Malibu is Burning will be going through a major overhaul in the next month. The site will see a design revamp, a sharper niche, a focused marketing plan and much more interactive media. I look to launch the new Malibu is Burning by June 1. ...<< MORE >>

I've been a city girl all my life, and probably always will be. There's a primal urge inside me, though, that yearns to disappear from sprawling metropolises filled with people, lights and luxury commerce in favor of a slower, simpler life.

Tomorrow I will probably start to miss Hollywood and LA. But for today, especially for this morning, the sensation of waking up in complete silence—save for the early chirpings of tropical birds and the distant crow of a rooster—was irreplaceable. Here's the view of the shoreline access that's closest to our room:

        

Flying sure has changedsince I graduated college. Then, a shoestring budget, airtight flightschedules, coach, public transportation and big, bulky luggage made flyingdownright miserable. I remember too many winter and spring breaks spent shoulderto shoulder on the R1 from University City to the airport, hustling to swing mysuitcase full of dirty laundry—which typically outweighed me—off the train andonto the ice and salt-encrusted platform as a crowd bumped and pushed past,listening to stressed college kids and professors whine loudly on cell phonesin security lines that stretched from one terminal to another, then listeningto their whines rise to roars as flights were delayed or canceled. Stressedtravelers, overburdened airline staff, crappy weather, too many crying babies…what a mess.

Today’s flight was farless stressful. Granted, who flies to Hawaii on a random Wednesday in earlyMarch, but still. I checked in online and printed my boarding pass for myconnecting flight. This morning, my dad dropped my mom and I off at the VanNuys Flyaway terminal, where I was able to print my boarding pass for my firstflight for a paltry $3. Once at the airport, after a 40-minute ride on the 405,I was sitting at the gate ...<< MORE >>

This month's Los Angeles Magazine featured an article called The 64 Greatest Things in LA, an exhaustive list that featured well-known institutions and LA-isms like Pink's, the weather, palm trees, and Vin Scully. There are, however, seven points the writers missed:
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In case, as an LA resident, you've ever forgotten or lost sight of the city in which you live, I humbly submit the following not-so-gentle reminder: << MORE >>

No wonder my Google Reader has been quiet lately. Everyone in the media industry is getting fired. MediaBistro's article profiling the demise of snarky John Montorio leads with a pretty telling statistic:

Ad Age reports that the American media work force is at a 15 year low—only 886,900 employed, thanks to the slumping newspaper industry.

What's that? You mean fresh and seasoned journalists alike, with college or j-school degrees and portfolios full of hard-earned clips from unpaid internships and past gigs, don't want to work sixty to eighty hours a week, round the clock, for substandard salaries and paltry benefits so that they can be the first one to break the story of Britney's latest twilight Rite-Aid run so that in a few months' time they can be trusted to handle the really big news, like today's front page story on the weather?

You don't say.

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I've been inundated with a few other endeavors this week, but I'm still here. I've been doing a lot of thinking about food, even if I haven't necessarily been writing, through books by Anthony Bourdain and MFK Fisher. Later today and this coming week should bring the usual inspired social food commentary from yours truly.

        

Wedding season is nigh, and with every year that passes, more and more of my fellow twentysomethings are tying the knot. Many choose not to register, which makes the gift-buying experience a bit more challenging for attendees. My cousin gets married next month, and I've been looking around for an attractive gift basket that speaks to my interests of food and beverage. So far, many of the sites I've seen advertise lame baskets with bears and lavender soap. Or the wine basket with assorted random Napa slosh.
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I'm no stranger to kitchen gadgets. In my family's kitchen, we have our fair share, from Vita-Mix to Cuisinart and Riedel. I feel fairly confident that I could be handed a recipe for nearly any food in the world and be able to drive to my parent's house and make the dish without going out to buy a tool or appliance.
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