Flavor

Mustard comes in many varieties and flavors, and there can be, as a recent blind tasting proved, an equally wide range of tastes and colors even within a specific type of mustard. Ditto for the wording on the labels, which can read "Düsseldorf," "Düsseldorf style," or say nothing at all, even when the mustard is made in Düsseldorf. You may need to linger in the condiments aisle and read labels to get some idea of what you're buying. Tasters sampled a variety of mustards in the Düsseldorf style.

At its simplest, wine-making is just the business of crushing grapes and letting the yeast from the grape skin ferment the juice. Fermentation turns the sugar in the grape into alcohol and produces a bunch of other flavors at the same time. Sometimes the wine tastes just like the kind of grape juice it was made from. Sometimes it tastes more complicated - other flavors are induced when the newly created alcohol comes into contact with the grape's natural flavors. But where do the flavors of the grape come from?

The statue of an Egyptian goddess greets customers in the dusty doorway. She is one of a roomful of antiques at Liberties, a restaurant and bar that duplicates one of this historic (Northern Liberties) neighborhood's early taverns. Liberties' ceiling is copper and tin. The floor is mostly mosaic tile, the sort you still find in the bathrooms of unrestored Victorian rowhouses. The mirror behind the long, curving wooden bar is clouded and, hence, kind to the reflections of aging customers.

No matter what your music flavor, Philly has it. In Old City tonight, the sound is Latin, with Jay Rockwell at Brasil's; it's Caribbean in West Philly, with Rookie, Roger Culture and Ross at Pegasus. Manayunk has hip-hop for you Saturday, when Sat-One gets on the turntables at Grape Street Pub, and then again Sunday, at Chemistry with Doc B. Along the waterfront Sunday, the house beats are spun by Richie Rich and John Gill at Chrome. And Wednesday, be sure to get to South Fourth Street for "Tigerhook Session IV" at Fluid.

The second annual Artosphere, Arkansas' six-week arts and nature festival, will have a distinct Philadelphia-area flavor. Andrea Packard, director of the List Gallery at Swarthmore College, will present her artwork during the opening ceremony on Green Day, April 22. She also will discuss a visual arts exhibition, Garden as Muse. Corrado Rovaris, music director of the Opera Company of Philadelphia, and David Hayes, music director of the Philadelphia Singers, will lead the Artosphere Festival Orchestra.

Every year, right around the time the flies come out, hard-core serial grillers are relentlessly grilling or smoking just about anything they can get their hands on. While we often associate grilled foods with the tastes of the marinades, rubs or salsas that accompany them, the ingredient that's in almost anything cooked outdoors is the flavor of smoke. When we grill with coals, hardwoods or smoking chips, we add smoke to the recipe. Grilling over coals or wood is one of the few cooking processes that leave a specific flavor postmark and tell you exactly how it was sent.

The idea isn't revolutionary: The Vietnamese have long grilled food on sugar cane. But Seasoned Skewers take the game to another level. We had great success grilling cubes of pork, apples and onions on the honey-bourbon-flavored sticks. (Also in garlic-herb, citrus-rosemary, and Thai coconut-lime.) Tender times three Calphalon, whose pots we love, is launching a line of gadgets: peelers, can openers, graters, seed removers, zesters, and this nifty three-way tenderizer. It has three separate surface textures, for pounding cutlets, steaks or tough cuts you'll stew or braise - and a soft-touch handle to ward off blisters.

Serving a meal with a south-of-the-border accent captures a sense of celebration - sensual, colorful and bursting with flavor. The richness of Mexican cuisine has developed over centuries. It is a dramatic blend of the original Indian fare and the strong influences of the Spanish. The preeminent agricultural contribution that the early natives called maize, and we know as corn, still plays a significant role. Grains, as well as legumes, are staples, with meat used sparingly.

Whether sweet, hard or packing an inebriating wallop, apple cider is the potion to down by the dram when foliage flares to ocher and red. It is the lacquer that paints a plain roast chicken with a glaze of just-fallen fruit. And it's the jug on the pantry shelf that calls us to luxuriate in another harvest before winter settles in. Cider is made by crushing apples into a pulp, then pressing the pulp to extract its juice. After that, the juice can be bottled and sold immediately as sweet cider.

The Penn Relays is known as the "world's oldest and largest relay carnival. " True devotees of the meet like to add "the best" to the phrase, and it's usually difficult to argue with them. There will be a little more stress than normal at Franklin Field starting Thursday, when the Penn Relays are conducted for the 119th time. The bombings last week in Boston have put university officials and police on high alert, and spectators, coaches, and athletes alike will be searched more thoroughly than ever before when entering the stadium area.

