Palos Verdes Peninsula

And you thought L.A. was just about

red carpets and stretch limos.

If you take the 105 or the 405 South from LAX

and turn right onto the 110 heading towards San Pedro

you can exit around Torrance and wend your way through horse ranches and nature preserves

and Pleasant-Valley-Sunday subdivisions to this lovely place.  Like much of L.A. that has nothing to do whatsoever with the Hollywood Star factories, there is not a lot of information about how to actually FIND these places if you are not already a native.  But these two sites can help.  Plan carefully before you come and you will be richly rewarded.

When you're done pick up the Pacific Coast Highway back North for a picturesque drive through all of L.A.'s famous beach communities.  Make sure to load up all your Beach Boys tunes!

Old Town Hastings

Remember my post about the Hastings sea front here?

How's about a few more images, and mostly of Old Town Hastings....

just steps from the Beach.

It is a sweet scenic little area.  And very walkable. 

Hendy Home is a bit of a new sensation.  What is it?  A bit of a hybrid, but you will find that you can shop for olde-style hipster homewares here AND get a very high end (and expensive) meal too.  All brought to you by a London emigre with great style.

This little street old "High Street" is quite a cosmopolitan passage in a fairly vast old-school seaside destination town that is now, in the era of easy-and-cheap air travel (to places that have more sunshine), pretty much past-its-best.

Hoping perhaps this street is about the beginning Hastings' reinvention.  In any case, past or future, ignore them all.......

Just have a nice little moment of now

digging up goodies

enjoying the sunshine

soaking up the atmosphere

and lightening your pocketbook a little.

It's a pleasant olde stroll.

which you won't really need wheels for at all.

Despite how tempting they might be.

Better to explore the alternatives.....

and finish up the day in proper English style!  Pass the malt vinegar please?

Have A Great Weekend!

Apparently Flora and Fauna have taken over the blog this week.

Hope it's a good one!  See you on Monday with a bit of a change.  xo!

Chat-ouillement

(via rhubarb in the garden)

(above and below: sorry, don't recall)

(above and below via: Kusumakura - warning: explicit sexual content, go figure!)

(Second and last photos: MlleParadis)

Somehow, sometimes I think that the staff over here at P. P. aren't competing entirely as they should in the cuteness department.  Maybe, it's because, despite their Mom's delusions, they are no longer really kittens!

Hope it's been a good week so far!

Life is What Happens To You .......Part Two: Growing With Plants

No, this is not really another post about unbelievably cute doggies.

I'm going to start this week with another  "Life is What Happens to You" post.

In what might become a series, that takes you to other blogs.  (Or I might just have worn out a cute idea and leave it at Parts One and Two!)

I think I  found "Growing With Plants" at Paradis Express.....(merci Delphine!)

I still can't decide how happy I am about this discovery.  I should be delirious.  (Well, I am a little.)

Because it feels like a homecoming.  It reminds me of my old gardening life in the Northeast United States that I talked about last week: Winter dreaming over seed catalogues, forcing bulbs under my kitchen sink, building hypertufa containers.......obsessing over clematis and mulch... Lovely afternoons of discovery at Wave Hill.  Of my adventures at horticultural fairs and nurseries in England.  Where very ordinary people do extraordinary things.  (There is even a Hawaii connection with Matt Mattus of Growing With Plants.  He has also spent time there.)  

Unlike Matt Mattus, I am not a Creative Director with a toy company, raising unbelievably cute puppies in the Northeast in my old family home.  I am not endlessly clever about species and propagation.  Nor endlessly energetic it seems.  I do not have a greenhouse yielding marvels.  Nor, thank goodness, do I any longer have to worry about such greenhouse and plants therein when THE BIG SNOWS come.

But if I spend anymore time on his site....I might just have to become once again.....something very much closer to all that.  Because his blog has reawakened, after a long eight years or so of dormancy, a mania.....a sickness......a compulsion for all things green.  In the way of alpines and african violets, fuzzy leaves and, subtle colorations and jewel like flowers.   That miraculous voyage of discovery and renewal that is the world of plants.

Why shouldn't I be delirious?  Well because......if this thing takes hold, I may not have time for blogging!

(All photos Matt Mattus from Growing with Plants.)

Life is What Happens to You.......Part One: Cecile Delarue

When you're on your way to somewhere else.......(John Lennon).  This is no less true on the Internet than on the streets of Liverpool or Hamburg.  I was on my way somewhere one morning......and this is what I found:

Cecile Delarue, who, is a serious French journalist (and according to her Wikipedia entry might as well be a brain surgeon or rocket scientist - I did say kinda SERIEUSE!) is now doing cooking videos out of her L.A. kitchen.   The best part about this video, besides being about FRENCH FOOD is that it is funny and irreverent.  About that Most Serious Subject, being French.  (Strangely, in America, it is almost as serious as it is in France!  But usually in all the wrong ways.)

I share it with you because

1)  Her recipe for Boeuf Bourguignon is way easier than the Anne Willan recipe I use

2)  She shows you a giant beef tongue (but does not cook it!) which proves how authentic she is i.e., when the camera goes away, she will probably eat that monster thing!*

3)  She uses the colorful roasting pans from Crate and Barrel that I covet but don't really need

4)  You MUST check out her salt (or is it pepper?) grinder - too fun

5)  HER APRON!!!!!!!  I WANT IT!!!!!!!

I discovered her here, at Sinosoul.  Featured on a post about Chaumont Bakery and Cafe in Beverly Hills.  The "proper" French patisserie that has opened in Beverly Hills.  (More on that soon!)  

I could find only two Cecile Delarue (yes, she even has that French last name that every American imagines for a French person) videos, but show them to your husband - (he won't mind them!),  and leave comments at YouTube.   She might be persuaded to make more!

Meanwhile, she also has a blog, here.  (Where you might find a more complete recipe that explains at what point the mushrooms, potatoes and bay leaves got into her recipe, and how it ended up in a completely different pot at the end!)

Happy Cooking, Happy Weekend and Bon Appetit!

 *  OK, my Chinese mother served me beef tongue too, in my youth.  I did not die.  Tongue is probably showing up already in the trendier restaurants in London and NY.

Yes, This IS What I Had In Mind

How's your spring coming along?  Do you nudge it a little too?  Are you forcing bulbs?

(the pics are from a little bit everywhere none of them are mine)