It Leaves You Baby, If You Don't Care For It

California in Five Meals

1

I am beyond jet lagged, but delirious to be in the LA night with an old friend, a friend definitive in my love of food.

We walk into The Line, an assault on the senses, loud Fugees, darkness, fashion, options.

There are things, smells, ideas, tastes I’ve forgotten about, things I will away because they are impossibilities where I live. Good kimchi is high on that list.

We order what feels like everything on Pot’s menu. The place is hot and the music is good, thunderous. Aaliyah songs I haven’t heard this loud since Middle School dances.

And the food is incredible. Scallion potato pancakes. Yellow fin tuna with sea beans and smoked sesame. So much kimchi, spicy bean sprouts. I had a weird allergic reaction two years ago that’s fundamentally fucked with the way I eat shellfish but I don’t tell the waiter I have a shrimp allergy, I want to just be.

Besides, was I not going to eat kimchi fried rice in a hot stone bowl with an egg on top?

Beer-braised pork belly, pork neck stew, chillis, washed down with ice cold Hite?

Heaven.

The perfect wild re-entry.

2

Pappy and Harriet’s is in Pioneertown, a short but dark drive from Joshua Tree. I’m still in the post-7pm black out phase of jet lag, which I alternately accept by passing out on the living room rug or rage against incoherently, like a drugged bear.

But I rally as soon as I walk in the door. From nowhere, beautiful people have emerged from the desert, congregating. I love the wait for our table. I relish drinking draft beer from a cold mug. Of course, it’s open mic night, not the default for my shy parents (and not mine either, if I’m honest). We sit. It’s really loud and I can feel my parents' unease

but it all melts away looking at the menu.

All meats, chicken and fish are grilled over an outdoor mesquite fire.

Are you kidding me?

I fight my sleepiness to order baby back ribs. They come with cheese fries, skin-on wedges with melted cheddar, scallions and sour cream. An old dude does Pete Seeger covers. Two bros butcher ‘Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town.’

Then an ensemble gets up and they’re good. She’s got yearning in her voice. The band is tight. Her bassist wears a hood unzipped from his jacket. The fries are blowing my mind.

My parents are getting into the music. The hood-wearing bassist holds on to his confidence and stays on the stage. He’s familiar to this crowd, but clearly his solo playing is rare. It’s haunting. Neil Young if he were a night jar.

I soldier through my ribs, washing them down with a Modern Times Fortunate Islands.

If I stop too long to think about any of this, if I rest on one taste, one sound, it’s almost too much.

3

 Stay Out of Malibu, Deadbeat

After a packed LA day (La Brea, Farmer’s Market, Museum of Jurassic Technology, Getty Villa), we end up at Zuma Beach, next Point Dume, maybe the most stunning place of the whole trip. We get a drink at The Sunset, a coke-dusted bar hosting what feels like a reunion/record release party for The Isely Brothers...or a convincing cover band.

The music is loud and righteous. The Payback by James Brown. Lots of Earth Wind and Fire.

My margarita is good, great. Tequila rolling, I rush outside to catch the last rays. The surf is massive, blue-green waves thundering in, spraying sand and sky. Pelicans arc, dipping across the lip. The sun begins to race down and I’m blissing out, feet in the freezing Pacific. Got to figure out how to stay.

4

The last time I went to pizzeria del fina, five years ago, I ate pork rillettes that I still remember. I had the privilege to eat an obscene amount of incredible food in SF during my senior year of college and del fina was one of the spots I hit.

I find it unchanged, still blasting great music, still staffed with a diverse and kind crew, packed to the brim at 9:30 on a Saturday night.

I’d already had an epic day. The Mill for a Four Barrel latte and dark mountain rye toast, Shanghai Dumpling King for killer soup dumplings, Sam’s Sundae at Bi-Rite, a croque monsieur at Tartine while waiting in that mythical 4:30 line, fresh rice noodles at Mission Chinese, a Grimm Golden Hour at Monk’s Kettle. A pizzeria del fina stop was more ritual than necessity. I do this with the places I love in cities I come back to. It’s a hadj. Or a mezuzah.

But the menu had fresh-stretched mozzarella. And there was a seat open outside.

I’m like a lizard under the heat lamp and the speed with which I eat the first half of that moz ball, you’d think I hadn’t just ingested 3000+ calories of the Mission’s finest. But shit. Fresh pulled mozz? Tartine toast? Fresh cracked pepper? New olive oil? Arugula?

Fundamental, yes.

Simple, absolutely.

Transcendent, always.

5

This Flight Tonight

Last morning in SF. Last morning in California. Last morning of vacation, this superb three weeks full of new things and places and people I already love. I’ve been able to leave behind the all-encompassing identity I’ve created for myself in TZ, the inability to chill and let go.

I go for a run because I need to stop thinking, the Heart Sutra rattling around with Led Zeppelin as I go up and down Noe Valley.

Just enough time for Tartine breakfast. Of course there’s a line. I get a latte, a mushroom croque and a croissant. The croissant is beautiful, dark brown, enormous. I tear into it, my fingers immediately buttery. As I take a bite it flakes into my mouth, melting on my tongue and I am overwhelmed with pleasure, sadness, admiration, longing.

The trip flashes before my eyes: smells, sounds, tastes, sensations, all washing over me while I fight back the tears welling up at 11:15 on a Thursday.

Why do I keep the things I love so far away?

Why are they confined to these periods of pleasure seeking, days packed with ecstatic eating, drinking and seeing?

All of these questions swirl as I eat the croissant, breaking through its miraculous crust, swallowing it all down. 

Emma Impink still rocks her khakis with a cuff and a crease.