Top That! Come Up with Our Fave Burger Topping and Win a $25 Gift Card

Obscene, tasty and obscenely tasty burger toppings are nothing new.

But it feels like the ante has been upped now that Denny's is topping their patty melts with mac & cheese, a dish you'd normally find languishing on the side of your plate, looking on with jealousy as your mouth and eyes devour that burger patty.

Recent years have brought us such out there burger toppings as mashed potatoes, a cheesesteak and mozzarella sticks. But is that the best we can do? After all, this is the country that put a man on the moon! We're not better than the concoctions you'd see created at a 3rd grade cafeteria table?

So, show us what you've got. Visit us on Facebook and answer our post about how you'd top a burger. If you have our favorite topping you win a $25 Cheeseburger in Paradise gift card and we'll even prepare your burger for a future blog post.

Hurry, contest ends Friday, September 30, 2011!

Doin' it for the Ta-Ta's – RA Sushi Offers a Wine and Sushi Special to Benefit National Breast Cancer Foundation

In support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, RA Sushi Bar Restaurant in Harbor East will be offering a wine and sushi special to benefit the National Breast Cancer Foundation® (NBCF).  From Saturday, Oct. 1 to Monday, Oct. 31, RA Sushi will donate 100 percent of the profits from the sale of the ONEHOPE Wine and Pink Roll combination to the Foundation. 

The combo includes a glass of ONEHOPE California Chardonnay and the Pink Roll, which features shrimp, kani kama crab mix and sriracha combined with lettuce, avocado and cucumber wrapped in pink soy paper and served with a pink ribbon of strawberry sauce. The ONEHOPE Wine and Pink Roll special will be offered for $15 at RA Sushi in Harbor East as well as RA’s 24 other locations nationwide.

“When we first launched the ONEHOPE combo, Baltimore fell in love with the Pink Roll and the cause,” said RA Sushi General Manager Scott Bernas. “We’re happy to bring it back for another season and I know our customers are eager to support it again.”


In addition this season, guests who order the ONEHOPE special and check in to RA Sushi Baltimore on Foursquare will receive a pink Breast Cancer bracelet.



RA Sushi is located at 1390 Lancaster Street in Harbor East's The Eden. Visit RA Sushi online at www.RASushi.com or call 410-522-3200. You can also find RA Sushi on Facebook and Twitter.

First Taste of THE CHEW

I haven't been able to bring myself to watch the premiere episode of THE CHEW (ABC's new daytime food/entertaining/whatever show that debuted on Monday). Initial reports from close confidants and people whose opinions I trust were not good.

But with time running out to head downtown and grab a lobster roll (or slider, or lobster slider) at The Silver Platter I decided to raid the kitchen, make a quesadilla and watch the live broadcast of the show that initial reviews referred to as "patronizing", "mundane" and "over-stuffed".

Sounds great!

First impressions: 

• Michael Symon is an annoying over laugher and all kidding aside it sounds like the giggle of an 80s action villain. 
• No surprise here, but Mario Batali is over-bearing and condescending – even to other chefs! Hey ABC, if a guy is largely thought of as smug and superior, having him host a segment where he imparts his "Kitchen Kommandments" might not be your best move. (Note: One of Batali's "kommandments" was that you only needed three knives. Somehow I'm thinking a Tomato-Baguette Knife isn't one of them.)
• Poor Clinton Kelly has to keep the whole thing moving somehow and is easily the most likable part of the show (though he seemed so taken back by the uncomfy silence at the end of today's episode that he had a hard time spitting out the lame tagline). 
• I felt bad for Top Chefer Carla Hall when she brought up "Chow-Chow" and the rest of the cast pretended like they didn't know what it was. ("Ketchup? Hmm, interesting. Never heard of it.") I'm a movie nerd from New Jersey and I've heard of Chow-Chow!
• As for the odd-looking blonde (Somebody Oz?), well, she's a real downer. Place the salad and healthy food in the middle of my fridge so it's the first thing I see when I open it? Thanks Dr. Buzzkill.

I'm sure I'll get around to watching the premiere one of these days, but I have to admit that this little drop-in did nothing to encourage me.

You'll Have to Pry My Cold Dead Hands from the Self Checkout Lane

I do not ask a lot of my grocery stores: have some reasonably nice produce; a deli kiosk is always a plus; don't gouge me on the organic milk; a decent coffee selection would be good; and, for the love of god, throw me a self-checkout line or two.

And I don't mean the restrictive self-checkouts like they installed when ShopRite took over the nearby SuperFresh and pushed it way down on my preferred stores list. (Never has a store plummeted so far, so fast in my soon-to-be-published THG's Grocery Power Rankings.)

Give me a self-checkout. With a conveyor belt. I promise I'll be fast and efficient. Probably more so than 90% of your employees. No offense folks.

So what does my wife send me? An article about how self checkout usage is down and that some stores are phasing them out for lack of use.

Hey, stores that plan on getting rid of self checkout? Let me know where you are... so I never shop there!

Sugarloaf Crafts Festival Brings Gourmet Goodies to MD Fairgrounds

Whether we want to accept it or not, the holidays are right around the corner and that means everything from office parties and entertaining as well as needing presents for friends, family and the hosts of those last minute holiday shindigs.

If you want to get some of your holiday shopping wrapped up early – and pick up some gourmet treats to keep on hand for impromptu gatherings or just snacking during the next football game – make plans to hit this weekend's Sugarloaf Crafts Festival at the State Fairgrounds in Timonium.

