Paella

Angel Sanz has left his extended family at Tio Pepe to become chef at the Scarlett Cove Cafe. How well does he cook in different rooms? Beautifully.Scarlett Cove Cafe opened in February, at street level below the condominiums and offices of Scarlett Place. West of Little Italy and east of the aquarium, the cafe's an easy walk from the harbor -- a happy location, therefore, for a casual restaurant that serves first-class food at affordable prices.The cafe's attitude is informal: Our waitress wore black and white, chic coffee-shop garb; a waiter wore shirt sleeves.

Dishes seasoned with Maryland charm Take a culinary trip through Frederick and the surrounding area in a new cookbook, "In the Kitchen With Kendi" by cooking instructor Kendi O'Neill. The Frederick resident offers 100 seasonal recipes pegged to Maryland, with contributions from local chefs. Highlights also include cooking tips, serving suggestions and information on traditions, farmers' markets and historical sites. The book, which costs $29.95, is available through Diversions Publications at 800-272-2014.

  Need a new paella pan or a souffle dish? Best Buy Co.and Cooking.com have teamed up to launch an online store for cooks. The Best Buy Kitchen Shop, a microsite run by Cooking.com, offers more than 3,000 cookware and kitchen products and is accessible within the bestbuy.com online store, the companies said this week. Executives at Best Buy, which sells small and large appliances along with electronics, said the partners hope to offer customers  a “one-stop shop for all of their cooking needs - including a broader assortment of housewares, food and even recipes,” a Best Buy statement said.

It's a great marketing ploy. You print up a bunch of bumper stickers that say "Eat Bertha's Mussels," and you actually get people to put them on their cars. Not relatives of the owners. Random people.Note that the bumper stickers don't say "Bertha's Mussels Are Good." They simply tell you to eat them. And people do. Suddenly Bertha's Dining Room, a Fells Point bar, is known for its mussels all over the city, maybe the state. People flock to Bertha's for its mussels.Bertha's serves the specialty of the house with eight different sauces, ranging from melted butter to an anchovy, tomato and garlic butter.

All restaurants make mistakes. How they handle them is a test of their mettle. During our visit to 4 Seasons Grille in Gambrills, the kitchen messed up, serving a piece of undercooked chicken. But the staff handled the error professionally and swiftly, and raw chicken aside, the dish was good, leaving us with a positive impression of the place. Located in the Village at Waugh Chapel, 4 Seasons is part of a small, locally owned chain. Inside, the space is full of warm colors and comfortable booths, most of which were filled with families and small groups of friends on a recent Thursday night.

The Riddle of the Compass: The Invention that Changed the World, by Amir D. Aczel. Harcourt. 178 pages. $23. If books were classified like birds or butterflies, The Riddle of the Compass would go into the family of literary nonfiction. This genre deals with topics that might be treated in academic history, science or biography, but without the formalistic jargon, massed detail and elaborate footnoting of scholarly writing. Literary nonfiction, in short, aims to tell true stories in a brisk, entertaining and commercially successful way. Books of this sort are easily identified.

What would we do without South America? The continent has given us corn, chocolate, hot peppers, peanuts and potatoes. Amazingly, until the conquistadors invaded South America in the 16th century, these essentials were unknown anywhere else. Many of the recipes in The South American Table (Harvard Common Press, 2003, $19.95) include these ingredients, which play a key role in the continent's cuisine. Actually, to call it a single cuisine seems slightly unfair. (Is there such a thing as "North American" or "European" cuisine?

In the early days of my career as a cooking teacher, I was fascinated by the creative aspects of my work. I loved to take traditional recipes and give them new twists. One of my first inventions was a paella salad offered in a course on summer salads. Saffron-scented rice was combined with cooked shrimp, julienned red and green bell peppers and fresh herbs, then tossed in a red wine vinaigrette. Almost overnight, this recipe became a smash hit with my students. Repeatedly, they told me that the paella salad was one of their favorite entrees.

We all love sandwiches made from leftover turkey or chicken, but when they grow boring I often turn to other, perhaps more inspiring, dishes. A paella is one solution. The traditional Spanish version includes seafood, sausage and chicken nestled in saffron rice. Here, I've speeded up the process by eliminating the sausage and seafood and using leftover turkey or chicken. Tips Spanish smoked paprika (pimenton; available in specialty or spice shops) works great in this dish, but Hungarian or regular paprika works well, too. Look for chopped onions and peppers in the supermarket's produce aisle.

2002 Palacio Menade Verdejo ($11). This dry white wine from Spain's Rueda region offers a wealth of flavor and considerable complexity for its modest price. This medium- to full-bodied wine offers flavors of nuts, minerals, pear, apples and lemon, giving it a resemblance to a top-flight Italian pinot grigio that might cost twice as much. This would be a very versatile wine to serve with spicy seafood dishes - especially paella.