Budget Cuts start in Los Angeles

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Anglophile in Little Tokyo: Shojin

When you think about it, Britain and Japan have very similar cultures. Both are hell bent on good manners, are quiet and unobtrusive on the subway, and have a remarkable way of showing stern disapproval without saying a word. Well, at least my college roommate had that skill, and I have thereafter attributed it to all Japanese women. The silent enforcers of law, propriety and cleanliness. If anyone left anything out on the table, that unfortunate person would feel an unmistakable and powerful wrath. Ah, my dear roommate. I miss her. I hope she got the birthday present I sent…

Maybe it’s the season, and maybe it’s all the cherries at the farmers markets, but I am missing Japan. And when I miss a place, I start craving the indigenous cuisine. With England, it was meat pies, bangers and beer. For Japan, it’s Sushi, Okonomi-yaki (which I made the other night), and the Buddhist Vegan food at Shojin, right here in Little Tokyo.
When I went to Tokyo two summers ago, I didn’t have anything like vegan food. I had some very weird food, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t come across Buddhist Vegan until I was in Downtown LA. Shojin restaurant was trying to spread the word of their recent opening by setting up a stall at the Little Tokyo Farmers Market at City Hall. And as always, I was very receptive to receiving that word—always eager to try things I haven’t seen before. The petite Asian girl manning the counter was trying to ascertain their client base and asked “are you vegan?” Nope. “Are you vegetarian?” Nah-ah. She looked perplexed. I asked her “What would you recommend?” “The Seitan balls [for beginners].” She didn’t say it, and was too polite to show it, but I knew what she was thinking. I was a meat-eating newb.
Every week after that I tried something else, and let me tell you—there are no bounds to what you can do with soy. Tofu is the tip of the Soy-berg. The truth is, I don’t know what the hell is in the food at Shojin. And normally, if I don’t know what’s in it, I stay A-W-A-Y. But the family who runs the restaurant is so earnest about their Buddhist Vegan ethos—a concept that requires some explanation, but for me, pares down to No Crap Added—that I trust them. Everything they make uses healthful oils, whole foods, all organic vegetables, and has no additives or chemicals. These are my kind of people. Even if I’m not vegan, or vegetarian, or Japanese, or Buddhist.

Last night I had dinner at Shojin with my boyfriend and one of our friends - none of us are Vegan/Vegetarian, but all of us are trying to lose weight. My trip to Kauai is coming up in a few weeks, so the deadline to look good in a bikini is looming. We figured Shojin would be a safe choice--and it was, even with delicious creamy curries, a savory fried pumpkin croquette, and barbequed seitan.
But then I had to go ruin it by buying a few cream puffs from Beard Papa's, which actually lived up to all the hype I've been hearing about them. Crisp, not too sweet pastry on the outside, whipped custard on the inside, and so much better than a donut. The best part? I still lost weight. Sweeeet. Shojin
333 S. Alameda St. Suite 310 (Little Tokyo Shopping Center 3F)
Los Angeles, CA 90013

Tel: 213-617-0305

Ghalia Organic Desserts

I am a veteran of many “organic” “healthy” “sugar free” “lowfat” cookies. And I can tell you, on authority, that they taste like prunes and applesauce: also known as Yucky. With a capital “Y”. So imagine my surprise when, mid-bite into a chocolate chip cookie sample, I hear the words “it’s sugar free” applied to my tasty morsel! Ok, it did taste a little different than Toll House, but in a more gourmet way – not like health food. I had to investigate what made this possible, and with a name like “Ghalia Organic Desserts,” I figured the secret was not aspartame.

So, Nosy Parker that I am, I interviewed the owner--and not only discovered the secret of the sugar-free cookie, but learned how Ghalia came to be at my Farmers Markets in Downtown L.A.

The story begins with Khatija Dadabhoy, who had an abhorrence of crap, a yen for cooking, and then…had a daughter. Although she had worked as a school counselor for eleven years, she didn’t want to keep up an emotionally draining career and try to raise her kid at the same time. So, she decided to take the leap and leave her day job.

