For farmers, periods of uncertainty are nothing new. Every year, they face the possibility of frosts, floods, droughts, and subsequent crop loss that can come with working at the whims of Mother Nature. Each spring is spent preparing as best they can for the busy months ahead, but this season, even the most veteran growers could not be ready for what would come next.

When the state’s first case of COVID-19 was confirmed on March 5, it would be just one week before Governor Hogan enacted social distancing measures to slow the coronavirus’s spread. In the coming days, many local businesses would close, and the city’s restaurant scene would come to a grinding halt, virtually drying up a primary source of income for many local farmers.

“This time of year, restaurants are 100 percent of our business,” says Joan Norman from One Straw Farm, which grows 65 acres of organic vegetables in White Hall, “and that income just stopped.”

“At first, I was worried about next week’s orders, but we had no idea that restaurants would close entirely or for so long,” says Emma Jagoz of Moon Valley Farm, an organic produce operation in Woodsboro, whose team is now working to help feed the out-of-work hospitality employees, contributing to fresh food shares in Baltimore through Woodberry Kitchen’s new Here For Us market, and Washington, D.C. through Friends and Family Meal, a brand-new nonprofit that fed nearly 400 families in its first two weeks.

In lieu of restaurant orders, Beckie Gurley had to essentially reinvent Chesapeake Farm to Table, a small farm collective that sold directly to local chefs. “We did a complete 180,” says Gurley, who also runs Calvert’s Gift Farm in Sparks with her husband, Jack. “We went from selling nearly 100 percent to restaurants to 100 percent home deliveries. Our volume has increased by tenfold. We have probably gained close to one thousand new customers in the past two weeks.”

With the global food supply chain turned on its head, consumers have been quick to express new interest in purchasing their food directly from local farmers, leaving many growers rushing to adapt this evolving market—adding e-commerce platforms to their websites, devising distribution systems for at-home delivery or drive-through pick-ups, and incorporating no-touch harvesting and handling protocols.

“It’s been an interesting challenge to wrap my mind around doing online sales for the first time,” says Elisa Lane of Two Boots Farm in Hampstead, who is shifting back to growing vegetables after a more recent focus on the local flower market, which has been impacted by postponed or cancelled events like weddings. “A lot of people really want to support local farms right now.”

For many, that’s through community supported agriculture, or CSAs. Moon Valley started offering their version of these fresh produce boxes more than a month early, moving from pickup locations to twice-weekly home deliveries. “I wanted to keep our product moving, our staff working, and our community fed,” says Jagoz, who is also selling seedlings for customers to grow their own. “The reception has been amazing.”

Farmers have long sold directly to their communities, and these days, that existing infrastructure is coming in more handy than ever, particularly in Baltimore City, which has long struggled with a lack of fresh food resources for underserved neighborhoods. “What we’re really seeing is the way in which having farms and gardens present in city neighborhoods is a form of food security,” says Mariya Strauss, executive director of the Farm Alliance of Baltimore, a non-profit cooperative of urban farms and community gardens across the city.

Local farms are also offering discounted options for families in need, such as reduced-price CSA shares at Two Boots, which Good Dog Farm in Parkton is also considering, or sliding-scale egg sales from Kitchen Girl Farm in Cockeysville. Through donations, the Whitelock Community Farm in Reservoir Hill is providing produce to group homes, senior centers, and neighborhood residents.

With some 12,400 farms of varying sizes across more than two million acres of land, agriculture is Maryland’s largest commercial industry, contributing some $3 billion to the statewide economy each year. In Baltimore City and County alone, there are more than 700 farms, growing more than $67 million worth of products.

But between March and May, small farms and ranches nationwide could see a decline in sales by as much as $688.7 million, according to a new report by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, stemming from coronavirus-related closures of restaurants and schools, as well as delayed or reduced markets. The new coronavirus stimulus package provides some $9.5 billion to support farmers across the country, though how it will be distributed lies in the hands of the Department of Agriculture.

In the meantime, Maryland is one of the dozen or so states that have deemed farmers markets an essential business, thus permitting them to remain open throughout the pandemic.

“Farmers markets play a critical role in providing fresh, nutritious and locally produced food products to customers across the state,” said Maryland Department of Agriculture Secretary Joe Bartenfelder in a statement last month, “especially those Marylanders who live in food deserts and those who rely on SNAP [or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits to access fresh produce,” with some 650,000 residents enrolled last year.

But despite the green light, the decision to remain open hasn’t been easy for market officials, who have wavered between the importance of food access and public health.

Following Centers for Disease Control Guidelines, preventative measures are being put into place, such as social distancing practices, from staggering customers to spacing vendors six feet apart, as well as increased food safety, like providing hand sanitizer and hand washing stations. Some farmers have started taking pre-orders to eliminate wait times, while others plan to have separate employees for handing produce and payments.

Throughout the coronavirus crisis, the year-round 32nd Street Farmers Market in Waverly has remained open, noticing a surge in mid-March when statewide restrictions were first put into place. The Kenilworth Farmers Market is still slated to open on April 14, and Fells Point Farmers Market is moving forward with its May 2 start date. “We’ve had quite a few people ask if we could open even sooner,” says Fells Point’s market manager Merritt Dworkin.

Meanwhile, the Baltimore Farmers Market & Bazaar beneath the Jones Falls Expressway, which typically draws some 5,000 shoppers each Sunday, decided to delay its April 5 opening for the foreseeable future, while the smaller Rotunda Farmers Market in Hampden has also been put on hold until further notice. “We are in such a state of uncertainty at the moment and feel as though this is the best decision for all involved,” wrote the latter’s organizers on Facebook.

While these markets are an important source of income for local farmers, especially during the height of the warm-weather growing season, there are still some concerns about how things could pan out in the months ahead. “It’s clear we’re going to have fewer customers,” says Gurley, who currently sells at the Takoma Park Farmers Market. “Because it’s early in the season, it’s hard to tell what the impacts will be, but if this was June, we’d have something to be concerned about. Just like everyone else, we’re taking it day by day.”

The Maryland Farmers Market Association has also created a Google Map directory of Mid-Atlantic farms and food sources to promote local food access across the region with the help of Future Harvest, a regional nonprofit focused on sustainable agriculture, as well as Delmarva Grown, an Eastern Shore cooperative for supporting local farmers, and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. Since going live on March 21, it has been viewed more than 40,000 times.

With increased demand for local produce, some farms have been able to add to their staffs, even hiring those who have lost jobs in the coronavirus aftermath, but others have had to temporarily lay off employees, while more still are waiting for theirs to arrive.

Last year, some 250,000 seasonal migrant farmworkers came to the U.S. from Mexico under the federal government’s H-2A visa program. But this year, coronavirus precautions and limited staffing at the State Department led to an early bottleneck in the application process, inciting fears of labor shortages, though eased restrictions hope to speed things along. So far, Maryland farmers have requested more than 600 positions for the 2020 growing season, with 10 of those bound for One Straw.

“At this point, we’re being told they’ll still be allowed in,” says Norman, whose returning workers, also deemed essential employees, are expected to arrive around April 16. For the first two weeks, she’ll monitor their temperatures each morning, wash their gloves every night, and provide sick time for those who need it.

For nearly 20 years, Norman has been worried about a national emergency and its effects on the local food system. “On 9/11, I had people come up to me and say, ‘If we’re at war, will you feed us?’” she says. “At that point, I realized we needed to be ready to feed our friends and family.”

There is no current evidence of coronavirus being transmitted by food, but organic certification like hers adds an extra level of traceability, with required harvesting records allowing farmers to tell you roughly when and where a head of broccoli or bunch of carrots was picked.

In these strange times, the fields themselves offer a sense of security, as by the time coronavirus landed in the U.S. in January, most farmers had already been planning for their future harvests. The vegetables are coming, regardless of the pandemic or global chaos, and the next two months will be rich in greens, followed berries, then peppers, squash, and eggplant, before tomatoes, melons, and stone fruit.

“There’s no food shortage, but it certainly does feel that way when you go into the grocery store,” says Gurley. “We’re planning now for June and July, September and October. As farmers, we have to continue moving forward.”

But even still, there’s one looming question:

Will communities continue to eat and support local after all of this has passed?

“Local food is more important now than ever, and for so many reasons,” says Jagoz, noting the greater nutrition of freshly picked seasonal produce, the smaller environmental impact of delivering goods over shorter distances, and the overall improvement of local economies—with small farms employing local people, shopping for supplies at local stores, and feeding their local communities. “People are searching for the new normal, and in terms of food, it’s local.”

Pickles are popping up all over the city as many area chefs and food purveyors turn out their own delicious versions. For Spike Gjerde of Woodberry Kitchen, pickling is a way of life. He pickles and preserves summer’s produce to provide local ingredients year-round at his restaurant. He even pickles broccoli stems, which many other restaurants toss in the trash, he says. When Clementine’s Winston Blick pickles at his restaurant, he thinks of his grandmother’s home cooking. Jason Gallant, owner of In a Pickle, aims for old-fashioned charm, selling his pickles from large, brine-filled barrels at the Baltimore Farmers’ Market & Bazaar and at D.C.’s Eastern Market. And these cooks aren’t just making traditional dill or sweet pickles— they’re pickling a variety of items, including eggs, beets, pumpkins, and rhubarb. The basic ingredients of pickling brine are water, salt, sugar, and vinegar (see recipe). The brine is then poured over raw foods and sealed in a container, which can then be heated, stored in the refrigerator, or vacuum-sealed.

Whatever method is used, pickling fits right into the “craft-food” movement of focusing on locally sourced and prepared foods. We talked to several local preservers about their mission.

Clementine

At the Hamilton restaurant, chef/co-owner Winston Blick makes a lot of food in house—from pâtés to marmalades. Pickles are a specialty, particularly bread-and-butter pickles (based on his grandmother’s recipe) and a beet-and-onion-infused pickled egg. He uses his pickled products as part of the restaurant’s charcuterie plate and even as a garnish for martinis.

“Pickling works well for our vision and overall theme— traditional foods using modern techniques.”

To make his pickles, Blick pours hot brine over thinly sliced cucumbers and seals the contents in a container. He doesn’t preserve these pickles long term because of the high volume he uses during the week. “I’ll also take something seasonal, such as ramps, and pickle it to make it last longer,” he says.

Blick feels strongly about the nostalgia of pickles. “Pickling is a craft,” he says. “And when customers see someone using their hands to make their food, it’s cool. But for me, pickling reminds me of something I enjoyed as a kid.”

Of Love & Regret

Chef Keith Curley has been pickling since the Brewers Hill restaurant opened a little over a year ago. “Pickling works well for our vision and overall theme—traditional foods using modern techniques,” he says.

He uses a quick pickling method, soaking vegetables in brine overnight so the flavors can infuse. Afterward, he vacuum-packs each batch of pickles.

In the early summer, Curley pickles asparagus, cauliflower, peppers, baby carrots, celery, and radishes. He likes to present them on his charcuterie plate. He also makes bourbon-infused pickles and pairs them with Binkert’s sausages and pâté toasts. “Pickles cut through the richness of many of my dishes,” he says. “They add contrast and brightness to the plate. And they’re also just fun to snack on.”

Curley also has pickling plans for the restaurant’s rooftop garden, where he grows peppers and other vegetables. “The more we source our own vegetables here, the more important it is to not waste anything,” he says. “For me, pickling is a beautiful way to extend their life.”

Woodberry Kitchen

The jars of pickled vegetables and other preserved foods lining the walls at Woodberry Kitchen are not meant for decoration. Canning and preserving are the backbone of chef/owner Spike Gjerde’s Clipper Mill restaurant.

Each year, Woodberry Kitchen organizes a “Preservation Workshop,” where employees watch canning demonstrations and receive detailed information about Maryland crop harvests, the history of canning and preserving, and more.

Pickling helps the restaurant stay local year-round, whether it’s preserving Maryland-grown summer cherries or garlic scapes (the curling tops of garlic plants), Gjerde says.

