Pan

JEANNETTE, PA. - A western Pennsylvania man found not guilty of beating his very intoxicated fiancée with a frying pan will still spend 20 to 60 months in prison for fighting with an officer who arrested him. Westmoreland County prosecutors charged Timothy Lenhart, 56, with attacking Jennifer Hix on July 10, 2010. About a year before that, Lenhart was acquitted of poking out Hix's eye with an umbrella, and he avoided conviction in the frying-pan attack because Hix testified that she couldn't remember the beating.

Reacting to the heat, firefighters emerge into the sunlight after battling a 4:45 p.m. blaze in three-story twin house in the 5200 block of Ridge Avenue yesterday. There were no injuries.

Bonifacio Guenechea is a very generous man, and has some very special cooking ware. I first met "Boni" only a few months back when I borrowed three of his pans to cook a benefit beach party for Cystic Fibrosis at my brother's home in the Florida Keys. Boni's pans (he calls them "Magic-Pans") are giant paella pans that come with their own butane burner and tripod, and are perfect for cooking for a crowd. With three of them, I cooked beef, chicken and Florida lobster for 250 people in just over an hour.

Green eggs and pan We haven't had great luck with nonstick pans. But our initial experience with Cuisinart's new "Green Gourmet" skillet was promising. Not only does it fry an egg without butter, but the cleanup is a cinch. Cuisinart says the nonstick surface is a petroleum-free, ceramic-based material, not the Teflon-style stuff said to harm the environment. Its other eco-friendly claims? The packaging is 100 percent recycled, and the pan needs less energy to stay hot. A subtle snap The cooler weather calls for these thin and crispy Swedish cookies, crackling with ginger, cinnamon and cloves.

Off the diamond, they are a charmingly fresh-faced troupe that might pass for those on a high school senior class trip. Young - as in naive, unspoiled and slightly innocent - is the definitive word for the baseball players representing the United States in the 10th Pan- American Games. How young? Well, the 20-man U.S. team that won the right to face Cuba in today's gold medal game with a 7-6 victory over Canada last night includes a half-dozen 19- year-olds and seven other players who are 20. Of the seven whose longevity has qualified them for such envied privileges as drinking beer legally in any state, two said goodbye to 21 some months ago. At a seasoned 23, outfielder Don Guillot of Port Isabel, Texas, is the most venerable member of coach Ron Fraser's flock.

Athletes apparently are growing weary of the food in the Olympic Village. For breakfast, the menu is usually scrambled powdered eggs and overcooked bacon. For lunch and dinner, the choice is varied but straight, solid food without frills. Roast pork and chicken do not meet the needs of some athletes. Nor does the eternal noodle, American-style coffee or Korean-style ginseng tea. "That's the complaints we've been getting most of," said Anne Beddow of the International Olympic Committee.

Dear Anne and Nan: I have several old cast-iron frying pans that have a layer or two (or three or four) of stuff on the outside. I've been trying to get it off but gave up. A neighbor lady said it was old water buildup from years of sitting in water. (We found these at an old barn sale.) I love cast iron and would like to get them back into usable order. - Louise Fairbanks, Tecumseh, Mich. Dear Louise: The "old-timey" way of cleaning the crusty residue from cast-iron cooking utensils (and the one we've always used)

A "kissing bandit" ended up in the frying pan after he broke into a 27- year-old woman's apartment in Oxford Circle on Nov. 19. "The victim struck him on the head with her frying pan," said Assistant District Attorney Gail Fairman yesterday. "That was after she kicked him in the groin, and he asked her to help him to get out of the apartment. " "'I didn't want to kill him," testified the woman during a preliminary hearing for Adam Ambrose, 27, of Hegerman Street near Tyson Avenue, Oxford Circle.

Leaking shower pans can cause quite a bit of damage, and many times you might not become aware of it for a long while. If the pan has to be replaced, you might be talking lots of money and a lot of work. But before you get into all that, you might want to try a little trick that many people have used successfully. No matter what kind of pan you have, you might be able to seal the tile surface without actually repairing the pan. If the grout joints are properly sealed, no water goes through and, therefore, there's no need for the pan. Plan on coating the entire tile shower floor and at least one row of tiles up on all the walls.

What may have been the gutsiest long-jump competition of his career gave Carl Lewis a Pan-American Games gold medal yesterday, and it proved once again that, even without the world record, he is the all-time performer in the history of this event. Lewis came into the 10th Pan-Am Games hoping to surpass Bob Beamon's world record of 29 feet, 2 1/2 inches - an enduring standard set in the 7,500-foot altitude of Mexico City during the 1968 Olympics. But even before the competition started at Indiana University's track stadium, where a record crowd of 13,281 turned out for the Games' final session of track and field, Lewis' sea-level attempt at beating Beamon was gone with the wind.

