Michelin Guide Star Winners Wrap up

Ghosts in Vegas
ghosts on the Vegas strip


MICHELIN STAR ROUND UP:
Michelin Starred Las Vegas restaurants

***Three star: Joël Robuchon
**Two Star: Alex, Guy Savoy, Picasso
*One Star: Alizé, Andre’s (Downtown), Aureole, Bradley Ogden, Daniel Boulud Brasserie, DJT, L’Ateilier de Joël Robuchon, Le Cirque, Michael Mina, miX, Nobu, Restaurant Charlie, Wing Lei

LOS ANGELES
**Two star: Melisse, Providence, Spago, Urasawa

*One star: Asanebo, Bastide, CUT, The Dining room at the Langham, Gordon Ramsay at the London, Hatfield’s, Le Botte, Mori Sushi, Ortolan, Osteria Mozza, Patina, Sona, Sushi Zo, Trattoria Tre Venezie, Valentino, Water Grill

Notes from the Road: A road trip with Eater LA

Vegas Baby Vegas!
from Mikep on flickr

A helicopter hovers above the smoldering San Bernadino mountains as the car speeds West on the 15 highway. I’m riding shotgun in the car of Los Angeles’ most powerful food gossip, Lesley Balla. Our destination: the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas for the Michelin Restaurant Guide awards party.

As the voice of Eater LA—the restaurant industry’s main resource for insider information–Balla is a powerful media presence that restaurateurs solicit and avoid, depending on the ever fluctuating status of their business operations. Today, I’m hoping to witness what Balla does best, finding stories in the daily details and dramas of every day life in the restaurant business.

Balla fights to keep her car at race-car speed, as the gale force Santa Anna crosswinds threaten to nudge the Honda off the highway. I hold a crumpled tissue against my nose as the dust and wind tickle my allergies and make my eyes well up with false tears. Balla eyes me with concern as she flips on air vent, hoping not to catch whatever ails me.

For two strangers on a road trip, the four-hour drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas offers an even amount of time for two chatty women to get to know each other. The burning hills blur as we compare dining experiences and trade stories about the formative moments that made us dedicate our lives to writing. We cackle as we share off the record stories of lost chefs, addled servers, demanding restaurant customers and restaurant gossip too juicy for either of us to contemplate even writing about.

As we travel the straight path of highway to Vegas, I realize it’s been ten years since my last (albeit brief) visit to the gambler’s city. A decade ago, I stopped in Las Vegas–for the nanosecond it took to lose my one lucky dollar in a slot machine–during a cross-country journey from my home in Massachusetts to an unknown future in writing in LA. In just ten years, glossy food magazines and industry insiders like Balla describe Las Vegas as a culinary city transformed where the all-you-can-eat buffets have been replaced by Michelin starred chefs from all over the world.

By the time we arrive at the towering Wynn Hotel, a causal observer might mistake Balla and I as old friends. We step from the car wearing a matching California uniform of faded jeans, baggy shirts and flip-flops and a road weary look that only four hours in a car can give. Once inside as we check in, it becomes clear that even if Balla never considers me BFF material, I am about to become the very lucky, second hand beneficiary of Balla’s media clout.

lobby of Winn towers

A bright-eyed hotel staffer joins us at the check in desk and insists on leading us to our rooms. The chirpy blonde leads us through of Wynn’s ornate lobby of polished gold and mirrors. I wince in embarrassment as I notice the snapping of my rubber flip-flops against the white marble floors. Our tour ends on the 11th floor when the young woman hands us each a set of keys to our two-bedroom suite overlooking the hotel’s extravagant four pools. Within minutes of her departure, a flock of hotel staffers arrive with plates of charcuterie and aged cheeses and lush bouquets of yellow roses and green orchids. Pardon us, they say. Would we mind if they came in? Mind? Are you kidding me?

Though there may be gaming rooms and three-star restaurants beckoning, Balla can think of nothing but blog deadlines. “I’ve got six more posts to do for the day,” she says as she methodically plugs in her laptop and starts typing. “I want to be done in enough time so we can grab some dinner before the party.” I check my watch. It’s 11 o’clock in the afternoon.

bedroom at the Wynn

Michelin Guide Party set up

From my separate bedroom, I can hear Lesley clicking away at her computer while mid-day sunbathers lounge on white beach chairs eleven stories below us. Feeling guilty for not being a better journalistic side-kick, I scan the Internet for breaking restaurant news. I hope to find a news brief worthy enough to lighten Lesley’s blogging load, but as the hours pass and the shadow of the towering Wynn casts an early dusk on the pools below, I find am no further along in my search than when I started. Every lead I follow tracks back to Eater LA. And, despite my dogged attempts, every possible news source I search has already been picked clean by the woman blogging in the room next to me.

