Tag Archives: upcoming events

VIDEO: Let’s Make Sushi!

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Tanayas Table Sushi

The delicious sushi we made in class. Yup, that sushi flower is my creation! 😉

 

It had been a while since my friend Dani gave me a lesson in sushi making, so when I had the opportunity to take a class with Chef Eric Crowley of Chef Eric’s Culinary Classroom in West LA, I was excited to get an official refresher and learn some new techniques along the way!

A major key to sushi success is making sure the rice is perfect. Flavoring it with kombu (edible kelp that imparts an umami flavor), fanning it out for the perfect stickiness level, and flavoring it with rice vinegar are a few tips to keep in mind.

We also learned to cut the fresh fish against the muscle fibers to maximize the delicate, soft textures, and how to roll the sushi in mats, forming tight and perfect little circles of deliciousness. The video below has Chef Eric teaching me the ways!

Chef Eric was patient and informative, and helped us all out in a hands-on manner during the class so we could get the most out of it. We toasted the nori (seaweed sheets) over the stove flame to allow for crispiness, and gleaned other helpful hints along the way… all culminating in the ultimate sushi party, where we made and enjoyed nigiri, sashimi and sushi rolls.

We got creative, cutting and adding different fish (yellowtail, salmon and tuna being a few options) and other fillings (avocado, sprouts, fish roe, carrots, cucumbers and more) to customize our rolls. I decided to get artsy and made the flower in this video:

Chef Eric and his team are so friendly and welcoming that I’d definitely recommend trying out his class if you’re a sushi fan, or just love learning new skills in the kitchen. Heads up: the next sushi class will be on Friday, 4/29!

If you’re interested in learning how to make your own sushi, or want to take your pick from array of other classes offered (knife skills, grilling, wine pairing, professional programs, 4, 10 and 18-week cooking series and more!) sign up at Chef Eric’s Culinary Classroom. Happy cooking! ❤

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Palm Desert Food & Wine GIVEAWAY + Crab Cakes With Iron Chef Cat Cora

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TEMP Crab Cakes

Crab and Avocado Sandwiches with Mango Coulis

 

When the Palm Desert Food & Wine asked to pair me up with one of five headlining chefs doing demos at the festival to re-create their recipe using the SideChef app, I was very curious as to whom they would pair me with. When I got Cat Cora, I was ecstatic!

Not only is she insanely talented in the kitchen, but she was the first female Iron Chef on Iron Chef America. That’s definitely someone to look up to, as a female culinary enthusiast!

I was anxious to see what recipe I would be making, and boy was I shocked when I got a huge bag of Whole Foods ingredients, hand delivered fresh to my doorstep thanks to SideChef. When I peeked into the bag (while Snapchatting it all live at MsTanayaG), I was definitely surprised, in both a good way and a kind of sad way initially. You see, it was all the ingredients for Cat Cora’s Crab and Avocado Sandwiches with Mango Coulis.

SideChef Ingredients Cat Cora

While that sounds pretty incredible, the only problem was that I wouldn’t be able to taste any of it! You see, a few years back, I developed a slight (and VERY unfortunate) allergy to crustaceans, including crab! Quite the ironic bummer, right?

Still, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to work with an ingredient I normally wouldn’t choose to cook, for obvious reasons. So I got prepping, and followed the super simple step-by-step instructions with crisp visuals and audio cues on the SideChef app to create the full dish with all three components!

Here’s a quick video of some of the steps that went into making the dish:

In the end, I had essentially created a slider made with warm, crispy crab cake buns, cool, refreshing avocado salsa, and a tangy-sweet mango coulis to bring it all together. I can only imagine how it all tasted together (I definitely tried the avocado salsa & mango coulis!), but according to my family for whom I cooked the meal, it turned out “incredibly delicious!”

