Foodbuzz Project Food Blog

Impromptu Ramen Bowl Party, Project Food Blog Challenge #3

Having a night off from work is a luxury for most restaurant professionals. Since bars and restaurants earn most of their income after the sun goes down, most food industry employees keep vampire hours. We punch in after dusk, work when most people are relaxing (or sleeping), and are left to spend time with friends after the witching hour. I’d even venture to say that if you were to chart the hours of chefs, sommeliers, waiters and bartenders you’d think you were looking at Vampire Bill’s stats.

So when I got the exciting news that readers had voted me through to the third round of Project Food Blog*, I knew I didn’t have much time to prepare. Luckily, I’ve held plenty of impromptu dinner parties in my adult life, so I knew just what to do. I would throw a party where all my friends could get creative and eat some delicious Asian-inspired comfort food.

Party Tip: Throwing a great dinner party doesn’t have to mean spending hours and hours getting ready. Stay focused. Stick with a theme.

Make-Your-Own-Ramen Party

Since my dinner party would be held during after hours, I would need to serve dishes that were simple and straightforward, and would have to be easy enough to accommodate everyone’s post-restaurant/food writing schedules. I decided to offer two courses that would give guests a fresh new look on two of Asia’s most convenient comfort foods–Vietnamese spring rolls and instant ramen.

fish balls at the market — Fish balls at Thai Town Market *insert giggle*

Keeping in mind the advice from chef friends–cook what you know—I purchased fresh ingredients at the local Asian market in Hollywood’s Thai Town. I kept my eyes open and my creativity sharp in order to find unique ingredients for my dinner party spread. I sought out complimenting items that could add texture and interesting flavors to Vietnamese hand-rolls (my take on a wrapper-less spring roll) and bowls of instant ramen. I grabbed fresh Thai basil, jalapeno, bean sprouts, pressed/fried tofu, Sriracha, and for fun, I took a chance and added to my cart a package labeled “fish balls” (a kind of rounded fish cake).

Party Tip: If you don’t live near an Asian market, you can find many great ingredients on line. You can even order an exoti assortment of ramen through RamenBox (a Los Angeles-based company that specializes in selling some of the world’s tastiest instant ramen noodles via the internet)

Continue For More Tips and Tricks for Throwing Your Own Ramen Party »

September 25

Jook, Love at First Bite (a Project Food Blog Entry)

Project Food Blog congee — Project Food Blog's Second Round Entry

When you move to Los Angeles from small town USA, the culture shock is great. The weather, the cultural diversity, the dominance of the entertainment industry, and the abundance of revealing clothes is all quite astonishing. What’s more, if you want to know anything about food and are curious by nature, every day in Los Angeles can be an opportunity to move outside of your culinary comfort zone.

For this week’s Project Food Blog Challenge (more about that in a bit), the contestants were asked to create a classic dish from outside their comfort zone. What better dish to make than Jook, a rice porridge comfort food from a culinary culture I know very little about.

I first learned about Jook from Jonathan Gold, one of our city’s most famous culinary journalists (and the only winner of the Pulitzer for food writing). Gold is what you’d call L.A.’s poster boy for strip-mall ethnic food. His craft for sculpting words and ability to describe uncommon meals in the most mundane locations has created something of a culinary fad where LA food lovers seek out the most unusual, ethnic eats across the city in our city’s trashiest of locations.

All this is to explain how it came to be that this white girl from Massachusetts has been craving a Korean comfort food I’ve never even tasted before.

congee bowl — The first bite is the greatest

Rice porridge, or Jook in Korea, Congee in China, Okayu in Japan, is a popular comfort food throughout all of Asia. Known for its restorative powers for both the sick and the hung-over, the slow-cooked rice dish is a savory oatmeal that’s eaten for breakfast, a late night snack, or during the lean times. Jook is a creamy porridge that’s both comfort food and a kind of blank canvas for all sorts of great flavors and textures. Slow simmering short grain rice for several hours in water or chicken stock results in a creamy pap that is the perfect food delivery device for the flavors and textures of sesame oil, fish sauce, crunchy pickles, spicy condiments, herbs, meat, seafood, and even a fried egg.

Eating a dish for the first time on a very empty stomach is often the best way to imprint a taste in your memory. I’ll never forget that crusty French bread slathered with rich butter that time I was a starving student in Paris. Nor will I ever forget the flavor of Congee after a day of shopping at the Korean market and rushing around to be ready in time for this Project Food Blog Challenge.

But oh! The jook! It was just beautiful the way the soft fried egg oozed onto the porridge. Or how the sesame oil pooled onto my spoon with a drop of salty fish sauce, creating a fishy vinaigrette. And the salty crunch of the bacon and pungent hit of chopped scallion gave every bite a satisfying texture. The soft porridge is the kind of comfort food that–regardless of your cultural heritage–you immediately want to adopt once you’ve tasted it.

Continue for the easiest Congee Recipe Ever! »

September 18

So You Wanna Be the Next Food Blog Star

chef tattoo — A view from inside restaurants

Hi, my name is Brooke and I’m a restaurant blogger. I’m not a Yelper, nor a restaurant reviewer, not a food-fanatic, or even an angry waiter on a rant. I’m a food writer and a restaurant professional with a strong point of view on what it is to work in the business of food.

For those of you just tuning in here at Food Woolf, this is a literary blog which offers a non-fiction account of a restaurant professional living life from inside of some of Los Angeles’ best restaurants.

Like a chef who produces food that she loves to eat for her customers, I work hard to create something beautiful here—first for myself and then for others. At Food Woolf, I want to give you something more than just a simple recipe and a fast paragraph.

I want to craft appetizing phrases—like ones I’ve discovered in the fine writing of M.F.K. Fisher and Michael Ruhlman—and delectable sentences you’d like to roll over your tongue a couple of times. I work hard to weed out unnecessary tirades and focus on the insightful behind-the-scenes moments that speak to bigger issues that affect diners. Sometimes, I even snap some photographs of great meals that make people want to dive through their computer screens and get eating.

Continue to Read Up on Project Food Blog »