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Heavy Seas Ale House is a new upscale pub with a neighborhood vibe, located in the Tack Factory building near Harbor East.  The comfortable space (formerly Diablita Cantina) has a rustic feel, with lots of natural woods and industrial accents. For brew lovers, there is an array of specialty beer and cask ales, eight Heavy Seas beers on tap and growlers available. The space is comprised of a 40-foot-long bar, casual dining area, a private dining room, raw bar and an outdoor beer garden. The owners (Hugh Sisson, of Heavy Seas Beer, and his stepson, Patrick Dahlgren, of The Rowhouse Grille) have brought in chef Matt Seeber to oversee the kitchen and develop the menu. Entrées include Atlantic salmon, flounder stuffed with crabmeat, 24-hour beef short ribs and mussels with fries. (We’re partial to the cornbread and the celery root purée, as well.) For dessert, don’t miss out on the hearty ginger stout cake or the Pimlico pie (pecan, chocolate and brown sugar pie served with black cardamom gelato). And rum fans, take note: there are nine high-end specialty rums to choose from. Open daily for lunch and dinner. 1300 Bank St., 410-522-0850, http://www.heavyseasalehouse.com

Typical tends to become boring quickly, so when planning the construction of their new house, this Baltimore County couple knew they wanted to change up things dramatically. “We spent 15 years in a contemporary home, and we were done with predictable drywall and moulding,” says the husband.

“Plus, we wanted to get away from the typical big-box house with an open floor plan that offered no privacy whatsoever,” adds his wife.

Drawn to Arts and Crafts architecture, the couple opted for a scape of warm, intimate spaces defined by interesting, natural details. “Our architect, Bruce Finkelstein, asked us what materials we wanted in the house and we knew we wanted to incorporate glass, metal, wood, stone and brick,” explains the owner.
“We also wanted to use recycled materials as much as we could,” adds his wife. “While we didn’t set out to do a ‘green’ house, we wanted it to be as green as possible.”

The result is a 6,000-square-foot Arts and Crafts-style house defined by balanced spaces that are anything but ordinary. “It’s perfection,” his wife adds. “I call it my ‘George Clooney’ house.”

One of the most whimsical and stunning interior details is the contemporary stained-glass window that frames the mahogany front door. Jointly designed by the couple’s Ellicott City-based interior designer, Tina Wojtal of TLW Interiors, and their architect, Finkelstein, it depicts a gently abstract woodsy scene. “I wanted light in that room, but I also wanted privacy,” says the wife. “When people come in, they talk about what they see in the picture, and everyone has their own interesting interpretation.”

The foyer floor is a teaser of the unexpected design elements that await inside. Unlike the rest of the house, which is laid with cherry flooring, here Wojtal chose a flannel gray, metallic porcelain-glaze tile floor, with its squares outlined in copper bands. “Its industrial glow adds another layer of texture, and it doesn’t compete with the stained-glass window,” says Wojtal.

The sitting room features two brick walls, one in a traditional broken-joint pattern, which frames the dining area, and the other in an unexpected herringbone pattern, above the fireplace. The gently vaulted pine ceiling is supported by repurposed barn beams that hang above Brazilian cherry floors. An arched stone window opening frames the center of the kitchen, while a metal chandelier of leafy branches (from Gutierrez Studios) frames the reclaimed wood dining table. A hint of the foyer’s stained-glass wall is continued in the window transom high on the north-facing wall.   

The surrounding furnishings are a study in no-fuss simplicity. “We had to be able to live on every piece,” says the wife. “We’re so casual that if we couldn’t sleep on it or eat on it, we didn’t want it.”

The sitting area holds a chocolate velvet couch and chocolate leather ottoman, while subtle punches of color are found in the moss-green suede dining chairs and orange leather club chairs. “When you design with so many materials, you don’t want competing patterns in the furniture,” explains Wojtal. “It’s important that the space feels calm, so you have to be willing to edit a lot so that things don’t get too complicated.” 

“That’s the only art I own,” says the owner, a die-hard fan of “The Boss,” with a chuckle, about the Bruce Springsteen painting hanging in his den. The energetic piece sits comfortably under an intricate Arts and Crafts-style ceiling and amid dark chocolate leather furniture and built-in cherry cabinetry, which casts a warm shine on this space intended to entertain manly types. “I wanted a place I could go to watch sports,” says the owner. “Kramer [the dog] can come in because he’s a boy.” 
 
The kitchen, which integrates slate floors, soapstone counters and birch cabinets, is a study in elegant efficiency with its practical galley design. Says Wojtal, “Galley kitchens are the most functional of all layouts. There are about seven feet of space between the two rows of cabinets and tons of counter space, so no one is working on top of each other.”

Height is achieved in the master bedroom thanks to the tufted gold velvet headboard that grazes the sophisticated contemporary ceiling. The selection of linen lampshades above the bedside tables and a nubby chenille chaise lounge add to the calming, natural elements in the space. Above the bed hangs a Currey & Co. wrought-iron chandelier dressed with a sparse swag of crystals, which lends the room width and a hint of shine. Wojtal chose golden-hued drapery, which echoes the color of the headboard and allows for a seamless shift in color against the pale aqua walls. “Lighter drapes would have created a more jarring effect against the dark trim,” explains Wojtal.

“It’s so cozy inside in the cooler months, but come spring, we live outside under the pavilion,” says the owner. “I basically read out there all summer and fall, and we can easily fit 15 out there for entertaining.”

The copper-roofed pavilion is fronted by a koi pond and comfortably holds an oversized sectional couch and chairs and a spacious coffee table. The slate terrace floor, post-and-beam pavilion design and brick walls smartly integrate into the space crucial elements found within the interior. “Choosing what I call our ‘dream team’ of the right architect, builder and interior designer was the best thing we’ve ever done,” says the wife.
Adds her husband, “... besides getting married.”

I’ve always known Philadelphia to be a city of art, if evidenced by nothing more than the famous “Rocky Steps” outside of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and its plentiful art schools. It’s also, I soon learned, home to more murals than any other city in the country, with walls throughout the city covered by more than 3,000 murals and counting. With very few exceptions, all of these murals are the work of the nonprofit Mural Arts Program, which began in 1984 as a component of Philly’s Anti-Graffiti Network. During the last 28 years, the program has grown to encompass huge swaths of the city, engaging more than 1,500 city youths, working alongside accomplished mural artists, and hosting sundry visitors on its daily tours. 

The program runs 11 tours in various parts of the city, each focusing on a different collection of murals and utilizing different modes of transport from trains to trolleys to bicycles to long walks. One tour allows visitors to “explore Philadelphia’s religious history and spirituality through its murals and places of worship,” while another invites guests to a combined mural and brewery tour complete with beer sampling. I sign up for the Love Letter Train Tour— the only one offered year-round— which brings visitors to 50 different murals scattered throughout West Philadelphia.

Not knowing what to expect, I must admit I’m a bit skeptical when our tour guide/mural docent Martha Palubniak hands me a SEPTA train token and directs our group to a nearby stop for the elevated train line. “I feel like I’m giving you allowance,” she says. “We’re going to be on public transit, and it’s going to go fast. We’re going to see as many murals as we can. You want to keep heads up because we’re going to move quickly and I don’t want to lose anybody.”

There’s about 10 of us, from as nearby as the Philly ’burbs to as far as Chicago. We board the train and listen intently to Palubniak as she explains the beginnings of the Mural Arts Program as a way for apprehended graffiti artists to beautify communities by serving “scrub time” instead of jail time. The organization’s founder and executive director, Jane Golden, recruited the artists, and had them pledge they’d stop tagging walls with graffiti. “All of them signed the contract,” says Palubniak. “All of them except Stephen Powers. This is the guy that we’re going to be seeing today.”

We ride from 45th Street to 63rd Street and back again, getting off at each stop along the way to catch a glimpse of the 50 rooftop murals painted by Philadelphia native Powers, known to the graffiti world as ESPO (“Exterior Surface Painting Outreach”). Powers was not interested in joining the program, and moved to New York City, where he became one of the city’s most recognizable graffiti artists. In 1999, he gave up spray paint, and became a studio artist. In 2009, the Fulbright Scholar returned to Philadelphia armed with 1,200 cans of spray paint, 800 gallons of bucket paint and 20 of the top spray painters in America to create the Love Letter series, a concept he later brought to communities in Syracuse and Brooklyn.

The murals, which exhibit a kind of simple, kitschy pop culture element, are arranged in no particular order throughout the neighborhood, but collectively tell the story of a love letter, “from a man to a woman, an artist to a city and a resident to his community,” says Palubniak. “You can read it in many different ways.”

Many of the murals are specific to the businesses they adorn, such as “Picture you, Picture me, Picture This,” which appears on the façade of a locally owned camera shop. One of my favorites, a bright baby blue, retro-looking mural covering the entire upper wall of the building at 6249 Market St., reads: “I want you like coffee, I need you like juice, I won’t put you on the side like bacon, you can have me over easy.” At 10 a.m. on a Saturday, it makes me wish the next stop on the tour was a local diner with the same mantra scrawled across its menus.

Another mural that gets “oohs” and “ahhs” from the group is a white wall painted to look like the canvas for vinyl letter refrigerator magnets. In one corner, there are jumbled letters, while another reads: “IF YOU WERE HERE ID BE HOME NOW.” 

The tour ends about 90 minutes after it began, back at the subway platform steps across from Center City’s Love Park. Visitors are welcome to use their fare to return to other parts of the city, or walk back outside to see the sights— and a few murals— in downtown Philadelphia.

For me, perhaps the coolest aspect of the Love Letter Train Tour is the idea that, if I were commuting to work on this train each day, I’d be able to read these murals over and over again like fragmented poetry. Surely, I’d treasure the ones most appropriate to my life at any given moment, not unlike the songs on a favorite album, or, well, memorable lines in a letter of love. 

The Love Letter Train Tour runs on weekends year-round and costs $17. See http://www.muralarts.org or call 215-925-3633 for descriptions of other tours.

Ah, spring.  Time for tulips, cherry blossoms, budding trees (even if we did see all of those on the way early side this year) and, in Maryland, horse racing. When you find yourself standing in a green field watching the ponies jump and run, you know that summer’s not far behind. Having just attended this year’s Grand National and Hunt Cup steeplechase races, I’m now primed for the Preakness Stakes. I’ll let you in on a little secret: What do I actually love even more than the Preakness? Answer: The Black-Eyed Susan races, held at Pimlico each year on the day before.

If you’ve never played hooky from the office on the Friday afternoon before the Preakness, I can’t begin to tell you what you’re missing. The racetrack is full of people (but not too overflowing, as it is for the Preakness), there are parties going on all over and there’s a feeling of celebration and anticipation in the air. Have some cocktails, sample some food in the clubhouse and bet some races. Black-Eyed Susan Day has been a favorite of mine for a long time, and last year, senior editor Laura Wexler attended for the first time and brought back the idea for the story that appears in this issue on female jockeys and women in the local horse racing industry. See page 66 for a telling look into these personalities and details on the running of this year’s Lady Legends race.
 
Of course, this is also our annual Style spring ‘Home & Garden’ issue, so we’ve got some knockout gardens, sumptuous interiors and clever outdoor living spaces to show you, as well as a fun story on dollhouses and all things miniature. (If you’re not familiar with the macabre ‘Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death’ miniature dioramas housed downtown in a little-known space in the Medical Examiner’s Office, you’re in for a real treat.)
 
So, join me in celebrating spring— and I’ll look for you in the stands on Black-Eyed Susan Day, May 18 at Pimlico.

Brian Michael Lawrence
Editor-in-Chief
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http://www.baltimorestyle.com

Bang Bang Mongolian Grill is now open in The Can Company complex in Canton, taking over the space long held by Tex-Mex favorite, Austin Grill. The menu is set up as a ‘design-your-own-meal’ concept, so diners choose from a selection of meats (chicken, sirloin beef, pork, salmon, shrimp, etc.), vegetables, sauces and toppings, season to taste and then watch as it’s prepared on the large, signature circular grill. For dessert, there’s an expansive frozen yogurt bar with lots of fresh fruit toppings and dessert sauces. 2400 Boston St., 410-327-2264

Rain or shine, every Saturday morning, if I am in Baltimore, I swing by the 32nd Street Farmers Market, a habit of city life for me since I moved to Baltimore 32 years ago. Thousands of people whom I sort of know in that strange two degrees of separation that exists on the north side of the city share this ritual with me. I like ritual. And I love the farmers market.

I have been there more than I have been to church or the dentist or had my hair cut or voted. Needing something has nothing to do with why I go. (No one needs a $9 heirloom tomato.) In truth, feeding one’s family out of the farmers market would be an impossible, astronomically expensive proposition resulting in a very odd diet.

My rounds at the market always involve a complete sweep of the vendors before I start buying anything. I have a ratty canvas L.L. Bean bag that is more than 30 years old and for a long time I drove a Volvo! I realize what this makes me look like, but I promise I do not wear socks and sandals.

I might pick up a jar of honey. A glistening head of hydroponic Boston lettuce. A bale of basil. Flowers in season. You can buy enough cut flowers for a spectacular arrangement for $20. A pound of the incomparable Zeke’s Coffee. (Royal Blue, if you must know.) Fruit when it is in season. I go for the gossip, too.

I love the faces of the people who work at the farmers market, the faces of people who work the land, like the guy who looks like a Civil War re-enactor. A Confederate! A bear of a man. He has a low growl but when I once told him that a melon he had sold me the previous Saturday was tasteless he gently proffered a fresh melon free and an apology. That little gesture secured my business forever and ever.

I grew up in Maine, so farmers are not extraterrestrials to me. They are neither exotic nor precious. They do not need a hug. Actually, they are a little cranky and a little crazy. And they like to complain. There is too much rain. Or not enough. Insects. The price of gasoline. Whatever. They are right, too.

Some of the vendors are decidedly taciturn. This is a job. A hard job. Long days. Little time off. And when the hummus eaters and hung-over hipsters wander by for a Zeke’s at 10 o’clock on their way to Pete’s Grille with their pale waif girlfriends, keep in mind that the people working here may have risen at 3 a.m. on the Eastern Shore or southern Pennsylvania to haul themselves and the fruits of their labors to Charm City.

Early to rise. That’s the key to the farmers market. Things get picked over fast— especially if the weather is good. When sour cherries (for baking) are in season in the late spring, the few available will be gone by 7 a.m. (and I bought them!).

People talk a good line about diversity hereabouts. But you rarely see a scene as eclectic as the farmers market in Waverly (or its Sunday cousin downtown under the JFX). It brightens even my cold eye. In a city with a black majority, the farmers market is a rare place where you see a lively mix of people of all backgrounds and hues that you won’t see at Eddie’s or Graul’s.

I am unlikely to eat anything other than a croissant at that hour— and certainly not Pad Thai or jerked chicken or portobello mushrooms— but I am glad that someone is stirring the morning air with those smells. Hummus is available, too. But I would eat Little Friskies before I ate hummus. Its appeal escapes me, reminding of baby food. My home is a hummus-free zone.

But the farmers market even accommodates my eccentricities.

I like the people who sell handmade soap, the old lady peddling sheet cake with frosting the color of Pepto-Bismol, the guy who sells pickles and vendors of so-called ethnic foods.

Farmers markets are great forums (forums in a near-ancient sense) for advocates, political candidates, flesh pressers, pamphleteers, pitchmen, prophets, even pickpockets (the market has plainclothes cops on duty).

And there are don’t-quit-your-day-job folk musicians, three song bluesmen, beekeepers, Baha’is— even on rare occasion mimes (the hummus of performance)— and the wide-eyed. Socks and sandals. The locavores and the just loco. Persons who listen to “A Prairie Home Companion.”  Persons who have been on “A Prairie Home Companion.”  Hot yoga freaks. Wearers of Nepalese tribesmen’s clothing. Or huaraches. Those who think globally but act locally. Or split wood, not atoms. And those who would free Tibet. It cheers me to see them. Kumbaya, my friends.

There is even the last Socialist standing, the lonely guy who sells (maybe he just gives it away?) some sort of workers-of-the-world-unite newspaper. I have never seen anyone buy one, but I would be heartbroken if he were not there peddling his wares. Socialism has pretty much joined the Hula-Hoop in the attic of history, despite the ravings of the Republican Party.

But all is not lost. The farmers market even has a guy selling Hula-Hoops. He’s there most weeks, too. It’s only natural.

Three of Savvy’s favorite things? Shoes, candy and anything Patrick Sutton tells her to put in her living room. First came word that Fells Point fave Poppy and Stella (728 S. Broadway) has expanded to make room for even more flirty flats, wonderful wedges and stylish sandals, plus inexpensive jewelry, cute clutches and even darling diaper bags. Also now expanding to bigger quarters is Best of Luck, which has moved a couple of blocks away, next to Phillips Seafood at the Power Plant (601 E. Pratt St.). The new location will stock even more sweet treats as well as offer frozen yogurt and coffees (plus more space for the Best of Luck custom birthday parties, for which they’ve quickly become known). Patrick Sutton Home also is moving just a hop, skip and a jump… around the corner to 700 President St. Trust Sav, adding a decorative mirror or investing in new custom seating will make your house feel fabulously fresher. (Until you can persuade your husband to let Patrick redecorate the whole thing.)

(from Mama Mary’s Cook Book)

Mary Ann Pastore learned to cook many things from Mike Pastore’s late grandmother, Mary Pastore, including these Italian rice balls, which they made every year for Christmas Eve. Although the rice balls involve several steps, they come together easily. The recipe calls for coating the balls in cracker meal, but Mary Ann says cornmeal or panko crumbs will work just fine.

¾ pound ground veal
5-6 eggs
½ pound Italian cheese (grated Parmesan or Romano or a combination of both)
½ pound breadcrumbs
¼ pound butter
½ cup olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
1 pound long grain rice
4 cups cracker meal (or cornmeal or panko)
Salt and pepper to taste
Oil for deep frying

Mix the following well: veal, 1 egg, 2 tablespoons cheese, salt and pepper to taste, breadcrumbs and parsley. Let it cook with olive oil in frying pan for 20 minutes, breaking it up as it cooks. Put on the side and allow to cool a little.

Cook rice according to directions. Add salt and pepper to taste, 3 eggs, butter, the rest of the cheese and stir well until it is thick. Spread on a platter and let cool.
 
Break 1 or 2 eggs into a shallow dish and beat lightly. Put cracker meal (or cornmeal or panko crumbs) in another shallow dish. Set aside.

To form rice balls, take 2 tablespoons of rice mixture and flatten out in the palm of the hand. Put 1 tablespoon of the ground meat on top of the rice mixture; then take more rice and flatten it, placing on top of the meat and with both hands form a ball of the mixture. Roll ball in beaten egg and then cracker meal (Mary Pastore sometimes double-dipped the rice balls, Mary Ann says). Put rice balls on a wax paper-lined cookie sheet until ready to fry.

Heat oil in a deep fryer or deep skillet. Deep fry the balls 1 at a time, placing them in the pan with a spoon. Do not stir, however. When bottom half is brown, turn carefully and brown other half. Place on a cookie sheet lined with paper towels to drain off excess shortening. Serve hot with tomato sauce.

Girls and horses— we all know about the special connection they share. Not so long ago, there was no way that connection could lead to career in horse racing. It was a man’s game. But in 1968, Maryland granted the first jockey’s license to a female in the United States. And, within a few years, female jockeys started to show up on the backs of horses at racetracks around the state. There weren’t many, and it wasn’t easy. But it was possible.

Three years ago, Maryland Racing Secretary Georganne Hale created the Lady Legends race to honor those pioneering female jockeys. Last year, Hale, who is the first female racing secretary in the state, added the Female Jockey Challenge, a race featuring current female riders from all over the nation. Featuring those two races, Black-Eyed Susan Day— the day before Preakness at Pimlico Race Course— has become a celebration of women in horse-racing.

On the eve of this year’s races, Style visited five women who are deeply involved in the past and present of Maryland racing. Come along for the ride.

Dove Houghton TRAINER

The first word Dove Houghton ever uttered was “horse.”

“My parents didn’t know what it was about,” says Houghton, who at 46 is one of the most successful female trainers in Maryland. “They weren’t horse people. But I forced the issue. I made them give me lessons. And as soon as I was big enough, I worked at stables.”

As much as Houghton loved horses, she wasn’t competitive. She never dreamed of being a jockey or racing. She just wanted a life in which she worked with horses. And, she says, that’s still her goal today. “It’s funny to say this as a trainer, but I’m not that ambitious,” she says. “I’m not going out and trying to win the Kentucky Derby. I’m just trying to make a nice living doing what I love.”

For years, Houghton worked as an assistant to top trainers Tony Dutrow and Carlos Garcia. In 2004, they encouraged her to start her own stable. “I was scared to death,” she says. “I started with just two horses.”

She did well with those two horses and when her name started to appear regularly in the racing results in The Sun (which no longer publishes racing results), she started to earn the trust of a variety of owners. Today Houghton trains about 25 horses regularly in her “medium-sized” training operation based at Laurel Park. Her horses race anywhere from three to seven days each week, competing for purses from $13,000 to $40,000. She earns her living from a percentage of her horses’ winnings, which have exceeded $3 million over the course of her career. In 2006, she scored her biggest win when her horse, Spirited Game, overcame 15-to-1 odds to win the $75,000 Conniver Stakes at Laurel Park.

Houghton was raised in South Carolina and came to Maryland in 1992 by way of Delaware Park, where she got her start as a trainer. “In ’92, Delaware was going downhill. It was the heyday for Maryland racing— great purses and great horses,” says Houghton. “I still think Maryland racing is pretty strong.”

Houghton lives in West Towson, where she raised her 21-year-old son. “He was dragged to the track his whole life, poor kid,” she says.

She’s at Laurel Park every day starting at 4 a.m., overseeing the care and training of the horses and getting on them herself to give them exercise. If she’s got horses racing, her workday might last until midnight, when she gets home, takes a little nap and wakes up to hit the track again. Other days, she leaves the track about noon to spend the afternoon bookkeeping. “With 25 horses, there’s a lot of money going in and out,” she says.

The business part is her least favorite aspect of being a trainer. She even shies away from recruiting new owners. “I’m not the greatest people person,” she says. “I’m great with the horses.” — Laura Wexler

Georganne Hale RACING SECRETARY

Even after almost 40 years in the industry and 12 years as racing secretary of Maryland, 53-year-old Georganne Hale still gets excited by the glimpse of a day-old foal on one of the two perpetually playing TVs in her office at Laurel Park. “Oh look!” she cries.

It’s a typical spring Saturday at the races— Hale has been at her desk since 8 a.m., taking calls, sending emails and talking with visitors who drop by her office.

Hale grew up with horses in Sparks, Md., where her father was a trainer and her mother showed horses. Throughout high school and college she worked on the “backside” at Laurel, Pimlico, Bowie and Timonium— “Groom, hotwalker, exercise person, foreman, I did it all,” she says. Then she moved to the business side in 1984 as assistant horse identifier, helping ID horses by lip tattoo before races. “I just worked my way up,” she says. “I’ve done every job in the office.” Now the only person she answers to is the president of the Maryland Jockey Club, Tom Chuckas.

Hale is in charge of essentially everyone who makes the racetrack run, including track maintenance workers, facilities managers, jockeys’ valets, grooms and the starting gate crew. If there’s a fight, security drops the guilty party off with Hale to babysit. If the heat’s broken in the women’s
restroom, someone tells her. “They know that if they come to me it’ll get done. I like things done,” she says. People even come to her just to talk. “Everybody spills their guts to me. Maybe I should’ve been a priest or something.”

Every six months, Hale assigns to various trainers the 2,460 coveted, rent-free stalls at Pimlico, Laurel and Bowie tracks. Every four weeks she writes the condition book, which lists all upcoming races and conditions for eligibility. The biggest challenge of her job, Hale says, is getting horses— quality and quantity. When horses are scarce, she says, “We hustle the entries. We ask the trainer, would you like to run in this race?”

There is no racing at any of the tracks from June through August, so Hale’s workload lightens, but she’s still plenty busy, trying to clean up the barn areas while everyone is gone and take care of issues neglected during the year. “I mean, if I had to get on a tractor I’d get on a tractor,” she says. “I’m an old farmer. I know how to drive a tractor.”

The best part about her job, Hale says, is dealing with people. “It’s fun to see all the different personalities. Definitely a lot of good characters,” she says. “The race-trackers are one big family.”

Family, indeed. When a trainer wanders into Hale’s office and casually informs her that someone called her a nasty word that rhymes with witch, Hale’s reaction is to crack up. “Everybody teases me because I have lots of snitches on the backside.”

In 2009, when the idea arose to make the day before Preakness more women-focused, Hale proposed the first-ever race to feature retired female riders. Thus the Lady Legends race was born. “I have to admit I was a little nervous the first year,” Hale says. “Nervous about [the riders] getting fit— they hadn’t ridden in so long.” But the Legends race has been a roaring success, and through a partnership with the Susan G. Komen Foundation has raised thousands of dollars for the fight against breast cancer. Last year Hale organized another event for Black-Eyed Susan Day: the Female Jockey Challenge, a set of races featuring current women riders. 

