Shortly after our arrival in LA, I went on a Craigslist­ing spree to get rid of some extra­ne­ous fur­ni­ture. One piece, a vin­tage metal cart that I’d bought in New York a bil­lion years ago, was pur­chased by a guy who asked if we were sell­ing any­thing else. At that point, most of the good stuff was gone, but our din­ing chairs had been bum­ming us out for a while. We’d bought them from a retired fire­fighter in Miami who told us they had been in his sta­tion until its ren­o­va­tion. They needed a lit­tle TLC but we fig­ured we could han­dle it. They looked like this:
(Want them? 1stdibs, $3,500. We paid…um, a thirty-fifth of that.) They were cute, yes, but not ter­ri­bly com­fort­able. Hav­ing din­ing chairs you don’t really want to sit in ensures that you will eat every meal on your sofa.

Any­way, I offered the chairs to my poten­tial buyer for about what we paid for them and he said yes. Yay, chairs gone! But this left us with just one chair, Ryan’s Aeron, which, while com­fort­able, isn’t mak­ing the trip into our kitchen for din­ner time. And did I men­tion there’s one? So the sit­u­a­tion in our kitchen is a lot like this:

Poor din­ing table! It’s now func­tion­ing as a super-sized land­ing strip that’s also home to my vit­a­mins, a back­pack, my hand­bag and a fan. This sad­dens me.

Chairs are clearly in order. But the ones I’ve always envi­sioned sit­ting around this table are a lit­tle spendy.

I’ll be pray­ing to the Craigslist gods to bring us any of the above for way less, then hit­ting the flea mar­ket this week­end in hopes of find­ing some­thing. (Of course, if you have four awe­some chairs to sell and you’re dri­ving dis­tance from West LA, we should talk.) What’s your dream chair—and do you own it yet?

Some­thing is wreak­ing havoc on my sys­tem right now. The cul­prit is likely the soup I exca­vated from the depths of the fridge on Mon­day and blithely ingested assum­ing that heat would kill any­thing toxic. It did not.

Yes­ter­day was our anniver­sary. Three years since we were very blurry but my dad was in focus.

Lessons I have learned from three years of mar­riage: don’t eat ancient soup. Make sure the per­son you marry will be nice to you in case you do.

Once I get my appetite back, I may ven­ture into the kitchen with one of these recipes: spaghetti squash gratins and apple cider donut holes (wait, would donut holes make me feel worse?) or two tasty com­bos of corn, leek and pota­toes. But right now, it’s chicken noo­dle soup time.

You heard it here first: it’s peanut brit­tle. Or but­ter crunch. Pie? There were at least four pie ven­dors. Maybe cot­ton candy—we tried jalapeño.

We spent a good chunk of the day (and our stom­achs’ real estate) at Arti­sanal LA and I can also share with you that I have drunk the future and it is Mex­i­can Coke with cold-brewed cof­fee cubes. Trust.

(Sorry for the lack of pho­tos. There was plenty of eye candy, excel­lent people-watching and a ton of peo­ple milling around with iPhones snap­ping away. I hate those peo­ple. Espe­cially when they are block­ing my access to sam­ples of marsh­mal­lows.)

And before I forget—my cook­ing com­rades have been kick­ing out some deli­cious jams lately. (Speak­ing of which, there is def­i­nitely a jam thing hap­pen­ing.) Moroc­can but­ter­nut squash stew—file under “Things I Will Eat When the Squash-Hater I Love Isn’t Around.” Cheese straws, spiced pecans and sug­ared bacon? Can I eat that for din­ner? Because I didn’t fill up on brittle.

I keep revis­it­ing this pho­to­graph of Annie Selke’s garage. I showed it to Ryan and his response was, “So you’re look­ing at garage porn now?” Yes. Orga­nized items and hot pink make me happy.

