HAM

"Register to vote?""Register to vote?""Register to vote?"Ten workers from Baltimoreans United In Leadership Development -- BUILD -- have fanned across East Monument Street near Northeast Market, clipboards in hand, trying desperately to interest people in their civic rights.Many of the shoppers and Johns Hopkins Hospital workers who clogged the sidewalks here at midday treated the yellow T-shirt-clad registrars as if they were solicitors or con men, out to make a buck. They shouldered past, eyes averted.

SOL WACHTLER, former chief judge of New York, once said, "Any prosecutor who wants could indict a ham sandwich."This became part of judicial folklore, a chilling reminder of how little removed every slob of a citizen is from the expense and grief of a criminal trial.If Linda Tripp were a whole ham, she couldn't be less a threat to public safety. But, as Washington Post columnist Tony Kornheiser points out, she has the misfortune of always managing to look like she's chewing a rancid anchovy.

HELEN -- The painted-plywood sign poked into the ground outside Mother Catherine Spalding Elementary School yesterday read more like a warning than an invitation: "Church Dinner Here -- Sunday."Days after hundreds of people became violently ill and two died after eating tainted food at the fall dinner at Our Lady of the Wayside Church, three nearby churches were preparing to hold dinners this weekend.Old-timers including V. H. "Dutch" Mast take pride in the yearly slew of turkey-and-ham church dinners that are as much a part of Southern Maryland's autumn as football and the kale harvest.

Area's chefs launching a feast for ChesapeakeA dozen of the region's best chefs are putting on their toques and whipping up their specialty dishes to celebrate a "Taste of the Chesapeake." The event, from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday at Pier 3, the National Aquarium, benefits the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay. There'll also be dining, wining, a silent auction and dancing. Tickets are $125 a person ($110 for members) and $1,500 for a corporate table for 10. Call (410) 377-6270.Afro-Caribbean tastesCulinary sleuth and British and Australian TV chef Dorinda Hafner traveled the Caribbean looking for African influences on island food.

A fresh summer chutney can enliven the simplest dinner, as shown here with this menu for ham and chutney with roasted potatoes. It's a perfect combination for a carefree evening meal after a hectic, hot summer day.You can roast the onions, potatoes and warm the ham all at once in the same oven. Microwave the scrubbed potatoes first to soften, and then spray with nonstick coating. Have the ingredients for the chutney mixed and ready to go after the onions are roasted. Purchase a fully cooked, sliced ham and then wrap in foil while heating.

RICHMOND, Va. - A backboard wasn't all that came crashing down around North Carolina yesterday.The shattered glass that lay on the Richmond Coliseum floor, courtesy of a follow-up dunk by Texas Tech's Darvin Ham, served as a symbol for the No. 6-seeded Tar Heels, who were taken apart by the third-seeded Red Raiders in a 92-73 loss in the East Regional.Ham's slam, with 12: 06 left in the first half, tied the score at 16. It also sent pieces of glass all the way to the other free-throw line, and sent both teams into their locker rooms during a 26-minute delay.

EDMONTON, Alberta -- Chris Armstrong had just finished another fine night of work. His two first-half touchdown receptions had sparked the Baltimore Stallions to a 36-8 rout of Birmingham. Yet, Armstrong's thoughts drifted back to passes he had dropped early in the game."I just thank God that [quarterback] Tracy Ham stayed on me in the first half," Armstrong said. "I dropped a couple of balls that I should have caught, and he continued to go to me. Nobody got down on me, and I was able to come back and make a few plays."

A Severna Park man was arrested Wednesday after cigarettes and a ham were stolen from a Severna Park Safeway market.Police said a man entered the store in the 500 block of Benfield Road just before 4 p.m. Wednesday. Store employees told police that the man took cigarettes and ham from a display, put them into his pants and left the store. An employee stopped him before he left and called police.James E. Frick, 36, of the 600 block of Park Road in Severna Park was arrested and charged with theft.

The Memphis kicking game has been horrible this year, making nine of 24 field-goal attempts before last night's game against the Baltimore Stallions at Memorial Stadium.With former Stallion Donald Igwebuike unavailable last night because of work visa problems, the Mad Dogs turned to Nick Mystrom, and he turned in a solid performance, hitting three field goals covering 27, 39 and 22 yards. He had one blocked by Charles Anthony."Iggy wasn't with us, and the young fellow who kicked for us did a wonderful job," said coach Pepper Rodgers.

With an eye to the future, Baltimore's Canadian Football League team auditioned two Division I-AA quarterbacks yesterday for the role of understudy to Tracy Ham.rTC Dan Crowley and Robert Dougherty, all-time passing leaders at Towson State and Boston University, respectively, rolled out and dropped back for 40 passes each in separate workouts at Memorial Stadium.They are vying for the position recently vacated by veteran backup John Congemi, who will not be retained for the 1995 season. Congemi, who will be 31 in June, lost his job not on performance, coach Don Matthews said, but to relative age. He is six months younger than Ham."