TWELVE POSTS TO PUT TO BED

By five o’clock, I’m still waiting for Balla to finish. For entertainment, I step onto the bathroom scale and, thanks to the fluffy rug underneath, the scale announces a series of false weights for me: 96 lbs., 88 lbs. I giggle at my childish thoughts that maybe, just maybe, the Wynn Hotel is a truly magical place with powers to revert me to my original teenage packaging. My childish dreams shatter quickly, after I move the scale onto the hard marble floor. The balanced equipment tells me in cold, digital numbers that not only am I quite a bit more than 100 pounds, it’s time for me to go on a diet.

With just a few minutes to spare before our dinner reservations, Lesley finishes with her final post of the day. She’s glowing as she steps into the room wearing a crisp black jacket and midnight-blue jeans. Her hair is wavy, like a Roman goddess, and she smiles like a woman sprung from jail. “Let’s get a glass of champagne!” she says as she sashays out of the room and makes a beeline for the elevator.

hallway of the Wynn towers

We talk about the months she spent researching the restaurant, hotel, and nightlife scene in Las Vegas for a project she once worked on as we walk the footbridge to the Palazzo Hotel. Half way across the bridge she stops. “My shoes are already killing me,” she says with a frown. Then, in the blink of an eye, she shrugs and keeps walking at her usual break-neck pace. “Guess I’ll just have to start the night with a martini, then.”

UFO at Trump

MORE TOMORROW…

Amy Sedaris on Cookthink

Courtesy ThinkFilm/Warner Bros. Entertainment

Amy Sedaris is one funny bitch.*

Known to many as the odd-ball sister of the odd-duck author, David Sedaris, Amy Sedaris is many things–an outrageous comedian, unhinged actress, author, and quirky pastry chef.

Today in a Q & A with Cookthink, an on line food magazine, Amy Sedaris is asked about her love for food. In a classic Sedaris response to being asked what she would like to die with in her stomach, she replied, “a knife.”

More of the Cookthink interview

Cookthink: If heaven exists, what do you hope they have on the menu?
Sedaris: Spirits

Cookthink: If you came back as a fruit or a vegetable, which one would it be?
Sedaris: Strawberry. I like the idea of seeds on the outside.

The Hollywood Reporter announced today that David Letterman’s production company penned a deal with Sedaris and her “Stranger’s with Candy” writing/acting partner, Paul Dinello. The pair will create, write, and star in an unnamed series for 20th Century Fox. Let’s hope the show has something to do with food or her obsession with her pet rabbit. Then again…Knowing Sedaris, she might mix the two obsessions together and cook her beloved rabbit for comedy’s sake.

Sedaris drew a curious and dedicated fan base with her former Comedy Central series “Strangers with Candy” that she starred in with Dinello and Steven Colbert. In the series, her middle aged character, Jerri Blank–a self-admitted “boozer, loser and two time user”–leaves prison after several decades and decides to return home to start over where she left off. As a student at the local high school.

Here is a hillarious clip of Sedaris on Martha Stewart’s show while promoting her book, “I Like You, Entertaining under the Influence.”
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*I come from a fisherman’s village where swearing is not only allowed, but encouraged.

Local pub stops crime in my neighborhood

from LAPD crime maps

The Village Idiot, a Los Angeles bar and restaurant, is partially responsible for the first successful apprehension of three armed robbers in the Melrose/Fairfax district. A fast thinking security bike officer employed by the local bar helped thwart an armed robbery in the process by three armed men and a woman driving the getaway vehicle.

At 12:20 a.m. the security officer from X-Zero approached Martel Ave. and Waring Street as a man held at gunpoint was being robbed by three men and a woman. The officer approached the scene without being observed and confronted the robbers’ look out man. The officer contacted a Melrose patrol unit in the vicinity of the crime. Fearing capture, the men quickly fled the scene. The X-Zero officer aided the victim and was able to give valuable descriptions of the suspects to the responding police units.

Police quickly arrived at the scene including a helicopter and K-9 units. Along with a sawed-off shotgun and clothing used for the robbery, three suspects were apprehended after a dozen residential blocks were blocked off and searched for several hours. The suspects, described as Hispanic males with shaved heads, in their mid 20’s, were arrested on the scene.

All of the victim’s valuables were recovered and there have been no reports of injury. This would be first arrest associated with the recent crime wave to hit Melrose Neighborhood.

The predominantly Jewish enclave of the Melrose/Fairfax district has recently been plagued by several armed robberies for the past few months. Traditionally a low crime area, the neighborhood has seen a huge spike in armed robberies of both pedestrians and local businesses such as the Coffee Bean—that brazenly take place both day and night. Jewish families, film and finance industry executives, students and concerned neighbors and businesses have joined together to return peace and safety to their streets.

