Jerry Pellegrino

For Maryland white corn lovers, this is high season, a treasured slice of time when life is as good as a buttery, salty ear of fresh corn on the cob.  Although corn on the cob is arguably the best way to enjoy it, there are a lot of other iterations of corn that are pretty wonderful too. And as Chef Jerry Pellegrino points out, one thing that always makes our eyes brighten is the mention of corn pudding on the menu.

Click on the image for instructions. 

There's a very laudable organization here in town called the Baltimore Orchard Project whose goal is to remind us that we are surrounded by an urban forest. And like any good forest, a lot of those trees are bearing fruit, which is there for the taking. And there are some very interesting things out there including the mythical pawpaw.

Click on the image for some apple recipes. 

I think that one of the most closely guarded secrets of so-called foodies is that we harbor a yearning for some of the classic meals we enjoyed as kids. For folks of a certain age, it might be called the best of "The Mad Men Cookbook," and for younger folks it's a matter or retro cooking. But as Chef Jerry Pellegrino will agree, some of our mom's favorites are still ours. The trick however is to approach these dishes from scratch, and not rely on cans of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup.

-Al

Click on the picture for recipes. 

As one who is always keeping an eye on his waistline, I find myself eating more salads than usual this summer. I can do something as simple as iceberg lettuce with a dollop of 1000 Island Dressing, or something as complex as a Salad Nicoise. And the one undeniable thing about salads is the near infinite number of permutations that we can choose from.

-Al

Click on the image for recipes. 

You don't have to be a genius to figure out that we here in Maryland are swimming in fruit.  From here on out, each week's harvest is going to include all manner of locally grown fruit in a bewildering variety.  And as Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Schola Cooking School can verify,  aside from munching on a peach, there's a lot of ways of making use of this wonderful bonanza, especially if you're inclined to make a fresh fruit tart.

Click on the image for the instructions. 

Happy 4th of July. And I'm willing to bet that more than a few of you are planning crab feasts to go along with the fireworks. Some purists may insist that you only need two things for a proper crab feast: crabs and beef.  But to make it a true feast, I think you've got to offer more than that. And Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Schola Cooking School has set his focus on the sides. Here are a bunch of ideas to round out your crab feast.

Click on the image for the list of recipes. 

Last week I shared my culinary memories of my trip to Spain, and the week before that Jerry was talking about the grill. So this week we've decided to blend the two concepts and talk about something rather novel. And Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Schola Cooking School has figured out how to throw a Spanish classic on the barbie.

Click on the photo for recipe and instructions. 

I just got back from my trip to Spain, and boy did I eat well. We did a fair amount of tapas and a fair amount of sit-down dinners, and since I had my notebook with me, I brought back some ideas. And I'm sure that Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Schola Coking School would have been going nuts sampling all that good food.

Click on the picture for recipes.

I've been firing up my grill for a few weeks now, and ever since we did a show on smoking with wood chips, I've been cooking up some very tasty food. But if you want to increase the flavor of your steaks, ribs and roasts, you can't beat the direct approach:  going with marinades and rubs. And this is where Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Schola Cooking School can get very creative. Click on the picture to the left for instructions and recipes.

Memorial Day is here, and summertime is officially underway. One of the first things I'm going to do is get my grill all cleaned up, replace a few old parts, and get it all fired up. And as Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Schola Cooking School often says, when it comes to grilling where there's fire... there isn't necessarily smoke. And that's a shame. Click on the picture for more info. 

One of the happiest times in the Maryland calendar is the month of May when our delicious strawberries are just pouring in. With all the pick your own farms out there, there are few things nicer than taking the kids out to pluck a few pecks of sweet red strawberries. Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Schola Cooking School reminds us that there is a classic way for Marylanders to enjoy those berries.

Click on the picture for the recipe. 

Although it's still a little tough to get there, Cuba has captured the imaginations of a lot of Americans who want to see what life is like after Castro.  A big part of Cuban life centers on food, and already, a lot of Cuban food has spilled over into the US.  Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Schola Cooking School has looked into this culinary exchange program and has developed some tasty Cuban recipes. 

Click on the image for recipes.

As so often happens we go to the market and we feel swamped with all the produce available.  You take home a groaning market basked filled with fresh Maryland produce, and you quickly realize you can't eat it all, all at once.  But Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Schola Cooking School has some ideas about keeping that good spring produce.

Pickling is most often associated with the late summer or early fall, when we want to preserve the abundance of the harvest.  But there's no reason pickling can't go on all year long.  Jerry distinguishes between a fast pickle, accomplished in 30 minutes or less, and a slow pickle, which involves simmering your produce in the pickling liquid, and then canning it.

Click on the picture for some classic slow pickle recipes that Jerry has tried and likes.

If I need inspiration for an upcoming meal, I simple go shopping and let the ingredients stimulate my creativity.  Nowhere is this more true than when I go to a shop like EN Olivier where there are dozens of amazing olive oils and vinegars available for sampling and sale. And we've invited one of our best friends to talk about culinary inspiration, the owner of EN Olivier, Liz Nuttle.

Let's have three cheers for springtime and the re-opening of the farmers markets.  This is a time for early abundance with all those delights of what the Italians call, the Primavera.   For Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Schola Cooking School, one of the first indulgences are salad greens, in bewildering profusion.

Interestingly enough there is actually a vegetable named ‘Spring Greens’. It is a member of the cabbage family and related to kale. It is cold tolerant, like the first cabbages of the year and has fresh, loose heads without the hard heart of other cabbages. It is great sautéed or boiled with garlic and olive oil. But we really wanted to talk about are the fun things we see in the springtime that are green!

