Now You're Cooking

Forget Epicurious, the Food Network and Rachael Ray's new iPhone app. My vintage Wedgewood stove is a sure-fire cooking reference with about 70-odd years experience. No need to laminate this kitchen guide -- it's right there on the inside of the oven door. It's a little faded and blurry but you can still read it, even after decades of Thanksgiving dinners and birthday cakes. Hey, where else can you get the definitive answer for how long to cook well-larded veal? (Answer: 35 minutes per pound at 325 degrees. Take that, Jamie Oliver!)

Leave the Light On

This wonderful old light fixture hangs at the top of my stairs. I can see it through the window when I pull into the driveway after dark. It's a friendly little beacon. It's quirky and dependable -- kind of like the family it welcomes home. I love the rosy glow of that light, especially after a long day.

Like yesterday, for example...

You've heard me say that things are just different in South Pasadena. That it's kinder here. That in the cruel, impersonal jungle of Los Angeles, South Pas is an oasis of cornball, old-school neighborliness that borders on fetishistic. (And we like it that way.) It's not that the rest of LA is mean -- it's just that so much of South Pas is nice. Really nice. It's kind of weird how nice it is here. People smile and hold doors open here. They throw block parties. They bring you homemade marshmallows and fudge during the holidays. Oh, I'm sure there are some rude, angry, self-centered people in South Pas -- I just haven't run across them yet. (No doubt they skip the old-fashioned Fourth of July Parade.)

But, we can't always stay within the borders of our happy, little village. Yesterday, my daughter and I were waiting to pay for a laptop charger at the Best Buy in Hastings Ranch when a tall man in an expensive suit cut in front of us.

"Hey," I said, "The line is back there."

"Whatever," he said, and then ambled over to the check stand to buy his Transformers DVD.

So, the guy was a first-class toad but not worth getting riled up over. I explained to my daughter that sometimes grownups forget their manners. Next, we drove to a fabric store in Alhambra. At this point, my daughter realized that she needed a bathroom.

"Can you tell me where to find the bathroom?" I asked one of the cashiers.

He looked at me, sighed and said, "Um, no. We don't have a bathroom."

"I have to pee!" My daughter started to freak out, "I think it's going to come out NOW!"

"You don't have a bathroom?" I said.

He stared at me. "No."

I blinked. He didn't.

"Can you let me know which store in this shopping center has a bathroom?"

"I'm pretty sure none of them do," he said. Then, like something remembered from a training manual he added, "Sorry."

I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say that I know for a fact he was not sorry.

"Hurry, Mommy!" Now my kid was crying, "HURRY!!!"

"I don't know what to tell you," he said, and then went back to straightening and unstraightening shopping bags, right next to a sign that insisted sewing holiday decorations brought back old fashioned family values.

I'm not sure how we managed it but we got home without soiling clothes or car seat -- no accidents, just a lot of tears and a few broken speed limits. Later, I realized I was out of Tylenol. I drove to the South Pasadena Rite Aid on Fair Oaks.

"I'm just curious," I said to the woman stocking paper towels. "Do you have a bathroom I could use?"

"Oh sure," she said with a glow every bit as warm as my lamp in the window. "Let me get the keys."

It's good to be home.

The Things of Yesterday

South Pasadena people have a thing for old stuff. Our little town is brimming with historic architecture, towering heritage trees and decades-old sidewalks whose cracks we romantically think add character rather than present something as mundane as a tripping hazard. We love our real old-fashioned soda fountain and our main street filled with many locally owned stores. We have a 4th of July parade so wonderfully small town it might have made even Norman Rockwell roll his eyes. While much of Los Angeles dabbles in a bit of hipster retro -- South Pas revels in the truly vintage.

Even the limited new construction here often looks like a throwback to the 1920s -- antique-looking red brick or Craftsman-style facades -- and many homeowners search through the numerous San Gabriel Valley antique stores and architectural salvage places to fill new homes with the tile and light fixtures and switch plates and heating grilles of long ago.

It's fun to look at real estate listings from our flashy neighbors to the west. Brentwood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica West LA ... the descriptions of homes for sale there tend to mention things like vinyl dual paned windows and granite counters. Here? Even in a bad economy, people seek out old South Pas homes with 100 year old wood sash water glass windows and original kitchen tile. Personally, I'll always choose an antique gas stove like this one over a new Viking range...