Gastrosexual Nation

Photo from tvscoop.tv

Dr. Paul Levy, the man who purportedly coined the term foodie, has come up with another keeper. Following some intensive research on the cooking habits of British men, he’s created a lexicon that describes a new breed of pleasure seeking men in the kitchen: the Gastrosexual.

In Emergence of the Gastrosexual, a new study commissioned by food company PurAsia, recently reported data showing that a growing number of food loving men spend time in the kitchen as a way to define themselves and their relationships.

The Gastrosexual, Levy explains, is someone that loves food for more than sustenance. According to the study, the gastrosexual enjoys the sensuality of cooking, the richness of experiencing good food and the effect it has on others. This new breed of food obsessed men are upwardly mobile 25 to 44-year-olds that cook not only as a hobby but to impress, and even seduce, a partner.

The Gastrosexual believes that men in the kitchen can still be manly. According to study findings, popular macho chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver paved the way for these gastronomically excited men to feel comfortable—and sexy—in the kitchen.

MORE THAN JUST A PASSING FANCY

The men interviewed are not just occasional chefs, the study shows. These food loving men cook frequently and believe that time spent in the kitchen is the most creative and enjoyable aspect of domestic work. What’s more, gastrosexuals cook for potential lovers as well as friends. The study showed that men often hosted dinner parties in their house as much as once a month. Most gastrosexuals enjoy cooking a wide range of foods, especially Asian foods, which is good news for food companys like PurAsia.

One interesting problem facing the culinary Romeo’s, however, the gastrosexual hates cleaning up. Let’s hope the lucky recipients of all this culinary love enjoy washing dishes.

Dreaming of Paris

IMG_3058
from roboppy

There’s a chance, an itty-bitty chance, that someone near and dear to me might be moving to Paris. Considering that we already live half a world away from each other, it still makes seeing each other more challenging but…

My god. Paris?

I cross my fingers and pray to the gods every day while we wait for the news…

tuilleries

from David Lebovitz

Patisserie Patina

from Meanest Indian

Boulangerie

from Meanest Indian

Surely I could muster a trip to Paris. I can start saving now.

In the meantime, I dream of long walks through the arrondissements, “licking the windows” of the boulangeries, eating warm pain chocolate or pain raisin, craving ownership of all the beautiful and polished shoes of the French women, re-learning that beautiful language, shopping at the open markets and sipping a cafe au lait at a cafe. I dream of a baguette, a wedge of cheese, a bottle of wine and that Paris SMELL.

I long to be embedded in the world of the French again.

croissants

pain
from David Lebovitz

In the meantime, I’ll admire the view.

details of my neighbourhood in Paris (le Marais)

details of my neighbourhood in Paris (le Marais)

from rsepulveda

Avignon - Bakery
from funadium

Boulangerie Julien

Jean Millet

bakery

from roboppy

I hope they don’t mind I plan to stay a while…

gateau!

from roboppy

Bread

Bakery Window

bazar cadeaux

fruit
from David Lebovitz

(thanks to David Lebovitz and other Flickr photographers!)

You know things are bad when…


–you need to hire a beautiful woman to dress up in a Kimono and point customers towards your restaurant’s entrance.

Note to Kado restaurant: the problem is the restaurant, not the location. We know you’re there, the problem is how bad the service and the food is.

Last time I visited Kado restaurant (read: got up the courage to try sushi at the mall), we were horrified at how bad things were once we got upstairs. Both the sushi bar and the dining room were empty–leading us fearful guests to think the obvious question: how fresh could the fish at this place be if no one is dining here?

After a few minutes of waiting to be greeted, we had to seek someone out to seat us, ask someone else for menus and then, after more than 15 minutes without ever being greeted, we left. Actually, fled. We feared things could only get worse (read: get food poisoning).

The trick to getting customers to try your restaurant and come back, Kado, is to make great food and give great service. And please, let that poor girl do something other than point.

EcoGastronomy Major offered at UNH


Attention young taste makers: if you’re thinking about first semester plans at college (or hoping to transfer) you might be interested to know that the University of New Hampshire has launched a ground breaking EcoGastronomy Program.

The University of New Hampshire hopes to offer students an integrated approach to ecological education by taking students into the field, in the kitchen, in the lab and as far away as Italy to study the complexities of sustainable food systems.

As a dual major, EcoGastronomy will be taken alongside a declared primary major. The program is a partnership of UNH’s College of Life Sciences and Agriculture and Whittemore School of Business and Economics. In collaboration with the University Office of Sustainability, students will take an integrated approach to their education by complementing their primary major with a combination of hands on learning, practical skills training and international study opportunities.

