La Vie En Rose from Dutch Courage

It doesn’t get any prettier than this cocktail designed by Dutch Courage owner Brendan Dorr. “I wanted to create a cocktail that represented Dutch Courage as a gin cocktail bar, and what’s better than a martini?” says Dorr. “I took the classic martini recipe and put a oral spin on it.”

INGREDIENTS
2 ounces Glendalough Rose Gin
.75 ounce Dolin Dry Vermouth
.25 ounce Tattersall Creme de Fleur 1 dash Peychaud’s Bitters
1 dash Rose Water

DIRECTIONS
1. Stir all ingredients with ice.
2. Strain into a cocktail glass.
3. Garnish with lemon peel and surround with dried rose petals.
Serves 1.

Pretty in Pink: A pink-hued cocktail is perfect for your Valentine. The color represents compassion, nurturing, and love. It also signifies unconditional love and understanding. It’s feminine, intimate, and for any romantic occasion, but especially Valentine’s Day.

Raw Oysters with Beet Horseradish from Dylan’s Oyster Cellar

“Our favorite way to eat oysters is dressed simply with prepared horseradish and lemon,” says Dylan Salmon, co-owner of Dylan’s Oyster Cellar. “For Valentine’s Day, we thought that adding beets for a pop of deep red to the gray color of horseradish would put a sweet, earthy, and colorful twist on an otherwise drab but spicy condiment.”

INGREDIENTS
Fresh horseradish root, at least 4 inches, peeled and cut into small cubes
15-ounce can cooked beets, drained
4 tablespoons white vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Fresh-shucked oysters (pick up available at Dylan’s, of course.)

DIRECTIONS
1. Add horseradish chunks a little bit at a time into the feeding tube of your food processor.
2. Pulse several times, scraping down the sides if needed.
3. Add drained beets and pulse a few more times.
4. Add vinegar, sugar, and salt and process for 30 more seconds or so, until you get a nice finely textured consistency.

NOTE: Horseradish sauce will keep in a tightly sealed container in the fridge for three days, but it will lose heat over time. If you like it hot and zingy, eat it within a few hours after you prepare it.

WARNING: Do not breathe in too closely to freshly grated horseradish, as it is blindingly hot. Also, start with a tiny bit when you first taste to ensure you can stand the heat.

To freshly shucked, raw oysters, add 1⁄4 teaspoon of the beet horseradish and a dollop of salmon roe for color, texture, and ocean flavor. Finish by garnishing with a fresh grating of lemon zest.
Makes 2 cups. 

Chocolate Truffles with Powdered Strawberries from Cosima

Nothing says Valentine’s Day like chocolate truffles. Though chocolate has long been believed to be an aphrodisiac—the emperor Montezuma was said to have consumed the cocoa bean in massive amounts to fuel his romantic trysts—science says otherwise. If chocolate has any effect on the libido, it’s likely more psychological than physiological.

That said, this recipe from Cosima exectuive chef Anthony Franklin is sure to make your loved ones feel cherished. “I prefer to make these with my special someone in the early afternoon,” says Franklin, “and enjoy these endorphin-releasing treats for dessert with a scoop of ice cream. Nothing is more convivial than waking up on Valentine’s Day and playing with chocolate.”

INGREDIENTS
8 ounces of pure chocolate
2⁄3 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Strawberry powder
1⁄2 teaspoon sea salt

DIRECTIONS
1. Place chocolate in heat-resistant mixing bowl and set aside.
2. Heat heavy cream until it begins to simmer.
3. Once simmered, add butter and sea salt.
4. Pour hot liquid in the bowl of pure chocolate and allow cream to soften chocolate.
5. Add vanilla extract and mix ingredients until you achieve a smooth consistency.
6. Wrap bowl in plastic wrap and refrigerate for two hours.
7. Scoop out desired size of set truffle mix (a tablespoon works well), then roll into a ball.
8. Roll truffles into powered strawberry or desired toppings.
Serves 20-24. 

Fudgy Walnut Cookies from Citron

So many cookie recipes contain gluten, so this dense and delicious recipe for fudgy walnut cookies—by way of Citron’s pastry chef Carlie King—is a particular treat. “My inspiration for this recipe was really just a good chocolate snack everyone without a nut allergy could enjoy,” says King. “This is a great gluten-free cookie that everyone, including gluten eaters, really likes.”

INGREDIENTS
4 1⁄4 cups confectioner’s sugar
1 cup cocoa powder
2 1⁄8 cups walnuts, toasted and chopped
Pinch of salt
1 cup egg whites, pasteurized

DIRECTIONS
1. Sift confectioners’ sugar and cocoa powder into a large bowl.
2. Mix cocoa powder mixture with walnuts and salt.
3. Pour in egg whites while mixing. (You can mix by hand or at a low speed with a mixer.)
4. Mix until just combined. (Do not over mix.)
5. Scoop dough with a 2-ounce cookie scoop onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment.
6. Bake at 350 Fahrenheit for five minutes.
7. Turn and bake for an additonal five minutes.

Roasted Cauliflower Panisse Cake from Preserve

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

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

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

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

Beet Terrine from The Corner Pantry

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

On a bright fall day in October, Karen Segall’s stately, 1930s-era Stevenson home is filled with the sweet smell of scented candles. But most days, especially on Sundays when she’s putting together care packages, it smells like some heavenly combination of breakfast treats, such as her son Ben’s favorite banana chocolate-chip pecan muffins; cookies, like her daughter Annie’s favorite chocolate-chip variety; or cakes coming straight out of the oven.

“With my kids away at college, every Monday, I’m at the post office mailing them care packages,” says Segall. “It’s the smell of the butter and sugar and things baking in the oven that they say they miss most.”

And while the ultra-lithe yoga teacher insists that she eats sweets on a daily basis, she finds even more pleasure in sharing her sweets with others.

“There’s a joy to me in giving them to someone,” she says. “I can’t explain it—there’s nothing better when someone is having a hard day than giving them lemon bars or something that is evocative of love—it’s just a simple thing to do for someone and easy way to make them feel good.”

For Segall, who even helped design and make her own wedding cake 24 years ago—a lemon cake with buttercream filling and fresh flowers—baking is in the blood. Growing up in Pikesville, her maternal grandparents owned The Gourmet Shoppe, a well-known fine foods store in Towson.

“I grew up there,” recalls Segall, who shares her home with her husband, Andy, a commercial real-estate broker, and dog Dash, named after Queen Victoria’s King Charles Spaniel. “I loved being in that store, it was like a second home for me. My uncle also owned a bakery off of Menlo Drive in Baltimore that supplied baked goods to many bakers and grocery stores, and I used to beg my parents to let me hang out there. I’d make rainbow cake and chocolate-top cookies—Maryland has the best desserts.”

Segall is a modern-day Betty Crocker, as she effortlessly whips up baked goods—pies, tortes, cookies, spelt and rye breads, and even a complicated multi-tiered Momofuku cake for Ben’s 18th birthday—in her elegant English-country style kitchen.

“I’m a serviceable cook,” she says modestly over grilled cheese and a bowl of tomato soup, “but I’m not really passionate about it. I prefer baking to cooking—cooking can be more imaginative. In baking you have to follow the rules—it’s like chemistry. To me, there’s nothing better than dessert.” And that includes something sweet over something savory at the dinner table. “Sometimes Andy will come home and ask, ‘What’s for dinner?’ and I’ll say, ‘Cookies!’” she says with only a trace of irony in her voice.

Much like the yoga classes Segall teaches at an area private school, baking is a form of meditation for her. “It’s very relaxing,” she says. “The actual process of baking is soothing, and there’s instant gratification—you make it, you put it in the oven, the smell is instantaneous.”

Above all, says Segall, it’s the rules of baking that appeal most. “I have always loved Food Network host Alton Brown because he explained the chemistry of cooking,” she says. “You always add dry to wet, not wet to dry, for example. If you follow the rules—put this together and that comes out—that’s what I love about it. When you bake, it’s like the universe makes sense.”

Here, Segall shares some of her favorite recipes:

Dark Chocolate Bread Pudding

INGREDIENTS

• Unsalted butter, room temperature (for the baking dish)
• 1 pound day-old brioche (or challah), sliced 1⁄2 inch thick
• 3 cups whole milk
• 10 ounces good semi- sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 1⁄2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1⁄2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 6 large eggs

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Generously butter a 13×9 baking dish
3. Arrange bread in dish, overlapping as needed to fit.
4. Heat the milk, chocolate, sugar, vanilla, and salt in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, stirring until the chocolate is almost completely melted, about three minutes.
5. Remove chocolate mixture from heat and stir until the chocolate is completely melted. Let cool.
6. Add the eggs, one at a time, to the chocolate, whisking to blend after each addition.
7. Pour over the bread, pressing to help the bread absorb the liquid.
8. Let sit at room temperature about one hour.
9. Bake uncovered until the bread pudding is just set, 30-35 minutes.
10. Let cool slightly and serve warm, with whipped cream if desired.

Lemon-Ricotta Cake

INGREDIENTS

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 quart whole milk
• 1 3⁄4 cups semolina flour
• 1⁄2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 3⁄4 cups sugar
• 1 large lemon, zested
• 4 large eggs
• 2 cups fresh ricotta cheese, strained

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
2. Butter an 11-inch round cake pan.
3. Heat the milk in a saucepan over medium heat until just simmering.
4. Whisk in the semolina and the salt. Boil, stirring constantly, for two minutes.
5. Remove the pan from the heat, add the sugar and butter, stirring until combined.
6. Transfer the batter to a mixing bowl to cool, stirring frequently to prevent
   a skin from forming. When the batter has cooled a bit, stir in the lemon zest.
7. Beat in the eggs slowly, one at a time, until combined.
8. Beat in the ricotta.
9. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for one hour until set and golden.

Cherry Almond Torte

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons almond extract
• 15 once jar of tart, red cherries (like Morello), pitted and drained

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Butter a 10-inch springform pan.
3. With the mixer on medium, beat butter and sugar for 2-3 minutes until light and fluffy.
4. Add the eggs slowly, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated.
5. Add the almond extract.
6. Sift the flour and baking powder together.
7. Add slowly to the butter mixture and mix until just incorporated.
8. Scrape the batter into the cake pan and smooth the surface with a spatula.
9. Spread the cherries evenly over the surface.
10. Bake for exactly 65 minutes.
11. Cool for 10 minutes, remove the sides of the pan and serve warm.

At least when it comes to eating habits, Emily and Eddie Garner have distinctly different childhood memories. Emily’s parents were staunch vegetarians for a time, while Eddie’s father was a butcher who made filet for the family on a weekly basis. “My parents were vegetarians before I was born,” says Emily, “but the story goes that when I was three, I went to a friend’s house and I ate a McDonald’s cheeseburger for the first time. I came home saying, ‘Mom, I want a cheeseburger,’ and that was the end of their vegetarianism.”

These days, the co-owners of Bikram Yoga Baltimore, who live in a charming Cape Cod-style home in the Villa Cresta neighborhood of Parkville, are very much in sync when it comes to their eating habits—and their kitchen rituals, too. While Emily does all of the cooking for their household, which includes their boisterous brood of three (Charlie, 8, Marty, 4, and Paige, 3), Eddie says, “I’m always happy to clean and get things down from high shelves.”

“It’s impossible to practice yoga and not feel a greater connection to the world around you.”

Of course, feeding their young family—with their finicky tastes and personal preferences—can be challenging. (Charlie loves a ham and cheese sub, Marty has a serious sweet tooth, and Paige likes spicy salsa.) “We try to eat every night around five,” says Emily, “but just getting them to the table can be like herding cats. The kids hate the ‘d’ word (dinner). If I specifically say what they’re eating, they’re more likely to come running to the table.”

On this winter’s day, as Emily prepares dinner, Paige, Charlie, and their pit bull mix, Lenny, run around the house, and Eddie checks on the cornbread baking in the oven of their cozy, sun-drenched kitchen. On the menu for dinner is a Pinterest find called Tilapia Stew and a recipe for so-called “Yummy Cornbread,” passed down by Emily’s mother.

“My mom doesn’t know where she got this recipe,” says Emily, as she adds a can of creamed corn to the bowl, “but it’s likely an old church-lady situation. It’s cornbread, but it’s doctored up with whole kernels, creamed corn, and sour cream—it’s really halfway between cornbread and corn pudding.” Also on the lineup is a kale salad with pomegranate seeds and pecans. “The trick with kale,” says Emily, “is to massage the chopped greens to soften them before you dress them.”

