IN THE WOLFF’S DEN: PART III

By chucksmithFebruary 22, 2016 Farm History, Featured, Photos

It is cold today, much colder than it has been these past two months. So chilly, it seems strange to think that soon we will be traveling that quarter-turn into spring. Yet there are more birds now. They flutter and race across the pallid green lawn, scurrying to find what they will. Knocking about desperately…

DIY Fresh Salsa

By chucksmithFebruary 5, 2016April 21, 2023 Appetizers, Featured, Recipes

Want fresh salsa, but don’t want to settle for the (ahem) lesser options at the supermarket? You’re not the only one missing the great varieties of fresh salsa from Wolff’s while we’re closed! So we came up with a great recipe to put together in a pinch. 5 ingredients, 15 minutes, and you’ll have a…

Wacky Cake

By chucksmithJanuary 26, 2016April 21, 2023 Desserts, Featured, Recipes

We don’t know why this is called Wacky Cake… Maybe just that it’s totally WACKY that such a delicious chocolate cake can be made without eggs, butter, or dairy! (The whipped cream on top is an optional indulgence.) Enjoy this awesome cake from the kitchen of Cathy Smith- our chef’s mom!

KITCHEN COPY: POMEGRANATE

By chucksmithDecember 16, 2015December 16, 2015 Beverages, Cooking Methods, Featured, Kitchen Copy, Recipes, Seasonal pomegranate, recipes, winter produce

Although most pomegranates are and have been cultivated throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and the Indian subcontinent for centuries, today the fruit can be found growing in California and Arizona. Besides being a wellspring of minerals, raw pomegranate seeds provide a whopping 12 percent of the daily value for vitamin C, and are an excellent…

KITCHEN COPY: AMAZING ALMONDS

By chucksmithDecember 3, 2015March 15, 2016 Beverages, Cooking Methods, Featured, Kitchen Copy, Recipes almonds, gluten-free, recipes

In my last post, I mentioned that I suffer from lactose intolerance. And when I write suffer, I mean suffer. Giving up ice cream has been one of the most difficult and challenging things I’ve ever had to do. But as delicious as ice cream may be, the onslaught of abdominal pain and discomfort which resulted from…

KITCHEN COPY: RAMBUTAN!

By chucksmithNovember 19, 2015April 21, 2023 Beverages, Cooking Methods, Featured, Kitchen Copy, Recipes cocktails, rambutan, recipes

It’s difficult to describe the rambutan…It helps to be familiar with the texture and flavor of Lychee fruit, and the strange, otherworldliness of sea urchins. According to Wikipedia, the rambutan (a name which refers to the tree and the fruit) is native to tropical regions of Southeast Asia and is related to the lychee, longan, and mamoncillo. The fruit is…

KITCHEN COPY:FRESH CRANBERRIES

By chucksmithNovember 4, 2015April 21, 2023 Berries, Cooking Methods, Featured, Holiday, Kitchen Copy, Locally Grown, Recipes, Seasonal berries, breakfast, cranberries, gluten-free, local ingredients, locally grown produce, recipes

I’ve been told that men tend to gain a lot of weight in their thirties. I keep hoping that will happen to me. I could stand to gain a pound or two. But all I’ve gotten so far is lactose intolerance, and a gluten allergy. I reluctantly confess this. It was only recently that I was a…

Maryland Crab Dip

By chucksmithOctober 28, 2015April 21, 2023 Appetizers, Featured, Recipes

From Wolff’s own chef, Chuck Smith!

KITCHEN COPY:SWISS CHARD

By chucksmithOctober 21, 2015April 21, 2023 Appetizers, Cooking Methods, Featured, Kitchen Copy, Locally Grown, Recipes, Seasonal local ingredients, locally grown produce, peach salsa, recipes, swiss chard, vegetables, vegetarian

Has it ever happened to you that two things enter your life at the same time, and forever after it’s nearly impossible to think of one without also thinking of the other? It happened to me about twelve years ago. It happened to me with Swiss chard, and my wife. I can’t cook Swiss chard without also…

KITCHEN COPY: SWEET SAUSAGE

By chucksmithOctober 7, 2015April 21, 2023 Cooking Methods, Featured, Kitchen Copy, Recipes local ingredients, recipes, sausage

If I didn’t have other cookbooks to keep it pinned between, my Fanny Farmer cookbook would completely fall to pieces. It’s true. Just about every page within its sad, decrepit cover has become unglued. And the spine has given up entirely. On a few occasions I’ve almost thrown it into the recycling. But every time I voice these intentions, my wife pleads…

