Posts
At the L.A. Mart
design center, my sister, J, and I recently went to the Artisanal L.A.
Spring Show 2014. We were greeted into the parking lot by the distinctive giant
wooden kitchen chair, a gift from a consortium of Italian furniture makers to
the company that manages the L.A. Mart. Originally standing tall outside of the
Chicago Merchandise Mart, it was shipped to L.A. to take advantage of the nicer
weather, just like the rest of us. J and I had been to the L.A. Mart once
before, during the Halloween convention Scare L.A. I don’t remember much of
that convention, as I spent the entire time clutching my sister, on the lookout
for zombies. Because somehow it hadn’t occurred to me that there might be
people wandering around in grotesque makeup trying to scare the living
daylights out of you. At a Halloween convention.
“I don’t know why
you didn’t expect this,” my sister had said, as I shadowed her every move,
keeping her in front of me like a shield.
“I don’t know why
you think I would have,” I had whispered
back, trying to keep from making too much noise lest I attract any predators.
“I don’t come to these kinds of things, like, ever. This is your fault.”
To give you a sense
of how much I like horror movies, I can’t even watch the trailers that play on
TV without covering my eyes. Which meant the fake zombies naturally gravitated
toward me, smelling my fear from all the way on the other side of the
convention floor, like sharks smelling blood in the water. I told my sister in
no uncertain terms that she would have to find someone else to accompany her to
future Scare L.A. shows.
Our visit this
time, however, was much more my speed. As a show celebrating handmade goods,
most of which were food, there was nothing scary lurking around every corner
(though J was almost taken out by the
dangling legs of a toddler, being airplaned around in the air by the
outstretched arms of her oblivious father). We started to make our way around
the booths, with J occasionally darting in and out in her patented “business
card swipe” move. Her single-minded focus on a vendor’s business card was an
efficient tactic, sometimes complicated by my desire to actually speak to the
vendor.
One of the booths
we stopped by was Laura Ann’s Jams. The strawberry vanilla jam I tried was
amazing. “Everyone loves the strawberry vanilla jam,” the lady manning the
booth nodded knowingly at me. Laura Ann also makes drinks out of her jams,
which I think is brilliant. The lemonade made out of the strawberry vanilla jam
was so good that I immediately had to buy a bottle. I played coy about buying
the jam—what? There were so many other jams to try before I could make a
commitment to just one!—but ended up coming back to buy it later.
I also stopped by
the Crème Caramel L.A. booth. Co-owner
Kristine de la Cruz was manning the booth herself. She told me they were mainly
advertising their catering services, but offered me samples of their vanilla
custard ice cream with a hard chocolate shell topping, a brownie, and a
chocolate chip cookie concoction that pasted two cookies together with
marshmallow fluff. I happily extended my hand out and tried all three while we
discussed the new shop she recently opened in Sherman Oaks, right around the
corner from my apartment.
J, even though she
owns a crafting business of her own, Spookyfinds,
isn’t always aware of other artisanal vendors. As we passed the Handsome CoffeeRoasters booth, she laughed out loud at the
name and then quickly looked away as the admittedly good-looking gentlemen
manning the booth gave her weird looks.
“Are they serious?”
she giggled. “Isn’t it kind of weird to call yourself a handsome roaster? Or is that
just me?”
Based on the cult hipster
status of the Arts District shop, I told her it was just her.
My stomach starting
to growl after a couple hours, we hit the food trucks outside the L.A. Mart
complex. Tempted by the chipotle burger at the Green Truck,
an organic food truck committed to green living, I was super-excited to see
that it came on a pretzel bun. Pretzel buns are the best thing ever and it
perfectly complimented the lamb patty and mildly spicy chipotle sauce. Very
yummy. I briefly thought about taking a picture of it for posterity, but my
stomach reminded me that it was hungry and wouldn’t stand for such a silly
delay. So I devoured my burger while trying not to swallow any of my own hair
being blown about my face by the not-so-gentle spring wind.
With one last look
at the giant wooden kitchen chair, my sister and I departed, my strawberry vanilla
jam securely tucked into my purse.
