First things first: We just got into Amazon.com.  If you're shopping there, and feel like some snacks, DEFINITELY grab some.  The shipping prices blow our website's out of the water.  Thanks to everyone that made this possible.  We're very excited to be sold amongt such esteemed companies as Rhonda Byrne's "The Secret" and "The Rocket Rod".

Earlier on in the California Files I mentioned my muchacha Dana and her Goat Milk Ice Cream company, Laloo's.  Though I met her only a month ago, she's turned out to be a pretty cool dame, and I can safely vouch for her should anyone somehow run into her and wonder, "is this dame cool or not?"  Take it from me- she passes the test.

Anyway, last week the Peeled Snacks crew met up with Dana for a little din-din and chin-chin, during which we spilled out all our goofy, confused, barely credible analysis of California and its ways and means.  By no means are we neophytes (having lived in San Diego for a couple of years somewhere back there), yet somehow there still remained an unanswered "Riddle of California" about which we puzzled:

Why are people here so "Chill"?

If you've romped out here, you know something about it- the placidity of people, the ease with which they trundle down the streets, the smoothness of their smiles, the evenness of their tones.  Coming from New York, I'm used to ruffled feathers everywhere.  In my adopted city, everything IS out to get you- the taxis will run you over, the shop owners will rip you off, the hustlers will steal your baby.  You have to toughen yourself, and that toughening, frankly, ruffles the feathers of the soul (and skin of the face, in the form of wrinkles).

Here in San Francisco, the taxis are, for the record, MORE dangerous than the ones in New York (the city has the nation's highest pedestrian death rate).  The shops are just as much of a rip off.  And try wandering through San Francisco's frightfully dodgy "Tenderloin" district without someone trying to pinch something, ANYTHING off of you.  And yet, in spite of such similar slings and arrows and outrageous fortune, people here just seem to have a firmer grip on their inner Buddha.

Well, these observations (and others, like marvelling at how the yearly San Francisco Valentine's Day "Pillow Fight" (see photo above), fought between throngs of 20-something hipsters out front of the Ferry Building, would never work in NYC, what with all the thugs, creeps, and weirdos) I put before Dana, imploring her to make sense of this mad, happy city.  With her infectious laugh she took the question, played with it a moment, and offered this insight:

"People here just get into a routine.  They find a groove, and run with it."

Ah-HAH!!!  What makes Bay area denizens function! So if you say "Groovy" here, you're actually saying something somewhat complex.  So get into a "groove," a routine, is perhaps, a way to take the madness that abounds in this area and navigate it.  Pick a life destination, chart a firm course, and stick to it.

I can relate this all to the selling of snacks only by saying that we're trying to fit Peeled Snacks into as many of those grooves as possible.  I'm positive that many a groove would welcome our yummy snacks, but finding our way to the record player proves quite a task.  You gotta admit, though- Peeled Snacks make a LOT of sense in the context of West Coast routines.  When we blow up here, there'll be wonderful, groovy repercusions.