Life in California is full of vexing questions. What diabolical force is behind the pickleball trend? Can you encourage your kid to skip the “healthy”-candy houses on Halloween? If you see one of the Chrises at a SAG-AFTRA picket, can you ask them which Chris they are?
Alta Journal has enlisted two experts to answer all of your questions: reclusive desert-dwelling memoirist Stacey Grenrock Woods and Anaheim-raised VW-bus evangelist Gustavo Arellano, both of whom bring decades of hard-won knowledge and laser-sharp insights into the Golden State.
Have a question of your own? Ask a Californian!
Is it OK to tell my friend to bring their own food when they send me a paragraph-long rundown of their dietary needs?
—Eat It
Stacey: Just one paragraph? Just one friend? Are you sure you’re in California?
Not only is it OK to dis-accommodate the dietary demands of anyone you’ve taken it upon yourself to feed, but it’s downright kind. By rejecting their mandates, you allow your guests to escape their food prisons for a few hours and maybe even stumble onto something like a good time. Really, you’re giving them a gift (in addition to the gift of your hospitality, so that’s two gifts before the night even starts). Parties, as I understand them, are about the freedom to have fun, and the best party throwers know just what to give—and forbid—in order to wrestle that out of everyone.
I encourage you to encourage all of your current and future guests to live by my rule, which is to have all the mashed yeast and bowls of steam you please on your own time, but when you’re out in the world with other people, eat the best thing you can find, or what’s provided. (Of course, this method works better the less popular you are, so adjust your priorities accordingly.) Just tell your friend that, as intriguing as it sounds, you doubt you’ll be able to carve out the time to read the essay they wrote you about what they do and don’t eat but that you will allow them to bring their own effing food and eat it near the others (gift number three), not at the kids’ table. And if the “effing” gives you pause, feel free to use the full expletive.
Gustavo: I gotta say, I’m not as doctrinaire as Stacey on this! At the parties I go to, there’s something for everyone, and the hosts make sure to tell everyone that. Can’t eat beef birria? We got you: here’s a tray of rice! No grains? Dive into the nachos. Can’t eat dairy? Don’t worry: the nacho cheese is mostly chemicals, but here’s a Topo Chico to fill you. Nothing gaseous? Go for the goat birria!
Tell your picky pals that owing to California’s multicultural reality, our banquets make room for everyone, and if they still don’t feel comfortable diving into what’s available, then they’re just a privileged racist and the Erewhon is thataway. Your gluten-free and paleo pals will be scarfing down butter-drenched flour tortillas faster than a Prius speeding through Bakersfield.
Is it wrong to Zillow a new friend’s house as soon as I get their address?
—Harriet the Spy
Stacey: “As soon as” sounds a little hasty. But I suppose that if you’ve already googled them, peeked at their LinkedIn profile, crept on their Instagram, and scrolled through their Facebook photos to see how you two measure up, then Zillowing their house is all that’s left. But it’s still wrong.
Whether a relationship is new or old, covertly helping yourself to private information like what someone paid for their house is not a friendly move. Your cloudless sky will have been fouled, and you’ll have to spend the entirety of your relationship (which, with your luck, will be long and meaningful) not blurting your astonishment over how little $2.995M gets you in the Palisades. I don’t want this for you.
I’m not expecting you to suddenly develop a conscience—the fact that you asked not if it was OK to, only if it was too soon to, Zillow tells me you’re a bit of a lost cause in the righteousness department, but if you value your serenity, much less your relationships, you must restrain yourself. And if you’ve already done it (you have, haven’t you?), you can absolve yourself by offering your friend something of equivalent sensitivity, like, say, the past six months of your search history—incognito tabs included. Who knows: this kind of transparency might inspire them to consider you a real friend, and they’ll let the price of their house slip out one night when you’re both drunk-googling details of your childhood friends’ divorces and cackling like sickos.
Gustavo: OMG, I literally did this to two friends just before our Alta boss sent Stacey and me your letter! I don’t see anything wrong with this, because it’s inevitable. Besides, you’re not Zillowing the home of a stranger or your coworker. You’re investigating someone close to you, someone who already knows all of your deepest, darkest secrets and thus won’t flinch when you tell them that they paid double what you did a decade ago for the same spread, in a nicer part of town, with a better mortgage and a bigger down payment. If they don’t believe you, they can Zillow you right there and then as proof. This quién-es-más-homeowner goes back to the days of the Californios and their ranchos, and Zillow makes knowing what’s up far easier than leafing through a bunch of yellowed land grant documents at your local mission, you know?
Why do Orange County natives shy away from admitting they’re from Orange County? They always try to gloss over it and just say they’re from Southern California. If they have any connection to Los Angeles, they love to work that in somehow. What’s this all about?
—Oh, See
Stacey: I think you know what it’s about, and if this is some kind of trick to get me to say mean things about Orange County, it’s not going to work.
I didn’t think people were still ashamed about being from there, so I’m surprised and touched to find out they are. I’m a native Angelena, so when, in my early 20s, I finally went behind the Orange Curtain, I was shocked. I like billboards, and sidewalks, and newsstands, and places that look different from one another. I found none of those there and swore I’d never return. But then, March 21, 2006, happened. I’m sure everyone remembers where they were that night, when The Real Housewives of Orange County premiered on Bravo. We were sure that shame and Orange County had finally parted ways.
In the following years, I was able to accept the fact that Orange County was the new center of the universe and simply move on with my life. But your lived experience suggests otherwise and reminds me of the discrimination I once faced for being from the Valley. No one should be ashamed of being from an area code that isn’t 213, and even though that is my actual area code, it seems there is still much work to do. So don’t be shy. Welcome the OC-er. Go up to them and say something like “I was just admiring your Black Flys” or “What’s your pit bull’s name?” or “What’s the story behind that nautical star on your neck?” Then do the hardest part: really listen to the answers. As the Bible says, you must welcome the stranger, for ye were once strangers in the land of L.A.
Gustavo: Stacey can’t say mean things about Orange County, but I can, given that my family has been here for over a century. I’m from the OC generation wherein anyone who was remotely liberal got the hell out of town, moved to Austin or L.A. or Chicago or New York, and proceeded to spend the rest of their life telling anyone who asked where they were from that they grew up “near Los Angeles.” The embarrassment was real. (You forgot the Sublime T-shirt and USC flag, Stacey.) That’s why I stayed and devoted most of my career to making Orange County a place people would be proud of proclaiming as their homeland.
My mission was so successful that I now work all of Los Angeles, for the L.A. Times.
Gustavo Arellano is the author of Orange County: A Personal History and Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. In 2025, Arellano was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his work as a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. He was formerly editor of OC Weekly, an alternative newspaper in Orange County, California, and penned the award-winning ¡Ask a Mexican!, a nationally syndicated column in which he answered any and all questions about America’s spiciest and largest minority. Arellano is the recipient of awards ranging from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Best Columnist to the Los Angeles Press Club President’s Award to an Impact Award from the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and he was recognized by the California Latino Legislative Caucus with a 2008 Spirit Award for his “exceptional vision, creativity, and work ethic.” Arellano is a lifelong resident of Orange County and is the proud son of two Mexican immigrants, one of whom came to this country in the trunk of a Chevy.
Stacey Grenrock Woods is a regular contributor to Esquire and a former correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. She writes and consults on various TV shows, and has a recurring role as Tricia Thoon on Fox’s Arrested Development. Her first book is I, California.
