November 8, 2000  Green Party, Green Food

I was very nervous about coming to LA. Driving into town we finally got Vanessa on the phone and she allayed my fears about the safety of her neighborhood, and the city in general. Now that I am here, I do not want to leave. There is a lot to see, and everyone is so nice and happy. My theory is that everyone you meat is a potential talent scout or producer so you have to give your best to everyone. I have to admit that the sunshine and the idea that the beach is just a few miles away has worked some effect on me. Only here have I begun to feel that this is a vacation.

I didn't want to write here about politics again. I don't even want to think about it today for reasons I hope are obvious to you all. But here is the latest on the political front in LA. We went to the "Green Party" last night. I don't know if it was the only and official one, but it was in the party rooms of a big brew pub. The people were what you would have expected, and Ness was wondering how many Unitarian Universalists there were in the crowd. I figured it was at least three percent with the three of us, but she was sure it was much more. I guess I should have polled. There were live folk bands, and an 'interesting smell' in the air. And free food. I wonder what kind of food they have at a Bush party? At a Nader party there was lots of salad, a vegetable plate, a fruit plate, noodle salad, and chips and Guacamole. I didn't trust the brownies. Who knows what was in those. Anyway the food was good and free. I wonder if "green party" organizers just eat better in general or if it is Californians that eat better in general.

I have always been fascinated by regional differences in food. When I lived in Seattle nine years ago, they were so proud of the sign on 90 east as you left that said, "Last Espresso for 2900 miles." On this drive I was struck by the number of drive through espresso stands at every exit along 90. Now a caffeine addict will have no trouble making it to New York. I will not speak for the connoisseurs though. I suppose their palettes would suffer some in Idaho, and Indiana.

Allison and I eat one meal a day out. This is the first trip I have ever packed a cooler and intended on buying better food. It is also the first trip that I have positively composted and recycled everything along the way. In my trunk right now there is a pile of bottles and such. The compost we dumped off a cliff near the Ocean a few days ago. Guerrilla composting is a trick I learned from Adam Farrington a long time ago. Imagine bands of subversive composters hiding in the hills near you, making late night garbage raids, stealing banana peels and replacing them with top soil on you rose bushes.

The meals out are an adventure in themselves. They have always been dinner. I would settle for a nice brunch some days, but dinner just works. I guess you don't want to waste your one full meal so early in the day.

We start to discuss what we might eat sometimes hours before we plan to stop. Where we stop depends on how far we have come and how far we have to go, what we want to eat, and the sizes of the towns ahead. It is a complicated formula. And adventures we have had.

Crater Lake is in the middle of nowhere. There are towns on the map near it, but it turns out a town is just a National forest cafe, and gas station, which close very early. We were close to Crater Lake and had to go much farther away to find the only restaurant open. There were lots of antlers and many more heads. The two Men behind me talked about guns for a full hour. Amazingly, the french fires and salad were pretty good.

There is something going on in Missoula, Montana. It is hard to say what, exactly. It is clear that it is a college town, but I would venture to say that there is more than that. Missoula may be 'Hip." More research is needed and we were only there for an hour or so. We walked a few blocks and had Thai food.  Now when you say "Thai" and and city in the heartland, you get funny looks, but this is a good example of how decent food. has spread far and wide. I didn't say it was great, just decent.

How can you compare anything to the Space Alien Grill and Bar, in Bismarck, ND? I wrote about that some in week one. It was the king of theme. I don't know what else to say. The food wasn't that great. I felt compelled to eat pork barbecue because it was their specialty. It was really greasy. I should have stuck with salad, and 'the best fries in the universe'

Wendy's in strip mall hell Indianapolis where the service was so bad, that it left me theorizing about how the American consumer culture will collapse from the inside out, as good help becomes impossible to find. Only the chains who can figure out how to train and keep employees will thrive. Those who can not figure this out will eventually not be able to provide service or at least not good service, and they will then loose business. It's more complicated than that. I was convinced though, that night, that Wendy's was doomed, at least that one.

