Wormwood, yum

That's two glasses of Fraîche bartender extraordinaire Albert Trummer's version of absinthe, a tincture he makes with his special combination of ingredients (which he says does include wormwood); you can see the concoction steeping in an original absinthe tower from New Orleans that sits atop the bar. It's not on the cocktail menu, but Trummer was kind enough and enthusiastic enough to demonstrate his absinthe ritual. He uses the traditional slotted absinthe spoon topped with a cube of sugar, then pours over the absinthe (it actually drips in from a spigot in the tower) along with some of his other elixirs. And then he goes through several steps of flambéing and hands you a glass of it hot. "The first sip should be a big one," he says. As soon as you bring it up to your nose, you feel its effects. Take that big sip and it hits all your senses at once. And it's delicious, both floral and herbal and milder-tasting than you might expect -- with no deleterious effects that I could tell. 

-- Betty Hallock

Fraîche, 9411 Culver Blvd., Culver City, (310) 839-6800

Photos by Betty Hallock

Cappuccino eggs

There's always a food angle. I was leafing through Make, a quarterly techno-magazine that's like the old Popular Mechanics but way geekier, with articles on making a 12-sided lampshade or how to unpimp your ride (that is, make your cool bike look like a junker so no self-respecting thief will want to steal it). And there in the back was a note by columnist Saul Griffith saying that his local espresso place scrambles eggs with its milk steamer. It occurred to me that I've heard of this being done elsewhere.

It sounded as if it made sense -- a lot of scrambled egg recipes say to add some liquid (usually milk, rather than water) to give the eggs a softer texture. On the other hand, it sounded impossibly geeky. I had to try it.

Well, the eggs cooked, in a basic sort of way. It was hard to get them evenly cooked, though, and the large, soft curd texture I happen to like was out of the question with all that spitting and bubbling going on. Still, cappuccino-scrambled eggs don't use any butter or fat, so maybe this is useful if you're more afraid of those things than of cholesterol. And if you don't want to just boil some water and poach your eggs.

A couple of things to watch out for: You'll need toothpicks to clean egg debris out of your steamer nozzle. The bowl gets quite hot. And watch for flying bits of hot egg. Jeez.

-- Charles Perry

Photo by Charles Perry

France's chef of the year

The 8,000 chefs represented in France's Guide Michelin voted Anne-Sophie Pic chef of the year on Monday. In February, Pic was the first woman to earn three stars in the guide, for her restaurant Maison Pic in Valence. The restaurant was founded by Pic's great-grandmother, Sophie, in 1891, and the kitchen has always been headed up by a Pic. The prize, created by the trade magazine Le Chef, is meant to recognize the chef in France who best represents the profession.

So what's her menu like? Right now, if you were ordering off the menu posted on the restaurant's website, you might start with le lapin "Rex du Poitu" -- choice morsels of rabbit cooked with sage, served with crudités and saffron vinaigrette. Follow that with le homard bleu ("blue lobster") roasted in a cocotte, flambéed with gentian eau de vie, pressed with young vegetables, and buttered with young peas with Gascon lard. (This one may have lost something in my poor translation.) Next, le cochon de Bigorre -- a chop of famous pork from Bigorre in a salt-and-green-pepper crust, with Nourmoutier potatoes, rhubarb confite and green pepper juice. Since we're at a three-star restaurant, you'd be silly not to follow that with a selection of cheeses, then a hot Grand Marnier soufflé with a fresh mint liquid center.

It all begs two questions: Can 8,000 French be wrong? And when's the next flight to Valence?

-- Leslie Brenner

Photo by Dorie Greenspan

Pasta talk today

Mmmm...fresh pasta. Russ Parsons, the California Cook, has been grooving on it lately. The good news? It's way easier to make at home than you might think. Log onto latimes.com at 1 p.m. to join Russ for a live chat -- he'll share his secrets and answer questions about how to make it and great ways to sauce it.

-- Leslie Brenner

Photo by Robert Lachman

Hello, Melrose Bar & Grill

Melrose Bar & Grill opened at the old Doug Arango's space in West Hollywood on Monday. It's a good place to sip a $10 Hendricks and vermouth (a good deal, in the era of the $15 martini) and ponder this, er, interesting-looking bar snack. (OK, it's pretzel, sausage and mustard.)

Melrose Bar & Grill, 8826 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood; (310) 278-3684.

-- Leslie Brenner

Photo by Leslie Brenner

Frozen lettuce?

I was intrigued as soon as I opened "Morimoto: The New Art of Japanese Cooking" to the contents page, where there's a picture of author and Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto's ponytail and the back of his neck. (Weird.) I turned to the introduction and took note of his chevron-striped geta socks -- you know, the kind with the cleft between the big and second toes. (Cool.) Page 11 shows a series of photos that demonstrate how Morimoto ties his kimono in the traditional samurai style. (Gratuitous, though it looks good.) 

And the recipes? There's tuna pizza with anchovy aioli, sushi rice risotto, snapper chips, oyster foie gras, rice-stuffed baby chickens, chocolate-coated sweetfish liver. (Chef-y and mostly weird.)  But there are some traditional Japanese recipes, one of which is nikujaga, a Japanese beef stew. The name comes from niku, or meat, and jagaimo, or potatoes. It's one of my favorite Japanese dishes, partly because the first time my mom -- who's Japanese -- made it for me, I thought she was saying Miku Jaga, the Japanese transliteration for Mick Jagger.

