Culinary School

Bankruptcy is ugly. But sometimes, that's what it seems to take to pump new life into business districts in Philadelphia's neighborhoods. Take Germantown Avenue developer Ken Weinstein , partners with Stan Smith , Howard Treatman , and Bob Kaufman in Philly Office Retail , who says his group has bought about 200,000 square feet of commercial properties in Germantown and Mount Airy in the last two years - for...

Besides what culinary schools are offering this fall, restaurants, kitchen stores, and even supermarkets are offering cooking classes on topics ranging from the yummy (cupcakes) to the sensible (healthy eating). Local food bloggers are getting in on the action by passing their niche expertise on to students, at both regional venues and in-home events. Also of note is a new Rittenhouse spot called Cook, where students get to interact with their favorite chefs, while getting fed.   Teaspoons & Petals is a blog that was founded by Alexis Siemons in 2008.

'BEAUTY IS A VERB' That's half the title - the rest is The New Poetry of Disability - of an anthology (Cinco Puntos Press, $19.95) out next month that explores the experience of physical disability in prose and poetry. Samples on Amazon.com hit us hard. Hear for yourself, 7 tonight at the Central Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia, 1901 Vine St., 215-567-4341; and 5-7 p.m. Oct. 5 at Infusion Cafe, 7133 Germantown Ave., 215-248-1718. SMELL TEST More good stuff at the Central Branch: Just 22 and prepping for culinary school, Molly Birnbaum was hit by a car. She suffered multiple injuries, but most devastating was the head trauma that destroyed her sense of smell.

"AMERICAN IDOL" host Ryan Seacrest will be at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia tomorrow to launch The Voice, a closed-circuit, multimedia center that his charitable foundation has funded. The event is open only to the hospital's patients and their families. The Voice, housed inside the main hospital's Colket Atrium, provides patients the ability to engage in activities related to radio, TV and new media, such as broadcasting like a DJ and playing songs, to watching performances and conducting interviews.

Hello there In late August 2007, Renee and three girlfriends were enjoying a night out in Old City. At 32º, Renee's pal Christie spotted a male friend who was with another guy Christie didn't know. That guy was Danny. The guys and girls joined forces, and about 1:30 a.m., they headed for Zee Bar. Danny said everyone could fit into his double-cab truck. Renee was the last to board. She only had one foot inside when the truck started moving. Renee screamed and yanked her foot out, miraculously getting both feet out of the way of the big tires just in time.

For the fourth time in five years, Kenny Chesney has a date to play Lincoln Financial Field. It's a ways out: June 18, as he headlines with Zac Brown Band , and Billy Currington and Uncle Kracker will open. Tickets ($25 to $200) will go on sale Nov. 20 through Ticketmaster and PhiladelphiaEagles.com. Chesney's three previous Linc dates were sellouts. He took a break from the stadium tours this year to cut an album and produce The Boys of Fall , a documentary about high school football.

The letter from Lower Merion school administrators delivered the news three weeks ago - her son had been secretly monitored by the webcam on his school-issued laptop. But only when Fatima Hasan saw the evidence did the scope of the spying on her son Jalil become apparent. There were more than 1,000 images surreptitiously captured by the computer - 469 webcam photographs and 543 screen shots. All were evidence in the case against the Lower Merion School District and its now-abandoned electronic monitoring policy.

Sylva Senat is right on time. Sous chef by 25, chef de cuisine or executive chef by 30, "and by the time I'm 40, I want to own a place," says Senat, 33, the chef de cuisine at Stephen Starr's stalwart, Buddakan, in Old City. He is a study in contrasts, this ambitious but inherently humble sophisticate who presents a striking appearance with his chiseled jaw and long dreads. A French-speaking Haitian native with Manhattan fine-dining sensibilities, Senat is a kitchen-trained, not culinary-school-educated chef who learned from some of the absolute best: Andrew D'Amico when he was at the Sign of the Dove; Marcus Samuelsson, who made Senat his sous chef at Aquavit; and Jean-George Vongerichten, who made Senat chef de cuisine at 66 Leonard Street and the Mercer Kitchen.

At five restaurants in the area, a meal has to make the grade. Literally. They are restaurants operated by culinary and hospitality schools, at which students plan menus with an eye toward costs, wait tables in regulation dining rooms, cook in state-of-the-art kitchens overseen by scolding, betoqued chef-instructors, and wash dishes - trying their best not to break too many. The clientele are parents, family and friends as well as seekers of adventure and a bargain. Top freight is $50 a head for the ambitious wine-pairing dinners at the Restaurant School at Walnut Hill's "Great Chefs" room; most dinners at the schools are about $20, and lunches are under $10 - in sum, about half of what a commercial establishment would charge.

Along the Black Horse Pike, where the bodies of four women were found earlier this week, the only police activity yesterday was a roadblock - because of flooding. There were no arrests in connection with the killings just outside Atlantic City. No confirmation that the slayings were the work, as some criminologists have opined, of a serial killer. Also still a mystery were the identities of three of the victims, all found facedown in a ditch behind a dismal string of budget motels known for drugs and prostitution.