Laura Rege is a recipe developer and food stylist living the mid-coastal lifestyle between Dallas and Brooklyn. Formerly a senior member of the editorial teams at Food & Wine and Martha Stewart Living, Laura now creates and styles recipes for websites like ours and cooking videos! When she’s not in the kitchen for work, she is off traveling in the U.S. or abroad searching out the next delicious bite.
Laura Rege
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I am a soup person. It’s my go-to comfort food. It’s what I make the second the air turns crisp in early fall and all through the winter when I want to warm up. It’s my favorite thing to eat when I feel like I’m getting sick, when I feel down, when I crave something nourishing, if I want to eat a bunch of vegetables, or I just need to clean out my fridge and pantry.
So, I make a lot of soup; over the years I’ve made hundreds of pots of it. That said, I’m here to tell you — with absolute certainty — that this French onion chicken soup is hands-down the most comforting soup you will ever eat. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a mash-up of French onion soup and classic chicken soup, all in one bite.
The soup starts with caramelizing a big pot full of onions, which gives the soup an impossibly rich and indulgent, savory-sweet flavor. Then, in go the carrots, celery, herbs, chicken, and chicken broth for big chicken soup vibes. And of course, no version of French onion soup is complete without a slice of cheesy toast on top.
This is the soup to make on a weekend or on a day you have an hour-and-a-half to two hours to spend in the kitchen. It will be worth your time — I promise. Plus, it makes a big batch of soup, which also happens to freeze quite well.
Kelli Foster
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While there is no recommended daily value for total omega-3s, the Dietary Guidelines For Americans suggest eating two servings of fish per week in order to hit at least 250-500 milligrams of omega-3s per day, or 1750-3500 milligrams per week. And while most Americans are missing the mark on omega-3s, one 3.5 ounce serving of Atlantic salmon contains 2,209 milligrams of omega-3s3. A six ounce serving, like that found in this recipe, would get you to 3,786 milligrams. And that’s not to mention the protein, vitamin D, and vitamin B12 in salmon.
Using tongs, transfer the chicken to a clean cutting board. Return the soup to a simmer. Break 8 ounces lasagna noodles into bite-sized pieces and add to the soup. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until al dente, 10 to 14 minutes, or according to package instructions. Meanwhile, use 2 forks to shred the chicken into bite-sized pieces.
Patty Catalano
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Scrape the grill grates clean if needed. Place the tenderloin on the grill (the hotter side if using a charcoal grill). Cover and cook until dark grill marks form on the bottom, about 5 minutes. Flip the tenderloin, cover, and cook until dark grill marks form on the second side, about 5 minutes more.
Christine Gallary
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It’s the mash-up we’ve all been waiting for.
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Patty Catalano
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Restaurant-worthy carbonara is easier to make at home than you think. A little patience and a handful of ingredients are all you need to make rich and creamy carbonara. There are innumerable versions of this dish (as well as opinions about what can or cannot be added), but this classic recipe sticks to just the essentials: pasta, eggs, Pecorino Romano, guanciale (cured pork jowl), black pepper, and a little salt. Here’s how you can pull it off in just 30 minutes.
Carbonara is one of several classic Roman pasta dishes that calls for minimal but overlapping ingredients, including Pecorino Romano, black pepper, and cured pork. Unlike pasta alla gricia, amatriciana, or cacio e pepe, carbonara uses eggs to create a rich, silky pasta that’s as perfect at midnight as it is at noon.
Because this recipe has only a few ingredients, each one is critical.
One of the biggest fears in tackling this recipe at home is that you will end up with a jumble of scrambled eggs and noodles. There is no need to let that fear take over. To set yourself up for success, start by tempering the eggs with some hot guanciale drippings and pasta water. When the spaghetti is ready, slowly start pouring the egg mixture into the skillet, pouring into the center over the pasta and not around the edges. Applying a little bit of low heat after the eggs are added, along with vigorous tossing, takes you to creamy carbonara perfection in just a few minutes.
Carbonara is best enjoyed hot and fresh out of the skillet. If you’re cooking for a smaller group, this recipe halves very easily. The cooking times will all be the same; just use a medium skillet (about 10 inches in size) instead of a large skillet.
