Food and Drink (All)

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,...

Article - Food and Drink; by C.T. Schwink - 8/11/11

Wine Country On the Chesapeake

Napa, Sonoma ... and now North Beach

You don’t have to travel to California, nor even to Virginia, to get to Wine Country. Maryland is fast making up for lost time as a grape-growing, wine-making region. “There are 50 wineries in the state, and their production is booming,” said Regina McCarthy, Maryland Wineries’ marketing coordinator. In Calvert County, old tobacco soils are proving the Patuxent Wine Trail is ripe for the picking. Eat Drink Go...

Article - Food and Drink; by C.T. Schwink - 8/4/11

Look for the Green Plate

New logo directs you to what’s local on Annapolis menus

If you think you’re eating at a farmers market when enjoying a dish at an Annapolis restaurant like b.b. Bistro or Level because of the freshness of the food, you’d be close. These restaurants and others are spearheading the city’s Green Plate Program, featuring ingredients grown within 300 miles. These 50 percent-plus delectables will be noted on the menu with a Green Plate icon plus the names of the farm of origin. Green Plates “...

Article - Cooking; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 7/28/11

If You Can’t Stand the Heat ...

Follow these local chefs out of the kitchen

Wilting weather is not dampening the prodigal enthusiasm of vine, branch and stalk. Bursting into ripeness are apples, beans, cukes, eggplants, figs, grapes, honeydews, interesting squash, jalapenos, kohlrabi, limas, melons, nectarines, onions, peaches, root vegetables, sweet corn, tomato, varieties of hot and sweet peppers, watermelons, yams and sweet potatoes, zucchini. They’ll never taste better than they do now, when their abundance puts them at...

Article - Food and Drink; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 5/5/11

10 Reasons to Make it a Date

The Parole Rotary Foundation’s inaugural Naptown barBAYq contest and festival is sure to wet your appetite

Anticipation is such an alluring spice that I can smell it already. By the very early hours of Saturday, May 14, you’ll smell it too. The smokey scent of the Parole Rotary Foundation’s inaugural Naptown barBAYq contest and festival will curl into Arnold, Edgewater, Crownsville, beckoning you to the grounds of the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. Here’s why you — and all you others beyond the reach of that...

Article - Food and Drink; by Bay Weekly staff - 11/11/10

The Sides Make the Feast

Chesapeake Country Chefs share their recipes for signature Thanksgiving side dishes — and more

There’s going to be turkey, you can bet on it, writes Richard Whelan, general manager at Pirates Cove. Whether you’re going to a friend’s or relative’s house, or, maybe they are all coming to your house, chances are there is going to be a big fat roasted turkey in your future come Thanksgiving. That’s why we call it Turkey Day. Maybe even a ham. A good, salty, country ham if you’re lucky. But what makes the difference between grandmom’s house, your best...

Article - Food and Drink; by Margaret Tearman - 11/11/10

Save the Turkey: Stuff the Ham

South of the Mason-Dixon line, ham rules the Thanksgiving feast

Full disclosure: I’m not a fan of green eggs — or ham. In spite of Sam’s urgings, I say ham is a good chunk of pork wasted, no matter if it’s smoked, spiced, spiraled or, heaven forbid, stuffed. Stuffing belongs in turkeys. Maybe a pork chop. But never a ham. Try it? No way, I sniffed. Even after more than two decades living in Calvert County, I still turned my nose at the locally celebrated gastronomical confusion known as Southern Maryland stuffed ham. I never...

Article - Food and Drink; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 7/22/10

Cooking Cool

Maryland chefs show you how to keep your cool when the mercury bubbles

It’s too hot to cook. Yet the heat that’s stewing us is sugaring the peach, sweetening the corn, swelling the crab.That’s summer’s dilemma. The heat that cooks fruits and vegetables — even Maryland seafood — to perfection is the same heat that’s stewing you. Nobody knows this better than the chefs whose joy and job torture them with the best raw materials when kitchens are hellishly hot. Except perhaps the farmers, condemned to reap in July what they...