The Luxury of Time

This is my last weekday of freedom before returning back to the the cave. One of the greatest aspects of the luxury of time is to be able to make and eat lunch at home. I love to step into the kitchen to eat when my body wants to eat not at 12:00 PM or as is most typical when I can step away for 5 minutes to pop something from the lean cuisine line of tastes almost like food products into the microwave and then scurry with it in hand back to my hallway excuse for an office. At home, I use fresh ingredients and eat what sounds good to me on a particular day not what I happen to have left in the office fridge. Yesterday I made a Greek salad and nearly cried. What happened to civilized living? This morning I woke up and felt human again and it only took two weeks to return to my species.


Cucumber
Tomato
Kalamata Olives
Red Onion
Feta Cheese (get the real stuff)
Red Wine Vinegar
Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper

All ingredients chopped and seasoned to preference

The York On York in Highland Park

The York in Highland Park may be the best bar in all Northeast Los Angeles. No, scratch that, in all of Los Angeles. This is the kind of place you find in that other California city up north. The exposed brick and wood beams create a lofty urban downtown feel and I think its the windows opening to the street that really make it feel like a San Fran neighborhood bar. The u-shaped bar is a beautiful beast and like no other bar in town, you feel like you are meant to stay as long as you like because there is plenty of room for everyone. My dirty martini was perfectly dirty and Big D enjoyed a fat tire followed by a pilsner. They have small plates, large plates, sides, and desserts and the food is really good.

http://www.theyorkonyork.com/

Big D Got a Grill

Big D has a hard time buying things. If a were to play shrink (and this is my wifely duty, right?) I would say this comes from a mix a childhood variables. First, he grew up on a Reservation and though it may be a derogatory term off the rez, "Indian time" does exist on the Reservation. Things don't happen fast. That's more of a western way of being. You know, I'm talking about the whole "if I want it I need it now" mentality. Whereas, on the rez, 'now' is at least an hour and a half in any direction. So, you have to really consider if you want it that bad to uproot an entire day to get it. Life just has a different pace there. A house might take years to get built or maybe never get completely built and, well, so what? Secondly, Big D's parents were pretty big on not buying things you don't absolutely need--maybe too much on this side. Have you ever noticed that if you swing too far in one direction, you end up completely on the other side? In other words, a couple of free spirited, live off the land hippies can wind up rigid controlling tightwads if they hold too closely to any one way of being.

I could go on with my shrinkville analysis, but it isn't really fair to Big D, so I'll just mention this and then move on...Big D has been looking at grills for about a year and a half, ever since our old grill went caput. He wasn't looking for anything fancy just something simple to grill shit up on and there have been several close buying calls but we always came home defeated without a grill.

So in a recent trip to the ol' home depot Big D said, "let's look at grills when we go" and I said, "Only if you are actually going to buy one. Otherwise, I never want to look at another grill ever again." While at the depot we bought the garden hose we needed, some Damp rid, and priced some wood for a fence we want to build, and then, to my astonishment, Big D actually bought a grill. It's totally basic but an upgrade from our last grill and we have been using it since we bought it. The first night we made the obligatory hamburgers (black bean burger for me), then grilled salmon and grilled asparagus and grilled pineapple for dessert the following evening, and then shrimp fajitas--and I actually took some pics of this grilling episode:

The next night we made burgers again (using the leftovers from grilled shrimp fajita night as toppings). Tonight Big D and I agreed that we should order Indian food.

Back In My Salad Days

First, this is simply a post about salads. In the US, salads are a first course or an appetizer, but in many countries . . . those with more refined palates, salads often come after a main course or at the end of a meal. They are a way to cleanse the palate or add a little roughage to a protein. But in the US, a salad is the beginning of things.

In Los Angeles, salads, like sushi, are what french fry deprived women eat to feel full without feeling guilty by eating a real meal or without running to the bathroom at a culinary treasure like say, Luques on Melrose, to you know what before the main course.

