I cannot believe how fast Sprinkles jumped on the retail bandwagon! New at Williams-Sonoma! And you even get the B.H. bakery "visual signature" cupcake decoration...I'm not sure how I feel about that yet. I cannot wait to test this out and compare against the real deal from the bakery. And if it lives up to standard, I will be very happy to know where to get a sprinkles fix given my upcoming departure from L.A. :(
After three years of living on the East side, I managed to fulfill a long-standing foodie fantasy of mine last night: A late night slice of pie and a cup of joe at House of Pies in Los Feliz. 
I've always had a soft spot for coffee shops, at any hour, and I couldn't wait to try some pie. And HOP meets all expectations. It's a pleasant little diner that envelops you in a safe blanket of coziness the minute you walk in. It's 24-hour coffee-shop familiarity at it's finest. You know the menu by memory, you've eaten breakfast there a hundred times—as a 5-year old with the family, as a 15-year old with your friends after a football game, as a 22-year old, hungover with your college pals. And you'll probably dine there a hundred times more. So perhaps it's that relaxing sense of security the HOP conjures—when you can stretch out, two to a big, plasticy booth—that nudges one to spill personal secrets, but Sunday night with pie was a delightful confessional.
And whether there's a real link between sinfully-sweet slices of pie (Southern Pecan for me, Blueberry for my partner in crime) and the urge to swap guilty confessions, I'll never know. But bite after bite, as stomachs grew heavier, hearts felt lighter, and the moment of food and friendship set in, I realized that sometimes there is no better cure-all (for the guilty or innocent) than a 24-hour coffee-shop confessional good conversation.
The House of Pies, 1869 N Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027; (323) 666-9961
Ahhh! From the NYT Food Section (article here): I love that Prince Charles has his very own line of organic products—Duchy Originals—,
is the Royal Patron of the Soil Association, and has charmed the "Slow Food principle" pants off of Ms. Alice Waters herself. I totally want to go find some of these yummy looking ginger biscuits at Whole Foods.
When you set forth to make a dish for the first time, there is an established process we food people have. Usually, I rely on similar dishes I've been successful with [insert calls to my mother here for her version and advice], and scan a recipe or two for the general ground rules. I've even dug back into some culinary disasters for what not to do. And then there's the adventure of attempting a dish for the first time—from scratch—with no recipe. I turn it into a personal little contest to see if I can pull it off or not. It's fun, and hell, why not just see what you can come up with, right? However, I don't usually do this when cooking for or with someone, for the sole reason there is no recipe. It's a huge gamble on the "garaunteed edible at the end."
But I actually found myself the other day challenged to take on a dish I'd never made before, sans recipe. My challenger had suggested a dessert. And rather than heed the advice of an easily accessible recipe, we agreed to display a blatant dismissal of conventionality, and engage in some serious culinary lawlessness. What form did our anarchy take? Poached Pairs in a Sweet Wine Reduction. The suggestion was perfect, actually: totally doable, and totally destroyable at the same time. I almost smirked at the moment—it was as capricous as us challengers, inspired by a free-wheeling, total disregard for responsibility or reality that can sometimes happen when tempted by a difficult culinary adventure with a like-minded seeker.
Diaglogue was blithe with a dash of audacity: How much poaching liquid? Who cares! What kind of wine? The Muscato, clearly. One vanilla bean or two? Suprise me. Nutmeg, cinnamon, freshly ground pepper? Hell, throw them all in. Did it need something sour? A dash of raspberry vinegar, perhaps? Are you grossed out yet? Never! It smells too spicy...I dare you to drink the poaching liquid... Why don't we just add some sugar instead? Brilliant!
And the success of the dish wavered constantly—between moments of faith it would end up a genuis creation, and moments where there is nothing but extreme certainty it's headed for the trash. But you can't have any expectations when discarding the recipe—like I said, there's no garauntee it's edible at the end. The case in point is that the pears were a bit overdone and the reduction destroyed by a microwave attempt to reheat it. But I'm not one to give up easily. And that's where you remember to improvise. Because served a la mode, the nuanced hint of sweet spiciness that had infused into the pears was startling delicious. Well-worth a future attempt with a few adjustments. So given the right circumstance, I highly recommend trying a new dish and challenging yourself beyond the recipe. Because sometimes NOT following the rules can be unpredicatbly yummy. Not to mention, entertaining.
For a sure-fire recipe I love for Poached Pears, Click Here
I used to go to the wine tastings at Silver Lake Wine fairly frequently. And then I became more discerning when loads of people started cramming the place and the free Hors d'oeuvres (paired for the wines of course) would run out way too fast for my pre-dinner appetite. I still receive the shop's email blasts, and every once in awhile a certain flight sounds good enough to brave the scene. Tonight's flight is all about the bubbly...a red and white flight to choose from. I'm there!
Afterwards, I will go to Pho Café and finish up at Pazzo Gelato for my new favorite triple scoop: The neo-neopolitan: Farmer's Market Strawberry, Dark Chocolate Martini and Madagascar Vanilla Bean with Limone. Nothing like a Thursday Silver Lake Trifecta: Buzz Wine, Binge Pho, Binge, part II Gelato.
