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February 27, 2008
New eco-friendly lawn mower? How about $100 from AQMD.
Filed under: House + Garden — StyleGuide @ 9:09 pm
Of course, the most Earth-friendly idea is to replace grass with something less thirsty like drought-tolerant plants. If you can’t go cold turkey on the green stuff, you can make your lawn the tiniest bit more Earth-friendly by trading up to an electric mower.
Using a typical gas mower for one year can pollute as much as 43 new cars driven for a year. That’s why the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) is making it easy to switch to a ”green” mower.
Their lawn mower exchange program allows residents to turn in their working gas-powered lawn mower and purchase a new cordless rechargeable electric mower for only $100. The new mower, made by the Neuton Lawn Mower Company, is a $400 value. It operates for 45-60 minutes on a single charge of the battery, and it comes with a rear-mounted bag as well as a mulching kit.
The one I got is easy to use, powerful and efficient, and does a great job keeping our small patch of lawn looking clean and trimmed. The simple self-mulching features means no clippings to throw away.
You must pre-register, and registration for the 2008 Lawn Mower Exchange Program will begin on March 18, 2008 at 9 a.m. AQMD will send you an email reminder of when registration opens if you sign up now for the Lawn Mower Exchange List Serve. Enter your e-mail address twice and then select the Lawn Mower Exchange List Serve from the list of options.
To be eligible for this very stylish deal, you must live in AQMD’s four-county jurisdiction, which includes all of Orange County, most of Los Angeles County (excluding the Antelope Valley), almost all of Riverside County, and the non-desert portion of San Bernardino County.
Price: $$$$
Where: Sites in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties in California
When: Different Saturdays in April and May, 2008
Call: 888.425.6247
http://www.aqmd.gov/tao/lawnmower.html
Into green yard care? Check out cheap composters from the City of L.A. here.
February 20, 2008
Tale of Two Toasts: bld and King’s Hawaiian Bakery and Restaurant
Filed under: Eat, Midtown, South Bay — StyleGuide @ 12:46 pm
Could it be obsessive-compulsive disorder? Or my post on making French toast at home? Whatever it was, it meant that I didn’t spend the weekend registering voters or flossing or recycling. Instead I devoted my time to something as crucial as the search for great French toast.
Saturday we tried a nice place that is a little pricey. bld on Beverly serves up inch-and-a-half thick slices of brioche, lacy browned on the outside and as creamy as custard on the inside — bread pudding in toast form. Unbelievably delicious, but a splurge at $11.
Cash-wise, I needed to take it down a notch. So Sunday we tried King’s Hawaiian Bakery and Restaurant.
King’s Hawaiian bread, the summit-shaped sweet bread in the “Hawaii Orange” plastic sack in grocery stores nationwide, comes from a 150,000 square foot facility in Torrance. In the 1980s, the restaurant opened not far from the factory. Today it is a busy place; the collosal decorative pineapple and dunk-tank-sized aquarium qualify it as a bit more interesting than Denny’s, but the feel is similar.
The French toast is sliced from their sweet Hawaiian bread, cooked with egg and cinammon and delivered sponge-light and dreamy sweet. French toast runs $8.75 — plus two eggs and a side of bacon or sausage.
I knew I’d found a winner.
February 14, 2008
Buddy Greco’s Dinner Club, Cathedral City, Ca
Filed under: On the Road — StyleGuide @ 8:34 pm
There are good things about not coming of age in the 1960s. As a woman, I don’t have to wear a girdle. I don’t get to choose any career I want, as long as it is secretary, nurse, teacher or flight attendant.
However, sometimes I feel I missed out on three-martini lunches, a diet focused on steak, potatoes, cream and Jell-O in a pre-cholesterol-level-awareness heaven, and the chance to see greats like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin perform live in tiny clubs.
On that last count, though, I may have found a sliver of space to recapture the past. Buddy Greco, world-renown singer and pianist, opened an intimate, contemporary nightclub in Cathedral City, outside of Palm Springs.
Besides performing with Dean-O and Ol’ Blue Eyes themselves, Mr. Greco has had special appearances with Benny Goodman, Buddy Rich, Sammy Davis Jr. and Bob Hope. With his wife, singer Lezlie Anders, he now shares songs in the Sinatra vein from a grand piano on a small stage in a tiny club (every seat is probably no more than 30 feet from the stage).
If you ever want the Goodfellas experience of a living legend crooning pop standards in a venue only slightly larger than your living room, this show may represent your last, best chance.
At $45 per person, plus a $30-40 dinner entree (or $60 per person plus cocktails that run about $12 each), the show is a vacation investment.
Nevertheless, I found it a small price to pay for a glimpse into the very best of 1960s nightlife — the three-martini meal without the girdle.
Price: $$$$
When: In season
Where: 98805 E. Palm Canyon Dr., Cathedral City, Ca 92234
Call: 760.883.5812
Pack in the fun on your next get-away — learn about another great Palm Springs show here.
