• I Ate My First Pupusa Two Weeks Ago and Didn’t Tell You About It

    I Ate My First Pupusa Two Weeks Ago and Didn’t Tell You About It

    Look, it’s Friday, and I need to get something off my chest. Two weeks ago? I ate the first pupusa of my life at the Atwater Village Farmer’s Market and didn’t tell you about it. I’m sorry! Things just got busy and I had to tell you about that toasted almond gelato and how to…

  • The Lemon Juice Trick

    The Lemon Juice Trick

    Writing my cookbook, I learned a nifty trick from Chef Jonathan Waxman for when you just need a squeeze of lemon. You cut around the lemon like you’re cutting around the core of an apple, leaving the center and creating these flat wedges that squeeze extra easily and produce lots of juice with a minimal…

  • No French Fries After 40 (A Birthday Trip to Belfast)

    No French Fries After 40 (A Birthday Trip to Belfast)

    [My friend Dara Bratt, an award-winning filmmaker, kindly offered to write a guest post about her recent trip to Belfast. How could I say no? What follows is an epic story of treacherous bridges, overflowing pints of Guinness and a meal so extraordinary, it had to be consumed twice.] For my husband’s 40th birthday, I…

  • Dim Sum at Sea Harbour Seafood Restaurant

    Dim Sum at Sea Harbour Seafood Restaurant

    Last year, an article came out that I immediately bookmarked. It was on AsiaSociety.com and it was written by a man named David Chan who ate at over 6,000 Chinese restaurants in America to determine the best. His list of the 10 Best was notable because all of the restaurants were in California, mostly Los…

  • Rice Salad with Olives and Pine Nuts

    Rice Salad with Olives and Pine Nuts

    The smartest food bloggers rave about the recipes they post in the first paragraph so you’re positively dying to click ahead and read the rest. Me? I kind of do that, but I also can’t help being a truth-teller. So yesterday, I was honest when I said that I loved the Franny’s Toasted Almond Gelato…

  • Franny’s Toasted Almond Gelato

    Franny’s Toasted Almond Gelato

    Somewhere along the way, I lost interest in making ice cream. I didn’t lose interest in ice cream, just making it. So if I were to have a dinner party, I might make brownies and hot fudge sauce for brownie sundaes (as I did for an upcoming episode of The Clean Plate Club), but I’d…

  • The Used Cookbook Sale at The Hollywood Farmer’s Market

    The Used Cookbook Sale at The Hollywood Farmer’s Market

    On Sunday, my friend Ben Mandelker of The B-Side Blog invited me to the used cookbook sale at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market. As many of you know, I’m kind of a cookbook junkie (see here) so this was a no-brainer. When I got there, I found mostly generic cookbooks (many, many diet books) and old…

  • Deviled Egg Salad

    Deviled Egg Salad

    After mastering April Bloomfield’s recipe for Deviled Eggs, I woke up the next day–a Saturday, as a matter of fact–and thought about the ingredients I still had on hand from the previous day’s venture: homemade mayo, eggs, those same pickled chilies. I also saw English muffins. What if I made a Deviled Egg Salad and…

  • Brian’s Red Beans and Rice

    Brian’s Red Beans and Rice

    My newsletter readers (you do know I have a newsletter, right? Another one’s going out later today: sign up here!) went nuts last week when I shared a picture of my friend Brian’s red beans and rice and didn’t offer up a recipe. “Can you get the recipe?” one replied. “Where’s the recipe?” wrote another.…

  • Look, I Don’t Know How To Tell You This, But My Cake Stand Is Also A Punchbowl

    Look, I Don’t Know How To Tell You This, But My Cake Stand Is Also A Punchbowl

    Sometimes you invite people over to your house, and you sit around and have a pleasant conversation while sipping lemonade or iced tea or maybe a combination of lemonade and iced tea which is called an Arnold Palmer, named after a golfer who my dad admires. Other times, you invite people over to your house…