Ribs

Famous Dave's Fireside Inn 7400 Ritchie Highway, Glen Burnie -- 410-761-8815 Hours --11 a.m.-11 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays; 11 a.m.-midnight Fridays-Saturdays; 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sundays Restaurant's estimate --15 minutes Ready in --10 minutes Here, we were given the choice between several sauces and sides with our order, $9.44. At the server's recommendation, we went with bourbon sauce and a side of straight fries. But neither the fries nor the ribs were that noteworthy. Know of a good carryout place?

Yesterday a Burger King. Tomorrow an upscale steakhouse. The Governor's Grille is scheduled to open next week at 177 Main St. in Annapolis, where a fast-food place was before a year of renovations.Andy Brickman, one of the owners, describes the new restaurant as having "the elegance of the past," citing mahogany paneling, crystal chandeliers and oil paintings of former governors in ornate gold frames.The food will be classic steakhouse fare, namely prime beef dishes averaging $25. (Entrees will range in price from $18 for the lone chicken dish to $30 for lobster.

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.

Razorback's Raw Bar & Grill is something of a rarity. It turns out food that tastes as good as or better than the menu describes it. It also looks as stylish as the photos in some glossy culinary magazine and isn't overpriced.Yup, you'll think you died and went to hog heaven at this Canton eatery, and not just for those reasons. Pigs are everywhere at Razorback's, where ribs are the house specialty and the house lager, brewed by Clipper City, is called the Razorback Hogwash. For the porcine-impaired, a razorback is a wild hog, depicted in a cartoon mural here lounging with a martini on a hammock surrounded by fish bones.

A strip shopping center is about the most unlikely place for a microbrewery that I can imagine. But that's exactly where the Bare Bones in Ellicott City is located, sidled up to an auto parts store on Baltimore National Pike.Inside, the atmosphere in most of the dining rooms isn't much more distinctive. The rooms are attractive enough, with their oak trim, wooden shutters, and floating patio umbrellas lighted overhead. It's only in the dark, brick-walled bar area, though, where you get the feeling that you're in a microbrewery.

RICK SEABY'S quest is a noble one: cooking the perfect rack of pork ribs. Seaby, who is director of broadcast operations and engineering at WJZ-TV in Baltimore, has been on this mission for 15 of his 47 years. He feels he is closing in on success. He has a good cooker. He has good sauces. And he has a few secrets.The search for pork perfection has been long. There have been casualties, among them his first cooker. A few years back, Seaby worked that cooker so hard he burned a hole in it.But right about the time his first cooker went bad, his buddy and cooking partner, Jon Howell, was going to throw out a wood-burning stove.

Barbecue is an intensely personal thing. I came of age while unreservedly preoccupied by the barbecued chicken and ribs of the black community in Oakland, Calif.Trailing a 3,000-mile wake of bleach-white rib bones to the East Coast, my enthusiasm continues unabated. Thank goodness for Yellow Bowl. Ribs (always the backbone, so to speak, of "soul food" cooking) are good, and all the rest of the fixings are even better.Thirty years old this year, Yellow Bowl claims to be the oldest continuously operated black-owned restaurant in Baltimore.

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- Orioles center fielder Brady Anderson was scratched from yesterday's game against the Los Angeles Dodgers with sore ribs on his left side. He returned to Fort Lauderdale for X-rays, but the results were not available last night."I'm not worried. I think it's more of a bruised rib," said manager Davey Johnson.Anderson first hurt his ribs Sunday while diving back to first base on a pickoff throw. They began bothering him yesterday while running during pre-game warmups, and he went back to the visitors clubhouse at Holman Stadium.

There are three things I love: a hot, sunshiny day, that day off and a plate of tangy, tender barbecue ribs. Thanks to El Nino and three local rib joints, the only thing I couldn't get this week was a day off. The ribs almost made up for it.I never did find my ideal ribs -- which I define as having a bold hickory smoke taste, a tart sauce fit to clear a throat or open a nostril. But after many hours spent over plates of juicy ribs, I have three tasty recommendations worth the drive and the price.

There are many ways to look at barbecue, one of the best being looking down at the remains of recently devoured ribs.Lolis Eric Elie and Frank Stewart are familiar with this vantage point, but they have examined American barbecue from a few other views as well. Elie, a metro-page columnist for the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, and Stewart, a photographer based in New York, visited 50 barbecue joints recently, primarily in the South and Midwest.They ate the food but looked beyond the sauce and smoke, focusing on the folks who barbecue and on the communities they come from.

Peter Michael Yagjian, a restaurateur whose Mount Vernon Stable and Saloon brought baby back rib platters to Charles Street, died of a heart attack Tuesday at his Fells Point home. He was 64. Customers said that at his restaurant's peak, lines would form at its door on weekend nights. Mr. Yagjian, as the host and greeter, would dart around tables trying to accommodate one more party in his crowded and noisy bistro that featured a reproduction Egyptian mummy case and other eclectic decorations.

