Yellow Light

In Santa Barbara yesterday evening, sundowner winds whipped up the flames of the Jesusita fire into a neighborhood of homes, causing the evacuation of almost 14,000 people. Some twenty houses burned to the ground.

The shifting winds blew the plume of smoke south, and even though our part of the Pacific coastline is one hundred miles away from Santa Barbara, on my evening commute I drove home through a smoky haze into a smudged and tan-colored sky.

There's something about the light when there's a fire. Everyone who lives in fire-prone country recognizes it - even if only subconsciously - and it makes you feel tense.

I worked in theatre for so many years, and seeing this golden light at first makes me think of stage lights and gels and templates that color and break up the beam to mimic sunlight through foliage - but instead of being beautiful it is now eerie and ominous to me.

These are the ashes of someone's home, suspended with the heated gas of burnt sage and pine resins, wafted 100 miles down the coast, browning the sun, snuffing the light.


This is not a golden sunset.

Thematic Photographic - Yellow

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

Fremontodendron is a California native tree or shrub. It's named in honor of John C. Fremont, explorer of the American West, promoter of "manifest destiny," and one of California's first two U.S. Senators.

It has green-grey leaves that are leathery and fuzzy in texture - which lends it the common name of "flannel bush." Its large golden yellow flowers are stunning, and a mature tree in full bloom is something to behold.

Here is a rather poor attempt of mine to capture a mature tree growing in a Brentwood garden - the photo shows the rather odd angular shape of the tree, and the masses of bloom on each branch. But, oh, it fails to capture the beauty. Next year!

I have a small tree, just four feet or so high, planted on a hillside above my yard. Each year it has more blooms. Someday it will be magnificent!

Thematic Photographic - Musical

For the next week, Carmi's Thematic Photographic will be exploring Musical themes. Put together the instruments, the rhythm and the musicians who play it, and you'll have music -

A crowded club, a dark room with mirrors and the setting sun flashing through the open doorway. Busboys and waitresses passing through the doorway.

Even with all this, and a dying camera battery, I think I managed to get a few nice pictures of the group Mariachi Alta California playing for Cinco de Mayo this evening at El Texate Restaurant in Santa Monica.

Mariachi ensembles usually feature two trumpets, several violins in varying pitches, and sometimes a harp. A high-pitched stringed instrument called the vihuela gives a distinct sound. The bass part is played by a guitarron, or a large, deep-voiced six-string guitar-shaped instrument. There is usually no percussion. The performers wear traditional charro costumes, with short fitted jackets, tight trousers with silver studs down the seams, and sometimes wide-brimmed hats. The style originated in the state of Jalisco, though it has now spread throughout Mexico and America, and began with strolling street musicians. The bands are now hired to perform at family celebrations like weddings and birthdays, and at special festivals. They play waltzes, boleros, marches and also traditional Mexican musical forms such as corridas and rancheras.

Often mariachi ensembles feature singers. For Mariachi Alta California, everyone in the ensemble takes a turn singing.

El Texate is a small family-operated restaurant, just a few blocks from the beach. The menu features Oaxacan-style food, including six different varieties of mole. So far, I've had their versions of coloradito, amarillo, and negro, and they were all fantastic. You can sit in the bar, or in the dining room where the little corner stage is located, or in an outdoor shaded patio.

The margaritas are tasty, the beer's cold, and the food is excellent. Mariachi Alta California is playing at the restaurant regularly on Mondays during happy hour and beyond - so if you're by the beach on a Monday night - check them out. Our friend Carlos plays the guitarron.

PROMPTuesday

Every Tuesday, Sandiegomomma hosts PROMPTuesday, where she issues a creative writing prompt and hope that people take it and run. This week's prompt is:

What was your favorite toy as a child? Write a vignette about playing with it. (What did you feel? Who were you with? Where did you live?)

There's a toy I vividly remember from childhood - it was a plastic car, colorful and bright, and unique in two ways. First, it was a car like none I'd ever seen on the street; three-wheeled and squat, the front of the car hinged to open like a door, with a windshield and two pop-eyed headlights. I've since learned it was a replica of an Italian car called Isetta. The other reason it was unique was that it was larger than the usual toy car - it was about six inches long, and three or four inches high. It was a perfect toy car for a girl, because I could put small dolls and figurines inside and let them ride. I have a vivid memory of this car, and a sense of longing as well - probably because I had it only a short time, and that loss has lent it an importance in my mind that it probably doesn't deserve. It played such a fleeting role in my life that I no longer remember where we lived or how old I was when I got it. I don't remember who gave it to me, nor do I remember why it disappeared. It may have been a gift brought home by my father from a business trip. My car was one of a pair of cars - my brother had one, too. They were the same, only different colors. And while I remember clearly that mine was bright primary green with a red interior, I have absolutely no memory what color my brother's car was.

