Author Archives: Anne

Posted on August 25, 2009 by Anne| 9 Comments

Something Out Of Not Much

6:00 PM, Saturday night: Despite having an 8:30 PM reservation to one of Los Angeles’ most beloved restaurants (Sona- to which neither of us had ever been), J and I found ourselves in a heap on the sofa, exhausted from running around in unusually muggy weather all day. We got into the do-you-wanna-go-well-I-don’t-care-what-do-you-wanna-do? conversations which basically made us realize that a pricey restaurant like Sona should be saved for a time when we were totally feeling it. J tuned into the Raider game while I stared glumly into the refrigerator (I know mom- I shouldn’t stand in front of the fridge with the door open!) wondering what to make. Since I’d assumed we’d go out for dinner I hadn’t really done my grocery shopping, I was looking at a few veggies in the drawer, plus an array of condiments, some random nubs of cheese and one baked chicken breast that sat alone in a Tupperware. Not very promising.

Upon further investigation (read: I looked in the freezer) I found a badly beaten up Whole Foods ready-made pizza crust that was bent out of shape and hiding underneath bags of frozen corn and a bottle of vodka. At least I had a jumping off point now! I took it out, saw that it was intact and let it thaw back into its normal flat shape on a cutting board.

Since I didn’t have any marinara or pizza sauce, I decided to do a kind of white pizza with what I had. After combining some sour cream, grated parmesan, grated gruyere, 1 egg yolk, lots of cracked black pepper and chopped basil into a paste, I spread it onto the thawed crust all the way to the edge, then covered the whole thing in thinly sliced zucchini which I’d salted and drained. Dinner was starting to come together! A grating of parmesan finished up the “flatbread” as I like to call it, and I popped it in the oven.

I was lucky enough to have one ear of corn and one gigantic tomato which came together, with some basil, to form a simple salad. Then I took the lone chicken breast and made a chicken salad and thinly sliced what I had left of a baguette to serve with it. I normally don’t do the carb/carb dinner combo, but it seemed to make sense!

So, this is the dinner that came out of having to create something with what was there, and it turned out pretty well!

I think I’ll try to do this more often- instead of buying more groceries, just try and create a meal out of what’s already there. It forces you to be creative, and is a good way to use up leftovers.

What’s in your pantry/fridge?

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Posted in Dinner ideas, healthy cooking, leftovers, vegetarian main dishes

Posted on August 21, 2009 by Anne| 4 Comments
Non-Dairy Salmon & Corn Chowder

I hadn’t really planned to make this for supper the other night; I actually had something more along the lines of a grilled salmon with a side of veg on my mind but as the day wore on it just didn’t appeal to me. I knew I had the frozen salmon thawing in the fridge, plus a drawer full of veggies that I’d bought at the Larchmont Farmer’s Market, but I felt…….uninspired.

Once I started to take a mental inventory of what vegetables I had, however, I started to put it all together and came up with this chowder. I’d purchased three ears of sweet corn, a bag of white onions, some really nice asparagus and had leftover basil, thyme and chives. The idea of a salmon and corn chowder hit me, and after a pit stop for two yukon gold potatoes and a pint of Silk soy milk, I was off to the races.

Basically I started this soup as I do with most others I make- sauteeing a mirepoix in a bit of olive oil before adding the corn which I cut off the cob. After the corn cooked a bit, I took about 1 1/2 cups of the vegetables and blitzed it in a blender along with about a cup of soy milk. After adding low sodium chicken broth to the remaining veg in my pot, I swirled in the corn/soy milk mixture- this thickens the soup and adds a creamy consistency without dairy. Not that i have anything against good, fresh cream, but shoveling large spoonfuls into my mouth is not something I should do too often. Sound fun though, doesn’t it? After bringing the soup to a simmer I added the potatoes and let them cook, then added the herbs, asparagus, chives and green onion at the end. Right before serving, I folded in the salmon which I’d seasoned with salt and pepper, roasted for 10 minutes and flaked with a fork. Dinnah is served!

A sourdough baguette and chopped salad was all we needed to make a meal out of this….oh, and a bottle of rosé, of course! Wine always makes the meal………or sometimes, IS the meal….but that’s a whole other blog post……..

TGIF, and have a great weekend!

