A Review of "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country: The Biography of Randy Newman" by Robert Hilburn

 

A tunesmith with a con, not a song, in his heart, Randy Newman is a quintessential American composer. And like America, what a bill of goods Newman sells us: racist rednecks and drop-the-bomb political science, feel my pain anthems and a testy Old Testament God.

He gets away with singing from the viewpoint of these twisted characters for a slew of reasons. Despite a fiercely appreciative fan base, he’s never been able to sell himself; flying outside the radar of Top 40 has freed him from attacks from the irony-impaired, except for his one hit, an infamy that was, uh, short-lived. (His best known song, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” beloved heart of the Toy Story films, never got released as a single, fyi.)

But those who are in the know get to know people they might never have otherwise. His lyrics, despite the humor that mostly means we laugh ’cause we don’t know what else to do while squirming, give voice to those we’d rather not hear from, like the sweet promises of the slave trader in “Sail Away,” the N-word dropping titular Southerner in “Rednecks.” But the true dignity these characters get are from the tunes. From a family of film composers, and multiply nominated for Oscars himself, Newman invests a cinematic quality to his melodies, providing each song with a kind of back-story.

A Few Words in Defense of Our Country, Robert Hilburn’s new bio of Newman, means to make the case for Newman as one of the great artists of our time. Throughout the book he interpolates encomiums from esteemed figures, and he kicks that off with none other than Dylan himself (he’s a Nobel Prize winner, you know). Hilburn is not here to bury Newman but to praise him, setting up with his prologues a two-pronged attack—Newman as prescient, penetrating American Jeremiah, sagely realizing the root of our national original sin is racism, and Newman as brilliantly funny.

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.

A Review of "Didion & Babitz" by Lili Anolik

Perched in a cultural place between Ryan Murphy’s Bette and Joan and Craig Seligman’s Sontag & Kael: Opposites Attract Me, Lili Anolik’s Didion & Babitz pairs up exemplars of their age to examine how their age let them (and pretty much most women) down. Just as Seligman made the case for an Apollonian Susan Sontag and a Dionysian Pauline Kael, Anolik does the same for the heady, distant Joan Didion and the easily past Dionysus all the way to Bacchus Eve Babitz. This book is not a high-blown literary assessment or simply a twined biography, but cultural criticism told in an engaging, gossipy tone in which Anolik often directly addresses the reader, sets us up for her methods, previews her structure, even offers two versions of one crucial event and then shrugs and says, “You decide.” Didion & Babitz reads as if you and Anolik were cozied up in a red leather booth at Musso & Frank Grill, dishing dirt over bone-dry martinis.

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.

Review also posted at the Santa Barbara Independent on January 2, 2025.

A Review of "Life at the Dumpling" by Trisha Cole

 

Despite the obvious misery of the pandemic, if you had the luck, privilege, and health to make it through, it also provided opportunity. It forced us to slow, to focus on how our houses must be homes. It opened up the hours to do what we never allowed ourselves the time to do, whether bake bread (put the pan in pandemic?) or engage our arts-and-craftsy sides we tend to under-prioritize in a world of pressing deadlines.

In Trisha Cole’s case, it gave her time to crank out a family and friends newsletter, typed and handwritten and illustrated in a charming way that will create warm feelings of nostalgia for those of us who still pore over falling apart copies of the Moosewood Cookbook. Which is only fitting, as the newsletters offered recipes, poems, encouraging quotes, word search games, fashion tips from Cole’s teen girls, and more. And now the book Life at the Dumpling compiles the first 20 newsletters, originally penned and shipped from March 2020 to March 2023.

Care to read the rest then do at the California Review of Books.

Review also posted at the Santa Barbara Independent on October 24, 2024.

Review of "Ladies Who Lunch: a satirical taste of L.A." by Josef Woodard

 

It’s 1990-something, and although fabulous Danielle Wiffard’s marriage is about to blow, fortunately for her (and this book’s readers), all of L.A.’s eligible bachelors, not to mention its ineligible but still very willing married men, are eager for a dalliance and maybe more. But not much more, for this is L.A., of course, and the surfaces tend to run surface deep. At least in the way they’re reflected in Josef Woodard’s biting but far from bitter debut novel Ladies Who Lunch: a satirical taste of L.A.

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books site.

Review of "Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught Between" by Eric Nusbaum

 

If there were any justice, the names Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop would be as well-remembered a baseball triumvirate as Tinker, Evers, and Chance. But if there were justice, there’d be no need for Eric Nusbaum’s wide-ranging, moving, and powerful history Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught Between. That first list of three names are the Mexican-American communities that existed in what we now know as Chávez Ravine, erased by history. Nusbaum’s book helps us see the vibrant life of those communities, done in at first by what was (arguably) a misguided desire to build public housing, but eventually became the golden real estate opportunity for Walter O’Malley to leave Brooklyn and bring Dodger baseball to the west coast.

Want to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.

Bright Lights, Black Market

And we take a break from our irregularly scheduled Irish programming to bring you crispy spring rolls you really need to have from a spot much closer, Studio City. For before the amazing, he's a national, if still quite edgy treasure Randy Newman show at the Hollywood Bowl last night, we finally got to Black Market Liquor Bar, under the watchful eye of executive chef Antonia Lofaso (you might remember her from two Top Chef seasons). It's just down Ventura Boulevard from Barrel & Ashes (which somehow I have never written about, sorry), which makes this an enviable neighborhood for eats.

Those are some of the better spring rolls I've ever had, so it was no surprise to see servers bringing them out to pretty much every table in the wonderful room with a brick-barreled ceiling and fans run by old-school pulleys. Cool in so many ways. As for the spring rolls, they were crispy indeed, without any oily ooze, and stuffed with flavor, shiitake as umami stars. Your server suggests you wrap the roll in lettuce and add Thai basil, mint, and cilantro, so you get all that fresh herb kick (should be even more of those, actually, and fewer of the bean sprouts, but that might just be my particular palate talking). Here's hoping you're with a loved one sharing these, as that meager spoon isn't going to do; you're going to want to dip, and sloppy seconds and more, your roll in the yummy nuoc mam sauce, ripe with fish sauce and vinegar and lime.

