Los Angeles

Hungry!  Need.  Food.  Now.  There are times when eating becomes the thing I have to do before anything else.  Knowing of close-to-home restaurants is of paramount importance to me.  Luckily, there’s a plethora of places in my Atwater Village-Silver Lake neighborhood to choose from.  Gingergrass is one.  I know that I can drive over and if it’s early enough, get a table and have food in front of me within forty minutes.  If it’s later and the place is full, I can call an order in and pick it up.  There’s value in both of these.

The sign in front of Gingergrass, and the menu itself, has these words: “Fresh Vietnamese Cuisine,” and in my experience this is absolutely true.  I’ve been eating at Gingergrass for years now and have never had a bad meal.  The food always tastes fresh and clean.  The dishes are full of interesting, bright flavors.  The menu is varied enough to never get boring.  Executive Chef Mikel Mark Kim knows his way around a Vietnamese menu while also using local, sustainable, organic, and free-range ingredients: very good things that up the quality and flavor of his food.

My husband’s birthday was coming up. As it approached, I kept coming up with ideas. “Surf and Sand in Laguna?” I asked, as he passed me in the hall. Nothing. A few days later, “Malibu Beach Inn?” Nada. A week later, I added what I thought was a fresh idea, “Ojai Valley Inn?” Still, no response.

These are MY ideas of what to do on a birthday. We usually end up at a beach somewhere because, well, we should do something, right? Then, with less than a week until the actual date, he reminds me that it’s HIS birthday. What?!! Incredulous. And now he’s thought about it and really wants to go to Photo LA, the annual photo show, which is no longer held in Santa Monica, but at the LA Mart, downtown.

DOWNTOWN? But there’s no beach. I needed a few moments to come to terms with this. “Okay,” I peeped. He said let’s get a room for the night and check out all the hipness we keep hearing about downtown. He mentioned the Standard Hotel. But I remembered everyone, meaning my son, talking about the Ace Hotel. My husband took charge and booked it. I think he feared I would switch it behind his back to a beach hotel. He said restaurant reservations were up to me. He thinks of that as my territory. And, well, it usually is.

Headaches are the worst. And if you don't catch them right when they start, they're hard to cure. I've had one for four days. My mom told me to drink lemonade.

Lemonade?

I've taken naps, sat in dark rooms, taken Aleve, even taken Fiorinal. What the eff is lemonade gonna do?

But I was desperate, and unable to operate a motor vehicle, so I walked to Cabbage Patch.

I told them my mom sent me and was convinced they could cure my headache. As if that was a normal thing to say to a cafe owner.

He told me of course they could and prescribed French lentils (which were beautifully presented with avocado and drizzled oil and tasted like they could purify your soul) and told me the mint lemonade was on Dr. Cabbage Patch. 

My mother used to tell me she would drive to Malibu several times a week.  She wouldn't stop there, just drive there and back.  To relax…to write in her head...to figure things out. She doesn't do it anymore, because of the price of gas, it's wasteful...but every once in awhile I'll wake up early and do the drive myself...watching the coastline as I speed by...I'd pay more for a movie...

When my parents first split up they weren't exactly on the best of terms. My time was divided. I spent way more of it with my Mom, and distinct brackets with my dad. My Mom and I had an easier time hanging out, satisfied with doing nothing.  One Wednesday, in the middle of the day, she drove me along the coast. 'Where are we going,' I thought to myself, but I didn't dare ask, for one because she wouldn't have told me if I had, but also because she probably didn't know herself. She stopped at one point and we got out of the car. She disappeared up a small trail you would barely notice, and I followed her up the mountain.