Grilling

What to drink: Stick with beer — choose a dark, medium-bodied lager with a hint of sweetness, like Shiner Bock from Shiner, Texas ($6 per six-pack).

Maneet Chauhan, chef at Vermilion in Chicago, uses nonfat yogurt to reduce calories but not taste.

Shake up your standard skewer with a smoky, tangy marinade created by Elissa Meadow, chef-owner of Solar Harvest in Beverly Hills, California. This recipe fills 40 percent of your daily potassium needs and supplies vitamins C and B6, as well.

Clams and pork are a classic Portuguese combination. The briny sweetness of the bivalves and a tomato sauce studded with zesty chorizo bring out the richness of the chops.

_Biftek à la Parrilla This recipe is excerpted from Shirley Lomax Brooks's book Argentina Cooks! We've also added some tips of our own below. This recipe uses only two ingredients for the marinade, yet the results belie the simplicity. Of course, steak is at its best when it is well marbled. Cuts such as beef filet, New York steak, porterhouse, or T-bone are recommended. _

To make this dish even more decadent, add cooked chopped pancetta or cooked and crumbled smoked bacon.

Link likes to use herbs from his garden in this recipe.

This recipe is from Suzanne Goin, chef and owner of Lucques and A.O.C. restaurants in Los Angeles. It's great with her Moroccan menu in the October 2006 issue of Bon Appétit, or with just about any Mediterranean or Middle Eastern meal.

Thin ribbons of Parmigiano-Reggiano carry the mushrooms' meaty robustness through each bite of greens. It might look like a lot of mushrooms when you're putting the salad together, but it allows everyone to have a generous helping.

Aromatic without being spicy, this dish has a touch of the exotic but will please traditionalists, too. The spice paste hits on sweet, hot, salty, and sour, and the lamb is wonderfully tender.

The Standard Hollywood, which serves celebrities such as Heather Graham and Megan Mullally, has a trendy diner feel, but you'll find more than the burger special on the menu. Executive chef David Linville offers international treats like this salad with protein-rich lean flank steak.

One of the perks of fame: getting five-star food without leaving the sofa. Whenever Denise Richards craves a healthy, delicious meal, she calls private chef Dorte Lambert, founder of DL Creations. Don't be put off by the high fat count in this dish; it's mostly the heart-friendly unsaturated kind.

Taste restaurant is something of an anomaly in Tinseltown: low-key, affordable and friendly; the hostess smiles whether you're wearing Chanel or Old Navy. It's no wonder that stars such as Cameron Diaz and Selma Blair like to dine here. This salad, from chef Cathy Halter, is loaded with omega-3 fatty acids, which may reduce heart disease risk.

Editor's note: The recipe below is excerpted from Cal-a-Vie Living: Gourmet Spa Cuisine and is part of a healthy and delicious spa menu developed exclusively for Epicurious by Cal-a-Vie. We would not think of removing this lunch from our repertoire! After a decade, we have only made it better with homemade low-fat chipotle mayonnaise and sliced mozzarella.