Ricardo Diaz via Flickr

Grand Hope Park

Picnics are one of those civic birthrights that redeems living with traffic snarls on the 405 and celebrity divorces superseding the one minute of world event coverage on the evening news. The very bones of the tradition forged by myriad outdoor spaces, summer events and consistently genial weather can lend to various ways of enjoying food al fresco. The problem is that it opens up a wide range of options: beach or park, Bay Cities sandwiches or homemade versions, blanket or none.

Take the following (mostly unscientific) multiple-choice quiz to figure out your picnic mojo:

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Guzzle & Nosh

Fujiya Market as seen through its safety mirror.

Among the potato chips, soda and lotto tickets at Fujiya Market, you'll find aisles stocked with slabs of fresh tuna, daikon radish, tinned mackerel, ponzu, furikake, natto and a dozen varieties of soy sauce. Located at Clinton and Virgil, a block south of Melrose, Fujiya looks like a typical corner store -- unassuming, a little down at the heels, its sign faded by the blasting sunlight -- but the 80-year-old market is one of the last reminders that this neighborhood was once so thoroughly dominated by Japanese-Americans it was known as J-Flats.

"This [neighborhood] was the first stop for many Japanese people when they came here," says co-owner June Tani.

Fujiya Market is the kind of neighborhood store where red Hawaiian sea salt shares shelf space with American junk food, where the owners still deliver groceries to a handful of elderly clients, where regulars come to socialize, not just shop. In a city often bemoaned for its impermeable car-centric lifestyle, Fujiya Market is an outpost of neighborliness, as much a social center as a store. After 80 years in business, Tani and her business partner Wayne Kohatsu plan to close Fujiya in the next few months.

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Walmart Stores / Flickr

Pasta sauce at Walmart

Walmart is coming to downtown Los Angeles. The big box retail giant plans to open a grocery store on the northern edge of downtown L.A., reports the Los Angeles Business Journal. The 33,000-square-foot market will be located at the northwest corner of Cesar Chavez and Grand avenues inside the ground floor of a residential complex for seniors.

The proposed DTLA store, which is part of the chain's strategy to open smaller stores in urban environments, is far from a done deal. Although the Arkansas-based company has signed a lease on the space at 701 W. Cesar Chavez Ave., labor activists are already crying foul.

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Felicia Friesema

Jon Murga, President of Fresco Community Market

The one and only still fully powered building in the sleepy Northeast L.A. neighborhood of Hermon (next to Highland Park) belongs to our mensch of the year, Jon Murga, President of Fresco Community Market, who this week is offering free refrigerated and frozen food storage to local residents who lost power due to the raging Santa Ana windstorm that pummeled parts of the San Gabriel Valley and Northeast Los Angeles on Wednesday night.

The juice still buzzing through his building is no accident. Construction crews working on the store earlier this year discovered a parallel trunk line for DWP that connected to a substation nine miles away. That other substation turned out to be just what they were looking for.

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paulswansen

Not wanting to deprive the rest of the world from exorbitant prices for locally grown goods, Whole Foods will open a store in Scotland this week, the first of its chain to open in the area. The store will open in Giffnock, a city near Glasgow. Londonites seem to love themselves some natural, organic Whole Foods products, so maybe the brand will catch on in Scotland too. According to Daily Finance, though, Whole Foods is anti-union, which may not bode well in the eyes of the Scottish.

At least 400 items sold in the Giffnock store will be from Scottish farms and vendors, something the multi-billion dollar company prides itself on. Residents also told Daily Finance that they're excited for the new job opportunities in the less-than-thriving area.

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Margy Rochlin

Tomato and coriander jam (left), sauerkraut (right).

This Wednesday, what was fleetingly Gus' Lunch Box will officially become Sqirl (pronounced "squirrel"), where you can buy over 15 varieties of owner Jessica Koslow's small-batch jams and preserves. Produced in custom-made copper jam pans, they come in dreamy flavors like strawberry and thyme, Elberta peach with lemon verbena, raspberry and lavender, and tomato and coriander. Bring in your own jar and for a price you'll be able to fill it with Koslow's sauerkraut or her crunchy, fantastically sour pickles, which taste of dill, juniper berries and the best deli you went to as a kid. The late Amy Pressman's and Bill Chait's Short Order will serve Sqirl pickles and sauerkraut, while Short Cake will sell her preserves.

If you've been yearning to overcome your fear of canning, you're in luck: On the weekends, Sqirl turns itself into a pickle and preserve university. Koslow's first class? A 101 on making your own pectin, Gravenstein apple butter and preserving seasonal fruits.

We checked in with Koslow, who was busily prepping for her shop's opening but happy to chat about her oddball career (which includes stints as an ice skater and an American Idol producer), how she ended up as a preserve queen and why vinegar is a no-no among artisanal picklers.

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Guzzle & Nosh

Assorted vegetables.

After 38 years in business, popular Los Feliz health food store Nature Mart will close on November 1st, reports Echo Park Patch. Founded by Matt Huupponen in 1973, the store known for its array of bulk food items, fresh fruit and vegetables and freshly pressed wheatgrass juice, has reportedly lost its lease and may be replaced by Lassen's, but that's only a rumor.

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L.A. County Federation of Labor

Update:9/26, 10 a.m. On Sunday night, workers voted and approved a new contract, ending an eight-month dispute with Ralphs, Vons, Pavilions and Albertsons. According to insiders, workers will pay $7 a week for health insurance, or $15 per week for a family. The health insurance clause had been the most debated item in the contract.

Union leaders and three major Southern California grocery stores have reached a deal to avoid a potential employee walkout. Union members need to vote on the deal first, though, before the agreement becomes official.

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G. Snyder

Pete's Hot Links

Phillip's BBQ, Woody's BBQ, Dr. Hogly Wogly's, Robin's Woodfire BBQ, and Spring Street Smokehouse; what do all these L.A. barbecue joints have in common? They all serve hot links imported from the same iron-gated takeout window just west of Crenshaw: a tiny, Cajun-style butcher shop that is probably one of the best kept BBQ secrets in the city.

Pete's Louisiana Style Hot Links is all but indistinguishable except for a sign over it's Jefferson Boulevard storefront that reads "Links Made Fresh Daily Since 1949." Step thorough an outer black metal grate and you'll find yourself looking into a sprawling stainless steel kitchen, which if you come early enough, will be filled a kind of raw energy that feels like a bizarre mix of Sweeney Todd and Willy Wonka. Tubs of brick red ground meat, seasoned with handfuls of what we can only imagine to be a well-kept Cajun secret, are squeezed into casings and twisted into long chains of plump little sausages. Arrive any later though, and the kitchen is entirely spotless, with no clue of the sacrificial morning ritual that occurred earlier.

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Guzzle & Nosh

Angelyne shops at Trader Joe's in West Hollywood.

You know who likes shopping at Trader Joe's? Angelyne. You know who else would really, really, really, really like to do the same thing? Residents of downtown Los Angeles.

Tracking the hopes, dreams, fears and practical commercial concerns of DTLA dwellers, the 2011 Downtown LA Demographic study (PDF available here) reveals that a whopping "92% of downtown residents said they were highly likely to shop in a downtown Trader Joe's should one locate here." That makes Trader Joe's the single most desired retail establishment among downtown Angelenos. By comparison, 65% of survey respondents want more mid-level restaurants, 60% want a mid-level department store and only 41% want a discount store (though survey producers believe that's because the planned downtown Target has blunted demand for additional big-box stores.)

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