The Thai Menu Guy

There are a few things I miss about SoCal, right now I mostly miss the temperate climate, and of course I miss Trader Joe's - the two nearest to me are in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, not even really close enough for a road trip, that's a three-day excursion. I do miss the weirdos too, though I suppose I'm just used to my Texas weirdos so they don't seem all that weird to me. But yesterday I found myself missing the most improbable thing, something I would never have dreamed had found a spot in my heart.
   I miss the Thai menu guy.
   Not the guy himself, because, as my SoCal friends are well aware, you never actually see the Thai menu guy. You look away for one moment and when you turn back - BAM! - your bare door knob has become a place to hang the menu for a Thai restaurant. He's a ninja, that Thai menu guy, a shadow moving in the darkness, a whisper on the wind as he passes.
   And it's not just the Thai menu guy, although he certainly does leave more than his share. There was the local pizza place menu guy, and the Mexican restaurant menu guy, and the soba noodle place menu guy, and the Cuban menu guy, and even the Jamaican menu guy. It was kind of comforting to come back to my apartment and find a batch of menus hanging on the front gate. It was like menu Christmas. Well, maybe more like Chanukah, where you get presents they're just not amazingly great presents. Menus are good but they don't solve the financial crisis.
   I don't get menus on my door here in Texas. From time to time I'll get a folded card for someone who wants to mow my grass or power wash my driveway, but no menus. No friendly reminders that I don't have to cook for myself, and no half-heard swish as the menu ninja escapes into the moonless night.

Passing The Torch

Last week my older niece got a job as a waiter.* Her younger sister starts the same job in a month or so.
   I am now officially NOT the only person in my family to have been a waiter.
   It's been my contention since I brought my first plate of lasagna to my first ungrateful and undeserving customer that everyone should have to work a food service job early on in life. Much like the Swiss have mandatory military service for all their citizens, we should have mandatory restaurant duty. You don't necessarily have to be a waiter, you could be a busser, a bartender, even a hostess, any job where you have to deal with the Great Unwashed on a daily basis.
   See, having to deal with people on a decidedly unequal footing - your job is to bring them their food, presumably spit-free** - makes you realize how poorly you've been treating others. Slinging hash, or spaghetti, or burgers, or in my niece's case tortillas, brings you into contact with some genuine people. And by that I mean not only genuinely nice people, I mean genuine assholes. There are customers who come in the door looking to take their bad day out one someone, and since the waiter has the apron he's elected.
   It's a learning experience for sure, not only in reading people and their intentions but also in controlling yourself. And in controlling your finances, and in managing not only your work but others' work as well. When you're first on the Tuesday evening shift and the cook is coming down off some righteous bud you need to plan for his inevitable screwing-up of the order and general lack of urgency to repair his own mistake. And at the same time your customers don't want to hear any excuses, especially lame ones about the cook being stoned off his ass. It's a PR job and the first acting gig I ever had.
   It builds character. When you dance like a trained monkey for 15% or less, you learn to find inner validation. And then, when the night is done and the restaurant is closed and you're so tired you can't hardly stand up, you discover that everything - EVERYTHING - is the funniest thing you've ever heard. My best friends are people I worked with when I was a waiter. Good times, good times.
   So congratulations to my nieces on their new adult jobs. Welcome to the working world, it sucks worse than you can possibly imagine. But if anybody gives you a hard time let me know, me and my boys will take care of it.


* waitress, server, waitron, wage slave, food getter... it's all good and all means the same thing

