Olympics of the Minds (and Appetites)

My pal Emmie hosted a salon at her house on Saturday for illustrators, photographers, clothing designers and card makers. A cuter, snazzier Gertrude Stein, she dubbed it a meeting of the minds. I thought of the junior high academic competition known as Olympics of the Minds, as these geeks-turned-hipsters tried to solve problems such as delegating responsibility in a company that bears your name, attending trade shows and dealing with store payments. I felt a little irrelevant as I didn't have any of those worries. My biggest challenge these days is interviewing someone without coughing up a lung. While Emmie's peers chatted and networked, I gobbled up the dolmas, avocado rolls, olive bread and Havarti cheese that the hostess had artfully laid out on the tables. I tried everything except for the salad and this plate of fake food made by Lilly Bean.

Chuc Mung Nam Moi!

Happy Lunar New Year! As of Feb. 18, it's piggy time. And whoever said that you will have a tough time during the year of your own sign wasn't kidding. In the past six days, I've battled a cold, lost a dear colleague to a competing newspaper, been confused yet again by boys, who are so weird, and saw an ex. Ewwwww!

I'm looking forward for February to trade places with March, when spring will arrive with blossoms, warm temps and the pink and gray shirtdress that I ordered from Tom K. Nguyen's spring collection.

I can't say that the first day of the Year of the Pig was all bad. Last Sunday, I helped Missy's mom celebrate her birthday at La Guelaguetza, where we feasted on spicy mole. This was my chicken tamale smothered in dark mole, served with rice and black beans.

My brother also said he was considering moving to SoCal with his dog. It'd be great to have a sibling nearby, even one who was so bratty when he was 3 years old that he scratched my Aristocats vinyl 45" on my record player (which he used without asking!). I think Los Angeles would be big enough for the Tran troika: me, Bien and Mikey, aka the Hound.

After beating my cold, which I caught in Las Vegas, despite my foie gras-fortified diet, I took up my friend Max's offer to shake my booty to tunes that his beau spun at Remy's on Temple. I thought flirting with lots of cute boys would be the perfect antidote to the doldrums. But Max said that a lot of the cute boys there also liked cute boys. Well, who would be better to dispense tips on flirting with cute boys than cute boys who were good at doing it? I also picked up quite a few new dance moves from the Fingered Dance Troupe, who seemed to take the "spirit fingers" lesson from Kirsten Dunst' cheerleader flick "Bring It On" to heart. There was also a song-and-dance routine from some dude who reminded me of a 21st century Freddie Mercury decked out in American Apparel. I have to say that I had a lot of fun, which was keeping with the mantra that I set for this year. That's a lot more than I can say for the ex, who wasn't smiling or laughing one bit when I saw him at a dimly lit, crowded art party. Plus, I got a mini tour from the artist himself before he was bombarded with hugs from Winona Ryder and Salma Hayek. At least I don't have to worry about running into any exes on the red carpet.

Detoxing at Dusty's

It's day-two of detoxing in Los Angeles. Eileen woke me up at 10 a.m. with the suggestion to go on a hike with her big cartoon dog. The great thing about exercising in the morning is that you don't have to start with a shower. So I smeared lots of sunscreen on my face and limbs, plopped on the straw cowboy hat that I bought in Malta three years ago and strapped on some rugged sandals to meet Eileen and George. After our two-mile walk in Elysian Park, which has recently been haunted by a male flasher, we went to eat at Dusty's on Sunset Boulevard, which had outdoor seating where George can lounge on the sidewalk while we nibble on raisin bread with orange marmalade and strawberry jam.

Eileen ordered a croissant stuffed with a spinach omelette and fresh fruit, including a miniature banana, starfruit and kiwi. On my first two visits to Dusty's, I couldn't snap such good pictures on my cell phone camera because of inadequate lighting from the candles during the dinner service. So one sure way to get around the ghetto photojournalism was to return during the day for lunch. What pretty plating!

The server informed us that the cook recently added salade nicoise to the lunch menu. The difference was that she substituted seared ahi tuna for canned tuna and quail eggs for chicken eggs. I had to try it. I would have preferred if the kalamata olives were pitted. Yet, since I live a charmed life, I can do with a little suffering once in a while.

Alain Ducasse's Mix and Thomas Keller's Bouchon

Everyone keeps nagging me to buy a digital camera because they deplore the ghetto photojournalism I practice with my cell phone camera. I've already decided that I will buy the Panasonic Lumix. I'm just not sure whether it'd be before or after I buy the black patent leather Mary Janes from Manolo Blahnik. After all, I am a girl with a weakness for shiny stilettos! In the meantime, The Food and Music Club members will have to do with darkly lit photos such as this of a roll at Alain Ducasse's Mix, and I will have to do with my black patent leather tote that I've been carrying ever since I broke the zipper on my Andrea Brueckner handbag. So ghetto Chanel, the patent leather tote has gold chains and a 10-inch long tassel that I once used to slap Todd for making a smartass remark about foie gras.

