Tabasco Sauce

As someone who has always cooked dried beans and chicken soup from scratch, I used to find the idea of bringing a jar of commercially made spaghetti sauce into my house unthinkable.Well, times have changed.Today's bottled sauces taste fresher and more flavorful than they used to. The preservatives are gone, and using them is as easy as opening a can of soup.New varieties include sun-dried tomato, four cheeses, garden vegetables, mushroom and onion, zesty garlic, fat-free, chunky, Mom's, house red, northern Italian, southern Italian, European-style, California-style, seafood and cacciatore.

"Are you here to sell me something? Or do you wanna drink?" Thus did a dodgy looking 20-something greet us upon our entering Dick's Last Resort at the Inner Harbor's Power Plant complex. My first thought was: "Does this guy really think I look like a Bev Nap salesman?" 12:50 We stand momentarily stunned in Dick's lobby. It looks like a Gap t-shirt display, only more crass. That, by the way, is a compliment to both places. The rest of the joint looks like its interior decorator blew his entire $138 budget at a surf-shop fire sale.

Olivia J. Walker of Baltimore requested a recipe for a hot crab dip. Her answer came from Ethel Lowe of Salisbury, N.C., who wrote: "Over the Fourth of July I went to visit my daughter, Barbara Kennedy, at Oak Island, N.C. I went into a store at Southport, N.C., and found a real nice seafood-secrets cookbook. "A lady requested a recipe for hot creamy crab dip, so I thought I would send the one in the book to her. My son-in-law has a nephew who has opened a restaurant in South Port, N.C., and he serves this hot creamy crab dip and says it doesn't stay around long before he is sold out."

Beer -- it isn't just for sipping, slurping, chugging and drinking.It's great for cooking, too.And not just for marinating ribs or adding to a barbecue sauce. There are many ways to cook with it and a variety of beers to experiment with.Many places in the United States are brewing up some pretty tasty and refreshing microbrews these days. But how do you know which beer to splash into your recipes?There really is only one true way to answer that, and that is by trial and error. For instance, when making a Blue Cheese and Beer Dressing, I poured a little of the dressing into a cup, added a tiny bit of beer and tasted it. That's how to do it -- just keep trying different combinations until you like what you have concocted.

When Hilton Braithwaite began working in restaurants in his native Cambridge, Mass., while still in high school, he knew he was making money. "But I didn't know what I was acquiring was a trade," he said. "That I could always find work."These days, after a stint as a photography teacher at Howard University, he is back to being a chef, at Mount Vernon's Central Station restaurant.Photography and cooking have always been the two driving factors in Braithwaite's life. He finds both challenging and rewarding, and cooking is always there if art leads to lean times.

A good deal of the American idea of eating well revolves around simple, delicious dishes of the sort featured here. But many American culinary classics date to times when the amount of fat in a dish was of no concern. Today, it is a concern, but simple techniques and savvy use of ingredients eliminate the problem.Crab CakesServes 61 pound fresh lump crab meat (2 cups), picked over and patted dry1 cup fresh bread crumbs1/4 cup reduced-fat mayonnaise1 large egg white, lightly beaten with a fork2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice1 scallion, trimmed and finely chopped1/3 cup finely diced red or green bell pepper1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon Tabasco sauce1/2 cup fine dry bread crumbs1 teaspoon vegetable oil, preferably canola oillemon wedges for garnishHeat oven to 450 degrees.

Most vegetarian cookbooks seem like compendiums of side dishes. So sue me: I'm a confirmed carnivore. But lately, with so much in the news about the health benefits of soy foods, I decided to explore the wonders of tofu and tempeh. After some experimenting, I still felt they weren't the most intriguing foodstuffs. Sue me again: I'm not going to eat something just because it's good for me. Then along came Ken Charney's new The Bold Vegetarian Chef (John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2002, $29.95)

The signs have been posted at seafood stores: "Buy 12 crabs and get 6 free," and the restaurants are once again offering all-you-can-eat deals on the popular crustacean. So it only figures that readers' appetites have been whetted for the succulent taste of Maryland's famous shellfish.Marla Berker of Bel Air asked for a recipe for individual crab souffles that get very puffy when baked. Fran Shivler of Pasadena responded with a recipe appropriately called "Crab Puffs," from "How to Cook Crabs," by Dorothy M. Robey and Rose G. Kerr.

Greg Linscombe, a gruff Louisiana wildlife biologist, is an unlikely fashion setter, but these days he is paying attention to trends in fur. "People dress more casually now," he said. "You see women wearing fur with a pair of jeans, or fur trim mixed in with their ski fashions. You're really seeing it more in boutiques right now than major department stores." Linscombe's interest in fur has everything to do with his job: protecting Louisiana's marshes. Since the 1980s, he says, 100,000 acres of marshland have been devastated by rapacious fur-bearing rodents called nutrias, which feed on grasses.

This soup is like guacamole in a bowl. The tomato salsa garnish is essential to the recipe, for it highlights the subtle taste of the avocados. Although this soup can easily kick off a summer supper, it could also step into the role of a main course. You could serve it as is or make it more substantial by adding a garnish of grilled skewered shrimp to each bowl. Chilled Avocado Soup Garnished With Fresh Tomato Salsa Serves 6 SALSA: 2 cups diced tomatoes (6 to 8 plum tomatoes), with seeds and membranes removed and discarded, cut into 1/2 -inch pieces 1 cup finely chopped onion 1 1/2 tablespoons minced jalapeno pepper (about one 3-inch pepper, with seeds and membranes discarded)