The Hollywood Reservoir

Would you believe this is Los Angeles?

This isn't about food.  But, it's so beautiful I had to share.  Did you know that up in the hills above the most cloyingly Hollywoodish part of Hollywood, right in the shadow of the Hollywood sign, there is a huge and beautiful reservoir?  You drive up from Gower, then let yourself get totally turned around as you wind through tiny residential streets (lined with an amazingly eclectic set of houses). The city slowly fades away, and you end up in this lush green oasis with very little foot traffic (and an odd tendency towards Europeans among the small crowd who was there).  The Hollywood Reservoir is beautiful.

There's a dam with weird little bear's heads sticking out below its walkway.  There's a wide path, perfect for walking or biking, and the air smells cleanly of evergreens.  The path doesn't go all the way around: it ends where it meets residential Tahoe Street.  You could keep going on Tahoe at this point; you'd end up near Universal City (yes, the reservoir is that big).

Here's a Google Map of the reservoir.  We drove to Weidlake Drive, and parked where it meets Montlake Drive and Lake Hollywood.  You enter the premises there, and are met first with the dam.  You should go; it's lovely.

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!

LudoBites 8.0

It may seem counter to my bloggerly being, but until this latest round, I'd never attended LudoBites.  Something about all the frenzy that surrounds it makes me want to run in the other direction.   Between the phone-in hoops you have to jump through to get a reservation, and the gaggle of female bloggers who, under the 'Ludobitches' moniker, have branded themselves as groupies of happily married chef Ludo Lefebvre, it all just sounded like a scene I'd rather not deal with.   It's like my reaction to Downton Abbey -- when everyone is freaking out about something, I decide I'm too cool.  But then, one night in late January, a friend's plus-one bailed and I was invited to sit in.  And I couldn't deny my giddiness.  I got in to LudoBites!  With zero effort!  And as will no doubt be the case when I finally break down and watch Downton Abbey, I totally ate my words and thought it was amazing.

LudoBites is a really fun concept: at his whim, Chef Lefebvre takes over the kitchen at some restaurant for a very limited time, and creates a full menu of shareable items, all with his signature mix of the best ingredients combined in unexpected ways.  When I got there, the air seemed charged with the collective excitement of all the diners who made it into the fleeting pop-up.  The T-shirt-clad waitstaff provided excellent service, and affordable carafes of tasty house wine (in addition to a list of wines and beers) made you feel that, despite the high caliber of the food being served, this wasn't an ostentatious meal.  Our group of six ordered everything on the menu, and were treated to a string of strange and wonderful tastes and textures.

The meal started off with pure indulgence: chicken tandoori crackling, followed by brioche with yuzu seaweed butter.  The former, the creamiest chicken liver mousse dolloped on a square of crisp chicken skin.  Salty, fatty, mineraly goodness; tastebuds piqued, big-time.  The latter, a fluffy, buttery brick of brioche so comforting that a child would swoon over it, but spread generously with a decidedly grown-up compound butter with the bright Asian notes of yuzu and salty seaweed.  I seriously spent the rest of the meal contemplating getting an order (or nine) of the brioche to go.

One of the most elegant dishes of the night was simply called 'Scallop, Leek, Potato, Black truffles' (first photo), a combination of soft, mellow flavors, punctuated with dots of an herb sauce and pops of briny roe.  One of the most challenging was Uni Crème Brûlée, a bizarre combination of sea urchin, sweet custard, a hint of coffee, and salty salmon roe.  Once you got past the initial shock of completely uncharted culinary territory, it was actually quite delicious.

Raw beef has surely never looked as beautiful as it did in a dish of Raw Beef, Radish, Beets, Eel.  Thin slices of radish and tart green apple, and a blood-red beet puree offset the richness of the meat. 

