Hello everyone!

There was been some LCC radio silence recently but I have a fantastic reason, last week was my last spring break ever! I cannot believe that this is the last break I am going to have as a student. Graduation is looming and I really wanted to have a full week of relaxation and that’s exactly what I got!

Obviously, my mother came to LA to help me celebrate. We did our usual thing: shopping, starbucks drinking, going on long walks, eating, and (attempting) decorating.

I took the week as a FULL week off. I didn’t work out at all. I didn’t check my school email. I tried to scale back social media (successful on facebook, unsuccessful on twitter and google+ – hey a girl can try). I didn’t do any homework while my mom was here. I went to bed early and got a ton of sleep. I meal planned for after she left and took care of little things that fell by the wayside in March. It was glorious!

I didn’t blog and I didn’t take very many photos but I will share a bit of the adventures that we had (I have two recipes that are ready to go and a restaurant review pending tomorrow night, stay tuned!)

We ate at all my favorite places and some new places as well! This included: Susie Cakes, Vanilla Bake Shop, Tavern, Yummy Cup Cakes, Clementine, Father’s Office, Pizzaria Mozza, Pecorino, Huckleberry, Real Food Daily, Primativo, Farm Shop, Fig and Hungry Cat. Whew! It was a fantastic and delicious week.

Some photo highlights:

Caramel copetta with marshmallow sauce & Spanish peanuts at Mozza. Delicious! I recreated the pizza I ordered there and it will be on the blog soon!

Latte from Café Luxxe in the Brentwood Farmer’s Market.

My mom and I went on a walking tour of the secret stairs in LA. There is a book that has walking tours to follow all over the city but most of them are on the east side. We did one in Silver Lake that was mostly homes and such and one in the old Hollywoodland neighborhood (where the above photo was taken). Many old film stars lived there such as Charlie Chaplin and my Grammy’s favorite Jeanette McDonald lived. I snapped this shot of her old house JUST for her:

Nice pad Jeanette.

We also had a great view of the Hollywood sign and found a community of nuns who live in silent repose but sell pumpkin bread (random, I know).

Hey Hollywood.

Dinner at Hungry Cat was amazing! We had great service and the food was delicious. We had a smoked salmon with a salad with a Greek spin on it to start and I had a traditional New England lobster roll and it was hands down the best one I ever had. The bun was grilled and buttery, the lobster was fresh and had the perfect amount of mayonnaise and seasonings. I also had their fries with it which was great. We ended with a cheese, honey and almond plate with grilled bread. Delicious! I highly recommend. The cocktail I had was good too. It ended up being happy hour price but it would be worth the full price. It was called a Mia Farrow and had organic vodka (organic vodka confuses me but I won’t fight with it), a rosemary simple syrup and muddled orange and citrus. So good I had two!

My mom and I happened into a liquor store and found this mini sized bottle of St Germain! A must buy obviously. I used it to mix one of my favorite cocktails: st. germain, gin and tonic.

Treats at Tavern. No explanation necessary.

We also went to the Norton Simon museam in Pasadena. I ran by here recently. They have a nice selection of art and beautiful gardens. It was nice to mix it up with an art museam. I love impressionist art through early 20th century art (can I please go live in Midnight in Paris?) and they had some nice ones like this Monet:

Overall, it was a fantastic week! I’m sad that I don’t have any more spring breaks left but it was nice to have a quiet week with my mom especially with all the exciting events coming up in the next month. I’m excited to see what the next few months hold.