halloween bbq

green curry

Cumin and coriander seeds warmed then blitzed, along with lotsa thai basil, chillies, ginger, garlic and shallots. Paste fried, chicken, aubergine, courgette and pepper slices added. Garnished with coriander leaves and served on steamed long-grain rice.

Edit: It's still going, 2 days later.

yay! decent bread in LA...

I've been pretty lucky so far, living close to Amandine on Wilshire Blvd, where I get my weekly fix of French pastries. There's also a Belgian chocolatier on Wilshire, which is also meant to have good croissants. Le Pain Quotidient in Santa Monica was one of my first stops for a post-beach breakfast when I lived in Venice. (There's a branch in Westwood near all the cinemas too.) And you can get a darn good baguette at the West LA Farmers' Market if you're not too late (plus the baker is a really nice guy who gave me a whole bag of rolls for nothing last week because he had no baguettes left!).

And it looks like a new glut of bakeries are opening across the city. This is all good news for P, who is a big bread fan. And while there's nothing better than home-baked bread, I make it so rarely that we have to find that fix elsewhere. It doesn't help that Flickerite/food blogger/maker of mouthwatering dishes-Santos posts beautiful photos of bread that makes me want to give up my day job and just bake, bake bake...

co co nut

Young coconut decapitated.

crack of spinach

The West LA Farmers' Market is a relatively new market, held every Sunday morning. I love the atmosphere: everyone's friendly and there's always some music playing, whether it's taped music for folk to dance to or some live jazz (which is just the thing for Sunday morning).

Cherry tomatoes and stringy pasta are my favourite quick dinner standby. While cooking up whatever dried pasta you have in, heat up a small amount of olive oil in a pan, add the toms, brown them, allowing some of them to burst, and mix in the pasta. Enjoy this highly unhealthy meal with a glass of vino.

chrysanthemum tea

I love chrysanthemum tea, but I don't like the kind that comes in sachets. My main gripe with them is that they're usually too sugary. So when I saw bags of flowers in a Chinese herb shop in Monterey Park, I just could not resist. To make this cup of tea, I packed the inner glass sleeve of my new fancy tea mug with dried flowers and topped it up with boiling water. If you have a sweet tooth, I'd recommend a small amount of honey (preferably one that doesn't have too intense a flavour).

dim sum

A lor mai bao from NBC Seafood in Monterey Park, LA, a speciality of the restaurant. Lor mai (eight-treasure glutinous rice) is usually wrapped in leaves and steamed. This version has it wrapped in dumpling skin, which changes the eating experience from attempts at picking up lumps of sticky rice and rushing it to the mouth before it falls apart, to being piggish and stuffing the whole thing into an open gob.

buffalo steak on udon

A rare chance to cook and eat in one evening. A nice thick buffalo steak, briefly fried on each side, served on a bed of udon (thick Japanese noodles) and steamed veggies.

baked figs

Bought some figs. Realised I don't particularly like figs raw. So I baked them in some honey. Decided it needed something extra, so sat them on some creme fraiche. Looks kinda disgusting, but tastes pretty good. Would have been better on plain ol' cream or with a dollop of ice cream.

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