101

mark bittman 101 coverHere’s something to shake up the cooking doldrums. Rather than bring you a report on one of my own efforts in the kitchen (and rest assured there’ll be more to come), I’ll step back and let you look at 101 ideas from a master. Mark Bittman, the food writer behind (among other things) the column “The Minimalist” for the New York Times, is extremely good at finding ways of producing more (in terms of taste) with less (in terms of substituting less costly ingredients).

He’s recently tackled another cost factor: time. The claim (I have not tried any yet) is that these are ten minute preparation time recipes. This might be perfect for that busy schedule you have going there, or just a welcome shortening of hot kitchen time during the remaining long Summer days.

Don’t turn your nose up at the substitutions (sometimes discussed in his column) and […] Click to continue reading this post

All The Sweet, Green Icing

MacArthur Park Theatre Event

Since, once again, the temperature is knocking on the door of insane outside, I’ll sit here on the sofa indoors for a while and tell you about the really fun thing I was doing earlier today. Back when it was much less hot.

MacArthur Park Theatre EventThe mission: First show up at Mama’s Hot Tamales Cafe. (So since at the very least, ridiculously tasty tamales are involved, clearly anything beyond this is just a bonus.) This is located across 7th Street from the South side of MacArthur Park, just West of Alvarado (map link).

Next, after saying hello to the friendly peopleMacArthur Park Theatre Event who are happy to see that you showed up for the event (a friend of mine and I were the first to show up), you sit at a table for a little while and read six plays. Don’t worry, since the average length of one of the plays is less than a page, so it won’t take long -and they’re all rather good!

MacArthur Park Theatre Event

Next, you go outside, cross the road, and spend some time in MacArthur Park. Why? Well, it is park with a bit of a bad reputation that is seriously underused and under-appreciated by many, so that’s a good reason right there…

MacArthur Park Theatre Event

…but the main reason for this visit at this point in the mission is to wander the park and see if you can spot some of the performances or, as one woman put it, […] Click to continue reading this post

99

The other day in the Hollywood Farmer’s Market I was having my regular moment of pure bliss (spinach and corn tamale from that amazing tamale stand) for lunch after a nice bit of shopping when I found myself sitting at a big outdoor table with a number of other people. Two of them were headed to the convention center for the afternoon and were wondering whether they might be able to find anything good to eat down that way. Of course, as a public-spirited person I had to tell them a bit about the options that popped into my head at that point (starting with La Taquiza of course), and ended up patiently explaining how to squint your eyes to look past all the fast food places to the culinary bliss that lurks just below the surface of the city. We had a delightful conversation and then they moved on, leaving me soaking up the sun for a while longer.

image from Jonathon Gold's 99 restaurants articleA woman who’d been sitting on her own (also enjoying a tamale) spoke up and said that she’d been interested to hear that I thought there was a lot of good food in LA since she could not really find much of it (and she’d been here for four years). Happily I’d finished my tamale and so did not choke or splutter at this revelation, in equal parts horrifying and deeply sad, and spent a few more moments listing some recommendations at her request. Unfortunately, the conversation turned (as it so often does) to one where I find myself defending LA against someone’s expectations of it based upon their own city, and their own requirements (instead of them learning how to navigate and understand the place they’ve chosen to live). Usually it is New Yorkers I have this sort of conversation with, but this time it was someone from Chicago. Her thesis was that good food is hard to find in LA and you’re just falling over it in Chicago. Two other diners arrived […] Click to continue reading this post

Entertaining Saturday

Eight o’clock on Saturday morning. I’ve been up since before six (I don’t know why) and somehow I’m still late. The car wakes up easily, eager to go for a run. It seems to have extra enthusiasm, as though it knows that somehow I’m going to tear all the way across the city and back as quickly as I can, an adventure it is always willing to participate in. I’ve got a guest coming over for lunch at eleven and I think I’ll assemble a nice meal from scratch. I’ve made my mind up to go for ingredients to the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market instead of the more local, smaller one in Silver Lake. Although I’m more of a fan of shopping locally, my usual market run is on Sunday, in Hollywood, and the Silver Lake one does not have most of the vendors that I know well from the other two markets, and I want to take no chances with my menu today. So, the highway for me this time.

The plan is to wander the market in head chef mode, looking for which items look good, choosing some of them and planning something simple and tasty around them. At the back of my mind is a salad, and maybe asparagus or artichoke as a central feature. I’m open to ideas, however, but the watchwords are fresh and simple. But I’ve got to get there, find the ingredients, and get back and make it all before eleven.

farmer's market and saturday lunch menuI break some kind of record for getting over to Santa Monica. Road was pretty open, and while I’m not saying whether I violated any speed limits, you can be pretty sure I hurt their feelings a bit. The market is still pretty empty and I can wander through at a good pace with my basket and check out the whole scene, retracing my steps on a second pass in reverse, this time buying things as I go. Three different kinds of tiny potatoes to form the base of a salad (after roasting them) along with two colours of carrot from the same people. For dessert I pick up three types of delicious berries -blackberries, strawberries, and blueberries- making a mental note to get some whipping cream (for hand-whipping later) as a topping.

farmer's market and saturday lunch menu

I eye up some […] Click to continue reading this post

Yellow Pear Tomatoes

Tasty yellow pear tomatoes (click for larger):

tasty yellow tomatoes

They have been showing up all of a sudden (it seems) on this plant from last year. I’d read that this is quite a hardy plant and it certainly is, lasting through from last season, through the cold snap, and now coming back more strong than last year. Apparently, it is quite an old variety, going back to at least the 1750s. […] Click to continue reading this post

Gardening Update

Well, among the many things that took place over the weekend (more later I hope), I found a good chunk of time for some gardening. The primary objective on Saturday was to prepare the ground and plant some young plants for future vegetable goodies. I planted three types of squash, three types of tomato, two types of corn, and harvested some peppers from the pepper tree (I might plant some as seeds for new pepper trees, since they are so beautiful) as it is producing a huge new crop already.

pepper harvest

I’ve also planted three types of peas. Here are some pictures (click for a bit larger). In […] Click to continue reading this post