Bird Show + Scarantino's

Bird Installation by Amy Inouye @ Acorn Gallery

On Saturday we attended the NELA Second Saturday Gallery Walk in Highland Park. Instead of going to many galleries this month, we only visited two. The Acorn Gallery, which is part of the Arroyo Arts Collective, and Avenue 50 Studio are right next door to each other, near the Metro Gold Line. Our friends, Amy Inouye and Heather Hoggan curated the show for the Collective. The title of the show at The Acorn is "The Bird Show." Every piece in the Gallery relates to birds. Heather's piece is an eagle made from gourds, feathers, etc. Amy's piece is an installation of mechanical toy birds on an orange wall. She built shelves for each bird and decorated the shelves with leaves. Each bird was turned on, performing it's chirps, hops and light show qualities. It was quite faboo.

Stuart Rapeport's piece was a collaborative effort. Stuart built these wooden birds, Amy painted them and added glitter and set them in their tableau of unpopped corn kernels.

It was hot, hot, hot in the Gallery, despite fans and a small air conditioner. The buffet was lavish, the people were friendly, talented and wonderful, but we just had to leave before we melted.

The galleries are right next to the Metro Gold Line. This is the above-ground portion of the Gold Line. There's this imaginative fence depicting yellow metal cut-outs of children playing....next to the railroad tracks. I'm not sure if this was meant to be funny or to be a warning. Someone should add some broken limbs and blood to those yellow figures.

We got back in the car and turned on the air. Thank you Mr. Honda for my air-conditioned car! We drove west, cruising back toward Hollywood and home. We wanted to try this restaurant in Eagle Rock called Polka, but it was closed. So we remembered that we'd seen a Scarantino's in Glendale.

When I was very young, there was a Scarantino's on La Cienega, south of Pico Blvd. It was next door to the miniature golf course, a frequent birthday party location in the early 1960's.

The restaurant in Glendale had the same script font on the sign as my childhood Scarantino's. So, we went in.

The ministrone soup was the same...thick and creamy.

The canneloni and eggplant parmesean were just as I remembered them when I was a kid. This place had to be related to the old one on La Cienega. We questioned the owner and he told us that the place I remembered was owned by his uncle for about 10 or 12 years. The uncle sold the place when he switched to the real estate business. His brother had a restaurant in Pasadena called Dino's and this one in Glendale. Same family, same menu, same delicious, American style Italian food with Connie Francis singing in Italian on the speaker system. The red and white checked tablecloths and chianti bottles always make me feel at home. Scarantino's was delicious and resonable. We'd definitely go back.