Arroyo June 2021

June 2021

Fine living in the greater Pasadena area

Summer Fun PASADENA IS KICKING OPEN THE DOORS

+ 'IN THE HEIGHTS'

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arroyo

VOLUME 17 | NUMBER 6 | JUNE 2021

06 06 SUMMER FUN

Pasadena is kicking open the doors —By Rohit Lakshman

10 ‘YEAR OF WONDERS’

Art exhibit grows out of local protest work —By Bridgette M. Redman

12 ADVENTURES AWAIT VIA ONTARIO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

A guide to some of the quick trips provided by Ontario —By Christina Fuoco-Karasinski

14 POP-UP KING HOLDS COURT

Chef Laurent ‘LQ’ Quenioux fights fierce competition —By Frier McCollister

26 ENJOYING SUMMER BLOOMS

Pasadena Showcase event explores La Cañada Flintridge’s color —By Christina Fuoco-Karasinski

28 ASPIRING TO NEW ‘HEIGHTS’

Emotional, upbeat film recalls old Hollywood —By Christina Fuoco-Karasinski

30 RISING STAR

Pasadena’s Ella Beyer brings ’70s style to third single —By Christina Fuoco-Karasinski

32 RETRACING HISTORY

Lisa See’s donation shares moments of Chinese American culture in California —By Andrew Checchia

34 VIRTUALLY VROMAN’S

Bookstore boasts stellar lineup for June —By Christina Fuoco-Karasinski

36 SIERRA SUMMER CONCERT SERIES

Pasadena Pops returning to the Arboretum —By Arroyo Monthly Staff

DEPARTMENTS 22 24

CULINARY CUPBOARD Recreating Summer Memories COCKTAILS Port of Jamaica

arroyo

fine living in the greater pasadena area

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Christina Fuoco-Karasinski ART DIRECTOR Stephanie Torres CONTRIBUTORS Emily Chavez, Andrew Checchia, Rohit Lakshman, Frier McCollister, Bridgette M. Redman PHOTOGRAPHER Luis Chavez ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Lisa Chase, Catherine Holloway, Michael Lamb OFFICE MANAGER Ann Turrietta

TIMES MEDIA GROUP PRESIDENT Steve Strickbine V.P. OF OPERATIONS Michael Hiatt ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Zac Reynolds CONTACT US EDITORIAL christina@timespublications.com PHONE (626) 584-1500 FAX (626) 795-0149 MAILING ADDRESS PO Box 1349, South Pasadena, CA 91031 ArroyoMonthly.com ©2021 Times Media Group All rights reserved.

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SUMMER FUN Gamble House

Summer Fun

PASADENA IS KICKING OPEN THE DOORS

BY ROHIT LAKSHMAN

W

ith restrictions lifting daily, notable organizations are beginning to open their doors. It’s been an arduous time, but families can rest assured that there’s plenty to do in Pasadena — still.

Lanterman House Outside-In Tour 4420 Encinas Drive With an updated safety policy, The Lanterman House has “outside-in” tours with docents of the Arts & Crafts historic house. Established in 1990, the Lanterman Historical Museum Foundation has worked hard to encourage Pasadeneans to dive into the city’s history. The tours are $3 to $5.

Reserve tickets at lantermanhouse.org.

Available tour times are: • Tuesdays, 1 to 4 p.m. and 5 to 7 p.m.

• Thursdays, 1 to 4 p.m. and 5 to 7 p.m.

• The first and third Sundays of every month, 1 to 4 p.m.

Gamble House Exterior Tour 4 Westmoreland Place Like the Lanterman House, the Gamble House is open for tours of the home’s exterior. Built in 1908 for David and Mary Gamble as a retirement home, the house has been run by Pasadena since 1966. Today, it stands as a classic example of the nature-inspired Craftsman style of home, as well as a landmark of Pasadena.

Tickets are $15 and can be reserved at gamblehouse.org Available tour times are: • Thursdays, 2 p.m. and 3:15 p.m.

• Sundays, 2 p.m. and 3:15 p.m.

Old Pasadena commUNITY Dining Big Bang Theory Way With indoor dining restricted in California, the city of Pasadena has stepped in to make sure guests still have places to congregate for food. On

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Big Bang Theory Way, look for the orange umbrellas to eat at tables that are socially distanced and sanitized often. Open for service nearly all day, these tables provide a place for customers to enjoy the food of almost 200 different restaurants, all while on one of Pasadena’s signature streets. With atmospheric lighting hung along each side of Big Bang Theory Way, plus dozens of wonderful restaurants to choose from, commUNITY dining is a perfect way to spend time in this part of the city.

Available time to dine are: • 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Summer Art Classes at the Armory 145 N. Raymond Avenue The Armory is back. With an array of summer classes for adults, teens and children, the Armory returns to business as usual, lifting the creative spirits of area residents. For adults, the Armory offers a standard array of introductory classes, but for the more experienced amateur painter, classes such as “Exploring the Cyanotype Process: Blue and White Cameraless Photography” as well as “Latin American Art and Portraiture by Women Artists” provide interesting dives into specific visual arts. For teens and children, an array of visual arts as well as creative writing classes are available during the months June through August. Lastly, some classes are available for whole family, such as “Art for Two: Painting Stories,” which incorporates common household items like Q-tips, salt, straws and tape into the curriculum.

Times and prices may vary; information on enrollment can be found at armoryarts.org.

FilmWeek & Chill: “Airplane!”

Virtual Event Despite restrictions, FilmWeek with KPCC continues. On June 3, FilmWeek’s cinematic comedy masterpiece of choice is the 1980 parody film “Airplane!” Like a virtual book club, Larry Mantle invites guests to watch “Airplane!” and then join him and a panel including co-directors of the film and film critics for a discussion. With pay-what-you-want tickets, a panel of qualified guests and a hilarious film to pick apart, there is no reason not to join fellow KPCC listeners in a discussion of one of the 1980s’ funniest movies.

Info: https://bit.ly/3hxB7Ll The Bunny Museum 2605 Lake Avenue Since 1998, one of Altadena’s best and strangest museums has been showing guests the beautiful and off-putting beauty of bunnies. This wonderful little museum has more than 40,000 bunny objects, and all of them are on display. The mission statement of the Bunny Museum can be found on its website: “Bunnies aren’t just special for Easter. Bunnies are a part of our everyday lives from literature to film to advertising to slang.”

Along with the floor-to-ceiling presentation of the bunny items, there are items for sale in the Hop and Stop gift shop, and for intrepid explorers 13 or older, the Chamber of Hop Horrors awaits, a walk-through exhibition of the abuse bunnies have experienced throughout time. Open for business at 50% capacity, the Bunny Museum offers an interesting and unique experience for museumgoers looking for an unorthodox but fascinating experience.

Tickets are available at the door, with adult tickets being $12, seniors and military being $10, children 5 and older being $8, and children younger than 5 being free.

Pacific Asia Museum 46 N. Robles Avenue For most of the quarantine, the Pacific Asia Museum had its doors closed. However, to celebrate its 50th anniversary, its doors are bursting open with a summer full of new exhibitions. Along with its vast art collec-

Kidspace Children’s Museum

tion, the museum is housing new exhibitions. First, Nick Dong presents a sorrowful tribute to the lives lost to COVID-19 and the increased hatred toward Asian Americans during the pandemic. Through the medium of Buddhist traditions, Dong presents to museumgoers “Divine Immersion,” a collection of art meant to heal after such a long and difficult year. Then, diving further back into the annals of Asian history, the museum presents “Crossroads: Exploring the Silk Road,” an exhibit focusing on the legendary trade route and, in particular, Dunhuang, an important point of cultural diffusion between hundreds of traditions. Beginning May 29, art lovers can once again return to one of the most dazzling museums in the city.

Tickets can be purchased at uscpanticketing.as.me/schedule/php.

The Norton Simon Museum 411 W. Colorado Boulevard Like the Pacific Asia Museum, the Norton Simon is finally opening its doors after a long period of quarantine. The Norton Simon is one for those who appreciate fine art, and with two year-long exhibitions, there is a lot happening with the newly reopened museum. In the museum’s collection of impressionist art from the 19th century, a new piece is on loan from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art: Paul Gaugain’s 1888 painting “The Swineherd.” As well as that, an exciting exhibition of abstract photography is available for perusal by museumgoers in “Beyond the World We Know: Abstraction in Photography.” Tickets can be purchased at nortonsimon.org.

