April 2013
3 posts
brunch crawls and food finds.
san diego’s food landscape can only be paralleled by san francisco. no shortage of cute little spots to eat REALLY good food, for sure. this trip’s rundown:
cafe chloe
village 631
the market by buon appetito
brunch first …
the starters: soup bowl sized chuao chocolate mocha. no one NEEDS that much coffee. then, there was this guy (above) … prosciutto flatbread with...
historic san diego coffee and tea house.
spices in bulk.
san diego is always good to me when it comes to food. and fun times. and a half dozen other things. it’s why i love that city. and just by chance this weekend, my friends suggested we go to old town which was a new experience for me considering i lived there for three years. well, sort of new … i had been to rockin baja lobster there once.
anyway, in the spirit of...
It's been a while.
I was telling a few people recently about our humble little blog’s existence and it dawned on me after a whirlwind of crazy life happenings that both small fry and myself have forgotten to show it a little love.
so what’s new with stella … i’ll spare you the dissertation of the last six months to tell you that basically my days of working 60 hour weeks behind a desk has...
January 2013
1 post
vintage revival.
happy new year!
i feel like 2013 should be a year of bringing back a few old things to remix them and make new experiences. so here’s my list of things to remix:
1. family dinners — we are at an age where our biological families are still families but we’ve also created a web of urban or suburban families comprising of friends, colleagues, etc. whom need a different kind of...
December 2012
5 posts
guest chefs: jocelyn vistro harrison and lourdes...
my good eats. album on facebook has nearly exploded in the last two months since i’ve had time to actually indulge it. perhaps i should take notes from ferran adria and take a hiatus from the design services profession for six months out of the year to recalibrate in the kitchen. that would be the life, if i ever got to that point.
my cousin jocelyn reached out to me on facebook and suggested...
back to basics.
i think it’s fairly ironic that i’ve been eating filipino food for 28 years and never bothered to try to make it myself other than the college efforts of adobo and sinigang from the packet.
despite my dad’s heart episode a few years back, my parents refuse to give it up. it has also been an unspoken point of disagreement at family meals with my extended family, particularly my...
my baby brother, the chef.
check this shit out. my brother has a cool career … well, theoretically it’s a future career but his nevertheless.
college majors should be chosen after 25. what do you really know about yourself and what you want to do for the rest of your life at 18?
if it were possible, culinary school would be mine.
mike’s final was one week of management at the restaurant at kellogg...
local eats: les amis.
i’ve probably driven/walked/stumbled by les amis a few dozen times in gallivants through downtown fullerton. middle eastern food is not something i crave on the regular simply because the flavors tend to be … blah, where my flavor receptors with asian cuisine get blown out often with such potent taste.
that day, i spent the morning running around doing errands for mi madre and found...
November 2012
3 posts
local eats: rooster pm
“sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged lightly.” - m.k. fisher
that brilliant quote came from the bottom of the menu at rooster pm. small fry and i ended up here last week after having toured the hood kitchen space, possible facility for launching our professional culinary project. i will add that i am hopelessly in love with the facility...
local eats: juliette bar + kitchen.
every once in a while, places like juliette bar + kitchen open up and make you want to punch the chef for blowing your mouth off.
juliette and her husband used to own the filling station in orange, a place i had the opportunity to enjoy a little brunch at recently. we’ll save my love of hollandaise on breakfast for a different blog.
the occasion was a celebration of small fry’s...
2 tags
guest chef: mark grismer.
i like sous chefs. they’re perfect for me and my infinite brain splattered all over the kitchen in multi-tasking for any size production. i’m not a huge fan of mise en place for smaller ones, especially … but consider it a resolution fit for 2013.
the backstory: i met mark at a young leader group event for the urban land institute. i’m fascinated by duality so i tend to...
October 2012
5 posts
5 tags
local eats: eat cafe cerritos
sometimes, the right attitude and high level of customer service can make or break how good a meal tastes. you can go to an amazing fine dining experience, but have it ruined by a burned out old waiter or a snooty receptionist. however, sometimes the planets align, and you get the best of both worlds.
i recently found this oddly placed cafe in the cerritos business park not too long ago. today,...
5 tags
brunch chronicles: 240 south
as an avid breakfast food person, i will gladly forego eating lunch and snacks for the the rest of the day if i can have a fantastic meal in the mid morning hours. nothing gets me out of bed on a sunday morning that i would normally be fatting it around until about noon like brunch with the girls. it was my dear friend jazzy’s birthday, and what better way kick off the start of yet another...
beignets, brews, and a little southern comfort.
these last 7 days have been particularly busy in the kitch.
i should mention that small fry and i are getting together tomorrow night for dinner to welcome her back to civilization. location TBD, but i’m sure you’ll read about it. in fact, i promise.
i bought the cafe du monde mix a few weeks ago when i was in SD and finally got around to making them. i will say the texture is very...
this week in dishes: week of october 12.
it is amazing what you can accomplish when you’re on funemployment. (positive thinking :))
oddly enough, i’ve been just as busy not working than working. go figure.
i had to square away some of my affairs earlier in the week and i’ve managed to give birth to a few crazy ideas. i toured the culinary school at the art institute. i’m in love . … but $30k is a bit rich...
