Roasted Cauliflower Panisse Cake from Preserve

“The original play was on a French panisse cake,” says Preserve chef Brian Cieslak of this recipe. “It shows that vegetables don’t have to be one-dimensional.” To pretty up the plate (pictured above), Cieslak suggests dotting the plate with miso paste, a shower of parsley and scallions, plus pickled cauliflower stems.

INGREDIENTS
1 pound cauliflower
1⁄2 cup white onion, diced
2 cups chickpea flour
5 cups water
5 garlic cloves
11⁄2 tablespoons salt
1⁄4 cup, plus 1 tablespoon EVOO
11⁄2 tablespoons lemon juice
1⁄4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1⁄2 teaspoon onion powder

DIRECTIONS
1. Roast cauliflower in oven set at 350 Fahrenheit. Roast until golden.
2. Set aside onion, and in a blender (in batches if necessary) blend all remaining ingredients. Reserve.
3. Spray a 9.5” x 13” pan with oil.
4. In a pot that preferably has a wider bottom that can hold at least 4 quarts, sweat onion with 1 tbsp. oil.
5. Add chickpea our/water mixture.
6. While keeping on medium/ medium-high heat, continue to whisk and boil until mixture becomes extremely thick (up to 10 minutes).
7. Once firm, fold in cauliflower.
8. Pour in greased pan. Allow to completely cool in fridge.
9. When cool, griddle in a pan on low heat until golden.
Serves 4. 

For the garlic confit sauce: In a small sauce pot add 1⁄2 cup garlic cloves and 1⁄2 cup neutral oil. Place on low flame. Heat slowly for two hours and cook garlic until golden. Cool. For sauce, blanch 2 cups cauliflower florets in salted water. Cook until very tender, then toss in ice bath. Place cauliflower in a blender, blend until nearly puréed. Emulsify in garlic confit cloves and oil. Season to taste.

Beet Terrine from The Corner Pantry

If you’re still scarred by those childhood beets that came from a can, this stunner from chef Neill Howell at The Corner Pantry is a surefire way to reimagine the root vegetable. “I wanted to create a fun, vegetable-centric dish that isn’t a salad,” says Howell. “Don’t rush the chilling process,” he adds. “It needs time to chill and firm up.”

When Iman Alshehab arrived at JFK Airport in 2016, she did not have anyone she knew to meet her there. A caseworker from the International Rescue Committee picked up the widowed Syrian grandmother, emigrating to the U.S. alone, and dropped her off at her new, temporary home in Dundalk.

“It was getting dark on the four-and-a-half-hour drive,” recounts Alshehab in Arabic and some English. “I kept crying. My second full day in Maryland was Thanksgiving, and I decided I will make my neighbors dinner. I used Google Translate and knocked on everyone’s door to invite them. I was brave. I was worried people would say no.”

A former chef at the Four Seasons Hotel in Damascus, she made hummus, rice, chicken, and tabbouleh pasta salad. More than 20 neighbors, including several refugee women from other countries and her caseworker, came over. Each departed, hands full, with leftovers.

Fast-forward two years. Just before this past Christmas, Alshehab—today a founding member of the Mera Kitchen Collective, a worker-owned initiative supporting refugee and immigrant women—helped cook for more than 500 people as part of an arts feast at Charles Village’s 2640 Space. “I sold out everything,” she says.

So did women from Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, El Salvador, Eritrea, Nigeria, and Sudan. The name Mera, explains Aishah AlFadhalah, a Kuwaiti immigrant and founding member, is derived from the Greek meraki, which means “to do something so passionately you leave some of yourself in it.”

Alongside Alshehab and AlFadhalah, who came to the U.S. to attend college and works at Kennedy Kreiger, the collective was begun by Liliane Makole, who ran a cafe in her native Cameroon; Brittany DeNovellis of Baltimore City Community College’s Refugee Youth Project; and Emily Lerman, who has worked with Doctors Without Borders.

Before she began cooking at the Four Seasons, Alshehab mopped the floors at the luxury Syrian hotel to support her three children. Police had already killed her husband. After bringing her stuffed grape leaves and kibbeh meatballs with spiced yogurt to work one day, she was promoted to the kitchen. (“They told me to focus on grape leaves and meatballs after that.”) Later, she lost her 6-month-old granddaughter to the war when a bomb leveled her son’s home. She fled after her house was destoyed. Her children, now adults, and seven surviving grandchildren, all of whom she hasn’t seen since immigrating, have not received word on their visa applications.

All of Mera’s chefs are experienced cooks who had to leave their home countries and start their professional and personal lives from scratch. Alshehab worked at Blind Industries and Services of Maryland, teaching sewing to the sight impaired—taking two buses each way—before being able to redirect her energies to Mera. Mona Ahmed, who lives with her husband and five children in an apartment near Alshehab, will soon complete a food handling certification course. She spent 11 years in a refugee camp after fleeing violence in Sudan.

After first hosting fundraising dinners in their homes, the women organized pop-ups at Hersh’s Pizza, Alma, and Clavel. All have children and struggle with English, and none own a car. Despite these obstacles, the Mera women opened a tent at the Baltimore Farmers’ Market last spring. They’ve ventured into catering and offered cooking classes.

“Often, their children, who learn the language quickly once they are in school, are like, ‘Oh, my mother doesn’t speak English and doesn’t know anything,’” notes AlFadhalah. “But when they see people paying to eat their mom’s food—everything turns. You see the image of their mom change before your eyes.”

Having survived so much, the Mera women did not come here to survive. Or remain isolated. They want to thrive. “Food has always been the source of bringing people around me,” says Alshehab as she places falafel and pita with tahini sauce, pickles, eggplant with red pepper, and freshly squeezed lemonade in front of two visitors to her small apartment on a recent afternoon.

As a military brat, WBAL-TV weekend morning anchor and weekday morning reporter Jennifer Franciotti was a bit of a nomad in her formative years. “I was born in Guantanamo Bay,” says Franciotti, “then we lived in Iceland and Hawaii and Groton, Connecticut.” After her father retired from the service during her sophomore year of high school, the family settled in St. Joseph, Missouri, “where the Pony Express began and Jesse James ended,” she says, laughing.

But it wasn’t until 1997, when she moved to Baltimore, that she finally felt like she had a permanent home. “We moved all over the place, so I never felt like I belonged anywhere,” says Franciotti, sitting on a Victorian-style wooden chair at her homey dining-room table. “When my husband, Mike, and I started dating, he took me to Ocean City for the first time, and I instantly fell in love with Maryland, with Ocean City, with the accents, with the crabs, with the Bergers cookies, with the little neighborhoods. For me, my greatest pride is saying I’m from Maryland.”

Even so, the avowed Ravens fan brought along with her a piece of the past. When Franciotti left home for the first time, her mom gave her a box of index cards filled with family heirloom recipes such as ham and potato casserole, chicken crunch casserole with Chinese noodles, and traditional Christmas cookies. “These are way-back-when recipes,” she says. “I still keep them in my cupboard. As I learned to cook, I started reading cookbooks and would do things on my own.”

These days, Franciotti, who recently lost 25 pounds, takes a health-conscious approach to cooking. “I’ve gained and lost 25 pounds so many times in my life,” she says, “I’ve struggled with my weight my whole life—I’ve been lucky that it’s never gotten so high that it has affected my career—but I’ve been able to keep it off this time.”

When Franciotti left home for the first time, her mom gave her a box of recipes.

In addition to preparing the meals for her work days, which start when she leaves the house at 2:50 a.m. to go on air at 5 a.m., Franciotti exercises daily. “I love to walk,” she says. “I usually walk two to four miles every day. I’ll walk between my live hits in the studio and on days when I’m anchoring. If we have a break between shots, I’ll put on my tennis shoes, and then when I’m reporting and out in the field, I walk between 6 and 6:45 a.m. whenever I’m able to before getting ready to go back on the air.”

Franciotti, who is a graduate of Northwest Missouri State University, has been working at WBAL for 17 years now, but she got into broadcast journalism quite by accident. “I had no idea what I wanted to do,” she recalls. “My mom had the course catalogue to the university, and one day she opened the catalogue and saw ‘broadcasting,’ and she said, ‘You’d be good at that.’ And I was such a rule follower and so close with my parents, I figured that they knew what was good for me. So, I was like, ‘Okay.’”

Franciotti landed a full-time morning anchor gig right out of college, after an internship at a small ABC affiliate in Missouri at the tender age of 20. After a move to Maryland, she worked in radio for a time and was a traffic reporter from 1998 until 2001. “It was so much fun,” she says. “And being in a helicopter was a great way to learn the area and also to see why traffic is so messed up. I knew it wasn’t going to last forever, and I probably shouldn’t say this, but I took everyone up in the helicopter with me that I could. I took my optometrist, I took my hairdresser at the time, because it was such a unique experience.”

Even since becoming an anchor, she still enjoys logging time in the sky. In her years as a reporter at WBAL, one of her favorite stories was flying with the Blue Angels four years ago. “They put a GoPro on my head, and I was smiling the whole time,” she says.

But her happiest place is back at home on terra firma with Mike, her 15-year-old daughter, Olivia, her mutt Leila, and cat Kit Kat. Franciotti can most often be found in the kitchen whipping up healthy dishes, from a taco soup riff on a Weight Watcher’s recipe to lasagna. (The lasagna recipe here is calories-be-damned, but she also makes a low-fat version.) Says Franciotti, “Mike calls me ‘The Galloping Gourmet,’ because it looks like a bomb has gone off after I’ve cooked my meals.”