** no guarantees

Don't Touch The Cheese

I'm not a particularly squeamish person - the five-second rule in my house is usually extended a few seconds for something particuarly tasty - but I'm growing very wary of free samples in grocery stores.
   The ones you get in Costco are okay, at least when the table is monitored by one of the employees who didn't look away from the manager when they asked for volunteers. When you have someone watching the merchandise then it's okay by me. As long as the person doing the monitoring isn't a hulking tattooed serial killer or a sinister giggling Nazi scientist. If you see either of those guys behind the sausage sample table I'd give it a pass.
   But when I see those samples just sitting out in the open? With no one nearby, and they've been sitting there for who knows how long? The old prep cook I used to be wants to grab the whole plate or bowl or whatever and run for the nearest trash can.
   Whole Foods is the worst, ironically enough. They want to be healthy and wholesome and safe, and yet they leave sliced samples of almost anything sitting out in the store, with flimsy little useless tongs jabbed into the food as if that makes any difference. You see them everywhere, from the cheese aisle to the fruit section and all points in between. People cough on that stuff, they run their god-knows-where-they've-been fingers across every piece... just a flu epidemic waiting to happen. Or salmonella poisoning. Or measles. Or any number of African flesh-eating disorders. Not worth the risk.
   I was in HEB today and I saw some guy touching every cube of cheese in a sample tray as he tried to choose the best one. Really. Like he was counting a deck of cards. Alone. In the privacy of his own home instead of in a large grocery store with other people watching in horror. I did not partake of the Gruyere bounty presented to me.
   Please, from me to you, just pretend that those unattended samples aren't even in the store at all. You'll be much better off. And you'll let me sleep easier at night.

Oddly Comforting

I'm moving out of LA.
   Sorry if this is how some of my friends in SoCal learn this news, but the time has come and there's no sense in me fighting it any longer. I've made preparations, gotten a place back home in San Antonio, and it's a done deal.
   That doesn't mean I'm not conflicted about the move, I have very mixed feelings about moving back, but LA just isn't doing it for me any more so I can't stay here. Yet... going home feels like giving up, like a surrender. And I ain't French.
   So today, just half an hour ago or so, I went to the grocery store. 'Cause I gotta eat. And there was a guy just inside the door, one of those people trying to sell subscriptions to the LA Times. Nice enough guy, but I told him I was moving in two weeks and couldn't take advantage of his offer. He wished me well and I went about my business.
   I got my veggies and fruit, and headed for the other side of the store. When I passed the subscription guy he stopped me again. I reminded him that he'd already spoken to me, but he didn't want to talk about newspapers.
   He started to tell me about how he'd been homeless, an abject alcoholic convinced that he was going to die either with a bottle in his hand or looking for one. He then told me how he asked God to help him get sober and stay sober and improve his life. Which evidently happened. I don't mind talking to people about this kind of thing, you can't deny the evidence of a changed life, and anything that happens to bring one man out of the gutter and into a productive life is something I can appreciate hearing about.
   He then quizzed me a little about San Antonio and who was there, whether I was married or not, that sort of thing. Then he told me 'God has something planned for you, that's why he's calling you home.'
   I found this reassurance oddly comforting. I say oddly because my usual habit would be to nod politely and roll my eyes inside, where I wouldn't offend the other person. But I didn't feel that coming on. Not one bit. I'm not a particularly religious person - more blasphemous than anything else, actually - but I could feel my restless spirit ease slightly with this unsolicited proclamation from a complete stranger. I don't know if it's true, I'm pretty sure God has bigger things to worry about than me*, but just the thought that I'm not firing blindly and hoping for the best makes the move easier to do.

* say... nuclear armageddon in Japan, where in the past few days the chance of creating a for-real Godzilla has dramatically increased

Banana-Eating Cat

My mother's horrible cat eats bananas.
   This is the same little bastard who bites ankles and only behaves himself because of the threat of a water-bottle soaking. The same one who hisses at everyone, including my mother, for no reason that we can determine. The same one who has a losing record of fights with every other cat in the neighborhood, yet who comes back for more over and over again. The same pugnacious, nasty, combative, horrible cat eats bananas.
   He only started recently, like with the new year. Maybe he made a resolution to eat more fruit? At first my mother thought that she might have a rat or mouse or possum or something, except when she checked there was nothing else amiss. No other food on the counter touched and the food in the cat's bowl was unmolested. Rats and mice and possums wouldn't get in the house only to eat the inside out of a banana, they'd snarf everything they could get ahold of. So it had to be the cat.
   Even though dogs are technically 'carnivores' they're really just stomachs with legs. Dogs can and do eat anything they think might be tasty, including their own vomit. Not picky. Cats, on the other hand, really are carnivores. They're adapted to eat meat and nothing else. Not bean and cheese tacos, not layer cake, not split pea soup, and certainly not bananas. Except for my mother's horrible cat. He gnaws right through the skin and chows down on the inside. It's like someone just scooped it out with a spoon.
   I'm wondering what's next. Is he going to start whipping up a batch of crepes? How about some pumpkin bread? Maybe a pot of chili? I just know my mother's going to come home one day and find him at the stove with a little cat-sized chef's hat and tiny chef's apron, slaving away over some chicken piccatta. He'll hiss at her when she tries to get a plate for herself.

