The Frugal Gourmet

With prices on the rise (gasoline, rice, airfare, gold, you name it), I've seen articles on how to eat gourmet for less, how to be a recessionista and how to dump the car for public transit. I'm lucky when it comes to wheels because I had the foresight to buy a used Toyota Prius four years ago. If my car were to ever run out of gas, I can walk four blocks from my house to the nearest Metro station and hop on a train. When it comes to food, however, I'm an unabashed snob. Fortunately, I don't live too far from Fresh & Easy. That's the supermarket chain that Tesco, the U.K.'s largest and the world's third largest retailer, opened in Southern California last year. The location in Eagle Rock usurped the building left vacant by a failing Albertson's. By comparison, Fresh & Easy is a huge improvement. Not only do drivers of hybrid cars like me receive preferential parking in front of the store, but I also took advantage of coupons that cut $5 off purchases valued over $20. Miguelito and I went hog wild there on Saturday.

For instance, Atlantic salmon caught in Canada cost $6.49 per pound. A bottle of Spanish rose wine put us back $4.99. A small pack of sweet blackberries cost less than $3. Fresh & Easy even makes a point of listing the food's provenance on the packaging. Like Trader Joe's, Fresh & Easy pre-wraps all its fruits and vegetables. I am not a fan of this method because it prevents me from touching, smelling, inspecting and selecting the food I want. Also, what if I want only two tomatoes instead of a quartet? Plus, Fresh & Easy doesn't have the sweetest deals in town. The Hollywood Farmers Market is the mother lode for in-season produce on the Eastside, and the Vietnamese grocery store in Echo Park offers amazing deals on fish sauce (nearly two cups worth of fish sauce from Vietnam's famed Phu Quoc Island for 99 cents; limes for 59 cents per pound).

The weekend's splurge was actually made at Mitsuwa, where I finally redeemed the $20 gift certificate that Miguelito gave me for Christmas. At the Japanese grocery store in Little Tokyo, I snapped up a small bottle of yuzu juice for $7.99 and a tin of wasabi powder for $2.39. This is what I did with my finds.

I mixed the yuzu with some olive oil for a vinaigrette to douse rice noodles and radish sprouts.

I used the wasabi powder to freshen up some furikake, or a seaweed and toasted sesame seed seasoning that is eaten with cooked rice, for a crust on the salmon.

Because the furikake was sufficiently salted, I didn't need to add any additional seasoning to the fish. Miguelito also grilled some sweet peppers and white mushrooms.

This was a happy ending for the weekend.

After Everyone Has Fallen Asleep

Writing can be a bitch. And writing a blog after a full day of writing on deadline at a newspaper can be a motherf'er. Miguelito is often on my case about being delinquent with updates on my blog. ("My fingers and brain need a break!" is the excuse that I give.) Besides, what's left to say after everyone's posited their musings on topics ranging from Yves St. Laurent's recent death (Ashley Olsen, believe it or not, was one of the more succinct and stylish pundits) to the preview of Mr. Brainwash's first art exhibition (as chronicled so thoroughly on Whorange well before I had my morning cup of tea). Whatever I would say following the others' lead would be stale and anticlimactic. But I remembered what a senior journalist once told me: If you can't be first, then be second with more analysis. So here it goes:

Yves St. Laurent: Even though I don't own any pieces created by him, he's responsible for many of the items in my current wardrobe: pants, tuxedo dressing, sheer blouses, an ethnic vibe (albeit via Vietnam). I've been lusting after his original safari jacket for the better part of the last two decades. I'm not sure if I'll ever find one. But I can dream.

Tim Russert: He covered politics, a topic I've always dreaded to read and write about. But he did it with a fierce intellect, fairness to those who disagreed with him, graciousness toward those who weren't quite at his level and boundless love for his family. I want to be like him when I grow up.