Lasagna

Ingredients

• 1 lb. extra-lean ground beef
• 1 large onion, diced
• 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 2 cans stewed tomatoes
• 1 32-oz. jar spaghetti sauce (whatever is on sale)
• 16-oz. part-skim ricotta cheese
• 2 tbsp. oregano
• 1 cup light Parmesan cheese
• 3 cups shredded low-fat mozzarella cheese
• 6 lasagna noodles

Directions

In a large pan, add ground beef and drain. Add onions, garlic, drained stewed tomatoes, and sauce. Cook together for 20 minutes on low-medium heat. In separate bowl, mix together ricotta, Parmesan cheese, and oregano. In a 9×13 pan, begin layering. Start with sauce on bottom and top with three noodles. You do not need to cook noodles first. On top of noodles spread a thin layer of the ricotta mixture. Cover with layer of meat sauce and top with covering of mozzarella cheese. Add remaining three noodles. On top of noodles, spread a layer of the ricotta mixture. Cover with layer of meat sauce and top with covering of mozzarella cheese.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 425 F for 45 minutes. Uncover and bake for 10 more minutes or until cheese on top is brown and bubbly. Remove from oven and let sit for at least 10 minutes before cutting into eight pieces. Serves 8-10.

Franciotti’s “Chiapparelli’s Salad”

Ingredients

• 1 head iceberg lettuce
• 2 tbsp. of oregano
• 4 cloves of crushed garlic
• 1 cup light Parmesan cheese
• 1 small can sliced black olives
• 1 tbsp. crushed red pepper
• 1/2 cup of extra-virgin olive oil
• 4 tbsp. of red wine vinegar

Directions

Chop head of lettuce and place in a bowl. Add oregano, crushed garlic, Parmesan cheese, black olives, and crushed red pepper. Top with olive oil and red wine vinegar. Mix well. Serves 4.

Taco Soup

Ingredients

• 1 lb. of extra-lean ground beef or extra-lean ground turkey
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 cloves crushed garlic
• Two cans of stewed or diced tomatoes
• 1 can of black beans
• 1 can of kidney beans
• 1 can of cannellini beans
• 1 can of corn
• 1 packet of taco seasoning
• 1 packet of powdered ranch dressing
• 2 tablespoons of chili powder

Directions

In a large soup pot, add ground beef or turkey and drain. Add together all other ingredients and mix well. Bring to a boil and turn back heat. Let simmer for about 30 minutes. Sour cream and cheddar cheese optional when serving. Serves 4-6.

When Liliane Makole came to America from Cameroon, she made a dream board on the bedroom wall of her Little Italy home. One of her aspirations was to open her own restaurant.

Today, her dream is more attainable than ever. Makole and five other women founded Mera Kitchen Collective, a worker-owned co-op focused on empowering refugees and immigrants and tapping into their culinary heritage by hosting pop-up events throughout the city. 

“When there’s so much movement in people’s lives, cooking is an anchor,” says member and translator Aishah Alfadhalah. “This is something familiar when everything else feels new.”

Inspired by women’s empowerment groups she had seen in the Democratic Republic of Congo, co-founder Emily Lerman connected with Makole, Meg Murray, and Brittany DeNovellis, who all had similar ideas of giving women the platform to cook. 

“With the current political climate, there’s a heightened interest in the immigrant experience,” Murray says.

Mera co-founder Iman Alshehab, a Syrian refugee who has been in America for seven months was the executive chef of the Four Seasons back in Damascus. 

“When I first got here, I wanted to go back home,” says Alshehab through translation. “But starting this project has brought love back into my life.” 

That love was on full display in June, when she cooked for a sold-out event at Hersh’s in South Baltimore. Instead of pizza and pasta coming out of the kitchen, it was Alshehab’s grape leaves and kibbeh dishes. In September, Makole hosted her own chicken cooking class at R. House. Next month, Mera is hosting a pop-up at Clavel. The eventual goal is for the co-op to open its own brick-and-mortar cafe. 

“The idea is to amplify the voices, skills, and stories of these women—and, so far, everyone has said yes,” says Lerman. “You always hear that Baltimore is this great, supportive place. But it’s nice to actually experience it and realize it’s true.”

As in life, Jamie Campbell and Drury Bynum are completely complementary in the kitchen. He’s the residential bartender; she handles the cooking. (“I always say that we have a food and beverage program here,” laughs Bynum.) She bought him a Breville espresso machine for his birthday; he purchased a set of Global knives for hers. And each appreciates the other’s talents. “Jamie can turn a sandwich into a banquet,” he adds. Says Campbell, “When I met him, I was at a party at his house and he’d made lasagna. I was like, ‘He’s hunky, and he’s artsy, and he made this big thing of lasagna’—he lit up the room.” 

In their professional lives, the duo—who founded Shine Creative, a video-production company specializing in documentary-style storytelling for food, beverage, and travel brands—are equally simpatico. Campbell is Shine’s executive producer, while Bynum is the director. (They’ve even used their kitchen for shoots, including a Jack Daniel’s video series aimed at encouraging women to drink whiskey.)

In their downtime, the couple’s favorite pastime is entertaining friends and family in their art-filled 1936 Guilford home—“a hodgepodge of our past and present,” says Campbell. “We used to get grumpy about dirty dishes,” she says. “Now, I just feel grateful for them—dirty dishes mean we’ve had friends over. We love sitting around listening to music and eating and drinking in our yard.” Cracks Bynum: “When people come here, we try to get them drunk, then make them sleep over. It’s just fun having a full house.”

“I always say that we have a food and beverage program here,” laughs Bynum.

Bynum’s Winter in Tulum cocktail was inspired by a trip to the celebrated sea-to-table spot Hartwood in Tulum, Mexico. “We had the most amazing spicy margarita there, and we were like, ‘We’re going to figure out how to make this,’” he says. “I love smoky. I love spicy. I love mezcal. I’ve tried to make up drinks before and it’s
really hard, but this one just kind of fell together.” 

For her part, Campbell was exposed to a wide range of cuisines in her parents’ Annandale, Virginia, kitchen. “My dad was all about the pantry raid,” she explains, “so I learned to work with what’s on hand. My mom made a lot of Korean food and always had a rice cooker going. She’d be cutting squid in the sink, which made me not afraid of touching food.”

And that includes these recipes for salad and roasted chicken. “The salad is pretty free-form,” says Campbell, “but I combine handfuls of chopped, mixed greens.” 

The chicken, adapted from Gwyneth Paltrow’s It’s All Good cookbook, has more of a science to it. “I found a recipe that demystified and simplified the dish,” says Campbell. “The key is high heat and triple basting. Some people find cooking a whole bird intimidating. This chicken takes like an hour-and-a-half to cook, and it’s perfect every single time.” 

At-Home Recipes

Entertaining at home is a favorite pastime for Jamie Campbell and Drury Bynum. “This is a great last-minute meal you can throw together if company is coming over,” says Campbell. Get the party started with the recipes below.

Super Crispy Roasted Chicken

Ingredients

• 1 4-pound chicken, 
• washed and driedcoarse sea saltfreshly ground 
• black pepper2 tablespoons 
• extra-virgin olive oil½ small yellow 
• onion, peeled½ lemonpaprika (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 425º F.
Sprinkle a generous amount of salt and pepper inside the cavity then rub entire bird with olive oil. Sprinkle salt and pepper on the underside of the chicken and place, breast-side up, in a roasting dish.
 Stuff cavity with onion and lemon and sprinkle top with salt, pepper, and paprika. Roast for 1½ hours, basting every half hour with juices that accumulate in the pan. (Do not baste prior to taking out of oven—you want skin to stay crispy.) The chicken thigh should register 165 Fahrenheit on a digital thermometer, at the very least.  Let chicken rest for at least 10 minutes before carving. 

Mixed Greens
with Anchovy-Dijon Vinaigrette

Ingredients (Greens)

• chopped mixed greens
• chopped radicchio
  or red cabbage
• watermelon radish
• microgreens

Ingredients
(Vinaigrette)

• 8 anchovies,
  roughly chopped
• juice of one lemon
• 1 garlic bulb, minced
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon white
  wine vinegar
• ¾ cup olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste 

Directions

Combine all ingredients except olive oil and salt and pepper in a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth.
 Slowly drizzle olive oil while still blending to emulsify. Once combined, add salt and pepper to taste.
  Store vinaigrette in refrigerator for up to five days. Toss with mixed greens, grated Parmesan, sea salt, and roasted pepitas. 

Winter in
Tulum Cocktail

Ingredients

• 2 ounces Espolon
  Reposado tequila
• ¼ mezcal
• ¾ ounce campari
• ¾ ounce sweet
  vermouth
• ½ ounce Shrub & Co. Grapefruit Shrub
• 2 dashes Bittermens Hellfire Habañero Shrub
• 1 dash Bittermens Hopped Grapefruit Bitters

Directions

Stir with ice. Strain and serve over ice with orange peel garnish. 

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Trim and scrub the carrots. If the carrots are more than 1 inch in diameter, cut them in half lengthwise. Cut the carrots in large diagonal slices 1 inch wide × 2 inches long (they will shrink when they roast) and place in a medium bowl with ¼ cup of olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon pepper. Toss well and transfer to two sheet pans. (If you use just one, they’ll steam instead of roasting.) Roast for 20 minutes, tossing once, until the carrots are tender. Transfer all the carrots to one of the sheet pans, add the maple syrup, toss, and roast for 10 to 15 minutes, until the edges are caramelized. Watch them carefully! Toss with a metal spatula and set aside for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine the cranberries and orange juice in a small saucepan, bring to a simmer, then set aside for 10 minutes. In a small bowl, combine the vinegar, garlic, and 1⁄2 teaspoon salt. Whisk in 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Place the arugula in a large bowl and add the carrots, cranberries (with their liquid), goat cheese, almonds, and the vinaigrette. Toss with large spoons, sprinkle with salt, and serve at room temperature.

Make Ahead: Prep all the ingredients. Cook the cranberries and make the vinaigrette and refrigerate for up to a day. Roast the carrots and assemble the salad just before serving. maple-roasted carrot salad.

