Next we were able to order from the menu, and we tried to split them up so that we could all try everything. It didn't really matter, because so much food came flying at us we practically needed raingear. We definitely needed doggie bags. Then, just to make it crazier, ribs and brisket arrived family-style.

OK. So. The chicken was nice, but smoked to an intense pink, which some people like and others don't. The ribs were tender and falling off the bone. The hot link had a nice snap, but no crackle. They make it themselves with natural casings. It's nice that they chose not to make the hot links so hot they are rendered inedible. Some places make it into some macho trip.

The pulled pork was a little dry, but as leftovers the next day in a sandwich with BBQ sauce and coleslaw, it was revived and damn authentic. But that brisket. Wow. Angels sang. It was the brisket I will return for again and again.

There was simply too much to eat, even for professionals. The applesauce and potato salad were delicious, but there was no getting a bite of ham or most of the other sides anywhere near my belly. And when they brought dessert - nooooo. You're on your own. We did notice the pecan pie had pecans all the way through, instead of just resting on the top of the filling. But it was like a scene from "Le Grand Boeuf", or for a more popular analogy, Mr Creosote from Monty Python. "One thin mint. Wafer thin..."

The restaurant is sparkling clean, almost too clean for a BBQ joint. It is super corporate, squeezed into the Target complex that has enveloped the Formosa Cafe, Owner and pit boss Michael Rosen showed us the impressive giant smoker. The shelves don't rotate, but they switch the meats around by hand. They cook the brisket for a full ten hours.

While we were touring the kitchen, I asked to see the smoke ring on one of the briskets and he humored me. He answered all of my obsessive BBQ-ista questions in detail, if not too cheerfully, and passed with flying colors. He definitely knows his stuff. Bobzilla said it reminded him of the guy at the zoo who has to show all of the schoolkids the monkeys. And there is one kid who keeps raising his hand and saying, "Do monkeys eat bananas?" and he answers in a monotone for the hundreth time, "Yes. Monkeys eat bananas."

Zeke's owners definitely have the credentials. Michael Rosen was the Executive Chef at Reign restaurant in Beverly Hills, always maintaining a down-home Southern flair. He opened Maple Drive along with Zeke's chef and co-owner, Leonard Schwartz, late of 72 Market Street. For Zeke's, they decided to partner with Gelsinger Meats and Deli in Montrose to highlight the meats, and to provide fresh fodder for the pit. A perfect match. They traveled the country studying up on BBQ and returned home ready to 'que.

Zeke's "Build Your Own BBQ Special" lets you choose two meats from pulled pork, pulled chicken, dark 1/4 chicken, smoked ham and hot links. The sides are baked beans, collard greens, mashed potatoes, green beans, potato salad, cole slaw, applesauce, kettle chips and fries. Still, that brisket is so memorable. It may be worth going off the specialty menu. And hey, did you notice they have catfish? I didn't know they had catfish!

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 11/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1⁄8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon whole milk
• 3 large Fuji, Gala, or Golden Delicious apples
• Canola oil for deep-frying
• Powdered sugar for dusting

I love the casualness and ease of this great finger food dessert— a plate of hot apple fritters, dusted with powdered sugar, passed around the table is a satisfying end to a meal. While these fritters are a wonderful dessert to make when seasonal apples are abundant, you can also vary the fruit, using pears instead of apples, for example. If you like, serve them with Vanilla Ice Cream (page 319) and a drizzle of honey. They’re best immediately after they are fried, so serve them hot.

Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl. Lightly beat the egg and milk in a small bowl. Whisk into the dry ingredients until combined. The batter can be covered and refrigerated for up to 3 hours. Peel the apples and slice the fruit from the core. Cut the apples into 2-inch-long, G-inch-thick matchsticks. Fold into the batter. Heat about 1H inches of oil to 325°F in a wide deep pot. Set a cooling rack over a baking sheet and line with paper towels. Using two forks, lift up about 5 to 6 of the apple matchsticks from the batter, allowing the excess batter to drip back into the bowl—the fritter should be irregular in shape, with just a very light coating of batter—and add to the hot oil. Add a few more fritters to the pot, without crowding, and fry for about 5 minutes, turning the fritters from time to time, until crisp and golden brown. Use a skimmer or slotted spoon to transfer them to the paper towels, and fry the remaining fritters in batches. Stack the fritters on a serving platter, sprinkle generously with powdered sugar, and serve immediately.

