Raven Jake Dawes

Charles Perry on Tiki Cuisine April 21

Folks, summer's coming up and I must say I have an inordinate fondness for retro tiki-ness. So FYI - this looks like a fun one. Mahalo, y'all

Oh and since I'm feelin' so aloha, following is Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwoʻole's rendition of "Over The Rainbow." Another Hawai'an brother whose life was cut short by poi addiction. Alright, there was probably some fried chicken in there too. RIP, IZ. The world lost a great talent when your rainbow faded.

Charles Perry on Tiki Cuisine

The Rise and Fall of Tiki

When: Saturday, April 21st, 2012 at 2:00 PM
What: Free Lecture at Pacific Palisades Library
Where: 861 Alma Real Drive, Pacific Palisades
Who: The public is invited to this event.

In the 1930s, two California restaurateurs created the Polynesian restaurant phenomenon that would sweep the country in the 1950s. Tiki restaurants, remembered fondly (and maybe a little ruefully), were over-the-top intoxicating environments, smelling of tropical fruits and flowers, their ceilings hung with puffer-fish lamps and outrigger canoes. You ate luscious sweet-and-sour dishes while being entertained by graceful hula dancing and sweet, dreamlike Hawaiian music. It was overwhelming – lyrical, jovial, romantic and sensuous, though certainly naive and mannered.

And yet the phenomenon collapsed practically overnight in the 1970s. Charles Perry tells the story of the rise and fall of Tiki. Mr. Perry has written for the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, and other publications, as well as translated cookbooks from medieval Baghdad, Central Asia, and other cultures.

 

 

The Loretto Chapel 2004

Folks, I've been trying to get a little more organized, gather some of those digital files that have gotten all over the place these past years, and I can assure you that it's been a rich voyage of discovery. For example, I just came upon some pics that we took at the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe in 2004. Here's the legend:

In 1872, Jean-Baptiste Lamy the Bishop of the Santa Fe Archdiocese, commissioned the building of a convent chapel to be named Our Lady of Light Chapel, which would be in the care of the Sisters of Loretto. The chapel was designed by a French architect, Antoine Mouly, in the Gothic Revival style. Although it was built on a much smaller scale, the chapel bears an obvious resemblance to the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.

Two mysteries surround the spiral staircase in the Loretto Chapel: the identity of its builder and the physics of its construction.

When the Loretto Chapel was completed in 1878, there was no way to access the choir loft twenty-two feet above. Carpenters were called in to address the problem, but they all concluded access to the loft would have to be via ladder as a staircase would interfere with the interior space of the small Chapel.

Legend says that to find a solution to the seating problem, the Sisters of the Chapel made a novena to St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters. On the ninth and final day of prayer, a man appeared at the Chapel with a donkey and a toolbox looking for work. Months later, the elegant circular staircase was completed, and the carpenter disappeared without pay or thanks. After searching for the man (an ad even ran in the local newspaper) and finding no trace of him, some concluded that he was St. Joseph himself, having come in answer to the sisters' prayers.

The stairway's carpenter, whoever he was, built a magnificent structure. The design was innovative for the time and some of the design considerations still perplex experts today.

The staircase has two 360 degree turns and no visible means of support. Also, it is said that the staircase was built without nails—only wooden pegs. Questions also surround the number of stair risers relative to the height of the choir loft and about the types of wood and other materials used in the stairway's construction.

Over the years many have flocked to the Loretto Chapel to see the Miraculous Staircase. The staircase has been the subject of many articles, TV specials, and movies including "Unsolved Mysteries" and the television movie titled "The Staircase."

And here's a possible id on the builder:

The subject of rumor and legend for over a hundred years, the riddle of the carpenter's identity was claimed to have been solved in the late 1990s by Mary Jean Straw Cook, author of Loretto: The Sisters and Their Santa Fe Chapel (2002: Museum of New Mexico Press). The author claims the builder's name was Francois-Jean "Frenchy" Rochas, an expert woodworker who emigrated from France and arrived in Santa Fe around the time the staircase was built, and who may have known or at least met another French contractor who worked on the Chapel. However, at only 43 years of age, Rochas met with a violent death in December 1894. Unidentified attackers had shot him and left him to die alone in his small cottage and he was found dead in 1895. Cook found a January 5, 1895, death notice in The New Mexican which named Rochas as the builder of "the handsome staircase in the Loretto chapel". Frenchman Quintus Monier that told of Francois-Jean Rochas's death at Dog Canyon, near today's Alamogordo.

Now I don't know if Frenchy Rochas was the builder of the staircase or not, maybe it was St. Joseph - but whoever did it was a visionary. I've sure never seen anything like it. It must've looked even better in the days when it was assumed that God would keep the choir safe, negating the need for a handrail. See how one miscreant can ruin it for everybody? Anyway, that last picture is an interpretation of what it might have looked like pre-rail. I just thought those UFOs or Angels or whatever they are made the photo a little more fun.

