My Adventures in Chow

Written by Dorothy Young

I've always loved to eat. That may sound silly, but some people really don't enjoy food. There are among us people who literally eat to live - devoting as little time and energy as they possibly can to keeping body and soul together. You will hear such people say things like, "I forgot to each lunch today." I will simply tell you that, while I've chosen to skip a very few meals in my life, I've never forgotten to eat one.

But enjoying food is like any other sensual pleasure. Let's compare it to the enjoyment of music: Some people sing in the shower, some people like only certain sorts of music, some turn their living rooms into virtual concert halls and some bankrupt themselves in pursuit of the perfect music experience. So it is with those who like food. Some people like the comfort of the food they've always eaten - the food their mothers cooked. Some eat to celebrate special occasions. Some like to try new things. I fall into the later category. But few people I know in "real life" are adventurous in eating. Southern California offers the most diverse selection of cuisines in the world but most locals stick to the food they already love. I knew there were culinary adventures to be had, but where? Which of the hundred Thai joints or thousand taco stands I pass are the good ones? And who could guide me in my exploration?

History of SCARF

In 2001, I was surfing the net and stumbled across the Chowhound website. Chowhound was founded by New Yorker Jim Leff as a place for people to share experiences of local "chow" and archive their information for the entire on-line community to access. The site was like a great cauldron of gumbo - chock a block with great information, big, rich, unwieldy and made to Jim's specifications.

Chowhound was a series of bulletin boards, each dedicated to a geographic area, with additional boards dedicated to the running of the site, to non-food topics, and to kosher food thrown in for good measure. People - you couldn't really call us members - were encouraged to post about chow experiences and people could reply to posts. Chowhound limped along on begged and borrowed servers, was run by volunteers and the small amount of money generated by weekly newsletters (also produced by volunteers), and encouraged voluntary contributions. Suggestions for technical upgrades and different ways to do things were greeted by Leff's trademark gruff, "It's my sandbox and we're doing it my way" posts.

But what a treasure trove and what a revelation! Here I found other people who regarded the discovery of a wonderful little noodle shop like someone else might enjoy the discovery of a pair of perfect Jimmy Choos at 75% off. These were people who viewed the pursuit of perfectly-roasted chicken or the best ice-cream between Santa Barbara and the Mexican border as a worthwhile project for an otherwise-sensible adult. In other words, these were my people. But how could I make contact with them?

Jim Leff and the Chowhound moderators made clear that chat on the boards about in-person meetings are verboten. Today, Chowhound is owned by CNET, but the rules remain largely the same. So we tried setting up a few meetings via private e-mail. These early meetings were great fun. It's always gratifying to find like-minded people, and when you meet them somewhere you can eat a delicious meal - well, life doesn't get any better than that.

Gourmets, Gourmands, Foodies, and Chowhounds

Let's explore for a moment the notion of how Chowhounds are different from other people who love food.

• A gourmet is a connoisseur of fine food.

• A gourmand is a lover of good food, but the term carries with it an implication of excess.

• A foodie loves good food, but is particularly concerned with the new, the trendy, the latest, and the cutting edge.

• Chowhound loves good food, period. It doesn't matter whether Chow is found in a handcart on the street or in the most fashionable and expensive restaurant in town. It doesn't matter whether Chow is prepared in adherence to the precepts of Escoffier or the precepts of an Ethiopian or Palestinian or Malaysian or Colombian grandmother. Chow can be served on fine china, on working-class pottery, on a paper plate or simply on the bamboo skewer on which it was grilled. Chow is good food, and Chowhounds seek it out wherever it resides. We will even occasionally visit a chain restaurant in pursuit of Chow although chain restaurants of their very nature are ordinarily the antithesis of Chow.

Incidentally, the chicken-fried steak at Claim Jumper is worth trying, and they now serve a reasonably-sized portion of sticky toffee pudding, but I digress.

Early Meetings and the Rise of SCARF

Aside from a few small, private meetings among Chowhounds, the first meeting of LA Chowhounds was the Chow Fiesta of 2002. Several denizens of Chowhound organized this event as a fund raiser for Chowhound. Members brought their favorite dishes to share with one another - food from favorite restaurants and food from home.

The Chow Fiesta was such a success that the participants planned other meetings. But we soon found that planning events via private e-mail was awkward. Inevitably, some e-mail addresses would get dropped as e-mails were forwarded. We needed a forum for communication and we found that forum in Yahoo! Groups.

