My coworker brought everybody a pumpkin cheesecake. I returned the knife and said thank you.

My favorite thing to eat on Main St:

Chimichurri steak and salad at The Nickel.

Pho!

I ate some of the best tofu pho I have ever had in my whole entire life. It was at this vietnamese place (I forgot the name) at the University Village by UCR.

Collards

I am really into eating collard greens these days. I read somewhere that early humans used to eat a lot of raw collard greens. I do not know where I came across that, so do not quote me on that. I like to eat them raw, and I like to eat them lightly boiled and then sauteed with salt, garlic and black pepper. I have been told that my collard greens come out too bitter to be edible. I love the taste that way.

Collard greens. Good for the immune system.

Grilled artichoke from Kate Mantilini's

What I've Been Eating Lately

Some apple pastry from Banquette.

What I've Been Eating Recently

When I first started blogging about what I eat, I envisioned documenting eating what I eat at home as well. After looking through all of my "What I've Been Eating Recently" entries, I noticed that I mostly document what I've been eating out.



The Significant Other (TSA) made omelettes with shitake mushrooms and cotswald cheese the other day. Its one of my favorite kind of omelettes to eat. Those are chives sprinkled on top.

What I've Been Eating Recently XV

Ceviche!
La Cascada, University Ave., Riverside

(However, I like the taste of this ceviche better.)

What I've Been Eating Recently XIV

Arugula, challah and carrot juice.

No I am not on a silly diet. This is what I ate for breakfast the other day. I am not usually that hungry in the morning so I don't eat that much for breakfast.

One of my favorite leafy greens to eat is arugula. I usually get a bag of arugula from Trader Joe's ($1.50-$2.00. Sometimes when I walk pass the fridge, I get a fistfull of arugula and shove it in my mouth.

Arugula grows well in backyards. My parents used to grow some a few years back.

My Matzo Ball Soup

The matzo ball soup I made has been reviewed by Big City POZ.

You can read his... adjectives fail me... review here.

I love how I can still be shocked.

What I've Been Eatly Recently XIII

One of my favorite Mexican places to eat in downtown is at Marisco's Ensenada, a medium sized restaurant in the Alexandria Hotel.

Fish Ceviche.



Guacamole.



A close up of the most perfect looking slice of lime I have ever seen.

How to... Make Matzo Ball Soup

I first mentioned making matzo ball soup in this recent post. Here is now I made it...

Ingredients:

carrots
celery
parsley
chicken stock of some sort (from a can, box, bouillion cube, etc.)
baby dill (to garnish)
garlic
black pepper
Matzo meal (out of a box)

Pictured above: a box of matzo meal

I do not know what the differences between the various brands of matzo meal mix, but my personal preference is Manischewitz simply because of familiarity sake. Oh, and something some of my readers may find annoying about my recipe style, I just make shit up as I go along. I do not really measure anything and I just add until it "tastes good enough". There are some drawbacks to cooking like this, but its how I do things in the kitchen, because I just can't get away with doing this in a science lab.

First, start heating up the water in the pot and add in however much chicken broth, black pepper and garlic you want. Don't look at me, its your soup! If you are making matzo ball soup for somebody who is sick with a cold or the flu, add a lot of black pepper, it helps clear up the sinuses. While the broth is heating up, you can use this time to chop up however many carrots, celery and parsley you want to add. I typically do thick slices of the carrots and celery and merely tear up the parsley with my hands out of laziness. Whatever size they end up being was out of apathy. I typically avoid adding in parsley stems, but very few often tend to sneak in.

When the broth starts to boil, add in the vegetables. Not sure why exactly, I think I may have read it somewhere but I can't cite my sources on that.



While the broth is heating up, use this time to make the matzo balls. Just follow the instructions on the box. But in short, in a large bowl, mix in eggs, vegetable oil, and the matzo meal with a fork. The instructions on the box will not tell you to mix in some parsley and garlic. But I do. Then you will get something that looks like this:



After you have evenly mixed the matzo meal and other ingredients, let the bowl sit in the refrigerator for 20 minutes. This helps the flavor set in, and the matzo meal firm up a little before making them into balls.

If you are concerned about overdoing the garlic, just add the garlic to the matzo balls or the broth. Otherwise you risk making the soup inedible to the person you are making it for who isn't into intense garlic flavors then you have to water it down and you may risk accidently watering it down too much.

And with wet hands, dig in and start making balls about an inch in diameter thick. -Or so, thats what the instructions on the box say. I made them anywhere from 1-3 inches in diameter. Keep in mind that the balls will swell about... oh... I say... maybe 30% of its volume after its been sitting in the broth for a while?


