Gleaming silver stars hang from frizzly-foiled canes fixed to stylish streetlamps towering above signs, signals, bus benches and painted curbs. Is this an obstacle course or an intersection? There is no traffic; no flag and the sidewalks are deserted. It’s Sunday and the store is closed.

Architecturally speaking, this is what happens when a streamline modern ocean liner of the ‘30s and the famous flying wing of the ‘40s have a baby. Less, of course, the potted vines sprouting over the trio of terraces. As if passing motorists don’t have enough to look at and out for already, MAY CO is clearly spelled out twice in golden metal-framed yellow neon readable at any speed.

Line-wise, little relieves this smooth slab-sided, curved cornered department store spectacular with the exception of its nearly hypnotic asymmetry. Don’t stare too long! Let’s lovingly call this style: late-streamline early mid-century mod minimalism.  And a very rare example of it at that.

Miraculously this streamlined suburban super store still stands at the corner of Martin Luther King and Crenshaw Blvds, in the Crenshaw District, one of my favorite LA neighborhoods to explore. The May name marked the building until 2005 when Macys, the granddaddy of all grand department stores, took control.

Macy’s started in NYC in 1878 one year after May Company began in Leadville, Colorado. By the end of the 1920’s Macy’s had morphed into the nations largest department store. Ultimately it would become a retail beast that would swallow its competition including the second and third largest stores ever, Hudson’s in Detroit and Marshall Field in Chicago.

Here’s to May Company, Marshall Field, Hudson’s Macy’s and YOU,

Charles Phoenix
Los Angeles, CA
Dec 8, 2009

The Cherpumple is the desert version of the Turducken. It’s a three-layer cake with a pie stuffed in each layer. YUM! Cherpumple is short for CHERry, PUMpkin and apPLE pie. The apple pie is baked in spice cake, the pumpkin in yellow and the cherry in white. I DARE YOU TO TRY IT AT HOME!…& SEND PIX! Share your Cherpumple “Monster” Pie Cake creation!

The inspiration for the Cherpumple came from the typical desert table selection you would find at one of my family’s holiday celebrations. Seems there’s always cherry, pumpkin, and apple pie and a cake that’s a family tradition. It has a layer of spice and a layer of yellow. Since I always want to have a piece of each of the pies and the cake I figured why not make that waaaaaaaay more convenient. So I baked them all together as one and the Cherpumple was born.

CLICK TO WATCH THE DEMO ON YOUTUBE
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp4yWTLIPaE

THE CHERPUMPLE “MONSTER” PIE CAKE

1 8″ frozen pumpkin pie
1 box spice cake mix

1 8″ frozen apple pie –
1 box yellow cake mix

1 8″ frozen cherry pie
1 box white cake mix

eggs and oil according to the cake mix

3 tall tubs of cream cheese frosting

3 8.5″ round cake pans

Bake pies according to instructions and cool to room temperature overnight. Mix cake batter according to instructions. For each layer pour about 1 1/3 cup of batter in the cake pan. Carefully de-tin the baked pie and place it face up on top of the batter in the cake pan.  Push down lightly to release any trapped air. Pour enough batter on top to cover the pie. Bake according to box instructions. Cool and remove from pans the frost it like you mean it.

Since it’s the most wonderful time of the year …perhaps the cream cheese frosting should be dyed mint green!  And, yes, you can serve your Cherpumple FLAMING! Then you can call it CHERPUMPLE PIE CAKE FLAMBE! Why, oh why didn’t think of that sooner? Well actually I did but I was afraid that I would burn the vintage stove shop down where we filmed the video. I’ve heard those old stoves have a lot of trapped gas!

…BTW, to serve your “monster” pie cake FLAMING …its easy… just make a little puddle of lemon extract in the frosting on the top of your cake. Just before you light it gather friends and family around, turn out the lights and watch it burn. Make sure to have 911 on speed dial just in case.  Just how would you explain to your nosy neighbors that the desert version of the turducken burned your house down and singed theirs? Be fully prepared for gasps and ahhhhs as your guests see pie inside cake for the first time. Cherpumple ala mode anyone? Pie cake and ice cream go SO well together.

Here’s to my Cherpumple, your Cherpumple and YOU!!!

Dec 3, 2009

A warm blob of red-tinted and pepperminted spun sugar is displayed with great pride. From that sweet, striped, blob, and hundreds more just like it, the candy cane man, Jerry Rowley, skillfully pulls, twists, cuts and hooks more than 75,000 candy canes by hand every holiday season. Just moments before, the seasonal blob was flaming hot sugar boiling over in a copper kettle. When it bubbles just right he pours it out on a marble slab to cool down a bit just in time to be spun, divided, dyed and flavored.

