Unorthodox Foodie

Larry's - Homage to Another Old Man by the Sea

2012-02-22T15:47:00.000-08:00

I have a thing for old weathered men teetering on the verge between bum, genius or grandfather. I am even writing one into my novel at the moment who is based on King Neptune and lives under the Santa Monica pier. Since moving to Venice I have grown fond of these characters who fit this bill and never cease to find joy when one of them moves by me on the street raving some unintelligible thing or ends up ducking into a million dollar warehouse in the studio district.

Artist Larry Bell’s smirking neon profile complete with smoking cigar between his lips has been winking down at me from a steel gray building for the past few months whenever I visit Windward Circle. My attention was first called to the place by the folks at Danny’s longtime neighborhood staple bar and nosh pit across the way while I sat talking to a long lost friend from New Orleans one evening who frequents the place. Seems like everyone there was pissed off at the new competition vying for the boardwalk pedestrians and neighborhood barflys, which in Venice Beach are oftentimes-famous people, like ex-Dogtown skaters and artists.

Larry Bell, like Dennis Hopper, Robert Graham and Ed Moses, all stem from the wise old salty studio men annals of Venice Beach where the rugged sea air does wonders to leather up a face, and years of (insert choice of drugs, alcohol or smokes) forever add ingredients to the sea air brine already settling into the smooth and firm lines in a face. These guys are known (or were known in the case of Dennis and Bob) to hang out in the bars, restaurants, and shops dotting Abbott Kinney like Hal’s and also near the Speedway, partaking in French fries and beer just like the regular folk.

So, finding out a little more about Larry’s this past weekend was a pleasant surprise to me as I had been expecting it to be no different than any of the other boardwalk restaurants: full of quick fuel up carbs and generic in diner/deli food type taste; you know the pizza and burger joint to shut the kids up at the tail end of a long day of beach.

But the Cute Gardener actually explained to me that Larry’s, although inspired by the artist himself, was actually the collaborative inspiration of the teams behind Venice’s Hotel Erwin and Culver City’s Waterloo and City Restaurant and it fancied itself an actual grown up gastropub. We walked over to check it out.

Although Bell was a pioneer of the California minimalist movement, and is actually in a Pacific Standard Time show at the moment at Kayne Griffin Corcoran Gallery, the restaurant was busy and packed. Wooden upscale benches for eating dotted the décor and lots of green frond plants in peripheral planters that separated up the space and a tucked into the interior bar where folks can get sloshed without seeing the diners were just a bit of the ambience. A fireplace with colored tile mosaics sat at one end of the place, I guess for when the ocean air nips a little too much into the openness of the beachside portion of the space.

Virtual light and space painting transforms the sky from day to night outside

We were there for an early Sunday dinner and it was packed. But it was packed with boardwalk types and young guys looking for a tall glass of beer and personal pan pizza and rich local families with kids pretending to look white trash with moms who sport whale tales and jeans. The Cute Gardener and I kept getting stares at our plates because we actually ordered the food the restaurant had popped up to serve. We had a feeling that the lull that came next might be the lull that also clears off the beach near sundown and that the serious foodie types would be the next group to populate the place. Or so we hoped, because the food was downright delicious and deserving of some respect.

With a bottle of red, we hunkered down for some grub.

Huge fried risotto balls were first with belly-warming centers of burgundy beef Bolognese.

This could have easily been considered a lunch entrée for one and the slightly pickled aioli sauce added the perfect tangy notes to the otherwise comforting dish.

A light and fluffy potted chicken liver and foie-gras parfait came coated with a sweet layer of candy like fat, sweet potato jam, house made pickles and thick slabs of toasted brioche.

We missed the specials menu because we had been so entranced with the normal menu. We also took quite a while deciding that our third plate would be a shrimp ragu with lobster tomato sauce. That is of course until our waiter started to relay the specials to us towards the end of our meal and we both, without blinking or missing a beat, answered him back “Cassoulet” at the end of his recitation. We are both pork belly whores and cassoulet’s not a bad thing either for an end of the day, colder climate.

What we actually got was more of a pork and beans because the beans were tiny and sugar, maple spiked tangy, the wetness was lacking and the pork was a humongous slab of belly that dominated the dish underneath a pile of charred leeks. We didn’t care; we are not prone to complain over receiving a massive chunk of pork on our plate.

And as casual as the restaurant seemed, we were very impressed that our waiter kept coming back to fill our wine glasses. And that a waiter patiently manned an oyster bar by the door the entire time we were there, shucking out $3 a pop little gems for whomever happened by that wanted one. I hope these small touches of class alongside the excellent tastes continue to allure true food lovers in because the place has a lot to offer for those who appreciate it.

Lucille Ball-Worthy Valentine's Day Ravioli

2012-02-16T12:55:00.000-08:00

I had the brilliant idea of making homemade butternut squash ravioli for the Cute Gardener on Valentine’s Day. I make a great version of this, tweaked just a bit from my friend Chef Aaron Kiefer of East Meets West Catering’s original recipe, and have had much success cooking this before.

Of course, this time I had one of those inspired and bright notions that comes from the pleasurable thought of doing something nice for someone you’re fond of, which I realize now with keen after-sight wasn’t so bright, to make the dough from scratch and roll it out myself because I didn’t have the typical pasta rolling machine that I am used to using. I semi-blame this inspiration from the latest Anthony Bourdain rerun that I watched, in which he stood around a room full of Italian grandmothers whipping out strands of angel hair, nubs of gnocchi and knots of tortellini as if it were no big thing. My boyfriend later reminded me that these women have probably been doing this for many more years than I have been alive.

Not even one square foot of the mess that REALLY surrounded this innocent looking dough ball.

Even though we planned on cooking dinner together at his house, I made the dough at home first. I didn’t have the typical mechanical dough mixer that I am used to and knew it would be a mess, plus, we both know what a dervish I am in the kitchen compared to the calm, cool and collected precision-maestro he is in his. This was a good idea because all you really have to do is imagine the I Love Lucy episode with Lucy stomping grapes and replace her feet with my hands and the grapes with flour to get an idea of what my pasta dough-making efforts looked like. They tell you to make a mountain of the sifted pile of semolina and all-purpose flour in which you create a nice deep well. Then they tell you to put the eggs and olive oil in there, and slowly with a fork whisk the flour walls into the well little by little as you create a sturdy ball of dough. Yeah, my mountain and well turned more into a river over sand while I stabbed my frantic fork down over and over again as a dam before quickly whisking spot to spot. The dough turned out fine nevertheless.

Once at his house, we made a gorgeous salad of artisanal greens, tomatoes, filberts, feta cheese, fresh snap peas and homemade garlic balsamic vinaigrette. He contributed some arugula from his windowsill planter and a gorgeous sprig of broccoli flowers that are edible, sweet little yellow things that spruced up the looks of our bowl.

Then part two of the pasta torture arrived as I strived to hand roll out small balls of the dough to 1/8-inch thickness for the raviolis. Not possible. My raviolis were thick and an hour of newly tortured biceps, elbow grease, and an egg’s worth of wash for glue later, we were cooking up the miniature dough bombs in a pot of boiling, salted water.

I will say that my butternut squash filling was an absolute delight, a recipe worthy of sharing.

Cut up one large butternut squash into one-inch chunks, place on roasting pan and drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper and roast 40 minutes at 400 degrees.
Let cool and peel all the squash from the skin. Mash the squash loosely in a large bowl.
Heat up a large sauté pan, heat a tablespoon of butter and put in 2 tablespoons of minced shallots.
Once shallots are wilted, place in the pureed squash and cook for two minutes to dry out its wetness then mix in 2 tablespoons of heavy cream and mix all together while cooking one more minute.
Place on ravioli dough squares or circles in 1-2 tsp. amounts.

And how can anything really go wrong when the sauce served atop it is a stick of butter cooked down to brown with twelve leaves of fresh sage?

I am going to make this again for my boyfriend when I own a pasta roller as it’s worth a second try.

He made the dessert with proper machinery, perfect little peanut butter cookies with cacao nibs that went so perfectly with the dessert cocktail of rum and orgeat almond syrup.

Apparently, I am not the only one who strives to be more Italian grandmother-esque in my cooking. Mo Rocca, one of my favorite old cast members from the John Stewart Show, is apparently starting a food travel show on the Cooking Channel soon called My Grandmother’s Ravioli.

Molto interessante!

Lazy Sunday Pizza Pie

2012-02-14T11:16:00.000-08:00

Lazy Sundays are my favorite days. The sort where you roll out of bed whenever the urge hits and go embark upon the world with no agenda except to find whatever you find.

This past Sunday, by eleven a.m. with newspapers read and coffee gone, we were on the hunt for food and spent a stroll through the streets of Venice and Santa Monica perusing menus posted outside of restaurants that looked intriguing. Madame Chou Chou’s winked at us for the future when we would be looking for a place that served lush duck pate on toast for brunch. Stella Rosso pizzeria looked vast and hearty for a dinner date. Amelia’s was a little too strictly coffee shop for our loll around and eat slowly kind of tastes. We ended up at Pizza Antica in the Santa Monica mall’s rooftop food court because we’ve been on a curious pizza spree of late – hunting out versions of thick and thin and low brow and high brow and any other kind in between.

Couple things that immediately floated my boat:

Outdoor seating on the open air roof, hit by the wafts of sea air from the ocean across the street...

Great white wine list at affordable prices...

Good room temperature water in a large glass jug

Nice serving staff

and...

Very creative baby vegetable antipasto plate with mozzarella with olive oil, lemon aioli, grilled and caramelized red onions, curried butternut squash, roasted brussel sprouts, roasted red peppers with crimini mushrooms and sliced, buttery fingerling potatoes

And then there's the delicious pizza, served in a personal size which basically is the diameter of a large dinner plate or a large version which is the personal size squared by two. With so many delicious options, we chose to get two personal pizzas and share both. I was impressed by the non-flimsy but still nicely flat crust that was not only flavorful but managed to get that perfect balance between crispy in parts that were meant to be crispy and chewy in others. Plus, generous toppings packed full of flavor.

Grilled Radicchio, Local Goat Cheese, Pancetta and Pesto PIzza

Spicy Fennel Sausage, Portobello Mushroom and Roasted Onion Pizza

Pizza Antica earned some nice points in my book and is definitely my favorite place for pie so far within walking distance from my home.

Rosenthal Roasted Chicken

2012-02-13T08:45:00.000-08:00

My friend Arlene lives on a property in the middle of the beautiful desert that consists of a sprawling garden where goats roam for milk, chickens lay eggs, trees produce amazing dates, and greens like swiss chard grow in abundance. Every few months, I am invited to dinner and am always asked what requests I have for food ahead of time as Arlene is an exquisite cook and knows that I crave certain favorites on a rotating basis. My answer is typically her roasted chicken with a big pile of bitter greens.

Recently, I was lucky enough to secure the recipe from her and try it on my own and it is now my go-to roasted chicken recipe, tasting better, and more finger licking good then any other variety I have had. I thought it only fair that my readers were privy to the moist and delicious recipe as well.

ARLENE’S ROASTED CHICKEN

Clean and pat dry a 3-4 pound fryer chicken.

Put it in a roasting pan and massage olive oil generously all over it.

Pour half a bottle of tamari soy sauce over it and cover well.

Pour some white Worcestershire sauce over it as well.

Cut up five cloves of garlic and sprinkle over the chicken and into the pan.

Sprinkle a tablespoon of lemon thyme over the chicken.

Sal and pepper the chicken.

Pour dry vermouth into the roasting pan along with some water to the appropriate level.

Roast in a pre-heated 350-degree oven for 1 and ½ to 2 hours until the meat falls from the bone, basting occasionally.

While the chicken roasts, I washed a pound of peanut fingerlings and tossed them with two tablespoons of olive oil and Parisian herbs. This then went into the toaster oven for 30 minutes. Right before serving I broiled them with parmesan cheese sprinkled on top for some chewy, crispy baby potato delight.

I used a few tablespoons of the leftover chicken juice from the bottom of the pan to sauté some fresh bok choy from the Cute Gardener’s garden for five minutes as the chicken set out of the oven when done.

The meal was paired perfectly with a bottle of 2007 Wild Horse Blaufrankisch from Paso Robles and a Whole Foods two-person sized flourless chocolate cake with crème fraiche spiked with vanilla.

Seduced by Some Oxtail Hash

2012-02-11T17:01:00.000-08:00

I admit I was totally seduced twice this past Thursday night, an uncommon thing for discerning ole me.

For one, I was enchanted by the idea of going to the Los Angeles downtown art walk because it promised such a proliferation of galleries in one dense space, that I thought I would be sated with art overload and get a glimpse at what the area offered. I hadn’t been to the Spring or Main Street gallery rows since moving here months ago, and thought it would be a perfect opportunity to get a glimpse. I had been to a few artist lofts on the rooftops of painters who I consider talented in the area so mistakenly thought it might be a thriving hub of close-to-the-bone contemporary work from regional peeps.

For two, I was seduced by a review by food critic Johnathan Gold for the LA Weekly in which he extolled the virtues of the best dishes of 2011. The “El Toron” baco sandwich from downtown’s Baco Mercat was on that list. My boyfriend has warned me extensively not to be charmed by Gold’s never-ending fluffy adjectives and that’s exactly what happened, I fell for his description of the oxtail hash.

This particular sandwich is served at Chef Josef Centeno’s (Lazy Ox) downtown joint where he has created a menu that he would eat at home or make for friends. Baco sandwiches are basically pita bread wrapped around various Spanish-tinged, meat laden concoctions, served alongside pizza type flatbreads and a host of small dishes like wild boar on toast and the traditional English breakfast warped Centeno-style. It’s like perfect, gourmet end-of-the-night bar food.

Only we were there for dinner, after escaping the throngs of low brow, art lovers consuming the street fair-esque aspect of the art walk, where every gallery seemed to be churning out cheap versions of copycat Murikami, Banksy and Alex Greys. And it was so packed, perhaps because of the day before glowing review at the LATimes.com, that our waitress had to comp us dessert because first, she gave our order to the table next to us, and secondly, she forgot that she hadn’t served us our food a few minutes after that.

