APAZ

Serves 10 as an appetizer

2 pork tenderloins (about 1 ¼ pounds each)

2 teaspoons Thai red curry paste

2/3 cup coconut milk

4 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro, divided

2 tablespoons Thai fish sauce

1 tablespoon lime juice

1 teaspoon brown sugar

2 cloves garlic, crushed

¾-inch fresh ginger, sliced

Wooden skewers

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

Fresh ground black pepper

1. Cut pork into 1-inch chunks, then cut each in half.

2. Put the curry paste in a bowl and add a little of the coconut milk. Mash together with the back of a spoon until well blended. Whisk in remaining coconut milk, 2 tablespoons cilantro, fish sauce, lime juice and brown sugar. Stir in garlic and ginger; pour over pork, cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours and up to 24 hours.

3. Soak wooden skewers in water 20 minutes before threading with pork. Put 3 pieces of pork onto each skewer and place on a large platter. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to cook. Discard remaining marinade.

4. If cooking on a grill: When coals are glowing red, after about 15 to 20 minutes, cover with the grate. After 5 minutes, use a wire brush to thoroughly clean grate. Coals are ready when covered with a pale gray ash. Sprinkle skewers with salt and pepper. Place on grate and grill, turning every 1 ½ minutes, until pork is browned on the outside and no longer pink in the middle, about 8 minutes total cooking time.

5. If broiling skewers: Place oven rack on top shelf and heat broiler. Arrange half of skewers on a broiling pan and broil about 4 minutes on two sides until pork is browned on the outside and no longer pink in the middle. Repeat with remaining skewers.

6. Transfer skewers to a serving platter and sprinkle with remaining 2 tablespoons cilantro.

From “Kebabs: 52 Easy Recipes for Year-Round Grilling” by Sally Sampson

Serves 10 as an appetizer

¾ cup buttermilk or yogurt

2 tablespoons light olive oil

3 tablespoons tomato sauce

1 tablespoon peeled and chopped fresh ginger

4 medium cloves garlic, crushed

1 ½ teaspoons turmeric

1 ½ teaspoons ground cumin

½ teaspoon ground coriander

¼ teaspoon ground cardamom (optional)

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¾ teaspoon chili powder

Zest of 1 lime

1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided

¼ teaspoon fresh ground pepper

3 pounds boneless and skinless chicken breasts

Wooden appetizer skewers

2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Lime wedges

1. To make marinade: Combine buttermilk or yogurt, olive oil, tomato sauce, ginger, garlic, turmeric, cumin, coriander, cardamom, cinnamon, chili powder, lime zest, ½ teaspoon kosher salt and pepper in a 3-to-4-quart bowl.

2. Trim any pieces of fat from chicken and cut into about 1 ¼-inch chunks. Put into marinade and mix well to coat the chicken. Cover and marinate in refrigerator at least 4 hours.

3. Soak wooden skewers in water 20 minutes before threading with chicken. Put 3 pieces of chicken onto each skewer and place on a large platter. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to cook. (Discard remaining marinade.)

4. If cooking on a grill: When coals are glowing red, after about 15 to 20 minutes, cover with the grate. After 5 minutes, use a wire brush to clean grate. Coals are ready when covered with a pale gray ash. Sprinkle skewers with salt and pepper. Place on grate and grill, turning every 1 ½ minutes, until chicken is browned in spots on the outside, cooked through and no longer pink in the middle, about 8 minutes total cooking time.

5. If broiling skewers: Place oven rack on top shelf and heat broiler. Arrange half of skewers on a broiling pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and broil about 4 minutes on each side until chicken is browned in spots, cooked through and no longer pink in the middle. Repeat with remaining skewers.

6. Transfer skewers to a serving platter and serve with lime wedges.

From “Kebabs: 52 Easy Recipes for Year-Round Grilling” by Sally Sampson

Q: I can’t get my hotel to honor a rate it confirmed, and could use a little help.

I recently called the Hampton Inn Asheville (in North Carolina) to reserve a room for two nights to attend a database software training class on federal government travel orders. I asked for, and received, their version of the government rate, which was $81. A reservations agent also gave me a confirmation number.

