Lost Restaurants of Baltimore

Apparently I'm not back to blogging full-time these days...but I still might pop in occasionally. Like now, to share the project that's been taking up lots of my time recently: Lost Restaurants of Baltimore.

Lost Restaurants, which came out at the end of last month and is published by Arcadia Publishing, is a collaboration between Suzanne Loudermilk and me. We loved writing it. It's a collection of stories about 35 beloved - but now closed - Baltimore restaurants.

It was a total joy to research and write and, now that the book is out, people are sharing even more of their memories of meals at bygone restaurants. I love hearing every story.

Video Killed the Radio Star

...and social media killed the blogger. Or, in my case, more like a combination of social and traditional media.

At least that's the best explanation I can offer for the nearly nonexistent nature of this blog over the past year or two. It's not that I've stopped writing - not at all - it's just that I've pretty much stopped writing here.

I used to write about Baltimore restaurants here; that content has found a home both at Baltimore Fishbowl, in my events column, Hot Plate, and at the Sun, where I write longer form pieces here and there.

Other posts - short little ones inspired by random thoughts or observations - end up on Facebook, either as posts of my own or posts in the comments. Facebook and Instagram are also where I end up sharing bits and pieces about meals I've had out, or dishes I've made at home, or even interesting articles or cool things I spot here and there. I don't share as many of those things as I did back when I was blogging daily...but occasionally it happens.

I don't do any real restaurant criticism anymore - once I stopped reviewing for the Sun, I lost my interest in that kind of writing. I'd rather focus on the positive than on what doesn't work (though I always did try to deliver criticism in a constructive way).

There is one type of writing that I've lost without blogging and that I miss: longer form observational stuff. Over the past year, I've started, but not finished, a bunch of posts with names like "What follows peak food?" and "How to be a good restaurant guest" and "The evolution of dinner parties" and "Restaurants as artists." Posts that start with a quick spark, but then require real thought and effort to complete.

I miss that sort of writing and thinking, but I find myself too distracted to actually follow through and finish the posts. That's where social media's doing the damage, I think. It's much easier to post something quick and walk away than it is to follow a thought and explore it in writing.

All of this is a very long - and navel-gazing - way to say that after over 12 years, Mango and Ginger is officially on hiatus. I'll continue to sporadically update the "about" page that houses links to recent articles. And who knows...maybe 2018 will bring me the inspiration and the follow-through necessary to finish one of those longer posts. I'd like to think so, but I'm not holding myself to it.

Even if this is the last post I end up writing in this space, it's been a great run. A dozen years, zillions of words, countless meals, a bunch of trips, many new friendships, and tons and tons of great memories. My life wouldn't be the same without this blog and I will be forever thankful that I started it way back when - and that a reader or two found it along the way.

Catching Up After Two (!) Months

Center Cut Doughnuts have brought me some joy over the past couple months

When I woke up this morning, one of my first thoughts was that it's been two months (yikes!) since the last time I posted. That's the longest stretch I've gone without posting since I started this blog back in 2005. Crazy.

In the past two months, I have been around food, though thanks to both the stomach flu and pneumonia, I actually haven't been eating with quite as much gusto as normal.

But still, there was a good dinner with old friends from California at Chez Billy Sud, a charming French spot in Georgetown. And a fun morning with my Dixon, my sister and her new baby at Sub Rosa, a really good bakery she can walk to from her house in Richmond. And The Emporiyum, which is always a great time. A tasting at Center Cut Doughnuts, when Dixon was my plus-one. A fun seafood boil over Memorial Day weekend up at Keuka Lake.

Plus, I haven't stopped writing for other publications. Though it's not all published yet, I've spent the spring thinking and writing about the opening of the Sagamore Spirit distillery, the food policy at Camden Yards, the origin of crushes, the city's best fried chicken, and iconic beach foods.

I've also continued to write my weekly restaurant news column, Hot Plate, for Baltimore Fishbowl. And do some Facebook and Instagram posting, of course - though even that has fallen off a bit, especially over the past month (pneumonia really sucks).

During that time, I've also started, but haven't finished, a few posts with actual substance - things like what makes a local classic actually classic and how to be a good restaurant guest. But - and I hate to say this - much of the larger conversation taking place around food these days frustrates me more than it inspires me.

When I started writing this blog, a dozen years ago, the food world was in a massive state of growth. Every day, something new and interesting was happening. There was debate about topics like authenticity and egregious experimentation and globalism; participating in those debates left me feeling invigorated and excited about what was to come. I assumed it would be better than what came before.

In recent years, though, two things have happened. One is that many of the smaller conversations have disappeared - though I'm seeing interesting chats on Facebook sometimes, much of today's food buzz takes place on Instagram, which doesn't exactly lend itself to thoughtful conversation (though it does lend itself to 20 media/influencer types posting pretty much the same photo).

The other phenomenon is that those debates - the ones about authenticity, experimentation and globalism - have evolved. Or, rather, devolved...and I am decidedly less excited about food as a result. The words "cultural appropriation" don't excite me. They frustrate me - at best. Mostly, they bore me.

People speaking against cultural appropriation are, theoretically, trying to promote respect for other cultures - which is all well and good and it's tough to argue with that point. Respect is great. Duh.

But the by-product of the movement is that it chills creativity and collaboration. And that chills my level of excitement about the food world as a whole.

Overall, I'm not easily offended and I like feeling enthusiastic. I want to be excited about food and drinks and I want to participate in conversations about what they mean to us - the role they play in our lives and our culture. That's what this blog used to be about.

But these days, I'm struggling to gin up any enthusiasm for the cultural conversation.

Fortunately, the pendulum is always swinging. Soon enough, we'll have moved on to a new topic within the food world - hopefully one that gets me more excited.

And until then, at least I have doughnuts.

