A two-star ParkAve in Stanton

Before it was Beach Boulevard, the Orange County road that leads straight to Huntington Beach was known as Highway 39.

That was back when Clifford Ronnenberg's parents owned a dairy and roadside diner, which is now the site of the citified ParkAve restaurant. The retro-style neon spelling out the name at the edge of the parking lot shines like a beacon among tacky motels, new town houses and the usual strip malls. Stanton is not what you'd call fancy, more working class Orange County than upscale. And that's to its credit.

The building is low-slung stone ornamented with an original Sputnik-inspired Googie ball. The restaurant's name is spelled out in a flowing retro script in brass beside the door. Inside, it's retro all the way, and that goes for the classic American fare as well. Oh, with some updates too.

For the rest of S. Irene Virbila's review, and to look at a photo gallery, click here.

Photo: Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times

Green kitchen tips for Earth Day

A green feast is no longer a meal cooked up by that Dr. Suess character with eggs and ham.

These days, green is all over the kitchen, in the choices cooks make of where to shop and what to buy to whether they compost the unused scraps.

If all the Earth Day talk today inspires some environmentally minded moves, there are several books, including the one at right, to help you along the way.

-- Mary MacVean

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The Biggest Little Garden: A box of grow-your-own vegetables

The Biggest Little Garden is a compact, three-tiered planter made of a handsome (and rot-resistant) cedar -- just the right size for a small balcony. The 32-inch-wide planters are narrow enough to squeeze through small apartment doors, raised high enough so no stooping is required for planting and picking, and built with a trellis on the top tier to support bean and squash vines. And for residents of New Westminster in Canada, it's free. Click to read more.

-- Deborah Netburn

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What to do with those greens once they're grown? Here are some recipe suggestions from The Times' Test Kitchen.

Join us on Twitter @latimesfood.

Photo: Fraserside

California gets a garden too

First there was the edible garden at the White House -- that's First Lady Michelle Obama helping elementary school students break ground  on it last Friday, the first day of spring.

Now, it's Sacramento's turn. This spring, a public edible garden will be planted in Capitol Park, California First Lady Maria Shriver announced on Ag Day.

"This new garden will bring awareness to children, students and visitors about the important role of food, where it comes from, nutritional value, how it is grown and harvested and ultimately how it reaches the tables of those who need it most," she said Monday.

Shriver said she's getting help from many people, including state Food and Agriculture Secretary A.G. Kawamura and Alice Waters, the chef who established the Edible Schoolyard gardening and food program at a middle school in Berkeley.

Urban gardening project to provide food for families

It is, of course, time to plan a summer garden. But if it just seems like one more chore, all is not lost.

An urban community-supported agriculture (CSA) project is getting started, using front- or backyard gardens at five homes west of downtown.

Here's the idea: Subscribers to the CSA and volunteers will plant the first yard at the end of March. The others will follow, for a total of about 1,000 square feet. The folks at the firm Heart Beet Gardening will plan and tend the gardens, harvest and box the food. Then, if all goes as planned, subscribers will pick up a box once a week at a central location, starting in July.

It's a twist on the usual CSA in which subscribers get shares in the harvest of a farm.

Sara Carnochan, who runs Heart Beet with two partners, says people who volunteer their yards will get to eat whatever they want from their garden, plus get a discount on the weekly boxes, which they expect will cost $25 to $35 a week for a variety of summer produce.

Anyone who wants to subscribe for the season or offer up a yard in the area bounded by Citrus and Western, Olympic and Wilshire, can contact Heart Beet Gardening.

— Mary MacVean

Photo credit: Kathleen Redmond, Heart Beet Gardening

Time for tomato planning

A generation ago, planting tomatoes was pretty straightforward for backyard gardeners. No longer. There are hundreds of varieties to choose from.

If you live in the San Fernando Valley, the botanical garden at Cal State Northridge has organized some help. Scott Daigre, owner of Powerplant Garden Design and Tomatomania, is teaching a class that includes strategy for tomato planting and how to select the varieties of tomato that are best suited for the San Fernando Valley. He will also share his thoughts on his favorite varieties.

Registration begins today for the March 7 class. The class is free, but registration is required by e-mail. Driving and parking instructions will be sent upon confirmation.

The Cal State Northridge Botanic Garden serves as a field site for botany, entomology, photography, painting and other classes.

-- Mary MacVean

Photo: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

Small Bites: Rooftop gardens, retirement parties and signature kitchens

Sowing the seeds of change: Blue on Blue, the poolside restaurant at the Avalon Hotel of Beverly Hills, has planted a rooftop garden with two worthy intentions. The first is to provide the freshest possible ingredients for chef Scott Garrett to use in his dishes (and to inspire the creation of new dishes and cocktails). The second is to use the garden as an educational tool via the restaurant's new "Small-Space Food Gardening" series, which costs $150 per person, but is available free of charge to low-income families. The classes are scheduled for Feb. 21, 28 and March 7 from 7 to 9:30 p.m., and will be taught by Darren Butler of EcoWorkshops.com. 9400 W. Olympic Blvd., Beverly Hills. (310) 407-7791, www.avalonbeverlyhills.com.

