Category Archives: Los Angeles

A Langer-ous Love Letter

Posted on March 14, 2012 | 1 comment

Langer’s

 How to Write a Love Letter

First, identify the Object Of your Affections. Choose wisely. Your OOA (Object of Affection.) need not be world famous, nor hot necessarily. Worthiness in the eye, and desire, of the beholder is essential.

Now, are you ready to lay down your heart? I thought so. No holds, or rolls, barred. Rolling, rolling, rolling. Momentum is all.

 Presentation

Again, choose thoughtfully. Think of first impressions. The company you keep is a piece of your testimony. Represent well. Classy collateral should not be underestimated. Black ink or dark blue only please, and never a frivolous shade such as red or green. You want to present well. Los angels forbid your OOD should find you silly.


Ambience

Mood. The elusive element. Put yourself in it. Turn yourself over. Feel it. Tufted vinyl cries for pastrami. What says OOA to YOU? Flokati underfoot? A turban of Whipped Cream and Other Delights swaddling your head? Your face aglow in the  light of the rotating dessert case?

Greeting

Dear Langer’s ~CRUMPLE~CRUMPLE~ My Dearest Langer’s ~ CRUMPLE CRUMPLE~ My Darling Langer’s ~ Ugh~CRUMPLE CUMPLE~ Hello, Dear Langer’s, From Your Biggest Pastrami Fan
 

Beginning

Mise en place applies to all of life. Stack your plates, replace your typewriter ribbon, fill the creamers, roll up your sleeves.

Body

Not the body of your beloved, for heaven’s sakes. The body of your love’s letter. You don’t want to be thinking about any human body with a plate of eggs and pastrami at chest level and fork’s reach.

Be Expressive

A little embellishment never hurt anyone, even a bit of the tried-and-true parsley+orange wedge duo. Bitter, sour, sweet. Reach down deep and touch the power points of sensuality.

Be Specific 

Ordering a little love to ride? “Pastrami on rye with mustard ONLY,” requested Linda. “Get it right or pay the price,” said Nancy. She knows. She’s been married a long time.  “Yeah,” said Lynda, no dummy herself,  “I don’t want to scrape anything.” 

Neatness Counts

 Add a personal touch

Valediction

A ferocious appetite supported my case.  Before taking the leap, I  strongly advise assessing the width and depth of your desire. I can put away a mountain of pastrami, half on site, half in the middle of the night.

With love ~ CRUMPLE CRUMPLE~ With all my love ~ CRUMPLE CRUMPLE ARRGH~ Oh! I’ve got it ~ Dreaming of your pastrami at midnight, I am…

Your Sated Admirer

Use an envelope

Doused with the scent of pastrami. It’s the little things. You might want to use a napkin liberally before licking the stamp.

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Posted in Delicatessens, Los Angeles

Cole’s At Last

Posted on February 15, 2011 | Leave a comment

I had wanted to go to Cole’s for a long, long time, long enough to slow roast a beef on an LA sidewalk. Cole’s and Philippe the Original are neck-in-neck on the French Dip-o-drome, that is, if you believe the hippety-dippety-dipped-up-hype. Neck-in-neck, but not beef neck, silly. Roasted beef, the sandwich kind, the kind sliced thin, so your teeth don’t have to do it.

You oughta see the penny tile floors and the mahogany bar and the light orbs and vertical dills and happily stacked meat and the bowls of liquid mahogany edible beef shellac.

I was there with fabulous Jenn, cool in the shade of her LA savvy.

Cole’s is a bit more high-brow than Philippe the Original. Lower lights, higher brow. Bout the same level on the roast beef layer. Medium-brow, not too thick, not too thin.

Shellackety-stacked piles of beef on rolls, rolls that soak, rolls built to soak, built to absorb, built to absorb under the orbs. Dip, dip, dip. More like dunk, actually, for a duration.

Truly, anyway you slice it, long as it is across the grain, a French Dip, done the LA way, in other words, IN LA, is fine fine fine. Mighty fine. Not much room in my life for food superlatives. You get to a certain level of nirvana and the sandwiches levitate on the same heavenly plane.

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Posted in Los Angeles, Sandwich Joints, Sandwiches