Frozen

Total time: About 1 hour, plus freezing time for the dough Servings: About 9 dozen cookies 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature 1 cup sifted powdered sugar 1 egg 1 teaspoon vanilla 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar 2 1/2 cups (10 ounces) sifted flour 1/2 cup chopped pecans 1/2 cup candied whole red cherries 1/2 cup candied whole green cherries 1/2 cup candied orange peel 1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large bowl using an electric mixer, cream together the butter and powdered sugar.

Just days before the new season of "Arrested Development" finally debuts on Netflix, the re-creation of the Bluth's Original Frozen Banana stand that cropped up in New York City last week is making its way to the West Coast. The frozen banana stand will be set up in downtown Culver City at 9300 Culver Blvd. on Monday from noon until 7 p.m. and will be handing out free frozen bananas to anyone willing to stand in line for one. To sweeten the deal, cast member Judy Greer will be on hand to help pass the bananas out from 3 p.m. until 4 p.m. The banana stands appeared in New York City last week during the network upfronts, at which NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and the CW unveiled their new shows for advertisers and the media.

  Total time: 55 minutes, plus freezing and optional softening time Servings: 8 to 10 Raspberry sauce 3/4 pound fresh or frozen raspberries 1/3 cup sugar Juice of 1/2 lemon 1. Purée the raspberries in a food mill, discarding the seeds. The raspberries can also be puréed in a food processor, then strained to remove the seeds. This makes about 1 cup purée. 2. Place the berries in a medium bowl and whisk in the sugar until dissolved.

Beware of pizza you can chip a tooth on.  Four varieties of California Pizza Kitchen and DiGiorno frozen pizzas have been pulled from grocers' freezers after complaints of plastic fragments in the pies. These aren't bits of plastic wrap but clear, brittle, sharp-edged pieces of plastic, according to the Associated Press. As the Los Angeles Times' Ricardo Lopez reported earlier, it was a voluntary recall by Nestle USA . The products are CPK's crispy thin-crust white pizza and its limited-edition grilled chicken with Cabernet sauce.

Walt Disney Animation Studios has tapped Jennifer Lee, one of the screenwriters of its video game-based hit "Wreck-It Ralph," to direct its 2013 comedy-adventure film "Frozen. " A musical adaptation of the 1845 Hans Christian Andersen tale "The Snow Queen," the story follows a young girl named Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell) as she attempts to break a spell cast by the Snow Queen (Idina Menzel), who has trapped the kingdom in an endless winter. "'Frozen' is not a modern setting but it's told in a modern style," Lee said in a recent interview with The Times.

This is the land where Larry Gordy was destined to live, until it was made unlivable. The Navajo believe that a person will always be tied to the place where his or her umbilical cord is buried. When Gordy was born in 1968, his father put his in this rust-colored dirt. It was here on the family's ranch on the edge of the Painted Desert that his father dreamed of one day building homes for his children, and of tilling a field where watermelon and corn could grow. But the Gordys were forced to put their dreams on hold.

J.R. Simplot, whose lifetime fascination with the potato helped change the nation's eating habits and made him a billionaire, died Sunday. He was 99. Simplot, who in his prime drove around Idaho in a Lincoln Continental with the license plate "Mr. Spud," died at his Boise home, apparently of natural causes, according to the Ada County coroner's office. The son of a farmer, Simplot began building his fortune while barely a teenager, finding new ways to bring potatoes and other vegetables to market.

Government scientists believe Alaska's North Slope has huge deposits of frozen natural gas that current technology could extract, according to a study by the U.S. Geological Survey. The report estimates that more than 85 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the form of gas hydrates -- methane gas locked in water as an ice-like solid -- eventually may be recoverable, but cautioned that further research was needed.

Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills said that Saturday's opening of a new work by Chris Burden, "One Ton, One Kilo," has been postponed indefinitely while the search continues for 220 pounds -- or about $3.3 million worth -- of gold bars needed to assemble the piece. The stash that Gagosian and Burden had secured for the exhibition got caught up in a civil action that federal authorities have brought against R. Allen Stanford, accused of running a Ponzi scheme. His assets, including Stanford Coins and Bullion, the company that sold Gagosian the required gold, have been frozen by court order.

