One of the restaurants featured in Lucie Snodgrass' comprensive Dishing Up Maryland (Storey Publishing, 2010, paper, $19.95) is the Fair Hill Inn in Cecil County in northest Maryland, so it's fitting that she have one of her first book signings there on a chilly evening in late March. While we nibble hors d'oeuvres rushed out of the kitchen by co-chefs Brian Shaw and Phil Pyle and sip a variety of wines, Lucie stands behind the sturdy bar and wields a pen.She explains that, although she was born in England of Swiss parents and has roamed the world a bit, she has lived for many years on the west side of the Susquehanna near the Pennsylvania border with her horticulturalist husband, Edmund, a fifth generation farmer and a scholar who pioneered green roof plantings - itself a story for another day. So there are a lot of plant experts from the region in the old stone inn this evening, sipping wine and discussing their specialties and their lecturing circuits.
Snodgrass has written an excellent cookbook with 150 recipes from all corners of Maryland's diverse landscape, but she also has written a cultural guidebook with stories about the people who grow the food, as well as those who cook it, such as the Ways of Rumbleway Farm just down the road near the Susquehanna or the Hayden Brothers, watermen down the Chesapeake Bay, or the Bruscos of South Mountain Creamery in the hills of Frederick County.
And like a delicious entree that also is beautifully plated, Lucie Snodgrass' book has dozens of colorful photos by Edwin Remsberg printed on glossy stock. Well worth ordering through your local bookseller.
Until next time...
Roger Morris
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