For many people, particularly in urban America, restaurants represent the place where they live life.  Spending time with friends, memorable meals, socializing and simply being a third place, not home, not office, but an urban extension of their lives.

For some, those third places become like songs or great books.  Simply mention them and they become triggers of thought that short circuit time and make yesterday's events, today’s reality.

That's what Colman Andrews has done with his memoir My Usual Table: A Life in Restaurants. It not only tells of Andrews’ life, but captures the zeitgeist of an era, specifically Los Angeles in the 70’s and 80’s.

My conversation with Colman Andrews: