Italian, by way of Iran, in Westwood: Cafe Glacé Persian Pizza

Even though I've lived among Iranians all my life here in Los Angeles, my trip to Turkey made me think about my relationship to my culture in a whole host of new ways.  Neighboring Iran, it's the closest I've ever been to my native country since I was a baby, and there were so many things that felt familiar, so many experiences that pulled me back to tiny moments from my childhood, which for the first time had context.  Meanwhile, being around plenty of Iranians who were actually there from Iran, who didn't have have 'hyphen American' tacked on to their nationality, gave me a taste of how out-of-touch I am with Iran today.  Then, two amazing conversations I had there in Persian, one with an Afghan who left his country for Turkey as a child, and one with a young Iranian guy who'd only been in Turkey a few months, had such a strong effect on me that I'm still trying to process exactly why, especially considering my own relationship with Iranian-Americans here at home has always been a little tenuous.  All the while though, I wasn't in Iran, I was in Turkey, and as comfortable and familiar as it felt, there was the constant reminder that I was very much a foreigner in this land: Turkish is a language with which I'm completely unfamiliar.

Amid all this ruminating and cultural confusion, a trip to a restaurant in Westwood's 'Tehrangeles' quarter called Cafe Glacé -- a phrase that fills me with nostalgia -- that serves something called Persian pizza -- a concept I didn't know existed -- fits right in.  I've waxed sentimental about Persian cuisine (all over this blog, for one thing) for ages. But what I know of it is what came with us to the United States over 30 years ago: the food cooked at home, the traditional dishes of rice, heady spices, tangy fruits, and grilled meats passed down from mother to daughter in humble family kitchens.

Friends, there is a major gap in my knowledge of Iranian cuisine.  I'm behind the times.  How could I possibly know about modern Iranian street food?  Evidently, pizza places are a common occurence in cities like Tehran and especially Shiraz.  And, like in the United States, pizza in Iran has taken on an identity of its own, a far cry from its Italian roots.  (Side note: why does everyone appropriate -- and bastardize -- Italian food?  I had "spaghetti" in Tokyo that was dressed with corn, octopus, cream sauce, and seaweed.  All in one dish.  Wha?  Side note to side note:  The fork-twirling skills of the clientele at said Tokyo spaghetti joint, accustomed to eating with chopsticks, put me to serious shame.)

The pizza I tried tonight had no sauce.  It was personal-sized, on a thin but soft and substantial crust.  The toppings, pretty much chosen for me, included chopped green peppers and tomatoes, thin slices of mushroom, and meat in the form of chopped kalbas and discs of saucise (baloney and hot dog, respectively), and were packed in to the very edges of the crust.  All of this was topped with a layer of cheese, then browned fast and at high temperature, resulting in vegetables that stayed bright and just barely cooked under a puffy layer of crisp browned cheese.  Evidently the Tehran cool kids squirt these guys generously with ketchup and ranch dressing -- bizarre to me, but I must admit, it works.  Persian pizza is not the high cuisine of the shahs, but you know what?  It's really satisfying.

What else are the cool kids in Iran eating these days?  Well, if the menu at Cafe Glacé is any indication, they enjoy chips o paneer, potato chips topped with melted mozzarella cheese (and more ketchup and ranch, obvs); and carrot juice floats, two scoops of vanilla ice cream in a tall glass with carrot juice poured over.  Freshly squeezed juices, along with a handful of French-bread sandwiches -- hot dog, salad olivieh (a mayonnaise-laden salad of chicken, potatoes, and pickles), and kotlet (fried patties of ground meat and potatoes) -- round out the list, along with the namesake dessert: a float of ice cream in a tall glass of milky iced coffee, walking the line between milkshake and affogato.