A Big Joke

I think I've uncovered the biggest prank played in the history of mankind. A joke so all-encompassing and pervasive that the originators have even forgotten that it's supposed to be funny.
   Sushi.
   Think about it. Raw fish. That you're supposed to eat raw. Not like ceviche, which is pickled by the citrus juice in it, no, sushi is supposed to be consumed the way they serve it to you. Pink and glistening and oh-so uncooked. What bigger joke could there be?
   People claim to like sushi, but I think it's the same thing as people claiming to like gin. Or broccoli. Anything that's an 'acquired taste' is something you're not supposed to consume in the first place. We're human beings, we have thumbs, we've mastered fire. We're not seals or sharks, for God's sake, we cook our food.
   I'm convinced that not even Japanese people like sushi, they're just used to it. Imagine, if you will, a cold, wet Japanese winter. Food is running low, and firewood is running even lower. The men go out on the fishing boat to try to find anything to feed their families. They catch a few small fish, but they're feeling weak. They can't build a fire in the boat, but they need to eat right then. One fisherman dares the other 'bet you won't eat it raw...' and, after a few moments of hesitation, the other fisherman guts and skins a fish and eats it right then and there.
   A fraternity hazing prank becomes a national dish.
   I have friends who love love love sushi. But what I think they love is the ritual of it, and the slightly-forbidden notion of eating raw meat. And then paying $50 a pound for the privilege. 'Cause it sure isn't a taste treat you'd want to repeat, if you follow me.
   All I know is that every time I see sushi I think that somebody should put some fire under that and cook it up right. But that would ruin the joke.

Saturday Circus

What is it about Saturday morning that makes people dress like circus clowns? Do they miss cartoons so much that they feel the need to make believe they're superheroes in spandex tights?
   I went to the farmer's market this morning to get me some fresh vegetables and to throw it in the face of all the people in the country still digging out from several feet of snowfall. It's January in SoCal, losers, absolutely no snow and there's even a harvest. So suck it, New York!
   Anyway... I want to make it clear that I'm no fashion plate. No shower, no shave, and as a matter of fact I didn't even brush my teeth (sorry about that one). I rolled out of bed, put on a t-shirt, jeans, and shoes and drove to the farmer's market. But you would have thought I was Georgio Armani in comparison to some of the people I saw.
   I give new parents a pass. If I see someone pushing a stroller with an infant, they can wear whatever the hell they want, they've probably had very little sleep. But if you're a man in your fifties, plaid shorts, sandals, a parka and a bandana just make you look like you're practicing to be homeless.
   Or the lady with curlers in her hair (really, out in public) wearing the pink track suit with pink slippers. She probably thought no one would look at her feet. She didn't get caught out on her sidewalk while she was getting the morning paper, nope, she was in the mix shopping for broccoli with everybody else.
   And then there was the couple. You know, THEM. The couple who dress alike, not because the wife insists - which does happen - but because they share a wardrobe. Why two people would still own those awful, awful multi-colored weightlifting pants is beyond me, and why they would wear them in public is a mystery I don't think anyone will be able to solve. Add the ratty not-clever t-shirts and Crocs and it looked to me like they literally rolled out of bed and got in the car with no steps in between. Maybe they slept in the car, I don't know.
   Whatever happened to trying to at least look presentable when you go somewhere? All the vendors at the farmer's market made the effort to look decent, why can't the rest of you people?