Mr. Brainwash: I was first exposed to Mr. Brainwash's lunatic art by accident. Cruising down Sunset Boulevard on my evening commute home in late May, I noticed a new billboard on the wall of a nondescript building. I whipped out my camera from my purse and eyed the stoplight to make sure that it didn't turn green before I got my shot. Perhaps it was the painting's messiness that evoked the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi. Or maybe it was the irony of the message (Gen Xers like me dig irony). Or I was just in one of those post-work moods that made me happy to be on my way to see Miguelito. Over the next few weeks, Mr. Brainwash finished more of his works to fill an empty TV studio. As others noted, Shepard Fairey, the DJ-ing street artist who's one of the first to successfully meld art with apparel at Obey, was at the VIP preview on Tuesday night. Other fashion and media folks I spotted at the bash were designer Jeremy Scott in a tuxedo jacket with sequined lapels and his signature mullet, TV reporter Huell Howser, photographer Mark "The Cobrasnake" Hunter and Web personality Clint Catalyst. I had my own art entourage: Emmie and Olga, who both head their own card companies. Together, we ran into my friend's friend who regaled them with a story about a fired intern who stole a one-of-a-kind jacket lent to a starlet from a European fashion company (fashion folks just can't avoid the drama). We also snapped some shots.

The main room looked empty because all the hipsters were scoring free cocktails in the courtyard. If I had to sum up Mr. Brainwash in the way that most reporters do with character assessments (or are they character assassinations?), I would say he's clever, resourceful and a tad hasty. I liked how he riffed on famous images created by other artists by inserting his own commentary on popular culture. Edward Hopper's forlorn damsel gazes at an Apple laptop in an empty cafe. Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker pose with hearty but grim pioneer kin on the prairie. Al Pacino, as Scarface, scatters pastel paintballs through a machine gun. The artist was successful in searching for old TV sets to assemble into a hulking robot, hundreds of stuffed toys crammed into a cage and piles of books which formed a base for an Apple laptop whose screen reminded everyone that: "Life Is Beautiful." (Is Steve Jobs a de Medici-like patron to Mr. Brainwash?) Yet, as Olga noticed, Mr. Brainwash was too quick to jump to the punchline. He didn't carefully troll stores for quality tomes to use in his book-iBook installation. If he were creating art, she noted, he would have taken the time to find meaningful titles that enhance the point of the piece, instead of self-help books that you can buy for 10 cents apiece. I also thought he was repetitive at times. It reminded me of Kara Walker's recent exhibit at the Hammer Museum. The young artists had one message that they kept emphasizing over and over again in different media of varying scales. In a way, with this approach, they got lost in the message. I wouldn't mind if they used only one medium to show how their message evolved, along with their intellect and technique.

This tomato spray can only be fully appreciated if seen in scale next to hipsters.

Do you think Lonely Girl cuddles with Lonely Bear at night?

I can't tell if Mr. Brainwash is giving a new spin on a bewigged George Washington or a platinum blond Marilyn Monroe.

I brought the art experience with me to my cubicle, pinning Mr. Brainwash's Warhol-inspired portrait of the lovechild born to Marilyn Monroe and Mr. Spock on a file cabinet. It's keeping company with Yoda and Emmie's cynical bear named Shapiro.

But the best bear is Miguelito. Here he is joshing with a life-size painting of Amelia Earhart in his friend's backyard. You see, art is everywhere!

You Know I'm Hungry When....

I start commenting about kitchen tools on other people's blogs. After I showed Miguelito what I did, he exclaimed: "Good post!" Then he asked if I told anyone else about making the cooking-themed comment. "No," I replied, with the ultimate reporter's follow-up: "Why?" "Because that's really nerdy," he said. Oh.

