Odds & Ends Around the Valley

Don’t Wanna Know

Ignorance is not only bliss, it’s probably fattening.

And full of salt and cholesterol.

We all know that we should not eat anything that we like, and absolutely never anything that trickles grease down our arms.

But when the dreaded Mac Attack hits, we are powerless over our weakness.

Outside of Mrs. Gooch, three people in Arleta and a dwindling sect in Lancaster that doesn’t believe in eating at all, most of us commit dietary sins of omission and commission with stunning regularity.

Take nutritionally aware Nanette Rubio of Valencia, who is, for the most part, into bran and veggies.

Ask her what she likes about Don Cuco in Canyon Country or Newhall and it’s the great globs of fattening yummies that they stuff into their designer tortillas.

No, no, Nanette, but don’t despair. There’s help on the horizon. The Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences has recommended that restaurants should have nutrition information on menu items available for patrons on request, which should give some of us pause when we are about to dig in.

The idea, however, is not being met with universal delight at local eateries.

“They have to stay up nights thinking up this crazy stuff to harass us,” said Betty Travis, co-owner of the Egg Plantation in Newhall, which boasts a menu of 101 omelets.

Travis said she couldn’t even imagine how she would try to figure out the salt, fat and sugar content of her omelets. Particularly the cherry pie and cream cheese omelet.

Predictably, places that serve a lot of cold green or whole grain food will embrace this recommendation.

Even places like the Szechwan Inn in Canoga Park and the Woodland Hills Marriott Hotel’s Parkside Restaurant won’t be too upset since they are already offering fine fare for the finicky, according to Dr. David Cohen of Woodland Hills, a veteran of the Pritikin program and a fervent fat-fighter.

Cohen, 77, who will celebrate his 53rd wedding anniversary this month, says he doesn’t have any trouble dining well and healthfully these days.

“There are a lot of restaurants that list nutritional information on the menu already,” he said, “and others that make a point of cooking food in a healthy way that’s good for you.”

The Fatburger is not one of them.

Neither is Angelina’s Kitchen Table.

“We have food that nourishes the soul, which is why it’s called soul food,” said Cordie Moss, who owns the Sherman Oaks restaurant.

Up at Pancake Heaven in San Fernando, owner John Lamprino, who has been in business 30 years, says he’s not sure that people want to know all that nutritional stuff.

“I just wouldn’t know how to come up with that kind of information, anyway,” Lamprino said. “And once I did, I don’t know what people who want to eat pancakes would do with it.”

Later Alligator

Since 1968, Martine Colette and her animal activists have provided a home and hospital care for abused, orphaned, abandoned and unwanted wild and/or exotic animals at the Wildlife Waystation in San Fernando.

Sometimes the animal population reaches 800 and includes African lions, cougars, jaguars, black bears, raccoons, ocelots, timber wolves, coyotes, opossums, brown bears, foxes, bobcats, margays, owls, hawks, Siberian tigers, Bengal tigers, leopards, monkeys, apes and a variety of other beasts.

Now, after 20 years of helping these animals in a quiet way, Colette is turning into a showoff.

She and a group of her flying, fuzzy, furry and crawly friends--including a California gray fox, a hawk, a black wolf, a civet cat, a chimp and a 12-foot python--showed up at Tarzana Regional Medical Center recently to visit third-grade students from Wilbur Avenue School.

The children and the animals looked at each other and communicated the way kids and animals seem able to do. And, according to Colette, the children learned why it is not appropriate to have wild or exotic animals for pets, which was the point of the exercise.

The medical center, a benefactor of the organization, sponsored the get-together.

Dr. Arnold Zukow, chief of pediatric medicine, said Diana Hariton, a Wildlife Waystation volunteer and daughter of staff physician Theodore Hariton, told her father that the station needed medical supplies.

Coincidentally, the center was closing Rancho Encino Hospital and had some supplies that it was willing to donate.

“The timing was perfect and the center was really happy to enter into what has become an ongoing relationship,” Zukow said.

Back to the Past

It seems to be the current fashion to build immodestly grand houses on modest-sized lots.

New houses in the Santa Clarita, Simi and San Fernando valleys have started looking as if they were put on steroids after they were sized for their resting places.

The upshot of all of this is that the green is going, something we will probably live to regret.

Environmentalists have warned us that the less greenery you have and the more people and buildings and cars there are inhabiting any given area, the worse the air is going to be and the higher the temperature is going to go.

It can only follow that those of us who choose to live in cheek-by-jowl neighborhoods become so bummed out by the noise, heat, bad air quality and the “close-proximity blues” that we go in our great big houses, pull down the designer blinds and crank up the air.

“Brown out,” Mother Nature groans.

There must be another way.

Actually, there is, and the folks building houses in the early 1800s had it figured out.

They got a piece of land in the middle of nowhere, coaxed up a few scrub oaks, some crops and water-saving plants, and built adobes with seven-foot-thick walls. You can forget the air conditioning. They didn’t need it.

On the next really hot ‘n’ smoggy one, you should bicycle over to the San Fernando Mission Church--an exact replica of the 1804 structure that was destroyed in the 1971 Sylmar earthquake--and sit in those buildings that never lose their cool.

Dr. Carcare

October is National Car Month, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California. And the club is doing a booming business with its handy Mobile Engine Diagnosis (MED), said Robert Blacketor, district manager of the Woodland Hills office.

MED is a combination automotive electrocardiogram and electroencephalogram that checks a car’s electrical and fuel systems. The diagnostic unit is housed in a special van that the Auto Club drives from office to office around Southern California. Card-carrying members can call the nearest office to make an appointment.

The van is at the Van Nuys office every week on either Monday or Wednesday, but there are no openings until Wednesday. The checkups are also available at the Northridge office Oct. 29, the Woodland Hills office Oct. 31 and the Burbank office Nov. 6.

The checkup takes 30 minutes and costs $34. For that, you get a printout of the MED findings that you may then take to a mechanic.

What happens after that is up to you, your mechanic and your banker.

Overheard

“If my bathroom was any closer to my neighbor’s, we could save water by showering together.”--New homeowner in Valencia