He PROBABLY heard it from his FATHER

One thing I got for Christmas. The box alone makes it worthwhile:


The fudge itself is okay. But you gotta love that box.

Because it's Christmas Day

And because it's my blog, damnit.

Janice and Ray Do Christmas: THIS is unbelievable...

Catherine Tate works her comedic wonders once again, this time for the Christmas holidays. And Ray is not a fan of the Caribbean curry.



The dirty bastards!

Itty Bitty Smith Island Cakes at Giant!

Look what I bought recently:


Yes, the Original Smith Island Cake Company is making mini-cakes and selling them at area Giants in the Baltimore and Washington, DC areas. My assumption: you can probably find them more easily on the Eastern Shore, too. They come in regular (yellow cake with chocolate icing), red velvet and a pumpkin cake. And they are all handmade. One day I will successfully make a Smith Island Cake. I tried once. It was not pretty.

Exits 4, 5 and 6A-B Revisited

I admit: I don't get to the I-97 section of the Beltway very often, and so I have explored it very little. But when I got around here the first time, I simply did not explore nearly enough. I've tried to rectify this second go round. I know I'm probably missing other noteworthy eateries. It's up to all y'all to point them out.

Exits 4, 5 and 6A-B -
Section of the Beltway - the Glen Burnie Section (S. Baltimore City, N. Anne Arundel County)
Towns & neighborhoods along the way - Ferndale, Nottingham, Linthicum, Linthicum Heights, Pumphrey, BWI Airport
Routes that branch off - I-97, MD-648, MD-170

Places that have shut down since I last visited

Many of the victims of the recent recession in this part of town were of the Chinese carry-out variety. Gone is the massive Beijing Buffet (website no longer works) in the Burwood Village Plaza on B&A Blvd - in its place is, well, nothing.

Yep, empty.

Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant off of I-97 still seems to be around, surprisingly so, but then again the incredibly cheap food may have improved since the last time I was there, and almost got sick off it.

Restaurants I didn't get around to the first time

Despite the empty hull of what was Beijing Buffet, most of the locations in Burwood have not shut down: for example, there's still the Buffalo Wings & Beer (map) and Italia's Corner Café (same map). Italia's is a nice place. It's not a suit and tie place, but it is a satisfying evening out with Mee-Maw and the kids. Or your rambunctious little league football team, which one guy brought with him. That wasn't really a problem for me since I was doing take-out. But you may want to sit yourself down (if that little league football team isn't around, that is): Italia's is inviting, bright and comfortable, with both indoor and (for the warmer weather) outdoor seating. And somebody there must be quick of foot since there are a few prominent soccer trophies mounted above the counter. I could only hope to earn even one in my lifetime.

Italia's offers much more than the typical pizza and subs fare: they've got soup and pasta, antipasti and tiramisù, plus a wine selection. And of course, they do have pizza and subs. I went for the stromboli ($7.50), featuring various types of meat (sausage, ham, pepperoni) wrapped in mozzarella.

The stromboli, outside...

...and inside

It was filling, but I just about finished the whole thing in one sitting. Rarely these days do I find Italian take-out that I actually enjoy eating. I enjoyed this: the dough wasn't hard and dry like so many stromboli doughs can be. The mozzarella and meat together were just soft and sinful. I feel almost like I'm channeling my napoletano ancestors here! Though in truth, I have no idea if they ate stromboli in their little mountain village outside of Salerno 110 years ago (Yes I know Stromboli the town is in Sicily. I have ancestors from Sicily, too. And I am certain none of them was orange). If you want this stromboli you can most easily reach Italia's off of Exit 5.

As for Exit 6: when I took it the last time I went about half a mile in each direction, lulling myself into that false sense of being sure that all I would continue to see were houses. I should have bothered to keep going, as I learned to do with future exits. I would have found a Ferndale-area institution in the Shipley Linthicum Shopping Center on South Camp Meade Road, just on the other side of BWI. Keller's Bakery (map), now in its 70th year, was taking orders for Thanksgiving pies when I stopped by (yes, I'm only now getting around to writing this). It's a small operation, but they take many orders and always run out. The woman behind the counter when I showed up showed me some of their popular flavors - well, those they had left at least: apple, French apple, blueberry, just to name a handful. Hopefully you've gotten your order in for Christmas, too. Commenters on the Baltimore City Search site for Keller's also rave about their turnovers and donuts. I had no cash on me at all, so I was out of luck altogether, seeing as how they do not take cards.

