Baltimore Sun Tweet Up

A few work pals and I went to happy hour at Kona Grill before heading to the Baltimore Sun "Tweet" Up last night.

The five dollar frozen margarita's were delicious. After two Tom and I headed over to the B&O Brasserie.

What is a Tweet Up? It's a way for people on Twitter to meet in person. Kind of scary actually. But it was a lot more fun than I expected. The Sun created a #suntweetup hashtag (#) so that guests could live Tweet. They were streaming in the bar. It was hilarious! I checked in on Foursquare and scored the mayor title at B&O Brasserie. Don't know what the mayor gets. I forgot to ask. But there are many places that give you a free drink, a free rice crispy treat, or a discount when you "check in" on Foursquare. It's like a grown up social networking game. I love seeing where @summerisaverb checks in. Mostly beaches! How great is that?

Kate met her boyfriend, my coworker Tom, on Twitter. It's Tom's fault I know how to Tweet or check in to Foursquare. He taught me all there is to know about social media. You can thank him or curse him, but he gets the credit.

I met a friend of a friend. When you checked into the party they gave you a ticket for a glass of champagne. Delish...after the marg's...not such a good idea.

I met folks I've been "following" for a while; @roswellencina, @TomOKeefe1 and the ever stunning @katekatebear.

Do you remember the Mobbies from last year? The Sun was creating buzz about the contest at the event. Maybe Stone Hill Farm will be nominated again for the "best personal blog". I still don't know who nominated it but was tickled since the blog was only 2 months old during the contest last year. EAS won for Best Popular Culture Blog. I'm a huge fan of "Let the Tide Pull Your Dreams Ashore" and am an over commenter on her blog. Do they have an Over Commenting Anonymous (OCA) yet? Seriously. I may have admitted to having the cocktail flu today on her site. Marg's and champagne are not a good mix for the record.

I love the bar at the B&O and took this photo before I realized it was @sushgirl in real life! We've been Tweeting for two years now and finally got to meet. So much fun and again Lisa so nice to meet you!

@citythatbreeds was hilarious in real life. His blog is seriously funny, crass but seriously funny. Anyone who comes up with a Cosby Sweater Bar Crawl is good in my book. Twitter handles are so clever, why not use them in real life? Kate is certainly KateKate to all who adore her and I've met people who now call me Baltiville. I thank @Baltomoto for my name as she inspired the Balt-whatever handles for folks in our office.

The highlight for me was meeting the famed crime blogger @Justin_Fenton. I sometimes like to be in the dark about crime in Baltimore, hence the recent unfollow. Nothing personal man. It was great to meet you.  Now if only I could meet @gorelickingood, my Twitter web would be complete.

My darling husband called from DC at 7:40 saying he'd meet me at B&O in an hour. An hour and a half later he showed up. He was so late that the party had already ended downstairs. But a great group decided to stick around for dinner. I had the crab and tomato salad with tomato sorbet. The sorbet was a delightful, cold, savory bite with a hint of sweetness.

The crab salad was laced with fennel, my fave.

Roasted Chicken

My husband got the shrimp and grits and his 6'4" self was a little disappointed in the portion size. 

Tom was hungry too.

Good defense KateKate. 

My husband is real, not Snuffy. The proof is in this shot of his drink of choice. He and Jordan both went to UNC. It was fun overhearing their convo about all things Chapel Hill.

We got to bed very, very late. It was worth it to meet so many interesting people and rally for a midnight meal with my Charlie. 

Thanks FrontRowe for introducing me to the wide world of the Twitterverse. Kate, we do have to go Kate Spade shopping stat. Roswell and Jordan so fun to get to know you a tiny bit better at dinner. Tweet ya later. (Yes, I am as cheesy in real life as I am in this blog.) Kasia, thank you again for teaching me how to eat a balanced diet. Looking back at my B&O birthday dinner post reminds me of how sad and overweight I was last year! Charlie, thank you for driving like a bat out of hell to get to dinner on time. I love you.