Baraboo, Wisconsin is fun in not just the name. It is just south of the Dells and just north of  Devil's Lake, where we stopped to take a break and hike. There was something going on there too. A small Cafe claimed San Francisco Cuisine, and sported a crew of tragically hip men and women in black. Not just hip but upscale hip. It was enough to scare me away, but there weren't many options so we checked the menu. The cheapest entrees were $15, even the salads were that much. Another small place down the block had a similar thing, so we ended up in this sports bar kind of place. But it was weird too. It was too clean, and the food was wholesome enough. We listened to eighties tunes on the jukebox, and tried to figure out where the people in black had come from. Look at a map. Baraboo is near nothing. They must have been Aliens. They got the wrong outfits when they were sent down.

Abby's Legendary Pizza, a chain in Oregon, may have been one of the most normal places we ate. It had it's own strange thing going on like big long tables so you might have had to sit next to people you didn't know. My only other comments is that it just wasn't legendary. We were impressed by their claim of being locally owned and involved. I have to see the bad in all good, so I was sure that meant they were pro life, and donating money.

If you can't go to El Salvador for dinner, you find decent food at El Palenque in Portland. Pupusas are a well kept secret of El Salvador. They have barely made it to just a few places in Guatemala. Pupusas are basically stuffed fried tortillas. They traditionally are filled with pork, beans, cheese or some combination there of, and then there is spicy pickled cabbage to put on top. I am waiting for pupusas to become the next great state fair concession food of the US. Americans would love them.

With few exceptions, we have walked out of restaurants thinking how weird the place had been. There are definitely different conventions of eateries out here. The places in California so far have been far and above in weird.

A chinese Buffet in Crescent city was empty, and I am sure it was because of the music. I am a complete loss to describe it. I have never heard such a thing. I asked Allison about it, but somehow she blocked it out. How much weirder would it be if only men could hear it, or only I could hear it. The restaurant is speaking to me.

In the middle of nowhere we found this resort and restaurant. It was expensive and had nice food, but the worst atmosphere and service of anywhere I have ever been. Allison become fixated on a couple behind me, who ended up stealing our campsite. They were from texas and she looked like a 16 year old boy. There was a pile of aprons on the seat next to Allison. They brought her salad wrong twice, and they never brought the soup I had ordered, and in the end I was glad because it would have been $7. The music was loud. I had Polenta as a main dish. I have never heard of it as a main dish. Weird.

Margie's Diner has a few places but we ate in Monterey. The crew was all hispanic and the most polite I have ever seen. The weird parts about this place were the menu, and then size of the meals. The menu had lots of weird Margie quotes, " Margie's diet plan 'make everyone else fat.'" There was a huge salad and a half salad for a dollar less. The menu warns not to order even the half salad without asking how big it is. The server would just say it was big, with a look on his face. I got no hand gestures of plate size. The half with french fries was much more than I could eat. Margie's is also the only place in restaurant where I have ever seen couples in the same side of the booth. I always thought that was kind of rude in some way. I you want to sit next to each other go to a movie. If you go out to dinner sit across. I thought that was an unspoken rule, but I saw at least two couples. I need one more example to confirm a cultural trend. There were two guys with a book next to us. It took me the whole meal to figure out what they were talking about. Both were older than me by at least five years, and normal looking. slacks and shirts, and sweaters. I thought it might be a business proposal or amway that they were talking about. I suspected Amway because something seemed kind of cultish about it. Finally, I caught enough words in a row, when one, started lecturing the other on when and how a first level wizard would use fireballs. He went on for five minutes about spell selection and variations. At first I had been sad that I wasn't close enough o the mormons to hear them, but these guys were better.

Our first meal in LA was at Toi on Wilshire. It wasn't so weird considering you expect that sort of thing form LA. The conversation about where to go included, " If you are going to eat in LA it has to have atmosphere" and "These plain little places may have good food but they depress me" Toi was described as fun thai food, so I expected it to be like all those places in NYC with the lanterns and streamers, and little Budhas all over the place. Toi was definitely a feast for the eyes but all American pop culture. Movies played on two screens, movie posters and artifacts were all over the walls. Not exactly the Hardrock, a lot more tasteful than that. I was so happy that the food went along with the decor, and my pad thai, which I have been sampling all over the country had a refreshing mix of vegetables in it.

I don't know what the rest of the trip will bring. I am afraid of Las Vegas. The Promise of $3 steak breakfast does not appeal. but I am looking forward to Austin, which on my last trip was the only place to get a decent salad between the coasts.

MiXiM