Without trying to get negative, the first big thought I had reading this book was that if there’s a vegan eatery in Shrewsbury, NJ—a very nice little town, you know, but, c’mon—there’s probably also one in //New York City//, right; but the book doesn’t explicitly this point, you know.

But, then again, even basic sketches of the NYC neighborhoods is probably worth a few bucks for someone from Jersey who doesn’t know anything about “the city”, but who would like to travel. And it’s nice to know, even, you know, just as an American, and a person, basically.

…. Ok, I was wrong; it’s a tie: Red Bank, NJ—one vegan restaurant; NYC, NY—one vegan restaurant. (sci-fi executive/villain) “Who could be stupid enough to believe that, Tyler?” (young guy about to get killed) That’s what our sources are telling us, sir. I’m sure that they can be trusted. ~ 😛

…. The main problem with the book is probably that it just should have been a lot longer. I’m interested in vegan food, so that’s what I mentioned, but say you wanted Chinese/East Asian food, well: it’s probably wouldn’t be too outrageous in a really good book to have a section for that about as long as the //entire// “Global Grub” section (seven, I think), you know.

It’s less than 200 small pages, but NYC is more like Tolstoy or Tolkien in length than (I hate to do this in a gender way, but you know what I mean) “I Married the Duke”, you know. So basically, I walk away from this wondering if the “Like A Local” series is maybe not worth the money they charge for it.

…. He doesn’t drink…. We have to stay vegan…. It’s hopeless. Hopeless. 😔

😸

Anyway, I’m in the unusual position of needing to hang onto a book that I think is pretty flawed. 🤖

…. I’m in this in between place, where I have all these scruples (eg vegan is good) so I can’t be like a 22-year-old beast who just rips people apart at the “Kiss on the Lips” party, you know—that could actually be bad—but I don’t want to under-earn and spend all my money on books forever, and call that religion or progressivism, or being too good for the world, right—too good for this planet! 🌎

But I can still appreciate a bookstore that has so much international fiction that they organize it by country, you know. That’s a trip. It really is.

…. And I’m starting to come around to thinking it could be nice to shop for home-goods, much more so than when I indifferently and out of duty worked at the very literally named HomeGoods, you know…. Although I can’t go back to that literal chain, because of the guilt-inducing credit card sell, you know. (Oh, how they beat the cashiers there! 😧).

…. One of the good things about reading about a place—in a travel sense, like, here’s where you find a comedy joint—is that you might actually go there; you’re less likely to get lulled into thinking that reading a book is interchangeable with having an experience, you know…. And the other good thing is, you can imagine people being happy, being accommodated slightly better than the people on the Bataan Death March or in Bergen-Belsen, or even in Bed-Stuy before Malcolm, you know.

🕶️