I am a die-hard snowball fan–especially when it's hot. (I've been known to skip dinner and just have the snowball).  My favorite is a "humdinger" - a scoop of vanilla ice cream in the bottom, chocolate snowball, topped off with extra marshmallow. The only place I have found near me that even sells sort of traditional snowballs is the Chinese take-out on Route 13. I haven't had the guts to try them - instead I have a mini-snowball maker I bought from Target and I make my own...not quite the same but still pretty good!
-- Liz in Salisbury

It's great to know the history of our own snowballs in Baltimore.  When I was a child, my mother used an ice crusher to try to make her own and put marshmallow creme on top of it.  Then she would go to the restaurant supply stores and buy the snowball syrups.  My favorite was always egg custard with marshmallow in that Styrofoam cup!
-- John in Baltimore

Sorry.  From Hagerstown (Washington County) -- No Snowball stands or lemon sticks. Or Smith Island Cake for that matter.
-- Joseph

I used have a small corner store in Fells Point/Canton.  One of the bestsellers for me was marshmallow on the bottom, egg custard flavor, marshmallow on top and sometimes a shot of chocolate. In Indonesia, one of their favorite deserts is a bowl of ice, with sugared, chopped tomatoes.
-- Linda

I had the best snow cones ever in Tampico, Mexico in the summer of 1969.  Guys would ride around on bicycles with aluminum coolers tied to the handlebars.  They carried a wood plane to shave the ice and would put crushed fruit with syrup on top.  They cost pennies and were terrific!
-- Mike in Shepherdstown, W.Va.

Although I'm not from here, when I was a kid we visited Baltimore grandparents and loved to get snowballs.  I am sure that in my childhood there was no such thing as Styrofoam cups.
-- June

We go to Waldo's Snowballs in the Harford Mall parking lot. I always get "Rainbow." Kids always get chocolate with peanut butter sauce (we call that flavor "the loaded diaper"). As far as I know, peanut butter is new. Bad thing about peanut butter is that it actually adds some nutritional value to otherwise totally empty calories.
-- Fritz

Hi Dan and Henry,
I have to jump in and tell you that the real chunkier snowballs are true Baltimore, not shaved ice!  FYI...the Chestnut Ridge Volunteer Fire company runs a unique snowball stand all summer in that it is staffed completely by volunteers with 100% of the profits going to the station and protecting the community. The stand is a meeting place for the neighborhood and we have customers that come especially for our old fashioned snowballs year after year, which we sell with marshmallow and ice cream if you want...the best! The prices are incredibly reasonable with a small at only $1.25 (I think). Many folks are interested in the firehouse when they come up for a snowball, so we are always happy to have a firefighter/member give you a tour of our equipment and firehouse if you'd like. The kids love it. So snowballs are helping our community!
-- Hillary

Forty years ago when I was a kid, you could only get a snowball from a truck ringing a bell. You got a paper cup, flat wooden spoon, and crushed ice–not shaved. Shaved ice was, and is, a snow cone. Shaved ice was usually at a festival.
-- John

We also got into lemon sticks, like the ones sold at the Flowermart each year. I wondered where you get those porous peppermint sticks used to make them. (I made them once a few years ago for visiting relatives, who loved them, but I could not quite remember where I got the sticks.)

Jeppi Nut carries the Piedmont Candy Company Peppermint sticks in large tubs. They are a little more porous than the original lemon peppermint sticks, but will do in a pinch.
-- Tom in Timonium-

Looking at the website for Piedmont Candy in NC that your earlier caller mentioned, they are selling the same sticks that Jeppi carries in Timonium, MD. We've had some success with them, though they don't seem to be quite the same as what I used to get at the Hopkins Fair and other summer festivals.
-- Ben

Sometimes you can find the King Leo brand peppermint sticks at Williams-Sonoma in Cross Keys.
 -- Meg

Eddie's usually has little baggies of the right peppermint sticks by the cash registers.
-- Jill in Roland Park--

