Remember how I attended a 20-minute Rancho Cucamonga City Council meeting last week? And, if you read very closely, how I said there was news from the meeting that I would come back to? That was about the lifting of a moratorium on car wash businesses. I explain what that was about in Friday’s all-RC column.
Pepo Melo, 301 Harvard Ave. (at Bonita), Claremont; open 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Saturday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday
Taking the place of a Chinese antiques store that never seemed to have any customers and yet hung on for years, Pepo Melo is a hive of activity in the morning, and for all I know at other times of day as well. It specializes in fruit bowls, most of which are vegan, and seems to be a hit with the colleges crowd.
I’ve been there twice so far, starting with an inaugural visit on my birthday, which shows I had confidence in them. I wanted a light breakfast to take me with on the train.
You might remember the building as the Sugar Bowl, a malt shop that was a setting in a “Fugitive” episode of the 1960s. It’s across from the Harvard Square complex that was once the Village Theater.
The Pepo Melo menu is below (click for a larger view), although you can customize your own bowl based on the fruits and toppings that are available. The bowls are made in front of you behind a row of ingredients, like at Chipotle.
I went with the PBB&J ($6, medium), with strawberries, bananas, hemp granola and peanut butter drizzle, plus a $2 fruitade drink, cucumber mint, of the two options. These are made from leftover fruit from the previous day. The drink was refreshing and the cost less than expected.
The bowl was similar to the chunky strawberry bowl at Jamba Juice, a favorite, only without yogurt. It was tasty and had lots of fruit, but was slightly dry.
I returned a month later for an Aww Snap ($9), with ginger, mint, lemon, raspberries and pitaya sorbet base. (It’s supposed to have granola but they were out.) An impressive amount of labor went into this, with the employee slicing mint, grating ginger and cutting a fresh lemon to squeeze. The result had zing. I liked it, although I missed having granola.
Pepo Melo has no seating, but Shelton Park is right across the street, and that’s where I ate the Aww Snap bowl.
According to a story in the Student Life campus newspaper, the owner is a melon broker, Pepo is the scientific name for the flesh of a melon and Melo is one letter shy of melon. I think it’s a nice addition to the Village, although a Claremont friend hooted at the whole idea: “All they sell is fruit bowls? Who’s going to buy that? I don’t give them long.” Hey, I’d have said the same thing about the antiques store!
The Back 2 Basics literacy program at the Rancho Cucamonga Public Library (both branches) offers free tutoring in reading to qualifying youngsters who are behind a grade level. I write about the program in Wednesday’s column. After all, library officials had invited me to address their pint-sized graduates, and first I had to learn what Back 2 Basics was all about.
When I toured the Paul R. Williams house on Ontario’s Sixth Street in late 2017, I was surprised to see a sign from Oxnard’s old Wagon Wheel restaurant complex decorating the kitchen. The homeowner said he’d picked it up before the complex was demolished in 2015.
I found the photo recently and, since I’d always meant to share it, decided to go ahead.
Do you recall the Wagon Wheel ? Built starting in 1947, the complex consisted of a motel, restaurant, bowling alley, roller rink and more and was a quaint sight along the 101. Says Wikipedia: “One of the most recognizable features of the motel was the giant neon sign that included an animated stagecoach driver and galloping horses.”
I got to bowl at the bowling alley a couple of years before the end. If I remember correctly, I came in third against two friends who rarely bowled. It’s a good memory anyway.
Books acquired: “The Hippest Trip in America: Soul Train and the Evolution of Culture and Style,” Nelson George
Books read: “Dreams and Schemes,” Steve Lopez; “The Simulacra,” “Lies Inc./The Unteleported Man,” Philip K. Dick; “Only Apparently Real,” Paul Williams; “The Colour of Memory,” Geoff Dyer; “The Orange and the Dream of California,” David Boulé
April is the cruelest month, they say. For me it was dreamy, at least based on the titles of the books I read. Or if not dreamy, then unreal or not to be trusted.
I read six, even though you’ll see seven books pictured above. Explanation to come.
“Dreams and Schemes” (2010) collects the best of the LA Times columnist’s first decade on the beat. I’d read all these in my daily paper but was happy to read them again. Lopez has a lively voice that keeps his paragraphs moving. His topics shift too, from politics to slices of life to human interest. In an early one, he hires a day laborer to fill his passenger seat so he can take the carpool lane across the county. Several of the later ones are about the city’s marginalized, including a half-dozen about the homeless musician who went on to inspire his book (and movie) “The Soloist.” In the concluding column, they’re invited to the White House.
“The Simulacra” (1964) is one of several Philip K. Dick (and -related) books this month. He was a master at questioning reality, after all. As with many of his novels, the plot is almost impossible to describe, being overstuffed with ideas. It’s set in a near-future America in which the government is a fraud and the president is an android, married to an eternal first lady who’s been in office 76 years. We also follow the last legal psychiatrist in America, a psychokinetic pianist who thinks his body odor is lethal and a jug band duo who specialize in classical tunes. I’d rate this second-tier PKD.
