With 10 seconds left in the shift, Tim Fowler, 52, controls the bouncing puck near his own net, wheels around, and sprints toward the other end of the rink. As the clock ticks down, he zooms past two defenders, floats to his right, and fires a perfect wrist shot into the far left side of the goal. No horn blares, no sirens flash, and the only sound of adulation comes from his teammates on...

It is dark and chilly and there's a steady huffing of autumn wind that keeps the dry leaves skittering along the walkways of Patterson Park. Ghosts and Halloween goblins lurk behind every tree. But then, suddenly, 4,000 people have sprung up around you, with handmade paper lanterns casting enough light to banish the ghouls from your mind. There is music—alternately moody and cheerful—and there...

When Sam Curreri opened Sammy's Trattoria in Mount Vernon in June 2006, he thought he was well prepared to own his own restaurant. After all, he'd spent a dozen years as general manager at one of Baltimore's busiest restaurants, Chiapparelli's. Curreri figured he had seen it all. Then his sprinkler system failed. And flooded the restaurant. The day he had a big political dinner booked. "It almost...

It's a dessert lover's dream, a Fort Knox of foodstuffs. Stacked on racks inside a refrigerated corridor in a warehouse in Pikesville are hundreds upon hundreds of sweet slabs of cheesecake, each sealed inside an individually sized plastic container like Snow White in her glass coffin. Some slices are marbled with flamingo swirls of strawberry or smoky streaks of chocolate, while other unadorned...