I'm pretty sure they have lemon sticks in Lexington Market, in the back, just inside from the peanut guy. As far as international ice treat, Malaysia as an amazing treat called chendol, and another one called ice chachang.  And the best of all is found in the Philippines in a truly amazing dish called halo-halo.
-- Ellen

When I was a student at Roland Park Country School from 1960 to 1973, lemon sticks were a very popular item at our annual Christmas Fair.  And i think McDonogh had them at their Christmas Bazaar too.
-- Debbie

I have been able to get peppermint sticks at the Amish Market in Annapolis Harbor Center on Solomons Island Rd. They are suitably porous, but only about 3" long  apiece.  Just be advised that the Amish Market is only open on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Regarding marshmallow–not on my snowball!
-- Barb

I'm almost positive that you can get the halved lemon with a peppermint stick at SNOASIS (or OASIS maybe?) lemonade stands.  there is one in the Harborplace shopping center at the Inner Harbor. When i was a little kid i ran a snowball stand outside of my house in Little Italy for several summers, until some anonymous jerk called the cops on me for not having a permit. Anyhow, as far as crushed ice vs. shaved ice goes... when we're talking Baltimore sno-balls, you are enjoying CRUSHED ice. Shaved ice is what you would get at the Boardwalk in Ocean City.  The Boardwalk stands use an actual block of ice and a planer to shave it.  the snowball stand that i operated used a tall metal machine, that you would top-load cubed ice into.  the ice would drop into a tunnel which had rotating grinders and blades which would crush the ice and shoot it into a cup. . . . My rule of thumb is this:  if it's crunchy, it's crushed ice.  If it melts in your mouth, it's shaved ice.  Oh, and best snowball flavor ever: egg custard with vanilla ice cream on the bottom and marshmallow on the top.
-- Justin in Little Italy

Graul's Market sets up a display at the start of each summer with lemons and King Leo peppermint sticks. Good, but they dissolve a little too readily. Still looking for the perfect stick. Will try Piedmont.
-- Christy in Annapolis

I was lucky to have inherited a commercial Sno-master machine. I make snowballs lots during the summer for kids and adults alike.  One of our favorites is ice, vanilla ice cream and then more ice topped with chocolate syrup.  Drop by any time for one.
-- Stephie

After visiting in Costa Rica a number of years ago, we brought home one of the beautifully decorated carts that were pushed through the streets by young men hawking the snow cones.  Mine is a bright blue background with multicolored flower designs special to Costa Rica.  There were slots for the bottles of flavoring and the main part of the cart held the ice.  It came with a small table, not unlike our TV tables, where the cones were placed ready for purchase.  It is a beautiful piece of artwork in my home.
-- Patricia in Annapolis

Ice cream on the bottom, vanilla flavor, marshmallow on top!
-- John

My experience in snowball-eating goes back to early '50's in East Baltimore.  People would make the snowballs in their homes 5 cents made with a hand-held shaver ran across a block of ice. The shavings were not as fine as the ice in a snow cone. The snowball was served in a paper boat shaped container. The handheld shaver was shaped like a computer mouse.
-- Inexplicably anonymous

Dear Dan and Henry:
My blog writes about all things sweet in Baltimore, from cakes and pies to cookies, ice cream, and...SNOWBALLS! And by coincidence today I have a posting about Baltimore snowballs. I've also started a photo-sharing group on Flickr where people can post their photos relating to the Baltimore snowball; if any of your listeners would like to join, just go to Flickr.com and enter the search term "Baltimore snowball" under "groups," and they'll be directed to the spot. To see today's posting about the Baltimore snowball on my blog, go to: www.bmoresweet.blogspot.com. I welcome everyone's comments and shared experiences about this great summertime Baltimore tradition!
www.bmoresweet.blogspot.com
B More Sweet, all things sweet in Baltimore

Four somewhat interrelated factors may have coalesced to make Lyme increase in the past two decades:

1. The expansion of second homes into formerly isolated rural areas.
2. A large spike in the deer population as food from gardening has increased, while hunting has diminished.
3. A concomitant increase in field mice populations, which, like deer, are an essential vector for the deer tick.
4. The compassionate removal of feral "house cats" from the wild. These cats are capable of catching and eating 100 field mice per day, which ordinarily would keep the mouse and tick populations down.