February 12, 2008
Riverside Rendezvous – Breakfast at Art’s Bar and Grill
Filed under: On the Road — StyleGuide @ 8:14 pm
Some people spend romantic weekends in Paris pied-a-terres. Others squirrel up in palm-fringed Santa Barbara resorts, or drink in the sun a deux in Mid-Century Modern Palm Springs hideaways.
We spent our anniversary in Riverside.
I won’t go on about the extenuating circumstances that brought us to that point. Suffice it to say we made the best of it, and ended up having an amazing time.
Turns out Riverside really is for lovers.
First we took a room at the Mission Inn (saving $40 booking through hotels.com). Occupying an entire square block in downtown Riverside, it is a meticulously maintained, eclectically designed, ironically constructed and completely bustling Spanish hacienda — a lovely place to wile away a weekend.
For breakfast, we asked the concierge to recommend a local greasy spoon. This very young woman, who threw out words like “awesome” and “dude” when she spoke on the phone, did not inspire faith.
Nevertheless, she knew what she was doing. She pointed us to a moody dive bar three blocks away, which at 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning was filled with daiquiri-drinking women and beer-swilling older gentleman, alongside a couple of families with small children.
We started with Bloody Marys, wonderfully boozy little things that went down like water on a hot summer day, garnished with a dill pickled green bean (which I started craving even as I was eating it, and have not stopped craving since). From the full menu we chose Art’s Breakfast: two eggs, toast and potatoes (or biscuits and creamy gravy), and a choice of meat. We picked a butter-tender filet tenderloin steak and some of the best meaty, smoky bacon I’d ever had.
The price for this glorious repast? A mere $8.25.
As we sank into our 1950’s style breakfast, we were reminded of an important lesson: When life hands you Riverside, make it to Art’s Bar and Grill.
Price: $$
Where: 3357 University Avenue, Riverside, Ca 92501 (at the 91 and University)
Call: 951.683.9520
February 7, 2008
Thee’s Continental Bakery’s Cinnamon French Toast
Filed under: Eat, Midtown, Shop — StyleGuide @ 8:17 pm
Why don’t they deliver breakfast?
I can get pizza and sub sandwiches delivered for lunch, and Chinese food or Thai at my door for dinner. But where are the eggs over easy, the waffles and bacon, or steamers of morning dim sum?
There’s a million dollar idea in there somewhere.
Until some enterprising soul makes the leap, the next best thing is cinnamon loaf bread from Thee’s Continental Bakery. Dip slices in egg, fry in butter — in mere moments the most amazing French toast ever is ready to eat.
Anytime I go to the L.A. Farmer’s Market, I hurry to see if Thee’s has a loaf. They bake all the goodies on the premises — the kitchen is right behind the counter — so they don’t make it everyday. If I’m lucky enough to find the bread, I ask the lackadaisical staff to slice it for me.
Then I throw the bread into the freezer for those mornings I just can’t bear to move.
Its so sweet I don’t even need syrup.
Price: $
Where: L.A. Farmer’s Market, Third and Fairfax, Los Angeles, Ca
Call: 323.937.1968
http://www.farmersmarketla.com/groceries/index.html
Related links | more breakfasts:
Breakfast French-style: bld and King’s Hawaiian French toast
February 5, 2008
Dixie Longate: Not Your Mother’s Tupperware Party
Filed under: Play, Shop — StyleGuide @ 8:20 pm
If you think that Tupperware parties went out in the 80’s, and that you have to be a Stepford Wife to appreciate shopping high quality plastics from your living room, you’ve never met Dixie Longate.
Leave it to a 6-foot-tall drag queen in a Dorothy-from-the-Wizard-of-Oz dress to bring Tupperware back.
Dixie’s a fast-talking, hyperactive single mom with a shock of red hair and a raging libido, fresh from a Mobile, Alabama trailer park. She started selling Tupperware to make her parole officer proud.
Today she’s one of the top salespeople in the country, spreading her deliciously shocking and devilishly hilarious version of the Tupperware gospel, one houseparty at a time.
Dixie’s X-rated show demonstrating Tupperware use (and abuse) has won over young and old, male and female, gay and straight. (If you can believe it, Orange County Republican women are her best customers.)
I came for the show, but in the end, the Tupperware won me over. It appeals on a health level (Tupperware is made with the highest grade food-safe plastic — much better for you than other plastic products), on an environmental level (reusable Tupperware means less disposable packaging from leftovers and snacks), and on a fiscal level (aside from staying out of a landfill, a lifetime guarantee it means I won’t have to buy new containers to replace worn ones).
To schedule your own 45 minutes in heaven with Dixie, work with her to find a time for a no-charge houseparty. Dixie’s so popular she’s turned her show into an off-Broadway play, and she’s planning to take it on a two-year nationwide tour. So if you can’t get a date, search for “Dixie Longate” on YouTube.com. Wet your beak with snippets of her show, then order Tupperware products through her site: www.dixielongate.com.
Just be prepared for a Tupperware party that pushes the boundaries of taste.