Edible LA | No 14

Issue No. 14

edibleLA

Sharing the Story of Local Food, Season by Season

sustainability

FARMING & EATING TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHAOS SUSTAINABLE CALIFORNIA DISTILLERIES RECOVERING & REROUTING FOOD WASTE SLOW FOOD’S ITALIAN ROOTS Member of Edible Communities

Spring 2022

IN THIS ISSUE

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10 EDITOR’S LETTER p. 4

features 22

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SUSTAINABILITY IN CALIFORNIA DISTILLERIES

See how many California distilleries are setting high standards from grain to bottle.

FARMING & EATING TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHAOS

One author reminds us how to grow and eat to secure

departments 16

THE FOOD HISTORIAN

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LOCAL HEROES

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EDIBLE EXPLORER

The past, present, and future of maize.

One organization’s solution to our nation’s food equity problem.

We head to Tuscany, Rome, and Cabo San Lucas on two remarkable culinary journeys.

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CONTRIBUTORS p. 6

in every issue 8

PRODUCE & SHOPPING GUIDE

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WHAT’S IN SEASON NOW

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THIS SEASON’S MOST DELICIOUS READS

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THE LAST BITE

A Hawaii chef shares a beautiful recipe for kampachi with ali’i mushrooms.

recipes 10 10 13 13 14 44 48 48 51 51 52 54 54

THE CONEJO SZECHUAN CARROT SOUP ROASTED CARROT AND BEET SALAD ROASTED CARRORS WITH PISTACHIO DUKKAH GRILLED CARROTS WITH CARROT TOP CREME FRAICHE RICOTTA TART WITH SOUR CHERRIES RADISH AND WATERCRESS SALAD SPICY BULGUR AND NUT SALAD DOUBLES CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP I MAKE THE MOST SESAME SNICKERDOODLES TOFU PUDDING DROWNED IN MUSCOVADO SYRUP KAMPACHI WITH ALI’I MUSHROOMS

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editor's note

NO. 14

SPRING 2022

Food for Thought

Living sustainably is hard. I know I make a pretty good effort to consider my use of precious resources and I like to think I do a decent job most of the time, but the reality is that it’s tough. Plastic is everywhere, many of us still need to commute to work every day, and sometimes convenience and safety just have to trump the environment. We can do as much as we can as individuals, which you’ll read about in Frances Moore Lappé’s article on how to eat to fight climate chaos, but we really should be looking at corporations and producers to set high standards from the beginning of the cycle, as Virginia Miller discusses in her piece on sustainable California distilleries. Either way, just remember that any effort is better than none, and let us all continue to try to make the most sustainable choices we can.

We’re looking forward to continuing to connect with new readers, invite you all to spectacular farm dinners, launch our podcast, and fill you in on all the cool collaborations we’ve been cooking up. Stay tuned.

Be sure to keep up with us on Instagram @ediblelamag, where we’ll be giving away a few of our favorite cookbooks of the season. Trust me, you won’t want to miss them!

Enjoy the season,

Shauna Shauna Burke Editor in Chief

Reach out to me: shauna@ediblela.com

Edible Communities James Beard Foundation 2011 Publication of the Year

PUBLISHER & EDITOR IN CHIEF Shauna Burke ASSOCIATE EDITOR Lisa Alexander DESIGNER Shauna Burke COVER ART & PHOTOGRAPHY Shauna Burke ADVERTISING Deborah Garcia deborah@ediblela.com SOCIAL MEDIA Sara Cardenas Emma Kopelowicz CONTRIBUTORS Lisa Alexander Shauna Burke Ken Concepcion Maite Gomez-Rejón Virginia Miller Frances Moore Lappé Stella Totino

Instagram: @iamshaunaburke

Edible LA© is published quarterly and distributed throughout Los Angeles County. Subscription rate is $28 annually. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used without written permission from the publisher. Publisher expressly disclaims all liability for any occurence that may arise as a consequence of the use of any information or recipes. Every effort is made to avoid errors, misspellings, and omissions. If, however, an error comes to your attention, please accept our sincere

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our contributors

Photo © Mink Mingle

Shauna Burke @iamshaunaburke

Maite Gomez-Rejón @artbites_maite

Ken Concepcion @djgnocchi

A Malibu native, our editor-in-chief ditched the corporate office to become a classically trained chef and sommelier. After working as a private chef to celebrities in LA, her career morphed into recipe development and consulting for cookbooks, restaurants, brands, and writing features and columns for numerous publications, authoring plant-based cookbooks, and traveling as much as possible to explore cultures through food.

Maite has worked in the education departments of renowned museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, and the J. Paul Getty Museum and has worked as a private chef and caterer. In 2007 she founded ArtBites: Cooking Art History—art and culinary history combined with hands-on cooking instruction—which she continues to teach at museums across the country.

Ken is co-owner of Now Serving, a cookbook and culinary shop in DTLA’s Chinatown. Before becoming a bookseller with his wife and partner, Michelle Mungcal, he worked as a chef in the restaurant industry for nearly 20 years. Not able to afford to culinary school, he learned skills on the job, working his way up and devouring as much food writing as possible before opening the doors to Now Serving in 2017.

Lisa Alexander @lalexande

Stella Totino @__conejita___

Virginia Miller @theperfectspot

Now one of our editors, Lisa has written feature pieces in numerous publications. Her fiction has won several awards, been published in literary journals, and staged by LA’s longest running spoken-word series.

What she loves best is messing around in the kitchen, interviewing tiger-striped tomatoes, and delving deep into the culinary underground of LA.

Stella Totino has worked in some of the most well known culinary hotspots is West LA. She now works on telling untold stores and capturing internal points of view from the interior of Los Angeles’s robust restaurant scene. She fuses her knowledge of food and restaurant culture with her love of writing to better explore better understand our relationship with what, and how, we consume.

Virginia Miller has visited over 12,000 restaurants and 20,000 bars around the world and is the W. North America Academy Chair for World’s 50 Best Restaurants, has been Zagat SF editor, SF Guardian restaurant critic and Table8 National Editor/VP of Content. Published in over 60 international publications, she regularly covers global dining, restaurants, travel, spirits, cocktails and bars with columns and regular articles in many publications. @EdibleLAMag

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edibleLA’s

spring shopping guide

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SPRING PRODUCE

YEAR-ROUND PRODUCE

SPRING SEAFOOD

Apricots Artichokes Asparagus Avocados Cardoons Carrots Cherries Fava beans Fennel Fiddleheads Kiwis Kohlrabi Kumquats Leeks Mangoes Morels Nettles Peas Pea greens Pineapples Spring onions Strawberries Turnips Rhubarb Watercress

Almonds Apples Arugula Bananas Beets Bell peppers Black-eyed peas Bok choy Broccoli Broccolini Carrots Cauliflower Chard Coconut Dandelion greens Edible flowers Garlic Kale Leeks Lemons Lettuce Mushrooms Onions Oranges Parsnips Pistachios Potatoes Radishes Snow peas Soft herbs Spinach Sprouts Walnuts Winter squash Yams

Halibut King salmon Lingcod Oysters Prawns Sardines Seabass Soft shell crabs Squid

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YEAR-ROUND SEAFOOD Abalone Black cod Clams Oysters Rock crab Sanddabs Urchin

YEAR-ROUND GOODS Eggs Coffee Dairy Honey Olive oil Meats Potted herbs Preserves Pickles Grains

what’s in season

Crazy for Carrots

From cocktail hour to dessert, some of LA’s favorite chefs give the humble carrot a starring role.

By Shauna Burke

C

Photo © Heather Gill

arrots are a year-round supermarket staple in most places, so it’s easy to forget that they actually do have a growing season! Take advantage of this late spring crop—the earthy sweetness of in-season carrots lends itself beautifully to all sorts of preparations: carrot juice in cocktails, mocktails, and smoothies; raw and thinly sliced in salads; pureéd as a base for soup, pasta sauce, or ravioli filling; grated in cakes, muffins, or cookies; and so many more.

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The Conejo This eye-popping cocktail by Kacie Lambert, beverage director of Gracias Madre Newport, is loaded with springtime flavors. Fresh carrot juice and elderflower liqueur combine to create an earthy, delicately floral masterpiece. makes one cocktail Ingredients 1 1/2 oz Mezcal 1/2 oz fine stranded carrot juice 1/2 oz lemon juice 1/2 oz honey syrup (recipe follows) 1/4 oz St. Germain elderflower liqueur sprig of parsley, for garnish Instructions Shake with ice and strain into a rocks glass of ice.

Garnish with a sprig of parsley.

Note: Using a juicer, juice 1-2 carrots. Once juiced, fine strain your carrot juice through a coffee filter.

This eliminates the overly earthy tone leaving a cleaner carrot juice fish.

Honey syrup: addequal parts room temperature honey to hot water. Stir until fully combined.

Szechuan Carrot Soup Cafe Gratitude’s chef Seizan Dreux Ellis shared this recipe for a delicious raw soup, but notes the “rich creaminess of the tahini, almond butter, and coconut meat interact with the red chilies to make it soothingly warming.” serves 4 Ingredients 4 cups fresh carrot juice 1 ½ cups coconut water 1 cup frozen and thawed young Thai coconut meat ¼ cup shredded carrots ¼ cup raw cashews 1 Medjool dates, pitted 2 small garlic cloves One 1-inch knob of fresh ginger 2 tablespoons raw sesame tahini 2 tablespoons raw almond butter 2 tablespoons tamari soy sauce 1 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 2 teaspoons sesame oil ¼ teaspoon red chili flakes

The Conejo cocktail from Gracias Madre Newport 10

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Instructions In a blender, combine all of the soup ingredients and blend on high speed until you have a smooth, creamy consistency. To serve, garnish with a nice mound of shredded or spiralized carrots, a pinch of red chili flakes, and a few drops of toasted sesame or olive oil. This soup may be served chilled or lightly warmed in the blender.

what’s in season Roasted Carrot and Beet Salad with Cilantro Pistou Suzanne Goin of The Lucques Group and the new Caldo Verde at DTLA’s Proper Hotel grabs inspiration straight from the garden for this roasted salad bursting with big flavors. serves 6 Ingredients 3 pounds medium red beets 1 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil 2 teaspoons thyme leaves 1 3/4 cups picked cilantro leaves, cleaned 1/4 cup diced shallots 5 tablespoons red wine vinegar 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin seeds 1 clove garlic 1/2 lemon for squeezing kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper Instructions Preheat the oven to 450ºF. for the beets and carrots: Clean the beets and toss them with a tablespoon olive oil, salt and pepper and place them in a roasting pan. Cover with foil and roast 30-40 minutes, until tender. Cool, then peel the beets by slipping them out of their skins with your fingers.

