Nice to Meat You

Vogue Meatball Sandwich:

Last night I was coming home doing around 70 on the 134 from Pasadena. A beautiful LA night, warm and breezy. To my left the Los Angeles skyline looking like an alien capital city, both a million miles away and impossibly close at the same time. To my right, a to-go box from the In-N-Out on Foothill Blvd, carrying my double-double with cheese and 400 fries. I had thought ahead while waiting to turn at the freeway on-ramp, and emptied every ketchup packet in an even layer over the fries, knowing I would be flying blind for the next 19 miles.

I rolled my window down about 30%, which is my desired amount for the 134 at night. Three great songs in a row came on, and I had a mini road trip love affair with my double-double, and 400 fries. I am one of 9 responsible drivers here in LA, which means I kept my eyes on the road, and kept my hand making the round trip from fries to mouth repeatedly over the course of the journey. Anyone passing me would have glanced over to see a wild-haired cruise controller, singing along manically, stopping only to take competitive eating style bites of In-N-Out, clearly fleeing a crime scene. But with a great soundtrack.

When I got home I had ketchup on my neck and pants, and a smile on my face. And while I wouldn’t have changed a thing, I was grateful for the economy sized bottle of Tums I knew was waiting for me in my bathroom cabinet.

For the record, I did not purchase Tums for my stomach, as I have heard people do. I am fortunate to pretty much never have stomach problems. I could digest a Tikki Hut. I bought them because I recently discovered how tasty Assorted Fruit Tums are, and sprung for an economy-sized bottle to round out my snack collection.

I actually should keep them in the kitchen, not the bathroom.

If there is a point to the In-N-Out neck ketchup story, it is this: I can’t help it. I simply adore meat. Meat ON BREAD is an unthinkably good combination, but Tartar or CharredCharred, I can’t get enough. I love vegetables! I love fruit! I love bread! The whole wheat kind, AND the stuff that tastes good! I love dessert!

But I swoon for meat.

Angelina Jolie once claimed the she would rendez-vous with a rotation of men in swanky hotel suites on a regular basis. Well, I have a collection of animal protein dishes scattered about the country that I have corresponded with from time to time.

There was a pork chop at Sepia in Chicago that I would have given it all up to run away with. But the cast-iron dish it was seared and served in was not ideal for spontaneous travel, as you can imagine.

And a cochon de lait pressed sandwich with cherry mustard at Luke in New Orleans that I spent a dark and rainy night with. Then we rode the streetcar down St. Charles. I made it home safely, but it met a tragic end somewhere around Audubon Park.

This Minetta Tavern burger and I never even actually spoke out loud that night in NYC. We just knew.

And one day, near the airport in metropolitan Burbank, I finally met THE ONE. And it goes by the name: INCREDI-BALL.

I believe that is a family name.

The Great Balls On Tires truck sat alone in the distance. Quietly, shy perhaps?

Instead of doing my taxes, I was doing this. It was wrong, this couldn’t possibly work. This would surely backfire. That pile of receipts wasn’t going to take this laying down, in date order or not.

My heart leapt, but I kept my cool. “My cool,” looks quite similar to an awkwardly paced run-walk, and usually is punctuated by my dropping something which rolls out of reach under something else.

Ground Kobe beef, applewood smoked bacon, arugula tasting like the evil spicy version of the color green, gruyere, a lovely subtle garlic aioli, on toasted brioche. In a three-bite size. Two of them. I find the three-bite size to be the best size for pretty much anything. One is over too quickly, two lacks closure, but three is the magic number.

My friendly host Clint, a damn cool guy. Maybe…TOO cool...   

He gave me not only the refined and perfected Incredi-Ball, but a Ballywood as well-a cooked to perfection garam masala chicken meatball with coconut madras curry, crispy fried onions, tomato AND cilantro chutney, over saffron basmati rice.

You know those long musical numbers in Indian movies, with all the lovely bright colors, and hand-dancing? If that were a dish, it would be this dish. Smells so good and spiced perfectly. I admire India so much for its alacrity to boldly spice food.

And because everybody votes.

Both were absolutely tax-ignoring worthy. Each ingredient so simple and well-executed, and working together to make a perfect bite. Which is important because, as I mentioned, you get a whole three bites. I loved each bite with a feverish impatience, and have not seen Chicago pork chop or Minetta burger since.

I did however devour this spaghetti and meatball dish that my adorable cousin made for me. It was too good to pass up, and I've never regretted it. And such a reasonable portion size.

But I did eventually do my taxes.

Uncle Fester Latte

A word on coffee.

