Memory: With Our Fingers at Earth Cafe

I am reading Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone, and Phoebe Nobles' essay "Asparagus Superhero" triggered an old gastronomic memory.

During my third year at UC Irvine, a couple of my food-enthusiast friends introduced me to the Earth Cafe, an independent shop tucked away in a strip mall next to Ralphs on University & Michelson. Its neighbors included a pho restaurant, an IHOP, and a Korean barbecue restaurant. The cafe served luscious fresh-fruit and yogurt smoothies as well as a variety of vegan baked goods. As a staunch omnivore, I wasn't sure that I'd be at all interested in a place that would deny me butter in my pastries--and I wasn't. I was won over by the tropical "Fatbuster" smoothie, made with fresh papaya, pineapple, honey, and lemon.

My friend Joanne was particularly fond of the place and went often enough to be acquainted with the owner, Alen. One lazy, warm afternoon, Alen came out of the kitchen and sat near our textbook-strewn table with a plate of steamed asparagus. Instead of studying, we talked with him; I can't remember what it was about, probably something relating to our futures and what we were planning to do with the rest of our lives after the glorious years of college were over. That's really irrelevant now. What I remember is Alen eating those fat, end-of-the-season asparagus stalks with lemon-pepper salt, and offering it to us.

We took the cold stalks, dipped them into the little pile of salt, ate them with our fingers. Alen would periodically dip his licked finger directly into the salt to deposit more in his mouth. Two things startled me: the fact that the asparagus was overcooked, and the intimacy of the insanitary double-dip we were sharing with Alen. Something loosened in me since then and I am less fussy when sharing food casually. I also learned that it's very hard to ruin an asparagus tip.

I called to see if the cafe is still there and was greeted by the ominous operator's I'm sorry, the number you have dialed has been disconnected.

Photo credit: Itsjustanalias