In case you’re looking for info on just where these damned fires are:
These maps are stunning.
The fires are incredible.
I have no words.
Because real life is so much weirder than anything you can dream up:
TMZ has learned, director Lee Tamahori was scheduled to be arraigned today, on charges that he allegedly solicited an undercover cop while dressed in drag.
Tamahori, whose directing credits include, ‘Die Another Day,’ ‘XXX: State of the Union,’ ‘Along Came a Spider’ and ‘The Sopranos,’ was arrested in Hollywood on January 8, 2006. According to law enforcement, Tamahori was allegedly dressed in drag, approached an undercover officer who was in his car, entered the vehicle and offered to perform a sex act for money.
Really, the only reaction you can have to this is: WTF? If you read something like this in a Hollywood novel, you’d say, “Oh, what crap, no fairly successful director is going to do something like that. Go down to Hollywood Boulevard and pick up a hooker, sure. But this?” And you’d throw the book across the room.
(I once tried to think up the most shocking thing I could imagine a star doing, and I came up with “brother and sister celebrities openly living as a couple.” Then Angelina Jolie macks with her brother at the Oscars and I was like, Day-um.)
(Via Defamer.)
I opened the LA Times today (figuratively) and what do I see? WHAT DO I SEE? An article about the joys of bakeries in LA:
COULD L.A. be turning into a real bakery town? It seems to be shaping up that way, judging from all the dough on the rise.
On West 3rd Street, Parisian master baker Eric Kayser recently opened the understatedly appealing Breadbar, with a second branch in the works in Century City. At the Brentwood Country Mart, New York restaurateur Maury Rubin is getting ready to introduce the city to a bakery café that’s unlike anything it’s seen before. In West Hollywood, pastry chef Michelle Myers has expanded her offerings, making bread for sandwiches to supplement her line of sweets at Boule.
Elsewhere, Belgian company Le Pain Quotidien, which has multiplied six times over since 2001 in Southern California, is expanding into Manhattan Beach and Pasadena in the coming months. The Japan-based cream puff specialist Beard Papa’s has opened in Hollywood. Santa Monica chef Hans Röckenwagner plans to turn his thriving bread and pastry business into a bakery café in Venice. And on an unlikely stretch of Pico Boulevard, two sisters with no formal training have plunged right in, opening La Maison du Pain and importing a trained Frenchman along the way as they slowly get off the ground.
For a city of such great size and culinary enthusiasm, Los Angeles doesn’t have many world-class bakeries. To be sure, those we do have are hot spots: Clementine in Century City, EuroPane in Pasadena, Jin Patisserie in Venice and Sweet Lady Jane in West Hollywood among them. But such places are few and far between.
The new arrivals — particularly Kayser’s Breadbar and Rubin’s City Bakery — could signal that L.A.’s bakery culture is finally starting to grow up.
Not just pastry bakeries! Bread bakeries! I weep. Now that I’m finally developing a taste for the finer wheat products in life, they pull this on me, when I can’t enjoy any of it.
One thing that’s driven me nuts around Silicon Valley is that there’s no good bread bakery. (There is an outlet of Le Boulanger within walking distance of my house. My opinion stands.) We go to Campbell’s Farmer’s Market on Sundays to visit the Boulangerie Bay Bread stand — but that’s a bakery from San Francisco (one that used to be two blocks from my mother’s house, in fact). Excellent, excellent bread. But it’s fifty or so miles away. And my Sunday baguette doesn’t really hold out until Thursday, know what I’m saying?
Today, in fact, we went to the Farmer’s Market, followed by breakfast at Stacks’ in Campbell. Sophia practically dragged us to the Farmer’s Market, because she wanted her panini bread from the Bay Bread stand. Five years old and an appreciation for fine bread. (When I was her age undoubtedly all I’d eat was Wonder, a fact that makes me shudder to this day.) When I bought the panini, both Sophia and Simon went nuts, grabbing the bag and reaching in. I grabbed a panini to give them as the lady behind the table said, “Would you like me to cut that in half?” “There’s no time!” I said, ripping the roll in half to give each kid a piece.
(I asked Darin if he’d seen what happened. He nodded solemnly and said, “I’ve seen piranhas at work.”)
One day I had an excellent sandwich at Fleur de Cocoa and asked them where they got their bread. Sogo bakery in Cupertino, they said. Which turned out to be a little Japanese bakery in a strip mall. I had trouble believing they actually made pain de mie. It’s also too far to drive to pick up some bread. I suppose I could ask Darin to stop by on his way to work, but once he gets into his car he’s Mr. Safari Manager and pretty much forgets everything else.
The baguettes from the market are underwhelming. Grace is okay, as is the-other-brand-that-escapes-me-right-now. I used to get La Brea bread at Whole Foods, but the whole parboiled/slightly underdone aspect palled on me after a while.
Maybe everyone in this area is low-carbing it or something, or you need so much money to rent a store around here it wouldn’t be worth a baker’s time to make fresh bread. But I totally think there’s an underserved community around here!
