Sesame Seeds

Honey, ginger and soy sauce lend a sweet-savory flavor to this quick-cooked chicken. A coating of sesame seeds brightens the dish and adds crunch. Toasted sesame seeds and sesame oil have a rich flavor. Instead of toasting the seeds, I buy a jar of them already toasted in the sushi section of the supermarket. Toasted sesame oil, found in the Asian section, is good to keep on hand for flavoring vegetables and salads. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts can be used instead of thighs; cook to 170 degrees.

Microwaving is one of the newest cooking methods yet it has much in common with two of the most ancient, steaming and poaching. With a covered plate and a little liquid, the microwave oven cooks food fast without burning or drying it out. These Asian-inspired chicken rolls can be served hot, cold or at room temperature. Feel free to improvise with both filling and sauce, shifting from country to country for inspiration. Make it French with mushroom duxelles, tarragon and hollandaise. Or go Spanish with diced ham, green olives and olive oil. Bill Daley writes for the Chicago Tribune, which provided the recipe analysis.

More often than not when entertaining in the fall, I'll include a warm, robust soup as part of my menu. My penchant for potages is not serendipitous but rather deliberate. I love to serve soup for several reasons.Most important is the fact that soups generally improve in flavor when made in advance. I dislike hectic, last-minute cooking when friends come to dinner, and soups, which have been cooked ahead, need only a quick reheating at serving time. Then, of course, there's the versatility of soups; they can begin or anchor a meal.

The latest cookbooks celebrating Jewish culture and cuisine emphasize the global nature of the foods enjoyed. Among the holidays, Rosh Hashana, which this year begins at sundown on Sept. 20, marks the beginning of the new year with prayer and reflection. Some of the foods traditionally served represent plenty, or fertility, and honey and apples are served to symbolize hopes for a sweet year ahead. Here's an eclectic selection of recipes appropriate for Rosh Hashana.The first recipe, the Chicken With Almonds and Prunes, is a tagine, or stew, and is traditionally served over couscous or rice.

Some people may think that American menus have gotten altogether too detailed. The diner often knows by the dessert course which farm grew the soup's vegetables and whether the beef was corn- or grain-fed. But if you really want to get into the nitty-gritty, take a close peek at the plate and try to spot the seeds.They're popping up everywhere, and on some pretty elegant tables. Pumpkin, sunflower and sesame seeds, once mainly the staple of vegetarians, have gone upscale. Notice the black sesame seeds on the bread sticks served with tuna tartare; the pumpkin seed-dusted scallops; and the white sesame seeds in the guinea hen pot au feu."

To judge from supermarket shelves, chefs aren't the only ones who have discovered the richness of Far Eastern cuisine. Asian ingredients are no longer relegated to ethnic markets with strange-looking canned goods and dried fish lining the aisles.Supermarkets also are carrying a wide array of Asian items and they are no longer banished to the ethnic food aisle either. If you're just discovering this, you may want to start with just three items. We recommend adding rice wine vinegar, lemon grass and sesame oil to your shopping list.

Many people have no taste for slices of plain raw fish. But they do enjoy fish cooked rare like steak. Sesame seared tuna sashimi was made for them.I sampled it at the Sound of the Falls, a resort hotel on Kaanapali Beach in Maui, Hawaii. Executive chef James Reaux, who conducts cooking lessons for guests, taught me how to make it.A little like sashimi, sushi and tempura in one, seared sashimi combines the best features of some traditional Japanesefavorites: fish, seaweed and batter-coated, deep-fried foods.

When I am asked to describe "fusion cooking," I lean toward an explanation that has a specific meaning for me. Fusion cooking is food that I grew up eating.Two totally different cultures became a union -- and so did the food in our home -- when my Japanese mother married my African-American father. Of course, many meals that we ate retained the elements of each cuisine, but at times the dishes borrowed parts from each other to develop a new language of their own.When I first arrived in the United States at age 17, I found that my friends' acceptance of the foreign foods I loved was made easier if their introduction was softened through blending the unfamiliar with the familiar.

A handful of chips, some roasted nuts, a few crackers with savory cheese spreads -- even without that glass of eggnog, the fat content of these typical party appetizers strains healthful limits for an entire day. And there is little room for the main course ahead, let alone dessert.One alternative is to serve raw vegetables and an ersatz dip. Another is to try our selection of traditional hors d'oeuvres rescued from their high-fat pasts for the occasion.The following recipes are excerpted from a new cookbook coming out of the Eating Well Test Kitchen, the "Recipe Rescue Cookbook: Healthy New Approaches to Traditional Favorites" (Camden House Publishing, 1993; $24.95 hardcover, $18.95 softcover)

The Caribbean influence is more than a fad in some parts of the country -- it's become an integral part of the everyday cuisine.In places like South Florida, where some of the Caribbean islands are closer than a trip to the Northeast, many restaurants consider ingredients like black beans and rice as much a staple as salt and pepper.The following Fastlane Feast menu was inspired by a recent trip to Floridawhere we enjoyed some tasty black beans and yellow rice at the Aruba Cafe, a casual restaurant on the beach in Fort Lauderdale.