KITCHEN COPY:A PRETTY PUMPKIN

By chucksmithSeptember 24, 2015April 21, 2023 Cooking Methods, Featured, Kitchen Copy, Locally Grown, Recipes, Seasonal local ingredients, locally grown produce, pumpkins, recipes

Right about now the Mums begin rolling into Wolff’s and taking over the place like some kind of bizarre alien invasion. It seems like every day more cloudbursts of color are added to the expanding floral grid. Their arrival coincides with the onset of chilly mornings, corn shocks, and overwhelming swells of heirloom pumpkins. The pumpkin’s…

KITCHEN COPY: HONEYCRISP APPLE LIME GRANITA

By chucksmithSeptember 9, 2015October 18, 2016 Apples, Beverages, Cooking Methods, Featured, Kitchen Copy, Locally Grown, Recipes, Seasonal apples, honeycrisp, local ingredients, locally grown fruit, recipes

Some things take a long time to learn about oneself, while other things take none at all. After scaling, gutting, and prepping fish for a brief stint at a small Greek restaurant in Federal Hill, Baltimore, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do in the kitchen. And it wasn’t cleaning fish. It only took a…

KITCHEN COPY: WATERMELON-TINI

By chucksmithAugust 26, 2015April 21, 2023 Cooking Methods, Featured, Kitchen Copy, Locally Grown, Recipes, Seasonal, Summer Produce locally grown fruit, locally grown produce, recipes, summer produce, watermelon

The single memory from my childhood of eating watermelon centers more upon the large, black, unpleasant, inedible seeds than it does the deliciously sweet and totally consumable flesh. It is a memory which speaks volumes about the kind of person I am. It’s no secret how I would answer the proverbial glass-half-full or glass-half-empty question. As far as I’m concerned, the glass…

KITCHEN COPY:NOTEWORTHY NECTARINES

By chucksmithAugust 12, 2015April 21, 2023 Cooking Methods, Featured, Locally Grown, Recipes, Seasonal, Summer Produce local ingredients, locally grown fruit, locally grown produce, nectarines, peaches, recipes, summer produce

I’m fully allowed to taste the produce at Wolff’s Apple House. As their resident chef, it’s part of my job. Nevertheless, there is always a moment (right about the time I lift the fruit from the display) when it feels criminal. Like I’m getting away with something. Like I’m stealing something precious from others. Which leads me to a confession. Earlier today,…

KITCHEN COPY: HEAVENLY HEIRLOOMS

By chucksmithJuly 29, 2015April 21, 2023 Cooking Methods, Featured, Locally Grown, Recipes, Seasonal, Summer Produce, Tomatoes local ingredients, locally grown produce, locally grown tomatoes, recipes, tomatoes, vegetables, vegetarian

Some heirloom tomato varieties hardly resemble tomatoes at all. That’s what one might think, anyway. The truth is that only in the last hundred years did tomatoes become so uniformly round, and red, and (Let’s admit it!) often flavorless. That’s all changed, of course. Americans have rediscovered (thanks to hard-working small farmers) how to embrace seasonality, and a desire to experience the…

KITCHEN COPY:FLAVORFUL FINOCCHIONA

By chucksmithJuly 2, 2015April 21, 2023 Cooking Methods, Featured, Kitchen Copy, Photos, Prepared Foods, Recipes, What's New eggs, recipes

On any given day Wolff’s buyer, Lisa McWaters, is in the process of introducing a new product onto the shelves. The process can take anywhere from a day, to several weeks. There is usually a trial period where Wolff’s employees get a chance to preview an item, or help determine whether it should be carried…

KITCHEN COPY:A HANDSOME PEAR

By chucksmithJune 17, 2015April 21, 2023 Cooking Methods, Featured, Kitchen Copy, Pears, Recipes, Sandwiches gruyere, pears, recipes, sandwiches

If you met me ten years ago and we struck up a conversation about favorite foods, I would have proudly admitted that I preferred sandwiches over all else. Especially grilled sandwiches. The same holds true today… I love grilled sandwiches. A grilled cheese sandwich was the first thing I ever cooked. Or rather, it was the first thing I enjoyed cooking. When I…

KITCHEN COPY: SCANDALOUS STRING BEANS

By chucksmithJune 3, 2015April 21, 2023 Appetizers, Cooking Methods, Featured, Kitchen Copy, Locally Grown, Photos, Recipes, Seasonal, Summer Produce basil, green beans, local ingredients, locally grown produce, recipes, vegetarian

