Good boy, good food

Zeus introduces three new recipes and you better like 'em: banana bread with chocolate and crystallized ginger; sweet potato and red lentil soup with mint (accompanied by a salad of garden arugula, parsley, apple, and preserved lemon); braised fennel with meyer lemon and parmesan. The overall look is a little beige here, but the flavors are singin. And look ma: no meat!

RIP GB

We are so fortunate to have had you in our lives. We will miss you dearly.

Coasting

Beaches, bikes, bulls and buoys. Note the 6th photo down -- car parking adjacent to sea mammal parking -- gives you a little perspective on the massiveness of the magnificent elephant seal. Bulls typically reach 16 feet in length and weigh 6,000 pounds. They are deep divers (1,000-5,000'), and can stay under water for several hours. While they spend most of the year traveling the open ocean, they are here in December/January to give birth (calves are weaned after only 3-4 weeks). They're protected along our coast (after nearly being hunted to extinction) but are not protected in Asia.

What time is it anyway?

Looks to be 420 at LAPD headquarters.
Elsewhere, it's time for a bike race (my money's on the 'solo' tandem cruiser).
Downtown, it's time to smell (possibly eat) the marzipan flowers...
and to choose between holliness, hell or halal (the leaves chose wrong).
Outside the Chandler Pavilion, tis Christmas-contrail-rainbow time.
A good time for so many things. Joy!