Barley

Summer salads needn't be limited to greens. Nor to potatoes, pasta or cabbage slaws, as satisfying and familiar as those staple picnic dishes might be. Escape the monotony of macaroni with salads of another grain. Or, another form of the grain. Whole grains sustained us for thousands of years before we got caught up in the notion that refined white flour and white rice meant refined taste as well. Now, realizing how much we lost in valuable nutrients and fiber in that bargain, more diners want healthful and wholesome grains, even in restaurants.

State Rep. John Barley, who could single-handedly bless the fate of most Pennsylvania legislation, leaves office today in a fall from power and influence that has surprised even his staunchest opponents. The wealthy Lancaster County Republican and farmer, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, steps down after 17 years amid questions into what State Rep. Tom Armstrong, a longtime opponent, called Barley's "professional and personal life and how he may have used political influence to get things done.

Rep. John Barley, one of the most influential and controversial lawmakers in Pennsylvania, has decided to end his 17-year legislative career and will resign from office next week. The abrupt announcement, which shocked supporters and opponents alike, was made just two weeks after the Republican from Lancaster County and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee said he would seek a 10th term. Barley, who will not attend any legislative sessions this week, issued a brief statement on Saturday saying he was not only stepping aside, he was stepping down effective April 2. He attributed the decision to attacks by his critics, charging that they would make it impossible for him to run a campaign on the issues.

The legislature's two top Democrats yesterday criticized the Republican budget committee chairman for failing to disclose that he could personally benefit from a change he had helped put in the tax law. One of the Democratic leaders also called on Rep. John Barley (R., Lancaster) to pledge never to take advantage of the new tax break, which deals with farmland. Barley says he currently stands to gain nothing from the change, but he has not ruled out a future benefit. "If John wants to absolve himself of any potential ethical culpability, he should swear on the proverbial stack of Lancaster County Bibles that he will gainsay any financial advantage that this slippery and arcane law will allow," said Rep. William DeWeese (D., Greene)

It has been a long time since the ancient grain of barley got any respect. It is, in its unassuming and small-puff way, the dumpling of the whole-grain world. All comfort and no pretense. And yet, ever since that Roman Emperor Augustus (63 B.C. to A.D. 14) threatened his soldiers against cowardice - every 10th coward would be punished with death, the rest would be given barley for food - the humble grain has never quite recovered its glamour vibe. It had been revered, after all, as a principal grain of sustenance since the Stone Age. The ancient Egyptians and Hebrews judged the value of a field based on how much barley could be sown there.

A reader lamented that she had never been able to find a vegetable soup that comes close to Coral Tree Cafe's in Southern California . "I know they must have a secret ingredient in there that gives it that extra something special! With fall here, I would love to make this soup at home," wrote the reader. Coral Tree Cafe was happy to share its vegetable soup recipe, which we've adapted below. Enjoy!   Coral Tree Cafe Vegetable Soup Makes 8 to 10 servings 2 tablespoons oil 2 cups diced carrots 2 cups diced onions 1/2 cup diced red bell pepper 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme 3/4 cup pearl barley 1 quart vegetable broth 1 1/2 cups prepared marinara sauce 2 cups quartered mushrooms 2 cups diced zucchini Salt and pepper 1. Heat a medium, heavy-bottom pot over medium heat until hot. Add the oil, then add the carrots, onions, bell pepper, thyme, and barley.

Have you noticed that the price of beer is going up? The simple explanation is that supplies of hops and barley, two key ingredients in brew-making, are shrinking while demand for beer is increasing. Bad harvests and low prices for these commodities bear some of the blame, but another major factor is the nation's poorly fashioned energy policy. Thanks to government subsidies to promote ethanol production, more and more farmers are abandoning a variety of crops - including barley and hops - and switching to corn.

The steady rains of May and June are threatening to rot the savings of some Pennsylvania farmers. Hay is being left uncut because it cannot be put out to dry under skies that are frequently gray and damp. Barley was supposed to be cut two weeks ago, but some ground is too muddy for farm machinery. Corn has been planted so late, because fields are muddy, that it won't yield what it should. Hay, corn, barley. Those are the grains that fuel the major farming industry in Pennsylvania - dairy farms.

Grains are low in fat and high in complex carbohydrates - the perfect choice to sustain energy for warm-weather activities. Although most grains are too heavy to cook in summer, there are a few light varieties that don't require long cooking times. I like warm-weather grains in make-ahead summer salads, a sure way to energize the body yet beat the heat. Tops on my list is quick-cooking brown rice, a newcomer to natural-food stores in the last few years. This whole grain cooks in 15 minutes instead of the 40 that regular brown rice requires.

