Goodbye to the 'Naughts

This first decade of the new century has been a doozy. In just ten years, life stories have been written and re-written by time, chance, good fortune, and circumstance. These first ten years have been marked wonderful little moments, joyful surprises, and gut wrenching incidents. There have been great meals, new flavors, old recipes, new techniques, and great innovations for the kitchen.

In this decade I have photographed more food than faces.

Continue to Read More New Year’s Wishes, Find Hangover Cures and Chef Resolutions »

December 28November 14

New Year’s Culinary Tradition: Caviar

Culinary traditions are handed down, borrowed and created. I bake my grandmother’s Finnish Nisu (cardamom sweet bread) at Easter and Christmas. Favorite chefs and images like Norman Rockwell’s Thanksgiving influence my Thanksgiving day spread. Now that I’m married and living thousands of miles from my bi-coastal family, I find I need to create new culinary traditions to celebrate my life with the man I love.

Since New Years is a working holiday for most restaurant industry folk, I’ll be saving my celebrating for the next morning. As many in Los Angeles wake with new-decade hangovers, my husband and I will be enjoying a celebratory morning with caviar and a bottle of bubbly.

Continue Reading for a Simple New Years Recipe for Caviar! »

December 24

Happy Holidays 2009

Thank you for such a wonderful year. Thank you for the inspiration, support, and kind words. Here’s to more great meals with loved ones, and spreading more love in the world.

All the best to you and the loved ones in your world.

December 23

Perfect Poached Eggs with Sautéed Kale and Toast

You may not know this, but I run a very successful restaurant. Thing is, this restaurant isn’t one you’ve ever heard of, or even seen, because it doesn’t exist anywhere but in an undisclosed spot in my imagination.

My fantasy restaurant has no overhead, no ten year lease, no worries associated with the health department, no long hours, no grease traps, and food costs are something I occasionally ponder. In my make-believe eatery I serve rustic fare with warm service in a room with hardwood floors, a pressed tin ceiling, and a brick fire place. Then again, some days I’m serving fresh caught seafood and beer at a shoebox eatery with clean white tile, communal tables with red chairs, and industrial steel signage.

And maybe that’s the best thing about my imaginary restaurant. I can change things up whenever I want and it never costs a cent. Yet, no matter how menu changes and renovations my imaginary restaurant undergoes, one thing that stays constant is this one menu item: Perfect Poached Eggs on toast with Sauteed Kale.

I’m pretty certain that if I ever did open a bistro, this warm and comforting egg dish–two soft poached eggs lounging over a bed of sautéed kale and toast–would be the thing to turn customers into regulars. With anti-oxidant rich kale at its core, this breakfast feeds a winter morning’s hunger and keeps you going long after you finish that last bite.

Continue for the Poached Eggs with Sautéed Kale Recipe »

December 21January 3

Delicata Squash with Browned Butter and Sage Recipe

One of the best things about being a gastronome and a restaurant professional at an award winning restaurant is that my work environment is a constant source of inspiration. Some of the dishes we serve at the Osteria are incredibly complicated and require hours to prepare. Other menu items are based on grandmother’s traditional recipes. The simple, classic dishes that haunt me the most. They compel me to tear off my waiter’s uniform, get into my home kitchen, and cook.

A new contorni (that’s Italian for side dish) went onto the menu last week. Ever since that first pre-shift bite of the buttery sweet squash with browned butter and sage, I’ve been obsessed with the need to figure out how to duplicate those warm, sweet flavors.

Lucky for me and my culinary obsessions, the Delicata squash contorni is a rather simple one to make, and requires only basic cooking techniques.

Continue Reading for a Delicious Delicata Squash with Browned Butter and Sage Recipe! »

December 14

Menu for Hope 6: Wire Sculpture from Food Woolf

As we wade deeper into the holiday season, the more many of us think of ways to give back. Donating to a local charity, helping out a friend in need, and giving handmade gifts are wonderful ways to contribute to those that are in need.

This year, I am proud to say I am participating Menu for Hope, an annual campaign–started by food blogger and writer Chez Pim–to raise funds in benefit of the United Nations World Food Programme and its Purchase for Progress initiative. Not only will I be eagerly bidding on other great food blogger’s donated items (like MattBite‘s Food Photography Class or Jen Yu of Use Real Butter’s beautiful photography) I will be donating a wire sculpture to the event.

Menu For Hope Bid Item: UW35

The sculpture I’m donating is called “Bistecca,” an ode to the great animal that has inspired many a great recipe.

Continue to Read More about Menu For Hope »

December 14November 14

No Fail Potato Leek Soup Recipe

I’m not a chef, but I do spend a lot of time with professional cooks.

I work in a restaurant several nights a week and I like to show up early and take a few minutes of my off-the-clock time getting my bearings and observing the day’s activity in the kitchen. I pour myself a cup of coffee and watch the guys prep fish, squish hundreds of roasted potatoes, or pluck leaves of mint for what will become salsa verdes for the night’s service. It’s in these little moments of observing the pre-game prep, that I learn the big lessons about cooking.

