Weekly Jack

Although he was raised in the city, found on the streets of L.A.'s Highland Park, Jack has adapted to our hippy-dippy ways here in Topanga.

He enjoys relaxing on the front porch and looking out at the world.


This ceramic sculpture featuring a mystic spiral was a gift from our friend, artist Rick Oginz.

Here, Jack's resting his paws on the spiral, as if it were a personal touchstone for him. Is he channeling its energy?

I'm worried he's getting just a little too groovy and New Age.

What do you think, is he getting in touch with his inner chakra?

Or does he have other ideas?

The world in a city

I love Los Angeles because it's so diverse. You can find a world of experiences here, so different and yet so nearby.

We recently went to a wine bar down in Venice. The place featured wine by the glass and small plates of cold and hot mezze. Antique chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and the walls and wooden chairs were painted with a deliberately wrought distressed effect, as if the paint had been blistered off by age. The waitress wore a short black mini-dress, with bright scarlet lipstick that matched the red crocheted snood worn over her jet-black hair. Tattooes ran up her arm and wrapped her ankles. She caught me giving [The Man I Love] a brief kiss as I sat down, and pronounced it "sweet."

We nibbled at artisanal ewe's milk cheese from Spain, a chunk about the size and shape of a Chanel lipstick, served with a cherry compote and four whole almonds on a plate that had been brushed with liquid chamomile-flavored chocolate. The flavors together were so good I wanted to pick up and lick the plate when it was all gone.

Earlier that weekend we'd gone to a little shack in Inglewood, painted brightly with scenes of the beach at Nayarit, and were warmly greeted by a smiling, middle-aged woman. She brought a bowl of fresh green salsa and some warm crispy tortilla chips. Behind her, at the grill, the chef performed marvels with fresh seafood and bright, hot chiles. Two skinny African American kids came in and ordered some deep-fried fish, and stood at the narrow steel-topped counter, hiking up their baggy pants while the chef and the lady at the counter asked after their families. The chef held up a fresh whole tillapia to show them, its scales glittering blue in the light. I tried a michelada - a huge glass goblet filled with a mixture of clamato and beer, spiced and with a squeeze of lime.

We were served broad oval platters full of shrimp - mine in a creamy sauce of jalapenos and crema, his with their heads on, swimming in an orange oily brew flecked with red chiles, cilantro and redolent of tequila. Alongside, white rice with diced fresh corn and onions, and round slices of fresh cucumber to cool the chile heat.

Which place would you like to go to, if you could choose?

The good news is you could try them both, if you wanted. If you flew in to LAX this afternoon, each of these places is just a short taxi-cab ride from the airport.

How's that for wish fulfillment?

Elderberries

The Elderberry is a pretty little tree with pinnate leaves and clusters of white flowers. It's a nice tree for a small urban garden, because it doesn't get too big and because the pretty flowers of spring are followed by autumn berries. Nurseries have selected several cultivars of elderberries for their elegantly cut leaves, or striking foliage in bright gold or deep purple-black.



In Europe, the native elderberry is Sambucus nigra. In folklore, it's said to ward off evil and protect you from witches. That may be due to its use in folk medicine. It's prized for its flowers and fruit, both of which are traditionally made into cordials, syrup, or wine. The berries are said to help combat flu symptoms, containing antioxidants called flavanoids, which stimulate the immune system, and anthocyanins, which have an anti-inflammatory effect. The berries are also loved by birds, so if you grow an elder tree in your garden, you will be doing your part to support wildlife in your neighborhood.



Here in California, our native elderberry is Sambucus mexicana, and it grows throughout the Santa Monica mountains. Like its relatives, its a smallish tree with pretty corymbs of white flowers, followed by clusters of small dark berries, their skin touched with a frosty bloom like that on plums and blueberries.



The berries are smaller than the size of a pea.

This summer I saw so many of them I decided to pick some and experiment with making a syrup.



It takes a lot of elderberries even to fill a cup.

It was kind of a pain separating the tiny berries from the stems and twigs, but since the woody parts of the plant are said to be (mildly) toxic, I was pretty diligent about it. I used a recipe from David Lebovitz's site (scroll to the bottom for the recipe), and ended up with enough syrup to fill a leftover mustard jar.



I wasn't quite sure what to do with it, but then I thought of something.



Vodka martinis with a squeeze of lemon and a droplet of elderberry syrup? How about using a stalk of lavender as a stir-stick? Not too bad.

Elderflowers are also made into concoctions, and during a spring trip to New York City, we noticed that several trendy restaurants had summer cocktails featuring a liqueur made from elderflowers.

