RECIPE: Corn and Cheddar Muffins

One of my favorite new things I've discovered lately is the bread baking column on Serious Eats. I love to bake more than any other kind of cooking so it's exciting to have a steady stream of things to make. Above are some corn and cheddar muffins.

I made them with fresh white sweet corn from the farmer's market and some Vermont cheddar. These are great warmed up with some butter.

RESTAURANT: Ludobites

In order to understand Ludobites, you have to understand the people behind it. Ludovic Lefebvre sometimes looks like this:


But more often he looks like this:

His wife, Kristine, sometimes looks like this:


But more often, looks like this:

Ludovic Lefebvre is one of the top chefs in the world. Kristine Lefebvre was a high-powered entertainment lawyer and one-time contestant on "The Apprentice". In other words, they are both gorgeous and talented and you would think, therefore, extremely worthy of hate. But you would be wrong.

All you have to do is spend one night at Ludobites, the pop-up restaurant they run together to understand that in reality these two are sweet, friendly, down-to-earth, fun and crazy in love with each other. All they want to do is hang out together, have fun, make food and extend their hospitality to anyone who cares to join in.


Half Chicken, Chorizo, Poached Egg, Chanterelles, Saffron Onions Soubise

What is Ludobites? Ludobites is a pop-up restaurant that takes over various locations in Los Angeles for temporary amounts of time. They have served up dinner at Breadbar, Royal/T, Gram n' Papas and Max in Studio City. Ludobites is also practically a cult. People eagerly await for the next location to be announced and when reservations open, the site gets so flooded with requests that it regularly breaks down altogether and reservations usually fill up in a matter of minutes.

In execution it is a bistro-style affair, with Ludo cooking the high-flown, imaginative dishes which made him a wunderkind chef, with all the ambiance of an intimate, informal French family kitchen.

Ludo Torches a Dish at Gram 'n' Papa's

It definitely feels like a family affair. Kristine is there to greet you at the door with a huge smile. Ludo is always around, making his presence felt and running the kitchen, and the servers are often the same from location to location.

You feel, when you attend a Ludobites, like you are getting to know the Lefebvres, so accessible and friendly and casual are they - they treat everyone who comes in like a friend and it's easy to see why they are a winning combination, with Ludo as the wild child whose unrestrained creativity is sort of managed and directed into a successful business practice by his capable wife.

Caramel Souffle, Blanco Grapefruit, Fleur de Sel Ice Cream

And the food? The food is like nothing you've had elsewhere and nothing you will ever have. It's combination of classic French technique, a wild imagination and some molecular gastronomy thrown in there as well. As long as you are ready to let go, be open-minded and give things a try, then you will find food that ranges from classic to homey to elegant to outrageous.

Ludo Takes a Short Breather

Some of my favorite dishes have included: poached egg with potato mousseline and chorizo - though this was a dainty looking dish, all done up in a petite serving dish with flowers and a smooth, gourmet appearance, the flavor was hearty and satisfying and I would have this for breakfast any weekend.

Steamed duck with a crispy skin puree - I am not normally a huge fan of duck. It is difficult to cook just right and therefore it is a bit of a gamble to order it. It was the words "crispy skin puree" that enticed me though and I'm glad I risked it. The duck was cooked perfectly and it was as satisfying as a good fried chicken - tender and juicy with a contrasting crunch. The saddest thing about Ludo dishes is that even as you eat them, you know you will probably never eat them again.

One thing I always look forward to is the fresh bread selection. It could be a fluffy baguette or it could be an exotic naan, but it's always well executed with some kind of exceptionally flavorful butter to make it the most memorable bread experience you might have in a restaurant.


Grilled Octopus, Oregano, Grilled Hazelnut Polenta, Pineapple Aioli, Piment D'Espelette Gelée

The thing that defines Ludobites to me though, is the unexpected moments. That is where they really shine and where you know this restaurant is deserving of the cultlike adoration it gets.

During Ludobites' time at Royal/T - almost exactly one year ago - J. and I went for dinner and were greeted by the chagrined, frazzled looking Kristine, who gave us a menu but informed us that due to an "emergency in the kitchen" the menu was pretty much thrown out and if we stayed, we would be consenting to a fixed meal that they could not predict ahead of time what we would eat.

