As you should know by now, the 405 will be shut down for 2 days, between July 16th and 17th. Since this is L.A. and we neither take public transportation nor walk (bikes? what are they?) anywhere, this is big, big news. Somebody has dubbed this happy event “carmageddon,” which tells you a lot. Here's a cute countdown clock for your own website or food blog (upload the code here). It's the same clock used on metro.net and the I-405 homepage, which counts down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds to the I-405 closure, scheduled for July 16, 12:01 AM, Pacific Standard Time. Synchronize your thousand gadgets now.

We're thinking you may want to stay home that weekend. Better yet, how about calibrating those 2 days to not a few pages of your favorite cookbook: Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Italian Cooking, say, or Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of Southwest France. Make a real Bolognese sauce. Confit your own ducks legs. Make a cassoulet. Because what is a countdown clock but a handy kitchen timer anyway.

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