Vanilla Rum Panna Cotta With Salted Caramel

serves 8

Since I discovered Fran’s salted caramels, I’ve loved the combination of salt and caramel. I particularly like caramel with undertones of vanilla to balance the sweetness. Cold, silky panna cotta is perfect with warm, salty caramel. Make this panna cotta in advance and just heat the caramel and pour it on top before serving.

• 2 teaspoons (1 packet) unflavored gelatin
• 3 cups heavy cream, divided
• 2 cups plain whole-milk yogurt
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• Seeds scraped from 1 vanilla bean
• 3/4 cup sugar
• Dark rum, such as Mount Gay
• 1/2 cup good caramel sauce, such as Fran’s
• Fleur de sel

In a small bowl, sprinkle the gelatin on 3 tablespoons of cold water. Stir and set aside for 10 minutes to allow the gelatin to dissolve. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk together 1 ½ cups of the cream, the yogurt, vanilla extract, and vanilla seeds. Heat the remaining 1 ½ cups of cream and the sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Off the heat, stir the softened gelatin into the hot cream until dissolved. Pour the hot cream–gelatin mixture into the cream-yogurt mixture and stir in 3 tablespoons of rum. Pour into 8 serving glasses and refrigerate uncovered until cold. When the panna cottas are thoroughly chilled, cover with plastic wrap and allow to chill overnight. Before serving, heat the caramel sauce with 2 teaspoons of rum in a small bowl in the microwave or a small saucepan set over low heat, just until warm. Spoon a thin layer of warm caramel on each cold panna cotta, sprinkle with fleur de sel, and serve. Note: I make vanilla extract by soaking vanilla beans in vodka. Note: I use 12-ounce old-fashioned glasses from CB2.

Skillet-Roasted Lemon Chicken

serves 3

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made this! I have the butcher butterfly the chicken so all I do is grind the thyme, fennel seeds, salt, and pepper, mix it with olive oil, and brush it on the chicken. When the lemon slices are roasted and caramelized, you can eat them with the chicken.

• 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
• 1 teaspoon whole fennel seeds
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1⁄3 cup good olive oil
• 1 lemon, halved and sliced 1⁄4 inch thick (see note)
• 1 yellow onion, halved and sliced 1⁄4 inch thick
• 2 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 1 (4-pound) chicken, backbone removed and butterflied
• 1⁄2 cup dry white wine
• Juice of 1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Place the thyme, fennel seeds, 1 tablespoon salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper in a mini food processor and process until ground. Pour the olive oil into a small glass measuring cup, stir in the herb mixture, and set aside. Distribute the lemon slices in a 12-inch cast-iron skillet and distribute the onion and garlic on top. Place the chicken, skin side down, on top of the onion and brush with about half the oil and herb mixture. Turn the chicken skin side up, pat it dry with paper towels (very important!), and brush it all over with the rest of the oil and herb mixture. Roast the chicken for 30 minutes.

Pour the wine into the pan (not on the chicken!) and roast for another 10 to 15 minutes, until a meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the breast registers 155 to 160 degrees. Remove the chicken from the oven, sprinkle it with the lemon juice, cover the skillet tightly with aluminum foil, and allow to rest for 10 to 15 minutes. Cut the chicken into quarters or eighths, sprinkle with salt, and serve hot with the pan juices, cooked lemon, and onion. Notes: Remove the ends of the lemon, cut in half through the stem ends, and slice thinly crosswise. Sometimes I sprinkle the chicken with minced fresh rosemary before allowing it to rest.

Make Ahead: Assemble the chicken in the pan and refrigerate for a few hours before roasting.

Reprinted from Cooking for Jeffrey. Copyright © 2016 by Ina Garten. Photographs copyright © 2016 by Quentin Bacon. Published by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC.

“It all started with a baby,” says Michael McDevitt, entrepreneur and founder of Baltimore-based startup Terra’s Kitchen.

Shortly after learning he was becoming a father, McDevitt, who has an extensive background in health and nutrition, began thinking about the importance of the family meal. So he decided to tap into the meal delivery market, with a local and sustainable twist.

“It’s not about paint by numbers cooking, it’s about getting families around the table,” says McDevitt of the ethically farmed, pre-prepped ingredients Terra’s Kitchen delivers straight to your door in a climate-controlled, reusable vessel.

Subscribers create an online profile where they may choose from more than 40 beautifully crafted meals to put together in addition to a selection of a la carte options. Meals can be customized to fit a variety of nutritional needs, including vegetarian, gluten free, and paleo.

Terra’s Kitchen also endeavors to introduce people to local venders, like Tessamae’s and Salazon Chocolate.

“We have partners throughout the state that have values that are aligned with ours,” says McDevitt. “They’re all about making a change and making a better community.”

McDevitt believes meal prep gives people a changed perspective on food and more confidence when it comes to making healthy decisions.

“We’re trying to create a better world, and it’s totally achievable because it’s just about getting people to eat dinner together,” says McDevitt. “That’s what I’m most excited about—that and the lamb rigatoni.”

Juliet Ames has mastered turning lemons into lemonade—or, in this case, broken dishes into art. The 37-year-old Baltimore artist is the owner of The Broken Plate Pendant Co., a business in which she re-purposes dishware into jewelry and other one-of-a-kind pieces.

“When I break a plate, I don’t get upset, because at least I can make money from it,” cracks Ames, while sitting on the sofa of her 1926 bungalow with her 9-year-old son, Nolan. Ames, who graduated in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary craft from Towson University, learned to turn trash into treasure while making a mosaic mailbox for her Govans home. “The shards were all so pretty that I couldn’t bear to throw them away,” she recalls, “so I made a necklace from them. At the time, I was working for the Howard County Arts Council and when I wore my necklace to work, everyone asked me if they could buy one.”

In the summer of 2006, Ames left her job to start The Broken Plate. She sells her wares in stores across the country, as well as locally, including Trohv in Hampden and JoRetro in Havre de Grace. Much of her business comes from custom work. (She also has famous fans, including Martha Stewart and Mario Batali.)

Recycling heirlooms has also helped Ames realize the power of the plates. “When you think about holidays and family celebrations, they are often over conversations you had while eating on those plates,” she says. “People get really attached to their plates and they take on a special meaning.”

For many, in fact, Ames’ art offers a piece of the past. “One of my customer’s moms had died in California and she had all her china shipped to Maryland,” she says. “When it got here, the entire box was completely smashed.” The woman searched the internet for information on how to fix a broken plate. Instead, she found Ames. “I made 20 pieces for the entire family, including a set of cuff links,” she says. “It made them feel so much better to give these pieces another life.”

Ames hasn’t always gone for broke, however. In the cobalt blue kitchen of her home, she has stacks of mix-and-match china on which she serves homemade sushi, roast chicken, and other dishes to Nolan and her partner, Jason Morrison. “I’ve always cooked, but after I had my son, I was stuck to the couch breast-feeding,” says Ames. “I got totally obsessed with The Food Network and cookbooks and food magazines. I couldn’t break plates with a new child, so this was a new outlet. Cooking was creative and allowed me to feed my family.”

Much like her artwork, Ames takes a mix-and-match approach in the kitchen. “I scroll through Pinterest all day long,” she explains, “and then mash all those things together. This recipe started as enchiladas, but then made it into shells because it was more fun.”

Clearly, her efforts are appreciated. Nolan, who reviews restaurants on YouTube (his moniker is “food dude”), is a big fan. “Her cooking is amazing,” says the pint-size critic. “The thing that makes her food so yummy is how well everything goes together. If the kitchen walls could talk, they would say, ‘Oh my God. It smells so delicious here.’”

Roasted Butternut Squash and Chorizo Stuffed Shells

Ingredients

1 butternut squash, cubed (about 5 cups)

1 pint crimini mushrooms, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon cumin

Salt and pepper to taste

1 pound ground chorizo (omit for vegetarian recipe)

1 15-ounce can beans, drained

½ cup sour cream, plus a few teaspoons for garnish

1 15-ounce can enchilada sauce

1 pound box jumbo shells

½ cup cheddar

Optional: jalapeño and cilantro for garnish

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place squash, mushrooms, and onion on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with cumin, salt and pepper, and roast for about 30 minutes. Let cool. Boil water, cook shells just shy of al dente, run under cold water, and set aside. Brown the chorizo in a skillet. In a bowl, combine roasted vegetables, cooked chorizo, black beans, and sour cream. Coat bottom of pan with cooking spray and ½ can of enchilada sauce. Stuff shells with veggie and chorizo mixture and place in pan. Drizzle top of shells with remaining sauce. Top with cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes or until brown and bubbly. Top with a dollop of sour cream, jalapeño, and cilantro.

Back in the early 1960s, the folks at McCormick & Company were sure they had a hit on their hands. The homegrown spice and flavoring giant was launching a powdered, effervescent, children’s drink in foil packs they cleverly called “Fun.”

Charles “Buzz” McCormick Jr. was a company product manager at the time (he retired as CEO in 1999) and remembers the Fun days well. It seems Emerson Drug, Baltimore’s maker of Bromo-Seltzer, was having some success with Fizzies, a tablet that turned water into a bubbly soft drink—kind of like a fruit-flavored Alka-Seltzer. The spice guys decided to beat the Bromo boys.

“We came up with a granular product, which we thought was better,” the 85-year-old retiree says by phone from his Florida home. “We actually did a lot of TV advertising on it in three test markets [10 more the second year] and we did absolutely great.”

The Mad Men-era ad copy practically wrote itself: laughing, eager-eyed kids yelling, “We’re going to have Fun!” Buzz McCormick even recalls witnessing a boy having a full-on temper tantrum in a Baltimore grocery store after his mother refused to put Fun in their shopping cart.

A major, multi-state rollout was launched and McCormick execs sat back waiting for Fun sales to explode. But instead, the product did. Literally. The foil packaging technology of the day wasn’t up to the crushing production demands and many Fun packets leaked, allowing moisture to seep in. Water is what made Fun bubbly in a glass. And water in the foil packet is what made Fun a ticking time bomb on the warehouse shelf.

