One of the most important staples in my larder is salt and pepper, and as I detailed in a previous post, when it comes to pepper, my favorite is a blend of peppercorns from my favorite food shop in Paris, Fouquet. The blend is called Epices aux Poivre—which basically means spice with pepper.

What I love about it is that whether you're seasoning scrambled eggs, salad or a steak, the blend adds just the right complexity and flavor. Fouquet specializes in sourcing and producing small-batch products, from honey and and fondants to sauces and chocolates. Alas, it's only in Paris.

So, a few months ago, I hit up the Spice Station in Silver Lake, bought each of the ingredients in the Epices aux Poivres and created my own. It sufficed as a substitute, but my concoction was running out. Slight panic started setting in, and then a light went off in my head: What if I brought my remaining blend and had the Spice Station folks try and duplicate it.

If anyone was up to the task, they would be. I always buy my spices there, because the quality, freshness and diversity are consistently fabulous. (And of course, I always buy small batch, so they're fresh.) Sure enough, owners Peter Bahlawanian and his wife, Bronwen, were enthusiastic about my idea.

When I stopped back in a bit later, Bronwen told me they did replicate the blend, and it was selling like hot cakes. The mixture looked just like the one from Fouquet, and indeed, after I ground some over a few slices of tomato with a drizzle of olive oil, it tasted just as good—better, even, because it was fresher than the remains of what I had left.

I can’t tell you how excited I am to know I don’t have to fly back to Paris to restock. Okay, that’s an exaggeration—I love any excuse to run back to France. But for now, I'm happy to know that my Epices aux Poivre is just right around the corner. 3819 W. Sunset Blvd. L.A., 323-660-2565, spicestationsilverlake.com.

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You would think they were selling freshly plucked black truffles from Lalbenque, France, what with the swarm of shoppers surrounding the Wong Farms mango stand this Wednesday at the Santa Monica farmers' market. The frenzy was quite a sight—so much for the notion of the laid-back Angeleno.

Wong Farms sells the most extraordinary, tree-ripened mangos from the Coachella Valley from mid August thru mid September. This was their second week at the farmers' market, and the word was out. Luckily, I had ordered my mangos the week before, so I was there to pick up my case. The frenzy was due to the fact that after 10 a.m., Wong sells whatever mangos are left that were not picked up from customers who preordered.

When I got there, the line was already long. But if you could taste this mango you'd understand why. As I was standing in line being pushed and shoved, a guy walked by and said he didn’t even care what they were selling, he was going to get whatever people were waiting for—it was hysterical.

They were selling the Valencia Pride mangos, and this was the last week for those (next week, they start with the Keitt varietals), and their Valencia Pride mangos are just unbelievable. First, once ripened, the texture is like no other mango I’ve ever had except in India. The flavor is intense, floral and almost perfumed—in a good way. I love to chill them and just spoon out the mango.

Last night some friends came over for dinner, and Stan scrapped off the remaining flesh from the skin and seed, threw it in a cocktail shaker, muddled it, added some vodka and ice and whipped up the most delicious cocktail. It needed nothing else.

Next week, the frenzy will probably be even crazier for the first of the seasons Keitt varietals. Order yours in advance. The mangos sell for $3.49 a pound and are worth every cent. Wong Farms, 760-265-9167.

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Once in a while I get introduced to a wine that takes me by surprise. Such was the case when I recently tasted wines from Lodi-based Michael-David. Not exactly a famous grape-growing region like Napa Valley, Sonoma or Santa Barbara, Lodi isn’t even covered by The Wine Spectator and The Wine Enthusiast (for reasons that are unknown to me).

Lodi was the watermelon capital of the world in the 1800s. As the water table lowered in the sandy soil the region is known for, Lodi diversified its harvests and planted almonds, vegetables, fruits and grapes. It has gone from being known only as a capitol of jug wine (and the hometown of Robert Mondavi) to a premium wine-growing region in a very short time. In fact, just 10 years ago there were seven wineries and now there are 80.

