How to solve world hunger with pizza
The idea of a universal food synthesizer sounds like something straight out of the Jetsons or Star Trek, but thanks to a $125,000 grant from NASA, a 3-D food printer may become a reality.
Anjan Contractor, a senior mechanical engineer at Systems and Materials Research Corporation, is already working on bringing the idea to fruition.
NASA’s interested because storing the various ingredients as a power greatly extends their shelf life for lengthy travel through space, but Contractor wants to keep all of the recipes open source, so the general public could eventually benefit as well.
So how will the pizza be made?
Pizza will be one of the first items printed because of its natural layers of ingredients. First, a layer of dough will be printed and baked at the same time using a heated plate at the bottom of the printer. A layer of tomato base will follow — made of powder, water and oil — then a protein layer will top the pizza.
Read more over at the Daily Dish.
Photo: Cheryl A. Guerrero / Glendale News Press
Ready for the battle of the burgers?
Who molds the most delicious patties? Who dashes the most finely-tuned selection of seasonings on those perfectly succulent bits of meat? Find out in this year’s annual Battle of the Burgers, an all-out brawl over who can find the best combination to put between a bun!
Last year’s winners are seen above, and all of the corresponding recipes can be seen here,
So to join this elite burger echelon, submit your own recipe to the our food section’s Facebook page starting tomorrow, and find out if your homegrown recipe can top the competition.
Photos: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times
Click here to find a delicious chocolate chip cookie recipe perfect for your own noms.
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10 Fabulous Mother’s Day Spring Desserts
Start your Mother’s Day preparations early!
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The king of Chinese restaurants
How many Chinese restaurants have you been to? A few? Maybe a dozen?
For L.A. attorney David Chan, that number quickly skyrocketed, currently sitting at a preposterous 6,297 (with more still to come).
But Chan didn’t always have Chinese cuisine, reviews for which he keeps collected in a massive spreadsheet cataloging his travels and meals:
As a child, Chan hated Chinese food. The few times his parents would drag him to Chinatown restaurants like Lime House for banquets, he’d sulk over a bowl of plain rice. Home-cooked dinners were American standbys like meatloaf and spaghetti.
If Chan didn’t feel Chinese, it was partly by design.
“I think my parents wanted to protect me,” Chan said. “I was pretty much raised as an American.”
And for those looking to follow in his footsteps (at least for a little while), here are Chan’s personal top 10 restaurants.
Read more about Chan’s culinary mission here.
Photos: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times
The fight over foie gras
To some, it’s a delicacy with a taste beyond comparison, but to others, its cultivation is an act of cruelty, and its consumption a crime. Foie gras, to put it simply, is traditionally meat from a goose or duck that has been forcibly fed (like so) which leads to a gigantic, fatty bird.
California has a ban on serving the fattened meat, but that hasn’t completely stopped people from serving dishes with the illegal ingredient.
From chefs Noah Blom of Arc and Santana, who think they’ve found a legal way to serve the meat - giving it away for free with a $55 glass of wine:
“No one has the right to tell people what to eat or not eat,” Santana said. “Just because you’re vegetarian, vegan or love animals, it doesn’t mean your neighbor feels the same way.”
PETA, in response, has threatened legal action against the duo.
Photos: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times
The story behind Sriracha
With a distinctive bottle and taste, Sriracha has gone from an unpronounceable challenge to a staple sauce for many Americans. In the U.S. alone, $60 million worth of the sauce was sold last year alone.
But it wasn’t always such a prevalent item on store shelves. David Tran, the man responsible for popularizing the hot sauce, had a long journey beforehand:
When North Vietnam’s communists took power in South Vietnam, Tran, a major in the South Vietnamese army, fled with his family to the U.S. After settling in Los Angeles, Tran couldn’t find a job — or a hot sauce to his liking.
So he made his own by hand in a bucket, bottled it and drove it to customers in a van. He named his company Huy Fong Foods after the Taiwanese freighter that carried him out of Vietnam.
Read more via our profile of Tran, and his beloved hot sauce.
Photos: Gina Ferazzi, Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times
Celebrating National Grilled Cheese Day!
What better way to enjoy an entire day dedicated to cheesy grilled goodness than to go all-out and tackle a so-called “nine-layer masterpiece?”
Check out the recipe for this titan of cheese sandwiches over at our test kitchen here, look through 12 alternate recipes and see which sandwiches have won particular accolades from Times staff members.
