Peppermint Bark

One of my favorite things to make for holiday parties and gifts is peppermint bark. It's super easy--only takes about 20 minutes to prepare--and is absolutely gorgeous to put into little cellophane bags with festive ribbons or into a gift basket.

Here's the recipe I use:

1 large block of Trader Joe's chocolate (22 oz)

2 bags white chocolate chips

20 drops of Peppermint Extract, available at Whole Foods

6 crushed candycanes

Boil water in a large pasta pot. Sit an aluminum bowl on top, and place the milk chocolate bar, broken into pieces, inside. Melt the chocolate, stirring frequently. Add in 10 drops of peppermint oil. Once all the chocolate is melted, spread onto a rimmed baking sheet using a spatula. The sheet should be lined with either wax paper or aluminum foil creating an even layer.

Clean the bowl and proceed to do the same with the white chocolate chips, this time adding in 2/3 of the crushed candycanes. Once melted, carefully spread on top of the milk chocolate layer using a spatula. Sprinkle the remaining candy canes on top.

To create a marbled look, take a toothpick and drag it through the chocolate, pulling upwards to make the tail of the swirl. Let harden in the fridge for a few hours, then break into large pieces. Don't stress; Peppermint bark is meant to be in uneven pieces. Voila!

Bouchon, Beverly Hills

My fingers were cramped up from crossing them the entire month of October. I was hoping for an on-target opening date for Bouchon to sync up with my birthday. And contrary to common restaurant opening delays, Keller's establishment actually pulled it off, opening it's doors on November 18 as promised. After some intense stretching, my hands were fork-ready.

I attended the celebrity-studded opening as a sort of pre-party for my birthday meal, and though the various hour d' ourvres were better than most, what really had me gushing were the pastries, breads and massive tyred dessert station (the macarons put Paulette to shame, for the record). As it turns out, this was a pretty good indicator of how my dinner played out.

We started with freshly baked epi baguettes, baked in the shape of an olive branch, which came with salty herbed butter, giving the bistro a traditional Parisian kiss--and a good reason to ruin your appetite. The foie gras terrine served with little soldiers of toast and a side of sea salt was silky, earthy and unctuous--just the sort of sinful treat one should savor on a special occasion. And the house-cured olives, whose dark, meaty texture was accentuated by preserved lemon and plenty of thyme, were as good as any souk in Morocco.

But the honeymoon was over when my lamb came luke-warm at best, and served on a bed on intensely over-salted chard (mind you, this is coming from someone who adores a smattering of salt and seasoning). My partner's steak frites--ordered medium rare--was cooked with a nice seer, but again was a bit saline and certainly nothing to write home about.  It wasn't the worst violation of the palate, but it certainly wasn't what I'd waited months for.

Dessert, however, was an entirely different story. As luck would have it, we were seated next to George Lynch of Dokken, who we'd been eying throughout night, as the entire menu was whisked out to clutter their tiny bistro table ( compliments of the chef, I'm sure). He and his wife had their fill by dessert, so we got to sample a few of theirs.

Il Flotante, a delicate sugared cloud of a meringue-meets-panna cotta topped with praline brittle shaped like little sails, swam in a shallow soup of salted caramel and cream. Absolute perfection, and at the moment I'm hard pressed to recall a better dessert.

Then, of course, there were the dense, brownie-like bouchons to cork off the meal, as well as a zingy lemon tart with a perfect, flaky crust, and a creme caramel that put all it's predecessors to shame.

So, would I go back to Bouchon? For dinner, if you're buying.  Now if there was an outpost of Bouchon Bakery attached, you certainly wouldn't have to ask twice. What can I say? I love carbs.

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Comida Bandidas visit Mo Chica

All too often, I hear women complaining that they don't have enough girl friends. We all move along after college, get too busy with work, life and boyfriends and seem to lose touch with our close girls. So, I thought it would be fun to get a group of ladies together every month or so to sample some new worldly cuisine, sharing each other's friendship and a love of exploring the unknown. It's an open supper club called the Comida Bandidas (Food Bandits), and we are going through the alphabet A-Z (hopefully a few times over).

We started with food from the Andes, and what better place than the already-popular Mo Chica. The Peruvian fare was not at all what I expected. Initially I thought it would just be an extension of the majority of Latin American food, spiked with citrus, cilantro and tomato.

 Pork belly over plantains--made a great carnitas-style taco lunch a few days later!

La Causa: Confit garlic, sun dried tomatoes, avocado mouse and olive aoli (sounds more Italian than Peruvian, no?)

