08 Jul 2013
by scolgin
in Recipes
Tags: Chinese plum sauce, crab puffs, food, humor, langoustine, Lee Kum Kee, pizza, plums, Topanga, Watermans
Or rather, when your neighbor Glennis — who is godlike in her own ways — gives you plums…
About this time every year, we get the call from next door. “The plums are ready!” The kids and I head over and wind our way down into the Watermans’ terraced backyard, where sure enough the plum tree is overloaded with beautiful purple plums. And we gather and gather and gather.
Plums as far as the eye can see.
Unlike, say, a tomato plant which may continue giving you tomatoes throughout the season, a plum tree comes full and ready all at once. If you get a week, you’re lucky — especially with the incursion of various lean and hungry summer critters. More
05 Jul 2013
by scolgin
in American Series, Recipes
Tags: 4th of July, barbecue, California, cooking, food, humor, recipes, Santa Maria, tri-tip
To give you a sense of how thoroughly ingrained in the collective California consciousness the tri tip is, I need tell a story.
The 4th of July was approaching, I was at the market, and tri tip was on sale. I figured that would be the perfect thing to grill for a few friends who were coming by, so I bought a nice three pounder, brought it home, sprinkled it with salt, wrapped it in paper towels and put it in the fridge to cure for a few days. More
28 Jun 2013
by scolgin
in Food, Humor, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories), Video
Tags: beer batter, Daniel Shore, food, fried, humor, local food, rattlesnake, Topanga
There are always interesting things happening in the canyon.
A hot, lazy Southern California afternoon. As I was driving my kids on a winding country road through horse ranches and chaparral the other day, I got a text from my friend Dan:
“Yo bro. Just got a big ol rattler. You want some slither wid yo dinner?”
Daniel with his prize
Rattlesnakes are pretty common up here, and I’ll often see one or two a year. In some of the hotter parts of the canyon, people may see one or two a day. More
21 Jun 2013
by scolgin
in Cooking Tips, Food, Recipes
Tags: green tomatoes, humor, Italian food, Mario Batali, pasta, recipes, spaghetti, Topanga Canyon
Late last fall, I was picking up my son Flynn from the home of our friends’ Lori and Gerard, where he was playing with his friend — their daughter Kiana.
Green tomatoes, herbs & squash blossom
Lori and I were standing in the yard chatting while the kids hammered on their wood projects and toddler Immy rolled around in a big plastic Smart Car-looking toy she found on the patio. We talked of the difficulty of growing vegetables in Topanga Canyon, as I admired her tall, barren tomato plants. More
18 Jun 2013
by scolgin
in Food, Recipes
Tags: Attempts in Domesticity, Buffalo wings, chicken wings, China, Chinese cooking, food, humor, pool party, salt & pepper wings
It’s no secret that I think the chicken wing is the best part of the bird. I recently commented on an Asian chicken wing post on one of my favorite blogs, Attempts in Domesticity, that I heard they were engineering chickens with eight wings — spiderchickens! (A combination of humor and wishful thinking.)
One of my favorite kinds of wings, along with original Buffalo wings and twice-fried Korean wings, are Chinese salt & pepper wings. I used to get them back in the day at cheap Chinese takeout counters — you know the kind, with the compartmentalized styrofoam take out boxes where you can choose between noodles or fried rice and two entrees for $5.99. More
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