Category

  • Buttermilk Cornmeal Pancakes

    Buttermilk Cornmeal Pancakes

    It’s Friday which means it’s time for a weekend breakfast recipe! I’d like you to meet my breakfast from last weekend, Buttermilk Cornmeal Pancakes. These pancakes, which come from Cheryl and Griffith Day’s “Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook” intrigued me because of the cornmeal in the title. I’m not normally a pancake person because…

  • A-Frame

    A-Frame

    The International House of Pancakes is not, by any standard, a hip place to eat. Leave it to Chef Roy Choi (a chef I cooked with for my cookbook, best known for starting the Kogi Truck) to turn an IHOP into a must-visit L.A. dining destination, one that effortlessly oozes panache and cool.

  • A Summertime Farmer’s Market Feast (Green Goddess Heirloom Tomato Salad, Haddock Chowder & A Strawberry/Peach Shortcake)

    A Summertime Farmer’s Market Feast (Green Goddess Heirloom Tomato Salad, Haddock Chowder & A Strawberry/Peach Shortcake)

    At the start of my cookbook, I have a list of the ten most important over-arching lessons I learned cooking with the best chefs in America. One of those lessons is: “Put ingredients on display.” There’s an explanation of that in the book, and I’ll wait for you to read your copy before I spoil…

  • How To Store Strawberries

    How To Store Strawberries

    Strawberry season may be over in most parts of the country, but here in L.A. the strawberries are still bright red and fragrant and sweet as could be. On Monday, last week, I brought home two cartons of strawberries from the farmer’s market that I planned to use for a shortcake the next night. The…

  • Rodded & Ramen Jinya

    Rodded & Ramen Jinya

    A funny thing about L.A.: you can drive past a place over and over again, not think anything of it, and then–out of the blue–have a food friend tell you to meet them there on a Thursday afternoon, at which point you discover that this place you’ve been driving past and ignoring has really excellent…

  • A Food Q&A with “Beasts of the Southern Wild” Screenwriter, Lucy Alibar

    A Food Q&A with “Beasts of the Southern Wild” Screenwriter, Lucy Alibar

    Long time readers of the blog probably know my friend Lucy Alibar best as the creator of these incredibly easy, incredibly delicious chocolate peanut butter cookies. Now she’s gone and created something slightly more ambitious: a little movie she wrote called “Beasts of the Southern Wild” that’s taking the world by storm. It won the…

  • Sweet Potato Chipotle Hash

    Sweet Potato Chipotle Hash

    Get your pans hot, ladies and gentleman… we’re making hash! To be honest, I’d never made hash before I made it a few weekends ago. But the idea of it really appealed to me: dump out the contents of your fridge, put a pan on high heat, cook everything together and serve some eggs on…

  • “The Finest Hot Pastrami Sandwich in the World” (Lunch at Langer’s)

    “The Finest Hot Pastrami Sandwich in the World” (Lunch at Langer’s)

    I remember reading the New Yorker in 2002 when Nora Ephron declared the pastrami sandwich at Langer’s in Los Angeles “the finest hot pastrami sandwich in the world.” As a New Yorker who grew up on the east coast (both in New York and Florida, major pastrami territories) I found this hard to believe. When…

  • Dinner at Rick and Chuck’s (A Memory)

    Dinner at Rick and Chuck’s (A Memory)

    The letter was in an envelope in my pocket, folded in half. Even though I knew this would produce a crease, I figured a crease was better than walking into my professor’s house holding a mysterious envelope, especially with three other classmates arriving with me. “What’s that letter?” they would probably ask and what would…

  • Blackberry Buttermilk Snacking Cake

    Blackberry Buttermilk Snacking Cake

    Here in L.A. it’s harder to get in touch with my old New York self, the self who used to make an afternoon snacking cake. If you say the words “afternoon snacking cake” here in L.A. you will be shot by the body police, buried in a mountain of silicone, and never heard from again.…

  1. For years, I struggled with both Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Multiple Sclerosis (MS), two conditions that severely affected…

  2. For years, I struggled with both Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Multiple Sclerosis (MS), two conditions that severely affected…

  3. For years, I struggled with both Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Multiple Sclerosis (MS), two conditions that severely affected…