Ham

Jamón Serrano . Cured ham made anywhere in Spain from cross-breed pigs, such as Duroc, Large White. Jamón Ibérico . Cured ham made from ibérico breed pigs raised in the dehesa forests in southwestern Andalusia, Extremadura and western Castille. Ibérico or Ibérico de Recebo . Designates ham from ibérico pigs finished on pig feed and grain, not acorns. Ibérico de Bellota . Designates ham from ibérico pigs fattened on acorns.

It's fitting that Ham &; Eggs Tavern , a new rock 'n' roll dive in downtown L.A., is practically next door to the Golden Gopher, Cedd Moses' first foray into manly historic core gentrification a decade ago. Ham &; Eggs harks back to how the downtown bar scene was just before it transformed into L.A.'s new party Babylon: underlighted, weirdly decorated and just cheap enough to get sauced on $20. Now that King Eddy has been revamped, Ham &;...

Ludo's ham soup Total time: About 2 hours Servings: 6 Note: Adapted from Ludo Lefebvre. He prefers using Madrange brand ham, available through select gourmet markets and online; other boiled hams may be substituted. 11 tablespoons (scant 1 1/2 sticks) butter, divided 1/2 yellow onion, diced 1 clove garlic, sliced 8 ounces ham, chopped 3 cups milk 1 cup heavy cream 1 cup chicken broth Salt White pepper 6 (1/4-inch thick)

Years before he was an assistant coach for the Lakers, Darvin Ham played for Texas Tech.  In 1996 in the NCAA tournament, he threw down a tremendous put-back dunk against the University of North Carolina, shattering the backboard. Who neglected to box him out?  None other than current Lakers forward Antawn Jamison. Ham and the Red Raiders knocked Jamison's Tar Heels out of the tournament. Both share their memories with Time Warner Cable SportsNet on Wednesday night at 5 in the latest episode of "Backstage: Lakers.

This week's Culinary SOS request comes from Barry Kob in Palm Desert I recently was in Aspen, Colo., on a trip through the Rocky Mountains. The ham and bean soup at the Creperie du Village was wonderful. Is there any way you might be able to get the recipe? Ham and beans are a classic combination, and this soup doesn't disappoint in the slightest. Great Northern beans are gently cooked with aromatic vegetables and herbs to creamy tenderness, with chopped bacon and ham folded in toward the end. Thanks Barry!

Total time: 25 minutes Servings: 4 Note: Adapted from "Traditional Spanish Cooking" by Janet Mendel 3/4 pound mushrooms such as boletus or oyster 5 tablespoons olive oil, divided 1 clove garlic, sliced 5 eggs 1/2 teaspoon salt Freshly ground black pepper 3 ounces chopped Spanish cured ham, preferably jamón ibérico Chopped parsley Strips of bread fried crisp in olive oil 1. Clean the...

Pigs -- and all their tasty, crackly skinned parts -- are an obsession for many. I profess I have a snout for the stuff, be it the ethereal rinds from the Publican in Chicago or Yuca's bring-me-to-tears cochinita pibil taco -- a must whenever I'm in L.A. So, it's no surprise that my journey to Zaragoza, Spain -- an Aragonese city famous for its lightly salty Jamón de Teruel, ham from the cool, windy Teruel region -- would include its share...

Packing a lot of action - if not a lot of sense - into its story, the Indian film "Dangerous Ishhq" likely won't win over any new believers to the idea of reincarnation as it weaves between a quilt of romantic thriller and historical drama. The film opens with a Mumbai supermodel (Karisma Kapoor, a star making her return to the screen after an absence of a number of years) preparing to leave for Paris to be an international face for a luxury fashion brand. As she is wavering about whether to leave behind her wealthy industrialist boyfriend, his beachfront home is attacked by a gang of kidnappers.

It's fitting that Ham &; Eggs Tavern , a new rock 'n' roll dive in downtown L.A., is practically next door to the Golden Gopher, Cedd Moses' first foray into manly historic core gentrification a decade ago. Ham &; Eggs harks back to how the downtown bar scene was just before it transformed into L.A.'s new party Babylon: underlighted, weirdly decorated and just cheap enough to get sauced on $20. Now that King Eddy has been revamped, Ham &;...

It was a lot of dough for a piece of old meat. But butcher Michael Feller seemed not to mind the $1,480 auction price he paid for a 101-year-old ham, which he plans to hang in his shop. The ham, cured by Cudahay in Chicago in 1892, spent most of its existence on display in a butcher's shop in the northern city of Leeds, according to Christie's, the London auction house that held the bidding.