I can proudly say that I had foie gras on four of the five nights I was in Sin City. The third meal was at Mix in theHotel at Mandalay Bay. For my entree, I ordered grilled squab stuffed with foie gras. I feasted on the gamey bird with such glee that some of the dark sauce dripped onto my teal green silk dress from Geren Ford. I skipped foie on Valentine's Day because the dinner where I was a guest was held at Boa Steakhouse in Caesars Forum Shops, which didn't offer fatty goose liver on the menu. Even though Missy has been on the fence in the foie war, she has taken on the role of being the unofficial spokesperson for my foie campaign and informing people about the latest news in my foie diet. She decided to be anti-foie gras after tasting the too-rich amuse bouche constituted of foie and parmesan cheese foam at L'Atelier.

But then she joined me and our 10 other dinner mates in our final meal in Las Vegas: at Thomas Keller's Bouchon in the Venetian Hotel. We ordered a terrine of foie gras that had the layer of clarified butter removed before it was presented at our table. Served with thin strips of toast and a ramekin of fleur de sel, the foie gras was the best of the week. It was so yummy that I had no remorse in scraping a fallen drop on the tablecloth with my finger and sticking it in my mouth. Missy became pro-foie gras by the end of the night. Todd also had a little bit, but he remained in the anti-foie gras camp with Emili, against the five people on my side. Still, I knew my limits. After I returned to the City of Angels on Friday, I decided to begin detoxing with a dinner of toast and a frozen blueberry yogurt smoothie from Pinkberry.

L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon

I made my third trip to Joel Robuchon's L'Atelier at the MGM Grand hotel tonight. Some people asked me why I chose to stay at the MGM Grand instead of the Wynn where my other co-workers were shacking up. My response: I have foie gras on the ground floor at the MGM!

A case in point was the amuse bouche that Robuchon's kitchen offered at the beginning of the meal -- and after I ordered a $130 bottle of Bruno Paillard's "Brut Premiere Cuvee" Champagne. It was a shot glass layered with foie gras and a port reduction whose deep scarlet hue offset the parmesan foam on top. Before dinner, Todd and I had an ongoing debate about the foie war. Todd and Emili were trying to convince Missy to join their side against me and Adam, two bonafide members of The Foie Faction. Missy said she would stay neutral until she tasted some foie gras and decided whether she can live with or without it. Needless to say, she dug into the foie gras amuse bouche like a prisoner who was about to dig his way to freedom.

Because Missy and I weren't too hungry, we decided to share three plates of appetizers. Our first fix was an eggplant caviar. I was expecting eggplant diced into teeny-tiny cubes. Instead, I received a grayish puree of eggplant that got a kick out of some dots of hot sauce.

Our three slivers of tuna were perfectly seared and accessorized with fried onions, capers and olives.

I was disappointed that the foie gras burgers were tainted with beef. In the past, Robuchon's crew would sear thumb-sized pieces of foie gras and serve them on mini brioche buns with red peppers glazed in a ginger sauce. So I chose the purest form of foie gras on the menu: ravioli stuffed with foie in a basil-seasoned broth.

The wasabi cream gave a little kick to the gloriously smooth foie gras. I got to eat three of the four raviolis because Missy was getting full. Foie forever!

Todd didn't let a little foie war get in the way of sitting next to me. He had the testing menu, which included an appetizer of a mille feuille comprising eggplant layered with mozzarella cheese. The basilic swirlicues were a nice touch.

Todd's main course in the tasting menu was a rib-eye steak, cooked medium rare.

Though I took my last sip of coffee four years ago, I am still willing to take pictures of java. This is Todd's espresso, which was served with a spearmint-flavored truffle.

Two bottles of Champagne among seven people didn't amount to much booze. To balance the disequilibrium, I had a glass of French muscat to accompany my chocolate mousse.

Doesn't this chocolate mousse look like a Pop Art painting? The thin layer of hardened chocolate flecked with dots of berry puree and gold dust reminded me of a Yayoi Kusama painting. The black yolk traced its origins to an Oreo, which, thanks to the use of lard as a key ingredient, could be considered the foie gras of cookies.

This is the dessert-cum-painting all broken. One of our dinner mates recounted the tale of how casino magnate Steve Wynn recently busted his Picasso painting. Though my dessert didn't cost me nearly $100 million, I pretended that I pulled a Wynn.