Whether whores first invented puttanesca is no concern of mine. The sauce is bright, flavorful, pungent, and goes with just about anything you can scrounge together. Including the ubiquitous green bean. Literally translated, alla puttanesca means “in the style of a prostitute.” It is a culinary legend whose origins (like so many inventions) are clouded with speculation. There are various…

KITCHEN COPY: A RHUBARB TO REMEMBER

By chucksmithMay 20, 2015April 21, 2023 Cooking Methods, Featured, Kitchen Copy, Recipes, Seasonal recipes, rhubarb, soup, vegetarian

The poisonous leaves of the rhubarb plant can cause a variety of symptoms including stomach pain, nausea, and breathing difficulty. The bright red stalk of the rhubarb plant, on the other hand, is totally edible and can cause delight, a sense of wellness, and sometimes (in extreme cases) euphoria. When I was about seven years old, my…

KITCHEN COPY: THE WHOLE EGG

By chucksmithMay 6, 2015April 21, 2023 Appetizers, Cooking Methods, Featured, Kitchen Copy, Recipes, Vendors eggs, local ingredients, recipes

For someone who grew up eating uniformly bleach-white supermarket eggs, all natural, free range eggs were a revelation. My wife used to run a farm, and it was there that I first encountered them. It was on that farm where I witnessed firsthand the obvious benefits of allowing laying hens the opportunity to range freely. And it was also on that farm where I first tasted…

KITCHEN COPY: CONTEMPTIBLE KIWI

By chucksmithApril 21, 2015April 21, 2023 Cooking Methods, Featured, Kitchen Copy, Recipes, Seasonal, Winter Squash acorn squash, gluten-free, kiwi, recipes

At the risk of sounding totally counterculture, I would like to confess that I love tropical fruit. That is, I thoroughly enjoy consuming fruits that have been harvested in tropical regions, packaged, and shipped across the globe. I enjoy these things even while I acknowledge the impact that common farming/distributing practices have on the environment and…

KITCHEN COPY: C IS FOR CONFIT

By chucksmithApril 8, 2015April 21, 2023 Cooking Methods, Featured, Kitchen Copy, Recipes confit, recipes, red cabbage

It could have been the alcohol. But more likely it was just foolish pride… Having paid good money for my culinary education, I wasn’t about to let myself be upstaged by some amateur food enthusiast. Especially not in front of others. Small matter that one of those “others” was my new love interest, and Mr. food…

KITCHEN COPY: EASILY ELEGANT LEEKS

By chucksmithMarch 25, 2015April 21, 2023 Appetizers, Featured, Holiday, Recipes, Root Vegetables, Seasonal beets, Easter, leek recipe, winter produce

Leeks have come a long way in my life since 2001. It’s been an uphill battle for this once neglected ingredient. Unlike onions and garlic, the leek is more intimidating. It seems almost alien when pulled from a grocery bag and placed on a cutting-board at home. I remember a cashier quizzically examining a bunch of…

Hot Soup

By chucksmithDecember 14, 2012December 14, 2012 Featured, Prepared Foods, What's New

Fran Wolff likes to say, “the soup season begins when people go inside of their homes to escape the cold. That is when people really want to buy soup.” I agree with him. It’s just around the time when the first cold breath of winter penetrates my clothing that I start thinking about soup. However,…

EASY AS 1-2-3

By chucksmithNovember 1, 2012November 1, 2012 Cooking Methods, Featured, Holiday cooking a turkey, cranberry sauce, Thanksgiving, turkey Leave a comment

For the past two weeks I’ve been thinking about the best way to eat a turkey. And to be honest, I much prefer eating leftover breast meat, cranberry sauce, and stuffing positioned between two pieces of bread. I mean, I love the aesthetics of a well bronzed bird placed in the center of the table…

CANDY FOR BREAKFAST?

By chucksmithOctober 16, 2012November 2, 2017 Cooking Methods, Featured, Hardy Vegetables, Locally Grown, Recipes, Winter Squash acorn squash, winter squash

For weeks Steve Rosazza has been delivering some very delicious acorn squash. This variety, along with Butternut, Spaghetti, and Festival, are just some of the winter squash available locally at Wolff’s. Years ago, while working on a small farm in Baltimore, I had the opportunity to cook lots of squash. A heavy bumper crop made…

IN THE WOLFF’S DEN: PART II

By chucksmithMay 11, 2012May 15, 2012 Farm History, Featured apples, locally grown fruit, locally grown produce

For the second time this year, I’m meeting with one of the Wolff clan in the living room of Ken and Gennie Wolff. Their house sits right across from the recently cultivated Sunny Brae Farm. I have spent a fair amount of time gazing out at this plot of land. Peter Wolff has great plans…

IN THE WOLFF’S DEN: PART I

By chucksmithFebruary 24, 2012March 1, 2012 Farm History, Featured corn, locally grown fruit, locally grown produce, locally grown tomatoes

There is a narrow dirt road that runs along the edge of the Wolff’s modest Sunny Brae farm. Mostly inactive now, this road used to be heavily traversed by tractors and various farming implements. Currently, three generations of Wolffs live along this stretch. Ken and Gennie, third generation Wolffs, live just across from the farm….

