Newsletter: On delis and desserts
Happy Saturday. If you got up super early to watch the royal wedding (or a few soccer games), well, good for you; it’s a fine time to head to the farmers market or bake some bread. You could also make some buttermilk biscuits, either from our California Cookbook recipe database or from Stella Parks’ excellent dessert cookbook, which is our cookbook of the week. (Parks has a terrific biscuit recipe, along with a chocolate ice cream recipe that’s one of the best we’ve tested.) We also have recipes to celebrate Ramadan, which began on Tuesday, and more that feature cherries, which are now in season.
If you prefer bagels to biscuits, you might head over to Freedman’s in Echo Park, the strip-mall deli that is the subject of Jonathan Gold’s latest review. There he finds a whole tower of bagels, as well as a notable brisket that’s carved tableside. We also have a story about white wines from warm climates and an interview with Nadine Levy Redzepi, the Danish cookbook author who will be at tonight’s Food Bowl celebration of vegetable cuisine. This weekend marks the last two days of Night Market, part of our monthlong food festival, where there’ll be a bake sale for charity tomorrow afternoon at downtown’s Grand Park. Enjoy your weekend.
MORE FUN WITH BAGELS
In his latest review, Jonathan heads to an Echo Park strip mall for house-smoked pastrami, latkes made in a waffle iron and kosher-style hot dogs. This is Freedman’s, a new Jewish-style deli where you can find all that, plus pretty terrific black-and-white cookies — and a $105 brisket for four. Let us not forget the wallpaper, which “looks like something William Morris might have dreamed up in his arsenic-green phase.” (Thank you, Jonathan.)
CLASSIC DESSERTS, CLASSIC BOOK
Need an excellent cookbook for the summer? I check out “BraveTart,” the award-winning cookbook from Stella Parks, which has over 100 recipes for quintessential American desserts — from pies and cakes to reverse-engineered brand-name things such as Oreo cookies and Pop-Tarts. It’s a great beach-read of a book that’s as classic as the desserts on the pages.
HOT CLIMATES, COOL WINES
While many white wines come from regions as cool as the eventual temperatures of the wines themselves, there are many that come from hot climates — Greek islands, interior California or Spain. Wine writer Patrick Comiskey finds nine recommendable bottles of white from warm places, three each from the coasts, inlands and islands.
DANISH HOME COOKING
What’s it like to make dinner for the best chef in the world? Test Kitchen Director Noelle Carter talks to Nadine Levy Redzepi, whose husband René Redzepi is chef and co-owner of Noma in Copenhagen. Levy Redzepi is a chef in her own right, and has just written her first cookbook, which focuses on what she cooks at home for her husband and their three young daughters. What recipe did we get? According to his wife, René Redzepi’s favorite.
BUTTER IN YOUR COFFEE
In this week’s restaurant news column, Deputy Editor Jenn Harris considers a new coffee shop that puts egg yolks in the cappuccinos and coconut ash in the lattes. There’s also pasta on the menu at Joan’s on Third, brunch at Here’s Looking at You in Koreatown and more.
L.A. Times Food Bowl is happening now. We hope you’ll join us for our monthlong food festival, with events celebrating L.A.’s food and drink scene and helping promote sustainability and raise awareness and funds to fight food waste, hunger and food insecurity. We have guest chefs doing dinners and panel discussions, a vegetable feast supporting the advancement of young girls and the empowerment of women in the hospitality industry, a few more days of Night Market and tons more. For more info and tickets, go to lafoodbowl.com.
Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants, the authoritative annual guide to local dining, is online for subscribers featuring his 2017 Best Restaurants. If you don’t have a copy of the booklet, you can order one online here.
Check us out on Instagram at @latimesfood.
And don’t forget the thousands of recipes in our California Cookbook recipe database.
Feedback? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at food@latimes.com.
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