Urban Honking

Date: August 18, 2011 Location: Saraveza Present: Josh Berezin, Mike Merrill   JB: Ooh, they have Racer X on tap today. Oh, wait, it’s “Racer IV” from Bear Republic. It’s an IPA. I won’t get that, cause you won’t like it. MM: What is with the obsession with hops? JB: It’s not an obsession! MM […]

Date: August 18, 2011 Location: Saraveza Present: Josh Berezin, Mike Merrill   JB: Ooh, they have Racer X on tap today. Oh, wait, it’s “Racer IV” from Bear Republic. It’s an IPA. I won’t get that, cause you won’t like it. MM: What is with the obsession with hops? JB: It’s not an obsession! MM […]

Above, behold a sweet and condensed version of how we blazed for Fourth of July. East L.A. taco gutter-style. (Thanks Ian!) That’s chapter one. Now skip ahead. This Sunday we are hickory-smoking, deep-batter-crispety-crunchety-frying, and saucing the ever loving shit out of anything, or anyone, who gets in our way. Yes, it’s our annual Backyard BBQ […]

You’re staring down the rabbit hole of our “Psycedelic Rice” recipe. Just know that this photo is nowhere near as trippy as the one that made the cut, but you see where it’s going… You will “tie-dye” your roasted beets and make a gremalata out of kiwi and habaneros. The Romanesco broc floret garnish is […]

Making a grilled cheese sandwich look ‘buy-this-book-now’ amazing is sometimes harder than grilling one. We took two takes on our Belgian Onion Soup Sandwich. Above is the first that got vetoed. And here’s the second one that made the cut. Both are melty and scarf-able, but ultimately we voted down that sprinkling of scallion tips […]

Does soaking spices in alcohol count as a recipe? Sure does! We’ve had great success with booze-infused peppercorns and wanted to showcase ’em in the book. But how to visualize? Pepper sitting in a brown liquid could be anything after all. Brand or no brand? First time we shot this, we opted for a little […]

If it’s good luck when a lady bug lands on you, when it lands on your artichoke during a photo shoot it must mean something more. This speckled damsel alighted on an in-progress thistle inspection and was quickly snapped into eternity by Amanda. Hopefully Mrs. Dot(com) flew on to bless a few other heathens that […]

This is when it got real. Getting a morning email with this photo and recipe for our “Citrus y Cebollas” salad laid out by our designer Jen is when we nearly shit ourselves realizing this book was gonna look as sick & slick as any food porn on the news stands. Coming from the school […]

And now for something completely different: a photo that made it nowhere near the book! Raw asparagus spears soaked in blood… orange juice (with toasted walnuts and herb chevre balls) is a dish we made years ago for the blog; recreated for the LA Times test kitchen; and we wanted to go back to the […]

This is how our Saturday morning ritual starts. Bee-line it through the farmers market, performing an obligatory price-check out of the corner of our eye, but headed straight for the Cafecito Organico stand for liquid concentration (espresso). Shooting this last February, Amanda got a nice wisp of steam coming off a pull of their Kenya-Ethiopia-Ecuador […]