Bonjour 6070 Falls Road, 410-372-0238. Winter hours: 7:30 a.m.-noon Mondays; 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays; 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays. It is hard to visit a French bakery and not eat sweets. But the savories at Bonjour proved to be delectable takeout items for a quick lunch and a fast dinner. This small shop near Lake Avenue often has a flag flying outside. In warm weather, a bicycle or two is parked outside and a cyclist or two is inside, carb-loading. The quiche is made daily by Gerard Billebault, his wife, Gayle Brier, and their staff.

Dining in Nashville means having your cardiologist on speed dial. A look at the local food and drink of the Music City and Charm City: NASHVILLE Country ham and red-eye gravy Get this: The gravy starts with the drippings in a pan in which slices of ham were fried. So it's ham gravy on ham. Served with a nice ham salad? Pork barbecue In case you didn't get enough ham. MoonPie Graham-cracker cookies, marshmallow filling, chocolate dip. Who needs a bathroom scale, anyway? Stack cake Sugar, eggs, molasses, buttermilk, flour ... you can feel your arteries hardening.

In Maryland, it is still possible to enjoy a ham made from homegrown hogs and smoked in a local meat-processing plant. Recently, I visited the Mount Airy Locker Co., run by Thomas Wagner on Main Street in Mount Airy, which transforms hogs to ham in about one week. At the beginning of the week, Wagner calls a Frederick County farmer and tells him how many of the animals to bring to the plant. After the white Yorkshire hogs, which on average are about 5 months old and weigh about 260 pounds, are processed, the meat cutters in the plant deliver the rear legs to Boe Smith.

Police who patrol Baltimore's impoverished east side turned a station house room usually reserved for relaxation into a bustling Edison Highway pantry for the needy yesterday. The officers, many on their own time, spent the day sorting through piles of canned beans, canned corn, canned spinach and canned ham, not to mention frozen turkeys and a seemingly endless supply of macaroni and cheese that they had spent months working with community leaders to collect. At times, the room that also holds the station's soda and candy machines and a pool table resembled a crowded deli, with officers scanning lists of names of families who signed up for help and trying to make sure the right amount of food got into the right boxes.

They will be shooting for turkeys at a Pylesville church today. Marksmen, armed with pellet rifles, will fire at targets filled with signatures of those who have paid a dollar or two for a chance to win a hefty turkey, a ham with a well-known label, five pounds of shrimp or a handmade quilt. The name closest to the pellet wins, usually by less than an inch. "They measure to the nth degree to decide whose name is closest," said the Rev. Henry Kunkel, pastor of St. Mary of the Assumption Roman Catholic Church.

Obviously, anything could be an alternative to a traditional roast turkey for Thanksgiving. But I wanted to pick foods I know would work (because of their association with Native Americans, for instance) or that I've served or had served to me: 1 Wild duck with sauerkraut (particularly appropriate because Baltimoreans eat sauerkraut with Thanksgiving dinner anyway, which I've never understood) 2 Goose with fruit stuffing. Unfortunately the one time I cooked a wild goose, it also contained buckshot.

On July 13, 2008, WILLIE L., devoted father of Joyce C. Davenport of Atlanta, GA, William L. Reed (Warrenette), Jacqueline W. Orr (David), and Allegra Ham (Darryl). He is also survived by 22 grandchildren, a host of great-grandchildren, other relatives and friends. Friends may visit the JAMES A. MORTON & SONS FUNERAL HOMES, INC., 311 Main Street, Thursday 3 to 7 P.M. Funeral services Friday. The family will receive friends 10:30 to 11 A.M., with funeral to follow.

Haseltine French Ham, a former histology technician and Oxford resident, died of respiratory failure Sunday at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She was 93. Haseltine French Harper was born in Covington, Va. She spent the first six years of her life in a Richmond, Va., orphanage. Her mother died while giving birth to her, and her father died shortly thereafter. In the late 1920s, she married Leonard Oden after moving to Washington. He died in 1938. Mrs. Ham was working as a seamstress when she married George Allen Ham, a salesman, in 1941.

I AM NOT SURE WHEN IT HAPpened, but at some point Easter stopped being about new clothes and started being about food. I grew up in a time when Easter Sunday required a whole new outfit, from hat to shoes. As a little girl, Easter meant new patent leather Mary Janes and a bonnet with an annoying elastic string under the chin. If the holiday came late enough in the season, it might be good for a new pair of white summer sandals. When I was older, Easter meant something in navy blue and white.

Ham is getting livelier. It is spending more time in sweet-smelling smokehouses. It is bathing in a variety of liquids and comes to the table glazed with fruit flavors. Moreover, the heritage of the ham is gaining importance. It is not enough to know that your ham comes from a pig's hind leg. In high-ham circles, the pig's lineage is discussed, with two of the preferred breeds being Berkshire and Duroc. Part of this push to perk up the already-cooked, familiar product sometimes called "city ham" comes from the increased presence of its foreign relatives and its country cousins.