St. Germain is a hot new item on the backbar in the fancy cocktail lounges of New York and Hollywood. It's said to be made from wild elderberry flowers gathered in the French Alps by old men who deliver them on bicycle to the markets, where they are processed with eau de vie and cane sugar. The resulting liqueur is a delicate, fragrant thing, pale gold in color and packaged in an ornate and heavy bottle costing $39.99 at our local fine wine emporium.


I think I might wait for next spring's blooms and see if I can gather enough blossoms to make my own elderflower cordial. Here's a recipe worth trying if you don't want to spend $39.99.

On the other hand, there's nothing like a French gimlet made with flowers picked by old French men on bicycles.

If you want to know more about elderberries, visit this site Here.

Smokin'!

During the 1920s, Los Angeles west of Downtown was the place to be. The stretch of Wilshire Boulevard west of Westlake Park was developed with fine hotels and high-rise apartment houses with names like The Windsor, The Langham, The Asbury and other names evoking the aristocracy of Olde England. Hollywood elites such as Norma Talmadge and Gloria Swanson lived in fine apartments, and opulent movie palaces like the Westlake showed first run films. This neighborhood sported the famous Brown Derby restaurant, and the elegant Ambassador Hotel, with its swank nightclub, the Coconut Grove.

But by the early 1960s, the expansion of L.A. and a changing economy brought decline to the neighborhood. The Ambassador Hotel, still remembered for its elegance, gained a different place in cultural history in 1968 when Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in its kitchen after winning the California Presidential primary election. By1989 the once elegant hotel had closed.

At the same time, U.S. immigration law changes in 1965 brought millions of Korean immigrants to Los Angeles. The neighborhood, with its declining real estate values, became an affordable place to settle. By 1974, there were some 70,000 people of Korean descent living in what was now known as Koreatown.

I don't know when Soot Bull Jeep opened but it sure looks like it's been around for a long time. According to the City Directories in the Los Angeles Public Library, it used to be Joe and Nino's Pizza Place in the 1960s. But today, Soot Bull Jeep, as its sign says, is known as a natural charcoal Korean barbecue house.

There's nothing fancy about the place. It looks like a cheap diner. You walk in off the street into a dark room with dim fluorescent lights, with formica-topped tables, each set beneath huge steel exhaust flues. The walls are covered with a textured siding that looks like fake red bricks, and the floor with reddish ceramic tiles. The tables are set with metal chairs upholstered in red vinyl. There's a haze in the air, and the scent of charcoal smoke.

As you walk in, a waitress wearing a white uniform with a black apron motions you to a table. Each table has an open grill set in the center. She turns on the gas and shovels a few lumps of charcoal onto the fire, then sets a grill atop the flame. She tosses a plastic folder with a single page menu in front of you. While you consider the offerings, she brings chopsticks wrapped in paper, a handful of small plastic dishes, and a couple of plastic glasses with ice cubes in them.

No - don't drink the ice water. It's there for a reason.

Order a big bottle of Korean beer - OB or Hite - instead. By now, the charcoal is glowing, and flames are flickering in the grill. The waitress comes back and asks what you want.

Marinated short ribs are a pretty good choice. You can also get other cuts of beef, including tender sliced beef tongue. You can also get marinated pork, or chicken, or seafood such as shrimp or eel. For about $19 you get a large platter of protein. We were a party of three - one order of short ribs and one of marinated pork was plenty for us.

A whole array of small dishes appear at the table. There's a bowl of clear broth with something white and starchy floating in it. There's another bowl with slivered scallions in a sesame-flavored oily dressing. Other bowls hold a pulverized pinky bean paste, pickled cabbage in deep red chile, threads of pickled daikon and stir-fried spinach in sesame oil. Whole garlic cloves. Dark liquid soy sauce. Cucumbers in a pale orange liquid. There's also a small steel bowl filled with short-grained rice, and a plate with fresh lettuce leaves.

The waitress brings the platter of meat and, with a pair of long steel tongs, quickly lays it out on the grill.

If it looks like you know what you're doing, she leaves you alone. If she thinks you don't get it, she'll come back and grab the tongs, flipping the meat when it's ready and even telling you how to eat it. She also carries a pair of heavy-duty shears, which she'll use to clip and snip large pieces into bite-size bits. Our short ribs included the boneless slices of beef plus two chunks of ribs - after we ate the delicious slices our waitress returned to snip the membrane from the bony pieces and pull the chewy meat from the bones.

The little dishes are called banchan or panchan. They're intended as accompaniments to a meal. They range from condiments to pickles, to vegetables, tofu, and sometimes noodles.