When they’re not feeding their family, the Garners can most often be found in their equally warm Cockeysville hot yoga studio. “Everything I know about life, I learned in the yoga studio,” says Eddie, smiling. “I’m so much nicer now. It’s impossible to practice yoga and not feel a greater connection to the world around you.”

The students, says Eddie, keep them inspired. “What I love is that the yoga is accessible to anyone,” he explains. “In class, I can have a 17-year-old standing next to an 83-year-old. Or someone who is a quadriplegic in a wheelchair next to someone who wants to lose 100 pounds. I want people to know that everyone can benefit from yoga. I can help reacquaint you with your body and how it moves so that you can find your way out of pain.”

The Garners first discovered yoga when they were living in New York City in 2004. Emily, who studied dance at Butler University in Indiana, was pursuing ballet professionally and working at Starbucks to make ends meet. Eddie, an opera tenor, was working for a company that produced concerts at Carnegie Hall and singing on the side. As struggling artists, the couple happened to buy a book called The Cheap Bastard’s Guide to New York City.

“There were tips, like ‘This place has three free appetizers during happy hour,’” says Emily, laughing. “Or, ‘If you volunteer to sell merchandise here, you can get free tickets to a Broadway show.’” Fortuitously, one of the tips included a pay-what-you-can donation class at a Bikram Yoga studio. “I loved it right away,” recalls Emily. “I called Eddie from the street and said, ‘You need to take class with me.’” Echoes Eddie, “I loved it immediately and knew after one class I wanted to be a teacher.”

But when they’re not in their yoga studio, their favorite spot is their kitchen and great room, the true heart of their home. “I grew up almost always eating at home,” recalls Emily. “Family meals were the time we talked about pretty much anything and everything. So, when all of us are together eating, I feel good knowing my kids will remember Sunday morning pancake breakfasts or whatever it is—it’s a time when, through a meal, we are creating their sense of home.”

Kale and Quinoa Salad

INGREDIENTS

• 1⁄2 cup uncooked red quinoa, rinsed
• 6 cups chopped kale
• 1 cup pomegranate seeds
• 1⁄2 cup dried cranberries
• 1⁄2 cup pecans, chopped

FOR THE DRESSING

• 1⁄4 cup olive oil
• 4 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
• 2 tsp. Dijon mustard
• 1 Tbsp. honey
  Salt and pepper, to taste

DIRECTIONS

To make the quinoa, add 1 cup of water to a small saucepan and add quinoa. Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce heat and simmer for about
13 minutes. Remove from heat, keeping quinoa covered, and allow it to sit for about five minutes, then fluff quinoa with a fork. Place kale in a large bowl and gently massage to break down fibers. Add quinoa, pomegranate seeds, dried cranberries, and pecans.

To make the dressing, whisk together olive oil, apple cider vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Pour dressing over the salad and toss together until evenly coated. Top with additional pomegranates, cranberries, and pecans as desired.

Fish Stew

INGREDIENTS

• 6 Tbsp. fresh lime juice
• 2 Tbsp. cumin
• 2 Tbsp. paprika
• 3 tsp. minced garlic
• 1 1⁄2 tsp. salt
• 1 1⁄2 tsp. pepper
• 2 lbs. tilapia (cut into bite-sized pieces, fish can be partially frozen)
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 large bell peppers (sliced into 2-inch strips)
• 14 oz. diced tomatoes, drained
• 14 oz. coconut milk
• Fresh cilantro to taste

DIRECTIONS

Combine the lime juice, cumin, paprika, garlic, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Add in the tilapia and mix until coated. Cover and place in the refrigerator to marinate for 20 minutes or longer. (You can marinate the night before). Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions and cook until they begin to soften, about three minutes. Add bell pepper, tomatoes, and marinated tilapia. Pour coconut milk over ingredients and mix. Cover and simmer about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Just before serving, garnish with cilantro.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lasagna

Ingredients

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

Directions

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

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

Franciotti’s “Chiapparelli’s Salad”

Ingredients

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

Directions

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

Taco Soup

Ingredients

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

Directions

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

Ed and Ann Berlin had been living in the New York area for 35 years, but for Ed, a native Baltimorean (City College, Class of ’66), home beckoned—and both of them were ready for a change. They settled in Baltimore at the end of 2011.

“I was motivated to move back,” says Ed, “but Ann grew up in Salt Lake City, and the fear was that if we moved back, I would have old friends and connections and Ann would come here and wouldn’t have anything to do.”

Enter The Ivy Bookshop, which was up for sale just as they were arriving in Baltimore. Both Ed, a former technology innovator for CitiBank, and Ann, former head of production for academic publisher John Wiley & Sons, were lifelong booklovers. She tended toward non-fiction and the classics. He liked art books, graphic design, and espionage. On a lark one day, Ed went into the bookshop and made up his mind to buy it. “We decided The Ivy couldn’t close,” he says simply.

That being said, they knew the risks. “There was a period in the United States when there were a lot of independent bookstores in individual neighborhoods,” says Ed, “But with the advent of Amazon and 24/7 availability online, the notion of a neighborhood bookstore became uneconomic.” So the Berlins knew that they needed to do something differently if they were going to have a viable business. “We needed to turn it into something more metropolitan,” says Ed. “It required a major commitment to community events—that was the challenge for it to be successful.”

Seven years later, not only has the bookstore found success—with roughly 26,000 to 28,000 titles in its inventory—but authors from all over the country, including Michael Downs and Doris Kearns Goodwin, come there to read from their latest works. On the heels of their success, the Berlins joined chef Spike Gjerde in opening Bird in Hand, a bookstore cafe near the Johns Hopkins campus. “Baltimore likes home teams,” says Ed. “And Baltimore treats us like the home team the way they do the Orioles and Johns Hopkins and lacrosse. We are local merchants wearing our Baltimore hearts on our sleeves.”

Equally Baltimore is the fact that the Berlins live in a charming 1905 Roland Park home they believe was once the headmaster’s house of the original Roland Park Country School on St. Paul’s Street. “When you walk out of the house, the front walkway goes right to what would have been the front door of the school,” explains Ed.

There’s still plenty of learning taking place under the slate-shingled roof. Not surprisingly, the house is brimming with books, including many for the Berlins’ 5-year-old granddaughter, Isobel, who lives with them. There’s also a wonderful collection of 20th-century art. “Most people go to an art gallery and just look at the pictures, Ed actually buys them,” says Ann. “But what I love most is that everything here has a memory for us.”

There are plenty of food memories, too. “My family is from Texas, so my mom made the world’s best fried chicken and the world’s best chili,” says Ann. “We’d go down to visit my grandparents and it was black-eyed peas and the vegetables were cooked to death in salt pork.” While Ann does the cooking, she tends toward a utilitarian approach. “I’m always looking for things that are fast, including recipes from Pierre Franey’s 60-Minute Gourmet, like this recipe for shrimp in Indian sauce in which I like to substitute chicken.” Her cranberry pecan salad, improvised from a friend’s recipe, is similarly quick to assemble.

For Ed, family meal time was nothing if not predictable when he was growing up in Baltimore. “We had the same food every Monday, we had the same food every Tuesday,” he says, laughing. “Thursday was deep-fried chicken, Friday was meatballs and spaghetti, Saturday was food from Attman’s. Unfortunately, Tuesday was liver night and Wednesday was potluck—it was like being in the army, but the food was better.”

More than 20 years ago, long before farm-to-table became a catchphrase, there was John Shields, who traveled up and down the Chesapeake Bay meeting with oystermen, fishermen, and growers, and helped define modern-day Mid-Atlantic cuisine.

With the release of his latest cookbook, The New Chesapeake Kitchen, the veteran author and owner of the newly named Gertrude’s Chesapeake Kitchen is once again reimagining regional fare, not only because the bay has changed, but because he has changed.

“Seven years ago, I had a heart attack,” say Shields. “I had to be really mindful of what I was eating. That got me thinking about how we’ve eaten for thousands of years, and it has been primarily a plant-forward diet.”

To that end, he calls the recipes in his new book both “bay- and body-friendly.” We sat down with Shields to talk about his latest venture, how he got his start in the field, and keeping company with John Waters.

Why did you want to write this book?
The idea for The New Chesapeake Kitchen came about 10 or 12 years ago. I started making notes of what I was eating and where I bought it, and I asked myself if what I was purchasing was benefiting the community. Also, I don’t want to sound morose, but it’s the thing I want to leave—it’s my legacy.

Where did the book’s name come from?
I looked at what went wrong and where we are and what could possibly be a vision for the 21st century. We have to keep one foot in the past to see our way forward, but we need to have a whole new look at the way we eat—a lot of the fish that we used to have in the bay aren’t here. Some of the protein is so precious that we can’t eat it the way we used to. Then we have some species that weren’t here before. We have to take a snapshot of now.

How do you want people to use the book?
It’s a cookbook, and there are a lot of fun recipes, but I also hope that they notice the way it’s put together. I’ve separated the recipes by cooking techniques because I think it takes us back to the idea of plant forward. The idea is to stretch the protein. If we made crab cakes, that could be $60 a pound right now, which would feed three people. But if you turn it into soup, you could make something that is quintessentially Chesapeake and feeds eight to 10 people. It’s bay- and body-friendly.

Why did you thank your cardiologist, Sonia Baker, in the dedication to the book?
There were some not-great things happening with my heart, and I was having a hard time finishing the book. She said to me, ‘Now, listen, it’s a book. How many of these have you done? Just finish it up—you know how to write a cookbook.’

Why did you want to be a chef?
I was working at some clubs in Cape Cod playing the piano. I was with John Waters’ repertory company—we are still friends. A friend of mine, who was a sous chef at the Provincetown Inn, broke his ankle. He said, ‘Hon, you have to go up and cook tonight.’ They brought out these big mesh bags of garlic. I had never seen a whole head of garlic in my life—I was Catholic. That’s really how I started cooking. There was no thought at all.

Recipe: Crispy Rockfish Tacos

This is some of the Chesapeake’s plant-forward eating at its best. A whole slew of wonderful vegetables coming together, all wrapped in a warm corn tortilla, with crispy pieces of the Bay’s favorite finfish, the rock—a.k.a. striped—bass. This dish works well for a party if you set up a taco station with all the ingredients, allowing guests to make their own. Serves 4.

Ingredients

• 1 pound rockfish filet
• 1 cup flour
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• ½ teaspoon chipotle powder
• ½ teaspoon paprika
• ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• Oil for frying
• 8 fresh small corn tortillas

Lime-Jicama Slaw

• 1 cup shredded cabbage
• ½ cup shredded jicama
• ¼ cup chopped green onion
• ¼ cup julienned carrots
• 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
• ¼ cup mayonnaise
• Juice of 1 lime

Avocado Cream

• 2 ripe avocados
• ½ cup sour cream
• Juice of ½ lime
• Pinch of ground cumin
• Salt, to taste

Directions

In a bowl, combine the cabbage, jicama, green onion, carrots, and cilantro. In another small bowl, combine the mayo and lime juice. Pour over the top of the vegetable mixture, tossing to coat well. Refrigerate for one hour before serving.

Cut the rockfish filets into 1½-inch chunks. In a bowl, mix the flour with the salt, cumin, garlic powder, chipotle powder, paprika, cayenne, and black pepper and blend well. Heat oil to a depth of 1½ inches until quite hot. Dust the rockfish pieces with the flour mixture and shake off excess. In batches, fry fish until golden brown and cooked through. Remove the pieces of fish with a slotted utensil and allow to drain on paper towels.

While cooking fish, heat a dry (not oiled) cast-iron skillet and warm the tortillas for about 30 seconds on each side. Wrap tortillas in a damp towel and keep warm while heating the rest of the tortillas. To assemble the tacos, place a spoonful of slaw in the center of each tortilla, followed by several pieces of fish and a dollop of Avocado Cream. Remove the skin and pit from the avocados and place the flesh a bowl. Mash the avocado and then add the remaining ingredients.

Garnish with a teaspoon of salsa, plus radish. Serve lime wedges on the side.

This excerpt is taken from The New Chesapeake Kitchen by John Shields. Published by Johns Hopkins University Press © 2018. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

There is something so amazing about summer produce. Between watermelon, strawberries, and peaches, local farmers’ markets and produce stands are bursting with colors and flavors. To me, there is nothing more deliciously summery in Maryland than fresh, bright red tomatoes. Sure, we can purchase them year round, but nothing beats taste of a ripe, sun-drenched tomato.

