I'm on LA WEEKLY's food blog!

I've mentioned Squid Ink before, but without a proper introduction. Squid Ink is LA Weekly's new food blog where, because of budget cuts and the like, "Ask Mr. Gold" and the bulk of the paper's food news has been relocated.

At 9:39 this morning, I became a contributor to said food blog. You can read my coverage of the Grilled Cheese Invitational here.

Tomato Soup Guy courtesy of Mindy Poder.

Also, if you want to know what it's like to get paid to do something you love, just ask. I'll tell you.

31 Cent Scoop Night

From 5 to 10 PM tonight, Baskin Robins is reducing the cost of a small scoop of ice cream to 31 cents. The proceeds go to the National Volunteer Fire Council and the National Junior Firefighter Program, so everybody wins.

Details here.

This is Why You're Fat, Bound

Thisiswhyyourefat.com got a book deal! They're now accepting submissions and I'll bet a community of creative minds like ours will have no problem coming up with something gross enough to rival the bacone, a bacon cone filled with scrambled eggs and country gravy topped with a biscuit.

I want in. So let's consider this a challenge to our creativity and get cookin.

Squid Ink's "Mastering the Art of Julia" Part 1

In anticipation of Nora Ephron's new movie "Julie and Julia," based on the autobiography of Julia Child, LA WEEKLY's Squid Ink ran the first of a series (written by Margy) in which different LA chefs share memories of the legendary lady.

The first was Border Grill/Ciudad's Mary Sue Milliken. She talks about Julia inviting her and Susan Feniger to participate in a panel of the American Institute of Wine and Food, and a humorous glimpse of the dynamic between Julia and her husband, as stolen from their hotel room window. As posted, the story is sweet and funny. But I think the unposted part of the story, the part Margy told me during our walk around Rancho Park, is even funnier. When the panel is over and Julia has Mary Sue and Susan for dinner, then drinks at the hotel, the then 26 year old chefs are out-boozed and out-partied by the "warbly voiced" old gal. What a lady!


I eagerly await the next installment. And the footnotes.

CORRECTION: Margy just told me that the window incident and the Brandy till 4 AM incident happened ten years apart. In the light of ten years later, I think the story is an even greater testament to JC's ability to out-party the kiddies. What a lady, indeed!

To Cheese or Meat?

This Saturday April 25th at noon, LA food lovers will be in one of two places:

The 1st 7th Annual Grilled Cheese Invitational
at the LA State Historic Park
1245 N. Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012

According to the event site, there will be cheese-themed poetry, comedy and music as well as exhibition cheese grilling. But the real selling point is the more 300 competitors vying for the title of Grilled Cheese Campion. Yum. Town.

Last week, Founder/Organizer Tim Walker talked to my brilliant cousin Margy Rochlin about tips for attendees and general event details. They're all here on Squid Ink.

Competition from 1 PM - 6 PM.
$5 Admission fee.

OR!

LA WEEKLY's LA Weekend
Meat Lovers' Panel
Moderated by Jonathan Gold
with Mark Peel (Campanile) and Octavio Becerra (Palate Food + Wine)

The LA Weekend is actually a two-day event celebrating the Weekly's 30 years of publishing. It starts on Friday with some art, some music, some Wil Wheaton, and ends Saturday with the meat panel and a screening of "The Heart is a Drum Machine," among other things.

The two-day pass to the Weekend was going to cost $30, but Nike bought out the event and now it's free and open to the public.


Where will I be?
It just so happens that the only Festival of Books panel I got tickets for/wanted to see starts at 12:30, about the same time as the other two events, so my decision was made for me. From 12:30-2ish, I'll be book festing, then over to Grilled Cheese Invitational for sammich sampling till 5.

The City Bakery Closes, an Era Ends

Two days ago I found out that The City Bakery is closing today. I cried. Then I felt stupid for crying and I wondered why I was being so sentimental. Yes, there was a time when I ate there almost every day, but in over a year, I don't think I've gone more than once.