The marinated pork was spicy and tender, and left a burning tingle in the mouth. The starchy rice and pickled vegetables were a nice cooling contrast. The typical practice is to tear off pieces of lettuce leaf and wrap the morsel of meat with a bit of pickle or smear of bean paste to eat by hand.

You have to be vigilant and watch your food cooking - don't overcook it or the waitress will come by and flip it for you. Use the tongs to turn the meat instead of your chopsticks - you don't want to flip raw meat with your chopsticks and then put them in your mouth later.

As you sit there, the smoke rises, despite the pull of the heavy duty exhaust fans that thrum and roar above you. The smell of charcoal suffuses your clothes and hair, especially if the place is busy and all tables are cooking at once. You may even catch a few flying sparks - don't dress in your finest when you come here. If drippings or a fatty, grill-stuck morsel catch fire, the waitress quickly douses the flame with a strategically-placed ice cube - see, that's what that glass of ice is for!

This is good late-night food, also good hangover food, with strong flavors and hot spices. Eating here brings out some wild primal urge to cook bloody meat over a roaring fire. It's not for the faint of heart. Unlike the glossier Korean barbecue joints where the grill is gas-fueled, clean and safety sealed, Soot Bull Jeep has a touch of danger that appeals to your inner cave-man.
When you're finished and pay your tab, the waitress sends you off with a stick of melon-flavored gum to clear your palate.
Alley-Oop never had it this good.

Pink Saturday - Sun Tea

Pink Saturday - Beverly at the blog "How Sweet the Sound" hosts Pink Saturday. Let the color pink inspire you!


One of my favorite things to drink on a hot summer day is iced tea. My family was from the South, so we grew up drinking iced tea sweetened with sugar, and flavored with a sprig of mint.

Nowadays you can buy bottled teas to drink cold, but when I was young, you had to make it yourself. The best and easiest way is to use the rays of the summer sun to steep it. Just put water and teabags - or even loose tea in an infuser ball - into a clear pitcher or jar of water, and put it in the sun.

Here our upper deck off the kitchen has a southwest exposure, taking full sun most of the day. Just steep it for a few hours and it's done.

There's more to tea than Lipton - the other day I found in my cupboard some hibiscus teabags.


I think I bought this tea in a Persian grocery on Westwood Boulevard here in Los Angeles. Hibiscus tea is made from the dried calyces of the hibiscus flower. In Latin America it's called flor de Jamaica, and is often used to make agua fresca, or sweetened, flavored water. In Egypt and the Middle East it's called Karkade. It is said that hibiscus tea was enjoyed by the pharoahs!

Well, the pharoahs would probably enjoy a cool glass on a hot summer day in Los Angeles. Hibiscus tea has a tart, astringent flavor. It contains anthocyanins, which is supposed to help relieve high blood pressure.


Pink tea for Pink Saturday! Enjoy a glass!

Brooklyn cow sighting

It's been a while since I've noted our peculiar American habit of using figures of animals to advertising the consumption of that very animal's flesh - but I've been saving this one since spring. This cow is in front of a hamburger joint in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Poor thing. No grass to munch on.

A Pie a Week - Sweet corn pie

I am really in love with this pie crust recipe from chef Gordon Hammersly, so I've used it several times. Each time it has been perfect.

This past weekend, I tried another pie from Ken Haedrich's book "Pie: 300 Tried-and-True Recipes for Delicious Homemade Pie" . This was a recipe for Sweet Corn Pie.

We all love corn on the cob. When corn is grown, as it matures the sugars present in the kernels mature into starch. Traditionally, corn is harvested when mature, so its kernels can be used for feeding animals or grinding into flour. But when it's young, its tender kernels are sweet to the taste, and can be eaten right off the cob.

Supersweet corn is a relatively recent development where a recessive mutation in the genes inhibit the conversion of sugars to starch. So the kernels stay sweet long enough for the ears to be harvested and sent to market so we can have delicious, sweet corn on the cob.

Our farmers' markets are full of corn now, so why not have fun with it?

I made a tart shell and blind-baked it. Then I made a custardy corn filling.

The recipe was for a large 9.5" traditional pie, but I had a smaller French tart pan, so I reduced the quantities. I didn't exactly halve it, but I tweaked it.


First, I cut the kernels off the fresh ears of corn. You could do this with frozen corn, but I think fresh corn has a wonderful taste. I ended up with just under two cups of corn.

Put half the corn in a food processor, along with 1/2 cup cream and 3/4 cup sugar. Process until chopped up but not pureed.

