Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins: Sriracha sauce is a crown jewel of Southern California foodie culture. You’ve seen the plastic bottles. They’re filled with bright red sauce, emblazoned with a rooster, stamped with text in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Chinese, and topped by a green squirt cap. For many, this blazing […]
FOOD
BEYOND THE NOISE OF ANY POSSIBLE INTRUSION
I have had many months of “coping.” You know what I mean–day after day of administrative, car, computer, medical, and people snafus. Plus it is finally dawning on me, at my age many men and women have “retired!” That is not in the cards for me. I own no home. I have no spouse, no […]
REMEMBERING LA LEGEND JONATHAN GOLD
Jonathan Gold, the city’s beloved Pulitzer-Prize winning food writer, died on July 21. The cause was pancreatic cancer that had been diagnosed only weeks before. Gold, 57, was most recently the restaurant critic for the “Los Angeles Times.” But he was way more than a food critic. He was an LA treasure: erudite, articulate, eccentric, […]
SAFE HOME
I flew back to LA yesterday from Heathrow, my week in Oxford having been completed. In my mind, I divided the trip into segments, so as to mark progress along the way instead of pulsating with the ungodly thought that all told I was going to spend 18 hours or so in transit. There was […]
A FIELD TRIP TO THE UK
I jetted o’er the Atlantic Wednesday eve and since Thursday have been in the charming if tourist-infested (I of course am one of them) city of Oxford. It stays light till past 9 here. Last night before a late dinner I went for a constitutional across Port Meadow, an ancient stretch of uncultivated common land […]
SOCIETY NEWS: MY BOOK PARTY
Yesterday I visited Rancho Mirage‘s Sunnylands: the Gardens [pix to follow], Visitor Center and Estate of the late billionaire power philanthropist couple Walter and Leonore (Lee to her friends) Annenberg. The Annenbergs were globally known super-hosts and I had many thoughts as we were led through the Hollywood Regency-decorated, golf-course surrounded, cotton-candy pink and mint […]
SENIOR ADVANTAGE
I turn 66 in July–Social Security at last! Having worked continuously since the age of 14, and paid more or less continuously into “the system,” I will receive 1300 and change per month. I know that’s pretty “entitled” of me, so thank you. Anyway, I have to say I am really digging being an old […]
I FELT LIKE CRYING
“God is the present tense. That’s why it’s so hard to seize the moment. God is the eternal now. We either chase the past or escape into the future, place our whole hope in the future. Whereas faith, hope, and love must ripen in the present. That’s why we ignore time, waste it, kill it. […]
MY NEW BOOK: FAMISHED, A FOOD MEMOIR
LET’S EAT! We dream about food, plan around food, fetishize food. We have books about cooking food. We have books about growing food. We have books about nutrition, local sourcing, and becoming a celebrity chef. We have Michael Pollan earnestly giving us food rules. But we have few books about the spiritual dimension of food […]
THE MESSENGER: A SONGBIRD DOCUMENTARY
“The Messenger” is a 2015 documentary directed and written by Sy Rynard. The press kit’s synopsis: “The Messenger” is a visually thrilling ode to the beauty and importance of the imperiled songbird, and what it will mean to all of us on both a global and human level if we lose them.” This, in other […]
MY FRIEND IS ORDAINED A PRIEST
Recently I flew to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to attend the ordination, my first ever, of Timothy J. Smith. I met Father Tim, now 36, several years ago when he e-mailed me about a radio piece I’d done about my little brother’s punk band. Tim was a fan. We began a correspondence that flowered when […]
CHERRY HILL PICK-YOUR-OWN FAMILY FARM
Ever since my first spring in LA, 27 years ago, my heat sings at the opening of cherry season. And every year for about the last 20, I have told myself I’m going to take a field trip and pick my own. This year I finally did. One good place to start is the town […]
THIS, THAT, AND ROSES
LA’s winter rains have brought a bounty of spring flowers. Pasadena is known for its roses to begin with, but they are outdoing themselves this year. You’ll be driving along and see them cascading off walls, around fountains, over fences. This “nothing special” stand, trellised along an ordinary office building, capture some of the there-for-the-taking […]
MONTECITO’S CENTER FOR SPIRITUAL RENEWAL
The Center for Spiritual Renewal in Montecito is part of the compound on El Bosque Road that includes the adjacent and commonly-owned non-profit retreat center, La Casa de Maria. El Bosque means “woodlands” and the 26-acre grounds are studded with towering live oaks and other gorgeous old-growth trees. Footpaths meander through citrus orchards, an organic […]