Everything I ate in LA and how it made me feel, Part 1

a diary of derangement plus some recent things!

Ok this is a long one so I’ve split it in two because I don’t imagine anyone wants to be detained for the full 10 days in one go!

Before I get into it I wanted to share two essays I was really excited to work on.

The first is a feature that was published in The Observer last Sunday. It’s about returning to Los Angeles to see Joni Mitchell play, haunting my former self and the origins of my book Arrangements in Blue. It’s about anticipation and expectation and the pleasures and anxieties of being a fan. I’d love for you to read it!

The second is an essay for the Independent inspired by Joni Mitchell’s latest archive release, The Asylum Albums (1976-1980). This was so interesting to do as the collection begins with a favourite of mine, Hejira, but also includes 3 records I didn’t know at all. I found myself almost ‘reading’ her work as I might a poet’s - making connections and finding patterns and thinking about how my relationship to her music is altered as I get to know mid-career Joni.

Friday night

It took three hours from landing at LAX to arriving at my hotel. I’d been awake by this point for 23 hours. In my hotel room, which I felt a palpable relief to enter even if I was utterly foxed by the light switches to the extent I pulled all the lamps out of their sockets, there was a note welcoming me and two red velvet cookies. I ate one in a manner that barely registered the mechanics of eating. Here was a cookie. Now no cookie.

Saturday

Awake before dawn I was relieved to learn the hotel had coffee and breakfast available from 6am in the lobby. I went and poured myself a coffee and took a sweet pastry of indeterminate flavour. It had frangipane, and some kind of crumble topping. I was feeling deranged and so tried to eat it with a knife and fork. I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve ever used cutlery to tackle a Danish. Another hotel guest talked at me far more avidly than I was able to cope with. I abandoned the pastry and took a paper cup of orange juice back with me to my room.

I decided I would go to Whole Foods to get some bits and drinks to stop me haemorrhaging money on the well-stocked mini bar and room service and to give myself the option to eat cheaply for lunch. I was most likely too jetlagged to ace my shop, but I did the wine – two half bottles of rose, a silky zinfandel, a sauvignon. I bought a bagged Caeser salad, some cured salmon, goats’ cheese, salami, crackers, some overnight oat things called ‘mush’ and a carton of chopped tropical fruit. Losing logic for a moment I also bought disposable plates and cutlery (compostable!), as though picnicking. I could have just asked the hotel to provide.

I went out for a walk along Hollywood Boulevard that morning, ostensibly to buy a charging cable for my headphones but also to try to settle myself in the neighbourhood/atmospheric state/timezone. The street was frenetic with tourists and souvenir sellers. The Walk of Fame is no place for a jetlagged idiot. I went to Target and Walgreens trying to find the right cable but couldn’t (Target’s technology aisle looked like it had been looted in apocalypse), then I spent $100 in Sephora because I felt insane.

Back at the hotel I decanted half of the various elements of the bagged Caeser salad onto a disposable plate, made a feeble attempt at tossing them together and topped it with the salmon. I’d left it a beat too long to eat and speared a lettuce leaf with such aggression I broke the rather sturdy disposable fork. As I ate I looked online for somewhere to go that evening and chose an Italian place about 20 minutes away that I could walk to. When I finished eating though I felt calmer and also a bit smug that I’d catered for myself.

A little later, down in the hotel courtyard working on an essay, one of the staff brought me a complimentary mimosa which since I was alone made me feel like I’d escaped to a quiet area during a wedding reception.

That night I went to a tiny restaurant called Da Barbara, where I was seated adjacent to the open kitchen where Barbara was cooking. I was the first diner. It was BYOB so I took one of the half bottles of rosé and they put it in an ice bucket for me. I ordered sauteed prawns with cannellini beans to start. Inexplicably this arrived in a vintage teacup. There were three plump prawns and underneath a creamy stew of beans. The prawns required cutting. A knife and fork were not easy to wield in the dish in which the prawns were served. They were delicious though and I forgave the awkward implements of the meal. The beans were lovely too, but I kept thinking to myself: these are baked beans and the ghost of beans on toast was present as I ate.