Serves 6 (or 1 hungry foodie)

Tilapia Taco

Taco Time

Sky’s has a big menu but my focus is in their titular gourmet tacos.

"Gourmet" is a term one rarely sees used in Los Angeles restaurant titles. However, from where I hail (Albany, New York,) it’s the kind of marketing strategy where Gourmet Mexican Food would be used to differentiate said product from Taco Bell -- which is Mexican Food (in Upstate, NY.)

Lobster tacos and crawfish tacos are the priciest at nearly $5.00 per. They're not bad splurges. Next down on the price list is mahi, salmon and tilapia, who are $3-$4 each. Then beef, chicken, carnitas and turkey are just below $3 each. While those prices can add up, you don’t have to pig out.

These tacos are hearty. Take the tilapia taco (pictured.) On a lovely corn torilla, the grilled fresh fish is both juicy and plentiful. The cole slaw like topping makes it feel more like a delicious fish sandwich. These are not pequeno taco truck tacos.

And, of course, they have more than tacos. And their vegetarian options are also quite plentiful -- so much so, that it makes me believe the owner must have a vegetarian older brother that threatened him noogies.

Photos By Caleb Bacon (Twitter) for LAist

• Sky's Gourmet Tacos | 5408 Pico Blvd | Los Angeles 90019 | (323) 932-6253

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Bouchon is named for "the particular style of café that existed in the province of Lyon for centuries," The restaurant will serve classic bistro fare such as Croque Madames, Moules au Safran (Maine bouchot mussels steamed with white wine, mustard & saffron served with French fries), and Poulet Roti Granmere. Bouchon will also feature "a signature raw bar featuring a wide array of oysters on the half-shell from both the west and east coasts." Prices are reasonable, with most main courses between $10 and $20, A wide selection of beers and wines (both by the bottle and by the glass) will be highlighted. Check out the menu here.

Thomas Keller is the only American-born chef to hold Michelin stars at multiple restaurants, three for The French Laundry (opened in 1994), three for Per Se in New York City (opened 2004), and a final seventh star for Bouchon in Yountville. Keller's philosophy is based on "combining the finest, seasonal ingredients with an unfailing attention to detail in presentation."

So while it's no longer summer, Kleiman still stands at her kitchen counter almost every day to make a pie or two; it's not so much that she's looking to conquer the art of pie-making, but rather explore and puzzle out small branches of curiosity. On the stove she simmered cream for a coconut pie filling, explaining that the appeal of cream pies had always alluded her a bit, but she was determined to keep making them.

Another pursuit was for the perfect crust, which is an undeniably important factor in the world of pie. "For me the great pleasure for me of making the pie is making the crust," she admits. But of course, there's eating it, too, and perhaps after a summer of pie she began to think her palate had changed a bit--the crust of her last apple pie was a bit of a let down. The crust tasted a bit flat, and so she went in search of a crust recipe that would give the crust a more "toothsome quality." That search led her to the Food Network's Alton Brown, whose kitchen science mind offers a crust that uses cornmeal, apple juice, and a spray bottle. [Hear Brown and Kleiman talking crust recently here]

Up for the challenge, Kleiman worked the ingredients while we talked about pies of days gone by. After many years of baking apple pies, her approach--until this stab at Brown's recipe, which was glinting on the screen of her laptop just inches from the counter-top workspace--was to use a simple crust and a mix of apples.

