Good timing.

7:00 am: The alarm rings, and Ben goes off to check the weather. "Still clear outside. You can see the storm coming on the radar, yeah, but Baltimore and Washington are clear. We can probably sleep for a couple more hours."
8:15: "Ben, I can't sleep. I'm worried about the snow. I think I should probably head out."
8:30: A few scattered flakes start to fall from the sky as we walk across the docks to my car.
8:40: Substantial flurries as I drive through downtown, but nothing sticks to the roads.
9:05: As I reach my apartment complex, the snow has started sticking in a major way. It's coming down in that determined "I could do this all day" pattern. Back on the boat, the reset alarm is probably just going off. Good thing I didn't wait for it.

(People who live in Minnesota can stop sneering at me now. I can drive on snow, yes. I even have snow tires. It's the rest of the Marylanders that make driving in snow inadvisable.)

A food porn moment.

Ben and I tried a new restaurant last night - Opa, a Greek restaurant that specializes in seafood and is a substantial cut above most of the restaurants I've been to in Greektown.

I could have ordered everything on the menu. I was stuck for a long time on the lamb fricasee with egg-lemon sauce, artichoke hearts, and portobello mushrooms, and the marinated grilled octopus. Obviously I'll have to go back and try more entrees. But we did pretty well with what we got.

We started with an appetizer - choose three from this list of cheeses and spreads - that would've made a fine dinner in itself. We had taramosalata (a creamy spread made mostly from mashed potatoes and fish roe, which tastes much better than it sounds), tzatziki (cucumbers and yogurt, with a hell of a garlic bite), and cubes of kefalograviera (which I had never heard of before, and turned out to be a hard cow's milk cheese with a complex flavor and moderate sharpness). It was served with both pita wedges and bread. Then we shared a Greek salad, which got major extra points for being made from a mix of greens and herbs rather than iceberg lettuce, but lost points again because they apparently forgot the Greek olives. The crown jewel of the evening was an entire red snapper, crusted with lemon and herbs and grilled with the head and tail still on. ("Are you sure you wouldn't like us to fillet that for you?" "Yeah, I think we can manage.") The whole snapper is apparently intended to serve one, but it was hanging over the edges of the plate at both ends, and much better sized for two.

The service was incredible. I've found that Baltimore restaurants tend to have mediocre service - adequate, but hurried and not terribly attentive. (Or, alternatively, the overly familiar waitperson will want to join in your conversation.) Our waiter was exquisitely attentive, but unobtrusive about it. He made good wine recommendations, he kept our water glasses full, and he made sure that we were never kept waiting for the next course or confronted with a new course before we were finished with the previous one. It was the perfect final touch.

What a shame that it's snowing so hard. I'd love to go back there tonight.