Patties

There will be fireworks, and there will be parades, but most of all, there will be food - and lots of it - when families and friends get together this weekend to celebrate Independence Day. It's the sort of weekend that leaves mile-wide smiles on the faces of supermarket operators and other food suppliers. "It's the biggest of the summer holidays," said John Piccione, manager at Roy Tweedy's Old Fashion Butcher in Ridley Township. Piccione said that he would move more chicken, ribs, hamburgers and hot dogs out of his shop than on any other weekend of the year.

Here are Craig LaBan's favorite burgers in the Philadelphia region, in no particular order: The burger that inspired the song "Cheeseburger, I Hold," Good Dog's signature sandwich triumphs where so many before have tried and failed - stuffing a burger with blue cheese. The meat itself is deliciously seasoned, perfectly cooked, and wisely topped only with a mop of sauteed onions. But bite into the heart, and behold. A river of molten bleu. A powerhouse of tangy savor. Too rich to be an everyday burger.

Experimental cooks are quick to discover that ground lamb has its own personality, suggesting a whole new world of seasonings apart from the ketchup or steak sauce that generally garnishes beefburgers. Like beef, ground lamb patties are best served rare. LAMB 'QUARTER POUNDERS' 1 pound lean ground lamb 4 teaspoons lemon juice 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano (or mint) leaves Generous pinch each: ground cinnamon and nutmeg Garlic salt and coarse black pepper, to taste Divide lamb into quarters; shape each into a round patty.

What do heroin, cocaine, crack and hamburger patties have in common? They were all hauled in during a evening's work by Philadelphia narcotics officers yesterday - the drugs at the Richard Allen Homes public housing development in North Philadelphia, and the burgers from a suspect on the street as the drug-raid officers headed to their office. According to Narcotics Division Sgt. Michael Mander, police raided an apartment in the 1000 block of Brown Street about 5 p.m. Inside they found 280 packets of heroin, 700 bags of cocaine and 263 vials of crack, Mander said.

If you're bored with beef, try "otherburgers. " What are otherburgers? Burgers made with other ground meat: lamb, veal or pork, for example. Or no meat at all. How about tunaburgers or turkeyburgers for a change. While ketchup is traditional on a beefburger, otherburgers call for other toppings and seasonings, more in keeping with their flavor. Fresh tomato or cucumber slices go great on tunaburgers. On turkeyburgers, too. Turkey also takes to fragrant herbs. Lamb and vealburgers are best seasoned with lemon, herbs or spices.

It wasn't so long ago that ground turkey was hard to find. Now it's available in many forms - bulk, logs and patties - in almost every supermarket. You also have a choice of ground turkey breast or thigh meat. Why does it matter what part of the bird the ground meat comes from? There are two big issues: fat and flavor. Ounce for ounce, ground turkey breast has less than half the fat of turkey thigh meat. If you're scrupulous about trimming fat from your diet, breast meat is the way to go. A small turkey breast patty has about 1 1/2 grams of fat, and you can't do much better than that on a low-fat diet.

New labeling and processing rules to ensure that certain kinds of meat patties, including precooked hamburgers, are safe to eat are being considered by the Agriculture Department. Lester M. Crawford, administrator of the department's food safety and inspection service, said there had been increasing evidence over the last several years that disease organisms survived in products that many consumers erroneously believed were fully cooked when bought. The proposal would affect fully cooked, partially cooked and "char- marked" ground meat patties.

My golden retriever and I are eating food that looks exactly alike. And for almost the same reason. This can't be good. But it's delicious. You may remember that last summer, I tried to lower my cholesterol the natural way, without drugs. That meant I had to lose weight, which was when I discovered that my problem is portion control. In that I have none. Please tell me I'm not alone. I can't be, because I've noticed that more and more food marketing is targeted at people like me, in that pretzels, cookies, and chips now come in 100-calorie packs.

Maybe the question now is "What's the beef?" City Licenses and Inspections Commissioner Bennett Levin yesterday took Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers off the hook for a $96,000 fine, but refused to apologize for citing them last week for allegedly short-weighting their quarter-pound hamburger patties. "I don't believe there was any criminal intent," Levin said. "But the process by which they package and deliver their patties will have to change. " Levin added that L&I found "no intent to deceive customers," and that it responded to the city citations in a responsible manner.

