Information is Beautiful

The "Taste Buds" infographic helps you match foods and flavors.

​Say you find yourself at dinnertime with, oh, a dozen Brussels sprouts, what's left of the frozen shrimp, a wedge or two of some cheese, and your everyday assortment of pantry items. If you have no idea how to bring it all together, forget about trying to plug the contents of your kitchen in Google's interesting but overwhelming Recipes Search.

Instead, refer to Information is Beautiful's ingenious "Taste Buds" infographic to see which flavors complement certain foods. This, in other words, is the closest thing to a home kitchen version of Carson Kressley you will ever have.

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Rachael Narins

chestnuts

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L.A. doesn't have that romantic tradition of street vendors serving up roasted and salted chestnuts in a simple paper cone when autumn sets in. You have to go to New York or France for that. They're in season though, so if you want to taste them hot from the fire in Southern California, you can make them yourself. Happily, you can find them at local farmers markets or order them online now from Correia Chestnut Farm and Girolami Farms.

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​Yes, we know how much you like your tattered and demi-glace-stained copy of The Joy of Cooking, or maybe How to Cook Everything, but there is another book that you would do well to add to the kitchen library, if you don't already have it. The new edition of Escoffier's Le Guide Culinaire, the book that codified French cuisine when it was first published in 1903, is being published today by John Wiley and Sons, with new forwards by Tim Ryan, president of The Culinary Institute of America, and Heston Blumenthal, chef of The Fat Duck Restaurant and, well (to paraphrase the Coen Brothers), you know who he is.

This edition, a relative bargain at $70 and on sale at Amazon for far less (context: Larousse is $90; Modernist Cuisine is $625), is an unabridged translation of the 1921 fourth edition, and includes Escoffier's original foreward, a memoir of the chef by his grandson Pierre, and more than 5,000 recipes. Yes, they're in narrative form. So is Proust.

D. Gonzalez

"This is why they come." William Boyd, President of Epicure Imports said about the cheese cave

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We know the feeling. Why didn't anyone tell me about this before? We actually have. But good news bears repeating: For a couple of days, every few months Epicure Imports, a wholesale importer of gourmet foods in North Hollywood, extends its doors and its wholesale prices to the public. And this Friday, April 15 from 1:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. and Saturday April 16 from 9:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. are those two days until the next dates in June.

When we first heard of this sale and its warehouse setting, we imagined selling weighty cans of escargots and 10+ pound sacks of couscous. Which they do and are nice things to have, but are in quantities that are a bit excessive for the home cook. However, when we finally paid a visit, we were pleased to see their sale extended to items that come in individual consumer sizes like Maldon salts and Fallot mustard. They even pre-slice and price items like cheeses and Serrano hams in manageable sizes specifically for the sale.

We went to their first sale of the year this February with our camera to give a better sense and point out the type of items they may have available this week. Turn the page for a brief tour...

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Flickr/Susy Morris

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Thanks to the efforts of Master Food Preserver Ernest Miller and UC Cooperative Extension Nutrition Family & Consumer Sciences Advisor Brenda Roche, L.A. is finally relaunching its own Master Food Preserver (MFP) program after more than a decade of dormancy.

While the USDA is doing a bang up job of making sure safe canning and preserving info is available to everyone, home canning's increasing popularity among the LA Weekly set and the slow but inevitable loss of seasoned grandmothers to teach them how to do it safely is creating a bit of an information gap. A gap big enough for a bit of botulism? Of the approximately 150 cases of botulism reported in the US every year, about 22 are from food sources, mainly home canning. Doesn't sound like a big deal until you realize that botulism is a paralytic illness that attacks your nervous system, shutting down vital functions, like, you know, breathing. Seriously.

That's where the MFP programs come in. Run by various cooperative extensions nationwide, MFP programs are intensive workshops designed to churn out dedicated advocates of safe food preservation who can answer your every canning question with ease. Up until now local aspiring LA canning instructors have had to travel out to San Bernardino to participate in the Master Food Preserver program there. But come this March, qualifying Angelenos will be able to do granny proud without the long trek east.

