A prep course for the month-long World Cup soccer tournament, a worldwide pheno

n company that wanted hardbound pocket folders to hold documents , perhaps press

 releases . The production company was talking in terms of 650 folders , an orde

r that did not faze Halpert . `` I can do this , '' he says . `` I 'm ready to w

ork . I make things fast . I have good hands . '' Still , he gives the clear imp

ression that he often would rather be back in Kiryas Joel , where there is no te

levision , no radio , no newspaper except the one published in the community , n

othing but the religion that has shaped him since birth . `` Now , '' he says , 

looking around his office with an uneasy smile , `` Now I want to go out from th

is . ''

 PROVIDENCE , R.I. . You 're within earshot of the biggest bell ever cast at Pau

l Revere 's workshop , not far from an Ivy League university , and in a seaport 

where the streets practically teem with history . Back in Colonial days , the ci

ty hosted a tea party of sorts , destroying a shipment of leaves as a protest ag

ainst the stiff tax imposed by the British government . It might sound like Bost

on , but this is Providence , the biggest city in little Rhode Island . Surround

ing the gleaming marble dome of the Rhode Island Statehouse , Providence packs p

lenty of variety . Here you 'll find one of New England 's best zoos , a Little 

Italy atop Federal Hill , some picture-perfect parks , and what they say is the 

first shopping mall in the country the Arcade , built in 1828 . But the true ple

asures of Providence lie on the city 's East Side , on the hillside settled more

 than 350 years ago by founder Roger Williams and his followers . Back in 1635 ,

 Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his dangerous ideas

 which included the radical concept that Indians had a right to the land on whic

h they had lived for millennia . Williams left one jump ahead of a group of sold

iers sent to arrest him , and eventually he made his way up the Providence River

 to a spring , where he established a community based on religious tolerance . H

ere on the patch of Providence now known as College Hill , today 's visitor will

 find little evidence of Williams ' original community it was nearly destroyed i

n 1676 during the Indian uprising called King Philip 's War . Now College Hill i

s crowned by Brown University , and the surrounding streets are a treasury of ea

rly American architecture . In addition to hundreds of historic homes , there 's

 the Cambridge-style stretch of Thayer Street , with its ethnic restaurants , bo

okstores open late into the night , vintage clothing shops and a host of places 

to buy CDs , tapes or records . And there are the artsy , gallery-dotted environ

s of the Rhode Island School of Design and the peaceful oasis of the Providence 

Athenaeum , one of the country 's oldest public libraries with a quintessential 

reading room that has yet to be discovered by a Hollywood location scout . Colle

ge Hill is a walker 's domain , a part of Providence that seems more town than c

ity . It 's built on a human scale , with few buildings topping off at more than

 four stories . Trees line the streets , and sidewalk gardens send flowery scent

s into the air . Here and there , Colonial-era clapboard houses frame a distant 

vista of the Statehouse dome , the downtown high-rises , or the steeple of some 

stately church . Urban hikers on College Hill are rewarded with one discovery af

ter another as the picture of Providence unreels along the city 's sidewalks . S

tart on Benefit Street , along the so-called `` Mile of History , '' setting out

 from the First Baptist Church on North Main Street at the foot of College Hill 

. Head north on what was once an old Indian trail , a pathway along which the Pe

quots or the Wampanoags may have portaged their canoes . Benefit Street is now o

