Weekly Culture Collection is a column that gives the best things to eat, see and do near Pepperdine, Malibu and the surrounding Los Angeles area. It’s like The New Yorker’s Goings on About Town section but not as high-brow, and there is no dandy with an eyeglass. It also has nothing to do with New York.
It’s seven weeks into the semester. Students are settled into our respective routines and perhaps entrenched in an early fall depression as we wait for our next day off. Weekends can transport us, but only for a while. Perhaps, just sometimes, that’s exactly what we need. Consider this week’s culture collection an antidote to the midterm slump.
EAT
3rd Annual Off the Hook Seafood Festival 2017
Saturday, Oct. 14, 4 to 7 p.m. (VIP, 3 p.m. Early Entry) — Santa Monica Pier
There are puns, and then there are puns — the italicized, grin-inducing, awe-inspiring kind. The recognition of the double entendre and wit of these clever remarks lends itself to a slow grin rising across a Cheshire cat mouth. Santa Monica’s 3rd Annual “Off the Hook Seafood Festival” doesn’t quite rise to the level of Cheshire cat-inducing grin. It is a subtle one — first coming with the realization that hook refers to those attached to a fish and second by the pleasant smattering of words and amusement that the phrase “off the hook” induces. The fish, are, literally off the hook at this festival.
In honor of National Sea Food Month, the 3rd Annual Off the Hook Seafood Festival will inaugurate the celebration through seafood tastings that highlight the area’s best restaurants. There will also be the area’s best idiosyncratic tradition (an Oyster Shucking competition) on display, all for a noble cause: Surfrider’s Ocean Friendly Restaurant Program.
Los Angeles Magazine’s The Food Event 2017
Sunday, Oct. 15, 2 to 5 p.m. — Saddlerock Ranch, Malibu
It is, according to Los Angeles Magazine, “an epicurean extravaganza.” The event is a sensuous, hedonistic experience parlayed through consumption of food and drink. Fare from 40 of the best LA restaurants, cooking demonstrations and beverages of the adult variety will be served at the Saddlerock Ranch in Malibu for this daylong event. Think trendy destinations like Republique and more mainstream picks like 800 Degrees Pizza.
SEE
Tuesday, Oct. 17, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. — Pepperdine University Smothers Theatre
The most highly vaunted, venerated, and, perhaps, talked about member of the Malibu-Pepperdine community is back. This time, he is not outside the window but perhaps, listening to a mountain lion playlist will allay post-traumatic mountain lion disorder. Perhaps saying that P-22, the sobriquet of Los Angeles’ most beloved feline, has “changed America” would veer on hyperbolic, and maybe, ridiculous. P-22 may have not changed America but he and his other feline friends have certainly transformed Pepperdine into a school and land filled with lore, fantasy, and hysteria in the Mountain Lion Panic of 2017. The screening of the film at Smothers will give a glimpse into the life of the mountain lion described in the movie trailer as the “Neil Armstrong of his kind.”
DO
Saturday, Oct. 14, 1 to 4 p.m. — 18th Street Arts Center
Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA is a far-reaching initiative by the Getty Foundation highlighting Latin American artists. The 18th Street Arts Center will celebrate their Pacific Standard Time exhibition, “A Universal of History Infamy: Virtues of Disparity,” in collaboration with LACMA. Tours, food trucks, live music, no shortage of art activities and workshops, and even an experimental quesadilla making class are all part of the event.
Seafood festivals, food events, mountain lions, block parties, may not assuage midterm anxieties completely but they can certainly help. Especially when pared with off the hook puns and odes to California’s feline friends.
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