Don't bother calling to wish me a Happy Father's Day because I won't be here, kids, I've got the day off. I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by. But I'm in Minnesota. So I'll just climb in my black Lamborghini and head for the territories and west of Minneapolis pick up a county road that runs straight on flat prairie for a couple hundred miles. I'll raise my radar antenna and let that 270 hp V-12 engine run free and reach the Dakota border in the time it takes to drink a cold one and listen to Waylon and Willie - and don't call me on my cell because I don't have it with me, just Mr. Samuel Colt, a deck of cards, a roll of Benjamins and a dog named Lucky.

Ravens coach John Harbaugh said running back Willis McGahee's ribs are the only serious injury concern as the team prepares for the AFC South-leading Tennessee Titans to visit M&T Bank Stadium on Sunday. McGahee was limited to just one carry for 1 yard in the second half of Monday night's 23-20 overtime loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers after he injured his ribs with 1:31 left in the second quarter. It's unclear whether the injury involves the same ribs that were broken in Week 16 last year and forced McGahee to miss the season finale against Pittsburgh.

There are a couple of tricks to preparing ribs. I prefer spareribs to baby back, because they are a little fattier and don't dry out during long, slow cooking. But spareribs do need to be trimmed before the rub goes on. Still, that's not hard. First, cut away any excess fat or meat that isn't supported by a rib. You'll also notice there's a flap of meat that stretches diagonally across about half of the ribs. If you want, remove it; that way the meat will all be done about the same. (Cook the removed bit and the rest of the meaty scraps along with the ribs and you'll have a good griller's treat that will be done about halfway through the smoking period.

I am exhausted by the demands of our New England winters. What I do to get over the late-winter blahs is entertain. Nothing fancy. In fact, this is the season when I pull out my comfort-food recipes and invite friends over for laid-back gatherings. Braised short ribs are quintessential comfort fare for this time of year. Rich and satisfying - yes, even fattening! Nothing is better on a cold winter day than short ribs cooked until they are falling off their bones. This recipe for barbecued short ribs was suggested to me by my friend Matt Sunderland, a talented chef in my area.

Just when I thought I knew everything about barbecuing ribs, a different treatment rocked my world. The cooking technique violated several premises of my once rock-solid rules of ribs. First of all, it called for cooking the ribs without any rub or sauce. Much of my time on this planet has been devoted to making rubs and mop sauces for ribs. Yet this rack went on the fire carrying only salt and pepper. Secondly, the ribs were wrapped in aluminum foil as they cooked. Again this was against my nature.

Famous Dave's Fireside Inn 7400 Ritchie Highway, Glen Burnie -- 410-761-8815 Hours --11 a.m.-11 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays; 11 a.m.-midnight Fridays-Saturdays; 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sundays Restaurant's estimate --15 minutes Ready in --10 minutes Here, we were given the choice between several sauces and sides with our order, $9.44. At the server's recommendation, we went with bourbon sauce and a side of straight fries. But neither the fries nor the ribs were that noteworthy. Know of a good carryout place?

You say you're a little tired of "unique" cuisines offered at various restaurants downtown? Good ol' American is what you're in the mood for now? Then you might want to check out a new eatery on North Charles Street. Milton's Grill has just opened on Charles Street between Mulberry and Pleasant streets, in the space formerly occupied by Cangialosi's. Brothers and owners Corey Barnes and Shawn Peterson named it after their late grandfather Milton Barnes, who was a cook in the military.

What it is -- A grill mop with a silicone brush What we like about it --This mop from grillmeister Elizabeth Karmel makes good on the promise of silicone; it helped our sticky ribs stay moist on the grill, and the long, angled handle was comfortable to use and kept us safely away from the fire. Its smooth, flexible brush cleaned up beautifully in the dish washer, with no lingering odors. What it costs --$11.99 Where to buy it --Kitchen and houseware stores and www. bbqproshop.com

We're always on the lookout for new barbecue places, which is why we were pleased to hear of the new Smokey Hollow BBQ Co. The mostly carryout restaurant opened last year in a Laurel strip mall near Route 29 and Johns Hopkins Road and devotes almost all of its menu to smoked meat. It's also fairly cheap - two sandwiches and two plates cost about $30. Both of the plates came with a side of four hush puppies and a side of our choice. Here's what we thought: Smokey Hollow BBQ Co. 7500 Montpelier Road, Laurel -- 301-617-4227 Hours --11 a.m.-8 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; noon-5 p.m. Sundays (This large order took about 15 minutes to prepare.