Win a Copy of Maryland's Chesapeake!

Enter for the chance to win a copy of our latest book, Maryland's Chesapeake: How the Bay and Its Bounty Shaped a Cuisine! You just need to do a few things first.

Follow @minxeats on Instagram. Then come back here and let us know in a comment. For an extra chance at winning, follow @daminxy1 on Twitter as well. (If you don't use Instagram, then following us on Twitter will count. Just make sure you tell us that when you leave your comment.)

Contest ends November 11th, 2016. Winner will be announced by email, so make sure we can reach you that way.

Open to residents of the Continental US only.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Maryland's Chesapeake

Mr Minx and I spent much of last year writing a book - Maryland's Chesapeake, How the Bay and Its Bounty Shaped a Cuisine. We're happy to announce that it is finally available for purchase! Today, August 1, is the official release date, so hopefully your MD-area bookstores have received it. If not, and you're not averse to making online purchases, Amazon and Barnes & Noble are both stocking Maryland's Chesapeake.

Both the fauna in the Chesapeake and the flora around it have greatly influenced the cuisine of Maryland. The Bay has sustained numerous generations of people, from the Native Americans to the British colonists to today's diverse population. Every summer, we look forward to the sweet corn, tomatoes and strawberries that are grown along the Chesapeake's shores. Long have we enjoyed the oysters, crabs, and rockfish from its waters. While Maryland's Chesapeake celebrates these delicious creatures, we hope it also serves as a reminder that unless we take steps to rejuvenate their populations and control pollution, eventually there may not be any of them left to eat.

We hope to announce signing events in the near future, so stay tuned.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Duff Bakes!

Duff Goldman, from Baltimore's own Charm City Cakes, is coming to town to sign copies of his new book, Duff Bakes: Think and Bake Like a Pro at Home.

Date: Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Time: 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Location: Atomic Books
3620 Falls Rd.
Baltimore, MD 21211
RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/410758462465829/

Filled with must-bake (and must-eat) favorites, DUFF BAKES has chapters on different types of pastry dough, a variety of cookies, blondies, muffins, bread, biscuits, pies, cakes and cake decorating, a whole chapter of gluten-free and vegan desserts, and much more. The 135 recipes include nutter butter cookies, white chocolate blondies, apple streusel muffins, cereal bars, bacon jalapeno biscuits, banana bourbon cream pie, zucchini lemon cake, and savory bread pudding, along with a few classics, like a re-make of the childhood favorite, Twinkies. And, yes, there are a few fun cake decorating projects with step-by-step photos to make it fun for all ages. It’s the perfect book for enthusiastic home bakers, young and old.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Book Signings This Weekend - Baltimore Coffee & Tea

We'll be appearing at Baltimore Coffee & Tea this weekend! Pick up a couple pounds of your favorite caffeinated libation along with your copy of Food Lovers' Guide to Baltimore.

Saturday, March 2nd
12-2pm
9 W Aylesbury Rd
Timonium, MD 21093
(410) 561-1080

Sunday, March 3rd
12-2pm
890 Bestgate Road
Annapolis, MD 21401
(410) 573-5792

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Food Lovers' Guide to Baltimore

Ahem. :::tap, tap::: Is this thing working?

:::::drumroll:::::

Regular readers may have noticed a plethora of restaurant posts popping up here on Minxeats in the first half of last year (and then almost none in the second half). There's a good reason for that - we were writing a book on local restaurants. The Food Lovers' Guide to Baltimore to be exact.

Published by Globe Pequot, the book is part of a series of city guides that also includes New Orleans, Washington DC, and Phoenix, with more to come. The official publication date is February 5th, but it's already available online from Barnes & Noble and Amazon, and it's trickling into local bookstores, too.

Who knew Baltimore had so many great restaurants, farmers' markets, and specialty food shops? Baltimoreans, that's who! We had a great time writing the book, even if we did pick up a few dozen pounds in the process. An early critic called the book "entertaining," and we hope you think so too, as well as find it informative and useful.

If you want to keep track of book signings and what not, please do follow our Facebook page.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Tyler Florence in Baltimore

Food Network's Tyler Florence has a new cookbook - hot off the presses yesterday - and will be in the Baltimore area to promote it. In Tyler Florence Fresh, he shows that using fresh, unprocessed foods, whether from the farmers' market or the grocery store, is easier than one might think.

Tyler will be at the Williams-Sonoma in Annapolis at 12pm on Saturday, December 8th, and at 6pm that same evening, he'll be at the Wegman's in Hunt Valley.

To whet your whistle, here's a recipe from the book. As soon as I get my hands on some smoked olive oil (even if I have to do it myself) I'm trying it.