Daniel Boulud Brasserie

I'm in Las Vegas again for business. It's back to the grind of working 14-hour days stalking miles and miles of a trade show floor in pursuit of skittish corporate executives and then boozing up the interviewees the rest of the night. It's also time to replenish my diet with foie gras. Because California is ruled by a bunch of food Nazis, I've decided to eat foie gras every single day while I'm here. They don't call it Sin City for nothing! Tonight's repast was held at Daniel Boulud Brasserie in the Wynn hotel.

Over the ethical objections of my dinner dates, Todd and Emili, I ordered the duck confit wrapped around a tube of foie gras inside a puff pastry cylinder. Todd said I was going to suffer from bad karma and be reborn as a duck or goose in the next life. But I told him that you can only be reborn as one of the 12 critters in the Asian zodiac. The rooster is the sole avian in that astrological system, and we all know that chicken foie gras is an oxymoron. The duck confit-foie gras appetizer was as smooth as it looked.

I'm not that much of a hedonist. Rather than ordering a traditional entree, I chose a second appetizer for my main dish: a tomato tarte tatin.

Emili was intrigued by Earl Grey ice cream that came with the poached pear. My tongue wasn't completely convinced of the coupling. I think Earl Grey ice cream would have gone more nicely with a sponge cake. Dulce de leche would have provided an exotic base for the delicately poached pears.

I wanted to support my peeps and order the Vietnamese cinnamon ice cream that was paired with a fritter dessert. But I thought the fried pastry would be too heavy. Instead, I cleansed my palate with the dark chocolate mousse and praline ice cream combo. Opting for coffee over sweets, Todd made himself useful and lit the dessert dishes for my ghetto photojournalism.

Randomness in Los Angeles

My favorite new drink is a pirate's chai. I'm not saying that just because it's pirate season. Made with matcha green tea, a pirate's chai isn't as sweet as a regular chai. The foam leaves a touch of bitterness on the tongue to nearly convince me to add more sugar. But the rest of the drink washes down my throat in a cascade of sweetness and warmth. The pirate's chai is an updated version of the medicinal green tea that I used to drink in traditional Japanese tea ceremonies. Considering that I know of only two places that serve pirate's chai in SoCal -- Mani's in Santa Monica, Calif., and Kaldi in the Atwater Village neighborhood -- I relish drinking it as much as a real sea scoundrel quaffs his rum.

Last Sunday, after scouring a vintage clothing expo with some girlfriends, I came across another vestige of the pirate's life. In the backseat of a canary yellow Mercedes convertible was a big cage with a green parrot inside. Emili was gracious enough to stall her car at the West Hollywood street intersection and wait for me to document such silly randomness on my cell phone camera. You can see in the mirror how happy I was to be part of wacky history.

A bunch of Spaniards decorated a bevy of bulls and sold them for charity in Beverly Hills, Calif. My favorite was the one drawn by a chef from Madrid, who laid out a seven-course meal on the bull-shaped blackboard.

There are two things that I'm really into: space and dragons. My love for space reached its climax when I interviewed Mr. Spock (a.k.a. Leonard Nimoy) at a black-tie event last year. Quite dashing in his black suit and mock turtleneck sweater with jagged edges, both by Giorgio Armani, Mr. Spock was a little crusty. I knew that it was going to be a throwaway interview because he didn't have much relevance to my newspaper. I approached him as a fangirl instead of a reporter. At one point, he asked me if I had a sense of humor."Yes. Why?" I asked him. "Because you aren't laughing," he replied. I thought to myself: "You haven't said anything funny, Doodoohead!" This is the T-shirt I got from the Star Trek Experience shop in Las Vegas a couple of years ago. I describe it as a Vulcan who lives in the Hello Kitty! universe.

The maestro of randomness in Los Angeles is Matty M. Missy's little bro is gonna be a big deal in the music biz one day! He'll bring a lot of integrity, enthusiasm and curiosity to such a jaded industry. I showed him how I keep it real by playing a cassette of Velvet Underground's "VU" album in my car. He showed me how he keeps it real by cooking pork chops with Shake 'N' Bake for dinner. And Shake 'N' Bake was no euphemism for marijuana!

Before we tucked into dinner, Missy, Cory and I toasted Matty M. for being all grown up and cooking a nourishing meal. Here, Shake 'N' Bake pork chops with roasted apples, green beans sauteed in olive oil and lemon juice and rice.

Pirates & Gnomes

Adam's wifey is out of town on a business trip. So what does a loving hubby do when his missus is gone for more than five weeks? He turns into a pirate with a pet garden gnome that he's challenged his friends to name. I plead guilty for giving him the gnome. But think of a miserable life a homeless gnome would have lived!

