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Steven Seagal: on deadly tagline ground Steven Seagal's movies may be going straight to video, but he's the Hollywood tagline king. In fact, he may be the greatest producer of taglines in movie history. We suspect that Seagal is writing these himself, and...

The best taglines Here are my choices for the all-time-best taglines, judged for their ability to sell the movie, not for campiness or so-bad-it's-good qualities. I was born in the 1970s and watch a lot of bad science fiction and horror films, so your picks...

ARIES (March 20-April 18): What began as a difference of opinion is turning into something else—and it’s not nice. Cool it before things get out of hand. TAURUS (April 19-May 19): You’re so focused on one point that you’re missing out on the big picture....

Travolta, wife back in Florida Freeport , Bahamas - Actor John Travolta and his wife, Kelly Preston, have returned to Florida with the remains of their 16-year-old son, Jett, who died at the family vacation home in Grand Bahama. The couple received an urn...

Oprah Winfrey has yet to comment on Herman Rosenblat and his debunked story of meeting his future wife in a Nazi concentration camp. But a brief disclaimer has been added to her Web site, Oprah.com, which still devotes substantial space to the Rosenblat...

Fighting homophobia The latest film by the Oscar-winning Bay Area filmmaker Debra Chasnoff will be screened next Wednesday as part of an educational campaign to combat gender stereotypes and homophobia among teenagers. "Straightlaced - How Gender's Got Us All...

An attorney for fugitive movie director Roman Polanski is seeking to have the Los Angeles County Superior Court removed from his notorious sex case, accusing the court on Monday of bias and prejudice against Polanski. Polanski has been a fugitive in France...

Princes William and Harry said Tuesday they have been granted their own royal "household" by their grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. The word doesn't mean a dwelling; it refers to staff who support royal family members in their public duties and private...

Lindsay Lohan says she hasn't split with DJ Samantha Ronson, despite media reports they had publicly sparred several times over the holidays. In a brief post on her MySpace blog, the actress, 22, wrote: "We did NOT break up!" She asked several media outlets "...

Defusing Armageddon Inside NEST, America's Secret Nuclear Bomb Squad By Jeffrey T. Richelson W.W. Norton; 416 pages; $27.95 This frustrating book's most stimulating moment comes on Page 4 of the preface, when a scientist from Lawrence Livermore National...

Jeanne Friedman, who was in Albuquerque recently, saw a huge billboard for the Police Department asking "Changing Careers?" and picturing a uniformed police officer with a figure looking at him: George W. Bush. Meanwhile, Paul O'Curry suggests that this is a...

Not following the herd on sick-bison story Editor - Regarding Leah Garchik's column from Monday, the bison herd in Golden Gate Park has had tuberculosis and brucellosis since my Dad, DC "Bud" Basolo (the creator of the Beefalo and in 1972 owner of the largest...

RATING: (WILD APPLAUSE)Damages: Drama. 10 p.m. Wednesdays on FX. It probably started earlier, but sometime around the third season of "The Wire" on HBO, its creator and writer, David Simon, half joked with enthusiastic critics that if they didn't stop...

When he pours, he reigns. I remember the first time I noticed a tagline for a Tom Cruise film, on an advertisement for his 1988 bottle-flipping bartender romance "Cocktail." From that moment on, I became a lifelong fan - not of Cruise's acting but of the...

RATING: (POLITE APPLAUSE)T.I.C. Trenchcoat in Common: Comedy. By Peter Sinn Nachtrieb. Directed by Ken Prestininzi. With Rebecca White, Michael Shipley, Liam Vincent, Arwen Anderson, Anne Darragh and Lance Gardner. (Through Feb. 1. Encore Theatre Company,...

We're post-holiday, pre-economic recovery, still keeping resolutions, and we're enduring cold, rain, foggy days and long, damp nights.

In short, it's January.

Sometimes I deal with January by sitting with a blanket over my head. It doesn't change the economy, but at least it's quiet and warm.

Early January is also, not surprisingly, the slowest time in the restaurant business for all the above reasons – except maybe the blanket – but a bundle of downtown Sacramento restaurants are tossing out a little cheer and trying to drum up some activity.

