Crispy Harissa Chickpea Caesar Salad

Cookbook Club – Casablanca: My Moroccan Food To kick off Cookbook Club in 2020, we used Nargisse Benkabbou’s Casablanca: My Moroccan Food. The book was a bit hard to find, but luckily Benkabbou also has a website where she posts recipes http://www.mymoroccanfood.com/ which we also used. To experience our whole Moroccan meal, go to my…

Flowering Choy with Lime and Fish Sauce Vinaigrette

Cookbook Club – Holiday Year in Review We’ve found that the December Cookbook Club is the perfect time to celebrate the holidays and look back on all the food and fun we’ve had throughout the year. For our Holiday Year in Review event, any recipe from any of the cookbooks we’ve used in the past…

Double Chocolate Pretzel Cookies

Cookbook Club – Friendsgiving As has now become tradition, for our November Cookbook Club we skipped the cookbook and instead did a Friendsgiving meal, where each person cooked either a favorite Thanksgiving dish or one they’ve been wanting to test out. Go to my Cookbook Club site to share in the food and friends I’m…

Sunny-Side Pulao

Cookbook Club – Aarti Paarti In October, we used Aarti Sequeira’s cookbook Aarti Paarti. In it, she simplifies traditional Indian recipes and techniques to make Indian flavors accessible for the US market. To find out how many of her Indian dishes translated, go to my Cookbook Club site. For now – my dish! What Sequeira…

Pickled Rooibos Grapes

Cookbook Club – Baco Our September cookbook was Josef Centeno’s Baco. Centeno has several restaurants in LA – I’ve been to Baco Mercat, for which the cookbook was named, and really enjoyed the sandwiches made from the flatbread he calls “baco”. To find out how our homemade versions of the baco and other selections from…

Roast Green Peppers with Fried Garlic Chips

Cookbook Club – The New Spanish Table For our August Cookbook Club, we used The New Spanish Table by Anya von Bremzen. I was at first irritated by the formatting of the book, but after an amazing meal all layout woes were forgiven. To come along on our culinary journey through all the regions of…

Maisel Day

Living in LA, you see lots of TV studios promoting their shows in the lead-up to the Emmys. Most of the time I just ignore them, but this year Amazon did a massively scaled promotion for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel… 1959 prices for goods and services at some of LA’s most iconic retailers! Most of…

Cremini Mushroom Toasts

Cookbook Club – Nancy Silverton’s Sandwich Book In honor of summer picnic season, our July cookbook was Nancy Silverton’s Sandwich Book. In the book, Silverton has gathered together her best recipes from the very popular sandwich night that she used to do at her restaurant Campanile (no longer open). You can examine every bread-y bite…

Blueberry-Lemon-Coconut Loaf

Cookbook Club – Baking at Republique We did a bonus Cookbook Club event in June, using Margarita Manzke’s Baking at Republique. She shares recipes for many of the baked goods available at Republique. I was pretty excited about this, since I have eaten my fair share of baked treats at that LA restaurant and pretty…

Spiced Egg Salad

Cookbook Club – The Soul of a New Cuisine For our June cookbook, we used Marcus Samuelsson’s The Soul of a New Cuisine. In it, he includes traditional foods of Africa as well as his own African-inspired creations. I was looking forward to this meal because I haven’t had many opportunities to eat African food,…

Super-Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits

Cookbook Club – The Food Lab Our cookbook for May was The Food Lab by J. Kenzi Lopez-Alt. This cookbook is all about the science behind the best techniques that the home cook can use. You can experience our whole experiment in a meal on my Cookbook Club site – for now, my dish! Biscuits…

Fresh Fruit with Chilli Sugar and Lime

Cookbook Club – Chin Chin: The Book I was traveling and missed our official Cookbook Club events for April, but I did manage to make it to the bonus event where we used Chin Chin: The Book by Benjamin Cooper. We did it as a bonus event because this book is not easy to get…