Supper

So our supper begins. It hasn't begun so humbly in days, various feasts and celebrations having spirited us to finer tables, in one case concluding in the take-home gift of a hollow dark-chocolate pig commemorating the birthday of a friend born in the Year of the Pig. One sprawling dinner in an Old City bistro included a passed hors d'oeuvre of tiny potato blinis topped with a bud of house-cured salmon, exquisite and sweet. Another, in a cozy townhouse dining room, was an homage to spring foraging - a mince of wild ramps beneath the pecorino in tender ravioli; and baby fava beans slick beside spongy morels in the rabbit dish.

If you're trying to signal, as chef-owner Mitch Prensky currently is, that your sophisticated, "urban farmhouse" of a restaurant - Supper, by name - is tweaking its menu, tilting more toward farmhouse and less toward urban, what might be a good visual to start? Well, the deviled egg (albeit with a hit of wasabi or touch of chevre) might fill the bill: "Nobody," Prensky says, "doesn't like a deviled egg. " So it has come to pass that not only is Supper going to offer one starting next Wednesday at happy hour (5 to 8 p.m.)

OK, hold onto your seats. Or, better yet, get ahold of a seat. Beverly Sills is coming to dinner. Sills, the longtime diva who is general director of the New York City Opera, will be here Wednesday to launch Cherry Hill's latest cultural event. She'll be the first speaker for the Star Forum, a subscription-only series that will also feature New York Gov. Mario Cuomo and, later in the season, the Capitol Steps. But first things first. Like dinner. Before Sills takes the stage, she'll be sitting down to supper with Bette and Bill Tomar of Cherry Hill.

Church suppers come and church suppers go. But then, about this time every fall, the folks at Bradford's United Church of Christ again put on their spread, and the hard truth is, a body would have to look far and wide for any real competition. Part of the draw is the size of the supper here, which feeds 1,000 hungry pilgrims and turns away at least half that number. Something also has to be said for the dollars earned. The amount has grown sizable enough in the last three decades that the faithful have refurbished a good bit of the church with the proceeds.

John Henry Boose came up from Meridian, Miss., on Independence Day 1951 and brought to this semi-rural flatland near Vineland the manners and traditions of the South that he knew. He refers to relatives as kindreds, lunch as dinner and dinner as supper. For breakfast most mornings he has fried fish, fish he has caught himself. His supper goes according to the seasons. It could be catfish, bluefish, flounder, deer, raccoon, rabbit, pheasant, possum, waterfowl or squirrel. It is never spaghetti.

Supper, of course, is not quite what it used to be, which tended to be - within memory of your average baby boomer - home-cooked (for better or worse), severely limited in imagination (meat-and-potatoes wasn't just an expression), and eaten around a sturdy table. No use to bore you with the usual suspects that took it out - the Swanson TV dinner, longer workdays, golden arches, home-replacement meals. You know the list. Still there remains a vestigial hunger for the archetypal "supper," even if you never regularly had it; maybe especially if you never regularly had it. And more than a few restaurateurs have endeavored to offer echoes of those meals, real or imagined.

Moo goo gai pan, sesame chicken, gong bao, egg rolls. Not your typical church supper. But for the members of the Temple Lutheran Church in Havertown, it was just the right kind of meal to go along with fellowship on a humid, rainy summer evening. For some area churches and synagogues, the lazy, hazy days of summer may mean a drop in attendance. To stir up interest and entice members to come back to the fold, even when the temperature is rising and the ocean breezes are beckoning, many religious institutions do things a little differently in the summertime.

Hot! Hot! Hot! there's more to running for president then just debating policy - you even have to do some very silly things. In the first installment of our weekly series, we find Al "What's it going to take to make me an Alpha Male?" Gore contributing to an Iowa potluck supper.

It bore John McNulty's mark, from the crystal chandeliers to the sterling- silver settings to the flower-surrounded French doors and terraces that opened onto Drury Street. It was grand, elegant, a restaurant with more than a touch of class. And Cafe Lafitte was what Mr. McNulty unmistakably thought a restaurant should be. The owner of what was one of the city's chicquest supper clubs, Mr. McNulty was demanding with what he pursued, the kind who never settled for less, associates and friends said after Mr. McNulty, 62, died Tuesday at Abington Memorial Hospital.

Twenty-five Japanese Buddhist monks and nuns were scheduled to march through Delaware County today and tomorrow as part of a "Peace March" from Chicago to New York City. The Buddhists, from the Nipponzan Myohoji Order, are marching to publicize the Third United Nations Special Session on Disarmament scheduled to begin in New York on June 13, said Robert M. Smith, of the Brandywine Peace Community, an ecumenical Catholic peace group in Swarthmore, which is providing support to the marchers during their stay in the county.