It's something called Dine Downtown Restaurant Week, running from Saturday through Jan. 16, and it has 26 restaurants offering three-course meals for $30 a person. Yeah, that's still $60 a couple, plus whatever you drink, but it's a chance to do some fancy eating at some of the area's best and hottest spots without going entirely bankrupt.

The restaurants range from Old Sacramento classics to brew houses and wine bars, to some of the city's newest bistros. All have enticing-sounding menus and lots of choices. Here's the list of eateries playing along:

4th Street Grille, 58 Degrees, Brew It Up!, the Broiler Steakhouse, Chanterelle, Chops, Cosmo Cafe, Cyprus Grille, Dawson's at the Hyatt, Esquire Grill, Fat City Bar & Cafe, the Firehouse Restaurant, Frank Fat's, Fuzio, Gaylord India, Grange Restaurant & Bar, Il Fornaio, Mason's New American, McCormick & Schmick's, Melting Pot, Morgan's at the Sheraton, Pilot House on the Delta King, Rio City Cafe, River City Brewing Co., Spataro and Table 260.

More details and the menus for the three-course meals can be found at www.downtownsac.org/ dinedowntown.

One warning: It starts on a Second Saturday – those are still going on in January, too – and the participating restaurants can get busy, so reservations are a good idea. Leave the blanket at home.

A corker at the party

I've got one leftover lesson from the holidays that's good all year, and it starts, as so many stories do, at a party.

This was a fun one where everyone brought a bottle of wine they liked and lined them up for tasting and general drinking. Like I said, a fun party.

There was one particularly notable wine, and I went straight for it. (I'm being a little vague. Don't want anyone feeling embarrassed. You'll see why.) I smelled it. Kinda cardboardy. Not a good sign.

I tasted it. It started hopefully with some fruit but went quickly, I thought, to a cross between mold and wet dog. The wine was corked, meaning it had picked up a chemical, probably from the cork, that spoils the juice.

To make sure, I brought the glass to my friend Hank Beal, the corporate wine buyer for Nugget Markets. He didn't need to taste. Just the smell was enough for him to know it was corked. And now I had someone else carrying this info with me.

"Should we say something?" I asked Hank, with special emphasis on the "we."

Probably, Hank said, because Nugget, like almost all markets and wine stores, will take back a corked bottle and replace it. Problem was, we had only just met the person who brought the wine. We didn't know if we'd come off as insulting. What to do?

"Ask the host," Hank said.

The host was another good friend. He said the person who brought the wine had gotten it as a gift. That meant no refunds were a-comin'. The three of us decided to say nothing, unless there was any howling about the wine. Instead, we just kept our eyes open. Plus, we drank other wine.

Turned out, there were no other complaints, and a couple of folks, including the corked wine's initial bearer, were drinking the stuff and liking it.

So what did we learn?

For starters, wine is always – always – about individual tastes. Second, wine is corked when it gets some amount of the chemical TCA – officially, 2,4,6-trichloranisole – and that amount can range from making the wine taste horrific to just dulling the fruit.

This was a case of mild cork taint, and in a few cases at that party, it wasn't enough to dull the glow of a great wine name. No harm there for those folks.

But the other side of the formula is important, too. If you get a bottle that's spoiled, put the cork back in it and return it to your store.

"We'll always take it back," Hank said. "You need to leave the wine in it. Don't just dump it in the sink. So cork it, stick it in the fridge and bring it on your next trip. Even if you think it's spoiled but aren't sure, that's enough to return it."

The same is true, of course, with wine at a restaurant. If you think the wine's corked, that's when you send it back, even if you're out for a $30-a-head, three-course meal during Dine Downtown Restaurant Week, and see how everything connects?

Beefy chili a hunk of heaven

I had lunch at Sheepherders Inn in Rancho Cordova and ordered the daily special, which was filet mignon chili. It was more like a thick soup with chunks of meat and beans. It was delicious. Does anyone have this recipe or one similar?

– Carol Chapman, Rocklin

Longing for a Lone Star meal

Many years ago, in the 1950s, '60s and '70s, there was a family-owned fried chicken restaurant in Amarillo, Texas, called Meyers Fried Chicken. It had the best fried chicken, onion rings and chicken gravy I have ever tasted. Before I die, I would sure like to sit down to a heapin' helpin' of that good old Meyers fried chicken.