Yahoo! Groups are free e-mail lists that allow like minded people to communicate easily with one-another. Whatever your interest, no matter how esoteric, there's a Yahoo! Group that shares it Mennonite Quilters, collectors of Z-gauge electric trains, elongated coin enthusiasts and goat farmers all have Yahoo! Groups. And if there's not a group that is just right for you, you can start one. So we did.

Originally we called our group "LA Chowhounds" but the Chowhound powers that be needed to protect the "Chowhound" designation. So we had a contest to re-name ourselves. My favorite of the proposed names was "The Los Angeles Eaters of Anaheim" (this was during the Angels' naming lawsuit) but the name that won out was SCARF - the Southern California Association of Radical Foodies. We're not radical and I would dispute the appellation "foodies," but we liked the acronym and it stuck.

SCARF Events

So, how does SCARF work? Well, we're pretty lose and free-form. We're more of a confederation than a club. But SCARF events seem to fall into three broad categories.

One category takes the form of a post saying, "Hey, folks, I'll be at Langer's Deli on Saturday at 11:00 am. Anyone care to join me for the best corned beef in town?" The host may ask for RSVPs so she knows how many chairs to stake out, or she may simply ask people to show up if they're interested.

Another sort of gathering takes a little more organizing. The host may post a review of a recent visit to Little Sheep, a Mongolian hot-pot restaurant in Monterey Park, and solicit interest in a group outing. Once she's chosen a date and collected a list of attendees, she will contact the restaurant to make a reservation and any special arrangements they require. On the day of the event, she'll arrive at Little Sheep a few minutes early so she can greet people as they arrive, and direct them to the SCARF tables.

The most elaborate kind of SCARF events are those where the price is collected before the event. The host makes the arrangements with the venue and either collects funds from each participant, or he arranges for the participants to pay the restaurant in advance.

Inevitably, friendships bloom as people meet at SCARF events. Sometimes smaller groups congregate, and when events take place in a private home, the hosts may choose to limit the attendees to people they have already met in person. SCARF events are as diverse and individual as the members themselves.

Who are SCARF Members?

SCARF has never advertised in any way, but we continually attract new members. Who are these people and why do they seek out SCARF? Many new members are friends of existing members, and most others hear of us on Chowhound. Occasionally we get a new member who found us by searching Yahoo groups.

What continues to excite me is the diversity our members represent. Our active members include college students and retirees. We are employed in all sorts of fields. We are men and women, who sometimes even bring our children to our more casual events. Our members live between San Diego and Santa Barbara, and sometimes we have the opportunity to host visitors to the area. Our faces reflect the ethnic diversity for Southern California; often a group of SCARFers visiting an ethnic restaurant includes members who can assure servers in their own language that we want "the real Chow," not the stuff they reserve for tourists.

Our members are smart and well-educated - whether we are auto-didacts or we hold advanced university degrees. We're willing to visit parts of Southern California that cause our less-adventurous friends and family to raise their eyebrows. We like good food and we're willing to pursue it to its lair. We're willing to spend time and effort in pursuit of Chow.

I won't say that money is no object for us. We've visited some of the finest restaurants in Los Angeles, and spent considerable sums of money. But our excursions in search of great tamales, hand-pulled noodles or banh-mi have been just as enjoyable. One of my favorite events involved a feast at a Chinese restaurant in the San Gabriel Valley where a twenty-dollar bill contributed by each attendee resulted in a 40% tip for the waiters.

We know that a restaurant's price and décor do not correlate perfectly to the quality and taste of its food. Good food can be found in the palaces of haute cuisine but is just as likely to reside at an unprepossessing fish taco stand on Whittier Boulevard in East LA. No single one of the many ethnic groups who've made a culinary impression on Southern California has a monopoly on good Chow. We know the familiar Italian, Mexican, Indian, Chinese, Thai and Japanese cuisines. But we also seek out the less-familiar Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Polish, Argentinean, Palestinian, Persian and Pakistani cuisines - and a hundred others.

We have learned that food is a great catalyst for discussions - casual and profound - about our lives and experiences. SCARF brings together people who might not otherwise meet. We find that food is a great unifying force since it's impossible for people to be unfriendly when they are sharing a meal.

Perhaps the speeches of politicians and the pleas of preachers don't really help us to "just get along." Maybe your grandmother was right: Maybe we need to sit down together over Bar-B-Qued ribs or shawerma or a mufaletta or lengua tacos and clean our plates.