Arroyo Monthly January 2013

FINE LIVING IN THE GREATER PASADENA AREAJANUARY 2013

THE ARTOF HEALING

HOW GREAT IS GOOD BACTERIA?ASK A MACARTHUR “GENIUS”

A SKIN-CARE PIONEER’S NEW PASADENA CLINIC

PIANIST CINDY LAM’S ROAD TO RECOVERY • DANCE FOR THE DISABLED

ABOUT THE COVER: Photo by Javiera Estrada

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arroyoVOLUME 9 | NUMBER 1 | JANUARY 2013

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HEALTH AND BEAUTY 12 A SECOND MOVEMENT CON BRIO

Cindy Lam feared a car crash would derail her future as a concert pianist.Then she met Dr. Milan Stevanovic.—By Scarlet Cheng

17 DANCERS MOVE BEYOND PARKINSON’S DISEASE AT LINEAGE The Pasadena performing arts center raises the curtain on dance for people with disabilities.—By Ilsa Setziol

21 WONDER BUGSSarkis Mazmanian’s research on the curative powers of good bacteriaearned him a MacArthur “genius award.”—By Bettijane Levine

25 BEAUTY THAT’S SKIN DEEPSkin-care pioneer Dr. Zein Obagi opens a new skin-health center inPasadena.—By Irene Lacher

DEPARTMENTS10 FESTIVITIES “Fezziwig’s Festive Holiday Tea” at A Noise Within

28 ARROYO HOME SALES INDEX

38 KITCHEN CONFESSIONS Arroyo’s cooking columnist ponders a fork in life's road.

40 WINING AND DINING Heirloom L.A. looks to the past to serve creative cuisine in the present.

43 THE LIST A Danny Kaye film festival, Robert Crais at Vroman’s and more

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EDITOR IN CHIEF Irene Lacher

ART DIRECTOR Kent Bancroft

JUNIOR DESIGNER Carla Cortez

PRODUCTION Richard Garcia, Rochelle Bassarear

COPY EDITOR John Seeley

CONTRIBUTORS Leslie Bilderback, Michael Cervin, ScarletCheng, Mandalit del Barco, Lynne Heffley, Noela Hueso, Carole Jacobs, Kathy Kelleher, Carl Kozlowski, BettijaneLevine, Brenda Rees, John Sollenberger,Nancy Spiller,Bradley Tuck

PHOTOGRAPHERS Claire Bilderback, Melissa Valladares

ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Dina Stegon

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Brenda Clarke, Joseluis Correa,Leslie Lamm

ADVERTORIAL CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Joanna DehnBeresford

ADVERTISING DESIGNERS Richard Garcia, Rochelle Bassarear

HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER Andrea Baker

BUSINESS MANAGER Angela Wang

ACCOUNTING Alysia Chavez, Monica MacCree

OFFICE ASSISTANT Ann Weathersbee

PUBLISHER Jon Guynn

SOUTHLAND PUBLISHING

V.P. OF FINANCE Michael NagamiV.P. OF OPERATIONS David ComdenPRESIDENT Bruce Bolkin

CONTACT US

[email protected]

[email protected]

PHONE(626) 584-1500

FAX(626) 795-0149

MAILING ADDRESS50 S. De Lacey Ave., Ste. 200, Pasadena, CA 91105

ArroyoMonthly.com

©2013 Southland Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.

CERTAINLY MEDICINE CAN BE AS AS MUCH

an art as it is a science, calling on a doc-

tor’s intuition in addition to his or her train-

ing. But as the year dawns — and with it, a

fresh crop of resolutions — we look at the

relationship between health and the arts in

their most literal sense. Indeed, one can

lead to the other in quite different ways.

Scarlet Cheng tells the heartening

story of emerging concert pianist and

Pasadena native Cindy Lam, who fell in love with her instrument as a child, only

to sustain a serious arm injury in a car crash while still a student. While a number

of doctors told her surgery might make things worse, Lam put her faith in ortho-

pedic surgeon Dr. Milan Stevanovic, a hand specialist at USC’s Keck School of

Medicine. Thanks to him, her brilliant career is back on track.

Ilsa Setziol visits a special dance class for people with Parkinson’s disease at

Pasadena’s Lineage Performing Arts Center. Once thought too disabled to partic-

ipate in dance, students are enjoying a boost to their well-being — both physical

and mental — in Lineage’s Dancing With Parkinson’s classes. Some movements

designed in the class have even found their way into Lineage Dance’s own pro-

fessional choreography.

Also on the health front, Bettijane Levine talks to Caltech medical microbiol-

ogist Sarkis Mazmanian about his fascinating research into the identity and po-

tential of good bacteria to cure what ails you — naturally. Mazmanian’s work has

been so important that the MacArthur Foundation recently surprised him with a

$500,000 “genius award.” Not bad for someone in mid-career.

Arroyo food columnists Leslie Bilderback and Bradley Tuck both sing praises

of purveyors of delectables with the word “heirloom” in their names. Complete

coincidence, we assure you. South Pasadena’s Heirloom Bakery & Cafe, where

certified master baker Bilderback has recently begun manning the ovens, and

Eagle Rock caterer Heirloom L.A., whose hand-cut chitarra pasta had Tuck in

thrall, have no more in common than regard for the wisdom of their chef

forebears. To which we say, the more heirlooms the merrier.

—Irene Lacher

arroyoFINE LIVING IN THE GREATER PASADENA AREA

EDITOR’S NOTE

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Greiman with her work

Bette and Jeffrey Nagin

Terry Kay, Charlotte Kayand Dr. Edward J. Kormondy

Katie King (second from left), with Lois Conyers ( left), Smooch Reynoldsand Ann Beisch (second from right and right)

Marian and Wendy Garen

Dr. Ezat Parnia

Jeanine Ringer and Matthew Ringer

Dr. Robert Israeland Dr. Jennifer Israel

Mirta Isla and Drue Lawlor

Terri Murray and Abigail Cahill

Emory White and Sally HillLyn Spector and Sheila Lamson Diana Gonzalez-Morett and Alison Elliott

Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and Geoff Elliott

James Ferrero, Abigail Marks, Megan Farber and Kevin Angulo

“Fezziwig’s Festive Holiday Tea,” followed by a matinee of a stage adaptation

of A Christmas Carol, drew 90 supporters to A Noise Within’s new Pasadena

theater on Dec. 16, 2012, for a sold-out benefit that raised $60,000 for the

repertory company’s Classics Live! education outreach programs. Fezziwig, a

generous character in Charles Dickens’ classic novella, and his wife greeted

guests at the theater, decked out to resemble a silver-and-white winter wonder-

land, where they savored passed hors d’oeuvres of miniature beef Wellingtons

and smoked salmon blini puffs catered by Peggy Dark and The Kitchen for Ex-

ploring Foods. Next came a traditional British tea with finger sandwiches,

scones, English sticky toffee pudding and more delights. Said Producing Artis-

tic Director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, “We envision families, friends and loved

ones making the annual tea a new holiday tradition.”

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Carol Riemer and Robert Chattel

Gaby Lichucki and Diana Rodriguez

Wendy Brookshire and Robert De Pietro

FESTIVITIES

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A SECOND MOVEMENTCON BRIO

Cindy Lam feared a car crash would derail her future as a concert pianist. Then she met Dr. Milan Stevanovic.

BY SCARLET CHENG

A CAR CRASH NEARLY ENDED CINDY LAM’S DREAM OF BE-

COMING A CONCERT PIANIST. ON SEPT. 2, 2002, SHE HAD JUST

BEGUN HER STUDIES AT THE USC THORNTON SCHOOL OF

MUSIC WHEN A CAR SHE WAS RIDING IN SPUN OUT OF CON-

TROL. WITH HER BOYFRIEND AT THE WHEEL, THE COUPLE SPED

DOWN NEW YORK DRIVE IN PASADENA; THE CAR SUDDENLY

CAREENED, FLEW OVER THE SIDEWALK, THROUGH A TELEPHONE

POLE AND A FENCE, FINALLY CRASHING INTO A TREE. “WE

WERE GOING SO FAST,” SHE RECALLS SOMBERLY. “MY ELBOW

WENT THROUGH THE WINDOW WHEN WE CRASHED. I DIDN’T

EVEN FEEL IT HAPPEN — ALL OF A SUDDEN IT WAS VERY DUSTY.”

The boyfriend was relatively unscathed, but Lam was rushed to the emergency room,where her bleeding elbow was treated and bandaged. Later, as the skin was healing, shefelt sharp pain in her elbow and upper arm. It turned out that shards of glass were stilllodged inside her joints and under the skin. How would she be able to play the pianoproperly with such pain? Doctors told her that surgery might make things worse. Lamwas understandably discouraged, even depressed.

Today, sitting on the front porch of her Pasadena home, all that seems a long time ago,and indeed, 10 years have passed since. While the physical and psychological trauma ofthe accident is still clear in her mind, Lam is eagerly steaming ahead with her concert pi-anist career and performing in top form. Fortunately, Lam had her seatbelt on during thecrash, which limited the damage largely to her ulnar nerve. The important ulnar nerve isone of the three main nerves in the arm, running to the hand, and it carries messagesfrom the brain to the hand. When X-rays showed residual glass in her elbow and upperarm, Lam was told not to worry, that scar tissue would form over the glass. But it contin-ued to bother her.

Lam consulted Dr. Milan Stevanovic, an orthopedic surgeon at USC who specializesin the hand. He did his own set of X-rays and tests. “Every single surgeon I had seen upuntil that point said you can leave the glass in there,” she recalls, “but if you want to take itout, you should also do this thing called ulnar nerve transposition surgery — but thenthere’s a chance you’ll be worse off, there’s a chance you won’t be able to play again.” In

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2008, she saw Dr. Stevanovic again, and he urged her to have the glass removed. “Hesaid, ‘Make an appointment and we’ll talk about it.’” At the time, her HMO would notcover the surgery he suggested, so he generously offered to donate his services.

“She had injured the ulnar nerve, but very fortunately it was not completely severed,”says Dr. Stevanovic. “If that had happened, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything.She’s a very remarkable young lady.” In 2009, he performed the glass-removal operation,which was slated for two hours. It ended up taking twice as long because the doctor dis-covered a neuroma — an extraneous bundle of nerve tissue — that had developed in herelbow, so he had to work on removing some of that.

Lam acknowledges the support of her parents, friends and colleagues helped the heal-ing process. One of them is noted solo violinist and pianist Ayke Agus, who was the ac-companist to legendary violinist Jascha Heifetz for the last 15 years of his life, till 1987. “Iheard her undergraduate recital at USC and was amazed at her great talent,” Agus saysvia email. Agus herself had also studied music performance at USC. “As a person, she is abeautiful human being, and as a musician/pianist, an amazingly gifted, talented artist.”

Lam started studying piano at just 3½. She had two other young cousins who playedpiano, and it seemed “cool.” At first, her mother was resistant — her daughter seemed fartoo young to start piano. Then one day she got a phone call from Cindy’s daycare center:The girl was refusing to eat lunch unless she could take piano lessons. Her passion forclassical music was such that a few years later, she also took up the violin.

