Baltimore Wrap Up

Weddings can be a great chance to explore a city that you're not familiar with. I had been to Baltimore a while ago, but most of what I remember from that trip was sitting in the back of my parents' car with my headphones on, trying to avoid interacting with them in any way possible. Oh, and the wonders of the Walters Art Museum.

My second visit to Baltimore was much more interesting. I attended my college friend Rick's wedding and got to spend the whole weekend with my college roommate Caroline. It was a short trip - Friday evening to Sunday afternoon - but we fit in a fair amount of food (yeah, and sightseeing too).

Friday night, after we checked in and took a bit of a stroll, we ended up at Brewer's Art for dinner. I had read online that dining in the bar was a good alternative to the pricier dining room, so we grabbed a small table with two tall wing back chairs and awkwardly made our way through dinner (oh, we need to place food orders at the bar? We need to yell to each other to be heard? OK, why not.). While we waited for our meal, a man in a suit towered over us, and we looked up to see our friend, the groom. Turns out we had picked the same spot as the rehearsal dinner, and since Rick is a foodie too, we knew we were in for some good food. We shared the falafel (fava beans, chickpeas, and green peas with lemon sesame vinaigrette, cucumber, arugula, and tomato), served with super-garlicky parmesan fries and the flatbread (smoked ham, herbed marscapone, bourbon-soaked cherries, mustard seeds, and arugula). They were both fantastic (despite the horrible picture I took of them), but I really loved the flatbread. It was crispy, creamy, smoky, sweet, and salty in every bite. I might have to suggest these toppings the next time my friends make grilled pizza... Brewer's Art also had Ace Pear Cider, which I've only had once before but loved.

On Saturday, we were surprised at how hard it was to find coffee in the morning. We kind of hovered outside one coffee shop until it opened at 10am. After that, we wandered towards Lexington Market to check out all the food stalls. We only ended up tasting an all-lump crab cake from the famous Faidley's, which was incredibly moist and filled with huge chunks of crab, but a lot of the other stalls were enticing.

Since the wedding wasn't until 7pm, we had a light meal at around 4 to tide us over. We stopped in at Iggies, and because of the hour, it was mostly empty. I was thrilled by this pizza and found myself wishing that Iggies had a branch in Boston. Caroline went with the Funghi (mushrooms, leeks, goat cheese, and housemade mozzarella), while I opted for the Pepe (arugula, ricotta, and lemon). The crust was perfectly crisp, and the toppings were light and fresh. The arugula, especially, was dressed just right (including a good amount of salt and pepper!). Man, I could go for one of these pizza right now, in fact.

The wedding itself, held in the Peabody Library, was beautiful. Rick is Chinese and his wife is Jewish, and the rabbi did a wonderful job of combining their two traditions. The party was great, even though I only knew four people in the entire room, and the food was some of the fanciest I've seen at a wedding. For dessert, alongside the regular wedding cake (lemon raspberry), servers came around with mini pie pops (above), hazelnut mousse in a white chocolate cup, and other little sweet bites. It almost rivaled my friend Cicely's wedding, where the caterer, dressed in a red satin nehru-collared jacket and giant Dracula brooch, offered our very drunk group of friends warm cookies and cold milk.

On Sunday, after brunch at our hotel with the bride and groom, I forced a tour of the Walters Gallery on Caroline (who has never been a big fan of art museums, but gracefully always goes along with my plans). I took a ton of pictures of ancient statues, as I am wont to do, and spent much less time in the more modern galleries.

We didn't have much time between the museum and our flights, so we wandered around a bit and finally settled on Maisy's. Our meal started off strong, with an excellent crab and artichoke dip, hot and cheesy. There definitely wasn't enough bread, but we didn't mind - we just cleaned up the plate with our forks. When it came to our entrees, though, things went very wrong. There were three things wrong with our two sandwiches. I sighed and just opted to eat mine(avocado, tomato, spinach, sprouts, spicy mayo, and I added bacon) (I asked for no mayo, but there weren't giant globs of it, just a light coating, so I wasn't too offended), but they screwed up Caroline's pretty bad. She sent it back, and the second try was still wrong. I'm pretty sure this wouldn't have happened if the waitress (the only one on the floor) had just written our order down instead of trying to remember it. At least the dip was good!

