As I started learning more about the global water crisis I couldn’t understand how I could be living in such abundance, while the rest of the world was struggling to sustain themselves on water that ultimately made them sick. As I started asking this question friends who work as water engineers referred me to the documentary based on the book Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner.

I found the documentary absolutely fascinating and I highly recommend it to all Californians and especially Angelenos! There are groups who are looking toward the future of LA’s relationship with water and this documentary can serve as an overview of the past 100+ years of LA’s water history.

Watch all 4 parts of the documentary »

Once you have caught up on the past 100 years consider what the future of LA might look like:

UCLA Grand Challenge Project to make Los Angeles water and energy independent by 2050 »

Mayor Launches L.A.’S First-Ever Sustainable City Plan

How Los Angeles Became an Unlikely Model of Urban Sustainability

The Los Angeles Water Conundrum: Adaptability by Design

Above the grit and noise of the street, downtown Los Angeles quietly provides some of the most amazing visual detail in its buildings and public art works. This is a selection of those buildings and public arts filmed across some 50 different locations in the immediate downtown area and the arts district. There are many many more locations that are not included and are equally if not more impressive.

Some of the buildings are in disrepair, some have been restored to their full glory while others have been transformed into artworks. In all of them, there is character, color and detail that makes the area a never-ending source of intrigue.

Dubbed as “the world’s first 24 hour music video” LA has never looked so beautiful in Pharrell’s latest video for his single “Happy”. With the simple concept of 4min uninterrupted segments you watch Angelinos dance throughout LA at literally all hours of the day. With minimal set boundaries you get to see locals drive/walk through the background that really brings the concept together because you get the full LA flavor without even having to try. Genius!

On a trip to Pasadena last weekend I took the Metro through Union Station and I couldn’t help but smile as I walked through the main transit hall thinking of this video. Best believe that you will find me all over LA recreating some of these scenes.

Checkout 24hoursofhappy.com for the full experience.

Thank you Pharrell and We Are From LA for making LA look so beautiful and giving us an LA version of “Dance Walking”

Here are all 24 hours, which I must admit that I have watched at least 12 of so far…

Having grown up on Costco frozen foods I have only recently gained an appreciation for finer dinning. But my humble roots often have a hard time connecting with food that I can barely make out its French name on the menu. This is where Roy cooks a home run for me. He took the fine dinning experience, flipped it, and remixed it to connect with 2.5 generational guys like me.

I came across this article in LA Weekly last year where Roy talks about how cookbooks changed his life. I went through and bookmarked all the chefs/books and I have been slowly working through the list hoping to be infused with the same culinary mastery. I’m a slow learner so don’t ask me to start a restaurant, but it has been great to get a glimpse into a world so different than my own.

Roy is coming out with an auto-bio/cook book in November 2013 that tells the “unlikely story of how a Korean American kid went from lowriding in the streets of L.A. to becoming an acclaimed chef.” You can get a taste here: http://ridingshotgunla.com/2013/09/26/l-a-son/

And Roy if you are reading this – mad respect! “El Hermano Serrano” would make a great name for your next culinary piece. Just sayin’…

I found this very interesting as I often find myself crossing multiple ethnic, racial, and socio-economic lines in any given day. So this made me curious to take a survey of all the neighborhoods that I have lived in to see the trend over the course of my life.

My family moved from Mission Hills to a small rural town 45 minutes outside of Los Angeles (Point E) called Acton, CA: population approximately 1,500 people in 1993. We lived on a dirt road and had to commute for everything. We were one of the few Mexican families in the area and it was a cultural adjustment to say the least. The area was home to “California Cowboys”, and families of LAPD, LAFD, and the general city expat who was seeking rural solitude. We had a dog, as small two bedroom house on an acre of undeveloped land, and an epic view of the north-side of the Angeles National Forest with the city of Pasadena directly on the other side. In my teenage years I would often day dream about life in LA and what I would do once I was old enough to move back.

I went to high school in Lancaster, CA (Point F). It was a 30 minute commute one way from home to school and the majority of my friends lived closer to campus. I was again one of the few Mexican students in a predominately white upper-middle class school. I had dreams of becoming a mechanical engineer so I could build roller coasters for a living, but I eventually became a graphic designer with a strong math and science background after being declined admission from all the engineering schools I applied to. All latino parents at the time aspired for their sons to become doctors, scientists, or engineers and mine where no different. So they were a bit shocked when I ended up pursuing a career in design.

I have been living in “The City of Los Angeles Proper” since 2005 and have lived in various neighborhoods within the city (Points G–L). It wasn’t until I moved to the city that I gained an appreciation for vegetables (outside of the city vegetables are poorly cooked or over cooked making them taste disgusting), became an urban explorer, and learned how to quickly transition across different cultural, ethnic, and socio-econmic lines. It’s not rare that you’ll find me hanging out in a cafe in Brentwood and later driving to East LA to get some tamales for dinner. It’s also not rare for me to meet up for coffee with a friend in Malibu and later drive out to Sylmar for a family dinner. Although there are still very distinct racial divides in Los Angeles I serve as an example that they can be crossed and even bridged for others from both sides to cross as well.

I recently came across this video by Naked Juice and Wholesome Wave that got me thinking about Food Deserts again.

Having grown up in a small rural desert town we would take bi-weekly trips to the nearest Costco to stock up on enough food to last several weeks, but this was merely a preference and not our only choice as we had a local market down the street that offered decent food options at slightly higher prices for convenience.

Given my experience growing up and the amount of effort we put into buying our food I am still astonished that there are densely populated communities in Los Angeles that have little to no access to high quality food options. Its incredible for me to think of how limited I feel when one of the Trader Joe’s in my neighborhood is out of stock of my favorite peanut butter and I have the option to go to one of the four other locations in my area along with all the other large chain grocery store options and not to mention the Costco location 15min away from my apartment.

There were also several years in my recent past where I was living in Los Angeles without a car and took the bus everywhere. This meant that weekly trips to the grocery store where also by bus so I completely understand the need to have high quality food options within a one mile radius. I can imagine the difficulty of having to commute several miles by bus or by foot would be a serious obstacle for most families.

All this to say that food deserts are something that I will be keeping in mind as I make my weekly grocery shopping trips and as I start to think through how I can help address this reality for my city neighbors merely one or two communities away. Leave a comment on what you think of the Curious Catalyst idea or if you have any of your own ideas to help transform the food deserts of Los Angeles.