Sicily

Meatless Mondays: Sotto Chefs Zach Pollack and Steve Samson A Chickpea Panelle Recipe

The sensibility of Zach Pollack and Steve Samson's Pico-Robertson restaurant Sotto is clearly laid out on their menu. Take the appetizer of chickpea panelle, a traditional Sicilian street food, that's been available at the southern Italian restaurant since it was opened in 2011. "They're basically ... More >>

Cookbook of the Week: Sicily, The Postcard Version A Coffee Granita Recipe

The upside of the current trend of hyper-localized cookbooks: You can go to Sicily over the weekend without leaving your kitchen. The latest from Phaidon, Sicily: A Culinary Journey through Sicilian Cuisine, due on stands in about a month, is a compilation of fifty traditional recipes from the edito ... More >>

The Chef's Library: Steve Samson Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well by Pellegrino Artusi

The Chef's Library is a series in which we ask chefs around town to tell us about their favorite cookbooks. Today, we talk to Steve Samson, chef (along with Zach Pollack) of Sotto. It's so surprise that Steve Samson's favorite cookbooks cover the history of the cooking of his greatest muse, Italy. ... More >>

Q & A With Faith H. Willinger: Chef, Author Patron Saint of the Tostapane

A few months ago, a friend returned home from Italy with a gift for us. When we first unwrapped it, we were totally befuddled. "What is this,?" we wondered. "Is it a paddle for badminton on Mars? A space shuttle heat shield with a handle? A fan for a robot Geisha?" As it turns out, it was for maki ... More >>

Gay Happiness, the New Frontier

Salemi Stories: Readers Respond to Our Kim's Video Cover Story

Mondo Kim's Video Was Shipped from New York to Sicily. Then Things Got Really Strange.

Audrey Napoleon Performs Like She Has Sex

Audrey Napoleon is a lot to look at: all ink black precision-cut hair, pale skin, black cat eyeliner, four inch gold heels and perfectly applied red lipstick. Sitting in front of a wall of windows a dozen floors above Hollywood on an overcast Friday morning, she's a perfectly assembled goth dream gi ... More >>

Lou Amdur and Sotto Celebrate Sicily This Thursday

What has wine guru Lou Amdur been up to since selling his wine bar earlier this year? Quite a bit, apparently. Fresh off a recent trip to Sicily (Vittoria and Etna, for those keeping score), Amdur will be hosting a one-night Sicilian wine dinner at Sotto on June 21, at 7 p.m., focusing on natural It ... More >>

James Beard 2012 Award Winners

The James Beard awards are the food equivalent of the Oscars: prestigious golden whatsits, fancy dress event, silly acceptance speeches, requisite grouching about the whole thing being rigged. Oh, yes, and lots of highly talented people getting much-deserved recognition. This year's awards ceremony ... More >>

2012 James Beard Foundation Award Nominees Announced: The Mozza Edition

Yesterday the James Beard Foundation announced its 2012 nominations for book awards, journalism, design and graphics, broadcast and media, and restaurant and chefs. It is a very long list. There were also awards given for lifetime achievement (Wolfgang Puck!) and humanitarian of the year (Charlie Tr ... More >>

Q & A With Lou Amdur: On Selling His Wine Bar, Software Insomnia Drunks in the Parking Lot

When Squid Ink was born back in 2009, Lou Amdur, the owner of the wine bar, LOU was one of the first experts we turned to. No matter the question -- be it of terroir, or amphorae or why wine geeks use puzzling descriptors -- he never made us feel dumb for asking it. His answers took us near (Wine Ex ... More >>

Cookbook of the Week: Made in Sicily Giorgio Locatelli's Limoncello Gelato Recipe

It's hard to flip through Made in Sicily without thinking of it as an island-specific version of Bocca, one of our favorite books last year. And not simply due to the style of the recipes and book layout. Like Bocca, this is the work of a top London chef dishing up his tribute to his family's class ... More >>

10 Best Ice Cream & Gelato Shops in L.A.

Delicieuse, known for its goat's milk ice cream, is closing, but that doesn't mean Los Angeles isn't full of fantastic ice cream and gelato shops. In fact, we're chock-a-block with delicious frozen treats. Here are ten of our favorites.

205 Imperial Highway, La Puente: Ye Olde Tuscan House of Pancakes Chapel & Sportsbar

Try to pin down the original purpose of this building -- was it a Black Angus Steakhouse? Dancehall? Place of worship? All three simultaneously? 205 Imperial Highway in La Puente is the kind of building-as-sausage that occurs when a property is re-purposed over and over, added to, covered-up or sla ... More >>

Italian Wine Pairings for Thanksgiving

Why not try an Italian wine with Thanksgiving dinner? Consider that most L.A. Thanksgiving dinners break away from the traditional heavier dishes of the East Coast and Midwest. It's highly doubtful that the cousins in Kansas are serving anything akin to Ammo's take home menu, featuring charcuterie p ... More >>

5 Best Gelato Shops in Los Angeles

Guzzle & NoshAssorted flavors at Gelato Bar in Los Feliz.​Yesterday, we listed the 5 Best Ice Cream Shops in Los Angeles. Today, we move onto gelato. Taxonomy is crucial in these matters. 5. Gelato Bar (Los Feliz, Studio City): Owned by Gail Silverton (sister of Mozza pizza queen Nancy), Gela ... More >>

LA's Top 10 Ice Cream & Gelato Spots

Guzzle & Nosh​[Catch up on the full 30 Scoops in 30 Days trek in our sweet, creamy archive.] Americans remember President Ronald Reagan as any number of things: The Great Communicator, a proponent of trickle-down economics, a hack former actor with a penchant for chimpanzees. Few, however, kn ... More >>

