Chicken

Tyrone's New York Fried Chicken 1 W. North Ave. -- 410-244-8088 Hours --10 a.m.-3 a.m. Sundays-Thursdays; 10 a.m.-6 a.m. Fridays-Saturdays In and out in --3 minutes Here, the two-piece chicken with fries, $2.99, had a drumstick and a thigh fried golden brown. It looked great, but had been sitting under a heat lamp for too long, which toughened the meat. The chicken sat on a pile of thin fries. Know of a good carryout place? Write to sam.sessa@baltsun.com.

Let's face it: We like big things in this country. We like big cars, big houses, big burgers we can stuff in our big mouths and Big Gulps to wash 'em down. We like big TVs, big malls and big sales. Who gets excited about a regular sale anymore? Now it has to be "THE BIGGEST LABOR DAY SALE EVER! DON'T MISS THIS SPECTACULAR EVENT!" Sometimes, even big won't do. Sometimes we need bigger than big. Super-sized, that's what we need. Like a pizza the size of a manhole cover, with 27 toppings and 10 pounds of cheese injected via cooking syringe into the crust, the biggest, thickest, gooiest pizza in the whole world.

In some broiled-chicken restaurants, customers can build up an appetite watching their meal turn gently on a rotisserie before it is brought to their table. No such luck at Pollo Amigo. Here, the magic takes place behind the shiny silver doors of a refrigerator-sized oven. That's where the chickens are broiled over charcoal. When they emerge, their skins are deep mahogany, and so crisp they almost burst open at the touch of a fork. Hints of garlic, cumin and paprika provide a heady counterpoint to the mild flavor of the juicy meat.

Those chicken breasts and thighs for sale in the grocery meat case might not be all bird, and consumer advocates say few shoppers know it. Processors have been injecting some fresh poultry with up to 15 percent water, salt and elements of seaweed in recent years because, they say, it makes the meat taste better and government regulators allow it. But critics say almost a third of the chicken Americans now buy has the additives, so it costs consumers more...

Rocky Run Tap & Grill is a study in contrasts. This kid-friendly bar-restaurant with crayons and kraft paper on the tables is a casual eatery that can pull off sophisticated pastas as well as down-home ribs and beans.Slide into a booth, under blackboards with colorful chalk art, or next to a wall filled with neon beer lights and "Far Side" cartoons.A row of unusual hot sauces lines the room, products with names like Jump Up and Kiss Me, and Belligerent Blaze. If you plan on using some of them, start with a beer to quell the fire.

* Item: Morningstar Farms Chik Nuggets* What you get: About 12 nuggets* Cost: About $2.60* Preparation time: One and one-half to five minutes in microwave, 15 to 18 minutes in conventional oven* Review: I offered these to my husband -- the biggest chicken nugget fan in our house -- without telling him there was not even one sliver of chicken in them. The breaded nuggets, made from a blend of vegetable and grain proteins, earned his respect. He even agreed we should buy them again. Actually, the texture of the nuggets is not quite the same as chicken.

Joan Erbe has always been fascinated with the unusual. Recently she found three of her childhood drawings, from the 1930s, and just for fun they're included in her current show at the Gomez Gallery. Their subject matter is the circus.Over the decades she has developed a style in which weird-looking characters in colorful costumes find themselves in abnormal situations. These pictures combine a childlike interest in strange creatures and an atmosphere that's slightly unset- tling and sometimes almost sinister.

Item: Ragu Chicken TonightServings per package: about 5Cost: about $2Preparation time: about 30 minutesReview: "New Improved Flavor," boast the labels on the sweet-and-sour and the chicken cacciatore flavors. I reached for the sweet-and-sour and was pleased. The tangy blend of pineapple and bell peppers nearly duplicated the sweet-and-sour sauce at my local Chinese eatery. The standard preparation is a cinch: Brown chicken in a skillet, top with sauce, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. The label also features an even simpler chicken bake recipe, a superb option for a harried family cook.

The only dine-in Chinese restaurant on Pasadena's Mountain Road peninsula has undergone an amazing transformation.Good but not remarkable in its days as the Lotus Garden, the tiny restaurant quietly closed with nary a sign of farewell. It reopened a few weeks ago under new management and with a new name: China Garden Restaurant.But for our money -- and very little money at that -- it was nearly a Garden of Paradise.Induced by an impending deadline for our restaurant review, a "grand opening" banner and a coupon in a neighborhood flier offering the second appetizer at half-price (remember, we're the cheap guys)

Sweet treat contest at the state fairThe Maryland State Fair will have a new recipe contest this year, a parent-child competition focusing on after-school sweet treats. Three winning teams will get prizes of $200, $100 and $50. Judging will be based on originality, taste appeal, ease of preparation and appearance.For information on entering the Sweet Treat Team Championship, call 410-252-0200 and ask for the Maryland State Fair entry department.Easy chicken dish features mustardTerry Blonder Golson, author of "1,000 Low Fat Recipes" (MacMillan, $29.95)

Birth control pill takes longer to work in obese women Obese women starting to take the birth control pill should also use an alternative method of contraception for at least 10 days, and perhaps for as long as 20 days because it takes that long for effective levels of the drug to build up in the blood, Oregon researchers report. In women of normal weight, such a buildup only requires about five days, they found. Epidemiological research has suggested that the pill does not work as well in obese women - those with a body mass index, or BMI, higher than 30. Some experts had thought the problem was that the hormones in the pill were selectively deposited in fat cells and didn't get into the blood stream, but pharmacologist Ganesh Cherala of Oregon State University and his colleagues reported in the journal Contraception that it simply takes longer for the drug to build up in the blood stream.

