Oven

Welcome to this rite and ritual of an American spring, breaking in a new glove. As with anything in baseball, there are 100 views on the proper way to do this, all argued passionately. Glove gurus, some more guru than others, recommend treating a stiff new glove as either your best friend or roadkill. You can drown a glove, you can bake it, you can run it over with the car. Breaking in a baseball glove isn't science so much as a form of testosterone-fueled witchcraft. Tony Pena, former major league backstop and current New York Yankees bench coach, reportedly goes ape on a new catcher's glove, turning it inside out, outside in, punching, prodding, mugging it into submission — it's almost hard to watch.

Dear SOS: On a trip up the coast of Maine, we found a wonderful bakery in Portland called Standard Baking Co. Everything was delicious, but my husband declared the oatmeal cookies the best he'd ever had, and we made a special detour on the return route to buy more cookies. I'd love it if you could obtain their recipe, so I could surprise him with a batch. Helene Morrison Arroyo Grande Dear Helene: If I didn't know how easy they were to make, I'd plan a vacation in the area just so I could get my fix of these cookies.

It's been a rough week. A few days ago, at UCLA's Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, 6-year-old Jani toppled a food cart and was confined to her room. She slammed her head against the floor, opening a bloody cut that sent her into hysterics. Later, she kicked the hospital therapy dog. Jani normally likes animals. But most of her animal friends -- cats, rats, dogs and birds -- are phantoms that only she can see. January Schofield has schizophrenia. Potent psychiatric drugs -- in doses that would stagger most adults -- seem to skip off her. She is among the rarest of the rare: a child seemingly born mentally ill. She suffers from delusions, hallucinations and paroxysms of rage so severe that not even her parents feel safe.

I pulled aside the curtain and peered out the motel window. Palm trees swayed gently in the breeze. A cyclist pedaled along the oceanfront. Beyond him, the Pacific stretched out calm and blue as far as the eye could see. Nice view, I thought, given that my room rate was $79. Especially considering that I was in Santa Barbara, where hotel tariffs usually fetch a king's ransom. And my overnight stay even included a hearty free breakfast. Impossible, you say? Not with our travel-secret guide to Santa Barbara.

  Momofuku's Crack Pie Total time: 1 1/2 hours, plus cooling and chilling times Servings: Makes 2 pies (6 to 8 servings each) Note: Adapted from Momofuku. This pie calls for 2 (10-inch) pie tins. You can substitute 9-inch pie tins, but note that the pies will require additional baking time, about 5 minutes, due to the increased thickness of the filling. Cookie for crust 2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (3 ounces) flour Scant 1/8 teaspoon baking powder Scant 1/8 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup (1 stick)

So.... which apples are best for eating, and which ones are best for cooking and baking?  Click here for 52 apple recipes from the L.A. Times Test Kitchen! Food editor Russ Parsons explored the often perplexing apple question in a column he did on heirloom apples   just a few autumns ago: The world of apples is supposedly divided cleanly in two: cookers and eaters. But does that mean you can't eat a cooker? Or cook an eater? And what makes a "cooking" apple anyway?

In exactly one week, Los Angeles will wake up with a newly elected mayor. The lucky leader of 4 million restless campers with cracked sidewalks could be Wendy Greuel, the business-suited Valley kid who worked for Mayor Tom Bradley and President Clinton and would be the first female mayor in city history. Or it could be Eric Garcetti, who seems to have done everything in his 42 years except pitch for the Dodgers and kayak to Borneo, and whose adopted daughter may one day celebrate both a bat mitzvah and a quinceañera . Last week, I wrote about a Greuel visit to Tolliver's barbershop in South Los Angeles, where she was relaxed and sharp in front of a crowd that thinks she's the one. Today I'll report on my outing with her opponent, who, like Greuel, helped create some of the city's problems but now promises to deliver peace and prosperity to one and all. L.A. ELECTIONS 2013: Sign up for our email newsletter When Garcetti walked into a Westwood Village pizza parlor late Monday night, he was not recognized until after he'd selected artichokes, olives, onions and peppers as toppings.

The discovery that real estate agent Matthew Greenberg made when he stepped inside a Mount Washington cottage will put the Los Angeles Public Library on the map. Stashed everywhere in the 948-square-foot tear-down were maps. Tens of thousands of maps. Fold-out street maps were stuffed in file cabinets, crammed into cardboard boxes, lined up on closet shelves and jammed into old dairy crates. Wall-size roll-up maps once familiar to schoolchildren were stacked in corners. Old globes were lined in rows atop bookshelves also filled with maps and atlases.

Figs, it seems, have been around forever. Adam and Eve were said to have clothed themselves with fig leaves, so one could assume that they were also eating the fruits in the Garden of Eden. Ancient Egyptians knew that figs were an extremely nutritious fruit, and in Greece, the first Olympians not only savored the fruit, but wore them as medals for their achievements.

Strawberry shortcake Total time: 40 minutes, plus macerating and cooling times Servings: 6 Note: Adapted from Lindsey Shere's "Chez Panisse Desserts. " Macerated strawberries 3 (16-ounce) pints strawberries About 3 tablespoons superfine sugar Two to four hours before serving, wash and hull the berries. Roughly slice or quarter two-thirds of the berries into a large bowl. Sprinkle the sugar over the berries and, using a wire pastry blender, smash the berries so they begin to juice.