courtesy Amy Rowat

Professor Amy Rowat

If you've been attending UCLA's Science & Food lectures, which began in April and continue through next month, you'll know who Professor Amy Rowat is. She's the one who put the series together, whose happy task it was to find sand fleas and an old electric blanket for Rene Redzepi and Lars Williams (from Noma and the Nordic Food Lab, respectively) for their recent presentation, and who will be introducing David Chang (Momofuku) tonight at Moore Hall. Before Rowat brought the series here, she organized similar lectures at Harvard, bringing Ferran Adrià and company to Cambridge.

At first Dr. Rowat might seem like an unlikely champion of modernist cuisine. She's a professor of integrative biology and physiology at UCLA, with a Ph.D. from the University of Southern Denmark. She's also young, Canadian and bakes a mean pie. Or, as Jonathan Gold described her the other day: Imagine Zooey Deschanel with a physics doctorate. We caught up with her recently, over coffee at Espresso Profeta in Westwood, to talk about how she got into this in the first place, her take on emulsions, and where to get a centrifuge. Turn the page.

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Joel Stein

Joel selects barbecue wood.

Readers of Joel Stein's column in Time magazine may remember when Stein hobnobbed with the super-rich over bottles of wine valued at more than $5,000 each. The night he sampled dishes inspired by Escoffier's 1903 cookbook in the Alinea kitchen. Or the time he gobbled up KFC's Double Down sandwich, made with fried chicken instead of bread. Some may have read in Food & Wine about his culinary escapades, such as bar-hopping with Tom Colicchio.

In March, the L.A.-based humorist began divulging his food adventures and not-so-humble opinions in Los Angeles Magazine. His first topic? Sea urchin. "It's the new egg, folded into any dish to add easy umami," he writes. Or maybe scoffs. Next, cold-pressed juice. And his unwilling enjoyment of a drink made in a hydraulic press that tastes "like a sweet autumnal salad." No surprise then, that the column, published every other month, is titled "The Intolerable Foodie."

Meanwhile, Stein's first book has just arrived in bookstores and e-readers. Man Made: A Stupid Quest for Masculinity charts Stein's attempts at masculine pursuits -- firefighting, hunting, boxing, home improvement, the army -- via the immersion journalism and contrarian outlook he's known for. All in a freaked-out attempt to become the ideal father for Laszlo, now 3.

We talked with Stein about foodie culture, cooking, masculine meals and the male-dominated restaurant industry. Catch him discussing the book 7 p.m. on Saturday at The Grove's Barnes & Noble. Stein may be a foodie, but he's not as intolerable as he says.

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BBC

Una Stubbs as Mrs. Hudson

If, like us, you're a fan of Stephen Moffat's godhead 21st-century updating of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock on PBS Masterpiece Mystery! there's no need to introduce you to Holmes' and Watson's landlady, Mrs. Hudson, but we will anyway.

What we know from the first season of Steven Moffatt's addictive three-part series is that a) Mrs. Hudson rents to Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) at a reduced rate as a show of gratitude for his ensuring the Florida execution of her husband, and b) Mrs. Hudson is a bit of a feather-dusting busybody, often popping into the tech-savvy crime solvers' flat at 221b Baker Street (she lives in 221a) at crucial moments to throw in her two cents or maybe wail loudly about a gory body part that Sherlock was storing in the refrigerator for research purposes.

But judging from last night's film-quality first installment of season 2, Scandal in Belgravia, it's clear that she's grown from a slightly barmy plot device into a clucking mother figure, someone who is there to take care of two adult male detectives who are as peerless at investigating wrongdoing as they are domestically challenged. That this juryrigged family feels so realistic is partly due to the series' fine writing. But credit must also be given to Una Stubbs, the great veteran British actress with the tinkly voice and the batty charm, who took an underwritten, tangential widow character and made her seem like someone who Sherlock and Watson could ultimately lean on. (To grasp how well Stubbs knows her way around a scene-stealing, oddball zinger, one need only turn to the slew of Twitter accounts and a blog on Tumblr spawned in her honor.)

