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Travel & Restaurant Reviews

Need to find out what makes a city or culture tick?  Blindly place your finger on a map and go to the nearest dive bar or eatery. Eating out can be an adventure. Enjoying up and coming restaurants is fun, but I also love discovering food off the beaten path.

Popular posts from this blog

Grilled Asparagus Salad with Fried Quail Eggs

The Baltimore Farmer’s Market was beaming with pride as the stalls opened for the season on Sunday morning, and it has good reason to be prideful. It was recently voted #1 Farmer’s Market in the nation by Country Living.   Since it was 7:00 am after a long night out I was appropriately armed with coffee, sun glasses, and hippy-ass reusable tote bags. Asparagus has been in the forefront of my thoughts since eating a memorably crisp asparagus salad at Woodberry Kitchen . When I saw a pile of garden-fresh spears I couldn’t resist getting a few bundles for the week as well as my fair share of blue kale, foraged mushrooms, spinach, organic quail eggs, ramps, and a multitude of other goodies.   It is going to be a wonderfully food-filled week. Grilled Asparagus Salad with Fried Quail Eggs utilizes many of the seasonal ingredients I scored at the market. It’s only lightly seasoned to give the ingredients the stage. Fresh tarragon is laced throughout and the yolk from the gent...
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A Recipe to Fall For

Some recipes evoke an absolute carnal lust in me that transcends reasoning. My mouth waters frenziedly, my eyes get big, and my smile widens with the anticipation of the feast. These lust inducing meals usually involve bacon, cheese and pasta covered in luscious red sauce. I am fairly certain my lineage does not contain a trace of Italian, but my favorite foods are profoundly Italian-American like these Meatballs in Bacon Sauce by Chef Beau MacMillan.   This is not my recipe; however, I felt it deserved a special place on my blog after I dotingly made it for extended family on a recent ski trip to Whistler, Canada. The smell of the sauce simmering for hours, the gentle roasting of the simple meatballs and the absolute joy on the faces of everyone who ate it reminds me what Valentine’s Day is all about: love and family. If you make this for someone special tonight they will fall in love with you on the spot.  That is a fact. Happy Valentine’s Day! Sp...
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Warm Zucchini Thread Salad

I am a sucker for fun knife cuts. If a recipe involves playing with knives and slicing vegetables, count me in. This isn’t to say I am entirely comfortable with my skills although I have been taught my entire life how to clean, sharpen and respect a chef’s knife (thanks, Daddy). It has more to do with the feeling I get when I focus on a repetitive creative undertaking. When I was a child my parents were folk artists who worked diligently to pump out their hand crafted art like machines. My mother used to sit behind this tall wooden work bench listening to talk radio while she painted hundreds of beautiful little cottages, pretty letters, animals, and trees. Sometimes, depending on the holiday, every surface would be covered with tiny hand painted Santas, bunnies or turkeys. I learned at a young age how to meticulously paint small wooden objects, and made a game to see how many I could paint in an hour. It was tedious, consistent, and amusing work much like chopping vegetables. These d...
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