Next we did the kale salad because California. It comes with pickled shallot, pecorino romano, bottarga, crushed egg, and the last three sort of do an unusual, no mayo gribiche thing, so picking them apart is tricky. But it's all direct, simple, and delish, so you won't mind, unless you need to feel you're paying for salted, cured fish roe.

You might have figured this is mostly a shared plates place, because you're smart and that's what we did. So here's perhaps the star of the evening (which means something): smoked ocean trout, ciabatta, pickled baby veg, quail egg. Think of it as an open faced, less Provencal Nicoise, with smoked trout standing in for tuna and you're sort of on the right track. While beautifully composed, it also was deliciously mixed together, so, for instance, you got a bit of pickled baby green bean with some of that superb smoked fish, and eggs the right size to match.

And then there's the crispy mackerel, that's truly crispy even in a bunch of sauce, redolent of coconut, cilantro, ginger, green papaya, peanut, chili, and lime. Now, there might be too much accoutrement, and not enough fish (particularly at $24), but my god was that unctuously oily fish scrumptious. And it's not like the last seven ingredients can really go wrong, especially as the dish also is braced by enough vinegar to keep a spiky sour spine through every bite.

And I didn't even mention the pleasing cocktails. We would go back, but while it's closer than Ireland, it's still a bit of a drive.

Vegging Out in LA

"Fun, fun fun. We've got roving entertainers throughout the festival grounds. We've got all kinds of cool activities for children in the Kumquat Kid's area. And the energy is unbelievable. We've been putting on these sorts of festivals for 7 years now, and it never gets old. There's something magical when so many compassionate and energetic people get together for the weekend. But just remember to arrive hungry--you won't go home that way!"

That's how Sarah Gross, co-founder of U.S. Veg Corp, pitches the California Vegetarian Food Festival, which takes place September 16-17 at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood. The 2nd annual festival will have beer, wine and cocktails, benefit the Best Friends Animal Society and be a showcase of 100% vegan innovation and goods, with cutting edge plant-based food, live music, fitness classes, kids’ activities, Saturday night film screening and more.

I had the opportunity to conduct an email interview with Gross and Nira Paliwoda, the other co-founder of U.S. Veg Corp, so here you go, a snapshot of the festival and the state of vegetarianism.

(Sarah Gross and Nira Paliwoda, co-founder of U.S. Veg Crop)

GeorgeEats: This is year 2 for the festival--how are things different from last year?

Sarah Gross: We've got two days plus a Saturday night movie screening. Last year was only a single day. Also last year we were completely outside, and it was kind of warm. This year, we've got vendors inside as well, so that heat-sensitive products such as chocolate ought to be tempting. Several of our speakers are returning for an encore since their talks were so well-received last year. But we've got new speakers too, because there's always new research into the benefits of a plant-based diet.

Nira Paliwoda: All across the board, it’s bigger and better. More speakers, more vendors, more entertainment, more chef demonstrations, more activities and more surprises. We are celebrating all aspects of a well-rounded plant-based lifestyle which includes giving back. This year we are raising awareness and money for our charity partner, Best Friends Animal Society.

GeorgeEats: Obviously we are in some strange times politically. Has vegetarianism had to face any backlash in the Age of Trump?

Sarah Gross: Our first CAVFF was just days after Trump was elected. We feel there was a somber mood and lower attendance than there otherwise would have been. We haven't seen outright backlash to veganism though, not more than usual. Nothing in-your-face or anti-veg, in the way that now people are seen openly with swastikas. Eating healthy and living sustainably really are non-partisan issues. I really can't imagine how anyone could be against these things. We always try to stay positive at the festival. We don't shame omnivores; on the contrary, we invite them in to sample some amazing new cruelty-free products they probably haven't ever tried before.

Nira Paliwoda: If there is any backlash that we’ve seen, it’s more related to sustainability and environmental matters, which are interrelated with a plant-based lifestyle, rather than the food itself. The governmental cutbacks and restrictions to organizations and policies meant to protect the environment and foster sustainable innovation has angered many conscious consumers to the point of individual action where there wasn’t action before, which is a positive, actually. Of course, one would hope that the need to protect the environment and scientific fact would not be questionable things but unfortunately that’s not the world we live in right now. Our event is ultimately about education and we welcome guided debates so long as they remain logical and civil. But it’s not a forum for in your face activism on any level. It’s a family-friendly fun festival where we celebrate good food, wellness and products that happen to also be eco-friendly

GeorgeEats: I'm sure it's always hard to choose, but if you were going to pick a few highlights of the weekend, what would they be and why?

Sarah Gross: I'm perhaps most excited for a superwoman panel which will feature actress/model Simone Reyes, journalist/author Jane Velez Mitchell, Katie Clery from World Animal News, and Judie Mancuso of Social Compassion in Legislation. These are all powerhouses in the world of veganism and animal rights--to have them all on one stage will be amazing. The Emmy-nominated comedian Charles Horn will be back this year; he gives a terrific talk on how Hollywood can aid in the push for animal welfare. And there will be about 70 vendor booths, many of which will be offering free food samples--that's always a delicious highlight!

Nira Paliwoda: The live entertainment this year is off-the-charts. We have a stellar line-up of multiple award winning musicians, including multiple Grammy Award-winning artist Timothy Bloom. We also have some incredible vegan chefs demoing their skills such as Jacques Laventure aka “The Naked Chef” showing us how to make Texas BBQ Pulled Jackfruit and Yovana Mendoza aka “Rawvana” making Creamy Pesto Zucchini Noodles. Plus I have to mention the slew of kids activities, dance, meditation and yoga classes, and for those interested in something a bit stronger, there will be alcohol!

GeorgeEats: People always joke that bacon is the gateway drug to "convert" vegetarians to eating meat. What's the gateway food that would convince someone to become a vegetarian? Why?

