Summer Turned Into Autumn And The Merlino's Orange Freeze...

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ADOBO AND SAZON!!!

The Sazon and Adobo seasonings are back in stock! Wow! These two salt free blends are versatile and can be used on so much more than just Puerto Rican food. Our sazon is still the only on the market that uses wild achiote directly from Puerto Rico!

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Y’all. Remember Diasporican: A Puerto Rican Cookbook? It’s still for sale.

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During the first week of June, I told Mami, “It’s going to be a mild summer.” And I was right. It seems I’ve gotten to that age where I can predict these things and not from wisdom, but from experience. I can also tell by the way my thoughts will change direction.

The light is changing outside. It’s becoming golden and welcoming. It’s almost autumn. Time for Elliott Smith level of reflection. My latest direction of thoughts? The year is 2008 and my chosen situationship is a mid twenties Japanese skateboarder who’s an MFA in a creative writing program at SFSU. Our chosen activity is depleting bottles of my chosen poison at the time, tequila or Hennessy, while blasting The Smiths in his Outer Mission apartment.

My party trick is hiding a 200ml bottle of Hennessy in the inside pocket of my thrifted corduroy blazer because, for some weird reason, some of us were dressing in business casual attire during the mid 2000s. Art parties in converted industrial buildings with industrial elevators were still a thing, but so were banjos. Valencia Street was flooded with dudes who wore all black, skinny jeans and leather jackets who would soon turn their eyes to the indie folk scene and start to impersonate civil war veterans in tintypes. Complete with performing songs that talk about losing forlorn lovers to the consumption.

Somehow I stumbled (drunkenly) into the middle of it all. A life entirely opposite from the life I had in my hometown and that was probably the point. What I could not shake was my passion for the drink and self-sabotaging my own life so spectacularly that I was forced to start over. And over. And that became the theme every four to five years. I started over in 1996 when I was 15 and my dad ghosted me, resulting in a binge and warpath so resplendent that it resulted in Mami kicking me out. I started over in 2000 when the house I was living in at the end of Santa Ynez Street caught on fire, leaving me with nothing but the clothes on my back. And on and on and on.

The current urge to blow my life up and start over is so fucking strong I can’t tell if I’m going insane or going through perimenopause. 

Summers in this part of the Bay Area are mostly mellow and mild. Not as mellow as the near constant 65°F that San Francisco experiences, but not as treacherous as the triple digit temperatures of my hometown. When I drive home to see Mami, the heat bestows a compassionate donkey punch as you cut through Lynch Canyon and descend into the Apollyonian valley.

We’re in the homestretch of summer (I can smell autumn in the mornings). The California State Fair was on my mind a few weeks ago. Although I have only been to the state fair twice, I have absolutely no plans to partake. Still, it’s nice to know it’s there. Sidebar: I’ve lived in San Francisco and the Bay Area for the last 19 years and I’ve also never gone to Alcatraz. End sidebar.

While I was doing my research on the fair it reminded me of Merlino’s Orange Freeze.

Merlino’s bright orange hot box - pumping out endless cups of its frozen orange slush made from freshly squeezed orange juice - served as a neutrality zone where me and Mami could grab a quick bite while she was on her break during one of her numerous 12 hour shifts at the hospital. I’d take the 51 bus from Florin Mall and ring the bell for the stop directly across the street from Merlino’s. Mami would walk the one mile distance between Merlino’s and UCD Med Center. The only issue, Merlino’s only operated during the summer months. And it only had outdoor seating.

Hoping that we didn’t spot my Titi while she solicited under the influence on the boulevard (because it was a part of her stroll during this period of time), Mami and I would try and nab a few chairs and move them into the shade the VFW building and the large trees provided.

We’d catch up on what was important to 14-year-old me while breathlessly devouring salty dirty water weenies lathered with nothing but sharp French’s mustard, in a soft warm and steamed bun, before moving on to the freeze.

