Green facts are hazy for grillers

May 7, 2008

As someone who enjoys cooking in the great outdoors, albeit a rowhouse backyard, I wondered about the environmental impact of firing up my barbecue cooker.

Recent columns

• Green reigns at others' gardens

  April 30, 2008

  Inspired by Earth Day, I biked to my community garden plot and searched for something leafy to put on the dinner table.

• Turning to chef for grill ideas

  April 23, 2008

  During the dark winter months, I visited my backyard kettle grill about once a week, usually clad in a thick coat and armed with a flashlight.

• Ballpark food in D.C. tops fare here

  April 16, 2008

  This hurts to admit, but their ballpark food is better than ours.

• Getting ready to roll

  April 12, 2008

  On sunny spring days, I feel the urge to wheel my bicycle out of winter storage and go riding. Recently I wondered, however, if my old bike was in shape for a new season.

• Leeks suggest flavors of spring

  April 9, 2008

  Every once in a while, you cook a dish that captures the essence of the season. That happened to me recently when I made tarragon chicken breasts with leeks.

• Trans-fat ban has bakery worried

  April 2, 2008

  Flour and worry were in the air one recent morning at Hoehn's Bakery in East Baltimore as Louis Sahlender and Sharon Hoehn Hooper prepared sheets of raspberry tarts for the oven.

• Efforts to make own food fall flat

  March 26, 2008

  Motivated by the skyrocketing price of groceries, I took a stab at growing my own salad and baking my own bread.

• Digging up the dirt

  March 22, 2008

  As most gardeners have learned, you are only as good as your dirt.

• What's cooking with a reader

  March 19, 2008

  One of the pleasures of writing about food and drink is the reaction it evokes.

• Time to enjoy heat of peppers

  March 5, 2008

  Maybe it is breathing the dusty air, or getting jabbed by cactus. Whatever the reason, when I travel to the Southwest, I crave chile peppers.

• Trip triggers desire to taste the heat of poblano chiles

  March 5, 2008

  Maybe it is breathing the dusty air, or getting jabbed by cactus. Whatever the reason, when I travel to the Southwest, I crave chile peppers.

• See spot go

  February 23, 2008

  A water stain on a wood tabletop is not a big deal, unless you have put the stain there. Then you can't wait to remove the evidence of your wrongdoing.

• Undercover cow video difficult to watch

  February 20, 2008

  I know where beef comes from. The town where I grew up, St. Joseph, Mo., once had three major meatpacking operations - Swift, Armour and Dugdale. When I was a kid, my Cub Scout pack toured these plants, watching suspended cattle carcasses swing from chains. As a teenager, I tried but failed to get a summer job "in the yards" running livestock from the pens into the slaughterhouses.

• Pancake experiment falls flat

  February 13, 2008

  When I should have left well enough alone, I strayed.

• Holiday sips: The joy flows

  December 5, 2007

  Giving the gift of alcohol can be tricky. You have to be reasonably certain that the recipients enjoy imbibing. You should have a rough idea of their tastes, and know that they are over 21 years old. Then there is the matter of money. How much do you want to spend on these people?

• Thankful for those leftovers

  November 21, 2007

  Tomorrow, as I dig into the roast turkey, the corn-bread stuffing, the hominy casserole, the mashed potatoes and gravy, I also will be thinking about how good these dishes will taste at the many eating opportunities stretched over the weekend.

• Beyond wine for holiday dinner

  November 14, 2007

  Once you have answered the sticky Thanksgiving questions - what type of turkey stuffing and what set of relatives you are going to spend the day with - the next issue to solve is, what are you going to be sipping?

• Crunch time: Crisp critters prove hard to swallow

  May 19, 2004

  THE KEY TO enjoying cooked cicadas -- if that is possible -- is to eat them with your eyes closed.

• These events leave a cloud over our city

  July 21, 2001

  IHAVE NOT had much luck thinking up a new slogan for Baltimore. But after the events of this week, I do have a new candidate for the city's mascot. That would be Joe Bfstplk the Li'l Abner comic strip character who walked around with a rain cloud over his head. Joe Bfstplk was a human jinx, wherever he went, calamity followed.

• Toning down thoughts on phone repair

  February 17, 2001

  TRYING TO FIX a telephone these days is frustrating.

• 'A piece of the action' makes things a bit nutty

  February 7, 2001

  THE SIEGE OF the pine nuts began a few weeks ago, shortly after we got a late-night phone call from James "Buzzy" Cusack, a friend and neighbor. Buzzy said something like " Psssst, wanna buy some pine nuts?"