Check It. March: National Peanut Month.

March is National Peanut Month, and Dean & Deluca has a package (above) that can help you celebrate. The Peanut Lover's gift basket includes everything from extra-large Virginia peanuts to Cream-Nut Natural Peanut Butter, to peanut brittle. The retro packaging is very cute, making the set a perfect gift for the peanut lover in your life (or for yourself if you're feeling extravagant--it's $45). If this is too fancy, a simple jar of supermarket-bought peanut butter or some Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are also appropriate items to celebrate with.

How about Elvis' favorite fried peanut butter and banana sandwich? You'll need a ripe banana, two slices of white bread, 3 tablespoons of peanut butter, and 2 tablespoons of butter. Toast the bread slightly, spread the (mashed or slices of) banana on one side, and peanut butter on the other. Fry the sandwich in melted butter until golden brown. Serve hot and sliced diagonally. Enjoy!

-- Leslie Anne Wiggins

Photo credit: www.deandeluca.com

Eat Out. Fern's [Sunday Brunch].

Spending your Sunday afternoons in a dumpy dive bar in Long Beach may seem kind of trashy, but Fern's is a bit different.

By no stretch of the imagination could one call this place classy, with a mural of a topless horned woman with a bifurcated tongue on one wall and the floor that looks more like the foundation, but Sundays here are $1 Busch day, happy hour all night, and at times, barbeque, grilled cheeses and PB&J nights, this place on Sunday is the place to be.

It's definitely more of a punk-style bar, but has probably one of the best jukeboxes I've ever seen (have you ever been able to find Elvis, Tom Waits, the Stones, the Clash, Siouxsie, Bauhaus, Dylan, Johnny Cash, Iggy Pop, and the Damned on one jukebox?)
And the beer selection is great, with at least three different kinds of Angel City brew, but you may have to wait a while. The sassy bartenders may give you the snub.

Note: This place is definitely not for the faint of heart. This place defines the phrase "dive bar".

-- Lauren Williams