A pretty surprise

I went down to Culver City for an errand this weekend, and while there I stopped in at Surfas, the amazing restaurant supply and gourmet food emporium on the corner of Washington and National Boulevards.

You can buy any kind of cookware or barware there, from fluted pastry-bag tips to butcher block counters. You can buy specialty charcuterie, imported spices, varieties of sea salt, and French chocolate. You can buy icing sugar in over a dozen bright colors. You can buy nori, French lentils, English custard powder, and Hungarian pickles.

You can buy little plastic containers of demi-glace, in veal, duck, chicken, beef and seafood flavors. You can buy wine, margarita salt, bitters, and those little pink plastic monkeys that bartenders hook on the rims of cocktail glasses by their tails.

Look at what I found in the pasta section. These beautifully colored imported lasagna noodles. Can't you imagine making a casserole with these, with vegetable filling and a pink cream-and-tomato sauce?

And these, multicolored fettuccine, by the same pasta company. A plate of these with a pesto sauce - how pretty would that be?

If you live in Los Angeles and you haven't discovered Surfas - check it out.