“Lies Inc.” (2004)/”The Unteleported Man” (1984): This is a special case. Dick wrote a novella-length version in the 1960s, wrote an expansion to turn it into a novel that wasn’t published and started to revise it for publication prior to his death. That’s the 1984 version. Then a few missing pages turned up, misfiled among his papers, and that became “Lies Inc.,” which places his expansion material where he apparently desired it, which was 3/4 of the way through part 1 rather than at the end, scrambling the time sequence and making the effect more experimental. I read “Lies Inc.,” assuming it would be definitive, and decided it is now my least favorite PKD. Then I skimmed “Unteleported Man” over an hour to see what was different. Well, it made a little more sense and had a more chipper ending. I preferred that version, even if it’s still not a very good book.
What’s it about? Millions of emigrants are making a one-way trip to another world’s promised paradise. But is that world all it’s said to be, or is this an interstellar version of the final solution? There are parallels with “The Man in High Castle,” but overall this is one of his potboilers like “Vulcan’s Hammer” or “Dr. Futurity.”
Anyway, I’m putting a slash between the titles and counting this as one book, completing my penance for stretching a point with my Harlan Ellison reading last month. You’re welcome.
“Only Apparently Real” (1985): I liked it, but it’s for fans only, a modest attempt at biography and analysis. It’s made up largely of Q&As with Dick conducted by a friend who was later executor of his literary estate. An awful lot of the conversations concern a then-recent break-in at his home, about which Dick characteristically spun a great many conspiracy theories, which are entertaining to a point, and then tiresome.
“The Orange and the Dream of California” (2014): Photos and memorabilia from the days when citrus was king and marketing oranges was a way to market California and a fantasy lifestyle of gentleman farmers, snow-topped mountains and perfect weather. The text sketches the history and underlines the ironies and dissonances.
“The Colour of Memory” (1989): A warm, funny debut novel that follows a group of friends, all smart, around age 20 and underemployed by choice in late 1980s England. They hang out, drink beer, listen to “Sketches of Spain” and try to avoid getting burgled. There’s no plot, but plot is overrated, right? Often very funny, it’s also lyrical and elegiac for a time and circumstance the narrator understands needs to be remembered before it fades.
“Colour” is the literary winner this month, followed by “Dreams and Schemes.”
You might find it interesting to know that I read Lopez’ book at a pace of one column per night from mid-January to mid-April, and likewise read Boule and Williams from my nightstand too, a little per night in recent weeks. “Simulacra,” “Lies Inc.” and “Colour” were my only daytime books.
I bought Dyer at Powell’s in 2016 (it’s the last of my purchases from that trip); Lopez from Vromans in Pasadena in 2012; “The Simulacra” I know not when or where, but many years ago; Williams at Glendale’s defunct Brand Books in 2008, “Unteleported” from Next Chapter Books in Canoga Park in 2009, “Lies Inc” the same year (appropriately enough) from somewhere forgotten. Boulé sent me his book last November after I wrote about his donation of memorabilia to the Claremont Colleges Library.
How was your April, readers? I hope any cruelty was confined to the pages.
Next month: Shakespeare and lesser lights.
After a few weeks of wanting to get to a Rancho Cucamonga City Council meeting, I finally made one on Wednesday. It was super short and almost nothing happened, naturally. But I wrote about it anyway (and got ideas for future columns), as well as adding some cultural notes and a vignette, for Sunday’s column.
Speaking of cultural notes, one of them is that I’ll be speaking at 11 a.m. May 11 at Chino’s Old Schoolhouse Museum, 5493 B St. It’s my first and possibly only Chino Valley appearance for my book “On Track.” Come see me!
You’ve probably noticed the redwood grove across from the entrance to the LA County Fair’s main gate. I was invited to an event to learn more about it, and that turned into Friday’s column.
The Spot Cafe, 435 W. Foothill Blvd. (at Indian Hill), Claremont; open daily, 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday
In a prime location in the same building that houses a Trader Joe’s, the Spot Cafe has been serving up healthy fare for a few years now. I’ve been in a couple of times for breakfast, but it’s never been my (wait for it) spot.
Then a friend offered to meet up for dinner, wanted a salad and suggested the Spot. A look at the menu online revealed that the Spot has a more extensive menu than I’d realized, including a half-dozen salads. It dawned on me that the Village is light on places to get a salad. I used to get one now and then at zPizza, which recently closed.
The Spot also has sandwiches, wraps and more, with smoothies, fresh juices, protein shakes and coffee the specialty. Acai and pitaya bowls and bagels are offered at breakfast. They also make pizza, of sorts, on tortillas. (It’s that kind of place.)
My friend got the grilled chicken salad ($8 for a full), with mixed greens, cucumbers, red onions, tomatoes, olives, pepperocinis and balsamic dressing. “The salad was super filling and tasty,” she declared. As for breakfast, “I usually get their bowls, which I love,” she said, saying they’re more filling than the ones at Jamba Juice.
Having had a large lunch, I got a half-size salad: strawberry and spinach ($5.25 half, $7 whole), with cucumber and almonds. OK, more almonds than I’d prefer, but a good salad, enlivened by a light lemon poppyseed dressing.
I also got a regular Amazon acai smoothie ($7), with acai, bananas, strawberries, nonfat yogurt and apple juice.
May I say it hit (wait for it) the spot?
Temple Beth Israel in Pomona hosted a Holocaust Remembrance event Sunday with people in the community reading aloud from Anne Frank’s diary. I was among them. The event took on a slightly different cast after the synagogue shooting the day before in San Diego County. I write about it in Wednesday’s column.