Snickers Owes Me

I was just thinking about how many Snickers bars I've eaten over the years. There's no way I could get an accurate count, but it's a lot. An awful lot.
   Since the time my mother first let me have chocolate I think I've been eating Snickers. Had 'em in school - elementary through high school - usually as part of some sort of candy sale to support the marching band or Spanish club or what have you. Had 'em through years and years of Halloweens, from the regular-sized bars to the half-sized to the bite sized to the fun sized. Had 'em with almonds and with dark chocolate, and in ice cream bar form. Had 'em in college and after college, as a snack on the plane for a business trip, and as a meal at the hotel after a long day.
   I've had more than my share of Snickers bars, is what I'm saying. One look at my waistline could tell you that, though.
   After all these candy bars, after all these empty calories, I think Snickers owes me. Not more Snickers bars, they owe me an apology.
   Apology for what? For not really being food. If you think about it, candy bars are one of the few products that survived intact from the time there was no FDA back in the 19th Century. It used to be that candy bars were marketed alongside various other snake oil products as some sort of calmative or invigorator or cure-all. The government legislated away most false medicinal claims, but candy bars survived. So did soft drinks.
   There really is nothing about a candy bar that is good for you. Just empty calories, and in the last 20 years lots of high fructose corn syrup. High-fat, high-sugar, high-calorie, low nutritional value. You could probably just eat a stick of butter and be better off than eating a candy bar. But I still eat them.
   I don't want to come across as a crazed liberal, but if as a society we're going to legislate an end to cigarette smoking, why aren't we doing the same with junk food? We decry Philip Morris for profiting for decades with a product that kills people. M&M Mars does exactly the same thing, and yet we encourage kids to become consumers. Something ain't right here.
   So I'm going to sit right here until Snickers apologizes. I think I'm gonna need a snack while I wait, though. Something with chocolate. Maybe some peanuts too. And some caramel. Nougat would be nice. Hmmm...

Healthy, Or Just Lazy?

I was standing in my kitchen just now, pondering my meal options for this evening. I've been trying to eat healthier lately, which means I don't have a whole lot of ready-to-eat stuff in the pantry or refrigerator. And that means if I want to provide my body sustenance I either have to make something or go out and buy something.
   When I say there was nothing ready-to-eat I mean NOTHING. I have: rice(uncooked), two cans of tuna, canned tomatoes, canned beans, spices, frozen turkey, olives, apples, sun-dried tomatoes, onions, turkey gravy mix, couscous, pancake mix, flour, sugar, sweet relish, dill relish, maple syrup, eggs, and frozen lunchmeat.
   Yeah. Figure that one out.
   I thought about it, then dithered in front of the refrigerator, dithered in front of the pantry, thought about going downstairs, looked back into the refrigerator again to see if maybe something had appeared in the past five minutes - nothing had - and then I thought some more. Finally I decided to make some sort of tuna salad thing, even though I don't have any bread. And I was proud of myself.
   Then I got to thinking. Did I decide to make tuna salad because I was trying to be healthy, or because I just didn't want to put on pants, shoes and a jacket, go down the stairs - because the elevator STILL isn't fixed - and drive to get junk food? I want to think I'm eating healthier because it's the right thing to do, not because I can't be bothered to walk down three flights of stairs.
   But, honestly, if I had the gumption I'd be eating Taco Bell right now. Instead I'm shoveling tuna salad into my gullet. It's just easier.
   Take that, Jillian Michaels! You can be lazy and healthy at the same time.

The Earl of Sandwich

Who doesn't love a good sandwich?
   Well, people who have wheat allergies, I suppose, but other than them people the world over adore sandwiches. There's just something about two pieces of bread with stuff in between that quiets a restive soul. I could wax rhapsodic about the sandwiches I've consumed over the years, with their pillowy bread and tangy mayo, zesty mustard and sharp cheese, succulent tomatoes and wonderfully salty oh-so-processed lunch meat, cut into triangles like equilateral slices of heaven...
   Ah, sandwiches. I've had good, I've had not so good, and I've had downright terrible. The difference, I've found, is love. And I don't mean that to be sarcastic - I understand that sometimes I can come off that way, totally unintentional* - love really is the difference. Not necessarily the love of the sandwich preparer for me (though Mom sandwiches are the best), but the love the preparer has for the ingredients, for the process, for the Aristotelian essence of Sandwich.
   Why is it, for instance, that you can go into a Subway on a Tuesday and get a half-assed thrown-together mess that barely passes for lunch, but you can go into the exact same store on a Thursday and get a sublime, delicious meal that makes you happy you wandered by right when you were hungry? The ingredients are the same, the store is the same, you're the same, the only thing that's changed is the person behind the counter. The best and worst sandwiches I ever had were at the same Subway. One was a haphazard, borderline-inedible pile of garbage, the other was an almost picture-perfect pleasure to consume. The guy who made the good sandwich didn't take longer, or use better ingredients, or slip me $100 to say this, that guy took pride in what he did and had a love for making food that showed in the work he produced. The other girl would clearly have been happier working anywhere else.
   A friend of mine gave me the title of a sandwich cookbook about a year ago, and I've had the proposal for the book sitting half-done in my computer for a while now. I think it's time to dust it off and put out a cookbook that's also a personal philosophy. Anybody interested in buying the first copy?


