Parks and Historic Sites

Top 4 Weekend Food Events: Abigaile's Kitchen Takeover, Chichen Itza Tamale Class, Gingerbread Skid Row Young Folks Family Supper

The Kitchen Takeover at Abigaile Manhattan's Abigaile will open its kitchen to chefs from around the city for each to create courses that celebrate their personal style. Guests include Bernhard Mairinger of BierBeisl, Lara Mandracchia of Cake Bakeshop, Meg Hall of Made by Meg Catering and John-Carlo ... More >>

Measure MM and Measure HH: Absentee Ballots and Early Returns Show Voters Strongly Supporting Parcel Tax Initiatives

Update: At 12:32 a.m., Measure HH is looking strong with support from 71 percent of voters. Measure MM, however, is not as solid with 65 percent. The initiatives need at least 66.67 percent to win. In early returns and absentee balloting, Measure MM and Measure HH have strong approval from voters. ... More >>

Obamalogues

Top 5 Weekend Food Events: Hanal Pixan Cooking Class, 626 Night Market, Long Beach Food Swap, L.A. Magazine Food Event Hollywood Oktoberfest

Chichén Itza's Hanal Pixan Cooking Class and Dinner Chef Gilberto Cetina of Chichén Itza, author of the new cookbook Sabores Yucatecos, hosts a cooking class called Hanal Pixan, which shows how to prepare traditional Mayan foods for Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). A four-course sit-down din ... More >>

Yucatán's Longaniza: Where to Get It in Los Angeles

You may never have heard of it, but one of the world's great sausages is right here, under your very nose. It's the famous longaniza of the city of Valladolid in Yucatán. The L.A. version doesn't just pretend to be authentic. It's the real thing, vibrant with Yucatecan seasonings such as seasone ... More >>

Marvin Hamlisch's Last Performance at the Pasadena Pops

Marvin Hamlisch, the film and stage composer best known for his work on Chorus Line, passed away on August 6 after a brief struggle with illness at the age of 68. During his career, Hamlisch won nearly every award possible, including the Pulitzer Prize for drama, a Tony Award, three Academy Awards, ... More >>

Top 6 Weekend Food Events: Beer Dinner, Free Sandwiches at Langer's, Spanish Cooking Demo, Habanero Eating Contest, Cocktail Fundraiser Grilling Class

Golden Road Beer Dinner at Tin Roof Bistro Try a different Golden Road beer (including limited release brews Get Up Offa That Brown, Either Side of the Hill, and Hudson Rye Porter) with each of five courses prepared by chef Anne Conness. Golden Road co-founder Meg Gill, who we recently profiled in t ... More >>

Are You Crazy Enough for Chichen Itza's Habanero-Eating Contest?

We're not sure if this would be considered a treat or torture for Dad, but on June 17 Chichen Itza Restaurant is hosting their second annual habanero-eating contest as part of Mercado La Paloma's Father's Day celebration. Chichen Itza specializes in cuisine from the Yucatán Peninsula (we're big fan ... More >>

Malibu Lagoon Bulldozing Halted -- Not for Protesters, But for Councilman's Surf Contest

A few dozen protesters reportedly showed up to the Malibu Lagoon this morning, hoping to dramatically block the bulldozers that were scheduled to begin a controversial "restoration" project after years of legal battle. But the scene turned out to be pretty anticlimactic. In a strategically casual ... More >>

Michelle Obama's White House Kitchen Garden Book Out Today

Michelle Obama's first book, American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America, hits the bookstores today. Just in time for summertime gardening, for your kids' summer vacation projects (Cook your own dinner! Build your own compost bin!), and even for a season of ... More >>

Amtrak's Ancestors: The Huntington's Exhibit on the History of the Transcontinental Railroad

Long before studios, hippies, method actors and reality-show wannabes headed out west, the Pacific Coast was a destination for farmers, miners, prospectors and other wagon-wheeling homesteaders who were looking for a new way of life. Two years after California struck gold in 1848, it became a part o ... More >>

The Fan Who Would Be King

L.A. City Hall Lawn Refurbishing Options Priced Between $350,000 and $1 Million (Really)

