File under: Things We Like—candles from PF Candle Company.

More specifically, this candle from PF Candle Company—the Teakwood + Tobacco Soy Candle.

PF is a downtown LA-based company that creates high-quality, small batch, hand-poured candles using domestically grown soy wax, cotton core wicks, and apothecary-inspired packaging. So nice stuff. It’s run by husband and wife team Kristen Pumphrey + Thomas Neuberger (pictured right), who, I’m assuming, smell amazing.

PF’s fragrances run the gamut of high-end candle scents with a unique twist, focusing in on slightly sweet, earthy smells—Amber + Moss, Campfire, and Cut Grass Special are just a few varieties. You can see the rest on the company’s site.

Our favorite—the Teakwood + Tobacco candle—is the company’s best-seller.  So we have awesome taste, right?

We’re no noses, but burning the candle fills our house with a pleasingly smokey, slightly peppery sweetness that’s just makes us smile. PF notes that the candle has “base notes of aged teak and sandalwood, with a hint of muskiness from patchouli essential oil.”

These guys take their candles seriously. You should too. You can order directly from PF’s site or check their stockists to see who carries the candles near you. We get ours at YES/Reform School in Silver Lake.

Added bonus—these candles won’t break the bank. Large candles are $16 across the board; small ones are $11. Plus free matches if you know the special handshake.

And, if you’re wondering, the PF’s short for Pommes Frites. Why pommes frites?
“A lot have wondered about the hidden meaning behind naming our company after french fries. The answer is simple: “Pommes Frites”, when pronounced correctly, sounds pretty similar to Kristen’s last name, “Pumphrey”. Well, and belgian fries are awesome.”

Now I know how to say that correctly! Paris, here I come!

It’s a win-win day, guys.

How cool is the design on this soy sauce packet? We picked up food from the always awesome, super vegan-friendly Jitlada the other night, and this came along with it.

Related question: When do you think Year of the Dog soy sauce goes bad?

Did you guys know that emo crooner Chris Carrabba and Dashboard Confessional frontman had a bluegrass-y folk-pop band? Yeah, me neither.

Actually, this track, “Back to You”, made it onto a few of my favorite playlists earlier this year and I had no idea I was even listening the breaker of so many young girls’ early-aughts hearts. But, as fate would have it and much like teenaged mall-goers so many years ago, I’d been tricked by legitimately catchy melodic hooks and overly earnest vocals into liking Chris Carrabba songs.

DAMMIT ALL!

Carrabba’s new band, Boca Raton-based Twin Forks, writes and plays what can only earnestly be described as pop music. But it’s pop music that employs rootsy, folk instrumentation, essentially dropping the songs into a bluegrass spin cycle. All that said, it’s pretty good stuff and it’s undeniably catchy—a guilty pleasure at worst; songs to grow on you at best. But good stuff, regardless.

Plus, you know, they cover a Taylor Swift song, so they can’t be all that bad.

Listen to “Back to You” below. If you like it—and I bet you will—head over to their newly released sampler on Noisetrade to download (it includes the Swift cover). You can listen to + buy the band’s 2014 full-length via the iTunes.

Photo by the talented Tristan Casey.

I know I sound like a tool when I say this, but the summer is flying by, isn’t it? The next thing you know, we’re going to held tight in the death grip of another seemingly never-ending, soul-crippling snowstorm as we peer feebly reach back in our mind to try to recall a time when we weren’t chilled to the bone and literally going insane with cabin fever.

Oh, wait. We live in LA now. Never mind.

But good luck this go round, New York!

Now that I’ve succinctly burned all bridges back east, if are looking to dust off your warm-weather recipes while you can, we’ve got a new one you can add to the list. Katie came up with this one and it’s quickly become a staple around here for quick lunches and a nice dinner accompaniment you can prepare ahead of time for those steamy nights. Plus it’s super-easy to make and only take a few ingredients. Check it out.