I had lunch with Michael-David’s co-owner, David Phillips, at the Petit Ermitage Hotel to taste some of their wines. If you haven’t been to the restaurant at this lovely small hotel in West Hollywood, it’s a gem. You can only eat there if you are a guest or a member, probably because of zoning. I felt like I was in Europe—it was incredibly charming and the food was great.   READ MORE >

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Once in a while, a restaurant comes along where you experience home-cooked food that's not necessarily simple, quaint or un-fussy—it’s just real. La Numero Uno is such a place, a small Salvadorian and Mexican restaurant that serves some of the best Mexican food I’ve had in a long time. The Mercado family, who are now the owners as of a month ago, are hands-on chefs.

On the Salvadorian side of the menu, they have delicious pupusas. We ordered the revuleta pupusas, which were filled with pork, cheese and beans and served with a side of coleslaw that was wonderful. The Mexican side of the menu is mostly recipes inspired from Mexico City , including classic dishes like mojarra frita, a simple piece of fried fish, and pollo con guisado, an exquisite chicken stew—both of these were sensational and satisfying.

One of my favorite dishes, and the best I’ve had in L.A. so far, was their chile rellenos. The chilies were fresh, the batter was light, and the red sauce delicious. When I asked our server what their most authentic and unique dish was, she said the salpicon, a traditional Mexican dish of shredded meat and chopped radishes served room temperature. They made theirs with ground beef, and though it was fine, I think if made traditionally with shredded meat, it would be outrageously good.

My friend Craig who lives in the building next door turned me on to La Numero Uno. He is trying to introduce them to using some organic ingredients, so he brought some tomatoes and peaches from the farmers' market. They served us some sliced peaches for dessert, a perfect ending for a great meal.

Besides just great food, the prices are unbeatable, and you can BYOB—another great plus. It’s also right down the street from the ArcLight on Vine, so it’s a great spot for before or after a movie or any other time as well.
La Numero Uno, 1247 N. Vine St., Hollywood, 323-957-1111

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There is no better time than summer to prepare simple, delicious food, and it’s when I find myself going through many of my favorite dishes. Last week, it was a fresh corn and faro salad, which resulted in a perfect light dinner.

This week, I am obsessed with one of my favorite summer sandwiches. It consists of sliced tomatoes, Gioia burrata cheese and a crusty sourdough bread (preferably the sourdough bread I make), good young olive oil and some local freshly ground pink peppercorns.

I start by getting my tomatoes from the farmers’ market. This week, I’ve been getting the Early Girl tomatoes from Flora Bella Farms and ripening them up for a few days. Once they’re ripe, I slice them and drizzle them with a young, fresh olive oil, add a dash of salt and grind some pink peppercorns over them and let them macerate for 10 minutes.

I start off the sandwich by toasting the sourdough bread and then lightly drizzling it with some olive oil. After rubbing the bread with a peeled clove of garlic, I add a slice of Gioia burrata. Burrata is like a decadent, creamy, luscious mozzarella cheese that literally melts in your mouth and is a great foil for the tomatoes. I then top the cheese with a slice or two of the tomatoes and drizzle with a little more olive oil. That’s it.

Seriously, I could eat this summer sandwich for lunch every day. The best part of this recipe is that as August approaches, a wider variety of heirloom tomatoes becomes available—adding a diverse combination of tomatoes to this recipe can really take it to another level.

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The Durell Vineyard is one of the most famous vineyards in Sonoma County, and in my opinion, it's one of the greatest properties in California. Bill Price purchased Durell in 1998 and sells fruit from this amazing terroir to 25 luxury wine producers—I’m sure he's keeping the best for himself.

One of the first wines from Durell Vineyards that I tasted was back in the '80s from Kistler. At the time, I was basically off Chardonnay because it was too over-oaked for my taste, but the Kistler Durell Vineyard Chardonnay stood out from the pack.

Most recently, I had lunch with Three Stick's head winemaker, Don Van Staaveren, to taste the latest releases. The most memorable was the 2007 Three Sticks Chardonnay—it was simply spectacular. It had a wonderful creamy mouth feel, with layers of tropical fruit like papaya and mango, followed by a nice minerality and a solid kick of acidity. The wine was perfectly balanced.