So I planned to go for lunch today, for one last taste, but I didn't go. Although I'll undoubtedly miss City's cornbread salad (for both the flavor and the comedy of calling what is essentially a bowl of dressed croutons a "salad"), this feeling I have isn't really about the food.

Only very recently, I realized that I have subconsciously organized my entire life according to specific foods/flavors/restaurants that I associate with each distinct period. I have begun to refer to this subconscious organization as my Autobiography in Food. And much in the same way that my childhood was Rosa Rita beans (see Deep Fried Twinkie), the summer of 2006, my first summer with David, was The City Bakery.

That was the summer before I started UCLA. Neither one of us had jobs, so every day, we'd grab lunch at City, and picnic on the beach and then swim in the ocean. Sooner or later, I'd get taken out by a wave and drag myself back to the berm and collapse on my towel. I would lie there catching my breath and then when I had he would ask me about my plans for the future and I would talk about them with exhausting excitement until we both fell asleep. During those days at the beach, he taught me what it meant to be present, and what it meant to love my body. I stopped associating eating with shame and my weight finally equalized. That summer, for the what might have been the first time in my whole life, I was confident that every decision I'd ever made was right because each one had led me to that spot on the sand, where I was always just beginning.

In my Autobiography in Food, all the parts of that summer, everything I learned, and that truly perfect happiness of having direction and purpose, occupy the same space as The City. In my Autobiography in Food, they are tied inextricably. And because the end of one era and the beginning of another is often only distinguishable in retrospect, when I heard that The City is closing, I was finally awakened to the fact that that time, when I knew where I was going and it was exactly where I wanted to be, is most definitively over.

Today, I don't know what I'm doing or what's going to happen. I talk about my future reluctantly, and with hesitation. I know there will be other good places, like there will be other happy summers and other nurturing lovers. But today, losing the bakery is like losing a part of myself; it's like losing one of the best parts when I need it the most.

Drink: Boston

I just got back from the icy Northeast and was kvelling about my favorite bar in Boston to Emma. Always the shameless self-promotor, she said: "you know, that would make a great blog post." So, that's what this is.

Drink is a sparsely-named bar located in Boston's Fort Point district. During the day, Fort Point is a growing business and residential area, filled with enough people to keep you company but quiet enough to keep its charm. At night when you cross the Fort Point Channel on Congress St. from downtown, it looks like exactly what it is: an abandoned industrial park that is so Northeast to me: bricks, windows, over and over, stacked on top of each other.

Drink is a reflection of its digs many ways. It's two things simultaneously: a froo-froo cocktail bar I travel half-an-hour across town to visit, and a neighborhood haunt where Fort Point locals can stop in for a High Life after work. It manages to do both effectively and unpretentiously. It's located below ground, a little hard to find if you're not looking for it. The bartenders are arguably some of the best in the city. No liquor bottles on the counter; just plants, spices, and tiny droppers filled with exotic bitters and flavorings. I've never heard bartenders talk so extensively about their ingredients. Ours even referred to bitters as "like a stock," in cooking, "that you can basically throw anything you want into." No wonder that they have such a range of flavors at their disposal. In addition to the booze and the big flavors (juices, muddling plants), there are more subtle flavors that make a truly excellent cocktail. For instance, Alana's drink was minty (because she's a hygienist, which the bartender cajoled out of her). To accentuate the "green" flavor in the drink, our bartender added a celery bitters from a little eye-dropper. I had no idea so much went into making a drink, and maybe that's because it doesn't happen that much anymore.

My drink, well...I'd say it was near perfection. I said I wanted a "spicy, chesty" drink, opening up my sternum like an ape at the bartender. "Ginger, too." No hesitation from the barman. I got scotch, "because you wanted hair on your chest," HOMEMADE GINGER BEER, and lime juice. Basically, everything I could ever want to taste in a tall, ice cold glass. The bartender named the drink after this lady. Now, let's talk about the HOMEMADE GINGER BEER. I had to ask the bartender about this because I drink lots and lots of the stuff. "Oh, it's really easy. Lots of fresh ginger, simple syrup, and then we charge it with gas." Most recipes call for some lemon juice too, but I don't recall if their recipe did because it was so, so spicy.