Another colleague attending the training class did the same in a separate phone call and received the same rate and a confirmation number. Several days before the class, my colleague got a phone call from Hampton Inn with some bad news. Apparently we’d both been offered the wrong rate. The new rate for Friday night was $149. The representative asked her to pass the news along to me.

I contacted Hilton, which owns Hampton, and was told that someone from the Hampton property in Asheville would contact me. But when I got the call from Hampton, they continued to refuse to adjust their rate. They insisted that no one traveled on government business on Friday or Saturday. I can assure you that this is not correct.

I have not yet canceled my reservation, but I find it odd that I can go online and get a $114-a-night rate for Friday. What would you advise me to do?

Cheryl McClure, Atlanta

A: Don’t cancel your reservation. Hampton Inn needs to honor the rate it offered you and your colleague when you phoned.

This isn’t a mistaken “fat finger” rate - a price that’s too good to be true. It appears to be a legitimate government rate that somehow, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, was arbitrarily withdrawn.

It should be obvious to even the janitor at the Hampton Inn that the government doesn’t stop working on the weekend. And besides, there are ways to confirm that someone is traveling on government business. Why not ask for an ID, for starters? I’m sure you would have been happy to show yours to the hotel when you checked in.

Instead, your government rate was taken away and replaced with what looks like the hotel’s undiscounted room rate, also known as the rack rate.

Come on.

You could have done one of two things. First, you might have phoned the Hampton Inn in Asheville and spoken with a manager. A one-minute conversation would have cleared this whole matter up. Second, you could have just shown up at the property with a printout of your confirmed room rate and insisted that the hotel honor it, even though you knew it didn’t want to. A manager would have been called and after a one-minute conversation, I’m sure your rate would have been adjusted.

Oh, there’s a third option that I almost forgot about. Me.

I contacted Hampton on your behalf, and it turns out the hotel had goofed. It never should have changed your rate, and it blamed the screw-up on a trainee, according to a phone call you received from a manager. Hampton reset your rate to $81 a night.

Or so it said. When you checked out of the hotel, you were presented with an invoice for $149 a night, and had to ask to call a manager, who readjusted your final bill back to $81.

Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine and the host of “What You Get For The Money: Vacations” on the Fine Living Network. E-mail him at celliott @ngs.org.

LOS ANGELES - You could see the desire in Kevin Durant’s eyes.

All month, the Sonics rookie has watched established NBA stars make key plays at key points in the game to help their teams defeat Seattle.

And each time Durant steals a little of their game and tries to duplicate the effort in his next outing, wanting along with teammates to get Seattle on a winning path.

But while Durant’s driving layin brought the Sonics to only five points down with 8.4 seconds left against Los Angeles, only Lakers guard Kobe Bryant would shine on Tuesday night. The perennial All-Star scored six of his game-high 35 points in the final four minutes, including two free throws with 12.2 seconds left, to send the Sonics to a 106-99 defeat.

Los Angeles snapped a three-game losing streak before a sellout crowd of 18,997 at Staples Center.

Seattle was left with the league’s worst record at 2-13 and continues to match the inaugural Sonics for worst start in franchise history.

The 1967-68 team was 2-14 before getting its third victory of the season.

The Sonics quickly dressed and boarded their bus, seemingly not wanting to answer the same repetitive questions of why they can’t execute past the opening half.

Durant continued to keep his comments positive, but even those responses are getting shorter and shorter.

“He still has a young man’s body,” Lakers forward Lamar Odom said of the 19-year-old Durant. “Once he matures a little bit, he’ll be tough.”

Possibly as tough as Bryant, who made clutch buckets with the shot clock running down and grabbed critical rebounds.

Sonics coach P.J. Carlesimo had Damien Wilkins and Jeff Green defend Bryant, but both struggled to keep up.

Still, the Sonics attempted to make a game of it in the closing minutes. A dunk by forward Chris Wilcox gave the Sonics life with a 104-99 deficit with 1:24 left. But then Wilkins’ shot was blocked by former Gonzaga star Ronny Turiaf and Wilcox and Durant missed shots.

