So I know I haven't been the best about keeping this blog up to date. Chalk it up to an unpredictable, busy schedule(the one aside from cooking)! When you only have so many hours in the day and spend most of them working, the first thing you feel like doing when you get home is not laboring over a hot stove.
Especially in this heat. It is hot. I am happily soaking in every ray of sunshine in my first summer in Los Angeles. Every passing breeze helps fade the memory of summer peacoats in San Francisco and other northern oxymorons (June heating bill?).
But if I am not cooking, I am eating. Korean doenjang jiggae over rice, wood fired pizza from GTA on Abbot Kinney (just opened five weeks ago), juicy burgers at City Tavern, porchetta sandwiches with pickled cauliflower from Mendocino Farms, organic watermelon and produce from Tanaka Farms, salted fish fried rice in Orange County, homemade sardine bruschetta from Mike. Whatever happened to my fear of not finding good food in LA? Crazy thoughts.
I'm also watching the plants on my balcony grow and grow--the tallest tomato plant is about my height, the Japanese peppers are forming, and the mixed greens are almost ready to snip. And tbere is still shopping--or in my case, window-shopping: I eye stone fruits with envy, wishing I could eat them raw. The summer weather makes me crave cold, juicy, and ripe things, things I cannot have.
It is becoming apparent to me that I slightly prefer eating to cooking. I'm not a calculating cook; I don't dissect recipes or take careful note of my technique. Recipes are a means to an end, and as soon as I finish one dish, I am thinking of the next. I should really be more thoughtful.
Anyway, here I find myself, thick in summer, by the beach, feeling warm and content. And with that, I am off to (what else) eat.
P.S. WCP got a shout-out in Serious Eats' Share Your Sweets slideshow! Nothing exclusive, but I found it funny to see my words through another filter.
P.P.S. Up next - my stab at strawberry jam. And, I hope, my attempt at this adaptation of a rosemary bean dip from Heidi Swanson's new book, Super Natural Every Day. Thanks to my friend Phoebe for thoughtfully recommending the recipe(s) to me! :D
