Potpourri

5 ounces pint rose petals 2 ounces red rose petals 2 ounces Roman chamomile flowers 1 ounce heather flowers 2 ounces quassia chips 2 ounces lemon grass 1 ounce powdered orrisroot 1 ounce oak moss, cut into 1-inch pieces 20 drops rose, tea rose, or rose geranium oil 1 whole rose heads in red and pink can be added to the top Red and White Potpourri 1 quart red rose petals and blooms, and any pretty white flowers 2 ounces mixed sweet herbs 1 ounce rosemary 1/2 teaspoon whole cloves 1 teaspoon

Too much news; too little space. And so today I'm offering up several mini-columns. That's why they call it Internal Affairs LAPD Chief William Bratton is investigating claims that former deputy chief and I.A. boss Michael Berkow gave preferential treatment to female officers who worked under him, so to speak. One accuser said Berkow kept a bed in a third-floor office at the Bradbury Building, which is the downtown L.A. headquarters of I.A.

A special potpourri made from leftover roses from Rose Parade floats won't be sold anywhere near Colorado Boulevard. All 5,000 packs of the Tournament of Roses Potpourri, made from nine floats, will be available this February at home and garden shows on the East Coast, where they're expected to be a hot seller. Proceeds from the $10-a-bag sales will go to the Children's Miracle Network, a group dedicated to providing better health care to children.

AS two military jets slash across blue skies in an exiting dogfight with a rogue fighter, the pilots converse in terse staccato lingo. The planes dive and roll in a macho display of air superiority in what could be a scene from a sequel to "Top Gun" -- except the pilots speak French and fly under the trois colours of the French air force.

Six hundred children wearing slickers and large plastic bags ignored the water streaming down their faces Wednesday morning and began plucking soggy rose petals from Rose Parade floats dripping from two days of heavy rain. The youngsters from four schools gathered in Pasadena and Azusa to harvest 12,500 pounds of pink, white, red and yellow rose petals that will be recycled into potpourri.

Every holiday season, Judith Goffin of Yorba Linda creates potpourri from her garden and gives it to friends and family. During the spring and summer months, she gathers rose petals and blossoms from her 30 rose bushes, and after enjoying them fresh, she dries and stores the flowers in her garage. Come Thanksgiving weekend, she's ready to make and bag her potpourri, which she calls Rose Fantasy. "Everyone tells me that they really look forward to receiving my potpourri," Goffin said.

P otpourri --the French word for "rotten pot"--defines something far more pleasant. The mixture of dried, sweet-smelling flower petals placed in decorative containers adds fragrance to the air. In essence, potpourri is what Shakespeare called "twice-touched." Fresh flowers can be appreciated in gardens and vases, then recycled as fragrant decorations for the home. Making potpourri is an ancient art--older than the Pharaohs--which makes it seem as if it were a mysterious and exotic process.

I am a 17-year-old senior at North High School in Torrance. I am also a longtime KROQ listener (since I was old enough to turn a radio on). North High is one of only a few high schools in the nation to own and operate a student-run FM radio station (KNHS, 89.7). I and many of the other disc jockeys at KNHS are devoted KROQ listeners; thus, we have formatted our station after KROQ--or should I say what KROQ used to be. For a station that has played the best alternative music to become another wimpy, radio potpourri like Pirate Radio is a disgrace.

Moscow Ballet defector Andrei Ustinov took his first bow with the Dallas Ballet--his adopted American company--Tuesday night at a benefit that freely waved the red white and blue. Dallas Ballet officials, hoping Ustinov's presence will prove to be a shot in the arm for the the financially strapped troupe, presented him in a potpourri of ballet excerpts that combined Moscow Ballet repertoire and short pieces set to music by American Marschmeister John Philip Sousa. "I'm happy.

"Two Moon July." Pacific Arts. $39.95. Using the format of a technical rehearsal at the Kitchen performance space in New York, this hourlong potpourri of East Coast avant-garde activity offers a little music by Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson, brief dances by Molissa Fenley and Bill T.

Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" has more hit tunes than probably any other opera, including Bizet's "Carmen." The decades-long struggle for it to win recognition as a legitimate opera, rather than a hybrid, superior Broadway musical, was won decisively not by the ponderous Metropolitan Opera production in the 1980s but by Trevor Nunn's revelatory, heartbreaking version for the Glyndebourne Opera in 1993. But the impulse to present the music away from the stage is irresistible.

It's not every day that an American icon turns 90, and, strictly speaking, she hasn't. But when the icon is Julia Child, can there really be a wrong time for a celebratory "bon appetit"? "Well, I think it's all pretty nice, don't you? What's on the menu?" the grande dame trilled Thursday, as a nationwide blitz of birthday parties was kicked off in this food mecca two weeks before her birthday.

Every holiday season, Judith Goffin of Yorba Linda creates potpourri from her garden and gives it to friends and family. During the spring and summer months, she gathers rose petals and blossoms from her 30 rose bushes, and after enjoying them fresh, she dries and stores the flowers in her garage. Come Thanksgiving weekend, she's ready to make and bag her potpourri, which she calls Rose Fantasy. "Everyone tells me that they really look forward to receiving my potpourri," Goffin said.

There were many responses to the story on spice prices ("What Price Spice?" Nov. 10), offering alternatives to supermarket prices. Here is a selection: Your article caught my eye because I use those spices all the time in cooking and crafting (great stuff for potpourri and cinnamon ornaments). I have found the ultimate source for cinnamon and cloves and others: Cost Plus. It has a food section and all the spices you can think of and more. The spices come in cellophane bags. The store also has barrels full of glass containers, which they sell for 99 cents.

Certain questions just keep rolling in to this department. Can you fly free as a courier? Can you find a decent hotel in Manhattan for under $90 per night? When isn't San Francisco full? The answers are no; probably not; and perhaps Thanksgiving. But the questions shouldn't end there. In fact, some of the most valuable travel questions don't get asked nearly often enough. Consider these Infrequently Asked Questions and the money they might save you.

'Tis the season for musical events, seasonal and otherwise, and this time, the fare goes beyond the expected. Yes, perennial chestnuts like Handel's "Messiah" and "The Nutcracker" are touching down in Ventura County in December, but so are less predictable musical programs. In the off-the-beaten-path cultural category, the entourage known as the Festival of Four brings its classical, folk and flamenco program to the Church of Religious Science tonight.

There were many responses to the story on spice prices ("What Price Spice?" Nov. 10), offering alternatives to supermarket prices. Here is a selection: Your article caught my eye because I use those spices all the time in cooking and crafting (great stuff for potpourri and cinnamon ornaments). I have found the ultimate source for cinnamon and cloves and others: Cost Plus. It has a food section and all the spices you can think of and more. The spices come in cellophane bags. The store also has barrels full of glass containers, which they sell for 99 cents.

WASHINGTON - With full-fledged sellers' markets underway in dozens of metropolitan areas around the country, new research has found curious statistical patterns emerging: Even in cities where listings get multiple offers within days or hours, significant numbers of homes are sitting on the market for six months, 12 months or more with no takers. Call them turnoff listings. Despite roaring sales paces all around them, for one reason or another these houses send shoppers scurrying away, often because of mispricing, excessive restrictions on access to buyers and agents, failure to clean or make repairs and a variety of other marketing bungles.

In yet another modern-day irony in this increasingly high-tech world, candles--those ancient light-givers--are now one of the hottest items on the market. Stores are relegating major space to them, and candle boutiques, such as the new Illuminations in South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, are popping up almost as quickly as Starbucks franchises. Some estimates put annual candle sales in the U.S. at $1 billion.

If the United States continues to win all these gold medals, a future requirement for all our athletes may be to learn the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner." MICHAEL A. GLUECK Newport Beach Why does everyone refer to the Atlanta Games as the XXVI Olympiad? Since there were no Olympics in MCMXVI, MCMXL or MCMXLIV, these are in fact only the XXIII. ALLEN E. KAHN Playa del Rey Editor's note: An Olympiad is the four-year period preceding the Games, not the Games themselves.