by JoNel Aleccia

If there's any sin I regularly commit as Mail Tribune food editor, it's a sin of omission. The embarassing truth is, when I don't like a certain food, I tend to leave it out.

I realized that as I scanned back issues of A la Carte recently, only to discover very few recipes for Brussels sprouts, say, or okra. Ditto for recipes involving squid, garbanzo beans or chicken livers, much to my husband's dismay.

Conversely, I tend to run recipes for foods I like, just because they sound good when I read them. That might be behind the first question posed by a reader this month. She wondered why the paper seemed to feature so many recipes for couscous, a food she'd never tried.

Checking my files for the past six months, I discovered a half-dozen recipes involving couscous. That compares to no recipes featuring pickled beets, for instance.

I'll try to do a better job of including a wider array of recipes. If there are any foods you'd really like to see featured, give me a call. Meantime, here are this month's reader's questions and some answers.

I'm wondering about this "couscous" in your paper. What is it? What does it taste like? I'm a 74-year-old great-grandmother and it's been driving me crazy for years.

-- Betty S., Medford

I didn't intend to drive you batty, Betty. It's just that couscous is a tasty, versatile food that has been showing up in more and more recipes in the past few years.

You probably are familiar with couscous in another form: It's granular semolina, the stuff that makes up Cream of Wheat cereal. When it's used in main dish recipes, however, the grain is a delicious substitute for rice or pasta. It's a staple in North African cuisine. You'll

find it widely used in curry dishes featuring meat and vegetables, along with condiments such as chickpeas (garbanzos!), raisins and coconut.

Couscous, which is inexpensive and easy to cook, is available on the pasta aisle of any local grocery store.

Just wanted you to know we enjoy the A la Carte recipes. I was so happy to see the knockoff Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuit recipe. It was perfect. I have been looking for Safeway's Mandarin orange chicken recipe, but can't really find anything close. I was wondering if it was possible you could run more of those copycat recipes? ... I would really appreciate it.

-- Barb F., Medford

Thanks for the compliment, Barb. I haven't been able to get the Safeway recipe, either, but I located a Web site that will satisfy your urge for knockoff treats.

Located at www.topsecretrecipes.com , it's a site created by Todd Wilbur, a self-proclaimed food sleuth who has recreated hundreds of secret recipes from Big Name Companies.

You'll find directions for copycat foods ranging from Nabisco's Nilla Wafers and Oreos to McDonald's Big Mac sauce and KFC Coleslaw. I also noticed a delicious-sounding recipe for the Orange Flavored Chicken from Panda Express. There's even a recipe for recreating a version of Good Season's Italian Dressing Salad Mix, which was a local reader's request several months ago.

Check out the site for more information.

I recently purchased two very large cans of chili sauce thinking I could make some chili. Unfortunately, I don't have a recipe using sauce. ... I'd like a recipe using beans and ground beef and not necessarily using prepared seasonings.

-- James M., Rogue River

I think I found what you're after, James. It's a basic chili recipe that uses chili sauce along with ground beef, kidney beans, fresh vegetables and seasoning ingredients.