I really wanted to try the bizarro carrot juice and ice cream combo, but the heavy entrees left room only for tea and a shared zoulbia.  We sipped and took in the scene all around us:  tables of young Iranians -- some with veils, some with dreads -- collectively burning their tongues on sizzling-hot cheese and commenting cattily on the cosmetic surgery choices of every hot new JLo-esque Persian pop starlet crooning in highly produced music videos on the flatscreen behind the counter.  As soon as I got into my car, I put on my favorite Persian pop, too.  Shahram Shabpareh's Diyar, Persian pop circa 1980.

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Cafe Glacé is at 1441 Westwood Blvd., about 5 blocks south of Wilshire.
The Los Angeles Times writes about Cafe Glacé

Summer Vacation: Ceviche Tostada at Mariscos Sinaloa

When I came back from Turkey, I still had a few glorious days of vacation to do whatever I want:  namely, drive around and enjoy sunny Los Angeles, unfettered by the restrictions of a nine-to-five, getting home in time to fall into intense death-like slumber at weird hours of the day.  One morning, I had an errand to run in Highland Park (OK, said errand was to take advantage of this vacation time to finally go to Galco's Soda Pop Stop, a fascinating little shop with a million different bottles of soda from around the world.  I went to get this limited edition reissue (can a soda be reissued?) of an old Highland Park cream soda.  It was good.), and quickly realized I needed lunch.

Yelp iPhone app to the rescue, I discovered amazing Mariscos Sinaloa.  A reminder of how easy it is to find excellent, cheap Mexican food in this city if you just step out of the hipster vortex a little (and bring your Yelp app).  Their shrimp ceviche tostada, at about $3.50, was so fresh and bright:  a pretty giant mound of tangy shrimp, tomatoes, chopped onions and cilantro (I know.  I used to hate it, too.  It actually grew on me) piled on a crisp tostada.  Perfect lunch on a sunny LA summer vacation day.

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Mariscos Sinaloa is at 5633 York Blvd. in Highland Park
Galco's is at 5702 York Blvd.

what can i say?

totally planning to write last night. scheduled it in for days, had even made tea.  there would be fascinating stories about our istanbul food tour, and how i've brought turkish eating home.  but then comes a "wanna meet for a glass of wine?" IM.  so i went to covell, and had some rare fancy rosé: 10 cases in the whole US, and 2 of them are at covell. the unicorn of rosés.

i mean...it's summer!  can you blame me?

back with real stuff soon, i promise!

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thanks to Robert S. Donovan for the photo

my sister's house

There is always a basket filled with a variety of teabags in my sister's kitchen.

My brother-in-law Ray doesn't mind that I use his "Ray" mug, even though it says "Ray" on it.  It's from Hawaii.  It's my favorite. 

There is a giant glass apothecary jar in the cabinet filled with Cheerios, are there are situations like this happening on the wall.

These are good things when you have jetlag and are up at 5 o'clock in the morning.

When the kids finally wake up, they snuggle with you and let you hang out with their toes.

It's a cozy kind of place.

Turkey: We Should Probably Start With Breakfast

So, back in town to LA and happy to report gratitude is back in droves.  And not just in a all-my-limbs-intact, able-to-pay-the-bills kind of way, but, and I fear jinxing it, feeling actually lucky.  In the random-person-offers-me-boat-ride-to-perfect-mediterranean-bay-for-no-reason kind of way.  Like, that actually happened.  So many things happened on this trip, it was so packed with moments, chance meetings with interesting people, instant connections, incredible coincidences, that they all piled on top of each other, so densely that I'm overwhelmed with the task of processing it all.  But one thing was consistent and easy to report from our trip to Turkey:  breakfast.  It was the same every day, and every day it was heaven.  So, let's start at the beginning.  Let's talk about breakfast.

Turks are very serious about breakfast, and every place you stay will include "Traditional Turkish Breakfast" in your room rate.  There were definitely variations, but the basics are this:

- Bread.  Typically, crusty slices from a French-style loaf, though we happily got wheat bread on some occasions.
 - Tomatoes.  The tomatoes we had during this trip were consistently delicious.
 - Cucumbers.
 - Olives.  Usually black, slightly shriveled, and very salty.  Sometimes green ones too.
 - Cheese.  Usually beyaz peynir, Turkish "white cheese", but sometimes you get a selection.
 - Butter.
 - Honey or jam.
 - Tea.  Lots of it.  Turkish çay is poured quite strong, and is usually served in tiny narrow-waisted glasses. 