The Loretto Chapel
207 Old Santa Fe Trail
Santa Fe, NM 87501
(505) 982-0092

LA Heritage Day April 29

Just a reminder y'all - come out to LA Heritage Day on Olvera Street on April 29.  I'll be there with the Friends of the Michael White Adobe and with the Old Spanish Trail Association.

Over here at the left, I'm surveying the wreckage from the San Francisquito Dam disaster, and if you don't know what that was, you'd better come to Heritage Day and see if one of the 200 member organizations can help you out.

http://laheritage.blogspot.com/

More Chuntaro Boots

This just in from Marcello at Guanabee: (sensitive readers, there's some language involved but it's impossible not to get excited about chuntaro boots)

 

Supply and demand, bitches; you covet awesome chuntaro boots, and now a manufacturer by the name of Rancho Hipster is here to take care of you.

Dude, these guys ARE NOT fucking around. You want a pair of pointy boots so long and pointy that they'll practically poke your own eyes out? They can make those. Wanna bedazzle your name on some cowhide with LEDs, gold or diamonds? That can be done. Or what about stitching religious artifacts -- Virgen Marias, rosaries, Santa Muertes -- anything so that you may ward off evil chuntaros? Not a problem. How determined is Rancho Hipster to please its customers? "We'll can do anything that's humanly possible," is what they've written on their Mercado Libre (an ebay or sorts) ordering page:

What? You think your loved ones would rather get a box of chocolates as a bday present instead of an awesome set of chuntaro boots? Rancho Hipster doesn't think so:

And you know what? They are 100% right.

Blessing of the Animals Sat April 7

Folks, I was strollin' down Olvera Street just the other day when I saw a banner announcing that the annual Blessing of the Animals is coming up. Right before Easter. So if the critter in your life is a devout Catholic, or just plain bad, you might want to take the opportunity to launch a pre-emptive strike.

Over at the left, you can see that this Wookie is up to something. Now I'm not sure if a Wookie is technically an "animal" or more like another race of hominid, or if space aliens count as animals as far as blessings are concerned, but I do know this: You can't be too careful when it comes to Wookies. Or Bigfeet. Or Bears. Or rattlesnakes. Git 'em all blessed and let God sort 'em out.

Food Obsessionals: New Orleans and the French Connection

Well alright folks - I'm plugging another Culinary Historians of Southern California event 'cause I like 'em so much. This one I'll be missing, since I'm going to be playing an astronaut who's been abandoned on a space station for 20 years in a short film. Talk about typecasting! Jane'll probably show up for it, though.  Hard to say "no" to New Orleans cuisine.

Saturday, March 10, 2012, at 10:30 AM at the Los Angeles Public Library

Mark Taper Auditorium, Downtown Central Library, 630 W. 5th St.

Free and open to the public

Albert Sonnenfeld speaking on…

“Food Obsessionals: New Orleans and the French Connection”

The Louisiana Purchase was as good a deal as the purchase of Manhattan, especially for the culture of food. Mark Twain wrote of New Orleans that to understand its culture one needs to imagine what French society would be like in a genial climate and in the freedom of a new country; Sherwood Anderson apostrophized New Orleans as “dear city of Latins and hot nights.” The “Big Easy” is above all a “Catholic city” in its view of the pleasures of the bedroom, table and kitchen, a refuge from Cromwellian austerity, that curse brought upon our land by a Puritan heritage.” I call this “the French Connection.” Though the architecture of the Carre or Quarter is Spanish; the food culture is FRENCH Catholic.

As Marcelle Bienvenue asked (without answering): “Who’s your Mama, Are you Catholic and can you make a Roux?”

The talk is a small unsweetened beignet of cultural history…

Albert Sonnenfeld calls himself a cultural historian. He is a free-lance journalist, restaurant consultant and reviewer, and for many years literature professor at Princeton (1959-1986) and USC (Chevalier Professorship, 1986-2004).

Sonnenfeld’s edition of Food: A Culinary History (Columbia University Press, November 1999) attracted media attention. Since 1999, he has directed the series, Arts of the Table: Studies in Culinary History for Columbia University Press, where he has published Culture of the Fork (2001). His edition and translation from the Italian of Il Cibo come cultura (Food as culture) appeared in 2006.

Four times decorated by the French Republic, most recently as Officier dans l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres (1997), and as Chevalier dans l’ordre du mérite agricole (2003). He served four terms on the National Board of Directors of The American Institute of Wine and Food, whose L.A. chapter he co-chaired. In 2002 he was named editor of The FCI Review by The French Culinary Institute of New York. He was food columnist and restaurant reviewer for Westside News Publications and Brentwood Media Group and he is syndicated by “Critique Guides Series.”