GOOD FOOD FOR ALL -Oct. 6th- Please Join Mayor Villaraigosa & great LA chefs working to better the city's food environment

For Immediate Release




Mayor Villaraigosa, Top Chefs and Farmers make Good Food For All A Priority for Los Angeles

Join Roots of Change in honoring The L.A. Food Policy Task Force and everyone working to better the city’s food environment


LOS ANGELES, California—Roots of Change (www.rootsofchange.org) is hosting a reception, Good Food for All: A Taste of the Los Angeles Foodshed, on Wednesday, October 6, 2010 to showcase the diversity and great tasting food that is grown within the L.A. Foodshed. The event will bring together pioneering farmers, top chefs, tireless food justice advocates and community members from around the region. The Good Food for All reception will be held between 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at Vibiana in Downtown L.A., and will open the Roots of Change Network Summit: Policy in Service of Innovation.

Participating Chefs include:

• Elizabeth Belkind, Cake Monkey
• Jeremy Berlin, Church & State
• Josiah Citrin, Melisse
• Brendan Collins, Waterloo & City
• Sally Cook, Heirloom Bakery
• Celestino Drago, Drago Centro
• Erin Eastland, Cube LA
• The Farmer’s Kitchen, SEE-LA and
            The Hollywood Farmers’ Market
• Susan Feniger & Mary Sue Milliken,
           Cuidad, Border Grill, Street
• Gloria Felix, Reservoir
• Neal Fraser, Grace, BLD
• Ray Garcia, Fig
• Suzanne Goin, AOC, Lucques, Tavern
• Mark Gold, Eva
• Karen & Quinn Hatfield, Hatfield’s
• Evan Kleiman, Angeli Caffe
• Josie Le Balch, Josie
• David Lefevre, Water Grill
• David Lentz, Hungry Cat
• Megan Logan, Nick & Stef’s
• Sal Marino, Il Grano
  Dan Mattern, Ammo
• Jaime Martin del Campo, La Casita Mexicana
• Joan McNamara, Joan’s on Third
• David Myers, Comme Ça, Pizza Ortica
• Nicholas Peter, The Little Door,
        Little Next Door
• Akasha Richmond, Akasha
• Steve Sampson & Zach Pollack
• John Sedlar, Rivera
• Jimmy Shaw, Loteria
• Nancy Silverton, Mozza
• Diana Stavaridis, BLD
• Mariah Swan, Grace, BLD
• Sherry Yard, Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining
• Patricia Zarate, Home Girl Café


Participating Farms and Farmers include:

Beylik Farm, Coastal Farm, Cal Vegetable Specials, Coleman Farms, Deardorff Family Farms, Fairview Gardens, Flora Bella Farms, Frog Hollow Farms, Garcia Organic Farm, Gardiner Farms, Gloria's Fresh Fruits and Vegetables, Green Farm, Harry's Berries, Heart Ranch, Jaime Farm, Jimenez Family Farms, King Farms, Maple Leaf Farms, McGrath Family Farms, Minty Foods, Munak Farm, Out of the Box Collective, Penryn Orchard, Peacock Farm, Pudwill Farm, Rutiz Family Farm, Sage Martin Farms, Santa Monica Farmers Market, See Canyon Farm, SEE-LA, Sonoma County Poultry, Schaner Farms, Straus Family Farm, Tamai Farms, Tenerelli Orchards, Terra Miguel Farm and Foundation, Trevino Farm, Tutti Frutti, Wegis Ranch, West Central Produce, Windrose Farm, and more to be confirmed.

Community and Non-profit Organizations Include:
Community Heath Councils, Community Services Unlimited Food and Water Watch, Homegirl Café/Homeboy Bakery, Food Chain Workers Alliance, Garden School Foundation, Hunger Action Los Angeles, Jewish Federation, LA Regional Food Bank, Proyecto Jardin, Rootdown LA, Restaurant Opportunities Center, Sustainable Economic Enterprises Los Angeles, LA, South Central Farmers, Urban and Environmental Policy Institute, VELA, UC Cooperative Extension Program-LA County, UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, and many more.