“We played perfect, we just need to battle a little bit better than we did,” Carlesimo said. “I thought that our bench did a really good job, they gave us a good effort. We just didn’t … we needed to get some stops and needed to stop fouling. And I thought Kobe made a couple of big shots at the last second or two of the clock and Lamar had a very good game.”

Carlesimo started Delonte West, stating it was his intention to open the season giving Luke Ridnour, Earl Watson, and West a stint at the starting point-guard position. West had no assists and one technical through three quarters, getting benched for Watson in the fourth. Watson, meanwhile, was a spark, scoring seven of his 16 points in the fourth quarter and adding six assists and six rebounds to his total.

But no matter how close the Sonics pulled, silly errors in the third quarter hurt the team. With West at the helm, the Sonics were outscored 11-4 to fall behind 79-68.

“Again, third quarter, we’ve been struggling coming out,” Sonics center Kurt Thomas said. “We have to adjust. I mean, we’re right there, tied game at halftime. We’ve just got to come out and execute better. You’ve got to give Kobe credit, every time we tried to make a run, Kobe seemed to come back and hit a big shot for them.”

Sonics forward Nick Collison left the game with a possible broken nose after being fouled by Bryant with 2:31 left in the third quarter. He was examined by a Lakers doctor and will be re-examined in Seattle.

Collison was replaced by Mouhamed Sene, a selection made by Lakers coach Phil Jackson who wanted the second-year center to shoot the free throws because Collison was unable to do so. Sene made one of the two free throws.

“We know we haven’t won as much as we want to,” said Durant, who finished with a team-high 25 points. “But we’ve got to keep getting better.”

The Sonics were nearly an hour late arriving to the arena. The team stayed in Santa Monica and the 4:30 p.m. bus didn’t pull into Staples Center until 90 minutes later. Normally the team likes to arrive about 2 ½ hours before tip-off.

Jayda Evans: 206-464-2067 or jevans@seattletimes.com

Pacific Northwest

Real estate

Seattle-area home prices declined in September compared with August, adding to a national trend: the largest quarterly decline in the 21-year history of the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Indices.

Seattle’s decline, however, was slight. September prices were down 0.2 percent from August. That follows a dip of 0.1 percent in August from July.

On an annual basis, Seattle home prices climbed 4.7 percent for the year ended in September. That ties it with Charlotte, N.C., for the highest appreciation among the 20 metropolitan markets in the S&P Case-Shiller price report.

In the third quarter, prices nationally declined 1.7 percent from the second quarter and 4.5 percent from the third quarter of 2006.

Big Fish Games

Company acquires Thinglefin firm

Two months after becoming chief executive at Seattle’s Big Fish Games, Jeremy Lewis is diversifying beyond casual games by acquiring Thinglefin, a local developer of massively multiplayer online (MMO) games.

Thinglefin was started in May by veterans of companies such as Sony, Microsoft, Sega and Monolith and received venture funding in July. Its four employees will continue developing an MMO game launching next year with the Thinglefin brand and contribute to other projects at Big Fish’s 200-person Seattle office.

“We have a leadership position in online entertainment in certain areas, and we wish to extend that leadership position in the area that Thinglefin allows us to,” Lewis said.

Financial details weren’t disclosed, but Lewis said Big Fish sales will grow more than 100 percent this year, as they have every year since its 2002 launch.

Microsoft

Company to add engineers in China

Microsoft plans to employ 33 percent more engineers in China by the end of the fiscal year to boost research and development.

The company will add 1,000 engineers by the end of June next year, Zhang Yaqin, chairman of Microsoft China, said in Beijing on Tuesday. About 10 percent will be doing research and the rest mostly product development, he said.

Microsoft has about 3,000 research engineers in China now, the highest number outside the U.S., Zhang said.

Microsoft has research centers in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

Legal issues

State ruling stands on truckers’ OT

A Washington Supreme Court ruling that found Washington-based truck drivers working more than 40 hours a week are entitled to overtime pay was upheld Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal.

