Bawlmerese for Enjoy Your Meal
While my mental vacation continues, visit Jennifer Walker at My Morning Chocolate for the story behind the BAH blog. It’s like VH1’s Behind the Music, blogger style. But you get recipes instead of voice overs, hang overs, and mug shots. And you find out what I really think about “original recipe”…not in a KFC way (I’m devoted to extra crispy).
While I’m away on my imaginary vacation, I’m leaving the pantry stocked with posts from Exit 51 that would have been part of the Flashback Friday series. The following originally appeared on 7/29/09 at Exit 51.
Sharp
We have accumulated an odd assortment of knives here in our kitchen. Some were wedding gifts. Others were random purchases. We’ve even inherited a couple that are probably almost as old as I am. My grandfather was a meat cutter and every so often some of his A&P work knives would find their way home with him. After he passed away, two of those work horses found their way to our house. Funny how that happens. Continue reading “Sharp”
365 days. 229 published posts (and counting). 1,720 comments. 24,172+ page views. Bon Appetit Hon has had a busy year. Since this is my party, I thought I’d celebrate by looking back at a year in the life of BAH. Here is a sampling of some of my favorite posts from the year that was. Continue reading “Happy Birthday BAH”
I’ve decided to pretend that I’m Parisian for the month of August and go on a holiday. In that Perfect World of mine, it would be an actual holiday. In my Real World, it’s just a mental holiday. My body will still be at work but my mind will be hither and yon. Although I will be visiting Seattle for the IFBC Conference and stopping off for a few days in Vegas on my way home, so the vacation won’t be completely in my mind. While I’m away, I’m leaving the pantry stocked with posts from Exit 51 that would have been part of the Flashback Friday series. And there’s also a Food Memory that forced me to open two bags of flaked coconut, a can of condensed milk, a pound of powdered sugar, a stick of butter, and two bags of chocolate morsels. Good stuff.
I’ll be back to regular posting after the Labor Day holiday. But thanks to that super smart phone of mine, I can keep the comments conversation going even while I’m on my imaginary and actual vacations. So comment away.
I occasionally get contacted by Marketing/PR folks who are trying to promote some person, place, or thing. When I get those emails, I usually respond by hitting delete on the message because typically the person, place, or thing I’m being asked to promote has no real relevance to me or Bon Appetit Hon. But when I got the email from Share Our Strength informing me that the Great American Bake Sale was coming to the Inner Harbor and that it was being hosted by employees of Domino Sugar, it was a no brainer that I would post it. Here’s why:
1. I realize that not everyone is fortunate enough to know where his or her next meal is coming from.
2. I support efforts on a local and national level to combat hunger.
3. I adore baked goods.
4. Domino’s is about as Baltimore as it gets hon.
Here’s the skinny:
Employees of the Domino Sugar Baltimore plant will host a bake sale on Wednesday, July 21st at the Inner Harbor from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., as part of Share Our Strength’s Great American Bake Sale campaign to end childhood hunger in America by 2015.
The event will be held on the corner of Light St. and E. Pratt St. on McKeldin Square, where Domino Sugar employees will offer a variety of donated baked goods to raise funds.
As a major sponsor of Share Our Strength, Domino Sugar has agreed to match contributions raised at the Baltimore bake sale dollar for dollar. Success of this event will be measured not only by the dollar amount of funds raised, but also by the number of people who become aware of the seriousness of our nation’s hunger epidemic among children.
So if you are in the Inner Harbor area tomorrow between 10 and 6, please take a moment to stop by the Bake Sale. That muffin, cupcake, or cookie will not only taste good but it will allow Share Our Strength to further their mission of ending childhood hunger. And if you can’t make it to the Bake Sale, maybe you’ll click that link up there and make a donation to Share Our Strength.
I may or may not have recently celebrated another birthday. You’d have to check my driver’s license to know for sure but hypothetically speaking, let’s just say that I am now a year older than I used to be. As Truvy said in Steel Magnolias “Honey, time marches on and eventually you realize it is marchin’ across your face.” In honor of that, I’d like to tell past me a few things. Continue reading “It’s My Party”
Jen at My Morning Chocolate was gracious enough to send Bon Appetit Hon a Sunshine Award. I don’t care who you are, having another person say thanks for inspiring me or supporting me or just doing what you do, feels good. As greedy as I may secretly be, I can’t hoard all this sunshine. So I am passing the award on to a few folks who make my world brighter.
