The Brief

The legendary artist Ed Ruscha still has the aura of the coolest guy in the room. The press preview for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s mammoth new retrospective ED RUSCHA/NOW THEN (now on view through Oct. 6) was packed with typically jaded journalists who looked — for once — actually excited to be viewing the 250+ works that span his seven-decade career.

When he emerged, still handsome, lean, and laconic at 86, for a conversation with LACMA director Michael Govan, the press had the anticipatory reverence of a tourist spotting a movie star for the first time.

His backstory

To many people, Ed Ruscha, the pioneer of West Coast pop art who still works most days at his studio in Culver City, has created art that IS Los Angeles — deadpan, sardonic, yet somehow poignant, with its stark, distilled word play and elevation of banal Americana into high art.

And just like many an Angeleno, Ruscha’s story started somewhere else. He was born Edward Joseph Ruscha IV in Omaha, Nebraska. His father worked as an auditor, while his mother encouraged her son’s artistic ambitions. Initially slated for a life in advertising or commercial work, in 1956 he decided to head West to study at the Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts) by way of the iconic slice of midcentury Americana known as Route 66.

“At that time,” he once said, “the East Coast was starched clothing and heating oil, while the West Coast was flexing biceps and health. This made the choice relatively easy. Didn’t all Oakies with mattresses on their cars go West, anyway?”

Los Angeles was perfect for an artist like Ruscha. "Los Angeles was big, clean, underpopulated and comparatively unscrutinized then,” author James Ellroy writes in Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting. “It was fresh bait for artists susceptible to newness and eager to experiment with form.”

It also had a sort of ever-changing glamour and modernism that interested and inspired the observant Ruscha.

“I seemed to be drawn by the most stereotyped concepts of Los Angeles, such as cars, suntans, palm trees, swimming pools, strips of celluloid with perforations; even the word 'sunset' had glamour,” he told Alexandra Schwartz, author of Ed Ruscha’s Los Angeles. “West was hot. East was cold. This was new life. … This city simply had a good story for itself, that’s all.”

Ed Ruscha, "Hollywood," 1968, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum Acquisition Fund.

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photo © Museum Associates/LACMA

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Ruscha's big break

After graduating from Chouinard in 1960, Ruscha’s big break came when he had his first solo show at the revolutionary Ferus Gallery in 1963. Founded by Walter and Shirley Hopps and for years under the direction of art dealer Irving Blum, the gallery on La Cienega Boulevard. would showcase a fraternity of emerging, hip West Coast artists including Robert Irwin, Walter Berman, and Larry Bell. They also showed Andy Warhol’s famed 32 Campbell’s Soup Cans.

Actor Dennis Hopper was the first person to buy a big-ticket work from Ruscha, a painting of a Standard Gas Station. That same year, LACMA was the first museum to purchase a Ruscha, when they bought Actual Size — an iconic painting featuring what looks like a flying can of SPAM. The museum now has over 500 works by Ruscha.

Ed Ruscha, "Standard Station," 1966, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum Acquisition Fund

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Museum Associates/LACMA

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Ed Ruscha, "Actual Size", 1962, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, anonymous gift through the Contemporary Art Council

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Museum Associates/LACMA

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But in typically cheeky Ruscha fashion, he would poke fun at the very L.A. institutions who championed him. In 1965, the controversial new LACMA campus opened on Wilshire Boulevard (it was torn down in 2020). So what a thrill to hear him tell Govan, at LACMA itself, why he decided to paint his famous piece Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Fire, which he finished in 1968 (on loan from the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., it is a standout of the current exhibit).

It all started when he took a 45-minute helicopter ride above the city. “I took some Polaroid pictures of the museum from the air, and it started from there,” he told Govan. “I forget at what point I decided that it was going to be on fire… Maybe it was that time when I thought the County Museum was an authority figure …but my intention [was that] the left-hand side of the painting and the right-hand side of the painting were at odds with one another, and the left-hand side was the furious fire going on, and the right-hand side would almost put you to sleep.”

Ed Ruscha, "Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Fire," 1965-1968, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; gift of Joseph Helman, 1972.

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Paul Ruscha

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A master self-promoter, he even sent out telegram invitations to view it, noting to bring a fire extinguisher. “That was the Barnum and Bailey part of it,” Ruscha noted slyly.