It's odd that these toys disappeared - my family is unusually prone to accumulation. But now I think of it, when we recently went through my mother's house, there weren't many childhood toys. My parents kept scores of useless and obsolete artifacts of their lives - notepads from my Dad's employer in 1962; 60 year old wastebaskets; autograph books belonging to long-dead great uncles - but they really didn't keep many of our toys. For four kids, we had lots of toys, but other than a few iconic examples, they did not survive to be packed and carted from house to house to house along with all the tons of stuff.

I wonder why. Were we so hard on toys that they were destroyed? I certainly remember the time our next-door neighbor, Johnny Masters, ran his father's lawnmower over my Barbie doll. I allowed him to do it - rapt curiosity about the blades' destructive power trumped my attachment to her.

Were our toys co-opted by the first grandchildren, well-loved by them and then discarded? Why were toys the one category among family possessions that Mom chose to purge when we moved house, seven times before I was twenty?

Even now I can almost feel that green plastic Isetta in my hands. It was made from two molded pieces of plastic - the chassis red and the body that fit on top green. Its plastic was soft and flexible, its hinged door snapping shut with a little pop. The black tires spun on a thin metal rod that threaded through the red plastic chassis. Being kids, and curious, we soon figured out how it was held together, with plastic nubs fitting into plastic notches, and it came apart.

Maybe that's what happened to our toys - little wheels came off little axles and rolled away behind furniture; notches wore out until fittings no longer clicked; plastic hinges flexed, twisted, and split. An empty green shell would have been useless without the weight of the red chassis. Bit by bit, the pieces must have scattered, along with other discards - tinker-toys, lincoln logs, legos and doll-arms. Revealed only when rooms were cleared, bed frames unbolted, closets packed and couches removed. The detritus of broken toys remained, strewn over the unvacuumed carpet like flotsam on sand.

There are lots of high-quality HO scale model Isettas offered on EBay, but this cheap plastic toy offered by EBay seller dkolexion is exactly like the toy I remember, only mine had a red interior.

Here's a fun site if you're interested in learning more about real Isettas.

Topanga Blue

Hiking in Red Rock Canyon Park in Topanga this Sunday - here are the red-colored hills, the tall spikes of Spanish Bayonet ( Yucca whipplei) , and the jet contrails in the clear blue sky.

What a beautiful place to live!

A moveable feast

Detail from mural, Bank of America parking lot, Breed Street at E. Cesar Chavez Blvd., East Los Angeles, CA.

A while back I read some accounts on L.A. food blogs about a regular weekend collection of street food vendors that converge around the intersection of E. Cesar Chavez Boulevard and Breed Street in Boyle Heights. Every Thursday through Sunday evening, from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m., food vendors gather in the parking lots across from the Best Buy food store, offering a menu that ranges from the ubiquitous bacon dog to barbecued goat. The gathering appears spontaneous, although it has become institutionalized - supporting the theory that capitalism thrives where customers can depend on a reliable supply of goods and services.

Saturday night, The Man I Love went to East L.A. to check it out. We arrived at about 7:30. The sidewalks were lined with vendors and lots and lots of people. There was a mariscos taco truck on the east side, and on the west side by the supermarket, a lady with a cart with fruit and cups of jello or flan.

I've provided links to the blogger posts below so you can read more about the food and see photos - and I encourage you to go visit. Because, oddly enough, I can't tell you much about the food on the evening we went - read to see why.

We strolled through the gathering before standing in line to order anything. One man sold tacos al vapor - or tacos filled with steamed meat - he kept the pan of chopped meat beneath a damp towel - he lifted the corner of the cloth and the savory-smelling steam rose up in the air.

We passed a table of vitroleros filled with agua frescas - pale pink fresa, or strawberries and milk, orange cantaloupe, pink watermelon, and pale creamy horchata.

Beside it was a cart with two huge aluminum stock-pots, and a table with chopped condiments. I asked the lady if I could see inside, and she lifted the lid. Posole, one pot white - blanco - and one with chiles, or rojo in the other. She brought up a ladle full of meat and hominy in the broth. It smelled heavenly!! "We'll be back," I said.

We passed a vendor with blinking carnival toys, and then went into the parking lot. There was a lady making pupusas, a guy cooking thinly sliced marinated beef and chorizos on a round convex griddle, and a lady making tacos beneath a gaily-colored beach umbrella.

