Do you love or hate brunch?
Chefs famously hate brunch. It's not considered a 'serious' meal. All that day drinking. All that hollandaise sauce. And, in recent years, plate after plate of avocado toast. Would their Blood Mary-soused customers even notice if the food wasn't as sharp at brunch as at dinner?
And yet, here in Los Angeles some of our best chefs are making brunch a meal to take seriously. As senior Food editor Danielle Dorsey points out in our newly released guide to 32 great L.A. brunch spots, the same scallop tostada, crudo and lobster bisque roll you find at dinner at Ari Kolender's Found Oyster, is served at brunch. Jenn Harris says 'Top Chef' star Brooke Williamson is serving elevated versions of brunch classics at Playa Provisions. Betty Hallock loves the Japanese breakfast picks at Azay, in Little Tokyo (where I'm also a regular). And at Neal Fraser's Redbird I love the tender biscuits with strawberry-rhubarb jam, duck confit chilaquiles plus shrimp and grits.
Then there is the excess of Baltaire in Brentwood, 'with tableside mimosas, a Champagne cart, a Bloody Mary cart, caviar bumps and a raw bar,' Harris writes, as well as prime filet Benedict and a 'Wagyu cheeseburger stacked on a buttery brioche bun with truffle mayonnaise.' The whole thing 'feels like a lavish party, with music from a DJ and a crowd that arrives dressed for the occasion.'
It all fits with what Dorsey says in the guide's introduction: 'Weekend brunch invites us to suspend belief. It's easy to pretend that eggs don't run $10 for a dozen as we order forearm-length breakfast burritos and plate-sized scrambles. Furthermore, it's an excuse to say yes — yes to adding avocado, bacon and another round of drinks.'
Of course, 'The Simpsons' nailed the idea of brunch back in 1990 when Marge's bowling instructor Jacques (voiced with a full sitcom French accent by Albert Brooks) tried to seduce her with a brunch invitation: 'You'll love it. It's not quite breakfast, it's not quite lunch, but it comes with a slice of cantaloupe at the end. You don't get completely what you would at breakfast, but you get a good meal.'
Columnist Jenn Harris focused this week on the breakfast burritos of Pasadena. Namely, those of the storefront spot BBAD (her current favorite) at the Pasadena Hotel and Pool lobby and content creator Josh Elkin's breakfast chimichanga available this month at Dog Haus, with special mentions for Lucky Boy Burgers and Wake and Lake. Plus, she throws in the West L.A. spot Sobuneh for good measure. 'What makes a great breakfast burrito great,' she writes, 'is the insides, the way the melted cheese fuses with the crispy potatoes on a cushion of fluffy eggs. And the construction accounts for half of the burrito's appeal.'
I knew Carl Doumani only from afar, through one of his daughters, Lissa Doumani, who ran one of Napa Valley's great now-gone restaurants, Terra, with her husband, Hiro Sone. (The two fell in love when they were young chefs in the kitchen at the original Spago in West Hollywood.) At Terra, Sone was known for his exquisite fish dishes, though I was most drawn to his earthier tripe stew, which at one point he made with Rancho Gordo beans and topped with Hokkaido scallops. I also once had the chance to stay in a guest house on Doumani's Stags' Leap Winery estate (now owned by Treasury Wine Estates) when Jonathan Gold and I were asked to speak at a food writers' conference with a few other journalists, including Ruth Reichl and the Atlantic magazine's Corby Kummer at the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena. I remember a brigade of Weber grills set up on the grounds near the main house as the sun set over the vineyards for a wine-and-barbecue dinner that we attended as workshop participants. When I heard that Doumani had died last week at 92, I thought about the beauty of the land he once owned and understood one of the reasons the Los Angeles-born developer uprooted his family and moved to the Napa Valley.
Food contributor Patrick Comiskey met Doumani when he was researching the Petite Sirah chapter of his book 'American Rhône.' In his obit and appreciation of Doumani, he writes about the confusion between Stags' Leap Winery and Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, which was founded by the late Warren Winiarski and won the famed Judgment of Paris. Winiarski sued Doumani when the dormant Stags' Leap Winery was revived, leading to what became as the 'Apostrophe War' when Doumani didn't back down. (Both names were allowed to stand.) Doumani's 'general obstreperousness,' as Comiskey put it, attracted other 'like-minded winery owners' who 'came to be known as the GONADS, or, the Gastronomical Order for Nonsensical and Dissipatory [sic] Society.' The wine icon 'lived the life of a bon vivant and raconteur that amounts to a fading breed in the Valley.'