Reserve 2 pounds (or 2/3) of the beets for the purée and cut the rest of the beets into wedges and set aside.

Suzanne Goin’s Carrot Salad

Reserve the carrot tops and then trim the carrots down to ½ inch of stem. Clean the carrots well in ice water (I don’t like to peel them-- just make sure you scrub them well and change the water until it is very clean.) Toss the carrots with 3 tablespoons olive oil, the thyme, ½ teaspoon salt, and some freshly ground pepper. Pick the carrot tops into nice 1-2 inch sprigs, wash in ice water, dry and reserve in the refrigerator.

Pound half to a fine powder. Transfer the cumin powder to a bowl and add the whole cumin, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 2 ½ tablespoons red wine vinegar. Whisk in 1/2 cup olive oil. Season to taste and reserve.

Roast the carrots on a baking sheet about 12 minutes until they are tender and a little caramelized. Set aside.

to serve:

for the beet purée: Chop the remaining 2 pounds of beets and place in a blender with 1/4 cup cilantro leaves, the diced shallots, 1 1/2 tablespoons red wine vinegar, salt and pepper. Process in blender until puréed very smooth. If needed add a splash of water to thin it out. Taste for seasoning (both acid and salt). Chill until you are ready to plate. for the cumin vinaigrette: Toast the cumin seeds in a small pan over medium heat 2 to 3 minutes, until they release their aroma.

for the cilantro pistou: Pound the garlic in a mortar and pestle with a generous pinch of salt. Add 1 cup cilantro sprigs (reserve the ½ cup for garnish) and pound to a paste, stir in ½ cup olive oil and season with salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon.

Spoon a nice sized dollop of beet purée to the center of each of 6 plates and spread it to the sides. Toss the carrots with some cumin vinaigrette, salt and pepper. Plate naturally over the purée making sure the vegetable don’t cover up the purée. Add the beet wedges to the bowl and season with salt, pepper and drizzle of the cumin vinaigrette. Tuck the beet wedges into the carrots, arrange the carrot top sprigs around the vegetables and, finally, spoon the pistou over and around the dish.

Roasted Carrots with Pistachio Dukkah and Tahini Sauce Akasha Richmond of Culver City’s AKASHA loves “the local carrots from Milliken Farms or Weiser Farms, which are available at numerous farmer’s markets in Los Angeles. Any leftover dukkah and tahini sauce can be used in all kinds of ways,” she says. We’d suggest spooning it over chicken, tofu, sweet potatoes, or just about anything! @EdibleLAMag

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Cafe Gratitude’s Szechuan Carrot Soup

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what’s in season serves 4 Ingredients for the carrots: 1 lb rainbow or orange carrots, peeled or scrubbed (split larger carrots in half) 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil ¼ teaspoon sea salt 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper chopped fresh parsley (save for garnish) 1-2 ounces wild arugula for pistachio dukkah: 1/2 cup pistachios (hazelnuts are also good), toasted 3 tablespoons sesame seeds 1 tablespoon coriander seeds 1 1/2 teaspoons fennel seeds 1 teaspoon cumin seeds 1 teaspoon sea salt 1 teaspoon dried oregano ½ teaspoon sugar Pinch of crushed red chiles for tahini sauce: 1/2 cup tahini (we love Soom or Seed to Mill) 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice 6 tablespoons cold water 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil 1/2 teaspoon sea salt Instructions for the carrots: Preheat oven to 400°.

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Place peeled carrots on the lined sheet and drizzle with olive oil, salt & pepper. Rub the olive oil and seasoning into carrots and place in a single layer on the sheet.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until tender. for the dukkah: In a small sauté over medium heat, toast the sesame seeds, coriander seeds, fennel seeds and cumin seeds, shaking the pan frequently, until fragrant, 2 to 3 minutes.

Add toasted spices and all remaining ingredients to a food processor and pulse a few times until the nuts and seeds are roughly chopped. Set aside. for the tahini sauce: Whisk everything in a small bowl until smooth and creamy. to serve: Place arugula on bottom of one large plate or individual plates. Arrange carrots on top of arugula. Drizzle with tahini sauce and top with dukkah. Garnish with chopped parsley. Save extra dukkah and tahini sauce or serve on the side.

Grilled Carrots with Pickled Fennel and Carrot Top Crème Fraîche @EdibleLAMag

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what’s in season

Grilled carrots are rich, flavorful, and smoky, so they don’t need much more than a generous sprinkling of salt and a squeeze of grilled fresh lemon! But if you want something a little more suited to salad/ appetizer status, this recipe from my cookbook Meatless Musings: Modern Plant-Based Comforts From the Heart of Southern California, does the trick. Grilling carrots is a great way to add depth and flavor to a vegetable that can sometimes be a little too common and boring.

Ingredients

tops. Set the tops aside. Cut the carrots in half lengthwise (smaller, skinnier carrots can be left whole) and toss in a large bowl with olive oil and a sprinkle of salt. Grill on both sides until you see nice grill marks and the carrots are tender, but not mushy. for the carrot top crème fraîche: In a small bowl, whisk all ingredients together until well-combined.

Taste for seasoning.

for the grilled carrots: 1 bunch carrots, with tops attached 2 tablespoons olive oil sea salt, to taste 2 cups fresh arugula 2 tablespoons hazelnuts, lightly toasted and roughly chopped

to serve:

for the carrot top crème fraîche: 1/2 cup crème fraîche (for homemade recipe, see below) 1 tablespoon. carrot tops, finely chopped 1 tablespoon arugula, finely chopped 1 teaspoon freshly-squeezed lemon juice 1/2 teaspoon freshly-grated lemon zest pinch of cayenne pepper sea salt, to taste

Note: If you don’t have pickled fennel, substitute: thinly sliced/shaved fennel tossed in a bowl with a sprinkle of salt and freshly-squeezed lemon juice. Let this sit for at least 30 min. until fennel is soft.

pickled fennel Instructions for the grilled carrots: Heat up an outdoor grill or a grill pan on your stove on high heat.

Wash carrots and greens, then cut off all but about 2 inches of the green 14

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On a large plate, create a bed with the arugula and place the grilled carrots on top. Sprinkle with chopped hazelnuts. Serve carrot top dressing and pickled fennel on the side, which allows people to make their own salad.

HOMEMADE CRÈME FRAÎCHE Heavy cream + buttermilk + 12 hours = homemade crème fraîche!

If you’re not familiar with how ridiculously easy it is to make crème fraîche at home, I hope you’ll give this a try! All you need to do is combine 1 cup heavy cream or whipping cream and 2 tablespoons buttermilk in a bowl or container and let it sit overnight at room temperature (for 12-14 hours) until thickened. Keep in mind that, at room temperature, it will still be a pourable consistency, so cover the container and place in the refrigerator for a few hours until cold. It should be thick, rich, and creamy, just like any expensive crème fraîche that you’ll find at the market! But you’ll get the satisfaction of casually saying, “oh, yes, I made this myself!” •

the food historian

Photo © Christophe Maertens

Maize: Past, Present, and Future

by Maite Gomez-Rejón

@EdibleLAMag

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the food historian

“Somos gente de maíz. De maíz amarillo y de maíz blanco se hizo su carne; de masa de maíz se hicieron los brazos y las piernas. Unicamente masa de maíz entro en la carne de nuestros ancestros.” / “We are people of corn. Our flesh is molded of yellow corn and white corn; our arms and legs are made of corn dough. Only corn dough entered the flesh of our ancestors.”

– Popol Vuh

M

aize is the foundation of Mesoamerican societies and arguably Mexico’s greatest gift to the world. First domesticated thousands of years ago, maize gave rise to complex agricultural, social, economic and religious systems from the Olmecs to the Mayans, Zapotecs to Mixtecs, and every indigenous culture in between.

For the native people of Mesoamerica, the sacred grain was considered a gift from the gods. In the Mayan book of creation, Popol Vuh, humans were molded from masa, or corn dough.

Rituals involving maize marked the beginning and end of life as well as each stage of the harvest.

But ancient domesticated maize was different than our modern variety. It was transformed into a superior dietary staple by a complex process known as nixtamalization. Nixtamalization involves soaking ripe maize grains in an alkalized solution of water and calcium hydroxide, commonly known as lime. The process removes the skin on the grains, makes grinding easier and enhances flavor. Most important, nixtamalization drastically increases the

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Photo © Shava Gueva / Stocksy United

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the food historian

– Mexican proverb

“Donde hay maiz, hay país; donde hay tortilla, hay patria.” / “Where there is corn, there is country; where there is tortilla, there is homeland.”

grain’s nutritional value.

The rise of the great Mesoamerican civilizations may be a direct consequence of this invention. Nixtamalized corn was ground on a metate to produce masa, which, like today, was used in hundreds of variations­—from tortillas to tamales, atole to pozole. Together with beans, squash, and amaranth, the original diet of the Americas provided a near-complete source of nutrients on which ancient civilizations thrived for thousands of years.

During the sixteenth century conquest of Mexico, conquistadors who compared maize to their Eucharistic wheat suppressed its cultivation. They treated the sacred grain with disdain and relegated maize products, in their own homeland, to the fringes of society.

This attitude even appeared in the country’s early cookbooks, where bread and European wheat were associated with the Spanish upper classes while maize made a rare appearance.

The Indigenismo movement that emerged during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) celebrated Mexico’s indigenous past and brought a revival of interest in its ancestral crops. Over time, attitudes shifted and a reverence for maize unified diverse ethnic groups and social classes. Today, more than a crop, maize is a cultural symbol intrinsic to Mexican identity.

Sadly, although Mesoamerica is the root of the origin story of maize, the cultivation of maize in Mexico has been threatened by policies and trade agreements that favor a genetically modified crop (GMO). Therefore most of the maize consumed in Mexico is imported to Mexico from the United States. The introduction of GMOs has obstructed the ancient tradition of seed exchange and threatened the future biodiversity of the 59 varieties of landrace maize.

A number of organizations, including Los Angeles’s own Masienda and Mexico City’s Tamoa, work to protect Mexico’s traditional corn economy by helping rural farmers bring back the genetic diversity of their land. Sourcing from milpas across the country, they provide a global market for farmers to sell their crops at a fair wage.

In contrast, non-profit organizations in Mexico such as Fundación Tortilla and Semillas de Vida have made it their mission to contribute to the knowledge, conservation and improvement of native varieties of maize and encourage their local consumption.

Cooks and farmers who, for centuries, have passed seeds from generation to generation, guard the land as hallowed ground and serve as stewards of their rich history and tradition.

