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Former President Obama, speaking on stand-up comedian Marc Maron’s final podcast on Monday, said the Trump administration’s policies are a “test” of whether universities, businesses, law firms and voters — including Republicans — will take a stand for the nation’s founding principles and values.

“If you decide not to vote, that’s a consequence. If you are a Hispanic man and you’re frustrated about inflation, and so you decided, ah, you know what, all that rhetoric about Trump doesn’t matter. ‘I’m just mad about inflation,’” Obama said. “And now your sons are being stopped in L.A. because they look Latino and maybe without the ability to call anybody, might just be locked up, well, that’s a test.”

In a more than hourlong discussion with Maron on the wildly popular “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast, the former Democratic president said current events could jolt Americans.

“It’d be great if we weren’t tested this way, but you know what? We probably need to be shaken out of our complacency,” he said.

Obama also criticized some Democrats’ messaging as he touched on significant issues facing Californians and discussed the state of the nation’s democracy, core convictions and the weakening of institutional norms.

After Los Angeles-based Maron joked, “We’ve annoyed the average American into fascism,” Obama responded, “You can’t just be a scold all the time.

“You can’t constantly lecture people without acknowledging that you’ve got some blind spots too, and that life’s messy,” Obama said in the interview, which recently took place in the former president’s Washington, D.C., office.

Faulting language used by some liberals as “holier than thou,” Obama argued that Democrats could remain true to their principles while respecting those with whom they disagreed.

“Saying, ‘Right, I’ve got some core convictions [and] beliefs that I’m not going to compromise. But I’m also not going to assert that I am so righteous and so pure and so insightful that there’s not the possibility that maybe I’m wrong on this, or that other people, if they don’t say things exactly the way I say them or see things exactly the way I do, that somehow they’re bad people,’” he said.

Obama’s remarks come as the Democratic Party faces a reckoning after losing the presidential election in 2024, in part because of declining support from the party’s base, notably minority voters.

Maron, a comedian and actor, launched his “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast and radio show in 2009. Interviews with guests such as actor Robin Williams, comedian Louis C.K., filmmaker Kevin Smith and “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels often took place at his Highland Park home.

Obama’s 2015 interview in Maron’s garage became the podcast’s most popular episode at the time — downloaded nearly 740,000 times in the first 24 hours after it was posted.

On Monday, the former president criticized institutions for capitulating to President Trump’s demands. His words come as USC leaders are debating whether to agree to a White House proposal to receive favorable access to federal funding if they align with Trump’s agenda.

“If you’re a university president, say, well, you know what? This will hurt if we lose some grant money in the federal government, but that’s what endowments are for,” Obama said. “Let’s see if we can ride this out, because what we’re not going to do is compromise our basic academic independence.”

Hebden Bridge has always buzzed with female energy. As a child I remember the feisty women behind the bar at the pubs where my dad used to drink, the punk-haired cafe owner and the redoubtable librarian always up for a noisy chat when we checked out our books. That was before it became known as the lesbian capital of the UK (my gay cousin from Australia once told me she was coming to Europe: “Hebden Bridge?” I asked. “How did you know?” she gasped).

Now the lass spirit of the West Yorkshire town is on display again, this time in Sally “Happy Valley” Wainwright’s new BBC One drama Riot Women, which tells the story of a group of women in their late 50s who set up a rock band.

Like me, Wainwright grew up in Calderdale; like me, she’s 62. So she too must remember the days when Hebden Bridge was more famous for its flat-capped eccentricity than its edgy coolness. At university (and spookily, Wainwright and I were both at York, though we didn’t know one another), I would regularly boast that I lived close to where poet Ted Hughes grew up (he was born in Mytholmroyd, just along the valley) and near to where his erstwhile wife and fellow poet Sylvia Plath was buried (Heptonstall, on the hill above Hebden Bridge). But I certainly didn’t dwell on the smoky, cramped pubs or the greasy spoon cafes or the unremarkable warehouse-like unbranded store where my mum bought the groceries. The town felt deeply frumpy back then.

Things are different today. I name-drop the Nisa Local on Crown Street, where my mum buys her Guardian, because it’s where Catherine Cawood’s partner Neil worked in Happy Valley. More thrillingly, my mother’s flat is at the top of the street where Cawood (played magnificently by Sarah Lancashire) lived: the climactic final car park scene after James Norton’s character, Tommy Lee Royce, sets himself alight must have been visible from her balcony. And now the souped-up Albert, on Albert Street – one of my dad’s haunts in the 70s and 80s – has been transformed into the Duke of Wellington for Riot Women, with Lorraine Ashbourne, playing alongside Tamsin Greig and Joanna Scanlan, as the landlady.

Right now I’m having breakfast opposite the Albert, at a table in the sunshine outside Leila’s Kitchen, whose Iranian owner tells me it was the original vegetarian cafe of Hebden Bridge, set up in the 1980s. She’s run it since 2019, and her Persian breakfast – eggs, walnuts, feta cheese, salad and flatbread – is a renowned speciality, as is her noodle soup and saffron and pistachio ice-cream.

In a town with a penchant for revolving doors and pop-up shops, one of the joys of visiting Hebden Bridge regularly is that it’s never the same twice. In fact, there’s currently another top-class breakfast venue, with queues heading down Valley Road while they’ve still got buns to sell: Mother, home of just-baked croissants including the almond one I tried. “It’s a bit hefty,” the assistant said as I pointed to it; in the event, I didn’t need another meal for the rest of the day.

It’s quicker to say what has been constant rather than what’s changed since I was a child. The Town Hall, with its big green doors, is the same (though they certainly didn’t have art exhibitions and a cafe there when I was a kid). The rush of the river, fast-flowing through the town and whizzing under the packhorse bridge that gave the town its name, is a welcome constant. And the Picture House is still there: where once I watched Grease, Jaws and An Officer and a Gentleman, the BBC premiered Riot Women here last week, as a thank you to the locals who put up with weeks of filming last summer.

The shop I remember best from my childhood is Innovation – and it’s still here, the institution that relaunched this unfashionable Yorkshire market town into one of the quirkiest, and coolest, spots in the north of England. It was back in 1972 that a local legend called David Fletcher bought a disused mill in the centre of the town and turned it into the quintessential gift shop-cum-cafe, the business all the other shops that came after wanted to emulate (in terms of its longevity and success, anyway). The Trades Club was always there, and always a trades union club – but now, still owned by the Labour party, it’s one of the funkiest live music and comedy venues in Britain. Sadly, Riot Women are a fictional band, but the October lineup included Grace Petrie (“the British folk scene’s funniest lesbian”), DJ Red Helen and Josie Long.

The police station I knew on Hope Street is now an antique shop; the newsagent’s on the square (now pedestrianised) has become The Remedy, where you sit at high-up tables and taste a flight of wines, also available to buy. My sister’s old bank is Coin brasserie, where she and I recently reminisced, while sipping a delicious and reasonably priced bottle of fizz, about the ancient art of cashing cheques in the very room where she’d done just that. The cashier’s counter from my own former bank, round the corner on Market Street, has been moved to the shop next door which is full of rhubarb and ginger cake and strawberries and cream cupcakes: but they’re not baked goods, they’re bath time treats – it’s the Yorkshire Soap Company. They make scented candles too, and for Happy Valley they created a special edition – watch this space for a flaming Riot Women.

A few doors along is Heart Gallery, in what was a rambling antiques centre when I was a kid: today, its Scandi-style interior showcases locally produced artworks. Across Market Street is Earth Spirit: it’s the essence of Hebden Bridge, a place to buy spices and jams, colourful knitted berets and weave-your-own brooch kits. For the inner sanctum, head up the small staircase at the back for the incense-infused den of crystals and tarot cards, pictures of hares and goddesses, witches’ guides to hats and flowers, books of spells and handbooks on angels and sacred animals. And when you’ve chosen your tome, head to the Hermit on Hope Street, settle into the coven-like basement, dimly lit by strings of fairy lights, and enjoy a proper Yorkshire brew.

Riot Women is on Sundays, BBC One, 9pm.

The cantina on Tatooine in the first “Star Wars” film. A Greek taverna on a layover in Miami. A mermaid’s womb. Every friend I take to, or even ask about, Cento Raw Bar and its fantastical design has a knee-jerk one-liner at the ready.

The wildest new bar in Los Angeles

Walk into the West Adams space adjoined by an awning to Cento Pasta Bar — both conceived by chef Avner Levi — and the first sight of the curving walls will spin anyone’s mind. They look plastered with a mixture of stucco and meringue, smeared like a frosted cake in progress, that’s meant to evoke the shimmer and shifting light of a Mediterranean cave. A three-sided seafoam-green bar anchors the room, girded by tall white chairs with metal backs patterned in a snail’s spiral. Details fill every corner: rounded, sculptural pillars and pedestals; a blue-tile floor mosaic resembling a pond; pendant sconces in shapes that remind me of the “energy dome” hats worn by the band Devo in the 1980s.

A mosaic moment in the dining room of Cento Raw Bar.

(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)

The effect leans more toward trippy than transportive. As one stop during a night out for a drink and a stopgap plate of seafood or two, I’m into it.

Idiosyncrasy is welcome right now

Maybe in another era I would gawk once and move on. But in times like Los Angeles is living through, in a half-decade that has begat one trial and horror after another, the operators of new restaurants, particularly those in the highest-rent districts, tend to default to conservative choices. Menus full of comforts familiar to whatever cuisine is being served. Atmospheres easily described as “pleasant.” The decisions are so understandable, and given a particular neighborhood or desired audience perhaps it pays off economically. Familiarity is a priority to many diners. Hospitality workers deserve stable incomes.

Culturally, though? The restaurant pros who can’t stomach the status quo, who go regionally specific or deeply personal or brazenly imaginative, are the forces who inspire cities toward creative rebellion. Thinking about this, I found an article from 2011 by former Times critic S. Irene Virbila about the year’s restaurant openings. The nation was burrowing out of the Great Recession at the time, but the roster of emerging talents mentioned by Virbila would wind up shaping the 2010s as the decade that landed Los Angeles on the global culinary map: names like Bryant Ng, Josef Centeno, Nyesha Arrington, Michael Voltaggio, Steve Samson and Zach Pollack.

She also pointed out Ludo Lefebvre, who in 2011 was still in pop-up mode before launching his defining restaurants Trois Mec (felled by the pandemic) and Petit Trois. Maybe it’s a sign that this week Lefebvre came full-circle with a new occasional pop-up series he’s calling Éphémère.

Point is, we could use more extreme individualism in restaurants right now. I appreciate the obsessiveness from designer Brandon Miradi, who has the title of “creative director” at Cento Raw Bar and who counts Vespertine, Somni, the Bazaar at SLS Beverly Hills and Frieze Art Fair as previous projects. Note the spiraling ends of the silverware, matching the chairs, and the ways napkins too are rolled into a tight coil. He managed to find colored glassware in geometries that register at once as retro and postmodern.

