Stories

Who doesn't love roast chicken? It's one of my favorite things to eat mostly because I can't get enough crispy skin. But getting the skin to crisp can be one of the hardest parts of roasting a whole chicken. That's why I prefer roasting the chicken in parts, particularly the breasts, which can dry out when roasted on the whole bird. Pan-roasting is one of the easiest and most rewarding methods for cooking chicken breasts.

First, they are seared skin side down in a pan on the stove-top to ensure the skin is golden brown and crisp. Then they are baked in the oven to cook the meat through. The result is exceptionally moist and succulent breasts with bronzed crispy skin. It's mouth-watering chicken even better than a steak. To make this dish complete, I roast carrots alongside the breasts in the same pan. This way an entire meal comes together very quickly.

From The LA Times

Each year I keep a running log to track restaurants slated to open each month. When this January rolled around and I started my new list, I fully expected the pace of openings to slow to a trickle.

That hasn't happened. Instead, despite the curdled economy, L.A.'s restaurant scene this year has busted out with new energy and invention. And it continues to inspire the entire country. I can't tell you how many New Yorkers and even, gasp, San Franciscans have told me that Los Angeles is now their favorite eating town. It's about time we got some deserved attention.

Instead of treading the tried and true, L.A.'s restaurateurs and chefs are experimenting with the wild and crazy, with pop-ups, crossovers and new genres. This year's crop of new restaurants includes sandwich shops, noodle joints, izakaya, wine bars, far-flung cuisines, wood-burning-oven specialists, plenty of communal tables and oddball bar concepts. Diverse doesn't begin to describe what's happening now.

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I was out for a walk today in the neighborhood and I took three photos – left, center and right – and PhotoShop stitched them together into this panorama. I'm determined to do that everyday, walk that is, regardless of the weather. I've got cabin fever and need fresh air and exercise!

I have slipped on ice three times this winter right around the house, and hit the ground all three times. I bruised my hand one time as I went to break the fall. I've convinced myself that next time, I'm going to tuck my arms in and break the fall with a shoulder. They recommend that for skiers and snowboarders – sidewalks aren't snow though – I may be going in for shoulder surgery...

As usual, I'm the salmon swimming upstream as far as weight is concerned. While everyone is vehemently burning calories and lowering carb intake en route to shedding the weight they gained over the holidays, I'm nonchalantly trying to make up for what I lost. Last night, after that apple pie crumble, I lost 8 oz walking back to my car, just yesterday moments after inhaling a scrumptious dish of fettuccine alfredo I lost any calories consumed due to waving my arm to catch a cab, and a few days before that my digestive track tumbled through the french toast crème brûlée I had for brunch, losing a total pound.

These are all exaggerations of course, but I'm theorizing as to how I could have lost ten pounds in a week of little exercise and excess eating. Call it a fast metabolism or a tapeworm, to me fluctuating pounds is as typical as the average Joe getting indigestion after eating a porterhouse steak. A few bites from that same steak and I would spend the day indisposed, my insides deconstructing inside out, eventually leaving me more buoyant than before.