While neither of her parents are musicians — Lam’s father is an engineer — theyhave been very supportive of her pursuit of classical music. “After I started taking les-sons,” Lam says, “they started buying CDs so I could hear the music. I remember one ofthe CDs we had was Mozart’s Symphonies Nos. 40 and 41. Every night at dinner, I’d goplay that CD. That was the dinner CD — Mozart!” Lam laughs at the memory.

As a teen, she attended Polytechnic School in Pasadena, and when it was time to

apply for college, she decided to audition in piano because she thought it her strongersuit. Lam was accepted into the music education program at USC, and planned to trans-fer into the performance program. Then, the second week of freshman year, the accidenthappened.

Since her graduation from USC in 2007, the number of concerts Lam has been play-ing has been increasing steadily. In early 2010, she made her professional debut in achamber music concert with the California String Quartet. She has also participated inchamber music performances in Italy as part of the Zephyr International Chamber MusicFestival and at two of L.A.’s most prestigious concert venues: Walt Disney Concert Hallwith the USC Thornton Symphony under the baton of Carl St. Clair and UCLA’s RoyceHall with the American Youth Symphony and conductor David Newman. Last March,she became the youngest artist to play in South Pasadena’s Restoration Concerts Serieswhen she performed with violinist Linda Wang, a frequent collaborator with seasonedartists.

Lam also gives private piano lessons. As a teacher, she’s highly regarded; her studentsinclude the children of other musicians, such as Katia Popov, concertmaster of the Holly-wood Bowl Orchestra, and Lynn Harrell, an internationally known cellist.

Lam is so dedicated to her art that she spends three hours a day practicing at the key-board — even more when preparing for a concert. Recently, she received only threeweeks’ notice for a concert at a private home with noted Russian violist Konstantin Bo-yarsky. “Working with Cindy was an absolute delight,” Boyarsky wrote later. “We werevery short of time and there were obviously some elements of stress due to that, butCindy brought a sense of calm and professionalism to her approach in preparing thistricky program.” They tackled a varied and ambitious program that included Astor Piaz-zolla’s Le Grand Tango, which demanded fast and furious fingering from Lam. She deliv-ered with much poise and finesse. “Performing is the real passion and focus of my life,”she says, “and what I want to be known for.” ||||

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DANCERS MOVE BEYOND PARKINSON’S

AT LINEAGEThe Pasadena performing arts center raises the curtain on dance for people with disabilities.

BY ILSA SETZIOL

LINEAGE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER IN PASADENA ISN’T YOUR

TYPICAL DANCE STUDIO, WHERE GIRLS IN POWDER PINK PLIÉ

AND PIROUETTE THEIR WAY THROUGH AN ANNUAL PRODUC-

TION OF THE NUTCRACKER. LINEAGE HAS A BROADER VISION

OF DANCE: THE MODEST VENUE IN OLD PASADENA IS HOME TO

A MODERN DANCE COMPANY THAT FOCUSES ON RAISING

MONEY FOR NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS. THE CENTER IS ALSO

DEDICATED TO EXPANDING ACCESS TO THE ART FORM TO

EVERYONE — INCLUDING PEOPLE WITH CANCER AND PARKIN-

SON’S DISEASE AND KIDS WITH DOWN SYNDROME, WHOM IT

TEACHES TO DANCE WITH CONFIDENCE AND ARTISTRY. THE

CLASSES BLEND CREATIVE MOVEMENT — EMPHASIZING

IMPROVISATION AND EXPRESSION — WITH BASIC MODERN,

BALLET AND POPULAR DANCE, ALONG WITH A BIT OF PILATES. –continued on page 19

Lineage's classes are partof a global movement.

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Lineage’s free Dancing Through Parkinson’s classes benefit more than just physical Lineage’s free Dancing With Parkinson’s classes benefit more than just physical

health. People with Parkinson’s and other serious conditions often struggle with depres-sion, especially as their ailments progress. The mental health boost the classes provide isjust as important — if not more so — than the boon to their bodies, students say. “It al-lows us to feel our emotions,” says student Mary Ann Moses, 62. “That’s what I think ismissing when you go to support groups, you don’t get the depth.”

On a fall afternoon, three women with Parkinson’s and a fourth recovering from astroke step gingerly into Lineage’s black-floored, white-walled studio. Two are usingwalkers and one gets help from an aide. On the dance floor, instructor Michelle Kolbopens up black folding chairs and places them in a circle. Once the dancers are seated, shestarts playing Unforgettable (the Nat King and Natalie Cole version) and leads themthrough a series of stretches. “If you’re tired, make your movements smaller,” she says.

The Dancing With Parkinson’s class is unique in Pasadena but one of several thathave sprung up across the country and abroad over the past decade. The program’s 1,500-plus students have a neurological disorder that impairs motor function, causing balanceproblems, tremors, rigidity and general difficulty with movement. People with the diseaseoften live with chronic pain and fatigue.

In today’s class, though, nobody looks tired. Student Sandy Horn mimics Kolb,“marching” to the beat in her seat and tapping her feet in a Charleston step. “I alwaysleave light-hearted,” Horn says. “No matter how I feel when I go there, I always leaveenergized.”

Next, Kolb directs the dancers to follow her movements. “You’ve got a basket offlowers,” she suggests as she mimes the action. “Now you’re picking them and tossingthem out.” Moses does so with a fluidity you wouldn’t expect from someone with

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Parkinson’s. The diminutive blond beams a radiant smile. Every musical phrase ani-mates yet another expression of joy.

Dance has long been a passion for Moses, who lives in South Pasadena. She taughtherself social dances in high school by practicing in her closet. Later she studied hula.Moses hadn’t been much of a hoofer in recent years, though, because her husband preferssurfing. But the opportunity to join a free class was too good to pass up. From the begin-ning, it was an intensely emotional experience for her. “Listening to the music and doingthese dances and seeing how beautifully the instructor conducted herself — being part ofthat was profoundly moving for me,” she says. “I was both relieved and grateful, and, atthe same time, sad.”

Fortunately, the classes are unofficial support groups as well: Students are so commit-ted to encouraging their peers that they often show up even when they’re not wellenough to dance themselves. On this day, 48-year-old Trish Low has to stop after just acouple of songs. She’d developed intense nerve pain after her fourth deep brain stimula-tion–related surgery in 2009. (In DBS, a pacemaker that generates electrical impulses isimplanted in the brain.) A former outreach coordinator for the American Parkinson’sDisease Association, Low joined the class to “find some joy” in her life. She not onlytapped into the joy but also garnered friends and self-confidence. “I keep reassuring my-self that I am still doing fine,” she says. “To know that I can still shake my booty a littlebit, it’s good for my soul.”

After working in their chairs, the dancers transition to standing positions, using thechair-backs as needed for balance. Then those who can, dance unassisted, or partner with ateaching assistant. The students often choreograph dances by joining together movementsthey each contribute, typically gestural expressions, like the flower-picking exercise. Todaythey play a “name game,” creating movements to accompany the sound of their names.

Dance With Parkinson's classes are aboon to students' mental health.

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Some of the students’ best efforts gain a wider audience: Lineage Artistic DirectorHilary Thomas has incorporated some of the class’ choreography into her own work, andMoses performed a duet with teaching assistant Austin Roy at last year’s Lineage gala.Lineage Dance Company’s Thomas and Kolb draw both artistic and personal inspirationfrom the class. “You’ve got people who are wicked strong and so resilient,” Kolb says, “anddetermined to find the good in this day.”

Launched two-and-a-half years ago, the Parkinson’s class fit perfectly with LineageDance Company’s philosophy of outreach. The company was already performing benefitconcerts for nonprofits across the country, including breast cancer groups and other med-ical charities. The dances were often about the issues the charities grappled with. Thatwork led to the realization that “people not only needed to appreciate watching dance, butto do dance themselves as a force of healing,” says Thomas. So in 2007 Lineage choreo-graphed Dancing Through the Ages, a full-evening work that brought together lay peopleof all ages — from grandparents to grandchildren — to dance onstage.

In 2009, when Lineage was rehearsing a series of dances about the brain, Kolb tunedin to a PBS Frontline documentary on Parkinson’s that included footage of a dance classcreated by the prominent Mark Morris Dance Group (MMDG) and the BrooklynParkinson Group (BPG) in 2001. Kolb, then nursing a knee injury, was drawn to theplight of people who struggle physically. “Moving is such a part of my life, I couldn’timagine not being able to do things I want my body to do,” she recalls. She convincedLineage to bring David Leventhal, program manager of MMDG’s Dance for PD pro-gram, to Pasadena for a training workshop.

Over the past decade, the Dance for PD program has expanded to dozens of commu-nities in the U.S. and abroad. The work has also broadened the way MMDG envisions itsmission, according to Leventhal. “Traditionally, arts education has been targeted to peo-ple who are under 18,” he says, “but there’s a whole population of people who are over 50,

who are [usually] seen as people who would buy tickets to a show but don’t get to experi-ence the art from the inside.”

Lineage’s Dancing With Parkinson’s class takes its framework and inspiration fromMMDG’s Dance for PD, but Lineage designed the specifics of its own program. Bothdance organizations describe their classes as aesthetic experiences rather than physicaltherapy. Still, participants report at least temporary improvements in their motor skills. “Ican move my ankles correctly again,” says Low, whose feet swell up in the evening. In anMMDG survey of participants, two-thirds said they execute at least one daily activitybetter as a result of dance class. A similar number reported more self-assurance in han-dling their daily activities.

Neurologists are studying how these classes achieve their therapeutic benefits, but theresearch is preliminary. People with Parkinson’s are deficient in the neurotransmitterdopamine, and research suggests that exercise can slow the degeneration of dopamine-producing cells, potentially slowing the progress of the disease. Leventhal says dance alsoadds a creative component — “the idea of imagination [and] aesthetics in the service ofmovement.” Kolb posits that dancing “somehow tricks the brain” into new ways of ac-complishing movement. “You put an [imaginative] intention behind the movement that’snot about having to do a task,” she says.

A few weeks after being sidelined, Low is back on the dance floor shaking her booty.She sashays and shimmies to “The Lady is a Tramp.” No walker. No chair. Sure, she’s alittle unsteady at times, but she can really move. And that’s clearly a pleasure. Moses isright there with her, grinning from ear to ear. “I never in a million years thought I woulddance again with a group of people,” she says. “It’s fantastic.”

Dancing With Parkinson’s classes are held at 2 p.m. Wednesdays. To register, visit lin-

eagedance.org. Lineage Performing Arts Center is located at 89 S. Fair Oaks Ave.,

Pasadena. For information, call (626) 844-7008 or visit the website. .

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Students report at least temporaryimprovements in their motor skills.