Cento Raw Bar, the sibling cocktail and seafood bar to chef Avner Levi’s pasta restaurant, features an all-white interior.

(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)

Maybe no surprise, but the TikTok-magnetic vibes keep the bar full of young, beautiful groups — Angelenos or visitors modeling their best L.A. looks, who can say. In June, about a month after the place opened, a friend and I were sitting at one of the low tables and she pointed over to the bar: The women seated in the high stools all came in wearing stilettos that were now dangling half off their feet. Panning this shoe moment could have been a montage sequence during a Carrie Bradshaw voiceover in an early season of “Sex and the City.”

What to eat and drink

Perhaps to fully center or to balance Miradi’s visual extravaganza, the food and drink options are quite straightforward. A few cocktails do wink right into the camera, among them a play on a Screwdriver made with SunnyD (which the menu calls “Sunny Delight,” the branding name I also remember from my Gen-X childhood). Most are mainstays: a classic escapist piña colada, a spicy margarita, an Aperol situation spiked with mezcal. The bartenders listen kindly when I request they stir my dry gin martini well.

A martini at the bar of Cento Raw Bar.

(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)

Seafood towers, served on undulating green-glass plates designed by Miradi, are stylish and modest in size and arrive as two levels for $83 or three levels for $97.

A buddy and I recently split the smaller one, neatly polishing off a handful of tiny, briny oysters along with scallops served in their shells, some bouncy shrimp and a couple meaty lobster claws. We had shown up to Pizzeria Sei without a reservation — because scoring one at a prime hour is maddening, and so I take my chances as a walk-in — and were told the wait was an hour and 15 minutes. Cento Raw Bar was a 12-minute drive away, ideal for one round of drinks and pre-dinner shellfish.

On another occasion, I might skip the pricey tower and order a plate of hamachi crudo (dotted with stone fruit during the summer season) and a dip of smoked cod with bagel chips. I’ve found more substantial plates, such as ridged mafaldine tangled in lobster sauce, in need of spice and acid.

Fish dip topped with trout roe at Cento Raw Bar in West Adams.

(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)

Desserts riffing on a Hostess cake or an ube cheesecake spangled with prismatic bits of flavored gelatins? Fun, but I’ve had my share of outlandish décor and cocktail nibbles — exactly what I came for.

4919 W. Adams Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 795-0330, cento.group

Also …

• Food editor Daniel Hernandez writes about Mexico City, the food lovers flocking to its energized restaurant scene … and the digital nomads who are also settling in, pricing out locals in some areas. As tensions boil, he asks, is it possible to still visit and be a mindful tourist?
• Daniel, a former longtime resident of Mexico City, also names 34 of the city’s best restaurants and bars that aren’t tourist traps.
• Speaking of Bryant Ng mentioned above, Jenn Harris checks out his new project, Jade Rabbit, a new fast-casual restaurant in Santa Monica where Ng re-imagines Chinese American food.
• Stephanie Breijo reports from West Hollywood on Darling, the new restaurant from legendary Southern chef Sean Brock, who is determined not to lean on his heritage in California. “In order to fully understand the taste of this place [L.A.], and that’s my goal, I can’t cook Southern,” Brock shares.
• Farewell, lunchroom pepperoni pizza? Daniel Miller lays out the details of the new state law aimed to ban some ultraprocessed foods from school meals.

There is one very strict rule for would-be homebuyers applying to take part in the long-running Channel 4 show, producer Siobhan O’Gorman has revealed

Siobhan O’Gorman, the TV producer who leads the A Place In The Sun team, has lifted the lid on how the hit Channel 4 show picks would-be house buyers to appear on the series.

She points out that some things have changed a lot since A Place In The Sun first aired 25 years ago: “The first-ever episode 25 years ago featured a couple looking for a holiday home in the French Pyrenees with a budget of £40,000,’ she told the Daily Mail. “That wasn’t a bad budget then, but today you wouldn’t get much for that.”

But other aspects are still very much the same, Siobhan adds: “We need to be sure every applicant is in a position to put in a genuine offer,” she says. “We have great relationships with estate agents all over Europe and beyond, so it’s important to maintain that.”

While something like two-thirds of applicants are hoping for a new home in Spain, many others get in touch with dreams of finding properties in Cyprus, Portugal and Greece.

“But we’re also seeing increased interest in countries such as Croatia, Turkey and Dubai,” Siobhan says.

Wherever they want to end up, applicants start by filling in a 12-page application form. Then Siobhan and the team go through every one, to identify house-hunters who are looking for properties in the areas that align with countries that the show is planning to visit in the coming season.

The next stage is an on-camera interview to assess whether the applicants will make for good TV, and whether their aspirations are realistic.

Competition is intense, Siobhan says: “‘It’s fair to say we have at least ten applications for every show and it’s 20 for some of the more popular resorts.”

Siobhan adds: “We like to reflect a variety of budgets and areas in each country, though, so we wouldn’t do six shows with the same budget and the same wish list in Mijas Costa in Spain, but we may do two shows there with differing budgets.”

All of this behind-the-scenes work helps A Place In The Sun look smooth and well-organised on screen. However, presenter Laura Hamilton, who has been with the show since 2012, describes one incident that she playfully christened “Mudgate” where anything that could go wrong, did go wrong.

As the team were trying to help a would-be expat find a retirement home in Abruzzo, Italy, a massive downpour caused mayhem.

The team were in multiple vehicles for social distancing reasons, and one by one, each one of them become mired down in slippery mud.

“We were there for three hours and had to have tractors pull us out,” Laura recalled. “I’m known for wearing high heels on the show because I’m quite short. I remember having these ridiculously high heels on and they got caked in mud.

“House hunter Sue was “mortified,” Laura recalled, blaming herself for choosing a remote rural location that didn’t even have proper tarmac roads. house. Laura tried to reassure Sue, telling her “It’s not your fault – and I always say you’ve got to love a house come rain or shine,” to which the embarrassed homebuyer replied: “Well, I definitely don’t love this one!”

MEXICO CITY — Amid the constant blare of car horns in southern Mexico City, it’s hard to imagine that Cuicuilco was once the heart of a thriving ancient civilization. Yet atop its circular pyramid, now surrounded by buildings and a shopping center, a pre-Hispanic fire god was revered.

“This is incredible,” said Evangelina Báez, who spent a recent morning at Cuicuilco with her daughters. “In the midst of so much urbanization, there’s still this haven of peace.”

Her visit was part of a monthly tour program crafted by the National Institute of Anthropology and History, known by its Spanish initials as INAH.

Aside from overseeing Mexico’s archaeological sites and museums, the institute safeguards the country’s cultural heritage, including restoring damaged monuments and artworks as well as reviewing construction projects to ensure they don’t harm archaeological remains.

Its historians and archaeologists also lead excursions like the one in Cuicuilco. Each academic expert picks a location, proposes a walking itinerary to the INAH and, once approved, it’s offered to the public for about 260 pesos ($15).

“I joined these tours with the intention of sharing our living heritage,” said archaeologist Denisse Gómez after greeting guests in Cuicuilco. “Our content is always up to date.”

According to Mónica de Alba, who oversees the tours, the INAH excursions date to 1957, when an archaeologist decided to share the institute’s research with colleagues and students.

“People are beginning to realize how much the city has to offer,” said De Alba, explaining that the INAH offers around 130 tours per year in downtown Mexico City alone. “There are even travel agents who pretend to be participants to copy our routes.”

María Luisa Maya, 77, often joins these tours as a solo visitor. Her favorite so far was one to an archaeological site in Guerrero, a southern Mexican state along the Pacific coast.

“I’ve been doing this for about eight years,” she said. “But that’s nothing. I’ve met people who have come for 20 or 25.”

Traces of a lost city

Cuicuilco means “the place where songs and dances are made” in the Nahua language.

Still, the precise name of its people is unknown, given that the city’s splendor dates back to the pre-Classic era from 400 to 200 B.C. and few clues are left to dig deeper into its history.

“The Nahuas gave them that name, which reveals that this area was never forgotten,” said archaeologist Pablo Martínez, who co-led the visit with Gómez. “It was always remembered, and even after its decline, the Teotihuacan people came here to make offerings.”

The archaeological site is a quiet corner nestled between two of Mexico City’s busiest avenues. Yet according to Martínez, the settlements went far beyond the vicinity and Cuicuilco’s population reached 40,000.

“What we see today is just a small part of the city,” he said. “Merely its pyramidal base.”

Now covered in grass and resembling a truncated cone, the pyramid was used for ritual purposes. The details of the ceremonies are unknown, but female figurines preserved at the site’s museum suggest that offerings were related to fertility.

“We think they offered perishable objects such as corn, flowers and seeds,” Gómez said. “They were feeding the gods.”

Echoes of living heritage

According to official records, Mexico’s most visited archaeological sites are Teotihuacán and Chichén Itzá. The first is a pre-Aztec city northeast of the capital known for its monumental Sun and Moon pyramids. The latter is a major Mayan site in the Southeast famed for its 12th-century Temple of Kukulkán.

The INAH oversees both. But its tours focus on shedding light on Mexico’s hidden gems.

During an excursion preceding Cuicuilco’s, visitors walked through a neighborhood in Ecatepec, on the outskirts of Mexico City, where open-air markets, street food and religious festivals keep local traditions alive. A few days prior, another tour focused on La Merced market, where flowers, prayers and music filled the aisles during the feast of Our Lady of Mercy.

October’s schedule takes into account Day of the Dead traditions. But tours will feature a variety of places like Xochimilco, where visitors can take a moonlit boat tour through its canals and chinampas, and Templo Mayor, the Aztec empire’s main religious and social center in ancient Tenochtitlán.

“These tours allow the general public to get closer to societies that are distant in time and space,” said historian Jesús López del Río, who will lead an upcoming tour on human sacrifices to deities in Mesoamérica.

“Approaching the pre-Hispanic past is not only about how the Maya used zero in their calculations or how the Mexica built a city on a lake,” he added. “It’s about understanding how those societies worked — their way of seeing and relating to the world.”

Hernández writes for the Associated Press.

Starting Sunday, actor Jason Ritter will be back onscreen as attorney Julian Markston in Season 2 of the CBS legal drama “Matlock,” loosely inspired by the 1980s and ’90s Andy Griffith show of the same name. He still gets a thrill when he thinks about the cast he gets to work with, which includes Skye P. Marshall, Beau Bridges and Oscar winner Kathy Bates.

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

“You almost, but not quite ever, forget that you’re working with an absolute acting legend,” Ritter says. “Kathy is so sweet and so kind and such a team player and collaborator that it helps to sort of stop that voice in your head from going like ‘It’s Kathy Bates!’ every time it’s a scene with her.”

