Mushrooms

What's In Season at the Farmers Market: Morels, Kind Of

Acclaimed American poet William Jay Smith has so far painted the most accurate picture of the morel mushroom, in a short excerpt from his 1969 nature poems series. "Not ringed but rare, not gilled but polyp-like, having sprung up overnight -- these mushrooms of the gods, resembling human organs upro ... More >>

What's In Season at the Farmers Market: Winter Hedgehog Mushrooms

Damages from this past week's arctic push haven't been fully assessed yet, but you can be certain that tender greens like spinach and lettuces (already showing higher prices) and the ever-present artichoke harvests are first among the lost. One wild crop that does do well during the occasionally ... More >>

Cooking With Farmers: David West of Clearwater Farms' Mushroom Tips His Chanterelle-Corn Risotto Recipe

Hang out long enough with David West, a.k.a. "the mushroom man" of Clearwater Farms, and eventually a farmers market customer is bound to ask the "Big O" question. "Well, shiitakes are grown on oak blocks, so until someone decides to make certified organic oak trees, no, these are not organic," says ... More >>

L.A. Food & Wine Festival: Rosé, Ribs, and Summer Heat

After a weekend filled with many bottles of rosé and short rib sliders, the second annual Los Angeles Food & Wine Festival wrapped up Sunday afternoon at L.A. Live after four days of chef-driven tastings, demos, samplings and other events that featured some of the top culinary talents in the countr ... More >>

Truffle Bitters: The Truffle Oil of Cocktails?

If you ask 10 food writers what their least favorite food is, about 8 of them will say "truffle oil." A few weeks ago, Amy Scattergood and I were discussing a theoretical top-10 list of ingredients chefs should never use again, and we decided 1-10 would all just say "truffle oil." Fake truffle flavo ... More >>

What's In Season at the Farmers Market: Morels

Morel mushrooms are back -- after a tense few days among antsy pickers up north. Conventional wisdom says that on the West Coast, morels show up in spring after two full days of 80 degree weather and that they favor recently disturbed earth, either from fire, logging or new landscaping. This bode ... More >>

Gwyneth Paltrow's Quick Recipe for Busy Moms: Quail Egg Pasta with Black Truffles Welcome Our New Guest Food Columnist

Editor's note: As many of you have probably noticed, the Weekly is currently searching for a new food critic. This sort of thing takes time. Sometimes a lot of time, right? So in the interim, we've asked (begged, really) noted cookbook author, television personality, foodist, movie star and local mo ... More >>

What's in Season at the Farmers Markets: Black Trumpet Mushrooms

Umami hounds looking to plump up a meatless Monday often turn to mushrooms to bring the glutamates to the plate. The wild Black Trumpet mushroom -- trumpets des morts for the French (this becomes relevant in a minute) -- is the umami-est of them all, bringing smoke, earth and fruit all in one snapp ... More >>

Raphael's Valentine's Celebration

What's in Season at the Farmers Markets: California-Grown Truffles, No Violence Required

Somewhere in a back alley outside of Paris, $30,000 worth of black European truffles is changing hands. Asking the seller about the truffles' origins could send them packing to another less inquisitive buyer, so the buyer ponies up quietly and hauls off the heavily perfumed, cloth-lined crate while ... More >>

What's In Season at the Farmers Markets: Large California Chanterelles

Felicia FriesemaCantharellus californicus from Tutti Frutti Farms​Our early season rainstorms have yielded two predictable outcomes: angsty tweets from farmers market vendors trying desperately to keep self, customers and produce dry, and a splendid sprouting of mud puppies, a.k.a. California ... More >>

$100 Umami Burger: Money Is No Object

V. Rathbourn​An 18-course truffle dinner for $350, a multi-chef foie gras feast for $175. What's next? A $100 truffle burger. Last week, Umami debuted the MNO Burger, as in "Money is No Object." Created by Umami owner Adam Fleischman, the MNO Burger is a variation on the ever-expanding chain ... More >>

Laurent Quenioux's 18-Course Truffle Menu

Guzzle & NoshBlack truffles from Trufflepalooza.​[Update: Reservations are now open.] Chef Laurent Quenioux's highbrow/lowbrow collaboration with Starry Kitchen reaches new heights of luxury with an 18-course truffle dinner. Between touring the city with his cheese cart, overseeing the kitche ... More >>

New Cookbook: Easy Chinese Recipes, Including Some from L.A., a Recipe for Pork Dumpling Soup

Courtesy of Tuttle Publishing."Easy Chinese Recipes" (left) & shrimp & yellow chive dumplings (right).​You'll find a couple of local dishes in Bee Yinn Low's Easy Chinese Recipes (Tuttle Publishing, $24.95). This is because Low lives in Irvine and eats Chinese food all over California as well ... More >>

Grow Your Own Mushrooms: Urban Farming in a Box

Back to the Roots​Back to the Roots is the kind of grow-your-own mushroom kit company that makes you wonder what you've been doing with your life. Founders Nikhil Arorahe and Alejandro Velez first got the idea in 2009 during their last semester at UC Berkeley when, just two months before their ... More >>

Faux Shark Fin Soup: A Recipe From the Monterey Bay Aquarium

Courtesy of the Monterey Bay AquariumFaux shark fin soup.​Now that the California Shark Protection Act, a bill that would prohibit the sale, consumption and trade of shark's fin -- and with it shark fin soup -- sits on Governor Jerry Brown's desk, waiting for his approval (probably), here's a ... More >>