ne fine home after another , a long parade of well-restored houses from the 18th

 and 19th centuries . Along the city 's most famous historic thoroughfare are Fe

deral-style houses and Greek Revival manses , Italianate-style homes and gambrel

-roofed Colonials . It 's a riot of clapboards , pediments and pilasters in an E

aster-egg assortment of pinks and pale yellows , mustards , grays , tans and bro

wns one house is even painted the color of a pumpkin . Many homes are the legacy

 of Providence 's long association with the sea . Many residents were shipping m

agnates , importing treasures from the Orient or engaged in the notorious triang

le trade shuffling rum , molasses and slaves between Africa , the Caribbean and 

New England . The houses show how lucrative the trade was . Throughout Benefit S

treet 's mile run , the architectural integrity borders on the hermetic . Almost

 nothing detracts from the sense of the past . Benefit Street 's historic homes 

were rescued from the depths of decline many of the old homes had become crumbli

ng tenements beginning in the 1950s . The success of the neighborhood restoratio

n effort kindled pride enough to encourage the Providence Preservation Society t

o host , for the past 14 years , an annual Festival of Historic Houses . But Ben

efit Street is not the city 's only historic highway . After walking to the corn

er of Jenckes Street , where residents have barricaded their houses with stones 

against the danger of runaway trucks coasting down the San Francisco-style hills

ide , you could turn uphill for a few blocks before turning right onto Prospect 

Street . The houses along this ledge-top patrician way represent the high point 

of Providence living . These stately houses , built by some of the city 's wealt

hiest residents in the latter 19th century , boast landscapes decorated with per

ennial gardens , clipped hedges , magnolia trees and rhododendrons . Along the w

ay , take a one-block jaunt down Cushing Street and stop at Prospect Terrace . H

ere are panoramic views of the city skyline and an oddly posed statue of founder

 Roger Williams , looking eternally ready to disco off toward the setting sun . 

( Optional add end ) Back on Prospect , a few blocks bring you to the imposing d

ome of the Christian Scientist Church and the greenswards of Brown University . 

Here you might head toward Thayer Street , the city 's four-block mecca for Gene

ration X hipsters . Another locus of activity lies along the southern end of Col

lege Hill , where cafes and restaurants line a stretch of Wickenden Street . Or 

head back downhill , toward Benefit Street and the mighty steeple of the First B

aptist Church . Head south on Benefit , to the Providence Athenaeum , a library 

that traces its roots to 1753 . The library , now housed in a temple that appear

s transplanted from Greece , offers peaceful respite among the antique desks and

 chairs , the marble busts , the paintings and the quiet alcoves where Edgar All

an Poe courted Providence poetess Sarah Helen Whitman 150 years ago . With a lit

tle luck , you might get a look at one of the library 's greatest treasures the 

seven volumes of the original double Elephant Folio edition of John James Audubo

n 's `` Birds Of America . '' These eye-popping illustrations each almost 6 feet

 square are kept in a special climate-controlled locked vault along with other p

recious works , such as the Athenaeum 's incredible selection of travel and expl

oration books and its collection of works by Robert Burns . Many of these histor

ic treasures can be traced to the library 's astute forebears the very patrons w

ho left evidence of their discerning tastes and genteel manners all over College

 Hill . Distributed by the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service .

