I’ve been to three swap meets in the span of three weeks and I couldn’t be happier. You can complain all you want about traffic in Los Angeles (ahem), lament about all the pseudo-humans you meet here, but there’s one thing L.A excels at better than any city: outdoor flea markets.

Here are a few finds from the Rose Bowl Flea Market which has been existence for over 40 years.

While the Rose Bowl Flea Market is amazing, this outing left me disappointed. Not only was it too crowded and lacked any really good finds, the entire process has become so commercialized. You have to pay $8 to just get into the meet, with no pets allowed and performers who are hired to keep crowds coming through the turnstiles entertained - men on stilts, unicycles, that sort of thing. It just seems so…contrived.  On top of that, the food inside will take a nice chunk out of the wad of cash you’ve saved for those sweet antiques or chotchkies you’re after.

Still, it is definitely worth it - especially when you can find such treasures as “The Wandering Jew.”

I’ve saved my favorite find for last. I know you might be thinking - hello? Did you not see the incredible Sonny and Cher barbies above? What can be better than the plastic versions of the dynamic duo responsible for “I’ve Got You Babe,” (which plays like a loop in my head even if I sing it once)? Well I’ve got news for you, no pun intended.

Behold.

Bound editions of bound  bi-weekly New York Times newspapers spanning from the mid 1920s to late 1940s.

I KNOW. I almost went into cardiac arrest right then and there. Most of these beauties came to the swap meet from the libraries of universities, and were being sold for $20 each. After scouring to find one in the best condition and some haggling, we left with the March 16 - 31, 1943 edition of the Times, which came from the Stanford University Library in all it’s glory for $15.

As any writer can attest to, there’s nothing better than the scent of a musty old book. For a journalist, a bound edition of the Bible of Newspapers from 1943 smells like absolute heaven. Heaven I tell you. Full description and pages (complete with Old Gold cigarette ads and calls for Victory Gardens!) to come in subsequent post. Excuse me while I go smell my newspaper.

On a sunny Saturday afternoon,  fellow journalist Darleen and I decided to partake in a past time we both adore: discovering new tea rooms in the vast city of L.A. and beyond.

And since we hadn’t seen each other for so long that I can’t even remember, we decided to go all out and indulge in some tea and treats at the Scarlet Tea Room.

I first met Darleen in a mutual class we both had.  I was really intrigued because I think she was carrying some knitting she was working on and I was completely impressed because it was something I would do.

Not only do we share a mutual love of knitting, writing, music, art and identifying annoying people almost immediately, but we also love tea. and tea rooms.

Located on charming Green Street in Pasadena, the Scarlet Tea Room has a set up I haven’t seen before. While most tea rooms typically fall into the “Old English Rosey” category, this one blends old Hollywood charm with sophistication.

The set up consists of big wooden chairs with glass blown light fixtures and mirrors all around.

But never mind how the place looks, lets get to the good stuff.

The tea, while very delicious, wasn’t hot enough for my taste. The China however, was beautiful. I think I got black peach tea, but we were so wrapped up in conversation about the ups and downs of our lives post-college, where we all sat in a room and poured our heart and souls into journalism, that I’m not completely sure.

The tea sandwiches however, were nothing short of amazing. I ordered “Fig and Goat Cheese Spread” and “Mascarpone with Citrus Marmalade.”

Heaven in two bites.

The Scarlet Tea Room is very vegetarian friendly as well - with hearts printed next to sandwich options without any meat.

The absolute best part of the afternoon, sans the conversation, came in the form of a dessert I couldn’t believe I had never tried: Strawberries Romanoff.

Made with strawberries, sugar, liqueur, ice cream and heavy cream, Strawberries Romanoff is like a party for your taste buds, who go wild with excitement when you take a spoonful to your mouth. It’s hard to pin point what’s better - the strawberries or the cream, but together they make an explosive combination.

For a few hours, the tea flowed, the dainty sandwiches came and we even got to gawk at a bachelorette party taking place across the room, neon thongs and all.

The world stood still.

Our problems melted into the leaves in our cups and just for a bit, we were free of responsibility, of what ifs, of haves and have nots, of wondering what we’re doing with our lives, or where we’ll be 10 years from now, or the cruel world of journalism.