Details about the October 6, 2010 Good Food for All event, including an up-to-date list of chefs, farms and community groups involved, can be found at www.RootsofChange.org/GoodFoodForAll.

Tickets will be sold for $100 with 500 guests expected to attend. All funds raised will benefit Hunger Action Los Angeles and Sustainable Economic Enterprises Los Angeles’ efforts to increase the purchasing power of low-income consumers by matching their dollars in LA farmers’ markets.

President of Roots of Change, Michael Dimock, is excited to be honoring the L.A. Food Policy Task Force and Mayor Villaraigosa for their clear commitment to healthy food and agriculture in California. Michael Dimock states “No one wants the food we eat to make us sick, shorten our kids’ lives, hurt workers or damage our environment. To ensure that doesn’t happen, Los Angeles is taking a future-focused approach to the ways Southern Californians grow, harvest, transport and sell our food. We are proud of the Task Force and happy to have supported its work.”
Joined by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who will unveil his plan to make Good Food a priority for L.A., are more than 40 of the city’s top chefs, who will craft amazing dishes featuring the best local and seasonal ingredients provided by the region’s most sustainable farmers.

“Whether at the local farmers’ market, school bake sale, church potluck, neighborhood taco truck, L.A.’s top restaurants, or family dinner table, food is at the foundation of the communities that make Los Angeles great.” said Evan Kleiman, Host of KCRW’s Good Food. “All Angelenos deserve access to abundant safe, healthy, fresh, affordable food.”

ABOUT THE LA FOOD POLICY TASK FORCE:

The LA Food Policy Task Force convened last fall with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s support to prepare a report with recommendations on increasing access to healthy, affordable, fair and sustainably produced foods, and strengthening our connection to the regional food economy: The Good Food for All Agenda. Read the full report here: http://goodfoodla.org.


ABOUT ROOTS OF CHANGE:

oots of Change brings a diverse range of Californians to the table to build a common interest in food and farming for today and tomorrow. We believe that every aspect of our food—from the time it’s grown to the time it’s eaten—can be healthy, safe, profitable and fair for those who grow it and for the state where it’s grown. For more on ROC visit www.rootsofchange.org.

FAUX CHOPPED CHICKEN LIVER For My FAUX BOOK GROUP

FAUX CHOPPED CHICKEN LIVER

For My

FAUX BOOK GROUP

As some of you know, I’m in a Book Group.

But not your ordinary book group. No one moderates our discussions. Why? We don’t have discussions. Why? We don’t read. Well, we DO read, just not an ‘assigned’ book for book group. We’re a non-reading book group. A “No-Book Book Group.”

Let me explain. We’ve been together for almost two decades and for the first 10-12 years we read and discussed the monthly ‘assigned’ book. Then, even though we read the 'assigned book', we became so busy catching up on each other’s lives, we stopped discussing it… That didn't deter us, however.  We kept ‘assigning’ a book a month, but one thing led to another… since we had stopped discussing the ‘assigned’ book, why read the ‘assigned’ book?  So we didn’t. Oh, every once in a while one of us still recommends a book and a couple of us may read it that month or that year, but now we talk about our lives, loves, careers, children and the price of rice… and we eat. We have appetizers and sip wine. We have entrees and sip wine. And then we have desserts... fattening desserts.

This month was my turn to host Book Group and I decided to throw my NuAtkins/South Beach/Weight Watchers low carb, low fat diet out the window (actually, I did that a month ago, but I digress) and make mac & cheese for the main course. A three cheese, gourmet mac & cheese w/ tons of gruyere, fontina and cheddar – milk, cream, butter, nutmeg, dry mustard, cayenne pepper, white pepper, panko and pasta shells. Cholesterol heaven. Just stirring the cheese sauce is hazardous to your health.

My chosen dessert: homemade lemon semifreddo w/ fresh blueberries. Ingredients: a pint of Haagen-Dazs lemon ice cream (sorbet need not apply), heavy cream, honey and crushed lemon short bread cookies… oh, yeh – and blueberries – probably added to combat all the fat and sugar.