She explains the evolution of her crust: "When I first started when I was younger I would always use Crisco. I really do like a lard crust—half lard half butter." And the filling: "The thing about my pies is that they’re just a ton of apples. There have been times when I’ve had 15 apples in a pie. I use just a little bit of sugar and just a bit of cinnamon."

What confuses many novice pie-bakers sometimes is just what apples to use. There are the omnipresent gleaming orbs of red, yellow, and green piled on the supermarket displays or the come-and-go seasonal varietals offered up by beloved farmers' market vendors. What has always worked for Kleiman, though, is "Granny Smith for firmness, Golden Delicious for their almost applesauce-y quality, Fuji for in-between. You end up with different levels of sweetness: tart and tangy and sweet," adding "I like to have a little bit of tartness in the pie." But not all apples bake and eat alike: "I’ve never really found Red Delicious much good for anything," she jokes. However, the local varieties grown by SoCal's Windrose farm have proven amazing in pies, though not so much for just plain eating.

But the thing about pie seems to be that there's a pie--and a pie recipe--for everyone, no matter how centuries old or basic a kind of pie can be. "Everybody feels they have to put their own stamp on a pie," observes Kleiman, describing one pie recipe she recently encountered that made use of Red Hot candies in the filling. And particularly in response to her pie project, she's found that pie enthusiasts tend to fall into distinct camps: "You have two kinds of people. You have the people who just want to share [their recipes] with everybody. And then you have people who [say] 'No, I don’t want to give you my recipe, I just want it to be excellent.'"

If there's anything people do get a bit territorial about, even in sharing, it's probably the crust. "Do you use Crisco, do you not use Crisco? Do you use coconut oil? I just think it’s hilarious that the home cooks are really territorial about recipes," Kleiman remarks.

Kleiman is not, in fact, territorial, if the blog can serve as an example. Every pie has been chronicled, including the total flops, like the one dubbed the "Little Shop of Horrors Pie." It started with a penchant to make a Strawberry Glaze pie of the likes of Marie Callender's--a favorite of Kleiman's mother. She got the strawberry's from Harry's Berries, a local grower known for their delicious but delicate fruit. When the stiff glaze met the fragile Harry's Berries "it looked literally like a horror show." Nonplussed, the pie went up on the blog and she had to laugh. "I think that part of the success of the project is that I have a really good sense of humor."

It might not call for a sense of humor, but a recipe of the likes of a Pie-a-Day project does call for tenacity, and the hopes that all that pie doesn't mean belts will be worn looser come winter. But really, when you get right down to it, "the butter’s like the only thing in the fruit pie [that will make you gain weight]," pointing out, with a bit of a wink, perhaps, the fact that her beloved breakfast of a cold slice of pie is probably two servings of fruit from the USDA's food pyramid.

As the pie-making continued, the cream for the coconut filling came off the stove ("It’s just pudding," she remarks after taking a swipe of the spoon with her finger and tasting it. "But people are very serious about it!") and went into its crust for cooling. The apples were sliced and spiced and nestled into their Alton Brown crust bed-and-blankets, and sent to hibernate in the oven.

When the apple pie emerged, the golden-brown juices were peeking eagerly from the vents and crevices, and the unmistakably familiar aroma filled the kitchen. We stared appreciatively at its bubbling butter-sheen dome, and wondered just how long we would wait to dig in. The answer: Not very! Piping hot with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, it was pie heaven. The tart-sweet of the apples were right at home in the slightly grittier--toothier, indeed--crust. The crust seemed to have solved the mystery for Kleiman, too, since the companion blog entry simply declared: "Thank you Alton! This was the best Apple Pie I ever made."

With the approaching pie-centric Thanksgiving holiday, and the Good Food Pie Contest, pie is still a priority for Kleiman, although there will come a day when she's not making quite so many. That's not so many, though--not none.

From her childhood of birthday pie to her summer's endeavor, there's always room for pie in Kleiman's kitchen. In fact, her relationship pie seems to have only deepened, thanks to the Pie-a-Day Project: "I will always make more pie than I ever did before."

