two meals in Baltimore

So here's the truth:  for the first few days in Baltimore, my dining was decidedly meh or worse.  Sorry.  Conferences don't always afford opportunities to dine well.  Often it's finger foods or what is convenient or group dinners where you have to dine according to the lowest common denominator.  I am a snob, I know.

But I did have a couple of noteworthy meals to blog about.  So let's enjoy them together.

Sunday night found me, with Ed and Andrew,

heading away from the librarians to Woodberry Kitchen. 

My gosh, it's been ages.  A place I've liked every time I've gone.  James Beard Award for the chef as well.  It boded well for a nice dinner.  The place has changed, for sure.  The pandemic saw it downsizing, turning its larger dining room into an event space and turning the bar into the tavern, a smaller dining space.  But it was cozy on a cold night.  And the menu, while perhaps simpler (I can't recall, but it seemed that way), had a lot of great choices.  I ordered a negroni (and then a glass of wine with dinner), and we shared the chef's board. 

Loved the lightly pickled carrots, and the smoked trout rillettes was a delight with the seed crackers.  A good choice to share.  For my meal, the oyster pie (and a side of turnips that were delicious). 

And that was it.  That's what came out on the plate.  It was all that was needed.  Really perfect - a beautiful crust, a terrific filling.  Ed had the mushroom version and liked it.  After all that, Andrew and I shared dessert, and quick negotiations led to a baked Alaska that was flambeed at the table. 

Honestly?  Visually the star of the evening, and it gave the oyster pie a run for the money.  Woodberry may have a menu of simply items, but according to what we had, they were executing those flawlessly.  So happy I made it back there.

And speaking of happy to make it back:  Charleston.  What started out as a dinner for me, Sara, and her husband Peter eventually grew to encompass most of the board, and from three we grew to eleven.  But that's the thing about Charleston.  I love the food, but from the first time I went there to now, the service has always impressed.  I arrived before everyone else, and I talked with the maitre d' (also named Peter) about the arrangements for the evening.  They had things in hand, and I left it to them, and they delivered.  Before the others arrived, I wandered into the bar,

chatted with the bartender, and ordered a Last Word.  Eventually all of us were there, and we had a fine meal.  Artichoke soup for me to start with,

then octopus (ah, that bean puree underneath),

then the duck (give me more of those onions!),

then a passion fruit creme brulee. 

I sat in the middle of the big group and had conversation all about the table.  I hope everyone else enjoyed it, but no matter.  I knew how the restaurant accommodated us on short notice, and they did a marvelous job of it.

I will give an honorable mention to lunch on the Sunday with a couple of colleagues.  The restaurant felt like a bit of a tourist place in the Baltimore inner harbour, but I loved that they had a version of loco moco on the menu. 

Spam!  It's good.  The sauce eventually overwhelmed the dish, but it was tasty enough, and for that I was grateful.

taking down the tree

Early January is a sad time of year (aside from a very big day next week, that is). Christmas is over, the gifts have been given, our dietary habits are more moderate, and I cannot play carols again until October. And as is our custom, the first weekend after New Year's Day we take down the tree. So it is tonight. It kills me a little inside.

Oh, sure, it was a sunny and lovely day out. A decent swim. Some tidying around the house. The fragrance of the chicken stock I spent the afternoon making in the kitchen. We're re-claiming our living room! Still, it's a melancholy evening in a way, and here I sit, deliberately drawing it out by blogging it.

Setting up the tree was odd and different this year. We set aside a the first Sunday in December (as opposed to American Thanksgiving weekend) to do the tree ourselves. No one helping. I can't even recall what I cooked or if we might have ordered in. One big tree in the corner, and a small feather tree on the dining table.

A little closer to Christmas we had those who might have been our recruits over for a nice meal: some curry turkey pot pies, biscotti, a steamed pumpkin pudding.
No work on the tree, just enjoying it and the other bits of holiday decor.


A fine night. There were too few of those this past Christmas.

And now it comes down. We started prepping the apartment before dinner, and then Conrad went to get the boxes from storage. A dinner of a chicken tortilla soup in us,
and now we're at it. I refuse to play Christmas music, however. Better to get this done and get back to the normalcy of the rest of the winter in the apartment.

