Kid Baltimore | Family Activities with Children in Baltimore, Maryland

The Nutcracker Ballet at Baltimore School for the Arts

photo by Joe Rubino

WHEN:
Fridays, December 4 and December 11, 7:00 PM
Saturdays, December 5 and 12, 11:00 and 3:00 PM
Sundays, December 6 and 13, 2:00 and 6:00 PM

WHERE:
Baltimore School for the Arts
712 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
                      
TICKETS:
$15.00 for adults
$10.00 for students
                      
INFO:
Call 410-624-2110 or visit www.bsfa.org

The Nutcracker Ballet ranks high on my list this year for must-do activities to get into the holiday spirit. And I can't think of a better place to take the kids to see it than Baltimore School for the Arts. I took my oldest daughter when she was 3 years old, and heavily into her pink ballerina phase. With the twins at age 5 now, they are past due, but I am sure they will be delighted to see it. I am also sure that at least one of them will be begging for ballet lessons afterward... and I will probably cave.

Mums and Sundials

A recent trip to the Conservatory revealed two new surprises. First, the chrysanthemums, still in full bloom and crazy beautiful. I'm only showing one here, because I don't want to ruin the fun.

And second, this bizarre sundial. It shows multiple timezones, one on each plane. I think it's brilliant, despite the tree stump base. Surely the base was an afterthought.

Baltimore's time was dead on.

 

 

410-396-0180

Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory & Botanic Gardens
3100 Swan Drive in Druid Hill Park
Baltimore, MD 21217

[Directions from their website]

Groupon Anyone?

I've been checking out the Groupon website lately. It offers great discounts from local businesses. Every day one new offer is available, usually only for a day, and at a very deep discount—maybe 50% off, maybe more. If enough people buy the deal, it's on.

I decided to try a restaurant deal. $10 for $25 worth of Italian Cuisine at Ciao Pizza Bistro. With my coupon in hand, my reservation made, and my three favorite dinner dates by my side, I headed out.

We had a lovely kid-friendly meal. Pasta for the little ones, and a spinach and feta cheese pizza with the house bistro salad for my older daughter and me.

After seeing how easy it was, I will definitely be watching Groupon for more deals. Hey, cheap is good.

Homemade Bread in Five Minutes A Day

Will someone please tell me why there are 30 ingredients in my store-bought bread? I'm trying, really hard, to feed my family healthy food. I really am. But I am starting to realize that the bad stuff sneaks in, no matter what I buy.

I suppose I brought this on myself. I had just finished reading In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, by Michael Pollan, and then I foolishly followed it up with King Corn, starring Michael Pollan (again) and Ian Cheney. So let's just say I have been operating on Michael Pollan overload. Still, both the book and the movie make some really good points. One of which is:

The only real way to make food healthy is to make it myself.

So, back to my bread situation. Why so many ingredients? I will never know, but I'm pretty sure that half of them have to do with shelf life, and the other half are probably making it lighter, fluffier, sweeter or whatever.

I occasionally like to bake bread. Actually, I like the idea of baking bread, and the smell of baking bread, more than I like baking bread. A while back I noticed this article in Mother Earth News that talked about how to bake bread in 5 minutes a day, no kneading required. Obviously, cooking and rising time are not included in the 5 minutes. The keys to this method are a very wet dough and a tray of water.

 

Maybe a little good old-fashioned faith doesn't hurt either. Any day you want bread, you cut off a piece of dough, shape it, let it rest, and bake it. As the dough ages (up to two weeks) the sourdough flavor get stronger and the bread gets even better. I made the first batch (replacing some of the white flour with whole wheat...yes, I have to sneak that in) and it was amazing.

I used up the last of my first batch as pizza dough. I'm going to experiment some more, but I think having a bowl of dough in the fridge is going to be a regular habit. Once you master the basic recipe, there are lots of variations to try.

More recipes are available in Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois's book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking. Enjoy!