The exhibition Maize: Past, Present and Future / Maiz: Pasado, Presente y Futuro will open at LA Cocina, an extension of LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in DTLA early 2022. •

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The hybrid pot still at Spirit Works Distillery

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Sustainability in California’s Distilleries A handful of distilleries throughout the state are setting a high bar for protecting our precious natural resources.

BY VIRGINIA MILLER

C

alifornia has been a pioneer in sustainability and environmental practices for decades, as the first state to adopt appliance efficiency standards in 1977, or limit pollution from cars, or in San Francisco, to outlaw grocery store plastic bags in 2007, with the state following suit in 2016.

California’s craft distilling pioneers in the early 1980s (St. George, Charbay, Germain-Robin) and 1990s (Anchor Distilling, now Hotaling & Co.; Oscocalis Distillery) pre-dated the global renaissance by decades, distilling local fruits and grapes. But moving the environmental distilling needle isn’t easy. Bay Area local Shanna Farrel’s book, A Good Drink: In Pursuit of Sustainable Spirits, released September 2021, digs into the complex difficulties of establishing environmental practices in spirits, cocktails, and farming.

But this hasn’t deterred distilleries across the state, starting with trailblazers like the great St. George Spirits, just outside San Francisco on the island of Alameda. Since opening in 1982, they use local ingredients for fruit brandies; going on to source local peppers for Green Chile Vodka and Bay Area botanicals for their incomparable @EdibleLAMag

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Botanicals and flavors at Spirit Works Distillery; Above: Harvesting sweet potatoes, courtesy of Corbin Cash Distillery 24

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Terroir Gin. At Griffo Distillery in the Sonoma County town of Petaluma, Michael and Jenny Griffo built their business on sustainable principles prior to opening in 2015. “We believe deeply in ensuring we’re a part of leaving the earth better than we found it,” says Jenny.

“That means each step of our spirit-making process is thoughtfully managed. Our proprietary automated still controls mean we are never wasting energy. We almost exclusively utilize local, organically grown grains. After we distill, our spent grains are sent to local pig farmers. Those pigs just love our grain. And our kids love the bacon the farmers send back to us in thanks. Full circle, baby.”

Just north of Petaluma in Rohnert Park, SF native Adam Spiegel’s Sonoma Distilling Company is another grain-to-glass Sonoma distillery making waves as a whiskey-only distillery since 2010. They use non-GMO raw materials, locally smoked malted barley, and mostly California grain.

Water is one of the key concerns now and going forward. Humboldt Distillery produces organic spirits in Humboldt County, far north near the coast, including a hemp vodka, a key crop of the region. “Living in California, we're especially attuned to water conservation,” explains founder/master distiller Abe Stevens. “Many distilleries use water as a source of coolant for their product condensers.

It goes in cold and comes out hot. Unfortunately, at many distilleries, it then goes straight down the drain, wasting not just water but energy. We always capture our condenser water, enabling us to reuse it. It can be used for equipment cleaning, as a source of preheated water for the next [fermentation] batch, and latent heat can be used to pre-heat the fermented wash as it enters the still, reducing our energy usage.”

Custom stills also aid in conservation: “One of our self-built continuous stills I designed runs without any external water source, having saved us thousands of gallons of water [compared to] a traditional still.”

Since Timo and Ashby Marshall opened Spirit Works in 2013 — another Sonoma County trailblazer in Sebastopol — they’ve championed grain-to-glass and female distillers (Ashby is the master distiller who has trained and hired only female distillers over the years). Sourcing fully organic grain and as locally as possible (e.g. their rye grain is grown merely five miles from the distillery, while 70% of their spirits feature Organic Red Winter Wheat grown in the Sacramento Valley), they’re working towards all grain grown within 20 miles. They installed an advanced water recycling system, use an extractor fan on summer nights to bring in cool air and save daytime energy, updated their lighting system to California energy-efficient standards (a rarity in warehouses) and donate spent grain and water to local farmers to feed animals or as fertilizer.

“We also believe in sustainability for our employees,” Ashby expounds. “[We] care for them like family, provide excellent benefits, and specifically designed the distillery to be able to process one of our batches in an 8-hour day.”

The Marshalls worked for environmental non-profits for 10 years prior to founding Spirit Works, spanning environmental issues from oceans, forests and toxics, to climate change. “We’re in a

climate crisis with extreme weather on both ends of the spectrum,” says Ashby. “In the past three years, our team has all been evacuated for both floods and fires. Luckily everyone — and the distillery — remained safe each time. Crops, especially organically grown crops, are not as tolerant to adverse conditions. Directly connected to this climate crisis is the drought we’re facing.”

Savvy distillers support organizations that are working towards conservation. “We support California Coast Keeper Alliance because of their advocacy at the state level promoting good policies that protect our waterways,” says Humboldt’s Stevens. Sourcing all their gin botanicals in California and Mexico, Gray Whale Gin founders Marsh and Jan Mokhtari support Oceana with every bottle sold, aiding in protecting and restoring the world's oceans.

For some, tragedy inspires invention. In 2020, Lindsay Hoopes, of Napa winery Hoopes Vineyard, and Kentucky distiller Marianne Eaves of Castle & Key, distilled their first round of innovative smoked brandies at Spirit Works.

They continue to experiment with a range of grapes and age, inspired by peaty Islay Scotches and smoky mezcals, asking an exciting question for spirits geeks: why can't there be an equivalent style in brandy? (In

another big win for brandy in the state pioneering American brandy for decades, the first stand-alone tasting room dedicated to California brandies opened November 2020 in downtown Napa).

Released September 2021 as a limited edition bottling, Hangar 1 launched “an experiment in sustainability and terroir,” Smoke Point Vodka, the first vodka made using smoke-tinged grapes from the devastating 2020 California wildfires. As a collaboration with Crimson Wine Group, Hangar 1 distilled smoke-tinged Malbec and Merlot grapes from Napa, donating all proceeds to the California Fire Foundation.

Los Angeles craft distilling pioneers, Melkon Khosrovian and Litty Mathew, are also trailblazers in sustainability. Since opening Greenbar Distillery in 2004, they set the environmental bar high when in 2008, they morphed to organic ingredients, 100% recycled bottle labels and planting one tree for each bottle of spirits sold.

They’re approaching one million trees planted since they started this campaign — an impressive feat, indeed.

Just north of San Diego, Pacific Coast Spirits was essentially California’s first farm-to-table restaurant and grain-to-glass distillery under the same roof. Founder/head distiller Nicholas Hammond expounds, “sustainability is part of our core ethos. We reduce, reuse and recycle in every aspect from distilling to our bar and kitchen. We built a water recycling loop in our distilling process which allows us to reuse 98% of our water… We donate all of our spent grains to local ranchers for livestock feed. One of the most exciting aspects is that our bar and kitchen collaborate on byproducts to aim to have zero waste where possible.”

In LA, Morgan McLachlan and Miller Duvall opened The Spirit Guild in 2016. Distilling their vodka and gin base from local clementines, they take advantage of California’s abundant citrus, calling on Duvall’s farming family roots in Central Cal. Duvall says, “Our products are already more gentle on the ecosystem by their very nature.

That's because they're made from local produce, stuff that's being grown within just a hundred miles from us. Meanwhile, most gin and vodka is made from a base of corn ethanol that is trucked in from the Midwest and comes with a host of problems: pesticides, GMOs and the whole system of government subsidies and political patronage that keeps the corn economy afloat. Moreover, [California] citrus farms tend to be family-owned operations. When you support local agriculture, you're keeping these families in the business of growing and more able to resist the temptation to sell out to a developer.”

As Duvall points out, in addition to water, the relationship of farming to distilling is crucial. Inland near Yosemite in Atwater, Corbin Cash Distillery’s David John Souza distills farm-to-bottle whiskeys, bourbons, gins and their signature sweet potato liqueur and vodka from the farm where the Souza family has grown sweet potatoes and Merced rye since 1917. “As a farmer turned master distiller,” says Souza, “I’m always looking for new ways to cut our environmental impact as well as reduce waste. Our key focus is always water. Distilleries use a large amount of water to operate, even a small-scale operation like ours in full production can consume upwards of 3000 gallons a day to produce 60,000 cases a year.” As cooling water runs through their stills, they keep temperature and proof consistent, captured in an insulated tank, saving hundreds of gallons of propane per year by not starting with cold water.

They also use their spent grain/mash as a feed supplement or fertilizer for their farm.

It’s thanks to these conscientious, resourceful distilleries — and many others in the state — that we can celebrate our rich array of California spirits without worrying of destruction to our unparalleled crops and soil. There is much still to be done to reverse the effects of global warming, topsoil erosion, drought and beyond, but these distilleries model the kind of businesses we need to move forward. • @EdibleLAMag ediblela.com 25

“After we distill, our spent grains are sent to local pig farmers. Those pigs just love our grain. And our kids love the bacon the farmers send back to us in thanks. Full circle, baby.”

Copper pot still at Griffo Distillery

Frances Moore Lappé at the Democracy Spring rally near the steps of the capitol in Washington DC on April 11, 2016,after marching from Philadelphia to the capital, where she was arrested along with over 1,300 others in the largest American civil disobedience action of the 21st century, calling for democracy reforms to remove the power of bigmoney and to protect the right to vote for all citizens.

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FARMING & EATING TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHAOS

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by Frances Moore Lappé

hen I wrote Diet for a Small Planet fifty years ago, questioning a meat-centered diet built on large-scale, chemically addicted agriculture meant you were naive “back to the lander.” Since then, we’ve seen a revolution in awareness: Transforming how we farm and eat is increasingly recognized as essential—both to personal and environmental health. It is also now understood as key in tackling the climate crisis.

Why is transforming our food system so essential? Let’s dive in.

Globally, food systems generate as much as 37 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

Of that, land use alone—farming, grazing, felling forests, and more—amounts to almost a quarter. So, get this: Even if the world immediately cut all fossil fuel emissions for energy, our food-system emissions alone would make it impossible to meet the targets for limiting climate change set in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

From agriculture, carbon dioxide is released during deforestation and subsequent burning (mostly to grow feed) as well as from decaying plants. It is also emitted in the manufacturing and distribution of chemical fertilizers.

Globally, the food system is a key source for methane and nitrous oxide, which are 34 and up to 300 times more potent as heat-trapping gases respectively.

Ruminant livestock like cattle and sheep are a source of methane from their digestion process. Confined animal feeding operations are also a source of methane from animal waste; rice paddy cultivation is an@EdibleLAMag

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Frances Moore Lappé planting trees in Kenya with Green Belt Movement members in 2000.

other. Nitrous oxide is released largely by manure and manufactured fertilizers. Producing nitrogen fertilizer itself is incredibly energy-intensive, requiring more than 25,000 BTU per pound to produce.

