About LA Lunchbox
LA Lunchbox is a food site devoted to all things Angelenos care about.  In its initial phase, it focuses on the most important question: What to eat? Aimed at all eaters -- from the every day cook to the hard-core foodphiles -- LA Lunchbox presents a bright, easy to use interface providing easy to navigate kitchen-tested recipes, menu options and creations, articles for food that vary from the silly to the professional with restaurant reviews, wine pairing Q&A and menus and recipes to save your marriage.  Lastly, the LA Lunchbox has created a finely calibrated restaurant rating system, Lunchbox Ratings, that amalgamates existing reviews from top publications. We don’t want our users to just read about food, they should experience it in euphoric way.

Ann Le and Courtney Smith met in the violin section of their 7th grade orchestra. They become fast friends and their moms sewed them matching culottes to wear. Years later, they share a passion for food - from the vast array of incredible LA restaurants to farmer's market finds and home-cooked meals with friends. Ann wrote a Vietnamese cookbook (The Little Saigon Cookbook) and makes mean spring rolls. Courtney believes that a life full of fine wine and unpasteurized cheese is a life worth living. They live two miles apart from each other in Los Angeles.



Contributors

In a perfect world Claire Angsten would eat her meals in a different city everyday.  She grew up traveling and cooking, and would never be able to choose between the two.  As a child, many summer vacations were spent on family road trips and taking part in "local color" - franchises were never allowed.  This has since become her favorite rule.


Lyn Brandt is the nom de plume for a local college English instructor who enjoys anonymity and agoraphobia.




Amra Brooks currently writes for Artforum, Artinfo.com, and the LA Weekly. Her novella California is forthcoming from Suspect Thoughts Press in spring 2008. She teaches writing at UC San Diego and UC Santa Cruz and is at work on a new novel tentatively titled, The Scariest Movie Ever Made.



Cori Cooperider is a researcher who really loves to share interesting tidbits with friends and family, many who probably hope she will cut it out and stop filling their inboxes!  She counts amongst her favorite things chocolate, coffee, love, wine and vegetables of all kinds.  She does believe you are what you eat... so stay away from Ding Dongs.



Tony Cronin decided to live in New York City after trying out about ten other cities in ten years because the best eating seemed to happen there.  His friend Ann Le opened him up to new cuisines when she would drag him along to her "Dineversity" dinners that she organized once a month, and he has been trying new flavors ever since.  In addition to cooking, eating and drinking, Tony never passes up an opportunity to belt out some Al Green or Neil Diamond at his neighborhood karaoke bar. Tony would like to say that he's "half-Italian, all Stallion."


Yen Duong is a college student/traveler from Orange County.  She currently resides in Budapest, Hungary, and earlier this year called Paris, France her home for four months, as well as much of Vietnam for two months.  After many years of eating food, she feels ready to tackle cooking.  Her kitchen is a wall with a sink, a three-range electric stove with an untamable oven, and an immersion blender.  She recently acquired a spatula and is very excited over it.

As a travel writer, Kim Fay lived in Vietnam for four years. She has been published in numerous magazines, including Travel + Leisure, and is the managing editor for the To Asia With Love guidebook series. Her newest book, Communion: Meditations on Eating in Vietnam, will be published in the fall of 2007.


Julie Fay was raised in the Pacific Northwest and now resides in Los Angeles where she works in the film industry.  Among her favorite photo subjects (retro motel signs and Paris), Vietnam and its culture is her specialty.  Her photographs appear in the literary guidebook, To Asia With Love, and she recently completed a five-week photo assignment in Vietnam for Communion: Meditations on Eating in Vietnam.

Yes, Large Marge is mainly large in the head, but has recently devoted almost all of her time to preparing incredible, sustainable food. Visit and see more of Meg Dickler-Taylor's photos and catering company, Large Marge Sustainables, at her website. Click on "FAQ" to learn more about the future of great food.

Jim and Rebekah Fiedler run a pig farm in Bloomington, Indiana. They write the "Egg Report" from the Fiedler Family Farms.


  Yvette Garfield had the idea of creating the Handstand Kids (www.handstandkids.com) on a very long flight back from India. She wanted to bring back cookbooks for her little cousins, but was discouraged when unable to find any for children. Upon her return to the US, she began brainstorming on how to introduce children to international foods in a fun and hands-on way for kids to learn how to cook, while learning about the people, places, and language of a new country. Yvette is a recent law school graduate who has a strong interest in international children's rights. She has worked with various non-profit organizations and the Department of Justice, Children's Rights Section. Contact Yvette at: Yvette@handstandkids.com.


Eugene Goei was raised in a Chinese/Jewish household where the worlds of "eating anything that moved" and abiding by Kosher laws needed to co-exist. In the end, however, his step-dad abandoned the gefilte fish and brisket for lobster and braised pork belly. By day Eugene is a corporate automaton, by night he enjoys finding hole-in-the-wall places in the ethnic enclaves of Southern California and experimenting with new recipes from these different cultures.


