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Looking for a "Hot Spot" to wine and dine your date for Valentine's Day? Then check out some of these local Baltimore specials: - La Tavola (Italian)- Saint Valentine’s Day 3-course dinner menu
- Milan (Italian)- 4-course Valentine's menu available all weekend. Complimentary flower for the ladies & champagne toast!
- Milton Inn (Contemporary American)- Saturday & Sunday, 3-course prix-fixe dinner in one of Baltimore Counties most romantic settings ($85/person)
- Morton's The Steakhouse (Steakhouse)- Celebrate Valentine's with its Signature Steak & Seafood 3-course menu ($99.99/couple). Morton's full dinner menu also available. Extended hours on Sunday.
- Pazo (Mediterranean)- celebrate Valentine's Day on February 13th & 14th. Several prix-fixe menus for 2 will be offered at $59, $69 & $79, as well as a $39/person prix-fixe menu.
- Petit Louis Bistro (French)- special Valentine's Day brunch & prix-fixe menu for lunch & dinner ($59/person; or $89/person w. wine pairings)
- Restaurant Sabor (Continental)- 3-course menu plus an amuse-bouche ($58/person)
- Rusty Scupper (seafood)- Jazz Brunch 11am-2pm $38.95. Dinner 3pm-11pm: special a la carte menu
- Sullivan's Steakhouse (Steakhouse)- Available all Valentine's Day Weekend: 3-course Sweetheart prix-fixe menu ($79/couple). Also featuring regular dinner menu.
- The Wine Market (Contemporary American)- Sunday night it will offer a special 4-course menu for only $49/person. An optional wine pairing will be available for an additional $20
- Check out part 1 and the $32 Valentine's Dinner at the Admiral Fell Inn ($65 Value)
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Want a romantic Valentine's night out but on a tight budget then here is a great deal...
For $32, you get one five-course prix fixe Valentine's dinner at the historic Admiral Fell Inn in Fell's Point ($65 value). This Groupon is per person, so pick up two to cover yourself and another. Once you get your Groupon, call ahead to save a spot. Space is limited, so quickly reserve your ideal seating. Your choices are: - Friday, February 12, at 7 p.m. (lounge opens at 4 p.m.)
- Saturday, February 13, at 6 p.m. (lounge opens at 3 p.m.)
- Saturday, February 13, at 8:30 p.m. (lounge opens at 3 p.m.)
- Sunday, February 14, at 7 p.m. (lounge opens at 3 p.m.)
The menu includes a wine pairing (additional drinks are extra). Your meal is held inside the Inn's romantic Stone Room, which is an intimate alcove.
Click here to see the menu
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The Red Prince has arrived in Toronto! Nope, not royalty perse, but a new variety of apple, which I got the opportunity to try last week!
According to the Red Prince website, the Red Prince apple was discovered in 1994 in an orchard located on the German/Holland border in a small town called Weert. The discovery happened by the owners when one of their apple trees had produced the most beautiful red apples among a sea of green apples. At the time, they believed it was a gift from Mother Nature and later discovered that it had been developed through the natural crossing of two varieties: the Jonathan and the Golden Delicious.
In 2001, Irma and Marius Botden, co-owners of Global Fruit, planted their first Red Prince trees in Ontario. Nine years later, as exclusive growers in Canada, they are proud to introduce the Red Prince apple to Ontarians.
The Red Prince is a premium apple, locally grown in Thornbury, Ontario, available during the winter months. Recognized for its antioxidant-rich red skin, the Red Prince has inherited the sweetness and juiciness of the Golden Delicious and the crispness and tanginess of the Jonathan. The Red Prince is ideal for fresh eating, in salads or in baking and pairs particularly well with sharp cheddars and blue cheeses.
I have to admit I am fussy about my apples - they can't be too tart or sweet and I don't like the skin to be too thick so I was interested to try these based on the above description. They are perfect - kind of like a cross between a Honey Crisp and a Granny Smith and I wish I was well enough to be eating cheese so I could pair this with some roquefort... My friend Alicia tried one and suggested it was "a very princely apple - well deserving of the ostentatious little pillow. So delicious, sweet, juicy and perfectly crispy. I loved it!"