In addition to these concerning greenhouse gas emissions, our food system—driven by pressure to bring the highest return to ever-larger farm operations, corporate suppliers, and food processors— disrupts nature’s regenerative capacities. The result is rapid depletion and destabilization of the complex systems that we need to grow food.

Today’s dominant farming techniques have “disrupted the nitrogen cycle even more than the carbon cycle,” University of Virginia environmental sciences professor James Galloway, a leading authority, explained to me.

In the United States, Nitrogen runoff from agricultural fields seeps into streams and rivers and from there into the mighty Mississippi and then the Gulf of Mexico, where it has created a coastal “dead zone” almost the size of Massachusetts, killing marine life.

Runoff, explains Professor Galloway, also worsens climate heating, smog, acid rain, loss of marine species and forests, well-water pollution, and the stratospheric ozone hole.

Whoa. And meat production is key in all this harm.

58 percent of the biomass harvested globally enters the livestock system as feed or bedding for animals, while only 12 percent is used directly as human food. Cows alone pack such a punch that, if they were a nation, “cow country” would rank as the world’s sixth worst greenhouse gas emitter. If food waste were a country, it would rank higher still—as the third worst.

If we achieve a societal shift toward plant-based diets, we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from farming by as much as 70 percent by 2050—and by even more if we cut food loss and waste, predict the University of Oxford’s Marco Springmann and colleagues.

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Other encouraging measures of what this shift could achieve?

Worldwide, if those eating meat-centered diets moved to popular low-meat or no-meat fare, emissions could be “reduced by an amount equal to the current greenhouse gas emissions of all cars, trucks, planes, trains, and ships,” calculate University of Minnesota’s David Tilman and Michael Clark. That’s huge.

And note, the plant-based nutrient balance is hardly novel, as it’s what nourished humans throughout our evolution and still characterizes many Indigenous diets today.

Plant-centered eating also reduces incentives to fell carbon-absorbing forests to graze livestock and grow feed. Our dietary shift away from meat could “prevent the destruction of an area of tropical forests and savannas as large as half of the United States,” Tilman and Clark also estimate. One reason that’s a good thing is that it reduces the risk of new pandemics: We know felling forests for farms and grazing brings humans into greater contact with wildlife that can transmit viruses.

Our food system’s emissions can also be reduced by more localization and less processing, packaging, refrigeration, as well as better waste management.

Some propose shifting to grass-fed beef as part of the climate cure, but such a shift would have to involve a massive reduction in consumption. In the United States, pastureland could only support just over a quarter of our current demand for beef, one study found. And experts are still debating the climate-harming emissions of grass-fed versus feedlot-fed beef.

Something we know for sure is that growing food ecologically without chemicals offers climate pluses: It uses half the energy and generates only a third of the greenhouse gases per acre compared to corporate, chemical-dependent farming. Plus, while all plants take in

atmospheric carbon and sequester it in the soil, soils farmed ecologically hold more carbon.

In addition to these positives, ecological farming helps restore the species richness decimated by agricultural pesticides and is key in meeting our nitrogen-overload crisis. Instead of chemical fertilizers, it uses nitrogen that soil microorganisms generate, effectively recycling it.

And here’s a not-so-radical nitrogen solution. How about we all consume only the protein we need to be healthy? For many countries, including ours, that’s about half our average intake.

These findings show us what’s possible if we move toward what I call plant-and-planet-centered diets.

Fifty years ago, I didn’t foresee the climate crisis that would make my book’s message even more urgent. Today, we know so much more about how our dietary choices—and the public policies that shape them—aid or upend the environment, our health, equity, and democracy itself.

Let our food choices remind us daily of the power we each have to enhance our earth’s capacities to meet the climate crisis. ******* This story features topics explored in the 50th Anniversary Edition of Diet for a Small Planet. dietforasmallplanet.org •

Top right: Frances Moore Lappé with son, Anthony and daughter, Anna cooking in their Oakland, CA home in the early 1980s. Bottom left: Cover of first edition, first print Diet for a Small Planet. Bottom right: the 50th Anniversary Edition of Diet for a Small Planet.

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local heroes

Share the Abundance One Organization’s Solution to Our Nation’s Food Equity Problem

BY STELLA TOTINO

D

o you know what makes up the biggest percentage of our landfills? Food. And yet about forty million US citizens are food insecure. It’s a crisis, for sure. Here in LA, land of so many self-identified foodies, we seek out buzz-words like local, organic, grass-fed and sustainably-grown, but how many of us go any further than just casually checking a label? Asking ourselves hard, ethical questions about how we interact with the American food system is tough and uncomfortable, but it may also be one of the most impactful ways we can contribute to a sustainable future.

As we shape the earth’s future evolution, generating an arsenal of sustainability tools is becoming less of an option and more of a necessity. Most important is that these tools aren’t about profit, but instead embrace a community-oriented mindset as we act today in preparation for tomorrow.

Food Forward’s founder, Rick Nahmias, who has a journalistic background in food justice and equity, founded the 30

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organization with the help of his neighbors. It all started when he noticed the unbelievable amount of lemons, limes, oranges, and grapefruits left rotting at the roots of all the citrus trees throughout his neighborhood. With the very first volunteer harvest he organized, the seeds of Food Forward were planted.

Today, Food Forward has three distinct branches of food recovery. The first is the continued collection of the neighborhood produce, powered by an enthusiastic volunteer community. The second is a farmers’ market recovery program where farmers donate their leftover produce at the end of a market day. As Nahmias says, it’s a win-win for all involved, and not only because of the tax deduction. The simple truth is, if farmers don’t donate, they either have to pay to dispose of their remaining yield at a dump, or haul it back to the farm. The third and final branch of Food Forward’s operation is a large-scale wholesale recovery program, called The Produce Pit Stop. The Pit Stop sources

A warehouse filled with rescued food waste. Photo

by Eron Rauch, courtesy of Food Forward.

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local heroes fruits and vegetables from the LA Wholesale Produce Market in downtown Los Angeles.

Before moving into their large 1920’s warehouse in Bell, the operation was a mobile unit, setting up and breaking down their mini distribution centers wherever they could. In the parking-lots of churches and Boys & Girls clubs, their team would construct pallets of recovered fruits and vegetables for collection by other organizations, food banks, and rescue groups.

Now the words “Share the Abundance” unfurl across the twenty-foot wall flanking the entrance of the Produce Pit Stop. Looking over the entirety of the space, there is just that: abundance. The floors and shelves are painted with pallets of produce, assembling a rainbow of colors that contrasts with the original wooden beams crisscrossing the warehouse’s high ceilings. Standing amidst that sea of fruit and vegetables, forklifts, and trucks, it’s virtually impossible to imagine this food would otherwise be destined to rot.

This year alone, the wholesale recovery program has already rerouted 53 million pounds of produce from landfills to food insecure individuals and families in need. That amounts to nearly 275 thousand pounds of fruit and vegetables per day, a one hundred percent annual increase from when Food Forward first began.

Their huge warehouse-sized headquarters is a necessity as their supplier, the LA Produce Wholesale Market, is North America’s largest distribution center and is like a trading floor where quotas are constantly changing; suddenly one box contains a moldy strawberry and the whole pallet is wasted.

As Nahmias says, “Our wholesale staff has become expert at sniffing out [food recovery] opportunities, then inspecting the produce to make sure it’s of a quality that we can hand off to people who are in food-insecure situations.”

Surprisingly, the boxes that most food distribution programs dole out contain a maximum of twenty percent produce. Food Forward recovers and distributes added access to fruits and vegetables that are sure to be fresh.

Nahmias emphasizes the importance of “food as medicine” here as access to natural sources of vitamins and minerals is health equity, and something the organization champions as part of its integral values.

And the numbers are strong.

Food Forward’s recovered produce reaches as many as 350 food distribution programs (including food banks and food pantries) daily and, once the 350 distribute that abundance in turn, the circle widens and even more organizations gain access to those natural vitamins and minerals.

Leo Paz, the manager of the wholesale recovery team, shares that the program does not see itself as having any competitors. They believe in collaboration, not competition, even if their large scale would allow them the power to monopolize.

As he tells it, Food Forward works with other distribution organizations by sharing excess and taking in produce that otherwise could or would not be distributed elsewhere.

This community-oriented mindset is also palpable at the warehouse, where truck drivers are offered coffee and treated like family. It’s hard not to notice too that the staff smiles a lot.

Knowing just how dire the need is, the twelve people who operate the wholesale recovery worked throughout the pandemic, shutting down for just three days when the lockdown started.

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As Paz says, “If all of this work made a difference in just one person’s life, it would all be worth it.” And, of course, it makes a difference for an estimated 160,000 thousand people every single day.

While the pounds recovered through this work are of crucial importance, Celia Cody-Carrese, the communication supervisor at Food Forward, is quick to remind me that they’ve worked to re-engineer a system that is, and continues to be, dysfunctional. The actual recovery of the produce is the tip of a very large and country-wide iceberg.

As she says: “If we’re looking at the food system and sustainability in the food system from a really zoomed-out lens, (it’s) a broken chain. And so what we’re doing is really connecting to the organizations that can then connect to other organizations and individuals who are in need of free nutrition, free produce.”

In other words, the very structure of Food Forward is not only meant to re-route produce, but to become a beacon of sustainability as well.

Sustainability has lots of different definitions. While many of us have come to associate sustainability, the word, with its environmental characterization, it’s also a social and economic term. What Food Forward does so beautifully is remind us that the three main pillars of sustainable development – people, planet, profit – are all intrinsically interconnected. In their recovery of produce, Food Forward mitigates the effects of climate change on the front and tail end of the food system. In terms of hard numbers, Food Forward’s recovery saves no less than 5 million gallons of water daily–that’s the same amount as 8 Olympicsized swimming pools. And in terms of production, distribution, and most importantly, waste, the organization is able to capture 56,1080 metric tons of CO2 annually (for us visual folks, that’s a forest the size of 4 Manhattans). These figures account for the CO2 used to grow, harvest, and transport produce, as well as the carbon and methane emissions released when it rots in landfills.

Furthermore, the “profit” section of Food Forward’s sustainable approach provides tax breaks and general financial savings for farmers and other corporations who otherwise must pay to dispose of surplus or “unsellable” produce.

Food Forward is also a vital “working link” toward building true equity and social justice. While many corporations, companies, and groups use “triple-bottom line” as a hot-ticket attractor, much in the same way we Angelenos may be guilty of focusing on those sustainability buzz-words (with good intentions but perhaps not enough walk in our talk), no one at Food Forward even mentioned the term. Perhaps it’s because it is so ingrained in their mission, there is no need to highlight the obvious. Or perhaps because they are the living and functioning model that so many others are attempting to talk into action.

