Actually, I'm not sure you can give locavorism a bad name because it already has a bad name. However, the locavores I know are reasonable folks, who feel if you crave pineapple, buy a pineapple; but if spinach is in season, buy it from your local farmer rather than a California conglomerate.
Then a story like this comes along: ...
Every Friday I get a nagging little e-mail from Editor Tim entitled "It's promo time." This reminds me I haven't come up with a Top Ten Tuesday topic yet. (I shouldn't complain. I like it whenever the blog gets promoted in the paper.)
Anyway, I'm not inspired this week so I'm open to suggestions, but someone wrote to me recently asking me for restaurants open Monday. There are a surprising number, she said, that aren't.
I might do Monday restaurants on Tuesday if the list is of interest to you. To narrow it down a bit, they would have to be a certain type: not a special occasion place but an after-work kind of restaurant.
What do you think? And don't just say too boring; come up with another suggestion. Owl Meat, you may only post under this entry before midnight. ...
I know we've discussed it before, but there is definitely a trend happening here. Restaurant bathrooms are better or at least more interesting than they used to be. I know this because I never noticed restaurant bathrooms except the time the hot water handle came off in my hand in the Roy's ladies room a month after the place opened. ...
A horrible development has just -- er -- developed in our Write Mike campaign to get film critic Mike Sragow to give us a review of "Attack of the Crab Monsters" for Crab Week. No, I'm not talking about my daughter's traitorous comment appointing herself captain of Team Sragow AND promising T-shirts. (This close to Mother's Day, too.) That's a separate issue.
Sragow, who has so far gotten a grand total of five e-mails (and I believe one of them was from Midnight Sun Sam, which I'm not sure counts), told Editor Tim about the campaign and the review, and now Editor Tim wants him to write a column about "Attack" and review it for next week. ...
Continue reading "A devastating development in the crab campaign" »
Here's a novel Mother's Day idea. Don't Know Tavern is serving brunch and dinner on Mother's Day, and moms eat free. That is, of course, if someone else buys a brunch item or entree. I'm assuming it will have to be of equal or lesser value, but I haven't heard back from owner Jason Zink yet about that and my other question: What kind of ID do you have to have?
If any other restaurant owners or PR people read this and want a little publicity for their Mother's Day specials, just post below.
(Photo courtesy of Jessica Novak)
My daughter, Gailor, asked me what I was doing Sunday morning, and I told her I already had an event scheduled.
It's my own fault; I forgot it was Mother's Day. Somehow it's not a holiday I can take seriously.
Also I don't see how it morphed into a holiday where you take your mother out to brunch; this is a later development. I gave my mother cards and flowers, and little gifts, but food was never part of the equation.
Anyway, Gailor had decided that the place to take me on Mother's Day was Brightons, the Intercontinental Harbor Court Hotel's pretty dining room. ...
OK, boys and girls, one of the highlights of our Crab Week is threatened, and only you can do something about it.
As you may remember, I had high hopes of getting The Sun's film critic, Michael Sragow, to review that classic film "Attack of the Crab Monsters" for us.
Mike is a gentleman, so he didn't laugh in my face when I suggested it. However, he has been dragging his feet a bit. Not quite saying no, but not promising anything either.
Now I've made the ultimate sacrifice: I've put "Attack" at the top of my Netflix queue, and when it arrives I'm going to hand it to him. He won't be able to say he can't get hold of it.
But I'm worried that he won't watch it, and meanwhile I won't be getting any more movies until he does. What I need you to do is e-mail Mike and tell him how much you really, really want to read his review of "Attack of the Crab Monsters." Ask him to discuss it as a cult favorite, as an iconic film dealing with some of the important issues of its day, as a cultural artifact that has many parallels to today's perilous times. Also point out there are semi-naked girls in it.
Mike's e-mail is michael.sragow@baltsun.com.
Maybe you better not tell him I sent you.
Off topic, but are there any places I shouldn't miss while I'm visiting Rehoboth Beach next weekend?
I'm glad you asked, Stacy. Rehoboth is one of my favorite restaurant towns in this area, by which I mean a reasonable drive away. Unfortunately I haven't been there in a couple of years, so my info is almost certainly outdated; but this will at least get you started. I'm hoping readers will tell us where I've gone wrong. ...
Multimedia Editor and Resident Cheeseburger and Wing Expert John Lindner has sent me a Shallow Thought that's a bit shorter than usual. That's because he's been a busy man making videos to go with the filling station fare story he's writing for the food editor, not me. (I'm not bitter, oh no.) He told me it was his wife's birthday this weekend, and she got to spend it dining at WaWa, the Bel Air Chevron, and, of course, the ever popular Royal Farms, to name a few highlights.
I asked what he did to make up for that, buy her diamond earrings? Something about as expensive, he told me: a DeWalt DW920 heavy duty cordless electric screwdriver/drill with a FireStorm bit accessory pack. This is not a joke.
