Make It. Cookie mix [Gift Guide].

For those who have waited 'til the last minute, here's a quick, easy Christmas present to give friends and coworkers. This is actually perfect for the completely antidomestic person, because these people probably have all these ingredients sitting unopened, in their cupboard now, waiting for the day when they're actually in the mood to bake.

It's also nice for The Person Who Has Everything, because they probably love cookies or bread just as much as The Person Who Needs Everything.

Find a cookie or bread recipe and print as many copies as you have friends who you haven't yet bought gifts for. You'll probably need things like all-purpose flour, chocolate chips, baking soda, maybe yeast.

Take a clean Ball jar and measure out in water how much volume is in half a cup, a full cup and pour the water into the Ball jar. Draw the measurements onto the Ball jar with a colorful permanent marker. That way when your cookie/bread/scone/pastry-of-some-kind mix is all used up, your gift recipient has a brand new measuring device.

I used coins of various sizes to measure the circles where the measurements were.

Place all the dried ingredients from your recipe into the Ball jar, keeping them separate to create a cool layering effect. Obviously, don't add wet or perishable ingredients, because those will spoil and giving someone rotten food would be a horrible gift.

Tie the recipe to the ingredients with colorful ribbon and you're good to go!

-- Lauren Williams

Photo credit: Amazon.com

Eat Out. Eggnog latte.

I love seasonal drinks. Especially eggnog. At Portfolio Coffeehouse on Long Beach's "Retro Row" there is a mean eggnog latte, which is neither too sweet or "eggnog-y" and still has a nice coffee flavor.

For those who love coffee, but hate "flavored coffee" this is the perfect compromise. Other amazing holiday drinks include: spiced apple cider, peppermint latte, pumpkin spice latte, white Christmas mocha, brown sugar mocha, and gingerbread mocha.

Lattes are between $2.50-$3.50 and can be served to you in a glass, if you ask (as the one pictured above is).

They also have an amazing array of pastries; right now they have a pumpkin cream cheese muffin and pumpkin vanilla scone. Yum!

Portfolio Coffeehouse is located at 2300 East 4th Street, at the intersection of Fourth and Junipero Street in Long Beach.

-- Lauren Williams

Photo credit: Courtesy of K. on Yelp!

Do It. Museums!

If you're in the lucky majority of those who get the next couple of days off for the holidays (i.e. students, people who wisely saved up vacation time, the unemployed, not me), it's excellent timing to take advantage of one of Los Angeles' greatest assets: its art. Plus, it's a great, non-super-touristy thing to take out-of-towners to do. Here's a round-up of what's currently going on at the city's big museums:

MOCA: Collection: MOCA's First Thirty Years
A year ago, MOCA was about to go under for lack of sufficient funding. Celebrate its perseverence with this retrospective exhibition, featuring the renowned museum's collection at its best, including special focuses on artists like iconic contemporarists Robert Rauschenberg and Mark Rothko. If anything, the museum needs and deserves your support!
250 S. Grand Ave. & 152 N. Central Ave., downtown; open this week Mon. 11-5 & Thurs. 11-3; $10

Hammer Museum: The Bible Illuminated: R. Crumb's Book of Genesis
And he's done it again. Seminal comic artist R. Crumb has been challenging and influencing the art world for decades with his strange, insane and stark images on society at large, and now he's up and illustrated the first book of the Old Testament, the Book of Genesis. Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve, The Creation...it's all there, now distinctly portrayed with the unforgettable R. Crumb touch.
10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood; open this week Tues.-Wed. 11-7 & Thurs. 11-3; $7

LACMA: Heroes & Villains: The Battle for Good in India's Comics
Gods as superheroes and demons as villains? It's nothing particularly new, but take it from an Indian perspective and drop them into modern society and you've got some interesting comics. This exhibit's got both Indian and American comics, vintage and modern, and include other Indian art from LACMA's collection.
5905 Wilshire Blvd., Miracle Mile; open this week Mon.-Tues. 12-8 & Thursday 12-5, $12

-- Chau Tu

Photo credit: Hammer Museum

Etc. Holiday Travel Tips.

