Good morning, it’s Monday, July 20. It will be distastefully warm today (high 80s/low 90s) and slightly hotter tomorrow.
1. How luxury ice got so hot.
Everything L.A. Material contributor Anna Holmes writes is a delight (you might know her work from the New Yorker, the Atlantic or Jezebel, which she founded).
But her idiosyncratic observations and peripatetic curiosity are particularly well-suited for this story. It’s a strange and wonderful exploration of an unlikely new trend in L.A. cocktail culture: the importing of ultra-luxury ice from Japan.
Anna traces the rise of bespoke ice, learns what makes it unique and gets into the details with the L.A.-based representative for the Japanese ice company that supplies trendy bars like Vandell.
2. Here’s a quick look at the week ahead.
TUESDAY: Los Angeles City Council remains on summer recess, with no council meetings Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday.
WEDNESDAY: Beach Cities Democrats will host a candidate forum with Assembly District 66 candidates Paul Seo and Sara Deen (who are running to succeed Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi) and Senate District 24 candidates John Erickson and Brian Goldsmith (who are running to succeed state Sen. Ben Allen).
THURSDAY: Comic-Con opens in San Diego and runs through the weekend. Along with reveals from the Star Trek and Marvel universes, the soon-to-open Lucas Museum of Narrative Art will have a panel in Hall H with a look at upcoming museum content.
Santa Monica’s State of the City event is also Thursday, with live music and an address from Mayor Caroline Torosis.
FRIDAY: The inaugural Los Angeles Indie Book Crawl kicks off, with participation from 13 local bookstores.
SATURDAY: Christian Marclay’s The Clock (a 24-hour montage of thousands of TV and film clips, synchronized to act as a functioning timepiece) returns to L.A. for the first time since 2015. LACMA will host a 24-hour presentation beginning at 7 p.m. on Saturday.
3. A Paraguayan chef takes the crown in L.A. Material’s Culinary Cup.
Forget Spain vs. Argentina. The real international battle this weekend was the final round of L.A. Material’s Culinary Cup, which came down to a contest between Angel’s Tijuana Tacos (representing Mexico) and Sara's Empanadas (representing Paraguay).
In the end, L.A. Material readers gave Sara’s Empanadas the most votes. Sara Dominguez runs her catering business out of her Torrance home kitchen and cooks Paraguayan classics such as empanadas and vori vori, a chicken soup with cheesy corn flour dumplings. Dominguez says she's the only Paraguayan chef she knows of in Southern California.
Because Paraguayan food is so hard to find, “some people even cry when they eat because they remember, you know, their grandma or their mom’s [food] or their family,” she said.
READING MATERIAL
SAVING SUNSET: LADWP has made “significant progress” repairing the ruptured West Hollywood water main, but a portion of the Sunset Strip remains closed.
ADDING IT UP: Cinema Monkeys did the math, and Hollywood has spent roughly $600 million trying to bring Matt Damon home, across the budgets for The Odyssey, The Martian, Interstellar and Saving Private Ryan. (Speaking of The Odyssey, the release of Christopher Nolan’s star-studded adaptation finally gave Hollywood something to celebrate this weekend, with what looks to be the highest-grossing live-action debut of the year.)
PUT IT ON MY TAB: This weekend’s T Magazine looks at the revival of “house accounts” for regulars at some New York restaurants. Do you know of any L.A. restaurants that let regulars open a tab? We’d love to hear about it.
FORGET EGGS AND BACON: Over at KCRW’s Good Food, cookbook author Khushbu Shah has a tantalizing rundown of L.A.’s best international breakfasts, from the Ukrainian syrnyky at Mom, Please to Pine & Crane’s Taiwanese fan tuan.
And a special shoutout to reader Adam Perly for being one of the first subscribers to hit 15 referrals!
RAW MATERIAL
For today’s peek inside our subscriber-only Discord server, @MaxHawkins with the ego death Mazda:
AND FINALLY… A poem to pair with your morning coffee: “A Small Moment” by Cornelius Eady.
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