“I wanted to come up with something I could do for myself, and I was already doing a lot of cooking and making baby food. I didn’t want my daughter to eat all the junk that’s out there, and [the business] grew out of that. Then I got into baking and decided to do one thing and do it well.”

And her daughter’s name? Ghalia. “The business is named after my daughter; she was the reason for me wanting to do something like this. Her name means ‘precious’ which is what I feel about my business also.”

Ghalia Organic Desserts began as just organic versions of normal cookies, cakes and brownies. But Khatija was constantly looking for ways to make her treats more healthful, while maintaining the taste and feel of the original artery-clogging, teeth disintegrating, blood-sugar assaulting recipes. Even when the ingredient isn’t labeled organic, the decision to use it is based on whether it is truly the better alternative. For example, she uses non-organic Earthbalance instead of butter which has heart-healthy oils, including Omega 3s, and is vegan, but tastes and acts just like the “udder” butter. Many of Ghalia Organic desserts are sugar free, gluten free and vegan.

“We’ve done a lot of experimenting over the years to get our recipes just that much better. We use flax and tofu in our vegan brownies as an egg-replacer—we don’t tell people it’s vegan unless they ask. And when they taste them, they don’t care. They love it!”

Since Khatija doesn’t have a store front yet, she is using farmers markets to spread the word and as a way to meet her customers in person. She initially thought that she should keep the vegan/health-nut nature of her desserts on the downlow – “It’s funny, I thought we’d just have people who wanted dessert” – but vegans and other similar species of extremely picky eaters found her out. And now she gets fan mail.

The farmers markets get the word out, but what Khatija specializes in is custom orders. She has a web store and takes orders over the phone for cakes and gifts that are custom made to the client’s preferences. You want low-fat brownies? No problem. Sugar free? Got it right here. Sugar free, gluten free, vegan, and low fat cake? Well Happy Birthday to You, because she can do it. She wants customers to use her website as a jumping off point to create something unique. Prices for gifts start at $25.

And what is the secret to those addictive sugar-free Chocolate Chip Cookies?
Agave to add moisture; coconut/palm sugar to act like brown sugar; and the chocolate chips are sweetened with grain.

Mystery solved.

Ghalia Organic Desserts
Los Angeles, California
telephone: (310) 351.7870

Anglophile in Wien-derland

Every writer should have a coffee shop. One that’s mostly empty, plays music without lyrics, and has big tables over which to spread avalanching piles of notes. Ideally, this coffee shop is in a small country town, owned by people who greet patrons by name. It should have window panes that swirl and sag with age, and French doors through which warm breezes and daisy yellow light pours. Every writer should work in a place like that. No, not as a barista. None of those “Liberal arts major” jokes here.

In downtown L.A., Wien on Wilshire is the closest I’ve come to that ideal. At lunchtime in the middle of the week I am one of two people taking up one of its many large tables. Classical and Opera music drown out the sounds of traffic and the light that manages to blaze a trail through smog, tall buildings and tempered glass may not be honey-hued—but it’s not brown either. An improvement.


The untroubled atmosphere lulls me into a mood for reverie and helps me gain focus at the same time. Or maybe that’s the coffee and mango mousse clarifying my mind. Either way, Wien is an oasis of serenity. A world thinly peopled with Asians who sustain their slight figures on weird Korean/Viennese pastries, like the green pinwheel striped “pea pan” and sweet potato cake. Europe meets Korea meets Alice in Wonderland’s tea party – why does that seem so like Los Angeles?

Wien
1234 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles

UCLA Recent Grad Reception 2009 - Wine Party on Campus

My weekend of wine tasting started right after work on Friday. Well, “right after” if you include the hour of bumper to bumper traffic and twenty minutes of getting lost between me and the vino. My friend invited me to the Recent Grad Reception at UCLA, which this year had a wine tasting theme. I was expecting a few tables with some generic wine – but let me tell you, my alma mater knows how to throw a party.

In addition to a couple crowded beer brewery tables, there were thirty wineries pouring over one hundred wines. Unfortunately, it was impossible to get to all of them in the space of two hours, and with a long drive to Santa Ynez ahead of me, I didn’t even try.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a few wineries from my home town, so out of a sense of duty and pride, I hit those first. Dragonette Cellars did justice to the Valley’s reputation for producing impressive Pinots with their 2006 Pinot Noir, and the next table over was Los Olivos-based Demetria Estate that practices the highly questionable “biodynamic” method of winemaking.

