Shave Ice = Instant Gratification

I love it when a plan comes together. All the forces of the blogofacebookosphere worked in unison to bring Alon, myself, and Milk shave ice together this afternoon. After a summery salad lunch (I am convinced that Milk has the best selection of the most un-boring salads in town. Their Farmer's Market salad has unusual veg like sliced radishes and snappy green beans, and today's Manchego salad with dates, nectarines and candied walnuts did not disappoint), we were ready for dessert.

We walked over to a table with a gigantic block of ice, bottles of flavoring (dulce de leche, green tea, mojito, and good old sweetened condensed milk are just a few), and jugs of toppings: mango and strawberry, coconut -- chunky with real bits of the fruit, and chile tamarind. Behind the table, the raspado man managed to stay very friendly despite expending major energy to scrape at the giant block of ice, then artfully layer it with the add-ons: I got mango and coconut with a bit of sweetened condensed milk, Alon got mango with chile tamarind syrup, but the winners were Dave and Krystal: both got strawberry with dulce de leche -- a stellar combination, and the prize of the day.

Friends, summer has officially begun.

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Milk is at 7290 Beverly Blvd, at Poinsettia.

Summer = Shave Ice

My sister declared on Facebook last night that this is officially the summer of ice cream and shave ice (I find the now-ubiquitous practice of referring to facebook and twitter and other web stuff a little weird, but at least I'm not quoting entire twitter conversations). Fine by me. Then Alon asked her if there is good shave ice in LA. Such a good question, I thought I'd answer it here.

Shave It: This is the answer that Torreh would give. It's a bright, heavily surfery-themed spot, with super-fluffy ice and neon 'flavas' brought in from Hawaii. Next time I'm there, I'm gonna try the Yard Sale: Pineapple, Lemon, and Guava shave ice with macadamia nut ice cream. And with every shave ice sold, a portion goes to Foster A Miracle, a foundation that inspires the future of foster children. You know I like that. There are three Shave-It locations, in Thousand Oaks, Norwalk, and Valencia. Too far for you? Start a franchise.

Half and Half Tea House: I fell in love with this place during 11 in 11 last year. A cozy Alhambra boba spot elevated with thoughtful add-ons (like caramel drizzled down the inside of a glass of boba), funky glassware and a friendly, youthful vibe. The Taiwanese-style shave ice, flavored with brown sugar and served in a giant mound, comes with your choice of toppings, including sweetened condensed milk, honey boba, egg custard, coffee jello, pineapple, red bean, mochi, or ice cream. While you're there, better get a caramel brick toast!

Sidewalk Shaved Ice at Milk: Yesterday's Tasting Table featured a summer special at Milk on Beverly: Every Saturday and Sunday through August, a guy (or girl, whatev) will be outside the shop, shaving ice to order from a giant block, raspado style, and topping it with syrups made from fresh fruit and natural ingredients. Strawberry and mojito sound nice, but I've got to try it with mango and chile-tamarind syrup. Totally going there today. Alonners, wanna come?

[thanks to RJ Malfalfa (who totally has the best name ever) for the photo!]

Bake Sale Aftermath

Full report coming soon, but let's just say this was the perfect bake sale. So much delicious food was donated, all of it was sold (well before 6pm -- sorry to those who showed up late, but there were in fact no cookies left behind at No Cookie Left Behind!), Weather was perfect, it all went off without a hitch, and we surpassed our goal by nearly one thousand dollars! A million thank-yous to the girls that made it happen: Heather, Jodi, Logan, Jessica, Rachel, Annie, and sweet Jeana for helping out all day. Not to mention Chelsea who gave so much of her time (and home) with onesie craft days and jam nights. And a million more to all our wonderful bakers, to Brian for saving the day, to all the bloggers and writers who publicized this thing better than it's ever gotten in the past, to everyone who came out and ate sweets for this wonderful cause, and to dear Tai, who wows us with his generosity and to-the-core goodness year after year. Well done, friends!

(oh, and yeah Lakers!)

onesie-palooza

You don't know what a onesie is? Well, you must not be a toddler. It's a simple cotton bodysuit with snaps at the bottom for easy access to diapers. And for the under-one-year-old set, onesies have the cultural impact that T-shirts have for us. It's weird how they can be so wee, and so incredibly important at the same time. But they are.

Yesterday was an amazing day, fueled by onesies. Chelsea and Erin opened up their home to a ton of friends, so we could get together and make onesies, to be sold for charity this Sunday at the No Cookie Left Behind bake sale. First of all, their apartment is a dream: airy and bright, cozy with mismatched furniture and funky art, little corners of unexpected beauty at every turn (seriously I am in awe and envy of the way these two have decorated their space. an amazing eye they have).

