World Cup of Yum

Brussels Sprouts Salad

Brussels sprouts have become so trendy that it seems like every restaurant has them on the menu, usually roasted and often with some sort of sweet glaze like balsamic or maple. But I never saw them raw, and began to wonder if you could serve them that way. They do after all resemble tiny cabbages….

Sunday Supper

A group of our food-loving friends got together for a Sunday Supper potluck, and it was quite the fall feast. Warming comfort food was abundant and wine was flowing! I made jook (go here for my Guessipe), which is a hearty soup made with turkey and rice, then dressed to taste by the eater. This…

Jook

Jook is one of my favorite Thanksgiving family traditions. It is a hearty rice soup, which my family makes using the turkey carcass. We intentionally leave a lot of meat on the bone when carving the turkey, expressly for this purpose. As soon as the turkey is carved, we start the jook cooking, so that…

Baroo Restaurant Review

Gold Dig #18 Baroo is one of the most strikingly different restaurants I have been to. In some ways, it is so very LA… in a strip mall next to a 7-Eleven, with no sign other than the remnants from the previous establishment which looks to have once read “Thai Noodle”; ingredients that are local, sustainable,…

Breakfast Toasts

I am torn about the fact that “Toasts” have become a thing in LA restaurants. On the one hand, I quite enjoy them. On the other hand, I think it’s absurd to pay $12-$15 for what really amounts to a dressed-up bit of something on a slice of bread, especially when that something is often…

Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party

If you haven’t heard of it, you need to know about this amazing (as in causes amazement, rather than startlingly impressive) show called Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party. It is exactly what it sounds like – a cooking show with Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg. Of course my foodie friends and I had to check it…

Fermented Bean Curd Spareribs

Fermented bean curd is a wonderful seasoning you can buy jars of at the Asian market. It has a salty, almost meaty flavor, which is so good that in a pinch I’ve been known to just mash up a cube of fermented bean curd and eat it over rice. So if you mash it over…

Brains and Spiders (Cauliflower Olive Gratin)

Cookbook Club – Halloween For October’s Cookbook Club, we wanted to have a Halloween party, so instead of choosing a cookbook we just asked everyone to make something spooky-looking, creepy to eat, or otherwise Halloween themed. I made Brains and Spiders! AKA cauliflower and olive gratin. Go to my Cookbook Club site to see all…

Mariscos Jalisco Restaurant Review

Gold Dig #17 Mariscos Jalisco was our second stop as we hopped from one taco truck on Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants list to another (check out my Guerrilla Tacos post to read about the other). The Mariscos Jalisco truck always parks at the same spot on East Olympic Blvd. There’s another truck with a similar name that parks just…

Guerrilla Tacos Restaurant Review

Gold Dig #16 There are a couple taco trucks on Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants list. My cousin came into town for a couple days, and I talked her into taco truck hopping with me. It didn’t take much convincing. We went to Guerrilla Tacos first (also check out my post about Mariscos Jalisco, where we went…

Night+Market Restaurant Review

Gold Dig #15 Night+Market is one of the Thai restaurants on Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants list. While his list includes quite a few Thai spots, each has its own unique approach. Night+Market does Thai street food, as clearly called out in their neon sign. It is located in West Hollywood, and there’s another location in Silver Lake…

Roasted Radishes

Awhile ago, I had a roasted vegetable board at one of the many LA restaurants that serve locally sourced, seasonal produce. Most of the veggies were pretty standard for roasting – bell peppers, squash, broccolini. But there was one thing on the board that it took me a minute to figure out. Turns out it…