Sarah Gross: Peanut Butter Pit Bull made by Rescue Chocolate! It's a very addictive chocolate bar, and of course most people can't even discern that it is vegan. But for a main course, I love Field Roast sausages, Sweet Earth's bacon and burgers and cheese from Miyoko's or Treeline. So many companies are producing fabulous vegan versions of good old American classic foods that vegans do not feel deprived in the least

Nira Paliwoda: I don’t think it’s just one food. There is so much out there now that tastes so close to meat and dairy that it’s virtually indiscernible. For example, Jackfruit is an amazing bbq pork/meat substitute. Also with the many delicious vegan milks and ice-creams out there such as coconut, pea, almond, rice, etc. there really is no reason not to switch over.

GeorgeEats: What's the most important thing people don't understand about the importance of being at least a flexitarian?

Sarah Gross: They may not realize that a vegan lifestyle does good on 3 different fronts at once. First, some understand that a plant-based diet is better for their health. There are numerous medical studies that prove this, and there are more in the literature every day. Second, veganism is a humane lifestyle. It is so empowering to know that the foods in your fridge and on your table have not contributed to the suffering of other sentient beings with whom we share our planet. Even just cutting down on the animal-based products will cut down on the overall quotient of suffering. Third, Mother Earth will thank you. Growing vegan foodstuffs uses far less natural resources than growing animals for food. If you're concerned about climate change or vanishing rain forests or species degradation, going vegan is a powerful corrective for all these problems and more.

Nira Paliwoda: Just like it’s important to vote, whatever drives you, be it your health, the animals, the environment, each meal counts to the greater good. If you eat more plant-based products you are supporting all three initiatives. Even if you aren’t able to go 100% vegan but do increase your plant-based food intake, you thereby help decrease the demand that leads to things like factory-farming while improving your overall health. Logically, it makes perfect sense.

******
Paliwoda choose to sum up the event this way: "This is a festival for everyone, young and old, vegan and open-minded omnivore alike. Come with a curious mind, empty belly and a willingness to be overwhelmed with a full weekend of family-friendly entertainment, activities and, of course, a plethora of delicious food!"

Friend and Dear Friend and a Restaurant's Encouragement

Given my love for Wallace Stevens' "The World as Meditation," how could I not be taken by Odys + Penelope? (And if that isn't the wonkiest beginning of any restaurant write-up, show me its competition.) We had the opportunity to hit the restaurant on the way back from San Diego a couple of weeks back just in time for DineLA. And while I always feel like taking advantage of such promos leaves a bit of a "R" for rube tattooed on your forehead, we'd been wanting to go to O+P since it opened, as we were fans of Hatfield's back in the day when fine dining was still a phrase you could utter and not watch your business model crumble. (Come remember with me now....) That super smart room, the full-view kitchen with so many chefs moving in such precision, the delicious-gorgeous food. We only had it once and missed it ever afterward.

So we looked forward to see what Quin and Karen Hatfield had in store for us at their latest spot. It's somewhat big yet still intimate, partially as the scent of smoke from the big grills in the kitchen hold you in its elemental arms. And right away what seems the least impressive wows you--we haven't had a salad we liked more in ages than their Sugar snap pea “Caesar” with creamy Parmesan slaw and roasted pepitas. Talk about reinventing a wheel that had gone a bit flat. The sliced up snap peas, so bright and crisp and just the right sweet, playing off the right-angled Caesar notes of garlic and anchovy, then the slaw a sort of salve, plus the necessary crunch from the pumpkin seeds. We shared one, wishing we had two. (Not that the grilled Argentinian white prawns with ginger chermoula disappointed, especially with their charcoal depth.)

Fighting FOMO, we went off the DineLA menu as we had to know what the bread-like goodness going out to so many tables was (we've also been to Sycamore Kitchen, and know Karen Hatfield bakes better than nearly anyone). Turns out they were cheese puffs--think gougeres with attitude as they're twice gougere size--and at least four times as yummy, somehow flaky, puffy, and cheesy all at once. What's more, they come with a smoked tomato romesco (that grill is hiding in so many dishes) that was so rich we didn't use the leftover white prawn butter we made them keep on the table for the cheese puffs.

Mains were both also crazy good. Chryss had early summer on a plate, oak grilled salmon, English pea and basil puree, cherry tomato salad, and grilled corn, each element of the dish perfection (it made you want a side of corn, for instance). Grill grill grill. I had the house made pappardelle, pork belly Bolognese, fried sage, supposedly the restaurant's most popular dish. I can see why: that sauce had what seemed like ages of flavor, if that makes sense, rooted in meat generally too good to be reduced like this, and that grill was in there somewhere doing its fiery magic. And someone can make pasta, too, that perfect tension that says fresh.

I could go on about the desserts, like a straightforward yet immaculately prepared chocolate budino with olive oil, sea salt, and a stunning take on the Oreo that should make Nabisco cry (or sue) and a coconut-cashew lime "pie," (it's kind of deconstructed, over the flakiest of tart shells) with local raspberries and toasted coconut ice cream that's all flavor in your face. Or the just inventive enough cocktails, or the helpful, timely, friendly, unobtrusive service. It's a place about comfort edging very close to something like fine dining, but then quick to say, "Servers wear jeans!" or "Smoke is like camping--how casual is that!" You're sure to say, "I need to go back."

No Miss Steak

Here's the danger about waiting six weeks to write about a dinner at a place that really truly is seasonal (yeah, yeah, everyone is seasonal now, which is why people are serving tomatoes like it's summer already)--going through PYT's current menu, only two things we had back in April are still on the menu and one is our dessert. So that's going to make this write-up a bit more impressionistic and less specific, but no less praise-full. For what Josef Centeno is doing at PYT (which might stand for Pretty Young Turnip), the mostly vegetarian restaurant he's carved out of the charming old school, mosaic-tiled Ledlow space downtown, is a delight. It's the kind of place you want to bring those who don't think vegetarian food is compelling; they will leave feeling both full, and very differently about the essential need for animal protein on a plate.

 OK, so that's a salad. The "greens' in this case are bok choy, grilled a bit, but then you can see how much other flavor joins them, from sultanas to what was called a snow of cheese. Fresh herbs. So much life in one dish. But with the bit of cooking on the bok choy, just enough sense of the seasons changing, too, spring warming out of winter.

 This plate might be even harder to read as a photo, but it's favas seriously seasoned and aside feta and dill and bread to scoop it all up, a sort of nod to hummus that's not so much deconstructed as un-constructed, so heartier, each element announcing itself to you as you ate it. You would be a fool not to welcome it back.