“Pickles contribute flavor and texture for sure,” he adds. “But for us, they play a greater purpose, which is to allow us to offer our guests these vegetables in the off-season and to help us ensure our commitment to offering locally sourced products.”

The Fork & Wrench

Executive chef Cyrus Keefer currently features pickled vegetables on his charcuterie tray. “If we have something rich on the plate, you need something pickled to cut the fat,” he says. “We want a little tanginess from the vinegar in the brine.” Keefer uses vegetables the restaurant grows in nearby plots and from local farms for pickling. He’s also planning to can various produce for year-round use.

He is especially interested in introducing Asian flavors to pickling, such as fennel pickled in the style of kimchee (fermented Korean vegetables), paired with an Italian dish. “No one has been doing this really,” says Keefer. “It’s kind of a different take on the farm-to-table movement.”

In a Pickle

Jason Gallant’s stand In a Pickle is a fan favorite at farmers’ markets in Baltimore and D.C. For him, pickles represent the best of the past. “In the old days, New York’s lower East Side was full of pickle-mongers,” he says. “One place, Gus’s Pickles, had big barrels of pickles in their store. Customers would reach in with their bare hands to grab pickles. That’s why we sell our pickles from wooden barrels—we want to reflect those times.”

While kosher dills are Gallant’s most in-demand pickle, he also sells sweet wasabi pickle chips, Old Bay pickles, half sours, hot-and-spicy pickle chips, and more. “I’ve also made small, test batches of wackier varieties like pickled pineapple and pickled beets,” he says. His “pickle pops,” or pickles on a stick, are also a hit with children and adults of all ages.

Gallant wants to keep his business small, rather than expanding to a storefront. “Farmers’ markets require fewer resources,” he says. “Some joke and call us gypsies. We’re there one minute, and gone the next.”

“I love seeing what other people and restaurants are doing with pickles. I’m the guy who wants to try them all!”

Tanner’s Comestibles

Evan Tanner wears many hats: He’s a bartender at Johnny Rad’s, a drummer in the local band War on Women, and founder of Tanner’s Comestibles. He’s also a self-confessed “pickle nerd.” “I’ve always loved pickles, every kind,” he says.

In 2011, he developed his own brine recipe after much experimentation. He was already pickling by fermenting vegetables when he took the process a step farther. “I started with a home-canning kit,” he says. “Things evolved from there.”

His varieties include habañero bread-and-butter pickles (his most popular) and lemongrass garlic-dill pickles. The jars can be found at stores like The Wine Source in Hampden, Fleet Street Market in Fells Point, and Grand Cru in Belvedere Square. He’s also awaiting FDA registration for his Caribbean jerk-spiced pickled okra and pickled ginger lemongrass edamame.

Tanner is excited about the explosion of the pickling scene in Baltimore. “I love seeing what other people and restaurants are doing with pickles,” he says. “I’m the guy who wants to try them all!”

The warmer weather is like a siren song to Baltimoreans to head outdoors—of course, the result is much more rewarding than what the mythological Greek femme fatales had in mind. Our fresh air promises relaxation and fun. Restaurants heed thelure, too, scattering tables and chairs on any space with access to breezes to accommodate diners seeking alfresco options. We’ve found 20 places where we think the ambiance and views make the food taste better than ever. We also talked to a local psychologist about the benefits of being outdoors and found out what local restaurateurs do during those inevitable summer showers.
Hint: Your meal won’t be a complete washout.

1. Alexandra’s Restaurant
2. The Ambassador Dining Room
3. Arcos Restaurant
4. Blue Hill Tavern
5. Bond Street Social
6. Café Gia
7. Gertrude’s
8. Kali’s Court
9. McFaul’s Ironhorse Tavern
10. Mr. Rain’s Fun House
11. The Oregon Grille
12. Regi’s American Bistro
13. The Seasoned Mariner
14. Severn Inn
15. Tabrizi’s
16. Tark’s Grill
17. Waterfront Kitchen
18. Wine Market Bistro
19. Wit & Wisdom
20. Woodberry Kitchen

Alexandra’s Restaurant

ELLICOTT CITY

The ambient sounds wafting across Alexandra’s patio are the whoosh of sprinklers and the occasional thwack of a golf ball on the green——unless it’s a weekend evening when a jazz ensemble begins tuning up as a member of the waitstaff stops by to mix a pitcher of sangria tableside. Part of a million-dollar renovation of the Turf Valley restaurant——named for the resort owner’s first granddaughter——was a new outdoor space dotted with fire pits, cushioned wicker sofas, and comfortable chairs around umbrella-protected tables. But the best part may be Russell Svoboda’s food. A veteran of the Great Sage in Clarksville, the executive chef balances fresh salads like the best-selling, seafood-laden Chesapeake cobb with interesting bites like Kobe beef sliders and Cajun corndogs——andouille sausage crusted in cornmeal——a welcome snack after 18 holes.
2700 Turf Valley Rd., Ellicott City, 410-480-2400.

The Ambassador Dining Room

TUSCANY-CANTERBURY

About the only thing more romantic than a winter meal near the crackling fireplace in The Ambassador’s elegant dining room is a summer meal in the garden. When the weather turns warm, the walls are literally raised, the flower beds planted, and the fountain cranked up. Those who want to keep the palate sated on a hot day can sip on a cold mango lassi or margarita, or nibble on a raita salad, cool as the cucumbers it’s made from. If a bit of heat doesn’t bother you, by all means go for a masala or vindaloo. Though the restaurant was named for the apartment building in which it resides, The Ambassador also reflects its namesake occupation: It’s a polite and accommodating introduction to another culture.
3811 Canterbury Rd., 410-366-1484 .

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Arcos Restaurant

FELLS POINT

There are plenty of Latin American restaurants in Upper Fells Point, but few transport you as successfully as Arcos——though the destination may not be entirely clear. Is it a San Miguel social club or a college-era spring-break bacchanal? Either way, the enclosed brick patio, with its rugged wooden booths and bar tables, walls decorated with wooden carvings, and colorful murals is the perfect place to quaff margaritas, sangria, or cerveza between nibbles of salty tortilla chips, warm from the oven, swirled in perfectly lumpy just-made guac, or slow-cooked, pull-apart barbacoa (barbecued meat) with rice and beans. The courtyard bridges seasons with heaters and a portion covered by a glass roof. But on clear nights, revelers flock to the open-air section, where a live tree reaches its branches from the bricks into the starry night sky.
129 S. Broadway, 410-522-4777.

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Blue Hill Tavern

BREWERS HILL

On a temperate evening, the upstairs deck delivers the hip vibe of Manhattan or L.A. with low wicker sofas, streamlined bar stools and kidney-shaped bar, fresh cocktails, artisanal drafts, and smoked oysters. And then there’s the view, from the rooftop decks of Canton row houses to downtown Baltimore, or if you’re dining in one of the second-floor alcoves, to the water, with the Mr. Boh sign looking over your shoulder. There’s also a smattering of aluminum tables surrounded by planters out front along Conkling Street in sight of the busy bar inside with its waterfall backdrop. Blue Hill Tavern’s talent is combining down-home charm with upscale sophistication——a place where you can dine on soft-shell crabs delivered fresh from Smith Island, washed down with an elderflower Cosmopolitan.
938 S. Conkling St., 443-388-9363 .

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Bond Street Social

FELLS POINT

It makes sense that one of OpenTable’s top 100 hot spots for 2012 is also a fine place to enjoy the great outdoors. Indeed, the Fells Point restaurant offers all of the necessary ingredients: an expansive brick patio, a harbor view, a convivial party vibe, and, of course, delicious fusion cuisine. The emphasis is on sharing dishes. Savor “social plates” like the piquant chicken Caesar bites, heavenly tuna tartare with wasabi cream, juicy Bond Street burger sliders, and the crunchy Social fish & chips with Old Bay tater tots. For dessert, think liquid. Sip a chocolate or Key-lime-pie martini as you watch the world stroll by. There’s no shortage of interesting characters sauntering around the former seafaring village.
901 S. Bond St., 443-449-6234.

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Café Gia

LITTLE ITALY

The colorful Little Italy bistro adds another dimension to its already impressive dining experience——alfresco meals on a second-floor balcony bedecked with a wrought-iron railing reminiscent of the French Quarter. The view of the row-house skyline in the evening is surprisingly scenic. Who knew Eastern Avenue could be so beautiful? A striped awning, roped in tiny white light, shelters the tables while enhancing the ambiance. The sought-after space is only open for dinner (or special parties), and the 22 seats fill quickly. Chef Gianfranco Fracassetti’s menu contributes to the allure, from the antipasto platter and grilled calamari to the bountiful plates of fettuccine alla Bolognese and shrimp fra diavolo. Cap a romantic evening with espresso and the restaurant’s signature ricotta cake.
410 S. High St., 410-685-6727 .

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Gertrude’s

HOPKINS-HOMEWOOD

A meal under the protection of the permanent tent in The Baltimore Museum of Art’s sculpture garden needn’t be dependent on an invitation to a Hopkins graduation or a wedding reception——though everyday diners may have to wait till those popular events clear out. There’s a reason this sublime spot with terraced fountains, near a collection of sculptures that includes works by Calder, Noguchi, and Rodin, is a highly sought-after spot for events large and small. Chef/owner John Shields, a pioneer locavore, continues to offer Chesapeake specialties, including his famous rockfish, Chincoteague fried oysters, and crab cakes named for his grandmother Gertie. On weekends, the ligh-fare menu is the perfect way to wind down after a stroll through the museum.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Dr., 410-889-3399.

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Kali’s Court

FELLS POINT

Plan ahead if you crave one of the three garden tables at Kali’s Court, the luxe Greek restaurant in Fells Point. Kali’s honors requests for outdoor seating, but we’re told folks who want to dine at 7 p.m. are willing to settle for 4:15 to sit in the lush garden, bursting with flowers and herbs. The owner’s mother Kaliope (the restaurant’s namesake) is fondly remembered for the wild mountain oregano from her native Greece——used to season the restaurant’s famed bronzini——as well as the moon vine, whose white flowers open after sunset, that she planted every year. Guests are also seated at two indoor tables perched near wide open windows at the edge of the garden, and two additional deuces on a New Orleans-style second-floor balcony may just be the best seats of all, with views of the garden below, as well as across the Thames Street cobblestones to the water.
1606 Thames St., 410-276-4700.

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McFaul’s IronHorse Tavern

LOCH RAVEN AREA

Oh, Sanders Corner, you’ve come a long way since your ice-cream and early eatery days. The memories may be sweet from the time you were owned by the same family for more than 50 years, but another era has begun with new owners, a massive remodeling, and fine American cuisine being prepared by executive chef Evan Orser. The summer menu includes items like McFaul’s crab dip, farmhouse mac and cheese, Albright Farms berry-BBQ chicken, Tilghman Island crab cake, or a pork quesadilla made with local Ferguson Family Farm shredded pork. Perched on the edge of Loch Raven Reservoir, the restaurant is surrounded by greenery, visible from expansive windows. The best place for nature-watching, though, is on the covered wood deck. You’ll feel like you’re sitting in the treetops. It doesn’t get more idyllic than that.
2260 Cromwell Bridge Rd., 410-828-1625.

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Mr. Rain’s Fun House

FEDERAL HILL

A seat on the outdoor terrace at the American Visionary Art Museum’s whimsical eatery will put you nose to pinwheel with Vollis Simpson’s 55-foot whirligig, positioned at the edge of Federal Hill’s sharp slope. A cocktail or two and a plate of small bites mean a few more revolutions of the signature sculpture—giving the balcony the distinction of being a kind of inside-out rotating restaurant. Equally mesmerizing is the restaurant’s menu, a balance of levity and earnestness. Fun: the house-made boudin sausage with various sides including chili. On the serious side, there’s a rib-eye steak from Painted Hills farm. Mr. Rain’s fits hand-in-glove with Baltimore’s most quirky, and yes, visionary, museum.
American Visionary Art Museum, 800 Key Hwy., 443-524-7379 .

