Oysters: If I can get them, how come...?

 There they are! Right there, not even 100 miles away

 I'd show you how tasty they look, but oops! They got eaten!

I'd show you the wonderful greenish-gold color of the wine, but it's gone too

Any person can just drive over to Tomales Bay or Point Reyes, walk into the store at an oyster farm, and buy as many as they want (if you want hundreds, calling first is a good idea). You can just put them in a cooler on ice, bring them back, and enjoy super fresh seafood. All in less than a day's time.

I suppose there might even be fishermen along the Northern California coast, not too far away, doing  sustainable harvesting. If they're going out in day boats, their fish should be cleaned and iced right after it's caught so when the boat arrives the fish is in prime condition ready to prepare.

California has Dungeness crabs, and there might even be tasty shrimp that could be trap caught too. We've bought live crab in Bodega Bay, and it was fresh and snapping.

So, this all seems obvious, doesn't it? Go to the coast, give someone money, bring back absolutely fresh seafood, prepare it, eat it. Simple. I can do it. You can probably do it. So why can't supermarkets do it?

The last time I was at our local supermarket, the fish looked like it was one step ahead of being made into fish sauce. It was limp, slimy looking and lay flopped over the ice like a beached jellyfish. The trout was bloody, with sunken eyes. The salmon was farmed, colorant added, yet looked mushy. The shellfish looked like it expired while frozen, gaping open.

Can't something be done to make the seafood counter an anticipated destination? Seafood is more expensive every day, yet the quality is dropping faster than you can say bathyscaphe.

I, an individual, can go to the coast and buy what I want. But I can't get it here in the supermarket. Huh? These are supposed to be professional food distributors and sellers, yet they can't manage to stock their cases with anything worthy of accompanying a simple Entre-deux-Mers?

What about an online ordering system, where people could pay in advance and the seafood would be shipped as fresh as possible for the delivery date? What about not stocking limp, flaccid stinking trout? If the fish is borderline, why even bother selling it? How about doing away with all that non-sustainable farmed salmon altogether and telling people to wait for the real stuff in to come into season?

Why have a seafood counter at all, when half of it is just thawed out sea protein. Might as well just leave the stuff in the freezer! Have people grown as flaccid as that half-melted tilapia fillet, that they can't even thaw their own shrimp? What if the seafood case really had only the best quality fish, and the rest of that crap they're selling were sold off as cat food (don't make a habit of it though - mercury isn't good for kitties, either).

Maybe you're reading this thinking that fish normally smells like someone forgot to clean the aquarium. Maybe you think it should rival California's famous Banana Slug in sliminess. Maybe dull, sunken eyes and brown (or missing) gills don't tell you anything. So, here is (another) quick review on how to select fresh fish. (If you're an expert fishmonger or piscivore you can stop reading here and get back to the mise en place for your beurre blanc.)

Is that fish fresh? Check this:

Fish

• Firm flesh, briny odor, not fishy
• Smooth, but not slimy. Your fingers should come away from the fillet with a light coating of fishiness, not coated with slime.
• whole fish should have bright, shiny eyes that bulge. Not dull, sunken pits with black holes in the center.
• The fish's gills should be light to medium pink. They should still be attached to the fish, not missing. If someone cut them off, was it because they were deep red and slimy?
• For fish with scales, the scales should lie flat on the fish and not have gaps.

Shellfish

• Clams closed, or will close when tapped. No, you can't check this by tapping the case, so it's not too practical. Same for mussels.
• Shrimp: buy them frozen (unless they're alive), from a sustainable source, preferably wild. Thaw them yourself.
• Oysters? Well, I've never been brave enough to buy these in a supermarket. Obviously, they should stay tightly closed. So tightly that you need a special knife and some skill to open them without exploding the shell and spewing particles of shell all over the meat.
• Squid: buy it frozen. It probably arrived at the store that way.

If you want to see really nice, fresh fish head for Sunh Fish in the Asian Foods Center on Broadway or Oto's Marketplace. When it comes to fish, those guys don't mess around. Be aware that both sell non-sustainable fish, so do your homework or arrive with your Seafood Watch card in hand. Or if you're geeky, there's an app for that, too.  Just click here.

Your mission, Mr. Phelps: Vanquish the Supermarket

Avocados: $1.99 ea 2/$3.00 $1.49 ea

People look at me strangely when I shop at the supermarket. I stand, basket in hand, staring at the offerings. So many words! Price drop, Super Saver, Ad Special, Special Purchase, Compare with, Two for... Yet, the prices don't seem to reflect anything special. The price drop item could be more expensive than it was two weeks ago. The Super Saver might be a brand that's much more than the item next to it - and the next week the situation could be reversed.