The recipe called for 4 egg yolks and 2 egg whites. I hate it when they do that!!! What are you supposed to do with the extra whites?


We get eggs now from our neighbor, whose backyard chickens supply nice large brown eggs, and small little green eggs. So I used 4 small green eggs, separated. The yolks went in with the corn mixture, and the whites went into the mixer bowl to be whipped.

After processing the corn, the cream and the sugar with the egg yolks, poured the mixture into a bowl and added the rest of the corn and another1/2 cup of cream. Then I grated some fresh nutmeg into the mix. You could add some vanilla, if you liked, too.

The egg whites were whipped until they formed soft peaks. Then they were folded into the corn mixture, gently. Once combined, the mix was poured into the pre-baked pie shell, and baked in a 350 degree oven.

Fifty minutes later, it came out, nicely browned and firm.

Like this.

Sweet corn pie. A nice, tasty treat for the summer.

Stormy Day at the Beach

Click to "embiggen"

How many of you have the responsibility of supervising others at work?

At my beach assignment, I am in an advisory role, but I have been asked to intervene in a situation involving supervising staff.

Employees A and B share an office. The quarters are too close, and the room is loud, and it is difficult for each person to talk on the phone. Both employees have to talk on the phone a lot. Employee A is a salesperson - she has to be up-beat, positive, and "sell" the product. Employee B delivers the sale - her job includes enforcing rules, delivering bad news, and managing customer expectations.

Employee B has been on staff for a long time, and endured the company's worst, most stressful times. She's tired and she feels unappreciated. Employee A is new and fresh, a go-getter.

Employee A has confided in me about how hard it is to deal with Employee B's negative attitude. Employee B has confided in me about how her job is impacted by the miss-steps of upper management - consistent with my own observations, and also noted by Employee A.

There's been a recent altercation between Employees A and B. A closed a sale that B was to carry out. B's response to the customer didn't meet expectations, and the customer hounded A about it. A pushed B to be more active. In response, B exhibited what Employee A described as bad attitude.

I am not the supervisor, but in my role, I've been asked to assist.

The easy fix - and one that has already been suggested, is to separate Employees A and B physically. Their jobs require privacy, and the work environment is counterproductive. We have the space (thank goodness!) and we can easily move them into separate work stations. Upper management has long resisted this, for some odd reason, but this conflict has motivated them to give a go-ahead. Again, thank goodness!

But what about the underlying conflict? How can that be solved? Will the new work arrangements heal the irritation, or is there more to be done? What would you do to heal a potential rift between employees?

Jitlada - a restaurant to visit

Did you know that Los Angeles has the largest Thai population in the world outside of Thailand? "Thai Town" is the name for a neighborhood centered along Hollywood Boulevard between Western and Normandie Avenues.

The neighborhood began in the 1960s after the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 made it easier for immigrants from Asian to come to the US, but it really began to boom in the 1980s after the end of the Vietnam War and an economic crisis in Thailand.

A giant hot dog at a closed food stand on Western and Hollywood marks the entry to Thai Town

I remember my first experience at a Thai restaurant, back in the '80s. By 1990, every city and every college town in the U.S. had at least one Thai restaurant serving pad thai noodles with peanuts, and chunks of chicken breast in a coconut-milk curry over rice.

Here in Los Angeles, Jitlada was just another joint in a strip mall in Hollywood. But in 2007, a Chicago visitor and Thai food enthusiast picked up a take-out menu in his hotel lobby and saw - after the usual mee krob and pad se ew offerings, a small notice printed in Thai touting the "best southern Thai cuisine."

He headed over to the restaurant and introduced himself. The ownership had recently turned over to chef Suthiporn Sungkamee and his sister Srintip (known as "Jazz"). The food was amazing. The Chicago man sat down with the owners and translated the "off menu" - that is, the menu written in Thai that isn't offered to American diners. He posted about it at a food forum, which ended up at Chowhound, and suddenly Jitlada became a destination for L.A. 'hounds - and for Pulitzer-prize winning food critic Jonathan Gold. Gourmet Magazine did a story about it that you can read HERE.

You can read the reviews at various L.A. food bloggers....here and here and here

Or you can join [The Man I Love] and me for a trip to Thai Town and lunch at Jitlada.



We parked on Hollywood Boulevard near the big neon signed Thailand Plaza. This two story building houses a supermarket, a DVD store, and a store selling clothes and sundries on the ground floor, and a large restaurant on the second floor. It was a large, empty restaurant the afternoon we went.

