Andrew Simmons

In Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused, Matthew McConaughey's character, David Wooderson, is an aging post-grad who still hangs with the high school kids. He likes girls, reefer and football, though not necessarily in that order. A Texan and a football flick veteran, the real McConaughey isn't a long snap from......

Last week, Good. Food. Stories. compiled a few highlights from the early '90s alt-teen mag Sassy's Eat This column. The highlights? Evan Dando's "Morning Noonan Knight" chocolate sauce for ice cream and Kim Gordon's recipe for tuna fish tacos "Culver City." The husky-voiced Sonic Youth bassist developed the latter when......

When we visited Greece at the age of 20, we ate well without spending much. There were nests of fried smelts piled around puddles of skordalia. There was blistered octopus served next to the foil-wrapped brick that once smashed it against the grill's grate. There were yellow loaves of dense-crumbed......

If you thumb through the latest installment of Saveur's annual 100 issue, you'll learn about Georgian dumplings, the best whisks, and extra-virgin fish sauce from the Vietnamese island of Phu Quoc. Squeezed in there at 51, you'll also find Jane and Michael Stern sniffling into their Jello salad cups over......

One of Europe's bigger restaurant chains, the Belgian-based Quick is known for its mildly outlandish, limited-run sandwiches. Highlights include a burger topped with foie gras, a heart-shaped bun with two cheese-logged patties, and a salsa-topped burger. However, the latest entries really blast off into the stratosphere -- to a galaxy......

This week, most Los Angeles-area kids return to school -- back to assigned seats, over-stuffed backpacks, and 30-minute lunch periods. Those whirlwind lunches are particularly hard on those who don't bring food from home. They stand in line for half the period, obtain a tray brimming with beiges and browns......

We like portraits of old faces with crow's feet peppering the corners of eyes and deep wrinkles burrowing through cheeks like ancient gorges. Such faces reflect the passage of time, exposure to elements, the environments they've weathered and passed through. For many of the same reasons, we also like Norway-based......

The Place: The Proud Bird, 11022 Aviation Blvd.; 310-670-3093. The Hours: Mon.Thurs. 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Sun. 9 a.m.-9 p.m. The Digs: With all the Mustangs and Spitfires scattered outside, from the exterior, the Proud Bird resembles a swollen bed-and-breakfast that has sprouted up in the middle......

In last Sunday's New York Times Magazine, Marnie Hanel's pat-sized graphic ranks a handful of holiday-themed cookbooks by the amount of butter their recipes require. Weighing in at 176 pages and 1.6 pounds, The Gourmet Cookie Book calls for an astonishing 82 sticks of butter -- just less than one......

There's a lot going on in the world as the year steams towards a close. In North Korea, Kim-Jong-Il is dead. In Pakistan, military leaders and government officials are wrestling for power. U.S. troops have finally left Iraq. There's also a butter shortage in Norway, the world's third-richest country, a......