The Times Test Kitchen tested the recipe for frozen lettuce, Morimoto's version of a Caesar. You quarter a head of lettuce and freeze it for one to two hours. It gets topped with a dressing of garlic, mayo, rice vinegar, Worcestershire, miso, grated onion, Parmesan, anchovy paste, mustard, lemon zest and crumbled goat cheese. Then you sprinkle on whole annatto seeds and small croutons. Annatto seeds are really hard and not all that fun to bite into, but the lettuce was actually really crisp, and the dressing was tasty. Still, next time I'm going to try the Mick Jagger recipe.

-- Betty Hallock

Photo by Leslie Brenner

Stalking the Bulgarian pizza

I'm just back from a sort of pizza tour of the Balkans. In Croatia, right across the Adriatic from Italy, they pride themselves on making classic Italian pizzas. However, at a fashionable Zagreb pizza place called Mezzo & Mezzo, I found a distinctly Croatian pizza -- pepperoni topped with sour cream.

It wasn't exactly pepperoni pizza -- it used a Croatian sausage that's larger and a little less rich than pepperoni, and it included chopped onions and finely sliced bell peppers. Altogether it was a well-considered creation and I thought it was terrific, if you don't mind a pretty rich pizza. The only problem was that the sour cream makes the center of the pie kind of soggy, so you have to eat it with a knife and fork. But it turns out that's how the Zagrebines tend to eat pizza anyway.

In Bulgaria, a couple of places put cucumber pickles on pizzas, usually ones that included smoked chicken (which in Bulgaria is pink and hard to tell from ham). The restaurant behind the archeology museum in Sofia had a neat one, with all the ingredients diced very fine, and there was a rowdier one at a Sofia blues and jazz joint called Toucan -- it was my favorite because the pickles were cut in big chunks that stayed crisp. Toucan also had a pizza made with pickles and frankfurters (see photo). Both included lots of Bulgarian yellow cheese and a dose of marjoram.

All this raises a question: Is pizza really an open-faced sandwich on really, really thin bread, served hot? If so, why shouldn't the customer get some pickles with the old ham and cheese, or the cheese dog? Or sour cream whenever the mood strikes?

-- Charles Perry

Photo by Charles Perry

Mountain air

The first day of fall isn't always high season in Oak Glen, the small, family-friendly apple country just north of the Redlands and Yucaipa area, maybe because most mid-Septembers bring hot weather. But this past weekend brought a perfect change -- clear skies after a long-needed rain -- and the U-Pick and U-Buy-Pie apple ranches in Oak Glen were bustling with people who'd had enough summer fun and wanted a hit of cool weather, autumn harvest and fall feeling.

Apples are the main order of business, of course, and after tasting some of the dozens of varieties grown in the area -- Spartans and Jonagolds and Crispins, say -- visitors were loading half-bushel boxes into their SUVs and enthusiastically lugging bottles of cider. Kids and their parents and grandparents were heading off into orchards and berry patches for apple- and raspberry-picking sessions.

But day-trippers do not live by apples alone, and there were a few other specialties sending come-hither aromas into the crisp, bracingly fresh mountain air.

The grilled tri-tip and corn on the cob at Los Rios Rancho had folks lined up at lunchtime and for hours afterward (the pie there is also terrific -- full of several kinds of thickly sliced just-tender apples, deeply cinnamony and not too sweet). And at Snow-Line orchards, teenage doughnut makers in a rustic exhibition kitchen man a mini-doughnut machine that not only sends out enticing smells but is also fun to watch as you wait. For an afternoon snack of hot doughnuts and cold, fresh cider, of course.

-- Susan LaTempa

Photos by Susan LaTempa

Going Slow

The glass ceiling atop Campanile restaurant almost seemed to bulge outward at times Sunday night, filled with the happy din of foodies celebrating the appearance of Chez Panisse’s Alice Waters, who was down from Berkeley raising money for one of her pet projects: Slow Food Nation, a "campaign to change the way America produces and eats food," that will culminate in a four-day food fair held in the Bay Area next May.

After an extremely ambitious start, a new, somewhat scaled-down version of the event is in the works, but details are still a little vague. Still, that didn’t stop the more than 190 people in attendance, or even slow them down. According to the restaurant, more than $60,000 was raised.

Among those happily chowing down on spot prawns over fresh pappardelle and rotisserie rosemary baby lamb were farmers Peter Schaner, Alex Weiser and Maryann and Paul Carpenter, winemaker Maria Sinskey of Napa’s Robert Sinskey Vineyards, chefs Suzanne Goin (shown with Waters at left), David Lentz and Chris Blobaum, and cookbook authors Amelia Saltsman, Alice Medrich and Martha Rose Shulman. Television host Huell Howser made a surprise appearance.

In brief remarks before dinner, Waters praised the generosity of Campanile chef Mark Peel — who worked for her briefly early in his career (as did Goin): “When I called, he didn’t ask what it was for and he didn’t ask me how many people were coming. He just said yes.”

Slow Food, she said, is a counter to those who want “to convince us that everything should be fast, cheap and easy. Slow Food is about taking time. The slow way gives our lives meaning. It’s the process that matters.”

-- Russ Parsons

Photo by Russ Parsons

'Roast Chicken' comes to America

"Roast Chicken and Other Stories," the 1994 cookbook by Simon Hopkinson, founding chef of London's Bibendum restaurant, has long been known in foodie circles as a great cookbook, but when the British magazine Waitrose Food Illustrated named it "the most useful cookbook of all time" in 2005, it really took off.