Inspired by a visit from Slow Food creator, Carlo Petrini in 2006, The University of New Hampshire’s EcoGastronomy Program was created. After Petrini receiving an honorary degree from the University, faculty and staff from the University and the Office of Sustainability came together to develop the core curriculum and plan of study for this new degree.

“We are seeing a growing student interest in food and sustainability and an eagerness to understand and connect with the local, regional and global food system,” says Joanne Curran-Celentano, professor of nutritional sciences at UNH and a faculty founder. “EcoGastronomy is designed to engage students in this deeper meaning of eating and to position them to become informed food citizens.”

Eating our way back to Normal


Metropolitan Cook Book, originally uploaded by Paula Wirth.

What happens when the world goes topsy-turvy? The shaken up inhabitants create structure where there is chaos and hominess where there is no permanence. A flood sweeps away a home and the survivor painstakingly stacks chipped mixing bowls and dishes in a pile. The stock market crashes and the Wall Street trader eats a baloney sandwich on Wonder bread because it reminds him of lunches with his mother.

For the underpaid, stressed out, unemployed, politically freaked out and fearful men and women of cities all across America, food is the easiest way to calm the F**** down.

NY Magazine reports that even though mammoth casual restaurant chains can do nothing but lose money right now, comfort food brands like Kraft Macaroni and cheese and Oscar Meyer cold cuts are “on fire”. For the first time in decades, powdered cheese on macaroni and baloney sandwich with mustard looks really, really good.

My neighborhood is better than your neighborhood

In the wake of economic uncertainty, people all over the country are suddenly filled with civic pride. Over night, foodies all over the country are clambering to define their city’s specific contribution to the national food scene. Recently, in front of a standing room only crowd in a Los Angeles auditorium, a respected panel that included Pulitzer Prize winning food writer Jonathan Gold and a handful of well-respected LA chefs, spent an evening talking through the defining terms of what constituted a Los Angeles dining scene.

On the opposite coast, NY Times food critic Frank Bruni and food bloggers ignored deadlines and spent precious time to define what was, in particular, the “New Brooklyn Cuisine”. For the fiscally uncertain and totally devoted NY foodie, that’s NBC, for short.

To qualify as the NBC, a restaurant should have “culinary sophistication melded with a wistfully agrarian passion for the artisanal, the sustainably grown, and the homespun…” something new restaurants all over our country currently share. And, following the NBC definition of clientele, people “who quote Michael Pollan and split shares in the local CSA,” I can only imagine that perhaps food loving people all over this country are craving the simple and the basic because they crave something simply NORMAL.

By embracing the back to basics ideas of artisinal and sustainable farming, we hope to eat our way back to better times.

Food declaration

declaration of independence

Hear ye! Hear ye all food lovers! Now is the time to make your voice of concern heard!

Sensing the need for a unified voice for change, Food Declaration.org created a declaration of intent to raise consumer awareness and increase our government’s responsibility to support wholesome food, animal welfare and healthy agriculture.

Based on the organizations mission statement, the Declaration is meant to provide:

1. A clear statement of what kind of policy is needed now, which is endorsed by a broad base of organizations and individuals with a long established commitment to a healthier food and agriculture.
2. An invitation to all Americans to join in the improvement effort by taking action in their own lives and communities and by offering them a way to call on policymakers to comprehensively support change.
3. A set of principles from which policy makers may craft policy that will lead to a healthier system. –from fooddeclaration.org


Organized by Roots of Change, a handful of farmers, national leaders, writers, chefs, and food advocates joined together to create a document that demands agricultural and social justice for food growers and eaters alike.

Drafted and revised sixty times, the Food Declaration was written by a panel of well-respected and agriculturally minded people including Michael Pollan, Alice Waters, the poet Wendell Berry, and Jim Braun of Slow Food USA. The declaration was completed on August 16th, 2008.

To add your John Hancock and get more information about the declaration go here.

One people like food


One people like food, originally uploaded by Foodwoolf.

I just discovered Wordle, an amazing web tool that generates “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.

This word cloud is from my post called Separated at Birth.

Food Woolf's Omnivore's One Hundred

Bułeczka the Cheese Eater
originally posted on flickr by pyza*

Have you ever stepped into an animated conversation half-way through, just in time for an explosive punchline and wondered “what the heck did I just miss?”

Stumbling onto an unfamiliar blog with a lot of readers and a clear story being told, can sometimes make you feel like a real johnny come lately. As a reader, you have a choice: Skip the conversation entirely, or, for a former high school dork like myself, you become a quick study of what the “cool kids” are talking about. You backtrack through past posts and links in hopes of catching up to the conversation.

