• Pici (Or: Handmade Pasta For Idiots)

    Pici (Or: Handmade Pasta For Idiots)

    For those of you who aspire to make pasta at home but don’t have the time or the will or the resources (like, a pasta machine), here’s a recipe for you. It’s called Pici and it’s one of the more satisfying things I’ve made for dinner in recent memory. You may be thinking: “Adam, didn’t…

  • Real Live Jujubes (Not From A Movie Theater)

    Real Live Jujubes (Not From A Movie Theater)

    So at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market, where I bought the ingredients to make my soul-stirring Summer’s End pasta, I spied an unusual sight–something I’d never seen before: a crate of Jujubes, identified as “Japanese Dates.” Jujubes are a real thing? A fruit? Not just a movie theater candy? I was intrigued. So I filled a…

  • Summer’s End Pasta with Tomatoes, Zucchini and Dill

    Summer’s End Pasta with Tomatoes, Zucchini and Dill

    What you are looking at, in the above picture, is the best thing I can imagine eating right now. Mario Batali once said on one of his shows that the best time to eat corn and tomatoes isn’t August, it’s September. My trips, recently, to the farmer’s market confirm this: the tomatoes couldn’t look plumper…

  • Journey To Nicaragua By Way of Pico Blvd.

    Journey To Nicaragua By Way of Pico Blvd.

    There are many cheesy, self-helpy things to say about going outside of your comfort zone and eating unfamiliar foods from unfamiliar cuisines as often as possible. Lately, though, I’ve come to realize that adventuring on the scale of Jonathan Gold and Robert Sietsema or, for that matter, Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern has to be…

  • Why You Shouldn’t Go On Top Chef (Unless You Should)

    Why You Shouldn’t Go On Top Chef (Unless You Should)

    As the 300th season of Top Chef looms, a few predictions: in the first episode, there will be an arrogant know-it-all who claims a superior set of kitchen skills, only, when asked to debone a chicken, he’ll crumple into a heap and cry, “My mother never loved me!” A duo of lesbian sashimi experts, formerly…

  • I’m Gonna Get You Socca!

    I’m Gonna Get You Socca!

    It’s time to admit that my love affair with chickpeas has gone too far. Not only did I post about making a big pot of chickpeas a week ago, and also a salad of roasted beets, carrots and chickpeas that week, I already have another chickpea dish to blog about coming up–one with tomatoes, basil…

  • Cinnabon Story

    Cinnabon Story

    Once upon a time (aka: this past weekend) I found myself in a mall, the Glendale Galleria, wandering around looking for patio furniture with Craig. Not that we have a patio, but we have a front porch at our new place and figured we’d get some cheap outdoor chairs and a table and sit out…

  • The Speed at Which You Eat

    The Speed at Which You Eat

    We all eat at different speeds. Me? I wolf down my food a lot like my dad does, though I try to slow myself down. When my friend Diana eats dessert, she savors each bite like one of those people on chewing diets who count their chews 25 times before they can swallow. Craig, generally…

  • Easy Homemade Potato Chips

    Easy Homemade Potato Chips

    I’m so mad at myself. I figured out how to make homemade potato chips in such an easy, head-smackingly simple way, I’m going to make them all the time and gain a million pounds. It all started when I thought about the shallow-frying technique I used to make pita chips and tortilla chips; why wouldn’t…