Jambalaya

Easy-to-fix and low-fatPolenta with chicken, and black bean tortilla bake are just a few of the low-fat easy-to-fix meals in a new edition of "Skinny One-Pot Meals" (Surrey Books, 1997, $12.95) by Columbia-based cookbook author Ruth Glick. Glick has added new recipes with popular Asian and Southwestern flavors, and all recipes have less than 30 percent calories from fat.If you're a fan of Creole and Cajun cooking, you'll be happy to know that Sutton Place Gourmet now carries tasso, lean pork shoulder highly seasoned and smoked for hours.

Sunfest and surfingOcean City will be concentrating on two "S" words this weekend: sun and surf. The 22nd annual Sunfest will feature LTC kite festival, boat show, treasure hunts and a fun run. Boardwalk parade takes place today at 9: 30 a.m. Other highlights include wildlife exhibits, scarecrow making, arts, crafts, a bonfire and a sand sculpting contest.For some sporting competition, O.C. visitors can head to the 8th Street beach Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and watch contestants in the Maryland State Surfing Championships.

About 5,000 visitors from throughout the Baltimore-Washington area are expected for tomorrow's Maryland Jambalaya Fest at Lake Elkhorn in Columbia's Owen Brown village, an event intended to celebrate the diversity of people of African descent."

Anew Cajun and Creole restaurant, Fat Lulu's, opened a couple of weeks ago at 1818 Maryland Ave. Eventually you'll be able to get dinner and a show there, but right now the management is concentrating on the kitchen, which is turning out shrimp gumbo, chicken jambalaya, Bourbon Street trout, blackened catfish with Louisiana crayfish sauce, red beans and rice with ham hocks, and crayfish pie. Entrees are priced from $9 to $16. Manager Eugene Jones promises "good...

A bit of poetry, some rhythms and rhymes, features, fiction and finance.They're the elements of what four Columbia women call Jambalaya, a 32-page magazine featuring people of African descent in Howard County.The first issue of the free quarterly came out last week."We're trying to show you the diversity of the African community," said Pamela Woolford, 26, one of the magazine's publishers.Ms. Woolford and the three others are friends -- all in their mid-20s, all 1985 graduates of Wilde Lake High School.

WE HEAR Rob Tregenza's movie, "Talking to Strangers," was a big hit in the Big Apple over the holiday season. Vincent Canby of the New York Times called the Baltimore-made film a "stylistic tour de force" and "a nearly perfect antidote to today's jazzy conception of montage."The movie's star -- Ken Gruz -- recently returned home to the Big Crab from L.A. and is currently, ah, talking to new strangers for the Kennedy Center screenings of "Talking to Strangers" and Tregenza's latest feature, "The Arc," on Jan. 20.*MEGA DEVELOPER Erwin Greenberg held a "Jambalaya Jam" kick-off bash at his posh harborview high-rise condo last night for the Baltimore Opera.