Public Broadcasting Service

The Best TV Writer Panel Ever?

When the invitation went out from the Writers Guild of America, It seemed too good to be true. Norman Lear, Carl Reiner, James L. Books, Steven Bochco, and more, all on the same panel? And yet last night at the WGA Theater in Beverly Hills, to celebrate the organization's 101 Best Written TV Series ... More >>

Master Chef Season 4 Premieres Watch the Trailer for Mind of a Chef Season 2

In food-on-television news, Masterchef Season 4 gets fired up tonight on Fox with a two-hour premiere -- and apparently there's breast milk involved. Judge Joe Bastianich is quoted as saying that one contestant used her own boob juice in a dish during auditions. Swell. Turn the page for the promo sp ... More >>

Jacques Pépin Gives a Cooking Demo: A Comedy Routine, With Knives

Recently Jacques Pépin, the acclaimed French chef, veteran of PBS cooking shows, friend of Julia, author of many brilliant cookbooks, dean of special programs at the French Culinary Institute in New York City and general culinary living legend, took the stage at Cal State Northridge's Valley Perfor ... More >>

Mel Brooks: Make a Noise Makes 'em Laugh at Paley Center Premiere

Mel Brooks doesn't think he's an American master. That's someone like Mark Twain or Ernest Hemingway, says the creator of the funniest farting scene in the history of film. But Susan Lacy, executive producer of PBS' American Masters series, thought differently, and convinced Brooks to dispense wi ... More >>

5 Dance Events to See in L.A. This Week Including Christmas Eve at the Music Center

See also: *5 Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week *5 Best Comedy Shows to See in L.A. This Week *Our Latest Theater Reviews *Our Calendar Section, Listing More Great Things to Do in L.A. This week's dance highlights include a quintet of L.A. dance companies coming to the Music Center on Christm ... More >>

Madeleine Brand Joins Staff of 'SoCal Connected,' KCET Show Now Airing Nightly

Rabid fans of former KPCC radio host Madeleine Brand, who abruptly left the station last month shortly after a co-host was brought on to her show, can take a break from drafting angry letters to station management and watch Brand's debut on KCET's 'SoCal Connected' tonight. Brand will be joining l ... More >>

Got a Reality Show Idea or Documentary in the Works? Here's a Festival Where You Can Pitch It

Anyone who's ever played certain junior high party games knows a lot can happen in seven minutes. It can be heaven, maybe, if it goes well. And if you happen to be a participant in the annual WESTDOC Pitchfest, and your seven minutes goes really well, you may walk out with a prize package worth $25 ... More >>

The Unofficial Downton Abbey Cookbook An (Unofficial) Recipe For Mushy Peas

Season three of PBS' Downton Abbey doesn't kick off until January. While we're waiting for our fill of Mrs. Patmore's kitchen quips (come to think of it, Maggie Smith's character really does look a spot like Gordon Ramsay), cookbook author Emily Ansara Baines has come to our mushy pea rescue. Or not ... More >>

Julia Child's 100th Birthday PBS' Auto-Tune Remix

Television legend and Pasadena native Julia Child, who inspired millions of aspiring chefs with her long-running cooking show, would have celebrated her 100th birthday tomorrow. With an almost half-century of footage in the old public television vaults, it's no surprise that PBS decided to create a ... More >>

The International Pinot Noir Celebration: 300 Wines, 75 Producers, 700 Participants A Movie

While most of the city's denizens of drink were in NOLA celebrating Cocktail Tales and learning indelible lessons on what to drink when, and where, and in what century, I was in Oregon's Willamette Valley at the International Pinot Noir Celebration, an annual event now 26 years strong which does as ... More >>

Fred Willard Caught at Filthiest Adult Spot in L.A. Committing Lewd Act -- LAPD

Ryan Cleary Indicted in L.A. For Alleged LulzSec Hacking of X-Factor, Sony, PBS

The FBI today announced it has indicted one Ryan Cleary, an alleged hacker it says was part of the Anonymous spin-off called LulzSec. He's a 20-year-old Brit living in England, so why is the long arm of the U.S. law reaching out to him from Los Angeles? Authorities say he hacked into our Hollywood ... More >>

Governor Brown Agrees Shaken-Baby Syndrome Is Bogus, Takes Mercy on L.A. Grandma

When Shirley Ree Smith was convicted of killing her grandson in a Van Nuys apartment in 1997, "shaken-baby syndrome" was all the rage. If a baby showed signs of bleeding in the brain, the "shaken" diagnosis was a go-to -- and the last person to have been in the same room with the baby was the prime ... More >>

2012 James Beard Foundation Award Nominees Announced: The Mozza Edition

Yesterday the James Beard Foundation announced its 2012 nominations for book awards, journalism, design and graphics, broadcast and media, and restaurant and chefs. It is a very long list. There were also awards given for lifetime achievement (Wolfgang Puck!) and humanitarian of the year (Charlie Tr ... More >>

Sundance Film Festival 2012: The Biggest Disappointment Thus Far, and A Mid-Festival Notebook Drop

​ With Monday marking the midway point of my stay in Park City, here's a notebook dump on a few films I haven't had a chance to write about at length.

