Newsletter: Counter: Women in the kitchen

It’s Mother’s Day weekend, which can mean many things to many people — including going out to eat for brunch — but for us, this week it’s given us yet another reason to write about the women who run many of the restaurants in this town.

We check in with Yuca’s Hut in Los Feliz, run by a mother-and-daughter team who are marking 40 years of making tacos for the neighborhood. We also go into the celebrated kitchen at the Mozzaplex, where Elizabeth Hong is now the executive chef at both the Osteria and the Pizzeria. And we check out the pastry kitchen at Rubies + Diamonds, where a 12-year-old is baking the cookies for her mother’s new cafe. And yes, we got her recipe — if you need to make chocolate chip cookies for someone this Sunday.

– Amy Scattergood

40 years of tacos

Cochinita pibil tacos at Yuca’s.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times )

If you spend a lot of time in Los Feliz, you’ll likely have eaten a lot of tacos at Yuca’s Hut on Hillhurst. For four decades, food writer Erica Zora Wrightson reports, Socorro Herrera, called Mama, has been making Yucatecan favorites in an 8-by-10-foot space that was originally a shoeshine booth.

From extern to exec chef

Osteria Mozza executive chef Liz Hong began at the Melrose Avenue restaurant as a culinary school extern.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Wonder who’s been running the Mozza kitchens since Matt Molina left to open his own place? Food writer Tien Nguyen talks to Elizabeth Hong, who is now executive chef at both the Osteria and the Pizzeria. The only restaurant Hong has worked in other than Nancy Silverton’s? Park’s BBQ, which is owned by Hong’s mother.

Bring your daughter to work

Owner Jean Shim, left, and her daughter Elia Min, at Rubies + Diamonds cafe in Hollywood. Elia makes the chocolate chip cookies they sell there.

(Glenn Koenig/ Los Angeles Times )

When Rubies + Diamonds opened a few months ago in Hollywood, owner Jean Shim stocked her upscale cafe, coffee and tea shop with pastries and cookies, including some she got from a source who was very close to home — her 12-year-old daughter Elia.

More reasons to go to Chichen Itza

Chichen Itza’s longaniza asada, thin, crackly pork sausages, scented with cumin, ruddy with chiles and blackened over mesquite.

(Jonathan Gold / Los Angeles Times )

This week, Jonathan Gold is into the longaniza asada at Chichen Itza, the Yucatecan counter in the Mercado La Paloma marketplace in South L.A. Sure, he’s been there a lot — the place is a 101 Best Restaurants standard — but for some reason he’d never had this dish until recently.

Where to eat in Inglewood

Beverly Reece of Ms.B M&M; Soul food in Inglewood.

(Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times )

Yes, the Rams are coming back to L.A., and yes, Inglewood is probably going to be changing. But it’s always been a pretty terrific place to eat. Food writer Lara Rabinovitch checks out 11 restaurants where you can find some great food, with or without football.

Ice cream in South Pasadena

A slice of boysenberry pie with organic triple milk ice cream at the newly opened Moo on Mission in South Pasadena.

(Amy Scattergood / Los Angeles Times )

For the last 30 or so years, Buster’s has been a neighborhood favorite in South Pasadena for breakfast, coffee — and ice cream. This past week, Buster’s became the Moo on Mission, the second location of Mother Moo Creamery in Sierra Madre, Karen Klemens’ ice cream shop, also a local favorite. And there’s pie for breakfast.

Your “City of Gold” reminder: It’s playing. Maybe go see it. Maybe don’t go hungry, which brings us to ...

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Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants, the authoritative annual guide to local dining, is online for subscribers.

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