For Baltimore the usual suspects end up at the top every year but there are a couple of surprises still to be found in the 24th edition of the Washington/Baltimore Zagat Restaurant Survey. Zagat is a consumer-based survey that issues restaurant guides throughout the world. The survey also brought to life that there was virtually no inflation, the average cost of meal in
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Coming to Baltimore is Small Batch, a day rate community kitchen that will be open 24/7. This project answers the dreams for many an entrepreneur who have a food product they want to produce but lack the space or dollars to create their own food safe kitchen. Small Batch will even provide entrepreneur training for those who want to turn their hobby into a specialty food business.
To every post I write there is a trail that brought me to writing. I’m doing this one in reverse, like the high speed films going backwards in time. “Lemon phosphates with ammonia” says the husband, “Dad and I would go to the avenue (Hampden) and get lemon phosphates with ammonia.” “Customers would order cokes with ammonia at my parents' patent drug and luncheonette," The Hopkins Store at 31st and St. Paul streets I stated.
Who can cook with crab the best? On Tuesday, August 3rd from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. seven regional chefs go toque-to-toque for the honor of winning the B & O American Brasserie’s First Annual Crab Bash and bragging rights. For a mere pittance of $10 dollars you are invited to buy a ticket, come watch the competition, taste the entrees, and those of legal drinking age - taste B & O’s mixologist Brendan Door’s specialty cocktail for this anniversary event.
When Peabody Court Hotel opened in Baltimore they had a renowned French chef whose name slips this feeble mind. Maybe Michele was the first name. The restaurant was the restaurant of the day, de rigueur of those times – even before Michael Gettier became top toque. Twenty some years later and I’m still using the chef's recipe for gazpacho with my own Mexican accoutrement with lime zested tortilla strips
You are cordially invited to Great Grapes in Annapolis this weekend, Saturday July 24th and Sunday, July 25th. Can you imagine 250 wines you can taste, takes a hearty soul to taste the full array. Bring blankets, chairs and make it a family picnic event. Children 12 years of age or under gain free admission
It is true; S & H (Suburban House) re-opened this morning in their new home at Pomona Square just off Reisterstown Road. The husband has been asking me almost daily had I heard anything about the re-opening but it seems Laura Vozzella of The Baltimore Sun got scoop and info last night. For those of you who didn’t know, last July Suburban House had a fire in a location they had been in for over 40 years, a location that has held many a memory for families in the area.
Round One of the Mason Dixon's Master Chef competitions is complete and 32 chefs came to compete and 16 remain as they start Round Two of the competition tomorrow, Monday July 19. After being a judge for a number of the competitions one sees how difficult it is to prepare three courses in one hour in a new environment, with new equipment and guests just across the burners watching and chatting.
Huh, that is what I said, "who made a cameo appearance at Cameo Appearance." Read who showed at this party.Larry Schwartz, Vice President of Off-Premise Catering of Cameo Catering (formerly Cameo Caters) threw a lovely party at Gore Dean in Mt. Washington Mill to launch their new division, Cameo Appearance, focusing on stylish in-home parties.
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A number of you, all three of you, who follow my posts here, on Twitter and Facebook know that I work as a kitchen slave for a chef friend on and off. Today she is off and pretty much had everything ready but set up and salad prep that I finished fairly quickly.It is 9:30 a.m. and I really don’t have a thing to do until around 11:45 to prep for lunch service. So I don’t know if it is lucky me or lucky you as I ramble on about my culinary things of late. Read the full story: Killing time in the kitchen - a look at my night with Emeril
Small plates, tapas, mezze – no matter what you call them this is the way I love to dine: multiple tastes, flavors and some well chosen paired wines. I’m a sucker for a covered dish party, foraging through multiple cooks offering is like an explorer discovering hidden treasures -for me, new taste sensations.
Steakhouse steaks, hand-selected, hand-cut, and aged to perfection are now available for the consumer through Lagasse’s latest endeavor, Emeril's™ Red Marble Steaks. These steaks are not your *no-roll sale cuts from your local supermarket, they are the same premier grade steaks you pay top dollar for at your leading steakhouses but now can enjoy in your own home. 
If you aren’t aware, Extreme Makeover is in Baltimore helping build Boys Hope Girls Hope NOW! Boys Hope Girls Hope is a multi-denominational, privately funded home r that helps academically and motivated children-in-need reach their potential. Today is Day 5 and they still need volunteers and they need drinking water desperately. 
Catchy name, She’s Got Crabs, could have been He’s Got Crabs or We Have Crabs but no they went with the ‘she’ – just a mini rant. Let me not digressA Shore Thing
Brian Antkowiak grew up in the Maryland crabbing community of Toddville on the western side of the Eastern Shore between Crapo and Wingate and draws on his connections of getting the best regional crabs.
It’s tough working on the weekend although genuinely inspired by Charm City Food Tours to write. The new local endeavor being spearheaded by one of the city’s most prominent food personalities, Celeste Corsaro, is sizzling like a soft shell crab in a hot cast iron pan.
Considering that the Baltimore/Washington area ranks #4 in hot dog consumption in the United States it is about time we got our own gourmet, “haute cuisine” hot dog cart. Roll in the Haute Dog Carte offering a ¼ lb Angus beef dog, the Baltimore Dog with what else but pork and Old Bay, Binkert’s Dog which will change weekly as will the Chef Dog. The Chef Dog will be created by local chefs the likes of Christian DeLutis, Gayle Brier, Spike Gerjde, Sascha Wollander and others. 
Do you read those books where people follow their passion, go back to school, change careers and end up living in Paris or Italy? Well there are a number of these books on my bookshelf, proving I like to read but don’t have enough passion, the huevos, to pack it all up and go forth.
There is a lot of food terminology that has been used to death, not that they are bad but how much credence do we give places that say farm-to-table, buy local, organic and name the farms/farmers. Like so many things in our abundant lives we seem to take for granted those things everyone starts to do and it becomes commonplace. The “made from scratch every day” philosophy at Columbia, Maryland’s Stanford Grill definitely conjures up that “homespun, homemade like grandmother used to make” feeling.
A number of you will be entertaining on the 4th of July. You bought the ground beef on special a couple months ago and popped it in the freezer and now you are wondering if it is still any good? 