Each one of these human-centered actions was considered benign in itself; but taken together they may have caused an epidemic.

I don't know whether scientists have studied this possibility, but the outbreak of hysteria culminating in the Salem witch trials may well have been modulated by the Lyme spirochete, with its many attendant mysterious physical and mental symptoms, as settlers began clearing land in New England  in the 1600s.

Meanwhile, the Arch is also closing the school at St. Mary's of the Assumption in Govans -- a school that has served a lot of low-income city families for years. They are closing another Catholic school on the south side of the city, continuing the retreat from inner-city parochial education because of money issues. (St. Alphonsus-Basilica School went a few years ago, too, because the Arch didn't have the money for a renovation that involved asbestos removal. That school served more than 200 students, almost all African-American from the the city and counties.) 

But, of course, the Arch came up with at least $34 million for the Basilica restoration -- I heard the final price tag was much higher -- and more for the adjoining (unimpressive) prayer garden on Charles Street. Reasonable people have a right to question these priorities.

All that effort -- all that fundraising -- might have saved schools, might have gone toward endowments. Thirty-four million could keep a lot of schools open until other sources of funding (or new administrations to run them) could be found.

Wilson's film will be screened at The Senator Theater in Baltimore, starting Friday. You can get information about screenings on the film's web site.

Wilson has made a compelling and disturbing film, and it is beautifully shot, with a strong musical score -- and no narration, and the lack of narration is not a plus. Without the voice of a story-teller, Wilson moves the camera from Lyme sufferer to Lyme sufferer, from doctor to doctor (including one researching Lyme in the basement of his house) to the occasional  (dismissively quoted in brief) expert at Yale or UConn -- no one from Johns Hopkins -- back to the sufferers, and then there are collages of people -- never identified -- who claim they suffer from "chronic Lyme disease" and that their doctors either refused to treat them for it or told them they needed to see a psychiatrist.

This is not a documentary. A documentary suggests journalism. There's not much in the way of journalism here, nothing you might call objective, detached, skeptical inquisition. The New York Times refered to Under Our Skin as a polemic, and that's exactly it. Wilson's targets are the doctors and research scientists who say there is no evidence that Lyme disease is chronic and who believe that long-course antibiotic treatments have not been proven effective in arresting the disease and making its victims healthy again. The film sets out to discredit the Infectious Diseases Society of America, which has declared that chronic Lyme disease does not exist. Wilson's claim that the doctors who wrote the IDSA's treatment guidelines for Lyme have conflicts of interest is just that -- a claim, and the charge is not effectively supported. Under Our Skin is full of suspicions, assertions and anecdotes; it's low on science and objectivity. That doesn't work -- in fact, borders on irresponsible -- when you're telling a medical story.

This is the kind of media "coverage" of Lyme disease that the New England Journal of Medicine criticized in a 2008 article:  "The media frequently disregard complex scientific data in favor of testimonials about patients suffering from purported chronic Lyme disease and may even question the competence of clinicians who are reluctant to diagnose chronic Lyme disease. All these factors have contributed to a great deal of public confusion with little appreciation of the serious harm caused to many patients who have received a misdiagnosis and have been inappropriately treated."

Had Wilson presented the controversy over whether Lyme is chronic and whether long-term use of antibiotics is effective -- had he explored that and presented both sides -- then I would call his film a public service. In that it draws attention to Lyme disease, the most common vector-borne disease in the nation and spreading each year as ticks bite into humans, Under Our Skin deserves props. But it takes a long detour to defend what current credible science dismisses and in the process pretty much goes off a cliff.

If you see the film, make sure you read the following excerpts of letters I received early today in preparation for the radio show. The first is from Dr. Paul G. Auwaerter, clinical director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the second is from Diana Olson, vice president of communications for the IDSA.

