Nightly card game. Anyone ever heard of Hand and Foot? (Taken with Instagram)
Transaction complete! (Taken with Instagram)
Bait. (Taken with Instagram)
Buying lobster! (Taken with Instagram)
Pretty boats. (Taken with Instagram)
Getting lobster! (Taken with Instagram)
Very sad table after massive card game loss. (Taken with Instagram)
I’m going to start including either glasses of wine or lobsters in these shots. Or maybe both. (Taken with Instagram)
Maine + My Family + Lobster at $3/pound + my 2nd cousin chef’s sushi = the good life.
Me and Tere in support of NOH8.
I promise that’s the last one!
Izzy & Free in support of NOH8.
Why does Free look so sleepy and Izzy looks like she’s going to crack up laughing?
My Fierce Family in support of NOH8….wow! I still think Free looks like he just woke up and Izzy looks like she will cut you if you cross her. :)
I charged my Plug-In Prius for the first time this weekend at a Chargepoint charging station. It was excellent. The charger was easy to use, it was located inside a public parking garage with one hour of parking free, the parking space was right in the front “primo parking”, it was a half block from where I was going AND IT WAS FREE!!!
Donkey Label. Has anyone heard of this brand of cycling gear? I like it but haven’t exactly figured it out yet. As you know I’m a die hard Rapha girl…right now.
If you just saw LONG BEACH below, you might stop reading or forge ahead. I don’t think anyone feels mediocre about Long Beach. It’s a love or leave it kind of place. I’m thinking it might be worthy to trek down for some of that pie though…
Jongewaard’s Bake ‘n’ Broil (in Long Beach)
Many workaday breakfast dishes are more appropriate for the hangover-remedy department than the realm of culinary excellence.
But at Long Beach’s Jongewaard’s Bake 'n’ Broil, open since 1969, the evenly browned expanse of the hash browns is crisp proof of a skilled short-order cook–evidence reasserted by the precise set of your eggs ($6).
The sweeter side of breakfast is similarly lovely, but we always stick to the savory, because: pie ($3 to $4 a slice; $11 to $15 for whole pies). As good as the breakfast is, as many fans as the burger has, as comforting as the pot roast may be, Jongewaard’s is at its best within the cozy, round walls of a pie tin.
The area by the cash register is like a pie Fantasia, the sweet rounds multiplying more quickly than they’re eaten: a slice of boysenberry cut for this table, a wedge of rhubarb dispatched to another. We prefer sitting at the counter here, to feel a sense of regular-dom on the spinning stools and to watch this dance of pie.
Chances are we’ll opt for rhubarb, but we could be swayed by the temptation of apple, especially if a streusel-topped “French crust” pie is fresh from the oven.
Jongewaard’s Bake 'n’ Broil, 3697 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach; 562-595-0396
I don’t get the name at all but that sandwich looks good enough to make me go to Los Olivos!
Sides Hardware & Shoes
The first thing on our mind when we arrive in Los Olivos for a day of wine tasting is not, in fact, wine. It is lunch.
Problem is, a number of our favorite restaurants only serve dinner. Brothers Restaurant was one such dinner-only option, but its closure led to the advent of the new Sides Hardware & Shoes, a more casual affair from Brothers’ brothers, Matt and Jeff Nichols.
The approachable lunch menu is infused with a DIY ethos, best exemplified in the bacon burger ($16), which sports two thick slabs of smoky bacon, cooked more like braised pork belly than what you might eat with eggs. The smoked-shallot marmalade adds to the sweet, ember-licked flavor of the burger.
At dinner, you can eat fried pork tenderloin served with spaetzle, a dish with a decidedly Germanic air. But at lunch, the dish takes a different guise that shows its roots: The hard-fried cutlet (pictured; $14) is served on a roll, resembling the breaded pork tenderloin sandwiches popular in Iowa, where the Nichols siblings grew up.
Tackle any one of these sandwiches and you’ll be more than prepared to face the wine-soaked afternoon to follow.
Sides Hardware & Shoes, 2375 Alamo Pintado Ave., Los Olivos; 805-688-4820 or brothersrestaurant.com
(via The Web’s Best Manly Margaritas | Cool Material)
I’m completely irritated at the Cool Material people because some unfriendly guy named Tim keeps emailing me that I’m ruining his life and his business by re-posting their posts, even though I’m CLEARLY stating that they are Cool Material’s and not taking ANY credit for it in any way. If anything I’m BRINGING trendy, cool people to his site. Argh.
Anyways, these margaritas are cool.
That Flashing Smile
What do you think of Lochte’s “grill”?
Ryan Lochte’s custom-made stars and stripes grill offers a rare moment of fashion in these Games.
Everything Sprinkles does is pretty amazing. First it was cupcakes. Then it was a 24-hour vending machine for cupcakes. And now it’s ice cream. What in the world is next!
Sprinkles Ice Cream
We would have been incredulous if you had told us in first grade that we would one day tire of cupcakes.
Of course, we could not predict the sweet oversaturation of the cupcake economy. Our love for ice cream, however, is immortal.
Which is why, after a few weeks of admitted avoidance, we recently found ourselves standing next to the summer-vacationing kids of Beverly Hills, waiting in line at Sprinkles Ice Cream. If the confections sold at the bakery next door have become trite, Sprinkles Ice Cream makes the same batter seem fresh. Sundaes are ice cream scooped over split cupcakes ($8.50); ice cream sandwiches are made with two rounded cupcake tops ($7).
That the ice cream ($3.50 a scoop) is not too sweet, that the flavors are both layered and playful certainly helps the cause. Bourbon accents the chocolate chip; cherries are simmered in wine before being folded into the cherry vanilla. There’s even Cap'n Crunch ice cream.
An Andy Warhol quote is posted on the back wall: “Rodeo Drive is like a giant butterscotch sundae.” If Sprinkles Ice Cream has its way, Santa Monica Boulevard will become an oversized scoop of Cap'n Crunch ice cream sandwiched between cupcake tops (pictured).
Sprinkles Ice Cream, 9631 S. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills; 310-274-7890 or sprinklesicecream.com
I love Urban Daddy, they come up with some of the most awesome stuff and their imagery is great. I’m definitely checking out this store the next time I’m down Venice way….
Gant Rugger
The other day, something terrible happened.
You walked into a shop. Poked at a pair of pants. Tried on a shirt. And unfathomably, nobody handed you a beer.
Fair to say you’ll never set foot in that place again…
Take your first look inside Gant Rugger, the brand’s first West Coast shop—it’s fully stocked with Americana-ish clothes and cold beer—now soft-open on Abbot Kinney.
If you’ve been an Ivy Leaguer, captain of the crew team or a toothpaste model… you might’ve picked up one of these oxfords before. If not, you might have gotten one at Barneys anyway.
Which brings us to now. When you walk into this bright, white-walled shop with an old gymnasium’s wood floor, you’ll find… all of it. Everything they’ve got. Think preppy oxfords, swim trunks, button-down shirts and conservative blazers—lots of plaid and stripes, lots of red and white and blue. So you can gear up here for the Dodgers game or a boat trip, and look like you’re in a commercial for Dodgers games or boat trips.
FYI, the doors are open now, but they’re still filling out the shelves—the official opening is in a couple weeks. Just know that if they like you (and we like your odds), they’ll crack open a beer for you while you browse.
Yes, the beer’s already here.