Aspirational Asparagus

©2012 John Houser III

Big news! I am back to having a weekly piece in The Baltimore Sun! I will be covering the seasonal fruits and vegetables at our local farmers market. I'm really excited to tackle this pretty serious undertaking.
The farmers’ market has become a central part of food shopping for many people again. This time ten years ago farmers’ markets were considered a little too hippy-ish for most people. As the farm-to-table culture in cooking and food circles gained more popularity so has the idea of supporting farmer’s market. There are many farmers’ markets around and in Baltimore, most notably the Sunday JFX farmers’ market as well as the Waverly market and the new Fells Point market (both on Saturdays). Each of the farmers’ markets in the area share many of the same vendors but all have their own charm and personality to offer the patrons who come by every week to get their food. From early spring to late fall our area farmers’ markets provide us with an abundance of local and seasonable food produced by people who care as much about the craft of farming as they do making a buck or two. This is the reason for these articles, to help you navigate what is in season and more importantly; how to cook it. I have chosen to kick off my market guide by featuring the Grande Dame of spring: asparagus. Here's the link:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/dining/bs-fo-harvest-asparagus-recipes-20120518,0,5684412.story

I came up with three recipes and I'm pretty proud of all three. Here's the line up:

1. Asparagus soup
2. Grilled asparagus in a bacon/ kimchi emulsion
3. Shaved asparagus with prosciutto and poached egg on toast

Knives are fun

©2012 John Houser III

Most useless culinary tool ever???

#maybenotbutprettyfuckinguseless

Epic Kale

I had a pretty big piece come out a few weeks ago. It was all about kale. Kale has been getting a lot of play lately and has become a new poster vegetable for farmers markets and sustainable/ organic food types. It's super cheap and extremely versatile to cook with. So with this in mind, my editors at The Sun contacted me and charged me with the task of coming up with three recipes featuring kale. As a bonus, I got to shoot the pictures for the piece as well. The final product turned out really well. I got the front page of the taste section as well as three new recipes to add to my repertoire this summer when we always have a ton of kale in the fridge from  our local CSA. Here's what the page layout looked like:

(©2012 John Houser II)

Did I mention that I did all of this in four days? Yes, I'm bragging a bit, but it was a hell of a lot of fun. So I haven't had a chance to post original recipes to this blog, but I got paid to do it for someone else and link the page for you all to read and get the recipes. So I hope you like the piece and the recipes. The soup is my favorite BTW, it kicks ass. Talk to you all soon. Here's the link to the piece on The Baltimore Sun's website.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/dining/bs-fo-kale-recipes-20120413,0,7057280.story

Cheers,

John

Mad Menu

I am, believe it or not, working on new content for the blog but I did want to point out this cool piece I had in The Baltimore Sun last week. Mad Men came back to TV and to complement the return of the show I wrote a piece providing retro food and drink recipes. For the food we researched old recipes from long-gone restaurants in the Baltimore area that had their renaissance in the 60's. Most of the recipes came from a great book called "Dining In -- Baltimore". It's a fun book featuring classic recipes that might not be easy to make but is definitely worth a read (if you can find a copy). I changed a few ingredients here and there to make it easier for the home cook to handle while trying to maintain the integrity of the original recipe.

Link: http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/dining/bal-pictures-mad-meninspired-dining-20120316,0,7711264.photogallery

Along with the food, I also got to pair drinks with each course. I'm not a huge mixed drink aficionado, but the drinks I chose were true to the time and goddamn tasty if I do say myself. The "last word" is now my new favorite drink and will be a staple of this summer's cookouts. I also learned to love Campari while testing the drinks. Drink testing, as you can imagine, is the hardest part of food writing what with the drinking and ensuing inebriation.

The wonderful part of this piece is that although it was written for the premiere episode of the season, you can make these recipes for any episode you want. So go on and read, make the recipes and try not to drink too many of the drinks (I know it's hard). If you have any questions, please feel free to ask as always.

