Now You Feed Me, Now You Don’t (Thanksgiving on the Run)

Thanksgiving’s always been a weird one for me. I just don’t really do holidays, but I do like spending time with people, so I try not to waste the day. The thing that kills holidays for me is how everything shuts down. I get this unicorn — a rare paid day off, basically a bonus weekend — and instead of being able to do whatever I want, the whole world shutters its doors and tells you to sit inside. But even with all that, this Thanksgiving still turned into something solid.

This year was loose and mostly unplanned. Thanksgiving Day, I spent with two friends. We went to Lovi’s Delicatessen in Calabasas, grabbed food, and walked around for a bit afterward. Nothing dramatic, just an easy afternoon. The rest of the night was basically hanging out, doing code-nerdy things, hacking the matrix — honestly, my kind of evening.

Black Friday turned into its own little tour. I went out with my buddy and his dad — who also happens to be my buddy — to Two Doughs Pizza in Agoura Hills for their sourdough-crust pizza. Total spur-of-the-moment move. We even grabbed a donut at Dulcet Gourmet Donut, one of those classic family-owned spots in North Hills, on the way back. It pretty much felt like a Saturday pregame, minus the movie. That night, I met up with more friends at The Local Peasant in Sherman Oaks to celebrate another buddy's birthday: good food, great energy, and even better people.

And that lands me on Saturday — an adventure in itself. Saturdays usually are. The mission: watch some magicians make things disappear and then make some pizza and donuts disappear ourselves. That mostly went to plan. We saw Now You See Me: Now You Don't — somehow still playing three weeks after release, with our normal early showtime. Great popcorn-style movie where you can just watch it and enjoy it for what it is: entertainment. I saw the first two when they came out, loved them, so I had to stick with seeing the third.

Now, our plan was to hit Esco’s New York Pizza, because PIZZA — but much like the movie, they pulled a full-on disappearing act. One minute they were near Melrose, the next they were nowhere. While writing this, I did some investigating and learned they didn’t vanish… they just reappeared down near Pico in Hollywood. A classic misdirection. Anyways, adding them to the list of future places to try.

Mr.Charlie's was right across the street, so we ate there instead — still great, two weeks in a row. Rather than hiking over to Voodoo Doughnut again, we wanted to hit up Trejo’s Coffee and Donuts — a classic spot owned by the man himself, Danny Trejo.

I’ll leave it there for this one. The weekend’s still going, but that covers the epic parts.