Baked Goods

The holiday bazaar season hits full stride this week as the Carroll County Christmas Farmer's Market opens tomorrow and the biggest bazaar of all, the Mistletoe Mart at Ascension Episcopal Church, starts Thursday.The Christmas Farmer's Market will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays, through Dec. 18, at the Agricultural Center on Smith Avenue in Westminster.More than 125 stalls in four enclosed buildings will offer gift and decorating ideas, holiday food treats, arts and crafts, flowers and plants, plus meats, dairy goods, and seasonal fruits and vegetables.

The Greater Women's Information Network's has a new publication for sale, "Crime Prevention Tips, A Common Sense Approach to Preventing Victimization."The booklet, by Sheila D. Schneider, executive director of GWIN, contains more than 200 tips on keeping your children safe, reducing your risk of rape and sexual assault, safety on the telephone, car safety and evaluating self-defense classes.The publication costs $3.95, plus 75 cents for shipping. Quantity discounts are available. Make check payable to Greater Women's Information Network and mail it to GWIN, P.O. Box 3492, Crofton 21114-0492.

Hermann Wayd squeezes a pastry bag across rows of hot cross buns so neatly even his Austrian baking teachers would smile.He never made a hot cross bun in the Old Country. Baltimoreans, however, gobble them up in the Lenten season. So he learned to make a bun dough laced with citron and crossed with whipped sugar.This past December, Mr. Wayd took over the old Muhly's Bakery in the 1100 block of S. Charles St., near the Cross Street Market in South Baltimore.The bakery, long a local favorite, was a plain spot that catered to Baltimore's tastes and pocketbooks.

Dining car daysKeeping meals on track is no problem for Penn State instructor James Porterfield, who traveled thousands of miles on America's railroads researching his book "Dining by Rail: The History and Recipes of America's Golden Age of Railroad Cuisine" (St. Martin's Press, 1993, $35).The book combines railroad history and other lore -- such as the story of the evolution of the dining car -- with more than 300 recipes from the great railroads of the 20th century. Among the recipes are nearly a dozen from Baltimore & Ohio dining cars -- including Maryland crab cakes.

Does Roland Park really need another hip/casual coffee shop, with funky reggae music, local art for sale on the walls and twentysomething customers clicking away on laptops? In the case of the Evergreen, which opened in October, the answer is yes. Although the Evergreen has plenty of competition in the baked goods department from Big Sky Bread, a bakery and sandwich shop a few doors down, and Sam's Bagels and More across the street, it has found a following of its own. Seems people can never get enough of good coffee, freshly baked goods and tasty light meals, all in a spacious, sunny space.

Cookware greased and hairnets applied just right, school-lunch cooks across Maryland spent the week toiling, but this time, not for their kids. They were instead preparing goodies for today's annual school food services bake-off in Ocean City.School cafeteria bragging rights are at stake.Edith Brown from Guilford Elementary in Baltimore will be there with her bread pudding. So will Patsy R. Kreppel, bringing a blueberry tea cake from Chesapeake High School in Essex. And Dianne Snyder, presenting almond cookies from Friendship Valley Elementary in Carroll County.

Where there's a cause, can a bake sale be far behind? Whether it's for the church outreach program or the school PTA, for Barack Obama or John McCain, or for a nationwide campaign to stop childhood hunger, putting out a tray of enticing goodies always seems like a fun way to raise a few bucks. Until it's your turn to bake, that is. Then you may feel the pressure. Must you come up with something unique, distinctive and delicious that will leave your fellow parents or politicos clamoring for the recipe?

If you know someone whose baked goodies are always a hit, encourage them to keep up the hobby with these kitchen accessories. 1. Jazz up your creations with edible cake glitter ($8), "graffiti" spray paint ($4.50) and even "tattoos" (elegant and wild animal skin varieties, $8) for baked goods. Designed by Duff Goldman of Charm City Cakes through Gartner Studios. His line is available at Michaels stores, in Columbia, Ellicott City and Towson, and at duff.com . 2. Accurate measurements are a must!

You say you've been to a farmers' market? Many of them?Not like this one you haven't.You say you've seen enough markets, country fairs and auction rooms to last you three lifetimes?If you've been to the Bird-in-Hand Farmers' Market in the Pennsylvania Dutch village of Bird-in-Hand, then you have.But if you haven't, you haven't.Most people are suspicious of the word "great." The word is so overused in our time, mainly because television, our chief source of influence, calls everything and everyone great!

Dolores Mason is warm, pleasant, motherly, and as fiercely competitive about baking and canning as the jockeys pushing their horses around the half-mile track across the Maryland State Fair Grounds."