The decision - in a case involving truck driver Larie Bostain of Vancouver who sued Food Express, a company that operates throughout the West - opens the possibility that other drivers could file similar suits and force trucking companies to re-examine driver compensation.

Seattle lawyer Phil Talmadge, who handled the U.S. Supreme Court appeal and represented the American Trucking Association, reserved comment on the appeal until he could evaluate the high court’s reasoning.

Talmadge said if the state Supreme Court’s ruling stands, it could lead to confusion between state and federal wage and commerce laws.

Weyerhaeuser

Analyst’s report boosts stock price

Weyerhaeuser stock rose $1.52, or 2.2 percent, to $69.54 Tuesday after a Deutsche Bank analyst said the company might take its timberland business private.

Mark Wilde, an analyst with Deutsche Bank in New York, has a price target of $95 on the stock, based on the estimated value of Weyerhaeuser’s assets.

The Federal Way company has been under pressure from investors to convert into a real-estate investment trust to unlock the value of timberlands and reduce taxes.

“We wonder if shareholders might be better served by a bid to take the entire Weyerhaeuser timber business private,” Wilde wrote in a note to clients. “With global investors still eager to pour capital into timberland, a private and prudently levered bid for the entire timber business appears possible.”

Nation and World

Google

Company gets into cheaper energy

Internet giant Google is expanding from search and advertising to try developing cheap energy alternatives to coal. The initiative, Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal, will focus initially on solar, geothermal and wind-energy sources that could be used in place of coal.

Google will use its vast resources to buy companies and hire engineers to see this initiative through.

“Our goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal,” Google co-founder Larry Page said Tuesday. “We are optimistic this can be done in years, not decades.”

One gigawatt can power a city the size of San Francisco, with 750,000 residents, says Google.

Google got interested in helping fund new renewable energy sources because it is a huge consumer of electricity for its big data centers. They house hundreds of thousands of computers that run the Google search engine. Additionally, it wants to help solve the global warming crisis, and says cheaper and cleaner energy sources can help do that.

Wells Fargo

$1.4B provision for loan losses

Wells Fargo will take a $1.4 billion provision in the fourth quarter for loan losses, the bank said Tuesday.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the bank said it will create an $11.9 billion portfolio of the company’s riskiest mortgages, which it plans to liquidate. The portfolio consists of three types of home-equity loans.

Wells Fargo said the debt poses the biggest risk to its balance sheet.

Compiled from Seattle Times business staf, the Columbian (Vancouver, Wash.), Bloomberg News, USA Today and The Associated Press

The game: Football, Gonzaga Prep vs. Juanita, Dec. 6, 1986, at the Kingdome.

The significance: Gonzaga Prep of Spokane’s 14-7 victory for the Class 4A (then AAA) state football championship in Kingbowl X kept Juanita of Kirkland from winning an unprecedented third consecutive big-school title.

The coaches: Gonzaga Prep’s Don Anderson, whose team also won the 1982 title and made five state finals, finished 269-63-4, tied for the fourth-most wins in state history. Juanita’s Chuck Tarbox, whose team won titles in 1984 and ‘85, is No. 16 at 207-99-1.

The hero: Gonzaga Prep quarterback Ron Hawkins, who later played at Washington State, carried five straight times, including a 1-yard keeper with 7:32 left, atoning for a third-quarter fumble on the 1 and underthrowing a sure TD pass.

The play: Juanita’s Clayton Harley caught a 54-yard swing pass from Darrell Cloud to tie it at 7 8:03 before halftime.

The memories: Tarbox and Anderson had known about each other since their high-school days in Seattle - Tarbox went to Queen Anne and Anderson to Roosevelt - when Anderson dated Tarbox’s late sister, Shirley.

Two of the greatest coaches in state history could laugh about that in 1986, when their teams played one of the more memorable finals in state history.

“He says I got mad at him for kissing my sister,” Tarbox said with a chuckle by telephone last week from his home in Surprise, Ariz.

