Pea Soup Wine

by Citizen Jon-O

280 miles north of Los Angeles (middle of nowhere) lies the tiny dust covered hamlet of Santa Nella. Existing entirely due to the fact that interstate 5 runs straight through the middle of it, Santa Nella is loaded with gas stations, truck stops, and fast food joints. Overall, Santa Nella is unremarkable in every way with the exception of one distinguishing landmark…a big windmill that is visible from a good two or three miles away. This windmill serves one purpose and one purpose only…it’s to let the hungry traveler know that they have arrived at the world famous (in my mind anyway) Pea Soup Andersen’s, home of the world’s greatest split pea soup.

Like many old school travel stops, Andersen’s has a theme and their theme is glorious Denmark! As you enter the giftshop/bar/coffeeshop/restaurant/hotel, you’re immediately thrust into a world of faux Danish delights and décor. Most of these tacky monuments to all things Danish beckon you to enjoy Andersen’s famous split pea soup, and for decades, enjoying the split pea soup is exactly what my family, the Anderson’s (with an O, not an E like the restaurant) has done.

As luck would have it, I was fortunate enough to be able to drive my wife, kids, and mother in law from Orange County to Fremont last month, and, as luck would have it, the kids took my side and agreed that the place to eat along the way on our eight hour journey was Andersen’s. In all the years of going to Pea Soup Andersen’s, I’d only enjoyed their ‘Travelers Special’ (all you can eat split pea soup and bread…with a milkshake or soft drink for $8.95…yum) with the occasional French dip thrown in if I was feeling hi-falutin and continental. However, on this particular visit to Andersen’s, my wife was going to take over the driving duties for the last 90 minutes so I decided I’d live large and enjoy a glass of wine with my split pea soup. The decision to have a glass of vino was a huge shift from family tradition and a major ‘adult moment’ for me. I’d never felt more in charge of my own destiny.

I knew the evening was going to be a special one when the hostess seated us in the dining room (which was closed at the time), instead of the coffee shop. With its 20 foot high ceilings adorned with dozens of large multi-colored Danish inspired banners hanging from the rafters, the dining room is a much more sophisticated environment than the coffee shop, and, as such, is only open to distinguished guests such as myself. With only one other family in the dining room, I felt the time was certainly right to break the decades old tradition of ordering the Traveler’s Special alone and go with a nice glass of red wine as an add-on.

To set the stage, a description of the personnel attending to us at Andersens is required. The hostess, who we’ll call Rosa, was a small town girl who, by the looks of her hair and makeup, didn’t venture more than five miles from I5 very often. Rosa was clearly built for breeding, was unattractive, but had a look in her eye that told me she knew her way around the bedroom in a big way and she didn’t get cheated when it came time for fucking. Our waiter, who was also the manager, we’ll call him Daniel, was a very earnest and hard working young man who was slightly bumbling, short, and moderately overweight. Although he clearly had his challenges, the way Daniel wore his logoed tie, had his shirt ironed crisply, and did his damnest to do a good job told me he was the type of guy who is the salt of the earth, the kind of dude who finds a wallet and doesn’t take the money…a simple yet honorable man. Admirable. This pair, unbeknownst to them, had been chosen by fate to serve me, the man accused by all of being a ‘food snob’ and the wine columnist for the Floral Park Neighborhood Newsletter…the greatness was among them and they didn’t even know it.

Upon sitting down, Rosa strutted up to the table, all the while eyeballing me like she was trying to figure out whether or not she’d break me if the situation presented itself. Homely at best, but oozing raw untamable sexuality, Rosa asked me if I’d like something to drink. I told her I’d have a glass of red wine. To this, Rosa said “Would you like to see the wine list?” I replied “There IS a wine list?”. At this point, Rosa’s face changed and she looked at me like she wanted to have a little meeting with me, a rope, and a tree…she clearly didn’t appreciate my humor. Rosa brought the wine list, a laminated sheet of paper, and presented it to me. The Pea Soup Andersen’s wine list is a who’s who of low rent jug wine that wouldn’t be fit for a hobo, but at the very bottom, at $4.25 per glass, I found what I was looking for, the ‘house’ cabernet sauvignon. For those who’ve never had the pleasure, the house cabernet at Pea Soup Andersen’s is ‘Copper Ridge’, a non vintage wine that I was sure would have great character and depth. I ordered the house cabernet and bid Rosa and her sexuality adieu. And now, the tasting……

