Eating (and) My Words OR How I Learned to Stop Grumbling and Love the Twit

[oakenguy]

I'll be the first to admit, up until about a month ago I didn't think much of Twitter. It seemed like one more reason for people to take their Blackberries out and fiddle with them while you were trying to have a conversation, plus it seemed to have all the thrill of Facebook status updates minus the pictures and occasional "Cheryl took the 'If Zeus Made Love to You, What Form Would He Take' Quiz and got SWAN! What Result Will YOU Get?" invitation. It seemed like a devolution: paper journal > blog post > Facebook updates > Tweets > sticking your head in pudding and making burbling sounds.

And then three things happened in rapid succession.

1) I got an iPhone;

2) I discovered that celebrities I was interested in, namely Stephen Fry and Eddie Izzard, updated regularly;

3) By far the most important, I discovered that Twitter is apparently responsible for an entire food revolution.

Here's the story: in San Francisco, as in most cities, owning and operating a small-scale food operation is a bureaucratic nightmare of expensive permits and contradictory regulations. Unlike other cities, a growing number of folks in S.F. are getting around this by going bandit: they're loading up their carts with homemade soup, or creme brulee, or BBQ bacon-wrapped waffledogs, using Twitter to tell their customers where they'll be in an hour, hustling down there in their converted postal vans or delivery bikes, and then zooming off into the sunset.

Both as a sometime-dessert maker and a lazy SOB who likes the thought of fresh cheap gourmet food being sold to him, I Approve Of This Plan And Would Like To Subscribe To The Newsletter.

What I have subscribed to, in preparation for my trip there (yes I know I'm only going to be there for five days and am wildly over-prepping, leave me my Virgo-y dreams), is a half-dozen of these 'bandit' Twitter feeds. They're fascinating. They also make me very, very hungry. Things like:

magiccurrykart will be serving magic breakfast burritos at Bargains and Bloodys on the corner of 19th and LInda...10:30am Sunday

and

cremebruleecart Tonights flavors include chocolate rasberry, vanilla bean, lavender, frosted flakes and apple jacks. You can't handle the truth!

and even

boccalone todays details - capocollo,fennel,orange & pecorino panino, cucumber dry soda, humphry slocombe lard cookies - see you at 12 and 1220.

Would I leap up from my desk and run to the park at the thought of someone on a bicycle handing me a cucumber soda and a lard cookie? Maybe not. But I'd love to live in a city where that was an option.

Comments

[smacaski.livejournal.com]

You make it sound like sticking your head in pudding and making burbling noises is somehow bad or silly. I'll have you know that, educated woman that I am, I enjoy it very much. Especially if it's butterscotch.

[breakinglight11.livejournal.com]

"Cheryl took the 'If Zeus Made Love to You, What Form Would He Take' Quiz and got SWAN! What Result Will YOU Get?"

This made me bark out loud with laughter at work. Thank you, sir.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

Ditto!

[akycha.livejournal.com]

Now I want to own a cart and make lavender creme brulee.

[olivetree.livejournal.com]

YES.

[daemionfox.livejournal.com]

Found you! And now you can't get rid of me.

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

I had to stop sticking my head in pudding and making burbling noises because I was having an awful time getting pudding out of my hair. And the dogs kept trying to eat the towels.

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

I admit, when I'm looking for an expression to convey how well two things go together, the phrase "like smacaski's head and pudding" is usually the first thing I think of.

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome! I just finished Dan Simmons's Olympos, so Zeus's sex life is more on my mind than usual.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Do you have any idea how often I quote your posts out loud to other people? A lot.

[smacaski.livejournal.com]

And on a day like today, dunking one's head in a bowl of nice cool butterscotch pudding does sound really appealing, doesn't it? Or, you know, water, if you want to be like everyone else.

[lixie.livejournal.com]

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter of SF food twitters as well as your newsletter of TRUFFLES AND DELIGHT.

[beetiger.livejournal.com]

Come to New York. We have Rickshaw Dumpling and the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck.

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

Woot! I wasn't sure exactly how close you were to the city, or I would have pestered you before now. :) I'll be there between Thursday and Monday...any suggestions for fun places?

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

Thanks to the iPhone, I was walking home and passing through a sprinkler as I read this.

And now I can't stop wondering what a pudding sprinkler would feel like.

[resk.livejournal.com]

BBQ BACON-WRAPPED WAFFLEDOGS?!?!?!?!?


Maybe Twitter isn't completely useless.

[plastickitty.livejournal.com]

Stephen Fry is on twitter?!!!?!?

[sairisse.livejournal.com]

I think it would feel sticky.

[ravenofdreams.livejournal.com]

I love the idea of a bandit cart full of creme brulee so much that I now have to twitter-follow it. And I might need to make a pilgrimage to SF to literally follow it. Nom.

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

I know! He's not exactly the first person I'd expect. Even more oddly, I'd say that between 1/3 and 1/2 his messages (I still can't bring myself to call them tweets) are about sporting events he's watching.