For two hours, we were more than ok, drenched in the sweetness of strawberries and cream.

Is this turning into a baking blog? I really don’t know.

At some point during the years I’ve been blogging, I’ve fantasized about having a baking or food blog, and then having said blog land me a book deal a la Julie & Julia, but there’s just too many things I love in life to narrow it down. Maybe someday when I grow up.

Back to food. You are looking at a white chocolate raspberry cheesecake with chocolate graham cracker crust made for two dear friends on their coinciding birthday.

Cheesecakes aren’t my favorite thing to eat (blasphemy) but people seem to love them. They’re just too rich for me - one bite and I feel full, but I have no qualms about baking them. You see that raspberry sauce on top? Made from scratch.

Nothing gave me greater pleasure than being able to swirl those raspberry blobs into hearts, especially after a long and tiring day.

And because I am going to have some long and tiring days ahead of me in the next few weeks, I wont be baking or writing here - but when it’s over, I’ll have a lot to share. Perhaps in the meantime I can finally nail down a niche for this lovely space of mine. Until then, au revoir.

Here’s to new beginnings.

I like to bake. I guess that’s obvious if you’ve been reading for a while now, but it’s not necessarily because I love sweets (and don’t get me wrong, I do).

It is truly the best form of therapy, especially if you do late in the evening, watching The Nanny while trying to mix your batter and then subsequently fill the house with intoxicating baking smells at 2 a.m.

It’s glorious and I will tell you why.

Because you can go through the worst day in the world, a day that doesn’t make sense, a day that makes you cry, makes you wish you could dig your head in a hole because nothing is going right and people are annoying and you wish you could transport them all to a barren island so they can just revel in their annoying-ness and then hopefully die off and then you can come home, get together a few ingredients, mix them together and know at the end of the day, that if you follow the directions and put some love into it, you will have made something good, and that’s enough to make everything in the world seem better.

Honest.

That’s the same reason why I love to write, although I would compare journalism more to making macarons or boston cream pie than to your regular muffin.  It’s grueling, you’ll want to give up, but if you keep pushing on you realize that when it’s finished, you are beaming from ear to ear. And that’s the type of fire you need to have, whether you’re reporting or baking, or just even living really.

Creating new things to eat or read is all I need to melt away all the stress in my life. At least until it appears again, anyway.

“I get satisfaction of three kinds. One is creating something, one is being paid for it and one is the feeling that I haven’t just been sitting on my ass all afternoon.” - William F. Buckley, Jr.

Welcome to the new and improved Writepudding.com. I needed a change, and so here we are.

Summer is almost here, but Los Angeles is suffering from some serious June Gloom, but I don’t mind because I love cold weather.  In fact, I hate summer in Los Angeles a lot. It’s disgusting, especially if you have to spend time cooped up in a car on a never ending freeway like I do.

I don’t think I’d be satisfied with any city’s summer unless I was in the South of France, on a boat, wearing nautical clothes and sipping on some champagne.  But since that’s not likely to occur any time in my near future, Los Angeles it is.

Woohoo.

All in all, it’s not that bad, because L.A. has some of the best summer events around, especially concerts at the Hollywood Bowl, where you can watch your favorite musicians play to the stars while you have a picnic at your seat. Then of course there are the festivals and while I’ve discovered many amazing festivals in my editing work, including the Cotton Pickin’ Fair in Gay, Ga. and the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games in Linville, N.C., L.A has some great ones, including the Watermelon Festival, featured in these photos I took for LAist last year.

Once inside, you’ll more like you’re in the Southeast than Los Angeles, and that’s not a bad thing.

See more here

Nearly six months have gone by and I still haven’t posted photos of London or Paris. Shame on me. Does it count that the photo above of our feet was taken in London?

I have a feeling that I haven’t because it’s too painful, because it’s a reminder at the latest time in my life when everything felt ok, even if it was just for two weeks. The hustle and bustle of Portobello Road on a Saturday morning, the mulled cider I thought I could drink fully, the anticipation of watching Celebrity Big Brother after a day exploring a city that feels like a second home - all those wonderful memories stirring in my mind again would do more harm than good, and to be frank, I can’t afford that right now.

There are wonderful experiences and important people that I miss and an emotional outburst would not end well, let me tell you.

