Pssst. Want to know the secret to a perfect apple pie?

 
Here's a sneak peek at what's coming in Thursday's Food section:  

Writer Veronique de Turenne had a favorite homemade apple pie recipe. But it was far from perfect.

"At its best it turned out great, firm and fruity with a flaky crust. At its worst, you'd cut the first slice to find a soggy, soupy mess."

When she decided to enter the Malibu Pie Festival, she decided to take that recipe and perfect it, once and for all. She learned a few secrets along the way. Lesson No. 1? Break the rules. Click here to read the rest of the story, and to find Veronique's prize-winning recipe.

 

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--Rene Lynch
Twitter / renelynch

 

Last call to compete in the inaugural House of An 'Noodle-Off' recipe contest

Earlier this month, in celebration of National Noodle Day, House of An put out a call to home chefs for unique noodle recipes to compete in the inaugural House of An "Noodle-Off" recipe contest.

Established in 1971, House of An is the umbrella name for a group of restaurants that includes Crustacean restaurant in Beverly Hills. The noodle-off contest was conceived in order to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the well-liked garlic noodles that chef Helene An created in 1980.

Entries were originally going to be accepted until the end of October but House of An has just announced that it will continue to take them through Nov. 3. From that group of entries four finalists will be chosen to compete in the Noodle-Off Championships, which will be held on Nov. 22 at House of An's newest restaurant, Tiato Garden Market Cafe. There the finalists will prepare their noodle dish for guests as well as a panel of judges including House of An CEO Elizabeth An; chef Helene An; Los Angeles magazine's Lesley Bargar Suter; Carole Dixon of NBC's "Feast L.A."; Mar Yvette, senior editor at CitySearch Los Angeles; and Jeff Miller of Thrillist Los Angeles.

The winner recieves a $1,000 gift certificate to any of the Southern California House of An locations; will have their recipe on offer at those same locations; and become the proud owner of a specially designed Noodle-Off bowl.

Be sure your recipe varies from current House of An noodle dishes and get cooking. For further details go to the House of An website and click the Noodle-Off logo. You can also e-mail your Noodle-Off entry form to noodleoff@gmail.com or snail mail it to: Noodle-Off Recipe Competition, c/o RFPR Inc., 5225 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 718, Los Angeles, CA 90036

--Jessica Gelt

Photo: House of An's garlic noodles. Credit: House of An

Good Food equals good pie

 

More than 100 pie-crazed bakers entered KCRW's second annual Good Food Pie Contest this weekend and Yuichiro Sato, a student from Japan living in Long Beach, took home the best of show and best savory pie honors for his meat pie. Other first-place winners included: Laurel Almerinda, whose baked coconut custard pie won for best cream pie and best crust; Sarah Boulton, whose Michigan tart cherry was the best fruit pie; Marla Cusack, whose macadamia was the best nut pie; and Denise Beauchamp, whose "plut with almond cream and almond shortbread crust" was deemed the best "interpretive" pie.

-- Russ Parsons

Photo: Yuichiro Sato. Credit: Bryony Shearmur

Like wine for oysters

Which wine goes best with oysters? You might well be tempted to answer “Who cares? As long as there are oysters.” And to a great extent, I would agree with you. But as was demonstrated again last week at the 2010 Pacific Coast Oyster Wine Competition, there are some wines that do complement that beloved bivalve better than others.

The annual competition is the brainchild of Jon Rowley, the marketing wiz who practically invented Copper River salmon. Every year he gathers oyster lovers in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles to sip and slurp and score, rating wines not on their intrinsic quality, but on how well they go with oysters.

Given that the traditional pairing is a sharp, acidic Muscadet, you probably won’t be shocked to find that in general, the simpler the wine, the better. Rowley refers to the competition as a "dating service" for wine and oysters. Turn-offs, then, would be oak and high alcohol, while turn-ons would include clean fruit and a tart finish.

This year’s 10 best included some old favorites as well as some new finds. Wines such as the Sauvignon Blancs from Chateau Ste. Michelle and Kunde seem to show well every year, and the Columbia Winery and King Estate Pinot Gris have won before as well. New winners include Pinot Gris from Acrobat and  Anne Amie, Sauvignon Blancs from CMS, Franciscan and Heitz Wine Cellars and a Muller-Thurgau from Anne Amie.

Of the top 10 wines, four are from Oregon and three each are from Washington and California.