But all that being said, my art malaise was happily fed with this Toron sandwich, even though the potato pancake overwhelmed the taste of the actual oxtail meat. A better ratio here would easily flip that opinion around. The cheddar and pickle on this dish mixed super-tangy with the charred edges of the hash.

Of course, I didn’t get a photo of the sandwich because it was dark and cramped with people heartily devouring plate after plate of fried chicken, massive bowls of soups and a continuous string of more and more meat, and I don’t want to be one of those obnoxious food bloggers who flashes in intimate, low lit settings….but I did manage to get a shot of the bazole soup, which I loved. Thick with pork belly and beef bits, large and chunky with charred ends, floated in this super-Asian chili spiced, version with a fried egg on top that danced between ramen and something bloody and rich that would have put hair on Hemingway’s chest.

I also really liked the sweet and sour, homemade soda selection. For three bucks a piece you can try from over ten varieties that include Black Mint, Meyer Lemon and Persimmon to name a few.

Dispelling the Money Myth at the Farmer's Market

2012-02-10T10:58:00.000-08:00

I've written about the positive aspects of supporting your local farmer's markets before. My reasons run the gamut from supporting local growers to getting food fresh and not stocked with longevity-enhancing preservatives and all the other ethical rigamarole. Many people typically agree with me on that end but every now and again I get someone who tells me that farmer's markets and organic foods are so expensive as an excuse to why they are still slave to their Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. Don't get me wrong, I too can't live without my weekly visit to Whole Foods but buying food from farmer's markets and organic farms is simply not as expensive anymore as it once was a decade ago when the concepts were flushed into the mainstream scene and prices were in ratio to the very low demand. Nowadays, it's definitely worth a trip to stock up on items you can't readily find elsewhere that are going to cost you a lot less than you would expect.

Here let me prove it. This morning's bounty included:

Radish and Mung Bean Sprouts that will last over a month's worth of salads = $4

Would be hard pressed to find these in the grocery store.

Bought from a man who also delivered up a $1.50 wheat grass shot, a good fifty cents less than a store bought cup and much tastier and fresh.

Mammoth brownie/cake cookies from my friend Sonia, the Gluten Free Goddess, which came with a huge hug = $6.

These cookies are so big and so moist and taste so unlike any preservative laden thing you'll find in a store bakery. Even though Whole Foods is currently stocking them on their shelves for potential inclusion. They will no doubt cost more there.
This is the equivalent of four desserts in my home.

Savory homemade BBQ tofu and tangy, spicy daikon from the Korean stand = $10.

I would pay $7-10 for each of these in a store and wouldn't have the privilege of trying three other samples of delicious food on toothpicks while browsing this particular table. Yum. As a snack these will last me a week.

Two big bags of artisanal lettuces for salad fresh from the farm with no chemicals = $10

I would pay $7 bucks for one bag in the store with a little less bulk.

This will last me for six personal salads.

Hearty bags of filberts and pepitas for salad = $8.

I would pay close to that for one of these in the store, and don't have an easy time finding filberts in general.

This will cover a month of salads.

Feta cheese with herbs, four big falafels and two luscious homemade eggplant turnovers from the Greek guys = 10.

That's four lunches and enough cheese for four meals.
I would spend at least $15 for this batch of food elsewhere.

2 bags of cute little peanut fingerling potatoes = $5.

I don't normally even see these in a store.

One bag will be served in a roasted chicken meal for the Cute Gardener this weekend.

The other bag will last me the course of two or three other meals.

PLUS: Morning walk to the market in the Venice Beach sunshine and surprise encounters with two good friends = priceless vitamins for the soul.

Excuse me while I go turn on Al Green's "Love and Happiness" and dance around the kitchen for a while.

Salmon Belly Noodle Stir Fry For Two

2012-02-09T08:36:00.000-08:00

One of the greatest joys of being a foodie is cooking for other people. This past Christmas I spent five hours in the kitchen crafting a five dish meal for close friends and family and although it was highly laborious and required much strategy and coordination, I got the utmost reward from seeing the smiles on the faces of my guests as they enjoyed my special stuffing and buttery turkey and all the accoutrements. I am used to being on the cooking end and have always dreamed of one day finding a partner to share my love of cooking. The idea of spending time in the kitchen with someone who loves food as much as I do and whipping up dishes together has been high on my wish list.

So when I met the Cute Gardener this past year, I was thrilled to know that he loved to cook. And not only did he love to cook, he grew his own fruits and vegetables as well. Learning the idiosyncrasies of each other’s palates, trying adventurous meals out at restaurants and long conversations about food ensued. Of course, inevitably we had to cook for each other as the pocketbooks started to bulge under the weight of our constant meals out and the fun of trying each other’s food began. Not the fancy special occasion foods but the every day at home dinner meals that occur on regular old weekdays and nights in.

This past weekend, I was treated to a beautiful stir-fry made from simple, fresh ingredients with some exotic dashes thrown in.

Udon noodles, salmon belly to marinate, onion and oyster sauce

Fresh bok choy from the garden

Slightly sweet and lovely pea sprouts

Exotic asian mushrooms

Stir fried with chicken broth into a mellow and belly filling one plate meal

Simple gin martini spiked with the juice of a fresh lime

The best part was realizing that our simple everyday meals are really different, doubling the potential for us to enjoy and share different types of food together, trading off the cooking duties or deciding to collaborate and create new things conjured from our individual and very different taste buds and combined to create entirely new things. The opportunities abound.

Figgy Bliss at Il Fico

2012-02-05T13:04:00.000-08:00

Sometimes enjoying food is all about the ambience and one of my favorite kinds of experiences in this realm happens when the following ingredients are included: a warm and sunny afternoon, an urban center, a casual non-rushed sense of time, white wine day drinking, outdoor seating, people watching, and good Italian food.

This past Saturday I found this piece of experiential bliss in West Hollywood at Il Fico where we stopped on our search to fill our mutual craving for a piece of pizza pie to carb up before gallery hopping in the area.

Seated outside amongst the simple modern décor and catered to by three eager waiters through the course of our meal, we ended up eating much more than we came for amidst the bustling sidewalk street traffic, honking traffic-frenzied drivers on the Robertson strip and other dining couples who seemed liked regulars in their snappy ordering of multiple items and blasé attitudes while perpetually playing with smart phones and shopping bags.

A gorgeous and simple Il Campana pie with flat crust, fluffy lumps of burrata, strips of basil and roasted cherry tomatoes that popped in the mouth. Prettier than any of the lame art we ended up seeing in West Hollywood (save for the Daniel Richter paintings at Regen Projects which were great, garish displays of American war psyche and man's place in the world and the PST show at Tasende which had some interesting Latin American surrealistic Mattas but slim picking otherwise). Crust could have had a little more olive oil and salt and for $18 bucks this pizza is not something I could easily afford often which is a shame because if it were a bit less in price I would come here often.

Beautiful little jar of chili oil with tiny spoon for drizzling over the pie to make it spicy. I am going to make a jar of this to keep at home, inspired by this nice little touch.

Even though our goal was to eat pizza, we ended up ordering the Macaroni with Duck Ragu. "Duck" and "ragu" are two things that I can't often resist and this one was really yummy, with the duck nuggets coming in tiny, meaty chunk, the al dente macaroni a perfect vehicle for the comforting sauce, and bits of chewy porcini and slivers of grated pecorini to add oomph. We didn't get charged a fee to split the dish and both received nice portions in individual bowls.

I hardly ever order dessert, and especially at lunchtime. But at a restaurant named after one of my favorite fruits, and with a dessert that was listed as being made up of ricotta cheese as a main ingredient, I had to try the Millefoglie di Fichi. Decadent yes, worth it, yes. Picking out bits of crispy chocolate covered pieces of pastry from the pile of sweet cheese with hints of fig was a whole lot of fun with the fingers and the perfect end to the first half of Saturday.

Spotted Dick and Clotted Cream and a Traditional British Affair

2012-02-03T08:32:00.000-08:00

The beauty of being a foodie lies in the ability to make and share food with others. There's nothing in life that brings people together like a good meal, good wine, and good conversation. For the past four years, I have been blessed with inclusion in a supper club where we rotate hosts and houses and come up with varied meal plans to tackle together. Although we've done the typical beloved fare like Italian feasts and ethnic cuisine, I always love it when we step out of our traditional palate and shoot for a meal that we normally wouldn't eat. Not only does this give us an opportunity to learn about another culture or geographic region's culinary idiosyncracies, but it allows us to appreciate a wide range of never before tried dishes.

Recently my club decided upon a traditional English dinner. When I remarked to a non-member of the club that I would be enjoying British delights, he remarked, "Oh you mean bad and boring food?" The English have been long maligned for their bland, heavy and starch laden classics as well as their penchant for strange things like herbed veggies. But we managed to come up with a menu that blended a variety of food groups to produce a pleasant array of choices.

Stilton Tart

Shepherd's Pie

Steak and Guinness Pie

(Guinness being expertly substituted for the traditional kidney)

Minty Mushy Peas

Butternut Squash Soup

Brussel Sprouts

Red Cabbage

Cauliflower with Cheese

The beauty of doing this is that everything doesn't always come up gourmet and oftentimes we feel like we are getting an authentic slice of a region even if the choices are something we wouldn't necessarily run to over again. And then there's always the addition of drinks that make everything go down smooth. For this meal, we enjoyed wine and Guinness beer and an English honey mead for dessert; one a heavy stout and the other a sweet wine that went perfectly with the dessert of spotted dick and clotted cream that I was assigned to make.

A table adorned with the British Flag

When guests read the name of the dessert they cringed, but spotted dick means "raisin studded fat" (or cake) and the cream is supposed to be made in an oven for hours on end until a clotted skin forms at the top, which is used to top the cake. I didn't want to spend hours waiting on cream to clot so I mixed 8 ounces of mascarpone with a pint of heavy cream until whipped and dropped in a bead of almond extract. This cream became the surprise of the evening and is something I will use in lieu of normal whipped cream again because it was truly delicious. One guest remarked that the spotted dick was only a vehicle for this luscious cream and that is the true gem of the evening that I will take away from the whole experience.

Romancing the '80s at Michael's

2012-01-28T14:46:00.000-08:00

Last night it was time for restaurant #2 in our dineL.A. Week, which meant Michael’s in Santa Monica. This restaurant has been around for 33 years, which the jovial and dinner-jacketed Michael gladly told us as he personally greeted us, and everyone else, at their tables. Maybe that’s why it’s been rolling for so long, because people like to feel like they can go somewhere to eat where the owner cares enough to say hello and will remember their names on recurring visits.

I think that kind of congeniality goes a long way. Especially for this place, that I had totally forgotten I had been to years ago on a Museum trip, that resides in a house off the bustling Santa Monica 3^rd street promenade strip, catering to May-December romance couples and society ladies out for a bowl of their favorite tried and true fricassee salad or roasted veggie soup.

I went with the Cute Gardener and we both agreed that the food was done well, even if it were food that was introduced as haute cuisine in the 80s, and that since we were being re-introduced to it now twenty years later although it had been served consistently to customers the entire time, that we would relegate it to the nice, cozy annals of comfort food in order to give it the credit it deserves. Yes, it’s a little scary that we can reminisce about the ‘80s as something that happened 20 years ago and relegate it to nostalgia fare.

A rosy glow of candles and couples, on Friday it is clearly a place for date nights so we settled in to enjoy being part of that crowd. We started off with a potato agnolotti, a rectangular ravioli cooked perfectly al dente stuffed with potato and laid upon a transparent sliver of salmon that added the perfect saltiness to every bite.

Also, a lovely pair of Maine diver scallops on white curly frisee, sweetened subtly with a hint of cardamom and tangerine segments.

Everything was tasty even if the descriptions of things on the menu didn’t quite pair up with the actual dishes that arrived. My sea bass on goat cheese polenta with wild mushrooms and Greek yogurt was super tasty but I wasn’t expected a grilled, charred slab of fish. It does make sense that it was cooked that way though as it was titled Mediterranean. I ended up trading with the Cute Gardener for his duck, which included a meaty, dense and smoky candied textured shredded thigh or leg or other deep meaty pocket of flesh that made me melt.

I was pleased that Michael clearly loves art even if every piece of art on the walls added to the seemingly frozen in the 1980s ambience. Red lipstick glamour paintings and power suited females on the walls and the beginning of bleeding watercolor portraits that inspired a whole generation of today’s romantic, female contemporary painters.

I enjoyed the panna cotta dessert swimming in a nice honey sauce although it was absent of the saffron promised in the name and textured more like a custard and not as light as I was expecting. Half of it was consumed with a perfectly paired Japanese Tokaj wine that added some spice and zest to the last part of this meal.

Dimly Lit at Lucques

2012-01-25T16:33:00.000-08:00

dineL.A. began last weekend and it gave my culinary co-pilot and myself an excuse to throw three reservations onto the agenda that we might not have normally scrambled to make. We chose Lucques first because I have been itching to eat at Chef Suzanne Goin's French-California place but a little leery about the prices in my current budget and it was an excuse to try it out for the $44 prefixe event menu. My boyfriend, who hadn't been in four years, told me it was a place that women seemed to like more than men and this was apparently true because it was filled with three quarters of the female sex compared to the male. And it reminded me of a younger, more chic and less self-conscious version of one of my favorite desert restaurants Le Vallauris so I immediately warmed up once sitting amidst the warm outdoor space with olive green vines covering the linen colored walls.

Classy and elegant, beautifully candlelit and lending itself to intimacy, I cozied up to the experience right away enjoying the olives and boiled almonds offered on a plate with deliciously flaked salt and pads of clean tasting butter to accompany a bread basket filled with a toasty, porously-creviced and mild sourdough with a nice dark and rindy crust. Just the night before this, I had reveled at another olive plate, eaten at Rustic Canyon in Santa Monica, where the olives were spritzed with a cool lemon water and rosemary bath that reminded me of why I love the miniature globes when at their immature aged best.