 We were sitting around the other day talking about lard and I mentioned my favo

rite duck `` chicharrones '' duck skin cooked until the bits of skin are crisp a

nd brown in the rendered fat . That sounds great , someone said , but what do yo

u do with the rest of the duck ? Well , you could have knocked me over with a ta

il feather . There is so much you can do with a duck that I hardly knew where to

 start . If , as the old saying goes , you can use every part of the pig but the

 squeal , think of a duck as a pig built for two . To prove my point , I decided

 to stop at a local Asian market to get a nice fresh duck . The good thing about

 Asian markets is that the ducks are sold with the heads and feet still on . Tha

t 's nice because the feet add a lot to the stock , and with the heads on , you 

get the full neck , which is loaded with good fat . The thing to check , though 

, is the cavity . Sometimes the butcher might happen to kind of accidentally for

get to leave in the liver strictly an accident , you understand , but a near-cri

minal offense in my book . If you 've ever tasted a terrine made from duck liver

s or even duck livers just lightly sauteed in butter you 'll know why . They 're

 like Little League foie gras . Rinse the duck well , then strip away the skin a

nd any fat and cut them into roughly two-inch squares or strips . Put these in a

 pan with about one-quarter cup of water and cook over medium heat . Pretty soon

 , the water will evaporate and all you 'll have left is rendered duck fat ( the

 liquid will start to sizzle when this happens ) . Cook it until the skin bits t

urn dark-brown , then retrieve them with a slotted spoon and drain them on paper

 towels . Let the fat cool , then pour it through a strainer into a glass contai

ner . The skin cracklings , or chicharrones , are terrific lightly salted kind o

f like popcorn from cardiac hell . For the more cautious , they can be used as a

 garnish . They 're also wonderful folded into an omelet , but don't tell them y

ou heard it here . The duck fat you 've just rendered is one of the best cooking

 mediums around , with a wonderful brown flavor . I love to fry potato pancakes 

in it . The next step is to remove the two duck breasts . Using just the point o

f a very sharp knife , trace the line where the keel bone separates the breasts 

. Lift up gently and continue tracing the line where the breast meat meets the r

ibs . When it is free , remove it to a plate , cover it with plastic wrap and re

peat on the other side . The breasts are wonderful broiled , grilled or sauteed 

in a very hot skillet . And by serving them separate from the legs , you can coo

k them to only medium-rare , thus keeping them juicy and flavorful . ( If you co

oked the duck with the legs , of course , you would have to have rare-rare legs 

to get a medium-rare breast , and that would be very unpleasant . ) Remove the l

egs from the frame and set them aside . Take off the feet and wings and put them

 in a roasting pan . Chop the remaining bones into four or five pieces and add t

hem to the feet and wings . Toss in a peeled whole onion and a carrot and roast 

at 450 degrees 30 to 45 minutes or until everything starts to brown and smell re

ally good . Using a slotted spoon to leave as much fat as possible behind , remo

ve the browned bones and vegetables to a large saucepan . Cover well with water 

, add some parsley stems and whatever else you like in a poultry stock , and let

 it cook over medium-high heat for a couple of hours . Top off with water as nec

essary . When the stock is deeply colored , ladle it off into a separate , clean

 saucepan . At this point you will have a delicious , intensely flavored stock .

 Either add a little more water to use it as a base for a duck soup ( nothing ea

sier ) , or set it to cook over a low flame and reduce it to a demi-glace , or d

uck jelly . The only thing left is the duck legs . These are tendon-y and a bit 

tough but very flavorful . Put them in a shallow pan with a little duck stock . 

Cook , covered , over medium heat for about 20 minutes . Test with a small sharp

 knife . It should slip into the meat fairly easily . Let the legs cool , then r

emove the meat . Shred the meat into strips . ( If you 're still cooking the sto

ck , throw in the leg bones . What can it hurt ? ) This meat is great in salads 

, as part of a filling for stuffed pastas or even for sandwiches . Do a couple o

f ducks and you 'll have enough to make duck sausage , if you 're that ambitious

 . What 's the bottom line ? Out of one 5-pound duck , I got three cups of duck 

fat , two cups of duck cracklings , two duck breasts ( about  pound each ) , fiv

e cups of concentrated duck stock ( enough for two quarts of soup , or 2 cups of

 stiff duck demi-glace ) , and 1 cups cooked , shredded meat from the legs . And

 that 's what you can do with a duck . I had duck ; I had arugula . How to bring

 them together ? I wasn't sure what my dressing would be until I opened the plas

tic bag of lettuce . The intensely nutty smell of the arugula reminded me of ses

ame oil , so I put together this Asian-influenced dressing . DUCK SALAD 1 cups c

ooked , minced duck leg meat from 5-pound duck Duck Dressing 4 cups arugula , co

arsely chopped 1 cup duck chicharrones , coarsely chopped from  of skin of 5-pou

nd duck Toss together minced duck and Duck Dressing in medium work bowl until du

ck is coated well . Add arugula and toss until lightly coated and well mixed wit

h duck . Divide among 4 chilled plates and sprinkle chopped duck chicharrones ov

er top . Makes 4 servings . Each serving contains about : 787 calories ; 608 mg 

sodium ; 160 mg cholesterol ; 73 grams fat ; 2 grams carbohydrates ; 28 grams pr

otein ; 0.1 gram fiber . Duck Dressing  cup lightly warmed duck demi-glace 1 tab

lespoon hoisin sauce 2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar 1 teaspoon soy sauce 2 teaspo

ons finely minced green onions , green part only Combine demi-glace , hoisin sau

ce , vinegar , soy sauce and green onion in small work bowl and whisk until smoo

th .

