Two Days 'Til Rapture: OC Weekly Staffers' Last Meals

Flickr user pasukaru76

Kinda like this, but not as cool.

​So if Oakland preacher Harold Camping and hundreds and hundreds of other crazies are right, the world will be ending this Saturday, May 21--around 6 p.m., to be exact.

Which got us thinking: What would we spend our last hours doing? Stuffing our faces of course. Here's a round-up of Weekly staffers' last meals of choice. You've got everything in here from Ma's chicken enchiladas to fermented, fried tofu . . . and even a $5,000 bowl of pho.


Gustavo Arellano, Managing Editor

Flickr user Nat Friedman

​A ginormous plate of asado de boda Jerezano, washed down with the sugarcane drink from Nuoc Mia Vien Tay. The former is from my ancestral homeland of Zacatecas; the latter, my current homeland of Orange County. Both sweet in furtive ways, both pregnant with the story of proud people. Love your country, cabrones.


Lilledeshan Bose, Music Editor
​Yogurtland 'til the end! (Maybe.)


Vickie Chang, Web Editor

Flickr user keepwaddling1

​A giant bowl of dan dan mian, a sort of sesame oil- and peanut-based sauce tossed with noodles; followed by some stinky tofu (chou doufu) with pickled cabbage and sauteed Shanghainese rice cakes (chao nian gao). This traditional Taiwanese and Chinese meal will then be finished off with a fat pint of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia.


Matt Coker, Staff Writer

Flickr user whitneyinchicago

Not Matt's mom's hands or chicken enchiladas, but let's pretend!

​My mom's chicken enchiladas, because she'd be here to make them for me.


Laila Derakhshanian, Art Director

Flickr user jugglerpm

Not Laila's mom's tofu enchiladas but let's pretend!

​Good to know there's a specific date. Now I can plan for Mom's tofu enchiladas, black beans, spanish rice and salad shirazi.


Edwin Goei, Food Critic

Edwin Goei

​
My last meal would be sate gule kambing. It's actually two dishes made from goat ("kambing"); one is a murky soup and the other is the grilled meat skewered on sticks. The soup, called gule (pronounced 'guh-lay'), is curry-based. Made from simmering the bones and the fatty, gristly meat of the goat in a big pot with coconut milk, the consistency is light and thin--more like a finely tuned broth than a typical curry. The sate (pronounced "sa-tay") consists of the most tender pieces of the goat, cut into pieces and threaded onto bamboo skewers, cooked quickly over a smoky charcoal fire, and glazed with a simple mixture of kecap manis, lime juice, and white pepper. The sates are enjoyed in concert with the soup and steamed rice. Let the horsemen come.


Taylor Hamby, Editorial Assistant

Flickr user rumpleteaser

Whattup, rapture!

​Well, as a recent ex-vegetarian, I would probably spend my last hours catching up on five years worth of missed meat opportunities. I'd eat at least one dish from each major meat group and then some. Buffalo, lion, wolf . . .  why not? Oh, and all of it would be topped with bacon.


Ted B. Kissell, Editor

Flickr user joshuaheller

​A fully loaded bandeja paisa, that Colombian staple--or, pile of staples: rice, red beans, fried platanos maduros, carne asada (not carne molida, because... meh), chicharrón, a big ol' Colombian chorizo with lime to squeeze on it, a hand-patted arepa, half an avocado and a poached egg on top. Because the afterlife is forever, and this should keep me fat and happy the whole time.


Dave Lieberman, Food Blogger

russanddaughters.com

​ Cuando yo muero quiero tus manos en mis ojos
quiero la luz y el trigo de tus manos amadas
pasar una vez más sobre mí su frescura:
sentir la suavidad que cambió mi destino.

(Ahhhh, Pablo Neruda...)

Anyway. Uh.

If I truly believed the Rapture was on the 21st, you'd find me in New York, on the Lower East Side, stuffing as many of the tastes of my childhood into my mouth as I could get away with. A pastrami sandwich and a Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray from Katz's Deli; a bialy from Kossar's; a nice half-sour from the barrels at Guss' Pickles, and all the belly lox, smoked whitefish and home-cultured cream cheese I could fit into my capacious maw at Russ and Daughters.

In any case, if the Rapture is on the 21st, it'll be nice, quiet and non-proselytizing on the 22nd. I look forward to it.


Chasen Marshall, Staff Writer

Flickr user surlygirl

​After a cup of coffee from Al's Cappuccino before a morning surf, I'd head to Rooster Cafe for a breakfast burrito (with sausage). I'd follow that with a Reuben from Jerry's Deli for lunch. I'd finish the day off with Fileno al Mirtillo (fillet mignon topped with blueberry sauce) with a bottle of Chianti from Acqua al 2.


Michelle Woo, Staff Writer

Edwin Goei/OC Weekly

AnQi's basic $9 pho. Pretty good, but will $4,991 in gourmet ingredients (and some cash for charity) make it better? We would hope.

​Pho is my ultimate comfort food, and I really need to be comforted knowing that the earth will soon be engulfed in floods and flames. But I also think I'd like to be classy for the last first time. So my end-of-days meal would be the $5,000 bowl of pho, which we wrote about last week. White alba truffles, foie gras broth, blue lobster meat, all drenched with gobs of Sriracha, because that's how I do it. I'd probably order a $6 bowl of pho from Little Saigon as well, in case the $5K bowl sucks.

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