(so did Cleo!)
The apple was officially launched in Toronto on Friday with a "Civility Event" featuring giveaways, free hand massages and etiquette tips provided by the Etiquette Ladies - the launch of the Red Prince Civility Challenge, basically a 30 day challenge promoting simple courtesies (e.g. today's challenge is "Say please and thank you").
In my Media Pack, I also received some samples of Red Prince Royal Energy Bars.
These energy bars with all-natural ingredients are packed with fibre, protein and essential fatty acids. Great for breakfast or a snack anytime of the day, this was actually the first thing apart from soup and toast that I ate last week when I was recovering from my stomach flu and my body really appreciated the all-natural goodness. With only 8 ingredients and a super easy (and modifiable) recipe, you can bet I will be making these soon!
If you are in Toronto, keep an eye out for them in your local Sobey's.
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Food is no less subject to fashion (at least amongst those that can afford to be choosy) than are frocks and footwear. In late nineteenth century America, to serve apple pie ‘in the fashion’ was to serve it with ice-cream. As the fashionable menu language was still French, this was to serve it ‘a la mode.’ No knowledge of the French language was required to have a comfortable certainty that one would get ice-cream if one ordered pie a la mode – and this was the case right up until …well, almost if not definitely the present time.
It was not always so. Once upon a time (the seventeenth century) a dish styled ‘a la mode’ (often spelled alamode) referred to a meat (usually beef) dish. The certainty ended there however. There was a huge variation in recipes for Alamode Beef. To many, including the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary, alamode beef consisted of ‘scraps and remainders of beef boiled down into a thick soup or stew’ – in other words it is a dish of recycled leftovers glamorized with a fancy French name. At one time or another, in England and America, other cooks and cookbook writers have given the name to virtually any beef stew or pot-roast – each individual no doubt determined that theirs is the ‘real’ dish.
Alamode Beef was a common café and take-out item, and major cities in the English speaking world had ‘Alamode Beef Shops’ where no doubt the version sold was not always the most savoury – metaphorically speaking.
The author of an article in The Ladies Literary Cabinet (New York, 1819) was quite adamant on the subjects of alamode beef shops (the English variety) and the definitive recipe – in this case a rather elegant dish of beef larded with fat bacon and cooked slowly, slowly, in a sealed pot.
Real Beef Alamode.
Though what are called alamode shops swarm in London, there is not, perhaps, one place under that denomination in the city where the real beef alamode is sold. What passes under this name in England is nothing more than the coarsest pieces of beef stewed into sort of seasoned soup, not at all superior to those of ox cheek or leg of beef, and often by no means so good. The real alamode beef is well known to be thus made. Take some of the veiny piece or a part of the thick flank, or rather a small round, commonly called the mouse buttock, of the finest ox-beef, but let be at least five inches thick. Cut thick slices of fat bacon into proper lengths for lardings of about three quarters of an inch thick; dip them first into vinegar and then into a mixed powder of finely beaten mace, long pepper, nutmeg, a clove or two, and double the united weight of salt. With a small knife or larding pin cut holes in the beef to receive the bacon thus prepared; the lardings tolerably thick and even; rub the beef over with the remainder of the seasoning; put it into a pot or pan just sufficiently large to contain it, and add a gill of vinegar, a couple of large onions, some sweet herbs, a few chives, a little lemon peel, some truffles and morels, and half a pint of wine. It should be very closely covered up and have a wet cloth round edge to prevent the steam from evaporating. It must be dressed over a stove or very slow fire, and will require six hours to do it properly. When half done it should be taken off, turned, and again closed up as before. If thick flank or the veiny piece be used, it may necessary to tie up the beef with tape, on putting it into the pan or pot; which of course must be taken off when meat is dressed.
Quotation for the Day.
Smell brings to mind … a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town. Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years.
Diane Ackerman.
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