Garlic Bread

Forget religion and politics. If you want to see people get really fired up, talk about barbecue. There's a method for every tastebud - and serious bbq-ers swear their sauce is best - lovers of mustard-based, Southern-style sauce will heckle loyalists of Texas-style tomato-based sauce every time. Berlin's Old Hickory Smokehouse cuts to the chase. Although owner Greg Ellis is partial to his homemade, zesty tomato-based sauce, he swears it's how you treat the meat, not how you sauce it, that makes all the difference.

I know people like to eat zucchini raw, but I think it tastes like a cucumber that didn't get enough rain. Of course, that's only my opinion. But cooked, it becomes sweet, pulpy and very enjoyable. Like mushrooms and eggplant, zucchini is better with other vegetables than it is alone. Tomatoes, garlic and onions are natural partners to zucchini as the French vegetable melange ratatouille deliciously proves. Zucchini's delicate taste also goes well with seafood. It doesn't overwhelm it. The following recipe borrows a little from ratatouille and from the seafood stew bouillabaisse, to produce a scallop, zucchini and tomato sauce.

On a brilliant summer Sunday, when the menu just has to be meat on the grill, make it a skirt steak. Thanks to the Southwestern and Texas culinary influences, skirt steak is now readily available, although its popularity has made it a bit more costly. Before the fajitas craze, the meat cut, which is the diaphragm from the rib cage, was cheap. Now it costs about $3 a pound but it's well worth it. Not familiar with the term skirt steak? Well, it is a sweet-tasting meat and marinating not only brings out its full flavor, it tenderizes it and reduces its cooking time to minutes.

Italian sausage with tomato sauce is a classic. Add pasta and you've got the quintessential Italian American meal. It's earthy, robust and always pleasing. Take those same ingredients, add more vegetables and a little broth and you'll have a wonderful new dish - Italian Sausage, Tomato and Summer Squash Soup. Unlike old-fashioned soup recipes, the one that follows doesn't require hours of simmering for its flavors to develop. It's ready to eat in less than an hour and its serves two - so it's gone in a meal instead of a week.

Guillermo's, in Washington Township, is a contemporary-style shopping- center Italian restaurant that blends family-style cooking with the more inventive. You can have traditional veal parmigiana and chicken cacciatore, or choose from such contemporary dishes as sauteed chicken breast with crabmeat and broccoli, topped with melted provolone. Another attractive quality here is that prices are kept close to the homey image. Most entrees are in the $13 to $14 range, pastas go for $7.95 to $12.95, and almost all orders come with soup, salad, side of pasta and garlic bread.

Dear Polly: We love garlic bread. Since there are only two of us now, I keep hamburger and hot dog buns in the freezer. We take two out as needed. I put butter, olive oil, minced garlic and grated cheese on each half of the buns and warm them in the oven. It's delicious, with no leftovers. - R.B. Dear Polly: We have many Venetian blinds that are quite noisy when we get a breeze. Our solution was to buy pipe insulation for 1/2-inch pipe at the hardware store.

If you like seafood and barbecue - as well as a river view - try Eli's Pier 34, one of several eateries that seem to have washed up along the Delaware River like seashells at the Jersey Shore. Eli's is one of those places that even looks like fun. Outside, giant crabs hug the building with their huge pincers. Inside, faux pipes and matching gauges give the bar area the amusing look of a ship's boiler room. The whole visual concept is like a page torn from a 1940s comic book. The main dining area is indoors, which gives Eli's an advantage over some of the other Delaware River dining spots when the downpours and thunderstorms come.

I don't know how it escaped notice, but a pleasant little restaurant with appealing, home-cooked Italian cuisine has been right under our noses for years without many of us knowing it. Tonino's has been serving breakfast and lunch in Rodi's Mini Mall across Haddonfield Road from Garden State Park for 15 years. Two months ago, the family-run operation added a dinner menu; that, plus a face lift on the strip shopping center and a big sign, makes it easy to find the place. What we have been missing is a mostly friendly restaurant-pizza parlor with a limited dinner menu that offers moderately priced dishes notable for their good sauces; if the chef would stop overcooking everything, this would be a memorable place.

It's just another night, one of thousands . . . except every place in town is acting as if you're supposed to be a fool for love, drunk with desire, lousy with lust, the only problem being that the object of your affection is, well, unknown to you at this moment. Fear not! Fight the fever of flagrant Valentine stupor! Have fun! Get happy! Besides, self-pity is so, so, so pitiful. Have a date with your closest pal, male or female, currently unattached. Go to Walt's Crabhouse (806 S. Second St., 215-339-9124)

A neighborhood restaurant may not be the first place you would look to find good food, but the Erin Pub in Norwood is a delightful exception to the general rule. Indeed, this informal Irish bar-restaurant not only has good home cooking, but also moderate prices and friendly service. It's no wonder the place is enormously popular. Operated by an Irish couple, Mary and Marty Bryce, the windowless, bi-level dining room has a publike atmosphere, thanks to dark wainscoting and timbered, rough-plastered walls with colorful heraldic shields.