What I love just as much as eating, is making something with my own hands to feed the people I love. So that worked out well, allergy or not! Also, shoutout to Cat Cora for sharing this post with her awesome followers… I hope I did your recipe justice! 😉

So what’s the deal with the giveaway, you ask? Well, I’m giving away TWO PAIRS of tickets to the Palm Desert Food & Wine Festival happening all of next weekend! AND, the grand prize winner will receive VIP tickets! To win, do ONE or BOTH of the following by 11:59 p.m. PST tonight:

  1. Follow @tanayas.table on Instagram and tag 3 friends in the comments of my crab cake slider photo.
  2. Subscribe to my Nom channel at Nom.com/TanayasTable and pop in to say hi on my live show tonight from Hollywood at 7:30 p.m. PST! It’s interactive, so you can ask us questions and more. 🙂

Winners will be announced tomorrow on those platforms! GOOD LUCK!!

For the full recipe to make these crab cakes at home, download the SideChef app. They’re celebrating a whopping 1 million meals made through the app by donating 1,000 meals to charity… and they will donate 3,000 if they make it into the top 10 in the app store! So let’s make it happen to feed more people who really need it, guys.

If you do make this recipe by Cat Cora through SideChef, please do let me know how they turn out for you! Big thank you to PDFW, SideChef and Iron Chef Cat Cora for the fun collaboration.

Until next time, cheers! ❤

VIDEO: Sneak Peek At Knott’s Boysenberry Festival

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Tanayas Table Knotts Boysenberry Fun Bun.png

You know the main reason I was so excited to attend the Knott’s Berry Farm media preview a couple days ago? It’s because I pass it on my way to the gym EVERY DAY. Well, every day I go to the gym, that is ;).

Although I really love my MMA kickboxing class, every time I pass by Knott’s I kind of secretly wish I were going there instead. I mean, who wouldn’t pick a theme park over the gym, right? What a tease.

I was also excited because I LOVE boysenberry, and I geek out over creative ways to incorporate a particular ingredient into a variety of sweet and savory dishes. The chefs at Knott’s executed that concept very well, with over 70 boysenberry-infused bites of theme park gastronomical glee. Here’s a glimpse into some of the bites you can expect to taste, along with more in this video:

So yes, that Fun Bun is indeed a gigantic cinnamon roll dipped in funnel cake batter and deep fried… then slathered in boysenberry cream cheese! It was absolutely gooey and delicious on the inside, with a nice tanginess to the cream smothered on the outside. I highly recommend getting one and sharing… or not!

Whether you love roller coaster thrills or not, if you’re a foodie thrill-seeker you’ll appreciate the crispy alligator bites with a creamy boysenberry aioli to dip your reptile nuggets into. Check them out in the video, and shoutout to my buddy Nick of @grubfiend for being my alligator hand model and dropping some funnel cake “knowledge” in there.

I decided to try the gator bites on Snapchat (find me at TanayasTable) with a couple of my foodie friends, Yohana of @foodnvibes and Naomi of @xodaydreamers, with Brenda filming! The conclusion we came to is that it does taste like chicken, but it has a chewier texture. So I suppose you could say it tastes like if a chicken and a squid had a baby… and then you ate that baby?! Ah, never mind! Well you know what I mean, right? 😉

Other bites we tried (ALL in the video above) include boysenberry BBQ short ribs, boysenberry BBQ meatballs on a stick, pulled pork sandwich with boysenberry bread & BBQ sauce, and the Fun Stick… which is a slice of creamy boysenberry cheesecake on a stick, dipped in funnel cake batter and slathered with boysenberry sauce. SO GOOD!

Tanayas Table Knotts Boysenberry Cheesecake

Meet the Fun Stick: Funnel-cake battered boysenberry cheesecake on a stick. How adorable is that Snoopy topiary in the back??

In addition to food, we also got to taste boysenberry beer, wine and other libations. If you decide to go, please let me know what you think of all the berry-infused drinks and bites. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Not only did I have a blast photographing, filming and tasting all the boysenberry things, but I enjoyed doing all of the above with my foodie friends.

