"RicePudding" news and stories

• South Florida book clubbers are setting their tables to match their assigned reading, whipping up Jell-O salads in honor of "The Help" and making candied apples to celebrate "Water for Elephants."
• Readers rush to the aid of a Pakistani ex-pat seeking to recreate his late mother's carrot rice pudding.
• The Desperation Dinners team proves you can make faux maque choux in 25 minutes.
• Dried mulberries and melon seeds line the shelves at a Persian grocery store in Plantation, Fla.

Reflected tomatoes. Photo: gutter/Flickr

• You may love the deep red and delicious flavor of tomatoes, but how much do you know about the fruit?
• This week's Dinner & a Movie: "Blame it on Rio" and food from the Boogalu Cafe.
• Readers weigh in on easy summertime treats.
• If you can bear to add mixers to your whisky, try a Macallan Classic 10.
• Rice Cream Puddings offers customers puddings flavored with everything from coquito to rum raisin.
• Writer Maricel E. Presilla writes about the Cuban memories evoked by sweet mangoes.
• California's Brassfield winery traded rolling cattle fields for vineyards and grapes.
• Northwest Miami-Dade is home to restaurants like Olivos, Thai Cafe and Taberna de Ignacio, while Hollywood boasts Exotic Bites, Cafe Italia and Orale Mexican.
• La Cofradia adds "Ceviche Bar" to its name and revels in raw fish.
  
• L'Express Sandwicherie in Coral Gables is run by a ... kickboxing chef?
  
• Recipe: Barbecued Pork and Beans

Here's what's being featured in today's Los Angeles Times Food Section:

Beer Babes: There were never a lot of women brewing their own, but that's all changed. A new generation of young women, hooked up online and in homes, are taking the home brew movement out of the old boy's club.

Mushroom king: Russ Parsons reports that a new partnership between an American company and Japan's largest mushroom grower to build a growing plant near San Diego will soon have California markets awash in exotics.

All that chive: Recipe for chive crepes stuffed with mushrooms and ham.

End of Ramadan deserts end in milky sweetness.

Manwiches: Three recipes for perfect football-game sandwiches.

S. Irene Virbila reviews Gjelina in Venice.

Datebook: The best food events this week in Southern California.

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I'm one of those Martha Stewart types who dives into holiday dinner planning feet-first. When I first started making Swedish Christmas dinner two years ago, I researched on the true holiday traditions so I could recreate the experience as closely as possible.

The first thing I discovered was that Swedes eat a very simple and humble dinner on Christmas Eve, the night of the true celebration - the presents are all opened on Christmas Eve, and that's when Father Christmas or the more authentic Jule nissen, or Christmas gnome (think an elf complete with little green overalls, but a bit bigger), comes with the gifts. On the menu: porridge, or rice pudding, and lutfisk. That's usually the extent of it - the big smorgasbörd (literally) comes after church on Christmas Day.