A man bustled around, stringing an extension cord from the base of a lamppost to one of the stands, laying flattened cardboard cartons over the cord for safety. Another man brought folding plastic chairs from the back of a van for diners. All around, people held paper plates of delicious-looking food.

"I'm going for a chorizo taco," I said, and approached the vendor with the round grill. He forked up a sausage, split the casing and finely chopped the meat. Then he took a stack of small tortillas and dipped them into the fat and juices. He shook the fat onto the flat griddle and laid the tortillas like shingles onto the popping, sputtering surface to sizzle.

After a bit, he slipped a tortilla onto a plate, mounded on the chorizo, and offered it to me. "How much?" I asked.

"One dollar."

I had a ten. He asked, "Do you have a single?"

"Sorry, this is the smallest I have now."

"Okay, well, you come back later when you get change."

Wow. Nice guy! I piled some chopped onions and cilantro on my taco, a dollop of deep brick-red chile sauce, and went back to share the taco with The Man I Love, and bummed a single from him for the vendor.

There were three tables pushed together, offering assorted sopes, huaraches, quesadillas, gorditas and pambazos. This was Nina's, the chef celebrated in the blog-posts. "I'm going to get a sope with tinga," said The Man I Love. I ordered one with huitlacoche. We watched the cook as we waited. The cook took a handful of dough from a huge mound of masa on a tray, and using a wooden tortilla press, flattened it into a disc, which he put on the griddle. This was a quesadilla. He tucked a handful of filling beneath the disc - right on the griddle surface. After a few minutes, he flipped the quesadilla in one deft motion, folding it over and scooping the hot filling inside. It was fascinating to watch.

Sometimes he mixed filling with dough into a rough fat oval, and put that onto the grill. Other times, he folded the filling into the freshly pressed tortilla and slipped it into a pan of hot oil, sizzling above a propane burner, where it bubbled away before rising to the top of the oil delicately browned.

For a sope, he flattened the dough between his hands into a thick disc, making rough indents with his fingers, and dropped it into the fryer. He scooped the finished food onto a plate, and handed it to the woman, who dressed each item with condiments.

We watched and waited for our number to be called. A nearby van displayed beach blankets printed with Disney characters. Children clutched plastic cups of sweet pudding. People laughed and talked. "After this," said The Man I Love, "I want to check out the barbacoa." We watched what we hoped was our dinner sizzling on the grill.

Suddenly, as if a wind had blown through the parking lot, the festive mood changed. The lights clipped to the umbrellas went out, plastic lids snapped over tubs of ingredients. Cooks and vendors scrambled, extinguishing burners. Chairs and tables were folded. People hauled coolers and bottles of propane to the parked vans nearby. There was a kind of controlled urgency in the voices, just verging on panic. "What's happening?" I asked a guy standing nearby.

"There's a rumor the Department of Sanitation's going to raid," he said. "It happens sometimes. Wait a half hour, they'll be back."

People lugged hot grills and heaved them up onto truck tail-gates. Someone dumped a vat of washing water that flowed down to the gutter. Doors slammed, headlights flashed on, and engines raced.

In two minutes the lot was deserted - except for a few bewildered customers.

What now? I had a brief flashing moment of complete selfishness. All I'd had was half a taco! Hey, people! We're hungry! Can't we at least get our sopes? But those feelings fell away at the amazement at what we'd just witnessed. An entire vivid scene, full of families and laughter and smells and food - disappeared in two minutes?

What to do now? The night seemed dead. The blog posts had mentioned that there was another collection of vendors a couple blocks away. Should we check them out? We drove south, to the corner of Breed Street and First.

Here, in a parking lot between a tire shop and a muffler shop, were two taco trucks. There were about a dozen people at each truck, other people sitting in parked cars or leaning on the tailgates of pickup trucks, eating from paper plates.

We ordered two fried quesadillas. One with chorizo, one flor de calabaza.

The muffler shop parking lot was not as hospitable as the other place, darker and less cheerful. We walked back to our car, near a little pocket park. A memorial stone with a flagpole was the right height for a table, so we ate standing before it. Our crispy quesadillas were served with slices of radish, big chunks of marinated cucumbers, pickled red onions and a choice of three salsas.

Chopped lettuce, cotija cheese and sour cream were drizzled over the top. The quesadillas were perfectly fried - crisp and delicious, the filling savory and the melted cheese inside creamy. Although the circumstances were less festive than what we'd been hoping for, we ate well.

"What do you think, ready to go home now?"