Kidspace Children’s Museum 480 N. Arroyo Boulevard The Kidspace Children’s Museum is a family-friendly museum experience that aims to engage Pasadena’s kids in fun creative activities.

It is truly a perfect time for the Kidspace Children’s Museum to reopen— just in time for butterfly season. Every summer for the past 25 years, the museum has opened a 3.5-acre outdoor campus to the public. From trike courses to caterpillar hunts, Butterfly Season is a fun time for any curious kid. The museum offers hours of entertainment, from crawling around in a giant hawk’s nest to rockets and giant levers. For tickets, visit kidspacemuseum.org.

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SUMMER FUN

‘YEAR OF WONDERS’ ART EXHIBIT GROWS OUT OF LOCAL PROTEST WORK

or Elana Mann, her artwork and civic duties cannot be separated.

Last summer, she co-founded — with Phung Huynh, Will Hoadley-Brill and Stefani Williams — the Anti-Racism Committee (ARC) of South Pasadena.

She also continues to make folk instruments of protest, some of which are on display through July 2 at Santa Monica’s 18th Street Arts Center in an exhibition called “A Year of Wonders, Redux.” It features sonic sculptures, a video, and works on paper. They have commonalities — they connect people and amplify voices of protest.

“My artwork and my community organizing are intrinsically linked,” Mann says.

“I can’t separate them. Sometimes they are combined into one project; sometimes they are on parallel tracks.”

Mann began creating sono-sculptures in 2014, delving into works related to the time period in which they are made. For this production, Mann focused on politics, the pandemic and passionate social movements.

“The body of work that is at 18th Street really comes out of the past year of the rise in protest movements, BLM and getting involved in antiracism work locally in my hometown of Pasadena,” Mann says.

Activism in South Pasadena The grassroots ARC tries to heal the deep wounds of systemic racism in Pasadena. The 70-some members work toward racial justice in government policy, public safety, education, housing, art and community services.

Last year, their activities included hosting a community listening session with the South Pasadena Police Department, supporting local antiracist arts initiatives — including a Black Lives Matter mural to be painted on city hall — and successfully pushing for an investigation of the police chief.

This year, the group worked on multiple citywide projects, including anti-racist lawn signs, a city council acknowledgement of South Pasadena’s racist past through a “Sundown Town” resolution, pressuring the city to hire a new anti-racist city manager and police chief and sponsoring volunteer events that assist the homeless.

ARC is planning a vigil to commemorate the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s murder. They’ll continue their call for greater racial equity in the schools.

Developing an artistic persona Mann says her work began with the act of listening, a theme that is infused in her pieces. It started with a deep immersion in oral traditions as a Jew. “I grew up in a very observant household, and Judaism is an oral culture,” Mann says. “The most important prayer starts with the word ‘listen.’

There’s even rules against visual representation. So much of my childhood was sonically oriented, not visual.”

As she developed her skills as a young artist, she mixed performance ideas into her work. Through natural evolution, she incorporated her background and interests.

Her sculptures about the art of listening led her to antique listening objects and old-school cheerleader megaphones.

“They are also listening devices,” Mann says. “You can receive sound through them. They amplify sound, and before there were electronic hearing devices, there were ear horns that were megaphone shaped. I was researching that and making art about that. Then I realized these can also amplify sound if I speak through them. I started making these modified megaphones and then just branching out to other kinds of instruments that could be used. It was a many-year evolution.”

Her instruments have been used in operas and by nationally and internationally recognized musicians. However, she ensures they are simple

The six-person sculpture is a playable instrument based on Charles Chase’s Mega-kazoo-horn from Claremont, California.

enough that anyone can use them even if they are not a trained musician.

“I’m not going to make something that I can’t play myself,” Mann says. “They’re all very easy to use, but a musician can use them in a different way than say I could use them — just like a trained singer could use the megaphone in a way that I could never do — but I can bring my instruments to a street protest or a demonstration and use them, and they’re really effective in that way.”

Her works are shown in museums, galleries and public spaces around the world. In 2020, she was a city of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellow, and in the fall, she was a 2020 International Artist-in-Residence at Artspace San Antonio.

Pairing folk music traditions with protest Since the exhibit’s opening, Mann has been working on a new project called “Let Suffering Speak.” It is derived from folk music traditions that are tied to histories of resistance and liberation.

“In 2018, I began to research folk instruments along with folk music traditions and their connections to political struggles,” Mann says.

“I discovered a homemade six-person protest horn in Claremont, California, interviewed a craftsman of a Turkish folk instrument called the ‘saz,’ and researched ‘Rara,’ music associated with the Haitian revolution.”

She plans to further develop this line of inquiry, all a part of encouraging the act of radical listening and emboldening voices to speak up and speak out against injustice.

This work is not new for her. In 2017, in connection with the Women’s March, she began a street performance troupe called Take a Stand Marching Band.

“The project involves a revolving coalition of people who play my sculptural instruments, bringing creativity to the intense and often draining work of street demonstrations,” Mann says.

The project’s sculptures have been shown in multiple solo and group exhibitions. Musicians have used them on stage.

Huge horn stresses communal speech Dominating the sonic sculpture exhibition at 18th Street are the sculptural folk instruments. They include “Our Work is Never Done (Unfinished Business),” which is modeled on the “Mega-kazoo-horn” that legendary folk music figure Charles Chase made based on an instrument his grandfather, a folk musician and communist, took to Claremont protests in the ’70s.

“I was inspired and made this six-person protest horn that amplifies six different voices,” Mann says. “It’s in two parts so it is easy to transport, it is very light, made of fiberglass. It could be brought very easily

Photo courtesy of the 18th Street Gallery

F

BY BRIDGETTE M. REDMAN

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Photo courtesy of the 18th Street Gallery

Each maraca has a unique message and sound. Elana Mann designed them to be used at protests.

to a protest space, and six people have to agree on what they’re going to say and what their message is going to be — or if they’re all going to be shouting at the same time and not be heard.”

Maracas fill protest spaces with sound Surrounding the horn on the walls are rattles or maracas, titled “Unidentified Bright Object 11-60.” They are part of Mann’s ongoing series.

The display carries 49 of the 60- to 70-piece collection.

With individually turned wood handles and heads made of cast ceramic, she finds different things to fill the hollow tops including glass, metal, wood and plastic.

Each rattle carries verbiage, such as “Truth,” “Say His Name,” “Say Her Name,” “Stop” “Rage,” “Justice” or “Equity.” Because they are so lightweight, they are designed to be used at protests. They are also COVID-19-friendly.

“For COVID time, the maracas are great because you don’t have to worry about using your voice or breathing in other people’s air,” Mann says. “You can just use touch and wash your hands afterward.”

They create a diverse sound at protests and encourage attendees.

“I’m a mom with two kids. If I’m going to a protest, I don’t have time to make a custom sign, so I can just stick these in my bag and they’re really loud,” Mann says.

“They create another kind of sound and space in a protest arena, where sometimes the sounds are people wanting to be louder to make their voice heard, sometimes they’re trying to drown out sounds — sometimes there are oppressive noises of helicopters or police. This is supposed to bring celebration and joy to the protest space. People really respond. It adds play and pleasure to these kinds of spaces. Also, if you don’t want to shout or you don’t know what to say, you can shake the maraca.”

“Year of Wonders, Redux” WHEN: Various times through July 2 WHERE: 18th Street Art Center, Airport Gallery, 1639 18th Street, Santa Monica COST: Free; appointments required INFO: 18thstreet.org

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SUMMER FUN

Ontario International Airport

Phoenix Musical Instrument Museum

ADVENTURES AWAIT VIA ONTARIO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT A GUIDE TO SOME OF THE QUICK TRIPS PROVIDED BY ONTARIO

BY CHRISTINA FUOCO-KARASINSKI

S

ummer fun needn’t stop at the California state lines. Ontario International Airport Southern California offers daily flights to a host of fun spots, including Phoenix, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Dallas-Fort Worth, Las Vegas and Honolulu.

