Peas

Vanessa Paradis , 39, on Tuesday was confronted with that most pressing question: Is she still Johnny Depp 's one and only? Or is the couple no more? The French model, singer, and thesp gave a reply that philosophers will still be deciphering centuries from now. "You know, when I eat three peas, I'm pregnant. When I visit a city, I'm buying a house," Paradis told French radio station Europe 1. "In the winter I separate, in the summer I marry. It's been 15 years since I've been getting married every year.

I love this classic version of pasta and peas. The prosciutto adds not only protein, but also a salty savor that rounds out the dish.   Pasta and Peas Makes 6 first course or 4 main course servings 4 tablespoons butter One 4-ounce slice prosciutto (1/4-inch thick) cut into 1/4-inch dice 1 small onion, chopped One 10-ounce package frozen peas (or 10 ounces fresh baby peas) 1 bunch parsley, finely chopped Pepper 1 pound dried pasta, such as spaghetti or linguine (or 1 1/2 pounds fresh)

THE UBIQUITOUS Black Eyed Peas have pulled out of Saturday's Michael Jackson tribute concert in Wales. Organizers say the band has withdrawn due to "unavoidable circumstances. " They got a feelin' . . . Christina Aguilera , Smokey Robinson , Gladys Knight , Leona Lewis and Cee Lo Green remain on the bill. * In other pseudo-MJ news, TMZ.com reports that Katherine Jackson , Michael's mom, has been lent money from his estate to pay her settlement of a 17-year-old lawsuit with South Korea's Segye Times newspaper.

Growing up, I firmly believed two things. First, I would one day be the starting power forward for the Philadelphia 76ers. Second, vegetables are bad. As I've gotten older, I've realized I lack both the height and the array of post moves to make it as an NBA starter. But the years have only affirmed my instincts about vegetables. The herbivore camp will point to the various health benefits of consuming leaves, stems, and roots. But these pale compared with the emotional, physical, and monetary costs.

An ancient vegetable is finding legions of new fans as cooks rediscover the joy of peas. Most of us grew up with frozen, canned, or dried split peas. Shelling peas by hand, it seemed, was just too much work. But the flavor of fresh peas rewards those who take on that time-consuming chore. And some peas need no shelling - they're eaten pod and all. An early-spring staple for millennia, peas are at their best, and sweetest, just plucked from the vine. Ask any gardener who grows peas; they often get munched before they reach the kitchen.

A proper red-eye gravy gets its bold richness in part from a dose of strong black coffee. Shawn Sollberger, chef and co-owner of the new Northern Liberties pub Gunners Run, combines his grandfather's technique for chicken-fried steak with his North Carolina neighbor's red-eye gravy recipe. Instead of adding ham to the gravy, as is the norm, Sollberger crumbles bacon into the oil he uses to pan-fry the top round steak. He deglazes the pan with coffee. It's served with sauteed spinach and black-eyed peas.

AS I WAS WATCHING the news the other day, I saw two people being interviewed by reporters - Moammar Gadhafi and Charlie Sheen. After the interviews, I started thinking about these two characters, and I came to the conclusion that these two are cut from the same mold. They are both in denial about the truth going on around them. They need to put these two clowns in a hospital or crazy house. Gregory Betancourt Philadelphia

We have grown accustomed to - no, make that attached to - the calendar on the wall of our kitchen that reproduces the vintage drawings from something called Album Benary, an archive so foreign to us that we have long assumed (wrongly) it was of Italian extraction. It's labeled the Farmer's Market 2010 calendar, which isn't quite its actual focus: the vegetable illustrations, as carefully detailed as Audubon prints, date from 1876, when they were made by the noted seed collector and breeder Ernst Benary, a German, it turns out. Atop each month, on ivory-colored stock, are depictions, for instance, of varieties of luminous, silken onions that might be (if inflated)

SO, AN IDIOT runs on the field at CBP, gets what he deserves, and people are saying the cop used excessive force. You're kidding, right? The guy probably had a few cocktails (you'd hope he wouldn't be that big an imbecile sober), then he wants to impress his friends and get a rise from the crowd. Nice job, stupid! One, he's trespassing. Second, does he have a weapon? Is he strapped with explosives? What are his intentions? It was probably just a bad decision by drunken buffoon, but you just don't know for sure when it's happening - and let's not find out. In my opinion, the cop let him off easy.

You will hear, on occasion, expats from Trinidad pine for a lost land - for beaches that are gone, and trails paved over, for the slower boat to Tobago (now it's a two-hour trip, not an overnight), and island architecture washed away by a wave of Americanized design. Last week one of them named Clarence Drakes, an architect himself, happened by Calypso, the homey Trinidadian stand in the Chestnut Hill Farmers Market, and he soon fell into a deep, misty-eyed reverie. Ah, but the food, reminded his friend Ayanna Osbourne, who has family ties on the island, that's another matter: No one has torn that page from Trinidad's story.