Recent-ish Adventures

Two months without a post? Ridiculous. Things have been busy in our world lately - and blogging is, apparently the first thing to go when I have too much to do. Well, blogging and folding laundry.

Instead of blogging and folding laundry, we have been doing these things:

Clockwise from the top left:

Dixon drinking a blood orange fizz at Silver Queen Cafe. (Remains a terrific BYOB.)

Gorgeous hamachi crudo at Pen & Quill. (First visit in a while - and it was really, really good.)

Spying on the fish cutting operations at J.J. McDonnell. (Locally owned, impressively operated.)

Raffle baskets lined up for Fake St. Patrick's Day at Ryleigh's Oyster. (This year, benefiting House of Ruth - it was an enormous success).

Cooper at Dylan's Oyster House. (Short, good menu, fantastic space, instant classic of a restaurant.)

Iberico ham at La Cuchara. (Literally melts in your mouth. La Cuchara is still breathtaking, with fabulous food and service.)

Bmore BRD sandwich at R. House. (Breakfast, lunch and yoga at R. House/Movement Lab has become my Wednesday routine. I'm here right now. It's amazing.)

Laura Black photographing Dixon - and waffles - at Iron Rooster. (Our (cool) progeny collaborations are bringing me so much joy.)

Crab soup and pizza at Silver Queen. (Seriously, go there.)

And in the middle...the cheese knife Dixon made for Mike and Alicia. (It's pretty awesome.)

Good times, all around. Just busy ones.

Deep Creek 2017

For the third year in a row, we went to Deep Creek to spend MLK weekend with some of my high school friends and their kids.

One of the highlights of the weekend, for me, was getting to break in this gigantic camo onesie,
gifted to me by Cooper's Aunt Noreen. It was both enormous and very, very warm.
But it was not slimming.

It was a meat-and-cheese fest, as it is every year. We start on Friday night, with meatballs from Mastellone's, and don't look back. Chili, tacos, burgers and steaks, sausage and bacon at every breakfast. And literally a pound of cheese available for every single person in the house, including those who are still in diapers. It's fabulous.

It's also a game-fest. We don't do a whole lot while we're there, but we do play board games. One of this year's hits was Speak Out, that game that gets so much play online because it involves weird dental torture devices that hold your mouth open.

It is hilarious, but also very, very creepy. And I'm pretty sure those devices are at least part of the reason why several of the people in the house (including Cooper) closed out the weekend with the stomach flu. Germs, people. Germs.

Though the weekend as a whole is a blast - how bad can it be when it's filled with meat, cheese, booze and board games? - one of our food-related highlights actually occurred before we even made it to the house.

On our way, just about five miles out, in the town of Accident, Cooper and Dixon and I made a quick pit stop at the FireFly Farms store. As is typical, pretty much everyone coming for the weekend had forgotten at least one thing in their travels. Like crackers. we were about to enter a house with massive amounts of cheese...but no crackers.

For whatever reason, I didn't immediately make the connection between the name of the store and the cheese that I often pick up at Atwater's and see on menus all over Baltimore. But as soon as we walked into the shop, we made the connection.

It's super cute, with an excellent selection of cheese (both from FireFly Farms itself and from other makers), plus tons of wine, a handful of locally made stuff (think Popsations popcorn and Snake Oil hot sauce) and, yes, crackers.

While I can't, in good conscience, recommend drinking the Maryland blueberry wine we picked up, I do think it might make for a nice ingredient in a savory dish. And I can recommend just about everything else in the place. We walked out with our arms full and big smiles on our faces.

Those smiles stayed planted all weekend long (until the stomach flu reared its ugly head...fortunately, the weekend was almost over by then). I'm already looking forward to next year.

Festive All Around

Today is Cooper's birthday. And this is his cake:

It was a gift from our friends Audrey and George, who spotted it at Sam's Club last month. (Not this specific cake. This one is much fresher than that.)

It's pretty much the most Cooper cake I can imagine.

When we celebrated here last night, with Cooper's family, it was just the latest event during what has, so far, been quite a festive month.

Among other things, DRP and I went shopping in Hampden, including a stop at Charm City Chocolate, and then we came home, all three of us decorated the tree and we tried to ration the chocolate-covered Oreos so they'd last.

Last weekend was a busy one, too. On Saturday, I took Mimi (our niece) to Maria Springer's gingerbread house workshop. A few years ago, I wrote an article about Maria and what she does - she is the nicest lady and she makes the best gingerbread houses.

She used to host gingerbread house teas at her home in Phoenix, but just after I wrote the article, she and her husband moved to a condo and she shifted the gingerbread festivities to a church on Hampton Lane. The tea part of the day is no longer - which is a shame - but the house-decorating is still just as fun.

Mimi was an incredible house decorator - so patient and creative, with an amazing dedication to symmetry. Her focus was super impressive - especially considering that she was about 48 hours shy of her seventh birthday.

 After the gingerbread decorating, Cooper and I got ourselves dolled up to go over to Kyle and Mary's for the 9th annual carol and crawl party. We retired the house-to-house nature of the party years ago, so there hasn't been any "crawling" for about six years, and the only "caroling" comes late night (and hopefully doesn't disturb any neighbors). But the party is still a great time.

This year, both Cooper and Kyle really brought it with the outfits (George was similarly dressed, but I didn't get a picture of all three of them):

On the Pollard front, possibly the most exciting part of the weekend the completion of the cheese knife Dixon hand made for Kyle and Mary:

Knife-making is a new hobby for DRP; he's pretty taken with it. A while back, Cooper bought a bunch of antique saws at an auction. For these knives, he (Cooper) cuts a knife blank from one of the saws, then Dixon files and sands it down until it has a sharp edge. Then, the two of them work together to hook it into an antler handle. (The antlers, apparently, we just have laying around.)

