Baked

When you were a child, odds were that the perfect slice of cake consisted of a lot of icing and not much cake. As you got older, however, odds are that the opposite became true; you now prefer more cake than icing. Cajun Blu has created the perfect chocolate cake for adults: three layers of moist, velvety, dark-brown cake blanketed with a thin, glistening sheet of bittersweet chocolate icing, the old-fashioned kind that's slightly grainy, the kind made from recipes in dog-eared copies of the Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

Slow down and dare to be great: That's my message to Richard Linklater, the audacious director of A Scanner Darkly. He's at a time in his career when he seems ready to follow through on any notion he finds in his creative kitchen down in Austin, Texas, then deliver it to the public no matter what stage it is in the baking process. Don't get me wrong: A Scanner Darkly isn't half-baked. It's more three-quarters-baked, and it took years to get its complicated animation to the point where it expressed the scary ups and downs of the characters and the paranoid terrors of their drug-riddled world.

When Gina Root and her friend Deborah Lien spent $75 on ingredients and spent days baking 150 pounds of cookies to send to the troops in the Persian Gulf, they expected to get a thank-you note from a grateful soldier.Instead, they got angry. And they wanted some answers.They received a thank-you note all right, but it came from a center for the homeless in San Diego, Calif."I was pretty P.O.'d," Mrs. Root said in a telephone interview from her home in Corvallis, Ore., this week. "I was really mad because of all the work we did. My reaction is if I wanted to feed the homeless, I would feed them in Corvallis.

Fresh air, ice cream, cows, nervous 4-H'ers and lots of judges will all be in one place beginning today at the 94th annual Carroll County4-H/FFA Fair.Admission to the fair at the Agriculture Center in Westminster is free.Between 18,000 and 20,000 people are expected to attend the event, which runs through Saturday, 4-H Extension Service Agent Robert M. Shirley said.About 600 exhibitors from 4-H clubs and Future Farmers of America groups are expected to bring 9,200 entries to the exhibit halls and barns.

Cherlein Scharpe, a homemaker who enjoyed baking, sewing and dancing, died Monday at Stella Maris Hospice from complications of a fall she suffered a month ago. She was 86 and lived in Carney. The former Cherlein Augusta Beckmann was born in Baltimore and raised in Arbutus. She was 1937 graduate of Catonsville High School, and worked briefly as a Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co. operator in downtown Baltimore before her 1940 marriage to William T. Scharpe, a Glenn L. Martin Co. procurement employee.

Around the houseSeason new cast-iron skillet. Coat inside with vegetable oil and heat on top of stove for 10 minutes; allow to cool. Wipe off excess oil and store. Be sure to wash after each use with sudsy water. Do not scour. Rinse with hot water and dry. Lightly oil to prevent rusting.* Perk up windows quickly. Drape scarves or squares of fabric over curtain rods to create an instant valance. Make throw pillows to match.* Wipe stainless-steel sink with a damp cloth and dry with a soft cloth after each use. Evaporated water can leave mineral deposits that dull the finish.

Grunts, buckles, crumbles, crisps, cobblers and slumps are all lively ways of describing fresh, seasonal fruit bound to various degrees by batter, streusel or pastry. Though the cobbler can be the most involved of these to put together (which is to say it still doesn't take much work), William Carlile, a pastry chef instructor at Baltimore International College, thinks it's the prettiest. Little touches -- like putting the peaches in before the juices to prevent soaking the bottom crust -- help keep his cobbler from getting soggy in the heat.

THE OTHER DAY I learned how to make mandel bread - a sweet, biscotti-style bread. My teacher was Marion Wolhandler, who in her 84 years has baked a few loaves of mandel bread and has made a few observations about living.She believes, for instance, that a key to kitchen happiness is for the cook to periodically reward herself by mixing the hard work with a little noshing. "Enough working," she said at one point in our bread-making labors. "Now start eating." She gave me a handful of chocolate chips to munch.

The United Methodist Women have been busy preparing for their Craft Bazaar from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Nichols-Bethel United Methodist Church Hall.There will be snacks, drinks and lunch available, plus a wide variety of Christmas gifts and decorations. Odenton sweat shirts and T-shirts and the new UMW cookbook will also be on sale.If you have handmade crafts or baked goods you wish to donate, you may bring them to the church office or to the bazaar by 9 a.m. Saturday.Tables are available for rent at $10 each.

Each day of the week offers a menu aimed at a different aspect of meal planning. There's a family meal, a kids' menu aimed at younger tastes, a heat-and-eat meal that recycles leftovers, a budget meal that employs a cost-cutting strategy, a meatless or "less meat" dish for people who may not be strict vegetarians but are trying to cut down on meat, an express meal that requires little or no preparation, and an entertaining menu that's quick.Sunday/FamilyThe family will enjoy your own recipe for broiled lamb chops.