Before I leave, Paz walks me through the warehouse towards the back, where the newest Food Forward development is beginning to take off. Called “The Sprout”, it’s a mini version of the wholesale recovery program designed to work with organizations who have less capacity for huge loads of produce.

As we stand admiring it, Paz says he wants to share a story that sticks with him every day. One day when he was working with one of Food Forward’s partner organizations, after distribution hours were over, a well-dressed woman approached him asking if there was anything left. As he turned to ask what remained at the pantry, the woman began to walk away. He

felt she was ashamed, embarrassed. Reassuring her, he pulled together a box full of produce for her to take away. He explains, her gratitude was measured in tears. And then, the following month, she came back, only this time she came to volunteer.

His story does more than inspire his heart alone, with it a hope towards a more sustainable future is shared. A future achievable through care, humanization, and community.

Together, the story insists, we look forward. •

Right: Volunteers picking thr abundant citrus in neighborhoods around Los Angeles. Photo by Eron Rauch, courtesy of Food Forward.

to savor the extraordinary.

In Monterey County, some experiences are best enjoyed at a slower pace. It’s easy to get lost in a stunning vista, the creativity of a dish, or a good conversation with great friends. So, come explore the flavor of this place. At your own speed.

SeeMonterey.com/Now @EdibleLAMag

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edible explorer

COME FOR THE VIEW, STAY FOR THE STORY How the Baja Lab Kitchen is Taking Risks and Making Magic in Cabo San Lucas

BY LISA ALEXANDER

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ith their new Taste of Auberge: Baja Lab Kitchen, Chileno Bay Resort and Residences, an Auberge Resorts Collection property, is inviting insanely talented people to collaborate with a chef who is not only rooted in his cultural identity, but also honed his fine dining chops at The French Laundry. The result?

A culinary extravaganza in a drop-dead gorgeous restaurant.

Picture an orange moon hovering on the horizon. Cacti, hibiscus, and bougainvillea against the stark beauty of the desert. Small bottles of mezcal made from the wild agave found in the hills. A tasting menu that revels in Kenyan and Ethiopian spices alongside modern Mexican food. This is narrative cooking. Cooking as language. Cooking as story.

Chileno Bay Resort has not only all the bells and whistles— check out those yachts in the bay, the humpback whales in the Sea of Cortez, the dark blue pools spilling down to the beach—but it’s the people who make the place. Identity is so important, and nowhere is that more evident than in their choice of guests to kick off their new dinner series.

Saqib Keval and Norma Listman, partners in food and life, own Masala y Maiz, a buzzy restaurant in Mexico City. Saqib Keval grew up in Northern California, but his family is from Kenya and Ethiopia by way of South Asia, a cultural template that explains the Swahili influence in his food. His training began in Bay Area kitchens and finished with a stint cooking in France, prior to getting a degree in French post-Colonial literature. Norma Listman, a chef, artist and food

scholar, is a passionate devotee of indigenous and ancestral cooking, and can tell you the history of everything she puts on her plate. Together they call their food mestizaje, or an exploration of two cultures side by side.

Yvan Mucharraz, their host, is the executive chef at Chileno Bay Resort. Passionate and articulate, he cut his teeth with Yuri de Gortari and Edmundo Escamilla, two culinary explorers spoken about in Mexico in reverent terms. Their mission was to bring the width and depth of Mexican food—each state has their own traditions and recipes—to the community. After Yvan’s apprenticeship—and the order is important—he trained with Thomas Keller at The French Laundry.

Unlike so many chefs, Yvan had a chance to discover who he was and how he wanted to cook, before he was exposed to Eurocentric French food and fine dining techniques.

The three originally met at a cover shoot for the first Spanish edition of Food and Wine magazine, but lost track of each other until now. Talking with them before the dinner, it’s hard not to notice their crackling synergy. There’s lots of laughter over the burble of the fountain in the courtyard. With their mutual fascination with history and the politics of food, there’s a lot of finishing each other’s sentences too.

We begin with roast chicken and how they gave it the Baja Lab Kitchen treatment for the event. First, they used Chef Yvan’s own version, which takes an impressive three days to get to the table, as inspiration.

“It starts with a long process of brining,” Yvan says. “And then @EdibleLAMag

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View from COMAL at Chileno Bay Resort in Cabo San Lucas.

Photos provided by Auberge Resorts Collection.

you have to be a bit like a surgeon. You remove the whole skin of the chicken without breaking it.” After that, he debones the legs, thighs and wings, makes a mousseline with everything but the breast, then pipes the mousseline back into the breast and air dries it for another six to eight hours before roasting it with ghee.

Saqib and Norma respect this complicated chicken, love this chicken but, with the dinner at Comal, Chileno’s cliffside restaurant, they wanted to do something more collaborative. Using Saqib’s Swahili influence, they fried and bathed their poussin in spicy citrusy ghee.

“The masala is from my dad’s side of the family in Ethiopia,” Saqib says. “And we made this very Mexican berbere,” or fiery spice blend, to infuse in the clarified butter, or ghee.

Oh, and chicken originally comes from the Middle East.

“In Mexico, North America and South America, we had ducks,” Yvan says.

And there’s a connection to Asian flavors as well.

“For more than three hundred years,” Norma says. “We have the longest uninterrupted trade west from Acapulco with the Nao de China.”

She’s referring to the Manila Galleon, a big black boat that ferried porcelain, silks, and spices like cinnamon and ginger from Mexico to the Philippines to China in return for New World silver.

“We have a very strong shared history there,” she says. “In Thailand, they literally have a tamale made of rice leaves… And I’m sure you’ve been in many Mexican restaurants in LA that have Mexican (agua frescas) made of watermelon and tamarind, as well as horchata.

None of those ingredients came from here. So, for us, the truth of Mexican history and culture of cooking comes more from the exchange from Asia and the Middle East, then Europe.”

Norma’s own epiphany came in Oakland when she was part a group of bohemian artists hosting salon dinners that explored the intersection of art and history. In one event, they recreated the last eight hours when California was still Mexico. In the hours before the 1856 Bear Flag Revolt wrested away Northern California, General Vallejo 36

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chose not to repel the aggressors, inviting them instead to a feast in his Sonoma home.

“It’s when I realized the power that food holds and the stories it can tell,” she says.

Her family comes from Texcoco, on the outskirts of Mexico City near the botanical gardens. Her personal favorite on the menu tonight is what they call the Matoke Mixiote.

“It’s a pre-Hispanic papillote,” she says. “In central Mexico, they figured out how to peel the top layer of the agave pulquero… very thin, white and water resistant, like a skin, and it has a green and lactic flavor and aroma.”

She uses this pre-colonial parchment to char plantains with clams in a delicious sauce of coconut milk, spices, chiles and cilantro, served with cloud-like Indian bread, or roti. It’s a perfect example of how Saqib and Norma work with the migrations of cooking techniques and the flavors of East Africa, South Asia and Mexico, introducing them to Yvan’s elevated Mexican food.

“It’s great to have these two conversations between our two kitchens,” Saqib says. “We’re constantly talking about the impacts of colonization and Eurocentric food analysis on our communities…

The food world has always held European technique at its summit, along with European food culture, ingredients, and palate…There’s something very political, something very radical in presenting Mexican gastronomy and giving it its due course and space…. Here we have the luxury of these incredible vistas hosted by the hotel, the chef, and the team at Comal. It gives us this platform to present new stories.”

I bring up the popularity of restaurants like Damian in Los Angeles, Cosme in New York and Pujol in CDMX. “But think about the history of Mexican food,” Norma says.

“Think about our legacy that goes back to pre-Colombian times and now it’s—what? —2022?”

Saqib also learned about his family history through recipes.

As one of the founders of Oakland’s People’s Kitchen Collective, he’s done large-scale food research projects looking at food as a means of

edible explorer

from left to right: chefs Cataina Londono, Saqib Keval, Yvan Mucharraz, and Norma Listman

telling political history. And now, with Masala y Maiz, he gets to cook with his partner, Norma too.

“It’s really humbling to be here because there’s very few cuisines that aren’t drastically impacted by Mexican foodways and Mexican ingredients… I would be hard-pressed to find a cultural and food legacy as omnipresent as Mexican food and foodways, food craft and ingredients that are either from here or have come to the world from here.”

Later that night, Saqib goes from table to table introducing a procession of dishes that delight and surprise. All made with local Baja ingredients, there’s slightly sweet and nutty cacao tortillas with avocado, an abalone and coconut ceviche with a dusky fermented chile paste, salty lassi with Mexican pepper leaf and ginger, that spectacular chicken, and a spicy cardamom rice pudding with turmeric ice cream.

Elsewhere in the resort there’s this same attention to food and drink. Mixologist Miguel Vargas focuses on changing up the mocktail world with hydrosols or distillates of herbs like lemongrass, damiana, yerba buena and holy basil. His creations are subtle and sophisticated, a far cry from the sugary versions that read like complicated juice. Down by the beach, TnT does vegan tacos like oyster mushroom with burnt onion salsa, or another with a crispy rice “chicharron.” Up by the spa, Marco Rountree, a Mexican artist, is working on the final touches of a huge mural wrapping what will soon be Yaya, a restaurant highlighting “abuelita” or grandmother food. Its new chef is Eliana Godinez, who mentored with Massimo Bottura in Italy and conjured a sold-out babka business in Mexico City during the pandemic. In a preview of the menu, she turned out perfect suppli (a Roman street food with rice, cheese and tomatoes), porterhouse steak, chicken Milanese and rice pudding, all classics delicately and expertly prepared.

The Baja Lab Kitchen dinner series will continue throughout the year with a lineup of Rockstar chefs including Virgilio Martinez of Lima’s Central and Daniela Soto-Ines, the youngest chef to be named World’s Best Female Chef by the World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards.

As Norma says, “All the magic…is in the cooking, the sharing of techniques. It’s in the talking to the cooks—where are you from? The kitchen here is full of cooks from all over the country, from Nayarit to Yucatan to Veracruz. It’s so beautiful, and being able to share their traditions, their individual traditions, to me, that’s the real gem of this.”•

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Photo: COMO Castello Del Nero

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edible explorer

A Return to Pleasure A Culinary Journey to Tuscany and Rome

BY LISA ALEXANDER

S

low Food International famously began in Italy as a protest to the opening of a McDonald’s near the Spanish Steps in Rome. The whole idea was to slow down, take the time to eat locally and sustainably and, basically, not let fast food take over our lives. Since then, Slow Food has grown to 160 countries with 100,000 members worldwide. As well as tackling climate change with grassroots action, coalitions like Slow Food Coffee work to improve not only the environment, but human and labor rights, transparency and traceability and something deliciously called the right to pleasure. I’ve long wanted to go back where it started and experience high and low dining there.