With seven daily flights, Phoenix is a quick jump from the airport. Fans can hang out at Chase Field when the Dodgers take on the Diamondbacks; hike Camelback Mountain (with plenty of water and early in the morning, naturally); imbibe in wine around Scottsdale; or take a day trip to the red

rocks of Sedona with the Pink Jeep Tours.

There are a few secret spots as well, like the restaurant Durant’s (probably the best steakhouse ever); The Wigwam resort in Litchfield Park (a treat for the mind and body with an Aveda spa and tremendous golfing); the Desert Botanical Garden; the Queen Creek Olive Mill and Salt River Tubing. Dare we say more?

Sure, why not. The Musical Instrument Museum, or, if you’re cool, “The MIM,” should be atop everyone’s list. Developed by Target’s then-CEO Bob Ulrich, the Musical Instrument Museum has a performance hall with perfect sound, instruments from a wealth of countries by continent, and a few laughs.

Check out the air guitar contest attraction.

Seattle is also seven daily flights from Ontario. The gorgeous Pacific Northwest region offers seafood cuisine, culture (more than grunge) and, of course, coffee.

With just a snap of the fingers, travelers can head to the Space Needle, Pike Place Market, Puget Sound, Chihuly Garden or Pioneer Square, just a few of the must-see stops in Seattle.

Ontario International Airport recently saw welcoming news regarding Hawaii.

In April, Hawaii Gov. David Y. Ige said travelers from Ontario International Airport could bypass the Aloha State’s mandatory 10-day quarantine with a negative COVID-19 test performed by a “trusting” testing partner.

Ontario was the first airport in Southern California to earn the designation from that state’s department of health.

Travelers can choose from two options — an expedited PCR test with next-day results or a rapid molecular NAAT test that provides results within an hour. The tests must be administered within 72 hours of departure from Ontario.

Ontario’s local testing partner is the COVID-19 clinic that offers drivethru testing in parking lot three daily from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. The ONT site, open since November, offers tests by appointment and on a drive-up basis.

Recently, Hawaiian Airlines began nonstop service from Ontario to Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International Airport five times a week.

The majestic beauty of Salt Lake City is attainable through Ontario airport via five daily flights. According to Visit Salt Lake, the city’s highlights go beyond bar hopping, which is nonetheless fun.

In 2002, Salt Lake hosted the Olympic Winter Games, and sports fans can tour the attractions and facilities related to it. Only a 20-minute drive from SLC proper, Utah Olympic Park features training facilities for moguls and freestyle aerials, as well as a terrain park and boarder-cross course where visitors can watch everyone from young kids to next-generation Olympic athletes hone their skills.

Beyond that, check out the primo movie theaters, historic sites and, of course, the Great Salt Lake.

Dallas-Fort Worth is, well, worthy of a trip. With five daily flights, Dallas-Fort Worth is full of fun. According to Visit Fort Worth, travelers can see priceless masterpieces in the world-renowned Cultural District, Western heritage in the Stockyards National Historic District, shop and dine in the 35-block Sundance Square, chow down on barbecue and Tex-Mex, and check out more than 7,000 animals at the top-ranked Fort Worth Zoo. Dallas is filled with hidden gems as well. Visit Dallas is here to help.

The center can provide itineraries for family vacations, budget travelers and freebies. Then there’s America’s Team. Cheer on the Dallas Cowboys with special game packages.

Las Vegas isn’t last on anyone’s list, but here we go. The lights of Sin City have turned back on. Entertainers like the talented Usher, the alt-rock legend Morrissey, the upbeat yet seductive Bruno Mars and the delightful Katy Perry are among those who have scheduled residencies.

Debbie Gibson and Joey McIntyre recently booked gigs at the Venetian Resort Las Vegas for a limited run late this summer.

And restaurants go beyond buffets. World-class eateries took a gamble on Vegas, turning it into a foodie town.

So, pack your bags, head to Ontario International Airport Southern California and depart on a safe adventure.

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DINING

Pop-Up

KING HOLDS COURT CHEF LAURENT ‘LQ’ QUENIOUX FIGHTS FIERCE COMPETITION

f there is a classically trained, fine dining chef in Los Angeles who was best positioned to weather the turbulent exigencies and uncertainties of the pandemic, it is chef Laurent Quenioux.

A native of the Loire Valley’s Sologne, Quenioux has been pivoting masterfully since he arrived in Los Angeles in 1981.

Quenioux has had a successful run since moving to LA — the 7th Street Bistro in Downtown Los Angeles opened in 1983; the small and eccentric Bistro K in South Pasadena; and the lauded Bistro LQ, which closed in 2013. He anticipates tastes and trends without sacrificing quality or his vision of French cuisine with a fresh California spin on it.

Upon closing Bistro LQ, Quenioux collaborated with the Downtown LA underground supper club Starry Kitchen. That inspired him to host elaborate multicourse prix fixe dinners on the weekends at his Highland Park home.

Food & Wine magazine took notice, as did LA’s burgeoning foodie culture, resulting in a sustained and successful five-year run. Ultimately and ironically, a victim of Highland Park’s hipster-fueled gentrification, Quenioux was forced to vacate his home there shortly before the pandemic. He landed on a verdant, capacious estate in Corona, where he began to host dinners again.

Quenioux laughs at the idea that he invented the “pop-up restaurant.”

“I am known to be the king of pop-ups, the longest-running pop-up in LA,” he says. With radically reduced overhead costs, the model allows him to present haute cuisine with high-quality ingredients, at far more reasonable price points than a typical fine dining restaurant.

“It’s not a business model for everyone,” he says. “Most of the people just want to do those pop-ups to try to find the financing to open a restaurant. We are going backward. We’ve done the restaurants way too many times. Pop-ups are a better version for us. We’re going backward. We’ve done the restaurants. We don’t want to go back.”

Still, for all his astute nimbleness, Quenioux struggled during the last year, and it was underscored with personal pain.

“At the beginning, there was a lot of support, but it’s been challenging,” he recalls. “The competition became fierce. I don’t expect people to eat our food every single day. There were a lot of (options) out there.”

Quenioux’s initial pandemic pivot was further challenged when his mother died in Paris in April 2020 from COVID-19 complications. Unable to travel, Quenioux saw his stress compound.

“I am trying to go (to France) in September for a family reunion,” he notes.

Popular pandemic eating habits and trends toward fast, casual comfort food further complicated his progress. Don’t get Quenioux started on the current, local viral craze for fried chicken and its variant strains.

“Now we’re really trying to fight to get our place back in fine dining through a pop-up,” he says, adding that younger people crave junk food.

“Now, fine dining is back, but we have to fight for it again. I don’t know what it is with that damned fried chicken,” Quenioux muses.

Quenioux notes the time, effort and expense of sourcing his products and ingredients.

“I think what is the most difficult for us to deal with (is) we work so hard to get the best ingredients and we pay top dollar for good ingredients,” he says.

“But it seems people don’t care. They are going to eat that fried chicken, and they don’t know where that chicken comes from. People don’t care. They just eat fried chicken. That is the hardest part for us.”

Chef Laurent Quenioux

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Photo by Luis Chavez

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LQ Fooding @ Ma Maison 2.0 Underground Supper Club bistrolq.com

CHOCOLATE CROISSANT BREAD PUDDING Ingredients 2 cups milk 1 1/4 cups heavy cream 1 vanilla bean, split and seeded 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped (optional) 1/2 cup sugar 5 eggs Pinch of salt

5-day-old croissants, cut into 1-inch pieces 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, cut into 1/2-inch pieces caramel sauce for serving lightly sweetened whipped cream for serving

Method Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly butter a 2-quart oval au gratin dish.

Pour the milk and cream into a heavy saucepan. Add the vanilla seeds and bean halves to the milk mixture. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Remove from the heat, cover, and let stand for 30 minutes.

Return the saucepan to medium-high heat and bring to a simmer.

Remove from the heat and whisk in the 5 ounces finely chopped chocolate until smooth.