Annie Selke is the woman behind Pine Cone Hill, which I always (unfairly, it seems) lumped in with Shabby Chic. (Sorry Annie!) If you start here, you can fol­low her home ren­o­va­tion with House Beau­ti­ful. It’s pretty great. And, unlike the other watch-me-change-my-house story of late, that of Kevin Sharkey, it’s a bit more—how do I put this del­i­cately, while still wear­ing my Team Martha t-shirt?—unfussy. Or maybe it’s just not tak­ing eons to document.

In case you were won­der­ing why I have garages on the brain, it’s because we left ours in Florida. I’d rather have zero garage in LA than one lovely two-car spec­i­men in Boca, but still. The rest of the garage makeover is here. Pre­pare your­self for striped walls.

While we pour a lit­tle of our 40s out in mem­ory of our capa­cious garage, let’s also mourn the loss of my cook­ing mojo. I have made some ques­tion­able food this week. Instead of turn­ing your stom­ach with details, let’s check in with some ladies who seem to know what they’re doing. Peo­ple like Miya and Elis­a­beth at You + Me Equals—they make roasted veg­etable enchi­ladas and Mexi­choctofu pud­ding. Domes­tic Reflec­tions claims to not have her act together but shares a recipe for chicken stock. (Girl, when you are mak­ing your own stock, you are doing some­thing right. Don’t beat your­self up!) 5thjoy is speak­ing my lan­guage, and that lan­guage is chicken and cab­bage mine­strone. Oh wait, it looks like Scrump­tious is also flu­ent in soup—she shares a recipe for crock pot chicken spez­zatino and then blows my mind with cheesy deli­cious­ness. (That is not actu­ally the name of the recipe, but I dare you to click on that and call it by any other name.)

I used to spend a lot of time think­ing about my desert island discs. (Off the top of my head: Doolit­tle, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, Foxbase Alpha, 69 Love Songs, Sum­mer­teeth, #1 Record/Radio City, Per­fect Teeth and some­thing by Led Zep­pelin but I can’t decide which one at the moment.)

But lately I’ve been think­ing about my desert island kitchen sup­plies. After cov­er­ing the basics—wooden spoon, chef’s knife, cast-iron skillet—I think I’d have to add in a slow cooker.

I’m sorry if you were expect­ing some­thing sex­ier. Like a set of cop­per pots. No, the mighty slow cooker is a hum­ble work­horse. You have to really try to make some­thing bad come out of it. Tough cuts of meat mag­i­cally soften. Dried beans become things of beauty. And when I am lazy and want noth­ing to do with the kitchen, the slow cooker does (almost) all the work.

About that photo: look, this pot roast is great. It was the first thing I cooked for my hus­band and more than six years later, he’s still around. How­ever, it doesn’t pho­to­graph well. Pretty doesn’t need to be part of the pot roast equa­tion. As for your desert island kitchen, what do you need to survive?

Mediter­ranean Pot Roast

(loosely adapted from a recipe that orig­i­nally appeared sev­eral years ago in a Woman’s Day mag­a­zine called, appro­pri­ately enough, Slow Cook­ing)

3 lb bone­less chuck roast
1 t salt
1 T Ital­ian sea­son­ing (I inter­pret this as a few shakes of dried basil, rose­mary and oregano)
1–3 gar­lic cloves, chopped
1/3 cup oil-packed sun-dried toma­toes, drained and chopped
1/2 cup sliced pit­ted Kala­mata olives
1/2 cup beef broth
1/2 red onion, chopped (The orig­i­nal recipe calls for ½ cup frozen pearl onions, but frozen onions? Really?)

1. Heat a lit­tle olive oil (maybe a Table­spoon, maybe less) in a skil­let. Cook the beef about five min­utes, turn­ing once, until a nice brown crust appears on both sides. Place in slow cooker.

2. Add salt, Ital­ian sea­son­ing and gar­lic on top of the roast. Then cover with toma­toes, olives and onions. Pour in the broth.

3. Cover and cook on Low for 5 to 6 hours. (My roast is usu­ally nice and ten­der around 5 hours, but your slow cooker might be different.)

