Andrew Simmons

Once upon a time, Girl Scouts received badges for staying fit, enjoying nature, and peddling cookies. Now, for the first time in 25 years, they can also win a badge for achievement in a wide variety of increasingly relevant fields. In an October 12 All Things Considered report, Girl Scouts......

Wheaties may be the breakfast of champions, but plenty of athletes don't swear by dry flakes for their daily sustenance. Lakers forward Ron Artest used to drink Hennessey at half-time. His teamate Lamar Odom likes jelly beans and gummy bears. Former Yankees slugger Babe Ruth once inhaled 24 hot dogs......

Arugula, whole grains, and heirloom apples may be going the way of paved roads and clean water. Last week, the California Healthy Food Initiative dropped like a sack of sweet potatoes on Gov. Jerry Brown's desk. One sweeping John Hancock away from becoming law, this statewide bill claims that public......

There's nothing like toiling over a smoking stove to get you hankering for a cigarette. According to a brand-new CDC study that surveyed nearly 115,000 working adults between 2004 and 2010, food service workers -- along with miners and construction workers -- are more likely to smoke than most. Thirty......

The ideal fish taco is a time-sensitive collision of hissing-hot battered fish, a shell puffed up around mild, sweet flesh; a tortilla or two; crunchy cabbage; and cool, slightly sour crema. It is time-sensitive because, if the diner doesn't scoop it up quickly and put it away, the crema melts,......

California Pizza Kitchen used to be a place where tourists and exhausted mall shoppers would scarf pizza -- that pizza, of course, being the sort no tradition-minded Neapolitan could stomach. C.P.K., as it is usually abbreviated, bastardizes the form with highly questionable amalgams of cuisine-hopping toppings -- everything from jerk......

In our spare time, we teach -- nothing too crazy, just six periods a day, most days a week. Our students -- 9th graders -- are caught in that weird, fuzzy maelstrom of very early adulthood, a liminal period to be sure. They are full of bravado. They recount heavily......

A turkey burger isn't sounding so good right now. Even if no immediate evidence suggests salmonella-laced ground gobbler has, as of this weekend, infiltrated California's stores, the Minnesota-based company Cargill Inc. has issued its second recall in six weeks -- this time for 185,000 pounds of loose ground meat, patties,......

The Place: The Tripel, 333 Culver Blvd., Playa Del Rey The Hours: 5 p.m.-Midnight Mon.-Thu.; Noon-2 a.m. Fri-Sat.; Noon-Midnight Sun. The Digs: When a person is stylish and fit but somehow not entirely appealing, he or she is sometimes said to be "put together" instead of charming or attractive. Bars......