Guinness

Irish Charities of Maryland, which also sponsors the Baltimore Irish Festival at Timonium Fairgrounds, recently held a "What's in Your Guinness?" recipe contest to find the tastiest ways to use the Irish beer Guinness in food. Six restaurants entered; this hearty dish from Jeffrey Smith, chef/owner and operator of the Chameleon Cafe in Lauraville, won top honors. BRAISED SHORT RIBS WITH VEAL STOCK GUINNESS REDUCTION Serves 6 to 7 1/2 cup flour salt and freshly ground pepper to taste 2 pounds beef short ribs 1/4 cup vegetable oil 1/2 pound onions, chopped 8 ounces carrots, chopped 3 cups veal stock 4 garlic cloves 1 bay leaf 4 peppercorns 1 teaspoon dried thyme 1/2 can Guinness beer 1/4 cup each, diced: turnips, carrots, rutabaga, parsnips Season flour with salt and pepper.

The Baltimore sports scene is blessed with a bunch of talented bloggers who bring their unique perspective to the conversation. Each week, I hope to chat with one of them in a regular feature called Blogger on Blogger. This week, I exchanged emails with blogger Gordon McGuiness, who writes about the Ravens for Pro Football Focus and also contributes to Russell Street Report and the Purple Reign Show . MV: What are your thoughts on the team's 2013 draft class, specifically Matt Elam and Arthur Brown?

How many yo-yos does it take to make a Guinness world record? Nobody knows -- yet. But the Baltimore area may win the honor with an event later this month connected to a traveling yo-yo show currently on display at Marley Station mall in Glen Burnie.Yo-yo enthusiasts of all ages are invited to participate Saturday, Sept. 28, in a mall gathering intended to establish the first "Guinness Book of World Records" mark for the most people doing yo-yo tricks at one time and one place.The event will be held in conjunction with "The Return of the Yo-Yo," an exhibit about the history of the tantalizing toy originally called in this country a "return top."

For those of you not already far gone in drink, a few reminders as the saloons stretch St. Patrick's Day into a three-day binge.  If you must  be familiar with the saint named Patrick, his nickname is Paddy , from the Irish Padraig . Thus St. Paddy's Day , as Paddy, Not Patty  has been at considerable pains to instruct you. Patty is a woman's name, the diminutive of Patricia . Do not number yourself among...

It's the time of year to think green - and to sip Guinness or Harp, or even Murphy's or Beamish. St. Patrick's Day allows us all to be a little bit Irish and, best of all, to enjoy a chance to celebrate good beer. Americans tend to flock toward mass-produced brands, standardized for consistency and designed to please as many people as possible. So it's easy to forget that beer can have intricate flavors and enough body to let you know you're encountering something more substantial than a watery brew.

Folk-rocker Lis Harvey was one day into the road trip of a lifetime, all 50 states in 61 days, and her station wagon had already had enough. A tire was flat, the struts were shot and the air conditioner died. Hey, if it was going to be easy, it wouldn't be a world record. These days, Harvey, 24, is rolling toward her Maryland stop - where she'll really appreciate the air conditioning - behind the wheel of a borrowed car. It's a token of true friendship (Harvey warned her buddy the trip could cover 20,000 miles)

Dublin, Ireland - - Painted on the streets of Dublin are warnings for pedestrians who aren't used to people driving on the left side: "Look left," they say, or "Look right," with an arrow pointing the way to look in case you don't get it. It's a small sign of how multicultural and visitor-oriented Ireland's capital city has become. This is not the first thing tourists think about. Dublin is, after all, a city known for its 1,000 pubs, not its upscale restaurants or its museums. Visitors who aren't interested in drinking a few pints of Guinness stout, the city's most famous product, or touring the Guinness Storehouse or the Old Jameson Distillery may write the city off, eager to get to the historical sites and spectacular countryside to the west.

CLAIBORNE -- Every time Ken Guinness takes his privat plane soaring over the tidewater creeks and fields in these environs, he winds up landing in the water.The wet touchdowns are intentional, though, because the 1947 Cessna Mr. Guinness bought two years ago is a seaplane outfitted with two watertight floats serving as its landing apparatus.While seaplanes have been around almost as long as airplanes, they are relatively rare in Maryland, despite the state's enormous Chesapeake Bay and many waterways and lakes.

Pictured in a tall glass with ice cream poking above the rim and foam overflowing, the Irish Float looked obscenely tantalizing. It stood out from the mosaic of golden fries and fluffed up burgers in the menu of the new Greene Turtle at McHenry Row. A combination of Guinness and Bacardi rum, it suggested one of the alcoholic shakes at Abbey Burger Bistro. Those aren't cocktails. They are unapologetic guilty pleasures, both potent and decadent. But what I got at the Greene Turtle last week turned out to be little more than an alcoholic Shamrock Shake.