I sound bitter, I think. Sorry for that. I do love Christmas, it's well known. Ah well. 9 months until the music comes creeping back into my playlists, and for sure, I'll be on the lookout for good gifts well before then.

concert night

Conrad
and I have been making more of an effort lately to actually take advantage of living in a big city. We get complacent, we know. We like holing up at home with a nice bit of wine and our lake/urban views from the balcony. Oh yes, pity us.

But we have been making efforts. I just renewed my membership to the Art Institute, and we make it there at least a few times a year now. I've been to a couple of concerts, big and small, this year and dragged Conrad to one. We've tried restaurants outside of our neighbourhood (with Nightwood being the most noteworthy). And last night, after too many years since our last go-round, we headed on down to Grant Park with a picnic in tow, taking in a concert and dining on the lawn on a summer evening.

We really need to do that more often.

First off, let me not hide my light under a bushel. I made some good food for us, specifically a torta rustica.
We'll be enjoying that big pie for days, but it really is an excellent dish. Swap out the chicken breast slices in it for some sort of roasted vegetable and you can have a delightfully satisfying vegetarian dish. We opted for the chicken, however. I had lightly cooked some asparagus, chilled it, and then dressed it with a simple vinaigrette when I plated it. We had cherries, chocolate, and nuts to snack on. Fizzy water. Wine. Ah, Felton Road - a snotty person running your wine room when we visited, but delicious wine, undeniably.

The music? I can't comment too intelligently on it. I rather liked the opening piece, a Mexican composition and a Mexican conductor. The rest? It was lovely background as I began re-reading The Rebel Angels (every few years I return to The Cornish Trilogy and The Deptford Trilogy). The skies darkened, and the skyline lit up.



It was a lovely evening, and we even caught a cab home without difficulty! As Conrad and I remarked to each other, we've had a very urban weekend, and one that we've enjoyed immensely!

restaurant standby: torta rustica

This is one of those rare times when I really am delighted with what I have cooked.

I have a number of recipes in my repertoire that come to me thanks to my years of cooking at a restaurant in my hometown. Oh, people scoffed some back then, wondered why I was wasting my life there. Nope, I grew up at Don Diego's, and the skills I took from it are immensely helpful in life. Show me groceries and I will make you dinner.

TK was visiting on Saturday night. I can't rave enough about how incredible the man is and how much Conrad and I enjoyed hosting him for an all-too-short period of time. Part of me, though, was caught up in menu planning and cooking. Not a surprise. Summer time, good to sit outside (well, we did for pre-dinner snacks before rain drove us in),

something that can be eaten at room temperature if needed. Torta rustica.



I love this pie so much. I love it more the next day and the day after when it has really set up nicely. A layered pie of a spinach/bread crumb/onion/cheese mixture, roasted peppers, chicken breast, and more cheese. So good. Welcome slivers on Sunday, and again for lunch on Monday (and dinner!). I'll eat it a bit further into the week yet, and because I have it so rarely, it will be welcome.

I tossed together a very simple salad - TK was on the phone with Michael while I puttered in the kitchen, and as he wandered near I invited him to breathe in the scent of the white truffle oil. Just those two things on our plates, then, and a leisurely hour-long stroll after dinner for the three of us.


The bunny? Don't ask.

Readers of this blog will know I'm a harsh critic of my own food. Actually, you may not know: I tend not to say too much negative on here, but it's seldom that I wax on effusively about my love for what I cooked. Saturday dinner, though? YUM!

shepherd's pie

It's been a few evenings (and even a bunch of this weekend) now with work to be done, brought home from the Library, and not much opportunity to do fun stuff like cook nicely or blog. Snivel snivel moan moan. Poor me.

So, permit me to get back on track now that I've cleared a bunch of work off my plate for the day (though back at it tomorrow morning). Back we go to Tuesday night. I should have made cookies for Wednesday at work, but I was not in a baking mood. I was in the mood for comforting food, made just for me while Conrad was in Honolulu.

