When Vince Wukmir first bought his ranch on Route 66 on the way to Las Vegas, he was thinking of maybe doing a winery, or even a little farm stand. He was passionate about one thing though, wanting to focus on the natural gifts, raw beauty, and history of the land. That's when he realized that his ranch contained a huge stand of old-growth wild elderberry trees that had been around for decades.
Read MorePeople really care about their rice in Japan. Go to a grocery store, and you’ll see aisles and aisles of different kinds of spectacular rice. Families have strong allegiances to their favorite brands, and rituals in cooking rice from soaking to washing to steaming. In so many ways it’s emblematic of the Japanese food artisans we’ve to come to admire with their national pride and insistence on the very best.
That’s why it’s especially exciting that rice flour made with Japanese short grain rice grown in Japan is now locally available. This is not your garden variety rice flour, and it’s making its entrance just at the right time.
Read MoreBetter Rhodes is the coolest N/A market we’ve seen, a place where you can find and learn about stellar alcohol free products. This comes in handy especially now with the Holidays and all the social pressure that goes with it. What if we sailed through all the parties, not only having fun, but feeling great? Better Rhodes’ collection of really amazing N/A spirits and cocktail recipes offers that possibility, and let us tell you, the N/A world is exploding with complexity and fabulousness.
Read MoreIf you’re one of the few people in LA who hasn’t had a pupusa, what is it exactly?
A thick cushiony pancake made from corn or rice flour and stuffed with all kinds of creative deliciousness is one way to describe it or, if you’re like us, you can turn to Jonathan Gold’s immortal words: “consider the pupusa: a dense, griddle-baked corn thing filled with goodies, a UFO-shaped Salvadoran snack that is something like a shotgun wedding between a tortilla and an Italian calzone.”
Read MoreNicole Rucker became friends with Lydia Clarke and Reed Herrick at the DTLA Cheese stall before she landed at Grand Central Market in 2019. That date ring a bell? Yep, right at the start of the pandemic we all remember so well. Nicole and the others in the market all banded together, helping each other get through with masses of takeout. Now Fat and Flour is firmly installed at the market, complete with happy-pink columns and cases of Nicole’s signature offerings.
Read MoreIf there’s anyone who knows about palate, it’s Virginia Miller. For fifteen years she’s been a dining, cocktail, spirits and drink writer and editor, as well as a professional spirits awards judge for umpteen global awards (as well as a dining, bars and cocktail judge). Edible LA first met her at a farm-to-table dinner in Stinson Beach, in the Bay Area, and we couldn’t stop comparing notes. We knew right away that Virginia was the ‘real’ thing, someone who knew a crazy amount about spirits and whiskeys and just about any kind of food. In the most recent chapter in her professional life (which includes being the W. North America Academy Chairperson for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants,) Virginia has had the kind of dreamboat experience the rest of us only fantasize about: she was the nose and palate — and for two years, the co-creator behind — a new tequila with an established global brand, Avion, part of one of the biggest spirit companies in the world, Pernod Ricard. What was that like? She says it all comes down to the palate. But what is a palate? Is it something we’re born with, or something we learn?
Read MoreWith some of the biggest temperature shifts between day and night, Paso Robles is heaven for wine. Hot days ripen the grapes, but then cool nights put the brakes on, helping to maintain acidity, slowing and lengthening the process for maximum complexity and aromatics. There’s diversity in the soil, from silts to silt loams to clay to limestone, as well as a range of micro-climates and good producing wells. The 173 acres of Robert Hall Winery are smack in the middle of all this bounty. They also source grapes from all 11 Paso Robles AVAs. All this accounts for the boldness of their wines, along with the ingenuity of the winemakers themselves.
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