Outside the building, facing the sidewalk, is a large and colorful shrine to the Thai Buddha, mirrored and festooned with garlands.

We went into the supermarket and browsed, looking at all the packets and jars of curry pastes, the great selection of fresh seafood, the assortment of colorful Thai dolls and buddha figures.

Jitlada is on Sunset Boulevard, a block south, so we walked, passing stucco apartment buildings and old '20s houses beneath the wide-spreading branches of mature shade trees.


The restaurant is in a strip mall, and exhibits the ethnic and functional diversity typical of L.A. strip malls. Here, an herbalist and a video store plus another Thai restaurant share the strip mall with an Armenian restaurant - and with what's said to be the best Southern Thai restaurant in America.

There are two dining rooms side by side at Jitlada - we were seated in the second one, at a table just below the bar. The decor isn't fancy. There's a large Thai wood carving on one wall, and the tableclothes are colorfully printed Thai calico, but other than lots of framed reviews, there's not much ornament. Colorful modern pendants hang over most of the tables, but our table was graced with a '70s style fake stained glass lampshade that said "Michelob" on it.


The menu is vast. The first six pages are divided into courses like appetizer and salad, and offer the usual Thai dishes. Beyond that, though, is a densely typed list in black and white, arranged by protein type (fish, chicken, seafood, lamb, etc.) with the Thai names of the dishes followed by brief descriptions. Although I didn't count them, there are said to be over 300 dishes listed.

A small list of popular dishes was displayed in a small plastic stand on table. This, along with the printed reviews under the table's glass cover, served as a guide for ordering.

Thai meals are intended to be a balance of all tastes and flavors - hot (spicy), sour, salty, sweet and bitter. Dishes are meant to be shared with the whole table - it's not polite to order one dish just for yourself. Rice is an important part of every Thai meal.
Meals usually include an assortment of dishes - something stir-fried, something in a curry sauce, a salad, something very spicy, and something cool and sweet. Southern Thai food is notable for its emphasis on fresh herbs and spices, like turmeric; an abundance of fresh fruits, and vegetables, and a variety of seafood. The south of Thailand is a land bridge between the Asian continent and Malaysia - a place where Indian, Chinese, Thai and Malay cultures mixed and mingled. Many southern Thais are Muslim, so southern Thai food often relies on lamb and beef.

At Jitlada, the chef cooks with ingredients grown fresh in the owners' garden - fresh chiles, lemongrass, herbs and limes. The recipes come from his home region and from his own family.


Our first shared dish was a meat stir-fry known as Crying Tiger. You could choose beef or pork - we chose pork, which was a wonderful choice. Morsels of tender marinated pork were served with a dish of sauce on the side. This sauce - a lime-chile concoction, brimming with chile seeds - was promoted by the Food Network as one of the best hot and spicy foods around. And hot it was - I cautiously dabbed my pork into tiny teaspoon-sized pools, and ate rice after each delicious bite. [The Man I Love] was more adventurous. He wrapped some pork in the lettuce leaves and dunked it right into the sauce.

We shared a large bottle of Singha Thai beer, and glasses of lemon-scented water to keep our mouths cool.


Our second dish was something I'd read about and was also featured on the little card - a salad of fried morning glory and shrimp. Here, "morning glory" refers to Ipomeoa aquatica, an Asian vegetable also known as water spinach, Chinese watercress, or swamp cabbage. It's also called kangkung, rau muong or pak boong, in Malay, Vietnamese, and Thai - and is common in Southeast Asian cuisine.

In this salad, it was battered and fried until crispy, then tossed with slivered red onions, bits of cooked shrimp, and herbs in a bright, sweet and pungent dressing. It was amazingly delicious, and the texture of the fried greens was out of this world. There was a tingle to it, but it wasn't hot and spicy like the previous dish.


[The Man I Love] chose the third dish based on a recommendation from a food blog. This was fried chicken drumsticks, served with papaya salad and sticky rice. Normally I don't care for chicken drumsticks, but these were fascinating. They were deep-fried to a fare-thee-well, dry, almost like jerky, yet wonderfully crispy and delicious to gnaw off the bone. They were served with a sweet-sour red sauce, and with a bowl of one of my favorite things, green papaya salad. The salad had fresh green beans and lots of plump cashews. There were crispy bits strewn over the platter - they were crunchy and spicy. I'm not sure what they were, but it was all marvelous.

Now that I read more about the place, I realize how much more there is to try! New Zealand mussels. Rice salad. Something called Jungle Curry. Crabmeat claws with mango salad. Crispy fried catfish. It all makes the mouth water. We'll have to go back soon.