Juice Box To The Rescue!

Rescue Juice truck

Ventura County, CA

Rescue Juice, open for business

Rescue Juice, open for business

In the 1990s, Megan Jackson’s primary concern was not which taco truck had the best tacos al pastor, but how she was going to beat leukemia and stay alive. Chemotherapy just seemed to make her sicker, forcing her to make a truly life-altering decision – she was going to heal by stopping the chemotherapy and through nutrition, with the focus on natural juice. Her doctors warned her against it, and asked her to sign a waiver stating that she was resorting to untested methods against their wishes (presumably to absolve them of any wrong-doing and prevent legal action after what would undoubtedly be Megan’s demise). Not only did her health improve, but also her leukemia went into remission (and has stayed there). Megan’s husband Tom became a man with a mission – to spread the news and pass the juice; he was only lacking a means to do so.

Tom Jackson, owner of Rescue Juice

Tom Jackson, owner of Rescue Juice

In 1995 on the return road trip from their honeymoon, Jackson spotted a 1969 GMC fire rescue truck in a vacant lot beside a fire station. The vehicle had been there so long there were weeds growing out from underneath it. He immediately realized that this was going to be his labor of love (with the emphasis on labor), converting the truck into a rolling juice bar. The truck needed extensive work, and he spent almost a year, several thousand miles and $45,000 dollars to get the vehicle in thirst-quenching order, ready to respond in February of 1996. Jackson had made Channel Islands Harbor his new home and base of operations, initially offering fresh, healthy juices, coffee and light snacks out of the aptly named Rescue Juice truck. In addition to bringing the vehicle to fundraising events to raise money to battle leukemia, Tom also does catering and appears at major events in the area (sirens blazing by request). You could say that he was running a cutting-edge food truck when the earliest of the fusion trucks were still in diesel diapers.

The aptly named Fire Extinguisher

The aptly named Fire Extinguisher

Jackson states that as a result of public demand, he no longer blends items such as ginseng and ginger root in the drinks (they were sitting unused), but he still uses fresh, healthy ingredients. I discovered Rescue Juice at the annual Johnny Cash Music Festival at the Ventura County Fairgrounds; I was in dire need of some coffee and spotted the truck (which isn’t too difficult) prior to having to call 9-1-1. Although hot coffee seems an odd choice at an outdoor festival under the blazing sun, I’m relatively sure that Juan Valdez holds a prominent place in my ancestry, and his legacy was not to be denied. Although Jackson can whip up cappuccino and lattes on-board, I was in the market for coffee – hot, strong and black. From a “fast food” standpoint, coffee seems to be something that is difficult to do right – it runs the gamut of tasting like the ashes from a 5-alarm fire or someone having run a fire hose through a coffee filter. I was pleasantly surprised that Rescue Juice’s coffee was flavorful, and neither too strong or too weak. Claudia and I also split what Tom calls the “Fire Extinguisher”, blended from fresh non-sprayed strawberries and lemon. The drink was thick and naturally sweet, with just the right amount of tang from the lemon, a cold, refreshing and healthy treat on a hot summer day.

The Rescue Juice truck has been abating thirst for 15 years now, certainly an accomplishment to be proud of. In the event of a beverage emergency, it’s Tom Jackson to the rescue!

Rescue Juice
567 Channel Islands Blvd. #103
Port Hueneme, CA 93041
805-272-5148
[email protected]

GALLERY: See images of Tom Jackson and the Rescue Juice truck

Posted in Trippy Food (Tasty flora and fauna), USA | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

Attack Of The 20-Foot Artichoke

World’s Largest Artichoke, Giant Artichoke Restaurant

Castroville, California

Grateful that the artichokes are a peaceful race

Grateful that the artichokes are a peaceful race

Castroville, California bills itself as the Artichoke Capital of the World, and as discussed in the article on the Castroville Artichoke Festival, it is well justified. When you have the chutzpah to adopt such a lofty title for yourself, it only stands to reason that you’ll want to erect a monument to establish your dominance and strike fear in the hearts of also-rans and other vegetable king wannabes. In 1963, this monument took the form of a 20-foot tall steel and concrete artichoke, the symbol of Castroville’s fame and prosperity. Of course, giant vegetable advertising didn’t hurt Ray Bei’s vegetable stand, which eventually grew into the sprawling stop for all things artichoke simply known as “The Giant Artichoke”. This includes a continuation of the original vegetable stand featuring fresh and frozen artichokes and even dried artichoke flowers. You can also get local honey (still in the honeycomb), nuts, a variety of vegetables and fresh and dried fruit. A walk through the heart of the artichoke (an empty inverted green globe hallway) takes you into the restaurant.