‘El Bandini is El Finito’ — The End of Great Taco Hunt
For many curious taco lovers in Los Angeles, the site GreatTacoHunt has been a bastion of knowledge and insight into the untold number of trucks, tables, stands and storefronts that dot the city. Run by a shadowy figure known only as El Bandini, Great Taco Hunt was a home for focused discussions about neighborhood tacos, including a proprietary taco ranking system, photos from the front lines and dispatches from across the internet that always helped to fill in the blanks.
The site began in 2005, with the simple mission of documenting as many L.A. tacos as possible. Since then, El Bandini has reviewed, mapped and photographed hundreds of locations, plus helped to put together the influential yearly Taco Madness tournament. Now, after seven years of tasting and talking about tacos, El Bandini is calling it quits. KCET got in touch with the mysterious eater to discuss his decision to pull out of the taco game after all this time, and to look back on his own influence in the food blogging culture that has pervaded this city.
Farley: You’ve always been known as El Bandini online. Are you comfortable giving us a little bit of information about the man behind the taco blog?
El Bandini: I’m Andy O’Neill and I’m a recovering taco-holic. And I’m almost 40. But I’ve never lived in a van down by the river.
Read more here.
A reblog for all other taco-holics out there.
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The magic of homemade Peep birth
Easter’s almost here - which means those of us with sweet tooths may eat peeps until we burst.
But once the holiday excitement winds down, and the Peep supplies run dry, what can you do? Well, luckily, we have a solution - make your own peeps!
Check out the full recipe here, or if you’re some kind of marshmallow wizard, send over your own tips!
Photos: Kirk McKoy/ Los Angeles Times
Mr. Rogers’ birthday and the first day of spring: We’re not sure what elicits a bigger reason to celebrate, so why not applaud both?
Check out our guide to finding the ideal spring beer, how asparagus signals the start of the season or take a look at the plethora of spring arts offerings ahead for L.A.!
h/t to pbsdigitalstudios
Happy Pi Day!
You can celebrate it with charts and graphs, numerical festivities or all sorts of calculations. But we’d prefer to focus on the edible part of the day - the pies. If the photos above have your mouth watering, try one of the many pie recipes produces by the Times’ test kitchen.
For more Pi Day ideas, head here.
And of course, don’t forget the world’s greatest pie fiend - Agent Dale Cooper:
Photos: Bill Hogan/Chicago Tribune/MCT, Bob Chamberlin Ricardo DeAratanha, Francine Orr, Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times
What’s better than delicious, healthy food? More of it!
As more an more restaurant-goers become inclined to try organic food, even if it’s pricier, non-traditional organic restaurants have popped up. But each faces their own unique challenges, and for Chinese restaurants in particular, the organic label brings some rough opposition.
…the pricier meals are a tough sell in the heavily Asian American valley, where more than 500 Chinese restaurants are in a pitched battle to offer authentic dishes at ever lower prices.
Area restaurants wear B and C food-safety grades like badges of honor, and diners line up for cheap fried pork dumplings and dim sum at $2 a plate. Tam’s dumplings cost $7 and come steamed, with organic spinach wrappers.
Read more on the continued efforts of organic Chinese restaurants here.
Photos: Anne Cusack/ Los Angeles Times
Bad news for bacon lovers
Stow away that bacon and toss out your hot dogs - there’s a new study linking processed meat consumption and premature death, specifically at the hands of cardiovascular disease and cancer.
From Sabine Rohrmann of the University of Zurich:
“Overall, we estimate that 3% of premature deaths each year could be prevented if people ate less than 20 grams processed meat per day.”
Just to put those 20 grams in perspective, your average hot dog contains 50 to 70 grams depending on the brand. Yikes.
Read more on the study via Booster Shots.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
Delis in crisis: Traditional Jewish delicatessens, once a mainstay in urban areas, are in a tailspin, facing a decline in customers and a changing culinary climate. In New York, where thousands of delis thrived following World War II, now just a few dozen remain. And the delis in the Big Apple aren’t alone in their struggles:
Demographic shifts in Los Angeles in the last few decades — along with the arrival of brands such as Langer’s in MacArthur Park, Canter’s on Fairfax and the Brent’s chain — sparked hope of a Jewish deli revival in the Southland.
Lately, however, the region has suffered the same troubles bedeviling delis in the east.
Read more on the decline of the Jewish deli, just know that the read is best accompanied by pastrami on rye.
