Charm City Cook
Food is good
Branding. Creating your ‘you’ – telling the world what you’re all about. Big companies create taglines like “Just do it” or “We love to fly and it shows.” In today’s world of social media branding, hashtags do that, too. Some of my faves are #golocal #pleaseandthankyou, #ilovethiscity and #deliciousness. Shocker…I love food. And Baltimore. A …
This Friday is National Macaroon Day (May 31, 2013). To honor the day, Food & Wine’s “People’s Best New Pastry Chef of 2012” and the Executive Pastry Chef of the Four Seasons Hotel in Baltimore, Chris Ford is setting out to set the record straight and clarify the differences between the often confused confections: The macaroon and the …
My Mom (um, hello…Peg Fitzpatrick) is Irish. Her great-grandmother Catherine Buckley arrived in Baltimore on a ship from County Cork in 1850 at the age of 16. And…when you see my Mom, you say…yep, she’s Irish. And, while my Irish Mom is a big part of who I am (and my Dad, too…I named my dog Henry in his …
Recently, when my friend Lisa had me over for dinner and said we were having Cooks Illustrated’s White Chicken Chili, I was excited. Lisa is a very good cook (and amazing baker!) and I knew it would be fantastic. And, it was SO GOOD. I cleaned the bowl and wanted more, but I was polite. Thankfully, …
Comfort food. I’ve written about it before. I love what it does. It has a job. Two years ago when my brother died after a mind blowing two week illness, my family needed comfort. After the funeral some of us gathered and I cooked. The night before, I had thought about what to make…and I …
About a year ago, I started playing around with recipes for salted caramel brownies. I wanted something that was salty and sweet in one bite. I’m not a huge sweets person – give me olives, cheese, chips any day of the week – but dessert? Dessert has to be amazing for me to really love …
Cooking. Relaxing. Friends and family. Great food. No pressure of gifts! I love Thanksgiving. When I was a kid, my parents would host all of our aunts, uncles and cousins for Thanksgiving dinner at our house in Kingsville. It was so much fun…laughing, catching up, hearing old stories from our parents, watching football and the best part…eating! We had a traditional meal …
I’d always been told that making risotto is a bear. All that stirring, stirring, stirring. Blah, blah, blah. How do you know when it’s done?? But thanks to the wonderful folks at America’s Test Kitchen, I’ve found that it’s not that hard. Risotto actually is your friend. I’ve written about this show before, but it is well …
Whatever you choose to call it – canning, preserving, putting up – I’m into it. I used to be pretty intimidated by the idea of preserving food, it just seemed so, well…domesticated. So, I started out with one of the easiest things you can make…applesauce. It made me feel like, okay, wow. I did that. I didn’t realize …
