A few months ago, I picked up a copy of Los Angeles Magazine featuring a piece on the “small towns” of Los Angeles, which we thought would make good destinations for day trips while I’m on leave. For our first trip, at the end of November, we visited Calabasas, where we wandered the farmers’ market and did some Christmas window shopping at Williams Sonoma.

We ate at The Blue Table, where we had really tasty sandwiches and watched as truckloads of girls took photos of themselves in front of the Kardashians’ store next door. Grace’s schedule didn’t mesh with the late opening of the Leonis Adobe that day, so we’ll save that for another trip.

This past week, we headed to Eagle Rock, where we’d been before, but never with Grace. We were going to have pizza at Casa Bianca, but it turns out it’s only open for dinner. Also on our Jonathan Gold 99 Essential L.A. Restaurants list was Larkin’s, which was open for lunch and which we happily headed to, just up the road. We had some extremely good barbecue and sides, and enjoyed the renovated Craftsman home in which the restaurant is located.

We stopped for coffee at Swork and picked up a cute shirt for nine month-old Future Grace at Kumquat. We topped off the day with a drive through the Occidental College campus and a stop at Galco’s Soda Pop Stop for some Mistletoe Mist and Spruce Beer for Keith and Leslie’s Peppermint Party later on that week. A nice day in Eagle Rock, for sure.