On July 14 the Bay Area food truck festival "Off The Grid" brought its culinary cavalcade for the first time to Walnut Creek and I, along with my girlfriend Sarah, were among the hundreds who were front and center for the gourmet fast food premier. Some foodies came from afar to see how Walnut Creek compared to Off the Grid's several dozen other locales. Some locals came only with vague notions of "checking it out." Sarah and I, though, had arrived with a mission: eat a meal from every food truck. All ten of them.
1 Comment
The plan to eat a living octopus started shortly before our plane departed for Incheon International Airport in South Korea. I know it was then, because the idea came from a video on Brian's phone, and I remember that shortly thereafter a flight attendant reprimanded Sarah for using a phone while the plane was driving down the tarmac.
Brian, being a large man and thinking himself secretive, turned in his aisle seat so that passengers looking into our row could only see his back. He handed the phone to poor Sarah, his sister and my girlfriend, who had the middle seat on account of being the smallest and the social link between Brian and myself. "Brian," The reproachful manner in which Sarah said his name is an amusing catchphrase from our travels together. Even as I write it I can hear the exact cadence of her voice, rising on the first syllable with exasperation, and falling on the second, acknowledging the futility of whatever the ensuing lecture will have. "The plane is already moving, you have to turn your phone off. You're gonna make the plane crash." Brian tapped the play button, still held reluctantly in Sarah's hand. The video started with an American tourist sitting in a restaurant with Korean characters on the windows. In front of her sits a bowl with a baby octopus, wriggling in the shallow water. "That woman, she's about to eat that octopus," Brian whispered. "Like the whole thing. Still alive?" I asked. "Yeah. And we should do it, too." |