Andrew Simmons

A dive bar on a bad night can feel like a zoo. Mobs of sweaty and not infrequently hairy folk barrel through spaces designed for fewer bodies. They feed at over-populated troughs: the bar itself, studded with glasses and bottles. They bark at each other, nuzzle, and preen. If your......

We've long claimed beers to be part of a balanced diet -- like slices of whole wheat crammed into cans. In late July however, Russia sobered us up with a devastating reclassification of our beloved brew: Beer, by the new standard, is amazingly no longer considered "food," but "alcohol." With......

Thanks to Michael Pollan, the mainstreaming of farm-to-table activism, and co-ops, many college students graduate with the hope of working with food -- in the ever-expanding field if not a field itself. While ten years ago, they'd have been at the mercy of Craigslist and their meager connections, as food......

The Place: El Prado, 1805 W. Sunset Boulevard, Echo Park; 213-483-8609. The Hours: Mon.-Fri. 6 p.m.-2 a.m.; Sat.-Sun. 2:30 p.m.-2 a.m. The Digs: Classy yet understated, the interior of El Prado, at least what you can see of it through the shadows, is dominated by the long wooden bar and......

As anyone who has been to a Cochon 555 event knows, Brady Lowe and crew do food parties with the scale and pacing of a Bruckheimer flick. The rooms are huge, the lights bright. Mobs scrap over pork belly sops and drain cocktails amid the chaos. The line between decadence......

Finally, a coffee maker likely to keep a tank of sharks and cackle wickedly from the deck of a yacht outfitted with laser beams. A year and a half ago, Bloomberg shone its bright light on Phil Broughton, a Berkeley radiation specialist who had ingeniously invented a beer stein capable......

Are you a chef or a farmer? Can you fly to Copenhagen in late August? If so, and you act quickly, you can join René Redzepi's club. On the 27th and 28th of that month, the celebrated Noma chef will host vegetation: planting thoughts, an exclusive symposium dedicated to exploring......

Last week, First Lady Michelle Obama and James Gavin III practically shed tears of joy over Wal-Mart's professed commitment to selling good food cheaper and expanding into barren Whole Foods-deprived "food deserts." Gavin said, perhaps jokingly, that he hoped to see Wal-Mart double its U.S. store count. The next corporate......

Hush puppies aren't the reason you bought the fried fish platter, but they're maybe what you enjoy most. Once you irrigate your breaded whiting pieces with liberal splashes of hot sauce and tuck them between a few porous slices of tartar-laden bread, these humble balls of fryer-blasted cornmeal dough remain,......

On Monday, Michael Jackson subbed for Patt Morrison on KPCC and tried to tie some ridiculous bowstrings around the Carmaggedon that wasn't. He started out asking callers for reactions to the 405's strife-free closing -- the absence of the usual "car-strangled spanners," which really ought to be the municipal anthem......