Tomatoes offer a versatility that makes them a staple in our kitchen during the summer months. They are great to add to salads, sandwiches, pasta salads, and now, veggie tarts. This recipe is incredibly easy and delicious—you can pre-make ahead of time for a dinner party appetizer or to prepare a dinner for two.

The creaminess from the goat cheese balances out the acidity from the tomatoes, and the caramelized onion offers a subtle sweetness. Serve this tart warm out of the oven, or at room temperature. I like to use large beefsteak or heirloom tomatoes for the tart, but you could absolutely use cherry or Roma tomatoes instead. Keep frozen, store-bought puff pastry on hand for when you need to pull together a recipe in a pinch. When selecting your tomatoes, look for smooth, even skins that are firm but have a slight give when squeezed.

Ingredients:

• 1 pre-made frozen puff pastry dough sheet
• 2 ripe beefsteak tomatoes
• 1 brown or white onion
• 2 cloves garlic (minced)
• ½ cup fresh soft goat cheese
• 1-tablespoon olive oil
• Handful fresh basil leaves
• Arugula or micro-greens for garnish
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

1. Preheat your oven to the temperature on puff pastry package instructions.

2. Thaw one frozen puff pastry sheet for 20 minutes before baking. This will leave the pastry malleable without causing it to stick together. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. The pastry will go into the oven frozen.

3. Slice your onion into thin strips.

4. Coat a large pan with butter or olive oil, and heat the pan on a medium-high heat until the oil is shimmering. Add the onions and give them a quick stir to coat them in oil. Spread the onions out across the bottom of the pan and allow them to cook. You will not want to stir them too frequently so they can caramelize. Once the onions have caramelized, remove them from the heat and set aside.

5. In a bowl, mix your minced garlic and tablespoon of olive oil. Brush the mixture over the puff pastry sheet.

6. Sprinkle your goat cheese over the puff pastry, followed by the caramelized onions. Try to spread the cheese and onions evenly over the pastry, but leave a ½ inch between the filling and the edge of the pastry to allow a flaky crust to develop.

7. Cut your tomatoes into ¼ inch thick slices, and spread them over the pastry. Season with salt and pepper.

8. Bake the pastry per the package instructions, usually around 25-30 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown.

9. Remove the pastry from the oven and top with basil and arugula or micro-greens (optional). Add salt and pepper as needed. Slice and serve immediately or allow to cool to room temperature.

10. Enjoy!

My car was so steamy I feared the cops might flag me down. This was my first thought as I pulled out of Conrad’s Crabs & Seafood Market in Parkville with two dozen blue crabs, a tin of crab dip, deviled eggs, pints of cucumber tomato salad, two dozen steamed shrimp, and other foods to form a delicious crab feast. A graduate degree in journalism, and a childhood spent in Philadelphia, had not prepared me for the life of a crab wrangler. And, yet, here I was—with Old Bay in Smell-O-Vision in my sedan.

Our crab cover shoot wasn’t until the next day, so I rearranged my refrigerator jettisoning expired condiments I never needed in the first place (banana ketchup, really?), moved a shelf and hauled the steaming box of crabs and other items into cold storage.

The next day, my car still smelling of seafood seasoning, I piled everything back into the trunk, and drove the steamy subjects and accouterments to photographer Kate Grewal’s bungalow in Towson.

Kate, creative director Amanda White-Iseli, and food and prop stylist Giulietta Pinna, carried props, including ceramic bowls, table ware, decorative craft paper, a variety of utensils, serving bowls, and other items from the trunk of her tiny car to Kate’s dining-room-cum-studio. “Why is it that food stylists always drive the smallest cars?” mused Amanda.

In the four hours that followed, with crabs splayed on top of blue seamless paper taped to Kate’s floor, Giulietta got down on hands and knees to glam up her subjects on set—hand-selecting the biggest boys, wiping away crab spice with a Q-Tip, and positioning the pile just so to create our mouth-watering cover image.

Also on hand was our designated “hand model” Catina Smith, a cook at Magdalena and Kate’s good friend. Giulietta and I got in on the act, spread out across the floor pretending to crab cracks, wield mallets, and squeeze lemons. As we contorted or bodies into Twister-like positions, we agreed that it’s true what they say about modeling—it’s harder than it looks, especially when you have to lay on a floor.

Meanwhile, I also shucked ears of corn on Kate’s lawn and browned corn fritters and lobster mac-and-cheese with a blow torch. Kate served us fruit and granola when she wasn’t shooting. Amanda gave artistic direction. (“That crab is bothering me off to the side,” she said. “It looks like it wants to join the whole pile.”) Within hours, team had shot the cover, a crab feast spread and a variety of sides for our page highlighting ways to make your accompaniments special.

While I try not to eat the props on most shoots, I’m a sucker for sides. I taste-tested the lobster mac and cheese from Stone Mill Bakery, moved onto the cucumber salad from Conrad’s, the corn fritters from Gourmet Again, and the potato salad from Graul’s.

By the afternoon, the shoot was done and what was many months in the planning had finally come to fruition. The feeling of seeing the magazine print, published, and soon online was almost as satisfying as the food from the feast. Almost.

Spring is finally here—meaning the birds are chirping, flowers are blooming, and we finally have an excuse to leave the house on the weekend to hit the farmers’ market. Farmers’ markets are the best way to scope out local, in-season produce and are a great perfect opportunity to meet your local farmers, ask what produce they recommend, and get fresh ideas on how to use it.

The warmer months of spring give us bright, delicious seasonal vegetables, which help liven up any salad or veggie dish. Great in-season spring vegetables to keep an eye out for include arugula, peas, carrots, spinach, artichoke, and asparagus.

Try to grab a variety of root veggies since they can be enjoyed several different ways. They offer a delightful crunch when raw, or are hearty and comforting when roasted.

Delicious spring root vegetables include beets, radishes, sweet potatoes, fennel and carrots. When raw, beets and carrots are a wonderful crunchy addition to any crudité platter, but they can also be enjoyed roasted or grilled. Similarly, fennel gives a fresh bite when added to salads, and adds a unique flavor when pureed into soups. The beauty of root veggies is that there are several ways to prepare them.

This salad recipe is a great way to incorporate all of your farmers’ market finds. It also presents beautifully, which will make you the talk of any dinner party. Thanks to the bright colors of the veggies, it seems to look stunning no matter what. Next time you hit the local market, be sure to snag these ingredients to make a tasty spring salad.

Ingredients

For the salad:

• 1 fennel bulb
• 1 red beet
• 1 zucchini
• 1 green apple
• 1 large sweet potato (either orange or purple)
• 2 cups of arugula
• ½ ripe avocado
• 2 sprigs of mint
• Goat cheese (optional)

For the dressing:

• Juice from 1 large lemon
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• ½ teaspoon honey or maple syrup
• ½ teaspoon dried basil
• ¼ teaspoon onion powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt

Instructions

For the dressing:

In a bowl, add lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, Dijon mustard, honey, dried basil, onion powder and salt. Whisk vigorously for one minute until all ingredients are fully incorporated.

For the salad:

• Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Spiralize or cube the sweet potato and add the pieces to a baking sheet. No need to add oil or seasoning to the potato. Once the oven has come to temperature, bake the sweet potato cubes or strands for 10 to 15 minutes until fork-tender. Allow them to cool to room temperature before serving.
• Using a mandolin or sharp knife, thinly slice the fennel bulb, apple and beet. Be sure to set the beets away from the other ingredients to avoid color transfer.
• Using a vegetable peeler, slowly run the peeler down the long side of the zucchini. Peel thin zucchini ribbons on each side until you reach the seeds. Stop peeling once you can see the seeds.
• Slice the avocado into thin wedges.
• On a large plate, assemble your salad starting with a bed of arugula. Arrange the other vegetables to your liking. Drizzle dressing on the salad at time of serving. Garnish with fresh mint, fennel greens and optional goat cheese.

Let’s face it, we’re all busy, but we feel a lot better when we take an extra 10-15 minutes to make a quick breakfast before rushing out the door. I personally like to start my day with a nutrient-dense smoothie. Smoothies are a fast way to give yourself a healthy boost to get you through the morning. I aim to include the following in each of my smoothies: protein, fiber, fat, and veggies. Let’s break these down.

Your protein can come from a variety of sources, but I usually reach for collagen peptides, or pea protein. Collagen peptides, which either come from bovine or marine sources, are an easy, flavorless way to sneak in some protein. I personally love Further Food Collagen Peptides, and add a scoop to my smoothies every day (which gives you an extra 7-9 grams of protein per scoop depending on the collagen company you choose).

Plus, collagen provides even more benefits than just extra protein. Since our collagen production starts slowing down in our 20s, adding a scoop of collagen peptides can help give your skin a youthful glow, as well as give you stronger hair and nails. Pea protein is an amazing option if you follow a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle. However, make sure to read the ingredients.

As far as fat and fiber go, I either add a tablespoon of chia seeds for a boost of Omega-3 fatty acids, or ground flaxseeds. I’m not afraid of fat. It is a great way to satisfy hunger cravings and keep you from reaching for that 11 a.m. granola bar (which is usually packed with sugar). How you include fat in your smoothies is totally up to you, but great options include chia seeds, ground flaxseeds (also called flax-seed meal), avocado, coconut oil, or coconut butter.  

I try to sneak some veggies into my morning smoothie, which ensures I am getting some additional fiber. Even if I don’t eat another vegetable for the remainder of the day, I can feel good knowing I had some for breakfast. I usually go for organic spinach in my smoothies. You can add 2-3 handfuls and not taste a thing. Other great options include frozen steamed cauliflower and frozen zucchini, which will also thicken your smoothie.

Below are two delicious smoothie recipes, which are always being blended up in our kitchen. The first is a chocolate crowd pleaser. I love the combination of chocolate and berries in a smoothie. The chocolate I use in the recipe is raw cacao powder, which can be found at any health food store.  Not only does it give a wonderful chocolate flavor, it is full of antioxidants, magnesium, iron. and calcium. It’s a wonderful thing to keep stocked in your pantry.  

The second smoothie is my go-to green smoothie. I make this smoothie about four days a week because It’s a low sugar option and is totally delicious. Both of these recipes call for about ¼ cup of your favorite non-dairy milk. If you have a high-speed blender, this amount should be fine, but feel free to add up to ½ cup. Keep in mind: the less liquid, the thicker the smoothie will be.
 

Chocolate Chia Berry Smoothie

Ingredients:

• 1 cup organic baby spinach
• ½ cup frozen mixed berries (blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries)
• ¼ cup frozen steamed cauliflower
• ¼ to ½ cup Non-Dairy Milk of choice
• 2 tablespoons Raw Cacao Powder
• 1 tablespoon chia seeds
• 1-2 drops of liquid Stevia (optional)
   

Go-To Green Smoothie

Ingredients:

• 1 cup organic baby spinach
• ¼ to ½ cup almond milk
• ¼ avocado
• 1 scoop Collagen Peptides or protein powder of choice
• 1 tablespoon nut butter of choice
• ½ tablespoon ground flaxseed
• 1-2 drops of liquid Stevia (optional)
   

Instructions: Add all ingredients to your blender and blend until well incorporated.

Allison Robicelli had zero intention of moving from Brooklyn to Baltimore. “You have this view that New York is the center of the universe, and I was taught that from birth,” says the Brooklyn-born-and-raised Robicelli. “I was like, ‘Why would I ever leave New York?’” 

But after enduring the rat race of running a successful bakery business, dealing with difficult customers, and putting in grueling 90-hour work weeks, she had second thoughts. “It was like 1,000 little cuts,” she says. “We felt trapped in the city, and it was only getting more expensive. I went on Facebook and said, ‘Someone give me a reason to stay in New York.’” The responses surprised her. “The reasons to stay were bagels and pizza, but I got 100 responses, all from friends, saying, ‘Get out!’”

So, on a lark, the James Beard Award-nominated writer and her husband, Matt, made their maiden visit to Baltimore in October 2015.  “I had a friend who had just moved back to Baltimore,” recalls Robicelli, “and she said, ‘I’m so happy here.’ When we spoke, I was like, I know the Yankees played there, but I had never been to Baltimore.”

The duo fell hard—and fast. “We drove around from neighborhood to neighborhood, north to south and down Charles Street,” she recalls. “What got us were the small businesses in Hampden and the fact that there was a record store there, and then there was this woman playing the tuba as she hung off the side of her house and started talking to our kids. The soul of where we’d been living was gone—it’s what we missed in New York, but found in Baltimore.” By August 1 of 2016, Robicelli’s birthday, they had relocated to Charm City.