As an added bonus, he attached an Arlen Ness chrome console plate to her 1997 Harley Davidson Road King.
"Sort of jewelry for her motorcycle," is how John described it.
Bonnie, you are one lucky woman.
Anyway, here's John's Shallow Thought: ...
I got this e-mail from Laura today:
Lynn sent me the following e-mail on a subject I know nothing about, but would like to learn more: background music in restaurants. I'm sort of on the fence about the whole thing. If it's a really serious restaurant, it always strikes me as odd to have any music playing, I'm not sure why.
If it's a really loud restaurant anyway, background music just makes everyone talk louder to be heard over it, and you can't hear it anyway.
But if it's the right music for the right restaurant, it's great.
Here's her e-mail: ...
This topic reminds me of how I met Marty Katz, the local editor for the Zagat Survey. I was doing a story on Tim and Nina Zagat, who were here promoting their restaurant guide. Marty told me he had interviewed for the job several years ago by taking the Zagats to Charleston, the Greek restaurant Samos, and Kelly's for steamed crabs.
I met them at Cafe Hon in Hampden for breakfast, then we rode in a town car to Faidley's for a mid-morning snack, and I abandoned them at Iggies, where they were having a press lunch.
All those restaurants, clearly, are good places to take tourists, although Cafe Hon is starting to sell so much Hon stuff it's beginning to feel a little bit like a tourist trap.
For the purpose of this exercise, I'm going to assume your friends are visiting for a week. That gives us plenty of time for day trips to Annapolis and Ellicott City: ...
Continue reading "Top Ten Places to Take Tourists (That Aren't Tourist Traps)" »
Someone awhile back complained in a comment about my using the "continue reading" function so often with my posts instead of just writing one long entry that appears in toto on the main page, as many bloggers do. I answered him briefly under his comment, but I think it deserves more explanation. ...
Buenos dias. It's time for you to help make up our list of favorite dishes at local Mexican restaurants in honor of Cinco de Mayo. Because most of the Latino places in this area are cheap eats, our LIVE reviewer, Karen Nitkin, tends to cover them, so I don't have much to contribute. Does a great margarita count?
Here's what I said about my favorite dish at Blue Agave when I reviewed it a couple of years ago: ...
Each week I like to give you a chance to tell us about your experience at the restaurant I reviewed the day before, in this case, Luca's Cafe in Locust Point.
I've noticed this works better if it's not a new place. But that's all right. If you want to talk about the Locust Point restaurant scene, or what you had for breakfast this morning, that's fine, too.
(Monica Lopossay/Sun photographer)
Next week I revisit the Brass Elephant in Mount Vernon. It's been given new life with a new chef, Andrew Maggitti, and a new cuisine. The menu is now Italian once again.
To see what I think of the changes, please read my review next Sunday in the Arts & Life Today section. And if you've eaten there since Chef Maggitti came on board, let us know what you think by posting below.
(Algerina Perna/Sun photographer)
For my drive to and from Berlin, Md. last week, I stopped at the library and grabbed the first thing I saw, the latest Robert B. Parker audiobook starring Spenser. For those of you who don't know this series, he's the wise-cracking, almost superhuman private eye with one name who is surrounded by a cadre of lovable bad guys and cops who all worship him and his girlfriend Susan and help him out on his cases for no reason I've ever been able to figure out. (Sample dialogue: His friend Hawk offers to shoot the bad guy for him, and Spenser says, "No, I have to get even." Hawk replies, "Nothing says even like two to the head.")
Besides all his other great qualities, Spenser is a gourmet cook, although the books never make a big deal about it. He just casually tosses off meals for himself and Susan. I wish he would come to my house. In this one...
When I got to the Baltimore Farmers Market under the JFX viaduct this morning, I found I'd misled Bill, and therefore you in my post last night. It looks like only local produce is for sale, and most important, there were no strawberries. (I had assumed there would be because on my Eastern Shore trip last week they were for sale all along the highway. Of course, I didn't stop because I figured I could get them at the market.) ...
Is everyone excited that tomorrow is the opening of the farmers market under the viaduct? I am. Here's Elizabeth's Timely Tip for you: It may say that it opens at 8 a.m., but if you wait till then to go, all the good stuff will be gone. (OK, maybe not this time of year.) Anyway, here's some helpful info. The Islanders Steel Band will playing in honor of opening day.
I'm going to link to my Sunday Farmers Market video, which I originally put together with "Shop Around" as the background music; but the copyright issues made our multimedia editors nervous, so I had to find some royalty-free music. The weird thing is that now when it finishes playing it morphs into a flower mart video, not originally part of it. I've sent a HELP message to Multimedia Editor Etc. John.
I got this e-mail from Bill about the Sunday market recently, and here's my reply as well: ...