Then this, called morels and ramps. We sort of had to get it, given how you can't really buy either as just ingredients in Santa Barbara (why are we such a touch town in which to find interesting mushrooms?). If I recall correctly, there's sesame seed in there--he seems to like to dribble some seeds atop things to bring flavors together--and again, this truly sang spring.

 And those seeds are back for the hand-torn pasta, an exercise in the joys of texture. There's nothing quite like the pull-chew of "live" pasta, and this dish had that down. Centeno also finds wonderfully complementary matches from across the Pacific rim to make unusual, memorable flavors--here it's shisito peppers giving the cream a bit of zip, but then there's yuzu, and cilantro, and brown butter, and mint. Bright, brighter, brightest. Talk about figuring out how to make pasta seem not in the least bit a heavy dish.

That's dessert--peanut pudding, whipped cream, salty caramel. Perhaps the one less pleasing dish of the night, but then again, it didn't have any veggies. (Plus it could have more salty caramel, because what couldn't.)

Still, we'd go back in a sec to see what's the best stuff just fresh from the fields meant to taste even more like its own loveliness.

Pasta Perfect

Italian food doesn't have it easy. I mean, the tricky part is it's everywhere like air, and I say that as someone who grew up in northern Jersey, where the air is heavier. Sure, we all like air, but it's easy to take for granted, and have you tried any of that pure oxygen? And I refuse to go to more exotic places, like denying yourself air for fun.

Turns out the air is rarer at Factory Kitchen. At the outer edge of the Arts District, when you approach it for the first time you're thinking much more factory than kitchen in a desolate area where stopping at stoplights makes you a tad nervous (and to get from it to DTLA, you'll pass through Skid Row, home of its own strain of TB). Inside it's still pretty factoried-out, but the owners wanted it that way, so that's a kind of charming. And the food is so much more than charming it ends up seeming some sort of oasis, a sense that even amidst massive concrete pillars this grace can happen.

Fro grace is the only word to describe mandilli di seta, that green pasta at the top of the photo above. This handkerchief pasta is where delicious and delicate deliquesce into one thing, a miracle of pasta flavor in something so fine. It's sauced in a Ligurian almond basil pesto with none of the sharp edges you might get in some hearty pesto, even the garlic refined, and the almond flavor much more interesting than pine nuts. Then that's the whole dish. It sort of threatens you to call it too simple, but it recalls the stories of a master artist, when asked to send sample work to get a commission, simply drawing one perfect circle of paint on paper in one quick brushstroke, and saying, "Take that to your patron." Of course perfection is simple--that's exactly why it's so easy to mess up.

The rest of the meal was delightful, too, from the raviolini di pesce you also see in that photo--much heartier dough, but sitting in a "crustacean sauce" that is as wondrous as that name might suggest, plus four exactly prepared mussels, none of that overcooked shellfish issue you so often get with pasta.

We started with another essay in the brilliance of simplicity, the cremosella salad, a mound of kale (really really good baby kale) and pea shoots (all of freshness) and green beans cooked miraculously to a tender-snap (what method?) in just enough dressing. And then creamy mozzarella, which is not burrata, and I didn't know existed (and can't confirm does anywhere else, if the internet can be trusted). Instead of cream in the center, like burrata, the inside is more like a brie-consistency, but still very much mozz. Seems healthier, and the chalkiness paired well with the acid and lemon in the dressing.

We all owe Italian places an apology. Of course, given the chef here--Angelo Auriana--worked at Valentino for nearly two decades, it's not odd he can make such ethereal food.

Bringing the Wild, Wacky, and Wonderful to LA

There’s that great bit in the 1963 comedy-thriller-romance Charade where Audrey Hepburn’s character asks Cary Grant’s character, “You know what’s wrong with you?” to which he replies, “No, what?” and she pauses, then says in elongated exasperation, “Nothing.”

Well, Santa Barbara wine country is sort of like Cary Grant without the chin dimple. As writer and marketing maven Allison Levine from Please the Palate puts it, “What do they grow in Santa Barbara? Everything.” Which makes it tricky to introduce people to the wines of the area; where should one start?

Want to read the rest then do so at the Santa Barbara Vintners blog.

Sonoma's St. Francis Reaches Out to Restaurants

Wine can get you into a whole host of wonderful things, and that was never more clear than a few weeks back when it meant a tasting/multi-course lunch at BS Taqueria as the very first guests before it opened its doors in downtown L.A. (Yes, it's good to be on the list.) That meant a celebration of the Cochon555 rolling national festival of heritage pig happening later that weekend, a chance to feast on the amazing cuisine of chef Ray Garcia (a two-time Cochon555 winner), and the launch of esteemed St. Francis Winery & Vineyards' new reserve tier wines.

If you want to read the rest then do so at KCET's Food Blog.

Rivera Rolls On

Chef John Sedlar must have had some weird and wonderful dream about dim sum carts morphing into food trucks based on what's happening at his Rivera in downtown LA. Of course, he's always been one to invent and re-invent, none-too-modestly naming his first book Modern Southwest Cuisine. Heck, he's been the driving force behind Museum Tamal, that's how seriously he takes this food, but it seems being serious also means being playful--just check out the edible flowers pressed into the tortillas above. (And that's Indian Butter, not guacamole, because it will be the richest guac you'll ever taste.)

So this is how it works--you can order off the menu, or you can get tempted by the waiters pushing about carts that don't just carry about samples but the actual stuff you can eat, right away. And so you will be tempted and quickly fulfilled, and nothing will entice more than the butternut squash tamal, perfectly cooked and if you get a bite of the pork shoulder and squash and goat cheese all at once you will come close to ordering a second even with your mouth full, all the flavors ricocheting off of and ratcheting up the other flavors.

Of course, Rivera is the kind of restaurant that can give you quinoa and make you like it, with the regular menu flan de elote, a perfect creaminess, just firm enough and then the quinoa, black in this case so providing a fine contrast for the best-butter-yellow flan (every plate is an eyeful with Sedlar), and then also providing a bit of crunchy contrast too. Here's to more savory flans like this one.