The root vegetable fattoush was calling my name for a starter. As I have mentioned before, I love tubers, and was recently disappointed in my efforts at finding a good salad anywhere. This one was great: parsnips, pearl onions, turnips and beets all cooked to perfection and caramelized on the ends and sliced in julienne style so that they were reminiscent of French fries in a salad of artisanal greens and fluffy bits of feta. I didn’t see the fried pita chips that were purported to come with the salad, which is weird because technically fattoush means a Levantine bread salad, but was thrilled with the taste and it was a salad I would order again.

And apparently I did. Because the second course, my lusted after and much anticipated fresh ricotta dumplings arrived on an identical root pile. I understand that at times like dineL.A. when a restaurant is looking for things to serve for an inflated crowd on a limited menu, it’s easy to want to buy things in bulk and make them go a long way so it’s not too surprising that the same items would appear in multiple dishes. But this is something I feel the wait staff should have been savvy to so at least they could warn diners when dishes were all too similar. It makes a smart impression and avoids the irritation that occurred when I did realize the entrée was so close in foundation to the starter. That being said, my dumplings were beautifully handmade items of pillowy bliss. Not too doughy, the steamed exteriors melded beautifully with the grainier fresh ricotta texture within giving me pleasure with very bite. Served perfectly plain and absent of sauce was a nice choice as they didn’t need anything to mingle with their sublime-ness. I could only finish three of them, they were so densely filling.

For dessert, I chose a bitter chocolate torta with coffee ice cream and mascarpone cream. Each piece of that dish was impressive on its own, top notch in quality and all bathed in hints of smoky flavor from the few hazelnuts that studded the plate. The texture of the torta and the way it melted in my mouth was orgasmic. Best slice of chocolate anything I have had in a long time.

If I were rich, I would eat here more often. Because I am not, I will check it off on my list as a place officially conquered.

Passion-Inspired Rustic Tomato Soup

2012-01-22T20:06:00.000-08:00

The tomato is the perfect symbol of passion in the vegetable world. It’s a plump, red, round gem that produces an exquisite juice and symbolizes the shape and depth of a ripe heart overflowing with goodness. I have been reminded of this time and again over the course of the last two months as my boyfriend with the green thumb has been depositing a fresh batch in a brown paper bag on my counter on his visits to pick me up for our whirlwind of various dates. So forgive me if a little romance sneaks into my blog this time because I made a soup with his latest batch that makes my heart swoon and my belly bulge with warmth. Food is also a metaphor for comfort, nurturing and love and what better way to express that than a warm and simply good soup.

I scoured the web for an appropriate recipe to depict my latest endeavor with the homegrown tomatoes and found nothing but pureed versions. I didn’t want to create something that was pureed into an equal and base consistency but wanted something that had a little more depth and oomph to fully express my multi-textured feelings poured into a pot to produce something rich and worthy.

So I read all the pureed version recipes and adapted them all into my own recipe which I proudly now call “Hearty Rustic Tomato Soup.”

After making this, I discovered that it is perfect served hot in small ceramic bowls that keep the chunks warm. I also laid some Whole Foods brand horseradish cheddar spread onto dark rye crisps that when dipped into the hot sop, melted into a deep and toasty moment of bliss that crunched in the mouth ever so slightly; a perfect accompaniment in lieu of bread for the dish.

RUSTIC TOMATO SOUP

2 1/2 pounds fresh tomatoes cut into one-inch wedges
7 cloves peeled garlic

2 small yellow onions, sliced erratically

½ cup of extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper

3/4 quart chicken stock
2 bay leaves

4 Tablespoons of butter

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Spread the tomatoes, garlic cloves and onions onto a baking tray. Drizzle with 1/2 cup of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast for 20 to 30 minutes, or until caramelized.

Remove roasted tomatoes, garlic and onion from the oven and transfer to a large stockpot. Add 3/4 of the chicken stock, bay leaves, and butter. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes or until liquid has reduced by a third.

Remove the bay leaves. Use a hand potato masher to loosely mash the soup so that all the roasted veggies are broken down into a consistent texture but not pureed. Continue to heat on low after seasoning to taste with salt and pepper for about ten minutes on low. Serve garnished with a dollop of heavy cream in the center.

CorkBar's Gnarly Roots

2012-01-20T09:51:00.000-08:00

I am a true blue tuber girl. One of my favorite morning eats is in San Francisco at La Boulange consists of a root veggie pastry where the beets, turnips and carrots are cooked simply right. I like my root veggies to be soft but not texturally diluted, dense with flavor and slightly charred on the sides for a nice caramelizing in the mix.

This past week before the LA Art Show I met two artist friends Gesso Cocteau and Jim Morphesus at CorkBar in downtown LA to share a glass of wine and a quick toast before the onslaught of art perusal. Jim mentioned that downtown has changed a lot and is now teeming at every corner with USC students, which was truly the case at CorkBar. Every table filled up during the hour we were there with sprightly young and eager people conglomerating over wine and eats.

It almost felt like we were in New York in the chic bar with the lovely rudimentary wooden tables and tall ceilings and glass windows opening onto the panoramic skylines of L.A.’s glistening urbanity.

The wine list was impressive and my $15 Keenan, 2006 Napa Valley Merlot was generously poured and jammy with blackberry and raspberry nuances. But before I could get too excited my disappointing root veggie salad arrived. A huge pile of thick-stemmed arugula was dotted with a noticeably sparse smattering of root vegetables. The carrots were disgustingly watery in texture and not cleaned or peeled. I understand the allure of “rustic” and “authentic” presentations but I could taste the dirt in the crevices of the carrots that tasted like old lady-fingers boiled to oblivion. I couldn’t really taste the other more subtle vegetables that I am assuming were things like parsnips and beets because the arugula was so peppery and spicy and overpowering that all other flavors got lost in the dish.

Maybe the USC students have become such a staple to the place that considerations on making really nice food for foodies and the like have been washed under the bus. To be fair, the menu boasts other things I would like and I should try more than a salad before making any final opinion on the place but if you can screw up something as simple as greens on a plate, other options become ever more forbidding.

Sunday Morning Bagel Sandwich Redemption at The Oaks

2012-01-16T12:53:00.000-08:00

I had a really horrible meal Saturday night in Pomona at 2nd on 2nd. I was really disappointed because I have not had a meal in as long as I can remember that actually almost compelled me to send the plate back or ask for a refund on my check. True it was the cheapest dinner I have had in a long time but does that excuse the fact that there was a hard, white slice of tomato with a gnarly, scarred center on my burger or that it tasted like set-in-the-sun cardboard with a coating of black ash? I left most of the dish but picked out the soggy fried jalapenos from the slab because I was hungry. The waitress didn’t even charge me for my glass of wine, but it wasn’t because she was making up for her bad service and the meal, it’s because she wasn’t present enough to recall that I ordered it.

All this being said, it made me realize that I should take more time to note the everyday and simple eating experiences I come across that may not be worthy of a Michelin five star rating but are reliable sources of simply, yummy food time and again.

The next morning my palate was redeemed by such an experience at The Oaks Gourmet Fine Foods andSpirits market in Hollywood, where we stopped for a quick breakfast/lunch on our way to see The Artist. One fourth gourmet foods and condiments market, one fourth wine store shoved into an upscale, strip mall, one fourth bustling coffee shop and smoothie shack, and one fourth café serving fare like pizza, burgers, sandwiches and salads to order. As small as the space is and as much is crammed in there to choose your experience from, I still fell in love with its charm due to the good food and the variety of people who were there obviously in on the secret of the place’s merits as well; even if you had to sit at a communal table in the middle of the store to enjoy the fare without a plate or utensils. That kind of DIY smorgasbord of people on laptops, in couples, or in for a rushed bite, added to the allure.

The menus boasts one of the Top Five Burgers in LA according to the LA List and my boyfriend, being a burger whore, had that. I thought the meat was very flavorful and the ingredients were above par but he said they weren’t distributed evenly.

I am a bagel sandwich aficionado. Chances are, if it’s the early half of the day and I am hungry I will opt for this standard combination of egg, cheese and bagel with additional stuff thrown in. So far, my favorite had been the red pepper and Swiss version at Koffi in Palm Springs but now The Oaks has stolen my heart with its perfectly combined fried egg, grated cheddar cheese, black forest bacon that melted on the tongue with bits of pepper spice, and shaved onion and roasted red peppers. It was the kind of sandwich served warm where textures and temperatures all perfectly blend and the “everything” bagel was soft and not too hard to squeeze the life out of the more tender things like egg and cheese.

If I lived close by I would come often to eat the bagel sandwich or buy things like the tiny Ding-Dong reminiscent monkey cakes in a non-guilt-ridden two-bite portion, the fig olive oil or one of the varieties of artisan tampenades.

The Eternal Hunt for Convenience Ramen

2012-01-14T13:58:00.000-08:00

Looking for a quick bite before a major night of Culver City art gallery openings, my mate and I decided to try a Ramen Yamadaya noodle joint. A chain from Japan, the place was small, boisterous and filled up quickly after we initially sat down at one of the 15 or so four seated-communal tables, welcomed by loud hellos from the entire staff. Considering this franchise is akin to an American fast food restaurant only Asian-style I wasn’t exactly expecting four-star food and it’s hard to go wrong with a bowl of ramen anywhere. It’s the kind of cheap and quick meal that satisfies the soul with warmth and provided fuel for the exhibition hopping that was about to ensue.

I had the Yamadaya ramen house specialty with tonkotsu shoyu (soy) broth that boasted lots of pork. I was satisfied because for the ten dollar price tag the bowl was large and swimming with at least seven slices of yummy plain cooked pork. A nice fatty pork belly slice adorned the top along with two nicely hard-boiled egg halves, lots of skinny ramen noodles, sheets of seaweed, assorted black noodles and green onion bits. The bowl could have arrived a bit hotter in the broth department but I wasn’t going to complain, as it was a quick-fix fast meal.

My mate had the simple nine-dollar bowl of chashu ramen with the basic tonkotsu broth and ended up dipping into the extra bits of my bowl for added flavor.

Ramen is a current obsession of mine. I grew up eating the poor man’s lame version of ramen noodles that you could buy in the grocery store for under a buck a pack. When I blossomed into a foodie in later years, my first real ramen experience was in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles where I fell in love with the grown up version of meaty noodles in smoking hot flavorful broths. It’s definitely my favorite preference in the warming, soups department.

There are so many ramen joints in L.A. that you can basically find one in every neighborhood. Considering I stay away from fast food chains of the American variety, I might opt for more individual mom and pop ramen places in the future simply because there are so many to choose from and this particular one didn’t exactly fill the niche in my mind for that favorite go-to spot. We both also agreed that we should have opted for fat noodles because the skinny ones weren’t as complementary to the experience as the thicker ones would have been.

Benjamin Button Inspired Caviar New Year's

2012-01-12T08:43:00.000-08:00

New Year’s Eve for me has usually meant a sit down dinner of some kind at my best friend’s house followed by karaoke into the wee hours after the clock strikes twelve. But this year, no longer single, it was time to do it up in style with my mate who had recently watched the movie Benjamin Button and was inspired by the “you only live once” attitude of the film wherein the subjects splurge on champagne and caviar. We both are avid foodies and were each quite embarrassed to admit that we had never tried the elegant combination of extravagant fish roe with bubbly. We decided to go decadent and spend time alone at home cooking blinis from DorieGreenspan’s Around My French Table cookbook upon which we would enjoy a tasting of various blends of roe and condiments and decide which libations paired best with each version.

We bought the caviar at Surfas in Culver City, a dream store for chefs and foodies where exotic bits from around the world are sold alongside utensils and equipment sought out by a world of adventurous cooks. We chose three varieties from the lowest priced to the highest priced. First was the least expensive Tobikko, or flying fish roe, followed by the smoky dark grey paddlefish roe of medium sized pearls and lastly, the hundred and thirty dollar jar of inky black Osetra.

While cooking the blinis we prepared a plate of condiments: thin smoked trout and salmon laid across a plate and tiny bowls of minced red onion, sour cream, hard boiled egg and chives plucked from my mate’s garden.

We also set up an elaborate selection of drinks from a Blanc champagne and a Noir champagne to three types of vodka ranging from the cheap to the priciest. Our goal was to see what pairings tasted best regardless of price or preconceived notion.

Once all was chilled, cooked, diced and ready to go, we laid a table with our wares and embarked on a two hour mix and match-a-thon.

Our findings were as follows:

By itself, the Tobikko Caviar, the lowliest of the fish roe, tasted smoky and popped delightfully in the mouth. Perhaps because it was the cheapest, it tasted best paired with the Belvedere vodka, which elevated the caviar stepchild to a higher plane of flavor and style. It also went well with the Blanc champagne, which provided a sparkling halo around the lowly roe. Red onion, salmon and egg provided enough peripheral flavor to do the same thing, although you needed a larger portion of the roe on the blini to make sure the essences of the caviar were topmost on the palate.

The medium priced Paddlefish roe tasted kind of musky and fishy on its own and the texture was mushy compared to the others. Being a midrange item, it paired well with the Chopin vodka and the Noir champagne, each finding equal ground to let the roe’s flavor shine through without being overpowering. This is also why the roe went best with the more subtle smoked trout as a bed, accentuated with just a hint of pepper brought in by the red onion.

Surprisingly, the ultra expensive osetra went best with cheap Russian Standard vodka chilled to icy perfection. Best not to have the world-class roe compete with a world-class drink; this was an example where we discovered that opposites do indeed attract. It also went well with the Blanc champagne, which danced electrifyingly with the large pearls on the tongue swirled down the throat in a wash of citrusy bliss. Again the smoked trout provided a perfect blander base than the salmon would with just a dab of sour cream to mingle the flavors.

Of course, by this time in the tasting we were almost as bubbly as the champagne and full bellied content enough from multiple variations on our fabulous buckwheat blinis that we barely even touched our dessert cheese plate. We managed to leave a small spoonful of caviar in each jar for an extra pure bite in the morning. A memorable New Year’s Eve in the spirit of Carpe Diem!

