Panacea: Gravlax

 On a perfectly crisp day during winter break, I was at a fancy craft fair in a backyard in Angelino Heights, a block away from Carroll Avenue (one of those amazing secret treasures of Los Angeles that you really ought to see), with my friends Rachel and Jodi.  Rachel turned to us and said one of those things that, in normal circles, would be totally weird, but among us is perfectly normal.  Par for the course, actually.  All excited, she said, "You guys!  We should start a club where we cure things! Like, make sausages, and gravlax, and stuff like that!  Wouldn't that be awesome?!"  And supportive friends that we are, we totally agreed.  Of course it would be awesome.

As we browsed the crafts, we fleshed this idea out, and eventually I even came up with a name for our club: Panacea.  Because, you see, we cure all.  And on new year's eve day, our planacea became reality.

Our first project was gravlax:  a Swedish dish of salmon cured with a sugar and salt mixture and aromatic herbs.  After a few days wrapped tightly in the fridge, you wipe all that stuff off the fish's surface, and end up with a salty-sweet, flavorful product, ready to be sliced thin and eaten on dark bread (or whatever you want).

Guided by a great book called Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It, the three of us took a few slow-foodish hours, and in the end, were on our way to having created something that felt really substantial.  Using recipes in the book, we made two varieties of gravlax:  one classic, packed with lots of fresh dill, and the other, with fresh fennel and orange zest.

I come from a long line of women who crowd into kitchens together, and have had a good share of girly dinner parties with my own friends, too.  There's an efficient, perfect rhythm to women cooking together.  The three of us worked so well with each other:  sharing tasks, cleaning as we went along.  We shared the same space gracefully, all the while gabbing, catching up, laughing a lot.

Things went so well that we even DIY'ed a batch of ricotta cheese once the gravlax were prepped.  But that's a story for another day.   For now, gravlax.  And Murray.

oh, hello, Murray

PS It's Rachel's birthday today!  Happy, happy birthday, Rachel!

lactard caprese

Remember in high school when you learned about sonnets? I always found them particularly impressive. I have a book of Shakespeare's sonnets, and there are so many I love. He manages to get across a point that is so astute, emotionally resonant, and verbally nimble, all in 14 very strictly regulated lines. All forms of poetry have their merits, and I can get a lot out of the most self-governed rambling TS Eliot poem. But there is something to be said for starting with a set of restrictions, and working within them to build a great piece of art.

I feel the same way about dietary restrictions. While I have some remnants of a kosher childhood baked into my diet, for the most part, I myself eat most things. But I love the opportunity to entertain guests who can't eat one thing or another. I used to be annoyed with the hassle of working around a handful of limitations, but now I enjoy the creative challenge. Whether it's for family members who keep kosher, bookclub members who are vegan (and if you're talking restrictions, veganism is the sestina of the culinary world), it's fun to come up with an appetizing dish without resorting to the old standbys.

I have a couple friends who have made cooking within dietary restrictions their life's work. One is a vegan chef whose sloppy joes and pumpkin 'cheesecake' have singlehandedly turned me around on the plausibility of delicious vegan food. The other is currently in Paris, studying to be a wheat-free pastry chef, in the interest of making pastries she can actually eat. I look forward to tasting the fruits of her hard work when she's back in town (last I heard, she was learning to make macarons... mmmm)!



I had my friend Rachel over for dinner tonight. Rachel is lactose-intolerant, or as she says herself, she's a lactard. She's discovered over the years that the smallest bit of dairy can destroy her insides, so she steers clear. We went with an Italian theme tonight; for the main course I made this recipe for sliced steak with arugula (she loves arugula, and so do I). It feels very much like summer this week, and so I felt like a caprese salad would be delicious alongside. But alas mozzarella would mean certain destruction for dear Rachel. Time to improvise... let's see... summery, California, rich, fresh, and sliceable.... got it! Avocado! I replaced the mozzarella with avocado, which I sprinkled with a little lemon juice to prevent discoloration. I added some lemon zest to the whole lot -- not traditional, but we've gotta give the lactards something special!

So the complete menu: caprese salad, mini ciabatta, sauteed broccoflower (have you seen this stuff? It's kind of amazing), and the steak. Satisfying and lactose-free. By the way, the lactard caprese works great as an appetizer to a meat meal in a kosher kitchen (in fact, use kosher meat for the steak, and you're good to go on the entire menu). Gluten-allergics can replace the bread with a gluten-free bread, and for vegans, it would be interesting to try replacing the beef in the steak dish with sliced portobello mushrooms.

By close of meal we felt we'd ate a horse,
And ended with some tea -- no milk, of course.

(ok so i'm no shakespeare...)


file under: dining in

The Big Girls' Playdate

You know what's great about being a grown-up, and a female one at that? You know how, when you're a little girl, you like to have pretend tea parties? Some generous family member buys you a toy tea set: a tiny plastic teapot with matching cups -- dainty little things with pink flowers on the side. Then you line up all your teddy bears and dollies, and pour each one a cup of invisible pretend tea. You might drop invisible pretend sugar cubes in the cups, or lay a delicate invisible pretend finger sandwich beside each one. The guests don't really drink the tea: after all, they aren't alive and don't move. These stuffed animals are kind of lame guests actually -- they just sit there, they don't contribute to the discussion, and they don't really add any personality to the event. You take a pretend sip, you pretend taste the pretend sweetness, and pretend feel the pretend warmth flowing down your throat.