Let's not forget that Julian Cox created cocktail list, either, with film- and music-inspired drinks like the Blood Sugar Sex Magic (rye, basil, lemon, red pepper, and not one tube sock) and the Vote for Pedro (rye, Pedro Ximinez sherry, Aperol, dandelion & burdock bitters, flamed orange).

The only thing missing might be a cart for them to roll you out on when you're done.

Bijoux, Beaute, Legume

If you want to take people to a place where every cliche that Los Angelenos are too damn beautiful for their own good comes true, take them to Gjelina.

If you want to take people to a place where you can eat only vegetables and not for a second bridle at the seemingly limiting fact that you're eating vegetarian, take them to Gjelina.

That's a really nice double whammy. It's been open for five years, which means just yesterday if you're visiting from Santa Barbara, and is an easy strike from LAX as it's on Abbot Kinney in Venice. (Easy to get to, less easy to park near, that is.) Yes, you're a bit in the heart of the heart of hipsterville, but they sure do clean up and dress nice. It's easy to imagine casting agents try to apply to work as the hostesses here, as it would make their job super easy--just sign up all the customers.

Luckily, as with real estate where you want to have the least expensive house in a ritzy neighborhood, I have no problem being the least good looking person amidst the beauty. None at all. And that's just the start, as you really need to go check out the Gjelina (it's named for the owner's mom and it's pronounced, of course, jewel-lina) menu and then nothing I write will matter. It's super clean, clear direct food made with topnotch ingredients, the kind of thing that's become bestselling cookbook porn thanks to Yotam Ottolenghi. Note there are 12 plates listed under vegetable for $8 a pop--three of us ordered 4 of those and had a perfectly pleasingly lunch sharing. Not that we wouldn't have eaten more--it all tasted so good--but we had a modicum of self-control.

Consider, for example, purple Peruvian potatoes, horseradish aioli, pickled red onions, and dill. That color is crucial, the violet potato almost adding flavor via sight, but they are sliced and cooked to just enough, cirspy on the outside, soft on the in, and then they get zipped three ways with the horseradish heat, the pickled onion acid, the dill's sharp floral lift. Simple and exquisite. It's just the same for crispy Brussels sprouts, jalapeno-lime, cilantro and walnut (the crunchy cabbage on their way to a border town if not quite Mexico, a clever unusual approach) and charred romanesco, Fresno chili, sofrito, anchovy, capers, and mint. Each dish allows its ingredients to sounds its own notes while adding to an exquisite multi-layered song.

And then there were the grilled king oyster mushroom, tarragon butter, lemon, and sea salt, the shrooms so meaty they had to be cut with a knife like some new exquisite cut of meat. You knew they came from the grill and the butter lemon and salt just enhanced their flavor more.

That's all we had, plus some beers, and it was everything we could want. Except for another visit, soon.

Gold and the Doughnut Factory

You really don't need me to point out what a talented writer Jonathan Gold is--the Pulitzer committee has already done that for you. His appetite seems voracious; his desire to share infectious; his ability to be pals-y without being pushy helps create an "us" of folks serious about food high and low--the only necessary commonality is for everything to be delicious.

As, for instance, in the closing of his LA Times article on Saturday about Umamicatessen, a new downtown spot that features several different vendors in one space, not the least of which is the twee-ly named "& a [drawing of a donut]." The review's finish goes like this:

You should try the foie gras* doughnut at least once: round, hot and crisp, dusted with ground peanuts. One end leaks jam — "forest berry"' from the cult jelly man Robert Lambert in the Bay Area, which tastes like what the Wine Spectator means when they describe the jammy notes in a $150 Napa Cabernet Sauvignon — and the other a loose, mild foie gras mousse.

A cynical man might insist that the foie gras was put into the doughnut mostly to justify the cost of the jam: Nobody is going to pay $8 for a jelly doughnut, no matter how life-changing. But there is that sweet spot in the middle of the doughnut where foie meets jam, the peanut dust comes into play and you are essentially dealing with the most luxurious peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the world. It is an extraordinarily good bite. Then you're left with the rest of what is merely an extremely good doughnut, but somehow that's OK too.

There is a bemusement that's utterly delightful in these two paragraphs, a sense Gold is both in on a joke but willing to laugh at himself, too. (He's anything but pretentious, even if it often seems he's not just tasted but studied the peasant cuisines of countries that haven't even been founded yet, not to mention all those of countries forgotten, too.) He is both that cynical man (a useful trait for a critic) and one who is ever on the search for enjoyment (the most important trait for a critic). His sentences are wonderfully rhythmic--voiced, which is no surprise if you've heard him on KCRW with Evan Kleiman--and note how the short sentence in paragraph two gets to deliver the punchline, punchy as it is. But think of all the other things he does for you here--makes Wine Spectator-speak make sense, helps you taste a $150 cab for a mere $8, gives you an excuse to purchase a doughnut for $8 (remember when you used to get a cocktail for that much?), leaves you wanting that extraordinarily good bite, teaches you to bite petitely and taste slowly, even makes you pleased with an OK world that's not just filled with extraordinary, if fleeting and rare, mouthfuls of doughnut. That's probably most of our lives.

I have a sneaking suspicion it's not Jonathan Gold's, though.

*And I'll be getting back to the foie gras issue and the ban soon on this blog, as long as I don't choke on the foie, as one commenter to Gold's article, who clearly loves all living things, suggested.

There Is an "I" in Special

Comme Ça not only let's you use the word cedilla and learn the html code to make one, it makes you very happy if you eat there, as we did on a recent LA excursion*. On the restaurant's website David Myers claims, “This is the kind of food I cook at home, for myself and my friends,” which makes you wish you hung out at his home and were his friend. For this is French brasserie food, and while I'm bad at languages, I'm pretty sure that word translates as "comfort" or perhaps "contented sigh." There are cocktails that will set the evening's tone (tone=pleased smiley). On a blustery night there's nothing better than a shot of Penicillin, particularly since I'm allergic to the drug itself. This, instead, is blended scotch, lemon, honey, ginger--as if that's not good enough, the bartender pulls out an actual mister (no, not as in Ed or T, but one of these) and delicately sprays Islay scotch over the top, as if a wisp of peaty fog drifted in. The only weird part is this is served over block ice, literally a huge chip off a larger block, which makes getting every last drop of the drink out past the berg in your old-fashioned sized glass a bit tricky. Chryss got some deserved R & R, sort of a Manhattan slightly south of the border, with its rye, reposado, lemon, agave nectar, and ginger served straight up (and therefore no danger to its drinker).