Cranberry Mocktail

Ingredients

• 8 ounces cranberry juice
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon clove
• ¼ teaspoon ginger
• ¼ cup sugar
•  8 ounces apple juice
• 12 ounces Mobtown Fermentation apple spice kombucha

Directions

1. In a medium saucepan, combine cranberry juice, cinnamon, clove, ginger and sugar. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar, and remove from heat. Cool completely.
2. In pitcher or carafe, mix cranberry syrup with apple juice and kombucha. Pour over ice and garnish.

In fact, Robicelli, now a Pigtown resident with Matt and their two sons, Toby, 10, and Atticus, 9, has become such a booster of Baltimore that she’s already written 111 Places in Baltimore That You Must Not Miss about her newly adopted city, including the food scene, of which she has become a fast fan. “The food scene here shows so much promise, and there’s room for experimentation,” says Robicelli, who features The Charmery, Chaps Pit Beef, and Hoehn’s Bakery in her book. “It reminds me of the creative spirit we came into Brooklyn with. There are people here who have really found their voices, like Avenue Bakery and Dovecote Cafe.”

Robicelli first found her own voice—and calling—in her teens. “It was a friend’s birthday, and I said, ‘I should make a cake,’” she recalls.  “And another friend was like, ‘You can’t make a friggin’ cake,’ and, I was like, ‘Watch me, asshole.’ So I made a cheesecake and it wasn’t terrible, then I got into a thing where I was like, ‘I’m going to bake a cake for every one of your birthdays.’”

Shortly before her 21st birthday and while still a student at The New School, Robicelli was diagnosed with Stage IV Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She found herself with tons of time on her hands between treatments.

“I thought, ‘I can sit here and cry and let cancer have this year, or I can have this year,’” she recalls. “I got into reading about cooking, and then, when I got better, a neighbor said, ‘You should do this for a living.’”

Pumpkin Kasekuchen

Ingredients for Dough

• ¾ cup whole milk, scalded and cooled to room temperature
• ½ cup unsalted butter, melted
• 4 cup all-purpose flour
• ½ cup sugar
• 2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 package instant yeast
• 2 eggs

Ingredients for Filling

• 1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
• ⅓ cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1½ cups cream cheese or Farmer’s cheese
• 1 small can pumpkin
• 2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 Tablespoon cornstarch
• ½ cup Confectioners sugar

Directions

1. Combine the milk, sugar and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer. Let sit until yeast begins to bubble, about five minutes. In a measuring cup, whisk together the eggs and the melted butter.
2. Add flour to the bowl and place on the mixer equipped with the dough hook attachment. Turn to medium for one minute, then slowly stream in the butter and eggs. When it begins to make a dough, add the salt. Continue to run the mixer until the dough becomes shiny and forms a ball that does not stick to the side of the bowl. Take the bowl off the mixer, remove dough hook, and cover loosely with a kitchen towel or plastic wrap. Allow to rise in a warm place until doubled, about 90 minutes. (Note that this can take longer or shorter depending on the heat of your kitchen.) When dough has doubled in size, punch it down to deflate. Lightly grease a large cast iron pan or skillet with butter, then press dough across the bottom to make the bottom crust. Set aside, loosely tented for another hour. Alternatively, you may wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate it overnight until ready to use.
3. Preheat the oven to 375.
4. In the mixer, cream the butter, sugar, pumpkin and cheese together. Scrape the sides of the bowl to make sure the mixture is smooth, then mix in eggs and vanilla.
5. Once again punch down the yeast dough, using the bottom of a glass to flatten. Pour the pumpkin mixture evenly across the cake. Using a mesh sifter, evenly distribute the cornstarch across the top of the cake, then place on a rack in the center of the oven. Bake for 35-45 minutes until just a bit jiggly on top.
6. Let cake sit for at least 30 minutes. Dust top with powdered sugar before serving.

“The soul of where we’d been living was gone—it’s what we missed in New York, but found in Baltimore.”

Robicelli worked in New York neighborhood restaurants and also catered, including one gig for the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt. “On my block, everyone was always sending food to each other, and that’s how we learned,” she says. “You got excited when the Greek woman down the block was making cookies or the Polish people were having a party. We were middle class and I could never afford to travel, but with cooking, I could travel the world in my backyard.”

With their beloved bakery, which featured hundreds of whimsical flavors of cupcakes (and mad cooking skills evident in the dish and drink like the ones on these pages), the Robicellis were a fixture on the New York food scene and have fast made their mark here.

With all the growth and development in Baltimore, Robicelli is hoping that Charm City will be able to maintain its many charms. “We got gentrified out,” she says of why she left Brooklyn. “I won’t have any part of it. We want the underdog. We put the work into Brooklyn to make it better—and then, suddenly, we didn’t exist. We want other people to come see Baltimore and invest in it, and that will give meaning to what we did. People are so proud of Baltimore, and they make me proud of it, too.”

Butternut Panzanella

Allison Robicelli’s Butternut Panzanella features items from two of the writer’s favorite local haunts. “The panzanella highlights the rolls from Avenue Bakery and the bacon-stuffed bacon from Krakus Deli,” she says. Serves 6

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 4 ounces Boczek parzony i faszerowany Polish bacon from Krakus Deli
•  6 “Poppy’s” Rolls from Avenue Bakery
• 2 large shallots
• 1 ½ tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• ⅓ cup olive oil
• 5 ounces baby arugula
• 1 ounce fresh sage

Directions

1. Preaheat oven to 400 degrees. Line three sheet pans with parchment or aluminum foil.
2. Peel butternut squash, scoop out seeds, and cut into 1-inch cubes. Toss with sugar, 3 tablespoons olive oil, ½ teaspoon kosher salt, and freshly cracked pepper. Spread in a single layer on baking sheet and roast for 40 minutes, flipping squash over halfway through the cooking process. Set aside to cool completely. 
3. Slice the Boczek parzony i faszerowany into strips and arrange evenly on the other sheet pan. Roast until crispy, between 10-15 minutes. While that is cooking, prepare the croutons. Cut the Poppy’s rolls into rough 1-inch pieces and spread out on the third baking sheet. After the Boczek comes out of the oven, pop in the rolls and bake until dry and crisp.
4. Finely mince one shallot and add to a large bowl with Dijon mustard and balsamic vinegar. Slowly add olive oil while vigorously whisking to make the dressing.
5. Place the arugula in the bowl with the cooled butternut squash and croutons. Slice the remaining shallot into thin pieces, thinly chiffonade the sage, chop the Boczek, and add everything to the bowl. Toss for at least a minute to make sure all the ingredients are well coated with dressing and butternut squash. Allow to sit for at least 20 minutes before serving.

In a country that feels increasingly divided, writer Gabrielle Langholtz feels that food is still one of our strongest uniting forces. She should know. Her America: The Cookbook (published by Phaidon last month), features recipes from every region of the country, with essays from some of the most influential voices in food from each state, including John Shields of Gertrude’s and Gaithersburg-born Jeremiah Stone of New York’s Contra.

“People think of American cooking as roast chicken, mashed potatoes, strawberry shortcake, and peach pie,” says Langholtz. “I have roast chicken and fried chicken in the book, for sure—they belong, but so do Oregon hazelnuts, Missouri black walnuts, and shrimp in the Gulf.” And, of course, crab cakes, hot milk cake, and oyster pan roast in Maryland. 

What was your method in compiling these recipes?
I got tons of books on eBay, tons of out-of-print books. . . . Some  [recipes] we all knew were going to be in there, like Texas brisket and Tennessee corn pudding and Maine lobster roll. But I could have gone another 10 years just learning more about the unusual, interesting things that people really still do eat.

What was one of the most unusual recipes you discovered? 
Crispy snoot from Missouri was a really interesting one. They have a tradition of whole hog barbecue, and part of the whole hog includes the nose and the tail. So in the barbecue there, that’s a thing—you can get the snout.

What’s your favorite Baltimore recipe?
My best friend lives in Baltimore, and for 20 years I’ve been visiting. I know that’s so cliché to say that I had amazing crab cakes in Baltimore. But I had incredible crab cakes.  

What did you enjoy most about the project? 
Discovering  America’s amazing vitality and regionalism, including foods like boiled peanuts and fried pickles and fried cheese curds and fried alligator. There is incredible regionalism, diversity, roots, tradition, and also innovation. We all come together at the table. 

Can you say a few words about the recipe for persimmon pudding in the book? 
It’s surprisingly unknown for something that grows wild in a lot of states [including Maryland] and is delicious. It looks like an orange tomato. I really enjoyed cooking that pudding. It reminded me of a sticky toffee pudding. If people are new to persimmon, that’s exactly my hope for this book, that they’ll discover America. We look so often in America to other cuisines and other cultures, and I love those foods, too, but we have deep roots, deep traditions, and delicious ingredients that we should also know and cook and love and share and be proud of.

Can you say a few words about our state dessert, the Smith Island Cake—which women made for their husbands when they went off to harvest oysters—that’s featured in the book? 
I hired an incredible woman to research cakes. This one has a very special history [along the Chesapeake Bay]—and that’s the kind of recipe that we wanted to shine the spotlight on.

Recipe: Smith Island Cake

Preparation Time: 25 minutes, plus cooling time. Cooking time: 1 hour 15 minutes, plus cooling time. Serves: 8-10

Cake

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 5 eggs, at room
  temperature
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 can evaporated milk

Frosting

• 2 cups sugar
• 2 can evaporated milk
• 1 ½ sticks unsalted
  butter, cut into pieces
• 4 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 375° F. Butter and flour two 9-inch round cake pans. 

For the cake: In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl, with an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla. Alternately add the flour mixture and evaporated milk, beginning and ending with the flour. 

Spread ⅔ cup batter in each prepared pan. Bake until a skewer inserted in the center of a cake comes out clean, 10-15 minutes. Let the cake cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then invert onto a wire rack to cool completely. Wash and dry the cake pans, butter and flour them, and repeat with the remaining batter— there will be 10 cake layers in total. 

Meanwhile, for the frosting: In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, evaporated milk, and butter. Cook over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves and the butter melts. Stir in the chocolate until melted. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the icing is the consistency of hot fudge, about 10 minutes. (The frosting will thicken as it cools.)

Place a cake layer on a cake stand and spread about 4 tablespoons of the frosting in the center of the layer. Repeat the process with the remaining cake layers (reheating the frosting over low heat if necessary), leaving the top layer bare. Pour the remaining frosting over the top and spread around the sides of the cake. (If the cake layers slip as they are stacked, readjust within a few minutes to avoid the frosting setting the cake askew.)

Recipe: Persimmon Pudding

Preparation Time: 10 minutes. Cooking Time: 1 hour. Serves: 4-6.

• 2 cups Amerian persimmon pulp, from 6-8 persimmons
• ½ cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 4 tablespoons pure maple sryup
• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• ½ cup corn flour (very finely ground cornmeal)
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground allspice
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream, whipped

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325° F. Grease an 8-inch springform pan. 

In a large bowl, with an electric mixer, beat the persimmon pulp to even the pulp out. Add the sugar and the eggs and beat until lighter and smooth. Beat in the maple syrup. Both flours, the cinnamon, allspice, and salt, adding some of the milk if the batter becomes too thick to mix easily. Add the baking soda and baking powder and the remaining milk.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Serve warm, with whipped cream. 

Copyright © by Phaidaon Press Ltd

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At-Home Recipes

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

Super Crispy Roasted Chicken

Ingredients

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

Directions

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

Mixed Greens
with Anchovy-Dijon Vinaigrette

Ingredients (Greens)

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

Ingredients
(Vinaigrette)

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

Directions

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

Winter in
Tulum Cocktail

Ingredients

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

Directions

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

Few holidays provide us with as many warm fuzzies as Mother’s Day. After all, who better to honor than the lady who packed all those school lunches, wiped all those runny noses (even involuntarily, and on her sweater hems, no less), and listened to the same senseless knock-knock jokes over and over—and laughed every time?

Maybe it’s time to return the favor. Not that she probably needs (or wants) her nose wiped, but you could make her a nice meal to start her Mother’s Day out right. Serve it gathered around the dining room table with candles or on a little tray in her cozy bed, but leave Mom out of the cooking and cleaning up—you’ll make her day.