Life is Like a Box of Valrhona

2011-12-28T16:32:00.000-08:00

Sitting in my front yard now a few days after the Christmas food coma has resided, I’m savoring a square of Valrhona Chocolates Noirs de Domaine’s Grand Couva from Trinidad. I told someone special that dark chocolate was my pie and that same someone gifted me with an exquisite Millesime box for the holidays. There’s something about the way this chocolate melts on the tongue, coating the palate, that is both sensual and heavenly and I realize that 2011 has been equally delicious for me.

This may be the most delicious year of my life so far full of turning points and transitions. I sent a grown daughter to college, moved to the beach, dove into my novel and perpetuated my art career that has been pushed into overdrive. Passion has been the cornerstone of the year, which has also carried over into all things culinary as I continued to venture out on food adventures as well as learn new things in the kitchen. So to repeat a sappy sentiment, life really has become like a box of chocolates in all the best ways. Below is my ode to the best foodie memories of my 2011!

Horchata flavored Italian ice on the Venice Beach boardwalk for three bucks

My first Yakitori meal in L.A.’s Little Tokyo

Cold squid ink pasta at Mozza Osteria in West Hollywood

Perfecting my onion marmalade recipe

Lobster barbecue on the roof in San Francisco with Tara and Jamie

The best two a.m. grilled cheese sandwich in the middle of Burning Man after days of living on beef jerky, followed closely by the grilled cheese truck outside Bergamot Station in Los Angeles

Tandoori turkey Thanksgiving with the Hadley’s

Whole Foods’ pho bar and smoked chicken and red onion pizza

Organic cream on the top maple yogurt

Pt. Reyes bleu cheese from Cowgirl Creamery

The opening of Savory Spice Shop and discovering Penzey’s Spice Shop

Chef Ernesto from Rio Azul’s sweet corn tamales

Chia seeds

Cacao nibs

Tasty Bite microwavable Indian food packets

Flat bread duck confit pizza at 3rdCorner Wine Shop and Bistro

Sean Minor $15 pinot noir

The burger at Father’s Office Culver City

Gyro sandwich at Kabobz in Palm Desert

Wine and schwarma art geek salad lunches with fellow artist Richard Twedt at Garbanzo’s

Perfecting soy chorizo egg scrambles

One Life Natural Foods’ superfood chocolate and strawberry sundaes

Shrimp and mango quesadillas at Windward Farms market

Primitivo’s bacon and chorizo wrapped dates

The chorizo breakfast burrito at Alkobar

Bring your own wine cheap and easy Chinese eggplant at Mao’s

The Venice Farmer’s Market

Korean pickled daikon

The Bread Man’s squaw rye loaf

The blueberry covered goat cheese log at Trader Joe’s

The perfect Negroni, straight up with an orange rind twist

Thai Kitchen instant green onion and ginger noodles

Vietnamese chili sauce

Ritter Sport’s dark chocolate and marzipan bar

Raw collard greens as wrap sandwich leaves

Swiss Chard

Lemon thyme and kale from Leslie Shockley’s garden

My first taste of haggis

Valeska Kaufmann’s mushroom stew

Brian Uyeda’s homegrown tomatoes

The rediscovery of taco-flavored Doritos

Coconut water

Poached salmon and beet salad at Cuistot during lunches with my mentor Gesso

Creating my own sausage and sage stuffing for Christmas dinner

Sausages with grainy mustard in Austria

Tommy Bahamas’ scallop and arugula salad

Sammy Woodfired pizzas grilled chicken balsamic salad

Pork burrito at CasaLinda

The Twisted Snake habanera cocktail at Birba

Here’s to happy eating in 2012 to all my foodie friends!

Sweet Meat at Father's Office

2011-12-24T20:35:00.000-08:00

I have been wanting to try Father's Office ever since my friend Rick told me it's his favorite place to grab a beer and burger. I am a burger whore but only if it's a good one and I am usually hard pressed to find a joint that gets it right. See, I am one of those people who likes stinky cheese, weird leaves and sweetness on my warm, on-the-raw-side meat and that's not something that's traditional in the world of patties on a bun. After reading countless reviews of the place, I had a distinct intuition that this burger joint might be right for me, especially after my favorite meal companion of late told me that this one was served with caramelized onion on a bun usually reserved for lovers of au jus entrees.

So, last night we finally ventured to the place after a trek through the heaven that is Surfas in Culver City. After walking down rows of quail eggs, caviar, thai sauces and exotic butters, I was ready for something meaty and fulfilling. We scored a tiny tall boy table front and center of the bar and met full mouth bliss. At Father's Office, you get a menu, order at the bar, pick up your cocktails, and anxiously await your food. Even the obnoxious man in the booth next to us who got louder as the drinks diminished couldn't stave our pleasure.

First up, an amazing poached egg and smoked eel salad. Warm, flowing yolk-egged, and smoky with tiny strips of tangy red onion and vinegar. Best dish of the evening. Eaten in small savored bites.

My burger was amazing. Made rare and juicy, smothered in caramelized, sweet onion marmalade, the deep taste of maytag bleu cheese and fresh arugula leaves on a bun that soaked up all the meat's juice accept for the crusty exterior which provided a nice textural crunch. And the skinny fries dipped in garlic aoili were the perfect companion. I am going back for this, for this is my favorite burger found in L.A. so far.

They don't allow ketchup here but nothing needed it, even though people are known to bring in their own bottles.

A warm duck salad was also amusing in its expertise texture and it mixed well with the crunchy filberts. I thought it lacked sweetness but found out later it had figs in it so it was more about it not being blended correctly to get the perfect blend of tastes in each bite.

The dessert was a Kobucha Squash buttercream cupcake with the most translucent and purely butter whipped frosting, which sort of made up for what I am going to say next. Yummy but the ratio of cake to frosting was imbalanced and the few pumpkin seeds could have been ground or dispersed better.

I liked the dim lit atmosphere, the nice staff and the people all around us enjoying themselves. And more than 24 hours later, I am still craving that burger.

Hog Heaven at CasaLinda

2011-12-22T13:13:00.000-08:00

Being the fanatic foodie that I am, and being new to the area, it’s pretty guaranteed that I won’t often go to a place twice as am I discovering the vast culinary landscape of the various cities that make up Los Angeles. So I was surprised when I chose to take a fellow foodie freak to CasaLinda for my second time this week all for the love of pork.

Located smack dab in the middle of Abbott Kinney, in the spot where Tortilla Grill used to reside, and owned by the same people who own Hal’s Grill, it is now relegated to become my quintessential neighborhood taco joint. I had already discovered the restaurant a mere few nights before when a friend and I were on the hunt for a place we could order out from that was walk-able from my house. Even though we didn’t eat there, I liked the non-pretentious and simple dining room where you could see the cooks making the food and the salsa bar with all different kinds of toppings including a nice avocado and jalapeno blend.

But it was the Al Pastor pork burrito that I fell head over heels for. Its merits lay in the super tortilla-soak-through greasy, tiny chunks of sweet caramelized pork that stuff the gargantuan burrito. Adorned with not much else but some rice and tiny, diced pieces of zucchini, it was a tangy, zesty, spicy delight bite after bite. I could easily just sit around with a bowl filled with that pork and no tortilla and be just fine.

They have tongue and octopus and other exotic items beyond the regular, and affordably priced, normal shrimp and chicken taco fare but I am not sure if I will ever be able to get past the pork items to try anything else. Oddly enough, the pork quesadilla was a dollar more expensive then the burrito; a mystery because it’s not as much food, doesn’t have the vegetables the burrito does, and comes with only cheese added.

Now I know where to go when I have had too much fun, stayed up too late, and need something I can rely on to soak up all the revelry and put me to bed with sweetness in the belly. It reminds me of my favorite end of the evening joints in San Francisco’s Mission District.

Triple Tomato Bliss

2011-12-20T09:17:00.000-08:00

Gifts of freshly grown and plucked winter tomatoes have found their way to my produce bin over the course of the last month. The fastidious gardener who cultivated them warned me that they might not be so tasty this time of year. But I found that to be far from the truth as I crafted three great meals with the character-laden beauties, proving that his green thumb is actually a rather talented one.

There were different varieties including mild, perfectly round and pink momotaros; super red and fleshy purple cherokees, yellow hillbilly potato leaf and then a handful of baby San Marzanos.

My first endeavor was just to dive into the larger and plump globes calling for nothing more than to be eaten at a lukewarm and juicy room temperature with a garnish of sea salt and black pepper.

Laid on a leaf of romaine with a side of red pepper hummus and a slice of organic sharp white cheddar made a perfect lunch. Notice the red veins in the yellow slices; apparently these flames are what caused the great personality on the palate.

The second batch of the cherokees and the momotaros were diced at their most bursting ripeness for inclusion into one of my standard breakfasts: the soy chorizo omelet.

I have a bizarre secret for the perfect fluffy eggs. It’s all about putting eggs in a bowl and adding a teaspoon of almond milk. I know it sounds weird but there is something about the almond milk’s slight sweetness that puts a mellow and warm spin into the finished eggs without the taste of almond sticking in the mix. The second secret is to whisk the eggs for two whole minutes to guarantee the perfect fluff. With these two things in mind, you can really throw anything else into the eggs after that, and in this case, I added some dried, French thyme.

Whisked and poured into a pan that was already simmering up some soy chorizo and then adding a sprinkle of Mexican queso fresca on top until slightly melted, the whole thing was then flipped into an omelet worthy of being topped with the fresh diced tomatoes. The spice of the chorizo, the subtle flow of the thyme and the flesh of the tomato produced savory flavors in every bite.

The rest of the bunch, were the grizzly looking and scarred San Marzanos and odds and ends of others that had been used here and there . What a perfect little gang for my favorite smoked chicken sausage spaghetti sauce. I gathered up all the ingredients I needed. The secret of this sauce is to super-slow cook two large and fresh, spicy Italian chicken sausage links in a heavy pan on low for about an hour until they are heated all the way through, watching them carefully and flipping them over regularly to cause a nice burnt (but not overly) line here and there on the link. This causes the sausage to become multi-flavored and textured adding to the complexity of the final sauce. Once done the links are kept room temperature and reserved for the sauce. My grandfather taught me this sausage secret when I was little and used to stand on a bench as he slowly cooked them, singing big band songs to me while we waited. His sauce was the best so I have adapted it to my own version as an adult, absent the Crisco and other 1950s foods that have come to mean clogged arteries to my generation.

Here is the sauce recipe:

Ingredients

2 Tbsp olive oil

1/2 medium onion, finely chopped

1 small carrot or 1/2 large carrot, finely chopped

1 small stalk of celery, including the green tops, finely chopped

2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon dried basil or 2 Tbsp chopped fresh basil

1-3/4 pound of fresh tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped

1 teaspoon tomato paste

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a large wide skillet on medium heat. Add the chopped onion, carrot, celery and parsley. Stir to coat. Reduce the heat to low, cover the skillet and cook for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally until the vegetables are softened and cooked through.

Remove cover and add the minced garlic. Increase the heat to medium high. Cook the garlic for 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes, including the juice and shredding them with your fingers. Add the tomato paste and the basil. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a low simmer, reduce the heat to low and cook, uncovered until thickened, about 15 minutes. If you want you can push the sauce through a food mill, or blend it with an immersion blender, to give it a smooth consistency but I like it chunky and textural.

At the end, cut the sausage links into one inch or two-inch chunks and throw into the pan of tomato sauce and toss. Then, serve over a bed of hot whole-wheat pasta.

Ethiopian Food and Authentic Jazz and Blues

2011-12-18T13:58:00.000-08:00

We heard that the place to go for impromptu and live jazz ANY night of the week was Culver City’s Industry Café. Supposedly you could order authentic Ethiopian food, honey mead wine and get your groove on simultaneously so we met there on a Wednesday night to check out the scene.

A simple menu offered Southern-style soul food like fried chicken and catfish and candied yams alongside more authentic East African items. Although we started out sitting at the slim bar in the cramped house, the moment a table front and center of the stage opened up, we were offered it with great hospitality.

While the band in front of us tooted some blues, including a wild bongo player less than a foot from our feet, we opted for the East African specialties: a vegetable platter and a meat dish.

The band started out with a senior drummer with a soulful face full of sagging jowls and hands that wielded drumsticks like an old and lovable hound dog. The sax player slouched in a chair and fell asleep a little between his moments of waking up and throwing out a bellowing salute with a smile. A woman on the keyboard, dressed in full Christmas light regalia expertly played back up notes for a young guitarist in front on a stool in a striped cap and Chucks tennis shoes. Everyone was totally moving on stage, in the seats, on the sides of the room and every few minutes another person with an instrument would enter the door to sit around and contribute a few chords or a blast of sound when they felt duly inspired throughout the course of the evening. Just my kind of scene: real music, real people, real passion and no formal program with some awesome food thrown in. My hips and feet were bouncing the entire time beneath the table.

The cool thing is that when you order they ask you if you want all the food together on one plate, which I think is essential to the experience. All of the food arrives on top of traditional Injera, a large pancake like piece of yeast-risen flatbread that is super spongy and is meant to be used like a tool for scooping up bits of the food to eat. No forks or spoons necessary here. The bread helps you eat and then becomes a flavorful end bite in which all the flavors of the meal harmoniously blend.

The vegetarian platter consisted of Atkilt Alicha, which is a sweet pile of vegetable white including carrots, potatoes, cabbage and green beans cooked with turmeric and special seasonings. A red lentil scoop of Misir Wot wonderfully resembled refried beans a bit in taste and the collard greens were my favorite of the meal, with their buttery sweetness and al dente onion strings.

Meat portion was an enormous pile of Kitfo, which is basically raw spicy beef, served room temperature rounded out in flavor by subtle chili and lemon spices from a mellow marinade. Really good mixed with everything else or alone, savored in single bites.

