Seeking Food - By Ketojinic

I've never been to Portland, OR but I've read enough food blogs to know that there is a lively food and beer scene. So when my hubz tells me he's always wanted to go to Portland and books our trip there as a winter getaway, I get schoolgirl giddy. This time, I leave everything up to my hubz so I don't have to plan a thing. I don't research food blogs or read restaurant reviews. I just sit back and relax as my hubz creates an itinerary for our winter getaway. He deftly calls on his foodie friends who have been there before and through all the recommendations, we have a food and hiking plan. Portland is a beautiful city. Lively, even when it's soggy. I get a lot of mileage out of my yellow rain boots as we walk the downtown streets. It's great to take a break from driving everywhere in LA. We decide to check out Higgins, based on a few friends' recommendations. Located on the corner of Broadway and Jefferson in Down...

It's what always happens. I have a whole bunch of film-related projects to finish and I get distracted looking up recipes online. It's getting chilly these days so I'm in a soup-y kind of mood. Last week, I made a slow-cooker turkey chili that's been the go to meal when we're too busy to sit down and eat. The hubz and I have very different eating schedules and he is so food-challenged that if I don't make these one pot meals for the week, he'll just end up eating white rice with dried, shredded pork (Vietnamese dish) that sits in the fridge. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just so boring. I guess it's better than eating cereal for dinner. Anyway, on twitter, SkinnyJinny posted this picture of his curry cashew butternut squash soup with coconut yogurt that he made using Sensual Foodie's recipe and I KNEW I had to make a batch, or at least a rendition of it. I call this the "Nutty Asian Butternut Squash Soup" because in ...

This year I got to go to the first annual LA Food and Wine Festival held at LA Live as a freelance producer for KCET Food. I covered the Red Carpet, HEAT (LA's spiciest after party), Grand Tasting 1, Rick Bayless Demonstration, and Grand Tasting 2. Check out the KCET Food version on their website . At least for now, it's on their front page!  Thanks KCET Food for letting me go and eat like a pig for a few days, interview chefs, connect with other food lovers, and be a part of something huge that I wouldn't have been able to take advantage of with my lowly film school student budget. The video on here is the song I initially chose for the event to capture the energy of a celebration for a first annual event of this magnitude. Unfortunately, for copyright reasons, I had to change it. My favorite food part of the food festival was, Roy Choi's subtle jerk chicken, David LeFevre's meatballs (no pics, just in video) and:   Ray Garcia's bacon wrapped b...

  On the second day of our epic Tijuana trip, we head to the famous Caesar's restaurant for a "light" breakfast.  Call me ignorant, but I never knew that this was the place that the Caesar's Salad was invented. I always thought it was Italian, or at least European. Who woulda thunk that it was created in this small restaurant on Calle Revolucion in Tijuana. The interior is really vintage and there are pictures of its history all over the walls. We file into the separate room and try to squeeze into this gigantic table. Impossible. We add a few more sections to make it a bigger table. When the bread and pastry come out, I think this is the light breakfast so I eat more than I should. But then the fruit comes out. Well, that's also "light" so I eat it all. Then the chilaquiles, mushroom and cheese omelette, and refried beans come out. Now I'm screwed. Especially since we're about to head out to the B...

Sometimes, I'm impulsive. But, I also know I have an impulsive BFF who'd be down for anything. When Bill Esparza ( Street Gourmet LA ) posts a trip to Tijuana, I know we are getting on that bus. This isn't any regular road trip, it's a foodie road trip to attend the first ever Baja California Culinary Fest.  The bus was full of food bloggers, food writers, and food lovers.  After scrambling to get to Union Station on time (that's another story all together), we get on the private chartered bus to go south of the border.  Bill appoints Gourmet Pigs as the official carrier of the tequila Volcan,  and it gets passed around for the official start of #borrachageddon. After a few naps, a few swigs of tequila, one rest stop, catching up with some food bloggers, and tweeting out our last messages before we start roaming, we are finally in Tijuana! Bill surprises us and tells us that we've been upgraded to the Grand Hotel in Tijuana , the twin tower h...