We asked some of Baltimore’s female chefs for their favorite Mother’s Day brunch recipes and got some great suggestions. Most of these would be a cinch for Dad to whip up with the kids before Mom gets up for the day—you were going to let her sleep in just this once, right? So find your whisks (ask Mom where they are the night before) and get those aprons on. Time to spoil Mom a little!

Chocolate Challah French Toast

Meredith Jacobs
Author,
The Modern Jewish Mom’s Guide to Shabbat

Meredith Jacobs is a parenting columnist and runs the website ModernJewishMom.com; she frequently speaks at local synagogues. Her favorite memory from a past Mother’s Day was when her husband Jonathan spent all afternoon the day before with their kids, Sofie and Jules, recording a video for her. The video had the kids telling funny jokes and all the reasons they loved her. They presented the video, along with breakfast in bed, to her on Mother’s Day in their home in Rockville. She calls this the “perfect brunch” for that special breakfast with Mom.

“I bake fresh challah every Friday,” she adds.  “It’s so delicious when it comes hot out of the oven—my family and I just pick at it throughout dinner. Thank goodness I make a large enough loaf that there’s always extra for French toast.”

• 3 large eggs
• ¼ cup skim milk
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• A pinch of salt
• 1 loaf challah
• chocolate chips
• sliced fresh strawberries and whipped cream (optional)

To prepare:

1. In a large bowl, stir together eggs, milk, cocoa, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, and salt.
2. Slice challah 1 inch thick. Soak slices in mixture for 10 minutes.
3. While bread is soaking, melt 1 tablespoon unsalted butter in a large pan over a low flame. When butter melts, add slices (only enough to fit in pan) and cook. Using a spatula, press down on the slices to flatten them as they cook. Flip over once to brown both slices evenly (about 3 minutes per side). Sprinkle some chocolate chips over the top of the toast.
4. Remove from pan, and top with sliced strawberries and whipped cream for some extra decadence.

Southern Salmon Cakes

Sarah Monroe
Hyatt Regency, Baltimore

Sarah’s mother first served this recipe on Mother’s Day, 1957. Since then, it’s become a family tradition, and all Monroes from North Carolina to Washington, D.C. serve it on that special May Sunday.

• 8 ounces pink salmon, cooked
• and chilled (canned works best)
• ½ cup all-purpose flour
• 1 white onion, diced
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoon Old Bay
• seasoning
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• 1 ounce oil

To prepare:

1. Mix chopped salmon, flour, onions, Old Bay, and black pepper. Add eggs and mix well. Let stand in the refrigerator for 5 minutes.
2. Form mixture into six equal portions.
3. Heat a skillet—Monroe says cast iron works best—and add the oil. Pan-sear each salmon patty on each side (about two minutes per side), until golden brown. Remove from heat and drain excess oil.
4. Serve with grits and scrambled eggs.

Cherry Fruit Squares

Lynn States
Pastry Chef, McCormick and Schmick’s, Baltimore

Lynn’s mom used to make this for her, and she says it’s a great, tasty recipe for a Mother’s Day Brunch. “The kids can make this with some help, and you don’t have to go to a specialty store for the ingredients,” she says.

States says she’s worked in the restaurant industry for the past 22 years, which means she works on Mother’s Day. But when she finishes feeding hundreds of other Baltimore-area moms on their special day, she returns home to her 8-year-old son, and they spend the afternoon together.

“He usually makes me a card and he has a treat for me,” she says. For the past few years, the treat has come in the form of jewelry—earrings and necklaces. “It’s really nice,” she says, and then laughs. “He has really good taste!”

• 2 sticks (1 cup) butter
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups sifted flour
• 1 cup chopped walnuts or
• pecans (optional)
• 1 can cherry pie filling
• (any flavor pie filling can be used)

To prepare:

1. Cream butter with sugar. Add vanilla. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Stir in flour. Add nuts.
2. Spread three-quarters of batter in a greased 13-inch-by-9-inch pan. Cover batter with pie filling. Drop remaining batter by spoonfuls on top of filling. Spread out as much as possible—batter will be very sticky and the filling will show in spots.
3. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Let cool. Cut into squares and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Whole Wheat Banana Walnut Pancakes

Tracey Watson
Watson Caterers, Timonium

This recipe was developed to provide a healthy—but still sweet and tasty!—approach to the celebration of Mother’s Day. Why not honor the ones we love by offering them a more wholesome form of nourishment?

• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 cup milk
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• ½ cup chopped walnuts
• 2 bananas, sliced

To prepare:

1. Combine eggs, oil, milk, baking powder, and cinnamon. Mix well. Add flour and mix again. Allow mixture to stand for 15 minutes.
2. In a hot skillet, melt enough butter to sparingly cover the bottom of the pan. Spoon scoops of batter into 4-inch rounds. Immediately place banana slices and walnuts on tops of cakes and press down lightly with the back of a spoon.
3. As soon as the cakes begin to form bubbles, flip them gently and continue to cook for an additional minute or two.
4. Serve hot with warmed maple syrup.

Makes about a dozen.

Though she hails from Wilton, Connecticut, and has only lived in Charm City since 2012, Sue-Jean Chun, who cofounded the local small-batch food fest, The Emporiyum, is one of Baltimore’s biggest boosters. 

“People in Baltimore have this crazy Baltimore pride,” she says. “I love how Baltimore feels like a small town with a real sense of community. This city is amazing, and I love the crabs.”  

As the child of hard-working immigrant parents who ran a family dry-cleaning business, Chun and her siblings were schooled early in Korean-kitchen basics. “I watched my mom cook, and I can remember helping her out in middle school,” says Chun, “but when my older sister started driving, we were in charge of everything, from grocery shopping to cooking.” 

That was no easy feat for such a complicated cuisine. “Korean food is all based on side dishes,” says Chun. “My mom would carve out several days a week to make several side dishes. Every night, there’s a main entree like a roasted fish or Korean barbecue and beef—usually a sliced short rib you’d marinate and eat it as a lettuce wrap with lettuce and rice and sauces. But on top of those dishes you’d always have the kimchee—one or two kimchees such as steamed sautéed garlic spinach and bean sprouts. There were always a lot of dishes.” 

Chun learned to cook beyond kimchee while attending Middlebury College, where she worked as the co-head chef at the school’s student-run restaurant. “There was no budget,” she recalls. “We could order whatever we wanted, and since I’d never had the ingredients to cook solid American and French dishes, for me, it was a total blast.”  

In those college years, Chun—who now, along with overseeing The Emporiyum, does publicity for big-name restaurant groups (Foreman Wolf) and mid-Atlantic chefs (Erik Bruner-Yang)—took quite seriously the task of feeding some 88 starving students every Friday night. 

“My goal is to encourage Josephine to be an adventurous, studied eater,” says Chun.

“The menus could range between shrimp and grits on some nights to a three- to five-course night with duck breast and glazed cherries,” says Chun, who also has enjoyed stints as a publicist for Kwiat Diamonds and L’Oreal Paris.  “We even did a lobster night. Working there was my first real food job.”

And though she enjoyed branching out, the married mother of 19-month-old Josephine likes keeping the Korean kitchen of her childhood alive. “I crave Korean food every day,” she says. “We eat it three or four times a week. My go-to’s right now are vegetable fried rice, whether with chicken or shrimp or some sort of protein. Whatever I cook, I embrace each season and try to keep the food wholesome and clean.”

Another staple is Chun’s recipe for spicy sweet-potato soup. “This is a soup I make for the whole family,” she says. Chun’s version is a little East-meets-West. “This is a riff on a dish Koreans love to do using kobucha squash,” she says. “My mom uses acorn squash or butternut squash. They make something called hobakjuk, which translates to ‘squash porridge.’ I grew up eating this. I add sweet-rice powder at the end, and it gets really thick—almost porridge-y oatmeal. This is a more Americanized version with sweet potatoes.” 

Feeding Josephine, says Chun, has helped her and her husband, Paul, become more conscious about what they eat. “We eat healthier because of her,” she says. 

While Chun says that seeing her daughter eat the soup that she ate with her own mom is a point of pride, her ultimate goal is for Josephine to have an eclectic palate. Says Chun, “My goal is to encourage Josephine to be an adventurous, studied eater who can appreciate all types of food.”

Spicy Sweet-Potato Soup

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 teaspoon gochugaru (may substitute with crushed red pepper if need be)
• Coarse sea salt
• Ground black pepper
• 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1 large apple, peeled and diced
• 6 cups vegetable stock

Optional toppings: shrimp, chicken, granola, cooked vegetables, freshly grated cheese

Directions 

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat.
  Sweat the onions, garlic, gochugaru, a heavy pinch of salt and a turn of freshly ground black pepper. Cook and stir frequently until softened, about 6 minutes. 
 Add the sweet potatoes and apples. Stir to combine. Add the stock to the pot and turn up heat to high. Get soup to a boil and then lower the heat and simmer until potatoes are tender, about
30 minutes. 

Turn off heat and
let cool.  Carefully purée the soup in a powerful blender or use a hand blender. If you want that restaurant-quality, smooth texture, pass the soup through a fine sieve or mesh strainer. 
 Optional: Top with shrimp, chicken, granola, cooked vegetables, or freshly grated cheese. 

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

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

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

Vanilla Rum Panna Cotta With Salted Caramel

serves 8

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

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

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

Skillet-Roasted Lemon Chicken

serves 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

a note from the editor

This recipe collection was inspired by a simple question: What do chefs cook once they’ve doffed their toques?

For the men and women in white, it turns out that there’s no such thing as leaving work at the office. Whether they’re assisted by sous chefs and line cooks over an eight-burner Vulcan range or feeding family and friends from the comfort of their home range, they cook because it fuels them.

We’ve asked five beloved Baltimore chefs to design menus that reflect the way they like to eat at home, then photographed them in their own kitchens, from Michel Tersiguel’s cozy space in Ellicott City (his Great Dane named Gale kept at bay during the mouthwatering photo shoot) to Cindy Wolf’s gleaming new personal (yet highly professional) kitchen in Sparks. (Her scrambled eggs were the best we’ve ever eaten.)

We watched as they blowtorched meringue, pounded chicken breasts, and braised a pork shoulder. And we were wowed as they showed incredible grace under pressure, whipping up gorgeous, multi-course meals in a matter of minutes, despite the crowding—as is often the case in every home’s heart—in their kitchens.

So whether you mull these menus for fun, or decide to throw an impromptu party, we hope these pages inspire you to roll up your sleeves, preheat the oven, and pull out those pots and pans. No matter how great our ever-expanding food scene, there’s still nothing like a meal that’s cooked in your own kitchen.

Jane Marion
Managing Editor

Cindy Wolf

Co-Owner, chef / Charleston

Cindy Wolf fell hard for the four-bedroom ranch-style home on a picturesque 15-acre parcel of land in Sparks. It had a long allée of trees and rolling farmland reminiscent of the French countryside. When she moved in last October, the James-Beard-Award-nominated chef and co-owner of Charleston and five other restaurants welcomed the opportunity to renovate the kitchen and realize her design dreams. With a set of copper pots swinging from a wrought-iron pot rack on the ceiling, a stainless steel La Cornue range with copper fittings, and an industrial sink good for both gardening and washing her French porcelain plates, the kitchen is what Wolf desired for decades. “I wanted this to be as much like work as possible,” explains Wolf. “In fact, I’ve always wanted for all my kitchens to be that way, but this is the first one that really is. There are no cabinets at all and everything is very open, with plenty of workspace.”

Even when she’s not at work, Wolf is most content cooking for others and throwing dinner parties. “I’ve always cooked pretty similarly at home as the restaurant,” she says, “but it’s very different cooking for four people than between 60 and 150. That means I can do a whole chicken—I’m not serving portion by portion. I’m cooking for one group and no one after that—and that’s what I love.”

Another dream come true? Wolf built vegetable and herb gardens filled with squash, tomatoes, tarragon, and more. “As a chef, I’ve always dreamed of having gardens on the property,” she says. “To have a farm and a small garden to pick from and have that inspiration each day as I do a daily menu is incredible.”