“The packets swelled up and burst so loud,” Buzz McCormick explains. “I remember a sales call with a [supermarket] broker in Florida one day, and he happened to put a couple packs on the floor in front of his foot and, by mistake, he stepped on one and it blew up like a balloon.

“Oh Lord, it was a disaster,” especially so in the South’s humid air, he concludes with a chuckle.

Buzz McCormick can laugh about the blunder now that it’s decades behind him. But perhaps his ready mirth is also born of the knowledge that such product flops—or busts, in this case—have been few at McCormick. How else to explain how the company his great Uncle Willoughby founded 125 years ago, peddling root beer extract door-to-door out of a Baltimore cellar, grew into the world’s largest spice maker, with more than $4 billion in annual sales and some 10,000 employees around the world?

In fact, the international business has flourished well beyond the spice rack into a global food giant, with its flavor concoctions now found in most grocery aisles—from baked goods to frozen foods—and in some 125 countries. Huge food chains use them, too. Kentucky Fried Chicken’s 11 herbs and spices? Yes, McCormick supplies some of those. Of course, there’s a certain crab seasoning they produce, too—all part of the company’s compelling history.

Old Bay, the spice most closely associated with McCormick today—at least for Baltimoreans—is celebrating two-dozen years as part of the company’s product line. McCormick, however, didn’t invent the beloved summertime spice, which was the work of one Gustav Brunn, a German Jew who escaped the Nazis and set up the Baltimore Spice Company in 1939. Over time, the unusual spice blend in the yellow tin has even made its way beyond the Mid-Atlantic and across the country, into Canada, and even parts of Europe. “I know I have personally seen it on the menu in the Netherlands,” says Old Bay brand manager Jessica Schatz. “The popular flavor profile of Old Bay is the one people have loved for 75 years. It’s classic, and we would never change that.”

The folks at McCormick also say Oprah lent a hand in broadening the Old Bay fan base when a multi-million selling 1994 cookbook she co-authored called for it in a couple of recipes. (Remember, before she was a one-woman media juggernaut, she was an ambitious young TV personality at WJZ.) Beyond the crab pot, the salty-hot mix is showing up in all kinds of places, possessing a near cult following. The Charmery ice cream parlor in Hampden has a popular Old Bay caramel flavor, while Frederick’s Flying Dog Brewery recently released its Old Bay beer, Dead Rise.

And, although McCormick & Company didn’t give Old Bay its name, Buzz knows how it came about, and it takes him back to his days working at the company’s plant on the Inner Harbor. “Right across the street, the Old Bay Line and Chesapeake Line sent ships to Norfolk every evening at 6 and 6:30,” he says. These passenger steamers sailed into the sunset in the 1960s, but what was initially called Delicious Brand Shrimp and Crab Seasoning, he notes, didn’t take off until Brunn renamed it in honor of these boats.

Still, long before the acquisition of Baltimore’s favorite crab seasoning, as the Fortune 1000 company was cutting a wide swath through the food world, McCormick was leaving a substantial mark on its hometown as well. And it all started with a hard-bitten Virginian armed with borrowed cash and big dreams.

Buzz McCormick was a tyke of four when great uncle Willoughby McCormick died in 1932 at age 68, but he has distinct memories of his ancestor. “He lived two blocks away from us in the Warrenton Apartments on Charles Street,” he says. “I remember being up in his apartment and seeing him and his wife, and she played Chinese checkers with me.

“He had an electric car in those days, and a chauffeur, and he used to go down to the plant in his electric car,” he adds. “How many years has it taken to get back to that?”

Owning the Prius of its day might have been a nod to modernity, but the founder was largely an old-school, autocratic industrialist of the high-collared, 19th-century variety. Or, in his great-nephew’s words: “He was a tight-fisted Scotsman who never threw away a used envelope so long as it still had room for additional writing.” Willoughby McCormick was born in Northern Virginia and developed an interest in the food trade while working at a family general store in Texas. He birthed his business in Baltimore in 1889 because the port city was well positioned as a distribution center. (Coincidentally, the same year that he began peddling root beer in Baltimore, a man named Emile Zatarain began doing the exact same thing down in New Orleans; his effort grew into the bulging Zatarain’s brand of Cajun and Creole food products that McCormick bought 11 years ago for $180 million.)

Along with extracts and juices initially sold door-to-door, there were curious non-food items, including Uncle Sam’s Nerve and Bone Liniment “fit for man or beast” and the smelly, fish-based Iron Glue that “sticks everything but the buyer.” Spices didn’t join the fold until Willoughby McCormick bought the F. G. Emmett Spice Company of Philadelphia in 1896—growth by acquisition eventually becoming a McCormick & Company hallmark.

The business had already emerged from its initial year in a glorified cellar to reside in a series of ever-larger downtown locations. But don’t look for any of these old buildings today, because in the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904, you’ll recall, some 80 blocks of the city went up in smoke. “We lost everything but our books, which we got out at about 3 o’clock this morning,” Willoughby wrote in a letter home to his mother. “We had to run for our lives.” The tenacious McCormick had a spanking new five-story factory erected on the ashes of the old before the year was even out. The company soon added tea to its line and helped pioneer the manufacturing of tea bags. (Before machinery was developed to stitch them, the tea bags were handsewn by local church groups as piecework fundraisers.)

The building Baltimoreans of a certain age will most associate with McCormick is the aromatic, cream-colored, nine-story leviathan that loomed over Light Street and the Inner Harbor for nearly seven decades. Erected in 1921, it competed with the Bromo-Seltzer tower’s spinning blue bottle with a giant rooftop pepper tin and vanilla bottle. Documents of the day gush over the sheer enormity of place—over 12 acres of daylight floor space and some 37,000 windowpanes. Business was booming.

And then it wasn’t. By 1932, the Depression had delivered the company years of red ink. Willoughby McCormick made a desperate trip to New York to secure new loans. Instead, he died of a sudden heart attack. He didn’t have any children, but there were relatives in the business, most prominently his vice president, nephew Charles McCormick Sr.—Buzz’s father, known by all as C.P. And so, at the ripe age of 36, he was the lucky one to assume the helm of the beleaguered business. Previously, the company’s response to the Depression had been hard-handed austerity: Wages were cut multiple times, work hours were increased. The new McCormick in the corner office charted a different course.

“What C.P did was rather incredible,” Buzz McCormick says. “He held a meeting with employees and told them that he was not going to cut wages again but was going to give everybody a 10-percent increase.” Some in the Baltimore business community branded him a communist for his liberal personnel policies, which included profit sharing and free turkeys for workers at Thanksgiving—a practice the company continues to this day via vouchers for the cost of a full holiday bird. His benevolent moves, designed to foster teamwork, were actually the concepts of a shrewd capitalist. This carrot-instead-of-the-stick approach had the business back in the black by 1933. His progressive policies also included something he branded “multiple management,” wherein workers of all ranks were invited to form junior boards with a say in corporate governance. (Well, all male employees—things weren’t that progressive yet.)

McCormick became a coast-to-coast company in 1947 when it acquired San Francisco’s A. Schilling and Company, the largest spice company west of the Mississippi. It, too, dated to the 1880s and also had overcome catastrophe after the 1907 earthquake leveled its facilities. Buzz calls it “the world’s perfect merger,” and the Schilling name didn’t begin to be phased out in the western U.S. until the 1990s.

The second-generation McCormick brought some whimsy to the work as well, most colorfully through the construction of Friendship Court, a detailed recreation of an Elizabethan village—timbered frames, leaded widows, thatch-and-slate roofs—rambling through the Light Street building’s 7th floor. A centerpiece was the Ye Olde McCormick Tea House where, as late as the 1980s, women in hooped skirts and petticoats distributed free tea and cookies to tourists beneath a beamed ceiling.

Although McCormick is a public company, not a family one, there have always been namesake employees in the business. John McCormick, Buzz’s half brother, is presently vice president of government affairs and community relations, though slated to retire in December after 45 years. He, too, started as a teen on Light Street.

“My worst memory was getting inside of a steel container we used to make mayonnaise to clean it out,” he recalls. In the summer of 1976, an armada of tall ships arrived at a pre-Harborplace Inner Harbor for a four-day celebration, and he remembers this, too. “Mayor Schaefer called [us] and asked, ‘What can you do to make the harbor smell good?’” John McCormick says. “Of course, we always tried to do everything to keep odors to a minimum. But, we scheduled all our cinnamon to be processed on those four days, and we allowed more of the cinnamon dust to get out than would normally be the case. I won’t go into how, but the harbor smelled great.”

The harbor also smelled great on a more somber occasion—during the weeks it took to knock down McCormick’s cement behemoth factory in 1988. Each blast of demolition equipment ushered up decades’ worth of spilt spice dust—a scented swan song.

McCormick had begun the piecemeal relocation of operations to the Hunt Valley area in the early 1960s. Eventually, only a bit of spice milling was left on Light Street, where the railroad tracks and cobblestones had been replaced with carloads of daytrippers flocking to Harborplace. The empty structure was sold to the Rouse Company, which demolished it over the ardent cries of preservationists, who lamented losing such a landmark of industrial heritage. Plans have come and gone for the parcel, which has remained a parking lot to this day, and proposals are again afoot to erect a skyscraper there.

Two years ago, McCormick opened its World of Flavors “retailtainment” center in Harborplace, returning, if on a much smaller scale, some scent of spice to the Inner Harbor. But now that McCormick HQ is tucked away in a leafy suburban office park, rather than perfuming downtown from a mammoth building topped with an oversized pepper tin, it’s safe to say the company has a much lower local profile. (There are concerns, as McCormick looks to consolidate more of its office workers under one roof, that some local jobs could potentially move to nearby Pennsylvania, but the search for new office space has just begun, according to a company official.) Parts of Friendship Court were moved and rebuilt in the new building, though it’s no longer open for public tours. Also not open to casual visitation is what they call the “global market” tucked in the headquarter’s fourth floor. On a recent workday, corporate communications director Jim Lynn led a reporter on a small tour around the sprawling mock store where shelves are lined with McCormick goods from around the world.

