Lindsay William-Ross

Notorious for its revolving door of megawatt kitchen talent, West Hollywood's Bastide announced yesterday that their new Executive Chef is Sydney Hunter III, who has been at the French restaurant since January. Hunter's local trajectory is storied: he began at L'Orangerie in 2002, was a sous chef at Bastide until 2008, then took charge at Fraiche in Santa Monica, and has been seen of late popping up in the kitchen in support of Chef Ludo Lefebvre at LudoBites.

Residents of Pasadena will face a strict watering ban as part of an anticipated Level 4 Water Shortage Emergency this month while a major regional water pipeline is temporarily shut down. Between March 18th and 27th, Pasadena will be relying solely on their groundwater and reserves while the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) implements a planned seismic retrofit of the F.E. Weymouth Water Treatment Plant in LaVerne.

The knives are coming out for a third installment of the all-pro TV cooking competition show Top Chef Masters on Bravo, and today the network has revealed the list of 12 "cheftestants" and solidified who will be doing the adjudicating. Representing Los Angeles are two beloved and well-known local culinary stars, Mary Sue Milliken of Border Grill, and John Rivera Sedlar of Rivera and the just-opened Playa.

Photo by MizGingerSnaps via Flickr Excavation began yesterday in Lomita at the Thyme Contemporary Cafe, which is owned by David Viens, as authorities look for the body of Viens' wife Dawn, missing for 16 months. Officials say they expect the dig to take some time, according to LA Now, and they believe she is buried beneath the property. When David Viens hurled himself off a cliff side in Rancho Palos Verdes last week, he...

A pair of masked and armed burglars tunneled their way into a Downtown L.A. jewelry store and made off with an estimated over $3 million in merchandise, say the LAPD. The heist took place between 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on February 19th at a store located on the the 600 block of South Broadway. During the robbery, the suspects went through the store and systematically emptied the cases of high-priced jewelry. Surveillance video...

Whatcha doin' this Wednesday night? If you are in need of some last minute plans, we've got some opportunities to meet up and talk, drink, eat, and learn. Is the physical book dead? What's up with Hollywood Fringe Festival? Where can you taste over 40 wines from Paso Robles? See what we've got for you to Pencil In...

Out of an attempt to make use of all the data logged into social networking application Foursquare comes this fun bit of global info. To test how their wealth of data is stored and sorted, Foursquare took a look at the number of tips left at venues that contain a swear word. The result is a ranking deemed a list of the 20 "Rudest Cities" according to Foursquare. And where the #$%&@! does Los...

Will you be grateful for Café Gratitude? (Photo by wrestlingentropy via Flickr) Devotees of organic and vegan cuisine will have a new temple at which to worship starting tomorrow, when the long-awaited San Francisco export Café Gratitude opens up its doors on Larchmont to welcome conscious eaters into their fold. Café Gratitude's NorCal owners Matthew and Terces Engelhart have teamed up with Christopher and Lisa Bonbright to set up shop at Larchmont and Melrose...

Married couple Diane Olson and Robin Tyler, who brought forward the lawsuit that led to gay marriage being legalized in 2008. (Tom Andrews/LAist) While the ultimate fate and legitimacy of California's Propositon 8 remains to be decided, today Attorney General Kamala D. Harris has asked he Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to dismiss its order prohibiting same-sex marriages until the appeal case is resolved. Should Harris' request be granted, California could resume performing...

Photo by via Flickr Thousands of Gmail users found themselves without much of an email account recently, and now Google is stepping up with an explanation, though not all is fixed, says the HuffPo. At fault is "a software bug" that chewed up some account info and emails for 0.02% of their customer, which is "about 40,000 of the service's 200 million accounts," according to CNET. "The good news is that email was never...

61-year-old Bran Bater of Twin Peaks has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter following the shooting death of his wife, according to the San Bernardino Sun. Bater was allegedly aiming to shoot the family dog, but wound up shooting his 61-year-old wife, Faith, in the head instead. Faith Bater died at the scene, and Bran Bater was taken into custody....

Sheriff's Homicide Bureau detectives are investigating a fatal shooting in Norwalk that appears to be a home invasion robbery centered on marijuana. Authorities were dispatched to the 11100 block of Imperial Highway at 5:38 p.m. Monday, explains a release issued by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. On scene, a 55-year-old Hispanic male who had been shot by an intruder, and his stepson, Ernesto Gutierrez, who witnessed the shooting. According to Gutierrez, the "unidentified...