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Posted in corn chowder, Dairy-free chowder, healthy cooking, salmon chowder

Posted on August 17, 2009 by Anne| 4 Comments
Summer Dinner Party

As I mentioned in my last post, we had some friends over for a summer dinner party a couple of weekends ago. For once, I didn’t really have much of a plan and let the Farmer’s Market guide my menu. It turned out to be one of my favorite menus and just really fun to put together.

One thing I had decided was that I wanted to make a side dish with lobster. Since there were six people total for the dinner party I figured it best to not attempt a main course of lobster as to not break the bank; plus it’s a bit of work to get the meat out of the shells. After boiling the two Maine lobsters and extracting the meat, I decided on a salad of butter lettuce, cherry tomatoes, freshly cut corn off the cob and the lobster with a creamy tarragon dressing. You know when you’re thinking of what to make and a dish just sort of comes to you instantly? This salad was like that and I just knew all of those components would work well together. Some fresh chives finished off the dish:

The main course was a variation on the many savory tarts I’ve made in the past. I used what has become my absolute favorite tart crust recipe (it is seriously a JOY to handle and roll out) and made a crème fraiche/egg yolk/cheese paste to spread (similar to the one Suzanne Goin uses in her savory tarts in her Lucques cookbook) on the dough…….


…….before topping that with sliced gruyere, different verities of heirloom tomatoes, grated parmesan and a good sprinkling of black pepper. I love this base which can be made with ricotta, sour crème, grated cheese, whatever- just spread it on your dough and top with anything from bacon to mushrooms to leeks to tomatoes, like I did here:

I did sprinkle the sliced tomatoes with sea salt and let them drain between two paper towels for about 20 minutes before arranging them onto the unbaked tart dough so that the water in them wouldn’t make the tart soggy. It worked very well and helped concentrate the flavor of the tomatoes once they baked:

Initially I thought to do a zucchini or other type of summer squash as a second side dish, but to be honest, I’m not the biggest fan of either as they tend to be watery. Luckily I saw some gorgeous, multicolored carrots which I roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper, then tossed with sliced avocado, red onion and a vinaigrette of red wine vinegar, cumin, olive oil, agave nectar and lots of chopped cilantro:

Those of you who frequent Southern California farmers markets have probably seen the overabundance of big, juicy strawberries this summer- they are everywhere- so I picked up a bunch before figuring out what I was going to make. I’d purchased these really cute milk glasses at Anthropologie awhile ago and was inspired to make a vanilla bean panna cotta topped with the strawberries which I macerated in a bit of agave nectar and this amazing blackberry balsamic vinegar which I bought at Nicole’s:

A cheese plate and some prosciutto finished off the light menu and we had a great time sipping rose and catching up in the back yard. I hadn’t cooked for a group in awhile and it was like the shot in the arm I needed to get back in the kitchen. I love to cook, but when a menu comes together without recipes, based on inspiration gained from the local produce and ideas gained from years of cooking, it restores your faith in cooking, ha! I had as much fun cooking this as I did eating it and look forward to at least a couple more summer dinner parties before Autumn comes!

Pasadena Farmer’s Market
Victory Park
Saturdays 8:30 AM- 1:00 PM

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Posted in dinner party, Farmer's market, Vegetarian cooking

Posted on August 14, 2009 by Anne| 4 Comments
A Summer Dinner Party: Sneak Peek

Last weekend we had some friends over for an outdoor dinner party, and I didn’t really have much of a plan when it came to the menu, which is rare. I just took a trip to the Pasadena’s Farmer’s Market and picked up what was fresh and kind of just went with the inspiration provided by the gorgeous produce. I plan to blog about it next week, but here’s a little sneak peek:

Three kinds of juicy, heirloom tomatoes. Is there a more perfect summer food than ripe tomatoes? I think not:

Gorgeous herbs all in a row: cilantro, basil, Italian parsley, chives and thyme:

Multi-colored baby carrots:

Maine lobster, purchased at Fish King:

Which held an unexpected surprise: lobster roe (eggs), right in the tail:

And, I’m sure this may gross some of you out but to me, it’s like finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: lots of tomalley, the creamy, green substance found in the cavity of the lobster:

………which, when spread on crackers and sprinkled with sea salt, makes the perfect thing to munch on with a glass of prosecco while you’re cooking the rest of your meal………delicious!

Next post: the actual dinner party and my favorite summer menu so far.

Have a great weekend!

