Fresh

I once read a startling account in Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, about a youngster who was intrigued with his neighbor's harvest. As he dug in the garden, the neighbor asked, "Which vegetable, other than a carrot, would be considered a root vegetable?" The kid answered, "Spaghetti?" As startling as this answer is, I know of another child who thought that milk was cow's urine. It is disturbing to realize how ignorant some children are about their food. The Farm to School program, a promising nationwide program with participants in our region, wants to change that.

Republicans in this country are trying to take some satisfaction from the victory of Nicolas Sarkozy in the French presidential elections, not only because he is a conservative but also because he is a conservative who managed to campaign as a fresh face at the end of the two terms in office of his fellow conservative, the enormously unpopular Jacques Chirac. The Republicans hope they can pull the same trick in 2008. Old wine in new bottles? Not really. The voters want change - not only in France but in Britain and America, too. It's just that change in politics sometimes has less to do with ideology than with personality.

WITH THREE TURKEYS in his arms, the meat guy cavalierly dumps one into my cart where it lands with a thud. I poke it with one finger. "Is this a fresh one?" I hesitantly ask, because it feels kind of icy and the luxury of a slow thaw is not mine. I've got three turkeys, a completely different recipe for each and two days to achieve Thanksgivingworthiness. I also have no idea what I'm doing. The meat man mumbles something about only the outside being frozen and all but guarantees that these turkeys are fresh, oven-ready, good to go. So with a toss of some official butcher's string into the cart -- I think I need that -- Operation Three Turkeys Two Days begins.

Lacrosse The lowdown -- Watch top state high school lacrosse teams battle Monday at the Maryland High School Lacrosse Showdown. Boys and girls teams from private and public schools will face off in this annual one-day event. Proceeds will benefit the Aikens Children Trust Fund. If you go -- Competition begins at 11 a.m. at the Johns Hopkins University's Homewood Field, University Parkway. General admission tickets are $6. Call 410-363-8610 or go to md lacrosseshowdown.com. Farm fresh The lowdown -- One of the surest signs of spring is the return of the Bel Air Farmers' Market.

It used to be said that I Love Lucy was being broadcast somewhere in the world just about every hour of the day. My guess is that the classical music equivalent of such ubiquity would be Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. Although the 1725 piece hardly registered in the public consciousness 40 or 50 years ago, it is never out of earshot now, not when you figure in all the 18th-century-saturated programming of classical radio stations and the baroque-heavy repertoire piped into elevators and lobbies.

Raul Malo -- After Hours (New Door/Universal) Raul Malo pushed conventional country music boundaries when he rose to prominence in the early 1990s as leader of the Mavericks, and the Miami native has since traded on a variety of styles, including elements of his Cuban heritage. He nudges country in a fresh direction once again with After Hours, reimagining some of the genre's finest songs from a jazz platform that gives the tunes a fresh sound while remaining true to their fundamental charms.

Each time a movie star breaks out, the media reach into Hollywood's history for precedents. Kevin Costner becomes the new Gary Cooper, Tom Hanks the new Jimmy Stewart, Denzel Washington the new Sidney Poitier. Will Smith, who earned an Oscar and Golden Globe best-actor nomination for his searing performance as the homeless stockbroker trainee in The Pursuit of Happyness, defies any such categorization. For an actor who started out as rap royalty and then played a sitcom version of himself in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Smith has shown surprising versatility and guts from the beginning of his big-screen career.

Graphic tees are all the rage, and we can understand why. There are so many varieties - bold, cutesy, retro, tongue-in-cheek, edgy rock 'n' roll - that the wearer of the right one speaks volumes to the world without ever saying a word. Conveying a message is what the best fashion does, whether the message is, "I'm rich," "I'm a fashion victim," "I'm serious," "I'm funny" or "I just don't give a good gosh darn." It doesn't really matter what your clothes say, as long as they say - as in this case - what you intended.

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.

This week's Rush Hour 3 is the latest entry in a summer brimming with sequels - most of which have been hugely popular with audiences. When choosing a movie, do you prefer a new story with fresh heroes or yet another adventure with familiar characters? Please send your thoughts in a brief note with your name, city and daytime phone number (and Such a Critic in the memo field) to arts@baltsun.com. We will publish the best answers we receive.