And while her moules and frites were all anyone could ask for (ok, we did ask for a second helping of baguette to sop all that good sauce), I ordered the far-from-just-in-name-only special you can spy above. That's squid ink tagliatelle with lobster and fava beans. That's about three of my favorite things to eat. Each element lived up to the goodness it can be, the lobster actual poached to perfection chunks of meat, the favas the emblem of spring they are, the pasta dark and rich with squidishness. (For some reason the server was selling the dish claiming ink pasta has no flavor, but we all know that's just wrong.) If I had to make a lover's quarrel with the dish it would be the pasta turned a bit into a sticky pile as the dish cooled at the table--perhaps I didn't eat quickly enough, or perhaps a bit more olive oil or butter was needed (not that the dish needed more richness).

If you were wondering, yes, this is the kind of place where you order an apple tart tatin.

*That Dog! Together again, and with a string section and doing things quiet and fucking up (to the point of saying "oh fuck" mid-song) and being damn charming about it. Great show, and we even scored first row seats at the Largo, a mere couple of blocks from Comme Ça.

All's Well That Eats Well

One of the great attractions/frustrations about writing about food for me is it's all about capturing a moment as it vanishes. You probably know the kind of person who bitches about plunking down too much cash for a meal as it's so temporary a pleasure--they'd rather buy something they can keep around for awhile (and the added pounds of a large meal doesn't count). Obviously this is true for writing about many of the arts--you can brag about but never relive watching Baryshnikov dance Twyla Tharp's Push Comes to Shove at ABT in 1976, and any video is a tragic falling off; you can listen to all the Velvet Underground recordings you want, but nothing will match when Mo Tucker came out and sang "Pale Blue Eyes" as an encore at that Lou Reed/John Cale Songs for 'Drella show at BAM in 1989*--but a photo of a great meal doesn't come close to capturing a plate of food. And somehow I opt to scribble  about food (and note I pick a term I don't even do anymore, since all my composing is at the keyboard, as a way to acknowledge time's passing), hoping to knock some sense out of words.

This desire to capture, hold on, share, only grows when a restaurant closes its doors and the option to at least revisit totally slips away. (As for that revisiting, that's its own tortured issue, for instance, how the usually Platonically perfect burger at Father's Office might seem not enough medium and too rare on one visit, with the grilled onions and arugula piled too high so it all actually becomes, and these are her actual words, the spongy, slimy, greasy thing Irene Virbila laments, admitting she's in the minority. How can that happen? Thank god the fries were still perfection.) Such is the case, recently, with a minor key gem that shut down in January, Kobachi Izakaya, which was in the inauspicious shopping center at the foot of the 154 on State Street. While there were windows, the space always seemed like a basement, and that didn't add to its charm, despite the colorful Japanese-themed murals. But what was good there was the value, and the sweet older woman who tended to run service like you were having a meal at her home, and if you ordered mackerel, she'd ask if you'd had it before, warning you how fishy it was, and how she wouldn't cook it at home as it would stink up the kitchen. But I did order it, every time, a fish proud to be a fish, the skin crisped and adding some crunchy texture, and then so so much flavor. They had great special meals, too, where you seemed to get every possible Japanese food item in one combo for about $15, from miso to California roll to some green salad that featured actual good greens and a sesame dressing that sang.

Our last visit there was a sad one, though, as things had changed. The space was always somewhat a market, but they decided it should now be market first, restaurant second, and that meant all the dining was pushed off to the second room that was even more cellar-like. The menu was cut, too, which made some sense since it originally was huge, especially for a small place, but it was as if a blind person took a cleaver to it. And then the help that night, a poor young man, admitting it was his second night on the job, earnestly fumbling, slow, and apologizing. I felt sorry for him, of course, as he meant well, but a dish of pity isn't my favorite amuse bouche. When I heard they closed, it came as little surprise, as the last visit didn't even seem like the same place.

And sometimes the place is all important, despite what really bright chefs/entrepreneurs say. Such is the case with the recent closing of the Tar Pit in Los Angeles. Here's what the LA Weekly wrote about the closing: "Outfitted with Art Deco stylized palm trees, a Kold-Draft double-stacked ice machine and a pizza oven, The Tar Pit also had lots of fancy restaurant equipment that was already on wheels. Thus, says [owner Mark] Peel, they are simply going to roll out the contents of the place and move it down the street -- or across town or wherever they find someplace that suits them. Literally, a moveable feast, as it were."

I can't be so sure. A huge part of the success of Tar Pit was the way it managed Deco-retro so effortlessly, the room the perfect size, broken up in booths that led to intimacy but they were still low enough you could give the room a full scan, all the way to the elegant bar. Mirrors made everything a bit larger, made the low but not dim light sparkle. You just felt better looking stepping in the door, and not too many rooms do that (at least for me). Sure, you can move the help, if they all don't get snapped up, and they tended to wait effortlessly while dressing the swank part, too--that's one reason to dine in a town full of actors and actresses, after all, as many play te role of server impeccably, especially when they get to dress the part. No doubt the food can be replicated elsewhere, even the delightful ears and ears pun of orrechiette with pig ears (so finally julienned they ended up like porky pasta themselves) and pork cheeks or the clams casino nailed without any quotation marks in sight. But that room, I'll miss that room. And then Peel actually needs to open again somewhere, too. (My ever clever wife jumped on his quote, "I've even thought about the Westside," kidding he meant Santa Barbara's, where we live. Paradise can't get that perfect.)

The good news is one paradise has, as the temporarily shuttered Blue Palms in Hollywood is back open as of yesterday. I've penned my ode to Blue Palms before, so when it got caught in the landlord mess that took the Music Box down, I had to admit I cried a few tears into my beer, saddened for the suds and sausages I now could never have. It's great that they're back, and here's hoping for good.

