12/19/2020
Local author, Shelly Howell has penned her newest collection of classic Baltimore recipes, Dining Down Memory Lane, Volume II. Shelly digs up four-star recipes from various sources and then recreates the dish to be sure the dish matches the one served as she remembered. I can only imagine how much works goes into this process, since restaurants are not known for recording, let alone preserving and archiving their recipes. Occasionally she finds someone like me who was a 21-year old manager that had been working in a restaurant from his days as a 16-year old dishwasher. Facebook makes it much easier to connect with people from the pre-internet world.
Opening her books brings a flood of memories. After realizing that managing restaurants might not be a good career. I went into selling beer, wine, and alcohol to restaurants when I was 29 years old. When I read about Rudy’s' 2900, I think about the story of Rudy Paul escaping from East Germany by breeching the "Iron Curtain" under a hail of bullets. Then comes the place where the baby boomers’ parents would get carry-out from Jimmy Wu's, a real treat. The House of Welsh was within walking distance of the Sunpapers on Calvert Street. I imagine a noire movie set that served affordable food. I could go on and on.
Shelly provides bakery recipes from the great Baltimore bakeries like Silbers, Rice’s, Doebereiner’s, Mrs. Desserts, and Hutzler’s Baking enthusiasts can have a blast.
A real treat would be to gift this collection along with Volume I and the history of Baltimore dining turns into a panorama.