A reader lamented that she had never been able to find a vegetable soup that comes close to Coral Tree Cafe's in Southern California . "I know they must have a secret ingredient in there that gives it that extra something special! With fall here, I would love to make this soup at home," wrote the reader. Coral Tree Cafe was happy to share its vegetable soup recipe, which we've adapted below. Enjoy!   Coral Tree Cafe Vegetable Soup Makes 8 to 10 servings 2 tablespoons oil 2 cups diced carrots 2 cups diced onions 1/2 cup diced red bell pepper 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme 3/4 cup pearl barley 1 quart vegetable broth 1 1/2 cups prepared marinara sauce 2 cups quartered mushrooms 2 cups diced zucchini Salt and pepper 1. Heat a medium, heavy-bottom pot over medium heat until hot. Add the oil, then add the carrots, onions, bell pepper, thyme, and barley.

RYE IS A dirty grain - bitter and black and somber-looking. It is unfit for human consumption, except during famine. It is very "disagreeable to the stomach. " This point of view is not mine, for I count myself among those delicatessen faithful who kneel in the presence of pastrami piled high between slices of rye. Instead, these are the learned words of no less than Gaius Plinius Secundus, a/k/a Pliny the Elder, the first century A.D. philosopher who famously scribed a treatise on natural history and then even more famously found his way onto Russian River Brewing's beer labels.

IF WE'RE living in the best of beer times - an unprecedented era of expansive choice, inventive styles and technological superiority - how do you explain the aberration that's come to be called Pre-Pro? Now, you can count me among the corps of traditionalists who hold it as an article of faith that older is better than new. I prefer worn jeans, experienced women and baseball played on grass. But there's no way that you'll convince me that beer brewed before the invention of the flip-top can was any better, or even more "authentic," than what we're drinking today.

HOW COLD does it have to get for your beer to freeze? Depends on the alcohol content - the average lager turns to ice around 27 degrees. That's why the pros drink barleywine, the strong, dark wintertime ale that withstands frost with its double-digit alcohol content. And by "pros," I mean the hearty beer drinkers of Anchorage, Alaska, where winter temps frequently dip to 27 degrees . . . below zero. That was what the thermometer said just before I checked in last month for the Great Alaskan Beer and Barley Wine Festival.

Rye is becoming just as popular at the bar as it is in the bakery, judging from the grain's resurgent presence in whiskeys, and, increasingly, in beer. It adds a spicy, herbal edge to the usual barley malt in some of my favorite rye brews, including the lush and hoppy Red's Rye from Founders in Michigan, and the roasty brown Rye Beer from Phoenixville's Iron Hill, which recently took a "Roggenbier" gold at the Great American Beer Festival. (It will be on tap there again this winter)

Have you noticed that the price of beer is going up? The simple explanation is that supplies of hops and barley, two key ingredients in brew-making, are shrinking while demand for beer is increasing. Bad harvests and low prices for these commodities bear some of the blame, but another major factor is the nation's poorly fashioned energy policy. Thanks to government subsidies to promote ethanol production, more and more farmers are abandoning a variety of crops - including barley and hops - and switching to corn.

Like Land and Freedom, director Ken Loach's film about anti-Fascist volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, The Wind That Shakes the Barley revisits a historic 20th-century conflict that pitted citizen fighters against an oppressive government regime. A close-up look at the 1920 Irish revolt against Britain - an uprising that turned to civil war, that gave birth to the Irish Republican Army, and that Northern Ireland is still, in many ways, dealing with today - The Wind That Shakes the Barley is gripping, powerful, heart-breaking.

Usually the only time Sam Shepard rears his head in Chester County is when a baby boomer Tivos the lunar opus The Right Stuff. Or when wives rent his earthy chick flicks, Crimes of the Heart and Country. Shepard's smoldering screen presence almost always overshadows his prolific career as a writer for the stage. In fact, the pioneering playwright - regarded as the preeminent American dramatist of the 1970s and '80s - has penned nearly 50 plays since his debut in 1963. Still, area playhouses seldom stage Shepard's highly imaginative works - powerful, complex plays that explore the dark and dangerous underbelly of the American dream.

The live-theater community certainly has its die-hards. But who puts on a play at 10 in the morning? Who goes to see it? On Saturday, the Barley Sheaf Players will find out. The Lionville-based community theater will raise the curtain on its One-Act Play Festival, a variety of short theater that runs the gamut - comedy, drama, new works, skits, monologue. It will showcase both Barley Sheaf members and visiting artists in six plays that will continue through most of the afternoon.