Garnishment

Long Beach City Councilman Edd Tuttle has announced he will not seek reelection next year following an attempt by his ex-wife to garnish his city salary for non-payment of back child support. Mayor Ernie Kell said Tuttle, a nine-year councilman, told him Monday that he wants to leave the 8th District seat to spend more time with his family. Tuttle could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

  Total time: 1 hour Servings: 6 as garnish Note: In the homes of Jews from North Africa, this mixture of browned onions, dried fruit and fried almonds is popular for festive occasions as a garnish for couscous or rice. You can blanch the almonds yourself or buy them from a nut shop. 3/4 cup almonds, preferably blanched (skins removed) 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon vegetable oil such as grapeseed or canola 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 2 large onions (about 1½ pounds)

The Children's Services Division of the state of Oregon says it plans to begin garnishment of wages of Ecclesia Athletic Assn. parents whose children remain in state custody almost a year after the beating death of the group founder's daughter. Bart Wilson, manager of the agency's Clackamas County office, said the state had spent more than $545,000 through July 1 to care for the 53 children taken into protective custody after Dayna Broussard, 8, daughter of Eldridge Broussard Jr.

Dear Liz: Do you have any advice for a family of six with only $200 a month to spend on food? My wife and I are in dire need of advice, as our bills keep increasing but neither of us has gotten a raise in six years. We have two garnishments on our paychecks that effectively take 50% of what we make. After health insurance and 401(k) loans are deducted, we bring home $2,000 a month. Our rent takes $1,400 of that and utilities take most of the rest. Do you have any miracle advice for us?

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury has awarded nearly $3.2 million to a Calabasas airline pilot who was harassed by creditors for the unpaid bills he said were run up by his ex-wife. Ralph E. Fernandez, 54, said Citibank and its collection agency made it difficult for him to obtain loans or other credit, garnisheed his wages and almost cost him his job. When the trial opened Jan.

A federal judge refused to freeze the remaining $1.8 million in former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson's annuity. U.S. District Judge John Keenan said attorneys for Tyson's former manager, Bill Cayton, failed to meet the legal threshold necessary for him to attach the policy.

The Internal Revenue Service has drastically slowed its efforts to collect unpaid taxes, partly because IRS employees fear being fired under a new law that broadly boosted taxpayers' rights, officials said Tuesday. "Very few people are going to take the risk that if you make a mistake you'll be fired," said Robert Tobias, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents 92,000 IRS workers. "As a result, there is very little collection activity taking place."

A bisexual sailor who challenged the Pentagon's policy of banning homosexuals from active duty charged Wednesday that Navy officials have retaliated by harassing him and garnisheeing most of his pay, including his wife's monthly $700 housing allowance.

Parsley is our most overlooked herb, having had the misfortune of being used as a token garnish. You see that single sprig on plates of eggs, fish and meat; you see rows of it dividing meats in butcher cases. But it is an excellent herb: nutritious (it contains Vitamin C and chlorophyll), sturdy, long-lasting and cheap. The Romans and Greeks appreciated parsley very much and revered its medicinal properties. They used it for wreaths to honor their winning athletes.

I'm a shameless crossword addict and spend hours trying to decipher Sylvia Bursztyn and Barry Tunick's wit, but their occasional oversights make me nuts. Last Sunday's Puzzler misled us. 43 Down: "Rootin'-tooting trumpeter?" Their answer: Pete Fountain. Pete Fountain plays the clarinet, not the trumpet. That's Al Hirt or Louis Armstrong or Herb Alpert. HAL YOERGLER West Hollywood Actually, their answer was "Beet" Fountain, in keeping with the people-as-produce theme.

California's political watchdog agency may soon ask state tax officials or a court to seize funds from a state pension board member who has failed to pay two fines for ethics code violations. Garnishing wages or placing a lien on future tax refunds of Priya Mathur, an eight-year veteran of the California Public Employees' Retirement System board, are the next steps the Fair Political Practices Commission would take if she doesn't pay $7,000 in fines, said Roman Porter, the agency's executive director.

AS we stand at our bar stations for the first drill, I take a final survey of my arsenal -- a four-button soda shooter, half a dozen juices and mixers, glassware and a shelf full of liquor. I'm ready. "Kamikaze!" shouts Dan Mackey, instructor and owner of Pacific Bartending School in Torrance. I pull out a Boston shaker and try to remember what's next. I'm at the school's introductory class to learn cocktail basics, but I'm also here on a personal quest.

THEY may not be glamorous, but they're irresistible -- big dewy piles of parsley, tender and fragrant cilantro, floppy basil, fuzzy mint. We grab them reflexively, tossing them into shopping cart or market basket. More often than not, we bring them back to our kitchens only to throw them into the bottom drawers of our refrigerators, where they languish until we toss them into a hasty pesto -- if we remember them at all. But there's a world of possibility out there besides pesto.

WHEN a friend, originally from India, invited me to a "street food" party in Simi Valley, I expected a sort of outdoor fair where I would wander among food booths. Instead, I found a fun party in someone's home where a young caterer, Raunaq Savur, had prepared a buffet of Bombay street snacks. Savur was born in Bombay (now Mumbai), a city famous for the delicious treats offered by street vendors. Street food is everywhere there, from the beaches to the heart of the city.

The rough-cut DVD for tonight's NBC movie "Martha, Inc.: The Story of Martha Stewart" arrived encased in plastic and accompanied by the book of the same name that inspired it and, alarmingly enough, a nutcracker and two walnuts. I looked at my editor. This could not, in the year of our Lord 2003, be a powerful-woman-as-emasculator-type reference, could it? "I think there's a walnut-cracking scene in the movie," she said, and then she moved quickly away. Both, it turns out, are true.

Human beings have, no doubt, tried to eat just about everything on the planet. All you have to do is watch an infant shovel anything within arm's distance into his mouth to know that virtually nothing is safe from our appetites. Some items, such as oysters and snails, don't have a lot of appeal to the eye, though many people find them delicious. But what could be prettier--or more appealing--than a flower?

All that glitters on your dinner plate may indeed be gold--23-karat edible gold leaf, the latest fad in food decoration. Those who have really struck it rich can turn the Christmas turkey into a golden bird, coating the entire surface with the fragile leaves. That, however, takes considerable skill because gilding is a fine art, whether the subject is furniture or food.

For an attractive and wonderfully appetizing garnish, cut tomato in eighths--without cutting through bottom--to form a flower. Sprinkle with chopped basil, salt and pepper. Then top with a mixture of sour cream and blue cheese seasoned with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Decorate top with a whole basil leaf.

Next Thursday is our nation's birthday, and by the way we're leading up to it, you'd think it was doomsday. We've got the jitters, and bad. But who can blame us? We've been deluged with the news of so many plots afoot, or potentially afoot, or in the planning stages, or as yet unhatched in some captured aide-de-camp's brain at Camp X-Ray, that the summer blockbusters seem like G-rated fairy tales.

This handy little wooden slicer is a Japanese garnishing tool. It is usually used for thinly slicing green onions to garnish soups. It also works well on cucumbers and other soft vegetables such as mushrooms. Just be careful when using this gadget; it has no finger guard. Slicer, $7.50, from Rafu Bussan Inc., 326 E. 2nd St., L.A., (213) 614-1181. These beautifully designed, high-carbon, stainless steel knives are made with birch-laminated hardwood veneer with brass rivets.