It's a lot of work for Dixon, but he loves it, and the end result is pretty cool. I'm not sure who was most excited to see this end product - Cooper and me, Kyle and Mary (who had placed an order for the knife), or Dixon, who is extremely, and understandably proud of himself.

Knives, cakes, candy, festive holiday apparel. So far, December is going pretty well.

Out and About in September

We have been going out like crazy lately and I've been terribly remiss about blogging about it. So here's a quick(?) recap of what we ate and did during September.

Parts & Labor for Burgers
In case you missed it, Dixon and I are collaborating on a series of articles for (cool) progeny. Each article highlights some of our favorite spots for a specific meal. First, we tackled mac and cheese. Next up was burgers.

One of the burgers on our list was the locally-raised monster at Parts & Labor in Remington. We used the article as an excuse for dinner at P&L - and it was as good as ever. The pre-dinner charcuterie was perfect, as it always is. Dixon's burger was ridiculous and Cooper's lamb was gorgeous. But I won the night with sausage-stuffed chicken over ratatouille. It was a simple but genius combination of summer and fall flavors. Everything about it was great.

CFF Passion for Food and Wine 
There are so many worthwhile causes out there and I am continually impressed by how Baltimore's restaurant community steps up to support them. The community rallies especially hard for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation - and rightly so.

The organization is one of the best I know - thin on bureaucracy (over 90% of funds raised go directly to research) and thick on results. There have been very real, significant strides in developing treatments for cystic fibrosis over the past several decades and CFF's fundraising efforts have fueled those developments.

But what does this have to do with what we ate in September? Early in the month, we were lucky enough to be invited to CFF's Passion for Food and Wine, an event that is so much fun and raises so much money. It's mind-boggling.

I've written about Passion here and here - but here's a quick overview: five years ago, a bunch of Baltimore chefs got together for an event to raise money for CFF. They wanted to do something unusual, so they decided instead of a standard "we fix bites and people mill around and visit our stations" cocktail event, they'd put together a multi-course, sit-down dinner - and they'd cook the dinner in front of the guests.

Each participating restaurant has its own table. Twelve guests sit around the table - shaped like a square-ish "U" - and watch the chef prepare the meal. This year, we were at the Colette table, where Chef Stefano Porcile absolutely crushed it. CRUSHED.

So much foie.

While this is happening, Sergio Vitale of Aldo's and Jerry Pellegrino of Schola hop up on a stage and auction off amazing experiences, like having Chef Cindy Wolf cook dinner for you and 12 of your friends. There's also a silent auction - this year we won some crystal from Smyth and a seafood tower and whiskey tasting at Loch Bar.

The event raises an unreal amount of money - hundreds of thousands of dollars, just in one night. And it is one of the most fun parties out there. I get a little emotional watching how committed everyone is to both the cause and the food. Everyone involved, from the CFF staff to the chefs to the other guests, is so dedicated and excited about the cause. "Passion" really is an apt name for the event.

Les Folies for Nan's 98th
In mid-September, my grandmother turned 98 and Dixon just happened to have the day off school.

My mom had also taken the day off work, so the four of us went to lunch at one of Nan's favorite restaurants, Les Folies in Annapolis.

Nan is a restaurant aficionado. I can't count how many times I have been out to lunch or dinner with her. Les Folies has long been one of her go-tos partly for convenience - it's on Riva Road, close to where she used to live - but mostly because their classic French food is consistently excellent.

Of course, what I ate wasn't classic, though the preparation was French, I suppose: sauteed softshell in a white wine and butter sauce. My mom had the same. Classic or no, it was fantastic.

Bookmakers with the Tribe
There are only a handful of William & Mary grads in the Baltimore area; most people end up in DC or New York or...somewhere else. And my college friends who do live in the area are scattered all over. As a result,we don't see each other much - if at all.

But one random Tuesday night last month, it just so happened that a friend from Austin would be visiting another friend in Columbia. Next thing we knew, we were having a little reunion at Bookmakers in Federal Hill, where the food is good and the drinks are amazing.

As is always the case when I do see W&M friends, it was super fun - and a great reminder that my college friends are crazy smart and interesting and they make the world a better place

Dining Out for Life at Silver Queen Cafe
Moveable Feast's annual restaurant-oriented fundraiser, Dining Out for Life, was September 15th. It's a good one - local restaurants donate a percentage of their take for the evening to the cause, which makes it easy to do a little bit of good.

This year, we went to Silver Queen Cafe in Hamilton, where we gorged on crab dip and pizza and pasta and fried chicken.

Silver Queen was packed, dinner was great, and we remembered that Hamilton is only about 10 minutes from where we live, so we should go there more often. It's good!

Jack's Bistro with Friends
Cooper and I have been to a lot of restaurants, but considering how quickly the food scene in Baltimore is growing, there's just no way we could possibly keep up with every place that's new.

But you'd think that, by now, we'd have been everywhere that's been around, and well-regarded, for at least a few years. But we haven't. We keep a short list of places we really need to go and, slowly but surely, we're checking them off.

We are not the only people who keep these lists. So when we coordinated schedules with our friends Rich and Lisa and their friends Doug and Kacey, we also coordinated our "places we haven't been" lists.

One of the places all of us needed to visit was Jack's Bistro in Canton. Everyone I know loves it and I've always felt a little embarrassed that I hadn't been. I was correct to feel that way. Jack's is fantastic and everyone should go.

It's tiny and pretty cramped, but in a charming way, and the food is really good and so are the drinks. I had pasta with pesto and duck that I loved so much - and everything on the menu looked excellent.

So that was one place we got to cross off our list. Of course, now we want to go back.

La Food Marketa for Tacos
In the five years that it's been open, Food Market in Hampden has established itself as one of the very best - and very most reliable - restaurants in Baltimore. It's not a surprise, then, that people were excited to hear that Chad Gauss, the chef/owner of Food Market, had plans to expand. And into the County, no less!