The familiar McCormick spice display from your local Giant or Safeway is herewith its red-capped wares, as are some of the ethnic lines geared to the domestic market, such as Thai Kitchen and Simply Asia. But most of the shelf space is given over to a polyglot of foreign brands the company has acquired through the years: Club House (Canada, 1959), Schwartz (UK, 1984), Aeroplane (Australia, 1994), El Guapo (Latin America, 1999), Margão (Portugal, 2000), Vahiné and Ducros (France, 2000), Silvo (Holland, 2004) Kamis (Poland, 2011), and Kohinoor (India, 2011). Business with China began in the late 1980s, and McCormick China was founded in 1998 and two additional Chinese food brands were bought just last year.

“These retail consumer products represent about 60 percent of McCormick’s business today,” Lynn says. “About 40 percent of the business is selling to food manufacturers and restaurants. And it’s more than them just saying, ‘Hey, back up a truck-load of cinnamon,’ our R&D department actual helps them develop the products.”

As far back as World War II, when access to spices such as pepper and cinnamon were severed, McCormick has explored the natural and chemical components of flavor in the lab. Now, an army of white-coated scientists go at it like gangbusters here. It’s a safe bet that the flavor profile of the latest bag of chipotle cilantro chips, or what have you, was born in the Baltimore suburbs off of I-83.

In 1998, The New York Times ran an article on McCormick, “Trouble in Spice World,” and quoted a Goldman Sachs analyst’s warning that the business “does not have a lot growth in it.” People were cooking from scratch less and eating out more, the analyst figured. Oops. McCormick’s net sales and profits have nearly doubled in the last decade alone. Globalization is part of that. And so are the Food Network celebrity chefs and Martha Stewarts of the world engendering renewed interest in cookery. And if people do opt to dine out? Chances are they will eat McCormick there as well, at the drive thru or the white tablecloth restaurant. There is even a special “McCormick for Chefs” line.

“Make the best—someone will buy it” is the old McCormick motto carved into the Ye Olde Tea House mantelpiece—long said to be Willoughby’s words. But in his 1993 corporate memoir, Pepper People, Buzz McCormick came clean, reporting that his father created the quote and attributed it to his uncle (who was probably too busy squirreling away used envelopes and conjuring up new goods to go in for much sloganeering).

A less formal saying now floating around the corporate offices goes like this: “On any given day, the odds are you consume a McCormick product.”

Even flinty old Uncle W. would probably crack a smile at the thought of that.

Brennen Jensen is a contributing writer for Baltimore.

Much like her meticulously researched historical novels, author Sujata Massey carefully curates the family meals and lists them on a small chalkboard hanging from a wall of her kitchen. “Usually, I try to plan my menus on Sunday,” says Massey, who lives in a late 19th-century Tuxedo Park home with her husband, Anthony, and children Pia, 16, and Neel, 13. “Tonight, they’re going to have coriander chicken. 

They’re going to have couscous. And they’re going to have ratatouille,” she says, pointing to the handwritten “specials” on the board. “The kids like it better when they’re not surprised. There’s usually one night when it’s blank, and then they can suggest something.”

Also appearing on the chalkboard: Moroccan meatloaf, pork tacos, and crab-cake mac and cheese. It seems there is not a pedestrian dish served in Massey’s charming, renovated kitchen, with cabinets, countertops, and a Kitchen Aid oven purchased from Second Chance. 

“Not that my kids would like everything I make,” she says with a gentle laugh, “but we wouldn’t have tuna casserole for dinner. It just wouldn’t fly.”

Foods from around the globe were an integral part of Massey’s upbringing. She was born in England to parents from India and Germany, but raised in the United States. (California, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota are all places she’s called home.) “My parents met in England in the late ’50s,” says Massey, a former reporter for The Evening Sun and a graduate of The Johns Hopkins University. “My father was not that thrilled with my mother’s German cuisine, except for the desserts. They did a lot of international cooking together, not just Indian food.” Cooking was a way of life for her family, she recalls. “I remember my parents making pita bread from scratch,” she says, “and they made fun things like empanadas. There was always a lot of cooking.”

Massey and her two sisters were schooled in the culinary arts as well. “By the age of 10, we were each responsible for one night a week of cooking,” she explains. “When I went to college, I went with Craig Claiborne’s The New York Times International Cook Book—that was our family’s bible, not the Joy of Cooking. I did a lot of his French and Greek dishes. I loved Indian food, but didn’t start cooking that until college.”

Today, the writer continues her family’s culinary traditions in her kitchen (her latest novel, The Sleeping Dictionary, even includes recipes for mustard shrimp and rice made with cardamom and cinnamon), devising dishes such as the one for cilantro chicken below. “It’s like a gateway dish of Indian cooking because you don’t need to purchase Indian spices for it,” says Massey. “You can get all the ingredients at the Waverly Farmers’ Market, and you can eat it with Mexican, Mediterranean, or Indian foods.”

Massey also finds cooking to be the perfect balance to a writer’s more sedentary life of laboring over a laptop. “It’s a really good physical release after sitting and writing for hours,” she says. “It’s a form of movement for me and intellectual freedom.” There is also a complementary relationship between what she whips up for her family and what she creates on the page. “I tie a lot of the things I make to what I’m thinking about and reading and doing,” she says. “Right now, I’m writing about South India, so I’ve gotten interested in cooking South Indian food. Last week, I made a soup called sambar—it’s easy, healthy, spicy, and low-calorie. Cooking unites me with what I’m writing.”

Cilantro Chicken Bake

Serves 6 to 8

Ingredients

• 1 (5-pound) chicken, cut into serving pieces with bone intact but skin removed

  For marinade:

• 2 cups plain Greek yogurt (low-fat or full-fat)
• 1 large bunch cilantro, washed well with leaves trimmed to make about 3 cups
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 small onion, coarsely chopped
• 1 tablespoon canola or vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 tablespoons
• Black pepper

Directions

1. Combine all marinade ingredients in food processor or blender to make a thick, pale-green purée.
2. In a separate dish, add chicken pieces to the marinade. Cover and refrigerate from three to 24 hours.
3. On cooking day, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line metal 9-inch-x-14-inch pan with foil.
4. Bake chicken covered for 30 minutes, and then broil the pieces five to seven minutes per side until chicken starts to slightly char.
5. Serve pieces on a platter surrounded by lemon wedges and garnished with fresh cilantro.

Leah Eskin—a Pulitzer-Prize nominated author of the Chicago Tribune’s food column “Home on the Range” (and a Baltimore transplant!)—released
her memoir Slices of Life: A Food Writer Cooks through Many a Conundrum on March 25. 

The book blends her essays and recipes into a delicious collection that’s as sweet as her honey apple tart. Eskin, who lives in Roland Park with her husband Bob Blau and her two chidren, ages 16 and 14, spoke to us about her new book, which will be available at amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

What’s a recipe in the book that people have consistently told you they loved/were surprised by?

Everyone loves the pot roast. When I was little, my mom made it. Hers was best the second day, after the noodles and sauce had gotten friendly in the fridge. My approach encourages noodle/sauce canoodling right up front.

What are three things everyone should have in their kitchen? 

A cast-iron skillet, a sharp chef’s knife, a good attitude.

What’s your favorite Maryland recipe? 

Love crab cakes. Love Southsides [the cocktail]. Love oysters. I’ve got recipes for all three in the book, though natives might find them suspect. 

Is there any dish you simply cannot master, no matter how many times you try?

Steak scares me. I keep hoping my husband will take up the cause.

What is your favorite recipe in the book? 

Chocolate-chip cookies. It’s my favorite recipe in life. And my version, while only slightly different from the standard, is easier [melt the butter], more convenient [freeze the dough], and better [it guarantees soft, pliant cookies]. What’s not to like?

The essays are written in a variety of styles and tenses. What’s your most natural voice when you write?

 I like that “essay” means “try.” I’ve tried first, second, and third person; past, present, and future. For an essay on gnocchi, I tried using every word that begins with “gn.” The challenge with the book was weaving them together into a narrative, a memoir of adulthood. Over the course of 200 recipes, I raise two children, endure one dog, tend one marriage, and sigh through many a goodbye. I puzzle over my usual preoccupations: odd words, dark chocolate, and the ideal kitchen plan.

What’s something you really hope the reader will come away knowing about you and the food you make? 

I’m not one for complicated. I like simple ingredients and simple tools and simple recipes. I think cooking is more about pleasure than about showing off.

Whose cookbooks and recipes do you like to use?
Love Dorie Greenspan, Rick Bayless, Patricia Wells, Alice Waters, Gale Gand. I also consult the classics: Pierre Franey, Julia Child, the Joy of Cooking. They inspire confidence.

One theme of the book is that food is something you can make no matter how busy you are or what problems you’re facing. How would you encourage someone who wants to start cooking but thinks they’re too busy?

Well, I’m certainly not advocating cooking, or anything else. The book can be read simply as a memoir. For people who want to cook, I’d say start simple. Noodles with butter is delicious and, as my kids have discovered, tastes deliciously self-sufficient.

When you write your column, do you think of a recipe first and match it with a memory or story, or vice versa?

Usually the story comes first, then the recipe. Sometimes it’s the other way around, especially if I’ve already turned in the recipe. A deadline is a potent motivational tool.

