Strawberry Rhubarb Galette

coming soon...

AVOCADO GELATO

coming soon...

BEER FEST 2011

Oh dear, when you pay $43.56 to go to an all you can drink beer fest, well, the results aren't pretty. Being cheap, as well as a beer fanatic, I was darn well going to drink $43 worth of beer. Let's just keep it at that.

Winners of the beer fest, in my book was the Raging Bitch by Flying Dog brewery. I don't really like IPA's that much, and so I never really tried this one before. Sure, you can buy it anywhere, but here I got to try it and I really did like it. I guess that's because its a "belgian style" IPA, and since I love belgians, I liked this too.

I also tried Blast...this is like the new Four Loko that Snoop Dogg is promoting. It tastes like caffeine laced jungle juice because that's exactly what it is. It has a 12% abv and comes in four flavors: strawberry lemonade, blueberry pomegranate, grape (purple!) and raspberry watermelon. My prediction: it will sell wildly at small gas stations and some 7-11's until it is pulled off the market in 9-12 months. You heard it here first.

ARTISINAL LA

creme caramel la

Today we went to Artisianal LA at the Santa Monica Place mall. There we so many wonderful things! Wow!

It was $15 at the door and well worth every penny, here are some of the highlights:

VeeV acai vodka: They made this amazing drink with lemonade. Very light and refreshing, and I would definitely drink it again. It would be perfect for a beach party, I wish that they gave me the recipe! Oh wait, here it is:

Skinny Acai Lemonade

1 and 1/4 ounces VeeV Acai spirit

2 lemon wedges, squeezed

1/2 ounce agave nectar or simple syrup

club soda

spring of mint or basil

Creme Caramel LA: their creme caramel (like a French Flan) is delicious, but their bread pudding was amazing! there were some pretty unique flavors, but I think that I liked the original the best.

Soladad Goats: oh goat cheese, you will never do me wrong. This is delicious! They served it on French bread with some orange marmalade, and it was so good. I mean, that is basically my favorite food anyways, so how could I not want to buy all their products?

Plush Puffs: Okay, usually, I'm pretty okay about marshmallows. Plus, their not even vegetarian. But these, well, these are not your jet-puffed whatevers from your childhood. The caramel swirl one! Yummy! They even had little sterno cans where we could roast them before sampling. How could you not love them?

Gotta Have S'More: ever wanted a cupcake and a s'more? Were you truly unable to choose between them, leading to a mental breakdown. Well look no further! These were delicious little s'mores in cupcake form, gram cracker bottom and all. There is chocolate and caramel to choose from, I like the caramel better!

Green Leaf Chop Shop: this place is all about the basil pesto dressing. That is what you should get from there, and you should get it right now. You will get this, and want to put it on everything. You might gain 80 lbs, but I am not responsible for this.

The Olive Press: there are a lot of olive oil options out there. there are even a lot of amazing options out there. This place is delicious, but that's not really the point here. The read reason this place stands out is that they will let you refill your containers for 1/2 the price! And not just the bottle that you bought from them, but any glass container! just bring it to the farmer's market, like the Brentwood one on Sundays, and they will fill you up with their remarkably delicious olive oil. Do it! Its sustainable!

Le Bon Garcon: their salty caramels are the best. They offer macadamia nut as well, but the salty caramel is where its at, for sure.

All Spice Cafe: I have seen some of their sauces at Whole Foods, but I've never bought them. I will now! The guys are super nice and friendly, and their ghost-pepper infused jam is amazing! ya, it sounds intense but its soo good.

Crust: crust, by Stephanie Jane is good, but there are a lot of pie places out there. Why is crust different? because Stephanie Jane is adorable and decorates her booth like a old fashioned county fair. Therefore, I will quickly hand her my money and buy her addictive cracker brittle and individual little pocket pies. Mini pies! what could be cuter?

San Angel Mole: Mole! I love mole, but I am a vegetarian. Therefore, my mole experience has been relegated to only liking the sauce off the plates of my dining companions. I don't get why they only make chicken mole, so its seems. Anyway, this company has come to my rescue in the mole department, because they have 2 kinds and they are both delicious. I like the black mole the best. You can buy it at Whole Foods in some places, but they were not clear which ones. However, you can definitely buy it at the Bristol Farms in Westwood. Hurray!

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AVOCADO TAKEDOWN SPECIAL

I made this recipe for the avocado takedown in Los Angeles this Sunday. I got asked quite a bit for the recipe, so here it is. I hope that the people looking for it can find it! I made this recipe x 6 for the competition, but the normal version is here for everyday use.

