Ravioli

Restaurant Shiro, 1505 Mission St., South Pasadena, (818) 799-4774. Open for dinner Tuesday-Sunday. Beer and wine. Street parking. MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $30-$45. Last week in Monterey, I ate in a restaurant that all the foodies love. (In the latest Zagat guide for San Francisco, it rates 26 points, the same as Campton Place and Chez Panisse.) As a first course, I ordered lobster ravioli in a cream-drenched sauce.

  SATURDAY Picture your food Love photographing your food, but feel self-conscious doing so? Check out the "photo-tasting" session at Checkers Downtown. Guests will enjoy chef Todd Allison's new winter menu while attending a workshop on how to best photograph at a restaurant. Checkers Downtown, 535 S. Grand Ave., L.A. 12:30 to 3 p.m. $45. (213) 624-0000. phototasting.eventbrite.com How edible is your garden? Silver Lake Farms is offering gardening workshops in a two-part series called "Creating an Edible Garden in Los Angeles."

Page Moll Chef at the Beachcomber Cafe at Malibu Pier -- At work, Moll whips up decadent dishes such as braised short ribs with Gorgonzola ravioli and s'mores with marshmallows and chocolate. "Unfortunately, in this business, fat is flavor," he says. But with a discipline level many monks would envy, Moll rarely indulges in his own food. "I don't get off work and get drunk, I never eat late at night when I get home -- and no dessert!" he says.

  50 minutes, plus relaxing time for the dough. Serves 6 1 1/2 cups flour 2 eggs, plus more if needed 12 ounces fresh goat cheese 5 tablespoons grated Parmigiano-Reggiano 1 egg yolk 6 tablespoons minced chives 3 tablespoons chopped parsley Salt to taste 1 beaten egg white 1. In a food processor, mix the flour and 2 eggs until it just comes together to form a rough dough. If that doesn't happen, add a little more beaten egg, a teaspoon or so at a time.

We all know ravioli and tortellini stuffed with meat or cheese, but they aren't the only kinds. Chianti: This venerable trattoria serves plump tortellini (striped green, black and white) filled with lobster and shrimp. They come in saffron cream sauce with leeks and lobster. (Rapsodia di mare, $16.25.) Chianti, 7383 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 653-8333.

These delicate dumplings are filled with a slightly sweet mixture of crab meat, green onions and Japanese seaweed. They look difficult to make--especially if you're pressed for time--but in fact the dish is easily assembled using fresh won ton wrappers from the grocery store instead of homemade pasta. A light olive oil infused with lemongrass, ginger and chiles makes a clean and piquant sauce.

Paul Mantee's ravioli recipe came down to him as oral tradition from his father, who wasn't happy giving it out to others. "When I told my Dad that I was going to write down the recipe, he told me: 'Always leave one ingredient out, so it's good, but not as good as we do it.' So I told him: 'Dad, I'm leaving out the calves' brains.' No one uses brains anyway."

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For her brand-new Italian daughter-in-law, Nancy Toomey of San Diego would like to find a wooden ravioli board ; a metal one won't do. Can you show your mettle by coming up with a source, or will our newcomer be faced with a chile welcome because all of us want to pasta buck? A few years ago, Isabelle Meyer of Glendale says, you could buy a man's sports jacket made of a silvery polyurethane fabric with a quilted lining, but no more.