We loved talking with so many readers this past weekend at our Food x Now Serving booth at the L.A. Times Festival of Books. We'll have more on the authors who appeared next week. Meanwhile, Stephanie Breijo wrote about the new initiative launched this week by cookbook store Now Serving to help those who lost their homes in the Eaton and Palisades fires rebuild their cookbook collections. You can help by either buying requested cookbooks or participating in a series of raffles to raise money to replace the books that burned.
Last week's Cooking newsletter, which is sent out on Sundays — here's a link if you don't subscribe to the free newsletter — came from Food contributor Carolynn Carreño, who wrote about 'the simple and decadent combination of bread and chocolate' and included four recipes from the Times archives: Nancy Silverton's Bittersweet Chocolate Tartufo With Olive Oil-Fried Croutons, Ray Garcia's Chocolate and Banana Bread Pudding and Pinot Bistro's Chocolate Croissant Pudding and Emily Alben's Chocolate Gelt Babka With Hazelnut Amaretti Filling and Chocolate Espresso Glaze.
Thanks to the sorely missed Carolina Miranda, who used to write this paper's Essential Arts newsletter (plus many more essential stories), for sending me this essay from ArtReview by Chris Fite-Wassilak, which looks at 'the art world's strange relationship with food.'
'Food is art, great,' Fite-Wassilak writes. 'So why does it need to be constantly reframed as something transgressive or new to art?'
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USA Today
2 hours ago
- USA Today
Need a book that feels like a hug? 8 comfort reads for when life gets hard.
We all need a little bit of comfort these days. In a fast-paced and interconnected world, many of us are feeling overwhelmed by our phones and social media, climate change and politics. Reading is one way to quiet the noise. Turning to a good book can be an act of self-care and even promote healing – like 'bibliotherapy,' a practice some therapists use to help clients work through issues using literature as the tool. Though what's comforting can look different person to person, here are eight books we recommend turning to when you need to feel a little lighter, a bit better and a hint more hopeful. 'Anxious People' by Fredrik Backman I'd nominate any Backman book for this list, especially 'Anxious People.' Backman has a particular talent for writing about hard topics in a way that still makes you cozy, even telling USA TODAY in May that he aims to make readers 'close the book at the final page and feel like it's OK.' The book starts with a failed bank robber taking a group of strangers hostage in an apartment open house. Though that may sound like a blood-pressure-raising plot, 'Anxious People' is less of a crime caper than it is a big-hearted study of humanity with soulful characters. 'We'll Prescribe You a Cat' by Syou Ishida 'We'll Prescribe You a Cat' falls into the new-yet-already-beloved genre of 'healing fiction' – feel-good stories, often with magical realism elements and usually translated from Japanese or Korean. This 2024 novel follows the mysterious Kokoro Clinic for the Soul in Kyoto, which can only be found by those truly struggling. The medication it offers is unorthodox, but transformative. This hopeful and cozy novel is a tribute to the human-animal bond. 'Howl's Moving Castle' by Diana Wynne Jones It doesn't get much more nostalgic than a good Studio Ghibli film – why not check out the source material behind one of Hayao Miyazaki's greatest? This '80s fantasy classic follows eldest daughter Sophie as she tries to break a spell that's transformed her into an old lady. To return to her true state, she must enter an enchanted mobile castle and win the help of the heartless wizard Howl, who is hiding secrets of his own. 'Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting' by Clare Pooley This charming novel follows an unlikely community formed among a group of commuters. Eclectic magazine columnist Iona is the catalyst, bringing together the strangers after one of them nearly dies choking on a grape on the train. 'Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting' is a sweet story packed with love, family drama, midlife crises and lessons learned from the kindness of strangers. 'All Creatures Great and Small' by James Herriot Nonfiction fans and animal lovers alike should check out the classic memoir series 'All Creatures Great and Small' by James Herriot, the beloved Scottish veterinarian. With both difficult cases and lighthearted ones, 'All Creatures Great and Small' is an inspiring must-add to your comfort reads. 'The House in the Cerulean Sea' by T.J. Klune This blurb from fantasy author V.E. Schwab says it all: 'It is like being wrapped up in a big gay blanket.' Witty and heart-warming, 'The House in the Cerulean Sea' follows Linus, a case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, who is charged with visiting a remote orphanage to decide just how dangerous its magical occupants are. This fantastical love story is filled with memorable found family characters and will leave you feeling warm and fuzzy. 'Remarkably Bright Creatures' by Shelby Van Pelt 'Remarkably Bright Creatures' is about a widow with a profound connection to a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium where she works. There's an element of mystery as well, as Marcellus (the octopus) decides it's up to him to uncover a 30-year-old mystery – the disappearance of Tova's (the widow) teenage son. It's a great book club pick. 'Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches' by Sangu Mandanna This sweet, uplifting fantasy novel follows a lonesome, orphaned witch as she gains an unexpected community teaching young witches how to control their magic. As one of the few witches in Britain, Mika Moon has to hide her magic from the public eye, finding solace in posting videos online where she 'pretends' to be a witch. But when others see through her facade, she gets a shot at real belonging for the first time. Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@
