Custard

". . . Furthermore, it keeps for days. And," I wound up in the confident tones of the experienced teacher, "it's foolproof. Making a bad one is just about impossible. That's why those little French restaurants are forever offering creme renversee and why flan is on the menu wherever the Spanish influence raises its head. " With a flourish, I reversed the mold for the caramel custard, releasing the classic caramel sauce and revealing in its midst a grainy, semi-curdled opportunity to eat my own words.

There are eaters, and there are cooks. Eaters slaver at the sight of a chocolate mousse. Cooks wonder how its lightness was achieved. Eaters balk when they hear there's a cup of oil in their low-cal mayonnaise. Cooks are spurred on, fascinated by the amount of oil a single yolk can hold. Eaters eat a cup of custard, comforted by its smooth, glistening sweetness. Cooks wonder: Why does a custard have to be sweet? What else could it taste like? Are there other ways of serving it?

Many things have changed since Alberta Spinden moved to Vincentown 17 years ago. But one thing has remained frozen in time. And that is the custard sold at the Evergreen Dairy Bar. Since 1949, owner Tom Cinkowski has been dishing out frozen treats made the same way they were 42 years ago when the drive-in dairy bar on Route 70 in Southampton Township first opened. Cinkowski, 68, credits the longevity of his business to the quality of the product he sells. "I use a premium custard," he said.

What I thought was just a little mouth surgery with a local anesthetic kept me whiny and groggy and even a bit mean for more than a week. Even though I looked fine, I was somewhat off my feed, so to speak. It's not just that it hurt to eat; it was that I was somehow more tired than I had expected, and it took me a few days to figure out what tasted good. But what I craved was custard. Custard has fallen out of favor with those overzealous health gurus who scorn eggs and whole milk.

A lot of chips come across a food writer's desk, but it's the rare bag we can't keep our hands out of. Don't let the fact that they are made from organic brown rice and full of protein fool you. These black-pepper chips are crunchy, satisfying, and, thanks to a good dose of white and black pepper, the perfect partner for mild dips or boring turkey sandwiches. Lundberg Family Farms Organic Cracked Black Pepper Rice Chips, $3.29 at Whole Foods Market, lundberg.com. - Ashley Primis Frigid fruit Local health food markets, such as Essene in Queen Village, have long served up a frozen banana custard that is literally just that: a soft serve-like sweet with one ingredient, frozen bananas.

Custard, nothing more than milk and eggs, gently baked until they set. Could anything be simpler, more soothing to the palate, to the stomach, to the soul? Because they are so easy to digest, custards have long been spooned to children, to babies in the nursery and to invalids. One early American recipe is called "a sick bed custard. " There is something inherently nurturing about custards. Unlike desserts with more "texture," custards offer no challenge, no resistance - you can just glide on in with the spoon.

The temperature in the parking lot was dropping toward 30, but the thermostat inside the Maple Shade Custard Stand registered an almost balmy 68 degrees. Painted red and white with the iconic "Drive In" sign on top, the stand saw a slow but steady flow of customers on a frigid evening two days before Christmas Eve. Inside, college students Lauren Shipton and Corrin Sloan were working the counter and feeling merry, forgoing their standard-issue "Got Jimmies?" T-shirts for hoodies and sweats, better to stay warm when they slid the plexiglass window open for a customer.

Pie for dinner? That might sound strange, but only because we're so accustomed to thinking of pie as a sweet dessert. Alter the concept a little, and you can create a nearly one-dish meal that provides protein, grain and vegetable in a neat, pastry-wrapped package that we call a savory pie. You probably know these in their steak-and-kidney and liver-and-onion forms. But there is no reason to confine entree pies to those Old World, fat- laden standbys. You can fill a homemade or commercially prepared pastry with slivers of smoked salmon and paper-thin crescents of cucumber; top a tomato tart with fresh mozzarella tangled in threads of basil; or overlay shingles of ham, cheese and apple with a honey-mustard glaze.

In Massachusetts all the way From Boston down to Buzzards Bay They feed you till you want to die On rhubarb pie and pumpkin pie And when you summon strength to cry, "What else is there that I can try?" They stare at you in mild surprise And serve you other kinds of pies. These lines, from the poem "On Food" by Hilaire Belloc, are probably the only anti-pie rhymes on record. Most people, poets included, simply can't get enough of the stuff, especially if it is something custardy like chocolate cream or lemon meringue - or quiche, if it comes to that.

In May, Poor Ronald printed a short lexicon of Philly-isms: words, phrases, odd local uses and abuses of the English language. A vast outpouring of interest (two postcards) has led to this more comprehensive compilation of Philly slanguage. We are particularly indebted to reader Valerie Hanssens, a Californian who married a Philly guy and then spent many years trying to figure out what he was talking about. Here's our list: Case Quarter: An actual quarter - as opposed to two dimes and a nickel.

Company description : "They're made with Rita's famous Old Fashioned Frozen Custard sandwiched between two delicious Oreo Cookie Wafers, and are available in Vanilla, Chocolate, Coffee, Strawberry and Vanilla/Chocolate Twist. Also available with Rainbow Sprinkles and Mini Chocolate Chips!" Location: 1356 E. Passyunk Ave. Order time: One minute. Or so. Cost: $7.54 including tax for a four-pack of sandwiches. Calories: Approx. 250, 90 of them from the 10g of fat. Saturated fat is 4g. There's no trans fat. The 30mgs of cholesterol isn't too bad and you also get 4g of protein.

