Potato Skins

* ITEM: INLAND VALLEY MUNCHSKIN MEALS* WHAT YOU GET: 20 ounces, or 10 potato skins* COST: $4.59* TIME TO PREPARE: 15 minutes in conventional oven or 4 minutes in the microwave* REVIEW: Munchskin Meals tastes just like a restaurant order of loaded potato skins but costs a couple of bucks less. Not sold yet? These spuds tasted equally good from conventional oven or microwave, and the kit includes ample amounts of cheese, bacon and sour cream with chives. Junk food junkies, go directly to your grocer's frozen food section for a hit.Pub Date: 7/23/97

Shirlee S. Rice, a homemaker and artist known for her culinary skills, died of lung disease Feb. 21 at her Pikesville home. She was 95. Born Shirley Siegel in Baltimore and raised on Chauncey Avenue in Reservoir Hill, she was a Western High School graduate who earned a degree at the Maryland Institute College of Art and studied piano at the Peabody Conservatory of Music. Her father, Milton Siegel, was a partner in the Siegel Rothschild and Gans Bros. umbrella-making firm in downtown Baltimore.

It's time to fess up. In a column last fall I mentioned starting a meal at the Prime Rib restaurant with an appetizer called Greenberg potato skins, a dish many fans feel is one of Baltimore's best ways to begin a meal. At that time, I credited the dish to the late Teddy Greenberg, a Baltimore wholesale children's clothing manufacturer and a regular at the restaurant who requested that it be put on the menu. The Prime Rib chef complied and made his own changes to the concept of spud skins served with sour cream.

Sometimes you look at a decades-old photo of yourself at the beach and are struck by the thought that you should have worn more skimpy two-pieces while you had the chance. Sometimes you watch a mystery in a movie theater and realize you just don't enjoy it as much as you would at home, where you can use the remote to go back if you missed a clue. And sometimes you go to heat up your soup in the office microwave and glance at the controls and think, "What is this country coming to?" In my company's newly remodeled kitchenette sit two General Electric microwave ovens (because heaven knows we efficient Americans cannot be expected to wait while someone else flash-cooks his meal in less than two minutes)

Has there ever been a slow Saturday night in the last 40 years at the Prime Rib, where even the signature leopard-skin carpeting remains the same since opening night, Oct. 19, 1965? The cool 1960s came to roost here -- and never left. A bartender mixes a Manhattan. A combo -- drums, piano, bass -- between the dining room and bar launches into "Fly Me to the Moon." The conversation level never droops. Families, friends, business types sit on black patent-leather chairs around a table under a 1920s French art deco poster.

Shirlee S. Rice, a homemaker and artist known for her culinary skills, died of lung disease Feb. 21 at her Pikesville home. She was 95. Born Shirley Siegel in Baltimore and raised on Chauncey Avenue in Reservoir Hill, she was a Western High School graduate who earned a degree at the Maryland Institute College of Art and studied piano at the Peabody Conservatory of Music. Her father, Milton Siegel, was a partner in the Siegel Rothschild and Gans Bros. umbrella-making firm in downtown Baltimore.

The name comes from Treehouse's mezzanine of blond wood, which overlooks a large bar area and is decorated with photos of trees. It does have an airy feel to it, but that's undercut by the two television screens, one extra-large, at the bar below. It's half sports bar, half sit-down restaurant with a children's menu; the combination doesn't quite work.Still, the Treehouse is one of those restaurants every neighborhood needs. It's the place where you can get a decent hamburger and a beer, homemade soup and something a little fancier like a crabcake dinner if you feel like splurging.

One of the best reasons to go to Harrison's Harbor Watch is the view. The multilevel restaurant boasts tall windows that overlook the Ocean City inlet and Assateague Island. Even if you're seated on the boardwalk side of the restaurant, as we were, the windows offer a great place to people-watch. I counted 11 people posing for snapshots with the giant anchor at the O.C. Lifesaving Station Museum during our dinner.The other reason to visit Harrison's Harbor Watch is the seafood. A large chalkboard at the entrance to the dining room lets visitors know immediately what's fresh in the kitchen each evening.

J. T. Ashley's Grille is not a bad place to grab a meal -- if you don't mind average food and slow service.We found the restaurant almost empty early on a recent Saturday evening and were seated immediately. The decor was a clash between the Miami-style pastel walls -- salmon-pink -- and the grill-house feel of the green marble columns and faux oak tables.The piped-in pop medley featuring The Supremes and Top 40 music created a weird feel and was a little loud.But overall, we got a lot of feeling -- thanks in part to the dim lighting -- and the restaurant was warm and comfortable.

