Coconut Water

The Rio suburb known as Vila Kennedy would seem to have little in common with New York. The rough district, far from the city's glitzy beachfront, boasts no cinemas, no museums, no Central Park -- in fact, no park at all. But Vila Kennedy does have a Statue of Liberty. Right there, on a stone pedestal overlooking the main highway, amid trash, traffic and sundry shops, stands a 9-foot-high replica of the iconic monument at the entrance to New York Harbor.

Dear SOS: I absolutely love the food at RockSugar in Century City. Everything is always so fresh and delicious. One of my favorites is the festive rice. Do you think you could obtain the recipe? Helga Niederhoff Pacific Palisades Dear Helga: RockSugar was happy to share its recipe for this wonderfully fragrant and flavorful rice. A garnish of chopped cashews emphasizes the nutty flavor of the rice. RockSugar's festive rice Total time: About 1 hour Servings: 8 to 10 Note: Adapted from RockSugar Pan Asian Kitchen in Century City.

In 1866, John Staily experienced a change of heart that left its mark on Christmas cooking for the next half-century. Without telling his family, he praised the Lord, closed the barroom of his Liverpool Inn in Liverpool, Pa., and emptied out all the liquor on the floor. When his wife came in to get some whiskey for her baking, she was aghast--not so much at the sudden conversion but that "he should at least have spared her some liquor for the mince pies." In the eyes of Christmas cooks like Mrs.

The 700 people lucky enough to work for online social-games maker Zynga Game Network Inc. feast on exotic gourmet grub prepared by professional chefs. They soothe stress with a visit to the company masseuse or reflexologist. And they take a break to get their hair cut. All for free. If singled out for a quarterly award, an employee can win a weekend spin in a $200,000 Lamborghini or a carload of vested stock. No perk is too small. Administrative assistants are even dispatched to engineers' homes to wait for the cable guy so engineers can stay laser-focused on developing the next hit game.

Nga Nguyen walked up and down the aisles of the Little Saigon Supermarket one recent evening, checking stacks of red boxes filled with sugar-coated coconut, water chestnuts, melons and other traditional goodies for the Lunar New Year. The 45-year-old Garden Grove woman finally settled on half a dozen small boxes of sugared fruits. Like many Vietnamese families in Orange County, Nguyen and her family are shopping for food and gifts to help celebrate the Tet Festival that starts today.

The nasi bungkus at Java Spice is a magnificent Indonesian meal, a picnic banquet swathed in fresh-cut banana leaf that looks something like a pregnant shoe box. Inside are generous chunks of coconut-infused chicken, smoldering chile-laced beef rendang, brightly spiced jackfruit curry, chunky fish cake, tofu nuggets and a blazing scarlet sambal-topped egg. You can amplify the gentle heat with dabs of the volcano-hot fresh green sambal that's tucked into one corner.

In a grassy backyard in the small town of Griffin, Ga., about 25 miles south of Atlanta, actor Aden Young is rehearsing a fight scene for the upcoming Sundance Channel series “Rectify.” It's early August, and the steam heat has crew and onlookers grappling for the scant amount of shade available. But Young is practicing a series of complicated stunt punches and undercuts. Later in the air-conditioned lunch trailer, the only respite from the suffocating heat, the actor makes light of his working conditions.

RENDANG is a favorite dish at our local Malaysian restaurants, but there's rendang and then there's rendang. Times staff writer Charles Perry came across an exceptionally rich and luscious version of the spicy stew during his travels in England this summer. This recipe is from Lagenda, the restaurant of the Holiday Villa Hotel in London, which is part of a Malaysian-based chain.

The smallest of the elephants--they might have been twins--lagged behind the herd and seemed to be playing hide-and-seek among the coconut palms. They stopped to rub their ears against the trees until a stick-wielding keeper, the mahout, hurried them along. I stood just steps away in this hushed green glade that the Sri Lankan government recently set aside as the nation's first official elephant orphanage.