Long story short, my trip to Baltimore was a great time, but I wish I had had more time to explore the city. From the little research I did online, there's a lot of good food to be had there. I guess that just means I'll have to go back ;)

Strawberry Picking Time Travel at Ward's Berry Farm

As soon as the weather turned nice (ok, better) back at the beginning of May, I've been all about fresh fruits and veggies. I've been growing some of the best lettuce I've ever tasted and some insanely fast-growing radishes, along with a whole slew of other things that won't be ready for a while. To do this, I had to pull up all the strawberry plants in our yard.

I know, I can practically hear you screaming "WHYYYY?!?" already. These were strawberries we had planted I don't know how long ago, and how many ripened fruits have I ever eaten from them? Exactly zero. They only grew the tiniest of berries that seemed to take forever to ripen, at which point they would go from green to vibrant red overnight and some pesky animal would beat me to them in the morning. It began to be such a constant disappointment that I had no problem ripping them up to make room for things like eggplant and tomatoes, which actually produce things that the animals don't care about.

Anyway, all that garden shuffling has left me wanting. Strawberry season is quick and short around here (although this year, it seems like lots of crops were ready early thanks to our warm spring). My friends and I had planned on berry picking a week ago, but we were beat out by a rainstorm, and we had to postpone to last weekend. With absolutely no rain in the forecast, we piled into the car and headed south on 95.

Ward's Berry Farm is all of 30 seconds off the highway in Sharon, less than half an hour from Boston. Their prices are reasonable for fresh and local produce ($3 for a pint, or $6 for a larger handle basket, above). The strawberry patch is huge, and we each had a couple rows to ourselves, although we stuck close together so we could chat while we picked. Strawberry picking is harder than, say, raspberry picking because the plants are all so close to the ground, and at times I felt like I was playing Twister in an attempt to not faceplant into the berries.

One thing about strawberry picking that I kind of loved and that also freaked me out at the same time? There are a lot of berries on those plants, and they don't all get picked. When they start to rot, they turn into these powdery, dessicated, zombie versions of real berries, and they tend to explode if you pick one by accident. Yeah, what's the good part, you're asking. Because they were rotting in the sun, the sugar was fermenting, and occasionally I'd get a whiff of strawberry liqueur. Every time I got a hint of the scent, I was thrown back in time to a trip to Italy, where my friends and I stayed in a terribly crappy hostel in Sorrento and bought a bottle of liquore di fragola, a supersweet liqueur made from local strawberries (the berries were still in the bottle, and you know we ate them all). I had to fight to not yell out "Strongberry!", which is what we called the drink (and which we used to yell at each other often after that). I could have stood in that strawberry patch, smelling the breeze, all day.

Vermont Wrap Up

Since I'm not a skier, spend my summers at the Cape, and have been in school during the fall for what feels like the last 80 years, I've never had a good time to visit Vermont. But now, with a little time on my hands and a kitchen sans counters or sinks, I had the chance to escape for a few days and take in all the good things that our neighbors to the north have to offer.

We left Boston early and headed up through New Hampshire and on into Vermont. We stopped at the Crossroads Country Cafe in White River Junction for breakfast. The place looks like every small country cafe, but it had some of the most amazing pancakes and homemade bread that I've had. The pancakes were light and fluffy with crispy edges and fantastic buttermilk flavor. And thick slices of buttered fresh cinnamon raisin bread? Oh so good.

After breakfast, we finished driving up to Waterbury and Stowe. Our first stop was the Green Mountain Coffee Visitors' Center. They have a small exhibit focused on fair trade and the coffee growing and roasting process, as well as a shop with just about any flavor coffee you could want.

How could you visit Vermont and not have some Ben & Jerry's? Just up Route 100, Ben & Jerry's has a working factory that produces about 250,000 pints a day (and 500,000 pints per day in their other factory) while still being entertaining for visitors. Everything was brightly painted, our guide was funny, and of course, there was a sample at the end. The factory floor itself is very small - I'd say it could fit inside a typical school gym. And showing more humor is the flavor graveyard located by the parking lot, where old flavors are retired gracefully.