Chilled Sweet Pea Soup
2 10 oz. bags of frozen peas (we usually use Cascadian Farm organic sweet peas, but you can use any nice frozen peas)
1 yellow onion, peeled + diced
3 cloves of garlic, smashed + peeled
olive oil
salt + pepper to taste
4 cups water

In a large stock pot, sauté the onion in a tablespoon or so of olive oil over medium heat until it becomes translucent (about five minutes). Add the garlic and cook for another two minutes, adding the peas once the garlic softens and becomes fragrant. Sauté all of that for about 10 minutes, stirring often and being careful not to burn the mixture, then add water and raise the heat to high to bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and let simmer for 10 or so minutes to allow the flavors to mingle. Remove from heat and carefully use an immersion blender to blend the mixture into a puree. If you’re worried about splash-back feel free to let the soup cool first, but you should be good if you’re using a deep stockpot. Blend until smooth. If it’s too thick for your taste, add a cup or so of water and blend some more. Season with salt + pepper to taste and then simmer for a final 10 minutes.

If you’d prefer to have the soup warm, go for it. But we usually like to make this the day before and let it chill overnight. Then we usually serve topped with some chili pepper flakes. We recently gave it a go with some wasabi paste blended in though and mixed together a little olive oil and wasabi for a quick wasabi oil topper (pictured below), and that was great too, so feel free to get creative.

Enjoy!

And no hard feelings, New York. I’m sure this winter’ll be better than last. If not, come to sunny California!

Katie made the Getty Iris, the online magazine for the Getty!

The Getty’s one of our favorite places in LA. With it’s unbelievably tranquil, beautiful grounds, most visits, we have to force ourselves inside to view the exhibits. Our last visit was for the museum’s Friday Flights series, which “brings together a network of Los Angeles-based musicians, visual artists, and creative thinkers for a vibrant evening of sounds and sights.” That evening was curated by LA vegan band, No Age, and, in addition to all the art + music, included a special vegan menu on the patio.

Staff caught up with Katie on one of their scenic stairwells and snapped this awesome shot of her with the Pacific in the background. It was so clear that day, you could even see Catalina Island from the museum. The photos part of their Fashion Off the 405 series, which “documents the many different visitor styles of the Getty—from the trendy to the casual to some wild street style.”

You can see the rest of the shots over at the Iris. Katie’s clearly wins though.

Photo by Isoke-Nilaja Cullins.

We’ve all been there, ammiright? Your friend suggests a book club and everyone gets all excited and then, a month later, at best, half of you have read the book and the club gradually, if not rapidly, degenerates into either monthly drinking parties or total nonexistence.

Don’t get me wrong: I love the idea of monthly drinking parties, but, at a certain point, the only honest thing you can do is stop calling it a book club. And ‘Drinking Club’ just doesn’t have that impressive, ‘I totally read New Yorker articles all the way through’ feel, does it?

But what can you do? These days, it’s so tough for most of us to be able to say with any certainty a month in advance that we’ll be able to prioritize reading the hot new summer novel over, say, running your business or feeding your kids or catching up on Game of Thrones?

Enter the Cookbook Club—a book club of a different color, where participants are merely required to pick out a single recipe from a cookbook, make it, meet up in a months time for a kind of curated pot luck, complete with merriment and social camaraderie. It’s like a book club where you don’t have to read as much but you still get to hang out and drink. Add a wide variety of awesome food you and your friends made and you’ve got a cookbook club.

I certainly can’t claim to have originated this wonderful idea, though we did hit upon it before the ever-in-the-know Gweneth Paltrow, it’d seem. Our cookbook club actually owes its existence to another, much more intense and strictly run predecessor that our friend, Ali, is a part of still. That cookbook club, started a while back some LA foodies unknown to us, involves rigorous membership rules—no couples, balanced genders among the group, one-time guests allowed as invited by the hosts. That last rule lent directly to our club’s creation. Our other friends, Maureen + Ilene, were guests of Alie’s when she hosted and immediately fell in love with the idea of a cookbook club. But when the time came around to plan the next cookbook and hosting date, Maureen + Ilene had a kind of ‘No Homers Allowed’ moment when they realized, as they checked their date books, that they weren’t invited. Guests are only allowed to attend when invited by hosts in order to control the size of the club and monthly get-togethers. And with that realization, poor Maureen + Ilene saw their cornucopic dreams of cookbook clubs to come dissolve before their very eyes.

