Pinot Noir lovers (and we count ourselves in that large club) take note of the first allegedly annual Pinot Days Festival coming to Santa Monica on January 17th. This born-in-San-Francisco event will bring 75 winemakers who will be offers tastes of several hundred Pinots, hailing from the Santa Rita Hills, Oregon’s Santa Lucia Highlands, the [...]
If you prefer to avoid the restaurant hoopla on New Year’s eve (we sure do), this city is thick with resources for great stay-at-home food and drink. Maybe this year you’re feeling more like serving a heaping platter of pastrami with local beer, or a pile of tamales with pomegranate margaritas? And if you’re the [...]
Last week we offered up a few ideas to satisfy the eaters on your list this holiday season. Here is our last-minute gift list for those who always politely decline the home-baked slice of pie but can’t go a day without a cup or three of organic coffee or a bottle of good red wine.
Absinthe [...]
The Original Farmers Market (that’s right, “Original” is now part of the name) has a week’s worth of goings-on starting July 13 in honor of its 75th birthday. But before I share those, I’m going to share a few of my favorite Farmers Market memories, because I’m an L.A. native who’s been going there my [...]
Riverside citrus ranchers Vicki, Vince, and A.J. Bernard have come up with a great value-added idea — squeezing fresh citrus juices to order at the farmers’ markets. Yup, it’s that fresh. Riverside is a primo citrus region, and summer fruits yield intensely sweet juice. $3 buys you a 12-ounce glass of Valencia orange (splashed with [...]
With silky tannins, its sweet berry-scented nose intermixed with some forest floor and underbrush offer impressive aromatics. The wine is medium-bodied, with silky, noble sweetness and a fine, pure finish. It should drink well for… let’s just say, until the end of summer.
No, this is not a secret stash of Usonian Pinot Noir, but a confluence of [...]
When I first got wind of the Celebrate Life with HOPE event, a gigantic block party on Paramount’s New York backlot for children who have (or who have beaten) cancer or life-threatening blood diseases, I was certain I had misunderstood something. The organizer, Dr. Ernest Katz at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, was rounding up folks [...]
It sounded a little too much like a Nickelodeon sitcom to be tasty.Local 7-year-old Oscar Youd decides to make root beer for his school science fair at St. James School Episcopal School in central L.A. He wants to learn firsthand how yeast and sugar magically bubble and burp into soda. Nothing out of the ordinary [...]
Pickles are one of those everyday foods with a great back story that often gets buried in all that salty brine. Cleopatra reportedly attributed her beauty to a steady diet of pickles (a $150 pickle facial is sure to hit Beverly Hills spa menus any day now), and Aristotle touted the health benefit of preserved veggies [...]
My 16-year-old daughter, Emily, and I signed up to volunteer for Taste of the Nation in Culver City on Sunday, and while we felt guilty that there wasn’t enough for us to do (thanks to an outstanding volunteer turnout), we managed to cope with the guilt by tasting as much as we could manage. Which [...]
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