At our hostel in Istanbul, breakfast was served at the bar on the rooftop terrace. 

Every day the tomatoes were perfect.  Every day we sat at this table.

The view to our left looked like this.

One of the most awesome things we did on this trip was a day-long food tour with Istanbul Eats.  I can't recommend it highly enough, and it will get its own post here soon.  But in the meantime, we started the day with breakfast -- traditional Turkish breakfast, of course -- at an old local spot in the dreamy Cihangir neighborhood called Özkonak.  It's known for a sweet pudding that secretly houses finely shredded chicken breast, but for us, they laid out a perfect breakfast spread.

Here we discovered something new:  kaymak.  (Note, it's the one next to the tomato and cucumber plate in the photo above.)  It's an amazingly delicious dairy product similar to clotted cream.  It's very rich, and has that complex creamy taste that you simply will not find in American dairy products.  Spread some on a bite of bread, top with honey, swoon.  Oh, kaymak.

We also met menemen, an egg dish with a sauce of tomatoes and mild green peppers.  Similar to the shakshuka we know and love from Israel and the rest of the Middle East, it has an equally adorable name.

And then there's sucuk (pronounced "soo-JOOK".  'C' is pronounced like 'j' in Turkish.  Just accept it now, so we can move on).   Heavily spiced, fatty, garlicky beef sausage.  I couldn't get enough of it. (PS I want these little handled pans in my life!)

The next day was Sunday, and our new Istanbulite friend Evren, whom we had met Thursday night, graciously invited us to breakfast on the Bosphorus.  She is a woman with great love for her beautiful city, and wanted to make sure we experience its tradition of laid-back Sunday breakfast on the waterfront.  We went to a place called Sade Kahve ("Plain Coffee") in the Bebek neighborhood: a colorful spot, all outdoors, under a tent, across the street from the beautiful Bosphorus Strait.  The spread was so dreamy: all the basics were there, including beloved kaymak (thank God), this time drenched in honey; as well as a couple extra cheeses, and a new variety of cold cut.  The vegetables were a little fancier, as they included long mild green peppers and fresh parsley.  Here, we ordered eggs with sucuk, and they came fried together in a copper pot, runny yolks perfect for sopping up with bread.  A serious highlight that you can bet will be gracing my LA kitchen (not that it'd ever taste the same... sigh).

After Istanbul, we went to Kapadokya (Cappadocia if you prefer.  The Turkish way is easier to spell, so I'm sticking with it.), a magical desert with crazy rock formations called fairy chimneys (!!) which have been carved into cave homes and monasteries, underground cities, and ancient cathedrals over the centuries.  We were extremely lucky to stay at the Kismet Cave House, a small and homey guest house with beautiful rooms furnished with the work of local artisans, and rustic farm breakfast on the terrace every morning.

Tiny apples and apricots were clearly from someone's tree.

Homemade yogurt sat in a clay pot.

And beside it, a glass and wood box held honey, complete with honeycomb.  It hardened like candy the second you pulled some out from the box.

On the first morning, Shukru, the sweet Afghan guy who worked there every day and who spoke to me in Persian with his cute Afghani accent, came around with French toast for all.

On the second day, we got the most amazing treat of all:  fresh cream that came from the cow of Faruk, the hotel's owner, that very morning.  I can't believe I had this experience.  It kind of makes my heart swell.  And my God, it was one of the most delicious things I've ever tasted.

Oh, and tea!  Always tea.  The Turkish word for breakfast is kahvalti, which means "before coffee".  With breakfast, you have tea.  After breakfast, maybe some coffee (then again, maybe more tea).  At best, it comes in these tiny, curvy glasses, the sexiest bit of glassware I've ever seen. 