The sugar gods are really aligning today to sweet-tooth torture me with scrumptious little confections. Check out Miette Pâtisserie. It's a bakery and a candy store (two locations in the San Francisco Bay Area) run by two women who started out selling their yummy little treats at the Berkeley Farmer's Market. Their cake gallery is an exercise in cyberspace dessert binging. And the vintage cake platters? le sigh. I want one of everything. Now. Sign me up for the internship...
"Life itself is the proper binge.”
-Julia Child
Breakfast today was a decadent, sinfully delicious homemade cupcake. Ok, full disclosure: TWO decadent, sinfully delicious cupcakes: Chocolate with Cream Cheese Frosting and Vanilla with Vanilla Frosting, both with those multi-colored sprinkles that remind you of the third grade. I started to feel guilty about my sugary a.m. indulgence, and then I remembered the above statement by my heroine Julia Child.
I'll count the calories when I'm dead and catching up on all that sleep. Thanks for reminding me how to be proper Jules.
BTW, my favorite cupcakes in L.A. are at SPRINKLES
in Beverly Hills. I know this is old news, but their Red Velvets are to die for. If you know of rival bakeries, do tell. I'd love to do some taste testing...
Once upon a time there was a delightful little apothecary in Echo Park, Los Angeles, known by locals as Le Pink. However, the ever-crowded store was filled to the brim with the unbelievable scents emanating from hard-to-find, high-quality beauty product on its shelves. Something had to be done. Le Pink found a larger space to accommodate it's aromatic treasures, and has moved to a new location—in Silver Lake, on Sunset Blvd., near Sunset Junction. Their scintillating array of unique offerings(including vintage candy!)—all of which smell delectable enough to eat—will leave you wanting seconds and thirds...Enter with caution. The top three scents of my last visit:
1. Strawberry Milkshake Bar (body soap)
2. Japanese Plum toothpaste (a fluoride alternative)
3. Vanilla-Almond hand lotion
This is the follow up installment to E.V.B.O Part I, click here to read.
So I arrived for the Extreme Vanilla Bake-Off with ingredients, champagne and an electric mixer. [Note: for future culinary experiment/dates, hold them in your own kitchen. You’ll have your own equipment on-hand (e.g.: artisan mixer) and you’ll effortlessly know your way around, decreasing any disorientation that will crush your culinary adeptness and hold you victim to flirtatious nerves.] The experiment began well. We opted for the standard recipe, but decided on the mini-cookie version to facilitate smaller tasting sizes. After all, I wouldn’t want to get sick from too many cookies and have to go home, right? When it came time to add the vanilla, we split the dough into two batches, and our experiment immediately became a contest. I went to measure out the first addition of vanilla. Full disclosure, I was totally distracted by where the measuring spoons were, where the vanilla was—the fact that I really wanted to kiss this guy who was making me laugh and standing just close enough to drive me crazy—and so, of course, the extract went everywhere but the measuring spoon. (See note re: date location above). I stammered out something about the consistency of the vanilla and tried to find paper towels to mop up the now vanilla-y range. He, deservedly, laughed at me. Ok, back to the task at hand. We quadrupled the amount of vanilla in my batch; his was the control. I quipped about his ability to drop teaspoons of dough evenly onto a cookie sheet, and tried not to drink my champagne too fast. The cookie dough tasted amazing (mine considerably stronger on the vanilla—a good sign); we each got one beater to lick clean, and I realized things must be going well considering we were completely comfortable acting like sugar-crazed five-year olds in front of each other, licking spoonfuls of dough and, well, forgetting to check on the cookies. I smelled something burning, and my stomach sank. Wasn’t the timer supposed to go off? I pulled both trays from the oven. A minute more and they would have been scorched to a black crisp. Though not unbearable, the cookies were burnt enough to erase the subtle detection of any vanilla variation. My grand visions of vanilla conclusions began fading fast. What had happened? That’s when I was told the oven hadn’t really been working properly. (See note re: date location above). We still strained our taste buds to test the vanilla, but to no avail. I immediately suggested E.V.B.O. take two in MY kitchen. We did have fun, after all. And even though the extreme vanilla threshold remains unknown, I did discover a direct correlation between the level of cookie dough consumption and the brazen lack of self-control for a crush.
So I have this vanilla obsession that started when I was about six years old. I loved baking cookies and my favorite part was adding the vanilla extract.
My mom would turn around and I'd secretly swipe the bottle and pour in an extra teaspoon or two. There was something so alluring about that little bottle, which never disappointed me in turning out the intoxicating aroma of extreme vanilla. While my obsession is now grounded in more age-appropriate products: PERFUME, STOLI and VANILLE (a fabulous online home/gift boutique), I still like to sprinkle in extra vanilla to my cookie dough just for kicks. And apparently, I'm not the only one. Enter cute crush of mine, whom, much to my delight, revealed yesterday that he also has a penchant for adding extra vanilla to cookie dough. Five minutes after exchanging this small detail, the Extreme Vanilla Bake-Off experiment was born: just how much of that rich, 35%-proof deliciousness could the cookie dough handle, we wanted to know? Perhaps my current read, The Biography of Julia Child (which I highly recommend!), had me in a scientific state of mind; perhaps I'm really just a sucker for a good challenge. Either way, the EVBO experiment is set for Saturday night, and I'm not sure what I'm more excited about: determining the vanilla threshold or my lab partner…
Homework: click here for extreme vanilla product and follow up next week for the science report.