Potato Chips

Amy Ackerman of Aurora, Ore., was looking for a recipe for a scalloped-potato-and-salmon dish she thought was called "Loxlotta." She said that she ate this casserole many years ago in a small town in the northeast corner of Oregon - where salmon fishing is an important industry - populated by many people of Finnish and Norwegian backgrounds. Irma Ollila of Clatskanie, Ore., had a recipe for a salmon casserole she calls "Laxlada" that seemed to be exactly what Ackerman was looking for. It can be made using either canned or fresh salmon.

Potatoes are one of the most versatile of foods. They can be used in many ways. In addition to classic vichyssoise, the usual scalloped potatoes, picnic salads, potato chips and fries, there's potato gnocchi, even potato risotto. Many chefs cook up herb-laminated potato chips -- potatoes are sliced very thin lengthwise, leaves of fresh herbs are sandwiched in between, then brushed with butter and baked until crispy with the herbs showing through. In a trendy fashion, potatoes are shredded and crusted around fish, which is then seared, giving it a delicious crunchy coat.

Is the potato chip your family's favorite snack food? A "must see" for lovers of potato chips is "The Utz Potato Chip Trip," a self-guided tour of Utz Quality Foods, up Route 30 in Hanover, Pa.The business has grown from a few bags of potatoes fried by Bill and Sallie Utz in 1921 to today's 10,000 pounds of spuds per hour.The factory on High Street permits visitors to see how potatoes become chips from an elevated gallery. The tour includes a tape-recorded explanation of the plant.The observation gallery is open Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., although chips are not always in production Friday.

You'll have a sweet time in the kitchen when you bake potato-chip cookies and a syrup pie.Ethel Coffey of Owensboro, Ky., requested a syrup pie recipe which she enjoyed "during World War II when sugar was rationed but we had plenty of Karo syrup. It tasted like a pecan pie without the nuts," she wrote.Julia Devine from McLean, Ky., responded. "My mother, who is now 90, gave me this recipe when I married in 1961 and I am still making her pie," she wrote.Devine's Syrup Pie Makes 2 pies5 eggs, slightly beaten1 1/2 cups syrup (dark is preferred)

POLITICS is at least 50 percent symbolism. The Glendening administration enters the 1996 legislative session bearing a certified trademark not only of Maryland's whacky business policies but also of its own failures to substantially change those policies last session.Gov. Parris N. Glendening called the 1995 General Assembly term "the most pro-business legislative session in two decades."Well, everything is relative.A pro-business session in Maryland is one where they don't enact a five-year plan to nationalize the telephone companies.

Chips and dip.They're pretty much a way of life for some of us, and why not?They're easy to fix and widely appealing, and leave a minimum of mess to clean up. They work outdoors, at a fancy evening party, or when you're curled up watching a baseball game on TV.There is a "not" of course: A 1-ounce serving of those crispy fried potato slices typically contains about 150 calories, and 8 to 10 grams of fat. And when you add a dip, say that simple sour-cream-and-onion-soup-mix concoction,...

A child's hunger is fleeting. Challenge it with a spinach-speckled casserole and it will vanish, but greet it with some fun and it just might explode in excitement.It is a cruel irony of my profession that the less I cook the better my three children like it. They reject without tasting anything sauced or leafy, but have praise unending for naked pasta (Is there cheese on this spaghetti?) and canned baked beans (This is the best you ever made, Dad!). For many years I resented every meal I uncanned for them, but then everything changed.

Helen Pepperney compares her orchid collection to children and potato chips."They're like spoiled children -- they only do their thing when they're good and ready," she said of trying to get her plants to bloom."

* Anwar al-Khatib, 76, a Palestinian who served as governor of Jerusalem under Jordanian rule, died of a heart attack Sunday in Jerusalem. He was an adviser to the Jordanian-Palestinian delegation to U.S.-backed peace talks in 1991. When Israel seized east Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war, he was Jerusalem's governor.* William Cleator, who as acting mayor created a minor scandal by touching Britain's Queen Elizabeth II during a visit to San Diego in 1983, died Wednesday of cancer. He was 65.* Dr. Joseph P. Donnelly, 86, a former medical director of the Margaret Hague Maternity Hospital in Jersey City, N.J., and past president of New Jersey Blue Shield, died Tuesday at Christ Hospital in Jersey City.

Want to bake a tuna casserole and a loaf of blueberry bread? Even if you're skeptical, there's an excellent chance you'll be glad you did.Also, how about a recipe for a filling for kolaches which answers the request of Sally Fleming of Bend, Ore.John Eisele of Columbia requested the tuna casserole. He wrote, "When I was traveling, I remember a tuna casserole that had peas in it with a thick sauce and a strong but enjoyable taste of tuna." He also noted that he had tried duplicating the recipe but had not been successful.

