Sausage

WORLD Series, Game 3, Phillies vs. the Tampa Bay Rays at Citizens Bank Park on Saturday, Oct. 25, at 8:35 p.m. Torrential downpour. High winds. Dollar-store rain poncho. And a ticket in Section 428. It doesn't get any better than this. I felt like Charlie Bucket - you know, the poor kid from "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" - when the little rugrat discovers a Golden Ticket inside a Wonka Bar, and he dances in the streets of some Dickensian city bellowing, "Cause I got a Golden Ticket . . . " Well, that was me down at Broad and Pattison, dancing and singing, "Cause I got a World Series Ticket . . . " All day I was thinking about getting a sausage and pepper sandwich at the ballpark so much that I really didn't eat all day. (I was thinking about the sausage so much you'd think I was Linda Lovelace back in 1972.

In this rendition of chicken and sausage, the sausage takes on a reduced role, flavoring but not weighing down the dish. Braised Chicken Thighs With Peppers and Sausage 4 servings 1 tablespoon olive oil 8 small skinless bone-in chicken thighs,          trimmed of fat (13/4 pounds total) Kosher salt Fresh black pepper One 4-ounce link sweet Italian sausage,          casing removed 8 ounces mild peppers, such as Italian long,    or bell peppers, cored, seeded; cut into       strips One onion, thinly sliced 2 tablespoons flour 2 tablespoons tomato paste 1/2 cup dry white wine 11/2 cups homemade or no-salt chicken broth 2 teaspoons dried Italian herbs, oregano,          cracked rosemary, basil, thyme 1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

At precisely 3:30 p.m. tomorrow, about 35 employees of Habbersett Bros. Inc. will punch out at the company's Knowlton Road plant in Middletown Township, and the 125-year-old firm will close its doors for good. Johnsonville Foods of Sheboygan, Wis., the owner of the sausage and scrapple company, announced to the employees by letter last week that it had sold the Habbersett label and distribution system to the Jones Dairy Farm of Fort Atkinson, Wis. Under the agreement, the company's plant and business offices reportedly will remain Johnsonville property and will be placed on the market for sale.

The Northeast man said he just wanted to bring home the bacon last Dec. 11. His pet pig, Bacon, that is. William Gray, 25, told a judge that it was a case of mistaken pig identification. Gray said he thought the pig he was trying to scoop up in a field near Linden Avenue and Germania Street belonged to him. But Gray made a pig of himself, countered Assistant District Attorney Scott Lynett. Lynett said the pig belonged to a 16-year-old boy, who wound up being punched in the face and bitten on the shoulder by Gray.

Sausage always has been suspect. Who knew what dangers were lurking in the inner reaches of a frankfurter? Its artful blending of spices could be masking tainted meat. The lure of snapping skin might seduce the senses into missing all sorts of unmentionables that had found their way into the grinder. Whether you've been missing out on sausage for fear of what lies beneath the surface or been savoring it all along for its spicy spark, then it's time you discovered the possibilities of making professional-quality sausages at home.

Santo "Sonny" D'Angelo is just a butcher in the same way Ben Franklin was just a printer. Ben may have been Philly's first Renaissance man, but not its last. Like the old kite flier, D'Angelo is a creative free spirit not satisfied with simply rolling pot roasts. Artist, taxidermist, creator of new and exciting sausages and pates, star of his own meat-cutting video, purveyor of wild and exotic meats, D'Angelo is also a lover, aficionado and serious grower of orchids. Like wines, tropical fish and classic cars, certain objects have the power to obsess vulnerable individuals.

Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman Randall Simon was questioned by sheriff's officers after hitting one of the Milwaukee Brewers' racing sausages with a bat during last night's game. Four people in sausage costumes race around the bases between the sixth and seventh innings at Brewers games as part of the entertainment for the fans. Footage showed that when the group went past the Pirates dugout, Simon swung a bat at the Italian sausage character - portrayed by a 20-year-old South Milwaukee woman - causing her to fall to the ground.

To qualify as a greasy spoon, Brunish's would have to upgrade. The Pottstown sandwich shop is an institution in this weathered Schuylkill mill town, where fortunes were once tied to the iron and steel industries. The mill furnaces stopped firing up a long time ago, but Brunish's is still cooking away, a cement bunker of an eatery just more than six feet high that extends improbably from the basement of Dan Brunish's home to the sidewalk. At lunchtime, customers line up out the door for the hot sausage and hot dogs, the most popular items - and for many years the only ones.

HATFIELD GRILL We were there: 8:20 p.m., bottom of the 4th We waited: 5 minutes We ordered: Italian sausage on a roll, sweet-'n'-spicy chicken bites platter Cost: $15 Phindings: Hatfield Grills (the one we visited was on the third-base side of CBP) are where Phils Phans go for hot dogs, sausages and chicken bites. Where they go for good sausage and chicken snacks, His Phoodliness can't say - but it ain't here. True, we found the very mild sausage agreeable, at best, thanks to its subtle spicing.

