hollywood

In Los Angeles, we control the weather. Eat your heart out.

Hmmm....

Maybe worrying about whether cooking is an art form is the source of the conundrum. Maybe it's just damn fine cooking when it's done right. Could be one of those medium is the message situations. In other words, maybe we should be talking about cooking as a good thing rather than art. Note that musicians have been praised for good performances/recordings by getting described as "cookin'" or "really cookin'". Perhaps the painters should be aspiring to be described as cooks rather than the cooks wanting to be labelled artists. Is the grass greener there?

Wild strawberries. Papaya. Carambola.

Hey, stop. Wait a minute. Hold the phone. Was that your picture on the wall?

Funny thing, Monkeymay, I ordered a cream soda, but when it came time to pay I saw the black cherry. Had to get it!

Dude, Pink's is on LaBrea. LaBrea as I get it translates as tar pits. Think you are on to one of their secret ingredients?

Actually, I ran into Davey at Giancarlo's but it doesn't have the flair of Pink's.

Next time get em with bacon.

Was Peter Sellers in that one? I don't think Sellers was in any Carry On The afore mentioned Cabby has a plot involving two rival cab firms run by Hattie Jaques and Sid James. If I remember rightly Hattie's firm was called GLAM CABS and was comprised of what were known at the time as "right little ravers" Ah happy days S Maybe I was thinking of Terry Thomas??

If you are willing to accept sparkling wine, Roederer Estate makes some great stuff. http://www.roederer-estate.com/wines/index.html

Agreed. Just order coffee and they'll bring out the mignardises.

But when we get on the plane, we're tourists.

Steve, There are actually pretty good hard shell tacos available. But you want the kind where the tortilla is fried on the spot, not the premade hard shell. I think most Americans got hard shell tacos first, then later the rolled variety. But soft tortillas were always available. We just didn't put 2 and 2 together at first.

Great story. Glad you made it back.

A little joie de vivre.

Steve, Remember this line from the Beatles? And it really doesn’t matter if I’m wrong I’m right Where I belong I’m right Where I belong. See the people standing there who Disagree and never win And wonder why they don’t get in my door. Steve, relax. You belong.

It's hard for Steve to avoid this when he's apologizing for the rest of us.

Steve will eventually take "yes" for an answer, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon...just not for the rest of your life.

It was worth repeating.

I vaguely recall some scheme whereby you would sign up to buy overpriced frozen sides of beef every so often and they would "give" you a freezer.

Steve, It was a big deal to have a President married to a woman named Bouvier and with a press secretary named Pierre but we managed. I think the point is some of us at least have come a long way baby. And for that matter so has the rest of the world. What value we put on this progress is another topic entirely. Perhaps if more Americans were familiar with Middle Eastern food, we wouldn't be about to stomp on Iraq.

But they sure didn't want to eat snails, much less escargot. Well - I suspect that you can select certain things from any cuisine that are particularly unappetizing to those who are not familiar with it. But it does just so happen that during that time escargot in MY experience was very popular. Many people even enjoyed it due to the "shock" factor alone. My first memory of seeing someone eat it (and this is absolutely true) was in the late 50's at that famous big steakhouse (it may be called "Big Tex") on Route 66 in Amarillo where you order this giant steak and if you can eat it all in one hour, it's free. Now this was the heart of "Bubba Land" by ANYONE'S definition. And the people at the next table were having escargot and I was absolutely fascinated at the prospect. I was about ten- or twelve-years-old at the time. Furthermore, as a young married, my closest friend of that particular era had, as her "I'm taking this to a special party" dish, escargot, served (without the shells of course) hot in a chafing dish. You picked up them little fellers with a toothpick and placed them on a cracker or toast round. So - I'm sorry - I'm just not buying this "we're so awful" stuff. I hate sweeping generalities, especially negative ones, and very VERY rarely find them to be true. I was kidding about the escargot (sorta). I grew up in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area at approximately the same time. The "foreign" food we had was Americanized Chinese, some spaghetti dinners made by Mr. Scottino at church benefits and --seemed foreign to us then--Tex-Mex. For home cooked, pizza, Chef Boyardee, Franco-American, etc. I question how readily available and if available how expensive the ingredients needed to make foreign food were at the time. Oddly, at a time when many American women were still at home and could have been learning to make these dishes (let's put aside dad making them), the impetus just wasn't there. We had steak, pot roast, canned tuna, casaroles, frozen/canned vegetables, what more did we need?

Was Peter Sellers in that one?

But they sure didn't want to eat snails, much less escargot.