Buffet

ATLANTIC CITY - Last year's tan had long faded away, and the waves were brisk with a pre-season chill. But finally, after the cool intervening months since last summer, the Pier Shops at Caesars is heating up. On its third-floor restaurant concourse, you can sit back in a wooden chaise-longue, grab a cocktail, and actually put your toes in the sand of the faux-beach that lines the windowed hall. Watching the waves crack below the Pier onto the beach from the comfort of this seaside mall was about the closest I've gotten to imagining a year-round summer.

If you have to be weight-wary, what's the better dining-out idea: sit-down service or help-yourself? On the one hand, in a buffet restaurant what and how much you eat is up to you. Table-service restaurants often team up lean foods with diet no-nos, and serve herculean portions or too much meat and skimpy servings of salad or veggies. On the other hand, someone who's struggling with weight might be ill- advised to walk, hungry, with a naked plate, toward a towering mountain of food under instructions to serve him- or herself.

Because a number of people had spoken highly of the fixed-price lunch buffet at the Wyndham Franklin Plaza Hotel's Between Friends restaurant, a team was formed for an afternoon foray. Personally, I've never been one for buffets - particularly at lunch. Except, of course, if I was vacationing, had the day off or was entertaining for business. Besides, buffets can be pricey for a midday feed and can lead to guilt feelings. Oh, well, it was time for the invasion. Armed with a credit card and hearty appetites, we moved in through the hotel lobby off Vine Street.

Entertainment isn't the only fare that will be served up at the People's Light and Theater Company in Malvern when Thornton Wilder's Our Town opens Wednesday. For $10, theatergoers can have an all-you-can-eat picnic buffet on the theater grounds 90 minutes before each performance. The King Street Grille in Malvern will serve up grilled chicken breast, corn-on-the-cob, baked beans, fruit, bread, salads, lemonade, iced tea and homemade fruit cobblers. During the picnic, theatergoers can volunteer for small roles in the play and to sing in the onstage choir.

And now for something really funky: a buffet luncheon at a sewage plant. Just salads. Finger sandwiches. Pastries and beverages. It's all ready for nibbling by guests at the Southeast Water Pollution Control Plant today, as the city dedicates the $250 million complex on Pattison Avenue near I-95. Or how about a "couples tour" of one of the city's other sewage plants? An elite pack of sewer officials from across the country will have that opportunity during a five-day conference that opens Sunday at the Civic Center.

Under new management, the restaurant at the Pennsauken Country Club is off to a good start. The new Orsini's marks the return of Daniel Hover as chef, the position he held when the place was known as Chicago. While the menu has been down-scaled to appeal to a broader audience, the quality remains high. Of particular interest is the Tuesday-only Italian buffet, a pleasant experience with a profusion of southern Italian dishes that range from simple triangles of provolone to an enormous roast pig, its crisp, honey-colored skin fairly glowing.

Today we expand our Connected column to accommodate all of the interesting things going on. Rendell: Lamb chops and handshakes A visit last month to a White House buffet by Democratic National Committee chairman Ed Rendell was chronicled by New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams. She noted that Rendell was "flanked by two tall, skinny young aides in tight black sheaths. Must be all of Philadelphia doesn't have one short, pudgy male aide. " Hey, those ladies in sheaths weren't aides, but Dawn Dugan and Mary McCarthy of the Event Group, the force behind Rendell's fund-raising parties (see photos at right)

Tony Siragusa, the Baltimore Ravens' 340-pound tackle, walked out of the White House with mixed emotions yesterday after meeting with President Bush. "It was cool, man," Siragusa said. "But I'm a little depressed that they didn't have a buffet ready. " Siragusa and the NFL champion Ravens were honored by the president during a short ceremony in the East Room of the East Wing. The celebration occurred a little more than four months after Baltimore beat the New York Giants, 34-7, in the Super Bowl.

Upset at his hitters for struggling against rookie pitcher Garrett Stephenson, St. Louis manager Tony La Russa ordered the Veterans Stadium clubhouse buffet closed after Tuesday night's 3-2 loss to the Phillies. "What are [the players] going to say?" La Russa said yesterday. "Are they going to file a grievance? I would welcome a player either asking me why I was upset or challenging what I say. " The Cardinals responded with a season-high 17 hits in a 12-3 rout of the Phillies Wednesday night.