Driving further up Route 100, there are a bunch of shops that are fun to visit, if perhaps a little overly touristy. Cabot Cheese, The Kitchen Store, Danforth Pewter, and Lake Champlain Chocolates share one plaza, and Cold Hollow Cider Mill and Grand View Winery Tasting Room share another plaza. Cabot and Lake Champlain are available all over the place, but these stores give you the full line of products. In fact, the Lake Champlain store includes a factory seconds area where you can get this chocolate a little bit cheaper. I bought the sodas above, from Vermont Sweetwater Bottling, because of their unusual flavors. I loved the rhubarb raspberry and was quite surprised by the maple. A great local find!

I enjoyed the Grand View Winery Tasting Room the most out of this bunch. For $1, you get to try six different types of fruity wines - much sweeter than most wines out there, but then, I prefer sweet wines. Flavors range from pear to blackberry, and my favorites were the raspberry apple and the hard cider.

For dinner, we ended up at Pie in the Sky, just a few doors down from our hotel. I'm a sucker for "gourmet" pizzas, so this place really hit the spot for me. We ordered the Blonde Vermonter (above, with olive oil, cheddar cheese, green apples, and ham) because it seemed like the right thing to do on a Vermont vacation, and the Thai Pie (peanut sauce, chicken, cilantro, red onion, and broccoli) because that's my mother's favorite type of pizza. Both were excellent, with crispy crusts and terrific flavor combinations. The menu there is huge too, with unconventional toppings like leeks and black beans. If this were closer, I'd eat there all the time (and apparently they have a lunch buffet for $7.25 with pizza, soup, salad, and soda - an amazing deal well worth taking advantage of).

The next day, we headed out to Cabot to visit the Cabot Cheese Factory. All the Cabot shops, including the factory, have samples of all their different cheeses out so you can try them all. Their newest flavors, Tuscan, Tika Masala, and Chili Lime, are all fantastic. Part of the tour included a video outlining the history of the company, and they focused on the fact that Cabot is a co-op, meaning all of the roughly 1300 farmers who supply the milk are also the owners of the company. In a time when so many people are focused on trying to eat locally and support small farmers, it's great to see a big company like Cabot that runs exclusively on that concept. I also found it interesting that Cabot created the niche for Vermont cheddar - before they coined the phrase, nobody was looking for cheddar from Vermont, but it's now one of their biggest products.

Another thing I love about Cabot? Tons and tons of recipes on their website, some of which I have already tried and loved.

After that, we headed down to Woodstock and Quechee. We wandered around the center of Woodstock, which is a beautifully picturesque New England town, then did some shopping at Quechee Village (which has a really fantastic antique store that I could have gotten lost in for days, plus another Cabot Cheese store). For dinner, we headed to the beautiful Simon Pearce factory, store, and restaurant, which is what got my mother interested in taking this trip in the first place. We wandered around the store, where I picked out things that I may never be able to afford, and looked out over the gorgeous waterfall before heading into the restaurant. Just about everything was delicious, but the standouts were the arugula salad (with Manchego cheese, Serrano ham, marcona almonds, and quince paste) and the horseradish-crusted cod (above, with crispy leeks, herb mashed potatoes, balsamic shallot reduction). Service was attentive without being obtrusive, and you get to try out all the glassware in the store as you eat. This is a perfect special occasion or fancy night out restaurant.

Breakfast the next morning had us back at the Quechee Village shopping center, where the Farmers Diner is located. It is a quintessentially Vermont diner, filled with amazing local ingredients and country fare. Local eggs, meats, cheeses, and flours are all over the menu. Their hash browns have just a little bit of spice and fantastically crispy edges, while the pancakes, mixing white and wheat flours, have a slightly nutty flavor while still being light and fluffy. I only wished we could have stuck around to have lunch there too - the menu looks fantastic!

By this point, we were a little tired of being in the car together, but we had one stop left before we could head home. King Arthur Flour is just up the road from Quechee. The complex includes a store, a bakery, and an education center. I'd love to take a class there sometime, but there was nothing we wanted offered in the few days we had free. Instead, we used our time to wander around the store and bakery. I could have blown a lot of money here, but I exercised restrain and only picked up a few things (including an olive bread mix that I'm dying to try).

