Fast-forward to Sunday night.

You can go out for Chinese, order in or — radical idea — cook. Some of you might get lucky and have a friend invite you over for homemade Korean barbecue or a paella.

Whatever the plan, Sunday is for relaxing, for sneaking in a last dose of pleasure before the Monday-to-Friday blues start up all over again. That's why they call it "Sunday supper" as opposed to the more formal "Sunday dinner." Click here for a look at L.A. area restaurants offering a moderately priced fine-dining experience to cap the weekend.

-- S. Irene Virbila

Photo: The Sunday supper menu at Noir Food & Wine has included scallop. Credit: Stefano Paltera / For the Los Angeles Times

Yes, the Dietary Guidelines are coming!

I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself all weekend because those meanies at the USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services are waiting till Monday to release them.

As to what they will contain: I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the guidelines will tell us to eat lots of fruits and vegetables, possibly in a rainbow of colors.

-- Rosie Mestel

Photo: The Dietary Guidelines invariably recommend we eat more produce than most Americans do. Credit: Beth Hall / Bloomberg News

 
We'll see you bright and early Monday morning for #weekendeats, when we waste company time talking about what we ate this weekend, and swapping pictures. You can join us on Twitter (we use #weekendeats) or on Facebook.

But wherever you join us, please also upload your #weekendeats pictures here so that everyone can see them, and we can showcase them on the Daily Dish.

This gorgeous Chinese almond cookie comes to us via Cakewalker, just in time to celebrate the upcoming Lunar New Year. Click here for the recipe.

--Rene Lynch
Twitter / renelynch

May we suggest this 2004 Alejandro Fernandez "Dehesa La Granja"? It's our wine of the week. And I'll let our restaurant critic, S. Irene Virbila, explain why:

"Yet another stunning, value-priced wine from Alejandro Fernandez and his Grupo Pesquera, the 2004 Dehesa La Granja is 100% Tempranillo from 13-year-old vines. That's young by Spanish standards, yet this unfiltered medium-bodied red is lush and complex, with deep flavors of blackberries and plums, herbs and a touch of smoke. Tannins are mellow, and the finish lingers. Drink it now or wait awhile. But somehow I don't think this bottle is going to be hanging around in anybody's cellar for long."

Click here for more, including the price.

Want more wine suggestions? Here are 106 wine picks to choose from. In other words, if you can't find something you like here, then you're not really thirsty.

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--Rene Lynch
Twitter / renelynch

Photo: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

Many cooks reach for the salt when they should be reaching for an acid -- as in lemon, vinegar or red wine. So says this recent column by Times Food editor Russ Parsons. You can see how it all comes together in this recipe from the L.A. Times Test Kitchen for white bean and shrimp stew with dandelion greens.

And watch the video above as Parsons walks you through the recipe.

-- Rene Lynch
Twitter / renelynch

Sang Yoon, the don of Father's Office, is gearing up to open Lukshon next week in the Helms Bakery complex in Culver City. The same complex is home to the second Father's Office (the first being on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica) and Yoon's separate "test kitchen," equipped with toys such as his blast freezer and rotary evaporator and a pantry full of ingredients such as the Indonesian sauce kecap manis, Malay spices and Vietnamese herbs. 

Sichuan peppercorns, pandan leaves, candlenut, hoisin chile sauce, Punjab spices, curries, house-made X.O. sauce -- these are the stuff of a menu that spans southeast Asia and southern China with a mix of small and big plates and noodle, soup and rice dishes (priced at $6 to $36). There is lamb sausage roti canai with pickled cauliflower; kurobuta pork ribs with spicy chicory coffee BBQ sauce; short rib rendang with red chile lemongrass rempah; dandan noodles; and bamboo leaf kimchi sticky rice. One can assume the wine list features plenty of Rieslings.

The restaurant was designed by Ana Henton with MASS Architecture & Design, the highlights of which might be the open kitchen, teak paneled dining room, white enamel ceiling panels and a bar that features a wine cabinet and wine-on-tap system set into a concrete wall.  

The cocktails?  The quirkiest is the Shrimp Cocktail....

At the moment, Food editor Russ Parsons is shooting one of our "Eat Beat" video segments -- recipe demonstrations that air Wednesdays and Fridays toward the end of the 1:00 p.m. news on KTLA-TV Channel 5.

We shoot four segments every other Friday, highlighting current recipes in the Food section as well as favorite Culinary SOS requests.

Russ is shooting a demonstration for grilled romaine with walnuts, parmesan and anchovy dressing, as well as one of the focaccia recipes from his California Cook column this week. In a little while, I'll be shooting demonstrations for Tortona chocolate cookies (just in time for Valentine's Day) and next week's Culinary SOS for curried slaw (no link yet, but check back in a few days -- this is scheduled to run in the Food section next week).

The demonstrations should air within the next couple of weeks. But no worries if you can't catch the news, the demonstrations can be found online on our Food homepage.

Happy Friday!

