Grill

The recipe for Peach and Jalapeno-Glazed Pork Tenderloins is tagged both low-fat and easy in "Cool Cooking for Hot Days," a new title in the Pillsbury Classic Cookbook paperback series ($2.95). It's from the section titled "Fire Up the Grill."Other sections include no-cook entrees, summer party cooking and desserts and drinks. "Easy" indicates recipes that have no more than six ingredients and are ready within 30 minutes. Every recipe has a photo, an estimate of preparation time and a nutritional analysis.

Summer means grilling. Just like a tennis player who only takes to the court in the summer, the seasonal barbecue buff may be a bit rusty in technique after the winter hiatus.There are the usual questions: What is the best cooking method? How long should I grill the burgers? When is a steak perfectly rare?Help is on the way. The Barbecue Industry Association maintains a Web site (www.bbqind.org) with safety tips, product information and recipes. The Weber Grill-Line, which is open from April 1 through Labor Day, has a staff of home economists trained to answer grilling questions.

It's a beauty, all right, several thousand dollars worth of American barbecue luxury. All that stainless steel gleaming beneath a suburban sky, enough room under the hood to grill a couple of racks of lamb and the side burner for some nice peppers and onions, with steel shelves for sauces, marinade, plates of burgers. On the stage it's a Volkswagen-sized metaphor for life after drugs and rock and roll, a marker of roads not taken.A few years ago, playwright/ actor Eric Bogosian spotted a barbecue grill much like it in a Hammacher Schlemmer catalog.

MY FAVORITE WAY to cook onions has been to burn them over a hot fire on the barbecue grill. I have become very good at this. As the onions blacken, they sweeten. But, recently, I widened my repertoire and tried a new onion-cooking technique. I sliced them with a distinctive cut, cooked them on the grill and topped them off with a sauce made with tarragon and mustard.For me, the hardest part about cooking onions has been remembering to put them on the grill in time. It takes about 45 minutes to cook a whole onion.

Mesquite, maple, hickory - the aromatic woods that give barbecued meats their robust character - can overpower fish. A more subtle method of flavoring the fire for grilled fish pairs it with fennel.Bulb fennel does double duty at a fish grill: Tossed onto the coals, the trimmings - the tough outer ribs and feathery-tipped stalks - release flavorful smoke into the fish while the edible bulb grills alongside it. Fennel's crunchy texture softens and its anise flavor mellows as it cooks.Grilling times for both fennel and fish depend on the size and thickness of the portions and the heat of the coals.

The new Lord Baltimore Grill in the Hilton downtown is the kind of restaurant that gives hotel dining a bad name. If you think that's harsh, read on.It's never a good sign when you walk into a dining room at a reasonable hour and just about every table is empty. After all, to a certain degree hotels have a captive audience.The Grill's newly renovated dining room itself is pleasant enough. It's a handsome room done in soft neutrals, designed to relax and soothe. As for the menu of regional American foods, it's short but well-conceived.

The Cover to Cover Bookstore, a 20-year veteran of east Columbia's Owen Brown Village Center, is moving to a storefront 50 feet away, and a new restaurant will be taking over its former home.Sonoma's Bar and Grill -- to open at the beginning of April -- will serve pasta, sandwiches and salads, said Steve Heintzelman, owner and operator."The restaurant location allows for outdoor seating, and we want to maintain that potential," said Stephen Oseroff, manager of the property through GFS Realty Inc.A floor-to-ceiling, salt-water fish tank will divide the restaurant, which will have lunch specials, Sunday brunch and happy hour, said Heintzelman, who lives in west Columbia.

Apparently heeding the concerns of some North Laurel residents, the Howard County Board of License Commissioners unanimously rejected an application for a liquor license for the Stage One Grill in North Laurel.Though the restaurant bills itself as a family-style establishment, the location's previous life as a strip club came back to haunt it in the person of Bibinkumar M. Aghera, one of five co-owners of Stage One Grill, which is on the southbound side of U.S. 1 next to the Ramada Inn in southeastern Howard County.

First came the 68-foot-tall neon guitar put up by Hard Rock Cafe.Then Planet Hollywood proposed artificial palm trees and zebra-striped awnings for its new restaurant at Harborplace.But there's never been anything quite like the marker planned by another business that will open next spring in downtown Baltimore: A giant, flaming shish kebab that would rise high over the Inner Harbor.ESPN Grill, a restaurant and sports complex planned for the Pier 4 Power Plant, is seeking approval to install a simulated kebab on the northwest corner of the Power Plant to call attention to its operation.

Close to the altogetherTHREE ELEGANTLY slim women modeling fancy underwear in Victoria's Secret at the Annapolis Mall one day last week were no ordinary lingerie buyers.They were dancers Sandra Prehoda, Anmarie Touloumis and Shari Vazquez of Ballet Theater of Annapolis, looking for costumes to wear in their roles as the naked brides of Dracula in BTA's production this weekend of the vampire thriller.Their attire had to be as close to the altogether as possible. Which is what brought them to Victoria's Secret.