Honey, ginger and soy sauce lend a sweet-savory flavor to this quick-cooked chicken. A coating of sesame seeds brightens the dish and adds crunch. Toasted sesame seeds and sesame oil have a rich flavor. Instead of toasting the seeds, I buy a jar of them already toasted in the sushi section of the supermarket. Toasted sesame oil, found in the Asian section, is good to keep on hand for flavoring vegetables and salads. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts can be used instead of thighs; cook to 170 degrees.

I'm ready to start a home-baked cracker revolution to match the bread revolution of the past 15 years. I've spent nearly two decades trying to persuade folks to bake their own bread and, most recently, asked the nearly impossible: Make 100 percent whole-grain breads at home. It's been a noble, uphill battle. But I've encountered far less resistance in urging people to make their own whole-grain crackers - toasty, nutty, crisp, crackly crackers. Why the receptivity? It's probably because crackers are far easier and faster to make than breads.

Sue Miller of Canton, Ohio, was looking for a recipe for healthful homemade granola bars. Laura Pierce of Easthampton, Mass., sent in a recipe she found online at Mother Earth News. The recipe was developed some years ago by Denise Garoutte for her family. She says feel free to use her basic recipe as a guideline and make changes and additions that suit your family's tastes and preferences. I followed the core recipe. The only substitution I made was dried cherries for the raisins because I know my kids really like them, but you could add just about anything, I would think.

Microwaving is one of the newest cooking methods yet it has much in common with two of the most ancient, steaming and poaching. With a covered plate and a little liquid, the microwave oven cooks food fast without burning or drying it out. These Asian-inspired chicken rolls can be served hot, cold or at room temperature. Feel free to improvise with both filling and sauce, shifting from country to country for inspiration. Make it French with mushroom duxelles, tarragon and hollandaise. Or go Spanish with diced ham, green olives and olive oil. Bill Daley writes for the Chicago Tribune, which provided the recipe analysis.

XS 1307 N. Charles St. -- 410-468-0002 Hours --7 a.m.-midnight Mondays-Thursdays; 7 a.m.-2 a.m. Fridays-Saturdays; 9 a.m.-midnight Sundays Restaurant's estimate --15-20 minutes Ready in --8 minutes Though this order, $8.35, was the least oily, it bordered on bland. Marinated chicken seasoned with a few sesame seeds sat on top a bed of mostly tasteless noodles and chopped vegetables.

The Big Book of Appetizers By Meredith Deeds and Carla Snyder Williams-Sonoma Cocktail Parties By Georgeanne Brennan Free Press / 2006 / $24.95 With its eye-catching photos, handy checklists, work plans and food-and-drink pairings, this offering from Williams-Sonoma had us at hello -- until we perused the "Winter Cocktails" section, which we found short on substance for this important entertaining season. While pomegranate sparklers made for a nice, nonalcoholic drink idea, the recipes, including cheese fondue and oysters Rockefeller, lacked zip. But the "Wine & Cheese Party" section offered a measure of redemption -- a recipe for tasty, fun Cheddar- Cheese-and- Sesame Bites that we know we'll make again and again.

My husband, a quintessential extrovert, never met a stranger, so after several decades of living with him, I'm no longer surprised when he mentions that he's invited friends over for wine and appetizers. He often asks a group of his fellow professors who are working on a project together to meet at our house for drinks, or he'll arrive home from work, announcing that he's met some new people I am certain to like, and that they can stop by for cocktails on such and such a day. He reasons that having guests in for sips and nibbles is not the same as a dinner party, so he can be spontaneous.

When a bag of kale showed up on the doorstep, courtesy of our neighbors departing on an unexpected trip, it raised the age-old question: What to do? What to do? Somehow Asian flavors came to mind, a departure in our house where almost everything has a Mediterranean influence. With ginger root and a few other flavorings, this dish quickly came together. Pork chops were in the fridge, so they became the protein - but chicken would be a delicious substitute. Joe Gray writes for the Chicago Tribune, which provided the recipe and analysis.

The fragrance of roasting sesame seeds wafts from a corner of the cavernous Rhee Bros. warehouse in Columbia. Mini-forklift trucks zip past pallets stacked high with crates of ramen, soy sauce, hot pepper paste, tea, pickled vegetables, salted jellyfish, soft drinks and rice. In a second warehouse nearby, a kitchen crew trims mounds of radishes, napa cabbage and scallions in preparation for making kimchi, the pungent Korean staple. The bustling warehouse tableaux speak volumes about the changing face of America - and its evolving palate.

Many dishes in Angela Shelf Medearis' The Ethnic Vegetarian (Holtzbrinck, 2004, $18.95) aren't healthful in their traditional form, but she designs her recipes with health in mind. Bacon grease is omitted from American Southern dishes, for example, although Medearis doesn't leave out the butter and frying altogether. Medearis also draws from African, Afro-Caribbean, Native American, creole and Cajun, and modern African-American cooking. The book is divided by cuisine, and within each cuisine by course (for example, soups and stews, and main dishes)