So they did what any enterprising young Americans would do—they started their own damn cookbook club, one with much looser attendance policies and a more casual atmosphere overall. As we’ve been told, that original cookbook club trended towards the extremely culinarily ambitious, choosing cookbooks that had participants doing things like fermenting cheeses, using only implements that were available to pre-settlement Native Americans, and roasted animals whole. Our cookbook club is nigh so aspiring (or gross—whole animals‽). Don’t get me wrong—we go all out, but we’re also dealing with a humorously era-appropriate range of dietary restrictions, from vegan (woo!), to vegetarian, to paleo, to gluten-free.

But the results are great—we highly recommend starting a cookbook club to any and all. And it seems to be sweeping the nation…or LA, at least. Just the other day, we were touring the studios of local, beloved public radio station, KCRW and the producer of their Good Food segment told me they had their own cookbook club at the station.

All you need to do is find a willing group of participants—our group’s pretty small right now, around 10 people at its base—pick out a cookbook to cook from, and set a date + host. It’s on the host of the coming cookbook club to pick out a range of recipes, but it’s a good idea to pick more than you need, so everyone’s got plenty to choose from, and then do your best to think out the end menu, making sure there’s a good variety of appetizers + entrées and balancing the savory + sweet, greens/starch/protein/grain, et cetera. It’s also nice, as host, to hold off on choosing until most everyone has. That way, you give your guests first dibs and it opens you up to be able to chose something to balance out the menu, whether you initially shared the recipe or not.

Then the hosts just need to scan or copy the recipes and upload them to a common space. We use Google’s Drive to create + share spreadsheets that lists the chosen recipes so that members can then claim a dish (so you’re not doubling up on anything). Then you can link next to the recipe a scan and/or write-up of the recipe. We use the app TinyScan—which creates Zerox-esque scans with your phone’s camera, adjusting for page curve—and then photograph any enticing photographs of the dish that the recipes might be paired with in the cookbook (thanks for the recommendation, Ilene). Just be sure to take a quick look at the recipe to make sure there aren’t any ‘See page so-and-so’ recipes within recipes before sharing.

Then eat, drink, and be merry! We like to go through at the beginning to explain exactly what can be eaten by whom and most of tend to try to make dishes as vegan-/paleo-/GF-friendly as possible, putting cheese topping on the side, for instance. Then we go around the table and talk about making each dish—the perils of the recipe; how it could have been better, maybe; what we’d do next go ’round; what we think of the cookbook in general; how we felt when we were making the food…. But, if that’s not your bag, you can just dig in and high-five in silence.

Katie + I hosted the most recent cookbook club, choosing to cook from Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s most recent book, Isa Does It, which went over great. Isa graciously gave me permission to reprint the recipe I chose. Well, I mean, kind of graciously. She sent the text + picture to the right. To be fair, that’s pretty gracious for her.

Korean BBQ Portobello Burgers
(pictured above)

For the marinade:
1 cup water
1/4 cup light molasses (not blackstrap)
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons liquid smoke
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
2 teaspoons sriracha
1 teaspoon onion powder
2 cloves garlic, smashed
4 average-size portobello mushroom caps, stems removed
Olive oil, for spraying or brushing the grill

For serving:
4 large white hamburger buns
Vegan mayo
1 cup kimchi

Prepare the Marinade:
Combine all of the marinade ingredients in a large shallow bowl or pan with enough room to hold the mushroom caps in a single layer. Mix well.

Marinate the mushrooms gill side up for at least 15 minutes and up to 1 hour. Make sure that each mushroom is slathered in marinade.