She-Crab Soup

INGREDIENTS
1 ¼ cups crab stock
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
½ Spanish or Vidalia onion, small dice
2 shallots, small dice
1 rib celery, small dice
1 carrot, small dice
6 tablespoons flour
3 cups heavy cream
1 tablespoon tomato paste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1 pinch freshly ground nutmeg
½ cup Manzanilla sherry
Kosher salt to taste
4 ounces jumbo lump picked crab meat (traditionally using female crabs, prized for their flavor)
4 tablespoons finely chopped fresh chives

INSTRUCTIONS
In a small saucepan, bring 1 cup stock to a boil and cook until reduced by half, about 10 minutes. In a large, heavy soup pot, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion and shallots and cook until soft, about 4 minutes. Add the celery and carrot and sauté 1 minute. Sprinkle in flour and stir the flour-butter mixture until it turns a light golden brown (this is called a blond roux), about 4 minutes. Whisk in the reduced stock, cream, tomato paste, both types of pepper, and the nutmeg. Simmer, stirring frequently, until the soup is thick and has lost any floury taste, about 30 minutes. Add sherry (you needn’t use it all——just as much as you like). If soup is too thick, thin with a little of the remaining stock. Salt to taste. To serve, spoon 1 ounce crabmeat into each of 4 bowls. Pour in hot soup. Scatter with chives.

Scrambled Eggs

INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
3 large fresh eggs
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon heavy cream
1 teaspoon grated Gruyère

INSTRUCTIONS
Heat a stainless steel sauté pan on high, then turn down to low before adding butter. Whisk eggs with salt and pepper, then pour into pan, moving and shaking the pan the entire time and using a fork to help break up the curd. Just before eggs are cooked through, add cream and Gruyère. Spoon onto plate. Eat right away, preferably with brioche toast.

Goat Cheese & Mâche Salad

INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
8 round slices cut from a baguette, each ½-inch-thick
2 tablespoons high-quality red-wine vinegar
1 teaspoon creamy Dijon mustard, preferably Maille
½ cup high-quality, extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 bunches of mâche (aka lamb’s leaf lettuce) washed and dried
1 head radicchio, leaves stacked and sliced
1 head frisée, tough leaves and stems discarded, tender leaves washed and dried ½ cup Vermont goat cheese, crumbled
¼ cup (total) coarsely chopped fresh basil, mint, tarragon, and chervil

INSTRUCTIONS
In a medium sauté pan, melt butter over medium heat. Add the bread and toast golden brown, about 2 minutes per side. Drain on paper towels. To make dressing, in a small bowl whisk together vinegar and mustard. Drizzle in olive oil, whisking constantly. Season with salt and pepper. Toss all the greens with dressing. (You may not need all the dressing.) Divide salad onto 4 plates. Scatter each with goat cheese and 1 tablespoon herbs. Set 2 toasts on each plate.

Linwood Dame

Co-Owner, chef / Linwood’s

Linwood Dame is a big believer in practice makes perfect. “One of the golden rules when it comes to entertaining is to practice the dish before you serve it to a crowd,” says Dame. “Don’t try something new when you’re having a dinner party.”

When he’s not working at his fine-dining restaurant in Owings Mills, Linwood is fond of throwing gatherings in his Cockeysville home—though his dining directive is to keep things easy. “When we entertain, it’s never over-the-top,” he says. “It’s always about simplicity. The product is always good, but I don’t want to spend a ton of time in the kitchen.”

Dame’s dinner party menu was inspired by a spontaneous get-together he had while on a vacation visit to his Nantucket cottage last summer. “We were out that day and ran into some people,” he recalls. “And I said, ‘Hey, what are you doing tonight? Come on over, let’s have dinner.’ But by the time I was done inviting a few couples, I was like, ‘Oh boy, now I have to whip up dinner on the fly. And I only have a few hours to shop, prep, and cook.’

So I whipped up this whole meal in two hours, and although I have a recipe for lemon pound cake here, I bought a pound cake from the farm bakery that looked pretty good, sliced it, buttered it, toasted it under the broiler, and served it with warm berries and ice cream.”

Citrus Chicken

INGREDIENTS
6 skin-on boneless chicken breasts (½- to ¾-inch thick)

3 lemons

2 oranges

½ cup olive oil

5 tablespoons crushed red pepper flakes

Sweet and savory grapes (recipe below)

FOR GRAPES2 tablespoons mustard seed

1 cup white-wine vinegar
½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
¼ cup freshly squeezed orange juice
¼ cup sugar
2 tablespoons finely grated orange zest
2 tablespoons ground chipotle chili pepper
½ pound green (or green and red) seedless grapes

INSTRUCTIONS

Place 1 chicken breast on a cutting board. Cover with plastic wrap. Use a kitchen mallet to pound to an even thickness. Repeat with remaining chicken. Zest and juice lemons and oranges. Choose a wide pan (such as a 13-x-9-inch baking pan) to marinate chicken. Alternatively, you can pour marinade into 2 gallon sized zip-top bags.

Combine oil, red pepper flakes, both kinds of zest and both kinds of juice. Add chicken. Cover (or zip) and chill. Let marinate 1 to 5 hours, turning chicken (or bag) once. Heat grill to medium-hot. Grill chicken over direct heat, skin-side down, until skin is crispy, about 6 minutes. Flip and cook over indirect heat until internal temperature reaches 165 degrees, about 8 minutes. Garnish with grapes.

For grapes: Add mustard seed to a medium saucepan. Set over medium heat and toast, shaking pan now and then, until darkened and fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add all remaining ingredients except grapes. Bring to a boil. Stir until sugar dissolves, about 1 minute. Let this pickling brine cool. Cut grapes in half and add to the brine. Let rest 30 minutes to 3 hours. Drain. Discard brine. Garnish citrus chicken with grapes before serving.

Potato Tart

INGREDIENTS
½ cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
3 Idaho potatoes, peeled
Salt and pepper

INSTRUCTIONS
Stir together butter and thyme. Brush a little across the bottom and sides of a 9- or 10-inch round Pyrex pie plate. Using a mandoline or food processor fitted with a slicing disc, slice potatoes thinly (¼-inch thick).

Fan out potato slices, overlapping just a little, across the bottom of the pie plate in a single layer. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Brush with thyme butter. Repeat, building layers of seasoned potatoes and butter, using all the potatoes, and finishing with the butter. Cover with plastic wrap. Place another pie plate on top to press layers together. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Lift off top plate and plastic. Bake 375 degrees for 1 hour or until a knife inserted in the center comes out easily.

Lemon Pound Cake

INGREDIENTS FOR CAKE
½ cup butter, softened
¼ cup vegetable oil
1½ cups sugar
3 eggs
1½ cups flour
½ cup milk
2 lemons, zested and juiced

FOR LEMON GLAZE
½ cup fresh lemon juice
¼ cup confectioners’ sugar
¼ cup water

FOR FRESH FRUIT SYRUP
½ cup sugar
½ cup water
5 ounces fresh raspberries
1 pint blueberries (or plums, strawberries, or just about any summer fruit)

INSTRUCTIONS
For cake: Butter a 9-inch loaf pan. Line with parchment paper, leaving some overhang. Set aside. Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or standard mixer), beat butter until soft and fluffy. Gradually pour in oil, beating until blended. Add sugar and continue beating, stopping to scrape down sides of bowl. Beat in eggs, 1 at a time, scraping down sides of bowl. Add flour to butter mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour. Add zest and juice, beating until combined. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake at 300 degrees in convection oven for 25 minutes (325 for a standard oven). Reduce temperature to 275 (300 for a standard oven) and continue baking until a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, about 20 more minutes. Cool cake in pan for 15 minutes. Pull cake out of pan (use the parchment overhang as handles). Set on rack.

For lemon glaze: Combine glaze ingredients, stirring until sugar dissolves. Brush glaze over top and sides of the loaf. Cool.

For fruit syrup: Bring sugar and water to boil. Remove from heat. Stir in fruit. Set aside.

Donna Crivello

Concept Director, Cosima / Former chef and co-owner, Donna’s

Though there are chefs who prefer to go it alone when entertaining at home, Donna Crivello loves company in the kitchen. Her “more-the-merrier” philosophy stems not only from her Sicilian roots (making large batches of ravioli and cannoli was a family affair), but from teaching cooking classes throughout her 25-year career. “It’s always good to have an extra hand to stir or ladle something in, and, for me, it really enhances the experience,” says Crivello, the concept director at Cosima who ran the beloved Donna’s Cafe in Cross Keys for 19 years before it closed in 2018. “Especially if you’re around people you don’t get to see often, it’s great to chat about the food and share stories together.”

One of Crivello’s favorite stories is the tale behind her saffron risotto, a recipe inspired by many trips to Venice with her husband, Peter. “That’s where I really got the risotto down,” she says. “It’s a great foundation for vegetables and seafood, and I love the idea of transforming it from such a basic stage. It’s just a little bag of raw rice, but once you add stock and saffron it changes color and volume. I love how it’s transformed into a rich, creamy dish.”

Whether preparing for dinner service at the restaurants or hosting a get-together at home, Crivello says that the key to success is staying organized. “When I’m cooking at home for family, it’s definitely a different pace, but I still have a lot of that same energy.”

Roasted Pear and Gorgonzola Salad

INGREDIENTS
Canola oil
3 firm pears
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
3 cups greens (a mix of baby kale, arugula, and spinach)
Apple-cider vinaigrette (recipe follows)
6 ounces Gorgonzola cheese
¼ cup toasted (or candied) walnuts or pecans
2 tablespoons dried cherries or cranberries

FOR APPLE-CIDER VINAIGRETTE
6 tablespoons light olive oil
3 tablespoons apple-cider vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon honey

INSTRUCTIONS
Lightly oil a sheet pan. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Halve the pears the long way, but leave core, seeds, and stem intact. Sprinkle cut sides of fruit with cinnamon and allspice. Place pears, cut side down, on the prepared pan. Bake until just tender, about 15 minutes. Let cool. Use a small scoop or teaspoon to carve out (and discard) core and seeds. Toss greens with vinaigrette. (You may not need all the vinaigrette.)

Divide greens on to 6 salad plates. Return pears to pan, cut side up. Crumble Gorgonzola on to pears. Set pan under broiler just until cheese melts, about 2 minutes. Set 1 pear on each salad plate. Sprinkle the pears and greens with the nuts and dried fruit. For vinaigrette: Place all ingredients in a jar. Seal tightly. Shake.

Saffron Risotto

INGREDIENTS
8 cups vegetable broth
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons butter
1 small onion, diced
1 small stalk leek, washed, dried, and thinly sliced
2 cups Arborio rice
¼ teaspoon crumbled saffron
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup fresh peas (or substitute diced zucchini, diagonally cut asparagus, or cooked and sliced artichoke hearts)
⅔ cup halved cherry or grape tomatoes
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons butter, cut into small cubes
¼ cup chopped fresh basil

INSTRUCTIONS
Prepare broth (if making your own). Pour finished broth into a saucepan and keep hot over low heat. Pour the oil into a wide skillet with high sides. Set over medium high heat. Add the 3 tablespoons butter. When the butter begins to bubble, add the onion and leek. Cook until just tender, about 8 minutes. Turn down heat under skillet to medium. Add rice and stir to coat. Add saffron and wine. Stir until rice absorbs all the liquid, about 5 minutes. Ladle about ½ cup hot broth into rice.

Stir until rice has absorbed the liquid. Keep adding broth, ½ cup at a time, and stirring until it has been absorbed, until rice is nearly done, about 20 to 25 minutes (taste to check). Add the peas, stir until just cooked, about 3 minutes. Add tomatoes. Add more broth if needed. Stir until everything is hot. Stir in the cheese, butter cubes, and basil.

Panna Cotta

INGREDIENTS
Pan coating spray
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
2 tablespoons cold water
3 cups heavy cream
⅓ cup plus 4 tablespoons sugar
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups fresh berries (raspberries, blueberries, strawberries)
1 tablespoon Sicilian Moscato Passito wine
Optional: 6 mint leaves, ground vanilla bean (or seeds scraped from 1 vanilla bean)

INSTRUCTIONS
Spray 6 ramekins with pan coating. Set on sheet pan. In a saucepan, sprinkle gelatin over water. Let stand 1 minute to soften. Heat over low heat until gelatin has dissolved. Remove pan from heat. In large saucepan set over medium heat, bring cream and ⅓ cup sugar just to a boil. Remove pan from heat. Stir in gelatin mixture and vanilla. Pour into ramekins.

Let panna cottas cool to room temperature. Press some plastic wrap against each panna cotta. Refrigerate 4 to 24 hours. One hour before serving, prepare fruit: Leave raspberries and blueberries whole. Hull and slice strawberries. Toss all fruit with 2 tablespoons sugar and the wine. Cover. Let rest.

