I’m more than a little late on this one, but here we go!

In early November I flew to LA for six weeks to work on A Christmas Story Live (full update on that coming soon). I hadn’t been to LA since April and it was especially nice to catch up with friends here.

And to visit my favorite restaurants and coffee shops! I spent many hours at Priscilla’s. And consumed enough sushi to achieve low-grade mercury poisoning.

Lunch at Sunny’s Sushi Hut with my friends (and sometimes roommates) Jenny and Ziggy!

And I got to meet their son for the first time! What a photogenic baby.

Other food / friend excursions include…

Brunch at Steam Punk in Valley Village with Yaz, Michael, and Laura:

I ordered my favorite, the fried chicken and waffles. Sticking with the fried chicken theme, a few days later I had Jinya Ramen (twice) and tried their ramen special which featured their crispy chicken.

One of the Jinya meals was with my friend Tamar (below). The other was with my friends Adam and Sophia, but I failed to get a group photo.

And that delicious pizza above is from Barone’s, an old-school Italian joint in the Valley. Their pizza is quite good.

Speaking of pizza… my roommates introduced me to Padrino’s deep dish. We had it three times during my six weeks in LA, and I’m dreaming about the next time I can eat it. For balance: an acai bowl I had for lunch one day.

Eating delicious food with Tamar and Grace:

And my friend Elena very kindly invited me over for dinner and shared her cooking skills by preparing skirt steak and garlic parm fries. HOW LUCKY AM I?!

And macarons! After taking proper baking lessons at a cooking school, Elena knows how to make the perfect macaron. It’s all about precision and patience. Don’t these look professional? They had an espresso buttercream filling that was delicious and decadent.

My friend Kelley and I watched Stranger Things season 2. We were very pleased with it.

Here are some of our TV-watching treats from Trader Joe’s: this sweet potato marshmallow pie that was so good I made it a second time for Thanksgiving, and this mouthwatering pumpkin chai spice loaf that Kelley picked up as a treat (because she is the best).

I saw this Guiding Light sign hanging from another car and had to snap a photo. That show went off the air in 2009! I wanted to roll down my window and ask the driver about it, but settled for this photo.

Toluca Lake, my favorite nook in LA:

Now let’s segue to my favorite subject. I stopped by the Garry Marshall Theatre (formerly the Falcon Theatre), which recently got a facelift. Their production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is very enjoyable.

I saw a reading of Between Riverside and Crazy, the Stephen Adly Guirgis play which won the Pulitzer in 2015. It was excellent. They record the play for radio broadcast and a foley artist makes all the sound effects on-stage during the show.

View of City Hall from the Music Center, following a performance of the national tour of Bright Star (also excellent).

But the best theater I saw in LA this trip was a production of Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play, which was originally produced in NYC in 2012. It takes place following a nuclear disaster and considers how storytelling would survive in a world without electricity, with a heavy dose of The Simpsons. It blew my mind and I’m still thinking about it. Here I am with my friends Casey and Daniel after the show:

I spent a day helping out the script department on Dancing with the Stars, as much of the finale took place at the Grove (a large outdoor shopping mall in LA) so they needed someone to runs script revisions over to a producer there. It was an easy gig and nice to work with a friend from college!

I was lucky to attend two Thanksgiving gatherings: the first was with my good friends Kelley & Irving and their daughter. We had a delicious lunch of soup and sides.

Then for dinner my friends Tamar & Nathan hosted a Friendsiving for the ages with delicious food and engaging conversation. I don’t have many photos but it was a very fun night.

The spread:

Tamar and I took goofy selfies and made them the wallpaper on each other’s phones. Now I get to see Tamar every day!

And I got to visit one of my favorite places in all of Los Angeles: the Getty Center. Here’s a whole bunch of pics because this place is so photogenic.

In their photography space, they had an exhibit on Argentina from 1850-2010 which was really interesting. A few of my favorite photos follow below, featuring works by different artists.

Can you believe this is the first time I’d been to the Brady Bunch house? It’s right near my old condo.

And what would a monthly recap be without a dog photo? Here’s a shot my sister sent me of her sweet pup Oscar. I’m so glad to be reunited with him on the east coast right now.

As I mentioned at the outset, I spent most of November working on A Christmas Story Live so it feels remiss not to share photos. But a full post will be up before the end of 2018!