Sunday, July 24 – 6:00pm
Our next cookbook was recommended by Colin, who is fast becoming a star member of the cookbook club (perhaps we will see if we can convince him to be a co-organizer!) – Deb Perelman’s The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. Smitten Kitchen started out as blog where Deb Perelman shared the dishes she cooked in her tiny Manhattan kitchen. We were drawn to her cookbook because the recipes sounded delicious, but accessible. (more…)
Saturday, June 25 – 7:00pm
With the start of summer comes an abundance of fresh local produce, so for this month’s cookbook we selected The Santa Monica Farmers’ Market Cookbook by Amelia Saltsman. We’re lucky to live in the LA area and actually be able to go to the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market to get our ingredients. The cool thing about this cookbook is that the dishes are indexed by season, so we could look up Summer dishes, or in some cases Fall since we’re right on the cusp of the two seasons, and away we went! (more…)
Sunday, May 22 – 6:00pm
For our next adventure we decided on Tom Colicchio’s Think Like a Chef. You might know Colicchio as the head judge on TV show Top Chef. It turns out, this is one of Sheana’s favorite cookbooks. “It’s basically the cookbook that turned me on to cooking. It taught me how to braise, roast, emulsify and more.” It reads a bit more like a story than just a collection of recipes. Colicchio imparts how chefs think about seasonality of ingredients and flavor combinations. One of the unique things about his cookbook is the section called Trilogies, where he chooses 3 ingredients and then includes recipes for several different dishes that can be made with those same 3 ingredients. (more…)
Saturday, April 23 – 12:30pm
At the end of each event, we talk about the cookbook for the next one. And after stuffing ourselves last month with all of the rich goodness from Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, we all kind of felt the need to cleanse. So in complete contrast, we went with Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty, which is a vegetable-focused cookbook. Ottolenghi is an Israeli-born British chef, known for creating Mediterranean-influenced recipes using fresh, seasonal ingredients, so his cookbook seemed like just what we were looking for. (more…)
Sunday, March 27 – 6:30pm
The inaugural Cookbook Club meeting! Inspired by Julie and Julia, we chose Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking as our first book. As you might expect, there was lots of butter, cheese, and cream! Perhaps something of an ambitious cookbook for us to start with, there were some members who did a bit of sifting to find Julia’s simpler recipes (me with the Oranges Glaces) and others who dove right in to take on dishes that were more like 4 recipes in 1 (props to Adrienne for tackling the Salade Nicoise!). (more…)
I moved to Los Angeles in the Summer of 2014. As an adult, I’ve always found it hard to make friends. It seems like the best of friends come from our youth, those we went to high school with or those we met in college. After that, it’s much more of a free for all. Do you make friends at work? Your kids’ school? (Seriously, do you have friends? Is it just me?!) Even if you come across someone you actually like in the natural world, making progress towards friendship is tricky!
“This has been a fun uber ride. Do you want to get coffee sometime?” hardly sounds like something a sane person would say. “Will you be my new friend?” also doesn’t work. The whole thing reads of dating, but with more awkwardness and less agreement on what’s acceptable. (more…)
Chocolate Olive Oil Cake with Molasses Cream and Fudge Sauce
Quiche au Roquefort
Muddle Puddle Battle
Clafouti
Tomato Scallion Shortcakes with Whipped Goat Cheese
Corn Risotto-Stuffed Poblanos
Roasted Eggplant with Yogurt-Tahini Sauce and Cumin-Crisped Chickpeas
Melon, Cucumber, and Mint Salad
Bacon and Deviled Egg Salad
Eggplant Caviar
Salade Nicoise
Blackberry-and-Balsamic Grilled Game Hens
Renegade Salad
Roast Leg of Lamb with Oil-Cured Black Olives and Herbs