#209: The Museum of Tolerance

Photo from Wikipedia

The Museum of Tolerance in West L.A. is really two incredible museums in one. Your tour starts in the Holocaust Section, where a sound and light guided 70 minute dramatic presentation takes you through the events of Nazi-dominated Europe during WWII.  In the beginning, you pick up a card with a picture and bio of an actual Jewish child who was alive at the time of the war. Next, you watch a short video and then travel in a small group from exhibit to exhibit as a narrator explains the events unfolding.  

photo by http://museumoftolerance.blogspot.com/

The presentation is very moving, and I couldn't help but tear up.  The most memorable part for me was seeing actual video footage of the Nazis and the Jewish people during WWII.  I had read about the Holocaust in text books and had seen photographs of it, but this was the first time I saw actual video footage of it, and it was heart wrenching. 

photo by Yazdani Studio

After finishing the Holocaust Section, you get to explore the Tolerancenter, which confronts issues of bigotry and discrimination in the world today.  There are a lot of interesting hands on exhibits here, like the Point of View Diner:

Photo by http://museumoftolerance.blogspot.com/

The Point of View Diner is a recreation of a 1950's diner, red booths and all, that "serves" a menu of controversial topics on video jukeboxes. It uses the latest cutting edge technology to relay the overall message of personal responsibility. Scenarios focus on bullying, drunk driving and hate speech; this interactive exhibit allows visitors to input their opinions on what they have seen and question relevant characters. The results are then instantly tabulated. (~taken from MoT website)


Tips for your visit:

• Museum admission is $15.50 for adults, with a discount for seniors and students

• It is closed on Saturdays

• There is an underground garage that is free to park in.

• Security is tight. Be aware that your car trunk will be inspected before you enter the garage. In the lobby, your purse or bags must go through an X-ray machine and you must walk through a metal detector. 

• Be sure to check out the Hear a Holocaust Survivor lectures, which are free to museum visitors. The talks are 1 hour and are offered every day. Call the museum for times.  I didn't get to do this because we came too late, and it's something I definitely want to go back for.  

• Also check out the lectures in which you can Hear a Perpetrator and Victim Share Their Story and Hear a Former White Supremacist. These talks are also free to museum visitors. Click on the links for dates and times. 

• Photography is not allowed in the museum

The Museum of Tolerance

Summer Fun! Things To Do and See in L.A. this Summer 2011

from teamplayevents

Whew, it sure is hot over here! Summertime has hit L.A. and I'm ready to bask in the sun and soak up that Vitamin D. To celebrate the dog days, here's my Summer 2011 list:

The Channel Islands

from digitalapoptosis

The Channel Islands are just a short boat ride away, but seem like another world. See eagles, lizards, foxes and sea lions at these island sanctuaries. You have your choice of five islands to visit and can either camp or do a day trip.

Pageant of the Masters

from thingstodoinorangecounty

This O.C. event runs from July to August and features "live art"--that's right, real people actually posing in the art. You've gotta see it to believe it!

Sky High (The Trampoline Place)

from jumpskyhigh

Don't know what to do with the kids this summer? Sky High in Costa Mesa is a tiny tot's dream come true; imagine wall to wall trampolines and a foam pit! Adults can enjoy this place too--they have dodgeball games and even "airobics" classes.

The Gibbon Conservation Center

photo from kidsclubzilla

The GCC is the only facility in the world dedicated solely to protecting Gibbons. Tours are by appointment only and are $7-$12 per person with a $100 group minimum, so grab a bunch of your friends and make a day of it!

Garden of the Gods

photo from hollywoodlegend

With thousands of rocky outcrops peeking out of the green hillside, this Chatsworth park makes for a great rock scrambling playground. This is where The Lone Ranger was filmed.

Nicholas Flat

photo from alltrails

This Malibu hike was featured as one of the L.A. Mag's Ten Great Walks. They have it as as a 6.8 mile roundtrip hike, but if that's too far for you, I found this site which makes it into a 4-mile figure 8 hike.

Saturdays off the 405

from Gettyblog

Saturdays off the 405 is a free summer concert series at the Getty. Get there early to see the art and avoid traffic getting into the parking lot.

McCabe's Concerts

from laist.com

This is for all you westsiders who complain about having to drive to the eastside for good music. McCabe's serves up your weekly dose of live folk, country and rock music in an intimate concert setting. Added bonus: McCabe's is a guitar shop and concert venue in one.

Also I Like to Rock

from buzzbandsla

Every Thursday evening of July, displaced westside indie hipsters converge on the Hammer Museum in Westwood for a free night of music and art.