Los Angeles Times
3 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
‘All the Sharks' might be the friendliest competitive shark show you'll see this summer
It's been 50 years since 'Jaws' ruined that summer, spawning a fleet of increasingly dreadful sequels and knockoffs, turning a simple fish into a movie monster, and a dozen since 'Sharknado' turned the monster into a joke. Sharks had been swimming in the culture before that, to be sure, often with the prefix 'man-eating' appended, though men eat sharks too, and way more often — so who's the real apex predator? And even though they are not as naturally cute as our cousins the dolphins and whales — I have never heard of one balancing a ball on its nose — they have also been made adorable as plush toys and cartoon characters. 'All the Sharks,' premiering Friday on Netflix, is a competition show in which four teams of two vie to photograph the most, and the most different, species of sharks, across two eight-hour days, and are set loose in the waters off Japan, the Maldives, South Africa, Australia, the Bahamas and the Galapagos Islands. And, brother, are there a lot of varieties — hammerhead shark, walking shark, whale shark, tawny nurse shark, pajama shark, pelagic thresher, tiger shark, tasselled wobbegong shark, puffadder shy shark, baby shark, mommy shark and daddy shark, to name but a few. (There are 124 species of sharks in Japanese waters, we're told, and 200 off South Africa.) Points are awarded according to the rarity or abundance of the species in each location. These sharks are neither monsters nor jokes, though at least one contestant finds the banded houndshark 'freaking adorable … their little cat eyes, their subterminal mouth.' As competitions go, it is friendly, like 'The Great British Baking Show' or 'MasterChef Junior.' There's no way to sabotage your opponents, no strategy past guessing where the sharks might be running, eating or hanging out. The purse — $50,000 — goes to the winners' chosen marine charity, though prizes are also awarded to the top-scoring team in each episode. (Cool gear, seaside vacations.) Winning is not so much the point as just staying in as long as possible — because it's fun. Sometimes things don't go a team's way, but no one has a bad attitude. Naturally they are good-looking, because this is television, and fit, because you need to be to do this; most have professional expertise in fishy, watery or wild things. (They certainly know their sharks.) Brendan (marine biologist) and Chris (fisheries ecologist) are a team called the Shark Docs. Aliah (marine biologist specializing in stingrays — which are closely related to sharks, did you know?) and MJ, identified as an avid spearfisher and shark diver, comprise Gills Gone Wild; they met at a 'bikini beach cleanup' and have been besties ever since. British Bait Off are Sarah (environmental journalist) and Dan (underwater cameraman), who like a cup of tea. And finally, there are the Land Sharks, Randy and Rosie. Dreadlocked Randy, a wildlife biologist, says, 'I was always one of the only Black guys in my classes … I got that all the time: 'Oh, you're doing that white boy stuff' and it's just like, 'No, I'm doing stuff that I love.'' Rosie, an ecologist who specializes in apex predators, wants to show girls it's 'OK to be badass … work with these crazy animals, get down and dirty.' She can hold her breath for five minutes. The show has been produced with the usual tics of the genre: comments presented in the present tense that could only have been taped later; dramatic music and editing; the 'hey ho uh-oh' narrative framing of big, loud host Tom 'The Blowfish' Hird, with his braided pirate's beard, whose website identifies him as a 'heavy metal marine biologist.' Footage of great white sharks — the variety 'Jaws' made famous — is inserted for the thrill factor, but none are coming. But whatever massaging has been applied, 'All the Sharks' is real enough. The contestants deal with rough seas, strong currents, jellyfish and sundry venomous creatures, intruding fishermen, limited air, sinus crises, variable visibility and unexpected orcas. And the sharks — who do not seem particularly interested in the humans, as there is no lack of familiar lunch options — do sometimes arrive in great, unsettling profusion. (There's a reason 'shark-infested waters' became a phrase.) Meanwhile, the ocean itself plays its ungovernable part. In their enveloping blueness, dotted with colorful fish and coral reefs, the undersea scenes are, in fact, quite meditative. (Humans move slow down there.) Someone describes it as like being inside a screen saver. In the bargain, we learn not a little bit about shark behavior and biology, and there is an implicit, sometimes explicit, conservation theme. Each encountered species gets a graphic describing not only its length, weight and lifespan but the degree to which it is or isn't endangered — and, sad to say, many are.
