I Went Went, Back Back, to Cali Cali, pt. 4: Conclusion.

Wednesday, my last full day in California, felt like my first full California day. I headed out in the morning to check on the Broad Museum, saw that the rest of the city had the same idea, and headed towards the Beverly Center to try what would be my #1 NEW LA FOOD DISCOVERY* OF THE TRIP, a Taiwanese-ish sandwich shop called M. Con. (*Except it's not like I really discovered it. Other people did. I just went because I saw their Instagram pictures and stuff). 

First of all, look how charming and well-designed, right? So much good tile. And that's just the rear dining area.

From an understated selection of sandwiches, all coming on what I'd describe as a house-baked scallion pancake English muffin, I picked the porkbelly. There was a ton of belly on their and it was lip-smacking, finger-kissing delicious.

I also ordered a "Bird's nest", a fried egg served on top of a tangle of what I initially took to be fried onions, but as I progressed in my eating began to suspect was a tangle of onion and cabbage and maybe some other things? A keen discerner of ingredients I not always am, but I know what I like, and I liked this.

But here's the M. Con top-secret MVP, their house sambal oelek, which stands above most in-house spicy offerings with its clever inclusion of heavy amounts of cilantro and green onion. At first I used sparingly so as to not clutter the chef's vision for my sandwich, but then I gave in and went full on and ended up basically eating a sambal sandwich with a little pork belly.

Then I did a little Beverly Hills-adjacent exploring and lead on the salespeople at the Leica store a little asking to see the electric viewfinder and a few straps but had the decency to not ask them to unlock any lenses for me.

We're all just proud of Greg for even trying to open a fancy store. It's tough business!

Good promotion.

After being out and in that car for hours, I headed back to San Marino but made a final stop in Chinatown to pick up a little second lunch or early dinner from Howlin Ray's, a new Nashville Hot Chicken joint. I ordered their spiciest possible chicken, of course, a move which lead me into conversation with the chef/owner. It was nice to talk a little hot chicken shop with someone, compare notes on other establishments, swap opinions...makes all my previous chicken suffering worth it. A whiff of the chicken in shop let me know it was serious business and once I got home I had to yell a warning at my mother as she almost opened the oil-soaked box with her bare fingers.

Here is that chicken. It was very mean. The spice was just caked on it all over, like a second skin. You could probably snap off pieces of the spices and be left with crispy fried chicken skin to snap off beneath. I made quick work of the leg, ate a bowl of ice cream, and left instructions that Greg eat the thigh when he came around.

I also brought back food for Mom and Grandma: A Top Round Roast Beef on Weck, a Top Round Fried Chicken sandwich, and a Steak In the Heart sandwich from Chego.

That evening I traveled west to meet many good people at the new Chego Taqueria. So good was the gathering that it felt like my trip was really beginning on its last night. I'll spare you the food photos except for one, but know that many tacos and even more blackjack quesadillas were eaten.

Our man Keith, recently arrived from family trip to Utah.

Then we went back to Brandon and Lindsey's house for some interactive video party games that were actually, me proved wrong, pretty fun.

So sad that in a room full of people we're all just looking at our phones. Sigh. Just kidding! That's how you played the game.

Thursday. So sad to see the trip coming to an end. But let's end it right with a porch portrait.

I took the edge off a little (or maybe just rubbed salt in the wound?) with a family lunch at Night + Market Song, my last trip's Food MVP.

The spread. We ordered all the good stuff.

But here's a close-up of their fried chicken sandwiches. Everyone's got a fried chicken sandwich now and I am ok with that!

Asked Mom to pose with this mom

She, in turn, asked me to pose with this photo. Ok. Fair.

Look at this store how it matches the utility box out front to its clothes. Do they repaint with each season?

Ok. And that was it for my LA trip. It was a good time and I hope I was a little useful. I look forward to returning soon, or soon-ish. We'll see.

240th Fourth from the 62nd

Last night Trevor hosted a grand 4th of July gathering in his new 62nd floor apartment (you might remember how I spent a good deal of my femur replacement replacement surgery recovering in his old 31st floor apartment...well, since that time Trevor has doubled his elevation at the Gehry building) and a grand time was had by all.

First, some establishing shots to show what kind of a daylight view Trevor has from his apartment. That's the fireworks barge right there.