 It 's October and Sheila Lukins is feeling harassed . Her first solo book is su

pposed to be published in April , and the galley proofs have just come back from

 the copy editors with a thousand questions still to be answered . What size tom

ato ? What kind of apple ? How much does that fennel bulb weigh ? Now she has to

 go to a market , buy a bulb of fennel and weigh it . Her physical therapist is 

coming by four times a week to work on the muscles she screwed up by not walking

 correctly after a stroke . And she still has to find the time to pack for a qui

ck trip to Paris to visit her daughter . On top of that , she 's worried about h

ow the book will be received . Just last spring her one-time business partner an

d former co-author Julee Rosso put out a solo book , `` Great Good Food , '' and

 got trashed in the press . Rosso , who pocketed an advance reported to be $ 625

,000 , insisted that she and four assistants tested 1,500 recipes in 10 months t

o select the 800 used in the book . Her detractors said that was impossible . No

 matter , Crown Publishing willn't talk specifics but reveals that the thick pap

erback of low-fat recipes has been a fast seller : Since last April the book has

 sold about 500,000 copies . So was the book really that bad , or was it a matte

r of the food establishment the `` Food Mafia , '' as many call it taking sides 

in the professional divorce of a couple that helped change the way America eats 

? In 1977 , the dynamic duo Lukins the caterer and Rosso the marketer co-founded

 the Silver Palate in Manhattan , one of the first gourmet take-out shops in the

 country . The highfalutin home cooking they pioneered contributed to a radical 

change in baby boomer eating habits . Sauteed chicken livers with blueberry vine

gar , caviar eclairs , pizza pot pie and pesto by the quart were suddenly the ra

ge from Boca Raton , Fla. , to Bellingham , Wash. . To date , their three Silver

 Palate cookbooks have sold more than 5 million copies . By the time the partner

ship ended , shortly after the sale of their shop in 1988 , the pair were barely

 speaking . `` We were great friends , '' says Lukins , `` It 's over now . '' A

fter the breakup , Rosso moved to Michigan and discovered yogurt cheese , while 

Lukins began traveling and researching her `` All Around the World Cookbook '' f

or Workman , the publishers of the original Silver Palate books . `` I wish with

 all my heart that Julee 's book had been nicely received because everyone is go

ing to want to see how the other one did , '' Lukins says . `` I 'm sure I 'll b

e scrutinized plenty. .. . And I did not get a huge advance ! '' But make a few 

calls to key people in the food world and you 'll find no one filing their nails

 in anticipation of the Lukins release , as they did with Rosso 's book . Lukins

 , who is 51 , suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage in 1991 and , according to

