Feelin' it at Froma

Ask anyone that adores food what their secret passion is, and they’ll most likely tell you they long to open a restaurant of their own. They stumble upon a charming little hole-in-the-wall restaurant in the middle of nowhere, party in a great bar, see a cute white-tile bistro in France, or shop at a charming little cheese store in Napa and think with a gushing sense of pride, “I could do this.”

And lots of people with money do.

Britney Spears

(via ddbraves)

Famous people like Eva Longoria, Phil Rosenthal of Everybody Loves Raymond, and Jeri Ryan open up their wallets and empty them (Jennifer Lopez, Brittany Spears and Wesley Snipes) in order to prove they actually can do restaurants, at least on some level.

And then there are the underdogs–the kitchen help, the service staff and the dogged managers–that save every penny they make working in restaurants in hopes of opening their own little place. These hard working people (Jason and Miho Travi of Fraiche, Karen and Quinn Hatfield of Hatfields, and Neil and Amy Fraser of Grace and BLD) take out impossible loans, gut their savings, mortgage their homes and sell anything they can think of, in order to make their dream of restaurant ownership come true.

FROMA ON MELROSE: Purveyors of fine foods
7960 Melrose Ave.

Owned and run by a chef and husband and wife that have dedicated their lives to the service industry, Froma is the kind of specialty food market that so many people dream of opening one day. People like me.

So when I stumbled across the newly opened Italian market, Froma on Melrose recently, I was overjoyed. And, truth be told, a little disappointed. Don’t get me wrong. Froma is amazing. But maybe it’s a little TOO amazing. The sandwiches taste as good (if not better, sometimes) as the ones I had in Italy. The cheese monger behind the counter loves to give me samples of the newest cheeses! The bags of gourmet chips taste of sausages or horseradish. And just when I think that maybe my idea of opening up my own place is still viable, I look around me.

With its long glass display cases filled with beautiful imported meats and cheeses, hot panini presses grilling up authentic Italian sandwiches, shelves of gourmet ingredients lining the store and a little seat by the window where I can enjoy a glass of wine, Froma makes me think that maybe my time to open my own little wine and cheese shop has come and gone.

Designed to appeal to the home chef and demanding food lovers, Froma offers hard to find ingredients like specialty sugars and International salts, bellini flour, carmelized black figs, Italian Parmesan, artichoke honey, radicchio pasta, Osetra caviar and Italian pasta flour. Francine Diamond, managing partner and General Manager, offers a broad range of imported and domestic olive oils and an area in which customers can try them all.

The cheese selection is diverse with Cow Girl Creamery cheeses, Chateau La Tur from France and hard cheeses imported from Italy. Diamond, also a sommelier, has put together an impressive, albeit limited, wine selection. From a $20 Morgon to a $100 Barolo, Diamond gives customers incredible values and amazingly delicious wines from California to Italy.

What I find most appealing about Froma (other than its proximity to my house) are the delicious, panini-pressed gourmet sandwiches.

The ingredients are fresh, the breads (from the Bread Bar) are undeniably perfect and the combinations divine. As a matter of fact, the first sandwich I ever ordered from Froma (a proscuitto and Robiola panini), required me to pull my car over and stop driving, for fear I’d crash into something because my eyes were closed in pleasure.

After that, my Husand and I went into a full-on binge and ate only at Froma for four days straight. In that time we made friends with all the nice people behind the counter, drank a few glasses of Morgon and tried nearly every sandwich on the menu. We haven’t made our way through the Crostini and all of the soups and salads…but we still have time!

Our favorites:

The Francese: Saucisson sec, a French cheese of the day, tomato, basalmic and mixed greens. $10.95
The Alpino: Bresaola, chevre, thinly sliced lemon and arugula. $10.95
The Castagno plus proscuito: Bosc pear, saint Agur blue cheese, chestnut honey. I ask them to add proscuito. $9.95 plus proscuito’s cost.
Plat de Fromage: a plate of ripened cheeses, dried fruits (fig, blueberries), candied pecans, and Savannah bee honeycomb. $12.95
A bag of Tyrell potato chips. Either Cider vinegar and salt chips or the Ludlow sausage with whole grain mustard.
A cappuccino afterwards. The Danesi Italian espresso is some of the best in town. Freshly roasted, pulled on an Italian espresso machi
ne, the drinks taste delicious.