Stovetop Grilling Instriations:
Preheat a grill pan over high heat. Spray or brush with oil. Place each mushroom gill side up in the pan and partially cover with a large lid. Cook for about 5 minutes; spoon a little more marinade  on about halfway through. Flip each mushroom and cook for another 5 minutes, or until the center where the center was seems tender and juicy and the mushroom is nicely charred. 

Broiling Instructions:
Preheat the broiler to high. Spray a rimmed baking sheet with oil and arrange on the oven rack about 6 inches from the heat. Place each mushroom gill side up on the baking sheet and broil for about 5 minutes per side. Spoon some marinade over the mushrooms while they are cooking. 

To Assemble:
Spread each bun with a little mayo. Place burger on bun and top with kimchi. I like to cut my burger with a steak knife and dig in!

Notes:
Don’t remove the gills from the portobellos, even if you’ve seen them do that on cooking shows. They are loaded with flavor and texture, not to mention that the gills soak up marinade beautifully. Gently wash your caps before marinating them and you are A-OK.

Portobellos vary in size pretty drastically. They can be anywhere from the size of a hockey puck to the size of a small Frisbee. For burgers, I like mushrooms that are somewhere in between about 5 inches in circumference. Try to grab nice firm ones that are uniform in size and not limp or wrinkled. If you’re going to keep them stored in the fridge for a few days, wrap them in a clean kitchen towel instead of plastic. They need a little air to stay fresh.

Since I was making these for a larger crowd, I subbed in a cut up loaf of farmers market bread for the burger buns, multiplied the size of the recipe by 1.5, and cut the sandwiches into smaller sizes.

Pictured below, friends enjoying food + company at our last cookbook club; the excellent and highly recommended Isa Does It; vegan Chai Spice Snickerdoodles from Isa Does It, made by Martha; and the spread from the previous cookbook club, when we all cooked from Hugh Acheson‘s A New Turn in the South: Southern Flavors Reinvented for Your Kitchen. If you’re interested, you can read our write-up on the bread + butter pickles we made from that cookbook too. They’re awesome.

We’re kind of obsessed with this bizarre new SBTRKT song in the studio of late.

It features Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend on vocals and some pretty weirdly awesome instrumentation from the usually masked London-based producer.

The forthcoming album it’s pulled from—Wonder Where We Land—is SBTRKT’s sophomore release and features further collaborations with Jessie Ware, Sampha, LA’s Warpaint, and many more.

It’s due out Sept23 on Young Turks and can be pre-ordered via SBTRKT’s site.

And for anyone wondering, ‘dorp’ is Dutch for ‘village’. New Dorp’s also a town in Staten Island, who some claim is part of New York City. I’ve never seen official documentation to that point though.

Happy weekend, all!

We’d like to announce and invite everyone to PETA‘s first ever Vegan Fashion Pop-Up this summer. The event will be held Saturday, August 23 from 11AM to 6PM on the spacious rooftop deck of PETA’s west coast headquarters, the Bob Barker Building at 2154 Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake. They’ll be touting wares by NYC’s Vaute Couture, LA-based Nicora Johns, Sydney Brown, Cri de Coeur, and many more. Plus, tacos by Plant Food for People + sweets from Courtesan Cupcakes. So, that. From PETA: “This fancy group includes our headliners, PETA’s 2014 Most Influential Designer, Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart—the first all-vegan designer to show at New York Fashion Week—and Stephanie Nicora, PETA’s 2014 Most Talented Designer, among other favorites who are steadfastly changing the course of fashion as we know it. Don’t miss your chance to rub elbows with these visionaries! Add raffle giveaways, vegan cupcakes, and jackfruit tacos to this mix, and you have yourself a magical afternoon.” I don’t know if I’d call us visionaries per se (pause for obligatory compliment), but we’ll be there too repping MooShoes LA, which is coming along very well, thanks for asking, and scheduled to open this fall just down the street from PETA. Check the Pop-Up’s Facebook page for updates on participants and to RSVP. And hope to see you there!