Half orange and half strawberry for me. Half orange and half pineapple for Mami. There is nothing in all of Sacramento that can cool you down instantaneously like a Merlino’s freeze. The Sacramento sun during a customary 115°F day can blister your tongue in the few moments it’s exposed in order to receive the icy treat. The freshly squeezed sweet and sour zing from the orange juice clings to the delicate ice crystals for dear life only to dissolve on your tongue delivering a moment of detonation. By the time your buds are puckered you’ve finally reached the ever so sweet fruity and green flavors of strawberry to mellow the puckeration. I guess mami liked to constantly be down with the sickness as she worked through the orange only to be met with the piña. Typical Catholic move; flagellation by food.

This ritual didn’t last long as Mami started to use her breaks to catch some zeds after an episode where she fell asleep behind the wheel only 300 feet away from home. She woke herself up before veering too far off the road and no one and nothing was damaged or injured. The way Sacramento and her neighborhood is now, lego-locked with a RVs and cars, slamming into something would have been inevitable. Fortunately, no one was on the road much in Sacramento during the early hours of 5AM back in the 90s.

I guess the timing was right, because I turned 15 and the rituals between Mami and I turned from wholesome to wholemess. A different ritual began of uninterrupted arguing and misunderstandings. In my memory, it’s when I turned into the angry person I am today. In my memory. I’m sure someone from the outside looking in would say different. Like, my friend Damien who told me I had turned not only angrier, but bitter (as a consolation prize), after we left culinary school. A time when I made a very unpopular decision imperative for survival. A very pellucid observation I still cherish these six-years he’s been in the afterlife.

Bauldie L. Merlino was born July 2, 1908 in Canyon City, Colorado. Bauldie's parents immigrated to Colorado from Italy. As a Teenager, he joined his father working in the coal mines. In 1928, he moved to Sacramento, CA where he met his future wife, Mary. Together they opened Merlino's Orange Freeze in 1946, across the street from the old state fairgrounds on the corner of 3rd Avenue and Stockton Boulevard.

Both the California State Fair and Merlino’s would pack it up on Labor Day (opening the day after Memorial Day).

Merlino’s original recipe for the orange freeze calls for “freshly squeezed orange juice,  water and a spoonful of sugar.” Originally, they’d add the juice into five-gallon milk cans, add that into a larger container with rock salt and water, and stirred by hand.

These days, the same ingredients are still poured into five-gallon buckets and combined thoroughly. Then they’re poured into an automatic machine. It’s not a slushie/y/ee, or a dole whip or a sorbet. It’s more like an Italian Ice. No, a water ice. Water ice is creamier than shaved ice, but more ice crystal-y than Italian ice.

According to my friend Nando, “the orange, lemon, lime and grapefruit all use freshly squeezed juice.” Nando will also spare no time in telling you how he used to be a production manager at Merlino’s so he, “knows all of the recipes.” Ok, Nando. Calm down.

Temme Hagen (back left), Mary Merlino (front left), Ray Merlino (front right) at the Carmichael location, circa 1970s

Mami holding my half Orange/half Strawberry at Hagen’s

In 1965 Merlino’s opened a second location in Carmichael, CA. When Merlino’s filed for bankruptcy in 2000, the business was forced into liquidation after accumulating $1.3 million in debt, which included the construction costs of a 160,000-square-foot factory. The sale of Merlino’s was completed in 2008 when executives of the Sacramento River Cats bought the company.

Around the same time Temme and Toy Hagen (married couple and former employees of Merlino’s) bought the Carmichael location and changed the name to Hagen’s Orange Freeze. Hagen’s boasts that it sells the original (and protected) recipe. So, if you want to try the orange freeze in its original glory as if it was still 1946, you can! What’s that Nando? He also says to pass on the milk-based flavors because, well, I’ll use his words, “Stay away from the milk-based flavors at [Hagen’s] those shits are nasty and leave a film of slimy texture on your lengua. Hella nasty.”

Unfortunately, Bauldie Merlino passed away in 2007 at the age of 98-years-old.

The Merlino’s locations have all has since closed. You can still purchase orange freeze’s with the Merlino’s name brand at River Cats’ games, but I’ve heard they don’t taste the same. The original orange stand made from aluminum still sits on the corner of Stockton Blvd and 3rd Avenue as a constant reminder. It now operating as an eatery called Purple Pig Eats.