Today is the very last day of B2's trip to Korea! For the last week, B2 has been taking depositions in Seoul and we odd-numbered bowls have been fending for ourselves in a papa-less wilderness. For me this has meant subsisting solely on the weird-but-maybe-balanced diet of roasted Brassicas (of which B2 is not fond), ramen, and gigantic M&M ...
lunch
salt & pepper garlic fries with jalapeno & cilantro
The calendar tells me that it has been more than one month since I was last here, which feels both much shorter and much longer than the reality (as always seems to be the case). The biggest event of the last month for us, though, is definitely this: We are now officially the proud parents of a bona fide, honest-to-goodness toddling toddler. Our ...
pho noodle salad
We are in the midst of a thoroughly January state of affairs: We got home on New Year's Eve from our trip to see B2's parents in Honolulu, where I was lazier, more relaxed, and more rested than a parent with a toddler has any right to be (God bless grandmas), and in the midst of our post-Hawaii gloom, were all promptly felled by the Great ...
super savory greens with lap cheong and garlic
We are now solidly into the magical stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas, that no-holds-barred span of weeks that I typically use to indulge all of my wildest cookie and hot cocoa and cinnamon roll whims, and yet, much to my dismay, I've spent most of it so far thinking about, not chocolate or candy canes or marshmallows, but vegetables. In ...
braised beef and orzo
Do you ever, once you've made it through a pile of scary deadlines and come out the other side, just kind of melt into a blob for a week or two, one that can sit semi-upright in an office chair and guzzle coffee and maybe make ill-advised purchases of overpriced throw blankets but otherwise accomplish none of the tasks that are still remaining but ...
crab fried sticky rice with jalapeño aioli
My commute here in LA is almost the same as it was in New York, 40 minutes give or take. The only difference is that I sit my butt in a little Corolla instead of the blue-benched 4/5, and so I can no longer do either of the two things I used to do on my commutes in New York -- sleep, or read, but mostly sleep -- because I would die. For exactly 3 ...
crispy goat cheese rounds with shallot vinaigrette
With work picking up again after a slow start coming back from maternity leave, this project, and our ever-growing obsession, I haven't had nearly as much time as I would like to make or share recipes from the wealth of stellar cookbooks that have come out this spring. There are so many! But I'll get there. For now, I'm starting with an impossibly ...
potatoes with sugar snaps, pickled shallots, & dill
Judging from the calendar, we are in the thick of picnic season, or for me, toss-everything-with-mayonnaise-and-maybe-eat-it-at-a-picnic-but-probably-just-straight-from-the-fridge season. My last post notwithstanding, I almost didn't realize it; after years in New York, where I spent the first third-to-half of each year in an intense and unceasing ...
creamy broccoli salad with almonds & raisins
Last weekend we took our first big trip with B3 in tow, up to Berkeley for my brother's graduation. It wasn't until we were on our way back, winding our way through the mountains on the last stretch of the I-5, that I realized how much Los Angeles has started to feel like home. This little ham can probably take most of the credit for that (isn't ...
spring pea pasta with lemon & shiso
As of a couple of weeks ago, I'm officially back at work. Unlike his mama, B3 thought the transition was a total breeze -- he sees me off to work every morning with such blasé cheerfulness that I'm wondering whether I shouldn't be at least a teensy offended. (He is, however, in a war of attrition with his Public Enemy No. 1, The Bottle, so there is ...