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The Oregon Grille

HUNT VALLEY

Jay Gatsby and Daisy would love it here. Dining on The Oregon Grille’s bluestone patio is akin to attending a ritzy party in the Hamptons. The service is seamless, the menu refined, and the setting pastoral. Diners are seated at white-cloth-covered tables amid a profusion of flowers, lush vegetation, and shade-producing green umbrellas. Unlike the dining room, jackets are not required after 5 p.m. in the courtyard. So relax and chill with a glass of wine or a perfect martini. Savor chef Matthew Siegmund’s seasonal menu from the lovely lobster bisque to filet mignon and Key-lime pie. If you can, sneak away from work for lunch Monday-Saturday. A baby-spinach salad or a burger will never taste so good. And don’t forget Sunday brunch either. You’ll be living the grand life whenever you visit.
1201 Shawan Rd., Hunt Valley, 410-771-0505.

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Regi’s American Bistro

FEDERAL HILL

Regi’s in Federal Hill offers urban dining at its best on a covered patio fronting busy Light Street. Neighbors walk by, greeting friends who’ve managed to score a precious outdoor seat. Everyone is so friendly, including owner Alan Morstein, that you’ll feel like a resident even if you aren’t. We like sampling the farm-to-table fare in the late afternoons before the crowds start roaming the area. The comfy rattan chairs and ceiling fans whirling lazily provide a respite while you enjoy New American cuisine and signature cocktails like the Stoli Strawberry Fields with muddled berries and champagne. For munchies, don’t miss AJ’s tater tots, the smashed veal meatballs with provolone and marinara sauce, and one of the most awesome cream-of-crab soups in town.
1002 Light St., 410-539-7344.

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The Seasoned Mariner

DUNDALK

Forget Ocean City. There’s a beach a whole lot closer for your dining pleasure——in Dundalk, no less——with Bear Creek serving as the postcard backdrop. Reservations are strongly recommended to nab a table on the restaurant’s deck, where a sandy expanse, palm trees, and a wood pier make you feel like you’re on vacation. There’s also a playground for kids, so mom and dad can enjoy adult beverages in relative peace. The mostly seafood menu fits the scene. Enjoy items like crab cakes, fried oysters, Smith Island stew, and shrimp-salad sandwiches while being lulled by the lapping water or watching the motorboats chug past.
601 Wise Ave., Dundalk, 443-242-7190.

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Severn Inn

ANNAPOLIS

When diners go in search of food in Annapolis, they usually are drawn to the touristy eateries near the city dock or other establishments across the Spa Creek drawbridge in Eastport. But there’s another option——Severn Inn, a fine-dining waterfront restaurant with an extended deck that stretches into the Severn River. It also offers incredible sunsets with the Naval Academy in the background. These prized seats go fast, so definitely make reservations. Seafood reigns here. While soaking up the view, dip into the Southern-style crab bisque, oysters on the half shell, “no filler” crab cakes, or wild rockfish. Wash it all down with wine from a well-represented list. And if you’re lucky, you may see Shakira the duck, the restaurant’s unofficial mascot.
1993 Baltimore Annapolis Blvd., Annapolis, 410-349-4000.

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Tabrizi’s

FEDERAL HILL

Adorned with French wicker chairs and close enough to the docked sailboats you could reach out and grab one (but, please, wait till after dinner to satisfy the craving for a boat ride—and jump aboard the Water Taxi, just steps away, instead), the patio spreads from the Harborview restaurant’s dining room along the harbor itself. On a summer Friday, as the concrete is cooling down, a jazz trio might be warming up to accompany a diner’s voyage through the Mediterranean-inspired menu of grape leaves and tabbouleh salad, calamari in chili sauce, or crab meat with saffron aioli heaped on a half avocado. The obliging wine list offers similar warm-weather treats, from a glass of sparkling Cava to a bottle of crisp German Riesling. Warning: This place is insanely popular for waterside weddings on weekends, so call ahead to avoid becoming a crasher.
500 Harborview Dr., 410-727-3663.

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Tark’s Grill

LUTHERVILLE-TIMONIUM

Ahem, there are rules for the patio: First come, first served; no reservations; a requested two-hour limit to hogging a table (our words, not theirs); and no smoking. The flagstone courtyard with the stone fireplace is busy and lively enough to demand such guidelines. Indeed, the place is hopping from lunchtime through after-dinner drinks. But that doesn’t mean the staff isn’t sweet and congenial. They make sure you don’t feel rushed and pace your meal accordingly. Nosh on appetizers like seared rare ahi tuna and fried local oysters before deciding whether to indulge in a full-fledged dinner of crab cakes and baby-back ribs or light fare like a salmon BLT or “Tark’s Custom Blend” burger. If you stop by for lunch, we can’t say enough about the shrimp-salad sandwich. It’s as wonderful as the surroundings.
2360 W. Joppa Rd., No. 116, Lutherville-Timonium, 410-583-8275.

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Waterfront Kitchen

FELLS POINT

The restaurant’s harbor view shouts Baltimore——albeit gently. From tables on the raised wood deck to the lower promenade, diners have a panorama of the old, still-working Domino Sugar plant across the waterway, the refurbished Bond Street Wharf building etched with the signature letters, a Water Taxi stand, and myriad passersby, walking, jogging, pushing babies, or dragging curious dogs. The waddling ducks are a bonus. It’s a glorious vantage point for the seed-to-table fare dished out by chef de cuisine Andrew Kopp. Enjoy appetizers like a plate of three local cheeses, dried fruits, a splatter of honey, and crisp crostini, or charcuterie featuring duck-breast prosciutto and chicken-liver mousse. Entrees range from Springfield Farm organic chicken to Chesapeake Bay rockfish filet. Or simply delight in a Tuesday-Friday happy hour from 2:30-6:30 p.m. with specially priced drinks and nibbles. Either way, there’s no charge for the vista.
1417 Thames St., 443-681-5310.

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Wine Market Bistro

LOCUST POINT

The patio is a dozen tables captured in the quiet center of a repurposed forge at the gateway to Locust Point, meaning a breezy spot even on steamy nights. August, says owner Chris Spann, is actually the restaurant’s busiest time. Summertime diners flock to the outdoors, fortified with wine from the adjacent shop or plucked from the wine list (its minimal markups giving bargain seekers cause to smile). The menu lightens up for warmer months with offerings like shrimp and octopus salad, chilled soups, braised pork cheeks, and fruit desserts. Weekend brunch might start with a smoked-trout salad or pea soup with rosemary-bacon foam and progress to eggs Benedict with cornmeal-fried oysters. The patio occasionally hosts special summer events like grilling and beer tastings.
921 E. Fort Ave., 410-244-6166.

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Wit & Wisdom

A Tavern by Michael Mina

HARBOR EAST

Harbor East’s waterfront became a little bit swankier since the Four Seasons Hotel restaurant opened its red-brick patio in May on a swath of landscape that probably has the most riveting view in town. Skirting the public promenade, the 12 tables, 12 seats at the outdoor bar, and scattered couches overlook the harbor, the Baltimore skyline, a nearby bustling marina, and Pier Six Pavilion. Huge, wind-resistant umbrellas provide cover whatever the weather. This is a place you’ll want to linger as you savor cocktails and appetizers or executive chef Clayton Miller’s full menu. For this reason, the restaurant will take requests for outdoor seating and accommodate diners whenever possible. The food, much of it cooked over an indoor wood-fire grill and rotisserie, is as captivating as the surroundings. How can you not be spellbound by wood-roasted bone marrow, wood-fired lamb loin and leg, and award-winning pastry chef Chris Ford’s delectable desserts?
Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore, 200 International Ave., 410-223-1456.

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Woodberry Kitchen

CLIPPER MILL

When you eat outside here, you may be seated near one of owner Spike Gjerde’s preservation efforts. After all, summer is not only a time for the dedicated farm-to-table chef to fill plates with luscious seasonal bounty, it’s also a chance to stock up for the colder months. A solar dryer, resembling a tipped pinball machine, may contain a stash of heirloom tomatoes or fish peppers, even as diners nibble on the fresh-picked versions at a table near towering cornstalks. Woodberry’s outdoor offerings include meals served on the gravel patio (which itself seems to resemble a raised vegetable bed) or cocktails and small plates around the fire pit, roaring when the weather warrants. As one manager puts it, “We just keep cold water and cold cocktails coming.” Of course, there are also plenty of grilled meats, seafood, and loads of Chesapeake Bay oysters.
2010 Clipper Park Rd., 410-464-8000.

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We love a scavenger hunt, especially when it involves food. And that’s exactly what it was like as we scurried around town, researching our local markets—from farmers’ stalls and gourmet grocers to ethnic shops and organic stores. We discovered an array of new products and ingredients, including a wide assortment of vegan, raw foods, and gluten-free items. Our pantry is now bursting. (For good measure, we even asked chefs and restaurateurs to tell us where they grocery shop.) But even if you’re not interested in cooking, we think you’ll appreciate the abundance of interesting foods in our midst—whether you’re wandering around an outdoor market, ducking into a tiny Italian shop, or making a pilgrimage to Wegmans. Just be forewarned: Our Food Lovers Guide is guaranteed to make you hungry!

The Fresh-Air Approach

Outdoor markets abound in Maryland.
By Maria Blackburn

The vendors at the Baltimore Farmers’ Market quickly become associated with the products they sell. Thomas McCarthy may be “Thomas” to friends and family in Caroline County, but at the sprawling Sunday morning market underneath the JFX, he’s the “bean and pea guy.” Ethan White of J-Mar Stables and Farm in Monkton is known as “the monster carrot guy” for the 3.5-pound orange beauties he sells.

And that’s just the beginning. There’s also the mushroom lady, the doughnut dude, the curry couple, the peach people, the greens guys, the bison boy, and the pork chop girls.

Longtime market shopper Jill Levin reels off her list of favorites. “I’ve got a green bean guy, a leek person, a celery person, a French bread guy, my organic peach people, and a shallot guy,” says Levin, who lives in Sabina-Mattfeldt, a neighborhood near Mt. Washington.

At a time when local and sustainable foods are growing in popularity, and every Tom, Dick, and Whole Foods has a farmers’ market, the Baltimore Farmers’ Market & Bazaar, now in its 34th year, remains the biggest outdoor seasonal market in the region. Its 100 vendors attract as many as 8,000 shoppers weekly. “Farmers’ markets are open all over the place, but there’s no place that has the variety and convenience that we have,” says Carole Simon, the market manager.

But it’s not just the arugula, granola, and “best fish on the planet” that bring market regulars like Scot Spencer of Reservoir Hill to the JFX market. It’s the scene. From the aroma of pit-beef smoke mixed with fried spring rolls, to the sight of young families and tattooed hipsters shopping alongside church ladies in their hats and heels, to the thunderous noise of cars and trucks on the elevated highway above, Spencer can’t get enough. “This is one of the best things about Baltimore,” he says one Sunday as he scoops up a box of apples and loads it into his already full shopping bag. “It’s a real cross section of the city, and it’s always an adventure.”

The atmosphere of the market is something Jack Dawson, aka the omelet guy, appreciates as one of its most distinctive charms. Every Sunday, you’ll find the 72-year-old former journalist, world traveler, and owner of Humpty Dumpty Omelettes standing before his flat-top grill making omelets to order. It gets pretty busy on the line when the market is in full swing.

One morning a few years ago, Dawson was swamped with customers when an occasional customer walked by and jumped in to help him. “She saw I was in desperate straits, and, the next thing I knew, she was working behind the line with me,” he says.

She walked away before he could offer to pay her. When he saw her a few weeks later, she declined the money or even a free omelet. Dawson hasn’t forgotten their exchange, saying, “That, right there, is the spirit of this market.”

To Market We Go!