Hale goes silent as she watches a Laurel race finish on the television. The horses are literally running past the outer door to her office— if she opened it, she could watch them go by— but there are calls to take, decisions to make and problems to solve, not to mention a delicious pulled pork lunch to eat, prepared in the jockeys’ kitchen. Just another day at the office. —Colleen Dorsey

Mary Wiley Wagner FORMER JOCKEY

On the day in 2009 that Mary Wiley Wagner was invited to ride in the first-ever Lady Legends race she was still undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. But that didn’t keep her from saying yes. “After I hung up the phone I thought, ‘Oh crap,’ because at that point I was still weak,” says Wagner. “I couldn’t even walk to the top of the stairs without stopping.”

But the 48-year-old Wagner, who garnered 275 wins during her 1986-97 career, was determined. A month after finishing chemo in November 2009, she hit the gym three hours a day, six days a week. Come March 2010, she started training on horses. “Even after 14 years my muscles still remembered everything they were supposed to do,” says Wagner, who lives on Kent Island.

After Wagner placed a respectable fourth in the first Lady Legends race, she did something few jockeys do: she came out of retirement. Her goal was to win a race within a year after her final chemo treatment. “It was a personal challenge,” she explains. “The chemo had knocked me down so far that I needed to prove to myself that I could still win a race.” Wagner eventually won a race one year and two days after her chemo ended and, with her victory in hand, re-entered retirement. But she hasn’t stopped racing altogether. She won the second annual Lady Legends race in 2011 and will compete again this year.

Wagner got her start in racing thanks in part to a remark made by a boy at the Bowie stables where she worked in high school. The boy told her flat out she couldn’t be a jockey because she was a girl. “And that was it! Within 10 seconds my attitude was, ‘Bet your ass I can be a jock.’”

From then on, Wagner dedicated herself to horse and farm work, doing everything from exercising horses to digging post holes. After about five years and a brief false start at racing, trainer Meredith “Mert” Bailes began to put her on horses. In 1986, her first real year racing, she became the fourth-leading apprentice in the country. Eventually she was making $5,000 a week.

Like the boy who’d made the remark in the stables, some jockeys didn’t approve of a female in their midst. Others tried to embarrass Wagner by “accidentally” dropping their towels in the dressing room where Wagner had to weigh in before races. But in general, Wagner says, “They had as much respect for me as I had for them.”

It was, however, sometimes difficult to deal with owners, trainers and even trainers’ wives. “I would get judged much more harshly,” Wagner says. She couldn’t dress too femininely because it would stir up gossip that she was sleeping with her trainers. Even when Wagner was the second- and third-leading rider in the state, she lost out on good horses. Bailes told an owner who refused to let women ride his horses that he was riding a jockey named “Marvin Wiley.” After Wagner had won more than 20 races on the owner’s horses, she finally met the man in person— and he never said a word about the fact that Marvin was actually Mary.

Through hard times and good times— where “good times” include more than $2.7 million in earnings— Wagner has kept on riding. And now her story is an inspirational tale for other women, proof that you can get back on the horse even after cancer. —Colleen Dorsey

Jennifer Rowland Small FORMER JOCKEY

At 8:30 on an early spring morning, Jennifer Rowland Small is astride Golden Wheels, hugging the rail as she rides 33 mph at Laurel Park. Like the other riders on the track, she’s lean, lithe and strong. Unlike the others, she’s 61 years old.

She awoke at 3:30 a.m., did chores at her farm in Upperco, then made the drive to Laurel, as she does several mornings a week, arriving in time to get out on the track about 5:30 a.m. to do whatever trainer Catherine Holly Robinson has in mind for her. Could be exercising a horse. Could be schooling a mount at the gate.

It’s work, of course. But it’s also love. Small has loved horses since she was a girl back in the ‘50s. Back then, there was no hope that such a love could convert into a career as a jockey. After high school Small got a job working at the legendary Sagamore Farms and learned to exercise— or gallop— racehorses. When she started college at Maryland Institute College of Art, she began galloping at Pimlico early in the mornings. “I’d get up at 3 and get on horses and work them for $3 a horse,” says Small. “Then I’d go straight from Pimlico to MICA in time for my first class at 9:30 a.m., complete with a little ‘essence of horse’ maybe on my shoes.”

About that time, one of the trainers at Pimlico noticed that several of his horses ran well under Small and offered her a chance to race them. So she applied for a license— becoming the third woman licensed in Maryland. “At first I thought of racing as a way to raise tuition money and help my family,” says Small. But that first year, she became one of the leading riders at Charles Town, and the leading apprentice at Timonium and Marlboro racetracks. And what she’d initially seen as a way to pay for school turned into a reason to leave full-time classes. From 1971 to 1977, Small put roughly 120,000 miles on her car each year, driving to race at Penn National, Delaware Park, Charles Town, Bowie and Marlboro. “There was a lot of rough riding,” she says. “The male jockeys would push and slam me. They were verbally abusive. What I liked to do in return was beat them.”

In 1977, after the fourth or fifth time dislocating her shoulder, Small underwent surgery that reduced the use of her left arm and ended her racing career. “It was really difficult to quit racing,” she says. “It about drove me crazy for years.” She worked as a trainer for more than a decade until a severe episode of rheumatoid arthritis crippled her in 1990. “I wasn’t sure I was going to live,” she says. “I couldn’t walk.”

After undergoing chemotherapy, Small returned to health. But she didn’t feel she could rely on training to provide for herself and her two children, so she re-invented herself as a self-educated licensed financial planner. And though she owns two horses of her own, she didn’t get on a racehorse again until 2010, when racing secretary Georganne Hale invited her to ride in the Lady Legends race.

“Coming back was like déjà vu, like time hadn’t gone forward,” says Small. Three months before that first race, she started her morning ritual of exercising horses at Laurel Park several mornings a week. She raced in 2010 and in 2011— and will ride in the Lady Legends race again this year. Last year, she received her bachelor’s degree in painting from MICA five days before Black-Eyed Susan Day, finally finishing the college degree she’d put off in order to race so many years ago.

Earlier this morning, Small had sketched a horse and rider in marker on the white board in the stable. It could be a portrait of her, back on racehorses after all these years. —Laura Wexler

Forest Boyce JOCKEY

Forest Boyce has just won her first race of the day, and she’s relaxing on the steps outside the jockeys’ rooms at Laurel Park, explaining that on a typical day she goes to bed around 9 p.m. “I’m such a loser,” she says.

Loser would not be the word most would use to describe Boyce, who has earned 257 wins and counting, and purses totaling more than $5 million in the four years she’s been a professional jockey. She rides four days a week at Laurel and Pimlico from January through May and then again in the fall, and on her off days rides at other nearby tracks such as Philadelphia Park.

Raised in the suburbs of Baltimore and educated at Garrison Forest School, Boyce, 27, spent her childhood involved in fox hunting, pony club and horse shows. At age 11, she started galloping for trainers and at age 24, her trainer friend Alex White put her on her first mount in a professional race. To everyone’s surprise, Boyce won.

Little did she know about the jockey’s rite-of-passage that awaited her beyond the winner’s circle. “I come back from the race, so excited I won— next thing you know, I just get hammered,” she says. “Dirty water, tack water, shaving cream, eggs, powder, oh, it’s disgusting. They just cover you.”

The traditional inundation, all in good fun, didn’t dampen Boyce’s spirits, nor did the fact that many of her trainer friends weren’t too encouraging at first. “A lot of people were like, ‘You’re too tall, it’s gonna be a struggle, you don’t want to do this,’” Boyce recalls. One of her trainers, Dickie Small, wanted to see her go to college, not become a jockey. “It was like I had to go prove it to him, and then once I proved it to him, after I rode for a few months professionally, he started helping me and he never stopped.”

Boyce did go to college— she studied drawing at MICA— but at this point in her life, she doesn’t have time for art. She’s too busy winning. As an apprentice in 2010 she was the leading rider in Maryland with 129 wins, and in 2011, her first year as a journeyman, she kept steady with 99 wins. “I’ve learned a lot from ex-riders,” Boyce says. “They watch the races and they see where I screw up. … I guess it’s the artist in me, I don’t focus on just one thing, I try to make it all better, and constantly.”

Last year Boyce placed second in the first annual Female Jockey Challenge at Pimlico, and she will be riding again this year.
Boyce respects the work done in the past by pioneering female jockeys, like those in the Lady Legends race. “Those women paved the way for us,” she says. But being a female rider is no big deal for Boyce. “To be successful I think you can’t really focus on ‘Oh, I’m a girl, so this and that.’ It’s more important just to be a rider.”

It’s already time for the next race of the day, so Boyce has to get going. “I basically just follow my horses,” she says. “Wherever they go, I go.” —Colleen Dorsey

After years of public debate, news stories galore and a few lawsuits, The Barnes Foundation’s new museum on Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway finally opens on May 19. In case you haven’t been keeping up, several years ago trustees of the financially challenged foundation voted to move the collection from the Lower Merion, Pa., mansion of its founder, Albert C. Barnes, to a more accessible, visitor-friendly location. (The controversy arose because such a move was forbidden according to Barnes’ will.) Controversies aside, the new 93,000-square-foot museum promises to retain the eclectic, crowded displays of artwork that made the original so enchanting. The 2,500-piece collection includes 181 paintings by Pablo Picasso, among other heavyweights of the art world. Oh, if you miss the old museum, you can still visit its grounds, set to reopen as a public arboretum later this summer. Book timed tickets ($18 for adults) at http://www.barnesfoundation.org or call 866-849-7056.

The new Phillips Seafood has a huge floating crab deck. That’s all you really need to know, right? With seating for 200, a full bar and plenty of steamed seafood (try the clambake for two), the deck is the perfect place to dig in and make a guilt-free mess. Inside, check out Phillips’ new digs in the old ESPN Zone space, where the restaurant moved last fall with a revamped menu and style. (Don’t worry, the famous crabcakes haven’t changed a bit; they’re made just the way they have been since 1956.) New menu items have been introduced, including non-seafood entrees like French-cut pork chops. The restaurant has retained its Tiffany lamps and rolled its famous piano across the harbor, where the décor blends vintage and modern for a refined yet relaxed feel, as well as offering views into an open kitchen showcasing chefs in action. 601 E. Pratt St., 410-685-6600

A crowd of several hundred turned out for the opening preview party for this year’s Maryland Antiques Show of Hunt Valley, held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Timonium. 

The show offers a large, meandering display of antiques and art ranging from the 16th to the mid-20th century, and always draws a mix of antiques aficionados, designers, decorators, hobbiests and curiosity seekers.  The three-day event has exhibitions, lectures and appraisals, and attracts more than 40 of the nation’s top dealers to Baltimore each year to display their wares.

The Thursday evening VIP reception that kicked off the weekend gave guests a chance to preview the exhibits while sipping cocktails, as well as noshing on hors d’oeuvres such as shrimp cocktail, beef tenderloin and mini savory pastries and cheese puffs. Spotted amongst the crowd were noted local antiques experts such as Stiles Colwill, Gregory Weidman and J. Michael Flanigan. Put on by The Antiques Council, this year’s show benefitted Family and Children’s Sevices of Central Maryland. 

The sun shines brightly in Aisle 3 of the Mars supermarket at the corner of Northern Parkway and Loch Raven Boulevard. There, punchy yellow labels of Sun of Italy brand cocktail onions and artichoke hearts share shelf space with a slightly ominous jar of the brand’s ground hot cherry peppers, a seed-speckled mass of crushed red that looks like it should come with a warning. Nearby, a 128-ounce container of sweet onions, a giant jar of day-glo yellow bearing the same label, begs the question, “Who can eat this many onions and still keep the company of other human beings?” (The giant jars are popular for family barbecues, the store manager surmises.)

The Sun of Italy label encompasses more than 100 products from spices to gnocchi, but somehow I always associate the brand with canned tomatoes whose vintage label goes right for my soft spot with its classic navy banner on a field of yellow, an old-fashioned color combination seen mostly in vintage football uniforms and old gasoline company logos. Plenty of labels for canned tomatoes have renderings of the fruit on them, but Sun of Italy’s tomatoes somehow look more muscular and meatier. They have curves like bodybuilders or bombshells and a spiky crown at their stem. They have lush leaves, possibly basil, cosseting their tender roundness.

Then there is the poetic name, Sun of Italy, written in English on one side of the label, and in Italian on the back. Sole d’Italia. It trips off the tongue suggesting a brighter, warmer, lusher place. How could you not want to buy something that mingles the climate and product of Italy all in a can?  Indeed, a recent purchase of a can of tomatoes (to make sauce, natch) prompted me to seek out the story behind the label.

On a breezy Wednesday morning, I drive to East Baltimore to meet the current owners of Sun of Italy, Mary Ann and Michael Pastore Sr., at their facility in the 6100 block of East Lombard Street, just behind John Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.

I pull in the parking lot expecting to smell tomatoes and Italian spices, garlic and vinegar. Instead, I smell… nothing. The Pastores own the Sun of Italy label, Mary Ann later explains, but they don’t manufacture any of their items. Instead, the company purchases good quality foodstuffs that they sell wholesale under the Sun of Italy brand.

I have to admit I’m a little disappointed that I won’t see the conveyor belts and hear the machinery clank of a Willy Wonka factory works, but I’m still looking forward to hearing the history of Sun of Italy. Then the Pastores explain that while their family has been in the Italian food business for five generations, they have only owned the Sun of Italy label for the last 30 years, having purchased it from Joseph Vaccarino in 1982. Sun of Italy products are now distributed to specialty stores and supermarkets in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Virginia. How the label itself came about, however, they really don’t know.

Still, the Pastores are all hospitality, and Mary Ann takes me on a tour of the warehouse, a cleaner-than-your-grandmother’s-kitchen room of stack upon stack of yellow-labeled containers of breadcrumbs and vinegar, olives and artichoke hearts. My brain and stomach together plot all the things I could be making if given free rein in this giant pantry. At the end of the tour, the Pastores send me home with a jar of spice mix, a packet of gnocchi, a recipe pamphlet called “Mama Mary’s Cook Book,” prize-winning Italian recipes from Mary Pastore (Mike Pastore’s grandmother)— and a desire to get to the bottom of the Sun of Italy story.

I Google “Joseph Vaccarino” and find Joe Vaccarino’s “Baltimore Sounds,” a website dedicated to the history of Baltimore-based pop music. I send him an email, and shortly afterward receive a phone call from his father, Brig. Gen.  Isidore John Vaccarino, Maryland National Guard, retired, whose father, Joseph Vaccarino, he tells me, introduced the Sun of Italy label to Baltimore.

The elder Vaccarino’s grandparents owned an Italian grocery store under the family name at the corner of Stiles and High streets in Little Italy, so it wasn’t a stretch when Joseph opened a wholesale Italian food distributorship in a former synagogue at Pratt and Albemarle streets in the late 1930s. The business served independent Italian grocers in Baltimore and D.C., exclusively, explains John Vaccarino. “My father refused to have anything to do with the chain stores,” he says. Somewhere along the way, the business took on the name Sun of Italy.

Although John Vaccarino never worked formally in the family business, he remembers the warehouse with its florid second-floor chandelier, left over from the building’s temple days, and the wooden floor that was so affected by rain, it was wavy. 

His father would keep big heads of imported cheese that weighed between 20 or 30 pounds in the warehouse, says Vaccarino, and he remembers Joseph “wiping them down with a mixture of salt and vinegar to coax the worms out of the cheese.” Yes, worms. “[The wheels] didn’t come in the sealed containers like today,” he adds. “The cheese was bare.” Periodically, Joseph Vaccarino would insert a small apple corer into the cheese and pull out a sample to taste. When he was satisfied it was ready, says John, he would cut it up and take it for sale.

During tomato season, recalls Vaccarino, California packing houses would ship tomato samples to the company, and he and his parents and sisters would gather around the kitchen table and sample each tomato to determine which was good enough for the Sun of Italy label.

When it comes right down to it, however, the origins of the label and its name are a little murky even to the Vaccarino family. “We would like to say it originated with [my father],” says John, “but we always heard he ‘acquired’ it,” rather than invented it, and John and his sisters suspect their father purchased the rights to the name from an Italian food purveyor.

Invented or acquired, Sun of Italy, says Vaccarino, “was my family’s life,” as it is now part of three generations of the Pastore family’s lives. And while the latter family has expanded the Sun of Italy offerings beyond tomatoes, cheese and olive oil, “the label is exactly the same,” says John Vaccarino. He keeps an unopened tin of Sun of Italy olive oil as a souvenir of his father’s tenure in the business, a family memory bound in a blue and yellow label.

Orancini

While some like to blame our country’s economic challenges on mortgage-backed securities, Savvy actually thinks Dockers are the culprit: Ever since businesses allowed every day to be Casual Friday, things have just gone to hell in a handbasket. And she’s quite sure Christopher Schafer would agree. London-trained tailor Schafer is creating bespoke suiting for Baltimore’s best athletes, attorneys and bankers. While some people equate custom with spending a lot, Schafer knows that a perfect fit is more important than the priciest fabric. His suits are surprisingly affordable for the amount of detail and thought he puts in. “The first thing I do is sit down with my clients and find out what they want the clothes to do for them. Where are they going to wear them? What do they want the clothes to say? That all plays into the final design.” Christopher Schafer Clothier also does shirts, ties and a women’s collection as well. Sav, who is constantly tortured by her shirttails coming out every time she moves, can’t wait for her first perfect white blouse. She wants it to say, “I will actually stay tucked in for once…” 1400 Aliceanna St. (by appointment only), 410-404-5131

The mildness of this past winter makes me sad for only one reason— we have not had the sort of fluffy snowbanks that give rise to the Snow Day Champagne Fetes I have historically thrown. Just shape the snow on the ground into a bar-like form and stuff champagne bottles into the top. Then invite folks to don snowshoes and ridiculously large boots and waltz on over. Sparkling white snow, sparkling fine wine, sparkling snowball fight between grown-ups. We are so civilized.

Late spring and summer beg for different outdoor entertaining scenarios. When the light fades and the warmth of the day remains in our bones, my inspiration is usually more languid, even elegant. Here’s what I’ve been dreaming of all winter.

> On a warm spring evening after a dinner party or some sort of formal event, I invite a well-attired group of friends for a late night torch party on the broad flagstone patio behind my house. There are magnums of good champagne, cognac for those who have taken a chill, cigar service and a flamenco guitar duo. Savory items are available for those dissatisfied with dinner at the aforementioned event (maybe little Croque Monsieurs or some such) as well as a few small sweets as a foil for the bubbles. The guitarists will start with a spirited pace then bring it down in tempo and volume as the evening wanes. Laughter provides the high notes, the plucked strings provide the middle, and the wind in the trees sets the meter and mood. At some late hour, the crowd hushes for an important story and you can feel the tension build for the impact of the end of the tale. When it arrives in sudden laughter and dissipates as a wave fades from shore, the time has come for guests to slip away through the trees.

> On a Sunday when it’s still a little cool, but the flowers and trees are blooming, guests will come for an indoor-outdoor afternoon open house. Jackets and sweaters will be required— maybe even some color theme, say all blue and white. Lyrical jazz wafting in and out of the house. Clever light cocktails, white wines from the Alps and cool, blue-fruited, lighter red wines. Salty snacks, maybe with a Southern edge, are laid out on buffets inside and out. (I am a big proponent of moving inside furniture out for an event, as well as draping things with tablecloths and various linens.) As the hour nears supper-time, the music gains a honky-tonk edge, but maintains its slow pace. The snacks become supper: platters of fried green tomatoes, golden chicken, salads of early potatoes and artichokes. A big bottle of Chianti Classico is opened, cool from the cellar. The sun fades as folk have a little Huguenot Torte and Aged Malmsey Madeira and then slowly file out, leaving me to a quiet Sunday evening cleanup.

> Or, instead of a winding-down sort of an event, how about an exciting windup for a group of friends headed to a concert or entertainment later in the evening? Perhaps it’s a film that’s set in California or the symphony, where the highlight of the program is Strauss. Why not have a stand-up wine bar and tasting on the back porch overlooking the woods? A series of Gruner Veltliners, Rieslings and Blaufrankisch—or a big batch of interesting Pinot Noir from the same year and same part of California. I’d keep the snacks light and zesty, maybe a few California cheeses with the Pinots. 

> Of course, I am all for a full-on summer dinner party. There is so much joy in being outside on borrowed time. On my back deck a table swathed in white linen lets the forest speak to color: green and gold on a late spring evening. Broad low candles in thick hurricanes provide a stable glow. We’ll have two courses. First, a warm salad of asparagus from a farmer friend, cut today, with tiny new potatoes and fresh goat’s milk ricotta from my kitchen. Rich and nutty, golden Soave Classico sets off the dish with its fruity and firm character. Then, fresh local baby lamb is roasted whole and carved and served with ramps and the natural jus. Morels baked in fresh cream crown the table. A magnum of good Pomerol provides a deep plummy and iron-rich mineral context for the lamb. With luck, the wine is the same vintage as one of the guests, who is now an impromptu honoree.

Above all, the point is to be outside. Late spring is one of our most attractive, albeit fickle, seasons. I want to feel it as much as I can. 

Tony Foreman is a restaurateur and co-owner of the Foreman-Wolf group.

Everyone with young children knows the difference between a wet pool parent and a dry pool parent. For 11 years, I’ve been a wet pool parent, catching my children as they jump 800 times from the edge of the pool into my arms, and chasing after them with that special, harrowing urgency that happens when your child, who doesn’t know how to swim, lunges toward the water.

I’ve seen the dry pool parents. They’re the ones reading, chatting, sipping sneaked-in cocktails, or even— yes, it’s true— tanning. This summer, I’ll be in the zone to become a dry pool parent: my youngest is 6 years old and a careful swimmer. And while the prospect of a covert rum-and-Coke with a good book has its allure, there are a lot of other reasons why I’m pleased as punch that all three of my kids are finally swimming.

In this country, drowning is the second-leading killer of children after car accidents, and the highest drowning rates occur, not surprisingly, among children ages 1 to 4. “You take a big sigh of relief when you know that they can fall into water and swim to the edge,” says Christine Calderon, who swims with her three sons at Bolton Hill Swim and Tennis Club.

So when’s the best time to start swim lessons?

Singleton Mathews, director of the Mariner Swim School in Baltimore, suggests “Mommy and Me” classes starting at 9 months, before children develop a fear of the water. “It’s great to start children early enough that they’re still imaginative and don’t have a concept of the danger that water can present,” he says. “At that age, they’re ready to explore, and they’re so comfortable with their parents.” 

That philosophy proved true with my brood, as well as with Calderon’s.

Calderon’s three sons, Matias, 11, Lucas, 9, and Marcos, 7, were taking lessons by the time they were 6 months old. Fred Gorman taught his daughters himself at Swan Lake Swim Club. Using what he calls “turtle training” when they were toddlers, he carried Kate, now 10, and Becca, 9, on his back, while they held onto his shoulders. “I just let them build up their confidence and explore on their own,” he says. “They’re like fish at that age.”

Cathy Bennett, director of the Michael Phelps Swim School at Meadowbrook, offers “Get Wet” classes starting at 6 months, and her youngest student started at 3 months. There are benefits to starting as young as possible, she says. When they’re young, kids can learn the basics of buoyancy, body position and breathing more easily. Also, it’s easier for parents and instructors to manipulate their bodies— and younger kids tend to freak out less when they get water in their ears.

But sometimes there are freakouts. My first attempts at swim lessons with my children, at Meadowbrook, went well. They were babies, and the lessons took place in a small, calm, warm pool. But then they graduated to the big pool, where the water was quite cold. Epic tussles ensued, and I gave up. Subsequent lessons at the 33rd Street YMCA were much warmer— and more warmly received. Some programs, like Kids First in Cockeysville and the Maryland Athletic Club Swim Academy, make warm water a priority.

Water temperature is important. But, as the Bard said, readiness is all. One mother I talked to, whom I’ll call Beth, made the mistake of signing up her 2 ½ year old for lessons intended for kids ages 3 through 5. She lied about his age because he was tall and potty-trained, and she thought he had progressed past the Mommy and Me stage. “Was that too much to ask?” she says. “Turns out yes. He spent each lesson yelling, ‘I want my towel’ at the top of his lungs, and I had to get in with him every time.” Fortunately, the trauma was not long-lasting, and eventually Beth’s son did learn to swim.

But sometimes the wrong kind of lesson at the wrong time can do damage that lasts longer. A local mother I’ll call Nora enrolled her two sons in swim lessons three years ago, when they were 6 and 4. The lessons were offered through the local pool where they had a summer membership, as opposed to through a program that specializes in teaching young swimmers. She remembers that the instructors told the parents to stay out of sight so the kids wouldn’t try to run to them. “We foolishly complied,” she says.

For those lessons, her kids cried nonstop and the water was very cold. “The then-6-year-old was the one with the lasting trauma,” says Nora of her son, who is still very reluctant to get into a pool. In fact, every day at camp last summer, while all the other children swam, he wouldn’t even put his feet in. For the younger child, it took a year to get back in the water.

After that experience, Nora talked to other swim instructors. “We’ve spoken to a lot of experts and camp directors who insist they can get anyone in the water and the advice for parents to leave when a child is feeling anxious is fairly consistent,” she says. “I think that such advice may work for most kids, but it is over-generalizing to say it works for all, and can really backfire.”

But there are some things that most swim programs seem to agree on. Recipes for success usually include calm, warm water, gradual immersion, such as dangling feet in the water, constant contact with a parent and being able to see the parent’s face. Some programs tack on singing, bubble blowing and toys— in other words, fun. And while instructors seem to agree that earlier is easier, it’s never too late to learn to swim.