Opulence came in the form of soup.  Based on its looks, I expected the dish of Foie Gras, Tamarin, Turnips, Daikon to be a ramen-like broth, characterized by fattiness and salt.  So, I was totally shaken by the first spoonful, with its intense tamarind sourness.  I was also taken aback by the amount of foie gras in the dish: I don't know, it was just...a lot.  Not my favorite, but others at the table loved it. 

OK, that's enough.  I realized when I wrote two epic posts on the Istanbul Eats walking tour that I don't particularly like writing posts that are endless lists of every bite.  I get bored, so I suspect you guys do, too (correct me if I'm wrong?).  Sure, there were more outstanding dishes --  an excellent red wine braised duck, perfectly cooked John Dory, and a kooky take on lemon meringue pie that tasted as delicious as it looked whimsical were just a few.  So, I offer you a link to the rest of the photos from the night, artfully shot by my date, Erin Ramos.  And instead of the itemized list, I leave you with this.

The best part of the night for me (aside from the part where in my head I decide that Chef Ludo himself designed the night's awesome 90s-hip-hop playlist) was my vantage point.  Overall, I wasn't thrilled with the space:  Lemon Moon is a cafeteria in an office complex, and the ambiance of its bright, spacious dining room just didn't match the excitement of the night.  But it has an open kitchen, and from my seat, I could watch as one chef prepped plate after plate, using an empty glass display case as his work station.  He was meticulous about every detail, and I watched as Chef Ludo peered intently over his shoulder, hanging on every drop of sauce, making sure each dish was just perfect.  In that moment, all the LudoBites fanfare made sense: every item I was served was at the highest level.  Chef Ludo and his team took great pains to achieve harmony from a wild array of complex flavors, to make every plate beautiful.  A world of mindful effort is behind every bite.  He's pulling out all the stops, putting all he has out there.  In that moment, I totally got the LudoBitches.  There is most definitely something hot about a man who works so hard to ensure that I, that all of us there, feel taken care of (and seriously, the French accent doesn't hurt, either).  This meal made me feel taken care of -- how can I dare act too cool for that?

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LudoBites' last night is tomorrow night!  Get there!

Baking Bread In Iran

UPDATE: In the last 8 hours (1-9am Los Angeles time), this tiny blog has gotten over 800 hits.  Unheard of for the blog, thrilling for the blogger.  Save a few exceptions, they are all coming from Facebook, and from all over the world.  I'm unable to see who it was that posted the link on Facebook (clearly someone with a lot of friends!), and am dying to know!  Can someone post a comment or email me and let me know?!  So, so curious!!!

UPDATE 2: A kind anonymous commenter clued me in.  David Lebovitz, who writes beautifully and hilariously about his delicious life as an ex-pat in Paris, linked to this post on his Facebook page.  Clearly Mr. Lebovitz is an influental man around these circles.  I am incredibly stoked.  Thanks for the post, and best of luck on the kitchen remodel!

And to those of you who are stopping by for the first time, welcome!  Wish I could pour each of you a cup of tea!
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When I talk to adults who grew up in Iran, the memory of warm bread, fresh from the noonva, or baker, always comes up.  It's one of those little luxuries that supermarket culture has thrown to the wayside here in the states, but in Iran, bread is still taken quite seriously.  There are just certain ways with Persian bread -- tearing off pieces of the thin lavash that's laid underneath skewers of kabob right off the grill, yellow with saffron and saturated with the rich, seasoned juices from the meat; or splitting open a piece of warm, sesame-specked barbari, spreading it with sarshir, Persian clotted cream, and a spoonful of homemade strawberry preserves -- that you simply aren't going to achieve with your old Wonder bread.  There's also rich and slightly sweet shirmal, taftoon, lightly spiced with saffron, and sangak, with its yummy bits of  char and sprinkling of nigella seeds.
Anissa Helou, a food writer I was first introduced to via her beautiful Mediterranean Street Food cookbook years ago, has a great blog that exposes little bits of the world of Middle Eastern food that we'd probably never be privy to without her.  (She also features a Belly Dancer of the Month, so obviously, she has my heart.)  Today's post tells us about a story she's written for the March issue of Saveur on Iranian food (you can bet I'll be picking this up), and she included a couple videos of Iranian bakers in action.  It's worth checking out: I love how fluidly and rhythmically the three men in the top clip move through each other's space, just like interconnected cogs in a machine.

