Lifestyle
L.A. Affairs: We moved from New York in a doughnut truck. Would L.A. offer new adventures?
We drove up a steep hill in our packed doughnut food truck to see our new house in Glassell Park for the first time. But we weren’t prepared for the stress of that hillside drive. Who knew that such pockets of treacherous roads existed just east of the 2 Freeway?
This was a different level of driving stress than we had ever encountered on New York City or New Jersey roads. There, people whizzed by while holding the horn. Or the wrong lane would take you to a different state. But here in L.A., every turn we made led to a new hazard: a blind curve with a speeding Tesla coming down the other side; a gardener’s pickup truck with protruding tools parked to the side but still taking up half the road; low branches that swatted the top of the truck and then snapped back to spank us in the rear. Wait, this street is two lanes?
I gripped the door, mouth tight, barely breathing. When we finally parked the bright blue doughnut truck in our new driveway, my husband turned to me and said, “Oh man, my butt was clenched that entire time.”
Jersey City to Los Angeles. That was the journey I’d made with Dan, my husband of six years, with his mini-doughnut catering truck as our moving vehicle. We’d park and leave all our belongings alone overnight. I wondered if the truck would make our mattress and towels smell the way Dan did when he came home after working — the greasy sweetness of fried dough and powdered sugar. But the smells didn’t have that much time to sink in. We did it fast.
October 2020 didn’t feel like the time for dilly-dallying with our things in tow, encased in a glaring wrap of — I’ll call it cerulean — with raining sprinkles and the words “Glazed & Confused” plastered around a big pink doughnut.
Our first days here were spent in 92-degree late October (welcome to L.A.!) breaking down boxes in the sun. Our home was coming into focus — not just the house, the place.
After 12 years of being in New York City, I felt unmoored. I didn’t realize right away that the life I was building there was a transient one. Although I had been born, raised and educated in Southern California, I felt I had to go to that hectic place to find myself. What I found was pain and stress and a blue-eyed scruffy Italian guy from North Jersey.
After three years together, we were married in Santa Monica, showing our loved ones that Southern California was home base, even if I didn’t yet understand that. California inspired our next chapter too. While honeymooning in Sonoma, we saw a farmers market stand that made hot bite-sized doughnuts to order. It sparked an idea in Dan. My home state was bearing witness to the biggest moments of our life together.
But after the wedding, we went back to where we lived, and I was reminded of my failures. I had moved to New York after college to pursue a career in writing only for my goals to coincide with the 2008 financial crisis. Then, barely a year later, my sister died of complications from Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The days there felt dull and rote, like life was playing in a pre-Oz black-and-white.
While I was pivoting careers and starting a psychotherapy practice, Dan was tiring of 80-hour workweeks managing Manhattan Cold Stone franchises. He sought to build a business on his own terms. He conceived of a food truck catering company that would serve those little doughnuts, fresh and warm in a tray topped with bits and bobs in combinations called S’mores or Salted Caramel Pretzel. Glazed & Confused was born.
As Dan’s business grew, mine sputtered. The depression I had been riddled with in adolescence — where it’s so impossible to imagine having a future that you give up on creating one — had returned in a new adult form. Looking at Dan’s truck, I felt the void in the center of that pink doughnut glaring at me and saying, “There’s a piece missing.” I realized my New York life was Limbo, a suspended place and time marked by loss.
So I started planting the seed. What if we moved to L.A.?
I wasn’t sure it would work. As a therapist, I know that leaving a place doesn’t leave your struggles behind. But if my struggle was about belonging and moving forward with building a life, then I couldn’t deny where I was rooted and where I want to build. As soon as we crossed into California, I felt relief from succumbing to the magnetic pull of home. My hunch was right. We needed to be here, and this truck had brought us.
But now, would Dan come to feel unmoored? He had been born, raised and educated on the East Coast. What if I had doomed him to what I had endured back east?
In a marriage, it can be easy to forget our different emotional realities. Just to be safe, I blanketed Dan in my community, my parents, school friends and cousins who embraced him. I researched the best pizza and bagels in L.A., and we frequented Pizzeria Sei, Shins and Belle’s Bagels so that he wouldn’t feel deprived of his cherished comforts. Turns out, L.A. pizza and bagels can win over a Jersey boy.
As I felt joy looking out the window at the tips of the Dodger Stadium palm trees and the U.S. Bank building, I saw him become taken by the light and color of our hills and sky. Every morning, I’d catch him staring out the window at the glow over that 2 Freeway. I could see him feeling the pride I feel about L.A.
Sometimes I don’t feel I deserve this feeling of contentment. But also, maybe, I’d been through enough. After all, it wasn’t easy: it took a 3,000-mile, 13-year detour to get on the right path — all thanks to a cerulean doughnut truck covered in sprinkles.