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Posted in heirloom tomatoes, Lobster, summer cooking, tomalley

Posted on August 12, 2009 by Anne| 3 Comments
Maui, Part 2


Based on my last post you probably think I’m the douche who complains about Maui. After all, it’s an idyllic tropical paradise, and even if the majority of the food we ate there was kind of “meh,” we were still surrounded my miles of gorgeous beaches and beautiful greenery. So here’s the post to counter the last one and tell you that yes, Maui is an amazing place, filled with beauty and some pretty good food in unexpected places!

On our first full day there, we just hopped in the car and headed north on a stretch of road that ran parallel to the deep, blue ocean. We made a few stops to gawk at the turquoise water and take photos, then continued on the road to somewhere- we figure we’d just let it lead us to wherever it, um, lead. Little did we know that the two lane highway would turn into a single, narrow road with a thousand-feet drop on the driver’s side (ok, maybe it wasn’t a thousand but I am really bad at this stuff and it was really far down!) which J masterfully navigated, although we both wondered what would happen if a car came from the other direction. We were among three cars that puttered along this death trap (ok, again probably embellishing a bit but it was scary!) and when a car finally did come from the other direction, it was thankfully driven by a local who simply drove it so it almost teetered on the cliff while we all drove around it on the “safe” side. Phew.


Risking our lives, however, was not in vain as this treacherous road of doom (alright, I’ll stop but I tell you- it was frightening!) lead to the Best Banana Bread On The Planet. I’m not making it up- it said so on the sign so of course we couldn’t help but pull over.

See? The sign SAYS it’s the best!


I had actually JUST read about this place on another blog so I shouted excitedly to J that we had to try some, so we got out of the car and approached the small green shack that held The Best Banana Bread On The Planet.

We were greeted warmly by the proprietor, Julia, who had samples of the bread, some coconut candy, macadamia nuts and other goodies. It was hard to tell if it was the best banana bread I’d ever had based on the small piece I ate, but I bought a loaf to take back to the hotel and Julia handed me one that was still warm and smelled divine. After making our way back alive (oops) we cut several slices and made some coffee to have with it. The verdict? It really is the Best Banana Bread On The Planet………but since I haven’t had every banana bread on the planet I can just assure you that it’s the best one in MY planet. It was sweet but not cloyingly so, and had a pronounced banana flavor but one that was deep, dark and caramelized. I really liked that it had no bells and whistles- no nuts or visible fruit- and was as tender and rich while being light at the same time. Definitely worth risking life and limb for, that’s certain (last reference)! We kept slicing off chunks and nibbling on it for the next couple of days until it was all gone.

Another culinary highlight was the pineapple that we had on several occasions- Maui pineapple really is a different animal and every chunk we had throughout the entire trip was sweet and almost syrupy with natural sugars. I’m afraid I’ll never be able to eat a pedestrian pineapple again.

Not an actual Maui pineapple but a stand that sells them!

Ok, now here’s one that will throw you……….another surprise was how pretty damn good my Spam musubi was. I don’t know if I have even ever had Spam, although having eaten a few school cafeteria meals in my day I would only have to assume that I have. I bought it in Paia at a gas station before we headed down the Road to Hana and ate it a couple of hours later. I didn’t really know what to expect, but it was good. I mean really good. The Spam was seared so all of the fat from all of the unknown parts contained within a slice of Spam oozed out onto the rice of which there was a perfect proportion to cut the saltiness in the meat (product). It was everything a processed pig product should taste like, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Hey- when in Rome…………

Cheap too!

Speaking of the Road To Hana, it’s what we tackled on Day Two of our trip. We started out with a breakfast at Café Kapalua – J had the huevos rancheros which were excellent, and I had a less-successful omelet but it was really my fault. No, I wasn’t the cook but I have a tendency to “edit” breakfast dishes which I did again by asking for egg whites only, easy on the cheese and extra tomatoes. I should have just had it as the cook intended and it probably would have been better. Ah well, live and learn.

So after breakfast and the Spam pick-up, we headed down the long Road to Hana. The beauty of the hills, ocean, flowers, waterfalls and other presents the Road To Hana held won’t be justified by words, so here’s a few photos for you:

This reminds me of Japan…….Hokkaido, oddly….