4. The beef will be falling apart, so slic­ing it is unnec­es­sary (unless you’re just that fancy). Your roast will likely require a lit­tle fat removal before serving.

When I really have my act together, I serve this on top of mashed pota­toes. Slices of baked polenta (from that weird polenta tube I usu­ally find around rice) are nice too. When I made this a few days ago, I served Smit­ten Kitchen’s Mediter­ranean Pep­per Salad too, because I like to keep my Mediter­ranean dishes together.

Not into red meat? That’s cool. Check out Look Linger Love’s white chicken chili, which fea­tures actual pho­tos of the food in ques­tion, not to men­tion a kitchen that might need to adopt me. You know, if kitchens could adopt.

I’ve got­ten a pass for the past six weeks or so. Pack up a house, drive across the coun­try, and unpack said house into a slightly smaller house, and no one expects culi­nary bril­liance for a while. Despite our excite­ment about new vis­tas in take­out and a long list of restau­rants we are dying to try, I also just want food that tastes familiar—that I cooked myself.

I’m still find­ing my way in this new kitchen. The cab­i­nets go all the way to the ceil­ing, which is great for space-saving pur­poses, but also requires that I keep a step stool handy. There’s a deep cor­ner cab­i­net that’s a lit­tle awk­ward for stor­age, and I can’t fig­ure out what, if any­thing, belongs there. I’ve cooked in smaller kitchens. I’ve man­aged just fine with­out a dish­washer. My first solo apart­ment in New York had a sink so small that I filled my stock pot from the bath­tub. I can adapt. It’s just that since we’ve unpacked, the kitchen just feels a lit­tle off. I know that I won’t be able to fix the weird things until I fig­ure out what they are. And the only way to do that is just to get in there and cook. But what?

When Michelle (aka Pretty Mommy) wrote about her own din­ner dilem­mas, I felt a lit­tle less alone. (An aside: I am not a Pretty Mommy myself, unless you count moth­er­ing my dog, but Michelle’s site is one of my faves, so you should check it out.) Any­way, she’s host­ing a recipe exchange of sorts, and my recipe is up on Wednes­day (mark your cal­en­dars!) but until then, take a look at what every­one else has been whip­ping up.

• Pretty Mommy: taco soup (Michelle, you had me at taco.)
• A Place to Share: but­ter­nut squash, sage and white bean soup (Despite a will­ing­ness to eat almost every­thing, my hus­band doesn’t dig squash, which is a shame, because left to my own devices, it would be sweet pota­toes and squash all the dang time up in here. This might have to wait until I have a more appre­cia­tive audi­ence. Or until Ryan has other plans some night.)
• The 30 Girl: pump­kin apple break­fast muffins and (*cough* over­achiever *cough*) chicken pot pie (Yes and yes. I love the Costco chicken pot pie, but they are crazy big, and if I buy one it means we eat it for days.)
• It All Started at Mother’s: apple tart (This uses puff pas­try. I have never bought puff pas­try. How is that pos­si­ble? This moves up to the tippy-top of the list.)
• Under a Pink Moon: win­ter warmer soup (Sounds like one of those soups you want to take a bath in. Am I the only one who feels this way about par­tic­u­larly deli­cious soups?)
• Domes­tic Dish: pump­kin lasagna (I am warn­ing you now. There are some ridicu­lously cute kids in the post. Like it might dis­tract you from the recipe.)

Don’t worry, Indian delivery—we’re not break­ing up, we’re just going to see a lit­tle less of each other.

(I don’t keep recipes on index cards, but if I did, I would totally use these from Two Poo­dle Press.)

