Sugar

If the Black Eyed Susan were a race horse, it would be a sprinter. It makes one strong move, then fades quickly. The strong move occurs this weekend when the cocktail will be in demand at Pamlico Race Track, during both the running of the Black Eyed Susan Stakes on Friday and the Preakness Stakes on Saturday. Over these two days, about 25,000 servings of the libation, poured into commemorative glasses, will be sold at $8 apiece, track officials say. But as soon as Preakness weekend ends, so does the does the local thirst for the Susan.

Some of Baltimore's best-known candy makers are pressing Congress to overturn a decades-old sugar policy they say is leaving a bad taste in their mouth. Goetze's Candy Co., Wockenfuss Candies and others want lawmakers to rethink long-standing restrictions on foreign sugar imports that they argue are inflating the cost of making caramels, toffees and chocolates. The debate between the sugar industry - including the ASR Group, which owns Baltimore's Domino Sugar plant - and confectioners and others who buy sugar by the truckload is expected to come to a head this week in the Senate.

Cold and creamy, a lassi is a perfect treat for a summer day, especially when it's flavored with fresh, ripe fruit. Lassis, as fans of Indian food will know, are similar to milkshakes, except they're made with yogurt rather than ice cream. And like a good milkshake, a lassi is versatile enough to carry a wide variety of flavors. If you're like me, you tasted your first lassi in an adventurous moment at an Indian restaurant. Chances are the flavor was mango, which is always a good choice but especially now when fresh mangoes are abundant.

Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a relatively obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar, another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word: RADDLED There is a connection between sheep and looking overtired. Be patient. The word comes from ruddle , a red pigment used for marking sheep. Raddled originally meant "colored red," then came to be associated with rouge, and then with women wearing rouge to conceal, with varying success, the ravages of time.

The Maryland Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined Domino Sugar $4,000 for allowing sugar dust to accumulate in its refinery, which is believed to have caused an explosion last year at the Key Highway plant in South Baltimore, according to a state report. The Nov. 2 explosion echoed across the harbor, and authorities said they suspected sugar dust might have ignited. Three employees suffered minor injuries, several pieces of equipment were destroyed and dozens of windows were shattered in the blast.

Marilyn Glessner of Canton, Ohio, was hoping someone would have a recipe for a good rice pudding that is sugar-free. "Since I have been a diabetic for years and love rice pudding, I would really like to have a recipe for this." Carol Lou Boyd of Collins, Colo., sent in a rice-pudding recipe she found taken from a cookbook called "Fantastic Foods With Splenda." The recipe makes a very tasty rice pudding and, thanks to the sugar substitute Splenda, low-fat milk and fat-free half-and-half, it would be ideal for someone on a sugar- or calorie-restricted diet.

Pam Kelleman of Phoenix was looking for a recipe for a layer cake that was served at the now-closed Pimlico Hotel restaurant in Baltimore. She was hoping a reader would have the "original" recipe for the cake. Unfortunately, I did not receive any responses, but I happened to notice that Atwater's bakery at Belvedere Square makes a version of this hometown favorite. Ned Atwater was kind enough to modify his Pimlico cake recipe for the home baker. I tested his cake, and it was just as Kelleman described the original: a yellow chiffon layer cake filled with Bavarian custard and iced with a rich chocolate frosting.

My brown sugar has turned rock-hard. What can I do to soften it without melting it? There are a number of popular tricks for softening brown sugar, and that's a good thing. Because brown sugar is much moister than granulated sugar, it dries out easily. If you have a couple of days, try placing a slice of apple and the hardened sugar in an airtight container. Check it after a day or so and see if the sugar is crumbly again. If you're in a hurry, put the brown sugar in a dish covered by two damp paper towels and a lid. Microwave it on high (100 percent)

On Wednesday, August 10, 2005, MARSHALL SUGAR; beloved husband of Anna Sugar (nee Swartz); devoted father of the late Alan Jacob Sugar; dear father-in-law of Doris Sugar; devoted brother of Lillian Taylor of Baltimore, MD and late the late Dora; loving grandfather of David and Jennifer Sugar, Jeffrey Michael Sugar; loving great grandfather of Alani and Isiah Sugar; loving uncle of Stuart and Phyllis Cutler. Funeral Service and Interment will be held at the Beth El Memorial Park, Randallstown, on Friday, August 12 at 2 P.M. Please omit flowers.