In J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, the boy was dressed in leaves, as perhaps was Pan, the Greek god of nature whom Barrie had in mind. When Pennsylvania Ballet gave the ballet Peter Pan its Philadelphia premiere Thursday night at the Academy of Music with Alexander Peters as the boy from Neverland, his sprightly body was not clad in leaves, but scantily enough in shorts and straps around his chest to suggest a ruffian from the wilds. The Oregon Ballet originally commissioned choreographer Trey McIntyre to create this Peter Pan, his first full-length ballet, but funding problems caused him to set the work on the Houston Ballet in 2002.

This strange ballet has been playing out in my head recently: The dancers come out on stage and move in complete silence. After a minute or two, audience members begin to shift in their seats. Children lose focus and start asking "When will it be over?" Five or 10 minutes of this, and people are asking for their money back. This would only happen, of course, if, for some bizarre reason, a ballet company decided it no longer needed music. It couldn't really happen, but Pennsylvania Ballet raises the question with its marketing materials for Peter Pan, which opens Thursday.

This classic pairing of asparagus and poached egg is such a lovely weeknight dinner, especially as a herald to spring. It's not something I would make on a weeknight for the kids, I will confess, too challenging to poach all those eggs. But it is perfect supper for one or two. Though it is a few steps, the results are well worth the effort. This recipe, from Jane Hornby's newest offering, Fresh & Easy: What to Cook & How to Cook It, adds a sauce of balsamic vinegar and butter to the asparagus, for a spot-on finishing touch.

Germantown Academy grad Maggie Lucas scored 30 points, and fourth-seeded Penn State moved on to the third round of the women's NCAA tournament with a 90-80 victory over No. 5 seed LSU on Tuesday night in Baton Rouge, La.  Ariel Edwards scored 15 points and Mia Nickson had 14 points and 10 rebounds for the Lions (26-6), who will play Connecticut on Sunday in the regional semifinals. That game will be the first third-round appearance for fifth-year Penn State coach Coquese Washington.  LaSondra Barrett had 18 points and 12 rebounds for LSU (23-11)

Neighbors said Ellen Walton had known Corey Conaway since he was born. And Conaway turned out to be the last person the 68-year-old Walton saw before she died - beaten to death with an iron frying pan, a Philadelphia jury found Friday - when she surprised her 18-year-old neighbor burglarizing her Germantown house. Now 20, Conaway seemed unmoved when the Common Pleas Court jury found him guilty of first-degree murder in Walton's death on Jan. 8, 2010. He was immediately sentenced to life in prison without chance of parole.

Neighbors said Ellen Walton had known Corey Conaway since he was born. And Conaway turned out to be the last person the 68-year-old Walton saw before she died - beaten to death with an iron frying pan, a Philadelphia jury found Friday - when she surprised her 18-year-old neighbor burglarizing her Germantown house. Now 20, Conaway seemed unmoved when the Common Pleas Court jury found him guilty of first-degree murder in Walton's death on Jan. 8, 2010. He was immediately sentenced to life in prison without chance of parole.

JEANNETTE, PA. - A western Pennsylvania man found not guilty of beating his very intoxicated fiancée with a frying pan will still spend 20 to 60 months in prison for fighting with an officer who arrested him. Westmoreland County prosecutors charged Timothy Lenhart, 56, with attacking Jennifer Hix on July 10, 2010. About a year before that, Lenhart was acquitted of poking out Hix's eye with an umbrella, and he avoided conviction in the frying-pan attack because Hix testified that she couldn't remember the beating.

Winter warmer Those famous soup guys on the east side of the Delaware have created new slurpable offerings. These preservative-free Slow Kettle soups are packed with herbs and chunks of veggies (the juicy baby bella mushrooms and skin-on potatoes were a nice touch in the Burgundy beef stew). Bring a bowl - the containers are not microwavable.   - Ashley Primis Campbell's Slow Kettle soups at local supermarkets, campbellsoup.com.   Portion-control pan The dieting gurus say that to make your healthy eating resolution last, indulge with moderation.

BIG 5 BASKETBALL, and Temple in particular, will be well represented at the basketball portion of the Pan Am Games. The hoops competition begins tomorrow in Guadalajara, Mexico. Owls senior guard Juan Fernandez has been added to the Argentine squad, while former teammate Luis Guzman is playing for the Dominican Republic. Ex-Villanova forward Curtis Sumpter is also a member of the United States squad. In 2008, Fernandez - a preseason All-Atlantic 10 first-team pick - helped his country win an under-18 world championship.

GUADALAJARA, Mexico - After nearly two hours in the Pacific Ocean, it all came down to a fraction of a second for Arthur Frayler on Saturday. And for the 17-year-old from Ambler, those three-tenths of a second cost him a gold medal in the 10-kilometer open-water swim at the Pan American Games. "It was a battle for first," said Frayler, a senior at Germantown Academy. "That's all it was, really. " Canada's Richard Weinberger edged Frayler to the line in the 6.2-mile race off the coast of Puerto Vallarta, winning the gold medal in 1 hour, 57 minutes, 31 seconds.