Dr. Auwaerter, of Hopkins:

"I see the effects of misdiagnosed Lyme disease frequently (as patients actually have conditions such as fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's Disease, and many others) who are not well served by taking antibiotics for months and years for fears of persistent infection that are not substantiated by any good evidence. Well-controlled scientific studies have not shown any durable benefit from long-term antibiotics compared to placebo, and importantly these studies show rates of improvement in the placebo arm of 30 percent or higher.  therefore, ask for proof from these people that they are doing better than 30 percent with their treatments. They may say so from a testimonial basis, but they have no evidence published in quality medical journals."

Ms. Olson, quoting from a recent letter on Lyme disease from IDSA:

"The concept of Lyme disease as a chronic condition requiring long-term antibiotic therapy is not shared by the vast majority of the medical community and relies on questionable scientific evidence. Furthermore, long-term antibiotic therapy poses substantial risks to the community and the patient and can even be fatal.
Lyme disease is a real and growing public health threat. Patients with Lyme disease are frequently misdiagnosed. However, IDSA’s concern is with the concept of chronic Lyme disease.

Self-described “Lyme-literate” clinicians believe that the Lyme disease bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferi, can survive conventional antibiotic therapy (usually 10 to 28 days of oral antibiotics) and become a chronic infection. Therefore, they claim, patients must take antibiotics for months or even years in order to fully eradicate the infection.
The vast majority of scientific evidence does not support this view. Not a single well designed, reproducible study to date has found B. burgdorferi in human patients following conventional antibiotic therapy. This casts doubt on the basic premise of long-term antibiotic therapy. (The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has a review of several studies on its web site: http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/topics/lymeDisease/research/antibiotic.htm.)

Some patients do improve while taking long-term antibiotics. But in studies sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, patients receiving placebo improved at about the same rate as those receiving antibiotics. Also, some antibiotics have anti-inflammatory or neuroprotective “feel-good” side effects. These properties are likely responsible for the improvements some patients experienced in some studies.
In addition to providing no proven benefit, the risks of exposing patients to long courses of antibiotics are substantial. Patients often experience adverse reactions to the drugs. In fact, some of the symptoms that the “Lyme-literate” community attributes to chronic Lyme disease, such as fatigue and mood swings, may be adverse reactions to the antibiotics. In addition, infections in the catheter used to deliver intravenous antibiotics are common and have led to life-threatening bloodstream infections. There are many anecdotal accounts of serious adverse reactions. In addition, according to one report published in the peer-reviewed literature, a 30-year-old woman died from an infected catheter after undergoing inappropriate intravenous antibiotic therapy for more than two years.
The risks of inappropriate antibiotic therapy go beyond the individual patient. Antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) are on the rise in part because of the inappropriate use of antibiotics. Long-term antibiotic therapy for Lyme disease only makes the problem worse, without any evidence of benefit. 
Many patients credit long-term antibiotic therapy for their miraculous recoveries from debilitating fatigue, pain, headaches, concentration problems, and other symptoms. There is no doubt these patients were suffering. But the question is whether Lyme disease was responsible for their suffering. Several studies from Lyme disease clinics at major universities have found that most patients who came to these clinics with a previous diagnosis of chronic Lyme disease did not have Lyme disease at all, but actually had something else, such as rheumatoid arthritis or other autoimmune disorders, fibromyalgia, or depression—conditions that need treatment with something other than antibiotics.
Diagnosing patients with subjective, nonspecific symptoms such as fatigue, pain, and difficulty concentrating can be a difficult and frustrating experience for both the patient and the clinician. Most frustrating are the cases that don’t have a clear cause after a thorough examination and an exhaustive battery of tests. IDSA does not have all the answers for why some patients are suffering. Even in the 21st century, medicine is sometimes an inexact and imperfect science.

When patients are left seeking answers, a window of opportunity opens for unscrupulous clinicians. These clinicians can earn substantial amounts of money administering long-term antibiotic therapy. Many “Lyme-literate” clinicians back up their diagnosis with tests that are unproven or have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for that purpose—a practice that has drawn a warning from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (See http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5405a6.htm.)