So I’m keeping my swirling visions of the underground and the patisseries private just for a little bit longer.

And while I have more material to accumulate in this humble space than just my travels, there is a road block preventing me from sharing it all. Perhaps it’s all too raw, or blurry. The thoughts in my head loop around like long strands of DNA and separating them from each other can be quite the challenge. It seems these are all tasks which require concentration and energy, two things I’m running low on.

the sounds of silence prevail, at least for now.

When I traveled to London, Dublin and Paris earlier this year, taking photos of people actually reading newspapers became sort of an obsession for me. As a young journalist who was thrust out of school a little over three years ago into a melting media market that bled jobs daily, life became uncertain and depressing and well, worrisome.

I felt as though the dreams I had been building upon since middle school of becoming a writer were falling through the cracks - and that I would never get them back. I never could be a Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, writing about worldly problems and changing the world in the process. I could never be a Ben Badikian, an editor at the Washington Post who came into possession of The Pentagon Papers. I would never be in that atmosphere. That excitement, that time.

I could never write for the Los Angeles Times or Atlantic Monthly or the dozen other publications which I cherished more than life itself.

And while now, I have resolved my fear and am more in the “I can” rather than the “I can’t” box, the possibility of not fulfilling my passions is still a frightening concept. I know I have what it takes to write for the L.A. Times and the NY Times and whatever else. I just know it. It’s the one thing in my life that I am completely, 100 percent sure of. When I get there, I don’t know. But I will get there.

In the meantime, I found comfort knowing that there were still people who actually read newspapers, even if it was overseas. There are papers everywhere you go in London. On the tube, in cafes, on the street - it’s really a reading culture, and as someone from Los Angeles which suffers more from a “tv culture,” it made me feel at home.

The world of media is changing right in front of our eyes and it’s amazing to be in the middle of this revolution. I am excited to see what the future holds for journalism, but for now, I revel in the fact that somewhere in the world, someone cares.

Hard to believe half the year is almost over, when it feels like it was Dec. 31,2009 just a few weeks ago. Six more months and I’ll be reveling in all the gingerbread and tinsel the holidays have to offer, but before I get ahead of myself, here are some photos from the first half of my 2010 taken with my iPhone.

London, Selfridges and Spooning with Rosie apparently.

Ireland, M&S and Tate Modern

Henry, Liberace at Amoeba Records and beautiful Swiss chard at the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market

Waterfalls, hiking and big glasses.

I don’t mean to go on about lemons two posts in a row, but something miraculous took place between my last post and today - that is, I found some gigantic lemons in the nether regions of my tree.

No, really.

GIGANTIC.

The lemon on your left is from the same tree and is normal size. The one(s) on your right? Let’s just say I had to catch my breath after carrying them inside.

As soon as I cut them off, the branch they were weighing down snapped upright back to normal position again. That was the easy part. After washing and taking them apart from each other, I couldn’t contain myself and had to cut them to see if they were OK inside.

Well, they were.

Look at them. LOOK AT THEM. They are huge. The best part is that there’s nothing wrong with them. They smell and taste divine.

Then I grew really impatient, and after cutting them all I decided it was best to squeeze them, except they were so big that they wouldn’t fit on the juicer so I had to hand squeeze them. The lemon juice filled up an entire water bottle’s worth.

Now I can’t decide between lemonade, salad dressing or lemon bars.

These lemons emerged from the tree in my backyard.

They are the only living thing left that I have connected to  my grandmother.

After she lost her battle with Alzheimer’s, my parents plucked the lemon tree she had nurtured for years and planted it in our yard, hoping that it would blossom under our care as well as it did under hers.

It did.

She had something to do with it, I’m sure.

I went to pluck a few lemons some weeks ago and as I piled them up into a bowl and set them on the table which was drowning in the afternoon sun, I suddenly smelled the most heavenly aroma - one which I have never smelled before. It was the smell of lemons. Grocery store lemons had never smelled that way.

They smelled like the sun, and the Earth and like love.

They smelled like love.

I scraped off their rinds, and the intoxicating smell arose some more.

Then I cut up some strawberries, hoping my grandmother could join me for one last snack.

She didn’t.

But I’ll always have the lemons.