Now, people partying as it gets darker and darker and closer and closer to fireworks time.

And now, the moment you've been waiting for, eye-level photos of NY 4th of July fireworks. I promise this isn't every picture I took. This is actually a curated selection.

Hooray for the 4th of July and thank you Trevor for having us over!

September 16th, 1996

El Molinito, Naucalpan de Juarez, Edo. de Mexico

So, for my first Mexican Independence Day in Mexico*, back when I was a missionary, we spent the morning at a military parade downtown and that evening at a party some members of our ward hosted (relax, if you're keeping score, it was a preparation day). My companion and I and the two other missionaries we shared our apartment with got a ride home from the party from a married couple that cooked the other two missionaries' meals. Their car was like a suburban, but without rear windows or seats in the back, so the four of us just bounced around on the floor or the wheel well dents, looking over the backs of the front seats out the windshield. The party had been outside the busy part of El Molinito, the mini-city nestled against Mexico City where we worked, and there was just a little two lane road leading back into town.

The whole way back into town our driver was playing this traffic game against another family that had been at the party where he'd cut off their station wagon and not let them pass us and then, if they passed us, they'd keep us from passing them and block us on the shoulder and stuff...as a passenger, it definitely felt a little crazy, but our driver and his wife were cheering and laughing and the other car would wave and honk happily at us when they passed us or we passed them. But at some point another car got between us, a little VW Rabbit or something like that, but our driver kept the game going with this stranger and would block the little car from passing us on the left or the right and would stop short at stop lights or race through them or whatever, just tormenting this unwitting third party.

The game continued as we reached the crowded streets of Molinito proper, and I mean our driver was just merciless. From his elephant of a car he would not give this little Rabbit an inch, all the time laughing as his wife clapped. As entertaining as it was to be in the winning vehicle, I couldn't help but wonder where the cops were in this town...and then I remembered, oh yeah, our driver WAS a cop.

Passing through the middle of El Molinito, we came to a hill where the road widened from two opposing lanes of traffic to four lanes of one way traffic (our apartment was just past a pedestrian bridge at the top of this hill) and here our truck didn't stand a chance against the Rabbit. It moved over two lanes from us (meaning we were in a lane, then there was an empty lane, and then the lane that the Rabbit was in) and suddenly our driver got shouty. He pushed his wife from her seat back into the wayback with us and I watched that zippy little Rabbit catch up to us and then, my eyes not believing what they saw, but taking it in as very real and very much happening, he crossed his right hand out the window across his left hand on the wheel, revealing the glint of a firearm, and there were two flashes and two "pop pops"--sounding nothing like the bang bangs of guns on TV and that's how I knew this was for real--and then zipped off at an acceleration our truck couldn't match.

At first our driver slammed down on the gas with intentions of pursuing the Rabbit, but by the time we were at the top of the hill he seemed to have changed his mind (I need to add here: At this point I've been living in Mexico for roughly a month and my Spanish is nearly non-functional. Basically, I can read signs and put together a few sentences but I can hardly understand anything anyone ever says, and I'm in a car full of native, non-English speaking Mexicans, so the only thing I definitely understand are actions and words are just a guess) about hunting down someone that we know has a gun. He pulls over somewhere not near our apartment, in case the Rabbit locates us, looking for revenge. We get out of the car to have a look and, yes, there are two bullet holes in the side of the car, one of them right in the passenger door beside the rear-view mirror.

At this time didn't know how to speak Spanish or how to take a photo, so yeah, that's my finger

The whole experience left me thrilled. I just thought it was awesome. Other near-death (or near-danger) experiences I'd later have in Mexico left me thinking "No, that was not cool" but this one I was crazy about. In fact, when I got home that night I got out my yet-to-be-mailed letter home for that week and wrote across the sealed envelope, in red ink, of all things, "MOM-Just got shot at, will tell you more next week!" without any thought to the anxiety that incomplete bit of news might cause at the home office during the week before the follow up would arrive.

*How did I spend my second Mexican Independence Day in Mexico? At a church party where they had a cock fight in the gym. I said to the person I was standing by (at this point I could speak Spanish) "Can you believe they're having a cock fight? In the CHURCH?" and they responded: "I know! Isn't it great?"