Garnish

Habitat for Humanity of Carroll County has businesses willing to donate materials, volunteers willing to work in home construction and a growing list of working poor who would like to make the leap from renter to homeowner. What it doesn't have are building lots, a must if the international faith-based organization's campaign to build affordable housing for Carroll's needy is to get off the ground. "Materials and labor are not the major costs in this effort, and we have no problem finding people who want a chance to be homeowners," said Jack Garnish, president of the county group's 13-member board.

Alligator pear, poor man's butter, aguacate. Traditional names for avocado hardly do it justice. With a mildly nutty flavor and soothing, buttery texture, avocado is rich in unsaturated oil, making it a satisfying addition to sandwiches and salads.A tropical fruit that passes for a vegetable, avocado is also the prime ingredient in guacamole, a specialty of Mexican cuisine that serves as garnish, dip or salad.Soups offer yet another way to enjoy this delectable, versatile food. Sliced avocado adds luxurious richness to soups as a floating garnish.

Fresh fish, tropical fruit, European sauces and a spirit of aloha can turn an ordinary outdoor meal into an extraordinary outdoor dining experience. The Hawaiian Islands are a blend of ancient cultural traditions from Polynesia, China and Japan. Combine these traditions with fresh local ingredients, Asian spices and European culinary traditions, and you have the Hawaiian fusion cuisine Roy's founder, Roy Yamaguchi, has made popular. To make things easier, plan your Hawaiian fusion meal in advance.

The Black-Eyed Susan has been the official cocktail of the Preakness Stakes since time immemorial. At least since the 1950s, estimates Pimlico Race Track historian Joe Kelly. The cocktail has been re-invented over the years, but not enough to satisfy people's complaints. Back in 1985, reporter Rob Kasper ran a contest to replace it with a new cocktail. It's time to give a coup another try. It's not like there isn't precedent. The White Carnation had been the official cocktail of the Belmont Stakes for years, until master mixologist Dale DeGroff suggested a change to his version of whiskey punch, which he called the Belmont Breeze.

Around this time of year, I start getting phone calls and e-mails asking for holiday entertaining advice. A cousin in North Carolina who is planning a large open house put in one such plea. A few days later a friend in Ohio solicited ideas for something special. At the finish of my holiday cooking classes, students line up for recipe counseling. This flurry of questions isn't surprising, because in the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve we open our homes more often than during any other period of the year.

After years of being relegated through the purgatory of forgotten foods, kale has found itself in the spotlight for the first time in decades and is ready to prove it belongs there permanently. A crop of the ancients, kale has been cultivated for over 2,000 years and was the precursor to modern-day cabbage, brussel sprouts, cauliflower and broccoli. Easy to plant, harvest and propagate, kale was a favorite of both the Romans and the Greeks. The leafy green fell out of favor in many cultures in the last century, as more exotic cruciferous vegetables became popular.

Vonette Ball from Dearborn, Mich., was hoping someone would have a recipe that she lost for a quick and easy dish called Chicken Veronique. Many years ago it was printed on the side of a box of instant rice. What was most unusual about the dish was that it was garnished with seedless green grapes. Barbara Lehman of Fort Collins, Colo., saw Ball's request and thought immediately of a recipe she had seen in a Better Homes and Gardens wok cookbook she has had for many years. When I tested this recipe, I substituted boneless skinless chicken breasts for the whole, bone-in breasts the recipe called for. I cooked the rice while I was preparing the chicken, and the whole dish was ready in less than a half -hour.

Like the best Italian mothers, Rose Savalino Uddeme spent a lot of time cooking for her kids when the family lived off the corner of Central and Eastern avenues on the edge of Little Italy in the 1960s. One of her go-to meals was a staple of hard times: an egg cracked into simmering tomato sauce thick with peas. "It was one of those growing-up meals," said Uddeme, 75, who waited tables in Little Italy and Highlandtown before retiring to Essex. "It was cheap. " A less frequent dish, something special when there was a little extra money in the grocery purse, was braciole.

You might think of radishes as small and crunchy, insignificant bits of color to add to a salad or side dish. But radishes were once so venerated in Greece that gold replicas were made, according to the Centers for Disease Control's produce education Web site. And in Oaxaca, Mexico, radishes star in a Christmastime festival in which they're used to make elaborate sculptures. The most common radish is the Red Globe, the small round version with leafy green tops you might see in your local grocery store or farmers' market.