Blue Cheese

I love the bitter taste of radicchio in salads, but some people do not. Cooking this colorful member of the chicory family tames its flavor without obliterating it. In this pasta dish, the rich sweetness of the blue cheese further tempers the radicchio. Joe Gray writes for the Chicago Tribune, which provided the recipe analysis. Fusilli With Radicchio, Chicken Sausage and Blue Cheese Serves 4 -- Total time: 35 minutes 8 ounces fusilli or other shaped pasta 1 tablespoon olive oil 3 chicken sausages (about 3/4 pound)

Generally, an empty dining room is not a good sign. So when my friends and I showed up at the Crease in Towson, a venerable bar catering to college grads and businesspeople, we were a little worried. At 7 p.m., there was no one in either of the two dining rooms.I wondered if I had been horribly misinformed. Food, I thought, could not possibly be the reason to come to this handsome, time-seasoned, brick and mahogany bar, where the wide-plank floors have been worn down over the years by beer-quaffing crowds.

For a cook, an impromptu meal, organized at the last minute, is often more enjoyable than a dinner planned weeks in advance. Typically, when I schedule a dinner party, I invite guests two weeks ahead. Then I spend several hours culling my files and food magazines for menu selections. The day before the dinner, I cook most of the dishes, and finally I arrange fresh flowers for the table and iron napkins. And, of course, there's the house to get cleaned.Last-minute entertaining is much more spontaneous and certainly less stressful for me. This week, for example, when friends who had been searching for a new house telephoned to tell us that they had just bought their dream home, I invited them to bring photos of their future residence and come for supper the following evening.

Although I love to entertain, there are times when my work schedule is so hectic I am lucky to get a meal on the table for my family, much less prepare dinner for company. My husband, however, is never too tired to have guests over.Recently, he came home enthusiastic about meeting a new professor at the college where he teaches and confided to me that he had asked the man and his wife to have dinner with us. It was a terrible week for me -- one filled with deadlines and a business trip -- so I proposed a compromise, suggesting that we have drinks and appetizers at our house and then dine in a nearby restaurant.

SINCE IT WAS A guys-only meal at the homestead, ground meat was leading the menu. The only question was what form would appear on the supper table. Was it going to show up as taco-filling, spaghetti and meat sauce, or grilled burgers?I could have polled my two teen-age sons for their preference, but I didn't. They might have picked tacos or spaghetti. That is the trouble with attempts at consensus-building. You ask people what they want, and they give you the wrong answer. Consensus is so much easier if everyone agrees that your way is the best.

WHEN IT comes to pears, I have been very conventional. I haven't stuffed them with curried crab meat and cooked them quickly under the broiler.I haven't stuffed them with goat cheese, leeks and walnuts.I haven't played mix and match with the velvet sweetness of a pear's flesh and the saltiness of hams or slices of crisp bacon.I haven't pureed them and made them into sorbet.Mostly what I have done is eat them as snacks, chomping on fresh pears as if they were apples. I have had many a happy chomp with a soft Bartlett, with a tall, tapered Bosc, with a princely Comice, with a plump Anjou and a tiny, palm-size Seckel.

During the late 1960s' rush of vegetarian consciousness, brown was the prevailing color: brown rice, brown beans, brown soy sauce. And, if it wasn't dense, it wasn't healthy. Fortunately, vegetarian food, like everything else, has lightened up.Vegetarian alternatives, perhaps not even highlighted as such, are available at most innovative restaurants. It's possible to go into any fine Italian restaurant and have a beautiful pizza, polenta or pasta dish made with an assortment of fresh vegetables and perhaps some cheese.

As with many of life's endeavors, picnics benefit from a bit of planning. Unlike more tedious activities, however, planning a picnic pays off in more leisure and more fun for the providers of the feast.Among the recipes suggested here, the pasta salad and pie can be prepared ahead of time. The endive rolls require last-minute preparation.Belgian endive, blue cheese, walnut rollsServes 10-12.3 to 4 Belgian endive8 ounces cream cheese, softened4 ounces blue cheese crumbs1/2 cup chopped walnutsMix cream cheese, blue cheese and walnuts.

As with many of life's endeavors, picnics benefit from a bit of planning. Unlike more tedious activities, however, planning a picnic pays off in more leisure and more fun for the providers of the feast.Among the recipes suggested here, the pasta salad and pie can be prepared ahead of time. The endive rolls require last-minute preparation.Belgian endive, blue cheese, walnut rollsServes 10-12.3 to 4 Belgian endive8 ounces cream cheese, softened4 ounces blue cheese crumbs1/2 cup chopped walnutsMix cream cheese, blue cheese and walnuts.

Roasted pork tenderloin served with crumbled blue cheese is a savory main dish that contains only 13 grams of fat per serving. The recipe is provided by the National Dairy Board.Roasted Pork Tenderloin2 tablespoons butter, melted1 pound pork tenderloin, trimmed of fat2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, or 1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme or 1 tablespoon dried thymehTC 2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano or 1 tablespoon dried oregano leaves, crushed1 tablespoon sage1/4 teaspoon salt1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper2 cups mixed salad greens1/2 cup (2 ounces)

One minute Eric Foster was touting cheese-making as a way to put the endangered family dairy farm on easy street. The next, his wife, Holly, was elbow deep in a vat of curds and whey, struggling to keep their morning's work from literally going down the drain. As the Fosters made Maryland's first legal batch of raw milk cheese on their Easton dairy farm this week, cheese-making didn't look particularly easy - except when compared to all the work the couple had to do to get to this point.