For vulnerable patients, the diagnosis feels like deliverance from their suffering. For far too many patients, the diagnosis is false. 
If sound evidence emerges that Lyme disease is a chronic condition that can be successfully treated with long-term antibiotics, IDSA would gladly accept it, if it would help physicians treat their patients. The burden of proof rests with those who make this claim. Until more reliable evidence emerges, IDSA regards the theory of chronic Lyme disease infection as speculative at best, and we consider long-term antibiotic therapy to be more harmful than beneficial. Lyme and other tick-borne diseases are a serious and growing public health threat, and we support efforts to improve prevention and education and foster appropriate research. However, news coverage that support the theory of chronic Lyme disease and long-term antibiotic therapy is not in the best interest of patients or public health.

Very little feedback on this. A trickle. Most people don't seem to know what I'm talking about.

I've just about given up the idea of posting neighborhood games in this space, or sending alerts about them on Twitter for readers who want to get up a game of Wiffle Ball. It just doesn't happen much anymore.

Then Bradley Kolodner, a college sophomore from North Baltimore, sent me a note about what he calls Monster Ball. The Baltimore Messenger's Louisa Peartree wrote about it a year ago, when Bradley was a senior in high school, and here's a link to her story.

Below are photos Bradley sent along. Here's the Monsterball Facebook Group.

"Originally, the field was made up of paper plates as bases and we only had a few regular players," Bradley says. "The field and game have evolved over the years.  We pick teams once everyone arrives and play for a couple hours or until the neighbors tell us to be quiet.  Quite often, my friends who play bring their younger siblings. I just thought I'd share with you my effort to keep up that 'simple joy of unorganized sports.'

Thanks, BK. Monster on . . . !

John Oliver Sings "Songs of the American Musical Theater"
 July 9
Accompanying himself on piano, John Oliver sings the songs of George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and others, introducing the songs with historical anecdotes and humor.
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L'Tanya Mari' Sings "A Teardrop of the Sun"
 July 10
"There are many fine female jazz singers on the scene today but, with the
release of A Teardrop Of Sun, L'Tanya Mari' immediately emerges as one of
the top contenders. It is not just that she has an inspired repertoire (from
Chick Corea's "Crystal Silence" and "This Is New" to "That Old Black
Magic"), impeccable intonation and a pretty voice. Most impressive are her
choice of notes, her use of space and silence, and her intelligent way of
improvising melodically. She pays tribute to each composer's intent while
uplifting each tune through her phrasing, subtle emotions, and solid sense
of swing." -Scott Yanow, Jazz Critic
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Jazz Vocalist Amanda Bloom Debuts
 July 17 Twenty-year-old jazz sensation, Amanda Bloom, in her debut appearance at the Cabaret at Germano's.

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Leneida Crawford in ”Come Ready and See Me”
 July 23
In "Come Ready and See Me," Leneida Crawford, mezzo soprano, and Susan Ricci, piano, explore the universal themes of love, hope, belonging and forgiveness in their selection of clever, quirky and beautiful American Art songs. Traditional torch numbers, along with the more contemporary stylings of composers such as Richard Hundley, Jake Heggie, Ricky Ian Gordon and William Bolcom, as well as the popular Broadway sounds of Sondheim and Schwartz are presented within this multi-faceted cabaret experience.
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Meredith Seidel and "Soul Fusion"
 July 24 at 7:30 pm
Meredith Seidel and Soul Fusion perform music from all eras and genres. As they effortlessly fuse their authentic talent and organic style, they will captivate and send you with the originality of their soulful sounds.
Performers:
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Heather Lockhard-Wheeler and Friends in "Champagne Hour"
 July 30 and 31 at 7:30 pm
Please join us on July 30 and 31 for "Champagne Hour". It will be an homage to Lawrence Welk and the Lennon sisters with a lot of Baltimore Hon tossed in for good measure. Performers are Shaina Vatz, Vikki Jones, Catrin Davis, Heather Lockard-Wheeler and James Harp on the piano and accordion. Bubble machine will be present. Have fun like they used to with big hair, four part harmony, great food, accordions and bubbles.
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What the National Automobile Dealers Association says in opposition.