Before we knew it, we were in the middle of a huge birthday party of some of the regular musicians that frequent the joint and all levels of madness ensued. A chanteuse singing with gyrating hips, a ventriloquist, and even the tap dancing man who was the choreographer of Gregory Hines in the movie Taps all took turns at the mike. Cake was passed around and everyone in the place was invited to share in the festivities. While leaving, I realized the party was one of those that could easily last into the wee hours of night and that was just the kind of strange and random mix, I like to be privy to every once in while – those magical real slices of individual life that can’t be duplicated or forced.

This will definitely be a place I return to every once in a while for comfort food nights with live blues.

Melancholia at Bar Pintxo

2011-12-12T14:24:00.000-08:00

Both of us wanted us to try Bar Pintxo because we already love Joseph Miller's real restaurant Joe's in Venice Beach and his step-son Spanish Tapas bar in Santa Monica had to be just as good. Maybe it was because we went there on a gloomy Sunday afternoon after seeing the Lars Von Trier's suicide-inspiration flick Melancholia that made the food not quite live up to our expectations. Maybe it was because my date had just eaten at Patina the night before and had an overloaded with pleasure palate that would leave anything else in the next 24 hours in the dust or the fact that I had visited my favorite bistro in the desert for a surprise chicken liver and apple mousse the night before because the food was strangely bred on plates where a great potential piece of fare was served with something less spectacular. We totally forgave our obviously new waiter for coming over every five minutes to see if we wanted something next when we really just wanted to be left alone to talk and sip our wine and savor our bites, and I actually did enjoy the small dining room getting more crowded as the hours drew on with chefs bustling about and a seeming sense of passion about the place. And the company was great so it was hard to hate the food, although it isn't somewhere I will be rushing back to in the future unless I want to just drink wine and enjoy the good happy hour prices.

Three menus made choices a little overwhelming; a regular one, a special happy hour one and then later on into the afternoon, the nightly specials one. We did eat something from each though which proves we are adventurous foodies hoping for that cream at the top.

First off, we chose a cheese plate to savor with our Avinyo non-vintage Brut Cava sparkly. It came with thinly sliced Manchego, Valdeon blue and Capri Chevre al Pimienton. It's hard to muck up a blue and the apricot paste was good but the goat and manchego were mildly disappointing. The goat tasted more like cream cheese and the pimento rind wasn't that flavorful. Felt a little cheated.

Piquillo stuffed crab was next. This looked and tasted more like a tomato stuffed with watery crab salad. The green sauce was good but the same mouth texture and temperature of the other stuff so that it just melded into a tasteless wash on the tongue. Unfortunately, it had the same affect on the accompanying Luberri Tempranillo glass of red.

This dish was truly the saving grace of the evening for me, if I were to go digging for one, which the man across the table tells me he's noticed I am prone to do. Pumpkin pate with pickled cauliflower and carrots. More French then Spanish according to my mate so maybe the geography jump had something to do with the better taste. The small pot of bright orange pate covered with a balsamic gel, which was hand mashed and not consistently textured (to our liking) was novel and interesting, especially when spread on the nicely charred bread for a little burnt mixed with sweet taste. And our option of Joan Garnatxa to drink with it was great.

This was weird and I was sad about that because I love lamb. But the meatballs tasted more like beef and there were boiled grapes in the middle with no taste, just making it a strange surprise to find in the middle of lamb that sucked the meat's life away into a hard little globe of nothingness. The fried kale was good but again, took the life out of the poor lamb. Mencos Roja wine saved the tongue a bit. Wash down and to the next.

Further disappointment was in the "special" of the evening, a rolled turkey disk with truffles and brussel sprouts. Truffles and brussel sprouts being the reason our ears perked up over the dish but you could not taste the truffle at all so you were really eating a slab of hard turkey bologna, bland as something you would buy for a cocktail party buffet at Costco. Clamoring for the brussel sprouts ended this meal.

Italiexico Mash-Up Quesadilla

2011-12-06T16:11:00.000-08:00

It all started when a really cute gardener gave me a thin-skinned and heavy, half pale yellow and half pale green, teeming-with-juice-waiting-to-be-released solitary lime. At first I was was going to take the easy way out and mix its juice into a Sunday morning guacamole for one. But then as it sat alone in the sun on my wooden kitchen counter, I realized I wanted to do something unique with it so I sliced off just the tip to adorn a small glass of iced Patron Anejo tequila, so I could ascertain the flavor of this particular little fruit. It was super tart and tangy so I knew it had to be used in a way to accentuate it's flavor.

So while walking back from a volunteer meeting at the Venice Family Clinic today, I stumbled upon an unusual source of inspiration in at the Venice Ranch Market. A carniceria and market combined in one lured me in with the promise of some Mexican specialties and my first stop at the deli counter surprised me with the offerings of mild and hot Italian sausages. It is Venice Beach after all, the land of make up your own cultural identity with a little creative twist thrown in. I have been in love with hot Italian sausages, plump with sage and fennel, since I was a little girl and used to stand on a step ladder in my grandfather's kitchen for hours at a time while he would make his famous sausage chunk spaghetti sauce. My friend Kelly recently reacquainted me with this sausage at a girl's pasta night in her home and I had been looking for it on meat shelves ever since. So I bought a link and some authentic, fresh guacamole, some wheat tortillas, a skim milk queso round and cilantro and headed home.

So, musical mash ups seem to be super popular these days. Why not create a food mash up? Not a sophisticated fusion or hybrid "dish" but a down and dirty cross cultural, slang swapping, feed a family of five kind of standard fare. So, of course I immediately mentally conjured one of my all mighty favorites the quesadilla.

But with a loving and passionate twist perfect for the cultural bravo of both the Italian and Mexican communities. First, I squeezed the juice of half the line into the guacamole that I had purchased that was made of red bell pepper, avocado, and onion and the remaining half into a fresh pot set on steam temperature low on the stove. I put the raw sausage into the pan and covered it to simmer slowly for ten minutes in the citrus juice. Enough to make it almost burst but also to absorb the sprightly lime steam through its membrane.

Then I cut up the sausage so I could see the momentum of its raw meat middle and sauteed the disks in the pan to make the edges carmelized with lime essence and finish the cooking.

This was followed by a buttering of the pan and half a tortilla laid within its crusty, burnt bowels to be layered with two ounces of crudely crumbled queso. Atop of that went the slivers of sausage before being covered with the other tortilla half and fried to a darkened crisp.

The whole quesadilla was then put on a plate and smothered with the guacamole before halved. This was a heavenly mix. The crispness of the tortilla gave way to a nice layer of cheese, tasteless like tofu that acts more like a texture bed for the explosion of fennel sausage that comes next topped with the refreshing zest of guacamole aftermath. I must say, this particular in-breeding produced quite a success!

Head to Tail Yakitori at Kokekokko

2011-12-05T09:39:00.000-08:00

Oh the poor maligned chicken in my life. The bird has been beaten down to bastard status in my culinary oeuvre over the past decade. It’s partly because I am just so freaked out by the steroids and slaughterhouse conditions of so much of the mainstream meat manufacturing machine but it’s also because I hardly step a toe into a regular old grocery store anymore to pick up a package of breasts or thighs, organic or not. I tend to eat meat that is grown wherever I live, or prepared organically, or offered on ice blocks from the sea at my weekly farmer’s market, or served exotically in some foodie joint, and chicken tends to be the farthest down on this chain of late.

That is until I encountered my first Yakitori experience this past Saturday night. Yakitori, or “grilled chicken”, is the reason Kokekokko in the middle of Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo exists. A restaurant centered on the bird, that the owners supposedly raise themselves, where every single part of the chicken is offered up for food in the most bare bones, simply salted and peppered, skewer-grilled style. I was happy to try it out because I hadn’t had chicken that bare minimum and blessed in years.

An impromptu visit this past weekend at nine o’clock on a Saturday night found the place relatively packed but we were lucky to score two stool seats at the bar encountered by a heaping glass of Otokoyama sake and jazz piping in over the audio system in the rustic wooden room. It was poured generously until overflowing into a pool on the plate it sat within.

I loved watching the three guys grilling up the chicken in front of us over smoking coals while taking breaks to cheers each other with glasses of beer bought by joyous regular patrons. The place has a reputation of serving its loyals on black plates with passion while treating the newbie’s with skepticism in a kind of hierarchy where you have to earn your royal treatment by becoming a familiar fan. But we were treated well, maybe because my dinner companion has eaten there before, or maybe because we adventurously ordered one of everything from the menu, including the ugly bits. Prices are good, only around $2.50 for a skewer but you have to order at least five things per person to qualify for eating there.

We ordered skewers of chicken wrapped okra, zucchini, wing, thigh, gizzard, gizzard skin, heart, liver, quail egg, and meatball. A small bowl of ground chicken slaw was placed before us alongside two tiny clay pots of spices. One held shichimi togarashi, or “seven flavor chili pepper.” The other had a green powdery mix of what I think was green onions mixed with some other savory spice. Also, a dab of yellow karashi, or Japanese mustard, was swathed upon our plates.

My favorite skewer was the liver, served without adornment so that the plump, dense, smokiness of the meat shone through. Perfect on its own without any of the dips needed.

A surprising treat was the gizzards, not at all too crunchy or gristly, as I would have imagined, but flavorful little nuggets to chew on between the other stuff. All the chicken parts skewers were great and flavorful and it was fun deciding what spice to put on each.

I will stick with the chicken parts on more occasions as the veggies were just basic bits cooked right but not too lavish. The quail eggs were good cooked, maybe with a little more of a hardened rind of skin then regular eggs, but I will continue to prefer my quail eggs shot raw at the end of sushi, where they shine in their sensual liquid best.

I have never had chicken hearts but tried them and ended up really liking them. A little more jelly-like than the livers, and smaller, but with a nice inner density that alludes to the livers, they were almost sweet little cardinal gems to pop in the mouth, again with no condiment decorum.

My dining companion who has a cantankerous funny bone waited until the end of the chicken parade to announce that the quarters could double as a salmonella flowering bed, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to go back. Or stop us from continuing on to order a skewer of crunchy chicken tail when prompted by a neighborly diner who could tell we were equally adventurous. I think of Anthony Bourdain squatting in Alaska over a whale freshly butchered with a family of ten bloody mouthed blubber eating Aleutians and feel proud that I can carry on in the same tradition in my own backyard restaurant full of raw chicken parts cooked and served up literally in front of my face.

At the end of the meal, we were asked if we wanted dessert. Dessert consisted of a small white bowl of steamed sticky rice topped with a pool of mellow, brown curry. It was a nice little sweet moment at the end of a bare bones meat meal.

Mouth Gluttony at Osteria Mozza

2011-12-02T13:21:00.000-08:00

Dining out is most fun between fellow foodies, when you not only pick a place you've heard of and have always wanted to go, but you also get to sit and strategize the menu with another person who's just as adventurous with the palate as you are and willing to swap and share, doubling the culinary experimentation. This time it started with my favorite negroni, perfectly bitter and up, at the Nancy Silverton/Mario Batali gourmet Italian collaboration Osteria Mozza in Los Angeles.

My dinner mate and I came to the table with decidedly different taste buds. Me, of the bitter and acidic variety, and he, of the fatty and sweet persuasion. This made for an interesting pairing of all courses.

First, we were compelled to order a starter from the infamous mozzarella bar. He chose the burricotta with radicchio, spiced walnuts, honey and fried rosemary.

I chose the burrata with bacon, carmelized shallots and marinated escarole. Both plates arrived with two heaping toasted baguette slices topped with a generous dollop of creamy cheese, slathered in the middle with a golden pool of olive oil and then generous amounts of the other toppings. Both were melt in your mouth luscious yet we both agreed that the bacon option was the best. The crisp and meaty slices mixed with the bitter escarole and the vinegar taste of the dressing combined with the pile of cheese in a way that I can only describe as sinful. Tangy perfection on a sopping, chewy bread bed. The portions were surprisingly enormous and we agreed that one was all that was really needed per order but that didn't stop us from finishing both plates - how can you let mozzarella that divine go to waste?

The entire incentive for me to go to this restaurant in the first place had been spurred by reviews on one particular dish in the Primi course - the Squid Ink Chitarra Freddi and it lived up to the hype. A magnificent cold dish of squid ink pasta with flakes of Dungeness crab, moist mini-filets of sea urchin and a kick of jalapeno piled in a refreshing briny sauce. Slurped up as if slurping directly from some deep jeweled pocket of the sea. I told my dinner mate that I would no doubt wake up craving this dish oftentimes in the future.

He chose a Orecchiette with sausage and Swiss chard for his Primi and it was a lovely shallow bowl of pasta, perfectly cooked and filled with meaty nuggets of smoky ground sausage and a slightly spicy, musky aftertaste. We had many exchanges of dish in this course with shared wines to alternate between the darkness of the sausage and the lightness of the juice of the sea: a sparkly and enlivened Offida Pecorino white and the La Mozza "Aragone" sangiovese blend.

For our Secondi, he chose the guinea hen crostone with liver pancetta sauce. A small piece of meat beneath the super smoky sauce was a bit indiscernable but flavorful nonetheless. Which hardly mattered because by this bursting point in our guts we were focused on finishing my dish.

I opted for the decadently exotic sweetbreads picatta with braised artichokes, greens and whole capers. A bite of caper bursting with juice alongside the other tangy and tart greens on top of the subtly cooked sweetbread bits crusted excellently and charred was a match made exactly for my mouth. I think this is my favorite sweetbread version tasted thus far.

As if that weren't enough, we ordered the warm chocolate cake with a shared glass of Madeira "New Orleans" to seal the exquisite meal. A watery nub of ice cream ignored in lieu of the belly-aching hot and moist cake with a swish of the fragrant, bruised plum-reminiscent drink was in order to top off the night at this world class joint.

Chia Craze

2011-11-29T16:04:00.000-08:00

My friends have all been telling me over the past few weeks that my hair looks thicker and my skin is glowing. I owe it all to chia, my latest object of obsession.