Harry T. Triolo, 68, who helped develop the wholesale distribution of portion-controlled meats for local delis and taverns, died Friday of heart failure at Presbyterian Medical Center. He lived in South Philadelphia. Mr. Triolo and three brothers started the Triolo Brothers Grocery, 16th and Morris Streets, shortly after World War II. A few years later, they opened a pork slaughterhouse, first at Front Street and later in Wrightstown, N.J. In the late 1950s, Mr. Triolo branched out and started Trio Meats at South Bancroft Street, a wholesale distributor of sandwich steaks, hamburger patties and other portion-controlled meats.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Worried about horse meat in your beef? Try water buffalo, donkey, and goat. South African food scientists said they have found all three in mislabeled foods including beef burgers, ground beef and sausages. A study published by three professors at Stellenbosch University found that 68 percent of 139 samples contained species not declared in the product label, with the highest incidence in sausages, burger patties and deli meats. The study found soy and gluten were not labeled in 28 percent of products tested.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Nearly three dozen downtown bars, restaurants, and bottle shops have agreed to halt alcohol sales to counter an early St. Patrick's Day celebration created by Pennsylvania State University students, the most aggressive effort yet to curb drinking for the unofficial "State Patty's Day" holiday. In exchange, each business will receive a $5,000 subsidy to help account for lost revenue. State Patty's Day was created in 2007 to celebrate St. Patrick's Day when it fell during spring break that year.

LOS ANGELES - Patty Andrews, 94, the last surviving member of the singing Andrews Sisters trio - whose hits such as the rollicking "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B" and the poignant "I Can Dream, Can't I?" captured the home-front spirit of World War II - died Wednesday, Jan. 30, of natural causes at her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Northridge, said a family spokesman. Patty was the Andrews in the middle, the lead singer and chief clown, whose raucous jitterbugging delighted American servicemen abroad and audiences at home.

NASHVILLE, TENN. - Unforgettable songs like "Tennessee Waltz" and "(How Much Is That) Doggie in the Window" made Patti Page the best-selling female singer of the 1950s and a star who would spend much of the rest of her life traveling the world. When unspecified health problems finally stopped her decades of touring, though, Page wrote a sad-but-resolute letter to her fans late last year about the change. "Although I feel I still have the voice God gave me, physical impairments are preventing me from using that voice as I had for so many years," Page wrote.

THERE WAS the time in 2008 Tyler Perry showed up in the lobby of the WDAS radio station in Bala Cynwyd asking to see on-air host Patty Jackson. She'd met him years earlier when he was still producing stage plays and only dreaming of getting into the Hollywood scene. But Jackson hadn't seen him in ages. When Jackson walked out into the lobby, Perry greeted her and explained, "I had to come by and see you because you were there for me from the beginning. You talked with me when nobody else would talk with me. " Her stunned reaction: "You hang with Oprah and Gayle, and you remember me ?"

American poet and rocker and mommy and onetime South Street Philadelphia denizen Patti Smith will receive Bryn Mawr College's 2013 Katharine Hepburn Medal (Kate graduated from there in 1928) at a Feb. 7 ceremony. Smith "was a trailblazer in the male-dominated world of rock and roll, and conveys enormous passion and continues to transform herself throughout her artistic journey," the college says in a statement. Smith will be in town a few weeks earlier for a Nov. 29 show co-headined by Neil Young & Crazy Horse . Divorce hardball Aren't divorce negotiations fun?

Noted musician, songwriter and poet Patti Smith will receive Bryn Mawr College's 2013 Katharine Hepburn Medal, the college announced. The South Jersey native will be awarded the medal on Feb. 7 at an event in Goodhart Hall. The musician "was a trailblazer in the male-dominated world of rock and roll, and conveys enormous passion and continues to transform herself throughout her artistic journey," the college said in a statement. Smith is also a writer and visual artist. Her debut album Horses was a major influence on the New York punk rock scene.

2 pounds beef shoulder or chuck 2 pounds beef clod (or well marbled shoulder roast containing clod) 2 pounds brisket with deckle or second cut 2 pounds short ribs, bones and connective tissue removed, trimmed of excess fat   1. Clean the meat grinder, die, and blade with bleach and hot water. Use a bottle brush to get inside the grinder. 2. With a knife trim the cuts of beef into ¾- to 1-inch strips (or no bigger than the diameter of the grinder you are using)

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Student-led efforts to curb drinking to counter the early St. Patrick's Day celebration created by Pennsylvania State University students five years ago cut the number of drinking-related incidents at the weekend bash by nearly 100 - or 13 percent - from last year, police said. Authorities made 296 arrests this year during "State Patty's Day," down from 341 last year, according to preliminary data from State College and Penn State police. Campus police said more than half of the 71 people arrested by their officers were not Penn State students.

If two of Broadway's enduring stars were looking to create an intimate concert in a large Broadway house, that's just what they've done in An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin , which opened a limited run at the Barrymore on Monday night. The show is the direct opposite of glitz and glamour - so down to earth, with the sole backup from pianist Paul Ford and bassist John Beal, it's hard to believe we're on Broadway. We are, though, and back to a time when what we got, pure and simple, was pure and simple.