To unmold panna cottas, dip ramekins, 1 at a time, into bowl of warm water for 3 seconds. Run a thin knife around edge of each ramekin. Cover ramekin with a plate and, holding tightly together, invert—dropping panna cotta neatly on to plate. Stir fruit and juices. Scoop fruit on to each plate. Scoop remaining two tablespoons of sugar into a sieve and tapping on the side of the sieve, sprinkle sugar on to fruit. Garnish each plate with a mint leaf and vanilla seeds, if you like.

Michel Tersiguel

Owner, chef / Tersiguel’s French Country Restaurant

Just before dinnertime at his Ellicott City home, Michel Tersiguel takes a blowtorch to a hulled-out pineapple filled with peaks of meringue. “This was the first dish I ever made when I was 12 years old,” recalls Tersiguel, executive chef and second-generation-owner of Tersiguel’s French Country Restaurant in Ellicott City—which recently reopened after sustaining damage in the historic flood that devastated Main Street last July.

The Culinary Institute of America grad was introduced to
the pineapple dessert on a childhood trip to his parents’ native Brittany, France. “I remember coming home and making it on the third floor of my parents’ restaurant for my father to sell to special tables,” he recalls. “We had a tiny, old-fashioned oven up there and a little hand mixer, and we had to bake it because, back then, there were no blowtorches. But I just remember it being such a proud moment.”

Though he once dreamed of becoming a professional soccer player, ultimately the pull of the family business was too strong. For Tersiguel, whether cooking at the restaurant or whipping up a meal for wife Angie and their two young sons, food is all about the memories that it evokes. “Cooking is such a large part of us all,” he says. “It was always a connection that I had with my parents, getting stuff from the garden and cooking at home with them. And I love serving dishes that bring people back to that happy place from when they were younger. It’s what I like to call ‘the Ratatouille moment.’ It’s very emotional.”

Beet Soup

INGREDIENTS
6 large beets
¼ cup mild cooking oil (olive or canola)
1 stalk celery, medium dice
½ leek, white part only, medium dice
½ cup diced yellow onions
½ cup carrots, medium dice
4 cups vegetable broth (homemade or purchased)
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil 1 tablespoon red-wine vinegar (or fresh lemon juice)
4 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro leaves
Salt and pepper
Optional garnishes: cucumber, seeds discarded, finely diced; goat cheese, crumbled
INSTRUCTIONS
Scrub beets. Trim away all but 1 inch of stems. Leave roots intact. Place beets in large pot. Fill with cold water to cover by 1 inch. Bring to a boil, lower to a simmer, and cook until beets are tender when poked with a knife, about 45 minutes. Allow beets to cool in water, then peel and dice. Heat cooking oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add diced celery, leek, onion, and carrot. Cook until onion looks transparent, about 5 to 7 minutes.

Add diced beets and vegetable broth. Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer 30 minutes. Use a stick blender to purée the soup smooth (or let soup cool, then use standard blender). Strain soup through a large-holed sieve. Allow soup to cool to room temperature, then cover and chill. To finish, stir in extra-virgin olive oil, vinegar, and cilantro. Season with salt and pepper. To serve, leave soup cold or reheat over low heat. Ladle into bowls. Garnish.

Halibut with Oven-Dried Grapes

INGREDIENTS
4 6-ounce halibut fillets, about 2 inches thick, bones and skins removed
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
6 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon chopped shallots
¼ cup whole almonds, roughly chopped
½ teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme leaves
2 teaspoons verjus (or Champagne vinegar or lemon juice)
¼ cup vegetable broth (homemade or store-bought)
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
28 oven-dried grapes (recipe below)

FOR OVEN-DRIED GRAPES
28 red seedless grapes
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper

INSTRUCTIONS
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Pat fillets dry and sprinkle both sides with salt and pepper. Choose an oven-safe sauté pan big enough to hold fillets in single layer with at least ½ inch space between them. You may need 2 pans. Heat pan(s) over high heat. Add enough olive oil (about 1 tablespoon per pan) to slick bottom. Place halibut in pan(s), flesh side down. Brown for 2 minutes on flesh side only. Move pan to oven and roast until fish is just done, about 10 minutes. Remove pan(s) from oven. Cover the pan(s) loosely with foil to keep fish warm while preparing sauce. Place butter in a sauté pan, melt over medium heat. Add shallots. Cook until golden brown, about 10 minutes. As shallots cook, butter should brown. Add almonds and thyme. Thyme should “pop” in the pan. Carefully add verjus, scraping pan and then add vegetable broth. Bring to boil. Add parsley and grapes. Remove from heat. Lift fish onto plates, turning brown side up. Ladle sauce on fish. Serve immediately.

For oven-dried grapes: Heat oven to 200 degrees. Toss grapes with oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper. Spread grapes on rimmed sheet pan and bake until shriveled, checking every hour. It can take up to 4 hours.

Pineapple Surprise

INGREDIENTS
1 whole fresh ripe pineapple
1 tablespoon kirsch
1 quart vanilla ice cream (or blackberry sorbet)
6 egg whites
1 pinch cream of tartar (optional)
6 tablespoons sugar

INSTRUCTIONS
Halve the pineapple the long way, leaving the stem attached. Using a melon baller, carve out the tough core and discard. Carve out the pineapple flesh, reserving it in a bowl. Now you’ve got 2 hollow pineapple boats and a bowl of pineapple flesh. Toss kirsch with pineapple flesh and set aside. Set pineapple boats on a sheet pan. Fill each with 3 scoops of ice cream. Spoon pineapple flesh over ice cream. Freeze filled boats at least 30 minutes. To make meringue, set egg whites in the bowl of an electric mixer. Add cream of tartar, if using. (It helps the meringue keep its shape.) Whip with the whisk attachment to soft peaks. Slowly add sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time. Continue whipping until meringue forms sturdy peaks.

Use a soft spatula to pile the meringue into a pastry bag (if you’ve got one) or a gallonsized zip-top plastic bag. Snip 1 corner of plastic bag. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Remove pineapple boats from freezer. (If you took them off sheet pan to freeze, put them back on sheet pan.) Pipe meringue to cover the surface of pineapple. Set the pan in the oven and let the meringue turn golden brown (or use blowtorch to brown, if you have one on hand), about 5 minutes.

Zack Mills

Executive chef / True Chesapeake Oyster Co.

When Zack Mills landed the executive chef gig at Wit & Wisdom in 2013, he and his wife, Alexandra, ditched their D.C. digs and started house hunting in Maryland. Mill’s only requirement: a gas stove. “I can’t cook on electric,” he says with a laugh. “If I walked into a house and saw an electric stove, I just turned around and walked out.”

In addition to a gas stove, his Annapolis kitchen is equipped with all of the essentials, including blenders, food processors, scales, and an impressive collection of cookbooks penned by the likes of the late Michel Richard and his mentor, Michael Mina. “Our house is very food-centric and it always will be,” says Mills, who also shares his space with his Boston Terrier, Pickles. “Whenever I get ideas in my head, if I can’t wait to work on them at the restaurant, I like to play around at home. I have to make sure that I have enough tools so I can almost treat it like a commercial kitchen.”

Mills’s love of experimentation comes in handy when it’s his turn to prepare Sunday dinner, a family tradition that has stuck since childhood. “All family gatherings revolved around food, so as far back as I can remember, the two things have always gone hand in hand,” he says. “I remember my grandmother used to say, ‘If you don’t have an appetite, you must not be happy.’” Though choosing one menu to satisfy upward of 14 people can be tricky, Mills says that these dishes are definite crowd-pleasers. “There has to be an hors d’oeuvre, that’s just a thing in my house,” he says. “The soup is as traditional as it gets, and the braised pork pasta is a really comforting, easy, one-pot thing.”

Cream of Crab Soup

INGREDIENTS
½ cup butter (1 stick) butter
¾ cup flour, sifted
2 cups whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
1/3 cup sherry, plus a bit extra for the side
1 pound picked crab meat
1 ½ tablespoons Old Bay seasoning
2 teaspoons salt

INSTRUCTIONS
Melt butter in a large saucepan set over medium-low heat. Sprinkle in flour, whisking constantly, to a thick paste, called a roux. Switch to a wooden spoon. Cook roux, stirring constantly, until it gives off a nutty fragrance, about 3 minutes. Slowly whisk in milk and heavy cream until smooth and thick. Simmer for about 15 minutes (more if you like your soup thicker). Add sherry, crab meat, Old Bay, and salt. Cook until crab is warmed and flavors meld, about 5 minutes. Serve with extra sherry on the side

Smoked Salmon Crostini

INGREDIENTS
1 red onion, thinly shaved
6 slices crusty country bread, ¼-inch-thick
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 cup crème fraîche
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
½ pound smoked salmon
¼ cup capers, drained and patted dry
1 bunch dill sprigs
3 tablespoons salmon roe

INSTRUCTIONS
Cover onion slices with ice water. Let soak 30 minutes. Drain. Pat dry. Brush each bread slice with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Grill bread directly over a medium-hot fire (or under the boiler) until grill marks (or a nice golden brown) appear, about 1 to 2 minutes per side. Let cool to room temperature. Whisk together crème fraîche, juice, and zest. Spread each slice of grilled and cooled bread with lemon crème fraîche. Top with (in order): smoked salmon, capers, dill sprigs, red onion, and salmon roe.

Pappardelle & Braised Pork

INGREDIENTS
1 pound boneless pork shoulder cut into 1-inch cubes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ cup plus 1 tablespoon canola oil
½ cup finely chopped yellow onion
¼ cup finely chopped carrots
¼ cup finely chopped celery
¼ cup finely chopped fennel
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
¾ cup red wine
1 14-ounce can whole tomatoes in juice
1 sprig rosemary
1 sprig oregano
1 bay leaf
5 tablespoons butter, divided
¼ pound assorted wild mushrooms
1 bunch lacinato “dinosaur” kale, stems removed, cut into 1-inch-wide strips
1 pound pappardelle pasta
½ cup finely chopped fresh parsley
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh chives
¾ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus about 6 tablespoons for serving

INSTRUCTIONS
Season pork with salt and pepper. Heat ½ cup canola oil in a Dutch oven set over medium-high heat. Add pork cubes and sear on all sides until golden brown, about 7 minutes. Drain on paper towels. Reduce heat under pot to medium. Add onion, carrots, celery, fennel. Season with salt and pepper and cook until vegetables begin to brown, about 10 minutes. Add garlic and continue to cook, 1 minute. Deglaze pot with wine, scraping up browned bits. Add tomatoes (along with their juices) and crush with a spoon.

Add pork back to pot. Wrap rosemary, oregano, and bay leaf in cheesecloth, tie with twine and add to pot. Add enough water to just cover pork and bring to a simmer. Place a lid on pot and place pot in a 375-degree oven. Cook until meat is falling apart, about 2 hours. Remove from oven, remove lid, and place back on stove over medium heat. Using a spoon, break up pork until a thick ragu sauce forms. Heat remaining 1 tablespoon canola oil and 1 tablespoon of the butter in sauté pan set over medium heat. Add mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper and cook mushrooms until they are golden brown, about 10 minutes.

Add mushrooms to the pork ragu. Add kale to the ragu. Bring a pot of heavily salted water to a boil. Drop in pasta and cook until al dente. Scoop out 1 cup pasta cooking water and set aside. Drain pasta and add to ragu. Add some cooking water, if needed. Add remaining 4 tablespoons butter, chopped herbs, and ¾ cup Parmesan cheese. Scoop pasta into serving bowls. Sprinkle with additional cheese.

Illustration by Danielle Dernoga

Whether preparing a dinner for two, or a holiday feast for the masses, it’s important to have a carefully curated cupboard. To find out which ingredients are absolutely essential, we turned to chef Jerry Pellegrino, co-owner of Schola cooking school in Mount Vernon. “A smartly stocked pantry allows you the ability to whip up meals without much planning on any given night, add some excitement to standard recipes, or just make a quick snack in between meals,” says Pellegrino. Salt and pepper aside, here are the items that no home cook should go without.

Spice Blend

“Choose one depending on what you like or try a new one each month,” says Pellegrino. “But whether it’s herbes de Provence, garam masala, Creole Seasoning, or Italian herbs, having one of these in the cupboard allows you to add instant excitement to any dish.”

Garlic and Onion Powder

“So many dishes start out with onions and garlic,” says Pellegrino, “but keeping the fresh ones around can be a challenge. Although not as good, these two powders get you pretty close to the real thing.”

Honey

“Vinaigrettes, stocks, soups, stews—they all can benefit from a little sweetness to balance them out,” says Pellegrino. “You could just keep sugar on hand, but honey provides an added complexity to foods. And since it is the only natural product that never goes bad, it’s perfect for the pantry.”

