Fresh

THE ROLAND PARK Second Presbyterian Church looked absolutely stunning last Saturday for the wedding of Natalia Pia Melanie Sommer and Richard Matthew Dohler. Thousands of wildflowers, miles of lace ribbons and tulle, and window sills decorated with Singapore orchids set the stage for the nuptials of the daughter of pop music star Donna Summer and her first husband, Helmut Sommer,and the son of Dick and Bonna Dohler, he's an Ellicott City builder.The church was filled with the music of German trumpeteer Langston Fitzgerald and selections of Bach, Beethoven and Vivaldi, played by the church's music director Margaret Budd on the organ.

Overcooking is what kills asparagus for most people. Memories of gray, limp and pungent spears follow wary eaters like ghosts from a nightmare. But when treated right, asparagus is a versatile and complex vegetable. Its flavor profile can switch from green and grassy to sweet and nutty just depending on how it's cooked. That's why so many chefs love to put this "grande dame of spring" on their menus. Ben Simpkins, the executive chef at Richardson Farms in White Marsh, makes an asparagus "cappuccino," in which a cup half-filled with hot asparagus soup is topped with cold asparagus foam made by shooting the cold soup through a whipped-cream gun. "I love asparagus, and this is my favorite dish," says Simpkins.

The story of a 24-year-old Georgia graduate student fighting a flesh-eating disease has prompted a microbiologist with the Veterans Affairs Maryland Health Care System to speak out about the infection. Aimee Copeland lost most of her left leg after the flesh-eating bacteria necrotizing faciitis is believed to have entered a cut on her leg, according to the Associated Press, which reports she may also have to have her fingers amputated. The waterborne bacteria Aeromonas hydrophila is believed to have caused the infection.

The windows are wide open in the messy apartment, the afternoon sky darkening fast. Chrissy Polis can't stand the Essex neighborhood outside, where everyone knows who she is. But she doesn't know how to get out, or where she'd go if she did. "I just want to move because I want to see other things," she says. There was a time when it seemed people from all over the country were talking about the 24-year-old. Many wanted to help her; others condemned her. Polis became an unwitting symbol of the transgender community and the struggle for transgender rights when she stepped into a Rosedale McDonald's one April evening.

The last man to take a horse to Belmont with a chance to snag the elusive final gem in the Triple Crown has some advice for Doug O'Neill. Stay true to the horse. "I think trainers going around asking other people what they should do, looking for how to handle it, that's stupid," Rick Dutrow, trainer of Big Brown in 2008, said in a phone interview Sunday. "It's got to be about your horse. Whatever anybody else did doesn't matter. You know your horse. " O'Neill, trainer of Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner I'll Have Another, has already disregarded common wisdom over the past three weeks.

Recently, I offered you 25 fat-cutting tips. You loved it, and many of you told me so. Since I respond well to positive reinforcement, I scurried around and found about 20 more tips that I think are really usable.These ideas work. Give them a try. If you've got a favorite you'd like to share, send it to me in care of The Sun, and I'll pass it along to our readers. Here's my newest list:* Create a distinctive salad that requires little dressing by adding lots of fresh herbs. Fresh chives, dill, cilantro, parsley, thyme and oregano add new dimensions to the same old vegetables.

Among the attractions at the Shoppes at Shipley's Grant are a Starbucks, a Cold Stone Creamery and a Coal Fire pizza restaurant. Coal Fire is not a part of a chain - at least not yet - but I think most visitors would assume it is. It has the rosy suburban looks, streamlined menu and commitment to quality ingredients that customers have come to expect from fast-casual chains. Coal Fire is a project of the folks behind Nottingham's tavern, and they have obviously worked hard to develop this concept.

For those who fear food poisoning: Someday, packages of frozen food may carry little gauges that certify the food inside is still fresh, just as battery packages carry indicators that show the batteries are fully charged.Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., have developed a package indicator that changes color when a package of food defrosts during shipment and then is refrozen. This provides a warning to consumers that the food may not taste fresh when prepared or might even harbor disease.

Boston. -- The fog had fallen over the Labor Day coast like a curtain officially bringing down the summer season. We followed it south, bumper to bumper, riding from vacation to home, passing through tollgates that marked time off from time on.By the next morning, the curtain had lifted in one horizontal line onto a new scene and season. The country sounds of gulls and foghorns had been replaced by the urban sounds of cars, radios and alarms.To someone who will forever regard the first day of school as the real first day of the real new year, the city seemed momentarily in sync.

The clean, hot flavor of fresh ginger warms and refreshes like no other seasoning ingredient. An essential flavor of Chinese cooking, ginger is of inestimable importance to Asian dishes. Fresh ginger resembles a thick, knobby root with pale brown skin and moist gold flesh. The fresh root -- really an underground stem called a rhizome -- is nothing like dried, ground ginger; the latter is no substitute for fresh ginger. Whether ginger should be sliced, minced or grated depends on the dish.