-- Russ Parsons

Photo: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times

Culinary pros think Rose Levy Beranbaum is heavenly

Baking goddess Rose Levy Beranbaum's new "Rose's Heavenly Cakes" was honored as the best cookbook of the year Thursday night at the International Assn. of Culinary Professionals awards ceremony in Portland, Ore. The IACP is an international group of writers, chefs, photographers, cooking teachers and other food professionals, and it has been presenting the awards for 25 years.

Beranbaum, author of "The Cake Bible," "The Pie and Pastry Bible," and "The Bread Bible," among other books, capped the list of 18 books honored by the organization. Other top honors went to "Ad Hoc at Home" by Thomas Keller, Dave Cruz, Michael Ruhlman and Susie Heller for best chef and restaurant book; "Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion" for best general cookbook and John Besh's "My New Orleans" for best American cookbook.

April 15 is tax day -- and the deadline to submit nominations for the Vendy Awards

The Street Vendor Project's Vendy Awards, the annual cook-off that started five years ago in New York (before Kogi BBQ was a kimchi-quesadilla gleam in Roy Choi's eye), is coming to Los Angeles next month. The deadline to nominate your favorite street food vendor is Thursday. Nominations will determine the six to eight who will compete for "street food glory" and the Vendy Cup. Click here to submit yours. Competitors will be announced May 1.

The Vendys will take place May 15 in MacArthur Park. Judges will decide which street vendors deserve the Vendy Cup. Tickets for the event are $50 each; there will be food, wine, beer and other festivities (it's MacArthur Park, after all). Click here for tickets. The event helps raise money for host organizations such as Los Lancheros Assn., UCLA Downtown Labor Center and CHIRLA (Coalition for Humane Immigrants Rights of Los Angeles).

The Vendys are May 15, 4 to 7 p.m., at MacArthur Park, along South Park View Street between West 7th Street and Wilshire Boulevard. The site is accessible by Metro Rail’s Purple or Red lines to the Westlake/MacArthur Park station. 

-- Betty Hallock

Photo: Michael Robinson Chavez/Los Angeles Times

Beard nominations show little love for L.A. [Updated]

The 2010 James Beard Foundation award nominations announced Monday morning virtually ignored the Southern California food scene. Out of 55 categories, local writers and chefs got just a few nominations, led by best chef nominee Suzanne Goin, left, of Lucques and Tavern.

Part-time residents José Andrés, who has a spin-off restaurant Bazaar here, and Tom Colicchio, who has a spin-off Craft, were also nominated. Providence's Michael Cimarusti and Mozza's Matt Molina were both nominated for best chef in the Pacific region. In the journalism awards, Los Angeles magazine's Patric Kuh and the LA Weekly's Jonathan Gold received nominations. And "Love Soup," a cookbook by Ojai's Anna Thomas, was nominated in the Healthy Focus category.*

The awards ceremonies will be held the first weekend in May in New York, with the media and book awards on May 2 and the main awards on May 3. The nominations in each category are suggested by a committee of volunteers. 

Among the headline categories, in addition to Goin, Andrés and Colicchio, nominations for outstanding chef include San Francisco's Gary Danko from Restaurant Gary Danko and Charles Phan from Slanted Door.

Best new restaurant nominees are Philadelphia's Bibou, San Francisco's Flour + Water, Frances and RN74 and New York's Marea and Locanda Verde.

Outstanding restaurants were New York's Babbo and Daniel, San Francisco's Boulevard, Birmingham, Ala.'s Highlands Bar & Grill and Chicago's Spiaggia.

Outstanding restaurateur nominates went to Seattle's Tom Douglas, San Francisco's Pat Kuleto, New York's Keith McNally, Chicago's Richard Melman and Philadelphia's Stephen Starr. 

For a complete list of nominations in all categories, go to the awards website.

*Updated at 4:45 p.m. A previous version of this post didn't include Thomas.

-- Russ Parsons

Photo of Suzanne Goin by EPA / Andrew Gombert

A winning cake, corraling coupons, cow power and more

-- One wild cake: The Griffith Observatory has been memorialized in film, with "Rebel Without a Cause." Now, it's memorialized in cake. Pictured is the sugary confection that won TLC's "Ultimate Cake Off" Monday night. The challenge: Honor the L.A. landmark as it prepares to celebrate its 75th anniversary. That will be done with a May 15 fete where art meets astronomy called "Cosmic Conjunction 2010: Diamond Nights * Northern Lights." That's Dr. E.C. Krupp, director of the observatory and a guest judge on the show, with the winning cake, by Colette Peters. Peters is owner of Colette's Cakes in New York City. Her cake re-creates the Griffith Park experience, including the gravity-challenging drive up and the starry skies.