It all started with this:

I stumbled upon One Life Natural Foods store in Santa Monica about a month ago. Aside from being a virtual smorgasbord of organic and health foods, they have a deli in the back that serves up delicious items. A visit to the dairy case had me intrigued by this chocolate looking pudding with cacao nibs and strawberries on top. It was pricey, about $7 for a tiny container, but I was intrigued so I bought it. When I got home and took a bite I was in absolute bliss. It tasted exactly like a refreshing chocolate milkshake but thirty times better. I had this bizarre feeling that my whole body had suddenly awaken and as if I had been dipped in a healing bath of cleansing, ice cold water. A big fan of the mind-altering experience, I immediately went online to discover what the ingredients were in this amazing thing and found out it was highly saturated with superfoods.

I had heard of superfoods but didn't really know much about them. Apparently there is a list of things that are supposed to have the most vitamin and nutrient rich consistencies of any food you could ever eat. The list contains things like chia seeds, gogi berries, coconut, aloe vera juice, hempseed, blue green algae, bee pollen, kelp and acai - many of which were in this pudding. One bite had totally satisfied my cravings and made me feel full and I realized if all I needed were a bite a day to feel this way, I could totally justify the $7 price tag per miniscule portion.

I have been buying this now on a weekly basis and am a firm believer in the superfood concept thanks to the compliments of my friends over the last few weeks.

Another gem that came from this whole discovery has been my new addiction to chia seeds. Yes, these are the same chia seeds that made that weird pottery thing in your grandmother's windowsill grow like a small fuzzy topiary with that irritating television commercial of our youth where "Ch ch ch chia" would stick in the brain for days afterwards. I learned that putting chia seeds into your diet can greatly improve your health because the tiny black seeds grow to five times their size when absorbed in any liquid and the hair on them puffs up in this strange kind of gel that acts like a colon cleanser as it moves throughout your body. I decided to try and get a teaspoon worth of these little buggers through my system daily for great digestive health.

My favorite recipe for chia has become my morning breakfast ritual. You can buy chia in bulk at Whole Foods or the like and a ten dollar bag lasts about a month.

I take any flavor of my favorite organic yogurt, vanilla being my choice of late, and mix the teaspoon of chia seeds right into the bowl. Because the seeds grow bigger in the liquid, they turn into the taste and consistency of tapioca pearls once set in.

Then I slice up bananas, or any fruit that is fresh and ripe, into the mix. It is super yummy and super healthy and I swear it gives me a boost that gets me through a morning full of work.

And I swear, my hair is growing faster. Superfoods are super.

Hog Island Oyster Odyssey

2011-10-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

Photographs by Robert Birnbach

“People come to this area with a specific mission if they don’t live here,” says my driver as we twist and turn up the damp coast of Marin County in Northern California. “They are either here to cycle these amazing green hills, drop in to a secret ex-hippie’s musical performance like the one Van Morrison threw in 2006 at Rancho Nicasio, or they come for the oysters. It’s mostly the oysters.”

Our mission? A car full of oyster freaks on the hunt for fresh kumamotos accompanied by acclaimed 30-year old Chef Aaron Kiefer, who promises to deliver us an on-the-spot, gonzo-style meal created from whatever ingredients we can find along the way, reflecting the region’s signature foods.

The region we are headed towards is Tomales Bay at the tip of the Point Reyes Seashore about an hour North of San Francisco—the high energy city where we’ve been engaged in long days of cookbook photography for classical creations and sophisticated meals that have left us longing for something more grassroots and simple, a true da-da inspired meal in an uncomplicated setting.

The entire area is home to oyster farms where you can stop along the way and enjoy whatever oyster experience you crave from barbecued, down home to-go style to fancy, sit down restaurant and Rockefeller style. Our destination is Hog Island, where we hear you can picnic by the bay, hand shuck your own pleasures and eat them raw or cooked on your own private grill.

Our first stop is at Cowgirl Creamery in a converted barn in Point Reyes Station, a small town among the rolling hills dotted with cows, sheep and goat, where we sample some of their signature, artisanal aged cheeses. Devil’s Gulch, crafted from rich Jersey cow milk, is soft and creamy, within a rind dusted with the dried rust-colored flakes from a red pepper field nearby. Mt. Tam, a few notches firmer than brie, melts on the tongue—an organic milk triple cream. Red Hawk, with its sunset colored rind tinted from a brine wash, delivers a full-bodied flavor; and the butter colored Wagon Wheel, the company’s “everyday” cheese, provides a juxtaposition of toothy bite with mild sweetness. Aaron chooses two of the Cowgirl cheeses along with two artisanal cheeses—an Italian Roccolo and Spanish Patacabra—which are bland enough to go well as a starter with the meal he has planned in his head.

“This is how everyone should eat,” says Aaron, adding a long, slim baguette to our loot for the day. “Whatever’s fresh and whatever’s available.” Our visit to the local grocery store yields multiple herb bundles and fennel.

We arrive at Hog Island Oyster Company where we have reserved a table and grill. It’s a cold, grey day with streaks of sun threatening to emerge from a dense strata of clouds—perfect for bundled jackets, rich foods and the smoke streams dotting the lawn, emanating from charcoal and communal outdoor breathing. All around us, groups of people are hovered together over sizzling meats and various types of oyster condiments. The sounds of wine corks popping, laughter, and the occasional joyous child’s shriek consistently puncture the air.

We learn that Hog Island co-owner John Finger is a Marine biologist whose commitment to creating oysters that retain the flavors and nuances of the bay from which they are produced also entails a passion for preserving the water’s cleanliness and environmental safety.

Chef Aaron, a man of few words with a no-nonsense cooking mien, gets right to work. At the outdoor oyster bar, a long basin filled with four varieties upon twinkling, diamond sharp piles of ice, he orders up several dozen oysters and netting full of clams. Back at the table, he fires up the grill.

Mindy Reed, owner of Zin American Bistro in Palm Springs, California, uncorks the white wines for our cheese plate, chosen for their ability to maintain a neutral palate as canvas for the strong and creamy cheeses, mini gherkins, garlic stuffed mushrooms, and dried figs that provide a hearty appetizer to the oysters that Chef Aaron will prepare simply and swiftly in conjunction with the stark environment, salty bay scents, and crisp winds off the dark waters. Aaron begins to hand shuck the small kumamotos, lining them up on a strip of wet wood accompanied by a quickly mixed mignonette of red wine vinegar, diced shallots and Meyer lemon juice. The small nuggets of meat are perfectly sweet and creamy, spiked with fresh, watery brine.

Once smoking hot, Aaron slaps on four strips of applewood smoked bacon to the grill next to a cobalt blue colander that holds two dozen clams, orange slices, and large broken fennel chunks. He douses white wine atop the pile every few minutes to create a steamer, clouds of fragrance wafting into the ethers. The bacon comes off and is replaced by the large variety, thin and watery oysters, which sit on the grill like little canoes, only long enough to receive a sprinkle of chopped bacon, shaved fennel and chive, a dash of vinegar and the ultimate exclamation point of a fresh, cracked quail egg. Leaving no time for the egg or oyster to overcook, the shells are quickly handed out to guests for the pleasure of one long slurp.

Next up are the clams, spiked with the fragrance of wine and with a subtle peppery zing, hand picked from the bowl, and devoured readily by the group.

A moment’s reflection follows the swift meal as we digest amongst the natural environs. Beyond the picnic area, egrets and herons walk like old men, their angular joints tip-toeing across the rocky shoals, respecting our distance as we communally watch each other, mutually sated on the fruits of the sea. Their screeches remain in our ears on the road back to the City, reminding us to visit again soon, the place where the oyster experience comes authentic and alive with fresh air.

Hog Island Oysters

Producing 3 millions Kumamoto, Atlantic and Pacific oysters and Manila clams annually.

102 miles north of Pt. Reyes Station
20215 Coast Hwy One

Marshall, Ca. 94940

415-663-9218

Cowgirl Creamery
80 Fourth Street
Point Reyes Station, CA 94956
Phone (415) 663-9335
Fax (415) 663-5418
Wednesday through Sunday, 10am - 6pm
Friday morning tours at 11:30am and 3:00pm on select summer days.

RECIPES

Oysters With Quail Egg

1 dozen Hog Island Oysters, Opened and Muscle Cut
4 oz. applewood smoked bacon, grilled and chopped

1 dozen quail eggs

½ cup raw fennel

1 tablespoon sliced chives

Lemon

Olive oil

Salt

Pepper
Sprinkle all ingredients on top of the fresh-shucked oyster halves before the final step of cracking a quail egg on top. Oysters can be made cold or thrown on grill for few minutes for slight warmth but do not cook. Serve immediately.

Steamed Clams
2 dozen Hog Island manila clams, raw

1 whole fennel, broken into chunks

1 whole shallot, sliced

6 cups white wine

1 head garlic, smashed

4 Tbs. butter, cubed

Place all ingredients except for the wine and butter, into a porous container (like a colander) directly onto a hot grill. During the cooking process, drizzle with wine to create steam. As clams begin to open, toss in bowl with remaining wine and butter. Serve immediately!

CHEESE PLATE

Roccolo Cheese slices

Patacabra Cheese, slices

Devil’s Gulch Cheese, wedges

Inverness Cheese, wedges

Dried figs

Garlic Stuffed Mushrooms

Gherkins

Grapes

WINE LIST

Courtesy of Mindy Reed, Owner of Zin American Bistro, Palm Springs, CA

Vouvray Domaine Pichot
France 2008

Argiolas Costamolino
Vermentino di Sardegna 2008

Naiades

Rueda, Spain 2006

Burgans Albarino

Rias Baixas, Spain 2008

Makeshift Chinese at Mao's Kitchen

2011-10-26T14:48:00.000-07:00

When it comes to Chinese food there is stellar cuisine and really bad, greasy cuisine and then a huge assortment of in between. The truth is, when you're hungry and hankering for some orange chicken or curry or any of the fare's traditional standby dishes, it's hard to go wrong with anything in the in between.

So I was thrilled to discover the restaurant Mao's Kitchen in my neighborhood recently. The first time I went there I was with a family of four picky eaters with an assortment of dietary restrictions and we managed to satisfy everyone for $60 with a table full of dishes that everyone shared. The restaurant looks more like a down home catfish joint with its picnic table-esque seating and bare bones decor and the service is super slow, perhaps because it's staffed with surfers and budding actresses who spend extra time cleaning the stainless steel machines so that they can look at their lipstick applications in the reflections. But this also means that they tolerate the loud kids and buzzed youngsters that frequent the place so if you're not in a hurry and down with the mentality of live and let live, it's quite all right. Also, try not to ask for more than one take out container, they must be counting their pennies when it comes to things like cardboard cartons, because they look at you a little funny if you have the nerve to try and take home more than a small portion of your leftovers.

The peasant's onion pancake was a disappointment. I was expecting something light, subtle and fluffy but received a big piece of chewy, flavorless dough that resembled more of a glutinous pizza base.

A nice surprise was the Shao Mountain Lamb entree that contained slices of meat, leek and jalapenos stir fried with preserved black beans and secret sauce.

The coconut curry impressed me. I love curry but hardly find any I like because some places make it too gloppy sauced and overly sweet, while others make it too bland. This one had huge pieces of vegetables and chicken and was the perfect consistency of slightly creamy and spiced just right.

I found myself choosing the place again when a friend came to town and we wanted to walk somewhere close by. Because Mao's doesn't have a liquor license, we stepped into a wine store for a bottle of mid range syrah which the waitress joyfully popped for us for a small corkage fee. That night we chose to sit outside at a small, wooden table for two and watched as all the art walk drunken hipsters oohed and aahed over our table of food. I found myself ordering the curry again that evening, and then again on another evening when my daughter and her friend came to town late one Friday looking to find a joint open into the wee hours that would satisfy their 20-year-old girl desires to be in a place still bustling with young energy. It fit the bill.

Day after Mao's curry is excellent with the over-sized carrot slices and generous chunks of chicken having had an overnight chance to steep in more flavor. A great microwaved breakfast dish that I will go back for again and again when I am not in the mood to dress up or get in the car for a good cheap and easy meal.

Over Urth

2011-10-20T14:23:00.000-07:00

I have been really excited to eat lunch at Urth Caffe in Santa Monica since becoming a Venice Beach resident. It's the place my friend Mark and I would go on all of my visits to see him over the past few years and when I was planning on moving here I relished the idea that I could pop into the cafe at whim and order up one of their urth-ly delights, because the food can be really good. Great matcha drinks in all different forms, luscious organic salads, interesting wraps, gobo teas, magnificent muffins and more.

But, the other day when I went to lunch there I realized that all my prior visits must have been filled with that kind of "ignore-your-wallet" mentality that allows us to plop down more than average dollars for items we normally wouldn't even consider spending that kind of dough for when we are on vacation or away from our home towns.

Yes, they have mastered the art of cappuccino foam art, but so has Groundwork where you file into a tiny hole in the wall space, get greeted by a jovial girl commandeering the espresso machine and get to read your daily horoscope that they paste on the counter top daily with care in a very grassroots and personalized way.

This whole meal cost me $16. That's not a dinner plate, but a small side plate of salad. And it's only the half order. Urth Salad is a yummy thing with hearts of pine, garbanzo beans, feta cheese and artisanal lettuces but notice the only two tiny tomatoes? Very delicious ginger, carrot, celery and beet juice as well but it came to me warm.

The place is always super packed, customer service doesn't seem to be high on anyone's mind, and it's oftentimes hard to find seating. I can do better at the Venice Farmer's Market and recreate that salad anytime at home. I'm over Urth and not likely to go back anytime soon.

Izakaya at Aburiya Toranoko

2011-10-19T08:52:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday I was invited to a night of Japanese culinary and cultural celebration by my friend Bill that began with my first experience with Izakaya (Japanese tapas) and ended with a dance performance at the Japanese American Cultural Center in Los Angeles.

We chose the restaurant Aburiya Tokanoko because of its across the street proximity to the theater but also because we had both been reading exemplary reviews of the place that offered more than sushi and was rumored to have a bar staffed with an exquisite mixologist.

The restaurant, dimly lit and bustling with street energy, offered a New York meets Tokyo style ambiance with its graffiti mural along one wall and triptych above the sushi bar that was reminiscent of old traditional Japanese tiger, nature and warrior paintings. The service was a tad bit slow but the meal was memorable.

