Spices

A musical mishmash of eras and styles closed the London Olympics in a long and raucous fashion on Sunday night to complete what its director called the "after-party" of this 17-day global event. There were the familiar music icons, including the Pet Shop Boys, the reunited-for-a-night Spice Girls, Annie Lennox, Ray Davies, Fatboy Slim and singer George Michael, who was making his first live appearance since recovering from pneumonia last year. The Who closed the show with a four-song set that concluded with "My Generation.

As a great, global ritual in which the nations of the world beat their swords into javelins and pole-vault poles, sublimating national rivalries, religious differences and warlike spirits into friendly athletic competition, the Olympic Games demand to end not with a whimper but a bang. It is not enough to leave a note asking the last one out of the stadium to please turn off the flame. Titled "A Symphony of British Music," Sunday night's closing ceremony-cum-dance-party was a color-coordinated parade of illustrated pop songs, some that will have been less than familiar to foreign listeners, some worldwide hits, but most of them so deeply ingrained into the modern British consciousness as to be extricable only by surgery.

Proving that some musical phenomena can stay dormant for only so long, the Spice Girls are set to make a comeback of sorts with a new musical that's set to open on London's West End on Dec. 11. But before you imagine the lattice-work plot of the 1997 film "Spice World" being reworked for onstage audiences, Judy Craymer (creator of "Mamma Mia!") reportedly has something different in mind for the similarly exclamatory "Viva Forever!," which will prominently feature the sounds of Sporty, Ginger, Posh, Baby, Scary, Bashful, Sneezy -- wait, how many were there again?

The 80th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans race kicks off Saturday with an intriguing new addition -- Toyota. The Japanese automaker is entering two cars in the premier LMP1 division, in which the fastest, most exotic prototype cars compete in the famous endurance race held on the Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans, France. Audi, the division's current powerhouse and defending LMP1 race winner, formerly had a pitched rivalry each year with cars from Peugeot until the French manufacturer withdrew from the series this year.

The cold fried chicken sandwich at Michael Voltaggio's ink.sack is one of the restaurant's bestsellers. The meat is cooked sous-vide with piment d'espelette and then breaded in corn flakes and fried. It's topped with crisp lettuce, pickles and tangy housemade ranch cheese and drizzled with a small-batch year-old hot sauce called Gindo's Spice of Life. Made by a local bartender and home chef named Chris Ginder, Gindo's Spice of Life has been generating buzz among local chefs who favor its fierce but forgiving heat and rich, well-balanced flavor.

Not to be lost in the amazing story of an amazing horse and jockey is the story of Ivan Puhich. He is 85 and no longer "terrible," although tales of his youth that include fists through car windows and other guys ending up in garbage dumpsters hint that the nickname once fit. Trainer Gary Stute says Puhich is an insufferable San Francisco 49ers fan, who once argued with a friend for five hours after a game about a missed block and didn't...

The exhibition game was meaningless, of course, a final practice as spring training ended and opening day beckoned. Even so, the 16,990 who saw the Angels defeat the Dodgers, 8-3, at Dodger Stadium — including Angels owner Arte Moreno — were treated to two did-you-see-that home runs courtesy of the Angels, at the expense of Dodgers starting pitcher Nathan Eovaldi. With the victory Wednesday afternoon, the Angels won the rubber game of the three-game Freeway Series ahead of the Dodgers' regular-season opener Thursday in San Diego against the Padres, and the Angels' opener Friday in Anaheim against the Kansas City Royals.

You've cruised Valley Boulevard through Alhambra and Monterey Park, hitting all the culinary hot spots: 101 Noodle Express for the Shandong-style beef roll, Savoy Kitchen for Hainanese chicken rice or Taste of Chong Qing for Sichuan baked fish in pickled peppers. A few miles east might lie less-explored territory, Rowland Heights. The neighborhood's a trove of Taiwanese and other delights, including its bakeries, noodle shops and theme restaurants (cave women and elementary school among them)

Singer Melanie Brown — Scary Spice from her days with the Spice Girls — and her husband, producer Stephen Belafonte, have sold their Tarzana compound for $3 million. The renovated country French-style house features Venetian chandeliers, a gym, five bedrooms and eight bathrooms in 8,604 square feet of living space. The chateau and a swimming pool sit on more than half an acre. Outdoor living spaces include a dining room with chandeliers, a living room and a cabana. Brown and Belafonte added the gym, a detached recording studio and a detached movie theater in what the listing said was $1-million renovation.

Rueful, funny and wise, "The Salt of Life" is a comedy not of errors but of the tiniest of missteps. A warm yet melancholy film of quiet yet inescapable charm, it has a feeling for character and personality that couldn't be more delicious. That a film as delicate, personal and small-scaled as "Salt of Life," directed and co-written by Italy's Gianni Di Gregorio, exists at all is a function of fate and chance. Di Gregorio, who also stars, acted as a young man before beginning what became an accomplished screenwriting career.