I decided to put together a fun gallery of photos involving food we make at the house all the time. Aside from my love for writing and music, food is also a very big passion in my life. I started watching cooking shows on PBS when I graduated from college, and soon became enamoured with all food shows. When FOOD TV became a 24-hour network showing round-the-clock cooking shows, I thought I had died and gone to foodie heaven. Food has become a fun hobby - instead of knowing the latest rock bands, I now know all the latest hip chefs and food trends. Chefs have become the new rock stars in my life! LOL!

So without further ado, here are some photos of recent foodie adventures in my house. We started our first ever garden, so we've had a bountiful summer of ripe tomatoes, cucumbers, Swiss chard, and fresh herbs.

The first photos show our garden, our bounty of vegetables, especially tomatoes, and some various ways we used our tomatoes - from making a homemade marinara sauce (cooked the tomatoes for an hour with olive oil, garlic, dried herbs) to roasting the tomatoes on the grill to deep frying a couple green tomatoes for deep fried green tomatoes to fresh caprese salad with sliced tomatoes, olive oil, buffalo mozzarella and fresh basil from our garden to making a turkey meatball penne pasta with sauteed fresh tomatoes.

Other foodie adventures included picking fresh blueberries and strawberries from our collection of potted garden items and eating them with ice cream,  using fresh herbs from our garden to make the famous Barefoot Contessa's recipe for herb baked eggs (just broil/bake eggs in heavy cream, butter, and crushed garlic with fresh herbs and salt & pepper), and of course, barbecuing dry rub pork ribs on the grill!

 I also included some random photos of some foodie adventures we had dining out, including eating the famous Korean barbecue galbi tacos and kimchee quesadilla from LA's trendiest hotspot - the Kogi Taco Truck. This is a taco truck that mixes Mexican food with Korean ingredients. You have to follow their Twitter page to know where they'll strike next. (http://kogibbq.com/) We haven't eaten at the truck yet, but we've tried the Kogi menu at their one kitchen in the Alibi Room in Culver City. (http://www.alibiroomla.com/home.php)

We then had our first "banh mi" Vietnamese sandwich at Pho Citi (http://www.yelp.com/biz/pho-citi-los-angeles-2) on Westwood Blvd. I read recently that there is a new taco truck featuring these sandwiches, and they've been all the rage on FOOD TV as well. Yummy beef, pork, and chicken on a soft French bread roll with this pickled sweet cabbage sauce and tons of fresh cilantro!

Also pictured is the famous French dip sandwich at Philippe's (http://www.philippes.com/), which claims to have invented the French Dip sandwich when the cook accidentally dropped the bread into the meat drippings. 

And I end with my infamous photo of The Olive Garden's "Tour of Italy" plate - a massive lunch plate of chicken parmigiana, fettucini alfredo, and meat lasagna. A little slice of guilty pleasure food heaven.

Stay tuned for future food gallery photos this fall!