Mary Thompson, 120, who might have been the oldest American, died after a heart attack Saturday in Orlando, Fla. Records suggest she was at least 120.She was born to former slaves and never had an official birth certificate. The Social Security Administration traced her life as far back as March 27, 1876.Using that date, she would have been older than Carrie White, whom The Guinness Book of Records listed as 116 at the time of death.Mrs. Thompson outlived two husbands and eight of 10 children.

"Why didn't he just pay for his surgery?" That was a prevalent thought as I was watching "The Last of McGuinness," a documentary that chronicles the wrestling retirement tour of a man who chased his dream his entire adult life. Nigel McGuinness wanted to be a professional wrestler, making the most money possible, which meant working for WWE.  He achieved this goal. He had a contract in hand and needed only to pass a physical to be cleared and begin his journey to what he surely felt was stardom and millions of dollars.

A new Guinness Book of World Records was released this week, filled with the world's longest, fastest, biggest, smallest, most prolific and most substantial. Included among this compelling compendium of the world's greatest are a handful of Marylanders -- although (sadly) Ocean City is not included; Last month, it fell a few hundred two-pieces short in its attempt to establish a world record for most participants in a bikini parade. Ridgely's Chad Elchin, for instance, has reigned for 11 years as the record holder for most consecutive loops with a hang glider.

Women planning to visit the beach in late August will have the opportunity to make their vacation like no other by participating in what Ocean City hopes will be the world's largest bikini parade. The bikini parade is the highlight of a planned Uptown Beach Bash, an event made to boost activity uptown in late August, drawing attention to an under utilized area during a slow part of the summer season. To break the Guinness World Record, set back in March by Panama City Beach, Fla., more than 450 women will need to participate in the parade, said Brad Hoffman of Spark Productions, the company organizing the event.

Pictured in a tall glass with ice cream poking above the rim and foam overflowing, the Irish Float looked obscenely tantalizing. It stood out from the mosaic of golden fries and fluffed up burgers in the menu of the new Greene Turtle at McHenry Row. A combination of Guinness and Bacardi rum, it suggested one of the alcoholic shakes at Abbey Burger Bistro. Those aren't cocktails. They are unapologetic guilty pleasures, both potent and decadent. But what I got at the Greene Turtle last week turned out to be little more than an alcoholic Shamrock Shake.

On Twitter, @paddynotpatty points out, "It's that time of year again. " Indeed it is, when the mock-Irish and faux-Irish will chatter cheerfully about "St. Patty's Day. "  Patty  is a woman's nickname, diminutive of Patricia, a flat cake of chopped meat, a meat pie, or a peppermint candy.  The diminutive of Padraic (Irish) or Patrick (English) is Paddy .  Get it right and reward yourself with a Guinness. 

The giant 1976 Bicentennial Birthday Cake that would land the city in "The Guinness Book of Records" was like a lot of ideas hatched by city government in Baltimore. While it gave the weary city beside the Patapsco a shot of well-needed national publicity, in the end it became a 35-ton embarrassment. It ended with rats, rain and a public feud that pitted then-City Council President Walter S. Orlinsky and Comptroller Hyman Pressman against one another, with the taxpayers eventually picking up the tab. Time will tell whether Labor Day weekend's Baltimore Grand Prix is a successful idea or another civic idea gone expensively bad, leaving its backers with, as Ricky Ricardo used to say to Lucy, "some splainin' to do. " The checkered flag has yet to drop on next month's Grand Prix, and already the lawyers are taking the first lap around the course in the wake of a $750,000 lawsuit filed in Baltimore Circuit Court by race founder Steven S. Wehner, who claims he has yet to be paid $575,000 by race organizers.

Carrie White, who was declared three years ago the "oldest living person in the world" by the "Guinness Book of World Records," died Thursday at a nursing home in Palatka, Fla. She was 116. Born when Ulysses S. Grant was president, Mrs. White spent 75 years at Florida State Hospital at Chattahoochee, where her husband, John White, admitted her one day after her 35th birthday. Hospital records say she suffered from post-typhoid psychosis, but doctors now are not certain of that diagnosis. She was released from the hospital when she was 109 as part of a program to move geriatric mental patients from state institutions.

On Twitter, @paddynotpatty points out, "It's that time of year again. " Indeed it is, when the mock-Irish and faux-Irish will chatter cheerfully about "St. Patty's Day. "  Patty  is a woman's nickname, diminutive of Patricia, a flat cake of chopped meat, a meat pie, or a peppermint candy.  The diminutive of Padraic (Irish) or Patrick (English) is Paddy .  Get it right and reward yourself with a Guinness. 

Baltimore looks like it has a new record to smile about. For 11 minutes and 32 seconds, 261 people stood at the Maryland Science Center plaza Thursday to form what organizers said was the world's largest smiley face as part of the launch of a new city tourism campaign. The orange and black smiley face that resembled a lumpy jack-o-lantern grinned up at members of the media gathered on the roof of the science center as a police helicopter circled above. It appeared to be enough to earn the Guinness World Records title for the largest human smiley face.