Ranch

Creamy ranch dipping sauce Total time: 25 minutes Servings: Makes about 1 quart, plus 2 to 3 hours refrigeration time 1 (8-ounce) container cream cheese, softened 1 (16-ounce container) sour cream 1 cup mayonnaise 1 tablespon minced garlic 1/4 cup minced red onion 2 tablespoons chopped parsley 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon chopped chives 2 tablespoons chopped dill 2 tablespoons chopped tarragon Zest of 1 lemon, finely grated or chopped 1 1/2 teaspoons red wine vinegar 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon ground chipotle pepper Fresh ground black pepper to taste In a large bowl, whisk together the cream cheese, sour cream and mayonnaise until very smooth.

Re "Ranchers drawing a line in the coal," April 27 With ranchers in southern Montana possibly having their land divided by rail lines to deliver coal to Asia - disrupting their cattle operations and polluting their water - it does seem that the 1% may win again. Mining and shipping coal to Asia to make cheap products to sell back to U.S. residents seems problematic, with all that carbon dioxide spewing from unregulated plants that seek only bigger profits. Traditions and property that go back more than 100 years for ranching families may literally be thrown under the wheels.

HOUSTON -- The Texas attorney general moved Wednesday to seize the sprawling ranch compound owned by convicted polygamist leader Warren Jeffs' group, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The filing "begins the final chapter of the state's nearly five-year effort to pursue widespread criminal misconduct" at the ranch, named Yearning for Zion, Atty. Gen. Greg Abbott's office said in a statement. Investigators filed a warrant to seize the 1,600-acre ranch in West Texas under state law that allows seizure of property used to commit or facilitate criminal conduct.

Animal Planet needs to get its cameras trained on the Burrill brothers, Casey and Brady , at Valencia West Ranch High. They are quickly becoming adept at capturing and eradicating rattlesnakes. Call them "Rattlesnakebusters. " Since August, 11 rattlesnakes have been found on or near the West Ranch baseball diamond and sent to rattlesnake heaven. The diamond is located near a hill that's probably a nice home to lots of rattlesnakes. Coach Casey Burrill and his brother, Brady, the top assistant, have been the primary trackers of rattlesnake intruders.

"The Biggest Loser" race sees this happen every season. Someone loses a jaw-dropping amount of weight -- and still goes home. This season, this week, it was Alexandra Reid. The 24-year-old legal assistant from Carrollton, Texas, lost eight pounds -- eight pounds! -- but it wasn't enough. She fell below the yellow line and was eliminated.  Speaking during a media conference call Tuesday morning, Alex said she continues to lose weight at home -- and finds it far easier to do so at home than at the ranch where personal dramas can swirl.

Re "A way of life slips out of range," Column One, March 30 This article reminded me of getting up at 5:30 a.m. and blow-drying a calf in our Alberta ranch house because the livestock got frostbite if they weren't dried off. My parents had to supplement their love for cattle with teaching, which paid the bills better than the ranch could. The Times illuminates the ranchers' drive, and the grit that makes it all worthwhile. Ian Clay Sewall Los Angeles

In the Letters item about "Ranch With a Heart" that ran here last week, we gave the address in the wrong town. The correct address is M Bar J Guest Ranch, Box 67-H, Badger, Calif. 93603.

I enjoyed your piece on salad dressings (Aug. 25) and want to add a note on the "ranch" dressings. In the very early '50s, probably 1950 and 1952, my husband and I stayed overnight at a motel in Bakersfield. Both evenings we had our dinner at a restaurant close by (name long forgotten) and were served a delicious and completely novel salad dressing made with buttermilk. At least once I bought a jar to take along. The dressing was featured and labeled as the restaurant's own, and whether it was a precursor of Hidden Valley Ranch or an imitation, I don't know.

Re "Project's Approval by Council Was No Rush to Judgment," Sept. 6. Dear Moorpark City Council and Manager: Effective immediately, please do not make any more development deals like the one you just made with Hidden Creek Ranch on behalf of me and the other taxpayers of our small community. I do not wish to live in a Westlake wannabe. Please do not spend a dime of my tax dollars on underfunded future services without at least giving me the vote to tax myself. I'm paying to live in a small town and that is what I elected you to preserve.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ... Jeff Kent made a few phone calls and was relieved to learn that his 4,000-acre spread near Austin, Texas, was spared the wrath of Hurricane Emily, which spun on shore Wednesday about 70 miles south of the U.S.-Mexican border. "We'll get some wind and rain," he said. "We can use the rain." Kent's ranch is about 160 miles from Brownsville, where more than 4,000 people are staying in emergency shelters.

In a rare case, a Los Angeles jury awarded $3.8 million in compensatory damages to a Porter Ranch doctor who contended insurance giant Anthem Blue Cross retaliated against him for being a strong patient advocate. The jury ruled late Monday in favor of Jeffrey Nordella, 58, an urgent-care and family-practice doctor who alleged that Anthem barred him from its network in 2010, when he applied to be a preferred provider. The damages could climb higher Friday, when the 12-person panel reconvenes and considers punitive damages against Anthem, a unit of insurance giant WellPoint Inc. The jury found that Anthem, the state's largest for-profit health insurer, violated Nordella's right to "fair procedure," and the company did so with "malice, oppression or fraud.