Turns out the Occupy L.A. cost estimate released by the City Administrative Officer last month -- $1.7 million -- didn't include the price of fixing the lawn outside City Hall. Nope. That was just the bill from LAPD headquarters for the overtime it had to pay 1,000-plus riot cops to raid the peace ... More >>

Chichén Itzá's New Cookbook a Recipe for Sopa de Lima

​If you're a fan of the Yucatecan food at Chichén Itzá in the Mercado La Paloma, you can now make your favorite dishes yourself. No kidding. All the recipes from the restaurant, and many more, are in a just-published cookbook by Chichén Itzá's founder, Gilberto Cetina (read the Weekly's Q ... More >>

Marijuana Farm Worth $4 Million Busted in Angeles National Forest North of Santa Clarita

All your bud are belong to the L.A. Sheriff's Department.​All that legal pot-shop weed being grown "collectively" in grandmothers' gardens everywhere, and somebody still finds that it's profitable to start a marijuana plantation in the middle of a national forest? Hmm. Authorities north of S ... More >>

Anthony Lepore and Mark Hagen: Do You Have a Fondness for Drab National Park Visitor Centers? We Have the Exhibit for You

Courtesy of Francois Ghebaly Gallery Lepore's exhibit is intended to mimic one of those crusty old national park visitors centers you got dragged to on family vacations​ Today Andrew Berardini returns to our print edition with a story that ties together two seemingly different shows -- Anthony ... More >>

U.S. Forest Service Warns Hikers About Marijuana Grows, Wants You to Narc Out Narco-Traffickers in The Woods

An herbal forest.​Snakes, rough terrain and dangerous temperatures aren't the only things you have to look out for in your local federal forest this summer. For at least the second year in a row the U.S. Forest Service has issued a warning to summer hikers: Beware of "marijuana grow sites" ... More >>

Terrence Malick at LACMA

Filmmaker gets retrospective in advance of upcoming Tree of Life

A Recipe From the Chef: Gilberto Cetina's Tikin-Xic

A. ScattergoodTikin-Xic at Chichen Itza​ If you read our interview with Chichen Itza chef-owner Gilberto Cetina, you will have been reminded that the chef, besides running one of L.A.'s favorite restaurants and writing a soon-to-be-published cookbook on Yucatecan cuisine, makes a mean bottle o ... More >>

Ansel Adams: $45 Garage Sale Buy Of Photographic Negatives Said To Be Worth $200 Million

Ansel AdamsEvening, McDonald Lake, Glacier National Park (1942).​A press conference scheduled Tuesday in Beverly Hills was expected to reveal that $45 worth of glass negatives found at a Fresno garage sale are indeed long-lost Ansel Adams negatives believed to be worth as much as $200 million. ... More >>

$35 Million Worth Of Pot Uprooted At Angeles National Forest

Dey via Flickr​According to the Pasadena Star News, about $35 million worth of marijuana plants were uprooted over the weekend at dozens of sites in the Angeles National Forest north of Azusa. Los Angeles sheriff's Capt. Ralph Ornelas told the newspaper that the pot was being grown in remote ... More >>

'Trigun: Badlands Rumble' to Screen Saturday at Anime Expo

Check out photos from Anime Expo in Shannon Cottrell's slideshows "Anime Expo 2010: Thursday, Day One" and "Anime Expo 2010: Friday, Day Two." Trigun: Badlands Rumble will make its English subtitled premiere Saturday at Anime Expo, Funimation representatives announced Friday at the convention. The ... More >>

Like Day and Night: Lechon at Chichen Itza and Havana Mania

D. GonzalezChichen Itza Restaurant's Sunday lechon stand​ There are no alarm clocks in our home in Merida. There is no need as it is located in one of the most enviable spots in the neighborhood, around the corner from the baker. The air wakes me up in Merida. We get a special treat on Sunday, ... More >>

Squid Ink Food Fight: The Pork of the Yucatan, Cochinita Pibil

If God exists, then His greatest gift to mankind may very well have been that delightful creature the pig (unless you're a member of one of the many religions that don't allow it, in which case it is God's ultimate cruel joke). It is a large, round being, packed to the brim with uncommonly flavorful ... More >>

