I’m not the only one who raids the kitchen cabinets to add extras to my cookie dough. Several local shops have discovered the joys of combining dried fruits, assorted chocolate chips, and even pretzels in their recipes. The Fresh Market’s Kitchen Sink Cookies are a crunchy combo of chips, raisins, nuts, and more. Evergreen Cafe’s Everything cookie and Whole Food’s Jumble cookie are also studded with a satisfying mix of yummy additives. But the winner may be another Everything cookie, pictured, found at Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore’s Lamill Coffee.

Some local chefs are thinking outside the bag—at least, when it comes to potato chips. Goodbye, brand names. Hello, chips made in the restaurant kitchen. Places like The Dogwood Restaurant, Todd Conner’s, McFaul’s IronHorse Tavern at Sanders’ Corner, and Heavy Seas Alehouse are among those frying up their own crispy spud slices. Matt Seeber, executive chef at Heavy Seas Alehouse, says, “If I can do it myself in-house, then why not?”

Back in 2009, Jon Zerivitz needed a hobby, so he picked up a home-brew kit. “Pretty much after the first time I brewed, I knew I wanted to do something in the beer industry,” he says. Through mutual friends, Zerivitz, pictured, left, met Kevin Blodger, the medal-winning head brewer at Gordon Biersch in Chicago, a Baltimore native who wanted to come back home.

Johnny Rad’s bartender Evan Tanner never planned on becoming a pickle maker. But that’s exactly what happened. “I like pickles,” he says. “I couldn’t find the kind I like.” He began experimenting with home canning and came up with flavors like Old Bay and onion and lemongrass and dill. “It ties into being a bartender,” he says. “Flavors are one of my passions.” Tanner, 40, now has the required licensing and is selling his jars of Tanner’s Pickles at shops like Green Onion market and The Wine Source. He also plans to build a processing plant.

Townhouse Kitchen + Bar (1350 Lancaster St., 443-268-0323) fits right into the glitzy Harbor East restaurant scene with its sophisticated, polished look and power-people vibe. The huge bar is a great place to check out the crowd, or you can nestle into the cozy, black-leather booths or grab a seat at one of the plush sofas in the well-lit lounge.

As a criminal-justice major at Towson University, Tony Conrad once dreamed of a career with the FBI. But after four years of working in telecommunications, the lifelong waterman could no longer ignore what seemed a clarion call to catch crabs. “My cousin Billy was a waterman,” explains Conrad, 37. “My great grandfather was a waterman, [and] my great, great grandmother had a seafood restaurant in the 1800s.”

First, Oprah. Then, Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Next, Diane Sawyer. The elegant chocolates made at The Velvet Chocolatier (10403 Stevenson Rd., Stevenson, 410-365-9883) have been creating quite a stir. Oprah Winfrey named them one of her favorite picks in 2011. (She’s partial to the caramel cups with dark chocolate and sea salt.) Louis-Dreyfus discovered these decadent morsels while filming Veep in Baltimore.