Chef Ricardo Diaz will host a discussion about becoming restaurateur 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 27 at the Whittwood Branch Library in Whittier.
Diaz is the owner of three Whittier businesses: Colonia Publica, Bizarra Capital and Poet Gardens.
Diaz’s restaurant Colonia Publica was rated as one of the top 100 restaurants in the Los Angeles area by the late Jonathan Gold. It’s a beer and wine bar that serves modern cantina-style plates.
Bizarra Capital is a Mexican eatery with tacos, small plates and is seafood forward. His newest restaurant and brewery is Poet Gardens, which opened recently.
He will discuss becoming a chef and restaurateur, new food concepts and how he hand picks wine. Lastly, he’ll talk about his newest project: Poet Gardens dining hall, a craft brewery in Uptown Whittier.
Cinema
“I Have Never Forgotten You”: Film screening, 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 29 at Chabad of Pasadena. After surviving the horrors of the Holocaust, architect Simon Wiesenthal dedicated the rest of his life to hunting down Nazis who escaped prosecution after the war. This documentary details his life and his work with the American War Crimes Unit, which tracked down more than 1,000 Nazi war criminals with his help. The Chabad at Pasadena is at 1090 E. Walnut St., Pasadena.
Discussions
“Unscholarly” Gardens: Rethinking the Gardens of China, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 29 at the Rothenberg Hall of the Huntington in San Marino. The image of a “Chinese garden” that most often comes to mind is that of the white-walled, gray-tiled gardens built by scholar-officials and merchants in the city of Suzhou during the Ming dynasty. Despite its iconic status in the contemporary imagination, the Suzhou-style scholar’s garden is only one type among many. Exploring “unscholarly” spaces, such as monastic gardens, merchant gardens, medicinal gardens and market gardens, this symposium will challenge common assumptions about what makes a garden in China. $15. (An optional lunch can be pre-ordered for an additional cost.) Registration: huntington.org/calendar. The Huntington is at 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino.
Conventions
Valley Con: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, March 1 at the Pasadena Convention Center. Valley Con is one of the largest scale model competitions and exhibitions in Southern California. Hobbyists of all skill levels and ages, along with Hollywood professionals, come to showcase their finest creations from automobiles to tanks, from “Star Wars” to zombies. The Pasadena Convention Center is at 300 E. Green St., Pasadena.
Readings
“Golden Gates”: Discussion and signing by Conor Dougherty, 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 27 at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena. Punishing rents and the increasingly prohibitive cost of ownership have turned housing into a symbol of inequality and an economy gone wrong. Nowhere is this more visible than in the San Francisco Bay Area. With propulsive storytelling and ground-level reporting, New York Times journalist Conor Dougherty chronicles America’s housing crisis from its West Coast epicenter, peeling back the decades of history and taking readers inside the activist uprisings that have risen in tandem with housing costs. Vroman’s Bookstore is at 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena.
“After/Image”: Discussion and signing by Lynell George, 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 29. at the Allendale Branch Library. In celebration of Black History Month, the library hosts a wide-ranging discussion with award-winning Pasadena-based journalist and essayist Lynell George. Light refreshments will be served. As a former staff writer for the Los Angeles Times and L.A. Weekly, George has focused on social issues, human behavior, and identity politics as well as visual arts, music, and literature. Following the discussion, George will sign her latest book, “After/Image: Los Angeles Outside the Frame.” The Allendale Branch Library is at 1130 S. Marengo Ave., Pasadena.
