A surprise

Never let anyone tell you that [The Man I Love] isn't a smarty. He read my PROMPTuesday post about childhood toys and.....

A few days ago we received a package. Guess what it was?

[The Man I Love] went to the Ebay seller I snicked the photo from, and bought the little car for me!!!!


Here it is. It is a lot smaller than I remember - but I think probably it's the same size for grown-up hands as it seemed for child-sized hands at the time I remember it.

It's green and orange. Not quite the same colors as the one I had as a kid, but then, my brother's car was a different color than mine, so they must have had an assortment.

See how it opens up? It's just as I remember. It's got the same rubbery plastic feel and smell, too, as I remember. The little axles pop in and out of the plastic fittings, like any other cheap toy. Such a cheap little thing, so priceless a memory.

I found a couple of toys to take a ride in it. This is the little clay pig that came with a wonderful handmade pottery mug I bought from Gary Rith, along with a tiny Maneki Neko I bought as a good-luck gift for [The Man I Love].

He read my post and he bought the little car for me. Isn't he sweet?

Pink Saturday - Kick-butt heroines

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

When I was about 14, the newspaper in my hometown ran a comic strip called "Modesty Blaise" for about 6 months, and then discontinued it.

But I was smitten. She was exotic, beautiful, European, and led a life of thrills and danger. Her back-story was that of a nameless orphan, a war-time refuge, forced to live by her wits, learning to survive in a harsh world. She'd run a criminal enterprise of jewel thieves, gained a fortune, and then gave it all up. She was then persuaded to turn her talents to good, helping the British secret service.

At 14, I wanted to be just like her.

I cursed my ill luck to be born an affluent, well-fed suburban Ohio teenager, and wished I had been born a nameless orphan. Oh, and that I were also gorgeous, with great tits, lips like Angelina Jolie, and knew martial arts well enough to kick some serious butt.

Modesty Blaise was created by writer Peter O'Donnell and cartoon artist Jim Holdaway in 1963 as a comic strip in the London Evening Standard. The cartoon strip eventually became syndicated world-wide, although sometimes it was censored in come countries due to the racier scenes where Modesty used her feminine beauty to distract the bad guys.

She was tough; a fighter trained in martial arts and backed up by a trusty sidekick, Willie Garvin, a Cockney ladies' man with a criminal past. Modesty and Willie have a platonic relationship, of course, and always back one another up in tight situations.

O'Donnell wrote the first novel based on the character in 1965, and followed with twelve more books. Although the strip made its last appearance in 2001, volumes have been reissued as graphic novels. Several attempts have been made to bring Modesty Blaise to the big screen, but none have been very successful. You can buy the novels today, and thrill to her adventures. The first novel, titled "Modesty Blaise" is pink!

The paper I read discontinued the strip, and I grew out of wanting to be like her. But I wonder if her example might have inspired me, all unknowing, in my early career, working as a stagehand. I didn't have to know karate, but I did have to perform feats of daring-do, climbing high ladders and conquering my fears. I didn't have to fight bad guys, but I did have to come up against some pretty rough characters. I wasn't a criminal mastermind, but I sure did see some the dark side of things at times.

So maybe there's a little Modesty Blaise still in stirring in my soul. Even at my age.

I kinda like to think of her as a combination of Angelina Jolie, Sophia Loren and Audrey Hepburn. Except she kicks butt.

What about you? Do you have a secret longing to be a fearless adventure heroine? Or hero?

Thematic Photographic - Signs

For the next week, Carmi's Thematic Photographic will be exploring the theme of SIGNS:

I love the signs you find on Mexican and Central American businesses in Los Angeles. They are particularly wonderful because so many of them are hand-painted - the sign-writer's art is still prized in this vibrant immigrant community.

They are also amazingly creative, with depictions of food treats and dishes, and elaborate lettering and decorations.

One aspect of these signs that strikes me is the cartoon-like depictions of the raw materials of the food being served - that is, the animals themselves - enabling their own demise and service to humankind. It's the Charlie Tuna Suicide phenomenon - I've always wondered why Charlie's goal was to be killed and eaten by humans.

Here, happy pigs willingly stew themselves for our carnitas, while their heartless brothers cheer on the slaughter while serving tortas.

This sign shows the trauma as death comes to a chicken - you can see the fear and bewilderment as the poor creature accepts its fate. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross has nothing on this profound depiction of life-and-death drama.

On the side of this taco truck a thrilling chase scene unfolds, as the dashing taco hero desperately attempts to escape his doom, only to be foiled by law enforcement.

There's no end to the assortment of signs you see if you visit East Los Angeles and other Latino communities in this city. It's wonderful to see the spark of human creativity expressed so vividly.

Hotcha

L.A.'s hottest success story has hit the big time! Today's New York Times features a story about Sriracha Chile sauce, made by Huy Fong Foods in Rosemead, California, east of the city of Los Angeles.

Go read the linked story to learn how this ubiquitous green-capped hot-sauce began, and how Vietnamese immigrant David Tran's small family business grew into a multimillion dollar enterprise.

Most people who buy it don't even know how to pronounce it's name! I didn't, until I read the article (It's "SIR-rotch-a"). Everyone calls it Rooster Sauce, after the picture of a rooster on the label.

Although it began as a family recipe meant as a condiment for Pho, or Vietnamese beef noodle soup, Rooster Sauce is really a multicultural phenomenon. A puree of red jalapenos, garlic, vinegar, sugar and salt, it's an L.A. take on a Tran family recipe. He began selling it to Vietnamese and other Asian restaurants, to satisfy the common taste for a little hotness in many Asian cuisines. Great taste and a great price helped it's popularity spread to chile-lovers from other cultures.