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SARKIS MAZMANIAN IS NOT A HOUSEHOLD NAME,

AND THE 39-YEAR-OLD RESEARCH SCIENTIST

SCOFFS AT THE THOUGHT THAT IT MIGHT SOMEDAY

BECOME ONE. BUT IF HIS GROUNDBREAKING

RESEARCH AT CALTECH CONTINUES TO PRODUCE

BREAKTHROUGHS IN POTENTIAL DISEASE

CONTROLS AND CURES, HE MAY ONE DAY BE UP

THERE IN THE PANTHEON OF SCIENTISTS WHO

HAVE HELPED CONQUER MAJOR DISEASES.Mazmanian recently won a prestigious 2012 “genius award” from the John D. and

Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a fellowship with an unrestricted grant of $500,000,given to “individuals of exceptional merit who show promise of continued creative work,” ac-cording to the foundation’s website. Mazmanian certainly fills the bill. He is a Caltech medicalmicrobiologist and professor whose research has focused on microbes, which, he says, most peo-ple think of as “insidious little creatures that only cause disease.”

But Mazmanian believes otherwise and started working more than a decade ago to provea long-held belief among scientists, that there are good bacteria as well as bad ones — and thatcertain good ones might just be a source of cures for all sorts of autoimmune and allergic disor-ders, and possibly some neurological diseases and cancers as well. Although scientists had long

WONDERBUGS

Caltech medical microbiogist Sarkis

Mazmanian’s pioneering research on the

curative powers of good bacteria earned him

a 2012 MacArthur “genius award.”

BY BETTIJANE LEVINE


Symbiotic bacteria produce immunomodulatory moleculeswhich are recognized by hostimmune cells (dendritic cells),and presented to T cells in orderto promote development of themammalian immune system.

known there were trillions of species of so-called good bacteria living in our intestinal tract, noneof those species had ever been specifically identified or proven to be beneficial.

Mazmanian has done just that. His lab was the first to identify and isolate specific beneficialbacteria, and demonstrate that these organisms regulate the human immune system and provideprotection from certain diseases. The absence of such bacteria, he hypothesized, was what causedthese diseases. It was a great conceptual leap, and his results have transformed scientific research inthis field. He has already cured multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel disease in lab mice, bygiving them specific bacteria from human intestinal flora. His lab is working to produce bacteria-based therapies that may someday be commonly prescribed for individuals diagnosed with diseasescurrently with no cure. So far, he says, his experiments with lab mice suggest that asthma, type 1diabetes, Crohn’s disease and multiple sclerosis may eventually be cured with drugs made fromhuman gut bacteria. Of course, there’s a long way to go before such cures will be available to people,he says, “but the plan is to proceed to human experiments” and to eventually market drugs likethose being developed in his lab.

Mazmanian theorizes that the increases in certain illnesses over the past 50 years correlatesdirectly with the increase in human exposure to all sorts of antibiotics and chemicals: not justdrugs, but also foods, personal hygiene products like soap and toothpaste, household cleaning products — even toys, can be embedded with antibiotics, he says.

This over-the-top exposure, he believes, has eradicated some good organisms that have alwayslived in human intestines, “organisms that have evolved with us for millions and millions ofyears,” he says. Without the immune protection they were meant to provide, there has been an im-mense increase in certain illnesses that were not so prevalent before. His answer: Cure the illnessby replacing the natural gut organisms, which nature has provided for immunity, and whichshould be there but aren’t.

Mazmanian’s research helped lay the groundwork for the National Institutes of Health’sHuman Microbiome Project (HMP) involving 200 scientists at 80 institutions, who are identi-fying “the microbial communities found at several different sites on the human body, includingnasal passages, oral cavities, skin, gastrointestinal tract and urogenital tract, and [analyzing] therole of these microbes in human health and disease,” according to the HMP website.

You gambled by taking a research path not traveled by scientists before. Was there a eu-reka moment when you said, “Aha! I will study the beneficial effects of bacteria while therest of the world studies the bad effects?” Yes. I can pinpoint the very moment it happened, about 11 years ago. I was a graduate student studying bacterial pathogenesis, or how bacteria cause infectious diseases. At thattime, 99.9 percent of microbiologists interested in human-associated microbes were allstudying pathogens that cause disease. It made sense, right?

Then I read an article about all these bacteria that live in our intestines, and theenormous magnitude and diversity of these organisms. I became fascinated and wentinto the literature. I found there was virtually nothing known about any of these or-ganisms. Nothing at all. That was the eureka moment. I thought, I have to study thisbecause it’s so far off the beaten path, so off the edge. I jumped in with both feet andam still studying the area to this day.

You’re saying no one knew about these bacteria?No. People knew for 100 years there are bacteria in our intestines. But what are they doing?Why are they there? More fundamentally, why does our immune system tolerate them andnot attack them? Think about it: If you get just 10 cells of salmonella or E. coli, your bodymounts a very vigorous immune attack against them. So how is it that we peacefully coexistwith these gut organisms? This was not investigated.

Did you have to prove there are good bacteria in human intestines? Wasn’t it alreadytaken for granted by scientists?A good analogy would be likening this to life on other planets. You talk to astronomersand they all, mathematically, would say it’s extremely likely there’s life on other planets.

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From a purely theoretical point of view, with the billions and billions of planets thereare, and all the chemical reactions going on, for life to have originated on only one ofthose planets is highly unlikely. So there’s probably life on other planets, but we’ve justnever discovered it, so we can’t prove it.

In the same way, the whole world can believe it’s highly likely that some bacteriaare good for you. But if there’s really no proof of it, then it still remains theoretical.What we did was show the first example of these good bacteria, and by showing thatfirst example, it opens the possibility that this is true, and that it can be demonstratedagain and again. So yes, everyone did believe there were likely good bacteria, but noone had ever proved it before. We were the first.

Did you know what you were looking for?

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You’ve said the good bacteria have existed in the human body for thousands of years.Why have they suddenly gone missing in some of us?No one knows exactly, but it possibly started with the invention of penicillin, which wascalled “the magic bullet.” By the late 1950s and early ’60s, antibiotic use was way up. By the’70s and ’80s, it was prescribed like candy. And as we tried successfully to eradicate the badbacteria, the good bacteria were the collateral damage.

You’re saying that overexposure to antibiotic drugs has caused an increase in autoimmune and allergic disease?I would never advocate against the use of antibiotics. Civilization has benefited immenselyfrom them. Limiting them would make us sick again with infectious diseases. Clearly


We were looking for needles in the haystack. There are literally thousands and thousands ofspecies of bacteria in the human gut, and they are as different from each other as humans arefrom earthworms. And only a few of them are going to be therapeutic. We found a couple.We characterized them… and this was sort of the basis for the [MacArthur] award. Not justthe experimental validation, but the conceptual event.

What was your hypothesis going into your experiments?The absence of good bacteria is a risk factor for disease.

And your truly groundbreaking work was proving that these good bacteria somehow pro-tect or activate the human immune system, and that the absence of them causes disease?Yes, that’s correct.PH

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they’ve caused a huge decrease in infection. And because of antibi-otics we live much longer now than we did 50, 60, 70 years ago.

But remarkably, in the last 40 or 50 years, the incidence ofautoimmune and allergic disorders, such as inflammatory boweldisease and multiple sclerosis, has increased. In an era where in-fectious diseases are going down, noninfectious allergic and au-toimmune diseases are going up.

What’s the significance?Perhaps there’s a correlation between these two events. And that iswhat really got us into this work. Changes in our lifestyle in the last50 or 60 years, including exposure to antibiotic drugs and to the antibiotics in food and in household cleansers and hygiene products,such as toothpaste and soap, even children’s toys — along with exposure to chemicals in food preservatives and in pesticides — all may have played a part in affecting our immune system. Add to that the western high-fat, high-sugar diet. As a scientific community we don’t know which of these factors are the ones affecting our gut microbes. I think there’s a consensus that each of the factors incrementally, or maybe in the aggregate, has a huge effect on the increasing prevalence of many disorders.

So overmedication isn’t the biggest worry?The current estimate is that 70 percent of all antibiotics produced go to livestock, not to hu-mans. The animals are given antibiotics to fatten them up. The less sick they are, the moreweight they gain, and meat is sold by the pound. Industry quickly figured it out: Let’s justsupplement the feed with low levels of antibiotics and we’ll get fatter cows, chickens andpigs. I try to eat organic meat and foods.

What other precautions do you take?I try to stay away from foods with preservatives in them. It’s not just antibiotics that kill thegut bacteria. Chemical preservatives do the exact same thing. I try to stay away from foodswith pesticides and wash foods very, very well, because antibiotics and pesticides are sprayedonto them. Things like household dishwashing detergents have very potent antimicrobials inthem. I stay away from those and use plain soap.

Do pesticides have antibiotics?Indirectly. They’re indirectly antimicrobial, because they prevent insects from colonizing oreating the food, and the insects themselves are covered with bacteria, or affect the microbialecosystem. It’s a different conversation than the one we’re having, but pesticides are shown tohave an effect on how much bacteria are on foods themselves.

You haven’t mentioned cancer as a possible disease that might benefit from researchin your lab.I would say we are just beginning to appreciate how gut microbes affect colon cancer in particular. We cannot generalize this to all cancers because the data isn’t there. Even for coloncancer, the data are still preliminary. Not to say there isn’t evidence, but it is not definitive.

What is definitive from your research so far?In experimental animals — we have not yet moved to humans, but that is in the plan— we have identified a bacterium and a molecule from that bacterium that treats andcures inflammatory bowel disease and multiple sclerosis. So in mice we can cure thosediseases using nothing but gut bacteria. That is the conceptual leap here. We’ve shownthat you can take a bacterium from the gut of humans and put it into mice with multi-ple sclerosis or inflammatory bowel disease, and we can cure the disease. Our lab workactually shows that the absence of organisms is a risk factor for disease, and that givingthose beneficial organisms which have protective effects to people may be a therapy for PH

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four diseases: asthma, type I diabetes, multiple sclerosis and Crohn’s disease.

How did you medicate the afflicted lab rats?With a supplement that restores good bacteria during and after an antibiotic regimen.

What kind of supplement?We’re talking about pharmaceutical-grade drugs, but the drugs themselves are not chemicalsthat were synthesized in a laboratory. The drugs are molecules made naturally by our owngut bacteria.

Does any lab make such drugs?Our lab makes them. We extract the bacterial molecule which the bacteria producesand synthesizes. We don’t make the molecule; we purify it directly from the bacteria.

No one has developed this as a therapy yet. It’s in the process of being developed.We have patents. But as you can imagine, it’s difficult to get pharmaceutical firms toinvest in developing these things. And there are many hurdles to go through with theFDA to get licensed to sell a pharmaceutical drug. That will require a lot of effort butwe are starting on that path.

What about potential similar cures for neurological diseases and autism?There’s emerging evidence for those, some reason to believe there might be an association,but nothing strongly definitive just yet.

Does your lab deal only with intestinal tract bacteria? Yes. Just the gut.

What is your most optimistic fantasy for where all this could lead in the future?This is all speculation: My hope would be that we, as a scientific community, will identify organisms, microbes, that are specifically beneficial to various human ailmentsand diseases. So one can imagine that a specific microbe may be effective in controllingmultiple sclerosis, another microbe might be effective controlling cancer and yet anotherwould control heart disease and so on. And that some day we will go to the doctor andget a diagnosis for disease or ailment X, and the doctor will prescribe a pill that will notcontain a chemical, not contain a compound that was synthesized in a laboratory. It willcontain bacteria, the specific bacteria meant to cure your specific ailment.