My arm looks way hairier in that picture than it does in real life.

Set each finished matzo ball on a clean flat surface, until you get a little army of 'em in laying down in rows. I forgot to take a picture of what this would look like. When you are done, then start to quickly put them in so that they can all start cooking roughly around the same time. At first they matzo balls will sink when you put them in the soup, and then they will rise to the top about a minute later.

If the water is boiling at this point (make sure it is when you start putting in the matzo balls), they should be ready to eat in about 15-20 minutes at the earliest. But I would recommend about 45 minutes so that the matzo balls can absorb the surrounding flavor of the broth.


This is a good example on how to unevenly cook your matzo balls. So make sure you keep an eye on 'em and stir.

I personally like to let them simmer with low heat for about an hour or so before eating. After you serve yourself a bowl of soup, garnish with some baby dill. I forgot to take a picture of the final product in a bowl.


Advice for vegetarians: Instead of chicken stock, add a ton of vegetable stock. Let me know how it tastes because I never tried it.
Advice for vegans: Maybe vegetable oil is sufficient to make the mazto meal stick? I kind of doubt it. But if you figured something out that works let me know.

Recipe to cover someday: masa ball soup, sephardic chicano style.

What I've Been Eating Recently XII

Bean, rice and cheese burrito with red sauce from La Cascada on University Ave in Riverside. I must say, this is one of the best burritos of this kind I have ever had.

Proyecto Matzo Ball Soup

The Significant Other (TSO) has a really bad cold. So the other day I made TSO matzo ball soup. Its just what we do when somebody is sick.

I had to go to a local grocery store to get the ingredients. I decided to walk to Ralph's, even though that is not where I do my regular grocery shopping. Its a 45 minute walk (it could be a looong walk if you are carrying heavy groceries), and the few times I have been there, I ALWAYS (100% of the time) had problems with exiting the parking garage and validation system. I regularly shop at Trader Joe's in Silverlake, or farmer's markets. But I'll leave that for another post.

I headed towards Ralph's with no specfic route in mind. I was just making it up as I went along.










Around Grand and 8th St some guy struck up a conversation with me about the architecture in downtown, adaptive reuse, sexual harassment in downtown, and digital photography. We parted ways when we got to Ralph's. Here he is walking and talking:



As soon as I got to Ralph's I needed to rest a little and get a caffeine fix. So I sat down outside, and did a combination of people watching, and prepared my lecture on the catalytic hydrogenation of olefins with a Pd catalyst.




Then I went back inside to do some shopping. Hey, did you know that Ralph's carries the best apples I have ever eaten in my whole entire life? I always stock up on them whenever I go.




Its the pink lady apples in the organic section. Hey, its neighbor Joe getting some!




I saw this guy with an interesting shirt, and asked him if I could take a picture of it:




Then some guy standing nearby said I should take a picture of his shirt too. Then I said "OK!", because I love photographing Angelenos. He was joking and didn't realize I would take him up on it. But I smiled pretty and took one anyway. He was self conscious about the smudge on the upper right of his shirt. I wonder what that dude in the tie in the background is thinking?



I got all the ingredients I needed for the mazto ball soup (carrots, celery, matzo ball mix, chicken stock, eggs, garlic, parsley, baby dill) and then headed home. On my way back I walked passed a film crew packing up their stuff and saw a pretty bouquette and took a picture of it.




This one masculine film crew guy noticed me taking a picture of it. He playfully picked up the bouquette, and posed a kissy face for the camera. I live for this kind of stuff.

What I've Been Eating Recently XI

I was hanging out on the porch of Banquette with Ed and Pamela the other day (a different day from the day we were talking about where Barack should eat if/when he comes to town), and I noticed the guy next to us was eating something that smelled really good.:



We started chatting about what he was eating and he said that it was amazing and that he was enjoying it very much.

So Ed ordered one and we split it. He photographed it. And I photographed him photographing it.




Those are his cigarettes and camera. Characteristic items of The Old Vato On the Porch on Main St.



It was a mixture of mushrooms and cheese (forgot the kind of cheese) encased in bread. It was extremely good and I haven't seen them carry it ever since! -Monica May if you are reading this..... pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase please start carrying them again. They are much loved by your customers!


And here is Diana, the creator of the wonderful thing we just ate, taking a cigarette break:

Where in LA Should Barack Obama Eat?

Ed, Pamela and I were hanging out at Banquette last night and were talking about Hilary eating Mexican food with Antonio at King Taco the other day.

If Barack comes to town, where would be a good place for Eric Garcetti to take him to eat that will impress Angelenos?

