Extraordinary Sushi Every Day at sugarFISH!

"You up for an early dinner?" was texted to my cell phone.

My response...

Always.

So we headed to sugarFISH for a girls' night out to catch up over a nice sushi dinner.

We were one of the first patrons of the evening and had our pick of tables.

With one look at the menu, I knew I had to have the "Trust Me" dinner that started with edamame and tuna sashimi with ponzo sauce and scallions. Then came the albacore and salmon sushi, the yellowtail and halibut sushi, and the above toro hand roll.

The warm crab hand roll finished off a wonderfully delicious omakase set. So much so that I ordered a second one for dessert.

Next time, I'll go for The "Nozawa."

sugarFISH brentwood by sushiNozawa
street: 11640 W. San Vicente Blvd | Los Angeles, CA 90049
tel: 1.310.820.4477
hrs: M-Sat 11.30am to 10pm | Sun 12 to 9pm
www.sugarfishsushi.com

*Note: Tax and tip are included in the bill.

On a Sunday Afternoon (in Downtown LA)

A couple of weekends ago, we decided to drive downtown to check out MoCA's First Thirty Years collection. So on a beautiful sunny Sunday morning, we drove out to Bunker Hill and parked at a meter. (Sundays are free parking days if you find a metered spot!)

We walked up to "Tom's favorite spot" that became Summer's too, and I enjoyed it as well.

A quick walk up to Grand and we spent an hour at MOCA, loving the interactive Chocolate Room and the Four Corner Piece from the 1940-1980 installation.

And with museum ticket in hand, we hopped on the free Dash shuttle that took us to The Geffen and continued the collection.

Right next door was also the Giant Robot exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum.

We stopped in and enjoyed the art exhibition of Giant Robot's Asian pop culture focus.

But all the museum going made us hungry. What better way than to stop and have lunch at Little Tokyo's Daikokuya.

Lucky for us, we put our names down before a crowd of people after us and only had to wait about 5 minutes to be seated.

We ordered the pork fried rice which was a nice compliment to the Daikokuya ramen.

A great way to spend a Sunday in Downtown LA!

Angels Flight

Bunker Hill, Los Angeles

MOCA's First 30 Years Exhibit

1940-1980 at MOCA Grand, 1980-Now at The Geffen Contemporary

www.moca.org

Japanese American National Museum

369 East First Street | Los Angeles, CA 90012
tel: 1.213.625.0414

www.janm.org

Giant Robot

www.giantrobot.com

Daikokuya

327 E. 1st Street | Los Angeles, CA 90012
tel: 1.213.626.1680

www.daikoku-ten.com

The Great Chocolate Chip Bake-Off

I love my work. And I love my coworkers who love to eat, who love to bake and cook, and who organize bake-offs and cook-offs throughout the year.

Last Christmas, we had our annual cookie exchange sans chocolate chip cookies. Somehow, some way, they were banned from our exchange.

Thus, the Great Chocolate Chip Bake-Off.

Ten different cookies. One dollar to taste and judge. Winner takes all (and gets to decide which charity to donate the proceeds).

I made Traditional Chocolate Chip Cookies, about 60 of them:

Ingredients:

+ 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

+ 1/2 tsp salt

+ 1 tsp baking soda

+ 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened at room temp

+ 1 cup light brown sugar, packed

+ 1/2 cup granulated sugar

+ 2 large eggs

+ 1 tsp vanilla extract

+ 1 tsp brewed coffee (from my morning cup)

+ 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Made sure I had the upper and lower racks in place; then heated oven to 375 degrees.
2. Whisked flour, salt, and baking soda in medium bowl; set aside.
3. Using BB, creamed butter and sugars together until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes at medium speed. Scraped sides with spatula, and added eggs, vanilla and coffee. Beat them all together until combined, about 40 seconds. Scraped sides of bowl again.
4. Added dry ingredients and beat at low speed until just combined, 20-30 seconds. Then, stirred in chocolate chips.
5. Lined two cookie sheets with parchment paper and dropped batter by tablespoons, spacing them about 2 inches apart.
6. Baked, reversing position of cookie sheets halfway through (from top to bottom and front to back), until golden brown and outer edges began to crisp, 8-10 minutes. Cooled cookies on sheets for 1-2 minutes before transferring to cooling racks.

