Newsletter: Bethlehem, breakfast burritos, booze

Good morning. Do you know where your tamales are? This is the last weekend before Christmas, and thus a pretty fun time to head to your local farmers market, which can operate as a gift trove for the food-minded as well as a place to do both basic and holiday menu shopping. If you need coffee before you do, well, much of anything, we have a caffeinated story for you.

We also have pieces on holiday drinks planning and a restaurant in the city of Bethlehem. As in the West Bank, not Pennsylvania. What else is on the menu, so to speak? There’s news about breakfast burritos, new restaurants and more. Enjoy your weekend, be safe, and happy holidays.

— Amy Scattergood

NO CRYING IN BASBALL. OR WHINING.

Have a wide variety of drinks for all tastes.

(Irene Rinaldi / For The Times)

Because we all miss Penny Marshall, and that’s a good enough reason for that one. (Want a milk and soda recipe? Try us.) Wine writer Emily Timberlake (no relation to the singer, sadly) offers a holiday drinking guide engineered to reduce stress rather than, well, fuel it. So consider keeping the alcohol low (wine spritzers!), opting for Chenin Blanc or Rosé (“the Channing Tatum of the wine world”), buying big bottles — and some other handy pointers.

BACK TO BETHLEHEM

Slow-roasted lamb with freekeh salad at the Bethlehem, West Bank, restaurant Fawda. Local tradition dovetails into the locavore movement.

(Corinna Kern / For The Times)

The remarkable cuisine of the Middle East is on-trend in America (thank you, Yotam Ottolenghi and others), but what about in the region itself? Food writer Noga Tarnapolsky checks out Fawda, “a modern, irreverent and forward-looking restaurant in the heart of Bethlehem, a town associated with antiquity, momentousness and piousness.” Yes, conveniently in time for the holidays.

CAFFEINE ZINES

Tony Konecny (Victrola, Intelligentsia, Tonx) is the co-founder of Yes Plz, a new coffee subscription service that has a hook beyond just the caffeine. Order some beans, writes food writer Jesse Pearson, and you’ll get an art zine with the delivery — an almost perfect mash-up for some of us who can’t seem to do one, functionally, without the other.

MORE FUN WITH BREAKFAST BURRITOS

And because you gotta eat a breakfast, to quote the Coen brothers, with all that coffee and literature, Hadley Tomicki has news of where to source an excellent morning burrito. Burrito Bomba in North Hollywood fills theirs with filet mignon and bacon. Enough said, really.

PERU IN THE SFV

In his weekly news column, Hadley has news of Peruvian cuisine in Studio City, food from Borneo in El Monte, more sul lung tang in Koreatown, and another place to get sandwiches named after National Public Radio hosts. (That last one: what to eat if you spend way too much time in your car.)

Our 101 Restaurants We Love list for 2018 is out. The list incorporates restaurants and trucks from around Los Angeles and Orange County, in alphabetical order (no rankings this year). Plus this year there’s a bonus list of 10 classic restaurants.

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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.