Everyone has a story if we are wiling to listen. Similarly, behind almost anything and everything there is some interesting story awaiting its storyteller.
Following the recent revival of the Random Stuff You May Not Know series with number Twelve, here is number Fifteen only two weeks later. The five new topics are: The Original Muscle Beach of Santa Monica, Who is Santa Monica?, Loofah (‘luffa’), Teabags, and Tzatziki.
Something about the revival seems to have unleashed some creative force within me. Perhaps related the fact that until now I am merely compiling earlier fragmented pieces about all sorts of different topics into one place, most written after 2019 following number Eleven. This takes a different editorial energy than creating something from scratch. That said, I must confess there are five or six semi-finalised longer pieces still wresting and snuggling together, awaiting their right time. Until it happens, the informative series here is helping out the creative process.
Alright, let’s do this...
1. The Original Muscle Beach of Santa Monica
Arriving in Los Angeles in March 2014 after coddiwompling across the U.S for six months, there were no fixed plans. Certainly coming across the Venice Beach Drum Circle one day and falling in love it with was a major reason for relocating to the Westside. After three years in Canada and months of Jack Kerouacing on the road across the East Coast and Middle America, being on or by the beach felt like paradise. The weather, O’ the weather.
Little did I know that rents had become so high due to Gentrification, it took months of AirBnb short stays between Venice and Santa Monica, with intervals when I would go stay at my aunt in the Valley and save money. But certainly, I wasn’t there in L.A to live a 45-minutes drive away from the beach.
Eventually I came to realise that Santa Monica was too clean and even somewhat affluent for me. It actually felt it too “white” for lack of a better word. This became apparent when comparing it with neighbouring Bohemian Venice, where I felt more at home even far and away from home, and where I remained for the following few years. I mean, having been recently living in Toronto where it was so clinically clean, that it seems a bit unreal. Not that cleanliness and order are inherently bad things, but let us say I felt more drawn to the cooler balanced artistic chaos of Venice — despite both neighbourhoods being mere 10 minutes away on the bike, an enjoyable ride too.
Again, having the drum circle must have influenced the choice. The few people I briefly shared home with in Santa Monica may have been another factor.
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| Santa Monica Beach with mother, July 1979. Who would have thunk?! |
Once settled in Venice, occasional visits to Santa Monica were either to a restaurant, usually with someone. Or during the day to what is known as Santa Monica’s Muscle Beach — seen in the featured photo. There, I would leave the bike by the path and go for some pull-ups and dips, then back to Venice. One day I wanted to write a caption for the photo and Googled the name to discover something that was new to me.
Googling “outdoor gym” on Santa Monica beach to make sure it’s not called something else when “Muscle Beach” appeared on the screen. In my head I was like: No, dumdum Google; if I wanted Muscle Beach, I would have written Venice Beach, because the whole world knows it’s where the actual Muscle Beach is located. Duh.
A few seconds of reading showed that apparently THE original Muscle Beach in Los Angeles, the birthplace of the physical fitness boom in America during the 20th century, refers to this exclusive Santa Monica beachy location on the south side of the Santa Monica Pier. Mainly for gymnastics, it goes back all the way to 1934 when it was simply named “Santa Monica Beach Playground”. Huh.
Then in 1959 it was removed by the City of Santa Monica, due to difficulties in the day-to-day maintenance and supervision of this original Muscle Beach gym. 30 years later in 1989, it was officially rededicated the original Muscle Beach and today it serves gymnasts and acrobats.
Now what about Muscle Beach with all the barbells, weightlifting, bodybuilding, and Arnold Schwarzenegger located towards the other end of the Boardwalk in Venice? The landmark we see in movies and songs.
Well, this came to being 18 years after the original Santa Monica one had been established. In 1952, a small weight pen was built near Windward Avenue, which was renovated in 1990 to become the large facility we currently see.
In 1987, the City of Los Angeles officially dedicated “Muscle Beach Venice” with the added word ‘Venice’ in its title to distinguish it from the original Santa Monica “Muscle Beach”. So while the original remains for Callisthenics, all barbells and weightlifting/bodybuilding equipment are found in its remodelled younger sister gym with the weight pen in Venice.
And now we know. Invigorating place to exercise.
One much more dramatic visit to Santa Monica is covered in A Dollar & Thirty Four Cents in Me Pocket and Feeling Fine. The article is part of the Chronicling The Journey series here on One Lucky Soul.
2. So Who Is Santa Monica Anyway?
Might as well.
