• Sally Lunn

    It’s hard to know where to begin with Sally Lunn. As Wikipedia points out, “the origins of the Sally Lunn are shrouded in myth,” and I am not exactly the caliber of historian capable of cracking the Da Vinci Code of bread. That might be a good movie to someone though*. Sally Lunn is a delicious…

  • Spiced Carrot Soup

    In an attempt to jump-start the camping season, we headed to Green Ridge last weekend. The March weather opened up just enough time for two nights of campfire life, with a long walk on the C & O Canal and of course a hearty campfire dinner one night. I found a lot of great recipes…

  • Baltimore’s Black Chefs and Caterers, part 1

    “The French chef has been tried in the south, but, except in a few rare instances, they have failed to satisfy the peculiar demands of the southern epicure or even of the tourist who, coming south, expects dishes peculiarly southern… The demand for capable colored cooks is greater than the supply.” – The Afro-American, December…

  • “California Salad”

    In 1916, Still Pond Methodist Church on the Eastern Shore produced a church cookbook entitled “The Eastern Shore Cookbook of Maryland Recipes.” You can see that once again a community cookbook made sure to put the state’s culinary fame front and center. And why not? Certainly the cuisine that was drawing tourists to Maryland’s luxurious…

  • Red Devil’s Cake

    I found this rare little church cookbook at the Kelmscott Bookshop a few months ago. It’s got a bunch of old photographs and a brief history of a town in Maryland right on the Pennsylvania border, Bentley Springs. “On October 4, 1837, the Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad obtained a right-of-way from William Dorsey and leveled…