Jacob Margolis
covers science, with a focus on environmental stories and disasters, as well as investigations and accountability.
Published December 18, 2023 2:39 PM
Cacao fruits are seen growing on cacao trees on a traditional cacao farm on Dec. 2, 2021 in Cuernavaca, Colombia.
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Jan Sochor
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Getty Images
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Topline:
Who would ever decide to keep highly temperamental trees comfortable at a specific temperature and humidity for multiple years, pollinate thousands of small flowers by hand, ferment, roast, winnow and grind beans into a perfectly smooth paste, all for a few wonderful bars of chocolate? A couple of people down the street from the LAist studios, it turns out.
The hardest part: Because cacao trees are usually pollinated by gnats that don't exist in SoCal, each flower has to be pollinated by hand.
You can do it: Why not give it a go? We've got more information on what can be your most ambitious DIY project.
Anytime you snap a bar of chocolate, sink your teeth into a Reese's or sip Swiss Miss from a mug, the cacao that makes up the best part of each of those sweet treats likely came from within 20 degrees of the equator. As far north as Vietnam and Hawaii, and as far south as Madagascar and Bolivia.
View of the oldest cocoa tree planted in Ghana in 1879 at Tetteh Quarshie cocoa farm in Mampon on June 14, 2019 in Eastern Region of Ghana.
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Cristina Aldehuela
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AFP
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Theobroma cacao, the trees from which chocolate comes, are picky about their environment. They prefer warm and humid conditions with a lot of rain, thriving in partial shade where they’re afforded a whole lot of protection from strong wind and sun.
All of which makes the environment here in Southern California — dry, windy, at times both brutally hot and cold — less than ideal for them if you’re going to try and grow them outside. Which is why I was surprised and thrilled when I found out that there are multiple people who've figured out how to both grow cacao and make chocolate from the beans nearby.
After talking through the process with three different people, it’s not easy by any means, but maybe if you’re up to it you too can give it a go. I know I’ll be trying in my backyard (with the proper greenhouse setup) sometime soon.
Think of this less as a how-to guide and more so a post meant to get you excited to go on an experimental cacao journey of your own.
The intrepid DIY-ers
One of the things I love about the rare fruit-growing community here in Southern California is that it attracts all kinds of different people interested in ridiculous experimentation in less-than-ideal environments.
When it comes to cacao trees, I found two groups taking on the challenge of going from dirt to bar.
Cacao trees growing in steel drums at the Pacific Light & Hologram lab.
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Samanta Helou Hernandez
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LAist
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The first group is down the street from the LAist studios in Pasadena, in a nondescript warehouse. Seamus Blackley, physicist and creator of the Xbox, is growing several trees with his creative partner Asher Sefami, a trained microbiologist. They took on the process as distraction to get their minds off of the other super-secret engineering work they're doing at the same location.
Meanwhile, up in Santa Barbara, Mike Orlando, the owner of Twenty-Four Blackbirds, has been making boutique chocolate since 2009. He recently began importing cacao pods, sprouting the beans and growing his own trees in a nearby greenhouse.
So, what can we learn from them?
Step 1: Growing the trees
First, you need to get your hands on some trees.
You can pick them up from rare fruit nurseries in L.A., like Mimosa, or you can sprout your own.
An Afro-Colombian farmer separates pulpy cacao seeds from a cacao pod during a harvest on a traditional cacao farm on Dec. 1, 2021 in Cuernavaca, Colombia.
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Jan Sochor
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Getty Images
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If you get your hands on some fresh pods, pull out the seeds, wash off the pulp, peel off the outside skin and stick them along with a moist paper towel in a plastic bag. Keep them in a warm environment, somewhere between 80 to 90 degrees, and wait.
Cacao seeds sprouting.
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Mike Orlando
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Twenty-Four Blackbirds Chocolate
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Each pod has 30 to 50 seeds, so you'll have a lot of opportunities.
Cacao plants that've been sprouted from seed.
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Mike Orlando
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Twenty-Four Blackbirds Chocolate
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Once you have your cacao tree, you need to plant it.
Sefami stuck theirs in oil drums with standard potting soil.
Cacao trees growing in steel drums at the Pacific Light & Hologram lab.
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Samanta Helou Hernandez
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LAist
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Orlando planted his in a greenhouse.
