When God Gives You Plums

08 Jul 2013 7 Comments

by scolgin in Recipes Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Or rather, when your neighbor Glennis — who is godlike in her own ways — gives you plums…

About this time every year, we get the call from next door. “The plums are ready!” The kids and I head over and wind our way down into the Watermans’ terraced backyard, where sure enough the plum tree is overloaded with beautiful purple plums. And we gather and gather and gather.

Plums as far as the eye can see.

Plums as far as the eye can see.

Unlike, say, a tomato plant which may continue giving you tomatoes throughout the season, a plum tree comes full and ready all at once. If you get a week, you’re lucky — especially with the incursion of various lean and hungry summer critters. More

Shirley’s Mint & Chip

02 Jul 2013 13 Comments

by scolgin in Food, Recipes Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Shirley in her kitchen

Shirley in her kitchen

I was at the doctor recently for my annual check up.

“Your diastolic reading is a little borderline high,” she said. “Do you eat a lot of salt?”

“Not really,” I said. “I don’t eat much processed food.” More

The Truest Meaning of ‘Local’

28 Jun 2013 11 Comments

by scolgin in Food, Humor, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories), Video Tags: , , , , , , ,

There are always interesting things happening in the canyon.

A hot, lazy Southern California afternoon. As I was driving my kids on a winding country road through horse ranches and chaparral the other day, I got a text from my friend Dan:

“Yo bro. Just got a big ol rattler. You want some slither wid yo dinner?”

Daniel with his prize

Daniel with his prize

Rattlesnakes are pretty common up here, and I’ll often see one or two a year. In some of the hotter parts of the canyon, people may see one or two a day. More

Hippies in Paradise

17 May 2013 35 Comments

by scolgin in Food, Humor, Observations Tags: , , , , , , , ,

As my artist pal Daniel used to say, affecting his best Southern cop twang, “We got a hippy problem.”

Topanga Canyon was ground zero for hippies in the 1960s, and it never quite shed the mantle. Back then, the Manson family was camped out in their psychedelic bus down at the Rodeo Grounds, Neil Young was couch surfing and Gram Parsons and Bernie Leadon twanged out new songs while Jim Morrison “let it roll, baby, roll” up at The Corral roadhouse (yes, that roadhouse).

Hippies having fun

Hippies having fun

Today, the canyon much like Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco is more of a destination attraction for young hippies, the way affluent yoga students travel to Mysore, India, to pretend they like being ogled by old gurus. You see them walking barefoot and braless along the boulevard, guitars slung over the shoulders, sipping their chai teas and smiling a lot. Sometimes they even still hitchhike and carry signs like “Make love, not war.” More

Considering the Acorn

07 May 2013 6 Comments

by scolgin in Food, Humor, Observations Tags: , , , , , , , ,

“Supposed to be a funeral. It’s been a bad, bad day.”
                         -Gram Parsons

The other day, my wife and I had a bad, bad day. She got stressed out about a proposal we were supposed to be sending out. Then she fell on the precarious stone pathway that leads down to the office. The mood devolved from there — she didn’t like our business, our house, the pathway to the office, the chickens or me. So I didn’t like her back.

Acorn woodpecker

Acorn woodpecker

It passed, things went back to normal. And I was sitting at my computer working on a project when I was distracted as I often am by movement in the trees outside. It was one of my favorite birds — the brilliantly red-crowned acorn woodpecker, hopping up the stout trunk of a towering oak. And I was reminded of how fortunate we are to live here amidst all this wild western beauty. Something I wish we could remember on those bad days. More

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