World Cup of Yum

Ahhh Comfort Food

My friend Heather threw a comfort food dinner party, which meant lots of dips and spreads, mac n cheese, grilled meats, and s’mores… it generally involved a lot of eating with your hands. And eventually progressed to sipping wine by her amazing fire pit. Sign me up! Dips and Spreads We started with an array…

Baba Ganoush

Many years ago, I had an incredible Baba Ganoush (eggplant spread) at a friend’s Sukkot celebration, and I have since done my best to try to recreate its creamy, smoky goodness. This eggplant spread is great with pita bread or both raw and roasted vegetables. Guessipe 2 medium eggplants 8 cloves garlic 1/4 cup lemon…

Braised Belgian Endives

Cookbook Club – BelgianFoodie.com For August’s Cookbook Club, we decided to do a blog instead of a cookbook. But not just a blog by some random stranger on the internet – we did BelgianFoodie.com, the blog of one of our very own Cookbook Club members… Brad! I made the Braised Belgian Endives. You can check…

Tomato Tart

My dad grows tomatoes in his garden. If I am lucky enough to see him in late summer, this means I get to go home with a bucket of wonderful vine ripened tomatoes. Which can be used to make this yummy tomato tart. If you’ve never had a tomato tart, think of it sort of…

Green Papaya Salad

I adore the green papaya salad that I’ve had at Thai restaurants. I was delighted to find that green papaya is sold at the Asian market and I could make a quick and easy version that completely satisfied what I like so much about the dish. It’s crunchy and spicy and fresh, but with a…

Eating the Big Apple

Last year I visited a friend in New York for a few days. A couple weeks prior to the trip, he texted me to ask what I wanted to do while I was there. I sent him back a long list of eateries I wanted to check out. His response – “So I get that…

Honey Spice Cornflake Crunch Chicken

I used to make this delicious spicy sweet chicken with skin-on bone-in chicken thighs, until one day I was in the mood to make them and happened to only have boneless skinless thighs on hand. One of the things I enjoyed about the dish was the crispness of the skin, so I decided to try…

Kogi Restaurant Review

Gold Dig #43 Kogi started out as a Korean-taco truck, and has since expanded to three taco trucks (whose schedule you can find on their website) and two taqueria locations – one in a Whole Foods in El Segundo, and the one we went to in a little strip mall in Palms. The whole Kogi empire…

Garlic Cheese Squash

If you buy a nice chunk of pecorino and have some leftover which you don’t want to go to waste, make this garlic cheese squash. It can be a veggie side, or just a great snack. When I make these, I tend to just munch them all down like chips. Crisp, cheesy goodness! Guessipe 1…

Indian Independence Day

Every year my friend Seena throws an Indian Independence Day party. I feel so lucky to be invited, as it is in my opinion the best party of the year. Seena goes all out, asking everyone to wear Indian dress, giving bindis to all of the women, having a henna artist give tattoos throughout the…

Cambodian Kaw

My Cambodian friend introduced me to this dish of pork belly and eggs in a soy and caramelized sugar sauce, and it’s been a favorite of mine ever since. He gave me his mom’s recipe, but just like my family’s recipes (and I’m beginning to think all Asian families) it was more of a half-complete…

Museum of Ice Cream

It’s a museum, dedicated to ice cream. Not only are there yummy installations around every corner, many meant for you to interact and play with, but there are also several treats you actually get to eat! It’s like they built this place just for me. Though lots of other people must have had the same…