Now there's an American edition (Hyperion, $24.95). When a copy landed on my desk on Friday, I picked it up ... and had a hard time putting it down all weekend. The book is organized by Hopkinson's favorite ingredients (Anchovy, Brains ... Eggplant, Lamb, Parmesan), and the writing is wonderful. For instance, Hopkinson writes that he loves Welsh lamb, adding: "I love mint sauce, too. And red currant jelly. And crisp fat from a shoulder (the best-tasting roast meat I can think of, save beef) that has been cooked for several hours, until the meat is of such melting texture that it can virtually be eaten with a spoon. Further pleasures from roasts such as this include squashing second helpings of roast potatoes into that half-congealing mixture of lamb fat, gravy, and mint sauce . . . don't try and tell me you don't know what I"m talking about."

How can you not trust someone who can write that? Not to give away the ending, but in the veal chapter, Hopkinson writes, in a headnote to a recipe for roast shin (stinco in Italian) that the shin (shank to us Americans) is his favorite cut of veal "by far." Did I have to run out and buy one? Uh, yeah. I had the butcher prepare it the way Hopkinson suggests -- cutting through the anklebone, releasing the tendons and allowing the meat to shrink down the bone while roasting and " 'collect' at one end." Then I followed his fabulous recipe for roast shin of veal, which you'll find by clicking below on "Read more."

-- Leslie Brenner

Photos by Leslie Brenner

Turkish coffee

The other day, badly in need of a good jolt of caffeine, I remembered a recipe for Turkish coffee from a great book I reviewed last year: Ana Sortun's "Spice" (HarperCollins, 2006).  So I found the coffee pot I'd brought back from Istanbul and made a batch in the Test Kitchen. Turkish coffee is fantastic stuff, brewed by repeatedly heating a mixture of finely ground coffee beans, water and sugar so that it rises up in the pot and then sinks back down. Sortun not only gives a recipe, but tells you how to read your fortune in the grounds too.  A pattern of dots means that you're spending too much money; a circle predicts good fortune; a leaf fortells new friendship.  I'm not really sure what this one meant -- maybe that there's a happy, dancing frog in my future. 

-- Amy Scattergood

Photo by Amy Scattergood

Emergency holiday cookies

It may seem like summer vacation is barely over to you, but to your kids, it's already time to put on Halloween costumes and decorate the house.  I even heard my younger daughter humming Christmas carols a few days ago.  (At least my horror-stricken expression, when they dangled fake spiders in my face, was genuine.)  For times like these, an all-purpose sugar cookie recipe can work almost as well as Prozac.  A basket full of various cookie cutters helps a lot too.  The kids can mix and roll out the dough, then cut it out in seasonally appropriate shapes.  We used letter cookie-cutters to spell "Halloween" and a handy wolf-shaped cutter for a werewolf.  If you pick up the cutters whenever you find them on sale, you'll have a pile that can work for any ad hoc cookie occasion.  (We baked sugar cookies in the shapes of donkeys and elephants for the last election.)  Another good idea is to make double the dough and freeze the extra for those holidays that really catch you off guard.  Labor Day, say.  Or the Imaginary Friend's sudden birthday. 

-- Amy Scattergood

Photo by Amy Scattergood

Pretzel logic?

What's up with all the bakery crossover?  BreadBar has started carrying Hans Rockenwagner's pretzel bread and, on weekends only, City Bakery's pretzel croissants, along with City Bakery's baker's muffins. How come a bakery partly owned by Eric Kayser, a premier French baker, is carrying other people's baked goods? I've also heard that Boule might start supplying BreadBar with viennoiserie.

Nonetheless, as an Eastsider, I'm glad not to have to drive all the way to Brentwood to get a pretzel croissant, with its flaky thin-crisp exterior and pillowy-soft layers inside. But get to BreadBar early. Every time I stop in at the shop on 3rd Street (OK, I sometimes get up late on Saturdays), the pretzel croissants have been sold out. No baker's muffins, either.

"I'll check on the numbers," says City Bakery owner Maury Rubin. "They must need more.

BreadBar, 8718 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles, (310) 205-0124; 10250 Santa Monica Blvd., Century City Westfield Shopping Center, (310) 277-3770.

-- Betty Hallock

Photos by Betty Hallock

Summer-into-fall with the California Cook

Autumn begins Sunday, and there's a chance there'll actually be a nip in the air. It definitely feels like a new season at the farmers market, with all the gorgeous peppers and eggplants and earthy, dark greens and apples and pears. Wondering how to treat them once you get them home? Log on to latimes.com for a live chat with Russ Parsons, the California Cook, at 1 p.m. Wondering which are the best varieties of winter squash? Ask Russ. What's the best way to roast peppers? Russ'll tell you. How to make a quick sauce with end-of-season tomatoes? Grill Russ. A delicious way to cook cavolo nero? Come on, brain . . . ask Russ!

Or maybe you don't care a straw about seasonal produce but you're dying to know the easiest way to shuck an oyster. Or deglaze a pan for a quick sauce. Or brine a pork chop. Or which three cookbooks he'd recommend that a beginning cook buy. Whatever it is you'd like to know about food and cooking, the California Cook's your man. Today at 1 p.m.

-- Leslie Brenner

Photo by Ricardo DeAratanha

Napa's 2007 vintage

Harvest isn’t yet complete in the Napa Valley. But last week, two things were surprising vintners, winemakers and vineyard managers, as the 2007 crop started to arrive at wineries. Though the number of grape bunches is comparable to last year’s crop, the vineyard yields are light, weighing only about half as much as the 2006 crop. And the berries (as individual grapes are known in the biz) are small, often half the size of last year’s fruit. No one knows why this happened. One vineyard owner suggested that the cool, dry winter produced an early yet poor fruit set that matured exceptionally slowly during a cooler-than-usual summer. Another owner pointed to a single hot spell in early July, 30 days after bloom, saying the heat stunted the growth of the berries at a critical stage in their development. Other vineyard managers suggested that the prolonged heat spell from late August to early September dehydrated the grapes. Regardless of the cause, everyone in the valley says this highly concentrated fruit will make intensely flavored juice (and that's a good thing!). Most folks expect to produce fewer cases of wine, but the wines, they say, will be stellar. As exciting as that sounds, curb your enthusiasm. No one ever badmouths a vintage in Napa. The last time they did was 1998 … and they're still trying to sell those wines.

