ShopEatSleep

Valerie Confections SUPER CHOC-O-FOOD

Still scrambling for holiday gifts? If you’re shopping for people who like food, or should like good food, then look no further than these L.A. options:

Valerie Confections: While Valerie Gordon is know for her toffees and cute-as-a-button petit fours, an interesting gift would be the SUPER CHOCO-O-FOOD, a huge block of milk chocolate with a hint of caramel loaded with dried pears, apricots, golden raisins, macadamia nuts, cashews, almonds, sunflower seeds and peanuts. The packaging comes from Commune Design, and each color (pink, violet, aqua) corresponds to part of a triptych image found under the label. Valerie now also has teas blended by the American Tea Room just for the shop, including the Black & Blue, which was inspired by her Black & Blue jam and contains black tea from Nilgiri, blackberries, black currants, blueberries and blackberry leaves.

Kiss My Bundt Baking Academy: Chef Chrysta Wilson of Kiss My Bundt, formerly on West Third Street, is now teaching baking classes at Surfas in Culver City. The first class will be on January 15 and will focus on baking with winter citrus. And if you purchase a spot in this class before December 24, you’ll get 20 percent off. If you’ve ever had Wilson’s bundt cakes, you know they’re a treat.

Monsieur Marcel at the Original Farmers Market at Third and Fairfax: This gourmet foods store has all kinds of delicious treats, including European chocolates, fancy vinegars and oils, flavored salts, cheeses, wine and all kinds of fun stuff. This place will have lots of variety, so you’re sure to find something for the gourmand on your lift.

Red velvet Baby Bundt. Photo courtesy of e*starLA.

My favorite bakery Kiss My Bundt is in dire need of some cold, hard cash. Owner Chrysta Wilson is asking, for the second time, for help from the L.A. cake-loving community so she can keep her doors open. Kiss My Bundt needs to sell 150 Big Ol’ Bundts (those are regular-size bundt cakes), which retail for $32, by Jan. 31 or else the store on W. Third Street will have to close. The bakery is behind on rent due to the craptastic economy, which as well all know has forced many a beloved store to shut its doors. Wilson asked for help back in November, too, which raised a bunch of money but not enough to pay the bills.

So go over to the store and buy a Big Ol’ Bundt, or buy the equivalent in Mini Bundts ($2.50 each) or Baby Bundts ($4.50 each) for your friends, family or co-workers. The menu has something for everyone, from red velvet to maple bacon, and the cakes are perfectly moist, something that I can’t say about some of the cupcake stores out there. I recommend the pumpkin spice with the cinnamon spice glaze (I prefer glazes instead of frosting, but that’s good, too), the Luscious Lemon Drop, and the chocolate banana. My finance, Rory, likes the German chocolate, and this says a lot because he is not a sweets person!

Kiss My Bundt Bakery
8104 West Third Street (at Crescent Heights Blvd.)
Los Angeles, CA 90048

Broccolini bruschetta with kimchi (left) and smoky eggplant caviar hummus (right). From Hungry Hungry Hanh.

West Third Street’s BreadBar‘s Chef Noriyuki Sugie (that’s Chef Nori to you) has teamed up with author Kim Barnouin to create recipes for the upcoming “Skinny Bitch: The Cookbook,” and you can have first crack at those recipes. Starting tomorrow, BreadBar will be offering special vegan dishes and meals that are being considered for the cookbook.

The “Vegan Greetings” menu will be offered from Wednesday, Dec. 9, through Saturday, Dec. 12 and again from Wednesday, Dec. 16, through Saturday, Dec. 19 for dinner only. Chef Nori will extend the event to Dec. 20 and 21 if there are enough additional reservation requests. You’ll be able to order à la carte (dishes will range from $8 to $15 each) or as a four-course prix fixe menu for $25.

No word on what’s actually on the menu, but Barnouin and Chef Nori have teamed up before, so maybe the dishes will be similar.

UPDATE: Expect to see dishes such as fried tofu with seaweed salad and white sesame sauce, salad pizza with garnishes changing daily, and lentil tacos in a corn tortilla with avocado, salsa and fresh cilantro.

These clutches are going for less than $200.

I stopped by the Rebecca Minkoff sample sale on West Third Street last night and snapped some pics so you can pre-shop here. I saw prices ranging from $22 (for a small wallet I couldn’t actually find) to upwards of $400. There were also LnA clothes on sale, including $20 T-shirts and $45 long sleeve tees with a front zipper pocket.

Keep Reading

I love Spacecraft's light fixture!

Last week the folks over at Spacecraft, the architectural design firm based in Hollywood responsible for many of Tinseltown’s hippest bars and restaurants, threw a party at their offices because…well, just because. When you have a fully stocked bar in your office, why not throw a party?

Keep Reading

Blogger Shop Day at Space 15 Twenty

I haven’t been out for a day of wandering and shopping (well, window shopping!) in ages, so when I saw there were some interesting events happening over the weekend, I recruited Esther of e*starLA to check them out with me.

Keep Reading

Farmers Market. From Rosebud_03 (flickr).

Ever wondered about the inner workings of some of your favorite restaurants in the Farmers Market at Third and Fairfax or along West Third Street? If you take a walking food tour with Melting Pot Food Tours, owners and guides Lisa and Diane Scalia will give you the low down. And now the ladies have expanded their walking tour business into Old Pasadena.

Keep Reading

Empty Stores on West Third Street. Photo from WWD.

Women’s Wear Daily has a story on the increasing number of boutique and specialty retail store closings around Los Angeles, with Robertson Boulevard, Melrose Place, Montana Avenue and West Third Street taking the hardest hits. I covered this for the LA Business Journal back in March when more than 30 storefronts were either empty or in the process of closing up shop. Other parts of the city have been affected as well, including Venice’s Abbot Kinney Boulevard, and a drive down Pico Boulevard between Robertson and La Cienega boulevards yesterday revealed some new empty retail spaces that I hadn’t noticed before.

But not all parts of the city are losing places to shop: Malibu Lumber Yard, the new swanky retail center next to the Malibu Country Mart, just opened last weekend. Good idea or bad idea? Time will tell, but in the meantime, head over to the Lumber Yard for free Crumbs cupcakes on Saturday (April 25). They’re giving out 1,000 freebies starting at 9:00 a.m., per EaterLA.

• More coverage at RackedLA