A friend of Darin’s is a big fan of the show Alias. Darin and I watched Alias when it first premiered and gave up on it during the teaser of show 2, I believe. But Darin’s friend really wanted us to watch it, so he loaned us three seasons worth of DVDs. And we sat down to start watching, see what we’ve missed.
Well, we both agree Not much. Still seems pretty silly and fake to us. But I discovered something even odder: real life really can ruin the fantasy experience. I’d find myself thinking, That’s Jennifer Garner. She was married to Scott Foley, but then they broke up and she took up with Michael Vartan, but I guess they’ve broken up because she’s having a baby with Ben Affleck now.
Then we came home last night after Date Night and the babysitter had the Alias season finale on. Sydney’s father was telling the CIA agent—the aforementioned Michael Vartan—that he could marry Sydney. And I thought, How weird is that? On the show they’re going to get married, despite the fact that they’ve broken up and she’s having someone else’s baby? Hope that was a good breakup, ’cause otherwise that’s an acting job that would totally suck.
And mind you: I don’t particularly pay attention to Jennifer Garner gossip and we haven’t watched much of Alias. But what I do know has completely affected how I look at her and look at her show.
In related news, while I am amused by the coverage on the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes relationship—there’s some doubt on its veracity, let’s say, in mainstream gossip publications—I can’t actually imagine what else Tom could do. A man’s got to date somebody.
I learned on this trip that while there are certain things I miss about LA (primarily the people, but a few things as well), I don’t miss the whole living-in-LA thing at all. At. All.
Gotta admit that I haven’t missed having every telephone pole and traffic light pole covered with those ubiquitous “Work from home” and “You can lose weight — ask me how!” signs that are all the work of poor deluded Herbalife salesmen who are quite sure that they’re going to find the last people in the city who haven’t a)heard of Herbalife and b)tried it.
Our Los Angeles house is finally gone. We got the check in the mail and everything (note to anybody receiving a rather large escrow check: you have to actually sign it, instead of using a For Deposit stamp, and they’re going to keep the money for seven business days, no matter how many managers you talk to, so get a money wire), so we are officially done with LA.
I’m still missing it though.
Yes, I know I can always go back down there, except the barriers are slightly higher: if we drive down I need a co-pilot (to attend to the radio, to the kids’ snacks, etc.), and flying down requires much advance planning (otherwise it’s $200 a person).
Forthwith, some things I really miss about LA:
I’m sure I missed a ton of stuff. I’ll probably keep adding to this list.
And now a few things I know I don’t miss about LA:
Friday I was doing what I usually do, which is try to fill up the day with as many things to do as possible before it’s time for dinner, preferably with Daddy but, you know, if not then not. Whatever.
So I talked to Darin Friday afternoon about what we should do for dinner and he told me, “I have to work this weekend.”
“Oh,” said I. “Maybe we’ll go to LA.” I’ve been talking about wanting to come down here, and Darin thought that a weekend when he’d be busy would be perfect.
I called my friend Maureen and she said, Sure, c’mon down.
I called Darin back to tell her that we’d go down on Saturday when he laid it on me that he’d be working late Friday night too.
“Just a sec,” I said, and I called Maureen back. “Can we come down tonight?” I asked.
“Sure!” she said.
So I tossed some clothes in a bag and threw the kids in the car (albeit gently, and with proper strapping into their car seats) and headed off toward LA. A trip somewhat hampered by the fact that we left at 5:30pm, and also by the fact that the Pacheco Pass (the highway connecting 101 and 5) was a parking lot. Literally. The standstill was so literal that everyone turned off their engines and quite a few people were walking around. I still don’t know why.
Instead of getting in to LA at 10:30 we got there at 12:30am, and I realized that I’m not exactly built for spur-of-the-moment roadtrips any more. (Note to self: when possible, bring a co-pilot.) But the kids were pretty good companions and so far we’ve been having a blast seeing the old ‘hood and the friends Sophia talks about incessantly.
The past five weeks (It’s been five weeks! How can it have been five weeks?) have been difficult on everyone—Sophia hasn’t had her preschool or her circle of buds, and I haven’t had very much adult companionship. I’m not the most gregarious of people (she said with obvious understatement) but during this move I’ve been accosting other moms in the park—”Hi, how old are you kids? Belong to any mommy groups? Are there any other parks around here?” And so on.
Sophia starts preschool and dance class soon. Help is on the way. Life will become normal again.
What’s funny is, though I lived in LA for 6+ years—the longest I’ve lived anywhere since leaving my parents’ house—I don’t exactly feel being here is natural. I had to fill up my car Saturday morning and I couldn’t quite remember where the nearest gas station was. I drove by the old homestead and thought, Hey, I used to live there. It didn’t immediately bring up nostalgic feelings.
In a few days we’ll head back home (or, as Sophia put it when she was getting sleepy and cranky this afternoon, “Let’s go back to our new house now“)…hopefully with no parking lot on the Pacheco Pass. I’m glad to be back here in LA. But this isn’t home any more.