Cheers,
Johnny

There is a lot going on (aka: apology #8,273.9)

I feel like I am neglecting my first (fake) child by giving attention to my real child/ jobs/ life and I feel horrible for it. I have been writing recipes for The Sun lately though. They have me developing tailgate recipes for the Baltimore Ravens games. It's been a hell of a lot of fun and makes me wish that recipe development was my real job. Hopefully one day, but until then check them out:

Meatball subs: http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/dining/bs-fo-tailgate-recipe-0113-20120112,0,4732205.story

Chili: http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/dining/bs-fo-tailgate-recipe-1230-20111229,0,6567223.story

I have another on coming up this week. I hope it's not the last one because I like doing this but also because I want the Ravens to go to the Super Bowl (and beat Tom Brady on national TV). I'll post it as soon as it goes live.

I will feed this beast more and do what I can to get recipes cooking tips to you, my wonderful (and sexy might I add) readers.

Cheers and pickles,
Johnny

P.S.
Here's a photo of one of my favorite grilling dishes. This recipe will pop up with the spring flowers, but until then imagine how good it is (or just bother me so I'll post it early).

Restaurant review: Patrick's of Pratt Street tempts tradition

Restaurant review: Patrick's of Pratt Street tempts tradition

You say tomato I say tomate

©John Houser III 2011

Summer is in full bloom and the tomatoes are attacking. They are ubiquitous right now from the farmer's markets to family-owned road side stands. Around this time of year I constantly get bombarded with questions about what to do with the 30 quarts of tomatoes that someone has just bought. The first answer is always "just make sauce and jar it" and then I get the look. You know the one. The "no shit dude, of course I'm making sauce. Why else would I have bought 197 pounds of tomatoes?" look. What my tomato laden friends mean to ask is "Look shitbird, if I have to eat one more bowl of pasta, I'm gonna open a vein!! Help!?"

So it is with this in mind that I will give you a culinary life raft. This recipe takes less that ten minutes to make and will become a go-to recipe in your arsenal of summer dishes. As a side or a snack it never ceases to please. It also is a recipe that the sum of its parts are greater than just the few ingredients in it. The higher quality of tomato or olive oil, the better the dish will be as a whole. When people ask me about this recipe they seem to think that its complicated. This couldn't be farther from the truth. This dish is dead simple and really doesn't require much cooking.

It's called Pan Con Tomate and unsurprisingly, when translated, it means bread with tomato. It is my favorite tomato recipe and I make it year round. This time of the year though is especially great for making pan con tomate because the variety of tomatoes to choose from is so wonderfully diverse. I've made this recipe with red tomatoes, green tomatoes, white tomatoes (yes there are!), numerous heirloom varieties and a mixture of all of the above.

I had eaten versions of this recipe before, but it wasn't until I spent two weeks in Spain last year that I really became obsessed with the stuff. In Barcelona, where we spent most of our time, they serve it to you with every meal. Like the basket of bread you get here in America, pan con tomate comes out at the beginning of the meal as a complimentary appetizer, a saucy welcome mat if you will.

Before we start let it be noted that this is a base recipe. Try it this way once and then feel free to improvise. Herbs, fruit and spices all can be added to enhance and change this dish, but this is the mothership recipe. Like I said, just try this once this way first. You might never want to try it another way. It's beauty in simplicity.

So lets get in to it shall we????

Pan Con Tomate

©John Houser III 2011

Working like House Elf

(Jed Kirschbaum, Baltimore Sun / June 30, 2011)

Here is a Link to my latest restaurant review for the Baltimore Sun. I would love to know what you guys think. Leave comments and share this with your friends.

That burger was really good even though it was overcooked (I have no idea how they did it).

Restaurant review: Sumptuous sandwiches at On the Hill Cafe

Just a few quick things about the immediate future.

La Petite Sciere: my favorite Foie Gras purveyor in Paris.
BTW, random pics like this will now be the norm.

Are you tired of me not blogging everyday? Yeah, me too. I am from here on out going to loosen up the format of this blog. I will continue to post recipes as much as I can. Two recipes a month is what I'm going to aim for. With work, baby, doing restaurant reviews and cooking classes I'm a wee bit swamped.

So I will update the blog with as many random pictures of food and non sequiturs as I can. There will be waaaayyy more updates than usual. I've normally spent my time planning these blog posts and driving myself a bit crazy when they don't go up. Now, if there is something that I make, see, or eat, it's more than likely going up on this blog.

I hope you enjoy my less anal approach.

Cheers,
Johnny