2022 Los Angeles and SoCal Food News

Rather than posting individual threads, I think maybe grouping the LA/OC/SoCal food-related articles in one spot makes sense.

Please add links, commentary, and anything else you come across.

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This is an interesting overview/intro to a great project: am glad Bill Esparza is boosting visibility!

Direct link to the videos:

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There is a celebration of Nowruz, Persian New Year, at UCLA Dickson Court on March 20, 2022 from 12pm - 5 pm with free admission. This is the largest celebration in the West of Nowruz. The only mention of food available I saw was that there will be a Teahouse.

Also here is a video from about 3 years ago from PBS about the preparation of foods for Nowruz.

Does anyone have more information about Nowruz events with food this year in Southern California?

https://farhang.org/nowruz/13th-annual-celebration-of-nowruz-at-ucla

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Thanks for the info @zippo1 . I had no idea UCLA held the largest Nowruz festival in Southern California(!).

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In the Farhang Foundation video, above, they say that their UCLA Nowruz celebration is the largest in the Western World.

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In Culver City, a Chinese restaurant is selling bright blue and yellow “freedom dumplings”, the colors of the Ukrainian flag. In West Hollywood, a popular cocktail bar is offering a special “Pruzhnyy”, or resilience, cocktail, made with Ukrainian Khor vodka. Bakeries across California are making special batches of hamentaschen, a Jewish cookie associated with resistance to tyrannical government officials, and pampushka, a Ukrainian garlic bread.

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Self Help Graphics & Art is proud to present Donut W(h)ole , a solo exhibition by the artist Phung Huynh , opening March 12 through May 27, 2022 at the Self Help Graphics & Art gallery. Join us for the Opening Reception on Saturday, March 12, from 5:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m .

Self Help Graphics & Art
1300 East 1st StreetLos Angeles, CA, 90033

A flattened pink doughnut box against a black background. On the doughnut box is a portrait of a woman in a dark brown ink layered over a faint rendering of still images of a child a doughnut shop in a lavender ink.

“Donut kid” Dorothy Chow in one of Cambodian American artist Phung Huynh’s Donut (W)hole exhibition. The solo exhibition features seven “donut kid” portraits rendered by Phung Huynh and printed on pink doughnut boxes. | Courtesy of Phung Huynh

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This installment comes from Naz Deravian , a Los Angeles–based cookbook author and recipe developer, who shares how she hosts family and friends for Nowruz.

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Laurie is the widow of food writer Jonathan Gold whom she married in 1990 and he passed away in 2018.

*Ochoa’s history with The Times goes back to 1988 and, notably, from 1993 to ’99 she was Food editor. She then moved to New York to become executive editor of Gourmet magazine. She has won two James Beard Awards for her food writing, and the cookbook she co-wrote, “Nancy Silverton’s Breads From the La Brea Bakery,” was nominated for an IACP Julia Child Cookbook Award and a James Beard Cookbook Award. She returned to Southern California as editor in chief of the L.A. Weekly, which won more national journalism awards during her stewardship than any other alternative newsweekly – including the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for criticism. Ochoa then co-founded and edited Slake: Los Angeles, a journal of narrative reporting, essays, fiction, art and poetry. Before returning to The Times in 2012, she also served as an interim editor of the Hollywood Reporter.

The Times recently completed construction on a state-of-the-art test kitchen and studio, “The Kitchen at the Los Angeles Times,” which will serve as a hub for recipe development and video production, and will be recruiting for several roles in the department, including a deputy editor, art director, photo editor, reporter, two social content creators and an audience engagement editor.

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Great to learn about Nowruz. I like the symbolism and rituals around haft-sin! I’m sure that there are many delicious Persian foods, time to visit Westwood boulevard and explore. Saffron rock candy sounds delicious, too.

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Every day, the pizza at Pizzeria Sei is a tiny bit different from the day before. I know this because I can’t stop going to Pizzeria Sei.

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