I first heard of flavortripping last summer. I read an article in the New York Times
about a substance that altered tastes of reality. People were going to
underground parties for the experience. At these parties they would
consume Synsepalum dulcificum,
the Miracle Fruit. Once eaten, the fruit tells your taste buds to taste
things differently. It makes everything sweeter sweeter.
Over the last year, I was passively trying to find a flavortripping party. I expected that my band of foodie friends would have a hook-up. Alas, nothing panned out. So I decided to take my tongue into my own hands, and I sought out the mister responsible for these berries.
11 keystrokes into a search engine, yielded quick results: Miracle Fruit Man. He supplied the participants at the party covered by the New York Times. His plan was simple. If you send him 40 dollars (plus $28 s/h) he’d two-day express you 20 frozen berries.
I just wanted one.
Few spices can excite your taste buds as powerfully as cardamom. Have
you ever noticed how someone will take a bite of a cardamom-laced
dessert, declare instant love, yet not be able to identify the spice?
I'm walking with an acquaintance back from a restaurant when we pass a sidewalk news stand, one of those great sprawling things with fluorescent lights overlooking eight or ten bookshelves jammed together.
This past January, something hot and sexy began creeping its way through the chilly winter snows in Idyllwild, California. Locals were struck with the highly contagious Caseymania, which is like Beatlemania but without the screaming hysterical teenage girls. Well, not in Idyllwild, at least. But to inhabitants of this tiny mountain town, it was close to the same thing.
“He gets to tour, bound to make upwards of a hundred-fifty thou,” you hear an old-timer say with the cantankerous certainty of a gold prospector. Poor Casey never stood a chance. He had three big strikes against him in the TV-blurred minds of the American Idol voters (them being tweenage girls).
Does anyone remember Grizzly Adams, the movie and tv show from the 1970s about that woodsman who was wrongfully accused of a crime and set off to live the life of a trapper somewhere in the mountains? Of course you do. All God’s creatures loved him and he ended up with that cute little bear companion named Ben. I remember it too, and boy did I love it (this may explain a certainly affinity I have towards bears but this is so not the place to address this and besides, I’m married and all that happy stuff.) I remember thinking how thrilling it must have been for Mr. Adams (played by Dan Haggerty) to do what he wanted to without being bothered by anyone. I also remember how hard it must have been for him to do without ZOOM (or any other TV show for that matter), Tang, Atari and Toughskin Jeans from Sears.
