As some of you may remember, Animated Meat first came to life in 2008 as a way to document some sights that managed to slip through the cracks of most popular travel websites. You may also remember that the original website was built on Apple's now defunct iWeb. From there, it migrated over to WordPress where it met an untimely demise at the hands of Russian hackers. Many of those old, pre-2012 entries have found a new home here in the Before the Now section. I would consider these posts as my starting place as a writer, probably comparable to a musician's first demo tapes. They are very rough, but I took them all seriously and wrote each one with passion. While I would like to believe that I have matured in my abilities as a writer, it is my hope that I carry this same blind passion into all of my new efforts.

Orange International Street Fair - Originally Published 2010

February 17, 2019

You’ll have to forgive me, but I peaked ahead at the end of the book. I know how it all turns out. I’ll keep the majority of it to myself but I will tell you this much. In heaven, there are not restaurants. Not a one. Just street food. One guy who knows how to do one thing really well and that’s all he does.

The Orange International Street Fair is an event that may give you a general idea of what heaven is like. Set up around the intersection of Glassell and Chapman, the fair is divided into sections that all represent a cuisine from a given region.