27 Apr 2012 7 Comments
in American Series, Recipes Tags: Blue Bayou, bourbon, cajun, cocktail, Disneyland, Louisiana, mint julep, Pirates of the Caribbean, recipes, whisky
Our friend, Heather, invited us and a few friends recently to celebrate her birthday. She wanted to do a “Southern potluck.” I offered to bring gumbo, fried chicken, corn bread and a few other miscellaneous items. “You nut,” Heather responded. “It’s not a potluck if you make everything!”
Heather & her julep
Ultimately I settled on buttermilk fried chicken wings and mangalitsa lard-infused corn bread. And, to drink, mint juleps. More
24 Apr 2012 17 Comments
in Markets & Stores, Observations, Recipes Tags: food, grits, Indian food, markets, palak paneer, paratha, recipe, red snapper, Santa Monica, Trader Joe's
Sometimes I feel like eating a cuisine I’m not particularly good at, or don’t have the cupboard resources to roll out on a dime. Chinese food is one example — if I ever want to feel inadequate as a cook, I’ll try to make a Chinese dinner. Same with Indian. I can could a reasonably good generic curry, but am lacking the encyclopedic pantry of spices and unusual ingredients to go much further. Fortunately, my cravings for either of these two cuisines is rare, and when need strikes I can usually survive on the occasional take out. I’m mostly satisfied with my repertoire, and will leave the meins and masalas to the experts. Or, I eat Trader Joe’s.
Palak paneer with Malabari paratha from TJ's
I get annoyed when I meet people from the East Coast who ask whether we have Trader Joe’s on the West Coast. More
20 Apr 2012 3 Comments
in Recipes Tags: California, cooking, food, Golden State, Greece, Greek recipes, Indian chewing gum, Mediterranean, mustard, wild greens
Every spring, our hillsides in California are covered with a misting of glorious, delicate yellow flowers — wild mustard. Perhaps this is where we got our name, The Golden State.
When I was a child, someone introduced me to “Indian chewing gum.” Once summer had baked the leafless mustard plants into chalky white skeletons, you could break open the main stalk and inside was a kind of foamy, chewy dried pith. It had no flavor, but did have a pleasant chewiness, at least for the first few seconds before it became mushy and/or got jammed up in between your teeth where you couldn’t get it out. More
17 Apr 2012 16 Comments
in Observations Tags: cooking, food, lunch, mayonnaise, nanny, Skinny Girls, Topanga, vegetarians
We have a new nanny. My wife and I say to each other, “Well, she’s better than nothing.” And we mean it — she is, actually, better than nothing.
B-grade nanny lunch
It’s hard to find a good nanny. Our previous nanny, Karina, was with us for seven years. She was the only nanny my two oldest children, Flynn and Willa, ever knew during their early years. Our third child Imogen has, at age 21 months, already had five. More
13 Apr 2012 4 Comments
in On the Road, Recipes, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories) Tags: asparagus, dining, fois gras, food, Malibu, pork belly, ravioli, recipes, Steve McQueen
Fois gras ravioli with pickled fennel, shimeji mushrooms and marscapone cheese — at Chez McQueen
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Here’s the way I like to imagine it:
McQueen is out on the deck drinking his whisky, his khakis rolled up and his feet on the railing, watching the sea crash on the rocks just below. He’s surprised to find a stranger at his stove cooking, but only shrugs. After a bit he comes in to freshen his drink, and asks me what the hell I’m doing in his kitchen. More