If there is another artichoke dish, they missed it

If there is another artichoke dish, they missed it

The front of the restaurant features a gift shop where you can purchase your standard artichoke souvenirs such as shot glasses, postcards, T-shirts, but ironically no mini tribute knock-offs of the goliath guarding the entrance with its concrete petals and metal thorns. The restaurant is simple, decorated with Artichoke Festival posters from the good old days, and the immediate expectation is you’ll be offered an artichoke as a side dish for everything on the menu. Fortunately there’s a variety of artichoke food options to choose from, or you can simply cut to the chase and get the artichoke platter which features a three-way bonanza: fried, steamed and artichoke bread. Claudia was full from the food from the festival and opted for a bowl of the cream of artichoke soup. I imagine this dish is a no-brainer, as soup is the perfect way to market the previous day’s menu surplus. The food didn’t take too long – I felt that Yoda and Kermit the Frog would have enjoyed the presentation, since it was a veritable testament to the color green. The steamed artichoke was tender without being wilted, but the fried hearts were a dark brown color, usually a sign of being left in the oily bubble bath a little long. They were crispy without being crunchy with pretty green juicy centers. I wasn’t sure what to make of the artichoke bread – it was the consistency of zucchini bread with similar flavor, but with a green hue that hinted at the possibility of food coloring doping. The soup was full of flavor, but depending on the spoonful it was sometimes difficult to differentiate from cream of broccoli until you hit upon the familiar slightly bitter aftertaste (a tell-tale by-product of the cynarine compound produced by the vegetable). The food exuded the essence of the armored vegetable and was both flavorful and relatively inexpensive. The only disappointment was the city’s missed opportunity of concocting an artichoke ice cream – it would have been a fitting desert as well as a nice feature at the festival. Don’t get me wrong here; this is road food, not haute cuisine, but when in Castroville, do as the Castrovillians do.

Not the recommended method of eating an artichoke

Not the recommended method of eating an artichoke

Should you drive from Peoria, Illinois non-stop to eat at The Giant Artichoke? No. Should you make this a stop traveling the length of Highway 101 from San Diego up through the redwood coast or on your quest to see all the California Missions? Sure, why not? Should you dine here in the shadow of the vegetable behemoth born in the days of Camelot and the New Frontier while attending the venerable Castroville Artichoke Festival? Most assuredly. It’s a great way to try a variety of artichoke preparations, see the uncontested world’s largest artichoke and attend the famous festival all in one fell swoop, crossing the three items off your California bucket list. Make that a bucket of artichokes, please.

Giant Artichoke Restaurant
11261 Merritt St
Castroville, CA 95012
GPS Coordinates: 36°45’44.81″N 121°45’10.99″W

GALLERY: See images of Val’s visit to The Giant Artichoke Restaurant

Posted in Trippy Trips (On the road and overseas, things to see along the way), USA, USA | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

WARNING! Contains Cornographic Images

Huitlacoche (corn smut)

Mexico

Dark, rich huitlacoche prior to cooking

Dark, rich huitlacoche prior to cooking

It raises a few eyebrows when I announce that I’m headed to Los Angeles’ Koreatown to check out the smut, but in this particular case it’s corn smut (huitlacoche) I’m referring to. Huitlacoche has been a staple of the Central American diet for centuries – it is essentially a fungus that infects the corn kernels, swelling them and turning them black with spores. Where American farmers would historically destroy their infected crop, Mexican growers have intentionally introduced the fungus into theirs. Huitlacoche fetches a higher market price than the healthy corn would; in the past decade, some American corn growers have added it to their crop, but it is still somewhat slow to catch on. There is some debate on the origin and meaning of the word, “huitlacoche” – the word is derived from the Nahuatl language, and there are some who roughly translate this to “raven excrement”, although the actual meaning and source are still up for discussion. Not having encountered raven excrement, I can’t attest to the accuracy of the description, and certainly not the taste. To my eyes, it has the appearance of overcooked spinach in squid ink. Huitlacoche is immensely popular in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, and the definitive source for huitlacoche in Los Angeles is Guelaguetza Restaurante, a local chain specializing in Oaxacan cuisine. Owner Bricia Lopez graciously invited me to share the dish; I had eaten at Guelaguetza previously, which readers of this blog may remember from an article about their tasty preparation of chapulines (grasshoppers). Continue reading