With leather bracelets from India adorning each ankle, Maria Broom
sits at her kitchen table as she talks about her 64 years of
gallivanting across the globe. “I’ve been to the continent of Africa at
least eight times,” says the Windsor Mill resident. “I’ve been to India
four times. I’ve been to Czechoslovakia and Poland four times, and I
spent a year in Germany, a year in Hawaii, a year in Tennessee, and a
year in L.A.” Her brief time as a flight attendant actually spurred her
interest in cooking. But all roads have returned her to Baltimore. “I
always come back here,” she says.

Broom’s peripatetic career path has had many incarnations—including roles on The Wire and Homicide: Life on the Street,
a four-year stint as a WJZ consumer reporter (working alongside an
ingénue named Oprah Winfrey), and as an accomplished storyteller who
performs locally. But her primary passion is dance, which she currently
teaches at the Baltimore School for the Arts.

A trip to see Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo at the Lyric at
age six gave her direction. “I remember thinking, ‘Those are my
people,’” she says. “‘That’s where I need to be.’”

Broom studied dance while at Morgan State University and won a
Fulbright scholarship to Germany in the early ’70s. When her studies
ended, she had a change of heart about dancing. World travel beckoned,
especially after she watched a flight attendant give instructions in
different languages while en route back home.

“I thought, ‘I can do that—I can do it in French, I can do it in
German, and if I hear it enough, I can do it in Spanish,’” she says.

When she got home, she headed to New York and interviewed with Pan
Am. They offered her a job based in Miami. But she got more than she
bargained for.

“In those days, there were real meals being served, and you had to
cook,” she says, laughing at the memory. “We actually had to preheat
these ovens and ask the people in first class, ‘How would you like your
steak? Rare or medium rare,’ and thenyou had to remember that the person
in 3F wanted it well-done. It was the perfect job for a year.”

These days, Broom is happy to be back on terra firma in her
own country kitchen, where she loves to put together a meal. “I am an
intuitive cook,” says Broom, who enjoys making stir-fry. “When I became a
vegetarian in 1976, so much of it was trial and error. I went through a
lot of tofu in those early years.”

While her life has led her in many directions, Broom finds it’s a
small world after all. “The older adults know me from my
consumer-reporter days, the middle-aged adults know me from teaching
their children, and now the younger adults know me as Miss Maria who
comes to their classroom and performs,” she says. “I feel like the
village’s favorite daughter!”

Miss Maria’s Veggie Stir-Fry

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tablespoons ghee (clarified butter)
• 1 medium organic sweet onion, diced
• 1 medium organic red pepper, seeded and sliced thinly
• 2 cups organic broccoli florets
• 1 cup organic portobella or shiitake mushrooms, cut into large dice
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 2 teaspoons curry
• 2 teaspoons maple syrup
• 3 cups organic brown basmati rice, cooked according to package directions

DIRECTIONS

• In a large skillet, add 1 tablespoon ghee, and melt on low-medium heat.
• Add onion, and sauté for 10 minutes or until translucent.
• Add peppers and broccoli florets, and sauté for two to three minutes.
• Add mushrooms and garlic and sauté with other vegetables for an additional two minutes.
• In a small saucepan, melt remaining tablespoon of ghee over low-medium heat.
• Add cumin, curry, and maple syrup, and stir until sauce forms a paste.
• Add paste to vegetables.
• Stir. Serve over rice. Serves 4.

Even in the calm and comfort of her own Pikesville kitchen, Diane
Macklin is in perpetual motion. She makes coffee with her new single-cup
Keurig brewer, throws open the doors of a cabinet to show off her
Indian spices, rifles through a recipe notebook to share her favorite
dishes, and quickly pulls items out of her refrigerator.

She has no qualms about showing off the homemade, basil-infused
vodka, which she proceeds to serve (at least on this weekday) well
before noon. “I’m on my fourth cup of coffee,” explains Macklin, more
commonly known as “Downtown Diane.” “That’s why I’m so revved up.”

But truth be told, the diminutive dynamo (“barely 5 feet,” she
giggles) is always on the go. She’s an entertainment, food, and travel
reporter, who dishes on hot happenings in and around Baltimore on her
website downtowndiane.net (she has more than 4,900 followers on Twitter)
and does a gig with 105.7 radio on the Norris & Davis Show.

When she isn’t out and about, though, she can most often be found in
her homey kitchen, whipping up cauliflower curry stew for her daughter,
Jessica, 20, and meatloaf for her husband, Larry, and son, Josh, 18.

Preparing family holiday favorites, such as apple kugel (see recipe),
is also part of her repertoire. “I found this recipe on a cooking
website a few years ago,” says Macklin. “I wanted something to add to
the Passover table that was a little bit sweet. Since you can’t eat
noodles on Passover, I decided to substitute farfel [broken pieces of
matzo] for noodles. It’s not your typical kugel, but my guests have
always loved it.”

Macklin’s sunlit kitchen—stocked with cookbooks (Roy Yamaguchi,
Rachael Ray, and Gertrude’s John Shields among them), a wine rack, and
ample seating for family and friends—is the hub and the heart of the
home. “I’ve thought about redoing this kitchen,” she says, “but I love
the light and the white, and I really use this kitchen. I have a friend
with a two-million-dollar house who doesn’t know how to turn on her
oven, and I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me?’”

The all-white kitchen is also a perfect backdrop for the colorful
Macklin who was named funniest girl at both Pikesville Middle and
Pikesville High schools. “I am the only girl in the family, and I have
two brothers,” says Macklin. “I was always around my brothers’ friends
and had to be outgoing.”

Radio personality Steve Rouse can attest to her persona. “Diane is a
cross between Joan Rivers and Mother Teresa,” says Rouse, who helped her
get started in radio. “Pretty crazy and very giving and caring, all at
the same time.”

Macklin has always been a foodie. “Ever since high school, I’ve
worked for almost every restaurant in Baltimore,” she says. “At various
times, I worked at Lee’s Ice Cream, Sizzler (“I quit after the first
night because they told me to clean the dining room,” she says,
laughing.), Miller’s Deli, and York Steak House. “My favorite was
Lee’s,” says Macklin. “I still make an amazing milkshake because of
working there.”

As a mass communications major at Towson University, Macklin interned
with radio and TV personality Eddie Applefeld, who was then marketing
director of Lexington Market. “I was in charge of leading the school
groups and teaching them about the different types of foods sold there,
including tripe and pig’s feet,” says Macklin, who went on to become a
marketing director for a Baltimore-area Domino’s Pizza franchise at age
23.

Although Macklin takes frequent cooking classes (at Roy’s and Chef’s
Expressions, for example), her own taste buds have been her greatest
guide.

“The secret to being a good cook,” says Macklin, “is putting your own
touch on a recipe. If something calls for a certain amount of an
ingredient, do it according to your own taste. That’s key. In the
kitchen, you have to be fearless.”

Passover Apple Kugel

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups matzo farfel
• 4-6 apples (preferably Granny Smith), peeled and diced
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons margarine, melted
• Cinnamon

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Fill a medium-sized pot half full of
water and bring to boil. Add farfel and cover. After five minutes, when
farfel has softened, drain.

In a separate bowl, mix remaining ingredients, adding cinnamon to
taste. (She likes to add cinnamon to the mixture and then sprinkle more
on top before baking as well.)

Add the drained farfel to the mixture. Mix well and pour into a baking dish. Bake for one hour.

Serves 8 to 10.

What’s cooking in Baltimore? From sushi to Thai food to homemade pasta, pretty much every cuisine under the sun. Lucky for us, Charm City is blessed with an array of classes for fledgling cooks and experts alike.

People are heading home to the range for a couple of reasons. “The meteoric rise of the Food Network helped fuel foodie awareness and enthusiasm,” says Jay Blotcher, a media specialist for the Culinary Institute of America in New York, a leading training ground for chefs.

But 9/11 was a factor, too, even today. “We’ve had a seismic shift,” Blotcher says. “It really did shake us up to the point where people want the security of home-cooked meals again. People want to get back to basics.”

With that in mind, we went in search of the best cooking programs in the Baltimore area. And we found a veritable smorgasbord of classes, sure to bring out the inner chef in everyone. Ready . . . set . . . cook!

Note: This version of the story contains classes and recipes that did not appear in print.

Chef’s Expressions at the Gramercy Mansion

1400 Greenspring Valley Rd., Stevenson, 410-561-2433

The classes, taught by chefs Jerry Edwards and John Walsh, are dinner theater and culinary lesson all in one. “This class is more of an observation class,” says Edwards, who runs cooking demonstrations as a companion to his successful catering company, Chef’s Expressions. “The idea is to get people excited, to give them a good meal and good drinks. We are there to entertain, and while they may learn things along the way, we are not there to turn them into chefs—we don’t need the competition.” Occasionally, however, the duo competes with one another. “We are culinary soul mates,” cracks Edwards. “John likes to say, ‘Never trust a skinny chef.’ I like to say, ‘You are only as good as your last meal.’ And both of us have total joie de vivre.”

CUISINE: A variety of classes, including Middle Eastern-inspired dishes and homemade pasta. DETAILS: Classes are held from 6-8 p.m. about six times a year; upcoming classes include “Poulet and Poisson,” “Celebrate the Pig,” “Hearty Pasta & Soups.” Single classes: $60 (including wine pairings); three classes, $160; six classes, $300. Participants receive a take-home recipe book. Capacity for up to 60 people. INSTRUCTOR: Jerry Edwards and French-born chef John Walsh. COOKING TIP: “The recipe is only half the story,” says Edwards. “Technique is the key. How hot was the pan? How long did it sear? How whipped are the eggs?” FOOD FOR THOUGHT: “Being able to cook is a natural-born talent,” believes Edwards. “Just as a musician can hear the music without playing, I can taste a dish just by looking at it.”