We reached Hana just in time for the skies to open up and start pouring, but we trekked along a path that lead to a black sand beach and black lava rock cliffs overlooking a pounding surf. It looked very dramatic and we just stood there and peered out at the ocean, but threw in the towel earlier than we wanted to due to the rain.

So we were once again back on the road, this time away from Hana. Unfortunately, even the Road To Hana needs repairs now and then, which we found out via some orange cones and a “Do Not Enter” sign:

I walked up to the snoozing road worker who on cone duty and asked how long it would be, and he said “we’ll open it back up at 3:30.” Not bad, right? Oh wait, it’s only 1:00 PM which means we had TWO-AND-A-HALF-HOURS to kill smack dab in the middle of Hana and our destination in Kapalua. The only bright side was that we hadn’t reached the road barricade at 11:30 AM which is when they closed the road- could you imagine being told you have FOUR hours to wait? I think I would have lost it. With no real options we drove about 45 minutes back down the road to the one food stand we saw and had some Maui-style tacos (what’s with putting black beans and shredded cabbage on everything? They don’t belong in tacos!) then drove back 45 minutes to the barricade and sat in our car, along with all of the other people stranded on the Lone Road To Hana.

We were pretty exhausted by the time we finally made our way to the other side of the island, but look what we saw right before we reached our hotel:

…..some Maui magic!

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Posted in Julia's banana bread, Maui, Road to Hana

Posted on August 10, 2009 by Anne| 3 Comments
Maui: Part 1

We’re back from our week-long Maui vacation!

First of all, Maui is stunning. The ocean seems to go on forever, and you can pretty much pull your car over anywhere and jump into the clear, beautiful water. The skies are blue and the trees are green and blowing in the tropical breeze- basically, it’s everything you’ve heard Hawaii is supposed to be.

We stayed at the Ritz Carlton Kapalua and were warmly greeted upon our arrival. We didn’t get “lei’d” but we got black kukui nut necklace’d, ha. The Ritz greets guests with a necklace made from these nuts and I actually thought it was better than a regular flower lei since we could take them home as keepsakes, which we did. The hotel itself was gorgeous………beautiful golf course, three large swimming pools and an inviting lobby area which had a massive view of the ocean. Our room had dark wooden floors and was decorated with an understated Hawaiian vibe – a nice mix of bright whites and light green touches here and there.


The service at the Rtiz was impeccable but the only thing lacking was the food. And you know this here is a food blog, so I have to say we were both really disappointed with all of the food we had at this hotel. I mean, it’s the Ritz right? I wasn’t expecting haute cuisine but more like a display of fresh, local ingredients prepared skillfully. I don’t want to turn this into a complaint-fest but I’ll tell you that I was presented with the ugliest, messiest sushi roll I’ve ever seen, and that capped off about three previous mediocre meals we’d had at the various dining establishments at the Ritz Carlton Kapalua. I didn’t have my camera but HAD to document this Insult To Japanese Cuisine, so I snapped a photo with my cell phone. I know the image is dark, but do you see what I mean? This was untouched- I took the photo after it was set down in front of me. I looked behind the sushi bar to see which 6 year-old rolled this and then cut it with their Hello Kitty scissors but I only saw two, grown sushi chefs. For shame! Sorry folks, but sushi and sashimi HAVE to be appetizing since it’s raw fish. Look, I can live with some not-so-well-presented fried chicken, but messy sushi? Nope.

The offending sushi………I mean, c’mon.

Oy…….I hadn’t meant for this first Maui post to go in such a negative direction but I have to continue with our first night’s meal at the much-lauded Plantation House. Maybe we’ll get all of the bad out of the way in this post and focus on the good in the upcoming posts- deal? Deal! We were thrilled to find out that the entire little “town” of Kapalua has a free public shuttle which we jumped aboard for the short ride to this restaurant. I had reserved a table weeks earlier and we were seated at one of the best tables in the house- one on the balcony overlooking a golf course and the ocean behind it. It was incredibly gorgeous and we felt so excited to be there, looking at the sun go down, hungry and eager to try some local seafood and produce:

View from our table at Plantation House

We ordered a half bottle of our favorite champagne which the waitress tried in vain for about 4 minutes to open; finally J offered and, after a lot of struggling, managed to pop open. The minute I sniffed the bubbly I knew it wasn’t going to be good- the wine had gone bad so we had to send it back. Our waitress was totally cool about it and said she’d suspected something was wrong when she couldn’t open the bottle. We switched to an albarino (our favorite white of late) and ordered our supper.