Trufflepalooza: One Woman's Brilliant Insanity

[Photo gallery from Trufflepalooza 2010 after the jump.] What kind of crazy, ambitious non-professional chef buys a pound of truffles at a time? That's what the vendor wanted to know when Erika Kerekes picked up her first big haul of black summer truffles. The backdrop couldn't have been more pr ... More >>

In Season Recipes: Pasta with Morels Cherry Frangipane Galette

Pascal from Flickr Morels​ When we think of morels, we think of Fricassée de volaille de Bresse aux Morilles. We grew up just ten miles north of Paul Bocuse's restaurant, near the Pont de Collonges, a place that is world renowned for Bresse chicken in cream sauce with morels. Bocuse is the gr ... More >>

What's in Season at the Farmers Markets: Morels Cherry Crop in Danger

Felicia FriesemaMorels from Clearwater Farms at the Hollywood market.​ If you are an Angeleno with a love for morels, you have two options. You can either creep through the misty, moss covered forests of northern California (think hobbits at the break of dawn) to zero in on a treasured morel ... More >>

L.A.'s Underground Mushroom Network, Or How To Feed Your Urban Fungi Habitat

JGarbeeThe Mushroom Grower Tip-Off​Morels aren't exactly what come to mind when someone mentions under their breath that they grow mushrooms, particularly when that conversation takes place over homebrews in a grungy warehouse space somewhere in that nondescript area of L.A. just east of downt ... More >>

A Recipe From the Burger King: Adam Fleischman's Pasta Rags with Marsala Sauce

A. ArmstrongAdam Fleischman's pasta with Marsala sauce​ As readers learned in the second part of Squid Ink's recent interview with Umami Burger's Adam Fleischman, the burger king (can we call him that?) likes to maintain a sense of adaptability in his projects. That adventure and experimen ... More >>

A Recipe From The Chef: Lidia Bastianich's Genovese Style Stuffed Vegetables

Lidia Cooks From The Heart Of ItalyStuffed Vegetables​If you've been following our 2-part interview with Lidia Bastianich -- a car chase, rather, as she dialed us up from a cab right after landing at LAX -- you've already heard the high priestess of Italian cuisine bless Sunday family suppers, ... More >>

Truffles, Caviar & Cupcakes: 2011 Oscar Food Preview Photo Gallery

Guzzle & Nosh​ 1,800 pounds of dover sole. 1,200 Kumamoto oysters. 1,000 spiny lobsters. 500 pounds of smoked salmon. 40 pounds of caviar. 10 pounds of black truffles. 6 Spanish hams. In case you didn't indulge in enough food porn yesterday with Nikita's insane Russian music video, here's a p ... More >>

What's in Season at the Farmers Markets: Wild Mushrooms

Felicia Friesema Giant Live Oak Chantarelles at Tutti Frutti's farm stand at the Hollywood market.​ During the summer, our local scrubby oak groves are covered with water-starved, crispy yellow field grasses. But thanks to the recent deluge we're now seeing Live Oak Chanterelles at several fa ... More >>

Eat This Now: Maccheroni Tartuffo at Oliverio

C. BishopOliverio's Maccheroni Tartuffo​ We know, we know: truffled macaroni and cheese is so passé. It was the braised short rib of L.A. restaurants before the braised short rib actually came along. Throw a stone in any direction and you'll find a poorly-executed truffled macaroni and chees ... More >>

Eat This Now: Greenleaf's Corn Hotcakes With Blueberry Compote

C. BishopGreenleaf's Corn Hotcakes​ Griddlecakes. Pancakes. Flapjacks. Heck, there's even the Danish aebleskiver. Aside from a high-octane cup of coffee, few things get our mornings started better than a towering stack of fluffy pancakes laced with butter, dripping with sticky maple syrup, or ... More >>

[Updated] Joseph Mahon and David Haskell Pop Up at Biergarten

A. ScattergoodJoseph Mahon at Bastide​ Update: With Joseh Mahon, until recently the executive chef at Bastide, popping up at Biergarten with David Haskell next week (see the original post, published December 7th, on the next page), it seemed a good time to check in again with the chef. Of the ... More >>

Quick Bite: Squash & Chanterelles Pizza at Olio

Even if it is 95-degrees in Los Angeles, it's autumn in our hearts -- and on menus everywhere. This year, the raft of maple-infused cocktails and squash-based dishes are the only reasons I'm certain it's actually November. It makes perfect sense, I know. Until the modern era of refrigeration and ... More >>

Nothing But Truffle: The Truffle Brothers, LA's Italian Truffle Connection

Some people grow up around sports, academics, or the arts. For Michael and Marco Pietroiacovo--two brothers from Campobosso, Italy--their upbringing was around truffles. As children, their grandfather showed them how to forage for the elusive tuber in the hills around Abruzzo, Italy. As teens they s ... More >>

Truffled Lounge: Rockwell’s Architectural Comforts

White Gold

Dig deep for a “reasonable” truffle experience

A Federal Case

Eating D.F. style on both sides of town

Into the Deep

Into the Deep

Happyland

A Guide to Our Advertisers: Part 2

A Guide to Our Advertisers

A Guide to Our Advertisers

Mako: A Room of His Own

Chef Mako Tanaka branches out

Aging to Perfection

A Guide to Our Advertisers Part Two

Alternative Destinations

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