So, Coupling, Season 3 streaming on the laptop, I started to work. Ground lamb, leeks, some seasoning. That went in the bottom of each of four ramekins. Atop that went a puree of parsnips and more leek. Potatoes are not often found in our house, and honestly, I think that a potato topping is often bland. Ramekins ready, I popped them into the oven on a baking sheet. Let them go for a while. Pulled them out and put a dollop of butter and a sprinkling of coarse salt on each. This made for a nicely golden crust on each. They bubbled up their juices, and I pulled them out.



Alongside? Simply some Brussels sprouts. A glass of wine. I should have let the pie cool a little - I dug in greedily and burnt the roof of my mouth. Piggish of me. Still, it did make for a cozy dinner to enjoy by myself.

pot pies

Last week I tossed some leftover boneless turkey breast and some ham with veggies (onions, parsnip, spinach, I can't recall what else) and some quick-made gravy, filled some ramekins, topped it with a (frankly tough) shortcrust pastry, and baked up pot pies.

Conrad? Loved them. So much so that he asked to have some more for dinner tonight. You know, we just spent a weekend enjoying time with Conrad's family (and if you haven't checked out the walnut cookies we made with Karen, do so - I'm keen to try making them without the molds - so tasty!), so I didn't have cooked roast leftover for chopping into pies. No matter. My handsome man requests it, and I make it so.

I'll admit, I preferred the meat from last week. That said, I preferred the veggies from tonight. I kept the spinach and onions, but went with carrots and green and red pepper. For meat it was quickly poached chicken leg meat and andouille sausage.

The end result was certainly fragrant, though the spice of the andouille came through a little strongly. For the crust I got my gay on and made some little maple leaves from a pasta morbida dough recipe I rather like. It's a forgiving dough: if I can't achieve the flakiness that CG2 manages, then I may as well have something a child can work with.

A filling dinner in the end. We stopped at the grocery in Kohler on the way back and found - ah, happy day! - the Mark West Pinot Noir on sale. A case came home with us and a bottle is open on the table right now. Comfort food, a swim, some red wine. A good cap to a weekend filled with a lot of activity.

holiday dinner with the CGs

Two CGs last night, Courtney and her sister Chelsea. CG, Conrad, and I usually do a big pre-Christmas splurge dinner, cashing in opentable.com points to do so. This year we changed the routine because we knew Chelsea would be up from Bloomington. A dinner out would have been fine, of course, but how much nicer for Chelsea to see our home, and for all of us to have a leisurely evening around our dining table.

Our second little dinner party of the week, in fact. I didn't blog dinner with Brian and Giuseppe the other night, though that, too, was a very good time. We started similarly last night with some cheeses, olives, almonds, and crackers. Because of the holiday mood, though, we opened a bottle of Veuve Clicquot Laura and Michael had given us and toasted the Christmas season with a little verve.

Salads were up first: romaine salads with a pumpkin seed dressing. A bottle of Villa Maria unoaked Chardonnay accompanied that.

I had mulled various roasted meat and stew ideas for last night, but in the end I went with fish. Halibut with chermoula, some cauliflower puree, a bit of steamed red pepper and Brussels sprouts.



The fish baked up well, and I was pleased with it. CG had brought over a bottle of Scheid claret she'd bought on a visit to that winery earlier this year, and it went very well with the meaty fish. I liked the wine a great deal, and I look forward to enjoying the Pinot Noir, from the same winery, that she gave to Conrad.

The whole evening was just such a terrific time - so much for us to chat about and laugh over. We pulled crackers and wore the crowns from inside. Between the salad and the fish we opened our gifts and were grateful for those.

Chelsea made a pie for our dessert. Her crust puts almost any other one I've ever had to shame. Wow. My own pastry skills are meager at best, and I'd hesitate to serve her any of my perfunctory, too-chewy results. Her apple pie capped the evening magnificently. I warmed it gently in the oven, she sliced it up and plated it,
and I scooped up some cinnamon ice cream (a simple trick - soften store bought vanilla, mix in a very generous amount of cinnamon, refreeze) onto each plate. We sipped a bit of Quails Gate late harvest Optima, then made our way back to the comfy chairs to relax until CG's yawns told us it was time for the evening to end.

After all the hectic times in recent weeks, the contentment the season brings me yearly is sinking in. Ahhhhhh...