Jenn Garbee

Los Angeles has a reputation as a fairly early-to-bed city. This is largely due to the travesty of our liquor laws, which require bars to be completely cleared of patrons by 2 a.m. Many people people that restaurants shut down early, too. But if you know where to look, there......

The best cookbooks of 2013? Make that the best cookbooks by Los Angeles-area authors. And no, we don't mean those with television deals. In years past, two, maybe three, notable titles typically made our local "best of" cut. But this year, an impressive number of thoughtful recipe testing notes have......

Nigel Slater's latest cookbook, Notes From the Larder: A Kitchen Diary With Recipes, was released in the early fall but feels right at home this time of year. The pages are filled with much-needed kitchen therapy from all those online recipes that promise to be even better than that best-of-the-best......

Much of The A.O.C. Cookbook buzz has focused on the number of years (eight!) it has been since Suzanne Goin published her first book, Sunday Suppers at Lucques. Her second hits shelves in October. If you've ever worked in any of Goin's kitchens (disclosure, this writer has), it's not terribly......

Knee deep in the canning and preserving cookbook trend, do most of us really need Saving the Season: A Cook's Guide to Home Canning, Pickling, and Preserving by local author Kevin West? Maybe not, if you're far enough along in your online recipe search career to already have favorite apple......

With so much talk of late about cupcakes and legalizing marijuana, we should have known a Cannabis Cupcakes cookbook wasn't too far behind. "What better way to take advantage of both trends than with a cookbook that satisfies these guilty pleasures?," the cookbook's press release asks. Well, the publisher has......

Really, April is the ideal time to Bake it Like You Mean it, as we could probably all use a little post-Spring Break malakofftorte à la raymo (chocolate ladyfinger cake, here filled with Kahlua cream) kitchen therapy. This is the third in a recent series of pastry books from Gesine......

Today's cookbook market is flooded with vegetable-focused books from every vegan, sustainable and backyard-grown perspective. But when Deborah Madison promises Vegetable Literacy, we listen. We weren't disappointed. As with Madison's other cookbooks, Vegetable Literacy is an incredibly fresh perspective on a food category we thought we knew so well. Until......

San Francisco pastry chef Caitlin Freeman's new baking book, Modern Art Desserts: Recipes for Cakes, Cookies, Confections and Frozen Treats based on Iconic Works of Art, is an edible reflection of the museum curator's constant challenge: Finding the balance between popular exhibitions (and pastries) that will draw a large enough......

If your wine-buying strategy at Big Box discount stores typically involves grabbing a case and getting out poste-haste, you might want to reconsider sticking around for a chat with Syd Birenbaum, the unexpected wine specialist at the Costco in Marina del Rey (known as the Culver City branch). Need a......