French Toast at Fig

The Los Angeles Times food critic calls the Fig Restaurant, inside of Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica,..."pitch perfect...," another review calls it..." a raging success..."

I couldn't have agreed more, when having breakfast with my dear cousin and very special French friend, who authors a food blog. Check it out at http://www.aworldinapan.blogspot.com/ . You will find out the translation of the menu's Pain Perdu and many more things.

All the activity of a swimming pool, along with imaginative farmer's-market fresh food, was so "Southern California"!

Just in case you were, as was I, wondering why the restaurant was called Fig? This magnificent Moreton Bay Fig tree greets all visitors to the hotel and restaurant.

Pain Perdu was prepared with brioche, croissant, cinnamon and berry coulis.

Summer Exhibits at Bergamont Station

Can summer be better expressed than by these beautiful renderings of the sea by Alex Weinstein? Being a local artist, he knows the ocean well. They can be viewed at the Greenfield Sacks Gallery.

The artist, Greg Miller, is a surfer. In his paintings, being shown at the William Turner Gallery,

he has used surfboard-making techniques for his fine art. They are oil, paper and resins on panel, looking like square surfboards.

French Food in Venice (California, that is)

What a privilege it was to begin my day with a dear Parisian friend, and, (the "nomad gourmand," at that). We ate heartily until the dessert arrived, then "it simply melted in our mouths." Very unlike the French, we were in a hurry! Our next stop was to see the varied art in the galleries at Bergamont Station in Santa Monica, and we were anxious to get there.

Olive Kitteridge

It seems hard to believe that this book won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. I could not even like the characters enough to care about what happened to them. Isn't that critical?

Julie and Julia

Julia Child inspired me to make boeuf bourguignonne for my family when my children were young.

They will forever call it "Mother's Black Stew." The instructions in her famous "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," left out one critical fact...do not cook it in a black cast iron dutch oven!

Julia would say that all cooks have their mishaps, saying, "never apologize...who knows what goes on in the kitchen." Seeing this movie, starring the great Meryl Streep as Julia, made me want to try the dish again.

America's Favorite Dancer

More than 21 million viewers called in to cast votes to name Jeanine Mason of Florida America's Favorite Dancer!

Waiting for the results and watching the contestants of the Fox television network's show called, "So You Think You Can Dance"?, abundantly, clears up the question. They can.

The Golddiggers

The art noveau El Portal Theater was the site of the fabulous premiere of a stage show featuring six dancers from the original Golddiggers. The celebrity-studded premiere kicked off what promises to be a great romp echoing their illustrious past.

I attended with my friends, Sally and Joan, life-long dancers, themselves. We stopped when walking the red carpet to take this shot. As girls, at Hollywood High School, they had gone to the movies at the El Portal. Joan said, "the boys were cutest there."

Valentino

I often wondered why my fashion-savvy Italian friend would get so excited when referring to Valentino. After seeing the documentary about the legendary designer, entitled "Valentino The Last Emperor," I now understand. His designs are indescribably beautiful and opulent. So beautiful, indeed, that even he didn't understand why everyone didn't consider him godlike. When wanting the film crew to turn off their cameras during a private moment, he wondered why they weren't "all on their knees"? Is it possible for an artist to create masterpieces without that kind of arrogance? Not in this case.

55th Class Reunion

My Downey High School class of, "yikes," '54, held a four-day reunion aboard Carnival's Paradise. Almost 50 of us including family and spouses had a great time catching up and being together again.

Close friends (some from grammar school and from the same Camp Fire Girl group) barrelled around the island on a golf cart.

Our Camp Fire Group had spent weeks on Catalina Island during summers in our high school years. Seeing these swimmers gave us memories of our swimming in the bay, even sneaking out and doing it at night. There we were again; remembering dancing at the casino every night, diving for coins when the ferry boat came in, swimming all day (and some nights), and having tea with the caretakers at the Wrigley mansion. A wonderful reunion!