Our appetizer of Bacon Wrapped Scallops arrived and we dug in since we were starving, but I realized that inside the layers of soft bacon (never good, bacon must be crispy!) were small, bay scallops. I mean, they tasted fine (sans the soggy pig) but is it wrong of me to assume that bacon wrapped scallops means one, giant scallop wrapped in bacon?

Our second appetizer looked gorgeous- tuna sashimi drizzled with hot peanut oil and finished off with a bit of soy sauce a la Nobu Matushisa’s technique of sprinkling raw fish with blazing hot oil which I normally love……unfortunately the “drizzle” was more like a “wave” and a wave of peanut oil is never good. The poor tuna was swimming around in an ocean of grease and it just left my mouth coated with oil. Bah.

J’s Maui onion mustard-encrusted rack of lamb was quite good, and my Maui onion mustard encrusted mahi mahi was overcooked, although the sautéed Maui onions underneath the fish were sweet and delicious. Come to think of it, Maui onions saved the culinary part of this entire trip…..those, plus pineapple. But more on that later.

Since this has now turned into the whiny post I hadn’t meant for, let’s continue down that path. We went snorkeling with the Pacific Whale Foundation. Oh- the trip and the guys working for this awesome non-profit were amazing. We saw dolphins swimming along the boat and a bunch of large turtles paddling in the sea- they were so cute! Unfortunately it was while we were on the boat returning from a fun-filled snorkel at Molokini that my sister called from Los Angeles and informed us that someone had broken into our house. Grrrrrrrrrrrr. We were lucky in that the perps didn’t take much, but it’s still strange and icky to think of some stranger cruising around your house. Anyway, if you are in Maui and want to take any sort of snorkeling trip, I highly recommend the Pacific Whale Foundation, plus all of the proceeds go to a good cause.

Our awesome guide, Blake, on the right!

Inside the boat………..

More Maui posts to come………..and I promise, they’ll be more positive!

Aloha!

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Posted in Hawaii vacation, Maui, Pacific Whale Foundation, Plantation House, Ritz Carlton Kapalua

Posted on July 28, 2009 by Anne| 3 Comments
Maui Bound…………..

J and I are doing something we’ve never done: take a domestic vacation for a whole week and hunker down in the same spot for the entirety of the trip. We’ve taken lots of trips before, but they usually involve a 10+ hour flight, bouts of jetlag, currency exchange and weak attempts to speak a language we are not very good at all while hopping from city to city. So we decided to do what millions before us have done- go lay on a beach in Hawaii and fahgettaboutit! We’re off to Maui tomorrow, so hopefully I will return with many tales of delicious meals, blue waters and snorkeling adventures. Since we plan to hit Plantation House, Lahaina Grill and the Hali’imaile General Store, I’m pretty sure the delicious meals part is covered.

If you have any recommedations, I’d love to hear them!

Aloha!

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Posted in Uncategorized

Posted on July 21, 2009 by Anne| 4 Comments
Bar Celona, Pasadena

I basically grew up in Pasadena. My family lives in Temple City and my sister and I spent many, MANY teenage/twentysomething nights in Pasadena, usually at the old E Bar or eating at many of the good restaurants the town had to offer. I remember my parents took us to a place called Julianne (not the one in San Marino) where I had my very first duck l’orange and I thought it was the best thing I’d ever eaten. Pasadena always had a festive, special-occasion quality about it and I spent much of my time there while growing up.

Cut to now. Pasadena, especially Old Town, has seemingly turned into a chain restaurant mecca, wait, the “high-end chain restaurant mecca” is more like it. Cheesecake Factory? Check. Il Fornaio? Check. Louise’s? Check. Houston’s? Check. Toss in a few strange fusion places like Thaitalian (wait, they went out of biz) and sushi-for-the-masses like Afloat Sushi (still in biz) and you have the odd, uninspiring food scene in Pasadena, save for a few gems like Vertical Wine Bistro, Parkway Grill (which has had it’s share of ups and downs) and Arroyo Chop House. Then Bar Celona came along………well, more like Chef Josef Centeno came to Bar Celona.

NOT Chef Centeno, but a patron of the restaurant that looked straight out of Spain, thus the photo!