See Kleiman among the pies at the 1st Annual KCRW Good Food Pie Contest November 14th from 2-4 p.m. at the Westfield Topanga Shopping Center. If you're feeling brave, you still have time to enter a pie--the deadline is November 8th. You can also purchase pies for the holidays at Angeli Caffe. To keep up-to-date, fan Evan Kleiman on Facebook or follow her on Twitter.

Then we moved to California, where on practically every street corner we had access to authentic ethnic foods. Life is grand, because for less than five dollars you could get a steaming hot bowl of Vietnamese pho and across the street was the best $3 beef taco that you've ever had.

About seven years ago, my husband and I decided to start a family and moved to an area that we could actually afford, and after weeks of research, we chose a small town in Florida where we could buy three times as much house for half the money. Well, after we moved, I was at a restaurant called Bangkok Tokyo waiting for my to go order when I overheard someone speaking very loudly on her cell phone, "I'm having sushi at a Chinese restaurant."

I just about flipped. Bangkok...Tokyo...so not China.

It was at that point that really changed my life. I called a local cooking school and asked if I could start teaching cooking classes, teaching people about the difference between soy sauce and fish sauce....Vietnamese food and Chinese food. And this is how my cooking career started. I started the food blog in order to record a lot of the recipes that I was teaching

Your cookbook just came out. How long did it take for you to write/test/photograph ever recipe? Did writing AND photographing the recipes influence your book in any way?
I put a call out for testers on my blog and had about 200 people respond from all over the world offering to help test the recipes. I set up a private blog and every few days I would post a new recipe ready for testing. It was an amazing process, because the testers really helped me hone and refine the recipes. Many of the recipes didn't even make the final cut because the results were inconsistent or the ingredients were inaccessible from different parts of the world.

I absolutely wanted to photograph the book myself, because this is what I do for the blog. I see too many cookbooks where the food looks way too polished and I've heard stories about how many food stylists and food photographers use funky food styling tricks like Crisco for ice cream. I even had one food stylist tell me that you wouldn't want to eat anything that they've touched, because you'd surely get salmonella from all of the tools that they used to make the food look pretty.

So I started studying what makes food look good, real food. It was food blogs like Matt Armendariz's Matt Bites and Bea's La Tartine Gourmande that really inspired me. Every day that I would do a photoshoot for the cookbook, I had two hungry kids and a husband waiting patiently at the dinner table. As soon as I got my money shot, we would eat that dish.

While most cookbooks have a prop stylist, food stylist, food photographer and writer, I really did this solo (other than the recipe testing) and I think it brings a very personal flair to the cookbook.

How did you decide on 101 recipes?
Well, secretly there are about 120 recipes and about 200 color photographs. I had nothing to do with the catchy "101 Easy Asian Recipes" nor the really silly hot pink "As seen on SteamyKitchen.com" sticker that's on the front of the cover.

It's stupid. I know. I cringe every time I see that sticker.

Who would you recommend this cookbook to?
I created this book keeping in mind some of our struggles of living in a small town in Nebraska with very little access to fresh Asian ingredients. This is why I include lots of different ingredient substitutions. I'd love to say that this book is for anyone and everyone, but I guess if you hate to cook you might not enjoy reading the recipes!

I've also added a modern flair to some of the recipes- Korean style hamburgers, Asian pear frozen yogurt, and grilled lamb chops with Asian pesto. I also wanted to teach some of the things that my mom taught me, like how to make the perfect fried rice.

What would you say is the most ambitious recipe in the cookbook?
The most time-consuming recipe in the book is My Mom's Crispy Egg Rolls. I included it in the book because there are several recipes that, while a little more time consuming to make, freeze exceptionally well and can go from freezer to table in about 15 minutes. Recipes like potstickers and the eggrolls are great for when you have friends over because you can rope them in to helping you wrap the dumplings. It becomes like a social activity for us, with the bowl of ingredients in the middle and each of us around the table filling, wrapping, sealing and chatting throughout. By the end of the hour, we will have wrapped hundreds of dumplings. Some go for that night's dinner and each friend gets to take home a big batch that they can store their freezer.