Our last stop before going back to Istanbul was Olimpos, a little vacation village consisting of a single valley leading through evergreen forest to the Mediterranean.  The valley is lined with 'pensions', modest hotels usually consisting of wooden bungalows to sleep in, and a big open-air common area for meals, drinks, and hanging out.  We stayed at the Orange Pansiyon, a cozy spot that felt like Turkish working-class family summer camp to us.  So, here's traditional Turkish breakfast, summer-camp style.

Look familiar?

Breakfast at Orange means tea for the masses. Sometimes, Turkish tea is not about daintiness: this contraption allows three big teapots to steep over boiling water, (similar to Persian-style tea), and a little spout on the side allows you dilute your tea with said boiling water to the strength of tea you desire.

And fifteen photos later, that's breakfast! Guys, processing this trip is gonna take a while.

On getting your gratitude back

I was having a conversation in my head last night, that I planned to have with my traveling companion -- an old good friend -- when I saw her: "what do you hope to get out of this trip?"  As soon as the thought came, I turned it around on myself.

This post is more for me than you.  These thoughts were so good, I didn't want them to just fly away.  I'm putting it in writing to hold myself accountable.  I want this trip to be about getting my gratitude back.  

In 2003, I traveled to Greece, and to this day I still think it's my favorite place I've ever been to.  Our days were simple and amazing.  After breakfast in our modest hotel room of market-bought bread, jam, and the most amazing apple juice I've ever had, we'd spend most mornings on a bus to a beach -- one day a red-sand one we'd have to hike down to, the next day a quiet white-sand shore with warm water and perfect waves.  We'd spend the day at the beach, then bus it back to Mykonos town in the afternoon.  I remember on one bus ride back through empty, rural parts of the island, I found myself ignoring the conversations going on around me, and staring out the window.  As I quietly looked out at the small, sleepy towns, the simple but beautiful white and blue buildings, I realized how lucky I was.  As I wrote in my travel journal on that day, "I am so grateful for my amazing life."

These days, I've been spinning.  Between the ups and downs of work and the ups and downs of life, not to mention an ever-present internet that manages to fill every spare moment with the addictive anticipation that comes with refresh-refresh-refresh, sometimes those thoughts of gratitude -- even though I know deep down they are true -- don't quite stick.  I love being the grateful, amazed version of me, though. 

I'm excited to be going to a place where I really don't know what to expect.  I'm excited to be pulled out of a world whose daily details I have totally mastered, and be thrown into the polar opposite of that stagnancy:  new streets, new language, new everything.  I do think that our accommodations and plans will lead to encounters with a broad set of people, and this I have the highest hopes for:  nothing really gets me buzzing like that first conversational connection with someone interesting.

So, that's my hope, the raw ingredients are there, but I don't think I can force it.  My plan is to be as open as I can be -- eyes, heart, and mind -- take everything in, and make sure I have some quiet time to let it all sink in and do its magic.  When I come back, who knows, maybe I'll be a changed person.  More likely though, I'll be the 'me' I've been all along, grateful for my amazing life.

Turkey!

Friends!  I am overjoyed to report that I will be going to Turkey this week.  I'm not sure what to expect, but I'd like to think that some things that fill my trip will will be hot summer nights spent on rooftop bars overlooking the sea, beach time in a dream world that encompasses not just my beloved Mediterranean, but also the Aegean Sea, the Sea of Marmara, and the Black Sea, an exotic crossroads of Middle Eastern and European cultures, with a bit of Ottoman opulence thrown in, a world of warm and very kind people, and a place where, gloriously, food is taken very, very seriously.

I intend to come back with a brain and heart shifted by new experiences -- I kind of need that.   I couldn't be more excited for this trip, and can't wait to share pictures and stories with you when I come back!  Until then, hoşçakal!

--

Thanks to Kıvanç Niş for the beautiful photo.