Chazz: A Bronx Original

After a very long Labor Day weekend with work obligations and friends in town, Monday night meant our first date night in a while. E. and I went to the new restaurant Chazz: A Bronx Original in Harbor East. Enrico was manning the brick oven. He was the maitre d' at Big Grano in Hampden. We were lucky enough to go to Chazz for their soft opening and saw Enrico behind the counter and asked, "What is Gino going to do without you?" Turns out he worked for the Vitale's at Aldo's prior to going to Grano and is now back with them at Chazz. Eric assumed that Chazz would be there on opening night and I completely doubted it. But he was there on opening night and has been there five out of the seven times I've been to the restaurant. This was the only night I didn't see Sergio or Alesandro Vitale because it was Sergio's birthday and he took the night off. Happy Birthday Sergio! You work your tail off and deserved the break with your family.

Enrico is Mr. Personality. If this pizza station was in the back of the house he would have never accepted the position.

The oven area is wonderful and you get a front row seat to all of the action.

Chazz is named after the actor Chazz Palminteri and the restaurant was conceptualized a few years ago while he was in town doing the one man show, A Bronx Tale, at the Hippodrome here in Baltimore. He asked someone where to go for good Italian food and Aldo's was suggested. He went back ten nights in a row and sparked up a friendship with the Vitale family. A few years later Chazz was born. 

The Bronx Tale is a gripping coming of age movie and was Bobby De Niro's first film as a director. Turns out he and Chazz are besties and we hear he is coming to Baltimore soon to check out his friend's restaurant and promote a new movie.

 

The bar has a great, energetic vibe. They make a delicious dirty martini. Not too salty and extra cold with ice shards. E. spoke with the manager Pete about beers for what seemed like twenty minutes. E. loves a good beer and they have a system to keep the beer really cold on tap.

I'm getting rusty taking "blog" food photos. We were starving and dove into the beet and fried goat cheese salad before I could take a pretty shot. This is still detox worthy less the sugared pecans. I'm still on my health kick and realize that I'm allergic to sugar and flour and get a stuffy nose when I eat them.

The fried calamari was dredged with flour, but the stuffy nose was worth it! This calamari is hands down the best I've ever had in my life. The Carlyle Grill in Shirlington held the title for me until recently. It's so crispy and the calmari is uber fresh. The Remoulade and marinara sauces are perfection.

Throwing my detox out the window, we devoured the Broccoli Rabe and Sausage pizza with a bechamel sauce. To die for delicious. They have really perfected the dough recipe and crustiness of the crust since the first night opening. They also offer gluten free pizza, which tastes a little like a cracker made with rice flour. 

The crust is crunchy but soft and chewy (good chewy) in the middle.

Enrico invited me to the oven area for a closer look. 

It takes 90 seconds to make a pizza in this brick oven. It gets to 600 degrees on the cooking side and can be upwards of 2000 degrees where the fire is stoked.

My Charlie was hard at work and didn't miss me during my adventures in the kitchen.

The pepperoni pizza is one of my favorites.

My video barely does the oven justice.

I love visiting the back of the house.

The head chef was shy, and Enrico practically put him in a headlock to get his photo taken. Love seeing happy chefs.

The signature dessert at Chazz is their Nutella pizza. If you have never had Nutella, run don't walk, to your nearest specialty grocery store. It is a Hazelnut butter-chocolate sauce. The Nutella ads on TV just kill me, suggesting this is a great way to get protein for breakfast. Uh huh, and it will rot your teeth out it is so sweet! However, for a night of breaking detox buck up and order it.

They even have samples sometimes on the pizza bar, give me strength.

The specialty pizza of evening was the Farmers pizza with eggs on the top. This is the before shot...

...and after with the eggs cooked medium. I love the breakfast pizza at Woodberry Kitchen so I'm sure this is delicious.

