Results tagged “contest”

                     

This Saturday, crowds and culinarians flocked to the Westfield Topanga Shopping Center to take part in the 1st Annual KCRW "Good Food" Pie Contest. Deep inside the mall was the event's center stage, where the 123 entered pies sat on long tables as a panel of judges comprised of local food writers, bakers, chefs, and gourmands took on the daunting task of tasting and evaluating every single one (not an easy job if you're a little hungover, eh Chef Stefan Richter?). Host Evan Kleiman kept the judges and crowd in check, presiding over this well-received event that served as a sort of culmination of her own months-long personal pie endeavor, the Pie-a-Day Project, as logged on the Good Food Blog.

What's more American than apple pie? Or pumpkin, pecan, chocolate-peanut butter truffle, key lime, lemon meringue, and razzleberry? Hundreds of Los Angeles-area pie bakers and lovers are due to convene today from 2-4 p.m. at the Westfield Topanga Shopping Center for the first ever KCRW Pie Contest, hosted by the station's "Good Food" guru and life-long pie enthusiast Evan Kleiman. Over 140 participants with pies in four different categories are vying for top tasting honors, and the public is invited to head over to Canoga Park to witness the pie-mania (and even nab some bites). So as DeepEndDining's Eddie Lin, one of the many celebrated judges who'll be partaking in the slices, says: "Let's get ready to crumble!"

The Men Who Stare At Goats opens Friday with a big cast. The war-genre comedy stars George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor and Kevin Spacey and is inspired by Jon Ronson's non-fiction bestseller, which is an eye-opening and often hilarious exploration of the government's attempts to harness paranormal abilities to combat its enemies.

Whether you listen to classical music or not, we all know this famous music quotation: Da da da DUM! And when you hear it played by an orchestra, you're listening to it in the key of C-Minor. Does that matter? Why not some other key? Those questions and many others will be answered in an upcoming Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra's concert where music director Jeffrey Kahane and the orchestra will lead the audience on a "guided tour" of the inner workings of Beethoven's 5th Symphony before performing it in full during the second half of the program.

Relative newcomers Black Gold are on tour with Girl in a Coma and will be hitting The Troubadour in West Hollywood this Sunday night. The Brooklyn-based duo hooked up after touring with Panic! at the Disco!, M. Ward, Ambulance LTD, and Rachael Yamagata, among others. Since their debut album in January, the group has been busy, releasing two EPs and a remix album in August.

The supergroup that is Monsters of Folk are playing the Greek Theatre this Sunday, when the weather is predicted to be clear and in the high 70s. And that's good news when Jim James from My Morning Jacket, Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis from Bright Eyes and M. Ward of She & Him take the stage. The band formed in 2004, but it was just last month when they released their first eponymously-named album.

       

We're big fans of looking at nature photos taken in and around Los Angeles. We've seen bobcats, mountain lions, waterfalls, scenic views through the lenses of photographers who really haven't traveled that far, sometimes only minutes from Hollywood. It's just some of the best delicious eye candy of Southern California in our opinion.

Dutch Apple. Cherry. Banana Cream. Chocolate Peanut Butter. Almond Mocha. Lemon Meringue. Strawberry-Rhubarb. Blueberry. Black-Bottom. Mixed Berry. Banana Caramel Cheesecake. Pie, glorious pie! That list might make you drool, but for the culinarily-inclined, it might make you feel inspired to break out your baking dishes and best recipe to enter KCRW's Good Food Pie Bake-off.

It was 30 years ago when Vance Corum and others founded the first locally established certified farmers market in the region. From its Gardena home, the trend exploded and today we find a plethora of options seven days a week. To that end, early next month there will be a celebration at the Little Tokyo/Arts District Farmers Market with a salsa contest, a chef demonstration and a contest sponsored by GOOD Magazine and others that has entrants redesigning the modern day farmer's market (you have up until September 1st to enter).

Although the original source of the controversial Obama poster appears to be a student in Chicago (he made the joker face and posted it on Flickr. Then someone apparently mashed it up with the word "socialism"), a conservative radio talk show has exploited the posters further making a contest out of it. The posters were first noted in Los Angeles back in April and received widespread attention beginning August 3rd. Seeing an opportunity, talk show host Alex Jones began a contest encouraging people to put up more posters. The poster had "Democrats and Obamanoids going ballistic," his website said. Some of Jones' posters--with his website address on one version--have appeared in San Francisco, but around 500 appeared in a Florida town leading to the questioning of at least one teenager. Previously: Shepard Fairey Opines on Obama Socialism Posters.

Last weekend, the noted Bruce Norris play, "The Pain and the Itch" opened at the Boston Court in Pasadena, earning the Critic's Pick nod from Back Stage. "This astutely designed and intelligently rendered production is a shared feather in the cap for two of L.A.'s most adventurous theater companies," wrote Les Spindle of the Furious Theatre Company's production.

     

Save for the first photo here--probably chock full of code violations and, ahem, maybe some missing bodies--most of these apartments entered into a dirtiest apartment contest just seemed cluttered.

Who wouldn't want to live in a Sonoma wine country house for six months getting paid $10,000 a month to eat, drink, schmooze, party and then blog all about it? In a stroke of viral marketing genius, Murphy-Goode Winery is holding a contest to win that job and the voting ends this Friday.

So the Hollywood Palladium has been open since last year and things are rocking along. Next week Thursday, June 25th, Third Eye Blind is playing their big LA show with Low Vs. Diamond opening (if you need tickets stat, you can buy them here).