Lately, I’ve come across several couple blogs that seem to be mid conversation about all the things they’ve eaten. Blog after blog, there are these one hundred point lists of ALLLLLLL the things they’ve tasted….Long laundry lists don’t make for great reading, so I’ve skipped a lot of them.

Until Serious Eats told me what was going on. It seems this one person, Very Good Taste created a list of foods that suggests what every omnivore should consume in their lifetime. In the end, the list has been passed around blogs and lots and lots of people have taken a look at this list, filled it out, and posted their accounting of tastes on their blog.

I don’t see the point in posting one’s own “eaten” list, but I do think it’s a great tool to get any foodie excited about what’s next to eat. Personally, I can not wait to get myself to Canada for some Poutin.

Food Woolf’s Omnivore Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (I’d only eat this if it was road kill or killed in self defense)
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini

73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky

84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers

89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee

100. Snake

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

Separated at Birth

Los Angeles Streets
Truly passionate people are a rare breed. They love things fully. They admire the nuances of a moment and delight in the intricacies of a beloved item. Their heart beats faster and their eyes glisten with excitement whenever they talk about their favorite subject. They obsess over perfection.

Passionate people are strange to normal, average folk. They burn bright, like short-lived fireflies in a world of non-committal drones. Impassioned people like Albert Einstein, Vincent Van Gogh, Jack Nicholson, John F. Kennedy, Steven Spielberg, Virginia Woolf, Steve Jobs, Amelia Earheart and Joan of Arc were all so unique and obsessive in their nature they were considered odd before they were ever praised. Focused on their obsession, uniquely passionate people may not even realize how isolated they are.

As a guest of White On Rice’s first annual food blogger bash, I was surrounded by a small group of passionate food bloggers that shared so many of the same odd traits as me, I realized I wasn’t such a strange, food-obsessed person after all.

Like an adopted twin reunited with her other half for the first time, I felt at ease knowing that each of these bloggers—strangers to me before the party—were uniquely, just like me.

My first real, separated at birth moment came the minute I met Todd and Diane of White on Rice. In Todd’s love of hosting, his unending graciousness and desire to make every one of his guests at ease showed me that I was not alone in my love of great service. The stock piled dishes and obsessively collected (.69 cent!) stemware, proved that I wasn’t alone in my love of creating events that celebrated food. In their spacious back yard, I touched garden herbs and rare fruit trees and saw two people who built their home around food and raised plants to facilitate great eating. I admired Todd and Diane as they flawlessly hosted and directed a group of strangers towards comfort and ease. I knew of their impressive food knowledge from their incredible blog, but watching them speak like two prophets of food was inspiring.

I was shocked when my food blog hero Matt of Matt Bites and his adoring, food styling partner, Adam leapt from their seats at the dinner table to get a first look of the fully cooked whole fish when the lid of the grill was lifted. My shock was not due to their departure, but because they beat me to it.

I did a double take when Julie from Julie’s Kitchen, gasped in delight at a plate of delicious food that was placed before her. I smiled, knowing I wasn’t alone in my vocal appreciation of culinary creations.

I smiled when Allison of Sushi Day gushed about the joys of cooking sushi and the look of pride she had when her boyfriend Son modeled a tee shirt that became one of most applauded gifts of the night.

I recognized the dedication to food culture that Marvin of Burnt Lumpia, a food blogger obsessed with Filipino food, showed when he talked about the first Filipino-American winery in the United States.

I watched proudly as my good friend Leah from Spicy Salty Sweet riffed about wine while snapping up dirty plates from the table like the restaurant pro that she is.

I discovered I wasn’t the only one with a cookbook collection on the nightstand and a Ceylon tea addiction to keep late night reading alive when I met Matt of Wrightfood.

I found a sister from the East coast in Toni from Daily Bread. Her stories of jumping a plane for India in search of straight from the source ethnic food made me sigh with relief that my two hour car rides to eat great Mexican food wasn’t so strange after all.

I didn’t feel self-conscious of my obsessive food photography as I watched the beautiful Sarah from the Delicious Life snap action shots of the slicing of a 25 pound Jack Fruit.

I almost cried when the kitchen filled up with food loving bloggers prepping dishes while Wandering Chopsticks deftly lifted spring rolls from boiling oil with chopsticks.

As the night drew to an end and the guests hugged each other goodbye, I was filled with an overwhelming sense of honor to be part of this incredible group of people. In just one, well-orchestrated evening, I learned I was not so alone in my passion for food. I realized I had found a new sort of family.

Los Angeles Streets

National Rum Day at home

Dark and Stormy

Just this week, my friend Pilar–a beautiful brown haired Spaniard (whose picture is featured in my previous post)–scratched her cornea while getting dressed for work. The result: an hour in the emergency room, a quick application of medicated eye drops, and a big eye patch.