So then, what's great about being an all-grown-up big girl, is that you get to do it all for real. Real food, real flavor, real tea in your pink teacup, and best of all, real friends. And you can drink wine! Last night, me and 7 lovely ladies got together for a fall dinner party. My friend Rachel has recently come into her grandmother's china, an elaborate set in pastel pink and blue, straight out of Cinderella, and, in an email entitled simply "Food Love", she invited us all over to put them to use. In keeping with the seasonal theme, Rachel roasted a chicken with fennel, and her roommate Ashley made sweet earthy roasted beets. The rest of the girls contributed appetizers (almond-stuffed dates wrapped in prosciutto), sides (scalloped potatoes and an heirloom tomato bread pudding), dessert (homemade from-scratch apple tart), and a fall salad with apples, walnuts, blue cheese, and dried cranberries. I was in charge of soup, and so supplied a roasted butternut squash number, all dolled up with fried sage and Parmesan tuiles. Devotion to the cause came through in each woman's contribution: it was all really delicious.

So, decked out in our finest party dresses, we ate quite well, indulged in a little playing pretend, and talked about girlie topics: baby names, boyfriends and husbands, career paths, and the patron saint of delicious indulgence, Ina Garten. (Admittedly, mostly we talked about what we were eating, in minute and glorious detail.) We dutifully washed and dried and put away between courses, and mused over the fact that, had there been boys in our ranks, we'd certainly have fewer hands helping out.

all the man we need

In spite of the night's feminine bent, we did allow one male into our little coven: Mutty Pitu Burritu, the traveling stuffed wonder dog. Mutty was an exemplary ambassador for the two groups he represented: males and stuffed animals. Not only did he help with the dishes, he was the life of the party: drinking wine, tasting the roasted fennel, posing for pictures with the girls. The wild child that he is, he even ended up lying across the dinner table at some point. This charmer is a different breed from those tiresome teddies of tea parties past.

Sometimes it's rough being a grown-up, but playdates like these make it all worthwhile.



Roasted Butternut Squash Soup with Fried Sage and Parmesan Tuiles

You know those movies where a somewhat inept regular guy somehow ends up with the task of taking a woman hostage, possibly even murdering her, but she manages to use her wiles to unravel his plans? I felt like that hapless anti-hero as I tried to cut the squash in half for this recipe. As I tried to stab through its flesh over and over again, I was basically bargaining with it -- groveling with the tough, unflappable squash for every inch of headway. In the end I got the last laugh, though: after splitting it open and forcing it into a four-hundred-degree oven for an hour, I pulverized the thing to a pulp. Revenge is sweet.

Two 2 1/2 - 3 pound butternut squashes
1/2 head garlic (about 6 cloves)
tiny drizzle olive oil
2 cups vegetable broth
1 cup water
1/3 cup half-and-half
1 Tbs chopped fresh sage + 16 fresh sage leaves
3 Tbs maple syrup
2 Tbs butter
1/2 C grated Parmesan cheese

The soup:
Preheat oven to 400°F. Slice each squash in half lengthwise. Scoop out seeds and surrounding stringy flesh and discard (or, if you are my mother, save the seeds, wash, salt, dry, and roast them, and nosh on them to stay awake during Dancing With the Stars). Place them face-down on a baking sheet.

Slice about 1/2 cm off the top off each clove of garlic, and drizzle a small amount of olive oil over the exposed tops. Place the head on the baking sheet with the squash. Place it all in the oven and bake for 1 hour, or until the squash is soft, smooshy, and slightly browned. You can make the fried sage in the meantime.

If you have an immersion blender, scoop flesh out of skin, and place in large pot over low heat. Squeeze cloves of roasted garlic out of skin into the pot. Add half of broth, half of water, half-and-half, maple syrup and 1 tablespoon chopped sage. Use immersion blender to blend soup until it is a smooth puree. Add enough of remaining broth and water, blending them in with the immersion blender, to get soup to desired consistency. Melt in 1 tablespoon butter and season generously with salt and pepper.

If you have a food processor or blender, scoop squash flesh directly into its bowl in batches, adding garlic, broth, water, sage, and half-and-half in batches. Pour completed batches into large pot over low heat. Add broth and/or water to adjust consistency of soup. Stir in maple syrup and 1 tablespoon butter, and season generously with salt and pepper.

To plate, ladle soup into bowls, and top each bowl with 2 fried sage leaves and 1 Parmesan tuile.

Fried sage leaves:
Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add sage leaves, and saute until lightly brown around edges. Remove to a paper towel, to catch excess butter.

Parmesan tuiles:
Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with wax paper. Using a cookie cutter as a guide, sprinkle Parmesan into 8 3-inch diameter discs. The discs should be very thin and lacy. Place in oven until edges brown, about 5 minutes. Allow to cool before carefully removing tuiles from wax paper.