He would similarly poke the establishment when the Library of Congress refused to accept a copy of his photography folio Twentysix Gasoline Stations by taking out an advertisement in the influential magazine Artforum highlighting the rejection. “I took that as a badge of honor,” he deadpanned.

How L.A. inspired him

Though early in his career Ruscha would downplay his association with Los Angeles (and still does with Hollywood per se), its geography and its façade inspired him. In his famous books like Some Los Angeles Apartments and Thirtyfour Parking Lots, he documented the landscape of an urban metropolis. “One book was kind of a lightning rod to the next,” he told Govan.

Then there is the 25-foot accordion book Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966), created by Ruscha riding in his pickup truck in the early morning hours to photograph every building and empty lot of the famed road. He and his brother, Paul Ruscha, continue to document the Strip, and have photographed many other legendary L.A. roads including Hollywood Boulevard, Melrose Avenue, and the Pacific Coast Highway.

As Schwartz notes, these books came along as L.A. was gaining status both in the art world and in urban studies. “The moment when Ruscha began making his architectural books coincided with the birth of a spate of ‘Los Angeles Studies,’ that analyzed the history, structure and societal impact of the postwar, highway-based city,” she writes.

Through Hopper and other friends, Ruscha also became friendly with the “New Hollywood” of the late 1960s and 70s, and shared their cynical attitude towards the business that makes L.A. tick. Paintings of the 20th Century Fox logo can be seen as commentary on the death of the studio system, word-based paintings like Another Hollywood Dream Bubble Popped and Hollywood is a Verb speak for themselves.

Ed Ruscha, "Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights," 1962, Whitney Museum of American Art

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Paul Ruscha

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His ominous paintings of the Hollywood Sign, in smoggy skies or from behind, also express his disdain for the dream factory.

“The idea of Hollywood has lots of meanings and one — to me — is this image of something fake up here being held up with sticks,” he once said, per Schwartz, in his typically elusive fashion. “That to me had more meaning with the term ‘Hollywood’ than the other usual associations … I don’t even think it should stay; it doesn’t even mean ‘landmark’ to me. It might as well fall down. That’s more Hollywood — to have it fall down or be removed. But, in the end, it’s more Hollywood to put it back up.”

Despite his studied indifference, he also adopted a persona worthy of a ‘60s’ counterculture icon, dating model Lauren Hutton, actor Samantha Eggar, Diane Keaton and the author and it-girl Eve Babitz, the queen of Los Angeles cool.

“We went to Musso and Frank’s. That was Eve’s favorite spot and mine too. And we would go to openings, go to Barney’s Beanery, places that were hot at the time,” he told the Los Angeles Times.

Ruscha continues to embrace change

Throughout the decades, as L.A. has rapidly changed and gone from a looked-down-upon artistic backwater to an art world powerhouse, Ruscha has continued to embrace, chronicle and comment on its evolution. "I like the idea that things are changing," he once told The Wall Street Journal. "That's not always negative."

And maybe that’s why Ruscha is so beloved by Angelenos — we often hate L.A., we complain, but it has an elusive pull and lore that we just can’t help but love. But Ruscha’s reach has expanded far beyond the borders of L.A. County — he has become a chronicler of Americana, who the New Yorker calls the bard of a “calmly collapsing America,” and the New York Times calls the “deadpan laureate of American Art.”

Ed Ruscha, "Our Flag," 2017, Jimmy Iovine Revocable Trust, Collection Jimmy Iovine

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Paul Ruscha

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Nonpolitical for most of his career, Ruscha has increasingly produced art that can be seen as an attack on fascist thought and misinformation. Indeed, the show charts his career from now to the present day, and one sees the evolution of both a man, a city, and a nation. “Looking in the rearview mirror, it's an avalanche of things from my past that are kind of jarring in a way,” he told Govan. “But I guess they add up … And I’m not over yet.”

How to visit

Location: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles
Exhibit: April 7 through Oct. 6
More details and hours: ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN

A group of employees at the Los Angeles region’s homelessness authority says hundreds of frontline workers will face layoffs as L.A. County transitions funding away from the agency.

Staffers from the L.A. Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA, wrote an open letter to the county Board of Supervisors this week, demanding that no county-funded workers be displaced.

Its members say the transition would hit workers and unhoused clients harder than county officials have acknowledged.

“ A lot of the workers are in this because we care and we want to help our fellow neighbors and don't want to see see all kinds of people homeless on the street,” Jacqueline Beltran, a LAHSA employee who signed the letter, told LAist.