More Nancy Silverton: Signature Kitchen has opened at Macy's South Coast Plaza Home Store. The new shopper-friendly restaurant features the food of three chefs on Macy's "culinary council." They are: Nancy Silverton, Cat Cora and Marcus Samuelsson. Silverton will offer fresh sandwiches, salads and paninis under the La Brea Bakery moniker, while Cora dishes up barbecue, and Samuelsson his signature burgers. Think of it as a gourmet food court for shopaholics. It opens daily at 11 a.m. and closes one hour before the Home Store closes. South Coast Plaza, Macy's Home Store, Level 1, 3333 Bear St., Costa Mesa. (714) 708-3333, Ext. 3601. www.southcoastplaza.com.

Wine that's good for your wallet: The Patina Restaurant Group wants to thank its customers for all the challenging recession dining they've been doing. To that end, every last one of the group's offspring is offering 25% off all bottles of wine sold through the end of February. They're calling the promotion "Wines for the Wise." I'm calling it: "My Friday night." Patina Group restaurants, www.patinagroup.com.

Congratulations, Feathers! It's come to our attention that tonight a server named Jennifer Williams (who is affectionately called "Feathers") is retiring from Lawry's the Prime Rib in Beverly Hills after 45 years of service. Her retirement dinner commences at 9 p.m. The service industry is a rough but rewarding beast and that kind of time spent feeding it merits sustained applause. 100 N. La Cienega Blvd., Beverly Hills. (310) 652-2827. www.lawrysonline.com.

-- Jessica Gelt

Illustration: Gibbs Smith

'Farming in Torrance and the South Bay': A look back at L.A.'s farm belt

You would hardly know it today, when South Bay towns like Torrance and Gardena seem composed of little but suburbs and strip malls, but it wasn't so long ago that this broad, flat plain included some of the choicest agricultural land in California.

Beginning in the 1880s (even before if you count the cattle-running ranchos) and continuing until as recently as the 1950s, there were thriving farms producing strawberries, beans, sugar beets and dairy cattle, among many others.

Torrance author Judith Gerber beautifully captures this history in her new book "Farming in Torrance and the South Bay," part of the wildly popular "Images of America" series run by Arcadia Publishing.

Mining collections of historical photographs at local libraries and museums as well as from the personal stashes of many family members, Gerber has come up with a trove that vividly illustrates the wealth of the area's farms.

Father's Office, the best bagels, ribs, absinthe and more

The new Father’s Office location in Culver City is much like the original location in Santa Monica. There’s no table service. No substitutions. And no ketchup allowed with your fries. (Yes, you read that correctly.) Times restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila’s review kicks off this week’s Food section. Here are other highlights:

• If you want to start a fight in this town, bring up bagels. Here's a guided tour of the two biggest bagel bakers in L.A -- even if you’ve never heard of them, you’ve probably eaten their hand-crafted wares -– as well as a list of the city's best bagel shops and the best cream cheese. For you DIY-ers, making bagels at home is easier than you might think, as long as you’ve got the time. The best part? You can pile them high with the toppings of your choice. Here’s your recipe and a photo gallery taking you through it step-by-step.
• Why does “Ma Gastronomie” –- the embodiment of the late legendary French chef Fernand Point –- have such a devoted following? The newest edition, hitting shelves this month, certainly isn’t filled with the lush photographs or detailed recipes that we’ve come to expect. Times staff writer and editor Betty Hallock explains why it’s a book that chefs love to love –- and why it's beloved by food-loving readers.
• Our Find this week is Copper Chimney. You wouldn’t know it by the name, but it’s a new Indian restaurant in Woodland Hills where the entrees run $8 to $16. You can’t go wrong with any of the Tandoori dishes, but make sure you don’t miss the stuffed naan or the homemade, ice-cream-like kulfis.
• Bob Foutz of Huntington Beach loved the sweet-and-spicy ribs at Sage in Newport Beach, so much so that he just had to have the recipe. Times Test Kitchen Manager Noelle Carter –- who runs our Culinary SOS feature -- was glad to help.
• If you're looking for something to do, check out our datebook: We've got complimentary absinthe, cooking classes, truffles and a workshop on growing your own veggies.
• If absinthe is not your thing, Virbila suggests the moderately priced 2006 Ataraxia Sauvignon Blanc as her pick for wine of the week.

And finally.....

• Did you know they even bake bagels in China?

--Rene Lynch

Photo credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

Photo caption: If we can't have ketchup with our fries at Father's Office, we'll go with the soft-shell crab.

In sync with the seasons

I misread the news release months ago and thought Dan Barber, chef of the phenomenal Blue Hill at Stone Barns in the Pocantico Hills of New York was coming out with a cookbook this fall. He isn't (or at least not that I know of).

Instead he's written the introduction to a fine cookbook by British garden guru Sarah Raven called "In Season: Cooking With Vegetables and Fruits." I have a couple of her excellent gardening books in my library — "The Great Vegetable Plot: Delicious Varieties to Grow and Eat" and "Cutting Garden: Growing and Arranging Garden Flowers." And her cooking style is as easy as her way with flower and vegetable gardens.

This is a book you'll want to use for inspiration and low-stress entertaining. Thumbing through, I see lots of recipes I'd like to make: Sally Clarke's young carrots with freshly shelled peas and tarragon leaves; cranberry bean hummus with anchovies, garlic, yogurt, lemon and olive oil. Or pappardelle with walnuts and cream.