Based on how many times I eat and shop at Froma, I don’t think I’ll be opening my store any time soon. But that’s okay. It’s nice to let someone else do all the hard work and be able to enjoy the bounty.

Eating from the Super Bowl

I don’t follow sports. So for me, Super Bowl Sunday is a social event based around eating food, drinking beer and watching angry men yell at the TV. As non-holiday, sporting based events go, Super Bowl parties are cool.

Back east, super bowl Sunday is all about drinking domestic beer and eating subs. A ‘sub’, of course, is shorthand for a Submarine sandwich—usually a twelve-inch marvel of bread, heaping piles of meat, a sprinkling of vegetables (think iceberg lettuce and mealy tomatoes) and some sort of strong flavored sauce. In my almost 10 years in LA, I’ve been to plenty of  Super Bowl parties that featured hamburgers fresh off the grill, a smattering of Bud light and handcrafted beers, bowls of chips, and huge aluminum take out containers filled with Mexican take-out.

But never, in all of my years of Super Bowl parties, have I experienced anything like the culinary get togethers that my friends Chef Jason and Miho Travi throw. Their Super Bowl Sunday fetes includes champagne, Osetra caviar, and savoy fois gras on toast.  Granted, Jason and Miho aren’t your typical Super Bowl Sunday hosts. Jason and Miho, are the chefs behind Fraiche Restaurant, Los Angeles Magazine’s best restaurant of 2007.

I should also mention, that Jason is without a doubt one of the biggest Patriots fans I know. Born and raised in a town just south of Boston, Jason and his season ticket-holding father are so dedicated to the sport they have been known to fly to key games to route for their teams. And route for the Pats they do. Like they were family.

The first time Jason and Miho invited my husband and I over to their house for a Super Bowl party, I had very low expectations. Instead of chips and dip, Jason offered us caviar on tiny pancakes. Instead of cans of Bud, they poured rose champagne. It didn’t take me long to realize that in Jason and Miho I had met the right people to teach me how to truly enjoy watching a game of football.

So when Jason and Miho invited my husband and I over to their house for the Big Game this year, I spend a lot of time thinking about what kind of food we would bring to the party. Wanting to bring over something elegant and easy, I went to a specialty cheese shop and found a small jar of the funky and oozing St. Marcillen cheese, a flavorful Brie de Nangis and a bagette from the Bread Bar. Instead of carrying in the traditional six pack of watery beer, we brought a selection of cork topped, hand crafted Trappist beers by Chimay and pear cider.

As the game played, we enjoyed a Rabbit terrine, fois gras on brioche toast, and Italian cheeses with a sweet Moustarda di frutta. As we cheered the Patriots and their solid lead, Miho offered us delicious home made chicken and beef tamales. The tamales were so incredible I watched my husband, Hans, eat one after another while never taking his eyes off the TV screen. Our newly made friends from Nook Restaurant, brought home made salsas (spicy roasted red pepper, a spicy crèma and sweet spicy tomatillo salsa).

Later, as the game was drawing to a close and it looked like the Patriots were going to win, Jason whipped up some perfectly cooked scrambled eggs and topped some brioche toast with it.

He generously handed out a tin of Petrossian caviar and a spoon to each couple and wished us happy eating. But, as we slipped the first silky bite of eggs on eggs into our happy mouths, things turned ugly for our team. We watched in horror as NY got control of the ball and quickly jumped ahead of us in points. We stared at the screen in horror as the last thirty seconds ticked away.

The party ended rather quickly after that. Jason shook his head with shocked disappointment and everyone else paced back and forth in thwarted silence. We watched in shock as NY fans crowded the field and celebrated their victory over New England.

Though the brutal end to the game was more than a little upsetting to all, the party itself was incredibly enjoyable. I have to hand it to Travi, his food and his passion for the game has made me a huge Patriots fan.

I’m hungry for a rematch.