County officials said they are committed to “clearing pathways to employment” for county-funded LAHSA workers within the new Department of Homeless Services and Housing.

“We are continuing to explore all available options,” new department director Sarah Mahin said in a statement.

Mahin said funding and staffing will be finalized in the FY 2026-2027 Measure A spending plan for the fiscal year that ends in 2027. The county released a draft of that plan last month. 

County authorities have said they would fully integrate the services performed by LAHSA into the new Department of Homeless Services and Housing by next July.

The transition

In April, the county Board of Supervisors voted to pull more than $300 million from LAHSA and create a new county homelessness department to administer the funds.

That motion also directed county agencies to consult with Service Employees International Union 721, which represents county-funded LAHSA employees, to try to keep them employed — or prioritize them for transition into the new department’s workforce.

But the LAHSA Workers Coalition said that’s not happening.

The group demands in its letter that the county halt all staffing reductions at LAHSA and argues the county has a legal obligation to protect the workers. The group is made up of employees represented by SEIU 721, but the union’s leaders did not cosign the letter.

The union did not immediately respond to LAist’s questions about it Thursday.

In February, an L.A. County report said the agency had 900 staff positions and nearly 200 vacancies. More than half of the positions were funded by L.A. County, according to the report.

LAHSA reported last month that it employed 686 people.

Demands

Last year, county voters approved the Measure A sales tax to fund homeless services and affordable housing. The ordinance says that contracts funded with Measure A revenue "must not result in displacement of public employees.”

In the letter, the coalition argues the county is out of compliance with that requirement and is urging the board to discuss the matter at its next meeting.

Mahin said Measure A does not prevent the county from restructuring programs but instead “protects public employees from being displaced by outside service providers funded through Measure A.”

The county is facing a deficit of more than $300 million in funding for homeless services, Mahin said, adding that it must make “difficult but necessary decisions about how we invest our limited resources.”

The workers coalition is demanding that existing LAHSA employees be transferred directly to the new department, instead of having to reapply.

They’re also asking the board for a full public disclosure of staffing cuts related to the transition.

In addition to the Board of Supervisors, the coalition sent the letter to several other county and state oversight entities, including the county office of the inspector general, the civil grand jury, the state auditor and the attorney general.

When Terri Huerta called local winemakers about a problem with a meandering vine at Mission San Gabriel in the city of San Gabriel, she thought she'd get gardening help. Instead, she sparked a revival of L.A.'s oldest wine.

Mission San Gabriel's 250-year-old grapevine, one of the oldest living vines in California, continues to produce grapes for the Angelica wine revival.

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Brandon Killman

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LAist

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The vine in question isn't your typical grapevine. It's a 250-year-old beast with a trunk so massive two people can't wrap their arms around it. Because it served as the source for cuttings that spread throughout California's early vineyards, it’s now known as the Mother Vine.

For centuries, it just sprawled across the mission courtyard like some ancient, living pergola that refuses to quit, with no one taking any notice of the grapes flourishing each season.

But now, thanks to a group of determined local winemakers, that fruit is being transformed into Angelica, a sweet wine fortified with brandy that Franciscan missionaries made there in the 1700s — making it the city’s oldest wine.

A limited edition batch was launched Nov. 28 by the Angeleno Wine Company. There are fewer than 200 bottles for sale, and at $75, it's not cheap. But break that down by the vine's age, and you're paying 30 cents per year of history.

How it started

The collaboration began in 2020 when Huerta, director of mission development at Mission San Gabriel, reached out to the Los Angeles Vintners Association looking for help to manage the grapevine.

The association — a partnership among three L.A. wineries: Angeleno Wine Company, Byron Blatty Wines and Cavalletti Vineyards — sent winemakers Mark Blatty, Patrick Kelly, Jasper Dickson and Amy Luftig to assess the situation. They found something bigger than a courtyard cleanup project. They found grapes. A lot of them.

"The vine was full of fruit, and I told them it was just a nuisance every year," Huerta recalls. "They asked, 'What are you going to do with all this fruit?' and I said, 'I really don't know.'”

That's when the group offered to help take it off Huerta’s hands.

Grapes from Mission San Gabriel's 250-year-old grapevine used in the Angelica wine revival.