-- Corie Brown

Photo by Dave Getzschman

Heaven on the half-shell

If you’re lucky when you’re traveling, every once in a while a little piece of heaven reaches up and smacks you in the face. That happened to my wife and me during a vacation on the Sonoma County coast recently. We’d headed out of Jenner, driving down Highway 1 toward Point Reyes, looking for someplace on Tomales Bay to eat oysters. On a recommendation from the folks at Hog Island Oyster Company (they only serve raw at the farm), we wound up at a little spot called the Marshall Store. It’s not much to look at from the outside — frankly, it looks half-abandoned except for the happy eaters sitting on the deck and at the string of rickety picnic tables stretched along the highway.

At first glance, the menu isn’t too impressive, either: oysters raw, barbecued and Rockefellered; clam chowder and a few sandwiches. But oh, what oysters. After warming up with some very good clam chowder, I ordered a dozen barbecued oysters. Out they came: brushed with garlic butter, slapped on the grill just long enough to firm up and finished with a smoky shot of house-made chipotle barbecue sauce. The balance of flavors was amazing. Inspired, I ordered another dozen raw. It was bliss at first slurp. The chilly, briny breeze blowing up off the bay was the perfect complement to the stunningly fresh oysters. In a long history of greedy oyster gobbling, these were some of the best ever. It was a total, seamless sensory experience. No mystery why: I noticed in the shallow water not 10 feet from where I was sitting a bundle of oysters waiting to be shucked. With a bottle of Sierra Nevada, it was as fine a meal as can be imagined.

I wandered back into the store for a closer look. Besides those fabulous oysters, there was a good selection of Kermit Lynch wines (including half-bottles of Reverdy Sancerre, perfect for oysters), Cowgirl Creamery cheeses, Fatted Calf charcuterie and very good bread from a Point Reyes bakery called Brickmaiden. Virtually every food substance you would need for survival, right in this little store in the middle of nowhere. So I did what any sane eater would do: picked up a Cypress Grove Pee Wee Pyramid, a baguette, a duck terrine and a bottle of Joguet Chinon Rose for dinner. And then the next day we drove an hour back for lunch again.

Marshall Store, 19225 Highway 1, Marshall (about 20 minutes north of Point Reyes), (415) 663-1339. Open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

-- Russ Parsons

Photo by Russ Parsons

Joe's sweet sixteenth

Joe's in Venice celebrates its 16th birthday today -- quite an accomplishment in this town! To commemorate the happy event, for lunch and dinner today, chef-owner Joe Miller is featuring dishes from his original menu -- and at their 1991 prices too.  At lunch, you can get penne with eggplant, tomatoes and mozzarella, complete with salad and soup, for $6. A pretty sweet deal, especially if you consider how swank Abbot Kinney has become in the last decade and a half.  So relive the glory days of 1991, when the Bulls were en route to their first championship, the Soviet Union was collapsing, Nirvana was topping the charts -- and Joe first served his roast pork with wild mushrooms and garlic.

Joe's, 1023 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice; (310) 399-5811.  Lunch items (including salad and soup) $6 to $12; two prix fixe dinner menus, $28-$35. Open for lunch from noon to 2:30 p.m. and for dinner from 6 to 10 p.m.

-- Amy Scattergood

Photo by Anacleto Rapping

Treat Street: Don't come late

I learned my lesson. When you find out the time and location of the next Treat Street, the occasional mobile bakery that sets up shop on random street corners on random days at random times, don't show up two hours after the cookies start selling.

The e-mail sent out to Treat Streeters on Friday was labeled with the subject line "Location, Location, Location!":

"Streeters! Saturday, September 15th Treat Street will be baking Back to School moves on the corner of Armstrong and Lake Wood Avenues in Silver Lake. We'll be there from 10ish till the tables are empty. Hope to see you there! High five, T.S."

When the e-mail says 10ish, don't show up at noonish. Because all you'll get is a pretzel that's been frosted to look like a pencil. Which is something. (Former Treat Street goodies have included: individual cherry pies, pineapple tapioca bars, lemon madeleines, classy, bananarama 'nilla pudding cups, buckwild granola, even savory mushroom tarts.) Next time I'll be sure to wake up early.

-- Betty Hallock

Photos by Betty Hallock

Toll House cookie juju

Maybe it was the little kid in the Trader Joe's line this morning wearing the David Ortiz jersey, but today seemed like a good day for some New England sports juju. The Red Sox are starting a series with the Yankees this afternoon, and the Patriots, who are playing the late game Sunday night against San Diego, just got socked with a massive fine for cheating. So I baked my grandmother's Toll House cookies, in the hopes that it would send a few positive vibes toward her native Massachusetts. My earliest memories are of her cooking while reading the box scores; in her later years, she and my grandfather lived not too far from Foxboro Stadium. It's a pretty traditional recipe, not unlike the one on the back of the chocolate chip bag, although, being a good Quaker, she added oatmeal to the batter. I switched out the chocolate chips for chunks of Valhrona, but otherwise it's the same recipe my mother made me when I was a kid. Maybe if Belichick had had some cookies to munch on during the game last weekend, he wouldn't have been videotaping signals.

