Sweets, Sausages and Old Bay along Frederick Road

I had to run a few errands last week, and found myself passing through Catonsville and Ellicott City more than a handful of times while doing it. So when my errands were done, Frederick Road seemed like a good place to stop for something to eat.

Along the way to Ellicott City, I stopped in the small community of Oella. I got wind of an out-of-the-way deli from this year-old post from the How Chow blog. The no-nonsense JW Treuth has good fresh meats and fishes, including the too-intriguing Chesapeake Bay Sausage, with Old Bay in place of the Italian seasoning ($3.49 per lb). I am fixing it up right now with onions and peppers. This is a wonderful sausage for the hard core Old Bay fan, with a subtle but unmistakable Old Bay flavor.

I really need a new camera.

Once across the county line and into Ellicott City, I made a beeline to Sweet - a Bakery and Café, where I experienced a little bit of their bakery and a little bit of their café, all the while watching a bride-to-be swear that she just could not fit raspberry filled wedding cake samples into her stomach right now, but that it sounded so good. I was not there for the wedding cake, of course. Instead I ordered some chocolate top cookies and a red velvet cupcake. The cookies were soft - both the cookie part and the chocolate part - and were okay. The cupcake was one of the moistest and delicious red velvet cupcakes I have had in ages. Perhaps I was swung by the vanilla buttercream frosting on top - not soft, but slightly hard on the outside, like a good buttercream ought to be. Cream cheese frosting may be the normal way to go with red velvet cake, but I am a sucker for vanilla buttercream and will take that over cream cheese any day. The cupcake was about $1.50. I can't recall the price of the cookies.

Ain't it Sweet?

For the café part, I went for crepe. My goal was to get a breakfast crepe (served all day), but for $1 more (total $7) I got the cheese lunch crepe, which came with a side order of cantaloupe. What can I say? It was a simple buckwheat crepe filled with satisfying Swiss cheese. It was a pleasant and delicious lunch. That and I got an iced tea. Total spent at Sweet: $12, most of which was for the crepe.

I thought I was done, but was wrong, as the Sweet Cascades candy shop showed promise in my never-ending quest to find dessert applications for Old Bay. Theirs was a very simple crab-shaped candy - dark or milk chocolate - with Old Bay in it. That's it. $1.50 each. And they taste about how you would imagine, but don't shirk them because what you're imagining will actually taste quite nice - all sweet, salty and spicy at once.

UPDATE: Apparently my proofreading skills have gone far, faaar away.