Man shall not live on bread alone; he must also have a bagel According to urban legend, the bagel was invented in the shtetls of Poland by the Ashkenazi Jews in 1610. It was brought to the United States, along with the other foods that form the staples of Jewish deli cuisine, during the immigration…
Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? The City of Angels is the home, the mecca, the epicenter of the trendiest of trendy diets. As one bites into one’s Langer’s #19 or double chili cheeseburger, one must suffer the slings and arrows and take arms against the advocates of the vegan, the paleo, the…
Let’s try Greek tonight, honey “What the hell kind of name is Constantini?” This question, which has baffled humankind for millennia, indignantly burst from the lips of an Alabama Highway Patrolman in the mold of Buford T. Justice upon reviewing the driver’s license of my medical school friend of Greek extraction (whose given name is…
The Great French Dip Controversy Back in the day when prime seats were $14 and before one could buy tickets on Stub Hub at game time for a massive discount, even pennies on the dollar, I had season tickets to the Dodgers. An unassuming, soft-spoken, reticent gentleman had the seats directly behind mine in prime…
Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles Los Angeles has a fascinating and colorful history, from the original Native American inhabitants who eked out a living along the seasonal L.A. River to the Spanish missionaries to the Americans of the 20th century led by William Mulholland who brought water to the arid basin as was famously depicted in…
Perhaps You Can Go Home Again My friend Morrie Grossman, like his older brother Les Grossman, is a movie producer at Sony Pictures. Morrie ascended the Hollywood ladder, crushing the fingers of those below him on every rung. He started in the mail room, became a renowned supervising sound editor and finally reached the summit…
Don’t hate me because I am beautiful I prefer to dine at restaurants where people are younger and more attractive than I am, which, since I got my Medicare card recently, are not all that difficult to find in the City of Angels. Maybe I should rephrase that; I prefer to dine at restaurants where…
The Hottest of the Hot There is fierce competition in the hot dog market in Los Angeles. The historic Pink’s, Tail o’ the Pup (the hot dog stand in the shape of a hot dog), even the street vendors with their bacon wrapped hot dogs heaped high with fragrant grilled onions. One can’t discuss hot…
Grazie a Marco Polo My wife is an immigrant from Italy, self-described as off the boat. Her father Gino moved from Tuscany to the San Fernando Valley (as schizophrenic as that may seem) to start a successful tile and marble business. Gino was an American success story, a penniless immigrant with a sixth grade education…
I’m Jewish for the jokes…and the food I am a corned beef Jew. “What does he mean by that?” you may ask. Despite my religious Jewish upbringing (from the age of seven I went to Hebrew school three times a week culminating in a Bar Mitzvah by Rabbi Bornstein), I am a cultural rather than…