Crab Cakes

The Art of Simple Food By Alice Waters Clarkson Potter / 2007 / $35 If it weren't for Alice Waters, would "organic" be a household word? Would restaurants be boasting about their locally caught salmon, their heirloom tomatoes, their artisan cheese? Waters, the chef behind Berkeley, Calif.'s Chez Panisse, is credited with launching what has become a national awareness about where food comes from and how it's grown. With The Art of Simple Food, Waters has created not so much a cookbook as an introduction to her philosophy of food, a clinic in what she considers to be "the underlying principles of good cooking."

Sonoma's Bar & Grille opened in 1997 as a high-end Columbia restaurant with an elaborate menu, long wine list, martini bar and cigars for sale.Owners Steve Heintzelman and Jerry Seidel discovered that the atmosphere wasn't right for Columbia."

Waterfront dining, with a great view of sailboats on the harbor, and a menu featuring a good variety of seafood, including delicious crab cakes -- what more could you ask for in an Annapolis restaurant?Well, stuffed fried shrimp that isn't rock-hard, perhaps.But that was pretty much the only flaw in my recent lunch at the Phillips restaurant that opened in July at the Annapolis City Dock.My mother and I arrived at Phillips shortly before 2 p.m. on a recent day to find the restaurant almost empty, so we were seated immediately on an outside terrace overlooking the City Dock.

Dinner at Pusser's Landing ended better than it started.On a hot summer Friday evening, we confirmed that Pusser's, in the Annapolis Marriott, had valet parking when we made our reservations. But when we got there, the valets informed us their lot was full. Their suggestion was to try a nearby lot, which was full.Pusser's is named for a rum the British Royal Navy used to dispense daily to its sailors. The name is a corruption of the word purser, the ship's storekeeper, who issued the daily rum ration.

If Capt. Nick ever ventured from the Maine restaurant bearing his name to landlocked Laurel, he'd feel right at home at the Bay N Surf restaurant.The two establishments have a lot in common: U.S. 1, for starters, which runs past both front doors on its way from the Canadian border to the Florida Keys.Then there's the kitsch nautical decor, the paper place mats, the helpful help and the fish prepared the way June and Ward Cleaver would like it.No, you won't find cutting-edge cuisine at Capt.

Some of the prettiest restaurants in Baltimore can be found in the hotels that hug the Inner Harbor. Windows, at the Renaissance Harborplace Hotel, is a lovely place to dine, especially if you reserve a table overlooking Pratt Street.Floor-to-ceiling windows let in the bright lights and bustle of the harbor. Mirrors, blond wood and crystal chandeliers create an atmosphere of modern, streamlined elegance. The restaurant was just as inviting recently as it had been on a visit last year.Executive chef Timothy P. Mullen and new restaurant chef Mitch Cooper have kept the emphasis at Windows on fresh seafood and Chesapeake region specialties.

"Do you want half?" my sister asked as she pushed her plate in my direction.Mumbling thanks, I declined.We were working. Once again my editor had called upon the Dvorak Girls to venture forth in search of cheap eats for two (under $50). Our motto: Free meals, no dishes to wash, we're there.Yet seated in the boldly colorful and cheerful new Glen Burnie restaurant, Platters, we were both unexpectedly glum.We had arrived at the restaurant for an early Saturday dinner in the weeks after the restaurant opened.

"Do they know your idea of gourmet cooking generally involves buying a squirt bottle of spicy brown mustard?" my sister asked as I shared the news that my culinary talents had been tapped to write a restaurant review.The offer: dinner for two, under $50. Free meal. Someone else does the dishes. I was sold.Still stinging from my husband's critique of a recent meatloaf effort, I chose not to invite him, electing instead to take my sister, Pat Dvorak. Raised on a working mother's menu of Hamburger Helper, we would rise to the challenge together.

Lewnes' Steakhouse is the sort of restaurant that can stir up extreme emotions.There's the intense yearning as you wait for your food while the smells of delicious dishes at other tables swirl mercilessly around you, joy as you bite into chunks of tender filet mignon and then abysmal sadness when the meal is over and you're too stuffed to order that second strawberry shortcake.My sister and I arrived at Lewnes' late on a chilly weeknight to a short wait for a nonsmoking table. We passed time at the restaurant's small bar, where a slightly inebriated man nursing a drink proclaimed himself a regular and animatedly emoted about Lewnes' wonderful steaks, crab balls, crab cakes everything.

From the moment you walk into The Corinthian restaurant at Loews Annapolis Hotel, it's easy to see why County Executive John G. Gary eats there. It also is easy to understand why County Executive-elect Janet Owens made a crack about the county's food budget during the campaign.The Corinthian is pricey. It also is fine dining in the true sense of the term. The rose-colored upholstery on the chairs matches the floor-length curtains, which blend perfectly with the cream-colored rug and covered chairs, all of which go so nicely with the marble tabletops and the paintings.

