Home Cooking

The whole kitchen and caboodle can be found at the newly opened HomeChef store and cooking school at Fashion Island Newport Beach. Cookware, bake ware, cutlery, tools and books are available to enhance the skills of cooks from beginners and experts. The 4,400-square-foot store, which opened Wednesday across from the Farmers Market and food court area, also carries "hard to find but worth the search" items such as specialty oils, vinegars, herbs and spreads, that will add zest to dishes.

One of the things that keeps me excited about what I do is that I am always learning. When I was making puff pastry not long ago, someone asked me why I made a tic-tac-toe-like slash in the process of making the dough. I had been slashing puff pastry dough, and having my chefs do it, for 30 years, or for as long as I'd been making puff pastry, and yet I had no idea why. I was thinking about this during a drive down to Pizzeria Mozza in Newport Beach. Then, just when I got out of the car, like magic, there was the renowned French baker Claude Koeberle.

Earlier this month, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said Atlanta probably would have to build a new stadium if it wants to host another Super Bowl. The Falcons should fight that at every turn. After all, with the way they've played in the Georgia Dome, why would they ever want to play anywhere else? Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan, whose team plays host to Green Bay today in a pivotal NFC showdown, is 18-1 in his first 19 home starts, including 14 consecutive victories. He's 5-0 there this season, completing 127 of 194 passes for 1,348 yards, with 11 touchdowns and three interceptions.

Any cook with an interest in Asian food will love this book from the Slanted Door 's Charles Phan. I've had my copy of "Vietnamese Home Cooking" only a few weeks, but it's already well-thumbed. I've been on a real binge, making his green papaya salad with rau ram , peanuts and crispy shallots numerous times. That goes for pork and shrimp spring rolls with velvety peanut sauce (the secret is a little glutinous rice and red miso) too. For the Hollywood Bowl, we made bánh mi filled with lemongrass pork roast, which Phan describes as a "cheater's version of porchetta.

Most chef cookbooks fall into one of two categories. They're either faithful replications of what is served at their restaurants or they're what chefs imagine people at home might serve their families (they're not really sure because they rarely cook at home since they're, well, at work). Jean-Georges Vongerichten's "Home Cooking With Jean-Georges" is a notable exception. This is a terrific book, full of exactly the kinds of recipes I want from a master chef. There's no special equipment, no exotic ingredients, no long, elaborate preparations.

Getting a punt blocked, throwing an interception in the red zone and racking up nine penalties usually is a recipe for defeat. Unless the opponent is the Detroit Lions. Antowain Smith ran for 80 yards and a touchdown, and Tedy Bruschi returned an interception 27 yards for a score as the New England Patriots beat Detroit, 20-12, Thursday. "Today wasn't one of the most attractive wins of the year," said New England's Troy Brown, who caught 10 passes for 111 yards.

Cayce Cook made two free throws with 1.9 seconds to play and Chaminade High, after squandering a 12-point halftime lead, beat Bellflower, 53-52, Tuesday night in a semifinal of the Chaminade tournament. Chaminade (9-2), which plays San Francisco Riordan in the final tonight at 8:30, trailed, 52-51, with seven seconds to play after Eli Curtis of Bellflower made the second of two free throws.

Until a few years ago, the casserole was the mainstay of home cooking. Steaming hot, this communal, almost tribal dish was the most frequent centerpiece on the family table. We abandoned casseroles when "fresh and natural" became the trend and we started cooking everything as briefly as possible. But there shouldn't be any conflict between the healthy use of fresh ingredients and long, slow-cooking casseroles.

In the last month I have read the results of two surveys on the subject of home cooking. One survey reported that only about 40% of the population cooks at home. The second survey said only about 30% were cooking at home. One thing we know for sure is that fewer and fewer people either don't know how to cook or just don't cook. I think this is a loss greater than we realize. Home cooking is a catalyst that helps to bring people together at the table.

Pipatpong Israsena knows one sure way to get great Thai food in Los Angeles: He cooks it himself. Israsena, 28, makes every dish imaginable--from refined royal dishes to simple everyday foods. Like father, like son might describe his cooking style. Israsena's father, Paron, cooks constantly. He duplicates dishes he's tasted in restaurants or overseas and he never works from written recipes. The food in the Israsena home in Bangkok is so good that the family rarely eats out.