What stuck out to me was the use of really creamy sauces, and subtle heat that's more similar to Indian curries than Mexican serranos. I was also taken aback by the use LOTS of corn, sun dried tomatoes and nori, an element taken from the strong Japanese and Chinese influence in Peru.

Carapulcra, traditionally made with camel meat but here done with fish/pork
A really hearty wintertime dish; As Melissa said, "That's substantial!"

Ricardo's  tasting menu was really unique, and I'd definitely return for a lunch. Dinner, however was a bit odd--El Mercado La Paloma was pretty barren when we were there. And considering it's ladies' night, we'll have to go somewhere with some cocktails.

Corn nuts, which would have been great with a pisco sour :-)

Maracuya Susprio: Passion fruit mouse with Chantilly creme

Comida Bandidas (and a few strapping bandidos!)

--Krista Simmons

Let's hear it for New York...

I've got a giddy-little-school-girl-crush on New York City.  Last week, we had a three day bi-coastal love affair, and now that I'm back to sucking up smog in LA, I'm craving just one...more...night...

Sure the trash-lined streets and stinky subways were irksome at times, but the late-night last calls (4 a.m. what!) and amazing eateries sure made up for lost ground.

Being my first trip to NYC, I wanted to keep it classic, so we stayed at the stunning New York Palace. Thanks to a hookup from a concierge friend of mine, we were able to stay at a really reasonable rate.  The customer service was impeccable, and the location was ideally central for my partner and I, who were first time visitors. The only minor complaint I had was that one of the concierges improperly informed us of the dress code at wd~50, which was much more casual than they advised us. Dress shirt and jeans would work for a guy, so Aaron's suit and my stilettos were a bit much.

That was for the best though: I was dressed to impress for my chance meeting with one of my chef-idols, Wylie Dufrense. I  nearly had a heart attack when I saw him running wd~50's kitchen (Aren't celeb chefs supposed to be off jet setting, recording TV series or something?). Naturally, I coaxed the manager to let me sneak a peek into the kitchen and take a pic with him. I had too--the tasting menu at wd~50 deserved a handshake.

The man is nothing short of genius: Two of my favorite molecular creations of the night--and of my life for that matter--were the cold fried chicken with tabasco reduction, ricotta mashed potatoes and caviar and the panna cotta, whose dehydrated crushed cranberry casing reminded me of Captain Crunchberries, a cereal I had to sneak at friend's sleepovers due to my mom's obsession with sugar-free cerail.

Each course of the tasting menu was a little guilty pleasure that tapped into childhood memories and sensory reflections of meals past. It was an experience that will be kept in the vault of my memory bank for years to come

Wylie's wacky cuisine was the furthest away from classic we veered though. Some of the other ridiculously delicious NY goodies I sampled included Eric Ripert's Le Bernardin (phenomenal seafood), McSorley's Old Ale House, Katz's famous combo pastrami/corned beef reuben, Esse Bagel, Carnegie's pastrami, and of course the ubiquitous dirty water dog.

Here are some shots of my favorite dishes. If you're still hungry, check out my Flickr gallery of NY.

Fluke sashimi from Le Bernardin with crispy kimchee and citrus soy

Classic NYC pretzel from street vendor

2 for 1 ale at McSorley's Old Ale House, established 1854

View from the New York Palace

St. Patrick's Cathedral, which we could see form our hotel window

Two amazing artists' work at the Met

Wading my way into the blogosphere

I'm shocked it took me this long. Really, for a girl who grew up writing herself to sleep, finding nothing more enticing than a clean sheet of paper and a jelly pen, I should have jumped on the blogging bandwagon a long time ago. That's not to say I haven't danced around with the idea. I'll admit, there's a certain "come hither" about the blogger culture: the underground community, the up-to-the-minute updates, the thrill of a new reader, the ability to actually track just what people like to read and what they absolutely despise.

So what's been stopping me? Well, first off I'm a control freak. I'm a journalist by trade, and what I write and shoot is precious to me. The idea of sitting down, pouring out my thoughts and-- without having so much as an editor to taking a pass--pressing publish, opening myself up to a flurry of commentary is frightening. There are other reasons too: time, stressing over templates not being perfect, fear that I'd become one of  those pesky kids bringing the newspaper business to it's grave (By the way, that's malarky. It's not bloggers, it's old white men in leather chairs being too stubborn to change that will cause this ship to sink).

So instead of stressing out about what this all means, I've decided to JUST RELISH. To savor, write, shoot and share the things that I love--traveling, eating and exploring--hopefully making the world a brighter place somewhere in between.  If no one reads it, so what? It will be like what I've kept since I was 5 years old: a diary. Except this time, there's no lock and key. This is me. Uncensored, unedited and evolving. Thanks for sharing in the experience.