A couple weeks ago I was shopping in the Waverly Farmers Market and I bought a nice head of cabbage from my friends at Eden Farm. I took it home, and over the course of the next week I got three meals out of it. So as Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Schola Cooking School would suggest, once again we have proof of cabbage's incredible versatility.

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April is, among other things, National Noodle Month, which gives us a chance to think outside the noodle box for a moment.  Whereas most pasta and noodles are made with the simplest ingredients, there are no rules saying you can't get a little more inventive.  Thanks to a nifty piece of hardware, we can easily turn vegetables like carrots and squash into something very closely resembling noodles.

The tool in question is a spiral vegetable slicer.  You pop a roughly cylindical vegetable into the mouth of the tool, twist and turn according to instructions, and a pile of tidy noodle shaped vegetables emerges.  The slices can be thin spaghetti style or broader fettuccine or anything in between. 

Some of these gadgets look like tiny kitchen lathes, and others are something like a tube with a cutting blade inside.  Regardless, they are inexpensive, ranging from as little as $10 up to about $40.

With your vegetable noodle maker in hand what can you do with it?  Well Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Schola Cooking School has an armful of ideas.

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One of the things we do really well in Maryland is peppers.  Our soil and climate are perfect for the entire range of peppers, from the mildest to the hottest.

One of Jerry Pellegrino's favorite thing to do with peppers is to whip up some of the classic Mexican salsas.  Here are a few of his favorite.  Some of these ingredients can be found in the Latino bodegas that a scattered around town.

Click here for salsa recipes from Chefs Amy von Lange & Jerry Pellegrino.

I happen to be as patriotic as the next guy, but even I am forced to admit there are certain things the French do better than just about anybody else.  Perfume, champagne and truffles come to mind... and so do French pastries. Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Schola Cooking School agrees.   He has had a number of French guests come into his school lately, and he has learned a thing or two.  Here are three recipes that will challenge you, but give you impressive results. 

Click here for unique French pastry recipes from Chefs Amy von Lange & Jerry Pellegrino.

With St. Patrick's Day looming we thought it would be a good idea to help you think past corned beef and cabbage and take a fresh look at modern Irish cooking.  And as Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Schola Cooking School says, it seems to be high time to re-calibrate our thinking.

So with that in mind, here are a few classic Irish recipes done up for modern tastes and techniques.

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If you can't just hop on a plane and fly to somewhere exotic, like, say, Sardinia, you can do the next best thing. And that would be to book a table at Daniela Restaurant in Hampden where you will be treated to the next best thing.

Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Schola Cooking School and I invited Chef Daniela Useli to tell us about how she brings a little piece of Sardinia to Hampden.

To read more, click here. 

It's a comfort to think that spring is creeping up on us and in a few weeks the markets will be open with the first produce of the year, some of it grown in hoop houses.  And one of the first things we can expect is spinach, and that makes us smile.

The first spinach, which often has been exposed to cold crisp air, is often the sweetest.  Besides its marvelous flavor, spinach is, as Popeye averred, really healthy for you.  It's a great nutrient delivery vehicle, and the only caveat we can offer is not to over-cook it.

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Years and years ago, each and every spring, a Baltimore landmark restaurant called Danny's would hang a mysterious sign outside their front door. "The Run is On" said the sign, and every spring I would be left puzzling what that was all about. And I call myself a Baltimorean. Well, I don't have to tell you it meant that the shad were running and shad roe was on the menu.  It was a rite of spring.

The story continues here. 

I was making the rounds at my local farmers market last week, looking for something off the beaten path in the meat department. I stopped by Woolsey Farm's stand, famous for their excellent lamb, and it hit me. I could get a pound or two of ground lamb and see what I could do with it.  

Lamb and beef are mostly interchangeable, but there are differences. Lamb's flavor is quite distinct from beef, so a lamb cheeseburger might not exactly hit the same spot. But ground lamb is nothing if not versatile, and it does open up doors to more exotic culinary traditions. 

Today is Valentine's Day and for those of you who are romantically inclined, we have a suggestion.  From where I sit, few things are as likely to earn you a kiss as a bubbling pot of cheese fondue.  And as Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Schola Cooking School would argue, it's undeniable:  sharing a fondue over candlelight is flat-out romantic.

Next week is our annual celebration of love and affection and along with a bouquet of flowers, a box of candy seems quite appropriate.

Ordinarily we would dash off to Glauber's or Wockenfuss, but truth to tell, there is an alternative. According to Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Schola Cooking School, homemade candy is a distinct possibility.    

Here are some simple recipes that will result in amazingly tempting candies. You don't need to achieve high artistic perfection with these recipes. It's the thought that counts.

Enjoy these recipes by Chefs Amy von Lange and Jerry Pellegrino. 

During these cold winter months there are any number of clever, forward thinking people who are enjoying homemade sauces using the tomatoes they canned last summer. And as Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Schola Cooking School preaches, if these folks have any sense, they'll be looking up some of the classic sauces of Italy.

We're casting a wide net and bringing in a few other sauces that are not necessarily tomato based, just to be a little more comprehensive.

When Al was a kid there were few things his parents fixed to eat that impressed him. He said his dad's Thanksgiving turkey was a knock-out, and his mom's homemade fudge got his attention. But when his dad suddenly, out of nowhere, whipped up a couple dozen donuts from scratch, he was impressed. And Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Schola Cooking School, shows us that you don't have to go out to Dunkin Donuts to satisfy that particular craving.

In the bleak mid-winter I sometimes ponder the Chesapeake watermen who are out there dredging up oysters for our pleasure. It's tough life, but we're glad they do it, because a Chesapeake oyster is a wonderful thing.  And Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Schola Cooking School, there's more to oysters than just shucking and slurping.