The Moment

When I hear my friends confide that they had a moment with their bosses at work, I cringe a little. To have a moment is to have it out with someone, albeit with some restraint and diplomacy. On the other hand, I always have The Moment every day. What is that? It's the blog for The New York Times' T Magazine. Chandler Burr, who writes about perfume for T Magazine, has a talent for visualizing ethereal, transcient scents into words. His mini essay on Fracas summed up my fascination for the perfume that I've been wearing since I was 20. The Moment's army of cool hunters isn't limited in the areas that they prowl for content. The day after Burr's exposition on test-tubing tuberoses, another contributor waxed poetically about Japanese food porn. Consider it the cerebral sequel to Tampopo.

Job Perks

I am a social person who has a social job that often requires me to mingle with socials (that is, socialites, instead of Socialists) from the design, art, music and film worlds. This is the bird's-eye view of a free show played by The Submarines at a party hosted by an action sports line. Even if I didn't have to report on this event for a story, I would have tried to catch couple Blake Hazard and John Dragonetti playing live. I loved the album "Declare A New State!" that they made after they broke up. The music created from their pain was hypnotic. Since then, the singer and guitarist got back together and released "Honeysuckle Weeks." A little peppier, presumably from their reconciled bliss, the new album is just as good as the predecessor. Plus, Blake is quite the ingenious fashionista with her stash of vintage clothes and H&M finds. I liked how her pigtails and prairie-style frock coordinated with the daisies decorating her keyboard.

On another night, I went to a one-night-only art show that a European denim brand hosted in Beverly Hills with Dennis Hopper, who curated. Hopper is a respected photographer in his own right. The access he had to the vibrant personalities from his Hollywood heyday in the Sixties and Seventies was the source of some striking images. In the parking lot behind the apparel company's showroom, Hopper hung Civil War-style military uniforms near a white convertible classic. Illuminated above the heads of the scruffy dudes and chicks with short hair and long, skinny legs, were projections of Hopper's artwork.

This appears to be a painted billboard of a photo that Hopper took decades ago.

Hopper's son, Henry, also carries the creative gene. I missed his real-time creation of a paper and plastic installation that sprawled over a quarter of the parking lot. I did catch his destruction of the piece, an act that was also part of the art, I was told. The hipsters seemed unfazed by the trash. They continued to sip their champagne, forage for mini burgers and dot their mouths with white linen napkins. Well after Henry Hopper got bored of his art, these tykes jumped in to accelerate the denouement.

Mexican Fiesta

Miguelito and I kicked off summer with a Mexican fiesta. We had many reasons to celebrate. My sister who lives in San Francisco was visiting the City of Angels, as was also a friend who resides in Shanghai. Miguelito also discovered a perfectly functioning gas grill abandoned in his apartment complex's courtyard. Our Sunday supper included borscht that a Beijing-raised friend made, carne asada and pollo marinated courtesy of Trader Joe's, skewered shrimp dusted with ground New Mexican chili, Erin's refreshing grapefruit and jicama salad, Maximus' super-famous, extra-yummy guacamole and -- for the table's piece de resistance -- Miguelito's taco salad.

Even Erin acknowledged that she entered the salad war with a bad hand. What can compete with a dish that calls for Doritos as a key ingredient? In addition to the crunchy component, Miguelito's white trash salad also had iceberg lettuce, cheese, tomatoes and taco-seasoned ground beef. No wonder this version of meat with greens is a favorite in the Midwest.

I marinated the shrimp overnight in the New Mexican chili. Too bad I didn't taste the chili powder before I added the sea salt and pepper. I'm convinced that the chili powder, which I bought at a restaurant that sells everything Mexican from Jesus-branded votives to tamales, was salted. Despite assurances from Maximus that the shrimp was perfect, I thought it was a little too salty. The carne asada was the poster child of an ideal BBQ, however. Maximus did a great job grilling the beef to a medium rare.

To cool off people's tongues from the jalapeno peppers and spicy salsa verde, I made a key lime pie. Having forgotten my juicer at home, I spent about 20 minutes squeezing the little limes by hand while watching trashy reality TV shows on the E! Network. The effort was worth it. The fresh-squeezed juice gave the custard-like pie a tart freshness that was mellowed by the just-whipped cream. Somehow I remembered to bring my microplane to use to grate the key lime rind for the pie's garnish. It's all in the details! Here is Miguelito doing his best impersonation of Vanna White.

