On the road again

Seeing Lauren in Salt Lake City was nice. So was Omar's tabouli.

I know, I know, you're thinking what's with the tabouli? I mean- it's tabouli, right? not even falafel.

And I know where you're coming from, man, but with Omar it's just different.

You see, a couple of years ago I was seeing this raw food girl and we had a little road trip of our own. We took raw food 'cooking' classes in Northern California and ad libbed a raw-food road trip that spanned from Los Angeles to Vancouver to Banff and all the way back down again, hitting nearly every raw-food joint along the way (and there are plenty). But of all the places we visited, Omar's in Salt Lake City had to be the best. He had just opened and we only heard about him by chance when the Wild Oats came up short on raw supplies and the worker there pointed us across the street to the vitamin store where Omar had his counter in the back.

The menu was small but thoughtfully prepared. Raw food people are fond of saying that "love" is one of the ingredients in their food (it's even on the label sometimes), and with Omar, honest to goodness, you can taste it. As I recall, Omar is Lebanese, and there is a middle eastern bent to the whole menu. The tabouli uses hemp seeds (or was it sprouted quinoa?) instead of the usual bulghar wheat, and instead of pita, a quartered cabbage head serves as chips to scoop up the parsley-y mixture.

I remember we ordered everything on the menu (we did that a lot) and the tabouli took us both by surprise as one of the tastiest raw food dishes we had ever had.

Everyone who has gone to college has had Middle Eastern Food. It's cheap, quick, and they're always open late. But the mossy goop that comes on your veggie platter at the generic west village falafel joint is never especially appealing. One can picture Turks, Greeks, Israelis, and Saudis all telling their children to eat their tabouli or they won't gt any dessert. Kind of like Brussels Sprouts of the Levant.

So Omar's tabouli was a nothing short of a revelation.

When I got to Salt Lake, Omar had just run out of tabouli. I was pissed, and in my best New York City Passive Aggressive said, I drove 3,000 miles for tabouli and you're out?

Well I should use that one more often, because it turns out he was actually saving a batch for some function the next day, but upon hearing my guilt trip, broke it out for me and Lauren (Thanks Mom!).

And it was worth the wait. As was the hummus and the wrap and the two kinds of dessert and the whole vibe including the creepy raw food people that hang out in the back of the shop.


After Omar's, we went by the book store to pick up a copy of The Breakfast Club which had been on the night before on TBS, mostly censored. I enjoyed the pre-pube flashback and wanted to get the unvarnished version, realizing that I had no idea what about 1/3 of the movie was about when I was 9 and that even if the whole part about the weed hadn't been cut, it wouldn't have made any difference since we didn't understand that anyway back then (Thanks Mrs. Reagan!)

We hung out with L's room mate, played some guitar, and I tried to muster a night's sleep in the punishing summer heat of their basement.

Next morning was for green juice with Lauren and Joy and then off to New Hampshire.

The trip would take about 40 hours of driving, give or take, straight down I-80 to Cleveland, then pick up I-90 towards Albany, then some weaving along US-4 in Vermont, 89 South, 91 North, then some back roads to Plymouth for the 8 o'clock show.

If you've never driven across country, there are several different strategies you can use. You can hustle, you can sight-see, you can take detours, you can check out obscure restaurants and natural wonders, etc. But no matter how you do it, 14 hours a day of driving is about what you can take - and then you'd want to chill for a day or so before doing it again.

Well this was the first time I'd opted to just make hours with minimal excursions. It came to about 12 hours, 3 days in a row, and then about 4 or 5 the day of the concert. There was one side trip to the vegan restaurant in Omaha (so-so) and then getting lost in Toledo for 3 hours looking for Wi-Fi and a health food store (no luck). I also got to visit with my friends Jeb and Andy for half an hour in Cleveland before making miles to the Finger Lakes region and a late night thunderstorm.