Other Things To Do:

Culver City Music Festival: Eight free concerts on Thursday evenings starting July 7th

Santa Monica Pier Twilight Dance Series: Free summer concerts at the pier

Ride the Ferris Wheel on Santa Monica Pier (#42)

Grand Performances (#130): Free summer concert series in downtown

Ride a Tandem Bike on Santa Monica Beach (#14)

Take a stroll on the Venice Boardwalk

The Hollywood Museum: a must-see for Old Hollywood lovers

The Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden: a zen garden in Long Beach

The Gamble House: take a tour of this National Historic Landmark, which was owned by David and Mary Gamble of the Procter and Gamble Company.

****Be sure to also check out last year's list of Things to Do and See in L.A. Summer 2010.****

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#137: Dine "Top Chef" Style

L.A. is home to a fair share of Top Chef contestants. Betty Fraser runs Grub in Hollywood (read my review on it here), Ilan Hall recently opened The Gorbals in Downtown, Stefan Richter is at L.A. Farm and Stefan's on Montana, and Fabio Viviani runs Firenze Osteria in Toluca Lake. Past winner Michael Voltaggio used to be head chef at The Dining Room in Pasadena, but left recently to pursue his own project.

One of the most memorable Top Chef contestants is Marcel Vigneron. I affectionately refer to him as "Wolverine" due to his awesomely sculpted hair. Known for his creative molecular gastronomy inspired cuisine, he worked at The Bazaar in Beverly Hills before leaving to do his own projects. He occasionally pops up here and there, and when I saw that he was doing a three day stint at Test Kitchen in West L.A., I immediately booked it.

Test Kitchen is a unique restaurant. Chefs take over the restaurant for two or three days and come up with a prix fixed menu that features innovative dishes that they might not normally be able to create in another restaurant. The cuisine is frequently bold and daring. Sometimes you will get a few duds, but it's all in the name of experimentation.

Here's what we were served by Marcel this past weekend... Six course menu, $55 per person.

Kombu Cured Hamachi: Crispy Rice, Pineapple, Avocado

The pineapple is the yellow rectangle underneath the hamachi. It is thinly sliced and topped with seaweed, toasted rice, jalapeno, avocado dollops and foam.

Scallobut: Flavors of puttanesca, artichoke

A scallop and a halibut cheek sit next to a deconstructed puttanesca with anchovy, olive powder, roasted cipollini onion, tomato and toast. Parsley and garlic dollops frame the composition.

Wagyu Beef Tongue & Fried Egg: radish, beet, arugala, beans

Break open the fried egg and you'll find a perfectly runny yolk dripping out. Three types of beets, arugula, radish and beans adorn the Wagyu tongue.

Vadouvan Lamb Chop: Cauliflower, Amaranth, Mint

In the background is a cauliflower puree that is just saturated with butter. The lamb sits on top of an almond, pomegranate, feta and mint blend. It is topped with more foam.

Ricotta Fritter: Baby peach panna cotta, agave

The green thing on top of the panna cotta is a Japanese baby peach. It was just about the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. The panna cotta was brilliant.

Macadamia "Sponge Cake": textures of strawberry

The sponge cake was made all in the microwave, our waitress bragged. What a strange thing to be proud of, I thought. This was such an interesting dish. The cloud of strawberry foam was topped with this carbonated filled strawberry jelly. It popped in my mouth just like the "olives" at the Bazaar. The whole thing was lightly sprinkled with pepper and topped with celery leaves. It all worked, strangely enough!

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#135: Govinda's Natural Foods

Photo from examiner

I get obsessed with things and "over-do it", as Brad would say. For example, my current obsession is watermelon. I've been eating what amounts to probably half a medium sized watermelon a day. When our "supply" runs low, I get antsy. Brad would inevitably bring home another giant melon, and I would look as elated as if he brought me a dozen roses.

Past obsessions: spaghetti squash, Japanese home cooking, Chinese medicine, and about a million Trader Joes snacks.

Sometimes I push my obsessions too far and Brad gets really tired of them.

I discovered Govinda's on Yelp some time at the beginning of this year (It is actually one of the "Hot Restaurants on Yelp" right now). I went once a week... Then twice a week... Pretty soon, Brad didn't even need to ask me where I wanted to go to eat.

Now Brad made a rule that we can only go there together once a month. That doesn't stop me from going more often though. :)

Govinda's is run by the Hare Krishna temple attached to it. It is buffet style featuring all vegetarian/vegan cuisine. The food is simple but delicious. There are always salad items, a soup, dahl, halavah, a main course, and white/brown rice. The price is perfect--$8 (It used to be $7, but they recently had to raise their prices). The thing I love the most about their food is how "clean" it tastes. I don't know how else to describe it, but it has a very pure taste and you can tell that they put a lot of care into the preparation. It is also not overburdened with butter, oils or salt.