Tarbox insisted he wasn’t upset about losing to an undefeated Gonzaga Prep team that avenged a 28-13 defeat in the 1985 final, was No. 1 all year and survived a two-overtime semifinal against No. 2 Kennewick. Few expected the Rebels to return to Kingbowl until a 22-14 semifinal win over Renton.

“It was not a disappointment because no one gave us a chance,” Tarbox said. “The kids didn’t really catch on until they beat Renton.”

Tarbox, now 70, is battling a rare blood disorder that affects his immune system. He tires easily but still keeps up with football in this state and was well enough to attend a reunion in August at Juanita Beach Park. More than 100 players, coaches and friends showed up.

Anderson, now retired in Spokane, saw many of his former players at a surprise 75th birthday party last June.

“That was a special group of guys who shared an undefeated season,” said Anderson by telephone on Monday. “It was a rewarding experience. It was almost a family-type feeling. That’s what life’s all about.”

Don Shelton

The Seattle Times’ Food department has prepared its 2007 holiday-cookie mailout.

The recipes - Orange-Chocolate Bars, Viennese Chocolate Snowflakes, Chocolate Almond Toffee, Old-Fashioned Russian Teacakes, Chocolate Meringue Stars, Split-Second Cookies, Mary’s Butterballs, Cinnamon Nut Crunch and Shortbread - are printed on light pink, 8 ½-by-11-inch paper, attached with a decorative clip.

These three-hole-punched pages are great for adding to your recipe collection or giving as a hostess gift.

If you missed previous years’ offerings and would like a 32-recipe packet featuring cookies from 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007, they are also available.

For the 2007 recipes, send $3; for the four-year package, send $7.50 in check or money order (please do not send cash), with your complete mailing address, to: Holiday Cookies, The Seattle Times Food Dept., P.O. Box 1735, Seattle, WA 98111

NEW YORK - Citigroup, bracing for big credit-related losses in the fourth quarter, is looking to lower costs - which could mean another round of job cuts at the nation’s largest bank.

“We are engaged in a planning process in anticipation of our new CEO, and our business heads are planning ways in which we can be more efficient and cost-effective to position our businesses in line with economic realities,” Citi spokeswoman Shannon Bell said Monday.

She was responding to a report on CNBC that “massive” layoffs were planned.

“Any reports on specific numbers are not factual,” she said.

Citigroup, which has about 320,000 employees, earlier this year reduced its work force by 17,000 before the credit crisis.

The bank is still looking for a new CEO, after Charles Prince stepped down as chairman and chief executive Nov. 4, the same evening the bank announced that t will likely write down the value of its portfolio by another $8 billion to $11 billion in the fourth quarter.

In the third quarter, Citi’s subprime mortgages and its exposure to financial instruments tied to those mortgages led to a loss of about $6.5 billion.

Prince was replaced as chairman by former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and as interim CEO by Sir Win Bischoff, chairman of Citi Europe who has said he doesn’t want the job permanently.

Q: In your opinion, what is the best football team in state history?

A: Bellevue, 2004. This was the team that ended the 151-game winning streak of Northern California power De La Salle with a 39-20 triumph at Qwest Field. The Wolverines went on to win the 3A state championship with an undefeated record.

My opinion isn’t based on whether this was the best collection of talent in state history but on my belief that this was the most unbeatable team.

The Wolverines were superbly coached, had excellent speed and ran the wing-T offense to near-perfection. It was hard to follow the ball from the press box, so I have plenty of sympathy for all the opponents who tackled the wrong guy.

And yes, the team indeed had plenty of future Division I college players including E.J. Savannah (UW), J.R. Hasty (UW), Stephen Schilling (Michigan), Eric Block (WSU) and Keith Rosenberg (WSU).

Q: Did you hear about the incredible football stat that Zach Keene of 1A Cedar Park Christian of Bothell had this season?

A: Keene, a 5-foot-11, 151-pound senior, caught eight passes and each was for a touchdown. That is the football equivalent of batting a thousand.

