A Day Out

'Twas a beautiful morning in Santa Monica...

Perfect, in fact, for a solo trip to the farmers' market...

There was squash,

veggies,

and more veggies.

Greens of all sorts,

gourds,

tons of centerpiece potential,

and mysterious produce.

I paid a visit to the date booth (fruit, not event)

and got some of these coconut covered delights:

Look at all the natural sugar...

Only in a beautiful world does that grow on trees.

Then there was this radical bread vendor...

who sold the most amazing sourdough.

I took them up on their $1.50 special

... a mini sweetpotato loaf infused with orange.

SO GOOD.

I looked at my watch: time to meet my friend Christian for lunch.

Today marked the first in our new tradition, "Wednesdays Around the Culinary World" (the title's a work in progress ;).

Since we both love food and live in Los Angeles, one of the few cities in America where you have access to practically every type of cuisine out there, we've made it our mission to visit a different themed restaurant every week.

First stop? Africa.

I was a bit hesitant, having read some so-so Yelp! ratings, but wanted to give it a go nonetheless.

We were the only people in the restaurant, All My Children served as background music and it took about 10 minutes to get a couple waters... BUT everything we had ended up being pretty tasty.

Starting with these veggie sambusas...

Similar to an Indian samosa, this savory spiced pastry was crispy and delicious.

It paired decently with the SPICY green dipping sauce, but would have been even better with something sweet and syrupy.

For the entree, I wanted to try black eyed pea coconut soup, but seeing as the establishment was fresh out of coconut milk, I had our waitress come up with an original meat-free dish:

red beans, "red rice" and grilled plantains.

It wasn't quite as complete as I would have liked- where's the veg?!?- but the rice and beans were very flavorful and the plantains some of the best I've ever had!

Perhaps the most memorable component of our meal:

Fufu, aka: a straight up ball of dough. I had a couple of bites- tasted a lot like potato- then called it quits.

I was shocked and intrigued by the lack of veggies on the menu- most of them were listed as ingredients of goat, chicken or beef stew. Our waitress informed us they were planning to add a salad section to the menu in the coming weeks... probably the only restaurant in LA without salads ;)

With Africa marked off the list, it's onto Armenia next week.

This evening, though, is all about American food in my kitchen.

I'll be starting on a couple Thanksgiving dishes as soon as I hit the publish button.

A hint: they're both orange.

See you tomorrow with a rundown of what I'm thankful for.

Happy T Day lovelies :)