Caltech Does Olive Oil

When I found out that Caltech produces olive oil, it was one of those WTF moments.  But having toured the campus, it now makes sense.  Caltech's campus has lots of olive trees with big, fat olives on them.  So why not make olive oil?  They even celebrate their endeavors with a Caltech Olive Harvest Festival.

BTW, Caltech also has an abundance of turtles.  If you go to the central campus, you'll find tiny streams and ponds filled with turtles anxiously waiting for you to feed them.  But you must not feed them because that is absolutely verboten.  Sorry, turtles.

LA Highway to Heaven

I have to confess I'm still freaked out by the LA highways.  It's such a huge, convoluted mess, with lanes constantly breaking off into opposite directions with almost no warning.  Sometimes with no warning.  One moment you're happily driving along, the next, you realize you're five seconds away from missing your exit.  And you're not the only one who's had this sudden epiphany — so have several of the other drivers around you and you're all now part of an ugly scrum to make this rapidly-approaching exit, which just happens to be three or four lanes away.  And if you're in the carpool lane, God help you.

I'll never forget my first time.  I was in Studio City trying to get to Eagle Rock.  I get on the highway and I see the guy ahead of me merge past three lanes of traffic in less than a second and I shout, "Did you see what that Nut Job just did!"  Five seconds later, I realize I should have done exactly what the Nut Job had done because I had thirty seconds to get to the right lane.

That's what makes LA highway driving so fantastically scary — everyone is merging this way and that, the exit lane the exact same lane as the merge-onto-freeway lane.  I've been on highways all over Europe and the US — this merging thing is really uniquely Californian.  I can see why so many pileups happen.  You want to merge — there's the perfect spot — you start to slide in — and then you see him — the guy from the opposite lane who saw the exact same cute little spot you did, wanting to do exactly the same thing you are — disaster.

BLD Tweet A Dish

When I found out that one of my favorite restaurants, BLD, has an on-going Twitter contest for free food, I knew I had to enter.  I really like BLD.  It's just one of those great neighborhood places where you can go for good food and good wine, where the staff is knowledgeable and friendly, the atmosphere both fashionable and relaxed, where you're perfectly free to dress up or dress down — you can even bring your kids.  Unfortunately, it's not the sort of place I can go to too often because most of the entrees are in the $15-$27 range, and when you're pinching pennies, even a $6 hamburger can seem formidable.

So how does the contest work?  You go on Twitter and suggest a dish that BLD might want to make for its Thursday night special.  Past winning dishes have included chicken and dumplings and Moroccan tajine.  I suggested that yummy Portuguese dish of pork and clams.  Well, much to my surprise, I actually won.  I mean, I never win anything, and I'm one of those poor suckers who enters everything.  I can't tell you how many stupid hoops I've jumped through, from writing slogans for lawn mowers (we really needed one) to designing t-shirts with eco themes for a hopeless chance at a Smart car.  Well, finally!  Who knew all those hours of reading cookbooks would pay off!

The prize for Tweet A Dish is a complimentary 3-course meal for two!  And that includes wine!  I was in heaven...!  Originally, I thought part of the deal was that you had to have the special you suggested, but, no, the staff said we could both order anything we wanted!  BLD is just so generous.  Absolutely no fine print involved.  As our waiter Peter said, "We just want you and your guest to have a good time."  And boy did we.  The featured wine for the night was this incredibly fun, delicious white from Slovenia called "Jarenincan" (Crnko winery), an interesting blend of riesling, sauvignon blanc, and chardonnay which made for a slightly sweet flavor with the most floral, fruity aftertaste — starting off with that how can anything go wrong?

Of course I couldn't wait to try my special.  I'd noticed that on the menu, the dish had become "Portuguese sausage and clams".  I hadn't realized that there were two similar Portuguese dishes, one with pork and clams done in an Alentejo style, and another with sausage and clams called cataplana, which is a specialty of the Argave region and is more like a bouillabaisse with lots of seafood.  BLD did the cataplana version, only with their own spin, making it more like a risotto, or, paella, I suppose.  The dish was very delicious, full of flavor from the shrimp stock, and with plenty of nice heat.

It was such a wonderful evening, with all my thanks going to BLD.  They really go all out to make the Tweet A Dish winner feel special, and it's that kind of graciousness which makes L.A. a fantastic town.

Reporter Gets Parking Tickets Live On Air

This is what I love about living in LA!  KTLA was doing a live segment about cars and this meter maid comes and starts issuing tickets — for all eleven cars!

Via Boing Boing:  thanks!

Junk Trucks

Ever since I moved to LA, I've wondered about all the junk-hauling trucks that are parked around residential neighborhoods.  Usually the trucks seem to be from legitimate companies like 1-800-Got-Junk and I just assumed that they were there as cheap, if annoying, advertising ploys.  But lately, I've seen trucks with more unfamiliar names constantly parked around different neighborhoods.  Sometimes the trucks don't even have names on them.  I was curious, but never worried.  Until now.  Altadenablog.com is reporting that some of these trucks are involved in crime.  These trucks definitely haul stuff, but stuff that you might just want to keep, like your pipes.  The operation is quite sophisticated, involving mother ships and cruisers.  For a more detailed report, please go to the link above.

If I think about it, I shouldn't be surprised.  Driving around parts of the SGV, you see a lot of really nice furniture on people's porches.  This is something I never saw when I was living in England, the reason being that enterprising thieves will come in the night and haul anything not bolted down.  You can't even leave potted plants out.  Not that anything was safe in broad daylight — people have come home from work to find that all the paving stones from their driveway have disappeared.  Is the SGV so different?  I guess not.

Parking Hell

We've had two parking tickets in three years and it's always at Silver Lake.  Specifically, at Sunset and Hyperion, near Intelligentsia.  I guess everyone has their parking hell hole, and this is ours.

The first time, the sign was vandalized and we couldn't read the parking times.  We filed a complaint with L.A.  They claimed they never got it and so we had to pay.  This time, the sign was over the hill so we didn't see it.  What's really irritating is that we wouldn't have gotten a ticket if we hadn't waited around for Ricky's Taco Stand to show up!  (Which it never did — the ticket was for $55 so it was the friggin' most expensive fish taco we NEVER ate.)  Man, some days, it just doesn't pay to leave the house.  Screammmmmmmmmmmmmming my head off!!!!!!

Things I Never Had To Worry About Before Moving to LA

1. Black Widows (the spider)
2. Earthquakes
3. Raging fires
4. Flash floods
5. Raccoon warriors fighting it out on top of the roof
6. Attacking squirrels
7. Packs of coyotes
8. Hellish parking in strip malls
9. Skunks who spray constantly
10. Cars that drive sideways
11. Sig alerts
12. Reverse 911 calls
13. Coughing like a TB victim due to dust
14. Having to read signs in Spanish and/or Chinese and/or Korean