Of the top ten best drinks I have ever consumed, they've all been here. In addition to being a fantastic place to imbibe, Drink is about connectivity, bringing the entire city to a single neighborhood on one hand, defining a sense of place for the Fort Point community on the other. Of course it's a bar, a place for people to socialize yadda yadda yadda. Drink does more than that, though. You talk to your friends about what you're going to say to the bartender, you talk to your bartender about what you should drink, you talk to your bartender about what they've made you, and you usually share your drink with your friends because its like nothing else you've ever tasted. It gets everyone involved. Buying a drink isn't just a transfer of money from my hand to a stranger's. And they also have food here, which I'm told is comparably delicious. So, it's about socializing and foremost, sensory experience. It ought to be the official bar of this blog, and I'm convinced it would be were it in Los Angeles.

Hamantashen on JST

It feels thematically acceptable, even appropriate, to file this post according to Jewish Standard Time, which measures time by (often gross) approximation. Indeed, according to JST, posting on hamantashen almost a month after Purim is actually timely.

When people ask my co-baker Rebecca to tell them the story of Purim, she says, "Glad you asked," and dives right in. I do not. Despite the "Esther saves the Jewish people from the evil Haman" part, I can't shake the fact that it is essentially a story of a Jewess who tricks the king into marrying her. (What a stereotype.) So, I'll leave it to wikipedia to fill in the details if you're interested.

For our purposes, it's only really important to know that the featured cookie is named after Haman, the one who ordered the Jews to be killed and depending on who you ask, the triangular cookie is an approximation of either his hat or his ear. However, Becca and I are partial to the hat camp because we are logical people and the idea of triangle ears is absurd.

RECIPE:
Dough:
3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
10 Tbs. butter, cut into cubes
2 eggs
2 egg yolks (reserve whites for egg wash)
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Egg wash:
2 egg whites, lightly beaten with 2 tsp. sugar

TIPS FROM BUBBIE:
-the less you handle, the better
-careful pinching
-roll out thin

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a Cuisinart, pulse several times. Add butter, pulse and then process. In a small bowl, beat eggs, yolks and vanilla. Pour egg mixture into bowl, pulse and mix (bottom up) for 10+ seconds. Refrigerate in a ball for at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease pan and line with parchment paper. Allow dough to warm for 20 minutes.

Roll to 1/8" thick, cut circles using a 3" round cookie cutter. Place 2 tsp. of filling in the center and brush perimeter with egg wash. Lift dough to partially cover filling. DO NOT PINCH!!! Seal. Brush tops with egg wash. Bake for 15-18 minutes.

Cool and nosh your heart out.

NOTES: Becca thought it would be a great idea to add a little almond extract, so we substituted 1/2 tsp. vanilla for 1/2 tsp. almond--excellent call. We noticed that the more generous we were with the egg wash, the prettier the cookies turned out. Also, the cookies made with the 3" circle were huge, so we made some of them smaller and although I preferred them that way, the fact that only a few remained by the end of the day suggests that they were so delish that nobody else really cared.

CHALLAH!

Making challah was like my second Bat Mitzvah. It was a more tangible coming of age, to say the least, and I believe I am much more of a woman today than I was at 13 thanks in no small part [I estimate 70%] to the fact that I am now learned in the making of the bread.



Ingredients:
5 cups flour
1/2 cup cugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 pkgs yeast
3 eggs
1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups boiling water

Combine flour, salt, yeast and sugar . Melt the butter in the 1 1/2 cups boiling water then add them to the mix. Add 2 of the eggs. Kneed for 10 minutes, slowly adding flour so it becomes doughy - DON'T ADD TO MUCH! Refrigerate, 1 hour.

Knock down dough, divide into 3 sections and then braid each to form the challah. Place the braided dough on a greased sheet on the top shelf of the oven (WITHOUT HEAT) with a pan of water on the lower shelf, for 1 hour.

