Cheese Grilled To Please It's An All-american Sandwich - Or All-cheddar Or Even All-brie If You Choose. And You Don't Necessarily Have To Fry It In Fat.

Some people love grilled cheese for its oozing warmth, its toasted crunch, its rich, fat flow of melted curds, lumbering across the plate like a pool of Cheddar lava. Some dote on its disarming ability to make a rainy weekend welcome. And others are charmed by its alchemic power to transform the simplicity of bread and cheese into gustatory gold.

Grilled cheese is as mundane as American on white and as grand as a sky- high brioche stuffed with brie. It can be an exotic blend of feta and olives roasted in a pita, or a taste of Americana when freshly baked cornbread is topped with a cap of bubbling Monterey Jack.

It's a croissant and Camembert, or a bacon, Cheddar and tomato sandwich. It's cream cheese melting across a lox-lined bagel and it's a grinder of Gorgonzola and sun-dried tomato. It's apple and Swiss on rye, a Reuben, a tuna melt, or a Croque-monsieur.

It is the lightest of dinners, the heartiest lunch and the most continental of breakfasts, but beyond all else it's just one great sandwich.

There are two standard styles for grilled-cheese sandwiches. In the first, the sandwich is assembled and then grilled in a film of melted fat, a process that toasts the two sides of bread while the cheese melts lazily inside. The other style broils the cheese over the top of one slice of bread and then serves the sandwich open-faced or covered by a second slice. In this way the cheese melts more thoroughly and has a chance to brown, which some palates prefer.

There are several classic ways to gild a grilled cheese. A slice of fresh tomato is a common counterpoint to the oily richness of the melted cheese, as are mustard, ham and apple. All of these ingredients can be cooked right along with the cheese, to help blend and balance the flavors, but leafy vegetables should be added after grilling.

The fresh, cool crispness of romaine, spinach or sprouts is a wonderful complement to grilled cheese, but these ingredients can't get hot or their effect is lost. To incorporate greens into a grilled-cheese sandwich, use them to garnish the top of an open-faced sandwich or sneak them inside a closed sandwich after cooking.

The one added advantage of open-faced sandwiches for diet-conscious grilled-cheese lovers is that no extra fat is needed for cooking. When grilling closed sandwiches, the bread or the griddle must be liberally greased to ensure even browning before the surface of the bread scorches. In addition, it is helpful to cover the sandwich as it cooks to help