In a heatproof bowl, whisk together the sugar, eggs and salt until blended. Form a kitchen towel into a ring and place the bowl on top to prevent it from moving. Gradually pour the hot chocolate mixture into the egg mixture, whisking constantly. Pour the mixture through a finemesh sieve set over a large bowl. Add the croissants and stir to combine.

Let stand for 20 minutes, occasionally pressing the croissants into the custard.

Stir 3 ounces of the chopped chocolate into the croissant mixture and transfer to the prepared dish. Sprinkle the remaining chopped chocolate on top. Bake until a knife inserted near the center of the pudding comes out almost clean, 40 to 45 minutes.

Photo by Luis Chavez

In May, Quenioux was still offering five-course boxed meals for delivery at $59 on select weekends. Meanwhile, he had already launched his first outdoor seating in Corona under the banner “LQ Fooding @ Ma Maison 2.0, Underground Supper Club.”

There are more planned in June, including a satellite experiment in Montecito Heights.

“There will be a few in June here (in Corona),” he explains.

“On June 26, it will be in Montecito Heights. It will be one of our new Los Angeles locations, near Pasadena and South Pas. But that location will not be as elaborate as what we are doing here. It will be much more simple, a three-course meal with wine and more fun, limited to 12 (diners) and a beautiful view of the city. It’s outside.”

The location is the urban farming operation Rose Hill Farm. With its limited indoor access, the location features a grill and outdoor pizza oven. The plan is for a more modest and informal three-course presentation.

“We won’t be able to do what we usually do, but it will be fun,” he says.

The next announced meeting of the Underground Supper Club in Corona is June 19. The sample menu, subject to change, demonstrates the depth of Quenioux’s artistry.

Starting with an amuse bouche of uni flan with pickled shiso leaves, the first course is a spring vegetable tart with white asparagus, radish, carrots, baby leeks and turnips. The tart is accompanied by a fresh herb coulis of estragon, mint, coriander and parsley grown in Quenioux’s own garden.

The second course: frog legs with caviar de sologne, mashed fingerlings with crème fraiche and a green garlic, ramp emulsion.

That is followed by smoked haddock with cauliflower espuma and sautéed apple.

The fourth course features softshell crab with bacon in fish sauce and fermented chili paste, served with English peas and fava beans, garnished with makrut limes.

Squab and crawfish in a red bell pepper, ginger lime emulsion with fresh morels is the fifth course.

An optional cheese course, at an additional charge, is next, followed by dessert. Dessert is chocolate cremeux, served with chocolate sorbet and honey, with a cocoa nib lace tuile. Wine pairing with each course is also available at an additional charge. The price is $85 per person for dinner.

Regarding the optional cheese trolley, Quenioux is known as an expert connoisseur of French cheese and has developed a productive import channel with a cheese monger, identified simply as Sophie.

Also available for delivery online, Quenioux’s curated cheeses are selections not easily found elsewhere. He sighed audibly when asked about it.

“I’m getting so tired,” he says. “We bring our own cheeses from France.

They’re not pasteurized. It’s so expensive. It takes so much in logistics. Then you guys write an article about cheese in the city, and I know all these restaurants and they all buy the same crappy cheese from the same distributor. It’s been such hard work to build the infrastructure, to make it efficient, to be able to sell it.”

With pandemic restrictions possibly lifting entirely in June, a gastronomic adventure to Corona may reinvigorate the public’s fine-dining sensibilities.

“The setting is incredible; the service is incredible,” Quenioux asserts. “We need to fight back for our (fine dining) space. People will have a phenomenal experience at prices that nobody can beat.

“We’re actually looking for a new Pasadena location as well. We want to do maybe twice here (in Corona) a month, one in Montecito and maybe one in Pasadena, to do four weekends a month. Pasadena is different. I love Pasadena.

It’s a different crowd. The future is more east.”

Make no mistake, Quenioux is an Arroyo fan. “Eagle Rock, Pasadena, Monrovia, Arcadia — this is the area that I love. For me, Los Angeles is that area. It’s the best that Los Angeles has to offer.”

To punctuate that point, Quenioux was persuaded to give up his recipe for chocolate croissant bread pudding for the delectation of Arroyo Monthly readers.

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5 REASONS TO DO “INSIDE OUT PRUNING” Bringing out your hedge trimmer can be an easy, fast way to turn your plants from shabby to shapely. After a few effortless swings, the job is largely done. But we’ve all seen that stiff, unnatural, exterior of dense, tightly packed leaves with dead dry interior as a result. At Garden View, our maintenance teams use trimmers to efficiently remove plant material - but instead of solely relying on hedge trimmers, our team has perfected the strategy of utilizing what we’ve coined as, “The Inside-Out Method.”

Start by reaching inside the plant and, using a hand pruner, snip a small branch with leaves on it back to a lateral branch. Repeat the same process every 6 to 9 inches balanced throughout the shrub to create small openings in the dense exterior so that light can reach into the interior. New growth will start to sprout from inside the plant. Depending on the shrub and your needs, you may want to do this as often as every third pruning.

Here are our Top 5 benefits of Inside-Out pruning: 1. Less work - Plants that have been inside-out pruned will require less maintenance. Flush-trimming forces the plant to devote energy

to producing new growth predominantly on the exterior of the plant instead of throughout the whole plant. This makes more work for you!

2. Healthier plants - Constant flush pruning cuts off growth before new healthy leaves and stems have a chance to mature and photosynthesize (produce plant energy). Plants need new growth to be healthy, produce chlorophyll, and to grow out of disease and other issues.

Inside out pruning allows for new growth from inside the plant.

3. More natural look -In most cases, constant flush pruning makes plants look unnatural while subjecting the plant to possible over pruning resulting in exposing the dry, brown and dead-looking interior.

Inside out pruned plants will produce new growth on the interior of the plant and won’t appear as sheared.

4. Less disease & insect problems - The dense exterior of sheared plants has minimal airflow at the center of the plant, making it a safe haven for pests, fungi, and disease.

5. More Flowers - Constant flush pruning cuts off most flower buds that appear on new growth before you, beneficial insects and hummingbirds can enjoy the flowers.

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CULINARY CUPBOARD

RECREATING SUMMER

Memories

BY EMILY CHAVEZ

I

n my family, summer trips often involved camping at a national park, enjoying early morning hikes and late-night s’mores after a hearty dinner.

The formula for s’mores is simple: chocolate and marshmallow in between graham crackers. But, with me being a peanut butter lover as well, I opt for peanut butter-filled chocolate candy pieces, plus the marshmallow and graham cracker.

Last year, our summer camping plans were tossed aside, thanks to the pandemic, but now national parks and campsites are opening.

Our schedules keep getting busier, making it hard to carve out the time for a trip. Nevertheless, I’m determined to recreate those summer memories at home and make new ones. I’d like to keep that campfire going in my heart.

PEANUT BUTTER S’MORE BROWNIES PREP TIME: 20 MINUTES | TOTAL TIME: 50 MINUTES YIELDS 24 SERVINGS

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 CUPS GRAHAM CRACKER CRUMBS (ABOUT 10 CRACKERS) 1 1/2 CUPS SUGAR 1/2 CUP BUTTER, MELTED 1/2 CUP BUTTER, SOFTENED 3 LARGE EGGS, ROOM TEMPERATURE 1 TEASPOON VANILLA EXTRACT

1 1/4 CUPS ALL-PURPOSE FLOUR 1/3 CUPS CACAO POWDER 1/2 TEASPOON BAKING POWDER 1/4 TEASPOON SALT 1/2 CUP CREAMY PEANUT BUTTER, WARMED TO BE POURABLE 1 CUP MINI MARSHMALLOWS

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1. PREHEAT THE OVEN TO 350 DEGREES. 2. STIR TOGETHER THE GRAHAM CRACKER CRUMBS AND 1/4 CUP SUGAR. 3. ADD IN THE MELTED BUTTER. PRESS THIS MIXTURE INTO THE BOTTOM OF A CLEAN 9-BY-13-INCH BAKING PAN. 4. BAKE UNTIL LIGHTLY BROWNED, ABOUT 8 MINUTES. THEN COOL ON A RACK. 5. MAKE BROWNIES BY CREAMING TOGETHER THE SOFTENED BUTTER AND REMAINING 1 1/4 CUPS SUGAR ON MEDIUM SPEED UNTIL FLUFFY, ABOUT 6 MINUTES. ADD EGGS ONE AT A TIME, BEATING AFTER EACH ADDITION. BEAT IN VANILLA EXTRACT. 6. WHISK TOGETHER THE FLOUR, CACAO POWDER, BAKING POWDER AND SALT IN A SEPARATE BOWL. THEN ADD TO THE CREAMED MIXTURE AND MIX UNTIL FULLY INCORPORATED. 7. SPREAD BATTER OVER THE BAKED GRAHAM CRACKER CRUST. EVENLY DOLLOP SMALL SPOONFULS OF PEANUT BUTTER ON THE BATTER AND SWIRL THROUGHOUT WITH A TOOTHPICK OR KNIFE. 8. TOP WITH THE MARSHMALLOWS AND BAKE UNTIL THE CENTER IS SET, ABOUT 18 TO 22 MINUTES.