Will that bacteria have been obtained from the human body?I believe that’s the first place to start. Because these are the organisms we have evolvedwith for thousands of years, the ones that have learned to network and interact with uson a molecular level — talk to our cells and interact with the receptors of our cells.Those organisms are more likely than any others to trigger the beneficial effect. ||||

01.13 | ARROYO | 25

Beverly Hills--based dermatologist and skin-care pioneer Dr. ZeinObagi brings his latest products and treatments to Pasadena’s new ZO Skin Health Center.

BY IRENE LACHER

A LOT OF PLASTIC SURGEONS WILL TELL YOU PRIVATELY THAT

THEIR WIVES ARE THEIR CALLING CARDS — LIVING EXAMPLES

OF THE DOCTORS’ STANDARDS OF BEAUTY AND PYGMALION

PERFECTION. WITH CELEBRITY DERMATOLOGIST DR. ZEIN OBAGI,

ONE NEED LOOK NO FARTHER THAN THE PHYSICIAN HIMSELF.

EXCEPT FOR A FEW CROW’S FEET, HIS FACE IS AS WRINKLE-FREE

AS A BABY’S BUM — EVEN THOUGH HE’S A MATURE 69.

It sounds almost incredible, and yet there he is, the prime beneficiary of his 35 years asa skin-care innovator, known around the world — and now in Pasadena, where Dr. Obagiand his medical esthetician daughter, Sandra, recently opened his latest clinic, ZO SkinHealth Center. (Based in Beverly Hills, he also has what he calls “skin health institutes” inSan Gabriel and Laguna Beach.)

Celebrity dermatologists who produce their own skin-care lines are fairly commonthese days, but Dr. Obagi was in the vanguard of that trend. With a focus on improvingskin health and preventing skin problems, he launched the Obaji NuDerm System in1988; the prescription-strength products, which include hydroquinone and tretinoin, wenton to be sold in doctors’ offices worldwide, from Bahrain and Cambodia to Russia andSudan. He sold a controlling interest in Obagi Medical Products in 1997 and is no longerassociated with NuDerm. He reformulated his skincare line to reflect discoveries aboutskin inflammation and antioxidants that sprang up in the intervening years.


BEAUTY THAT’S

SKIN DEEPDr. Zein Obagi

26 | ARROYO | 01.13

Obagi’s current company is ZO Skin Health, and it produces two lines — prescrip-tion-strength Medical and over-the-counter Skin Health products. Instead of cleanse,tone and moisturize regimes typical of department store lines, ZO focuses on acceleratingcell turnover with targeted cleansers, serums, creams and peels.

The tab for all this is not for the financially faint of heart. Dr. Obagi’s prices — SkinHealth products range in cost from $35 for the Offects Hydrating Cleanser to $145 forthe Ossential Radical Night Repair Plus, and a range of products is generally recom-mended — have ruffled the feathers of a number of Yelpers. But he is utterly convincedof the correctness of his approach, and enough doctors around the world apparently agreeto pack his schedule with speaking invitations. Indeed, a skin-care symposium Dr. Obagiorganized in November at the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills drew 1 80 physicians.

The ZO Skin Health Center in Pasadena offers a wide range of skincare services,from LED therapy and a stimulation peel designed by Dr. Obagi to microdermabrasion,injectables and facials. The doctor sat down with Arroyo Monthly to talk about his skin-care philosophy. Here are some highlights:

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF STARTING SKIN CARE AT A YOUNG AGE: Youngpeople should do preventive measures to prevent acne and scarring, to prevent pigmenta-tion problems, sun damage and cancer, and slow down aging changes produced by thesun... Most kids eat a lot of sugar, a lot of ice cream and cereals full of sugar, and thatcauses constant inflammation in the skin; the bad effects will show years later.

ON PREVENTION OF SKIN PROBLEMS: Prevention is a concept that medically wasnot really supported in the past effectively. We can prevent aging, sun damage, acne, pig-mentation. Many of the problems people suffer from are preventable if they follow a skin

care [regimen] that addresses the skin’s activity and cellular function.

ON MOISTURIZERS: Existing skin care is not helpful to a lot of people. Most productson the market are competing on who makes a better moisturizer. They really aren’t com-peting on science, they are competing to sell products — who makes the product thatfeels good, smells good and the effect lasts longer. So you pay tons of money to get a [de-partment store] brand, and there are also smaller companies that make similar productsthat are much cheaper and do the same thing.

For most people, when you pay a lot of money, you’re paying for the brand. But wehave found out that continuous usage of moisturizer leads to skin sensitivity and depend-ency on the moisturizer. When you apply moisturizer, you do two things — first, thebody responds by shutting off the normal delivery [of moisture and nutrients]. If you putyour hands in water for half an hour and take them out, you don’t see natural hydration.What you see is white wrinkled skin that shows you how, when water sits on the surface,it sucks the natural moisture away. By continuous usage of a moisturizer, you will havedry skin. Baby skin looks wonderful because natural hydration is coming from within.

ON WHAT HE CALLS “THE CIRCLE OF SKIN HEALTH”: We want people to activate,stimulate and strengthen the skin. So we’re trying to take skin care from just feeling goodto really making skin good. That’s what we call skin-health restoration, skin-healthprevention and maintenance. So we have a circle. If you have a problem, treat it early.If you don’t have a problem, we will give you the means to prevent one.

The ZO Skin Health Center is located at 120 S. Lake Ave., Pasadena. Hours are 10 a.m. to

7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and by appointment Sunday and Monday. Call (626)

795-0067 or visit obagiskin.com.

||||


Sandra Obagi

Since 1985 The Sasaki Advanced Aes-

thetic Medical Center has served individ-

uals of the Southern California region, as

well as an international association of

professional, academic and commercial

practitioners and innovators within the

medical community. Established by Dr.

Gordon Sasaki, board certified plastic sur-

geon, the Center is a university-affiliated

private practice and a prominent institu-

tion within the field-at-large. For decades

Dr. Sasaki has distinguished himself

through his pursuit of evidenced-based

techniques, procedures and treatments.

His goal to serve every patient who enters

his facility has never wavered, and his

commitment to the study and practice of

Aesthetic Medicine and Plastic Surgery

has been enhanced through decades of

significant contributions to the field.

Today, on the cusp of a new year, and at

the forefront of medical research and ap-

plications, Dr. Sasaki and his colleagues

share tremendous encouragement over

developments that may profoundly im-

pact the practice of aesthetic surgery

and treatment.

In particular, Dr. Sasaki expresses

guarded optimism over emerging out-

comes related to Cell-Enriched Tissue

Transfer (CETT) therapies. These thera-

pies draw living, regenerative cells from

patients’ own fat tissue in order to pro-

vide new and ongoing life to targeted

areas of reconstruction and rejuvena-

tion. The preliminary clinical experi-

ence with CETT suggests that the use

of adult regenerative cells may pro-

duce benefits within medicine as a

whole- and plastic surgery in particu-

lar- and will require stronger evidence-

based information for the safety and

efficacy for patients.

“My four-year experience with CETT

has demonstrated anecdotal benefits

in my patients who presented with chal-

lenging non-healing wounds from

chronic infections, trauma and radia-

tion-induced that have been unrespon-

sive to traditional therapies. In addition,

while the practice of what physicians

call autologous fat transfer has proved

beneficial since the late 19th century,

and has been especially useful in the

realm of aesthetic and reconstructive

therapies since the 1980s, the long-term

success of these treatments remains

unpredictable. The combined use of

CETT with my patient’s own fat for soft

tissue augmentation under current

study may represent an important ad-

vancement over conventional fat graft-

ing techniques. In conforming to the

position statements from our American

Society of Plastic Surgeons, the intro-

duction of Regenerative Cell Therapy

should be conducted within approved

regulatory guidelines and not be posi-

tioned as a marketing promotional pro-

cedure. I and my colleagues in the

Cell Society are attempting to stan-

dardize the collection and reporting

data to advance our knowledge and

science in this area. I shall be present-

ing my clinical experience as a faculty

member at the 2013 International Fat

Grafting Forum in Las Vegas.”

Like all medical treatments, the

emerging practice of regenerative thera-

pies demands absolute knowledge and

integrity. Dr. Sasaki and his team utilize

the most advanced techniques in the

region, and provide the meticulous care

required by all procedures. The doctor

has spent his life attaining such expert-

ise. He completed medical and plastic

surgery training at the Yale School of

Medicine, performed as Acting Chief

and Director of Plastic Surgery at the

University of Southern California’s Los An-

geles County Hospital, and is currently

Clinical Professor in the Department of

Plastic Surgery at Loma Linda University

Medical School. Dr. Sasaki has pub-

lished more than a hundred peer-re-

viewed papers and chapters and

authored two textbooks. He serves as a

visiting professor in numerous interna-

tional university settings, and acts as

medical consultant to a roster of skin

care companies and surgical device

and technology industries. His Ad-

vanced Aesthetic Medical Center in

Pasadena consists of three medically-

based divisions: the InnoVessence Skin

Care Center, the Advanced Nurse Injec-

tion and laser Center, and the Surgical

Center, all of which provide treatments

ranging from non-surgical to minimally-

invasive and invasive procedures.

Yet his objective is simple.

“My practice is one of listening to the

concerns of patients,” explains Dr. Sasaki.

“My staff and I are educators first. We pro-

vide patients with knowledge of evi-

dence-based treatments. We’re interested

in building trusting, caring, long-lasting re-

lationships with our patients. Now and in

the future I will continue to be involved in

providing such information and tech-

niques for the safety of patients through-

out the world.”