The freeway entrance was off Chavez. "Um, maybe - let's just drive back to Chavez and Breed and see what's going on...."

As we arrived at the corner of Breed Street we were stunned. There were the vendors, crowded with customers. It was as if nothing had happened. We shrugged. "Well, maybe we can get some posole after all." We found a place to park.

While I waited for the posole lady to finish setting up her condiment table, a familiar voice spoke up. It was the guy I'd talked to before. "I told you they'd be back, didn't I? They come back," he said, "cause people like the food."

Yeah. I smiled at him. They sure do.

The Man I Love and I both plan to go back again to Breed Street and experience all the food on another night. Due to the reluctance of vendors to have their pictures taken, I got only a few photos. If you want to read more about the food offered by these vendors, go visit the blogs Exile Kiss, Street Gourmet LA, and Pleasure Palate. If you're a serious foodie in L.A., go here to sign up for Abby's next Pleasure Palate meet-up at Breed Street - she's taking a group next Saturday night.

We took our posole home, and warmed it up Sunday night for dinner. Here's what it looked like.

Posole is a rich soup/stew with pork and hominy. You can see the big chunks of pork in the bowl. The pork is boneless, probably pork shoulder, and deliciously tender. When posole is served, it's offered with garnishes of shredded cabbage, chopped onions, and sliced radishes - the vendor included a generous amount of all. A good squeeze of lime helps cut the fattiness of the pork, and a dollop of red chile salsa adds some fire.

It was delicious and full-flavored and tingled with chile heat. It was one of the most satisfying things I've eaten in a long time. For $6, we got a container that served us both to satisfaction, with another serving leftover for lunch tomorrow.

If you live near L.A. and you're an explorer - check out this happening place when you can. Or join Abby at her meet-up next week.

Thematic Photographic - Musical

For the next week, Carmi's Thematic Photographic will be exploring Musical themes. Musical is more than melody - it's rhythm. And you need to have tempo....

This is a mechanical metronome. It winds up like a clock, and then the inverted pendulum swings back and forth, and makes a ticking sound with each pass - so that musicians can practice to a set tempo. The weight slides up or down the rod to change the tempo of the pendulum's swing. This type of metronome is said to have been invented in 1812, by an Austrian named Dietrich Nicolaus Winkel.

Today you can get mechanical or electronic metronomes, and you can get metronomes in fine wood or made of plastic in a range of colors. Or, as this website shows, you can get metronomes shaped like penguins.

I still haven't found my dust-rag.

Pink Saturday - Pink Modernism

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

For this Pink Saturday, I'd like you to consider these wonderful mid-century modern European bergeres, upholstered in pale pink leather. They are on display at the L.A. Modernism Show, this weekend in Santa Monica.

They date from the 1940s, and the pink leather upholstery is original, according to the dealer, Christopher Anthony, from Boston. Here's a shot of the back detail:

This pair of chairs is priced at $3,800 - mighty nice, but not in my price range, unfortunately. But that's why I take photos and share them with you - it's enough for me!

The L.A. Modernism show features 85 dealers of high quality 20th century arts and antiques, with works of celebrated designers including Lalique, Noguchi, Eames, Wright, Sullivan and Leleu. The pieces are shapely, organic, sensual, and elegant. And many of them are pink!

This painting of bright pink flowers is from the 1950s.

This bright red couch, and two bright pink cubist-inspired paintings.

Hearkening back to an earlier time, this painting by Belgian artist Emile Vloors is titled "Spring", and is priced at $350,000. It's flanked by two beautiful Viennese bentwood chairs.


There are also displays of glassware, silver jewelry from Taxco, Mexico, and wonderful bakelite jewelry. One dealer has a collection of bakelite radios - and they actually work!

But I kept returning to the booth with the pink bergeres. There's something so inviting about the shape of these chairs, and the graceful way the back curves into the arms. Wouldn't you like to sit, for a minute, and imagine you're an smart young thing, enjoying the social scene of Paris in the 30's? Think how elegant you'd look, sipping a sidecar cocktail poured from a sleek aluminum shaker by a dashing young man in formal dress. Let's pretend a little while, this Pink Saturday!

Thematic Photographic - Musical

For the next week, Carmi's Thematic Photographic will be exploring Musical themes. I was shocked to discover I had no photographs on file featuring music. Then I started to look around my house....




There's music all over my house. But lately we seem to have taken it for granted. Here, jumbled in the corner, three Nigerian talking drums, or dundun, and a kora from the Gambia. I like the vertical lines made by the strings of the kora and the straps of the drums.


Perhaps I should really do some dusting.