Why the Automotive Service Association thinks federal or state laws are unnecessary.

Why Canadian dealers oppose the effort in their country.

A 2007 New York Times story on mechanics and high-tech repair information.

But, at the same time, I think "exonerations" should only be used when a person is convicted but later found to be innocent of the murder that resulted in a sentence of death. That is the popular meaning of "exoneration," and yet the DPIC uses it to cover those whose convictions have been overturned because of legal flaws.

A reader of my column wrote to challenge my acceptance of the word "exoneration" as shorthand for all those who have been removed for various reasons from Death Row. The reader cited a report of a victims' rights organization, the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which challenged the DPIC numbers and definition of "exonerated."

Here is the reply to questions about the accuracy of the exonerations list from Richard Dieter, DPIC director.

The Death Penalty Information Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to research and education on the death penalty in the U.S.  We do not have a position on the morality or rightness of the death penalty per se, though a number of our reports focus on the problems in capital punishment and hence have been critical of the way it is applied.

With respect to your question about our list of exonerated individuals, we use very strict and objective criteria for inclusion of cases on this list.  Basically, the list is determined by the decisions of courts and prosecutor offices, not by our subjective judgment.  As we state in a number of places on our Web site and in our reports, the criteria for inclusion on the list is:

Defendants must have been convicted, sentenced to death and subsequently either-

a) their conviction was overturned AND

i) they were acquitted at re-trial or
ii) all charges were dropped

b) they were given an absolute pardon by the governor based on new evidence of innocence.

The list includes cases where the release occurred in 1973 or later, which was the time that states resumed sentencing people to death after the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down the death penalty.  The list originated from a request from Congress asking us to identify the risks that innocent people might be executed.  The original list that we prepared was published as a Staff Report of the House Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights.  The list has been favorably referred to by Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts, as well as by many public officials around the country.

We believe the term "exonerated" is entirely appropriate to refer to the individuals on this list, which now numbers 133 individuals.  Exonerate means to clear, as of an accusation, and seems to come from the Latin "ex" and "onus" meaning to unburden.  That is precisely what has occurred in these cases.  The defendants were convicted, given a burden of guilt, and then that burden was lifted when they were acquitted at a re-trial or the prosecution dropped all charges after the conviction was reversed.  These are not individuals who received a lesser sentence or who remained guilty of a lesser charge related to the same set of circumstances.  All guilt was lifted by the same system that had imposed it in the first place.  Our justice system is the only objective source for making such a determination.

This notion of innocence, that an individual is innocent unless proven guilty, is a bedrock principle of our constitution and our societal protection against abusive state power.  One does not lose the status of innocence merely because a prosecutor or other individuals retain a suspicion of guilt.  Of course, it is true that this list makes no god-like determination of knowing exactly what happened in the original crime. Such perfect knowledge of past events is impossible, either to absolutely prove that a person did or did not do an act.  We do not try to make a subjective judgment of what we think happened in the crime.  We are merely reporting that in a great many cases the justice system convicted an individual and sentenced them to death, but when the process that arrived at that conclusion was reviewed, the conviction and sentence were thrown out.  The individual, who often came close to execution, could not even be convicted of a traffic violation.  Surely, that should be a cause of concern in applying the death penalty.

Maybe "exoneration" isn't the most accurate word here. But Dieter has a point -- if a conviction was wrongly achieved, our system says that conviction is thrown out and the the justice system returns to square one for the accused. However you shake this, at least 133 people were put on Death Row and slated for execution who should not have been there. These were near-fatal mistakes, in the eyes of our system, way too much imperfection in the area of criminal justice, above all, that requires perfection.

The growth for Roma means the sausage-maker had to move out of the little Highlandtown corner rowhouse it occupied for decades. The company moved to a new space in the old Crosse and Blackwell building at 6801 Eastern Avenue.

