Be Reckless

Social media, Surveys and Peach Trees

Fires contained and temperatures back to the seasonal average, which is in the high 80's. Not bad to be outdoor again and plant the peach tree to celebrate Isabella's birth. I decided to keep my grandmother's family tradition and plant a tree in the garden for every birth. I remember my sister's beautiful camelia in the garden of Villa Serenella in Laveno, with all those scented white flowers... Mine was a Japanese fruit tree. but Marina... oh,the camelia was SO Marina! And I wish I could plant another camelia for her here now but it makes me sad to think she will never have a chance to smell these flowers.

While I am getting my hands dirty as usual with soil, shovel and hose, I am also recalling all the surveys that I should have filled up according to the  minds of vendors who sold me appliances, sofas, patio furniture or else in the last few weeks after I moved in this new place. Are these people out of their mind believing that I have the time to do all that? I already resent the calls I get from customer service every time after having my car in the shop or opening a new bank account. I am afraid to go on Google and check sites since I always get banners with their advertising five minutes after browsing. But the surveys are really too much to bear with.

I am a little bothered also by the news appeared on my Facebook page yesterday. "Macy" read the banner,"We are now on Facebook!" Wow. Do I really care to know in real time where the director of corporate communications of the above company is having lunch??? Maybe I should review my idealistic idea of social media. Maybe I should just conside FB one of those things you check every few weeks just because it's there, just like the Victoria's Secrets catalog.

L.A. Noir

Friday afternoon was a treat. Private walking tour with John Buntin, author of L.A. Noir, a well researched book that depicts the low life, crime war and police corruption in the 20's and 30's. Too bad not being able to go on his special Esotouric tomorrow morning but I already know almost all the places. I can visit them later at my own time.

Having to document my pitch for Elle is a fantastic excuse to indulge in my passion for the darkest secrets of LA LA Land. It was at least a copule of months that I did not walk Downtown at sunset, up and down Broadaway and Fifth, deep inside skid row and then back on Hill all the way to 7th e Angel Flight. Never like today I thought how much I love this place with my guts. I used to say I loved Los Angeles but could not take Downtown, its traffic and smoggy air, the dirty gum paved streets and the too many homeless sleeping in cardboxes on the sidewalks. Now I see only the beauty. The history resurrecting thanks to restoration of the palaces and the theaters. Hig rise lofts sporting names borrowed straight from Italian counts' last names, placed where once was the noisy electric cars station. 

I am in love with the old cafeterias and the cops joints run by Armenian merchants in the Saint Vincent courtyard, in the heart of the jewelry district. Should I live here, an eventuality suddenly appealing to a consumated beach girl/wood woman like I think to be, I'd buy my donuts and coffee at the bakery inside Clinton. I would definitely go back to read the actual hard copy of the L.A. Times there every morning instead of the on-line version on my computer, looking out the window to canyonland.

I can't get over the way my perception of this lively, messy, charming part of the city has changed. It does not even resemble the abandoned place I disliked twenty years ago, when I had to be Downtown to improve my English in a very good school on Grand and I could not even find a decent lunch place around. Downtown was damn dead then. Inhabited only during business hours by bankers and merchants who could not wait to escape his streets before dark. How sad.

Who could imagine that nightlife in Downtown was going to be what has become now? Who could predict the internal immigration of artists and galleries spinned by the well-aimed low rent plan offered to them by developers?

To make a long story short, today Downtown is really Live And Die in L.A.

A transient city reshaping another face from its past. To be here now. Surprising and seducing again.

POP Cuisine

Inclined to experiment and experience instead of pre-judgement, tonight I decided to cook my first green bean casserole. I mean, I really followed the recipe on the label of the "crispy fried onions" that you are supposed to put on top of the beans mixed with Campbell Mushroom soup (yak!)

Well, it was tasty! Despite keep thinking what Grandma Tesoro would have thought of this real deal American recipe, a stake almost popular as "macaroni & cheese" (this last one is pretty disgusting, according to my taste) with those people who don't know how to cook, I found it delicious.

The crunchness of the beans go quite well with the creamy buttery mushy mushroom dressing. And the good news is that it takes 1 min preparation and 30 in the oven. You can take a shower while it cooks and be fresh and ready in time to enjoy your home made supper. Liberating!

Rose Jam

It was a few days that food did not make me happy. No matter what I chose to have for supper, breakfast or lunch, I wanted to discard it after two bites. Different tastes did not taste different, just equally boring.

Were I somebody more concerned with her figure than pleasure in life, I should have been happy. But food has a big part in my edonistic concept of joy. I don't care about quantity but I value qaulity and diversity. Therefore over the past two weeks I experimented with unusual flavors and foods. But I was still unhappy.

Until tonight. Coming back from my night walk with Moki and having decided to kick back and stay home instead of the movies, I finally open the jar of Armenian jam that my friend Litty brought over about a month ago. Notice, generally speaking, I dislike jam. Any kind of jam tastes too sweet to my buds. And if it wasn't for my unusual dissatisfaction with any other kind of food, Litty's jam would probably sit in thepantry forever. 

It smells like rose water and it tastes heavenly.I love food that smells good. I spread a thin film of it on a tea biscuit and accompanied it with organic lemon tea infused with fresh mint from the garden. And I feel GREAT now, reassured that I did not lose my ability to enjoy one of the finest and simplest pleasures of life. I'm thinking about pouring some of the tea in my hot bubble bath and call it a night.