Fresh, handcrafted candy canes have been the specialty of the house at Logan’s since it opened in 1933. Jerry began his apprenticeship there thirty-six years ago at the age of twelve. A few years later he bought the place and has been perfecting his sweet skills ever since. So much so he’s a master of his culinary craft. Who knew spun sugar could be SO iridescent….and SO tasty too! Several years ago he created the “world’s largest candy cane,” which hangs in the store reminding us all he’s not just the Candy Cane Man…He’s the Candy Cane King!

Rare in the world of candy making are handmade candy canes. It wouldn’t take a candy connoisseur to tell you that most of the worlds candy canes are machine made in giant batches in big industrial factories. If there are any other candy stores in the county that makes their own canes I wanna know about them!

Logan’s Candy is a tremendous source of my hometown pride. It simply would be Christmas to me without a one of Jerry’s fresh handmade candy canes to keep and a dozen or two more to hand out to friends and relations. Thank you, Jerry Rowley, for keeping the cherished tradition of candy cane making alive, YOU are my hometown holiday hero!

Who is your hometown holiday hero?

Here’s to Jerry, his candy canes and YOU!

November 26, 2009

P. S. Jerry will do a special candy cane making demo for my HOMETOWN HOLIDAY TOUR group, SUNDAY AFT, DEC, 13, click here for info & tix.

P.S.S. Next SATURDAY NIGHT, DEC 5th @ 8PM in PASADENA is my first RETRO HOLIDAY SLIDE SHOW of the season! click here for info & tix.

On the left is the turkey tiki meatloaf in 2007 served up fresh and proud on a mound of dyed-orange mashed potatoes in a vintage electric skillet. On the right is the same turkey tiki shrunk nearly in half after spending two years completely undisturbed in my refrigerator. To give you a idea of the degree of shrinkage, the “before” was shaped and baked in the 14” aluminum dish that the “after” is shown in. Mold has consumed his pineapple chunk mouth and left maraschino cherry eye.

YES, I DID THE UNTHINKABLE… I left my turkey tiki in the fridge for two years! …I know, IT’S SHOCKING!  Did he smell? You would think so, but no. I never intended to keep him but after dinner was served and all the guests went home I couldn’t bear to just throw him away. He was the centerpiece not the main course. I’d made several normal turkey meatloaves to actually slice and serve. So after he sat posed on the dinner table for hours I was sure making a giant leftover turkey tiki sandwich for lunch the next day was out of the question.

So I put him back in the tin pan he was baked in, covered him up tight with foil and cleared a big spot for him on the top shelf of the fridge. It was supposed to be for just a couple of days until I could say goodbye. Those days turned into weeks. Of course I kept waiting for him to smell. But since he never did he remained. As the weeks turned into months I began thinking of him as a science project. Every time I opened the fridge I felt a childlike sense of wonder. But not once did I ever peek.

Then yesterday on the 717th day of his refrigeration, without any premeditation or tainted turkey scent in the kitchen air, I suddenly decided it was time to excavate. So I opened the fridge and delicately moved his aluminum tomb the to countertop. I took a deep breath and pulled back the foil. I looked at him and he looked at me…with one maraschino cherry eyeball.  We had a moment. My childlike curiosity had been satisfied.

I held my breath certain poison mold spores were flying through the air as I escorted him outside and gently placed him in the bottom of an empty trash barrel.  Moments later I heard the trash truck pull up. I ran outside like was going to save him. But it was too late he was gone. Of course I stood there feeling guilty.

So many questions…Why did I let him go?…  What’s in that delicious packaged meatloaf seasoning anyway?…
And what will your turkey tiki look like in two years?

CLICK HERE for all my TURKEY TIKI THANKSGIVING DINNER RECIPIES

Here’s to one-eyed shrunken turkey tikis and YOU!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Los Angeles
November 19, 2009

A waitress shows off a waffle like it’s a baseball glove. In her other hand two coffee cups and cream and sugar are balanced on a tray. She is ready to serve you… and play catch. Her crisp paper hat and spotless apron speak of cleanliness. Her powdered peaches and cream complexion glows like the neon handwriting that gives the place an identity. The jet black ‘53 Pontiac thinks the picture window is a big mirror. You look beautiful, darling! The muted color scheme of the blue-green-grey building, under planted pink planter and blond furniture compliment the curtains which match the waffle.

Where there is a waffle there is a waffle iron. Everyone knows you can’t have a waffle without an iron the same way you can’t have wrinkle free clothes without an iron… that is, unless you wear polyester and permanent press all the time! Speaking of waffles, you can waffle but you can’t pancake. From time to time, usually around breakfast time, I find myself waffling between waffles and pancakes. Do you ever waffle that way?

