"We could learn from each other"

In my line of work, I'm fortunate to be able to meet and hear the stories of many, many people. But few stories have touched me more deeply than the ones shared by the folks profiled here who attended the Worton Point Colored School No. 2 during the 1940's and 50's.

Now the home of the African American Schoolhouse Museum under the direction of Karen Somerville, this snug, one-room schoolhouse in Kent County merits a visit, not only to see the desks and cloakroom, the school photos and report cards that line the walls, but as a reminder that learning can happen--and is happening--in places we often overlook or ignore.

(Photograph by Kirsten Beckerman, care of Chesapeake Life Magazine)

Good spaghetti does not grow on trees

Remember the infamous 1957 BBC hoax? The one where they ran a fictitious segment about a Swiss family idyllically gathering noodles from the branches of trees during the spaghetti harvest?

This week's City Paper Free Range review is Ullswater Restaurant and Wine Bar and can be found here.

Southern. Inspired.

The above title is the catchphrase of Langermann's, the newest addition to Baltimore's Can Company. I'm not sure I like the two periods (wouldn't a comma work better and be less cute?), but I'm assuming we're to think that Langermann's is both Southern and inspired, and not just inspired by the south.

Or something like that.

At any rate, the City Paper review is here.

As a bonus, here's a peek at my first attempt at both placemats and machine quilting. A little wonky, perhaps, but full of vintage charm, dontcha think?

Catching Up

You know that old chestnut about the cobbler and his shoeless children?

Turns out the same adage works for the writer and her empty blog.

Yes, I've been writing--just not here.

I'll attempt to catch up this week, starting now, with this piece on hominy. (Who knew pigs feet could taste so good?)

In the same issue of Style I write about the old Hochschild Kohn department store. My editor has expressed interest in a simliar piece on Stewarts (another of Baltimore's fabled department stores). If any of you dear readers have memories of Stewarts you'd be willing to share, please let me know in the comments below or email me at lahuitrefrite@yahoo.com. Thanks.

And now for the obligatory cooking photo. It's a little early, but we had our St. Patrick's dinner last night: corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, and this very nice Brown Irish Soda Bread, recipe courtesy the Crabtree & Evelyn Cookbook. I added currants and thought about caraway seed. Maybe next time. Slainte!

When good bread goes bad...

the birds get breakfast!

One of the habits I've tried to cultivate in the new year is making bread on a regular basis. It's just too difficult to buy good bread and too easy to make it to do otherwise, and over several weeks I've made round loaves of honey wheat and of rye, braids of challah, nubby pumpkin rolls, a quickish brioche.

And yet...there are days when it just doesn't work out--the yeast is expired, you look at the wrong recipe and add too much water, the water's too hot or too cold, ten minutes of kneading results in nothing but sore fingers.

The loaf of Yellow and Red and White Bread I made the week before the storm was a sorry loaf, the crust like a helmet, the inside dense. It was edible, but just. And then the snow came, and with it, birds looking for food. I rummaged through cupboards and threw them stale nuts and olive green pumpkinseeds before remembering the sorry loaf. The birds, of course, were less picky than I.

My grandfather used to buy soft loaves of white sandwich bread in red and white plastic bags from Mars grocery store. It was his "bread for the birds" and it sat atop my grandparents' icebox before Grandpop tore it up into shreds and scattered it under the giant holly tree. Grandpop was dilligent about feeding his birds, and stocked up during snowstorms, in the same way other folks hoard milk and toilet paper. It took me a very long time to realize that the bread wasn't marketed exclusively as bird food.

What we do when it snows...

We make doughnuts (and shovel) and drink Manhattans (and shovel) and throw a neighborhood potluck (and look out the window, then shovel) and eat and drink some more...

and don't take any pictures of it.

But we prepared for snow by baking and cooking and eating too.



Rye bread, made during a "I'm going to make bread every week" kick. (This tradition needs a jump start...I'm working on it.).



Chicken pot pie



and beef bourguignon to build stamina for the upcoming blizzard.

During the snow we baked a lasagne and ate leftover sauerkraut, heavenly with some smoked pork chops put away for just this kind of weather.

Our neighbors baked cakes and bread, made soups (lentil, bean and kale) and quiche. We made grocery runs for eggs, potatoes, carrots, cheese (but no butter--the Giant was out) and knocked on doors to borrow booze or spices.

It's a beautiful nuisance, this snow, but it created a sort of surreal timelessness for a few days, a chance to not think about what day it was or what needed to be done. I treasure that.

What did you eat during the blizzard?

Nibbles

This week's Free Range review is Tapas Adela, the newest addition to the the Kali's Restaurant Group. Adela features mostly authentic Spanish-style tapas, including some tasty anchovas boquerones, in the Kali's heavy corner of Fell's Point (i.e., the western swath of Broadway and Thames).