Melissa Gaman
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If you’re not already slotting steak into your meal plan once in a while, I’m here to encourage you to do just that, be it date night at home or a random Wednesday night. There’s no need to go out for steak when you can make a delicious steak dinner from the comfort of your own home. You can keep it light with a steak fajita salad, or switch things up and make a sirloin steak sandwich.
Whether you fire up the grill, cook it on a sheet pan under the broiler, or sear it in a skillet along with potatoes or a quick pan sauce, getting steak on the table during the week is a totally doable affair. In fact, it can seem intimidating, but a really good steak dinner is a lot faster and easier to cook up than you might think. Here are 42 steak recipes to make for dinner any night of the week — no special occasion required.
For cuts like hanger steak, flank steak, and steak tips, a quick sear in a screaming-hot pan on the stovetop is all you need to get dinner on the table.
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Whether you’re cooking up skewers, foil packs, or a marinated flank, it’s truly hard to beat a steak dinner from the grill.
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When you want a more hands-off cooking method, turn on the broiler and grab a baking sheet or your cast iron skillet to cook your steak in the oven.
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Kelli Foster
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Gradually add 3 cups low-sodium vegetable or chicken broth, and 1 teaspoon kosher salt. Stir to combine. Bring to a simmer. Add 20 ounces refrigerated or frozen cheese tortellini. It will be mostly, but not fully, submerged in the sauce. Cook, stirring frequently to prevent the tortellini from sticking, until tender and warmed through, 5 to 6 minutes for refrigerated tortellini or 8 to 11 minutes for frozen tortellini.
Kelli Foster
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Originally from South Carolina with family roots in East Texas, Renae has been based in Brooklyn for 13 years. A U.S. Navy vet, Renae used her Montgomery GI Bill to fund her culinary & pastry education at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York. Graduating in 2015, she has since worked as a private chef, freelanced in test kitchens developing in recipes, testing cookbooks for prominent authors, and catering. More recently, she made her debut in the pop-up world serving Southern comfort food under the name “Dear Henry”. A color and glitter enthusiast, her hobbies include budget traveling the world so that she can eat more, dancing, crocheting, engaging in various tomfoolery, baking, and frying the hell out of some chicken cutlets.
Renae Wilson
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It tastes just like Hamburger Helper.
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Christine Gallary
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At 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 7, the piercing sound of sirens woke up Naama Weinberg in her Tel Aviv apartment. As she always did when sirens warned of an incoming missile attack, she immediately checked her family’s WhatsApp group chat for messages from relatives living in a kibbutz near the Gaza border.
“Please pray for us,” her aunt wrote, describing the sounds of screaming and shooting.
Then a red heart emoji.
Then silence.
Itay Raviv, left, and sisters Naama and Ofir Weinberg attend a dinner in Beverly Hills to share the stories of relatives who are being held hostage by Hamas.
(Ringo Chiu / For The Times)
Weinberg, 27, would later learn from Israeli government officials that her aunt, Orit Svirsky, was murdered that day — shot while hiding under blankets — during the attack by Hamas militants. Her uncle, Rafi Svirsky, was found dead in a nearby house with his three golden retrievers, all shot. Her 97-year-old grandmother, Aviva Sela, somehow survived, but the body of Gracie Cabrera, her longtime caretaker from the Philippines, was found mutilated near the home.
Her cousin, 38-year-old Itay Svirsky, was gone. The family was told by Israeli government officials that Svirsky was kidnapped and is being held by Hamas somewhere in Gaza.
And he remains in captivity — failing to win release in the exchange of Israel hostages for Palestinian prisoners that began during a cease-fire last week. So far, Hamas has released about 105 hostages — most of them Israeli women and children — and still holds about 135. Israel has released about 240 prisoners.