Ottolenghi at animal

What do you call it when you know everything about a person and that person has no idea you exist?  Oh, stalking.  I don't remember where I first read about Yotam Ottolenghi, but that name pulled me in immediately.  I tried to make sense of it:  last name is definitely Italian, first name sounds Hebrew.  I want more info.  (I was similarly intrigued when I first of Adriano Goldschmied.  What can I say?  I love a pizza bagel.)

Needless to say, I got a little stalky.  I started scouring the internet for information.  I learned that Chef Ottolenghi is an Israeli of Italian and German descent, with a grandma who recreates her own little Tuscany there, down to the imported espresso she drinks every morning (though I am partial to the Elite brand instant coffee served in yellow mugs ubiquitous in Israeli households, I can't begrudge Ottolenghi's Italian grandmother her real-deal coffee).  I also learned that with head chef Sami Tamimi, a Palestinian who, like Ottolenghi himself, is a handsome young gay man in stylish nerd glasses, he owns a series of vegetarian restaurants in London, with huge spreads of irresistible baked goods and menus based on fresh seasonal vegetables, prepared simply to bring out their best.

There was so much to love here, and in the sunny vegetarian recipes that Ottolenghi posts on the Guardian, with their constant nods to Italian and Middle Eastern Mediterranean cuisines, that in my head I entertained ideas of going to London just so I could try his restaurant (and take pictures, and blog about it, obvs).  The food, and the stories, resonated with me in a very personal way.  So, when I found out Chef Ottolenghi was hosting a dinner right here in Los Angeles, at beloved animal, I jumped on it.  Five courses, all vegetarian fare, eached paired with wine.  (Note: four of those five were rosés, two of which where sparkling.  Wine for a summer night after my own heart.) 

goat cheese ravioli with turmeric and pink peppercorns

The preparations were simple -- not unlike the kind of food I like making for myself on a weeknight -- but were executed really well, with perfectly fresh ingredients.  Plates were easy to deconstruct.  Nothing was trying to be meat.  Really, nothing was trying to be anything other than what it was.  All of the dishes came from Ottolenghi's new vegetarian cookbook, Plenty, and for each dish, the focus was a vegetable: eggplant was cooked over open fire until it was totally soft and smokey, zucchini grilled, and tomatoes roasted to bring out their sweetness (the latter for a dish called 'tomato party'.  Who doesn't love a tomato party?), or left raw -- after all, in some cases it's best not to mess with natural beauty.  Flavor was heightened with a variety of cheeses, lemon zest, toasted nuts, and torn fresh herbs.  Everything tasted bright and alive.

tomato party!

Having said that, I have to admit: the food left me wanting a little.  Somehow the dinner's presentation -- small, sparse plates -- didn't meet up to the festive abundance you see in images of the restaurants.  Though a salad of watercress, orange blossoms, and toasted pistachios seemed to bounce off the plate with flavor, this kind of fare is a little too delicate overall to satisfy on its own.  (Fortunately, we knew a place across the street.  Please don't tell Chef Ottolenghi that we topped off his meal with a big bowl of fries at Golden State.)

milk pudding with toasted coconut and almonds

But maybe the real prize here is the chef himself: he's totally charming in person, and as you see in the notes above every recipe in his book, he's also chatty and generous with stories and tips.  We discovered that his sister lives in the same suburb of Tel Aviv as my uncle, and he mentioned to us that he went to Joan's on Third that day for lunch, and Joan wouldn't stop feeding him (she must have been thrilled at the chance to indulge in her motherly overfeeding instinct).  This latter fact makes perfect sense:  she probably sensed a kindred spirit in this Italian by way of Israel who came from London all the way to Los Angeles to teach us a thing or two about vegetables. 

All I Need is Bread and Cheese

 The concept of naan-va-paneer-va*... was a beloved one in our kitchen growing up, and when the weather is as sunny as it's been lately, the simplicity of this kind of meal is especially appealing.  You might recognize those foreign words from your local curry shop's menu, but they are the same in Persian as they are in Hindi:  naan is bread, and paneer is cheese.  Take those two -- typically it was lavash, sangak, or some other Persian flatbread, and salty feta cheese -- and add some things:  some sliced tomatoes, a few pistachios or walnuts, some cold cantaloupe, or maybe just some fruit preserves.  Something about this combination is deeply satisfying.

