My compliments to the chef

The happy gentleman in the picture is Michel Richard, a French chef and former owner of Citrus, which was and will always be my favorite restaurant in L.A.

Citrus was novel for many reasons. Location was one. On the northwest corner just one block off Highland on Melrose, Citrus was at the end of an unassuming residential block. It had a closed in patio, with large umbrellas and a roof that could be drawn back, although it rarely was.

Instead of hiding the kitchen in the back of the house, Richard was one of the very first who chose to separate it from the dining area with a wall of glass, turning it into a gallery where diners could watch their food being prepared.

They could see the chefs at work. The attention to detail. The timing. The skill. And, vicariously, they could experience the pure joy of creation.

Citrus was also the home of my favorite restaurant dessert ever. Michel Richard's raspberry tart. Now, I'm not a fan of raspberries, and I'm not crazy about tart flavored items. But the way this dessert was made, the blend of flavors, the impossibly smooth texture, the thickness of the crust, the balance of flavors. It was perfection.

Citrus was around during the years I happened to be doing a lot of commercial production in Hollywood. And as any creative team will tell you, there's no lunch like a production company lunch. Or a post-production house. Or music production. If you had a good idea and a budget, you were wined and dined at the restaurant of your choice.

And since all the production companies and editorial houses were within five minutes of Citrus, the choice was easy.

I'm not saying I took advantage of that as often as possible. But I'm not saying I didn't.

Here's the thing. I can remember a lot of great meals I've had and restaurants I had them in: Jeremiah Tower's Stars in San Francisco. Emeril Lagasse's NOLA in New Orleans. Laurence McGuire's Lambert's in Austin. George Lang's Café Des Artistes in New York. Great meals and chefs to be sure.

But for me, none of them match the feeling of adventure, comfort, happiness, camaraderie and satisfaction of eating on the patio at Citrus.

Sadly, all good things come to an end. Citrus closed in 2001. Another incarnation opened at the Hollywood nightclub Social (cleverly called Citrus at Social- go figure). But the experience was never the same, and that version shuttered in December of 2009.

Michel Richard is no longer with us—he died of a stroke in August of 2016. But he did what every great chef aspires to.

He left me wanting more.

The right connections

Assuming you're going to read this post—and I recognize that's a big assumption—are you going to read it all the way through the first time, or stop halfway, go do something else for an hour, then come back and finish it?

Stop talking, it's a rhetorical question.

If you're going to read it, you'll do it nonstop until you get to the end. And why wouldn't you? It's easier, it takes less time and you can get to whatever you're doing afterwards a lot faster.

All the same reasons I like to fly nonstop.

It's literally been 21 years since I last took a connecting flight somewhere. The only reason was because it was the only way I could get to a surprise birthday party I'd arranged for a friend who was shooting a movie in Ponca City, Oklahoma. If you've never been to Ponca City, the Walmart on Saturday night is the hot tip. You're welcome.

Of course, part of the reason it's been so long since I've been on a connecting flight is I usually fly to destinations that are easy to get to directly. San Francisco. Las Vegas. New York. Las Vegas. Seattle. Las Vegas. Portland. Las Vegas. Austin. You get the pattern.

With how much I love gambling (how could you tell?), you'd think I'd book connecting flights more often. It's always a roll of the dice whether or not it'll be on time, the connecting flight will be there when I land, or the weather will cooperate at the second airport of the day.

I was just in Iowa. I had to fly to Denver, connect to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, then drive an hour and a half to where I was going in Iowa. It was an adventure, but it wasn't fun.

Like visits to the dentist, prostate exams and tax returns, I just prefer to have it done and over with as soon as possible. But because of the airline hub structure, and my need to go to little out-of-the-way towns in Iowa, I don't have as much choice in the matter as I used to.

I suppose the thing to do would be to look at connecting flights as a way to see parts of the country I wouldn't normally see, fly a variety of aircraft I wouldn't otherwise get to experience and rack up more frequent flier miles than I might going nonstop.

I also suppose I could also look at kale as cotton candy, but that's not happening either.

Au revoir

You don't have enough paper, or a monitor big enough to list all the things I'm not good at. There just aren't enough hours in the day. But if you decided you had nothing better to do than to try, at the very top would have to be saying goodbye to my children when they're taking off somewhere.

Lets start here: I want them to travel the world, be explorers and adventurers, have experiences and memories that will shape who they are and widen their horizons.

It's just that I hate saying goodbye to them.

When my daughter went on her 8th grade class trip back east I was a mess. When they left us to fly home from New York together it brought me to tears. When my son went to UT in Austin, you could've mopped the streets with me.