1. I had my first I-live-in-LA celebrity sight­ing. Hur­ley from Lost. I didn’t even watch Lost. I want a celebrity sight­ing refund.
2. At some point, we had to stop lis­ten­ing to the Good Food pod­cast because it just depressed us. (You try lis­ten­ing to the bounty of avail­able pro­duce when your only option is a mango.) Now that we can actu­ally go to the Santa Mon­ica Farmer’s Mar­ket, and lis­ten to Good Food on Sat­ur­day morn­ings, well, OK, I get it. Cal­i­for­nia, your food doesn’t suck.
3. Harry and I went hik­ing yes­ter­day in Cold­wa­ter Canyon Park. I parked the car, looked at the map and started walk­ing. We walk and walk, I see a path going uphill, decide “I should go up” and climb. Finally, I start head­ing down­hill and see a park­ing lot. I am pleas­antly tired, a lit­tle bit dusty, and ready to go home. Harry is pooped. I look around the park­ing lot and don’t see my car. I ask a woman where I am in rela­tion to the park­ing lot I parked in. She tells me I have to go back up the hill. The one I just climbed. We walked together for a while and she talked non-stop about her hyp­nother­apy and hyp­no­birthing and how she pho­tographs ghosts. All of this was pre­sented in a fairly no-BS, earnest mat­ter. I thank her for return­ing me to my car and point­ing out how to get to George Clooney’s house.
4. Then Ryan and I went to our first show at the Hol­ly­wood Bowl, Pave­ment and Sonic Youth. OK, LA, another thing you need to never com­plain about. This venue is gor­geous, you’re sur­rounded by beau­ti­ful scenery and you can bring your own food. As some­one whose musi­cal tastes solid­i­fied around 1995, this was my dream bill. (Add the Mag­netic Fields if you want the tri­fecta, maybe.) My sis­ter saw Pave­ment a few weeks ago in Kansas City and remarked to me later that every­one was so old—I’m pretty sure she means me too. I did a lot of show math while watch­ing the set. I saw Pave­ment for the first time in 1994—16 years ago. Who was I then? Some­how I felt that same sense of won­der, of this is my favorite band and I don’t want them to ever stop play­ing but tem­pered with “It’s 10:30 and I’m tired.” They played a good set—including all-time faves “Front­wards,” “Grounded,” and “Sum­mer Babe,” and ended with “Here.” The last line—“Last time, last time is the best time”—felt fit­ting yet melancholy.

Note: We have been set­tled in LA for about a week now. Blame inter­mit­tent inter­net access and a loco hous­ing search for the time in between posts. Here’s the thrilling con­clu­sion of our trip.

The Hotel Val­ley Ho was our home for our night in Scotts­dale. I love any old hotel that’s been revamped, but the Val­ley Ho’s redo is amaz­ing. First, the rooms: they are huge, they are dog friendly and they have bath­tubs. Also, there are giant tiki statues.

There are Red Flower toi­letries, which smell amaz­ing. Of course I didn’t take pho­tos of our room because within min­utes of check­ing in it was cov­ered in an array of our crap, but it was a nice mix of relax­ing and retro. Just look­ing at the logo makes me happy.

The his­tory of the Val­ley Ho is a save-the-landmark story with a happy end­ing. Yay! Hol­ly­wood moment: Natalie Wood and Robert Wag­ner had their wed­ding recep­tion there. Can I bring back the lace head covering?

Harry enjoyed loung­ing in our out­door area.

We had to alter­nate using the pool because it’s a non-dog zone. Kind of a bum­mer for Harry. When I got in the hot tub, a nice man brought me a glass of ice water. Unsur­pris­ingly, I did not want to leave. After a very mel­low morn­ing we got back in the car for the dri­ving home stretch.

And now, we live in Los Ange­les! I’m still sort of in shock.

This day was long.

We left the Lofts.

Theresa rec­om­mended a stop at Bread & Break­fast for cof­fee, where I stared long­ingly at giant cin­na­mon rolls and home­made donuts. For once on our jour­ney I exer­cised a bit of restraint (at one meal, but it’s some­thing, right?) Our lit­tle diver­sion off of I-10 looked like this:

View Larger Map

Going to Marfa with­out actu­ally hav­ing the whole Marfa expe­ri­ence was a lit­tle hard for me. (The Chi­nati Foun­da­tion is closed on Mon­days and we needed to get to Ari­zona.) Some­times when I travel, I get into the unfor­tu­nate mind­set that I may never be in this par­tic­u­lar place again, so if I don’t have the Ulti­mate Travel Expe­ri­ence, all will be lost. As I type this, I real­ize it sounds crazy. And I know it’s part of being me—I like a plan and lists and all the vaguely OCD trap­pings that go with that. But, seri­ously, am I going to go to a part of Texas that is three hours from a major air­port ever again?

