Doughnut

Imagine one morning you're craving something sweet, so you stop by the corner doughnut shop. Turns out the wait is half an hour, the clerk is rude and, when you finally get it, the doughnut is stale. Would you buy doughnuts there again? Of course not. Yet, every day, millions of Americans put up with just that kind of service in their physicians' offices. And they keep going back. Anyone who has visited a primary care doctor lately knows the drill: You show up on time, only to wait 45 minutes or even an hour.

Even before you get to the barn, you know things are going to be different. How could they not be different when the horse in the stall is named Casual Lies?Horses usually are named Eternally Majestic or Majestically Eternal. Names that could make a tough man cry. Black Beauty. Velvet. Casual Lies? It could be the name of a miniseries starring Valerie Bertinelli as the temptress. Whatever the story behind the name, you figure there has to be a murder or messy divorce in there somewhere.It turns out there is neither, but anyway, the point is you know things are going to be different long before you get to the barn.

In the Recipe Finder columns for March 13 and March 20, an incorrect amount of yeast was listed for Hunter's yeast doughnuts on the 13th and for Hutzler's cheese bread on the 20th. The correct amount of yeast in a package of dry yeast is 1/4 ounce.It was amazing to learn how many readers enjoy and know how to prepare this dirt and worms recipe.Susanne Grube of Hunt Valley asked for it. "Do you or one of your readers have a recipe for dirt or mud cups? I believe they're made with Oreo cookie crumbs, pudding and gummy worms," she wrote.

Editor's note: Each Wednesday we'll bring you a Q&A with a Ravens player to help you learn a little more about the team. The second installment of this series is an interview with wide receiver Mark Clayton, whose 42-yard touchdown run during the first quarter of the Ravens' 17-10 victory against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sept. 7 was the longest rush by a nonrunning back in team history. Clayton discusses expectations, a career outside football and one of his first jobs. What was your welcome-to-the-NFL moment?

Strait is country music's artist of the decade Singer George Strait will receive the Academy of Country Music's Artist of the Decade award in recognition of his nearly 25-year career. Only four others have received the distinction: Marty Robbins in 1969, Loretta Lynn in 1979, Alabama in 1988 and Garth Brooks in 1998. Strait's many hits include "Amarillo By Morning," "Check Yes or No" and "I Saw God Today." The ACM will tape a TV special in honor of Strait at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on April 6 to air at a later date.

So, you're driving down Fort Smallwood Road near Duvall Highway and all of a sudden there's this big pig looming in front of you. Up on the roof, a huge, pink porker with a chef hat and apron, carrying a tray with a drink and, uh, a doughnut.The doughnut certainly makes sense. This is, after all, a a bakery. Complete with shelves full of pies and pastries, turnovers and tarts, cookies and cakes and danish.But the pig?Well, the two-story, cinder block building was a restaurant in the early 1950s when George Bolander and his father, bakers from Northeast Baltimore, took it over.

Flipping through Peter Lynch's Beating the Street the other day, I came across this chestnut - Lynch calls it "Peter's Principle 14" - that made me shake my head: "If you like the store, chances are you'll love the stock." I love the do-it-yourself ethos of the former Fidelity Magellan manager's books. They serve to say, "Yes, you too can be a stock-picker!" But this particular adage I'd sooner call "Peter's Mistake 14." The last thing you want to do is buy a stock just because you like the store.

PSC chief to hold hearing on BGE rate The newly named chairman of the Public Service Commission announced yesterday that he would hold hearings on BGE'S proposed 50 percent rate increase to ensure that it is justified. Steven B. Larsen, Gov. Martin O'Malley's nominee for PSC chairman, said the hearings will begin next week, after he and fellow O'Malley appointee Susanne Brogan join the commission. While O'Malley was mayor of Baltimore and a candidate for governor last year, the city successfully sued the PSC for failing to hold a proper hearing on a proposed 72 percent BGE rate increase last year.

If your idea of good wintertime fun is sitting inside a house, sipping hot cocoa and looking at the pretty snow flurries outside, the very idea of sailing down a steep hill on an inflatable doughnut might not be for you. Stop reading this and turn on the TV. Now, if you don't mind the cold, if you have no fear of zipping down a slippery incline in the cold, if you aren't worried about breaking a leg while zipping down that slope in the cold, have I...

THURSDAY afternoon, Rob Bruns, who operates a brake shop in Waverly, had a flash about a doughnut -- the kind with vanilla icing he likes so much. He can usually find one, even by late afternoon, in one of the glass cases at the 7-Eleven two blocks away. It was 4:30. Bruns decided to indulge his craving. He walked across 33rd Street and the 7-Eleven parking lot, then through double glass doors into the fluorescent-bright store with its familiar coffee-and-hot dog aroma, and the same configuration of stocked shelves, refrigerated cases and counters that an estimated 6 million Big Gulp-gulping, Slurpee-slurping Americans and Canadians see every day. What most of them don't see is what Bruns says he saw in the next instant -- a cluster of customers in the far corner of the store, and no one near the cash register except a teen-age boy with a droopy left eyelid.