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Stanley Demos, former owner of The Coach House, was in town this week visiting family, and he dropped by the location on South Broadway to see what was happening at the restaurant he turned into a landmark.

The building, empty for months, is on its way to becoming the grand Coach House again. Karen and Nasser Zamareh expect to have the restaurant open in a week or so.

Karen, who spent her teen years living around Cynthiana, remembers going to The Coach House for dinner. She and her husband were living in Texas when she began to yearn for home. ”I was looking on the Internet and saw the Coach House building and explained the history to my husband,“ she said. ”He decided we could do this, and we half-made a deal over the telephone, sight unseen.“

Nasser is a trained chef, and the ­Zamarehs also have hired Cameron Irvin as chef. The Coach House will be open for lunch, dinner and Sunday brunch. The bar will feature specialty appetizers. Call (859) 288-7570.

The copper bean pot-looking lamp with the mica shade that sat in her son's bedroom for years wasn't really to Jane Harcourt's taste.

But the Louisville woman thinks a lot more highly of it now — now that she knows it's an early Dirk Van Erp lamp worth $40,000 to $50,000, and maybe more.

Shirah Grant of Jessamine County was happy to learn that her little drypoint engraving titled Le Chapeau Épinglé, or The Pinned Hat, is an authentic Renoir and worth $4,000 to $6,000 — far more than the approximately $500 she and her husband, Shawn Grant, paid for it.

On the other hand, she was disappointed to learn that a handful of sketches that came with certificates of authenticity when she and her husband bought them a couple of years ago for about $2,000 are inexpensive reproductions.

Back in the late 1970s, Barry Benton started flying small teams of dentists and doctors on mission trips to Haiti, hoping to fulfill God's will by helping to improve medical care for needy residents of the impoverished Caribbean nation.

The first trips were tough. Benton, then a Lexington attorney, would take three or four volunteers at a time in his little single-engine plane, making grueling 12-hour flights from Lexington with multiple refueling stops along the way, ending with a six- or eight-mile hike to the small town of Ranquitte in Haiti's northern mountains.

Nevertheless, they soon had a little medical clinic and a small school in Ranquitte (pronounced ron-keet), supported by a organization back in Lexington that they called Christian Flights International. CFI, now a non-profit corporation based in Richmond, celebrated its 30th anniversary last year.

”The little elementary school we started had 12 students, and I think they have about 1,000 students now,“ Benton said last week. ”They have a computer lab, can you believe that? They have solar panels to recharge their lights. They have lots of other programs going. It's amazing how far things have come.“

We hope that it's not true that art imitates life, at least when it comes to prom.

With prom season hard upon us, let's avoid the telekentic blood spurting of Carrie or the über-evil antics of the ”plastics“ in Mean Girls. Still, with all that's weird and wonderful about high school wrapped in one candle-lit, bedazzled package, prom provides a perfect venue for lots of drama and comedy. For proof, look at last weekend's release of the slasher flick Prom Night, which opened No. 1 with $22.70.8 million in ticket sales.

But Prom Night is just the latest cinematic effort to portray that uniquely American institution. Here are some of the highs, and lows, during the past few decades.

BRUSSELS, Belgium — London has Admiral Nelson. Rome has Romulus and Remus. New York has the Statue of Liberty. Brussels has Manneken-Pis.

The impish statue of a small boy going No. 1 into a medieval fountain in the heart of the city's trendy St. Jacques District is always surrounded by a delighted crowd, cameras snapping away at his innocent lack of modesty.

One legend says that the little fellow got his name after urinating into the beard of the bishop who baptized him; another says that it resulted from extinguishing — in his own special way — the fuse of a bomb about to set the city ablaze. Whatever the origins, the Manneken-Pis is beloved by Bruxellois (the lovely name of Brussels' residents) and visitors alike.

Most days he is naked, but on special occasions he is lovingly dressed in various costumes, all of which have a discreet opening from which his jet of water flows. The costumes, now numbering more than 700 and donated by countries and groups around the world, run the gamut from Elvis Presley's sequined white jumpsuit to Santa Claus' red velvet knickers and tunic, from the flowing robes of Lawrence of Arabia to the signature bow tie and ears of Mickey Mouse. But perhaps he is never more popular than on festival days when the Manneken-Pis spouts beer rather than water into the fountain for the enjoyment of the revelers.

