Salami burps and other gross-outs

 I'm guessing other people have this challenge of being more grossed out by crowds post-COVID? Before COVID I had no qualms about crowds and in punk spaces I've been in some of the sweatiest, stinkiest, shoutiest rooms known to man. I can still handle crowds but now I think more about people's respiration and clouds of mingled breathing. Smiller would tell you that I'm extremely sensitive to scents, especially artificial scents, not like they give me a headache or anything. I just obsess on lingering scents and get something akin to a panic attack if I can't escape one. A laundering experience in Thailand led to nights of poor sleep. I carry my own Dr. Bronner's because I would rather eat with dirty hands than ruin a restaurant meal with soap smell. I am shocked and appalled by how many upscale, well thought out restaurants have smelly soap.

Which brings us to not exactly an artificial scent but a phenomenon I've suffered through TWICE recently: someone near me having salami burps. The first time was at a show, smiller is going to have to help me out here which show, I know I mentioned it to him later. The second time was at David Cross at the Crest last night (he was pretty good, very anti-Christian and his digs at Sac were the funniest part to me).

More grossouts after the jump and also food stuff

The worst part about salami burps is because they smell so much like salami that at first you think: maybe someone is just eating a salami stick. But then when it reocurrs every few minutes (in the David Cross case, every few minutes for an hour) the dread realization dawns on you. You are inhaling someone's gross burps from deep within their bod. I would almost prefer a fart. The thing that is more gross to me about a salami burp is that it smells so much like the food that in another context it would be pleasant and inspire hunger. It is the porous boundaries that are so gross to me. A fart never inspires such confusion and soul-searching. 

I am sure I have had salami burps before, but I think in a crowded place I would find some way to just not let them rip. I don't know. like, take a sip of water each time you feel one coming on? 

The second gross-out actually occurred prior. We went to get a drink at "Empress". I was curious about this robo-Empress that still continues on. It looks the same and the bar was packed due to the show, which looked sold out. The bartenders looked overwhelmed and we had to wait 10-15 minutes to order cocktails. Well, I will point out that someone waltzed up and completely cut but I am off my crowded bar game so I could not prevent that.

As I was waiting, I saw that the bartender would grab the long mix-y spoon out of this full silver bucket of sludge that looked to contain ice and water. OK I guess? In general, bar cocktail stuff grosses me out when I see like, cards/cash being handled then citrus squeezed etc. But I was like, I guess this sludge bucket is to rinse the spoon to not mix flavors but why is it so big and why does it have ice in it? Then I saw the bartender dump two more glasses of ice in it. Here is the key: I could  not tell if it was because it was clean ice that had been sitting so long it was too melty (but why would it go in the bucket) OR horror, were those dirty glasses that someone just returned??? I don't know. and I pretended I didn't see it and ordered Negronis for my crew (without ever seeing a cocktail menu because they were too slammed to ask for one).

And that's my story! 

On to food. Me and Scott spent some time on the North Coast. This is our third year in a row doing that. It started with my traumatized north coast wanderings during the pandemic, when I'd rent airbnbs in like, Ferndale and work from there and sit on the beach and cook and not eat in restaurants. I have a friend from the Arcata area and she told me she stayed at this rental called the crabber's cottage in Trinidad. Me and Scott have rented it two years in a row and this year we decided it would be fun to stay in Arcata to have more stuff that was walkable especially the excellent beer bar Dead Reckoning. Yes, it is true that Arcata does not seem to have many (any?) good restaurants.

We ended up having a really cool jaunt to the Samoa Beach area and I had discovered there was a restaurant, the Samoa Cookhouse, dating to 1893, which is extremely my jam. From online, it looked like it was closed on the Friday eve we were there, but we wanted to drive by and maybe go back and lo and behold it was open

There were/are lumber mills on the Samoa peninsula, and this place was started just to feed the many workers three meals a day. The servers who worked there used to live upstairs.

Nowadays, it still serves all three meals on selected days. You choose an entree, the entire party has to choose the same thing. You can see into the open kitchen on the right

So cute right?

The meal starts with fresh-baked yeasty loaves of bread, an iceberg salad, and a bean salad that is just like my grandma used to make

Then you get soup, this day it was pork and lentil. I was charmed that you ladle it out yourself because it reminded me of Guisti's. RIP Guisti's!!

It was St. Patrick's Day but I was sick of corned beef and cabbage so Smiller had to get his less-preferred entree along with me. This is a delicate fry of cornmeal-crusted white fish and shrimp, and house made potato chips!!

Samoa Cookhouse is def a spot of faded glory and I think the locals are skipping it these days due to that but I am so glad I went. With Guisti's and now Sam's burning down I feel like I will hear that this place is next. I hope not. I hope to go again on my next North Coast visit.

Shots from rad Trinidad beach (love their harbor and Trinidad Eatery too)

Sweet new sweats I got at Trinidad Eatery gift shop I know you are jells