Feeling guilty over my cream and cheese menu, I decided to make healthful appetizers. Some herring in white wine, a shrimp cocktail on top of cream cheese spread thin on a platter that you spread on whole grain crackers AND faux chopped chicken liver.

I love chopped chicken liver – it’s my favorite “Jewish” food group… but talk about cholesterol heaven! No way, Jose! But, recently we were at a friend’s for dinner and she served a faux chopped chicken liver appetizer. If she hadn’t told us what it was, we’d never have known it was ‘faux.’ And it’s healthful. I mean like really healthful. AND delicious. It’s not often I find healthful food I actually want to serve ‘company,’ so I thought I’d share.

MY FRIEND MARGIE’S

FAUX CHOPPED CHICKEN LIVER

Ingredients:

2 cups of water
1 cup of lentils
2 cubes chicken bouillon (it they’re large cubes, just use one)
1 large onion, chopped
1 cup of walnuts
1-2 tablespoons of olive oil

(What did I tell you – healthful!)


Directions:

Place water, lentils and bouillon in a pot. Cover pot and cook about 30 minutes or until tender. Drain well.

Heat oil in skillet, saute onion until it becomes translucent.

In an electric food processor, grind lentils, onions and walnuts until your desired consistency.

Chill before serving.

Serve w/ crackers or sliced toasts or baguette.

Oh, and after all that mac & cheese and ice cream cake, I’m back on NuAtkins/South Beach/Weight Watchers. I know. I know. I have a multiple diet personality disorder.



FILET MIGNON w/ RED WINE SAUCE - a recession meal

FILET MIGNON w/ RED WINE SAUCE

a recession meal

OK – in what universe is a filet mignon dinner a recession meal? That’s not a trick question. Last week we had two – I repeat – two filet mignon dinners for two for about $10.00 a meal. How? By finding two large filets on sale at our local supermarket for 5 bucks a piece. Two steaks for two meals for two. 2x2x2.

Because I love steak and it was our anniversary ‘week’ – we didn’t freeze either filet. Instead, Richard promised to make me two steak dinners as an anniversary present.

He originally intended to make his own simple red wine sauce, but after a brief online search, he found one he liked better - from Giada De Laurentiis.

To ‘complement’ the meal, he picked up an amazingly delicious $45 bottle of a 2004 Chateau Petit Faure De Soutard St. Emilion for under $10.00 in a “discontinued” sale bin.

I loved the meal so much – he did a rerun the next night …

For two nights we ate like Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette. But no cake!

Filet Mignon with Red Wine Sauce

Recipe courtesy Giada De Laurentiis & The Food Network

Prep Time: 10 min

Inactive Prep Time: 10 min

Cook Time: 35 min

Level: Easy

Serves: 6 servings (note: this is for 6 not for 2)

Ingredients

• 6 (4 to 6-ounce) filet mignons

• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

• 6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter

• 1 onion, thinly sliced

• 1 tablespoon minced garlic

• 1 teaspoon dried oregano

• 1/4 cup tomato paste

• 2 1/2 cups dry red wine

Directions

Preheat grill to medium-high heat.

Generously season the steaks with salt and pepper and drizzle with the 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Grill to desired doneness, about 5 minutes per side for medium-rare. Transfer the steaks to a cutting board. Tent with foil and let stand 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onions and saute until tender, about 5 minutes. Season with salt. Add the garlic and oregano and saute until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in the tomato paste and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Whisk in the wine. Simmer until the sauce reduces by half, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat. Strain the sauce into a small bowl, pressing on the solids to extract as much liquid as possible. Discard the solids in the strainer and return the sauce to the saucepan and bring back to a slow simmer. Cut the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter into small 1/2-inch chunks and whisk in the sauce a little at a time. Season the sauce, to taste, with salt and pepper.

Place filets on each of 6 dinner plates. Drizzle the sauce over the filets and serve.

Bon Appetit!

SUZANNE'S WEDNESDAY CHICKEN

SUZANNE’S WEDNESDAY CHICKEN…

Chicken Paillard w/ Fresh Tomato Salsa & Arugula

OK – I’ve told you about Suzanne’s ‘Monday’ chicken piccata and blogged about her ‘Tuesday’ chicken paillard w/ lemon-parsley butter and seared red chard… Delicious dishes Richard made from recipes found in “Suzanne Somers’ Eat Great, Lose Weight” cookbook.