* okay, that was sarcasm

Lightweight

I am, without a doubt, much more fit and healthy than I was, say, eight years ago. I moved out to California and gained a lot of weight. A lot. I was running from something or running to something, but the end result was I spent way too much time on my ass in my apartment. Alone. Eating. Now I'm fifty pounds lighter with way more muscle and I can climb the stairs without getting winded.*
   But I am slowly feeling the grind of the wheels of time.
   You know how I know I'm getting older? It's not the more visible gray strands in my hair or beard, or the lines at the corners of my eyes. It's not the slightly bulgy vein on my calf or the occasional gray chest hair - which I pluck out when I find it. No, it's a more depressing, obvious sign.
   I can't eat nearly as much as I used to.
   I'm not talking about my teenage years, when every boy is a human garbage can, or even my early twenties, which is just the teen years with permission to drink alcohol. No, I mean my late twenties, when I could still pack it away and yet I was old enough to know good food from bad. Cheap-ass prime rib at the run-down casino across from Cesars Palace? No thank you, I'll have plate after plate of Spanish tapas for free at a happy hour.
   Man, I used to be able to eat. Which was, of course, part of my big-fat-sucker problem eight years ago. But now not only am I not able to eat as much at one sitting, I'm just not inclined to either. I used to want to at least sample everything at a pot luck dinner. Now I just want my salad and some meat and cheese. maybe a little of that Jell-o ring with fruit and I'm finished. Time was when we would go to a Vegas buffet the idea was to double your money: if you paid ten dollars to get in you had to eat at least twenty dollars worth of food. Wholesale, not retail. Now I don't even want to go near the buffet, couldn't care less.
   It's insidious, this getting older. It takes what used to be a defining characteristic and turns it into a liability. Which, in this case, ain't so bad a thing. I don't need to eat like that any more, and I'm glad I don't.
   But still...


* which is good because the elevator STILL isn't fixed

They Tried To Make Me Go To Rehab

I've given up bread for a while. Complex carbohydrates, that is, bread and crackers and corn and potatoes and what not. It's been a week, and I'm doing okay, I've only fallen off the wagon a little bit and then I hopped right back on. I'm doing it to see if I can lose some weight, and to increase the amount of vegetables in my diet. And, truth to tell, Drew Cary lost 70 pounds doing the same thing. I don't have 70 pounds to lose, but it's worth a shot.
   It's a challenge. I feel like a junkie, jonesing for a slice of pizza. Or a cracker, for God's sake. I didn't know I ate so much starch, honestly. I knew I ate too many sweets, but chips and pretzels and sandwiches and pita bread... too much.
   I was in the grocery store today, getting bananas, carrots, cherries, and fruit juice. Like a hippie. And I picked up a pack of peanut M&Ms. No wheat in that, right? I was an addict, substituting the fix at hand for my regular drug of choice.
   If I'd had a beehive hairdo I could have been a portly Amy Winehouse. I walked around the grocery store for a good five minutes with that pack of M&M's, and then I 'happened by' the fresh-made pizza section. The chocolate-covered peanuts were the devil on my left shoulder, tempting me to completely give up my week-long attempt to drop some poundage. Summoning up my reserves of willpower I put the delicious, oh-so chocolately morsels on the shelf next to the pizza.
   Score one for me. I've replaced my toast and butter with green beans, at least for the next few weeks. I actually do feel a little more alert, but that could be the DTs from not having flour in my system.
   If you see me with a doughnut in my hands, feel free to slap me. Or at least feel free to try.