September 2012
11 posts
9 tags
this week in dishes: week of october 6.
for as picky of an eater as i can be, i’m as equally non-committal about the places i shop to find groceries for the week. it’s always mood dependent.
this week was zion market with some support from trader joes.
i forgot to mention that this week one of our vendors is hosting a cooking class for me and some other people at work at sur la table. jack-effin-pot. i think it’s...
6 tags
k-town isn't just good for k-bbq anymore
image c/o yelp.com
it’s been awhile since i had gotten to go out and try out a nice new spot and enjoy some good eats. as of late, i’ve been stressing out over my upcoming nclex-rn exam, and how incredibly slow the state of california board of registered nursing takes to process an application to take boards. yes, i know that they really shouldn’t rush the whole process with...
do unto others.
you could call me the committee queen.
this year, anyway. i’ve probably volunteered to do more things in the last 9 months simultaneously than in an aggregate of the last 28 years. i could suffer from chronic busyness.
this week’s going to be a little crazy in the kitchen.
i’m hosting a connection group for the next 6 weeks which means i have 7 new people to try new recipes...
braise and roast.
two of my favorite fall things along with richer colored everything and coats.
plus it gives me something to do with the “going bad soon” bin, other than turn them into frittatas.
this week’s roast: cherry tomatoes, onions, and garlic for a tomato sauce.
drizzle some olive oil, salt, and pepper. then broil til the tomatoes start to brown.
put them into a medium sauce pot,...
if you like it then you shoulda put an egg on it.
the perfect sunny side up egg.
i don’t know about you, but i personally have trouble making perfect eggs. consider the irony given my expertise in other more complicated dishes. 2012 is the year of culinary basics.
the key components of a perfect sunny side up egg: oil, a non-stick pan, and med-low heat. yeah, i know . . oil. i try to avoid it if at all possible but it is what it is.
pour...
trader joe's and "call me maybe" real life.
so much happening in the last few days.
figured i’d mix it up a little bit with the standard weekly lunch provisions for the week. i’m trying to ease up on the meat consumption to the dismay of the people i cook for.
casually strolled into my local trader joe’s for the menu i stacked below:
butternut squash risotto + eggplant cutlets … i recommend a little ricotta and...
7 tags
slow cooker carnitas... a paleo recipe for my...
the last time i tried to do this recipe, it ended up in utter disaster, with my fatal flaw of asking my mother to assist me with the simple job of flipping over my pork butt in the crock pot while i was away at work. this seemingly menial task ended up wiht my pork cooking on high for 6 hours after already having been cooking on low for 5… yeah, it was a sad, sad piece of meat.
let’s...
3 tags
wants vs needs 3: new apron
i want.
herringbone apron from http://www.hedleyandbennett.com/. 60 bones. not like i need another apron, but this is just too damn adorable.
- small fry
labor-intensive day.
my days off aren’t actually days off in terms of being a complete sack of shit. they’re hyperproductive with all the things i dream about doing while grinding out at work. oddly enough, that usually means i wake up earlier than i do during the week just to make sure i have enough room in the day to do whatever.
so here’s how it went:
ate tocilog thanks to the madre.
indulged a...
say it right . . . chicken chilaquiles.
the pitfalls of being raised without learning the correct pronunciation means you have to break your tongue’s habit of sounding like the most gringo person on the planet . . across all languages. so here is your spanish lesson 101 for the day:
CHEE-la-KEE-lays
i offered to host a visioning session for this 20s/30s group that i’m part of starting up at church and since i think best on...
saturday love.
ahh barbeque season. and better yet, barbeques on a long weekend. quite possibly my quintessential summer activity. grilled meats, beer, and good company. doesn’t get much better than that, friends.
the nice thing about going to other people’s barbeques is that you’re free to bring your offering of a dish and some good beers which in this case involved a porcini mac, mischief (a...
August 2012
10 posts
guest chef: jocelyn wong.
the backstory: jocelyn interned at the urban land institute this past summer just as my involvement with the organization ramped up. it wasn’t until the ULI summer networking mixer a few weeks ago at the irvine great park food + farm lab that we realized we both share a love for food and cooking. and when that kind of cosmic alignment happens, you must oblige.
so she and i set up a few...
test kitchen: chile colorado with a bone-in pork...
do you ever see what other people are eating and instantly get the world’s worst craving for it?
ugh. happens to me on the regular. i’m a great target for marketing.
my coworker brought leftovers from a chile colorado she had at javier’s and it sent me on a rampage to make it for dinner last night.
i’m not particularly well versed in the arena of mexican sauces and quite...