A doctor prescribed eye patch would have been enough to mortify most people in this city. But not Pilar. She rocked that eye-patch like a fashionable, Spanish pirate.

So, inspired by Pilarrrrrrrrr (think pirate speak) and the fact that today is National Rum Day, I bring you the recipe for a Dark and Stormy—a refreshing drink made with spicy ginger beer (a kind of soda), fresh lime-juice and dark rum. Careful pouring of each ingredient will create a two-toned sea of deliciousness, that ultimately inspired the drink’s name.

Use Gosling’s dark rum if you want to impress. Or go the cheap route and buy a $10 of Whaler’s rum from Trader Joe’s. Use a good ginger beer–the best are made by Bundaberg and Blenheim. These sodas are available at the Soda Pop Shop, Bev Mo, World Market and other fine liquor merchants.

Dark and Stormy
Makes one drink

1.5 ounces of dark rum
One bottle of ginger beer
Juice of half a lime

Fill glass with ice. Add lime juice and ginger beer. Pour rum over the back of a spoon to create the layer of dark rum on the bottom of the glass. Garnish with lime.

I raise my glass to Pilar and her quickly healed eye!

Congrats Palate Food and Wine!

I raise a glass to my favorite new restaurant, Palate Food and Wine. Congratulations for receiving THREE STARS from the Los Angeles Times!

You deserve it!

Home made butter. Delicious pickled fruit in Mason Jars! Amazing cheese. Wild boar prosciutto. The Porkfolio! Crayfish, fresh from the shell–dipped in citrus butter. Delicate fish. Tender steak. Rich chocolate pudding. Talented servers. Wonderful and eclectic wine list. A wine shop in the back!!!My god–what an incredible night of eating. Me and all of my friends can’t wait to go back!

Congratulations to chef/owner, Octavio Becerra, chef Gary Menes, wine director Steve Goldun, general manager Laura O’Hare and all the beautiful and talented staff working there!

Save your pennies for dinner: go to the library


Photo from: elevenfortyfive.com

Every penny counts when you’re trying to cover the bills, fill up the gas tank, pay down credit card debt and still have a little coin to invest in a fancy meal now and then.

So, in the effort to save some cash I’m cutting a lot of corners. I cook at home for almost every meal. I’m the Iron Chef of leftovers. I stay away from gourmet delis, wine shops, cooking supply stores, bookstores and fancy restaurant row. I skip the coffee shop and drink one (free!) cappuccino while I’m working at the restaurant. I walk to most my errands.

And, in another foodie, cash-preservation step, I’m not buying ANY cookbooks. Instead, I’m raiding the local Los Angeles Public library for every great cookbook they have.

I love the library

So before you run over to your local library, just keep one thing in mind: If you live in Los Angeles, don’t even try to take out anything by Alice Waters or Thomas Keller for the next month or so. I’ve got all of the Keller and Waters’ cookbooks. According to my library account status, I’ve got these babies for another three weeks.

Thanks to the ticking clock of the library book due dates, I’m extremely motivated to read through all of my borrowed cookbooks. For the first time really, I’m truly reading cookbooks. I’m skimming the pictures and studying the elegant essays and personal pieces these two great chefs offer in all of their books. Quite honestly, reading cookbooks feels like going to cooking school.

Boy, have I been learning a lot.

First off, Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Fruit is AMAZING. If you shop at farmer’s markets or participate in a CSA, you should really get this book. Chez Panisse Fruit not only offers hundreds of amazing and sometimes very simple recipes, Waters takes the time to discuss the glories of every fruit featured in the book with her well researched introductory essays.

An Alice Waters Fun Fact:

* Did you know that apricot pits can be used for baking needs?

According to Alice in Chez Panisse Fruit, inside the pit is a kernel, called the noyaux. The noyaux can be used to flavor amaretti cookies, custards, ice cream and liquor. To remove the noyaux, simply roast the pit at 350 F for 10 to 15 minutes and crack them open. It should be noted that the noyaux has a toxic enzyme that is destroyed by heat: so be sure to roast the center kernel again for a few minutes to make sure it is safe to consume.

I’ve really enjoyed reading and cooking from the Chez Panisse Café Cookbook a great deal. Alice’s recipes feature the most casual dishes of Chez Panisse and allow the home chef easy access to cooking in the style of one of America’s most respected and ground breaking Cal-French restaurants.

If you want an example of a great and easy to make dish, just check out my previous post about Prosciutto wrapped scallops.

from ruhlman.com

After hearing that Thomas Keller would be returning to Los Angeles to open a new Bouchon, I got very excited to start reading up on this French Laundry chef. His books are beautiful to look at and have plenty of personal stories to bring the reader into his thought processes behind all of his restaurants.