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Courtesy of John Pryor

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Wine history

Although the Napa Valley now reigns supreme as the region’s wine industry, L.A. once was the center for the entire state. Mission San Gabriel’s vine was planted by Franciscan friars after the establishment of the mission in 1775 to make sacramental wine to be used during mass. DNA analysis has since revealed its forebears: It's a hybrid of Spanish Listán Prieto grapes and native California Vitis girdiana.

This vine’s cuttings helped launch the many vineyards that began to crop up around the newly founded grape fields, which became numerous. By 1850, L.A. boasted over 100 vineyards. If you look carefully, even today, the city of L.A.’s seal has a bunch of grapes hanging at the top.

The official seal of the city of Los Angeles.

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Courtesy city of Los Angeles

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The wines were popular with fortune seekers headed north to the Gold Rush. The industry flourished until 1883, when an outbreak of Pierce's Disease destroyed thousands of acres of vines across SoCal. Urban sprawl replaced vineyards with housing through the mid-20th century.

Today, almost nothing remains of L.A. 's once-dominant wine industry — with the exception of the Mother Vine and a handful of its descendants scattered across the city.

Across from Union Station a direct descendant is still growing over tourist and vendor heads. It’s a 200-year-old vine at Olvera Street's Avila Adobe, the oldest standing residence in the city of L.A.

Storing up the grapes

The winemakers started picking the fruit at the Mission in 2020. But it wasn’t enough to make a substantial batch of wine, so the grapes were stored. For the past five years, the winemakers, joined with volunteers, have harvested the fruit each season, carefully packing it away.

In the meantime, they began to dig into mission records for mentions of grapes and winemaking. One day they came across a document from the 1800s, which outlined a recipe for Angelica, a fortified wine made from grape juice and brandy.

"Angelica is said to be made by mixing one gallon of grape brandy with three of grape juice, fresh from the press," it said. "It is a thick, sweet and strong drink, yet of very delicate flavor."

The fortification wasn't just about taste — it was a necessity. In an era before refrigeration, adding brandy preserved the wine, allowing it to survive California's heat and long journeys between missions.

Two of the winemakers, Dickson and Luftig, were especially interested. They’d been making wine from grapes grown locally in the SoCal region since 2018 at their winery Angeleno Wine Company, which produces everything on-site near Chinatown.

They became intrigued by the idea of recreating Angelica. Following the historical recipe, they pressed fresh Mission grapes and fortified the juice with brandy before fermentation. Then they used the solera system — a traditional Spanish method that blends wines across multiple vintages — aging the wine in oak barrels for years.

Initially, they made limited batches solely for the company’s wine club members, which quickly sold out.

This year’s Angelica is the group’s third batch but the first to go on sale to the public. It includes grapes that have been harvested from 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.

The wine pours a pale cherry color and has a syrup-like consistency. The brandy comes through right away, caramel and warm spices with refreshing acidity cutting through the sweetness. It's thick, decadent and undeniably strong — a small glass (or two) is all that’s needed after a warm holiday meal.

The harvest

Harvesting the grapes doesn't look like the romantic wine country fantasy you see in magazines.

Instead of long rows of vines with grapes easily accessed, harvesters have to pick the fruit from below the canopy.

"Everyone has to bring ladders because we're picking like this," Dickson says, gesturing upward in the Mission’s courtyard. "We're literally placing ladders on ancient monks' tombstones to reach the fruit above the graves."

This year the harvest happened in October.

Volunteers harvest grapes at Mission San Gabriel for the Angelica wine revival project.

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Amy Luftig

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Angeleno Wine Co.

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John Pryor, a volunteer, has done multiple harvests. He describes it plainly: "You're not in a vineyard. You're in a garden at a Catholic church. The vines are trellised 12 feet high and go on for a hundred yards."

For his daughter, 27 year-old Meg Pryor, seeing the massive trunk drove home what "old" actually means.

"Whenever we're there, I'm thinking, 'People were doing this a century ago, two centuries ago,'" she said.

John and Meg Pryor help harvest grapes from Mission San Gabriel's historic grapevine for the Angelica wine revival project.

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Courtesy of John Pryor

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Understanding who most of those workers were centuries ago means confronting some difficult issues. Huerta of Mission San Gabriel acknowledges the mission system relied on Indigenous labor, and the vine's hybrid nature suggests native plant knowledge may have contributed to its development.

But she doesn't shy away from the complexity.