The 45-year-old L.A. native, part of an entertainment family that includes his late father, sitcom legend John Ritter, didn’t offer up many details about the new season but did say viewers can expect more on-the-edge-of-your-seat episodes. (If you need a refresher of last season, episodes of “Matlock” are available on Paramount+.)

“It has the same pace and fun mystery as the first season, but now my character’s secrets have been revealed,” says Ritter, who regularly posts about the show and his fellow actors on Instagram along with humorous bits.

At home with actor-wife Melanie Lynskey, whom he married in 2020, and their 6-year-old daughter, there aren’t any great mysteries that need to be solved, but there is work to do before bed.

“When midnight starts,” Ritter says, “we’re probably finishing up the jobs, as we call them — you know, the dishes and the chores and cleaning everything up, which is a lovely habit that I’ve gotten into from [my wife]. I always used to just wake up to the nightmare from the night before and I’ve learned to really appreciate waking up to a clean area.”

After lights out and some sleep, his ideal Sunday picks up hours later and is filled with plenty of coffee, some miniature golf or a nature walk and more.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

7 a.m.: A different kind of call time
I will wake up usually at 7. If our daughter is going to school, then I have to wake up at 7 so I can start making her lunch and getting stuff ready. But if she’s having a bit of a sleep-in [on the weekend], then I still have to wake up at 7 to make sure everything times out. And then I’ll make her little lunch and her breakfast. While she’s eating breakfast, she usually gets to watch an episode of something. That’s my prime scrolling through social media time.

9:30 a.m.: Time for more coffee
We would all pile in the car, and our first stop would probably be a coffee stop. We are a big coffee family — not our daughter. We always make a pot of coffee in the morning. And even though we’ve had several cups already, we’ll stop at Go Get Em Tiger, one of our favorite coffee places in L.A. We’ve come to know a lot of the baristas there, so we get to chat about life and everything. And then we’ll be back on the road.

10 a.m.: Miniature golf or a ‘beauty’ walk
Our daughter and I will go to Castle Park, which is the miniature golf place in Sherman Oaks. My daughter and I have really bonded over miniature golf, and that’s sort of our little thing. Any miniature golf course has a real special place in my heart, but Castle Park is the place that I went to as a kid. The course is basically the same. It’s just so fun to watch [our daughter] get better and better at golf; even though, recently she’s become obsessed with par.

If mini golf didn’t take up so much time, my daughter and I like to go on these little beauty walks where she gets on her scooter and puts her helmet on. We just walk around the neighborhood, and she can’t pick any flowers. But we can pick up little flowers or leaves off the ground. So anything that she sees that’s beautiful, she picks up, and we make a little bouquet. And what’s so amazing about it for me is to see what she finds beautiful on those walks.

1 p.m.: A chopped salad and fries for lunch
There’s a place called Angelini Osteria that has a salad that I really enjoy. It’s called the Alimentari Chopped Salad. It’s got avocado and chicken and bacon and currants and almonds. It comes with two dressings, but I usually just do the sort of lemony kind of oily dressing. And it is just so delicious. I am the only meat eater in my family. At some point, maybe my conscience will get the better of me, and I’ll switch over to their diet. Angelini also has very good french fries. When we’re on the road and the lunch that I’ve packed hasn’t been enough for [my daughter], french fries is one of those safe things that if we’re in a bind, we can pick them up from almost anywhere.

2 p.m.: Time for the Museum of Jurassic Technology
Another favorite thing that I would do is go to the Museum of Jurassic Technology. I just love that place. It’s so fascinating. It’s one of those places that if someone’s coming in from out of town, I love showing them. I love taking them there without telling them anything about it and just watch them kind of explore. And it’s just such a mysterious, magical place.

5 p.m.: Fresh escape room fun
Then I would see if I could get a bunch of my friends together, and we would go do an escape room somewhere in town. It’s just one of my favorite things to do, and they’re all over the place in Los Angeles. I would go to maybe 60out or Maze Rooms or one that I had never heard of. There’s an app called Morty that helps find escape rooms and keep track of the ones you did if your memory is poor like mine. If I can’t convince my friends to do another one right after in the same location, then we would be done by 6. It would be time to go back home and make our daughter’s dinner and get her through the entire dinner-bath time-bedtime phase.

9 p.m.: Dinner and “The Bachelor” before bed
My favorite thing is when Melanie and I order in from a place called Bulan Thai Vegetarian Kitchen. It has these incredibly delicious hot wings. Our daughter will be asleep in the other room. And we get to eat some delicious Thai food and watch some silly show or some serious show.

If our daughter has gone to sleep around 8, this will usually be maybe 9, 9:30 depending on if I’ve fallen asleep in the bed next door. This is also why sometimes it gets so late and bleeds into the next day. Because by the time we get to have our alone fun, dinner and watching time, it’s 9:30, 10, and some of those “Bachelor” episodes are two hours long.

And yes, I promise that somewhere in this day, I have showered. [Laughs] That is another very important element of our day. It’s the one that can go by the wayside. But we always try to check in with each other. Like, “Have you showered today? Have you showered? OK, you go and then I’ll go.”

Ruhi Çenet, a Turkish YouTuber who’s gained a reputation for visiting some of the planet’s most hard-to-reach destinations, travelled to a place where temperatures can drop to below -60°C

An intrepid travel vlogger, who has visited the coldest inhabited place on Earth, almost lost his nose to the elements in just 15 minutes. Ruhi Çenet, a Turkish YouTuber and travel vlogger who’s gained a reputation for visiting some of the planet’s most hard-to-reach destinations, travelled to Oymyakon, in Sakha Republic, Russia, where temperatures can drop to -67.7°C, the lowest ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere.

Oymyakon, also home of the lowest temperature recorded outside Antarctica, has (as of reports from 2024) roughly 2,000 inhabitants and lies in the Oymyakon plateau, situated in what the Guardian describes as a “bowl-shaped depression” with a dry, frosty climate.

In the video, titled The Coldest Village on Earth: Oymyakon, Ruhi flew east from Moscow over seven hours and then travelled 900km to the Siberian settlement, where a thermometer displayed an icy -60.5°C upon arrival at 2am.

Ruhi was later filmed donning more than 20 layers of clothing “just to stay alive”, including reindeer fur boots, trousers, and a coat, as he prepared to step out from a 30°C home and take on the icy elements.

In words spoken by a narrator, the vlogger, who had ice crystals forming on his eyelashes and stinging skin within seconds of being outside, explained how the settlement is so cold that mobile phones stop working, and any cars left exposed to the cold freeze in just a few hours.

Ruhi held his thumb up to the camera, showing a large, yellow blister forming on his skin, and, in two striking shots, he was also filmed holding up the frozen corpses of a wolf and what appeared to be a rabbit.

Later on in the video, in a segment covering the working day of a local cattle farmer named Yevdokiya, Ruhi’s face suddenly went numb.

In words spoken by the narrator: “I couldn’t move the muscle on the left side, like I was having facial paralysis. When my nose started freezing. Yevdokiya noticed right away.”

Next, the camera filmed a close-up of Ruhi’s nose, which, after staying outside for “just over 15 minutes”, had started to turn white along the tip in patches, an unmistakable sign of a serious condition. He asked: “Is it frostbite?”, to which the answer was a resounding, “Yeah”.

The narrator continued: “The cold shrinks the blood vessels and eventually reduces blood circulation. Without enough warmth, water inside each cell freezes into ice crystals, causing the cells to rupture and triggering a stabbing pain and tissue to die.”

Ruhi was quickly advised to cover his face and be careful or it “might turn black”. As the team rushed back to a group of buildings, it was detailed how, from that point onwards, Ruhi wasn’t able to spend more than 10 minutes at a time outside, or he would risk the frostbite getting worse.

Fortunately, Yevdokiya presented what she described as a “cure” for the condition. She held what appeared to be a medicine bottle containing aloe and alcohol, and proceeded to dip a swab in the mixture and hand it to Ruhi.

According to the narrator (who translated), she said: “You soak it like this and apply it to the area that’s frozen and don’t rub it, okay? Otherwise, you’ll damage the vessels and the capillaries and it’ll lead to sores.”

Ruhi, who proceeded to hold the swab to his nose (and filming then continued), appeared to be unscathed by his brush with frostbite by the end of the video.

The spa town beat the likes of Stratford-upon-Avon and Anglesey to the top spot of best staycations in the UK, and it’s not hard to see why.

If you’re keen to get away this autumn but don’t want to venture too far, there are so many beautiful spots in the UK to choose from – with one in particular being very worth a visit.

Harrogate, a picturesque town in North Yorkshire, was crowned the best staycation spot in the UK. Just a two-hour drive from Greater Manchester, Harrogate beat out competition from Stratford-upon-Avon and Anglesey to claim the top spot.

Staycations have surged in popularity as Brits discover the wealth of beauty spots on their doorstep. With this in mind, AA experts analysed the top staycation destinations that are perfect for a road trip.

They considered factors such as accommodation options, local happiness ratings, availability of car parking spaces, petrol stations, and EV chargers to compile the “ultimate top 10 locations for the perfect staycation”.

The spa town of Harrogate came out on top, boasting the highest ‘happiness rating’, 7.8 out of 10, and the most activities (62), reports the Express.

The town is famed for its stunning architecture, the renowned Betty’s Cafe and Tea Rooms, RHS Harlow Carr gardens and much more. Surrounded by breathtaking countryside, there’s plenty to explore nearby, including the Brimham Rocks beauty spot. This year, it was also named as the third poshest town in the UK by The Telegraph.

Harrogate gained popularity in the 19th century as a health resort thanks to its mineral-rich spring waters.

Today, Harrogate seamlessly blends historic charm with modern touches, making it a favourite destination for visitors and residents alike.

Valley Gardens is a must-see in the town, boasting a beautiful park filled with a variety of flowers, walking paths, and remnants of the town’s renowned spa waters.

Another highlight is the Royal Pump Room Museum, which provides a glimpse into Harrogate’s spa history, showcasing the town’s evolution as a health resort.

Not to be overlooked, Stratford-upon-Avon came in second place with a happiness rating of 7.6, over 6,000 parking spaces, and more than 60 attractions.

Famed as Shakespeare’s birthplace, it offers pretty walks and historical sites such as the Royal Shakespeare Theatre.

Cornwall’s Newquay clinched third place, offering 326 AA-approved accommodations, over 3,500 parking spots, and a happiness rating of 7.5.

In the mirror I’m wearing enormous golden pantaloons, but only I can see them. Children sit in a rock pool playing mermaids, and in the next room there’s a talking pea in a display case, beside a towering stack of mattresses. It’s the world of Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875), one of the 19th century’s most beloved writers. I’m in Odense, on the island of Fyn (sometimes anglicised to Funen) in the south of Denmark, to explore Andersen’s enduring legacy in his home town 150 years after his death, and to discover a few fairytales of my own.