Hey, LA—did you know laid-back southern California pizza chain, Fresh Brothers, does vegan? Well, they do. And they’re really  fuckin’ good at it.

Not only do they carry Daiya vegan cheese, they also now offer Gardein vegan sausage as a topping and the brand’s Crispy Tenders as an appetizer. And they’re really knowledgable and nice from our experience. Just the other night, after ordering through they’re mobile app (which actually works really well), we promptly got a call to make sure we were cool with gluten in the vegan sausage on our gluten-free crust. The gluten-free crust is vegan for anyone wondering—ingredients: rice flour, tapioca flour, water, potato starch, potato flakes, olive oil, sugar, yeast, salt, Italian seasoning, garlic powder.

They also reached out to let us know that they’re in the process of vetting a vegan pepperoni.

So, next time you can’t make it by Cruzer—LA’s 100% vegan pizzeria—give these guys a go. We’re betting you’ll like ’em.

This message brought to you by a dude who likes pizza.

Much against the advice of friend and author, Tamar Aniati, who wrote a piece for Tue/Night last year entitled ‘On Greens: Can We Please Stop Talking About Kale Now?’, we currently feel the strong need to talk about kale.

We have no intention of addressing the social implications of the prevalence of kale on our society as Tamar did so eloquently and exasperatedly. Instead, we feel we must address how this common food staple—in both homes and restaurants—is still so inadequately prepared in this day and age.

Far too often have we dined out and ordered a kale salad only to receive a bland plate of barely touched, uncooked, raw kale with a random assortment of vegetables, dressings, and other haphazard salad accoutrements atop it. Far too often have we fielded the question of how we prepare our kale not quite wanting to end up with a stove-top cooked-down side dish, but also wanting to end up with something…edible.

So, we’re out to put an end to it all…hopefully without sounding like assholes. Here’s all you need to do with your kale.

1. Thoroughly wash your kale—be it ‘dinosaur’ kale or black kale or ‘KALE no’ kale—slice off the bottom inch or so of each leaf, and then carefully chop the leaves and remaining tender stems into roughly two-inch segments. I write ‘carefully’ because it’s easy, when pulling the leaves into a compressed bunch on the cutting board, to get a finger caught in there. I’ve certainly done it a couple times.

2. Set aside in a bowl that’s large enough to hold the kale and then some.

3. Now you need your acid, salt, and/or oil. Essentially, the idea is to add a pleasing flavor that also chemically helps break down the cell walls of the kale, rendering it more enjoyable to eat and more able to play well with others on the plate. You can use a number of things here—mix juice from one lemon and a tablespoon of good olive oil in a small bowl; or you can salt the leaves, allow the salt to break down the kale like it would when making a pickle, then rinse the kale to rid it of most of the salty taste; or you can mix equal parts toasted sesame oil, soy sauce, and rice vinegar in a bowl; or you can mix a tablespoon of miso with apple cider vinegar and a little olive oil. Point being—experiment. Just do so in a smaller bowl and taste it before adding it to the bowl. But, basically, you just need an acid (citrus or vinegar) and/or quality oil and/or salt. All of it works, so get creative.

4. Once you’ve settled on a flavor/kale-buster, add gradually to the larger bowl of kale and them get your hands in there, turning and crunching up the kale with the marinade, allowing it to seep into the leafy vegetable and stems. Don’t worry about being rough with the stuff—you can’t really hurt it at this point. Carefully turn over as you do this (don’t douse your shirt in marinade) and watch as it begins to lose volume and soften up. Once it seems pretty thoroughly covered, taste to make sure you don’t need more marinade, set aside and get on to the rest of your meal. Return just before plating and give it another quick touching up.

Now you’re pretty much good to go. Pair with rice and a protein, make a nice kale salad with complimentary toppings, add a s nice side to a meal, or top your favorite sandwich—it’s great with some seasoned tempeh, roasted yam, and Veganaise on good bread.

Pictured below, last night’s kale atop brown rice with grilled tofu, kimchi, wasabi oil, and picked vegetables.