For my main I had a special, tagliatelle bolognese. It was the best bolognese I’ve ever tasted – deeply savoury and sweet. I felt so comforted and satisfied by it, but adjacent to those feelings was a swelling embarrassment at the memory of every bolognese I’ve ever made for myself, actual affronts to the very idea of bolognese. This was a completely different thing.

Sunday

On Sunday there were the same pastries I’d encountered the day before in the lobby and because I was fearful I’d have another strange encounter with cutlery I took a gluten free blueberry muffin (the only variety available) instead, pulling it apart with my hands as I got ready to head to the Rose Bowl Flea Market.

It was lightly raining when I arrived and by the time I was ready to leave two hours later it was full sun and I could feel I was burning. I was also hungry. There were stalls I could have bought food from, but it was only 11am and seemed a bit early, so I waited until I was back at the hotel, and I ate the leftover Caesar salad, two slices of salami, a tangerine and then I opened the tropical fruit salad I’d bought the day before. It tasted fizzy, like it was fermenting, so I had to throw it out. I felt hungry a few hours later and realised I had no dinner plans.

Searching through google maps I saw a place called ‘Heng Heng Chicken Rice’ in Thai Town. It specialises in a Thai take on Hainanese chicken rice, which is one of my most favourite meals and was 9 minutes away in an Uber, so I went. With my brain still not really endorsing my decision-making capacities I also googled ‘what to order at Heng Heng Chicken Rice’ and read the best thing was the chicken rice (duh) and to ask for garlic rice and half steamed brown meat and half fried.

Shortly after I was brought a bowl of clear broth and told that I could add a few drops of a sauce in a plastic bottle to make it ‘tom yum’ so I obviously did that. Drinking the soup my body relaxed, as though to say, ahhh finally, a proper meal. The chicken rice arrived on a large oval plate, the rice almost entirely obscured by the chicken and a nice pile of cucumber on the edge. The fried chicken was delicious – so light and crisp, and the steamed chicken was juicy and soft. The garlic rice was mild and moreish. There was way too much, and I felt bad that I couldn’t take it away in a box for later, having no way to reheat it.

I really enjoyed the food but found myself distracted by the conversation the couple next to me were having (about the food they were eating and its merits relative to other meals they’d recently eaten) which was so emphatically boring I started to feel irritable by the time I left. It was probably the jetlag.

Monday

My period started overnight, and I didn’t want to get out of bed to pick up breakfast, so I ate the blueberry ‘Mush’, and it was truly horrible. It reminded me of when I’d last travelled to LA and I had a green juice which had cost $12 – possibly more – and tasted like bin water. To claw back the possibility of pleasure I booked myself in for lunch at a recommended place called Superba.

On the way, as I crossed a road, a woman leaned out of her stopped car to shout at me ‘Great outfit! Great outfit! Yeah!’. It really lifted my mood. I was wearing a lime green satin skirt, white t-shirt, lilac cardigan and red trainers. I call it my fruit salad look. Maybe she loved colour! At Superba I was seated inside, which was a bit sad as it was lovely day and there’s a pretty terrace there. I sat next to a man and woman, seemingly on a business lunch, and both screenwriters. They talked so loudly. I learned a lot about the friends they discovered they had in common, their favourite shows on TV right now and what the guy had worked on over the years.

I ordered an omelette and an orange juice. The omelette looked so perfect – pale, buttery yellow, topped with bright green chopped chives. It came with a slice of sourdough which was only toasted on one side (I found that a bit baffling) and endive salad. It was a lovely balance of softness, crunch, bitter and sweet. The orange juice was restorative. I left feeling better than I’d arrived.

On the way back from lunch I went to a large pharmacy as the new sandals I’d worn the day before had rubbed on my big toe and I bought some plasters. I’ll never not be confused that CVS sells wine. Then I worked in the courtyard again all afternoon. Early evening I had a bath and then for dinner I ate a little picnic of crackers and cheese and salami straight from the packet while I watched Lost in bed.