– Joe Woelfle, Sacramento

Lookin' for lentil soup recipe

Years ago The Bee published a recipe for Laurel's lentil and chicken soup. I believe it contained red lentils, and chicken thighs and legs. The author served it over rice. I have lost the original recipe, but I have made this soup several times and it is wonderful. Can someone help?

– Hope Medina, Davis

Mardi Gras casserole

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 30 minutes

Serves 6

Sandra Alway of Roseville was looking for the Mardi Gras casserole recipe that came from a box of Minute Rice in the 1960s. It called for tuna, canned tomatoes, onions, cheese sauce and the Minute Rice. Alway and her daughter would love to taste it again.

Marilyn Engelmann of Placerville shares this recipe, which was given to her by her mother-in-law, who often made this dish for her large family when Engelmann's husband was a child.

Engelmann usually uses 2 cups of cooked long-grain white rice in place of the Minute Rice and omits the water. She also prefers using fresh tomatoes instead of canned tomatoes.

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup butter

3 tablespoons flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

Dash of pepper

One 12-ounce can evaporated milk

1½ cups shredded cheddar cheese or one 10¾-ounce can cheese soup

2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

1 1/3 cups Minute Rice

1/2 teaspoon ground oregano

Dash cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/3 cups water

One can (15 ounces) tomatoes, drained

1/2 cup chopped onion

One can (7 ounces) tuna, drained

Paprika

INSTRUCTIONS

Melt butter over low heat and stir in flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt and pepper. Mix until smooth. Add evaporated milk and cook over medium heat until thick. Add cheddar cheese (or cheese soup) and parmesan cheese, and stir until smooth.

Place rice in an 11-by-7-inch baking dish. Add water. Sprinkle oregano, cayenne pepper, parsley and 1/2 teaspoon salt over the rice. Place 2/3 of the tomatoes on top, sprinkle with onion, then tuna. Pour cheese sauce on top of tuna and place remaining tomatoes on top. Sprinkle with paprika.

Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes.

Per serving: 428 cal.; 23 g pro.; 32 g carb.; 21 g fat (15 sat., 5 monounsat., 1 polyunsat.); 82 mg chol.; 690 mg sod.; 1 g fiber; 9 g sugar; 47 percent calories from fat.

Simply delicious strawberry cake

Prep time: 40 minutes

Cook time: 20 minutes

Serves 12

Donna Yarnal of Modesto was looking for a cake recipe that called for a vanilla or yellow cake mix, and had cream cheese and strawberry filling between the layers.

Ron Bevers of Antelope shares this recipe, which he says comes from Paula Deen's magazine. This delicious cake was made for Bevers' son's fiancé for her birthday. This recipe may be close to what Yarnal is looking for.

Note: The prep time does not include the cool time after cake layers are baked.

INGREDIENTS

Cake

One 18.5-ounce box white cake mix

One 3-ounce box strawberry- flavored instant gelatin

One 10-ounce package frozen strawberries in syrup, thawed and puréed

4 large eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup water

Strawberry cream cheese frosting (recipe follows)

Sliced fresh strawberries, optional as garnish

Strawberry cream cheese frosting (makes about 4 cups)

1/4 cup butter, softened

One 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened

One 10-ounce package frozen strawberries in syrup, thawed and puréed

1/2 teaspoon strawberry extract

2 to 3 drops of red food coloring for pinker frosting, optional

7 cups powdered sugar

INSTRUCTIONS

For cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease two round 9-inch cake pans. In a large bowl, combine cake mix and gelatin. Add puréed strawberries, eggs, oil and water. Beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Pour into prepared pans and bake for 20 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool in pans for 10 minutes. Remove from pans and cool completely on wire racks. Spread strawberry cream cheese frosting in between layers and on top and sides of cake. Garnish with sliced fresh strawberries, if desired.

For frosting: In a large bowl, with an electric mixer, beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed until creamy. Beat in 1/4 cup of the strawberry purée, reserving remaining for another use. Beat in extract and red food coloring, if using. Gradually add powdered sugar, beating until smooth.