Weinberg and her sister Ofir, 24, came to Los Angeles last week to share their story about the attack on Oct. 7, which killed at least 1,200 Israelis — the deadliest assault in the nation’s 75-year history. More than 15,500 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed during Israel’s retaliatory strikes, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
The Weinbergs came to urge the world not to forget their cousin and the other hostages who remain in Hamas’ hands. They were joined by Itay Raviv, whose great-uncle, 78-year-old Avraham Munder, remains a hostage; all three spoke at a dinner in Beverly Hills on Saturday with representatives of the American Jewish Committee and other supporters of Israel.
Raviv, 27, and the Weinbergs asked the dinner guests to do one thing to help the hostages — appeal to elected officials, share a social media post, contact nonprofits and charities. They shared photos of their relatives and the necklaces they carry with them inscribed with the phrase in Hebrew, “Our heart is captive in Gaza,” and, in English: “Bring them home now!”
The family believes Svirsky is still alive, based on accounts of hostages who saw him before they were released. They said he had not been physically harmed but was under extreme mental duress because Hamas captors were telling hostages that Israel had been destroyed, they had no home to return to and no one was fighting for them. His relatives also live with the daily fear that he could be executed while in captivity.
Itay Raviv, left, and siblings Naama and Ofir Weinberg show necklaces inscribed with the phrase in Hebrew, “Our heart is captive in Gaza,” and, in English: “Bring them home now!”
(Ringo Chiu / For The Times)
“We are very worried that the damage could be irreversible,” Ofir Weinberg said. “That is why the clock is ticking.”
Three of Raviv’s relatives — his great-aunt Ruthi Munder, her daughter Keren Munder and 9-year-old grandson Ohad Munder-Zichri — were released as part of the hostage deal. But their house in the Nir Oz kibbutz in southern Israel less than a mile from the Gaza Strip was partly burned, Raviv said.
Raviv said his relatives were not beaten and managed to survive on meager portions of rice and bread. They told him they were moved from place to place — sometimes to below-ground tunnels — and slept on the ground without the ability to wash. He considers his family lucky for being able to reunite with three of his relatives — but he worries constantly about his great uncle, who walks with a cane and suffered bruises falling off a motorcycle during his abduction, according to reports from released hostages who saw him during captivity.
“He doesn’t have that much time,” Raviv said. “He will not be able to survive. Even though some hostages were released, we must do everything in our power to speak out. I’m not a politician. I don’t know what the best solution is. I just know that they need to be out.”
Raviv and the Weinbergs said their relatives had sought to live in peace with their Palestinian neighbors — collecting monthly donations for those who used to work in the kibbutz but no longer could after Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. The Weinbergs’ aunt, Orit Svirsky, had attended an international women’s peace conference three days before she was murdered. Raviv said his great-uncle, in his younger days, would volunteer to drive Palestinians north to Israel for medical care.
Itay, the sisters said, had started work as a “life coach” focusing on mental health after studying philosophy, psychology and economics. He loved guitar and yoga and grew up in the Be’eri kibbutz, co-founded by her grandparents 77 years ago in southern Israel near the Gaza Strip. Her grandparents, whose family had escaped the pogroms of Russia in the early 20th century, started the kibbutz as a lifelong mission to create a communal, safe place for Jewish people in Israel, she said.
Despite the decades of bloodshed and bitterness, the young Israelis say they refuse to give up their dream of peace.
“It’s really hard to imagine right now, but I still believe the conflict can be solved with words and without violence,” Ofir Weinberg said, referring to understandings with the broader Palestinian people and not Hamas.
“I understand the Palestinian people should stay. I recognize this is their home,” she said. “I just want us to coexist in peace.”
Naama Weinberg, left, holds a picture of her cousin Itay Svirsky, who is a hostage in Gaza, as her sister Ofir shares her story during a dinner in Beverly Hills.
(Ringo Chiu / For The Times)
For now, however, Weinberg said her world has narrowed to one overriding goal: to see the return of her cousin. She has stopped her studies and taken time off from a part-time job at a prominent Israeli tech firm. She has put off a vacation to the Philippines with her partner. She’s moved back home to stay with her parents, who are building a small unit in their garden for Weinberg’s grandmother to live.
Her only dream now is to see her cousin alive, sitting with their grandmother and sharing their favorite treat: a cup of cold coffee with a scoop of ice cream.