And what about the sink-or-swim theory? While my generation and my parents’ generation may have learned to swim when they were heaved into a pool and shown no mercy, the current consensus is that sink-or-swim does more harm than good. Most programs also discourage the use of flotation devices, because kids can become too dependent on them. And, of course, even one minute of unsupervised swimming is a huge no-no.

Whatever your approach, swimming has benefits that go beyond safety. Bennett swears by swimming as a confidence-builder. “When kids learn to swim, they have to figure out something, trust themselves, take a challenge,” she says. And success in the pool is easily measured— it’s simple enough to track your time or your distance, or even to evaluate your form. “When they succeed, they are impressed by themselves,” she says.

But there’s another angle that most of us probably don’t think about very often—  “Swimming feels good,” says Bennett. “You feel good in the water, because of the constant, perfect pressure.”

Over the years, Bennett has worked with many autistic and special-needs children and has found that they are especially soothed and happy in the pool. “Under the water, it’s so peaceful, so quiet,” she says. “In the water, they sparkle.”

And then there’s swim team. Both of Gorman’s daughters swim on the Swan Lake Stingrays, and Calderon’s three sons swim for the Bolton Hill Barracudas. What kids seem to love about swim team is the medley of physical challenge, skills building and time— a ton of it— with friends.

Some swim teams, such as the Barracudas, pair younger swimmers with older swimmers, so that every novice has a “big brother” or “big sister.” As Calderon points out, “There are not a lot of sports where a 6-year-old is on the same team as a senior in high school.”

Whether your children swim on a team or just swim for fun and safety, pool time can become a mainstay of summer social life for parents, too. “We consider the folks at the pool our extended family,” says Gorman. And he may have the best reason of all for raising swimmers: “To avoid arguments, we just go underwater.”

Dive in!
> YMCA at Stadium Place and Towson Family Center Y, http://www.ymaryland.org/aquatics
> Kids First Swim School, Bel Air, Cockeysville and other locations, http://www.kidsfirstswimschools.com
> Mariner Swim School at Gilman School, http://www.marinerswimming.org
> Michael Phelps Swim School at Meadowbrook Swim Club and Merritt Athletic Clubs, http://www.mpswimschool.com
> MAC Swim Academy, Harbor East and Timonium, http://www.macwellness.com

The first thing you notice when you enter the new Brio Tuscan Grille is the size of it— a sprawling 7,200-square-foot space at the corner of Pratt and Calvert. The feel is corporate but comfortable— arched colonnades, hardwood Cypress floors, marble, Venetian plaster and massive wrought-iron chandeliers overhead. Just inside the front door is a lively bar area that opens onto the front patio, which houses an indoor/outdoor lounge and al fresco seating for another 68 guests. Bar patrons can enjoy a $5 specialty cocktail selection on Wednesdays from 4 p.m. to close, and the value-priced $2.95 Tuscan Taster bar menu, with items like shrimp cocktail, the Brio Bistecca mini burger, bruscetta and signature flatbreads. In the main dining room, expect large servings of Tuscan/Italian classics: a lengthy menu of pastas, risottos, seafood, veal, chicken and beef dishes, sure to satisfy. 100 E. Pratt St., 410-637-3440

The image of the Junior League woman as a socialite in a hat and white gloves organizing a community service project over tea has become almost iconic. Certainly many people associate the Junior League of Baltimore with their “Hunt To Harbor” cookbook, Holiday Pops fundraising concert and wholesome Larks glee club.

All that’s true, of course. But what’s also true— though lesser known— is that Junior Leaguers have been advocates for women, children, people with disabilities and senior citizens since the organization’s founding at the start of the 20th century.

As the JLB marks its 100th anniversary this spring, Style looks back on its past, its progressive programs and, yes, its parties. There’s much more to the story than hats and white gloves.

Socialite Start

The national Junior League movement was undeniably a socialites’ club when it began. It was only open to young women of proven good breeding— hence the “junior” in its name.  (After members aged out around 40 they became “sustainers” who were expected to leave active status as fully trained volunteers prepared to perform good works on their own.) Though the first league in New York in 1901 was started to promote nutrition and literacy programs in settlement houses, the philanthropic mission was, in many respects, secondary to its social function as an elite, exclusive club.

Mary Goodwillie, then the chair of the Volunteer Committee of the Federated Charities, founded the Baltimore Junior League in 1912 with a mind to giving “young ladies of leisure and education” an opportunity to do some good with their free time.

At its start, there was little revolutionary about the JLB’s activities. The first members met at Goodwillie’s house to read and discuss books on civic responsibility. However, soon the women began to see that the JLB offered a way to impact their community in an era before women won the vote. Early JLB literature indicates young members were asked to boycott stores that didn’t comply with labor unions to show support for fair wages. Although the JLB didn’t take a stance on suffrage (perhaps so as not to ruffle the feathers of their prominent husbands), it did host what The Baltimore Sun called “probably the first public debate by women ever held in Baltimore on the question of woman suffrage.”

In 1921, the JLB opened its first major project, the “Diet Kitchen,” which was a facility in South Baltimore that offered poor people (mostly immigrants) education in how to feed their families on a budget. Using proceeds from its balls and theatrical performances it staged at the Vagabond Theatre on East Monument Street, the JLB hired a professional dietitian and also provided its members as volunteers to feed and instruct families.

High-Stepping ’30s

By the 1930s, anyone who was anyone wanted to get into the JLB. Potential members had to be sponsored by an existing member and survive deliberations by a secret committee. Those who made the cut were feted in local newspapers, which breathlessly announced new members’ pedigree alongside their head shot. The JLB Follies, a Broadway-style extravaganza of skits and songs, was the hit of the society pages.

When the curtain dropped, the JLB continued its work directing children’s theater performances. It also moved into the emerging field of occupational therapy. Members opened two centers in cooperation with Johns Hopkins Hospital to give leaguers a crash course in the new technology so they could volunteer helping patients with their therapy. The program was eventually taken over by Johns Hopkins.

Education and Disability

In the 1940s and ’50s, the JLB left its mark on education for children with disabilities. JLB member Betsy McDonald, 80, recalls that her mother, Elizabeth Seiler, helped start a nursery school for deaf children during her tenure as league president from 1947-49. The school was funded with profits from the Follies, and members worked there as did other professionals, such as a music teacher from Peabody who offered piano therapy. “It was started because one of the member’s children was very, very hard of hearing,” McDonald recalls. “It was thrilling to see what these volunteers accomplished in helping these children.”

At the time, the school was the only option in Baltimore for deaf children under age 5. The school was located in JLB’s headquarters (then on East Mount Vernon Place). Its mission to teach deaf children to speak would be controversial today, but was heralded as revolutionary at the time. 

In the early 1950s, the JLB opened a preschool for blind children, which was eventually folded into the Maryland School for the Blind, while the school for deaf children was also taken over by the state of Maryland.

An Era of Change

If ever there was a time that would shake the JLB to its well-pedigreed foundations, it was the 1960s. During this tumultuous era, the JLB tackled the issue of segregation and took up the emerging cause of senior citizens’ rights.

Betsy McDonald, who was president from 1967 to 1969, recalls that the JLB noticed the need for resources for the growing elderly population and partnered with the Bureau of Recreation and Commission of Problems of the Aging to rally for the $3.8 million bond required for the Waxter Senior Center (named for Judge Thomas Waxter, husband of JLB member Peggy Waxter, herself a relentless advocate for the project). “We were always doing things before our time, that’s one thing I remember with great pleasure,” says McDonald. “When we campaigned for the Waxter Center bond issue, we were out in the neighborhood on the back of flatbed trucks, which was hardly done in those days. But we felt that strongly about it.”

When the Waxter Center opened, it earned national recognition as the first institution of its kind in the country.

Others in the JLB felt just as strongly about breaking down membership barriers of class and race. “When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, that woke a lot of people up,” remembers Susie Macfarlane, who joined the JLB in 1950 and was president when the first African-American member was chosen. “In the later part of the ’60s, we realized that to credibly work in the city we needed to be integrated in our membership.”

A handful of JLB members worked with Pearl Cole Brackett, a prominent African-American educator and activist, to identify a black woman who would meet all the criteria of a leaguer and also be willing to become the pioneering member. They proposed Auldlyn Williams, an African-American debutante whose mother was a supporter of the arts and whose father was a doctor.

“Had she been white, there would have been no question about her [acceptance in the league],” says Macfarlane. “I was very much in favor of this, but was unsure that the admissions committee would accept her.”

After the membership committee approved Williams’ membership, a few members resigned in protest. Ironically, the ink was barely dry on Williams’ membership card when she moved to New York where she transferred her league membership. It was years before another African-American joined, but today, 35 percent of the new membership class is non-white.

In 1979, Helene Hahn Waranch transferred from a league in North Carolina to the JLB. In 1991, she became the JLB’s first Jewish president.

Sex, Drugs and Fashion

By the 1970s, the challenges of Baltimore City had changed and so the JLB took on the issues of drug use, homelessness and the deterioration of the public school system. M.C. Savage, 67, joined in the late 1960s. Like many members of that era, she was a working woman, new to Baltimore, who joined to meet people and get involved in community service. A graduate of Hollins College, she was part of the Betty Friedan generation Mary Goodwillie would not have recognized.

“Whenever we went to national events, [Baltimore] was always considered to be an avant garde group because we were always ahead of the curve with issues and not bogged down in what the Junior League used to be,” says Savage. “We really enjoyed that tag. Maybe it was just the right time for a women’s group to gain footing. There were so many gaps and it was clear we could do a lot in the community.”

Around this time, the Baltimore chapter pushed the national league to pass a mandate that meetings couldn’t be held at any location, such as a country club, that discriminated against African-Americans or Jews. They also made their voting more transparent before a lot of other chapters, and were more focused on performing community service than voting members in or out, which was still very important in many league chapters.

By 1972, the JLB had written and published “How Tommy Tummy Feels About Drugs,” an educational coloring book about the dangers of drugs that was given out in schools, sold at city fairs and distributed by the Maryland State Conference on Drug Abuse. With the help of local banks, the JLB created the booklet “A Home In Baltimore” to encourage city living at a time of widespread urban flight. They picked up the environmental cause, joining boycotts of non-refundable soda bottles and co-sponsoring an urban environmental conference with the Maryland Environmental Trust years before anyone was overly worried about pollution.

In 1975, they created the Citizens In Volunteerism In City Schools (CIVICS) program to pool volunteers from local communities to assist city teachers. By the mid-1970s, the program managed more than 400 community-based volunteers including parents. The JLB opened its Wise Penny thrift store in this decade, which continues to outfit the Govans community where it’s located, as well as penny-pinching fashionistas of all economic backgrounds.

As the 1980s dawned, the JLB made its most ambitious financial commitment ever when it earmarked $20,000 a year for a minimum of three years to create and run The Govans Parent-Infant Center. The center targeted parents of children from birth to age 3 in the hopes of fostering functional family units from their inception, rather than applying support services after the fact. The center opened on the heels of the JLB’s hosting of the league’s landmark national conference on children’s advocacy, “For Children’s Sake.”

In a 1979 interview, Elaine Born, director of the project for the JLB, told The Sun that in opening the center the JLB hoped to “humanize the bureaucracy and ensure that multiple-problem families don’t slip through the cracks of various social service agencies.” The JLB eventually turned this project over to its own leadership and it still operates today as the Waverly Center.

Smaller and More Agile

The JLB met an issue in the ’80s that it couldn’t beat with even the most innovative program: as more women started to work full time, they had less time for volunteerism. Those who did want to serve could choose from a blossoming menu of nonprofits. The JLB had always prided itself on training women to be community leaders, but women’s rights advances meant women could obtain those skills elsewhere. The JLB was no longer the only game in town. Like many groups, its membership decreased. Currently it has 123 active members, down from 600 at its height.

To keep pace, the JLB got rid of all barriers to membership— even age. Today, a prospective member can get to know the organization at an open house. She is asked to fill out an application not because she will be vetted on her pedigree, but to ensure she understands the hefty time commitment.

Current president Kate Sullivan, a 39-year-old mother of four, says the JLB is trying to do a better job communicating its message of service and leadership in hopes of abolishing the stereotypes.

But some things never change. Sullivan jokes that all JLBers are “type A and very organized.” They’re also still passionate do-gooders. “Every single one of us, no matter why we joined, truly believes in community work,” she says.

The JLB still runs the Wise Penny, now located at the street level of its brand new headquarters in Govans. It manages a life and work skills training internship through the shop for local women and has created its own program in support of the league’s national initiative to end childhood obesity, “Kids in the Kitchen.” The JLB is considering turning its efforts toward ending human trafficking in the future.

“I want the league to be known as a go-to place for women who feel empowered to make a difference in the community,” says Sullivan. “If people expect us to be the debutante league, they will be very sad.”

Notable JLB members
> Laura Gamble, president, Bank of America of Maryland (retired)
> Leslie Shepard, director, Baltimore School for the Arts (retired)
> Pam Malester, deputy director, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Civil Rights (retired)
> Sylvia Eggleston Wehr, associate dean for external affairs, Johns Hopkins University
> Sylvia Badger, Baltimore Sun columnist, (deceased)
> Peggy Waxter, lifelong philanthropist and volunteer (deceased); Gov. O’Malley named a day in her honor, May 1, 2004 
> Barbara Bonnell, formerly of Baltimore Development Corp. (led the renovation of Charles Center in the 1960s)
> Sally Michel, activist, co-founder, Parks & People Foundation
> Maria Johnson, vice president of advancement, Girl Scouts of Central Maryland

Atlantic City gets a new upscale casino with the opening of Revel. The 1,898-room hotel (all boast ocean views) features 14 restaurants, including offerings by several top chefs already mentioned on this page— Jose Garces, Michel Richard— plus D.C.’s Robert Wiedmaier and Iron Chef Marc Forgione. There’s a full spa (natch), pools galore and acres of beachfront just outside. Beyoncé herself christens the 5,500-seat concert hall with shows May 25-27. See our next issue for a complete review. 855-348-0500, http://www.revelresorts.com

Have you noticed the recent national trend of upscale chefs opening decidedly down-home restaurants and even—gasp!—food trucks? Witness Rocco DiSpirito and Mai Pham and their food trucks, or Bobby Flay and his Burger Palaces. Locally, we’re still waiting for Cindy Wolf to serve up her shrimp and grits from the side of a truck, but regionally, you can sample the cuisine of some high-brow chefs at comparably low-brow locales.

> In Frederick, Chef Bryan Voltaggio has moved his weekday lunch service from Volt to Lunchbox, where a line-up of gourmet pressed sandwiches—lamb with eggplant relish, honey aioli and walnut praline (wow!)— top out at just $8.50. You can also sample the award-winning chef’s take on simple salads and soups ($3 a cup) at prices far below that of his flagship restaurant. Best of all: You don’t need a reservation. 50 Carroll Creek Way, 301-360-0580, http://www.voltlunchbox.com

> In March, D.C. super-chef Jose Andres launched his Pepe food truck, introducing Washingtonians to the wonders of flautas, the Spanish-style sandwiches that the chef grew up on in Spain. The sandwiches are served on 10-inch, crusty torpedo-shaped rolls and stuffed with items like Serrano ham, Manchego cheese and roasted eggplant. Most of the offerings average $10 each, but at $20, the Pepito de Ibérico— top-quality Ibérico pork, Serrano ham, roasted green peppers, caramelized onions and aioli— might be the most expensive food truck sandwich ever served. Follow @pepefoodtruck on Twitter.

> In Philadelphia, be on the lookout for Iron Chef Jose Garces’ Guapos Tacos food truck— you’ll know it by the colorful mosaic of more than 45,000 beer bottle caps and long lines of hungry folks who wait for tacos filled with barbecued duck meat and radish kimchi. The tostada is stuffed with 13 ingredients ranging from refried beans to nopales, fleshy pad segments of the prickly pear tree. (Spines removed, thank you very much.) http://www.guapostacos.com

> Last fall, Chef Michel Richard (of Citronelle fame) opened Meatballs in D.C.’s Penn Quarter neighborhood. The counter-service casual eatery serves up nothing but spheres of lamb, beef, chicken, pork and/or lentils, doused with your choice of sauces and served either on rolls, over pasta or on a salad. D.C.’s food critics have been tough on the place, but the eager lunch crowds haven’t. 624 E St. N.W., 202-393-1083

> Jeff Tunks (D.C. Coast, Passionfish, Ceiba) gets into the gourmet burger trend with his Burger Tap & Shake. What separates this D.C. burger emporium from the crowd is Tunks’ use of whole chuck roasts and briskets, which are ground in-house giving the 6-ounce, $6 burgers big-time flavor. 2200 Pennsylvania Ave, 202-587-MALT, http://www.burgertapshake.com

In the past, LOFT has had a challenging time figuring out where it fits in the fashion landscape. The Midge to Ann Taylor’s Barbie, LOFT was first the lower-priced version of AT, then tried becoming Coldwater Creek’s cooler cousin. (Look, we have capris! In a color other than beige!) The latest incarnation should be far more successful: a J. Crew for the slightly older set. Now open next to Trader Joe’s in Festival at Woodholme, LOFT stocks exactly what you’ve come to expect (weekend goodies like tees, shorts, denim and casual dresses) with less of a focus on inexpensive workwear than in years past (good move). Savvy was particularly impressed with the “style closet” concept, where key trend pieces have been pulled together for easy dressing room access, along with mannequins showing off outfit options that are fresh, fun and fashion forward. (Look for Sav in her wheat and vanilla textured tank tucked into yellow shorts with a braided leather belt and blue summer scarf— adorable!) 1809 Reisterstown Road, 410-484-0220

The Reserve in Federal Hill, which had shut down briefly, has re-branded itself and re-opened as 1542 Gastropub, now with chef Cyrus Keefer helming the kitchen. (1542 Light St., 410-605-0955)

Also in Federal Hill, Sobo Café has new owners, a fresh look and a “New Americana & Contemporary Comfort Food” menu. (6 W. Cross St., 410-752-1518)

Look for The Food Market, a new restaurant on The Avenure in Hampden to open this spring, with chef Chad Gauss, formerly of City Cafe.

Also in Hampden, a sprawling, shiny new Giant Foods has opened in the Green Spring Tower Square Shopping Center on 41st Street; it replaces the older Giant two blocks away in The Rotunda.

I have a food confession: I love Marshmallow Fluff. In hot chocolate. On very cold days. 

Not much of a confession? How about if I add that I always buy a fresh jar of it every fall to get me through the winter, even though I only use it in hot chocolate?

When it comes right down to it, I’m drawn to sugar’s magical, chemical reincarnations. I can’t turn down an opportunity to roast marshmallows over a fire (or even a Weber grill); I still have a childlike fascination with cotton candy; and I’m a sucker for nearly any combination of sugar, vanilla and egg whites, from meringue on a cream pie to crunchy, swirled cookies shaped like Hershey’s kisses to angel food cake.

It feels strange to me, embarrassing even, to like these desserts. Marshmallows and cotton candy are kids’ food, and meringue is a sweet cloud of nothing. How can the person who loves sour grapefruit, sugarless espresso and strong, earthy foods such as mushrooms, kale and olives be seduced by something so sugary, so pretty, so frivolous?

These are my guilty food pleasures— not because sugar is bad for me, but because they are so unlike my other food tastes.

In the same way we have guilty music or television pleasures (“Dancing With the Stars,” anyone?), it’s pretty clear after polling family, friends, neighbors and a few foodies about town that there are lots of foods that provoke guilt or shame. (Though one neighbor called herself a hedonist, proclaiming, “No guilt involved!” before admitting to craving egg salad and bacon sandwiches.)  It’s also clear that we hold different definitions of what a guilty food pleasure is.

My friend Brian sums up what most people think of when you challenge them to name their food secrets: “Eating too much of something that’s colossally bad for me.”  A big, though not overweight, man (his nickname is “6-12” because he’s 7 feet tall), he says he’s susceptible to all-you-can eat buffets, like the one at The Embers restaurant in Ocean City or “a five-piece, dark meat, original recipe meal from KFC.” He also loves Pringles, which show up on more than one person’s list.

It turns out lots of folks love— but hate that they love— unhealthy things like fast food, doughnuts, creamed chipped beef or the sausage and biscuits that my friend Michael allows himself once a year. We also love (and love to hate) what I call movie food— extra-buttered popcorn, Twizzlers, gummy bears, Good & Plentys— and foods that show up around the holidays: eggnog, pecan pie and Peeps.

Recently retired Sun food writer Rob Kasper feels guilty about what he calls “the late night stout,” the one that calls out to him, he says, “past 11 o’clock [when] the newspapers have been read, the televised ballgames have been abandoned and it is just me stretched out in the recliner, listening to Rod Daniels read the news.”
“I know I shouldn’t,” he confesses. “I know that what I am about to do negates the sweaty hour spent at the gym, but… I rarely resist.” Each night, he says, he promises to have more willpower, starting tomorrow. Personally, I’d just call it research for the beer book he’s working on.

Predictably, folks also feel bad about junk food, confessing to eating Reddi-wip out of a can, chili cheese fries and all genres of puffed cheese, particularly Cheetos, a favorite of my friend Terry. He’s a father of three whose two oldest sons are in college, necessitating frequent road trips. “I never buy Cheetos for home,” he says. “But for a four-hour road trip? I often arrive dusted orange.”

But guilty food pleasures come in different forms. Sometimes the guilt is induced by cost. Bridget Sampson, who co-owns The Dogwood Restaurant with her husband, Galen, has a thing for lobster with Kerrygold Irish butter and champagne— but only on special occasions like birthdays and Christmas. My neighbor Rick loves foie gras, but both the cost and the treatment of the geese set off his shame (folks feel the same way about eating veal). A gluten-intolerant friend names bread as her guilty pleasure because eating it can make her ill, and Rick’s wife, Tanya, is sentimental about food that reminds her of her childhood: boxed Kraft spaghetti mix that she’s had a hard time tracking down recently.

When it comes to guilty food pleasure stories, however, Cliff Murphy, director of the Maryland Traditions program of the Maryland State Arts Council, has everyone beat. Cliff’s guilty pleasure is what he calls “Elvis food,” and for years, he has made his indulgence a celebration. Each year on Elvis’ birthday, he serves the King’s favorites, including fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, Twinkies, glazed doughnuts, meatloaf with ketchup and sausage spoon bread, all washed down with Diet Dr Pepper.

After collecting nearly 40 responses to my question, I can report the top contenders for guiltiest food pleasure are:  Pringles, fast food (particularly Chick-fil-A), bacon, Fritos, whole tubs of ice cream, cheese curls and foie gras or other chicken liverish preparations. But my question raised other, unexpected issues as well. One woman responded that she didn’t remember a time when she didn’t equate food with guilt, while my husband pointed out that food wasn’t something he would ever feel guilty about— not even potato chips. Initially, I took this as a smart remark from a lean marathoner, but as I considered more, I thought about the idea of food as a gift, how lucky we are to have it at all, and how one person’s guilt might be another person’s dinner. Food guilt may have originated with the apple and Eden, but today it is definitely a first world issue.

What strikes me most, though, are the sweet associations with food that temper the guilt— the making of root beer floats with parents, the Fritos and milk snack that recalls an elderly grandfather’s treat of Saltines and milk mixed together in the same glass, the marshmallow pinwheel cookies my sister and I associate with our grandmother. If loving any of these treats is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.

Whoopie Pies

Think Pink

Once upon a time it was 1976 and pink wine was a ladies-only kind of drink.

My grandmother was partial to Lancers rosé from Portugal, that lightly effervescent, slightly sweet charmer in the stylish maroon ceramic bottle. She viewed it as an ideal mealtime beverage for all seasons and entertainments— excepting, of course, Sunday brunch, which was the reserve of mimosas and whiskey sours.

My mother’s rosé of choice was Almaden Mountain Grenache, dispensed from the amazing new bag-in-the-box in the refrigerator. For her, it functioned mostly as a soda pop replacement: to sip while watching summertime TV and eating chips and dip. 

Either way, the message was clear: Wear a skirt=drink rosé.

Then, in 1989, when I was dating my first wife, I ran into rosé of a different sort through her Italian grandmother, a marvelous cook from whom I had the wonderful chance to learn a bit. In the summer, “Mama” (as I came to call her) and her son, my father-in-law to be, asked me to seek out hard-to-find bottles of Grignolino, a light-hued dry red that essentially functions like rosé, to drink with rabbit with peppers and polenta, or grilled fish with olives and rosemary. Those were two of my favorite dishes that Mama made in those years and the wine made them more themselves, acting as the rhythm section does behind a great piano player, punctuating notes, affirming, adding order and authority.

Now I had some new messages. Rosé could be dry. Rosé could support food beautifully. And one could wear pants and drink it.

But I was one of the few who’d received that information, unfortunately. After its peak in the late 1970s, dry rosé fell out of favor, overshadowed by the hugely popular run of white zinfandel through the ’80s and ’90s.  Then, to my great surprise and sincere joy, in the early 2000s, people— even squads of Baltimore men, typically a conservative and self-conscious tribe— began boldly asking for dry rosé, explaining that spring had arrived and they needed the right thing for their (insert social occasion here).

The renewed interest in rosé, I think, speaks to two factors. One, many people are discovering that wine actually has a function with food. And two, as sensible red-blooded Americans, we love value. Tasty and appropriate pink stuff for quaffing with spring/summer food, warm weather and zippy moods is rarely more than 18 bucks.