HC Andersens Hus is the city’s museum dedicated to the writer, incorporating his first home. Niels Bjørn Friis from Museum Odense says that in earlier iterations of the museum there was little focus on Andersen’s stories. The writer’s life was explored, but The Ugly Duckling, Thumbelina and The Little Mermaid were nowhere to be found. For visitors who come to Odense seeking storytelling magic, it was a little lacking.

The redesign of Odense city centre, rerouting a major road, provided the opportunity to reimagine how the city’s most famous son could be honoured. A major architecture competition awarded Japanese firm Kengo Kuma and Associates the contract, with the curators’ new approach at the core of the design. The distinctive timber-clad museum with interlinked spiralling spaces opened to great fanfare in 2021. “We’ve tried to create a space where we don’t talk about Andersen, but we talk like Andersen: with humour, irony and perspective,” says Friis. Even the gardens take this approach: “It’s a garden for wanderers and for giants, it’s designed to make you feel small,” he says, a challenge achieved by clever planting, playing with height, scale and many winding paths in a deceptively small space.

Andersen wrote two and a half autobiographies and frequently contradicted himself. HC Andersens Hus takes this approach to heart; often the views of his friends or snippets of letters are presented to gently question the author’s own version of events. “Andersen is the guide, but he’s not reliable,” says Friis. The result is a compelling whirlwind tour of Andersen’s life and art, thought processes and best-loved stories. It’s provocative and playful, for adults and children, with a bonus basement make-believe land, Ville Vau, for the youngest visitors.

Back in the real world, the small city of Odense is charming, with cobbled streets and old wooden houses painted in bright colours. The Andersen legacy is everywhere: the traffic lights feature the writer with his signature top hat, brass footprints provide a free Andersen walking tour, and there’s a sculpture trail too. Every August this dedication peaks with the annual HC Andersen festival, which celebrates the author’s legacy through art, dance, theatre and music.

This year, the week-long festival had 500 shows, most of which were free. As I explore Odense, I meet painted stilt-walkers, ghoulish monsters and an Andersen lookalike telling stories. I hear feminist spoken-word pieces and see an incredible late-night performance featuring acrobatic dancers descending from the town hall and hanging from a crane. Still to come this year are lectures, family art workshops and, expanding the storytelling legacy beyond Andersen, the city’s annual Magic Days festival.

As in most of Denmark, bikes are the best way to get about in Odense and a “cycling highway” winds through the city centre. From Hotel Odeon, I cycle to the free harbour-side swimming pool, then out of town for a loop around Stige Ø, a small island connected by causeway to the mainland. City residents picnic here after work, or enjoy a quiet hour fishing, paddleboarding or swimming.

Back in Odense, I eat at Restaurant Under Lindetræet, where the menu is inspired by Andersen themes and stories. The poem Denmark, My Native Land is featured when I visit, and proprietor Nils Palmqvist reads extracts, translated into English, as he presents each course. It’s an experience repeated often in my days in the city, the fynbo (as residents of Fyn are known) love a yarn and it feels as though storytelling is always on the menu here.

All good fairytale destinations need a castle, and Fyn boasts 123 castles and manor houses across the island. Taking day trips from Odense, I visit Egeskov Castle, Europe’s best-preserved Renaissance water castle. While much of it is open to visitors, Egeskov is also the family home of Count Michael Ahlefeldt-Laurvig-Bille and his wife, Princess Alexandra zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg. I wonder if she can feel a pea through a stack of mattresses. The couple are often found in the vast landscaped gardens and play park chatting to visitors.

At Valdemars Castle to the south of Fyn, I meet Louise Iuel-Brockdorff Albinus, the current owner of Valdemars Castle built between 1639 and 1644 by King Christian IV. After a family inheritance dispute that emptied the castle contents, Albinus decided to open her home to visitors and filled it with art, inviting international artists to create site-specific pieces. The juxtaposition of the high cornices and fine wallpapers with Czech artist Jiří Georg Dokoupil’s huge balloon-like sculptures and colourful bubble paintings would no doubt have amused Hans Christian Andersen, who loved to challenge expectations.

From Valdemars Castle, I catch the MS Helge, a wooden ferry built in 1924, which transports passengers around the South Fyn archipelago. This beautiful coastline was last year designated a Unesco Global Geopark for its unique “drowned” ice age landscape. I disembark in Svendborg and rent a bike from South Funen Bicycle Rental. I’m cycling today with Mette Mathiasen from Destination Fyn, who is behind the development of the 410-mile (660km) castles route around Fyn. It’s divided into 14 sections, with local operators offering luggage transfer. We’re exploring a 21-mile section, along the coast to the village of Åbyskov and Elsehoved beach. We pass turreted castles, manors and long stretches of quiet coastline, pedalling along country lanes with hedgerows overflowing with blackberries. Unlike most of Denmark, there are some hills in the south of Fyn, but with quiet trails and the option of an ebike, this is gentle, all-abilities cycling.

As dusk falls, I pedal across the moat to my last castle of the day and my final destination on Fyn – Broholm Castle. Broholm has 700 years of colourful history and plenty of ghost stories, and was a frequent haunt of Andersen, featuring in his 1837 novel Only a Fiddler. From a childhood of poverty to international acclaim, Andersen’s life was quite the adventure. Following in his footsteps on Fyn has been full of castles and colourful characters, with a few surprises too.

The trip was provided by Visit Denmark and Destination Fyn. Hotel Odeon has doubles from 1,100 kroner (£128) B&B. Broholm Castle has doubles from 1,695 kroner B&B

Icelandair has listed the best places in the UK to spot the Northern Lights, as the cycle of the sun begins to move away from the solar maximum, meaning fewer chances to spot the aurora borealis

A UK island has been named the best spot for catching the Northern Lights while the solar maximum is still spreading colours across the night skies.

The next few months are likely to provide the best chances this decade to see the aurora borealis at its most spectacular, before the sun’s 11-year cycle begins to shift away from a stage that has created fantastic displays in the skies over the past two years.

To help travelers make the most of the season, Iceland’s flagship airline, Icelandair, has shared expert guidance on how to make the most of aurora season and how to capture stunning photos with this simple setting change on your iPhone.

Gísli S. Brynjólfsson, the director of Global Marketing at Icelandair, notes how important latitude and darkness are for seeing the Northern Lights. Which is why Shetland – the most northerly part of the UK, and one of the most remote, is top of his list of aurora spotting locations in the UK.

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In Shetland, which sits about 100 miles from the most northerly tip of mainland Britain, the regularly appearing aurora has a special local name – mirrie dancers.

There are number of other reasons why a trip to the Shetlands is a good idea.

Fans of the eponymously titled BBC detective show set on the island will enjoy spotting some of the local haunts of Inspector Jimmy Perez. Excitingly, the most northerly of the Shetland Islands, Unst, is now home to SaxaVord, the first fully licensed vertical launch Spaceport in Europe. Soon rockets will begin blasting off from the port to take satelites into space.

Head to Shetland at the end of January – which is a fantastic time to see the Northern Lights in terms of your odds – and you’ll be treated to the world famous Up Helly Aa fire festival. The event, which is traditionally held on the last Tuesday of January, celebrates Shetland’s Norse heritage.

Thousands of visitors travel to the UK’s most northerly islands each year to watch the evening torchlit procession through Lerwick, which reaches its climax when the replica of a Viking long ship is set on fire.

Whatever time of the year you make it there, you’re sure to be blown away by the sheer beauty of the island chain. Shetland is made up of rolling hills, open moors and wide beaches filled with seals.

According to the Met Office, the North Lights can also be viewed across parts of mainland UK, particularly Scotland, North England, North Wales, and Northern Ireland, during periods of strong space weather conditions. As the sun can be pretty unpredictable when it’s going to put on a show (a solar storm) it’s a good idea to monitor a website called Aurora Watch. There you can check the sun’s geomagnetic activity in real time and will tell you when the Northern Lights are likely to be visible from the UK.

Mr Brynjólfsson explained why September to March is peak viewing time:

“Iceland is one of the most magical destinations to see the northern lights. The official Northern Lights season runs from September to March. During this time of year, days are darkest and shortest, translating to northern lights peak viewing time,” he said.

“If you’ve already got a vacation to Iceland booked and are planning a trip to see the northern lights, the Icelandic Met Office provides a Northern Lights forecast with predictions for the coming three days. The map displays cloud coverage over Iceland, and a numbered KP index scale is located in the top right corner, indicating the level of solar activity. The scale ranges from 0 to 9 (very low to very strong).”

The best UK destination to spot the Northern Lights, according to Icelandair

1. Shetland Islands
2. Orkney Islands
3. Outer Hebrides
4. Isle of Skye
5. Caingorms National Park
6. Northumberland
7. Cumbria
8. County Antrim
9. Dumfries and Galloway
10. North Yorkshire

The Dodgers are not here for conventional wisdom. The Dodgers are here to win the World Series.

So what if an unforeseen hurdle appeared in front of their October path? The Dodgers are on the verge of turning that hurdle into an unexpected but well-planned advantage on their quest to become baseball’s first back-to-back champions in 25 years.

Conventional wisdom says the odds favor a team with a bye, because that team can set up its pitching rotation for the division series just the way it wants while its opponent burns through its best arms in the wild-card series. The Dodgers are one win away from storming through the wild-card series and setting up their pitching rotation for the division series just fine, thank you very much.

That, it turns out, is what you can do when your star-studded starting rotation is healthy and effective for the first time all season, at precisely the right time.

The Dodgers thoroughly outclassed the Cincinnati Reds, 10-5, in Tuesday’s opener of the best-of-three wild-card series. If the Dodgers win Wednesday, or if they win Thursday, they would advance to what would be the premier matchup in all the National League playoffs: the Dodgers vs. the Philadelphia Phillies.

“I think the biggest downside of playing in a wild-card series, obviously, if you’re able to advance, is what your pitching looks like after that,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. “That’s the cost.

“And I think, with our depth, that’s really mitigated.”

It ain’t over ‘til it’s over. If the Angels could go 6-0 against the Dodgers this season, the Reds could win the next two games.

However, the Reds used their best pitcher, Hunter Greene, in Game 1. The Dodgers have their best pitcher, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, ready to deploy in Game 2.

And, since the best-of-three wild card format was introduced in 2022, all 12 teams that have won Game 1 have gone on to win the series.

So let’s plan this out. If the Dodgers win Wednesday, Shohei Ohtani could start Game 1 of the division series Saturday. If the Reds force a decisive third game Thursday, Ohtani is the scheduled starter — and, if the Dodgers win, Tyler Glasnow, Emmet Sheehan and Clayton Kershaw all could be options for Game 1 of the division series.

Kershaw would be available for sure, as he is not on the wild-card roster and he would be pitching on regular rest.

Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw would be available to pitch Game 1 of the NLDS if the Dodgers advance.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

“To have Clayton Kershaw standing there ready, no matter how we deploy our pitching this week, gets at the cost (of playing in the wild-card round) not being as great,” Friedman said.

