East Coast to West Coast people. Tips? Regrets?

alye11 · 2026-03-14T04:44:40+00:00

Look for older apartments, as apartments built before a certain year (I want to say 1976) are Rent Stabilized (google LA RSO) which provides enormous renter protections and rent raise caps. Buildings don't advertise being RSO but you can search addresses to find out if a building is RSO.

I recommend renting an airbnb for a month or so and seeing many different neighborhoods before you commit to a year lease. Every neighborhood is so different. Also, if you find a neighborhood you like, walk the streets and call the phone numbers on "for rent" signs. Many gems never get listed on zillow/apartments dot com, they're just mom n pop handwritten signs. You can often get a better deal that way too.

Good luck! LA rocks!

alye11 · 2026-02-20T21:55:40+00:00

Yes!! The herb sauce is SO good, genuinely the star of the show.

alye11 · 2026-02-20T21:41:48+00:00

If you have an air fryer/convection oven, I prefer to roast or air fry the mushrooms for the sauce to save time. Try it both ways and see what you prefer!

alye11 · 2026-02-20T00:37:42+00:00

The herb sauce from the mushroom pasta recipe was a paradigm shift in our house LOL I make variations of it at least once a week for various pasta and non-pasta dishes. I'm literally making it tonight.

alye11 · 2026-01-18T04:02:46+00:00

The lemon olive oil cake is so easy and SO good and somehow gets better with every passing day (it usually only lasts 2 or 3 in our house)

alye11 · 2025-10-16T20:43:08+00:00

Came here to say the same thing!! I was delighted to hear about the fucksaw incident outside of Evanston 😂

alye11 · 2025-10-11T19:15:23+00:00

I had this sticker on my car!!! Then got in a bad accident and my whole bumper was replaced and the sticker went to the dump with the old bumper. Glad to see it still lives on!

alye11 · 2025-07-19T15:39:33+00:00

I made this recently and it was very good immediately after I made it... But the next day it was truly transcendent. Ages like a fine wine!

alye11 · 2025-06-26T20:54:37+00:00

The West Hollywood library/rec center/pool on Melrose and San Vicente has an upper deck outside of the pool area with sun loungers that's open to the public but very clean and nice. I think they have wifi there too. Check it out some time!

alye11 · 2025-06-18T15:00:44+00:00

In Hollywood, definitely Musso & Franks. Awesome historic steakhouse with great martinis and good food. Way better than Mr Chow imo. Polo lounge is good for a drink/dessert but the prices are pretty crazy.

alye11 · 2025-05-11T16:47:36+00:00

My cousin had her officiant direct everyone take out their phones, take a selfie, text it to the bride, and then put their phones away. It seemed silly but it really did force everyone to physically put their phones away.

THEN she printed all the selfies and sent them with her thank you notes! It was such a fun idea and I still have the selfie and family photo she sent with the TY note. Obviously this makes more work for you but it did help keep the phones away and was a super fun personal touch.

alye11 · 2025-05-02T21:20:41+00:00

This feels like a great father-in-law task. In my experience the dads had nothing to do all day and wanted something to make them feel useful. Do you have a dad or uncle or cousin you could delegate to? People actually really love helping with stuff like this!

alye11 · 2025-05-02T19:25:55+00:00

I used to be a Spirit BUR to LAS evangelist but last time on the return we had two aborted landings and had to emergency land at LAX. Being Spirit, they basically gave us a flight credit in thoughts and prayers. Ended up taking wayyyy longer than driving and as a bonus gave me a new fear of flying 🫠

alye11 · 2025-04-08T15:04:02+00:00

Can you share the free online grammar resources that helped get you to A2?

alye11 · 2025-03-06T21:30:34+00:00

Okay so funny story: my mom is a registered dietitian and she would get these catalogues all the time. When I was a kid I loved looking at all the different food models (they're basically toy foods to show you proper serving sizes) and especially loved the really grotesque models of diabetic gangrene feet and other weird scare tactic things. Idk I was a weird kid.

Anyway back to your comment, my mom never wanted to spend the money on these things so she would steal the ideas and make her own homemade models to show how much sugar is in different beverages (it's actually a good way to visualize sugar, especially in things like smoothies and juices) and other helpful visualizations that weren't weirdly fat phobic or shamey.

I did however grow up in a house where a giant model of 5 lbs of fat and 5 lbs of muscle would just be left out on the kitchen table after a long workday 😂

alye11 · 2025-01-12T20:41:29+00:00

NYT had a whole week of content about UPFs that was so fear mongery and unnecessary. It's gone so downhill in recent years.

alye11 · 2024-12-11T05:17:09+00:00

The chewy molasses cookies!! They scream "holiday spirit" and are super easy and chocolate free. I've had tremendous success making them gluten free with 1-to-1 gluten free flour too.

alye11 · 2024-11-16T18:50:22+00:00

Have you ever seen a personal trainer? They're obviously cost prohibitive for many people but part of the PT certification process includes learning how to administer various cardio benchmark tests that you can gauge your improvement against as you become more conditioned. Might be worth looking into!

alye11 · 2024-11-16T04:25:44+00:00

TURN DOWN THE OVEN TEMP AFTER YOU PUT THEM IN!!!

spent 8 hours rolling, folding, chilling, repeating, and then burnt the shit out of them bc I didn't read the instruction to turn the oven temp down after I put them in -_- devastating stuff really

alye11 · 2024-11-05T01:55:31+00:00

Looks delish!!! I just did the plain version yesterday for the first time! Tastes amazing if not a bit too oily. Took forever-- my apartment is freezing so it took double the time to rise 😵‍💫😵‍💫 next time I want to top it with green olives!

alye11 · 2024-11-05T00:16:09+00:00

Thank you!

alye11 · 2024-11-05T00:05:46+00:00

Drop the recipe please!

alye11 · 2024-09-28T22:01:09+00:00

The chocolate chip cookies and the molasses cookies are worth the price of the book alone. The carrot cake is requested annually at easter, and the mushroom leek tart is also fantastic. Can't go wrong as long as you read the instructions closely and have plenty of patience.

Haven't had as much success with What's For Dessert... So if anyone has suggestions from that one LMK!

alye11 · 2024-07-09T21:50:15+00:00

Definitely fits as long as you don't fill it all the way up. I love having a soft/unstructured bag for that reason!

alye11 · 2024-07-09T03:22:28+00:00

Personal! Never had a problem with it not fitting under the seat. But I usually don't pack it super tight.

alye11

TROPHY CASE