One of the most delightful things about learning to cook is learning how herbs, which are virtually calorie free, can enhance even the simplest basic main ingredients, helping us achieve ever more kudos from the dear ones in our lives whose lot it is to consume what we've created in the kitchen. Our store of dried herbs (and we all have them in the pantry) are fine, as long as the bottle they're in isn't decades old. And, indeed, a teaspoon of relatively new dried herbs can do the job of a tablespoon of minced fresh herbs.

George's, which takes up a fair portion of the first floor of the Peabody Court Hotel, has a warm inviting atmosphere. It couples a bed and breakfast sensibility with a leather-couchy, dimly lit lounge area that makes for a decent dining - and especially drinking - experience. Bartender John Hartz and crew recently redesigned their drink menu to include a wide range of classic cocktails and one particularly refreshing gin drink: The Garden. The Garden's name may conjure images of floral notes, bright colors and sweet tastes, and you'd be mostly right.

If Mexico had a St. Patrick's Day, it would be Cinco de Mayo. There's just a slight tweak to the festivities. One can always count on tequila, sombreros and Margaritas - the overly salty, overly soured kind. I have a hard time believing Cinco de Mayo is really all that Mexican anymore. Heck, even area Irish bars offer gimmicky deals in the spirit of boozing. So this year, why not shake up your usual 5th of May and expand your Latin American horizons? Skip the salt on the rim and try one of my favorite Baltimore specialties, a Mojito from Little Havana in Federal Hill.

To make a cocktail, a bartender performs a complicated ballet involving spirits, mixers and garnishes, somehow juggling them all and finally bringing them in for a graceful, neat landing in your glass. At Heavy Seas Alehouse, bartender Will Helfrich has a simpler approach. He grabs a tall glass, sets it underneath the beer tap and pours eight ounces of sudsy, golden beer, Heavy Seas Classic Lager. And then tops it off with homemade pomegranate lemonade. Add a sprig of fresh rosemary and you have the Little Italy bar and restaurant's Sea Shandy.

A new nonprofit organization aims to turn the fruits of its labors into fresh food for the hungry. The Baltimore Orchard Project will glean gather otherwise unwanted fruit from trees on public and private land and donate the harvest to food banks, congregations and soup kitchens, says founder and director Nina Beth Cardin, a rabbi and community activist. The group's founding team has 25 members from such agencies as the Johns Hopkins University Center for a Livable Future, Tree Baltimore and Baltimore Green Space.

If The Sun wants to encourage better nutrition ("Maryland's evolving harvest," April 19), I would suggest creating a weekly coupon to help with fresh produce and meats. The Sun carries many grocery coupons but seldom for fresh produce or meats. I think coupons - perhaps $5-to-$10 off depending on the size of one's purchase - would help encourage families to buy more vegetables and to eat more healthy. My family spends roughly between $60 and $70 each week on fresh produce.

Remember when mozzarella meant a brownish-yellow cheese that was low-moisture rubbery? A firm, cut-it-with-a-sharp-blade lasagna ingredient? Thanks to cheese pioneers such as Paula Lambert, now fresh mozzarella cozies up next to cheddar and Jack in the marketplace. Its soft texture and bedsheet-white appearance have become commonplace, sold refrigerated floating in whey-and-water baths in small plastic tubs. Twisted into braids, balls or knots, fresh mozzarella has musical, polysyllabic names like bocconcini, ovolini and ciliegini.

More than 100 people showed up for the recent opening of the newest summer Farmers' Market in Anne Arundel County. It is open for business in Edgewater from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Thursdays through Sept. 28. Previously in downtown Annapolis on Calvert Street, the fresh produce market relocated to Main Street in South River Colony. "That move was at the request of the vendors," said Lisa Barge, the agricultural, marketing and development manager at the Anne Arundel Economic Development Corp.

Tagged by many as the No. 1 team in the country at the start of the season, the Calvert Hall boys lacrosse team has already had to deal with its share of pressure and adversity. Coming off an upset loss at McDonogh on Friday and then watching their lead dwindle to one goal in the third quarter of Tuesday's showdown against newly appointed No. 1 Gilman, the No. 3 Cardinals were in a position to either slip a bit more or rise to the occasion. They did the latter, responding to their latest test was a six-goal scoring binge that sent them to a satisfying 11-8 home win over the Greyhounds.

With bridge construction and a large truck parking lot next to Barracudas in Locust Point, you probably wouldn't think "tropical paradise" when you first step through the door. But co-owner Paul Cuda's namesake, Cuda Punch, will bring your taste buds as close as they can get to Tahiti without booking a flight or cruise. The Cuda Punch is fully loaded with fruit. A base of their secret rum infusion, containing large amounts of pineapple, oranges and other citrusy goodness, lays the groundwork for this tropical libation, topped off with fresh-squeezed orange juice, club soda and a splash of fruit punch for color.