Category: food

14 Dec

work in progress

items for the MOCA bake sale: “Giacometti Baguetti” (view the original in the MOCA Collection) “Fermented Weiner” (view the original in the MOCA Collection) “Paranoiac Shortbread” (view the original in the MOCA Collection) “$1 million financiers” (view the original in the MOCA Collection)
29 Nov

beurre

Licensed to butter part 2: front start to finish. 1. Protect yourself from what you want. As the butter and buttermilk separate, it will splatter like crazy. Begin whipping the cream (we used raw unpasteurized cream). 2. Don’t forget to soak your butter paper 3. The whipped cream stage 4. Adding sel à la cannelle (cinnamon […]
26 Nov

tea eggs and blue shrimp

Precious eggs imprinted with code: eggs boiled in Small Red Robe tea, soy sauce, brown and rock sugar, ginger, and leftover pork shoulder stew juices. The shrimp you just put in your mouth.
22 Nov

stir-fry veggies

Tackling the green beast: swirling mass of greens and garlic.
16 Nov

blue bottle garage

Dignified and delicious: Blue Bottle’s got the west coast cornered in terms of proper espresso… but no one, that’s no one, comes close to Joe’s. 
23 May

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 […]
23 May

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.
23 May

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) […]
05 May

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.
25 Apr

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 […]