Holiday Meal

Connie Atkinson of Catonsville wanted to serve her family a holiday meal for the ages, a memorable feast with ties to our country's bygone days. After all, an end-of-the-century Christmas seemed like an ideal time to remember -- and savor -- the food tastes of our ancestors.For years, Atkinson, a switchboard operator at the Maryland Historical Society, had been poring through the society's massive collection of old recipes. She tried making some "receipts," as recipes were called decades ago; converted others to current measurements -- figuring out what a teacup of liquid or a handful of a dry ingredient really is -- and saved dozens in a notebook.

For years, Jeff Mikula collected United Way donations from his fellow steelworkers at Sparrows Point. On Thursday, he - and 500 former co-workers from the now-closed plant - stood in line to receive them. The Dundalk man, who worked as an ironman for nearly 39 years at the mill, said accepting boxes stuffed by volunteers with chicken roasters and fixings for Christmas dinner was hard for the steelworkers, who were once among the charity's most generous donors in Maryland. "You see the need; you see what people are going through, the heartache," said Mikula, 57. "Steelworkers are proud people.

Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien will celebrate the 11:15 a.m. Mass on Sunday at Holy Spirit Church in Joppatowne, where a fire destroyed the parish center last week. Several elderly women were at the parish center for a holiday meal when the fire started shortly before noon Dec. 16, but no injuries were reported. Damages were estimated at $3.5 million. O'Brien and other area clergy visited the scene to offer support. The parish of 570 families was formed in 1963. - Matthew Hay Brown

Easter options are plentiful this year, and a few are lavish. The offerings at The Capital Grille (500 E. Pratt St., 443-703-4064, thecapitalgrille.com) include a carving station, raw bar, and breakfast station with scrambled eggs, French toast and roasted Kona tenderloin. Wit & Wisdom (200 International Drive, 410-576-5800, witandwisdombaltimore.com) at the Four Seasons Hotel is serving a three-course brunch with featuring chicory-glazed ham and, for dessert, a banana cream puff with chocolate, coconut tapioca and hazelnut sherbet.

WHAT BETTER place for a stage version of Dickens' "Christmas Carol" than Scrooge's old city of London. The production drew these opening comments from Financial Times critic Alastair Macaulay:"To see Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol' onstage is to know again, with a frisson of joy, how theatrical its author's instincts were."What, I wonder, would he have made of the coup de theatre with which the Royal Shakespeare Company's new version opens?"The panoramic view of London in dark silhouette, dominated by the dome of St. Paul's, lifts yards into the sky -- and from the blackness beneath, there emerge people, also in black, in Bible black indeed, for Marley's funeral.

Look forward to leftoversIt's not too soon to start thinking about what you'll do with all that leftover turkey this holiday season. Campbell's Soup comes to the rescue with a toll-free number offering post-feast meal ideas, including chicken divan (pictured). The line operates from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. through Dec. 1. Call (888) 4-LEFTOVER.Help on all aspects of preparing the holiday meal is always available from the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line, which expects its 2 millionth caller this year.

New tea blends are a shade differentToast to your health during the holidays with a steaming cup of green tea, which increasingly is being touted for its natural antioxidant, cancer-fighting benefits.Celestial Seasonings has come out with six varieties of naturally flavored green teas to appeal to American palates, which may be wary of the brew that, at times, is stereotyped as "grassy."The new blends with passion fruit and orange blossom, honey-lemon ginseng, and citrus, chamomile and jasmine soon will put an end to that misconception.

And so another Thanksgiving approaches, the day officially set aside for the taking of personal inventory, and for expressions of gratitude for another year of life, for a steady income, for a place to live, for decent health (maybe even health insurance), for good food, clean water, heating and air conditioning, gas and electricity, cable and WiFi, and perhaps even happiness. Also, be sure to give thanks if you haven't had to call 211 this year. If you never once had to dial those three digits, then you probably are employed or have a steady retirement income; you can probably afford a house or apartment, too. If you never had to call United Way of Central Maryland's 24-7 help center, then you've probably managed to avoid suicidal thoughts, or at least be treated for trauma and depression through your health plan.

"We knew it was serious,'' said the teacher, ''when they canceled the holiday meal.''Come again? Who? Canceled what holiday meal?''They.'' You know, ''they'' -- that indistinct plurality of people who are responsible for most of the world's idiocy. In this case ''they'' turned out to be ''Greenwood'' -- another abstraction. ''Greenwood'' is the lair of the wily and sinister Stuart Berger, superintendent of Baltimore County public schools.''They'' -- not necessarily Dr. Berger, although probably he, for who else is so malign and cunning?