I love places where you can order a bunch of small plates and share them. We quickly chose a round of dishes that appealed to us, deciding to forego the sushi since we could get sushi anywhere and there were too many delights on the menu to tantalize us away from that usual fare. I imagine all of our dishes, if they had been dumbed down a bit in ingredient and price, could easily mirror things we might find at two a.m. on any Tokyo street side food vendor's cart. Although I thought our order wasn't going to be enough for dinner, as sizes here range on the very small side of the scale, I was pleasantly full at the end of our meal. It reminded me that when you order a bunch of small things and enjoy them with relish, taking your time between bites of creatively concocted cuisine, you actually have enough time to feel full and not overindulge.

Pickled Octopus with Cucumbers

Perfectly seasoned with just the amount of sweet pickled tang, this cold and refreshing starter was full of julienned, chewy bits of octopus and thin slices of refreshing cucumber intensified by the subtle nuttiness of sesame seeds that packed a lot of punch in each bite.

Eggplant with Sweet Miso

This was my favorite dish of the meal. I love eggplant and order it whenever I see it on a menu, always surprised at the myriad ways it can be cooked, seasoned and textured. This now competes with the the warm julienned eggplant, mozarella, corn and olive oil salad I ate daily at a bistro in Venice, Italy six years ago as my top eggplant dish. Boiling hot chunks of eggplant swimming in a creamy, warm sweet miso paste and topped with the added crunch of sprinkled sesame seeds. I will order this again and may make a special trip just because of this dish. Comfort food in small bites.

"Chikuwabu" Fish Cake

My dinner companion was not that fond of this dish but I liked it. For those who are not into "fishy" tastes, stay away, but those who love the taste of the ocean like I do, order away! It's an acquired taste for sure. A dense, chewy roll swimming in a sauce of pure briny delight, made even better when powered up by a dab of the accompanying specially made yellow wasabi sauce. The sea, the fire, and the flesh in one concise mouthful.

Chili Shrimp

Extremely spicy little plump and delicious shrimp full of fire that popped in the mouth and seared the tongue.

BBQ Pig's Feet

The restaurant serves up an alternative chef's specials menu nightly depending on whatever they have around for that day. We asked the waitress what we should order for the evening in this spirit and she pointed to an adjoining table where the patrons were slurping bones joyously. So we ordered the BBQ pork feet in the spirit of Anthony Bourdain and were pleasantly surprised. Although you had to literally wield around bones and between toes to get the elusive slivers of gelatinous, chewy, and tiny chunks of meat amounting to probably only a few bites in the overall experience, it was fun and very tasty in a sweet caramelized meaty way.

Shiso Leaf Vodka Infused Martini

The place has the ordinary list of good sakes, Asian beers and rice or traditional wines and my dinner companion who is a straight up martini man stuck safely with those. I am typically a Sapporo girl in joints like this but because I am always tantalized by the words "expert mixologist" I decided to try a cocktail. My first attempt, the Ginger Dream Martini, was a disappointment. It tasted like watered down champagne absent of vodka. But my second attempt, the Shiso leaf infused vodka martini was incredible. Floating with a giant leaf, it tasted verdant, bitter and green like the forest and is something I would definitely drink again.

Although we also ordered the White Fish Sashimi with Kiwi, we were both not pleased with the thinnest ever slices of fish that were almost transparent and swimming with a thick kiwi sauce that was way too sweet that it overpowered the fish that was hardly there to begin with.

I would like to go back to see if this is the case with all the sushi or not and will definitely go back for a fresh round of untried tapas in the future until I conquer the entire menu!

Sumptuous Saturday Sloth at Joe's

2011-10-01T21:03:00.000-07:00

I walk past Joe's Restaurant everyday on my afternoon walk but today I had the opportunity to eat within its hallowed walls. I say hallowed because my favorite places in the world are the ones where the chefs decide what they are making daily on the day that they are making it according to what is fresh, local and interesting in the moment. What a way to stay passionate about your culinary calling! Everyday a blank slate to fill with something thought up on the spot and delivered to a crowd used to trusting such surprises....

A meeting today with my friend Michael and his gallerist over the most interesting brunch I have had, ever, maybe. The reason simply being in my entree of grilled shrimp served with a fried egg over honey grits with walnuts embedded into the mix. Comfort food gone extreme, served in small portions to just delight the palate but not overindulge it.

Prior to that a bread plate was served. Sweet dark breads shared a plate with a bastard child of sourdough and brioche that was fluffy and served with jam or butter. The hostess suggested the pate plate as a starter and we enjoyed it, again in small bites. A slice of perfect pate with some radish and salmon and grainy rich mustard worthy of an Austrian meal.

Everything in small bites so that you had to savor each one.

To top it all off, very good espresso in tiny white cups with lemon wedges.

"Worthy of its Rainbow Moniker" Trout

2011-09-29T08:02:00.000-07:00

You know how it is when you first move into new digs, the kitchen is usually the last thing you unpack and replenish. Especially when there are colorful art supplies to arrange, clothes to arrange and all your favorite photos to place around your new space. The pantry suffers until exhausted from your efforts you realize suddenly on a Sunday afternoon that you are hungry.

I had made a trip to the Farmer's Market for greens but hadn't gone much further and was living on salads for a week when I realized I would finally have to go shopping the next day but alas wasn't ready to put on the shoes and make the trek to a local Whole Foods yet on a grey, gloomy beach afternoon. I finally opened the freezer to see what bounty a close friend had brought over to hold me over and found an odd assortment of things: frozen fiber bagels, some stir fry veggies, a whole turkey leg, a piece of rainbow trout and some jars of exotic condiments.

Rainbow trout! I have never really been a friend of trout. I think the last time I ate a piece it was seriously smoked and laid on a bed of greens at lunchtime years ago when I worked for an insane artist who had a penchant for dry fish. I wasn't really impressed and usually am a bit of an embarrased snob when it comes to filets of the sea, preferring salmon and halibut and scallops and shrimp and other bizarre bits. But I was determined to try and make something glorious with the glowing pink steak and ended up making something that was worthy of its "rainbow" moniker.

My Midwest mother raised us on dishes where every protein on the plate could easily be mashed in a pile with the veggies and potatoes and cream sauces that seemed to accompany everything so that the whole mushed together bite would deliver a delight. I am proud to say that this meal qualifies in that realm as well, albeit in a signature to Southern California way.

Rainbow Chutney Trout and Green Beans

Cut a beautiful one inch thick filet of trout from the middle, most wide portion of the steak.

In a small bowl, combine 1/4 cup of crudely diced white onion, 1/4 cup of fresh cilantro, 1/2 cup of chopped fresh mango, salt and pepper and one tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil. Let sit for ten minutes so the flavors have a chance to meet and mingle.

Oil a piece of tin foil and place the trout filet on it and cover that with the chutney mixture. Pull the tin foil up and pinch at the ends so it makes a nice little boat for the fish but leave a hole open in the center for steam to escape.

Separately, fill a baking dish with green beans. Chop up two cloves of garlic and throw them in the dish around the beans. Throw in three pats of butter and sprinkle rosemary on top from three long, fresh sprigs. Salt and pepper to your liking.

Put the trout and the beans into a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes and voila! The trout comes out beautifully moist with a sweetness accentuated by crunchy onions and exquisite cilantro scents. The beans get all shriveled and crusty with the fragrance of rosemary. Put on a pretty plate and enjoy! My mother would be proud...

Manhattan Beach Greek

2011-09-21T08:53:00.000-07:00

In early September I made my annual trip to Burning Man and the theme was Rites of Passage. For me, this held particular meaning because the moment I came back from the ten days out on the Playa I moved right into my new home in Venice Beach. I had bought a bike for the Burn and settled into my new home with the intention to begin bike riding again regularly. I made a vow to use my car as little as possible, instead biking when I could to go about my daily life. One of my friends who I met at Burning Man is a man named Ray who coincidentally, I came to find out, lives only a four minute bike ride from my new place. Last weekend, he helped me begin my new biking goal by taking me on a 22 mile round trip ride along the coast from Venice to Manhattan Beach.

Riding along the coast was interesting as we passed the cities of Marina Del Rey, El Segundo and Playa del Rey and watched all the weekend revelers on the sand. Fit young things playing beach volleyball were interspersed with the RV set who plopped their chairs in the ground around smoky smelling barbecue grills. Serious speed roller bladers whizzed by me as I pedaled feeling the long lost muscles in my thighs become rejuvenated. At the end of the jaunt, Ray rewarded me with a meal at an upscale Greek restaurant in Manhattan Beach called Petros., which touts itself as serving Hellenic-California cuisine.

We had to power our way up the steep road from coast to the restaurant and by the time we arrived, locked our bikes, and took our seats, I was ready for a nice glass of foreign red and a healthy meal to accompany my new healthy, physical routine.

An open air atmosphere and serene beige interiors weaving the in and outdoor seating areas were dotted with simple, peach and light pink lead crystal candles on the table centers. It was unadorned and elegant, just like the simple bread basket filled with nice olive studded dark and sweet, sesame crusted white slices, upon which we spread a garlic and fava bean spread from a pool of high-caliber olive oil.

Lucky for me there was a special peach salad of the day in honor of the fruit's fresh seasonality. A crisp white plate appeared with five plump, grilled shrimp surrounding a magnificent bed of arugula towering atop diced, moist peaches. The arugula was mixed lightly with olive oil and manouri cheese so that it became a fluffy, creamy and peppery dream in each bite that mixed perfectly with the room temperature, perfectly ripened peach chunks. The charred bite of the shrimp added to the salad, blending into the perfect combination of juicy, light and tangy that my taste buds were singing for. It filled me up but was light enough to give me fuel to head the 11 miles back home afterwards.

Ray had traditional chicken souvlaki and the menu boasted all the regular Grecian fare from spanakopita to lamb kebabs, but it was this special salad that impressed me and will have me going back for more. I could easily get used to this 22 mile ride with a delicious pit stop midway to rev up my body's fire.

Garden Topped Margherita Pie

2011-09-15T08:23:00.000-07:00

Tea With Iris' spokesmodel Elle in one of the company's new upcycled bows!

Yesterday I was visiting the desert for some business meetings and had an hour to kill between them. I have been missing my beautiful friend Leslie of Tea With Iris and her garden that used to provide my weekly doses of homegrown goodness. So, I gave her a call and she invited me over for an impromptu pizza lunch.

The beautiful thing about having a garden in your backyard is the multitude of additions you can throw onto a Trader Joe's pre-made, frozen margherita pizza.

Ours was topped with diced yellow squash and new, ripe, gloriously-purple eggplants freshly plucked.

Diced red tomato provided a nice crunch and after the pizza cooked on went chopped up pieces of fragrant basil, cilantro and arugula!

The end result produced extremely pungent, crispy, crunchy, and cheese-gooey slices of wonderful pizza pie to enjoy our catch up time alongside!

"Just Like Momma Made It" Spanakorizo

2011-09-13T13:15:00.000-07:00

Last night a dear friend of mine contributed a native dish to a potluck I attended and I loved it so much that I took the leftovers for today's lunch.

Panos is a filmmaker from Greece and he made creamy Spanakorizo, a traditional side dish served in every Grecian home, equivalent to mashed potatoes or rice pilaf or any Midwest casserole in America. Those side dishes are not so glamorous to us foodies who were raised on them, although when it comes to hankering for home cooked comfort foods they are often the dog-eared and grease stained recipe cards we turn to for a belly full of yum and nostalgia for mom's cooking.

When Panos came to America he remembers having to call his mother constantly for the recipes of his favorite foods. I recall my sister and myself doing the same thing to our mother upon fleeing the coop, items such as Swedish pot roast, tater tot casserole, creamed peas and salmon patties and scalloped potatoes.

Paired with a sweet eggplant spread-stuffed turnover and a can of Name Tag Lager, the rice tasted even better on day two. It will definitely be a go-to for me in the future.

PANOS' "JUST LIKE MOMMA MADE IT" SPANAKORIZO

Buy three bunches of spinach, 1 bunch of scallions, a can of tomato sauce, and 1 cup of rice.

Bring water to a boiling point, and boil the spinach for 5 minutes, then drain.

Saute the scallions in olive oil.

Add two cups of water to the scallions.

Add the rice, spinach and tomato sauce.

Bring it to a boiling point and then turn down to half.

Cover it up and let cook for 25 minutes.

Sinless Squaw Sandwich

2011-09-10T11:08:00.000-07:00

Squaw bread is a beautiful thing. Dark and rich, it's typically made with unbleached, whole wheat and rye flours, yeast, milk, butter and not much else. My latest purchase of a loaf came from The Breadman, an L.A. based bakery that specializes in all natural artisan breads and pastries. They add a tiny bit of honey and brown sugar to create just the slightest hint of sweetness to the taste.

It is the bed of choice for one of my favorite sandwiches that includes all the right textural ingredients for a blissful mouthful. Creamy, crunchy, and popping with bursts of juice!

Sinless Squaw Sandwich

Cut two slices of squaw bread from a fresh loaf about half an inch thick.

Spread a layer of lowfat ricotta cheese on one slice.

Spread half of a soft avocado on the other slice.

Stud the ricotta layer with sliced, ripe cherry tomato halves.

Grab a handful of leafy artisanal lettuces and pile on the avocado side.

Salt and pepper to your liking and fold together.

Voila!

In Praise of Farmer's Markets

2011-09-09T16:10:00.000-07:00

I am a firm believer in buying fresh and local foods in support of our farmers, organic producers and overall environmental factors that favor fresh and sustainable seasonal eating over transportation waste, energy usage, packaging, manufacturing, and fare chock full of bizarre chemical preservatives.

It used to be that people were weary of eating organic because they thought it cost more than a regular grocery store but today with the advent of weekly farmer's markets, it's easy to buy your weekly food for fractions of the cost you would pay on similar items in the grocery store that factor in travel from farm to store shelf as well as employee labor into the mix. Plus, you get the best tasting food because it is grown, plucked and delivered right to your neighborhood market as it is grown, when it is in season, and while it is fresh.