The author is a writer and therapist who writes screenplays, nonfiction narratives and critical essays. She was a 2023 script competition finalist at the Austin Film Festival. She lives in Glassell Park. She’s on Instagram: @pallaviyetur
L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.
On-air challenge
Every year around this time I present a “new names in the news” quiz. I’m going to give you some names that you’d probably never heard before 2025 but that were prominent in the news during the past 12 months. You tell me who or what they are.
1. Zohran Mamdani
2. Karoline Leavitt
3. Mark Carney
4. Robert Francis Prevost (hint: Chicago)
5. Jeffrey Goldberg (hint: The Atlantic)
6. Sanae Takaichi
7. Nameless raccoon, Hanover County, Virginia
Last week’s challenge
Last week’s challenge came from Joseph Young, of St. Cloud, Minn. Think of a two-syllable word in four letters. Add two letters in front and one letter behind to make a one-syllable word in seven letters. What words are these?
Challenge answer
Ague –> Plagued / Plagues / Leagues
Winner
Calvin Siemer of Henderson, Nev.
This week’s challenge
This week’s challenge is a numerical one from Ed Pegg Jr., who runs the website mathpuzzle.com. Take the nine digits — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. You can group some of them and add arithmetic operations to get 2011 like this: 1 + 23 ÷ 4 x 5 x 67 – 8 + 9. If you do these operations in order from left to right, you get 2011. Well, 2011 was 15 years ago. Can you group some of the digits and add arithmetic symbols in a different way to make 2026? The digits from 1 to 9 need to stay in that order. I know of two different solutions, but you need to find only one of them.
If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it below by Thursday, January 8 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle.
Daniel Tosh
Sells Lake Tahoe Home for Millions
Published
Daniel Tosh has officially sold his sprawling Lake Tahoe compound but the comedian isn’t leaving the area … TMZ has learned.
Real estate sources tell us the 7-bedroom, 7-bath estate officially closed Friday for $10.75 million, and Tosh bought another property across the lake to be closer to friends, which is why he decided to sell.
The gated estate, located on the pristine west shore between Tahoe City and Sunnyside, sprawls across 1.6 acres and features three distinct homes, each with its own character and charm.
The Upper House is the ultimate entertainer’s dream … 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, elevator, game room, industrial ice cream maker, 4-car garage, hot tub, fire pit, bocce and horseshoe pits, and sprawling lawns with breathtaking lake views.
The Middle House keeps classic Tahoe charm alive with knotty pine interiors, 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, a stone fireplace, skylit kitchen, and steam shower — perfect for unwinding after a day on the lake.
The lakeside cabin is a serene retreat with a studio loft, retro kitchenette, modern bathroom, and French doors opening right onto the lake.
Altogether, the property boasts 93 feet of lake frontage, two buoys, and multiple outdoor spaces for fun and relaxation.
Daniel may be moving, but one thing’s clear … he’s still very much a Lake Tahoe guy, just on the other side of the lake now.
Sadie Sink as Max Mayfield.
Netflix
hide caption
toggle caption
Netflix
Yes, there are spoilers ahead for the final episode of Stranger Things.
On New Year’s Eve, the very popular Netflix show Stranger Things came to an end after five seasons and almost 10 years. With actors who started as tweens now in their 20s, it was probably inevitable that the tale of a bunch of kids who fought monsters would wind down. In the two-plus-hour finale, there was a lot of preparation, then there was a final battle, and then there was a roughly 40-minute epilogue catching up with our heroes 18 months later. And how well did it all work? Let’s talk about it.
Worked: The final battle
The strongest part of the finale was the battle itself, set in the Abyss, in which the crew battled Vecna, who was inside the Mind Flayer, which is, roughly speaking, a giant spider. This meant that inside, Eleven could go one-on-one with Vecna (also known as Henry, or One, or Mr. Whatsit) while outside, her friends used their flamethrowers and guns and flares and slingshots and whatnot to take down the Mind Flayer. (You could tell that Nancy was going to be the badass of the fight as soon as you saw not only her big gun, but also her hair, which strongly evoked Ripley in the Alien movies.) And of course, Joyce took off Vecna’s head with an axe while everybody remembered all the people Vecna has killed who they cared about. Pretty good fight!
Did not work: Too much talking before the fight
As the group prepared to fight Vecna, we watched one scene where the music swelled as Hopper poured out his feelings to Eleven about how she deserved to live and shouldn’t sacrifice herself. Roughly 15 minutes later, the music swelled for a very similarly blocked and shot scene in which Eleven poured out her feelings to Hopper about why she wanted to sacrifice herself. Generally, two monologues are less interesting than a conversation would be. Elsewhere, Jonathan and Steve had a talk that didn’t add much, and Will and Mike had a talk that didn’t add much (after Will’s coming-out scene in the previous episode), both while preparing to fight a giant monster. It’s not that there’s a right or wrong length for a finale like this, but telling us things we already know tends to slow down the action for no reason. Not every dynamic needed a button on it.