In the meantime, though, I found a more than reasonable substitute, if one in a neighborhood I don't get too in LA much, but there I go proving my point by calling Burbank LA (I have to admit I'm not sure citizens of which place would feel more offended). That's Tony's Darts Away, another beer and sausage place that's willing to make vegans happy (no surprise as it's part of the Mohawk Bend and Golden Road Brewery empire, and I think you can call something an empire once its canned beer is everywhere at Whole Foods). Laid-back, walls lined with beer books, no darts it seems but a pool table, the place one Monday afternoon was a wonderland of good beer listed as IPA and Not-IPA, so you know it knows Californian brewers all to well. As I tend to IPA out following my Declaration of Independence-promised pursuit of hoppiness, I figured perusing the "not" page of the list couldn't hurt as a way to expand my horizons. A Bruery Humulus Lager made that easy, billed an Imperial Pilsner which just might be the Bruery's way to continue their claim they'll never make an IPA. For this had hops you almost had to beat off with a stick, but it was more convenient and yummy to do so with your tongue and its tastebuds. Still, it was lager-y enough--a bit lighter without being light--that it lured me toward an afternoon of drinking it and only it. And trying to cab back to Santa Barbara from Burbank.

As for the food, that was fine, my Tailgate Dog a smoked pork brat topped with brown mustard, griddled onions, and sauerkraut, very straightforward and unfussy as it should be. Those going for the vegan versions where similarly pleased. The housemade potato chips were crisp; the sweet potato fries in a honey-maple-chipotle glaze 
and crushed almonds were a bit too sweet for my liking (they're sweet potatoes to begin with, after all), but the almonds didn't hurt. Nor did the second beer, a High Water Blind Spot Winter Ale, a bit nutty itself, with caramel and vanilla notes too--no Humulus, but better for dessert anyway.

Now I'm left trying to come up with reasons to get to Burbank (why, the Norton Simon is very nice, especially its contribution to Pacific Standard Time, the show Proof: The Rise of Printmaking in Southern California--you've got till April 2).

*Yes, both actual memories of mine, and you can hate me for it, sure.

It's Not a Shame about Ray's

Too often instead of thinking "Hey, the people who come to us love art, so have an aesthetic sense, so want to eat good food," museums seems to reason, if their cafes/restaurants can be taken as evidence of some thinking, that "these folks are captive, let's give them whatever means we make the most ducats." That might be changing, though. Obviously right here in Santa Barbara we have Brenda Simon doing fascinating, delicious things at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, if only: 1) it was open longer hours, 2) there was a direct State Street entrance, 3) if she had a real kitchen, there (well, maybe 3--the absence of one has led her to do some wonderful raw dishes, and SB could use some of those).

But this post isn't about the joys of the Santa Barbara Museum Cafe. It's about the new-ish and very exciting Ray's and Stark Bar at LACMA. We headed LA-ward this past weekend doing one of those culture-jam one day visits: two places to eat, one museum, a tiny bit of shopping, and a play in 8 hours. Since we were Father's Office-ing later, but not much (as the play's curtain was 7 pm), we decided to bar snack it at the Stark Bar, which is anything but (it's not named after the adjective but rather Ray Stark, Hollywood bigwig and longtime LACMA supporter). They've got Bar Bites for you, mainly flatbreads and a variety of cheeses, but also things more surprising for a mini-menu, like bone marrow (I'm still trying to figure out how to convince my pescatarian partner that marrow isn't really an animal product so we can share) and shisito peppers, although theirs were much zingier and longer than the ones I've usually had; be sure you've got your water service before digging in, with the surprising heat, the lovely sea salt, and light dose of sesame vinaigrette all driving you to drink.

Not that you won't be able to drink drinks, too, but these cocktails are too good to down merely as fire extinguishers. I enjoyed a Smokey and the Bandit (guess the film's producer?), a brilliantly balanced concoction of Laphroaig 10yr Cask Strength, honey, orange, and lemon peel, perfect for a LA wintery day. Actually, the heatlamps blasted, so I might have cooked my neck a bit, but I certainly wasn't well chilled, like my cocktail. Chryss opted to try out one of the seasonal hot cocktails, a very adult variation of a hot chocolate called a Oaxacan Holiday made with dark rum house-infused with cocoa nibs, crème de cacao, chocolate chili bitters, freshly whipped cream, and grated nutmeg our divine bartender Microplaned with intense precision. There are plenty of other items we didn't get to--this was a mid-day drinking with craft beers in our near future--with a wonderful display of garnis, from mint leaves on ice to star anise, across the bartop, all ready to finish off each exacting cocktail.

In addition to the peppers we shared a sage flatbread, pleasantly puckered and offering sage grown right behind the restaurant (the localest of LA herbs), Sottocenere truffle cheese, and maitake mushrooms.These are perfect light lunches, especially with the liquor kicker. (The wine list looked wisely chosen and fairly priced, too.)

Culture can be so civilized, this way.

More Luster than Bluster

It's often hard extracting the hip from the hype, deciding what's luster and what's bluster. Initial raves for a place always lead to some bitter backlash, and where the truth lies amidst those typical tides of opinion is never easy to tell. Welcome to Mohawk Bend in LA's trendy but still a bit edgy (which makes it trendier, I guess), Echo Park. Lovingly built into the bones of a century-old vaudeville theater, it's the kind of places that touts "our philosophy" on its website, with lines like, "We care about your food choices, which is why our menu has vegan, vegetarian, and non-vegan options. We have dedicated food prep stations for our vegan fare. Our goal is to make sure EVERYONE can eat at our restaurant without having to sacrifice quality or taste," that are both encouraging and a bit sanctimonious. You have to deliver if you're going to make such statements, especially when you extol your all-California produce-products and a 72-tap beer list that's also all California, plus one out-of-state guest brewer a month.