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Thanks to mohammadali and kamshots for the photos.

A New Look!

I'm really excited about the little housecleaning tear that went on here.  I loved the look that lovely Heather at CheekyDesign had done a few years back, but minimalist urges came creeping in, and I wanted a clean, white space where I could post larger photos.  The header image is of my own kitchen.  I have a lot of love for that particular spot as it's where, over the past couple years, I've come to discover that I can pretty much create anything I want.  Grab a jar from the shelf up top, pull a bowl from the hook, and turn a bunch of ingredients into something that brings smiles and nourishment, and keeps my apartment feeling like a home (Beloved tea and coffee also start here).  On the best days, it feels like my studio, and I try to share that here.  So, please, make yourself at home!

I trust Thom Yorke when it comes to matters of the heart.  He tells us that true love waits, and if you're reading this after my 3-month disappearance from this place, I appreciate that you're still here!  On this Valentine's Day, thanks for waiting; thanks for true loving me.  I totally true love you back.

Dinner, Local: Harvest Spoon

Nights like tonight are pretty magical (what, you thought I had disappeared?).

It's weird that we haven't talked about Meg here, because actually, she's spectacular.  Meg Taylor is the woman behind Large Marge Sustainables, and when she's not feeding the crew of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, or crafting her catering company's newsletters, each of which closes with poetry, she's finding ways to feed anyone she can find, every bite laden with love and magnanimity.

Meg's foods resonate with her beliefs: community building, protecting the environment, including everyone, and eating well.  She works with school gardens, contributes to bake sales (her insane lemon rosemary shortbread has been gracing our No Cookie Left Behind bake sale since its first year), creates neighborhood picnics and dinners, and more, always serving satisfying, delicious food on real, non-disposable dishes, regardless of venue.

Tonight was the start of the latest expression of Meg's heart, Harvest Spoon / Cosecha Cuchara.  In her words, the concept was "to create an opportunity for communities to connect, form deeper bonds, and intersect with other communities in public spaces over local-garden-sourced dinner, discussion and performance," and this dinner in the park delivered exactly that.  

local lemons

The food wasn't merely local, but actually community sourced:  greens and citrus came from the gardens of attendees, and Meg whipped up a totally satisfying vegan and gluten-free meal (after all, everyone was included) with warming soups, hearty mains, and bourbon-spiked dessert.

jam jars for soup

Conversation ranged from greywater recycling and soil additives to providing food for Occupy LA, and the same guy who was helping us carry giant pots of cauliflower soup from truck to table at the beginning of the night was later going wild on a Spanish guitar as we all huddled together in blankets to keep warm.  It was that kind of night.

I feel strongly about using food as a vehicle to build community (this is not news).  I love the fact that I'm not the only one. 

Blowing Your Mind with Broccoli

Guys, it's a saladbook recipe.  Are you excited?  Well, you should be.  I mean, there is no salad, there is no book.  But there is broccoli.

And as it's touted by the blog post where I first discovered it, it's truly the best broccoli of your life.  (Incidentally, said blog -- the Amateur Gourmet, which was a pretty lovable blog to begin with, just got better: its writer, Adam, has just moved to Los Angeles from New York, and it's pretty fascinating seeing to see the city I know and love through the wide, hungry eyes of a newcomer.  Imagine discovering Thai Town, Zankou Chicken, or beloved Gjelina, for the first time all over again!  And this sweet soul hasn't even tried the Golden State burger yet!  Ah, so much to look forward to!)

