Author Archives: jessicakoslow

Feb 04 2016
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Food

L.A.’s Cookie Con Is Like American Idol for Bakers

CakeandCork1LA

Courtesy of Cake and Cork

At the second annual L.A. Cookie Con and Sweets Show this weekend — the West Coast’s largest event of its kind — all sorts of cookie bakers, both amateur and professional, will be showing off their goods in hopes of snagging a production deal with a big-name company. Think American Idol but with baked goods. You’ll find no shortage of follow-your-dreams stories here: One sweets enthusiast left her six-figure job to create beautiful cookies; another tossed away one obsession, sports, to start selling raw edible cookie dough; another floated her idea for a brownie and cookie combination past the entrepreneurs on Shark Tank; and another banked on a rebellious culinary school business plan. At Cookie Con, they’ll all be showcasing their sugary creations — and their culinary dreams.

Here are four dessert makers who charmed us with their stories and their sweets. …

Read the full article at LA Weekly.

Jan 13 2016
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Food

The Best Hotel Brunches in L.A.

Butterscotch pudding with candied bacon at Ford's Filling StationIt seems like the intent of brunch hasn’t changed much since the word first appeared in print in 1895, when British author Guy Beringer wrote: “Brunch is cheerful, sociable and inciting. It is talk-compelling. It puts you in a good temper, it makes you satisfied with yourself and your fellow beings, it sweeps away the worries and cobwebs of the week.”

All the better if you can order ricotta pancakes and drink fancy cocktails before noon.

This weekend, skip your go-to brunch spot and make a reservation off your radar: at a hotel. Picture expansive views of the ocean or Hollywood Hills. It’s like an instant vacation, but cheaper. From Santa Monica to DTLA, hotel restaurants offer stellar service and at least one dish that’s worth the trip alone, from bacon waffles to pancake lasagna to a fried, buttermilk-brined half chicken.

Read the full article at LA Weekly.

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Sep 09 2015
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Food

3 New Chefs Worth a Road Trip

Chef Vincent Lesage, Bacara Resort & Spa

Chef Vincent Lesage, Bacara Resort & Spa

Southern California has it all: the best produce, great wine, vinegars, oils and cheeses. That sums up the way many top chefs feel about the culinary paradise we call home — among them Cale Falk, the new executive chef of the Purple Palm Restaurant at Colony Palms Hotel in Palms Springs. The native Californian has worked in Arizona and Florida, but, in his opinion, “Southern California has it made.”

Falk is just one of several newly installed chefs who are turning SoCal’s most road-trippable cities into culinary destinations. Chef Vincent Lesage, who was born and raised in Paris, and Diego Felix, who still maintains a home in Buenos Aires, are happy to have put down roots in Santa Barbara and Ojai, respectively. Lesage recently was named executive chef at Santa Barbara’s Bacara Resort & Spa, where he calls the kitchen shots for a handful of eating experiences, and Felix and his wife orchestrate “Culinary Troubador” performances in New York, San Francisco, Ojai and Los Angeles.

The edible creations these three chefs are whipping up are worth their weight in gas. So fuel up the tank, leave your stomach on empty and make a meal the destination.

Read the full article at LA Weekly.

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Mar 04 2015
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Art

It’s For the Birds: Artists Explore our Feathered Friends

Water garden by Gary Smith, Nests for Lotusland

Water garden by Gary Smith, Nests for Lotusland

Nestled in an upscale residential community in Montecito, Lotusland is a 37-acre nonprofit botanical nirvana filled with over 950 species of exotic plants arranged in nearly 20 gardens. It’s also the historic estate of the late Polish opera singer and socialite Madame Ganna Walska, who purchased the Southern California property in 1941 and gifted it to the Ganna Walska Lotusland Foundation when she died in 1984.

Bronze crane statues and a small Shinto shrine surrounded by a wisteria arbor sit in the Japanese garden. Three tiers of benches made of sandstone circle the theater garden, which is dotted with Madame Walska’s French collection of antique stone figures, called “grotesques.” Lotusland is a natural treasure and also a resource to educate about a subject that’s core to the garden’s mission: plant conservation.

Open to the public since 1993, the Lotusland staff has gardened sustainably and organically for the past 20 years, which might make it the only such garden in the country that can boast such a claim. Because of its green practices, 85 species of birds take refuge either year-round or for extended visits in the gardens—which planted the seed for Lotusland’s current art exhibit, “FLOCK: Birds on the Brink” running through May 23. …

Read full article at Artillery Magazine.

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Oct 27 2014
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Food

How an Underground Supper Club Built a Growing Food Empire

Robert Kronfli with chef Lior Hillel (center) and his brother Danny.

Robert Kronfli with chef Lior Hillel (center) and his brother Danny.

What started during 27-year-old Robert Kronfli’s sophomore year at USC as a weekly dinner party for friends in an off-campus apartment has blossomed into a mini-hospitality empire: the small plates hotspot Bacaro L.A. near the USC campus, Nature’s Brew café and coffeehouse located two doors down, Kronfli Brothers line of sauces and now Bacari PDR, which opened last month on the hill overlooking the ocean in the Playa del Rey spot where the bright yellow Bistro Du Soleil once stood.

Kronfli, who was named in the Zagat “30 Under 30” list just last month, owns all of these ventures with his older brother Daniel, who’s also a USC alum. Entrepreneurship is in their blood. Growing up, their Lebanese father ran a business with his brother. In fact, everyone on their father’s side of the family — up to Kronfli’s great, great, grandfather — owned their own business, and many of them worked closely with one or more of their brothers.

“The positives far outweigh the negatives,” Robert Kronfli, the youngest of three boys, says about working with family. “You don’t have to hold any emotion back, or worry about being polite, or overly thoughtful. …

Read the full article at LA Weekly.