—ADVERTISEMENT—

BUSINESS PROFILE

SASAKI ADVANCED AESTHETICMEDICAL CENTER 800 South Fairmount AvenueSuite 319Pasadenahttp://www.drsasaki.com/

The Sasaki Advanced Aesthetic Medical CenterRegenerative Cell Center for Aesthetics

01.13 | ARROYO | 27

28 | ARROYO | 01.13

arroyoHOME SALES ABOVE $750,000RECENT HOME CLOSINGS IN THE ARROYO FOOTPRINT SOURCE: CalREsource

ADDRESS CLOSE DATE PRICE BDRMS. SQ. FT. YR. BUILT PREV. PRICE PREV. SOLD

ALTADENA

1401 Rubio Street 11/30/12 $1,650,000 6 6194 1925

2316 Pinecrest Drive 11/14/12 $1,200,000 4 2596 1936 $760,000 02/08/2001

1431 East Mendocino Street 11/27/12 $1,173,000 6 2927 1937 $470,000 11/17/1995

1986 Glenview Terrace 11/14/12 $1,075,000 3 2674 1921

1797 Meadowbrook Road 11/08/12 $999,000 3 2378 1932 $400,000 09/25/1991

2651 Tanoble Drive 11/01/12 $950,000 4 2037 1955 $415,000 04/08/1999

1175 Sonoma Drive 11/20/12 $890,000 3 1832 1923 $270,000 04/01/1994

2030 Pinecrest Drive 11/13/12 $851,000 2 2589 1950 $600,000 11/20/1998

1566 Meadowbrook Road 11/01/12 $782,500 6 $220,000 05/31/1984

1175 East Calaveras Street 11/09/12 $750,000 2 2182 1924

ARCADIA

231 West Foothill Boulevard 11/16/12 $1,760,000 4 2820 1949 $648,000 09/03/1999

123 Loralyn Drive 11/27/12 $1,580,000 4 4104 2001 $435,000 01/29/1999

1510 South 6th Avenue 11/02/12 $1,510,000 6 3616 1953

1829 South Santa Anita Avenue 11/01/12 $1,470,000 5 4463 2006 $1,580,000 04/03/2008

1283 South 2nd Avenue 11/02/12 $1,398,000 4 3790 2007 $1,460,000 12/12/2008

2011 Canyon Road 11/16/12 $970,000 3 2022 1955 $345,000 04/29/1997

1631 La Ramada Avenue 11/30/12 $879,000 4 1945 1951 $178,000 08/05/1983

1136 Highland Oaks Drive 11/02/12 $856,000 4 1960 1947 $640,000 01/16/2004

310 East Magna Vista Avenue 11/27/12 $850,000 3 1731 1959

1031 Loma Verde Drive 11/16/12 $840,000 4 2180 1973 $758,000 07/13/2004

1050 English Oaks Drive 11/05/12 $835,000 4 2913 1980 $426,000 07/27/1999

2315 El Capitan Avenue 11/08/12 $820,000 3 1204 1951

2119 South 5th Avenue 11/14/12 $800,000 3 1714 1954

1037 Burnell Oaks Lane 11/27/12 $750,000 4 1843 1956

GLENDALE

2322 East Chevy Chase Drive 11/30/12 $1,579,000 4 3258 1929 $1,200,000 11/01/2005

1742 Riverside Drive 11/27/12 $1,500,000 3 2719 1968 $787,000 05/07/2002

1011 Matilija Road 11/30/12 $1,010,000 8 $405,000 08/27/1993

3703 Hampstead Road 11/21/12 $990,000 4 3036 1975 $590,000 04/12/1990

3019 Welsh Way 11/07/12 $842,000 4 3006 1980 $620,000 08/17/1989

2956 Graceland Way 11/06/12 $840,000 3 3683 1991 $500,000 03/31/1998

3340 Stephens Circle 11/20/12 $804,000 5 4813 1988 $1,350,000 12/07/2005

3236 Montrose Avenue 11/16/12 $775,000 6 3051 1940 $455,000 10/18/2001

1533 Arboles Drive 11/07/12 $770,000 2 2018 1950 $490,000 06/28/1989

1715 Del Valle Avenue 11/27/12 $762,000 3 1986 1930 $234,000 08/13/1987

1634 Oakengate Drive 11/08/12 $760,000 4 2848 1966

438 West Kenneth Road 11/30/12 $750,000 2 1718 1923

LA CAÑADA FLINTRIDGE

4234 Chevy Chase Drive 11/02/12 $2,900,000 5 4152 1924 $315,000 12/29/2011

625 Georgian Road 11/15/12 $2,825,000 7 $2,750,000 09/15/2010

945 Regent Park Drive 11/29/12 $2,550,000 5 4270 1941 $670,000 03/07/1997

ALTADENA OCT ’12 NOV ‘12HOMES SOLD 33 39MEDIAN PRICE $489,000 $460,000MEDIAN SQ. FT. 1551 1588.5ARCADIA OCT ’12 NOV ‘12HOMES SOLD 33 29MEDIAN PRICE $832,000 $725,000MEDIAN SQ. FT. 2394 1869EAGLE ROCK OCT ’12 NOV ‘12HOMES SOLD 18 14MEDIAN PRICE $460,000 $527,500MEDIAN SQ. FT. 1388 1242GLENDALE OCT ’12 NOV ‘12HOMES SOLD 119 96MEDIAN PRICE $525,000 $474,250MEDIAN SQ. FT. 1513 1513LA CANADA OCT ’12 NOV ‘12HOMES SOLD 19 16MEDIAN PRICE $845,000 $1,040,000MEDIAN SQ. FT. 1828 1988PASADENA OCT ’12 NOV ‘12HOMES SOLD 127 128MEDIAN PRICE $550,000 $531,000MEDIAN SQ. FT. 1524 1500SAN MARINO OCT ’12 NOV ‘12HOMES SOLD 15 10MEDIAN PRICE $1,700,000 $1,545,000MEDIAN SQ. FT. 3011 2494SIERRA MADRE OCT ’12 NOV ‘12HOMES SOLD 5 6MEDIAN PRICE $496,500 $528,000MEDIAN SQ. FT. 1429 1355SOUTH PASADENA OCT ’12 NOV ‘12HOMES SOLD 20 13MEDIAN PRICE $845,000 $825,000MEDIAN SQ. FT. 1823 1552TOTAL OCT ’12 NOV ‘12HOMES SOLD 389 351AVG PRICE/SQ. FT. $413 $432

~HOME SALES INDEX~HOME SALES

AVG. PRICE/SQ. FT.

-9.8%

+4.6%

oct

2012

nov

2012

389

HO

MES

SO

LD

351

HO

MES

SO

LD

SPONSORED BY™

The Arroyo Home Sales Index is calculated from residential home sales in Pasadena and the surrounding communities of South Pasadena, San Marino, La Canada Flintridge, Eagle Rock, Glendale (including Montrose), Altadena, Sierra Madre and Arcadia. Individual home sales data provided by CalREsource. Arroyo Home Sales Index © Arroyo 2012.