One of the most critical components of this process is controlling the environment the trees live in, as they prefer moist and warm conditions with dappled light.
Orlando shoots to keep his greenhouse from 60 to 80 degrees at about 70% humidity, though he's seen the trees survive in 40-degree weather.
Cacao trees kept warm and moist in a greenhouse.
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Mike Orlando
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Twenty-Four Blackbirds Chocolate
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In Blackley's climate-controlled lab, a nearby water jet keeps the humidity up and grow lights above the trees give them at least 12 hours of sunlight. They had a problem with aphids, so they tried to remedy the issue with thousands of ladybugs before eventually just using pesticides.
For fertilizer, Orlando sprays the leaves with a kelp mixture and sprinkles Miracle Grow Osmocote every three months or so, depending on how they look.
As you'll find if you start growing plants, a lot of it's a feel thing.
Step 2: Pollinating tiny flowers (the hardest part)
In the wild, cacao trees are often pollinated by biting midges, which don't exist here. So, you'll need to pollinate each tiny flower by hand, using pollen from different plants.
Orlando hasn't quite gotten to this point in the process, but Sefami and Blackley have, after about two years of trying to figure it out.
"The first pod we got, we were through the moon," said Sefami. "And it got to about the size of a Tic Tac and then it just falls off. And it was like ... it was one of the most painful moments."
Cacao flowers grow on trees at the Pacific Light & Hologram lab.
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Samanta Helou Hernandez
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LAist
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"The hard part is when you have tweezers and you're trying to decide if this plant and this plant are different enough genetically, they might work. And you spend half an hour pollinating, and maybe it works or maybe it doesn't, and you don't know what's going on, and the tree is dying, and you're not sure why," said Blackley.
Asher Zelig Sefami pulls pollen from a cacao flower.
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Samanta Helou Hernandez
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LAist
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"Basically you need to take the flower apart into its constituent parts. We remove the pollen and then we have to rub it on the other flowers in a way that just touches where it needs to go,“ said Sefami.
"The flower needs to be at just the right stage of development. Within about a day, they fall off. It’s really hard to get it right."
Cacao pods grow on a tree at the Pacific Light & Hologram lab.
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Samanta Helou Hernandez
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LAist
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Turns out the biting midges are quite effective, said Blackley.
Step 3: Harvest and ferment the beans
If you get to the point where you're harvesting the pods, next you've got to ferment them.
Blackley and Sefami pulled the beans out of the pods smushed them into a bowl and stuck them in a proofing box.
Cacao beans fermenting.
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Seamus Blackley
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They kept the beans at about 83 degrees Fahrenheit, around 80% humidity and mixed them once a day. There was so much microbial activity that the temperature of the beans climbed to 115 degrees before dropping down over the course of about a week.
"At first it smells ... doughy and bready. And then the fermentation process gets taken over by bacteria that produce essentially vinegar, so it starts to smell kind of sharp," said Blackley.
"And then one day you open up the fermentation chamber and it starts to smell like chocolate. It's completely strange."
After they were done fermenting, they dried them to 3% moisture to get them ready for roasting.
Step 4: Roast, grind and temper the cacao
While you can purchase all sorts of different specialty roasting equipment, Orlando recommends you just throw them into your oven at about 250 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes until they start to smell like brownies.
Then, separate the nibs from the shells, blend them in a spice grinder and then grind them into as fine a liquid as you can get them to in a mortar and pestle. This is when you'll add your sugar — 30% by weight will give you 70% dark chocolate.
Alternatively, you can purchase a wet grinder, which uses stone wheels to pulverize the cacao into a smooth chocolate liquor.
"If that was your first time making chocolate, you'd be pretty impressed. It tastes pretty good," said Orlando.
Step 5: Make the bars
Finally, you can temper your chocolate, which gives a bar its characteristic snap when you bite into it.
A bar of finished chocolate.
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Mike Orlando
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Twenty-Four Blackbirds Chocolate
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You then pour it into molds, wait for it to harden and enjoy.
Step 6: Taste the chocolate
If you get this far, you've probably since spent years of effort and thousands of dollars for something you could've purchased at the store for about $12. And we should be friends because it's the kind of absolutely insane experimentation I love.
"I'll tell you, growing chocolate from seed is quite an adventure, but it's the kind of thing you should do in your life. Don't you want to know how to do that? Make chocolate from dirt? Come on," said Blackley.
