Epicurean Adventures in West L.A.

I found myself on L.A.'s West Side the other day with a few hours to kill, hmmm what to do?  Luckily I remembered the Japanese stretch of Sawtelle, just north of Olympic; gift shops, sushi, noodle houses, bonsai nurseries, the Yakitoria chicken joint and, best of all, Nijiya Market. This traditional Japanese market is great for browsing. Find black cotton swabs (meant for men), ready-made food - some of it recognizable, and the most intriguing junk food selection in town.  I found Japanese Kit Kat!

Nestle releases limited edition flavors like Candied Sweet Potato, Sweet Roasted Corn, Watermelon with Salt and of course, Green Tea. Nijiya had Ginger Ale flavor as well as Royal Milk Tea, now I'm a bit obsessed.
So, do they taste "true"?  Sure, in a candy kinda way. Ginger Ale: yep, pretty close to a soda, with a hit of lemon to make up for the missing bubbles and, thankfully, not as sweet as most ginger ale sodas.
Royal Milk Tea: I love this one! Really does tast like a combination of English Breakfast and Earl Grey teas with enough sugar and milk to make it creamy. Sooo good!  At about $3.00 a pack, they're not cheap but they're a great treat!  Now, if I can just find the Caramel and Sea Salt flavor...
Find a Nijiya market at http://www.nijiya.com/store.html
As soon as I figure out the sushi candy kit, I'll share that with you.
 

All in how you look at it.

It’s all in how you look at it.
Sometimes the world looks tired, cheap and ugly to me, other times it’s stunningly beautiful. Same world, same day, maybe same 5 minutes. It’s a matter of how I choose to look at it. Personally, I can’t live in an ugly world for more than a few minutes without becoming horribly depressed, so turning that perception around is an important exercise.
Today brought an excellent example: Midday traffic on Hollywood Blvd, I’m pinned behind a Russian beer delivery truck with nothing more to do than ponder the cheaply produced beer advert; The model’s thin, limp hair with that flat, orangey bleach job, her shaved eyebrows have been penciled in a bit wonky and the makeup artist has never heard of blending.

Only as I shot these pics with my phone did I suddenly see something more…She looks like a Tamara de Lempicka painting!

 Those limp curls become chunky waves, the unblended colors and shading on her face is perfectly in keeping with Lempicka’s “soft cubism”, her direct gaze and simple, defined areas of color. The photo’s still cheap, the styling still clumsy but now I’ve found the beauty in it and the world looks brighter.

The only thing that has changed is my mind.

Tamara de Lempicka website

Craving these lately. A new view of post-apocolypse, or maybe just post-collapse.