It didn't matter that he had no staff and no customers other than rescue workers, reporters from around the world and the few stragglers who hadn't either evacuated or been run out of town by the National Guard. There he was day after day, cooking up pots of jambalaya and red beans and rice, and doling them out free of charge to grateful customers.

Prudhomme and a few other chefs were the exception. For months after the storm, you could get a better meal in Shreveport than in New Orleans, and most of the city's celebrity chefs were working their magic in Houston, Las Vegas and elsewhere.

As a resident of the Crescent City for 25 years before moving to Lexington in the aftermath of Katrina, I am happy to report that that is no longer the case. Most of New Orleans' chefs have come home, and its legendary restaurants are again open for business and are better than ever.

You can have breakfast at Brennan's and dinner at Antoine's, and should you get hungry in between, there's lunch at Galatoire's (except on Fridays, when it is reserved exclusively for locals, many of whom have had the same table and waiter for generations).

On a highly personal day, he spoke of his own "spiritual poverty" and said he hoped to be a worthy successor to St. Peter, considered the first pope.

The German-born pope lamented that what he called "the joy of faith" was often choked by cynicism, greed and violence. Yet he drew an analogy to show how faith can overcome distractions and trials.

"The spires of St. Patrick's Cathedral are dwarfed by the skyscrapers of the Manhattan skyline, yet in the heart of this busy metropolis they are a vivid reminder of the constant yearning of the human spirit to rise to God," he said.

In America in particular, he has said repeatedly, the religious intensity stands out in marked contrast to the tepid spiritual emphasis in his native Europe. That makes the United States a testing ground for him in his bid to counter secular trends in the world.

It's a brave girl who will let herself be photographed without makeup. Yet three already beautiful teenagers (and members of the Herald-Leader Teen Board) agreed to give their faces a good scrub at 7 a.m. and show up ready to face the cameras.

Then makeup artist Leigh-Ann Mims went to work, using mainly MAC cosmetics to softly sculpt a look that whispered ”barely there but better.“

It was fresh faces all around. Which is exactly what spring requires. Gone is the uneven skin tone of winter. Gone, too, the dry skin, the tired eyes and the lackluster lips.

The look takes no time and just a little trouble.

But as useful and pretty as they can be, what ­happens when an umbrella is blown inside-out by wind or crushed in a car door?

Most models are made of polyester and metal or ­plastic, but the makers of the Brelli (www.thebrelli.com), claim it's the world's first biodegradable umbrella.

Made of bamboo, a renewable resource, cotton string and a biodegradable clear canopy, the Brelli is meant to disintegrate in a landfill (but not a downpour) in less than five years. Totes, the well-known ­rainwear brand, is getting in on the green trend too, with its Eco line of products made of recycled materials.

Perhaps even more than umbrellas, rubber rain boots have taken young women by storm. In the past couple of years, styles in an ­amazing array of patterns and colors have been popping up ­everywhere, ­including ­college campuses and the closets of well-dressed middle schoolers.

Ema Horvath trembles as she reaches into the box and pulls out a snake.

She pants and smiles as she describes, in a thick Southern accent, the satisfaction of holding the serpent between her fingers. Then she mentions those who don't experience that same fulfillment.

”I look at them and I wonder, "Can they handle?'“ Ema says.

For about eight minutes, Ema, an eighth-grader at the School for the Creative and Performing Arts in Lexington, is a Pentecostal snake handler. In the next hour, she might be a snobby prom queen or a dying teenager.

Sweet Potatoes has moved from small-town Versailles to the capital city.

The restaurant, owned by Brian Nesselrode and Lindsay Rice, now is in Northgate Shopping Center, off Holmes Street in Frankfort. This location has a bar that's separate from the restaurant.

The menu includes sandwiches, chicken tenders, steak and catfish.

Call (502) 352-2505. Hours are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday, and 4 to 11 p.m. Saturday.

With the backing of Turkey's reform-minded government, the team of 80 Islamic academicians from around the world is preparing to release a revised collection of the prophet Muhammad's words and deeds, which guide Muslims on everything from brushing their teeth to reaching heaven.

