Blends

When it comes to strawberry smoothies, we like ours semi-sweet with plenty of fruit. The best ones have no ice chunks. We sampled smoothies from four local places. Here are the results. Peace & a Cup of Joe 713 W. Pratt St., Baltimore -- 410-244-8858 Hours --7 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays-Fridays; 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturdays; 9:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Sundays In and out in --5 minutes This smoothie, $3.41, was way too sweet. We lost interest and stopped sipping halfway through. Know of a good carryout place?

We all have the nightmare of being late to class, forgetting to study for the exam or being late to a test. At three score and four, I have now lived that nightmare.  I did not awake in a sweat. I did not leap from bed, throw on clothes and run downstairs, only to realize I am no longer in school. I sat quietly at my computer and felt ashamed to take a test one month late. Yes, an entire month for a woman, who, all of her adult life, has been prone to false starts, jumping the gun and trying to be ahead of deadlines.

Collaboration is risky business and blending different art forms can be down right dangerous. The English Eurythmy Theatre, however, is a master of weaving various disciplines together. Its "Storm's Child" -- seen Sunday evening at Towson State University's Stephens Hall Theatre and co-sponsored by The Waldorf School of Baltimore -- was a vibrant and moving tapestry of movement, music and poetry and theatre.Eurythmy is a sister to dance -- a system of movement with origins in works by turn-of-the-century educator Rudolf Steiner.

When it comes to spring color, Washington knows how to put on a show. The National Cherry Blossom Festival blossoms each year to commemorate the gift of some 3,000 cherry trees from Tokyo to the nation's capital in 1912. While the festival had modest beginnings, the event has since evolved into a springtime celebration that attracts millions of visitors from around the world. "It's truly amazing how a gift from over 100 years ago has now reached so many people," says Diana Mayhew, the festival's president.

One of the great feats in American marketing was teaching wine consumers to recognize grape varieties and buy accordingly. It's a concept that until recently was largely foreign to Europeans, who tended to identify their wines by a region rather than a grape. But in the span of a few decades, the California wine industry has taught even casual wine drinkers the vocabulary of the vine -- chardonnay, merlot, cabernet sauvignon, zinfandel and many others.Now, many California winemakers are trying to get us to unlearn that lesson.

* Item: Country Inn Specialties Cereal* What you get: About 10 half-cup servings* Cost: About $5* Preparation time: Pour and serve* Review: When we have overnight guests, I feel terrible if I'm not home in the morning to cook breakfast. But sometimes that's the way it works out. So I was intrigued by Post's new Country Inn Specialties cereal blends. The blends aren't cheap, but they are a far cry from cornflakes. We tried the Green Gables Inn mix, and I have to confess that it was so good I found myself eating it right out of the bag. The cereal, based on a recipe from the California inn, features dried apples and cranberries, raisins, granola and tiny palmier pastries (like little almond-flavored cookies)

Seasoning blends' bold flavors are appetizing * Item: McCormick Flavor Medleys Saucy Seasoning Blends * What you get: 8.9 ounces * Cost: About $3 * Preparation time: Use straight from jar * Review: The flavors in McCormick's new Saucy Seasoning Blends are definitely bold. What makes this refreshing is that each one seems to have its own appeal -- setting them apart from the myriad other sauces and marinades on the market. Put to culinary use, the medleys are appetizing without being overpowering.

Music Mindy Smith plays in Annapolis Mindy Smith, who blends classic country and folk, stops in at Rams Head Tavern, 33 West St., Annapolis. Tickets for the 8 p.m. show are $25. For more information, call 410-268-4545, or go to ramsheadtavern.com.

Turn sight words - and their consonant blends - into a matching game. Here's how to do it using eight words from "Danny: The Champion of the World."Preparation1. Take a piece of unlined 8-by-11-inch paper, and draw lines dividing it in half. Then draw lines dividing each half into fourths to make 8 grids.2. On each grid, write these consonant blends in any order:bl, br, cl, dr, fr, sl, st, tr.3. On index cards, write these eight sight words from "Danny: The Champion of the World": black, breathes, cloak, dream, friendly, story, sleeping, tree.

Bag some Old BayThe secret's in the bag -- that is, the secret of cooking succulent seafood with no mess and no bother in as little as seven minutes. Old Bay, whose dry seasoning blend has long been beloved by Marylanders as the essential element in cooking crabs, has introduced a series of new seasoning blends for seafood that come with oven bags.The seasoning blends, called Seas'n Easy, are ginger lemon, garlic and herb (both for shellfish), and lemon dill and Creole (for fin fish). You simply add seafood and liquid, along with the seasoning, to the bag, and pop it in the oven.

