Learning Something New Every Day: Orange Crushes

I spent this past weekend in Dewey with my sister and friends, celebrating my sister's upcoming wedding. The weekend involved many of my sister's favorite things (tax-free shopping, cover bands, oysters, beach time, one actual good night of sleep). Like most trips to Dewey, it also involved orange crushes. Lots of them.

Orange crushes...I'm a fan (and here's a good recipe). Here's a little flashback - from our trip to Duck in 2011:

So here's the crazy thing: I had no idea that crushes are a regional drink. I just assumed that everyone in the country drank them. I mean...they're delicious. Why wouldn't everyone drink them?

But as I discovered this weekend - when none of my sister's friends or Cail had ever heard of them - they're strictly a Maryland/Delaware thing. That realization was surprising - and yes, I'm proud.

Between crushes and crabs, we get all the good summertime stuff, don't we?

The Incredible Edible Egg

Lately, I have just not had the time or inclination to get crazy in the kitchen.

But I still get bored by the same things over and over again.

The solution: Eggs.

Egg-based recipes are easy to shop for, easy to cook, and usually pretty good.

This onion frittata from the May 2011 issue of Bon Appetit is a great example:

It was super easy to make and, with a salad, made a perfect dinner.

We also liked the huevos rancheros from - of all places - the Williams Sonoma catalog:

I used a jar of Ceriello tomato sauce instead of making my own roasted sauce

(not that I'm opposed to making my own...I just didn't have time).

Both satisfying, cheap and - most importantly - so simple.

From the Sea

It's been seafood city at my house lately. 

First, Mike and Alicia brought home a ton of trout from Memorial Day

at Keuka Lake, so Cooper smoked a bunch of it:

Then Cooper spent an afternoon fishing on the Bay with his friend Tony. 

He came home with four rockfish filets that made outrageously good

rockfish ceviche (my own recipe):

And THEN we closed our our weekend with a bushel of crabs from Conrad's:

Mike, Alicia, Kyle, Mary, Bill, Jeff and Christine came over 

(we hadn't seen J&C forever...that was the official occasion for the crab feast).

The crabs were my first all year and they were awesome 

(the first of the year usually are).

We didn't quite finish them, so I picked the last 14 yesterday (took forever)

and made crab and fried chicken sandwiches (with the leftover RoFo).

Summer is here. And it tastes so good.

Get In My House

 A Jeffrey Bilhuber-designed (updated) game room in a Tuxedo Park home? Umbrellas inside? A massive floral sofa?

Yes. Please.

When I think about the parties I could have in this space, it nearly makes me cry.

[Photo from Elle Decor.]

NYC Recap

Last month, Cooper, Mike, Alicia and I spent a very fun, slightly rainy, completely exhausting weekend in New York. We stayed in Chelsea (super central) and got to hang out with a bunch of friends (Stacy, Eileen and Brad and my college friend Sumi), eat and drink really well, and generally have a great time. Like this:

Highlights included:

• The seafood tower at Balthazar. Though overall, Balthazar isn't actually any better than Petit Louis, that tower was impressive. I wish Team Wolf-Foreman would put one on their menu.
• The many floors of inspiration at ABC Carpet & Home. Seriously, that place is incredible.
• Eataly. All of it. We had a fabulous lunch - short rib bolognese for Cooper and an asparagus, proscuitto and egg flatbread for me - at the Batali-Bastianich temple of Italian food. Everything about the place made me breathless - so many incredible ingredients, plus restaurants!, all in one place.
• The impressive cheeriness of  the C. Wonder store. Just so happy.
• A spicy Tanteo margarita. We visited Mike's college friend Jonathan in his Soho office, where his  tequila company is headquartered. Jonathan started the company a few years ago - he makes tequilas infused with a few flavors, including jalapeno. I'm a sucker for spicy drinks; the margarita he made us with the jalapeno tequila as killer.

Less fun parts of the weekend included being drenched by a jerk who drove through a puddle just to splash us (and I mean drenched) and realizing that we are old (that realization came while surrounded by about ten thousand 22 year-olds at Biergarten).

By the time we boarded the train Sunday morning, we were exhausted. I think I was still tired the following Tuesday. But it was a great time - there's just no place else like New York. It's a great place to visit.

And Baltimore's a great place to come home to.

Old School Crab Recipes

 

Today in The Sun: The second installment of my three-part crab series. This one's about old school crab recipes.

I talked to a bunch of restaurant people, but the real meat of the article came from local cookbooks, like the 50th anniversary cookbook put out by Cooper's mom's garden club, Of Tide and Thyme (the Junior League of Annapolis cookbook that I love) and an amazing collection of recipes called The Crab Cookbook, written by a guy named Whitey Schmidt.

I spent a bunch of time on the phone with the people behind all three of those books - everyone loves talking about cooking crab.

And why shouldn't they?

Photo by Baltimore Sun photographer Algerina Perna.

Gin Season

It's G&T time again and apparently, this year, that means a few things. Fancy tonic (one of this season's most prominent cocktail trends..."supermarket tonic" just won't do, says Troy Patterson). Grapefruit garnishes. Bitters.

But all of these are very minor twists on the classic drink; variations that will elevate without changing its original structure. That's appropriate: Gin and tonics are, more than anything else, about tradition.

They're about the British stiff upper lip in the face of raging colonial heat. About linen and white shoe season. About drinks on my parents' patio and then, when I was older, my deck.

They're full of stories and history. They're refreshing and crisp - and when they're strong, they're a bracing slap in the face.

I love specialty cocktails. I drink them all the time - I enjoy seeing what a creative bartender can concoct.

But even the most fabulous specialty drink loses its luster for me after one - two at the most. I get bored.

That's when I turn back to my trusty friend, the G&T. Classic, like a white button down or a string of pearls. Never boring, never disappointing.

And now, back for the summer.