-- Amy Scattergood

Photo by Amy Scattergood

Gelato birthday bash

If you're in the Valley on Monday -- or even if you're not -- you might consider swinging by Gail Silverton's Gelato Bar, which will be celebrating its first anniversary. In the morning, you'll get a free cup of coffee, and from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m you'll be treated to a free bambino-sized cup of gelato. Or fork over a little cash and get some Intelligentsia espresso and a double scoop of fig-mascarpone or cinnamon-basil gelato. But the real reason to put on a party hat is the drawing they'll be having -- no purchase necessary to enter -- to win a one-week stay in a furnished two-bedroom apartment in Umbria. Yes, it's Silverton's very own pad, in the hilltop village of Panicale. If you're really lucky, maybe you can coordinate your schedule with the rest of the Silverton clan; Gail's sister Nancy has a house in the village too. Who needs Travelzoo?

Gelato Bar, 4342 1/2 Tujunga Blvd., Studio City; (818) 487-1717.

-- Amy Scattergood

Photo by Christina House

Dreams of greens

The tomatoes are still on the vine and will be for a while, but it's time for SoCal kitchen gardeners to start planning for October planting season. There are strawberry plants in some nurseries (fall's a good time to plant, though you'll get another chance at bare-root time in January/February) and of course seed catalogues and websites are ripe for the perusing. (Check out seedsavers.org for heirloom varities; reneesgarden.com for the smartest, liveliest culinary collections from the woman who founded Shepherd's Seeds; and Anaheim-based evergreenseeds.com for Asian vegetables.)

Think greens -- chard, lettuces, a micro green mix, maybe?, arugula, of course, and shiso. There are dozens of beyond-spinach choices. And if you put edible-pod pea seeds in the ground in October, you'll have them to harvest and enjoy for Thanksgiving.

In the meantime, there's a lot of digging to do.

-- Susan LaTempa

Photo by Susan LaTempa

Safe squid

I found these at the Cheesestore of Silverlake this afternoon -- and, no, not in a dispenser in the bathroom.  (Sure, this is a public service announcement, but not that kind.)  These are two very cute packages of Spanish squid ink.  They're tiny, about 1 1/2-by-2-inch packages, each holding maybe half a teaspoon of the lovely black stuff.  The folks at the Cheesestore have had them for a couple of months now -- in the refrigerator case, next to the duck fat and salumi.  So the next time you want to make your own squid ink pasta or calamares en su tinto (squid in its own ink), you can pick up one or two of these. They're just right for a single dish, unlike the larger containers you more often find, which are expensive, unwieldy and potentially very, very messy.  After all, how often do you use squid ink?  Just don't put these in your nightstand drawer by mistake.

Squid ink, $2 per package; Cheesestore of Silverlake, 3926-28 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles; (323) 644-7511.

-- Amy Scattergood

Photo by Amy Scattergood

Average Betty

If you've ever tried to find an image of the Virgin Mary on your toast, then you'll relate to Average Betty. The latest episode of the online show by Sara O'Donnell, a 33-year-old Los Angeles-based visual artist, is "Hoffepeño" in which Average Betty (played by O'Donnell) looks for Jesus Christ on a jalapeño popper.

Other recent videos include "CSI: Cookie Sundae Investigation" and "Satay-ser" (about a new device that's a cross between chicken satay and a Taser). Recipes included.

-- Betty Hallock

Photos courtesy of Average Betty

Rooftop pepper drying

While browsing at Windrose Farm's stall at the Santa Monica farmers market last Wednesday, I found some amazing fresh cayenne peppers.  Just as I was trying to figure out what to do with them, Melisse chef Josiah Citrin happened by (yes, he's there every week).  So I asked him.  He said he dries them himself.  How?  Oh, in his dehydrator.  When I told him I didn't have one of those lying around, he suggested drying them on my roof. In Culver City?  No, said Citrin: too humid.  "You should do it on the roof of the Times building," said Citrin, smiling.  So that's where they are, drying in the dehydrating winds above the 12th floor, with a happy view of the downtown cityscape.  Maybe buildings where newspapers are published have their own terroir?

-- Amy Scattergood

Photo by Amy Scattergood

Boule Atelier opening

Boule's opening party last night was a parade of tiny green-tea cream puffs, croissants, mini pains au chocolat, Meyer lemon macarons and pink Champagne. New Boule pastry chef Roman Drocourt, most recently of Ortolan, passed trays of madeleines and financiers himself.

Also on the new Boule team are Hide and Mariko Kubota from Osaka. Hide's baking breads (wonder if the new kitchen is gearing up for some wholesale bread business too), and she's working in pastry. Conspicuously absent was Michelle Myers. But Providence pastry chef Adrian Vasquez was there, and so was former Sona pastry chef Ron Mendoza, who recently left the French Laundry for L'Auberge Carmel and was in town for one night. 

Boule Atelier is scheduled to officially open next week, as is Boule's Beverly Hills outpost. Any others on the horizon? "I would love to open a Boule in Tokyo," says chef-owner David Myers.   

Boule Atelier, 408 N. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 289- 9977. Also, 413 N. Bedford, Beverly Hills.

-- Betty Hallock

Photos by Betty Hallock

Here comes . . . the real Ludo

Ludovic Lefebvre, the chef last seen at Bastide's last (pre-Walter Manzke) incarnation, is back on the L.A. scene with a series of dinners at Bread Bar beginning Wednesday.

