Hooray for Summer: Baltimore Edition

Posted on | June 8, 2010 | No Comments

I’ve found that being home makes me full, happy and incredibly lazy.  For weeks now I’ve been telling myself that I have to post–I have so much to tell everyone–but I put it off to be lazy and eat food all day.  I need to get myself on a schedule and really put myself to work, hone my skills as a writer and a blogger.  It’s a problem that I get so distracted by other things.  When I’m at school, all I ever want to do is blog and talk about food, and now that I have all this time, I’m being a complete flake!  What is wrong with me?

In all honesty, summer hasn’t been all lazing around for me.  A couple of weeks ago, I went to Baltimore to see my sister, Cait, graduate from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).  Now, whenever I travel, it’s always incredibly important that our food stops are planned and safe for me and Grandma.  Sometimes travelling is more stressful than it is fun, but so far we’ve done a great job of keeping gluten free while outside of our native kitchen. 

Hooray for Baltimore!  Baltimore is a pretty exciting place.  There always seems to be something going on.  At the moment there were several graduations and MICA had a show for all of the graduation artists.  There were so many amazing artists to see!  If you want to take a look at some of my favorites go to my sister’s blog (click here) and check out her list of “lovelies” on the right.  I really enjoyed my sister’s Baltimore quilt (of course) and Marissa Lanterman’s portraits of Helena Bonham Carter, Steve Martin and Christopher Walken.  Rachel Dougherty’s illustrations were really awesome too.  My sister has such talented friends! 

But I digress.  Seeing all of the art was really awesome, but I’m here to talk about food!  Cait took us to a really interesting restaurant which was located in what used to be a mill.  Most of the decorations were actually from when the building was a functioning mill.  It might sound a bit cheesy and odd but the Woodberry Kitchen is really amazing!  There’s just one small set back that I’d like to get out of the way before I tell you how fantastic the food is.

 Here’s the menu.  It’s a little bit different from the one you’ll see online.  What’s the problem?  Well…

Yeah…It seems a little counterproductive to have a gluten free menu with no gluten free fryer.  However, for me, this just limited french fries (which was, of course, what I wanted along with my burger).  So just keep this in mind if you happen to pass by the Woodberry Kitchen.  For those of you with a slight gluten intolerance, it might be fine.  For those of us with Celiac Disease, I’d recommend staying away just in case. 

I ordered the burger and fries and gave the fries away to Cait, who said they were really good.  The burger came on gluten free toast, which the restaurant buys from a local baker.  The toast was amazing.  The burger was HUGE!  See for yourself!

Look at that!  I had no idea how I was going to eat it without looking ridiculous.  But once I actually took my first big bite, I didn’t care what I looked like. It was an amazing burger.  It had been so long since I had a burger with anything close to a bun, so I was extremely pleased.  The toast was crunchy and yummy which complimented the burger really nicely. 

Dessert was just as pleasant, but as it was much darker in the restaurant by then, it was difficult to get good pictures of our desserts.  I had some strawberries and cream, which was composed of these teeny tiny strawberries that were so fresh and sweet that I don’t think I can ever look at store-bought strawberries the same way ever again.  I was a very happy camper (until we had to cramp ourselves back into Cait’s Jeep Wrangler–Mom and I get motion sickness…enough said). 

Aren’t they just gorgeous?  Pictures probably would have been even better if it hadn’t been raining!  Baltimore failed us on that count.  But my hair stayed intact! 

It’s too bad I didn’t wear heels though.  I felt so short next to Cait in her big pink heels.  But I’m digressing again.  It was really cool to be in Baltimore again and hang out with Cait.  Of course, after the three or so hours it takes to get home, I was also happy to be back in Jersey and our own kitchen.  It’s nice to know that there’s always that comfort waiting for us no matter where in the world we are next.

If anyone is ever in Baltimore, take a look at the Woodberry Kitchen and let me know what you think! 

Congrats to everyone graduating this year! 

Miel

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