The final product from Blackley and Sefami.
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Samanta Helou Hernandez
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LAist
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So how did their chocolate taste?
Absolutely delicious! It was fruity with notes of cinnamon and I could've kept eating it. Though, considering the investment each square was probably worth its weight in gold, they only gave me a tiny piece.
If you want to just buy already-made chocolate, you can also check out Twenty-Four Blackbirds in Santa Barbara.
The machine on the left keeps the chocolate in temper so employees can fill molds for chocolate truffles at Twenty-Four Blackbirds in Santa Barbara.
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Mike Orlando
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Twenty-Four Blackbirds Chocolate
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Resources for DIY-ers
This is far from a comprehensive guide, but if you do go on a dirt-to-bar chocolate journey, there are some great resources out there to guide you through the chocolate making part in particular.
Chocolate Alchemy is a reliable resource with links to equipment suitable for a DIY-er.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images and Phil McCarten/Invision/AP
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Topline:
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting agreed today to fulfill a $36 million, multi-year contract with NPR that it had yanked after pressure from the Trump White House.
Where things stand: The arrangement resolves litigation filed by NPR accusing the corporation of illegally yielding to Trump's demands that the network be financially punished for its news coverage. The argument, part of a broader lawsuit by NPR and several stations against the Trump administration, focused on CPB funding for NPR's operation of a satellite distribution system for local public radio stations. NPR announced Monday it would waive all fees for the stations associated with the satellite service.
How we got here: The judge in the case had explicitly told CPB's legal team he did not find its defense credible. CPB lawyers had argued that the decision to award the contract to a new consortium of public media institutions was driven by a desire to foster digital innovations more swiftly.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting agreed Monday to fulfill a $36 million, multi-year contract with NPR that it had yanked after pressure from the Trump White House.
The arrangement resolves litigation filed by NPR accusing the corporation of illegally yielding to Trump's demands that the network be financially punished for its news coverage. The argument, part of a broader lawsuit by NPR and several stations against the Trump administration, focused on CPB funding for NPR's operation of a satellite distribution system for local public radio stations. NPR announced Monday it would waive all fees for the stations associated with the satellite service.
The judge in the case had explicitly told CPB's legal team he did not find its defense credible. CPB lawyers had argued that the decision to award the contract to a new consortium of public media institutions was driven by a desire to foster digital innovations more swiftly.
"The settlement is a victory for editorial independence and a step toward upholding the First Amendment rights of NPR and the public media system in our legal challenge to [Trump's] Executive Order," Katherine Maher, President and CEO of NPR, said in a statement. "While we entered into this dispute with CPB reluctantly, we're glad to resolve it in a way that enables us to continue to provide for the stability of the Public Radio Satellite System, offer immediate and direct support to public radio stations across the country, and proceed with our strong and substantive claims against this illegal and unconstitutional Executive Order. We look forward to our day in court in December."
In its submission Monday evening to the court, CPB did not concede that it had acted wrongfully — nor that it had yielded to political pressure from the administration.
"This is an important moment for public media," said Patricia Harrison, President and CEO of CPB. "We are very pleased that this costly and unnecessary litigation is over, and that our investment in the future through [Public Media Infrastructure] marks an exciting new era for public media." CPB had awarded a rival contract to PMI, a newly created consortium of public radio organizations including several major stations, to ensure the digital distribution system functions properly. That contract will continue, CPB said.
Federal subsidies for public broadcasting stopped on Oct. 1 as a result of a party-line vote over the summer by Congress, called a rescission. Only a skeleton crew remains at CPB, which was created as a nonprofit corporation more than a half-century ago to funnel federal subsidies to public media. While PBS has had layoffs and NPR is monitoring its own finances, many local stations across the country have been hit hard.
Over the course of the litigation this fall, mounting evidence appeared to demonstrate that CPB's board chair and executives had acted against NPR in what turned out to be a futile attempt to salvage the corporation's own future.
In hearings last month in Washington, D.C., U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss told CPB's legal team they had not made a credible case for why the corporation reneged on the contract just a day after a top White House official warned senior CPB leaders against doing business with NPR. A trial had been set to start on Dec. 1.
CPB's change of mind — and NPR's ensuing lawsuit — sparked consternation and unease within the larger public media ecosystem. The two organizations had served as partners for decades. But that relationship frayed earlier this year, as the system came under attack from the Trump administration.
