The Sun’s restaurant critic Elizabeth Large announced her retirement today on her blog Dining@Large. Her departure will certainly change the scenery of restaurant coverage in Baltimore.

I feel lucky to have worked with Elizabeth when I was at The Sun and to have cut my food-reviewing teeth under her gaze. She’s a pro. She is kind. And she is just a really nice person.

Elizabeth, I hope you’re going to write a tell-all or, at least, a memoir of all your eating adventures. It would be fascinating.

I know. I should have gone to the grocery store earlier this week, but I just couldn’t get there. So this morning, there I was, circling the parking lot at the Loch Raven Towson store looking for a place to park along with dozens of other procrastinators. Not a good sign.

Another bad omen: There were no carts to be found near the store. Bracing myself, I entered the mayhem. I was still shocked. Whole shelves, bins, display cases were empty of products. Did everyone really need bagged lettuce, all manner of cheese, frozen pizzas, and store-made coffeecakes? I didn’t dare go near the toilet-paper aisle.

My list wasn’t extensive (cat litter—thank you, Miss Kitty—and ingredients to make a balsamic chicken dish with pepper-spiked polenta. I’m guilty of snow cooking, too), but the lines to the checkout were at least 10 deep at each register. And that’s where the fun began as people cajoled for a better spot, bemoaned their purchases, and became fast friends in the shopping-cart melee.

There was one woman who blamed her husband for making her come to the store for just salsa and chips. We commiserated knowingly. (A kind person let her move up in line.) There was a guy who became a standup comedian. ("When I came in here, I didn’t need a shave.") And there was another gent who worried about going through the self-checkout for the first time. We supported him.

Somehow, we all got through it. One thing is certain, though. There is going to be a lot of cooking and snacking going on as Mother Nature whips up her own brew outside. Be safe. Eat well.

In a quick turnaround, Pazza Luna closed Sunday and reopens tomorrow (Feb. 2) with new owners Christa and Davide Rossi. Chef Davide, a native of Milan, Italy, is introducing a new menu but will honor Restaurant Week (which runs through Feb. 7) reservations with the promised selections, he said on the phone this afternoon.

The acquisition happened fast, the chef said. He was on a beach in Key West, FL, last week when he got a call that the Locust Point restaurant was available. The couple, who also own a seasonal restaurant, Ports of Italy, in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, decided to take advantage of the offer.

According to Ports of Italy’s website, Christa, who grew up in Baltimore, and Davide met while he was a pasta chef at Baltimore’s Sotto Sopra and she worked in the front of the house. They then lived and worked in Milan before returning to the United States in 2004 to open Ports of Italy.

There, the chef creates "authentic Northern Italian dishes with an innovative twist, featuring fresh handmade pasta and risotto which changes daily," the website says.

For now, Pazza Luna will be open from 5-10 p.m. Tues.-Sun. Davide says he plans to eventually be open for lunch and dinner seven days a week.

B&O American Brasserie is offering a pair of free tickets to see an advance screening on Feb. 9 of the movie Valentine’s Day . Here’s the deal: Eat at the restaurant on Feb. 7 or 8 and receive the passes (limit two tickets per person per table) with the purchase of dessert. It's probably a good idea to make reservations.

The restaurant, under the helm of chef E. Michael Reidt, has also introduced some new additions to the menu. On the dinner menu, you’ll find entrees like arctic char, sweet potato gnocchi, rosemary-skewered scallops, and adobo braised pork shank.

In case you haven’t seen the TV commercials for Valentine’s Day, the movie features an all-star ensemble cast, including Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Patrick Dempsey, Julia Roberts, and Ashton Kutcher (pictured with Jennifer Garner, also in the film), and involves couples and singles in L.A. grappling with romance over the course of one Valentine’s Day. Sounds like a date movie to me.

Photo: courtesy imbd.com

James and Austin Carpenter, the husband-wife owners of Swirl Wine in Timonium, send out a weekly e-mail about their free Friday wine tastings. This week, they also talked about a recent visit to Joe Squared, which I thought was great. They agreed to let me share their experience:

"The other night, after we closed the shop, we went to our favorite place for pizza, a place downtown called Joe Squared. They have a coal-fired oven that makes heavenly, thin-crust, delicate pizza, with fresh toppings in a cool, hipster, artsy ambiance. We saddled up at the bar, ordered a Hawaiian pizza and got something to wet our whistle.

There was a lot of activity up front, where they usually have bands play, as a DJ was setting up his elaborate equipment and people were starting to gather. It seemed that we stumbled across an underground break-dance party that was just about to begin. Crazy-retro!

Austin and I had a perfect angle to view all the action from our seats at the dimly lit bar. A circle of eclectic people formed by the DJ, and when I say eclectic, I really mean it. There was a guy with his face painted like a skull (Austin wanted to stick around to see his dance, cause you know, a guy with his face painted has got to be good). We devoured our pizza as the dancers would take their turn, one by one, in the center of the circle to maneuver and thrust their bodies to the high tempo beats.

After watching this old style of dance, that we thought was extinct, but evidently is making a comeback, we thought we'd apply the same thought process to our tasting this week. You know the saying, what once was old, is now new, so let's revisit some oldies but goodies."

So today (Jan. 22), James and Austin will be featuring Merlot at their wine tasting. As James said in the e-mail, "Let's bring it back, baby. Fall in love with Merlot all over again."

I’ve been to the couple’s wine tastings, and they are so much fun. Stop by the store for the free sips and snacks between 4-7 p.m. Fridays. You’ll enjoy it.

But more on Joe Squared. In one of those Smalltimore moments, owner Joe Edwardsen called me this week. He said his new restaurant, Cuadrado, across from his pizza restaurant is still on track.

Joe hopes for a March opening. I was glad to get the update. I had blogged about Cuadrado last February. It will be a take on a Mexican barbeque place. The name is Spanish for "squared," of course.

BOP Pizza in Fells Point is donating 100 percent of its proceeds today (Jan. 21) to Haitian relief efforts. What a great opportunity to help out the disaster victims. The brick-oven pizza place on South Broadway is open till midnight.

The locally owned Fallston restaurant is opening a second Basta Pasta in the old Steak & Ale spot in Timonium. The target date is Feb. 1, said manager Matt Clary.

The new restaurant, which has seven separate dining rooms, has been refurbished with paint, new flooring, and lots of granite. The owners—Mike Sakellis and Yanni Livaditis—kept a lot of the wood from Steak & Ale. But the place isn’t as dark and dim as the old restaurant.

"We use the word intimate" to describe the ambiance, Clary said.

The menu will stay much the same with Italian and seafood dishes, though there will be additional offerings at both locations, such as more salads and seafood. Basta Pasta is open for lunch and dinner.

People in Harford County love this place. I kept meaning to get there, but didn’t. I can’t wait to try the new one.