The Sofitel Villa Borghese turned out to be the perfect Roman home base in a wildly elegant 19th-century palazzo. A recent makeover by Jean-Philippe Nuel has left it jewel-toned— greens, oranges, blues—sophisticated and beautifully designed. @EdibleLAMag

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Tall windows in our room were thrown open to face the moon rising over the dark Borghese Gardens right outside.

Inside, there were seraphim frescoes on the ceiling, ornate white mirrors and perfect crisp sheets on a perfect bed. The Italian lighting was ingenious with clever buttons that did all kinds of things you didn’t know were necessary but turned out to be.

The Ludovisi neighborhood was full of huge pink villas—the whole city seemed pink—and nearby Como Il Latte served a mean pistachio gelato, a good thing as, by the end of the trip, you could have hooked me up to a gelato IV. We walked an insane amount, and discovered that Rome was surprising and brash and insistent and, of course, distractingly beautiful. The walls and ruins built as long ago as the First Century BC were plunked down in the middle of busy streets, the ancient seamlessly interacting with the new. We went to Saint Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City—awe-inspiring and gold-leafed—and also ventured to edgier neighborhoods like Testaccio, home to Centrale Montemartini, a defunct electricity-factory-turned-museum with ancient Roman statues of sensual male and female nudes displayed against the hulking old generators. Oh, and have I mentioned the food?

Slow Food Italy started the entire Slow Food movement, championing organic and local for the sake of our planet and health. At the Nuovo Mercato di Testaccio, vendors sold fresh pasta, bright produce, and street snacks. The suppli classico at Foodbox (a member of Slow Food), was one of the best things I’ve ever had, a crispy oval of rice that shattered into a fantasia of red sauce, basil, sausage and mozzarella.

Luckily, Chef Giuseppe D’Alessio does his own version at Settimi, the Sofitel Villa Borghese’s rooftop restaurant with a spectacular view of all Rome. His suppli was no less fantastic, a light, delicate and nuanced riff on the street food with its own little cup of Parmesan dipping sauce.

D’Alessio told me he was from Salerno, where he started cooking as a child, helping his madre make the weekly bread and pasta. He also incorporates simplicity, authenticity and seasonality—his watch words—into delicious dishes like cacio e pepe, the Roman specialty of salt-and-pepper pasta, and pan-fried sea bream. For dessert, he baked us a ricotta and cherry crostata, the specialty from the Jewish Ghetto that we’d been talking about earlier that afternoon.

The crostata was born out of necessity, as was most of the exquisite Jewish Roman Cuisine. Originally established

by Papal bull in 1555 AD, the ghetto was kept going for 300 years to keep the Jews separated and hemmed in. Brutal sumptuary laws governed what they could wear (no fur or silk), do (rag-picking), and even eat. As they weren’t allowed dairy—no cheese!—the crostata’s crust originally hid the forbidden ricotta. Chef Giuseppe’s tart was deeply delicious, and seemed to incorporate all the contradictions of Rome.

After five days in the city, a three hour road trip to Tuscany gave us a rest, though there was no letup to the sensory overload. In October, the fields had been tilled and the leaves had turned from green to yellow. The drop cloths had been brought out to catch the olives as they fell from the trees. Truffle season had ramped up again with white ones instead of the black available in the Spring. Everywhere you 40

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Cocktails at Sofitel Villa Borghese; below: Settimo restaurant; opposite left: entrance to Sofitel Villa Borghese; opposite right: rooftop terrace

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Truffle hunting on the grounds; Above: making pasta with the chef at COMO Castello del Nero

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looked, the countryside seemed still, a patchwork of fields around turreted towns, and COMO Castello del Nero, once a 12th century castle, rose up like a fairytale mirage.

As with the other hotels in the COMO Hotels & Resorts Group, Castello del Nero was lavish and minimalist at the same time. Descending in tiers down a hill, it had a grand heated pool, a gym with a view, a beautiful spa and a marble pizza kitchen with a wood burning oven. In the commanding lobby, every detail seemed considered, from the delicate fringes on couches and lampshades to the black ceramic candelabras to the formal dining room with handblown glassware and many shades of gray. The rooms were beautiful too, simple and luxurious with postcard views of the vibrant countryside outside.

Castello del Nero has its own Michelin-starred Executive Chef, Giovanni Luca Di Pirro. Originally from Bologna, Chef Di Pirro told me his mother was the best chef in the world. Mothers and chefs, it seems, are a thing, perhaps because so much about taste is about memory.

“In my life,” he said. “It’s sweet to remember the food, for the flavor. For me, it’s very important. It always comes back to the past.”

Aside from his mom’s elusive lasagna—“I do it the same way, with the same ingredients, and still it doesn’t come out the same”—he revels in his ingredients, all of which he sources close to home.

Castello Del Nero makes its own wine, as well as a five-starred olive oil. Professional truffle hunters take their lagotto romagnolo dogs into the woods every day. Laura Peri of Azienda Agricola upplies happy White Valdarnese chickens, pigeons and Chianina beef for Fiorentina Steak, though Chef told me he’d like to get away altogether from meat.

That night, Chef Di Pirro’s inventive tasting menu included a Jerusalem artichoke and white truffle flan and a roasted eggplant with tomatoes, basil and burrata, but what really knocked us out was a perfect swirl of spaghetti topped with a Mazzancolle shrimp tartare and Italian caviar. Salty and briny, the umami of the seafood perfectly cut the richness of the hot peppered pasta.

The hotel is convenient to the best of Tuscany. We drove the half hour to Florence, and loitered in medieval hilltop towns like Pienza and Sam Gimignano. For us though, Siena turned out to be the beauty queen. The Duomo cathedral is a striped affair of green and white marble with a gorgeous Donatello fresco and a spectacular library of illuminated folios. When we went a choir was rehearsing somewhere up towards the domed ceiling; it was like being in the presence of angels which, in Tuscany, didn’t seem that surprising after all.

If you go, you will find the world greatly changed since the pandemic, but the exhilaration of being out there will make it completely worthwhile. •

travel beyond your dreams...

Contact Emily Lutz to plan a memorable trip to one of the world’s most extraordinary locations, just like the ones in this issue.

emilylutz@beyondtravelcompany.com

(818) 624 - 1089 @EdibleLAMag

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RICOTTA TART WITH SOUR CHERRIES From Sofitel Villa Borghese chef Giuseppe D’Alessio

makes 1 tart; serves 8

Ingredients for the shortcrust pastry: 300 g butter 500 g flour 00 150 g granulated sugar 100 g egg yolks Peel of half a lemon for the custard: 150 g egg yolks 125 g granulated sugar 125 g fresh cream 500 ml milk for the ricotta filling: 500 g ricotta 100 g granulated sugar 300 g custard 2 whole eggs 200 g sour cherry jam for serving: fresh blueberries whipped cream Amarena Fabbri sour cherries peel of half a lemon half a vanilla pod

For the custard, heat the milk, cream with vanilla and lemon zest in a saucepan.

With a whisk, mix the egg yolks with the flour and sugar until the mixture is smooth. When the milk and cream begin to simmer, pour a small amount into the egg yolk mixture to dissolve it slowly.

Off the heat, add all the liquid to the egg yolk mixture and mix well with a whisk.

Put it back on the heat over low heat, continuing to turn, making sure to reach all the corners of the pan so that there are no lumps or risk of burning the mixture at the edges. Bring to a boil (about 82°C).

Spread the cream on a baking tray and cover with cling film in contact with the surface. Put in the blast chiller and leave to cool. Drain the ricotta in a fine chinoix for about 30 min.

Slowly work the ricotta in a planetary mixer with the leaf, add the cream, making sure that the mixture does not separate, and the sugar.

Combine the eggs until smooth.

Roll out the shortcrust pastry to about 5 mm thickness, completely line the chosen mold (28 cm), prick the bottom with a fork, spread a layer of about 5 mm of very dry sour cherry jam.

Add the ricotta mixture up to the edge, level it well with the moistened spatula and bake at 160°C for about 40 min.

Check the browning and internal humidity, once cooked let it rest for a day before use.

Instructions

Once ready, cut a slice of tart, whip the cream and garnish to taste with sour cherries in syrup, blueberries and fresh mint.

For the shortcrust pastry, cut the butter into small pieces and knead quickly (about 1 minute) in a stand mixer together with the sugar.

Chef ’s tips:

Add the egg yolks in one go, along with the grated lemon zest and vanilla.

Once the egg yolks are blended, add the flour and mix until well combined.

Cover the dough with cling film and allow it to rest in the refrigerator for about 2 hours.

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It is important to cover the custard well with cling film to prevent a patina from forming on the surface.

The shortcrust pastry tends to swell in the oven, so it is important to prick all parts of the dough with a fork before placing it in the oven. •

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SOME OF THIS SEASON'S

MOST DELICIOUS READS curated by Ken Concepcion, co-owner of DTLA’s

From starters to dessert, I found a whole meal of inspiration in the pages of this season’s titles and I’m sharing a few of my favorite recipes.

T

he izakaya in Japanese dining culture is a place for conviviality, for loosening up, and for pure pleasures. In his fifth book, prolific author and chef Tim Anderson explores and pays to tribute to the izakaya genre in the wonderful Your Home Izakaya. Anderson lives and works in London, overseeing his restaurants, and honors his adopted Japanese cuisine with respect and love. A great start to any homemade meal would be a salad full of crunch, bite, and vigor such as a classic like the Radish and Watercress Salad. Bright with tangy acid and color from the vegetables and then crowned with delightfully crispy shrasu or tiny, baby fish that have been fried to a golden brown perfection. Imagine this salad paired alongside fatty slices of sashimi or decadent katsu cutlets with ice-cold sake or Japanese lager!

For another light but satisfying starter, we turn to the legendary author Claudia Roden, whose gorgeous and very autobiographical new book, Claudia Roden’s Mediterranean: Treasured Recipes from a Lifetime of Travel, hones her longstanding source material—the cooking of North Africa, France, the Middle East, and Spain—to a gloriously sharp and

cinematic reverie of communal meals, of sharing stories, and honoring loved ones with their recipes. Originally from Cairo, Roden has searched a lifetime for recipes, to link another life to hers, as she lost what she called “her entire world” when she and her Jewish community were forced to leave Egypt when she was young. Bazargan, or Spicy Bulgur and Nut Salad, is a rich and heady dish of spices, aromas, and textures. Roden advises to serve it with some yogurt or lebneh to round it out to something truly memorable.

