Trying to explain what música ranchera is to non-Mexicans reminds me of the apocryphal quote attributed to–take your pick–Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington, when someone asked what jazz is. Ranchera ...

Go ahead, call us a bunch of culture-less, lily-white suburbanites with a partiality to flip-flops and right-wing politics. Those kind of labels never cease to amuse us. Because one thing that ...

At the end of October, The Orange County Register did what any Southern California media outlet looking for an easy Halloween story does: send a reporter to Black Star Canyon. The remote site, reached ...

The California Supreme Court has confirmed the death penalty for John Famalaro, the phony cop convicted of killing Denise Huber, who disappeared on her way home to Newport Beach from a Morrissey ...

In 1952 or 1954 (depending on who’s telling the tale), Bert Grimm bought a business located at 22 Chestnut Place in Long Beach, on the corner of Chestnut and Ocean Boulevard. The small square space on ...

“That's where we sacrifice the goats,” deadpans a man who looks to be in his late 20s as he points to an altar in the middle of the Orange Grove Masonic Lodge No. 293's main room. A large, ...

Written By: Gustavo Arellano, Andrew Asch, Joel Beers, Claudia Figueroa, Rich Kane, Bill Kohlhaase, George A. Paul, John Roos, Alison M. Rosen, Rebecca Schoenkopf ...

Last week, NPR inspired a lot of foodie hand-wringing with a post about an interview that superstar chef Rick Bayless did with a public-radio outfit regarding whether it was okay for a gabacho from ...

No one gave Maxwell Chorak a second thought as he got off at one of the bus stops near UC Irvine and walked across campus on June 10, 2014. He resembled a disheveled grad student checking in for an ...

Jeff Hakman and Bob McKnight were worried—they couldn’t get the trunks quite right. For weeks during the latter half of 1976, the twentysomethings had fumbled with sewing machines in a Spartan shed ...

Orange County's contribution to the development of Mexican food in the United States is deceptive. We are the longtime home to Taco Bell, Del Taco and El Torito—but those iconic companies started in ...

“Santa's real. . . . It's the stories that are fake.” —Uncle Bill, grandma's house, Christmas 1957 Ric Erwin, “Singin' Santa,” the most vibrant performing professional Santa Claus I've ever met, is ...