And yet, when it comes down to it, rosé is still seen as the choice only when a white wouldn’t offer enough flavor and a red would leave you dripping in sweat. Over the years, I’ve attempted to pair rosé with various dishes in all of my restaurants as a first choice— and it hasn’t worked as well as I had wished. The shrimp with banana and garlic with a Garnacha Rosé from Navarra was nice but the White Côtes du Rhone was better. Bandol Rosé was great with the salade nicoise, but the Vermentino di Sardegna was probably better. Even last year, a rabbit terrine with a fresh artichoke salad was working with a Sancerre Rosé, but not as well as with a Soave Classico. 

And then, a few weeks ago, I did what everyone does when they’re home, it’s late, they have no food and they’re starving: I picked up the phone and placed my continued existence into the hands of Pizza Boli’s. 

While waiting for the delivery guy, I went down to the cellar to make an agonizing choice. Over the years, I’ve wasted too many great wines to count on pizza. Bordeaux, Cabernets and Brunellos can’t handle the acid from the tomato or the salt in the pie. Cheese usually wants white, but whites just don’t have strong enough flavors. 

I stood there, thinking about how, after one sip and one bite, I was going to regret the stupid decision I was about to make. Then, suddenly, the last two bottles of Rosé Montepulciano d’Abruzzo from last summer tapped me on the shoulder.

“Hey, Pal!”

Of course. Perfect. Why did it take me so long?

Three Good Rosé Bets

Look for 2011 vintages from:
> Rioja Rosado, Bodegas Muga
> Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Rosato, La Valentina
> Tavel Rosé, Domaine de la Mordorée

Tony Foreman is a restaurateur and co-owner of the Foreman-Wolf group.

Heading up to the Philadelphia International Flower Show? You should. (After all, it’s listed in Patricia Schultz’s “1,000 Places to See Before You Die.”) This year’s theme is “Hawaii: Islands of Aloha,” and in addition to hundreds of vendors showcasing floral and garden displays, there also will be towering palms, a 25-foot-high waterfall and a plant canopy that promises to “immerse visitors in the Hawaiian rainforest.” (Also promised is the world’s largest wall of lettuce!) March 4-11, http://www.theflowershow.com

For those of you who can’t get enough of the botanical thing, here are some other ideas to complete the theme:

Eat: Two of Philly’s heavy-hitter restaurateurs, Aimee Olexy and Stephen Starr, teamed up last spring to open Talula’s Garden, just off Washington Square. While it might be too chilly to eat on the flower-box filled patio, you can still tuck into some delish farm-to-table cuisine— lobster “pie” with parsnips, fingerling potatoes, cabbage and Brussels sprouts— in the plant-filled indoors. http://www.talulasgarden.com 

Stay: The Four Seasons Hotel has been a beautiful place to stay since it opened on Benjamin Franklin Parkway years ago, but in 2009, the hotel opened its own rooftop garden— 315 feet of beds where chefs at the hotel’s Fountain restaurant grow herbs and vegetables. Even greener: Compost for the garden is made from food waste produced at the hotel. http://www.fourseasons.com

Play: There’s usually at least something in bloom year-round at Philly’s myriad public gardens and arboreta. Check http://www.greaterphiladelphiagardens.org, which lists 30 members, including beautiful Morris Arboretum.

Nestled on the upper level of the bustling Hunt Valley Towne Centre, Barrett’s Grill is a locally owned restaurant tucked in a sea of chain establishments. The new owners took over what was formerly the Greystone Grill, retained what they liked— the handsome stacked-stone accents and steaks on the menu— and made some adjustments, like lowering the price points, retraining the staff and streamlining the menu. The result is a comfortable spot to enjoy dinner in the dining room with family or catch the game on TV with friends in the barroom. 118 Shawan Road, 410-527-0999, barrettsgrill.com

The wild frontier of Federal Hill has a new watering hole: Cowboys & Rednecks Pub. As one might expect, the interiors of the space (formerly Vespa, Junior’s and Corvino) are done up with rustic, rough-hewn wood paneling, steer horns and strings of colorful lights. On the menu: steaks— Creekstone 100 percent Black Angus beef, to be specific. Look for sides such as baked beans, garlic smashed potatoes, sweet potato fries and mac-n-cheese. Not in the mood for steak? Then choose a “Drive-In” burger, pork butt sandwich, po’boy, fire-roasted salmon or pot roast. Eat in the dining room, outside on the front porch or sidle up to the bar, pardner.  1117 S. Charles St., 410-223-2269

Eddie Jacobs has moved to the most perfect new location, steps away from Petit Louis on Roland Avenue (fabulous clothes and fabulous food? Oui, oui!). Did you know Eddie Jacobs has been in business since 1939? (Lordy, that’s almost as long as Sav has been writing this column.) As always, they will be carrying an extensive selection of wool suits from names like Samuelsohn, Southwick and H. Freeman. Alterations are free, of course, but why fuss when you can pick from swatches and have your suit custom-made by the same companies in four to six weeks? Pick up dress shirts by Ike Behar and Gitman Bros., or have them made to order. Finish with a silk tie by Peter-Blair or a light cashmere sweater and he’ll look even more delicious than Tony Foreman’s French onion soup. Don’t miss: Arriving with the spring collection at the beginning of April: Seersucker pants. Sav is just a sucker for seersucker— Thursday or any day! 4800 Roland Ave., Suite 103, 410-752-2624

Couture Moda has moved to the slightly staid Festival at Woodholme shopping center with its rather unstaid clothing. Yes, most of the offerings are what most locals would consider “edgy.” These days, Savvy is about as edgy as Reese Witherspoon shopping for groceries, but she does find herself with upcoming trips to Las Vegas (not her idea) and Miami (much more her speed), where this sort of couture is quite moda. The SKY collection includes printed dresses and tops, perfect for throwing over a bikini and lunching by the pool. For nights, there are lots of long, silk dresses that fall somewhere between really wearable and ‘Real Housewives.’ There’s an endless supply of slinky tops, and a La Cite LBD with a decidedly fab French cut had a lot of possibilities. The Byron Lars dress with an overlay mesh was a particular favorite. Couture Moda also stocks men’s— dress and casual shirts from Bespoke in a variety of surprising colors, sweaters and jackets by X-ray and Mauri Italia leather sneakers— but she was more intrigued by the fact that Moda offers wine and vodka on Friday and Saturday evenings. Now that might just put her in the mood for Vegas… Don’t miss: Those Swarovski crystal-studded denim shorts by A7. Too bad Sav remembered she was in Woodholme, not a Whitesnake video, but they looked darn cute. 1809 Reisterstown Road, 410-486-0415

The trend of chef’s tasting bars (such as José Andrés’ minibar in D.C.) hits Charm City with the debut of the Tasting Bar at The Rowhouse Grille in Federal Hill. Tucked into a corner of the upstairs dining room in an alcove just off the kitchen, the petit bar seats three or four patrons who want a special experience. That is, a six-course tasting from an ever-evolving menu designed by chef Tess Mosely. Seasonal ingredients and items that don’t appear on the Grille’s regular menu make for a unique meal, as does the course-by-course pairing either wines by the glass or selections of Heavy Seas brews. The tasting menu is available for $38 per person, or $50 with wine/beer pairings included, and is available for dinner Thursdays through Saturdays. Reservations required.  1400 S. Light St., 443-438-7289

(Adapted from Gourmet magazine)
A childhood combination of chocolate and marshmallow. What could be better?

For cakes
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup well-shaken buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 large egg

For filling
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 cups marshmallow cream such as Marshmallow Fluff
1 teaspoon vanilla

To make cakes: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together flour, cocoa, espresso, baking soda and salt in a bowl until combined. Stir together buttermilk and vanilla in a small bowl.

Beat together butter and brown sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Add egg to mixture, beating until combined well. Reduce speed to low and alternately mix in flour mixture and buttermilk in batches, beginning and ending with flour, scraping down side of bowl occasionally, and mixing until smooth.
 
Spoon 2 tablespoons of batter about 2 inches apart onto 2 buttered large baking sheets. Bake in upper and lower thirds of oven, switching position of sheets halfway through baking, until tops are puffed and cakes spring back when touched, 11 to 13 minutes. Make sure cakes are baked through.Transfer with a metal spatula to a rack to cool completely.

To make filling: Beat together butter, confectioners’ sugar, marshmallow and vanilla in a bowl with electric mixer at medium speed until smooth, about 3 minutes.

To assemble whoopie pies: Spread a rounded tablespoon filling on flat sides of half of cakes and top with remaining cakes. Makes 10 to 12 whoopie pies.

Style asked 20 local health, fitness and nutrition experts, “What’s the most important thing women can do for their health after age 40”? And, since many of our experts are women around the age of 40 themselves, we also asked: “What is the most important thing you do for your own health”? Their answers aren’t miracle cures— just a lot of sound and savvy advice. And, good news: some of it is even fun!

>Monica Reinagel, licensed nutritionist, author and ‘Nutrition Diva’ blogger
“Guard against the upward creep of weight gain. Many women gain 3 or 4 pounds per year over the age of 40— throughout a decade that adds more than 30 pounds! The No. 1 thing that has made the biggest effect on my health and weight has been starting my own vegetable garden. There is nothing more gratifying than planning your meals with food you grow yourself.” 

>Dr. Pamela Ouyang, director of Johns Hopkins Women’s Cardiovascular Health Center
“Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women. Understand and know your numbers for major risk factors such as high blood pressure and high blood cholesterol and glucose levels. I build exercise into my schedule. I run on the treadmill three to five times per week, and most days I truly do take the farthest parking spot from my office.” 

>Dr. Varsha Vaidya, psychiatrist and founder of Total Wellness in Federal Hill
“Play, joke, talk with your friends regularly. We are so busy juggling kids and work that we neglect that important social network of friends. Even just a few hours out of every week or two rejuvenates us so we go back and connect positively with our family. Once a year, my girlfriends and I also go for a weekend away.”

>Jayne Bernasconi, yogini, aerial dancer and co-founder of Yoga on York
“Turn yourself upside down. Don’t be afraid to take your feet off the ground. You are never too old for yoga and aerial yoga allows you to explore, improvise and create movement with your own body. Personally, I remain true to myself by meditating each day— even if it’s just for five minutes— to understand my true authentic self and wash away my brain’s thoughts and patterns.” 

>Dr. Michele Shermak, plastic surgeon
“Why live with your father’s nose? Why wait to move forward in your emotional health and self-confidence if you have an issue that’s been bothering you all your adult life? While plastic surgery is not for everyone, now may be the time to make a change as you are at an age for successful recovery.
 
I used to live on Aleve and ibuprofen from long days on my feet. But the Barre exercises I now do regularly have made all the difference in my physicality. Plus, I take the class with friends, so I get the physical exercise and social outlet so important for women.”

>Mabeth Hudson, pastoral counselor and co-founder of Well for the Journey Spiritual Wellness in Towson
“Listen to your life. There is a voice within, buried under a lot of busyness, that offers guidance, direction and wholeness. I am an extrovert. I gain energy from others, but I need to allow for some downtime with silence and solitude to reflect and turn off the world around me so I can listen for that small voice.”

>Dr. Marianne Brandon, clinical psychologist, sex therapist and director of Wellminds, Wellbodies
“Stay connected to your sexuality, your feminine sensual side that is deep, rich and juicy. Sexuality invites you to be expressive, creative, emotive. Sex is not just about intercourse; it also reflects and honors femininity. I have a room in my house— decorated with fabric, dramatic art— devoted to enriching my feminine energy where I light candles, read poetry, listen to music, dance all alone. It keeps me connected to myself.” 

>Dr. Christina Li, director of minimally invasive surgery at Sinai Hospital
“Exercise. If you’ve got a TV, don’t tell me you can’t exercise. There are so many cable or on-demand exercise shows now. Walk in a botanical garden, hike in the woods, jog while your kids practice soccer. I’m busy, but I know I have to exercise. Some mornings, I’m up at 5 so I can get in my exercise session. So can you.”

>Dr. Christine O’Connor, director of well woman care and the adolescent gynecology program at Mercy Medical Center
“Have an annual gynecological visit with your doctor. Don’t neglect this. Would you let your kids go five years without seeing a dentist or your parents go five years without seeing a doctor?”

>Kelly Wilkes, massage therapist and owner of Ojas Wellness Center
“Put on your own oxygen mask first, before you help others. We always laugh with the women who tell us their families love it when they return from Ojas— whether it was a Pilates class, massage, anything, because they know she will come back happier, healthier and whole, with more love to give! I meditate twice a day, which gives me time to check in with myself. I also take a walk, do yoga, put down the computer, eat a cookie for breakfast if that is what I want! This helps me connect with feeling good and remain in concert with present energy.”

>Dr. Jennifer Payne, director of the Women’s Mood Disorders Center at Johns Hopkins Hospital
“Get your mood or anxiety disorder treated. Life is too short to not feel well psychologically. Exercise helps with this and is the most important thing I do for my health. It’s hard to fit it in, I know, but when I do, I feel and function dramatically better.”

>Jennifer Ortiz, owner of Her Health Physical Therapy
“Pay attention to your pelvic health— it’s just like the rest of your body in that you need to work now, at age 40, to prevent future issues such as incontinence, sexual dysfunction and pelvic pain. I personally carve time out to exercise to help prevent osteoporosis. You can’t wait till you are 60 to make that happen. The time is now.” 

>Dr. Denise Meyer, dentist
“Are you sure that’s just a cold sore? Request an oral cancer screening during your routine dental check. Get your dentist to check your neck, the sides of your tongue, base and roof of your mouth and lips for lumps and bumps— the whole works, because no other medical professional does this. I have my dental partner screen me every six months.”

>Jodi Naasz, owner of Charm City Fitness
“If you can only fit one type of exercise into your busy day, make it a session of strength training. Over the age of 40, weight-bearing exercises become so important in maintaining muscle mass. Interval workouts actually offer a bit of both. The most important thing I do for my own health is to vary my exercises weekly— I do boot camp, treadmill running, weight lifting.” 

>Dr. Rebecca Kazin, medical director of Johns Hopkins Dermatology and Cosmetic Center at Green Spring Station
“Have an annual skin check for preventative care. I wouldn’t tell you to sit in a dark room all day or never go on a sunny vacation, but a baseline now at age 40 allows a comparison so you can stay ahead of any changes— especially as we begin to age.”

>Lillian Cooperman, owner of The Traditional Acupuncture Practice in Fells Point
“Move your energy. Acupuncture helps unblock energy to offset the effects of stress— anxiety, depression, back pain, neck pain, headaches, digestive issues— something many women ignore in their own health. For me, I need rest and strive for a good night’s sleep every night. I also get outside every day and walk, and I try to spend as much time with my dogs as possible.”

>Kristen Chandler, owner of Bella of Canton salon
“Without a doubt, get a great haircut and consider hair-color enhancement. Strategic style designs will beautifully frame and hugely complement a woman’s face instantly. I personally commit to the basics—exercise, rest, healthy diet— and great hair!”

>Ann Quasman, host of “WomanTalk Live” on 680 WCBM
“Live in a state of awareness so that you learn what feeds your mind, body and soul. I make an intentional awareness each day to keep myself and my needs at the top of the list. I believe it’s the greatest gift a woman can give herself and it ultimately benefits everyone around her.”

>Dr. April Tripp, professor of wellness at Community College of Baltimore County
“There are so many ways to eat simply and healthily. I eat one raw food at every meal— an organic carrot, a slice of tomato, celery. But I also have self-compassion. If I overeat or eat the wrong foods, I go easy on myself. Health is a process.” 

>Dr. Dawn Leonard, director of the Herman and Walter Samuelson Breast Care Center at Northwest Hospital
“Mammograms absolutely save lives. Get an annual mammogram starting at age 40. Yearly clinical exams as well as monthly self-exams are critical, too. Put the three together for the best opportunity to find cancer early. Put your own health— physical, social, psychological— at the top of the list. That is exactly what I strive to do.”  

You gotta respect a chef who’s secure enough to share his recipes with the common cooks among us. That’s just what Jerry Pellegrino does every Monday night at Waterfront Kitchen in Fells Point. Pellegrino, who once schooled undergrads in the ABCs of DNA while studying for a doctorate in molecular genetics at Hopkins, educates gourmands in everything from making pastas and pizzas to the secrets of preparing a good beurre blanc or béchamel sauce. Pellegrino says his classes draw all sorts— from true kitchen novices to experienced at-home chefs— but everybody is united by a love of food and wine. “Within 10 minutes everybody is friends,” he says. “And by the end, everyone is hugging and kissing everybody goodbye.” Classes for March and April range from the Art of Braising and Stewing (March 12) to the Art of the Savory Pie (April 30). Cost is $59 and reservations are required. Call 443-681-5310 or email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

The death of celebrated restaurateur Morris Martick late last year reminds us that the city is fast losing its character— or, more precisely, its characters. Even though Baltimore lost William Donald Schaefer— mayor, governor, comptroller and crank— in 2011 (and Schaefer was a colossus among eccentrics), the passing of Morris Martick was an especially melancholy milestone. Hard to imagine the Free State producing such citizens again. So when the bell tolls, it tolls inevitably for another Baltimore eccentric, a species more endangered than the blue crab.

Morris Martick’s encomiums were lively, loving and deserved. Some were even true. I cannot confirm whether or not he cooked au natural (as some claimed). Or perhaps it was in his underwear? Like so much American history, his story was rooted in fact and layered with fabrication, embellishment and outright lies. But it is not important if such things actually happened or if such words were actually spoken, because they should have been. I can say from 32 years of contact, a visit with Morris was an experience you will not have at the Rusty Scupper or McCormick & Schmick’s.

It was plain, on the cold Sunday in mid-January when some 200 or more friends turned out at the Charles Theater to mourn his passing, how loved Martick was. The service, if you want to call it that, was exactly like an evening at Martick’s. The festivities started late, ran on far too long and were wildly disorganized but heartfelt. They were exactly what you would expect from old beatniks, old hippies, old newspaper hacks and a couple of generations of MICA graduates. There was not a false note, although some of the instruments were out of tune.

There were moments of true hilarity, including a charming anecdote from a former waitress who accidentally poured a cup of coffee on a diner one night. When the diner made the fatal mistake of demanding to see Martick then upbraided him on her lack of experience, Martick did not miss a beat. He assured the disgruntled trencherman that this gal was no amateur. “She’s spilled coffee on hundreds of people.” 

Going to Martick’s Restaurant Français (sic) was something everyone should have done at least once. Once was often sufficient. (If you believe that this was the best pâté in Christendom or the best bouillabaisse in the Free World then you really, really need to go to France.)

But that hardly matters. Martick was of Baltimore, as opposed to the late much-lamented Ron Smith (also called to glory in 2011), who may have been the sage of Shrewsbury, Pa., but chose not to live among us. The reaction to Smith’s passing seemed a bit excessive. You would have thought Voltaire had died. But, what of it? Brother Smith may now be seated at the right hand of the Father but he was not seated at 214 W. Mulberry St., in a former speak-easy. And that’s all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

I had the great pleasure of having lunch with Martick (he cooked) and the fabled Happy Eater of the Baltimore Sun, Rob Kasper, and Kasper’s son, Matt, a few years ago when the old man was closing up for good. (He had threatened to do this before.) I believe Martick was 83 or 84 at the time. He prepared sweetbreads. The temperature was a bracing 40 degrees in the darkened dining room. If there was any heat in the building I cannot attest to it. I dined in a peacoat and watch cap but removed my gloves, as it was easier to handle the cutlery. There were a couple of strange girls hovering about, young ladies of the MICA sort often found on the premises. Martick recruited directly from the ranks of the artistic, adding to the charm and the incompetence. I believe the ladies had been enjoying the potables. We had a wonderful lunch.

No one at the memorial service (at least while I was there) mentioned Martick’s good neighbor. Have they forgotten that, round the way from Martick’s, the late Abe Sherman kept his newsstand? Martick was Oscar of the Waldorf compared to Abe, who actually shouted at customers, cursed them and ordered them out. Most deserved it.

Sherman is long gone now and I think the old man who tapdanced in the bars in Fells Point is gone, too. Balls Maggio. Monroe Cornish. Melvin Perkins. Mr. Diz. Harley P. Brinsfield, the sandwich king/jazz impresario. Wee Willie Wentworth, the flagpole sitter. T. Oliver Hughes and his Collegians. Dantini, the Magnificent. And the guy who stood in front of The Sun building with his “Sun Lies/Sun Errs” sign. The pianist who played a portable keyboard and offered gospel classics to the multitudes at North and Calvert. The gent who ground up fresh horseradish and coconut at Lexington Market. You will not see such people again.

The free-spirited Dr. Bob Hieronimus, whom I believe would meet most standards for eccentricity and meet them gallantly, spoke affectionately of Martick at the memorial, observing, “Every year that goes by we lose a major part of Baltimore.”

Hersh’s Pizza in South Baltimore is the brainchild of siblings Josh and Stephanie Hershkovitz. But don’t be fooled by the name. Yes, there are pizzas here (all wood-fired, and including some intriguing combos like kale and pistachio, prosciutto and arugula and a clam pizza with garlic, lemon, parsley and pecorino). But they also serve up small plates (kale pappa, ricotta meatballs, braised chickpeas), salads and some stunning pasta dishes, such as fettucine with lemon, red onion and pistachio, and pappardelle with a Berkshire pork ragu. (And note, all pasta and sausage is made in-house.) The first floor houses the bar and a few tables for casual dining; upstairs is a more formal dining room. And speaking of the bar, they take cocktails seriously here, and offer old-school classics like the Negroni, Clover Club, Sidecar and Brown Derby (Woodford Reserve bourbon, grapefruit juice and honey syrup). Craft beer aficionados won’t be disappointed, either— there’s a long list of ales, lagers and bocks. Open for dinner only; closed on Tuesdays. 1843 Light St., 443-438-4948, hershspizza.com

The arrival of Harris Teeter, the East Coast grocery chain, is welcome news for Locust Point foodies. Savvy was happy with the impressive produce section (tropical exotics like ugli fruit, sugar cane and jicama made those breezes off the harbor seem much warmer). The meat department stocks organic selections, a major plus in Sav’s book for those times when she wants to pick up her knife as well as her fork. Even the oysters in the fish market looked fresh and fab. But who is Savvy kidding? These days, the real test of any grocery store is the prepared food selection. HT offers a kiddie-pleasing mix of sushi, pizza and mac ’n’ cheese (plus sautéed vegetables, just in case your pint-size gourmand will actually acquiesce to something green). Need life even easier than that? Shop online, then just pick up your grocery bags at the store, all packed up and good to go. Now if only they’d come home with her and put everything away, too… Don’t miss: Think of HT as your farmstand on Fort Avenue: local produce will be offered from April to October. McHenry Row, 410-528-8484

We’re fortunate to live where we do— in a central part of the mid-Atlantic, handy to New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The Chesapeake Bay lies right at our door and the ocean within an easy 21/2-hour drive. This became even more apparent to me as we were making plans for this regional travel issue— a first for Style.
 
Looking through the list of hotels, museums, restaurants, shopping destinations and other attractions, I estimate I’ve been to just shy of half of them. All the better to make plans to visit the rest! See what we’re recommending, beginning on page 88.
 
Elsewhere in the issue, some comings and goings. The final installment of our ‘Past Perfect’ department takes a look at the building that stood at the corner of Guilford Avenue and Saratoga Street since the 1800s— for most of its life known as the House of Welsh. Long-favored by Sun reporters and City Hall types as an informal clubhouse, it spent its last years as a nightclub before being unceremoniously demolished into a pile of rubble last December. Contributor Mary K. Zajac started penning this column that paid tribute to buildings “gone but not forgotten” back in January of 2009, with a remembrance of the grand old Stanley Theatre on Howard Street. After a run of more than three years, we’re bringing the department to a close. But not to fear, we’ll still delve into the city’s past occasionally in feature stories, as we did last issue in our piece on the history of The Belvedere.
 
This issue also marks the debut of a new column by familiar local restaurateur Tony Foreman. His regular column in our ‘Epicure’ pages is called ‘At My Table,’ and he’ll be
taking on topics in the realms of wine, food, travel, entertaining and just about anything else that strikes his fancy. I’m always interested to hear Tony’s opinions on things (and Tony does have definite opinions), and I hope that you will be, too.
 
And, of course, with the coming of spring, it’s almost time for steeplechase season, in March and April, followed by the running of the Preakness in May. So we wanted to honor our Maryland equestrian heritage in our ‘Details’ department by assembling a collection of home accents in the hunting country tradition. Those springtime days, perfect for riding,
are just around the corner.

