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Joan E. Bauer: The Apple Pan on Pico
When you are seeking greatness, turn to the Apple Pan, a homey 1940s
institution imitated everywhere from Duluth, Minn., to Bahrain.
— Jonathan Gold, Los Angeles Times food critic, 2013
~
We found a fixer-upper with waist-high weeds
& the original 1934 kitchen. It was close
to Ray Bradbury’s house & we’d go on Saturdays
to the Apple Pan on Pico then browse the HO model gear
for Paul at Allied Model Trains on Sepulveda.
We’d maybe catch a movie.
In the Thirties, Cheviot Hills had been a studio hub.
A neighbor had done publicity for Garbo.
I’d drive along Motor Avenue which ran
north/south from 20th Century Fox to MGM.
But after Paul died, I sold the house to a professor
who turned the yard into a Jurassic jungle.
Four years ago, our cottage was re-sold & leveled,
for a fortress-like two-story, six bathrooms.
The train store is gone, Jonathan Gold is gone,
but the Apple Pan survives.
One story with a sloped green roof & Fifties signage.
Still famous for smoke-sauced hickory burgers.
There are new owners. For now,
the pecan pie, divine—
Copyright 2024 Joan E. Bauer. First published in Evening Street Review (Winter 2023).
Joan E. Bauer‘s poetry collections include Fig Season (Turning Point, 2023). She divides her time between Venice, CA and Pittsburgh, PA where she co-curates the Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series with Kristofer Collins.
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Classic Joan, triangulating personal history & atmospheric detail in this ode to The Apple Pan. About time for another visit there!
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Thanks Greg!
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I love this poem. So descriptive of the L. A. I remember. Apple Pan — the best.
Thank you.
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Thanks, Sandra!
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Great poem, which captures events in clear, succinct language and imagery in a way that both defines a specific time and yet due to its accessibility is timeless…william galasso
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I agree, William!
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Love the atmospheric details!
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Joan is very subtle in establishing setting…
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Pulled in by place. When I was preschool, the white frame house in West LA. Remember the farmer’s market, but it would be awhile before I knew who Bradbury was, even jiggling memories I can’t possibly have. Thank you.
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Such lingering nostalgia — such a lovely elegy to a place I didn’t know, but am also nostalgic for now…
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Me too, Laure-Anne. Nostalgic for a place I’ve never been. The German word for this feeling is Fernweh, a word with no equivalent in English. Fernweh is literally, “farsickness,” or “an ache for distant places.” However, these translations are inadequate because the feeling is inherently illogical and ungraspable.
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Yes, well said Michael!
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Thank you for fernweh. I had looked for this word everywhere
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Joan’s genius is to describe events or places in simple factual language that somehow speaks deeply to us.
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