Los Angeles Times
3 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
They want to be your anime best friend — on your phone and IRL at Dodger Stadium
Kou Mariya hasn't shown her work to her family. That's because Mariya, not her real name, is living a dual identity, and to protect her privacy, only the most sacred of confidants — or business partners — can know her true persona. Mariya, to her more than 84,000 followers on YouTube, is a friendly, flirtatious vampire singer, as excited to chat about her digitized outfits and accessories as she is to sing a late '90s pop song. She performs as an animated avatar using motion capture technology, which matches her facial expressions and body movements to the drawn figure. Mariya spends a significant portion of her days as this cartoon character, at once wholly real while being completely artificial. She is a professional performer, although her stage is virtual. Instead of a glimpse into a room or a home, her surroundings are fully drawn — she could be in a beach setting one day and an ornate office the next. As a VTuber — that is, virtual YouTuber — Mariya is part of a movement, one led by those weaned on Japanese animation who are now finding ways to make fantasy world-building feel individualized and personal. We connect via video conferencing software, her location in the U.S. a secret, and Mariya appears in her anime form, her silver-white hair occasionally obscuring her welcoming oval eyes, which blink often as she speaks. Her voice is friendly and warm, and it ever-so-slightly dips into an upper register when she laughs or needs to emphasize a point. She nervously chuckles that she'll be aged 'so bad' when she admits the first anime she fell in love with was 'Speed Racer.' Whether I'm talking to Mariya the vampire character or Mariya the performer is never quite clear. This weekend Mariya will be hosting a concert in Hollywood with other popular VTubers. There will be live musicians, but the VTubers will be virtual. Mariya says she'll be performing from an off-site location to protect her identity. Those in Los Angeles will have multiple opportunities to take part in a VTuber crash course over the Fourth of July holiday. Mariya on Thursday will host the Fantastic Reality concert at the Vermont Hollywood, a performance that makes virtual and real musicians and features Ironmouse, a horned, operatic demon who was briefly the most subscribed streamer on Twitch. Even more mainstream, a host of VTubers associated with Japanese firm Hololive will invade Dodger Stadium for the second year in a row. Saturday evening's Hololive Night will feature three of company's English-speaking talents — Ninomae Ina'nis, IRyS and Koseki Bijou — virtually cheering on the team, singing the seventh-inning stretch and then leading a post-game dance party on the field. A special event ticket will include playing cards of the VTubers. Hololive, a division of Cover Corp., is one of the largest VTuber talent agencies in the world, with almost 90 active performers across its various divisions. The company's U.S. office is based in L.A., and its partnership with the Dodgers is to recognize, in part, that the team has a large Japanese fanbase, thanks to megastar Shohei Ohtani. Cover CEO Motoaki Tanigo, however, has a broader goal, and that's to further bring VTubers to the masses. 'There are two reasons,' Tanigo says, via a translator, for why Cover has targeted L.A. as one of its key markets. The first, he notes, is due to the fact that a large part of the company's fanbase resides in the L.A. region. The second, he stresses, relates to his business goals, especially the video game firms Cover hopes to partner with. 'Doing events in the Los Angeles area is not only important for our user engagement, but it's a great opportunity to show to our business clients that we have a strong following.' VTubers have averaged 50 billion YouTube views annually over the past three years, according to a recent YouTube Culture & Trends report. A YouTube sample of 300 virtual creators found that they drove 15 billion views across the site, with 1 billion coming from the U.S. alone. Almost all of these VTubers are steeped deeply in anime lore, culture and tone. And while there are popular male VTubers, a number of the most famous are female-facing. Cover's roster, for instance, is more than three-quarters female. 'It's very exciting,' says Susan Napier, author of 'Miyazakiworld: A Life in Art' and professor at Tufts University who specializes in Japanese culture. 'It allows for an enormous amount of creativity, and a real sense of ownership over your creation, and a way of playing and melding with your creation. People have been fans and identifying with favorite stories, anime and manga for years. This is, in a way, a very old phenomena. It's people wanting to participate in a fantasy world that they love.' Mariya notes she decided to become a VTuber during the worst days of the global pandemic of 2020. 