Nov 06
signage
May 23
hedgehogs (珍 珠 丸 子) Count the number on your plate before leaving the room: Ground pork, bamboo, ginger, shitake mushrooms, and soy sauce balls rolled in glutinous rice and steamed for half hour. The individual kernels of rice perk up like the gentlest kitty shug, and the bamboo gives the pork the “gabba gabba” quality so essential in Chinese [...]
May 23
the last of the favas Sadness comes but once a year: Fava beans at the last harvest. They bow out gracefully, the plump favas, though we try to give them enough time to give us one more little pod.
May 23
pandoro Pandoro is Patience’s Reward: The narrative needs very few words. The recipe, six eggs, some flour, butter, honey, vanilla, cocoa butter, sugar, a super hearty sourdough starter, and instant yeast (you will need the kind that is tolerant of osmos, like SAF Gold). Blend together (over 2 hours of mixing, your machine will get tired) [...]
May 23
compost Feeding frenzy: Our red wrigglers are about to receive a biological feast. Full of coffee, orange peels and fava bean discards, the meal promotes cardio and muscular development in the little guys.
May 05
fava beans Digging for gold: The little fava beans come individually nestled inside a stiff cocoon, and these are lined up 3, 4 or 5 in a row inside a fur sleeping bag. From the original pile of pods, to shedding its many layers, to being stir-fried with garlic, it’s definitely a what-you-get-is-not-what-you-eat situation.
Apr 25
osmanthus Guardians: If you’re tooling around Monterey Park you might as well stop in at the San Gabriel Nursery. If you make it past the Orchid zone, the air starts to smell like Sweet Ozmanthus and pretty soon you’ll be trying to fit two pots into the back of your car. Not a bad way to [...]
Apr 25
mangosteens in los angeles If you don’t know what they are, don’t ask: These are the real things, though irradiated, from the garden of the unbelievably delicious. We used to buy them for 20 RMB a pound ($2.50, and that was the local “ben di ren” price”) in China, but these we had to shell out $8.99 a pound [...]
Apr 24
coriander chutney It’s not easy being green: You can get bunches of cilantro for 50¢ at the Hollywood Farmer’s market. What a deal. $1.00 worth gets you at least a day’s worth of chutney. We washed and dried the cilantro, stems and all, and put them in the Cuisinart with shredded coconut, ginger, jalapenos, 2 lime’s worth [...]
Apr 24
ladybugs Natural predators: these guys might not look so tough winding their way up to the best view of the garden but they’re on the lookout for aphids and mealybugs and all sorts of other pests. Grrr!!
Apr 24
navels Globes of light: these juicy balls are just getting pumped up with sugar. Come June we’ll have freshly squeezed juice coming out of our ears.
Apr 24
growing food Teenagers: the progression of our little sprouts have become cauliflower and beets. So far so good.
Apr 23
walnut cheese volcano Cheeeeesy explosion: molten gruyere cheese pouring out of a walnut sourdough boule is among the greatest sights in the baking world. Topping this is letting the overflow dry into what we call “danglers” and breaking them off into an open mouth.
Apr 18
boiling pasta water The sublimity of boiling noodle water. Look for the smiley faces.
Apr 18
almost naked portafilter Training wheels: We can’t find a naked portafilter for our Europiccola La Pavoni (pre 2000), so we did the next best thing by taking the splitter off. Just twist and off it comes.
browse by category: . . . by year:
  • . . . by tag: