NEW & NOTEWORTY.

PARIS GALORE: If a trip to Paris is on your agenda, you'll want to get your hands on a copy of this month's issue of Gourmet magazine. It's filled with worthwhile information about hotels and restaurants and features a 16-page guide (100 plus great things about Paris) with tidbits about the city's best shopping, chocolatiers, cooking schools, wine shops, grocery stores, secret places. If you're looking for cookware equipment for the kitchen, you'll find a variety of places for that, too (including Etablissement Dehillerin; M.O.R.A.; Kitchen Bazaar and A. Simon).

Paris was on the mind of National Geographic Traveler in the March issue as well. Included is a list of 22 great Paris hotels for $100 or less. We found the reading enticing. And there's more to come. Paris will be featured in the May issue of Bon Appetit, we hear.

- Natalie Haughton

CHOCOLATE SHAMROCKS: Top o' the morning! After hearing about the solid-chocolate shamrock candies wrapped up in green foil, we headed to See's Candies to pick up a few packages for our Irish and chocolate-loving friends. One store was temporarily sold out, but we located them at another. Get in the St. Pat's mood and gussy up dessert, cookie and candy plates - or just fill the candy jar with them. Tasters gave these attractive and festive chocolates a thumbs-up. An 8-ounce package (containing about 30 pieces) is $4.10.

- N.H.

EXHIBIT

As part of Women's History Month, California State University, Northridge, is paying tribute to the remarkable things mothers and grandmothers do in their kitchens for others in an exhibit, ``In Search of Our Mother's Kitchens: Women in the Domestic Arts, 1900-2000.'' Visit the exhibit, located in the Oviatt Library lobby and second-floor west wing, through March 30. For information, call [phone].

- N.H.

NEW

Newest additions to the Star premium vinegar line are Golden Balsamic, Red Raspberry, Aged in Oak Barrels and Seasoned Rice and Natural Rice Vinegars. We particularly liked the flavorful Golden Balsamic, which is light in color, along with the lovely Red Raspberry that is designed to enhance fruit salads, marinades and dressings. The Aged in Oak Barrels is a blend of red and white grapes that have been aged for six months, resulting in a wine-and-wood flavor that enhances sauces and marinades.

The rice vinegars are available in 12-ounce bottles with suggested retail price of $2.39. The others are packaged in 8.5-ounce bottles and retail for about $2.99 each. Look for them at selected Vons and Ralphs markets.

- N.H.

< COOKING IRISH-STYLE: There's plenty of evidence in recent Irish cookbooks that today's Irish don't live in a nostalgic past. Irish cooks are producing a variety of dishes that happily combine or alternate new ideas with traditional homegrown ingredients.

``Myrtle Allen's Cooking at Ballymaloe House'' (Stewart, Tabori & Chang; $27.50) is a new edition of Allen's 1990 original cookbook, with a new introduction and glossy photos by Mick Hales. Her book's subtitle describes its contents as a collection of 100 recipes ``from Ireland's most famous guest house.'' Allen, a farmer's wife, opened her restaurant at the family's country house in 1964, in Shangarry, County Cork.

Now, at 75, she still presides over the complex of restaurant, small hotel and family farm; her daughter-in-law, Darina Allen, runs a cooking school and appears in television cooking programs.

``I have been a recipe collector ever since I was very young,'' Allen says in her introduction, constantly looking for that ``magic formula that will work for me.'' The book is a varied sampling of recipes.

``The Irish Country Kitchen'' (Appletree; $15.95 paperback) is by Mary Kinsella, who grew up on a farm in County Wexford and now teaches cooking in Dublin. The idea of tradition runs very strongly through this collection of about 250 recipes, illustrated with color photos. It hews closely to local specialties, mostly straightforward dishes that are associated with local ingredients such as Connemara Roast Lamb or Baked Limerick Ham. The book also features Kinsella's versions of country dishes that could be made with ingredients from anyone's local supermarket.

Among other books available for further reading are:

``Ireland: The Taste and the Country'' by Mike Bunn with introduction by J.P. Donleavy (Collins & Brown; $24.95, 2000).

``Ireland: The Taste of Ireland in Traditional Home Cooking'' by Matthew Drennan (Anness; $9.95 paperback, 2000).

``West of Ireland Summers: A Cookbook: Recipes and Memories From an Irish Childhood'' by Tamasin Day-Lewis (Rinehart; $19.95 paperback, 1999)

``The Irish Heritage Cookbook'' by Margaret M. Johnson (Chronicle Books; $18.95 paperback, 1999).

``Irish Traditional Cooking'' by Darina Allen (Trafalgar Square; $19.95 paperback, 1998).

- Associated Press

CAPTION(S):

5 photos

Photo: (1) no caption (See's Candies shamrock chocolate)

(2) no caption (``Myrtle Allen's Cooking at Ballymaloe House'')

(3) no caption (``The Irish Country Kitchen'')

(4) no caption (Gourmet magazine)

(5) no caption (Star vinegar - Golden Balsamic, Red Raspberry, Aged Oak Barrels, Seasoned Rice and Natural Rice)