To continue our meal, we land upon the shores of Trinidad and Tobago, to share the recipe of what could be known as its national dish, but also a beloved party food and popular street food­ —doubles. Crunchy, chewy, puffy, and savory, doubles are the equal to any taco or sandwich as a delivery mechanism for flavors and textures. In the epic and glorious Black Food, Bryant Terry’s first title of the new 4 Color Books imprint, tackles the incredibly ambitious projects of collecting not only dishes of the African diaspora, but also art, culture, and stories. Isaiah Martinez offers up a recipe that can be served at special gatherings or cooked for a weekday lunch, @EdibleLAMag

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reading corner with a heady mix of curried potatoes, fiery Scotch bonnets, tangy tamarind and cooling cucumber.

For something a little more elemental and universal, we turn to David Chang and Priya Krishna’s Cooking At Home: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Recipes (and Love My Microwave) and their Chicken Noodle Soup I Make The Most. One of the most well-known chefs in the world, Chang is one of the proudest and most vocal lazy home cooks. But just because he eschews any form of fussiness and preciousness in the kitchen doesn’t mean this book skips out on the flavor.

Take this simple “non-recipe” of boiling chicken, seasoning the picked meat and building a beautiful broth with just the carcass and a few aromatics. Add noodles and some scallions if you have and, honestly, that’s it! Cooking At Home is a master class of efficiency, practicality, and wanting to wash the least amount of dishes when you finally do find time to make something homemade.

Can we talk about cookies? That a certain cookie can hold within itself a world unto its own. A humble cookie can hold secrets. A revelation of taste and texture­—two parameters that define what a cookie is. The Sesame-Snicker-doodles found in Aran Goyoaga’s Cannelle Et Vanille: Bakes Simple is a reckoning of global pleasure. Loaded with tahini and sesame that completely uplift the hero role that cinnamon has always played in a classic snickerdoodle, it’s a wonderful almost savory

turn, especially if you follow Goyoaga’s lead to crack fresh black pepper into the mixing bowl as well. Impress yourself by serving these to your loved ones or guests without a word.

Even a cookie can surprise, take note!

For a final offering we turn to the Philippines by way of Sydney, Australia to Yasmin Newman’s stunning and personal Under Coconut Skies which examines her connection to her mother’s side of the family and her Filipino heritage.

While paying tribute to the tentpole dishes of the culture— adobo, pancit, sinigang among others—Newman doesn’t shy away from bringing in her own touches of inspirations to the Filipino food canon. But this is far from just a collection of updated takes on beloved childhood dishes. There is a respectful give and take that Newman deftly navigates through with her readers into her past. Her loving description of taho—Tofu Pudding Drowned in Muscovado Syrup—hits home because it is a snack, a drink, and a dessert all in one. Bubble tea made tapioca balls / sago balls into a household name of ‘boba”, but taho is Filipino through and through with the adaptability to shine throughout any season with any of the kaleidoscope of colors and toppings at your disposal.

Cooking the Books

Head to the kitchen with a few of our favorite recipes mentioned above. You can find more at ediblela.com.

Radish and Watercress Salad RADDISHU TO KURESON NO SARADA

Most of the time, salad is existentially dull. Too often when I eat salad, I can’t help but think, ‘What is the point of this? What does it all mean?!’ and I spend the rest of the evening in a deep depression.

My reaction to bad salads has ruined many dates. But not so with izakaya salads, which are delightful and invigorating, festive with colour and crunch and moreish, tangy dressings. This salad would ordinarily be made with daikon and mizuna (a mild but very crunchy salad leaf in the mustard family) and those would be ideal, if you can source them. Otherwise, the more readily available radishes and watercress are more than adequate substitutes; in fact, I love the extra colour and subtle bitterness they provide. Regardless of which you use, you’re in for a truly non-depressing salad.

SERVES 2-4 1 tbsp oil (optional) 15 g (1⁄2 oz) shirasu (baby anchovies) (optional); crispy fried onions are an excellent substitute 250 g (9 oz) radishes (watermelon radishes are ideal if you can get them) 50–60 g (2 oz) watercress, mizuna or other flavourful, crunchy greens 1⁄4 sheet of nori 5–6 tbsp Wafu Dressing (see below) 48

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OR THE FOLLOWING DRESSING: 2 tbsp vinegar 2 tbsp soy sauce 1⁄2 tbsp sugar 1 tsp lemon juice 1⁄4 tsp dashi powder or MSG METHOD If using the shirasu, pour the oil into a frying pan and set over a medium heat. Add the shirasu and stir-fry for about 5 minutes until light golden brown. Remove from the oil and drain on paper towels. Grate or julienne the radishes, then pile them on top of the watercress in a serving dish. If making the alternative dressing, mix all the ingredients together in a small bowl. Pour over your chosen dressing, then use scissors to snip the nori into very thin shreds on top of the salad. Garnish with the crispy shirasu,if using.

TIP This recipe calls for shirasu, which are itty-bitty baby fish. Real Japanese shirasu are very hard to find indeed, but you can get the Korean equivalent in the fridge or freezer section of most Asian supermarkets, usually labelled ‘baby anchovies’. But if you can’t get them at all, don’t worry – the salad will still be delicious without them, or you can replace them with crispy fried onions.

PAIR WITH Sake (any kind, really), dry white wine or iced barley tea.

Spicy Bulgur and Nut Salad from Claudia Roden’s Mediterranean

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Isaiah Martinez’s Doubles from Bryant Terry’s Black Food.

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reading corner WAFU DRESSING ‘Wafū’ means ‘Japanese-style’, and refers to a broad category of soy sauce-based dressings. The onion and ginger help thicken the sauce and provide a deliciously savoury aroma. For a lighter flavour, replace the sesame oil with vegetable oil or olive oil.

MAKES ABOUT 350 ML (1 21/4 FL OZ/1 1/2 CUPS), ENOUGH FOR AT LEAST 8 SMALL SALADS 1⁄4 small onion or 1⁄2 banana shallot 2 cm (3⁄4 in) piece of ginger root, peeled 100 ml (3 1⁄2 fl oz/scant 1⁄2 cup) soy sauce 100 ml (31⁄2 fl oz/scant 1⁄2 cup) mirin 100 ml (3 1⁄2 fl oz/scant 1⁄2 cup) rice vinegar 1 tbsp sesame oil 1 tbsp sesame seeds METHOD Finely grate the onion and ginger, and combine with all the other ingredients. Stir to combine, then, ideally, let it sit for 1–2 hours for all the flavours to come together. Alternatively, place everything in a blender and purée until the onion and ginger are broken down. Keep in a jar in the fridge for up to a month.

Recipes excerpted with permission Your Home Izakaya by Tim Anderson published by Hardie Grant, November, 2021.

Spicy Bulgur and Nut Salad This is a Syrian dish, and my family called it bazargan because all the ingredients could be bought at the spice bazaar in Aleppo. It is substantial and filling and also amazingly rich and tasty, with a variety of nuts, spices, and aromatics. It is easy to make for a lot of people, can be prepared in advance, and keeps perfectly well for days. There is also no cooking because bulgur is wheat that has been boiled, dried, and then “cracked” – it only needs soaking in boiling water, while all the aromatic ingredients are beaten together as a dressing.

Serve as a first course with Greek yogurt or labneh. It can be served in a large bowl or elegantly rolled into balls the size of a walnut and cupped in Little Gem lettuce leaves.

Serves 6 1½ cups / 250g bulgur 1⅔ cups / 395ml lightly salted boiling water 7 tbsp / 100ml mild extra-virgin olive oil 1½ tbsp pomegranate molasses salt juice of 2½ lemons ¼ cup / 65g tomato paste 1 to 1½ tbsp harissa or other hot pepper paste, to taste 1½ tsp ground cumin 1 tsp ground coriander ½ tsp ground allspice 1 cup / 100g walnuts, lightly toasted ¾ cup / 100g hazelnuts, lightly toasted 5 tbsp / 50g pistachios, lightly toasted 7 tbsp / 50g pine nuts, lightly toasted 1 large bunch flat-leaf parsley, leaves chopped pomegranate seeds for garnish (optional) Put the bulgur in a large bowl and pour the boiling water over it. Let soak for 30 minutes, until the grains are very tender. Stir occasionally

so that the water is absorbed evenly.

Combine the olive oil with the pomegranate molasses and season with salt. Add the lemon juice, tomato paste, harissa, cumin, coriander, and allspice and beat vigorously with a fork until well blended. Pour over the bulgur and mix very well. Taste and add more salt if necessary.

Coarsely chop the walnuts, hazelnuts, and pistachios. Add them to the bulgur, stir in the pine nuts and parsley; mix well. If you like, garnish with pomegranate seeds before serving.

Reprinted with permission from Claudia Roden’s Mediterranean: Treasured Recipes from a Lifetime of Travel by Claudia Roden, copyright © 2021. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Doubles

by Isaiah Martinez MAKES 10 SERVINGS Doubles, the most popular street food in Trinidad and Tobago, are my favorite dinner party entrée and hands down, the best version of a naturally vegan taco. I love them because of the warm spices and because their heavy filling can be lightened up when served as a taco or sandwich with a spicy herb sauce or sweet tangy sauce. They’re also very easy; you can make the bread and the curry mixture a day ahead and warm up the bread in the oven along with the chickpeas. This recipe is super forgiving and super delicious.

BARA 1⁄2 to 1 cup warm water 1⁄4 teaspoon sugar 1 teaspoon dry yeast 2 cups all-purpose flour 1⁄2 teaspoon kosher salt 1 teaspoon turmeric powder 1⁄2 teaspoon ground cumin 1⁄2 teaspoon ground black pepper Vegetable oil for frying FILLING 2 cups dried chickpeas, soaked overnight 1 tablespoon canola oil 1 onion, diced 3 garlic cloves, crushed 2 tablespoons curry powder 1 tablespoon ground cumin 1⁄2 pound small Yukon gold or new potatoes, peeled and quartered 1 small butternut squash, diced 1 Scotch bonnet chile, or 2 to 3 habanero chiles Salt and pepper to taste TAMARIND SAUCE 1⁄4 cup tamarind paste (fairly easy to find online or in a specialty grocery store) 1⁄2 cup jaggery or cane sugar CUCUMBER CHUTNEY 1 tablespoon hot pepper sauce (for authentic taste, buy a Caribbean pepper sauce) 1 cup grated cucumber Cane vinegar to taste @EdibleLAMag

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reading corner 4 sprigs of shado beni or cilantro, minced well TO MAKE THE BARA: In a medium bowl, mix the water with the sugar and yeast and let it get bubbly, 2 to 5 minutes. In a separate bowl, mix the flour with the seasonings. Fold the flour mixture into the yeast mixture and knead until it’s soft and smooth, 2 to 3 minutes.

