The hamburger as we know it was born in Southern California, where in another time guys in hot rods would pull up to drive ins where girls named Betty and Fran would saunter up on rollerskates and take their orders for a cheeseburger and milkshake, while kids on the East Coast were still eating hoagies.
A dear and too-soon departed friend, Dann, hailed from Louisville (“Louvull,” as he called it), Kentucky. He was a fan of White Castle. It reminded him of home. He used to buy them frozen in a Santa Monica grocery store. “Not so much because they taste good,” he would say, “but because they’re comforting.” More
Chickens are mercurial creatures. Sometimes they lay like crazy, and other times they appear spooked and go barren. Then they like to play little tricks on you. One of our hens hadn’t seemed to be laying in weeks. But then I saw her emerging nervously from within a shrub. I looked beneath the leaves and found 11 eggs.
Chicken behaving suspiciously.
When they’re laying like gangbusters, I’m always looking for interesting ways of using our eggs. I massage them into flour and make homemade pasta, I boil them for Nicoise and Cobb salads, I crack them into congee and over the top of chilaquiles, I fry them and plop them onto a pile of spaghetti. I even do a groovy Spanish-style deviled egg with chorizo, pimenton and lots of olive oil (let me know if you wanna know how to make that one!) More
I like entering contests of skill. I won a big Le Creuset dutch oven recently in a contest where I had to write a semi-autobiographical essay about my childhood memories and how Le Creuset fit warmly into them. (There must’ve been one somewhere in my childhood, right? Anyway…) A recent item caught my eye in the Los Angeles Times food section: Best Burger Contest.
My entry in the Best Burger Contest — the Chorizo burger with Manchego, caramelized fennel and spicy sweet pimenton aioli
My go-to burger is sort of a knock-off of the now-famous burger from my old neighborhood dive bar, Father’s Office: thick medium-rare burgers, blue cheese, caramelized onions, bacon and arugula. I figured two thirds of the recipes submitted to the contest were going to be some variation on that theme, so I decided to enter the Burger Lab (my kitchen) and get to work on coming up with something utterly original, and unbeatably delicious. More
Do you know what I love most about St. Patrick’s Day? The drunken debauchery, you answer by reflex? No, I don’t need an excuse for that. (Although my sister, Andrea, and I did once consume a long queue of red wines at an Irish pub in Venice, Italy, during a particularly good exchange rate.) It’s the leftover corned beef I have after my once-a-year foray into Irish cuisine.
Reuben ingredients
Whichever of the World’s Best Sandwiches I happen to be eating at the time tends to be my favorite. (And typically I’ll make a strong case for my own sandwich, the Topanga tri-tip.) But you’d be hard pressed to find a better sandwich than the Reuben. More
This is all I got, folks. My greatest sandwich. And I give it to you. I give and I give and I give…
But to get there we must first take a side trip on a long country road. Midwesterners and Southerners may boast of having the best barbecue. But we in California have our own claim to grilling fame. I’m talking about Santa Maria-style, and in particular the tri-tip. We’re not tiptoeing our way around a dainty rack of candied baby back ribs, people. The tri-tip is a wonderful cut that gives you rare and well-done in the same piece of meat. (If you don’t have anyone who wants well-done, you can save the tip and chop it up for tacos the next day!) Akin to Texas barbecue, this is meat at its most elemental. A beefy tri-tip, our own fragrant coastal oak and fire.
skinny girls & mayonnaise 