Weekend Eating

I had a fantastic weekend for food and forgot to take even a single picture of anything I ate or baked or drank. That's how fun it was.

Fortunately, it was more than memorable enough for a quick recap.

Friday night, we went out in Annapolis with a few of my high school friends. We had dinner at a newish Eastport restaurant, called Rockfish. Once I got over the fact that I was sitting in the former home of one of the more underage bars in Annapolis (The Clipper), everything was fantastic. Well, I take that back. Our waitress was very, very odd. Not bad, exactly, just odd. But all of the food was fantastic.

We started with a dozen Bluepoint oysters on the halfshell, Prince Edward Island mussels in a white wine and garlic sauce, and a butternut squash soup. The seafood was perfect, as I expected from a restaurant in Easport. The soup could've been risky, but fortunately, it had as much flavor as I'm always trying to get out of my pumpkin and squash soups, but never can. Sort of like the famed Au Bon Pain Harvest Pumpkin, but a little more delicate. Not exactly as harvesty.

For dinner, Suzanne had a Ceasar salad with blackened salmon that looked really good. I wish I liked salmon more. Cooper and Clancy both had meat - I think Clancy had the tenderloin medallions and Cooper definitely had a ribeye with a southwestern rub. They were both very happy - Cooper said he thought he steak was better than the one he had at Flemings a few months ago. High praise.

I had the shellfish medley, which the menu describes as "fresh shrimp, dry sea scallops, and jumbo lump crab baked with sherry-garlic sauce and topped with toasted almonds." The sauce was cream-based but not heavy at all and the seafood, which could very easily have been overcooked, was perfect.

With all of this, we shared creamed spinach, Boursin mashed potatoes and green beans with smoked bacon. AND we had dessert, though that must not have been as amazing as the rest of the meal (and the several bottles of wine) because I can't remember what it was.

Overall, though, it was a great meal. I'm sure it helped that we were with fun friends, but even if the company had been lacking, the food would've made up for it.

Saturday morning, as we left Annapolis with more than a little bit of a headache, I made Cooper stop at Adam's Ribs in Eastport to pick up carryout. Growing up, my family ordered Adam's all the time - it's a Severna Park/Annapolis tradition. When I lived in Annapolis, I ate pork barbecue at least once a week (and those, oddly enough, were my thinnest years). I still eat it whenever possible.

Saturday, I had a pork barbecue sandwich and fries (beer battered - only available at the Eastport location according to Clancy) and Cooper had a beef brisket sandwich. It took our delicate stomachs nearly all day to finish the enormous sandwiches, but it was SO well worth the stop. I would highly recommend a trip to Adam's to anyone planning to be in the Annapolis region ANYTIME. Nearly as good as the seafood, but far less publicized.

Saturday afternoon, I hauled myself off the sofa to do some baking (which I'd been putting off all week). I managed to make seven dozen chocolate chip cookies (recipe to follow...sometime soon) and a few dozen Cinnamon-Ginger cookies. Then we had to leave for a Christmas party, where I scarfed down several sausage and cheese balls and what felt like a plate of cheese.

By Sunday morning, we were feeling somewhat better as we geared up for another Christmas get-together. This one was laid back, just a few of our good friends hanging out at one couple's house...eating for a few hours. Before the party, I made a little more headway on the cookies, making a few dozen of Barefoot Contessa's jam thumbprint cookies (they taste so good AND look so pretty) and another batch of her truffles to give out as gifts. Plus, I made a few hors d'oeuvres to take to the party.

And there WERE a lot of hors d'oeuvres there. The party consisted of eight guests (plus two babies). Theoretically, each couple was to bring an hors d'oeuvre, we'd hang out for a few hours, then we'd go out for our weekly half-priced burgers at Bateman's. The plan went off well...except that by dinnertime, everyone was too full for Bateman's. We'd spent the previous three hours eating pepperoni pinwheels, brie in pastry, meatballs, sausage dip, spinach bites, and I'm not even sure what else.

Needless to say, after this weekend, I was moving a little slow at the gym this morning. And my kitchen is covered in toasted coconut and cookie crumbs. But, hey, if you can't eat like this at the holidays, when can you, right?