Brian Michael Lawrence
Editor-in-Chief
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http://www.baltimorestyle.com

It’s a big season for photography exhibits: At New York’s Museum of Modern Art, 170 photographs by Cindy Sherman will be on display through June 11 as part of a retrospective of her work from the 1970s to photographic murals she created in 2010. http://www.moma.org. Through Sept. 2, the nearby International Center of Photography has Weegee: Murder Is My Business, a collection of provocative crime scene photos from the mid-20th-century master. http://www.icp.org.  And at D.C.’s National Gallery of Art, I Spy: Photography and the Theater of the Street, 1938–2010 showcases 100 works from the greats of street photography— Harry Callahan, Bruce Davidson, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Walker Evans, Robert Frank and Beat Streuli on display through Aug. 5. http://www.nga.gov

1. You may not be “to the manor born” but you can be “to the manor for a weekend” at the Clifton Inn or Keswick Hall, two charming country inns nestled into the Blue Ridge Mountains outside of Charlottesville, Va. Thomas Jefferson called this area the “Eden of the United States,” and we have to admit it’s pretty close to paradise. At the Clifton Inn, your perfect day might involve breakfast on the veranda, a dip in the lake, a siesta in a not-fussy-at-all guest room and dinner at the chef’s table. At Keswick Hall, paradise involves a round on the Arnold Palmer signature golf course, a stroll in the formal gardens and a hot poultice massage before a Chesapeake bouillabaisse dinner at Fossett’s (named after Jefferson’s chief cook) overlooking those beautiful mountains. http://www.cliftoninn.net, http://www.keswick.com —L.W.

2. Thomas Jefferson was a man of contradictions, and so it seems right that Monticello, his masterpiece constructed over 40 years, should be as well. It’s a place of extraordinary harmony, every detail from the ventilation to the skylights to the furnishings so carefully considered. One is in awe. And yet, at the same time we know the beauty and harmony came at a too-high price. Thankfully, the docents who lead Monticello’s tours attempt to tell the stories of everyone who lived there, including the enslaved families. The house tour features the first floor only, so be sure to reserve space in the Behind the Scenes Tour if you want more access. The visitor center and the two miles of trails on the property are also worth exploring. http://www.monticello.org —L.W.

3. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the only way to get from Baltimore to Irvington, Va., was by steamboat— and the trip took 24 hours. These days it’s a mere 31⁄2-hour drive to the charming hamlet known as “Mayberry meets Manhattan.” Seeking old school riverine charm? Opt for the luxurious Tides Inn. Want a boutique B & B with whimsical touches like a garden tub and shower room and honor bar known as “Detention”? Choose Hope and Glory Inn. Don’t leave without doing time in The Dandelion, a women’s boutique housed in a former parsonage, or having a meal and a martini at Nate’s Trick Dog Café. Other must-sees include a winery just a short bike ride from town, and the Steamboat Era Museum. Up the road lie Kilarnock and White Stone, both worth a visit. http://www.irvingtonva.org —L.W.

4. A weekend at one of Virginia’s grande dame hotels can produce such a restorative effect. It’s not just the glory of, say, the Jefferson Hotel’s lobby, where a dome of Tiffany stained glass floats above a two- story rotunda. It’s not just the high tea served at The Greenbrier’s opulent upper lobby, or its glamorous new casino and world-class golf course. It’s not just the mineral spring indoor pool at The Homestead, which, to be honest, is a bit more favorite Southern aunt than elegant  grandmama (save for the nightly dinner and dancing—coat and tie only, please). It’s that at these hotels, everything is in order, in place. Everything is right. Your fantasy version of the past awaits, just a few hours’ drive away. http://www.jeffersonhotel.com, http://www.greenbrier.com,  www.thehomestead.com —L.W.

5. Over the top and brimming with a sense of occasion, The Inn at Little Washington is still the D.C. area’s most luxe dining and overnight getaway. Presiding over the inn, the restaurant and several outbuildings is owner-chef Patrick O’Connell. Having overcome a personal and professional split from his partner several years back, O’Connell is back in top form— in the kitchen and in his laserlike attention to detail at the inn. Though the look of the place is opulent English with heavy velvet drapes, ceiling murals and fringed lampshades, there are playful notes, too. The cheese cart is really a rolling cow named “Faira” and dishes have names like “Tuna Pretending to be a Filet Mignon” and “Tin of Sin,” a tin box layered with crab salad, cucumber rillette and caviar. Service is Jeeves-like, which is to say nearly flawless and unobtrusive, and the whole experience has a personal feel with custom menus, kitchen tours and O’Connell’s cashew-studded granola for those staying the night. All this opulence has a price: Rooms start at $425 with surcharges on weekends and during certain times of year. The fixed price dinner is $158 to $188, depending on the http://www.night.theinnatlittlewashington.com —C.H.

6. When I say Chrysler, you say… no, not “car.” “Art.” Yes, in 1971, Walter Chrysler Jr., the son of the automotive company founder, gifted what was then considered one of the best private art collections in the United States to the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences, transforming it into the Chrysler Museum of Art. In addition to works by such luminaries as Matisse, Braque, Hopper and Thomas Hart Benton, the museum boasts a highly regarded collection of Art Nouveau and early American glass, including a nearly comprehensive collection of Tiffany creations. A new glass studio across the street from the museum allows visitors to observe creation in action. Admission is free. wwwchrysler.org —L.W.

7. A Frederick Fling.
Frederick’s explosive growth in the last few years has meant fewer farms and more traffic and housing developments. But it also has meant good things for downtown Frederick, which has transformed from a quaint county seat into a strolling, shopping and eating destination.

There’s VOLT, of course, the brainchild of executive chef (and native son) Bryan Voltaggio, who rose to fame on “Top Chef” in 2009 and has since racked up honors, including a James Beard Award nomination. Ordering the three- or five-course lunch menu is the best way to see for yourself how a meal can be art, theater and sustenance all in one. And because the flavors are rich and the portions are small, you won’t be too leaden to stroll the streets afterward.

Don’t be put off by the clutter in the import store One of a Kind, where beautiful handbags and jackets from Nepal are tucked in alongside Japanese teapots and jewelry. Also jam-packed, but even more great, is Alicia L., a women’s boutique that carries designer labels in everything from casual to evening wear. Owner Pat Lakkovski, who’s been at the helm for more than 32 years, has built such a devoted following that locals refer to the store as Pat’s Place. (Hint: Big sales in January and July.) Take a breath at Velvet Lounge, where the vibe is airy and youthful, all Free People and leather wrist cuffs. Indulge your inner girly girl at Tiara Day, stocked with vintage clothing and rhinestone jewelry, and Simply Beautiful, which offers candles and Vera Bradley bags.

Down on Patrick Street, don’t be surprised if you start to hate your own house. Whether it’s Salvaged, with its shabby-chic painted furniture, or Urban Cottage, Dream House, Home Essentials and Silk and Burlap with their vintage, clever and cool accessories, you might just want to throw out all of your own stuff and start again anew.

A cool wooden oar— you need it. New plates and glasses— sure. Hot pink dining room chairs— absolutely.

And if you want a sweet little souvenir of your Frederick fling, pick up a handcrafted chocolate flavored with Greek red wine at Zoe’s Chocolate Co. or a pretty glass bottle of
lavender balsamic vinegar at Lebherz Oil and Vinegar Emporium. http://www.fredericktourism.org. —Laura Wexler

Maryland & Pennsylvania

8. There’s a reason they call
Talbot County the “Hamptons of the Chesapeake Bay.” Like New York’s posh playground, Talbot provides a genteel getaway complete with ample opportunities for shopping, fine dining and attending intimate gatherings at the waterfront estate of your new best friend. Still, we much prefer Maryland’s version for its still-intact watermen’s culture, genuine friendliness of locals and the charms of its three main burgs: quiet Oxford, touristy St. Michaels and artsy Easton. All three feature restaurants rivaling anything in the big city and accommodations suited to sophisticated tastes. The favored outpost of Hollywood celebs and politicos (at least those not staying at the homes of the Rumsfelds or Cheneys nearby) is the Inn at Perry Cabin, the only property in Maryland to make Travel & Leisure’s list of “500 Best Hotels in the World.” Best of all, getting to Talbot County is a lot quicker than a trip to Long Island. http://www.tourtalbot.org —J.S.

9. Born Andy Warhola to two of Pittsburgh’s many Slovakian immigrants, he became Andy Warhol: the man, the myth, the mass-producing artist who forever changed American contemporary art. Even those who aren’t fans of Warhol’s work will find a trip to The Andy Warhol Museum fascinating. Housed in a refurbished industrial building across the river from Pittsburgh’s sparkling downtown, the seven-story museum is home to 8,000 works Warhol created between 1940 and 1970. A few you’ve seen (Marilyn, anyone?), but there are thousands you haven’t. As a bonus, the museum also hosts exhibitions by artists whose work reflects a pioneering spirit. http://www.warhol.org —L.W.

10. A house, wrote Frank Lloyd Wright, should be a “companion to the horizon.” So it is with Fallingwater, the most famous of his southwest Pennsylvania architectural creations, which is built above a 30-foot waterfall. But it’s also true of Kentuck Knob, one of the last homes ever completed by Wright, and Duncan House, where you can get horizontal (i.e., stay the night) in a home designed by America’s most famous architect. All are within a 30-mile radius of each other in the lovely Laurel Highlands. http://www.fallingwater.org, http://www.kentuckknob.com, http://www.polymathpark.com —L.W.

11. What we like best about Nemacolin Woodlands Resort is that every season we visit, it seems like a completely different place. Spring and fall are perfect for playing a round at the Pete Dye-designed Mystic Rock golf course. In winter, we can hole up in the Woodlands Spa and be pampered to our heart’s content or go skiing—or even dog sledding!— at Mystic Mountain. Summer means relaxing by the pool or off-roading in a Jeep Rubicon as part of the Off-Road Driving Academy. There’s enough to keep the kids busy here, too, from a little tykes ropes course to mini-golf to special “kidz nights out.” Or, maybe next time, we’ll just leave them at home. http://www.nemacolin.com —J.S.

Delaware & New Jersey

12. There’s just something timeless about Cape May. Even getting there is an adventure. Sure you could drive, but isn’t it more fun to arrive by ferry from Lewes? Once there, it feels as if you’ve stepped into the Victorian seaside resort of your mind’s eye. There are all those cute shoppes, a lighthouse and more grand Victorians than in a Merchant and Ivory film. The grand dame, Congress Hall, which dates to 1879, epitomizes the old world ambience with its white columns and rocking chairs. Presidents from Ulysses S. Grant to Benjamin Harrison vacationed here. March king John Philip Sousa performed on the lawn with his Marine Corps Band in 1882 and wrote the “Congress Hall March” in honor of the place. Really, how many hotels have you stayed at that have marches dedicated to them? http://www.capemay.com, http://www.congresshall .com —J.S.

13. Rehoboth Beach has some of the best dining options downy oshun, but sophisticated accommodations? Eh, not so much. Thankfully, there’s the Bellmoor Inn, where handsome décor, a full-service spa and attentive service make for a properly pampered getaway any time of the year. The club suites are among the largest anywhere, and the lower-priced garden rooms, set around a lovely courtyard and small pool, recall simpler times with their wooden doors and cedar shake shingles. Best of all: all those great restaurants are a short walk away. http://www.thebellmoor.com —J.S.

14. The Brandywine River Valley, the old stomping grounds of the DuPonts and the Wyeths, is home to some of the loveliest spots in the mid-Atlantic—and lies just a few hours up the road from Baltimore. The jumble of buildings that make up the Inn at Montchanin Village once housed mill workers but is now home to 28 charming rooms and suites and the quirky Krazy Kat restaurant, which is lodged in a former blacksmith shop. Nearby are two former DuPont estates, the very French Nemours Mansion and Garden, and the very American Winterthur, both of which offer terrific tours. Longwood Gardens is a treat year-round, with its 1,050 landscaped acres and 20 indoor garden rooms. And, at the Brandywine River Museum, housed in a former grist mill, you can view work by three generations of Wyeths as well as a fine collection of Brandywine valley landscapes. Then take a drive and see the landscape for yourself. http://www.thebrandywine.com —L.W.

15. The Borgata may not be the nicest hotel in New Jersey. (Heck, it may not even be the nicest in Atlantic City.) But when the 4,000-slot machine hotel/casino opened in 2003, Jersey beach-goers had never seen anything like it. With its full-service spa, 11 restaurants and Vegas-like sophistication, it raised the bar of what an Atlantic City hotel/casino could be. History repeated itself in 2008, when the Water Club Hotel at Borgata opened. Suddenly, “luxury” and “Atlantic City” could be comfortably mentioned in the same sentence. Other hotels followed, with the makeover of Resorts and the opening of The Chelsea, a fine boutique property located on the boardwalk, with a 1940s- style supper club/steakhouse, a gorgeous spa and cabanas on the beach. Even if you wouldn’t be caught dead playing baccarat outside of Monaco or Las Vegas, credit the Borgata with taking a big gamble that paid off. http://www.theborgata.com, http://www.thechelsea-ac.com —J.S.

New York City

16. Many luxury hotels play the role of loving mother, offering a fantasy version of childhood in which every need is accommodated, even before you knew you needed it. But some luxury hotels move beyond childhood fantasy to offer a stay in an alternate universe. Instead of hotel-as-mama, it’s hotel as art or movie set. The 1-year-old Mondrian Soho is such a place. Inspired by the 1946 French film “La Belle et la Bete” (“Beauty and the Beast”), the hotel is dressed in blue and white, with whimsical nods to the movie like oversized chairs and fuzzy lamps (and techie comforts like an iPad in every room). Over in the meatpacking district, renowned hotelier (and Bollywood actor) Vikram Chatwal’s Dream Downtown boasts a glass bottom rooftop pool with a view down to the lobby, an A-list club offering views of the Empire State Building and a 48-seat high-concept restaurant from the acclaimed neurologist-chef Dr. Miguel Sánchez Romera, who aims to affect not only your taste buds, but also your emotions, with his high concept cuisine known as neurogastronomy. Dream’s sloping stainless steel exterior is perforated with porthole windows, earning it the nickname the “cheese grater.” Even if you don’t stay the night, these two hotels are worth a drop-by. http://www.mondriansoho.com, http://www.dreamdowntown.com —L.W.

17. High-profile Manhattan chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten grew up in Strasbourg in a “foodie family.” But it was a 16th birthday dinner with his parents at the three Michelin starred Auberge de L’ill that changed his life. As the story goes, by the end of the meal, Vongerichten had a job washing dishes at the renowned eatery. Now Vongerichten, known for his stylish dining rooms and Modern French/Fusion cooking has restaurants the world over, including several in his home base, Manhattan (Jean-Georges, Mercer Kitchen, Spice Market). Vongerichten changed the way New Yorkers ate and influenced a whole generation of chefs, dazzling with the unexpected and astonishing with his culinary juxtapositions (raw scallops with cranberry and wasabi, Comte risotto with marinated pears). He also proved that elegance could be accessible and that high end didn’t have to mean stuffy. Even his most glamorous restaurant, the three Michelin starred Jean-Georges at Trump Tower on Central Park West, is a temple of relaxed modern design. http://www.jeangeorges.com —C.H.

18. Constructed in 1906 to house the collections of big-time banker J. Pierpont Morgan, the gorgeous Morgan Library and Museum is straight out of the movies, with its dark woods, stuffy portraits and pretentious velvet-lined furniture. Check out the secret staircases behind the slew of historic books (Gutenberg Bibles! Ancient handwritten texts! Original Michelangelo sketches!) that allowed Morgan to reach the room’s highest shelves. A 2006 renovation by Renzo Piano doubled the amount of exhibition space and created a massive light-filled, steel-and-glass courtyard that brings together three formerly stand-alone structures. The museum’s exhibitions are eclectic, like the massive collection itself. Current exhibits include drawings by Rembrandt as well as work from fluorescent-light installation artist Dan Flavin.

While you’re in the neighborhood and feeling bookish, head to the iconic reading room of the nearby New York Public Library, two city blocks’ worth of brass lamps and long oak tables. And for the complete literary experience, stay at the boutique Library Hotel, where each floor is based on a different category of the Dewey Decimal System. No kidding. http://www.themorgan.org, http://www.nypl.org, http://www.libraryhotel.com —M.M.

19. Some of the most stylish, of-the-moment shopping can be found in the West Village and Meatpacking District these days. This is a world of spare, gallery-like clothing boutiques for men, women and children; hipper-than-thou sales staff; and cool restaurants and lounges. The West Village, the original bohemian enclave, has been re-energized by the arrival of name designers on Bleecker Steet, such as Marc by Marc Jacobs, Burberry Brit and Diptyque, for heavenly candles. But there are still charming homegrown outposts like Cynthia Rowley for urban frocks and sportswear and Ludovine for a dose of French girl cool.

A few blocks north and west in the Meatpacking District is a critical mass of trendy shops: International names like Alexander McQueen, Chris-tian Laboutin and Catherine Malandrino stand alongside more obscure finds such as Henry Beguelin, for gorgeous handmade Italian handbags, Scoop NYC, with clothes beachy to dressy, Ten Thousand Things for modern artisan jewelry, and Jeffrey, a mini cutting-edge department store for men and women that many liken to the Barney’s of yore. http://www.meatpacking-district.com —C.H. 

20. Among Museum Mile’s many wonders is the 10-year-old Neue Galerie, a tiny jewel of a museum that exhibits early 20th century German and Austrian art and design on two sumptuously decorated exhibition floors. The collection features painting, sculpture, decorative arts and photographs by such luminaries as Klimt and Schiele, as well as Expressionist and Bauhaus artists. On the first floor, Café Sabarsky is a work of art in itself, an old world Viennese café with wood paneling, plush banquettes and formal waiters who deliver everything from goulash to sausages to decadent tortes and strudels on silver platters. Even if you’re not visiting the museum, it’s a beautiful spot for coffee, dessert or a meal. neuegalerie.org —L.W.

21. For a welcoming respite from the City That Never Sleeps, head to the Japan Society. The 105-year-old organization aims to bring together American and Japanese cultures in its serene and elegant headquarters located near the United Nations. The building, with its three-story indoor bamboo water garden (complete with a Zen-like waterfall), is an attraction unto itself and was the first structure in New York City designed by acclaimed Japanese architect Junzo Yoshimura in 1971. Every visit to the society holds some cultural surprise or another, whether important Japanese films, contemporary Japanese photography, the music of Japan, a Yoko Ono exhibit or the showcase of Japanese Art Deco objects running through June 10. http://www.japansociety.org —M.M.

22. High-Wire Act
For the first few minutes of my walk on the High Line, I keep trying to take a photograph to capture what it feels like to be in the city, yet suspended 30 feet above it, to be on a path that feels wild— with native grasses and wildflowers pushing up through concrete planks— amidst one of the most engineered places on Earth. A photograph that can convey surprise, delight and complete admiration for the transformation of an abandoned elevated freight line into a magical park overlooking the mighty Hudson River. A photograph that can somehow communicate that I have a big goofy smile on my face from 30th Steet, where I climb the steps to the High Line, to Gansevoort Steet, nearly 11⁄2 miles later, where I return to street level.

Pretty quickly I abandon that idea and give over to simply wandering.

The High Line, which opened in 2009, is generally about 30 feet wide— less a park than a supersized promenade— but at various points, it branches off or expands into larger outdoor rooms. At 23rd Street, a lawn and built-in stepped seating offer a spot for picnics, relaxing and public art events, both programmed and spontaneous. A few blocks south are the Chelsea Grasslands, where daffodils, tulips and sage bloom each April alongside birch trees and native grasses. At the Tenth Avenue Square, I stand at one of the windows cut into the steel walls, looking out at the long river of traffic then walk a few steps to gaze at the actual river. At the sundeck, between 14th and 15th streets, I buy an ice pop (the only businesses on the High Line itself are food concessionaires) and watch people who’ve shed their shoes and rolled up their pants lounge on built-in chaises and splash in the fountain. Redbuds, birch, dogwoods and crabapples provide color and shade.

About two blocks or so before the High Line ends, it passes under a building set on enormous steel trusses. It’s suddenly dark with this colossus looming above. Out the other side, I get a good look at what turns out to be the Standard Hotel, a 337-room boutique hotel whose extraordinary glass slab structure and modern design make it iconic enough to earn a spot alongside the coolest new thing in New York City in years. http://www.highline.org, http://www.standardhotels.com —Laura Wexler

23. There are few things in life more civilized than to find yourself ensconced in the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel in the late afternoon, sipping a kir and basking in the Edwardian grandeur of the famous old hotel. Steps away is the Round Table, where Dorothy Parker wielded a wit as sharp as the steak knives. Though the legendary Oak Room, which has hosted cabaret legends for more than 75 years, is slated to close, the rest of the hotel will reopen in May after extensive renovations. http://www.algonquinhotel.com —L.W.

24. Seeing Shakespeare under the stars at Central Park’s Delacorte Theater is one of the singular pleasures of summer in the city. New York’s well-regarded Joseph Papp Public Theater mounts two of the Bard’s plays every summer, often with big-name thespians. Recent gets have been Al Pacino in “Merchant of Venice” and Anne Hathaway in “Twelfth Night.” Part of the fun is picnicking and people-watching on the lawn before the show. Bring your own or grab something from the Public Fare food stand on the grounds. And since this is New York, expect some to take picnicking to a higher level with candelabras and linen tablecloths. In the past, arriving several hours early and waiting in line for the first-come, first- served free tickets was the drill (weekdays are easier than weekends). But there’s an alternative now: putting your name in a virtual, same day online lottery. You’ll know by 1 p.m. if you’ve gotten a spot and can pick up your tickets between 5 and 7. www.shakespeare-inthepark.org —C.H.

25. Most New Yorkers don’t ever see the New York City Gordon Polatnick witnesses on a nightly basis. And the cool thing is, he’s more than willing to share. Polatnick started Big Apple Jazz Tours in 1997 so he could lead people like you and your fellow wannabe hepcats all over NYC to check out the booming underground music scene, visiting everything from a former speakeasy that is now owned by jazz saxophonist Bill Saxton to a members-only American Legion Post with a weekly Hammond B3 organ jam session. Polatnick’s specialty is the city’s jazz capital, Harlem, where he owned his own club, EZ’s Woodshed, years ago. The neighborhood once was home to jazz’s greatest nightspots— the Cotton Club, the Savoy Ballroom, Minton’s, etc.— and its most notable players and composers. But one thing you’ll certainly know after an evening on the town with Polatnick: The great Jazz Age ain’t dead yet. Public tours run $99; private tours start at $75 an hour. http://www.bigapplejazz.com —M.M.

26. It’s a water wonderland at Great Jones Spa, where $50 gets you three hours in a one-of-a-kind indoor grotto that features a three-story indoor waterfall, a sauna formed by more than 45 tons of river rock and a “chakra steam room” that envelops you in wet, warm, colorful clouds. The spa treatments are equally delicious (pay more than $100 for a treatment and you’ll get into the water lounge free), especially the Red Flower Hammam Treatment and Massage, a five-step ritual inspired by Turkish bathhouses. http://www.great- jonesspa.com —L.W.

27. If you want to shop where Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha and Miranda did— or at least where the “Sex and the City” stylist outfitted the gals for the HBO show— head to one of the six locations of the designer consignment shop INA. Since its first location opened in 1993, INA has been the grande dame of high-end resale shops, far more like a fashion editor’s closet than a second-hand store. If you consider yourself a soldier in a shopping war and don’t mind haughty saleswomen who offer Olympics-caliber once-overs, this is the place to find discounted Prada, Marni, Hermes, Chanel and more. A new INA men’s store recently opened, too. http://www.inanyc.com —L.W.

Philadelphia

28. Baltimore may claim the Maryland Institute College of Art as the oldest art school in the country, but Philly can claim the oldest art school and museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. PAFA was founded in 1805 and its current over-the-top Victorian Gothic home (think Baltimore’s American Brewery building) dates to 1876. Its collection is considered one of the best of American art in the world, from colonial masters like John Singleton to contemporaries such as Faith Ringgold and Red Grooms. Its new outdoor plaza hosts events of every stripe as well as the 53-foot-tall “Paint Torch” designed by world-renowned American artist Claes Oldenburg. Even more striking might be the temporary installation, “Grumman Greenhouse,” a “crashed” 45-foot-long Cold War-era naval airplane whose see-through fuselage holds medicinal plants grown for the benefit of low-income families. Don’t miss “Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit” on display through April 15. http://www.pafa.org —J.S.

29. There’s something illicit about the entrance to Franklin Mortgage & Investment Co.— if you can find it, that is. Set below street level, visitors must descend a flight of metal stairs before approaching a dark door with a small brass plaque emblazoned with the bar’s name. It’s an appropriate entrance for a place that shares a name with the front for the largest 1920s alcohol ring in the country. Max “Boo Boo” Hoff’s Franklin Mortgage & Investment Co. moved 10,000 gallons of hooch per day throughout the country by truck and train. These days, FMIC celebrates the cocktails of old (perhaps the best Brown Derby you’ll ever have) and has been recognized as one of the best bars in the country by several national publications.
Bartenders here (do not call them mixologists!) organize cocktails by theme. For the strongest of the bunch, see those under the menu heading: “I Asked Her for Water; She Brought Me Gasoline.” The long narrow space itself is nothing fancy— just some banquettes and a small bar with seating for four. But as real cocktail aficionados know, superfluous décor only gets in the way of enjoying a good drink. http://www.thefranklinbar.com —J.S.

28. Baltimore may claim the Maryland Institute College of Art as the oldest art school in the country, but Philly can claim the oldest art school and museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. PAFA was founded in 1805 and its current over-the-top Victorian Gothic home (think Baltimore’s American Brewery building) dates to 1876. Its collection is considered one of the best of American art in the world, from colonial masters like John Singleton to contemporaries such as Faith Ringgold and Red Grooms. Its new outdoor plaza hosts events of every stripe as well as the 53-foot-tall “Paint Torch” designed by world-renowned American artist Claes Oldenburg. Even more striking might be the temporary installation, “Grumman Greenhouse,” a “crashed” 45-foot-long Cold War-era naval airplane whose see-through fuselage holds medicinal plants grown for the benefit of low-income families. Don’t miss “Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit” on display through April 15. http://www.pafa.org —J.S.