We just shrugged and said "sure!" We later found out that one of the sous chefs had up and left in the middle of service and the kitchen was small enough that it basically equated half the staff walking out. It turned out to be one of the more fun dinners I have ever had. The entire meal was a surprise, and we never knew what we would eat until it came. I felt it was a success and it really showed how even the most dire situations can work. If the staff is willing to put their nose to the grindstone and work through it, and the diners are willing to set aside their personal entitlement and desires and just relax and be served then it will work out. Since the meal was discounted for the inconvenience, and we still got a multi-course gourmet meal I think we got one of the more fantastic bargains of our life - all we really gave up was the ability to choose for ourselves what we ate.

Steamed duck with crispy skin puree and lemon verbena and a balsamic white peach

The other incident that defines the spirit of this restaurant to me was at this last Ludobites 6.0 at Max restaurant in Studio City. As we were nearing the end of our meal, a large party was coming in and Kristine asked if we would mind scooting over one table and that she would buy our dessert for the favor. Of course, scooting down one place was hardly an effort and we didn't really feel any need to be compensated for it.

But when she found out that we had paid the bill before she could take the dessert off, Kristine insisted on getting us cash out of the till to pay us back for our dessert, and she ended up giving us more than it even cost. It was an extremely generous and friendly gesture and as it happened we chatted and she really revealed their mindset as she talked about wanting to host a big dinner at their house.

"Do you really want all these people knowing where you live?" I asked. And I watched the realization dawn on her. She had been so excited about the thought of hosting everyone at her home that the complications of their celebrity, even as localized as it is, hadn't occurred to her. She really does think of them as just two people hosting dinners for everyone and having fun.

Poached Egg, Potato Mousseline, Chorizo

So now the hard part - how does one actually go to Ludobites? It's always roving and it only happens during specified times. The best way to get updated on when it will be open for business and where is to go to the Ludobites website and sign up for the mailing list. They will update you by e-mail when the next Ludobites will be and when reservations begin.

The next part is just persistence and luck. Getting a reservation can be difficult but I will say that we have always succeeded - and if you do not succeed in getting booked at first, keep trying. Seats open up and they do seem to take a certain amount of walk-ins if you are willing to wait, depending on the location.

Good luck!

Goat Cheese Soup, Bacon, Lardo, Tofu, Green Apple, Frisee Salad

hey i totally made this all by myself

So I don't have any particular talents. I can do a lot of things, but I'm not really great at any one thing. Because of that I get way too proud of myself whenever I successfully do something and it's not messed up. I cannot believe it every time and it's like a miracle. (The reason for this is the many many messed up projects that will not ever appear on this blog.)

So recently I have done a couple of things ALL BY MYSELF and they turned out good. I am so pleased with myself, I am showcasing it all here on this blog.

Okay first, I am totally a farmer! I've been wanting a yard forever, but it's pretty clear that it's going to be a long time before I ever have one. So this year when a cool nursery opened up down the street, me and J. started a container garden. Besides the decorative plants, I decided to try to grow some vegetables. Guys, it worked! They grew! And for the most part, are still growing. It's amazing. You just put water on them every day, fertilizer once a month and murder any bad bugs that show up. Voila, foods.


This is my cute mini bell pepper plant. You can see a flower, which is waiting for a bee to visit and two baby peppers.


When the peppers are ready, they turn orange. They are like little teeny tiny bell peppers.


They are nice in a salad and I bet they would make really cute appetizers with a stuffing.


This is my big pepper plant. These are Italian roasting peppers. They are ready once they get big enough (about 60 days). If you leave them on the plant long enough they will turn red, but I have only been patient enough for that one time.


Here are the first peppers that I picked. These three peppers are the first vegetables I ever grew myself, so I am very proud of them all even if some of them are handsomer than others.


I roasted the peppers and put them on a chicken sandwich. Delicious but they were pretty spicy, so really a sandwich should have less peppers than this.


This is my poor kale. The kale grew like gangbusters, it was nuts. In this picture it is twice as big as when I got it and it ended up getting twice as tall as that. But I could not keep the aphids away from it - they kept coming back even after I would mass murder them all. I could never actually eat it because of so many bugs, so I ended up having to let it go. :( I will probably replace it with another pepper plant because I am telling you, those are so easy.

