Pink

Salisbury -- Gender identification is a tricky business, especially when it is linked to food. If, for example, a big dish of pink chicken were placed in front of you, you would naturally assume that a woman made it. Pink, after all, is for girls and blue is for boys.That's what I thought when a dish officially called Chicken Royale -- stuffed chicken breasts covered in a raspberry vinaigrette -- was set before me and other judges at the 1992 Delmarva Chicken Cooking Contest held June 6th at the Salisbury Mall.

Former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith will be buried beside her son today in a custom-made gown after an extravagant, private and "very pink" memorial service bringing together the three people battling for custody of her baby daughter. The memorial service at Mount Horeb Baptist Church, west of downtown Nassau, the Bahamas, will be "very pink" and "over the top," with up to 300 guests, a singer and gazillions of pink flowers, organizer Patrik Simpson told the Associated Press. The burial will be much more intimate, with about 30 people, he said.

Pink. It has always been easy to pick out Shirley Muldowney from the crowd at an National Hot Rod Association drag race. She's the one in the pink driver's suit with the pink parachutes slowing her 8,000 horsepower, nitromethane-burning Top Fuel dragster. We'll miss her when they're gone. And she is going. Muldowney has pioneered a path for women in motorsports. She was the first woman to obtain an NHRA Top Fuel license and parlayed that into becoming the first and so far only woman to win an NHRA championship in 1977.

WHITE-COLLAR layoffs tripled in Maryland in the last fiscal year, putting thousands of professional, technical and managerial workers out of work during an economic recession that has rapidly become a nightmare for many once-comfortable families.In the year that ended June 30, at least 18,000 white-collar workers lost their jobs, compared with about 6,000 the previous year, according to the Maryland Department of Economic and Employment Development.The department says that struggling businesses have cut loose an increasing number of higher-skilled -- and higher-paid -- employees, many with incomes of $50,000 or more.

Think pink. If you're picturing ballerina shoes or a flouncy sundress - pretty, girlie, feminine things - then you're way behind the times. These days, pink is popping up in the most unlikely places. Over hairy chests. Covering bulging biceps. Atop a buzz cut. This is the summer of the masculine pink. Rappers, politicians, business types, inner-city boys on the city bus - all dressed in bubble gum, cotton candy, sunset pinks. For them, and other confident men, pink is the new white. "Pink is just fly," said Kenny McAllister, who studies lifestyle trends at the New York-based marketing company AMPdi.

Pink has trickled up to chic status, no mean achievement. In the fashion world, where black is the uniform of true believers, the introduction of color is perceived as a temporary fall from grace, forgivable but not encouraged. Pink in particular has been held in low regard.Suit by Rimini, $200, at Hecht's. Pearls, $96, at Trillium

Tie on your pink ribbon. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Each year, more and more women (and men) have become educated on breast cancer, its symptoms, treatments and medical breakthroughs. And, it seems, each year the month gives rise to more and more pink products, in recognition of the fight against breast cancer. Early on, the products marketed for the cause were fashion-geared -- from pink pendants and pink tote bags to pink T-shirts and pink socks. But in recent years, the pink products have ventured into the nifty-gift area, as well as into the garden, and, most visibly, the home.

I would love to party with Pink, and that makes me love her new album. If this sounds like dubious criteria for a critic, it's not. In a pop music landscape littered with boardroom-approved sex kittens and photo-ready rebels -- yes, Pink is all that, too -- the 24-year-old singer has an actual personality. She's cheeky and funny and blunt, all of which infuses her third album, Try This (Arista). When Pink announces she's trouble -- check out the disc's sassy first single -- we believe her. Imagine Christina or Britney, whose transformations from teen dreams into wild things smack more of a handler's vision than nature's call, pulling off a horn-stoked, throat-shredding tribute to Janis Joplin.

A Columbia company that holds the patent for a natural pigment that gives farm-raised salmon the glow of their pink, wild cousins expects to sign a licensing agreement with the nation's largest yeast maker.Igene Biotechnology Inc. signed a letter of intent yesterday with Burns Philp Food Inc. of San Francisco. Igene, whose astaxanthin can be added to the food of farm-raised salmon, will receive royalties from Burns Philp, but the exact amount was not disclosed.In exchange, Burns Philp, maker of Fleischmann's yeast, receives the exclusive manufacturing rights.

Q: I am a nurse and work in the emergency room of a large city hospital. When I'm not in white or green uniform, I wear pink. I have pink suits, pink blouses, pink dresses, even pink shoes. After the sterile white of the hospital I find pink feminine and cheerful.Then last month I was elected president of a nurses' organization, so I will have to chair meetings and make speeches. I've been told rather pointedly that pink is not a businesslike color. I agree.I'm short and have a good figure.