Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • Page 7-5

123456 TRIBUNE 5 GOODEATING Prices Good 6 a.m. Wednesday, December 10 thru Saturday, December 13, 2003. Bolingbrook Weber Rd. Boughton Rd. Aurora Route 59 and Liberty Boughton Rd.

Boughton Rd. at I-355 Elgin Randall Rd. College Green Rd. Algonquin Randall Rd. Stonegate Rd.

St. Charles Randall Rd. and Route 38 McHenry Richmond Rd. (SR31) McCullom Lake Rd. We reserve the right to limit quantities to normal retail purchases.

Percentages off taken from regular retails unless otherwise stated. com Returning from a trip to Door County with several pounds of dried cherries, Cindy Bebermanof Orland Park was inspired to create this recipe for the holidays. This cakelike loaf would be a delicious addition to a holiday brunch buffet. If you have a favorite original recipe you would like to share, send it and information about it to Good Eating. If we test it and print it in this column, receive a gift certificate for $25 to Marshall Send your recipe, along with your name, address and daytime phone number to: the Cook, Good Eating section, Chicago Tribune, 435 N.

Michigan Chicago, IL 60611-4041. Recipes submitted become the property of the Chicago Tribune. Chocolate cherry bread Preparation time: 20 minutes Cooking time: 1hour Yield: 12 servings 2 3 cup dried cherries 1 cup sugar 6 tablespoons butter, softened 2 eggs 1 2 cup fat-free sour cream 1 large, very ripe banana, mashed 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 1 2 cups flour 1 4 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 2 teaspoon baking soda 1 4 teaspoon salt 1 2 cup chopped pecans 1. Soak dried cherries in hot water 15 minutes; drain thoroughly. Set aside.

2. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Beat sugar and butter together in bowl of electric mixer on medium speed until creamy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time; beat until smooth. Beat in sour cream, banana and vanilla extract until well-blended, about 1minute.

3. Mix together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl; add to banana mixture, beating on low speed until just mixed. Fold in nuts and cherries. 4. Pour batter into greased 9-by-5-inch loaf pan.

Bake 1hour until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes. Remove from pan; cool completely on wire rack. Nutrition information per serving: 272 calories, of calories from fat, 11g fat, 4 saturated fat, 52 mg cholesterol, 41g carbohydrates, 5 protein, 219 mg sodium, 2 fiber THE COOK Learn by doing: Dan Bocik of a tavola restaurant offers hands-on cooking instruction. $50 per class.

6:30 p.m. each Wednesday, 2148 W. Chicago Ave. Reservations, 773-276-7567. by the book: Charlie Trotter, co-author of the un-cook book will sign copies.

No admission charge. 1p.m. Saturday, Borders Books, 830 N. Michigan Ave. Information, 312-573-0564.

Latin flavors: Maria Baez Kijac, author of South American will discuss Latin cooking. Spon- sored by the Culinary Historians of Chicago. $10; $5 students; free for members. 10 a.m.-noon Saturday Chicago Historical Society, 1601N. Clark St.

Reservations, 815-439-3960. Holiday how-tos: Learn to make traditional French holiday pastries. Free. Croquembouche, or tower of pastry rounds, 2 p.m. Saturday.

Yule log, 2 p.m. Dec. 20. The Chopping Block, 4747 N. Lincoln Ave.

Reservations, 773-472-6700. Dueling chefs: Cook-off between chefs Tony Priolo of Coco Pazzo and Francois de of Pili Pili res- taurants. Free. 1-3 p.m. Saturday.

Home Furniture Store, 600 N. Wabash Ave. Information, 312-324-7500. Family gingerbread: Workshop teaches adults and children how to make a fanciful gingerbread house, sponsored by the Chicago Museum. $55 per house; museum members, $45.

10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday. Navy Pier, 700 E.

Grand Ave. Reservations, 312-464-8242. Cookie fun: Cookie Decorating Party sponsored by Scoozi restaurant is for kids of all ages. Free; cookies and decorations provided. p.m.

Dec. 21, 410 W. Huron St. Reservations, 312-943-5900. Housewarming: Learn to make a festive gingerbread house $35.

Noon-2 p.m. Dec. 22. Corner Cooks, 507 Chestnut Winnetka. Reservations, 847-441-0134.

Send submissions to: Calendar, Good Eating, Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Chicago, IL 606114041. Or send via e-mail at ctc-good- or fax, 312-7550212. calendar By Elizabeth Large Tribune Newspapers Do you think using kitchenware with a celebrity name on it will make you a better cook? Manufacturers are betting you will. As superstar chef Emeril Lagasse said, prepare great food, you gotta have great cookware; and I know kick your cooking up a notch with In fact, his Emerilware, manufactured by All-Clad Metal- crafters, has been so successful inspiring other chefs to carve out their own cookware lines.