Remove from the oven and glaze with the third egg, beaten. Cook at 350 degrees for about 1/2 hour.




NOTES: The bread's lopsided tumescence is easily remedied by rolling out the individual strands of the braid more evenly. The texture was perfectly pillowy though and thoroughly addicting. Also, the bread was on the sweeter side of the challah spectrum which I'm not used to (just a matter of what you grew up with) but my friends loved.


*Thanks to Leslie who, in keeping with the Bat Mitzvah analogy, acted as honorary rabbi and thereby made my womandom possible.

STREET food for street prices

I was stoked on the idea of Susan Feniger's Street until I realized I couldn't afford to eat there. Apparently, I wasn't the only one because Susan announced that she's going to drop all Street prices to the price of the food on the street.

$5 pho? Fuh sho.

STREET
742 N. Highland Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90038

Hours:
Mon-Wed: 11 AM- 11 PM
Thurs - Sat: 11 AM- Midnight
Sun: 10 AM - 10 PM

For Reservations: 323.203.0500

There will be curry ice cream

at the L.A. Curry Festival
Sunday, April 5, 2008, 10 AM - 7 PM


Thai Town
Hollywood Blvd. (from Western Ave. to Vermont Ave.)
Los Angeles, Ca 90027

And it's free.

Shmura Matzoh Pizza

If they've got this in NYC, no doubt it can be found somewhere in LA (Shoiman Oaks, bubbie?). This article from Mark Bittman's blog sings the praises unleavened bread; not the Manischewitz you're likely to find at the typical seder table, but some serious, handmade stuff from the Hasidic hood. As contributor Edward Schneider notes, it offers some serious culinary benefits: freshness, wheat flavor, and crunch. I'm listening.

So, I this got me thinking: this could make an awesome flatbread pizza base. The problem, as anyone whose ever had to go through eight days of eating the stuff, is that it gets soggy, and fast. How can we make this work? Make a bunch of toppings, throw them together, and put them in oven before they even go on the matzoh to cut down on juice/oil seepage, maybe? Seems like this could, at the very least, make pesach a little more exciting and at most, make its way into the secular mouth as a snappy new snacky. Yiddische Taco Truck, anyone?

deep fried Twinkie

When I tell people that I never really learned how to ride a bike, they laugh and joke about how deprived my childhood must have been. Sunday's conversation with my favorite professor adhered to the standard bike-conversation protocol. He got a good chuckle, and then we went to lunch.

We pull up to a cute hoagie joint in Moorpark and he says, "They have deep fried Twinkies."
"No," as if I've won a prize.
He smiles and nods, "Yes."

Besides fries and falafel, I have very little experience with deep fried food and I have never even been within 100 (if not more) feet of a deep fried Twinkie. I think it may be a greater novelty to me than other people, first, because of the whole deep fried thing, and second, because it's the kind of food that could only have been conceived by the mind of a goy.

After my parmesan chicken sub and good conversation, I've completely forgotten about the Twinkie. The chubby guy from the counter comes to our table with the crispy blond turd atop a styrofoam plate and sets it in front of me. Suddenly the table's quiet and everyone's watching. I semi-nervously take my fork, cut, and pause with the bite aloft, and then plunge it into my mouth.

I am stunned. It's so plasticy, so good. I say the first thing that comes to mind: "It tastes like the best day of childhood." And I mean it, but it's complicated. It doesn't taste like my childhood. There was not a day in my childhood that tasted anything like deep fried Twinkie. My childhood tastes like Rosarita beans. I mean the taste sums up everything I've ever imagined about the best childhood experiences I never had. In that first bite, it was learning to ride a bike, going to the fair, having a dog -- everything I wanted to do as a kid but didn't get to.

I'm slightly embarrassed about how moved I was by such a trifle. But it was like getting to glimpse those things and be happy for that glimpse, happy that those things exist, and ultimately more happy for the perspective of Mexican beans than individually packaged cakes.*


Chris and Jeanie Mott, the facilitators of deep-fried Twinkie revelations

*I still want to ride a bike.