And the division series includes an off day after each of the first two games, which would enable the Dodgers to use Snell on five days’ rest for Game 2 and Yamamoto on six days’ rest for Game 3.

The Dodgers have so much flexibility, in fact, that manager Dave Roberts declined to say that Ohtani would start Game 1 of the division series if the Dodgers close out the wild-card series Wednesday.

“You’re getting ahead,” Roberts said, “but one of the first two games, probably.”

It is important that Snell held the Reds to two runs in Tuesday’s victory, but it is more important that he pitched seven innings. The Dodgers asked their relievers to cover two innings with an eight-run lead, and it took four of them to do it.

The Dodgers’ road to success is clear: more of the starters, less of the erratic relievers, and less need to lean on Glasnow and Sheehan in an unfamiliar role.

“The deeper that the starters go in the game — one, it means that we’re pitching good; but, two, you’re giving the bullpen a break and a breather, and they get to be 100% every time they come out,” Snell said.

“That makes for a different game that favors us.”

The Dodgers improvised their way to a title last October, with three starting pitchers and four bullpen games. That was not conventional wisdom, either.

This time of year, however, most postseason teams have three or four reliable starters. The Dodgers have six. If they have to play in an extra round, well, what doesn’t kill them makes them stronger.

The allure of sea cucumber, Addison on Cafe 2001 and its elusive watermelon cake, plus L.A.’s king of super chuggers and more. I’m Laurie Ochoa, general manager of L.A. Times Food, with this week’s Tasting Notes.

Crackle pop

The sea cucumber spring roll at Wing in Hong Kong before it is sliced and plated. Behind the roll is a display of dried sea cucumber before its undergoes a multi-day cooking process.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

The crackle of paper-thin pastry under a razor-sharp cleaver as the chef beside your table slices a golden fried spring roll in half is just one sign that you are about to eat something extraordinary.

There is also the sight of the otherworldly creature — a sea cucumber — displayed on a platter in its dried state before it has undergone a multi-day blooming and braising process and formed the filling of the spring roll before you.

You bite into the delicate wrapper and find that the sea cucumber has been transformed into something that on one level resembles braised pork belly but also has its own kind of lusciousness.

This is the sea cucumber spring roll by chef Vicky Cheng, one of the not-to-miss dishes he created at his restaurant Wing in Hong Kong.

Cheng, who was born in Hong Kong, grew up in Canada and came of age as a chef in North America, learning the intricacies of French cuisine at Toronto and New York restaurants, including Daniel with chef Daniel Boulud.

That French training shows in the lightness of the pastry wrapper of Cheng’s fried spring roll. Not to mention the showmanship of its presentation, which provides ASMR thrills when the cleaver cuts through the cylinder. But Cheng’s true purpose is to recontextualize a traditional Chinese ingredient that has been seen as old-fashioned, a luxury texture food often eaten more for medicinal purposes and status rather than deliciousness.

Chef Vicky Cheng in the dining room of his Hong Kong restaurant Wing.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

At his first Hong Kong restaurant, the Michelin-starred restaurant VEA, one floor above Wing in the same office building that houses a collection of Michelin-starred restaurants, including the Chairman, Feuille, Hansik Goo and Whey, sea cucumber quickly became one of Cheng’s signature dishes.

In the VEA preparation, a smaller, spikier type of sea cucumber surrounds a shellfish filling — in January, when I tried the dish, it was tiger prawn. But for the spring roll at Wing, Cheng uses a much larger and smoother species from New Zealand and Australia, which has the first sea cucumber fishery certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council.

The sea cucumber spring roll is one of the dishes Cheng is planning to serve at Kato here in Los Angeles when he collaborates with chef Jon Yao for a two-night dinner series on Oct. 14 and 15. Reservations quickly disappeared when they were made available this week, but I’ll be talking with Cheng onstage Sunday, Oct. 12 at UCLA’s Fowler Museum about his restaurants and the different ways he’s trying to shift the conversation about Chinese cuisine for a younger generation. Joining us will be chef Curtis Stone, who featured Cheng and many others in the Hong Kong episode of his PBS series “Field Trip With Curtis Stone,” which will be screened at the free event.

The appearances will cap off our L.A. Times Food Bowl Night Market at City Market Social House Oct. 10 and 11. VIP tickets are sold out, but limited general admission tickets remain for the Friday and Saturday night event presented by Square. The more than 40 participating restaurants include Holbox, Baroo, the Brothers Sushi, OyBar, Heritage Barbecue, Crudo e Nudo, Hummingbird Ceviche House, Rossoblu, Perilla L.A., Evil Cooks, Villa’s Tacos, Holy Basil, Heavy Handed, AttaGirl, Heng Heng Chicken Rice, the Win-Dow, Agnes Restaurant & Cheesery and Luv2Eat Thai Bistro. Check lafoodbowl.com for tickets and info.

Chasing watermelon

Chef Giles Clark and some of his breakfast, lunch and pastry specials at Cafe 2001 in downtown Los Angeles.

(Emil Ravelo / For The Times)

My habit at the Arts District’s Cafe 2001 has been to arrive just after 11 a.m. when chef Giles Clark‘s menu, restricted to breakfast items before that point, opens up with lunch choices. It’s the best way to experience the full array of inventive dishes Clark has cooked up for the day … with one big exception. The cafe’s gorgeous watermelon cake, taught to Clark by Tokyo chef Toshio Tanabe, doesn’t come out of the kitchen until 1 p.m., even if it’s sometimes visible earlier than that, tempting diners. All summer long I haven’t managed to get a slice of that cake. But our restaurant critic Bill Addison is a pro; he got the cake and so much more, which he elegantly describes in his new review of Cafe 2001 — “a peculiar and quietly serious little place, with a narrow yet soaring space reclaimed from urban decay, and casual, sophisticated daytime meals,” he writes. “Its eccentricities feel like welcome refuge.”

For more on Cafe 2001, read Food’s deputy editor Betty Hallock on Clark’s spring-green potato salad (with his recipe), plus my contribution to our brunch guide on the appeal of Clark’s morning offerings and my newsletter earlier this summer on how the chef’s corn fritter was a welcome sign of summer in a city recovering from downtown L.A. restaurant closures after immigration enforcement actions prompted a curfew.

The wine auteur

Winemaker Scott Sampler gets chuggy at Anajak Thai in Sherman Oaks.

(G L Askew II / For The Times)

Chances are good you’ve seen Scott Sampler‘s Scotty-Boy! wines in restaurants and local wine shops. And you may have sipped from bottlings of some of his other labels without realizing they came from the same mind.

“Sampler’s wines,” writes Food contributor Patrick Comiskey, “have managed to channel L.A.’s boundless culinary enthusiasms for the past decade.” Of course, Comiskey adds that Sampler’s wines — “pungent, savory, defiantly unfruity” — “can be polarizing even in the era of natural wine, when wine’s very range of flavors is in flux.”

Sampler and Comiskey met in a booth at Musso & Frank’s in Hollywood to talk wine, food, Serge Gainsbourg and how the king of the super chuggers got serious about what he puts in a bottle. A terrific read.

3 out of 50

Gilberto Cetina, chef and owner of Holbox, pictured outside his restaurant.

(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)

On Thursday night, three Los Angeles restaurants were named to the inaugural North America’s 50 Best Restaurants list from the World’s 50 Best franchise, as Food’s Stephanie Breijo reports. They are Kato at No. 26, Holbox at No. 42 and at No. 47 Providence, which also received its third Michelin star this year.

“Everybody’s really proud,” Holbox chef Gilberto Cetina told Breijo, “especially right now with these times when our people don’t feel as welcome as we have before, with the way politics are. Being able to be here at a national forum representing Mexican culture through our food is really cool.”

Diner talk

Chef Nancy Silverton and Phil Rosenthal share a milkshake at the counter of Fair Oaks Pharmacy and Soda Fountain in Pasadena.

(Ron De Angelis / For The Times)

Food’s columnist Jenn Harris took chef Nancy Silverton and TV’s Phil Rosenthal to Pie ‘n Burger and the soda fountain at Fair Oaks Pharmacy in Pasadena to discuss the many debates the two have during the making of their soon-to-open diner Max and Helen’s in L.A.’s Larchmont Village. Patty melt or hamburger? Both was the compromise. And the secret of a great milkshake? The answer might surprise you.

Reeling

PCH seafood stalwart The Reel Inn before the Palisades fire.

(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)

Will the Reel Inn rise again? That’s the question Food’s Stephanie Breijo asked in her story about the challenges the iconic restaurant is facing as it tries to rebuild after the Palisades fire.

And in her Quick Bites report on new restaurants, Breijo has details about Bub and Grandma’s Pizza in Highland Park; Michelin-starred Kali‘s pivot away from tasting menus to steakhouse favorites; the appearance of Pino’s Sandwiches in Los Feliz from the owner of Salumeria Verdi in Florence and the expansion of Tacos Villa Corona to Eagle Rock.

Also …

DES MOINES — Officials put the leader of Iowa’s largest school district on administrative leave Saturday, a day after federal immigration agents arrested him because they said he was in the country illegally.

The Des Moines school board voted unanimously to place Supt. Ian Roberts on paid leave. The board said during a three-minute meeting that Roberts was not available to carry out his duties for the 30,000-student district and that officials would reassess his status after getting more information.

After the meeting, school board President Jackie Norris read a statement saying that word of Roberts’ arrest Friday made for a “jarring day,” but noting that board members still didn’t have all the facts.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said agents detained Roberts because he was in the country illegally, didn’t have authorization to work and was subject to a final removal order issued in 2024. ICE agents stopped Roberts while he was driving a school-issued vehicle, and the agency said he then fled into a wooded area before being apprehended with help from Iowa State Patrol officers.

He was held in the Woodbury County Jail in Sioux City, in northwest Iowa, about 150 miles from Des Moines.

“I want to be clear, no one here was aware of any citizenship or immigration issues that Dr. Roberts may have been facing,” Norris said. “The accusations ICE had made against Dr. Roberts are very serious, and we are taking them very seriously.”

Norris said Roberts has retained a Des Moines law firm to represent him. Lawyer Alfredo Parrish confirmed his firm was representing Roberts, but declined to comment on his case.

Norris also repeated that the district had done a background check on Roberts before he was hired that didn’t indicate any problems and that he signed a form affirming he was a U.S. citizen. A company that aided in the search for a superintendent in 2023 also hired another firm to conduct “comprehensive criminal, credit and background checks” on Roberts that didn’t indicate any citizenship problems, Norris said.

Also Saturday, the Iowa Department of Education released a statement saying Roberts stated he was a U.S. citizen when he applied for an administrator license. The department said the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners conducted a criminal history check with state and federal authorities before issuing a license.

The department said it is reviewing the Des Moines district’s hiring procedures for ensuring people are authorized to work in the U.S.