Photos by Luis Chavez

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C O C K TA I L S

Port of Jamaica, courtesy of Pasadena’s own Sailor’s Brew Coffee, features the use of Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee.

PORT OF

Jamaica A DELICIOUS COFFEE COCKTAIL

BY CHRISTINA FUOCO-KARASINSKI

T

his month, we bring back our cocktail column by introducing Port of Jamaica, courtesy of Pasadena’s own Sailor’s Brew Coffee.

Port of Jamaica features the use of Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee. Harvesting this coffee is difficult, time consuming and, at times, dangerous because of the rough terrain, according to Trevon Sailor, the founder of Sailor’s Brew Coffee.

Jamaica produces 4 to 5 million pounds of this coffee a year. Fun fact: About 80% of Blue Mountain Coffee is exported to Japan.

Check out the recipe below for Port of Jamaica and enjoy!

PORT OF JAMAICA

Add ice to a cocktail shaker along with the brewed Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee and RumChata. Mix the ingredients by shaking for about 45 to 60 seconds. Strain the cocktail into an elegant glass. Top with ground cinnamon and enjoy.

Submitted photo

4 ounces of brewed Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee. Any coffee can work, but Jamaica Blue Mountain has a naturally sweet and creamy body that complements the drink 1.5 ounces of RumChata 4 medium-sized ice cubes 2 dashes of ground cinnamon

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Summer ENJOYING BLOOMS

PASADENA SHOWCASE EVENT EXPLORES LA CAÑADA FLINTRIDGE’S COLOR

P

BY CHRISTINA FUOCO-KARASINSKI

asadena Showcase House of the Arts will show off the colors of three sprawling estates in La Cañada Flintridge on Saturday, June 19, as part of June Bloom, an outdoor progressive garden party.

“What’s not to love?” says Marybeth Rehman-Dittu, June Bloom’s event chair. “It’s outside, and it’s time to celebrate for a great cause.”

The public event asks guests to step out of their homes and safely stroll through gardens showcasing beautiful landscapes, Mediterranean terraced planters and blooming ornamental roses in the heart of Flintridge.

“I cannot wait to be outside in the warm sun with friends, glass of wine in

Three estates within La Cañada Flintridge will be showcased Saturday, June 19.

Guests will safely stroll through gardens showcasing beautiful landscapes.

hand, enjoying summer blooms and jazz,” says Susie Aguirre, 2020-21 benefit chair and June Bloom organizer.

“It is going to be a delightful event, and I’m proud of my fellow Pasadena Showcase members who came together to make this possible.”

Activities include docent-led garden tours, live music entertainment at each home, floral demonstrations, and the Shops at Showcase featuring a variety of craft purveyors.

Grab-and-go meals and snacks, wine and beer will be available for purchase throughout the event. Tickets, which must be purchased in advance, are $60 at pasadenashowcase.org. Proceeds from the event will support Pasadena Showcase’s philanthropic initiatives.

The three featured estates include a Spanish colonial revival built in 1917 by architects Marston, Van Pelt and Maybury on 2.4 acres with a well-manicured promenade, terraced pools and planters, and a secluded tennis sanctuary; an English Tudor revival built in 1926 on 1.6 acres with a sprawling verdant lawn; and a colonial revival built in 1921 on 1.6 acres with an architecturally identical lifesize dollhouse and an expansive collection of 142 rosebushes.

The homes’ interiors will not be open during the tour.

Entertainment includes a jazz trio from Saturday Night Bath, Pasadena Conservatory of Music featuring Café Luar and classical guitarist Brian Barany, string trios from the Colburn School and Santa Cecilia Orchestra, pianist Greg Parker and the Riverboat Dixie Jazz Band. Many of the groups are Pasadena Showcase Gifts & Grants recipients.

Shops at Showcase’s featured purveyors include Designer Sterling, JP Designs, The Treasured Accessory, Jacqueline B Clothing, Laurie Jo Designs, M&C Collective, Paco Soler, Veronica’s Garden, Lavender Blue, Susie O’s and Green & Bisque Clayhouse. Floral designer Drew Domenghini will give demonstrations throughout the day.

“We are grateful that the COVID-19 pandemic has vastly improved over the last several months, allowing us to do what we do best: gather family and friends together for a unique experience in a beautiful setting in support of music and the arts,” says Barbara Damerel, Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts 2020-21 president. “La Cañada Flintridge is a beautiful area and always a wonderful host city to Pasadena Showcase.”

Guests will park at Descanso Gardens, 1418 Descanso Drive, La Cañada Flintridge, and take complimentary shuttles running throughout the day. They should expect to stroll across several acres and uneven terrain. Wheelchairs and walkers may not access all areas of these private estates; for questions regarding accessibility, call 714-442-3872. Guests will also be asked to comply with the latest COVID-19 guidelines. Hand sanitizer will be available throughout the grounds, and portable restrooms and other high-touch surface areas will be sanitized regularly. The capacity of the event has been limited.

The all-volunteer Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts has been supporting local music and arts programs since 1948. It has given more than $23 million to nonprofits, particularly through its Gifts & Grants program, in support of music education, scholarships, concerts and music therapy.

Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts also supports the LA Philharmonic and its learning programs.

The organization raises funds from its major benefit, the Pasadena Showcase House of Design — one of the country’s oldest, largest and most successful house and garden tours.

Rehman-Dittu has been with the organization for 12 years and has seen it evolve.

“We have some younger members who have infused Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts with new ideas, new directions and really positive changes,” she says.

“We’re just implementing them now. We’ve had many longtime members.

It’s a very dedicated group of women and men.”

June Bloom WHEN: 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturday, June 19 WHERE: Three houses in La Cañada Flintridge COST: $60 INFO: pasadenashowcase.org

Photos by Peter Christiansen Valli

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A R T S A N D C U LT U R E

ASPIRING TO NEW

‘Heights’ EMOTIONAL, UPBEAT FILM RECALLS OLD HOLLYWOOD

BY CHRISTINA FUOCO-KARASINSKI

Anthony Ramos and Melissa Barrera are two of the stars of Warner Bros. Pictures’ “In the Heights.”

Photo by Macall Polay

“I

n the Heights” stars Olga Merediz and Jimmy Smits say their musical masterpiece is the perfect anecdote to a rough 18 months.

“It’s balanced with emotional and deep moments, but there’s a lot of happiness and joy,” says Merediz, who plays matriarch Abuela Claudia.

“The musical numbers are just right. The music cuts right through to you, and Jon Chu has done an amazing, amazing job with his incredible visuals.

I think people are really going to resonate with the characters, and I think people are really going to enjoy it.”

With a wide smile, Smits says “ditto,” but he takes it a step further.

“We’ve also had to reckon with a lot of social issues in the past year and a half,” says Smits, who plays Kevin Rosario, a father who butts heads with his ambitious daughter. “We’re hoping that this film provides joy. Musicals tend to be uplifting and inspirational, but the universal themes resonate very strongly. I think this film is something all audiences will be able to grasp.”

Set to hit screens on Friday, June 11, “In the Heights” fuses Lin-Manuel Miranda’s music and lyrics with director Chu’s lively eye for storytelling. Chu also directed 2018’s “Crazy Rich Asians.”

