Baltimore Book Festival, Mt. Vernon

Its been a few weeks, but I can’t let something like the Baltimore Book Festival pass by without a post.

I wasn’t expecting much – feeling a little down on Charm City – maybe some used book sellers and a food truck…if we’re lucky? But the Festiva proved me wrong and showed me that Berlin doesn’t have the monopoly on Strassenfeste. Of course, there were booksellers – old and new – but there weer also authors as well as a healthy representation of local cultural institutions and children’s activities. We even had our first encounter with a costume character.

 

S wasn’t scared. She was just cautious.

The highlight of the festival was the Peabody Institute, a conservatory attached to The John Hopkins University. The 19^th century building is beautiful and was wholly unexpected.

 This year’s festival was held September 27 – 29^th. For more information, visit the Baltimore Book Festival’s  website and maybe we’ll see you in 2014!

 

Johnny’s, Roland Park

Everybody needs a brunch place. We’ve found ours.

I saw Johnny’s ad boasting “west coast food”  in “Baltimore” magazine. Having no idea what this would mean (quinoa and avocado, possibly?), we had to find out.

Nothing out of the ordinary, but certainly good food and good coffee.

The restaurant has a children’s menu, but its not available at breakfast. S shared a stack of pancakes with her dad and, of course, sampled from my plate, as well. She kept and then had to go directly to Gramma’s house to show off our new masterpiece.

Sorry about the lack of posts. I started working and we haven’t had our usual leisure time to explore Baltimore. 

Fresh Bakery, Owings Mills

S’s school has an award-winning healthy choices program that focuses on teaching the children about eating well. The class meets once a week with a nurse to learn all sorts of things. To be honest, I don’t really know, but it can’t hurt, right? The school sent some flyers home about not celebrating special events or rewarding ourselves and our children with food.

Obviously, these people haven’t twice in as many years with a three year old. I like broccoli, but sometimes you need to balance out the green with something a little sweeter like these cupcakes from Fresh Bakery.

I wasn’t too sure when I saw the sign for a new bakery with such a simple name, but in our suburban neighborhood filled with chains and pizza shops, I was willing to give anything new a shot.

Some of our favorites include the personal pies (Pumpkin! or for the pumpkin averse there’s also apple, pecan, sweet potato and peach)

(sorry, I couldn’t resist a bite before taking a photo)

and the banana pudding is well worth a shot or even breaking a few school rules.

If you can bring yourself to share, that is.

Lebensmittel

We stopped in Aldi today. I was under the impression/somehow assured myself that there would be something German inside. The Aldi’s in Germany carry Trader Joe’s products (TJ is owned by Aldi Nord); surely there would be some slightly out of place in suburban Maryland, but wholly welcome by me German product, Ja? I thought maybe some type of Würste or a vacuum-packed Sachertorte.

Our first impression was promising. Jon was disappointed that he didn’t have his Kaiser’s coin, but an all American quarter did the trick.

The aisles were more or less the same…

But nothing German inside. Gar nichts. 

Weber’s Farm, Parkville

Its apple season!

This is the first time S has lived somewhere with the possibility to pick your own apples. In Germany, there was a chance to pick your own potatoes, but only if you wanted to then throw them into a bonfire and eat them dirt and all. What can I say? Germans are weird sometimes.

Weber’s Farm, sadly, did not have enough apples for P.Y.O, but they did have cider and apple doughnuts.

According to some, this is the best part.

We also liked walking around the farm store where we got some already picked apples, local honey, and the aforementioned treats.

I’m disappointed that we didn’t get to pick anything, but I’m not going to let another apple season pass in vain! Check back next week to see what we find!

Cafe Spice, Cockeysville

We’re slowly building up our new repertoire of local restaurants. One of our first discoveries was Cafe Spice in Cockeysville.

Its one of the first places we’ve found that we really look forward to going back too.

Even S likes it. When she was a very little baby, she used to like dipping naan in the sauces until one day when she just decided no, I only eat very bland yellow food. Recently, she started to include pappadum on her list of S approved cuisine, so now I feel less guilty about taking her to Indian restaurants. Of course, mango lassis are still her absolute favorite.

Fell’s Point, Baltimore

Baltimore is hard. Its an older, more established community – older than Irvine anyway – and I wonder if anyone really needs me to write about things I do with my daughter. Its harder to break through, as well, again because it is an older community. Everybody already knows everybody and who are you? Why should I help you?

Getting passed the negativity is hard. Getting passed the lack of fresh, organic produce is hard. (Seriously, does California just hoard ALL THE VEGETABLES?) Its another season of culture shock.

We went to Fell’s Point, because I heard Fell’s Point is cool? I think whoever told me this left out some other pertinent information, because we found a ghost town. There was a small group of people waiting for the water taxi, but S wasn’t interested. We walked around a bit, but didn’t find the shops, restaurants, and general hustle and bustle I expected.

There were some beautiful brick buildings, though.

There are always things to jump over.

Is there a certain time of day you’re supposed to go…or not go? We went just before lunchtime.

 

Highlights:

Daily Grind, 1720 Thames St: a local coffee shop with plenty of seating. Perfect for studying or working (or at least it seemed so when we were there. Maybe its noisier at night?)

 

Main Street, Ellicott City

My Mom and I ditched the guys to wander around Ellicott City’s Main Street, a quaint little street full of antique and home decor shops. Only problem is that we brought along our little blond tyrant. She was not thrilled …

The Howard County Fair

The interesting thing about Baltimore is that while it  has a very urban center, its surrounded by the greenest, most rural place I’ve ever lived.

And that includes Kentucky.

Going to the fair – which is actually in neighboring Howard County – was my aunt’s idea (Thanks!) and it was a bit of a culture shock. It was also literally a bit of a shock; Jon almost had an asthma attack from all of the barn animals.

S had fun. There were orange things and, really, isn’t that all anyone ever really needs?

The Baltimore Zoo, Druid Park

If you look back, you’ll see that the first thing we always do when we move to a new city is to go to the zoo. Its a tradition, a “must do” right up there with visiting IKEA and having a nervous breakdown.

I’m kidding…mostly.

Despite growing up with trips to the National Zoo on family vacations to visit Bubbe, we decided to visit and join the Baltimore Zoo. Its closer and, while I’m a pro at airplane and train travel mit Kind, we’re still working on car trips. Car trips are definitely the worse; the car holds no allure. She’s in it everyday now and, unlike a train or a plane, she’s completely restrained. Also, there are no iPads in the car. Mom’s rule.

Seriously, Dad would totally cave on this one.

So we went to the Baltimore Zoo without any electronics and had an ok time. S was tired and a still a little shocked by her new surroundings, but this zoo has a lot of great features. Its small, especially compared to San Diego, but it has all the main attractions: elephants, giraffes, large predatory cats that your child can pretend to be for hours on end.

We even took a camel ride. I stupidly agreed to go with S while wearing a skirt, but I did it to spare my husband who for some reason loathes all large domestic animals (like horses, for example).

There’s also a children’s zoo, which, in addition to your usual barn/petting area, has a long’ish for little feet nature trail covering the basics of Maryland wildlife. S enjoyed it in the beginning, but was ready to go by the time we finally got to the farm animals.

Above, she’s sitting in an oriole’s nest. Orioles being both the state bird and the name of the city’s beloved baseball team.

The Baltimore Zoo is happily situated in Druid Park and easy distance for us and only a few minutes from downtown. I’m just glad that an “elephant zoo” is so much closer than it was in before – there wasn’t even any begging to go back to Berlin!