Oven-Roasted Corn on the Cob

My friend, Bill Cole, who's running for the City Council in our district, came by this evening for a "stoop" meet and greet with some of my neighbours... and a film crew. Sue Chen out of San Francisco, is doing a documentary on people younger than 35 running for political office.

As they were filming, an A-rabber trotted by and the looks on Sue and her cameraman's faces were priceless. He didn't get a shot, but a little while later I heard them coming back, so he got the shot. I do my best to buy from these guys and so wandered over to get some corn. Four ears for $1.00. He tossed in an extra ear, so I gave him an extra dollar for the pony.

I thought that I could probably oven roast it, so googled recipes, which turned out to be easy-peasy. Pre-heat the oven to 350. Shuck the ears, but leave the husks attached. Remove the silk, cover the ears with butter and salt and pull up the husks! I tied a bit of extra husk around the ear to keep it wrapped up. Some recipes say to just roast without even removing the silk, but I would hate to pick it off strand by strand when it was hot. Roast either directly on the rack or on a pan for 20-30 minutes.

The verdict? Excellent, simple and delicious! With the time it takes to boil water and then cook the corn, you can roast it in the oven. You could add anything you wanted to this to tailor it to your own taste, but to me, plain and simple's the winner!

Mac & Cheese & Chocolate

Over the past couple of days, in numerous conversations about Restaurant Week, I have been hearing about the dish "macaroni and cheese... and chocolate" that is served at Jack's Bistro in Canton. The description of the dish is "Shell pasta with a blend of five cheeses and shaved Belgian milk chocolate". They also serve a cheeseburger soup, which doesn't appeal to me at all!

The website notes that Jack is the most wildly imaginative chef in Baltimore. My feeling is that while throwing chocolate on top of mac & cheese requires more imagination than I will ever have, putting ingredients together just for the sake of attracting attention isn't what it's about. Tell me what you think of mac & cheese and chocolate.

Restaurant Week - No. 2

Last night, the Blonde, the Brunette and the Redhead visited Brasserie Tatin for Restaurant Week. I had been there before during the winter RW and had an excellent meal. However, I talked to a chef friend about going there and found out that Brasserie Tatin is having some problems, notably with their kitchen staff. However, there was no evidence of anything amiss last night.

The logical thing to do, since there were three of us and three selections on the RW menu was to try one of each, but we're just not that way. Starting for the Blonde and the Redhead was the Brie salad with a walnut encrusted Brie over butter lettuce. The Brunette had the house pate de campagne. Entrees were two orders of the scallops St. Jacque with a "forbidden" rice, which was a deep purple, and and order of the steak frites, with house-made mayonnaise. Desserts were an order of the four sorbets and the marjolaine, which is all sorts of mousse and chocolate.

One of the best parts of the BT RW dinner was the pairing of wines for each dish. Three wines for $15. They had taken some time in making the appropriate selections and they all worked well.

BT was crowded, but not jammed. The service was very good and our waiter was attentive and fun.

Restaurant Week - Restaurant No. 1

My office went to McCormick & Schmick for our summer outing, which happened to coincide with Restaurant Week in Baltimore. We had a reservation for ten, at 12:45, and were seated at a round table overlooking the water.

When I got there, the first thing that struck me was the smell. From the parking lots to the east, you have to walk by the garbage bins, which on a hot summer day, was pretty rank. Once we got inside, everything had a scent of mucky dishwater, standing water and cleaner. Things looked dirty and sticky. The place is huge and it wasn't very full.

Here's the lunch menu:

Lunch Appetizer
Maryland Crab Soup
McCormick's House Salad
Spinach Salad
Lunch Entrée
Grilled Tuna Brochette
Cedar Roasted Atlantic Salmon
Seafood Stir Fry
Lunch Dessert
Chocolate Truffle Cake
Walnut Crusted Upside Down Apple Pie

We got tuna brochette, which was way overdone, salmon and steak salads which weren't on the RW menu. I had a spinach salad which had lovely baby spinach leaves with a sesame/ginger dressing and pecans. Others got the house salad. Funnily enough, out of ten people, no one ordered the crab soup. The desserts were huge and the pie also had cinnamon ice cream on the side. Again, as we left, we had to go by the garbage, and it wasn't any better than before lunch.

Restaurant Week in Baltimore

This coming week is Restaurant Week in Baltimore and it's become rather a competitive event. Just how many restaurants are YOU going to get to? I've got two lined up so far, and may try another one. One is a revisit, just because I am going with friends and it was one place they mentioned. The other will be a new place for me. Catch my reviews in the coming week!

So, where are YOU going?

Tomato Aspic

I was over at Food Maven (and her other blog Coconut Lime) the other day and she's hosting a retro food challenge. It involves making a wobbly food product from a cookbook from before 1985. Now, I was a bit offended by that, since I am waaay pre-1985, and don't think I am terribly retro.

Anyway, I decided to make an old summer favourite, tomato aspic. If you are me, you say those words this way: tomaaahto aspic. It's like tomato juice jello. They used to serve it at the old Woman's Industrial Exchange on Charles Street in downtown Baltimore, with their famous chicken salad with mayonaise. Again, if you're me, you say myyy-naze, sort of the French way. My family's British and Southern, so maybe that's why I talk funny.

I was at my sister's house this afternoon and she had a 1946 copy of The Joy of Cooking (now that's retro!). So I took a picture of the pages with the aspic recipes and am going to make one to submit to the Food Maven. They also had a grapefruit aspic, which sounded very interesting. Stay tuned...

Oh...there will be a small prize to the person who answers the question in the post below (and Cat, you and Dog can't answer!).

Dizzy Issies

Cat and I were trying to decide where to go, outside of the usual haunts, and since we'd had a conversation about Dizzy Issies a couple of months ago, and I had read about it on Baltimore Snacker, we mapquested it and headed up to Remington. It's a little hard to find because the cross street, 30th Street, doesn't quite meet up with anything but Remington Street.

DI is located just across the street from the Ace of Cakes, Duff Goldman and Charm City Cakes. We didn't see any of the gang there, but noticed that all of the windows in Duff's building are covered with lighting gels.

DI, which is a typical neighbourhood pub, was crowded at the bar, but there were some seats in the dining room. We snagged two and got to work ordering from their drinks menu. Cat started off with a wheat beer, which she said was a little licorice-y. I got a Tanquery & tonic, with lime. I usually order Mt. Gay rum & tonic, which I've been drinking since college, but DI doesn't carry Mt. Gay.

The dining room is a few steps up from the bar and is decorated with coloured fairy lights and old, not repro, advertising signs. There is a huge stone fireplace along one wall and the whole room only seats about 20. We did find out that the second floor is open as well.

Cat started with a cup of crab soup, which was thick and tomato-y and looked like it had lots of crab meat. She said it was a little spicy though. We both ordered burgers, medium. The waitress asked if we wanted our onions raw or cooked. WOW! The burgers came quickly and were juicy and perfectly cooked. I got a bleu cheese burger, a fave from college days at Happy Hamburger in St. Mary's County (RIP). The bleu cheese was a little overwhelming, but good anyway. The burgers came with what looked like Utz chips.

We still had a little room, so ordered a slice of lemon/coconut cake to share. It was light and very good. We each also had another drink.

The total cost for dinner was an amazing $33.00!!! The place was so small, I didn't take pix, but if you look at Baltimore Snacker's review, you can see some.

I've been asking people the quintessential question that every Baltimorean knows the answer to without blinking or hesitating. If you had to dump a dead body in the city, where would you do it? Answers please!