Today, recovering from maid of honor duties at an absolutely beautiful but extremely culinarily indulgent wedding last night (6 courses, catered by animal.  Need i say more?), I couldn't possibly stomach a lunch more substantial than naan-va-paneer.  Today's rendition included some special treats: for one, this insanely good goat's milk feta with sun-dried tomatoes purchased from at the Silver Lake Farmer's Market from the burnished old Greek man who once sang a song about my beauty while selling me cheese (I love the Greek).

Another was zaatar, a Middle Eastern blend of dried thyme and other herbs with toasted sesame seeds. You'll find zaatar in  Israeli and Lebanese food for sure; I've also had it in Jordan.  It's not a Persian ingredient.  I have a giant bag sitting in my fridge that I carried with me the last time I was in Israel (let's not talk about how long ago that was), but you can find it in Middle Eastern markets and spice shops here.

This doesn't really warrant a recipe, but here's the breakdown of today's naan-o-paneer lunch:

 - whole-wheat pita, perfectly toasted and spread with strained nonfat Greek yogurt, drizzled with olive oil, and sprinkled with flaky salt and zaatar
 - a few slices from a really good tomato, sprinkled with olive oil, lemon juice, and salt
 - a few slices of cool, crisp Asian pear
 - marinated feta with sun-dried tomatoes

The perfect beverage to go along?  Sharbat-e-golab, sweet icy rosewater ade.  I'm going to go make some right now!

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* That spelling is actually based on the 'formal' way of pronouncing those words, but in conversation you'd hear something more like noon-o-paneer-o....  And spoken conversationally, these phrases roll off the tongue in a particularly pleasant way:  noon-o-paneer-o-pesteh for pistachios, noon-o-paneer-o-talebi for cantaloupe.  If you've got an Iranian friend handy, ask her to say it so you can hear how it goes.

Our Bake Sale Family

The fifth annual No Cookie Left Behind bake sale came and went, and I'm still trying to make sense of it.  Five years in, we thought we could make this happen with our eyes closed, but actually we learned a few things this time around.  It was awesome, and a little humbling.

A personal lesson was that as much as I try every year to get an earlier start, it just doesn't work that way.  We kicked things off with an amazing brunch chez Heather Taylor, but we let it go slack from there.  Three months out, bake sale work is a slow slog, executed in a vacuum:  you get little feedback, and so there's not much to push you forward.  We're busy people.  Momentum is impossible.  But in those last couple weeks, the frenetic push to get everything done starts getting results, and that feels electric.

This year's bake sale was a little mellow.  It fell on Father's Day, so a lot of people were previously engaged.  And though we tweeted, blogged, and promoted like crazy, we didn't get the 'big press' that we usually rely on:  for various reasons outside our control, we weren't featured on Daily Candy or Good Food this year.  So, we learned.  Those things do make a difference.  Now we know.  (But don't worry: our network never lets us down and as of yesterday, we already have a connection to Evan Kleiman for next year!)

Despite the quiet though, it was a really nice bake sale.  We are so proud to have made over $3100 for Share Our Strength, and any baked goods left over from the day went straight to Hollywood's own Covenant House (note:  there is no better sight than a thuggish-looking teen walking down the street licking the frosting off a pink cupcake).

Year five brought us back a little.  Though we didn't get quite as many of those little thrills from strangers who'd heard about us from sources we didn't even know about (or New York Times photographers covering our bake sale for a story), we had a solid showing of "our people."  Friends stopped by to drop off homemade jams, or some very special popcorn, and stayed the whole afternoon, cafe-sitting and peoplewatching.  Others ate the day away, then left with a shopping bag full of even more desserts.  Our crew's enormous network of friends and family made up the bulk of the crowd, and it was really fun to see a slew of familiar faces, smiling as they enjoyed sweets, sunshine, and each other's company, all thanks to something we created.

