Food and Drink (All)

Article - Food and Drink; by - 1/31/13

Chesapeake Eats

A select guide to dining on the Bay

Annapolis Restaurant Week Come for … Annapolis Restaurant week returns, February 25 through March 3, for its fifth year, with 39 participating restaurants. Prices remain the same as last year: $15.95 for breakfast and lunch; $32.95 for dinner. The two-course breakfasts and lunches and three-course dinners make the lingering days of February the perfect time to visit favorite restaurants or try something new. Acme Bar & Grill Azure Buddy’s Crab & Ribs...

Article - Food and Drink; by Margaret Jane O’Brien - 1/17/13

Winter’s Wines

In the winery and the vineyard, January races into a new cycle

It is wintertime for North American vineyards. Vines are quiescent, tasting rooms less crowded. Vintners, like writers, are presumed to be tucked indoors somewhere with a glass of wine in hand, eyes searching skyward, contemplating their notes and testing their palates. Barrel A: nice cherry, a bit of rose, acidity. Viognier: lean with definite jasmine and soft apricot, orange. Montepulciano: earthy — even smoky! — and better than 2011. The reverie is tempting....

Article - Food and Drink; by Jane Margaret O’Brien - 11/15/12

Increase the Blessings of a Good Table

Pour Maryland wine at your Thanksgiving feast

The traditional American Thanksgiving menu reads like a compendium of a Maryland farmers’ market: potatoes, corn, squash, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, apples and turkey. The high-bush cranberry also grows here, and if you want to make your own cranberry sauce, the sour little berries can likely be harvested right from a neighbor’s ornamental garden. For my mother, who grew up on a South Dakota farm, perfecting Thanksgiving Dinner in Maryland meant adding some...

Article - Food and Drink; by Margaret Jane O’Brien - 10/25/12

Ripening on the Vine

From my vineyard, I can see the thriving growth of Maryland wine

Late this summer, my son and I finished the fifth harvest from our vineyards in Southern Maryland. At the same time, Slack Wine and Vineyards also finished our second showing at the Maryland Wine Festival in Westminster, along with 39 other licensed Maryland wineries. Both events were deemed great successes. The 2012 grape harvest ranks as our favorite harvest to date, due to the extraordinary dry growing conditions and the lack of hurricanes. Last year’s Hurricane...

Article - Food and Drink; by J. Alex Knoll - 5/3/12

Where There's Smoke ...

Naptown barBAYq returns with good tastes for good works

Come May 4, the air will be heavy with the smell of charcoal, smoke and slow-cooked meats as dozens of hard-core barbecue aficionados fire up their grills at the second annual Naptown barBAYq contest and music festival. Hosted by the Parole Rotary Foundation, this year’s event kicks off Friday afternoon at the Anne Arundel County Fairgrounds and continues all day Saturday, culminating in the crowning of the Kansas City Barbecue Society Grand Champion. ...

Article - Food and Drink; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 4/5/12

The Prize Is in the Eating

You may think of the snakehead as an invading monster, but Chef Chad Wells urges you to embrace it as a delicacy

The best prize you can win for catching a snakehead is the fish itself. That’s Chef Chad Wells’ take on Maryland Department of Natural Resources’ much-ballyhooed snakehead fishing competition, opening a second season as warmer waters bring the toothy invasive into catching range. Wells, chef at Alewife in Baltimore, is an avid snakehead fisherman, which is how he came to be Maryland’s first chef to serve the fish commercially. ...

Article - Food and Drink; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 3/15/12

Erin Go Eat

In Irish outposts, St. Patrick’s Day means more than green beer

Forty million Americans — about 13 percent of us — trace our roots to Ireland. But on St. Patrick’s Day, everybody’s Irish. We dress up like leprechauns, feast on corn beef and cabbage and drink beer green. Green beer? How Irish is that? “We don’t do green beer in Ireland,” says Dublin-born Colm Coyne, general manager of the Irish Channel in Crofton. “You’ll only find that in a...

Article - Cooking; by Sandra Olivetti Martin and Margaret Tearman - 11/17/11

Diggin' In

Against Thanksgiving’s traditional main course, it’s the sides that add variety to the table

Your Thanksgiving feast is planned to perfection. Well, almost. If you’re still looking for last-minute inspiration, we offer three dishes that capitalize on the season’s local bounty to crown your Thanksgiving menu and give all at your table reason for thanks. Sprout-Stuffed Pumpkin Here’s a vegetable side dish...

Article - Cooking; by Bay Weekly staff - 11/17/11

Fixing the Bird

Five ways to make sure the season’s favored fowl is full of flavor

Most of us will probably cook turkey for Thanksgiving; America’s national feast day is no time to scoff at custom. Some among us have tried; but we’re back among the faithful. That’s because the season’s favored fowl need not be dull. We have plenty of choices, both in buying and cooking our bird. You won’t be able to drop into your neighbor’s farm to buy a local bird, we’re sorry to report. Except in Amish...

Article - Cooking; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 9/1/11

What’s Cooking Locally

This month’s recipe from the 2011 Maryland Buy Local Cookbook

September 12’s full moon, a week after Labor Day, will bring another harvest of soft-shelled crabs. Likely you won’t have to wait that long, for some shedding occurs under all the phases of the moon. For summer’s swansong recipe, we’ve chosen the Lily Pad Café’s Soft-Shell Crab Salad with Summer Squash, Heirloom Tomatoes and Roasted Garlic Tarragon Dressing from the 2011 Maryland Buy Local Cookbook. Soft-Shell Crab Salad with Summer Squash,...