Santa Monica is a prominent coastal city in Los Angeles with an environment of mountains, canyons, rolling hills, valley, and ocean. The area was previously inhabited by the Tongva people and was called “Kecheek” in the Tongva language. The first non-indigenous group to set foot in Kecheek was the party of explorer Gaspar de Portolà, who camped near the present-day intersection of Barrington and Ohio Avenues on August 3, 1769.
Saint Monica (AD 322–387), also known as Monica of Hippo, was an early Christian saint and the mother of St. Augustine of Hippo. On the basis of her name, it is assumed she was born in Thagaste (present-day Souk Ahras, Algeria) and believed to have been a Berber.
Saint Monica is remembered and honoured in most Christian denominations — albeit on different feast days — for her outstanding Christian virtues, particularly the suffering caused by her husband’s adultery; also for her prayerful life dedicated to the reformation of her son, who wrote extensively of her pious acts and life with her in his Confessions. Popular Christian legends recall Saint Monica weeping every night for her son Augustine.
There exists two accounts of how the city’s name came to be: The first, in honour of the feast day of Saint Monica, despite her feast day being May 4. According to the second version, it was named by Juan Crespí on account of a pair of springs, the Kuruvungna Springs (Serra Springs), which were reminiscent of the tears Saint Monica shed over her son’s early impiety.
I knew of Augustine of Hippo from his philosophical quotes I sometimes share. The last of which is actually the very first in Some Soulful Travel Quotes: “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” The connection however was only made when I got curious about who that Westside neighbourhood was named after.
Come to think about it, many names of places have their own history and backgrounds, their own stories. From the top of my head, there is Sainte-Maxime and Saint-Tropez on the French Riviera: Now who were those? Next times.
3. Loofah (‘luffa’) has seeds because it is planted!
Always learning. In my mid 40s, I found out one day that natural loofahs have seeds… because they are planted. Whaaa? And can be edible. Double whaaa?!
When coming across the ones shown here displayed at the weekly Amanda Market in Dahab, Nienke illuminated me with the fact. Mind: Blown. While I had never really thought about the origin of the loofah/loofa, in the back of my mind it was probably some kind of aquatic specimen; you know, like a “sea sponge” we see around corals. But nope, that’s a common misconception apparently.
A bit of reading later showed that loofah, with ‘luffa’ being scientific name, is a genus of tropical and subtropical vines in the pumpkin, squash, and gourd family (Cucurbitaceae). “It is cultivated and eaten as a vegetable, but must be harvested at a young stage of development to be edible. The vegetable is popular in India, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Vietnam. When the fruit is fully ripened, it is very fibrous.”
The fully developed fruit is the source of the loofah scrubbing sponge we know and use as shower accessory for cleaning and exfoliating the skin — sometimes also used in kitchens. Ta-Da.
Interestingly, the name ‘luffa’ was taken by European botanists in the 17th Century from the Egyptian-Arabic name ( لوف ) lūf.
In North America it is sometimes known as “Chinese okra” while in Spanish as ‘estropajo’.
Now we know.
4. Tea Bags: Evolution of an Accident
Speaking of recently learned stuff, this one is about the proper way to use teabags — teabags. Yeah, imagine.
Now as as kid, I first learned about tea bags from my father who used to have tea for breakfast everyday. After the initial dip he would squeeze it with the spoon for like two seconds and that was that. Sometimes in early 1980s Agami, he would let this highly amused four-year old throw the tea bag on top of trees outside the house... after doing just the same. O’ the simplicity of childhood at the time.
My maternal grandmother as well as aunt used a pot where the tea bags would take their time, as they would have often have more than one cup. Not being much into tea at the time, I never made the distinction between the different ways to prepare it... until the wilfully-solitary two and half years spent on the beach in El Ein El Sokha.
One random day — also in my 40s — while holding a tea bag in hand, something printed on the label got my attention. “From 3 to 5 minutes”. Wait what?
Apparently that is common knowledge among tea drinkers. And not just tea, as you can see with the Ginger-Cinnamon mix above. Why is that a standard recommendation?
Brewing for this specific time window allows for optimal extraction of aroma and colour as the deeper more complex flavour — known as briskness — is released into the water. Regarding black tea, less than that and the drink may be too light, more too bitter.
Other variations are Green tea, requiring a shorter 1-2 minutes. Conversely Herbal tea requires longer, like 5+ minutes.
Of course ever since that discovery, I keep the tea-ginger-cinnamon mix [or anything else] for at least 5 minutes. And the outcome is absolutely a richer and more wholesome taste. All these years of quick squeezing felt like a waste.
