Towels

Q. I've noticed that new bath towels (100 percent combed cotton or just 100 percent cotton) give off quite an excess of fuzz and lint for at least four or five washings. I never had this problem until three or four years ago and I've been buying linens for 34 years. What can I do to eliminate this fuzz mess? Phyllis Wood Margate, N.J. A. Your observation that newer towels lint more heavily is correct, says Gene Crocker of Cannon's laboratory department. The reason for this is that there has been a change in the manufacturing process.

A Phillies pep rally planned for noon today at the Citizens Bank Branch at 15th and Markets Streets has been canceled due to the rainy weather. No word yet on whether it will be rescheduled. Fans were to receive rally towels and posters at the event. The Phils are scheduled to play against the Cincinnati Reds at home on Wednesday in the first of their best-of-five National League playoff series.

Chocolate indulgence Premium chocolate taste at a mainstream price. Hershey's newest offering aims at filling the gap between mass-market candies and the company's top-of-the-line Cocoa Reserve truffles. Bliss bite-sized, melt-in-your-mouth chocolates - in creamy milk and dark chocolate and milk chocolate with meltaway centers - even got good taste grades from our resident chocolate snobs. Green cleaning EcoTowl and EcoSponge keep cleanups eco-friendly. Made of sustainable, plant-based materials, they provide a durable, machine-washable, alternative to paper towels and non-biodegradable disposables.

Dear Polly: My granddaughter baby-sits. She asked me if I had a good idea to help keep her group entertained while they learned something at the same time. I bought a twin-size white sheet and bright-colored print fabric from discount and fabric stores. The fabric had prints of nursery rhymes, letters of the alphabet, numbers, trees, flowers, cowboys, animals and more on it. I sewed the various figures on the white sheet with the buttonhole stitch of my sewing machine, then sent it to my granddaughter.

A WARM, MUGGY day of campaigning nearly starts off badly. Karen Brown, the Republican nominee for mayor, is ready to leave her South Philly block when her righthand man, Rick Modglin, goes to dump a cup of lemonade on the street by the car. Don't do it, Brown warns. The drink will draw flies and then the ire of Gracie, the woman who keeps clean the block of tidy two-story rowhouses. Most of them have her campaign poster in their windows. All politics are local. Brown and a few volunteers in three cars head to Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, where the fifth annual SheROX Triathlon is under way. She spent the weekend buying all the rally towels she could find - about 1,000 - and having them printed with her name and campaign website.

  I love the bite of balsamic, but sometimes hesitate to use it, especially when entertaining, because of the brownish stain it leaves on lettuce, pasta, potatoes, chicken. Problem solved with white balsamic. This zesty one, from Modena, Italy, is made with trebbiano grapes, and aged 12 years. Towels as art In addition to the very fine teas at Premium Steap, owner Peggy Stephens is now carrying a new line of Marimekko products, including these beautiful linen/cotton towels, made in Finland; pretty enough to frame.

The Phillies will be the stars of "Rally Monday," a pep rally at noon today in Dilworth Plaza outside City Hall. Manager Charlie Manuel, coaches, players, the Phanatic and Phillies ballgirls are scheduled to attend. Harry Kalas and Scott Palmer will be the co-hosts. There will be plenty of prizes, including postseason tickets, game-used bases and balls, and the popular rally towels. On another front, Channel 57 will broadcast the Phillies' National League East-clinching win over Washington tonight at 10 o'clock.

Dear Polly: When I use yogurt as a substitute for sour cream in cooked recipes, the yogurt separates and makes my sauce grainy. Can't I make a smooth sauce with yogurt the same way I can with sour cream? - Jill Yogurt curdles and separates when boiled. To keep a yogurt-enriched sauce creamy, stir in the yogurt at the last minute and heat just enough to make the sauce hot. Don't boil it at all. Or, stir a tablespoon of flour into each cup of yogurt before adding it to the sauce.

Dear Polly: We are planning to buy a large freezer and would like to keep it in the garage. Would cold temperatures during the winter damage the freezer? - Doris If you're getting a manual-defrost, freezer-only unit, there should be no problem. However, automatic-defrost freezers and combination refrigerator- freezers don't operate well in surrounding temperatures below 60 degrees. These units are sensitive to the air temperature, which affects how often the compressor cycles on and off. At low outside temperatures, the compressor of a combination refrigerator- freezer may not cycle on enough to keep food frozen in the freezer compartment.

While almost everyone would like to have a towel embroidered with the name of their favorite hotel or store, few such establishments appreciate their towels being pilfered from the powder rooms. Crabtree & Evelyn, with locations throughout the city and suburbs, is selling hand towels with "Crabtree & Evelyn - London" written across the bottom. The towels, dark and light blue, orange and pink, cost $6. REDUCED READING A lump the size of a gold nugget forms inside of your throat when you pull an Italian Vogue off the shelf and realize it costs $7. So you begin to tally the cost of the reading matter to which you subscribe - Vogue's domestic issue, two daily newspapers, a weekly news magazine, a television guide - and you start to wonder whether being a well-informed Yuppie in the 1980s is slipping beyond your grasp.