Angela Matano

Food documentaries serve a lot of different purposes. Sometimes they're almost culinary porn, with sumptuous photography and lovingly detailed preparation. Other times, the films can be informative, recounting the horrors of the American diet or the shady dealings behind agribusiness. These films can also be celebratory, focusing on dining establishments......

Jess Schenker does nothing to dispel the romance of the badass chef in his new culinary memoir All or Nothing: One Chef’s Appetite for the Extreme. In fact, in Schenker’s frank and poignant telling of wretched to riches, gustatory archetypes only get reinforced. Now the successful owner and executive chef......

In a town where choosing which flip-flops to wear can be the biggest sartorial choice of the evening, sometimes its hard to muster the energy for an elegant evening out. But being so incessantly relaxed can become a trap in itself. Tableside dining brings the romance back to eating out,......

Is the identity crisis over for Santa Monica’s Main Street? With even more turnover than usual on the street, including the departure of beloved fixtures like The Omelette Parlor and Wildflour Pizza, the possibility for a new direction has arisen. Could Main Street ever be hip? New blood like, Komodo......

Gjusta, opened October 30 in Venice, comes from the team behind Gjelina and GTA. Carved out of an industrial building on unlikely Sunset Avenue, just a block from bustling Rose Avenue, Gjusta serves similar fare to GTA (Gjelina Take Away) but with much more of everything. A long space with......

According to the National Pasta Association, October is National Pasta Month. And while most of us don’t really need a reason to consume mass quantities of carbs, in spite the world conspiring against us with a variety of scare tactics, why not take the opportunity to celebrate and savor some......

The Soda Fountain: Floats, Sundaes, Egg Creams and More, by siblings Gia Giasullo and Peter Freeman, co-owners of Brooklyn Farmacy, celebrates the history of the thoroughly American tradition of the pharmacy-based treats counter. Released May 6 by Ten Speed Press, this book defies immediate categorization. Recipes, anecdotes, ephemera and fact......

Admitting Bay Area Mexican food even exists — or is even decent — can be a bitter pill for Angelenos to swallow, but Sara Deseran makes an awesome case for San Francisco with her new cookbook, Tacolicious: Festive Recipes for Tacos, Snacks, Cocktails, and More, released Sept. 2 by Ten Speed......

With our city’s endless summer stretching incrementally into infinity, it can’t be a coincidence that the ice cream business is booming. Why not focus on the positive and use the heat as an excuse to have another scoop or two? Ranging from local purveyors, like Small Batch, to folks from out......

Oddly enough, there’s no egg and (traditionally) no cream in egg creams. And there’s the rub. Like prunes with their unsavory associations, egg creams might benefit from a little creative rebranding — with a name like, say, milk chocolate soda.  But for the initiated, egg creams are both delicious and......