Kiss That Frog: Sweet Treats and Childhood Memories Make For Heartwarming "Gal-entine's Day"

When I was growing up, Valentine's Day was fun. All the way from first to seventh grade at Our Lady of Guadalupe School, we kids would knock ourselves out, preparing tiny cards and sweets for our classmates. On the 14th of February, we would deposit these gifts into the brown paper lunch bag "mailboxes" that we each had on our desks.

Perhaps it was because we were at a Catholic school, but there was never a kid who didn't get anything in his or her Valentine mailbox. In later years, when Valentine's Day took on an entirely different set of expectations, I still regard it - whether I have a significant other or not - as a day to celebrate all kinds of love and friendship.

Lindt's Froshkönig (Frog King): My dream man would be
nattily dressed and filled with chocolate too!

The commercial zeitgeist that is foisted upon the world at large - mostly the males of the species - is not lost on me, but for entirely different reasons. Heart-shaped boxes of chocolates and red roses mostly remind me of my Dad, who would present our mother with a dozen red roses and a large heart-shaped box of chocolate on Valentine's Day every year. In addition, he would give his three daughters each a smaller heart-shaped box of candy. So it seems to be my birthright that I have lovely chocolates at Valentine's Day, even if I have to buy them myself. (Pull out tiny violin to play sad tune here.)

I could not help but be charmed by Lindt's "Frog King" tin of über-luxurious chocolates, which was exclusively sold at Target. It seemed made for me to be able to laugh at my single state. I shared some of it with my two handsome princes, my nephews Seiji and Kenzo, who wondered why the box was shaped like a frog. They had never read the Brothers Grimm story of the prince who would be released from his amphibious state by true love's kiss. But they really liked the frog-shaped chocolate in particular, because it tasted like Nutella.

Valentine's Day is also one of the most hectic dining-out days on the calendar, or at least, it used to be. Perhaps ROC on Sawtelle isn't really the go-to dinner destination for a romantic meal, but it was a perfect place for Shiho and I to have our "Gal-entine's Day" nosh. The scallion pancake with ginger soy dipping sauce was a perfectly crispy and surprisingly, not at all greasy. It triggered a Proustian memory of my first scallion pancake, enjoyed years ago at a now closed Islamic Chinese restaurant in Torrance.

ROC's scallion pancake hits the appetizer spot.

ROC is known for its xiao long bao, or Taiwanese soup dumplings. I had eaten dumplings a couple of nights ago at Typhoon at the Santa Monica Airport, so wasn't really in the mood. I opted for the beef noodle soup, without the noodles, since I had maxed-out my nighttime carb intake with the scallion pancake. But the fragrant soup, with its subtly spicy broth, similar to pho, was amazing even without noodles. There was a huge, heart-sized chunk of oxtail in the bowl, its meat falling off the bone simply by my gazing at it, and plenty of baby bok choy for color and crunch.

Shiho had the pork dumplings, which she thinks taste fresher than the dumplings at the mecca of XLB, Din Tai Fung. I tasted one, with its fragrant broth inside the dumpling skin, and tender seasoned minced pork. I concurred, although Din Tai Fung is an experience unto itself. In addition, ROC gets major points for offering more than just Chinese broccoli as its only vegetable. We enjoyed a plate of kale, stir-fried with just enough garlic, edible, yet crunchy.

Love potion: ROC's beef soup with oxtail and baby bok choy

We were going to take in a reading by 'zine artists at GR2 that didn't start for another half-hour, so we strolled up to Nijiya Market, looking for dessert.

Shiho enjoyed the array of nostalgic Japanese candies that recalled her childhood in Okinawa, and I enjoyed the colorful and artistic package designs of everything from shampoo to baby biscuits. Japanese companies take great care with the presentation of even the most mundane of objects and food. I found these tiny chocolate hearts that looked like they were made by extruding chocolate through an icing bag and meticulously packaged in a cardboard box with a sliding lid. They were actually very tasty too.

