July 2016 Recap: Life in LA

I spent last week volunteering at summer camp so this July recap is a little late. But what a month! I spent all of July in Los Angeles, filling in at my old job and catching up with friends while enjoying favorite restaurants, hikes, and theater spaces. The beauty of living in LA part-time is that it’s special every time I come back; my stay here always feels fleeting, like I have to make the most of it. It’s a nice way to live.

I’ve already detailed 4th of July weekend in Big Bear — it was the best. I love this group of friends so much and it was a beautiful location to unwind. We grilled out, stargazed, hit the hot tub, watched Independence Day and a ton of Rachel Bloom videos, hung out by the lake, and I got in some long solo photo walks. My favorite part was waking up early-ish to sit on the deck with coffee, chatting with friends while enjoying the view.

Another weekend, I visited Wilson Creek Winery in Temecula with friends — Grace, Rian, Jessica, and Elena. We brought a picnic, enjoyed their signature flavored champagne, and walked the grounds. I’ll share more photos of this in a separate post tomorrow.

I enjoyed so many meals out with friends — it’s the best way to catch up with people, and there are so many restaurants I like to go back to when I’m in LA, as well as new ones to try. I definitely spent more money (and calories) than usual going out last month, but it was worth every bite.

Favorite restaurants featured in these photos (above and below): sushi at Octopus, coffee at Priscilla’s, ramen at Jinya’s, brunch at Steampunk, burgers at Bob’s Big Boy, pub food at Timmy Nolan’s.

New-to-me restaurant featured in these photos: vegan food at Sage.

Also: I LOVE MY FRIENDS. Thanks for taking time to meet up, sometimes giving me rides (I’m carless in LA), and being game for so many meals out this past month.

My friends Mike & Amy hosted a puppy brunch! Have you ever heard of a better kind of brunch?! Caitlin brought her little pup Reggie. Mike & Amy’s dog Archer got lots of cuddles. I joked that I would steal a dog to bring, but did not follow through on that. Someday I will have a dog of my own to love and it will be glorious. In the mean time I’ll pet my friends’ pets.

Also, Mike & Amy are vegan and made us a delicious brunch with waffles and meatless sausage. Plus mimosas.

On my last weekend in LA, I got to visit my favorite brunch spot Steampunk Kitchen + Coffeebar. They serve a dish called The Stack that includes waffles, bacon, fried chicken, kale & onions, and a maple chipotle type of dipping sauce. IT IS SO GOOD. Their coffee is decent too. Pro tip for enjoying brunch here: dine with good company. Thanks Laura, Yas, and Naz for joining me!

My Y&R co-workers introduced me to a place near work called Food Fair by Diego that quickly became a new obsession. I went there maybe 6 times in two weeks and ordered the exact same thing every time because it was so good: the fried fish tacos, served with a spicy cole slaw and side salad. It comes with an intense pepper reduction sauce you can drizzle over the tacos. It’s my new favorite thing and I can’t get enough of it. Also it’s only $7.

Other places that were new to me this month:

Sage, a vegan spot that Mike & Amy have talked about for awhile that I was eager to try. I was disappointed in the BLTA pizza (the avocados were really firm and the imitation cheese didn’t do it for me) but would happily go back to try other items on the menu. Those are Mike’s jalapeño corn cakes below. And Mike & Amy shared one of their truffles with me; it was delicious.

I also stopped into Cake Monkey right near work on the suggestion of my co-worker Nancy. This bakery makes all sorts of fancy things at various price points, and for around $3.50 I sampled this yummy small coconut cake.

Of course I spent many morning and weekend afternoons at Priscilla’s coffee shop in Toluca Lake. It’s my happy place. I’m usually quite productive there and the blueberry vanilla iced coffee is my jam.

There have been a couple of pretty bad fires in Los Angeles recently. One weekend was particularly crazy — the sky looked positively apocalyptic as the sun shown as a tony dot through heavy haze and smoke.

But it made for some intense photos:

My friend Kelley and I enjoyed an afternoon of baking! We’ve done this a bunch of times and it’s always so much fun. Here’s what we made this go around:

Pro tip: the pinot noir brownies were the best. Will definitely repeat that one.