We visited La Food Marketa, Gauss's new south-of-the-border-influenced spot in Quarry Lake, about two weeks after it opened. It was a beautiful night and the restaurant was jammed. And it was good!

The menu is fun, with lots of flavor, and we liked everything we ate. But I really loved the drinks. The spicy, smoky pineapple margarita was absolutely killer. It might not be for everyone, but if, like me, spicy and smoky and pulpy drinks do it for you, you need to try this one.

Starlite Diner for Brunch
The second Shoo-Fly locked it's Belvedere Square doors in May of 2015, locals started speculating about what would take its place. Earlier this year, we got our answer: Starlite, a restaurant that promised to hew closer to the "diner" concept than Shoo-Fly did, while still being a little more upscale than your average roadside diner.

After an interior facelift - which looks great- and a few months to sort out the menu, etc., Starlite opened in late September. On its third day, I headed there for lunch with my friend Bert, who lives in San Diego but happened to be in town, just for a couple days.

As soon as we walked in, the host, manager and waitress all jumped to introduce themselves to us - and to let us know that since they just opened, we would be receiving 20% off our bill, as a thanks for our patience. Smart, I thought. Very smart.

Service did take a long time that day; the waitress explained that the kitchen remade my dish, crawfish benedict, because they weren't happy with the first iteration. I don't know what round one looked like, but I was happy with the plate that made it to the table:

Overall, we liked everything we ate and liked the staff, too. In the couple weeks since then, I've heard mixed reviews from friends who have been, though by and large, it seems that the negatives are things that will get sorted out as the staff - both front of house and kitchen - gains experience.

And I remain hopeful that the building has found a concept that will stick around for a while.

Farm to Chef Maryland
Toward the end of the month, Cooper and I had the opportunity to go to Farm to Chef Maryland, a big food event held at the B&O Railroad Museum, benefiting Days of Taste.

Days of Taste is a program run by the non-profit TasteWise Kids. The goal of Days of Taste is to encourage young kids to appreciate the benefits of fresh food. Since I have a young kid, I know exactly how lofty a goal that is - and also how important.

Before we got to the event, I already knew that the restaurant community loves it. It's setup as a competition; each participating restaurant is matched with a farm and a panel of judges decides who does the best job on a handful of categories. The restaurant uses ingredients from the farm to create a small bite or a cocktail. Local breweries and wineries are also in attendance, so there are a lot of drink options a lot of food options.

We tried a ton of good stuff. My favorites included a really nice, simple quesadilla from Nacho Mama's, delicious sausage from Hersh's, a super-interesting take on watermelon from Alma Cocina Latina and this apple and oyster concoction from Conrad's:

It was a good party, packed with fun food people and I was so busy talking that I hardly took any photos. The oyster was it for the food photos.

I did, however, also take this one to send to Dixon, after he texted me to complain that the chicken tikka masala I ordered for him was "weird" and "not like the other place." I chose not to take that opportunity to regale him with the wonders of veal parm TV dinners, which is what I ate on babysitter nights when I was a kid.

I swear. Kids today. (And that's Black Ankle Crumbling Rock in that glass. It is so good. So good.)

Modern Cook Shop  Party
Farm to Chef was on a Monday and it kicked off a crazy busy week. On Tuesday, Amy and I headed down to Fells for a party at Modern Cook Shop, the new market-restaurant combo from the owners of Fork & Wrench.

I spent most of our time there trying to subtly scarf down as much charcuterie as possible. There were also oysters, gorgeous scallops and really excellent cocktails. So the food is good. But the space might even be better. I love the market-restaurant concept, especially since the "market" part of it isn't just an afterthought.

The shelves are stacked with rows of wine, olive oil, condiments and all kinds of useful items, many of which are made locally.

It makes for a space that's both good-looking and functional. I really liked it.

8 ball Meatball
After the Modern Cook Shop party, Amy and I ambled over to 8 Ball Meatball, the newish meatball shop and bar on Broadway. 8 Ball's concept: it's all about meatballs. You choose your meat, your sauce and any sides you'd like and next thing you know, you've got a plate of meatballs in front of you.

I took the bartender's advice, pairing the spicy pork meatball with a cream sauce and spinach. Everything was very nice (except my picture, which was awful). Best of all, it was seasoned properly. Just spicy enough, just enough salt.

The Ambassador for Dixon's 10th
At the very end of the month, Dixon turned 10. He's so old.

It took the three of us a long time to figure out where to eat for his birthday. Where do you go for a kid who's been everywhere, but still won't eat vegetables unless they are stuffed in ravioli or cooked down in some sort of sauce?

The answer, we decided, was the Ambassador. DRP loves Indian food - he would eat it every night if we let him.

Cooper and I hadn't been to the Ambassador for years, but it was just as stately as we remembered. Were we the youngest people in the place? Well, yes, but that doesn't bother me. Our service was lovely and my grilled shrimp was beautifully prepared.

And that was a wrap for September. So far in October, we've taken things slightly easier (though we did go to Clavel twice last week). I've even been cooking at home, occasionally. But with new places opening all the time - and our list of old places we haven't been still lurking - how easy can we take it?

Observations from Abroad

We have just started the second half of a 2-week trip to Ireland and Scotland - right now I'm in the Edinburgh airport, after a weekend in the city, about to head back to Athy, Ireland, which has been out home base.

I'm on my phone, which is not super conducive to blogging, but I did want to share a couple quick observations about food in these countries.

First, the whole Irish love potatoes thing...it's more real than I even imagined. Sides of chips or mashed potatoes come with everything. Even some dishes that already include potatoes.

That's why I'm sorry to say that to me, Scottish chips are better than Irish. They're somewhat skinnier and seem to have spent more time in the fryer. We've had some really good ones.

Speaking of Scotland, I am an unabashed fan of haggis - I'm such a scrapple girl that of course I love its Scottish cousin.