The Presentation:

When I saw Rosa inform Daniel that someone had ordered wine, it looked as if she had told him she was knocked up and the kid was his. Shock and awe are the first words that come to mind when I recall Daniel’s face. When Daniel promptly returned with the wine, he looked as if he was carrying a flaming beehive; it was as if something was going to explode and he needed to unload it as soon as possible. While lacking in elegance and grace, Daniel made up for the freakish nature of his delivery with sheer volume. I don’t know if the tab on the box had stuck open or what, but the wine glass was filled to the very rim with Copper Ridge Cabernet and, as Daniel set it down, the wine sloshed over the sides and splashed on the table. Looking at the heaping glass of wine, I couldn’t help but wonder if Rosa had struck a deal with Daniel and she was trying to get the ‘out of towner’ drunk so she could take advantage of me in the handicap stall in their Denmark themed men’s room…tee heee.

The Nose:

Back in the day, a certain someone who likes wine played himself a little football and he played it pretty well. Additionally, back in the day, terms like “hazing” and “hate crime” and “abuse” were really just funny words that educated people used and were of no consequence to us football stars. As such, when we had football practice, some of us gentlemen on the team would ‘play a game’ where we’d give some of the other guys on the team a little something we liked to call “The Mustachio”. The way the mustachio worked was, you’d do your warmups..the standard pushups, wind sprints, sit ups, stretching, etc. and get a nice sweat going. Once one knew they were good and sweaty, one could get started with Mustachio implementation:

Step 1: Take two fingers and shove them down your pants, all the way down to your taint (the taint is the area between your legs where it aint yer balls and it aint your asshole)
Step 2: Firmly wipe the two fingers between your coinpurse and your thigh from your taint all the way up to your fuzz
Step 3: Find unsuspecting victim (had to be someone you could out run or, if the need arose, someone you knew you could drop like third period French)
Step 4: Run up behind unsuspecting victim and wipe the two fingers across victim’s upper lip leaving a ballsweat mustache known as ‘The Mustachio’. Word on the street was that the delicate aroma of sweaty balls would stay with the recipient for hours on end.

Now that The Mustachio has been explained, just understand that when I brought the wineglass to my nose, it was as if every mustachio I’d ever given was given back to me in one mighty swipe, straight from the nuts of Satan himself. The Copper Ridge Cabernet was a hot batch of ballsweat and nitrates…but I was determined to drink it. After all, I am a professional.

The Taste:

As I brought the heaving glass of Copper Ridge to my mouth, it felt as if the whole world was watching, as if no one could believe a human would actually follow through with drinking it. I paused, took one more sniff of the putrid liquid, then drank.

Once the stabbing chest pains subsided and I regained consciousness, the Copper Ridge Cabernet gave a powerful burning sensation on the palate at first, eventually giving way to a taste that I can only describe as huge fruit and alcohol with strong notes of asphalt, sheep droppings, and the sweatband of a migrant worker’s hat after a day in the sun. The finish was powerful and shocking with a hint of hot grass cuttings and kerosene that lingered longer than a monstrous case of herpes.

Not wanting to insult Daniel or give that sex fiend Rosa the satisfaction of seeing me back down, I drank the entire glass of Copper Ridge lustily and acted as if it were the very nectar of the gods poured from the nipple of Venus herself! (In reality I was calculating how long it would take poison control to make it out to Santa Nella, there’s a prison nearby, so surely it couldn’t take too long…). Rosa quickly approached me and offered another glass but I declined and made a stupid pantomime of someone driving a car whilst shitfaced like some kind of dipshit Clark Griswold impersonator. She walked away with a smartass grin on her face and we quickly finished our soup and skeedaddled out of there.

In short, I do not recommend Copper Ridge Caberne to anyone unless you are planning on killing a dog in the most cruel manner possible or stripping the paint off your car. Overall, I know it will take me a long time to get over the post traumatic stress disorder that will surely follow my consumption of Copper Ridge Cabernet, but I don’t regret it for a minute. There are those timid souls who say life is too short to drink cheap wine, and then there are courageous wine drinkers like me who say: ‘Fuck that, I’m drinkin’ it all!’ The next time you’re afraid to drink shitty wine, just remember me and the Copper Ridge and know that it can’t get any worse than that.