Nuts

A dream had carried the boys so far from home, some 5,000 miles across the ocean to a cramped and dingy apartment in Philadelphia: a hope that ice hockey could change their lives. Ivan Pravilov could fulfill that dream, they were told. He could take them from the daily grind of post-communist Ukraine to the gleaming ice of the NHL. He'd done it before. He'd done if for Andrei Zyuzin, who went on to play for six NHL teams. He'd done it for Konstantin Kalmikov, a third-round draft pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1996.

BY CALLING the patients at Trenton state psychiatric facility "nuts," the editor at the Trentonian relegated those people as something less than human, as something that fell out of trees. I am appalled by his use of the term "nuts," and I cannot help but think of other times in history when similar words were used to produce more devastating effects on people who were not considered human. I ask the editor of the Trentonian who wrote the story to continue to review his position about the fire at Trenton State Psychiatric, relegating patients to nuts and think hard how his statement distorted the perception of hundreds of people who only wished to be accepted in a multi-faceted world, filled with both good and evil at a time when compassion is the benchmark of human endeavor.

LINDA Diggs-Turner wrote that she wants to bring back the draft. I bet she doesn't have a son near draft age. Well, I do! The war in Iraq has nothing to do with what happened on 9/11. I won't let anyone take my son to war just because George Bush had a grudge against Saddam! And I'm a lifelong Republican. Robert Patrick McNulty Philadelphia

Of course you can't stop eating them - that's why nuts belong in a safe, or at least a safe place! The safest place to keep them? In the freezer. Not even the nuttiest nut-ophiles are likely to risk their dental work on frozen nuts. The freezer keeps the fresh flavor of nuts safe, too. It's the ideal place to keep rarely used, oil-rich ingredients. Once opened, a package of nuts will turn rancid and bitter if left at room temperature for a long period of time. Which brings us to the next question: What's a Slim Gourmet cook doing with nuts in the first place?

Q. What nuts contain caffeine? Joyce Williams Laureldale, Pa. A. The nuts that we are most familiar with in North America, such as peanuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, etc., contain no caffeine. Although there are more than 63 species of plants growing in all parts of the world which contain caffeine in their leaves, seeds or fruit, most of us have only come in contact with three of them - cacao beans, coffee beans and tea leaves. One nut that is popular in certain parts of the world, particularly Africa, is the kola nut, which is chewed because of its stimulating properties.

On its surface, Nuts is a supercharged courtroom drama about a Park Avenue prostitute and her fight to be declared mentally competent after she has killed a jet-set john. Probe deeper, which Martin Ritt's stunning achievement does, and it's an excavation of the buried traumas of an American family - an excavation by dynamite, courtesy of explosive performances by Barbra Streisand as the hooker and Richard Dreyfuss as her legal-aid lawyer. They hit you smack in the solar plexus.

Nutrition issues are rarely black or white. In fact, it's the gray areas that tend to make us all scratch our heads. People constantly ask, "Is this a good food?" or "Should I eat this food?" expecting a simple yes or no. Sorry, folks, it's just not that easy. It is challenging, though. Take nuts and seeds, for instance. Nuts and seeds are great sources of protein. And they can be helpful in creating high-quality protein when combined with grains and legumes. But they contain far more fat than protein, which puts them in the "use sparingly" category.

Reading the Aug. 3 Family/Home/Fashion section article "Sweating out summer in a business suit," I was struck by a paradox: To wear such a costume in the heat is to behave in a manner inconsistent with the attributes one expects a competent business person to possess. A good manager should display practicality, common sense and sound judgment, right? Looking at it logically, it would seem that any man who would choose to wear a jacket, tie and long-sleeve shirt when it's 92 degrees in the shade with humidity to match belongs in Byberry, not the boardroom.

"I did it," Slats Grobnik said triumphantly. "I got through the whole thing without knowing what's going on. " You got through what thing? "This creep Jeffrey Dahmer in Milwaukee. The trial's over now. He's going to prison. He's going to disappear from the newspapers and the TV, and I got through it all without reading one word about him. " Not even one word? "Only the headlines. I had to look at the headlines so I'd know what I wasn't going to read. And when I watched the news, I sat there with the zapper in my hand.

Question: I have a porcelain centerpiece in mint condition. Its base rests on four scroll feet and is topped by a column decorated with applied three- dimensional painted flowers, leaves and cherubs. The top is an open pierced basket decorated with raised painted flowers. The centerpiece is marked with a monogram and the word Dresden in blue under its base. What can you tell me about it? Answer: The marks you describe reveal that your footed epergne for displaying fruit or nuts was made after 1901 by Carl Thieme's Saxonian Porcelain Factory at Potschappel, Germany.

