Lettuce

There's a strong possibility that the price of a head of lettuce could go as high as $2, as a result of recent floods in southwestern Arizona that damaged more that 20,000 acres of cropland. Because Arizona is a main winter supply source, lettuce prices have been skyocketing and probably will continue to do so until early-spring lettuce from California arrives in the markets. You can avoid the high prices and at the same time easily achieve the "strive for 5" servings of fresh produce recommended by health experts by picking up on a variety of other vegetables and fruits.

Q: Why won't my peonies bloom? The buds look bruised and don't open all the way. A: There are three explanations for buds that won't bloom. The first is botrytis blight, a fungal disease. It can hit plants as they emerge or once buds have formed. It's worse in rainy seasons and on plants growing in cool, wet, shady sites. The buds turn brown and then become covered with a fuzzy gray mold, which will spread down the stem. When you see symptoms, remove infected portions, throw them out (do not compost)

The central ingredients of a 1995 New Jersey fresh salad have, in this third week in January, already been combined on Allan Bylone's farm. Those ingredients would be: Earth. Water. Fire. Plastic. Lots of plastic. Two sheets of the stuff are stretched loosely over a 100-foot-long series of metal hoops to form each of two greenhouses. Other sheets are spread over the entire earthen floor of the greenhouse to keep out weeds. There's a 100-foot-long tube of plastic, used as a duct to carry hot air the length of the greenhouse.

The brave new produce department is full of wonders unknown in the mainstream just a few years ago, including such exotica as kiwanos, jicama, taro roots and lettuce. Lettuce? Well, just think about it. Envision that long stretch of mist-shrouded leafage: not just crispheads in their wrapper leaves, but romaine, butterhead and looseleaf in red, green and chartreuse. Some of it is even hydroponically grown and sold with its roots attached. This happy assortment has been around for a while now, it's true, but emancipation from iceberg is still a comparatively recent phenomenon.

Shredded lettuce has emerged as the most likely source of the bacteria that have sickened at least 71 people who ate at Taco Bells in four states, federal health officials said yesterday. "Could it change? It's possible," said Christopher Braden, a medical epidemiologist with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "but we're fairly confident in the information. " The assertion is not based on evidence from testing but rather from the CDC's statistical analysis of what victims ate compared with what was eaten by companions who did not get sick.

It's easy to spot in salads at trendy restaurants. It's newer than sun- dried tomatoes, hipper than arugula: the purplish-red and white-veined leaves of another easily mispronounced Italian designer lettuce. But learning to say rah-DEE-key-oh may be the only stumbling block. Red radicchio is easy to cook and tastes good grilled, braised, roasted or stir- fried. It also works well in risotto or pasta sauce. A bit on the bitter side, it is food for grown-ups. And it's low in calories.

Lettuce is for more than just salad to the students in the Greenhouse Class at Northern Burlington County Regional High School in Columbus. Students are growing black-seeded Simpson lettuce in an exercise in hydroponics. The lettuce is nourished in a solution rather than in soil. Keith Dannucci, the agricultural science teacher who leads the class, said the students had already harvested one crop of lettuce. They took it home to their families, who ate it and pronounced it "delicious.

Makes 4 servings 1 romaine lettuce heart, core    removed, cut in 1/2-inch pieces 2 large celery ribs, leaves    trimmed, cut in 1/2-inch pieces 2 ripe avocados, peeled,pitted, cut in    1/2-inch pieces 1 can (14 oz.) hearts of palm,    drained, cut in 1/2-inch pieces 2 ripe tomatoes, cored, cut in    1/2-inch pieces 1 cup canned    chickpeas, drained 1 teaspoon fine sea salt,    plus more to taste 1/4 teaspoon freshly    ground black pepper Juice of 1 lemon 2 tablespoons extra virgin    olive oil 1/4 cup finely chopped    fresh    cilantro   (optional)

Tossing a huge salad at the Reading Terminal Market are (from left) Laura Marcucci, Stacey Jordan, Debra Coyman, Gail Wilcove, Sharon Hankins and Amy Heidel. They started with 1,250 pounds of lettuce. Yesterday's event was part of National Nutrition Month.

At the Countryside Market and Delicatessen in Swarthmore all of the sandwiches are named after town buildings, landmarks and roads (Swarthmore has no "streets"). A popular sandwiches is the Ashton House, named after a Swarthmore College guest house that was used for a community-living housing project in the 1970s, and, yes, it (the sandwich) is big enough to share. Packed full of turkey, cucumbers, lettuce and cheese, the Ashton House is topped off with a cranberry chutney from the New England Cranberry Co. Theresa Carrafa, who with her husband, John, owns the Countryside Market at 514 Yale Ave., says she chose this chutney because it was "not too vinegary" to combine with the other ingredients.

