TV. Food. Pop Culture.
Over the past several months, I’ve been snapping pictures of food with the intention of writing about it on this blog. Now it’s December 31st, and I have a small backlog of meals to share. Rather than generate a post for each one, I’m just going to dump the photos here.
Long story short: all this food was good, and if you find yourself in LA, be sure to try these restaurants out. Continue reading “THINGS I ATE: A Whole Bunch of Good Stuff”
I’ve become a bit of a cookbook hoarder over the past few months, which is not always a great thing as I feel perpetually guilty for not actually cooking from a majority of my new purchases. Making matters worse is that I now have a subscription to Food & Wine magazine, which adds another heap of recipes to my wish list every month. Clearly this is a dire situation. Perhaps the most dire situation known to man.
Anyway, not too long ago I decided to actually put my Food & Wine to the test and try out two recipes: Chicken Salad with Tahini-Yogurt Dressing and White Anchovy and Grilled Radicchio Bread Salad. Pictures after the jump:
Continue reading “ADVENTURES IN DOMESTICITY: Food & Wine Edition”
I don’t often review things for Amazon, but I felt compelled to write up something about my friend Cathy Chaplin‘s new book, Food Lovers’ Guide To Los Angeles because I loved it so much (and I’m not just saying that because Cathy is a friend). Anyway, I figured rather than write a whole new entry here on the blog, I might as well just share my review.
After the jump, check out my thoughts on Cathy’s book. Spoiler alert: I approve.
Continue reading ““Food Lovers’ Guide to Los Angeles” Is The Best”
Most of my Adventures in Domesticity this year have been focused on Rick Bayless’s recipes from Mexican Everyday, which has surprisingly become my go-to cookbook for weeknight dinners. This is particularly surprising, given that as a child the only thing I would eat at Mexican restaurants was cheese-and-bean dip (hold the beans). Two thumbs up for personal growth.
Nevertheless, I keep returning to Mexican Everyday because not only are the recipes easy, but relatively healthy too. And did I mention tasty? (Actually, I didn’t — as evidenced by my choice in adjectives in the previous sentence) Anyway, I’ve delved into several of the book’s recipes by now, even ones that appear to be mundane, like Bayless’s grilled chicken salad. His version involves guacamole, which already puts it way ahead of most other salads out there in the world.
Pics after the jump…
Continue reading “ADVENTURES IN DOMESTICITY: Grilled Chicken Salad Edition”
Not all my Adventures in Domesticity are winners. Take, for example, this very simple stuffed pepper recipe from Martha Stewart’s website. It calls for bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, basil, ground pepper, and olive oil. Can’t go wrong with that, right?
A few pics after the jump… Continue reading “ADVENTURES IN DOMESTICITY: When Bad Things Happen To Good Peppers”
Thai food can be a thing of beauty. Ugh, what a pretentious opening line. But it’s true. Thai food is one of my favorite cuisines, thanks in part to the bold, zingy flavors that often include lime juice, fish sauce, and a billion other spices mashed together into a curry paste. I already have two cookbooks (famously documented here) that do a great job of translating Thai food to the home kitchen. One would think I wouldn’t need to venture any further for a decent homemade curry. However, I noticed a curious recipe in Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty: purple sprouting broccoli with rice noodles.
The “method” called for a Thai-influenced spice paste, which would then be added to coconut milk and used to form a curry. I was highly intrigued by it all, but also hesitant: Ottolengh, after all, is an Israeli-born chef currently residing in Britain. The pedigree doesn’t exactly scream Thai authority. But who knows? Maybe it should.
After the jump, check out my pics of this grand experiment…
Continue reading “ADVENTURES IN DOMESTICITY: Broccoli with Rice Noodles”
In general, I try to cook healthy these days. Long gone are my weekly experimentations with ice cream recipes and chocolate cake indulgences. I’m not saying those things won’t come back, but after seeing some pics of me toward the end of 2012, I realized I needed to do a few more healthy things for myself. One helpful strategy has been cutting down on desserts (at least making them — I still find myself trotting out to the local frozen yogurt shop more often than I’d like to admit). Another helpful approach has been incorporating a few more vegetarian meals into the mix. Now, I’m still a through and through meat eater, but the occasional vegetable-based entrée can really go a long way.
Of course, not all vegetarian recipes are automatically healthy, and that’s probably the case with the Grape leaf, herb and yogurt pie I made from Yotam Ottolenghi’s famous vegetarian book, Plenty. This savory, Turkish-inspired dish is chock full of yogurt, but a little dairy never killed anyone, right? Right?
Pics after the jump…
Continue reading “ADVENTURES IN DOMESTICITY: Grape Leaf, Herb, and Yogurt Pie Edition”
This blog has been pretty quiet since the end of Big Brother season, and that’s mainly due to my need to focus on some other writing projects. As much as I love blogging, it’s a beast that is never satisfied — much like Candy Crush Saga. And like that beguiling iPhone game, I’ve found that at times the only way for me to be productive in my life is to shut it down altogether. However, while I’ve been on a blogging hiatus, I haven’t stopped cooking. In fact, I’ve been cooking heaps of dishes, thanks to this new compulsion I have to buy cookbooks ALL THE TIME. I’ve acquired over ten such books over the past six months, and yet I’m still not fulfilled. So basically what we’re learning in this opening paragraph is that I clearly have some sort of addictive personality disorder, which takes the form of blogging, Candy Crush, and cookbook wanting.
Fine. I’m okay with that. It’s not like I’m on heroin. (OR AM I?) The point is that I have a lot of new cookbooks to play with, not to mention a bunch of old ones that have yet to be fully explored. This recipe actually hails from the latter category — a simple frittata from the brain of minimalist cook, Mark Bittman. It’s basically chard, eggs, and cheese. But is it delicious? Check out the pics after the jump…
Continue reading “ADVENTURES IN DOMESTICITY: Chard Frittata Edition”
It’s wintertime in Los Angeles, which means the temperatures have flirted with the lower-40s the past few nights, and during the day, residents have had to suffer the indignity of wearing a light coat over their t-shirts. In other words, we’re just barely surviving. Luckily, we have establishments such as Eveleigh on Sunset Boulevard to ease the sting of Jack Frost nipping at our noses, thanks to an array of new winter cocktails carefully crafted for the season.
After the jump, check out some pics from a media-comped event at Eveleigh to preview the restaurant’s latest creations…
At a recent food event at the LA Times, I managed to sample (read: GORGE UNABASHEDLY) some offerings from local hot dog impresario Dog Haus, and needless to say, I was hooked. Imagine my delight when I was invited to a media-comped lunch at Dog Haus this past weekend. Normally, I wouldn’t trek all the way out to Pasadena for a hot dog — not even a super tasty one nestled comfortably in a warm Hawaiian roll — but as luck would have it, I was in the area to visit the Eat My Blog bake sale (which raised over $5,000 for Philippines — woohoo!). It was as if the hot dog stars had aligned.
After the jump, check out some pics of the hot dogs that my friend Jessica and I enjoyed in the Dog Haus biergarten…
Continue reading “THINGS I ATE: Hot Dogs and More at Dog Haus”