Teresa Watanabe
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Rachel Perlmutter is a recipe developer, food stylist, and culinary producer at The Kitchn. Originally from Houston, Texas, she spends her free time trying to perfect kolaches and breakfast tacos that taste like home. Rachel currently lives in Brooklyn with her partner, dog, cat and rabbit, where they all share a love of seasonal local produce.
Meghan Splawn
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Add 2 pounds ground beef, 2 teaspoons kosher salt, and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper. Cook, breaking up the meat with a wooden spoon, until browned and cooked through, 6 to 8 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons chili powder, 1 tablespoon ground cumin, 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder, 2 teaspoons dried oregano, 1 teaspoon paprika, and 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper if using. Stir to coat the meat and cook for 1 minute more.
Kelli Foster
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Bring on the latkes.
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Sheela Prakash
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Remove the salmon from the oven. Turn on the broiler. Brush the salmon with sauce again. Return the baking sheet to the oven and broil until the salmon is just cooked through and flakes easily in the thickest part, and the top is browned in spots, 3 to 7 minutes more. For medium-rare salmon, cook to an internal temperature of 120ºF; for medium salmon, cook to 125ºF. Watch carefully during broiling for burning. Discard any remaining sauce left in the saucepan.
Christine Gallary
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It has the perfect sweet and crunchy glaze.
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Patty Catalano
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Make ahead: Bake the casserole as instructed until the rice is tender, about 45 minutes. Stir in the broccoli and top with the cheese, then cool, cover, and freeze for up to 1 month. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator. Reheat, covered, in the oven at 350ºF until heated through, 30 to 45 minutes.
Storage: Refrigerate leftovers in an airtight container for up to 4 days.
Patty Catalano
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Cognitive dissonance, SoCal style: The calendar says it’s November, but the sky swears it’s April, maybe even July.
It’s Thanksgiving. And for a hundred years and more, pilgrims from the East and Midwest to this Pacific coast have sometimes found themselves a bit flummoxed over how to carry off a holiday built 400 years ago around the original Pilgrims on the Atlantic coast.
“Nobody gets much thrill out of Thanksgiving Day here in the West,” is how Times columnist Harry Carr moped over the holiday doldrums in 1923. “You have to be somewhere near the tracks of the Pilgrim Fathers to get much meaning out of Thanksgiving.”
But we manage, somehow. We suffer through a snowless, Puritan-free holiday by surfing, rock-climbing, skiing — when the smell of smoke isn’t necessarily burned turkey, but might be brush fires.
In 1957, Thanksgiving Day marked the hunting season for the West Hills Hunt Club — the horseback, top hat and riding-coat kind of hunting — with the “Blessing of the Hounds.”
The singularly American version of Thanksgiving plays by rules more rigid than Christmas. Christmas observances are global and elastic; Thanksgiving is one day of fixed, ritualized practices no matter where in these United States you celebrate it.
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There’s a charming movie from 2000 called “What’s Cooking?” It’s set in Los Angeles, with a damn fine cast playing four families — Black, Vietnamese, Jewish and Latino — bringing their own varied flavors of life and food to the Thanksgiving table, trying in the midst of family freak-outs and cooking catastrophes to pull off the impossible: a perfect Thanksgiving. (The mash-up of scenes of four families’ potato-mashing techniques is classic.)
For the longest time, in Los Angeles as elsewhere, Thanksgiving was principally a religious holiday, a tip of the capotain Puritan hat to the dogged Calvinism of the Mayflower crowd. The Times routinely printed, at astonishing length, Thanksgiving Day sermons from well-known local pastors.
That, at least, felt like home for the hundreds of thousands of Protestant middle Americans who migrated to L.A. and, in the land of Spanish missions, built themselves white clapboard New England-style steepled churches.
In 1896, The Times patted its city on the back: “It was a wise foresight that first ordained that church service should precede Turkey on Thanksgiving Day. Grace before meat is peculiarly fitting on this particular holiday … before dinner, [the ordinary American] may be devout — after dinner, he is comatose.”