29. There’s something illicit about the entrance to Franklin Mortgage & Investment Co.— if you can find it, that is. Set below street level, visitors must descend a flight of metal stairs before approaching a dark door with a small brass plaque emblazoned with the bar’s name. It’s an appropriate entrance for a place that shares a name with the front for the largest 1920s alcohol ring in the country. Max “Boo Boo” Hoff’s Franklin Mortgage & Investment Co. moved 10,000 gallons of hooch per day throughout the country by truck and train. These days, FMIC celebrates the cocktails of old (perhaps the best Brown Derby you’ll ever have) and has been recognized as one of the best bars in the country by several national publications.

Bartenders here (do not call them mixologists!) organize cocktails by theme. For the strongest of the bunch, see those under the menu heading: “I Asked Her for Water; She Brought Me Gasoline.” The long narrow space itself is nothing fancy— just some banquettes and a small bar with seating for four. But as real cocktail aficionados know, superfluous décor only gets in the way of enjoying a good drink. http://www.thefranklinbar.com —J.S.

30. Before restaurateur Stephen Starr arrived, Philadelphia’s most famous food exports were cheesesteaks and Tastykakes. Now, more than 15 years after first shaking up Philadelphia’s restaurant scene, Starr’s restaurant empire ranges from New York to Fort Lauderdale. 

Starr, a former concert promoter, used his marketing savvy to create a string of restaurants with interiors just this side of “theme park” but with consistently imaginative food, prepared by top-flight chefs. And while some bemoan the fact that he’s paying attention to other cities these days (typical Philadelphian response), no one can argue that he revolutionized Philly’s dining scene— from Buddakan to Morimoto to Talula’s Garden— during the last decade and a half. His most recent contributions include seafood-themed Route 6 and the sublime Italian eatery Il Pittore, both of which opened in late fall. Check them all out at http://www.starr-restaurant.com. —J.S.

31. If Stephen Starr is the king of Philadelphia’s restaurant scene, than Jose Garces is the prince. Garces, who scored national fame on Food Network’s “Iron Chef,” has been on a restaurant-opening spree since 2005, when he launched the Andalusian tapas restaurant, Amada. But his most creative venture might be Chifa, which highlights the Cantonese cuisine found in Peru. (Fried rice with scallops, mango, edamame and chorizo, anyone?)

Garces, 38, who was born in Chicago to Ecuadorean parents, now counts seven restaurants in Philadelphia, including new openings Tinto, a wine bar featuring small plate cuisine from the Basque region of Spain, and the adjacent Village Whiskey, a burger-and-booze hall with short rib and cheddar french fries and 60 bourbons on the menu. http://www.grg-mgmt.com —J.S.

32. When business partners Valerie Safran and Marcie Turney decided to open a funky home accessories shop called Open House in 2002 there was nothing but “prostitutes and drug dealers” on the desolate stretch of 13th Steet between Chestnut and Sansom, says Turney. “It was the only place we could afford.” Ten years later, 13th Steet is bubbling with activity and developers have even bestowed upon it a fancy name — Midtown Village.

Credit the duo, whose empire now includes three stores as well as three restaurants overseen by Turnery, a chef. Open House is still thriving but it’s the pair’s restaurants that have really been the street’s catalyst. Lolita, the city’s first BYOT (Bring Your Own Tequila), consistently ranks at the top of Philly’s dining scene. It may be surpassed only by Barbuzzo, a casual Mediterranean bar and bistro that garnered all sorts of national awards when it opened last year. Now Safran and Turney have launched Jamonera, a Spanish tapas bar specializing in Andalusian cooking and sherries. (For dessert, you can pick up a box of artisanal chocolates at their boutique, Verde, across the street or ice cream at nearby Capogiro, which serves some of the best gelato in the world, according to National Geographic Traveler magazine.)

“Hotel concierges used to tell people not to walk by this block,” says Turney. “Now it’s one of the hottest spots in the city.” http://www.13thstreetphilly.blogspot.com —J.S. 

33.  The Fabric Workshop and Museum is one of a kind. Literally. It’s the only such facility in the world dedicated to the preservation and display of objets de art created with fabrics. Its permanent collection tops 5,000 objects and the museum hosts several temporary exhibits per year, many produced by artists in residence. The art isn’t always easily accessible to the casual enthusiast (see Nick Cave’s “Soundsuits” created from crocheted hats, plastic sandwich bags, stuffed animals and other bric-a-brac), but it’s well-displayed, cutting-edge stuff. This spring “Soft Village: Studio Makkink & Bey” examines the possibilities of new urban planning through pliable cityscapes constructed by the Dutch design collaborative. http://www.fabricworkshopandmuseum.org —J.S.

34. Since the 1850s, Rittenhouse Square has boasted some of the best addresses in Philadelphia. You’ll still find the city’s most stylish shopping and eating experiences along Walnut Steet and in the blocks surrounding that serene square.

While national chains, from Barney’s Co-Op to Anthropologie, have set up shop, local boutiques thrive alongside. For women’s apparel, society dames have long frequented Joan Shepp for high-end designers like Balenciaga and Christian Louboutin. At SA VA at least 75 percent of the store’s merchandise is created at the onsite garment center, while the rest is fair trade, organic, recycled or natural.  Men, meanwhile, have Boyd’s of Philadelphia with its imposing white columns, new second-floor sushi bar and omnipresent salespeople usually dressed better than the customers. 

Shoppers like to cool their heels at a parkside table at Stephen Starr’s Parc or Rouge. But we prefer to grab a cappuccino and a biscotti at the Rittenhouse location of Di Bruno Bros. It’s the Italian food store of your dreams: fresh pastas, gorgeous cheeses and guys behind the deli counter who know the provenance of every hunk of charcuterie they slice. http://www.rittenhouserow.org—J.S. 

35. It’s always dangerous to enter the Reading Terminal Market when hungry. We can never decide what to eat, so we end up sampling a little of this, a lot of that. But who cares? This place is so much fun, a few extra calories are worth it. 

Start with a cup of six bean espresso from Old City Coffee and maybe an apple dumpling from the Dutch Eating Place. The salmon and vegetables over rice is sublime at the Little Thai Market, as is gumbo and jambalaya at Beck’s Cajun.

There’s always a cheeseteak from Spataro’s or a roast pork sandwich with provolone and broccoli rabe from DiNic’s.

End it all with a scoop of Gadzooks ice cream (vanilla spiked with peanut butter brownies, chocolate chunks and caramel) from Bassetts, a cannoli from Termini Bros. or one of the more than two dozen varieties of whoopee pies from Flying Monkey Bakery. (Lavender honey? Pumpkin chai? Bananas Foster?) Aw, heck. Just buy them all! http://www.readingterminal.com —J.S.

36. Siblings John and Lydia Morris had a thing for exotic plants. And beautiful sculpture. And when the pair passed away in the early 20th century, their 92-acre property opened to the public as the Morris Arboretum. Now administered by the University of Pennsylvania, the arboretum, located on the northern edge of the city, is one of those spectacular attractions that seemingly only locals (and visitors with green thumbs) know about. You can easily spend an entire afternoon taking in its 13,000 labeled plants, from the azalea meadow to a Japanese water garden to the herb garden and “stumpery.”  Kids will love Out on a Limb, a new 450-foot-long walkway suspended 50 feet above the ground, giving visitors a bird’s-eye view of the forest. (There’s even a giant Bird’s Nest where they can sit on huge robin’s eggs.) Chanticleer Gardens, located about 25 minutes away on Philly’s Main Line, is another worth-the-trip attraction for plant lovers, with its “tennis court,” teacup and Asian gardens set on 35 acres. http://www.morrisarboretum.org, cwww.hanticleergarden.org —J.S.

37. When Le Bec-Fin owner Georges Perrier announced in 2010 that he would be putting up for sale his beloved restaurant, his customers complained like Parisians told they could no longer visit the Eiffel Tower. So on New Year’s Eve 2011, Perrier reneged, supposedly bowing to public outcry from around the world. He made his sous chef, Nicholas Elmi, his business partner and the duo morphed the once stodgy basement bistro into Tryst, a modern bar/lounge that boasts a vibe diametrically opposed to the chandelier-clad restaurant upstairs. Luckily, Tryst does share many of Elmi’s fantastically cream-laden dishes available in the main restaurant. In this intimate downstairs lair, however, jazz pulsates as diners sip gorgeously prepared cocktails atop an illuminated bar. Manager Erik Lombardo works the room, delivering plates of truffle and foie gras arancini and braised Burgundy short ribs. It’s fun and sexy, and a surprising new offering from an accomplished restaurateur who nearly hung up his spatula for good. http://www.lebecfin.com —J.S.
 
38. Where the heck did we stay in the days before hotelier Bill Kimpton decided that not all chain hotels had to have boring furnishings and beige-colored walls? Thankfully, the Kimpton brand stretches throughout the mid-Atlantic, from New York to Virginia. The nation’s capital has a whopping seven Kimpton properties, including our favorites: Hotel Monaco, Hotel George and Rouge. In Philly, Hotel Palomar, set in a former architects’ office building, has a great Rittenhouse Square location and a good bar scene at its Square 1682 restaurant. A Hotel Monaco is due to open in the city this fall across from the Liberty Bell and promises to include a rooftop bar and lounge overlooking Independence Mall. The only problem will be deciding at which Kimpton property to stay. http://www.kimptonhotels.com —J.S.

39. New Finds in Old City
Growing up in Philadelphia in the 1980s, I’d head down to Third Street Rock and Jazz in the Old City neighborhood at least once a month. Besides what might have been the greatest record store on the planet, there was little else of interest in the area. These days, Third Street isn’t around anymore (sigh), but 3rd Street itself— and Old City in general— is bubbling with fantastic clothing boutiques, art galleries and A-list restaurants.

On a recent visit, I start at Briar Vintage, a well-edited selection of men’s duds from the 1800s through 1960s, where old meat hooks hold rows of jackets and slacks and big band music sets the appropriate mood. Manager David Lochner, who looks like he just stepped out of a 1940s film noir movie, points out the circa-1920s cash register’s marble top, which was “used to tap coins to make sure they were silver,” he says.

Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction also holds a fascinating collection of old-fashioned treasures, from Arnica Salve for bruises and sprains (“lovingly blessed with holy water by Sister Hope of the Benedictine Sisters herself”) to cool bracelets made from Colorado horsehair.

Cutting-edge home furnishings, meanwhile, can be found at Minima, which, as co-owner Michael Schmick says, embodies the “showroom as museum/museum as showroom” concept. After browsing the collection of funky coffee tables, futuristic chairs and other works by top-flight designers from Japan to Finland, I see what he means.

Sugarcube has great fashion finds for both men and women: artsy hats from Cha Cha’s House of Ill Repute, dresses by Janezic and jeans from Brooklyn’s BLKSMTH Denim. There’s even a rare Gilera B300 motorcycle parked in the store (not for sale).

I also browse the mid-century modern furnishings at Moderne Gallery and check out some jewelry designs at Third Street Habit (thirdstreethabit.com). And, oh, what’s this? I even find a record store, AKA Music over on 2nd Street. Nice to see at least something familiar in the old neighborhood. http://www.oldcitydistrict.org —Joe Sugarman

Washington, D.C.

40. August Renoir’s “Luncheon of the Boating Party,” an ode to changing French mores and society in the late 19th century, alone is worth a visit to the Phillips Collection’s human-sized museum of impressionist and modern art. The collection of nearly 3,000 paintings, sculptures, prints and photographs is housed in a stunning 1890s Georgian Revival mansion and an airy annex completed in 2006 that doubled the original space. Duncan Phillips founded the museum in 1921— he and his wife, Marjorie Phillips, were avid collectors and proponents of modern art. The Rothko Room, with four bold paintings by the modernist Mark Rothko, still has only a single bench, per request by the artist back in 1961. And in the original building, nine paintings are clustered in the Klee Room, the first dedicated to Paul Klee in any museum. On exhibit until May 6: “Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard.” “Jasper Johns: Variations on a Theme” opens on June 2 and runs through Sept. 9. http://www.phillipscollection.org. —C.H. 

41. Channeling industrial chic, the Ritz-Carlton Georgetown is one of the luxe chain’s few small-scale, boutique addresses. The renovated turn-of-the century building with its 130-foot smokestack (a former city incinerator) is well situated between the Potomac and the shops and restaurants of high-energy Georgetown. Exposed brick and black steel beams give the place a bit of an edge, but the cinnamon-and-caramel hued lobby lounge with its flickering fireplace, sink-into couches, oversized loft windows and a grand piano tucked in the corner is a cozy retreat that’s hard to leave. Rooms done in pale shades of cream and taupe have sunken tubs and there’s a petite spa— we like the signature Eco Body Treatment (think foot soak, skin polish, mud wrap and bamboo massage). Though the hotel’s Degrees Bistro is a stylish-casual spot for dinner, if you’re feeling lazy, happily the same menu is served in that blissful lounge, too. ritzcarlton.com —C.H.

42. Inspired by Michelangelo’s Palazzo Farnese in Rome, the National Building Museum makes a statement with its soaring Great Hall anchored at either end by Corinthian columns that are 75 feet tall and 8 feet in diameter and among the largest in the world. Completed in 1887, the red brick building also has an arresting 1,200-foot terra cotta frieze that wraps around the exterior. Though the museum is worth a stop for the Great Hall alone, clever architecture, engineering and design exhibitions are a draw, too. (Besides, how many museums dedicated to buildings are there?) For devotees of HGTV there’s “House & Home,” opening April 28, about all things home, from retro fondue pots to scaled-down models of vintage home styles. The ongoing “Cityscapes Revealed” is a mass of rare photos and artifacts from urban locales. And “Lego Architecture” is sheer fun: 15 iconic buildings constructed entirely of Lego bricks, until Sept. 3. nbm.org —C.H. 

43. In his native Spain, he’s a TV cooking star besieged by fans as he walks down the street. But celebrity chef José Andrés’ first culinary milestones were in D.C., where he demystified Spanish tapas at his Gaudi-esque eatery, Jaleo, updated Latin American cooking at the trendy triplex, Café Atlantico, and took on Greek, Turkish and Lebanese mezze at the sculptural Zaytinya. Still, the intense blue-eyed chef is probably best known for bringing Spanish-style molecular cuisine a la Ferran Adriá — who he worked for at El Bullí— to the United States with minibar, his restaurant-as-theater concept where 31 über-inventive bites make a meal. Andres is not afraid to play with his food or to treat it like a science experiment— minibar offerings have included a flashing edible “light bulb” spun of sugar and a foie gras “lollipop” swirled with cotton candy. His Think Food Group, with partner Rob Wilder, has widened the net with restaurants in L.A. (The Bazaar, Saam) and Las Vegas (China Poblano, Jaleo) and America Eats in the former Cafe Atlantico space in D.C., open until July 4th, when the six-stool minibar, now on the second floor, will take over the entire space. He’s the kind of creative culinary force who begs the inevitable question: What’s next? http://www.thinkfoodgroup.com —C.H. 

44. With its English, Italian and French influences, the gardens at Dumbarton Oaks in Georgetown will put you in a Jane Austen state of mind. The former estate of Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss is now home to 16 acres of landscaped gardens and a library and museum of Pre-Colombian and Byzantine art. The gardens are the handiwork of Mildred Bliss and landscape gardener Beatrix Farrand, and many of the gates and stone and wood benches were custom designed. Among the must-sees as you wander lanes and pathways (on your own or as part of a tour) are the shimmering copper beech, especially dramatic in fall but worth a look at any time of year; the Rose Garden, with its manicured hedges and blooms; boxwood and plum tree walks; and the circular Ellipse and Fountain Terrace. http://www.doaks.org —C.H.

45. In the Roaring Twenties, the U Street Corridor was the heart of the jazz scene and home to the Lincoln Theater. But by the ’60s, the area was in a downward slide that continued till the ’90s when it roared back as a hipster enclave for bars, cafés, galleries and vintage shops. Of late it’s morphed once again into one of the hottest restaurant neighborhoods in town (particularly on the strip of 14th  Street just south of U) with places like Pearl Dive Oyster Palace, where a massive raw bar and a New Orleans-influenced roster of seafood— think crawfish etouffee and catfish and fried egg po’ boys— is the draw; Estadio for Spanish tapas traditional and not; Bar Pilar, where Modern American fare holds sway with dishes like grilled prawns with sea salt and roasted potatoes with malt aioli; the Latin-Asian mashup, Masa 14, for pork belly dumplings and Peking duck flatbread; and Cork Wine Bar, with its extensive pours and menu of well-crafted small plates. There’s more to come this spring and summer that’s sure to solidify the area’s rep as Restaurant Row. —C.H.

46. Ask any serious D.C. foodie where their last meal would be, and invariably Komi comes up. This sliver of a dining room in a Dupont Circle rowhouse has only 12 tables (you can reserve up to a month in advance), which means lots of face time with the relaxed yet savvy sommelier and wait-staff— and, if you’re lucky, the darkly handsome young chef Johnny Monis. In other words, it’s an experience like few others— which is probably why the first couple dined here not long ago. While Monis’ influences are broad, the dominant thread is Greek— the place is named for a beach on the island of Chios where his parents were born and where he spent summers. An evening begins with bites, moves onto little plates (mezze), then shifts to larger dishes and desserts, 18 to 22 courses in all. Though Monis shuns a printed menu, you’ll find morsels like scallop tartare with beet and wasabi, a half-smoke with ramp relish and spit-roasted baby goat or suckling pig. With the opening of his new Thai place next door, Little Serow, now there’s more of Monis to love. http://www.komi-restaurant.com, http://www.littleserow.com —C.H. 

47. There’s something inherently stylish about spies—whether it’s James Bond and his tricked-out Aston Martin from “Goldfinger,” or Maxwell Smart’s hilarious shoe phone or the lipstick “gun” used by Russian spy femme fatales. Luckily, you don’t need a trench coat— just a ticket to the Spy Museum. Edgy and stylish, this warren-like multi-level space is a trove of real life spy accoutrements and gadgets such as buttonhole cameras, exploding coal and bugs of every description. There are also loads of photos, pages of secret correspondence and tales of KGB and OSS spies and spy rings. To get into the spirit of things, when you first arrive, you’re given a cover ID. Don’t blow it. http://www.spymuseum.org. —C.H.
 
48. Historic Georgetown is known for its period charm, which is why the metamorphosis of a cobblestone alley known as Cady’s Alley on the far end of M Street into the Georgetown Design District comes as such a surprise. Here is a virtual shrine to all things sleek and modern for the home. There’s Waterworks for high-style bathrooms and accessories; Ann Sacks for stone and tile that goes beyond the ordinary; the German Bulthaup and Poggenpohl for spare Euro kitchens; JANUS et Cie for trendy outdoor furniture; Thomas Moser for a contemporary take on Shaker simplicity; and Design Within Reach for an affordable mix of mid-century and modern furniture. There are some worthy homegrown addresses, too. Illuminations carries dreamy contemporary lighting, while M2L showcases pieces by Philippe Starck and Arik Levy, among others. Contemporaria, whose owner Deborah Kalkstein is an architect and designer, has a vast but well-edited trove of furniture, lighting, outdoor pieces and rugs from the world over that are the ultimate in cool. And if all this makes your head spin, high-style Leopold’s Kafe nearby has a menu of lightened-up Austrian comfort plates. http://www.cadysalley.com —C.H.

49. At the turn of the last century, Massachusetts Avenue was teeming with millionaires and even a few robber barons from the mining, banking and political world. Fifty years later, in the wake of spendthrift heirs and the Great Depression, their elegant Beaux-Arts mansions would be sold to private clubs and other countries for 10 cents on the dollar and this tony stretch would come to be known as Embassy Row. Stroll along D.C.’s widest boulevard and hear the stories behind these ornate facades on a Washington Walks Embassy Tour. This is where Alice Roosevelt Longworth tossed off her famous and many times repeated, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit by me.” And where Evalyn Walsh McLean stashed the Hope Diamond— when she wasn’t wearing it. http://www.washingtonwalks.com. —C.H.

50. Shopping to New Heights
The first thing I did the day Barney’s Co-Op opened in Friendship Heights was to time the walk from my doorstep to the store. Seven minutes. 

Since then the hyper-trendy New York import has been my go-to for instant cool. Besides hard-to-find designers like Isabel Marant and A.L.C., I love the quirky in-house Co-Op label that knocks off runway trends as they happen. My most recent trophies? Textured dark blue pumps, a black cashmere V-neck with ribbed sleeves and crazy Paul Smith striped socks for hubby.
Stellar shopping in Friendship Heights, longtime home to Mazza Gallerie and Chevy Chase Pavilion, isn’t news. With outposts of Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Tiffany & Co., the area has never had a shortage of high-style addresses, but in the past few years, the pickings have skyrocketed.  

High-end names from Dior to Vuitton have opened gleaming boutiques, Bloomingdale’s has recently set up shop, and chains such as  Anthropologie Accessories (the test store for the country) and Giggle (baby goods and furniture) have also put down stakes.  

And lest one needs sustenance after the grand tour, the news there is good, too: Rosa Mexicano has opened its doors and coming in the fall is “Top Chef” Bryan Voltaggio’s steakhouse, Range. 

Naturally, I have my haunts.  Florentine import Santa Maria Novella, known for its luxurious soaps, lotions and other toiletry staples, has become my favorite place for gifts (the wrapping is gorgeous— and free).  

If I have a soft spot for Spanish import Adolfo Dominguez, it’s because it debuted right after I came back from Spain and all of its men’s and women’s clothing and accessories have that Euro look.  

The ultra-luxe designer stops are a little trickier in these tight times but sales are the perfect excuse to drop in. My purchase of last summer was a pair of taupe, ankle strap platforms from the Jimmy Choo boutique for a song. Carrie Bradshaw, eat your heart out. —Cynthia Hacinli

With Southwest Airlines starting direct service to Atlanta (two-hour flights from $59!), Baltimoreans have another cosmopolitan option for a quick weekend getaway. Here are our choices of where to lay your head when visiting The Big Peach.

St. Regis: Atlanta’s lap of luxury features butler service, a 40,000-square-foot pool piazza (in the middle of the Buckhead neighborhood), an elegant afternoon tea and a top-flight spa. Nightly rates from $300. http://www.starwoodhotels.com

Stonehurst Place B&B: This highly rated bed and breakfast was built in 1896 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A 2008 renovation updated the old gal and furnishings range from Victorian to Art Deco. Big breakfasts and a good midtown location, too. Nightly rates from $159. http://www.stonehurstplace.com

The Ellis: This historic boutique property boasts a great Peachtree Street location close to downtown attractions, a “sustainable foods” fine dining restaurant, plus a unique women’s-only floor with secured entry, plush slippers, curling and straightening irons and a “kiss cam” to say goodnight to loved ones. Nightly rates from $129. http://www.ellishotel.com

Chateau Elan: Located about 40 minutes north of the city, this resort/winery replicates a 16th-century French estate— one with four golf courses, seven tennis courts, indoor and outdoor pools and a full-service spa. Nightly rates from $200. http://www.chateauelan.com

“When the House of Welsh was torn down in December 2011, it hadn’t been the House of Welsh for 13 years. Yet it was hard to pass the building at the corner of Guilford and Saratoga that was home to a nightclub for the last years of its life and not think of the steakhouse and tavern that had lived there for 98 years prior. The House of Welsh survived the Great Fire, the integration of African-American clientele in its dining room and women in its stag bar, as well as a host of mediocre dining reviews. It may not have been the best place to have a meal in Baltimore, but few could challenge its claim that it was “Baltimore’s Oldest Eating Establishment.”

The business at 301 Guilford Ave. began its life as a liquor store in 1838. By the time Irish immigrant Martin Welsh opened The Black Bottle in 1900 (it later became known as the House of Welsh), the address had swallowed up two additional buildings to become a cluster of three 19th-century structures melded into one. In the 1940s, the Saratoga Street side of the brick building was painted black and sported advertisements for Welsh’s Black Bottle, a rye produced in Maryland, along with renderings of cocktails, dinner plates and all manner of text touting the restaurant’s steaks, chops and seafood. (This was before the building was wrapped in Formstone). A taproom, described by The Sun as a bar for “quick snort, blue-collared patronage,” was open to men only and lacked bar stools or seating of any kind. Three knotty pine-clad, low-ceilinged dining rooms decorated with photos of old Baltimore made up the restaurant portion of the establishment. For a short time Welsh’s family lived in an apartment above the restaurant, and until it closed, a member of the Welsh family ran the business.

Throughout its history, the House of Welsh made the news, from the time in 1964 when the business’ liquor license was suspended for three days after the bartender shot a patron who threw a glass of beer at him, to 1993, when a visiting Ross Perot waxed nostalgic about post-football game dinners at the restaurant while he was a student at the Naval Academy. But the restaurant’s greatest fame came early in its life, when for three days during the Great Fire of 1904, The Associated Press filed stories from the restaurant’s third floor, courtesy of wires rigged up to the building. The makeshift office was Baltimore’s only wire connection to the rest of the country. Later, the restaurant was known as a hangout for Sun reporters and denizens of nearby City Hall. The upstairs dining room, former Gov. William Donald Schaefer told The Sun in 1998, was a place where bills and budgets were hammered out by City Council members in the 1950s and ’60s.

