I’m thinking maybe I could devote a weekly Friday blog to things that make me go yum.
Here are a few new things that turned me out recently.
When my FB friend Laura posted something about Coconut Curry Chocolate, I was enticingly dumbfounded. Through her largesse, I yesterday received a Fed Ex package of Theo Chocolate at the door! She sent both the Coconut Curry Milk Chocolate and a dark Chili Chocolate.
The package was filled with packing peanuts. Then a silver bubble wrap packet. Inside that was a cool gel pack in a Ziploc. Then a brown paper wrapper (yes – food porn requires a brown paper wrapper) and then – voila – 3 bars of chocolate with a bow. They were taking care of this chocolate.
I usually eat chocolate v-e-r-y slowly. A few squares a day. I did not think it was appropriate to try the chocolate for breakfast. I managed to hold myself off til after lunch.
When I opened the bar, there were not little squares marked off. There was more like a big chunk. Hmmmm….what to do. Okay. So I broke off the first chunk. Took one bite, and then immediately another. Then was transported to another dimension. The texture – you can feel the curry and the coconut, and yet it is still smooth and creamy. The taste that layers – first the milky chocolate (totally right choice – dark chocolate would have been too heavy and woodsy and in competition with the curry), then the curry, then the coconut. Not too sweat. Delectable.
Theo’s is a local Seattle chocolatier. They are organic, fair trade, and have vegan options.
I can’t wait to try more!!!
The Brentwood Country Mart can be the butt of jokes. It is extremely bougey. It has suffered since Bristol Farms went away. But it is also a best-kept
Westside secret. A place for writing breaks, diversions, a fun stroll, and the best shoemaker in town.
Now it is home to Sweet Rose Creamery – a new boutique ice cream shop from the folks behind Rustic Canyon and Huckleberr. Not gelato – ice cream - they were quite clear about that. I went in there one afternoon, quite full – too full to justify getting ice cream. But they allowed me to taste.
First try – the Salted Caramel. Wow. I’m not completely on the salted caramel bandwagon, but wow. This was perfection – the flavours hit in the right order – a little salt, then the creamy buttery sweetness.
Next try – Caffe Luxxe Coffee. Did that say “Caffe Luxxe Coffee”? Yes – they are using coffee provided by Caffe Luxxe (who will soon be opening another shop next store) for their ice cream. Back in the day, when Haagen Dazs was a little store in Queens that hand-packed ice cream pints, this is what the Coffee tasted like. Only, I think, possibly, this one is better. It’s a lot of years separating the two tastings, but I’m feeling confident that this is the best Coffee Ice Cream I’ve ever tried.
The Hazelnut-Chocolate was not as earth-shattering as I’d hoped. It didn’t have much on the gelatos I’ve tried. But the other flavours were heavenly.
The shop is very homey - country, but sparse and not cloying.They have sorbets and a vegan option daily.
Eating late in Los Angeles can mean trips to the 7-11 or crabby service at Canter’s or too bright, too loud, too much Swingers.
So I’m not sure I should even blog about this one, but here goes. Pho Show is a – you got it – Pho place open til 2am. Near Culver on Sepulveda, it is well-located, mod, cool, and has a huge menu in addition to the Pho. Yummy and reasonable and where else can you get a Vietnamese Iced Coffee at 1 in the morning?
Dakah Hip Hop Orchestra @ California Plaza
If you don’t know, Grand Performances runs fantastic, free, outdoor events all summer in downtown Los Angeles.
Last weekend, the return of Dakah Hip Hop Orchestra to its home base was heart-warmingly transcendent. Double G’s vision has grown to sublime fruition in this 70-piece orchestra doing hip hop covers with live MC’s, back-up singers, two drummers (including MadLib), a DJ (Jedi!), and even a guest appearance by Macy Gray.
The place was packed, the energy was high and it was a testament to the will, strength, talents and persistence of the homegrown artists of LA that Dakah not only exists, but thrives, and is supported and adored by its community.