I also want to give a plug to my nursery because it is the greatest. It has all kinds of amazing things - not just plants but gifts and stuff for your house too. The people are really nice and know all about plants and you can bring your dog there and they will give it treats.

Rolling Greens Nursery



Okay, the other thing I made is cheese! That is mozzarella cheese that I made all myself. It is really easy, as long as you have the stuff and a recipe. For my birthday, J. got me a deluxe cheesemaking kit from Urban Cheesecraft. These people are really great. Not only did the kit and recipes make it really easy to use, but at first they accidentally forgot to put some of the recipes in my kit and when I e-mailed them, they sent them right a way, plus gave me an adorable heart shaped cheese mold as a gift.

The mozzarella is made with milk, rennet, citric acid and cheese salt. You just cook the milk until it separates into curds and whey, take out the curds and then knead them until turn into cheese, basically. Mine is a little rustic - you have to stretch and knead it for a looooong time to get it so smooth like store cheese. Patience isn't really my strong point. But when you eat it, it is really like mozzarella! I have been enjoying it with apples and figs.

NEWS: DineLA Restaurant Week + MUNCH LA Cancelled

First off, sad news, everyone. The MUNCH LA food truck event for this weekend has been canceled. I'm unsure why, but at least it seems that it will be rescheduled, so I will be sure to look out for any new dates. Here is the official statement from the event:

Due to unforeseen circumstances, MUNCH LA regretfully has to cancel its event on Saturday, September 18th, 2010. MUNCH LA deeply apologizes to our supporters for any inconveniences and we hope to reschedule our event soon. In the meantime, full refunds on tickets will be available. Please let us know if you have any questions and we will keep you posted.

But now ...



Good news, everyone!





It's almost time for DineLA again! October 3 - 8 and Oct. 10 - 15, local restaurants will offer sweet deals to take advantage of. Lunches will be offered for $16, $22, or $28 depending on the place, and dinners for $26, $34, or $44 depending on the place. It's a great time to try places that ordinarily wouldn't be on your agenda for reasons of price or location, or whatever.

My recommendations for this year:



Angeli Caffe - Lunch and Dinner at the lowest price point. Menu still TBD. Honestly, Angeli Caffe is a good deal at any time of the year, but it can also be one of those staple places that you forget about because it's just always around. It's a good excuse to go back if you haven't been in a while.

BLD - BLD is offering a $26 dinner. The menu offers a choice of appetizer, main course and dessert. BLD is another low key option that offers a chance for an amazing deal. If the weather isn't too cold yet, you can even bring your doggie and eat outside. If you're missing Grace, maybe BLD can comfort you a little.

Comme Ca - If you have not tried Comme Ca yet, this is a great opportunity. Both lunch and dinner are offered at the highest price point, menu is still TBD. This is a great place to bring people that you want to impress with really nice food but you don't want to freak them out with a snooty atmosphere or strange menu choices. I brought my whole family here and it was a complete success. The food is all simple and familiar but prepared impeccably and the wine list and cocktails are top notch.

Eva - Eva is pretty much my favorite restaurant at the moment, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Mark is an awesome guy and he is always offering good deals, but this takes away the effort of looking for them yourself. A three course dinner for $34, and the food here has never let me down. I definitely recommend the chicken and the lemon cake, but any choice is probably the right one.

Jar - If you love Mad Men and you haven't been to Jar then you need to go right away. Put on your Don Draper suit or your Joan Holloway wiggle dress and go there. The atmosphere is somehow both modern and retro, both classy and perfectly comfortable all at the same time. Their DineLA menu offers three courses for $44, with choices for each course. Do not let the traditional food choices fool you, I would never recommend any place that was bleh. As long as you like meat, you are in for a real treat.

Little Next Door - If you are anything like me, it doesn't take too much to get to the point where you feel like you desperately need a vacation. We can't always just pop off on our travels, but a meal at the Little Next Door is a reasonable alternative. It really feels like you've gone to another country when you eat there, and chances are the people next to you will be legit French to provide some immersion. For DineLA, they offer lunch and dinner at the lowest price points. There's no reason not to go here, unless you just absolutely hate French stuff, and then I feel sorry for you.

