Hello Friends,

I can't tell you the last time I had "spaghetti," the generic kind we ate as kids before we knew about Bolognese or the infinite variety of regional pasta sauces. Just onions, ground beef, tomato sauce (maybe tomato paste), garlic, and of course, "Italian herbs." I had such a powerful craving so I made it but with an upgrade. I used ground beef from my local whole animal butcher, Standings, 24-month-old Parmigiano Reggiano I brought home from Parma, my fave Benedetto Cavaliere Spaghettoni, and my own canned tomato sauce. So freaking good. Then to balance things out this week, I dove into a dosas and uthappam feast for lunch with a friend at Culver City restaurant Mayura, a favorite for Southern Indian food. 

Earlier in the week, I met up with a group of KCRW Champion donors for a walking tour of the Santa Monica Farmers' Market. Side note: They have a few jobs open and are taking applications. We were joined by Clemence DeLutz whose recently opened bakery Petitgrain Boulangerie regularly sells out by noon. After choosing a variety of seasonal veg on offer and sampling stellar cherries from Murray Family Farms we walked over to Clemence's cooking school Gourmandise for a lunch class. It was a great way to start the day.

As for this long holiday weekend, I'll be hanging out with friends I haven't seen in a while and creating a weaving warp for some baby blankets I'll be making. Oh, and catching up on Bridgerton. What a confection!

Have a truly relaxing Memorial Day weekend my friends.

Chilling, Evan

"An onion is similar to a tulip," explains journalist Mark Kurlansky. "It's a bulb that produces a flower, each layer is the food for a different shoot." Once the bulb has flowered, it's no longer good to eat, but when eaten for food, it's indispensable. Kurlansky is famous for his single-subject deep dives that bring a prodigious intelligence to an insatiable curiosity. His latest, The Core of an Onion: Peeling the Rarest Common Food – Featuring More Than 100 Historical Recipes, is an entertaining and enlightening read.

You could find me every weekend at the Griffith Park Love-In pictured above. I should really get a magnifying glass and see if I can find myself. Growing up in Silverlake in the '60s meant that I cooked and ate my fill of hippie food. So I love San Francisco Chronicle food writer Jonathan Kauffman's book, Hippie Food: How Back-to-the-Landers, Longhairs, and Revolutionaries Changed the Way We Eat. He explores how the history of fringe food dates back to the mid-nineteenth century and how people such as Sylvester Graham, creator of the graham cracker, still reach into our kitchens now.

I love a good veggie burger, one made of actual whole foods with great flavor and interesting textures. Lukas Volger approaches veggie burgers with the premise that they should be a creative expression of vegetables, legumes, and grains — not a meat simulacrum. Highlighting the textures and flavors of his chosen ingredients, he leaves plenty of whole beans in his black bean patty. Carrots and beets make for vibrant burgers, giving them the color of raw meat and helping them hold their shape. It's a great book for those trying to embrace more plant foods in their diet.

When Pamelia Chia started her journey into a plant-rich diet, she found that most cookbooks were written by vegetarians for vegetarians. She wasn't interested in fake meat or soy-based products. Yotam Ottolenghi inspired her to reach out to 24 chefs, adapting their recipes for a vegetable-forward book, Plantasia: A Vegetarian Cookbook Through Asia.

When we remove meat from the center of our plates, what do we find? How would our world look if meat returned to its former status as a luxury good? Why do so many Americans think that eating meat is a birthright? Food writer Alicia Kennedy began asking herself these questions and ended up writing a book, No Meat Required: The Cultural History and Culinary Future of Plant-Based Eating.

I've been lobbying for a special reading of my favorite food-focused children's book for years. Nevada James Sharp and Calvin Yellot George oblige with a reading of A Fruit is a Suitcase for Seeds by Jean Richards. It's a great listen for little ones as well as adults.