Fruit

YOUR grandmother and quite probably her grandmother made cobblers every summer -- and with good reason. This simple, old-fashioned dessert is a delicious way to use whatever seasonal fruits you might have on hand. Slightly mushy fruit are OK.The dessert goes together quickly, but be sure to allow enough time to peel, chop and pit the fruit. The cobbler keeps well and the recipe is easy to double so I always make two.This recipe is from a new book: "Bradley Ogden's Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner" by Bradley Ogden; Random House dInc.

New Brunswick, N.J. Spring Date Night at the George Street Playhouse The work is basically done for you. Just get the tickets, and your date night is all planned. Two glasses of wine and a box of chocolates from Thomas Sweet will top off your evening after a performance of "Venus in Fur," a sultry comedy based off of the romance novel by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Just relax and enjoy this romantic evening. To make it a weekend getaway, book a room at the Heldrich, a hotel in downtown New Brunswick (theheldrich.com)

It takes a lot of sour cherries to make one very sweet pie. About 250 sour cherries, give or take a few. And you have to act fast. This delicate fruit - rarely sold in supermarkets because of its fragility - is available at a few you-pick-'em farms in Maryland during a very brief harvest at the end of June and the beginning of July. Sour-cherry trees love the cooling summer winds of the Great Lakes region and the Pacific Northwest - Michigan is considered the cherry capital of the United States - but Maryland farmers can include the popular Montmorency tree in their orchards as well.

Nutritionists from the University of Maryland Medical Center regularly contribute a guest post. The latest post from Sierra George, dietetic intern, is printed here. Despite its name, the coconut is a fruit from the coconut palm. Tropical cultures have been using this delicious fruit for everything from food to body lotion and even currency. Until recently, Americans have seen coconut mostly as the dried, shredded ingredient of cookies, candies and cakes. Now, as more products derived from the coconut hit grocery store shelves, we are given the delicious opportunity to get creative with the coconut.

With the abundance of summer's fruits and vegetables, it's easy to conjure up delicious, healthful, low-fat summer salads. But low-fat salads can become high-fat disasters with the wrong dressing.Traditional dressings are loaded with oil. Typically they have two to three parts oil to one part acid. When you try to reduce the oil, you find it contributes more than just taste. Without oil, the dressing is unbalanced and becomes pungent and overly tangy. When you cut back the oil, the acid -- usually vinegar or citrus juices -- must be reduced as well.

If you want to pick a peach that will taste like nectar, then look at the background color of its skin. When that color, the one behind the peach's dominant reddish-orange hue, turns golden, then the peach is in top form. That is what Russ Parsons told me. Parsons, a food columnist for the Los Angeles Times, has written a book called How to Pick a Peach. He visited peach orchards, queried the growers, delved into the workings of the peach's inner life, and came up with simple recipes for how to enjoy the fruit.

MIAMI -- A new fruit, whose developer hopes can be an alternative to citrus crops in freeze-prone areas of Florida, is thriving in a South Dade County field.It is the unlikely union of a native American weed called the Maypop and a passion fruit, said Robert Knight, its creator. The horticulturist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture bent over microscopes for years manipulating its chromosomes in an effort to make it grow.His creation still doesn't have a name, but it does yield a fruit that ranges in color from light green to dark purple, measures about 3 inches around and has a tangy taste that is both sweet and sour.

An error in the production process of yesterday's Anne Arundel County Sun resulted in switched photo captionsThe photo on the left is of Jenny Baucom (left) and Diane Deeds at a recent demonstration on making watermelon fruit baskets at the Glen Burnie Christian Women's Club.The photo on the right is of Esther Rosenblatt, widow of Rabbi Morris D. Rosenblatt, standing next to a stained glass window dedicated to his memory at the Kneseth Israel Congregation in Annapolis. The rabbi led the congregation for nearly 40 years until his retirement.

Face facts: Nothing beats fresh fruit as a healthy dessert. It's ++ low in calories and sodium, high in fiber and vitamins, has no cholesterol and is naturally sweet.A perfectly ripe fruit can taste as delicious -- well, almost as delicious -- as a rich chocolate-filled, butter-laden flaky pastry. The trouble is that fruit rarely seems special or festive. Yet no rule requires fresh fruit to be dull. A little imagination and ingenuity transform fruits to treats.Simplest is sliced fresh fruit artfully arranged on a beautiful platter.