Shiho treated me to mango mochi ice cream, which we both agree is a gastronomic marvel of the 20th Century. It began to melt as we loitered too long in Nijiya after taking it out of the freezer case, and when we got to GR2, we almost forgot about it as we settled into the tiny gallery and the standing room-only audience.

A famous Japanese brand of chocolate gets into the
spirit of Valentine's Day.

When we remembered the mochi, I told Shiho that we would have to eat them like soup dumplings, taking a tiny bite out of the outside, and sucking out the melted, liquified ice cream.We did so, enjoying the creativity of the 'zine authors, the laughter their work created, and another new Valentine's Day memory.

Not All In One Basket: On the Town with GMS’s Must-Have List

Although Trader Joe’s has been around since the late 1950s, it really took off in L.A. in the 1990s, when shoppers in-the-know impressed their friends with fanciful delicacies and inexpensive but good wine. The supermarket strike of 2003-2004, which kept consumers out of the big chains like Ralphs and Vons, further reinforced the company’s stature as the go-to source for everyday groceries and even household paper and cleaning products.

The company’s website blows my mind as something that ties my pre- Internet life with the virtual window shopping of today. The other day, as I tooled around on the site, I was surprised by some of the 2013 list of“Customer Favourite Products.”

But one cannot live on Inner Peas veggie snacks and Tuscan Kale alone. Friends sometimes marvel at how I can go from store to store, hunting and gathering to fill my fridge and larder. Here is a list of the things that I cannot do without. Ever. While I do 90 percent of my grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s, there are some intriguing finds among that remaining 10 percent.  Along with my TJ’s staples, here are some local “favourites” that I have discovered since moving back to ‘Pedro.

Trader Joe's always has a well-curated selection of
the season's best, as well as staple produce for
day-to-day cooking, eating, and composition
of still lifes.

1-    For Love of Three Oranges

Or, three shallots, three papayas, or three Kadota figs. TJ's makes it easy to get your five-a-day, with produce that is consistent in quality and competitively priced. I have never purchased a mealy apple there, and berries are at least one-third more expensive everywhere else, except maybe Costco.

At most Trader Joe’s locations, the produce section is the first thing you see upon entering, which hopefully inspires shoppers to healthier eating. My staples are pre-washed bags of kale, rosy pink shallots that I use in everything, and thanks to NAFTA, blackberries and mangoes, nearly all year round. Seasonal not-to-miss faves are fresh figs (May-Septemberish, like my taste in men) and the divine Thomcord grape, the likes of which I have only ever been able to find at Trader Joe’s, and only for a few golden weeks the waning summer of September.

2-    “Designer” Bags: Join the Club

Why belong to a club if nobody knows it? The stylish and practical shopping bags at Trader Joe’s tell the world that a) you care about the environment; b) that you have great tastes in accessories; and c) that you are part of a discriminating and enlightened clientele. My personal favorites are the large canvas tote with the old-school TJ’s logo embroidered on it – I’ve seen people use these as yoga or diaper bags - they are that roomy – and the fabulous jute bag that came out a couple of years ago, that apparently was considered very cool in Japan. My friend Yayoi actually rocked one as a handbag. 

In the bag: My collection of TJ's totes.

3-    Nut Job: Rosemary Marcona Almonds

Marcona almonds in olive oil and seasoned with rosemary are so gilding the lily, but I love them. These are wonderful on salads, especially after being toasted a bit in the oven. Keep a close eye on them, as they will immediately blacken if you step away for more than 10 seconds. Toasting brings out the almond’s complexity and makes it a dressy alternative to Beer Nuts – perfect for all the football fests this season.

Another fun thing to do with these almonds is to melt some uber-dark chocolate and blob it over little star-shaped arrangements of these luxurious almonds on a wax paper-lined tray, making “turtles.” Serve with other equally pretentious sweets, such as licorice-coated chocolate lentils, bacon sea salt caramels, and orange-geranium infused chocolate. Sit back and enjoy the compliments.  

4-    Maître Pierre’s Tarte d’ Alsace

The only resemblance that Tarte d’Alsace bears to a frozen pizza is the fact that you may have to reposition the shreds of gruyere cheese and ham atop the thin flatbread crust, as the frozen contents will shift during transport. But that's where it ends. The flavors come from simple ingredients: a savory jambon, gruyere cheese, and crème fraiche, complemented by caramelized onions that form a marmalade-like cloak when baked. 

