Creamee's Recipes

La Jolla potatoes are no longer on the menu at Chez Jay, looks like, but patrons used to chow down on this dish cooked up by owner Jay Fiondella and his quondam roommate, Leonard Nimoy. The L.A. Times: “Star Trek’s” Leonard Nimoy, with whom Fiondella roomed in the 1950s, helped him create what became a signature dish: La Jolla potatoes, a melange of mashed potatoes, bananas and cheese. What did Nimoy contribute to the recipe? The bananas? The cheese? The garlic? The mashing? The browning? The “textural contrast”? I put it to you that, as Americans, we have not only the freedom, but the duty to investigate these questions. For as Leonard himself reminds us in a penetrating study of the Bermuda Triangle: “To say, in essence, that science need not investigate is to destroy the rationale for any scientific quest.” Chez Jay in Santa Monica (via TripAdvisor) This recipe for La Jolla potatoes from L.A.‘s Legendary Restaurants serves six: 8 x 8-inch baking pan, buttered 2 lbs. russet potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks 2 larges cloves of garlic, minced 2 tbsp. unsalted butter 1½ cups half-and-half 2 tsp. salt ½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper 2 large, ripe...