Restaurants that have since opened

A few doors down in the Shipley Shopping Center, one place that I don't think was around at all the first time I stopped by was Matsu Japanese (map), which has two locations, in Linthicum and Annapolis. Matsu is a smallish, few frills sushi and Japanese restaurant that satisfies your sushi need quickly and cheaply. I was impressed at how fast I got served - granted, there were, maybe, five people there for the lunch rush. Their lunch specials are good for the price: a $10 bento box was what caught my eye before anything else, and unlike most times when I dawdle over the menu I knew I had to get this. A relatively quick ten minutes later, if that, I had my lunch.


Matsu's lunch bento box is smaller than most you will have had. With just four modest compartments, you get a few slices of California roll, a couple shumai dumplings and your choice of one other item, with soup and rice on the side. In my case, I got the 5 piece sashimi. The items in the bento box were about as modest as the restaurant itself: smaller amounts of things, which I guess justifies the $10 price. The flavor could also best be described as modest. While the food was good, it was not great - once again, $10 bento box. Nevertheless, it got the job done. Matsu is at least worth a visit.

I just wish that the entire staff - and I mean the entire staff - had not sat down to lunch right as I had finished eating and was anticipating my check. No, I did not need my check right away. But I figured that, since my waitress had sat down to eat like everybody else, it might be a good long while before anyone even noticed I was done. Fortunately, my waitress happened to look behind her and see that I was done. She quickly stopped her lunch, got my check, and proceeded to toss it in front of me. Well, more half-toss, half-drop it in front of me. Way to make your customer feel like he's not a burden! I never leave anything less than a 15% tip, and rarely leave less than 20%. I left 10% this time.

A few other restaurants have popped up around BWI. One I have yet to try is the Acqua Restaurant (map) - offering, as it says right on its splash page, "bay fresh cuisine in an elegant setting" near the BWI Hilton. Another is the snazzy Los Portales Restaurant (map), to meet your craving for Mexican food as soon as you get out of the airport. And if you head back to Burwood you can at least try the Bamboo House (same map as Italia's), which is the only Chinese food you will find in lieu of the Beijing Buffet.

So, what did I miss?

Again I need your help and suggestions. Tell me what I missed. I know I missed something. Or what about the places I didn't visit this time: ringing endorsements of Acqua or Los Portales, or something in the airport that I need to check out the next time I'm taking a flight?

Places I got back to

Italia's Corner Café (Italian/pizza and subs) - 7089 Baltimore-Annapolis Blvd. (Burwood Village Plaza), Suite F, Glen Burnie, MD 21061; Phone: (410) 684-3817

• Would I eat there again? Yes
• Would I go out of my way to eat there again? Sure

Matsu Japanese Restaurant (Japanese/sushi) - 517 South Camp Meade Road (Shipley Linthicum Shopping Center), Linthicum, MD 21090 ; Phone: (410) 850-0009 or (410) 850-0012

• Would I eat there again? If I was in the area
  
• Would I go out of my way to eat there again? Likely not

A few places to look up later

Acqua Restaurant (Chesapeake/seafood) - 1739 West Nursery Rd., Linthicum, MD 21090; Phone: (410) 694-0808 ext. 5176

Bamboo House (Chinese/sushi) - 7089 Baltimore-Annapolis Blvd (Burwood Village Plaza), Glen Burnie, MD 21061

Buffalo Wings & Beer (pub fare; wings) - 7089 Baltimore-Annapolis Blvd (Burwood Village Plaza), Suites C & D, Glen Burnie MD 21061; Phone: (410) 760-2337

Keller's Bakery (bakery) - 509 South Camp Meade Rd. (Shipley Linthicum Shopping Center), Linthicum Heights, MD 21090; Phone: (410) 859-8228

Los Portales Restaurant (Mexican) - 6938 Aviation Boulevard, Suites D & E, Glen Burnie, MD 21061; Phone: (410) 766-9800

Snacking State-by-State: Arizona II - Cactus for Breakfast

While the previous machaca burro recipe was very filling, I still wanted to get some use out of nopal cactus. Also known as the prickly pear (or occasionally, the tuna) cactus, Southwesterners have been subsisting off both the cactus pads and fruits for generations.

