5 Lite Bites in Santa Monica

By Farmers Market Supervisor and host of Good Food‘s Market Report, Laura Avery
OK – my five favorite things in LA – in Santa Monica – are the fabulous small plates and beverage pairings you can get at some of the restaurants that shop at the farmers market. You can dine like a foodie at these places and enjoy the best the chefs have to offer – and the best part is you can have just one small plate or a whole lot of different ones. It’s a great way to spend time inside these restaurants and enjoy cocktails and tastes with friends. Worth going back for again and again until you’ve tried them all. These five are always top of the list for me.
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5 LA Restaurants Where Everybody Knows Your Name

By KCRW Music Host & DJ, Jason Kramer
Enter stage right and a gentleman who lives on a bar stool walks through the doors of a local tavern in Boston and everybody yells “Norm”…
5 Ghastly Ghost Stories

By KCRW Host and Music Librarian, Eric J. Lawrence
In my long years as an avid reader of ghost stories, two facts have made themselves plain to me. One, spooky things are best encountered in short stories. Yes, there are some terrific ghostly novels – Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black, Anne Rivers Siddons’ The House Next Door, to name a few – but in general, specters tend to wear out their welcome after a few dozen pages. Short stories give room enough for a short, sharp shock and then they disappear, often leaving the reader just the right amount of ambiguity to make one glance over their shoulder, just in case some lingering ectoplasmic tendril drifted off the page. (more…)
5 Truly Otherworldly Female Singers You’ll Hear About in 2011

By KCRW Music Host & DJ Mario Cotto
I love women. My mom is a woman. Also, all my exes have been women. Women do amazing things like grow babies inside them, and they mostly smell nice, and multi-task, and feel emotions very very well. Women are magical creatures. Except when they are throwing objects at my face or are yelling at me. I don’t like that so much. I do however LOVE when women sing to me…or at least in my general direction. Or when I hear them at shows or on the internets.
5 Eateries with Great Soundtracks

By KCRW Host and DJ, Anthony Valadez
Sounds is important to me. It helps me relax. It assists with the great conversations with friends while enjoying a meal. I am that guy who will excuse himself from a table and Shazam the title of a song being played. Or I might even stop the conversation to point out the wonderful bass solo in a song. These are some of my favorite eateries in California that have always helped me develop my playlist for my KCRW shows. Yes, even at El Pollo Loco in Venice!