What I didn't expect in Scotland, though, was the best Indian food I've eaten. It makes sense - the Empire and all - but I was pleasantly surprised, anyway, to find that Mother India's, where we went on the recommendation of our AirBNB host, was outrageously good.

Finally, another big surprise: the Irish have figured out how to always - ALWAYS - serve food steaming hot. It's kind of fascinating.

More on all of this when I return!

Spring 2016 Recap

Now that Memorial Day has come and gone and everyone at my house is 100% over school (despite the fact that school itself is not actually over), it's time for a big, long recap of all the things I've neglected to write about over the past couple months.

So here it is: the parties and drinks and meals that made Spring 2016 fun (but that haven't made it onto the blog until now):


Way back in March, I helped my brother and sister throw a 70th birthday party for my dad. We ate oysters and Boston cream pie and drank a ginomrous bottle of French wine. We decorated my parents' screened in porch with old photos (my sister's idea) and about 10 million of those poms you have to manually fluff.

We also, at the last minute, thought it would be fun to have a photographer come to take some family photos. Rachel Rock came to the house and took some awesome pictures of all of us - and she was very fun while she did it. Most of the pictures below are hers:

Also back in March, Cooper and I went to Cellar Sessions, a wine class with Wit + Wisdom's sommelier Julie Dalton. She is so smart and good at her job.

The class was no joke - she walked us through how to blind taste wines like a sommelier. Walking into the class, we both thought we knew some things about wine - this was not the first tasting class we've taken. But it was definitely the most intense in terms of knowledge. As a result, Cooper's wine vocabulary and ability to pinpoint specific aromas and flavors has increased significantly. (I still mostly smell fruit and booze when I stick my nose in a glass...his palate continues to put mine to shame.)

In April, I was a judge at the Taste of Pikesville, which was hectic and fun and full of surprises, like an excellent bread pudding from FutureCare, pretty sushi from Wegmans and a smorgasboard of Uzbek specialties from the guys I love at Silk Road.

I also left with this gorgeous collection of chocolates from Raimondi's. They tasted even better than they looked.

After a couple years of not being able to make it for one reason or another, Cooper and Dixon and I finally made it to The Emporiyum, the big, roving food festival.

I spent the first few minutes feeling totally overwhelmed, but once I got acclimated, I loved every second of of the experience. Some of my favorite food people were there, like the crew from Clavel and Nick from The Local Oyster, and I had my first taste of an Ekiben steam bun. It totally lived up to the hype. And there was a lot of hype.

One sunny Saturday afternoon, Cooper and Dixon and I drove up to John Brown General and Butchery, which met all of my very high expectations. Not only is the place adorable, it's also filled with incredible meat, cheese, wine and other things I didn't even know I needed in my life, like a fistful of ramps (later grilled) and a plastic tub of creamy fresh ricotta.

One quiet Monday night, after a hellish day of writing, I had drinks with Charm City Cook at WC Harlan, followed by queso fundido (and more drinks) at Clavel. It was my first trip to WC Harlan, which was, as I expected, very cool and the drinks were thoughtful and creative and completely delicious.

The whole experience improved my day (and week) considerably. "Monday night drinks" sounds risky, but in this case, it was nothing but smart.

One good way to justify Sunday afternoon drinks and apps is to present it in class form. That's how I found myself drinking and eating my way through an afternoon at Bookmakers (again with Charm City Cook). CCC and behind-the-bar master Ryan Sparks teamed up for an Instagram class that genuinely helped me with my crappy picture-taking skills.

Also, it helped me enjoy my Sunday. Because, how couldn't I?

Baltimore's food scene has been exploding over the past couple years - and that's especially noticeable right in the middle of the city, near Hampden/Remington/Clipper Mill, where new restaurants and food-centric mixed use real estate projects are popping up every day.

I checked out one of those developments, Whitehall Mill, during a fun event organized by Baltimore magazine and CCC (she gets around). Whitehall Mill will include a pretty massive food hall and a restaurant, which is great  news for anyone who likes to eat.

At the end of April, I met college friends in New York and had brunch at Hudson Clearwater and drinks at Grand Banks (it's a bar on a sailboat!) and dinner at The Greenwich Project.

The weather was gorgeous, we drank a boatload of rose and prosecco, and it was so much fun. We hadn't all been together in twenty years, so the weekend could have, theoretically, been awkward. It wasn't. It was great.

Also, I want to give a special shoutout to the staff at The Greenwich Project.There was a seating mixup while we were there - something annoying but that could've been fixed with a single round of drinks. Instead, they bought all of our drinks and dessert - and encouraged us to keep ordering more. They went above and beyond to make sure we had a good time. So we did.

In mid-May, I went to Black-Eyed Susan Day, where we ran into Bowtie Bob, did not win any money, had our picture taken by an ESPN photographer, and were reminded that hats can seriously impede peripheral vision. Also, they make my head hot. But they're so cute!

Black-Eyed Susan Day, the day of races before Preakness, is billed as a ladies' day (though there are lots of guys there, too). Mostly, it's known as a more manageable, more grown-up Preakness for locals. There's still some great people-watching, but BESD does not involve the sort of infield antics that Preakness is known for. It's a good time!

Finally, we spent Memorial Day on Keuka Lake with Mike, Alicia and Maggie, watching Dixon learn to SUP while eating and drinking our faces off - including a trip to McGregor (my favorite Keuka winery) and two trips to The Olney Place, where Cider Creek's Cran-Mango Saison became my new favorite thing.

This isn't it, of course. There have been little girls' birthday parties and back porch dinners and a mother-son Oriole's game and two museum-heavy DC visits and a whole bunch of other fun things. It's been a great spring...and all signs are pointing to a summer that's just as eventful.

