Sausage

Spaghetti and tomato sauce are a natural pairing, yes, but pasta can go with sauces white, yellow, green or, as here, brown. This was one of my mother's favorite quick one-dish meals in winter. The sauce was something of a no-brainer. My mother used pre-fab stuff, but the smoky breakfast sausage links and the woodsy mushrooms more than made up for it. A couple of tips: Substitute ground beef meatballs or crumbled Italian sausage for the breakfast sausage. And skip the cream or use half-and-half for a lighter sauce.

I don't know whether I am coming or going this time of the year. My "to do" list seems to get longer every day. "Finish buying the Christmas presents, mail out the cards, decorate the tree," I write on our calendar, and my gregarious husband adds, "Have a party." I love to entertain during this season, but this December, I seem to have less free time than usual, so I've decided to combine one of my holiday tasks with entertaining by hosting a small "trim the tree and soup supper." My husband is ecstatic because he is not a natural-born tree trimmer.

My Italian-born mother instilled in me a love for many foods of her homeland, especially the fresh fruit and vegetables hard to find here in the States when I was growing up in the '60s and '70s. Chief among them was fennel. The crisp, slightly sweet, gently licorice-flavored vegetable was a favorite snack eaten raw. Nowadays I use it most often in cooking. Its aromatic properties and mellowed flavor when cooked are the basis of this dish. Added are other fragrant vegetables - leeks and onions - and white beans and chicken sausage for heft.

Palmyra, Pa. -- Where there's smoke, there's history in Pennsylvania Dutch Country, where Lebanon bologna has remained a popular foodstuff since the 18th century. The uninitiated may dismiss Lebanon bologna as an obscure luncheon meat, but for those who grew up eating slices of the stuff in sandwiches, served fried with eggs or smeared with cream cheese, it is an "identity food" redolent of southeastern Pennsylvania's distinctive culinary heritage. "True Lebanon sausage," writes Evan Jones in American Food: The Gastronomic Story, "is made of nothing but coarsely ground beef pre-cured and aged in barrels, then seasoned with sweet herbs and assertive spices, forced into airtight casings, and smoked over smoldering sawdust for a matter of days."

The Baltimore Kickers, one of the many German heritage clubs in town, say they're bringing a piece of their dear old Vaterland to Towson this weekend. The second annual German-American Springfest will feature oompah bands, frothy German beer and plates full of sausages and schnitzel. German enthusiasts will don lederhosen and dance the polka. Festivities run 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday and noon-6 p.m. Sunday at Towson Courthouse Square. Admission is $3. "It is like getting a piece of Germany without airfare," said Cecilia League, who is helping to organize the festival.

As soon as you step through the front door of 524 S. Washington St., it hits you: the spicy, smoky, garlicky and altogether unmistakable smell of tradition. For 86 years at this tan rowhouse on a residential Fells Point street, a family named Ostrowksi has practiced carnivorous magic, making homemade sausages that people return for again and again. For 86 years, it's been one Ostrowski or another grinding, seasoning and hand-shaping that meat, working to the dictates of time-tested recipes.

With both chicken and a pound of sausage in the fridge about to go bad, drastic action was called for. But which to cook, which to freeze? In the end, both went into a pan with a little wine, some onions and tomatoes and olives from the pantry; dinner was done. The sausages keep the chicken moist as they cook. The dish creates a lot of sauce, which is great with orzo pasta or rice. To the menu, add a salad of sliced fennel bulb and oranges simply dressed with a little drizzled olive oil, coarse salt and freshly ground pepper, an Italian classic.

Baby, it's cold outside, very cold. And when you come inside, you want something warming, and you want it right away. This dish almost could be called "snow-shovel soup" in honor of its warming properties after that hated winter task, but it's not quite a soup, nor quite a pasta dish. The broth gets added near the end, and it's just enough to float the stars of the dish: the sausage, greens and other vegetables. All you need add is a good crusty bread. For dessert, a bit of a downscale guilty pleasure after the healthful- ness of the main dish: canned cling peaches in heavy syrup (light syrup only saves you about 20 calories, so who are we kidding?

Soup seems to suffer from bad press lately. My husband, a trencherman if ever there was one, says soup isn't dinner; it's a snack. My neighbor says soup is supper fit only for sick people. Bosh, I say. On a gusty autumn evening, soup is the absolute best thing for supper. If you've had the foresight to stock your freezer with chicken and beef stock, soup is a sure bet. If you haven't, then canned stock will do very nicely, thank you. There are, of course, long-simmered soups, the kind left on the back of the range to fill the house with their homey aroma.