In choosing family, they choose you, too

“Friends are God’s way of apologizing for relatives.” — Christopher Hitchens

There’s a distinction between relatives and family, in that we cannot choose our blood, but we can always choose our family. I have two siblings, Brother X and Brother XX (or Dos Equis), and both are content that a continent separates them from the Brother they call Y Knot.

But family chooses us: Uncle Jon, Aunt JJ and Crazy Mike each made a choice to be a part of the Bedlam that is the Blue Bungalow in the outer, outer, outer, outer Excelsior.

I’m old enough to remember when even after we chose family, we couldn’t make it legal. Brian and I chose each other in 1985, but it wasn’t until 2008 that we could legally wed. And it’s a good thing that Zane and Aidan didn’t choose us much earlier because adoption for gays is not that old a thing.

You’d think that someone would come up with a book of naming conventions. Take spousage. Why do we gays call each other “husband” but our lesbian friends, well, at least the ones we know, refer to each other as wives? “Husband” comes from the Norse hus

bondi, or master of the house, and neither one of us is gonna cede the term “master” to the other. I suggested “wasband,” but it never caught on.

Or who chose the term “rescue dogs”? Buddyboy and Bandit rescued us, not the other way around.

Zane has a biological, or “logical” brother, Elijah, just as Aidan has a “logical,” Adam. Elijah has an adopted sister, Tia, and still not finding that rule book, we decided that they’re all “cousins.” Zane and Aidan call Elijah’s parents Uncle Ian and Aunt Jesse. But there’s no 21st century term for what to call the adoptive father of the logical brother of my adoptive son. He’s not a brotherinlaw, maybe more like a brotherinarms. Kinsperson? Stepsibling? Agnate? (That’s my word wealth for the day: agnate, an exclusively male kinship.)

Ian’s the adventurer in our family. A little over a year ago, he and his brother opened up a restaurant on the other side of Sacramento. We avoided going for 13 months because, well, it’s a highclass place and our family leans heavily toward Hamburger Helper and ... as regular readers know, the FisherPaulsons are the kiss of death for restaurants (Yet Wah’s, Cable Car Joe’s, Bravo’s, Le P’tit Laurent). No cuisine is safe. So we used the excuse that it was a few hours away, and we didn’t think the Kipcap could drive more than 100 miles.

But this past weekend the SASBs (Stephanie Ann Schrandt Boone) lured us up to Lake Tahoe. The SASBs have also chosen us as family. She’s my little sister, and they are probably the only people who could spend a night under the same roof as us without asking, “Is it always like this?”

On the way back down the mountain, we stopped by Grass Valley to visit Ian’s new bistro, Watershed at the Owl. From the minute they served the Sea Salt Parker House Rolls, we were hooked — before Brian even got his Bordeaux Blanc.

Nate and Ashley are inventive locavore chefs, creating new dishes so fast that the menu never catches up. As I stared at the bar, shipped over, intact, from Austria in the 1840s, Ian brought us Carta di Musica (pepper greens, ricotta and bottarga) followed by veal meatballs and sevenminute eggs (deviled eggs with aioli, chives, mustard seed and crispy chicken skin garnish).

Zane and Aidan dived into the heritage pork cut. Brian went with the branzino, a Mediterranean sea bass served with beluga lentils and fennel bagnet vert.

And then the kill shot: milk chocolate mousse with almond cookie butter, salted caramel, creme fraiche and cocoa crumbs. We might have even moved in at that point, had a ghost named George not sat at the next table.

“It’s a long way from Jesse and the kids. What gets you on that long drive here week after week?” I asked Ian.

“For a long time, I worked in a brewery, I baked pizza, but now I cook what I believe in. We collaborate with the ranchers and the farmers to serve food that we value. It’s worth it,” he replied.

Ian has not only chosen a family, he’s chosen a dream. He ain’t heavy. He’s my agnate. (If you want to hear about chosen family firsthand, I will be reading from my new book, “How We Keep Spinning ...!” at 7 p.m. Feb. 11, at Napa Bookmine, 964 Pearl St., Napa.)

You’d think that someone would come up with a book of naming conventions. Take spousage.