Don’t miss these other popular farmers’ venues.
By Maria Blackburn

Bel Air
This producer-only market is celebrating its 36th season, selling items from carrots and herbs to ice cream and quail eggs.
The lowdown: 7-11 a.m. Saturdays, the parking lot of the Mary Risteau Courthouse off Thomas and S. Bond streets; 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Tuesdays, the Kelly Ball Field parking lot, 502 Boulton St., www.belairfarmersmarket.com.

Green Spring Station
This Saturday afternoon market—with produce, meats, baked goods, seafood, flowers, and more—offers free parking.
The lowdown: 2-5 p.m. through November 19 at Green Spring Station, Falls and Joppa Roads, Lutherville. 410-828-5447, www.greenspringstation.com.

Hamilton/Lauraville
“Come for the fresh fruits and vegetables, stay for dinner” is the unofficial motto of this three-year-old Tuesday evening market that brings together more than 30 purveyors, selling items including breads, barbecue, jewelry, and quilts.
The lowdown: 4-8 p.m. June 7-October 25, next to the Safeway at Harford Road and Montebello Terrace, hamiltonlauravillemainstreet.blogspot.com.

32nd Street/Waverly
Three words set the Waverly Farmers’ Market apart from the rest: open all year. Founded in 1980, the market has a wide array of produce, baked goods, prepared foods, and flowers. New this year is the installation of an EBT wireless machine that will allow vendors to accept debit cards.
The lowdown: 410-917-1496, www.32ndstreetmarket.org.

Towson
The Towson Farmers’ Market, pictured, kicks off its 32nd season with the debut of several local wineries—including Linganore Winecellars, Basignani Winery, Boordy Vineyards, and Woodhall Wine Cellars—selling their wares for the first time at the market. Other products at this well-attended open-air market include local maple syrup, organic yogurt, free-range chickens, and, of course, fruits and vegetables.
The lowdown: 10:45 a.m.-3 p.m. Thursdays from June 9-November 17, Allegheny Avenue between York Road and Washington Avenue, 410-825-1144.

For a complete list of Maryland farmers’ markets, visit marylandsbest.net and click on Farmers’ Markets.

City Stalwarts

Municipal markets uphold food traditions.
By Martha Thomas

Before there were Giant and Safeway stores or the numerous farmers’ markets, there were the Baltimore Municipal Markets, the oldest continuing city market system in the United States. Today, the City owns and operates five of the six municipal markets. (Lexington Market is run by a quasi-public corporation.)

Big changes are in store for the Broadway Market in Fells Point. Its two cavernous structures will be brought back to life as part of a new development—which will add 160 apartments in buildings flanking the market.

“It’s a cool-looking structure, and it beckons to be something visionary and out of the box,” says David Holmes of South Broadway Properties, the developer of the newly designated Marketplace at Fells Point. Plans involve renovating the south building to house the market’s remaining tenants, and installing a new single enterprise in the north building.

As for the new tenant, nothing was finalized at press time. “It will be centered around food,” Holmes concedes.

A bird’s-eye view of Baltimore’s Municipal Markets:

Avenue Market, 1700 Pennsylvania Ave., open 7 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. The market was taken over by the City’s public markets system in 2001. With the adjacent Murry’s, a retail food store, the Avenue has a mix of stalls with prepared foods as well as cell phones, greeting cards, and T-shirts.

Broadway Market, 1640-41 Aliceanna St., open 7 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. The market is undergoing renovations as part of a neighborhood revitalization effort.

Cross Street Market, 1065 S. Charles St., open 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Mon.-Sat. The popular market, pictured, is anchored on one end by Fenwick’s Choice Meats and on the other by Nick’s Inner Harbor Seafood, a popular beer-and-oyster spot.

Hollins Market, 26 S. Arlington Ave., open 7 a.m.-6 p.m. Tues-Sat. Built in 1838, the market remains the neighborhood’s grocery store. There are seafood, poultry, produce, and butcher shops, along with other stalls.

Lexington Market, 400 W. Lexington St., open 8:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. After visiting Lexington Market, poet Ralph Waldo Emerson is said to have described Baltimore as “The Gastronomic Capital of the Universe.” The privately run market continues to attract visitors to its beehive of stalls, including Faidley Seafood with its famous crab cakes.

Northeast Market, 2101 E. Monument St., open 7 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. Located near The Johns Hopkins Hospital, the market, established in 1885, serves Eastside residents as well as the legions of students and workers in the neighborhood. In 1955, the current brick building replaced the original wood barn. Richardson Farm, a longtime tenant of the market, offers fresh produce and poultry from its farm in White Marsh.

A Guide to CSAs

Here’s what to expect when buying into a local farmer’s harvest.
By Maria Blackburn

Want to buy local zucchini and heirloom tomatoes but can’t make it to a farmers’ market? Purchasing a community supported agriculture (CSA) share not only guarantees access to a steady stream of fresh produce and fruit all summer, but it helps to support a local farm, too.

Here’s how it works: A farmer offers a limited number of shares to the public at the start of the growing season. Then, buyers share in the harvest by collecting a weekly box filled with a sampling of what the farm picked. “The idea of the CSA is that it’s a partnership between the farmer and the consumer,” says Joan Norman, owner of One Straw Farm in White Hall, which has been offering a CSA since 1999. “The consumer helps the farmer purchase seeds, fertilizer, and labor, and, on the flip side, they get fresh produce.”

But before you sign up for a CSA, there are a few things that you should keep in mind:

Plan ahead. If you wait until the farmers’ market season begins to join a CSA, you may already be too late. “Our CSA has a limited number of shares, and we’re usually full by the middle of March,” says Beckie Gurley, co-owner of Calvert’s Gift Farm in Sparks with her husband, Jack, both pictured below. CSA sign-ups usually start in January, but “it’s never too early to tell us you are interested in next year,” she adds.

Gear up for lots of greens. “Spinach, kale, collards, chard, and arugula are all up in June, and in the beginning of your CSA, you’ll eat enough of them to start to feel like a rabbit,” says Norman. Ask farmers for recipes that will allow you to use the greens in new ways, she recommends.

One, two, three, cook. “You have to be prepared to cook dinner most nights,” Norman says. The produce doesn’t come pre-washed, pre-cut, or pre-cooked. You have to do it. “We grow more than just corn and tomatoes and cantaloupes in Maryland, and to use everything you get in your weekly share, you need to be creative in how you cook,” Gurley says.

Start small. Most CSAs offer 24 weeks of produce. If that sounds like too much for you to eat each week, split the share with a friend. “I would rather see you succeed at a small level than fail at a large one,” Norman says.

Find A CSA Near You

Farmer Friends

One Straw Farm in White Hall is the largest certified organic vegetable farm in Maryland, and its CSA is one of the biggest in the area, too. Buyers can pick up their products at more than 40 sites. Cost: $290 for a half share to $570 for a full share for the 24-week program. www.onestrawfarm.com.

Calvert’s Gift Farm’s Members of this CSA must go to the Sparks farm to pick up their shares of organic fruits and vegetables. Cost: $450 for 24 weeks. www.calvertsgiftfarm.com.

Breezy Willow Farm in West Friendship works with other area producers to offer the best selections of the season. Cost: $864 for a 24-week commitment. www.breezywillowfarm.com.

Calvert Farm in Rising Sun has summer and fall CSA options and pick-up sites throughout Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. Cost: Summer shares are $500 for 20 weeks; fall shares are $200 apiece for eight weeks. www.calvertfarm.com.

Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative—a nonprofit organic farmers cooperative of 75 family farms offering various shares. Pick-up sites include Towson and the Irvine Nature Center in Owings Mills. Cost: A full vegetable share is $700. www.lancasterfarmfresh.com. 

Grocery Havens

Where to find a variety of foodstuffs to fill your pantry.
By Suzanne Loudermilk & Martha Thomas

We love the big-guy supermarkets as much as the next shopper, but sometimes, we’re looking for different ingredients, special service, vegetarian choices, or more ethnic options. Here are some of our favorite places to explore—and where we can gorge.

GOURMET

Eddie’s of Roland Park
Two locations, including 6213 N. Charles St., 410-377-8040.
What You’ll Find: The local market, in its third generation of family ownership, keeps its customers coming back with attractive displays offering quality produce, meat, seafood, and deli items. Service: If you want to be pampered, this is the place to go. The staff removes your groceries from your cart for the cashier and takes your bags out to your car. Best Bets: Eddie’s showcases local food entrepreneurs like Mama Vida salsas and Michele’s Granola made in Timonium. Incredible Find: “Gourmet to Go” foods for those days you don’t have the time or inclination to cook. Look for entrees like a griled butterflied leg of lamb, broccolini stir-fry, and Asian pork barbecue. Secret Ingredient: Eddie’s Caesar salad, sold in individual containers or for larger numbers.
Price Range: Moderate to expensive.

Gourmet Again
3713 Old Court Rd., Pikesville, 410-484-9393.
What You’ll Find: A fine-foods market with prepared foods, a seafood counter, custom butcher, and deli, all in a small, customer-oriented space. Service: You’ll be well taken care of by the genial staff. Best Bets: The bakery case with tarts, rugelach, cookies, French pastries, and that Baltimore favorite, rainbow cake. Also, don’t miss the 14-inch “Take & Bake Pizzas.” Incredible Find: Urns of Ariston cold-pressed Greek olive oil to fill empty bottles with the liquid gold. Secret Ingredient: Marinated meats, like flank steaks or a fajita mix that make cooking and grilling so much easier.
Price Range: Moderate to expensive.

Graul’s Market
Several locations, including 12200 Tullamore Rd., Lutherville, 410-308-2100.
What You’ll Find: A family-owned-and-operated store that started as a corner grocery in 1920. Its longevity can be linked to its careful selection of dry goods, produce, meats, and prepared items. Service: Personal and friendly. Best Bets: Its bakery turns out delectable cakes for all occasions. Incredible Find: Graul’s signature spreads are great party fare. We especially like the pecan-olive spread and pimento spread. Secret Ingredient: The store has its own brand of jellies, jams, and preserves, pictured below, in luscious flavors like mint with leaves, guava, fig, and damson plum.
Price Range: Moderate to expensive.

Milk & Honey Market
816 Cathedral St., 410-685-6455.
What You’ll Find: Besides the shelves and bins of produce and staples, there is a deli and cafe and a comfortable spot for lingering with your finds. The market, pictured above, is also hosting a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) this summer. Service: Happy and enthusiastic. Best Bets: Coffees, teas, honeys, pastas, and a well-stocked cheese case. Incredible Find: A bundle of lavender and rosemary from Blue Skye Farm in Virginia for grilling. Secret Ingredient: Gunpowder Bison & Trading Co. meats in the freezer section.
Price Range: Moderate.

ORGANIC/HEALTH

David’s Natural Market
5430 Lynx Ln., Columbia, 410-730-2304.

What You’ll Find: The 12,000-square-foot space is stocked with name brands: Annie’s, Kashi, Celestial Seasonings, and the like, as well as bulk foods. There’s a small section of organic produce and designated gluten-free products. Service: The staff knows its stuff. Best Bets: The bulk-food bins offer dried herbs, sold by the ounce, with small glass spice jars, sold separately, to pack them in. Incredible Find: Free-range eggs in a rainbow of colors: brown, pink, ivory, and blue, from Fran Kessler, an Eastern Shore farmer who delivers them each Friday. Secret Ingredient: Teaspoon-sized cubes of frozen herbs: basil, parsley, and dill (ginger, too)—just right for tossing into a soup, omelet, or stir-fry.
Price Range: Expensive.

MOM’s Organic Market
Several locations, including 7351 Assateague Dr., Jessup, 410-799-2175. (Coming soon to Yorkridge Shopping Center in Timonium.)
What You’ll Find: A store chock full of organic and natural groceries with vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options. The wide aisles make shopping an extra pleasure. Service: A cheerful, informed staff. Best Bets: Beautiful produce like gold beets, baby bok choy, and rainbow carrots; bulk bins of grains and beans; and pet food. Incredible Find: Self-serve canisters of Fair Trade loose tea, including rooibos, Darjeeling, China green, and chai green. Secret Ingredient: Organic kosher whole chickens.
Price Range: Inexpensive to moderate.