Today, I visited the Venice Farmer's Market in my new neighborhood with a veteran shopper and new friend Jacquelyn who owns the organic, herbal elixir company Chakwave and spent $58 dollars on enough food for a whole week. Times four, that equals $232 dollars, a fraction of my old monthly supermarket grocery bills. Sure, I will have to supplement my bounty once in a while with things like salt and pepper and other staples, but I am thrilled to eat what is readily available and to know that every week will be a treasure hunt of what is ready for the eating and a creative new approach at daily recipe creation.

But it's not only about the cornucopia of the food. It's about the relationships I will build with the farmer's and sellers and the dialogue about food and interesting ways to use it that will come into play that excites me.

Today's bounty was not about merely shopping, but about getting to know the sparkle of the individual vendors and discovering items and new ways to consider their usage.

This included:

-a leafy head of kale for my thyme-tinged omelets, for baking olive oil spiced kale chips and for sprucing up a salad with crunchy texture

-pungent cilantro for salsas and slaws

-plump blackberries to pluck at random from the fridge for snacks or to blend into probiotic rich smoothies

-enormous heads of garlic

-sweet baby red onions for tacos

-gluten free, moist cookie squares adorned with chocolate chips and peanut butter made with love by opera singer Sonia Kazarova

-a bunch of yummy goodness from the cute boys at the Greek booth including eggplant turnovers that are great sandwich substitutes, greek feta cheese in a tub of oil, large balls of falafel for stuffing into pita with hummus, and tabouleh salad for refreshing side dishes

-bags of pinolas and filberts to accentuate fruity mixed green salads

-a long stick of rosemary to rub on roasted chicken and new potatoes

-a round loaf of dark squaw bread to pull chunks from for dipping into soups and various vegetable dips

-starter pots of swiss chard and collard greens for planting in the garden accompanied by directions by the passionate seller on what conditions to grow the goodness within

-clean, cool, and juicy radish sprouts from ther Jazzy herbalist who sticks to his sobriety program by playing music to his various sprouts with love for sprinkling on hearty tomato, ricotta and avocado sandwiches

-Korean pickled daikon and tempe for sprucing up vegetarian dishes and stir frys

-brown sticky rice to eat with the fingers for snacks

-robust yellow squashes to slice and then simmer in olive oil, salt and pepper with a crust of blackened parmesan cheese

-beautiful and massive peaches to slice up for dessert with lemon juice or creme fraiche

-and a cup of hearty brewed and bold coffee to enjoy the beautiful morning while shopping

I am not sure I will ever enter a conventional store again.

Miramonte Munchies with the Mentor

2011-08-03T20:22:00.000-07:00

My mentor, the artist Gesso Cocteau, is constantly feeding me when I go to her house for my regular monthly afternoon visits. Vitamin packets and art catalogs from international museums, special art supplies like Japanese papers and potions and herbs for my health like astralagus root and bags of Indian bark and dirt for cleansing teas. And that is exactly the food I wish to be fed by her.

But the last time I went for my bestowing of wisdom visit, she surprised me by heaping a salmon caeaar salad onto a plate for me, from Miramonte Resort. I have been to the resort before. For breakfast once, I had the huevos rancheros, one of my all time favorite breakfast choices. It was truly gourmet and exotic with a simple corn tortilla topped with egg, beans and creamy sour cream sauce. Not my favored Mission Street brand but something I would go back again for. The salad was perfect, and saying that about a basic caesar is bold because it's hard to mess up a caesar even though there are clearly better distinguished versions in the memory.

With a glass of Italian sweet white wine, warm and freshly uncorked, it was an ideal lunch spent eating the chewy croutons, expertly dressed lettuce and perfectly poached salmon steak.

The Miramonte's Restaurant is always open to the public and guests can wander the grounds that have olive trees and other Italian adornments.

Cactus Fruit Delights

2011-07-30T17:31:00.000-07:00

The other day I stumbled upon an odd delicacy, plucked straight from the garden of a green-thumbed friend and then peeled, sliced and placed on my breakfast plate: Cactus fruit.

Apparently, her breed of the night-blooming Cereuses had plumped up a bounty of small, strange purple globes that taste eerily like a more mellow and bland kiwi. The fruit inside was a fantastical white flesh pocked with tiny black dots (seeds) looking kind of like an ice white gelato studded with poppy seeds. Slightly sweet and great dipped in cold vanilla yogurt, I was thrilled to discover this new form of fruit.

The fruit is fairly soft and easy to cut and peel with a knife to get to the yummy center. Once peeled, it can be thrown right into the mouth, or sliced up an added to meals like fruit salads or granola. After telling someone about my discovery, they told me how to cut the fruit in halves and freeze to turn them into little individual bowls of refreshing sorbet for the kids.

Here’s a salad recipe I adopted for the occasion of my new fruit discovery that is perfect for our current torrid season.

Cactus Fruit Salad
2-3 cactus fruits
8 strawberries
8-10 blueberries
1 orange, segmented
1 tsp. honey
1/4 tsp. freshly ground cinnamon

Wash and clean all the fruit. Peel the prickly-pear cactus fruit. Chop into pieces. Peel the orange and segment. Place all the fruit in a bowl. Squeeze the juice from the orange over the fruit. Mix gently with clean hands. Drizzle the honey over the fruit. Sprinkle the cinnamon over the fruit and toss gently with a spoon. Serve immediately.

This article first appeared on Palm Desert Patch

Smoking Pasta at Guiseppe's

2011-07-20T07:52:00.000-07:00

I read an interview of the feminine goddess Sophia Loren once where she was asked how she maintains her amazing figure and her reply was "a bowl of pasta everyday." Being otherworldly in her gorgeousness, I had no doubt that this prescription was one for the likes of Mt. Olympians, but one that surely would not work the same for us mere mortals.

Pasta is a forbidden luxury for me and something that I usually eat rarely, angel hair style with just a little olive oil and salt and pepper, maybe a squeeze of lemon for tang. I also got spoiled in Italy with the hearty and simplified versions that are oftentimes mucked up in America with two much sauce, meat or cheese.

But a few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of being taken to a new restaurant in Palm Springs by my two dear friends Sam (who is the director of Michael Lord Gallery) and his partner Carlo, (a well-known hypersurrealist painter). Guiseppe's, tucked away into the Smoketree Shopping Center, rekindled my love affair with good, family style Italian food.

Walking into the place was like walking into a family living room. The tables and chairs in the low lit dining room were packed with people of all walks of life and lots of noisy camaraderie. A bar in the center was stacked seat to seat with after work drinkers and the family that runs the place was busy serving customers and spending time with their seasoned regulars, sitting down often to chat table side and share glasses of wine and conversation.

One look at the menu and I was thrilled with the clever and creative pasta combinations going above and beyond the norm. A big bowl of dense bread and a nice glass of cabernet assuaged my hunger while waiting for my main dish of smoky chicken penne pasta. The penne was cooked to al dente perfection and studded with moist, tiny bites of white meat chicken, while strains of smoked gouda delighted every bite with a deep, rich aftertaste. Sam told me his secret of ordering a side of sauteed spinach to mix in with the pasta and he demonstrated on his own alfredo while I threw a pile of the green deliciousness into mine as well. The bowls were so large I could only eat one fourth of mine, but had leftovers for two lunches later at home to enjoy.

Before we left, our waitress Kim came to sit with us and drink a glass of wine. She told us that the restaurant was doing so well after opening in the "wrong" time of year, knee deep in the blazing summer, that they were considering opening a location in Palm Desert as well.

Her tattoo summed up my feelings about the restaurant!

Marilyn Worthy Mouthful

2011-07-12T08:49:00.000-07:00

My best friend Lisa and I have the same set of Marilyn Monroe small square dinner plates. Mine most oftentimes carry squirts of bright acrylic paints as they've been relegated to a second life as artist palettes. My best friend brings hers out on special occasions on particularly fun girl-days when we have something decadent to share. If one is going to eat off of Marilyn's famous Warholized-face it better be something worthy of the iconic star's lush sexiness.

Yesterday fit the bill.

After a morning spent picking out glittery glosses and metallic green moss eyeliners at Sephora, followed by exquisite gym and jacuzzi time, we stopped in at Trader Joe's for a bottle of cheap but good rose wine to take to the pool. Passing the cheese aisle stopped us in our tracks as we noted a long thick log of goat cheese completely wrapped in a fresh, smashed blueberry fruit rind. Tongues smarting and tummies aching, we bought the novel treat along with some thin, multi-grain and flax seed crackers.

Dangerous is the only word I can use to describe the taste of this cheese. Four bites and we were stuffed. The blueberries are moist and sweet and the cheese log's middle becomes stained into a gorgeous purple and lavender blossom that melts on the tongue. Perfect alongside a not too sweet rose and post-pool floating on rafts after the culinary rapture.

We agreed that this food fit the halls of "orgasmic" cuisine. How apropos that we enjoyed it alongside the memory of the world's most famous sexpot. Here's to Marilyn!

Sonoma County Champagne Sojourn

2011-07-09T12:28:00.000-07:00

Visiting Northern California always takes me back to the bliss of nature. Whether rural, suburban or urban bound, flora and fauna still reign supreme. Trees command street sides, doe appear across the street from housing complexes nipping on stray bushes and weeds, sidewalks are lumpy where green things are constantly threatening to break through and long lazy afternoon drives through wine country produce spontaneous culinary adventures found in verdant pockets and wineries along the American River.

My most recent sojourn through this woodsy nirvana was accompanied by two friends who took me to a very old graveyard where family members lived in eternity amongst crumbling marble stones, petrified mushrooms and ancient monuments to icons like the God of Bacci. Pretty apropos for a crew whose next stop was the Korbel Headquarters in Guerneville.

I love wine tastings but have never tried a champagne tasting: 6 samples of champagnes varying from super sweet to ultra brut. I ventured off my usual course for the rose and was pleasantly surprised by the semi-sweet blush that wasn't cloying but fruity and crisp. This is a rose I would buy at home. I also didn't realize that Korbel made brandy but they do and it comes in a sampler pack alongside champagne varieties for about $50.

I was happy we had brought along an ice chest packed with interesting sodas bought at an old fashioned candy store along the way. A bottled coffee soda from Simpson Springs tasted amazingly similar to my old time favorite soda Canfield's Diet Chocolate Fudge and was perfect caffeine kick response to the bubbly in our brains.

The Korbel deli provided an exquisite foraging in the forest worthy lunch that consisted of a vegetarian sandwich that took my breath away. Thick artisan brown bread spread with tangy olive tapenade and layered with grilled eggplant, provolone cheese, mushrooms, tomato, red pepper and dark lettuces.

Belly full, I could have easily spent another few hours there listening to the sounds of the nature around me. And watching the romantic ebbs and tides of the life going on all around us, including this beautiful little grasshopper duo playing piggy back across a thin wood railing.

My Big Fat Greek Fantasy Life

2011-07-07T12:25:00.000-07:00

If I ever had the need to create a request for my single last meal before death, it would contain honey greek yogurt. I have been obsessed with the food of Mediterranean Greece for as long as I can remember but it wasn't until this past year when greek yogurt started popping up the shelves of almost every boutique grocery store that I realized I could be perfectly happy eating just this item of food for the rest of my life.

Growing up American, yogurt was always a part of my culinary fare. I have had many phases with the creamy dairy delicacy and minor periods of obsession with certain flavors. My Catholic school '80s era lunch boxes were full of Yoplait strawberry banana. My high school lust was for boysenberry generic brands. And my twenties were filled with plain yogurt mornings mixed with granola or vanilla tubs taking the place of ice cream for dessert.

My Sebastopol sister Sonia picked me up from the airport on my last visit and the minute I got in the car she asked me if I had a spoon. She asked it as if having a spoon getting off an airplane was a perfectly reasonable thing to ask. My first thought was, "What, does she want to do a snort of cocaine? That is so '80s" but those sordid thoughts were relinquished when she pulled out the big tub of honey greek yogurt that she had purchased along the way and couldn't wait to dive into. We spent the next two days making trips to Trader Joe's for the stuff. At least I know now that I am not the only crazy one.

Greens Addiction

2011-07-06T09:34:00.000-07:00

I know this ranks under the freak files, but I crave greens like normal people crave chocolate. I was one of those kids who actually loved brussell sprouts, too. As an adult I have come to relish the discovery of all things verdant and plucked from the earth from mustard greens to burgundy tinged artisanal lettuces, from broccoli to radicchio.

My obsession of late has been to visit my friend Leslie's garden on a weekly basis for a canvas tote full of freshly grown kale of which I eat daily in egg scrambles. Our mutual friend Paige, who runs a major art gallery by day, is a member of our kale-crazed club who is constantly surprising me with her own creations like kale chips which are basically made by throwing kale onto a baking sheet and sprinkling with olive oil in a hot oven till crisp.

If you're still reading and are like me, then you will love this warm, Southern, summer greens salad that I tossed together yesterday. All ingredients can be bought for discount prices at your local Fresh and Easy market. In under fifteen minutes, I had a savory dish that can be eaten alone or as a side accompaniment to meat and fish.

Warm Southern Greens Salad

Total dish is 300 calories
Makes one serving as a entree salad or 2 servings as a side dish

Ingredients:

1/4 bag of Fresh and Easy's Southern Greens (a delightful mixed bag of kale, leafy dark cabbage and whatever else is currently in season)

3 slices of Fresh and Easy's center cut bacon

One tablespoon Olive Oil

One tablespoon Balsamic Vinegar

One tablespoon crushed garlic

One tablespoon Fresh and Easy's flake parmesan cheese

Heat up a pan and the olive oil. Throw in the garlic and heat until just before brown. Throw in the greens and heat on high until they wilt down, about ten minutes. While heating the greens, cook the three slices of bacon in a microwave on a plate between paper towels for four and a half minutes to get it extra crispy. Crumble the bacon and then throw into the wilted greens along with the balsamic vinegar and toss together for about 30 seconds. Heap it all onto a plate and cover with the parmesan cheese!