I believe at my core I am a theater nerd. Other than that I love animals, nature (yes I hug trees) FOOD (baking, cooking, writing, photo-ing) music, filmmaking, songwriting, dancing, drumming, and many other things which have pushed and pulled me in many-a-direction throughout life. I live in LA, I'm from LA, adore California, went to school in Santa Cruz then UCLA then left to be an actress. I still have my heart in SF, dream of Paris and love almost anything British. And I make a mean hot chocolate.
September 13th, 2008 Written by: Jamie · No Comments
This is kind of like trying to describe love. The kind of love you just suddenly feel and then find yourself musing “I just knew†to all your friends… the kind of love that floats over your heart, effortless and pleased with itself.
My Love of this week (this month, this year) is Miss Peaches, and nothing but Miss Peaches, the small, painfully appealing hole-in-the-cupboard soul food joint on Lankershim blvd just north of Burbank in North Hollywood. Lord SAVE me now, did I just suddenly sleep through a plane flight and end up in Baton Rouge? Or wherever they make amazing Southern food that I never even knew existed in Los Angeles?
I scurried in late on Monday night to visit my foodie friends Jordan and Vivien and immediately forgot I was anywhere but Miss Peaches. The kind of unique forgetfulness you get when you’re at home for. [Read more →]
Tags: Food and Drink · Restaurants
September 6th, 2008 Written by: Jamie · 1 Comment
There’s a little greasy spoon cafe right near my house in Van Nuys called Nat’s Early Bite, that has been like an old family friend for my household for a long time. While it’s not necessarily “foodie” amazing, or a particularly “hip” greasy spoon, I love it because it’s real. And walking distance. Which is a thrilling novelty despite the fact that the walk is really hot, sunny and far from scenic. But inside Nat’s it’s always cool, clattering with silver ware and bubbling breakfast voices, the scent of syrup or french fries hinting the air.
Nat’s is not the place to go if you want to find some amazing hole in the wall that will give you spectacular brunch for $5, but if it’s good solid coffee shop food you want, they have some of the best out there. Which is to say if you love spooning coleslaw, warm and crispy hash browns or cool and crunchy BLT’s on white bread into your mouth, hit it up.
[Read more →]
Tags: Food and Drink · Restaurants
May 30th, 2008 Written by: Jamie · 1 Comment
As many of us are aware, circumstances of the global economy and escalating food prices have begun to affect the money we spend at our local grocery stores. Los Angeles already features a high cost of living and it seems appalling to us that it only seems to be getting worse. But imagine, while our population is estimated at approximately ten million residents, what if four million of them were relegated to an existence that not only found itself both sheltered entirely within tent communities but also entirely dependent on foreign aid for food? All the while, what if this type of hunger crises was taking place along with the threat of violence that could be perpetuated by government arms at any time?
I am not suggesting that Los Angeles can, or ever will be, in a state similar to the one the currently plagues Darfur. However, what is clear about this great disparity between these two locations is that it allows us to maintain perspective of the world we are increasingly more connected with. As we become “globalized†in both economic and political terms, it is thus perhaps worthwhile not only to espouse a sympathetic perspective that is mindful of Darfur, but to perhaps also take it one step further and become involved, in whatever small way that may be.
[Read more →]
Tags: Local LA · Reviews
May 24th, 2008 Written by: Jamie · 1 Comment
It is sometimes said that things are hardly stable or fixed and that instead, they exist in a perennial state of constant flux. With the vast array of ongoing changes in our society, politics and economy, even the least cognizant person perceives, at least to some degree, that our world is currently placed at a pivotal point. And so it seems, as a field that perhaps best mirrors this world we live in, the field of Journalism not only reflects this pivotal predicament, it is consequently itself currently characterized by it. What exactly is the future of Journalism? How will the distribution of information change as technology continues to improve? Are we experiencing the death of American newspaper as we’ve come to know it?
These issues and several others were addressed and discussed at the Steve Allen Theater Thursday night at an event featuring several experienced journalists attending as participants in a panel organized by the Los Angeles Press Club. Moderated by Ezra Palmer, a former managing editor at Yahoo! News and a founding editor of WallStreetJournal.com, the panel discussion was an attempt to shed light on an industry increasingly described with stark language and apocalyptic analogies. And yet, while the field of journalism is anything but dead, difficult challenges seem inevitable and the seemingly stygian nature of its present state demands further scrutiny and is thus worthy of a poignant discussion.
[Read more →]
Tags: Local LA · Reviews
Nothing gives me a happier glow then reminiscing over my favorite childhood books. I also enjoy eating suger. A lot of it. And drinking caffeine. So when I saw a flyer for the Studio City Library’s 2nd annual “Edible Book Tea” I knew it was something I would have to see.
“What’s this!?” I cried to my boyfriend
“Edible books!?… and TEA?…FOR FREEE!??”
And thus, the monster was born.
[Read more →]
Tags: Local Happenings · Upcoming events
April 2nd, 2008 Written by: Jamie · 2 Comments
What words does one use to describe divinity?
Quel mots can one croon for the honor of expressing the light re-cast by musical royalty?
After just witnessing the universe collapse on itself in stellar waves of bowing stars, I can only drum up one word for such an event. And that word is MUSE.