Keene is a sprinter who has posted an 11.1-second clocking for 100 meters. His eight TD catches were for 474 yards (59 yards per catch). Cedar Park Christian was 6-3 in the regular season and lost to Lynden Christian in the play-in game for a round-of-16 berth.

Q: Did you see the Rick Reilly column in the current Sports Illustrated about Archbishop Murphy being disqualified from the state 2A football playoffs?

A: I did. The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association has hit the big time for its decision to disqualify Murphy because a player had an expired physical. The oversight occurred because coach Terry Ennis, who handled all the details at Murphy, died of prostate cancer Sept. 12.

Reilly’s column begins: “The smallest-brained crustaceans are water fleas. The smallest-brained parasites are flatworms. And the smallest-brained mammals are the men and women who run high school athletics in the state of Washington.”

Q: I watched a lopsided Seamount League football game this year and the clock was allowed to run in the second half. Is this legal?

A: It’s legal enough for me. You saw common sense on display. I’ve seen this sometimes in the Metro League, too, when a game is a total mismatch. The clock runs in the second half, the dominating team plays substitutes and everyone goes home early.

Q: I’ve heard that the state cross-country course in Pasco was about 200 meters longer than what it should have been. True?

A: Not according to the man who was in charge of the meet and measured the course.

John Crawford, who just finished his 20th and final year of being in charge of the meet, insists that the course was accurate and said it was measured three times.

“It was a full 5K [5,000 meters],” he said.

Crawford said the cross-country rule book says a course should be measured “where the average runner is going to run.” To Crawford, that means one or two meters out from the shortest distance on turns.

Someone else with a measuring wheel can cut corners sharper and get a different figure.

Crawford said there were some major changes made in the course in 2006 but fewer changes this year. He said runners may have taken some extra seconds to get through a new boggy area about 1 ½ miles from the start. Construction of golf cart paths forced the routing through the mushy area.

Noting that some coaches said times were faster at qualifying meets around the state, Crawford replied, “Our course is a little tougher than people think it is.” He added, “Who is to say that the courses they ran the previous week were a full 5K themselves?”

He said this year’s times “were within what they’ve always been.”Have a question about high-school sports? Craig Smith will find the answer every Tuesday in The Times. Ask your question in one of the following ways: Voice mail (206-464-8279), snail mail (Craig Smith, Seattle Times Sports, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111) or e-mail csmith@seattletimes.com

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Syria’s ally Iran said Monday that the U.S.-hosted Mideast peace conference has already failed. But Syria itself has much to gain from its participation in the Annapolis meeting - a long-sought opening with the U.S., an end to its isolation among Arabs, and perhaps even movement on the Golan Heights.

U.S. officials are hoping the meeting could mark a start to moving Syria out of its alliance with Iran and the Hamas and Hezbollah militant groups. But Syria is being cautious, probing how much it can get before it goes too far and strains its close ties with Iran, observers said Monday.

Syria is sending its deputy foreign minister, Faysal Mikdad, rather than the full minister as other Arab nations are doing. This is perhaps a show of dissatisfaction that the issue of the Golan Heights is not more firmly on the agenda or an attempt to play down expectations - while stopping short of a boycott that would make Damascus look like a spoiler.

It also signals to Damascus’ allies that it is not throwing itself wholeheartedly into a U.S. plan. On Sunday, Syrian President Bashar Assad spoke by telephone with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the two agreed that the conference “was destined in advance to failure,” the Iranian state news agency IRNA reported.

Any resentment from Iran or Hamas - whose top leadership is based in Damascus - will likely be kept quiet.

Iran did not react to Syria’s announcement. On Monday, its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in a speech that the conference “has already failed” and that the U.S. was only trying to preserve its reputation.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, meanwhile, criticized the collective Arab decision to attend but said Syria had to act “the way it sees fit.”

The Syrian participation is already seen as a success for the Bush administration.

Edward Djerejian, founding director of Rice University’s Baker Institute and former U.S. ambassador to Syria and Israel, said engaging the Syrians “will make them have to think twice about playing a spoiler role, if indeed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations move forward.”