canned food

I just saw Contagion and now it seems nothing is certain. Except my love for Matt Damon. Also John Hawkes and Kate Winslet. And that I need to stockpile canned food.

corkbar: wine bar for neophytes

It's been hard to type with my fingers triple-crossed, but I think I've finally found a new home. I don't want to jinx it, so I won't say more than that. Only now I feel comfortable taking some time away from house hunting and money making to sit down and put in some table time. So here we go.

I got a hold of a beer once when I was very little. I don't remember drinking more than a couple sips of it--nor do I remember trying to eat part of a raw steak afterward, though I've been told that I did that--but I do remember slamming my hand in the door of our red Subaru station wagon, and I remember it was horrible.

I like to think of this story as a fun explanation for why I never felt possessed to drink. I didn't start drinking until after I turned 21. And I still don't really drink-drink. But the truth is that I was probably scared straight by a video I watched in the D.A.R.E. program in 5th grade. (You may have seen it too: it's the one with the anthropomorphic bee and rabbit. It's terrifying.) As a result, wine is one particularly cavernous gap in my food culture knowledge.

Now to last week: Aaron and I were invited to sample the summer menu at a wine bar downtown. These things are a bit funny for us because we're always slightly convinced that there's been some kind of mistake. Any minute someone will announce that we were accidentally invited to sit at the grown ups table, and that we should go back to our rooms where we'll be served shells with ragu.

Of course, that didn't happen. And as we sat at the table at Corkbar, looking over the menu with two of the sweetest PR girls, I realized that it is the perfect wine bar for a horticultural neophyte like me. Corkbar's wine menu is meticulous and comprehensible. The list includes notes about flavor and pairing for each wine on the menu, all of which are made in California.

The food menu offered wine notes as well. And everything we ate was delicious. There isn't much to say because the bar seems to specialize in comfortable simplicity. They have taken the impenetrably high culture concept of a wine bar, stripped it of pretense, and given it air and light.

I will say, however, that it does not get better than their bahn mi sliders. Ground pork, ginger, cilantro, garlic, and carrot, with cool daikon that tempers the hot bursts of sriracha for the most pleasant kind of heat I've had served between two mini challah buns.

Corkbar: 403 W. 12th Street, Los Angeles. (213)746-0050

it's a bicycle wine rack, you hipster

Whaaat? More Squid Ink? Yes. Eat it up.

Food Gadgets for Hipsters: The Bicycle Wine Rack

wild goodness + food party + little trees

Updates! I'm looking for a new apartment in an exciting neighborhood. Rededicating myself to Squid Ink and taking on new responsibilities at the Academy. Is it too early to say the bounce is back?

Food Party Hostess Thu Tran at Everything Is Festival Tomorrow

Wild Goodness Food X Film Series: Chicken Screen Tests + Scorsese Meatballs

And this one. To which I contributed a sweet little nugget of my origins story:

Squid Ink Food Writers' Most Reviled Childhood Dinners

Western Spaghetti

I'm embarrassed. This video made the internet rounds two years ago and yet I saw it for the first time this weekend. I'm sharing it here because it's wonderful and because I'm sure that somewhere there exists another person who has not seen it. I refuse to believe I'm the only person who doesn't troll the youtubes.

Cakes for my Betty Draper New England fantasy life

In my younger years I often wished that I had grown up on the east coast.  Somewhere in New England, my hair would be longer and thicker and my bangs more blunt.  I'd take tennis lessons of course, and crew.   Competitors would fear my level head and quiet power; my coach would have been an alternate for the '84 Olympic team in both sports.  My friends, Madison (Maddie), Bernice (Bertie), and Caroline would always dress in whites or pastels, which would never get dirty, even when picking berries.  On weekends, we'd head for the cape. 

At 25, I'm super proud to be a Californian.  I love soccer and brown skin and garlic.  If I were to get a tattoo, I'd get a California silhouette somewhere on my inner arm so that when I shook someone's hand he'd know what's up.  I still love the fantasy of New England mothers ironing white linen tablecloths, planning theme parties and icing cakes.  And this is why I'm thankful for the internet, and JCrew.

Both cakes via Poppytalk.  Top, inspired by Stella McCartney's spring collection, Apollina created Stella Cake (a Citrus Cake with Lemon Curd Filling and Orange Lemon Icing).  Bottom, a DIY tutorial from Strawberry Chic shows how to make frosting roses.

petite douche avec ton pilsner

I once had a boyfriend who told me that bar soap was unsanitary. But he was an extremist. We disagreed about a lot of things.

Read Lather with Lager: Give Him Beer Soap for Father's Day, my new post about soap made from beer on Squid Ink.