Notes: This soup was inspired by this and this. Be creative with the liquids to suit your fancy: replace the vegetable broth with chicken broth, apple juice or cider, or maybe add a splash of white wine.

Serves 8

What's Good (Magazine)?

Can you love a magazine without actually having read it? Answer is yes. Recently, I found myself in a cloud of buzz about Good magazine, and oddly, what I was hearing had little to do with any magazine.

It started with an email about a Flickr group called Intercontinental Breakfast, in which people posted photos of their breakfasts around the world. Being a loyal fan of the most important meal of the day, obviously I was enamored.

Next, I read on Eating LA about some awesome event they were having, which consisted of a tamal-making workshop, free Intelligentsia coffee, and a bunch of other random stuff. I liked what I was hearing. When I find out about people who find significance in building community through bringing together cool people, delicious food, and opportunities to learn stuff, it makes me very happy.

But, then, in a moment of Baader-Meinhofian goodness, I found myself at Good Magazine headquarters. My friend Debra invited me to a holiday party at their space on Melrose, which turned out to be an event called SlideLuck GoodShow. It was a riff on an international event called SlideLuck PotShow, where people bring food and booze (the potluck part), and then there's art, in the form of a series of slideshows (get it now?).

The crowd was eclectic, the food and drink were plentiful (a combination of homemade foods and donated wine, teas, organic chocolate bars, ice cream, and more), and the space is awesome. One hallway houses a row of headphones hanging over chairs, where you can listen to podcasts from some of the world's young movers and shakers. The main room has a bar in the back, a custom-designed DJ booth up front, and a door to a small yard. Maps play a big role in the decor: California maps, Metro maps, Fallen Fruit maps, and a wall-sized map of Los Angeles, annotated with a bajillion stickies. There's a lot to love.

The slideshow featured some awesome images: a piece featuring kids' disturbingly emotive faces as they played video games, some thought-provoking posters from Obey Giant, and a piece based on one of my favorite books, Hungry Planet: What the World Eats, among many others.

All very cool, right? But still, no magazine. Until at lunch one day during break, bff Rachel slides a copy of Good Magazine across the table to me. I glance at the page she's opened it to, and see her name. These Good people, as if they hadn't already won my affections, had interviewed Rachel about her new role producing Arabic language films for Disney. Small world.

So, here's what we learned: Good is rad. They've got so much going on, and have such a hand in the community (little do they know they're gonna get hit up for the bake sale this year!), not to mention the global community, and the magazine is just one part of it. And in fact, the magazine itself is a means to make the world a better place: pay as much as you want to subscribe, and 100% of it goes to the charity of your choosing. See? Rad. I'm excited to discover where they go in 2009. (Ready for the cheesy?) I bet it's somewhere good.

--
here are more photos from the night, including some closeups of the stickynote map.

Where Are They Now?

When last we visited Peggy and Chris, they were a new couple, canoodling over fried lentils at Cobras and Matadors. That night was the first time I met Chris, and they were at that stage of the relationship where, on the drive over, I turn to Rachel and ask, "So are Peggy and Chris an item or what?" and she nods and smiles a little excitedly, "I think they are!"

Flash forward about 2 years to this weekend. Dinner party at the newly engaged (!) couple's new house (!) in Silver Lake, in the dreamworld that is their backyard. Peggy has gone back to her Lebanese roots in creating an amazingly perfect Mediterranean lounge on their patio, complete with mini lanterns twinkling through hanging grapevines, star jasmine growing on the hill, a fig tree, and couches (couches! outside! my favorite thing in the world!). On this particular night, there was even a sweet and mellow dog roaming around.
In the middle of all this summery coziness was a long table set with grilled flank steak over a mound of pine nut couscous (the juices from the steak made the couscous kind of irresistable), a gorgeous vegetable tian, and the cocktail of the night, a refreshing mint lemonade spiked (generously) with vodka.
While we sat gossiping about mutual acquaintances, discussing new projects, planning future dinner parties, Chris was back behind the grill, this time on dessert duty: grilling perfect peaches to serve with Breyers French Vanilla ice cream and crumbled ginger snaps. A sweet ending to a sweet night.

[thanks to shutterbug Rachel for all the good photos]

Christmas

I always really enjoy Christmas day. Unfettered by obligations to baby Jesus, I get to do whatever I want. Typically this means convening with all the other Jews in town at Nate'n Al, savoring lox, eggs, and onions (mmmm!) and vintage waitress snarkiness, after having waited an hour for a table. It's usually the prettiest day in the world, so walking through abandoned Beverly Hills, the air seems crisp and impossibly clear. One year we ran into Rachel's grandparents, who kindly footed the bill for breakfast after her grandpa regaled us with stories of what Los Angeles county used to be.* Other years, we'd see relatives, acquaintances, my family doctor, Larry King.