Don’t tell me this town ain’t go no soul.
I’ve recently been binging on Hell’s Kitchen on Hulu.
I had started watching some reality cooking shows with friends who are addicted, and then decided to try this one on my own.
I like Gordon Ramsay for the same reasons I like Nurse Jackie – they get sh*t done and done right and they take the heat for cutting corners when it comes to convention.
When did that become a crime?
When did we get so namby pamby that we forgot that what Americans are good at – in fact it may be our only real achievement -- the drive for excellence by any means necessary.
A few years ago, I got to work on a Gordon Ramsay show. I’d heard the same things everyone heard about him – his ranting, his cursing, his mean-spiritedness. I was afraid. And then he came to work. He was the most focused, professional, in the zone person I’d ever seen. It made him, as far as I can tell, completely neutral except in respect to the job at hand. He was a master. He came in, solicited brief, to the point opinions from several people who had been watching developments before he arrived. He listened more energetically than most people talk. He’d never met me, but listened to me as if I must be super-smart, completely informed, and 100% on his team – therefore that’s what he got from me.
When he interacted with the people on the show, his passion was so evident as to be completely contagious. He is judgemental – a taboo in our current society – but his ability to judge is not only earned by his experience and acumen, it is desirable. People need to hear what he has to say. People who are in trouble, or not good enough, need his advice. For Ramsay, not making the grade is, in fact, a fixable problem. So when he is giving you the tools to do it and the lessons you need and you don’t step up, then his passion comes out as anger. But it is still passion seated in the desire for excellence and order and right.
When did we become so politically correct that we are socially, culturally, and emotionally incapable of passing judgement on the vast difference between right and wrong, between crap and fantastic, or even that huge space between good and great.
In this economy the difference between a good restaurant – or any business – and a great one isn’t just stars on a review – it is the difference between having a business and not having one. Can we afford to hold back our intuitive capabilities to tell best from better in this climate? Is it not the time for us to say goodbye to cruise control and get back to striving?
So we can all spend our days ranting about poor customer service, or maybe we can all get back on the horse and realize that some of our greatest failures of late – from the oil spill, to the economy, to the education of our next generations -- may come from cutting the wrong corners.
Excellence inspires passionate problem-solving, transcends ego, and makes Darwin proud.
Excellence has a price – one we used to be willing to pay.
Watching Gordon Ramsay require it, and seeing people learning by submission, a necessary step in the learning process – even and especially for creatives – makes me remember the country I was raised in, makes me remember that doing it well is more important than what “it” is. That as a civilization, we have the choice to have a kick-ass planet if we are willing to commit our energy, time and ingenuity to that.
Nurse Jackie and Gordon Ramsay make me feel there’s an order in the disorder, there’s still a good fight, and that just maybe the world does not have to slip into the abyss of corruption, stupidity, and gossip.
Just maybe showing up with our best for the people around us, and also demanding it of and for ourselves, is enough.
| This is a printer friendly version of an article from www.rogerebert.com To print this article open the file menu and choose Print. The Remodernist Film Manifesto From Jesse Richards, Granby, MA: 3. Cinema could be one of the perfect methods of creative expression, due to the ability of the filmmaker to sculpt with image, sound and the feeling of time. For the most part, the creative possibilities of cinema have been squandered. Cinema is not a painting, a novel, a play, or a still photograph. The rules and methods used to create cinema should not be tied to these other creative endeavors. Cinema should NOT be thought of as being “all about telling a story”. Story is a convention of writing, and should not necessarily be considered a convention of filmmaking. copyright 2005, rogerebert.com |
Have you ever crossed a line you didn’t know was there, wandered into unknown territory, oversold yourself, bragged and not delivered, were you ever too big for your britches?
Anybody who knows me knows I like to push past borders, bust genres, and eradicate separation. Sometimes it works out; sometimes it doesn’t.