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​Veterans returning home face many problems of transition, and in this economy, just finding a job can be one of them. According to PR Newswire, currently more than 250,000 U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are unemployed, and the rate of unemployment for veterans ages 18 to 24 is possibly as high as 30%. The Farmer Veteran Coalition (FVC), a non-profit started by farmers, is trying to make this re-entry more viable by putting returning veterans in touch with area farmers, thereby connecting two groups with identifiable needs that seem potentially very well suited to each other.

To this end, the FVC, a project of Community Partners and a member of Coalition for Iraq + Afghanistan Veterans, is holding their first Southern California Food and Farming Veteran Career Fair next Wednesday, June 30th, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. The purpose of the fair is to connect returning vets with jobs, internships, training programs and colleges, as well as to offer assistance to those veterans interested in starting their own farms or food-related businesses.

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When the James Beard Foundation isn't busy finding America's future culinary superstars, it's surveying their current roster to find out what makes them tick. Recently, the JBF quizzed its members about - what else? - their favorite, can't-live-without iPhone apps. Now you, too, can organize your grocery list, scan cookbooks and find the freshest seasonal produce just like the pros. Who knows, maybe you'll bump into Michael Cimarusti or Akasha Richmond while browsing for the ripest artichokes, fava beans or summer berries. Okay, maybe not, but at least you'll know what's on their phones.

1. Grocery IQ  

Cost: 99¢
Making (and organizing!) a grocery list has never been this easy. Simply use your iPhone's camera to scan the barcode for any product you're after and it's automatically stored in a customized list. Better yet, Grocery IQ lets you find free coupons, share your grocery list with others and sort your items according to their specific grocery store aisle.

Grocery IQ

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Felicia Friesema

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Home butchery is the new backyard chicken coop. And sure, you could watch and learn about whole beast butchery from the comfort of your own iPad. But video won't tell you what it feels like when the knife in your hand hits tendon or bone or what that seam between the muscles feels like under a layer of fat. For that, you'll need a hands-on class, and the ladies from the secret supper club, Chicks with Knives, will be teaching one on June 26th.

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May Wah

The many flavors of fake

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The vegan chef de cuisine has three options when planning his animal-free menu. First, ignore mock-meat entirely and serve tofu as tofu and vegetables as vegetables, without subterfuge. Such is the approach at M Cafe de Chaya, those green tendrils sprouting from the Chaya empire's trunk, where plants and plant-based protein are allowed to stand more or less on their own merits. Second, roll your own un-meat. Sometimes it pays off. Sometimes--as in the laborious, inscrutable doppelganger dishes on the menus of Native Foods and Real Food Daily--it doesn't. Finally, if you are a Thai or Vietnamese or Chinese cook of principled Buddhist extraction, toiling perhaps at the growing cluster of Happy Families in Monterey Park and Rosemead, you order from May Wah.

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Food advertising may not be built to last forever, but it sure can be entertaining. Scan online ephemera collections and you'll quickly find a collection of tasty--and sometimes stomach turning--food advertisements that prove some promotional materials really should have a brief shelf life.

Aspiring food historians can unearth culinary ephemera and advertising within Flickr's vintage advertising pool. Individual collectors and contributors post found images--some scanned and others photographed--from newspapers and magazines dating back to the early 1900's. Other online resources include two blogs: Candyboots.com, a blogger who posts colorful commentary and disturbing images of Weight Watchers recipes dating back to the 70's, and Found in My Mom's Basement, a blog that that gives readers images discovered in basements and antique fairs.

Amongst the quaint imagery and pioneering designs, we offer you this gallery of odd culinary ephemera from the past.

1. Trim the Margins: Perhaps the slogan was enough to kill this product.

Flickr member glen.h

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