82 posts from July 2009

Thanks to Marla for sending a picture of her pie:

Lima Beans from McGrath Farm – big, fresh lima beans – not your childhood limas!  Wednesday Santa Monica; Sunday Hollywood

Elephant Garlic from Tutti Frutti Farm

Sweet bell peppers from Jaime Farm

New Yams and Sweet Potatoes from Xiang Pao Her.   Steam and add to veggies or eat plain.  Customers say that the white sweet potatoes need nothing added!  Wednesday Santa Monica

The veggies from Xiang Pao Her – Bok Choy, Gailon (Chinese broccoli,)  Yu Choy

We are so lucky to have Jonathan Gold, Eddie Lin and Gustavo Arellano as frequent guests on Good Food.  This week Jonathan takes us to Huntington Park to a restaurant called Pal Cabron.  While the clayudas sound delicious, the murals make this place a gem.  And, Eddie Lin tells us about an experience eating raw chicken.  That's right, raw chicken.  Right here in L.A. 

Our Good Food Restaurant Map is updated.  If you notice any spots that need to be removed or added, please let us know.  Here's the key: Jonathan Gold's picks are marked with a blue dot, Eddie Lin's in red and Gustavo Arellano's in green.

As some of you know, I'm on vacation in Puerto Rico.  I doubled up on pies before I left and, thanks to my iPhone, I will be posting those pies while I'm here. 

But here's the thing, do you know how much butter costs?  A lot.  I've set the bar very high, I know.  So, dear listeners, I'm asking you to help me with my Pie-a-Day challenge.  Send me a pic and story of your pie as filling for when I can't meet my daily quota. Many of you have already sent me pictures that I've been posting as part of Eat-a-Pie-a-Day.  But I need more!  Pictures of pies, recipes and pie ideas are welcome.  

Let's make a pie a day together. It's so much better than eating alone.

Twice a year, loads of volunteers descend on KCRW to help answer phones during our fund drive.  The drive staff, always put together an incredible spread to fuel the hard-working pledge takers.  This year, the list of restaurants is outstanding.  Here's a taste of what we'll be eating for 2 weeks in August:

Border Grill Taco Truck 

Campanile (grilled cheese lunches made on the premises by Mark Peel) 

Real Food Daily 

Clementine 

Tender Greens 

M Café 

Chaya Venice 

La Grande Orange 

Barbie’s Q 

Paddy Mac 

Haagen Dazs 

Milk 

Coolhaus 

Thanks to Laura and Beth for their hard work.  If you want to volunteer, sign up here.

Sometimes a pie comes about in response to a request.  I've never had any experience with Chess Pies, but after making the Hoosier Pie (milk, sugar, flour) I became intrigued with these old fashioned American"desperation" pies, made without fruit or nuts, relying on pantry staples.  Then I heard through the ever effective KCRW grapevine that one of the volunteers wanted a Chess Pie.  So I started combing through my expanding Pie Library and settled on Ken Haedrich's voluminous book Pie.  In my mind I had been thinking of doing something lemon with a chocolate crust so I chose his Lemon Chess pie filling and combined it with Dorie's Chocolate Shortbread Crust, which I could eat all day as a giant cookie.  It's perfectly short and so not sweet.  Just really chocolaty. You can find the crust recipe online here.
 
As for the filling, I loved it.  It’s simply sugar, melted butter, eggs, yellow cornmeal, lemon juice, half-half. (Okay, not such a desperation pie.  Sort of a “The Farm is Flush Today Pie”).  There are millions of recipes on the internet.  I ended up eating it after it had been refrigerated so the filling was dense and smooth a lightly lemony without being too sweet.  Mom loved it, a rarity as you know.  I want to make it again and try it while its barely warm.  Must be very sexy.

As for the name?  Some say it’s because it sat in the Pie Chest, other’s say it’s from “It’s jess pie”.  I would never diss Chess Pie in this way.

A short time ago, just before your pie project began, we had to pull some lettuce plants up from the garden--we'd been picking delightful tender "baby greens" off of the plants all spring but after a little neglect the plant flowered and got to bitter for my hubby's taste. Not being a waster, I decided to bake the plant into a pie!

I treated it as spinach (the flavor was very similar.) I steamed it and squeezed out all the moisture, then mixed in sauteed onion and mushroom and some delicious fresh quark from the Spring Hill dairy booth at SM FM. The result was a lot like  the classic spinach casserole often served in the south. I used Mark Bittman's recipe for piecrust with freshly ground whole oats--OMG so good. The heirloom cherry tomatoes on top were a nice sweet touch.