I’ve been a fan of the Homegirl Café since it first opened in a closet-size space in Boyle Heights — you’d have to be Dick Cheney’s meaner brother to not be a cheerleader for this place, where young women are given a way out of gangs and crime to learn the restaurant business. About a [...]
At “my” market, that is to say the downtown Wednesday/Saturday Santa Monica markets five minutes from my house, I can get all the components I need for a complete meal, including what’s needed to fill the “center of the plate.” I get never-frozen, free-range fresh chickens and eggs from Healthy Family Farm and Lily’s, pork [...]
Shortly after Anne Willan (pictured at left, busy in her home office) moved to Santa Monica from France last year, I found myself in her living room discussing the style of Jacques-Louis David, the late 18th-century Neoclassical French painter. Officially, I was there to assist the prolific cookbook author and renowned founder of La Varenne [...]
Chefmakers may have closed, including its excellent classes for young cooks, but fortunately, there are still plenty of great summer cooking programs around town. If $400 intensive week-long classes aren’t in your budget, check your local schools, both public and private, for summer sessions that offer cooking deals, or try individual classes, which often run [...]
The 21st annual Taste of the Nation Los Angeles takes place in Culver City in a mere twelve days, and the good folks behind the event (chaired this year by Mary Sue Milliken) need volunteers for the day. The cause couldn’t be better — 100% of proceeds go to Share Our Strength, a nationwide, chef-started [...]
Amelia Saltsman’s Farmers’ Market Report
Wow! Here’s how fast the seasons shift at the farmers’ market: When I left town three weeks ago, the markets were all about late-season citrus, strawberries and lots of spring green things. I’m back to find the whole palette has changed. We’re still enjoying crazy-good strawberries, but now we’re also smack-dab [...]
Here’s our short list of post-holiday-weekend reading for hungry folks:
• Our friend Adrienne Crew just posted an engaging interview with one of L.A.’s smartest food writers, Amy Scattergood. Read it here on L.A. Observed.
• Miles Clements reports on the “underappreciated” Holland Festival in Long Beach, which was rich with Indonesian food: Daily Dish
• Seeing Squid [...]
Thanks to the Chowhounds, Yelpers and L.A.’s vast army of food bloggers (yes, guilty as charged), it’s next to impossible to pop into a new restaurant these days without any preconceived notions. But that’s exactly what happened last weekend when I was shopping the Montana Avenue sidewalk sale. Note to self: Crazy deals draw crazy, or [...]
“Are you more of a sour or floral cocktail person?” asked Gus, our squeezably cute Aussie bartender at Copa D’Oro, cocktail guru Vincenzo Marianella’s Santa Monica lounge that debuted in January. “What about rosemary, tangerine?”
And so continued the cat-and-mouse game, until Gus settled on a drink that he’d like to make for us. That’s pretty [...]
It’s rush hour at Grand Central Italian — aka Bottega Louie — and the energy is electric. After-work professionals hoping to land a table in the restaurant run into friends at the bar/café or at the vast and dazzling takeout counter. Hancock Parkers meet pals from Pasadena, perhaps before a show at the Music Center, or [...]
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