So what is an "eclectic culinary journey"? The way Lefebvre explains it, he fell in love with the bread at Breadbar, so he said to Ali Chalabi, Breadbar's co-owner (with Eric Kayser), "You're not open at night, but why not do something at night? But not a sandwich. You know the concept of sushi, but doing that with bread." For example? "I love guacamole," says Lefebvre. "I'm going to do a broccoli guacamole. And I found these beautiful multicolored carrots, and I do a simple carrot rapé." (That's grated carrot salad.)

A tapas-type menu is the way Kristine Lefebvre, Ludo's wife and manager (and attorney by day) puts it. "But it's unlike your typical tapas menu," she says. "Every dish is designed to inspire the artist in all of us, so you create your own meal. Ludo will provide suggestions about what to put together. Finding the best products is something Ludo's always been known for. All of the products are going to be attached to a certain farmer or a certain producer. The menu will change almost daily, based on whichever farmer he's working with that week."

The evenings will be co-sponsored by the Cheese Store of Beverly Hills. Lefebvre says he'll be there (at the West 3rd Street location) for every dinner, and that Cheese Store owner Norbert Wabnig will be there for many evenings too.

And Lefebvre has a restaurant in the works. "I'm coming back slowly," he says. He's got his eye on a location; he and Kristine are in the process of negotiating a deal for it. "It'll be the beginning of next year," says Kristine.

And the concept? "I want to do a bistro," says Lefebvre, "but around the world, not just French food. I want to do a pot au feu, but with a Thai flavor. Or a miso soup with foie gras. I've cooked in very expensive restaurants, but now I want to cook for everybody, and I want it to be accessible. I'm going to be on my own for the first time in my life. It's going to be the real Ludo."

Ludo Bites, Breadbar, 8718 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles; (310) 205-0124.

-- Leslie Brenner

Photograph by Gary Friedman

Intermezzo at Surfas

Since I live about four blocks away from Surfas, I go there quite a lot (farro, fun, whatever). But when I'm home testing recipes, it seems as though I wind up going there about every hour, between needing new supplies and running out of (or forgetting) others. Yesterday it was ancho chiles, a vat of peanut oil and bittersweet Valrhona chocolate. This morning it was parchment paper and a thermometer for deep frying. Good thing the cafe stocks pick-me-ups for those of us getting frazzled from all our picking up. This morning's happy interlude came in the form of a double espresso (Caffe Umbria beans) and a chocolate canelé (made with Valrhona bittersweet, the very chocolate I bought yesterday). Demand for their canelés, which come in vanilla, chocolate and banana, got so great that the cafe out-sourced -- they won't say where, though the new place uses the same recipe. Either way, they're still some of the best in town. The espresso's pretty good too. Now if my laundromat and bank only had espresso. They did in Seattle!

Caneles, $1.95 each; double espresso, $2.50. Cafe Surfas, 8777 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City; (310) 558-1458.

-- Amy Scattergood

Photo by Amy Scattergood

The new Joan's on Third: Open early

The newly expanded Joan's on Third has finally opened (looking very sparkly and very Dean & DeLuca) so  I stopped in for breakfast this morning. Breakfast for me turned out to be a latte and gelato in brioche -- a big scoop of dark chocolate gelato (from the new gelato bar) sandwiched between a sliced brioche bun and sprinkled with powdered sugar and wrapped in white paper. "Just like on the streets of Palermo," said manager Chester Hastings.

But the real breakfast menu from the new kitchen includes a soft-boiled organic farm egg with toasted  pain de mie, a French omelette with sour cream (owner Joan McNamara used to have an omelette restaurant in New York), buttermilk pancakes and chocolate French toast. An antique communal table is decorated with rosemary topiary. (Joan's planning to hit the flea market when she's in Rome next month for more of her final touches.)

The cheese counter has expanded, there's more wine (and wines by the glass will soon be offered) and a new olive bar; you'll even find some fresh produce and frozen cookie dough in the back corner.

And they're now open at 8 a.m. (until 8 p.m.), for those early-morning gelato-in-brioche cravings.

Joan's on Third, 8350 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles, (323) 655-2285.

-- Betty Hallock

Photos by Betty Hallock

Couscous time

It's couscous season! Zucchinis are hopping, and the weather is fine. Every summer-into-fall, I forget how easy a good couscous is. Take a package of chicken thighs and three lamb shanks (ask the butcher to saw the shanks into three or four pieces each). Put them in a big pot, with lots of water to cover. Bring to a simmer, and skim. Add in a diced onion, four or five carrots (peeled and cut into big chunks) and a few turnips (also peeled and cut in chunks), plus a healthy spoonful of harissa (I buy it in tubes), a big handful of cilantro, a branch of thyme, a pinch of saffron, half a teaspoon of cinnamon, salt. Let it simmer an hour or so. Halfway through, add two cans (drained and rinsed) garbanzo beans. (Yes, it's better if you use dried, but hey -- this is quick couscous!) Twenty minutes before you want to eat, add lots of zucchini and other summer squash (cut into fat slices), a few chopped tomatoes (peeled, seeded -- or you can even drain a small can and add it), a couple of sliced roasted peppers (I keep a jar of 'em in the fridge), and simmer (covered now) till the zucchini are tender. Adjust the seasoning, and you're ready to roll.

Oh, I forgot the couscous? While the stew was simmering, I thought about making the grains the real way: moistening, resting, steaming, separating, then repeating the whole thing once or even twice. Or I could spend a half-hour on the exercise bike and do the "instant" method. The bike won. It was still pretty fab -- and the whole thing was so easy, I'm sure I'll do it again in a couple of weeks. To serve, put the couscous grains on a platter, strain out the meat and vegetables and arrange them on top. Moisten it all with a little broth, and serve more broth in a sauceboat. Pass around the extra broth and harissa, and you've got yourself a party.