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The Other Gray Meat

Scrapple

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and surrounding states

Jones Dairy Farm scrapple - OK when the butcher is closed

Jones Dairy Farm scrapple - OK when the butcher is closed

Philadelphia, you can keep your Cheez Whiz-laden shaved steak sandwiches – but you’ll take my scrapple when you pry it from my cold, dead trotters. Scrapple for me is a nostalgia food – it’s one of those dishes that was hard for me to comprehend as a child, but it was a special treat for my eastern Pennsylvanian mom. It is essentially a thrifty breakfast food, made from pork scraps and trimmings so that nothing goes to waste. German-influenced and American-born, it bears some similarity to the U.K.’s white pudding (which is neither) and German panhas. Whatever is too small for the butcher’s case or a pig part that defies identification gets ground up and cooked; a variety of grain (frequently buckwheat or cornmeal) is added to the broth and then poured into a loaf pan to solidify. The resulting gray meat brick is then sliced into thick slabs and fried, usually accompanied by fried eggs. Move over, SPAM, your grandpappy’s breakfast meat is back with a vengeance.

The finest scrapple in Berkeley, California

The finest scrapple in Berkeley, California

Scrapple isn’t difficult to find from Pennsylvania to Maine; you can get Jones Dairy Farm, Rapa, and several other brands in the frozen food aisle of most grocery chains, but many East Coast butcher shops carry the real deal. Whether you’re trying to rekindle the experience of that “everything but the oink” flavor or are just curious, the butcher is your friend here. I envy those of you with that choice; as a transplanted Yankee expatriate I am faced with the dilemma of where to get my scrapple fix on the Left Coast. Fortunately there is a ray of porcine hope in the Bay Area and in L.A. In 1982, Bette Kroening and some chef friends opened a 50’s-style diner in Berkeley and dubbed it Bette’s Oceanview Diner. Lest you be disappointed, I’ll tip you off in advance – you can’t see the ocean from anywhere in or around the diner (although it is a few short blocks away). Bette’s is famous for their pancakes with legendary wait times of several hours, but I must have arrived during a coastal evacuation because we were seated after a short wait and served pretty quickly. I’m sure their flapjacks are as light and fluffy white as St. Alphonzo’s, but I wasn’t there for the griddlecakes, mister, no siree. I wasn’t leaving the Bay Area until I had partaken of their hidden secret. Although scrapple is a regular menu item at Bette’s, it appears to be overlooked; it is served up with poached eggs, perfect for mixing the runny hen fruit with the scrapple Massachusetts-style. Their monolithic meat was grilled to a golden brown crust with the perfect meat to grain ratio, making it firm but not too bready. In addition to their scrapple, Bette’s is a great trippy food destination for what appears to be the world’s largest slice of cherry pie dangling precariously above the register like the Sword of Damocles.

The remainder of the scrapple at The Filling Station

The remainder of the scrapple at The Filling Station

Scrapple is pretty scarce in the L.A. area, but a recent conversation with “snout-to-tail” devotee Ben Ford prompted him to whip up a batch using the pork scraps at his Ford’s Filling Station gastropub. Ford blended his with polenta, with his version being heavier on the pork by-product than the grain. The scrapple was seared on the grill resulting in a somewhat crunchy exterior and a warm, moist center. Accompanied by a pair of over-easies, I fought the temptation to do a mash-up and sampled a forkful au natural. I’m not sure if Ben spent any time in Philly, but he got it right on his freshman try. The slab of gray goodness was so tasty I ate half of it before realizing I was missing a Kodak moment. I think the photo of the half-eaten scrapple was a testament to how good it was.

Lindy and Grundy's fresh scrapple

Lindy and Grundy's fresh scrapple

Lindy and Grundy is an old fashioned butcher shop in Los Angeles that offers cuts of meat that are difficult to come by elsewhere; their scrapple is made onsite from fresh pasture-raised, organic pork. The loaf has the characteristic gray color with a touch of yellow as a result of the cornmeal which is Lindy and Grundy’s grain mixture of choice. I fried their scrapple to a dark brown and topped it with a fried egg, letting the yolk cascade over the crispy sides; the cornmeal added the perfect amount of grit and the meat was ground to where it still maintained some muscle fiber. Each mouthful was hot, flavorful bliss – the contrast in the texture of the grain and the moist pork permeated with the rich egg yolk made for a memorable breakfast.

