Have a Great Holiday Weekend

I am going to get some barbecue. A friend and I are going to have some fun. Hope you do the same.

UPDATE

Well our little trip was fun. I have a young friend, about 27, he and I had been discussing restaurants that I liked in Los Angeles. We are both into cooking. We had decided to get out of the house and go to one of my restaurants.

The restaurants we had considered included Hop Louie's in Chinatown (been there forever and the staff are just marvelous), Moonshadows in Malibu (great ambiance and fantastic view of the ocean), Brent's Deli in the San Fernando Valley (their food is so good that they get calls from San Diego for deliveries and they do it), The Smokehouse near Universal Studios (old school, high class, great food) and My Brothers Restaurant in Woodland Hills (Since 1957, the best barbecue you never heard of) and Frohman's in Santa Monica (it's all about the brisket and pickles. The Brisket is shaved and tender and soft and delectable).

This morning we decided to make it My Brother's Restaurant, so off we went. We drove about 65 miles for this meal. Before going to the restaurant we stopped of at the Topanga Mall now named something else. I lived in Woodland Hills and love it, home. We walked through the mall and I didn't know the place anymore. But I knew some of it's history.

The Topanga Plaza was the first fully enclosed mall. In addition, it was built specially and was part of the civil defense program in the early 1960s, it had stuff down below. It was built at a time when children were taught to duck and cover in the event of a nuclear bomb. Duck and cover so you can more easily kiss your rear goodbye. It has been fully renovated and I know longer know the place.

My generation, me, we were the first kids to have a mall. Hard to believe. There was no mall culture, we started it. My friends and I and others in the valley started a lot of stuff like dirt bikes and skateboards. The hippies flocked to the valley and to my beloved, Topanga Canyon. I remember driving the canyon and seeing hippie girls selling candles and flowers. It is not just a movie for me, it is a memory.

When I was young my mother would take us to the Topanga Mall. My favorite was when she would take us to May Company to sit on the balcony overlooking the store and have an open faced turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes and the best gravy. Man, that was making it big time. I miss my mother and father. They were good parents and very loving. So many are gone from my life.

Life is a strange journey. You make plans and then life happens. Your plans work out; but, the world does not. Other people make plans too. Today's plan worked out. We walked through the mall and all the young girls flirted with my friend. He loved it. I on the other hand was apparently oogled by some guy. Maybe he thought we were gay. After getting a drink (Perrier with Lime) we left to go to the restaurant.

My Brothers Barbecue is memories for me and quite tasty. Scent is a great memory trigger, the hickory smoke smell mixed with beef is a trigger for my memory. I remembered how, if we were very lucky, my mother would send us to get some of their wonderful food. If she did it was usually a Friday. We would eat are food and watch "Kolchak" or some other quality show. I used to like television.

UPDATE

Sorry kids. Spent the night discussing music with my friend who went to the restaurant. He knows things and we enjoy music together. Be well.