Los Angeles, California: I have abandoned My Driver for the weekend. He will be driving the Magna Peregrinus to Track Town USA for the home opener football game - Oregon v Arkansas State - while I have flown down to Los Angeles to help Lisa in what she has deemed a "sweat shop weekend" of wedding tasks, sewing and errands.
We did have a meeting to go through every detail of the celebratory weekend, and then we went to meet with about twenty of their neighbors (young families with youngsters) to Barnsdale Park for a music-and-food-filled evening.
I just loved the park - built on Olive Hill, the park is the site of Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House. This amazing little knoll just east of Hollywood offers panoramic views to the sea, Century City, downtown, east to the mountains - and incredible vistas to the Griffith Park Observatory and the famed "Hollywood" sign.
Just when I think Los Angeles is a mess of traffic, population and congestion - Lisa brings me a beautiful place like Barnsdale Park! Lovely.
And isn't it ironic perfect that a girl from the food cart capital of America (Portland, Oregon) loves to visit the food carts at Barnsdale Park? Lisa has been telling me about the "lasagna cupcakes" from Heirloom Catering for several years. Tonight I finally tasted this "over-nighted to New York City by die-hard fans" savory treat.
Oh yeah. It's a cupcake made of lasagna.
Heirloom vends two varieties every day ($9) from their truck - one meat and the other is the original heirloom tomato variety (which we tried tonight). The lasagna pasta strip is folded between layers of sauce and cheese, then baked to perfection.
Tonight Heirloom Catering was also serving a Lamb Spetzatino - served over a bed of rice:
I scarfed this down, from the bamboo plate, as fast as my bamboo spork could shovel the Spetzatino into my mouth. OMG. So delicious. There was some sort of a yoghurty saucy thing on the top - just perfect. Oink.
Someone else was very hungry tonight. Leo ate about a quarter of the lasagna (aka, the noodles). Then he had some green beans. Then he had some sweet potatoes. Then he had some sort of apple rice crackers (just for babies), then he had a cookie (just for babies), then he started rifling through the bag holding the rice crackers looking for more food. Oink.
Another food cart offered the ice cream of your choice, served between the cookies of your choice = personalized ice cream sandwich. I thought this idea was delightful, unique and was inspired by someone so clever to invent this food niche... even though one of the ice cream flavors offered tonight by CoolHaus was "Fried Chicken & Waffles" (Chicken Caramel in Brown Butter Ice Cream). Have I let you all down by not ordering this sweet treat? Sorry. I promise to do better next time. And there will be a next time - Olive Hill in Barnsdale Park is a true big-city oasis.Until my next update, I remain, your "I like my fried chicken warm" correspondent.