It’s time to dip into the recipe file for another scrum-sha-delicious treat from the road. This tasty pick was lovingly prepared for me by my good friend Audrey in Paris. Audrey and I met though Couchsurfing when she hosted me in the fall of 2008 at the start of my second leg of travel. During the first visit we’d snacked on some of my favorite food: local charcuterie (smoked/cured meats), fromage (cheese, glorious cheese), and a fresh, crusty baguette from her neighborhood boulangerie (bakery) just across the street. She and her cat Eros were great hosts so I returned in the spring before my return flight to New Jersey at the end of the grand world tour. She whipped up this little dish – from one of her mom’s (who lives in Brittany) recipes. Merci Audrey!
Jacqueline’s Coquilles St. Jacques a la crème avec riz (Creamed Scallops with Rice)
Shallots
Garlic
Butter
Scallops
Parsley
Whisky or white wine
Curry (optional)
Sauté shallots and garlic in butter. Add scallops. Simmer 3-5 minutes. Add Whiskey or wine.
Simmer again and allow liquid to evaporate.
Add a bit of cream. Season to taste.
Plate over white rice.
Who hasn’t sidled up to a grease truck on a late Saturday night or bought a tasty falafel-filled pita from a New York City food cart? But there is a new phenomenon under foot.
Taco trucks are actually nothing new to Los Angeles, but lately they seem to be everywhere. And their customers are no longer just construction workers or other blue collar Joes. Now, thanks to the social media craze, a truck called Kogi BBQ is causing quite a feeding frenzy. Lines of LA hipsters stretch around the block. People show up from all over just to try one of their Korean-slash-Mexican fusion creations. But what caused it to go from a bit of a buzz to an all out taco tizzy? Twitter, of course. Launched in November, Kogi tweets (under @kogibbq) their trucks’ whereabouts throughout the day and their loyal followers come running. If you Tweet it, they will come.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the operation has become a “social networking juggernaut,” drawing between 300 and 800 people at each stop, with waits of up to two hours. Traditional trucks always parked in the same spot. These new trucks give the air of exclusivity because you have to be in the know to find out where to find them any give day.
My friend Mark and I decided to run down the Kogi truck one afternoon. I found their weekly posting of whereabouts on their site. Then I cross-referenced it with updated Tweets they were making every few hours on Twitter. There was going to be a truck just around the corner at lunch time. Sweet! We were golden.
We walked over and found no less than 5 imitator trucks dishing out slop to the LA citizenry. But where was our Kogi? Nowhere to be found. And since we are not so connected and didn’t have a Blackberry or iPhone – we were in a social media black-out. We asked some other Kogi cravers the obvious question and no one knew where the heck it was. So, we ate some imitation tacos which were good at $2 a pop, but still not the fusion flavor I had heard so much about.
Okay, cut to two days later. This was it. We were going to track down a truck and shove some tacos down our gullets if it was the last thing we did. We drove to a Best Buy parking lot and…there it was. Actually there they were – two gleaming white Kogi trucks churning out the coveted chow and pumping out some reggaeton (kind of a Latino hip-hop/reggae mash-up) to a small lunch mob that had gathered. I asked for the special – the Blackjack Quesadilla. Mmm, crafty Kogi goodness. It was a crunchy well done tortilla filled with some damn yummy caramelized onions, spicy pork, gooey cheese, and topped with a sesame sauce with just enough kick to make my lips tingle. It was good, but I think it was the whole manufactured ‘coolness’ of the scene that I enjoyed the most.
Or, as my friend Mark put it, “It was good food and everything, but ya know, it was just eatin’ food from a truck.”
There is no way I could just be a tourist in the world for 2 ½ years. I knew I had to mix it up to prevent boredom and burnout. I craved variety in my everyday life, so why would my life on the road be any different? Yes, of course, the constant change of scenery, culture, and people was variety in and of itself, but I knew I couldn’t just keep showing up in a new town each week and essentially continue to ‘walk around the world for a year.’ I needed to do, ya know, stuff. I needed to immerse myself somehow in society and feel like a part of it. To start this process, I did different things like a Spanish Immersion program in Costa Rica (Spanish lessons in the morning and yes, surfing lessons in the afternoon) or a two-week, several-hundred mile bicycle trip down the length of Vietnam. But I needed even more structure. I needed…a job (cue shrieking horror music).