I decided to take a bottle back to New York with me over the sweltering 4th of July and serve it with some lobster rolls. Of course, really good white wine shouldn’t served too cold, but when its hitting a 100 degrees, I decided to break convention. The good news was that this chardonnay—even served very cold—still expressed itself with the same complexity, and it paired wonderfully with the lobster rolls. It was pure heaven.

This is another wine that's hard to obtain, but you can get on the mailing list, and you may also find it in a restaurant. It's one of my favorite summer wines for 2010 and for many years to come. threestickswines.com

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As the temperature rises over the summer months, I’m pulled toward drinking white wines or rosés. Recently I’ve been tasting some amazing wines from California, and this is the first of several posts about some of my favorites.

First, I don’t generally love California Sauvignon Blancs, I find them cloying, unbalanced and unsophisticated. Granted, taste is a very personal thing, but generally they don't wow me.

And then I sipped Captûre’s Sauvignon Blanc. Winemakers Denis Malbec from Chãteau Latour in Bordeaux and his wife, May-Britt, have brought their extraordinary talents and passion together to make perhaps the finest Sauvignon Blanc in California. Maybe I love their varieties because they're made in a more traditional Bordeaux style. The Malbecs met while working at Latour—she is a classically trained chef from Sweden, and he is French and grew up at Latour. They are perfect counterparts.

The 2009 Captûre Tradition Sauvignon Blanc is lovely, with fruit from Sonoma County. It is pale in color, but don’t let that throw you—it’s a very complex and frisky wine, with perfect balance. With summer foods, I want acidity in my wine, but I also want backbone, which this has. There are subtle notes of grapefruit and Meyer-lemon zest and an elegant creamy finish. It just keeps getting better as you drink it—something you don’t get from most wines, let alone a Sauvignon Blanc from California.

The 2009 Captûre Le Pionniers has the same great qualities of the Tradition, but I would describe it as much more nuanced, with subtle notes and greater complexity in the nose. The minerality is spectacular. This is the perfect wine for a lobster roll.

There is not much of this wine produced, and it's not easily found except in restaurants, so get on the mailing list. I know some of you might feel frustrated by that, but I can’t write about wines just based on availability—hey, I’m still on the waiting list for the new iPhone.

Captûre will be releasing a 2009 dark rosé at the end of the summer, and I am really looking forward to that. Till then, cheers.

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Barbara Fairchild, the editor in chief of Bon Appétit magazine, has been hosting a series of dinners in select cities across the country called Curators of Taste. I was fortunate to attend the dinner in Los Angeles, which was held at Chef José Andres' restaurant the Bazaar, at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills.

The dinner was attended by a very well edited mix of tastemakers in the food, art and design worlds—all brought together to partake of Chef Andres' amazing fare along with specially designed cocktails by Belvedere Vodka's master mixologist Claire Smith.

Smith—who is in her early thirties and one of the younger master mixologists I've met—planned a very ambitious pairing of Belvedere cocktails to be served along side Chef Andrés' amazing menu. I love a good cocktail, but seven cocktails to go along with our seven-course meal made even me a little nervous. But when I noticed the great barman Eric Alperin (of the Varnish) was pouring, I gave him a nod and said, "I'm in."

Smith was telling me that vodka was first made in Poland. I'd always assumed Russia had that honor. I am more of a gin or rye person, but vodka aficionados swear by Belvedere, claiming it is one of the finest artisanal vodkas produced. Along with the premium vodka, we were going to have cocktails mixed with a variety of Belvedere maceration vodkas, which are made using only real fruit, no chemicals or additives.

All the combinations of food and cocktails were fabulous, but my favorite pairings were the Belvedere Smoked Gimlet, which has a splash of mezcal. It was brilliant and really had a smoky finish. My second favorite was the Belvedere Bonfire, made with Ardbeg scotch and crème de pêche, served along with the Philly Cheesecake, a trademark dish of Chef Andrés. The peatiness of the Ardbeg was extraordinary. I also loved the Belvedere Evergreen Tea, made with green tea syrup, pine liqueur, lemon juice and grapefruit bitters and served with baby peaches and burrata cheese. Delicious.