WHAT'S with all the beer and food pairings? It's getting that you can't down a mug without someone shoving a plate of ale-braised Brussels sprouts under your chin. Wednesday night, Nick Macri, the chef at Southwark, at 4th and Bainbridge, laid out a four-course menu pairing imaginative dishes (seafood stew and hot-pepper relish) with suds from Ardmore's Tired Hands Brewery. Friday, the new Victoria Freehouse, on Front Street in Old City, will throw down a variety of British-style bitters and complementary English-themed plates.

In this rendition of chicken and sausage, the sausage takes on a reduced role, flavoring but not weighing down the dish. Braised Chicken Thighs With Peppers and Sausage 4 servings 1 tablespoon olive oil 8 small skinless bone-in chicken thighs,          trimmed of fat (13/4 pounds total) Kosher salt Fresh black pepper One 4-ounce link sweet Italian sausage,          casing removed 8 ounces mild peppers, such as Italian long,    or bell peppers, cored, seeded; cut into       strips One onion, thinly sliced 2 tablespoons flour 2 tablespoons tomato paste 1/2 cup dry white wine 11/2 cups homemade or no-salt chicken broth 2 teaspoons dried Italian herbs, oregano,          cracked rosemary, basil, thyme 1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Cod with Corn, Crab, Pineapple Salad . . . 3 Alice Waters' Minestrone Soup . . . 4 Health Loaf . . . 2 Sausage and Tomato Baked Eggs . . . 2 Salmon Terrine with Dill, Cream . . . 2

MISSING: 7-foot Italian sausage wearing a chef's hat and a bow tie. Guido, one of the Milwaukee Brewers' base-running sausages, is nowhere to be found after it was last seen hanging out in bars. Someone wearing the Klement's Racing Italian Sausage costume recently posed with patrons at the Milwaukee Curling Club in Cedarburg. The $3,000 costume was in a backroom at the bar during a Feb. 16 fundraiser. Someone saw the sausage walk out the door that evening and, according to the Journal Sentinel , it hit two more bars that night but hasn't been seen since.

The meat cases at Sonny D'Angelo's singular butcher shop were half-empty and a bit of a mess one day last week in the languor of postholiday Ninth Street. The lardo was buried under a slab of double-smoked bacon, and some sausage trays lacked for labels, though you could make out the hand-scrawled sign for a pumpkiny pork sausage (with bourbon and walnuts), a feature of one of his claims to fame - the meticulously artisan, labor-intensive, bread-free turducken. Business had been robust before New Year's, he said, with his seven-fishes sausage to make, his exotic game to pitch.

By any modern standard for great Italian dining, Tony's Baltimore Grill in Atlantic City is past its prime, from the Formica and red vinyl '60s decor to the mushy spaghetti still loved by silver-haired patrons who've been regulars for much of this tavern's 85 years. Tony's sausage pizza, though, is timeless, even if in our gourmet-pizza craze, it also looks like an out-of-fashion relic. Cooked in classic ring pans that recall the lids of old pretzel tins Tony's once used, the nearly crustless rounds of yeasty soft dough evoke the simpler tastes of the 1920s.

KRANJ, Slovenia - It's a diplomatic rift that has both countries hungry for a fight. The subject of the spat? A humble pork sausage. Slovenia calls the spicy delicacy "Kranjska klobasa" and Austria "Krainerwurst" - variants of the same name that belongs to the border region the sausage comes from. Both countries have enjoyed the snack for centuries and consider it part of their cultural heritage. Now, Slovenia has applied to the European Union for exclusive use of the name, and the Austrians are having none of it. "We're not going to allow anyone to deny us the Krainer," declared Austrian Agriculture Minister Niki Berlakovich.

WYOMING, N.Y. - To many travelers "of a certain age," the pinnacle of summer vacation fun could be found at places such as Gaslight Village in Lake George, N.Y., with its "old-timey" feel, rides from bygone days, and vaudeville entertainment. Lake George's Gaslight Village closed in 1989. But for a little something different, something that carries a definite whiff of nostalgia, head to western New York where another Gaslight Village is located - a real one. Wyoming, a charming little village of 500 residents, is in the county of the same name 50 miles southeast of Rochester.

When you select the right ingredients, it doesn't take many of them to create a fantastic dinner. Nor much time. The trick is to pick ingredients with lots of flavor, then let them do the heavy lifting. This recipe for spicy sausage and arugula penne is a great example. I boil some pasta, then toss it with browned peppery sausage, deliciously bitter baby arugula, some savory sun-dried tomatoes, and grated Parmesan. The result is amazing.   Spicy Sausage and Arugula Penne Makes 6 servings 12 ounces penne pasta 1 pound spicy Italian sausage meat 1 large yellow onion, diced 1/2 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, chopped 5-ounce package arugula 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese Salt and ground black pepper 1. Bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil.

PHILADELPHIA MIGHT be the best beer-drinking city in America, but we're the wurst-eating city, too. Grilled bratwurst, paprika-spiced bockwurst, smoky knackwurst, mustard-covered weisswurst and jerkylike landjäger - along with liters of German lager, these are the staples of Oktoberfest. Or, as Doug Hager, co-owner of South Street's Brauhaus Schmitz declares, "Throw away your knife and fork . . . Wurst may not be very refined, but it is manly. " The other day I sat down with Hager and his executive chef, Jeremy Nolen, for some "frank" talk.