THESE DAYS, "dinner and a show" invokes images of takeout sushi and an on-demand movie. But there was a time when it meant an elegant evening at a restaurant with a decidedly grown-up atmosphere, where folks seated at linen-covered tables were entertained as they dined. That's the bygone realm that's been revived - with a modern twist - at Walnut Street Supper Club, which opened right before New Year's at 1227 Walnut St., for 35 years the site of the landmark Portofino Italian restaurant.

DEAR ABBY: My husband and I belong to a supper club comprised of four couples. We have enjoyed our monthly gatherings for years and have developed a strong bond with each couple. As a rule, each one takes turns hosting the event in their home. The recent behavior of one hostess has us baffled. For starters, "Lynn" sometimes seats herself and her husband at a separate table, even though there's room at the main table. She also involves herself with activities I consider rude - taking calls on her cell, perusing Facebook, doing paperwork.

Leonardo da Vinci completed The Last Supper in Milan, Italy, in 1498. Almost immediately, the fresco started to deteriorate. Over the centuries, the famous work has suffered from human carelessness, humidity, pollution, a wartime bombing, and more. The fragility of The Last Supper has been the subject of numerous studies. Preservation efforts have focused on minimizing human contact and keeping pollution out of Milan's Santa Maria delle Grazie, the church where the fresco is located.

Philadelphia police have arrested one suspect in a late May shootout outside the Felton Supper Club that ended with nine people injured. Montana Bell, 20, of North Philadelphia, was charged Wednesday with attempted murder, aggravated assault, firearms charges, and related offenses. Investigators who tracked down Bell with cooperation from key witnesses are still searching for the other suspect in the shooting. Gunshots went off outside the club, on the 4800 block of Rising Sun Avenue, about 2:45 a.m. on May 22. Police said Bell and an unidentified man opened fire as dozens of clubgoers were milling about and leaving the area.

Tired after a hectic day? Wondering what to serve for dinner? A new crop of cookbooks provide a fresh collection of quick and easy recipes for weeknight cooking. James Peterson, author of the recently released Kitchen Simple: Essential Recipes for Everyday Cooking (Ten Speed Press), favors "simplicity in style and presentation. " Melissa Clark offers a trove of her favorites in Cook This Now: 120 Easy and Delectable Dishes You Can't Wait to Make (Hyperion). And Cat Cora, of Food Network fame, presents her view of home cooking with Cat Cora's Classics With a Twist: Fresh Takes on Favorite Dishes , (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Philadelphia police have issued a new appeal for help in identifying the gunmen who wounded nine people May 22 outside the Felton Supper Club. A surveillance video of the shooting in the 4800 block of Rising Sun Avenue in the Feltonville section shows two shooters - whose faces are not clearly visible - standing in the intersection of Rising Sun Avenue and Louden Street, firing semiautomatic handguns into a large crowd outside the club. The video can be seen at philly.com/felton The men are described as black males in their late teens or early twenties.

The city of Philadelphia today revoked the licenses of the Felton Supper Club, which was the scene of an early morning shooting Sunday that left nine people injured. The Department of Licenses and Inspections notified the operator of the club, Omar Infante, of Elkins Park, that amusement, business privilege, and occupancy licenses were revoked. L&I cited incidents of violence, crimes, overcrowding and other public nusances that occured "in or near" the Rising Sun Ave. club from Sept.

Nearly a year and a half after development began, chef Joseph Scarpone has unveiled Agiato (4359 Main St., 215-482-9700), a rustic, cozy paninoteca/enoteca dominated by a 14-seat communal table and featuring a simple menu of salads, soups, and sandwiches (most pressed, about $10 each). There's a coffee bar and 25 to 30 wines by the glass, 60 by the bottle. It's open daily from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m.; weekend breakfast will start Saturday. Scarpone got on the local culinary map with Sovalo, a now-closed bistro in Northern Liberties.

It is an enchanting spread, Blue Elephant Farm, 75 sloping acres, dappled with stone stables, a barn-red barn or two, the occasional sculpted elephant rising in the fields. This is where - on the outskirts of Newtown Square, Delaware County - the urban-farmhouse restaurant called Supper, at 10th and South, procures its "daily [vegetarian] harvest menu. " What Supper's chef Mitch Prensky picks that morning (well, he may skip a day or two), is what you get that night: See those waxy Romanian peppers?

It's amazing how money can bring people together. Outspoken gay rights activist and pop star Sir Elton John performed at conservative bloviator Rush Limbaugh 's wedding Saturday in Palm Beach, Fla. Limbaugh has been known to make a snarky remark or two about gays. A triumph of political compromise? Sort of. People mag says Sir Elton, who has a civil union with David Furnish , agreed to be a wedding minstrel for Rush for cold hard cash - $1 mil , to be exact. Rush, 59, has nothing against civil unions.