Extra-Virgin Olive Oil

“We pour this on everything,” says Pellegrino. “Although it’s not the ideal oil to cook with, buying a price-conscious brand like our local Pompeian makes you feel good about it. Drizzle it on bread, cheeses, and salads, or sauté anything to make a quick meal.”

Dried Pasta

“One big and one small shape—pasta is the perfect foil for anything you have left in the fridge; chop it up, sauté it, and toss with cooked pasta—easy meal,” says Pellegrino. “For the big version, we prefer bucatini or penne. For the little version, it is hard to beat the delicious taste and texture of Israeli couscous.”

Yellow Cornmeal

“Maybe you’re not in the mood for pasta but need to get rid of leftovers,” says Pellegrino. “Making polenta can fix that. But cornmeal has other uses. Make a batch of skillet cornbread, [or make a] cornmeal crust and fry anything from oysters to onion rings.”

Balsamic Vinegar

“Vinegars are good to have on hand, but balsamic is king,” says Pellegrino. “It adds dimension to sauces, makes the perfect vinaigrette, and can be reduced to a syrup served with fruit and whipped cream.”

Canned Fish

“Use these in a pinch to add protein to salad or pasta, puréed to make dip, or mix with simple ingredients for a sandwich,” says Pellegrino. “There’s tuna, King Oscar sardines, Double ‘Q’ wild caught Alaskan salmon, and Trader Joe’s has a great proprietary smoked canned trout.”

Dijon Mustard

“Dijon’s acidic, sharp taste adds great flavor,” says Pellegrino. “Start with honey and Dijon mustard vinaigrette, then move onto using it to glaze hams, add it to pan sauces, mix it into potato dishes, and rub it on lamb as the ‘glue’ to hold on an herb crust.”

Your Favorite Hot Sauce

“Whether it’s Tabasco or Sriracha or Louisiana, there’s always the need to provide heat to certain dishes,” says Pellegrino. “They also provide heat to sauces where pepper just won’t work; hollandaise, cheese sauces, béchamel. We also stir them with mashed potatoes and add them to marinades.”

Several years back, when Seton Rossini was working as an associate design director at Food & Wine, she started a blog, Pixel Whisk, chronicling her adventures in baking. Then, one day, out of the blue, prestige publisher W.W. Norton came calling.

“One of the editors said to me, ‘I love your blog,’” recounts the Annapolis resident. “‘What do you want to write for us?’”

The result is Sweet Envy: Deceptively Easy Desserts, Designed to Steal the Show, Rossini’s love letter to sugary stuff, from Limoncello Tarts to Irish Cream Marshmallows. Her dedication to desserts started early on.

“I come from a family of five,” explains Rossini, who wrote, designed, photographed, and illustrated the book. “My mom made a hot meal every night, but she wasn’t into sweets.”

Her mother, did, however, give her daughter free rein in the kitchen. “I would bake anything I wanted, whenever I wanted,” Rossini recalls.

And while the Parsons School of Design grad’s creations might look difficult to duplicate, baking neophytes should give it a go.

“These recipes do not require double boilers or candy thermometers,” she explains. “I’ve tried to make the techniques as simple as possible. You should never spend an entire day slaving away in the kitchen. Most of these recipes are the fastest possible route to the most beautiful desserts.”

Tips & Tricks

Follow Rossini’s simple tips for confectionary conquest.

1. Ugly cake still tastes great: “This tip came from celebrating my mother’s birthday,” says Rossini. “She spent forever making the cake and it fell on its way to the table. She scraped it off the ground, cut away the part that touched the floor, then cut it into slices and used more icing before serving. Each person was served an individual slice. No one ever knew. People only saw a pretty slice on the plate.”

2. Measure for measure: “Liquid measuring cups are different than dry measuring cups,” says Rossini. “Know the difference. It will make a big difference in the success of your project.”

3. You can’t sew a silk purse . . . “The most important thing in baking is using good ingredients,” says Rossini, “especially full-fat butter. The fewer ingredients, the more important it is that they are high-quality.”

Recipe: Rocky Road Cookies

These flourless, gluten-free goodies can be concocted in 10 (or less) minutes. “They have very few ingredients and they’re easy and delicious,” Rossini says.

• 2 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
• 3 egg whites
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ¾ cup semisweet chocolate chips
• ¾ cup chopped walnuts
• 6 large marshmallows, cut in half with kitchen scissors

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with liners or parchment paper.
In a large bowl, whisk or sift together the confectioners’ sugar, cocoa, salt, and espresso powder. Mix in the egg whites and vanilla until smooth and no lumps remain. Add the chocolate chips and walnuts, stirring until fully incorporated and dough is gooey. Use a cookie scoop to drop round balls of dough on the baking sheets. Leave about 2 inches between cookies. Press a marshmallow half firmly into the top of each dough ball. Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the marshmallows are nice and toasty on top. The cookies will look shiny and cracked. Cool slightly before eating. Makes one dozen cookies.

Photos from Sweet Envy: Deceptively Easy Desserts, Designed to Steal the Show by Seton Rossini. Copyright © 2015 by Seton Rossini. Reprinted by permission of W.W. Norton & Company.

Long before he became famous for his sculptural specialties on the Food Network’s Ace of Cakes, Duff Goldman made muffins and baked biscuits at Cindy Wolf’s Savannah in Fells Point. And though the celebrity chef had only fast-food experience at the time, he credits Wolf—now one-half of Foreman Wolf—as the person who helped him break into baking.

“I didn’t even know what a pastry chef was,” Goldman says. “Thanks to Cindy, I started to understand baking fundamentals.” Clearly, Goldman was a star student. These days, he runs a bicoastal bakery business in Baltimore and Los Angeles and has appeared on the Food Network’s Duff Till Dawn. In addition to designing the cake for Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux’s wedding, his latest project is Duff Bakes: Think and Bake Like a Pro at Home. Recently, we caught up with Goldman to talk about the art of baking—and graffiti.

What was your goal in writing this book?
Most cookbooks have big, beautiful pictures that intimidate and scare people. But you don’t have to be so serious when you bake. The book is full of science and technique fundamentals, but it’s also very funny. I really want people to read this book. I wanted to write it in a way that it wouldn’t be over anyone’s head. Baking is viewed as this mysterious alchemy that only the fortunate few can do, but that’s not true.

What appeals to you about baking?
I’m obviously artistic and think mathematically, too. I minored in philosophy [at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County] and am very introspective. I enjoy the thought process that goes into baking and all the things that you have to consider like temperature, altitude, the brand of the oven . . .

What’s your advice to someone who wants to go pro?
Anyone who wants to be a chef should work at McDonald’s. It teaches you consistency. Every burger has to be exactly the same every time.

What do you make of your success?
I was a graffiti artist at 13. I was breaking into train yards, spray-painting in subway tunnels, and climbing buildings to get that one spot that people would see from the street. Because I conquered a lot of fear when I was so young, that fearlessness stuck with me. When I was first put on camera for the Food Network, I wasn’t afraid to look stupid.

You dedicated your book to chef Cindy Wolf. Why?
She changed my life. If I hadn’t met her, who knows where I’d be right now? Cindy is 100 percent directly responsible for my success, though I don’t think she’d want me in her kitchen now.

Recipe: Duff’s Cornbread

My first fine-dining job was working for Chef Cindy Wolf in Baltimore. She took a chance on me when I really didn’t know how to cook, like, at all. She made me bake the cornbread for the restaurant, and it taught me that no matter what you’re doing, do it the best you can. She’ll tell you that I made the best damn cornbread in the state. This is my adaptation of Chef Cindy Wolf’s recipe, but to be honest, every time I open the oven, I’m doing something that Cindy taught me how to do.

Bake these as soon as they’re mixed, because the acid in the buttermilk will set off the baking soda and you want to get the most lift out of your leavening agent. And make your mouth happy and serve with homemade honey butter—roughly a 2:1 ratio of butter to honey, whipped until soft and awesome. —Duff

Ingredients

• 1 cup yellow cornmeal
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Big pinch of kosher salt
• 2 extra-large eggs plus
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 cup buttermilk

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375˚F and grease a 9×13-inch baking dish or cake pan, or a 12-cup muffin tin.
2. In a big bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs and buttermilk to a uniform color.
4. Quickly but gently fold the liquid mixture into the dry mixture. It should be a loose batter, not a dough. If not, add some more buttermilk or even some cream, but just a tad; these ratios are right.
5. Pour the batter into the pan or divide it among muffin cups and bake for about 22 minutes (15 to 18 minutes for muffins), or until the top is golden and a toothpick comes out somewhat clean. Let cool for 7 minutes, then turn them out upside-down so they develop a nice thin crust on the baked edge.

From Duff Bakes by Duff Goldman and Sara Gonzales. Copyright © 2015 by Duff Goldman. Reprinted by permission of William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

While on an annual pilgrimage to India four-and-a-half years ago, Kim Manfredi, the owner of Charm City Yoga, received a cryptic call from her husband, Chris. “He said, ‘I have something to show you when you get back,’” she recalls. That something turned out to be a two-bedroom apartment at Silo Point with 360-degree views of the city. “When I walked into this unit, I was like, ‘I can do this,’” Manfredi says of the Locust Point digs. “From here, you can see almost the entire city. I can see the sunrise from the bedroom and the sunset from the dining room—living here is like being outside.”

And while Manfredi enjoys every aspect of the apartment, from the neutral tones to a collection of Buddhas acquired from her world travels, the state-of-the-art kitchen overlooking the Key Bridge and Under Armour campus is the biggest draw. “I’m Italian on both sides,” says Manfredi. “Cooking is part of who I am.”

With food and family at the fore, Manfredi, who lived in Homeland prior, says, “I never thought of not cooking. Even when there was nothing else, you could always make pasta with olive oil, garlic, Parmesan cheese, and parsley, and everything was sautéed in olive oil and garlic.” Though cooking has always come naturally, Manfredi changed her approach to nutrition after starting yoga. “Cooking is integral to my life,” she says. “But being a yogi has made me aware of eating as a conscious process.”

It was a catastrophic accident that led Manfredi to yoga. “On July 4, after my freshman year at University of Maryland, I fell out of a third-story window,” she recalls. “I had broken my back and, when I hit the ground, I was aware that I had the choice to live or to die. I spent 30 days at Shock Trauma.” In a hospital bed with four broken vertebrae and a total of seven fused together along two titanium rods, Manfredi wasn’t sure she would ever walk again. To cope with her partial paralysis, she learned to meditate. “It was unbelievably healing,” she remembers. At the time of the accident, Manfredi was pursuing an engineering degree. After it, she dropped out of Maryland and pursued painting at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). “I had been trying to be my dad,” admits Manfredi. “I realized that I could be my own person. I call the accident ‘the portal to the rest of my life.’”

These days, free rein also rules in the yogi’s kitchen. Most nights, Manfredi, who follows a mostly vegetarian diet, concocts vegetable-centric meals. “I cook every kind of vegetable,” she says. “I sauté green beans or asparagus, depending on what’s in season. I love roasting big pans of sweet potatoes and squash if it’s winter. In summer, I make them into cold soups.”

This recipe for whole-wheat pasta is a favorite. “I use pasta like a condiment,” explains Manfredi. “Veggies are the focus. They are dense in nutrients and a low-calorie goodness—full of fiber, folate, vitamins A, C, E, and K. Basically, they are health in a bright green coat.”

Recipe: Whole-Wheat Pasta with Asparagus, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, and Lemon Zest

Ingredients

• Extra-virgin olive oil
• Crushed red hot pepper
• or Sriracha, to taste
• 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
• 4-ounce jar of sun-dried tomatoes packed in olive oil
• 1-2 bunches of asparagus, cut into 2-inch pieces
• 1½ cups of cooked
• whole-wheat pasta
• Sea salt to taste
• Zest of 1 lemon
• Optional: Parmigiano-Reggiano

Directions

In a hot pan, sauté the olive oil, hot pepper, and garlic to add flavor to oil. Be careful not to burn the garlic.

Add sun-dried tomatoes. Cook on high until they begin to caramelize a bit.

Add asparagus to pan and, depending on thickness, cook for 1 to 5 minutes, moving them in the pan with a wooden spoon. Cook quickly. To retain bright green color and crispness, do not cover.

When the asparagus is cooked, add cooked pasta to pan, mixing well for 1 minute. Top with zest of 1 lemon. Serves 2.

Tip: Make sure the pasta is a bit undercooked; the heat of the sauce will continue to cook the grain.