 Pat Adrian , who buys books for the Book of the Month Club , the `` Food Mafia 

'' rushed to be loyal to her . It took two operations and weeks of therapy befor

e Lukins was able to leave a wheelchair . `` I 'm happy not to be dead , '' she 

says . `` A lot of people were jealous of both women for a long time , '' says A

drian . `` ( Blasting Rosso 's book ) should have been a great chatty lunch at L

a Cirque rather than ( the media event ) it ended up being . After all , it 's j

ust a cookbook . It 's not going to change the world . '' Lukins is hoping the w

orld is ready for Peloponnesian lamb shanks and Moroccan marmalade , but she 's 

not sure . Her publisher thinks so it has announced a first printing of 350,000 

, believed to be a record for a cookbook . `` A huge amount of my pride is invol

ved in this book , '' says Lukins . `` I just didn't want this book to be anothe

r clone ( of the others ) . Those books are great , fun , and fine but they are 

what they are . I wanted to do something different . '' Yet , the book is unmist

akably in the Silver Palate format , down to the little drawings ( although Luki

ns wasn't the illustrator on this book , as she was on the others ) and boxed si

debars . Even the ethnic-inspired recipes are reinterpreted for the American kit

chen , in Silver Palate fashion . There are very few ingredients called for in t

he book that aren't readily available in Omaha , Neb . But then Lukins did not i

ntend to go around the world and bring back the strictly authentic recipes of ea

ch country . Instead , she took the best of what she found and created food . Lu

kins developed her cooking ability when her husband , Richard , who ran a securi

ty business , was transferred to England . A bored housewife , Lukins enrolled i

n cooking classes at Le Cordon Bleu to occupy her time . The following year , Ri

chard was transferred to Paris , and Lukins signed up for more classes . `` That

 's the way to learn , '' she says . `` In Paris I took cooking lessons and Fren

ch lessons during the day and then cooked for my darling husband at night . '' B

ack in New York and raising two daughters in the Dakota Apartments , a bachelor 

in the building called one night in a panic . He had invited a group over for di

nner and the superintendent 's wife , who usually cooked for him when he had gue

sts , was on vacation . `` I said , ` Don't worry , I 'll cook you dinner , '' '

 Lukins remembers . `` So as was the fashion in the mid- '60s , I cooked moussak

a , a Greek salad , some stuffed grape leaves and sent it over . I charged him $

 50 plus the cost of the food . He ended up with a great dinner and I wound up w

ith $ 50 . '' She also wound up with a new career . One of the guests at the bac

helor 's dinner party was Gael Greene , restaurant critic for New York magazine 

. Greene loved the party food and mentioned it to her friend , Joan Kron , who i

mmediately called Ellen Stern , who at the time wrote the `` Best Bets '' column

 for the magazine . `` It was New York telephone at its best , '' says Lukins no

w . `` Ellen Stern ran a half-page picture of me and my kitchen with a headline 

: ` Eat , Drink and Be Murray . '' ' The article portrayed Lukins as a bachelor 

's best cook . `` I got 200 calls from single men , '' she says . Six months lat

er , the Other Woman Catering Co. was born . A year later , Lukins teamed up wit

h Julee Rosso to open the Silver Palate . The two met when Rosso , an advertisin

g executive for Burlington , hired Lukins to cater a press breakfast introducing

 Oleg Cassini sheets . In April , when `` Sheila Lukins Around the World Cookboo

k '' is about to hit the stores , Lukins ' mood has lifted considerably . She 's

 almost giddy . Vanity Fair has just printed a flattering article on her . A wee

k later , when Lukins ' book comes out , it 's already received its first review

 . Cook 's Illustrated tested 30 recipes from the 450 in the book . Its verdict 

: `` We were underwhelmed . '' Plus , the reviewer brought up the Rosso book in 

the first paragraph . Afterward Lukins is subdued and never mentions the story .

 But she wonders aloud if her name will be linked with Rosso 's forever . `` Wil

l anyone ever write a story about me without mentioning her ? '' she asks . `` I

 know everyone will compare the two books , '' says Nach Waxman , owner of Kitch

en Arts and Letters bookstore , gossip central to the New York food world . `` T

he Julee business will do no good for Sheila 's book . '' Lukins has been around

 a long time , though , and she 's philosophical about the world of cookbook pub

lishing . `` When you put yourself before the public and say , ` this is my work

 , here it is , '' ' she says , `` I think they look hard . '' With her book in 

the stores and more reviews to come , Lukins can only wait and see what the cons

ensus on her solo project will be . And maybe , a few books from now , her work 

will be reviewed without the mentions of her past life as half of a famous `` fo

odie couple . '' For now , she is content in the knowledge that she has done the

 best book she could .. . on her own .

 Getting there Stay on I-195 until you see the sign for downtown Providence . Ta

ke a right off the exit , continue through a traffic light and bear left . Pass 

the Biltmore Hotel . At City Hall , take a left and cross Kennedy Plaza to the f

oot of College Hill . Park near the First Baptist Church , the huge , high-steep