But this year, we were invited to a real Christmas brunch. Well, actually, I'm not sure if this is how Christmas is typically celebrated, but there was a little tree, so that counts, right? Even if half of us were Jews? Typical LA Christmas maybe? Anyway, our friends were housesitting someone's cozy (and gorgeous) house, which came complete with fireplace and lazy terrier named Gatsby. They made tons of delicious brunch food, along with mimosas and great coffee, and we lounged around in our socks and read InTouch magazine. Got catty about Top Chef contestants, talked seriously about Who Wore It Better, and learned about Kenny Shopsin, the crazy genius behind macaroni and cheese pancakes and a book called Eat Me. It happens that there are a few extraordinarily hilarious characters in the group, so we didn't need much more entertainment than ourselves (well, basketball was on too, but really who cares). Christmas, just how it was intended. Right?


*Rachel's Gramps was a one-man oral history of Los Angeles. He attended UCLA, back when the campus was downtown, and could tell stories about every detail of Los Angeles history for decades back.

the ladies who breakfast

It's an unfortunate inevitability in this town: bad people happen to good restaurants. After all, Hollywood has to eat! (although you wouldn't guess it looking at some of the very people I'm talking about...). After a while, it's like, I don't care if you have the best ahi steak this side of Tsukiji Fish Market, there are only so many yippy lap dogs and microskirt/ugg-boot combos I can wade through before it's just not worth it.

This is why, on a average weekend morning, you will rarely see me at Toast. The scene wafts around the place so thick you can taste it. Maybe it's me, but it just makes breakfast unpleasant.

Which is kind of sad, because Toast is actually a pretty delicious restaurant, especially for breakfast. Their egg dishes are huge, fresh, and have great flavor combinations, and the fruit bowl that can come with most meals is outstanding. Not a few overripe chunks of canteloupe and 4 red grapes, but a wide variety of fresh fruits, berries, sometimes mango, sometimes fresh coconut, and often prettily garnished with a slice of star fruit. They even carry shakshuka - the middle eastern specialty of eggs simmered over a stew of tomatoes and peppers. The menu definitely has some things going for it.

Fortunately, I was recently schooled on when to go to Toast. The secret: early in the morning, especially on weekdays. This is the way to do it! My friends Rachel and Heather meet once a week for breakfast. Last week, they were meeting at Toast, a few blocks from my apartment, and they kindly invited me to join them. Going to Toast at 8 am on a weekday is a completely different experience than I was used to. There was no 4-people-deep crowd surrounding the place waiting to get called to their table. I simply walked over, found Rachel and Heather sitting at a table on the sidewalk, and sat next to them.

Not wanting to induce grogginess right before work, we went for lighter fare. They each got scrambled egg whites and turkey sausage with the famous fruit, and I tried their granola. It did not disappoint. Restaurant granola is a crapshoot, but this had big nutty chunks and whole almonds, and was toasted to a deep golden brown, bringing out the light sweetness.

Half an hour later, I headed to work, feeling much more accomplished than on your average morning. I had a nice walk through my neighborhood, learned much about the glamorous life of a gallery owner, and discovered a pleasant new breakfast spot just down the street.




Toast is at 8221 W. 3rd street, at Harper. It's open for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and red velvet cupcakes.

more living less blogging

I know, I know! Two weeks and no post! This is truly terrible. But the last few weeks have been this busy: the produce drawer in my fridge molded over, I've missed the last three episodes of Top Chef (and this with a DVR), and until this morning, there was hardly room to move among the basket of clean laundry yet to put away, the displaced dirty laundry strewn all over the floor, birthday gifts still in disarray, and all the other crap that manages to accumulate when everything is already a mess.

In fact, this whole summer has been a busy one, and there were a lot of great days, meals, events that I would have loved to share here, but got lost in the shuffle. But the last couple weeks were a particularly harrowing one-two-three punch: all on pretty much the same day, summer ended, Yom Kippur came and went in all its misery glory, and good lord, I turned thirty.

So, in a cleansing ritual befitting the start of the Jewish New Year (so, it was three weeks ago. Do I look like the atomic clock?) -- one of three New Year's celebrations I participate in each year -- I present you with

Everything I Should Have Blogged About This Summer, But Didn't

• Sonoma. I spent a dreamy weekend in a cottage in the woods of Sonoma this August. Two of my closest college friends and I trekked up for the long-awaited wedding of our friend Jana. This wedding was supposed to happen three years ago, and now that Jana has been in full remission for a couple years, and has gotten law school and the bar out of the way, it finally did. The whole trip was a dream that ended too quickly -- after marking our arrival into town at a late-night taco truck, we found the perfect little cottage that a scheduling glitch had bumped us into, complete with infinity pool. So we romanced the next day up with home-cooked breakfast, then cheese, fruit, chocolate, and of course wine, all poolside, accompanied by every variation on the In Touch/Us Weekly/OK family of pap we could find (in addition to The New Yorker, thank you very much). The wedding itself was perfect, too: paper lanterns in the trees, tables in the dirt, flowers in jelly jars, jugs of aguas frescas and bottles of local wine, hosted by a sister, officiated by an old friend, and the bride and groom looking happier than we've ever seen them.
  
