Macaroni

Dear SOS: I was in Santa Barbara recently for a little vacation and stopped at Palazzio . Loved everything we had there, but especially loved the mac and cheese pie. It was incredibly rich, but so delicious. I'm especially curious as to what technique they use to make it so dense. Any chance you could get their recipe? Thanks! Cynthia Crass Los Angeles Dear Cynthia: Palazzio was happy to share its take on this classic comfort food, folding in no less than three kinds of cheese as well as some prosciutto for a little extra love.

Paskey Dedomenico, 78, a chocolate and macaroni magnate who made Rice-a-Roni. With his parents, Dedomenico turned a San Francisco neighborhood pasta-manufacturing firm, Golden Grain Macaroni Co., into an international food conglomerate. He became president of the firm in 1932, and moved to Seattle in 1941. In 1956, he bought Mission Macaroni Co. and, in 1959 introduced Rice-a-Roni, one of the first convenience food products in the United States. In 1960, Dedomenico bought the Ghirardelli Chocolate Co. in San Francisco.

DEAR SOS: I used to have a recipe for chocolate pudding cake with the cake portion at the top and the pudding at the bottom. I lost my recipe. Can you help? --DORA DEAR DORA: This homey cake was the rage during the '30s, '40s and early '50s.

Joey Giardello, a former middleweight boxing champion who won a decision over Rubin Carter in 1964 and then sued over how the fight was depicted in the 1999 film "The Hurricane," has died. He was 78. Giardello died Thursday of congestive heart failure at a nursing home in Cherry Hill, N.J., the International Boxing Hall of Fame announced. Elected to the Hall of Fame in 1993, Giardello had a 101-25-7 record with 33 knockouts while fighting from 1948 to 1967. The 5-foot-10, 160-pound boxer captured the middleweight title at the relatively late age of 33, defeating favored Dick Tiger of Nigeria in a 15-round bout Dec. 7, 1963, in Atlantic City, N.J. He successfully defended the belt against Carter in a unanimous decision in Philadelphia the next year before relinquishing it to Tiger in 1965.

There are a lot of people in Orange County who are confident that had Fred Burrell's ribs been around at the time of creation, God wouldn't have bothered Adam. OK, so his Rib Cage restaurant fare may not be that heavenly, but it's certainly good enough to allow Burrell to be expanding in this age of business retrenchment. In addition to the original Rib Cage in Santa Ana, there's a second on Sand Canyon in Irvine and a third about to open in Newport Beach.

"I put this off all my life." So reads the self-written epitaph of the unusual man who was a gofer for Lucky Lindy, a publicist for Bette Davis, a student of aerodynamics, a cameraman who pioneered helicopter photography, a golf doctor, a macaroni mogul and a mortgage lender. Robert William, who headed the Western United States' largest pasta manufacturing company for 30 years, died Dec. 7 of leukemia and pneumonia at his home in Hancock Park. He was 86.

We can discuss whether pasta salads are "in" or "out" as a trend, but judging from take-out windows, there is no question that they are constantly in demand. This is especially true of salads made of tortellini, ravioli and other stuffed pastas. It's so easy to be tempted when they are attractively displayed at gourmet shops and fine supermarkets. But these delicious salads cost so much less when you prepare them yourself.

"Where you headed?" asked the cheerful driver of the rental-car shuttle at the Detroit airport. "Detroit!" I answered, equally cheerfully. "Southfield, Birmingham or Rochester?" he asked, referring to well-to-do northern suburbs. "No, Detroit," I responded. Silence, then a shrug as if to say, "Suit yourself. " Many Americans -- even many Michiganders -- see Detroit as a place to be feared: impoverished, decimated and down-and-out depressing. Sure enough, my drive into the city center took me past what a friend calls "desolation porn": eerie shells of onetime factories, warehouses, shops and office buildings, and block after block of overgrown lots that used to be comfortable working-class neighborhoods.

Dear SOS: Johnny Reb's Southern Smokehouse in Long Beach serves a delicious barbecue and equally delicious corn bread filled with whole kernels of corn. Would you try to get the recipe? It's the best we've had in a long time. --JEANNE Dear Jeanne: The corn bread is definitely Southern style--not too sweet, richly golden and delicious.