To find out more and to attend the Boysenberry Festival this year,  go here. Wishing you a *berry* wonderful spring season… ha ha. Stay tuned for lots more food adventures to come!

Cheers! ❤

Fall Treat: Family & Friends Tickets To CAKE EXPO!

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copyright Tanaya Ghosh

As most of you know, I’ve got a major sweet tooth. It’s not the healthiest so I don’t do it often, but I could totally eat a small meal or an appetizer just to have room for a proper dessert!

That’s why I’m so excited that CAKE Expo is coming to the Orange County Fair & Event Center this Saturday… and I bet a lot of you are, too, if you enjoy all the dessert pics on my Instagram.

Here’s what you can expect this weekend at the first CAKE Sweets & Party Expo:
  • Tons of sweet samples from talented vendors
  • Demos on the main stage every hour
  • Win prizes on the main stage every hour
  • Classes & private demo tickets available to learn tricks of the trade
  • VIPs get 2 exclusive hours 9am-11am Saturday morning, and get access to the VIP Lounge
  • A meet-and-greet and book signing by author Gemma Touchstone
  • A special Kids Create Zone hosted by Club MomMe
  • Check out the Cake Expo official website for the full schedule
If you want to check out the biggest sweets party happening this weekend and discover some cake tricks, I’ve got a major early Halloween treat for you! Here’s a Friends & Family ticket link to get your regularly priced $45 tickets for $5 a (cake) pop. Just scroll down and choose the Friends & Family ticket option here.

It’s going to be a sweet weekend for sure. Stay tuned for realtime updates on social media, on the Tanaya’s Table Instagram and Twitter accounts. Hope to see you there, my sweet-toothed friends!

VIDEO Sneak Peek: Unique LA Returns For The Holidays

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Note: If you’ve noticed my absence, it has been due to a family emergency I’ve been dealing with on an ongoing basis… but I’m back for now, or at least trying to be as much as possible.

Thanks for your understanding and patience, and I’m looking forward to sharing more good eats, events, behind the scenes videos and recipes with you all! Much love.

Featured items in my Huffington Post article on the first ever Unique LA.

Featured items from my Huffington Post article on the first-ever Unique LA back in 2012

When I covered the first ever Unique L.A. a couple years ago, I found everything from red velvet ding-dongs, bacon-banana macarons and raspberry-habañero jam, to DIY headbands, gingerbread donuts and all-natural smoked tuna cat food flakes… plus lots of locally crafted items resembling moustaches, octopi… and octopi with moustaches.

You can see what other peculiar, adorable and intriguing items were featured at the inaugural Unique L.A. in my coverage piece, published on the Huffington Post.

Although we can only time travel back to past Unique L.A. experiences by reading about them, the good news is there’s another weekend of fun coming to downtown L.A. starting tomorrow. And even better than just reading about it, this time I will share a video with highlights as well!

A couple weeks ago, I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek — or should I say, a “snack peek” — at some of the artisanal food crafters who will be selling at this weekend’s Unique L.A. thanks to my Tastemade crew.

Here’s a look at some of the treats you can expect to find… including pumpkin spice donuts from Donut Snob, Meyer lemon pie from Sugar Pie Honey Buns, chipotle dulce de leche macarons from Soft Peaks, and so much more:

Tanayas Table Unique LA Donut Snob etc Sneak Peek Tastemade Video Image

Check out this 1-minute video for a sneak preview of what unique treats you can find at this weekend’s Unique LA! (Blooper alert!)

Good times, bloopers and all! Also, here’s a bonus feature I did on Bon Puf’s all-natural, organic cotton candy in interesting flavor combinations like mango chili, salted caramel and lychee green tea. Plus, I get to try my hand at making some cotton candy as well! Join the mini adventure here:

The sweet folks at Bon Puf show me how to make my own Mango Chili cotton candy!

The sweet folks at Bon Puf show me how to make my own Mango Chili cotton candy! Check out the video right here ^

To find out more and to grab your tickets to food, entertainment and DIY workshops, check out the Unique L.A website. See you there!