01.13 | ARROYO | 29

ADDRESS CLOSE DATE PRICE BDRMS. SQ. FT. YR. BUILT PREV. PRICE PREV. SOLD

LA CAÑADA FLINTRIDGE

4336 Chevy Chase Drive 11/14/12 $2,500,000 5 6337 2000 $1,780,000 03/23/2001

4728 Vineta Avenue 11/01/12 $2,170,000 3 2365 1951 $1,200,000 06/03/2011

4263 Encinas Drive 11/19/12 $1,425,000 3 1988 1951

322 Mellow Lane 11/15/12 $1,160,000 3 1908 1956 $640,000 11/13/2002

5397 Harter Lane 11/29/12 $1,085,000 3 2348 1964 $445,000 05/08/1997

4820 Carmel Road 11/28/12 $995,000 3 2406 1947 $1,100,000 11/05/2004

458 Noren Street 11/16/12 $930,000 3 1836 1956

1355 Journeys End Drive 11/28/12 $900,000 3 2292 1950 $720,000 03/16/2001

5011 Crown Avenue 11/29/12 $880,000 2 1620 1951 $341,000 11/18/1994

487 Paulette Place 11/14/12 $875,000 3 1802 1954

4836 Revlon Drive 11/01/12 $860,000 3 1830 1949 $100,000 07/25/1979

165 Lamour Drive 11/02/12 $785,000 3 1591 1946

PASADENA

3030 San Pasqual Street 11/16/12 $2,320,000 4 4110 1941 $345,000 01/05/1984

3390 Lombardy Road 11/14/12 $2,255,000 8 $905,000 08/22/1997

1021 South El Molino Avenue 11/06/12 $2,215,000 7 4139 1915

3639 East California Boulevard 11/06/12 $2,110,000 3 3083 1941 $1,200,010 04/06/2004

490 La Loma Road 11/19/12 $1,968,000 5

250 South Hill Avenue 11/29/12 $1,610,000 9 $1,275,000 10/24/2006

504 Arbor Street 11/26/12 $1,600,000 3 2584 1908 $297,000 05/15/1984

777 Hillside Terrace 11/08/12 $1,550,000 7 $850,000 03/06/2001

535 South Halstead Street 11/30/12 $1,310,000 3 2737 1976 $146,500 08/31/1978

610 Westover Place 11/09/12 $1,300,000 4 2529 1942

3216 East Villa Knolls Drive 11/20/12 $1,265,000 3 2927 1974 $450,000 05/01/2000

350 Anita Drive 11/09/12 $1,235,000 2 2180 1998 $85,000 04/27/1995

846 Cambridge Court 11/26/12 $1,230,000 4 3291 2011

1555 Pegfair Estates Drive 11/06/12 $1,162,000 3 2484 1962 $520,000 06/04/1998

600 Westover Place 11/09/12 $1,150,000 3 2270 1939 $615,000 05/11/2001

1820 Devon Road 11/21/12 $1,136,000 5 $1,005,000 02/17/2006

1680 Casa Grande Street 11/30/12 $921,000 4 2584 1912 $648,000 04/18/2012

3553 Grayburn Road 11/07/12 $859,000 3 1924 1946 $580,000 09/14/2012

413 North Raymond Avenue 11/21/12 $854,500

1735 Oakdale Street 11/20/12 $850,000 2 1548 1922 $640,000 05/28/2003

480 South Orange Grove Blvd #12 11/30/12 $850,000 2 2086 1972 $750,000 08/10/2009

411 North Raymond Avenue #2 11/21/12 $829,500

50 North Meridith Avenue 11/13/12 $820,000 6 3172 1913 $330,000 04/19/2002

411 North Raymond Avenue 11/29/12 $804,500

1047 South Los Robles Avenue 11/30/12 $800,000 4 2490 1947 $1,053,000 09/14/2005

3555 Shadow Grove Road 11/21/12 $795,000 2 1748 1955

700 East Union Street #105 11/30/12 $775,000 2 1650 2006

1700 North Arroyo Boulevard 11/29/12 $770,000 4 2005 1948 $731,500 04/30/2009

1483 La Loma Road 11/09/12 $760,000 2 1934 1954

SAN MARINO

1224 Oak Grove Avenue 11/30/12 $2,800,000 6 3898 1951 $586,000 06/13/1980

2115 Adair Street 11/15/12 $2,200,000 4 3875 1931 $203,066 06/18/1997

1908 Warwick Road 11/30/12 $2,090,000 4 3250 1939 $835,000 07/14/2000

2205 El Molino Place 11/14/12 $2,076,000 3 2494 1936 $1,125,000 06/28/2002

1455 Vandyke Road 11/15/12 $1,550,000 3 2534 1948 $895,000 09/04/2003

1730 Banning Way 11/19/12 $1,540,000 4 2438 1954 $1,495,000 10/20/2010

950 Darby Road 11/14/12 $1,500,000 3 2061 1931 $200,000 08/28/1979

1545 Pasqualito Drive 11/30/12 $1,500,000 3 1994 1951

685 Chaucer Road 11/28/12 $1,300,000 7 $1,850,000 06/01/2005

1615 South Los Robles Avenue 11/14/12 $985,000 3 2062 1923 $899,000 03/30/2005

SIERRA MADRE

803 Woodland Drive 11/20/12 $1,000,000 4 2507 1916 $205,000 02/01/1991

SOUTH PASADENA

1505 Milan Avenue 11/27/12 $1,755,000 4 2550 1923 $610,000 03/15/1988

904 Lyndon Street 11/16/12 $1,005,000 3 1597 1923 $1,025,000 06/19/2008

1319 Gates Place 11/27/12 $982,000 5 2406 1929 $380,000 07/14/1997

2036 Amherst Drive 11/27/12 $895,000 3 1552 1923 $830,000 07/09/2004

938 Arroyo Drive 11/09/12 $885,000 $800,000 09/23/2005

822 Summit Drive 11/16/12 $839,000 3 1363 1927 $395,000 07/13/2001

800 Bank Street 11/07/12 $825,000 2 1740 1961 $725,000 01/05/2006

1253 Huntington Drive #B 11/20/12 $775,000

HOME SALES ABOVE $750,000RECENT HOME CLOSINGS IN THE ARROYO FOOTPRINT SOURCE: CalREsource

arroyo

FIT FOR A KING ORQUEEN IN2013!UNIVERSAL HOME GYMIDEAS FOR EVERYONE,EVERYWHEREBY JOANNA DEHN BERESFORD


SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENTHOME & DESIGN

30 | ARROYO | 01.13

THE NEW YEAR REMINDS US OF THE CYCLICAL ASPECT OF OUR LIVES, AND THAT MUCH OF

WHAT WE LEARN IN LIFE WE ACTUALLY RELEARN. IT’S NOT AN ESPECIALLY NEW OBSERVATION

– THAT THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN. YET, ENCOUNTERING SUCH A REALIZATION,

AND ALL OF THE OTHER REHASHED AND REMEMBERED REALIZATIONS THAT WE MAKE IN A

DAY, A YEAR, A LIFETIME, CAN REJUVENATE, CAN MAKE THE ONE-WHO-REALIZES FEEL NEW

AGAIN. THERE’S PROFOUND POWER AND JOY IN THIS RECURRING LESSON.

01.13 | ARROYO | 31

32 | ARROYO | 01.13

01.13 | ARROYO | 33

For instance, most of us know that physical health and fitness are prerequisites for a sat-

isfying and effective life. Yet, every January thousands of Americans recommit themselves to

a healthy diet of food and exercise with renewed zeal. For some of us this commitment in-

volves an analysis of our own homes and how we might incorporate our fitness goals there. If

you’re considering a makeover of yourself that includes a makeover of your home gym, how-

ever humble or ambitious that project may be, there’s good news: the principles of creating

a home gym are as simple and universal as the fitness goals themselves. Anyone can make

a “home gym” anywhere.

PURPOSE AND PARTICIPANTS

First you must consider the rhetorical situation of your home gym. In other words: what’s the

purpose of the space and who’s going to use it? Will the facility serve an entire family, includ-

ing children of various ages? Is it designed to serve a single adult or couple? Will more sea-

soned, or senior, members of the household make use of the exercise equipment? Do you

need a treadmill for the family dog? What are the fitness goals and levels of expertise of

these users, and what do the participants want to aAccording to “The Dean of Home Reno-

vation and Repair Advice,” Bob Vila, a home gym is “more than just an accumulation of

equipment – it’s the product of a well-conceived design that’s as functional as it is motivat-

ing.” In other words, you need a vision and a plan. You may want a quiet, zen-like retreat,

flooded with natural light overlooking the garden, where you will pursue your quest for en-

lightenment through yoga and meditation. Maybe your wife just wants to hop on a station-

ary bike, crank up the television or the ipod and master some rpms. Your son may want to

work with free weights while your daughter climbs the walls – literally. And your houseguests

may want to play a game of indoor basketball after dinner. Think about the possibilities for

now and in the near future, write them down, then consider your space and your budget.

SIZE MATTERS – SORT OF…

Antilia (or as some critics like to call it, Attila), is a $1 billion dollar single-family residence com-

pleted in 2010 for Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, his wife and three chil-

dren. The home includes 400,000 square feet of living space, nine elevators from the lobby,

parking for 160 cars, three helipads and air traffic control facility, a 50-seat theatre, a temple,

ballroom, lounges, guestrooms, and amenities galore, and a staff of 600 fulltime employees.

Of the Antilia’s 27 towering stories, one is dedicated entirely to health and fitness. This recre-

ation emporium features dance and yoga studios, swimming pool, lap pool and Jacuzzi, pri-

vate gym and a snow room, where residents and guests may retreat to escape the

smothering heat of Indian summer.

Clearly, there’s no excuse for the Ambani family not to be in optimal physical health this year.

Yet, you don’t have to live like a Maharajah to work out. Many of the most effective home

gyms are compact, ergonomic marvels. What you do have to do is assess the layout of your

home and decide where you want to dedicate square footage to your callisthenic dreams.

Size matters when it comes to planning and implementing your personal fitness center,

but mainly in the quantitative, not the qualitative, sense.

If you’ve designated an ample space, say an entire guest house, garage, basement,

attic or wing of the residence, to your workout adventures, you may consider a multifunctional

approach to training. This approach may incorporate various kinds of cardiovascular equip-

ment, free weights and machines, space for lifting, stretching and meditation, and an enter-

tainment system. A home decorator, interior designer, and/or professional fitness coach can



—ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT——ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT—

34 | ARROYO | 01.13

help you envision the space, but you should also invest time in doing your own research.

Study reviews and descriptions of the kinds of equipment that you’re interested in and discuss

your ideas with friends, neighbors, trainers, anyone who has a reliable opinion about the mer-

chandise itself and its potential value to you and your family. When you ask questions con-

sider issues of safety, durability, and versatility. And of course, cost and maintenance. One of

the best ways to generate ideas is to use your eyes: browse websites, magazines, books, blogs

and real places for fresh concepts and keep track of them in a file or notebook for reference.

For more modest areas, the same rules pretty much apply in terms of investigating the

options. In a smaller space the use of mirrors and windows can bring a sense of air, light, and

distance to the room. Portable or retractable equipment offers tremendous variety to your

choices. Consider free weights, light stairsteppers, yoga mats, exercise wheels, resistance

bands, kettlebells and calisthenic balls. Numerous devices have been created to offer a

comprehensive work out in compact environments. Glideboard gyms, like the Total Trainer

DLX, and Total Body Works use the participant’s own body weight for resistance and en-

durance. The Bowflex Classic Home Gym and TRX Suspension rings are also examples of ver-

satility and innovation for a compact space.

A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION…

If we acknowledge that in many cases there’s nothing new under the sun when it comes to

physical health (and mental, spiritual, psychological and social health, none of which can

really comprehend in isolation), we may also conclude that there’s not much difference be-

tween us and Mukesh and Nita Ambani when it comes to creating our home health facilities.

We all want to be inspired. Most fitness and design experts agree: the most important thing

that your home gym should do, regardless of its size and scope, is make you want to be

there. As often and for as long as possible. This room or area in your home should be a con-

stant source of inspiration to you.

So, consider some of the less tangible elements of the space, like the presence of

sound in there and how it might protect you from outside sound distractions – as well as

buffering the sound of your activity from the rest of the house. Floors, walls and ceilings can

be built of or enhanced by sound resistant materials. The use of music and sound for relax-

ation, or conversely stimulation, can animate any workout session.

Air quality in general is important and can be substantially effected by intense activity

in a small and enclosed space such as a home gym. Clearer, cleaner air quality can be

achieved with the effective use of an air purifying system. The best air purifiers will provide fil-

tration, energy efficiency, easy-to-navigate and flexible controls.

Finally, consider the visual elements of the space. First of all, how do you want to illumi-

nate? What are the possible light sources in the room? Then, what do you want to look at while

you work out? A beautiful stretch of landscape through a full length window? Inspirational

posters and photographs of killer athletes and their motivational slogans? Soothing watercol-

ors? Portraits of your children? A giant plasma television screen? Smooth, non-intrusive wall

space? Bouquets of flowers and candles and statues of seated Buddha? These deliberations

may be as important as the ones you pursue in choosing equipment and square footage.

To reiterate: in spite of extraordinary advances in almost every aspect of contemporary

life, the truth remains simple in terms of physical exercise: it’s good for everyone and nearly

everyone can do it in some form or fashion. Creating or renovating a home gym can also be

an achievable goal for almost everyone. All you need are a few ideas, a little energy and

some encouragement – all of which I send to you with wishes for a healthy and happy new

year! AH&D

01.13 | ARROYO | 35

—ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT—


36 | ARROYO | 01.13

—ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT—

herdla.org. Lutheran Church of theGood Shepherd, 6338 North Figueroa St.LA 90042, www.goodshepherdla.org

High Point AcademyHigh Point Academy is celebratingmuch this New Year, including a re-designed façade that resemblesPasadena’s signature craftsman homes;a state-of-the-art iMac computer lab tostretch creativity with advanced tools forsuccess; and a student-maintained, or-ganic garden designed to show kidsfrom where their food comes. High Pointcontinues its balanced approach to ed-ucation focused on awakening the joyof learning in each student. Service,technology, athletics, arts, music, foreignlanguage and green living are embed-ded in the curriculum.High Point Academy is located inPasadena in the foothills near EatonCanyon and serves students in kinder-garten through eighth grades. They areWASC and CAIS accredited and havebeen in Pasadena since 1965. 1720 Kinneloa Canyon Rd Pasadena91107(626)798-8989

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Barnhart SchoolBarnhart School offers a private elemen-tary and middle school education forchildren in kindergarten through 8thgrade from the Arcadia, Pasadena,Sierra Madre and other San Gabriel Val-ley communities. Distinguished pro-grams of Barnhart School are theWriters’ Workshop, the 7th grade Biotechproject sponsored by Amgen, Spanishat all grade levels with a conversationclub in 8th grade, early literacy empha-sis, the Virtues character developmentprogram, and continued integration oftechnology, arts, and physical educa-tion. 240 W. Colorado Blvd., Arcadia.barnhartschool.org (626)446-5588

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Good Shepherd Lutheran Church SchoolOur church welcomes all families andchildren to share the Word of God. Wehave a Youth Group and SundaySchool. Our preschool and K-6th classesemphasize reading and mathematicsin preparation for the annual S.A.T. testsgiven to each grade. Computers areused by all the grades. Day Care is alsoavailable. Please call (323) 255-2786 toarrange a tour. More details, and the tu-ition rates are on www.goodshep-

& ENRICHMENT AND SUMMER CAMPSEducation Aa CcBb

01.13 | ARROYO | 37

38 | ARROYO | 01.13

KITCHENCONFESSIONS

YOU NEVER KNOW WHERE LIFE WILL TAKE YOU. YOU CAN PLAN AS

MUCH AS YOU LIKE, BUT IN THE END, FATE CALLS THE SHOTS. THIS IS A

STORY OF FATE AND ME.

I made plenty of plans last year, as my eldest went off to college. I was going to paint

her room, finish a quilt, fix up the garden and organize the garage. Instead, I spent the first

few weeks of her absence watching Disney movies in tears. So proud and happy, yet so

sad to see her go. (It was surely a college parent who invented Xanax.) I was more than a

little appalled at myself. So, in a fit of empty-nest delirium, I decided to look for a job. Work-

ing at home, on the computer, in my PJs is, I admit, not real work. It was great when I was

needed as an active parent. But now that the youngest is about to get her driver’s license,

I’m going to need a reason to get up in the morning besides letting the dog out.