Then when he transferred back and I saw the grocery bills, well, I digress.

So today was another one. He took off about an hour ago for Paris, with a couple of days planned for a side trip to London. He'll be meeting up and traveling with a good friend of his, and he'll be staying with a good friend of mine in London. Plus, if he has any questions at all about Paris, he knows how to get hold of my friend Janice MacLeod, who literally wrote the book on it.

I'm excited for him, but I hate to see him go. But let's be clear again—I do want him to go.

What makes it harder is he's not traveling in the world I traveled in. It's a lot more dangerous, although at least he's going to two cities that are probably among the safest in the world right now for all the wrong reasons.

See, that part right there? You know what that is? That's the parent tax anyone with children pays every day. It's that low, constant hum of white noise in the back of your brain asking "Are they alright? Are they safe? Are they being careful?" You come to understand it's the reason our parents still treat us like kids no matter how old we get. They'll never stop. And I suppose I won't either.

So, I put on my brave face, bid my boy au revoir, wish him a safe, wonderful and exciting (in the good way) trip. And when he returns in a week, his horizons will have been widened, his world view expanded and his budget blown.

But then I was already thinking this was going to cost me a few Euros by the time it's all over.

My home boy

My friend, fellow blogger and professional Orca trainer Rich Siegel over at Round Seventeen published a post the other day about the joy and resulting consequences of his two daughters returning home from college.

It is the season.

His post hit home because, like the swans trying to return to Capistrano through the radioactive air of San Onofre, my college boy also pulled up stakes and managed to find his way back home from the Lone Star state. Alright, it's not exactly like the swallows and Capistrano, but you get what I was going for.

Anyway, last Thursday night I returned from picking him up at the airport. His 6pm arrival pulled up to the gate at 10:04pm - a four-hour mechanical delay was the culprit. It was a monumental inconvenience, and eviscerated any plans we had for the night. But frankly, I'd much rather the plane be deemed airworthy while it's still on the ground.

When he set foot in the house, he was beyond tired. After a four-hour delay and a two-hour time difference he's lived with for ten months, young Mr. Spielberg was a wee bit cranky. Completely understandable.

The good news is it's like riding a bicycle - a bicycle that's an eating, cash swallowing machine - the imprinted routine of living at home comes rushing back as if he'd never left.

So despite the laundry I know will pile up, the dishes that will inevitably have to be bussed by me, the floorspace that'll be taken up while he plays Arkham Knight again on the Playstation and the never-ending juggling of cars so he can visit with friends he hasn't seen in ten months, I am beyond happy he's home.

I'm happy for another reason which I'm not at liberty to talk about, but let's just say - for reasons that are nothing but good - he may not be spending his sophomore year in Texas. Not that missing the Campus Carry Law going into effect is going to bother me too much.

Side note: when I asked him a while ago what he thought about Campus Carry and if everyone at school was talking about it, he looked at me and said, "Dad, no one's talking about it. It's Texas. Everyone's already carrying a gun."

I'm really happy he's home.

Turnaround

I was in Austin for a few lovely days, and then flew back last night. I was home about eleven hours, unpacked, re-packed, then was back on a plane to San Francisco this morning.

By the way, lest you get any ideas about paying the house a visit, my German Shepherd, alarm system, wife, and, the thing you should be most afraid of – my teenage daughter – are still on full alert guarding the ponderosa.

It all feels very jetset-y, until you’re waiting at baggage claim and three planes worth of luggage come cascading down the slide onto the carousel, and everybody pushes you out of the way shouting, "Mine's the black one!"

Then it feels like water-boarding would be a viable option, for them. Not you.

There’s a rhythm to travel, hopping from one plane and place to the next, blowing into town long enough to see the family, then heading out again until next time. Like jogging and eating beets, if you do it often enough you build endurance for it. I think what I’ve learned is I don’t do it often enough.

The glamour of air travel is a long, lost notion – something I wrote about here four years ago. As far as I can tell, now it’s just mainly exhausting.

But, and it's a big but, just like the person in the middle seat next to me on the way up here, I have to confess - I still like the process. Getting the flight I want. Choosing my favorite window seat (aisle seats are for people who think flight is just a theory). Seeing what kind of plane I'll be on. I also like the perks that come with sitting in the front of the plane: early boarding, a bathroom less traveled, bigger seats, more space and eavesdropping on the flight attendants as they tell passenger horror stories.

If I sound like I'm sending mixed signals, it's because I am. I like it, and I don't like it. Not unlike my high school girlfriend.