"You can't tell Mission history without including all the parts," she says. "You can't tell one story without telling another story. Winemaking has always been a part of L.A. history. The grapes were brought by the Franciscans. They didn't just start here in California. They started in Mexico, so its complexity makes it interesting, but it also makes it controversial."

Going forward, Angeleno Wine Company plans to release a limited batch of Angelica as a seasonal offering each year, as long as the Mother Vine continues to produce fruit.

The Supreme Court has cleared the way for Texas to use a new congressional map that could help Republicans win five more U.S. House seats in the 2026 midterm election.

The decision released Thursday boosts the GOP's chances of preserving its slim majority in the House of Representatives amid an unprecedented gerrymandering fight launched by President Donald Trump, who has been pushing Texas and other GOP-led states to redraw their congressional districts to benefit Republicans.

The high court's unsigned order follows Texas' emergency request for the justices to pause a three-judge panel's ruling blocking the state's recently redrawn map.

After holding a nine-day hearing in October, that panel found challengers of the new map are likely to prove in a trial that the map violates the Constitution by discriminating against voters based on race.

In its majority opinion, authored by a Trump nominee, the panel cited a letter from the Department of Justice and multiple public statements by key Republican state lawmakers that suggested their map drawer manipulated the racial demographics of voting districts to eliminate existing districts where Black and Latino voters together make up the majority. For the next year's midterms, the panel ordered Texas to keep using the congressional districts the state's GOP-controlled legislature drew in 2021.

But in Texas' filing to the Supreme Court, the state claimed the lawmakers were not motivated by race and were focused instead on drawing new districts that are more likely to elect Republicans.

In November, after the panel blocked the new map, Justice Samuel Alito allowed Texas to temporarily reinstate it while the Supreme Court reviewed the state's emergency request.

The mid-decade redistricting plan Texas Republicans passed in August sparked a counter response by Democratic leaders in California, where voters in a special election in November approved a new congressional map that could help Democrats gain five additional House seats. A court hearing for a legal challenge to that map is set for Dec. 15.

The rest of the redistricting landscape remains unsettled as well. Lawsuits are challenging new gerrymanders in places like Missouri, where there is also a contested referendum effort. And other states, including Florida, Indiana and Virginia, may also pursue new districts prior to the midterms.

Last week, a federal court ruled to allow North Carolina's midterm election to be held under a recently redrawn map that could give Republicans an additional seat.

Another wave of congressional redistricting may be coming soon depending on what — and when — the Supreme Court decides in a voting rights case about Louisiana's congressional map. After the court held a rare rehearing for that case in October, some states are watching for a potential earlier-than-usual ruling that may allow Republican-led states to draw more GOP-friendly districts in time for the 2026 midterms.

Edited by Benjamin Swasey
Copyright 2025 NPR

Growing up in Whittier, tamales have always been part of who I am — whether from local bakeries like La Moderna, where my mother always orders the day after Thanksgiving, or our annual tamalada with family friends, where we churn out hundreds in slightly drunken assembly-line fashion.

Over the years, I've explored beyond the traditional Mexican versions: El Salvadoran styles from What's That You're Cooking in Orange County to the Chinese lo mai gai found at dim sum spots across the city. My pursuit of new tamal variations is relentless, especially this time of year.

So when I heard about a $27 lamb neck tamal in Venice, I had to know: could an elevated, chef-driven approach ever justify that price? Since a few other restaurants are also recreating the humble dish with a high-end approach, I decided to go and try them.

What I discovered was that these aren't replacements for traditional tamales — they're explorations of what happens when fine dining ambition meets this centuries-old form.

Si! Mon (Venice)

Si! Mon opened in 2023 in the former James Beach space, a collaboration between chef José Olmedo Carles Rojas and restaurateurs Louie and Netty Ryan, known for Venice-adjacent mainstays Hatchet Hall and Menotti's Coffee Stop. Si! Mon offers Carles Rojas' take on Panamanian fine dining, drawing on Panama's melting pot of Chinese, French, Spanish, African and Caribbean influences.

For the holidays, Carles Rojas is offering a $27 lamb neck tamal — a clear departure from the Mexican versions most Angelenos know. And while the price might cause some sticker shock, it’s worth considering what goes into it and how much food there is.

