I’m a lady who lunches at Lutherville’s Stone Mill Bakery

I’m very picky about where I’ll drive to and where I like to eat in public. The food has to mesh with the way I eat and the vibe has to right. I have to feel safe, that my car is safe and that I’ll be treated well.

Stone Mill Bakery in Lutherville, MD has been making me smile for years. Green Spring Station, the center where it is, has charming shops, eateries and a lot of my doctor stuff. The ambiance isn’t fancy at all — little cafe’ tables in back and in a random hallway — but you’ll see the nicest people and high powered business deals going on. When you have it, you don’t have to flaunt it!

Whether you’re looking for something utterly decadent or need to watch your girlish figure for the couture dresses across the way, they’ve got it all in elegant, tasty fashion.

If you’re there on a Friday afternoon, they’ve got freshly flown-in lobsters for divine lobster rolls. If you need to be lean and mean, there’s fat-free veggie soup and sugar-free iced tea flavors.

My favorite sandwich is the Hildy: baguette with tons of goat cheese and marinated cucumbers. It’s so good, I tried and tried to make it at home. They’re bread is not replicated at grocery stores and I couldn’t get the marinade just right. If I were comfortably retired, I’d be there all the time.

I recently indulged in their Valrhona hot chocolate: not too sweet at all, but the quality of the finest, darkest chocolate makes a tremendous difference. As someone who has to extremely ration treats, trust me — it’s worth it.

They serve housemade chips with their sandwiches that are always burnt. I don’t know, it’s just their thing.

For a final meal before fasting for Yom Kippur, I ordered — as I joked with the ladies at an adjacent table — something to really atone for. As I was getting ready to order the Hildy, I saw this MASSIVE jumbo lump crabcake. The lumps were so big, they’re probably more like the elusive colossal lumps. It came with fries, too: for $23! You literally can’t make that at home.

So, the place really has a bunch of outdoor seating landscaped to make you feel like you’re in a wooded area. The cake had very, very little filler, barely enough to bind. Not a bunch of Old Bay, either. It was served in a soft brioche bun. The tartare sauce was very rich, egg yolky. It was like an elegant crab dinner in a fine dining restaurant.

The fries were plentiful and perfectly salted. With it, I ordered a sugar-free peach green iced tea. It had a light peach flavor, but also a light green tea flavor, which I appreciated. I wasn’t looking for a matcha-style thing.

For a dessert to hold me over, I had to go for the pumpkin spice cream cheese muffin. Here’s a cute story about the first time I had one! Years and years ago, I was judging a beauty pageant in Greenville, SC. To take a break, I decided to check out their local location of the Atlanta Baking Company with said muffin. I took it to the nearby city park and in the warm weather, promptly fell asleep under a tree.

Eventually, I heard some peeping and scrambling around in my big tote where the muffin was. It was a teeny, weeny puppy! Well, I had lost that muffin, for sure. Across the street, I heard someone panicky calling for the dog. I let him know what happened and he was shocked: the puppy was just a couple of weeks old, got out and scrambled all that way to me and the muffin!