I'm always saying Orange County’s an exciting place for food. Not surprisingly, It’s also a busy incubator of cookbooks—especially the kind that celebrate super-fresh O.C.-style cooking, influenced by the incredible bevy of gorgeous produce we have at our fingertips year-round. Read More

Busy chef Jamie Gwen of Newport Beach, known for her Sunday morning food radio show on KFWB 980, television appearances, and charity work, has gotten herself In a Jam. This development was completely on purpose—In a Jam is the name of her new line of artisanal preserves. Read More

I’ve been watching for its dinner service to begin—was told it’s imminent, possibly this week—but in the meantime did the only sensible thing: I went to Early Bird for breakfast, the meal that (along with lunch) put the little Fullerton café on the map. Executive chef Frank DeLoach, known for his stint at Playground among other well-known restaurants, took the reins when founding chef Joseph Mahon left to concentrate on his downtown Fullerton Burger Parlor. Read More

At a gathering of food bloggers and the people who love them, you know you’ll have good things to eat. You might also be advised, there’s often a theme involved. Recently, at a brunch hosted by Kim Burnell of Rustic Garden Bistro at her home in the hills above Tustin, it was all about dishes in the key of duck Read More

Seventh Tea Bar, adjunct to Portola Coffee Lab in The OC Mix, doubles down on its commitment to tea drinkers with a handsome—and expensive—new contraption. Owners Christa and Jeff Duggan recently installed a $15,000 Steampunk 4.0, made by Alpha Dominche in Salt Lake City. The brushed-metal, tea-brewing behemoth has burbling glass cylinders in which four different teas from Seventh’s stock of single-origin leaves can be brewed simultaneously, each with precise fine-tuning of temperature and steeping time. Read More

After today, loyal patrons of the little-but-mighty Tuesday farmers market at Irvine Ranch Historic Park will have to reprogram their fruit-and-vegetable GPS. Next week, April 23, the market relocates to Irvine Regional Park—a quick jaunt up Jamboree Road from the original site, and no less charming or historic. The move, due to construction, is temporary and of unknown duration. Take the opportunity to visit the Orange County Zoo while you’re there, and watch out for roaming peacocks. Click here to use Orange Coast’s searchable farmers market guide. Read More

The wait’s over! Or will be, tomorrow at 7 a.m., when Sidecar Doughnuts & Coffee finally opens the doors to its 17^th Street storefront in Costa Mesa. At a media preview earlier this week, samples were offered and Stumptown coffee was poured in the beautifully designed space, where custom marble counters and glass surrounds direct attention where it belongs—on the doughnuts. Read More

Culled from our print pages, all the food news from the April 2013 magazine! Read More

There was a lot of Skuna Bay salmon in play at the The Catch in Anaheim Tuesday, as five chefs faced off in a competition cooking with the Vancouver Island “craft-raised” fish. The winner of Tuesday’s contest advances to a semi-final round, with hopes of ultimately making it to Louisville in May for the finals, held days before the Kentucky Derby. Read More

I’m partial to the La Habra El Cholo location—probably because my family’s been eating there since I was a child—but I was happy to take a look at the new El Cholo in Anaheim Hills when invited to a preview before it opened last week. (There’s a third in Irvine.) I love that the Salisbury family, who also owns the Cat and the Custard Cup in La Habra and the Cannery in Newport Beach, continues to invest in Orange County. Read More