Hull Street Blues turns 25 this year, and for a generation of Baltimoreans, Kathryn and Daniel Macatee's cozy rowhouse restaurant was the first place they had ever sat down for dinner in Locust Point. Always, its admirers are quick to credit the Macatees with keeping Hull Street Blues both ship-shape and completely unpretentious, even as the menu has expanded and the neighborhood around it has grown. Now, the Macatees have opened a casual eating spot just across the street and down the block, naming it the Whetstone Grill after the neighborhood's original name, Whetstone Point, which you can see on old lithographs and engravings (and new townhouse developments)

I was surprised when I heard that the Crackpot in Bel Air had closed. Surely the area needed a locally owned seafood restaurant. So I'm not surprised to hear that Bellissimo Seafood & Grill (510 Marketplace Drive, 410-836-8702) has opened in its place. It's owned by the same people who have the eight Double-T Diners in the area. It sounds Italian, but partner and manager Nicholas Tsirlis describes it as "upscale Mediterranean." There is pasta, of course; but charcoal-broiled seafood is a specialty, including salmon, orange roughy, mahi-mahi and octopus.

JOHN WILLIAM GRILL, JR., 61, of Salisbury, died Thursday, April 2, 2009 at Beebe Medical Center in Lewes. He was born in Baltimore, a son of Margaret (Zink) Grill of Baltimore and the late John William Grill, Sr. A visitation for family and friends will be held on Tuesday, April 7, 2009 from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. at Short Funeral Home, 13 E. Grove Street, Delmar, where a memorial service will be held at 7:00. A second memorial service will be held on Friday, April 10, 2009 from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the Baltimore Yacht Club, 800 Yacht Club Rd, Essex, MD 21221.

Rotisserie chickens from the supermarket are certainly convenient, but you can easily spend about $9 to take one home. If you buy whole chicken in twin packs, on the other hand, you might be able to get two for close to the same price, and for much less per pound than cut-up chicken parts. Then you can play with your own easy flavor combinations. This spicy tomato-citrus marinade is great for late-summer grilling; it turns out tender meat and skin with a kick. Serve with roasted potatoes and corn.

Scott Opdyke learned to fend for himself in the kitchen at an early age. His mother worked as a medical technician at Franklin Square hospital, and his father blew up hot dogs in the microwave for dinner, he said. "With my mom working, I either had to learn how to cook, or eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches," said Opdyke, of Bel Air. In no time, the budding chef was making fried egg sandwiches. He's come a long way since then. In May 2007, Opdyke, 26, was named the executive chef of the Mountain Branch Grill & Pub in Joppa, where he gave his first solo cooking class last week.

Bedrock's Sidecar Grill feels like the kind of contemporary retro spot where characters on teen television shows gather for french fries and pizza. Think of it as the Peach Pit for the quickly evolving west side. This bright new dining space is attached to the Bedrock pool lounge and nightclub, which itself has the easygoing vibe of a university union - two levels of boozy fun in a mammoth old bank building, with seven pool tables at last count. The Sidecar Grill is sweet-looking, its walls and tile floor done up in the colors of midcentury kitchen appliances, the booths with Formica-style tabletops.

Every Fourth of July, my folks had a bash at their home in Massachusetts. It was one of the few times of the year that family and friends from all over would come together. I remember Grandma would have on a dress and hose, my hippie Uncle Skip wore a crazy hat he would dig up for the occasion, and Aunt Alice, who could make you laugh with just a glance, sat out on the lawn in one of those brightly colored, aluminum-framed lawn chairs. Dad would organize croquet matches, my brothers would set off drugstore fireworks, and Mom took charge of everything else.

The question seemed a good one at the time: Had the quality of gas-station food risen with the price of gas? If you're a pay-at-the-pump patron like me, you probably don't get inside gas stations often. So you might be surprised to learn that they now offer far more than leathery wieners set on rollers. Chevron gas station/Sunshine General Store Address --22300 Georgia Ave., Brookeville Phone --301-774-7428 Gas --$3.75 a gallon After a fellow motorcyclist raved about the place, we decided to check it out. Its ambience alone makes it worth the drive.

Owner Henry Mitchem says he named his restaurant Winks because it sits in the shadow of the ever-leering giant Natty Boh head that hovers over Brewers Hill. But Winks Hill Top Grill has the unfortunate distinction of being a Brewers Hill establishment that serves no brew. Though Mitchem is working to get a liquor license, he doesn't have one yet. That means this family-owned eatery has to survive on the strengths of its charm and the quality of its food. -- Poor:]

Tark's Grill (Green Spring Station in Lutherville, 410-583-8275) is now open in the space where Longo's and a number of restaurants have been. Just the fact that it opened after extensive renovations exactly on schedule gives me hope for its success. It doesn't hurt that the general manager is Mark Hofmann, something of a celebrity restaurateur around here, and he'll be working closely with the kitchen. The renovated space, operating partner Bill Shriver says, is a blend of traditional and contemporary, done in black, deep red and white.