The good news is (based on one visit, so small sample error is certainly possible) Mohawk Bend earned any of its possible pretension. It was great that the staff certainly didn't pull any superior airs--we got seated (with reservations), within a few minutes of arriving, our waiter knew his stuff and offered up a free taster of Craftsman Acorn Saison that I did go nuts for (you never know with Craftsman crazy brews--that Aurora Borealis with persimmon and mint tasted of toothpaste while the Holiday Spruce, made with actual spruce, is delish and not like drinking your Christmas tree water, brewed). The waiter did look very LA hiply handsome, but I admit I'm superficial and want all the servers in LA to look like they just came off their commercial shoot; it might be because one of my first meals in Los Angeles years ago an agent at the table next to mine actually connected with the actress-waitress serving us both, although it might all have been a set-up to impress me, living in Iowa at the time.

Meanwhile, back at the Mohawk...that's one impressive and ever-moving beer list, enough to make you proud you're a Californian. The pub's owner Tony Yanow also owns Golden Road Brewery, and we tasted on of their beers to keep it all in the family, namely the Point the Way IPA that manages to do the righteous hoppy do it has to for an IPA and clock in at a mere 5.2% ABV. Expect DUI rates in LA to drop precipitously. But there was plenty of more great beer to be had, like a High Water Hop Riot (had had that in bottle, but as usual, tap is head and suds better), the jokingly named but yummy Lagunitas Sucks, and then for dessert a Bootlegger's Black Phoenix Chipotle Coffee Ale with just enough heat and just enough coffee kick.

As for the food, there is vegan poutine--even the cheese is animal-product free. But how can one go wrong with fries properly crisp, that then get to soak a bit in a mushroom-rich gravy, so the cheese is pretty much just a bonus? My partner was pleased with her JJ Kale Salad (that JJ is for the julienned jicama, not Hunsecker) but we were both bowled over by the mussels, fine farmed bivalves from Carlbad, in a terrific vadouvan. Don't worry, I had to Google it too--it's a French take on Indian curry, one more of the many reasons colonialism shouldn't have quite the bad rap it does. (I mean, tasty food gone global makes up for years of oppression and often outright slavery, right?) You will order extra bread if you get this dish. You will wish you had a hip flask to take any remaining juices home with you.

Gomme Sweet Gomme

Perhaps I feel cowed by the creativity cocktail makers seem able to offer so simply with just a shake of the wrist. Perhaps I am dulled by consuming too many of their drinks. But it's seemed hard to write this entry I've been meaning to get to since December 6, as December 5 is a day that should live in famy (isn't that the opposite of infamy?)--the repeal of the 18th Amendment. For 13 long years our poor country was dry and not high. That stretch even includes some Depression years, and if you can't drown away your centless sorrows, how miserable must life be? No wonder it was also the era of the great Dust Bowl.

But is it perfume from a bitters, that makes my entry all a-skitter? Indeed, for today we are in a perfect storm of cocktailiana--everything's legal (even absinthe), history is lovingly excavated by artful archaeologists, and then there's the fine fuel of the local-artisanal food movement turning its eye to craft distilling. Add in global influences as if sprinkling with fairy dust that's actually ground crickets and pretty much anything can happen in a cocktail glass.

Some of it's quite tasty, too, not just novelty, and that's crucial as a cocktail is nothing if it's not tradition. When you toast, it's not just to the person or people you're with, it's a cheers to every drinker ever, a sign of civilization at its most civil: we have tamed this firewater, made it beautiful, and will share it peacefully while even better doing our best to make witty and wise.

This was easy to do at a place like Drago Centro in downtown LA, all sleek and not at all old school Italian despite nailing Italian food with that simple made perfect from kick-ass ingredients way (tomatoes are tomatoes here, even in December, somehow). And then the brilliance of this dish il risotto allo zafferano e midollo, which just sounds beautiful (say it aloud, so your tongue gets ready for the beauty of the actual dish while eating it). That's saffron risotto and salsa verde, almost something minimalist, that is until you start to massage in the roasted bone marrow that sits atop. So much richness in each forkful.

But as to the cocktails, or the "new classics" as they put it, cleverly making oxymoronic sense (as a drink does, so very elegant as it begins to muddle your mind with its spirits). We had: the Blessed Bliss made of Karlsson’s vodka, Cardamaro, Underberg bitters, fresh ginger, fresh apple, and fresh rosemary; and the Hot Bellied .45 made of Bulleit bourbon, Del Maguey Vida mezcal, Cocchi Americano, Art in the Age snap, and Fee Bros. lemon bitters. That first led with its herbs--the very skilled waiter warned us he wasn't fond of the drink as he's not a rosemary fan--, but that's little surprise as in addition to the prominent rosemary sprig, Underberg supposedly packs in 43 herbs. So, something of surprising depth. As for the .45, the mezcal gave it a kicky smokiness, always a fine match for a bourbon, and then, again, things got complicated, what with a bit more lemon than mere bitters might make one expect and the molasses depth of the Snap (as in ginger).

Alas, this foray was nothing compared to what awaited us at Sly's on December 5 itself. It turns out the "Mix mistresses and barmen" as they bill themselves, craft a special cocktail list only for Repeal Day, and then it's your secret handshake for the year, as you can flash it and request the drink of your choice on it that no one else knows. Nothing like having your speakeasy and prohibition too. That's eleven choices I get and you don't (sorry, dear reader--go next year), including one from Chef James Sly himself, a sneaky Bloody Mary variation that swaps beet juice for tomato (it's a salad in a glass!, or, more seriously, the perfect drink to have with a salad, always a tough pairing).

And I don't mean to be coy, but I'm not going to spill any of the drinks' names, for they belong to those who are part of the secret society. Mandy Chinn, the head mix mistress there and award winner several times over for her mixology, has her team always take things one step beyond the norm. Here there's nothing so simple as simple syrup, it's gomme syrup, which with its gum Arabic emulsifying away, ends up even smoother than just sugar water. That's the way it used to be done, and still is at a place as fastidious as Sly's. Even more mysteriously, even owning the menu doesn't quite get you to the point where you can recreate the drinks at home, for key ingredients often don't make the list--is that merely a typo that there's a comma at the end of one write-up, or a sneaky hint Sly's is living up to its name? Don't worry, sip away, and watch as Chris Chinn beats a glass with sprigs of thyme like a penitent flagellating. Ah, ritual, delicious as sin, these well-balanced brilliances.