The Beekman Boys' New Cook Book - (How They Came to Be Thanks to Gay.com)

The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook is a new recipe book from gay couple Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Dr. Brent Ridge, known to many TV viewers because of their show The Fabulous Beekman Boys. Together with Sandy Gluck, former editor of Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food magazine, the boys have collected recipes that celebrate seasonality, letting you easily incorporate that farm-to-table cuisine that's become the mainstay of high end eateries all over the country. There are suggestions for recipe adaptations to fit your healthy gay dietary needs, and blank recipe cards where you can put in your own family recipes. It's a sweet (and we think very "Martha" way) of making the book a part of the family, something that can be passed down for generations.

To give you some background, Brent was a former Martha Stewart Vice President, while Josh was a drag queen turned ad exec and New York Times bestselling author. The show focuses on their estate and farm in upstate New York, how the couple manages keeping their home and business alive while living apart, as well as the quirky neighbors, goats, pigs and a llama that all pop into the farm now and then.

At the end of Season 1 the couple reveal that they originally met online. Turns out, that meeting happened on our sister site, Gay.com. Josh offered us a more detailed version of their origin, so we're bringing it to you here.

How the Beekman Boys Came to Be...
(thanks to gay.com)

Words by Josh Kilmer-Purcell

Up until the last couple of years, Brent and I were always a little hesitant to answer the question, "Where did you guys meet?" We'd usually stammer something about friends or colleagues. If people really pressed, we might admit to a personal ad. It was, after all, the year 2000. There still was such a thing.

But the truth is, we met online. Gay.com, to be exact. Mind you, this was Gay.com circa early New Millennium. It wasn't anything fancy like it is today. After Y2k, we were just happy to still have an internet, let alone dates.

Nowadays we're not ashamed to admit that we met via the info super highway. Who doesn't? True, online "dating" can be a lot more sordid than it was when Brent and I met. Back then, you actually posted a real personality profile saying that you liked things like Will & Grace and you hated Notting Hill. (Even though you secretly didn't.) It wasn't at all like today when people post things about themselves that I won't even admit to myself.

Brent was very shy when we first "chatted." He was new to New York and had never even dated a man before. I was coming down from my clubbing days as the drag queen, Aquadisiac, as detailed in my first memoir, I Am Not Myself These Days. He was wrapping up his residency at an uptown hospital.

Hmmm. A new-to-NY, gay-virgin doctor. I have made many poor impulse buys in my day, but there was no way I was going to let this one slip through my press-on claws.

Only problem was that he really didn't want to go on a date. Over the course of our four-hour chat, he rebuffed every attempt I made to meet him. (And this was before it was even possible to upload pictures.) His fatal error though, was telling me which hospital he was doing his residency at, and then later in the conversation letting it slip that he lived within walking distance of it. I turned into Jessica Fletcher on Viagra.

"Okay, I'm logging off," Brent typed.

"Okay, but before you go," I replied from my Macintosh G3, "tomorrow night at 8, I'll meet you at the 168th Street stop." This was a good 40-minute ride from my apartment. "And you'll either be there or you won't."

The only response was: "SBR2000 has left chat.”

Still, I made the trip. Complete with box of chocolate and flowers to celebrate his "first date" with a guy. Even if it meant I had to eat them by myself on a bench in Washington Heights, it was worth the risk. I'd done worse things on benches in worse neighborhoods.

But there, at the top of the subway steps, was Brent. Even though we'd seen no pictures of each other, it was instantly obvious to us both who we both were.

What wasn't obvious at the time, however, was that ten years later we'd wind up becoming accidental goat farmers on a 208-year-old mansion in upstate New York.

But that's another story.

MORE INFO

The Cookbook: The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook

The Show: The Fabulous Beekman Boys

The Boy's Website: Beekman 1802