The film takes viewers to the streets of Washington Heights, where the scent of cafecito caliente hangs in the air outside of the 181st Street subway stop. Led by bodega owner Usnavi (Anthony Ramos, “A Star is Born”), the tight-knit, multicultural community shares its dreams and wishes with each other — in the hopes of paving a way out, while maintaining its ties to Washington Heights.

“I hope people recognize themselves and see themselves and feel proud,” Merediz says.

Smits adds that viewers mustn’t live in Washington Heights to feel for the characters.

“I’m sure you had your nanas, your grandmothers and that,” he says. “The city might be different and the cultural specificity might be a little different, but the feelings of community, family, and how the generation who comes here from another place has expectations for their (children and grandchildren) are all the same.

“Those are universal things.”

Merediz starred as Abuela Claudia on the stage version of “In the Heights.” She’s excited to spread her character’s word among the mass of movie lovers.

“I wanted to give Claudia the platform she deserves,” says Merediz, referring to her character’s age.

“She’s a character who is overlooked in our society. It’s

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Leslie Grace, left, plays Nina Rosario, and Olga Merediz plays Abuela Claudia in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “In the Heights.”

Photos by Macall Polay

Anthony Ramos, left, plays Usnavi, while Jimmy Smits plays Kevin Rosario in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “In the Heights.”

just such a youth-oriented society. It gives me such pleasure to give her that platform.”

She explains that she enjoyed translating the stage version for film, although it was a little challenging.

“The difference is, on stage, you’re delivering to the last row and you’re doing things chronologically,” Merediz said. “In a film, everything is very internal and you shoot out of sequence. That is a challenge for an actor to keep your place, to where you are to keep that flow and that intensity of the moment in the song. It was definitely challenging, but I was up for the challenge. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

“In the Heights” will be available in cinemas and on HBO Max. Smits and Merediz say that although it’s available to watch at home, “In the Heights” is worthy of a trip to the movie theater.

“The film has to be seen in the cinema,” Merediz says. “These huge numbers are epic, and they need the biggest screen you have. I know in the past year we were in lockdown. We didn’t have a choice.

“I think it’s a good idea to have the option to see it in the movies and also at home, if you don’t have the ability to go to the cinema. I hope people see it in the theater.”

The singing and dancing numbers can translate to a cellphone or computer, but Smits agrees — go to the cinema.

“Jon’s chosen to give these visual flourishes to old Hollywood,” he adds. “It takes your breath away. He really did such a great job. I hope we bring richness, light and happiness to (cinemagoers’) lives. After the horrible year that we’ve had, people are ready for a film like this.”

“In the Heights” Opens Friday, June 11, in theaters and HBO Max

A LONG-AWAITED CELEBRATION

Opening Again to the Beauty of

Life

Ask About Move-in Specials With the issuance of new guidelines from our state health department, we welcome these expanded freedoms to live our lives more fully: • All-day, restaurant-style dining • In-person family visits with fewer restrictions • Calendar of activities and engagement • Greater accessibility to all amenities and common areas • Same-day personal outings without strict quarantine protocols

Togetherness.

It’s a beautiful thing.

SENIOR LIVING of PASADENA

626.788.8202

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A R T S A N D C U LT U R E

Star

PASADENA’S ELLA BEYER BRINGS ’70S STYLE TO THIRD SINGLE

E

BY CHRISTINA FUOCO-KARASINSKI

lla Beyer’s personality, clothing and songwriting make a statement.

The 18-year-old Pasadena resident reflects her belief that she’s an “old soul.”

So, when her photographer, Emily Ulmer, asked her to try on an oversized black jacket for a shoot to promote her new single, “Hellbent High School,” she was a little apprehensive. It didn’t quite show her style.

“I wanted a photo that fit the vibe of the song and my style,” Beyer says.

“I had all these outfits with me in the car. We stopped by this dingy alley behind a toy store.

“Emily brought this oversized black coat that was way too big on me. I put it on me, she laid in the middle of the alleyway and looked up at me. With the clouds and the telephone line, it looked great. We didn’t even plan that.”

“Hellbent High School” reflects Beyer’s abilities to balance high school and teenage life, as well as her sweet charm and style.

“I’m so excited for this one,” Beyer says. “This song relates to so much that I’m going through right now. I’ve graduated from high school, which is super scary. This song is about just trying to find your true, authentic self.”

Like her previous singles, “Hellbent High School” was released by her Philadelphia-based record label, Winding Way Records.

“They’re super supportive and have given me great advice and promotion tactics,” she says. “I’m just so grateful to have that backbone.”

Beyer is the progeny of her dad, Dave Beyer, a professional touring

Ella Beyer recently released the single “Hellbent High School.”

Photo by Emily Ulmer

RISING

drummer for Christopher Cross, Melissa Etheridge and Wilson Phillips, and her mom, singer-songwriter Debra Davis.

“I grew up going to their shows and just being inspired by the way the music made the crowd feel,” she says. “I love seeing people singing along with the words and connecting with it. I wanted to create something that people could relate to and connect with. That’s how I got into it. I was surrounded by it in my house.”

While attending California School for the Arts, she took songwriting and singing classes, making for a well-rounded arts education.

“I love being around these different collaborators,” she says. “Everyone is an artist at the school.”

When she’s not writing music or studying, Beyer uses her talent in partnership with the Dragon Kim Foundation, where she volunteers with Fostering the Arts. Her unique ability to mix her original works with covers of well-loved songs is a perfect fit for the program, which works to expose kids in the foster care system to opportunities in the arts.

“Fostering the Arts provides music and performing arts classes to kids in the foster care system,” says Beyer, who founded Fostering the Arts with classmate Leilani Rodriguez. “We worked with one facility in Pasadena and others Downtown.

“We started it through the Dragon Kim Foundation, which is a great nonprofit organization that provides high schoolers with money to help their community and what they’re passionate about. We started it during the pandemic because we didn’t know it would be a pandemic. When the pandemic (hit), we started these interactive videos, which we can send anywhere with a single link.”

Beyer recited statistics from the top of her head: There are 37,000 foster youths in Los Angeles and Orange counties who don’t have access to the arts. Beyer and Rodriguez took arts classes, so they wanted to give the less fortunate the same chance, “It’s a vulnerable time, especially growing up,” she says.

That’s Beyer’s style. Her bubbly optimism shines through her music and her volunteer work.

Beyer is planning to attend the Los Angeles College of Music in Pasa-

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Photos courtesy Ella Beyer

dena and then the Berklee College of Music in Boston. At both schools, she’ll study songwriting.

“I’m going to, of course, continue my passion through college,” she says.

“I want to grow and make more connections and learn as much as possible. I want to be a singer-songwriter/recording artist. I want to keep doing what I’m doing right now.”

Ella Beyer youtube.com/c/ellabeyermusic facebook.com/ellabeyermusic windingwayrecords.com

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A R T S A N D C U LT U R E

RETRACING

History

LISA SEE’S DONATION SHARES MOMENTS OF CHINESE AMERICAN CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA

The Huntington Library, a research hub associated with the popular San Marino museum and botanical gardens complex.

Li Wei Yang, the curator of the Huntington’s Pacific Rim Collections, stands by a series of prints from author Lisa See’s donated collection.

or years, the research and scholarly arm of the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens in San Marino has sought out artifacts to preserve the legacy of Chinese American culture in California, with a focus on the development and transformation of Los Angeles’ Chinatown.

Recently, thanks to a donation by author Lisa See, the Huntington received more than 100 glass photograph negatives that capture the history of the now-demolished Old Chinatown. Researchers at the Huntington are studying, developing and preparing the photographs for public viewing.

See is the author of “On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family,” a popular account of her family’s history, including their immigration from China to the United States.

See donated the photographs after realizing the negatives’ fragility. They were passed down from her grandfather to her father, then to her.

While the hefty box had been in her family for years, a series of firerelated evacuations made her nervous about the photos’ safety. After evacuating her home twice in the past two years, she contacted the Huntington Library. See trusted the institution because she visited there to find her family’s immigration documents for her book in the library’s Y.C. Hong Collection.

