I was only able to attend one of the two days at the LA Times Festival of Books (at the USC campus) this year, but I think I had a good fill (last weekend).

One of the nicest things in synchronicity was to be there for the Alana Newhouse and Josh Malina cooking demonstration as part of the launch of “The 100 Most Jewish Foods – A Highly Debatable List” book which contains a lot of contributions, including from my friend author Wayne Hoffman (on “chicken – just chicken” and another on a “used tea bag”). Which, incidentally, is how I met Alana one other time – in Guatemala, of course, a birthday trip Wayne put together in what now seems like a far-off time in a land very far away. But – I digress – It was a great trip, and this was a great cooking demonstration and a great book.

Joshua Malina and Alana Newhouse cook up some matzo brei

The rest of my time there was spent on attending a couple of panels on Crime Fiction and one on Struggling Artists depicted in fiction – all were entertaining and enlightening, and I even bought a book (“Still Lives,” by Maria Hummel), about crime in the L.A. art world, which so far, is pretty great.