  
• Summer Dinner Parties, or Tannaz hones her Persian rice skills. First Rachel and Ashley invited some friends over to grill fish and eat it outside. I went with the traditional Iranian accompaniment to fish, sabzi polo: delicate Persian rice made even more fragrant by layering it with fresh dill, parsley, fenugreek, and chives. Then when the bake sale girls had a late summer reunion, the main course was a sultry dish of chicken roasted with fresh peaches and rosewater, so I made a sweeter riff on zereshk polo, which is usually made with tart barberries: Persian rice topped with a mix of slivered almonds, dried cranberries, and onions, sauteed together with saffron. Both were huge hits, and my tahdig skills continue to improve! (One of these days we need to get into the nitty gritty of the art that is Persian rice.)
  
  
• Beach Days. One took us south to Laguna Beach: walk to Crescent Bay, lie under the sun with magazines and gossip, dip into the water for a chilly swim, finish the day with cocktails and dessert overlooking the ocean. The other took us north towards Zuma, with a stop at the Malibu Fish Company: fresh seafood and some of the best fries ever, followed by the discovery of a secluded semi-private beach that our rowdy crew managed to happily stomp all over.
  
  
• Rosh Hashana. In the homes of most Ashkenazi (white) Jews, you eat apples and honey, have a round challah with your dinner, and you're good to go. But the Sephardic (brown) tradition -- well, the Iranian leg of it anyway -- has a full-on seder, as complex as the Passover one. Before dinner, we have a soul-food-esque feast that includes beets, tongue, black-eyed peas (especially good with leftover honey), dates, and pomegranate, each with symbolic significance for the year to come, and each with its own prayer. Our family has many irreverent takes on these ancient rites (like the annual demonstration of the sound of a cow without a tongue mooing), but that's a story for another post.
  
  
• The birthday. For the first time since I was born, my birthday fell on Yom Kippur this year. So, hot on the heels of 26 hours of fasting, I met friends for a great night of drinks and silliness in the pretty much perfect setting of the Hotel Figueroa's poolside bar. The next day held a barbecue hosted generously by my parents, where we learned that Violet is a natural at the art of guacamole, and that margaritas make even the best day better (well, I already knew that last one). I was bowled over by the generosity of friends and family. They obviously know for whom they are shopping: cookbooks, a Mozza gift card, funky pearl tea from China with gorgeous earthy tea cups from the MOMA store, more fancy tea -- this time with dried fruits and sunflower seeds built in, a hunk of swoony Humboldt Fog cheese the size of my fist (well, let's not take away from it -- it's really size of a normal person's fist), cookbooks, jewelry, an ice cream maker, and more. As if this wasn't enough, 2 friends took me to a birthday dinner of a seemingly endless string of tapas on the cozy patio between La Loggia and Next Door Tapas in Studio City -- banana caramel napoleon, anyone? -- and 2 other friends took me out to Little Tokyo for a delicious izakaya dinner at Izayoi. Simmered tripe, anyone? (Seriously, you should try it -- it's surprisingly delicious.)
  

So, as you can see, the blow of leaving my fun-sounding twenties and entering my depressing-sounding thirties (and oh boy, was it a nasty blow!) was cushioned by good times and massively great friends and family. Looking back on this action-packed summer actually makes me feel okay about already being in the thick of autumn (not to mention the autumn of my life. ok now i'm just being dramatic). Hopefully now that I've gotten that bottleneck of items out of the way, posting here will resume as usual. Thank you for your patience, and happy autumn.

overheard on the facebooks

The people have spoken.

Panta is today we are making history!!!

Jennifre' thinks Ben & Jerry should market a Baracky Road: mocha w/ marshmallow White Houses -- except this version the nuts are finally out!

Caroline What a day, so proud of The USA.

Byron is believing this might be the best year ever.

Rick is feeling all tingly.

Jusneet is I ♥ ♥ ♥ you Obama....

Perrin made a concerted effort to always say 'George Bush', and not 'President Bush'. Now I can say President Obama... no shame, no revulsion... pretty sweet...

Michael swears Yo Yo Ma just winked at Lisa. Weird.

Rabbi Jonathan sees a "day when black will not be asked to get in back; when brown can stick around; when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what's right."

Jehan witnessed history in person. DC isn't so bad after all...

Reid is happy to have an intelligent president.

Corinne is picking herself up, dusting herself off, after a looong 8 years.

David is ready for the real work to start.

Kelly finds it amusing that the only facebook friends that have anything negative to say about Obama are from the south. I knew I moved away for a reason.

Sadaf is thinking that Cheney looked a bit like Dr. Evil...

Christopher thought for sure Obama would take the oath by swearing on a stack of Superman comics.

Karen is so happy.

Michael really loves his country.

Chris aretha's hat for president 2012!!!!

Rabbi Jennifer is inspired beyond words!

Andrea is all about ushering in new eras.

Alaleh shave, laser, wax: it is the end of the Bush era.

Brock Its changed!!! www.whitehouse.gov.

Danielle is wondering if there's any possible way she could stop smiling and then wondering why the hell she'd want to do that.

Chelsea is taking the faux canada cover off her passport.

Eric just read Obama's speech. Oh My God. We The People have arrived again.

Jack is grateful for the exit of the dunce.