Most servers don’t care for this sort of sideline observances. Maybe that’s why the chefs and prep cooks don’t mind as I watch them slice up chickens or brine pig’s heads. I have pretty good radar for annoyance, so I’m able to disappear the moment I see a flicker of irritation on a chef’s face.

In hanging around chefs, I’ve picked up lots of great tricks. But despite all the time I’ve spent with these men and women in chef’s whites, I haven’t been able to get over my irrational fear of unknown ingredients and certain culinary techniques. One challenge I had to recently overcome is my ridiculous fear of leeks.

While most people eagerly snatch up bundles of leeks, I would walk past and pretend I didn’t care for them. I even feigned ignorance of this vegetable’s power to inspire culinary hysteria across France. I was that scared. But thanks to my wonderful friend, Leah and her You-Can’t-Screw-This-One-Up Potato and Leek Soup Recipe, I finally had myself a leek epiphany.

Continue for a No Fail Recipe for Potato Leek Soup! »

December 12

Food Blogger Gift Guide

Food Blogger Holiday Gift Ideas 2009

It seems like everyone I meet nowadays is a food blogger. We’re a unique bunch of people that obsess over food, eat like it was our job, snap pictures of everything we eat, and collect cookbooks like they were trading cards. We’re the kind of people that hope we get gift certificates to our favorite restaurants or Williams Sonoma.

But when it comes to unique gifts for a food blogger–things start to get difficult. Gadgets, tchotchkes, and other random food related gifts don’t always hit the mark. So should you be hoping to find a little guidance this holiday season, this food blogger offers her gift giving guide for the culinary obsessed. Because it takes one to know one.

Read a Complete List of Gift Ideas After the Jump! »

December 10

No Drip Vietnamese Spring Rolls: Gourmet Airplane Food

It’s December, the month of holiday travel, and I’m here to tell you that before you step foot onto a plane (or car for a long road trip), you really ought to take a few minutes to plan what you’re going to eat while your traveling.

Because, bottom line, you love good food and the stuff they serve on airplanes is terrible. What’s worse, they make you pay a handful of dollars for food you would otherwise walk right past–had you not been stuck in your seat with no food options. Even if you took the time out to buy a snack from the airport terminal, the food is downright overpriced and unhealthy.

So why aren’t more people obsessing over packing their own meal for their trip? Maybe the new baggage requirements have something to do with why travelers aren’t packing their own airplane meal; but planning a simple meal for your flight doesn’t have to be difficult. As a matter of fact, packing a lunch for a trip can be downright fun.

Granted, menu planning at 3 a.m. before leaving to catch an early flight isn’t ideal. So I recommend putting together your snack the night before while you’re making dinner. That way you can get all of your prep and clean up done in advance of any bleary-eyed wake up call.

Continue for a Terrific, No-Drip Spring Roll Recipe! »

December 1

The Hero's Journey, Through Food Blogging Part II

[This is Part Two of a Previous Post]

“If what you are following is your own true adventure…then magical guides will appear to help you.”–Joseph Campbell, The Hero’s Journey

In celebration of my two year anniversary, I’ve decided to take a look at my journey through blogging through the lens of the mythic structure*. Starting mid act two of The Blogger as a Mythic Hero, the most valuable gift a beginning blogger can give to themselves is finding a food blogging ally. Perhaps you forge a friendship at a food blogging conference. Maybe you meet someone at a food related event. Regardless the venue, seeking out like minded food writers is important in your heroic journey to self discovery, through blogging.

Continue Reading Part 2 of The Hero’s Journey »

December 1

The Hero's Journey, Through Food Blogging (Part one)

“The hero’s journey always begins with the call.” –Jospeh Campbell

Joseph Campbell, author of The Heroes Journey, called this significant shift, the “inciting incident” within a character’s story. This event in a real person’s life is called a turning point. Or in Oprah-parlance, the “Aha Moment”. For some people the call is to leave a certain social situation. Get a new job. Start a new life. For me, it was starting this food blog.

Any great story begins with a single, significant event–a special power is discovered, an accident occurs, a dare is initiated, a large some of money is won or needed, a move to a new town begins, someone dies, someone is born, a planet is discovered. But once the hero is given the call, they are plunged into a new and unfamiliar world that will change them forever.

I’m not the only one that’s been irrevocably changed by blogging. Just ask Molly of Orangette, Jaden of Steamy Kitchen, Elise of Simply Recipes, or Shauna from Gluten Free Girl how this online art form has made them the heroes of their own life stories.

ACT I: THE INCITING INCIDENT

My inciting incident happened two years ago this week when I decided to start this blog. Like any hero crossing the threshold into a whole new life, I had no idea what was in store for me. Ignorance, as they say, is bliss.

If you have a new blog or are thinking of starting one, this is the time to dive in fearlessly and embrace your own heroic journey of self-discovery. With a little bit of planning and a lot of faith in yourself, the journey to creating a successful blog (whatever that means to you) is just a few acts away.

Continue Reading the Blogger’s Mythic Journey »