Brit chef Jamie Oliver has a deal with T-Fal, and compatriot Nigella Lawson just introduced her Living Kitchen Collection, designed with Sebastian Conran. Manhattan chef Daniel upscale lines of enameled cast-iron pots and Sabatier knives are on sale too. going on now is more than endorsing. Chefs who are regular guests in your living room are staking their reputations on products by putting their name on them. saying that they had a hand in its design.

If it perform, you can blame them. a win-win situation. The chefs have a medium to keep their name in the public eye, and a kitchenware company looking for branding opportunities do better. sure this is just the said Tina Ujlaki, executive food editor of Food Wine magazine. She think people buy a pot because they believe they then will cook like Lagasse, but rather because they think get a good- quality product.

an element of she said. chefs have become our Not-so-new concept Chef-ware as a phenomenon new; just that trend trackers are taking note because Emerilware has done so well. The current stars in the gastronomical firmament are joining Wolfgang Puck (his Bistro Collection first came out on the Home Shopping Network in the Jacques Pepin, who has had his own line of copper cookware for years, and more specialized cooks such as Joyce Chen, who until this year owned the company that manufactured her kitchenware. Manufacturers probably first noticed the power of a star chef to promote kitchenware with the introduction of Cuisinart to the American public in 1973. The new appliance was a hard sell because it was so expensive.

Was it really any better than a good knife? Then Cuisinart got rave reviews from Julia Child and James Beard, the most famous American chefs of their era, and suddenly everyone who considered him- or herself a gourmet cook had to have one. different, of course, from taking money to endorse a product, and even further removed from actually having a hand in its you might ask yourself how much design input, even from a great chef, really matters when talking pots and pans. In fact, one reason manufacturers are falling over themselves to enlist celebrity chefs to their cause is the fact that, well, a pot is a pot is a pot, at least as far as the basic shapes are concerned. How do you differentiate your pot? challenging to come up with a new design in said Hugh Rushing of the Birmingham, Cookware Manufacturers Association. stirring something, hard to come up with something better than a round Delivering the goods Chef-branded cookware has gotten good marks from Consumer Reports.

In December 2002, the magazine rated Eme- rilware (a 10-piece set for $350) third among the nonstick cookware that was tested. In the uncoated category, the Wolfgang Puck Bistro Collection (a 20- piece set for $150) was ranked first, while the Emerilware (a seven-piece set for $150) was sixth but still Emerilware, of course, is still an All-Clad product. You can buy other All-Clad lines that have name on them but are still highly respected. Differences seem to be cosmetic, although Lagasse would probably disagree. If looking for big-name kitchen products, most likely to find them in depart- ment stores, on shopping channels, and online retailers such as amazon.com.

The idea is that the celebrity chef is bringing great pots, pans and utensils to the masses, at a price they can afford. Items like the Silpat baking sheet mat, endorsed by New York pastry chef Francois Payard, and Daniel knives and enamelware, can be found at better kitchenware stores as well as Amazon.com. Boulud, owner and chef of New Daniel, Cafe Boulud and DB Bistro Moderne, was approached by Sabatier to endorse its knives. He, however, had design ideas of his own and developed his own line for Sabatier under the Daniel Boulud Kitchen label. was like creating a new Boulud said.

tweaked and tested each and every aspect of the design from weight to balance and from grip to blade, just as though I were cooking a new dish for the menu at The Baltimore Sun Wondering where to buy your favorite cookware? Here are some suggestions to get you started, although these are by no means the only places chefware is sold. Emeril Emeril- ware line of nonstick and stainless-steel pots and pans, bakeware and utensils is available at many department stores in the Chicago area. You can buy the nonstick and stainless-steel pots and pans and the bakeware and utensils online at emeril- store.com. (To give you some idea of pricing, the seven- piece nonstick set costs $220.) Jamie T-Fal line of pots and pans and dinnerware (which is oven-, dishwasher-, freezer- and microwave-safe), roasters and casseroles can be found at ama- zon.com. His retro roaster costs about $63 on the Food Web site (foodnet- work.com).

The Wolfgang Puck Bistro Collection is available through the Home Shopping Network (online at hsn.com or call 800-933-2887)or at Web site, wolfgang- puck-kitchen- ware.com,where a 28-piece cookware set costs $200. The Nigella Lawson Living Kitchen Collection of cooking tools, such as nesting bowls, measuring cups and the like is available through her Web site, www.nigella.com; we also found several items at Marshall State Street store, as well as a few items online at target.com. An eight-piece Jacques Pepin copper cookware set by Bourgeat sells for $774 at buy- choice.com. Daniel DBK knives (a 10-piece set costs $300) and enameled cast-iron cookware (including a 3-quart roaster for $60) are at Catalog stores in Chicago and Highland Park, and online at chefscatalog.com and ama- zon.com. Home Furniture stores in Chicago and Oak Brook carry just the knives.

The Baltimore Sun Where to buy pots, pans Chefs carve niche in cookware design.