And then, they had gone all out on supplies: tie dye, stencils, paints, old felt and lace, iron-on paper to print onto, pom-poms, buttons, potatoes for potato stamps -- we were well-appointed.

And as if this was not enough, there was constant feeding. Brunch to start, then later, Nick grilled carne asada for a feast of tacos and beer. I took the opportunity to make a cornbread custard (You make a cornbread batter, you pour a cup of cream over the top of it, then bake it and serve it with real maple syrup. Um.) from Molly's lovely book, A Homemade Life. Lazy and productive at the same time, surrounded by the cutest piece of clothing ever, people milling in and out throughout the long, slow day, all for the love of onesies. A perfect little day.

Check out all the photos here, and get more info on the bake sale at nocookieleftbehind.com.

Bake Sale Third Annual!

And without further ado, I am proud to announce that the third annual No Cookie Left Behind Bake Sale will take place on Sunday, June 14, at Scoops! I think it's going to be another wonderful one this year -- we've got a lot on offer. Along with delicious baked goods donated by local home bakers, we've got contributions coming from Lark Cake Shop, CakeMonkey, Spork Foods (vegan!), Large Marge Sustainables, Kiss My Bundt Bakery, Whisk LA, Taste on Melrose, Laurel Avenue Bakery, and more! We're also jammin' this year: there will be jars of homemade jam, in crazy-delish flavors like strawberry balsamic with rosemary. AND! There will be onesies! Hand-crafted No Cookie Left Behind onesies for our littlest cookies.

All the details, updates, galleries, are at the bake sale's website: www.nocookieleftbehind.com

See you there!

just five more minutes, mom...

ack, i know it's been nearly A MONTH since i posted here last, and i really am so sorry for my absence. but i'm going to have to hit the snooze button once again -- for one more week. i'm off to the bay area this weekend to celebrate a very special baby shower (yay!!!! so excited for jana!), cutting into this already shortened week, but then i'll be back with more stories of eating, cooking (as if), and my oh-so-glamorous life (AS IF). oh, and of course: bake sale!

[thanks to dabboj for the photo. and incidentally, are you familiar with clocky? it's the best ever.]

Dim Sum, Elevated

Dim sum at Elite Restaurant in Monterey Park. A damn-near perfect way to spend a Sunday morning.


Note the bowl in the left foreground -- empty save for a few baby bok choi and a bit of broth. Doesn't sound like much, but really delicious, and a nice respite from all the friedness and dumplings. The vegetables always get the shaft. (On that note, why is it that whenever I go to dim sum, I see big beautiful dishes of Chinese broccoli on the tables of families who seem to know what they're doing, and yet I never order it? Mark my words, friends, next time I go for dim sum, there will be Chinese broccoli, and how!)

Check out Heather's photos of her trip to Elite. Dare you not to drool.

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Elite Restaurant is at 700 Atlantic Blvd. in Monterey Park.

Food Blog Mashup: The All Kinds of Yum Food Marathon

A food blog mashup: two food bloggers come together to eat, meet, and take awkward photos in restaurants. One provides the premise -- that's Food Marathon, with his flights through several eateries in rapidfire succession; the other provides the location -- Fairfax Avenue, where I could offer Food Marathon a taste of my neighborhood, all within a block's walk.

Food Marathon likes to keep some anonymity on the web, so we'll refer to him as FM from here on in. Since FM already had covered West Third Street with another favorite local blogger of mine, I suggested Fairfax. And since the offerings on Fairfax lend themselves to late night noshing, we decided to make it a night owl's food marathon. In a gametime decision, we nixed Chameau, since, despite its delicious Moroccan fare, there actually is a limit to how much I can eat in one night. This left us with three stops: Canter's, Animal, and Golden State.

We met at Canter's Delicatessen, immediately got past the potential weirdness of a blind meeting over nothing but food (guess it's not that weird to us anyway), and got down to business. We ordered four items, all noteworthy for the restaurant: corned beef on rye, known as some of the best in town, the humble waffle, which LA Magazine named the best in the city in 2005, the meticulously composed fruit cup, and an egg cream -- a throwback to FM's childhood Canter's visits.

As we ate, we talked -- not just about food, though it was a popular topic. FM's made it a point to get to know as many local food bloggers as he can, and it was eye opening to me to learn what a network our city has developed over the many years. He also told me about his idea for a different kind of food mashup -- taking items from different restaurants, and combining them to make new dishes -- all while sandwiching some corned beef between a couple waffle wedges, as if to demonstrate his point.

