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​If your New Year's resolution list includes something along the lines of eating more good food -- home cooked, farmers market-inspired, healthier or whatever your definition -- you're going to want to add Bi-Rite Market's Eat Good Food cookbook to your Amazon wish-list. If for no other reason than the citrus olive oil cake and chocolate pots de crème recipes are simple and look good. Very good.

San Francisco's multi-generational, family-owned Bi-Rite Market has expanded under Sam Mogannam (his father and uncle founded the market in the 1960s) to include a creamery and bakeshop, several small farms in Sonoma and Placerville, and an art/community space. But cookbook author Mogannam says in the Introduction that he never intended to be a grocer.

And so, as the typical second generation family business story tends to go, he high tailed it to culinary school and later a Switzerland restaurant kitchen, about as far away from Aisle 2 as he could get (he later returned to San Francisco and opened his own restaurant).

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Tanja M. Laden

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L.A. is no stranger to pop-up shops and restaurants, but an orchard? We're not talking your average pumpkin patch or Christmas tree lot, either. Since October 15, 75-year-old gourmet retail giant Harry & David has been planting sixteen pop-up orchards across the country, all designed to close up shop after the holidays.

Located across the street from the Ivy on Robertson Boulevard, the Harry & David Orchard is not as rustic as its name suggests, looking more like a high-end culinary boutique than a patch of land in the country. Yet while L.A.'s version of the pop-up orchard isn't technically lined with fruit trees, with the amount of pears on hand, it might as well be.

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If you're in the Valley and searching for some homemade borscht, Kaffir lime leaves, German beer and mustards, Indian spices or naan bread, or just some sweet Italian sausage, it's sometimes difficult to know which direction to head and exactly where to go. So, whether you're trying to get a taste of home, shopping for a dinner party, or just looking for something that you can't find at your local grocery store, here's a list--in no particular order--of our Top 10 ethnic markets in the San Fernando Valley.

Erinn Eichinger

Domingo's Italian Market - Hand made sausage

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Since the closing of the original Santa Monica Place in 2008, passers-by near the south end of Third Street Promenade have been wondering at the dark and mysterious tarp-covered space. The first week of August, the tarp will be lifted to reveal a newly constructed Santa Monica Place featuring a rooftop market, dining deck and views of the ocean, Promenade, Santa Monica Mountains, and skyline. During a sunny and breezy mid-February it seems the perfect location for such a concept. With its wide open spaces and glass walls throughout, the 555,000 square foot shopping center and dining destination is well on its way, as development company Macerich continues to sign on independent, farm-to-table type gourmet purveyors for the Market.

Celia Soudry

View of the Promenade from Santa Monica Market

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It feels only appropriate to celebrate cheese during the amorous month of February. In addition to being the main ingredient of one the most iconic romantic food symbols--the fondue pot--cheese-making is pretty much a craft of pure passion.

So this Valentine's season, perhaps on a break from writing odes, you should definitely treat yourself and celebrate the love that is cheese by enjoying the finest Valentine's inspired selections you can get your hands on. The following picks are suggested by some of L.A.'s best cheese vendors. All are enjoyable with both lovers and friends alike and, yeah, love at first bite.

sparenti

Minuet by Andante Dairy

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I am a regular patron of Aladdin Nuthouse, one of the better Armenian nut vendors in town, a place with a half-dozen kinds of melon seeds, delicious sesame peanuts, and a way of roasting hazelnuts and almonds that not only brings out the full, round flavor of the nuts but leaves them rimed with salt. You can find fresh Middle Eastern spices and baklava imported from Lebanon.

Aladdin Nuthouse

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Tomorrow, drumroll please, is World Nutella Day. Okay, this is one of those holidays (Arbor Day, National Cream Puff Day) that may seem arbitrary and slightly ridiculous at first, when in fact it is a serious vindication for some of us. In 2007, two American ex-pat writers living in Italy, Sara Rosso and Michelle Fabio, made it official, declaring their love for the chocolate-hazelnut spread and declaring the day a holiday.

For the uninitiated: Nutella is a product of the Ferraro company, a spread that was invented during wartime Italy for children and has achieved a kind of worldwide domination in the decades since. It is a habit, a hobby, even a vocation. It's also serious business, as Ferrero, Inc. principle owner Michele Ferrero recently overtook Silvio Berlusconi to become the richest man in Italy, with a net worth of $9.5 billion.

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Can't make it to Miami for the Super Bowl? You could do worse than head over to The Cheese Store of Beverly Hills, which turns out to be an unlikely branch of Who Dat Nation. Owner Norbert Wabnig, who is from New Orleans, is celebrating the occasion of the Saints' first Super Bowl appearance with lots of specials. To quote the Super Bowl page of the store's website, "Geaux Saints!"

Cheese Store of Beverly Hills

Norbert Wabnig with cheeses

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Traditionally, Happy Hour hasn't been the best time for gastronomes to find appealing early evening snacks. But at Froma, a small gourmet wine and food shop on Melrose Avenue in the Fairfax district, the Happy Hour menu offers plenty of stellar options.

"We wanted to bring in neighbors by offering them something affordable and good," says Francine Diamond, an owner at Froma and a Canadian-born sommelier. "Happy Hour brings an atmosphere of joy to this place. People get excited and want to stay for more than just one thing."

Brooke Burton

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For anyone else who drove by the closed Bay Cities Italian Deli on Monday and about choked on their coffee when they noticed the workmen on ladders attacking the roof, paint dropcloths on the ground and masking tape bandaging up the windows, and wondered if something was amiss or, better, if the always-insanely-crowded import shop might actually be expanding... well, no. Manager Hector Carlos says they're always closed on Mondays (pitying stare) and that they were using the time to replace the roof tiles, "beautify" the outdoor tables ("a Tuscan look"), and expand the seating area. Okay, okay. Just checking.

A. Scattergood

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