If your travel plans are all in order, and a major storm hits your region, you're outta luck. Lucky for us in L.A. this is a rarity, so as long as a few simple steps are followed, it should be smooth sailing ...

DO check in online (and as soon after you're allowed to as possible, to get in one of the first boarding groups. you're usually allowed to check in online 24 hours before departure.)

DO fly direct if possible

DON'T check a bag if you can avoid it

DO make a "packing" checklist that includes everything from socks to hairbrushes to deodorant, or anything that you are prone to forget

DO arrive to the airport early - holiday security lines are unpredictable and if you encounter a large slow crowd, you'll appreciate the extra minutes

DO bring a sweater or small blanket on board, if you want a nap, it will be much cozier if you're not freezing

DO have a toothbrush easily accessible for your post-nap mouth

DON'T wait until the night before a morning flight to do your laundry - 1:30 a.m. up alone folding T-Shirts is not ideal if you have a 5:00 a.m. wake up call

DON'T wrap presents before flying--security may have to unwrap them if they decide to have a peek (or more) through your belongings

DO pack for the weather of your destination

DO bring a camera

and lastly, DO have fun!

-- Leslie Anne Wiggins

Photo credit: www.bostonherald.com

Make It. Scrubbing pots [A clean house on the cheap].

Around the holidays our pots and pans get more use than usual. Green bean casseroles, lasagna, and especially those roasts leave tons of residue that's tough to get off.

What my grandma used to do was after cooking let the pans cool, then fill them almost to the top with water, and turn the burner back on to loosen food remnants that got stuck on the pans. She actually used to use this as a "gravy" for the dog's food -- it sounds kind of gross now, but I guess in the 1950s on a Midwestern farm, it wasn't that crazy.

I've tried this with things that don't perfectly sit on the stove's burner, like a casserole dish or other heat-resistant cookware, and it works just as well. If there is food especially caked on, pour a tiny bit of soap (not for the dog) in the pan and let that bubble.

You will want to watch the pan, because it will start to boil quickly and can boil over.

This works really well, and you won't even have to get out the Brillo pads.

Also, to get the residue out of candle holders you may have been using to light up the house this holiday season, freeze them. Put the candle holder in the freezer overnight, then tap the container upside down into the palm of your hand. All the residual wax from candle should fall out.

-- Lauren Williams

Do It. Weekend project.

A nice way to fancy up a plain piece of unfinished, wooden furniture is to paint it, then decoupage it with some kind of image. Here I chose the desk chair in the living room. It was the only unfinished piece of wooden furniture in the apartment. I would use wood as a base because I'm not sure how decoupage reacts with other materials. I don't think it sticks as well.

Among the nice materials that can be decoupaged onto something are old photos, maps, and newspaper. I chose newspaper because this is the writing chair in the living room and nothing seemed more fitting than old issues of the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times.

I used black as a background to give it a black-and-white look, but red or some other color would work just as well. Using black though, made the newspaper dark and required my roommate and I to add more layers of newspaper.

You will want to dust the chair so that the paint and decoupage material stick. To gloss on the material, you will want to buy Mod Podge Decoupage sealer, or something comprable, at a crafting or art supply store.

I tore pieces of newspaper, but you can use large images too. It just has a different effect.

When you have painted and decoupaged, let the item dry a full day before sealing with a glossy Polyurethane mineral sealant so that your clothes don't get covered in whatever material you were using and it makes it a little more waterproof.

It's a very easy project, relatively inexpensive, and can be done in a few days over the weekend.

-- Lauren Williams

Eat In. Candy Cane Swirl.

From baking (gingerbread cookies!) to clothing (Christmas sweaters!), the holidays just make everything better. But now that it's the weekend, let's add some alcoholic drinks to the mix!