Grease Is The Word... Ugh...

I've been trying to eat better lately, more healthy stuff, more veggies and less sweets. Trying to be good. But every so often you just gotta have a burger.
   Yesterday I went to a local place where you can get a great burger with your choice of a lot of different toppings, even specialty mayonnaise. You can also get sweet potato fries, regular fries, and onion ring things all on one plate. So that's what I got. And a 1/3 pound burger with Gruyere cheese, grilled onions, pickles, and guacamole. With pesto on the side. Made that one up myself. And it was goooooood... mmm - mmm.
   Then I went home.
   Climbing the stairs - because the elevator STILL isn't fixed - I felt the bloat. I had a little food baby in my tummy and it was kicking up a storm.
   I fumbled with my keys as the lethargy set in. I managed to get through the door before my eyes closed. The couch called to me and I answered. But I couldn't fall asleep. My food baby was tossing and turning, determined not only to keep me awake but to make me sorry I'd ever set foot in the restaurant. As I lay there in abject misery, paying for my twenty minutes of indulgence with hours of regret, I realized things had changed.
   I am worthless and weak. Time was I could eat two Big Macs with fries and a big-ass Coke, then do five hours of back-breaking work outside and never feel a thing. Now I eat a great non-fast-food burger with fresh fries and I'm laid out like Sonny Liston after he dared to face off against Muhammad Ali.*
   What a wimp.
   Next thing you know I'll start liking TV shows about high school glee clubs, and I'll probably start going to Broadway musicals. Hey, wait a second...


* this way-back machine moment brought to you by the Howard Cosell Memorial Sports Reference Foundation.

Truly Uncivilized

They don't have breakfast tacos here in SoCal.
   In a place as cosmopolitan as Los Angeles, or as suburban as Orange County, you'd think you could find a decent flour tortilla and a scrambled egg to fill it. But you'd be wrong. They use mostly corn tortillas, and what flour tortillas that do exist are travesties that would get the sellers run out of South Texas on a rail. Possibly tarred and feathered too.
   The lack of flour tortillas is a direct cause of the lack of breakfast tacos, and it's kind of pissing me off. See, in Texas the breakfast taco is a thing of beauty, a small, 6-inch flour tortilla, packed with a combination of scrambled egg and something else. Potatoes, bacon, cheese, maybe all three, maybe barbacoa or carne guisada. Or my personal favorite, eggs and chorizo, which is a Mexican sausage. If you're wondering what goes into chorizo just stop right there; you're better off just enjoying it and not asking too many questions.
   The best breakfast ever invented in the history of mankind is one chorizo and egg taco, one potato, bacon, and egg taco, both with a bit of homemade salsa, a dash of salt and pepper, and a small Fanta Red to wash it all down. It'll start your day off right. And, damn it all to Hell and back, I can't even come close to that here.
   They have breakfast burritos in SoCal, but if I wanted a three-egg omelet wrapped in an edible baby blanket I'd make my own. You'd think that in a place like LA, where you can find - literally - almost anything available anywhere else in the world I'd be able to get that little slice of South Texas heaven that is the breakfast taco. But the blind idiot gods presiding over this cultural wasteland have dictated that I will not find that satisfaction.
   Maybe I should buy a taco truck and start making my own. Bring a little culture to this neglected backwater of a town.


COMMUTE - there - 30 minutes, very light pre-holiday traffic      back - 30 minutes, I left early
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 45 days - halfway there!!