If you do happen to be in the Mid-Atlantic States and haven’t tried this pork mélange, you needn’t look far – any diner worth their salt should have it on their menu. Scrapple is the perfect marriage between SPAM and sausage, with only its grayish color and foreboding sounding name standing between it and mass popularity. You don’t have to be from Philly to enjoy scrapple, but I tell you what – yo, don’t be grittin’, youse guys need to taste this jawn.

Bette’s Oceanview Diner
1807 Fourth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
GPS coordinates:  37°52’11.25″N 122°18’1.83″W

Ford’s Filling Station
9531 Culver Boulevard
Culver City, CA 90232-2618
GPS coordinates: 34° 1’23.25″N 118°23’43.25″W

Lindy and Grundy
801 North Fairfax Avenue
Los Angeles CA 90046
GPS Coordinates:  34°5’9.46″N 118°21’42.02″W

Jones Dairy Farm web site
Rapa Scrapple store locator

GALLERY: See images of Val’s encounters with scrapple

Posted in Philadelphia PA, Trippy Food (Tasty flora and fauna), USA | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Reservations Required

An Evening With Anthony Bourdain

Royce Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles CA

If Bourdain needs a stunt double, he has my card

If Bourdain needs a stunt double, he has my card

“Hey, Val, if you could do anything you wanted for a career, what would you choose?” Oh, I don’t know, I’d like to visit exotic and unusual places, immerse myself in the local culture, partake of the ethnic cuisine those places are known for, seek out some hidden treasures and then share my stories with everyone using a variety of media. “You mean like Anthony Bourdain?” Yeah, like Anthony Bourdain. That guy has the best job in the world, and he and I both know that. I know that because that’s what I want to do when I grow up; he knows that because he mentions it on a regular basis, including recently at a show at Royce Hall on the campus of U.C.L.A. Knowing that the irreverent and self-described snarky celebrity chef was going to be in town, my wife Claudia (who cheerfully puts up with my sense of adventure) treated me to a VIP pass to Bourdain’s show, “An Evening With Anthony Bourdain”. This set us back almost the price of dinner at The French Laundry, but included a copy of Bourdain’s new book, “Medium Raw”, a limited edition numbered poster, preferred seating and a meet-and-greet following the show with hors d’oeuvres catered by Wilshire Restaurant. I had never been to Royce Hall (let alone the UCLA campus), so I decided to leave early to negotiate the water buffalo stampede that is Los Angeles traffic. Since I arrived early and had some time to kill, I wandered around campus a little. Royce Hall features two grand brick towers, the entrance sheltered by cathedral arched ceilings and iron chandeliers – from the outside it looked more like an old English church than a concert hall. The hall itself is beautiful in its simplicity, with the interior lined with brick (a seemingly poor choice from an acoustic standpoint), capped at the top of the stage by a massive pipe organ. I’m not sure if Anthony Bourdain, his management, the promoter or Royce Hall decided that preferred seating was halfway back in Row O, but obviously I wasn’t asked for my preference or I would have been in spitting distance. Waving my laminated “backstage pass” on a lanyard did nothing to get me a better seat than people who paid regular price.

Anthony Bourdain checks out the bag of hormigas culonas

Anthony Bourdain checks out the bag of hormigas culonas

Knowing Bourdain’s penchant for punk rock, I would have thought he’d have some urban backdrop or some staging that looked like the alley behind CBGBs, but there was only a plain podium with two microphones that went unused for the duration of his show. He wandered around the stage using a wireless lapel mic, no special effects, no fancy lighting, no incidental music, just an animated, sometimes cynical, always funny chef, critic and world traveler. I found myself in complete agreement on some observations; how cutting the fin off a shark and leaving the animal to drown is a waste of life and food. He talked about ammonia-treated meat scraps going into the “gray disk” burgers at Mickey D’s and Burger King, a story that I had shared on Trippy Food’s facebook page back in January from an article in the New York Times. We did differ on a couple of opinions; for starters, he said that one of his virtues is curiosity. I am curious to the point of obsession, and I’m sure you could ask Claudia if she considers it a virtue (it’s more like a curse). Where we see things different is that Bourdain states that he will repeatedly drive past a restaurant that has Lassie on the menu, but if he is dining in someone’s house in another part of the world that is serving up “puppy heads”, he would ask for more and avoid offending his host. I’m of the opinion that is he truly was virtuously curious, like me he would be standing outside the restaurant waiting for them to open to try a nice big steaming plate of Scooby Doo, then head over to the local’s house to try the host’s take on puppy heads. The other area where we differ (although his opinion is probably more for entertainment value) is how he proposes scaring small children to not want to eat food from “The Clown, The King and The Colonel” by telling them things like eating McDonald’s burgers will “make them retarded”, or dipping a severed Barbie head in chocolate and putting it in a colorful McDonald’s wrapper. Personally, I think kids are pretty smart, and simply sharing the NY Times article on how the burgers at McDonald’s and Burger King share the same chemical compounds found in urine or Mr. Clean ought to do the trick.

