Chocolate Cake

Ruth Roberts, director of child nutrition services Conejo Valley Unified School District, was reluctant to give the recipe for Country Chocolate Cake to The Times. "The kids won't eat it if they find out green beans are in there," she said. The recipe for the cake was a brainstorm by Nettie Jones, a supervisor at Park Oaks Central Kitchen, who came up with the idea of disguising green beans in chocolate cake to use up an over supply of green beans so the kids would eat them. They did.

Remember when you couldn't go to a restaurant without coming across yet another flourless chocolate cake? And when that trend finally passed, the chocolate fashion became precious, over-elaborate tastings of this and that. I'm glad that's finally passé. When something is good, you want more than one bite, no? Over the years, I've loved Sherry Yard's chocolate musings at Spago and Nancy Silverton's thick, gorgeous chocolate pudding. Not to mention Roxana Jullapat's fresh chocolate cherry tart at Cooks County, which I hope she'll be revisiting as soon as cherries come into season later this month.

"I like to make cupcakes out of this cake recipe and freeze them for company," Jeanette Zimmerman writes.

Once again the fall fashions in emperor's clothes are exquisite: In 1985 the Nobel Prize in literature went to Claude Simon, a man whose writing is unencumbered by grammar or plot. Now the 1986 Nobel Prize in economics has been awarded to James Buchanan, a man who has mastered the seemingly unremarkable observation that politicians and bureaucrats act to serve their own self-interests rather than the broader public interests. I have determined to nominate myself for the 1987 Nobel Prize in medicine: I have observed and quantified the phenomenon that when I eat too much chocolate cake I get fat. DOUG LEVINSON Santa Monica

Cat Wellington wants to save the planet with chocolate birthday cake. Not the kind that's loaded with eggs and slathered with rich buttercream frosting, but an organic vegan version for kids who have food allergies or other special dietary needs. Undeterred by the seeming paradox that healthful chocolate cake can still be the life of the party, the Santa Barbara resident launched an alternative cake-mix business, Sweetie Cakes Co., about seven months ago.

FINALLY, the frenzy over all those cute little cupcakes that had taken hold of Los Angeles by the sweet tooth seems to have waned, and here to help fill the void is the real deal: big, beautiful, serious layer cakes. You can find a fantastic, sophisticated cake lightly spiced with cardamom, layered with delicate pistachio mousse, decorated with fresh roses and coffee berries and edged in lemon leaves at an unassuming cafe in a modest East L.A. neighborhood.

A man was jailed today in the death of a 3-year-old who apparently suffocated when she was force-fed an entire chocolate cake, police said. Frank F. Johnson, 46, of Baton Rouge was booked on a murder charge, accused of failing to help Myra Griffin during the Dec. 21 incident, police said. Myra's mother, Marjorie Griffin, 23, was charged with first-degree murder last month.