Per serving: 660 cal.; 6 g pro.; 103 g carb.; 26 g fat (9 sat., 8 monounsat., 8 polyunsat.); 102 mg chol.; 385 mg sod.; 1 g fiber; 96 g sugar; 35 percent calories from fat.

Photo illustration by Charles Waltmire. Source: Bigstockphoto

Editor's note: It's a new year and these are tough times, but not so tough that you can't find some cost-cutting detours when spending your money. Through Sunday in Living Here, we're offering a daily dose of 15 ways to save on food and wine, outdoor activities, entertainment, home and garden, and caring for yourself and your family. Keep the change.

• Monday: Spend less on books and media

• Tuesday: Families can save

• Today: Grocery-store savings

• Thursday: Outdoor fun for less

• Friday: Bargains around town

• Saturday: Saving around the house

• Sunday: Cutting medical and fitness costs

Share your great money-saving tips by clicking here.

There's not a millionaire or a minimum-wage worker who doesn't like a bargain.

It's fun to share the story of how you got a great deal – better than anyone else's – at the supermarket, drug or department store. We all relish the idea of getting more and paying less.

And since groceries are what gobble up the weekly paycheck, why not Shop Cheap?

Here's an example:

You know that you've scored at the store when the clerk comments on how much you saved. That's what happened during a New Year's Day Shop Cheap trip to Raley's, and that's what can happen to you, too.

Each week Shop Cheap features grocery bargains in the Food & Wine section, usually on Page D5. Check online at sacbee.com/ blogs for updates.

Now, follow along and read our 15 tips. Soon, the clerk might be congratulating you for savings approaching 35 percent.

• 1. Shop the ads and compare prices. Be disciplined.

Here's how we do it. First we set minimum prices for items. We vow not to pay more than $2 for a loaf of multigrain bread; not more than $2.50 for a box of cereal and not more than $3.99 for a case of drinking water. We watch price fluctuations – most recently milk and eggs – and, guess what, it works. When the newspaper ads come out each week, we scan them cover to cover and write about the best deals. We stay away from higher-end items (unless they are in season – like cracked crab) and comment on the essentials that make up a weekly menu: fruit, veggies, meat, poultry, canned goods, dairy and frozen foods.

And most important, we shop what we preach. That's how we are able to save 30 percent to 40 percent off our weekly grocery tab.

• 2. Clip coupons from The Bee, online sites and the Sunday coupon inserts.

Here's a news flash: The stores and the coupon companies are in cahoots. But that's OK, because we benefit. Here's a great example. In Sunday's paper there was a coupon for $1 off three boxes of General Mills cereal. Safeway had an ad for Cinnamon Toast Crunch (General Mills) for $2.50 a box. Buy three, use your coupon and it's $2.16 a box. The same is true for Yoplait yogurt and Aleve painkiller (see below).

• 3. Make a list, preferably on an envelope so that you can stuff your coupons inside.

You have got to make a list, and try not to stray from what you really need. If you can't help yourself, at least buy something that's on sale.

• 4. Learn the layout of the store and make a list with that in mind.

You are on a mission, not wandering the aisles hoping to bump into a neighbor so that you can have a nice little chat. Do a mental map of the store, then make your list. Produce first, then meat, canned goods, dairy, deli and bakery. Done.

• 5. Put an asterisk by each item that has a coupon so that you don't forget.

I got this tip from a colleague and it really does work. As we begin 2009, coupons are going to become a bigger part of saving money at the grocery store. In Sunday's Bee, for example, there was a $1-off coupon for Aleve and, wouldn't you know, both Longs and Walgreens had the pain reliever on sale, too.

Longs had BOGO (buy one, get one free) Progresso soup; Safeway had it two for $3 and there was a clip-worthy coupon for 50 cents off. But it's not just grocery coupons you will find in the glossy inserts – this week Baskin Robbins had two BOGO coupons, and JCPenney and Sears had savings in their optical departments.

• 6. Let the weekly sales form the basis for what the family will eat that week.