This was a great, quick, and fun trip, filled with delicious food, beautiful foliage, and plenty of shopping. If you're interested in taking a similar trip, I've put together a map with all of my stops, and I have some more pictures here on Flickr.

Austin Wrap Up

I was on a plane years ago when the lady I was sitting next to asked me where I was from. "Boston," I said. I certainly wasn't expecting her response - "Oh, I love Texas!" I was a little too shocked to tell her that I wasn't talking about Austin. That was probably my first realization that I do have something of a Boston accent (although not in comparison to many people in the area).

I finally got the chance to visit Austin, though, last week, when I was in town for the Society of American Archivists' annual meeting. Luckily, my grad school classmate Melissa, who went to the University of Texas for college, was my guide, and she took me to all her favorite places.

One of our first stops was Kerbey Lane, a 24-hour cafe with a creative menu. Their queso is probably the best I've ever had - a subtle cheesiness mixed with guacamole and pico de gallo. Three of us couldn't get to the bottom of the bowl, although I was trying my hardest. I could have gone back there at any other point during the trip just for more of this stuff. I ended up stuffing myself further with their gingerbread pancakes, and I had a hard time deciding between the pancakes and the seasonal zucchini bread French toast.


The conference was over by Saturday afternoon, and I was really excited to be able to go to the 3rd Annual Austin Ice Cream Festival. I was greatly disappointed by the event though - I was expecting something more like the Scooperbowl, where you pay your entrance fee and then get to try samples from a variety of different ice cream companies. Instead, each company had their ice cream truck selling scoops (although some were selling sample sizes for $1). This made it hard to try lots of different flavors and purveyors.

An afternoon of ice cream did not stop us from eating more a few hours later. We hit Trudy's for dinner, another of Melissa's favorite restaurants. I stared at the menu for ages, but finally settled on the stuffed avocado, a whole avocado filled with chicken and cheese, then deep-fried and smothered in sauce. I mean, how can you go wrong with avocado and deep-fried?!


Sunday, my last full day in town, was filled with more eating. We had brunch at Romeo's. Although it was hotter out than I had been used to (from Boston's weird, cool early summer), the tomato soup was recommended. It is smooth and thick and creamy, with just enough salt to really bring out the sweetness of the tomatoes. I also had a BLT pizza, topped with big pieces of bacon, tomato, smoked mozzarella, and a hearty sprinkling of chopped lettuce, all on a thin and crispy crust.


For dinner, we made the pilgrimage out to the town of Driftwood to eat at the Salt Lick. Friends have been telling me about this place for years, and it really did deserve the hype. We got the family-style meal, which includes unlimited brisket, sausage, ribs, cole slaw, potato salad, beans, pickles, and bread. The meat was amazing - I'm not usually a fan of sausage, but I loved the seasoning and the snap of the casing. The ribs were so tender that they were almost impossible to eat by picking them up - the meat just fell right off. I even enjoyed the cole slaw and the potato salad because they weren't the traditional kind, loaded with mayo, but were vinegary. We saved just enough room for the peach cobbler - I definitely needed something a little sweet at the end of the that huge meal.


Of course, that wasn't all we hit. We also visited Hut's Hamburgers (amazing onion rings), Walton's Fancy and Staple (a beautiful bakery with delicious pastries), Epoch Coffee (if I lived in Austin, I would hang out here all the time), Mekong River (delicious Vietnamese), The Jackalope (Ace Pear Cider is my new favorite cider, although I don't think you can get it in MA...), Cornucopia (40+ flavors of popcorn? Uh, yes!), and Whataburger (the honey chicken biscuit makes an amazing breakfast).

Overall, my trip was great (although exhausting), and I really enjoyed the city. I wouldn't mind going back (maybe during a cooler time of year) to see more of the area.

Off to San Francisco

Because my week leading up to departure was filled with fun things like the flu and a really busy time at work, I forgot to mention that I was headed to San Francisco. I'm here for a college roommate's wedding, but of course, I'm eating my way through whatever neighborhoods I find myself in. I've already had some really good meals and will continue to hunt them out - if you have any recommendations, let me know!

