My new neighborhood is of a different ethnic persuasion than Los Feliz, which skewed ethnically ‘older gay.’ People ask me where my apartment is, and in LA, pretty much everywhere is known by some neighborhood name, if not its own city name - for example, West Hollywood (which, incidentally skews ‘younger/scenester gay’, also incidentally where Louie used to live, ha) is an actual city unto itself, and has a definite identity. So when you say, “I live in West Hollywood,” people know you like nice tight fitting clothes, dancing to Rihanna and an occasional leather party.

My neighborhood has no identity. I tell people where it is, and they’re like, “It’s Koreatown? But it’s not… not really Hollywood… huh.” And then they move on to other topics like are there any good bars close by and can we go to them.

Since the ethnicity seems to skew Central American with a weird Filipino fast food joint screwing up that mix, I call it Little Central America. Or sometimes, Little Guatemala, or Little El Salvador. It just depends which panaderia or pupuseria I’m walking by at the moment. And there are MANY.

The night I got my keys, Allie and I went into the two closest bakeries and the market and were stunned by what looked like super awesome food. And as you have already heard, there is a dirty dog lady who appeared like magic to make me feel welcome in here. The one thing that perplexed us was the abundance of coconut milk. Several brands were offered in the markets and they all contained pulp. One was in a glass bottle, and you could see the chunks suspended in the fluid. It looked kind of foul, but I do love chunky drinks, and I am trying to fit in here, so I asked my (kind of hot) market man if he liked Micoco. He told me he had tried it, and he liked it. Then he said, “I’ve tried almost everything.” Which seemed like he might be flirting with me. I’ll take it. I’ll take just about any male attention at the moment. I might be in heat.

Coconut juice.

So I bought it and chilled it over night. Sunday morning I cracked it open to go with my breakfast of Sabritones Chili Lime puff thingies and it was… Well, it was interesting. I liked it. But then I looked at the calories and fat. And I know coconut and coconut milk aren’t winning any diet awards, but the taste and the fat content did not match up. If I want to ingest 20 grams of fat, I want it to be ice cream flavored. So I probably won’t be having any more of that. I will however be ‘trying’ other things from my market… (Too far?)

This weekend I’m going in search of some dessert and some pupusas. Of which I will not look at fat or calorie information on, because who needs that kind of guilt?