We live in difficult times. The government works for money, big industries and special interests. The same companies that control what you eat, what you watch, how much it will cost to see your aunt Tilly in Livermore. Supermarkets, especially large chains, like virtually every other company, prey on their customers. Instead of clear, honest offers and simple pricing they resort to every ploy available to wage psychological warfare on their prey. There is one chain that seems reasonably clear and straightforward, but they're not located near where I live, so I'm stuck playing stupid mind games dreamed up by evil corporate bean counters.

You've spent enough to save at the market's gas station... seven miles away. That's fourteen miles, almost three quarters of a gallon for a round trip, just to save a few cents per gallon. If their price isn't already higher than more local gas station.

Hot special this week! Avocados, two for $3.00. Formerly $1.49 each. Buy now and save!

Paper towels: compare these: $1.23 per roll,  $0.17 per square foot, total square feet in package (three rolls): 16. Exactly how does this help me in my efforts to get the best price? Ah, but if I buy two rolls of Brand A, I'll get a 1/2 off coupon for Brand B, which happens to be twice as much as Brand A.

I put the special meat at the end of the refrigerator in my cart. It looked like a good deal, but... I decided to check the regular meat section in the middle of the aisle, against the wall. Hey! This is a roast of the same exact thing as the "special" but it's $1.20 per pound less. Yet all I have to do is slice it into pieces the same size as the "special" to get... the same thing as the special.

How about the sale where there's a boneless pork roast on sale, next to the bone-in version? If you buy the bone-in version, congratulations! You just paid the meat price for the bones!

How about some orange juice? Two for $5.00, so I have to buy two for this price, right? Scan at checkout: ORANGE JUICE: $2.50 each. Huh? I could buy one for the same price, despite the implication that two gets me a deal and one leaves me poorer.

Where exactly does that pre-marinated fish come from, and why did it need to be marinated? Now it smells of Thai lemon grass and kaffir lime... but what odors would I detect if it were bare, sans added fragrances?

Why does tilapia fluctuate from around $9.00 per pound down to around four? It's farmed in ponds, in places that don't really have seasons. Do they feed it something special to justify the higher price? Marinated salmon perhaps?

Why does whole chicken normally cost around $1.40 per pound, then suddenly plummet to under $1.00 per pound for a short time, often without even a sale notice? How can boneless chicken be cheaper than whole chickens?

Novelist, poet, food writer. Huh? What's a food writer?

You ARE a writer!

That was perhaps the main message from a three hour seminar I attended last Saturday on food writing. Although the official title included "What Makes Good Food Writing," I wondered more about what makes food writing good, but that's more philosophical. I also wondered if anyone else in the room actually writes regularly, since if you don't write, you're not a writer. Writers write, ne?

Food writing. It's really just writing, though. Same rules. The ones I'm breaking in this paragraph, in fact. It can be academic, fiction, non-fiction, humorous or deadly serious. And yes, it can be mortally boring if not done correctly.

This genre may not even explicitly name the food, its preparation or even delve into culinary depths.  Then there are works like Como Agua para Chocolate that are all about food, but aren't really. The food and social interactions just carry the main story line. Are they food writing or social commentary? How many literary genre tags can you slap onto something before they start to blur into a haze of meaningless babble?

According to the lecture, this genre of writing goes back a long way, with an illustrious history. Hemingway himself was mentioned as being a food writer. I guess the Old Man and the Sea really was about food since he wasn't in that boat for a whale watching expedition. Right? What would Hemingway have thought about being named a food writer, right up there with Betty Crocker?

So, a short essay. Food writing or not?

The boy sat on a weathered log as the sun sank beneath a far-off ridge, carefully unscrewing his last Oreo. He scraped the frosting off with his new upper teeth, savoring the grainy cream as he chewed slowly. He bit into the chocolate, now a bit stale after two days in his pocket. As night fell, he moved back into his shelter in the rocks, hugging his jacket tightly. Once again, he asked himself why he had to leave the trail to chase a dragonfly.

The Thirteen Little Words of Boredom

The food writing seminar named thirteen Boring Food Writing Words to be avoided lest someone would think you an untalented hack. Pretty impressive. George Carlin only got seven. Out of about 171,476 words in active use in the English Language, these thirteen gained this distinction. So, here they are. Please try to stay awake.
delicious, good, nice, tasty, bad, went, yummy, small, beautiful, great, very, many, big

I pity these words. I think that it's up to the writer to make any word interesting. It's like art. How you put the colors together is really what makes a painting interesting, isn't it? So, a challenge: can these words be used to write something entertaining? You be the judge.

