Best Foods Ever!

Mmmm. Chocolate chip cookies.

It's been so many meals since I last posted about food and since my most trafficked blog was about food trucks you would think that I would have returned to the topic sooner but it's taken a while. Last February both of my blogs were about food (cookies and hot dogs) so here are three more tasty food lists!

Top foods I make at home and don't get tired of:
(recipes available upon request)

Mexico City: mole and margaritas...

beef stew served over rice
chocolate chip cookies
turkey chili with David's cornbread

Mexican meals I could eat every day of the week:
Mexico City's chicken mole
Poquito Mas's chicken maschiladas
Chipotle's barbacoa burrito

Favorite prepared grocery store foods:
Whole Foods' old fashioned chicken salad (with sourdough baguette from La Brea Bakery and Midnight Moon cheese)
Tuscan Tomato Bisque from Vons/Pavillions/Safeway
Baked Cheddar Cheese Ruffles
Haagan Dazs coffee ice cream

Try them all. They come highly recommended.
Have any favorites I've missed?
Nom nom nom nom nom.

Time Flies

It's already been over a year since I started Noriko's Random Bits. 32 posts and 18 followers later I'm still waiting on that book and movie deal. I guess I just have to keep blogging.

In my first six blogs I got very kind feedback via Facebook (thanks all of you who have been with me from the start) and slowly started to build a readership. Then, with Fertile Soil, I received two blog comments all the way from China! Thanks, Dalian Clan and Ni Hao Flennaugh.

According to my labels I've written most about writing, Los Angeles, middle school and NaNoWriMo but that's probably because of all those New LA Life posts of the YA novel I was working on this past fall and winter. The posts receiving the most reader comments on blog and Facebook were two entries relating to food. "Hot Dog!" ~Jimmy Stewart, It's a Wonderful Life received 13 comments and Chocolate Chip Cookie Confessional 9. One of my more serious posts, Cockroaches, also brought numerous comments and amazing support. Thank you all for letting me know I wasn't writing or living in a vacuum.

I even started a second blog! These are my sporty reflections on the world and even if you don't like sports you might want to check it out. http://throwingcookies.blogspot.com/

Again, thanks for reading along with me. If you aren't following any other blogs, check out my blog list. There are some amazing bloggers out there and you might discover them before their movie or book deal comes through.

My top 3 LA Food Trucks

It's taken months and months of grueling research, but it was worth it to find a few gems among the food trucks in LA. I still need to track down that shave ice truck and with new trucks starting up all the time this entry will be out of date as soon as I publish it. But here they are: my top three food truck orders as of July 27, 2010 9:50 am. These are the best of the best which means I stalk them on twitter and have to exhibit all sorts of will power not to eat them daily. Seriously. It's a good thing that Kogi line is so long or I might live off those tacos.

1 Kogi BBQ Truck
http://twitter.com/kogibbq
David always gets their Blackjack Quesadilla (that green sauce is so tasty) but I love the tacos. A trio of short rib, chicken and spicy pork por favor! Something about the kim chee, meat and sauce wrapped in a tidy tortilla makes my brain confused and happy at the same time. Oh and their tres leches is a chocolate gooey mess of yum.

2 Buttermilk Truck
http://twitter.com/ButtermilkTruck
Okay, the red velvet chocolate chip pancakes are so good that it's hard for me not to skip right to dessert every time. But the brick (chorizo gravy, cheese, fried egg, choice of bacon or sausage and hash browns) and the breakfast sandwiches (biscuits with an over easy egg, cheese, and bacon or sausage) are so good I haven't even had the chance to try to breakfast sliders yet. The Hawaiian bread french toast is another dessert option that is oh so tasty.

3 Coolhaus
http://twitter.com/COOLHAUS
I love ice cream. I love cookies. I love the Cool Haus's gourmet take on the ice cream sandwich. The only reason they didn't place higher is that I have such a hard time placing my order and I always have sandwich envy both before and after. David loves the snicker doodle with red velvet ice cream and I am a fan of the chocolate cookie with dirty mint ice cream, the chocolate chip cookie with mascarpone balsamic fig ice cream, or the oatmeal cookie with brown butter with candied bacon ice cream. I just saw some new flavors in their site though. Sea salt caramel and coffee toffee will be sandwiched in my mouth soon.

Honorable mention: delicious but easier to resist
http://twitter.com/dogtowndog
The Morning Commute and Fennel Dogs are super tasty.
http://twitter.com/BorderGrill
The carnitas tacos are quite delicious too.

Follow them on twitter or check out their websites for a tasting near you.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Confessional

I love warm, homemade chocolate chip cookie fresh from the oven, golden brown around the edges, soft and chewy in the middle with melted chocolate oozing from each bite. When I had a craving, I used to make big batches of these cookies, eat way too many, feel sick, eat a couple more for breakfast and then pack the rest away in little bags away to give away to chocolate chip cookie loving people in my life.

But then I got wise. Why not save the dough, ration it out for the week and savor two cookies a night. So that's what I've been doing. For a couple of months now, as if it were my 2010 cookie resolution, I've been making half-batches of cookie dough, scooping a couple cookies onto a sheet each night and storing the rest in the fridge until tomorrow. I have the recipe memorized.

I know, they sell cookie dough at the grocery store and at CostCo. This is not a completely original idea, but what makes it so perfect is that it's just a couple of cookies a day. Except on the nights when I bake three, or four. But two cookies can't be that bad for you, right? Besides, I work out, and they make the house smell so good, and they are so very tasty. You should try it. No kidding. You can thank me later.