In 1899, on the cusp of the 1900s, The Times did a good deal of throat-clearing to announce a new secular civic celebration. “Thanksgiving day will be celebrated in Los Angeles this year as it never was before. … Heretofore Thanksgiving day has been one of the quiet holidays of the year, devoted to the services in the churches and, of course, to football.” But now, “there will be a military and civic parade, patriotic exercises at the cycle track, a football game, golf, a banquet, a sacred concert, and a number of other sources of amusement and pleasure.”
California’s Thanksgiving observances and re-creations celebrated the Massachusetts Native Americans but breezed right on past the local Native Americans who had been all but erased from the city’s demographics. In the 1899 Thanksgiving parade, a group of white pioneers marched; it was named, without irony, “Native Sons of the Golden West.”
A turkey asks a fair question — “What should I be thankful for?” — on this vintage postcard from Patt Morrison’s collection.
On a 1923-postmarked card from Morrison’s collection, a correspondent asks her brother — who was possibly away at school, given the St. Olaf College mailing address — “Will you have turkey?”
Thirty years on, L.A. Thanksgivings were frankly secular and uniquely ours: sports, games, picnics at the beach, a “fairyland” parade downtown, warm-weather pleasure drives through the hills.
The studios gave everyone the day off. In 1940, The Times assiduously documented the movie stars’ holiday doings: Broderick Crawford heading off on a Honolulu honeymoon; housemates Franchot Tone and Burgess Meredith throwing a dinner for friends; Errol Flynn motoring to Palm Springs for the tennis; Donald Crisp and George Brent out on the water on their respective yachts; Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor golfing with Jack Benny and his wife, Mary Livingstone; and “the Bela Lugosis are going to his mother’s for dinner.” (That’s your straight line, amateur comics — go for it.)
Thanksgiving 1929, a month after Wall Street — as Variety headlined it — laid an egg, The Times noted in many column inches of type that free food was served for the “unfortunates” at the Salvation Army, the Midnight Mission and sundry churches. In years before, food giveaways were staged in poor neighborhoods, and veterans in the Old Soldiers’ Home in Sawtelle — now the VA grounds in Westwood — were fed lavishly.
The county jail’s Thanksgiving menu made the news, probably because of who would be eating it.
Sweet potatoes, fruit Jello, and roast pork — not turkey — would be served to all the inmates, from the lowliest cutpurse to what amounted to the celebrity wing, and its residents:
A vintage postcard from Patt Morrison’s collection is addressed to “Dear Little Raymond,” and bears a 1912 postmark. It was sent from Florida to Brattleboro, Vt.
That episode is a clear contender for winning the most-SoCal-Thanksgiving-incident-ever sweepstakes. But if mine were the sole vote, the palm has to go to this, from Thanksgiving 2000.
Wendy P. McCaw, a woman we described as the “billionaire environmentalist-libertarian,” bought the venerable Santa Barbara News-Press in 2000, and just this past July, declared the paper was bankrupt and closed it down.
For Thanksgiving of that first year, an editorial urged locals to donate generously to a local food bank, but with an asterisk: no turkey, please. “We cannot — in good conscience — recommend continuation of a tradition that involves the death of an unwilling participant … donate a turkey if you wish, but you can also donate all the other goodies associated with a holiday meal. Beans and rice are a good protein substitute for turkey.”
Santa Barbarans did not all take kindly to the suggestion, and to show their displeasure, donated 700 more dead turkeys than the food bank had asked for.
Regale your holiday guests with this Thanksgiving verse, found on a 1915-postmarked postcard from Patt Morrison’s collection.
Explaining L.A. With Patt Morrison
Los Angeles is a complex place. In this weekly feature, Patt Morrison is explaining how it works, its history and its culture.
Patt Morrison
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The best way to reheat turkey is in a 350°F oven. Place the turkey pieces in a baking dish and drizzle with a few tablespoons of stock and/or butter. Cover the dish with foil and heat in the oven at 350°F for about 30 minutes.
Alternatively, you can microwave the sliced turkey (cover with a damp paper towel) in a microwave-safe dish at 50% power in 1-minute intervals.
Meghan Splawn
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