I hope so—what we did end up see­ing was enough of a taste that I’m hun­gry for more. We were able to see Don­ald Judd’s con­crete works from the road.

Ryan and Harry had a cin­e­matic moment while I was walk­ing through grass.

We were stopped by Bor­der Patrol, which was excit­ing. We made our way to Prada Marfa.

A pray­ing man­tis was on the window—but it looks like it’s on the Prada bag. I knew that art major would come in handy some day.

Did I men­tion the size of Texas? We kept dri­ving. We did not see Lance Arm­strong, who, Theresa tells us, keeps a condo in Marfa.

(But this was pretty close.) Almost out of Texas, we stopped for lunch. Through the mir­a­cle of the GPS and Chowhound, we found the Lit­tle Diner. If you’re ever in Canu­tillo, you are going to eat some gordi­tas or some enchi­ladas. Then you will look into Canutillo-area real estate.

We drove some more. Finally out of Texas, we cruised through New Mex­ico. Then Ari­zona, where we spent the night at my new favorite hotel. More on that in another post.

I know, I know, everything’s big­ger in Texas. But when you are dri­ving across it, you are like, “Texas? You are fuck­ing ridiculous.”

The phone sit­u­a­tion took a turn for the worse when Ryan’s stopped work­ing entirely. So on our way through San Anto­nio we made a pit stop at the Apple store. I don’t remem­ber when we started see­ing the bill­boards for Buc-ee’s but their insane mar­ket­ing totally worked. Of course I didn’t take a photo, so here’s one from their site:

I really wish I could show you the camo corn (yes, that’s pop­corn in cam­ou­flage col­ors) or the array of smok­ers they carry, from teeny (for the table­top) to huge (you can attach it to your trailer hitch). Ryan was most excited about the jerky counter—a deli counter that soley stocks dried meat. (I think heaven in his mind might look like this.) Unless some­thing more amaz­ing appears before we get to LA, I hereby declare Buc-ee’s the Best Gas Sta­tion Off I-10.

Climb­ing the roads of Texas Hill Coun­try, the Jeep made a lit­tle sigh and then the AC shut off and stopped blow­ing cold air. This caused some stress. We hap­pened to be near a BBQ restau­rant we wanted to check out any­way, so we parked the car, popped the hood (some­thing was smok­ing!) and did what my peo­ple do in times of strife: ate brisket. Kansas Cit­ian that I am, I tend to favor my hometown’s style of ‘cue, but I enjoyed the Texas brisket. Of course, I was also imag­in­ing us with a busted car on the side of the road in the Texas sun, so that may have not allowed me to fully savor my meal.

What­ever was smok­ing stopped smok­ing and the AC worked nor­mally when we turned the car back on. Just in case, we bought a flat of water and promised the Car Gods that we would have a mechanic check it out when we got to LA.

Since trip-planning took a back­seat to pack­ing up our house over the past few weeks, I didn’t real­ize until we were on the road that going to Marfa wouldn’t be too far out of our way. Our friend Theresa is an intern at the Chi­nati Foun­da­tion, an amaz­ing art writer and a loyal Pack­ers fan who we haven’t seen in ages. We found a rest area with wi-fi and started look­ing for a place to stay for the night. I loved the look of the Thun­der­bird but they only had more expen­sive suites avail­able for the night. Theresa told us about El Cos­mico which would have ful­filled my Airstreamish dreams, but they didn’t answer the phone when I called. Google led me to the Alpine Lofts, which would have been a great place to stay any­way, but after a night at the La Stinka, it was par­adise. (And it had a Jacuzzi!)

Harry thought it was pretty nice, too.