Closing Out 2015: Stuff I Loved at the End of the Year

As is often the case, I've got a list of posts-to-write that's a mile long. Over the past two months, especially, I've done a million fun things and eaten some great food and while some of it has made its way to Instagram or Facebook, I'm way behind on actual blogging. I managed to write about a couple fun nights...but I'm still way behind.

And that means a roundup post. Here's what else I've been up to - the good stuff - since November:

Wine Tasting at Tarara

 In mid-November, to celebrate my friend Mandy's 40th birthday, a small crew headed to north-central Virginia for a day of wine tasting. Her husband, Oliver, organized it and chauffered, and he did a bang-up job of both.

The best part of the day was the serious tasting at Tarara in Leesburg. Not only were the wines we tasted really nice, the setting is beautiful and the overall experience there is super thorough. The selection, which started with sparkling then made its way through whites and reds, ending with dessert wine, was paired with four diverse cheeses - and a lot of education. I've done a decent amount of wine tasting, but I still learned some things.

Thanksgiving Weekend

Cooper and I alternate families for Thanksgiving; this year, we were at my parents' house, and so were my brother and sister (and Cail and Clark).

Thanksgiving always - always - involves a round of mid-afternoon oysters. Mostly, we stick with Oysters Waskom, our fine-tuned family specialty. As a family, we are pretty locked into tradition. My mom made a new sweet potato recipe this year and there was very nearly a revolt. But as long as we have a couple dozen Waskoms available, we're also open to trying a new approach or two.

This year, my parents worked hard to replicate a dish they'd had in September, when they celebrated my mom's birthday with Erin and Clark at L'Auberge Chez Francois in Great Falls. The oysters - topped with bearnaise and grilled a little (but not too much) impressed them so much.

At home, they needed some tinkering. My mom made the bearnaise the day before Thanksgiving, so it would have time to solidify in the refrigerator, but even the next day, she worried that it was a little too thin. Plus, we grilled the first batch of oysters a little too long - they weren't overcooked, but the bearnaise melted and disappeared.

With adjusted cooking times for the second batch, though, we had it. (And by "we" I mean my dad. All I did was plate and eat.) They were awesome. And pretty:

The day after Thanksgiving, as is our tradition, the family, including both baby Virginia Catherine to 97 year old Nan, went to Petit Louis for lunch. It was, as always, excellent. I love the whole menu, but there is nothing like PL's pureed soups. I had a cream of cauliflower that was unreal. Just perfect.

40th Birthday by Clementine at Church and Company

A couple weeks after Thanksgiving, party season got serious Chez Pollard. Cooper turned 40 on December 12th and I followed ten days later, on the 22nd.

After much, much discussion, we decided to throw ourselves a party. (I'm not sure why it required so much discussion. That was obviously what we were always going to do.)

Instead of doing something at home, we rented out Church and Company, an insanely cool event space in an old church in Hampden. Alex, the guy who owns the space (and who rehabbed it himself) might be the nicest person in the world - and he has such a solid eye for design.

Since our party was just before Christmas, the space was all kinds of decked out with garlands and trees and candles. It was just gorgeous.

There was never any question about what we'd do for food - the whole reason we decided not to cook ourselves was that we wanted Clementine to cater. Unsurprisingly, everything from the pickled oysters to the charcuterie (heyyyy chicken liver pate) to the basil lime elixir was incredible. Plus, Alicia made us mint chocolate chip cupcakes and our friends got us a cake from Graul's - both of which were awesome.

It wasn't just Clementine's food that was great - it was the people, too. Especially Cristin, who realized we were wrong when we told her we didn't want to hire a bartender. She gracefully let us make that choice...then stepped in and tended bar at the last minute (with Alex's help). She was right, I was wrong, and she didn't even say, "I told you so."

Overall, the night was kind of ridiculous. On one hand, I felt silly throwing such an intense party just for our birthdays. Between the space, the catering and the guest list, which covered family and friends from all parts of our lives, it was like a small(ish) wedding. On the other...it was so great I didn't really care. It was a blast.

40th Birthday at McGarvey's...and More

But here's where things get really ridiculous. The Friday night party in Baltimore was just round one.

The party continued on Saturday, when I made my annual birthday trip to McGarvey's. I've been celebrating there since I turned 21...and party in Baltimore or no, I was not about to break that tradition. Instead, I upped the ante.

Most years, we just have lunch or brunch or drinks in the bar, wherever we happen to fall. This year, since it was a big one, I reserved the upstairs space from 4 to 6 p.m.

I'd never been up there before - it's only open for private parties - so even just walking up the steps was a total thrill. It's not a terribly big space - it holds about 30 people, standing - but it is comfortable and has a great view of Dock Street and of the back room in the bar itself.

Saturday's crowd was more Annapolis-oriented - my high school friends and family (including the ones who live in Virginia), plus Mike and Alicia from Baltimore and Stacy, who came down from New York just for the parties. Unfortunately, we were missing not only Bill and Kyle and Mary but also Cooper, who got sick at the end of the week. He powered through Friday night like a champ...but just couldn't do it on Saturday. Sad, but understandable.

Ultimately, that meant more oysters, crab balls and crab cakes for us. That's what we ate at McGarvey's (along with many, many Aviators, their house beer). Those are McG's strengths - and they did them well.

We were all also super impressed with the service. We had one young waitress, who hustled up and down the steps and kept drinks in everybody's hands for two straight hours. She was such a pro.


Once the upstairs party ended, we migrated downstairs for a couple more drinks and to figure out a plan of action. Our goal was to drink our way up Main Street, following the path of a long ago bar crawl that Bert and Rob and I did, and to still be standing strong, ending at Harry Browne's, at midnight, when Bert turned 41.

Spoiler alert: we made it.

But we knew, if that was going to happen, we needed sustenance. Bert scoped out the options for a group our size and we ended up upstairs at Middleton's, where everyone scarfed down burgers, crab cakes...and oyster shooters.