'Everyone was in front of their computers and had a sense of loneliness,' she says. 'And VTubers [had] that sense of, 'I'm not alone. I'm not trapped. There's a whole world out there for me.' Being a big fan of that, I wanted to try that myself. I did not expect to be able to make this into a career, but somehow people liked me, and I thought I could keep going with this.' And how, of course, did she land on her character, a vampire with a bat clip in her hair and an open-chested cocktail server-style outfit? 'That one is tricky because technically I was born a vampire,' Mariya says. 'We're not scary. We ask permission before entering doors, which is better than a lot of people. We do bite. That's the only downside.' Right. The Japan-led VTtuber trend predates the pandemic. The first proper virtual artist to gain fame is widely credited as Kizuna AI in 2016, but VTubers have grown alongside other similar developments. See, for instance, virtual concert artist Hatsune Miku, who performed at Coachella in 2024. VTubers are also closely aligned with video games, often streaming them for their fans. The game medium, of course, has long been associated with virtual avatars, be it Nintendo Mii figures, the personas of 'Second Life' or today's platforms of 'Fortnite,' 'Roblox' and 'Minecraft.' And this summer, in one of the biggest releases of 2025, VTuber Usada Pekora has a role in the PlayStation 5 game 'Death Stranding 2,' with famed director and auteur Hideo Kojima admitting he is a fan. For creator, voice-over actor and Anime Expo attendee AmaLee, the rare VTuber who, while using a stage name, does show her face, anime's fantastical yet mature storylines reached her as a young teen when she was exploring her creativity. 'It's bridging a gap,' she says of VTubing. 'Ever since I was a teenager I loved anime. It's music, beautiful animation and acting all in one. VTubing brings it into the real world. You can do so much with your VTuber lore story. You're kind of creating your own anime.' The most appealing VTubers bring a level of real-life authenticity into their work. 'If you go back and watch my very first streams, I'm very cemented in this cleanly elegant actor [persona],' AmaLee says. 'My voice is different. I dropped it to be cooler. I realized quickly how hard that was to keep, and I didn't like not being authentically me. I'm a little clumsy, a little blond and I have major tech issues.' Mariya describes herself as introvert, saying she wouldn't be streaming — or likely even performing — if it weren't for VTubing. 'With VTubing, there's a sense of anonymity that I think is really good for the audience as well,' Mariya says. 'Some people don't want to see a physical person in front of a screen. They want to see anime girls. I think people latch onto the idea that it's something that is different and bigger than me and bigger than them. It's a new world.' Author and professor Napier says it's a modern, digitized Renaissance faire, if you will, reflecting basic human desires to dress up and play. As for why it just so happens to be so connected to anime, Napier theorizes the medium fosters the idea of fantasy creation. 'Fantasy and science fiction are very popular culture artistic venues to play and to cosplay,' Napier says. 'Anime is really good at presenting you with these — it's brilliantly expansive. Whatever you're into, you'll find it in anime. So if you're looking to VTube, there's all this anime material sitting in front of you. You can pick and choose and start playing.' The dream for the Cover corporation, says Tanigo, is to expand VTubers beyond the world of streaming sites such as YouTube and Twitch — hence, the Dodgers collaboration. In August, Hololive will stage another U.S. concert, this time at Radio City Musical Hall in New York. Music, says Tanigo, is a gateway. 'I believe that's a way of reaching new people,' he says. 'It's an interesting thing to go see. There are also people who may not be interested in VTubing or anime at all, but they can listen to the song that's released and enjoy it as a piece of music on its own.' For the performers, with VTubing comes a sense of safety — and even comfort — that isn't always present in more traditional streaming. 'I did a lot of on-camera streaming in the beginning of my streaming career, but I hated having to get ready, do my makeup, wear something nice,' AmaLee says. 'Even after an hour of getting ready to do a stream, someone was still [commenting], 'You look tired today.' I hated that. There would be days I would cancel streams because I didn't want to get ready. Now I have my VTuber model and can be a little gremlin in my pajamas and no one has to know because Monarch is always perfect.' An anime character, after all, is always ready to go.
