The Bestie Text Thread
a never ending negotiation, plus traffic
The text thread starts up again between my two besties and me. It’s Sunday morning. We’re hungry. Where should we go? Brunch seems impossibly busy everywhere and we never think ahead to reserve, but really do we want to go where we need reservations for breakfast? One lives in Venice, the other in Los Feliz and I’m in the middle. It’s impossible to explain to a non Angeleno the role that traffic and parking play in any decision to leave the house. (Last week I met a friend for lunch. It took me 10 minutes to drive to the restaurant and 15 minutes to find parking).
On Saturday I picked up a friend who was back in town for a visit from her Costa Rica home. We drove from mid-Wilshire to Tomatomania in Encino then to Altadena to bring tomatoes to the best gardener I know who has a broken ankle. Catching up during car rides is a precious thing here. But now part of me never wants to leave again to go anywhere.
Back to the text thread where we are still negotiating where to go for breakfast, or lunch, as the minutes tick by. We go through options as varied as coffee in Venice to fried chicken in K-town followed by KBBQ (but one of us doesn’t eat meat). Eventually I say “Although I could be convinced of something else. Or nothing. The indolence of Sunday is appealing”. Spellcheck changes appealing to appalling and for a minute I feel like this oft negotiation is that. Then one of us expresses that really, we need to live in the same neighborhood. Another oft expressed sentiment. I yearn for village life and after many, many, many decades living here still haven’t found it. I wish I loved more of the restaurants in my neighborhood I can walk to. I wish there was one more good bakery option. (thank you Roji!) There isn’t. Well there’s Republique which is phenomenal but sometimes it’s just too much work. Privilege, I know. I could continue down this vague philosophical thread about the particular frustration of meeting good friends in LA for a casual hang, but instead I’ll tell you about lunch.
There is too much reflection in the video above but I wanted to communicate the real life menu of options on offer at Seed Bakery in Pasadena.
Part of the traffic marathon last Saturday included a stop at Seed Bakery in Pasadena to pick up lunch. It’s a perfect place. I love that their covid reorganization of how they sell and how customers pick up was so successful for them that they never reopened the inside space to customers. Everyone stares at the pastries on display at eye level through the large front window and points. Then adds on a few of the creative sandwiches on offer over a card table conversation at an open door. We got the veggie quiche, an eggplant sandwich, a cauliflower one, another with a thick spinach-egg frittata on brioche and a turkey sammie. For sweets there was a passion fruit custard danish, a honking slice of an orange berry pound cake affair and something else I can’t remember. My laid up friend asked that I get her a jalapeno-cheddar pretzel roll and I bought a sourdough buckwheat loaf to take home. It is very very good. While my Costa Rica friend and I waited for our order we sipped iced lattes and continued to catch up. The banal is often precious. I can’t remember the last time I had an iced latte. And maybe the most efficient LA way to casually hang with friends is in the car.
As a native Angeleno I can understand your traffic issues. I solved that by moving to San Francisco thirty years ago. That still leaves the problem of weekend crowds and the perverse attraction folks of a certain age have for standing in line