If you'd like to know more about Stubbs' relationship with co-stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, the kind of ridiculous props she's regularly confronted with on Sherlock and what sorts of desserts she liked to bake (when she was still baking), turn the page.

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Ben Campbell

McDonald's burger and fries under glass

There's playing with your food, and there's Playing With Your Food. A kind of brilliant example of the latter is the artwork of Ben Campbell, a Texas artist who recently constructed a mummy entirely out of McDonald's food.

Campbell, who describes himself as "some guy in West Texas who makes artwork out of old food," constructed the mummy to demonstrate the correlation between ancient Egypt mummification practices and modern society's obsession with immortality. At least that's what we think. Maybe keep reading.

We caught up with Campbell this morning, after seeing his project on Facebook and Kickstarter. (Pledge $10 and you get a mummified order of small McDonald's fries!) Because if you could ask a guy why he decided to build a mummy out of burgers and fries, wouldn't you?

As for why Campbell does stuff like this, he told us, "I'm generally known for not taking myself too seriously and pursuing odd projects. Because of that, the only thing I'm probably suited for in life is to be a celebrity artist." If West Texas doesn't work out, he can always move here.

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Anne Fishbein

Phil Rosenthal at Short Order

In this week's feature food story, arts editor Zachary Pincus-Roth talks to Phil Rosenthal, creator of Everybody Loves Raymond about what he's done with all his money. Really. Because the producer, writer and director hasn't just been resting on his Emmys, but has put a lot of that money into local restaurants. Jar, Mozza, Umami Burger, Bouchon, Hungry Cat, Tavern, Providence, Red Medicine, 800 Degrees, "among others." Does this get him better food than the rest of us? What do you think. Rosenthal tells Pincus-Roth about his take on the L.A. restaurant scene, eating sushi with James Brooks, and asking "a million stupid questions" of Thomas Keller.

To me, food is an art form as valid as painting or music or anything else -- it just enters you in a different way. So I'm supporting the arts. I'm supporting the quality of life in our town. I promise, it's not for the money -- investing in a restaurant is as stupid as investing in a Broadway show, or a boat.

Read the story.

Photo by David Khinda

Drew Barrymore perks up when we start talking about Baja's wine country -- a topic that seems to be on everyone's lips since Anthony Bourdain declared it the new Tuscany. "That sounds so cool!" she says excitedly on the other end of the phone. "All I do is sit around and research what food adventures I can go on, and that one sounds like a really good one."

Barrymore has always been a culinary thrill-seeker, downing piles of sushi with her famous godfather, Steven Spielberg, when she was 7. Get her talking about octopus, tacos or a patty melt and she practically coos. It's that love of food and the communal experience of eating and drinking that inform her latest venture: the launch of Barrymore Wines. It's a humble foray into the world of winemaking, currently producing just Pinot Grigio with a label that bears her family crest, done up by friend and famed street artist Shepard Fairey.

A self-proclaimed winemaking neophyte, Barrymore is taking it slow. Ultimately, she'd love to produce more varietals, and perhaps even open a wine bar somewhere in the city. For now, though, there's just the one bottle, and for her, that's all anyone needs to set the right mood.

Turn the page to read our interview:

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A. Scattergood

Chef Bryant Ng at the Spice Table

When you walk into the Spice Table, the Little Tokyo restaurant chef Bryant Ng and his wife, Kim Luu-Ng, opened just over a year ago, you are presented with a composition of place so complete that you might not even notice it. The wood-burning open fire behind the bar like a cabin hearth. The birdcages hanging from the dining room ceiling. The universe of exposed brick, as if you've stumbled into a country church. Oh, and the food, which seems like the world on a plate -- or one heavily doused with sambal.

It is a lovely place, an evolved place, the sort of place that seems to have been extant for considerably longer than a year. You could say the same thing about Ng's cooking, which is the street food of his family's native Singapore, with a little of his wife's family's Vietnamese food, plus a layer of Nancy Silverton's Los Angeles kitchens and an echo of Daniel Boulud's New York City palaces thrown in for good measure. It does not seem "new" any more than Ng seems a New Chef, which is what Food & Wine named him (properly "Best New Chef") last week.

