Home > John > Pedantry Today > July 14, 2001
Farmer's Market
After a week of biking 10 miles every day, Saturday morning called for something different. Something involving sausage, perhaps.

So it was that Tom and I drove to the Farmer's Market in Los Angeles. The Farmer's Market features fruit stalls, vegetable stands, meat counters, fish booths, and nut shops. There are several bakeries, and displays of candy, hot sauces, olives, and other edibles line several long aisles beneath the shade of awnings and umbrellas. The colors and smells delight the senses.

There are also many places to eat and drink: breakfast joints, crepes, New Orleans cajun, donuts, wine and beer bars, salads, deli sandwiches — even complete turkey dinners. Some, like the ancient Dupar's restaurant we chose for breakfast, have their own seating, but most serve your food on a tray which you then take to one of many common tables nestled here and there between the stalls.

Immediately after eating breakfast, we went right next door for beignets and chicory coffee. Mmm.

Galco's Old World Grocery
On the way home from the Farmer's Market, we stopped by Galco's Old World Grocery, famous for its world-class soda pop selection. Jeepers, look at all those sodas! Just about every brand in the old bottles you'd ever had as a kid, and other near-legends whose very names just make you smile: Nehi, RC, the original Dr. Pepper (even the pure-cane-sugar version made specially at the Texas plant), Moxie, Crush, Dad's, Fanta.

John the owner greeted us personally and answered questions of soda lore with the easy confidence and passion of a connoisseur. When Tom asked whether he stocked "Fox's U-Bet" chocolate-flavored syrup, he replied that alas, they did not -- but hey, we have a soda made with it!

Beloved Fox's U-bet can be bought as part of a New York Egg Cream kit or strictly in a happy three-pack of syrup:

New York City-born actor, director, and comic genius, Mel Brooks, is an admitted Egg Cream cultist: "You got to get Fox's U-Bet Syrup. If you use any other syrup the egg cream will be too bitter or too mild."

We each bought an entire case of one-offs full of oranges and browns and yellows and purples. Tom focused particularly on root beers, which he says he'll taste-test in several sessions.

This was the first time either of us had been to Galco's. It's likely we'll both return.