The Natural Market
2149 York Rd., Timonium, 410-560-3133.
What You’ll Find: A locally owned health-food store that’s been in existence for 24 years. A bonus is a vegetarian cafe and juice bar. Service: Laidback, helpful. Best Bets: There’s a lot of stuff in this crowded storefront, including bulk flour, organic coffee, a great selection of herbal teas, fresh organic produce, products for special dietary needs, and a comprehensive inventory of vitamins and supplements. Incredible Find: Young green coconuts from Florida. Secret Ingredient: Agave nectar sweeteners.
Price Range: Moderate.

Roots Market
Two locations, including 5805 Clarksville Square Dr., Clarksville, 443-535-9321.
What You’ll Find: A fully stocked grocery store, pictured, that carries natural, organic, and health items, including gluten-free and raw foods, and herbal and vitamin supplements. Service: A knowledgeable staff that will cheerfully answer any questions. Best Bets: Organic produce, including Fair Trade bananas and local hydroponic heirloom tomatoes; seafood like St. Brendan’s Irish organic salmon; and meats like Roseda Beef New York strip steaks. Incredible Find: An amazing organic salad bar. Secret Ingredient: Organicville products: vinaigrettes, mayonnaise, relish, pasta sauces, mustard, and ketchup sweetened with agave nectar.
Price Range: Moderate.

ETHNIC

Asia Food
5224 York Road, 410-323-8738.
What You’ll Find: Just about anything you need for an Asian-inspired meal, including 50-pound bags of rice, tins of curry paste and coconut milk, and several varieties of fish sauce. There’s a small produce section. Service: The owners Mun-ge and Mun-ga Toung and their son and daughter are happy to help. Best Bets: Supplies to make your own sushi: frozen eel and flattened shrimp, sticky rice, eel sauce, nori seaweed sheets, and straw rolling mats. Incredible Find: A variety package of frozen dim sum—pork, shrimp, and vegetable—ready for steaming. Secret Ingredient: Sliced galanga, a rhizome known as Thai ginger.
Price Range: Inexpensive.

Black Olive Agora Market
At the Inn at The Black Olive, 803 S. Caroline St., 410-276-7142.
What You’ll Find: A small Greek grocer, owned by The Black Olive restaurant folks, offering organic fruits and vegetables, fresh breads, sheep’s milk cheeses like manouri and feta, local condiments, wines by the bottle, and takeout foods. Service: The staff is eager to answer any questions. Best Bets: The fresh seafood case with all manner of creatures from the deep, including Dover sole. Incredible Find: Sheep’s milk Greek yogurt. Secret Ingredient: The Black Olive’s Greek salad, of course!
Price Range: Moderate.

Heritage International Foods
8727 Liberty Rd., Randallstown, 410-655-6600.
What You’ll Find: This Caribbean market is crammed with products, including packages of dried, salted fish; spices; dried fruits; and nuts. Service: The staff is not always familiar with the inventory, so if you need help, consult a fellow shopper. Best Bets: An entire aisle is devoted to fruit drinks and such concentrates as Mauby (made from tree bark), passion fruit, and guava. Incredible Find: Frozen snails, $5.99. Secret Ingredient: A box of peanuts to make peanut soup base and ogbono seeds.
Price Range: Inexpensive.

H Mart
Several locations, including 800 N. Rolling Rd., Catonsville, 443-612-9020.
What You’ll Find: An Asian mega-grocery store, pictured, that carries, well, everything, including prepared foods, sushi, and an Asian eatery with seating. Service: The staff is polite but busy. Best Bets: The produce department is inspirational with dandelion greens, Indian eggplants, turmeric and lotus roots, Chinese okra, cactus pears, and so much more. Incredible Find: The fish counter is one of the freshest, most well-stocked in town. Secret Ingredient: A dazzling array of tofus.
Price Range: Inexpensive.

La Favorita
540 Cranbrook Rd., Cockeysville, 410-628-1442.
What You’ll Find: A well-stocked storefront, filled with Latino packaged goods, meats, and produce. Service: A pleasant staff, many of whom speak English. Best Bets: Delectable Mexican pastries like the popular conchas (bread with flavored sugar on top) from El Gallito Mexican Food Store in Reading, PA. Incredible Find: Fresh cactus. Secret Ingredient: Banana leaves.
Price Range: Inexpensive.

Prima Foods
51 Kane St., 410-633-5500.
What You’ll Find: This wholesale food distributor has a small storefront that offers Greek specialties from bulk olives to sacks of semolina flour. There’s imported chocolate, pictured, falafel mix, several types of tahini, and honey. Service: Better if you speak Greek—or ask for owner Gus Bouyoukas. Best Bets: A three-pound block of frozen spinach, phyllo pastry, and a hunk of feta cheese—to make your own spanakopita. Incredible Find: A gyro family pack: pre-cooked meat, bread, and sauce for three sandwiches, packed in a box. Secret Ingredient: Whole octopus.
Price Range: Inexpensive, though rates can fluctuate.

Trinacria Foods
406 N. Paca St., 410-685-7285.
What You’ll Find: An addictive Italian market and deli that is a busy hub filled with pastas, sauces, and more. For more than 100 years, the tiny space, now operated by the third generation of the Fava family, has been a draw in the once-bustling Italian neighborhood. Service: From shy owner Vince Fava to the men and women working behind the counter, you can count on cheerful conversations and knowledgeable cooking advice. Best Bets: It’s a pasta paradise—from spaghetti and linguine to pennette and rigatoni. But there’s lots more, including tomato and meat sauces, prepared foods, bakery goods, homemade breads, sandwiches, and a small wine shop. Incredible Find: A variety of frozen lasagnas. Secret Ingredient: Fresh made cannoli shells and containers of cannoli filling for an assemble-it-yourself Italian treat.
Price Range: Inexpensive.

CHAINS

The Fresh Market
Several locations, including Quarry Lake, 2510 Quarry Lake Dr., 410-580-1930. (Coming soon to 838 Dulaney Valley Rd., Towson)
What You’ll Find: A softly lit food hall, reminiscent of a refined European marketplace, with dark wood beams adorned with hanging baskets of ferns and food attractively displayed. Fresh produce (pictured), cheese, a meat counter, prepared foods, and a bakery fill most of the store. Service: Well staffed and congenial. A woman at the butcher counter happily volunteered cooking tips. Best Bets: It’s almost impossible to stick to your grocery list when confronted with so many options for artisanal sodas, infused olive oils, and more. Incredible Find: Yogurt. There’s a dizzying variety, from Siggi’s ginger-orange from Iceland to Kalona SuperNatural from an organic farm in Iowa.Secret Ingredient: A tiny container of white truffle butter that will jack up your grocery bill considerably but will add pizzazz to your next pasta dish.
Price Range: Moderate to expensive.

Harris Teeter
8620 Guilford Rd., Columbia, 410-290-5902. (Coming soon to Locust Point.)
What You’ll Find: This North Carolina-based grocery chain’s stores are brightly lit and well organized. The Columbia store is stocked with familiar brands—from Coca Cola to King Arthur flour—as well as a handful of store brands, including Harris Teeter Naturals (organic), H.T. Traders (mostly imported foods), and its moderately priced Harris Teeter line. Service: The staff is busy stocking supplies, but they’ll stop and help you. Best Bets: There’s a diverse selection of prepared foods for last-minute family meals: main courses like chicken (rotisserie, Moroccan, or tandoori style), with such options as braised asparagus and baked mac ‘n’ cheese on the side. Incredible Find: A well-stocked canning section. Not only glass Ball jars in several sizes, but plastic containers for freezing, pectin Sure-jell, and wax. Secret Ingredient: A bag of seasoned breading for fried chicken, proof that this is a Southern transplant.
Price range: Moderate.

Trader Joe’s
Several locations, including 1809 Reisterstown Rd., Pikesville, 410-484-8373.
What You’ll Find: A hip market offering a small-store vibe. It’s not a health-food store, but it offers lots of organics. Service: Fun and congenial. The staff wears Hawaiian shirts, and, ahoy, managers are called captains and first mates. Best Bets: Coffees, peanut butters, chocolate bars, nuts, and cheeses. Incredible Find: Sweet potato gnocchi with butter and sage in the freezer aisle. Secret Ingredient: Raw California almonds as a delicious snack or for baking cakes and cookies.
Price Range: Moderate with weekly specials.

Wegmans
Several locations, including 122 Shawan Rd., Hunt Valley, 410-773-3900. (Coming soon to Harford County.)
What You’ll Find: A big-box market with reasonably priced staples, a focus on organics, specialty foods, and numerous to-go stations from soups and sushi to subs and coffee. Get there early on weekends or you’ll be circling a parking lot that resembles the mall during holiday season. Service: The staff looks out for you. On a recent visit, a shopper placed several loose green peppers in a bag. A produce guy spotted him and steered him to a more cost-effective package of peppers. Best Bets: Seafood, meats, deli, and bakery departments. Incredible Find: A Flavors of Africa section includes chutneys, hot and fragrant peri-peri marinades, Madagascar bourbon vanilla beans, and Moroccan couscous. Secret Ingredient: D’Artagnan specialty meats: chicken poussins, venison medallions, duckling, and lamb merguez sausage.
Price Range: Moderate.

Whole Foods Market
Several locations, including 1001 Fleet St., Suite A, 410-528-1640.
What You’ll Find: An array of natural and organic foods from a company committed to sustainable agriculture. Service: The staff takes its customers seriously and strives to make your shopping experience a pleasant one. Best Bets: Check out Whole Foods’s “365 Everyday Value” brand for a variety of good deals. Incredible Find: A bean bar, really! Pick out an assortment of dried beans, including red lentil, garbanzo, and kidney. Secret Ingredient: Panko crumbs in a variety of flavors from lemon and almond to sun-dried tomato.
Price Range: Moderate to expensive.

ON THE HORIZON

Baltimore Food Co-op
2800 Sisson St. in the former Mill Valley General Store space, 410-889-6842, scheduled to open in June or July.
What You’ll Find: A full-service supermarket emphasizing local food. The co-op will be open to the public, but members—who pay a one-time fee of $100 per household with a small annual fee—will receive various discounts on store items and special weekly deals. Predicted Best Bets: Local produce, meats, and dairy products, in addition to some national natural brands.
Price Range: Inexpensive to moderate.

Green Onion
5500 Harford Rd., scheduled to open in June
What You’ll Find: Winston Blick, chef/co-owner of the Hamilton restaurant Clementine, and Rich Marsiglia have partnered to open a corner grocery store about a block from the restaurant. Predicted Best Bets: Local meats, charcuterie, cheeses, breads, the restaurant’s popular desserts, and shelf goods. Incredible Find: Locally made natural bulk laundry soap. Secret Ingredient: Ice cream from Prigel Family Creamery.
Price Range: Moderate.

SPECIALTY

The Market at Belvedere Square
529 E. Belvedere Ave., www.belvederesquare.com.
What You’ll Find: An assortment of vendors—with Atwater’s being the most prominent—offering fresh produce, prepared foods, candy and nuts, sushi, smoked fish, Italian foods, and Grand Cru, a wine shop/bar. Service: Pleasant and courteous. Best Bets: Atwater’s soups, breads, and baked goods; Planet Produce; Ikan Seafood & Sushi; and Neopol Savory Smokery’s savory pies (pictured below). Incredible Find: Fresh sausages at Ceriello Fine Foods meat counter, featuring flavors like Italian Pecorino Romano cheese and parsley, sweet and hot Italian, Italian fennel, and Italian tomato and basil. Secret Ingredient: Locally developed organic “tsp spices,” which are sealed in convenient one-teaspoon packets.
Price Range: Moderate.