What excited me however were the new wineries testing out their first few vintages—the “recent grads” of the vines, if you will. Terravant Winery is opening a new wine tasting facility this summer in Buellton that will have spaces for five local wine makers to pour their stuff, and two of them were at UCLA: Thorne Wine, predictably pouring a Pinot, and Pacific Ridge.

The 2005 Pacific Ridge Pinot was good, but the strong tannins could use a year of storing to soften the edges. The 2006 Pinot, however, had a sweetness that balanced the tannins and was – oh god, I’m going to say it – quite quaffable. Ok, now I’m laughing at myself. Who actually says that? The best part is that Pacific Ridge Vineyards is owned by a UCLA alumnus, and I think I heard him correctly when he said there might be a discount for his fellow Bruins.

The stand out of the evening was Malibu Solstice. It’s so new that they don’t even have a website up yet, but their Cabernets are so full of energy that my eyes went wide at first sip. They were pouring their 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 Cabernet Sauvignons. All came from the same vineyard, from the same grapes in Malibu – but they were worlds different from each other. The owner said the differences were solely due to the weather each year. The 2004 and 2005 were conventional, the owner and I agreed on that. But the 2006 was exceptional with fruit that bowled me over and a dark plummy floral nose. Well balanced and full of personality; nothing light about it. The 2002 was all about the plums, round and full-bodied, and a little sweet. The 2003 was like sucking on a good cigar – I don’t think I’ve ever tasted a wine that screamed CIGAR on no uncertain terms. I’ve licked butter slathered oak trees masquerading as California Chardonnays, and I even got a nose of skunk and Santa Maria fertilizer (again, in a particularly unfortunate Chard), but I have never tasted a Cigar in a glass of wine. It’s like the vintner used the wine cave as a humidor. Fantastic. I love wines that are unapologetic about what they are, and that is what Malibu Solstice specializes in producing.

Today, I'm taking time to rest and do some research for my next article on the less expensive tasting rooms in the Santa Ynez Valley, and tomorrow, it's more wine tasting.

Office Politics in the Communal Fridge

Someone is stealing my milk. I buy a 99 cent carton of milk once a week for my coffee so I don't have to use the ground up corn crap that is artificial cream. And this week my milk has gone down a lot faster than it should. Yesterday I left just enough in there for one good cup of coffee, and this morning there was maybe 1/4th of that amount. A drip. And the carton was overturned and buried 2 layers back in the fridge.

Now, I like the fact that nothing in the communal office fridge is labeled. It promotes a friendly and trusting environment and contributes to a feeling of good will toward men (at least in my mind). Even with no labels, it’s not rocket science to avoid taking others’ food: If you didn’t bring it, don’t take it. And unless you’ve been hit hard on the head, remembering what is yours is not difficult.

If I just wanted the action to stop, I might just mark my next carton with “Please don’t steal my milk” or some similar polite epistle to the perp.

But I want revenge. And for revenge, I will need a decoy carton of milk laced with something very unpleasant that will absolutely ruin the perp’s coffee.

My top four options thus far:
White vinegar
Ground habanero peppers (not sure if the milk will deactivate the spice)
Milk of Magnesia (a laxative-maybe too harsh a punishment)

Buttermilk

Please leave any suggestions in the Comment Section.

Sigh. The truth is that I'm too much of a frugal Virgo to ruin a perfectly good carton of milk. Even for revenge. I guess it's back to the note idea.

The view from my balcony this evening

My Debut as Published Photographer

My Fieldguide to the Farmers Markets of downtown L.A. went up today and features my very own photographs. They're not my best or most artistic (see my Photography tab for those), but hey, they're published somewhere other than my blog and that makes them special.

Above is Khatija Dadabhoy of Ghalia Organic Desserts, who will be featured in a future post when I have the time to write it.

Ducklings!

These cute little fuzzies were just outside the steps to our apartment this afternoon.