Took a daytrip to Cambridge, MD, last weekend and what a fun explore. It lead us to Kool Ice & Seafood, one of those real, live seafood stores that's hard to find anymore. Here's a partial list: Shad, perch, sea trout, croakers, rock, flounder, oysters, tuna, top necks, little necks, soft shells, scallops, bay oysters, their own label crabmeat, squid, smoked blue, shad roe and herring roe.

There are men behind the counter in squeaky rubber boots and customers of all age, income and color of skin — which is the sign of established greatness. As are the oyster shells stucco’d on the façade. They also direct mail, but what the heck, take your cooler and take a turn off of 50 the next time you're headed down n'oshean. And yes, there is a dogwash next door. It, too, is Kool.  www.freshmarylandseafood.com

When someone in the household has had opportunity to read Fast Food Nation, everyone suffers. Yes, they're right. Yes, the food supply chain is horrifying. Yes, if you want to eat responsibly, then your wallet and your choices take a deep hit. Yes, yes, yes. Especially when it comes to meats.

Enter Trader Joe's. At the market in Annapolis, they now have an expanded meat counter with free range beef, bacon raised on sustainable family farms, cuts we haven't allowed ourselves in six months and, get this, the prices aren't bad.

Thanks to Trader Joe's, we had a guilt-free corned beef dinner on St. Patty's. I could weep into my Smethwick's, and in fact, I think I did.

 

 

Watching the boats on the Chester River hauling in nets full of perch set us to hankerin'. And thinking 'Let's try smoking perch on our grill!' Apparently, however, if you want to purchase perch, your best bet is to accost the fishermen. Or throw in a line. After several tries, and one storeowner's call to a friend, we picked up the last seven perch at the Fisherman's Inn Market. Problem? They don't sell well, and are cheap...$2.97 a pound. Few stores bother to carry them. But they were delicious smoked.

I've been looking for this ingredient, oh, for about two months now. Ever since Glenn May at the Kennedyville Inn recommended it as a glaze for roasted meats. And just somehow, I didn't want to go online to order. But in a simple chat with a young woman who described herself as "Persian," the talk turned to food, and lo and behold, a Middle Eastern market  was not ten minutes away from us, where we were attending to business in Rockville. Now I have my pomegranate molasses — which is pomegranate juice reduced to a thick, thick syrup. A simple reminder that in food, there is always common ground. And adventure.