“This is the picture that I want to be remembered by," Charlie Chaplin said of his film, "The Gold Rush," when it opened. Subtitled “A Dramatic Comedy,” the film finds Chaplin portraying a lone prospector who searches for love and acceptance in the frenzy of the great Klondike gold rush. The flick contains many of Chaplin’s most celebrated comedy sequences, including the boiling and eating of his shoe, the dance of the dinner rolls, and the teetering cabin.

We are all lucky enough to live in a region rich in arts, especially theatre. And Pasadena has one of the strongest presences around with its Playhouse District, which includes the Boston Court Performing Arts Center (follow them on Twitter) where a new world premiere play, Courting Vampires, opened this earlier this month.

Earlier this week, we held a contest for The Greek Theatre and Gibson Amphitheatre's annual concert subscription program called the Premiere Marquee Club. Basically, you buy your tickets early arranging your own subscription, which in turn has benefits such as retail and restaurant discounts, a dedicated concession line and guaranteed seating at both venues. Over one hundred of you entered the contest, but only one could be a winner (it is randomly selected). So congrats to rbass, who went with a more classic subscription, choosing the Counting Crows, Gipsy Kings, Def Leppard. The Premiere Marquee Club deal ends tonight at 10 p.m.

Last night's victory for North Carolina over Michigan State not only brought the Tarheels their fifth national championship in school history but it also gave one lucky LAist reader an XBOX 360 Elite. Brian Flanagan, also known as "Brifdog," and his "Brif Defeats LAist 09" bracket racked up a total of 148 points to beat out the field of LAist readers and staff members. Congratulations Brian and thanks to everyone for playing. Also, thanks to the good people at Microsoft for hooking us up with a very sweet prize.

Not only will a national champion will be determined tonight in Detroit when North Carolina and Michigan State square off in the final of a very uneventful NCAA tournament, but we'll also have a winner in the LAist bracket contest. Going into tonight's action, we have a tie between "JK's Picks" and "Bracketology" but neither of those brackets has either the Tarheels or Spartans winning it all. In third place, we have "Brif Defeats LAist 09." If Ty Lawson and company prevail tonight, Brif just might do as the name suggests and defeat all of the LAist readers who participated. We'll just have to wait and see. The winner will receive an XBOX 360 Elite System thanks to our friends at Microsoft. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

It's March Madness, the Big Dance, what have you and now is the time where all work productivity ceases and everyone in the country fills out a bracket. We here at LAist are suckers for this, so we are holding a contest. Go to LAist's group page on Yahoo! Sports, and fill out a bracket.

LA Times columnist Steve Lopez had what he thought was an ingenious way to gather the candidates City of Los Angeles voters have to choose from in Tuesday's Mayoral election. His plan was to get them together to chat and to determine "who makes the best French dip sandwich in Los Angeles, Phillipe the Original or Cole's?" he explains in his column this weekend.

For the first time, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra this year is producing a series of concerts, entitled Westside Connections, that take "a look at the connections between music and other artistic disciplines." Last month, former National Endowment for the Arts chairman and Californian poet Dana Gioia took the stage with the music group and next week Thursday three-time U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky will read poetry between Mozart's Quintet in E-flat major for Piano and Winds and Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht (“Transfigured Night”).

            

On Sunday, hundreds of bulldogs, both English and French, gathered to compete in multi-tasking Long Beach resident Justin Rudd's Bulldog Beauty Contest, a main attraction at the Haute Dog Pageants and Pet Adoption Fair. To brighten your Thursday a little, enjoy the cuteness...

The marimba is one of the most beautiful instruments in the world. Today in its repertoire, players must be skilled enough to play with two mallets in each hand (one held like a drum stick, the other usually held between the middle and ring finger). When you hear a master play the instrument, it's not just the beautiful expressiveness that can be created out of the the wooden bars, but also the sight too see a musician dance across the instrument.

After a long summer of great concerts over at the Greek Amphitheatre in Griffith Park, this Sunday, November 16, is the venue's last for 2008. And what a great way to end it with jazz greats including local jazz pianist Brad Mehldau. The night will also feature the amazing McCoy Tyner Trio and the Ellis Marsalis Quintet. LAist is giving away a handful of pairs of tickets away (you can also buy tickets here not to mention a pre-show wine and cheese meet and greet with the artists).

What a great line-up: music greats Mitch Mitchell, Billy Cox and Buddy Guy will headline this Sunday at the Greek Theatre with Jonny Lang, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Robby Krieger, Eric Johnson, David Hidalgo & Ceacar Rosas of Los Lobos, Hubert Sumlin, Chris Layton, Doyle Bramhall II, Eric Gales, Mato Nanji.

Can you cook up some wicked tasting salsa? If so, the Sustainable Economic Enterprises of Los Angeles who runs various markets around town is hosting salsa contests at their markets this week (Echo Park, Leimert Park, Hollywood and Atwater). Of course, it's all the better if you make the salsa from ingredients bought fresh from the market. More info can be found in their two info sheets (.pdfs).

It was obvious when Travel + Leisure Magazine put New York City up against Minneapolis that the big apple would win. It was an easy choice when you had to choose between San Francisco and Phoenix. But when we saw Los Angeles in competition with Honolulu, we knew the fate that was to come.

Remember that crazy list from Travel + Leisure where we were ranked as the rudest and dumbest city earlier this month (and not to mention last year, too)? Well, the magazine has a little online bracketed game where you can vote for the best cities.

In addition to our My Morning Jacket contest (which ends Friday), we are giving away a pair of tickets to The Raconteurs' concert on Tuesday, September 23 at The Greek Theatre (tickets). The band also plays on Monday, September 22 (tickets). This concert tour is in support of their "Consolers Of The Lonely" album.