There's Nothing Sour About These Lemons

If you should happen to find sweet little lemons while walking your dogs in the early a.m., by all means, make strawberry lemonade.

If you don't have dogs, please consider rescuing one. It makes strawberry lemonade taste better when you have a furry friend to pet while drinking, and your odds of finding fallen fruit are much brighter with all the walks you will be taking.

Strawberry Lemonade sold on our food truck at Yamashiro Farmer's Market 5-9, Thursdays.

New Dessert On The Streets

We are fans over here at Heirloom LA of peanut butter cookies, and as you know, we have made a bunch of strawberry jam with the beautiful organic strawberries we have acquired from Mc Grath Farms. Henceforth, the PBJ Cookie. It's not crunchy, but rather it's a little crisp and wafer thin and sandwiched with our jam that can be found at Silverlake Wine. Topped with fleur de sel because that is how we do things in these parts.

We Say This To Each Other Every Day

Courtney + Matt

Photos by Bobby Earle

Top Ramen Gone Fancy

I grew up on Top Ramen, apparently Tad did too so we both have an affection for these rubbery instant noodles despite their MSG properties. Here's Tad making Family Meal out of a 99¢ item, throwing in poached eggs, fresh herbs, some shrimp, pork, additional spices, snap peas and roasted peppers and heirloom carrots. It's still coming in at under a few bucks a serving and yet filled us all right up. Dee-lish.

Christine + Jim

Here's a great piece for a wedding we did as featured on Style Unveiled. The bride and groom both reflect on why they chose their venue (Smog Shoppe) and their vendors (yes, we are among them), and how the day unfolded for them. Below is what they have to say about their foxy, stud master, heart throb caterers.

see full feature here

photos by Love & Lemonade

Fiestadas

Although I have curiously never heard of a "fiestada", I have indeed tasted one and you can too tonight at Silverlake Wine from 5-9 on our food truck. They are a delicious marriage of a seven layer dip with Grouper and Nieman Ranch Beef, but amplified with a Mc Grath Farms flageolet and runner bean puree. Oh me, oh my, yum, yum, diddly-do, yum.

These Two Make A Pair

Photos by Beata Bernina 

This Is Just To Say

William Carlos Williams

Jah Jam

 Here's a little diddy of what we did with an inordinate amount of Mc Grath Farms Seascape Strawberries. Initial game plan  for this task can be found here.

photos by George Simian and Beata Bernina

Label design by Smog Design

Alert, New Tray Passed Appetizers

Last night we did a little private dinner party with Bash, Please serving up some tray passed appetizers below. Tonight we will be having a public dinner party at Barnsdall Art Park from 5-8 on our Food Truck and we'll be offering some of the same fare.

I Only Ever Talk About Dessert

The fabulous ladies of Bash, Please wanted to have a shin-dig with all their vendors including us and it is set for tomorrow. Matt and I got lots of fun things at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market today to play around with (hello Weiser Farm mulberries!) and I started testing some desserts. Our friend and fabulous photographer, Beata Bernina, who will coincidentally be joining us for this soiree, took some pics  of what's to come for the last course.

I heard Matt's getting in a couple of whole groupers and he has a bunch of delicious sides planned so as Bonnie Tsang wisely suggested, it may be best to wear stretchy pants to this event.

Greed, Exposed

Spencer grows tomatoes in a big plastic tub in his yard, nothing fancy. He says he got some seeds a couple years ago from Hayground Farms at the Sunday Hollywood Farmer's Market and they have been growing with little effort and high yields ever since.

He brought these in to share, but I scooped them up and ate each one of them myself. They were placed before me, so perfect and cheerful, and I was overcome. Their bright flavor bursted in my mouth without any adornments, no salt, no pepper, no oil. 


It is curious how regret for my selfish hoarding still escapes me. 

An Artichoke Gets Flowered

Wednesday we got in a gorgeous array of produce from the Santa Monica Farmer's Market. These purple baby artichokes will be featured as a tray passed appetizer for one of our weddings on Sunday. I have to tell you how to make them into little fried flowers because they're just so pretty.

Flowered Artichoke Appetizer

Get your hands on some firm baby artichokes and remove some of the hard outside leaves.

Deep Fryin' It:

On catering parties we take a deep fryer we purchased from Bed, Bath and Beyond, in other words, not some fancy commercial fryer. It works great! Fill it with canola oil, get it hot and put a couple baby artichokes in. Don't crowd them because they are going to open up before your very eyes! 

Once they start to flower, look for crispness and then remove and drain on a paper towel. You will need to open them further with your hands for drama. 

Garnishing:

Chop some garlic and toss that in a pan with some really hot olive oil. Not for long, it will burn easily. Remove that and top your little flowers with fried garlic, lemon, and some herbs.