But despite newspaper ads that touted Blue Ribbon sirloin steaks, two vegetables and a martini or a Manhattan for $1.50 (in the 1940s, at least) and welcomed Colts fans in the ’50s for post-game meals, the House of Welsh was never beloved for its food. Its sizzling steaks, served on wood and metal platters, its onion rings and hot rolls, were never first rate. In a 1980 review, longtime Sun dining critic Elizabeth Large characterized the place as “a little rundown, a little seedy” and gave a nod to a “perfectly decent T-bone,” but not the green beans that “were cooked long enough to look canned although they tasted frozen” or a stuffed baked potato spiced with celery seed, pimento and chives, reminiscent of clams casino.

A few years earlier, in ending his abysmal review of the restaurant, The Sun’s John Dorsey indulged in a bit of nostalgia. “I’m a sucker for any place that’s managed to stick around as long as Welsh’s has, whatever the quality,” he wrote. “It’s bad, heaven knows, and one can wish it would get better; but I can’t help thinking it’s better to have it the way it is than not to have it at all.”

Brewers Cask has replaced Muggsy’s in Federal Hill. The renovated bar now features 20 beers on tap and a casual dinner menu. (1236 Light St., 410-273-9377 )

In Mount Vernon, the popular Midtown Yacht Club has a new moniker : Midtown BBQ & Brew. It’s been taken over and reopened by former longtime owner Nathan Beveridge. (15 E. Centre St., 410-835-2472)

Spice and Dice is a new Thai-Asian fusion restaurant in Towson; it shares a space with Legends Comic Book Store. (1220 E. Joppa Road #108, 410-494-8777)

In Canton, the owners of Blue Hill Tavern have taken over the former Fins (previously Razorbacks and Rick’s Cafe Americain) and renamed it Tavern On the Square. (2903 O’Donnell St., 410-675-1880)

Please check back soon for the 2012 Little Characters Gallery.

Melissa McCabe has lost 75 pounds since June 2011. While she shed the weight and has kept it off through old-fashioned practices of eating healthy food and exercising regularly, the particular way she did it is very 21st century.

McCabe says MyFitnessPal, a phone application for recording exercise and diet information, keeps her motivated to succeed. She simply types in the duration of her activity— swimming, recumbent biking, treadmill running— and it calculates calories burned. She also plugs in the foods she eats throughout the day, and its database calculates total calories and provides a balance of energy consumed compared to energy expended. It also lists nutrient values such as calcium and water, highlighting where she is high or low. 

“I’ve lost weight on diets and with exercise before, but I always gave up around the three-month mark and gained it all back,” says McCabe, who shows no signs of stopping her daily gym visits. Nor is she tempted to go back to her highly processed, high-fat, simple-carbohydrate way of eating. “Seeing this data every day gives me a real purpose to stick with it,” she adds.

Merritt Athletic Club personal trainer Lee Jepson has several clients who use the FitDay phone app program. They enter the workout he provides them, and it stores the activities’ intensity and duration for weekly tracking. Similarly to MyFitnessPal, it also tracks food intake. “If they are eating out, they just enter the foods into their smartphones, or scan the barcode, and the program does the rest,” Jepson says. So, no more trying to recall exactly what you ate throughout the day later that night when you get home. Jepson, who has the username and password for his clients’ app accounts, can log on and see how they are doing on a given day, and offer suggestions for improvement.

Thomas Neuberger, author of the local Believe in The Run blog and member of the Dailymile Team and Baltimore Road Runners Club, uses the NikePlus phone app for his own training. “It has helped me with speed training,” he says “I can look back over the year and see how I have progressed month to month, and alter workouts along the way.” His wife now uses it, too.  He credits successes such as McCabe’s, in part, to the rich online support available with most apps. “People are excited about the encouragement and accountability to their community of exercisers or dieters that is available with the app,” he says. “I talk with runners all the time who are thinking as they are running ‘What will I post to my community about the day’s distance, time, improvement or progress?’”

McCabe agrees the social accountability piece inherent in the online community is a motivator, but she mainly places the bulk of accountability on herself. “I track my food intake over the week and see where I’m low on a nutrient such as fiber, for example, or too high, as in sodium. Then I alter my diet to bring my intakes to where they should be,” she says. If she doesn’t lose weight one week, she examines her logs, complete with charts, graphs and week-to-week comparisons, to see what was different and then alters her behavior accordingly.

Neuberger likens the wild-fire explosion in phone app popularity to the phenom that is social media. “Sure Facebook is just another way to connect with our friends, and NikePlus is just another way to track our running,” he says. “But, wow, once you have access to all the data and social aspects these phone apps provide… there is no going back.”

Apps Menu

MyFitnessPal This one really seems to have it all— more than a million foods listed in its database, your own personal food database, a personalized diet profile, exercise tracker, motivation and support. It’s almost like having your mother and a personal trainer with you at all times. http://www.Myfitnesspal.com

Zis Boom Bah: Where it’s OK to play with your food! This is part of the Apps for Healthy Kids competition that first lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Campaign sponsored to develop fun and engaging software tools and games that motivate kids, especially “tweens” (ages 9-12) to eat better and be more physically active. Check out this recipient of numerous awards for apps such as Get Cooking, Eating Out and Pick Chow at http://www.ZisBoom Bah.com.

SparkPeople  SparkPeople has long been a favorite site for diet and fitness information. Now you can take your workouts mobile with its new tracking apps for smartphones. Its Food and Fitness Trackers record and store time, distance and calories burned from workout to workout and sync with your http://www.SparkPeople.com account.

Map My Run  While this site has been around for years, and has evolved to use the built-in GPS of your smartphone to track all of your fitness activities or the route you covered on an interactive map, it now offers a mobile app for live tracking. Through its live feed you can track and watch, in real time, your husband running a marathon or your best friend running her first 5K. http://www.Mapmyrun.com

WaHoo  A unique sensor key, a small accessory that inserts into the connector at the base of your smartphone, allows WaHoo, the new fitness phone due out later this month, to instantly receive information from three external exercise sensors— a heart rate monitor, a stride sensor and a bicycle speed/cadence sensor for high-performance training. http://www.Wahoofitness.com

GymGenie  This straight forward app, known as the pocket-personal trainer, shows you how to perform exercises for up to eight different muscle groups in one bout of exercise. Its motto: “You don’t have to think of a workout routine, we do it for you.” http://www.Gymgenieapp.com

NikePlus  Its motto is: “If you like running, you’ll love it with NikePlus.” The app stores every run, allowing you to go back and track your training and routes. Then it goes a step further by creating new training programs given your current data. http://www.nikerunning.nike.com

ITGO  Interval training involves bursts of high-intensity work interspersed with periods of low-intensity work. This app allows you to program dual music playlists— one fast and one slow— from your iPod to the ITGO Sounds page where beeps count down to the interval change. http://www.Appnoose.com

Fit Radio  Nothing ramps up a workout like music with HBM (high beats per minute), and the DJs who engineer these mixes know what makes people move. There’s dubstep, indie dance party, hip-hop. Even the cheesy stuff from the ’80s will get you moving. http://www.fitradio.com 

Bahamas

Although technically not on the Caribbean Sea, the Bahamas’ blue-green waters and pink sandy beaches will convince you otherwise. More than 2,400 islands and 700 cays beg for exploring. Nassau and Paradise Island attract the tourist throngs, so for comparative isolation, visit one of the 10 Out Islands, a chain of islets with beautiful beaches and boutique hotels but no cruise ships or all-night discos.

Stay: Once the private estate of an A&P heir, The One & Only Ocean Club boasts an A+ guest list (Oprah, Sharon Stone), three restaurants and a golf course with spectacular views of the Atlantic. Lush gardens are modeled after those at Versailles. Rooms from $825. 888-865-6829, http://www.oceanclub.oneandonlyresorts. com. There’s also The Cove, the more grown-up option located within the sprawling Atlantis complex. It’s got a hot pool scene and lies far enough removed from the screaming kids at Atlantis’ water park. Rooms from $350. 242-333-9494, awww.tlantis.com.

Play: Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park became the first established land-sea preserve in the world when its 176 square miles were protected in 1959. Georgetown-based Dive Exuma (dive-exuma.com) runs daily boat dives to various sites in the park, ranging from shallow reefs to blue holes. On Grand Bahama Island, Calabash Eco Adventures (calabashecoadventures.com) has everything from kayaking adventures to birding and biking tours.

Easiest route:  AirTran offers nonstop flights (two hours 45 minutes) to Nassau/Paradise Island from $220. Vision Airlines offers nonstop service to Grand Bahama Island/Freeport departing Thursdays and returning Sundays, from $160. Tourism info: http://www.bahamas.com

Jamaica

Jamaica isn’t just reggae music, jerk chicken and Red Stripe beer. (But those are certainly good reasons to visit.) The island, located smack in the center of the Caribbean Sea, also offers great snorkeling, some of the world’s best coffee and many of the region’s most popular resorts.

Stay: Jamaica literally invented the “all-inclusive” resort, but we prefer some of the more boutique offerings, such as Strawberry Hill, set on an old coffee plantation in the Blue Mountains. It features 10 acres of terraced gardens, 12 private cottages and “new Jamaican” cuisine. Rooms from $235. 800-OUTPOST, islandoutpost.com/strawberry_hill. For an intimate all-inclusive, visit The Caves in Negril, which is perched on honeycomb-like cliffs overlooking the sea and features a well-regarded spa and rum bar set in a grotto. Rooms from $445. 876-957-0270, http://www.islandoutpost.com/the_caves.

Play: Coffee lovers should sign up for a variety of Blue Mountain coffee tours through their hotel. (Be sure to stock up; coffee prices are far lower at the source.) Adventure lovers can check out Chukka Caribbean Adventures, which hosts tours ranging from horseback riding through the Caribbean Sea to zipline tours of the rain forest. chukkacaribbean.com. And arts aficionados will want to visit Ocho Rios’ Harmony Hall, a fantastic collection of work by more than 100 artists set in a beautifully restored 19th-century Methodist manse. http://www.harmonyhall.com

Easiest route: AirTran offers direct flights (three hours and 30 minutes) to Montego Bay starting at $280 round trip. Tourism info: http://www.Jamaica.com

Puerto Rico

America’s “51st state” boasts everything from culture and history in Old San Juan to high-stakes casinos. Don’t overlook its beautiful— and little-touristed tropical rain forest interior as well as several off islands a quick flight or ferry ride away.

Stay: Parts of the Hotel El Convento date to 1646 and the building served as a Carmelite convent for 250 years. These days its beautiful Spanish Colonial architecture is easily recognizable in the heart of Old San Juan. Rooms from $260. 787-723-9020, http://www.elconvento.com. You could get closer to the beach—or stay right on it— at the Blue Boy Inn, one of top B&Bs in Rincon. Rooms from $150. 787-823-2593, http://www.blueboyinn.com

Play: The islands of Vieques and Culebra, located several miles off Puerto Rico’s eastern coast, promise secluded beaches, mom-and-pop restaurants and an easygoing vibe. No discos or casinos here. On Vieques, don’t miss the chance to swim with glowing micro-organisms in Puerto Mosquito, the world’s brightest bioluminescent bay. vwww.iequestravelguide.com, http://www.islaculebra.com

Easiest route: AirTran offers direct flights (four hours) to San Juan from $280 round trip. Tourism info: http://www.gotopuerto-rico.com

Dominican Republic

The DR has it all: beaches, mountains, forests and a vibrant capital city. In Santo Domingo, you can stroll cobblestone streets and admire Colonial architecture by day and boogie to live merengue and salsa music by night. Or head out of town to ride the rapids on the Caribbean’s only raftable river, mountain bike or learn to kite board. Bonus for winter visitors: professional baseball and humpback whales.

Stay: If you’re ISO whales— or simply beautiful, rugged scenery away from the fray— Balcones de Atlantico, which opened last year near the village of Las Terrenas on the Samana Peninsula, features 86 two- and three-bedroom villas, all with full kitchens and most with private plunge pools. Rates from $599 per night. 866-617- 7625,  balcones.rockresorts. com. In Punta Cana, stay in one of the luxurious Oscar de la Renta-decorated villas at the Tortuga Bay Hotel, where guests are given golf carts to zip around the property, which features an ecological park and championship golf course. Prices start about $675 per night. 888-442-2262, http://www.puntacana.com/accommodations/ tortuga-bay/rooms. 

Play: Want to hike? Mountain bike? Learn to canyon (yes, it’s a verb, too)? Do one or do them all through adventure company Iguana Mama. 809-571-0908, http://www.iguanamama.com. Or, call yourself Ishmael on a three-hour whale-watching tour.  ($65, http://www.oasisdivers.com)

Easiest route: Several airlines offer flights daily between BWI and the airports in Santo Domingo and Puerta Plata, from about $400 round trip. Several domestic airlines fly into the Samana Peninsula. Tourism info: http://www.godominican-republic.com

Aruba

If you want sun, sand and blue seas, the northwest coast of Aruba offers some of the best relaxing, snorkeling and windsurfing in the Caribbean. Those seeking adventure—and willing to go off-road for it—will discover a cactus-filled national park (hello, Arizona!), a natural pool nestled among volcanic rocks and underwater treasures that include seven shipwrecks. Don’t miss Aruba’s Carnival, a two-month party that lasts throughout February, with parades, music and glitter galore.

Stay: Enjoy one of the top-rated beaches in the world at Bucuti and Tara Beach Resorts, an adults-only, 104-room boutique hotel on a quiet stretch of Eagle Beach. Rates start at $448 including full breakfast.  888-4-BUCUTI,  http://www.bucuti.com. For more action, head to Palm Beach, where the Aruba Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino offers the Tradewinds Club, a luxury hotel within a hotel. Rates start at $700 per night, including breakfast. 800-223-6388, http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel /auaar/. For a laid-back resort in the interior of the island, try Club Arias B&B. Villa-style suites start at $200 per night and include cooked-to-order breakfast and a charming pool. 917-508-7210,  http://www.clubarias.com.

Play: Want to go 130 feet underwater without putting on all that Scuba gear— or even getting wet? Reserve a spot on an Atlantis Submarines Expedition Tour. 800-609-7374,  http://www.depalmtours.com. Or explore land on a four-wheeled ATV via Rhino Tours, 297- 561-1919 http://www.clubarias.com/rhinotour.htm. Stay out of the sun at the island’s casinos, where the popular game of Caribbean Stud Poker was invented.

Easiest route: AirTran offers nonstop flights (four hours and 50 minutes) to Aruba, starting at $380 round trip. Tourism info: http://www.aruba.com

Bermuda

Guys gotta have the legs to sport those ubiquitous shorts, but Bermuda reveals itself in other ways, too: a fantastic coral reef surrounds the island, making for great dives among ample shipwrecks. There are also world-class golf courses, some of the best restaurants in the Caribbean and that lovely British Colonial architecture in places like Town of St. George, a World Heritage Site. As Mark Twain famously pronounced: “You go to heaven if you want. I’d rather stay here in Bermuda.” 

Stay: Tucker’s Point in Hamilton oozes British Colonial charm throughout its 88 rooms, whitewashed manor house, 18-hole golf course, luxe spa and The Point restaurant, led by Michelin-acclaimed chef Serge Bottelli. Rooms from $375. 888-ROSEWOOD, http://www.rosewoodtuckerspoint.com. Family-friendly The Reefs Hotel has been entertaining guests for more than 60 years with its oceanfront setting— and ocean views from every room. Rooms from $299. 800-742-2008, http://www.thereefs.com

Play: The PGA Grand Slam of Golf will be played (again) at Port Royal Golf Course in 2012, so it should be challenging enough for you. Architect Robert Trent Jones Sr. described it as his finest design outside the United States and it underwent a major revamp in 2009. portroyalgolf.bm. To play underwater, sign up for a two-hour snorkel tour with Snorkel Bermuda (http://www.snorkelbermuda.com). Local guide Sonny Sullivan ferries guests to the sites of several shipwrecks, all teeming with aquatic life.

Easiest route: AirTran offers direct flights (two hours and 20 minutes) from $340 round trip. Tourism info: http://www.goto-bermuda.com

I was in the Belvedere on the last night that it operated as a hotel on Dec. 31, 1990. It was New Year’s Eve, and a group of friends had been out on the town. I don’t recall the exact agenda anymore, but it likely included some stops at a few house parties and some bars in Fells Point, and sometime around 3 a.m., we made our way to the Club Charles, which
traditionally remains open all night long on New Year’s Eve.

There, we ran into some other friends who were in town for the evening from Frederick, and had booked a room at the Belvedere for the night. As all of us were leaving the Club Charles several hours later as the sun was coming up, they invited the lot of us back to their room at the hotel to continue toasting the new year. (Where we got the booze, or why we thought this was a good idea, are also lost to me, at my advanced age.) And that was the final night in its long history that the Belvedere was a hotel.

Of course, it wasn’t the end of the Belvedere, though. A developer stepped in and did an extensive renovation, turning the warren of hotel rooms and suites into condominiums, and keeping the hotel’s signature gathering spots— The Owl Bar and the 13th Floor Lounge— intact, as well as its ornate ballrooms. Sadly, the beautiful John Eager Howard Room did not survive as a high-end restaurant— it briefly became a disco (!) before becoming a private rental space for events.

But its ornate exterior, stolid street presence and familiar silhouette on the city’s skyline continue to ensure the Belvedere’s place as a part of the fabric of the city. It even cropped up on TV several seasons ago on AMC’s “Mad Men” as a plot point when ad man Don Draper and art director Sal traveled to Baltimore to service the London Fog account (and dine at Haussner’s).  For this issue, regular Style contributor (and Belvedere resident) Mikita Brottman has dug through the archives of the Belvedere— now permanently housed as part of the collections of the University of Baltimore library— and has unearthed a trove of quirky anecdotes about life at the Belvedere (page 56). God bless the Belvedere. To this day, it still reminds me of New Year’s Eve.

Brian Michael Lawrence
Editor-in-Chief
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http://www.baltimorestyle.com

“Baltimore’s Ford’s Theatre lived a good life. It lasted almost nine times as long as John T. Ford’s first eponymous theater in Washington, D.C. And when it closed in 1964, after 92 years of hosting musicals, drama and even the 1872 Democratic National Convention (Horace Greeley was the nominee), it was lauded as the oldest active theater in the country.

After the federal War Department seized Ford’s first theater in Washington,  following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, Ford returned to his native Baltimore where he managed the Holliday Street Theater, became a city councilman and, for a short time, acted as mayor of the city. On Oct. 2, 1871, he opened Ford’s Grand Opera House on the corner of Fayette and Eutaw streets.

Three stories high and crowned with a mansard roof, the lavishly appointed “temple of drama,” as The Sun dubbed it, was a remarkably large house for its day— it held 2,000 seats and the stage was a staggering 41 feet deep. There was walnut woodwork, yellow silk damask wall hangings, a ceiling fresco and a woodland scene painted on the stage curtain, as well as “ladies withdrawing rooms,” conversation rooms and a men’s bar. Private boxes, later removed during one of many renovations, afforded patrons the opportunity to see and be seen, while balconies allowed those of modest means a chance to enjoy a show.

Backstage, a warren of dressing rooms became the temporary quarters for the stars who graced the stage. W.C. Fields and Fanny Brice appeared in versions of Flo Ziegfeld’s famous follies, Al Jolson performed his revue— even Buffalo Bill Cody did a turn in melodramas. Alfred Drake starred in “Oklahoma!” while Boris Karloff headlined in “Arsenic and Old Lace.” The first American production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “H.M.S. Pinafore” took place on Ford’s stage. And in 1916, Lillian and Dorothy Gish were in attendance at the beginning of an exclusive five-week local showing of the film “Birth of a Nation.”

Prior to the 1940s, at which time the theater’s segregation policy became the subject of boycotts by both actors and national theater personages such as Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, Ford’s was one of several East Coast “tryout houses” for productions before they went to Broadway. By the time the segregation policy (Ford’s permitted African-Americans onstage, but not in the audience; the Lyric Theater allowed the reverse) was rescinded in 1952, D.C. and Philadelphia had usurped Baltimore for many tryout productions.

Ford’s hosted live theater, so by definition not everything always ran smoothly. Dickie, the theater’s resident black house cat, was known to wander on stage and nap in the middle of a dramatic scene on the nights someone forgot to put him out.  Bats were also occasional guests— and another wildlife incident was immortalized in Cole Porter’s musical “Kiss Me Kate,” where the first act is set in Ford’s Theatre (a sample line: “You know Baltimore. Deer running around in the balcony.”). And sometimes, the actors themselves were the spectacle. Edwin Booth (the older brother of John Wilkes Booth) reportedly told a packed house one evening: “I’m drunk, but if you’ll bear with me, I’ll give you the greatest performance of ‘King Lear’ you’ve ever seen.”

Ford and his children owned the theater until 1921, when it was leased then purchased by A.L. Erlinger, a New Yorker. At Erlinger’s death in 1942, local businessman Morris Mechanic purchased the property at auction for $50,000. During his tenure, Ford’s underwent several renovations and hosted some spectacular productions. (“My Fair Lady” set a record, bringing in $131,000 in 1961.)

Still, for all its successes, there were many seasons in which the theater couldn’t draw crowds. Mechanic sold the theater to the Hecht Co. in 1962. “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” was the final show, performed on Saturday, Jan. 25, 1964, in front of a packed crowd of politicians, visiting luminaries like Dorothy Lamour and theater fans. By that Monday, the building had been razed for a parking lot. 

Leaving The Belvedere the other morning to walk my dog, I noticed the front door of the lobby was propped open with a statue of the Hindu goddess Shiva. Outside, a truck full of flowers was being unloaded, and the sidewalk was lined with bouquets of red roses and white calla lilies. The next time I walked my dog, in the early afternoon, I ran into a procession of turbaned men clapping their hands as, in traditional Hindu style, they led a handsome young groom to meet his bride. My ordinary Saturday morning at The Belvedere was someone else’s wedding day, which is one of the reasons why I’m thrilled to call this grand hotel my home. I feel like Eloise at The Plaza every time I walk through the lobby.

As most everyone knows, the elegant Beaux Arts building in the heart of Mount Vernon is now a hotel in name only; it has been a condominium complex since 1991. My partner and I bought an apartment in The Belvedere in early 2004 and, despite the collapse in the real estate market, we have no regrets. What initially drew me was the size, shape and shabby grandeur of the 1,700-square-foot apartment, which is actually two former hotel suites combined into one large condo with two doors and two room numbers, 501 and 502. I fell in love with the place at first sight, awed by the way its high ceilings and crystal chandeliers were juxtaposed with unfinished concrete floors and bohemian peeling paint. There’s something wonderful and unique about living in such a grand, Gothic space.

Still, there are some unanticipated drawbacks to inhabiting a building originally designed as a hotel. Most of the condos are small, one-bedroom units with tiny kitchens and ancient bathrooms. The air conditioning leaks, the roof needs repair and anyone who’s lived in the building for more than a year has probably been stuck in the elevator at least once. The small units and exorbitant condo fees make it inappropriate for families, and most of the residents are older, single people or couples like our neighbors, two elderly African-American sisters who can be seen in the hallway on Sundays, dressed in matching hats, making their way shakily to church. These older folk are nicely offset by a changing tide of grad students who rent or sublet, and the proximity of the Peabody Conservatory and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra means the hallways often hum with the muted harmonies of practicing musicians.

Naturally, rumors and gossip abound—  especially in the wake of a mysterious suicide that occurred five years ago, and a double shooting and stabbing in the basement’s controversial “Bottle Club” in 2008. A longtime rat problem persists, the windows rattle and the recent financial collapse has led to a number of units going into foreclosure. Despite all this, most of the time things are quiet and peaceful at The Belvedere. And when they’re not, they’re still interesting.

In fact, things have always been interesting at The Belvedere.

Designed as a showpiece for the golden age of hotels, The Belvedere was built with funds raised by subscription and bonds from the city’s wealthiest and most socially prominent investors, who wanted the city to have a luxurious central establishment— one that could accommodate social functions and meet the needs of well-heeled guests from out of town. Just a year after the doors formally opened on Dec. 10, 1903, the hotel’s popularity received an early boost from the destruction of so many of its downtown competitors in the 1904 Great Baltimore Fire. During its first few years of operation, The Belvedere was the location for many brilliant social affairs. Over the years, a long list of well-known actors, politicians, authors and musicians, from Herbert Hoover and Calvin Coolidge to Liberace and Barry White, have spent time at the hotel.

While The Belvedere’s “upstairs” history is well-known, each additional year I’ve spent in our condo has made me more and more curious about the hotel’s “downstairs” life. So one sunny day last year, I walked a few blocks down Charles Street to the University of Baltimore’s Langsdale Library, where the archives of The Belvedere Hotel Corp. reside. Tom Hollowak, associate director for special collections, warned me that I had a tough job ahead. There were 65 boxes of documents covering the period between 1904 and 1970— mostly contracts, appraisals, minutes of meetings, financial records and tax statements. Not only were they dull, he said, but they were totally disorgan-ized.

