"The Adobo Road" Book Signing at Vroman's Bookstore

One thing I learned while driving around in Pasadena with Cathy was that Colorado is one super LONG street! It is part of the route used for the Rose Parade...

Fresh from our super quick pop into Mignon Chocolates, we headed over to Vroman's, which is the oldest and largest independent bookstore in Southern California.

We would be getting there early for "The Adobo Road" booksigning...

Founded in 1894 by Adam Clark Vroman, the original bookstore was located on the same street by many blocks away from the current location. The bookstore expanded over the years and has been at this location since 1929.

Parking on the street is timed and metered.

If you go to the back, you can find meter free parking but you have to patronize the bookstore for that privilege, which we were going to do.

Pretty tile work as seen near a ramp behind Vroman's.

We had almost an hour to look around and wait. Better inside than out since it was quite hot that day.

I love bookstores like this and only wish that San Diego still had our old bookstores intact. For those who may remember Wahrenbrock's in downtown San Diego was the closest thing to Vroman's. It was an antiquarian bookstore on 8th and Broadway and was run by the late Chuck Valverde. When he passed away in 2008, the bookstore stayed on for nearly a year before closing up shop and having a big blow out sale.

I remember going to Wahrenbrock's in college and befriending one of the clerk's there. He even let me see the third floor where the most rare antiquarian volumes were held. San Diego, at least until the early to mid-90's was rife with antique bookstores and booksellers. Then, there was a big wave of the larger stores taking over and squeezing the lifeblood out of many of these specialty bookstores (i.e. Barnes and Noble, Crown discount books, Borders). Where's Borders now? Out of business. Crown went away as well. Barnes and Noble is still hanging in there. Of course, booksales from online giant Amazon.com  also sealed the nails in the coffin even more so. There's a market for everything I supposed, but old time values and service are still quite present here in Vroman's.

Marvin's event was listed on the board:

I had three books that I bought off of Amazon ($10.87), but I bought one from the bookstore at retail price since it was required but also as a courtesy. It was worth it! My mom already claimed the first one I bought.

The author's reception area...

One of the Vroman's workers said that Marvin was running late due to traffic, but he was there soon enough.

After a brief introduction, Marvin spoke to the audience about his background, his love of Filipino food, his attempts to seek out his culture through experimenting with the recipes, as well as his experience as a former food truck entrepreneur ("The Manila Machine").

After Marvin spoke, he fielded questions from the audience, many of whom I noticed were NOT Filipino, which I found interesting. I was kind of disappointed that not more of us (I speak for myself as a Filipina American) were there to support his cookbook, but perhaps there were other reasons for the lack of Filipino/Filipino American representation.  He had booksignings in San Francisco and New York that were widely attended, but were also held at restaurants (Purple Yam and Jeepney in NYC). In any case, I was still happy to be there and to finally meet the face behind the blog and the cookbook.

In person, Marvin Gapultos is a very humble and seriously cool guy. Very humble and friendly.  He was so gracious when signing my books and I felt a bit tongue tied when finally meeting him.

I really enjoyed his cookbook and am still trying out many of the recipes. Even my mom who doesn't even look at cookbooks did his "Lying Laing" recipe using kale from her backyard. I was impressed that my mom did this since she hardly relies on recipes. She even did a salad recipe from his book for a recent family gathering as well (sorry, no photos of that!).

The book signing and lecture was the major highlight of my day and I'm sure Cathy would also agree.

Vroman's
695 E. Colorado Blvd
Pasadena, CA 91101
(626) 449-5320

www.vromansbookstore.com

Now, we had a little scare, but it was nothing to get too worried about. Cathy accidentally left her keys in her car, in an effort to roll down her windows for ventilation. This fact wasn't noticed until after the book signing was finished. Luckily, the situation was nothing that Triple AAA couldn't fix, so within the hour, our savior, Mr. Hernandez, arrived and we were on our way back to  San Diego!

After nearly an hour of driving, it was time for a pit stop and yes, dinner.  Up next, our last destination...