Angela Matano

A common treatment for poisonings and overdoses, raw activated charcoal — aka coal or carbon — has moved into the spotlight at unlikely places. In L.A., charcoal is showing up at juice bars, and recently as a cocktail ingredient at the newly opened Tacoteca in Santa Monica. The Punchbowl, a......

Americans' astonishing infatuation with all things Downton Abbey (season 5 premiered January 5th) continues. Genteel and aspirational, the British show’s popularity reveals an underlying yearning for manners and the desire to unplug from the modern world, filled with ceaseless device-ification. One of England and Downton's great cultural gifts to the......

To celebrate Elvis Presley’s birthday on January 8, Salt & Straw ice cream on Larchmont is scooping a special flavor for the entire month. Known for their unusual flavor combinations, like tomato-and-olive-oil sherbet, the Portland-based company embraces the King’s favorite flavor combination of banana/bacon/peanut butter – really quite visionary if......

In The Porridge Manifesto, Rachel W. Cole proclaims porridge the “perfect pre-dawn bite.” Nutritious, easy to prepare, warm and delicious, hot cereal (aka porridge) hits all the marks. A traditional dish with a number of iterations from around the world, porridge is like the United Nations of foods, with the......

“They do have pie, they all do have pie, they do not all eat pie, there are a great many who never eat pie, but anywhere and everywhere if you want pie you can have pie.” These are words that Gertrude Stein remarked after returning to America after years living......

Homey goodness can go a long way and Status Kuo is hoping to serve that up in spades. Opened on December 5 on Grand View where it meets an increasingly trendy strip of Venice Boulevard in Mar Vista (down the street from the Curious Palate, up the street from Mitsuwa),......

If you are lucky enough to have foodies — or even aspiring foodies — in your family or stable of friends, fear not the treachery of gift shopping: behold five great food (and drink!) books to place under your tree, menorah or kinara. From local haunts, like Auntie Em’s Kitchen......

Returning home for Thanksgiving is not feasible or even desirable for everyone. Luckily, for abstainers, there are a myriad of restaurants to eat in or take-out a traditional holiday feast. For those hoping to get their turkey fix down the gullet without the massive meal intake, however, consider the far......

Janis Joplin’s “Get It While You Can” would be a good anthem for persimmon season, which is happening right now. The urgency of eating and appreciating this oft-overlooked fruit is underlined by its relatively short season, which begins in October and ends in February. One of the most popular varieties......

A celebration of seasonal cooking, The Fat Radish Kitchen Diaries, by Ben Towill, Phil Winser and Nic Wilber with Julia Turshen is a luscious new cookbook aiming to make you walk the walk of farmers market eating. Just published in October by Rizzoli, the chunky tome divides itself into four......