Food Is Not Always the Thing! (Breakfast Sausage)

I'm running an hors d' oeuvres and appetizer class on Saturday June 19th between 1:00 and 2:30 pm.  Good stuff!  More info is HERE.
_____

We had lunch last weekend at the Eichenkranz Restaurant in Baltimore, located in a row house neighborhood smack between Greektown and I-95.  It is 15 minutes east of all that tourist havoc in the Inner Harbor you had to visit with your family or on a middle school trip where the teacher warned you about all the “ethnic” people you should stay away from.

You should visit the Eichenkranz, not for the food, which reminds me of when I first started cooking in the 1970’s, but for a real shot of Baltimore, something I haven’t seen since they knocked down that green crabcake shack on East Pratt to make way for the ESPN Zone, a landmark of capitalist crapfood. 

We had a reservation, but did not need it.  At 1:00, we were the only people there.  Eichenkranz is a little back on its heels.  I like the pictures of Bavarian, cliff perched castles.   

There were numerous decades old civic awards, most hung askew.  The bathroom hadn’t had a deep cleaning since Otto’s 1^st Reich.  Taking all that into account, you don’t go to the Eichenkranz for atmosphere or even the food.  Its glory days are in the past, but it is still an interesting place. 

Our waitress assured us that they were open, adding that they had had, “…a banging breakfast.”  Linda is my kind of server.  No BS, no style, a real pro, who gets the food to you and holds the niceties.  When I ordered a Hofbrau, she told me, correctly, that the Köstritzer Schwarzbier would be a better choice.  She dropped our food and ran by a moment later asking, “Youz good?   

None of us minded when Linda spilled a monkey dish of red cabbage and simply rolled up the tablecloth on that corner and put a bread basket and a vase on the mess.  We waited a long time for our check, so I went to the bar to see what was up.  Linda was shoulder deep in a slimline trash can, rescuing a customer’s credit card that another waitress had tossed.  We over tipped in a big way.      

The food is inexpensive, priced like it should be, considering that the recipes also came from 1974.  Actually it was a buy, generous portions and a free ice cream sundae for Grandma’s birthday.  Cathy’s pork chop with apples, cooked as if trichinosis was still rampant in Baltimore, was actually a slice of loin with canned brown gravy and unpeeled green apples.  My sausages had been microwaved.  Cathy’s Mom had weiner schnitzel that was thinly breaded and served with capers and lemon, the winner for this day.  The sides, red cabbage, sauerkraut, German green beans, were all well acquainted with the steam table.  That said, the atmosphere is throwback fantastic and our waitress made our day better, brighter.

But, here’s the thing.  Every meal doesn’t have to be haute cuisine.  Eating out isn’t just collecting BYOB’s like Pokemon cards.  Every once in a while, do yourself a favor and have a meal at a local joint.  They have been in business for a long time for some reason.  Maybe the food isn’t Thai/French/Brazilian fusion hip.  Maybe the entry needs painting.  So what!  Take one evening to figure out why the place has been making people happy since 1854.  You owe it to that long line of diners who have ordered before you.

Places like Beato’s Steaks in Philly, The Pepsi Restaurant on Monroe in Rochester, NY, New York City’s McSorley’s Old Ale House and The Eichenkranz Restaurant are institutions, iconic places that sustain and define a specific geographic area and a particular group of people.  We are all less since Beato’s closed, leaving us missing their shrine to il Duce, Frank Rizzo and their sloppy cheesesteaks.  With the Pepsi closed, where in Cobb’s Hill do I go to get surly service from hairy Greek grill cooks?  Support places like McSorley’s and The Eichenkranz before they disappear into the mist.

  

Eichenkranz Restaurant

611 South Fagley

Baltimore, MD 21224

(410) 563-7577

For your "banging breakfast," make sausage.
_____

Breakfast Sausage

1 pound ground pork
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 tbs. black pepper, coarsely ground
1 tbs. fresh thyme, chopped.
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground allspice

Using a mixer with a dough hook or by hand, vigorously mix all the ingredients until the sausage begins to bind.  Cool in the refrigerator fo 30 minutes.

Form the sausage into patties less than 1/2 inch thick, so that they fry up quickly in a pan  on the top of the stove.

*I know this kind of thing is bad advice for those watching their fat intake, but I can never resist scrambling some eggs in the pan where the sausage has been cooked.  Those greasy, crumbly bits are too good.