Table

The sponsor of legislation intended to block construction of a 23-story tower in downtown Columbia plans to ask the County Council to table her bills for 30 days in hopes that a compromise can be reached, after a lengthy, closed-door meeting of interested parties. "There was agreement in the room that it had been a productive day and we needed to talk some more," Councilwoman Mary Kay Sigaty said after Friday's meeting. Sigaty represents the district where the 160-unit Plaza Residences is being built and is the sponsor of the two bills.

Keep your elbows off the table. Address the gal with the tiara as "Your Majesty." And after it's all over, issue a press release. "President Hrabowski Dines with Queen Elizabeth II at British Embassy," says the headline from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. About 120 people can say they had dinner with Queen Elizabeth at the British ambassador's residence last week. Just a few were actually at Her Majesty's table. Not Hillary Clinton. Not Martin O'Malley. But UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski scored big-time Britannic bragging rights.

I have a friend who married into a Baltimore family in 1997 and had a vague idea that their traditional Thanksgiving meal included sauerkraut. Eager to embrace all things dear to her dear one, she arranged for her mother to include it at their first Thanksgiving as newlywed guests in faraway northern Virginia. It turns out that this particular Baltimore family is fond of hot coleslaw, which is definitely not sauerkraut. Three years passed before she understood the difference. It's a story that will be told at their table this afternoon - and will mean something different to each person at the table - ranging from "Mom is so dumb!"

No waiter or waitress will appear at your table, but don't sweat it. In the restaurant of the future, diners can take their own orders on table-side monitors. They might also get a front-row seat to chefs working from customized cooking islands. And they'll likely be ordering more "heart smart" items, such as Tuscan Tomato soup or Mahogany Ginger Hen.Eating out has never been quite like this.For now, some of the ideas exist only in the minds of members of the Restaurant Association of Maryland, bringing state-of-the-art restaurant features to life this week at Cafe 2000, a model of a 21st-century restaurant.

In a small-town greasy spoon where the house special is a fried oyster sandwich and a waitress named June doles out kisses with coffee, three old friends gather to brag about the glory days, when they were household names who saw the limelight's spectacular glare from the best seats in the house.The first man weaves stories of presidents.The second, of kings.And the third, of far-off lands, well-loved astronauts and international intrigue."When President Bush and I were in the Middle East for Thanksgiving ..."

PREDICTIONS ON the Y2K problem range from minor inconveniences to the destruction of the world as we know it. I suspect the truth is somewhere in between.If you want to learn more about Y2K, attend the meeting of the Olde Brooklyn Park Improvement Association at 7 p.m. Tuesday. In addition to addressing general community concerns, representatives from Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. and Allfirst Bank will discuss how their companies are preparing for what may happen at midnight Dec. 31.The meeting will be at the Brooklyn Park Elementary School, Morgan Road and 14th Avenue.

SOME MONTHS ago, a Krispy Kreme Doughnuts store opened near me and I discovered a way of life that has all but vanished from this country.At Krispy Kreme, nobody obsesses about calories or fat content or fitting into a size 8 cocktail dress.Nobody sits around swapping nutrition tips or discussing how their workout went at the gym that morning.At Krispy Kreme, if you brought up the subject of your latest cholesterol reading, someone at the next table would probably put down his chocolate iced doughnut and whack you over the head with a rolled-up newspaper and tell you to shut up.That's one reason why I love doughnut people.

My Best ShotA desert storm's swift furyBy Thomas H. Manning, Glen BurnieIn September of 1976, we were working at Navajo Methodist Mission School in Farmington, N.M., and over Labor Day weekend took a short camping trip to Monument Valley on the Arizona-Utah border. That Saturday afternoon, we saw an ominous storm coming toward us from across the valley. I turned the trailer's rear end into the wind and left the station wagon hitched for added stability. I took the three remarkable pictures just before I had to seek shelter.

Ira Johnson was unlike anyone I had ever met. Something about him left you uneasy, as if he knew who you were without asking. He could look right through you, dismiss you, even as you sat in front of him. He was a strange mix of danger and aloofness, the way his legs twitched under the table, the way he leaned so far back in his chair. He would smile, then jingle the handcuffs hanging from his wrists. Something about him, about the way he stared at your back when you turned around, something about him was evil.

COLO, Iowa -- It's early morning and Vice President Al Gore, fresh from an overnight stay at the farm of Keith and Susan McKinney, is busily working the breakfast crowd at a nearby coffee shop.Dressed in blue work shirt and jeans, he moves unhurriedly from table to table, shaking hands and enthusing about the buttermilk pancakes and sausages his hostess had served him earlier.The talk between the vice president and the breakfasting Iowans is mostly about family, his and theirs. He makes no effort to rush as he moves through the room to press for their votes in the Iowa presidential caucuses still 10 months off.As Mr. Gore makes his rounds, a bevy of television cameramen hovers over the scene, and a boom mike is held high over his head to pick up the chit-chat.