Ever tasted one of your mom's brownies or grandmother's cookies and thought 'we should sell these'? Think you could open a bakery with your recipe for homemade chocolate chip banana bread? If a new California bill is passed regarding the sales of homemade goods, you may be able to put those fleeting thoughts into action.  Lawmakers in California are currently deciding on whether to pass bill AB 1616, co-written by Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Silver Lake). If passed, it would allow home cooks and bakers to sell goods not made in a commercial kitchen.

Shades of Mildred Pierce may be cropping up throughout the state as lawmakers are set to decide whether mothers and others are allowed to sell homemade muffins, cakes and pies at local stores and restaurants and directly to consumers. Slammed by the economy, many households are looking to follow in the footsteps of the fictional heroine by earning a bit of money on the side with home-cooked confections - without the huge upfront costs in leasing certified commercial kitchens and complying with myriad business rules.

The day after hip surgery, my father asked me to bring him a frozen coffee and something sweet the next morning. I returned to the hospital with a Frappuccino and a doughnut, one or both of which nearly killed him. He began choking and then turned white on the way to blue. The fear of death was in his eyes. My mother and sister called for help and three or four nurses arrived along with a doctor. "Tony!" said the doctor while one nurse searched behind the bed for a suction tube.

Most chef cookbooks fall into one of two categories. They're either faithful replications of what is served at their restaurants or they're what chefs imagine people at home might serve their families (they're not really sure because they rarely cook at home since they're, well, at work). Jean-Georges Vongerichten's "Home Cooking With Jean-Georges" is a notable exception. This is a terrific book, full of exactly the kinds of recipes I want from a master chef. There's no special equipment, no exotic ingredients, no long, elaborate preparations.

Through its first six home games, Chivas USA had produced only one victory, three losses and two ties going into Saturday night's game against Portland at the Home Depot Center. "These fans deserve better," Chivas midfielder Ben Zemanski said after the latest lackluster home performance, a 1-1 draw against Vancouver on Wednesday. "We need to play aggressive in front of them, and go for wins in front of them, and we need to show them that. We need to figure out how to get wins at home.

Why even play these games? The Utah Jazz arrives in Los Angeles, pulls into Staples Center, and loses to the Lakers, a ritual that's become increasingly predictable over the years, a laughable lump for an otherwise respectable franchise. The Lakers won again on Tuesday, 120-91, beating the Jazz for a 17th consecutive time at Staples Center, a streak dating to January 2006 and including victories in three playoff series. This one came with a twist. It looked like the Cleveland Cavaliers were wearing Utah jerseys, the Lakers' defensive effort most of the game reminiscent of their dominant performance two weeks ago against Cleveland.

It is no accident, I think, that there's an exclamation point fixed to the end of this Italian restaurant's name. Vittorio! is a place where garlic!, olive oil! and Southern Italian home cooking! reign. Both the taste of the food and the tone of the place have the spirit of a Sunday-night supper on New York's Mulberry Street. (OK, so this Palisades veteran has spiffed-up its looks; so have countless restaurants in Little Italy.) There is nothing quiet or restrained about this cuisine.

The Rob Niedermayer poster in the garage is a clue someone in this Orange County home likes hockey. Otherwise it seems like any home on the street: past heaps of sports gear and through an entryway is a kitchen decorated with photos and crayoned pictures and fragrant with chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven. The difference is that in this home are symbols of the Ducks' greatest triumph and their hope for a better future. Scott Niedermayer, who signed with the Ducks in 2005 and shared their 2007 Stanley Cup victory with younger brother Rob, lives here with his wife, Lisa, and their four sons, ages 2 to 11. It's a happily busy place: During a recent visit the kids came home from school and dived into their homework before hockey practice, the cookies were at the mouthwatering stage and the dog was woofing for a treat from housekeeper/babysitter Veronica Bech.

A hand-held smoker that looks like a toy pistol, a blender that heats or cools while it whizzes your soup or smoothie, professional immersion blenders, dehydrators, whipping siphons, induction burners, sous-vide machines and vacuum sealers. As mainstream retailers such as Sur La Table and Williams-Sonoma introduce tools not so long ago used by only the most adventurous professional chefs, it could be a bonanza holiday for kitchen geeks. Grant Achatz, the chef of Alinea in Chicago who recently was in Los Angeles for an event, points to one of his immersion circulators, a device used for sous-vide ?