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National Chocolate Chip Day (Aug. 4)
August can be one of the hottest months of the year—so hot sometimes the very young and the very old keel over. Thankfully, National Chocolate Chip Day is only fatal if you’re diabetic. This holiday is a time when the entire famil

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Happy Food Holidays, Everybody!

 

 

 

 

 

 


National Chocolate Chip Day (Aug. 4)

August can be one of the hottest months of the year—so hot sometimes the very young and the very old keel over. Thankfully, National Chocolate Chip Day is only fatal if you’re diabetic. This holiday is a time when the entire family gathers around the dinner table and eats more chips than a Super Bowl party full of medicated Raiders fans.

Here are three great SoCal places you could enjoy chocolate chips, be they dark, milk or otherwise:

 

Big Bear Lake: Sure, it’s summer but in Big Bear it can still be brisk. Bring a date, rent a cabin, and drop some chocolate chips into some cocoa or inside a crepe and you’ve got yourself one hell of a weekend getaway.

Any Original House of Pancakes: Order the Chocolate Chip Pancakes. Don’t ask questions. Don’t look at the menu. Just order them and thank me later.

Griffith Observatory: This place will let you see the heavens from the earth. They would probably be angry with you for smudging their lenses with chocolate hands, but be bold! If we make contact with another planet, we’re going to want to lead with chocolate.

 

In honor of National Chocolate Chip Day, here are great ways to enjoy yourself with chocolate chips:

Make chocolate chip cookies. Duh.

Use them as ice cream toppings. Again, duh.

Spice up that old gingerbread house that’s been getting stale since late December.

 

National Mustard Day (Aug. 6)

National Mustard Day is felt most dramatically in the upper Midwest, where bratwursts line the streets as far as the eye can see and mustard seeds are still used as a state-approved currency. But that shouldn’t stop anyone anywhere from enjoying ketchup’s ugly sister.

Here are three places to go to enjoy mustard, till death do you part

Mustard’s Chicago Style Hot Dog, Long Beach: You don’t have to go all the way to Chicago to enjoy what they’ve done with the hot dog. Mustard’s will cook you up a great one and, as the name suggests, cover it with delicious holiday juice (in this case, mustard).

Kent Hintergardt Park, Temecula: This may be a small community park in the Inland Empire, but it’s got charm. There are grills for you to get some brats going and plenty of eating space to enjoy them with mustard.

Stagecoach Park, Carlsbad: Although this park was way cooler in the early ’90s, it is safer and less splintery now. It’s got gorgeous areas to eat and run around as well as some impressive structures to keep your children or your less mature friends occupied while you inject mustard directly into your veins.

 

In honor of National Mustard Day, you should do the following sacred things:

Try to turn it into a gas!

See if you can move up enough in the ranks to become a Colonel.

Put too much on a hot dog and then yell “GREAT! It’s ruined!” and storm off.

 

National Rice Pudding Day (Aug. 9)

Rice pudding is a totally legitimate food. Don’t let those fascists at the Center for Meals I Actually Bother Eating convince you otherwise. If anything deserves its own holiday, it’s over-sweet, over-watery fake oatmeal.

Here are some great eateries for you to get your hands on some rice pudding:

 

Panchita’s Bakery, San Diego: They’ve got rice pudding on tap, brewed in house. What’s that? I’m being told rice pudding is not an alcoholic beverage? Well, Panchita’s still has great rice pudding. (And if you want alcohol with rice, try sake!)

Any Trader Joe’s: They have an excellent selection of rice pudding available to the consumer who would like to enjoy it at home without the hassle of putting rice and pudding into a big bowl and stirring them. That’s how rice pudding is made.

El Gran Burrito, Los Angeles: Not only can you chow down on some delicious Mexican food here, but you can also get rice pudding! It’ll be hiding on the menu under the pseudonym arroz con leche.

 

In honor of National Rice Pudding Day, celebrate in the following ways:

Draw a rice pudding bath for two with your significant other and some red wine.

Use it as fake vomit in a student film.

Use it as a cheap substitute for drywall .

National Creamsicle Day (Aug. 14)

National Creamsicle Day feels like the ’60s. Simpler times, those were: when you could sit on a porch with your friends, sucking on a Creamsicle on a hot August day. Then you and your friends would all set out to try and find a dead body together: hijinks!

Go forth and eat Creamsicles at these three locations:

 

The Del Mar Fair: This is a great place to go on a hot day and enjoy the horse races, the poorly constructed rides and the free concert series. Drink lots of water and eat lots of Creamsicles; just not too many before you go on anything that spins.

Oceanside Pier: Walk out on the boardwalk and enjoy the games and lights. Take in the salty ocean air and stride hand-in-hand with your date on this, the last summer before you go to different colleges on opposite ends of the country. And like the Creamsicle, high school girlfriends are filled with vanilla ice cream!

In front of your boss, sexily: This is a bold move, especially considering how you’ve worked for years to be taken seriously as a professional in your industry. But when are you going to get another chance to make your boss feel uncomfortable?

 

In honor of National Creamsicle Day, you should do the following:

Try to get into the Guinness Book of World Records by making the world’s largest Creamsicle.

Write a catchy R&B song called “Peaches and Creamsicle.”

Name a part of your body “the Creamsicle” and don’t tell anyone what it is.

National Waffle Day (Aug. 24)

Waffles are pancakes covered with dozens of syrup prisons. They’re like California; except instead of syrup, our prisons are filled with low-level, non-violent “drug” offenders. Either way, delicious!

Here are three local places you can mainline some waffle-age:

 

Belgium Avenue, Chico: Everybody is always talking about Belgian waffles, but it’s such a hassle to get there in the first place. Instead, make your own waffles and bring them to this small residential street. You will probably get odd looks from people as you walk aimlessly, a waffle hanging from your mouth.

Roscoe’s House of Chicken ‘N Waffles, various locations: Why not celebrate waffles with a large helping of chicken? You know, as Mother Nature intended it. You can’t live in Southern California without trying this combination. It’s been proven by science.

Butterfield Stage Trail Park, Corona: Nothing says waffles like a day of hiking! Waffles are basically carbohydrates with nooks and crannies, so they’ll provide you with a ton of usable energy for the lovely trails ahead.

 

In honor of National Waffle Day, here are some activities to iron out the afternoons:

Have a stacking contest.

Make a suit of armor out of waffles and joust with a friend.

Make waffle sandwiches (basically syrup trapped between two waffles that you eat with your soon-to-be very sticky hands)

 

(Kevin Longrie)

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