The White Girl At Chipotle

You know, with all the craziness happening in Arizona, the last thing public discourse needs is another 'white folks vs. (fill in your ethnicity here)' talk. But, on the other hand, I do have to call 'em like I see 'em.
   Since I've been a working man I haven't really had time to cook on weekdays. It's been sandwiches, chips, and Lara Bars for the most part. Which is also pretty much what I have for lunch. Day after day after day.
   So after my fencing lesson today I decided I needed something different. Driving down Del Mar I headed for South Lake Avenue and its line of fast food restaurants. Chipotle beckoned me. And there I went. Inside I ordered my chicken burrito and got all my fixin's as the workers passed the tortilla down the line with efficiency and dispatch.
   Then my burrito got to the one white chick, the last in the production line. She tried her best, really she did, but I'm not exaggerating when I say I could roll a burrito better than she could, and I've never worked in a place where that was my job. The other ladies behind the line - Hispanic all - waited patiently for the white chick to finish wadding up my meal and wrapping it awkwardly in foil.
   I'm not trying to say that Hispanic women are better than white chicks at wrapping burritos... well, I guess I am saying that, but I don't mean it in a bad way. More to the point, what I'm saying is that I'd rather have someone good at their job making my oh-so-caloric meal, instead of someone just learning their job.
   Bless her heart, the poor thing couldn't even scoop guacamole into a plastic cup. A job's a job, but some people just aren't cut out for food service. She probably should have stuck with Kohl's or some other white chick hangout.



COMMUTE: there - 40 minutes      back - 40 minutes to my fencing lesson
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 68 days

Speecy-Spicy

You know what I was thinking about today? Why doesn't anybody make spicy lip balm?
   I'm not talking about cinnamon-flavored, or menthol or peppermint. I mean cumin or red pepper or bay leaf. Maybe basil. Rosemary or cayenne pepper. Don't you think there'd be a market?
   And what about animal-flavored, like barbeque brisket or jerk chicken? Baloney? Wouldn't pasty, weak vegans just love to rub some meat flavoring on their lips, for old times' sake?

Man... I think I just found my new business opportunity. Nobody steal it from me. I know who you are.

COMMUTE: there - 45 minutes, fire trucks     back - 41 minutes, I went a new way
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 74 days

Ah, Look At All The Lonely Taco Trucks

So I was down on Wilshire today - for a job interview, yikes!! - and coming back home I took 6th Street, right around lunch time.
   I have never seen so many taco trucks in one place. I know Los Angeles is the mecca for taco trucks, they're everywhere, but this was above and beyond. At 6th and Alvarado I counted nine taco trucks parked around the intersection, vending their food. Nine! That's crazy.
   Obviously the business is there, or the taco trucks wouldn't be parked where they are. But there are also regular restaurants right there too. Probably with owners shaking their fists at the taco trucks.
   Seems to me like a fad, like the automats from sixty years ago, or perhaps something born out of desperation, a quick, easy business started by people with no other option for a job. But I can't imagine that there is enough sidewalk business to keep every taco truck working.
   So what happens when the economy rebounds? Do the taco trucks go away, or do they go upscale? And if the taco trucks go out of business, what happens to the truck itself? Will there be a wave of foreclosures on subprime taco trucks? Do they have subprime taco trucks?
   Things like this keep me up at night.

The Big Question

Why are there toasters?
   I know that doesn't sound like such a big question, but think about it for a moment. Most of our appliances are designed to take something tedious, like washing dishes, and automate the task. A blender is just a mortar and pestle with a cord, a washing machine is a mangle you don't have to crank, a microwave is a really fast, nuclear oven.
   But what are toasters designed to replace?
   In other words, if you didn't have a toaster, how would you go about toasting bread? If you didn't have a blender you'd chop food up by hand and if you didn't have a washing machine you'd use the sink (or go down to the river). But if you didn't have a toaster, chances are pretty good you wouldn't figure out a way to make toast, you'd just do without.
   When I was a kid I saw a contraption Texas settlers used for browning bread over an open fire, it was a cage-like thing that clamped food - not just bread - inside. So they did have a way to char up yesterday's dinner rolls, and today you can pay too much for almost the same thing at Williams Sonoma and use it on your barbeque grill. They're great for fish, if you're in the market. But bread? I'm not so sure. Seems like more trouble than it's worth.
   It seems to me that modern toasters got popular with the invention of modern sliced bread. It's a new appliance for a new age, not to automate any previous task but to create an entirely new one, the modern breakfast. All the things we think of as a balanced breakfast - juice, toast, cereal, milk - are modern, made possible by changes to manufacturing, farming, and society during the second industrial revolution at the end of the 19th Century. New food, new habits, and a new society need new gadgets.
   Could you do without a toaster? Sure, same way you could do without a TV, a microwave, and a blow dryer. But what kind of life would that be?