“If you were a scholar looking to do research on Los Angeles’ Chinatown, where would you go? I think it’s safe to say you’d come (to the Huntington),” See says. “(And) I knew that these were things that people haven’t seen.”

Given the institution’s reputation, See felt comfortable working with curators like Li Wei Yang, who heads up the Huntington’s Pacific Rim Collections. Once he received See’s box of glass plates, Yang used the Huntington’s “state-of-the-art” photo lab to develop them into high-resolution digital images. They amazed See after her years of straining to see the delicate images by holding them up to windows. Once digitized, the images will be preserved and catalogued — the latter process requiring lengthy periods of scholarly collaboration to identify the people, places and events in the pictures.

“It takes a lot of resources to keep (glass plate negatives) safe,” Yang says. “In a way, we’re in a race against time. These things aren’t going to last forever, no matter how good you take care of them.”

Fortunately, See’s family took good care of them. But the origins of how her grandfather and father received the photos is unclear. Two theories are likely. First, her grandfather and father — who owned the F. Suie One Co., the oldest Asian antique store in Los Angeles — may have gone scavenging around Old Chinatown after parts of it were abandoned but before they were torn down. They may have stumbled across the heavy box and taken it back with them.

“My father and grandfather just kind of went scavenging,” See says.

“One of the things (they found) was a box of glass plate negatives.”

Alternatively, See thinks her family might have discovered the photos while working at F. Suie One, which, at the time, was located at 510 Los Angeles Street. Some of the photos are marked with that address and “the name of a photo studio,” meaning the box could have been left behind by a previous tenant.

Old Chinatown comprised the blocks near Downtown Los Angeles, where Union Station now stands. Most of the blocks were demolished during the station’s construction, so the historical record of the neighborhood’s daily culture remains fuzzy at best. The popular understanding of its history is largely informed by the 1871 massacre that took place there. In October of

Photos by Andrew Checchia

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BY ANDREW CHECCHIA

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Photos by Andrew Checchia

that year, about 500 Los Angeles residents — at the time meaning 1 in every 10 men — surrounded the neighborhood and stormed it, killing almost 20 locals, some by lynching.

“After the massacre, this was the time of a land boom in Southern California, so the city fathers had to take the position that this was a safe city, but I don’t think overnight it was like, ‘Oh, this is a safe city,’” says See, connecting the historical violence to the current increase in attacks against Asian Americans.

“One of the things I think is important is we don’t really learn from our mistakes. We don’t really learn from history.”

See and Yang hope these photos will help fill in gaps, turning the historical narrative from a solely tragic story to one with humanity. They believe these photos, which feature previously unseen moments in the daily lives of Chinese Americans, help paint a more vibrant picture of the folks who once lived in the marginalized neighborhood.

Overall, the pictures fall into three main categories. First there are the scenes of daily life. These include street shots of school children and workers, as well as more intimate images of local shopkeepers and restaurant owners.

One photo features a woman in motion as she crosses the street, a woman See described as of “ill repute,” referencing a stereotype, at the time, that assumed many Chinese women were prostitutes. This bias likely came from what Yang called a “huge gender imbalance,” then because the United States’ strict immigration laws made it nearly impossible for nonlaborers to enter the country legally. Instead, many women were kidnapped from China and forced into labor, sometimes brought or pressured into sex work.

“They wanted to market Chinatown and Chinese culture,” Yang says about the reasons for the candid photography. “People visited Chinatown as if they were visiting Disneyland (today).”

The second category comprised a set of formal studio portraits. When these photos were taken, mostly during the late 1800s to the early 1900s, photography underwent a kind of popular awakening. The era saw the rise of glass negatives, the first technology which allowed the public a degree of cheap, popular access to photography. After establishing themselves in the neighborhood, Chinese Americans would go to studios for family portraits.

“They would send it back home to China to say, ‘Look how well I’m doing,’” See says about the studio portraits.

See’s collection also includes what See and Yang speculate to be sample shots for studio customers — almost like early stock photos displayed as examples for backgrounds and costumes.

In the last major category in the set, there are formal immigration photos. These passport-style pictures were necessary during the period of legal Chinese Exclusion. This set of laws made it illegal for Chinese to immigrate to the United States, own property, or marry outside of their race and required all Chinese residents to “check in” with the government every six months. That process required a photo.

Aside from these, there are assorted photos of white Americans in studio settings, street scenes outside of Chinatown and a set from the 1880s during La Fiesta de Los Angeles, a festival that preceded the Rose Parade. The parade featured Chinese Americans celebrating their culture.

“The Chinese actually asked to participate to show off the multiculturalism of Los Angeles,” Yang says about the parade.

As a set, See’s photos aren’t quite ready for public viewing, still requiring the necessary cataloguing to put them in proper context. But as the Huntington opens up more in-person research opportunities, it hopes to reintroduce the public to its library exhibitions.

However, Yang hopes See’s photos can be displayed in tandem with other artifacts from Los Angeles’ Chinese American history. Along with scholars like Bill Deverell, who is the director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West, Yang envisions a historical map that highlights important photos in important locations around the city.

“That’s why this collection would be so vital. No one’s ever seen them before outside of Lisa’s family,” Yang says.

Yang was unable to give an exact timeline on the project’s completion but hopes to let the public see the works as soon as possible.

A negative of schoolchildren in Old Chinatown placed on a lightbox for illumination. The Huntington’s photo lab was able to develop and digitize these old glass plates.

Author Lisa See stands by some of the digitized prints from her collection of glass negatives.

Personal documents from Lisa See, which she expects to donate to the Huntington soon.

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A R T S A N D C U LT U R E

Vroman’s VIRTUALLY BOOKSTORE BOASTS STELLAR LINEUP FOR JUNE

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BY CHRISTINA FUOCO-KARASINSKI

he renowned bookstore Vroman’s is hosting more top-notch virtual programs throughout June.

The events are held virtually through Crowdcast. Register at vromansbookstore.com.

Christopher Buehlman discusses and signs “The Blacktongue Thief” 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 1 Kinch Na Shannack owes the Takers Guild a small fortune for his education as a thief, which includes lock picking, knife fighting, wall scaling, fall breaking, plus a few small magics. His debt has driven him to lie in wait by the old forest road, planning to rob the next traveler who crosses his path.

Today, Kinch has chosen the wrong mark.

Galva is a knight, a survivor of the brutal goblin wars and handmaiden of the goddess of death. She is searching for her queen, missing since a distant northern city fell to giants.

Unsuccessful in his robbery and lucky to escape with his life, Kinch and Galva’s fate are entangled. Common enemies and uncommon dangers force thief and knight on a journey during which goblins hunger for human flesh, krakens hunt in dark waters, and honor is a luxury few can afford.

P.C. and Kristin Cast, in conversation with Emily Duncan, discusses “Spells Trouble: Sisters of Salem” 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 2 Hunter and Mercy Goode are twin witches, direct descendants of the founder of their town of Goodeville. As their ancestors have done before them, it is now time for the twins to learn what it means to be Gatekeepers — the protectors of the gates to different underworlds, ancient portals between their world and realms where mythology rules and nightmares come to life.

When their mother is murdered, the devastated sisters vow to avenge her death.

Jill and Dave Henry present “The Greatest College Health You Never Knew You Needed” 6 p.m. Monday June 7 Every fall, around 8 million young adults enter college fired up for the next four years.

Most students, however, are better prepared to choose their major or talk to strangers than they are to take care of themselves in college. College students are now more depressed, anxious and stressed than previous waves of students. They’re also more sedentary and living in a meal-plan limbo supplemented with ramen and coffee.

In this comprehensive field guild, high school coaches Jill and Dave Henry break down the facts and deliver doable, no-BS strategies for managing physical and mental health on campus.

In addition to helpful, interactive graphics, the coaches share their relatable true stories to discuss the five biggest health obstacles students face in college.

Michael Punke, in conversation with Michael Hampton, discusses “Ridgeline” 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 8 In 1866, with the country barely recovered from the Civil War, new war breaks out on the Western frontier — a clash of cultures between a young, ambitious nation and the native tribes who have lived on the land for centuries. Col. Henry Carrington arrives in Wyoming’s Powder River Valley to lead the U.S. Army in defending the opening of a new road for gold miners and settlers.

