Pie and pie and more pie. And still more pie. And cake for Thanksgiving

Key lime pie for Thanksgiving? Banana cream? Lemon meringue? Cake of any sort? These all sort of baffle Susan Sarich, the owner of SusieCakes bakery. She's a purist, and her shop expects to sell about 500 apple, pecan and pumpkin pies today.

That's not to say the popular Brentwood bakery will refuse to take your money for banana pudding or red velvet cupcakes. They also have layer cakes decorated with a turkey, and turkey-shaped butter cookies frosted for the day.

"People like variety," Sarich conceded Tuesday afternoon as the employees in the bakery piled pies in the front window, decorated cookies and baked batch after batch -- as many pies as they could get into their ovens for the holiday.

Sarich will miss being with her family in Chicago, where pumpkin pie will be on the menu for Thanksgiving. So why didn't she open her shop there? "That's a question my mother asks me every week when we talk," she said with a laugh. But it was her goal to spread the baked goods of the Midwest to California.

-- Mary MacVean

Photo: The pie-making at SusieCakes. Credit: Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times

 

VIDEO: Presenting the ham daiquiri (you read that right)

Perhaps you've heard of the candied bacon martini? Well, make way for the ham daiquiri.

--Rene Lynch
On Twitter @renelynch

'Twilight: New Moon' giveaway

Got "Twilight: New Moon" tickets?

Jamba Juice is giving away tickets to tonight's 10:10 p.m. showing at the Universal CityWalk Cinemas. The giveaway takes place from 8-10 p.m. -- or until all tickets are gone -- at the Jamba Juice at Universal CityWalk. (Click here for our review of the new movie.)

According to the Jamba Juice news release: "'New Moon' stars Ashley Greene and Dakota Fanning are big fans of Jamba smoothies, so ... Jamba Juice has stashed 300 world premier tickets at 3 California Jamba Juice locations to hook up those special fans in desperate need of last minute tickets."

Tickets were given away last night in Oakland, and will also be given away in San Diego from 2-4 p.m. at the Jamba Juice at San Diego's Mission Valley Mall, between Mission Valley Road and Friars Road. The tickets are for the 7 p.m. screening at the nearby Regal Jack London Theater.

--Rene Lynch
On Twitter @renelynch

RECENT & RELATED

PHOTOS: 97 of our best Thanksgiving recipes

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Photo credit: Kimberley French/Summit Entertainment via Bloomberg

Enough pie to reach the sky in KCRW contest

Bring on the pie! And the pie ... and the pie. One hundred and fifty pies. Sour cream apple blueberry. Apple and more apple in every variation, including one with bacon and smoked paprika. Lots of pumpkin pies (no surprise in November). Maple sweet potato pie with pecan brittle topping. Chocolate banana cream pie. Savory duck pie.

Welcome to the KCRW-FM (89.9) "Good Food" show pie contest, an event inspired by host Evan Kleiman’s summer project of baking a pie (almost) every day. Kleiman, the emcee at Saturday's contest, wore a pie pin embroidered by her friend Jill Smolin. She introduced herself as "your pie god," to lots of cheers.

Government researchers want to peek in grocery carts

The government wants to know how you decide what to put in your grocery cart.

The idea, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says, is to help families get healthier.

"This ambitious five-year effort will fill in critical gaps in existing data on the food purchases of U.S. households and be invaluable in assessing and enhancing the effectiveness of USDA's food assistance programs for low-income families," Vilsack says.

He announced on Thursday that Princeton-based Mathematica Policy Research will conduct the survey, which will be called the National Household Food Purchase and Acquisition Study.

The information will be used to help researchers figure out how food assistance programs affect the decisions people make about buying food.

"For the first time, researchers will have data that captures key factors like food prices, where food is purchased, dietary knowledge and the interplay of food assistance programs and food choices," says Rajiv Shah, under-secretary for research, education and economics at USDA.

About 1 in 5 Americans participates in at least one of USDA's food assistance programs in a given year.

-- Mary MacVean

Photo: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

[UPDATED] Small Bites: Playboy Playmates at Pourtal; Flight Club at Rustic Canyon; four flavors at Checkers Downtown

Wine and women: File this under weird: Pourtal Wine Tasting Bar has teamed up with Playboy.com nightlife columnist Dan Dunn (fondly referred to as "the Imbiber") to present a navel, I mean novel, wine-tasting tour called "the Imbiber's Ultimate Playmate Fantasy Wine Tour." The tour (which feels more tacky than sexy to me, but who am I to judge? I have very little testosterone.) features eight wines picked because they prompted Dunn to dream of a particular Playmate when the glass touched his lips. A 2006 Plumpjack Cabernet Sauvignon? Marilyn Monroe, of course. Jenny McCarthy? Only a 2006 Maverick from Four Vines will do. The list goes on, but you get the idea. And maybe it is just good clean fun, but having been in the Playboy Mansion grotto at least twice in my life, I seriously doubt it. The program debuted Tuesday and lasts through the end of the month. Pourtal Wine Tasting Bar, 104 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica. (310) 393-7693. www.pourtal.com.    