Makes 4 servings 1 romaine lettuce heart, core    removed, cut in 1/2-inch pieces 2 large celery ribs, leaves    trimmed, cut in 1/2-inch pieces 2 ripe avocados, peeled,pitted, cut in    1/2-inch pieces 1 can (14 oz.) hearts of palm,    drained, cut in 1/2-inch pieces 2 ripe tomatoes, cored, cut in    1/2-inch pieces 1 cup canned    chickpeas, drained 1 teaspoon fine sea salt,    plus more to taste 1/4 teaspoon freshly    ground black pepper Juice of 1 lemon 2 tablespoons extra virgin    olive oil 1/4 cup finely chopped    fresh    cilantro   (optional)

When the mercury hits 90 and above, tempers can get pretty fired up, too. But another glass of water or a slice of watermelon might help, because irritability is a classic side effect of dehydration. The first physical sign is thirst, of course. But other symptoms are more subtle. You might get a headache. You can become cranky, forgetful, tired, and dizzy, and your skin appears dry and wrinkly. Remember the old admonition to drink eight glasses of water a day? Well, in 2004, the Institute of Medicine issued new general fluid recommendations indicating women should drink 11 cups per day and men 15 cups.

Howard Brosius is trying to be heard above the buzz of a dozen small children recently liberated from day care. "Who wants some black-seeded Simpson?" he shouts, holding up the ruffled, light green leaves of this 150-year-old lettuce variety. In a room full of veteran vegetable gardeners, this would provoke a stampede. Here, in a small classroom at Awbury Arboretum in Germantown, the kids have no idea what black-seeded means or who Simpson was. But they know whatever "Mr. Howard" is offering, they want.

If Indian animal rights activists have their way, mega-selling singer and sex symbol Lady Gaga will wear a lettuce dress (a dress made out of lettuce) during her sojourn in New Delhi this weekend. Her Gagaiosity is performing at an invitation-only party Sunday to celebrate India's first Formula 1 auto race. PETA India wants her to promote vegetarianism. (It's a counterpoint to the famed meat dress Gaga wore at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards.) "We'll make her a dress entirely of lettuce," says org rep Sachin Bangera . "It will be a full-length gown, and we'll make sure it looks sexy.

Q: Why won't my peonies bloom? The buds look bruised and don't open all the way. A: There are three explanations for buds that won't bloom. The first is botrytis blight, a fungal disease. It can hit plants as they emerge or once buds have formed. It's worse in rainy seasons and on plants growing in cool, wet, shady sites. The buds turn brown and then become covered with a fuzzy gray mold, which will spread down the stem. When you see symptoms, remove infected portions, throw them out (do not compost)

Stay off squishy lawns. Wait until the ground is firm before using laden carts or wheelbarrows, because the ruts in extra-moist ground can last all season. Same for footprints of the hefty. Be counterintuitive and take the lawnmower for a checkup now, while a delay is OK. When the grass starts growing again, it will be rambunctious, but the repair shop will be overloaded. Get a jump on spring by cutting forsythia and other early bloomers to force into bloom. Forsythia is the easiest; other candidates include corylopsis (winter hazels)

A recent recall of chopped, bagged romaine lettuce by Freshway Foods of Sidney, Ohio, does not include romaine grown in New Jersey, a state agency said Friday. The recall was ordered because of the produce's connection to an E. coli outbreak in New York, Michigan, and Ohio. "New Jersey-produced romaine had not begun to be on the market when the first illnesses were reported," said state Agriculture Secretary Douglas Fisher. "It certainly is an unfortunate coincidence of timing that this recall is occurring just as our farmers' fresh romaine is coming into the market, but there is no connection between the two. "

We were waiting for Jah. Not Jah, the deity, but Jah the farmer, a.k.a. dreadlocked farmer Matt Bruckler 3d, who was supposed to deliver our first box of organic vegetables from his farm, Jah's Creation, in Egg Harbor Township. But it was late at night, and Jah had still not arrived. On opposite ends of our town, my friend Joan and I waited, and then once the boxes had arrived, close to midnight on that hectic first week, we wondered. What would we do with all that kale?

Salad as still life Continuity is the watchword at Friday Saturday Sunday, at 35 now one of the city's longest-running and loyally patronized dining rooms. Upstairs at the Tank Bar, you can still get the signature jumbo lump crab cake, unfiddled with, just the way you remember it. But owner Weaver Lilley isn't above adding a new wrinkle, or in the current case, a new salad celebrating the Art Museum's "Cézanne and Beyond" exhibit, running through May 17. Lilley, a "big Cézanne fan," said he studied the artist's still lifes to come up with a salad resonant of their mood.

Peas and beans aren't the only early birds in the garden. In just a few weeks, lettuce seeds can be sown directly into the ground, too. Peas' and beans' great big seed-balls go in around St. Patrick's Day. Lettuce's turn is mid-April, a good month before the bulk of our spring planting season begins. But you have to be careful. Lettuce seeds are the size of fleas. You can pretend they're peas or beans and lay each one carefully into the garden, barely covering them with soil, and hoping you don't sneeze.