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Mar 31 2014
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Food

Al Mare Finally Brings Good Italian Cuisine to the Santa Monica Pier

Photo courtesy of: Al Mare

Photo courtesy of: Al Mare

It was bound to happen – rising from the wooden planks of the Santa Monica Pier, surrounded by Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and carnival food staples (hot dogs! fast-food pizza!), the first-ever Italian restaurant has popped up on the horizon, with an executive chef with serious gastronomical cred, Giacomo Pettinari. Even though Al Mare  a 279-seat ristorante, has been feeding the masses of tourists and locals alike through the holidays, their official ribbon cutting was actually only recently, on March 12.

Co-owners Paolo Simeone and Franco Sorgi, who have already seen success with Trastevere on the Third Street Promenade and La Piazza at the Grove, spent over two years completing the build-out of Al Mare, which is designed by local architect David Hibbert. The 9,000-square-foot Italian eatery now stands three stories tall, with second-floor balcony terraces and a rooftop deck boasting one of the best views on the Westside.

The space where Al Mare stands has an interesting history that doesn’t involve fine dining or Italian anything….

Read full article at LAWeekly.com.

Oct 30 2013
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Musical

Black Suits Boys Seek Garage Band Glory While Iconis Covets Broadway

Will Roland, Coby Getzug, Harrison Chad and Jimmy Brewer in “The Black Suits.” Photo by Craig Schwartz.

Will Roland, Coby Getzug, Harrison Chad and Jimmy Brewer in “The Black Suits.” Photo by Craig Schwartz.

It’s two nights before The Black Suits’ first preview performance at the Kirk Douglas Theatre.  Joe Iconis — who wrote the book, music and lyrics — sits in a room at the top of the stairs of Center Theatre Group’s Culver City venue, speaking passionately about the project he wrote at NYU graduate school. While the band rocks loudly in the background, Iconis says he’s a bit frazzled by the intense process of mounting the premiere of this musical about a Long Island high school garage band, but also extremely pleased. This production, which opens Sunday, has been a long time coming.

“I wrote the first version of the show in 2005,” says Iconis. “I was in the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing program at NYU, and for my thesis I had to write a full-scale musical.”

Iconis just happens to be from Garden City on Long Island, the backdrop for the story. And although he admits there’s a lot of himself in the piece, he was never actually in a garage band. He was “a straight-up theater kid,” he says.

“I got the idea to write the show when I musical directed The Wiz at my old high school when I was in college,” Iconis says. …

Read full article at LA Stage Times.

Oct 17 2013
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Theater

Travelers From Invisible Cities Sing and Dance Through Union Station

The cast of “Invisible Cities” rehearses at Union Station. Photo courtesy of The Industry.

The cast of “Invisible Cities” rehearses at Union Station. Photo courtesy of The Industry.

A tall, slim dancer commands the attention of everyone in his immediate area in the entrance of downtown LA’s Union Station. He’s rehearsing for Invisible Cities, an experimental opera collaboration between Yuval Sharon’s The Industry and Benjamin Millepied’s L.A. Dance Project, which premieres Saturday at the stroke of 7 pm.

Falling, sliding, lunging and flailing, the dancer executes large movements in a designated small space. Suddenly, another dancer gallops briskly by the first company member, hands flapping wildly, scratching his head and neck, keeping to his own rhythm. But he doesn’t stop. He heads out the main doors and into the night because, in fact, he is not a cast member. In retrospect, he was one of the eccentrics who frequent Union Station, one of the many characters who will make this innovative production even more interesting and challenging.

“From the beginning of the concept [of Invisible Cities], I wanted the piece to feel like an invisible layer of what is already among the reality of Union Station,” says Sharon, director of Invisible Cities and artistic director of The Industry, an LA-based nonprofit that aims to expand the traditional definition of opera and explore new paradigms for interdisciplinary collaboration. “The idea that there is a really eclectic, wild mix of personalities, characters, costumes, activities — that’s a major theme of the performance.”

Union Station is gorgeous to look at …

Read full article at LA Stage Times.

Oct 03 2013
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Food

LA Weekly’s Best Of LA Issue

Coffee toffee with chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich at Milk

Coffee toffee with chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich at Milk

I have a few entries in LA Weekly’s Best Of LA issue:

Best Ice Cream Shop

Best Portable Breakfast

Best Outdoor Dining

Best Octopus Dish

Sep 23 2013
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Dance

Roussève and grimes Reach for the Stardust at REDCAT

 

“Stardust” by David Roussève/REALITY. Photo by Valerie Oliveiro.

“Stardust” by David Roussève/REALITY. Photo by Valerie Oliveiro.

David Roussève is in a particularly good mood, sitting in his office in UCLA’s Glorya Kaufman Hall about 10 days before his latest work, Stardust, has its very first viewing at REDCAT as part of the Radar L.A. festival. Or maybe he always begins his sentences will a joyful burst of laughter.

The 53-year-old, Alpert Award-winning director-choreographer is speaking about d. Sabela grimes, who not only composed original music but also crafted an ongoing layer of sound design for the entire work. “He’s one of my favorite people on the planet,” Roussève says. “He’s so talented, and what a nice and incredibly evolved guy.”

“This is a really heady piece in its own way,” says Roussève. “I’m trying to conduct a social and intellectual conversation, but also it’s meant to communicate with you on the level of the heart. Sabela takes in both of those dialogues…It’s very hard to describe what he does. It’s so idiosyncratic and unique to him.”

Stardust is a coming-of-age story for the electronic age about a 16-year-old gay, African-American boy who, according to Roussève, “is trying to find something more than the violence and chaos he’s facing.” …

Read full article at LA Stage Times

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