As my sister said, if it was good enough for Ben Franklin, it's good enough for me.

Next, we classed it up with Natty Bohs and a Bud Light tower at Acme, which was so, so, so crowded, even at 8:30. It was kind of weird, being there without anyone using a fake ID.

Note: that is Alicia.

After Acme, we made two more quick stops - Treaty of Paris, which was a bit of a snoozer, and Galway Bay, which was packed and super festive - before finally stumbling into Harry Browne's.

As a general rule, when I go out in Annapolis with my high school friends, that's where we end the night. It's such a nice bar, so it's always kind of funny to roll in there after watching people spill beer all over each other at Acme or wherever.

As soon as we walk in, we always start upgrading our drinks - and making a mess. I switched to wine and Alison ordered a martini, which she promptly spilled everywhere. Rasim ordered a pile of food and I ate an entire plate of calamari by myself. Hot.

Then, we went home (or back to the O'Callaghan Hotel, in my case) and slept it off. What a night.

Even More 40th Celebrating

What's funny (maybe?) is that wasn't even the end of it. The next morning, Mike, Alicia, Stacy and I had an awesome breakfast at Iron Rooster in Annapolis. Their homemade pop tarts really are no joke.

And then, on my actual birthday - which was a Tuesday - Dixon and Cooper and I had dinner at Grano Emporio in Hampden.

I had veal marsala and it was lovely. Cooper and I also split a carafe of Montepulciano and I remembered that I so love restaurants that still sell wine in carafes. They remind me of when I was a kid, going out to dinner with my parents.

And then, finally, the birthday celebrating came to an end.

Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve

But just a few days after my birthday, we were back on the party train with Christmas Eve dinner at our house (first time ever! Meat...obviously.) followed by Christmas brunch with Cooper's family and dinner at his parent's house (more meat...obviously).

On New Year's Eve, we had dinner at our house with Mike, Alicia, Kyle, Mary, George, Audrey and all the kids. Piper, George and Audrey's second oldest, came over early to help me set the kids' table, which made the whole day even better for me. She is only in second grade, but was so thoughtful about all of it.

We had Oysters Waskom, crab cakes from Conrad's, this ridiculously easy and delicious John Besh cauliflower puree thing that I make every year and a bunch of wine.

It was crazy and hectic and fun and such a good way to kick off 2016.

Speaking of 2016, I've already had a bunch of good meals. We loved brunch at Silver Queen and dinner at Smoke (more on those later) and we have a bunch of good dinners and parties scheduled for the next few weeks.

Ending strong and starting strong.

Recently Noted

Just a few recent observations and experiences:

Remembering

Last week, at the Fork and Cork dinner, we ended up sitting with the couple who owns Elk Run Vineyard in Mt. Airy. They were super nice, as were their friends, a couple who own an orchard in Carroll County and who pickle all sorts of things.

We got to talking, as people do when they're eating and drinking together, and Carol, from Elk Run, mentioned that Bryan Voltaggio had once done a dinner at the vineyard. He had, she said, the best tasting memory of anyone she'd ever met. Long after he tasted their wine, he could clearly recall it - and pair it.

I wish I had that. My memory-memory is pretty solid...but I just don't have a chef-level tasting memory. At all.

Recently Spotted

Slightly random, but there are two things I've noticed popping up all over the place lately: Tom Waits and toffee. I don't think they're connected. But who knows.

Turkish

We had dinner last night with my old friend Rasim - and he brought us gifts. Since the last time we
hung out with him, he'd been to visit "the motherland" - for him, that means Turkey.

Because he is an awesome friend, he brought us gifts. For Cooper and me, a bottle of Yeni Raki, a liqueur mixed with water and made from grape and anise seed. As far as I can tell, it's a close cousin of pastis and I am psyched to break into it. He told us about some of the restaurants he visited on this most recent trip, including one that serves nothing but this drink and fried fish. The food in Istanbul sounds amazing - he seriously sells it.

He also brought Dixon a box of chocolate covered cekme helva, which is a Middle Eastern candy with almost a papery texture. It's totally unlike anything in Dixon's bag of Halloween candy and, unsurprisingly, he loves it.

Candy and booze, both with international flair. I have been friends with Rasim for 35 years (!) for many reasons - including, obviously, his generosity and capacity for solid gift-giving.

Food Flashbacks

Back in the early days of the blog, I used to write occasional posts under the heading "food flashback." They were stories about particular meals or ingredients or other food memories from my pre-blog life.

At the time, I was still pretty new to cooking. I started learning, in earnest, around 2002. I cooked a lot in the three years before starting to blog - but I was really just starting out. I might have had food memories in my past, but I hadn't developed any cooking memories just yet.

Tonight, I was cooking one of my old standbys, sausage and pasta in a sauce of cream, wine and mustard. Even though I only make it in the fall and winter, it's a recipe I know by heart, so I don't have to concentrate so much on what I'm doing. My hands just do it.

Since I wasn't overly focused on a recipe, my mind started to wander, thinking about all the times I've made the dish in the past. It first appeared in the September 2003 issue of Food and Wine - twelve years ago!

I remembered how the first time I made it, right after the issue came out, the sauce seemed weird as I was cooking - broken - and when I mixed it with the pasta, I was worried that it would be boring, or there wouldn't be enough. (But it was.) Cooper and I had just moved in together back then and I was cooking for him and for our friend Sam.

I remembered that right after our friends Steve and Sheila moved to Buffalo, they called me and asked for the recipe. They'd been the kind of friends we saw four times a week, eating so many meals together around the oval table in the open kitchen of our old house, which Cooper bought before we were dating, and where he lived, before we moved in together, with Sam and Steve's brother Bryan.

I remembered the year that I made it one too many times, and we were so sick of it by March (which is usually when I retire the recipe).

At dinner tonight, Dixon mentioned that we hadn't had the pasta in a while; we explained that I only make it seasonally.