Lucques - There's pretty much no excuse not to have gone here yet - Lucques' Sunday supper already offers a very good deal every single week. But maybe it's just not convenient for you to go at night or on the weekend. But maybe ... if you work in the area, here is your opportunity. Lucques is doing a lunch for DineLA, menu still TBD, three courses for $28. Treat yourself. :)

Rivera - Rivera is a trek for those of us who live in a more westerly direction, but it's well worth it. It's also a bit of an upscale dining experience, so DineLA offers a good opportunity to try it without having to splurge so much. They are offering lunch and dinner at $28/$44 respectively. They also specifically have a veg option for those herbivores out there. Make sure to have some tortillas and even though it's extra, you should probably try at least one of the quality cocktails they have going on. It will be worth it.

Susan Feniger's STREET - STREET is a really fun place to eat. It's best to be daring and try even the weirdest sounding stuff because that stuff is often the most surprisingly great. For DineLA, they are offering lunch and dinner at the middle price range. The menu represents a sampling of their regular offerings although if you choose the lunch, you get one of chef Susan Feniger's specialties - a braised beef taco.

The Bazaar - I would definitely recommend everyone experience The Bazaar at least once. It's a really fun and surprising experience and a good way to ease into trying some more "avant garde" food because you have plenty of traditional options as well. The upside to this DineLA offer is not only the price ($44), but the sheer number of options. You get to choose from a long list of options rather than just a few so picky eaters have less reason to turn down this format. In particular, the "appetizer" portion offers you a choice of one "crazy" option and one traditional option so that you can try both and compare. Be sure and vist the patisserie for a candy after your meal and check out the very interesting gift shop or whatever that is.

So those are all of my favorite places, but there are a lot more options. You can check out if your favorite restaurant is doing something, and look for menu updates on the DineLA page.

NEWS: MUNCH LA Food Truck Extravaganza, Sept. 18 at Fairfax High

Ooh breaking news ... on Saturday, September 18, MUNCH LA will hold its first event - a food and fashion extravaganza featuring over 30 of L.A.'s famous food trucks as well as indie fashion vendors. The event will be from 11am - 5pm at Fairfax High.

Sought after food trucks such as LudoTruck (Ludo Lefevbre's fried chicken), Let's Be Frank (gourmet hot dogs), the Dim Sum Truck and Tropical Shaved Ice will be there. The full list of trucks follows:

Ahn Joo, Baby Bad Ass Burgers, Big Swirl, Calbi BBQ, Crepe n Around, Del’s Lemonade, Dim Sum Truck, Don Chow Tacos, Dosa Truck, Dumpling Station, Eat Phamish, Fish Lips, Flying Pig, Frysmith, Greenz on Wheelz, Greasy Weiner, India Jones, Kabob N Roll, Komodo, Lake Street Creamery, Let’s Be Frank, LudoTruck, Nana Queens, Slice, South Philly, Sweet Truck, Tropical Shave Ice, Vizzi and more.

In addition, attendees can do some designer shopping, as Young Fabulous & Broke, Hudson Jeans, Wendy Glez Lingerie, T Bags, Dylan George, Paige Denim, Boheme Jewelry and others will be on hand to offer their wares.

Tickets are available in advance at munchla.com ($7) or at the door on the day of ($10)

WHEN: Saturday, Sept. 18th, 11am – 5pm
WHERE: Fairfax High School; 7850 Melrose Ave, LA 90046

THING 80: Harry's Seascape Strawberries

Strawberry farmers are always on a quest to build a bigger and better strawberry. In strawberry terms, what that means is they want the perfect everbearing strawberry - one that produces a large amount of fruit for a long amount of time.

Seascape berries were birthed at the University of Davis and they are an extremely productive variety of strawberry, and even better than that, have a very good flavor. Seascape berries are particularly suited to California, but will grow especially well in any cool region with a warm micro-climate.

Not only is the berry one of the better berries for commercial growing and selling, but this year, researchers at Purdue have discovered that it may be able to go into space with astronauts. In attempting to discover which produce might be cultivated on a space shuttle, it was determined that Seascape berries require little maintenance or energy, are not sensitive to the amount of daylight available. In fact, what they found with the Seascape was that with half the light, the plant yielded lesser amounts of berries, but each berry was bigger, such that no volume was lost overall. The plants are small, and the berries are easy to grow and consume with little waste. Total space berries.