But "new" is a happily relative term. Ng is here to stay, whatever adjective you hand to him. He really is, regardless of the vicissitudes of city planners: Yes, the MTA has had some changing plans for the space, but there's nothing firm yet -- Ng has known about the issue since before he signed his lease -- and at the rate the city is going, Ng may even outgrow his current location before anybody makes a decision. Who you gonna bet on, anyway? We'll take the chef over the city planners any day. Turn the page.

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G. Arellano

Gustavo Arellano, with oranges

You might suspect Gustavo Arellano, the brain and wit behind the popular syndicated and OC Weekly column ¡Ask a Mexican!, as one of those Mexican food sticklers who bristles at ideas of yellow nacho cheese, the chimichonga, the chicken fajita pita, enchilada combination plates and Taco Bell's 50th anniversary festivities. Yes, Arellano admits to having once been fanatical about authenticity. But he's reformed.

Years of writing about food, restaurants and Mexican-American issues have broadened Arellano's perspective. He has explained that the epithet "greaser" as leveled against
Mexican-Americans refers to the high fat content of many Mexican
dishes -- pinto beans fried in lard, for example. In turn, Mexicans refer to Anglo-Americans as bolillos (French rolls) and mayonesa (mayonnaise).

"Greaser" certainly doesn't describe Arellano, but it's not a stretch to apply the label to Taquería Zamora, a Santa Ana hole-in-the-wall renowned for giant platters of cheap comida, accompanied by complimentary refried beans topped with salty cotija cheese. Arellano has chosen this taste of Mexico in a strip mall to chat with Squid Ink about his new book (scheduled for release tomorrow), entitled Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. He's clearly a regular. A customer on lunch break whispers to her companion, "There's the Mexican."

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YouTube/FungBrosComedy

Fung Brothers at Savoy Kitchen

YouTube stars, comedians and brothers Andrew and David Fung ascended to San Gabriel Valley fame in February with music video "626," a witty YouTube mash-up of various restaurants and dishes in the area.

"Food is the one thing that a lot of people can agree that Asians are the best at," Andrew Fung said. "Asians are the best at math, cars, making cars, saving money, being cheap and making really good affordable food."

With over 250,000 views, the clip pays an extensive tribute to food culture in the 626, an area they feel is underrepresented in mainstream media. The Fung brothers are lifelong patrons to the San Gabriel Valley food scene, so we caught up with them on the phone to ask them about their favorite picks and why food is so important to them.

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thecampussocialite.com

Update: (Friday, 1:51 p.m.) A few hours ago, the CABC released a statement stating that the real reason for the cancellation (which they claim was Beerathon LLC's decision, not theirs) was that Beerathon does not have a license to sell alcohol. Never mind that all alcohol will be served not by the company but by the venues who have stocked up on beer for the 4,000+ participants who paid for tomorrow's event.

Alas, all ticket money for the event is currently being refunded and the Los Angeles Beerathon is being rebranded as a quotation-marked "beerathon," where (according to an email organizers sent to the venues yesterday) "Venues will still be open for business, still will have excellent drink specials, and it still will be an amazingly fun time in downtown Los Angeles."

So, in the end, L.A. beer lovers will still be able to go on a beer-tinged marathon, albeit without Beerathon LLC's involvement.

To keep up with all the twists and turns of this tale as it unfolds, check out The Informer's updated post.

Update w/ editor's note: (Thursday, 5:16 p.m.) Because of a dispute with the Department of Alcohol Beverage Control, the organizers of the first L.A. Beerathon are currently refunding all money to the 4,000 or so participants of Saturday's event. At issue is the idea that the beer to be consumed in possibly large quantities this weekend was "free." Thus the event is not being canceled exactly, but rewired so that it is not technically a "Beerathon" but a very fun event with all the beer and food and entertainment that it was going to have in the first place. It will simply not be "free." Of course, since you all paid $55, it wasn't exactly free, but that's the kind of semantics you'll have to take up with the ABC. The Beerathon's organizers very much hope that you'll go anyway, since the venues in question are still there and still have all that beer. You were planning on staying home and drinking by yourself? Please. (The original post, published 11 a.m., is after the jump.)

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