A slice of Baltimore

Accepting my offer to be a Teach For America elementary-school teacher in Baltimore, MD, sort of quieted my burning desire to be a food writer. My passion for food would go by the wayside, I decided, while I feed craving, young minds with knowledge, washed down with a big gulp of confidence. This bittersweet trade off would be well worth it.

Then I got a text from my brother singing my praises for moving to Baltimore – not because I’ll be helping children, but because B’more is home to….wait for it, wait for it….Charm City Cakes - the locale behind the ever-so-popular Food Network show, Ace of Cakes.

For those of you with an intimate knowledge of me, you know that I am obsessed with cakes, fondant and all. Mad-hatter-style ones in bright pink and blue hues, and awesome pipe work are masterpieces in my eyes. Charm City Cakes is quite the icing on the cake, if you will, to my placement in Charm City.

But what about the rest of the city’s offerings?

During the past few years, I have discovered my standard foodie sites. Some tell me what to cook or bake; most tell me where to eat in NYC, Florida or Europe. I know that I go to 101 Cookbooks for healthy, yet delicious recipes, and Chef Olivia for restaurant suggestions in NYC. Never once had I examined the Baltimore food scene.

My first premonition was to find some new, reliable sites and blogs to guide me through Baltimore’s unknown abyss of eateries. With a few clicks, I had discovered Baltimore Eats and Baltimore Bites. Even the city’s newspaper, The Baltimore Sun, seems to have quite an extensive food base.

Of course, I could never accept a city with sub-par food. Baltimore’s blue crabs and Natty Boh (National Bohemian) beer beckon my taste buds. My boyfriend swears in agreement with Wedding Crashers, “Crab cakes and football – that’s what Maryland does.” Ethnic foods – Ethiopian, Indian, Thai, Japanese – are in abundance, and coffee shops abound. I’ve also read about B’more’s Corned Beef Row with Jewish delicatessens. While deli food isn’t my thing, I’ll definitely have to try it. Heck, there's even a Baltimore restaurant week! Even better, Washington, DC, just a 30-minute drive away, is home to some of the world’s best restaurants (Two Quail and White Tiger were my childhood favorites when I’d visit my aunt living on the Capitol).

So while I will be serving my students in my classroom, there’ll be tons of fab finds serving me. Guess I can have my cake and eat it too!

Bartending 101

I’ll admit it straight up – I’m a cork dork.

That’s what my bartending teacher calls those of us who are wine snobs - those of us who already know which wines are varietals, which should be served with dessert and which should be heated, even before he writes it on the board. It’s a plus that I know “grigio” in Italian means “grey.”

Wonton, our teacher, and as far as I am concerned, our drinking buddy, teaches the University of Florida’s bartending class for two hours on Wednesday nights. The class – a motley bunch of 21-and-older frat boys, wanna-be bartenders, curious souls and borderline alcoholics – each came with a different purpose, but all with the coveted idea of learning a thing or two about college's true takeaway, alcohol, without a killer hangout or a burnt-out pocket.

Each week greets us 30 students with a different alcohol – vodka, whisky, tequila, rum. After a bit of history, mixology and description, we get to taste and try what we learned. Tonight, for our first class, we began with wine and beer.

Reds, whites and blushes span the wine scale. Chianti, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Riesling and all others were described to my fellow classmates. Optimal serving temperature and food pairings were glossed over, and wine wasn’t served (another class at UF is dedicated specifically to wine). Bummer for us cork dorks.

Beer, on the other hand, was in abundance. Little plastic cups dispersed at the end of the lesson were for sampling the smorgasbord of cold ones.

Kona, from Hawaii, left a lasting impression, perhaps just because of its origin. Guinness in a can, with its ultra-cool, patented CO2 filter, showed its skills in making packaged beer taste like draft. Shock Top took the place of Blue Moon. Bottled apple cider and Bud Light Golden Wheat were easily identifiable as the ladies’ heartthrobs. Local beers from Key West and Tampa somehow squeezed their way in, but couldn’t quite hold their own next to the standards like Red Stripe, Yuengling, Samuel Adams, XX and Stella Artois. Gluten-free and organic beers showed just how far the ale and lager industry have come. Flying Dog Tire Bite and, dare I put it in the same category, Old Engine Oil, were too bold to be truly enjoyed. And missing from the crew were Corona, Heineken and Bud Light. Perhaps they were too drunk to come to class.

My personal favs (and no, I am still not a beer drinker) included Wild Blue, Newcastle and a raspberry-infused brewski that, with each sip, tasted like a sun-kissed field. I regret to say I can’t remember its name.

If my beer-tainted mind from tonight’s class is any indication of future lessons, I cannot wait until next week.