Well, I’m here again w/ my one-woman campaign to return Suzanne Somers to her rightful place as a top tabloid celebrity by blogging about a third chicken dish Richard found in that cookbook and made on Wednesday: chicken paillard w/ fresh tomato salsa and arugula. Light, simple and oh so satisfying. And another dish I would proudly serve ‘company’ made even lovelier paired w/ a bottle of Ferrari-Carano fume blanc (for the non-oaky crowd) or Ferrari-Carano chardonnay (for the oaken bucketeers)… Check out my Ferrari-Carano blog for more details.

http://mydinnerswithrichard.blogspot.com/2010/04/long-wine-ing-road-to-ferrari-carano.html

 

Or, how about a nice pinot noir such as the Smoking Loon 2008 (the wine we had), a lovely wine for a moderate price (under $10.00).

And, who knows - after the ‘media’ reads my blogs, we might see Suzanne on Entertainment Tonight cooking up a chicken dish for Thursday… or, perhaps, her chicken recipes will propel her to Food Network stardom. You can never tell what a one-woman campaign can wrought.

Whether she returns to her former super celeb-dom or not, the truth is these chicken dishes are really good and inexpensive – the latter being a very relevant factor in these economic times.

Chicken Paillard w/ Fresh Tomato Salsa & Arugula

Serves 4

Ingredients:

Chicken Paillard:

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts

salt & freshly ground black pepper

2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, chopped (or 2 tablespoons dried)

2 tablespoons olive oil

Garnish: 1 bunch arugula (or your favorite green)

Salsa:

4 medium tomatoes, diced

1 bunch flat-leaf parley, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

juice from ½ lemon

salt & freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

For Salsa: Combine the ingredients in a medium bowl and set aside to let the flavors combine. (Do not refrigerate or the tomatoes will get mealy.)

For the chicken: Rinse the chicken breasts and pat them dry. Place each breast flat on a chopping block and slice in half through the middle to make it half as thick (w/ your knife parallel to the chopping block).

Place each slice between 2 layers of plastic wrap and pound w/ a mallet until he chicken is ¼ inch thick. Season each breast w/ salt, pepper and rosemary.

Heat a skillet over high heat. Add the olive oil and as many of the chicken pieces as will fit in the pan w/o overlapping. Brown for 2-3 minutes on each side and set aside in an oven on warm. Repeat for remaining chicken.

Line 4 dinner plates w/ fresh arugula. Arrange 2 pieces of chicken on top of the arugula on each plate and garnish each plate w/ a large spoonful of salsa.

Brava Suzanne.

IF IT'S TUESDAY, IT MUST BE CHICKEN...

IF IT’S TUESDAY, IT MUST BE CHICKEN…

… or Monday or Wednesday.

Last week Richard decided to dive into our bag of Costco frozen skinless, boneless chicken breasts. I’m on an “on again-off again” NuAtkins “this is my diet forever” lifestyle and right now I’m “on again” – sort of. We’re also trying to budget our food money – sort of. So… it was low carb, cheap dinners last week.

Hidden away in our ‘eat lite diet’ cookbooks was Suzanne Somers’ “Eat Great, Lose Weight” –

a book I don’t think either one of us ever opened.  So... Richard opened it.  Now, I don’t claim to know whether her “Somersize” recipes will reprogram my metabolism, give me more energy or help me shed a few pounds as claimed (Suzanne doesn’t quite have the figure she had on the book cover some 15 years ago when it was first published – menopause is not a girl’s best friend – no pun intended) – but the dishes sounded good and we did have those gazillion Costco chicken breasts in the freezer.  So…

… Monday became chicken piccata night which was “light and lemony and yummy,” just like she promised. And it had capers. I love capers! And it was only pennies!  So…

… after such a promising start, I asked Richard to take pictures while he prepared Tuesday’s chicken dish: chicken paillard w/ lemon-parsley butter (lemons from our lemon tree, parsley from our herb pot garden – no expense there) w/ seared red chard. And, again, as Suzanne promised, it was “a simple, great meal… Fresh, delicious and satisfying.” It really was good. Could-make-it-for-company-good. So I thought I’d share.