Mmmmmmm.

Memorial Day in D.C.

I took Miguelito home for Memorial Day weekend to show him how the Viets do it in Virginia. It was his first trip to the nation's capital. It also was a crash course on all things Vietnamese. In his first 12 hours, he met about 15 relatives. He also met Pug, my grandmom's Pekinese who came over to my parents' house for a haircut and a mini holiday.

Even after his trim, Pug was pudgy. Can you tell which is the head and which is the tail?

Bear and puppy liked each other instantly.

One of the great things about Washington's Smithsonian network of museums -- in addition to the free cost of admission -- is that it allows visitors to snap as many photos of the displays as they want. After all, our taxes paid for the artwork in the federally funded exhibitions. This is the enormous mobile by Alexander Calder hanging in the National Gallery of Art's East Wing.

Walking toward this sculpture in a park near the Mall, Miguelito and I both started feeling a bit queasy. It wasn't the crowds or hunger pangs that debilitated us. Instead, it was the distorted perspective on the cartoon-cute house. A two-dimensional frame propped up by planks in the back, the house had a fractured middle seam that caused the two sides to tilt inward.

Miguelito didn't like the solid blocks of stone that housed many of the federal agencies. Department of Justice, FBI, Department of Agriculture...they were all impervious monoliths to him. Miguelito thought the edifices served as metaphors for the government; nothing was transparent. The officialness of everything scared him. There is one building that I like a lot in D.C. It's the Hirshhorn Museum of Art. In the basement were the recent acquisitions, including this sculpture crafted from wire hangers and white paper.

A reporter on vacation, I didn't bring a pen and notebook to jot down the names of the artists whose works were recently added to the Hirshhorn's permanent collection. Even off the clock, I did observe that many of them were born after 1970. This artist screen-printed boldly colored geometric patterns and starkly monochromatic scenes of medieval torture on cotton fabric. The embroidery highlighted the pain inflicted on the victims.

Yarn was a favorite tool for several artists. This artist twisted the yarn into a 2-D pinwheel that doubled nicely as a colorful frame for snap-happy tourists like me.

Miguelito was feeling playful in the museum.

This South African artist spray-painted a progressingly frenetic game of tetherball on a white wall. He then photographed himself playing with the painted ball. It was a sophisticated interpretation of street art, I thought, and one of my favorite pieces in the Hirshhorn.

On the last of our four days in Virginia, Miguelito took my parents, brother and me to dinner at Saigonique. Before we could eat, we had to return Pug to my grandmom's. Just look at his smug mug in this photo with me in the backseat of the car. Miguelito said Pug is the Elton John of dogs: he's such a diva!

Nevertheless, Miguelito couldn't resist Pug's charms. He's so soft and cuddly, after all.

One of my aunts gave high marks to Saigonique, whose owners are pals of hers. The interior looks like an art gallery filled with Vietnamese art and antiques. There was a touch of glam, however. The bar in the back alternated between pink and lime green lighting.

The red chopsticks were a dramatic accent against the white napkins and celadon-glazed plates. I had never seen such long stems on forks and spoons at a Vietnamese restaurant before.

No corner was too banal to showcase art. In the women's bathroom was nestled this wooden sculpture of a woman wearing the traditional conical hat with an ao dai.

I liked the clam salad scooped atop a giant black sesame seed wafer. To give the salad more substance, the cooks stir-fried the clams with chicken and mushrooms. I supported their decision because I think that an overload of clams could be too chewy and bland. But my dad thought the dish should have earned its name by offering more clams. When the waiter came to clear the table, my dad suggested that the restaurant rename the dish as chicken salad because it skimped on the shellfish. The Trans mean business!