It's that time again. Time for coffee, time for delicious pastries, time for interesting conversations with intelligent strangers, and time for YOU to join the fun.
We're been on a good attendance roll, so please come to Susina on Friday May 18th at 8am. I won't be there (I'm traveling on business), but Jamie and Jay will.
Susina Bakery
7122 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA
A few weeks ago the Zen Master’s divorce finally became officially final, since we were in the same town we decided to celebrate by attending a Ghetto Gourmet event. Ghetto Gourmet is best described as a guerilla dining event where someone volunteers an appropriate space, a four star chef provides his or her services for the evening, and at least two people of significant practiced talent agree to entertain between courses. All the makings of a memorable evening.
We arrived at a nondescript vintage apartment building in K-Town with pillows to use as seat cushions and a bottle of Elyse Zinfandel that I has brought back from my Thanksgiving trip to Sonoma and hoarded for a special occasion. My boyfriend of over a year becoming officially available and my no longer being an adulterous whore, was just such an occasion.
We were welcomed by our host Suyai Steinhauer, who congratulated us on the recent divorce in our lives, and claimed a pair of seats at one of the four tables. We immediately went into the salon where the apartment’s permanent resident, a professional photographer, had set up a remote control camera complete with backdrop and funky props. ZM and I must have taken at least four pictures wearing feathered masks and making complete asses of ourselves.
The food was amazing. We were greeted with lavash bread and a spiced yogurt dip and it just went up from there. First course was a pistachio soup with dried hibiscus flowers, followed by a spinach salad with mint leaves and orange zest. The main course centered around a braised lamb shank with crispy onions and red bell pepper, on a bed of saffron herbed rice, fava beans, and pickled radishes. We then finished with baklava and a bowl of pomogranate and blueberry granita.
We left full and satisfied in food, but felt that the social element had been lacking. Maybe it was us, but it seemed that most of the people came as their own social unit which made having meaningful interactions with new people difficult at best.
This was in stark contrast to the next morning when Jamie and I hosted LikeMind LA at the Susina Bakery. We had a good crowd of ten people ready to meet everyone else and discuss just about everything under the sun. A journalist helping to launch a new local magazine, an account executive looking to get into politics, an account planner new to LA, a market researcher specializing in the youth market, a man promoting his 10K running race in Santa Monica, the Zen Master (he had no choice in the matter), a trend analyst, and another person whom I didn’t get to meet but I’m sure she was amazing.
We all talked about our respective careers and interests, that neat thing that we just saw or read about. Heck, even Ayn Rand came up. Atlas Freaking Shrugged. It all just flowed so easily. ZM noticed it too. He now understands why I drag myself out of bed extra early once a month to host LikeMind. The magic of intelligent, open, and interesting strangers coming together for a little coffee and conversation is truly a wonderful event.