PBS FOOD: PBS Launches Food Website

PBSJulia Child and Jacques Pépin​Another day, another food website. This latest site, however, was not launched by a grandmother who likes to bake chocolate croissants in her Reseda kitchen, a university food policy center or even a vegan start-up, but PBS. Who, of course, had us at Jacques P ... More >>

Ken Burns' Prohibition: Bootleggers, Organized Crime The Glamorization of Getting Blitzed

We all know that Prohibition was a brief, controversial, Jazz Age constitutional amendment that made drinking a big, jail-worthy offense, and turned on a spigot of organized crime instead. But did you know about the saga of how criminalizing the sale, manufacture and transporting of all things firew ... More >>

Ashley James' Cuisine Culture: From Four Seasons Beverly Hills to PBS

Kathy A. McDonaldTelegenic chef Ashley James with hotel garden-grown tomatoes​You've heard of the casting couch, how about the casting kitchen? Fresh from behind the stove, L.A. chefs, with their proximity to TV producers, seem to have a lock on new TV food shows this year. Ludo and Krissy Lef ... More >>

Bill Moyers Says Sorry to Whittier College Grads For Leaving Them a Crap World

Whittier CollegeBill Moyers in SoCal.​Longtime TV journalist Bill Moyers, now of PBS, addressed the kids at Whittier College over the weekend. And while other commencement speakers have scolded the class of 2011 for being spoiled or lacking that ever-necessary sub-gluteal fire, Moyers just sai ... More >>

An American Family

KCET, L.A. Public TV Stalwart With Plunging Viewership, Selling Off Its Famed Hollywood Lot

KCET​Update: The Hollywood Reporter says KCET has closed the deal to sell and is looking for new studios. LA Observed has posted press releases from KCET and Scientology. A well-placed source has told LA Weekly that KCET has been in talks to sell its famed studios in Hollywood in the wake of ... More >>

Q & A With Lidia Bastianich, Part 2: The Italian Chef on Facebook, Twitter Sunday Suppers

www.responsibilityproject.comBastianich And Her Mother At A Sunday Night Family Supper​When we first caught up with Lidia Bastianich, the doyenne of Italian cooking was telling us about her upcoming cookbook on the history of Italian American cuisine and the 3,000 loaves of bread that Eataly, ... More >>

Music Picks: Breakestra, Slang Chickens, the Muffs, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson

Also Meth Leppard, Tennis With Lord Huron, Kid Infinity and others

1930s Spanish Revival Home in Silver Lake: Not Too Hip for 'This Old House' (VIDEO)

This Old HouseQuaint no more​We missed the first-ever Los Angeles episode of "This Old House" on PBS last night (we blame it on dirty liar and former Los Angeles School Police Officer Jeffrey Stenroos, what with his shameful breaking news), but judging by the preview, looks like it was cute as ... More >>

Q & A With Ming Tsai: His New Book, PBS The NASCAR of Food Television

A. ScattergoodMing Tsai poolside at The Standard in Hollywood​ If you spend any time watching cooking shows on PBS, you'll know who Ming Tsai is. Or if you've read any of his cookbooks -- the fourth, Simply Ming: One-Pot Meals, has just come out -- or watched old Food Network television. Or s ... More >>

Short Attention Span Dinner Theater: Your Week in Food, 11/8-11/12

In which we highlight the past week in food, either at home or abroad. "But if it's really not too much trouble, could we all declare a moratorium on implicit comparisons between spherical foods and the male anatomy? Thanks. It would mean a lot." A Food-Writing Misstep of Which I've Been Guilty ... More >>

The Ireland That Never Was

Michael Riboli: Where The Nose Is

Kevin ScanlonMichael Riboli​ Imagine: You need a jug of your favorite red, so you get in line behind the neighborhood locals at a lone railroad boxcar just south of the L.A. Basin, right next to Union Pacific. Your jug is filled by a proprietor who knows your name, and you fork over a few penn ... More >>

Michael Riboli: Where the Nose Is

Alice's TV Show? Alice Waters Considers Television

The Next Food Network Star: Alice Waters? Probably not. But according to the AP, the Chez Panisse founder and champion of edible gardening is considering the Kindness of Televisions. Waters says that she's in the early stages of talks about doing her own television program, ideally on PBS. "Some of ... More >>

Mega-Telethon Broadcasting From L.A., Elsewhere

CNNAnderson Cooper.​A Friday telethon to raise money for the victims of last week's earthquake in Haiti will be broadcast from Los Angeles, New York, London and Haiti, organizers announced Thursday. It will be everywhere: ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, BET, The CW, HBO, MTV, VH1, CMT, PBS, TNT, Show ... More >>

SMOTHERS AND OTHER STRANGERS

All-Star Gamers

Jazz in L.A., February 27-March 5

Mural Talk

The State of Comedy? Idaho. Alaska.

Face Off: The PBS Documentary Helvetica

Loving and hating the font that conquered

The Worst Hoopla Ever!

What to do in L.A., January 2-8

PBS's Carrier, Life and War Aboard the USS Nimitz

Flocking Together for Swan Lake

American Ballet Theatre reprises a Russian classic

Your Own Private Cable Channel

Essential DVDs for a personalized TV Land

The World According to Sesame Street

Lion's Den

Facing down pediatric cancer in a Cincinnati hospital

The New Blacklist

Corporate America is bowing to anti-gay Christian groups’ boycott demands

Post Cards of Intolerance

Bowing to the Christian-inspired attacks on gays

Vinyl Fetish

The often weird, sometimes sad and occasionally wonderful world of song-poems

Back to Barbary Lane

Frontal nudity and happy endings

Blind Buff Man

PBS’s Chief Inspector Ross Tanner

American Families

La Boda and Resurrection Boulevard

Real Country

The farmer's life on Frontline; plus Olivier, retrospectively, at MTR