Saturday, July 18, 2009

Tomatoes: Fruit or Vegetable

The culinary world says, "Fruit!"
The U.S. Tariff codes say, "Vegetable!"
The botanical elite say, "Ovary."
Tomayto, Tomahto - I don't care, I just grows 'em and eats 'em.

Here's a picture of yesterday's crop from my backyard


Friday, July 17, 2009

Rocket Fizz

From Some Psychotic Ramblings


On Sunday I noticed a new store had opened up in my neighborhood - Rocket Fizz! They sell classic candies, soda pop and faux vintage tin signs.

Once per blue moon, if not less often, I head down to Eagle Rock (about twenty minutes away) to go to Galco's Soda Pop Shop. I'll pick up thirty to forty different sodas, and cart them back home to sample over the next months. Seeing a new soda store so close to my house set my heart a flutter. Yippee!

First the good - Rocket Fizz has a great selection of sodas. I think that Galco's may have more, but there were enough new drinks for me to try that I was quite happy. Also, they had many classic sodas that I've enjoyed over the years, staples for my soda lifestyle. Even better then the soda selection was the candy selection- Whoa- all of the greats were here, Zotz, Pop Rocks, Abbazabba, Chuckles. Enough variety that I could add another hundred pounds to my girth without repeating a single one. I'll be making as many trips to this place as my dearly beloved will allow (remember, I am supposed to be getting trimmer- she's my food cop, and she tries to keep me honest - I have no will power except for hers).

Now the bad - Rocket Fizz isn't really set up for buying more then a couple of six packs of soda. Galco's does it right, with the shopping carts and huge boxes. This is really too much of a slight to Rocket Fizz, I don't think that they meant for it to be a place you go for stocking up for the summer (or winter) - they want you to visit far more often then that. In the future, I'll be hitting Rocket Fizz for my personal use, but I'll still want to hit up Galco's when I want to stock up for a party, or buy bulk in a new ginger ale or something.

And, in the something else category - Galco's prices are all over the place, some sodas are as cheap as 90 cents and some are downright expensive ($3 and up). All of the sodas at Rocket Fizz are priced at $1.89 each. If you know which sodas are expensive, you can save a lot of money at Rocket Fizz, but if you don't know that the soda you are picking up can be bought on the cheap at Vallarta or Vons, then you could be paying a lot more then you need to. Buyer beware and all that rot.

Rocket Fizz
2112 Magnolia Blvd.
Burbank, CA 91506
(818) 846-7632