Don't throw away hardened brown sugar.* Put a wedge of apple into the box or bag of sugar and reclose it, then microwave on high power for 20 seconds per cup of sugar; let it stand for five minutes; repeat if necessary.* Put it, in its bag (but not box), in a 350-degree oven. By the time the bag is warm, the sugar should be softened or delumped.@

Linda Settles from Havre de Grace was looking for a recipe for brown sugar pie that duplicated the one her grandmother used to make. She said her grandmother had five daughters but none of them remember how she made the pie. Jeannie Armstrong from Dayton, MD found a recipe for the pie in a cookbook she bought at an antique store years ago. It was first published in 1915 and revised in 1944. I tested the recipe that she kindly sent in and found that it needed a little tweaking.

Former Baltimorean Craig Strydom intentionally attended the 85th Academy Awards wearing his father-in-law's tuxedo, the one with the tiny tear in one leg. The music journalist chose not to mend the small rip. He figured it would keep him grounded if the film that his work inspired, "Searching for Sugar Man," didn't win an Oscar. He needn't have worried. The fairy tale story that began in the mid-1990s in Strydom's native South Africa captured the top prize Sunday night for best documentary.

Baltimore may not be Hollywood East, but once again, the Oscars include a distinctly Bawlamer element. Craig Bartholomew Strydom, writer of the Oscar-winning documentary "Searching for Sugar Man," lived in Baltimore until last year. Read about his involvement with the film here . With some luck, maybe he'll return to Baltimore for his next project? Perhaps a documentary on Frank Zappa? Now there's a documentary that needs to be done...  

The plink, plink, plink of sap hitting the bottom of a metal bucket is music to Sheryl Pedrick's ears, she says. That means there will be a symphony in the woods around Ladew Topiary Gardens in Monkton in the weeks ahead. The education coordinator at the gardens has been tapping the maple trees the old-fashioned way - with a hand drill and metal spouts and stainless steel buckets that she's collected from farm sales - and before the season ends in March, she will have collected 30 or 40 gallons of sap and boiled it down until it becomes the delicious amber-colored syrup that puts Aunt Jemima to shame.

Did you know that experts predict our children will be the first generation to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents? You ask, why? Today, children drink more sugar-sweetened beverages than their parents, as children. Too much sugar in the diet, especially in liquid form, has been linked to development of high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and many more diseases. Sugar-sweetened beverages supply half of the added sugar in the diets of 12-17-year-olds and one-third of the added sugar in diets of 2-5-year-olds.

Akis Anagnostou is in the zone. Anagnostou, the pastry chef at Ouzo Bay, Harbor East's new Greek hot spot, holds a saucepan at an angle, rapidly stirring its contents with a metal spoon. Every few seconds, he lifts the spoon, pulling with it a long tail of sugary blue liquid that extends back into the pan. After several minutes, he deems the sugar ready, dropping a dollop of the liquid on a nonstick mat. Dipping a small funnel-like tool in the sugar solution, the chef leans over, blowing gently into the funnel as he carefully and slowly draws the tool, and attached sugar, upward.

On October 3, 2003 ANNE, beloved sister of Morris Sugar of Baltimore, MD and Jack Sugar of Garrett Park, MD and the late Sadie Belzer and Sarah Singer, devoted sister-in-law Helene Sugar and Judith Sugar. Services and interment will be held at Adath Israel Anshe Sfard Congregation Cemetery, German Hill Road on Tuesday, October 7 at 10 A.M. Please omit flowers. In mourning at (North Oaks), 725 Mt. Wilson Lane, Unit 226 (21208). Arrangements by SOL LEVINSON AND BROS INC.

While the Sugar Association applauds efforts to combat childhood obesity, delivering 10 tons of sugar (or white sand as the case may be) to illustrate what people are putting in their bodies when they drink a soda unfortunately misses the mark, as does The Sun's headline: "Howard bans sales of sugary drinks on county property" (Dec. 12). Sugar is sucrose - the all-natural sweetener you keep on your kitchen counter, not the sweetener in most beverages. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than 90 percent of all caloric sweetener used in beverages in the United States is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)