dish tripping through atlanta, georgia

Earlier this year, our gang at Dish Trip flew down south to chomp through Georgia's cultural and culinary capital of Georgia—Atlanta!

The whirlwind, food-loving trip hosted more than 9 delicious stops, which are all lined up over on Southwest Airlines' Nuts About Southwest Blog. Oh yes, and there is a video recap (seen below), as well—which, I suggest, you should watch especially since I become one serious zombie in it!

Click here to read our stop-by-stop play-by-play. 

iron hill brewery & restaurant host first-ever culinary battle

My dear friends at Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant hosted their first-ever culinary cook-off mid-August, and it was a total pleasure to make the quick trek to their Wilmington, Delaware location to judge the kitchen battle.

Click here to speed over to their website to read my guest post where I recap the full competition. Don't skip watching the below video either, as crafted by my talented friend Gary Colyer (of Mizfam Photo.Video.Design).

join me on pinterest!

Since we converse on here, why not chitchat and share elsewhere, no? Let us start pinning. Find my boards and I here. Like you may expect, a majority of my boards circle back to food & drink (duh!).

verlasso salmon hosts culinary cook-off, chef shola crowned champ

It goes without saying—but I must—that it is always a pleasure to spy Chef Shola Olunloyo concocting his next culinary masterpiece. 

The most recent mingling occurred at Samuels and Son Seafood's Gourmet Kitchen, when Verlasso Salmon hosted their sustainable seafood-infused Chef Challenge.

Who did Chef Shola battle-it-out against, you ask? Chef Terence Feury—who is also—another local culinary heavy-hitter that constantly wows are tastebuds.

Full tasting and cook-off report here.

a visit to the chestnut hill cheese shop

I recently spent a summery weekday morning haunting around the Chestnut Hill Cheese Shop. The operating duo (Daniel Weiss & John Ingersoll) are the kind of gentlemen you want slicing and shaving your cheese — friendly and knowledgeable, respectful of the product and incredibly helpful in pinpointing what you’re looking for.

Click here for my full tasting report of my recent visit. Be warned—co-owner Daniel does tip you off to many of his cheesy favorites.

recipe: brew-infused apple sticky buns

I recently scribed a guest post for In Search of Beer, Ryan Hudak's website that details his on-going feat for sampling new beers, all while sharing everything hop-associated, including brew news, event recaps, and even, recipes for cooking and baking with beer. 


Since I too am always on the hunt for the next best beer and strive to incorporate beer in everything possible (talking in dinner, in desserts, and of course, in cocktails), I decided to contribute editorial that tied my love for my PA Dutch culture with my obsession of baking–all of which had to be splashed with beer, of course.


Click here to read up on my time-consuming methods of crafting from-scratch Pennsylvania Dutch Sticky Buns–a recipe I particularly enhanced with fresh apples and extra-special bitter beer. If you can squeeze in the time, for all the glory of dough kneading and dough rising, I promise you that these sweet breads are always a crowd-pleasing hit.

holiday cookie swaps and bacon chocolate chunk biscotti

There are no elaborate rules to the holiday cookie swap that I host with my best friend. While we together take baking very seriously, an affair that is themed around a sugary spread of everyone's favorite cookies should never be a tense event.

So, if you're a cookie party virgin, do not skip asking for an invitation to our next sweet treat gathering. Whether you're an experienced kitchen crusader or you briefly dabble in dessert-making, no one acts as critics in this get-together, but instead, attendees appreciate each and every contribution, requesting recipes for this and that, aiming to simplify their holiday baking by providing having a fine, diverse take-home sampling for their upcoming parties–or simply, to steal bites from throughout the Christmas season.

For this year's holiday cookie party, I opted to whip up two brand-new recipes for our guests' pleasure. Sometimes, I have lofty baking ideas, and with slim time to actually concoct fine jewels of desserts, they typically end in disasters.

But, I promise you, the following two recipes are crowd-pleasers, perfect to take to any cookie share—even one of those that all bakers spend entire afternoons prepping for, designing their cookies and their plates, stressing over if their hard-worked contributions will be a raging success.