Herb Ritts (J. Paul Getty Museum)

Djimon With Octopus, Hollywood, 1989

If you've ever found yourself completely devoid of compelling reasons for a friend to meet you at a museum on a gorgeous, beer-on-the-beach sort of Saturday (the dark galleries are at least air-conditioned, the tram to the Getty is sort of fun), you have new food fodder: The Getty Restaurant is serving up multicourse meals coinciding with the museum's Herb Ritts: L.A. Style exhibition on view through August.

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Mike D and Roy Choi

It's not as if Roy Choi (Chego, A-Frame, Kogi, the world) doesn't have lots of things to do in his off hours, what few there are of them. But if Mike D (Beastie Boys, the world) asks you to cook some food, you'd probably do it too. Or, to quote the chef, "I don't know where you come from, but in my world if Mike D steps to me, I listen."

What Mike D asked Choi to step into, so to speak, is Transmission L.A.: AV Club, a 17-day festival at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. As part of the festival, on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from April 20 through May 6, Choi will run an outdoor pop-up restaurant, each day with a different original addition to the Kogi menu. Or, as Choi put it, "I want to extend what we do on the streets one step further into an exploration of flavor and straight gangster love."

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jgarbee

Marmalade at the Huntington Library

The Huntington Library may be best known for its botanical gardens and art collection, but in the museum's kitchen, the citrus trees on the property are the main draw for the onsite chefs, who make some pretty fantastic marmalade from the fruit.

If you're a Huntington regular, you probably already know that the San Marino property was originally a working ranch with citrus groves, fruit orchards and various other crops. Which gets us to that really great marmalade.

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jgarbee

New Teahouse At The Huntington

The Huntington Library's circa 1911 Japanese Garden reopened Wednesday after a nearly $7 million renovation, including the addition of a historic ceremonial teahouse built in Kyoto. The teahouse first arrived in the L.A. area in 1964, when it was installed at the Pasadena Buddhist Temple; In 2010 the house returned to Kyoto for restoration before settling into its new home at the Huntington.

While the Japanese House (photo after the jump) will remain open to the public during Huntington hours, the teahouse will be used only occasionally for ceremonies, including tonight's dedication performed by Soshitsu Sen, the iemoto (grand master) of Japan's Urasenke tradition of tea.

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Kathy A. McDonald

A is for splendid ambiance at the Getty Villa's cafe

To coincide with the fall outdoor theater performances of SITI Company's Trojan Women (After Euripides) -- the classic Greek tragedy, not an expose of USC sorority girls -- the Getty Villa's restaurant is serving dinner. Typically the scenic café is open only for lunch while the upstairs more formal Founder's Room has deluxe tea twice weekly.

Throughout the run of this annual event (Thursdays through Sunday nights now through October 1st), there's a special prix-fixe menu inspired in part by the Villa's enviable Mediterranean-herb filled garden. A fancy boxed dinner -- elevated options include a prosciutto plus brie sandwich topped with a rosemary fig jam -- is also a choice.

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Kathy A. McDonald

A T. rex is poised to munch out at the Natural History Museum's new Dinosaur Hall

Three Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons are posed dynamically, hovering over a skeletal carcass -- this is the dramatic centerpiece of the Natural History Museum of L.A. County's new Dinosaur Hall, which opens to the public tomorrow, July 16. It seems the largest meat eating dinos favored duckbills and other horned dinosaurs as sustenance. Exhibits further detail fossil evidence that predatory dinosaurs (like the Allosaurus) had teeth that functioned like steak knives, cutting through flesh.

Hungry yet? Somehow visiting the Natural History Museum and the gleaming new exhibits of the Dinosaur Hall induces instant hunger pangs, particularly in the younger set. You may salivate while surveying the fossilized showcases of dinosaur mealtimes and poop (called coprolite and prized by the museum's paleontologists). Included in the museum's major makeover is a new basement grill, set to open next month. Until then, there's a temporary grab-and-go express café that offers salads, wraps and sandwiches.

Within walking distance are many more choices to satisfy famished omnivores.

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Andy Warhol Foundation/MOMA

Your Soup Can Is Here

Andy Warhol is a celebrity name that needs no soup can MOCA exhibition introduction, particularly if that red-white-and-Campbell's label is front and center (in this case, July 9 through September 7th). And yet, within those visions of 1960s grunge New York City lofts and galleries is an L.A. connection that often goes unnoticed. Or at least until a longtime mega-player on the NYC gallery scene, art dealer Jeffrey Deitch, took over the shaky reins at MOCA.

Warhol's infamous soup cans "painting" is really a conglomeration of 32 paintings (20 x 16-inch images, each of a different Campbell's soup can label). The piece also happens to have been the artist's first solo show -- ever -- 49 years ago. That it happened in L.A., not New York City, is worth a second look. And we're finally getting one.

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The Natural History Museum isn't just about flora, fauna, and fossils. In an effort to make sense of today's gold mine of environmental information, the museum is bringing back its Sustainable Sundays series, and introducing a brand-new gardening workshop for experts and newbies alike.

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EATLACMA is neither Joachim Splichal's latest museum café nor an art house monster movie, but a year-long project investigating the social role of food and art and the rituals of eating. The project is a collaboration between the LA County Museum of Art and Fallen Fruit, the LA-based artist collective, and will feature a year's worth of events, exhibits, talks and performances. The project kicks off this weekend with public fruit tree adoptions held at LACMA's campus this Saturday, and the Watts Towers Arts Center and Charles Mingus Youth Arts Center this Sunday. Fallen Fruit will hand out 150 trees at each site as a way of introducing the project and marking the beginning of the season's growth cycle.

And this? This is Elysian Park, a composited digital photograph which appropriates a war photograph and shows the three founders of Fallen Fruit as they explore "the possibility of finding liberty through public fruit." In other words, Make Jam, Not War.

Fallen Fruit

Elysian Park

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Until a major Cézanne retrospective or a survey of Dutch still life paintings comes to local museums, the best dose of foodie art is on view now and lasts only through the end of the week. Wayne Thiebaud: 70 Years of Painting at the Pasadena Museum of California Art closes on Sunday, January 31. Thiebaud makes fun and pretty food look, well, even more fun and prettier than it does in real life. The cityscapes are beautiful, too. So take a break from gazing at electronic food porn and go retro by looking at non-backlit, truly inspired images of food.

Wayne Thiebaud, Bakery Case, 1996, oil on canvas, Thiebaud Family Collection, © Wayne Thiebaud/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

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