Waffles have been on the menu somewhere for more than seven centuries. We humans have been enjoying the molded-crispy-on-the-outside-soft-on-the-inside taste treat sensation ever since. Especially when served drowning in melting creamery butter and maple syrup that actually dripped out of a maple tree in Vermont.

Dutch pilgrims introduced waffles, as the called them in the old country, to early Americans in the early 1600s. The word derives from wafer. In 1911 the fine folks at General Electric perfected waffle iron electrification. When frozen waffles debuted in supermarket freezers in 1953 they were called “Froffles,” short for frozen waffles, the same way Fritos is short for fried tortillas. But the clever name didn’t stick. In 1955 the toaster treats were renamed Eggos.

1955 was a banner year in the waffle world. That’s when the first Waffle House opened in suburban Atlanta. Over the years they have expanded to more than 1500 stores in the US (mostly in the south) and Canada serving 24/7/365. Yes, waffles are big business. To date they have served up nearly 500 billion waffles and almost one trillion cups of coffee. To celebrate their success, in 2008, the original Waffle House was restored “back to the way it was in 1955,” and became the Waffle House Museum serving up what else? Waffle House history. Sounds tasty to me! So the next time you’re in Atlanta don’t waffle over going to the Waffle House Museum, GO!

Here’s to the waitress, the waffles, the Waffle House and YOU!

Los Angeles, CA,
November 13, 2009

More than a mouthwatering mouthful of cream cheese cements two 1/2 inch thick slices of moist, delicious date nut bread together. Its twin sits sidesaddle on a delicate paper doily separating a burlap-textured bowl from a plate that looks like a paper plate, but isn’t. A pitted black olive is the cherry on top of an generous ice cream scoop of “white meat” tuna salad resting on a bed of lettuce and surrounded by a trio of tomato wedges offset by a single egg-half sprinkled with just the right amount of paprika. Blue Cheese is my topping of choice. This is a salad that wants to be a sundae. The ice tea wishes it were a coke.

The Sugar Bowl Ice Cream Parlor Coffee Shop opened in old town Scottsdale in 1958. Stylistically the predominantly Pepto-Bismol pink ’50s gay ’90s décor is a stark contrast to the Frontierland-like old town that surrounds it. But that doesn’t bother me at all. I’m from the Disneyland School of style and sensibility.

Twas the 80s when I first stumbled upon the Sugar Bowl. I was in Scottsdale to attend a classic car auction. I loved it then and I love it now!  And without fail…every time…I find myself in Phoenix I find my way to Scottsdale and the Sugar Bowl. If there’s another pink place in this wonderful world  serving up date hut bread sandwiches sidesaddle I haven’t found it yet!

Speaking of Phoenix AZ , I’ll be at the Phoenix Center for the Arts this Friday and Saturday nite, Nov 6th & 7th.

Here’s to the sweet sandwiches, the Sugar Bowl and YOU!

Charles Phoenix
November 5, 2009

Celebrate Halloween at LA’s legendary Bob Baker Marionette Theater, now in its 50th year. This Thurs & Fri night I’m thrilled to present… BOB BAKER’S HALLOWEEN SPOOKTACULAR! …a vintage puppet show extravaganza starring dozens of bizarre one-of-a-kind marionettes…

Get the back story!… with slides and classic TV and film clips I’ll tell the story of Bob’s unparalleled career, which began in 1932…

Delicious cake and ice cream served in the festive party room will follow the grand finale…a rare performance by he master himself! Your imagination will be inspired and your spirit will soar! And you may even get a little creeped out too!

$35 CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS & INFO



Here’s to Halloween, Bob Baker, and you!

Charles Phoenix
October 27, 2009

Among the crowd two suited men stand out gazing and pointing at the beautiful, bountiful harvest of pumpkins and gourds lined on wood platforms. A pumpkin tree is staged in the heart of town. It’s Christmas treeness reminds us that the season of santa is right around the corner. A Ferris wheel spins a block away. Welcome to the greatest pumpkin party in America!

Celebrating everything pumpkin has been happening in Centerville since 1903. The historic festival begins its 106th year today, right here in the center of Centerville, which, btw isn’t in the center of the state where the name would lead us to believe. It’s in southwest part of the state. They should change the name of the city to Pumpkinville?