At the Farmer's Market in Los Angeles, the place to get these berries (and others) is Harry's Berries. Harry's Berries is a family farm in Oxnard that has been growing strawberries since 1967. Harry Iwamoto was from a farming family that went back generations in Japan. He moved to the U.S. in the late 1950s and worked as a gardener until he was able to move to Oxnard and begin the farm, which grew strawberries from the start. They started with a roadside stand and a wholesale business, but various circumstances caused them to scale down their operation and now they focus on specialty varieties of both strawberries and other fruits and vegetables, which they sell at farmer's markets. Harry unfortunately passed away while they were moving to the smaller field, but his daughter and her husband still run the farm today.

Harry's sells berries at Farmer's Markets from Montecito to Torrance, and they are in at least one market and usually more every day of the week.

They sell two varieties of strawberry: Gaviotas and Seascapes from February through August, with maybe a small amount other times of the year, with spring being the peak. Gaviotas are sweeter strawberries, perfect for buying and eating straight away. Seascapes are more acidic but sturdier and are perfect for baking as well as eating.

Harry's also sells beans and tomatoes when they have them and processed foods made with their products: preserves, juice, and salsa.

Be warned that at peak season these specialty berries are much more expensive than what you would find in the store. But for a special treat they are worth it. Juicy and delicious, but not too sweet they are great for eating alone and even better for baking in a tart.

To find out when Harry's Berries will be at a market near you, visit their website at: http://www.harrysberries.com.

THING 44: Strawberry Donut from Donut Man

Without a doubt, Jonathan Gold's description of these donuts is a prime example of why he is a Pulitzer Prize-winning food writer, so it's impossible to write anything about them without providing an excerpt that shows how incredibly persuasive this man can be when enticing you to be enthusiastic about a food you might otherwise never bother to try:

It is an iceberg of a doughnut, a flattened demisphere big enough to use as a Pilates cushion, split in two and filled to order with what must be an entire basket of fresh strawberries, and only in season. The fruit is moistened with a translucent gel that lubricates even the occasional white-shouldered berry with a mantle of slippery sweetness, oozing from the sides, turning the bottom of the pasteboard box into a sugary miasma in the unlikely event that the doughnuts actually make it home.

This ... this is why he wins. Anyone who can use the word "miasma" in a description of food where the end result is that you desperately want to eat the food is a master.

The Donut Man is something that I may never have tried, but for Mr. Gold. I love donuts a lot, but the Donut Man is located in Glendora, way out in the San Gabriel valley, and although I do sometimes have occasion to go there, I usually go straight to my destination and then home, without the desire to stop at random donut shops along the way.

But it's true that the Donut Man has something no other donut shop around here has, and that is donuts that feature fresh fruit - strawberry in spring, peach in summer. A strawberry donut from Donut Man is not a withered, overfried slab of cake with pink icing strewn over the top. It is instead a fluffy, airy glazed donut-bun surrounding a mound of fresh strawberries drowned in their own sugary glaze.

How accurate is Mr. Gold's description? Entirely accurate. By the time you get the donut home, the bottom has turned into a sticky sweet mass of goo, but the top remains light and fluffy and the strawberries fresh and glowingly red. You can even save it for the next morning, but I recommend to eat it as fresh as possible so that it doesn't lose a bit of softness or warmth and the ooze:solid ratio remains in a manageable balance. The miasma can only encroach so far before the quality starts to suffer.

As Gold himself admits - Glendora is going to be at least 45 minutes away from you, and there's nothing there unless you're lucky enough to have relatives that give you an excuse to head out there every so often. But it's close enough to all of that legendary Chinese food of the San Gabriel Valley, so you could do worse than to make a day of it, abandoning whatever diet you are on and heading east for a day of gluttony.

Donut Man, 915 E. Route 66, Glendora, (626) 335-9111.

IT IS TRUE BECAUSE THE INTERNET SAID SO

Just so you know ....

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I'm sure this comes as a surprise to no one since these blog postings bear clear similarities to the works of David Foster Wallace. But it's best to make it official, just in case.

Also, I actually am going to post something here soon ... just a busy schedule but I have tons of pictures saved up to write things about.