Pennsylvania Dutch Market
11121 York Rd., Cockeysville, 410-316-1500. (Open Thurs.-Sat.)
What You’ll Find: It’s a weekend marketplace, pictured, with stalls for food, quilts, candies, and furniture. There’s also a family-style restaurant. Service: Cheerful and polite. Best Bets: Farm-raised turkeys, eggs, milk, and baked goods come from farms in Pennsylvania. Incredible Find: A two-pound roll of farm-fresh butter, wrapped in paper like at an old-time general store. Secret Ingredient: Bags of pastry filling—cherry, blueberry, lemon, and even cream cheese—ready to pipe into a pie.
Price Range: Moderate.

Seven Mile Market
201 Reisterstown Rd., Pikesville, 410-653-2000.
What You’ll Find: The store boasts that it carries the largest selection of kosher products in the country. Along with its produce section, butcher, deli, and prepared foods (potato kugel, anyone?), there are dozens of variations of matzo crackers, an entire aisle devoted to all manner of canned fish: tuna, herring, salmon, kippers, gefilte, and products imported from Israel—including candles for Shabbat. Service: Even in a 55,000-square-foot grocery store, you can feel like you’re visiting a kosher butcher on the Lower East Side. Best Bets: Look for a 12-pound brisket for your next holiday meal. Incredible Find: Vacuum-sealed pouches with ready-to-serve cuts of meat, a great way to enjoy a stuffed chicken breast with kishka without turning on the oven. Secret Ingredient: If you’re a Nutella fan, you’ll love the selection of chocolate spreads—Israel’s answer to peanut butter.
Price Range: Moderate. 

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Recipe

From the Farmer

Fattoush Salad

What’s in it:
2 medium pita bread rounds
6 medium tomatoes, chopped
1 English cucumber, chopped
4 scallions, chopped
6 radishes, sliced
1 cup packed flat-leaf Italian parsley, chopped
½ cup mint leaves, chopped
1 cup purslane, stems removed, leaves chopped (optional)
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sumac powder (see note)
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice

How to make it:

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Cut open each pita bread into two rounds, transfer to a baking sheet, and toast in the oven until golden and crisp, seven to 10 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Combine the tomato, cucumber, scallions, and radishes in a large salad bowl. Scatter the parsley, mint, and purslane, if using, on top of the vegetables.

Crumble the toasted pita bread on top and sprinkle the salad with salt and sumac. Whisk olive oil and lemon juice together, and pour into the salad. Toss lightly, and serve immediately. Serves 4-6.

Note: Sumac powder is available at Middle Eastern markets.

From One Straw Farm in “Dishing Up Maryland” by Lucie L. Snodgrass

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Recipe

From the Farmer

Spring Greens With Cheese

What’s in it:
2 pounds arugula, borage, chicory, dandelions, or mustard greens (or any combination of these), tough stems removed
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
Cayenne pepper
Salt and black pepper
2 ounces (½ cup shredded) Fontina cheese

How to make it:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Steam greens in batches over simmering water for 2 minutes. Rinse in cold water and squeeze out excess water.

Heat oil in a large skillet. Add garlic and sauté over low heat for about two minutes. Add greens, pinch of cayenne, and salt and pepper to taste; cook and stir for two minutes. Remove from heat, and let greens cool.

Divide greens into six portions and shape each into a ball. Place balls in a baking dish and make an indentation in the center of each ball, forming a little nest. Fill the indentations with grated cheese. Transfer the baking dish to the oven, and bake the nests for five minutes, until the cheese is melted. Serves 6.

From Calvert’s Gift Farm in “Dishing Up Maryland” by Lucie L. Snodgrass 

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Where Insiders Shop

Sean Dunworth
Owner, Regions Restaurant, Catonsville Gourmet
We go to the Catonsville farmers’ market on Wednesdays and Sundays. We buy most of our produce there, including the pattypan squash and zucchini, local asparagus, and sweet and baking potatoes. We also like Han Ah Reum Mart [aka H Mart] on Rolling Road for Napa cabbage and baby bok choy since we make stir fry as a family at least once a week. I buy my bread at Atwater’s bakery in Catonsville.

Gia Blatterman
Owner, Café Gia
We go to the farmers’ market in Harbor East and the Jones Falls farmers’ market at Fallsway. I love DiPasquale’s in Highlandtown and Trinacria on Paca Street for cheese, infused oils, and infused balsamic vinegar. I also go to Ceriello [Fine Foods] in Belvedere Market. They have an awesome little spot.

Alfie Himmelrich
Owner, Stone Mill Bakery
I like Mastellone for mozzarella and Wegmans for fresh clams. I go to H Mart for Asian groceries, including lemongrass; Scittino’s in Catonsville is the best Italian market ever. I buy the Peruvian chicken at Pollo Amigo on York Road and go next door to the Mercado Latino for Latino specialty items. The best Hispanic market is Cinco de Mayo on Eastern Avenue. 

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Recipe

From the Farmer

Baked Penne With Bison Italian Sausage

What’s in it:
1 (12-ounce) box penne pasta
1 pound Bison Hot Italian Sausage, sliced
1 cup chopped onion
½ cup white wine
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 (15-ounce) can tomato sauce
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced
tomatoes with garlic
1 (6-ounce) can tomato paste
2 cups shredded
mozzarella cheese

How to make it:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook pasta 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain. Place sausage, onion, and olive oil in a deep skillet. Cook over medium heat until evenly browned.

Add white wine to skillet; cook for 1 minute, stirring to deglaze pan. Stir in tomato sauce and tomato paste. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Toss with cooked pasta, and place in a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Sprinkle top with cheese. Bake for 20 minutes, or until cheese is melted. Serves 6.

From Gunpowder Bison & Trading Co., Monkton, Maryland

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Check out our exclusive map of the JFX Farmers’ Market! [pdf]

“Eating an oyster without a fork is kinda like kissing,” says George Hastings. He’s evaluating the denuded and glistening mollusk now lolling in the half shell he holds in his hand.

“A lot of people will take the shell and jam it in their mouth—” he demonstrates, tipping the shell to his lips like a teacup and stopping just short of scraping the muddy underside across his bottom teeth. “No, no, no,” he grimaces. “Take it from the top, give it a little suck, chew it up.” He tips his head forward and presses his lips to the oyster’s plush surface. With a polite slurp, it is quickly in his mouth. He chews thoughtfully. “Mmm,” he says. “Good flavor. That was good. They say eating an oyster is like kissing the sea.”

If you’ve ever struggled, knife in hand, to convince a tight-lipped shellfish to open wide, consider this: On one occasion, at the Guinness Oyster Festival in Chicago, Hastings was part of a team of shuckers that opened 16,475 oysters in one day. His best officially clocked time for opening two dozen oysters is a jaw-dropping one minute and 55 seconds—that’s one oyster in less than 5 seconds. When not jetting across the globe in pursuit of championships on the competitive oyster shucking circuit, this professor of shuckery can (on Ravens gamedays) most likely be found behind the raw bar at Nick’s Inner Harbor Seafood in Cross Street Market, where he’s opened oysters for hungry crowds for over 15 years.

“A lot of time people think that I go out and catch oysters,” says the bearded Hastings. “I really don’t. I’m just an oyster shucker.”

Hastings learned his craft as a teenager in the Southwest Baltimore neighborhood of Violetville, where his neighbors Newton Robbins and Vernon P. Johnson Sr. taught him the skill they’d learned as a source of extra income during the Depression. Hastings, who at the time was dating Johnson’s daughter, learned from them the secret of “traditional, mid-Atlantic style” shucking.

As with so many things in life, it turns out that there is more than one way to shuck an oyster. The various regions of the U.S. where oysters are harvested each have their own local styles, just as the oysters from different areas each have their own unique taste. Hastings is an expert in the “stabbing” method traditional to the mid-Atlantic: he presses the oyster to the tabletop with his left hand and jams the pinky-sized blade of his “Chesapeake sticker” oyster knife into the oyster’s underbite, as opposed to prying the oyster open at the hinge (popular in the Gulf Coast and West Coast) or holding it in hand while jamming a wider style blade into its side (a New England technique). Each style has its aficionados, but Hastings insists no one technique is faster than another—it’s all in the hands of the shucker.

“I love his technique. It’s different than what we use in Canada,” says fellow shucker Patrick McMurray, on the phone from Starfish, the Toronto oyster raw bar and restaurant he oversees when he’s not also competing (frequently against Hastings) in oyster shucking contests.

“He presents the oyster on the top shell”—the flatter of the two halves, as opposed to the cupped bottom shell—”so you’ve got this soft, plump, beautiful oyster.” And, as lovely as the finished oysters appear, McMurray emphasizes that Hastings’ speed is just as startling as his flair. “It’s already in his hand before you know it.”

McMurray definitely knows oysters: besides writing the comprehensive Consider The Oyster: A Shucker’s Field Guide, he also won the Guinness World Oyster Opening Championships in Galway, Ireland in 2002. But as impressed as he is with Hastings’ skill with a shucking knife, he’s most thrilled with him as a human being.

“George is instantly everybody’s best friend,” he says. “He befriends everyone he meets. And he has a great passion for the oyster, which is a benefit in our line of work.”

“Shucking oysters, to me, became therapeutic,” Hastings explains. “It’s kind of repetitious, it’s a little Zen, but it’s a day out meeting nice people.” And while no one ever got rich opening oysters, there are still many intangible rewards for the shucker. “Whoever’s on the line with you, you sit around and talk about war stories—the hardest oyster you had to open and the weirdo people that you saw, or the beautiful people that you saw—all that kind of stuff. Even though you’re tired and your hands may ache, it’s all part of the fun.”

In 1994, Tom Chagouris, owner of Nick’s, suggested Hastings should fill in for a guy who’d dropped out of the Baltimore On The Bay festival’s oyster shucking contest. Hastings, who’d never entered a shucking contest before, decided to give it a whirl. “So I went up to the Inner Harbor, and guess what?” he smiles.

Hastings’ first place prize was $50 and a slot at the National Oyster Shucking Championship in St. Mary’s County, where he placed seventh out of 28 contestants around the country. After that fortuitous start, Hastings now competes in an average of half a dozen competitions a year (he often helps judge contests he’s won too, like the Baltimore Waterfront Festival). He’s a regular at the Mohegan Sun Oyster Open in Connecticut, the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, and, most spectacularly, the world championships in Galway.

So far, Hastings has qualified for the world championships twice: once in 2000, when he finished in second place, and again more recently in 2004, where he finished sixth. “It’s quite a party in Galway,” he asserts. “It’s all about opening oysters, and in the evening there’s a black tie affair—great food, great wines, and the shuckers present the flag of their country in a procession going into the final banquet.”

Nearly every continent is represented at the finals, with entrants coming from as far away as South Africa, Singapore, and Australia. While every competitor’s hungry for bragging rights to being fastest oyster shucker in the world, Hastings insists that the competition’s not cutthroat. “Some folks show up with that chip on their shoulder, but not long after they arrive they figure out that everybody’s pretty damn good at what they’re doing,” he emphasizes. “That little chip slowly goes away.”

The rules of competitive oyster shucking value speed and precision, with a special emphasis on aesthetics. It’s not just about who can open the shells fastest: Each of the 24 oysters (or 30, for the world championships) shucked for competition must be good enough to be served in a fine restaurant. There are infractions for grit, sloppy severing of the connecting muscle, or cuts on the oyster’s surface. All three no-nos mean penalty seconds added onto your time. “It needs to look like a little pillow on the half shell,” says Hastings about the perfect oyster. “Some people’s oysters look like a scrambled egg. Judges don’t like that.”

And the biggest penalty of all, worth a whopping addition of 30 penalty seconds at the world championships, is for blood on the oyster. Jamming a blade into a closed shell is risky business, and injuries aren’t uncommon.

