Vegetarian

Just when you thought you had quite enough pressure in your life, along comes chef Peter Berley to tell you it can be a good thing. But take heart: In Fresh Food Fast: Delicious, Seasonal Vegetarian Meals in Under an Hour (Regan Books, $34.95, 2004), Berley and writer Melissa Clark really aim to ease your hectic pace by getting fresh, healthful food quickly to your table. The pressure cooker, which prepares grains and beans in a fraction of the time other means would take, is one of his favorite tools.

What is it about vegetarian restaurants and ponytails? Nearly every patron (and most of the servers) at One World Cafe on a recent weekday seemed to sport a ponytail. Some were shiny and bouncy, others gray and thin, springing from nearly bald heads, but ponytails were definitely the accessory du jour. Ponytails seem to represent a certain kind of still-in-the-'60s college sensibility, and One World Cafe is a certain kind of still-in-the-'60s vegetarian restaurant. Every college town seems to have one, and Baltimore is lucky to have one as fine and friendly as One World Cafe, across the street from the Johns Hopkins University.

It turns out a vegan meal can be fun, interesting and filling. The key to Venturesome Vegetarian Cooking (Surrey Books, 2004, $21.95) is that most of the recipes don't try to imitate meat and dairy products, but are for dishes that were never meant to include animal products in the first place. J.M. Hirsch, a columnist for the Associated Press, and his mother, Michelle Hirsch, a writer and food-development specialist, offer more than 150 vegan recipes ranging from starters to desserts.

In June, the owners of the popular health-food store Roots opened a restaurant featuring organic and vegetarian cooking. While not every item on the menu is organic, everything is vegetarian, and a great deal is vegan, meaning it is made with no animal products at all, not even eggs, honey or butter. There are also soy-free and gluten-free items. Some vegetarian restaurants seem as if they're channeling a '70s-era hippie vibe, but not Great Sage. This Clarksville restaurant is a thoroughly modern place.

Norris Walker of Baltimore had a complaint and request. He wrote that he went out of town and when he came back, the place where he got his favorite vegetarian chili was closed and he no longer can get this dish. "I hope someone out there can help." Regina Pakos of Latrobe, Pa., responded with tester Laura Reiley's choice. "It is a delicious dish specially if you want to leave meat off the menu. I make it and love it," she said. Vegetarian Chili Serves 4 1 tablespoon canola oil 1 yellow onion, chopped 1 (28-ounce)

They've got 'em in New York, L.A. and Chicago. But, according to Jeff Kaufman, the Baltimore/DC area has been bereft of creative, top-quality vegetarian restaurants. Until now. Jeff and his partners - wife Holly and Jody Cutler (whose family opened well-known NYC eateries Karma and Virgil's) - opened Great Sage in Clarksville this week. Jeff says the menu is entirely organic vegetarian, with about 80 percent of it vegan - that's no dairy, too. But that shouldn't scare off your run-of-the-mill meat eater.

Summer is a time when even nonvegetarians think about fixing a vegetarian meal or two. Local tomatoes and sweet corn are enough for me, but my family -- like a lot of families -- needs something a little more elaborate. Serious cooks will want to take a look at Jack Bishop's A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen (Houghton Mifflin, 2004, $35) for inspiration. I say "serious cooks" because while the recipes are easy and quick, many of them involve exotic ingredients. Bishop, executive editor of Cooks Illustrated and a cast member of the PBS show America's Test Kitchen, uses vegetarian staples like pasta, cheese, eggs and produce to create dishes from the world's cuisines -- Thai, Mexican, Indian and Chinese, as well as Italian and French.

STOKESLEY, England - Refrigerated trucks trundle down the country lanes laden with pale, doughy masses of fungus - 32 tons or more a day. "Pure mycoprotein - good enough to eat, won't taste of anything, very bland," declares manufacturing manager Pete Willis, tearing off a golf ball-size sample from a 2,000-pound glob. Workers in white boots shepherd the fungal paste through a sea of vats and clanking machines that mix, press, slice and dice the raw dough. What comes out at the end is a matter of perspective - luscious artificial meat patties that taste just like moist chicken, or dangerous vat-grown "vomit-burgers" that are sickening consumers from coast to coast.

Give Paulette Mitchell credit for spending no time dwelling on the Paleolithic dimensions of soup-making and eating. It is fundamental stuff, sure, requiring some basic gear: fire, pot, stirring stick, knife. With only 167 pages in A Beautiful Bowl of Soup: The Best Vegetarian Recipes (Chronicle Books, 2003, $19.95 paperback), there's little time for discursive meanderings. After a paragraph's worth of childhood reminiscence and passing mention of her experience as a chef and mother, Mitchell is off and running with an array of 66 recipes intermingled with tips on ingredients and techniques.

Reggae on the sound system, butterfly decorations, a radiator painted purple and yellow, softly turning ceiling fans, a friendly staff: The Yabba Pot restaurant in lower Charles Village offers no stress. And no meat. The long list of selections changes daily at the vegetarian and vegan restaurant, where bumper stickers calling for peace grace the walls. To avoid tough decisions, I ordered the sampler ($10.50), which offered no less than 12 choices, including veggie lo mein (chewy in a good way)