The Baltimore Local

     Last week I made an amazing find in the Belvedere Square section of Baltimore.  It was a diner with a national menu created from locally sourced ingredients.  Where else could you find West Coast Hangtown Fry, New Orleans Oyster Po Boy and Beignets, Southern Grits, and Pennsylvania Dutch Shoo Fly Pie and Scrappledelphia sandwich all in one place?  And to make it even more amazing, everything used to make these items is proudly purchased from local farmers and growers.  They even list their neighboring Chesapeake sources right on the menu.

     The Shoo Fly Diner is just such a place.  Everything is fresh and local.  And they make everything from scratch, too.  Everything.  Right down to the condiments: the ketchup, mustard, and hot sauce.  And the menu?  It changes every week according to what's in season.  

     And in the basement is an extensive canning operation.  That way they can preserve produce at the peak of freshness and enjoy it throughout the year.  The Woodbury Kitchen, also in Baltimore, handcrafts most of the pickled and preserved items which are available for commercial sale.

     It is an amazing operation, a bold experiment, a culinary challenge.  I was impressed as I sat at the counter and peered into the kitchen watching a half dozen chefs work to create mouthwatering masterpieces from the raw ingredients before them.  

 



     My Hangtown Fry was a mountain of fluffy scrambled eggs laced with lardons of bacon and 7 plump fried oysters accompanied by whole wheat toast.  There was so much in the cast iron frying pan that I could not finish it all.

 

     I can't wait to make a return trip to enjoy another meal at this local diner with a national flair!