Time to check another one off the list!

It’s a very badly kept secret among my friends that I wasn’t such a fan after my first encounter with Brian Voltaggio. In fact, I didn’t even mention Volt on the blog because I was so underwhelmed. Maybe foam just isn’t my thing, or I didn’t love what I paid for it. Either way, others seem to have much better experiences with Brian than I did, so I vowed to go back.

Unfortunately though, I didn’t quite make room in my food budget for another visit to Volt this year. So enter Lunchbox, Voltaggio’s new lunch spot in Frederick. Super affordable. Within easy walking distance of my friend Elizabeth’s. We both ended up with a free afternoon last Friday, so a trip to Frederick was in order!

Elizabeth had been to Lunchbox a few times since it’s opening last month–it’s in her backyard, who could blame her–so she gave me some tips on ordering. I felt like I ordered everything on the menu, but since I had driven all the way to Frederick (that’s practially WESTERN MARYLAND, folks) I wanted to make it count. And so we did.

I started off with the butternut squash soup, which was delightful. It took one of my favorite types of soup and married it with cinnamon sugar croutons. It’s like they designed this soup for me! It was a not too sweet squash soup, which was also nice since it balanced well with the rest of the meal. Elizabeth had the celeriac and chicken dumpling soup, which she also said was quite tasty.

For our mains, we opted not to go for salads (which are not well reviewed) and instead headed straight for the sandwiches. I had a Pilgrim, which came very highly recommended. Overall, I really enjoyed this sandwich. The turkey was sliced so thin it was perfect, and the cream cheese mushed in to it giving the whole thing a delicious creamy texture. I could have used a bit more relish on my sandwich, but the delightful crustyness of the bread, which was almost like a grilled cheese bread was wonderful, even if it did have sunflower seeds on it. Overall, very good!

Elizabeth had the pressed cuban, which she thought looked a little smaller than her last time around. The bite I had of her sandwich was good, but the pickle was definitely the star, and there didn’t seem to be quite enough of them to go around on the sandwich.

We enjoyed our sandwiches with some Cheerwine, which honestly I had never heard of before but it was delicious. It was my first soda in almost 2 years, but it felt so wholesome, it doesn’t count right?

And then we came to dessert (it took as a long time to get here in real life too!). Since I was all about splurging, I ordered two, the chocolate chip cookies and the oatmeal cookies.

Similar to my experience at Volt a year ago, the baked goods in the baggies were REALLY good. The chocolate chip was crispy on the outside and chewy in the middle, and had a nice mix of white and semi sweet chips. But that oatmeal cookies stole my heart, and I’ve been googling the recipe since last Friday nights. It was perfect.

All in all a great trip, and I feel like Brian and I are okay again. Maybe I’ll even go back to Volt!

Are you ready for some football?!

I know we are! The Ravens are in the AFC Championship game this weekend and the whole town is painted purple. All of the buildings downtown, all of the folks at work. I’m even watching Sportscenter at the gym. CAW!

Do not judge these wings by the camera phone picture…they were too good to stop and photograph!

And since these chicken wings were SUCH a hit last week, and they’re so easy, I think they’ll be on this Sunday’s menu. Because if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. It may even be lucky! Along with my purple stick on Fu Manchu.

Easy Chicken Wings

Ingredients:
As many wings as you want to cook (I usually make 3 packs) Try to buy the ones that are separated
Good Barbecue Sauce, like Bone Sucking Sauce

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 and line two cookie sheets (for two packs of wings) with foil.

Spread wings out on cookie sheets. Spoon sauce over them. Bake, in preheated oven, for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, remove sheets, flip wings over with tongs, and spread remaining sauce on the wings. Bake for another 20 minutes, or until wings are crispy. Serve hot, with lots and lots of paper towels and beer!

And GO RAVENS!! BALL SO HARD U!

Take another one off the list!

Is their anything more quintessentially fall than apple picking? Being in the orchard, with the changing leafs on the hill, and a cool crisp feeling in the air? No, I don’t think there is. Maybe if we could scent the air with pumpkin pie spice it might up it a little, but it’s basically perfect.

Recently I was lucky enough to find a free afternoon to make the trip out to Larriland Farms in Western Howard County with Carlos and Eileen. Larriland is my favorite place to pick your own fruit throughout the summer and fall, and in the past I’ve picked apples, peaches and blueberries there.

Larriland, which always seems like a completely different world from Baltimore and most of urbanized central Maryland, really seems different in October, when the fall festival and Halloween decorations are in full swing. We had a really fun time checking out all of the pumpkins and gourds that were for sale up at the Barn and posing with some of the fall decor items.

And then there were the apples. Even though there were only two varieties available when we were at the farm (Stayman and Braeburn’s) we sure did pick our fill quickly.

Yeah, who knew three adults could pick 50 pounds of apples in less than half an hour? Turns out it’s not that hard when the apple trees are full of gorgeous fruit! Carlos was totally new to apple picking, but he learned pretty quickly.

We’re hoping most of these apples will soon be apple butter, which then hopefully will turn into some holiday gifts. Because if I’m left alone with all of that apple butter, someone better save me from it–I love it sooooo much!

I have about a million wordless pics to share from France, but I couldn’t resist sharing these shots I took last Sunday in Baltimore’s Sherwood Gardens. They just scream SPRING!

Celebrating the green a bit early!

Nothing quite like the joy of celebrating a new PR–27.12!

This past Saturday night I had a very fun evening with Baltimore’s Food Bloggers and cookbook author Nick Malgieri.

Nick was in town to discuss his latest cookbook Bake!, which is a beautiful book that shows in step by step photos how to master 30 key baking techniques, from puff pastry to bread baking. The book is designed to make complicated baking techniques accessible to at home bakers by breaking them into simple step by step instructions.

In addition to discussing Bake!, Nick also gave us a bit of commentary on being a professional pastry chef and cookbook author in the era of “foodies” and Food TV. With 9 cookbooks under his belt, Nick has a lot of experience, and it was interesting to hear an insiders perspective on the current trends in the food industry. Nick also brought two desserts to share with the group–a dense chocolate cake and some delicious biscotti that I can’t wait to try on this blog!

Being a food blogger event, there was of course a HUGE spread of food! We each brought a favorite dish and no one left the evening hungry. Everything was delicious! Wendi of Bon Appetit Hon brought one of my favorite sweets of the night–darling little puff pastry hearts with icing. So simple, but wonderful!

What a great way to spend a Saturday night! Thanks to Dara of Dining Dish for organizing the event and including me!

It looks like all of snow whining last week paid off.

Last night we had a rare meteorological phenomenon here in Baltimore–thunder snow!

At around 4.30 last night the precip started to fall, first as rain, then as aggressive sleet, then quickly changing to all snow. I’ve never seen anything like it. As the rain started I heard a roll of thunder, which was startling. But the real show started once the snow was coming down. We had serious lightning and thunder–and some fun light ups from exploding transformers–for about an hour straight.

After about 5 hours of snow we had 7 or 8 inches…an incredible fall in such a short period. It would have been a lot more if it hadn’t been so wet–our snowfall rates were only about 4 inches of snow for 1 inch of liquid, which is way down from the normal rates of 10:1. Of course it’s already melting away, but I’ll love it while it lasts. And maybe hope for some more next week!