I went hiking twice with my buddy Mike — first the Paseo Miramar / Los Liones trail to Parker Mesa in the Palisades that was one of my favorite hiking spots when I first moved to LA eleven years ago. It’s a tough uphill trail in the Santa Monica Mountains overlooking the ocean.

Then we hiked in Griffith Park very early one morning when the fires were bad. It was such a weird environment to hike in — inhaling smoke as the sky burned orange.

I did a quick hike up Fryman Canyon with some friends — shout out to Melissa, who gave birth three days after this photo was taken!

Following that hike in the above photo, a group of us went to brunch at Lakeside Cafe in Encino. I had no idea this place existed! It’s a man-made lake next to a small park, and the restaurant is set in a garden next to the lake. Pretty scenery and good food.

On the work front, it was great to be back at Young & Restless again. My co-workers are like family and I’m grateful for the chance to spend time with them again. We did a few mini outdoor location shoots around the CBS lot, which air this week and next week.

Here we are celebrating our casting associate Greg’s last day — he is the best, and I’m so grateful to know him.

(Aside from the top-left photo, the others were taken by the supremely wonderful Christian Le Blanc!)

Other fun happy hours after work at the Grove:

I squeezed in four shows in July. The most notable was West Side Story at the Hollywood Bowl, a concert with minimal staging and costumes. The cast included Broadway favorites Jeremy Jordan and Karen Olivo, plus newcomer Solea Pfeiffer as Maria, who is generating a lot of buzz at only 21 years old.

A few hours before the show, a fire blazed in the Hollywood hills just beyond the Bowl. We could still see firefighters surveying the damage hours later while waiting for the show to begin:

West Side Story is one of my favorite shows. First of all, it’s an early Sondheim show — he was only in his mid-20’s when he wrote the lyrics to go with Leonard Bernstein’s music. Second, I associate produced a production of WSS in Hollywood back in 2009, and I think I saw it over 30 times during the course of that run — mostly from the lighting booth with stage manager Kevin and director/choreographer Arthur, two of my favorite people. So this show holds good memories for me.

A few more moments from the night:

I also saw the musical Grey Gardens at the Ahmanson Theater in downtown LA. The Music Center, surrounded by three major theaters, is one of my favorite spots in the city. I took the bus there after work and found a new-to-me sushi spot nearby, which made for the perfect impromptu pre-show picnic. The show was just okay — definitely depressing, but with some neat staging elements (the video projections that were a nod to the documentary’s history were especially spot-on). I was glad to see it since this show is not done very often.

I thoroughly enjoyed attending a radio recording of the play Boy by Anna Ziegler, based on a real-life story of a baby boy who was raised as a girl following a botched circumcision. Bobby Steggert, who starred in the recent NYC run, came out to LA for this recording — unlike most actors at these readings, he was off-book because of his history with the show, and that made his performance all the more compelling. LA Theatre Works is the company that produces these broadcasts and they always feature a full season of great work with high caliber actors. Also, I was sitting in the front row near the foley artist who creates all of the sound effects live during the show.

I also saw a world premiere play in Burbank called The Engine of our Ruin at the Victory Theatre. The premise is great: diplomats from the U.S. and an unnamed middle eastern country meet to discuss relations, and the translator / interpreter manipulates the conversation to get them to agree on building a school for girls. Despite the rave reviews, I didn’t love it. We never find out why the translator went to such lengths to get this school built, which to me was the more interesting story — I want to see this same play through the lens of her character, instead of the broad comedy that largely takes place on the American side of these talks. I enjoyed the humor but thought we lost something by not going more in depth with the translator’s perspective. Regardless I am happy to support new work by local playwrights.

I read a few books this past month… The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin, Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, and Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart. I enjoyed all of them. I snapped this photo on the scenic UCLA campus after the performance of Boy.

Oh! And I forgot to share photos of fireworks on July 4th — I visited my friends Kelley & Irving and watched from their rooftop. We could see fireworks all over the Valley.

And suddenly the month was over and it was time to return to the east coast! I had one night to enjoy time with my family before going to summer camp; we got dinner at a local diner and then played board games. So glad to be back with these guys (and the pups!).