HERE'S A THOUGHT for Presidents Day: President Santorum. Did you just shiver? How in the name of all that's holy is Rick Santorum atop national polls for the Republican nomination? Get it? All that's holy? Maybe that's the answer. You know, the Tebow factor; the Jeremy Lin effect? Well, I have another theory. I wrote Rick off after his strong showing in Iowa, a state that - in an example of what a wacky year this is - he officially won weeks later by one-tenth of 1 percent.

TRENTON - The verbal feud over gay marriage in New Jersey got more personal yesterday with Gov. Chris Christie firing a slang term at a state lawmaker, and a hero of the civil-rights movement chastising the governor for a separate remark. Christie called openly gay Assemblyman Reed Gusciora "numb-nuts" during a Statehouse news conference - his response to the lawmaker comparing him to former segregationist governors in the South. The Democratic majority in the Legislature is trying to legalize same-sex marriages through legislation, and Christie, a Republican who opposes same-sex nuptials, wants it decided by a public vote.

It's no exaggeration to say people went nuts over Michael Haneke's 2005 thriller, Caché . Steeped in paranoia and cloaked in enigma, the film centered on a Paris intellectual ( Daniel Auteuil ) whose life goes seriously out of whack when a videotape is delivered mysteriously to his door. And then another tape, and another. Someone has been watching, stalking, filming, plotting. . . . But what really drove people nuts was Haneke's ending: Majid's son standing on the school building's steps, talking to the kid while the credits roll!

Wegmans is recalling all of the Turkish pine nuts it sold from its bulk food department from July 1 through October 18. The store says the nuts may be contaminated with Salmonella, a bacteria that can cause diarrheal illness. Store officials say the recall amounts to about 5,000 pounds of the nuts sold in the bulk food departments of of most Wegmans stores in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, and Maryland between July 1 and October 18, 2011. The bottled pine nuts Wegmans sells in its grocery department are not part of the recall.

If you're an ordinary Philadelphia voter, you go to the polls once or twice a year, and the experience is routine: The poll workers find your name among the registered voters, ask you to sign in, and take you to a voting machine, where you duck under a curtain, push buttons for your candidates, open the curtain, and go on about your business for the next six months. If there's a single person to thank for that routine, it's someone most Philadelphians have never heard of: Robert Lee Jr., officially listed on the city payroll as "voter registration administrator," but unofficially, the guy who has been minding the nuts and bolts of the city election machinery since the 1980s.

In these days of Facebook and Twitter, e-mails and texts, a simple 3-by-10-inch bumper sticker is helping Bucks County's oldest hardware store stay afloat. The plain white stickers, with red and white stripes and black lettering, spread the message quickly and succinctly: "Save Newtown Hardware. " Owner Dave Callahan has given away 2,000, depleting his first batch, and they're starting to pay dividends. "They've certainly helped," Callahan says in the creaky and cramped brick store that's been an anchor on Newtown Borough's State Street for 142 years.

START WITH THIS: Baseball nut John Shiffert, a native Philadelphian, Society for American Baseball Research member and author of three baseball books, set about earlier this season to identify the best Phillie of all time at each position. His conclusion: Ryan Howard by a nose over . . . John Kruk. So this week's announcement that the Krukker will become the latest to have a plaque hung on the Wall of Honor in Ashburn Alley is clearly based on solid, on-the-field achievements.

IMMEDIATELY after quelling the birth-certificate controversy, President Obama created another scandal last week in the wake of the government-sanctioned assassination of Osama bin Laden. After successfully ordering and executing the hit, Obama insisted that bin Laden be buried at sea to honor the Islamic tradition of quick burial. With no physical body to offer as proof, conspiracy theorists quickly determined that bin Laden wasn't really dead, or that he'd been dead for a long time and the Obama administration was simply stealing credit.

THE BIG NEWS from Phils general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. and head athletic trainer Scott Sheridan yesterday was that there is no news. No progression in Chase Utley's sore right knee. No clearer timetable on when he might be able to return. No solution on how to treat the problem. The Phillies are currently gathering and evaluating nonoperative options. But surgery has not been ruled out. We'll try to answer all your questions here: Q: Why did the Phillies wait until now to take the next step?

SO NOW the terrorists win if a Canadian Muslim can buy a can of tomato soup. Conservative bloggers are calling for a boycott of Camden-based Campbell Soup Co. because it now produces (in Canada, not here) 15 varieties of soup that have been certified halal - that is, conforming with Muslim dietary laws. It's yet another alarming development in the so- far-successful political strategy of exploiting ignorance and fear of Islam. It joins last summer's roiling controversy over a proposed Islamic cultural center a few New York blocks from Ground Zero and the crazy Florida minister's threat to publicly burn a Quran.