Ed said any old street hot dog vendor in downtown. That might work, but some of his people might advise him to not ea anything phallic with so many cameras around or something that can drip on him and get his cloths dirty.

I am torn between:

a) Tamales Liliana's (My favorite place to eat Mexican food east of the River. They have two locations, one on Cesar Chavez Blvd. -I used to eat regularly at their other location on Cesar Chavez Blvd when I used to work by there. And the other location is on 1st St.),

b) Pink's Hot Dog on Fairfax Ave (I think that place is waaaaaay over rated, but I am curious to see what would happen if he had to stand in that long ass line.)

c) The Sunday farmers' market in Hollywood or some other farmer's market. (Because farmers' markets are just plain fun... and the one in Hollywood is one of my favorites).

d) Something else.

What do think?



[Edited note: Even though he probably shouldn't eat a hot dog, Pinks came to mind because of the extremely long line. That being said, I probably should have mentioned The Pantry instead of Pinks.]

What I've Been Eating Recently X

My favorite place to eat Ethiopian food is at Rosalind's on Fairfax Ave in Little Ethiopia(actually, its tied with Industry and Jazz in Culver City). This is their vegetarian platter:



They have the best collard greens I have ever had. If you decide to go and have never eaten Ethiopian food, be careful about eating their tasty bread called injera; it is spongy and will unexpectedly expand in your stomach after a short while (it sounds worse than it is, don't let my warning discourage you, its nothing like that stomach explosion scene from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.)

Which grocery stores in LA carry collard greens? I haven't been able to find one.

What I've Been Eating Recently VIII

Whenever I go to the Farmer's Market on Fairfax and 3rd, I almost eat at The Banana Leaf, a restaurant there that sells Singapore food. One of my favorite things to eat there is their rojak salad. It has cucumber, some leafy greens I can't identify, peanut butter, tamarind, vinegar, tofu and bean sprouts. This is one of my favorite salads I have ever eaten.

What I've Been Eating Recently VIII

Chocolate Milk Boba at Boba Cafe on University Ave. Even though my digestive system doesn't like to process milk... sometimes Boba is worth the diarrhea.

Errands

I had to do a few errands around downtown the other day, (i)go to a Japanese market in Little Tokyo to get some dried seaweed and (ii) go to Grand Central Market to get some nopales and plantains.

As I was walking to Little Tokyo from the Historic Core, I made the decision to get a bike. I have safety concerns about riding a bike in LA, but fuck it I'll just ride on the sidewalk. It would have saved me a considerable amount of travel time. I didn't want to take my scooter because I didn't want to schlep it around inside the stores, and the chain that I use to chain it to bike posts was accidently left at work.

I don't have a place to put it in my place (yet). I wish we had more bike racks in my neighborhood. -Heck, all over the city for that matter.

Anyway, so I was walking up Main St on my way to the office depot in Little Tokyo. I passed by this man standing by a phone booth. He asked me if I can take a picture of him with City Hall in the background. He looks as though he may have been standing there for a while looking for somebody to take a picture of him. I told him I will do it only if he would let me take a picture of him.

So he let me take a picture of him:



I have been wanting to take pictures of people I see in the streets for YEARS. I just never had the audacity to just do it without asking, or to ask them and then do it. Its just so awkward. At most I have just been taking pictures of people's feet and legs in the subway:






Or the backs of unsuspecting people from the back of the bus:




Or their refection (in addition to the backs of their heads):




Or unsuspecting people waiting for the subway:




Or photos of people I intentionally take while I am pretending to fiddle with my camera:




But for now on, whenever somebody asks me for something when I am out and about, whether it be for change, directions, the time, etc. They will have to let me take a picture of them otherwise they get jack shit from me.

On my way to that Japanese market in that pedestrian walk way between 1st and 2nd street, I came across a musician named Greg Walsh playing the shamisen



He had a gathering of women over the age of 70 around him sort of dancing their upper torso while sitting and he was just simply awesome. I bought his CD for a reasonable $5.

On my way back to the historic core I saw some guy on 3rd St riding a rather unusual bike:



It looks uncomfortable. I would have asked if I could try it if I wasn't wearing a skirt. That is simply the worse way to travel on wheels if you are wearing a skirt.

I ran into Ricky The Pirate and he let me take several photos of him. I'll do a post later of all the pictures that I took. I think he is quite photogenic.



I then went to grand central market to buy some nopales and plantains.





Then I went home to make cooked plantains, nopales with tomato and wild mushrooms.

A future post will be on how to make this favorite nopales dish of mine.