Paciocco sent me an e-mail boasting about Roma's Chesapeake sausage. "We are combining Phillips Seafood seasoning along with my own blend of spices and making a signature sausage exclusively for Giant and calling it Chesapeake sausage with both company logos on the product."

I sampled this recently and . . . well, let's just say I won't make that mistake again. (It's just not my thing.) I'll settle for what Roma does best -- Italian sweet or mild, browned in a little olive oil, then left in a simmering tomato sauce for about two days and served with linguini. Buona fortuna!

Similar organizations for alumni of both the Air Force Academy and West Point have formed since USNAOut started up in 2003. The Air Force has Blue Alliance, and the U.S. Military Academy now has KnightsOut. The co-founder of KnightsOut, an Iraq veteran from New York named Dan Choi, was recently recommended for discharge after outing himself.

For Independence Day 2008, I accidentally created what I think is a new poached salmon recipe and want to share this with you. My guests raved about it -- and, really, I had no idea the results would be so good.

You need a long, rectangular stainless steel pan, like the chafing trays professional caterers use. (You don't need the whole set-up -- just one of the trays.) I have picked these trays up over the years from restaurant-supply stores. They come in varying depths. The one I used was about three inches deep. The tray needs to be long enough to handle a large salmon filet. You can probably double-up aluminum foil pans, like those used for roasting turkeys, but they may not be long enough for this recipe.

Purchase three skinless salmon filets -- nice, big ones, about 16 to 18 inches long. You're going to invest about $45 to $55 in salmon for this dish, but it will serve plenty of guests, and this will still be more affordable than any other seafood dish you might serve at a party.

Slice a bunch of celery on a sharp diagonal line, as thin as possible, and lay this as the bed in the steaming tray.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Place one of the filets on this bed of celery.

Sprinkle with salt, pepper and lemon juice.

Slice four fresh carrots on a sharp diagonal, also thin. Lay them evenly atop the filet.

Sprinkle with salt, pepper and lemon juice.

Place the second filet on top of the carrots.

Slice one large cucumber into thin, diagonal pieces. Lay them evenly atop the filet. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and lemon juice.

Place the third filet atop the cucumbers.

You have now stacked three filets. They are going to steam together and adhere to each other.

Into the pan pour about two cups of dry white wine and two cups of water. Do not cover the salmon completely with the liquid. Sprinkle in some bay leaves, some dill spice and some mustard seed. Throw in a sprig of rosemary.

Cover the pan with aluminum foil and slide the pan into the oven, reducing the temperature to 375 F.

I think my three-story salmon steamed in 30 minutes. Use a thumb test to see if the top filet has firmed up. Overcooking is always a concern. But I think, since this dish is based on oven-steaming, you have less chance of that goof-up. Your kitchen will smell much better than it does when you try to pan-fry or broil salmon indoors.

I thought I would remove each filet and serve them separately. But I discovered that the salmon filets became one during the cooking. I left it alone to cool, then covered it with plastic wrap and placed the pan in the refrigerator overnight.

But first . . . before putting the poached salmon in the 'fridge . . . .

Drain all but a few drops of the grand-smelling liquid out of the pan and into a pot. Strain out the spice, bay leaves and seed. Reduce the broth for about an hour over low heat. Let that cool and use it the next day as a base for a sauce vert. The sauce vert can be made in a blender with the cold reduction, a skinned and chopped cucumber, some watercress, dill and parsley, and mixed with some mayonnaise to the consistency of a creamy salad dressing.

This topping was served cold along with the chilled salmon, which appeared to one guest to be the "largest, fattest salmon filet I've ever seen." It was actually, of course, a three-in-one, with some surprising mild crunch (carrots and cukes) between the slices. Use a very sharp (and wet) knife to cut slender (one- to one-and-a-half-inch wide) pieces for your guests. Each stack should hold together nicely (sans tooth picks) and taste delicious with the sauce verte.

Bon appetite.

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