you call that a chemical reaction

this and that 6/27/25

The most boring argument in the universe is the comparative excellence of New York over Los Angeles, or vice versa. You have functioning public transportation and an active nightlife scene, and I have good year-round produce and the scent of orange blossoms, jasmine, and guava trees right outside my front door. Almost thirteen years after leaving, I rarely get NYC FOMO, but I felt a little twinge scrolling though my friends’ feeds celebrating Zohran Mamdani’s victory over the grotesque Andrew Cuomo and the empty shell of the Democratic party establishment. It felt like a collective celebration about something consequential, and we have too little to celebrate nowadays. Unfortunately for Mamdani, everyone in the city ends up hating the mayor after about a year, so he needs to enjoy the love while it lasts.

I almost felt like a New Yorker again anyway because I went to THE THEATRE three times this week. Who am I, Frank DiLella? (That’s a New York 1 deep cut just smile and nod.) Granted, two of these productions were directed by my husband, John Flynn, but still. They’re both great (I’m not just saying that), and if you’re around this weekend, check them out at the Hollywood Fringe. A Star is Aborted is “Hollywood's premiere female female impersonator” Maureen SanDiego’s cabaret show. She plays a former grande dame of the theater who’s reincarnated as a fetus living in Alan Cumming’s rectum. Maureen is disarmingly charismatic, and she has such a casual stream-of-consciousness energy that you’re sort of shocked when she starts singing Broadway Quality. Speaking of the lower digestive system, Kelly Spillman’s solo show I Blame Florida is about her move to LA, a sudden career change, and a devastating stage 4 colon cancer diagnosis. The show sounds heavy, and parts of it are, but Spillman’s humor and remarkable storytelling ability make the show as entertaining as it is painful. The Fringe ends this weekend, so if you’re in town, check out both shows. Get tickets here and here for a fucked up proctology double bill.

Oh, and I also saw Parade, a musical about the lynching of Leo Frank, at the Ahmanson. The reviews point out how “gorgeously sung” the show is, and that feels like a bit of a “beautiful gowns” backhanded compliment. The leads are solid actors (save for one abysmal Southern accent), but the thin book requires performers who can create chemistry out of whole cloth, and they can’t. The score is lovely (that sounds like another backhanded compliment, but I mean it).

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For the main blog, I scraped off the mold and dove deep into Jessica Koslow’s 2016 cookbook/photo-journal/LA boomtime time-capsule Everything I Want to Eat: Sqirl and the New California Cooking. So, lunch was one decreasingly aesthetic Sqirl-dupe grain bowl after another. It’s Friday, and I don’t need to see a “sorrel pesto” or a “lacto-fermented hot sauce” for a long, long time.

photo by @imatifster on Tripadvisor

Meals last weekend were a hodgepodge. Between clear-out-the-fridge leftovers (saffron fried rice with feta, cherries, broccoli, walnuts, olives, and arugula — homage to the Ayatollah?) takeout embarrassing (Domino’s extra-thin crust with pineapple, onions, mushrooms, and garlic-parmesan sauce), and excellent (Broken Mouth’s garlic shrimp plate lunch with Korean greens, potato-mac salad and a Strawberry-Guava Hawaiian Sun), I almost got through the weekend without looking at a recipe.

Armando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Brett Regot

Almost. Sunday night I made Alexa Weibel’s Crispy Tofu Tacos from NYTimes Cooking. These are really tasty and easy to make, though they stay in the oven for a long time, so grab a book. And boy are they crispy, just on the right side of being burnt. But as long as you keep turning your sheet pan and flipping your tofu, you’ll be ok. Next time I make them, I’ll try to cut down on the oil. They’re a little slick inside the tortilla if you know what I mean. The accompanying avocado cream is nice but unnecessary, and I didn’t add the radishes or cilantro because…

La Molcajeteada, photo by Alex Lau for Salsa Daddy

what goes better with extremely crispy tofu tacos than homemade salsa from Salsa Daddy? This time it was La Molcajeteada, a classic chunky taqueria-style salsa with tomatoes, onions, serranos, jalapeño. garlic, cilantro and lime. My brain somehow skipped over the step to char the veggies in a skillet before throwing them in the blender, so my version was 100% Sunlife Organics-approved RAW. Even without the char, this is the platonic ideal of a chip-dipping salsa, perfect for waiting for your server to bring you the first round of margs.

