Salad Bar

Boston. -- Over the past winter, two women of a certain age brought their biological stories to their friendly neighborhood gynecologist for a mid-life checkup.Each woman shared her symptoms -- who the hell is fooling around with the thermostat in this body? -- and her family history. Each received a thorough examination.One of this duo left with a package of teeny-weeny hormone tablets, while the other did not. What made this surprising was that these women not only had the same complaints and the same doctor -- they had the same family history.

Harris Teeter will open its planned Ellicott City supermarket on April 2, the Charlotte, N.C., grocer said today. The store in the Towne Square at Turf Valley on Resort Road will be open 24 hours a day, with a seven-day-a-week pharmacy. Harris Teeter came to Maryland in 2010 and now has eight stores in the state, including Columbia and Fulton in Howard County and Locust Point in Baltimore. Another location will open this fall in Canton's Canton Crossing. The company is the 23 rd largest supermarket chain in the U.S., with 2012 sales of $4.54 billion.

If ham is your meat of choice for the Easter holiday, you'll find this recipe especially helpful for using up those leftovers.This recipe either makes use of items that are usually available in a supermarket salad bar or calls for prepared packaged produce. The trick here is to buy vegetables cleaned and chopped and ready to cook.As in any stir-fry, have all the ingredients organized and laid out before you begin. Keep in mind, the smaller the cut of the meat or the vegetable, the shorter the cooking time.

This week, the chefs leave the comfy confines of their climate controlled Vegas kitchen for a more rustic setting. But first, Curtis introduces the Quickfire by revealing a huge salad bar that the chefs will use to compose a salad. "Here's your salad bar," he says. "It's as big as a whale. And you've got eight minutes to make it set sail. " The chefs dash into the challenge horrified at the short time limit, without getting his musical reference. Der. Eight minutes is indeed a crazy short time, and they are more frenzied than normal.

Of all the places that you'd expect to find a great soup and salad bar, one of them probably isn't Buddie's Pub and Jazz Club. Hamburgers, yes. Ribs, OK. But Euromix greens and mulligatawny soup? No way.The place looks like a hundred other downtown pubs -- a bar decorated mostly with Tiffany-style lamps and a downstairs dining room that's usually empty when I've been there. The menu is perhaps more extensive than most pubs', with every sort of sandwich known to man.Some of these are inspired, like a crab club, made with two fine, fat crab cakes plus bacon, lettuce, and tomato layered on three slices of rye bread toast.

GLORIA'S BUFFET & SALAD BAR 305 N. Charles St. Hours: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays to Fridays; 11 to 3 p.m. Saturdays. Call (410) 685-7578. Food by the pound -- it sounds more like grocery shopping than lunch. But the hot buffet/salad bar, at which diners load up a tray and pay the tab according to its net weight, is a popular option among downtown eaters both hearty and dainty.Gloria's is one of the newest of such eateries, occupying a narrow but brightly lighted and mirrored storefront on the east side of Charles just above Saratoga Street.

Elementary schools Tomorrow: Schools closed for students. Tuesday: Manager-planned menu. Wednesday: Popcorn chicken, fresh vegetables with dip, roll, peaches, gelatin with fruit. Thursday: Cold cut sub or tuna salad on roll, stuffed sub salad bar, chicken noodle soup, fresh fruit, pudding. Friday: Pepperoni or cheese pizza, tossed salad, fresh fruit, cookie. Note: Peanut butter sandwich available daily; half-pint of milk served with each menu (35 cents separately); children, $1.60; reduced price, 40 cents; adults, $2.70.

We have become a nation of consumption without responsibility.After all, think for a minute about the proliferation of All-You-Can-Eat-Everything Bars.For one fee simple, you can force yourself to eat more in one sitting than you would ordinarily eat in an entire day -- in the name of economy.It's a great deal like our national debt.We now have all-you-can-eat smorgasbords of crab legs, barbecued everything, breakfast items and, of course, salads.Now there's food for thought.A salad BAR.''Yes, I'm eating light tonight.

Dublin United Methodist Church will hold a spaghetti with meat sauce, all-you-can-eat salad bar, garlic bread, dessert and beverage dinner in the Fellowship Hall from 4:30 to 7 p.m. Saturday. Adults are $10, children 5 to 10 are $5 and children under 5 are free. Coming events Yard sale at Dublin United Methodist Church June 9. Vacation Bible School July 16 to 20. Summer Fun Camp at the Wilson Ministry Center from June 18 to Aug. 17 from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Harris Teeter will open its planned Ellicott City supermarket on April 2, the Charlotte, N.C., grocer said today. The store in the Towne Square at Turf Valley on Resort Road will be open 24 hours a day, with a seven-day-a-week pharmacy. Harris Teeter came to Maryland in 2010 and now has eight stores in the state, including Columbia and Fulton in Howard County and Locust Point in Baltimore. Another location will open this fall in Canton's Canton Crossing. The company is the 23 rd largest supermarket chain in the U.S., with 2012 sales of $4.54 billion.