A 19-year-old man convicted of raping and assaulting a woman during a burglary at her Stevenson Ranch home was sentenced Monday to 43 years to life in state prison. Jerry Moon was sentenced in San Fernando by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lloyd Nash as part of a plea deal agreed upon in December, said Deputy Dist. Atty Julie Kramer. The woman was assaulted after Moon, who lived in Stevenson Ranch, broke into her home on Jan. 8, 2012. Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives arrested Moon about a month afterward and he has remained in custody.

ARIVACA, Ariz. - When Jim Chilton tends to the cattle on his 50,000-acre ranch in southern Arizona, he packs at least two guns and no less than 5 gallons of water. A pistol and a rifle are to ward off the drug smugglers who encroach on his land abutting the U.S.-Mexico border. Drums of water in the bed of his Ford truck are for thirsty border crossers lured by U.S. jobs. RELATED: Is the border secure? Unlike much of the heavily fortified border fence in Arizona, the only barriers separating Chilton's ranch from Mexico are four strands of rusty barbed wire, strung along steel posts.

America, you've got Gina McDonald all wrong. "The Biggest Loser" contestant said she has shed many tears watching herself on TV this season and said that viewers were only seeing one side of her -- the side that whined, kicked, screamed and pouted like a baby, and committed the most unspeakable crime possible at the ranch: lashing out at Bob Harper. (Worse, she lashed out at Bob even though he has been unwavering in his support of her.) But this week, she said, America saw the real Gina, the graceful, gracious Southern woman who took it all in sweet stride when she was eliminated after falling below the red line for failing to lose enough weight.

Taco Bell officially launched its hotly anticipated Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Tacos on Thursday, the day after fans revolted over expectations that the item would be available Wednesday. The new offering was preceded to the menu by the Nacho Cheese taco, which has sold more than 350 million units and is considered by the Irvine company to be its most successful product launch in its 51-year history. The run-up to the Cool Ranch debut was accompanied by a massive social media push and special events, including password-only previews for fans in New York, Dallas and Los Angeles.

"The Biggest Loser" race sees this happen every season. Someone loses a jaw-dropping amount of weight -- and still goes home. This season, this week, it was Alexandra Reid. The 24-year-old legal assistant from Carrollton, Texas, lost eight pounds -- eight pounds! -- but it wasn't enough. She fell below the yellow line and was eliminated.  Speaking during a media conference call Tuesday morning, Alex said she continues to lose weight at home -- and finds it far easier to do so at home than at the ranch where personal dramas can swirl.

State hospital worker Bruce Schumacher said he was on the verge of retiring and planned to sustain himself with two livestock businesses on his sprawling, 10-acre ranch in the San Bernardino County community of Hesperia. But when he reached his ranch Saturday after a 1,200-acre brush fire roared through his property near the Cajon Pass a day earlier, he met with a ghastly sight. More than 100 of his goats, rabbits and birds were dead, their charred carcasses strewn about his ranch.

RE "A Fixer Turned Fabulous" [Nov. 17]: I have tried for years to increase the understanding and appreciation of ranch-style homes, and your article illustrates many important features that are often overlooked. Of course, ranch-style homes are on no one's wish list. Your description as a "dirty old mutt from the pound" fits most people's opinion. The featured home nicely demonstrates two important truisms -- that the ranch is a Modern design, and that people who are attracted to honesty will logically find peace there.

If there was one locale in Los Angeles unlikely to join the neighborhood music-festival wave, it probably would be "The Deepest Recesses of the Santa Monica Mountains. " There, at the site of a new festival called the Ranch, the flannel and beards aren't ironic accessories but necessary wilderness accouterments. Putting a bird on it involves an actual bird landing on something, and the only rock scene is sedimentary. But that rural idyll was precisely the appeal for a trio of young L.A. concert promoters, who estimate that the Ranch will bring around a thousand concert-goers to a sylvan mountain retreat on March 2 for a day and a night of music and roughing it. The site is only a few miles from Malibu, but the Ranch is a world away from anything that's been tried in local music recently.

Fans of "The Biggest Loser's" Francelina, fear not. If you were thinking "Why does Francelina have to go home? Why can't it be Gina? know this: Francelina says she's happy -- in a bittersweet sort of way -- that it was her time to go. "I knew I had gathered the tools in there that I needed to survive in the real world," Francelina Morillo, 25, of Albany, N.Y., said Tuesday morning during a media conference call. "I was ready to face the real world. " She said she couldn't say the same about the rest of the remaining competitors, including Jeff -- her newfound love.  Francelina stopped short of predicting the future, but said that she and Jeff formed a close, intimate bond on the ranch due to shared heartbreak: They both lost their fathers at a young age and turned to food for comfort.