tempeh meatballs, quinoa, and kale

Dinner on Monday and Tuesday was the Ginger-Miso Tempeh Meatballs Lukas Volger developed last month for Family Friend. I served them with stir-fried garlic kale and quinoa with soy sauce and sesame oil. Topped with OG Lao Gan Ma chili crisp. I've become pretty adept at making tofu taste good, but tempeh has always perplexed me. Lukas had the genius idea of cutting the bitterness by simmering the tempeh in pineapple juice and maple syrup before forming them into sturdy (egg-free) balls with panko and arrowroot. For any tempeh skeptics, go directly to Lukas’s newsletter. He even dropped something today about why tempeh is so bitter, along with a list of local producers, so you don’t have to make do with the Trader Joe’s industrial stuff like I did.

I hate taking pictures in restaurants, so this is the Shaki Shaki salad from Ototo’s Facebook page. Photo by @kimmi_guide

Wednesday was Parade night, so we stopped at the sake bar Ototo in Echo Park before heading Downtown. Such a cool place. I forgot to jot down the sake we ordered, but it was something off their “Earthy + Umami” section. We shared a shaki shaki salad piled high with cabbage and a creamy sesame dressing, and perfectly crunchy fried tofu cubes with a sweet and spicy black pepper glaze. (Maybe I’m not so good at making tofu). John got the chicken katsu sandwich, and I ordered the filet-o(toto)-fish, another fine example of LA’s upscale McDonald’s fish sandwich micro-trend (started by Little Fish, down the block on Sunset). Btw, Little Fish needs to watch its fryer temperature. Last time I went, their sandwich was almost uncomfortably greasy. No such problem at Ototo.

Last night I went old-school, making Moosewood Cookbook’s Split Pea Soup (pg 17).

The final pound of beans from my recent Rancho Gordo haul were Green Split Peas, so now I have an excuse to manually re-up, since I’m never making it back to the bean club after stupidly and arrogantly cancelling my subscription in a mid-pandemic psychosis.

I kept the soup true to the spirit of Miss Mollie, ignoring the voices in my head to add chile flakes, lemon zest, or any of my other Millennial flavor crutches. The salt, sesame oil (fat!), red wine vinegar (acid!), and mustard powder (heat?), sort of passes the Nosrat test, so it should be good enough for me. And it was. It’s a solid soup befitting a ‘70s Ithaca health food restaurant, and I have lots of leftovers. But if anyone has a cool Baz-style “soupy splitty-P” (it’s harder than it looks) with like capers or labneh or something, hit me up.

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the only G-rated pic of the Alpha I could find

I only saw one movie in the theater this week, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s long-awaited zombie threequel 28 Years Later. I faintly remember liking the first one when it came out a million years ago, but I couldn’t have told you anything about it. I was pleasantly surprised at how fun this new one is. It misdirects the audience into thinking it’s going to be the typical quest/adventure film, but it switches gears a couple of times and becomes unexpectedly touching. The shaky camerawork and punk song cues recall Boyle’s Trainspotting era, and a third-act Ralph Fiennes appearance gives everything some earned gravitas.

all the things she filmed

At home, I caught The Code on MUBI, about a man left impotent after his sex-pest cancellation and his aspiring filmmaker girlfriend fleeing to the desert at the beginning of COVID. Helmed by Uber driver serial killer comedy Spree director Eugene Kotlyarenko, and starring Peter Vack and the perpetually uncancellable Dasha Nekrasova, it doesn’t really work as a COVID comedy of manners or a satire of solipsistic “artists.” But much as I’m loathe to admit it, I do find Nekrasova a compelling screen presence (she lowkey stole her scenes in Materialists from Dakota Johnson). And I appreciate any contemporary movie that attempts to explore our collective phone addiction rather than pretending it doesn’t exist.

It’s harder than it looks to make a good detective show, but I give the first season of Scott Frank’s Dept. Q an enthusiastic 4.5 Bosches. If you like this type of show (a charismatic detective with a personality defect, a ragtag crew of helpers, an all-enveloping mystery, a motley crew of suspects) you know who you are. It’s on Netflix, easy to devour in a weekend.

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A mysterious pop aspirant started showing up on my playlists a few weeks ago. Debbii Dawson, born in Minnesota to Indian parents, mixes lush ‘70s Abba-style hooks with late ‘80s tacky roller rink production and the slightest country twang. At the end of June in a year with no obvious Song of Summer, Chemical Reaction and Gut Feelings are in as much contention as anything I’ve heard lately.