Roberts had previously said he was born to immigrant parents from Guyana and spent much of his childhood in Brooklyn, N.Y. He competed in the 2000 Olympics in track and field for Guyana.

ICE said he entered the U.S. on a student visa in 1999.

A former senior Guyanese police official on Saturday remembered Roberts as a middle-distance runner who could have risen through the ranks of the South American country’s police force had he not emigrated to the U.S. decades ago. Retired Assistant Guyana Police Force Commissioner Paul Slowe said Roberts entered the police force after graduating from the country’s standard military officers’ course.

“He served for a few years and then left. He was not dismissed or dishonorably discharged at all; he just moved on,” Slowe told the Associated Press. “He was a good, promising and disciplined man.”

McFetridge writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Bert Wilkinson in Georgetown, Guyana, contributed to this report.

Cleveland Guardians designated hitter David Fry was hit in the face by a 99-mph fastball thrown Tuesday by Detroit Tigers pitcher Tarik Skubal at Ohio’s Progressive Field.

During a sixth-inning at-bat, Fry was attempting to bunt when the ball missed the bat completely and hit him in the nose and mouth area. He fell to the ground and remained there for several minutes while being treated by medical staff.

Fry eventually was able to walk to a cart under his own power. The 2024 American League All-Star gave a thumbs-up signal as he was being driven off the field. The Guardians later said Fry was undergoing tests and observation, possibly overnight, at the Cleveland Clinic Main Campus.

“He’s getting tested,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt told reporters after the game. “He stayed conscious the whole time. Definitely some injuries there, so I’ll give you an update tomorrow on David.”

Vogt added: “We’re all thinking about Dave and his family right now. Obviously, we’re glad he’s OK, but obviously it’s really a scary moment. So [we’re] thinking about him.”

As the incident took place, Skubal reacted in horror from the mound, immediately dropping his glove, removing his cap and covering his face with his hand. The 2024 American League Cy Young Award winner later told reporters it was “really tough” to see Fry like that.

“I’ve already reached out to him. I’m sure his phone is blowing up. I just want to make sure he’s all right,” Skubal said. “Obviously, he seemed like he was OK coming off the field and hopefully it stays that way.

“I know sometimes with those things that can change. So hopefully he’s all right. I look forward to hopefully at some point tonight or [Wednesday] morning getting a text from him and making sure he’s all good because there’s things that are bigger than the game and the health of him is more important than a baseball game.”

Cleveland won the game 5-2 to pull to a tie with Detroit at the top of the AL Central Division after trailing by as many as 15½ games this summer.

Cheese is the star at one of the world’s most enchanting restaurants in a Puglia forest. Plus, cold noodles to obsess over … how fish sauce caramel transforms instant noodles … the sexy steak videos transforming an Armenian meat shop … losing Birdie G’s pickle chicken … 6-to-1 grocery shopping … and an Angeleno’s connection to Mexican Chicago. I’m Laurie Ochoa, general manager of L.A. Times Food, with this week’s Tasting Notes.

Slinging the blues

Cheesemaker Vito Dicecca, who built Baby Dicecca, a cheese bar in the Mercadante forest close to Altamura in Puglia, Italy.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

It’s been more than 15 years since I stumbled into Caseificio Dicecca, the shop of the famed cheesemaking Dicecca family in the Puglia city of Altamura, and bit into a round of freshly made burrata, the rich, oozing cream still warm. No burrata I’ve had since has equaled that first bite.

I had come to the region with chef Nancy Silverton, who was poking her head into the doors of the city’s many bakeries, sampling focaccia and the local bread that has a tradition so old the ancient Roman poet Horace called Altamura’s crusty loaves “by far the best bread to be had.”

Burrata is a much younger food. It wasn’t established in the region until the 1920s and Caseificio Dicecca is just one of several family-run operations in the area making the cheese that is now ubiquitous around the world — thanks in part to Silverton, who first started serving burrata in the 1990s at L.A.’s Campanile before she later opened her many Mozza restaurants.

The phenomenon got so out of hand that a burrata backlash was sparked, led by author Jeff Gordinier‘s 2019 Esquire story titled “F*** Your Burrata,” in which he argued that the appearance of the cheese on a menu “is like a billboard announcing, ‘The chef at this place has never had an original idea in his life …’”

Meanwhile, burrata sales continue to grow, with one estimate valuing the global market at more than $2 billion this year.

Last week, I returned to Puglia with Silverton, this time with author Alec Lobrano and several food-obsessed travelers. Silverton, who is a fan of Gordinier’s writing, read parts of his story aloud to the group even as she extolled her love for the maligned cheese. Especially when it is made by expert cheesemakers like the Diceccas.

And no one would ever accuse the Dicecca family of being unoriginal.

The cheese operation is now in the hands of five siblings — Vito, Paolo, Angelo, Vittoria and Maristella — who are the fourth generation to run the caseificio. At various points, the siblings left Altamura to travel the world and, in some cases, make cheese in places far away from Italy. But Altamura is their lodestar and several years back Vito Dicecca, who spent time in Japan, Thailand, Mexico, Australia and even lived for a bit in Southern California, not only brought back new cheesemaking ideas (the siblings make more than 300 varieties) he created one of the world’s most enchanting restaurants in the Mercadante Forest not far from Altamura.

Focaccia with fresh stracciatella at Baby Dicecca in Puglia’s Mercadante Forest.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

You may have seen an earlier version of the restaurant — which then was more of a kiosk — in the Puglia episode of Stanley Tucci‘s CNN series “Searching for Italy.” A few months ago, Vito Dicecca relocated and expanded his restaurant, Baby Dicecca, but it is still a very simple spot where the majority of diners eat outside surrounded by the trees of the forest.

“Proudly, we serve mostly cheese and some vegetables from our friends close to here,” Dicecca said as he welcomed the group. Even his wines are usually made by friends of his, he explained, as he poured “a natural, biodynamic sparkling wine” made with the Puglian Marasco grape from the producer L’Archetipo.

“I don’t buy the brand,” he said. “I like the people and then I’ll like the wine.”

What followed was a cheese lover’s feast, including focaccia draped in fresh, almost liquid stracciatella (or the “heart of mozzarella” as Dicecca put it on the menu) and “calzoncello alla Vito,” a handmade type of raviolo sauced with mozzarella whey and topped with a fresh grating of the aged cheese the family calls Dicecca Gold. To break up the richness, there was an heirloom tomato salad plus Vito’s take on a Caesar salad with seasonal greens mixed with fennel and celery plus a bit of honey and aged Pecorino. It may not have been a true Caesar, but it was delicious.

At one point Dicecca broke out a charcoal-colored loaf of bread made with grano arso, the burnt flour that also is used in some of the region’s pastas. He sliced the bread, drizzled it with local olive oil and then took a bundle of dried, wild oregano grown in the forest nearby and shook some of it on top of the slices.

Wild oregano is shaken on olive-oil-drizzled slices of bread made with grano arso, or burnt flour, at Baby Dicecca, a restaurant in Puglia, Italy.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

Dessert was two kinds of gelato, including one with goat’s milk, oregano and honey, made on the spot by Dicecca’s friend — “a genius” — Maurizio Bonina.

But the climax of the meal was, of course, cheese. And it wasn’t burrata.

Amore Primitivo is Vito Dicecco’s fever dream of a cheese, a blue, aged variety that is soaked in local Primitivo wine for 100 days, turning the exterior deep purple. He places the whole cheese on a cake stand and then loads the top with macerated cherries. Once the group admires the cheese’s beauty, he slices and serves it atop guests’ hands like a caviar bump.

Only when you taste the cheese and its beautifully mellow funk does it become clear that this is not just a cheese for Instagram. This aged blue created in the land of fresh mozzarella exemplifies the best of the Italian spirit — a healthy respect for tradition infused with a risk taker’s desire for innovation.

“For the first three years, I didn’t sell one piece,” Dicecca told us. “My family was very mad at me. Friends of my dad, they said to him, ‘Tell your son, this is not a pastry shop, it’s a cheese shop.’”

For a time, he added, “I pretended to sell the cheese — I was giving it as a gift to friends. But now it’s one of the best sellers.”

These days, Caseificio Dicecca is almost as well known for its blue cheeses as it is for its fresh burrata and pasta filata family of stretched curd cheeses. They’ve experimented with more than 60 types of blue, including an ultra aged cheese, golden yellow on the inside, that Vito Dicecco named Surfing Blu. Who knows what he’ll think of next?

Baby Dicecca cheese bar is open from May through October.

Sexy steaks

Sevan Meat Market manager Norvan Simonian, right, and co-owner Serop Marukyan.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

More generational innovation, this time closer to home, as our favorite Grocery Goblin Vanessa Anderson reports in her latest dispatch on the social media ideas transforming an Armenian meat shop: “Sevan Meat Market’s social media videos — conceived by owner Hrach Marukyan, his son Serop and manager Norvan Simonian — tell an Armenian American story built on beef, a story of the old and new, of adaptation to a rapidly changing world. And their growing audience of now nearly 60,000 Instagram followers is eagerly tuning in.”

In a pickle

The “pickle chick” cutlet, front, plus the relish tray and knife-and-fork tomato sandwich at Jeremy Fox’s Birdie G’s, which will close in December.

(Shelby Moore / For The Times)

Last month, when I was at Birdie G’s in Santa Monica for a family get-together — and a taste of the restaurant’s famed “pickle chick” fried chicken cutlet — the place was packed, with the crowded valet station just one indication that this was a place people wanted to be. It seemed that chef and partner Jeremy Fox‘s vision for a chef’s take on a chain restaurant was ready to spread to other locations.

But as Fox told Food’s Stephanie Breijo this week, business has been inconsistent since the Palisades fire in January. “One month the sprawling restaurant’s seats would all be filled,” wrote Breijo, “the following, sales would drop by 40%.” And in the days right after the fire, Fox estimated that the restaurant’s revenue fell by 80%.

“That was a bloodbath,” Fox told Breijo, explaining his decision to close the restaurant on Dec. 31.

Until the end of the year, Fox and Birdie G’s co-owners, Josh Loeb and Zoe Nathan, owners of the Rustic Canyon Family restaurant group, are planning more daily specials, ambitious large-format dishes, guest chefs and “one final run,” Breijo writes, “of the restaurant’s fan-favorite Hanukkah series, 8 Nights.”

“What’s the worst that could happen,” Fox said, “we go out of business?”

The great holiday cookie bake-off returns

(Leslie Grow / For the Times)

Here at L.A. Times Food we decided it had been too long since our last Los Angeles Times Holiday Cookie Bake-Off — a tradition that began in 2010 and allowed us to connect with you, our readers, and your recipes. As Deputy Food Editor Betty Hallock wrote in our recipe call, we are accepting recipe submissions until Monday, Oct. 13. If you’ve got a great holiday cookie recipe we want to hear from you.