By year's end, the academics hope to prepare a new intellectual road map for Islam.

The revised collection of Muhammad's guidance will be the latest initiative in a contentious debate about the role of Islam in an era when the most prominent Muslim figures, at least in the West, are extremists such as Osama bin Laden. The rise of al-Qaida and the prominence of hard-line Islamist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban, argue some Islamic reformers, has created a warped view of Islam in the West.

"This may help to take the words of the prophet from the hands of people who are using them to legitimize their bad deeds," said Mehmet Gormez, the vice president of Turkey's Religious Affairs Ministry, which is overseeing the project.

NICHOLASVILLE — Potter Fritz Wolff is somewhat of an enigma.

While you might expect potters and other artists to be struggling to make a living, in his semi-retirement Wolff has built an 18,000-square-foot, $1.5 million ceramics studio that he refers to fondly as his ”old man's play place.“

The studio is a testament to Wolff's career as an international potter, but also the love of his work.

He believes it to be one of the largest, if not the largest, private, individually owned porcelain studios in the United States, and he is pleased to point out that it has all come about through the creation of items made of clay and by hand.

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Celebrity chef Bobby Flay, host of the Food Network's Boy Meets Grill, is the ­official host and spokesman for Kentucky Derby Party, a new program from Churchill Downs. It's designed to connect millions of Kentucky Derby fans worldwide who enjoy hosting parties on the first Saturday in May.

The site has party invitations, menu ideas, games, party favors and an official online wagering platform. Go to www.kentuckyderby.com/party.

Flay will be the grand marshal of the Kentucky Derby Festival's Pegasus Parade at 5 p.m. Thursday. Go to www.kdf.org for more information.

At Derbytime, the first sprigs of mint to pop up in the garden are often muddled for mint juleps or used to decorate tea and lemonade glasses for parties.

But there are many interesting ways to use the mint that keeps growing no matter how hard you try to kill it.

”Mint is an edible weed,“ farmer Karin Rasmussen of Lancaster said. ”Use it, abuse it, and it will still keep coming back for more abuse.“

Rasmussen grows mint to dry for the seasoning blends that she and her ­husband, Drew, make for their ­company, Herb'n Renewal.

The order by the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission overturns the ruling of a lower court that found the Rev. Jane Adams Spahr in violation of the constitution of the church by officiating at weddings for lesbian couples in New York in 2004 and California in 2005.

The order issued Tuesday said, "The ceremonies that are the subject of this case were not marriages as the term is defined (by the Book of Order). These were ceremonies between women, not between a man and a woman. ... It is not improper for ministers of the Word and Sacrament to perform same sex ceremonies."

The church's Book of Order says, "Marriage is a civil contract between a man and a woman," and does not prohibit blessings of same-sex couples that are not determined to be marriages.

The high court said in the ruling that the lower court had erred by finding Spahr guilty "of that which by definition cannot be done. One cannot characterize same sex ceremonies as marriages for the purpose of disciplining a minister of the Word and Sacrament and at the same time declare that such ceremonies are not marriages for legal or ecclesiastical purposes."

FLEMINGSBURG — It is as normal a morning as mornings get in the ag barn at Fleming County High School, and suddenly someone yells, ”Peanut is loose.“

Like a well-oiled machine, students head off all the passes — the large front and back openings, the classroom door, the horse stalls. The lambs, which have been lying down, are standing up for the show. The calves moo in appreciation. The elder statesmen bunnies are way over on the other side of the barn and are used to these shenanigans by now.

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Question: My cholesterol numbers: total cholesterol, 125; LDL, 69; HDL, 32; and triglycerides, 119. My liver enzymes have been slightly high for years, and I recently was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Is there a safe, effective way to increase my HDL through specific foods or ­supplements?

Answer: Most people would gladly take those lipid numbers and run. They are very good except for the HDL level of 32, which is lower than the recommended minimum of 40.

HDL cholesterol (the good kind) is the type you want more of because it helps mop up cholesterol that might otherwise find its way into artery-narrowing plaque.

Women tend to have a higher HDL than men. The average in women is 55 and in men 45.