Chicken

Scarlett O'Hara doubtless ate her share of chicken and dumplings.The classic dish, which could stretch one precious chicken to two meals, saw many Southerners though harsh economic times.From the big house of antebellum plantations to the sharecropper's cabin, the dish was especially valued after calamities such as the Civil War and the Depression. Those events leveled lofty and low."Nobody had money during those times," says John Egerton, author of "Southern Food: At Home, On the Road, In History" (Knopf, 1987)

I'm always keeping my eyes open for a new American-Mex-style dish with homemade taste but easy enough to serve at the rushed midweek meal. Here's a recipe inspired by a dish from a restaurant near San Diego where tortilla strips, eggs, cheese and other goodies proved to be irresistible.Since the dish is a meal in itself, some fruit on the side is all that's needed in addition. If dessert is a necessity, buy something tangy and with citrus, such as a lemon tart or Key lime pie.Del Mar Chicken Tostada BowlsServes 41 teaspoon canola oil1 large onion, diced2 cups diced red and yellow bell peppers2 cups cooked, shredded chicken meat4 eggs, lightly beatensalt and pepper to taste1/2 cup shredded fat-reduced Cheddar cheese4 small tostada bowls (sometimes called crowns)

The other night I fixed smashed chicken. I grabbed a brick from my basement and put it on top of some chicken that was bubbling away in olive oil.Patricia Wells told me to treat the chicken this way. She said the business with the brick was one of the ways Italians make chicken taste so good.She is an award-winning cookbook author and the restaurant critic for the International Herald Tribune, the English-language newspaper of note in Europe. A few years ago while eating at Da Giulio restaurant in Lucca, she had a flattened chicken that inspired her to write a book about the cooking of the small family restaurants of Italy.

CAN electric deregulation lead to consumer choice for chicken power? At least three companies in the Delmarva region have plans to convert unwanted chicken manure and bedding into fuel to run power generators. They hope to sell their electricity to buyers interested in cleaner-energy alternatives to fossil fuels. Environmental appeal alone won't be enough for these commercial enterprises. Power from these new technology generators costs more than three times that produced by a coal-fired plant.

The Russian ban on the import of U.S. chicken is about to enter into its third week with an indication that it could last an additional month. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail M. Kasyanov told reporters in Moscow yesterday that the country might lift the ban within 30 days. Kasyanov, who has publicly been more compromising on the dispute than the Russian agriculture ministry has been, suggested that the embargo would be lifted except for U.S. poultry producers whose chicken meat has been infected with salmonella.

This healthy and hasty dish hails from the Mediterranean region, where capers and bell peppers abound. You'll notice that the cooking technique makes efficient use of all the ingredients: The juice from the tomatoes is used first to steam the bell peppers and chicken. It is then thickened slightly for the sauce.Look for couscous in the pasta and rice section of the supermarket or the gourmet aisle. Since the version we use is quick-cooking, it will fluff up in about five minutes.For dessert, buy shortbread cookies made with real butter (the difference can be tasted)

Bishopville -- When Jean Bunting was a little girl, helping her mother feed the chickens, it seemed the sky was the limit for the poultry business.After all, her late mother, Cecile Steele, started this country's chicken-for-meat business in 1927 when she turned a mistaken order for 500 egg layers into a then- spectacular profit of $1,000 by trucking the birds to a New York butcher.During the 1930s and 1940s, the money from ensuing flocks kept rolling in, buying new barns and paying for college educations for all the Steele children.

A coalition of environmental groups and farmers called yesterday for a two-year moratorium on construction of commercial chicken houses, saying the ban would allow better conditions for researching the outbreak of the toxic microorganism Pfiesteria piscicida.That suggestion and several others went to the governor's Pfiesteria task force, which is considering possible options for dealing with the microbe.Pfiesteria has been blamed for causing sickness in humans and fish in tributaries of the lower Chesapeake Bay.Runoff of nutrients from chicken farms remains the chief suspect in the outbreaks, provoking tensions between environmentalists and farmers.

Thirteen years ago, French immigrant Jonathan Soudry was waiter hustling chicken to tables at an upscale restaurant in the Morris Mechanic Theater building in downtown Baltimore."

The gubernatorial commission looking into toxic outbreaks of Pfiesteria in the Chesapeake Bay watershed chose pragmatism over political confrontation yesterday as it backed away from imposing controls on the Eastern Shore's chicken industry.In a sometimes rancorous session, the panel refused to recommend a moratorium on building any new chicken houses on the Shore and moved toward keeping farmers' participation in pollution-control plans voluntary.On a 6-2 voice vote, the commission rejected the moratorium proposal, along with the arguments of Sen. Brian E. Frosh, a Montgomery County Democrat, that too many chickens are producing too much manure for the soils of the Eastern Shore to absorb.