+++++

My companion and I arrived at the table after twisting our way through a maze of tables and booths arrayed in a random pattern. The decor was Early James Bond. A mixup of rustic farm and secret Evil Scientist laboratory. The hostess looked just like Judy Jetson, reinforcing the effect.

It was my first night out with Lizzy after meeting at a noisy Yipe event two weeks earlier, and I was starting to realize that some people are much different in a group of loud, intoxicated people than they are solo and sober.

"Welcome to Comfort Eats, part of the big, happy family of AgriBusinessHoldings! My Name is Wendy and I'll do my very best to make you happy tonight!" the waitress squeaked as she arrived at our table, full of energy.

She wore a yummy, tight-fitting uniform that left little to the imagination, it went from her shapely calves, over her delicious thighs, climbing upward in an eye teasing ascent that culminated with a view into her limpid blue eyes. Great. Lizzy noticed. Note to self: jealous type. Got to wear sunglasses. Dark ones.

"Uh, nice uniform," I stammered. My prospective friend noticed, too. So far, the "comfort" concept was not working well.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Wendy replied, "The designers wanted us to look high tech, like AgriBusinessHoldings, yet also have an earthy Farmer Bob feel." She leaned over and whispered, "I think a lot of this food actually is vat grown from genetically modified algae, but it tastes delicious. So really, most ABH employees don't actually work on farms full of smelly fertilizer and are more Mr. Wizard than Farmer Bob - but the uniforms still rock."

I wondered if the CEO looked like Dr. Evil, but somehow resisted asking.

"Good. Well, I think we're ready to order," said my companion, "I'll have the small plate special. They really are small, aren't they? I don't want anything big, and the last small plate I had could have fed very many hungry people. It was not very tasty, either. Kind of like something that never grew in the earth or saw the sun. I gave them a really bad review at Yipe, where I'm an 'eleet'. One star. My review was so bad that the owner sent me a crazy rant, but I published that too and now he's probably very sorry he wasn't nicer to me"

"Wow. Well, the small plate special is a Good choice, and you should be able to give me a whole six stars. It's that good! They're very small. Minuscule, even," Wendy said with a smile. "And you, sir?"

"I'll have the Big Bad Juju Ribs with a side of Diabolical Sauce and Suet-Fried Potatoes with crunchy salt, please".

"Beautiful! That's one of my favorites!" Wendy squealed, bouncing in a manner that earned me another smoking look.

"And anything to drink?"

"I need a YummyGreatBigBeautiful MegaBad Martini," I said. "Make it a double," I said.

"I'll have water. Lots of ice," hissed my date.

"Excellent! I'll get that order in and be right back with your drinks," Wendy exclaimed, adding a swing to her bounce as she departed.

"Nice," growled my companion.

This was going to be a long dinner.

+++++

Yes, this is a piece of fiction. Any resemblance to anyone or anything is purely coincidental. I don't even know anyone named Lizzy, and the vat-grown food is still in the testing, pre-production stage. Your children will probably eat it, though.

SactoMoFo: So many trucks, so little time

Just after noon, lines stretched across the park. That's public demand!

It was mo' crowded than this, but I got tired of drawing.

The scene was like Tron's lightcycle race, where each bike laid down a line. Except these were lines of people stretching across Fremont Park. Even the Whole Foods truck had a line. Go figure, since it would have been faster to drive to their store and order there.

The trucks offered a wide range of enticing foods. Filipino. French. American. Mexican... Interesting stuff, with at least as much variety as Sacramento's restaurant scene.

The prices were reasonable, too - why they can't have something like this at the State Fair? I'd definitely go if they had food like this and similar prices. Maybe a Food Truck Weekend? This event could have easily supported double the number of trucks (thereby halving the line length) - although Fremont Park was almost too small to hold all the people.

So, the question now is how will the Sacramento City Council rationalize their ban on food trucks after getting enough petitions heaped on them to smother a roast ox? Will they go so far as to change their silly law, or are their egos so large that reversing course would show a lack of fortitude and perseverance? Will whoever lobbied them into enacting this law in the first place maintain their death grip on Sacramento's street food artery? Will Second Saturday ever have street food? Imagine... but don't get your hopes up, since Sacramento's city council is much better at maintaining the status quo and shunning innovation than bringing more life to the city.

If you attended and did not sign a petition, then may you be forced to work in a building in Sacramento next to a five star restaurant. Brown bag or pay through the nose, that's what the City Council wants!

As to what I tried, well... Since each line looked like about a forty-five minute to one hour wait and the event only lasted three hours, it was obviously impossible to try more than four things without coordinating with friends. I didn't see any friends, so I decided to try Plan B: go to Chando's while everyone is here, and maybe there would be no line there.

Arrive at Chando's. Long line. Drat. Go home, eat some pretzels and work in the garden.