I was just about to combust when I received one of three daily phone calls from Sophie's school with an ever cheerful robot voice letting me know the latest salient facts regarding SENIORS. New readers might not be aware that Sophie, as a 20 year old, is still eligible to attend the great LAUSD, a mixed benefit that I am grateful for, I am, but that this is her third year as a SENIOR thus we are subject to all the excitement and responsibility that is due a SENIOR, all excitement that she is distinctly not a part of in any way but this robo call daily, until May of 2016 when she will not graduate but go on to her last and final SENIOR year. There will be no SENIOR portrait or cap and gown or prom or even a visit from the United States of America Marine Corps Recruiters (yes, they still call), and with the exception of the last, it makes me a bit bitter, a bit -- well -- combustible.
I didn't combust, though, because I left to have the most amazing lunch I've had in years and ended up in a near rapture. There's my hipster Instagram photo of homemade celeriac pasta with celery root, celery crudite with pickled mustard seeds, celery ash, and crispy Jerusalem artichoke. I ate this in about 3 seconds flat and then licked the plate. It's from a new little restaurant in a strip mall on Santa Monica Blvd in Hollywood. The restaurant is called Baroo, but I will henceforth call it Rapture in a Strip Mall. Don't get your panties in the proverbial Biblical wad. The dish cost $9. The chefs are Korean, and I think the fanciest, most prestigious restaurants in the world might be missing a chef or two, and they're right here in the big shitty in a tiny place in a tiny strip mall. Seriously. Don't tell anyone.
Here's the dish that my friend ordered:
It was called the seaweed something or other and had grains and berries and horseradish and each flavor just hid, all subtle, and then jumped out at you as you chewed and then swallowed and then broke into tears. I won't even tell you about the shortbread, two tiny rectangles with some kind of little giblets of something or other on the top. My friend and I ate those standing up, outside the car, and it was sort of obscene given how high the temperature is today anyway.
This is why we live in the shitty, folks, even if God is still using the blowdryer on us, the humidity is rising, it's 104 degrees in the shade and we're praying that when El Nino comes, we don't return to the mud from whence we emerged.
I am thinking back to the one time I was on California and how much I hated the heat. It was SO FUCKING HOT. It was evil hot. No break. No air. Just FUCKING HOT. I was there for a whole two weeks and I have no idea how you manage to not stab someone. (It is a legitimate defense in my opinion.) The heat, the robo calls. Sometimes a stabbing is the your only recourse.
ReplyDeleteYou must have been here during a heat wave, because the weather more often than not is perfectly temperate and glorious. It's why we call it paradise!
DeleteWe were staying with family for a short time and he did say that it was unusually hot. ;-)
DeleteWhat would we do without delicious food?
ReplyDeleteAnd by golly that looks (and sounds) like delicious food.
It most certainly was the most delicious food in the humblest of settings.
DeleteWhat charming, interesting food. I too had a small, artfully designed (and locally sourced) bit of lunch at the country equivalent of where you went, a tiny restaurant behind a convenience store on a dirt road. Paper plates, recycling bins and a chef trained in Paris.
ReplyDeleteCharming and interesting are the exact words to describe the meal -- and exceptionally nutritious. They do a lot of fermented foods which is evidently all the rage.
DeleteWill have to go back and watch one of the food shows about Korean places in LA. This looks so fab, so, so fab. I have lost whatever wits I possessed with the heat. At 8:45 p.m. it was 91 degrees in South Pas. I will think tomorrow about your food and rapture. xo
ReplyDeleteI know. I just went shopping at Whole Foods (for my book salon on Friday), and the car thermometer read 90 degrees at 9:00!
DeleteFood, beautiful and tasty, can raise our spirits and cool us down--and, it doesn't have to be served at The Ritz!! So happy you found that oasis!
ReplyDeleteBest,
Bonnie
Yes, Bonnie -- exactly!
DeleteYes, Bonnie -- exactly!
DeleteYes, Bonnie -- exactly!
DeleteTwo extremes of experience here. I'm glad rapture won out today.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I sometimes feel guilty when I write about good things my girl is experiencing, because i imagine how it must land for you. I won't stop doing it because I'm thrilled when life goes well for her, but I know how lucky she has been, and hopefully will continue to be. Still, I'm sensitive to the pangs such posts may cause, and wish I could change the tides so that we might all experience only the good, but how useless a wish that is. Sending love.
Oh, no -- please never feel "guilty" when you write about good things concerning your girl. It's wild that our girls are the same age, isn't it? Sophie is so much herself and has been for so long that hearing of what life is like for "normal" people her age isn't so difficult anymore. I appreciate that you have perspective and that you're grateful for your daughter's ease in life -- but that gratitude and joy in her doesn't make my own sorrow greater or lesser! Honestly!
DeleteWe're far away from you but also enduring a long, freakish heat wave (with the bonus of hazy, filthy air). Only difference is here $9 won't get you anything remotely resembling the rapturous lunch that saved you from combustion.
ReplyDeleteLos Angeles does have so many hidden gems -- and given the publicity this little place has been getting, I imagine the $9 will change rather quickly!
Delete