Cuisine

 The school year is coming to an end for seniors. Others must stick it out until the buses park for the last time, preparing for their own two month hiatus. The trees are in full force, the flowers are blooming and there is an excitement in the air as people prepare for their dream vacation downy ocean, hon. The surfers’ wetsuits are getting thinner and shorter as the ocean temperature is warmer than usual and more bikes are present on the Boards and in the Pines. Yes, summer in Delmarva; it’s almost here.  If you are like me you are getting ready to jump into yet another summer job, a reality for many educators. Being in the kitchen especially benefits me as it keeps me sharp for the next school year. I will be running the kitchen at The Reel Inn on 14th Street and the Bay in Ocean City starting this Saturday. As with many restaurants in the area, we won’t go into full swing until June and after that I will be able to come up for air sometime in Septe...

 People are constantly asking me to write about meatloaf. People love meatloaf. They live for it. While I may not be one of those fortunate individuals, I can honestly say that meatloaf hits the spot every now and again. But you know me. It doesn’t serve me or you for me to offer up a Fannie Farmer rendition of the classic loaf known to so many of us in our youth. It just would not be right in any sense of the imagination for me to recite anything reminiscent of The Christmas Story dinners. No, I believe in challenging your senses; in making you work for your paycheck as it were. This meatloaf is inspired by the interim principal of our school, but as I could not in a million years give away his secrets, I have to give you a rendition that will leave you satisfied none the less. In making this wonderful meatloaf, you will undergo one of two scenarios. One, you will carefully smoke your meatloaf, delicately enhancing the nuances that will develop as the food is ‘ki...

 My diet this week has not been stellar, or at least from a health standpoint anyway. Tuesday, I noshed on brisket and brownies. On Wednesday it was pit beef and hot milk cake. On Thursday? Pit Turkey and cupcakes. And on Friday, more meat and chocolate cake. It’s a good thing that I at the very least committed myself to copious amounts of water. As we were prepping for a pit beef stand on Saturday as part of our annual fundraiser, I found myself surrounded by my favorites; pit beef, pit turkey, Berk’s hot dogs and BBQ brisket, of course paired well with the goodies from the bakeshop. Throwing in a few trays of our homemade bacon set the stage for me to act as Pavlov’s dog.  Bacon on hot dogs, bacon on the pit beef and bacon on the cupcake worked wonders. Bacon=drool. But now all I want is a salad. I feel like I’m playing a cameo in The Very Hungry Caterpillar, as it is now time to eat through one green leaf and take a break, affording my body the...

“The horror. The horror.” The famous last words from Apocalypse Now repeated themselves in my head for two days; lifeless and soon-to-be headless bodies looking at me with great disdain, ironically with their eyes having already been removed making the entire episode even more reminiscent of a bad Tim Burton movie. The rabbit was fine. I’ve worked with that plenty of times. Breaking down the walleye, brining the filets and smoking them was old hat. Breaking down the saddle of antelope was great and as I was working with a talented young apprentice, it was a pleasure to be given the opportunity to work with such a variety of proteins. No, it was those muskrats, those gnarly toothed, furry paw-still attached creatures that haunted me last weekend as we prepared a game dinner for some guests at the country club. Those damn muskrats. I will apologize as I know that I will offend some local readers, but while I am happy to have worked with them, I will be just as ha...

Kerfuffle – n informal chiefly  ( Brit ) commotion; disorder; agitation Thus was the general mood as the club kicked into full swing this past weekend. All went smoothly, but tempers were flaring just a touch as cooks realized that the season stood the chance of getting tense. Adding to this degree of anticipation was the annual event of the ventilation coming to a screeching crawl on Friday night.  As such the average temperature in the kitchen was a brisk 95 degrees. By industry standard, 95 degrees is cold, but as summer has yet to begin and our bodies have yet to acclimate to the balmy clime of the mid-Atlantic, it was a tad toasty; and it did not take much for a couple of the cooks to get snappy. Hence the kerfuffle of cooks angry at no one but mad at everything; akin to a testy dog who realizes that he’s at the vet’s office looking for the nearest exit. Yet, despite the general sense of agitation, all went well. The members were fed and happy, the...