Snacking State-by-State: Arizona

Official Name: State of Arizona
State Nicknames: The Grand Canyon State; The Copper State
Admission to the US: February 14, 1912 (#48)
Capital: Phoenix (largest city)
Other Important Cities: Tucson (2nd largest), Mesa (3rd largest), Glendale (4th largest)
Region: West (Southwest); Mountain (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Chile Pepper, Pinyon Nut
Bordered by: Utah (north); New Mexico (east); Sonora (south); California, Nevada & Baja California (west); Colorado (northeast corner - Arizona is one of the Four Corners states)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: Arizona Trout (fish)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: chiles (mild in the south), tortillas (flour in the south), Navajo taco, beef, nopal cactus (both pad and fruit), burritos, chimichangas, menudo

The first time I ever ate them, not long after moving to California in the late 90's, I was less than enthused. A few years later I had a large tostada topped with just about everything while strolling through the Zócalo in Mexico City. It had nopal on it, and again, I was less than enthused. But I was willing to give it one more try, for the sake of social science, and the blog.

The recipe: Nopales con Huevos

I have been unable to find an Arizona-specific recipe with nopal in it (note: I might have to give up this notion of only state-specific recipes if I want this project to continue). The closest thing I could find was a recipe on the AZCentral.com website, which was good enough. Among a list of nopal recipes was a Mexican favorite: nopales con huevos - nopal with eggs.

This one is much simpler and faster than the whole machaca recipe - and yes, the most exotic thing you will need will be the nopal. It's not so easy to find nopal pads in the supermarket, but it is easier than it used to be: there are more and more Latin American markets all over Baltimore (and DC has far more, and isn't that far away), plus some of the bigger supermarkets carry them. But they are a pain in the ass to prepare - you have to remove the stickers completely, then prep and wash them, and remove the gooeyness. Or you could just do what I did, and buy precut nopal in a jar. Doña Maria is an easy brand to find in this area.

I had all of the ingredients on hand once I bought the nopal in a jar (note: the recipe I used was too big, so again, I halved it):

* nopal (a jar runs about $2.50 or $3)
* eggs (four in this case; this will last a few servings)
* salt and pepper, of course
* olive oil (no bacon grease this time)
* onion and garlic
* again, tortillas and salsa

Whisk the eggs with salt and pepper, then chop the nopales and fry them up for a few minutes in olive oil with garlic and onions, Pour in the eggs, and cook for a few minutes. I did not scramble them, but I would recommend that you do.

There you have it! Scrambled eggs with nopal cactus. This time, I did not find the nopal as offensive as I had before. In fact, I hardly tasted it at all - it was kind of like a green bean, with less flavor. But none of the typical sliminess that often goes with not-so-well-prepared nopal.


I am almost done with the A-states. We've gotten through the Deep South, the Arctic North and the desert Southwest. Next I head back to the South - not that Deep, but South nonetheless, for The Natural State and the first of the year: Arkansas.

Sources:

Alters Jamison, Cheryl, and Bill Jamison. The Border Cookbook: Authentic Home Cooking of the American Southwest and Northern Mexico. The Harvard Common Press: Boston, 1995.

AZCentral.com. Nopales recipes. Posted date June 24, 2005.

Long, Kathi. The Southwest: New American Cooking. From the Williams-Sonoma "New American Cooking" series, Chuck Williams, general editor. Time-Life Books: San Francisco, 2001.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Arizona" page and the Food Timeline State Foods webpage link to "Arizona".

Snacking State-by-State: Arizona I - El Burro Más Grande

I have visited Arizona a few times, none of which was recently. My sister and her husband and their dog used to live in Phoenix, and my crazy uncle (we all have a crazy uncle) and his ex-wife still does. So I am not too unfamiliar with the distinctly Southwestern flavors of Arizona: Navajo and Hopi in the northeast (and Native American throughout), cattle rancher in the north, plus the heaviest doses of Mexican all over the whole of the state.