Hull Street Blues turns 25 this year, and for a generation of Baltimoreans, Kathryn and Daniel Macatee's cozy rowhouse restaurant was the first place they had ever sat down for dinner in Locust Point. Always, its admirers are quick to credit the Macatees with keeping Hull Street Blues both ship-shape and completely unpretentious, even as the menu has expanded and the neighborhood around it has grown. Now, the Macatees have opened a casual eating spot just across the street and down the block, naming it the Whetstone Grill after the neighborhood's original name, Whetstone Point, which you can see on old lithographs and engravings (and new townhouse developments)

What to serve after Christmas dinner? Clark Wolf says cheese. "A nice blue cheese, a Maytag or a Rogue River, with walnuts and port. Cheese tastes better with walnuts, and walnuts are in season. Also, blue cheese makes port taste better, so you don't have to spend a lot of money on port," Wolf says. What to serve on New Year's Day? Again, Clark Wolf replies cheese. "A rich, creamy cheese, maybe a Constant Bliss from Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont - something ripe and crazy so you can eat while sipping a good sparkling wine or champagne.

Food 2.0: Secrets From the Chef Who Fed Google By Charlie Ayers DK Publishing / $25 / 2008 Along with the many perks offered employees of the juggernaut that is Google, you've probably heard about the fantastic food - healthful, plentiful and free - that's offered at the search engine's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters. The theory: Engineers will be less likely to take time to leave campus for lunch and more full of brain power to boost Google's billions. Charlie Ayers was the chef who started it all, signing on when Google had fewer than 100 employees.

BURTONSVILLE -- Some swear by the perfectly fluffy cheesecake. Some say the draw is the bourbon chicken and the fried chicken wings. For others, it's the soft pretzels studded with chunks of salt, the creamy ice cream, the warm-from-the-oven dinner rolls, the honey-glazed doughnuts, the fresh vegetables or the case of glistening meats - massive stuffed pork chops, rings of turkey sausage, thick slices of smoked bacon. The hours are limited, the lines are sometimes long. The market, a collection of 14 shops run mostly by Amish vendors from Pennsylvania, does not have wide aisles or shopping carts or a thousand brands yelling out in neon colors.

I love the bitter taste of radicchio in salads, but some people do not. Cooking this colorful member of the chicory family tames its flavor without obliterating it. In this pasta dish, the rich sweetness of the blue cheese further tempers the radicchio. Joe Gray writes for the Chicago Tribune, which provided the recipe analysis. Fusilli With Radicchio, Chicken Sausage and Blue Cheese Serves 4 -- Total time: 35 minutes 8 ounces fusilli or other shaped pasta 1 tablespoon olive oil 3 chicken sausages (about 3/4 pound)

You know it is the dead of winter when your weeknight entertainment is playing with cauliflower. That is how I recently spent a few nights. One evening, I pressed a crown of blue cheese and bread crumbs onto a head of roasted cauliflower. Another night, my diversion consisted of slicing the vegetable into pieces, cooking them with curry and yogurt, then tossing on cilantro and lime juice. Finally, for kicks, I took a cauliflower apart, cooked it and put it back together upside down. Then, in a real showstopping move, I flipped it over so it appeared on the table whole and right side up. These endeavors entertained me -- but as should be apparent by now, I am easily amused, especially during these dark months.

We think Buffalo sauce instantly makes almost any chicken sandwich twice as tasty. As for toppings, we want plenty of options - tomatoes, blue cheese and lettuce, at least. Here are four Buffalo chicken sandwiches from city bars and restaurants. The Greene Turtle 722 S. Broadway, Baltimore -- 410-342-4222 Hours --11 a.m.-1:30 p.m. daily Restaurant's estimate --10-15 minutes Ready in --8 minutes Even though it was the cheapest and came the fastest, this sandwich, $7.34, was disappointing.

Dow's Trademark Finest Reserve Porto ($17) Ruby port is the bottom rung of the ladder in the Oporto region of Portugal, but this example is a cut above most of its peers. And who can afford vintage port on a regular basis? This is an unusually smooth ruby, sweet but not cloying, with flavors of chocolate, berry and spices. A good, affordable dessert wine for a cold winter's night. Serve with --blue cheese, roasted nuts, chocolate desserts

Greystone Grill has reinvented the concept of a mall restaurant. Now you can shop at Wal-Mart and then walk to this contemporary steak and seafood house for dinner. Your wine vault awaits. It will cost you a mere $1,500 and will house up to 24 bottles. Vaults are prominently on display with the owner's name in big letters. And yes, several have already been sold. At first glance, Greystone seems as pricey as upscale steakhouses like Ruth's Chris. The difference is that the food isn't a la carte.