After you've had your fill of healthy vegetarian food, go upstairs to their gift shop. They have so many gorgeous clothes, accessories, and great books up there.

Govinda's is one healthy obsession that I don't think I'll ever tire of!

Monday-Saturday 11-3pm and 5-8:30pm.

Govinda's

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#134: Mar Vista Farmers' Market

Photo from http://www-scf.usc.edu/~nthakore/story1/

A couple of our friends always go to the Mar Vista Farmers' Market on Sundays and for the longest time I had been wanting to check it out. One visit, and I'm hooked. This has become my favorite west-side farmers' market for the following reasons:

• It's not nearly as crowded as Santa Monica's two farmers' markets
• Lots of hot food vendors (empanadas, ribs, quesadillas, omelettes, crepes)
• Lots of cheese/dip/hummus vendors
• All vendors practically forcing samples on you. You could seriously get full on just the samples!
• A few all-organic stalls (not as much as Santa Monica, but still enough for what I need)
• Live jazz band
• Picnic tables and chairs

Brad got an apple sausage quesadilla and I got a raw Oaxacan zucchini lasagna. Then we got a bunch of produce including a giant watermelon that was perhaps the juiciest I have ever tasted. We had no idea how to choose a watermelon (I know it's supposed to sound "hollow", but what does that really sound like?), so a kind woman shopping near us gave us a three minute lesson on choosing watermelons. Now I can tell the difference between a dead thud mimicking as "hollow", and a truly resonant hollow sound. (Brad, on the other hand, still insists that they all sound hollow :P)

The farmers market is pretty close to Mitsuwa, so we just parked in front of Mitsuwa and then walked across the street. Definitely check this place out if you're tired of fighting for parking or space on the lawn at the S.M. market!

Sundays 9 am-2 pm

Mar Vista Farmers' Market

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#115: Guilt Free Desserts

Babycakes Carrot Cupcake

This is why I love L.A.. It's got smog and stressful driving and all kinds of other stuff that's bad for your health, but when it comes to healthy eating, this city comes out on top. And leave it to L.A. to offer some of the best guilt free desserts in the country.

(You can lower that skeptically raised eyebrow now)

Trust me. At worst, these guilt free desserts taste like the real thing. At their best, they are so uncontrollably good that I can eat them all day (and presumably not get fat, right?) :)

So here are my picks for the all out best guilt-free desserts in town...

Babycakes in Downtown L.A. This is the mother of all guilt free bakeries. Most of their products are gluten/sugar/soy/dairy free. Yes, all of those. They use gluten free flour and sweeten everything with agave. Furthermore, instead of using butter, they use coconut oil. (Yes!!!) That's their carrot cupcake shown above. So pretty. My favorite, though, has to be the chocolate on chocolate cupcake. Out of this world good. Coming a close second are their chocolate chip cookies, doughnuts and carrot cupcake. Be sure to eat the cupcakes right when you get them so that they stay moist. Also, just a warning-- street parking's a little tough in DTLA, but there are plenty of paid lots.

Babycakes small brownie

Babycakes chocolate chip cookies

Babycakes banana bread

Raw Food Desserts: Juliano's Raw, Euphoria Loves Rawvolution, and Cru have the best raw desserts, IMO. You can also get them from the Santa Monica Coop or Whole Foods if you don't feel like dining out just for dessert. These desserts have no wheat or sugar in them. Instead, they're sweetened with agave or honey and are made mostly of fruit and nuts and coconut oil.

Little raw chocolates from Euphoria Loves Rawvolution

M Cafe de Chaya: This macrobiotic cafe has got the best desserts! Their carrot cake and cupcakes--especially the pistachio cupcakes--are so good. They are technically sugar free, and are sweetened with evaporated cane juice and perhaps agave.

Pistachio cupcake from M Cafe

The Sensitive Baker: This place is in Culver City and is heaven for those who are sensitive to wheat. All of their products are gluten free! They use evaporated cane juice instead of sugar, and an Earth Balance oil product instead of butter. In addition to killer brownies and cookies, they've got some crave worthy bread sticks.

Zen Bakery: They distribute through Trader Joes and Whole Foods, but they've also got their own little shop on Pico in West L.A.. Zen bakery specializes in sugar and dairy free whole wheat or bran muffins. The muffins are sweetened with fruit juice and contain canola oil instead of butter.