Cool Chicks

Two days ago, I saw "Factory Girl," the overly simplistic, blatantly hagiographic biopic starring Sienna Miller as Edie Sedgwick. I liked it because it was highly stylized (I'm a fashion writer after all!) and Sienna Miller did a good job (I actually think she is as good in her acting as she is in being a fashion plate, even though her personal life overwhelms her professional accomplishments). If I were to see it again for the fashion scenes, I'd fast-forward through the bits in which Sedgwick is portrayed as a poor little rich girl who was exploited by all the men in her life, especially by Andy Warhol, whom the character modeled after Bob Dylan described as "a bloodsucker." The movie has spurred a spate of articles ruminating on Sedgwick's place in pop culture, including one in The New York Times about how the so-called Plymouth Rock Princess was the grandmother to Paris Hilton and other celebutantes who have become famous for being famous. I like this video montage of Sedgwick set to The Velvet Underground's "After Hours," as sung by the band's drummer, Moe Tucker.

Another cool chick from the Sixties was Francoise Hardy. I had my hair cut like hers in sixth grade. She was one of the best things in "Grand Prix," the surprisingly boring French racing flick by John Frankenheimer. My parents used to play "Tous Les Garcons et Les Filles" all the time when I was little. A song about how everyone but her has found love, it is entrancing.

Breaking Lumbas Bread

Last Sunday, Missy made a healthy version of pumpkin muffins. She substituted some sugar fortified with fiber for the regular sweetener. As a result, her pastries came out a little too heavy and quite filling. Missy got a stomach ache after eating one. I told her that she made the pumpkin muffin equivalent of the hobbits' lumbas bread from "The Lord of the Rings." I bet the gossipy, competitive food bloggers profiled in The New York Times wouldn't appreciate being offered lumbas bread by a friend. They're too busy trying to score a free meal at Alain Ducasse's restaurant or get hired as a restaurant reviewer with a corporate AmEx card at a major newspaper. I'm content writing about hobbits, elves, gnomes and macaroni and cheese for The Food and Music Club. Then again, next week I will make my semiannual trip to Las Vegas to cover the expansive apparel trade shows there and flex my corporate credit card at eateries helmed by Ducasse, Joel Robuchon, Nobu Matsuhisa and Thomas Keller.

Educating Khanh

Last Sunday, my friend Bruna treated me to dinner at Dusty's, an intimately lit bistro in Echo Park that was more reasonably priced, cozy and yummy than Cafe Stella and some other French-inspired eateries on the East Side. Bruna was taking care of the check because on the following night I was going to be the first guest speaker in the freshman writing class that she teaches at Art Center in Pasadena, Calif. The topic was writing reviews. I got the job because I had written a pair of articles about a fashion and architecture exhibit at Los Angeles' Museum of Contemporary Art. The dinner was intended partly to supplement the little stipend I was going to receive and mostly to ease my nerves. I have to admit that I hate performing in public. Most people don't believe me when I make this confession because I always seem in the zone when I am on stage. Yet, whether it's a flute solo, theremin recital or speaking in front of a group of more than three people, I always get anxious. But I suppose hours of preparation and my perfectionism always bolster my nerves and help me get through the ordeal. Still, Dusty's was a nice little place for a bribe. Even though it was chilly outside, I ordered a rose wine, which went nicely with my arugula salad topped with a thin slice of gorgonzola cheese.
I usually don’t see cauliflower gratin offered at restaurants in L.A. Actually, it’s quite rare to see cauliflower on menus at all. I’m not sure why. I like the white vegetable, which is more subtle and versatile in recipes than broccoli. I must confess that this gooey dish was my second choice as a side for my arugula salad. I originally ordered the sweet potato French fries, but the server informed me that she was out of them. Though she tried to talk me into getting the regular shoestring fries, I decided to try the gooey gratin instead. After a few minutes, the gratin’s top cheese layer cooled to become harder than the thumb-size florets.

The herb ricotta cheese offered with the basket of raisin bread and baguette was thick and flavorful.

The quietness and dimness of the restaurant made it easy to forget that I was in Echo Park. That is, until I glanced at the sign for tamales and burritos hanging inside next to the hostess stand. Ever the poet, Bruna helped me make up stories about why the electric placards were there. Were they remnants of the previous business? Were they an homage to the Latino neighborhood? Were they on sale at a swap meet? Anyway, the meeting went well. I jotted down pointers in my orange Rhodia notebook. Then, on Monday, I showed the kids my mad skillz and advised them to read promiscuously. I'm even going back for an encore performance at another class that Bruna teaches on Tuesday. Maybe I should ask Bruna for an encore meal at Dusty's the night before the class.