Vanilla Ice Cream

One of our good friends, a busy journalist and college professor, entertains more often than anyone I know and does so effortlessly and with much pleasure. Her success, I've discovered, is due to several factors. First, she plans simple menus, many of which include quickly grilled or sauteed meats accompanied by roasted seasonal vegetables. And even though she loves to cook, she has no reservations about supplementing her homemade fare with an appetizer from a neighborhood deli or a dessert from a local bakery.

Desserts are my specialty -- my favorite part of any meal when entertaining. My decision, however, about which confection to include for a menu is inevitably influenced by the season.In the hot-weather months I love icy cold sorbets, ice creams perfumed with new flavors or well-chilled cheesecake mounded with fresh berries. During winter, warm, robust desserts are standard fare at our table.When I invited several friends to a last-minute potluck supper, I offered to make the main course and dessert, while others brought side dishes, bread and salad.

THIS WEEK'S MENUS Each day of the week offers a menu aimed at a different aspect of meal planning. There's a family meal, a kids' menu aimed at younger tastes, a heat-and-eat meal that recycles leftovers, a budget meal that employs a cost-cutting strategy, a meatless or "less meat" dish for people who may not be strict vegetarians but are trying to cut down on meat, an express meal that requires little or no preparation, and an entertaining menu that's...

Joan Kerns from Salisbury, N.C., was looking for recipes for cakes made without eggs. She has a granddaughter who is highly allergic to eggs, both the yolks and the whites, and she wanted to be able to make a cake she could safely eat. Beatrice Odom from St. Pauls, N.C., says that she has two great-grandchildren who are also allergic to eggs and that she found a very good recipe for a "no egg cake" a few years ago in a magazine. This simple one-bowl cake is extremely moist and rich, and the delicious chocolate cream cheese frosting gives the cake a lovely finish.

Menu Roasted Fish With Guacamole, couscous scented with saffron, pan-fried zucchini with garlic, plum sundaes My husband, a college professor who loves to entertain, is always suggesting we invite people over for dinner. "Just keep it simple," he advises. Recently, he unexpectedly proposed that we ask two students for a meal. I was hesitant, but then it came to me: I could anchor the meal with an easy fish dish I had made several times before. It takes only a few minutes to assemble and needs a short time in a hot oven.

Youngsters (above) converged on the East Columbia branch of the Howard County Library Wednesday to record their ice cream preferences. Twenty kids taste-tested six brands of vanilla ice cream and recorded their impressions. Haagen-Dazs took first place, fol lowed by Turkey Hill. After thoroughly coating her bowl of ice cream with candy sprinkles, a smiling Kel ley Meehan, 10 (left), hands over the sweets to a fel low confection researcher.

SCOOPS OF VANILLA ice cream take on a spooky appearance when given a witchy disguise.The hat is made from a chocolate cookie topped with an ice cream cone. The cone is dipped into thick chocolate syrup to "glue" it securely.If you like, sit the ice cream on another cookie and give it candy or raisin eyes.We used Archway-brand cookies for this recipe. Rocky-road chocolate cookies made a terrific brim while old-fashioned molasses cookies, with a scalloped-edge, made a perfect base.These frozen treats go together very quickly, making them a perfect choice for Halloween parties.