Cooking at Pierpoint with Nancy Longo

1822 Aliceanna St., 410-675-2080

With her classes at Pierpoint Restaurant, Nancy Longo’s mission is to take the fear factor out of the kitchen. “I’ve had some people tell me they’ve taken classes with the ‘Frenchies’ and been screamed at the entire time,” says Longo, who started her classes in 1990 and has more than 500 students a year. Though her classes are more laid-back in style, they’re also reminiscent of what you might find in a professional culinary institute. “I teach technique,” she says. “If I’m teaching a fish class, for instance, I teach how to gut and debone a fish. We’re not just making pâté. You don’t come to my class to make something cute in one hour.”

CUISINE: Indian, Southwestern, barbecue, modern American, sauces, holiday cooking, vegetarian, gluten free, and classes for kids.DETAILS: $75 ($65 in advance); discounts for taking more than three classes and for students. Includes a group meal with wine and beer; classes capped at 10 and last up to three hours. INSTRUCTOR: Nancy Longo, a James Beard nominee and a graduate of Baltimore International College. COOKING TIP: “If someone has written a book, and they are a credible author, follow the directions,” Longo says. “Don’t just add soy sauce to a dish. You have to be an anthropologist and understand borrowed cuisines and spices that go together.” FOOD FOR THOUGHT: “The most surprising thing about teaching?” she says. “I’ve had 8-year-olds in my class who knew the history of garam masala and how to make hollandaise. We can thank the Food Network for that.”

Donna’s

5850 Waterloo Rd., Columbia, 410-465-2399

“Ten years ago, I started cooking classes thinking I was going to write a cookbook,” says Donna Crivello of Donna’s. “When I was still in the space at The Baltimore Museum of Art [now home to Gertrude’s], I was talking to a publisher about recipes for home cooks, and there was interest, but I never had a deadline, so it never got done.” Having so many tried-and-true recipes in her repertoire prompted Crivello to start teaching. “People take classes for a variety of reason,” she says. “Some people go home and try to cook what I’ve shown them or modify what they’ve seen. For others, they’re just happy to get out and socialize.”

CUISINE: Single-session demonstration classes on soups, pies and tarts, holiday dishes, salads, dressings, and vegetarian dishes. DETAILS: $50, includes samples of the recipes that are prepared, wine, and take-home recipes; most Wednesdays at 6:30 p.m. INSTRUCTOR: Former Sun food stylist turned eponymous restaurateur Donna Crivello. COOKING TIP: “You don’t need to have tons of equipment or special ingredients to be a good cook,” Crivello says. FOOD FOR THOUGHT: “My goal is to help everyone learn to cook without a recipe and without having to run to the store for every ingredient,” she says.

For the Love of Food

20 Clarks Ln., Reisterstown, 443-865-0630

Diane Bukatman has an impressive culinary resume that includes an apprenticeship at the famed Le Cirque restaurant and teaching gigs at the New York Restaurant School and French Culinary Institute. But after years of teaching for others, Bukatman decided to start her own cooking school. “I love sharing a passion for food,” says Bukatman. “But I didn’t want to teach in a place where I had to administer tests.” Twelve years ago, she founded For the Love of Food, a culinary school she runs out of two professional kitchens in her Reisterstown home. She likes the challenge. “To teach cooking, you have to be part cooking teacher, part actress, and part stand-up comedian,” she says.

CUISINE: The focus is on promoting kitchen confidence through technique and the how’s and why’s of cooking; other classes offered include Thai cooking, sushi, pasta, and knife skills. DETAILS: “How to Think Like a Chef,” a six-class series costs $425; some classes are single sessions; a meal is included; BYOB; some equipment used is available for purchase. INSTRUCTOR: Diane Bukatman. COOKING TIP: “Never cook when you’re in a rush and love what you’re doing,” she says. FOOD FOR THOUGHT: “For me, when I’m cooking, something opens up,” she says. “When I’m having a hard time breathing, and I’m cooking, it’s like, ‘I’m there now.’”

Kaleidoscope

Roland Park Country School, 5204 Roland Ave., 410-323-5500

Culinary classes at Roland Park Country School’s Kaleidescope give students an opportunity to whip up delicious dishes and also bond over food. Recently, after a popular Thai cooking class ended, the class convened at Thai Arroy with teacher Ang Robinson. “They all had fun and made new friends,” says Judy Comotto, director of external programs at Roland Park Country School. “People are looking for ways to make connections with other people—to share their culinary and often their life experiences.”

CUISINE: Single-session and multi-session cooking classes on topics from gluten-free cooking and Thai cooking to Ayurvedic healing Indian cuisine and appetizers for entertaining. DETAILS: Varies according to class. INSTRUCTORS: Teachers include nationally known writer Jules Shepard (gluten-free cooking), area caterer Kerry Dunnington, and Thai cooking teacher Ang Robinson. COOKING TIP: “[The key] is having a curiosity and willingness to learn and explore new foods and cuisines and make it your own somehow,” Robinson says. “It’s limitless.” FOOD FOR THOUGHT: “These classes are only going to grow,” says Comotto. “The baby boomers want cooking classes. They are not going to rock into old age the way that generation before did.”

RA Sushi

1390 Lancaster St., 410-522-3200

A class at RA Sushi features a sushi lesson and a history lesson (no pun intended) rolled into one. “We include a brief history of sushi so students understand the tradition,” says restaurant manager Andy Gaynor. While students learn assembling tips and tricks, Gaynor and sushi chef Aldon Blackwood allow plenty of latitude for mistakes. “Everyone messes up their first roll,” says Gaynor, laughing, “The main goal is to keep it light and have a good time.”

CUISINE: Participants learn sushi basics, including how to make shrimp and salmon nigiri, California rolls, and “tootsy maki,” a RA specialty. DETAILS: $32 per person/$60 per couple; take-home sushi mat included; classes offered once or twice a month and capped at 18 to 20 students. INSTRUCTORS: Former sushi chef Andy Gaynor and chef Aldon Blackwood. COOKING TIP: “Cooking the rice correctly is key,” says Gaynor. “You don’t want it to be too mushy or too hard, and the timing is crucial.” FOOD FOR THOUGHT: “The sky is the limit with sushi,” he says. “That’s what makes it so much fun.”

Rev. Oreste Pandola Adult Learning Center

914 Stiles St., 410-866-8494

In 1996, the late Rev. Oreste Pandola came up with a recipe for revitalizing a downtrodden corner of his Little Italy community. “There was a school around the corner from St. Leo’s parish that had closed, and it was wasting away,” explains Rosalie Ranieri, principal of the Rev. Oreste Pandola Adult Learning Center. “At the same time, the Reverend saw senior residents with idle time. He decided to open an adult learning center.” Pandola passed away a year after the school opened in 1997. The center named in his honor is now host to hundreds of local residents who enroll in a variety of classes, including painting and Italian language. But the cooking classes tend to draw the biggest crowds. “My challenge is to empty the building every night,” Ranieri says. “No one ever wants to leave.”

CUISINE: Italian; includes learning how to make mozzarella, ravioli, gnocchi, sauces, breads, sausages, Easter treats, and Limoncello. DETAILS: Average class cost is $10; the next session of classes begins March 8. INSTRUCTOR: Various instructors, most of whom are Italian home cooks in Little Italy. COOKING TIP: “When it comes to cooking, just follow your instincts,” says Joe Platerote, who teaches a pasta course. “There is no one way to cook.” FOOD FOR THOUGHT: “The interest in cooking classes is part of a return to people’s culture and their roots,” Ranieri says. “They want to make recipes that their mothers and grandparents made.”

Waterfront Kitchen

1417 Thames St., 443-681-5310

Long before Jerry Pellegrino became the consulting chef at the new Waterfront Kitchen and host of WYPR’s Radio Kitchen, he was enrolled in a molecular genetics Ph.D. program at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. “I never finished my thesis,” he says, “but I always enjoyed the teaching.” Pellegrino, a lifelong foodie, went on to teach cooking basics at Federal Hill’s defunct A Cook’s Table before offering a cooking program at the now closed Corks—his Federal Hill mainstay for almost 15 years—and now at Waterfront Kitchen.

CUISINE: Classes include pasta-making, knife skills, how to make chili, and pairing food with wine. DETAILS: The classes are $59 and held in Waterfront Kitchen’s state-of-the-art kitchen. INSTRUCTOR: Chef Jerry Pellegrino. COOKING TIP: “Cooking is mostly practice,” he says. “Jacques Pépin has this famous quote. When asked, ‘Why do you make the best prime rib?’ he says, ‘Because I have prepared so many of them in the past.’” FOOD FOR THOUGHT: “I went into this business for the instant gratification,” he says. “As a scientist, it can take years to prove something. When I cook, people tell me they like it right away. I like the pat on the back.”

Whole Foods Culinary Center

200 Harker Pl., Suite 100, Annapolis, 410-224-2042

“Our kitchen is laid-back,” says culinary specialist Frances Vavloukis, who teaches at the cooking school. “It’s not all stainless steel. It’s meant to be inviting and is designed to feel like you are coming to my house for dinner.”

CUISINE: Gluten-free cooking, date-night cooking class, “Chefs in the Kitchen” summer camp, Greek pastries, knife skills, Mediterranean cooking, and surf and turf. DETAILS: About 12 single-session and multi-session classes are offered each month, including hands-on and demonstration classes and lectures; demo classes, $30-35 for a single session; hands-on class, $50-65 for single session (includes a meal). INSTRUCTORS: Frances Vavloukis, a Philadelphia Restaurant School graduate and personal trainer, teaches the majority of classes; some classes taught by Whole Foods staffers and area experts, including food photo stylist Rita Calvert and Culinary Institute of America graduate Robert Chaisson. Guest chefs have included Hell’s Kitchen winner chef Rock Harper and Food Network’s The Next Food Network Star finalist Tom Pizzica. COOKING TIP: “The key to being a good cook is not to stress about it and to practice,” says Vavloukis. “The more you do it, the easier it becomes.” FOOD FOR THOUGHT: “For me, cooking is a high,” says Vavloukis. “In the way that some people like to paint, I like to create using herbs and spices.”

