Cafe

There's a bit of Edward Gorey-esque glee in the way Kate Atkinson keeps knocking off her main character in "Life After Life. " And yet, she manages to invest these repeated deaths with poetry and emotion. This ingenious narrative conceit - the decision to kill her protagonist and bring her back, again and again - not only illustrates how seemingly small decisions can affect our lives; it also allows us as readers to inhabit a novelist's creative process. This is what writers do: create characters, hit a dead end, then go back and start again.

Dear SOS: In the heat of August, I stopped for lunch at Paper or Plastik Cafe . I had the most amazing cold borscht. It was light and refreshing and full-flavored and, like my bubby's, only distilled down to the essence of borscht. Is there any chance you could get Paper or Plastik to share the recipe? Katya Culberg Los Angeles Dear Katya: A quick glance at that signature shade of red, and this might look like any run-of-the-mill borscht. But one bite and you're hit with a medley of flavors: a subtle hint of spice, the smokey hint of applewood-smoked bacon and the slight tang of quick-pickled beets.

Your choices in San Francisco hotels are overwhelming. The prices can be too. So during our staff visit to the City by the Bay, we looked for reasonably priced hotels that had charm, location or both. We came back with 14 ideas on places to bed down. It's not a complete list, but it is eclectic, like the city itself. Mystic Hotel. This property, which opened in April, stands on a tunnel-adjacent block of Stockton Street that you'll never see on a picture postcard, yet it has style, as do the Burritt Tavern bar and restaurant downstairs.

If you're going to talk about a subject most people don't want to talk about, why not do so over tea and cake and cookies? Why not gather in a sunny living room looking out on a lush tangle of green, where you can watch the breeze ruffle the leaves on the trees as you eat forkfuls of blueberry tart? Death comes to each of us, to everyone we love. Couldn't talking about it in a safe, comfy setting make the prospect less frightening? This is what Betsy Trapasso thinks. This is why she's asked friends to come - why on a Sunday afternoon, they've braved Topanga Canyon's twists and turns and climbed the dozens of wooden steps to her end-of-a-rural-road front door.

Lot 1 Cafe Where: 1533 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles When: Nightly Price: $5 cover, Wednesday nights free. Info: (213) 481-8400, http://www.facebook.com/lot1cafe

The best restaurant in Ames, Iowa, is the Café. It has excellent service, sensible portion sizes and an amazing selection of desserts. I had squash lasagna that was exquisite, then a fabulous apple tart. The Café, 2616 Northridge Parkway, Ames; (515) 292-0100, http://www.thecafeames.com . Open 7 a.m.-9 p.m. Sundays-Thursdays, 7 a.m-10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Main courses from $13.95. Cheryl Kohr Redondo Beach

A name like Handsome Coffee Roasters doesn't provide much aesthetic leeway, does it? The new coffee shop in the Arts District really had no choice but to manifest itself in a charming and attractive manner. In the hands of WoodSmithe, a woodworking and design studio on the other side of the L.A. River, traditional cafe materials have become a refreshing expression of craft - including an unusual wood tile that's truly living up to the Handsome name. For a hint that Handsome Coffee   is not your typical cafe, simply look at the menu: only three drinks - no exceptions - and no sugar on the premises.

Lot 1 Cafe, the intimate and atmospheric Eastside establishment in the heart of the neighborhood's burgeoning restaurant scene, kicks off the new music series "Echo Park Jazz" with a lineup of stellar local talent. Performers include Brainfeeder's jazz pianist Austin Peralta, featuring bassist Thundercat and drummer Zach Harmon, Brazilian seven-string guitarist Fabiano do Nascimento, and Gypsy, Italian, French and many other genres of music with AK and Her Kalashnikovs. Lot 1 Cafe, 1533 W. Sunset Blvd., Echo Park.

PITTSBURGH - Jon Rubin had an important question, and he knew where to find the answer: at the North Korean Embassy in Cuba, which he was visiting in March on a business trip. A man in jogging clothes and flip-flops came to the embassy gate after Rubin and his small entourage of fellow Americans rang the doorbell at the ornate diplomatic mission on a tree-lined street in Havana's Vedado neighborhood. The Americans posed the question: What exactly do they eat in North Korea?

A masked gunman walked into a cafe and shot two men Sunday morning, killing one and wounding the other, police said. There was no apparent provocation for the killing at the Four A cafe in the 3400 block of West 6th Street, and neither victim had known gang associations, police said. Hieu Nguyen, 22, died of his wounds. The second victim, not identified, was reported in stable condition.