“I’ve only been to one competition where there was a bad stab,” recalls Hastings, whose own hands are festooned with silvery scars earned from collisions with the rough edge of the oyster shell. “A guy actually ran a knife right through his palm. It came out the other side. He finished shucking his tray, got off the stage, wrapped a towel around his hand, went over to the medic, and they took him to the hospital.” he chuckles. “He got three stitches on this side of his hand, where the knife went in, and three stitches where it came out.”

The contest is held in a tent erected on Galway Bay, with a huge, noisy, Guinness-enriched crowd of eager spectators pressed up close, less than five feet from the competitor’s table. Just to add to the hysteria, every oyster shucker is given a nickname so the emcee on stage can give commentary on their progress like a racetrack announcer. During his first appearance at Galway, for reasons that are still a mystery, Hastings was dubbed “Hannibal.” “The crowd gave it to me. Go figure, right? To this day, when I get around to some of the contests that’s how they know me, George ‘Hannibal’ Hastings.”

At the starting gun, each shucker grabs their first oyster, dispatches it as quickly as possible, and places it neatly on a tray before moving on to the next one, while the well-marinated throng of spectators hollers their support. The noise is deafening, but Hastings’ attention is focused only on oysters. “When you’re in the zone, there’s nothing like it. There’s 5,000 screaming people cheering you on, and you don’t hear anybody. All you’re doing is tooling along on your 30 oysters. You don’t hear anybody until your bell rings and then the volume comes up.”

In 2006, Hastings took second place at the Nationals in St. Mary’s County. Not bad, but it didn’t qualify him for Galway this year. His next shot to head to Ireland again will be determined this October 20 and 21 in St. Mary’s, but until then, he hones his craft at Nick’s, where the smiling faces of happy oyster eaters—including shucker friends from around the globe who come to visit when they’re in town—mean more than titles.

“Folks that love oysters love their oyster shucker,” says Hastings. “They want to talk to them. They want to hear about what kind of oysters they’re eating. They want to hear where those oysters are from. And then, once folks find out that you get around the country and compete, they want to hear about that, too. I tell people that’s my 13 minutes of fame.”

“I’ve got two minutes coming,” he smiles. “And if I ever get to cash them, maybe I could be world champ.”

There is a pig in Tio Pepe’s kitchen and it smells great. The pig has been gutted, slit belly to throat so that it can lie flat in the roasting pan. Its teeth are bared, its ears singed black and crispy at the tips. Its skin has reached a deep shade of bronze, but it is the meat inside that is the real treat—the rich odor of roast pork wafts up from the pan, which is coated in a layer of drippings mixed with water that will later be reduced into a sauce.

“Once a day, every day, we do the whole pig,” says Don Emilio, as the staff at this long-lived Spanish restaurant sometimes call its chef and co-owner. His real name is Emiliano Sanz, and he is the cousin of original chef/owner Pedro Sanz. He has been working at the restaurant for 37 years now, and took over the kitchen after Pedro Sanz’s death in 1989. At the time, some customers held their breath, wondering if Tio’s could withstand the loss of its most visible and beloved icon, wondering if the place would change irreparably.

They needn’t have worried. Tucked into its improbable basement location for almost 40 years now, Tio Pepe remains utterly intact, from snout to tail.

When the magazine staff first began planning this year’s Food Issue, we thought of profiling a Baltimore landmark restaurant, one that’s lodged in the city’s consciousness as part of its history and culture. Tio Pepe sprang instantly to mind. For one thing, it’s about the only place left in that category. Haussner’s, Marconi’s, The Chesapeake, Peerce’s—one by one, each has closed. The Prime Rib, which is often mentioned in the same sentence with Tio’s in local conversations about old-school restaurants, is part of a chain (albeit a very small, fairly local one) and is actually younger than Tio Pepe, which opened in 1968.

Also, people are still going to Tio’s—if you want reservations for prime hours on a Saturday night, you had better call two weeks ahead of time. Given its status as the last of Baltimore’s culinary old guard, and our own hundred-year anniversary, Tio Pepe’s seemed like a natural choice for the issue.

Plus ça change: As part of that anniversary, the staff had been looking through back issues of the magazine, searching for scrapbook-worthy articles. And as I flipped through the 1985 issues, there it was: “A Day in the Life of Tio Pepe.”

The article is something of a relic, the writing unrepentantly gushy and without any effort to maintain objectivity. Pedro Sanz, who was still in charge of the kitchen then, is characterized as some sort of culinary saint, with toque in place of halo. At one point, his eyes are actually described as twinkling.

Much of the article, however, is as accurate today as it was 22 years ago. The kitchen layout remains the same: a narrow corridor separating cold-side prep (where salads and desserts are assembled) from the hot side, which holds the Vulcan stoves, the ovens, and the gigantic steamer used to cook some 100 pounds of green beans each night. Many of the employees mentioned in the article are still working the same positions. Suckling pig is still a featured item on the menu.

But other facts have changed. In 1985, Tio Pepe was ranked Number One in our list of Best Restaurants—a position it had held since 1980, when we began printing such a feature. “The dynasty continues,” the editors wrote. “De Tio Pepe, non est disputandum.”

In 2005, that dynasty collapsed: That was the first year Tio Pepe did not appear in Best Restaurants. Our critic found serious problems with the service, and the food seemed unimaginative compared to what was being served at newer restaurants around town.

It wasn’t an easy decision for us to make. I know this because, for the past seven years, I have been the editor in charge of Best Restaurants. I remember the debate. I didn’t grow up in Baltimore; to me, Tio Pepe is just one restaurant among many. But I knew its reputation, and knew it would ruffle feathers.

Ruffled feathers doesn’t describe it; think more Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Letters poured in, chastising us for taking Baltimore’s most beloved restaurant off the list. And then there were the phone calls—angry, angry phone calls. Some people told me flat-out I should be fired; others stuck with pointedly asking me where I was from. Subscriptions were cancelled.

No restaurant has provoked such fury from our readers. No restaurant has been such a thorn in my side.

And now I am standing in its kitchen.

BUT WHEN I ARRIVE AT THE RESTAURANT around 10 a.m. on a late-summer Friday, Emiliano Sanz is all smiles as he shows off that suckling pig. The mood here is industrious but relaxed; lunch is still a couple of hours away, and these days, it’s not much of an ordeal, anyway. Twenty years ago, when that last article was written, Tio’s was mobbed by its Friday lunch crowd; chefs made a massive platter of seafood salad at the beginning of the shift, to be served from a cart, and it would be decimated by 2 p.m. Nowadays, though, there are only a handful of tables at lunch—most of them on the large side, celebrations of some sort. If you want seafood salad, it will be made to order in the kitchen.

A sous chef—there are three or four working right now—diligently spoons a dark golden sauce through a metal strainer into a cylindrical container, where it will join 21 others in a steam tray on the counter. The sauces and soups form a spectrum of browns, from the warm ochre of this bisque sauce to the deep purply brown of the black-bean soup and the bright russet of the tomato sauce. There is truffle sauce and lemon sauce, onion soup and green sauce. At night, another nine sauces will squeeze into the steam bath as well: creamy champagne sauce, rich veal demiglaze.

Emiliano is busy chopping whole chickens into sections; a sous chef does the same with a box of beef tenderloins. In an era of portion control and pre-cut ingredients, Tio’s keeps it old school. “Maybe I’m too old-fashioned,” admits Emiliano, a stocky, animated man whose thinning gray hair is concealed by a mesh chef’s toque. “I just think it’s better to cut things yourself.”

Their knives slice through as if bone and meat were warm butter. The one the man slicing tenderloins wields is roughly the length of my forearm. They are sent out to be sharpened professionally every other week, but Emiliano says staff has to hand-sharpen them after about three days of use. The restaurant will go through approximately two cases of beef tenderloin tonight, says Emiliano; each case holds some 80 to 85 pounds of beef.

At 10:55, the first man in a red blazer comes in. These are the headwaiters. Tio Pepe’s service has three tiers: Headwaiters who take orders and answer customer questions, runners (blue blazers) who bring food from the kitchen to the table, and bussers (gold blazers) who clear plates and refill water. Servers work in teams of three, with one of each.

The wait staff starts up on prep work. One man carefully arranges chrysanthemums and carnations in tiny vases, brushing open the petals to make the blooms look fuller. Another whittles candles to fit into a brass light fixture. Two headwaiters chop yellow apples and oranges for the sangria. They’ve already set up the liquids they’ll need: 12 three-liter boxes of red wine, seven boxes of white, five large bottles of brandy, 16 of triple sec.

“That’ll all be gone at the end of the night,” says one waiter, gesturing with his knife.

The waiter is named Michael Link and he jokes that, with 20 years in the job, “I’m the new kid.” I ask him what’s changed at Tio’s over the years. He shrugs, still chopping fruit. “The prices have gone up with inflation,” he says. “That’s about it.”

Link is notable as one of the very few—perhaps the only—staff members for whom Spanish is not his native language. Other members of the staff come from Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, the Dominican Republic . . . and, of course, Spain.

This is the origin of Tio Pepe: Long ago, in the bleak years that followed the Spanish Civil War, there was a small town outside of Madrid called Cascajares, where unemployment and poverty had reached crushing proportions, just as they had everywhere else in Spain’s rural countryside. And so the young men of the village began moving to the city, just as young men were doing throughout the country. The first Cascajaran to do so wound up finding work in a restaurant—he wasn’t a chef by trade, but a job was a job. And he invited a cousin to come work with him. And that cousin invited another cousin. And so on. Eventually, this town of some 500 inhabitants came to lay claim to 50 or 60 chefs. (Today, many of them gather each August for a weekend-long festival.) One of those chefs was Pedro Sanz, who went to work with relatives at a Madrid restaurant when he was 13; he, in turn, invited Emiliano to work with him when Emiliano turned that same age. Then Pedro visited New York for the 1964 World’s Fair and decided to stay in the United States. The elder Sanz worked for a while at the now-defunct Peter Lucas restaurant in Roland Park, where people quickly began telling each other about the talented Spaniards working in the kitchen. When Pedro decided to open his own place in a subterranean spot on Franklin Street, his new fans followed him. And so, after a few years, did Emiliano.

The man who tells me this whole story is Miguel Sanz, Pedro’s nephew. (He and Emiliano are related, but distantly—Sanz is evidently a common last name in Cascajares.) Miguel is a quiet, gracious man who frequently hesitates before speaking, as if trying to find the most carefully worded response he can to any question. He was finishing up a master’s degree in engineering at Johns Hopkins when his uncle Pedro passed away; he wound up never using that degree, instead taking over as co-owner and general manager of the restaurant. “Things happen,” he says with a slight smile.

Miguel takes me on a tour of the restaurant. A series of expansions have created a warren of small interconnecting rooms whose individual sizes mask the restaurant’s true scale. The Spanish art on the walls is the same that hung there when the place first opened. Those walls themselves are spotlessly white; Miguel says they repaint a room each week, rotating through all of them. I gaze at the wall before us, the lines of its individual stones softened to blurry suggestions; there must be 40 coats of paint on there, I comment. “Oh, more than that,” says Miguel, sounding surprised that I would guess so low.

After the tour, we stand at the small, dark bar by the front door, waiting for the lunch crowd, such as it is. “You have to compare it to before they opened Harborplace,” says Miguel. “It’s probably half of what it was then. Harborplace was a killer for our lunch business here.”

Indeed, Tio Pepe has never depended on foot traffic; it is a destination restaurant. But now that the downtown crowd can walk to plenty of restaurants, there’s no need for them to drive up to Franklin Street, much less scour the streets for parking.

As if to confirm that, a group of a half-dozen women in their sixties come in, apologizing to the one member of their party who’s been waiting for them. “We were here at 12, but we had a hard time parking,” one explains.

“I got here early, so I went shopping at the Women’s Exchange,” says another.

“What’s the Women’s Exchange?” asks a third woman, and the gasps that follow her question are the gasps that Baltimore tends to emit whenever one of its institutions is not properly recognized: shocked, indignant, even mildly insulted.