Since this is a blog, I need to keep it short and sweet, but seriously, I could go on and on. It was a sensational evening, and the crowd was truly a great mix of guests. Since the financial meltdown of the last few years, it's almost been in bad taste to host such extraordinary events, but I was happy to celebrate with great company, food and wine. I hope parties like this are back.

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The bar for ice cream and gelato has steadily been rising here in Los Angeles, with places like Scoops, Milk and the Gelato Bar. Now there is another welcome addition—Sweet Rose Creamery, which opened recently in Santa Monica's Brentwood Country Mart.

The place is the brainchild of husband-and-wife team Josh Loeb and Zoe Nathan, who also own the Rustic Canyon Wine Bar and Huckleberry Bakery & Café. They hired Shiho Yoshikawa, who had worked with Nathan at Tartine in San Francisco, to be, yes, the ice-cream chef.

Sweet Rose Creamery is a throwback to an old-school ice cream parlor—and yet it isn't. The ice cream is made in small batches with only the finest ingredients. I recently tried the fresh mint with homemade chocolate chips on the recommendation of my server. She said the mint was crushed by hand, and it was her favorite. And it was delicious, with a wonderful finish of mint and rich pieces of chocolate. I also had the salted caramel, which was outstanding and served with a sprinkling of fleur de sel.

Besides ice cream, there are milkshakes, banana splits, floats, sundaes and a variety of special toppings and sauces. A display case is filled with an array of fudge pops, ice-cream sandwiches, fruit pops and chocolate-dipped bananas. Oh, and they make their own homemade waffle cones in both chocolate and vanilla.

The flavors change with the season, often daily. On a recent visit, I tried the spring crest peach–and– buttermilk ice cream. That flavor took me down memory lane, as I remember a peach ice cream from my childhood that tasted exactly like this one, except with chunks of peaches. I generally don't like commercial ice cream because of the flavor that's left in your mouth, and Sweet Rose's are nothing like that.

Sweet Rose Creamery plans to cater ice-cream parties, but for now you need to make your way down there for a taste of heaven. 225 26th Street, 310-260-CONE.

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After my last blog post on L.A.'s Mexican food, I found myself browsing through a glut of text messages from my New York friends just before the wheels hit the tarmac at JFK—and most were disputing the notion that L.A.’s Mexican food is better.

On a suggestion from one of these friends, I decided to go to Heche en Dumbo in lower Manhattan, which was described to me as some of the most authentic and creative Mexican around. Generally, when I hear the word creative, I tend to shudder a bit.

As I walked into the restaurant, I immediately loved the low-key vibe. My friends were late, so I decided to have one of their special cocktails to kill time. I ordered a margarita tamarindo made with Herradura Blanco tequila, house-made tamarind juice, a dash of cane sugar and a spicy chili piquin rim.

When the drink arrived, I have to say the color was godawful and a bit of a turnoff, but on first sip it was really good. I am so spoiled by our cocktail scene here in L.A.—I think color and presentation are very much a part of making a perfect drink. I was a little worried that my dinner was going down this direction—and then that creative angle my friend described suddenly became clear.

The menu had lots of interesting items that I’ve not heard of, like queso fundido—a fusion of Oaxacan flavors and queso asadero cheese that is served melted alongside their excellent house-made flour tortillas. We ordered the queso fundido de rajas, which includes a roasted chili poblano pepper and sautéed onions mixed in it. It was fantastic, and I later found out the restaurant makes their own queso, too.

We then shared the burrito de res—filled with wine braised steak stewed in fresh-squeezed lime juice with caramelized onions. They even use local meat that's tightly packed in their homemade tortillas and then set on the grill to brown a bit on both sides. This dish serves up to three.

We then went on to have the tacos de cochinita pibil, which are made with Berkshire pork steamed in a banana leaf with Yucatan spices, and the grilled quail, served with a rich puebla mole, delicious rice and a fried banana.

The menu is inspired by authentic Mexico antojitos and contemporary cuisine— “antojitos” means little tastes. The portions might be small, but the taste is anything but. I can’t say if Mexican food is better in NY or L.A., but I can say this is one of the best restaurants for Mexican food I’ve ever been to. I can’t wait to go back. 354 Bowery, New York, 212-937-4245.

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