Carrington intends to build a fort in the middle of critical hunting grounds, the home of the Lakota.

Red Cloud, one of the Lakota’s most respected chiefs, and Crazy Horse, a young but visionary warrior, understand well the implications of this invasion. For the Lakota, the stakes are their home, their culture and their lives.

Andrew McCarthy, in conversation with Michael Oats Palmer, discusses “Brat: An ’80s Story” 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 9 Most people know Andrew McCarthy from his movie roles in “Pretty in Pink,” “St. Elmo’s Fire,” “Weekend at Bernie’s” and “Less than Zero” and as a charter member of Hollywood’s Brat Pack.

That iconic group of ingenues and heartthrobs included Rob Lowe, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez and Demi Moore and has come to represent a genre of film and an era of pop culture.

In his memoir, “Brat: An ’80s Story,” McCarthy focuses his gaze on that moment in time.

The result is a revealing look at coming of age in a maelstrom, reckoning with conflicted ambition, innocence, addiction and masculinity.

Filled with personal revelations of innocence lost to heady days in Hollywood with John Hughes and an iconic cast of characters, “Brat” is a surprising and intimate story of an outsider caught up in a most unwitting success.

The event ticket includes a hardcover copy of “Brat: An ’80s Story” and online access for a household. The link and password will be sent on Tuesday, June 8. For more information, contact email@vromansbookstore.com.

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Daisy Hernández, in conversation with Alex Espinoza, discusses “The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation’s Neglect of a Deadly Disease” 6 p.m. Thursday, June 10 Growing up in a New Jersey factory town in the 1980s, Daisy Hernández believed her aunt had become deathly ill from eating an apple. No one in her family, in either the United States or Colombia, spoke of infectious diseases.

Even into her 30s, she only knew that her aunt had died of Chagas, a rare and devastating illness that affects the heart and digestive system.

But as Hernández dug deeper, she discovered that Chagas — or the kissing bug disease — is more prevalent in the United States than the Zika virus.

After her aunt’s death, Hernández began searching for answers.

John McMahon discusses “A Good Kill” 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 15 “A Good Kill” is an electrifying mystery featuring a troubled small-town police detective faced with three interwoven crimes that reveal sinister secrets about his community.

In the years since the mysterious deaths of his wife and child, P.T. Marsh, a police detective in the small Georgia town of Mason Falls, has faced demons — both professional and personal.

But when he is called to the scene of a school shooting, the professional and personal become intertwined, and he suspects that whoever is behind the crime may be connected to his own family tragedy.

Jonathan Evison, in conversation with Tod Goldberg, discusses “Legends of the North Cascades” 6 p.m. Thursday, June 17 Dave Cartwright used to be good at a lot of things: good with his hands, good at solving problems, good at staying calm in a crisis.

But on the heels of his third tour in Iraq, the fabric of Dave’s life has begun to unravel. Gripped by PTSD, he finds himself losing his home, his wife and his direction.

Most days, his love for his 7-year-old daughter, Bella, is the only thing keeping him going. When tragedy strikes, Dave makes a dramatic decision:

The two of them will flee their damaged lives, heading off the grid to live in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest.

As they carve out a home in a cave in that harsh, breathtaking landscape, echoes of its past begin to reach them. Bella retreats into herself, absorbed by visions of a mother and son who lived in the cave thousands of years earlier, at the end of the last ice age. Back in town, Dave and Bella are rapidly becoming the stuff of legend — to all but those who would force them to return home.

Yehudi Mercado, in conversation with Raina Telgemeier, discusses “Chunky” 6 p.m. Thursday, June 24 In this full-color middle grade graphic memoir for fans of Raina Telgemeier and Jerry Craft, Yehudi Mercado draws inspiration from his childhood weight struggle while finding friendship with his imaginary mascot, Chunky, as he navigates growing up in a working class Mexican Jewish family.

Hudi needs to lose weight, according to his doctors. Concerned about the serious medical issue Hudi had when he was younger, his parents push him to try out for sports.

Hudi would rather do anything else, but then he meets Chunky, his imaginary friend and mascot. Together, they decide to give baseball a shot.

Nobuko Miyamoto discusses “Not Yo’ Butterfly: My Long Song of Relocation, Race, Love, and Revolution” 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 29 A mold-breaking memoir of Asian American identity, political activism, community and purpose, “Not Yo’ Butterfly” is the intimate and unflinching life story of Nobuko Miyamoto — artist, activist and mother. Beginning with the harrowing early years of her life as a Japanese American child navigating a fearful West Coast during World War II, Miyamoto leads readers into the landscapes that defined the experiences of 20th century America and also foregrounds the struggles of people of color who reclaimed their histories, identities and power through activism and art.

Miyamoto vividly describes her early life in the racialized atmosphere of Hollywood musicals and then her turn toward activism as an Asian American troubadour with the release of “A Grain of Sand,” considered to be the first Asian American folk album.

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A R T S A N D C U LT U R E

SIERRA SUMMER CONCERT SERIES PASADENA POPS RETURNING TO THE ARBORETUM

Principal Pops Conductor Michael Feinstein will kick off the series on July 10 with “The Road to Motown.”

Maryilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. are amoung several featured guests perfoming at the Sierra Summer Concert Series July 10 to September 11.

rincipal Pops Conductor Michael Feinstein and the Pasadena Pops are slated to return to the Los Angeles County Arboretum for the 2021 Sierra Summer Concert Series.

The five shows, set for July 10 to September 11, are for fully vaccinated audiences. The series will feature guests such as Thelma Houston, Billy Davis Jr. and Marilyn McCoo, Liz Callaway and Jordan Donica.

Entry to all Pasadena Pops concerts will require proof of receiving a fully completed COVID-19 vaccine at least two weeks prior to the concert date.

The Pasadena Pops outdoor concert setting at the Arboretum is designed with roundtable seating, allowing ample distance between tables, plus an expansive lawn area for socially distanced seating on blankets and low-back chairs.

The venue plans to limit capacity this summer, too.

Feinstein kicks off the summer series on July 10 with “The Road to Motown,” honoring the Supremes’ Mary Wilson, who was originally slated to perform before her recent passing.

Wilson’s “Mississippi Sister” Houston will pay tribute to the legend and celebrate the greatest hits of the Motown era with the Fifth Dimension’s Davis Jr. and McCoo, as well as the Motown singing group Spectrum.

The music of Fleetwood Mac hits the stage July 24 with special guest Landslide performing songs such as “Rhiannon,” “Don’t Stop” and “Go Your Own Way” for “Fleetwood Mac: A Tribute.”

Feinstein takes the stage as soloist on August 14 for “Michael Feinstein Sings: Sinatra’s Songbook.”

Returning this year on August 28 is the “Classical Mystery Tour,” which brings the music of the Beatles to life.

Feinstein returns to the podium to close the season on September 11 with “100 Years of Broadway,” featuring songs from each decade. Hamilton’s Donica and Emmy winner Callaway are scheduled to appear.

“The feeling of anticipation and joy bubbling up in all of us is palpable as we prepare to return to the experience of sharing live music,” Feinstein says.

“Personally, for me, I have missed the connection of creating acoustic sound with an audience present, because as grateful as I am for virtual music making, it is simply not the same as hearing live music played by a symphony in a beautiful natural setting. I know I can speak confidently for our orchestra when I say that we have missed you, and we will perform with everything we’ve got. We’re going to have a brilliant season.”

Grounds open for picnicking and dining at 5:30 p.m., and performances begin at 7:30 p.m.

The venue offers preordered gourmet box dinners for on-site pickup just steps from their table or a variety of food truck options.

The Arboretum is located at 301 N. Baldwin Avenue, Arcadia.

Subscribers may purchase prepaid on-site parking at the Arboretum, and all concertgoers can purchase guaranteed parking at Santa Anita Park, with complimentary nonstop shuttle service to the Arboretum’s main entrance.

Single tickets start at $25. Season subscriptions and single tickets are on sale and are available by calling the box office at 626-793-7172, online at pasadenasymphony-pops.org, or at the Arboretum on concert days.

Submitted photos

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BY ARROYO MONTHLY STAFF

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