Dear SOS: I recently was in Aspen, Colo., on a trip through the Rocky Mountains. The ham and bean soup at the Creperie du Village was wonderful. Is there any way you might be able to get the recipe? Barry Kob Palm Desert Dear Barry: Ham and beans are a classic combination, and this soup doesn't disappoint in the slightest. Great Northern beans are gently cooked with aromatic vegetables and herbs to creamy tenderness, with chopped bacon and ham folded in toward the end. Creperie du Village was happy to share its recipe for this hearty dish, which we've adapted below.

This week's Culinary SOS request comes from Barry Kob in Palm Desert I recently was in Aspen, Colo., on a trip through the Rocky Mountains. The ham and bean soup at the Creperie du Village was wonderful. Is there any way you might be able to get the recipe? Ham and beans are a classic combination, and this soup doesn't disappoint in the slightest. Great Northern beans are gently cooked with aromatic vegetables and herbs to creamy tenderness, with chopped bacon and ham folded in toward the end. Thanks Barry!

Charles Bukowski, the hard-living poet, novelist and short-story writer who probed the cultural and social underbelly of Los Angeles, is getting the James Franco treatment. The prolific actor-director-writer-producer has started production on a movie titled "Bukowski," an adaptation of the boozy poet's semi-autobiographical novel "Ham on Rye," which is set in Depression-era L.A. The project is one of several low-budget movies contributing to a modest upswing in local feature film activity this year.

The art of sculpting huge blocks of fat is the focus of a strange-but-true competitive event at the Iowa State Fair. Wielding trowels with the utmost precision, carvers ply their craft in temperature-controlled booths. In contrast, "Butter," which uses a local lead-up to that bout as the battleground setting for hit-and-miss comedy, has all the exactitude and rigor of unrefrigerated oleo. The would-be satire is nothing more than a bunch of sketch characters and jokes welded to a sentimental subplot.

By assembling an "Americas & Americans" festival at the Hollywood Bowl last week, Gustavo Dudamel gave himself permission to cover a vast territory, there being many Americas and an awful lot of us. But it wasn't enough. For the final program Sunday night, he simply short-circuited the musical MapQuest, barely landing on our side of the Atlantic in a program of popular opera and operetta, light classics and Broadway. On the other hand, this mild night at the Bowl with Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic was made for pleasure and can be viewed as only in L.A. It starred Plácido Domingo.

Packing a lot of action - if not a lot of sense - into its story, the Indian film "Dangerous Ishhq" likely won't win over any new believers to the idea of reincarnation as it weaves between a quilt of romantic thriller and historical drama. The film opens with a Mumbai supermodel (Karisma Kapoor, a star making her return to the screen after an absence of a number of years) preparing to leave for Paris to be an international face for a luxury fashion brand. As she is wavering about whether to leave behind her wealthy industrialist boyfriend, his beachfront home is attacked by a gang of kidnappers.

Preliminary tests indicate that tainted ham is to blame in the deaths of two elderly women and the sickening of more than 600 people who attended a Chaptico, Md., church fund-raising dinner. "When you look at who ate what and who came down with illness, it seems that the ham sticks out," said Dr. Martin Wasserman, secretary of the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Autopsies must be conducted to determine the cause of the deaths, officials said.

The Diamond Bar Homeowners Assn. has declared "Amateur Radio Week" through Sunday in recognition of emergency communications provided by more than 75 licensed amateur radio operators in the community. To demonstrate how ham radios can be used in a disaster, the Diamond Bar Amateur Radio Society will set up a solar-powered radio station this weekend at the corner of Diamond Bar Boulevard and Grand Avenue, where members will broadcast continuously from 11 a.m. Saturday to 12 p.m. Sunday.

Comedian Rita Rudner has always known how to tickle an audience -- and the same is mostly true of her slight but sugar-sweet new play, "Tickled Pink. " It won't make gigglers out of the congenitally not-ticklish, but everyone with a decently sensitive funny bone should spark to its cute, diverting antics. Adapted from her bestselling book of the same name, the play, which had its world premiere Saturday night at the Laguna Playhouse, “is not Rita's biography,” director Martin Bergman, also Rudner's co-adapter and husband, writes - somewhat unconvincingly -  in his program notes.

Doris Betts Southern author of short stories, novels Doris Betts, 79, a novelist and writing teacher best known for short stories and novels that evoke the geography and mores of the South, died of lung cancer Saturday at her home in Pittsboro, N.C., her son Erskine said. Betts was best known for her novel "Souls Raised From the Dead," which won the Southern Book Award in 1995. It concerns a dysfunctional family grappling with fate, faith and the limits of love.