Anyway, roasting broccoli with bits of garlic in the oven until its little tendrily 'leaves' become crisp and browned and totally heightened in savory flavor is the absolute most delicious way to eat broccoli ever.  Super easy to make, too -- major return on investment.  Tonight, I tossed the broccoli with some whole-grain fettucine to turn it into a meal.

The spirit of the saladbook is simple homey meals that don't sacrifice taste, but still maintain a good balance of vegetables, whole grains, and good protein.  I hit the first two, but to get some protein in there, I added some parmesan cheese (yeah cheese is kind of fatty, but good parmesan adds huge flavor with a small portion), and some chopped pecans.  I think pine nuts would actually be better, but I dealt with evil car dealership issues so horrendous today that I had to resort to a salted caramel mocha frappuccino.  With whipped cream.  And that insane starbucks caramel sauce.  Heaven.  All of which is to say is that going to the store after work was no-way-no-how going to happen.  Thus, chopped pecans from the freezer.  This recipe also happens to be vegetarian (vegan if you omit the parmesan).  Of course, you could change that.  Remember our old friend Adam from paragraph one?  Sometimes he throws some shrimp into the oven with his broccoli.  Might be even tastier than salted caramel mocha frappuccino.


Pasta with Roasted Broccoli

My sister swears by the browned bits of garlic in this recipe ("They're like candy", she says), and she may have converted me.  So, by all means, feel free to use more.  And on the topic of proportions, I won't tell you what to eat and what not to eat (oh wait), but consider what lovely Mark Bittman has to say about flipping the pasta-to-topping ratio.  He makes a good point.

1 1/2 c broccoli florets, rinsed and fully dried
1 clove garlic, chopped
extra virgin olive oil (use a tasty one; it's a simple recipe)
1 sensible portion whole-grain pasta (I used fettucine)
1/4 cup pine nuts or  chopped pecans
1/2 lemon
parmesan cheese

Bring a pot of water to a boil; preheat oven or toaster oven to 425F.  Line a baking pan with foil and add broccoli.  Drizzle with olive oil; toss to coat.  Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and garlic, and toss again to combine.  Roast broccoli for about 15-20 minutes.

In the meantime, cook pasta according to package directions, then drain, reserving some of the cooking water.

Start checking on the broccoli at about 15 minutes.  When it's bright green, cooked through but still crisp, and just beginning to brown, add in the nuts, give the pan a toss, and cook for another 3 minutes.

Toss pasta with broccoli mixture (you can use the same pot you used to cook the pasta).  Add some more olive oil, salt, and pepper.  If it's dry, add a spoonful or two of the reserved pasta water.  Squeeze on some lemon juice.  Top, on the plate, with grated or shaved parmesan cheese.

Cold Weather Saladbook: Indianish Red Lentils

For a minute there, it was fall.

Like, pouring rain and sweaters, bona fide fall.  Of course, this being October in Los Angeles, it lasted all of two days, and was followed closely by a heat wave (It's gonna be 98 today.  wtf, mate?).  As much as I obsess over the glory that is summer, and as amazing as this particular summer was, it also involved a lot of constant sweatiness and insect bites, so I was glad to feel some cooler air.

I embraced it by cooking one of my favorite cozytimes recipes, red lentils simmered until creamy with warm spices, lots of vegetables, and a dollop of rich yogurt on top.  It's a good fridge-cleaner-outer,  it's vegetarian (vegan if you omit the yogurt, though that'd be a little sad), and if you're smart about the spices, is an incredibly cheap meal.  I'm not authority on Indian cuisine, so I can't vouch for authenticity here, but with curry powder, cumin, turmeric, and fresh ginger spicing this one up, I can safely say it's Indianish.  It's great in a bowl as is, but you could certainly serve it over brown rice (which makes it a lot less Indianish, but white rice would make it very un-saladbookish, so there you go).