Flight Club: The first rule of Flight Club is, well, stop making bad jokes about Flight Club. Sorry, I can't help it. Rustic Canyon Wine Bar & Seasonal Kitchen just launched a regular Monday night program called Flight Club. On offer: a flight of wines selected from various regions around the world paired with a dish created by chef Evan Funke to complement whatever region the wine hails from. This Monday's Flight Club (I just can't stop writing Flight Club. Flight Club. Argh.) featured Old versus  New World Chardonnay paired with apple risotto. Flight Club! Rustic Canyon Wine Bar & Seasonal Kitchen, 1119 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica. 5:30 to 10 p.m. Mondays. (310) 393-7050. www.rusticcanyonwinebar.com.

I've got four on it: The Checkers Hotel downtown is in the process of reinventing itself. It's going for a bit younger, a bit hipper, but still classy. (Funny, that's what I'm going for these days too.) Anyway, every Thursday night through November it's hosting a pairing event called "Four." Here's how it works: The kitchen whips up four special-recipe cocktails and four small plates that complement them, then you chose which pairings you'd like to sample. Try one or try them all. Cocktails go for $4 each and tapas for $4 to $6 each. Checkers Downtown, 535 S. Grand Ave., L.A. 4 to 8 p.m., Thursdays. (213) 624-0000. www.hiltoncheckers.com.

UPDATE: A previous version of this post said reservations are required for the Hilton Checkers pairing event called "Four." In fact, reservations are not required.

-- Jessica Gelt

Photo: Marilyn Monroe on the cover of Playboy. Credit: Chronicle Books

Fresh produce going to WIC recipients

There is rejoicing today at agencies that work with recipients of food vouchers through the Women, Infants and Children program. Read more here.

-- Mary MacVean

Photo by Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times

Don't forget your school lunch ticket

If your house is like mine, it's time for forgetting. Now that kids are settled into a school routine, we start to take things for granted -- and that means forgotten gym shorts or permission slips or lunches.

If a student who pays full price for lunch in L.A. Unified schools forgets money or a lunch ticket, the cafeteria will provide half of a cheese sandwich and a four-ounce container of milk for free. That might be an incentive to remember lunch money.

The point of the policy is to make sure kids don't go without any food at all. The difficulty of tracking lost or forgotten lunch tickets is one of the reasons the district plans to change to an automated system within the next 18 months, officials say.

In past years, the district provided fruit and milk; the sandwich and juice are cheaper but provide the same nutrients, says spokeswoman Lourdes Vitor. The expected savings is $500,000, she says.

About three-quarters of LAUSD students get free or reduced-price lunches. If those students forget or lose their tickets, they can still get regular lunches, Vitor says. Depending on the school, they might have to get replacement tickets first.

Students can also buy lunch with cash.

Lunch prices didn't go up this year. It's $1 in elementary schools and $1.50 in secondary schools.

-- Mary MacVean

Photo credit: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times

Tap water at the farmers market ... and it's free!

 Something besides the samples is free at the Santa Monica Farmers Market today.

It's drinking water. The market and the consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch are launching a campaign to get people to use fewer plastic water bottles. Free filtered tap water will be available at a self-serve station.

Water will also be available at the market Saturdays starting Aug. 29 and at the Pico and Main Street markets in September.

Reusable stainless steel “I Love Santa Monica Water” bottles will also be on sale for $10. 
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-- Mary MacVean

Photo: Squash and peppers for sale. Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times

Food may be cheap, but is it a bargain?

There’s been a lot of talk lately about how cheap our food is, what with “value meals” and discounts galore. I recently spotted a 5-pound container of peeled garlic from China for $7.99; at a farmers market a few days later, garlic was $1 a bulb -- and I had to peel it myself!

Similarly, almonds were about $8 a pound from the farmers market, $3.49 at Super King Markets.

If you’ve got teenagers at home, you might be spending a small country’s GNP on food, but even considering last year’s food price increases, Americans spend less of their disposable income on food, about 6%, than the citizens of other countries. Considered another way, we spent 18% less on food in 2007 than in the 1970s, Ellen Ruppel Shell writes in her new book, “Cheap,” which looks at the cost of consumer goods.

But is cheap food the bargain it seems? Naturally, it's a complicated question.

For all too many of us, all that cheap food is making us fat -- and obesity is no bargain. Estimates are that obesity and its attendant diseases will cost more than $100 billion a year.

But many people have come to consider high-quality fruits and vegetables fancy, elite products available at Whole Foods or farmers markets at high prices, Shell said. “What’s gotten lost” is nutritious food at affordable prices.

Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, noted that over the last quarter-century, fast-food prices have decreased while produce prices have increased -- at comparable levels. “There’s no question that they are relatively more expensive,” and so people with less money buy food that’s less nutritious, she said.

And if Americans are growing increasingly uncomfortable in their jeans, some people are as uncomfortable with the state of our food affairs.

“Food is too cheap. But it depends. If you are a poor guy in a Bombay slum, it’s too expensive,” said Hans Herren, president of the Arlington, Va.-based Millennium Institute, which promotes sustainability and issued a report this year on the state of agriculture.

Cheap food has a “huge environmental cost that everyone has to pay for,” including polluted wells and dead rivers, Herren said in a telephone interview from Northern California, where he was vacationing.