All the Evidence Pointed to Love

When Deputy Dist. Atty. Jennifer McDonald and LAPD Officer Steve Meagher decided to get married, you knew the nuptials would be a bit different. First, they chose a cop-turned-priest, Father Steve Davoren, to conduct the ceremony. Davoren, surveying the spectators--especially all the attorneys and police--quipped that he would “tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” And, in recognition of the food most associated with the groom’s calling, someone brought in a cake shaped like a giant doughnut. It was eaten before it could be dusted for prints.

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ONLY IN L.A. DINING GUIDE: For today’s selections (see accompanying), Mike Albert of Hollywood recommended the “Soup of the Day,” which turned out to be that old French favorite “Soup du Jour.”

Sal Garcia, alerted by his father, Humberto, spotted a Mexican restaurant with an automotive touch in Santa Fe Springs (corn or flower fan belts?)

And, for an after dinner drink, Gail Fisher of Whittier came across a place with the toughest bartender in Southern California.

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IF YOU WERE WONDERING WHY YOUR DESSERT WAS LATE: A truck transporting 10 tons of pies overturned on the transition from the Harbor to the Hollywood freeways Tuesday morning, causing a Sig-Alert. I think that’s also the plot of an old Laurel and Hardy movie.

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MORE FOOD FOR THOUGHT: “Pasadena seems particularly rich in cross-cultural dining experiences,” notes Karen Greenbaum-Maya of Claremont. “I recently noticed Bonjour Bagel about a mile from Maison Akiru.”

No telling how Pasadena’s Sushi of Naples is going to take the news.

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DON’T I RUE THE DAY. . . . : It started with a simple, public-spirited idea: Have readers update an old jingle used as a key to memorize the order of streets from Main to Figueroa.

The result? My contest has been riddled with charges of ineptitude and corruption.

Stan Gordon of Pasadena chastised me for omitting Los Angeles Street, east of Main, from the poem.

Paul Hutton of Huntington Beach said the original ditty that I reprinted was backward. And his West-to-East version added several more streets:

FIGUEROA is the FLOWER of HOPE on the GRAND OLIVE HILL of BROADWAY where the SPRING flows from the MAIN LOS ANGELES WALL to SAN PEDRO CENTRAL near ALAMEDA.

Finally, one reader questioned why Richard Graham had been allowed to omit HOPE from his featured entry. Was it a conspiracy to award him one of my offered freebies, such as the Redondo Beach Lobster Festival apron?

Well, isn’t that just GRAND, after all the work I’ve put into this? All I can say, in Graham’s case, is that I was mesmerized by his narrator’s eerie account of being “wounded in a drive-by by a kid in an OLIVE-colored GRAND-Am” and fearful he would be “pushing up a FLOWER on FIGUEROA.” HOPE seemed shut down that day.

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FOR BETTER OR FOR VERSE: Anyway, before the inevitable lawsuits, I’m opening up the contest to a ditty from Annette Brodsky of San Pedro that doesn’t have the streets in order but possesses a nice beat (you could probably dance to it, too):

FIGUEROA’S FLOWER, OLIVE, had a GRAND HOPE to SPRING her MAIN squeeze from BROADWAYS’ HILL of Corrections.

Just so it’s not the guy in the GRAND-Am.

miscelLAny:

My reference to Marineland as a one-time tourist attraction that has vanished prompted a note from Billie Francis of Vista. “Maybe that’s true in your neck of the woods, Steve,” she wrote, “but here in San Diego County Marineland continues to thrive, drawing thousands every year. You might know it as Camp Pendleton.” After a tale like this, I deserve a doughnut.