Worked: Dungeons & Dragons bringing the group together
It was perhaps inevitable that we would end with a game of D&D, just as we began. But now, these kids are feeling the distance between who they are now and who they were when they used to play together. The fact that they still enjoy each other’s company so much, even when there are no world-shattering stakes, is what makes them seem the most at peace, more than a celebratory graduation. And passing the game off to Holly and her friends, including the now-included Derek, was a very nice touch.
Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers, Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler, Maya Hawke as Robin Buckley, and Joe Keery as Steve Harrington.
Netflix
hide caption
toggle caption
Netflix
Did not work: Dr. Kay, played by Linda Hamilton
It seemed very exciting that Stranger Things was going to have Linda Hamilton, actual ’80s action icon, on hand this season playing Dr. Kay, the evil military scientist who wanted to capture and kill Eleven at any cost. But she got very little to do, and the resolution to her story was baffling. After the final battle, after the Upside Down is destroyed, she believes Eleven to be dead. But … then what happened? She let them all call taxis home, including Hopper, who killed a whole bunch of soldiers? Including all the kids who now know all about her and everything she did? All the kids who ventured into the Abyss are going to be left alone? Perfect logic is certainly not anybody’s expectation, but when you end a sequence with your entire group of heroes at the mercy of a band of violent goons, it would be nice to say something about how they ended up not at the mercy of said goons.
Worked: Needle drops
Listen, it’s not easy to get one Prince song for your show, let alone two: “Purple Rain” and “When Doves Cry.” When the Duffer Brothers say they needed something epic, and these songs feel epic, they are not wrong. There continues to be a heft to the Purple Rain album that helps to lend some heft to a story like this, particularly given the period setting. “Landslide” was a little cheesy as the lead-in to the epilogue, but … the epilogue was honestly pretty cheesy, so perhaps that’s appropriate.
Did not work: The non-ending
As to whether Eleven really died or is really just backpacking in a foreign country where no one can find her, the Duffer Brothers, who created the show, have been very clear that the ending is left up to you. You can think she’s dead, or you can think she’s alive; they have intentionally not given the answer. It’s possible to write ambiguous endings that work really well, but this one felt like a cop-out, an attempt to have it both ways. There’s also a real danger in expanding characters’ supernatural powers to the point where they can make anything seem like anything, so maybe much of what you saw never happened. After all, if you don’t know that did happen, how much else might not have happened?
This piece also appears in NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter so you don’t miss the next one, plus get weekly recommendations about what’s making us happy.
Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Studs and Duds: Lions’ Stars Deliver Strong Effort
Philadelphia Eagles to play San Francisco 49ers in NFL playoffs. Here’s what you need to know.
Cowboys updated 2026 NFL Draft order: Current 1st-round pick after Week 18
Hundreds of Caribbean flights canceled, leaving travelers stranded at Miami International Airport
How Boston Dynamics upgraded the Atlas robot — and what’s next
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Video: ‘It Didn’t Have to Happen This Way:’ U.Va. Faculty Call for Review of Police Response to Protests
Dan Bongino officially leaves FBI deputy director role after less than a year, returns to ‘civilian life’
Hundreds march in silence to honour Crans-Montana fire victims
Here’s a partial list of U.S. elected officials opposing Trump’s invasion of Venezuela
Crans Montana organises solemn march for the victims • FRANCE 24 English
Trump says US will ‘run’ Venezuela • FRANCE 24 English
-
World7 days agoHamas builds new terror regime in Gaza, recruiting teens amid problematic election
-
Indianapolis, IN1 week agoIndianapolis Colts playoffs: Updated elimination scenario, AFC standings, playoff picture for Week 17
-
Business1 week agoGoogle is at last letting users swap out embarrassing Gmail addresses without losing their data
-
Southeast1 week agoTwo attorneys vanish during Florida fishing trip as ‘heartbroken’ wife pleads for help finding them
-
World1 week agoSnoop Dogg, Lainey Wilson, Huntr/x and Andrea Bocelli Deliver Christmas-Themed Halftime Show for Netflix’s NFL Lions-Vikings Telecast
-
Politics1 week agoMost shocking examples of Chinese espionage uncovered by the US this year: ‘Just the tip of the iceberg’
-
World1 week agoPodcast: The 2025 EU-US relationship explained simply
-
News1 week agoRoads could remain slick, icy Saturday morning in Philadelphia area, tracking another storm on the way