-- Noelle Carter
Twitter/noellecarter

Photo: Russ Parsons shoots his demonstration. Credit: Noelle Carter

Most of the time when people have problems with a recipe, it's because of measuring. That's particularly true with baking. Here are some tips to help you measure more accurately.

-- Use liquid measuring cups for liquid ingredients, and dry measures for dry. Honestly, I can't stress how important this is; nothing will throw a recipe off more quickly than measuring out your flour in a liquid measuring cup (you'll end up with much more than is called for in the recipe). Measuring spoons can be used for both liquid and dry ingredients.

-- Place the measuring cup on a flat, level surface before measuring. This goes for both liquid and dry ingredients.

-- Level off your dry ingredients so they're flush with the top of the measuring spoon or cup. Do this gently with a flat level, such as a ruler or the back of a knife.

-- Gently spoon -- don't pack -- the flour into the measuring cup. Packing will throw off a recipe by adding more flour than is called for. And don't scoop the flour using the same spoon/cup with which you're planning to measure — this will pack the flour.

-- Pack the brown sugar into your measuring spoon or cup. Yes, this is the total opposite of the flour.

Finally, follow the recipe as it is written. Changing or substituting ingredients alters the recipe, and will almost always alter the results. Especially when it comes to the chemistry of baking.

If you have any kitchen tips or questions you'd like me to explore, leave a comment below or shoot me an e-mail at noelle.carter@latimes.com.

-- Noelle Carter
twitter / noellecarter

Photo: Noelle Carter / Los Angeles Times

All recipes that appear in the L.A. Times' weekly Food section are tested and perfected in our Test Kitchen before they're deemed fit to print. (That means you don't have to worry about a trial run before serving one of our recipes to company.) Rest assured, they should work the first time out of the gate.

If you try one of our recipes, please let us know about it and take a picture so we can use it on the Daily Dish blog. Upload your photos here. Here are this week's recipes:

--Baked French toast

--Classic French toast

--Focaccia from Genoa

--Gorgonzola focaccia

--Savory stuffed French toast with bacon, dandelion green and Gruyere

--Turkey chili, served at Coast restaurant at Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica

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--Rene Lynch
twitter / renelynch

Photo: Baked French toast. Credit: Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times

Frequent visitors to Vegas (and you know who you are) should check out a new book called "Eating Las Vegas," the result of a collaboration among three of the city's food writers. That would be the dueling critics from KNPR's biweekly radio show "State of Nevada: Food Talk With Max Jacobson and John Curtas," plus Al Mancini of the alternative weekly CityLife. Before moving to Vegas almost a dozen years ago, Jacobson was the Los Angeles Times' indefatigable restaurant critic on the Orange County and San Fernando Valley beats.

" 'Eating Las Vegas' is the result of three massive egos compromising on their 50 essential restaurants for the city of Las Vegas, not necessarily the 50 best, but the 50 that define Vegas the best," says Jacobson. Choosing the final 50 involved such tense meetings, "we added a veto section in the book so that we could each have the option to veto a restaurant if we didn’t want it to be in the book."

The idea is genius: all three of these very different critics' opinions in one place. Which restaurant are in the top 10? You'll have to buy the book to find out.

Which restaurants got a veto? I can tell you that Origin India, Mix and Cafe Martorano got the boot from one or another of the critics. 

Is there a TV show in the works on the lines of "Eberts Presents at the Movies"? So far, no. But do catch "Food Talk" if you can. (Check the schedule of KNPR online.)

The trio's take on the new restaurants in the Continental casino, including those from José Andrés and David Myers,  will have to wait for the next edition. But it is coming.

The book is available online at Amazon and in various Vegas casinos and airports around the country for $12.95.

-- S. Irene Virbila

Cover scan of "Eating Las Vegas" via the publisher

Just watch this video. Every kid, no matter where they're from, seems to have the same reaction when they try lemons for the very first time: They squint with one eye like they're imitating Popeye, and then they slam themselves back into their chair, and convulse.

The next time they have this reaction will be when they're teenagers sneaking into Dad's liquor cabinet and taking a swig off his favorite scotch.

Not that I am speaking from personal experience or anything.

-- Rene Lynch
Twitter / renelynch

A $1,000 dinner might sound extravagant –- actually, no way around it, it is extravagant -– but in this case, it might be something of a bargain, provided that you’re a very deep-pocketed wine lover who is really into great Bordeaux. Osteria Mozza and the folks at Learn About Wine are hosting a “Right Bank” dinner Feb. 16 for 18 guests, featuring great wines from the regions of Pomerol and St.-Émilion. While you can find some kind of a wine dinner somewhere almost every weekend in Southern California, this one looks really special. Consider: Cheval Blancs from the most heralded vintages of the second half of the 20th century -- 1945, 1961, 1982, 1983 and 1990. That’s probably $8,000 worth right there.
What’s to eat? With a lineup like that, it could be peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and they'd still sell out.
--Russ Parsons

Photo by Schuey via Flickr