Food Maker, Chef, and Traveling Diner
My sister, Kristen, just turned forty on March 12th. My sister-in-law, Linh’s, birthday is just one day before on March 11th a couple years before, so each year we get to celebrate these two lovely ladies and everything they do for our family on a daily …
Truth be told, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to make all my usual Christmas deliciousness because Brandon had his hip replaced just before Christmas. The unknown of going through a surgical procedure was a little unsettling, but luckily his hip replacement …
I wrote this a while ago and realized it hadn’t been posted, their such beautiful memories I didn’t want them to stay on my computer. Enjoy!
I haven’t blogged in quite a while, but I’ve been writing a lot in notebooks and mental scratch paper because my words have been spent teaching and quieting down to prepare to teach. I’m loving the whole process, but sometimes I just need to make a fantastic meal and everything else falls into place. I’ve been quite busy—life’s comings and goings and all the other crazy business that comes with cooking and teaching yoga in Los Angeles, but I couldn’t be happier. My niece will be celebrating her 2nd birthday at the beginning of April so the thoughts for menu and preparations are working in my mind.
I had the great privilege of catering a sweet friend of mine’s (Lizzi) baby shower for her sweet new daughter Audrey, who is on the way. Her wonderful family and friends came together in a beautiful home in Lake Sherwood over food, drinks and anticipation of the families’ grandchild. Love definitely filled the whole occasion from the gorgeous photos to the intricate details of months of planning, it was a beautiful event and I’m so grateful Unrivaledkitch was able to partake in the festivities. Here are a couple of phone photos I was able to take from the event.
My sister celebrated her 30th birthday on 3/12. We had the family over for a huge lasagna party. And I’m not joking about “huge.” I spent about 5 hours making the perfect bolognese sauce with just the right amount of everything. A mental recipe that I’ve spent years crafting, but it makes it out for special occasions such as birthdays. I also made a very special creamy bechamel sauce with a hint of nutmeg and Parmesan cheese and layers of luscious meat and cheese sauce, over slowly baked pasta sheets and a touch of ricotta and mozzarella for an added richness. We had plenty left over and I think I probably had lasagna for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next couple of days, which was perfectly fine for me. We also had an antipasto salad and finished the meal off with my sister’s favorite, pistachio pie, made by my mom from years of birthday tradition. It was so nice to have everyone around the table to share such a special day with my sister!
Last week I had the great pleasure of sharing my cooking with a fellow yoga teacher. She contacted me after a bit of a scare taking on a 70-person baby shower—for anyone, it is a bit of a shocker. I prepared a delicious roasted vegetable salad with homemade balsamic vinaigrette for 70 people and she graciously picked it up from the yoga studio. I’m so grateful to be able to help take some of the pressure off of such a loving event.
![IMG_2471[1]](https://www.unrivaledkitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/IMG_24711.jpg)
![IMG_2476[1]](https://www.unrivaledkitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/IMG_24761.jpg)
I’m so appreciative of the opportunity to bring my food to my friends and family as well as extended acquaintances. I hope everyone is having a wonderful March! Though the time seems to be flying by, thanks for taking a moment with me to reflect on these special culinary events.
Cheers
-Unrivaledkitch
My niece, Maleeya, just recently turned one on Easter, which was April 8th, so we decided that it would be a good idea to celebrate Easter with our family, including a small birthday celebration for her and then, the following Sunday, have her huge birthday …
Birthdays are my favorite occasions to celebrate. I always have some extravagant plan for someone I love, if it’s at all possible to get done. The weekend of the 12th my big sister, Kristen, had a birthday celebration for the family, and myself and Brandon cooked …
If you haven’t had pork belly, you should eat it right away. Pork belly is brilliant, fatty, decadent and delicious. The sweetness and tartness of the tangerine is a really nice combination with sort of Spanish flavors. I love balsamic marinated steaks. They give that luxurious feeling of tartness and the char that you get when vinegar is grilled is something that is an unlikely flavor combination. I can’t really say anything more about sausage and Swiss chard. It’s probably one of my favorite combinations, though I do love a little rapini as well. But the Swiss chard gives a little bitterness and crunch to the polenta, along with sweet red onions and spicy pork sausage with fennel and other Italian seasonings, you honestly can’t go wrong. If you took the sausage out, and made spicy red onion marmalade with Swiss chard and rapini, that would be delicious as well.
Menu
Balsamic, Honey, Garlic, Parsley and Worcestershire Sauce Marinated and Grilled Skirt Steak
Tangerine, Cumin, Coriander, White Wine and Cilantro Marinated Pork Belly Slow-Braised Then Seared
Spicy Italian Sausage Polenta with Swiss Chard and Red Onion
Grilled Asparagus and Grilled Zucchini
It’s unlikely that you’ve cooked with me, unless we worked together. I have to be in the right mood to cook with others, and since I’ve mostly cooked on my own for the last year and a half, it’s a learning experience to cook with someone else in the kitchen. I love teaching and showing people how to cook something new, but I think it’s a mindset; you need to be in that mode of thinking. If I’m just creating from a space of freedom, it’s harder for me to vocalize exactly what needs to be done. Lucky for me, I have Bistecca who already pretty much knows what I’m thinking anyway and if I have my moments of insanity, he already knows how to deal with them. Like the occasional, “Hey don’t burn my stuff!” Even though he’s cooked a million steaks and grilled a billion vegetables before. I can be quite the kitchen tyrant at times; it’s a territorial thing. He got a pretty amazing meal out of it, so I think it was worth it. I’m sure you’ll see many a brilliant meal from the two of us in the future, but this one was pretty phenomenal.
cheers
-Unrivaledkitch
I cook often. If I could blog as easily as it seems for me to whip something up to eat in the kitchen, I’m sure I could fill another four blogs with my recipes. But as most of you know, I cook with more intuition …
I don’t know how to explain the magic that is TOOL live. It’s a complete experience that transcends me beyond what I think is honest and real, into the purest sense of reality without hesitation. My best friend, Virginia, and I traveled from the center …
For holiday presents this year, I decided to take on some jarring adventures. I made homemade tapenade with rosemary, tomatoes and black olives; marinara with mirepoix, fresh basil and parsley; spicy marinara with roasted garlic and red pepper flakes (Arrabbiata sauce); and balsamic barbecue sauce with brown sugar, molasses and aged balsamic vinegar. With everything that I’ve tried and translated into other things, jarring is one of the techniques that I haven’t implemented that often, so this was a great new experience. These sauces are some of my favorite things to have on hand and to make, but they are intended to be slow-simmered and aren’t suitable to make on a whim, which is why I decided to take the work out of it for my family and friends and jar them up and give them as gifts. Nothing is like giving a gift from the heart, especially at Christmas, and as a chef, there is no more personal gift I can give than something I have made.
I’m pasta crazy. I always have been and I always will be. It’s one of my favorite things to eat in the world. I first had something similar to this dish at a friend’s house with bread instead of pasta and so much oil I …