07 Nov 2014 7 Comments
in Cooking Tips, Markets & Stores Tags: Ballona Wetlands, carne asada, Dave Frost Automotive, Japanese cooking, Korean short ribs, Mexican food, Mitsuwa, ramen, Richard Brody, Sanchez Carniceria
My pal, Richard Brody, picked me up on the corner of Santa Monica Blvd. and Bentley Avenue at 11:07 a.m. on a Monday morning. We were going shopping.
Brody and his ramen
What I was doing on that particular corner without a car is a whole other story of broken struts, the Culver City green line and a client of my other, more lucrative life. But it is what Brody and I were doing that is of interest for this blog, as it has everything to do with food. More
04 Nov 2014 13 Comments
in Pork, Recipes, Video Tags: Dia de los Muertos, holidays, James Joyce, Loteria, Mexican cooking, Mexico, mole, Oaxaca, Pork, The Dead
“His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.” —James Joyce, “The Dead”
As I’ve confessed to in the past, I like holidays — particularly other people’s holidays. Our neighbors to the south, Mexico, for example.
31 Oct 2014 12 Comments
in Eating Out, On the Road Tags: Barley Forge Brewing Co., beer, Costa Mesa, Greg Nylen, home beer brewing, Jeff Kramer, microbreweries, Orange County, Topanga Catering
I’ve written glowingly in the past about my friend, Greg, and his home brewing set up.
The soft opening at Barley Forge
Greg is a lawyer who, I guess, got tired of lawyering and wanted to make beer instead. I’ve been drinking his delicious beers for several years, and listening to his plans to open his own brewery — first in Topanga, and that having proven an impossible-to-navigate labyrinth of permits and regulations, Culver City. When the latter also failed to pan out, he set his sights further south — to Costa Mesa in Orange County — and a brewery was born. More
28 Oct 2014 13 Comments
in Humor, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories) Tags: Halloween, holidays, humor, Kentucky Fried Chicken, los angeles, trick or treaters
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It was Halloween many, many years ago — quite obviously before I had children of my own, as you will soon see.
My pal, Mike, and I were at his girlfriend’s parents house in an affluent suburb of Los Angeles, waiting for our dates, who were upstairs putting the finishing touches on their Halloween costumes. We were reclining on the couch, into our second or third beers, when the doorbell rang. More
24 Oct 2014 8 Comments
in On the Road, Pork, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories) Tags: Barley Forge Brewing Co., Camping, cowboys, Don Julio 70, Dumbledore, Garth's Boulder Garden, Greg Nylen, Joshua Tree, Pioneertown, Santa Maria tri tip, Sean Colgin, smoked pork shoulder
It was past Pioneertown, the last outpost, at the end of a long and dusty dirt road amidst the boulders and Joshua trees and outlaw cabins of the Mojave desert, that we set up camp.
Desert shadow selfie
More specifically, it was the property of our friend and Scoutmaster, Greg, and his wife Mary Ann, and an official Cub Scouts camp out. And I was designated cook for 50 or so people on Saturday night.
skinny girls & mayonnaise 