Now, just the sheer fact that I decided to blog about my trip and also write travel articles to be published elsewhere means that I was already working. I was trying to make time each week to sit and just write – a very hard thing to do when you are sitting in Rome or Cairo or Hong Kong and there are so many things around you vying for your attention.
Besides my new ‘day job’ as travel writer and photographer, I landed a few other actual jobs around the world.
Pet Sitter around the world (Istanbul, LA, Chicago)
But many have asked me how did I find all these jobs? Did I look before I went on my trip? The simple answer is no. I simply arrived in a new place with the random idea that I could maybe find work there. In Australia, I spoke the language (sort of), so it seemed like a natural place to find a job other than teaching English. In Turkey, it’s all about connections and once I met one person…the ball just started rolling. Besides that, I used persistence, word-of-mouth, and friends’ connections and a lot of smiles.
So, on this adventure, I worked all over and found it to be another great way to “go local.” I lived in one place for an extended amount of time. I had a place to live. I took public transport (or a bicycle in Melbourne) to work. I had a schedule. I had a paycheck (well, cash). I truly felt like part of the fabric of society. And I actually gained some new skills, but most importantly I made real friends.
To hear more about my working around the world, listen to this podcast interview I did for Chris Christensen at the Amateur Traveler.
If you grew up in the Eighties like I did, there is no doubt that one of your favorite films is a John Hughes flick. Sadly, Hughes died Thursday at the young age of 59 from a heart attack.
For years and years this writer/director brought Hollywood to Chicago. “I’m going to do all my movies here in Chicago,” he told Roger Ebert years ago. “The Tribune referred to me as a ‘former Chicagoan.’ As if, to do anything, I had to leave Chicago. I never left. I worked until I was 29 at the Leo Burnett advertising agency, and then I quit to do this. This is a working city, where people go to their jobs and raise their kids and live their lives. In Hollywood, I’d be hanging around with a lot of people who don’t have to pay when they go to the movies.”
He is well known for stories of teen angst. “These are just simple truths about people and families. I happen to go for the simplest, most ordinary things. The extraordinary doesn’t interest me. I’m not interested in psychotics. I’m interested in the person you don’t expect to have a story. I like Everyman,” Hughes told the New York Times in 1991.
Hughes spent his teen years in Northbrook, a leafy suburb of Chicago that provided the backdrop for many of his best known films.
Check out this list of movies he wrote and directed in which he turned the City of Chicago or its environs into one of the characters:
“Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Right on, Ferris, you righteous dude. It’s a lovefest for Chicago in this fun-filled classic. Ferris, his droopy friend Cameron, and hot gal pal Sloan tear up the city during Ferris’ “sick” day outing. The Art Institute, Wrigley Field, Sears (ahem Willis) Tower, and The Board of Trade get ample screen time. And no one has forgotten the fun musical MTV-like video of Ferris’ rendition of the Beatles’ “Twist and Shout” during the parade around Daley Plaza.
“I got you for two weeks Bender,” a great line from one of my favorite movies of all time which gave birth to the infamous brat pack. The Breakfast Club was all character driven and they were all so good. The film, which was shot entirely in sequence, partly takes place inside Glenbrook North High School in Hughes former home of Northbrook, IL. The library in which most of the movie takes place was actually constructed in the gymnasium of Maine North High School specifically for the film. The school closed down in 1982, two years before filming began. In fact, it is said that Hughes did not allow the actors to leave the high school for their own lunch break…instead they had to have it in the school’s cafeteria. Classic.
“What’s happenin’ hot stuff?’ says crazy Long Duk Dong in another Hughes classis, Sixteen Candles. Of course the Donger (as he’s affectionately known) is nowhere near as dreamy as teen heartthrob Jake who eventually falls for Sam. According to IMDB, a good part of the movie was filmed at Niles East High School in Skokie, Illinois. Some of the students in the big party scene are wearing Niles East Trojans jackets and shirts. This high school had been closed for more than ten years when the filming started and is now part of Oakton Community College has been completely remodeled. During the dance scene, John Cusack is wearing a WLS t-shirt. Although it currently has a talk-radio format, in 1984, WLS was a top-40 station in Chicago. And of course, I worked at their TV Station counterpart, WLS-TV – ABC7 Chicago.
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