Pomegranates are so beautiful, with their mottled ruby-red skin and exotic, slightly angular shape, it seems a shame to destroy them to get at the juicy, tasty part inside. You must, though, if you wish to sample a delicacy that has been around apparently forever and has been celebrated, according to Elizabeth Schneider's "Uncommon Fruits and Vegetables," by poets, painters and storytellers from China to Greece to Persia to Israel to Rome.Pomegranates begin appearing on store shelves in late fall and early winter.

Coach John Harbaugh's decision to rest many of his starters before and during Sunday's 23-17 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals might have been a heady move based on the participation numbers at Wednesday's practice. Every player was present and accounted for in practice. That includes the six starters who were deactivated prior to Sunday's contest. Inside linebacker Ray Lewis (torn right triceps), outside linebacker Terrell Suggs (torn right biceps) and wide receiver Anquan Boldin (bruised left shoulder)

When Bob Zealor was growing up in Overlea, he would go into the woods near his home and collect greens to make a wreath for his mother. You can imagine his delight when he discovered Colonial Williamsburg, where all the holiday decorations come from nature. All these years later, the interior designer and his wife Maureen make regular Christmas pilgrimages to Williamsburg, Va., which has become the inspiration for his holiday decorating. "It is homey. It is real. The greens, the fruit.

The Eleanor Roosevelt High School music program is holding its annual fruit sale each month October through March. Proceeds from the sale of freshly picked oranges and grapefruit are used to provide quality instrument and music for the band and orchestra program. To order fruit, call the ERHS Fruit Line, 301-345-5393.

Each week a nutritionist from the University of Maryland Medical Center provides a guest post. This week, Rachel Ernzen weighs in on fruit. Antioxidants naturally found in fruits are gaining popularity as "power foods" and can be found added to a variety of products, such as single-serving beverages, over-the-counter supplements and meal-replacement bars. The safest form, however, comes from eating the fruit itself. Phytonutrients (or phytochemicals) are bioactive compounds found in fruits and vegetables that offer protection against many chronic diseases.

The arrival of tomatoes at the farmers' market is the high point of the summer growing season. It brings with it a treasure-trove of jewel-colored fruit that span the spectrum from bright green to dark purple and come in shapes that defy geometric reason. Heirloom tomatoes with names such as Green Zebra and Black Krim deliver a range of flavors from tongue-twisting tartness to luxurious, smooth sweetness. They don't need much in the way of preparation to shine, and that's why most chefs don't mess with them much at home.

The difficulty of finding American citizens who will do the kind of farm work generally left to migrant laborers is an old story. I would like to tell you about my experiences picking fruit and why many Americans will not do this job. In the 1960s, California citrus was picked by itinerate Mexican farmworkers known as braceros . They lived in camps consisting of dorm-like buildings and a dining room, and they migrated with the crop: California...

Excerpted from "Summer Fruit: A Country Garden Cookbook" by Edon Waycott ($15, Collins Publishers, San Francisco)Summer stone fruits are a little like houseguests: They don't tiptoe in. Instead, they shout their arrival and dump an enormous amount of all-ripe-at-once produce on your doorstep. And just when you begin to feel complacent about their presence or start being creative in the kitchen, they disappear, and one of their cousins arrives. And so it goes until after Labor Day.Over the years, much of the flavor has been bred out of commercial produce.

You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? ... A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. - Matthew 7:16,18 In 1980, a book was published about the failure of liberal policies in New York City. Its title, The Cost of Good Intentions, soon became a conservative catchphrase about the limits of expansive government. Even the best motives could produce dismal results. Policies had to be judged not by their ostensible purposes but by their consequences in the real world.

Power Plant Live newcomer Kettle Hill, a "Theodore Roosevelt-themed" establishment replete with lively, wood-and-iron-and-brass layouts, is a solid rustic-yet-fun place to hang out after work. It's a spot for working professionals with a bit of grown-up taste. Like the atmosphere, the cocktail menu, as bartender Daniel Clemmer puts it aptly, "is sophisticated, but approachable without being pretentious. " One of the freshest examples is the Church and State, a Herradura Tequila-based cocktail with fresh-squeezed lemon juice, fresh pineapple juice, cinnamon simple syrup and honkin' 2-by-2 inch ice cubes.

After 15 years, Mango Grove shut its original Columbia location last August and reopened nearby on Valentine's Day. That's only six months — a quick turnaround in restaurant time — but it must have felt like much longer for fans of Mango Grove's terrific Indian cuisine. Vegetarians must have been especially desolate. For them, Mango Grove was a serene retreat, with an atmosphere just fancy enough to qualify as a date night. Just think: six months without those well-tempered vegetable curries and all that time without a single dosai.