SUZANNE SOMERS’

CHICKEN PAILLARD w/ LEMON-PARSLEY BUTTER

and SEARED RED CHARD

Ingredients:

Serves 2

2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts

salt & freshly ground black pepper

4 tablespoons olive oil

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

10 shallots, finely diced

juice from 3 lemons

½ cup chicken broth

2 teaspoons chopped parsley

2 bunches red Swiss chard, coarsely chopped

Directions:

Rinse the chicken breasts and pat dry. Place each breast flat on a chopping block. With your knife parallel to the chopping block, slice the breast in half through the middle to make it half as thick.

Place each slice between 2 layers of plastic wrap and pound w/ a mallet until ¼ inch thick.

Season each breast w/ salt and pepper.

Heat a skillet over high heat. Add 3 tablespoons of the olive oil and as many of the chicken slices as will fit in the pan w/o overlapping. Brown for 2 minutes on each side, then set aside on a shallow baking pan in an oven on warm. Repeat w/ remaining chicken.

Place the chicken pan over medium heat and melt 3 tablespoons of the butter. Add the shallots, cooking until soft, about 5 minutes.

Add the lemon juice and chicken broth and bring to a boil. Reduce by half. Cut the remaining 3 tablespoons of butter into small pieces and whisk into the pan until sauce is smooth.

Remove from the heat. Stir in additional salt, pepper, and the parsley. Keep warm.

Heat a wok or large skillet over very high heat. Add the remaining tablespoon of olive oil and the chard, quickly cooking until just wilted, about 1 minute.

Season w/ salt and pepper. Arrange the chicken over the chard on a platter and top w/ the lemon butter sauce.

Wednesday – Chicken Paillard w/ Fresh Tomato Salsa and Arugula! Can’t wait.



BREAKFAST FOR DINNER - Shrimp & Basil Frittata

BREAKFAST FOR DINNER

Shrimp & Basil Frittata

I grew up in the age of ‘Mad Men.’ But Mom was more Harriet Nelson than Betty Draper. She loved being a mother to my brother and me. She actually liked baking cookies. I helped. She even made us ‘mother and daughter’ aprons (of course, she sewed!) And Dad was no Don Draper. Yeh, he wore a suit and tie and hat to work and came home every night and had a cocktail or a cold beer before dinner. But, he loved his wife and knew how to have fun w/ his children… organizing hide & seek w/ the neighbors’ kids on a summer’s night, teaching us how to play baseball or just throwing us into a pile of autumn leaves which always started a ‘leaf fight’ which would result in his raking the leaves in the yard all over again. And, like most men of the era, he wasn’t a cook except for the male ritual of barbequing meat on the weekends, weather permitting… or the fried hot dog and beans on Saturday nights in front of the TV (we were only allowed, and only occasionally, to eat dinner in front of the TV) when he would let Mom ‘take the night off and relax’…though I think she still did the dishes.

But I like to think that Dad would have embraced cooking if he had been raised in a later era because, when the mood hit him, he moved from those traditional male cooking ‘roles’ and made breakfast for dinner. On Sunday nights. Why? Because after our usual ‘Sunday after church’ meal of a roast and potatoes and veggies and rolls and desserts – whew - Sunday dinner had to be a light supper… So, with a flourish (he had studied at the Academy of Dramatic Arts, after all), my father would get out the waffle iron or frying pans and whip up pancake/waffle batter or break those eggs and slice that bacon. And oh, how those morning cooking smells wafting thru the house after dark made me giddy… as if we were all breaking some unwritten law. It was fun and thrilling and I’ll always remember how cool I thought my Dad was for bending the ‘dinner rules.’

I still love breakfasts for dinner. I don’t do it often, but it’s still a ‘thrill’ … like I’m getting away w/ something I shouldn’t and this past weekend Richard stepped into my father’s shoes and made breakfast for dinner. Enjoy! I did.

