My favorite new drink is a pirate's chai. I'm not saying that just because it's pirate season. Made with matcha green tea, a pirate's chai isn't as sweet as a regular chai. The foam leaves a touch of bitterness on the tongue to nearly convince me to add more sugar. But the rest of the drink washes down my throat in a cascade of sweetness and warmth. The pirate's chai is an updated version of the medicinal green tea that I used to drink in traditional Japanese tea ceremonies. Considering that I know of only two places that serve pirate's chai in SoCal -- Mani's in Santa Monica, Calif., and Kaldi in the Atwater Village neighborhood -- I relish drinking it as much as a real sea scoundrel quaffs his rum.
Last Sunday, after scouring a vintage clothing expo with some girlfriends, I came across another vestige of the pirate's life. In the backseat of a canary yellow Mercedes convertible was a big cage with a green parrot inside. Emili was gracious enough to stall her car at the West Hollywood street intersection and wait for me to document such silly randomness on my cell phone camera. You can see in the mirror how happy I was to be part of wacky history.
A bunch of Spaniards decorated a bevy of bulls and sold them for charity in Beverly Hills, Calif. My favorite was the one drawn by a chef from Madrid, who laid out a seven-course meal on the bull-shaped blackboard.
There are two things that I'm really into: space and dragons. My love for space reached its climax when I interviewed Mr. Spock (a.k.a. Leonard Nimoy) at a black-tie event last year. Quite dashing in his black suit and mock turtleneck sweater with jagged edges, both by Giorgio Armani, Mr. Spock was a little crusty. I knew that it was going to be a throwaway interview because he didn't have much relevance to my newspaper. I approached him as a fangirl instead of a reporter. At one point, he asked me if I had a sense of humor."Yes. Why?" I asked him. "Because you aren't laughing," he replied. I thought to myself: "You haven't said anything funny, Doodoohead!" This is the T-shirt I got from the Star Trek Experience shop in Las Vegas a couple of years ago. I describe it as a Vulcan who lives in the Hello Kitty! universe.
The maestro of randomness in Los Angeles is Matty M. Missy's little bro is gonna be a big deal in the music biz one day! He'll bring a lot of integrity, enthusiasm and curiosity to such a jaded industry. I showed him how I keep it real by playing a cassette of Velvet Underground's "VU" album in my car. He showed me how he keeps it real by cooking pork chops with Shake 'N' Bake for dinner. And Shake 'N' Bake was no euphemism for marijuana!
Before we tucked into dinner, Missy, Cory and I toasted Matty M. for being all grown up and cooking a nourishing meal. Here, Shake 'N' Bake pork chops with roasted apples, green beans sauteed in olive oil and lemon juice and rice.
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