Annapolis is swimming in wine bars these days. The choices include the deeply cool Red Red Wine on Main Street, Justin Moore's food-forward Vin 909 over in Eastport and the accessibly cozy Grapes Wine Bar on Forest Drive. Crush Kitchen and Winehouse got there first, though, back in 2010, when it opened on West Street as Crush Winehouse. Crush is a big, inviting space, loud and lively, with a smartly arranged layout of banquettes, four-tops and high tables.

Be still, my somewhat jaded American Catholic heart: A Jesuit? A Jesuit from Argentina who, as archbishop then cardinal, eschewed the chauffeur-driven limousine for the public buses of Buenos Aires? A Jesuit devoted to social justice and to helping the poor? And, he took the name of Francis, one of the coolest saints. Excuse me while I have a somewhat positive reaction to the smoke signals from Rome. Here we were - that is, me and a lot of my friends among the heretical faithful - thinking the whole process of electing a new pope was an exercise in identifying the safest old European conservative in red shoes.

Alex Anderson tried to slowly rotate her body into a warrior yoga pose, but her legs began to tremble, her arms started flailing and she landed with a splash in the pool at MAC Fitness in Harbor East. The 29-year-old has slid into the position easily many other times, but that was before she tried it on a paddle board floating on water. She was among a small group of women at MAC taking "paddlefusion," a new class at the athletic club that combines yoga and Pilates moves on a board similar to a surfboard.

I remain opposed to the new plan for Symphony Woods as well as the process that has gotten it to the apparent finish line so quickly. CABD approved Cy Paumier's plan several years ago. If another architect had ideas why wasn't there an effort to combine talents and, perhaps, produce a plan all parties could approve? Since there seems no real hurry to improve Symphony Woods, why not consider a  more interactive, inclusive, holistic approach? The mall is a consumption entity belonging to Howard Hughes Corp., as well as others and with adjacent parts belonging to CA. Symphony Woods is a CA-owned public park with Merriweather Post Pavilion and empty acreage behind it belonging to Howard Hughes Corp.

The marriage of two disciplines, mathematics and art, may seem an unlikely union given an artist's innate desire for free expression. Meet Helaman Ferguson, whose sculpture is known for its root in mathematical design. Ferguson, of North Laurel, recently completed a massive undertaking: a 2 1/2-story, 9-plus ton bronze and granite sculpture, Umbilic Torus SC. Commissioned by the Simons Foundation, a private institution committed to the advancement of science and mathematics, the torus is being donated to Stony Brook University, in Long Island, N.Y. Ferguson, 72, who holds a doctorate in mathematics, designed umbilic torus, a three-dimensional doughnut-shaped figure with a single edge.

This artful blend of zinfandel, grenache, syrah, merlot and other red varietal is simply a very pleasant experience. The mix proves to be harmonious, and each variety seems to play its part perfectly. There's the power and earthiness of the zin, the broad shoulders of the syrah, the exuberant fruit of the grenache and the soft elegance of the merlot. The cherry and blackberry flavors are intense and penetrating but not harsh. It's a model of balance. It just goes to show that while the soil is crucial, the skill of the winemaker is important too. A big bonus is that Kendall-Jackson wines are widely available.

Q: My daughter has been caught up in the latest rage for young working women: going to secondhand shops to buy clothes. These are not vintage clothing shops but places where they re-sell fashionable clothes that well-off women have discarded. I am worried if the clothes are clean. Can you give me any idea how these businesses are run?A: By shopping at a resale shop, your daughter may find good quality designer clothes at a fraction of their original cost in department stores or boutiques.

In his quest to convince Americans he was doing all he could to ease their pain at the gas pump, President Bush announced last week he would grant delays in the transition to safer fuel-cleaning additives. For Maryland, at least, he was too late. The changeover to ethanol from MTBE as an additive to make gasoline burn cleaner is essentially complete. Except for a straggler here or there, supplies should be available at Baltimore-area service stations that sell specially blended summertime fuel, according to F. Peter Horrigan, executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Petroleum Distributors Association.

Old Bay is painting Baltimore blue and gold. The indispensable seafood spice blend is being celebrated with the Summer of Baytriotism, a season-long celebration of the Baltimore-born shelf staple and the iconic tin can its shaken from. A visual highlight of the promotion, which includes Baltimore-centric billboards and a series of nostalgic "Old Bay Radio" ads, was unveiled Thursday morning — the PMI Garage on the corner of Pratt and President streets has been crowned with what's being billed as the world's largest Old Bay can. The oversized can of Old Bay is set to stay on display for one year, according to Jill Pratt of McCormick & Co., the Hunt Valley-based spice company that purchased the Old Bay brand in 1990.

From: California Price: $14 Serve with: Pasta dishes, grilled meat This lush, ripe blend of zinfandel, syrah, cabernet sauvignon and merlot is all about decadent pleasure. It's one of those smooth red wines that is so fruity it gives the impression of sweetness without being sweet. There's a lot of berry action - black, blue and wild - and hints of chocolate and coffee. There's no point in sitting on it. Drink now.