Now normally, I'd just take the lazy route and add some peppermint schnapps to a steaming cup of hot cocoa (topped with an abundant amount of marshmallows, of course), but we can get fancier than that. Here's a recipe I found on whattodrink.com (not that great of a site, but a good place to start getting ideas) for a surely wonderful concoction named Candy Cane Swirl:

Check It. Avatar.

James Cameron's (Aliens, The Terminator, Titanic) new epic film Avatar is out today. I saw it last night/early this morning in 3D (with awesome heavy-duty glasses, not those cheap ones that are smudged and pinch your temples) at the ArcLight's Cinerama Dome theater, and it was pretty incredible (which I did hope it would be for $18.50!). Not being a sci-fi type person in the least, I didn't have much initial interest in the film--unlike the revved-up mostly male, mostly nerdy crowd that had gathered in the theater's lobby by 11:30 p.m. It was a case of don't judge a movie by the "look" of it here--because I ended up emotionally attached to these alien-like blue creatures.

Visually, it was thrilling. I highly recommend it in 3D. It had tastes of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory and some Disneyland ride magic in there too. It's impossible to imagine how they made it all come together. Aside from a drawn-out fight sequence toward the end that could have wrapped up a bit faster, I enjoyed every minute.

-- Leslie Anne Wiggins

Photo credit: USA Today

Eat Out. Sipology [Sunday Brunch]

We had brunch at Sipology in Lauren's neighborhood last week. Never been to downtown Long Beach before. It's really lovely and almost worth the hour it took to get there. Leslie and I got hopelessly lost--I think we drove on at least 5 freeways, each slowly moving us in the right direction (so, thanks, 405). Finally there at the cute brick building that holds Siplogy, things were on the up and up. We wanted coffee and food and here we were.



Leslie ordered a fancy coffee drink and a slice of banana bread. Her order and service were prompt. Mine were not. The woman behind the counter never asked to take my order. I had to interrupt her morning paper perusal to stumble over what I wanted, because she looked at me like I was disturbing her. She didn't say, "Oh, I didn't see you there" or "Sorry, what can I get you?" or even "Can I help you, because even though I'm mad that you're here, that's what I get paid to do?" Her response was more like, "Really? You've got some nerve doing this to me. You are going to pay for this."

And after Leslie moved upstairs to join the rest of the Beat, I was left at the counter waiting on a breakfast bagel. I waited probably 20 minutes. Were they busy? I was the only customer, so probably not. I was patient at first, but then I got nervous that maybe they had forgotten, since they hadn't shown they really cared to begin with, so I asked. And the girl looked at me, annoyed, and said, "Uh. We're making it now." And just what were they making? A bagel, untoasted, with cream cheese, tomatoes, and fresh basil. How long does that take? When they finally dropped it on the counter, there was no, "Sorry it took so long!" just a turn on the heel and a dismissive glance. Awesome.

Everyone swears up and down that the food and drink at this place were top notch. Chau loved her mocha, Leslie thought the banana bread was divine, and Lauren recommended the place, so naturally she's a fan. I guess I just couldn't taste it through all the bitterness the insufferable people behind the counter had served me first.

They had free Wi-Fi, a great view, and comfy couches, which made it an awesome place for us to get some work done on a Sunday, but the iffy customer service trashed my experience.

Oh, and Sipology? Gallerie is a whack way to spell gallery.

-- Heather Robertson

Advance Notice. She & Him.

Indie darlings She & Him are playing the El Rey on March 25, and if you want to go, you may as well be prepared and buy presale. The password is VOLUMETWO, and it starts at 10:00 a.m. Friday (tomorrow) at goldenvoice.com.

Zooey Deschanel is best known for her acting (Elf, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 500 Days of Summer) but her band is definitely a worthwhile venture too. With M. Ward in the mix it's hard to go too wrong, but L.A. native Deschanel holds her own. Their music is quite delightful.

Some trivia for the music fans who didn't already know: Zooey Deschanel and Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie married in September.

Tickets on sale at: www.goldenvoice.com

-- Leslie Anne Wiggins

Photo credit: Goldenvoice