Infusion

Jerry Bark and Charlie Webster won't say this, but somebody should: It's a little dead at the new baseball park."Dead?" I hear Orioles officials cry in disbelief and derision.Deader than they understand, since those who make their careers trembling in the shadow of Eli Jacobs are required to measure human enthusiasm by the numbers after dollar signs, and not by actual electricity in the grandstands.In the Orioles' maiden season at Camden Yards, it is true that the people have come: sellout after sellout, sweeping inexorably toward 3-million-plus attendance.

One of the most appealing things about liquor is its ability to absorb flavors. Whether bacon, fruit or oak, the process of infusion can make any run-of-the-mill vodka a taste sensation, given the right proportions and enough time. While leather-infused bourbon may seem like an unapproachable or acquired taste (it does exist, for the record), you can never go wrong with a good old fashioned fruit infusion. Many drinkeries around the Baltimore area have their own varieties. In Federal Hill, Mother's Grille has the Summertime Infusion.

It's not always easy to tell just what you're looking at in a Sukey Bryan landscape or seascape, but it really doesn't matter. They're not, after all, about their subject matter. They're about how they're made, with an energetic brush stroke that gives them an exhilarating dynamic. They're about certain qualities of landscape painting, such as light; the textures of materials, including earth and water; and a sense of composition that sometimes, but not often, deserts Bryan. And they're about a romantic vision of landscape as symbolic of aspirations and emotions.

It's cold, damp and gets dark early -- but those who've been there know the best time to visit Bavaria is during the four weeks before Christmas, when practically every city and hamlet has its own version of a yuletide market.The smell of sizzling sausage and simmering spiced wine permeates the air, flickering candles reflect in every window, and strains of traditional German carols echo through medieval passages. Pedestrians in heavy coats, collars turned up to fend off icy blasts, hurry along narrow, cobblestone streets toward the town square, where long rows of wood stalls with striped-awning rooftops offer a wild variety of merchandise.

WITH PATRIOTIC songs joining traditional holiday music, this year's winter concerts at area schools are a little different from those in previous years. At Crofton Meadows Elementary School, the strings program will begin with "The Star-Spangled Banner" and end with a Christmas carol. The band program will continue the theme, beginning with "Jingle Bells" and closing with "Yankee Doodle." Crofton Woods Elementary School's third-graders will begin their winter choral concert with "America the Beautiful."

Joyce Wellman's recent, color-saturated abstract paintings at New Door Creative Gallery on Howard Street combine motifs of maps, architectural plans and aerial photographs as well as cryptic inscriptions and numerological symbols that suggest spiritual rites of passage. The Washington-area artist grew up during the 1950s in New York, where her earliest memories include her mother's devotion to the local numbers game -- the informal neighborhood lotteries that promise instant riches for a nickel or dime wager to people with few other prospects for advancement.

WASHINGTON - Famine-racked Ethiopia might be facing the "greatest humanitarian crisis" of any nation, with more than 12 million people relying on food aid for survival, relief organizations say, a crisis likely to repeat itself every few years without a major infusion of outside assistance. But even though tens of thousands of young children are acutely malnourished, the United States and other donor nations must recognize that food alone won't solve the problem, the aid groups say. At least $1 billion a year, they insist, should be spent developing Ethiopia's shattered and chronically impoverished and backward agricultural and education systems.

On Sunday, the Baltimore Farmers' Market & Bazaar opens for its 36th season, with vendors selling fruits and vegetables, herbs, baked goods and crafts. Emem Oduok, 30, will be there, selling handmade chunky jam, creamy fruit-butter, infused spicy and herb vinegar, seasonal tomato ketchup and more. Oduok, a jam-maker and owner of Infused Spreads, is originally from Nigeria but now lives in Curtis Bay. She started Infused Spreads in 2009 and credits her success to her self-motivation.

College Park -- When he gets excited, Maryland freshman guard Greivis Vasquez puts both of his hands up and does a little shimmy - a move teammate D.J. Strawberry deemed the "international dance." There's no doubt the Venezuelan native has spiced up the Terps' roster, but so have the other five newcomers. As Maryland (2-0) prepares to host Florida A&M (0-0) at 7 tonight at Comcast Center, coach Gary Williams said the infusion of talent and personality has helped this team - and him - enjoy the game a little more.

Strongput Inc., the Owings Mills maker of much-publicized exercise weights, said yesterday it is involved in an intricate $100 million deal that will pump some $12 million into the small firm and may catapult its chief executive officer to the top of a British corporation that controls half-a-dozen other specialty companies.E. David Gable, Strongput's president, said yesterday that negotiations for the deal are "essentially completed," though he has not yet decided whether to accept an offer that would also make him the head of the British firm Turbo City Corp.