I have two requirements for a holiday cranberry dish. First it should jiggle. Secondly it should smear well.Jiggling is important because these meals are filled with tradition. And one of my earliest memories of what made a big holiday meal different from any other meal with a tablecloth was it featured a dish that wiggled. That would be the canned cranberry sauce, which we always called cranberry jelly.As a kid I spent a great deal of the holiday meal watching cranberry slices vibrate on my plate.

On Thursday morning, volunteers at the annual Bea Gaddy Thanksgiving luncheon worked themselves into a frenzy. Standing beside each other in a long line that snaked across a couple of halls, they passed down bags of food to one another at a breakneck pace, assembly-line fashion. "It's very hectic," said one of the volunteers, Michelle Hoover of Edgemere. The volunteers worked fast to keep up with the thousands of needy people — as many as 50,000 last year, according to organizers — who come to this luncheon every Thanksgiving.

Maj. Mark Zinno Citarella was scheduled to spend Thanksgiving in Baghdad. The commander of a public affairs unit in the Maryland National Guard, he figures he would have joined fellow officers on a chow line, serving the holiday meal to enlisted troops. But with the announcement in October that the United States would pull all troops out of Iraq by the end of the year, his unit returned to Baltimore earlier this month. Now he is looking forward to spending the day with loved ones.

And so another Thanksgiving approaches, the day officially set aside for the taking of personal inventory, and for expressions of gratitude for another year of life, for a steady income, for a place to live, for decent health (maybe even health insurance), for good food, clean water, heating and air conditioning, gas and electricity, cable and WiFi, and perhaps even happiness. Also, be sure to give thanks if you haven't had to call 211 this year. If you never once had to dial those three digits, then you probably are employed or have a steady retirement income; you can probably afford a house or apartment, too. If you never had to call United Way of Central Maryland's 24-7 help center, then you've probably managed to avoid suicidal thoughts, or at least be treated for trauma and depression through your health plan.

Charles S. "DC" Reed, former food service director at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Greater Baltimore Medical Center, died July 24 of lung cancer at his Towson home. He was 79. Born and raised in Towson, Mr. Reed attended Loyola High School and graduated in 1949 from Towson Catholic High School. Mr. Reed enlisted in the Navy and served as a gunner's mate aboard the subchaser USS Crestview and later on the carrier USS Franklin D. Roosevelt and the destroyer USS Hemminger. After being discharged from active duty, he remained a naval reservist until 1958.

As I write this, Thanksgiving is only hours away, and I still have no idea what I am serving. There will be a turkey, of course. And potatoes and vegetables and stuffing and gravy. But exactly what form these basic elements will take is still under discussion with my daughter, who believes she was cruelly separated at birth from Ina Garten. I call it "Thanksgiving in the time of the Food Network: All bets are off. " These cooking shows — which are to college students what soap operas were to us when we were in school — have produced a generation of confident young cooks who don't think you have to have years of practice under your belt before you prepare your first truffle.

Two Baltimore sisters, whose paraplegic mother died from neglect-related wounds shortly after being removed from their care, were sentenced to five years of probation Monday during an emotional three-hour hearing. "I don't think the defendants need to be imprisoned to deter them from repeating the conduct," Baltimore Circuit Judge David Ross said, the two women sobbing before him. "I think they are genuinely grieving the loss of their mother and that grief is encouraged by the presence of guilt in these proceedings."

Granted, a view of bowling lanes is not the usual scenery while sitting at the Thanksgiving table.But for about 45 county residents that view not only was the promise of an after-dinner treat, but also the backdrop for a delicious holiday meal -- a meal they wouldn't have been able to enjoy had it not been for the generosity of the Coale family of Bel Air.Mary, 58, and 60-year-old Pres Coale, owners of Bel Air Bowl on U.S. 1, and their children wanted to...

As I write this, Thanksgiving is only hours away, and I still have no idea what I am serving. There will be a turkey, of course. And potatoes and vegetables and stuffing and gravy. But exactly what form these basic elements will take is still under discussion with my daughter, who believes she was cruelly separated at birth from Ina Garten. I call it "Thanksgiving in the time of the Food Network: All bets are off. " These cooking shows — which are to college students what soap operas were to us when we were in school — have produced a generation of confident young cooks who don't think you have to have years of practice under your belt before you prepare your first truffle.

Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien will celebrate the 11:15 a.m. Mass on Sunday at Holy Spirit Church in Joppatowne, where a fire destroyed the parish center last week. Several elderly women were at the parish center for a holiday meal when the fire started shortly before noon Dec. 16, but no injuries were reported. Damages were estimated at $3.5 million. O'Brien and other area clergy visited the scene to offer support. The parish of 570 families was formed in 1963. - Matthew Hay Brown