Noodle cool-down

A bowl of Beijing Yanji cold noodles from Bistro Na’s restaurant in Temple City.

(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times )

Columnist Jenn Harris’ latest obsession is Bistro Na’s Beijing Yanji cold noodles. “It’s a tangle of buckwheat noodles in an ice-cold broth,” she writes, “with sliced beef shank, beef tongue, kimchi, watermelon, boiled egg, shredded cucumber, pickled radish and chile sauce all arranged over the top like a color wheel.” I think I need to return to the Temple City restaurant very soon for a bowl of my own.

Mexican as Chicago

Marcos Carbajal, left, and his father Inocencio Carbajal at their Little Village location of Carnitas Uruapan in Chicago.

(Carnitas Uruapan)

With so much of the Trump administration’s focus on Chicago, Food Editor Daniel Hernandez wrote about the city’s deeply established Mexican roots as seen in its restaurants from the perspective of a visiting Angeleno: “Los Angeles may have more Mexican residents in total numbers, but in terms of who makes up each city’s Latino population, Chicago is as Mexican as Los Angeles.”

Instant classic

Holy Basil’s chef and owner Deau Arpapornnopprat holds his ‘Yum Mama’ Instant Noodle Salad With Lime And Fish Sauce Caramel in the Times Test Kitchen.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

Have you ever made fish sauce caramel? It could become your next kitchen essential. For our most recent “Chef That!” cooking video, Deau Arpapornnopparat, chef-owner of the Thai restaurants Holy Basil, came to the Times Test Kitchen to show us how he elevates instant noodles with easy-to-make fish sauce caramel and more toppings. As Deputy Food Editor Betty Hallock wrote, the “dressing is classically sweet, sour, salty and spicy all at once.” Find the recipe here.

Curtis Stone’s ‘Field Trip’

To cap off the weekend of The Times’ Food Bowl Night Market, presented by Square, we’ve added a free Sunday evening screening, reception and conversation on Oct. 12 featuring L.A. chef Curtis Stone with Michelin-starred chef Vicky Cheng of the acclaimed Hong Kong restaurants Wing and VEA. I’ll be talking with Stone and Cheng about the Hong Kong episode of “Field Trip With Curtis Stone” and more. It takes place at the Fowler Museum at UCLA. To sign up for free tickets, click here.

And although VIP tickets (allowing early entry) to The Times’ Food Bowl Night Market are sold out, general admission tickets remain for the two-night event taking place Oct. 10-11 at City Market Social House in downtown L.A. More than 40 restaurants are participating, including Holbox, Baroo, the Brothers Sushi, OyBar, Heritage Barbecue, Crudo e Nudo, Hummingbird Ceviche House, Rossoblu, Perilla L.A., Evil Cooks, Villa’s Tacos, Holy Basil and Luv2Eat Thai Bistro. Check lafoodbowl.com for tickets and info.

Also …

Inside L.A. restaurant Jaragua, on a recent Friday night, Justin Alexio moved with a measured urgency from the backroom to the front of the restaurant without disturbing anyone’s dinner. The comic, producer and creator of the Los Angeles-based comedy show, Pupusas and Punchlines, Alexio escorted guests to their tables, switched on the microphones placed around the room, and pointed a camera to the center stage before the show was to begin.

The dining area inside the Salvadoran restaurant is rather quiet for a Friday night; there’s a soccer game playing on TV as a family of six places an order for dinner. As people in the audience spread their curtido, or pickled cabbage and carrots, on their pupusas, others await for their food with anticipation, while some choose to stick to drinks. The room is filled with distractions, but comedians are not fazed — it is a welcoming atmosphere, and they know that soon the sounds of laughter will fill the air.

“I feel like eating is such a large part of Latin culture and most cultures,” Alexio said. “I wanted a place where you can eat Latin food and listen to Latin jokes.”

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, independent comedy shows had almost become a thing of the past in L.A. Not to mention that finding gigs is a difficult task, especially for Latinx comedians; according to Alexio, most comedy rooms don’t want to book more than one Latinx comedian.

Pupusas and Punchlines offers a place where they can perform in front of a packed room and joke about the immigrant experience in the U.S. — and the absurdities of the American dream in 2025 — while sharing a delicious meal.

Pupusas and Punchlines producer and creator Justin Alexio performs on March 7, 2025.

(Drew Steres)

Alexio said he started the show in 2023, after he took a long break from stand-up comedy, to instead pursue acting full time. His résumé includes appearances on NBC’s comedy series “Superstore” and ABC’s late-night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

“The future of entertainment has to be more real,” he said of his decision to return to the stage. “Stand-up is live.”

The L.A. stand-up scene is quite competitive — especially for Alexio, who is an Afro-Latino of Puerto Rican, Dominican and Ecuadorian descent. As an answer to the marginalization of Black and brown people in mainstream comedy, Alexio said he decided to produce his own show, with hopes to highlight other Latinx performers as well.

Since then, he has expanded “Pupusas and Punchlines” immensely — from performing only once a month at half-capacity to selling out 115 consecutive weekly shows.

Alexio attributed the show’s success to the high-quality comedians he’s booked, as well as the food and the feeling of community it has created. People have told him they’ve driven more than an hour just for the show, while others have attended on multiple occasions.

“They want to support me and the show, they want to support the restaurant, they want to support the Latin comics … The crowd feels like they want to help these comics rise,” he said.

Patrons laugh at Pupusas and Punchlines on May 16, 2025.

(Drew Steres)

The majority of the comics Alexio books are Latinx, but he also includes performers who belong to other underrepresented groups. He showcases upcoming comics while providing clips to help grow their social media presence. After performing on his show, he said, comics have noted an uptick of new followers on social media.

Onstage at Friday’s show, comics pulled humor from topics related to immigration, religion, salsa, sexuality and other typical first-generation immigrant dilemmas. Performers feel like they can discuss topics they usually can’t perform in front of a more general club audience.

“I think any ethnicity in an ethnic crowd always thrive,” said comic Gregory Santos. “Obviously you can be a white boy and do a really good job here. I feel like it’s just an extra layer of stuff that you can talk about.”

Daisy Roxx performs at Pupusas and Punchlines in March.

(Drew Steres)

Pupusas and Punchlines is one of the few shows that caters toward the Latinx community, said comedian Rell Battle, as he rattled off a list of shows that sadly don’t exist anymore.

“Ironically, in a majority Latin city, there aren’t [many] consistent Latin shows,” Battle said. He described Pupusas and Punchlines as a road show of sorts — scored by genuine laughter. The audience members feel more appreciative, compared to a run-of-the-mill comedy club in Hollywood that caters more to tourists.

“People that come out to shows in Hollywood will ask me to hold the camera and take a picture of them,” Battle joked.

The crowd at Pupusas and Punchlines is not one to dismiss or antagonize comics that are not Latinx. Yet audience members would gladly correct any comic who’d assume the restaurant was Mexican, or mispronounce the word “pupusas,” as Battle sheepishly recalled during his own set. At the end of the day, they usually bond with comics over what they share in common: the drive to make it in L.A.

“When the neighborhood shows up, those are the best shows,” said Santos, between sets at Jaragua. “It’s normal people, it’s everyday neighborhood L.A. people.”

For more information on upcoming events, visit Pupusas and Punchlines on Instagram.

A Hollywood institution known for mystery, deception and drama, the Magic Castle is now gripped by a new variety of suspense.

Magic Castle mansion owner Randy Pitchford, who bought the establishment in 2022, has presented a reorganization plan to his tenant, the Academy of Magical Arts. The AMA is the nonprofit club that operates the castle and whose performer-members have helped build it into one of the world’s top venues for magic.

In a series of proposals, Pitchford has offered AMA members a choice between embracing his plan — which gives him control over castle operations and most revenue — or finding another clubhouse when the academy’s lease expires Dec. 31, 2028.

Members have until Sept. 29 to decide.

With backing from the AMA’s board of directors, Pitchford presents this moment as a chance for the academy to secure a vibrant future for the Magic Castle while preserving its legacy.

But the proposal is causing “division, fracturing and confusion” among many AMA members, as one magician, Ralph Shelton, put it. Some members, who asked not to publish their names, told The Times they believe that Pitchford is using an ultimatum to take control of the castle. Other members say they simply worry that Pitchford is giving AMA members too little information.

“The easiest people to fool are magicians and scientists,” said Shelton, a Huntington Beach attorney who put himself through law school by doing magic. “You know what they’re looking for and you work around that.”

Pitchford did not immediately respond Thursday to requests for comment on the allegation that he is using an ultimatum to take control of the castle. But Pitchford and his team had said that by taking over the risks and rewards that come with running the Castle, his company is freeing up the AMA to focus on its non-commercial mission — promoting magic — “for as long as it wishes to use the Magic Castle as its clubhouse.”

Since Sept. 8, the academy’s 4,664 members have been casting electronic votes on whether to change the organization’s bylaws and other documents to allow the proposed realignment. In previous polling, the members who voted have heavily favored a deal. A “yes” vote would mean the reorganization would begin as soon as Oct. 1.

At the Magic Castle, guests say a secret password to enter.

(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

Pitchford learned magic at the castle before building a video game empire as the co-founder of Gearbox Entertainment. In a Sept. 9 statement to The Times, he noted that he and his wife were married in the Magic Castle’s Palace of Mystery in 1997, “so our investment into its preservation and quality is quite personal to us.”

As an AMA member for more than 30 years, he said he is “thrilled that the Academy of Magical Arts, with the overwhelming support of the membership, are our ally in forging a bold, mission-first partnership for at least the next 30 years of magic at the Magic Castle.”

The Magic Castle, a 1909 Edwardian-style mansion, opened in 1963 as a clubhouse and performance venue for the Academy of Magical Arts, which was founded and sustained for years by the Larsen family. From the start, the academy was a tenant in the building, leasing from private owners, the Glover family, on terms often described as “a handshake deal.”

For decades, visitors have been drawn by the idea of dressing to the nines and roaming room to room, sipping cocktails as conjurers and sleight-of-hand artists ply their trade. Performers and members have included Cary Grant, Johnny Carson, Orson Welles, Jason Alexander, Neil Patrick Harris and Larry Wilmore (who sits on the board of directors). Exclusivity is part of the appeal, too. To get in, most guests need an invite from a member.

The enterprise ran into trouble in 2020 when the pandemic shut it down and a Times investigation detailed allegations of sexual harassment, groping and racism. In 2021, the mansion reopened amid a leadership overhaul.

Erika Larsen, president of Magic Castle Enterprises, and mansion owner Randy Pitchford.

(Tara Ziemba / Getty Images)

The latest chapter in the castle’s story began in April 2022 when Pitchford bought the property from its longtime landlords, the Glover family.

Pitchford, 54, whose Texas-based company created the popular Borderlands video game franchise, is a controversial figure in the video game industry. His purchase of the castle, valued by the L.A. County Assessor at $50 million, also included an adjacent apartment building and the 33-unit Magic Hotel next door.