Chef Jenny Goldberg, a Los Angeles native, is convinced that you do not have to sacrifice the foods you love because you choose to eat healthy.  She forgoes animal ingredients to create environmentally-conscious dishes that are more healthful, flavorful and fun than their non-vegan counterparts. As a private chef, cooking instructor, and caterer with a budding meal delivery service, Jenny strives to show people that vegan cuisine is delicious, creative and most of all it makes you feel good. Jenny trained at the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts in New York City.  She also holds a BA in Environmental Studies from UC Santa Cruz. Please contact Jenny at www.chefjennygoldberg.com.

When Jennifer Harris finished graduate school in the Humanities,  debt and unstable teaching appointments led her to the restaurant   industry. Though financial sustenance was her initial motivation, a  newfound love of food prolonged what became a multi-year commitment to cuisine. Today she is nourished with full-time work at UCSD, but finds enjoyment after hours discovering new eats in San Diego and beyond, writing essays, and learning to cook.

Hannah Heller enjoys eating (and writing about it) all over the world -- and particularly loves meals shared in friends' kitchens.  In addition to crafting culinary expositions and travel narratives she is at work on  a novel, tentatively titled, Maggie and Luke.



Jorge E. Herrera, a Colombian by birth and a Texan by choice, is a fan of his adopted state. Its culture and pioneer mentality are themes he will love to discuss with anyone who would listen to him. In his travels around the globe promoting Dallas and Texas, he also learned about many cultures, and developed a taste for many new cuisines. He claims to be a frustrated chef and artist. For him, preparing food is another artistic expression.

Mandy Kahn lives and works in Hollywood.

Paul Redmond: Currently eating and taking photographs in Los Angeles. Asks a lot of questions. Check out Paul Redmond Photography.




Bry Thomas Sanders, contributing photographer, is a nine year resident of Los  Feliz. When not hiking the trails of Griffith Park and exploring eastside eateries, B ry works as a director and director of photography on films, television and web based shows, or as he styles them "intertainment."Most recently he has directed an online cooking show for Reveille and MSN.com and is directing the critically acclaimed podcast, Goodnight Burbank.


Tannaz Sassooni loves to eat, and loves writing about it.  She is a freelance food writer, and is currently working on an Iranian Jewish cookbook.  She prattles on about her food experiences in Los Angeles on her blog, all kinds of yum.  She really likes sandwiches. (where 'all kinds of yum' is a link to http://tannazie.blogspot.com)


Brynn Taylor  Smedra and her husband, Mark are San Diego expats who have been living the foodie life in Aix en Provence, France since 2004. In between medical studies, Brynn and Mark travel all over Europe in search of bad-ass food.



David Thorne has been cooking seriously and deliciously for many years, with occasional restaurant stints (most recently at Canele). He has worked on organic produce farms, non-organic dairy farms and has studied at the French Culinary Institute in New York. To find out more about David and how he can cook in your home, contact him at Chop Shop.


Vân An Tranchi developed a taste for great cuisine in the kitchens of her mo ther and the Nguyen-Quang clan, gained an appreciation for the merriment of wine through her father and obtained her cooking skills and technique from watch ing PBS. She met Ann at business school where they taught their classmates how to correctly pronounce "Phở" and ran into a network of foodies.  Vân An currently works at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.


Phil van Hest was forced into cooking by his latent vegetarianism, and has resented the act of heating food ever since. Bacon you can just heat and serve. Tofu has to have all this extra stuff added to it just to make it even  vaguely palatable. He spent his formative years in Indonesia and Rhode Island, where their two respective concepts of cuisine managed to cancel each other out entirely, leaving Phil with only a wicked recipe for microwave popcorn and of course, toast. To combat these deficiencies Phil tours with his one man show, Phil the Void.



Cameron Walker is a freelance writer based in Santa Barbara.  She loves food, including grilled corn in Bhutan.  She does not like shrimp.  Find her at www.cameronwalker.net.




Johanna Wilkie has the pleasure of living with LA Lunchbox co-founder Ann Le and of sampling her many culinary creations. She has been vegetarian/pescatarian for over ten years. She first learned about the principles of good food while living in Rome, Italy in 2000 and 2001. Johanna now works at the Alisa Ann Ruch Burn Foundation, a non-profit organization, where she manages programs on burn prevention education.

Holly Wilmeth was born and raised in Guatemala. As the daughter of a farmer, she spent half her time in the city and the other half in the dense jungles and agricultural landscapes of Guatemala.  A freelance photographer based in Upstate New York and Guatemala, Holly has traveled to over 45 countries as a cultural observer and avid hiker. Her work has been published in National Geographic Adventure, Houston Chronicle, Contexts Magazine, CARE, PBX, Christian Science Monitor, Flak Magazine, Blueeyes Magazine, FOTO Poland and Time Magazine. Visit Holly at www.hollywilmeth.com.

Despite being a member of a Southern California restaurant family, it took Ryan Wilson close to 20 years to eat much, other than burgers, fries, pasta,  and Prime Rib. But all that has changed in the last 8 years since initiating a career in kitchens. Ryan has spent most of his time honing his cooking and eating skills in Napa and San Francisco but recently moved to the LA area to pursue some exciting opportunities and challenges with his family’s company. In fact, he just returned from a deliciously hilarious adventure of cooking, slicing, and slurping in Japan.  He is looking forward to exploring more of what Los Angeles has to offer. Ramen anyone??