A festive kickoff was held this morning to promote the county's summer restaurant week. The promotion starts Friday and runs through Aug. 19.

Today's event at Café Troia in Towson featured sample dishes like pulled-pork sliders (Barrett's Grill in Hunt Valley), chocolate-covered strawberries (The Milton Inn), penne and tomatoes, pictured, (Basta Pasta in Timonium), short-rib sliders (Towson Tavern), shrimp salad (Island View Waterfront Cafe in Essex), and Black Rock Orchard grilled peach salad (Café Troia).

The gathering included elected officials, county employees, Chamber of Commerce members, and other dignitaries. I did spot Marty Katz, local Zagat editor, in the crowd.

Executive chef Brian Boston, pictured below, of The Milton Inn was also in attendance. He was an early organizer of Restaurant Week, now in its third year.

I couldn't resist asking him about his new restaurant venture, Highland Inn, in Howard County. He said it's coming along "slowly," but he expects to open in late September. For now, he's gearing up for restaurant week.

This summer, 38 restaurants are participating, offering lunch and dinner specials ranging from $10.12 to $35.12. (There's also a winter restaurant week.) Check out the Baltimore County Restaurant Week website for information and menus.

Photos by me 

There's still time to get in on the deals. More than two dozen restaurants are continuing to offer special prices despite the official end yesterday of the summertime version of Baltimore Restaurant Week.

The Wine Market in Locust Point is extending its promotion until Aug. 12 and is making its entire menu available, excluding the rib-eye and scallop dishes.

The Prime Rib is luring customers with a whole month of deals until Sept. 2. The restaurant also offers a half-price wine list on Sundays.

For a complete list, visit Baltimore Restaurant Week's website. Participating restaurants are noted with an "e" symbol, though diners are advised to contact restaurants for the extension dates and any changes to their menus.

The recent promotion offered three-course, prix-fixe dinner menus for $30.12 and $20.12, with some restaurants offering two-course lunch menus for $15.12.

Photo courtesy of The Prime Rib's website 

The annual Crab Bash cook-off takes place next Tuesday, Aug. 7, at B&O American Brasserie. And if you haven't been in previous years, you've been missing out on some delicious crabby dishes prepared by local and visiting chefs.

You also get to pick your favorite one. Attendees will be able to sample all the selections and then vote on the dish they like the best. The winning chef receives a "People's Choice" award.

You can tell by the participating chefs that the decision will be a tough one. So far, these chefs have signed up:

B&O American Brasserie's Thomas Dunklin
Alewife's Chad Wells
The Wine Market's Wilbur Cox
Rusty Scupper's Mark Miranda
Chef's Expressions's Jerry Edwards
Square 1682's Guillermo Tellez (Philadelphia)
The Food Market's Chad Gauss
Corner BYOB's Bernard Dehaene
Zentan's Jerry Zheng (Washington, DC)
Atwood Cafe's Derek Simcik (Chicago)

I can't wait. For the third year, I'll be on a judging panel to decide "Best in Show" for the competition. Joining me will be Reagan Warfield of Mix 106.5, Tim Williams of WJZ, and Tracey Middlekauff of Urbanite. What a fun group to pig out with.

Besides the generous amount of food, guests will also enjoy cocktails created exclusively for the event by members of the Baltimore Bartenders' Guild. There will be music, too.

Tickets are $50 a person, with a large portion of the proceeds benefiting the National Aquarium. Purchase them online.

Hope to see you there. 

Fleet Street Kitchen, the latest venture by the Bagby Restaurant Group, is scheduled to open in late August, it was announced last night. As a preview, Bagby owners David and Jane Smith hosted a tour and dinner at their Cunningham Manor in Cockeysville.

(Baltimore magazine sent summer intern Lowen Howard to the event. Here are his impressions.)

At 5, guests were greeted at a large, stone-cobbled driveway, whisked through a Dutch-style, castle-like home, and led to a backyard verandah overlooking English gardens. Waiters weaved and glided through the small, mingling crowd, serving drinks and offering bite-size portions of cod cake with parsley, foie-gras torchon, and sweet-corn soup. Soon, the group was piled into a fleet of Gator utility vehicles and given a tour of the Smiths' grounds and farm.

David Smith, pictured, spoke briefly about the history and philosophy behind Cunningham Farms. "What we will show you is an operating farm—in its first stages of evolution—providing great food for local restaurants," he said. The 10-acre property supplies products to the Bagby restaurants: Ten Ten, Bagby Pizza Co., the soon-to-open Fleet Street Kitchen near Harbor East, and Cunningham's (in the Towson City Center).

At the farm, there are 15 species of tomatoes, 240 free-range chickens, a micro-greens sanctuary, and many other vegetables, fruits, edible flowers, and herbs.

Later, guests returned to the Smiths' home and were seated at an outdoor table. Chefs Chris Becker and Omar Semidey, who cook for the Bagby restaurants, prepared a dinner menu that included salt-roasted black bass, smoked honey-brined fried chicken, and a summer vegetable gratin, pictured. Various desserts were offered, including an olive-oil lemon cake and peach-and-nectarine galette. Bettina Perry, formerly of Blue Hill Tavern, is the pastry chef.

With a food lineup like this, we're expecting great things at Fleet Street Kitchen.

Photos by Lowen Howard. 

The inaugural voyage of Waterfront Kitchen's "Dinner and a Cruise" is set for July 19 with a 90-minute sail, followed by a four-course dinner at the restaurant, hosted by chef Jerry Pellegrino.

Guests will sail on either the 50-foot Chesapeake skipjack Sigsbee or the 104-foot pungy schooner Lady Maryland, pictured, depending on which night they choose. The themed dinner cruises continue through the fall.

