Bread Crumbs

It clearly is no accident that the Olive Garden is an enormous success, for with good food, an attractive setting, friendly service and low prices, it can't miss. Open since June, the restaurant across Easton Road from the Willow Grove Park mall serves northern and southern Italian cuisine in a pleasant, vaguely Mediterranean setting. The several informal dining rooms with rough-plastered, whitewashed walls and graceful archways are brightened with tiers of real ferns nestled in Spanish moss.

Have you every been bitten by a chicken? Today we share some prize poultry favorites famous for biting back! These hot and spicy specialties are perfect party-goers - but not for the tender-tongued. Their flamboyant flavor more than makes up for an appealing lack of excess calories, however. All of these dishes are relatively low in fat and far less fattening than the usual party fare. These spicy Italian-inspired chicken bites are ideal for holiday entertaining. Serve them hot, speared with party picks, surrounding a bowl of spicy tomato sauce for dipping.

SHE'S THE Italian mother we all wish we had - making delicious dishes for friends and family. Her cakes steal the show at bake sales. She's Giovanna Damiani, who grew up in a small area outside Naples, Italy, and came to the United States in 1946. At her recent 90th birthday party, guests spanned four generations and included a friend from Brooklyn, N.Y., whom Damiani had worked with in Italy during World War II. A highlight was the signed Carlos Ruiz T-shirt she received. He's her favorite Phillie.

Spoon sauce over a cooked vegetable. Sprinkle with a simple topping, brown in the oven, and you have a gratin. Even avowed veggie-haters enjoy their greens when enhanced this way. From Paris to Provence, gratins (GRAH-tins) have long played a role similar to our casseroles, and not just for vegetables. You can apply the gratin principle to pasta or protein foods or use it to create new dishes from leftovers. For an elegant dish that's easy and fairly fast, it's hard to beat this staple of French home cooking.

If you've never tried microwaving artichokes, you're in for a treat. Not only do they cook faster than you would have dreamed possible, they taste terrific. That's because they steam in their own fragrant vapor and don't get waterlogged in a kettle of boiling water. Here's the basic method plus an elegant stuffed artichoke recipe that's perfect for a first course. Choose 6- to 8-ounce globe artichokes, cut stems flush with bottoms, snip off prickly petal tips and rub cut edges with lemon.

Nhu Huynh, a clinical oncology nutritionist who works with Chef Jack Shoop at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America facility in the Northeast, recommends a diet high in lean proteins, fruits and vegetables for everybody. For cancer patients, Huynh prefers baking, boiling or grilling foods, because digesting fried foods requires extra enzymes that may be deficient in a patient's system. Nutrient-rich soups and smoothies also are easier on a delicate digestive system. Herb and spice marinades add flavor and some have cancer-fighting properties, Huynh said.

Turns out you're never too old to call your mother about a recipe. And regret it. We begin when I decide to cook a nice meal for Daughter Francesca, because we're about to start book tour. We eat french fries for dinner every book tour, and it's worth writing an entire book for an excuse to eat french fries. But if I eat french fries without being on a book tour, I start signing things. Occupational hazard. To stay on point, I decide to make eggplant parm, which I haven't made in years.

The burger gourmet insists that there can be no comparison between a patty made of ground turkey and one of ground beef. I tend to agree. Even with exotic sauces and seasonings, a turkey burger is tight-textured and on the dry side, while the beef burger is succulent and juicy, without ketchup and just a pinch of salt and pepper. What's a fat- and cholesterol-conscious burger lover to do? Consider a combination of ground poultry and beef. An acceptable ratio for taste as well as content is two parts poultry and one part lean ground beef.

The rejuvenation of the Downtown Cafe reflects the welcome changes under way in Conshohocken these days. Formerly a neighborhood bar with a limited lunch menu, the renovated Cafe has instituted a delightful dinner menu and offers good food in a charming, friendly atmosphere. Open only a few weeks, the restaurant is decorated in pink and blue pastels. Powder-blue booths are bathed in bright lights from hanging lamps with beautiful tulip-shaped, fringed shades imprinted with spring flowers.

In one respect, The First Edition is really the second. This attractive Exton restaurant is the second of three informal dining places in a group that started in 1983 with What's Your Beef in Paoli. The First Edition came along in 1986 and the Main Lion in Strafford last year. All three appear successful, and a recent visit to The First Edition shows why: The food is good, service is friendly and the price is right. What more can you ask? The spacious dining area is lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves of out- of-print volumes that you can read right at the table.