Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

The hotteok stand is outside California Market, at the corner of 5th and Western. I used to stop by all the time when I worked at Wilshire and Normandie, until I had to stop, for flub-reduction reasons. It may have been Jonathan Gold who was described these as sort of like pancakes with syrup, inside out. Really a pretty brilliant little treat.

For tasting guides and winery notes, Hugh Johnson's guides are our household favorite. Pithy and pointed, with a more restrained aesthetic than Robert Parker, and less didactic than many wine writers.

In the L.A. area, Jongewaard's Bake and Broil, just off the 405 near Atlantic Blvd in Long Beach, CA is better than both the better known Pie N' Burger and Du-Par's, IMHO.

There's a "Something's Fishy" in Malibu. Don't know if it's part of the South African chain rudbeckia mentions, but that one has definitely caught my attention as particularly unappetizing.

Also suspect in sunny LA-LA land: "Wacky Wok" and "Killer Shrimp," both on Washington Blvd, in Venice. Wackiness and lethality are just not attributes I like to associate with my food.

Honorable mention: the now defunct Mo' Meaty Meat Burgers on Pico and Fairfax Blvds. (They didn't specify what kind of meat, or what state of meatiness had existed prior to the onset of "Mo'.")

On the upside, given that we all have to go at some point, what a great way to go: not only 94 years old and in apparently reasonably good health, but moreover just a couple of weeks after the deli's giant 60th anniversary celebration, at which everyone from top city officials to Joan Nathan feted Al's accomplishments, and the corner of 7th and Alvarado was renamed Langer's corner in his honor. May more such deserving folk be so recognized in their time.

I'm relieved to hear the deli will stay open, since I count it among the great geographic features of my office, just one stop away on the subway (that's not a typo, there really is a subway in Los Angeles), as well as conveniently located halfway between the office and a variety of venues that work as a public interest lawyer takes me during the day. It's only in registering the nostalgic siren song with which Langer's, a relic among Salvadorean and Mexican joints (some of which are first rate-- MacArthur Park is a great eating neighborhood), beckons as I pass that I've come to recognize good deli food as an endagered cultural species. The recognition was also brought home last summer, in the experience of acting as cultural tour guide for a clerk (originally from rural Michigan) and translator (originally from El Paso) whom I took there as thanks for helping me prepare a case. Both loved Langer's, but also clearly saw it as an exotic experience, and peppered me with questions about pastrami versus corned beef, half-sours versus full-sours, chopped liver, and egg creams. Fine, there aren't many Jews in the U-P or in El Paso, but there are many in L.A., especially in my neighborhood (near Fairfax) and points West and North. Why (and I mean that as a question of current markets, not historical neighborhoods) aren't there any delis worth pointing to, proudly, as demonstrations of the finer (perhaps even the only fine) culinary traditions of my Ashkenazi-American ancestors anywhere in L.A. outside the Rampart District? Canter's is wholly mediocre, except at 2am, sort of the L.A. Jewish Deli equivalent of Morningside Height's Tom's Diner; Nate and Al's and others are expensive substitutes, at best. Pastrami's a reasonably cheap and accessible cuisine-- what happened?

I can understand fast food for a person short on time and energy as well as money, but from a purely financial standpoint, none of Bauer's choices listed above make any sense. Anyone who's ever had to watch his or her budget knows that (in the Food4Less, not the Whole Foods, universe), processed foods, and particularly a name brand processed food like Campbell's Tomato Soup, are the worst. Because of dairy subsidies, for better or worse, the milk Bauer refrained from adding would be the cheapest, not to mention most nutritionally valuable, part. Seems like he's aiming more for bougie shock value than accuracy, to me. There's a reason why starving people the world over eat variations on rice and beans, and why potatoes had such a profound impact on industrializing Europe; such items remain far more healthy and economical options than McD's or hot dogs today. In the classic essay on the subject, M F K Fisher's "How To Cook A Wolf," her answer to abject hunger, as I recall, was a sludge-like meatloaf made of 1/3 cheap veggies (carrots, onions, turnips, etc.), 1/3 cheap starches (beans, oatmeal, etc.), and 1/3 cheap meat (fatty stew beef, etc.)-- a sort of super low-rent pate. Not exactly Mm-mm good, but probably not worse than a cheap slice of bologna.