The evenings begin at 6 p.m. (unless otherwise noted) with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres on the pier next to the restaurant. Here's the schedule:

Aboard the Sigsbee

July 19: Summertime reds and grilling

July 26: Pinot Noirs from Willamette Valley

September 18: Syrah from around the world

September 20: Sonoma vs. Napa (5:30 p.m. departure)

October 10: France's Rhone Valley (5:30 p.m. departure)

Aboard Lady Maryland

August 16: Summer wines and seafood

September 11: Wines of Argentina

September 13: Pinot Noir and fall game birds

September 25: Wines of Northern Italy

The cost is $129 a person, excluding gratuity. For more information, visit Waterfront Kitchen's website.

The events are being held to support the Living Classrooms Tall Ships program. "The program needed a champion." explains Pellegrino, "And they're right in our backyard."

—By Joshua Lazarus, Baltimore magazine intern

Photo courtesy of the Living Classrooms website 

Gertrude's at the BMA celebrates National Rainier Cherry Day on Wednesday with a recipe for Peach Cake with Rainier Cherry Ice Cream. The Baltimore restaurant was selected to be part of a national campaign, Tree-to-Table with NW Cherries, for the second year in a row.

Gertrude's executive chef Doug Wetzel created the Peach Cake recipe for last year's promotion. Enjoy!

Peach Cake with Rainier Cherry Ice Cream

Peach Topping

6 medium fresh peaches (about 4 pounds), diced into 1/2 pieces (about 4 cups prepared fruit)

1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cake

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon table salt

8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), softened but still cool

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs at room temperature

1 egg white at room temperature

1/3 cup whole milk at room temperature

Lightly spray 9-inch round, 2-inch deep cake pan with nonstick cooking spray; set aside.

For the peach topping: Combine peaches and brown sugar in 10-inch skillet; cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until peaches are tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Pull out the peach slices and set aside in a colander and continue to cook the caramel mixture for an additional 8-10 minutes. Off heat, whisk in butter and vanilla; pour caramel mixture into prepared cake pan. Set aside while preparing cake.

For the cake: Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl; set aside.

In bowl of standing mixer fitted with flat beater, cream butter and sugar at medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Reduce speed to medium, add vanilla, and beat to combine; one at a time, add whole eggs, then egg white, beating well and scraping down bowl after each addition. Reduce speed to low; add about one-third of flour mixture and beat until incorporated. Add half of milk and beat until incorporated; repeat, adding half of remaining flour mixture and remaining milk, and finish with remaining flour. Give final stir with rubber spatula, scraping bottom and sides of bowl to ensure that batter is combined. Batter will be thick.

To bake: Working quickly, distribute cooked peaches in cake pan in even layer, gently pressing fruit into caramel. Using rubber spatula, drop mounds of batter over fruit, then spread batter over fruit and to sides of pan. Tap pan lightly against work surface to release any air bubbles. Bake until cake is golden brown and toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool 10 minutes on wire rack, then place inverted serving platter over cake pan. Invert cake pan and platter together; lift off cake pan. Cool to room temperature, about 2 hours; then cut into pieces and serve.

Cherry Ice Cream

2 cups pitted cherries

1 cup half-and-half

1/2 cup sugar

4 eggs, whisked

Take 1 cup of the pitted cherries and purée them in a blender, add the cup of cherry purée to the cup of half-and-half in a flat bottom sauce pot and place on stove top.

Add the 1/2 cup of sugar to the purée/cream mixture and over medium heat, bring to a boil.

When mixture has boiled, gradually temper the mixture into whisked eggs. Add that mixture back into the pot and cook over low heat until mixture has thickened, 3-5 minutes.

Take mixture off the stove and cool down, give the remaining 1 cup of cherries a rough chop and fold them into the ice cream mixture.

Let the mixture set up overnight and spin it the next day in an ice-cream maker. 

So what did actor Woody Harrelson eat at the raw-foods dinner at the Inn at The Black Olive on Saturday? Here's the menu:

Guacamole with avocado and mango

Mushroom ceviche on endive leaves

Watermelon and tomato gazpacho

Microgreen and kohlrabi salad, pictured

Butternut squash lasagna

Strawberry and rhubarb ice cream

But Woody almost didn't make it to the dinner.

Guests started gathering at 6 p.m. at The Inn at The Black Olive's rooftop restaurant Olive Room for a kick-off event to introduce a new social group that focuses on healthy foods and yoga.

After a few hours, people were beginning to wonder if the actor would show up. You can only drink so much "green gorilla" juice (spinach, pineapple, orange, and banana), though cocktails and organic wines were also available and became increasingly popular as the night progressed.

But Woody didn't let Black Olive co-owner Dimitris Spiliadis down. He finally arrived at 8:40 p.m. after experiencing heat-related travel woes on Amtrak, claiming "divine intervention" finally got him there.

After settling in, a relaxed, charming Woody, wearing a New York Yankees cap, addressed the group. "I'm honored to be here," he said. "Raw food is where it's at."

The dinner gave the new social group called blend + flo at the Black Olive an opportunity to showcase the innovative ways that raw foods can be prepared.

"I'm proud we are making progress in Baltimore in helping people understand raw foods," Dimitris told the 40 some diners. "Woody put this in perspective for me. It's the way he lives."

Woody stayed at Inn for seven weeks when he was filming Game Change for HBO. "You treated me so great," Woody told Dimitris at the dinner. "More importantly, you are a great friend."

Dimitris has partnered with Stacey Vandiver and Ann Marie Barbour, who run Soul Body at Bare Hill Racquet & Fitness Club, to offer monthly events, including yoga sessions.

Woody attended a yoga class at the Inn on Sunday before heading back to New York, where he's directing an off-Broadway show, Bullet for Adolf, which opens July 19, Of course, he invited us all to stop by.

Photos by me