Shot during the blistering Black Holes and Revelations Tour of last summer, the H.A.A.R.P DVD/CD captures Muse at their epic best, performing to a sold out Wembley Stadium. This band rocks like God would rock if he were God pretending to be Muse descending from a spaceship, with an academy award for best film editing and an art degree from mother nature wedged between every golden bone in his golden, rock God body. If God were a man. And that he was, because Matt Bellamy is God. Get the picture? OK.
[Read more →]
Tags: Reviews · bands
As I write, Bollywood radio streams through my computer. I recall the curry chicken salad sandwich from Hallenbecks General Store and Cafe, and all is well with the world. Of course, there is more to bliss than going coo coo for curry powder, but right now, all I can tell you is that you must go to Hallenbecks General Store for this sandwich of kings. Not only because it’s under $6 folks, but because it’s as fresh and lip-smacking curry-licious as you could imagine. It yields to your teeth, makes a soft, juicy, crunchy mouthful of happy-time anytime you take a bite. AND they serve little spicy-salt sprinkled carrots, celery and cucumbers with every sandwich! Heaven. But most importantly, a Hallenbecks sandwich will bring you into an atmosphere you won’t soon forget.
[Read more →]
Tags: Restaurants · Reviews
Hot damn I love a juicy hot dog.
Get the best fresh bun, fresh ‘mater, green relish, hot pepper hot dog made to hot, piping perfection at the last place in LA you’d expect to find it. In other words, NOT at the end of a big line curling ’round the corner. NOT where you go after you get off the plane and want a hot dog. NOT, that is, at a landmark. For the love of god, the best hot dog in LA is NOT at Pink’s, people! It is, like most of the best places in the Valley, tucked away in a nondescript mini mall, on a nondescript side of a nondescript boulevard, lined with mind numbing signs of nothing. Attached to a liquor store.
[Read more →]
Tags: Restaurants · Reviews
Big buttery brownie points for Leda’s Bakeshop, the tiny, impeccably charming, food-network-worthy gem of a bakeshop in Sherman Oaks. Let me give it to you straight: Best cupcake in LA. Period. They specialize in mini cupcakes of glorious flavor combinations fit for any baby shower, wedding, birthday or bite-sized binge. But don’t go there for the cupcakes. No, my chocolate-lusting friend, go there for the brownie. The thick, rich, fresh-cut, crunchy-edged wedge of just-baked brownie-brick heaven. Made with Scharffen Berger chocolate and baked from scratch everyday, that brownie saved the Valley from my ever-widening skepticism about LA’s bakery scene.
[Read more →]
Tags: Restaurants
March 10th, 2008 Written by: Jamie · 2 Comments
St. Patrick’s Day is around the corner. And one of this is one of my personal favorite pastime, that you are more than welcome to steal, straight out from under my red haired, wannabe Irish Lassie-d nose: The making of Colcannon, an amazing potato alternative to the classic corned beef and cabbage. Get yourself a big ass pot and make it the way I’ve made it for years. (You can find many recipes online if you like, but this one has to be the easiest).
[Read more →]
Tags: Edibles · Upcoming events
Ok I know, I have another week to talk about St. Patrick’s Day, but this time around it’s about more than finding a good pub wherein to get schnockered. It’s about pride, and honor, and a the birth of a new Holiday:
“Oh My Goodness My” Guinness, the lovely blackened-red beer beloved by thousands of bitter beer lovers (this one joyously included) have decided to petition congress to make St. Patrick’s Day an official Holiday. I’m guessing that means we can get off school and work to get wasted on a Monday! Woo Hoo! Be sure to sign the petition here, they need over 800,000 MORE signatures by March 16th at midnight. But there’s more to St Patrick’s Day than Guinness, if that’s not your cup of…well, Guinness. As we know it’s also about getting together with friends and making general merriment. And being that I’m from the Valley, I know ALL about merriment!! Right?? Right. Here are my humble suggestions for the impending holiday.
[Read more →]
Tags: Bars · Food and Drink · Local LA · Upcoming events
What’s with all this cupcake nonsense? Seems like the last few years, all anybody can talk about is which cupcake place is the best. Yeah, cupcakes are great, they became a novelty, yada yada… But listen, when was the last time you had some delicately fried and frosted dough sink mercifully between your teeth? When was the last time you and your friends took a cooking-school tour of all the great DONUT places in this city of Angels? Chances are, not recently - if at all.
And when I say donut, I’m not just talkin’ KK (you know who) or old-school Winchell’s. I’m ready to bust open the gourmet donut scene here in LA so we can all take a break from eating way too much cake with frosting to eating way too much round, fried dough. With frosting.
It’s too bad that 2 of the best donuts of my life happen to have been consumed in Austin, Texas, and back east in a road side apple stand coming back from the Boston Airport, but fear not! I will save the rhapsody for another time, because we have a donut stand in LA that rivels the best of those, and if you are a UCLA student, chances are you know who I’m talking about.
[Read more →]
Tags: Local LA · News · Restaurants
This is kind of like trying to describe love. The kind of love you just suddenly feel and then find yourself musing “I just knew†to all your friends… the kind of love that floats over your heart, effortless and pleased with itself.