It's hard to believe years ago I used to have a crippling fear of flying considering how much I love it now. I guess if I'd known about that front of the plane thing I would've gotten over it a lot sooner. I used to take what I called my "Flights To Nowhere," four or six flights a day between cities just to rack up mileage so I could maintain my Premier status in United's frequent flyer program. Like Clooney in Up In The Air, I didn't do anything, buy anything or stay anywhere that didn't reward me miles towards my goal. I even had a nickname: Flyboy.

Anyway, these days flying for me has become utilitarian instead of recreational. Which is okay.

Because the truth is now that I've racked up all those miles, I'd hate to use them.

Ugly sweater

I'm a cold weather kind of guy. Anything above seventy degrees, and I start sweating like I'm carrying a backpack filled with lead uphill through the rainforest.

I was in Austin this past weekend, visiting young Mr. Spielberg, and checking out how much return we're getting on that out-of-state tuition. We also had the pleasure of seeing my longtime friend and writer extraordinaire Cameron Day and his wife Debbie, and all going to watch Holland Taylor perform in ANN, which she's brought to the lucky theater goers of Austin for a few weeks.

When the show was over, we stepped out of the theater into the night, and it was just as exceptional as the days had been on this quick turnaround: low 70's, mild breeze, clear blue Texas skies. Since I wasn't going to be there long, I figured the weather would hold until I came home today.

Well, not so fast there Mr. Sweaty Face.

When I went outside this morning, it was ninety degrees and muggy. Really muggy. Steamy, salt-sweat in my eyes muggy. To add to the drenching, I had to carry not only my suitcase down two flights of Airbnb stairs, but also a large suitcase my son had packed up for me to bring home so he wouldn't have to do it in a couple weeks when summer break starts.

Always happy to help my boy, but by the time I got both of them downstairs I looked like I'd just stepped out from under a hot shower. I tried to wipe myself down, but that only lasted for a minute or two.

Wait, what's that? A gentle, cool breeze? Oh thank God. What?! What do you mean it's over?! Crap.

The topping on the cake was I was standing in front of the building, and my Lyft driver pulled up on the side street and waited for me there. So I had to take the two suitcases and drag (roll) them almost half a block to him. Alright, maybe it was a hundred yards. Ok, feet. But still, the end effect was the same. I was a walking puddle.

Having come from the mean streets of West L.A., north of Wilshire, I always loved going to cities that had what I like to call real seasons. Where the temperature changed, and you don't really know from one minute to the next what it'll be. To my point of view, that's the way nature intended it, not this continual perfect, dry weather year in and year out.

But after this morning in Austin, I've reconsidered my opinion and decided I love the predictable, pleasant, dry weather here just fine, and I'm never going to complain about the lack of seasons again.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some serious laundry to do.

Meat of the matter

Let's start off by saying my vegan and vegetarian pals aren't going to take kindly to this post. So you may as well mosey on to the next blog until tomorrow's serving.

No matter how you slice it, if you know nothing about cuts of meat when you get to Austin you will by the time you're heading out.

The Salt Lick. Franklin's. Lambert's. There's no shortage of bbq places here and everyone seems to have a favorite. So far mine is Lambert's, but only because I haven't had five hours to kill waiting in line at Franklin's.

Sure Austin's a town known for its music, restaurants, art community and, as my checkbook knows all to well, its university. But it's also known for the fact you can look as far as the eye can see, and you won't find an iron-deficient person anywhere.

I've had more brisket, pulled pork and ribs in the last five days than I've had in my entire life - each bite more delicious than the next. I'm sure some of you are thinking that's a lot of meat to be eating. Don't worry. I've been wielding my Lipitor almost as much as my steak knife.

Others might be saying I don't have to order meat every time. I could order something healthy like a salad. Well, in case you forgot, this is Texas. That's just crazy talk.

My love of smokey meats (by the way, Smokey Meats - one of the best jazz musicians ever) won't come as a surprise to anyone who knows a few years ago, my good friends Tena Olson, Alan Otto and I were going to start an ad agency called The Beefery. We had t-shirts and hats made, and used the butcher chart you see above as our logo, only instead of labeling the cuts, we replaced them with snappy ad-related items.

After a lot of meatings at Starbucks about how we were going to get the agency going, we finally put the idea out to pasture. We did however continue the meetings at Starbucks, you know, because why not.

Anyway, I've decided to cut way back on my meat consumption starting tomorrow.

In fact I just may cut back on food consumption in general before that picture of the cow has my face on it.