Over the years I have parlayed a decent chef career into an active presence on the

culinary periphery. But although teaching is rewarding and writing is challenging, neither

holds the thrill of a real live job. Explaining the history of the blood orange is hardly an

adrenalin rush. I’ve been living vicariously through friends and students who are still at work,

getting accolades and working on the cutting edge. Meanwhile, describing myself as a

chef — while not physically cooking food for money — started to feel weird and wrong.

My problem (one of them) is that I am picky. I want nothing short of the ideal job —

creative control, comfortable hours, easy location, friendly co-workers, decent money.

With my credentials, finding that gig should have been a breeze. Except it wasn’t. I got

tons of offers for teaching and R&D… in other states. I got lots of management offers at

Applebee’s and TGI Fridays. I got a few on-call catering offers. Everything sounded sucky.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, being overqualified is humiliating. Employers were ob-

sessed with my chronology, which no doubt covers a broader time span than they are

used to. (Not too many résumés rolling in with highlights from 1988.) And while the Inter-

net is miraculous in a number of ways, it blows in the job-search arena. I received daily

emails with terrific opportunities in trucking and healthcare.

Dejected, I decided to peruse Craigslist. This is where fate intervened. On the first try,

I found a listing for a pastry-chef/baker position right here in South Pasadena. I know my

town, and it could have been only a few places. I sent in my résumé, and within an hour

the phone rang. As I had hoped, it was a small bakery/restaurant run by a woman I

know. We had worked together briefly years ago, and I always considered her a talented

chef. She had been a pastry chef in all the best L.A. restaurants while I was doing the

same in San Francisco. We worked for and knew many of the same people. We have

very similar culinary sensibilities and are about the same age. We differ in that she made

the leap to running her own place, making her infinitely braver than I am. Open for

seven years, hers is a beloved South Pasadena destination. I was ecstatic. She wanted

me to bake pastries and breads in the early mornings and was willing to cut me loose

occasionally to continue my Navy work. It was perfect. Best of all, she understood my

motivation. I am at a point in my life where I can do whatever I want. And if I want to

backpedal to the place I started, that’s my prerogative. (Or, conversely, my huge mistake.

We shall see.)

So now, not quite 50, I am going back into the kitchen in the same capacity as when

I was 24, and already the work has reinforced what I already knew — I’m old. I have

been explaining the physical demands of restaurant work to students for years. But, as it

turns out, knowing that a thing can happen does not prevent the thing from happen-

ing. Forty hours a week of active cooking is a lot different than doing a demo here and

there. I go to bed now feeling like I have been working in a quarry (an old-timey quarry,

not the kind with machinery), and it has taken a month for my feet to stop stinging every

morning when I get out of bed. My shoulders ache, the palms of my hands are sore and

my skin looks like the “before” picture in a Jergens ad.

And I had forgotten about the burns. All bakers and pastry chefs have them, more so

than line cooks, because we are reaching up into tall ovens more. (And we are clumsier,

because of all the sugar.) The forearm is especially susceptible, and the resulting scars,

though admittedly bad-ass, are not attractive. I had forgotten that I wore a lot of long

sleeves to hide the scars. (My mom even sewed long lace onto the three-quarter-length

Back in the Saddle Arroyo’s cooking columnist contemplatesa fork in life’s road.

STORY BY LESLIE BILDERBACK | PHOTOS BY CLAIRE BILDERBACK

01.13 | ARROYO | 39

sleeves of my wedding dress so as not to offend our guests in the front row.)

But despite the aches and pains, I am relishing every food-service idiosyncrasy. Sure,

I’m enjoying the satisfied look on people’s faces when they enjoy what I’ve made. But I

really missed things like saying “behind you” every three minutes. (We do that so people

don’t turn around and crash into us as we pass with a hot pot or the like.) I’ve even

started saying it in the real world, as I maneuver around people in the aisle at Trader

Joe’s. I’ve missed walking into walk-ins. These large refrigerators invite all sorts of mischief,

and on my first day I got a little misty remembering all the illicit activities I have inter-

rupted over the years. (Seriously… I could fill a book.) I’ve even missed heaving a 50-

pound bag of flour over its bin, and slashing into its gut with a paring knife to release its

innards. (So satisfying!)

The best thing, though, about going back is the real people. Working at home, I was

becoming a cranky hermit, annoyed with everyone and everything. I’m still cranky and

annoyed, but now I have a group of people who agree with me! I had forgotten how

amazing it is to work at a common table with like-minded people. At first, I am sure they

thought I was a weirdy, awkwardly fumbling around a new kitchen. But I think I have

been accepted, because the other day someone said, “So long, see you tomorrow,” as I

walked out at the end of my shift.

I have lived in South Pasadena for nearly 20 years. I moved here when I gave up

cooking in favor of raising kids. I don’t regret that decision for a second, but now that my

initial mission is nearly complete, I am thrilled to be popping ibuprofen and dusting off

the orthotics. They are familiar friends from long ago, and they signal that I am back

doing the thing I love.

Thanks, fate. You rock.

Leslie Bilderback, a certified master baker, chef and cookbook author, can be found in

the kitchen of Heirloom Bakery in South Pasadena. She also teaches her techniques on-

line at culinarymasterclass.com..

||||

Not Heirloom’s Coffee CakeAlthough I cannot divulge the secret recipes of my new employer, I can whet yourappetite with some breakfast baking. Heirloom’s coffee cake is a thing of beauty.Mine has a good personality.

INGREDIENTS

FOR BATTER:3 cups cake flour1½ teaspoons baking soda1 teaspoon salt2 teaspoons cinnamon12 ounces (3 sticks) butter1½ cups brown sugar3 eggs1 tablespoon vanilla extract1 cup sour cream

FOR STREUSEL:2 cups all-purpose flour1 cup brown sugar1 cup butter, chilled and diced

METHOD1. Preheat oven to 350°. Coat a 9-by-13-inch baking pan with

pan spray. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon,and set aside.

2. Beat together butter and brown sugar until creamy. Add theeggs, one by one, then add the vanilla. Add the sifted dry in-gredients in batches, alternating with the sour cream, andmix until well blended. Pour into baking pan.

3. To make the streusel, combine flour and sugar, then cut inbutter using fingertips or a pastry blender, until the butter ispea-size. Streusel is ready when it holds together whensqueezed but also easily crumbles apart. Top the batter withstreusel, then bake the whole thing for 30 to 45 minutes,until golden brown and a pick inserted in the center comesout clean. Cool 15 minutes before serving.

Heirloom L.A.

4126 Verdugo Rd.Los Angeles

(855) 456-6652

heirloomla.com

40 | ARROYO | 01.13

An Heirloom for the PalateIS IT A CATERING COMPANY? IS IT A POP-UP RESTAURANT? IS IT

AN EVENT SPACE? WELL, YES, YES AND YES: HEIRLOOM L.A. IS ALL

THOSE THINGS. TUCKED OH-SO-DISCREETLY NEXT TO A STRIP MALL

POPULATED BY A DONUT SHOP, A LAUNDROMAT AND --- A RARITY

IN L.A. --- A POLISH RESTAURANT, HEIRLOOM L.A. IS A MICRO-

COSM OF WHAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING IN THE CITY’S CULINARY

LANDSCAPE OVER THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS. FARM-TO-TABLE

COOKING? CHECK. HOMEGROWN PRODUCE FROM A DEDI-

CATED ORGANIC GARDEN? TICK THAT BOX. POP-UP EVENTS AND

PARTNERSHIPS WITH YOUNG, LIKE-MINDED CHEFS, WINEMAKERS

AND FOOD ARTISANS? DONE. FOOD TRUCK? DUH. A SPECIALTY

THAT HAS GONE VIRAL IN A WAY, BECOMING A RUNAWAY HIT ON

ITS OWN; MEET THE LASAGNA CUPCAKE. Behind this ambitious --- and I’d add the word “soulful” --- venture are two photo-

genic young people, Matt Poley and Tara Maxey. In 2009, they took a pasta

machine and, borrowing commercial kitchens at off-hours, began making pasta

together. They both have the requisite credentials under their belts. Poley trained

under the venerable Gino Angelini, owner of Angelini Osteria and a heavyweight

in L.A.’s Italian dining scene. He also worked at a farm-based restaurant outside

Demonstrating that everything old is new again, Heirloom L.A. looks to the past to serve creative cuisine in the present.

BY BRADLEY TUCK

PHOT

O: M

ax W

ange

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WINING & DINING

01.13 | ARROYO | 41

PHOT

OS: T

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otto

m tw

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Orvieto, Italy, where he saw true sustainability and farm-to-table in action --- involving

genuinely free-range animals, fed kitchen scraps and then butchered for food, with

every part of the animal being used. Maxey has a background of similar luster, having

trained at Spago under Pastry Chef Suzanne Griswold and later with Elizabeth Belkind

of Cake Monkey Bakery.

The pasta machine coupled with their youthful approach spawned the lasagna

cupcake and birthed a catering company, which they named Heirloom L.A. Success

with the catering and events company funded the acquisition of a facility in Eagle

Rock, and further growth allowed them to acquire a former hairdressing salon next

door, which is now used as a space for events and collaborations. Named, appropri-

ately enough, The Salon, it’s a small and simple space, with white walls punctuated by

simply framed color prints by photographer Autumn de Wilde. The room is dominated

by a circular wooden station, not unlike a round sushi counter, around which one sits

while Poley finishes dishes in the center.

It made for intriguing entertainment at a recent dinner held in conjunction with Bri-

dlewood Wines of Santa Ynez. Pairing dishes with a selection of Bridlewood’s current

vintages, Poley joked affably while teasing hand-cut chitarra pasta into mounds speck-

led with house-made fennel sausage and black truffle, and topped with a homemade

crème fraîche that actually contained no cream at all but was made instead with

cooked-down and pulverized cauliflower florets. It was rich and incredibly flavorful and

paired very well with Bridlewood’s 2010 Blend 175, a blend of syrah, merlot, tempranillo

and cabernet sauvignon. It was fruity without being a tiring fruit bomb, with enough

brightness to let you go back for another mouthful of pasta.

Behind The Salon, the duo built a garden of raised wooden planting beds, aided

by nurseryman Jimmy Williams, a regular at farmers’ markets across L.A., where he sells

his seedlings and dispenses sage wisdom to novice gardeners and chefs. The garden

is a work in progress (as are all gardens) and yields a diverse array of seasonal pro-

duce, including peas, tomatoes, eggplant, passionfruit and chard.

Previous Salon events have included a dinner with that hipster favorite, Handsome

Coffee Roasters, and cult winemaker Jeff Fischer of Habit Wines. The dinners are by invita-

tion and through friends, but Heirloom plans to start announcing events soon via Twitter

and Facebook, allowing anybody the chance to snag a seat at their highly sought-after

table. (It’s not about exclusivity, it’s about practicality --- the room seats just 33 people.)

