Ketchup

Sometimes when you hear about olive oil selling at $20 a bottle, or fish that was flown in from the other side of the earth to be the centerpiece of a special dinner, you get the impression that no one is eating plain old simple foods.Not true. Or to quote a favorite negative expression of Baltimore youth: "Nuh-huh."A look at the mail, for instance, yields a couple of strong opinions on the correct style of cooking shad.Another correspondent offers advice on how to cook those PTC dishes of the '90s, creamed chipped beef and pickled beets.

As I think about the Fourth of July, somehow I smell vinegar and my grandmother's approach to the holiday observance. Lily Rose made potato salad. Like most of her cooking, the dish was simple, but don't ask me how she made it. All I remember is that it tasted good on the first day, better on the second - if there were any left. She was never into food styling, but the potato salad went a white bowl with bold red polka dots. Her iced tea went into a big azure bowl decorated with Concord grape leaves.

SOMETIMES A good sauce can save supper. Or so I am told. Even though this never happens to me, let's pretend something was cooked much too long. Let's say the something was a fillet of fish and that instead of closely monitoring its progress as it sat on the barbecue grill, you instead played catch with your kid in the alley. Continuing this make-believe scenario, let's say that when you returned to the grill you began grilling a mango instead of removing the fish from the fire. That's right, a mango.

TODAY would normally be a pretty late date on the garden calendar to chatter about summer gardens. But this has been one of those amazing Augusts when the grass remains unseasonably green and plants that would normally be burnt toast are fat and vigorous. I used to have a front sidewalk, but it's so overgrown with hedera helix I'm thinking of just renaming it Ivy Lane and posting caution signs warning of slippery moss and too much vegetation. It's been a fairly wet Baltimore summer, one I'd like to recall when all the media screaming begins when we start our next drought.

Southwestern cuisine is trendy. Practically overnight it jumped from cafes in Santa Fe, N.M., into restaurants throughout the nation, then into home kitchens.If you like cooking the hot stuff, but you're having trouble finding just the right chili pepper for a recipe, the Old Southwest Trading Co., a mail-order retailer in Albuquerque, N.M., offers a catalog for ordering dozens of Southwest items.The company offers a wide assortment of dried chilies, including more than a dozen exotic chilies, and will ship fresh New Mexico green chilies during fresh chili season.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - A world away, an American city called Baltimore has spent millions of dollars and marshaled all of its cultural muscle to salute Russia's imperial capital, St. Petersburg, on its 300th birthday. And here is what Yevgeny Martinyenko, standing on an ice-paved sidewalk in St. Petersburg, wants to know: "Is this about ketchup?" he asks, tentatively. Here, Baltimor is the brand name of a Russian-made tomato-based condiment. But Martinyenko seems dubious that an American newspaper reporter would be interested in what he pours on his shashlik and sausages.

SO THE FAMILY'S getting bigger, and you're wondering if now's the time to buy a minivan, modern symbol of fertility and suburban well-being.Whoa! Not so fast.First, say these words to yourself: Dodge Caravan.Does this sound sexy to you?It does?Do you picture yourself rolling up to a stoplight in your Dodge Caravan and catching the eye of the attractive member of the opposite sex in the Porsche next to you, who then lets out a low murmur of approval?You do?There is something seriously wrong with you, my friend.

HIDDEN BENEFIT Scientists say eating tomatoes and other red fruit rich in lycopene can boost the body's defenses against cancer. Now Heinz has come up with a way to give your family members a shot of lycopene where they least expect it. The Heinz Ketchup's Love Apple Pie looks just like an ordinary pie, but cut into it and -- surprise -- along with the apples you'll find a filling tinted red with ketchup. The sight may be off-putting, but the tomato taste is barely noticeable. For those brave enough to try: Blend 1/3 cup ketchup and 2 teaspoons of lemon juice.

The old sign behind the bar reads: "Remember Gentlemen, the Customer Is Always Wrong."This novel approach to patron relations hasn't hurt the Mount Vernon neighborhood's beloved Gerben's Cafe, a small establishment where the strongest thing to cross the bar is often a Taylor's pork roll sandwich.Isn't it ironic that this corner taproom at Maryland Avenue and Chase Street, which for decades remained an entrenched all-male bastion, is today dominated by the sunny personality and sweet demeanor of Margaret Glick Gerben, whose father opened the bar 75 years ago."

Mango: U.S. chefs, diners catching on to what the rest of the world loves. You know about mango chutneys and salsas, but what about mango sushi, mango cheesecake, mango candy or mango pizza? Mangoes are becoming as mainstream as the American apple. Supermarket shelves boast condiments from mango jam to mango ketchup. Chefs are incorporating them into sauces, slaws, sorbets. How mainstream? "You can get them in New Hampshire, that's the proof of it," says Tim Andriola, New Hampshire native and head chef at Mark's South Beach in Miami.