You have to be careful when preparing this savory pie, because it is placed directly on the oven rack during baking. There were a few that may have gone through a stretching machine too vigorously, ending up with a weak spot in the already diaphanous dough. Necessity and hunger are the joint-custody mothers of invention that inspired me to brace the weakened spot with a piece of aluminum foil, that I remove when the Tarte is more solid and only has about five minutes baking time to go. 

Baking the Tarte d'Alsace and its paper-thin crust is an
adventure, taking many forms. Shown here: The French Calzone.

I’ve always said that after diamonds, frozen food is a girl’s best friend. That being said, Tarte d’Alsace is a friend with benefits. I have this at least once a week, every week. It makes a great one-pan lunch, dinner with a salad, if that. I can eat the whole thing in one sitting, and not feel guilty. If there are leftovers, they make a great breakfast for the morning commute, eaten cold in traffic, with “Le Marseillaise” blasting from the stereo.

5-    100% Desert Mesquite Honey: Muy Bueno

Most commercial honey reminds me of pancake syrup with grassy notes. They tend to be thin and runny, and possessed of a nondescript, but cloying sweetness. TJ’s Desert Mesquite Honey tastes almost biblical. It’s way thicker than the supermarket brands, taking it from topping to a formidable starring ingredient in my Greek yogurt sundae. I also prefer it over maple syrup on pancakes.

When my sister Jolene was pregnant, I learned that you shouldn't feed honey to babies. Apart from the ungodly mess that would ensue, the digestion systems of infants under one year is not yet developed enough to ward off the botulism that may exist in dormant form in honey. Fortunately, we all outgrew that, and can enjoy baklava to our hearts content.

6-    Fish Tale: Cod Provençale with Ratatouille and Rice

My friend Matt has designated “Hamburger Friday,” so I came up with “Whitefish Wednesday.” But you can enjoy Cod Provençale with Ratatouille and Rice any day of the week. It’s like real food, but easier and faster to prepare. And the serving-for-one makes it a welcome response to the continual challenge of making a tasty but solitary lunch or dinner.

Among the cornucopia of choices in Trader Joe’s freezer section, it seems to be one of the most balanced meals. This is an entrée that I often enjoy at work, since I don’t have a microwave at home, but happily, it can be prepared in a conventional oven as well, although the nice “steamed” effect is a bit harder to achieve that way. Unlike the “Reduced Guilt” dishes that I also favor, this is a substantial portion (Filet of Sole with Rich Butter Beans & Seasoned Spinach is pretty good) of tasty cod, nestled on a bed of nutty, chewy brown and wild rice, with a flavorful ratatouille of zucchini, eggplant, tomato, and onion, on the side. 

Albertson's Salt and Vinegar Chicken Wings: If
Mother Nature hadn't meant us to eat
chicken, she wouldn't have made it out of meat.

7-    Albertson’s Salt and Vinegar Chicken Wings

I am usually not - I repeat – not a fan of chicken wings, or of the greasy fried chicken at is sold at supermarket delis. But one day not too long ago, I was out doing errands and ended up at Albertson’s on Western, the main shopping drag in San Pedro, right around dinnertime. My guilty secret when shopping while hungry is that I order a half dozen potato logs from the service deli there – big fat French fries, that have been dipped inexplicably and disgustingly in something like fried chicken batter – to tide me over until I get home for a proper dinner.

A free-standing steel island across from the deli counter caught my eye and I found it to contain several flavors of chicken wings. I passed over the three or four types that were thickly coated in crunchy breading. But I was curious about the mahogany-hued wings that looked as if they had been simply marinated, with sandy-looking crystals of salt encrusting the skin. I took some home, and I was hooked.

I eat these at least once a week. They’re even good cold, shredded onto a salad of TJ’s Power Greens with some olive oil, lemon, and some mashed avocado as a dressing. 

