January and February Rounded Up

Back from Los Angeles, I kicked off the year with two major purchases: an exercise bike and new knives. Promise I'm still riding the bike daily and cutting things up at every chance I get.

Socially, the year was off to a good start with Kristin and Devon and Emily's triple birthday at Hank's Juicy Beef. High School friends hosting New York friends at their Chicago Italian Beef restaurants. Just what I always expected to happen. 

Caught the spectacular Kerry James Marshall show at the Breuer just before it closed. I hear the show is headed to Los Angeles next? Don't miss it!

Other good art from around the city:

Some Harlem walking. Sneaker lines as usual.

Some of the best eating: Brisket at Momofuku Ssam Bar and the Queso Shell taco at Tacos No 1

My major accomplishment of the first 1/6th of the year: Cooking carnitas for 30-40 for Heather's party at Trevor's. I couldn't have pulled it off without Heather's help or Tom's sous chef-ing. And I was too busy to take any pictures but here's boiled tomatillos on their way to becoming salsa and Tom plating tacos.

And speaking of birthdays, had a major time participating in Tara's birthday donut crawl. We drove two cars around the city and ate at the Donut Project, Dough, the Donut Plant and Underwest Donuts. After Donut Project I was stuffed, but I didn't give up. We were fortunate to have skilled-baker Cystalyn present to cut each donut into 11 pieces. Everyone sampled everything. Favorites? Lemon or Beet and Ricotta donuts at Donut Project.

And that's a little New York interlude. Next up: Another trip to California means another set of LA posts.

California Family History Tours

That blog title is dishonest. This whole post won't be about California family history. But a lot of it will be. The post is named after the majority of its content.

New Years Day! Family photo on the porch after church.

New Years Day Observed: Late dinner at a King Taco in South Central.

They'd turned a whole strip mall into one giant King Taco! And what a nice parking lot mural, too.

The next day we took our first California family history tour and saw where Grandma and Grandpa went to medical school, where Grandpa probably lived back then, the apartment Mom was a baby in, the beautiful old Westwood chapel, the grave of Grandma's sister who died after she was born Norma (which is at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery so we saw some cool celebrity and Armenian graves, too) and wrapped it up with a classic Hollywood lunch at Musso & Frank's and a drive by Grandma's old hospital. 

Afterwards: So tired. Three generations of naps.

But they did wake up for a neighborhood walk after the sun went down

That night I went and saw a taping of Doug Loves Movies with Greg and Becky and Becky made friends with Rachel Bloom.

The next day, a big day, we went to Fallbrook, where Grandma lived when she was little and saw the ranch I've heard so much about. 

But first, we visited relatives at Rose Hills.

Later, Greg and Becky would break out Ticket to Ride. So I broke out and met up with Lucas for Hostess treats and tacos.

Another day: lunch at Bob's Big Boy in Burbank with Collin, at last. A trip many years and many talks in the making.

One more day! A trip to the LA Temple with Mom and Emily and Grandma followed by lunch at the Pantry. Holy smokes was the Pantry good. I hadn't been there in, err, maybe 15 years? (the time just flew by!) I had a wonderful chicken fried steak but their toast, man oh man that toast!

So, in conclusion: Los Angeles is good. I like Los Angeles. Like it so much that I went back before this post even got posted! But before I post about that trip I'm going to post some New York stuff or else this just be a trips to California blog.

It's the Rose Parade

Talking to my New York friends I'm surprised to find out that they don't know everything about the Rose Parade. Many of them all they know is that there is a Rose Parade, but what it is, or why it is special, they do not know. Fortunately, I know what the Rose Parade is and why it is special. As its route is just a walk away from Grandma's house, Mom grew up going to to and I went to it all while living in California and have caught many since then. 

Traditionally, our family would stake out a spot at Allen and Colorado, but those days have kind of passed. Fortunately we've become associated with associates of Grandma's and the spot they stake out. The way it goes is early in the morning the day before the parade you're allowed to put your chairs out and then someone from the crew keeps an eye on the spots throughout that day. I was happy to protect the chairs from 4:30 to 6:30 that night. There's a whole lot of pre-parade cruising up and down Colorado the night before the parade. It's a regular car show.

A note of family business: Cousin Scotty had a one-night layover on his way to Hawaii. Good to see you, Scotty! Or Scott now, probably.

Ok then on the morning of the parade (which is usually on the 1st unless the 1st is a Sunday, then it's on the 2nd, as was the case this year) you get to your spots nice and early because you don't want to miss all the pre-parade excitement along closed-down Colorado and you especially don't want to miss the B-2 stealth bomber fly over. So spooky and amazing, hard to believe these planes are from the 80's. Or 90's. 

Some of the street sights before the parade...

Uh oh, Parade's about to start!

And here we are. The Parade.

And that was it for the Rose Parade. We went home to Grandma's to party with relatives and eat Chinese chicken salad, for which I had the honor of deep-frying the rice noodles. A real coming of age experience.

Also: Did you know that the floats in the parade are 100% completely covered in flowers or other vegetable matter? That's the rule. It's one of the things that makes this a classier parade than most. Also: No musical performances besides bands. That helps, too.