For egg rolls, just carefully slide the frozen egg rolls into hot oil and they will crisp up perfectly. For potstickers, you can slide the frozen potstickers directly into a simmering broth or you can pan fry first to get the bottom's crispy, then add about 1/4 cup of water and cover. Dinner is ready in about 10 minutes.

The pictures in the cookbook were beautiful. What camera did you use? Any tips?
Oh gosh, I started shooting the cookbook with a Canon Rebel and a $90 lens, the 50mm. In the world of dSLRs, the Rebel is a cheapy. I didn't upgrade to a Canon 40D with 50mm 1.4 lens until about a year ago. Now I'm eyeing the Canon 5D Mark II. Photography is an expensive hobby. But honestly, the Rebel and the cheap lens shot many of the photos in the cookbook.

Which brings me to mention that it's not about the camera. It's having an eye for making food look spectacular.

Where do you usually eat when you're in LA? What do you miss the most?
I still call LA my home. After our Nebraska stint, we lived in Los Angeles where I went to junior high, high school and UCLA. My parents still live here, and I come visit usually 2 to 3 times a year. I miss the dim sum the most and of course my mom's cooking.

An ideal day in LA would include...
Early dim sum to miss the long lines, grocery shopping with mom to pick up ingredients for that evening's dinner -- especially a live fish and crab. I love my mom's cooking and I love watching her cook. We don't really cook together in the kitchen, were both kind of Type A people, which really makes the kitchen very very very small.

Are there any LA-based blogs that you follow?
My very best friends, Diane and Todd of White on Rice Couple live in LA -- sometimes I see them more than I see my own friends in my neighborhood. We're always hanging out, traveling together and goofing off together. One of the best things about food blogging is that I've gotten to create beautiful friendships with other bloggers. Another good friend is Bee of Rasamalaysia.com - she's like my blogger-sister!

Is it true that you have almost 50 different types of sea salt? Any favorites right now?
I love salt.

LOVELOVELOVE salt.

My current favorite is Himalayan salt plate from The Meadow

My friends over at Earthy sent me some Matsutake mushrooms, which I sliced and grilled on a salt plate. Mmmmm. Simple, heavenly, earthy.

What are the essential ingredients/tools in your kitchen?
At last count, I have about 12 different woks at my house. I know it seems like I have a salt and wok problem! It wasn't until I started using Scanpan CTX wok that I knew I found "the one." I even contacted Scanpan to see if we could work together in some way because I was so in love with their product. I love the ease of nonstick, but even more, I love that you can sear in that nonstick and even use metal utensils. Plus it doesn't have all that nasty toxins that most nonstick have. I'm a chaotic cook, so having cookware that I don't have to be so careful around is important.

Even with a drawer-full of fancy knives, I consistently pick up my Shun chef's knife. It fits my hand well.

But I'm a sucker for infomercials, so my pantry and cupboards are piled high with gadgets, gizmos, and doodads. a couple of years ago, I started encroaching in on my husband's garage space. He doesn't like that.

Any favorite chefs?
I've watched Martin Yan for years on television! I love his sing-song accent and his rat-a-tat-tat knife action. Last year, I was lucky enough to meet him in person and he provided me with a lovely endorsement of the cookbook.

Can you give us a sneak peek of what you'll be talking about at your cooking class tomorrow?
At Sur La Table on Tuesday night, I'll be doing a cooking demo of several dishes: Vietnamese Summer Rolls, Firecracker Shrimp, Chinese Sausage Fried Rice, Pan Fried Tofu with Dark Sweet Soy, and Chocolate Wontons.

You can check out her blog at TLC for a chance to win one of 5 cookbooks and check out her tasty recipes. She'll also be going to San Francisco and Seattle, so if you know anyone who might be interested, they can click here for more info. You can also follow her on twitter.