Little by little, bit by bit, L.A. is chipping away at me. First: I joined a gym. Then I started cooking quinoa. Most recently, I met my friend Isaac (pictured above) in Silverlake for coffee; only Intelligentsia was so packed, we agreed to a change of venue and journeyed down the street to a juice bar. Isaac ordered the green concoction that you see him holding and I bought myself a coconut water.

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Andrew Carmellini, in his new book American Flavor, shares a biscuit recipe that he calls “the world’s best biscuits.” This is a bold claim, even for a chef as revered as Carmellini, but in his defense, when he started serving biscuits (and fried chicken) at his pre-The Dutch Italian restaurant, Locanda Verde, the critics gushed. In fact, while working on a different book proposal, I called Carmellini to have him coach me through biscuit-making on the phone. The man knew his stuff.

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[Photo credit: Gothamist]

We just saw a hilarious skewering of the food world at L.A.’s U.C.B. (Upright Citizens Brigade) called “Pig: A Restaurant.” Actress Lauren Adams tackles everyone from Gael Greene to David Chang in this play written by Leila Cohan-Miccio and directed by Caitlin Bitzegio. Based on real world food experiences (Leila ran the blog Grub Street and Lauren worked at Balthazar and D.B. Bistro Moderne), the show imagines a Brooklyn restaurant called Pig: A Restaurant where the hostess answers the phone “This is Pig: A Restaurant, I’m Aurora: A Hostess.” Like most hip restaurants nowadays, every dish there is made with pork (to the chagrin of the owner’s dead husband’s kosher-keeping parents) and the signature drink is a Brooklyn (“which is the same as a Manhattan, except you drink it in Brooklyn.”) The show flies along at a clip and for anyone with passing knowledge of the food world (at the opening night party, Thomas Keller is turned away because he’s “not on the list”) you’re bound to appreciate the knowing, wicked humor of these very talented restaurant industry vets. And if you’re in L.A. you’re in luck: there’s another show on February 2nd at 7 PM. (There are also more shows in New York on 2/6 and 2/20). Go see it; you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll crave pork belly.

Two things are making me more of a restaurant adventurer here in L.A. than I was in New York: (1) nicer weather and (2) a car. In New York, on the bitterest, most miserable days of January, I would stick to a very specific loop that involved lunch at Hummus Place, coffee at Joe, and a slushy trek home. Here in L.A., it’s just a matter of unlocking my car door, rolling down the windows, cranking up the Original Cast Recording of “Next To Normal” and hitting the road.

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The meat section at my local Gelson’s is pretty spectacular: if you name a cut of meat, they probably have it. And on Friday night I was craving lamb and, studying the lamb options there, I saw a giant leg of lamb for $70 and a rack of lamb for $40. Those prices would seem to make lamb prohibitively expensive, yet there was another lamb option there for a measly $10.

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Last week I was suffering from a pretty nasty cold. I sent out my newsletter, as I do every Monday, and mentioned that I was going to Roboto Jinya for ramen to cure myself with intensely porky broth. (This is possibly sacrilegious as any good Jew worth his kosher salt is meant to cure him or herself with chicken noodle soup; pork broth is a slap in Judaism’s face!) A reader named John responded that Judaism and Japan should be ignored in favor of Thailand: “Adam, for a cold you need some Thai chicken coconut soup. Works every time.”

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I didn’t want to believe the myths and legends surrounding the secret menu at In-N-Out Burger. I’m a man of the people: if it’s not listed on the wall, I don’t want to eat it! But when I wrote about In-N-Out Burger a few months ago, all you secret menu advocates slapped me on the wrist and said, “You’re not a man of the people, you’re a damn fool if you don’t order your burger ‘double double animal style.’” And so, on our most recent trip to In-N-Out, I followed your orders and did as you said.

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One thing I know to be true about cities is this: they’re best judged by their neighborhoods.

I fell in love with some of my favorite cities–Seattle, Atlanta, New York–by visiting off-the-beaten-path neighborhoods with hidden-away restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries, book stores and movie theaters. In Seattle, there’s Capitol Hill and Ballard; in Atlanta there’s the Virginia Highlands, Little Five Points and East Atlanta; in New York there’s the West Village, the East Village, Williamsburg and Park Slope. In all three of these cities, you could easily go there as a tourist and miss the best parts: you could stay downtown and see the Pike Place Market or the Coca-Cola museum or (midtown) Times Square and never venture into the parts that make these cities so beloved. Then you miss the whole point.

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I’m kind of digging this L.A. winter. I was worried it’d be too hot and that I wouldn’t be able to cook my cold weather comfort food. Instead, it’s just cold enough to make a big pot of soup–like this Italian cabbage soup called Ribollita–and to feel good about it. Served up with lots of Parmesan cheese and toasted bread rubbed with garlic, this makes for a cozy, cheap and relatively healthy weeknight dinner regardless of your coast, east or west.

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