For six weeks the Decatur High School Robotics Team, the Beach Bots, built a robot as part of the Chesapeake Regional Robotics competition which culminated in Baltimore two weeks ago. The teams came from as far away as California, and they were part of the First Robotics series which boasts sponsors such as SIAC, BAE Systems, JC Penney, Army ROTC, Johns Hopkins University Robotics Lab, Northrop Grumman, NASA, MIT et al. With such an impressive list of sponsors, the students ultimately are rewarded, should they so choose to apply, with college scholarship opportunities.  With only 25 percent of the students applying for scholarships, the group still awarded out $12 million in scholarship funds last year.   At the competition, The Beach Bots came in first place for all of the rookie teams and fared well against many of the veteran teams. It was an impressive showing and noting the small size of the Decatur team versus some of the massive teams, it was all the more impressi...

Consommé is beyond the shadow of a doubt the nectar of the soup gods. Unbeknownst to many people and misconstrued by others, consommé is simply a carefully clarified and fortified stock, making it laborious and luxurious, not to mention a bit expensive to craft. The end result is a clear and succulent essence, perhaps dotted with a small garnish, which lends its rich mouth-feel and potency to the guest without all of the fat. It is pure flavor. Chefs simply don’t make consommé on a regular basis anymore. These soups are time consuming, uber-expensive and are in many ways misunderstood by most diners, so the effort may very well be lost on many. As such, these factors are relegating consommé to the history books as if to say that they are not worth making anymore. Nothing could be further from the truth and when talking with a friend about it recently, he gave away a telltale sign and a normal mistake by saying “I tried it once and I ended up with egg...

Consommé is beyond the shadow of a doubt the nectar of the soup gods. Unbeknownst to many people and misconstrued by others, consommé is simply a carefully clarified and fortified stock, making it laborious and luxurious, not to mention a bit expensive to craft. The end result is a clear and succulent essence, perhaps dotted with a small garnish, which lends its rich mouth-feel and potency to the guest without all of the fat. It is pure flavor. Chefs simply don’t make consommé on a regular basis anymore. These soups are time consuming, uber-expensive and are in many ways misunderstood by most diners, so the effort may very well be lost on many. As such, these factors are relegating consommé to the history books as if to say that they are not worth making anymore. Nothing could be further from the truth and when talking with a friend about it recently, he gave away a telltale sign and a normal mistake by saying “I tried it once and I ended up with e...

 I can remember many a night in Baltimore when we would find ourselves celebrating our youth, ending up at Jimmy’s Restaurant in Fell’s Point at 6:00 in the morning to enjoy a big burger and a beer. There was something about a rich meal, and mayhap rich isn’t the word that does it much justice, on mornings such as these. The high fat levels would satiate every craving for calories and you would be ready to pass into a deep slumber, bordering on hibernation. Having put more than a few years between me and those Jimmy’s mornings, I sometimes still like a plate of rich and delicious breakfast foods. Recently, as I plundered my cupboards, I ran across an old standby; our waffle iron. I don’t make waffles often enough, although every time that I do eat them they are the perfect self-contained standalone meal.   Crispy on the outside, soft and steamy on the inside, the fresh waffle has so many applications that it shames me to think of how dismiss...

It has been a long week.   Who am I kidding? The week just started today, and I’m already done. It was a long week before it even got here, but fair effort or not, the week will end one way or the other. So, fair effort I shall give. I must admit that I am procrastinating. I simply can’t think of a damn thing to cook, but I know it will come to me eventually. It reminds me of studying history at Loyola, even with the support of my amazing bride eons ago. I would have a report due on a particular book, and would wait until 6 p.m. the night before to crack the cover, sometimes even waiting for that crucial moment to tear the cellophane off of the volume. I would find myself in the basement of our house in Parkville reading, writing and formulating (aka academically regurgitating) an idea and would inevitably watch the sun come up; but the paper would be done. And so would I. Not much has changed in the past fifteen years except that this doesn’t happen too of...