Newsletter: The comfort food edition: pizza, meatballs, lotsa wine

Happy weekend, and another reminder, if you needed it, that Sunday is Father’s Day. An excellent reason for comfort food, since family time often means nostalgia, and nostalgia is often the magnetic center of much of what we love to eat. So this week, among other things: pizza, spaghetti and meatballs and bottles of wine, all vastly comforting.

Jonathan Gold’s latest review is of Pizzana, an already exceedingly popular pizzeria on the Westside (long-fermented dough, pineapple and prosciutto pie, aglio olio pizza). I open the lid on my childhood love for spaghetti and meatballs, and our wine writer considers the Age of the Blend, which is a story about blended wines and not an Edith Wharton novel.

Meanwhile, it’s hot again, and since this is baseball season, the time is right for our 26 recipes that use beer, starting with beer ice cream. Something to make for the next Kershaw home game? Maybe so. In a similar vein, we have a dozen popsicle recipes; and a story from beer writer John Verive about pairing beer — with doughnuts.

— Amy Scattergood

PIZZA, PIZZA

Steam rises from a pizza cooked in a wood oven at Pizzana in Brentwood.

(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

This week, Jonathan visits Pizzana, the newish Brentwood pizza joint where there are probably even longer lines now than there were, well, yesterday. Sorry. The chef is Daniele Uditi, an Italian who learned his skills at his family’s bakery near Caserta (“the buffalo mozzarella capital of Italy”) and in the pizzerias of Naples, then came to Los Angeles and wound up cooking for actor Chris O’Donnell. In other words, the usual route to restauranthood.

THE POTS IN POTLUCK

Spaghetti and meatballs is a one-pot meal you can make with your kids.

(Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times)

Making your own spaghetti and meatballs is something you can learn relatively young in life, especially if you live in a world of questionable potluck dinners. I have a moment of culinary nostalgia, which translates into the basic family recipe I taught my kids. It’s a one-pot deal — no heirloom tomatoes, no soffrito.

THE AGE OF THE BLEND

Wine writer Patrick Comiskey has been thinking a lot about blended wines lately. These are wines, a popular and growing segment of the industry, that are made from a few red varieties, with sometimes odd ancestry and even odder names. Those names (the Prisoner, Beast, the Banished) can “seem more at home on a library shelf of French existentialism than nestled in a wine rack.”

YOUR DINNER AT CASSIA

Culinary SOS: Cassia’s whole grilled branzino.

(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times )

If you’ve spent any time at Cassia, chef Bryant Ng’s Viet-French restaurant in Santa Monica — a place much admired both by our restaurant critic and Mr. Wells — you’ve likely enjoyed Ng’s terrific dish of whole grilled branzino. Reader Patty Richardson, who liked the place as much as the pros, asked for the recipe after a memorable birthday dinner. Ta-da.

APRICOT ALERT

Robada apricots from Tenerelli Orchards, spotted at the Pasadena farmers market.

(Amy Scattergood / Los Angeles Times)

Welcome to mid-June and high apricot season: Helena, Robada and Poppy apricots, as well as Blenheims (Want to start a flashmob? Try Instagraming a crate of those when your local farmers market opens). Also Flavor Royal pluots, among others, and apriums. Test Kitchen Director Noelle Carter gives her weekly Market Report — plus recipes!

TACO TUESDAY!

A plate of tacos at Bill’s Taco House #3.

(Jonathan Gold / Los Angeles Times)

Jonathan has another installation of his Taco Tuesday column, this time an appreciation of the charms of Bill’s Taco House #3. This is neither a modernist taco nor one like those from your favorite Highland Park taco truck. Instead, “a Bill’s taco is more or less a Fatburger inside a tortilla, a tasty, juicy expression of pure Los Angeles soul.”

Goldbot: You can now talk to Jonathan Gold any time you want — or at least the robot version of him that now lives on Facebook Messenger. You can ask Goldbot for a personal restaurant recommendation based on location, type of food or price. The bot will also deliver Jonathan Gold’s latest reviews straight to your device.

The Daily Meal, the food and drink website under the editorial direction of Colman Andrews, is now one of our partners. Check out their 101 best pizzas in America and other stories, recipes and videos.

Jonathan Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants, the authoritative annual guide to local dining, is online for subscribers and now features his 2016 Best Restaurants. If you didn’t get a copy of the booklet, you can order one online here.

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