Trump's public campaign against NPR and PBS started in earnest soon after he returned to the White House. Trump kicked it into high gear in late March with a series of social media posts.
In early April, CPB leaders sought to get money out the door before Trump took action against public media. On April 2, CPB's board approved the extension of a contract with NPR to distribute public radio programs, including those not produced by NPR. The arrangement stretched back four decades. The amount included millions still due on the then-current contract.
The next day, CPB's board chair and two senior executives met with a top White House budget official who attested to her "intense dislike for NPR." The budget official told them CPB didn't have to "throw the baby out with the bathwater," according to a deposition from CPB executive Clayton Barsoum submitted as part of NPR's legal filings.
And the day after that — just 48 hours after that board vote — CPB reversed itself. CPB executive Kathy Merritt informed NPR's top official over the satellite and distribution service that it had to be spun off: it could not be part of NPR. NPR refused to do so. CPB revised the scope of the contract and solicited new bids.NPR's submission proved unsuccessful.
Meanwhile, the White House was ramping up the pressure. It accused NPR and PBS of bias. On April 14, for example, it issued a formal statement that called their offerings "radical, woke propaganda disguised as 'news'." NPR and PBS's chief executives have rejected the accusations of bias.
On May 1, Trump issued an executive order that no federal money should go to the two public broadcasting networks. NPR and three Colorado public radio stations then filed suit against the White House, saying they were being unlawfully punished because the president did not like their news coverage. They contended the executive order represented a violation of First Amendment protections. Their suit names CPB as a defendant as well for, in their characterization, bending to the president's will. In Monday's legal filing, CPB agreed that the executive order was precisely the sort of government interference that Congress sought to prevent in establishing CPB as it did.
In the summer, Republican leaders in the U.S. Congress, urged on by Trump, pulled back all $1.1 billion for future public broadcasting that had already been approved and signed into law by the president.
Throughout the legal battle, NPR has said, regardless of the outcome of the case, it would work with Public Media Infrastructure.
NPR's broader constitutional case against Trump's executive order purporting to ban federal funding of public media continues. A hearing on its merits is scheduled for December.
Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik. It was edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editors Gerry Holmes and Vickie Walton-James. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly. Copyright 2025 NPR
Lawsuit says company failed to warn people in time
Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
is an arts and general assignment reporter on LAist's Explore LA. team.
Published November 17, 2025 4:36 PM
Apartments in Altadena during the Eaton Fire.
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Jon Putman
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Anadolu via Getty Images
)
Topline:
The family of Stacey Darden, who died in the Eaton Fire, has filed a lawsuit claiming that Genasys Inc., hired by L.A. County to provide evacuation warnings, was negligent that night. While it provided warnings in enough time to the houses on the east of Lake Avenue, they came too late for those on the west, her lawyers say.
Why it matters: The Eaton Fire in January led to 19 deaths, 18 of them west of Lake Avenue. It’s the first lawsuit targeting the alerts system in Altadena, according to a spokesperson for L.A. Fire Justice, the law firm behind the lawsuit.
Second company sued: The lawsuit also accuses SoCal Edison of negligence in the maintenance of its transmission equipment and the clearing of vegetation around its transmission facilities.
The backstory: Texas-based lawyer Mikal Watts helped file this latest suit. See a copy of the it here. The defendants are seeking a jury trial and unspecified damages.
What's next: Genasys Inc. did not reply to a request for comment. SoCal Edison spokesperson Jeff Monford told LAist: “We are reviewing the lawsuit that has been filed and will respond through the legal process.”
A city rendering shows the planned redesign of Huntington Drive with dedicated bus lanes, protected bike lanes, wider sidewalks, and a slim median aimed at improving safety and mobility along the corridor.
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Courtesy City of Los Angeles
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Topline:
A long-awaited vision for Huntington Drive is finally coming into focus. In the future, the busy corridor will have dedicated bus lanes, protected bike lanes, two lanes of vehicle traffic in each direction, a thin median, and wide sidewalks.
About the project: Huntington Drive Multi-Modal Transportation Improvement Project runs on an approximately four-mile stretch of the street between North Mission Road near LAC+USC Medical Center and Alhambra/South Pasadena. This had much more public support than the competing alternative, which featured a wide median rather than wide sidewalks, according to Mary Nemick, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Engineering.
