Posts Tagged ‘Los Angeles’
The Saban Free Clinic's 14th Annual Extravaganza
Special Events • Tags: charity, Extravaganza for the Senses, fundraiser, health care, Los Angeles, The Saban Free Clinic
If you missed last week’s teaser post, then maybe it comes as a surprise to you that The Saban Free Clinic hosted its 14th Annual Extravaganza for the Senses event again here in Los Angeles. The Sunset Gower Studios lot was the location for more than 40 Los Angeles restaurants and nearly 60 wineries and breweries to share their food and beverages with the crowd. Your golden ticket purchase included unlimited tastings of any and everything you could imagine with each and every dollar from the proceeds going towards the Clinic’s continuing efforts to provide health care to those who may not be able to afford it. It’s a very true and worthy cause. Amir was out of town, so I took my good friend Brandi along for the ride. Check out some of the photos of the amazing food and wine we had the opportunity to try.
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A Social Media Weekend in Los Angeles
Special Events • Tags: blog conference, Blogging While Brown, brown food bloggers, food blogging, Los Angeles, social media
There has been a short stall in the posting of recipes on this site as of late. Don’t worry though! They will be back this week. It has just been a very busy and eventful season so far. In addition to whipping up food in the kitchen, we are both running around LA and beyond as the summer’s fun gets under way. Amir has been jet setting across the Midwest and East coast, while I’ve been car hopping around our home city. Last weekend’s affairs included the Blogging While Brown conference that brought a couple hundred bloggers from across the country together for informative, educational and business-oriented panels and workshops for members of the minority blogging community. It would be the first time the fairly new conference would feature a niche or lifestyle, and it just so happened to be a food blogging session led by myself and my friend and colleague, Bren Herrera of Flanboyant Eats. Here’s a quick rundown of the weekend!
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Extravaganza for the Senses 2011
Special Events • Tags: charity, Extravaganza for the Senses, free health care, fundraiser, Los Angeles, The Saban Free Clinic
Two years ago, we attended The Saban Free Clinic’s Extravaganza for the Senses at the 20th Century Fox Studios lot. This year, we were presented with the opportunity to attend again on Saturday, July 16th. Amir will still be out of town, so I will bring a lucky friend with me to experience the fun. Los Angeles may be parazlyzed by the closure of cross-city highway 405 (lovingly known as Carmageddon or Autopocalypse), but some of us will brave the streets for a good cause! Last year’s fundraiser brought in more than $200,000 in donations that allow the clinic to provide free health care to those who may not be able to afford it. The funds raised through the charity event allowed more than 21,000 men, women and children to take advantage of the clinic’s medical and dental services. That is truly incredible.
This summer marks the fourteenth year of the event. The clinic estimates about 1,500 people will flood through the gates and make their way through a true overload of the city’s best food and beverage offerings. The Wine House and the New Friends of The Saban Free Clinic have secured 80 wineries and 40 Los Angeles-based …
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Blogging While Brown 2011
Special Events • Tags: African-American social media, blogger conference, Blogging While Brown, brown bloggers, Los Angeles, product giveaways, Tweetchat
This is a very exciting announcement! Friday, July 8-Sunday, July 10, Blogging While Brown will hold its conference on the West coast for the first time. I will attend for the first time, in addition to co-hosting a panel entitled “Food Blogging 101″ with my friend and fellow blogger, Bren Herrera of Flanboyant Eats. Here’s a bit of background for all of you. Bren and I have actually been virtual friends for a while. I first came across her site in early 2009 as Amir and I were getting our bearings with this food blog. Luckily for me, we were able to meet and hang out for the first time in hometown of Washington, D.C. in December 2009. Just a couple of months after that, we pulled together a charity event–Stir It 28– in February 2010 to raise money for Haiti relief. Along with Courtney of Coco Cooks, Bren and I organized a successful multi-city fundraising event–three cities, three hosts, one purpose. We’re working together again, and we are excited to speak to a new crowd about the food blogging and our sector of the culinary world.