All well and good, but it was time for the next stop. FM handed off our leftovers to a homeless guy outside Canter's, and we stepped over to the bar at Animal. It was here that our mashup would soon take on new meaning, but we didn't know that yet. What we did know was twofold: Joe's doughnuts and the bacon chocolate bar. The latter has been the talk of Animal since its opening -- the old schtick of the two dudes that are such meatheads they even put pork in their dessert. And it was all you'd expect: rich and chocolatey, with that winning salty-sweet-smokey combo. But the other dessert, Joe's doughnuts, completely stole the show. I'd had them once before, and was excited to share them with FM. And to eat them again myself -- these doughnuts are incredibly delicious. They come freshly made and warm, three fluffy orbs, in a pool of dark caramel sauce.

It was as we were leaving the restaurant that one table caught our eye for two reasons: I saw a guy I met at 11 in 11 (talk about food marathon), FM saw an old high school friend. Both were the same guy. This one table brought the mashup full circle, as social circles merged unexpectedly. FM caught up with a couple more schoolmates as I chatted with another 11 in 11 compatriot; they all mentioned their plan to go to Golden State after their dinner, and then Jon Shook, whom I'd first met through Golden State's Jason Bernstein at Animal's soft opening, came out and told us how well the restaurant was doing in the late night hours. Exactly why we were there!

We let our friends carry on with their dinner though, as we still had to get to Golden State ourselves. I walked in immediately elated: Golden State is home turf for me, and in addition to owners Jim and Jason, two of my best friends, Rachel and Nick -- Jim's brother, in town from New York to check out the new place -- were also hanging out. Though I was hoping that FM might see the place for more than his first impression of "Scoops comes west", we really couldn't eat anything substantial at this point. So, he got Scoops. And I got wine. And we chatted with my friends. Jason and FM talked shop, Jim told us the history of the Canter's fruit cup (apparently an old schoolmate of his has made a documentary on the topic), ice cream flowed, and -- I hope -- good times were had.

But eventually, every great mashup must end. FM said his goodbyes, and I hung back at Golden State a little longer. At some point the rowdy crew from Animal made their way in and a dance party ensued, with my friends and FM's friends rocking out together in the middle of the now-closed restaurant. Welcome to my neighborhood, Food Marathon. This is how we do things here.

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Here's Food Marathon's take on the night.

Canter's Delicatessen is at 419 N. Fairfax.
Animal is at 435 N. Fairfax.
Golden State is at 426 N. Fairfax.
All of these spots are between Beverly and Melrose.

Neighborhood Nibbles

Mid-city West is getting fun (as much as I still wretch a little when I say Mid-city West)! To wit:

L.A.'s Original Farmers Market Cookbook: Meet Me at 3rd and Fairfax. Someone (namely Joann Cianculli) did the footwork and collected recipes from nearly every stall at the iconic Third and Fairfax Farmers Market, in addition to fun anecdotes about the 75-year-old market. I live a half-block away from the Farmer's Market, and it has been my own backyard/dining room for the last seven years. So, I love this. According to Eating LA, I will finally learn the secret behind the awesome mee goreng at Singapore's Banana Leaf, and get Nancy Silverton's hailed spec for ground beef from Huntington's Meats for perfect hamburgers, plus recipes from Lotería, The Gumbo Pot, Magee's, and more. And according to Tasting Table, there was a book signing at Anthropologie Thursday night. Hopefully they still have some signed copies on hand this weekend!

West Third Street Spring Stroll. These little Third Street events are always nice, but now that the weather's getting warmer, it's the perfect time for one. Hopefully they'll offer some good valet parking events like they did for the last one, but even if not, discounts, specials, and refreshments mean people will be out walking around. Saturday and Sunday, May 2-3.

[photo: westthirdstreet.com]

Vinoteca Farfalla is a Nice Place

I forget about Los Feliz, but turns out it's still there. Did a little Hillhurst pub crawl a while back, which started at Vinoteca Farfalla. This tiny box of a wine bar was super crowded, but if you can get yourself a table, you can be cozy within the bustle. It's a nice vibe. And they have the kind of staff that will engage you in a conversation about wine, if you're into that kind of thing (and not wine-timid like me), and will also tell you if your cheese selection is boring (which is to say, they are not cheese-timid. Nor am I). They also have a full menu with a subtle Brazilian bent amidst predominantly Italian offerings.

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Vinoteca Farfalla is at 1968 Hillhurst Av., between Los Feliz Boulevard and Franklin Avenue