Thin and crisp around the edges, but soft and caramel-like with each bite. I didn't win the trophy for best chocolate chip cookie, but from the number of votes received, this cookie's definitely a keeper!

Locali: Conscious Convenience foods

Last summer, I read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. And I never looked at food quite the same way as I did before.

I started taking a look at where things were grown, how things were packaged, and what labels were saying about the foods I purchased. I started to wish I lived somewhere with space to grow my own fruits and vegetables.

My mother-in-law's beautifully tended garden is enviable, and my childhood is filled with memories of picking from my grandparents' rows of homegrown tomatoes, cucumbers, and green beans every year.

But alas, we live in a small space with no room for a garden these days.

Instead, we head to the local grocery stores and the occasional farmers' market. And every so often, lunch from Locali on Franklin satisfies my conscious.

Locali is a deli counter slash corner shop that sells local and organic foods (along with other "conscious convenience" sundries). Their sandwiches are made to order, and they offer a number of them that are hot or cold.

My sandwich of choice is the Franklin Phenomenon - turkey, monterey jack, spinach, tomato and red onion slathered with chipotle sauce on pretzel bread. The warm sandwich is full of unexpected flavors and each bite has a nice kick from the spicy spread.

It's often difficult to find a parking spot in the small lot that Locali shares with the other shops on the street front, so call ahead for a delivery if you're in the neighborhood. A special note on deliveries - food is bicycled to your door.

That's definitely food for the soul!

Barbara Kingsolver's

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

www.animalvegetablemiracle.com

Locali: Conscious Convenience
street: 5825 Franklin Ave | Los Angeles, CA 90028
tel: 1.323.466.1360
web: www.localiyours.com
open 7 days | 7a-11p

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup with Leftovers

You just don't want to leave the house. It's pouring rain and it's just downright scary to hear the thunder roar just outside your door.

So you turn to the fridge to see what you can make to calm the nerves, to warm the soul, and to get you through...

I had one chicken breast in the freezer, lots of frozen veggies, and some leftover ingredients from my inspired stew from earlier this week.

Chicken Noodle Soup sounded good. But I'd never made that before, and MS wasn't going to be back in LA for another day. I couldn't just send him out for the right ingredients or take-out.

A google search of recipes called for chicken broth; all I had was beef bouillon - so I boiled six cups of water with six dark little cubes, and threw in a bay leaf, a dash of rosemary and the chicken chopped up into big chunks for almost 20 minutes. After the chicken was fully cooked, I placed them aside to cool.

The half onion left over was chopped and sauteed with some olive oil, smashed garlic clove, a dash of salt, a little more pepper, a sprinkle of crushed red pepper, and a shake of rosemary. Then I tossed in about a cup and a half of frozen carrots, peas, corn and green beans. Everything went into the pot of stock.

Then in the same pan, I cooked the quartered mushrooms in 2 Tbsp of unsalted butter with chopped thyme leaves (about two sprigs worth). Into the pot the little morsels went.

Heated a little bit of olive oil to toss the chicken that I made into smaller chunks with a chopped up Roma tomato left in the crisper, a dash of ground ginger, a shake of seasoned pepper and regular ground pepper too. Browned chicken and tomatoes, then squeezed in the juice of one small lemon picked from a neighbor's hanging tree, and dumped it all into the growing pot.

My leftover rice (about a cup or so) and a hand full of dried pasta went into the simmering pot for another 7-9 minutes with half a cup of chopped fresh parsley and just a bit of finely grated lemon rind.

Topped with chopped parsley, and I had my very first bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup!

*Note: If you have leftovers, like I do, be sure to separate the broth from the rest of the goodies... or you'll have a big gloop of mush the next morning.