For almost a century, two homegrown companies have dominated the small Pennsylvania town of Hanover: Snyder's, famous for its pretzels, and Utz, an expert in potato chips. Sometimes the family-owned companies competed with new products, but for the most part, they co-existed - until this week. After squaring off against other snack food makers in the fight for dominance on supermarket shelves and in the cupboards of Maryland consumers, the companies have announced a plan to join forces.

Glenda Blurton of Canton, Ohio, was looking for a recipe for a potato-chip cookie. She remembered that the batter contained chips. Colleeen Norris of Pennville, Ind., had a recipe for the cookies that her aunt gave her at least 30 years ago. Her recipe says either butterscotch or chocolate chips can be used. I tested the recipe using chocolate chips. The cookies were very similar to a classic Toll House chocolate-chip cookie, but the addition of the potato chips made them extra crunchy and extra good.

Food ** (2 stars) Service *** (3 stars) Atmosphere **1/2 (2 1/2 stars) Whether you like Big Kahuna Cantina, the newest Harborplace eating spot, may depend on how much you like sweets. At least that's what crossed my mind when I ate a few of the potato chips that come with the ground ahi-tuna burger. (It turned out they were dusted with Kona coffee, which for some reason gave them a slight sugary flavor.) The tuna burger itself had a slice of grilled pineapple on top. That was after I had ordered a glass of sangria that tasted like fruit syrup.

Amy Ackerman of Aurora, Ore., was looking for a recipe for a scalloped-potato-and-salmon dish she thought was called "Loxlotta." She said that she ate this casserole many years ago in a small town in the northeast corner of Oregon - where salmon fishing is an important industry - populated by many people of Finnish and Norwegian backgrounds. Irma Ollila of Clatskanie, Ore., had a recipe for a salmon casserole she calls "Laxlada" that seemed to be exactly what Ackerman was looking for. It can be made using either canned or fresh salmon.

Are you on schedule? You have only a few more days to fulfill your personal quota of TV watching for the year - 1,555 hours, according to a report released by the U.S. Census earlier this month. To put it another way, if on Jan. 1 of this year you turned your television on and watched it around the clock, you wouldn't have turned it off until March 6. That's just one factoid gleaned from the Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2007, a compilation of 1,376 charts tallying how much Americans earn ($39,354, on average)

While most other big cities put national potato chip retailer Lay's at the top of their favorite list, Baltimoreans remain loyal to their regional brand. Utz leads locally with $28 million in supermarket sales in the Baltimore-Washington area, leaving Lay's in second place with $11 million, according to a Chicago company that studies food trends. Utz, produced in Hanover, Pa., is among such local favorites as Esskay bacon and Berger Cookies. And in this region, the chip has long been able to outsell Lay's potato chips, the national brand of behemoth Frito-Lay Inc. Lay's has successfully dominated the chip market in other cities throughout the country.

Kathy Cotugno of Woodstock, Ill., was looking for a recipe for a tuna-and-potato-chip casserole that did not contain any noodles. Many readers sent us the same recipe for this old-fashioned classic. Most have had it in their collections for many years. For some, it was one of the first dishes they learned to prepare and for all it is still a tried-and-true family favorite. It is by no means a fancy dish, but it is truly a comfort food that kids and grown-ups alike are sure to enjoy. I recommend spending the extra money and using a white albacore tuna packed in water.

Vibrations from the heavy machines made the floor beneath our feet rumble. Through the plate-glass windows, we could see giant machines at work, sprinkling salt on potato chips and weighing pretzels before they were placed in bags. Our guide at the Snyder's of Hanover factory in Hanover, Pa., Chris Long, showered us with facts and tidbits as we watched the high-tech process of creating snack foods. We learned, for example, that Snyder's has about 1,000 employees and that the journey from raw flour to finished pretzel takes about 45 minutes.

The grilled-cheese sandwich at Sun Moon & Stars might be the best you've ever tasted. The warm Swiss cheese oozes between thick slices of tangy, slightly buttery and perfectly toasted sourdough bread. Nestled alongside the sandwich is a generous handful of house-made potato chips - crisp, thin, slightly brown, delicately salted and completely free of grease. Top them off with a glass of fresh lemonade that's more sweet than tart, and you've got a treat. Sun Moon & Stars, which opened in February on Red Brook Boulevard in a sterile office park off Owings Mills Boulevard, could have coasted along as a deli serving bagels, sandwiches and salads to the power-suit crowd.

IT WILL BE a cold day in Camden Yards when hot chocolate outsells beer. But as the Oriole season opened, a cashier working a concession stand along the first-base line predicted that day had arrived. He looked at my $2.25 cup of hot chocolate and said, "These are selling better than beer." He was exaggerating. Cups of the 158-degree hot chocolate were being served only at a handful of locations in Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Meanwhile, cups of beer were being poured at almost every outpost.