Black Bottle, Seattle

My favorite meal on my Seattle trip was at Black Bottle, a restaurant recommended by Liney's friend, Katie. We spent a busy day at the Space Needle, the Experience Music Project, and the Science Fiction Museum, and Black Bottle was on our walk home. We sat at the bar and had the pleasure of talking to two excellend bartenders.

The food at Black Bottle is... oh so good. The concept is "small" plates for sharing, but there's nothing small about them. Plates run around $10 each.

The flatbreads (of which we tried the prosciutto and bechamel) are baked in long tart pans, so the edges get slighly fluted. Crispy and gooey, they're they perfect snack for sharing.

We also ordered the lamb plate, which was really a hummus and baba ganoush plate with a couple small lamb skewers. Don't get me wrong, the lamb was tender and very well cooked, but it wasn't the focus of the dish. And while the hummus and baba ganoush may not photograph very well, they taste fantastic. The portions are so large that we were glad we ordered a veggie side for dipping.

Now, I'm never one to go to a restaurant and just order a plate of veggies, but I would go back (if I were in the area) for a plate of their broccoli. It was a huge plate (I mean, huge) of perfectly roasted, deliciously garlicky and salty broccoli. And the hummus and baba ganoush were perfect compliments, adding creaminess to the crunchy veggies. Just thinking about that broccoli has got me jonesing for some right now.

Seattle Wrap Up

I've just gotten home from a 10-day trip to Seattle with my college roommate, Liney, and man, did we have a great trip. While we were planning, people kept telling us that 10 day was too long, and that we needed to rent a car to be able to see anything, but lucky for us, we found that neither of those thoughts were true.

We stayed at the Green Tortoise Hostel, which has possibly the best location in Seattle. It is literally right across the street from the Pike Place Market (where we went almost every day), and it provided easy access to Pioneer Square to the south, Seattle Center to the north, and to all the bus lines for transportation outside the downtown area. At first, we felt a little too old for the whole hostel thing, but the great thing was that the Green Tortoise is not a "youth" hostel - it was filled with people of all ages, and there were even a couple of families there as well.

And like I said, we didn't find the city difficult to navigate without a car at all. The buses were easy enough to figure out, and the city really is a small place and is easy to walk... except for all those damn hills. But hey, when you eat as much as we did, trying to sample so many different foods, you kind of need those hills to keep you in check.

We did tons of touristy things, but lots of less touristy things as well. We visited the Seattle Art Museum, the Central Library, took an Underground tour, walked through the International District including the Uwajimaya Market, enjoyed the view from Kerry Park in the Queen Anne neighborhood, took the monorail to the Space Needle, geeked out at the Experience Music Project and the Science Fiction Museum, were confused by Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, enjoyed the aquarium, geeked out again at the Pacific Science Center, picnicked in Volunteer Park where we saw an outdoor art exhibit and explored the Conservatory, walked down to the Japanese Tea Garden, got spooked on the Market Ghost Tour (I got an orb in one of my pictures!), took in an improv show, took the SubSeattle Tour, saw tons of animals at Woodland Park Zoo, wandered around Fremont and saw the Fremont Troll.

And man did we eat. I knew Seattle had lots of good food, but I didn't know there was this much! We ate at Local Color Coffee, Lowell's Seafood, the Chocolate Box, Guamaya Cantina, Pike Place Bakery, Cherry Street Coffee House, Saigon Bistro, Oasis Tea Zone, Hilltop Ale House, Daily Dozen Donuts, Piroshy Piroshky, Revolution Bar and Grill, Black Bottle, Cafe Umbria, Market Grill, Virginia Inn, Mae Phim, Seattle Coffee Works, Palace Kitchen, Mama's Mexican Kitchen, Le Panier, the original Starbucks, Pink Door, Pike Place Brewery, Tully's, Triple Door, Three Girls Bakery, Red Door, Fremont Coffee Company, Seattle's Best Coffee, Matt's in the Market, and Beecher's Cheese. Yeah, a lot of great places, and there will be a few individual reviews coming up. The only place we missed, due to their short hours, was Salumi, but I guess that just means I'll have to take a trip back, right?