S'Mores and Mega M&Ms

I was gone so long from Los Angeles this time, that when I came back, the universe had provided THREE new varieties of M&Ms to try.

S'Mores:

The red-white-and-blue theme gave away these as being leftovers from the Fourth of July, but I was completely happy to test them on July 27.  I really liked these!  They are smaller than most M&Ms, and consist of a graham cracker core, coated in chocolate and then candy.  Nice texture and flavour, these are recommended.

Mega Milk Chocolate M&Ms

I should have put something in the photo for scale, as these came out looking like regular M&Ms, but they're not, they are huge.  They seem to be around 2.5 X the diameter of a regular M&M, and thicker but proportionally flatter.  They were OK.  Nothing bad about them, but not as special as I was hoping.  I was hoping they'd be like a peanut M&M where sometimes the peanut gets forgotten and you have a large round blob of unexpected chocolate, but the shape of these doesn't give you that.  I weakly recommend them; there's nothing wrong with a giant M&M, but nothing terribly exciting about it either.  If they could make them the same shape as the peanut or peanut butter M&Ms, then they might be on to something.

Mega Peanut M&Ms

These had been waiting for me when I got off the plane, so I admit I scarfed them down before I remembered to take pictures, or even that I ever had a blog.  They were OK too, but no more satisfying than a regular peanut M&M.  Well, maybe a bit more satisfying, but since the peanut to chocolate ratio is lowered, you can't pretend as easily that they are good for you.  Still, I recommend them, but if you like a bit of nutrition built into your candy, then the regular peanut variety is the way to go.

Friendly neighbourhood concrete factory

Los Angeles has the most interesting things sitting right where you wouldn't expect them.

This is the Hollywood Cemex Plant, handily located across the street from Best Buy and Target, and the Sprouts Farmers Market.  It's only a few blocks from our house, and we don't live in a bad part of town, either.  It's right in the city, and not in an industrial area.

I hear rumours of it closing now and then, but it's still plugging away at making concrete (or maybe just grinding up components), on La Brea Avenue, between Melrose and Santa Monica.

Smoke from the Santa Clarita fire

Here are some photos Ed took from the roof deck last Saturday, July 23, as an apocalyptic cloud came at us lazily from over the Hollywood hills.  The fire was around 30 miles north of us, and had been burning for a day when the wind shifted and brought the smoke our way.

A bit later the whole sky was quite dark, and the sun was like a red stop light in the sky - the camera compensated and brought out the yellow though:

The sky was like one of those science fiction movies for most of the day.  It was a relief to wake up to blue on Sunday.