At first, things looked a bit dicey for the two ship's boats, launched Friday in Fells Point for eventual display aboard the 1854 sloop of war Constellation, moored in the Inner Harbor. As the 26-foot cutters floated off the marine railway at the Douglass-Myers Maritime Park off Thames Street, their novice oarsmen - city kids who learned carpentry and life skills as they helped build the boats over the past two years - struggled to control the 10 unwieldy oars. The boats rocked, oars collided.

It is August in the garden, and the energy of spring has evaporated like the dew - for the garden and the gardener. What looked so fresh and promising in May looks scraggly and wilted now, and the punishing heat and drought of late summer in the Mid-Atlantic saps the will to do anything about it. If I wait a little longer, the gardener tells herself, it will be time for mums and this awkward phase in the garden cycle will be forgotten. In spring, we haunt the garden centers and purchase what is blooming at the moment, doubling down our investment in early-season color.

With a big grilling holiday nearly upon us, home chefs who long ago traded ordinary barbecue sauce for exotic "finishing" salts face an issue that burns brighter than a 60,000-BTU Weber. Can they still afford that $63-a-pound, hand-harvested sea salt from Cyprus? It was just the thing for a hunk of grilled protein - last barbecue season, before home values and 401(k)s melted like Morton's in the rain. Is it back to KC Masterpiece? Luckily, recession gourmets can have their fancy salts and still have money left over for food.

Talara, the new ceviche and tapas bar in Harbor East, is a four-star restaurant if you eat before 7 p.m. and don't order dessert. Why the deadline? Well, if you usually take into account what you paid for your meal when you judge it, as I do, Talara's Monday-through-Thursday happy hour has some of the best food around. (The same deal is available from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Friday and Saturday ) I didn't have high expectations for Talara. It seemed to be a place where alcohol and loud music were going to be at least as important as the food.

Intel hit with record fine of $1.45 billion in antitrust case WASHINGTON: European regulators Wednesday levied a record antitrust fine of $1.45 billion against Intel Corp. for abusing its position as the world's dominant computer-chip maker. The fine comes after nearly two years of investigation by the European Commission into allegations that the Santa Clara, Calif., company offered improper rebates and other discounts to discourage companies from buying microprocessors from smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Complaints from AMD triggered the case and the company's chief executive, Dirk Meyer, called the ruling "an important step toward establishing a truly competitive market."

JOHN TSUKASA TANIMURA, 88 Helped found farming partnership John Tsukasa Tanimura, a founding member of the farming partnership Tanimura & Antle Fresh Foods Inc., died Monday at his home in Salinas, Calif. The partnership was the culmination of decades of cooperation between the families after Mr. Tanimura and other members of his family were released from a World War II internment camp.

Hopes that economic recovery will be quick or easy have been shadowed by a fresh flood of bad news. The housing market continues to stumble lower, construction of new homes fell sharply last month, and foreclosures surged in the first quarter. In Maryland, an array of companies announced continuing layoffs this week and General Growth Properties, owner of the Rouse malls and developments, filed for bankruptcy court protection. The bad news is a reminder that the clock is running on the Obama administration's effort to jump-start the economy.

I once read a startling account in Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, about a youngster who was intrigued with his neighbor's harvest. As he dug in the garden, the neighbor asked, "Which vegetable, other than a carrot, would be considered a root vegetable?" The kid answered, "Spaghetti?" As startling as this answer is, I know of another child who thought that milk was cow's urine. It is disturbing to realize how ignorant some children are about their food. The Farm to School program, a promising nationwide program with participants in our region, wants to change that.

The once-obscure Spanish grape Albarino is rapidly emerging as one of the best white-wine varietals in California. Few white grapes display as much complexity when young and fresh - and that beats oak aging in many ways. This crisp wine from the alter ego label of Bonny Doon Vineyard bursts on the palate with vibrant flavors of orange, lime, sweet pea, pear, herbs and even a dollop of cherry. Enjoy it this year - especially through the spring and summer. It won't get any better. 2008 Ca' Del Solo Albarino From: Monterey County, Calif.

Bonnie Sorak can't wait to sample a romanesco this summer. The Ellicott City resident and her family are vegans and eat only plant products, but she just recently heard of the pale-green vegetable that's a cross between broccoli and cauliflower. As tantalizing as the prospect of tasting the unusual cruciferous vegetable is the satisfaction of knowing it will be just one of an array of farm products that will be delivered to her at peak freshness all season long. Sorak's family and 84 other area households have contracted to try a symbiotic concept called "community supported agriculture," in what organizers believe is the first-ever arrangement between a county farm and a trio of school PTAs.