Why it matters: Currently, Huntington Drive has three vehicular lanes in each direction, the bike lanes are unprotected, and about 25% of the corridor lacks sidewalks. Though pedestrians and bicyclists account for only 1% of peak-hour trips, they account for 54% of severe or fatal injuries from traffic collisions, according to a project document.
What's next? Nemick said the next step is to hire a consultant to create design and engineering documents. This phase is expected to take about two years before groundbreaking can occur.
A long-awaited vision for Huntington Drive is finally coming into focus. In the future, the busy corridor will have dedicated bus lanes, protected bike lanes, two lanes of vehicle traffic in each direction, a thin median and wide sidewalks.
This was the plan chosen by the City for the Huntington Drive Multi-Modal Transportation Improvement Project, which runs on an approximately four-mile stretch of the street between North Mission Road near LAC+USC Medical Center and Alhambra/South Pasadena. This had much more public support than the competing alternative, which featured a wide median rather than wide sidewalks, according to Mary Nemick, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Engineering.
Nemick said the next step is to hire a consultant to create design and engineering documents. This phase is expected to take about two years before groundbreaking can occur.
Currently, Huntington Drive has three vehicular lanes in each direction, the bike lanes are unprotected, and about 25% of the corridor lacks sidewalks. Though pedestrians and bicyclists account for only 1% of peak-hour trips, they account for 54% of severe or fatal injuries from traffic collisions, according to a project document.
The design budget is about $10.5 million, Nemick said, and the overall project cost will be determined after designs are completed.
The project is being funded by some of the money previously allocated for the construction of the 710 Freeway extension, which was abandoned in 2018 after decades of local opposition.
Robert Garrova
explores the weird and secret bits of SoCal that would excite even the most jaded Angelenos.
Published November 17, 2025 3:02 PM
A computer rendering of the Inspiration' space shuttle mockup in its new Downey home
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Courtesy Columbia Memorial Space Center
)
Topline:
The Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey held a groundbreaking ceremony Monday for a roughly 40,000-square-foot expansion that will include indoor and outdoor science learning areas and space for special exhibits. The centerpiece of the buildout will include an interactive display of the Inspiration space shuttle mockup, where visitors can go inside the cargo bay.
The backstory: Built in 1972, the 35-foot-tall model made of wood, plastic and aluminum functioned as a prototype and fitting tool for all of the orbiters that launched into space.
What’s next? The new building that will house the space shuttle mockup should be open to the public in about two years.
Read on... for when the public could visit the shuttle.
The Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey held a groundbreaking ceremony Monday for a roughly 40,000-square-foot expansion that will include indoor and outdoor science learning areas and space for special exhibits.
The centerpiece of the buildout will include an interactive display of the Inspiration space shuttle mockup, where visitors can go inside the cargo bay.
Built in 1972, the 35-foot-tall model made of wood, plastic and aluminum functioned as a prototype and fitting tool for all of the orbiters that launched into space.
“We’re super excited to be able to put it on display for the public, really for the first time in forever,” Ben Dickow, president and executive director of the Columbia Memorial Space Center, told LAist.
The expansion will also allow for educational areas, where students can learn about the pioneering engineering and design work that went into building the model at Rockwell International in Downey.
The backstory
Last fall, after sitting in storage for more than a decade, the full-scale model was moved a few blocks to a temporary home.
The Inspiration space shuttle mockup was moved in sections to a temporary home last fall
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Courtesy Columbia Memorial Space Center
)
The Space Center said renovation work on the mock up will take months and include rehabs of its 60-foot cargo bay and flight deck.
Dickow said Downey is where all of the Apollo capsules that went to the moon and all of the space shuttles were designed and built.
“This is part of the L.A. story as much as entertainment or anything like that,” Dickow said, adding that it’s a legacy he feels like Angelenos sometimes forget. “The space craft that took humanity to the moon, the space craft that brought humanity into lower earth orbit and built the international space station, these are human firsts... and they all happened right here.”
What’s next?
The Space Center is looking to raise $50 million that would go toward building plans, special exhibits and more.
Dickow said the new building that will house the space shuttle mockup should be open to the public in about two years.
By early next year, he said the plan is to have the shuttle model available for bi-monthly public visits as it undergoes renovation.
