Tag Archives: organic

Salts Cure – Los Angeles, Ca

There is nothing more reassuring then watching your meal being made from scratch right in front of you while you sip on a glass of wine or a nice cold beer. That’s what you get at Salt’s Cure. Rather than items being suspiciously prepared in the back of the kitchen, you can sit at the bar, have a drink and watch the chef put together your meal. Chef Chris Phelps cooked the pork chop below. And everything is sourced locally within California. Go to their website and follow them on twitter so you can see what they are making, because it changes constantly.

Salts Cure
7494 Santa Monica Blvd # A
West Hollywood, CA 90046
(323) 850-7258

Dining room at Salts Cure

A Gigantic Ribeye (for two)

Berkshire Pork Chop

House Cured lox, with homemade cream cheese and house baked bagels, sliced thin and toasted

Fun with Color and Texture – Natural Dye Easter Eggs

Easter Eggs have seriously never been so cool until now. I used to decorate these little guys as a kid and got bored with stickers and crayons and such. But then I discovered making my own natural dyes which gives each egg its own earthy randomness. The process is simple, chop or shred veg and fruit (the ones that usually bleed color) and add it to a pot – red cabbage, beets, spinach, carrots, onion skins, etc. Add a couple of tablespoons of vinegar and water to top off. Throw in the eggs and boil. Reduce heat to simmer for about 30 minutes, reducing the liquid dye. Sift with a fine mesh sieve into a jar and now you have dye which you can add up to 4 cups of water to if needed.

If you want less randomness and more uniform, solid colors, boil the eggs first by themselves then add to pre made dye. Here are some of the ingredients I used:

Aside from cooking the eggs with the ingredients, you can also make sure some of the sediment makes it into the jar which will help create more random looks. For example, the spinach didn’t yield great results on the boil. But putting the egg in the spinach dye overnight, got me a very cool earthy color and texture. The following are the results I got with the dyes. I’ll explain the process of each one under each image.

Beets – This is fairly uniform, although my bowl was shallow so one side got darker than the other. It would have been best just to dip the egg in a full jar.

Tumeric with a pinch of saffron – the egg cracked which gave it even more texture. This is one of my favorites!

Yellow Onion Skins – boiled in pot with skins. Love the textures

Spinach – soaked overnight in dye and sediment

Blueberry – yeah, kind of gray. Boiled in blueberries to give it the textures. If you soak it overnight, you’ll have more of a blueish gray.

Red Cabbage – This is my absolute favorite. You’d think it would be red or purple but red cabbage yields blue tones. Boiled with the cabbage it produces a trippy patterns.

Lunch at CuisinArt Resort & Spa: Anguilla, BWI

I’m not a fan of the caribbean. I think I’ve made that known to a lot of people. But if I had to go to the caribbean for vacation (which will more than likely happen since my mother nags me about caribbean vacations all the time), I would most definitely choose Anguilla. Anguilla has the best of both worlds. The East end is the party side. Cheaper hotels, B & B’s and lots of bars and restaurants including Scilly Cay!

On the West End you have the luxury resorts. Its the end for the people who want to be pampered. On the pampered side of Anguilla is CuisinArt Resort & Spa. It is most definitely a mecca for foodies. Take, for example, the fact that they have their own 18,000 square foot greenhouse where they grow hydroponic vegetables that they serve in their restaurants. The greenhouse is run by Dr. Howard Resh, a pioneer in hydroponics. Most importantly is the product of the technology, which I can personally attest to as amazing. I love vegetables but I am not crazy about them – except here, where they taste like a garden. It is reminiscent of the garden my mother kept when I was growing up – fresh and full of flavor.

Aside from the food, there are also activities scheduled from morning to evening, including exercise, excursions, and cooking courses including a little something on Sous Vide cooking, one of my new interests.

On to the pics!

CuisinArt Resort & Spa
P.O. Box 2000
Rendezvous Bay
Anguilla, AI-2640
British West Indies
264.498.2000

Vegetable Stir-fry