Snacking State-by-State: Arizona

Official Name: State of Arizona
State Nicknames: The Grand Canyon State; The Copper State
Admission to the US: February 14, 1912 (#48)
Capital: Phoenix (largest city)
Other Important Cities: Tucson (2nd largest), Mesa (3rd largest), Glendale (4th largest)
Region: West (Southwest); Mountain (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Chile Pepper, Pinyon Nut
Bordered by: Utah (north); New Mexico (east); Sonora (south); California, Nevada & Baja California (west); Colorado (northeast corner - Arizona is one of the Four Corners states)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: Arizona Trout (fish)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: chiles (mild in the south), tortillas (flour in the south), Navajo taco, beef, nopal cactus (both pad and fruit), burritos, chimichangas, menudo

The Mexican aspect of Arizona's cuisine is specifically tied to the cuisine of Sonora, the Mexican state right across the border. The two mirror each other very well. Note: I've also passed through Sonora state, on a major bus trip from Morelia (Michoacán) to Mexicali (Baja California) by way of Guadalajara (Jalisco), but that's a story for another day.

If you want to pin down Southwestern food, it is fairly easy. If you want to pin down what is specifically Arizonan, that is a bit more difficult. Kathi Long tries to do this in her cookbook on The Southwest from Williams-Sonoma, focusing on the most notable influences in Arizona cooking, from Mexico:

Arizona cooks have...looked to Mexico for inspiration. The southern part of the state borrowed from the cooking of Sonora, which lies directly across the border, a culinary alliance that reveals itself in large, thin flour tortillas, the use of nopal cactus, and a menu of mildly spiced dishes. Elsewhere in the state, residents traditionally dine on Mexican chimichangas..., menudo..., and giant burritos, as well as the more staid ranch fare introduced by early cattlemen and other settlers from the Midwest and East Coast. [Long, p. 12]

In the spirit of Arizona's Sonoran influences, I wanted to find a recipe that incorporated all three of these elements: nopal (that is, prickly pear) cactus, mild chiles and large, flour tortillas. They are out there, but I hadn't found them before I stumbled upon the massive compendium by Cheryl and Bill Jamison, The Border Cookbook: Authentic Home Cooking of the American Southwest and Northern Mexico (also on Google Books). In Arizona, burritos are standard fare - particulary massive ones. The Jamisons rightly call those burros, since a burrito is just a "little burro".

Among their many recipes for burros and burritos, one breakfast creation specifically piqued my interest: their machaca breakfast burro. Since it comes straight from Phoenix, it seemed like a good place to start.

The recipe: Machaca Breakfast Burro

As the Jamisons point out, machaca originally referred to beef or other meat.

Machaca originally referred to meat (usually beef) that was seasoned, dried for preservation, and later tenderized by pulverizing and cooking. The word comes from the verb machacar, meaning to pound or crush... Many people now use the term to describe any beef cooked well-done with seasonings and then shredded. [Alters Jamison et al., p. 75]

I don't buy a lot of meat these days, but I saw this as a great way to use up some frozen beef in my freezer. Before my former neighbor moved to Nova Scotia a few months ago he gave me some frozen beef he would've otherwise thrown out. Thawed it amounted to a pound and a half - perfect for a halved version of this recipe. This made the amount of money I put out for this recipe unusually light:

* beef (free!!! Thanks, Dale, if you ever read this)
* salt and pepper (have)
* bacon grease (if you have the bacon, it's not that difficult to make some on the spot)
* beef stock (had none, so I had to turn to the Maggi chicken bouillon in my pantry)
* onion (have)
* garlic (have)
* small Roma tomatoes (about $1 for two)
* mild green chiles (one poblano chile for about 50 cents)
* fresh lime juice (one lime for about the same)
* egg (this was optional - I wasn't planning to use one at the time but decided to add one later)
* burrito-size flour tortillas (the priciest item, about $3 for a package of eight)

This recipe was a bit more involved than many I do. First, you must briefly brown the beef in some of the bacon grease, then cook in a Dutch oven over low heat for over an hour with broth, onion & garlic. Wait for it to cool down a little, then break it up and - here's the part that I haven't done before - throw it in your food processor until shredded. You must do this in small batches lest it not shred everything.

Fry the beef a bit more until slightly drier and until some patches of beef look darker and more dessicated. Remove it, and cook the rest of the onion & garlic with the rest of the bacon grease, the reserved liquid from the Dutch oven, tomato, chile pepper (roasted and chopped) and lime juice. Add the beef and cook for about 25 minutes.

I never thought I would do this, but why the hell not?
I'm not making this for PETA after all...

The closeup hides the fact that I still need to clean my stove

25 minutes later... okay, so the stove isn't that bad...