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts on sale this week? That's what we're having. Ground beef on sale? Time for hamburgers, pasta or soup. Today, most stores provide recipes in their ads or online to specifically match what's in their ad. They really are trying to make it easy. Plus, in Shop Cheap, expert cook and Bee researcher Sheila Kern finds tasty, economical and usually easy recipes to go along with what we write about.

• 7. Bring reusable bags.

OK, I happen to like collecting cute bags from different stores – especially Trader Joes. But at $1 each (that's the most I'll pay), it's a deal because you get 5 cents off per bag each time you shop. I leave them in my car and force myself to go back if I've forgotten to bring them into the store. Plus, the best reason of all – you're doing something good for the environment.

• 8. You will save even more money if you shop at stores where you bag your own groceries, like WinCo. It scored pretty well in our price comparison of five items (see sidebar with chart).

If you have a WinCo nearby (here's a link to its store locations www.wincofoods. com/locations.htm# california), it's definitely the place to go – or at least try. It has the warehouse store feel but without the wide-screen TVs and food samples. WinCo is employee-owned and definitely a no-frills market. It does have everything from in-store bakeries to the deli and fish counters. It specializes in mega-packs and pack-your-own bulk items.

• 9. If you shop at Safeway, don't leave home without your Club Card.

This is a no-brainer, especially since you can get up to 10 cents off a gallon of gas at the Safeway gas stations. Shop Cheap and fly right with United Airlines and Safeway. You'll earn 125 miles for every $250 in qualifying purchases (www.united.com/page/ article/0,,1724,00.html.)

• 10. Buy the store brands.

Raley's had a store-brand sale last week. Here's an example: A case of R Everyday purified water for $3.50 (full disclosure: Crystal Geyser was the same price at Raley's); 1-pound bag of mini carrots, two for $3; Raley's pasta ($1.19 a pound; frozen veggies, fòur for $5).

• 11. Don't BOGO (buy one, get one free) unless it's really a good deal.

If you don't need two containers of ice cream, don't buy them just because you get one free. A single item could be cheaper. At Safeway, its Select Ice Cream is BOGO, meaning you'll pay $5.99 for two 1.75-quart containers. At Raley's you can get five quarts of Bayview Farms ice cream for $5.79. Get out the calculator.

• 12. Go to more than one store.

Don't buy items like toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo or vitamins at the grocery store. That's what Target, Longs, Walgreens and Wal-Mart (which has everything) are for.

This is one area where you should stock up. No one likes to run out of toothpaste or – horrors – bathroom tissue. In the Target ad this week, you can get a three-pack of toothpaste for $5. Target has plenty of other items on sale, so that it's not just a trip for toothpaste. You can also stock up on Coca-Cola (three 12-packs for $10); Suave hair products (89 cents each); Special K cereal ($2.24 a box) and Kleenex Cottonelle bath tissue (12 double rolls for $6.99). Walgreens had more than $35 in coupon savings in its Sunday ad, including Chicken of the Sea solid white tuna for 99 cents and Quaker Instant Oatmeal for $1.99 and $3 off Listerine.

Longs Drugs has a three-day sale (Thursday through Saturday) featuring 12 items for $10. For 83 cents you can buy a 2-liter jug of 7-Up, Duncan Hines cake and brownie mix, Andersen's split-pea soup and a gallon of Crystal Geyser spring water.

• 13. Believe it or not, the floral department is the place to go for prom flowers, centerpieces or a bouquet.

What's even more reasonable is buying a bouquet and some greens, and making centerpieces yourself. You can buy cute bowls at the $1 store, then arrange the flowers yourself. A bouquet makes at least three small centerpieces.

• 14. The gourmet soups are quick and easy, but very pricey.

At $5 for a container of soup, it's probably OK if you're adding bread and a small salad and calling it a meal for under $10. But $2.50 for two portions of soup (that's how many you get in each container; you'd be better off making it yourself or going BOGO on Progresso).

• 15. Stay off the cell phone.

If it's not on your list, you don't need it. And the whole store doesn't need to hear you tell someone you are in the cereal aisle, where you went last night and your plans for the weekend.

Our plan was to go to five area grocers, buy five common food products and see if the tale of the cash register tapes would yield any money-saving wisdom.

Though the results of last week's shopping sprees will never earn us an advanced degree in consumer economics, we did learn how complicated things have become for even the simplest purchases.