Frankly, I always had the crafts festival pegged as a place where I could get quilts, household decor and furniture, not gourmet food. So I was pleased to find out that this year's installment of the popular event will feature more than 20 food exhibitors selling everything from specialty drink mixes and gourmet snacks to cakes, cookies and more.

Here's just a sampling of the exhibitors who will be selling their goods – and hopefully handing out samples – when the show arrives this weekend:

• Rowena's Italian Specialties – desserts, jams, curds and sauces
• Rising Sun Farms – 100% gluten free and all natural tortas, spreads, marinades and more
• Bittersweet Herb Farm – sauces, jams, oils and seasonings
• Ron and Frank's Gourmet Beverages – hot chocolate, chai tea and their new coffee blend
• Olevano Olive Oil – a wide range of olive oil-based products
• Berkshire Sweet Gold – single crop, single batch maple syrup from Massachusetts
• Pretzelphoria Gourmet Pretzels – choose from sweet and salty, hot and spicy or just plain indulgent
• Lakes Almonds – gourmet roasted nuts
• Wissie Cakes – breads, cookies, pound cakes and more
• Leonard Mountain – stews, soups, dips and chili

Thanks to the fine folks at the Sugarloaf Crafts Festival we have a handful of free tickets to the festival good for admission Friday, September 30, Saturday, October 1 or Sunday, October 2. To get a pair of free tickets e-mail editor@hungovergourmet.com with your name and mailing address before Wednesday, September 28 at noon EST. While supplies last!

When a Man Loves Two Sunday Coupon Ads

Oh how I love looking through the Sunday newspaper coupon inserts. Besides getting a glimpse of just what America is actually buying at the store (mini hot dogs wrapped in pretzels? french toast and sausage breakfast sandwiches?) there's usually at least one ad that makes me fall off the kitchen stool in a mix of astonishment, laughter and pure joy. Today, there were two.

And I've been serving mac and cheese on the side all these years!

I would have paid $50. But I'll probably just wait till they start showing up at garage sales in a few years.

Aldo's and Chazz Help Fight Childhood Hunger

From September 19-24, restaurants across the country will be participating in Share Our Strength's Dine Out for No Kid Hungry. A national campaign focused on ending childhood hunger in America by 2015, the campaign raised more than $1.5 million last year and they hope to smash that record this year.

You can support both No Kid Hungry and Baltimore's restaurant scene by dining at Aldo's Ristorante Italiano or the buzzed about new kid on the block Chazz: A Bronx Original during the week. Both eateries – the only independent restaurants in the area taking part in the program – are donating 5% of sales to help end childhood hunger in America, which affects more than 17 million children.

“Childhood hunger is a growing problem in our country and is an issue that needs to be addressed,” said Sergio Vitale, Chef/Co-Owner of Chazz: A Bronx Original and Co-Owner of Aldo’s. “We are proud to participate in No Kid Hungry™ and hope that everyone will come out to Chazz and Aldo’s this week to not only get a great meal but to also help those in need.”

“We are asking everyone—private citizens, businesses, policymakers and other nonprofits—to help us end childhood hunger in this country,” said Bill Shore, Founder of Share Our Strength.

“I encourage everyone to dine out often at participating Dine Out For No Kid Hungry restaurants in September, then visit our web site, Strength.org, to learn what more they can do to make sure every child in America has access to the nutritious food they need.”

Share Our Strength’s Dine Out For No Kid Hungry is sponsored by Sysco, American Express, Ecolab, Open Table, Food Network, USA Today and the National Restaurant Association.

Blogus Interruptus

One of the many branches and limbs
deposited in our yard by Irene.

Hoping all of our readers made it through Hurricane Irene ok. I was feeling pretty bold on Saturday night. After six-plus hours worth of rain and tropical storm winds that were shaking the 60-year-old trees around our house like maracas I finally went to sleep with power, cable TV, Internet, etc.

When my 4-year-old woke me out of a deep sleep on Sunday morning with a series of taps on the shoulder I discovered that sometime during the night we'd lost our cable and cable-powered Internet connection. We still had power – and only lost it for a brief moment on Sunday afternoon – but cable and Internet never returned.

In a house with a 4-year-old, one spouse who works in news and another who runs two companies from a home office, the lack of cable and Internet can make things a little tense. Thank god for local fast food joints, coffee shops and office supply stores who willingly supplied free Internet access (big shout outs to Office Depot, Starbucks and Caribou Coffee).

That was almost a week ago and as we left yesterday for an end-of-season weekend at the beach, power was finally being restored to the unfortunate souls in our area who had gone without since the storm peaked on Saturday night.

But we still didn't have cable/Internet, despite Comcast's optimistic message – displayed since Sunday – that the "temporary disruption" in our service would be fixed "momentarily".

Apparently, Comcast and I have different views of what "momentarily" means.

Now, I know that when your neighbors are sans power and the UPS guy is confessing that he bought 60 lbs. of beef on Saturday only to watch his power go out that night it's hard to bitch that your kid can't watch Max & Ruby and you're unable to send e-mails to customers or thank PR people for the latest care packages of DVDs and BBQ Sauce.

But now that power has been restored to our 'hood is it ok for me to bitch? Just a little?

For now, though, I'll enjoy the sun, sand and surf, hoping that when I return home I'll find a working cable connection.