Should I tell you not to walk in when there's a "help wanted" sign posted in the window? That's probably too obvious. Here's my list of the Top 10 Mistakes Restaurant Goers Should Avoid, which appeared last week on my blog, Dining@Large (baltimoresun.com/diningatlarge): 1 Making your reservation at 7 p.m. (like everyone else in Baltimore). 2 Eating out on Mother's Day. Every other holiday I can think of reasons why you would want to eat out, but there are better ways to honor your mother than taking her out on the busiest restaurant day of the year.

S elwyn Ray, executive director of The Maryland Mentoring Partnership, scanned the crowd in the Marriott Waterfront with pride. "This is our sixth annual MentorZing, and each year, it gets better and better and better," Ray said. "People are coming here because they care about young people, and they care about mentoring in Maryland." Many of those in the crowd were young participants in mentoring programs from around the state. Amber Wilson, a ninth-grader at Digital Harbor High School, delivered the dinner's opening prayer with her pastor, Dr. Bryan Claxton, of New Creation Christian Church.

As any good caterer knows, a good party involves not just excellent food, but a wonderful setting. So, when the Baltimore chapter of the National Association of Catering Executives throws its annual "Uncorked!" party, you can bet both the eats and the environment will be spectacular. The banquet room at the American Visionary Art Museum was a vision itself, with 27 tables decorated to fit the evening's "A Night at the Movies" theme. A table with The Birds theme featured the famous silhouette of Alfred Hitchcock hanging above a life-size tree centerpiece filled with black birds.

B laze Starr, your table is ready. Indeed, the iconic Baltimore stripper could BE the table at the "naked sushi" restaurant proposed for downtown. Diners would eat their sashimi off reclining women, and the women, like the fish, would be in the raw. Key body parts would be covered by the likes of lettuce and flowers. (Wasabi's out for obvious reasons, but why not pickled ginger pasties?) Other than that, it's Yellowtail Belly to human belly, Fatty Hamachi to flat abs. "We're trying to do something very nice, very classy," said Alicia Hines, who pitched the plan to the city's liquor board with partner JaMea Elliott last week.

Bob and Susan Lathroum had always dreamed of owning and operating a bed-and-breakfast. So 11 years ago, when Bob lost his third management job in 15 years, the couple decided the time was right to pursue that dream. The quest led them from Linthicum to Chestertown on the Eastern Shore. "The second time I crossed the bridge over the Chester River, I said, 'This is home,' " Susan Lathroum recalled of the historic little town. The Lathroums purchased the Widow's Walk Inn in 1997. Covered in yellow clapboard siding and trimmed with deep red shutters, the stately Victorian was built in 1877 and is listed in Chestertown's historic registry.

Give HBO four stars for its classy, spicy and very satisfying documentary about the once legendary New York eatery, Le Cirque: A Table in Heaven. The filmmakers have structured it as an operatic drama with a capital D. Viewers follow the four-star French restaurant as it flourishes in the 1970s and '80s under owner Sirio Maccioni - up through its closing in 2004, and reopening two years later. Watch as the owner, his wife and three sons engage in family combat worthy of Wagner as they struggle to find a new style for a new century.

Is it too late to bring back the old days? I ask because there was a time when people celebrated the holidays with full-throttle eating and drinking. Now booze is a no-no and everyone seems to have a food issue of some sort, making holiday entertaining about as much fun as cocktails with Rod and Patti Blagojevich. This year, for example, we're having a dozen family members over for Christmas dinner. Here is a partial list of the "concerns" that have been made known to us: One person is on a low-sodium diet.

Little more than a week after an electrical fire destroyed the women's shelter at the Bea Gaddy Family Center, Executive Director Cynthia Brooks was flush with reasons to be thankful. She and siblings John Fowler and Sandra E. Briggs were counting their blessings yesterday as they prepared to start the annual Thanksgiving dinner at Patterson Park Recreation Center that is part of their mother's legacy. They were thankful for the friends who took over paying for the center's gas and electricity bill after it had climbed to $6,000 and the power was about to be shut off. And for the various contractors who walked into the building, ravaged by fire earlier this month, and restored it so that 48 hours later the damage was largely a memory.

Yes, there will be a turkey on almost every table a week from tomorrow. But, to us, the side dishes are what make it Thanksgiving. In many a family, there's a non-negotiable casserole, stuffing, puree or pudding that appears year after year, withstanding the march of time and trends. These dishes send the message that though the people sitting around the table may change, the meaning of the holiday meal they share endures. In our Thanksgiving issue today, three of us share the recipes for our traditional Thanksgiving sides and the stories behind them, hoping you'll enjoy them as much as we do. Carrot Souffle works as an alternative to sweet potatoes, PG 2 Pat's Sage Stuffing is great even in a sandwich of leftovers, PG 2 Hominy Casserole has a texture that goes wonderfully with turkey, PG 2

Last November if you had asked me to recommend a restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner a week before the big day, I would have said, "Good luck with that." But with the economy in the tank, I don't think you'll have trouble finding a place this year. Your best bet might be to go to Open Table (opentable.com). Make your way to the Baltimore/Maryland page and click on the link to Thanksgiving 2008. Fill in the time you want and number of guests, and you'll get a list of available restaurants.