-- Leslie Brenner

Photos by Leslie Brenner

Extraordinary Desserts

After a few days vacationing in San Diego recently (boogie-boarding, Shamu), en route to the Wild Animal Park, my kids and I decided to stop for a little civilization in the form of tea and dessert.  Not just any dessert, either, but the cakes and confections at Karen Krasne's sugar palace, Extraordinary Desserts.  It was a place I'd heard about (in reverential tones) from foodie friends and pastry chefs but had never visited. 

Krasne, who holds a Certificat de Pâtisserie from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, opened the original Extraordinary Desserts near San Diego's Balboa Park 19 years ago; a second store opened in 2004 in Little Italy, near downtown.  We hit the original location, where we found tranquil tables alongside cases filled with a vast selection of beautiful cakes and tortes and tarts --many of which were decorated with edible flowers Krasne gets from a local organic farmer. 

While my daughters sipped cups of Mariage Frères tea and I knocked back a double cappuccino (Seattle-based Zoka beans), we stared at this stunning creation, a Pavlova filled with white chocolate cream, studded with fresh berries and flowers, and napped with an elaborate painting of raspberry, blackberry and strawberry sauces.  I thought it looked too pretty to eat.  My daughters, however, had no aesthetic qualms and demolished it.  Along with a Valrhona chocolate (both dark and milk) pot de crème and a bowl of nougatine ice cream (they'd just run out of salted caramel, much to the girls' dismay).  Armed with a substantial sugar high, we set off north, taking a lemon bar (shortbread crust, candied lemons, more flowers) for the road. 

Extraordinary Desserts, 2929 5th Ave., San Diego, (619) 294-2132, and 1430 Union St., San Diego, (619) 294-7001.

-- Amy Scattergood

Photos by Amy Scattergood

Strawberry fields forever ... or not

The fields -- and flats and pints -- don't, of course, last forever.  Peak strawberry season was over a few months ago, and most of the berries you find at farmers markets now are from up north, around Watsonville.  But as the summer comes to an end, I've been picking them up reflexively, compulsively, as unwilling to let go of the berries as I have been of summer.  However, last weekend's hot spell did a number on all of us -- and my various pints of strawberries.  The crop on the counter softened up too fast in the heat; the berries in the fridge, where I'd stowed some of them in desperation, threatened to lose their glorious flavor and texture.  We ate some on Greek yogurt and vanilla-spiked oatmeal, sliced others and napped them with cream, tossed still more into the freezer for the winter.  Then I took the rest and threw them into the blender and made a refreshing cold soup.  It was as if the essence of the strawberries had coalesced into my soup plate: The flavors -- and colors -- were remarkable.

All I did was slice 3 pints of ripe (some were slightly overripe) berries into a blender, add 2 tablespoons of sugar and allow it to macerate for half an hour there; then I added a splash of rosewater.  I blended the mixture on high for a minute, then poured the results into bowls.  My daughters added a few slices of extra strawberries, some fresh mint and -- their favorite part -- a rose petal from the kitchen table bouquet.  It was a fitting end, an homage if you will, to our last weekend of summer.

-- Amy Scattergood

Photo by Amy Scattergood

Providence's brasserie: Still searching

At the Santa Monica farmers market this morning, Donato Poto, co-owner and maitre d' of Providence, stopped to give an update on the downtown brasserie he and chef Michael Cimarusti have had in the works for some months now.  After scouting out and, they thought, finding a few spots that would work, they are again in limbo.  According to Poto, they have a handpicked staff and are ready to go, but "until we find the right location, we're not going to do it."  Poto cited parking issues, but both he and Cimarusti (formerly chef at downtown's Water Grill) are savvy enough to wait for the perfect locale. 

And while they're waiting ("it's on the front burner"), Poto, Cimarusti & Co. are busy working on the food (breakfast-lunch-dinner menu by Cimarusti, desserts and chocolates by Providence pastry chef Adrian Vasquez) for LA MILL's upcoming coffee boutique in Silverlake, set to have a soft opening in mid-October.  All of the burners seem to be cranking just fine.

Providence, 5955 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles; (323) 460-4170.

-- Amy Scattergood

Photos (Cimarusti, left, and Poto, right) by Connie Aramaki

Shaffer's Avenue to close

Shocking news for fans of the South Bay's beloved progressive-American restaurant: Chef Christian Shaffer has decided to close Avenue, the stylish place he opened in downtown Manhattan Beach just under three years ago. (He continues to be associated with Auberge at Ojai as a consultant.)

Shaffer has expressed a desire to spend more time with his wife, Tedde, who has been the hostess of several of his restaurants, and their two children. A business reason also exists, though. "My business partner and sole backer wanted to get out of the restaurant business," he said by phone this afternoon. "He bought a large block of property in Argentina and wants to get into the wine business."

Meanwhile, Shaffer is contemplating a new restaurant venture. "Maybe where my first restaurant, Chloe, was, in Playa del Rey," he said.

"We have enjoyed operating in Manhattan Beach and hate to say goodbye," reads a note on the Avenue website. "However, after much consideration we have decided to close Avenue on Friday, October 5, 2007."

That's time to get at least one farewell dinner in; say, leek and gruyere tart with tarragon aioli followed by "sticky" chicken with glazed root vegetables and cumin jus, topped out with a peach upside-down cake.

Avenue, 1141 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach; (310) 802-1973.

-- Charles Perry

Photo by Lori Shepler

The Healthy Bean

Eight years ago I reviewed a West Hollywood restaurant that featured an oxygen bar. How times have changed. Now WeHo has an antioxidant coffee shop.