Villanova vs. Michigan, 7:30 p.m. (ESPN2) Delaware vs. West Virginia, 12:15 p.m. (ESPN2) Penn State vs. Cal Poly, 5:15 p.m. (ESPN2)

News item: The Brewers Association has updated its Beer Style Guidelines, with definitions of 142 separate styles. The newest additions are Adambier and Grätzer. SO, THE authoritative organization of small American brewers has reached back a few centuries and turned up a pair of thoroughly obscure smoked European wheat beers for its comprehensive directory. They join a list of everything from Leipzig-style Gose to good ol' American malt liquor. I'm a big fan of style guidelines (heck, I wrote an entire book about 'em)

If the accents coming out of the television during the 11th season of the Fox cooking competition Hell's Kitchen sound familiar, that's because at least five of the 20 chefs have ties to the Philadelphia area. The premiere is 8 p.m. Tuesday. "Oh, there was a lot of Philly there," said Zach Womack, 34, of West Philadelphia, a cook at The Cambridge on South Street.Also competing are Jacqueline Baldassari, 27, of Florence, Burlington County, executive chef at Ivy Inn in Princeton; Drexel University student Cyndi Stanimirov, 25, of Willingboro, a chef at the Madison in Riverside, Burlington County; Brasserie Perrier alumnus Michael Langdon, 33, of Hanover, Pa., executive chef at Huntsville Golf Club in Shavertown, Luzerne County; and Allentown native Jessica Lewis, 26, who left a finance career with Vanguard in Malvern and now cooks at Bagatelle NYC. A sixth chef - if you count York, Pa. - is Jon Scallion, 27. Early buzz has the solidly built, bearded Womack playing a key role in the season, whose premiere - including cooking sequences - was taped before an audience in Las Vegas.

The last time Anne Cappelletti handicapped national awards, she was certain her son John wasn't going to win the 1973 Heisman Trophy. "Bill Lyon was at our house the night before," Cappelletti, 86, recalled Friday, referring to the former Inquirer columnist. "I said, 'Bill, what do you think?' He said, 'He doesn't have a chance.' " John Cappelletti, of course, did win the Heisman - "We were shocked," said his mother - and the Penn State back's stirring acceptance speech about a younger brother dying of leukemia resulted in the family's first brush with Hollywood, the 1977 made-for-TV film Something for Joey . Now, 40 years later, Cappelletti is equally pessimistic when asked to rate the Academy Award chances Sunday of best-picture nominee Silver Linings Playbook , parts of which were filmed on her Upper Darby block and in which she, reluctantly, played a small part.

Stuffed cabbage recipes are the realm of grandmothers and winter. I grew up with a sweet-and-sour beef and rice version simmered in lemony tomato sauce, just like many other Philadelphians of Jewish descent. We called it prakas, a Yiddish name with roots in Eastern Europe. Whatever your background, there are likely cabbage roll recipes in your family ancestry. Poles have golabki, Czechs and Slovaks call it holubky; Turks and Armenians eat dolmas. In Quebec you can ask for cigares au chou.

Stuffed cabbage recipes are the realm of grandmothers and winter. I grew up with a sweet-and-sour beef and rice version simmered in lemony tomato sauce, just like many other Philadelphians of Jewish descent. We called it prakas, a Yiddish name with roots in Eastern Europe. Whatever your background, there are likely cabbage roll recipes in your family ancestry. Poles have golabki, Czechs and Slovaks call it holubky; Turks and Armenians eat dolmas. In Quebec you can ask for cigares au chou.

Here is an excerpt from Craig LaBan's online chat: Craig LaBan: Happy Mardi Gras!! I always get that gumbo feeling this time of year. Where do you plan to get into your Mardi Gras mood?   Reader: I vote Khyber Pass all the way! Reader: I was at Khyber last week and they had a Walker's style cochon de lait po' boy on special. It was like being in NOLA from the first bite. Reader: What do YOU recommend? C.L.: Well, I like some of the other contenders pretty much - Rex was a nice surprise for South Street, and Cajun Kate's is such a fun hidden gem to come across in the Booth's Corner Farmer's Market . . . but no one in town right now is nailing the true NOLA flavors quite like Khyber Pass.

A small amount of chorizo provides big flavor. Roasted Pork Tenderloin With Black Bean-Chorizo Ragu Makes 6 to 8 servings Ingredients: 1 3/4 pounds trimmed pork tenderloins (2 pieces) 1 teaspoon ground cumin 1 teaspoon dried oregano Salt and black pepper 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil 1 medium onion, cut in 1/4-inch dice (1 cup) 1/2 medium red pepper, cut in 1/4-inch dice (1/2 cup) 4 ounces fresh chorizo sausage, casing removed 1 tablespoon tomato paste 1 1/2 cups black beans (homemade or 15-ounce can, drained)

STATE STORE PICK OF THE WEEK Cline Viognier North Coast California $11.99 PLCB Item No. 3006 If you like Chardonnay, chances are you'll LOVE viognier. It shares Chardonnay's framing qualities, in that it is usually dry and voluptuously full-bodied, full of juicy fruit flavor and not sharply acidic. Where it differs is in its aromatic profile. Chardonnay is relatively sedate in its buttered popcorn and apple pie flavors; viognier features an exuberant riot of tastes and smells - lychees and peaches, violets and muskmelons.