SHRIMP & BASIL FRITTATA

A Russ Parsons Recipe from the Los Angeles Times

Servings: 6 as appetizer, 4 as main course

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions (both green and white parts), about 4 onions

1/2 pound peeled small shrimp (70 to 100 per pound)

6 eggs

1/4 teaspoon salt

8 to 10 leaves of basil, torn into small pieces

Directions:

1. Heat the broiler. Melt the butter in a 10-inch nonstick skillet over medium low heat. Add the green onions and cook until they've softened slightly, about 2 minutes. Add the shrimp and cook until they are firm, about 5 minutes.

2. While the onions and shrimp are cooking, beat the eggs, salt and basil with a fork in a mixing bowl just until the yolks and the white are thoroughly mixed, but don't overbeat, which can make the frittata dry.

3. Add the egg mixture to the pan with the onions and shrimp and stir well to combine.

Reduce the heat to low and cover the pan. Cook, without stirring, until the eggs have set, leaving only a top layer uncooked, about 10 minutes.

 Place under the broiler until the top is browned and puffy, 1 to 2 minutes.

4. To unmold the frittata, let it cool slightly in the pan. Use a spatula to loosen it along the sides, and then bang it firmly on a cutting board to release the underside. Slide it out onto a serving plate. Serve either hot or at room temperature. If you're going to refrigerate the frittata, let it warm to room temperature before serving.

Each of 6 servings: 148 calories; 14 grams protein; 1 gram carbohydrates; 0 fiber; 9 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 279 mg. cholesterol; 1 gram sugar; 225 mg. sodium.



CREAMY, GARLICKY TOMATO GAZPACHO w/ CRUNCHY PECORINO

CREAMY, GARLICKY TOMATO GAZPACHO

w/ CRUNCHY PECORINO

(this ain’t Campbell’s)

By popular demand (well, a request from one of our dinner guests last night) here again is the recipe for Melissa Clark’s creamy, garlicky (or not garlicky – still delicious) tomato gazpacho and those oh, so tasty crunchy percorinos.

Melissa Clark’s

Creamy, Garlicky Tomato Gazpacho w/ Crunchy Pecorino

a/k/a parmesan crisps

Ingredients:

6 tablespoons grated pecorino Romano

2 large tomatoes (about 1 pound) cored & roughly chopped

1-1/2 cups (12 oz) plain sheep’s-milk or regular yogurt

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil, more for serving

12 basil leaves, roughly chopped, more for serving

2 large garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped

2 scallions (white & light green parts), roughly chopped

2 Ice cubes

1-3/4 teaspoons kosher salt, more to taste

1-1/2 teaspoons red wine vinegar, more to taste

A pinch cayenne pepper

Ground black pepper to taste

Directions:

CRUNCHY PEROCINO CRISPS

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat.

Spread 2 tablespoons cheese into a thin layer in skillet; let melt and brown on bottom, about 30 seconds to one minute. Use a spatula to flip cheese; let cook until evenly browned on both sides, about a minute more. Transfer fried cheese to a paper-towel-lined plate. Repeat w/ remaining cheese, working 2 tablespoons at a time. Break fried cheese into large pieces.

Or

RICHARD’S ‘FOOLPROOF’ METHOD FOR PARMESAN CRISPS:

Use a silpat atop a baking sheet, they come out perfectly if you do.

Otherwise, a baking sheet with wax paper on top, but sometimes there are sticking issues.

Place thin circles of grated parmesan on the silpat or wax paper. About a two inch circle each for however many you wish to make.

Bake at 350 for ten minutes.

Take out, let cool, handle gently

THE CREAMY, GARLICKY SOUP

To make soup, place tomatoes, yogurt, olive oil, basil, garlic, scallions, ice cubes, salt, vinegar, cayenne and black pepper in a blender. Puree until smooth. Taste and add more salt & vinegar, if necessary. Pour into small bowls and garnish w/ pieces of fried cheese and chopped basil. Drizzle soup liberally w/ olive oil.

If you can’t eat or don’t like garlic – this soup is just as delicious w/o it.