When I lived in Santa Monica, my brilliant friend M (pronounced em), came for a visit from NY where she was working as a parallel and making plans to escape to Paris (which she eventually did). While visiting, she mentioned, "I am really into salads these days," and she made us (and by us a mean M and me) a salad with greens and avocado and scallions and tomatoes and a dressing made with nayonaise and sesame and it was delicious. But, at the time I was tiptoeing across my 20's and was a little too thin to appreciate a good salad as anything other than a prelude to a kiss (and by a kiss I mean a large bowl of pasta). For, I had been dieting on vodka and yoga and, let me say, I had found my bliss!

These are some Los Angeles salads that I like:

Briganti South Pasadena
Insalata di Rugoletta e Carciofi--is an arrugola salad with baby artichokes hearts,topped with shaved Parmesan, lemon and olive oil. I love this salad because it is simple and clean. The salad dressing is simply lemon and olive oil and this is perfect because you can actually taste the ingredients of the salad.

Fritto Misto Santa Monica
Greens and Gorgonzola is baby greens, Gorgonzola cheese, Roma tomatoes, and toasted walnuts in a balsamic vinaigrette. This salad is piled high on a plate and is perfect for sharing (actually, Big D and I almost always share the salad/appetizer course because this ensures that we can make it through dessert.

Canele Atwater Village
Shrimp salad with parsley and celery root is one of the freshest palate cleansing salads I have had. I love the use of parsley as an actual salad ingredient rather than a garnish. It makes the salad extremely soothing and yet bold and unexpected at the same time.

Cafe Beaugolais Eagle Rock
Mixed Green Salad has perfectly ripe pieces of tomato, fresh greens, a creamy dressing and pieces of french bread smeared with herbed goat cheese. Come on, that's just damn good.

Il Buco Beverly Hills
Tricolore Radicchio with Belgium Endive, Arugula, Balsamic Dressing, and Shaved Parmesan Cheese had the quintessential balsamic dressing, the perfect mix of greens and the shaved Parmesan has that perfect sharp bite. It's just perfect.

Saturday on the Eastside

To help out my dear friend Bee, I spent Friday evening watching the Dewster who lives on the Venice Canals. Venice Beach is without a doubt, my favorite place on this here planet. So after a couple of weekends chocked full of noisy gangsta pounding base in which I had to call the police that never arrive to my corner of Eagle Rock, I was more than happy to spend an evening on the quiet quiet quiet canals. But the Dewster (a dog did I mention that) is a mess. He is happy to see you when you arrive, happy to have a walk, happy to have dinner---but then he gets angry. Like Jekyll and Hyde angry. Oh, he has some sort of skin condition and wants to be itched itched itched. So, he starts barking at you, not a friendly bark, mind you. A I want to kill you bark. Then you must ignore him until he falls asleep. Then you try to get out alive in the morning (before stopping in at the French Market Cafe on Abbott Kinney--a little piece of paradise in a very french/ industrial sort of way).

So after the much needed respite from the 'hood, Big D and I spent a relatively quiet ER day out in our new Target gazebo followed by a side trip to Los Feliz to eat some PINKBERRY and walk little M De Cuba around the Silverlake reservoir. It was pretty wonderful despite the argument we had because Big D had me playing chicken to get back to the car rather than walking a few extra steps to the crosswalk to be all proper and stuff.

This was followed by what I really want to post about which is Marty's in Highland Park. Marty's is the new bar/restaurant of Rudy Martinez who I think just may be a genius and made a simple menu with most of my favorite comfort foods on it--mac n cheese and caprese salad, shoestring sweet potato fries and big D's Kobe burger. And washed down with dirty martinis. Rudy Martinez deserves an award for not only thinking outside the box by opening a zen like bar in Highland Park (not to mention a sushi restaurant in Eagle Rock) but also for reminding us all that we are only as ghetto as the ghettos in our own heads.

http://www.mia-sushi.com/

Soul Mate - Pinkberry

I Love You!

If you have not yet experienced Pinkberry, I feel sorry for you. I love things that aren't at first lovable. And that's how this stuff is. The first bite is eh, but then you keep eating and before you know it you're addicted. It's sour and plain (hey, just like me--they say you always fall for your mirrors).