On Stage At The Farmer's Market

Every so often I'll go to Pasadena's Saturday farmer's market, at the high school parking lot. I'm not a locavore or health nut - though I am pretty down on big corporations and agri-business in general - I go because the produce is waaaaay fresher than you can get in the grocery stores. Usually picked the day before, less than 24 hours before we consumers run our sticky fingers all over it, the produce I buy at the farmer's market lasts longer than what I buy in the store. It's also good to be out in the sun, walking amongst my fellow early-birds and listening to the music the blind guy by the flower stand strums on his guitar. It had been a while since I went, probably six months, and so today I decided the time had come to return.
   This time around I noticed something different. The vendors, usually friendly people to begin with, seemed very eager to talk. And I don't mean they were polite and had a few nice words, they wanted to outline every reason their customers should buy their produce, or honey, or beef, or bread or what have you.
   I noticed it first at the baker's stand. He was explaining his wares, always a good practice, but as the people went down the line he kept it up, talking about his ovens, his technique, his ingredients. That was one proud baker, I thought.
   Then I heard the honey guy do the same, talking about his bees and the local crops he helps bring to our dinner table. And the potato guy, who was able to talk someone's ear off in English and in Spanish and was only too happy to do so. And the flower lady. And the apple family. And the guacamole guy. And the seafood people.
   Did they all go to some farmer's market pitch class? This wasn't the reality six months ago. Back then, in the good old days, the vendors made polite conversation but unless you asked they didn't volunteer much beyond when they picked the produce, baked the bread, or pulled the fish out of the ocean. Today it seemed they had taken some sort of 'talk-too-much' pill with an 'overshare' chaser. Did you know the soil's ph affects the pungency of celery? I didn't either. But I do now. I couldn't have avoided knowing it if I wanted to.
   I might be reading too much into this, but I suspect this is a product of our data-hungry culture. With the internet and horrible 24-hour news channels and Wikipedia now our major news sources, the public has come to expect fast facts in an instant. You can find anything, from what a sucrose molecule looks like to what your favorite anorexic, talentless celebrity is doing this Saturday with just a few mouse clicks. There's a lot of noise out there, a lot of data flying around but not a lot of information. And now that trend seems to have hit the farmer's market.

For Your Convenience

Last night was sitting on the couch eating dinner, as I usually do since I don't have a dining table. What can I say? I'm a guy who lives alone, it never occurred to me that I should get a dining table. Still hasn't. Anyway, I tried to eat healthy, so I had some baby carrots, apple slices, dried cherries, walnuts, and a whole wheat English muffin with a little peanut butter on it. Proud of my dietary restraint, as I munched away I realized that I had spent a total of two or three minutes arranging my meal, because all of the food preparation had been done for me.
   The carrots came already peeled and washed and in a bag, the apple slices too, the cherries had the pits and stems removed and the walnuts were already shelled. The English muffin came pre-sliced. I did have to stir up the peanut butter - I get the kind that separates - but that was the only real effort I had to expend, aside from plugging the toaster in.
   Wasn't this a Twilight Zone episode? The one where modern man becomes so dependent on others to do menial tasks like peeling and slicing carrots that in the end he becomes irrelevant? When did I become so busy that I can't cut up an apple? Or slice my own English muffin?
   And what about the packages these things come in? When I slice my own apple the only thing left is the core, which could become compost. If I did that sort of thing. Carrots would leave tips and stems and peels. But when I'm done with my pre-sliced apples, and carrots, and cherries, and walnuts, I have four plastic bags. Thick sturdy things with zip-tops, that don't biodegrade in the least. I hope hermit crabs find a nice home in them when they wash back up on the beach.
   I'm not advocating a return to the 19th Century or anything - I'm not really down with the idea of eating what I kill - but, jeez, what is consuming all this convenience food freeing me up to do? Watch more TV? I do enough of that already, thank you very much.
   Time to make my own sourdough starter, churn my own butter, and smoke a ham. Or maybe I'll just hit Jack-in-the-Box, COPS is on tonight...