My curiosity is aroused. After the Winter Olympics, how long did it take the medical profession to get Paula Zahn's legs uncrossed? WILLIAM J. LEWIS Carson

ATHENS - Fears concerning Greece's efforts to fix its faltering economy flared anew Monday as bank shares sank 30% -- the maximum allowed in a day -- after plans to merge the country's two biggest lenders were suddenly frozen. Investors dumped shares of the National Bank of Greece and Eurobank during the early hours of trading after both institutions confirmed late Sunday that their merger was off because of fears that the new combined entity would be too big to handle. The surprise freeze came amid testy talks between the government and international lenders from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which together are keeping Greece afloat with a multibillion-dollar rescue package in exchange for strict fiscal reforms.

A New York food company is recalling 196,000 pounds of frozen quesadillas, pizza slices and mozzarella bites because they may be contaminated with E. coli bacteria, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service said. Rich Products Corp. initiated the recall of its Farm Rich frozen snacks after reports of illness from consumers in several states. A sample of a Farm Rich frozen chicken mini quesadilla product from a New York case tested positive for E. coli, the food safety agency said.

OUTSIDE SAN LUIS DE LA LOMA, Mexico - Don Polo's heavily armed convoy wound its way through the hills above the lush coastal plain of Guerrero state, its groves of slender palm trees now far below him. The two-lane country road twisted eastward, and upward, for miles. But around each bend, there were no campesinos , no burros, no dogs, no cars barreling down toward the Pacific. Fields of yellow grass, grown taller than a man, covered the landscape, animated only by the wind. This, though, was no vision of tranquillity.

Serendipity is what gives us "Happy People: A Year in the Taiga," an intimate portrait of the vanishing breed of hunters and fishers still making a life in the isolated heart of Siberia, where a mild winter day is 30-below and the only way in or out is by helicopter or boat. That we are given a glimpse of this extraordinary place and its people at all is due to pure chance. Filmmaker Werner Herzog had dropped in unexpectedly on a friend in Los Angeles and found footage of Siberia playing on the plasma.

About 20,000 frozen lasagna meals were recalled in Sweden this week after tests found the food items to contain 60% to 100% horse meat. European frozen-food company Findus pulled the affected food items from grocery store shelves Monday while it conducted DNA testing. Test results Wednesday revealed that Findus' beef lasagna contained the equine meat. Following the discovery, the company apologized for the mislabeling and urged consumers to return the horse meat-tainted products for full refunds.

But are those metal filings organic? Annie's Inc., which specializes in natural and organic foods, is recalling all varieties of its Rising Crust frozen pizza because pieces of metal wire might be in the products. The Berkeley-based company says that a fine metal mesh screen failed at one of it flour suppliers, resulting in "flexible metal mesh" fragments in the flour and pizza dough. Annie's said no metal has been found in its finished products, so far, but it initiated a voluntary recall, after learning of the screen fail.

Nestle USA, headquartered in Glendale, will invest $30.2 million in its frozen food plant in Solon, Ohio, this year to expand production of its highly successful Stouffer and Lean Cuisine lines, the company announced. The Nestle brands comprise 27.6% of the $4.8-million healthy frozen food category, with more than half of the $144 million growth last year due to new products or distribution of the Stouffer line, said Nestle spokeswoman Roz O'Hearn. "We want to continue that pace," she said.

Pinkberry: In the Orange County edition of The Guide on Thursday, a photo accompanying an article about Pinkberry incorrectly featured a photo of a competing frozen yogurt chain.

The DNA of a battle that helped turn the tide of a war going horribly wrong for America lay buried just 6 inches below a Maryland cornfield. For nearly two centuries, musket balls, canister shot and other artifacts from intense fighting at Caulk's Field waited to tell the story of a sweltering August night in 1814, when militiamen sprang a trap on a British raiding party bent on destruction. How did the citizen-soldiers best their battle-tested foes? State archaeologist Julie Schablitsky hopes to figure that out. With the help of cadaver-sniffing dogs and history buffs armed with metal detectors, she is retracing the footsteps of Sir Peter Parker, a British marine captain who led 170 troops, and a like number of militiamen commanded by Col. Philip Reed.

WASHINGTON -- 'Twas the day before Christmas and all across the federal government, workers were enjoying an extra day off after President Obama issued an executive order closing offices Monday and excusing all but postal service employees from duty. The estimated cost for shutting down the government for a day is $100 million. Obama signed the order on Friday closing all federal executive departments and agencies on Christmas Eve and making the day a holiday for their workers.