The Healthy Bean says that many of coffee's antioxidant properties are lost during roasting, so it infuses its beans with a low-lactose whey protein and antioxidant compounds (in a process that's patented!). The result? According to the company's website, a 12-ounce serving of Healthy Bean coffee contains the antioxidant properties of a cup of green tea, a cup of grape juice, a cup of pomegranate juice and two tablespoons of wild blueberries, plus the protein of a hard-boiled egg. So it's practically a whole meal, except for having no fiber.

The company says it infuses organic, Fair Trade-certified beans from Ethiopia, Sumatra and South America with all this nutrition. Also comes in decaf and vanilla.

You order downstairs from the usual sort of coffeehouse menu -- a single cappuccino is $3.25. If you want, you can take it up an iron staircase to a pleasant loft fitted out with comfortable leather chairs and New Age-y modern art of a soothing stripe. The shop's front window continues up to the second floor, offering a nice view of the Hollywood Hills.

The coffee? Despite all that nutrition, it tastes pretty much like coffee, perhaps a little less bitter. And I do feel vibrant health coursing through my veins. Or maybe that's just the caffeine talking.

The Healthy Bean, 8470 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood; (323) 848-9401.

-- Charles Perry

The SLO market

With college students returning for their first week of school, Thursday night’s San Luis Obispo farmers market was even wilder than usual.

Though serious-minded cooks may no longer rank it among the state’s best (there were only a couple of dozen farmers), it’s hard to be too begrudging of three solid blocks of good barbecue and bands and locals and tourists packed elbow to elbow.

And what produce there was was awfully good. Mike Cirone had apples and peaches from See Canyon. SLO Grown Produce had brightly colored peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and herbs. Fife Farms had the most fragrant, sticky-sweet Muscat of Alexandria grapes you can imagine. If you’re going to be anywhere nearby, you should pay a visit.

San Luis Obispo downtown farmers market, Higuera Street, Thursdays, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

-- Russ Parsons

Photo by Russ Parsons

Table 8 and Comme Ça (SAH)

Rumors have been aswirl lately about chef Govind Armstrong considering selling Table 8 because of slowing business. "It's definitely not true," Armstrong said on the phone last week from Nevis in the Caribbean. "It's unfortunate, but you know how bloggers are. They think they're in the know. It's the most annoying thing in the world."

Armstrong says that Table 8 is "so far from closing." The recent "Top Chef" judge says he's been spending three weeks out of the month in Los Angeles and one week in Miami or elsewhere. "L.A.'s home for me, and any time I'm in L.A., I'm at the restaurant."

On Friday night, not a lot of others were there -- the restaurant was less than half full at 9:30, but it was Labor Day weekend, and I'm blogging, so what do I know?

Meanwhile, Sona chef David Myers says Comme Ça is set to open the last week of September or the first week of October. He says he's still tweaking the menu of "bistro classics -- steak frites, frisée lardon salad, onion soup." And yes, there's a cedilla under the "C" in Ça, so anyone who's been pronouncing it "Kum Ka" -- er, stop it. 

-- Betty Hallock

Photos by Stefano Paltera (Govind Armstrong, above) and Christine Cotter (David Myers, below)

Table 8, 7661 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 782-8258; Comme Ça, 8479 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles.

Quetsche as quetsche can

In one of the weirdest coincidences ever, the Food section's Betty Hallock and I both, unbeknown to each other, did the nuttiest thing ever -- we baked on what felt like the hottest weekend in history. What possessed each of us, independently, to fire up the oven? An elusive little fruit known variously as the French sugar plum, the Italian prune plum and, in French, the quetsche (pronounced kwetch). My first close encounter with the fruit was in the early '90s, when my friend Yves brought a tarte aux quetsches to dinner at my apartment in New York. It was simple, gorgeous and fabulous, and I never forgot it. Every year I mean to run a story about the fruit in Food -- and re-create that marvelous tart -- but the season for the plum is very short, and you never know when they're coming until suddenly you see them in the market. I hadn't yet seen them here, but last week Yves sent a picture of a tarte aux quetsches he had just made, so I was on the lookout.

Yves is no food professional, though he bakes like one, and he knows quite a bit about food and wine. In France, he tells me, the quetsche comes from the Alsace region. Besides being baked into tarts, they're also eaten raw or made into compotes. "The latter," he writes, "are awesome." (Yves is the only person I know who uses "latter" and "awesome" in the same sentence.) He was nice enough to send me his mother's recipe (which I've adapted; you'll find it after the jump). The secret ingredient is a little Slivovitz (plum brandy) sprinkled over the top before baking. "Actually, the brandy is very optional," writes Yves. "The sugar on top is important, as it helps the fruit render its juice, which then coats the dough nicely."

Long story long, I stumbled on the plums at my own neighborhood Whole Foods on Saturday, so gleefully picked up three bagfuls. I found a bottle of Serbian Slivovitz at Vicente Foods (8 years old!). I made the pâte sucrée for the crust on Saturday, and Sunday morning, I baked.

This morning, Betty came into the office and told me she did a crazy thing over the weekend -- she baked! What did she bake? Well, a friend had given her some French sugar plums a few days before, she said, and hot as it was, they moved her to turn on the oven too. She baked them into a clafouti.

So they're out there, those inspiring sugar plums or prune plums or whatever you want to call them. Go out and grab 'em while the grabbing's good -- and let's hope the temperature falls tomorrow!

Italian prune plums, $1.79 per pound at select Whole Foods markets. Navip Slivovitz, $25.99 at Vicente Foods, 12027 San Vicente Blvd.; (310) 472-5215.

--Leslie Brenner

Photos by Leslie Brenner, Wylie Peremarti and Betty Hallock