Addendum: This morning, as Maureen was getting a small passel of gifts together, I discovered today is Father’s Day. Darin isn’t exactly the Hallmark type but…what a weekend to go away. Happy Father’s Day, dude! Don’t stay up too late playing Zelda every night.
“What’re we doing today?”
“I dunno.”
“Everyone we know is out of town…Well, to be more exact, all of Sophia’s friends are out of town.”
For a couple of seconds we contemplated going to Disneyland, but today was a blocked out day for the Annual Pass holders (like us), so we decided to do other touristy things instead.
§
We started off in Pasadena, where we had breakfast at Mi Piace, which has a very, very good brunch. I was biased against Mi Piace for the first several years we were here, because we went to the one in Burbank a couple of times with Darin’s friends and every time we went something horrible went wrong. The Pasadena location, however, has always been very, very good to us.
We hit the Barnes and Noble for an hour of so of story reading time (and Darin went nuts buying books, something he hasn’t done for a long stretch—yes, we’re about to move, but hey, someone else will be carrying the boxes), and then we hit the road.
“How about we go to Malibu?” Darin said.
I said that was fine with me. Probably not too many Malibu driving trips on the agenda in the near future.
There was terrible traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway, but who cared: it wasn’t like we were trying to get anywhere, and the kids were asleep anyhow. I looked out at the beach as we drove.
“We never took them to the beach!” I wailed.
“Hon, we’re still going to be in California. It’ll be the same ocean even.”
Okay, so I’ve been freaking out about the little things.
We parked in Santa Monica and decided to get some lunch at Il Fornaio. I wasn’t terribly hungry, so I just had soup. Darin had a small plate of ravioli. Sophia ate nothing. Simon ate almost an entire plate of pasta with cheese. Every stereotype I’ve ever heard about the differences in eating between boys and girls…well, let’s just say the kids aren’t dispelling them right now.
Then we got very touristy and did something Darin and I have never done, with or without kids.
The Santa Monica Pier is a boardwalk filled with junky food (cotton candy and churros), junky clothing (does anyone except anorexic fifteen-year-olds wear those clothes?), games where you win gigantic stuffed animals, and carnival rides, including a pretty big roller coaster. But everything was for the taller end of the human spectrum.
We thought we were going to get out of there scott-free, until we discovered the kids’ part of the boardwalk: rides just for the 48-inch and under set. You tell me if Sophia wanted to go on rides and whether she enjoyed any second of it:
Crying. Hysteria. “I don’t want to leave.”
Daddy took Sophia down to the beach, where she could kick off her sandals and run free:
(Poor Simon. Trapped in the stroller. Although if the past few days give any indication, he’ll be running on that beach with Fia in less than a week.)
When it was time to leave the beach…Crying. Hysteria. “I don’t want to leave.”
We were dragging her off the pier when we discovered the Carousel. Oh, can’t resist a carousel. Mommy and Daughter rode the Carousel twice. Before the second ride I explained that this was the last time. At the end of the second ride, Sophia began to negotiate for “just one more ride.” We said no. Crying. Hysteria. Etc.
By now Sophia was finally hungry and wanted chicken. More specifically, she wanted chicken with peapods, which is her favorite dish at PF Chang’s. So we found a Chinese restaurant.
“Does she eat Chinese food?” the waitress asked.
“In fact, she’s why we’re here,” Darin said.
Sophia ate—and, to no one’s surprise, so did Simon—and then we headed home. Amazingly, none of us (including parents) fell asleep in the car. The kids fussed a little about going to bed, but it was strictly pro forma fussing.
It took a while for us to find restaurants in LA that we thought were something special. I think I spent the first year here thinking that there was no decent food in Los Angeles.
But we eventually did develop a repertoire of excellent little places. One of the places we discovered—okay, we found it via Zagat, which isn’t exactly like a secret passed on in a back alley—is Osteria Nonni, a fantastic little Italian restaurant in Silverlake. The neighborhood doesn’t exactly scream “great restaurant”; it kind of screams “slightly seedy part of town we’d never visit otherwise.”
If you decide to go there, do not skip this important step: get the sautéed lemon chicken with spaghetti. The standard way they prepare the spaghetti is with oil and garlic, but we always ask for it with butter and parmesan. The lemon butter sauce on the chicken is…well, how can I put this? I’m not a religious woman, but if I were, this sauce would be proof of Divine Intervention in this universe.
If the lemon chicken isn’t your thing—what are you, a Communist?—then get the penne with eggplant. I’ve never actually had the penne with eggplant, because once I found the chicken I stopped there, but Darin assures me the penne is quite tasty. The porcini mushroom ravioli is fabulous. The arancini appetizer (rice balls with cheese and peas inside) is extremely tasty.
Osteria Nonni is hardly next door to us, but we manage to get there at least once a month. It’s completely worth the effort if you want to try it out. 3219 Glendale Blvd., in case you need the address.
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