Several. Several words on coffee. Several. I like the sound of that better, It has a ring to it, yes, a ring.. And yes I’ve had a bit already.

The brain and body need water and oxygen in order to work properly. (According to doctors-but they’re always really busy, so it would be wise to just run that by WebMD as well.) Yogis rely on breath. Apple will tell you that you can’t get through the day without the Lilliputian electronics that manage your life and play kicky shuffled tunes while doing it. (Thanks to you iPhone, now instead of checking my e-mail obsessively every hour, I check my e-mail obsessively every three minutes. Which makes the regularly appearing spam e-mail from that one place I had T-shirts printed up that ONE TIME a real let-down.)

All of these are partially true, but my sun rises and sets on something a little more stakeout-worthy than water or breath. Coffee.

Sadly but tastily, my life can be chronicled the coffee I have drunk. Drank? Drunken?

I’m furious, that should have been easier. For example, while in college in New Orleans my heat-beater and sweet-tooth accommodator was an iced caramel macchiato with extra caramel. Good for countering the crushing humidity as well as producing blue ribbon cavities, this was really the gateway drug that brought coffee into my life. As I wish all things entered my life: covered in caramel, and with my name written on it in Sharpie so there’s no confusion that it’s mine.

During the summer I interned in Washington, my heart grew three sizes for the Milky Way lattes served in the Senate cafeteria coffee bar underground. Once again, dessert in a cup. I would click down the cool marble underground passageways in my “Corridors of Power Kitten Heels,” and “Primary Colors Pencil Skirt,” my Senate ID swinging impressively from a loudly printed lanyard that threw the whole thing off, and featured a photo taken of exactly the middle of my face.

It is unknown whether my whole head actually couldn’t fit in the allotted box, or if I was having a bad hair day and an executive decision was made by the drunk-with-power photo cropper to simply leave it all out. But the whole thing really screwed up the sleek intern/covert agent look I was going for by graphically counter-identifying me as Uncle Fester.

My roommate in DC was a (gasp) vegetarian, who trended towards simple, natural, healthy things. Needless to say, it was not a great match. Nothing personal. Nice girl, liked sugar-free vanilla lattes. So I did the honorable thing and told her, “Me Too!,” while downing liquefied Milky Way bars with a coffee topper when I was at work. Some people drink red-eyes. Some people, like Sean Penn in that one movie that one time, drink black-eyes. I was going for wild-eyed.

Chicago was all about pretty much not freezing to death. You know those mountain climbers that lose digits “up on the slope,” and are rewarded for their ambition with a couple of empty finger tubes in their gloves? Ok, that can happen to you walking to lunch in Chicago. Coffee becomes less about social convention and sugar intake than about literally bringing your blood to room temp. It’s the boiling water down your wetsuit, the HotHands for your liver, spleen, and heart.

Enter the Seasonal Coffee. Pumpkin Spice Latte! Gingerbread Latte! Peppermint Mocha! I’m not just drinking coffee, I’m drinking a whole SEASON! This tastes like fall, and that one tastes like Christmas! A drinkable calendar to distract you from the fact that you are still absolutely freaking freezing.

These days it’s cappuccinos, and it’s both fantastic and miserable. They make me so happy, and I eat them with a spoon like ice cream sometimes. And occasionally you accidentally breathe on the cinnamon and get a face full of it, which gives you that nice chimney sweep look that’s really taking off these days. But who wants to get addicted to something so bow-tie fancy? Expensive? And something that you absolutely positively could not reproduce if you were to be thrown into a Castaway situation. HELP is so much easier to spell out on the beach  with sticks than CAPPUCCINO. Plus, you'll be dehydrated by then so you'll lose precious time second-guessing yourself as to whether it's two C's or two N's, as though it matters.

The day that I found out that the Sweets Truck was featuring an “Almond Joy Latte” as their special for the day-I will be honest with you, I was not feeling well. I was installed on the couch under blankets, the Netflixing in full swing. NOT feeling good. NOT looking good. And definitely NOT missing an Almond Joy latte, you guys. I willed myself into ambulatory status, and drove my Claire Danes Little Women death-scene self to that mothertrucker.

Ok, SO: espresso, almond syrup, chocolate syrup, warm milk. Take 1 of these and text me in the morning. Or Facebook me. No, wait-everyone sees that. Twitter. Nope, same problem. Foursquare check-in? Neg-I don’t know how to do that. And I don’t want to. Yeah, just text. Ok good, that’s settled.

Yep, had a bit more coffee while that picture was loading.