Chef Centeno gained popularity while at Opus Restaurant and has brought new life to Bar Celona. I’d been there before his arrival and it was good, but now it is really special- I mean it’s food that hasn’t been available in Pasadena before, in my opnion. It’s SO NICE to go to my beloved neighborhood and sit down for plate after plate of inventive, fresh, creative and well prepared food such as the offerings of Chef Centeno and Bar Celona.

Last week I was invited to dine at Bar Celona to celebrate their five year anniversary and their annual “Running of the Bulls” celebration. I’d been to Bar Celona a few times in the past and had mostly good experiences there, so I was excited to go. In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that my meal was comp’d, but since I’d had many of these dishes before I can tell you that the freeness of the food didn’t change the flavor, ha. Now, onto the food, and there was a lot of it, my friends:

An amuse of crisp fried sardines with honey water. Sounds strange, tastes salty and sweet and then, it’s gone cos you popped it in your mouth.

Oyster & cremini mushrooms- I’m a big fan of mushrooms, garlic and wine, and this was all three with a dash of cream. What’s not to like?

Wild arugula with baby tomatoes, hazelnuts, roasted garlic vinaigrette- again, a combination of a few of my favorite things- peppery arugula with crunchy roasted nuts:

Chard and goat cheese croquetas: My favorite of the evening, but as you know from many previous posts, croquetas (korokke in Japanese) are in my “Top Five” of favorite foods. These were perfect- golden, hot and crisp on the outside, tender with a slight tang from the goat cheese on the inside. I mean, just look at them. They’re nuggets of golden goodness and a great match for the albariño I was drinking

4 oz pork shoulder conserva: potted meats/fishes seem to be everywhere these days, from Barbrix (except they don’t serve it in a pot…boo!) and Palate (the potted lamb is truly outstanding) and this one was rich, meaty and again, perfect for wine. We barely made a dent in it so they offered to let me take it home…..then I promptly forgot it at the restaurant. Imagine all of the fantastic sandwiches (the conserva on rye bread w/ pickled red onions, cornichons, and dijon mustard!!!) missing from my life now that I left that pork conserva behind……I pay for my mistakes. Damn me!

Warm octopus salad, white nectarine, herbs, smoked paprika- normally I don’t really love savory food with fruit in it, but this worked out so well- it also had hearts of palm in it which added a nice contrast in texture to the tender octopus. I wonder what cooking method Chef Centeno uses to get his octopus so tender? I’ve heard Italians put wine corks in their poaching liquid, Japanese put dried adzuki beans in it but beat the raw octopus with a daikon radish before poaching………what’s your method?

Quail stuffed with tart cherries, apricots, chorizo, roasted figs: you’re like, “uh, aren’t you the girl who said she doesn’t like savory food with fruit in it?” Yeah, that’s me, so what’s this dish containing – count ‘em- THREE different fruits in it doing on my table? Well, to be honest, it was recommended, and I’m glad it was- there’s nothing like spicy Spanish chorizo to offset the sweetness of fruit, and quail is one of my favorite birds. S declared this dish his favorite of the night.

And, finally……..drum roll please…………Crispy pork belly, brussels sprouts, fried egg, salbixtada (a sauce made from almonds, tomatoes, garlic). This is a dish that would have Anthony Bourdain rolling his eyes into the back of his head in ecstacy. Several slices of crisp, fatty pork belly on a bed of fragrant, tender lentils drowned in the runny yolk of a soft poached egg. It reminded me of my friend D who is a fan of all things pork fat and drippy egg.

After we were done eating, we rolled ourselves into the other rooms of the expansive restaurant to check out the “Running of the Bulls” party, complete with mechanical bull set up for daring patrons! S and I didn’t think it was a great idea to participate after gorging ourselves on 60% of the menu and hey- I watch “Wipeout” and know what happens to people who partake in those kinds of activites….it ain’t purty. Bar Celona was also promoting their “all you can eat paella” which happens every Sunday this summer and had a paella station set up on the back patio, along with tables of different sample cocktails for people to try. It was kind of like wine tasting- you sip a little here, you sip a little there, then a little while later you realize, oops, I’m sorta drunk! Although the two bar areas and back patio were fun, the main restaurant dining room is much more my speed, with exposed brick walls and an open kitchen.