About the same time as the castle purchase, Pitchford also bought intellectual property rights to the Magic Castle name from Milt Larsen, who died in 2023.

When Pitchford was announced as buyer of the castle, many academy members voiced optimism. “We were absolutely thrilled beyond measure,” said Paul Kott, an Anaheim-based commercial and residential real estate broker who has been an AMA member for 50 years. “We know his heart wants to dedicate this place to the art of magic.”

To manage the new holdings, Pitchford and his wife, Kristy Pitchford, created companies called Magic Castle Enterprises (for intellectual property) and Magic Castle Entertainment (for real estate), together known as MCE. They also enlisted Erika Larsen, daughter of castle pioneers Bill and Irene Larsen, as president of Magic Castle Enterprises, and Jessica Hopkins, granddaughter of Bill and Irene Larsen, as chief operating officer.

In January 2024, the AMA’s leadership told members that the group’s lease on the building would not be renewed — causing a surge of anxiety among members — and that academy board was negotiating with MCE in hopes of keeping the group in place.

On July 30, 2024, AMA members said they received an email that included a warning from MCE saying that if it couldn’t make a deal with the academy, MCE might “create a new club with enticing features and pricing” that “might possibly lead to [the academy’s] demise.”

(In a later email exchange with The Times, Pitchford said he did not recall that specific sentence; he did not respond to a request to confirm or deny the passage.)

In December 2024, AMA leaders invited members to vote on a proposed “resolution implementation agreement” for MCE to take over the Magic Castle’s commercial operations while the academy remained on site indefinitely and focused on its nonprofit role, including awards programs and educational efforts.

MCE reported that more than 90% of ballots favored the deal. Opponents said that a minority of members cast votes. A second vote yielded similar results.

Further details emerged in a “white paper” document that MCE circulated in February 2025. It said MCE would operate and collect revenue from the castle gift shop, bar, restaurant, box office and valet parking. AMA members would pay dues through a new entity which would divide that revenue between MCE and the academy. The Magic Castle would serve “as the exclusive clubhouse of the AMA indefinitely.”

MCE also pledged to invest $10 million in capital improvements and maintenance and relieve the AMA of remaining lease and trademark-related financial obligations. Meanwhile, the AMA board of directors would gradually shrink from nine members to five, two of them nominated by MCE.

In March, the Magic Castle announced that the MCE and AMA board of directors had signed a resolution implementation agreement, the framework for a deal. An AMA spokesperson said that MCE and the AMA board of directors “have negotiated terms for long-term access. Details of the agreement will not be released.”

“I think [Pitchford] has tried to do everything in his power to preserve the nature of this iconic place,” said longtime member Christopher Hart, who serves as chair of the academy’s board of trustees, which oversees artistic choices at the castle. Hart played “Thing,” the disembodied hand, in the “Addams Family” movies.

“The rumors have been so rampant in so many directions,” said Gay Blackstone, a longtime member who has served in many roles on the academy board of directors and board of trustees. Blackstone said she still has research to do before casting her vote but “I know that [Pitchford’s] love and passion for the magic are tremendous.”

Still, for some, doubts persist. “I don’t think the membership is being given what they need to make a good decision…. How long can we stay? how much is it going to cost?” Kott asked.

Now comes another membership vote. On Sept. 8, members began a binding vote on proposed changes in academy bylaws and other documents that would make the new deal possible. Those changes include creation of a Magic Castle Club, separate from the Academy of Magical Arts.

That “is an important wrinkle,” Shelton said.

The concept of the Magic Castle Club “is not to compete with the A.M.A., but we needed a new entity to collect dues on behalf of the A.M.A. and MCE per the arrangement,” Randy Pitchford said in a statement to The Times Sept. 15. Once an agreement is in place, Pitchford said, “All club activities, events, initiatives, etc, are and will be led and directed by the Academy of Magical Arts.”

The goal, MCE leaders have said, is “a seamless transition with a focus on an uninterrupted member and guest experience.”

If the membership rejects the changes, Christopher Grant, president of the academy’s board of directors, said in a statement that “MCE will terminate its current lease with the AMA” and the academy would need to find a new clubhouse by January 2029.

Further effects of a “no” vote, especially for academy-member performers and audiences at the Magic Castle, are harder to predict.

In his Sept. 9 statement, Pitchford suggested that the new proposal puts in place “the same kind of relationship that founded and created” the Magic Castle in the first place.

“Change is always scary,” Hart said. “Members just want the same experience they’ve always had and loved about the castle.” The proposed changes, Hart added, “could make the castle greater than it’s ever been.”

Comics have long been on the front lines of democracy, the canary in the cat’s mouth, Looney Tunes style, when it comes to free speech being swallowed by regressive politics.

So Jimmy Kimmel is in good company, though he may not like this particular historical party: Zero Mostel; Philip Loeb; even Lenny Bruce, who claimed, after being watched by the FBI and backroom blacklisted, that he was less a comic and more “the surgeon with the scalpel for false values.”

During that era of McCarthyism in the 1950s (yes, I know Bruce’s troubles came later), America endured an attack on our 1st Amendment right to make fun of who we want, how we want — and survived — though careers and even lives were lost.

Maybe we aren’t yet at the point of a new House Un-American Activities Committee, but the moment is feeling grim.

Wake up, Los Angeles. This isn’t a Jimmy Kimmel problem. This is a Los Angeles problem.

This is about punishing people who speak out. It’s about silencing dissent. It’s about misusing government power to go after enemies. You don’t need to agree with Kimmel’s politics to see where this is going.

For a while, during Trump 2.0, the ire of the right was aimed at California in general and San Francisco in particular, that historical lefty bastion that, with its drug culture, openly LBGTQ+ ethos and Pelosi-Newsom political dynasty, seemed to make it the perfect example of what some consider society’s failures.

But really, the difficulty with hating San Francisco is that it doesn’t care. It’s a city that has long acknowledged, even flaunted, America’s discomfort with it. That’s why the infamous newspaper columnist Herb Caen dubbed it “Baghdad by the Bay” more than 80 years ago, when the town had already fully embraced its outsider status.

Los Angeles, on the other hand, has never considered itself a problem. Mostly, we’re too caught up in our own lives, through survival or striving, to think about what others think of our messy, vibrant, complicated city. Add to that, Angelenos don’t often think of themselves as a singular identity. There are a million different L.A.s for the more than 9 million people who live in our sprawling county.

But to the rest of America, L.A. is increasingly a specific reality, a place that, like San Francisco once did, embodies all that is wrong for a certain slice of the American right.

It was not happenstance that President Trump chose L.A. as the first stop for his National Guard tour, or that ICE’s roving patrols are on our streets. It’s not bad luck or even bad decisions that is driving the push to destroy UCLA as we know it.

And it’s really not what Kimmel said about Charlie Kirk that got him pulled, because it truth, his statements were far from the most offensive that have been uttered on either side of the political spectrum.

In fact, he wasn’t talking about Kirk, but about his alleged killer and how in the immediate aftermath, there was endless speculation about his political beliefs. Turns out that Kimmel wrongly insinuated the suspect was conservative, though all of us will likely have to wait until the trial to gain a full understanding of the evidence.

“The MAGA gang [is] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said, before making fun of Trump’s response to the horrific killing.

You can support what Kimmel said or be deeply offended by it. But it is rich for the people who just a few years ago were saying liberal “cancel culture” was ruining America to adopt the same tactics.

If you need proof that this is more about control than content, look no further than Trump’s social media post on the issue, which directly encourages NBC to fire its own late-night hosts, who have made their share of digs at the president as well.

“Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible. That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!!” Trump wrote.

This is about making an example of America’s most vibrant and inclusive city, and the celebrity icons who dare to diss — the place that exemplifies better than any other what freedom looks like, lives like, jokes like.

If a Kimmel can fall so easily, what does that mean the career of Hannah Einbinder, who shouted out a “free Palestine” at the Emmys? Will there be a quiet fear of hiring her?

What does it mean for a union leader like David Huerta, who is still facing charges after being detained at an immigration protest? Will people think twice before joining a demonstration?

What does it mean for you? The yous who live lives of expansiveness and inclusion. The yous who have forged your own path, made your own way, broken the boundaries of traditional society whether through your choices on who to love, what country to call your own, how to think of your identity or nurture your soul.

You, Los Angeles, with your California dreams and anything-goes attitude, are the living embodiment of everything that needs to be crushed.

I am not trying to send you into an anxiety spiral, but it’s important to understand what we stand to lose if civil rights continue to erode.

Kimmel having his speech censored is in league with our immigrant neighbors being rounded up and detained; the federal government financially pressuring doctors into dropping care for transgender patients, and the University of California being forced to turn over the names of staff and students it may have a beef with.

Being swept up by ICE may seem vastly different than a millionaire celebrity losing his show, but they are all the weaponization of government against its people.

It was Disney, not Donald Trump, who took action against Kimmel. But Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr threatening to “take action” if ABC did not sounds a lot like the way the White House talks about Washington, Oakland and so many other blue cities, L.A. at the top of the list.

Our Black mayor. Our Latino senator and representatives. Our 1 million undocumented residents. Our nearly 10% of the adult population identifies as LGBTQ+. Our comics, musicians, actors and writers who have long pushed us to see the world in new, often difficult, ways.

Many of us are here because other places didn’t want us, didn’t understand us, tried to hold us back. (I am in Sacramento now, but remain an Angeleno at heart.) We came here, to California and Los Angeles, for the protection this state and city offers.

But now it needs our protection.

However this assault on democracy comes, we are all Jimmy Kimmel — we are all at risk. The very nature of this place is under siege, and standing together across the many fronts of these attacks is our best defense.

Seeing that they are all one attack — whether it is against a celebrity, a car wash worker or our entire city — is critical.

“Our democracy is not self-executing,” former President Obama said recently. “It depends on us all as citizens, regardless of our political affiliations, to stand up and fight for the core values that have made this country the envy of the world.”

So here we are, L.A., in a moment that requires fortitude, requires insight, requires us to stand up and say the most ridiculous thing that has every been said in a town full of absurdity:

I am Jimmy Kimmel, and I will not be silent.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Thursday blocked President Trump’s administration from immediately deporting Guatemalan migrant children who came to the U.S. alone back to their home country, the latest step in a court struggle over one of the most sensitive issues in Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly comes after the Republican administration’s Labor Day weekend attempt to remove Guatemalan migrant children who were living in government shelters and foster care.

There was already a temporary order in place preventing the removal of Guatemalan children. But that was set to expire Tuesday.

Kelly, who was appointed by Trump, granted a preliminary injunction extends that temporary protection indefinitely, although the government can appeal.

There are also temporary restraining orders in separate cases in Arizona and Illinois, but those cases are much more narrow in the scope of children they cover.