Jambalaya

LOUISIANA IS A place of culinary extremes. There are tony French restaurants specializing in etouffe and rustic dives serving mounds of spicy, boiled crawfish. Just about everywhere, at every price, the food is terrific.Louisiana-inspired cooking was a flash-in-the-pan trend for the nation's restaurants a few years ago. The fashion fizzled because most chefs couldn't see New Orleans dining as more than simply dusting meat or fish in a choking cloud of chile pepper before frying it unappealingly black.

Death can come at any time, in any place. Whenever, and wherever, it occurs, there's an excellent chance the dead person's loved ones will mark the passing with food. Lots of food. "You can ask any caterer," says Lisa Rogak, author of Death Warmed Over: Funeral Food, Rituals, and Customs From Around the World (Ten Speed Press, $19.95). "Most people eat a lot more food at funerals than at weddings. And that cuts across all cultures." Rogak's book is fascinating and sometimes funny - and packed with lore about funeral traditions, such as the practice in 17th-century Scotland of discarding all of the milk, onions and butter in the home of a dead person.

Sausages of various types have been tempting our palates for centuries. They were popular at least several hundred years before the birth of Christ, and a cookbook written around A.D. 200 contains a number of sausage recipes.The popularity of sausage has continued into the modern era, and the variety of sausage available today is staggering. To walk into any good deli and inspect their wares is to be introduced to such ethnic fare as Polish kielbasa and Swedish potato sausage, a favorite in my family, especially around the holidays.

Six plays by Maryland playwrights will premiere during the Baltimore Playwrights Festival in July and August at the Fell's Point Corner Theatre, Spotlighters Theatre and the Vagabond Players.Since 1982, the Baltimore Playwrights Festival has produced well over 100 original plays. A five-ticket subscription is $30 and can be used at all participating theaters. Individual ticket prices vary."The Portable Tutweiller" by Geoffrey Bond, a comedy about vvTC young man going through the trials and tribulations of separation and divorce, will run July 11-28 at the Fell's Point Corner Theatre, 251 S. Ann St. Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 7 p.m. Call (410)

The Memorial Day weekend is always a good time for a daytrip or two, and, as usual, many events are planned to lure you away from home.The 22nd annual Chestertown Tea Party Festival attracts people to the Eastern Shore for two days of free festivities Saturday and May 28. The festival recalls an event that happened there May 23, 1774. In response to the closing of the Port of Boston, citizens of Chestertown staged their own tea party. A group of men boarded the British ship Geddes, anchored in the Chester River, and dumped its cargo of tea overboard.

The Memorial Day holiday finds numerous events competing for space on the weekend calendar. A big one this year is the Tea Party Festival in Chestertown. This tradition holiday event not only marks its 20th anniversary but also commemorates the 350th anniversary of Kent County with an extended three-day celebration from Friday to Sunday. The public is invited to attend the opening cocktail party in Wilmer Park at 6 p.m. Friday. Admission is $10. The party will be followed at 7 p.m. by a free concert by the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Regimental Band.

" Snow Cone Maker " by Tiny Toys Inc., is in the top 30 of free gaming apps on the Apple store, which is not surprising since half of the country is experiencing oven-like conditions this summer. Snow cones (or "snow balls," or "shaved ice" depending on your region) represent Americana in July like few other traditions. As an enterprising 16 year-old desperate to buy a used car, I toiled one summer at my local snow cone stand to earn a few (under the table) dollars.

What is American food?Food historian and writer Lorna Sass says, "It's everything that Americans eat."Here's a sampling of American dishes that reflect the exchange of foods and techniques between the Old World and the New.The first recipe is from "The Spirit of the Harvest: North American Indian Cooking," by Beverly Cox and Martin Jacobs (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1991, $35). The authors note that the traditional Northeastern "Indian pudding" would have been made of cornmeal and dried fruit or berries, cooked with water and nut butter, and sweetened with maple syrup or honey.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- As predicted by track oddsmaker Mike Battaglia, the fans at Churchill Downs have made the D. Wayne Lukas-trained entry of Serena's Song and Timber Country the 5-2 betting favorite in advance Kentucky Derby wagering.More than $1 million was bet on the Derby yesterday on the Kentucky Oaks card.The other odds, after the advance bets were totaled, were Jumron, 9-2; Talkin Man, 5-1; the six-horse "field" entry of Knockadoon, Lake George, In Character, Ski Captain, Mecke and Citadeed, 9-1; Suave Prospect, 10-1; Tejano Run, 10-1; Afternoon Deelites, 11-1; Wild Syn, 13-1; the entry of Pyramid Peak and Jambalaya Jazz, 17-1; Eltish, 18-1; Thunder Gulch, 26-1, and Dazzling Falls, 34-1.

Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers The Moosewood Collective Good Housekeeping Rush Hour Dinners Hearst Books / 2005 / $14.95 There is fast, and then there is fast and interesting. The cooks at Good Housekeeping provide the interest with recipes for steak with rosemary, cannellini beans and balsamic vinegar; and chicken ragout in squash bowls. This is a good cookbook not only for the rushed cook, but for the cook who hopes to have the time to do more in the kitchen someday. There are short-cut recipes for jambalaya, risotto, meat or fish with wine sauces and some interesting pastas - just the kinds of recipes you might see on a 30-minute cooking show.