Eyad yalla barack obama.

Scott I'm hopeful and excited.

Dave is yellow and will be mellow.

O'ryan is with friends singing the star spangled banner. What a morning!

Forest is "Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal." -mlk

Beth is once again inspired!!! It's a new world!!!!

Jason is overjoyed. We have a statesman in the White House.

Elizabeth is glad to be Barackin' and rollin'!

Rachel is loving all these cali ladies bringing in obama.

Lesley loves starting off this era with so much soul.

Tannaz already has the chills. [not me.. another tannaz]

Michelle may cry while listening to the echos of pride throughout the capitol mall.

Rudy is watching with my students.

Julie is inspired to lesson plan! Really!

Nova is watching history unfold with the children who are the future of our great nation. Wow..

Ariel is crying tears of joy and for once in a long time is proud to be an american!

Bill is proud to be an American.

--
thanks to Forest Erickson for the 'photo'

A Quiet Wintry Magic

My friend Chelsea has a quiet magic in the kitchen. While everyone else is babbling, or performing (among our friends, there is a lot of performing), or just cracking up, you'll often find her standing at the counter, stirring a bowl with great concentration. She'll stop, think to herself for a second, scurry to the pantry and grab some jar, confidently sprinkle a little into her bowl, then it's back to stirring. No recipe, and no artifice. At the end of it, she'll calmly walk out with a grin and a big plate of something delicious, making the rest of us shut up just long enough to applaud, stuff it in our mouths, then applaud some more.


Somehow she can intuit exactly what satisfies, and it seems like she throws it together just as intuitively. (This culinary sixth sense may be related whatever it is that allows her to give the kind of tarot card readings whose eerie accuracy may actually make you cry.) Last weekend, Chelsea, myself, and seven other friends, new and old, drove up to Mammoth for a few days of cozy, wintry goodness. I'm not much of a cold-weather girl -- I'll opt for 100-plus temperatures over snow any day -- but, I can certainly get behind cozy. As Kit, one of the nine on the trip put it, what I wanted was "aprés ski without the ski". And I got it.

Home base was a condo made up of three tiny stories stacked on top of each other, with a little fireplace in the living room. Out the balcony window, we could see snow falling on evergreens and wood cabins. We played Pictionary at the kitchen table, we read magazines as Geordie strummed his guitar -- with Kit all snug in her Snuggie all the while, we played Taboo and Celebrity by the fireplace, and in general just enjoyed each other's company. Of course, we didn't stay in the house the whole time: Kit and I got there a day later than everyone else, so we missed the ski day (darn), but we did weather a hail storm in our snow shoes, took a gondola to the lodge for spiked coffee drinks, had the surreal experience of throwing snow balls while in the hot tub (really, you should try it sometime), then managed to squeeze the whole party into the sauna, where we belted out Nelson, Extreme, and Mr. Big as we warmed up to the bone.

And throughout the weekend, we cooked, we ate, we drank. There were a few times on this trip where I thought to myself gratefully, this is why these people are my friends (the hair band sauna sing-along for one). It's a really good feeling to know you've found your people. I missed the feast of tacos and nachos with homemade salsa and guacamole the first night, but was the official egg-cracker for French toast Saturday morning: constant pot of coffee brewing, real maple syrup, big bowl of tangerines that Jeni brought from her tree at home (how we managed to leave the condo without stealing that awesome bowl remains a mystery), and strawberry butter that Chelsea threw together. The next morning we'd go large on breakfast again: homemade biscuits, a giant veggie scramble compliments of Rachel, and slapdash cinnamon rolls -- Bisquick dough, honey, cinnamon sugar we found in the pantry, lots of butter, homemade glaze, and some other magic I can't even begin to fathom -- thrown together, unhesitatingly, by Chelsea.

Saturday night, as we played games and drank toddy, Chelsea and Ashley stepped out of the kitchen with their hands full once again. This time, they'd improvised a sweet snack. They'd slathered leftover flour tortillas with strawberry butter from the fridge and sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar, slapped them together and browned them in a pan. It turns out that ad lib strawberry quesedillas are the perfect fireside treat. But Chelsea already knew that.

Three Items

I have some items.

The Red Car River Park, on the LA River, steps from Trystero HQ

After I posted about Trystero, Greg Thomas's Atwater Village home coffee-roasting operation, good buddy Jeff Miller, senior editor of Thrillist Los Angeles, caught wind of the story, and ask me to write up Trystero for Thrillist (!!).  I did; here's the post.  I'm happy to report that since the AKOY and Thrillist posts, Greg has gone on to quit his day job (!!!), and once he's back from a well-needed vacation, he's making Trystero his full-time gig.  Wishing him the best of luck!

rooftop view of Williamsburg

Speaking of vacation, forgive me for not posting for a bit.  I'm just back from an amazing trip to New York and Montreal (aka dreamland city of charming cafes).  I walked a lot.  I miss that.  Photos coming soon.