I also keep testing people left and right, often at the most random of times, but sometimes in cafes. Some do know, other don’t, which makes me feel a bit better for never venturing to read the small prints on each and every tea bag. Then again, maybe those are relatively new. Well, you live and learn.
Somehow the tea bags topic made it to two previous articles. A wee random. One is from list-article Bizarre Random Facts (2015):
• In 1904, tea bags were invented accidentally when New York importer Thomas Sullivan sent small samples to potential customers in silk bags instead of boxes; because it was cheaper. The recipients mistakenly dunked the whole thing, but soon complained that the silk mesh was too fine for the flavour to escape. Sullivan eventually swapped the silk for gauze, and as the modern “tea bag” was born, the man was flooded with orders.
The other list-article from the OLS Archives is Most Expensive Food in the World (2013):
• The world’s most expensive tea bag for the PG company came to being to celebrate their 75th anniversary. Manually decorated with 280 diamonds, this British cup of tea is worth £7,500. Yep.
Chai Ti: Meditative martial art uniquely practiced by tea drinkers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
5. Tzatziki is my new Sadiki
The first time I heard the word Tzatziki was in Toronto while buying
some chicken Shawerma. It was an added garlicky sauce which tasted pretty
good. Funnily, the first time I was asked if I needed Tzatziki, it was
an Iranian or Middle Eastern guy working at a place close to where I
lived. “Tzatzik?” He asked. What I heard was “Sadiki? (صديقي)”, meaning
“My friend?” in Arabic. So I smiled and said yes. Pfff. It took me one more visit to reckon that it’s the name of an added sauce.
This was not the first time to eat a mix of this enticing combination of yoghurt, cucumber, and herbs as a mezze or paste — without the garlic though. But it was the first to hear the word and taste the added garlic.
So what is Tzatziki?
Tzatziki is a sauce or paste served with grilled meats or as a dip served alongside other mezzes, dishes, and ouzo. It is made of salted strained yogurt (usually from sheep or goat milk) or diluted yogurt, mixed with cucumbers, garlic, salt, olive oil, sometimes with vinegar or lemon juice, and some herbs like dill, mint, parsley, thyme.
Just as it happened with Imam Bayildi the Ottoman Empire eggplant appetiser I first came across in L.A, I found that similar dishes with different names as Tzatziki exist in many places around the world.
This was not the first time to eat a mix of this enticing combination of yoghurt, cucumber, and herbs as a mezze or paste — without the garlic though. But it was the first to hear the word and taste the added garlic.
So what is Tzatziki?
Tzatziki is a sauce or paste served with grilled meats or as a dip served alongside other mezzes, dishes, and ouzo. It is made of salted strained yogurt (usually from sheep or goat milk) or diluted yogurt, mixed with cucumbers, garlic, salt, olive oil, sometimes with vinegar or lemon juice, and some herbs like dill, mint, parsley, thyme.
Just as it happened with Imam Bayildi the Ottoman Empire eggplant appetiser I first came across in L.A, I found that similar dishes with different names as Tzatziki exist in many places around the world.
While called Tzatziki in Greece, it is known as Talattouri in Cyprus, and
Tarator in the Balkans — or “Dry Tarator” in Bulgarian and Serbian
cuisine. It is also a popular dish in Albania.
In Iraq it is called Jajeek and in Iran Mast-o-khiar.
In Turkish it is Cacik, which is where the word ‘Tzatziki' originates from; in turn it is likely a loanword from the Armenian Cacıg.
Fast-forward five years later when one day I came across this Cedar’s product in a local grocery store in Los Angeles and got it. Then, I rarely ate meats so it was time to experiment.
First I enjoyed Tzatziki as a dip with carrots and avocado. Then added it to baked potatoes. And finally with smoked salmon as shown below. Sea salt, pepper, basil, peppercorn, thyme leaves, ground ginger, and a dash of lemon juice were added: All totally new, sensually enticing experiences worth trying. Boy Oh Boi.
In Iraq it is called Jajeek and in Iran Mast-o-khiar.
In Turkish it is Cacik, which is where the word ‘Tzatziki' originates from; in turn it is likely a loanword from the Armenian Cacıg.
Fast-forward five years later when one day I came across this Cedar’s product in a local grocery store in Los Angeles and got it. Then, I rarely ate meats so it was time to experiment.
First I enjoyed Tzatziki as a dip with carrots and avocado. Then added it to baked potatoes. And finally with smoked salmon as shown below. Sea salt, pepper, basil, peppercorn, thyme leaves, ground ginger, and a dash of lemon juice were added: All totally new, sensually enticing experiences worth trying. Boy Oh Boi.
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| Delicious creation: Nom Nom Nom |
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