Edelen

It would be impossible, not to mention foolhardy, to choose one contender for the title of America's greatest songwriter. But if such a designation absolutely had to be made, a lot of money would be riding on Irving Berlin. There is such a startling amount of quality in the quantity of Berlin's songs (more than 1,200), and a remarkable consistency in terms of communicative power. A hearty sampling of that power is on display in "A Concert Salute to Irving Berlin," the fast-paced cabaret show onstage through the weekend at the Everyman Theatre.

What could be sweeter than a show set in a perfume shop? The charming 1963 musical She Loves Me is based on a first-class source - Miklos Laszlo's Parfumerie, a Hungarian play that also inspired at least three movies (most recently, You've Got Mail). Yet the small-scale Broadway musical was quickly overshadowed by its creators' larger, glitzier subsequent shows. (Songwriters Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick's next show was Fiddler on the Roof; scriptwriter Joe Masteroff later penned the book for Cabaret.

Requests for recipes that mother once made include a cottage cheese pie for a family who remembers and a garlic soup, for an elderly gentleman who also remembers.Fran Albright of Monkton wants the cottage cheese pie. Her family has had no luck in finding a pie recipe like their mother's.Not to worry, Jeanette Fox of Pikesville had the recipe. It came to her from a dear friend about 40 years ago and was a favorite of her husband who took great pleasure in urging guests to have a piece.Fox's Cottage Cheese PieCRUST:24 graham crackers1/4 pound of butter (1 stick)

"There's nothing better than a good old-fashioned exercise for your imagination," the Fairy Godmother says at the beginning of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella." Director Mark Waldrop has taken that advice to heart in Olney Theatre's delightfully imaginative production.Near the start of the show, Deb G. Girdler, as the Fairy Godmother, inserts a large gold key into a stained-glass box on one side of the stage. When the key starts turning, the rest of the cast jolts into action, like figurines in a music box. But though the actors move like mechanical toys during the overture, there's nothing mechanical about the rest of this charming show.

Vintage artwork is generally quite pricey. But not the vintage artwork from Edelen Wille. The small company has created a line of reasonably priced poster books, journals, calendars and nursery cards, all featuring reproductions of vintage artwork and designs. Want to share your cherished childhood nursery rhymes with your children? The oversize book Favorite Nursery Rhymes: Vintage Poster Book for the Nursery (Andrews McMeel, 2002, $19.95) features 12 illustrated rhymes, each measuring 11 inches by 14 inches.

Largo's Queen Anne School scored four runs in the second inning and defeated Chapelgate, 4-2, to win the Maryland State Private School Softball Tournament Silver Division championship at Riverdale Baptist yesterday.Queen Anne used two Chapelgate errors, three walks and a single to score all its runs."Except for that one inning, it was a pitcher-dominated game on both sides," said Chapelgate coach Steve Kunkel, whose team finished 14-8.Chapelgate pitcher Hope Meisinger struck out 13 and walked five.

Cecil G. Locke, a homemaker and former Garrison Forest resident, died of congestive heart failure Thursday at Blakehurst Retirement Community in Towson, where she had lived for five years. She was 88. Born and raised in Baltimore, the former Cecil Gibson was a descendant of George Carr Grundy, whose manor house, Bolton, stood at the site of the Fifth Regiment Armory near today's Bolton Hill neighborhood. She attended the Calvert School, Bryn Mawr School and the Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. She made her debut at the Bachelors Cotillon in 1935.

Ninth-ranked St. Paul's rode a quick start and a powerful finish to a 5-0 victory over No. 2 and host Severn in the semifinals of the Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference field hockey tournament. The Gators (13-4-2), last year's conference co-champs with Bryn Mawr, will face Roland Park in the IAAM final at 2 p.m. tomorrow at McDonogh. Severn ended its season at 12-2-3. Sophomores Caitlin Sloane and Megan DelMonte scored goals in the first seven minutes to lift St. Paul's to a 2-0 lead at halftime.

Woodrow Wilson Councill, a retired insurance company executive and World War II veteran, died Wednesday of cancer at North Arundel Hospital. The Pasadena resident was 81. Mr. Councill was a regional vice president when he retired in 1978 from Alexander & Alexander Inc., an insurance brokerage for which he had worked since 1948. He began his career with United States Fidelity and Guaranty Co. in 1945. Born in Baltimore and reared in Arbutus, he graduated from Catonsville High School and earned a law degree from the University of Baltimore in the late 1940s.

Some movies and plays are brought down by the headlines. That isn't likely to happen to ''On the Town,'' the 1945 musical that Toby's Musical Theater is doing. The time, in fact, may be just right for a revival of a musical that takes place in New York just a few weeks after World War II ended.The emphasis, now as it was then, is on good fun, the kind service men looked for in the New York that was.Leonard Bernstein did the music, Betty Comden and Adolph Green did the book and lyrics, and Jerome Robbins, the dancing and the staging.