The Dogwood Restaurant

911 W. 36th St., 410-889-0952

In response to repeated requests from diners, chef Galen Sampson started cooking classes at The Dogwood Restaurant two years ago. “We speak with our guests pretty regularly,” says Sampson, “and in talking to them, they all wanted to know when we were going to start a class, so we did.” Sampson, a former electrical engineer who also runs a cooking apprenticeship program for his staff, hopes to share his enthusiasm for his trade. “I had no passion for what I was doing as an engineer,” he says. “When I was growing up, everything revolved around the table, and my parents were the first generation to leave the farm. With my classes, my goal is for people to get an idea of how to put flavors together, to understand why things don’t work out, and to have a good time. We try to make it fun and festive.”

CUISINE: Classes are offered quarterly and include demonstrations and some hands-on cooking. In the past, they have focused on Indian, Asian, low-country, holiday cooking, and “Cooking with the Seasons,” including grilling and outdoor smoking. DETAILS: $78 per person (including tax and gratuity) includes wine; classes are held the second Saturday of each month from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. INSTRUCTOR: Galen Sampson, whose culinary bragging rights include stints at Utah’s five-star Stein Eriksen Lodge, Virginia’s famed Homestead, and Baltimore’s Harbor Court Hotel. COOKING TIP: “Commit to using fresh products and, whenever possible, shop at the farmers’ markets,” says Sampson. “Cook in the season. Don’t buy strawberries in February.” FOOD FOR THOUGHT: “Cooking is an art form that everyone can do,” he says. “You can create things for other people, make them smile, and feel good with your hospitality.”

Germano’s Trattoria

300 S. High St., 410-752-4515

Eight years ago, Germano’s Trattoria hosted school children from Fort Garrison Elementary School in Stevenson for the restaurant’s first-ever pasta-making demonstration for kids. The field trip was such a hit, owner Germano Fabiani decided to make it a regular ritual. “The kids love to throw flour at each other,” he says. “We don’t advertise, but we must be successful because after all these years, the buses keep coming.”

CUISINE: Italian; pasta-making demonstrations primarily geared toward kids. DETAILS: $17.95 per person for lunch, gelato, and demonstration; by appointment only. INSTRUCTOR: Italian-born Germano Fabiani. COOKING TIP: “Making pasta couldn’t be simpler,” he says. “You add equal amounts of eggs and flour and maybe a touch of salt.” FOOD FOR THOUGHT: “The demonstrations are all hands on,” he says. “We help the kids get messy, and they learn that cooking is fun.”

Roy’s Hawaiian Fusion Restaurant

720 B Aliceanna St., 410-659-0099

Patrick “Opie” Crooks’s first cooking demonstration at Roy’s in Jacksonville Beach, FL, was a bit incendiary. “Everyone makes mistakes, especially in front of a crowd,” he says. “On my first day on the job, the other chef didn’t feel like doing a demonstration. He said, ‘You do it.’ I was cooking lobster pot stickers on a camping stove, and, the next thing I knew, I lit the tablecloth on fire.” He’s learned a lot since then. These days, Crooks cooks in Baltimore for everyone from actor Mario Lopez (who was in town to promote his TV show Extra) to former Orioles Rick Dempsey. In addition to doing demonstrations, his goal is to demystify Hawaiian fusion fare. “The purpose is to get the guests involved,” Crooks says. “I want them to learn what curry paste is. I want them to learn what lemongrass is, and I don’t want them to be intimidated by our cuisine.”

CUISINE: Hawaiian-fusion inspired demonstrations of various Roy’s menu items as well as special-request dishes; past classes have included Parmesan-encrusted mahi mahi with blue-crab bisque, smoked salmon ravioli, and vanilla-bean crème brûlée. DETAILS: $55 per person (including multicourse meal) for up to 50 people; classes held monthly. INSTRUCTOR: Patrick “Opie” Crooks, a young Ron Howard look-alike who attended the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Atlanta. COOKING TIP: “The balance of salt, pepper, and acid are the key to good cooking,” Crooks says. FOOD FOR THOUGHT: “Cooking is fun,” he says, “and that’s what we are trying to demonstrate with this class.”

Alfredo Sauce
From the Rev. Oreste Pandola Adult Learning Center

1 stick unsalted butter
3-4 tablespoons flour
2 cups cream
1 cup Pecorino Romano grated cheese
White pepper
1 pound pasta, cooked

Melt butter in sauté pan over medium heat. Add flour to make roux. Mix in cream, grated cheese, and pepper to taste. Cook for several minutes until sauce has thickened. Remove from heat.

Mix in pasta.

Note: If sauce becomes too thick, add a bit more cream.

Recipe courtesy of Joe Platerote, a teacher at the Rev. Oreste Pandola Adult Learning Center

Lemon Asparagus Soup
From Chef’s Expressions at the Gramercy Mansion

1 1/2 pounds fresh asparagus, rinsed and peeled
2 cups vegetable or chicken stock
2 tablespoons butter
3 shallots, minced
1 small sweet onion, diced
Sea salt
White pepper
1 lemon
1/2 cup heavy cream

Peel the asparagus. Trim the tips from the asparagus, about 1 to 1 1/2 inches in length. Cut the stems at the snap point and discard the woody ends.

In a stockpot, bring the chicken stock to a boil. Blanch the stems for 5 minutes or until tender and remove. Add the tips to the stock and blanch until tender, 1 to 1 1/2 minutes. Remove with a strainer and refresh in an ice-water bath. Drain on paper towels and reserve the tips for the garnish. Reserve the stock.

In a medium stockpot, melt the butter over medium-high heat. When foamy, add the shallots and onion and cook until tender, about 4 minutes. Add the asparagus stems, salt, and pepper, and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Squeeze the lemon into the mixture. Add the reserved broth and simmer until the asparagus are very tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from the heat.

With a hand-immersion blender or in batches in a food processor, purée the soup until smooth. Add the heavy cream and season with salt and white pepper to taste. Cook, until the soup is warmed through, about 3 minutes. Garnish with asparagus tips that have been quickly sautéed in butter.

Kolokithokeftedes (Zucchini Fritters)
From Whole Foods Culinary Center

3 medium zucchini, grated
1 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1 cup feta cheese, crumbled
3/4 teaspoon dried mint leaves
8 tablespoons flour
1/ 2 teaspoons pepper
Olive oil for frying

Mix zucchini with salt and let stand for 1 hour. Squeeze out moisture. Beat eggs in a bowl. Add zucchini, cheese, mint, flour, and pepper to taste. Heat olive oil over medium heat and add zucchini mixture, 1 tablespoon at a time. Brown on both sides.

Recipe courtesy of Frances Vavloukis, Whole Foods Culinary Center

Middle Eastern-Inspired Stuffed Eggplant
From For the Love of Food

2 medium (but long) eggplants, split in half, see note
2-3 tablespoons plus ½ teaspoon olive oil, divided
1 medium onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 pound lean ground beef
2 plum tomatoes, seeded and diced
¼ cup diced dried apricots
2 teaspoons ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¾ teaspoon ground cardamom
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
¾ teaspoon ground sumac, or 1 teaspoon lemon juice
Fresh chopped parsley
3 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted Tahini sauce for serving

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Roast eggplant, cut side down on foil-lined cookie sheet, for about 15 minutes, or until flesh is tender. Scoop out flesh from inside eggplant and mash. Save eggplant shells.

Heat a large sauté pan over medium heat until hot. Add just enough olive oil (2-3 tablespoons) to cover bottom of pan and add diced onions. Cook until translucent. Add garlic and cook 1 minute. Add ground beef and cook until browned, breaking up with a spoon as it cooks.

Add eggplant flesh, tomatoes, apricots, cumin, cinnamon, cardamom, and cook about 5 minutes to allow all flavors to combine. Taste and correct seasoning with salt, pepper, and sumac or lemon juice.

Divide filling among the 4 eggplant halves, sprinkle with parsley, drizzle with 1/2 teaspoon olive oil and place in hot oven to bake for about 15 minutes, or until eggplant shells have softened. Sprinkle with pine nuts. Serve immediately with Tahini sauce on the side.

Note: Zucchini can be substituted for eggplant.

Rice Noodles with Basil and Garlic
Recipe courtesy of Ang Robinson, Roland Park Country School Kaleidoscope Programs

1 pound package fresh rice noodles, thawed if bought frozen and brought to room temperature (thin or flat)
5 tablespoons cooking oil, divided
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
2-3 cloves garlic, pound into paste with 3 chili peppers in a mortar and pestle or crushed with side of a cleaver (add more or less chili to taste)
1 pound medium sweet onion, thinly sliced
1 pound chicken breast, sliced (marinate for 10 minutes with soy sauce, oil, and rice vinegar)
2-3 tablespoons soy sauce plus extra for serving
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
½ cup red bell pepper, julienned (optional)
½ cup carrot, julienned
1 cup fresh Thai basil
Fresh chili peppers, thinly sliced

For fresh noodles, bring to room temperature. For quick results, put refrigerated noodles in microwave-safe container and heat for 3 minutes or more. Let cool and noodles will be soft and easy to separate.

In a wok, heat 2-3 tablespoons oil over moderate heat, stir in 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce, then add noodles. Toss noodles in oil and soy sauce until well-coated (about 3 minutes). Place noodles in a large bowl.

In a saucepan, heat remaining 2 tablespoons oil. Stir in garlic and chili paste. When garlic turns yellow and chili peppers start giving out a fiery smell, add onion and then chicken and stir a few times. Add soy sauce, fish sauce, and sugar. Stir bell pepper, if using, and carrots into the mix when chicken is done. Cook a few more minutes and, just before turning the heat off, add basil.

Divide noodles onto four plates, spreading chicken, vegetables, basil, and sauce on top. Serve hot with soy sauce and fresh chili peppers.