6 tags
done with nursing school = small fry gets cooking...
ok… so it’s been a bit since i have written a post on our lovely blog, and it really has been due impart to the fact that school has consumed my life for the past few months. UNTIL NOW!! yes, i am officially a holder of two bachelor’s degrees, and waiting for my authorization to test to take my registered nursing board licensing examination. lovely. i had dabbled with cooking...
cartwheels and the beachcomber.
my friends and i started an annual tradition last year, without intention to, of a pilgrimmage to the beachcomber in crystal cove to celebrate our friend mark’s birthday.
always starts with cocktails simply because the wait there is always a pretty significant chunk of time and we roll deep in terms of people in proportion to their standard table size.
appetizers included: fried calamari...
what do you do when your mom gets sick?
i don’t know about your house but in ours my mom is the in-house nurse. she knows exactly what to do and take to make sure you’re back to the grind in the morning. i don’t recall a moment in 28 years that she was too sick to take care of herself— even when she was battling the breast cancer she was diagnosed with last year. she drove herself to her appointments and so on....
thirsty thursday.
i happen to have the happy hour queen reputation so generally if there’s one going on in this office or LA, i know about it. last week, i did The Standard roof top bar with the boys in LA. this week was cucina enoteca with one of the girls from the Hotlanta and a couple people i worked with on the airport team as well as one of my favorite happy hour friends, my very own clark kent.
...
anniversary crashing.
bacon wrapped scallops with a sweet soy and fresh chives and baked salmon topped with french onion dip served with grilled asparagus and smashed potatoes.
7 tags
test kitchen: death row dinner
small fry and i are big pork advocates. beef advocates as well but we’ve done plenty with beef in the kitch so this time, we opted for a pigout. literally.
the initial idea for this dinner was to do a time lapse for the AIAOC art show coming up and i thought it’d be cool to chronicle our adventures cooking together since it almost always is exactly that … an...
mid-week grittiness: fancy pork and beans.
sometimes you just have to have a little home-cooked grittiness in the middle of a crazy week.
my mother left it to me to do something with the enormous package of scallops she bought at costco and my first thought was to resurrect a dish i once had a the crow bar in corona del mar.
so this is the fancy pork and beans recreation.
it’s diver scallops wrapped in bacon and white cannelini...
July 2012
1 post
be my guest.
with my recent binge of 12-hour work days, it becomes nearly impossible to eat decent food. at this stage in my career, you just have to understand that grueling hours are the upfront investment to get to the work you want to.
but back to the week’s products of the kitchen …
sunday nights are generally my most active days in the kitchen because of the dinner table attendance. in...
June 2012
8 posts
6 tags
what the heezy?! dineLA in summer!!!!!
the feck? since when did dinela come in the middle of the year? either way, i’m frickin’ elated. i’m super juiced, only because i don’t have to wait until the fall for these wonderful two weeks of gastronomic debauchery. last restaurant week, during the winter, i went to four different dinners. now, i more than likely will not do it like that this time around, but i will...
the farmers market effect.
on my doing nothing campaign yesterday, i paid a visit to the orange farmer’s market off chapman. and guess what i found?
these glorious little flowers are zucchini, some times referred to as squash, blossoms— a delicacy i had seen on the cooking channel and had once before at cucina enoteca. this has as a heightened novelty to it joining the ranks of pork belly and bone marrow...
chipotle queso crack recipe.
for this particular instance, i didn’t have a recipe to go off off. small fry and had this crack dip last week at r+d kitchen and knowing the ingredients in it, i figured i’d give it a first pass. so feel free to finesse the proportions to your taste:
blend:
cream cheese
the small can of chipotle peppers
a little mayo
onions
chop (for adding later):
queso blanco (crumbled)
...
break. fast. breakfast.
once upon a time, i really did not have a penchant for breakfast. maybe it was because growing up, my grandmother would cook us top ramen every morning for breakfast and send us on our merry way to school. talk about breakfast of champions. as i got older, breakfast for me meant a rockstar and funions, or variations of some kind of caffeinated beverage and a pairing of some kind of crappy snack. i...
4 tags
test kitchen: garlic confit.
eggplant lasagna with garlic confit ricotta filling.
May 2012
9 posts
kitchensurfing? →
winner. winner. chicken meatball dinner.
“hey passing through cdm. are you still at work?”
that was the message i got from small fry shortly before agreeing to rendezvous at r+d kitchen, spontaneously.
fashion island has no shortage of bougie restaurants. it was a toss-up in my mind between this and great maple, despite great maple’s boo-boo reviews. the atmosphere looks cool, okay. don’t judge me.
r+d...