8-    Artisanal Cranberry, Raisin, and Walnut Bread - Sprouts

The name kind of says it all. Everyone loves cranberries in baked goods. They’re pretty and red, tart, yet sweet. Walnuts are a super-food, and raisins in bread is just one of those childhood flavors that one never outgrows.

This bread is the bedrock of my go-to commuter breakfast, slathered with TJ’s Crunchy Almond Butter. It’s also amazing with a very good cheddar melted on top (this week, I have Collier’s Welsh Cheddar from, where else? 

Sprouts' store-baked Cranberry, Raisin, and
Walnut Bread: A real cut-up, even when upcycled
into bread pudding.

9-    Primizie Thick Cut Crispbread – Smoked Dutch Gouda with Garlic - Sprouts

Another “shopping-while-hungry” find from Sprouts.

One evening before dinner, I had to have something that wasn’t sweet – no organic fig bars or lemon yogurt-coated almonds. There was a whole island of these chips/pita things in the bakery department, in their graphically-arresting white bags. In my pre-dinner haze, I had to read all the labels about three times before deciding on the Smoked Dutch Gouda with Garlic – the word “cheese” above the actual flavor was what hooked me.

Although the pictures on the bag depict the requisite “serving suggestions” of topping these triangles of yum with more cheese or hummus, they are exquisite just the way they are out of the bag. A pile of them with some nice red grapes makes a good 11 am snack at work!

10- Wallaby Organic Greek Nonfat Yogurt with Lemon – Whole Foods

I am, of course, very happy with my Fage Greek Yogurt, in the little cups with a “sidecar” of fruity toppings like blueberry açai, cherry, or passionfruit clementine. But it was far away from home, in a hipster coffeehouse/market/deli/café in downtown Austin (whose name I would provide here, if I could remember it – it was actually very cool) that I discovered this treat.

Upon returning to L.A., I had to find it, and harassed dairy staff at all the “healthy” markets I knew. Sprouts and Whole Foods carry Wallaby yogurt products, and I tracked down the lemon down at the Westwood location - only at the Westwood location.

Lemon is a very tricky flavor. It’s used with good intentions, but often misses the mark. Hints of Lemon Pledge Furniture Polish or worse yet, 7-Up, can ruin anything. But, old-school lemon bars, like my sister Joselyn makes from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, a hint of lemon on perfectly cooked fish, fresh-squeezed lemonade, and this almost decadent yogurt (did I mention it was fat-free?!), really do it for me, as the outstanding lemon topping of the Wallaby yogurt elevates your daily dose of calcium and cultures to a restaurant-quality dessert.

TJ's European Style Whole Grain Bread: I don't know a
word of German, but I can't help thinking auf Deutsch
when I eat this.

The overall thread that runs through these tried-and-true favorites of mine is that initial taste sensation that occurs when I first bite into, sip, or savor these. In a lifetime of eating, those moments are pretty few and far between, and I am someone who is especially attuned to flavor. But I’m only human – the day-to-day business of eating gets pretty routine at times. So I’m glad for these little discoveries, extravagances, and proven staples that can still make food an adventure every day.

CoCo ICHIBANYA: Pan-Asian Chain Curries Favor with South Bay Foodies

When Francie Neely, the plucky protagonist of “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” was tired of her family’s monotonous diet of bread and potatoes, she would have a “pickle day” at a nearby deli. In 1943, Betty Smith apparently understood the meaning of “umami” before foodies latched onto it 70 years later. 

Although my diet is widely varied - perhaps too widely, sometimes. Despite the cornucopia of food choices that I am faced with daily, my palate also suffers from ennui. When I need a “pickle day,” I turn to things like meatball sandwiches, soondubu at BCD Tofu, or Japanese curry.

When I was growing up, the South Bay was a culinary wasteland when it came to Asian food. Now, with a decided change in demographics, residents are blessed with nearly every cuisine of the Pacific Rim: Vietnamese pho, Thai food, and hitherto unknown to the area, Chinese and Taiwanese sweets and savories.