Happy Hour: Wine Expo's Santa Monica Wine Bar

JgarbeeTim Guest Serving Guests At Wine Expo​It's been nearly 10 months since Wine Expo opened a tasting bar/retail food shop next to its flagship Santa Monica wine store. In other words, plenty of time for manager Roberto Rogness to work out the inevitable kinks of suddenly jumping into the w ... More >>

A Taste of Tunisia Brings Brik to Malibu, Downtown Art Walk & L.A. Street Food Fest

J. Ritz​ Playdate foods for adults and kids typically involve carrot sticks, graham crackers, chips, juice and the like. Things in Yosr Daoud's household, however, are more exciting than that. It was over a plate of traditional Tunisian brik that Daoud prepared for fellow mom and friend Lisa M ... More >>

Summer Wine Deals: Five Picnic Friendly Wines

Flickr/lovelornpoets​The word "bargain" is always consumer relative, but perhaps rarely more so when the subject is wine. Even without getting price involved merely the word "Chardonnay" can start a (polite, of course) wine bar fight. And we've all learned the hard way that at the lower end of ... More >>

Paul Thek at the Hammer Museum and the History of Meat Art

30 Scoops in 30 Days: Bulgarini (Day 19)

There's a reason Bulgarini Gelato is a perennial topper on Best Gelato lists, our own and others. While other gelaterias do a superb job of capturing the essence of a particular flavor, Bulgarini somehow captures the flavor itself. Nowhere is this more true than their pistachio gelato.

30 Scoops in 30 Days: Grom Gelateria (Day 5)

The line between ice cream and gelato can sometimes be thin. At Grom Gelateria, a much loved Italian, New York and (since January) Los Angeles chain, there's no question. This is gelato, at its finest: soft, velvet smooth and reeking of casual indulgence.

Viva Vino LA: Italian Wines Flood Los Angeles

Lisa MattsonChianti, Italy's Castello de Volpaia is one of 130 wineries pouring at Viva Vino LA​There's much more to Italian wine than Pinot Grigio. The number one U.S. import is only one of the 3,000 kinds of grape varieties that grow on the Italian peninsula. Learn about the many others this ... More >>

Cookbook Review: Heavy Metal Mosh Potatoes An Alice Cooper-Worthy Snack Recipe

​There are those cookbooks -- an awful lot of them in recent Food Network years, it seems -- that you pick up and immediately set back down. Then you scout for something of substance to pick up by, say, Diana Kennedy or Harold McGee, to pretend that momentary Rachel Ray EVOO moment never happe ... More >>

Now Open: Paradis's Danish-Style Ice Cream in Los Feliz

T. Nguyen​ A great number of great things have come from Denmark. Hamlet. The Killing. Legos. To this we add: ice cream. Now open in Los Feliz, Paradis Ice Cream replaces the space vacated by Pinkberry on Vermont and brings Danish-style ice cream to the neighborhood. Paradis actually is ... More >>

Olive Oil Taste-Off, The Italian Edition: Is That Affiorato Worth The $60 Price Tag?

J. GarbeeHigh Rent District Olive Oil​The market is flooded with extra virgin olive oil, but like chocolate, the variations in quality and price are mind numbing. Nor is price a guarantee of the best flavor. A taste-off was inevitable when a bottle of single varietal O&CO Affiorato (available ... More >>

2011 IACP Finalists Announced

​The IACP, which would be the International Association of Culinary Professionals and not the International Association of Chiefs of Police -- which comes up first on a Google search, proving maybe that cops can SEO better than writers -- yesterday announced the finalists for both the 2011 Coo ... More >>

Book Review: Italy Dish by Dish, Airfare Not Required

​How often do we pre-order books these days? Hardly ever, as the book market is so flooded with new and "gently used" copies today we aren't exactly worried that Italy Dish By Dish: A Comprehensive Guide To Eating in Italy is going to sell out as quickly as LudoBites reservations when it is re ... More >>

Perfect Pairings: Recipes From An Italian Summer, Pinot Grigio A Melon Salad Recipe

​While we are content to measure our summer vacations in single day increments (Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day), Italians prefer to measure their holidays in months. Particularly in the summer, when everyone in Italy seems to be on the beach, craggy rocks and sunbathing crowds be damned. ... More >>

What's in Season at the Farmers Market: Fava Beans

Felicia Friesema​ It may take a 4.4 earthquake to get you up out of bed these days, but what daylight savings time taketh away, it also giveth back to our local nighttime midweek farmers markets. It's one of the palpable signs of spring in Los Angeles. The later sunsets mean more people are ... More >>

Getty Italian Cooperation

GettyStatue of a Victorious Youth.​At the same time the J. Paul Getty Trust is fighting Italy over ownership of a great, 2,000-year-old bronze statue, the J. Paul Getty Museum announced that it will present exhibitions in cooperation with the Sicilian cultural ministry. According to the Assoc ... More >>

Mount Etna: Great Wine From Europe's Largest Active Volcano

Think of Mount Etna, the largest active volcano in Europe, and you likely do not think of flowing wine. Flowing lava maybe. But some of the best red wines in Europe are being produced in that most unusual and extreme of locales. To the ancient Greeks, eastern Sicily's Mount Etna was home of the one ... More >>

Budget Holiday Cooking from Depression Era Grandma Clara Cannucciari Her Sugar Cookie Recipe

Can't afford pastries made with Valrhona Equatoriale 55% this year? Not to worry. Clara Cannucciari, a spunky 94-year-old home cook from Skaneateles in central New York's Finger Lakes region, has a pocket full of Depression-era recipes for you in her new cookbook, Clara's Kitchen. Salads of backyard ... More >>

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