A lot of chips come across a food writer's desk, but it's the rare bag we can't keep our hands out of. Don't let the fact that they are made from organic brown rice and full of protein fool you. These black-pepper chips are crunchy, satisfying, and, thanks to a good dose of white and black pepper, the perfect partner for mild dips or boring turkey sandwiches. Lundberg Family Farms Organic Cracked Black Pepper Rice Chips, $3.29 at Whole Foods Market, lundberg.com. - Ashley Primis Frigid fruit Local health food markets, such as Essene in Queen Village, have long served up a frozen banana custard that is literally just that: a soft serve-like sweet with one ingredient, frozen bananas.

The temperature in the parking lot was dropping toward 30, but the thermostat inside the Maple Shade Custard Stand registered an almost balmy 68 degrees. Painted red and white with the iconic "Drive In" sign on top, the stand saw a slow but steady flow of customers on a frigid evening two days before Christmas Eve. Inside, college students Lauren Shipton and Corrin Sloan were working the counter and feeling merry, forgoing their standard-issue "Got Jimmies?" T-shirts for hoodies and sweats, better to stay warm when they slid the plexiglass window open for a customer.

CHRISTIAN GATTI'S BAVARIAN CREME 1 ounce gelatin 2 tablespoons rum 2 tablespoons brandy 2 tablespoons Grand Marnier 1 quart heavy cream 1 quart whole milk 1 vanilla bean sliced in half lengthwise with seeds removed, or 2 teaspoons real vanilla extract Pinch salt 3/4 cup sugar 12 egg yolks 1 cup white chocolate, chopped (if using white chocolate chips, add 4 tablespoons vegetable oil)...

Any time a branch bank (in the case at hand a Citadel Bank branch) is replaced by a frozen custard stand - a genuine frozen custard stand - the odds are pretty good that I'm on my way. It might take a few weeks. But I'll be there. So relax, I told Missy Shaw, who was opening her Jake's Authentic Wisconsin Frozen Custard shop on the Main Line, in Paoli, in a stone-faced former branch bank on Lancaster Avenue: I'll be there. And last weekend, just after the Sunday afternoon rush, I was. What gets me going, of course, is not simply the custard itself, but the emotional content.

This recipe by Brother Victor-Antoine d'Avila-Latourrette, author of several cookbooks, published in Madeline Scherb's "A Taste of Heaven: A Guide to Food and Drink Made By Monks and Nuns" (Tarcher, $15.95) Scherb suggests using caramels from Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey in Dubuque, Iowa. These caramels can be purchased online at trappistine. com. BROTHER VICTOR'S PEAR CLAFOUTIS 3 eggs 1/2 cup sugar 2 teaspoons cornstarch 1 1/2 cups whole milk 2 tablespoons Cognac or pear brandy 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 6 ripe Bosc pears, peeled, halved, cored Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg 12 to 14 vanilla caramels, unwrapped 1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.

"How much longer till we get there? I'm hungry! " It's a backseat refrain my kids have perfected - even on the relatively short trip to the Shore. It's a good thing that Mr. Bill's, the classic custard stand and deli grill with the three-story-high huckster statue out front (and sandwiches nearly as tall), is perched halfway to Atlantic City. This Winslow landmark has seen a half-dozen owners in its half-century, but found its latest groove under the previous steward, deli-master Russ Cowan, who passed it on to current owner Joe Radano two years ago. Radano has diligently maintained the Cowan formula of super-sized portions and old-school scratch cooking, from the huge hot reubens and football-sized eclairs to soft-serve made from real custard.

If you can't hold on until the Feast of St. Joseph (March 19), Termini Bros. in South Philly is frying up zeppole all month long. They're not quite donuts; and not quite like the Sicilian originals (which were topped with cream and a cherry). At Termini's the zeppole's soft egg dough is twice fried to give it a crisp crust, then filled with a vanilla custard or ricotta cream. The dusting of powdered sugar still has a signature touch of cinnamon, as it has for the last 87 years.

The Pittsburgh group that bought Rita's Water Ice Franchise Corp. yesterday is getting a company that has expanded steadily for two decades. After growing from a front-porch stand that opened May 4, 1984, to a chain with 319 outlets, Rita's also has just added a new product for sale in supermarkets. The Bensalem company's recipe for growth drew the attention of Pittsburgh's McKnight Capital Partners, which yesterday bought Rita's from founder Bob Tumolo and his brother John.

Lee McCarthy is so good a teacher that some of his students decide not to follow in his footsteps. McCarthy, anchor of WTFX Channel 29's Ten O'Clock News from its 1986 launch until his unexpected and unceremonious 1993 dismissal, has been teaching broadcasting at Villanova University for the last five years. Telling it exactly like it is in broadcast news - "that it's not all bright lights and limousines," that you can be on top one day and on the trash heap the next - allows students to make career decisions with their eyes wide open, McCarthy said the other day. "On the first day of class, I ask for a show of hands of how many want a career in front of a camera.