Here is where I put the machaca mixture in the fridge, which the Jamisons say you can do at this point. I brought it out a day or so later and added an egg. Really, it added very little to the dish. I could neither taste it nor even see it at all. In retrospect, it was not necessary, and I wouldn't add it again. To be sure, the Jamisons day that part is optional.

The rest is ridiculously easy: just spoon the hot mixture into a large (Sonoran-style) flour tortilla and make yourself a burro. Eat it with salsa (my choice: a roasted tomato salsa from the Jamison's same book called salsa del norte).

Okay, mine really was more the size of a burrito, but still...

The thing about machaca-style beef: it isn't supposed to be soft and juicy, per se. Perhaps I did something wrong. I mean, it wasn't dripping and wet, but it was pleasantly soft and just a bit moist. Plus, the long, slow cooking with tomatoes and roasted poblano chile pepper, onions and garlic, bacon grease (yet another use!!!) and lime juice just blends together in the most beautiful way. I'm sorry if I'm starting to sound "foodie-ish". I really don't mean to. It was just a beautiful thing to eat. Even if you decide to turn that burro into the more diminutive burrito.

I have been subsisting off machaca burros and burritos since. I may even make a quesadilla if the mood strikes me, complete with thinkly sliced queso fresco, which is not easy to melt, let me tell you.

Sources:

Alters Jamison, Cheryl, and Bill Jamison. The Border Cookbook: Authentic Home Cooking of the American Southwest and Northern Mexico. The Harvard Common Press: Boston, 1995.

AZCentral.com. Nopales recipes. Posted date June 24, 2005.

Long, Kathi. The Southwest: New American Cooking. From the Williams-Sonoma "New American Cooking" series, Chuck Williams, general editor. Time-Life Books: San Francisco, 2001.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Arizona" page and the Food Timeline State Foods webpage link to "Arizona".

AAAAOOOO I want Crabs fer Chrismiss...

The David DeBoy classic. And if you think that's funny, try this version which is the same, only much shorter, weirder (yes, weirder) and with crabs!

@Cookbook

It figures: I find out about something inextricably linked to new social media by going to the library and picking up a print-bound cookbook. But that's just what I did the other day, when I found Eat Tweet by Maureen Evans (@cookbook on Twitter; her secondary, recipe-free handle is @cookbookmaureen). If you know Twitter at all, then you can imagine what this is: complete recipes in 140 characters or less. And it's not just the mundane stuff that I've tried to describe in as complete a sentence as I could. Maureen has very complex recipes, boiled down to their grammatical abbreviated essence. Take her October 27 recipe for Beef Wellington:

Beef Wellington: sear,chill 4filet/2T buttr. Brwn 2c mincdshroom/s+p/T oil; simmr9m+⅓c wtwine/¼t thyme; top4puffpastry,wrap filet. 30m@400℉.less than a minute ago via webMaureen Evans
cookbook

Embeddable Tweet courtesy of Blackbird Pie

As you can see, the lingo makes it possible to write a rather long recipe in Twitter format:

"Sear, then chill four filets and 2 tablespoons butter. Brown 2 cups of minced mushrooms, salt & pepper, and at tablespoon of oil. Simmer for 9 minutes, add 1/3 cup of white wine, 1/4 teaspoon thyme. Top with four puff pastries, wrap filets. 30 minutes at 400°F." And she has to find special characters that take up as little space as possible ("1/3", "1/4" and even "°F" all exist as one character each apparently). It doesn't take too long to figure out, and she has a key in the cookbook if you get lost. And now that I have the cookbook (again, library) I can scroll through the recipes even when I am off line!

Amazing what salvage archaeology will unearth

Chinese archaeologists have found what they believe to be bone soup, as reported by the BBC:

Tests are being carried out to identify the ingredients. An odourless liquid, believed to be wine, was also found.

The pots were discovered in a tomb being excavated to make way for an extension to the local airport.

"It's the first discovery of bone soup in Chinese archaeological history," the newspaper quoted Liu Daiyun of the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology as saying.

"The discovery will play an important role in studying the eating habits and culture of the Warring States Period (475-221BC)."

This would be the world's oldest soup ever unearthed. Eagerly waiting for the archaeologists to discover the chemical composition of the liquid so they can figure out what exactly went into it.