CAPITAL M

By chucksmithJanuary 27, 2012December 1, 2015 Featured locally grown produce, soup, winter produce

I know this girl that hates mushrooms. It doesn’t surprise me. She hates a lot of the foods that I love. But as I add the finishing touches to latest batch of Cream of Mushroom Soup, I can’t believe what I’m hearing. This soup has everything. It has butter, leeks, shallots, Porcini mushrooms, delicate local…

A REAL CHRISTMAS

By chucksmithDecember 18, 2011 Featured

Down the road from here, a shop selling Christmas trees presents a sign to the passers-by announcing, “Have a real Christmas. Buy a real tree.” This concerns me. If a true Christmas means having a real tree, then every Christmas I celebrated as a child was a fake. And I’m not the only kid whose…

OH, FLORAL MERISTEMS!

By chucksmithDecember 2, 2011April 21, 2023 Cooking Methods, Featured, Hardy Vegetables, Recipes cauliflower, hardy vegetables

At this time of day, the palest shade of yellow becomes white. It is a white like ivory or the cooked white of an egg. It is the glorious flesh or white curd of the aborted floral meristems. It is the white of cauliflower, the white of the species Brassica oleracea. And to eat this…

APPLES PANDOWDY!

By chucksmithOctober 14, 2011April 21, 2023 Apples, Featured, Recipes apples, baked apple recipes

Any way you look at it, a farm is a business–a livelihood for those interested in growing large quantities of food to sell. But the business of farming varies greatly. In many cases food is grown because it is profitable. People need food. It’s as simple as that. Once in while however, a farmer grows…

THE ART OF PATIENCE…AND SOUP

By chucksmithSeptember 30, 2011August 29, 2024 Featured, Prepared Foods, Soup, What's New prepared foods, soup, stews

Think of your favorite soup… What does it smell like? What does it taste like? What texture does it have? Is it uniform and velvety on the tongue? There is no correct answer to these questions. Actually, I would venture to guess that there are as many different answers as there are people reading this….

A DIFFERENT KIND OF APPLE + Applesauce Recipe

By chucksmithSeptember 9, 2011April 21, 2023 Apples, Featured, Recipes apples, applesauce, honeycrisp, stayman-winesap

As I walk across the Wolff’s parking lot, it occurs to me that it has been raining for days. It makes the atmosphere of the market a little damp, but that doesn’t stop the crowds from visiting the store in search of apples. I suppose it’s part of the experience. It isn’t often that you…

The Rockettes and Homegrown Tomato Sandwiches

By chucksmithAugust 22, 2011April 21, 2023 Featured, Locally Grown, Recipes, Sandwiches, Tomatoes locally grown tomatoes, tomato sandwiches

There’s this sandwich my grandmother makes. It’s easy to build and very delicious. It starts with perfectly ripe tomatoes. When the summer heat first yields vine ripe tomatoes in earnest, you simply slice them, lightly salt them, and stuff them between two toasted pieces of white bread that have been slathered with mayonnaise. This sandwich…

Hot Summer, Frozen Fruit

By chucksmithAugust 7, 2011April 21, 2023 Berries, Cooking Methods, Desserts, Featured, Recipes, Seasonal berries, frozen desserts, ice pops, local ingredients, melons, paletas, peaches, plums, strawberries

In one attempt to remove refined sugar from my family’s diet, I decided to make my own frozen desserts instead of purchasing pre-made ice pops. Many frozen ice pops in the supermarket include corn syrup and high-fructose corn syrup in the ingredients. And while there is much to be said for the nostalgia that goes…

The Proof is in the Peaches

By chucksmithJuly 15, 2011 Featured, Locally Grown, Peaches, Summer Produce locally grown fruit, peaches, summer produce

Edward Behr, author of The Artful Eater, believes that the best apple you will ever eat is a stolen one. In my case, the best peach I have ever eaten was stolen from a neighbor’s fruit tree on a hot July evening in 1992. So fragrant and sweet, it tasted like…like…sunshine, like youthfulness, like summer. It remains, to this…