-- Twip of the day: Follow @foodlibrarian and check out her blog: the Food Librarian. Today, she's serving up Meyer lemon olive oil cake, courtesy of a Gourmet recipe. Sniff, sniff. R.I.P., Gourmet.

-- Got supermarket coupons? Here's an adorable way to corral them. 

-- We'll toast to that: Scientists discover an alcohol that fends off hangovers and helps you sober up more quickly.

-- Something's in the air. 1) A Swedish entrepreneur has developed a single-use toilet that can then be used to fertilize crops. (But the best reason to click is to find out the name of said product.) 2) Some farmers are dragging their heels when it comes to turning dung into gold. And 3) Another entrepreneur closer to home is making a mint off manure tea bags. (Do these three stories belong on a food blog? It's debatable.)

-- Rene Lynch
On Twitter @renelynch

Photo: TLC

Coral Tree Cafe in Brentwood announces 'Panini-Off' winner

There's nothing like rain and freakish tornado warnings to remind a person of how yummy a good sandwich can be. So it's fitting that Coral Tree Cafe's "Panini-Off" finals concluded last night with 22-year-old Chloe Coscarelli (a student at the Natural Gourmet Institute) crowned winner for her Mango Masala Panini made with spiced chickpea masala, roasted cauliflower curry and tamarind mango chutney. 

Contestants were whittled down based on the following criteria: taste, visual presentation, creativity and "panini practicality" (was the panini easy to eat?). Entrants were instructed to use recipes that didn't resemble the paninis that Coral Tree Cafe already serves. Coscarelli received a $250 gift certificate to Coral Tree and her panini was added to the menu.

The finalists, and their paninis, were: Tsz Chan, Temple City (Holiday Ham Panini); Chloe Coscarelli, Los Angeles (Mango Masala Panini); Cecilia Fabulich, Marina del Rey (Shanghai Spice Pork Loin Panini); Michael Haddad, Burbank (Gruyere and Chive Oil Panini); and Nico Juber, Los Angeles (the mysteriously named Nico’s Perfect Panini). Juber won the "People's Choice" award.

During the event, contestants prepared their paninis in front of a panel of judges, including Coral Tree co-founder Robert Niksefat; senior editor of CitySearch Los Angeles, Mar Yvette; FoodGPS.com's Joshua Lurie; LAist.com co-editor Lindsay William-Ross; and Richard Klein, founder of Chefmakers Cooking Academy.

About 100 people showed up to watch the fun, and also to buy snacks and drinks because 10% of the night's proceeds benefited the Widows, Orphans and Disabled Firemen’s Fund, which helps family members of firefighters injured or killed in the line of duty. All told, $700 was raised for that worthy cause.

-- Jessica Gelt

Photo:Chloe Coscarelli with her trophy. Credit: Coral Tree Cafe

Cooking is a game to Iron Chef Michael Symon

No doubt about it, "Cooked or Be Cooked" is entertaining. After all, the new Wii game that throws down cooking challenges also lets you try to "poison" the judges with undercooked bacon and eggs. (Judges include the spot-on avatar of Food Network honcho Susie Fogelson.)

But can it really teach you how to cook?

Food Network Iron Chef Michael Symon, who consulted in the game's creation, was in Los Angeles earlier this year to unveil an early version to the media and said the game can indeed teach someone how to cook. To prove it, he demo-ed a chicken-and-broccoli stir fry by following the game. (At times, he actually fell behind, but in his defense he also was chitchatting with a crowd of onlookers and answering their cooking questions at the same time.) The game includes cooking tips and recipes, although it has been dinged in some corners for not including enough recipes.

Symon said the game held something for everyone: Inexperienced cooks will gain inspiration, and experienced cooks will no doubt struggle to make sure that everything arrives at the judging table at the same time. 

"People come up to me all the time and say, 'Oh, I love to watch Food Network,' and I ask them what they cook, and they say, 'I don't really cook.' They're afraid, they're intimidated, they know all about food from eating out and watching TV, but they don't know where to start in their own kitchen. This gives them a place to start."

Symon said he would like to see parents and kids playing the game together. First, because chances are that the kids will beat their less-tech-savvy parents, and that's always a fun thing. And also because "it's one step toward getting families back at the kitchen table together. That's something that we are losing in their country, and it would be great to get that back. Eating together as a family is very important, everyone knows that, now we have to do it."

If a family is having fun pretending to cook imaginary food, imagine how much fun they could have heading into the kitchen and cooking food they actually could eat, he said.

-- Rene Lynch  

Photo: Food Network