Make chicken firms pay for bay cleanup The Environmental Protection Agency is right to enforce federal pollution rules governing chicken manure, but it is wrong to place the burden on the state's poultry farmers ("Chicken growers face EPA crackdown," March 15). These farmers face a production system imposed upon them by the companies they contract with, the large chicken processing companies. The EPA should be careful not to make chicken farmers suffer because of industrial policies they didn't create but are contractually bound to abide by. Maryland and other jurisdictions have been subsidizing these large integrated chicken operations by allowing them to dump waste into the environment and let someone else deal with the cleanup and the consequences of excess nutrients flowing into the bay. The state and the EPA must impose stricter enforcement on unsustainable chicken operations while also encouraging and rewarding good stewardship.

In its final days, the Bush administration is poised to exempt poultry farms from reporting how much ammonia and other noxious pollutants they are releasing into the air from the millions of tons of manure their flocks generate. The Environmental Protection Agency has asked the federal Office of Management and Budget to give final approval to a rule that would exclude poultry farms from environmental reporting required of other industries. The budget office reviews all proposed federal regulations to see that their benefits justify their costs.

Maryland moved a step closer yesterday to policing pollution from the Eastern Shore's poultry industry, proposing to subject about 200 of the state's largest chicken farmers to scrutiny - and potential fines - for how they store and use the mountains of manure their birds produce. State officials say the rules, if given final approval, would govern handling of about 50 percent of the manure produced by Maryland chicken farms. Manure is a major source of Chesapeake Bay pollution, washing off fields where it is spread as fertilizer for crops.

John Klingkamer of Fife Lake, Mich., was looking for a recipe for a five-star white chili. Robert Massarelli of Forest Hill sent in one of his favorite recipes for white chili. He says it is extremely spicy but can be easily adjusted. I thought it actually had kind of an Indian flavor thanks to the healthy dose of cumin, and I didn't find it overly spicy. I liked the addition of the corn, and when it's in season, I might be tempted to use fresh instead of canned. This chili does have a good kick, but when topped with cheese and/or sour cream it was by no means too hot to handle.

Jean Ziegler, the United Nations special rapporteur for the right to food, recently raised blood pressures by dubbing biofuels "a crime against humanity" because they divert grains from food to fuels. This summer, the Group of Eight summit in Japan will attempt to address the global food crisis. And just yesterday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon said he plans to establish a task force to tackle that crisis and avert "social unrest on an unprecedented scale." How to make sense of all of this?

Every once in a while, you cook a dish that captures the essence of the season. That happened to me recently when I made tarragon chicken breasts with leeks. The leeks turned an appetizing pale-green color. The chicken turned out plump and white. And the pan sauce, made with chicken stock and flavored with a shot of lemon juice and tarragon, was soft and delicate. This dish looked and tasted like spring. I was so taken with the dish that a few days later I picked up The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper, the cookbook from which the recipe had come, and telephoned its author.

No one could roast a chicken like my mother. No one. It was beautifully browned on the outside, moist on the inside, and had just the right amount of seasonings. Ask for her recipe? "Oh, Sandra, I don't know ... I just use a little onion and garlic powder, pepper and salt ... poultry needs lots of salt. Then just put it in the oven," she would say, her voice rising at the end, as if to say, `Come on, it's so simple, there's nothing to it!' " But there was a lot more to it, I would learn over the years.

This pasta dish features Italian flavors, but I'm sure many would point out that Italians don't put chicken in their pasta dishes. Instead, they would serve it as a second course. But who has time to eat that way on busy weeknights? So this recipe incorporates quickly sauteed chicken, using easy-to-cut-up tenders. To save money, you can use whole chicken breasts and cut them up yourself. Buy good-quality pitted olives by-the-pound at the olive bars featured in many supermarkets. Joe Gray writes for the Chicago Tribune, which provided the recipe analysis.

A tagine (pronounced "tah-zheen") is a hallmark of Moroccan cooking. The slow-simmered stew mingles meats and vegetables with spices, such as cumin and cinnamon. This Moroccan Stew With Roasted Vegetables pairs chicken and prunes, an ancient combination that continues to offer good nutrition. Sometimes marketed as "dried plums," prunes are a quick source of energy and aid in the absorption of iron. A quarter cup of the fruit contains 317 milligrams of potassium, which promotes heart health.