Thousands of folks come every year from all around to admire the legendary pumpkin expo, catch a glimpse of “Miss Pumpkin Show” and enter biggest pumpkin contest. The record weight of 1524.5lbs was set in 2007. That’s a vegetable that could crush you! Fertilize your pumpkin patch generously with manure and Miracle Grow and you might grow one big enough to win the grand prize next year.

Not only are the pumpkins ogled and admired they get eaten too. Pumpkin cookies, cakes, pancakes, waffles, donuts, ice cream, cream puffs, brownies, taffy, fudge, burgers, blossoms and seeds are all on the menu.

The big star of the food show is the “world’s largest pumpkin pie.” It’s six feet across and has 40lbs of sugar in it. I wanna know where you get a pie tin that big? The super pie sounds yummy but no Centervilleian will touch it after four festive days of being on display and drooled on. So they feed it to some very lucky pigs. Oink, oink! Pigs like pumpkin pie and so do I. Don’t you?

Here’s to pumpkin everything in Centerville, the pie pigs and YOU!

Charles Phoenix
October 21, 2009

Twelve pancakes, about to be flipped, have just been remarkably well poured in a grid on a griddle. The cook, impeccably suited for the matter at hand in bleached whites finished with a snappy bowtie, has a spatula in hand, grin on his face and eyes on the bottle of beer in the hand of his less kempt pancake copilot. He looks to be on batter duty judging by the fact that he is standing before a generous stainless bowl of it. His look is that of a long sleeved paisley sport shirt and conversational apron stenciled with a caricature of himself at the moment.

Leafy vegetation, a moderately mod, two-slat-back, folding, wooden chair and a casually curled garden hose provide a lush backdrop, somewhere to sit and something to trip over. It’s a beautiful day in the backyard for a pancake breakfast. The barbeque is temporary. The bricks have no mortar holding them together. Oh how this inspires me to gather up a pile of used bricks and fashion a mortarless BBQ in my own backyard. When I do get my bricks organized in such a fashion I do hope I’m as well dressed as at least one of these two flapjacks!

There is something so special about being sociable over pancakes no matter what time of day it is or what size they are. Small, medium, large or silver dollar, dressed in real salted butter melted with syrup fresh from the sap of a Vermont maple, is a starchy, sugary, fatty Americana taste treat sensation of the highest order! Served alongside thick smoky bacon and farm fresh eggs any style reminds me of when I was a kid and we would occasionally, on a cold winter night, have breakfast for dinner, in the kitchen of course. If it’s too late in the season to have a backyard PANCAKE BREAKFAST CHEER PARTY have it inside during evening hours and call it the BREAKFAST FOR DINNER PARTY. But make sure not to forget the breakfast cheer!

Here’s to the cook, his co-pilot, mortarless BBQ’s, pancake cheer and YOU!

Charles Phoenix
October 12, 2009

A giant drive-thru redwood tree trunk provides a perfect perch for a billboard of one of the most bizarre roadside tourist traps I’ve ever discovered in a slide. Not only does this rural wonder claim to be a park of totem poles (and, who, tell me doesn’t like totem poles,) it’s also an aquarium where you can see “Ocean Wonders ALIVE – Like a Walk on the Floor of the Sea – Just Ahead.” Or in the case of this robin’s egg blue 1949 Plymouth, just behind! Judging by the mossy tree trunk this has to be somewhere in Northern California. Does any remember this memorable place???

Speaking of totem poles, I saw one just the other day. Not the traditional carved-out-of-a-tree-trunk type, oh no. It was a totem pole piñata that reminded me of a third grade art project that inspired me to get creative and make a rather stylish, if I do say so myself, totem pole out of five empty five gallon Baskin Robbins ice cream containers taped one on top of the other. Ultimately it was a paper mache affair complete with cutout cardboard wings and traditional colorful faces rendered in tempera, which I always think of when I occasionally enjoy an order of tempura in an exotic restaurant. But were not talking about delicious deep fried Japanese taste treat sensations right now, are we? This is about totem poles and paper mache!

And, if for some strange, odd reason YOU are inspired to have a totem pole piñata, or any other kind of piñata for that matter, but have neither the third grade inspiration and inclination to fashion one your self or…you have no idea where to find one…look no further – have I got the one-stop- shop piñata superstore for you! It’s a series of side-by-side, open-front warehouses at the corner of Los Angeles and 7th Sts. in LA, of course. Locals call it Piñata Palace. It has to be the greatest selection on earth. Fair WARNING to visitors of Piñata Palace… Your piñata imagination will be inspired and your tissue paper spirit will soar! And yes they do take special orders! And giant scale doesn’t seem to be a problem!

Here’s to roadside ocean wonders, totem poles, special order piñatas and YOU!

Charles Phoenix
Los Angeles
October 2009