Froyo Ho

Hope everyone is enjoying this glorious memorial day weekend. This has been a very creative week for me. Yesterday, after much hard work, I finished a score for a short film called “Sarah’s Wish”. I was so fortunate to collaborate with some incredible musicians: cello, voice, and guitar. The outcome is always worth the effort – I look forward to sharing it with all of you. Friday night I was out again at the Upright Citizens Brigade with a group of friends. Last night I was out to a couple of bars in Silverlake with my friend Luke. This afternoon I will be walking down to one of my favorite LA eateries, Tender Greens, for their first Beer Garden of the year: all you can eat food and all you can drink beer, served outdoors in their lovely garden. They do it once every month in the summer with a different culinary centerpiece each time. Today is a pig roast. You can count on an update on this tomorrow.

In addition to writing music this week I’ve been repeatedly engaged in another activity: frozent yogurt. Californians are froyo addicts all year round, but it becomes an exceptionally irresistible treat in the summer months. Many people feel like they are “being good” by getting froyo because it’s virtually fat free and has dramatically less calories than traditional ice cream or gelato. I say it’s a bunch of bs. The yogurt may be better for you, but the sugar and additives they have to put in to create flavors like red velvet cake, apple pie, cookies and creme, cake batter, etc, etc cannot be any better. Add on the endless bar of toppings and sauces and I daresay you end up in just the same place as a regular old ice cream cone…. not that it stopped me from going four times this week…

As you can imagine there are a LOT of froyo joints in LA, but my personal favorite is Froyo Life on Hillhurst in Los Feliz. It’s a small operation (only four shops in the entire Los Angeles area) with all the benefits of one of the big chains. It’s open until 12 midnight every night, has a wide variety of flavors and toppings, and adds some personal touches that one just doesn’t get at a chain. My favorite part about this store is the large oval table covered in magazines. Every time I go in I see a mess of people gathered around talking, flipping through, laughing. If there’s one thing the starving artist loves, it’s community and Froyo Life definitely has it. I also love that instead of those ridiculous heat lamps, they provide fleece, neon colored blankets for their outdoor seating. Precious. Hell they even have legitimate bowls you can use instead of paper for your earth-loving hipster side.

But let’s cut the crap. All of this stuff is fantastic, but what I REALLY come here for are the sauces. Yes, I love their froyo flavors. For a while they had maple bacon donut – slap me silly. But what I find here that I find nowhere else are two sauces that I have to get every single time. One is a peanut butter sauce that harkens back to my childhood visits to Friendly’s Ice Cream back on the east coast. It is a smooth, creamy, slightly salty sauce that brings your froyo creation to angel-choir-singing heights. The other sauce? Marshmallow cream. Basically liquid fluff…. yeah… My favorite thing to do is to get cookies and cream froyo, pile on oreo cookie crumbles, then douse it in marshmallow cream. Lately I’ve taken to combining the peanut butter and marshmallow sauces over vanilla or angel food cake yogurt piled with Reese’s PB cups, almonds, and swirled with a little nutella. So much for healthy, low calorie yogurt.

So if you happen to be out wandering about this memorial day weekend in need of a cold and creamy treat to counteract all that grilled meat and cheap beer, swing yourself by Froyo Life – you won’t be sorry.

Come back here tomorrow afternoon to hear all about my all-you-can-eat barbecue at Tender Greens.

Any froyo favorites out there?

Froyo Life
1924 Hillhurst Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90027
www.froyolife.com