But you know, one reason there were so few strangers is the bake sale itself.  Just as we set out, we've built a community.  In our first year, back when I was living in Miracle Mile, a new storefront was going up a block or two from me:  Kiss My Bundt Bakery.  With no knowledge of the business, I blindly sent a message to the email address on their site.  The response I got, from Chrysta Wilson, the proprietor of the shop, crystallized the vision for No Cookie Left Behind:  she came to baking from being a community organizer, and was grateful to find a way to give back.  It was that word: community. 

Chrysta donated that first year, and has every year since.  She hung out for a while this year, selling incredibly moist red velvet bundts in a jar.  So did Meg Taylor of Large Marge Sustainables.  Though her delicious catering company has blown up and is now craft services to the stars (including feeding the crew of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution -- a compliment if I've ever heard of one), she brought her amazing citrus herb shortbread as she has since year one, and stayed to chat.  Two days before the bake sale, I emailed Elizabeth Belkind of the wildly successful CakeMonkey Bakery.  Back in 2006, there was no CakeMonkey: only the dozens of dulce de leche cupcakes that Elizabeth made for No Cookie Left Behind.  This year, her business partner Lisa heeded the call, and I started the morning with a pick-up at their Burbank kitchen, wowed by the incredible smells and the trays and trays of cubed butter in their fridge! I like to think we've had CakeMonkey sweets at the bake sale since before CakeMonkey existed.  And of course there's Tai Kim.  Tai!  What can we say about this man who allows us to wreack havoc on his ice cream shop's tranquil patio year after year, then contributes generously to our cause to boot.  We love him.

And our community grows!  Between the raffle and the spread, we've brought in so many new friend-contributors over the years:  I was thrilled to meet Lauren Soloff of The Granola Project after crushing hard on her amazing kitchen when Heather did a visit for her blog (though I was more thrilled when I dumped the sesame-date-cocoa-nib granola I got at the bake sale in with some greek yogurt, cottage cheese, blood orange marmalade (another bake sale find), fresh apricot, and flax meal for breakfast yesterday.  Goodness).  Heather also introduced us to Full Moon Pickles, and I can't wait to try their Lady Marmalade, a concoction of meyer lemons and fresh ginger.  She also connected us to Holly Flora, who has been helping to make our tables beautiful with their so-special flower arrangements.  Our own Peggy contacted her friend Danielle, and a sweet hook-up occurred:  pastry chef Danielle Keene of Bittersweet Treats happens to be a Top Chef Just Desserts finalist, and kindly donated free seats in her dessert classes held on a family farm in Malibu to our raffle.  This year also brought in Cafecito Orgánico:  they've taken over the cafe next to Scoops, and were happy to caffeinate our sweets-loving crowd.  (It's all connected, by the way: the founder of Cafecito is a college friend of my friend Juan, they used to provide the beans for that old Kiss My Bundt storefront on West Third, Large Marge used to make food for this shop, and they provide my own morning coffee every Saturday at the Silver Lake Farmer's Market.  LA is not so large when there are bake sales.)  Our beloved friends at Golden State Cafe donated to the raffle for the second year running, and co-owner Jason Bernstein sent his girlfriend and his mother to buy up sweets while he worked.  See?  Family.

my personal take of jams and granola

This year, the sisters of SporkFoods were busy getting Jenny married off (the same Jenny who coined the name No Cookie Left Behind in my living room five years ago), so our vegan representation weighed a little heavy on my mind.  Then I met a smiley vegan named Amy at a party, asked if she had any leads, and an email later, Jesse and Mallori of JAM Vegan Bakery were standing outside Scoops with some of the most beautiful cupcakes we've ever seen.

That's pretty much how our bake sale goes:  if we know you, we will put you to use.  And trust us, you will like it.   Because once you're in, you're part of our No Cookie Left Behind family.  We may be a little dysfunctional, but let me tell you, our family reunions are something else.

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First two photos by Alex De Cordoba via LA In Bloom, next two by Amelia Morris.