Back in the kitchen, Don Emilio is gaily hacking the roast pig into entrée-sized portions with a gigantic cleaver. He and I chat about adapting Spanish cuisine for local ingredients, and about that out-of-towner’s rite of passage: our first softshell crabs. “I never saw till I came to Baltimore,” he tells me, but we both agree that the spider-shaped delicacies are surprisingly good.

Don Emilio is irrepressible. He wants me to sample or at least witness everything in his kitchen. Before long I am sniffing his tin of imported saffron. (A one-ounce tin lasts him a week, which may not seem like much until you realize that saffron easily goes for $1,000 a pound.) But it is hot and I am worried that I am distracting him from his duties, so I wander back to the bar, where maitre d’ Pedro Gutierrez is minding the door. Gutierrez, who is from Madrid, has worked here for 15 years; the other maitre d’, Francisco “Paco” Lobos, has been here since the place opened. He is currently on vacation with a regular customer; they are attending the annual chefs’ festival in Cascajares.

I ask Gutierrez if customers try to speak Spanish with him. “Yes,” he says. “Some people like to say things in Spanish. You know, they may only know one or two things, but they’ll say, ‘Hola.'”

Not two minutes later, a group of five men in their 60’s to 80’s walk in. “Hola,” says the first to Gutierrez, smiling.

“Como está?” asks the next.

The men file past and sit at a round table in one of the larger dining rooms. There is an empty chair, so I ask if I can sit and ask them a few questions. The Boys (“no, no—the Friday Boys,” one of them quickly amends) have been coming here for Friday lunch since 1976, back when they all worked in the same law firm. One is now a retired judge; a few of them still practice law, but they all make a point of coming here for their weekly lunch. They are only too happy to tell me stories of Tio Pepe past: the nights when the waiters would set Irish coffees on the floor in a line and set the whiskey in them on fire; the times Pedro Sanz would make them entirely new dishes, simply because they’d already eaten everything on the written menu; the time one of them was given three months to live, and after a miraculously successful surgery, held his survival party in one of the restaurant’s back rooms.

They order cold artichokes and fried potato puffs, gazpacho soup and fried shrimp. And what will I have? Originally I had not planned to eat anything—ethically speaking, it’s not good to accept gifts from story subjects. But I’m hungry, and the whole restaurant smells so potently of garlic, that I rationalize a bowl of gazpacho.

“Here, you have to try these,” says one of the Friday Boys, spooning a few fried potato puffs onto my plate. They aren’t on the menu, but they are nevertheless immensely popular. It’s easy to see why: crispy and feathery, these hollow pillows of sliced potato manage to taste both fried and light at the same time. The garlicky gazpacho, when it comes, is refreshingly cool, the perfect soup for a hot summer day.

The Friday Boys are reminiscing about what Baltimore’s dining scene was like when Tio Pepe first opened. “There weren’t any ethnic restaurants—not many, anyway,” says the retired judge. “There were some Greek places in Greektown, and German food in Highlandtown, but people didn’t usually travel to them.”

“There were a few good restaurants,” says another. “Marconi’s and The Chesapeake and Haussner’s.”

I ask why Tio Pepe is still in business when those places aren’t.

“The food is good,” says one.

“Well, the food was good at the other places, too,” argues another. The debate is by turns lawyerly and smart-alecky. Then the entrées show up.

Michael Link, who happens to be our server, tells me, “Chef Emilio asked you be sent this with his compliments.” It is the largest softshell crab I have ever seen, lightly battered and coated in sliced almonds, with a ramekin of rich lemon-garlic sauce for dipping. I take a bite. So much for journalistic integrity.

Minutes later, as I am happily chomping on what easily has to be a day’s worth of caloric intake, a well-dressed woman comes up behind me. Her whisper in my ear is so intense, I instinctively cringe: “I don’t care what anyone says, this is one of Baltimore’s best restaurants, and has been for 30 years,” she tells me, her eyes drilling into mine. I gulp and nod.

Meanwhile, the eldest of the Friday Boys—dapper in his pale suit and red-and-yellow bow-tie—has left the table to chat with two African-American gentlemen at a corner table. He brings them back to say hello: One is Dr. Levi Watkins, the first African-American chief resident of cardiac surgery at Hopkins. The other is Homer Favor, a former director of Morgan State University.

“He didn’t want to come today,” says Dr. Watkins, nodding at Favor. “But I told him, ‘The Judges will be looking for us.'”

Dr. Watkins and Favor tell me about some of the famous guests they have brought to Tio Pepe: Jesse Jackson, Harry Belafonte, Rosa Parks. “I saw [Yankees superstar] Derek Jeter here,” he mentions.

“In his rookie season,” agrees a Friday Boy.

“With his parents,” finishes another.

This is about the time when Link shows up with complimentary plates of Tio Pepe’s famous pine nut roll, a dish which had not impressed me during my only other meal at the restaurant, when I’d been checking it out for Best Restaurants—on that anonymous visit, it had been stale and dry. This time, though, it is fresh and delicate, the creamy custard and moist sponge cake creating one soft, comforting indulgence—it’s no almond beignet with lavender ice cream (to cite one of my favorite desserts that I’ve had in this town), but you’d be thrilled if your grandmother made some for you. The Friday Boys diligently spoon freshly whipped sweet cream on top of my slice. “They have the best whipped cream here,” says one. I cannot argue with him.

Lunch is over—both at my table and in the restaurant. Everyone takes a small break, Don Emilio sitting down for some sautéed chicken with a few other staffers.

THINGS DON’T PICK UP AGAIN until after 5. When I go back to the kitchen, Don Emilio wants to show me his lobsters—big, blue-shelled beauties that are destined to be boiled with celery, bay leaves, thyme, and peppercorns, then topped with shrimp, crabmeat, and champagne sauce. The result is Lobster Emiliano (though I later hear customers call it “Three Two One,” in honor of its shellfish trifecta), a dish that, once again, isn’t on the menu but is nevertheless ordered constantly. Don Emilio estimates that 30 percent of his orders can be off the menu.

Speaking of which, he wants me to try his potato puffs. I try to protest, but he is already in action. Here is the secret: Each slice of potato must be fried once in hot oil, then fried again in even hotter oil, and then flash-fried for about five seconds right before being served. Don Emilio does not use a thermometer to gauge the oil’s heat: “After this many years, you know.”

We chat a bit more about the supremacy of Spanish ham over all other varieties, about whether or not Tio Pepe will serve the highly prized Ibérico ham when it starts getting imported into this country next year (probably not—at $50 to $150 a pound, it will probably be too expensive for customers here), about his commute from his home in Perry Hall.

Jose Guzman, the mustachioed evening sous chef, calls out orders from handwritten checks in his sonorous voice: “Gambas para dos, paella, y Langosto Emiliano!”

“You see?” says Don Emilio happily. “It’s not on the menu, but they order all the time!”

By the time you read this, this scene will be a thing of the past; after many years of prodding, Tio Pepe is switching to a computerized ordering system.

It’s interesting to watch the orders. More than any other restaurant whose kitchen I’ve observed, Tio Pepe gets entire tables ordering the same thing: three orders of shrimp with garlic, three of chicken with crab, three of snails. Blue-jacketed runners lift trays with six, seven, eight heavy dishes stacked on top. You can see them wince with the effort. I wonder if this is why, with the exception of one lunchtime bartender, the entire staff is male.

Miguel Sanz, who has by now slipped into a suit jacket, offers another reason. “We do get women applying—and we’ve had women work in the kitchen before, or as bartenders—but they apply to be waiters,” he says, meaning headwaiters. “In all the time I’ve been working here, I think maybe three waiters have retired—one moved back to Spain, one retired, and . . . oh, I guess maybe two. If we do get an opening, we promote from within.” Women, he says, aren’t interested in a place where they’d have to wait a decade to get a shot at the best-paying positions.

Meanwhile, the house is filling up. By far the most common table type seems to be parents with their grown children. At one such grouping, diners pass around a plate of potato puffs. “We’ve been coming here since we moved to Baltimore—what, 14 years ago?” says a vivacious twentysomething blonde in a tasteful black-and-white blazer. Her parents agree. Her mother, elegantly dressed in black with a classic pearl choker, calls it “a special restaurant for a special occasion.”

The blonde daughter calls “the puffy fries” a favorite dish. “I think you told us about the puffy fries,” she says to her brother-in-law, a native Baltimorean.

“I think my grandparents first got me started on the puffy fries,” he says.

A hand-painted pitcher of sangria sits on almost every table. I ask Miguel if they ever go missing or get broken. “Both,” he says, smiling. “Sometimes, you have to tell a party who’s had a little too much sangria, ‘Can you please give us the pitcher?'”

Sangria breeds laughter, and the restaurant is now boomingly loud. A customer shows Pedro Gutierrez a photo of the 200-pound halibut his sister caught on a recent trip to Alaska; soon after, an older man asks the maitre d’ if he’s seen a man named Solomon. Gutierrez considers for a moment. “Not recently,” he says.

I slip back into the kitchen, which is now full of energy and the crash of pans onto burners. Suddenly, Don Emilio is beside me. “Here is a little tapa,” he says with a smile, handing me a plate of Spanish ham.

Back at the bar, the bartender is pouring drinks. Margaritas are popular, as are Coronas with lime. “I guess people see the Spanish, and get confused,” says a waiter with a grin.

I ask Miguel about Tio Pepe’s future. He mentions the restaurant’s 40th anniversary, coming in 2008. “I guess we’ll have to do something,” he says casually.

But beyond that? He’s already told me he doubts either of his children will want to take the place over. “To tell the truth, I haven’t even sat myself down to think about it,” he says. “I guess I’d like to see if we can make it to the 50th birthday. Past that, God will decide.”

But then his mouth quirks in that faint smile of his, and he adds, “Remember, we come from a place where there’s a restaurant in Madrid that’s been around since the 17th century.”

“I WASN’T ALLOWED HERE till I could respect it—when I was 16, 17,” says Marc Hassan, who is here with his brother and parents tonight. His parents have retired to Florida, but make a point of coming here every time they visit their old hometown.

I am coming to respect Tio Pepe myself. The dining rooms, which once struck me as dowdy and claustrophobic, now seem cozy and charmingly Old World. I’m beginning to understand the comfort of knowing you’ll be getting the exact same dish your grandparents used to order when you were a child. Even the haughty waiters seem to have softened—after all, if I’d been doing a job for 30 years, I’d probably stop feeling the need to prove myself to every fresh face who came by. Plus, it’s obvious that the restaurant’s regulars feel pampered.

But, much as it may pain me to say so—and, as the night wears on and the Tio’s stories pile up on each other with the dense sweetness of freshly whipped cream, the pain becomes almost physical—there are certain facts that cannot be denied. The food is heavy and old-fashioned. The staff is all-male. That velvet matador cape has faded from black to gray. And (Sanzes forgive me, but it’s true) at least one of the waiters has very obviously notdry-cleaned his jacket for a very, very long time. I guess what I am trying to say is: The past is a lot of fun to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

As the restaurant’s night winds to a close around 10:30, I head back to the kitchen, where, sure enough, Don Emilio has made me a to-go package with enough paella and gambas al ajillo to feed a family of four. The man has been here since 7:30 a.m.; he works double shifts like this at least four times a week; he is still wearing his chef’s toque. I ask him if he’s ever thought of moving back to Spain. “No, I don’t think so,” he says. “Everything in my life is here.”

As for the future of Tio Pepe, his answer is cryptically elliptical. “I’m 61,” he says. “I’ve trained all these guys. They know very good how to do things here.”

Then he turns to load my case of food into my arms. “This will be very good, you can heat it up,” he says, smiling at me.

I am a serious, professional journalist, so I will not tell you that his eyes twinkled. My objectivity cannot be bought with a few thin slices of ham or a reef’s worth of shellfish. It cannot be bullied by a city’s protective love. I am not that easily swayed.

I think it is more accurate to say his eyes shone.