Place the dough in an oiled bowl and set it in a warm area to rise until it’s double in size, 1 to 2 hours.

Separate the dough into ten portions, rolling each one into a ball, and then, on a floured surface, flatten each to a ¼-inch thickness.

Fill a cast-iron skillet halfway with the oil. Heat until the oil reaches 350°F on a candy thermometer, then drop in the bara and cook for 1 minute on each side. They will puff up slightly. Remove the baras from the oil with a slotted spoon and place on paper towels.

TO MAKE THE FILLING: Rinse the soaked chickpeas well, then drain. Add the chickpeas to a large pot, cover with fresh water, and bring to a boil. Cook the chickpeas until just tender, then drain off most of the liquid, reserving enough to just cover the beans.

In a large deep skillet, add the oil, onion, garlic, curry, and cumin and toast until fragrant on medium-low heat for 5 to 10 minutes, then turn off the heat. Add the potatoes and squash to the skillet, coating the ingredients in the curry mixture, then deglaze with the reserved bean liquid, making sure the ingredients are covered. Add the chile (keep whole). Simmer on low heat until all of the ingredients are tender, 30 to 45 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. This filling always tastes better the next day.

TO MAKE THE SAUCE: Gently warm the tamarind paste in a saucepan, adding the sugar and ¼ cup water at a time, until the sugar has dissolved, being careful not to reduce it; this shouldn’t take longer than 5 minutes.

noodles per person (you can also cook them in the broth, but be careful of overcooking).

In bowls, put a ladleful of broth, plus noodles and the seasoned chicken. Garnish each bowl with chopped scallions. (page 119) My basic approach to making any kind of chicken soup is this: Fill a pot with enough water to cover the whole chicken, and add salt to taste (you’re not salting pasta water here, so don’t overdo it). Add the chicken, making sure it is fully submerged and adding more water as necessary. Bring to a boil, and let boil—if you cover the pot, make sure to watch it to prevent it from boiling over—until the chicken is cooked (usually about 45 minutes). I know the chicken is done when I can easily pull the meat off the bone and the skin from the drumstick is breaking away from the bone at the end.

Then take the chicken out, let it cool for a few minutes, and pick off the meat (or break down the chicken into bone-in pieces). Put the carcass back in (if you want a clear broth, don’t return the chicken carcass to the pot; add the skin, or don’t—it’s a matter of personal preference), along with your seasonings and aromatics. Lower to a simmer, cover, and keep cooking until you can really taste the flavor of the broth. Then take the carcass out, and add the picked chicken meat to the broth.

Reprinted from Cooking At Home Copyright © 2021 by David Chang and Priya Krishna. Photographs copyright © 2021 by Horatio Baltz.

Illustrations copyright © 2021 by Stanley Chow. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Random House.

Tofu Pudding Drowned in Muscovado Syrup

Cool the sauce and serve at room temperature or cold.

TO MAKE THE CHUTNEY: Mix the pepper sauce and cucumber.

Season with the vinegar. Add the herbs last and mix well. (Don’t add salt because it will break down faster that way.)

TO SERVE: Place a bara on a plate, spoon some chickpeas over it, and top with the tamarind sauce and chutney.

Chicken Noodle Soup I Make the Most Serves 4 This is a go-to because it doesn’t take a ton of ingredients for a lot of flavor.

Once the chicken is cooked, season the picked chicken meat (page 119) while it is still warm—this allows it to absorb more of the seasoning—with toasted sesame oil, salt, black pepper, and soy sauce.

Set aside. Add the chicken carcass (or not, if you don’t want the extra hassle or a cloudy broth), fish sauce, black pepper, Shaoxing wine, and dried shiitakes to the broth, and let simmer for 20 or 30 minutes, until the broth is super flavorful. Remove the carcass once the broth is done.

In a separate pot of boiling water, cook a couple ounces of any 52

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“laho! The street vendor makes us stop whatever we re doing and we beeline to his call. He ladles the delicate silken tofu into little cups, pours over the luscious brown sugar syrup called arnibal, then adds the finishing glimmering pearls. At IO pesos a pop, it’s a simple pleasure tor an afternoon merenda (snack), as a drink-cum-dessert, or even tor breakfast on the way to work. Chinese in origin, taho, derived from Hokkien tau hau, was once made with medicinal ginkgo seeds and chilli water, but with time in the Philippines it became replaced with local sweet flavours: sun-drenched muscovado sugar and tapioca and sago balls. Much like bubble tea in other part: of the world, tho comes in a kaleidoscope of colours today, like Baguio strawberry red and bright purple ube, but I love the cassic here.

SERVES 4-6 TAHO 1 tablespoon oolong tea leaves 250 ml (1 cup) boiling water 220 g (1 cup) muscovado or darb Drown sugar 100 g (3½ oz) black sugar tapioca pearls or regular tapioca pearls 250 g (9 oz) silken tofu, drained METHOD

The Chicken Noodle Soup I Make the Most from Cooking at Home.

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Place the tea leaves and boiling water in a small saucepan and steer for 5 minutes. Strain the liquid. discarding the leaves, then return the tea to the pan. Add the sugar and bring to the boil over high heat, surning to dissolve the sugar. Keduce the heat to medium and cook for 8 minutes or until slightly syrupy. Remove trom the heat.

Meanwhile, bll a saucepan three-quarters full with water and bring to the boil over high heat. Add the tapioca pearls and cook according to the packet instructions until tender. Drain, under cold running water, then add to the sugar syrup.

Meanwhile, carefully place the tofu in a steamer set over a saucepan of boiling water and cook for 5 minutes or until warmed through.

Remove from the heat.

Transfer the tofu to serving bowls, then pour over the syrup mixture and tapioca pearls. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Sesame Snickerdoodles The perfect snickerdoodle is wrinkly, with very crispy edges but a soft and chewy center. This version, made with tahini and sesame seeds, borders on the savory-sweet territory that I love so much. Personally, I like to up the salt to ¾ teaspoon and even add a touch of freshly ground black pepper, but I kept a conservative amount of salt in the ingredient list and left the black pepper out here. I encourage you to try it for a cookie that has a slight floral spice to it. As always with cookies of this kind, be sure not to overbake or you will miss out on the chewy center.

MAKES 16 COOKIES 6 tablespoons (85 g) unsalted butter or dairy-free butter, at room temperature ¼ cup (65 g) well-stirred tahini ½ cup (100 g) plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided ¼ cup (50 g) light brown sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 large egg ¾ cup (105 g) sorghum flour ¼ cup (40 g) potato starch ¼ cup (25 g) almond flour 1 teaspoon cream of tartar ½ teaspoon baking soda ½ teaspoon kosher salt ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon, divided 2 tablespoons raw white sesame seeds 1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, tahini, ½ cup (100 g) of the sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla for 3 minutes on medium speed, or until very light and airy.

Add the egg and beat for another 2 minutes.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the sorghum flour, potato starch, almond flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, and ¼ teaspoon of the cinnamon. Add to the mixer bowl and beat on medium speed until the dough is very smooth and airy, about 30 seconds. Put the mixer bowl in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.

3. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

4. In a small sauté pan, toast the sesame seeds over medium heat until light golden brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Be careful not to burn 54

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Above: Tofu Drowned in Muscovado Syrup from Under Coconut Skies

them—they go from light golden brown to dark fairly quickly, so keep an eye on them. Transfer to a small bowl to cool, then stir in the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar and ½ teaspoon cinnamon.

5. Scoop 1½-tablespoon mounds of dough and roll in the sesame seed mixture. Place on the baking sheets, leaving 3 inches of space between. I am able to fit 6 cookies on each sheet.

6. Bake for 8 to 9 minutes, until the cookies are light golden brown, the tops have cracked, and the edges are crispy. The centers should stay soft as they firm up while cooling. Cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, or until you can lift the cookies without them falling apart. Finish baking the remaining dough. The cookies will keep for 3 days in an airtight container. ©2021 by Aran Goyoaga. Excerpted from Cannelle et Vanille Bakes Simple: A New Way to Bake Gluten-Free by permission of Sasquatch Books. ■

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Sesame Snickerdoodles from Cannelle Et Vanille

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the last bite

Kampachi with Ali’i Mushrooms INTRO BY LISA ALEXANDER PHOTOGRAPH PROVIDED BY MAUNA LANI

O

n the Big Island, Canoe House is about as iconic as you can get. One of the star attractions of the Mauna Lani, an Auberge Resorts Collection property, it was originally helmed by the legendary Alan Wong. Now it’s run by Chef Matt Raso and his lovely wife, Yuka, who met working at one of Nobu’s first restaurant kitchens. The food at Canoe House is a heady fusion of Japanese and Hawaiian, using ingredients sourced from the volcanic soils and clear warm seas close to home. On a recent trip, Edible LA was wowed the by Matt’s kampachi fish, subtle and tender inside, with a salty-dashi-crispy skin. Don’t be put off by the Japanese ingredients, easily procured online, on Sawtelle, or in many of our more upscale markets. Kampachi is Hawaiian yellowtail, farmed off the Kona Coast in innovative and sustainable practice, but yellowtail will do just as well.

Ingredients for the dashi (Fish Stock): 500 ml water 2-inch piece of kombu (seaweed) 50 grams dried shaved bonito 1 bottle yuzu kosho 50 ml soy sauce 1 tbsp katakuriko (potato starch) 1 tbsp water for the fish: 8 oz skin-on fillet of Kampachi (or yellowtail) 1/2 lb of Ali’i mushrooms (or Oyster mushrooms) olive oil Instructions

simmer—145F—then remove kombu and raise the heat to a simmer, Add the bonito flake and simmer for 2-3 minutes, then remove form the heat and allow to steep for minimum 30 minutes. Strain through fine mesh sieve or cheese cloth.

Return the dashi to the stove and bring to a simmer, adding 1 tsp yuzu kosho and soy sauce.

Place equal parts of the starch and water in a small bowl and mix into a slurry. Stir into the pot and allow to thicken. for the fish: Season with salt, pepper and a liberal amount of olive oil. Broil on high for 6-8 mins ,skin side up, until crispy.

Saute the mushrooms in olive oil as well. Arrange mushrooms and fish, pour Dashi over both, and enjoy. •

for the dashi: In a sauce pot add water and kombu and bring to just below @EdibleLAMag

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