The Urban Forager: Culinary Exploring & Cooking on LA’s Eastside

By Elisa Callow with photos by Ann Elliott Cutting

March 2019

Hardcover | $29.95
ISBN 978-1-945551-42-0
Ebook also available
ISBN 978-1-945551-43-7

The Urban Forager showcases one of California’s richest and most rapidly expanding culinary cultures: the eastside of Los Angeles. Food makers representing the eastside’s diverse traditions share beloved personal recipes, ingredients, innovations, and neighborhood resources. A hands-on, stunningly photographed collection of inspiring recipes, profiles, and references for novice and adventurous home cooks and the culinarily curious, it includes conversations with Sumi Chang (Europane) and Minh Phan (Porridge and Puffs), as well as such acclaimed home cooks as Mario Rodriguez, Rumi Mahmood, and Jack Aghoian. Part cookbook, part guide to foraging the best LA has to offer, The Urban Forager is a compelling bridge to the unfamiliar, inspiring readers to enrich their culinary repertoire with delicious new discoveries.

Within these pages is a guide to my community of Pasadena's food source treasures that have inspired my cooking explorations over the years.  And at these stores, I find myself asking the owners and sometimes a friendly shopper about how to use ingredients that are new to me.

Whether you live in a neighborhood within the San Gabriel Valley, or in a big city or small town elsewhere in Southern California, or throughout the country, your explorations will undoubtedly yield similarly satisfying discoveries and culinary treasures. 

I hope that each one of you will find your delight by exploring these pages. Nothing feels better than making a delicious meal, slowly and with care, and then sharing it with others.