I liked,though, that he remembers it. It means that we're still making those memories. With pasta, and with so many other good things to eat.

Big Weekend Tales

All the photos above were swiped from Alicia's Facebook. Clockwise, from the top left: Cooper, Alicia and Alicia's cute bag at 13.5%; Kyle, Mary and me right after Kyle pranked Mike, also at 13.5%; Toasting Bill (with tequila shots) at Holy Frijoles; Alicia and I enjoying some serious beer at De Kleine Duivel.

Bill turned 42 last Sunday, which doesn't seem like all that exciting of a birthday. Oh, but it can be.

Our little local group has been super busy lately - no busier than usual, probably, but as all of our kids get older, it does feel like our lives get more hectic. It used to feel like we spent at least three nights a week basking in the glow of one another, just standing around somebody's kitchen island, drinking beers, eating pizza from Toss and making funny jokes. Now...well, we still do that. But it doesn't seem as frequent.

Last weekend, though, we just crushed it. Friday night, we ordered sushi at Kyle and Mary's, sat around, drank wine and made ourselves laugh so hard I am sure someone wet their pants.

Saturday, we organized some babysitting and went out to celebrate. First, Holy Frijoles, where Alicia's brother is a manager and the chili is just gorgeous. Then, De Kleine Duivel, where I was approximately 6,000% less cool than the average customer...but I loved my sour beer. (I asked for the least sour sour beer, as I know that will be my favorite, and the Liefmans was exactly what I wanted.) We ended the night sitting in the front window at 13.5%, where we drank some wine (Spanish) and some cocktails (gin-y) and I got to check out the scene in Defie Mois, the new late night basement space. I just rolled down for a quick second and we didn't eat, but it was cool. Also, Kyle tied Mike's shoelaces together while we were all sitting at the table. Apparently that is a joke that transcends age.

Finally, on Sunday, everybody came over to our house for meatball sandwiches (with very nice meatballs from Ceriello...in part because I didn't know that Mastellone's closes at 2 p.m. and we arrived at 2:06!). They were delicious - but not as delicious as the pretzel and ice cream cake Missy made for Bill. It was his actual birthday on Sunday and I feel confident saying that it was a good one. He watched his kids play soccer then ate meatballs and ice cream cake, which is totally his favorite, then closed out the night with red wine and a fire on our patio. Gorgeous, all around. The night, the fire and the whole weekend. We get so busy...but we do have a good time.

Hope Springing Eternal

A couple years after moving into our house, we looked out the window above our kitchen sink and realized that, lo and behold, we had a fig tree! It was tucked in the side yard which, at the time, was a big, overgrown mess. I'm not sure the people who lived here before us ever even ventured over there.

Once we realized it was there, we also realized just how many figs one tree can generate. A lot. A lot of figs. All of which ripen within about two weeks.

Then, two years ago, during that first awful winter, the tree died. We were sad and we thought it was gone forever. But no! The next spring, from the middle of the dead branches, new green shoots sprung up. We were thrilled...but we didn't get any actual figs. The tree had some green fruit, but nothing ever ripened.

Last winter rolled around and the tree died again. This time, we thought it was truly over for good. But, once again in the spring, a new tree grew, quickly overtaking the dead branches of the year before.

The tree, which usually produced fruit in late September, once again had lots of little green figs. But given last year's experience, I had low expectations. So imagine my surprise yesterday, when I went out to the tree to replace the old, broken cafe lights with new ones that work, and I discovered a handful of pretty, purple, perfectly ripe figs!

It was just a couple - and all of them came from the sunniest side of the tree. Who knows if any of the rest will ripen (probably not, since this weekend was also our first frost). But what a good reminder that every year, nature refreshes itself, and that hope springs eternal.

This (Past) Week: DRP Turns Nine

It's been a big week at our house. A big, long, exhausting week full of celebrating Dixon turning nine. Nine! Those years have flown by.

His actual birthday was on Tuesday. At his request, we headed down to Fells to have dinner at Papi's Tacos. It's his favorite queso in the city. It was raining, but Papi's little back patio is covered, so we could sit out there anyway. It was kind of a steamy hotbox, but none of us really minded. The queso and tacos and - for me - boozy jalapeno limeade made it easy to forget about the humidity.

Wednesday and Thursday were standard-busy with work and work dinners - and birthday party prep. Dixon's party was on Friday afternoon and the theme this year was Sharks and Zombies. He didn't want to have any set games, so instead we (I) created two photo booth type areas - one shark-related and one zombie, related. 

I found a lot of pretty sweet zombie and shark attack accessories - and I was especially pleased with the blood spattered shower curtain I got from Amazon. Seven dollars seriously well spent.

For the sixth year in a row, Dixon and Alicia collaborated on his birthday cake. This year, unfortunately, I made the wrong size cake, so the decorations were a little oversized. But they were still pretty pleased with their work.

What the picture can't show: how insanely good Alicia's buttercream is.

We have had Dixon's parties at our house every year since he was born. There is, frequently, a chance of rain during the party. But the weather always comes through for us, so the kids can run around the yard. 

Always, that is, until this year. Instead, we had a couple dozen nearly-tween boys wreaking havoc on our basement while they beat each other with Nerf weapons. It was...loud. Fortunately, in the end, no one required stitches or a trip to the hospital or anything. 

Still, I have learned my lesson. That was the last year for that kind of party. Dixon agrees. Cooper really agrees.

When they had cake to focus on, though, they almost look angelic.

And then the night ended.

Just kidding. I really didn't close it out with wine coolers. I closed it out with red wine. But Bill brought me this awesome four-pack of Black Cherry Fizz as a "good luck with the party" gift. He's a good friend like that. I will be saving these for a rainy day.

So now Dixon is nine - and my basement is still a wreck. But he's happy. (Until tomorrow, when I make him start writing his thank you notes.)