Few people like to talk about dying. A grassroots movement is trying to change attitudes. It's called the Death Cafe --and its central notions are that death deserves discourse and that learning to think and talk about it without anxiety can help people live their lives most fully. There's no profit motive, no set agenda. Tea and cake are served. The aim is to provide a comfortable setting so that people can talk about death without fear. I recently attended L.A.'s first Death Cafe, at the Topanga Canyon home of Betsy Trapasso, an end-of-life guide.

There's a bit of Edward Gorey-esque glee in the way Kate Atkinson keeps knocking off her main character in "Life After Life. " And yet, she manages to invest these repeated deaths with poetry and emotion. This ingenious narrative conceit - the decision to kill her protagonist and bring her back, again and again - not only illustrates how seemingly small decisions can affect our lives; it also allows us as readers to inhabit a novelist's creative process. This is what writers do: create characters, hit a dead end, then go back and start again.

New York theater institutions don't come much feistier or more dynamic than Elaine Stritch. The tart-tongued, 88-year-old force of nature -- whose stage career includes memorable collaborations with Stephen Sondheim and Edward Albee -- kicked off her farewell series of cabaret performances this week at the Cafe Carlyle. Stritch announced last month that she would be retiring from the stage and moving back to her native Michigan. The actress cited her failing health for her decision.

NEW YORK - Until last year, Café Grumpy in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, was mostly known as a destination for the serious coffee drinker, the type of place where each modestly sized cup is individually brewed and goes for $4 a pop. Now, thanks to "Girls," the polarizing HBO series in which Lena Dunham stars as Hannah Horvath, a self-involved writer and reluctant Café Grumpy barista, and Alex Karpovsky as Ray, her angsty, thirtysomething boss, the shop...

The Pasadena Playhouse will present a revival of "Smokey Joe's Cafe" and a new play from former New York Times journalist Bernard Weinraub as part of its 2013-14 season, announced Thursday. In all, the company will present six main stage productions, including a holiday special, the same number as this season. The Pasadena Playhouse has been working toward financial stability since emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2010. That same year, the company ceased producing for several months because of financial difficulties.

AUSTIN, Texas --Three days gone, three remaining at the South by Southwest music festival. Already, millions of notes and beats have been played using dozens of tunings and effects. Untold lyrical cliches involving love, nature, haters, enchanted forests and getting paid have been lobbed into unsuspecting (and unforgiving) ears. Within this volume, profound moments of glory have arrived from unexpected places -- little sonic miracles and brief instances of grace that are the primary reason we are here.

Willian Celio Rivas Bolanos, a baby-faced 17-year-old with a bare trace of a mustache, told reporters Friday that he was one of the guerrillas who shot up a Zona Rosa sidewalk cafe last June, killing 13 people, including four U.S. Marines. Rivas, one of three suspects in custody for the murders, said that he "felt badly" taking aim at the unarmed men, but gained courage from the leader of the attack. "I was about six meters from the objective," Rivas said. "I shot 30 times where the men were. .

Open a caviar store in this economy? Is that just a little bit crazy, or what? Quietly, seemingly with hardly anyone noticing, the famous caviar purveyor Petrossian of Paris has reopened its Robertson Boulevard shop after a four-month-long remodel and this time around, it includes a cafe open almost all day long. At the very least, the move may be counterintuitive. But crazy? Not so much.

If you want ideas for what to put in your juice at home, there are plenty of cookbooks - Amazon lists dozens - and websites. Even Williams Sonoma sells a book on fresh juices. And BlendedRecipes.com features juicing videos set in a retro-themed kitchen; in October, the site had 24.6 million visits. But if making your own juice is not for you, last year The meal delivery service Paleta ( www.paleta.com ) launched juices like the Sonic Tonic: collards and other greens with pear and lemon.

When Tropicalata Cuban Café opened on the ground floor of Long Beach's historic Lafayette Hotel, it inherited a space that had for years housed nothing but short-lived coffee shops. But Tropicalata, with its menu of Cuban classics, has finally filled some of the neighborhood's hungry void. You can wake up with a commendable cup of cafe con leche or maybe a creamy mamey smoothie. Come lunch and dinner, there are thick medianoche sandwiches filled with roasted pork, ham, Swiss cheese, onions, pickles and mustard and sizable plates of shredded ropa vieja beef.