I’m happy that Bar Celona has become a true food lover’s destination with the Centeno menu and hope it continues to showcase fresh, local ingredients prepared in such creative ways. In a land of chain restaurants, it’s nice to know that there is a place to get some really well prepared dishes and have a reason to revisit my old stomping grounds often.

Bar Celona
46 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA
(626) 405-1000

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Posted in Bar Celona, Los Angeles tapas restaurants, South Pasadena restaurants

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Anne| 1 Comment
Father’s Day Meal


Oy……..man I can’t get back on the blogging train for some reason. I guess I don’t have much of an excuse for the last month or so but the last week has been absolute hell at work. The passing of MJ has rocked the world, and the entertainment news world has been in a frenzy. Since I live in both universes, it’s been bananas. And in this case, bananas is bad.

So even though Father’s Day was awhile ago, I am finally getting around to posting pics! My dad taught me to cook and instilled in me a love of good food and wine, so the only appropriate present is, well, food and wine of course! I invited my family over for a Mexican fiesta of sorts, and after much consulting with Homesick Texan, got to work on all of the dishes.


Two days before Father’s Day, I made a big ol’ pot of black beans. Actually I made two pots. Why? Well, I didn’t follow my instincts and decided to toss in the epazote (a Mexican herb I’ve never worked with) into the pot, despite its twiggy woodiness. I stopped and thought to myself, “maybe I should put it in some cheesecloth or whiz it in my spice grinder” but then talked myself out of it, thinking that the hours of slow cooking beans require would break down the fibers. I think you can probably figure out that the little twigs retained their twigginess after hours of simmering, and vain attempts to pick it all out were……uh, all in vain. So I packed it into a Tupperware and tossed it into the freezer (hey- I may come home from work starving one day and really want some homemade black beans, at which time little twigs won’t bother me) and promptly made another, this time putting the epazote into some cheesecloth. Crisis averted.

On the same day I made a paste out of guajillo and ancho chiles, cinnamon, coffee and other spices for a barbacoa- which is traditionally made with cow’s head but I went with a pork shoulder instead, slathering the marinade onto large chunks of meat and packing it all into a ziploc bag. After sitting in the fridge overnight, they went into a roasting pan lined with onions and carrots, covered tightly and placed into a low oven for several hours. The house smelled so good I think even my cat noticed!

After the main components were done, I just whizzed together some roasted tomatoes, onions, serranos, garlic and bunches of fresh cilantro into the blender for a quick salsa and made a basic guacamole. An entire head of red cabbage, green onions, cilantro, vinegar, sugar and olive oil made up a simple Mexican slaw. Then I started on the part I was most excited about……..making flour tortillas from scratch! I had seen this post on the aforementioned Homesick Texan site awhile ago and had always hoped for an occasion to make them for.

The dough came together quickly and easily, then after a short rest, I tore off 1 ounce balls of dough which, after another quick rest, were easily rolled out w/ a rolling pin and a touch of flour. 30 seconds on each side in a dry pan was all it took to turn into real, chewy, flavorful and toothsome flour tortillas! Some came out a bit thicker than others, and now I definitely have a better gauge on how thin to roll them out (since they get thicker as they cook). They reminded me a bit of Trader Joe’s Truly Handmade Tortillas since they were all slightly irregular in shape, but of course these were a lot better.

The meal turned out great- the meat was tender and flavorful, the beans rich and tasty….it was kind of nice to sit down to a make-your-own taco type of meal. Really casual, fun and interactive. We made a nice dent into it all but I packed my dad up with enough leftovers for one meal for him and my mom, plus I had lots of meat and beans for myself- I mean, this kind of food really does taste better the longer it sits.


A special thanks to Homesick Texan for helping and answering my incessant questions, and a shout-out to Papa, my dad, for being the best dad ever!

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Posted in home cooking, Homesick Texan, Mexican food

Posted on June 16, 2009 by Anne| 7 Comments
A Non-Food Post:

But I doubt I will ever get a chance to see J, my other half, dress like this again. Long story short- the airline lost his band’s luggage and they had to scramble to buy clothes for a show; he picked up this snazzy suit while shopping and decided to cruise around the festival wearing it, as a joke. Now he’s on Vogue’s website.

Reminds me of the Laughing Cow cheese commercial…..

Anyway, enjoy!

Photo: Amy Dickerson/Style.com

Read about it here:

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Posted in Nonfood posts