This pasta is so impressive-looking, you’d never guess how easy it is to make (the best kind of pasta dish). You’re romancing classic cacio e pepe with a deep, dark, shmoody red wine sauce, a technique I learned from the amazing Montreal pizza and natty wine joint Elena. You’ll reduce an entire bottle of wine (!!!), along with lots of garlic and black pepper, until it’s thick and fragrant and devoid of any astringency, and then add boatloads of salty cheese. I like to use a fifty-fifty mix of Pecorino Romano (salty, sheepy) and Parmigiano Reggiano (nutty, sweet), but you could use one; just know that pecorino is a supremely salty cheese, so you might want to hold back on the salt elsewhere in the recipe.
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Considered one of the crown jewels of Shabbat and holiday cooking, brisket has decidedly humble beginnings. Inexpensive due to its toughness and originally considered a throwaway cut, brisket became a staple of cold-weather Eastern European Jewish cooking when farmers realized it was less expensive to butcher a cow than to feed it all winter long.
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When I opened Beverly Soon Tofu in 1986, I had four soon tofu options on the menu. This combination of beef, oysters, and clams was one of them.
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I’m always looking for Los Angeles abroad, so it was interesting—I want to say amazing—to be invited to the Saint James Hotel and find California in this unusual and very specifically Parisian place.
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I live for tomatoes. In summer I am constantly seeking and eating them. Here they play together in all their forms – the pop of fresh, the collapsing roasted, and the smoky sweet chewiness of the semi-dried smoked versions. The slathering of feta and fragrant hit of zhug make this salad the life of any party. When showcasing a few ingredients like this there is nowhere to hide, so buy the best that you can find and afford.
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It’s Monday and Diego Argoti is in the kitchen at Poltergeist going through his order list for Tuesday’s opening. The restaurant is closed and absent of the usual background sounds of its host arcade space, Button Mash, with its pinball rings and the racking of skee balls.
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Karla Pittol floats between drifting smoke plumes as she makes her way between the various live fires that she maintains most evenings. Dinners here are packed with hot, happy bodies, toasting low-key craft cocktails and eating up all the coal-cooked and grilled delights that the all-female team of Chainsaw puts out for their sold-out events.
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Millet is another small grain that packs a ton of taste and nutrition. Mixing it with all-purpose flour creates a structured dough that is also incredibly tender. Millet is subtly sweet and a little funky tasting. I love it with jasmine sugar and fermented honey.
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Outside, on a day threatening rain, three pastry chefs have set up cakes that defy traditional shape, color, and size. Both the cakes and their makers — Michelle Boulos, Rose Wilde, and Kassandra Mendieta — are covered in glitter. The scene is resplendent: dahlias, delphiniums, hellebore, and roses either pepper the cakes, the table or ground. Rose stacks disks of vanilla meringue on top swirls of butterfly pea blossom whipped cream with the speedy grace of a potter at her wheel. As they dance to Fleetwood Mac or exchange tips on how to use an edible ink printer, they’re playing; they’re collaborating. Originally the three met through Instagram, but now they chatter about misunderstood ingredients and elusive beach plums with curiosity and authority, like witches adding to their cauldron.
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The remote islands of Fiji are on the frontlines of climate change in a way that us Angelenos can only imagine. In a city like LA, the days are getting hotter, the fires more primal, but the ocean is not in danger—yet—of washing us away. Not so in Fiji. The whole country is fragile and beautiful, so beautiful that, spend any time there at all, and you become hyper clear about just how much we have to lose.
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It’s not always easy to manage a big faraway vacation—we all need some closer-to-home getaways that still feel like we’re actually getting away. On a good day, you’ll drive south to Laguna Beach in less than two hours and find yourself surrounded by a cute, quirky little beach town—sort of like how Malibu used to feel—filled with local boutiques, art galleries, great restaurants, surf shops, clean beaches, beautiful hikes, and a handful of stunning resorts.
The Montage Laguna Beach is perched on a clifftop overlooking the ocean and they’ve done a remarkable job making the property a one-stop paradise—you don’t really feel the need to leave. It’s easy to fill a weekend with luxurious spa treatments (take advantage of the spa’s quiet, adults-only pool, which arguably has the best view on the property), beach walks, pool lounging, and trying everything on offer at their three restaurants.
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This recipe is based on my mother’s lentil fritters, with all the toppings from the Bohri Bazaar version. You should be able to find urid daal, carom seeds (ajwain), tamarind sauce, chaat masala, sev and papri in Asian shops or online.
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One circular table, thirty ingredients, and ten open seats became the hottest restaurant no one knew, stranded somewhere deep in the open desert at Burning Man in 2019. In-keeping with the festival’s gift-giving tradition, designers and Istanbul natives Alper Nakri and Deniz Hotamisligil built a mobile kitchen and dining room on wheels to offer the Burning Man playa what they knew how to do best: Turkish breakfast. The first ten guests spanned the ages of 17 to 85-years-old, from Australia to Sweden, students, and company executives. They had nothing in common except the time and space to connect and discover that they were all more similar than they had thought. Nakri and Hotamisligil flipped the table ten times that week and before they knew it, they had the first one hundred members of what had become, right then and there, the Turkish Breakfast Club (also known as TBC).
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This recipe originally came from my mom, Elisabeth. She always made excellent lemon bars when I was growing up. Mom loves anything lemony and tart and I’m just the same. I’m so lucky that she is always so willing to share her recipes with me. We make these at the bakery with a torched meringue topping for fun. It’s worth getting a small kitchen blowtorch to raise the bar of presentation in your home baking.
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Deviling isn’t just for eggs. The name refers to any preparation that features spicy mustard and/or hot pepper and is usually made with chicken, ham, or crab. It might seem a little heavy-handed to devil oysters, but it will be a favorite recipe for spiceheads who love splashing Tabasco on raw oysters.
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Imagine a delicious cross between an old-timey county fair, a farmers market, and a three-day intensive workshop with some of the best minds in gardening, seed preservation, healthy living, and sustainability. Throw in some entertainment, kids’ activities, vendors, food, friendship, and magic, and you have The National Heirloom Exposition.
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Upstate New York has always served as a refuge for city dwellers, offering wide swaths of open pasture only a few hours train from the bustling heat of city centers. Every time I visited the Hudson Valley during my five years in New York, I jumped at the opportunity to witness seasons in full swing.
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This is a super dreamy summer dessert, that only requires you to turn your oven on low. It is light, sweet, crunchy, and gluten-free. The meringue base can be made with any flavor and filled with endless possibilities.
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I started No Good Cakes with a bowl of oatmeal about a month into Covid quarantine. After a few weeks of spiraling, I started making an experimental oatmeal bowl everyday and sharing pics with friends. I was also baking pastries for fun, thinking I could try to sell them. Then I began a food IG called Nommel Gobble as a way to connect online with other folks who love food in all its forms.
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