There is also a charcuterie station at the restaurant. I love nothing more than cured meat but the star of this platter is their pickled vegetables. They are seriously so delicious and as my nutritionist says, are good for your gut. Each area of the restaurant allows you to experience something a bit different. As you enter the restaurant it feels as if you are at the Bronx subway station in New York.

It was an honor getting to meet Mr. Palminteri in person last week. I love how dedicated he is to this restaurant concept and how much he loves Baltimore. They have hopes to open more in Las Vegas and Atlantic City in the future. I'm glad we can claim the original. Well done fellas, and best wishes for your continued success.

Wild Week in Baltimore

Moments before hurricane Irene blew into Stone Hill Uncle Charlie secured a few shingles on the roof. The flag gives you only a hint of the wind gusts that hit us. It was loud, scary and exciting.

It rained and rained and rained. We lost tree limbs and power at 4 a.m. last Sunday morning. I couldn't sleep I was so afraid our big maple tree would fall on the house.

The power went out but our gas stove still worked so I...of course....cooked bacon!

And canned figs...until it got dark and our sweet neighbors Paul and Viv brought us dinner.

The damage was minimal, mostly many large limbs fell down. Eric loves any excuse to get up on the roof and that was a power line.

He was very careful.

We moved into a hotel on Monday night. Storm troopers? No, these gorgeous guys were flown up from Atlanta to help get power restored to hundreds of thousands without power and were staying at the same property. Stone Hill didn't get power until late Wednesday night. We met these guys in the elevator and I wanted to hug them all! After working tirelessly for days they were still chipper and happy to be up in Baltimore to help out. We finally have power and are so thrilled to have had the luxury of friends in high places. Thank you Renaissance Harborplace for taking such good care of us during the power outages. I was able to walk to work and get so much done staying downtown.

This was our view at 6:00 a.m. over the Inner Harbor. Amazing how pretty it was the day after hurricane Irene passed over.

This week started with a hurricane, power outages, and a Yankees v. Orioles game. All of these items created havoc on our streets. We also have a little race happening this weekend called the Baltimore Grand Prix. It's the first time Baltimore has hosted this style of street race. The cars will be driving around a 2.1 mile loop in the middle of downtown. That is the Somaru (our nickname for the new car) on Pit Row just outside of the Camden Yards warehouse!!! How funny is that? 

All week signs of the race became more and more visible.

Taking this turn really made me want to speed for some reason.

Our neighbor Guy sent this to the Stone Hill list serve. It sums up the week so well. 

Shake, shake, rattle and roll!
Blow, blow, bless my Soul!
We'll shake and shake with a lil' earthquake
Then lose our lights in Irene's wake
It's Baltimore before the prix
The grandest thing they say we'll see
Streets all closed including Pratt
C'mon to Bmore hon that's where it's at!

Guy Holliday

Last night many of the racing team crews were seen all over town. These are a few of the Newman Haas team. I know nothing about racing but look forward to visiting this pit crew in the paddocks on Saturday. It also reminded me that Paul Newman passed away three years ago. The guys said that racing was his passion and you could tell they really missed him.

I'm really excited to see more real races tomorrow. Tonight's qualifying and practice rounds were pretty cool, even though I still have no idea what it all means. Hoping to learn all I need to know about the Le Mans race tomorrow and Indy Car Race on Sunday.

This car needed a tow. It looks like a ribbon is pulling it.

Enjoy the weekend everyone. If you are in Baltimore hope you get to ride, bike or skateboard downtown. Traffic is nutso crazy but I have to say it is very, very fun to see cars driving 170 miles an hour down Pratt Street.

Kindness and thanks to Susan and George for letting me shower at your place on Monday morning. I loved seeing sweet Jemma all smiles! And we can not thank the Renaissance enough for our accommodations during the week. The views and ability to walk everywhere downtown really lowered the stress level.