Bertha Sander, a longtime member of Zion Lutheran Church at City Hall Plaza where for years she helped prepare and serve at the church's famous sour beef dinners, died of a cardiac arrest Oct. 19 at Oak Crest Village. She was 101. Bertha Prag, the daughter of farmers, was born and raised in Jagstheim in the Swabia region of southwest Germany. In 1928, she immigrated to Baltimore, where she worked as a governess and during the 1930s in quality control at the old Calvert Distillery in Relay.

Two recent travel guides highlight not only places we wish to visit, but the very places where we live: Baltimore and Maryland. Here's our take on the books: 'Moon Handbooks: Baltimore' Avalon, $17.95: Baltimore often is called an underrated city. As the former Colonial trading port continues to evolve, it has begun attracting more visitors. Local author Geoff Brown nicely describes it as a Southern city in character but a Northern city in geography. "It's a town of society teas and horse races," he writes, "raucous street festivals and experimental music, and oddball characters and living legends."

Angels Aemke of Wilmington, N.C., was seeking the recipe for the famous crab cakes that were served at Angelina's restaurant in Baltimore. She had a friend who used to send her these wonderful treats, but now that the venerable restaurant has closed (and was recently sold), she was hoping to find the recipe so that she could make the crab cakes at home. Jo Ann Nuetzel from Parkville sent in a recipe that was printed some years ago in The Sun and was reported to have come from the owner of Angelina's, the late Robert Reilly.

These days it's cause to celebrate when a restaurant more ambitious than a pub or pizza place opens in Baltimore. Scary times usually produce eateries that offer sure bets in the way of food - sure bets that don't cost much. When I first heard about the Reserve (1542 Light St., TheReserveBaltimore.com), a new Federal Hill bar, I figured when it got around to serving food, the kitchen would produce the usual nachos, wings and burgers. Instead, the offerings include tuna tataki, shrimp and tropical fruit ceviche, cornmeal-crusted red grouper in a smoked salmon caper beurre blanc, Buffalo strip steak with parsnip puree and pan-roasted boneless quail.

Sometimes a restaurant does almost everything right but lacks one thing: a reliable kitchen. If you like it enough, you go back and keep trying dishes on the menu. You figure out the ones you enjoy, and then you have them as your standbys. It becomes your go-to restaurant. I think Maisy's on North Charles Street could be one of these, except for the parking situation. But if you're willing to drive around a little, you can find street parking. Maisy's opened this summer where Copra was. This has always been an attractive space, and not much had to be done to get it ready for reopening.

The summer dinner at City Cafe in Baltimore had several purposes, according to its organizers. "It's a combination of getting attention to our causes and celebrating the renovation [of City Cafe]," said Curt Decker, executive director of the National Disability Rights Network. "We are sort of new to the fundraising scene," said Virginia Knowlton, executive director of the Maryland Disability Law Center, scanning the room. "But given the crisis in legal services funding, we're very pleased with the wonderful turnout."

Next time they road-trip to Baltimore, two well-known food writers won't get to eat the local delicacy they just talked up on national radio. Lexington Market squirrel, alas, does not exist. On National Public Radio's The Splendid Table last weekend, Jane and Michael Stern raved about Lexington Market, saying it was better than San Francisco's Ferry Building Marketplace. The Daily Record noted the Sterns' compliment on a blog earlier this week. That caught the attention of my colleague Jean Marbella, who'd just visited the Ferry Market on vacation and enjoyed a rosemary-pine nut shortbread, in no small part because the vendor vouched for the virtuous provenance of every ingredient.

The success of eating places in the Village of Cross Keys has been spotty at best. The hotel no longer has a fine-dining restaurant, and its coffee shop doesn't have the cachet the old Village Roost did. The popular Cross Keys Deli disappeared. Donna's managed to survive the bankruptcy of the bookstore it was in, and even flourish finally; but it wasn't easy. Truffles & Tea closed. And I'm not even sure I've named all the places that have come and gone. So why do I think the new Village Square Cafe, which has just started serving dinner, could make it?

Last week I was on vacation, so I published a Top 10 master list on my blog of earlier posts with information on where to get great seafood. You can go to baltimoresun.com/diningatlarge to view the actual posts. Here's the list: 1 Top 10 Best Crab Cakes 2 Top 10 Best Seafood Restaurants 3 Top 10 Crab Houses 4 Top 10 Places to Eat on the Water 5 Where's the Shrimp [Salad]? 6 Top 10 Places to Get Soft-Shell Crabs 7 Top 10 Places for Fish and Chips 8 Top 10 Places to Get Raw Oysters 9 Bar Food: The Best Steamed Shellfish 10 Top 10 Crab Cakes With a Twist Readers talk back Thanks for the aggregation!

So who is this mysterious "Developer B" who shows up buying gift cards in the indictment of Mayor Sheila Dixon? Among the names being tossed about is Patrick Turner, the Turner Development Group president, who appeared before the grand jury in June. The Baltimore Sun's Annie Linskey asked Turner if he's the guy. Turner denied it, adding that he's never been "B" at anything. Whoever he is, Developer B must rate an A-plus in our ex-schoolmarm mayor's book. The indictment suggests that Developer B dropped everything and dashed out to the store when Dixon asked for gift cards on Dec. 13, 2005.