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Black Bean and Corn Tostadas
Vegetarian • Tags: crema mexicana, fried, Los Angeles, Mexican, queso fresco, salsa, summer, tostada
It’s October, and we can officially say that the summer sun is behind us. Perhaps. You see, here in Los Angeles, it was up to 113 degrees into the last week of September. While the rest of you had already put away bathing suits and pulled out jackets, we were standing in front of air conditioners set to full blast. There were power outages across town. Popsicles were eaten with wild abandon. It was, without a doubt, stiflingly hot. If you do not live in Southern California, it may be difficult to understand, but it is true! It’s difficult to heat up an oven or stand over a bubbling pot when the temperatures are rising at such rates. In less than a week, the mercury-filled thermometers have dropped at least 20-30 degrees, and now October’s serving up chilly, gray, rainy days. It looks like summer is gone, but who knows. The weather monster does like to pull tricks on us. While we wait for him to let us know his next move, check out one of the last summer perfect recipes in our repertoire.
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Canele Chefs for a Day
Special Events • Tags: Atwater Village, bacon, Canele, Friends Cook, Los Angeles, pot pie, restaurant menu
We did it guys. We were chefs for the day–or evening, rather–at Canelé in Atwater Village for their rotating Friends Cook feature. What an experience. Neither one of us has spent any time in a restaurant kitchen, so the entire event was full of interesting and slightly nerve-racking moments. Of course, not only the preparation, but also the presentation of a meal to a restaurant’s frequent patrons is just as daunting. We were lucky to learn just what it’s like to work with trained chefs, cooks and waitresses, not to mention prepare meals for refined eaters.
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Foodie Meetings and Greetings
Special Events • Tags: Chaya Brasserie, food bloggers, happy hour, Los Angeles
This past weekend, we met up with a few Los Angeles food bloggers for the first time. Well, we actually went to college with two of them, had some of the best Thai food in life a couple of weeks ago with one and ran into another at Joy the Baker’s Virtual Picnic, but we won’t quibble over semantics. It’s fun to get to know people online, and you can really get an idea of their personality through their blogs, but it’s of course better to meet in person. Back away from the RSS feeds and keypads everyone and step out into the real world. You never know what will happen.
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Two New Cooks in the Kitchen
Special Events • Tags: Atwater Village, Canele, cooks for the day, Corina Weibel, Los Angeles
The email arrived on June 29, 2009.
The sender: Tastingtable.com.
The headline: Chef for a Day.
The message: Are you a non-professional cook who wants to formulate, prep and serve your own three-course, prix fixe meal at Atwater Village’s Canelé?
Our response: You know it!
The email flew off to chef Corina Weibel and general manager Jane Choi before we had a minute to really comprehend what we’d done. Well, that’s not entirely true. The opportunity sounded like the chance of a lifetime. Imagine walking into a restaurant and just making food for people with absolutely no formal culinary training at all. It’s a bit nervewracking if you really sit down and think about it. Of course we cook all the time in our own homes, but working in a restaurant grade kitchen with a seasoned chef and plating meals for friends and (gasp) unknown patrons is a completely different story. Regardless, the pangs of excitement overshadow the clouds of scary doubt, and now we’re ready. So ready.
Funny enough, we haven’t dined at Canelé yet, but we’ve heard great things about the menu. We’ll head over there to grub and hopefully catch Chef …
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And It's For a Good Cause
Special Events • Tags: charity event, Extravaganza for the Senses, Los Angeles, Saban Free Clinic
As we get older, and the space between now and college graduation gets bigger and bigger, the life of the twenty-something seems more and more elusive. Don’t get us wrong, we have great lives here in Southern California, but the roadmap to navigate through life is certainly less defined than it was in school several years ago. We look around now and there’s clearly a lot going on in the world—new presidents, healthcare reform, fight for marriage equality, wars, and the like. And not to mention what’s going on around in our personal lives. As we try to establish meaningful personal relationships and climb the ladders in our career, it seems everyone around us is getting married, having babies, being promoted left and right, and traveling all around the world.
If there’s anything that can bring it all back down to earth for us, it’s the food! Having a medium to cook meals of our choice and share it with the world is something we’re immensely thankful for (thank you for your support!). In addition, we love to get involved with a good cause whenever possible. Combining a food experience with a worthy cause is truly a wonderful thing. …
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