In L.A. you can find Rooster Sauce on almost any restaurant table.

The label on the bottle is printed in Vietnamese, Chinese, English, French and Spanish. The name, Sriracha, comes from a village in Thailand, where chile sauces are well-known, although good old American Rooster sauce is not comparable to the complex and searing sauces known in Thai cuisine. It's kind of like comparing Grey Poupon to real Dijon mustard. But the Rooster has taken America by storm. Almost 30 years after its beginning, it's giving Tabasco a run for its money as America's favorite hot sauce.

People are using it on everything. Spicy remoulade, seared tuna steak, hollandaise sauce, even Buffalo chicken wings! It has a Facebook page! People blog about it!

I love it best with a nice bowl of Pho. I like to mix a little Sriracha and hoisin sauce together to dip the slices of rare steak up from the steamy broth. Yum! Get the Rooster!

Cooking at home

One of the things we like to cook at home is pizza. We found a recipe for yeast dough in Marcella Hazan's book, and by now I have it committed to memory.

Whenever we make pizza, we usually rummage through the fridge to see what's leftover. Ends of cheese? Remains of onions, peppers? Some tired but still OK mushrooms? A few tail-ends of salami or prociutto?

I make the dough in the Cuisinart - it takes about 30 seconds - and then let it rise for a couple hours in a Tupperware bowl.

The recipe made enough dough for two good-sized pizzas and one small pie for The Man I Love, who likes anchovies. We let him have his own pie for anchovies, because Our Son and I can't bear them.

We use a pizza stone, and we bought a paddle at a local restaurant supply store years ago, to help us slide the pie into the oven to cook.

I made one pizza, using leftover cooked chicken, barbecue sauce, and some pickled red onion we'd made for a party this past weekend. It was my version of Wolfgang Puck's California barbecue chicken pizza.

The second pie was Our Son's for designing. He went with tomato sauce, fresh onions and green peppers with fresh mozzarella.

He's really interested in good food. I like to watch him as he cooks and prepares food with such an intense and creative sensibility.

Thematic Photographic - Signs

For the next week, Carmi's Thematic Photographic will be exploring the theme of SIGNS:

These bronze letters are laid in the pavement at the exit to a parking garage in downtown Los Angeles. Cars on the ramp to the street encounter them before approaching the sidewalk.

The building, at 610 S. Broadway, today houses a large jewelry dealership at street level. The garage entrance is on 6th Street west of Broadway, on the north side of in a magnificent 12 story office building built in 1908 by Walter P. Story. The Story building was one of the first modern skyscrapers in downtown Los Angeles, and considered one of the most beautiful, with its elaborately decorated terra-cotta facade.

Walter P. Story was the son of an early Los Angeles tycoon, and the parcel was given to him as a gift from his father at the age of 14. Walter became a Los Angeles financier and with the coming of World War I, he enlisted in the military. He eventually achieved the rank of Major General, received multiple citations and medals, and finally retired in 1942.

He and his wife lived in the penthouse atop the building, when they were not at their country estate.

I don't know when the parking garage would have been built, or when these bronze letters were inset in the ramps, but they are the finest looking parking garage signs I've ever seen. Don't you wish there were more words, so we could see what the other letters of the alphabet look like?

This sign marks the parking ramp entrance, with a gentle Art Deco reminder to mellow out.

Family heirlooms

Just before leaving Mom's house this spring, I took the spoons and plates in the dish drainer and put them away in the cupboards and drawers.

And in the utensil drawer lay memories. In all the work and focused effort to get the house on the market, my brothers and I had steeled ourselves to be unsentimental, to select only a few keepsakes, to avoid accumulating more junk, more things. And we did well.

But in the last fifteen minutes I spent in that house, I found these - the cutter Mom used when she made biscuits, and this Scottie-shaped cookie cutter. I remember making sugar cookies with it.

I wrapped them in a scarf and brought them home with me. Who could leave those memories behind?

Mom's house has been sold. She got the price she wanted. The closing is in mid-June. The first week of June, the company we contracted with will conduct a sale of the contents of the house.

We took what we needed. The rest will go to someone else to love.

Cheerful colors

I've been feeling a little down lately, but today walking along Sawtelle Boulevard in West L.A., the sight of this brilliantly colored rose cheered me up.

Sawtelle Boulevard is an interesting part of Los Angeles - it was once a separately governed city, until 1922, when voters agreed to join L.A. - after a turbulent few years when a previous vote for incorporation was challenged in court.

The neighborhood is known as a Japanese-American community - first settled by Issei in the 1920s, and then later by post-war immigrants and those returning from incarceration in camps. It's home to several established plant nurseries, groceries specializing in Japanese foods, and sushi and ramen restaurants. It was known for a while as "Little Osaka." In the 1980s newer immigrants and pop-culture manga-inspired toy stores and fashion outlets came in.

Today, there are several excellent restaurants here. It's worth a visit.

When you walk down the sidewalk on Sawtelle, the air is scented with jasmine because of all the nurseries on the boulevard. This pretty rose is at the Hashimoto Nursery, one of several Japanese nurseries remaining in the 1900 block of Sawtelle.

Seems to be a big story

Louisiana iris (Iris fulva) blooming in my garden.

4.7 earthquake? I didn't feel it at all. Our house is post-and-beam construction, and generally shifts and creaks with changes of temperature when the sun goes down. It also rocks and sways and adapts to quakes. The Man I Love says he felt it but wasn't alarmed.

He says - It take more than a 4.7 to get him off the couch.