Until this year, the only items that resembled produce on Blessin Giraldo's school lunch tray were berry-flavored Popsicles and Fruit Roll-Ups. But now, the Baltimore eighth-grader's tray features beds of greens and fruits and vegetables that are available at her middle school through a salad bar option that is sprouting up in school cafeterias around the city. "I can go to lunch now and know I won't leave without eating," said Blessin, who attends the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women.

Dublin United Methodist Church will hold a spaghetti with meat sauce, all-you-can-eat salad bar, garlic bread, dessert and beverage dinner in the Fellowship Hall from 4:30 to 7 p.m. Saturday. Adults are $10, children 5 to 10 are $5 and children under 5 are free. Coming events Yard sale at Dublin United Methodist Church June 9. Vacation Bible School July 16 to 20. Summer Fun Camp at the Wilson Ministry Center from June 18 to Aug. 17 from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Myles Julian Feldman, a founder of a restaurant equipment business, died of complications from Alzheimer's disease Dec. 15 at Pinecrest Delray Hospice in Florida. The Boca Raton, Fla., resident had previously lived in Stevenson. Mr. Feldman was 82. Born in Atlantic City, N.J., he was the son of Samuel Feldman, a restaurant supplies salesman, and Frieda Feldman, his office manager. The family moved to Baltimore, where Mr. Feldman was a 1946 graduate of Forest Park High School.

When temperatures soar into the triple digits, Weight Watchers leader Karen Paris gets a hankering for pink lemonade sugar-free snowballs and frozen grapes. Nutritionist and athlete Colleen Pierre reaches for blue Gatorade and fat-free Pringles. At Obrycki's crab house in East Baltimore, customers request more crab mesclun salad, shrimp salad - and lots of water. July in Baltimore is a time when food cravings go lighter and leafier - at least for some. Little Italy's pasta remains a summer mainstay.

There comes a moment, usually halfway between the office and home each night, when the relief of being finished with work for the day gives way to the dread of the question that can no longer be ignored: What's for dinner? For some of us in our late 20s and living on our own, it's a vexing question, and one we're not equipped to deal with. We're not that far removed from the days when Mom always had the answer: chicken, salmon, spaghetti, pork chops and, always and only on Fridays, pizza.

On a recent frigid evening, I ventured into yuppie heaven -- the Whole Foods Market in the Inner Harbor East. Whole Foods began life as a natural-food store in Austin, Texas, but now has become a 166-store international behemoth, albeit a socially responsible behemoth, focused on organic, high-quality foodstuffs and friendly, competent service. Maryland has seven markets, including ones in Mount Washington and Annapolis. The one downtown occupies an expansive space with high ceilings and a concrete floor.

Heading to the Eastern Shore this weekend? Stop in at Tappo's in Oxford, a relatively new, sophisticated little Italian restaurant that several readers have written to me about. You'll feel comfortable going in shorts; but the menu runs to items like carpaccio, interesting veal dishes and homemade desserts. Entrees cost from $10.95 to $18.95.* I get plenty of mail about wine dinners, but the one from Sfuzzi at the Inner Harbor sounds particularly appealing. Participants will feast on prawns with lemon artichoke risotto, capellini in smoked salmon and caviar butter, lamb three ways with onions and parsnips, and figs and blackberries in zabaglione.

It happened, of course, when he did not expect it, when it was the farthest thing from his mind, when he happened to be out in the community -- and a safe, civilized part of it -- enjoying his life, having dinner in a restaurant with his wife and kids, figuring out how much of a tip to leave.I'll call him Mike because, for reasons soon obvious, he doesn't want his name used.Mike and his family were at Sizzler last Saturday night. The Sizzler restaurant in Cockeysville, of course. Something horrific happened there around 8:30.

Elementary schools Tomorrow: Schools closed for students. Tuesday: Manager-planned menu. Wednesday: Popcorn chicken, fresh vegetables with dip, roll, peaches, gelatin with fruit. Thursday: Cold cut sub or tuna salad on roll, stuffed sub salad bar, chicken noodle soup, fresh fruit, pudding. Friday: Pepperoni or cheese pizza, tossed salad, fresh fruit, cookie. Note: Peanut butter sandwich available daily; half-pint of milk served with each menu (35 cents separately); children, $1.60; reduced price, 40 cents; adults, $2.70.

A cafeteria-style kosher restaurant in the heart of Pikesville seems like a can't-miss concept. Cafe 921, which opened two weeks before Passover in the cavernous former site of the Pikes movie theater, has a nice variety of food. There's a salad bar, hot entrees, brick oven-baked pizzas and even a sushi bar. Of course, there's no meat, which by kosher law can't be served with dairy products, and no shellfish, which is also forbidden. All food meets high standards of kosher certification.