That's because there are so many options for the products and so many variables when purchasing them – not to mention your personal preferences – that we cannot guarantee that this is a pure apples-to- apples comparison. This is compounded if a given store, such as Safeway, offers discounts for club cards.

Go out, as we did, and buy milk, wheat bread, eggs, cornflakes and pasta and count the options: package size; store brands vs. name brands; grades and sizes of eggs; and buy-more-pay-less-marketing – not to mention quality and sourcing.

You want to buy a gallon of nonfat or low-fat milk? If you want the best deal at places like Raley's, you might have to buy two. "I was charged $3.09 for one gallon and 80 cents for the other, for a total of $3.89," reported Pam Dinsmore, The Bee's "Shop Cheap" maven and test customer at a suburban Raley's store. Nothing wrong with 2 gallons of $1.95-a-gallon milk, unless your family can't drink all 256 fluid ounces before it spoils.

A loaf of wheat bread might not seem so mysterious, until you consider the sizes: 16 ounces, 20 ounces, 24 ounces. Wheat, cracked wheat, whole wheat … yikes.

What came first, the chicken or the 12-to-18 size egg cartons? The sizes: jumbo, extra-large, large, medium, small and peewee.

Cornflakes might be cornflakes, but they come in many different sizes and brands – and even in bulk bins at places like WinCo.

Pasta, anyone? Egg noodles for macaroni, spaghetti, angel hair – coming in sizes ranging from 16 or 24 ounces to lots more, or even from those bulk bins at WinCo. Hmmm.

Humbled by the variety of choices, we'll live to shop again. At the close of our spree we figured out cost per unit – which is a good idea when trying to compare things like milk purchases. For instance, Dinsmore paid $3.89 for 2 gallons (256 fluid ounces) of milk. Her cost was just over 1.5 cents per fluid ounce. The cheapest gallon we found at WinCo cost $2.08 – a price per ounce of just over 1.6 cents.

Before placing milk or any other product in the shopping basket, ask yourself two questions:

1. Is this the quality I want?

2. Is this the quantity I want?

"Wine Buzz" is wishing a happy 2009 to all you fellow wine sippers. Did you open anything particularly special for New Year's Eve?

I used the waning hours of 2008 as an excuse to pop a 1991 Forman cabernet sauvignon. Come to think of it, there's really no excuse needed to open one of those. Many bottles from California's stellar 1991 vintage are drinking beautifully now. Recent bottles of the 1991 Forman have shown an artfully balanced blend of black currants, plum and a Bordeaux-like touch of cedar.

So the decanter was on standby, with the TV set to the masses at Times Square. I cut the foil on the Forman and ... uh oh, looks like this bottle seeped at some point. No wonder the bottle fill looked a little low.

Sure enough, once I gave this wine a sniff and taste, it was clear this Forman was DOA. The tannins had all but disappeared, and the fruit had faded into a final note of barnyard funk.

Such is the proverbial roll of the dice with older wine bottles, but "Wine Buzz" wasn't too bummed. Well, I wasn't happy about pouring $65 worth of wine down the drain. At least there was plenty of prosecco on backup, plus a bottle of the decadently dense and fruity Shafer 2005 Relentless.

And then I had an epiphany. Why does 1991 California cabernet have to be my go-to wine for special occasions? Maybe I've become a little too predictable.

With the New Year's Eve ball dropping soon, it was time to make a few resolutions for wine drinking in 2009. And they are:

• Limit myself to two bottles of 1991 Forman in 2009. (This may be tough, but there are other relatively affordable 1991s to be had.)

• Get reacquainted with the Rhone: I've always loved wines from France's Rhone Valley, but now's the perfect time to dig even deeper. The last few Rhone vintages have received plenty of critical accolades, and 2007 is said to be a blockbuster.

• Same goes for Germany: What's this we're hearing about all the great 2007 rieslings from Germany? Time to find out.

• Sample more from Spain and South America: So many solid wines at reasonable prices to be found here. Tempranillo and malbec, here I come.

Anyone else have wine- related resolutions for 2009? Take a break between sips, and e-mail them to cmacias@sacbee.com.