Mmmm, bruschetta

Mmmm, bruschetta

No evening with the aforementioned Mr. Bourdain would be complete without his irreverent bashing of other food show hosts, including the target of his infamous sniping, Rachel Ray. He spent some time trashing most of the Food Network hosts, including Guy Fieri, but says he’s lightened up a bit since Food Network bought the Travel Channel and they now have the same boss. Although he is not kind to Man vs. Food’s Adam Richman in print, he seemed to show some sympathy for him, joking that the network sends him on his challenges so that the audience can watch him die. He also spoke of his admiration for Andrew Zimmern, who eats sub-Saharan temperature animal entrails without the assistance of palate-numbing alcohol – Bourdain calls himself “a professional drinker”, which helps him eat some of the more unsavory food-like substances he encounters in his travels. After his lecture, the floor was opened to questions from the audience, with microphones strategically placed in the four corners of the hall. One person asked which country he would suggest more people visit, and he responded by saying that it’s a toss-up between Vietnam and Colombia, two countries that had rebounded from years of adversity. Apparently I was the only one who applauded at his choice of Colombia. Another audience member asked what his most memorable experience from the show was (good or bad), and he related that the massage in the dilapidated bath house in Uzbekistan rates at the bottom of the list. He described the massage as lying prone on a cement slab wearing a napkin on his ass, while a sweaty, hairy Russian straddled him like Ron Jeremy (a statement I found particularly funny at the after party when I saw Ron Jeremy standing at a table at the back).

After the Q&A session ended and he bid the audience adieu, I made my way back to the bar area where I picked up my poster and book and then queued up behind the velvet ropes for a photo opportunity. LAist and Here, Eat This! writer Elise Thompson had also gone to the show, and she graciously agreed to capture the Kodak moment for me. I shared the story with Bourdain of how Claudia had found one of her high school classmates from his episode on Colombia (Jorge Escandon, owner of Cartagena’s La Cervicheria) and then presented him with a small bag of hormigas culonas (roasted leaf-cutter ants from Bucamaranga); he signed his book, shook my hand and I was off (as Eddie Lin puts it, “Like a sinner after meeting The Pope”). While I nibbled on some of the hors d’oeuvres, I couldn’t help thinking that Bourdain didn’t look happy – he was gracious enough to the folks in the serpentine line that stretched onto the balcony, but he looked a bit like he had to force a smile and didn’t enjoy schmoozing, but felt it was part of the territory. The snacks were tasty – I enjoyed the ceramic soup spoons filled with a fish ceviche, and the bruschetta with heirloom tomatoes were crunchy, creamy and delicious (although I dropped a big dollop of it on the fine carpet, trying to hide the deed by cleaning it up with a napkin). The servers were dressed in black T-shirts and jeans, with the nod to Bourdain’s casual style lost to many in attendance. I hung around for a little while, but with the python that was the meet-and-greet line still winding through the bar area, I didn’t see Bourdain hanging around to chat afterwards and so decided to leave.

It’s not everyday that you get to meet one of the people who inspire you on an international level to do what you love and share the experience, and I will always be grateful to Claudia for giving me that opportunity, and Anthony Bourdain for entertaining me and for his hospitality. I still have Bill Clinton, Andrew Zimmern and Paul McCartney on my list of people I’d like to meet, but I feel a little bit richer having met Bourdain. I wrote about it, I traveled to the show and I ate hors d’oeuvres, but when I got home I was hungry for more.

Royce Hall
UCLA, 340 Royce Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90095
GPS Coordinates: 34°4’21.20″N 118°26’31.52″W

See images of Val, Anthony Bourdain and Royce Hall during Anthony Bourdain’s speaking engagement

Posted in Trippy Happenings (Events) | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments