Facebook/Mohawk Bend

Summer root salad

Since he took over the kitchen at Mohawk Bend last December, Erick Simmons has thrown out a few tools from his traditional chef's tool box. "I have no butter in my inventory. I haven't used it here for the last six months. If you told me that before I arrived last year, I would have thought you're crazy."

In fact, one of Simmons' first orders of business was to get rid of 15 pounds of butter that had been languishing unused in the kitchen. Olive oil became the preferred oil instead; vegetable oil for the fryer. Chicken and beef stock were swapped for vegetable-based stock, beer for wine.

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Clarissa Wei

Mr. Lin and his team

Ocean Star in Monterey Park has been in service since 1982. They're a classic dim sum joint in every sense of the word: rolling carts, Cantonese servers, dim sum operation during the day and extraordinary seafood at night.

The restaurant is one of the largest of its kind in Los Angeles, and has an impressive capacity that can hold a crowd of almost a thousand. It was first opened by a Hong Kong native and, since then, has been divided among a team of five different shareholders.

Mr. Lin, who has been the head dim sum chef at Ocean Star for about four years, manages a team of 12 people who work solely on the dim sum. "I started off in Guangdong and then when I moved to the States, a chef from Hong Kong taught me how to make these dishes," Lin says.

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flickr/Phil Sexton

If you work at an office on a semi-to-regular basis, chances are you've developed a lunch routine that either involves a microwave, leftovers, or whatever's quick from around corner. You can only get away from your desk for so long, after all. On top of this, most office kitchens are equipped like a conventional bachelor unit: You're lucky if the refrigerator is a decent size. A hot plate would just be a bonus amenity.

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jgarbee

Clarita Coleman at the Wednesday Santa Monica Farmers Market

When fantastic farmers -- and cooks -- like Clarita Coleman matter-of-factly say things like, "I don't write anything down," you stop to jot that recipe down. If there even is a recipe. With Coleman, you're likely to get a basic cooking outline. But really, with beans this fresh, that's all you need.

The co-owner of Coleman Family Farms makes dinner most nights from the gorgeous produce lining in the family's Carpenteria backyard: baby lettuces, purple amaranth, chard, kale and an ever-changing menu of herbs like Persian mint and Japanese shiso. This time of year, the farm's fantastic scarlet runner beans (Ayocote morado) are on Coleman's stove. "Cook a big pot, and then use them in salad the next day with a little olive oil," she says.

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L.J. Williamson

Christmas is known as the season of excess -- and excess counter space, and judging by the proliferation of silly, useless and just plain dumb kitchen appliances that seem, like egg nog, only to appear on store shelves during the spendiest time of the year. Aunt Ethel might be a tough case on your holiday gift list, but as tempting as it may seem, keep those sawbucks in your pocket and just get her a box of candy instead of something that will clutter up her already cramped cabinets, leading her to curse your name for the next 12 months.

Turn the page for our top 10 dumbest kitchen gadgets -- with suggestions for better options. Consider it a little holiday shopping intervention.

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JGarbee

Coldwater Canyon Provisions Jams

In today's era of trendy compotes and 10-ingredient jellies, Coldwater Canyon Provisions takes a refreshingly old-school approach to their preserves and pickles that hint at simpler jam and jelly times. Flavors include watermelon jelly, raspberry and strawberry-rhubarb jam, and pickled okra, beets and dilled green tomatoes.

All the more endearing: Co-owners Rondo Mieczkowski and Danny Barillaro seem truly tickled by their 2010 California State Fair blue ribbon for that strawberry-rhubarb jam (it's usually front and center at events like the Renegade Craft Fair, where we caught up with them recently). They also donate a portion of their sales to Under the Bridges and On the Streets (@Lunch4Homeless), a nonprofit that provides food, clothing, and services for L.A.'s homeless.

Get more on their jams, and suggestions for using up those last spoonfuls (Cocktails! Salad dressing!), after the jump.

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JGarbee

Box of Blenheim Apricots From See Canyon Farm

If you haven't tasted this year's stone fruit crop -- peaches, apricots, any of them -- you must. It really is some of the best we've tasted in years. And an open invitation to make jam. A requirement, actually, when you finally resign yourself to the reality that you cannot possibly eat your way through a 25-pound box of Blenheim apricots before they spoil.

Jam isn't particularly difficult to make: Combine the fruit with some sugar, cook it, can it. You can add citrus juices for tang, herbs, whatever you want, really. And if you're more interested in the cooking than canning side, jam freezes quite well in small portions, a 6-month supply of tart filling, ice cream and fruit sauce inspiration. But even the simplest recipes are layered with subtleties. "How 'jammy' do you want your stone fruit?" asked Mike Cirone of See Canyon farm in San Luis Obispo when we picked up our discounted "jam box" of apricots at the Santa Monica Farmers Market. "A little jammy, more jammy?"

Well, we weren't sure. So we asked Amy Deaver of Lemon Bird Handmade Jams, who was up to her elbows in stone fruit jam making recently (and makes some pretty fantastic jams -- if you find yourself in a flavor inspiration rut, try her apricot-sage honey-pistachio jam). Get Deaver's tips after the jump.

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Amazon

California cooking icon Marion Cunningham died yesterday at the age of 90 from complications due to Alzheimer's. Famed updater of The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, celebrated author, cooking teacher and television host, Cunningham profoundly influenced the cooking habits of Americans.

That is to say, without her guidance -- her cookbooks with recipes reportedly tested on an everyday electric stove, her columns for the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle -- a lot of people in the late 1970s and '80s wouldn't have learned to cook at all.

As is often the case when someone well-known and highly influential dies, the people who knew Cunningham, a lot of them writers, are rushing to share their fondest memories.

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via Nomiku

Sous vide simplified

The sous vide method has proven to be a nifty science trick for modern chefs. Want to make a cheap cut of steak or bunch of carrots melt like butter? Throw them in a thermal immersion circulator for a half-day and revel in the results.

Sous vide cooking using a immersion circulator is essentially like turning on a space-age slow cooker: You vacuum seal whatever you'd like to cook in a plastic bag, then place it in a water bath circulating at a constant temperature for several hours or days at a time until the food item has been slowly poached, without losing any of its essential juices or flavor. Forget those infomercial chicken roasters -- an immersion circulator is the real "set it and forget it."

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A. Scattergood

Rainier cherries

It's cherry season! But it won't be forever. Here's a way to make it last a little longer: Make cocktail cherries.

Luxardo cocktail cherries are in many ways hard to beat -- they're dense, almost raisinlike and totally delicious. But I also like a juicier, fatter cherry for some drinks. Making cocktail cherries at home is fun, and it ends in a drink, which is always a bonus.

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