Thomas Keller’s Bouchon is a beautifully photographed book that’s chocked full of wonderful essays and insights into French bistro fare. Though author Michael Ruhlman’s writing is incredibly tight, the size and weight of Bouchon makes it better suited as a culinary, coffee table book than a functional cookbook. That being said, the recipes in this book are not as daunting as the haute cuisine of the French Laundry. The bistro fare, though it may seem simple, requires thoughtful and specific recipes. The authors and chefs come together to describe the steps of preparation with research to back it up. Reading Bouchon gave me the impression that maybe there could be a handful of dishes I could make without making a fool of myself.

A Thomas Keller Fun Fact:

* Thomas Keller’s first real teacher in French cooking was a Frenchman named Roland Henin. It was in Henin’s Rhode Island restaurant that Keller learned one of his first, and memorable cooking lessons: how to dress a salad.

According to Keller:

He would salt it, then put on the oil to coat the lettuce and protect it from the acid, and then he would add the acid. He would never combine the two then pour them on: vinegar was the seasoning element. What made watching him exciting was the anticipated joy of eating that salad, the richness of the oil, the sparks of vinegar that would come through.

Cooking from a library book may be a scary idea for anyone like me that has a difficult time keeping prepped ingredients from ruining one’s own personal cookbook pages. I do my best to keep these borrowed books clean when I take them into the kitchen with me. Though I’ve managed to splatter just an eensty-teeny bit of oil on one page of Alice Waters’ Café Cookbook, I notice I’m not alone in the occasional spots and smudges on the pages. Clearly, I’m not the only one trying to save some coin for a really great meal.

Craigie Street Bistrot on U.S. Corn


Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, has made a real impact with a lot of people. If you’ve been reading this blog lately, you’ll know his writing and research has changed the way I eat and shop. Coming across others that have been “infected” by the fever on conscious, political eating is not only refreshing–it’s reassuring.

My friends over at the Cambridge Massachusetts restaurant, Craigie Street Bistrot continue to blow me away with their active commitment to making delicious food that’s good for the local economy, good for the local farmers and is environmentally conscious of its carbon foot print.

If you’re too busy to read Pollan’s book, you might be interested in reading this great essay on corn I found on the Craigie Street Bistrot blog.

Craigie Street Bistrot: U.S. Corn

How to make a politically correct steak


Grass Feed Steak with Pan-Seared cherry tomatoes and basil
Adapted from Gourmet

3 tbsp olive oil
2 1 ½ inch thick Porterhouse Steaks or beef loin (about 1 ¼ lb each)
4 tablespoons of kosher salt
6 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced length wise.
4 cups cherry tomatoes
2 cups coarsely torn, fresh basil leaves

Bring steaks to room temperature one hour before cooking. Rub with Kosher sea salt.

Preheat gas grill (on high) for about 10-15 minutes.

Put steaks directly on grill. Cover and don’t touch. Depending on the thickness of the steak, cooking time should be between 5-10 minutes per side. Be careful not to overcook! After about 5-6 minutes, check the internal temperature of the steak with a meat thermometer. The thermometer should be inserted into the center of the thickest part, away from bone, fat and gristle.

When the center of the steak reaches 130 degrees F, you’re ready to flip over your steak for a perfect medium rare. 145 degrees F for medium. 150-155 http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.giffor medium well. 160 degrees F for Well done. For more information on cooking temps go .

Finish cooking the 2nd side (it should be about equal to the same amount of time for the first half of cooking). Put the steak on serving platter and let rest for 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, add the olive oil to a medium sized skillet. Heat over meium-high heat until it shimmers. Add the garlic and sauté until golden, about 2 minutes. Transfer with a slotted spoon to a paper towel or plate. Add tomatoes to hot oil (be careful! Oil will spatter!), then lightly season with salt and pepper. Cook, covered and stir occasionally, until tomatoes start to wilt, about 2 minutes. Stir in any meat juices from the serving dish. Scatter basil over tomatoes and then serve over steak.


To really bring this dish up and over the top, serve it with Zuni Cafe’s salsa verde.

Salsa Verde
Adapted from Zuni Cafe Cookbook

½ cup tightly packed, chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
½ cup mint (de-stemmed)
1 tablespoon capers (rinsed and dried between towels)
1 tablespoon chopped anchovies (packed in salt or oil)
1 tablespoon red onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons sliced and chopped almonds
½ to ¾ cup extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 lemon (remove the zest. Finely chop. Reserve juice)

Combine the parsley, mint, capers, zest, onion and a few pinches of salt, pepper or chili flakes to taste. Add half of the olive oil. Stir, then taste for seasoning. Add more oil and salt to taste. Since salt doesn’t dissolve right way, give the salt a bit of time to dissolve before you add more. Stir in rest of ingredients. Transfer mixture to a container that minimizes exposure to the air.