Angeles National Forest Wildfire Rages

Google Maps/InciWebSite of Morris Fire​Many Los Angeles residents awoke this morning to blue skies whose horizons were muddied  by smoke from the Angeles National Forest wildfire 22 miles to the east. The air also bore a campfire scent. The latest wildfire broke out near Morris Dam in San Gab ... More >>

Detroit's Peaches & Greens Truck: A Food Truck That Sells Produce Instead of Tacos

Now that we have taco trucks, BBQ trucks, sushi trucks and cupcake trucks (and now perhaps signs of a backlash)--why not food trucks with something really useful, like fresh fruit and vegetables? In a neighborhood of Detroit where there are 26 liquor stores to one grocery store, a food truck is sell ... More >>

Where the Sidewalk Starts: Matthew Fleischer's New L.A. Blog

After his stints writing for the L.A. Weekly and editing at L.A. CityBeat, MatthewMatthew Fleischer​ Fleischer has gone Baudelaire on us. Specifically, he's become a flaneur, an absinthie, Parisian bohemian term applied to one who wanders the street in search of illumination. As in, to quote Fleis ... More >>

They're Heeerrre! Wildfires Strike Angeles National Forest

[Tuesday Update: City News Service reports this morning that the Osito Fire, near Pyramid Lake, is 65 percent contained and only burned 280 acres of brush, less than originally feared.]Four days after the National Forest Service raised its fire-danger alert status to Very High, a wildfire has broken ... More >>

Corpse Flower Update: Bloom "Any Day Now"

Huntington Botanical Gardens Stinky at Noon Today"Stinky," a malodorous Amorphophallus titanum, also known as the Corpse Flower, reached a height of six feet, one-quarter inch at noon today. This was a four-and-a-half-inch growth over the last 24 hours and means the Sumatra-native will be blooming v ... More >>

Fleur de Mal: Corpse Flower About to Pop

Huntington Library & Botanical GardensA smell is about to hang over the Huntington Library's Botanical Gardens, but it's not going to be one like victory. Rather, it's none other than Amorphophallus titanum -- better known as the "corpse flower." This particular specimen is known as Son of Stink ... More >>

Heal the Bay's "Top Ten Beach Bummers"

Heal the Bay's 19th annual report card on 10 terrible shorelines is out -- and so, apparently, are the waters around Catalina Harbor, Cabrillo Beach and the Santa Monica Pier. All but two of the guilty beaches are located in Southern California, with Pismo Beach Pier and Campbell Cove State Park tak ... More >>

Morning Sixpack: A News Roundup

Is Home Shuling Next? L.A.'s Jewish day schools are facing big problems as the economy continues to teeter. L.A. TimesPrick Up Your Ears City officials are accusing mercenary dog rescuers of "cherry picking" their pound purchases based on later, lucrative resale value. L.A. Daily News Arboretum ... More >>

Sarah Palin's Office Decor & Her Bearskin Rug

This photo ran with a recent New York Times article on Palin and her "outsider charm." The image begs some questions about her interior decorating style. Are grizzly bears endangered? No. At least, not anymore. The National Wildlife Federation declared the grizzly population in the areas surround ... More >>

Long Beach Calling

Parks and Wreck: L.A.'s Fight for Public Green Space

In search of the Emerald City

Manson Clan Body Dig Underway

A rural cop convinces Inyo County to probe a remote ranch. Global media descend

Sunset Serenade

Summer Festival at the Huntington

The Phantom Jasmine

Best nighttime scents

Bushel of Complaints

Farmers at South Central Community Garden unload on their activist organizers

Semi-Naked Defiance

Snakebites

Letters

The Great White Shark...Casserole

Elsa Lopez, Winged Victory

Ecology of Fire

Why the empire wanted to burn so badly

The Burning Men

Forest fires rage in the West while politicians try to turn prevention into pork

Trouble in Paradise

A regional environmental official’s departure raises questions

Downtown

From the Narrows to South L.A.

What's My Canine?

Hot Wheels

Summer motorcycling in and around L.A.