Wrapped in a banana leaf, the tamal uses a lighter, softer masa enriched with the lamb neck’s braising liquid. Rojas pulls the meat, tosses it with sofrito until it takes on a sauce-like consistency, then adds Indian-style quick-pickled dates for sweetness and olives for brine. Finally, the tamal is finished in Si! mon's wood-fired oven, adding subtle smokiness.

My verdict? After taking that first bite, I can tell you… it’s worth the splurge. One tamal is meant to be shared between two people, which partly explains the price point (though I had no problem finishing mine solo). I’ve had plenty of Central American tamales over the years — Salvadoran versions with their silky masa, Nicaraguan nacatamales loaded with vegetables and pork — but Carles’ take pulls out all the stops. This is a deluxe, bells-and-whistles vision: sweet, salty, and deeply savory all at once, comforting yet unlike anything I’ve tasted before.

Yes, it is a high price, but I’d say it reflects the time, technique and premium ingredients behind it.

KOMAL (South L.A.)

A Guatemalan-style chuchito tamal from KOMAL at Mercado de Paloma in South L.A.

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Frank WonHo

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Courtesy KOMAL

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KOMAL is L.A.'s first craft molino (mill), founded by Fátima Júarez and Conrado Rivera, former employees of Michelin-rated Holbox, who opened this masa-centric counter inside South L.A.'s Mercado La Paloma. The name is Nahuatl for "comal," the traditional flat griddle used to cook tortillas.

I wanted to try the chuchito ($11), a regular menu staple at KOMAL. Júarez refers to the dish as a gift — both for the unwrapping it requires and the labor of love behind it. Each one takes more than 22 hours to make, starting with nixtamalizing heirloom corn to create the masa. (Nixtamalization, an ancient Mesoamerican process, involves soaking and cooking corn in an alkaline solution to improve its flavor, texture, and nutrition).

The result is a fluffy steamed tamal filled with tender pork and crowned with roasted pepper and tomato sauce, pickled cabbage and vegetables, and crema. The dish honors her kitchen team, most of whom are from Guatemala, and it's KOMAL's way of putting their heritage front and center on the menu.

KOMAL’s strawberry tamal dulce comes bright red and crowned with pineapple and fruit compote.

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Frank WonHo

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Courtesy KOMAL

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Komal’s tamal verde at Mercado de Paloma comes stuffed with tender chicken and topped with zippy green salsa.

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Frank WonHo

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Courtesy KOMAL

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Beyond the chuchito, Júarez is offering three special tamales as holiday pick-ups for Christmas and New Year's: a deep, complex tamal rojo filled with sweet corn and squash calabacita, a vibrant tomatillo-based tamal verde filled with chicken, and a tamal de leche made with oranges and strawberry jam, a sweet version that hints at the pre-Hispanic tasting menu they're developing.

After the holidays, these tamales will transition to appearing exclusively at Komal's planned ancestral and ceremonial dinners in 2026 — making this a rare chance to try them before they become part of a more formal dining experience.

Available by the half-dozen ($45) or the dozen ($90), they can be ordered for pick-up at KOMAL on Tuesday, Dec. 23, or Tuesday, Dec. 30.

Campesino Café at The Ecology Center (San Juan Capistrano)

Aaron Zimmer, head chef of Campesino Café at The Ecology Center, works within a unique constraint: everything on his menu comes from the 28-acre regenerative organic farm surrounding the restaurant. That includes the corn he grows, dries, harvests and processes into masa for his tamales.

For the winter season, Zimmer is offering two versions that reflect what's abundant on the farm right now. The shelling bean and cheese tamal ($21) features beans from one of four varieties they grow on-site — shelling beans are harvested before they're thoroughly dried, prized for their creamy texture and delicate, earthy flavor. The cooked-down beans are incorporated into the fresh masa with cheese, then topped with chili con queso made with pickled giardiniera from their summer harvest.

Campesino Café’s tamal duo pairs winter squash in walnut mole with a shelling-bean-and-cheese tamal topped with chile con queso.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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The winter squash tamal ($21) features squash finished with a walnut mole sauce. The sweet, nutty texture, combined with the squash's sweet, earthy flavors and soft, fresh-tasting masa, creates a highly multidimensional bite.

Both are wrapped in masa and steamed in corn husks, then topped with whatever's available in the larder at any given moment, such as freshly grown cilantro or pickled onion.

It's a hyperlocal, intensely seasonal approach that makes each tamal a snapshot of what the farm is producing — versatile, sustainable, and entirely tied to the land it comes from.