Don’t refrigerate, but set in a cool spot until needed. Refrigerate leftovers!

How to eat a politically correct steak


Ever since I read Michael Pollan’s book, Omnivore’s Dilemma, food shopping is a lot more difficult. Besides the fact that finances are tight–for us and most of the people we know—I am acutely aware that how we spend our food money really can make a socio-ecological difference. Suddenly, I feel a lot like the young, political eater I used to be when I was a University of Massachusetts undergrad.

Though my days as a life-long, political vegetarian are over (I was an anemic and sickly vegetarian), I am perfectly willing and able to stop eating certain things because they aren’t good for the local economy, the environment, and—ultimately–for me. But what, from a culinary point of view, will all this political eating mean for my tastebuds?

Pollan’s book suggests that if consumers purchase local and direct from the farmer whenever possible, they not only taste a much better and healthier product, their food dollars will enable local grows to thrive and compete with big conglomerate farms that take all sorts of ecological shortcuts with chemical fertilizers and price gouging (thanks to governmental subsidies). So if I pay a little more for a gallon of milk from a family owned dairy, Pollan suggests, I’ll not only be healthier, I will be sending a message to the big dairy conglomerates that hormones, drugs and poor treatment of animals in order to make a cheaper gallon of milk, just isn’t worth it.

But just because I shop at Whole Foods a couple of times a month doesn’t mean every food dollar can enact positive social change. Though the packages on the perfectly maintained shelves of Whole Foods may say “organic” or “free range” or “all natural”, doesn’t mean they’re the best choice for the environment or my body. To be a good, political consumer, I need to be mindful and pragmatic before every purchase.

Though it’s easy to be an armchair liberal or conservative, it’s another thing to be hold a firm political position in one’s daily life.

A carnivore’s dilemma

Being a mindful and political shopper is difficult. I have to consider all sorts of questions. Do I really need to buy tomatoes shipped in from Holland if there are local farms that can sell them to me fresh off the vine at the farmer’s market? Should I forgo my menu and buy a line caught fish or should I stick to my shopping plans and get a farm-raised, color pellet-eating cousin? Can I afford the extra money to buy meat from a cow that’s free range and grass fed or should I pack up my political standards and save twenty bucks and eat one that’s been raised in a tight pen and forced fed a diet of grain–a diet it was never meant to eat?

Political eating

After spotting Gourmet Magazine’s cover photo of a grilled steak covered in roasted cherry tomatoes, I started planning a dinner party with some friends. I purchased cherry tomatoes, garlic, parsley and mint at the farmer’s market. Unable to make it to the neighborhood butcher in time, I ventured to my local Whole Foods at 3rd and Fairfax.

The meat counter selection offered a handful of choices: various organic beef cuts ($14.99/pound and up), free range grass-fed beef loin ($31.99/lb), and free range grain-fed (90% grass fed and 10% grain fed) organic Porter house ($27.99/lb). Based on the criteria of my political eating (force fed, pen raised beef is not an eating option), however, my choices were definitely limited.

For pure politics, I purchased almost 2 lbs of the 100% grass fed beef loin steak. For culinary and economic purposes, I saved a few bucks and got almost 1.5 lbs of the partially grain fed porterhouse (Neiman Ranch 90% grass fed and 10% grain fed beef). As I watched the butcher wrap up my steaks, I wondered, with some guilt, how significant that 10% of grain would be to the quality of the meat. Had I just let ten percent of my political ideals slip away? Maybe.

Side by side taste test

As the steaks cooked side by side on the grill, my husband and I talked with our guests about the politics of eating. We shared stories of Alice Waters, the Edible School Yard, the Center for Food Justice, Slow Food, Michael Pollan and think about it later chef types (Anthony Bourdain on any episode of No Reservations comes to mind). But when the steaks were finished cooking and were ready to serve, we carefully closed our eyes and tasted.

Bite for bite, both steaks were delicious. Granted, the two steaks were different cuts (and, to be fair, both were prepared slightly differently–the grass fed cut was cured with a salt/spice rub and the Neiman ranch was rubbed only with kosher salt), but both garnered equal amounts of praise.

The 100% grass-fed beef loin (or beef tenderloin) was incredibly tender and velvet-like. The taste of the grass fed loin was both juicy and moist.

The Neiman ranch (90/10 grass/grain fed) Porterhouse, was a meatier steak. It was also quite juicy and at times had much more flavorful morsels, thanks to the meat’s occasional marbling.

When polled, most of the table had a hard time deciding which steak they liked more. Considering the biased side-by-side tasting, it was clear a rematch was needed.

Stay tuned for an upcoming rematch…