LA Times

Highlights from our blog, The Daily Dish, available online at latimes.com/dailydish

With delicious staples on hand, you can pull together a spread and hardly cook at all.

AN AMAZING variety of small bites can be put together quickly and on short notice if you keep some basics in your pantry and refrigerator. Stock up on harder-to-find ingredients at occasional trips to specialty food stores. Though most of these items can be found at mainstream groceries, for food lovers this would be a wonderful excuse for a field trip to a couple of slightly out-of-the-way treasures.

Offer your guests a half-dozen bottles with distinctive flavors and let them decide the compatibility of different wines with different dishes.

"The wines were too various" says a minor character in Evelyn Waugh's " Brideshead Revisited," attempting to excuse Sebastian Flyte's behavior after a party, "It was neither the quality nor the quantity that was at fault; it was the mixture. Grasp that and you have the root of the matter."

Favorite dishes of South Korea's first president and comfort food are on the menu at this L.A. eatery.

WALK into E-Hwa Jang, a restaurant in the heart of Koreatown, and you are transported to another place. It isn't just the old-school menu, the kitschy '70s-style decor or the hostess in colorful traditional dress. The space doubles as a museum-cum-shrine dedicated to Syngman Rhee, South Korea's first president, who held office from 1948 to 1960.

The 'Thai-inspired' restaurant's comfortable space makes it a treat to settle in and enoy twists on favorite dishes.

SOMETIMES what happens is that the food at a neighborhood restaurant is so good (even if it's not fancy) that the get-together takes on a special glow.

The new restaurants tap historical plans to fit in with the restored Malibu Pier.

IF YOU were building brand-new restaurants at the land end of Malibu Pier, chances are they wouldn't look like the just-opened pair that currently boast that priceless view of the surf.

The starters will last all night at this small-plates party.

You gather with family and friends in the evening as the heat of the day starts to fade and the first cool ocean breezes begin to blow in, thick and sweet as honey. The bright white light of afternoon gradually dims to twilight's shades of blue and gray. In the air hangs the summer garden smells of baked earth and herbs.

If governor approves, California would be the first state to require chains to show counts.

SACRAMENTO -- Some 17,000 chain restaurants around California would have to give patrons calorie information under a measure given final approval Sunday by the state Senate.

This May 2007 article argued that you can dress 'em up or dress 'em down, but one thing is certain: In a quick and easy salad or an elegant, four-part dessert, cucumbers are simply the coolest things around.

Who doesn't love a cucumber?

A judge overturns a recent county supervisors' rule limiting how long the mobile food vendors can remain parked in one spot.

Taco trucks are back in full force -- at least for now.

Grab your kids and some baskets and head out to the nearest U-pick farm for the freshest fruits and vegetables.

ON A recent Sunday, a friend and I watched as our kids pulled a wooden wagon through a Ventura County field, pausing to gather black-eyed peas and sun-ripened heirloom tomatoes. They ran down rows of raspberry bushes, filling their hats with the ripe fruit. The air rustled the leaves of a row of peach trees; bees hummed on the periphery. Two hours later, the contents of our wagon (weighed out and paid for at the market stand) held enough produce for dinner, for dinners all week. The kids, faces browned by dirt and sunlight, were eating tomatoes as if they were apples; they didn't want to leave.

The 'Hell's Kitchen' chef offers sophisticated fare in a glamorous setting.

Everything you've learned about British superstar chef Gordon Ramsay on television is a crock. On his hit television shows, "Hell's Kitchen" and especially "Kitchen Nightmares," the three-star Michelin chef hams it up, cajoling and bullying some of the most exasperating cooks and restaurateurs on the planet into doing better work. The histrionics make for riveting television, but give the wrong impression about Ramsay's own cooking.

These tips will help you find a spit-roasted bird to eat at a restaurant or home.

HERE'S THE experience I'm always on the prowl for: a simple, golden, tender rotisserie chicken, bursting with juice, lifted off its skewer when it's just cooked and placed in my hands. I run home and pull apart the warm, delicate meat with my bare fingers. A bite of baguette, a dab of mayo or a drop of melted butter. Heaven.

What to do with all those ripe tomatoes? Make the ultimate sauce and soup, and don't forget the Bloody Mary.

THE BEST way to enjoy a ripe red (or yellow or orange or purple or green) tomato is to stand next to a vine overflowing with sun-warmed fruit, find one that almost falls into your hand, and savor it right then and there. Close your eyes to get the full tomato-ness of it all.

Quick swirl

I opened a bottle of Atalayas de Golban the other night to have with a rack of lamb. The combination of Tinto Fino (the local Tempranillo) and lamb is classic and sublime. And this Ribera del Duero from Madrid wine merchant Miguel Sanchez and winemaker Bertrand Sourdais is a beauty. The grapes come from Sanchez's second property, Atalayas de Golban (his first is Dominio de Atauta -- famous and much more expensive). Atalayas comes in at a terrific price for such a graceful and irresistible Ribera del Duero. It's versatile enough to carry you from barbecue days through to braised-meats season.

Quick sip

Though it's an American beer style that originated in the 19th century, you may never have heard of cream ale. But you probably won't have any trouble drinking it. It's fermented at warm temperatures, like an ale but then stored at cold temperatures the way a lager is. So it's crisp and fizzy like a lager but with a little of the fruitiness of an ale. Malty, a little sweet and spicy, it's terrific with grilled brats or pork chops. From Anderson Valley in Mendocino County.

Peaking

Something for everyone.

THURSDAY Talley wine dinner at Wine Cask : Enjoy a five-course meal including seared Maine scallops and red-wine-braised short ribs paired with wines from Talley Vineyards. 6:30 p.m. 813 Anacapa St., Santa Barbara, (805) 966-9463; www.winecask.com . $95.

Out on the fringes of the campaign trail, the partisan cookbook is a perennial candidate. Want a cookie?

"NOT ONLY do I eat, I also am a Democrat," wrote Frank Sinatra in an intro to 1960's "Many Happy Returns: The Democrats' Cook Book, or How to Cook a G.O.P. Goose" (the sales of which helped buy TV air time for candidates). "Not only should every Democrat own a copy of this book, but he should load up all his or her friends, and even smuggle some copies into Pasadena and other points where the enemy is strong and square."

The master chef will team with a Japanese food importer to open the Sushi Institute of America downtown in September.

WHEN A restaurateur is faced with a sushi chef shortage, what to do? Open a sushi school. Master sushi chef Katsuya Uechi of the Katsuya restaurant empire has teamed with the president of Japanese food importer Mutual Trading Co. to launch a professional sushi school in downtown Los Angeles. The Sushi Institute of America is set to open next month.