Homegirl Cafe

In the midst of the thin sheen of sweat that tax day inspired yesterday, I had the chance to pause and stop for lunch with G at Homegirl. It was a nice respite in a storm of stress which included driving six different freeways to pick up, sign off on and deliver taxes for signatures for all our various accounts. I'm so OVER filing more than one return. Anyway, we made a quick left near Phillipe's and opted for Homegirl Cafe which was crowded and warm and just great. The staff are rough around the edges and after a brief yelling exchange over whose table was who's... we were treated to lovely service. The staff knows their stuff and the menu is yummy. We started with guacamole with roasted pineapple that was not overly sweet and pineapple aqua fresca, great sandwiches, and fish tacos and finished with their fabulous coffee, which is roasted with orange peel and cinnamon. I asked about the various salad dressings and our waitress brought me two cute carafes so I could try both. You can sit near a window and watch the trains cruise in and out of the China Town station, kinda perfect to entertain train loving kids. The bakery is formidable too and worth a look, especially the Mexican chocolate cookies. And the art and decor are modern and elegant, without being stuffy. It's a great place for lunch and I'm excited to go back with my little homegirl.

Good Girl Dinette Opening...

I've been working on a PR release for this fabulous new restaurant... Click on the release to see it in all it's glory. What a total blast... I wrote the release, created a list of contacts and sent individual notes to folks like Daily Candy, LAist, EatLA... The responses were fast and fun and nearly overwhelming.

Ow... ow... ow... Jitlada Hurts So Good

Sometimes LA seems like a small city and it's hard know it, really know it unless, you study hard, have a gaggle of adventurous friends, and/or are willing to try anything. And by anything I mean a southern style Thai restaurant in a mini-mall in Thai town. Low ceiling, family feel, warm but busy servers and a menu so long and crazy it's impossible to do it justice unless you studied it for hours. You just have to go with it. I tried Jitlada's food at the Jonathan Gold, Gold Standard event this year. Handed a plate of the hot, hot rice salad and Khrua Gling, dry beef curry, I dug in and Mark said I squealed. I don't remember squealing... I just remember this burst of flame in my mouth and then an explosion of flavor. It was fantastic and one of the best things we tried out of all the restaurants Gold hosted (another post on that...).

Anyway, we headed to the restaurant with our friend, Katie who is a fan of hot, hot, hot and ordered a bevy of drinks, Singha's and Thai Iced Tea and water, water, water... before we ordered the Khrua Gling again, catfish salad (featured here in Gourmet Magazine, and every bit as good as described by the article), rice salad (salty, sweet, crunchy and hot all at the same time), kaeng khew-wan khài "Mang-kon", green curry with egg-yolk-stuffed fish balls (we ordered it a 4 on a scale of 1-10 in hotness and it was mind blowing) and mounds and mounds of white rice. It was soooo wonderful. I loved every bite. We headed to Scoops for ice cream to cool our tongues after it was over. This place has been open since 2006, but I'd never tried it. But I'm a believer now, especially in the brown bread flavor, which tasted like sweet brown bread, a malted, crunchy bite with vanilla and brown sugar. Yum.

The only thing I regret was eating there the night before a killer workout at Catz on Saturday morning. Next time, I want to do lunch after the workout and with loads and loads of Thai-iced coffee. I can't wait.

New Toy! Cookie Press

I was looking for a way to make dozens and dozens and dozens of cookies easily. There's a big Spring Fest at A's school in a couple of weeks and I wanted to make hundreds of cute cookies as a fund raiser. I have always wondered about making cookies with a cookie press but never knew how. On a whim today I bought a cheapie cookie press and came home and made sugar cookie dough. Basic recipe, tons of butter, almond and vanilla for flavor. Don't chill the dough. It took a little practice and coercion, but it was fun and relatively easy. Even the cookies that came out lumpy and imperfect will be great with a thin layer of royal icing and sprinkles. The bonus is that this is not my favorite cookie. I'm not a fan of plain sugar cookies, butter cookies or sprinkles. I can make thousands of these without being tempted to eat my weight in them. I'm going to make them, freeze them, ice them, package them in cute little bags with ribbon and sell them for the fundraiser... Anybody have any interesting recipes that would work in the press?

Ummmmm... never mind

On April 1st, Snopes published this information... which does say that most of the claims about the bill are false, including The Senator's husband working for Monsanto. He has worked for them in the past, but not currently. I'm still uncomfortable with that, but not as uncomfortable. Snopes concludes that there is legitimate debate as to whether or not the bill will be effective at insuring and improving food safety, but most of the concerns are not as big an issue as I thought.