Kennedy Family Guacamole

adapted from Diana Kennedy, Epicurious

1/3 cup white onions, finely chopped
3 to 4 serrano chiles, finely chopped, with seeds
1 teaspoon coarse salt
2 pounds ripe California avocadoes (about 4 large)
2 to 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
3/4 cup fuji apples, peeled and finely chopped
3/4 cup seedless grapes, halved
3/4 cup pomegranate seeds

In your food processor, grind onion, chiles, and salt all together, until it forms this spicy slushy mix. Gradually add the avocado, coarsely mashing it (you'll want it to be chunky). Stir in the lime juice. Fold in the apple, grapes, and 1/2 cup of the pomegranate seeds. Sprinkle the rest of the pomegranate seeds on the top so that it looks really pretty when you serve it. This is also delicious with pears instead of the apples, depending on what looks best when you are at the market.

BEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

Best may seem like an overstatement, but these are really good. Normally, I don't just crave chocolate chip cookies, but these are great. The recipe is from Epicurious, via Carla Rollins.

Ingredients:

3 cups flour

1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 sticks of butter, melted and slightly cooled

1 and 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar

1 cup white granulated sugar

3 large eggs

1 and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 and 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees, and make sure that your rack is in the middle.

Next, mix together flour, salt, and baking soda in a little bowl. Set it aside. Get a big bowl and mix together the melted and cooled off butter with both the sugars. Use an electric mixer to beat the sugars and the butter together until it is really light and fluffy. It will also get lighter in color too. Then, add in the eggs, one at a time. The original recipe said to use only part of the first egg, but then, I didn't really feel like wasting part of the egg, so I just put it all in after beating it lightly. So then you mix all the eggs in, and then you add in all the vanilla. Mix that well, and then slowly mix in the flour mixture. Don't mix it all too much. Then stir in by hand all the chocolate chips.

So when you go to put them on your greased cookie sheet, make the cookies really small. Because they WILL expand to become MONSTER cookies! But, if you are in the mood for only one cookie, and would like to make it a good one, well then, go ahead and make it regular size and then it will come out and be the size of your hand. So delicious...

Cook them for 15 minutes, ish, but watch them cause a couple trays came out a little too crispy.

UMAMI BURGER

Umami Burger is a much hyped burger joint with several locations around LA. After a failed attempt to go to Santa Monica Umami Burger with a group of 8, we decided to take a smaller part of 4 to the new location in the Valley. So, we arrived at 6:30 and got awesome street parking on Ventura Blvd. Others might not be so lucky, but it works for now. After putting in our name, we were told that the wait would be approx. 30 ish minutes. My clever friend pointed out that we should go next door to the Mexican cantina there, which I reccommend for anyone who is waiting for Umami Burger there before 7pm, as they have a great happy hour margarita deal, and they give you really tasty chips. The other place is called Mexicali Cocina Cantina. They also have some sort of Monday deal which I think I might go back and try.

So finally, we get into Umami Burger. Problem #1: table situation. The chairs facing the booths are cute, they look like red king chairs, so the two men in the group felt like big men, all sitting in their throne chairs. However, for the ladies sitting on the benches, there was really no way to get up from the table besides making your friend next to you get up from her seat, if you were unlucky enough to sit next to the side of the table that was about 2.5 inches away from the neighbors' table. Problem.

So we order the Dirty Shirley cocktail. Like a shirley temple, but for adults. Bubble Up, Cherry Vodka. Okay, fairly good drink. Bubble Up is some sort of fake vintage soda, but just as bad for you as Seven Up, so I don't really know why they use it at Umami Burger other than the fact that it is probably more expensive. We order the Onion Rings, Sweet Potato Fries, and twice fried potatoes. For the main, I get the Umami Burger, portabella version. The best was the onion rings. They were really good, but I mean, they're deep fried onions! You have to really try to mess those up, so whatever there. Not the best I've had, ever. Sweet potato fries were a bust. They covered them in brown sugar. Made them way too sweet. There was about a quarter cup of brown sugar left in the dish after all the fries were gone. The twice fried potatoes looked bad but were actually good. But, there isn't really that much that was notable. The burger definitely has a different taste. Good. Solid burger but, I don't know. No one's jaw was dropping to the floor here about how AWESOME they were. I think the whole business is overhyped.