Tuesday

I had a banana, plain croissant and green juice for breakfast. It made me feel very ‘on the go’ despite not going anywhere. I’d finished an essay the day before and now needed to work on another one which I felt anxious about fucking up. I put on ‘rolling river’ sounds on my headspace app and sat, headphones on, in the courtyard trying to get in the right state for writing. Sometimes it just isn’t happening.

I’d booked to visit The Getty that afternoon and was relieved I’d have a change of scene. I always prefer visiting galleries alone, mainly because I can find them a bit overwhelming at a sensory level and like to maintain my own pace which occasionally means fleeing them in a disturbed emotional state. I loved the theatre of getting to the museum, taking an uber and then the little tram that climbs up the hill with its rousing music, building in intensity as you near the summit.

I was very moved by parts of the permanent exhibition, the Dutch still lifes, the grand Renaissance paintings and a tiny temporary show of medieval astrology related books and images. The trip did its work, I think, as though I’d mentally shook out a blanket, flicked debris away and given myself smoother edges. I can’t for the life of me remember what I did for lunch, but I was able to write when I got back to the hotel.

I’d booked for dinner at the iconic Musso and Franks on Hollywood Boulevard. I’d decided in advance what I was going to order: a martini, the crab cocktail and spaghetti and meatballs. I was seated in a two-person booth, which felt cute and cosy. I had a view of the larger booths to my right. In two of them, couples, and the one across from me a family of four.

My martini arrived with a little glass jug of clear liquid on the side, settled into a tiny ice bucket. I found it deeply adorable, and I assumed it was water, like how pastis comes with water. It was the best martini I’ve ever had, but I say that being a nascent martini drinker. Martini drinking is something I think I can take up in earnest when I’m in my 60s and can afford to buy diamonds and I have a young lover.

The crab cocktail also came in its own ice bucket, the meat piled high and topped with a spicy tomato sauce. It was sweet and cold like a freshly unwrapped ocean stick except way more delicious. I had some of the bread and butter that came too, making my own little open sandwich.

When I’d finished the waiter came to clear my plate and I asked about ordering a glass of wine. Don’t you want to finish your martini?, he said. I looked at my empty glass. He took the little jug and poured the liquid into my glass. I thought that was water I said! No! It’s your sidecar he said (I mentally added ‘you dummy’ at the end of his sentence).

I felt a little residue of shame, like I wasn’t sophisticated enough to know what to do with this jug and I didn’t belong there, but it was also like finding a little present in the bottom of my Christmas stocking when I thought I’d opened them all. This martini was good value! The spaghetti and meatballs arrived, and it was delightfully Lady & the Tramp. The meatballs had cheese in the middle!

It was such a glamorous meal, the vibe was buzzy and intimate, and in the end it made me feel lonely. The family across from me compounded that feeling. It was the dad’s birthday and at one point he said to them all, his wife, the two kids under ten, ‘I’m so grateful for all you guys’ and to my shock tears came to my eyes, not because I was moved but because I felt sad and in want of company. The experience put me in touch with something at least, and I was glad of it.

Wednesday

I had a pain au chocolat and a banana for breakfast as well as several sugary double espressos, then I spent the morning in Echo Park walking around and visiting some shops I’d bookmarked.

I went to a consignment store and found a Diane Von Furstenberg dress with its tags for $33. I went to a skate shop called Marriage to find a present for my nephew who is currently obsessed with skateboarding. By early afternoon I was really tired – I’d walked a lot  – and got an uber to drop me at a café near to my hotel which was the kind of place people sat in all day, using the wifi to work.

I ordered a zingy juice and what I thought was a ham and cheese omelette with fried potatoes but when it arrived it was a kind of a ham and cheese omelette inside a folded crêpe, with some scramble on top. After eating the scramble on the exterior, I broke into the crêpe and forked out the omelette as though rummaging in a bulging tote for a lipbalm. Truly I was glad no one could see what I was doing.

That evening I had another hotel room picnic, finishing up the cheese and salami, plus some salt and pepper crisps and a box of grapes I bought that afternoon. I was moving hotels the following day and so wanted a clean slate. I felt gratified that I’d bought myself those provisions and hadn’t wasted them because unfortunately, despite a real enthusiasm for leftovers and the best of intentions, I often waste food, and it makes me feel like a shithead.