Indianish Red Lentils

You can adjust the spices based on your tastes and what you have on hand.  Curry powder is a blend in itself, but I like to beef it up with extra cumin (a favorite), and turmeric because it's good for you.  Oh, and don't skip this recipe just because you don't have fresh ginger on hand.  Just skip the ginger (and maybe use dried instead?).  As far as vegetables, I used cauliflower, spinach, and halved grape tomatoes this time, but it varies every time.

olive oil for the pan (about a teaspoon)
1/2 onion, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic
2 tsp fresh grated ginger (optional)
2 tsp curry powder
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp turmeric
chili, if you're into it (i'm not)
1 bay leaf

Vegetables (use a lot; vegetables are good for you):
broccoli or cauliflower, small florets
carrots, small dice
spinach -- fresh or frozen, chard, or kale, roughly chopped
tomatoes, diced
peas, fresh or frozen

3 cups broth (I am partial to vegetarian "no-chicken" broths)
1 cup red lentils
lowfat or nonfat Greek or other thick yogurt, about 1 tbs per person

Makes about 3 servings, more if served with brown rice.

Heat olive oil in a medium-sized pot, over medium heat.  Add onions, stir to coat, and cook until translucent.  Stir in garlic, ginger, and spices, cook for another couple minutes (your kitchen will smell amazing at this point).  At this point, add in cauliflower and/or carrots, as well as lentils and broth.  Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until lentils are soft and creamy, and most of the liquid has been absorbed.  If the mixture gets too dry before the lentils are fully cooked, just stir in  a bit more broth (or water).  Stir in remaining vegetables, continue to simmer until they are just cooked through (this time can vary from just a couple minutes for spinach to longer for broccoli or kale).  Ladle into individual bowls, and top each with a spoonful of yogurt.

Istanbul Eats Culinary Walks: Part 2

Guys!  I left it on that silly punch post and weepy Regina Spektor and not much else, because I'm surrounded by business right now.  A few weekends ago, I was so lucky to be a part of a truly beautiful wedding that took over the sweet old mining town of Bisbee, Arizona, then I baked two crazy awesome spiced honey bundts for Rosh Hashana that I'll want to share with you, and then Yom Kippur happened, which is kind of antithetical to food blogging by nature, no?  And, yet there's still so much from Turkey!  Aaahh!  Someone needs to come up with some cutesy portmanteau to describe the constant state of blog-overhwelmedness in which I live.

In the meantime, maybe you remember Part 1 of this story of our dreamland day with Angelis and our Istanbul Eats team; here's the rest, finally! When last we left off, we were stuffing our faces with baklava.  Naturally, next was Turkish coffee, and a sad lesson about today's Istanbul.

 We went to Mandabatmaz, a thimble of a shop that has been serving nothing but Turkish coffee for decades. This stop  highlighted something very troubling going on in Istanbul.  Step out on any evening, and you'll notice that the city is alive with sidewalk culture -- every cafe, every restaurant spills out into sidewalk tables, and in centers like Taksim Square, there's hardly room to walk between people sitting at long tables outside, eating, smoking, peoplewatching, catching up with friends.  It's beautiful and fundemental to the character of Istanbul.  However, while we were there, the government had begun cracking down on sidewalk seating.  Something about permits and licenses, but Istanbulites are all pretty convinced that it's just another step towards a conservative Turkey.  It's hard to watch it happen:  I was immediately impressed by this Muslim country that has seemed to strike the perfect balance between maintaining its religious essense and leaving room for a more liberal lifestyle.  Side streets tightly packed with people breaking bread, laughing, drinking wine or coffee, were now barren.  At Mandabatmaz, the proprietor had brought in all but a fraction of their outdoor seating, and all five of us nearly had to squeeze into the tiny shop itself.  We took a chance and sat outside, and over tiny cups of strong and richly fragrant coffee, Angelis shared with us the worry that we would keep hearing from Istanbulites:  "Istanbul is a living city... and they are killing it."