SMOKY ROASTED CHICKEN AND CITRUS SALSA
serves 2-4

Chicken
1 whole (3-1/2-pound) free-range chicken
1/2 cup smoked olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
1-1/2 pounds baby creamer potatoes
in assorted colors

Citrus Salsa
2 limes
1 navel orange
1 grapefruit
Extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
6 breakfast radishes
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh chives

Flowering cilantro buds
Fleur de sel

Roast the chicken. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Using a sharp knife or kitchen shears, cut along both sides of the backbone and discard it. Flatten the chicken and cut it in half through the breast so you have two halves—each with a leg and breast. Rub all over with some of the smoked olive oil, ensuring it gets in all the crevices. Season all over with salt and pepper.

Set the chicken in a large roasting pan over two burners and heat over medium-high heat. When the pan is hot, add the chicken halves skin-side down and sear for 4 to 5 minutes. Turn the chicken over, add the potatoes to the pan, and drizzle with more smoked olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Roast in the oven for 45 minutes, or until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the joint between the thigh and drumstick reads 160° to 165°F. The potatoes should be golden on the outside and tender in the middle. Remove from the oven and allow the chicken to rest for 5 minutes.

Make the citrus salsa. Use a sharp knife to cut away the rind and pith from each of the citrus fruits. Holding the fruit over a bowl, carefully cut between the membranes to free the segments. Let the juices and segments fall into the bowl. Add about   cup extra-virgin olive oil to the bowl and season with salt and pepper. Cut the radishes into very fine matchsticks on a mandoline or with a sharp knife. Fold them into the citrus salsa, and add the chives.

Serve the roasted chicken with the potatoes and citrus salsa, and garnish with flowering cilantro. Season with fleur de sel.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Holiday Gift Guide 2012 Part Two

If gadgets aren't the perfect thing for the foodie in your life, then perhaps he or she might prefer a cookbook or three. Here's a list of some of my favorite cookbooks, along with some new releases that I find interesting.

Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition

I've found the Joy of Cooking to be an indispensable reference for all things food. If I need to make pancakes or pot roast, I consult the Joy of Cooking for proportions, temperatures, and technique, if not the whole recipe. And there are 4500 recipes within the book's 1152 pages, covering everything from soup to nuts - literally. I think this would be a great gift for anyone who has expressed an interest in cooking, from beginners to folks with years of experience in the kitchen.

Lucky Peach Issue 5

Serious food nerds might enjoy Lucky Peach, a quarterly journal of food writing, brought to you by the mastermind behind Momofuku, David Chang. These slim magazine-sized volumes are packed full of interesting travelogues, essays, and photography, none of which is scholarly, snobbish, or inaccessible. In other words, it's no typical journal. Issue one, which was all about ramen, has become a collectors item, selling for $85 or more (I'm glad to have grabbed one when I did). One issue is a mere $7 and change at Amazon, or you can subscribe to a full year for $28 from McSweeney's.

Momofuku

Speaking of David Chang, fans of the Momofuku restaurants can make many of the most popular dishes (pork belly buns!) at home using recipes from Chang's cookbook. If the recipes seem a bit challenging, it's because they are; this is not a book for beginners. However, fans of Anthony Bourdain might enjoy reading Momofuku like a novel, as Chang's writing style is both engaging and irreverent. I read it from cover to cover and put it on my bookshelf, completely satisfied.

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

I can't say enough good things about this book. Before I bought it, I was completely intimidated by bread. I had one badly failed attempt 15 years ago and swore never to try making bread at home again. But then I relented, because I had read so many good things about the simple technique in this book. I tried it, and what do you know - not only was I able to make crusty and delicious white bread, I also made the best brioche I had ever eaten. Now, if the best brioche you have ever eaten isn't a selling point, I don't know what is.

A Cook's Tour

Anthony Bourdain's Travel Channel show No Reservations has completed its run, but did you know that the Food Network had its own version of the show first? Personally, I preferred A Cook's Tour because it seemed more outrageous. It also had a companion book, which is some pretty entertaining reading.





Here are some more interesting options, some of which are on my own wish list! Just click through to see more about each title.

Susan Feniger's  Street Food	Kevin Gillespie's Fire in the Belly	Rick Bayless' Authentic Mexican
The Flavor Bible	Takashi Yagihashi's Takashi's Noodles	Ludo Lefebvre's Ludo Bites
Top Chef University 16 DVD Set	Hedy Goldsmith's Baking Out Loud	David Lebovitz Ready for Dessert

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Don't Forget the VOLT ink Early Release Party!

On Tuesday, October 18th, Top Chefs Bryan and Michael Voltaggio will be hosting an early release party for their book, VOLT ink.: Recipes, Stories, Brothers, at Harry Grove Stadium in Frederick. There will be concession food provided by the Voltaggios, music by The Regal Beagles Yacht Rock Club Band and Blatant 80s, and a FACKA double header (adult co-ed kickball). Tickets are $8 for adults; children 12 and under can attend for free. For tickets, click here.

And don't forget to enter the Minxeats contest, if you haven't already! The winner gets an autographed copy of VOLT ink!

Posted by theminx on Minxeats.com.