I flashed back to my “Intern Confidential: The Uncle Fester Files” days as I medicated myself. A molten drinkable candy bar, with a caffeine chaser. Literally tasted EXACTLY like an Almond Joy. So I needed a pumpkin white chocolate bar to wash that all down with. Unbelievable. Everything you love about pumpkin pie, with the creamy luxury of white chocolate to bring it all full circle. And with the lovely buttery pie crusty-crust we have come to expect from pp.

Needless to say, I felt much better. I’m not saying this combo healed me-I’m saying the sheer sugar gram count masked any and all symptoms and kept me up for days. 2 brilliant, manic, shooting star, I am a golden god, glassy-eyed days.

And when that ordeal was all over, I really needed a cup of coffee.

THE CHALLENGE. (with a side of cream cheese)

Hi Everybody, and thanks for visiting my blog! I am an occasionally good speller, a very stubborn Taurus, and an absolutely obsessed foodie. My day revolves around food: where I can get it, who wrote about it, who's making it, why it's supposedly awesome, and why it's actually awesome. I've decided to channel my obsession into a venture at least semi-quantifiable this summer, and I'd like to keep you posted.

For those who do not know this, the recent food trend that has taken Los Angeles by storm is the explosion of food trucks that now roam the city with reckless abandon. These are not your run-of-the-mill construction site roach coaches, selling foil wrapped who-knows-what (which, by the way is always delicious. I am a big fan of foil wrapped who-knows-what, in fact.) They are gourmet, they are nomadic, they can be difficult to find, and they are only in one place for a couple of hours. Then they shut their door/window/counter/register/entire side of the truck, and leave without a trace.

If you're not organized, you will miss them. If you're not fast, they will leave you behind. If you're indecisive, the person behind you will get the almond pancake bites or gruyere grilled cheese that was meant for you. Well I intend to be organized. I intend to be fast. I intend to be decisive. And if all goes according to plan, I will hit every LA food truck by the end of the summer. At which point I will have every pair of pants I own let out.

But who am I? Well, I'm this girl:

I can remember nearly every meal I've ever eaten. The grilled cheese with tomato in an all-night locals only cafe in New Orleans. The epic frijoles at a Mexican restaurant in a shack in Houston. (Seriously, you don't even have to order them, they just come to every table. THEY JUST COME TO EVERY TABLE. And they are so good, I would pack them in my doomsday bomb shelter. They wouldn't last until the apocalypse of course-I don't have that kind of willpower guys. But thanks for going with me on that for a second.)

I once walked into a deli near the lake in Chicago. The city was windswept and frostbite-worthy, but I needed a black-and-white cookie for something, so I did what had to be done. They were about 5 minutes from closing, and this was a great deli-the kind you have to go down a flight of stairs off the street to get to. It was late, and the very lunch-popular place was empty. It was kind of like a scene in a zombie movie, after everyone's disappeared, but the swing on the swing set is still swinging, and the screen door opens and closes ominously. I could hear a soft whirring in the back room, and I was standing right at the register before I noticed the gentleman standing with his back to me on the other side of the counter. I couldn't really tell what he was doing, because I couldn't make sense of what I was seeing. With his left hand he was chopping mountains of green threads, while his right attended to a massive industrial mixer filled with...clouds. That's exactly what it looked like: huge, snowpeakish, smoothly whipped...clouds. It was almost cartoonish.

The smell was beyond heavenly: creamy, tart, grassy, and first-lawn-mowing of the summer fresh, on one of the coldest days I can remember. He eventually noticed me, and I was instantly the strange one in the situation. A girl suited up for the winter, standing there mouth agape, probably a five dollar bill in hand. "One black-and-white cookie please. And if you don't mind me asking, what are you doing." And then he said something that if I hadn't been stopped in my tracks already, would've done the job. "Making cream cheese." Making cream cheese. MAKING cream cheese. Making CREAM CHEESE! Of course! Making chive cream cheese destined for the next day's bagels! It doesn't all come in a foil-wrapped brick, or travel size tub. FOOLS!

Who doesn't like cream cheese?! But who thinks about it being made from scratch? It was as though I had stepped back from the Magic Eye desk calendar kiosk at the mall, and actually SEEN the sailboat. It all came into delicious focus. He was unaffected, I was agog. An odd couple, linked by a batch of chive cream cheese. I walked out of that deli that night with a black-and-white cookie in a paper bag, but not just that. I also had the most mystical dairy product related encounter of my life in my back pocket. I can't explain it, but the streets of Chicago were different after that. But I'm weird like that.