely Fab

Newcastle Herald

Saturday March 27, 2004

QUEER Eye for the Straight Guy the successful television program featuring five style masters who redesign the lives of your more-than-average heterosexual man, is now a book.

Each of the Fab 5 has his own section, creating the ultimate reference for any poor fella who is struggling with his appearance and style.

Covering food and wine, grooming, decorating, fashion and culture, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the book, isn't just for your scruffy man friend. It contains valuable advice for us all. Oh, yes, and it's hilarious.

Here is a sample of their timely advice:

DRESSING BETTER

Fashion savant Carson Kressley offers four different ways to wear a striped shirt.

1. Stripes can add sartorial sass to your suit and tie. More fun than a barrel of credit cards.

2. Worn open with denim. Dressed down but still dressed up. Don't forget to tszuj the sleeves to show some skin, people.

3. With a blue blazer, the striped shirt becomes the new tie.

4. When paired with a V-neck sweater, the touches of colour at the neckline and cuffs will keep you from looking like a math major.

LOOKING BETTER

Grooming guru Kyan Douglas suggests five treatments to try before you're 35.

1. Facial: There's something to be said for a woman's touch and you'll be pleasantly surprised by just how violent and corrective these can be.

Facials are great for cleansing, exfoliation and extractions (that is, removing pore build-up with manual manipulations). Get a facial every six weeks or so.

2. Manicure/pedicure: Why not look good right down to your extremities? These treatments aren't about painted nails and foot massages (not that there's anything wrong with those). This is about tszujing your feet for sandal season and making something presentable out of your bitten fingernails.

3. Body wax: Oh, come on. Women do it for you, why not return the favour? A couple of seconds of pain. A new, smooth, less-revolting you still you, but without the excess fur. The cost is proportional to the area being treated.

4. Straight-razor shave: Hot towels! Blades to the jugular! And if you're lucky, a nose-hair clipping by a complete stranger.

5. A proper haircut: If you've spent three decades at the local barber shop, give a salon a try, if for no other reason than you will likely be surrounded by women instead of by old men.

LIVING BETTER

Design doctor Thom Filicia outlines five ways to a better bathroom.

1. Clean it: If you watch the show, you know that this needs to be said. There are some nauseating little bathrooms in the world. If you can write your name in the tub, it and you has a problem.

2. Add art: Not bawdy posters and other bathroom ``art". But a real picture, or a beautiful photograph. Normally you'd put it in the living room, but why not hang it in a place you'll have time to really study and appreciate it?

3. Warm it up: Even pretty bathrooms can be too frigid. All that white and cool tile. Add texture and warmth with a woven wastepaper basket, a bamboo tissue box or candles.

4. Don't match: Your soap dish doesn't have to match the toothbrush holder. Try a beautiful little silvered dish for the soap, a stylish ceramic vase to hold toothbrushes. Be more interesting.

5. Buy some new towels: It's probably time to do so. While you're at it, bring in a rug. Don't stand around on some fuzzy bathroom mat. Acquire something with character, texture and colour, something not designed to be used in the loo. Try small oriental rugs or woven doormats think outside the box.

BEHAVING BETTER

Culture vulture Jai Rodriguez reveals five ways to work a cocktail party.

1. Realise that everybody feels exactly the same way you do, even the hosts. Unless you're attending the one party ever thrown in the history of humanity filled with supremely self-confident extroverts (and if you happen to find yourself at this party call me), everybody in the room is feeling at least a small bit of stress.

You're not in high school anymore and there are no more ``in" crowds. That group of guys over there? They're talking about the same game you watched last night. Those two pretty women in the corner? They're just waiting for some guy to come up and talk to them. It might as well be you. It's a party, after all, and people are there to meet other people. Be the person they meet. Just walk up, smile, extend your hand and introduce yourself. You don't need to have a pick-up line or a joke or the whole conversation planned out; all you need is your openness. ``How do you know our hosts?" is always an appropriate question.

2. As soon as possible after arriving, say hello to the hosts. Don't interrupt them if they seem to be engrossed in an important conversation and certainly don't interrupt them while they're doing something like attending to the flowers someone just brought. But if they're just amiably chatting with another guest, say hello. If they're good hosts, they'll probably introduce you to somebody. They may even have a ``special" somebody who they want to introduce you to in fact, that may be the reason you were invited. But you'll never know unless you say hello.

3. I like a good stiff one as much as the next guy but nobody likes a drunk. Here are two great techniques for keeping your wits about you while still having a good time. First is to make every other drink you have a non-alcoholic one, especially water.

4. The second one is to eat, for God's sake. Even if it's just chips and dip, there's sure to be something. Have it.

5. If you know a few people but hardly the whole crowd, please, please don't spend all your time talking to your pals. That's not what parties are for and you can do that at home. You don't want those two pretty women to refer to you as ``those frat boys who spent the whole party talking to one another". So say to your pals, ``I think we should probably talk to some other people," and then just turn to whoever's next to you and say hi. That's what parties are for.

COOKING BETTER

Food and wine connoisseur Ted Allen passes on some tips for mixing a magic martini.

There are as many martini misconceptions out there as there are bastardised recipes. I'm not a huge fan of the `chocolate martinis' or the fig-gorgonzola-eucalyptus-methadone martinis that have popped up on a lot of menus in the past couple of years.

I also happen to believe that a martini should actually have vermouth in it. A lot of people think the best martini is the driest one, with as little vermouth as is humanly possible.

They'll dab a drop of vermouth on their pulse points, or merely think of the word ``vermouth" and call it a martini. Listen, a martini can be anything you like it to be, but a real one has vermouth in it. Like this:

60ml gin

15ml dry vermouth

green olives to garnish

Start with room-temperature gin. Pour it and the vermouth into a cocktail shaker with ice and shake until your hand feels frozen and frost appears on the outside of the shaker (you're serving this drink straight up, meaning without ice, so you want it to be as cold as possible). Strain into a martini glass and garnish with an olive or two on a silver pick if you want to get fancy.