This.   This is an excerpt from an interview with Anthony Bourdain, in AAA's Westways magazine of all places.  We've seen Bourdain go full dick mode on Sandra Lee or Rachel Ray, but my favorite Bourdain moments are when someone's grandma makes him a meal at home, and you see this tall American television star's eyes soften as he's humbled by her warm, modest hospitality.  The sentiment expressed in this one paragraph is so important to me:  be interested, get past formalities, connect on a human level.  Just show up and be grateful.

Food Blog Summit 2008

In spite of its lofty name, this summit consisted of just one current food blogger -- myself, along with bunch of in general really cool dudes, sitting around eating carne asada and drinking beer. (It's better this way, and not unlike the Supreme Council of Semitic Languages, which consisted of me, Rachel, Alon, and Vani getting drunk off happy hour wine and mini pizzas at Palomino and comparing curse words in Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian (which, yes, I realize is not Semitic, but rather Indo-european. Don't worry, it's ok.).)

Despite the lack of formalities though, it was a night that was very much about food, blogs, writing in general, not to mention culture and the virtues of our amazing Los Angeles, so obviously, the discourse of the evening was very close to my own heart. You see, my friend Noah is about to embark on a project that encompasses all of these topics, so he organized this summit to get the conversation going.

He's a writer who's turning some downtime into an opportunity to explore Los Angeles in a unique way: his plan is to, each day, go to one restaurant representing a different country, until he runs out. And then of course, he'll write about it. Simple concept, but potentially amazing. Not only will he eat really well and discover new facets of his city on a daily basis, he'll also share these experiences with a whole host of people on the web, exposing how awesome LA is in this particular way (he's already got 90 countries covered!), opening up the discussion to a potentially limitless crowd, and hopefully creating a forum where we can all learn something from each other.

It's interesting. Unlike my own little blog, which developed completely organically, out of a nebulous desire for a writing outlet and some sort of personal web presence (I cringe using buzzwords like that, but really, I did describe it once as a web presence. Ugh.), and eventually fell into exactly what it is now -- a strictly personal ode to cooking, food politics, and the unique pan-ethnic dining experience that LA offers --, Noah is taking a very thoughtful approach to designing his project. And for me, it was really thought-provoking to hear how much weight is put on trying to build a place where people can connect to the words on the page (er, screen), even if they are not food-obsessed. It's something I struggle with: As I write more -- in fact, by virtue of having this very blog, I have more opportunities to become an educated eater. And as I learn more, I want to share more of these sometimes esoteric details, and fear that as I do, I lose my own voice, which, if you read the earliest posts here, was rougher, more eclectic, self-deprecating, and, I think, relatable. Is my blog eating up its own identity?

franklin guards the tecate

Regardless of my own concerns, though, the night's conversation was great. A group of people who are as jazzed to talk about fresh salsa verde from Carnicería Sanchez as they are about the funky Chinese breakfast crepes they learned about in Wednesday's LA Times (not to mention Miss Irene's crotchety unwillingness to look past the name of John Shook and Vinnie Dotolo's animal restaurant to all the delicious menu items showcasing in-season farmer's market fruits and vegetables)? How refreshing! Indulging in the debate of how best to represent massive food nations like Mexico or China with only a days' worth of eating? This is my kind of table talk.

So, I left the summit with the taste of Jolly Pumpkin Oro de Calabaza on my tongue (thanks Jason!) and lots of homework (ask Talal about Bahraini restaurants, and Ares about Dominican ones, Matt about Ghanaian ones, etc.). And a head full of thoughts on my little all kinds of yum. Nothing concrete just yet, but still, it's nice to have everything rustled every once in a while. I guess that's what food blog summits are for.

Coast Highway Holiday

There are a million places this post could begin. The trip to Paris that didn't happen. The appeal to friends that reminded me, yet again, what a wide range of truly interesting people I'm lucky to know. Then again, it could just as well start in a dorm room on the sixth floor of Dykstra Hall on an otherwise uneventful night in 1996, when, from the room next door, an unfamiliar voice authoritatively yelled out the answer to my question of how many cups is a stick of butter. It's not unusual for me to get mired in options (maybe this is why it's taken me so long to post this damn thing!).

But I'll get to the point. My winter holiday was everything a vacation should be: a restful break enjoying perfect California Christmastime weather with best friends, close family (peppered with a few choice solo moments), and what seems like an unfair amount of laughter. And through all this, I somehow managed to trace the contour of the California coast: the 'big trip' consisted of four days in sweet, cozy Cambria, including a drive up Highway 1 through Big Sur to Monterey, then back through Salinas, home of both John Steinbeck and the best cornbread I've ever had (Seriously amazing stuff. I got a full order for dessert). I came home just in time to drive down to Laguna Beach (delicious dinner party that culminated with the whole house crammed in one room dancing to their own karaoke-ing voices, then beach walk, art gallery, and Zinc Cafe -- really, doesn't suck), then a few days later piled into the car with the parents, the sister, the brother-in-law, and three kiddies, for a day at the Santa Barbara Zoo. It was like a week-and-a-half-long game of peek-a-boo with the Pacific ocean!