Emmett Till is a name, a story, a warning, a message, a smoke signal, a flare sent up; he is a bellweather, a symbol, a cause to rally behind.
He was also a boy. He was just a boy when he died. A boy with dreams and plans, a mama, but no daddy. He had a personality and predilections. Family. He was a person.
The Ballad of Emmett Till, now playing at the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood, gets it right. As a night of theatre, it is one of the best you can see in LA. It tells the story of a boy, caught up in that combination of his personality, the forces that shaped him, social mores and the times he lived that we all must wrestle. For Bobo, as he was nicknamed, this combination proved tragic. He did not live to be a man, but he died one.
The ensemble is razor sharp in their work together, thanks to meticulous direction by Shirley Jo Finney and precise and evocative choreography by Ameenah Kaplan. Ifa Bayeza’s elegant play calls for tremendous collaborative work and they deliver. As Emmett Till, Lorenz Arnell – 18 -- is shockingly proficient; every moment of the piece is fulfilled and suffused with such life and truth he carries you into a world you never thought you’d care to visit and makes it so you don’t want to leave.
Not every circumstance you find yourself in will lead to death from a couple of wrong steps and a dash of hubris, but some will, and they are not all relegated to the past.
Saria Idana’s Homeless in Homeland is premiering this weekend at ArtShare LA. It is a piece that presents material she has written and gleaned from her travels in Israel, Palestine, and the occupied territories. It is a look into an ages-old conflict, refashioned anew in the 20th Century. It weaves stories of Jews and Arabs around Idana’s poetry and personal story. It is a powerful 80 minutes, and has moments of beauty and humanity not often found in one-person shows.
What emerges from this piece is the idea of personal geography. Like Emmett Till, Idana has traveled a long way from home to a land of different customs and mores, one which is supposed to represent lineage. Once there, she cannot block out the very obvious human conflict and injustice, which leads her quite literally to question her place.
Both pieces get underneath the inherent racism in their surprisingly comparable situations by looking at individuals and their struggles directly. What is at stake here, for both oppressed and oppressor, is the ideas of personal freedom, of home and homeland, of identity. Bypassing the politically charged buzzword, they explore the universal in small contexts.
As a Jewess, Idana wants Israel to be home, as a humanist, she cannot embrace the system of oppression she encounters, as an artist she is not free to ignore it as so many do. A northern city boy with dreams of a big future, Emmett Till neither heeds, nor believes the warnings he receives about what is acceptable behaviour in the rural American South of 1955. The Palestinians Idana encounters are armed only with stones against a well-funded modern army; Emmett Till is armed with intelligence, over-confidence, and charm against a system of oppression ingrained into a culture centuries before his birth.
Emmett Till is everything we tell ourselves when we are unsure of our journey, but know clearly our destination – fake it til you make it; showing up is 90% of life, lucky is just another word for ready. Emmett Till is probably just what Idana felt crossing the border into the West Bank for the first time.
Most of the time, being Emmett Till will get you by. Slide by on a smile and a compliment, eyes on the prize and it will all work out in the end. How many times have you been Emmett Till? How much has it cost you?
Nobody could convey to Bobo that sometimes we need to tread lightly; he wasn’t ready to hear it, and it cost him his life. He was just being himself, like the Jews in Europe as Hitler rose to power, like the Palestinians in their homeland in 1948.
Emmett Till’s transgression was walking into an existing situation thinking it didn’t apply to him personally. The rules were in place, but he wanted outside the rules – he wanted to be looked at as in individual. The Jews in pre-World War II Europe, the Palestinians before 1948, suddenly had rules brought down on their individuality and freedom and they fought against them however they might, mentally, physically, emotionally. Idana takes her American-ness, her Jewishness, and crosses the border into a world too simple and too complex to bear, the stories so heavy, they weigh down her own identity.
Purity transgresses convoluted complexity simply by naming it. Yet there are many born whose job it is to name it and there is always a price to pay for that particular privilege.
I am Emmett Till. Maybe you are, too.