Sometimes you look at a decades-old photo of yourself at the beach and are struck by the thought that you should have worn more skimpy two-pieces while you had the chance. Sometimes you watch a mystery in a movie theater and realize you just don't enjoy it as much as you would at home, where you can use the remote to go back if you missed a clue. And sometimes you go to heat up your soup in the office microwave and glance at the controls and think, "What is this country coming to?" In my company's newly remodeled kitchenette sit two General Electric microwave ovens (because heaven knows we efficient Americans cannot be expected to wait while someone else flash-cooks his meal in less than two minutes)

It's time to fess up. In a column last fall I mentioned starting a meal at the Prime Rib restaurant with an appetizer called Greenberg potato skins, a dish many fans feel is one of Baltimore's best ways to begin a meal. At that time, I credited the dish to the late Teddy Greenberg, a Baltimore wholesale children's clothing manufacturer and a regular at the restaurant who requested that it be put on the menu. The Prime Rib chef complied and made his own changes to the concept of spud skins served with sour cream.

How best to describe Dizzy Issie's, an agreeably ramshackle bar and restaurant wedged onto a corner of Remington Avenue and 30th Street, near Johns Hopkins? Perhaps a partial listing of the decor will paint a picture. Downstairs, customers will find two extremely worn barbershop chairs, a Charlie McCarthy doll suspended near the front door, plastic hearts dangling in the windows, and Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe. The ceilings are stamped tin, painted a rust color, the floors are gray linoleum.

Has there ever been a slow Saturday night in the last 40 years at the Prime Rib, where even the signature leopard-skin carpeting remains the same since opening night, Oct. 19, 1965? The cool 1960s came to roost here -- and never left. A bartender mixes a Manhattan. A combo -- drums, piano, bass -- between the dining room and bar launches into "Fly Me to the Moon." The conversation level never droops. Families, friends, business types sit on black patent-leather chairs around a table under a 1920s French art deco poster.

AS SOON AS the air turned cool and the leaves started to scatter, I began sweet-potato scheming. It is a behavioral pattern I lapse into every autumn. I start dreaming up ways to get my kids to eat sweet potatoes. As happens with many parental missions, I have been working at this one for so long that I have pretty much forgotten why I got started. I know that sweet potatoes pack a lot of nutritional wallop. They are so loaded with vitamins A, C, E, folate, iron, copper, calcium and fiber that they have developed a reputation as the healthiest vegetable on the planet.

Potatoes are rarely more irresistible than at breakfast. To do justice to these simple dishes, don't pick just any old potato from the bin. For hash browns or cottage fries, choose a red or yellow thin-skinned, waxy variety that holds its shape when boiled or steamed. For potato skins, pick rough-skinned baking potatoes such as russet or Idaho.Hash BrownsServes 65 or 6 medium waxy potatoes (about 2 pounds), unpeeled1/4 cup finely chopped onion1/2 teaspoon saltpinch pepper2 tablespoons each: butter and olive oilCook potatoes, in their jackets, in boiling salted water until about half-cooked (15 to 20 minutes)

J. T. Ashley's Grille is not a bad place to grab a meal -- if you don't mind average food and slow service.We found the restaurant almost empty early on a recent Saturday evening and were seated immediately. The decor was a clash between the Miami-style pastel walls -- salmon-pink -- and the grill-house feel of the green marble columns and faux oak tables.The piped-in pop medley featuring The Supremes and Top 40 music created a weird feel and was a little loud.But overall, we got a lot of feeling -- thanks in part to the dim lighting -- and the restaurant was warm and comfortable.

Tamber's Restaurant, 3327 St. Paul St., 243-0383. Although touted as "Nifty Fifties Dining," Tamber's seems to offers a blend of someone's '50s favorites and '80s in-food. The menu includes shrimp salad on cheese toast ($5.75) and home-style meatloaf ++ with mashed potatoes or French fries and gravy ($5.95) alongside Buffalo wings ($4.95), potato skins ($3.25) and two flavors of frozen yogurt. This selection of foods from today and those from a little while back makes Tamber's a good place to dine with children.

Run your hand along its Formstone walls or taste the sour beef, and you'll know the Stonebridge Restaurant is about as down-homey as an eatery can get.The little restaurant just north of the Stoney Creek drawbridge has a growing reputation among the locals of Riviera Beach and Pasadena for home-style cooking and modest prices.We made our first visit about 8: 30 p.m. on a Friday and were seated in the nonsmoking area -- a former screened porch, next to what the remodeling turned into interior Formstone walls.