Oh LA, how I do love you. This has been one of the best years of my life. Meeting amazing people, cooking for celebrities, lunches at Spago, concerts at the El Rey, Avalon, Wiltern, Music Box, Staples Center, most with VIP passes. Awesome stuff. TV tapings, Two Broke Girls, Jeopardy, Craig Ferguson, Conan!! Seeing Chicago with Christie Brinkley at the Pantages, Elaine Page in Follies at the Ahmanson. and the Broadway production of Green Days American Idiot ( it was passable). But Broadway its not and concerts lack a certain “bonding”
one gets back east, shivering in the cold in front of Irving Plaza waiting to see Amanda Palmer or The Kills at Terminal 5, well its just not the same. People here have no passion. No sense of “we are in this together”.
No, I have decided LA is to much a dog eat dog city. No hey, your doing this too? As New Yorkers often feel when they are at an event.. They have each others back. That doesn’t happen in LA. Everyone here is out for themselves. Period. Don’t get me wrong, the weather is the best anywhere , outside of Australia. The produce & farmers markets are so stunning as to make you cry. People, when they are NOT behind the wheel of their car, are actually pretty nice. Not the highest intelligence level, but earnest & sweet, so that’s ok.
I have been to 5 food events, and no one, repeat, no one really seems to care what you think. Though Susan Feniger at LA Weeklys farewell to Jonathon Gold was lovely, she posed for pics, and signed a menu. A class act. Ditto the Chef at Waterloo & City and the Chef at Haven Gastropub in Old Pasadena. He gave me a “save foie gras’ t-shirt. Now that rocked!
I find the endless plethora of pizzas, burgers, chicken cobbs, chopped salads, chinese chicken salads, beets & burrata salads with hazelnuts rather boring. Yet this seems to be 95% of all menus in LA. Uber casual. Even Spago, which is delicious, is really just a glorified pizza & salad joint. Seriously. Okay, so its LA casual. I long for, miss, NYC class. People who hold doors for you, smile in camaraderie when the weather is bad, and when nary a cab is to be found and you do find one, you offer to share. Most importantly, for me, the way people dress. Nice stylish, black. Skirts, linen white blouses. Heels. Dressy, but not sloppy or over the top. Women in LA look like for the most part they are wearing their nightgowns out in public. Or god, even worse, hootchie shorts & hooker heels. No style. No class. No elegance.. God, I know I sound like a snob, but as a born and raised NYC’er and having lived in CT for the past 25 yrs, well, LA needs a lesson in manners. From drivers (dont get me started on this one) to just plain everyday interaction with the human race.
Though inspite of all the faults I have found during my year in LA, I will come back here, often. Really often. To go to a great concert at the Wiltern, have a wonderful dinner at Melisse, or Josie or Spago or chow some sushi at Sushi Roku, or nom some shrimp toast at Son of a Gun, and finish with some ice cream at Scoops West Side. Or get the best bagel in this town at The Nosh of Beverly Hills. Stay at the Mosaic or the Palomar..pop into fundamental for the best sandwich in LA or 800 degrees for a pizza thats ready in 3 minutes. Zoom down to LACMA ( my membership is good for 5 yrs) to gaze at the “ROCK” look at the lights and have a nibble at Rays Stark Bar, then tootle over to Whimsic Alley on Wilshire (a harry potter haven) to get my magical fill of what can only be uniquely LA. The Grove, the SGV, SFV, Malibu, well…I will miss it all. Deeply. But I know its not going anyway, unless a major quake hits, hey I did get to feel 2!!
So for now, in about 8 weeks, our time here will end. I look forward to going back to my country farmhouse, frogs croaking in the pond, the barn, the 3 acres, the apple trees, and best of all maine lobsters at $3.99 a pound & mid town Manhattan 50 mins from my front door. Most of all the QUIET!! No neighbours chopping down trees at 7am, the garbage men deadly silent, just us & the deer & the pond & the yard. Peaceful, lovely, bliss. Home.
Already have tickets to the NYC Taste of the Nation & to see Morrisey at Radio City Music Hall.. good times await..im going home. And LA can always be my happy “vcation escape” .. peace out for now..Oh yes..Ive gotten INKED 2 times. Both lovely spiritual tattoos..so on next visits, thats always an idea ;0
One regret..there was someone I have wanted to meet for years, we got close, but the timing of that night was terribly wrong. If he reads this, my only desire was to put the face to the voice and have a cuppa tea and a proper hullo. Nothing more.
Sometimes life really isnt fair, but then again, all we have while we are here is time, so whos to say my dream couldnt actually happen someday. One can always hope.
May all your dreams come true! love my sweets, V
Aha…there is a follow up to this blog…one that includes MOVING back to LA!!! After spending a month in NYC, I realized it wasnt “all that” and that I actually, trully missed Los Angeles! Rude drivers, traffic…the ever present sunshine 
SO in quite a turn around, we are coming back. This time to stay. And if I ever get to meet My Mystery man…that would be the icing on the cake. Til then..
We land back on Dec 3rd. Peace out.
Nice to hear from you again Chef! I didn’t care much for the Southern California lifestyle I’d come to know when living there either, but don’t mind occasional visits from time to time. I couldn’t get used to being utterly alone in just about any crowd of people there, very strange to experience it.
Hope you are well