As Simple As That – “I used to admire fashion designers and thought why did God make me a writer and not a seamstress? I wanted to be able to create a piece that could speak out loud to the world and hang from the shoulders and waists of elegant people. I wanted so badly to mix silk and satin, beads and pearls, to ultimately create something beautiful. Something wonderful. But then I learned with age and experience that I am already a designer. A creator. A maker. I am a weaver of sentences, a seamstress of stories. I create the hemlines to a plot, the V-necks to a poem, the ruffles in a romance. When the last period has found its home at the end of a sentence, I have made something that can resonate to the world like a fine piece of clothing. The gift that I find to be the most beautiful part of my work is that it cannot be felt on my body, the way silk feels to my fingers. It can be felt in my soul. I can read a sewn together sentence over and over again and bring it everywhere with me, just like my leather bag or over-sized Audrey Hepburn sunglasses. I can take words and allow them to seep into my being and then use the passion behind them to do unto others in this world that needs more love. That is more blessed than the most timeless fashion pieces. I can give to others what I sew on my heart.” That is what Hanna Katy posted on her ‘About’ page and that right there is why I admire her. She says the most powerful, thought provoking things. I wish that I had a fraction of the grace and awareness that she possesses.
Honey & Jam: I could stare at Hannah’s photos all day long. And sometimes, that’s exactly what I do. One day, I hope to possess the skills to capture images like this.
And since I am not one for following rules, and it’s been far too long since I’ve bestowed any It’s A Major Award!, I’m going to take this opportunity to hand out a few of those cheekier awards as well. (For the genesis of the IAMA!, please read this and this.)
The Kitchen Witch: Whether she’s writing about something serious that is touching and brutally honest or she’s giving you her coveted Grandma Rhetta’s lemon bar recipe, Dana never fails to impress me with her wit, her love of life, or her humanity.
Three Baking Sheets to the Wind: I’ve finally found someone else whose brain is filled with as many inane pop culture references as mine is. Could we have been separated at birth? Doubtful, considering the mad kitchen skills and creativity that Ali clearly possesses.
You Are What You Eat…Or Reheat: We all secretly love trashy food. Katie gives us a safe place to own those feelings…every Wednesday! Spaghetti casserole anyone?
Thanks to Jen for sending a little Sunshine my way. I hope you’ll take a few moments to check out these other blogs that make my world a little brighter. And now that they have received some of these sunny rays, I hope that they too will pass them on.
The following originally appeared on 5/16/08 at Exit 51
Mash Ups
Standing at the sink the other night doing dishes, I got to thinking. Why is it that we christen the rich, famous, or infamous with mashed up names? There’s JLo, LiLo, Bennifer, and let us not forget Brangelina or TomKat. Is it so hard to use a complete name? Have we really lost the ability to speak in anything but sound bytes?
Of all the nicknames I’ve had, none of them have every employed the mash up. If they did, I could be WeMi (nope), WeMo (no, not that either), WeJay (neyt), or JEndi (actually, SFC and I do get called this and I don’t really mind).
So, what’s your mash up name?
My own cooking isn’t serving up much inspiration at the moment, so I’m going to steal a page out of Perfection Salad’s playbook and see if I make the grade on the local food scene. The list was compiled by readers of the Baltimore Sun’s Dining @ Large Food Blog. Let’s see how many of these items I can cross off that list…I’ve lived in or around Baltimore my entire life but I think I may still have some work ahead of me.
There’s a secret, darkly obsessive side to my blogging. It has to do with seeing who visits BAH and what posts they read. And by who, I don’t mean I see anything like Jane Doe at 123 Main Street, Anytown USA visited at 10:39 this morning. But I can see visitors’ IP addresses, general geographic location, and pages they have clicked on. I can also see what search terms someone has plugged into the search bar on the site. Two weeks ago I opened up my StatCounter and found the above search queries. Clearly, someone was in a hurry to find a beet recipe. Continue reading “I Will Stalk You Until I Get Some Beets”
Bon Appetit Hon by Wendi Mosteiko is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Bon Appetit Hon 