Birthday in Baltimore!

For the past few years, my sister has been visiting me in New York for my birthday. This time, I had to be in Baltimore the day after my birthday, so I decided I would go down early and celebrate my birthday with her there.

The day before, I visited the New York location of Laduree and packed a goody bag for us to enjoy once I arrived. I also picked up one (yes, just one) for me to eat. I'm happy to announce that our macarons safely made it to my final destination.
My sister had picked out some oyster crab seafood place to take me, but I insisted that I wanted pizza. So, she picked Iggie's pizza. This place is great. It is BYOB, the staff is friendly, it has unique toppings, and, we ordered three pizzas all for only $30.00. We ordered the sei formaggi pizza and the special of the day, which was a cheese and wild boar salami pizza. We also ordered a dessert pizza.

{So much to choose from!}

{Bubbling out of control!}

{I'm so excited I can't keep my eyes open!}

{Six cheese pizza}

{Wild boar salami}

And then my phone died, so we don't have any photos of the dessert pizza. The other great thing about this pizza is that it is light enough to be filling, but not heavy enough to make you feel like you are going to roll home. Well, that was a good thing because my sister surprised me with...

Pumpkin cupcakes for my birthday! I think she used her easy bake oven to make them before I arrived. Her friends frosted it for us while we were at dinner - how nice! 

Yes, we had dessert pizza and then came back home for more cupcakes. We stopped before breaking into the macarons.

Moist, flavorful, and topped with a unique frosting, these were the best cupcakes I've ever had, made by the best baby sister a girl could have! If you want the recipe, she adapted it from Smitten Kitchen.  She made her own verison of frosting - with a dash of bourbon in it. I love my baby sis!

Saturday for brunch, we went to Gertrude's near campus. It was underwhelming. Instead, I'll show you a sequence of events related to yet another macaron adventure. Basically I picked out nearly every flavor available. 

My cute as a button baby sis picked pistachio as her first flavor.

Then one of the Lanvin bubble gum flavors. 

Then we ate the rest of them while watching Modern Family.

Sunday brunch was at Woodberry Kitchen. I don't think Baltimore is known for its restaurant scene, but this place is definitely amazing. It focuses on sustainable agriculture and I believe all of its purveyors are from the Chesapeake area. 

Every Sunday, Woodberry Kitchen offers "Bake Shop" items which are baked fresh that morning. Naturally we ordered everything on the Bake Shop menu. This consisted of an apple cider doughnut, a s'mores "pop tart", a plum bread budding, and a chocolate chip pumpkin cake. 

{Bake Shop Menu!}

This is possibly the best breakfast treat of all times. The really nice thing about all of these is that they were not overly sweet, so we could easily eat almost the entire board without feeling sick. Good job, Woodberry!

{Bakery basket}

{Baby sis expertly dividing the sticky plum pudding}

{The most glorious apple fritter of all time}

{S'mores pop tart}



{Honey macchiato}

{The very rich maple latte. Photo credit: Baby Sis}

Next, we shared a flat bread topped with braised pork shoulder, cheddar cheese, potatoes, and an egg. This reminded me of the breakfast pizza Becca and I made when we almost burned my apartment down (a slight exaggeration). Since we knew we had our entrees coming, we asked our waitress to box up the part we didn't eat. I was going to save it for my bus ride back home!

Some yum and thick slices of french toast, topped with chunky peanut butter. Basically, a huge PB & J sandwich.

Macaroni and Cheese!

This wasn't the best macaroni & cheese I've ever had, but it was pretty good. And since I wasn't in the mood for a sweet brunch dish, this was perfect.

After brunch, my sister and I walked around a neighborhood named Hampden. This area is filled with cute boutiques and restaurants. We found a store that had all kinds of old-fashioned looking candy and cute kids books, including one titled Tickle Monster. Very fitting for my sister and I! 

{Candy in Hampden. Love those pink lips!}

Soon enough I packed my bags, some breakfast flat bread pizza and macaroni and cheese and headed back to NYC. Thanks for the fun weekend, baby sis!