Next up was Ficcin, one of three restaurants from the same owner that take up a block off Istiklal Caddesi -- the main boulevard of Istanbul's cosmopolitan center.  Once again, we sat inside, while a couple waiters kicked a ball up and down a street that used to be crowded with tables and chairs.  Ficcin's specialty is Circassian food -- the cuisine of the Caucasus Mountains.  Here we sampled a tasty Circassian chicken spread, a strangely named but delicious sea vegetable called common glasswort, and the celebrated manti -- hand-filled ravioli-like dumplings served with a yogurt sauce, and sprinkled with powdered sumac berries and dried herbs.   Yum. 

Lunch number two: Sahin Lokantasi. The hero of Istanbul Eats is the lokantasi, humble places serving a constantly changing menu of homey Turkish favorites to the working class, and this cramped, bustling spot was a prime example.  Here we got a spread of stews, vegetables, various delicious eggplant/meat combos, and more, all totally satisfying.

Our third lunch and final stop was at Akdenis Kokorec, which Angelis had warned us about.   Kokorec is a street treat made from lamb intestines and their surrounding fat.  It's slow-roasted on a rotisserie, then a portion is carved off and chopped up.  Chopped tomatoes and peppers are added along with spices, the whole mess is grilled again, and then scooped into a sandwich roll.  If you can get past the nature of what you're eating, it's got the texture and strong savory, salty flavor of a hash, Despite my being a little wigged out by what I was eating, I could see how this would hit the spot late at night.

And that was our last stop.  Painfully full, but still in great spirits, we ended our day of marathon eating as all good ones should: with hugs, heartfelt goodbyes, and lamb intestines.

Personal revelation digression:  Lately, I've been thinking a lot about a certain type of person. It's the type who has gotten past 'shoulds' that they've learned second-hand, who's explored their world for themselves, drawn their own conclusions, and ended up at an openness that allows them to get past the things they might judge -- be it a person's religion, or who a person chooses to love (as if it's a choice) -- and to instead see people with pure eyes.  They live their life honestly and with integrity, and build their path based on no one's rules but their own.  I feel myself more and more becoming one of these people, and every time an old 'should' is challenged and defeated, I have a moment of glowy happiness that sometimes brings me to tears.  Something similar happens when I realize I've met someone else like this.  A few moments after our tour ended, hugs, kisses, and email addresses exchanged, Ashley and I were walking down Istiklal Caddesi -- the main artery of cosmopolitan Istanbul.  Standing in the middle of the wide, carless boulevard, I remembered something Angelis had said when we asked him about coming to the United States.  He acknowledged a nagging 'should'.  "I may not be in the Land of Opportunity," he said, "but here in Istanbul, my soul is filled."  I beamed a little.

samson

I've listened to this song a million times -- Pandora plays it a lot for me --, but yesterday decided I love it, and it sucked me into a wormhole of wikipedia and songmeanings dot net, and I know it's not cool to like Regina Spektor these days, but I still hold a candle for old Tori Amos, too, so I guess any illusion of that kind of coolness is out the window anyway.

So I buy it and download it today before an upheaval house-cleaning, because it's one of those songs I want badly to sing along to.  And then what happens is, as I clean the bathroom sink, I remember what I read yesterday -- that Samson is about a lover of hers who had cancer -- so when the verse comes around, lyrics I've heard a million times, recall -- "Samson went back to bed, Not much hair left on his head, He ate a slice of wonder bread and went right back to bed" -- I look into the bathroom mirror to see eyes shiny with tears and that ugly, strained look on my face.  Go on cleaning, but soon, singing along is not even a possibility as I'm gasping back all-out tears as I sweep the bathroom floor (take the song off freaking repeat, Tannaz!).

And I guess the lesson, or the question, here is, would I have been better off just listening along with blind ears and not knowing what I was humming about?  Maybe I would.  I mean, is it really worth our energy to cry over the stories of strangers?  Seriously, maybe not.  I know, not the most uplifting message.  So, let's just say this is a story of the powerful forces of music, and leave it at that.

Here's the song if you want; it's beautiful.