A welcome surprise in the ever-widening ethnic food landscape of Torrance is CoCoICHIBANYA, an East Asian chain of Japanese curry restaurants. When I first heard about it, the LA Weekly noted that U.S. Marines really favored the spot: the company’s two highest performing stores are in Okinawa near the USMC’s Camp Foster and the USAF’s Kadena Air Base in Okinawa. The menus proclaim that last year, the Guinness Book of World Records named CoCoICHIBANYA the largest curry restaurant chain in the world, with 1,200 locations in Japan alone. The rest of the stores are located in Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Thailand, Taiwan, Hawaii, and Southern California.

Semper Fi: The favored chow of Marines stationed
in Asia, CoCoICHIBANYA’s logo beams out like a
benevolent god hovering above Sepulveda Boulevard,
and in the high-ceilinged dining room.

This style of curry – introduced to Japan by the British during the Meiji Era and charmingly quieted down as only the Japanese can do – is a lot milder than Thai or even the Indian curries from whence it came. However, CoCoICHIBANYA's version can still do a number on the taste buds. The menu's Fire-O-Meter starts at “regular” and “mild” before it even begins to count to 10.  I opted for 1, which on this secondary scale meant "mild," and even that provided a satisfying burn. Ordering level 10 should only be done with 911 on speed-dial.

The cuisine at CoCoICHIBANYA reflects the restaurant’s pan-Asian reach, with additions to the traditional Japanese curry sauce such as kimchee, potstickers, okra, and fried chicken. Thai iced tea and red velvet cake from the good old U.S. of A. sweeten the international bill of fare. Typically Japanese ingredients, such as vegetable croquettes, natto, and “hamburg” are available as toppings. Even curry’s Indian roots are saluted with cheese or chicken-topped “pizzas” on crusty naan.

I opted for the chicken cutlet, although pork is the more traditional base for kare raisu. The need for something green on my plate led me to choose the okra and tofu topping, which was tasty as well as healthy and colorful. Carb-conscious diners will appreciate the restaurant’s unusual pricing scale, where they can take off fifty cents to $1, by reducing the amount of rice served. But health nuts are charged an extra dollar for brown rice – or in my case, fifty cents – I asked for a “small” portion.

A crispy panko-coated piece of pork or chicken katsu, moistened with curry sauce and pillowed with a bite of fluffy rice is one of those perfect storm moments of eating, where texture, temperature, and flavor all come together in one amazing bite. The garnish of pickled daikon indeed, “keeps the appetite,” as my server told me. This is a dish best eaten hot, as soon as it hits the table, and I did so, quite greedily. The brown rice made me feel a little less guilty about the carbo-licous indulgence. 

Chicken katsu with okra and tofu curry are a symphony
of texture and flavor.

Francie Neely would have loved pickled daikon, crispy panko-coated anything, and the mysterious spice of curry. “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” is full of wonderful food references, poignantly written because of the extreme poverty in which the characters live. But they make the most of things, and demonstrate a wonderful sense of curiosity, as in a scene where the characters enjoy a dish of “alligator pears” – our now common, everyday avocado.

As a prodigal daughter of the South Bay, I am grateful that returning to my old stomping grounds now yields a wider range of choices to tempt my jaded palate. Although I miss living nearer Sawtelle, Chinatown, and Thai Town, there are more Asian food options in not only Gardena, but Torrance, Palos Verdes, and the Beach Cities.

The world of food has gotten smaller, and even the most dyed-in-the-wool mall rat can cultivate more worldly tastes. The foods that my sisters and I experienced as “exotic” while growing up in the ‘burbs was fairly limited back in the day - I remember how Jolene and I loved the naan at The Clay Pit in the South Bay Galleria - she always said it like like eating bread that was made just for you.

Things like naan, sushi, chicken soup with matzo balls, were delicacies that were almost diary-worthy when we were younger and developing our palates. It was an occasion to eat such fare, as a departure from our everyday menu of solidly American food like burgers, spaghetti (made at home with Lawry's seasoning packet), and random Filipino dishes. Although I like to think that our palates are way more sophisticated today, there is still something about"rebooting" the tastebuds with something like Japanese curry - or a really good pickle.