I used the word soulful to describe Heirloom L.A., and allow me to clarify that. De-

spite all of the requisite trendy boxes being ticked, what Poley and Maxey are doing

has nothing to do with mere trends. They’ve been striving to reconnect us with a way

of making and eating food that was very much the norm for our grandparents, and is

still so for some people who live in cultures less obsessed with the minutiae of the here

and now, the latest Twitter sensation or the state of a handbag empress’ love life. Good

food and the sharing of it nourish not just our bodies but our hearts, minds and souls.

An heirloom is something that connects us with our shared past. And in this case, we

hope, a shared, more thoughtful future. ||||

Smoked lamb sirloin with Bridlewood cab sauce

Chocolate ganache

42 | ARROYO | 01.13

01.13 | ARROYO | 43

THE LISTCOMPILED BY JOHN SOLLENBERGER

EVERYTHING’S COMING UP ROSES,DESPITE BLUE ECONOMY

Jan. 1 — The 124th

Rose Parade kicks off

at 8 a.m. The two-

hour event, broad-

cast to 220 countries

and territories outside

the U.S., runs along a five-and-a-half-mile

route starting at Green Street and Orange

Grove Boulevard. The parade heads east

on Colorado Boulevard to Sierra Madre

Boulevard, then turns north, ending at

Sierra Madre Boulevard and Villa Street.

Grandstand tickets along the route cost

$45 to $90.

For tickets, call Sharp Seating at (626)

795-4171 or visit sharpseating.com. Visit

tournamentofroses.com for information.

POST-PARADE FLOAT VIEWINGJan. 1 and 2 —The Rose Parade isn’t your

last opportunity to see the floats. After the

parade, they will be parked at the corner

of Sierra Madre and Washington boule-

vards for viewing from 1 to 5 pm. Tuesday,

7 to 9 a.m. Wednesday for seniors and dis-

abled visitors and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednes-

day for the general public. An audio tour is

available for download on iTunes. Tickets

cost $10 for adults; admission is free for chil-

dren 5 and younger. Park-N-Ride shuttles

are available starting at 12:45 p.m. Tuesday

at Pasadena City College, 1570 E. Col-

orado Blvd., and at the Community Educa-

tion Center, 3035 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena.

On Wednesday, Park-

N-Ride starts at 6:30

a.m. at PCC, the

Community Educa-

tion Center and the

corner of Arroyo

Boulevard and Seco Street, Pasadena.

Shuttle tickets cost $3 round-trip, free for

children 5 and under. MTA also offers a

shuttle service from the Sierra Madre Villa

Gold Line station starting at 12:30 p.m. Tues-

day and 7 a.m. Wednesday.

Call (626) 795-4171 or visit sharpseat-

ing.com for tickets. For information, visit

tournamentofroses.com.

CLASSICAL CONCERTS KEEPSOUTH PAS LIBRARY ALIVEJan. 13 — Friends of the South

Pasadena Library hosts the Restoration

Concert Series, now in its 17th year, to

help fund the upkeep of the library and

the community room. The Sunday after-

noon concerts showcase nationally and

internationally recognized classical

artists. This month’s program features the

New Hollywood String Quartet perform-

ing Mozart’s Quartet in D minor, K 421.

The ensemble will be joined by the Lyris

Quartet in a performance of

Mendelssohn’s Octet. The concert starts

at 4 p.m. in the Community Room.

Admission costs $18 at the door.

The South Pasadena Library Community

Room is located at 1115 El Centro St.,

South Pasadena. Call (626) 799-6333 or

visit friendsofsopaslibrary/concerts.htm.

MOZART, BAROQUE BACH MOUNTEDBY CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Jan. 17 — The Los

Angeles Chamber

Orchestra presents its

“Baroque Conversa-

tions” series at 7 p.m.

at the Colburn

School’s Zipper Concert Hall in Los Ange-

les. The program features four works by

Johann Sebastian Bach: Trio Sonata in C

major for Oboe and Violin, Trio Sonata in G

major for Two Flutes, BWV 1039, Trio Sonata

in C minor for Violin and Trio Sonata in C

major for Oboe and Viola. Tickets cost $55.

Jan. 26 — The orchestra performs an all-

Mozart program in honor of the com-

poser’s 257th birthday at 8 p.m. at the Alex

Theatre in Glendale, repeating Jan. 27 at

UCLA’s Royce Hall at 7 p.m. Helmuth Rilling

guest conducts the concert, which in-

cludes a performance by the USC Thorn-

ton Chamber Singers. Featured are

Symphony No. 39 in E-flat major, K.543,

Requiem in D minor, K. 626, and other

selections. Tickets cost $25 to $110. A talk

precedes the Alex concert at 7 p.m. and

the Royce Hall concert at 6 p.m.

Zipper Concert Hall is located at 200 S.

Grand Ave., Los Angeles. The Alex Theatre

is located at 216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale.

Royce Hall is at 340 Royce Dr., Westwood.

Call (213) 622-7001 or visit laco.org.

DRIVING MISS DAISY STOPS BYSIERRA MADRE

Jan. 18 — The Pulitzer

Prize-- and Oscar-

winning play Driving

Miss Daisy opens at

8 p.m. at the Sierra

Madre Playhouse, fol-

lowed by a Champagne reception and

light buffet. The Alfred Uhry classic, set in

Atlanta from 1948 to 1973, explores the

sometimes rocky but ultimately warm rela-

tionship between fiercely independent

Jewish widow Daisy Werthan and her

African-American chauffeur, Hoke Cole-

burn. The play explores class and race is-

sues, as well as historical events, including

a 1958 synagogue bombing in Atlanta

and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s acceptance of

the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Christian

Lebano directs. Driving Miss Daisy runs at

8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2:30 p.m.

Sundays through March 9. Admission costs

$25, $22 for seniors and students ages 13

to 17 and $15 for children 12 and younger.

The Sierra Madre Playhouse is located at

87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre. Call

(626) 355-4318 or visit sierramadreplay-

house.org.

SURVIVORS’ STORY SIGNING AT VROMAN’S

Jan. 22—Master mys-

tery writer Robert

Crais is scheduled to

visit Vroman’s Book-

store at 7 p.m. to

discuss and sign his


A SELECTIVE PREVIEW OF UPCOMING EVENTS

Caroline Goulding

SYMPHONY STARTS SEASON WITH SIBELIUS,BRAHMSJan. 12 — The Pasadena Symphony kicks off the new year with a concert of

Brahms and Sibelius works at 2 and 8 p.m. at Pasadena’s Ambassador Audito-

rium. Tito Munoz conducts the orchestra in a program of Brahms’ Symphony No.

1 and Sibelius’ Violin Concerto, performed by soloist and Grammy nominee Car-

oline Goulding. The program also includes Composer-in-Residence Peter Boyer’s

“Apollo” from Three Olympians. Tickets cost $35 to $100.

The Ambassador Auditorium is located at 131 S. St. John Ave., Pasadena. Call

(626) 793-7172 or visit pasadenasymphony-pops.org.

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44 | ARROYO | 01.13

THE LIST

latest crime novel, Suspect, the story of

Scott, an LAPD officer whose partner,

Stephanie, was murdered. Scott teams

with Maggie, a USMC patrol dog who lost

her handler in Afghanistan. Colleagues

regard the pair as damaged goods,

trusted by nobody. The L.A.--based Crais is

the author of 19 novels, eight of them

New York Times bestsellers.

Vroman’s Bookstore is located at 695 E.

Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. Call (626) 449-

5320 or visit vromansbookstore.com.

DEPRESSION-ERA ART, WELCOMINGTHE SNAKE AT THE HUNTINGTON

Jan. 19 — The Hunt-

ington has organized

the first museum exhi-

bition exploring the

work of versatile

Depression-Era artist

Maurice Merlin. “Maurice Merlin and the

American Scene, 1930--1947,” opening

today and running through April 15,

includes some 30 paintings, watercolors

and prints by the little-known artist. Also


FILM FEST CELEBRATESDANNY KAYEJan. 12 and 13 — Celebrate the humor of the late comedian, humanitarian,

dancer and all-around good guy Danny Kaye in a film festival at the Pasadena

Convention Center. The two-day event features five films each day, from 9 a.m. to

8:30 p.m. Movies include The Kid from Brooklyn, Hans Christian Andersen, The Se-

cret Life of Walter Mitty and other classics. A portion of the proceeds benefits

UNICEF, for which Kaye served as a celebrity ambassador. The festival includes

slide shows, trivia contests, speakers, a costume show and more. Tickets cost $99

for one day, $145 for both days.

The Pasadena Convention Center is located at 300 E. Green St., Pasadena. Call

(800) 778-0560 or visit dannykayefest.com.

Danny Kaye


01.13 | ARROYO | 45

THE LIST

included are works by others in his circle,

highlighting the energetic Detroit art

scene around the federal government’s

Works Progress Administration. The politi-

cally tinged works go beyond the artist’s

immediate circle, depicting struggles of

the Motor City’s African-American com-

munity and others.

Jan. 27 — The Huntington celebrates the

start of the Year of the Snake with Lunar

New Year festivities from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30

p.m. Visitors can enjoy dance, music and

folk crafts by artists and performers from

China’s Jiangsu Province. Craft demon-

strations include kite-making, embroidery,

beadwork and sugar sculpturing. Free

with regular Huntington admission.

The Huntington Library, Art Collections

and Botanical Gardens is located at 1151

Oxford Rd., San Marino. Call (626) 405-

2100 or visit huntington.org.

CASSIOPEIA COMES TO BOSTON COURTJan. 26—The Theatre @ Boston Court’s

production of Cassiopeia opens at

8 p.m. David Weiner’s poetic and idio-

syncratic drama por-

trays a chance

meeting of a math

genius and a young

woman from the

rural South on a

cross-country flight.

The two social misfits discover a com-

mon past and shared connection they’d

lost years before. The play continues at 8

p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 2

p.m. Sundays through Feb. 24. Tickets

cost $34, $29 for students and seniors.

The Theatre @ Boston Court is located at

70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena. Call (626)

683-6883 or visit bostoncourt.com. ||||

Jan 26 and 27— The Los Angeles Master Chorale pairs Brahms’ “Ein Deutsches

Requiem” with the West Coast premiere of composer Peter Lieberson’s message of toler-

ance, “The World in Flower,” written in memory of his late wife, mezzo-soprano Lorraine

Hunt Lieberson, in a performance at Disney Concert Hall. Music Director Grant Gershon

conducts. Concerts start at 2 p.m. Saturday and 7 p.m. Sunday. Featured soloists are

soprano Yulia Van Doren, mezzo-soprano Kelly O’Connor and baritone Brian Mulligan.

Gershon and KUSC’s Alan Chapman present “Listen UP,” a pre-concert talk two hours

before each performance. Tickets cost $29 to $134.

Walt Disney Concert Hall is located at 111 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles. Call (213)

972-7282 or visit lamc.org.

L. A. MASTER CHORALEPAIRS CLASSIC WITH PREMIERE


46 | ARROYO | 01.13

01.13 | ARROYO | 47

Arroyo Monthly January 2013

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