I'M HARDHEADED. This is not to put myself down, beat myself up, or otherwise denigrate my personhood. I'm simply stating a fact. How else to explain my younger days, when I routinely went back to women whom I knew to be crazy? Why else did I repeatedly engage in harmful habits after convincing myself that I hadn't done it right the first 50 times. Is there any other reason I would bang my head against emotional brick walls and keep coming back for more? I was just hardheaded. Still am. That's why I'm not surprised at myself for going back to the kind of place I swore off over a year ago. A place where nasty people mingle with the rest of us, passing themselves off as normal in exchange for all-you-can-eat privileges.

Special Events Love Potion Fundraiser for Homeless Animals Helps fund medical supplies and equipment. Franklin's, 3521 Bowman St. $5. 2/11. 6-9 pm. Naked at the Philadelphia Museum Scavenger Hunt Focusing on art featuring nudity. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th St. & Benjamin Franklin Pkwy.; 877-946-4868. www.WatsonAdventures.com . $38.50. Closes 2/12. Northern Liberties Winter Music Festival W/Adrien Reju, Chris Kasper, Swedeland, Fantasy Square Garden, Black Stars, North Lawrence Midnight Singers, many more.

DAKAR, Senegal - This is Africa, the place where human history began and where the new world order is evolving. Twice I've stood in Senegal, on the eastern edge of the Atlantic Ocean, meeting people and sharing experiences that make me understand my own family history and black history much better. Each trip, first in December 2010 for the World Festival of Black Arts and Culture and now this past December with the World Summit of Mayors, has made me want to go deeper - to explore more, to learn more, and to understand more about this continent and our world.

Even as Pennsylvania State University president Rodney Erickson began a statewide goodwill tour this week to address alumni, he faces a battle back on his main campus over whether the university is doing enough to investigate allegations that it missed or ignored signs that onetime coach Jerry Sandusky was abusing kids. On Tuesday, a faculty leadership group agreed to place before the full faculty senate a motion that calls for Erickson to create a separate task force to investigate the conduct of the board of trustees, according to a source.

Latkepalooza, in its eighth year, happens from 2-4 p.m. Sunday at the Gershman Y (401 S. Broad St., 215-445-4400). Hanukkah started yesterday, so don't delay. Tix are $15 adults, $5 kids, under 5 free. New this year: a Jewish Bakeoff; details at www.gershmany.org . Le Castagne (1920 Chestnut St., 215-751-9913) serves Sunday brunch from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The buffet includes Eggs Benedict and Prosciutto Cotto with Truffle Hollandaise, and Brioche French toast stuffed with Nutella and finished with dark rum and caramelized banana.

Also reviewed by Lari Robling: Cafe Con Chocolate, 2100 S. Norwood St., 267-639-4506. This small cafe in the western edge of South Philadelphia is often called Mexican-Japanese fusion. Best to say the chef/owner's heritage makes it a mixed menu of Mexican dishes and Japanese dishes. This is a welcoming place that offers a good brunch as well as dinner. Some nights there is a live music venue - check the website listings. Menu is heavier on the Mexican side with some stellar egg dishes and a sweet and spicy mole.

AS MATT Britt wanders through the Huntingdon Valley home he once hoped would be a launching pad for a happier life with his three daughters, he shakes his head at how wrong he'd been about that. But how could he have known? How could he have known that, eight years after burying his first wife, he'd mourn a second one? That his mom would take her own life? That his girls would lose stepsiblings they'd loved? And that he'd now be losing the house where they'd all tried to become a new family?

DEAR ABBY: My 3-year-old goddaughter, "Tammy," is one of the most important people in my life. So are her parents, "Sophie" and "Zack. " I was friendly with them separately before they got together. As a couple, they selected me to be godmother. They have since split up. Zack is understanding about my staying neutral and continuing to be friendly with him and his ex. But Sophie gets mad and won't talk to me for weeks if she hears I went to see Tammy on a weekend she's with her daddy.

I'M HARDHEADED. This is not to put myself down, beat myself up, or otherwise denigrate my personhood. I'm simply stating a fact. How else to explain my younger days, when I routinely went back to women whom I knew to be crazy? Why else did I repeatedly engage in harmful habits after convincing myself that I hadn't done it right the first 50 times. Is there any other reason I would bang my head against emotional brick walls and keep coming back for more? I was just hardheaded. Still am. That's why I'm not surprised at myself for going back to the kind of place I swore off over a year ago. A place where nasty people mingle with the rest of us, passing themselves off as normal in exchange for all-you-can-eat privileges.