But, let's focus on the Cambria part, shall we? So, for as long as I've known my friend Brad (eleven years and counting...aww), I've heard stories about his idyllic youth in the small coastal town. Thanks to his generous invitation, and his darling mom's kind hospitality, Rachel -- another close college friend -- and I spent a few days in his childhood home, hanging out with his mom and sister and having a grand old time. It turns out that Brad's family is a self-contained comedy act: whether we were taking walks through the bluffs overlooking the beach, rolling from winery to winery , opening 'presents' on Christmas morning (Which lucky one did Santa leave a stick of gum for? Who got the bottle of Excedrin?!), or just lounging on the couch, indulgently poring through back issues of Sunset Magazine, we were cracking up the whole time. Who needs expensive spas and retreats? For true relaxation, all you need is a laughing vacation.

We also learned that Brad and his family know every single person in Cambria. From every waiter at cozy Robin's restaurant, to the mailman at the Cambria Pines Lodge -- home of the town's only bar -- everyone is on a first-name, how's-the-family, basis. In fact, when we visited Main Street Grill, the setting of many of Brad's stories of his formative first job (for which I am personally thankful: after all, it is here that he learned the skills that led to my first, glorious encounter with barbecued beef ribs, on the rickety balcony of a dingy college apartment so many summers ago), Brad was so busy schmoozing we hardly saw him at the table.

It was fun to learn a bit about Brad's history: his mom told us stories of her youth in Illinois (how's this math: 2 parents + 6 kids + 2 pies = 1/4 pie per person), and how the family made its way to the west coast. She must have been tickled to be spending her Christmas vacation wowing two Jewish girls from the city with tales from the hog farm -- 4-H and all. And Brad was more than happy to share his more recent past with us -- by way of walking around in his Letterman jacket, along with the biggest grin I've ever seen.

We even managed to fit in some excursions: an afternoon in downtown San Luis Obispo offered a trip to the city's eponymous mission and to the local art gallery, with its awesome exhibit of photos of California's migrant workers. We even made it to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Good lord those otters are cute! One was obsessed with grooming her face and kept smooshing it into adorable expressions.

It's kind of a unique phenomenon: you've heard so much about a place, and the people in it over so many years that it nearly becomes part of your own story. Cambria has long been a member of our circle of friends. Nice to finally spend some quality time.

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.

--
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.

bye-bye summer breakfast

I haven't really talked yet about the fact that summer ended and fall began. It's a subtle transition here in LA -- you won't see too many leaves changing, and T-shirts and flip-flops won't leave you shivering quite yet -- but I still sense it. There's a change in what I feel like eating. As much as I love summer, and I actively loved this summer, I'm already at the point where I will pass up cool light summer salads, with their berries or nectarines or perfectly ripe tomatoes, for the cozy warmth of soup -- butternut squash maybe, or a rich mushroom chowder (wow, that sounds so good I wish I had some now!).

But for some reason, I'm still holding a candle for summer breakfasts. With the sun beating down through the open window on a weekend morning, a sweet summer fruit only needed a little yogurt, pita, and a cup of tea to make a light meal and bring a little of what was going on outside to my kitchen table. I'm still not quite ready to start the mornings with something warm and comforting, but I know it's coming. I had a breakfast the other day that was entirely satisfying, but I was a little sad to realize how, in a few weeks time, I would surely pass it up for a bowl of stone-ground oatmeal to help me ward off the autumn morning chill.

Anyway, here are a couple pictures of summer breakfasts past, and a recipe for the best scrambled eggs I've ever made -- which, unlike white pants or the perfect peach, can be easily accessorized to fit all four seasons.

simple and yum

polenta with heavy, oozy, supersweet peaches

scrambled eggs, dressed for summer (Mediterranean summer, apparently)

Scrambled Eggs

3 things inspired this recipe:

1. My dear friend Rachel got me Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Parties! for my birthday. Ina manages to make everything more delicious than it would have been without her intervention, and scrambled eggs are no exception: she adds heavy cream and serves them with parmesan cheese. Duh.
2. In a recent conversation with my friend Jason, truly the most gastronomically knowledgeable person I know, we traded fun facts we had learned from Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking, a tome of endless nuggets about the inner workings of food. When I offered up the best way to cope with a wasabi attack (inhale through nose, exhale through mouth), he countered with McGee's method for perfect scrambled eggs: double boiler. I scoffed at this. Scrambled eggs are the humblest of breakfasts, at home in small town diners, dormitory dining commons, and even harried home kitchens. I simply can't get behind that kind of fuss for such a unfussy dish. But I got the point: slow cooking, constant stirring. The resulting texture is transcendent.
3. I have a bag of cotija cheese in my refrigerator right now. What the hell am I supposed to do with a bag of cotija cheese? (This is not a rhetorical question by the way -- I am open to suggestions.) Anyway, it kind of looks like parmesan.

2 eggs
1/2 Tbs cream (half-and-half or milk will do)
1/2 Tbs crumbled cotija cheese (in a pinch, substitute parmesan or crumbled feta)
small pat butter
salt and pepper to taste

Whisk eggs, cream, and cheese in a small bowl. Melt butter in a skillet over low heat. Add eggs, and cook stirring constantly, until eggs have thickened, but not completely hardened. Season with salt and pepper.

Serves 1