Eating:

The heart is intact and that's what is meant to eat, but people (like me) will be hard pressed to resist those crispy petals. They're fibrous and best left alone, this is why you should scale some off before frying. The heart, as would be expected, is delightful.

Exquisite Signs of Summer, Two Ways

With limited cargo space for our events this weekend we will have room for only one of these collections of gorgeous beauties to accompany us: 

For the record, as the only representation of femaleness in our kitchen, I am personally obsessed with the lemon cucumbers (lower right, first picture) and Alexander Wang, I mean Erin Wasson (far left, second picture).

Strawberry Hand Pies

Think I've mentioned that we've been making a lot of jam over here with all the amazing organic strawberries gifted to us so we're finding ways to use it and thus, strawberry hand pies are born and served on our Food Truck, Black Betty.

p.s. the first batch of these I made for Oprah!

(It was very exciting and excessively nerve-wrenching all at one time.) 

Photos by: George Simian

Amazing Schaner Farms Avocados In Equals Sushi

Black Betty is at Yamashiro tonight form 5-9 and we got in some sensational Schaner Farms avocados that will be going into deep fried wild salmon sushi rolls with sea beans and fresh cream cheese and spicy aioli, and folks.... they are good, real good.

Look What Matt Done Did

There's been a lot of musings going on outside  of places like  catering parties or Black Betty stops where I hear people comment about Matt's new set of wheels. "Have you seen what he drives?" 

I don't even personally know these people, but I jump in defensively and without invitation, "That's my dad's Corvette! Matt's just borrowing it! He actually drives an old Mercedes that runs off our used vegetable oil!" 

These people nod politely at the belligerent woman before them. I don't know what they're thinking but I do always stop myself from continuing, "He's giving it back, he is! He has to, it's my dad's! We have used vegetable oil, cleaned and ready to go!"

You see, my dad's Corvette has an insatiable hunger for gasoline which doesn't exactly decrease our dependency on foreign oil, but it is American made and awfully fun to drive. 

So fun in fact that Matt has worked out a trade. Without my knowledge, he purchased a 1977 Ford truck in mint condition. It had only one previous owner and arrived on a flat bed truck from Sacramento right in front of our office window. Imagine my surprise. I peered over at the guilty party and he was smiling from ear to ear. Everyone was-- Taz, Tal, KRoq-- for this truck is quite a beauty.

Matt tells me he got the truck to haul away trash from caterings. He tells my dad he got the truck "for you to drive until you want your Vet back."

Either way, the two men of my life love their new truck so I guess I will too.

photos: George Simian and Beata Bernina

Certified to Serve Safe

Test time for everyone at Heirloom LA this week. A two hour class was conducted and each one of us, the kitchen (obviously), the office, and even some of our regular free-lance workers came in to become Serve Safe Certified. Most of us were renewing but others were familiarizing themselves with proper holding temperatures and storage for the first time. Useful information. 

School's out. We all passed. We are certified to serve safe.

Our Secret To Success Is Family Meal

I met Matt in a fine dining kitchen that got clobbered by the recession and bad management but in it's nascent stages it was the darling of the press and not without good reason. The Italian food played on classics with dishes I still dream about. It was not straightforward, it was inventive and undisputedly spectacular. 

So I never understood why the family meals there were so incongruent. The same care and pride seen during service was nowhere to be found when it was time to feed staff. Scraps were thrown together into a rondo and heated up without any thought, save for the chopped parsley to finish which undoubtedly was used to conceal the mish-mash that was being served. Irene Virbilia would never make it to the restaurant before service so why exert any special effort?

At some point Matt volunteered to take over the family meal detail with the same scraps and in the same amount of time as others had been given. His dishes were all simple, things like shepherd's pie, tacos, and the best mac n cheese I had ever tasted, all from leftovers that couldn't be sold for the prices on the menu. It was so touching to see the difference of what a little love can make and how quickly Matt became everyone's favorite co-worker, including mine.

We've been hiring a few new kitchen people here at Heirloom LA as of late. Each of them has impressive resumes, kitchens they've spent time at, chefs they've cooked for, but the true test of talent is family meal. With the pressures of getting through an extensive prep list, how much care do you put into a meal that you make for your peers? I have known dishwashers to make more impressive family meals than celebrated chefs. Pomp doesn't serve memorable food to just anyone.

Lately we've been having outside visitors stop by and spend some time with us. Matt invites everyone for our noon-time family meals which has prompted one of our prep cooks, Paco, who was our first hire, to set a table outside, complete with linens and umbrellas and a centerpiece (a handled sponge placed face up in an empty bottle). It's this kind of attention that speaks volumes because there's no credit you are sure to receive except on this blog. It's this kind of care and love of the job that is valued because it translates to all of our food and has helped us to grow at an accelerated speed right in the middle of a historical economic slump. The buck pauses at Family Meal, and then it dashes on to a tasting, drop-off, catering party or food truck stop near you.

photos: George Simian + Beata Bernina