Your Favorite Weekend

Every Thursday in the Weekend Calendar section, the Los Angeles Times runs a column: My Favorite Weekend. It features the dining, shopping and entertainment recommendations of a local celebrity, usually C-list or below. The recommendations usually run to the C-list variety as well--The Grove often has a starring role, as do overpriced, tired cliches like Dan Tana's. BORING!

Since I love the column's concept, but hate the execution, I figured I'd call on some real Angelenos with interesting ideas and eclectic tastes to share their favorite weekends (focused on food of course). Until I run out of people to ask, every Thursday I'll highlight a different favorite weekend. If you'd like to share yours, email me at erinskitchen [at] gmail [dot] com.

Jill and Gavin's Favorite Weekend

Jill blogs at Jill's Notebook, and has a knack for delish homemade pizzas. Gavin is her partner in crime, and mixes a mean Gin and Tonic. They live in Pasadena.

We would start our favorite weekend with a visit to Peet’s (where we met) here in Pasadena for a rustic cherry tart (made by La Brea Bakery) and a cup of coffee. Since the line would likely be long, we would go to the bean counter and buy a pound of Major Dickason’s beans, too, because we would likely be needing coffee beans and because they will serve you coffee and pastries from the much shorter bean counter line as long as you are actually buying beans as well.

We might stop at Wild Oats right by Peet’s before we left for some of the good cheese (or a similarly good cheese) and some fruit and a loaf of La Brea Bakery rosemary olive oil bread for lunchtime grazing.

For dinner, I would take a vegetarian vacation and we would go to Nozawa in Studio City where the wall behind the sushi chef is covered with signs that say “Trust Me” and where you eat what the sushi chef gives you. I've only been once, but it was quite a memorable meal. (Note: the Citysearch page says Nozawa is closed on the weekends, so this may be more of a dream weekend than an feasible weekend. Perhaps we should imagine this as a Friday night dinner instead.)

On Sunday we would wake up at four in the morning and go to the Pantry downtown for breakfast. An unspecified period of time later, we would head to Bean Town in Sierra Madre with our laptops for more good coffeeshop fare and for the free wireless. Then we’d head over to Madeleine’s for a late, slow lunch and then have drinks while we played Quoridor on the patio.