In 2008, Hollowak received a call from a research assistant at cable TV network AMC who was working on season three of “Mad Men.” In the season’s first episode, aired in August 2009, Don Draper and Salvatore Romano take a trip to Baltimore. Since the episode is set in 1963, the two businessmen naturally stay at The Belvedere, which, at the time, was the best hotel in town. The researcher wanted to know whether the archive had any photographs or information that would indicate whether or not, in 1963, The Belvedere employed an elevator boy. It was not a surprising question, since the show’s producer, Baltimore-born Matthew Weiner, is a notorious stickler for period authenticity. However, due to the state of the archive, Hollowak was unable to provide an answer. In the episode, a compromise was made by having an employee get into the elevator along with Draper and Romano and ask them: “What floor?”

After two full days poking around among the damp and dusty documents, I discovered that, despite its reputation for elegance, the hotel’s finances have always been unstable. Following its glamorous opening, The Belvedere operated for only three years before it got into financial difficulty, and it first went into receivership in 1906. It was then bought by the Maryland Bank & Trust Co. for $1.5 million, but again met financial difficulty, and went into receivership for a second time in 1915. The building had already gone through five owners by September 1917, when it was sold for around $450,000 to the man who was to become its most memorable and charismatic proprietor, an eccentric, self-made millionaire named Charles H. Consolvo.

Born in 1871 to a prominent Virginia line, Col. Consolvo was an ambitious and forward-looking entrepreneur who took on quite a risk when he purchased The Belvedere. Five months earlier, the United States had entered World War I, and business interests were uncertain. Nevertheless, after a radical reorganization of management The Belvedere was soon transformed to such a degree that it was recognized as one of the country’s finest hostelries. A contemporary advertisement describes it as “Baltimore’s Largest and Leading Hotel.” In 1918, a suite consisting of a parlor, bedroom and bath cost anywhere from $10 to $35 per day; the least-expensive room was $5 a day, and all rooms had private baths. In the same year, a single room at the Stafford, The Belvedere’s closest competitor, was a mere $3.

In 1919, the hotel trade was set back by the introduction of Prohibition, but the Colonel carried on as though nothing had changed. A barbershop was introduced to the lobby, and a poolroom was constructed downstairs. In 1921, at the cost of $300 a week, Consolvo hired Ellicott City native Meyer Davis to supply his fashionable orchestra for The Belvedere’s swanky Charles Room. This occasioned some extra expenses: one grand piano at $891; piano tuning at $8.45 a time; six music stands at $25 and, on one occasion, a refund of $16.95 (“making allowance for the drummer”). Another expense, at $12 a week, was tea for the orchestra. During the period of Prohibition, tea was all The Belvedere could offer— officially, at least. (According to rumor, the Owl Bar was a notorious speakeasy, and the two owls mounted on the bar had eyes that allegedly blinked when a shipment had arrived.)

By the late 1920s, The Belvedere had become extremely popular, especially for train passengers traveling between New York and Miami, who would often break up their trip with a night in the swankiest hostelry in town. Receipts from 1929 suggest The Belvedere was buzzing with social activities. The girls of the Alpha Phi Sorority at Goucher College held their annual dance in what was then known as the Owl Room, retained for the evening at the cost of $53. Contestants in the National Beauty Pageant were also accommodated in the hotel, according to the records. Miss Eastern Michigan, Loraine Budge, stayed with her mother, Mrs. L.J. Budge, in Room 502, which is now our living room. In neighboring units resided Miss Bridgeport, Miss Ohio, Miss Great Lakes and Miss Reading, who needed to have her shoes repaired.

Despite all this excitement, however, the hotel was often in debt, and bills were rarely paid on time. The thrice-married Consolvo, who regularly socialized with celebrities like Charles Lindbergh, was rarely in residence himself, and his staff struggled to keep abreast of financial pressures. Prohibition was one problem; another was the guests who defaulted without paying their bills, or handed over bad checks. Freeloaders cost the hotel almost $6,000 a year, not including the additional money paid to lawyers and private detectives to track them down. Sometimes, young men out on the town would charge their bills to a parent’s account, as was the case with one father, who sent the following note to The Belvedere’s accountant on Aug. 29, 1923. “When I received your bill,” he wrote, “I could not understand how it was that an account of mine had remained unsettled so long (I have been accustomed all my life to settling all matters promptly), but now I realize it was an error ... You see, I will back my boys in any way, but I do not wish their bills mingled with mine…” 

Legal fees were especially high in 1920, when The Belvedere was sued by lawyers on behalf of Mr. O.B. McLean, whose “two fingers were broken and badly mashed” when “a window in his room fell upon his left hand.” Records indicate that The Belvedere’s doctor on call was Irwin O. Ridgely, the former medical superintendent of Mercy Hospital, who retired in 1921 but kept a private practice at his home at 805 Park Ave. The Belvedere seems to have kept Dr. Ridgely on his toes. On Feb. 1, 1925, he was paid $75 for performing a “radical operation” on Mr. Andy Brown, whose work at the hotel gave him a “left inguinal hernia,” and $5 on Feb. 16, 1928, for “professional services rendered” on Susie Hobbs, who, during her stay at The Belvedere, suffered a “contusion of right chest.” In the same year, hotel guest Mr. E.E. McLinn required payment of $78 from the hotel “for damage done to Lady’s gown and underwear by waiter spilling hot water and coffee.”

During the Consolvo years, The Belvedere was always late filing income tax and paying lawyers’ bills. Demands accumulated from suppliers, too, including Whitman’s Chocolate Candy Confections, and A.C. McLoon & Co., providers of Maine and Canadian lobsters (The Belvedere’s unpaid lobster bill was $699). Reading through the records, one gets the sense that John Spedden, The Belvedere’s long-suffering auditor, was often at the end of his tether. “At present The Belvedere needs its money,” he informs one creditor. To another, he curtly remarks, “The reason why these notes were not attended to at the time was because we were hard pressed for cash owing to interest, taxes, etc.” Finally, he resorts to juggling tricks: “Please make out a dummy bill as above, and I think it will place our account in balance once again.”

By 1933, the beleaguered Belvedere once again went into receivership, and in 1935 it passed into the hands of Consolvo’s creditors. Thereafter, its longest owner was the Sheraton Corp., which purchased it in 1946 and ran it for 22 years as the Sheraton-Belvedere. These days, The Belvedere is owned and operated by the board of condominium owners. Prices are currently low for the units (some can be had for as little as $50,000), but condo fees can run as much as $1,000 per month. 

I’m happy to report that anyone else interested in researching the hotel’s history will have an easier time of it than I did. Hollowak recently informed me that my visits to the archive had prompted the library to organize The Belvedere collection and make an overview of the contents available on a new website (see tinyurl.com/69rh6km).

I’m also happy to report that The Belvedere itself is doing well— and is financially more stable than during much of its history— mainly because the event company Truffles Catering, which owns the ground floor as well as the 12th and 13th floors, regularly books grand weddings and parties in the hotel’s four lavish ballrooms. So, although I may sometimes feel a little awkward walking my muddy bulldog through the lobby as a bride and groom emerge from the John Eager Howard Room, I rest assured that, as long as people continue to get married, The Belvedere will remain in good health— ideally for another 100 years, at least.

I wasn’t a girl who dreamed about my wedding. I wanted to marry someone, sure, and I wasn’t opposed to wearing a pretty dress. But the rest of it— the flowers, the dancing, even the food— all seemed extraneous.  And when my husband and I decided to marry, our narrow time frame and even slimmer budget made it pretty clear that the most important thing about the day was going to be marrying my closest friend in the world.

And yet, throughout four months of hand-addressing invitations, scouring the PennySaver for secondhand dresses (I eventually bought one off the rack) and explaining patiently to the folks at the Knights of Columbus Hall that we would not be introduced as “Mr. and Mrs.,” but rather by our own names, I began to play with the notion of making my own wedding cake.

I’m not a cake decorator, but I am a baker, and the idea of a wedding cake that actually tasted good appealed to me. Baking my own cake, I reasoned, would give me a chance to put my own stamp on a wedding that had begun to feel generic. It would also give me control, I thought, something so many brides feel slip away from them as the wedding date inches closer. I had never decorated a fancy cake before, but I figured if I kept it simple, all would be fine. I decided my cake would be chocolate, swathed in white buttercream and crowned with a bouquet of flowers— low-key and elegant, as I hoped the rest of the wedding would be.

By 1994, the year I got married, wedding cakes had evolved at least slightly from the silver and white confections I used to see at my cousins’ weddings and at local bakeries like Woodlea and Fenwick in the 1970s. Some of the bakery cakes were built on three levels of columns that wouldn’t have been out of place in Roman temples; others were draped in sugar bunting and ruffles, the confectionary version of a crinolined bride. The most fascinating cakes were full-fledged tableaus: swans gliding across a mirrored lake, fountains spouting strings of clear plastic beads, champagne coupes brimming with colored liquid. I remember seeing the gallery of cake toppers at Fenwick Bakery: a parade of miniature brides and grooms, some blond, some brunette, all in formalwear and with white teeth, locked behind dusty glass.

For better or for worse, my family talked me out of baking my wedding cake, citing both the other responsibilities I’d have leading up to the wedding and the fact that the cake the rental hall provided was pretty similar to what I would have done myself. So I tucked away the wedding cake idea for another time.

Over the next few years, I dog-eared pages and ripped photo spreads of wedding cakes out of magazines when I saw one that might be doable someday. I had compiled a small collection of recipes— lots of lemon and berries and white chocolate— when someday came. I was living in Chicago and my friends Sue and Mike decided to get married in New England with only their families in attendance. Could I throw them a wedding party for their friends in Chicago?, I asked. And, could I make them a wedding cake?

I don’t remember any other food I made for the party, which was held in midsummer in the backyard of our apartment building a few hundred feet from Lake Michigan. But I do remember the cake they chose from my trove of clippings: two chocolate layer cakes filled with chocolate ganache that were frosted an ivory-colored orange-scented buttercream. It didn’t require plastic columns or fancy flourishes made of icing; the primary decoration was a small posy of crystallized flowers. It was just complicated enough to be a challenge, but not so difficult as to keep me awake at night wondering how I was going to make sugar roses.

A day before the party, I made the cake and the filling and tackled the flowers, pansies sold in plastic containers like herbs in the grocery store’s produce department. I brushed egg white along the pansies’ petals and on mint leaves from the backyard and sprinkled them with granulated sugar until they looked like sparkly Christmas ornaments. The next morning I made the buttercream and with a shaky hand frosted the cake and piped the icing in tiny rosettes around the perimeter of the cake, pushing the glittery pansies into place among the swirls.

As I worked on the cake, I thought about Sue and Mike and how important it was for them to bring together their families from two cultures and continents to celebrate their marriage. I thought about parties that had been thrown for me for my wedding and how honored I felt to be able to do the same for friends.  I looked down at the cake and realized that while it wasn’t elaborate, it had a sweet, homespun quality that could honestly be called pretty. It was a good offering.

The evening of the party, I placed the cake on a pedestal plate I had received for my own wedding and gingerly carried it out of our sixth-floor apartment into the ancient elevator, my breath catching with each lurch on the way down to the lobby. When I opened the door to the backyard, everyone burst into applause.  My favorite photo of the day is of Sue and Mike leaning over the table, his hand outstretched as if he were presenting the cake and hers raised to her face in mock surprise. My second favorite takes place slightly later: all of us gathered around the table, arms linked, drinks raised, the cake sliced wide open with chocolate crumbs dotting the table like ants.

Weddings are often laborious, but seldom are they really labors of love. And while I may never make another wedding cake, making Sue and Mike’s was the best gift I could give, wrapped in butter, sugar and friendship for two people in love. 

The recipe for Sue and Mike’s wedding cake came from the now-defunct Gourmet magazine, but epicurious.com still has an archive of this and other wedding cake recipes. Martha Stewart’s website is also a good bet for wedding cake ideas. Or, use one of your own favorite cake recipes— something sturdy like hot milk sponge, pound or even some carrot cakes— and use the method above for crystallizing any flower that has not been sprayed with pesticides. Mint leaves are also easy to paint with chocolate and can make beautiful, easy decorations, as can candied violets, or clean, pesticide-free fresh flowers.

I’m no Luddite, but I adapt to technology slowly. I’m not living in the woods in a yurt and eating brown rice, but I am not ahead of the curve. I’m not cutting-edge. (Have I got my clichés right?) I was not the first boy on my block to get a CD player. Or a cellphone. Or a DVD player. Or a computer.

So I think it will be a while before I buy a Kindle or any kind of e-book reader. I see people peering at these tablets on planes and trains a lot now. I hope they are happy. The devices give off an eerie glow. I understand they are practical. Rather than carry the entire works of Clive Cussler with you, it is possible to download them to your Kindle. It also neatly avoids the embarrassment of having someone peg you for a Clive Cussler reader. They may think you are reading Italo Calvino.

It is January, the bleak midwinter, the old year now away hath fled and the new year it is entered. Right? Now is the season of New Year’s resolutions. Perhaps you are thinking about Zumba? Pilates? Thinner thighs in 30 days? Buying a membership in a health club? The last cigarette? A farewell to John Barleycorn?

Maybe you are thinking about a Kindle?

I don’t need to make New Year’s resolutions. I’m married. My wife makes them for me.  Actually, she makes them year-round. We don’t wait for the ball to drop. We don’t need “Auld Lang Syne.” No, siree. I am bombarded with resolutions all the time. “Forsake carbohydrates!” “Be a better person.” “Dress better.” Then there’s my posture. Posture? Resolutions have me thinking about the Kindle.

My wife is not ready for a Kindle either but if you told her that it would mean fewer books in our house she would buy one today. She wants me to get rid of books.

The largest room in our house is my office— it was actually two rooms and I took a wall down— and there are floor to ceiling books in there. I know every one of those books. I have books from when I was in high school. Books that were read to me when I was very young— A.A. Milne’s “Winnie-the-Pooh.” I have first editions. With dust jackets! I have Robert Louis Stevenson’s “A Child’s Garden of Verses” somewhere on that wall. And Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

I have Kipling’s “The Jungle Book” and Stevenson’s “Treasure Island.” The complete works of Mark Twain, Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare— very old editions. A paperback copy of Twain’s “Life on the Mississippi” that I bought in 1966 for 50 cents. New! I have the works of Lawrence Durrell in French, a language that I can barely read despite nine years in a convent school run by nuns from Trois-Rivières, P.Q.  A girl who I was mad about gave it to me. She met Durrell in a bar in the south of France and told him I was a fan. The girl is long gone. So is Durrell and so is my French. The book stays in the picture.

Small children have imaginary friends. I have my books. People ask me what I am reading. I am reading James Baldwin. He gets better and better. I am reading Yeats. I am reading Graham Greene. Hugh Kenner’s essays. Charles Bukowski. I bought a copy of Somerset Maugham’s collected short stories the other day to read on a long plane ride. My wife flipped when she saw yet another book in my hand.

Kindle and e-books may be the future, but what kind of future would I have without my boon companions Eeyore and Christopher Robin and Kim and Long John Silver and Squire Trelawney? I still believe we ought to meet them in books, with actual pages.

I love used book stores. I was first through the door at the annual Smith College Book Sale for many years, although I am now under court order to stay away— my wife has forbidden me to go near the place. I have to sneak around on her and buy books online. I love abebooks.com. It’s like Internet poker. I have an account set up and with the click of a mouse I get a book. You can’t have enough of them. This upsets my wife a great deal. She believes that you can have enough books, and that I am a man who does. If she came home and found me in the arms of a comely maiden she would not be more upset than to find another box of books in our kitchen.

Will I one day haul all of those books down three flights of stairs and take them to The Book Thing? Will I give in to the New Year’s resolution forced upon me?  Am I headed to Broadmead or Blakehurst or Brightwood with a Kindle?

Don’t make book on it. 

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 medium onion, diced
1 leek, halved lengthwise, rinsed and sliced thin
5 cloves of garlic, minced
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3 cups unsalted chicken stock
1 bunch watercress, washed and dried
1 10-ounce bag of spinach, washed and dried

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, leek, garlic, kosher salt and pepper and cook until the onions are soft and translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the lemon juice, cook for 1 minute, and then add the chicken stock. At this point, you can turn off the heat until you are ready to eat. Just before serving, bring the stock to a boil, add the watercress and spinach, stir for 1 minute to slightly wilt the leaves, and then purée the soup in a blender until smooth. Serve immediately. Serves 4.

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 medium onion, diced
5 large carrots (about 1¼ pounds), peeled and sliced into ½-inch rounds
1 small Yukon gold potato, diced into ½-inch cubes
1 square inch peeled ginger
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon pepper
4 cups unsalted chicken stock
1 sprig thyme
¼ cup heavy cream

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan on medium heat. Add the onion, carrots, potato, ginger, kosher salt and pepper and cook until the onions are soft and translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the chicken stock and the sprig of thyme, bring the stock to a simmer, and simmer gently until the carrots are tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. Purée the mixture in a blender until smooth. Return the soup to a pot and stir in the heavy cream. Reheat and serve at your leisure. This soup gets better as it sits. Serves 4.

Michael Mina may not be as well known in Baltimore as he is on the West Coast, home to the majority of his restaurants, but with the opening of Wit & Wisdom in the Four Seasons Hotel (and Asian-themed Pabu in February), the acclaimed chef and restaurateur has officially commenced his charming of Charm City. Wit & Wisdom is set at water’s edge along the harbor, but the views are equally appealing inside with its sexy bar scene, sleek wood-tone furnishings and open-air kitchen. Entrées on executive chef Benjamin Lambert’s Chesapeake-centric dinner menu are cleverly divided into various cooking methods— “griddled in cast-iron skillets” (skate wing) to “slow-cooked and braised” (a garlic-rubbed lamb shoulder). Appetizer- wise, there’s house-made charcuterie on the menu (natch), but also a “Baltimore coddie fritter” and a lobster corn dog served with mustard crème fraîche that makes you forget any similarities to its county fair cousin. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. 200 International Drive, 410-576-5800, witandwisdombaltimore.com —J.S.

Is it a tavern, café or bistro? Ten Ten, the sophisticated spin-off of the adjacent Bagby Pizza Co., turns out to be a combination of all three. Its café/bistro side reveals itself during lunch with a menu featuring quiche, salads and a roster of sandwiches ranging from a smoked turkey muffaletta to roasted porchetta with shaved fontina and broccoli rabe. During weekday happy hours, the illuminated marble bar draws a crowd, as diners down Belgian ales and $5 appetizers of Dutch mussels and duck fat fries.  For dinner, chef Mark Davis ups the ante with crispy duck confit or rockfish with a “Southern-style” succotash. There’s even a three-course prix fixe menu offered Sundays through Wednesdays for $35— more evidence that good things come in threes at Ten Ten. 1010 Fleet St., 410-244-6867, bagbys1010.com —Joe Sugarman

4 beets, peeled
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 medium onion, roughly diced
5 garlic cloves
3 cups unsalted chicken stock
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup very thinly sliced strips of red cabbage
1 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon sugar
½ cup sour cream, plus extra for garnish
Fresh dill, minced, for garnish

Dice 1 of the beets into ½-inch cubes. Shred the remaining 3 beets, either by hand with a box grater or in a food processor using the shredding blade. Set the shredded beets aside in a medium bowl. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan on medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, the diced beet, chicken stock and kosher salt and bring to a simmer. Turn the heat to low and simmer gently for 30 to 40 minutes. Purée this liquid base in a food processor and return it to the saucepan. Add the shredded beets, cabbage and pepper and bring the soup to a simmer on medium-low heat until the shredded beets are tender, about 20 minutes. Just before serving, stir in the sugar and the sour cream. Serve hot with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of fresh dill. Serves 4.

There are several things that make Savvy uncomfortable: Men who leave the bathroom door open, plates being scraped at the table (why, Ugg-wearing girl at Vino Rosina, why?!) and people over a certain age describing anything as “dope.” And that was exactly the predicament Savvy found herself in while shopping at PEDX. While she’s old enough to remember Insane Clown Posse before YouTube, she’s fairly sure she doesn’t totally get skate-meets-urban labels like Mishka and RockSmith. That said, she was intrigued by their modern takes on classics (heart the cool toggle jacket and the modern puffy vest). If your teen/significant-other-in-a-midlife crisis knows Actual Pain, Krink and Married to the Mob are brands and not bands, this is their dope hang. Word to your mother. Don’t miss: The collection of vintage team hats. 1715/1707 Aliceanna St., 410-276-0038

In the summer of 2008, Jessica Winicki was living in an apartment in Federal Hill with a group of close friends when a new roommate moved in. Two years later, that roommate, Daniel Kallaugher, proposed to her in the apartment, surrounded by rose petals and candles.

The couple’s strong familial values played an important role as they began to plan their wedding. (Dan abided by tradition and asked Jessica’s father for her hand in marriage before proposing.) After meeting with a non-denominational wedding officiant to craft their ceremony, Jessica and Dan were married on Oct. 1, 2011, at the Winickis’ historic family home in Baltimore County.

Although the weather was not ideal— it was a wet day with temperatures in the mid-50s— the couple decided to keep the ceremony outdoors, as planned. A string trio played “Seasons of Love” from the musical “Rent” as the wedding party entered the garden. Jessica, wearing a billowing, strapless gown by Vera Wang, then proceeded down the grassy aisle decorated with white rose petals. Fortunately, the rain held off until the ceremony was finished.

The cocktail hour and main reception also took place at the Winicki family’s sprawling estate. The couple’s 240 guests were seated under a tent around long tables with periwinkle and salmon accents. To evoke a homey feel and give the wedding décor sentimental value, Jessica chose floral-patterned china that reminded her of her mother’s. Selections from her father’s antique silver collection, such as intricate flower vases and candleholders, also decorated the tables. “We strove to make the wedding feel very personal, Old World and elegant— with a modern twist,” says Winicki.

To pick up the tempo for the main reception, the 10-piece band Escapade showcased a variety of sounds and musical genres. For a signature cocktail, By Carlton & Co. created a custom pink concoction with mint leaves— creatively dubbed “Min-ting”— to match the wedding’s color scheme. The menu included a Maryland crab cocktail, a salad with roasted pears, candied pecans and gorgonzola, and a mixed grill entrée featuring petite filets of jerk chicken, teriyaki salmon and filet mignon with béarnaise sauce.

Winicki’s favorite moment from her wedding day was the first dance. “We had taken lessons and were excited to show off our hard work,” she says. The couple demonstrated their fancy footwork to Etta James’ famous ballad “At Last,” the perfect song to herald a new life together as husband and wife.

Resources

Party planning: Anne Berman, 410-243-4500, http://www.annebermanevents.com
Catering  By Carlton & Co., 410-484-6110, http://www.bycarlton.com
Decorations and flowers  Victoria Clausen of Romance of Flowers, 410-526-7252, http://www.romanceofflowers.com.
Photographer Greg Gibson Photographer, 703-830-7676, http://www.greggibson.com
Gown White by Vera Wang, purchased from David’s Bridal, http://www.davidsbridal.com
Dance instructor Sue Fowler of Dance Masters Entertainment, 410-661-5355

Think of Manchurian Rice Co. as your healthier go-to for Asian takeout. You’ll find spring rolls, fried rice and kung pao chicken on the menu, but also more creative options like a Pacific Rim salad, sweet corn chicken soup and hot or chilled sake. There are half a dozen tables downstairs and more seating upstairs in a handsome space with burnt-orange walls and Asian artwork. The fast-food style menu board might resemble the one at your corner takeout, but that’s where the similarities end. 1010 Aliceanna St., 443-438-3528

Savvy always loves those pages in magazines where they challenge someone like Rachel Zoe to put together a smashing outfit, pulling only pieces under $100 (you can practically hear the stylist sighing in your head, like someone just asked them to scale Everest in Atwoods). Yes, the look ends up somewhat cute (and inevitably “perfect for a Saturday of running errands”) but nothing you immediately want to jump online and snag. But now imagine that page is a whole store. And the whole outfit is under $100. And you actually want it. Welcome to Hanger Alley. Have you heard of the lines? Not really. Is the jewelry from some emerging designer? No. But Savvy found a perfect, all-season belted dress that seamlessly goes from work to cocktails, then paired it with a chain and stone necklace, all for $75. Really— she could have added earrings and still been under budget. Hanger Alley feels like that store in Queens where every editorial assistant at Lucky can afford to pay retail (yes, even fashionista twentysomethings max out on sample sale insanity). To borrow a Rachel phrase, “Loves it!”  Don’t miss: The travel candles and triple-milled vegetable soaps from TokyoMilk.  2007 Fleet St., 301-485-9544

Alexis “Lucky” Sinex and Ashley Thompson had an unlikely first encounter on Feb. 14, 2008.  “We met in New York City on Valentine’s Day. Both of us were single and had gone out for dinner with friends. We met later that night at a tavern, through mutual friends,” says Lucky. “It was amazing to meet someone on Valentine’s Day, at a bar no less, and immediately connect.” 

Following a two-year courtship, Ashley knelt down and proposed on the couple’s anniversary of meeting, while strolling through Central Park. One of Ashley’s friends had been strategically positioned in the bushes with a camera to capture the moment, and when the pair arrived at the Loeb Boathouse, they were greeted by a gathering of family and friends invited by Ashley as a surprise.

The couple selected June 2011 to get married. “I really wanted to take my time and enjoy the planning process,” says Thompson. The Episcopal ceremony was held at 5 p.m. at the Church of the Redeemer, with the bride in a Vera Wang gown escorted down the aisle by her mother and stepfather, Suzi and David Cordish. 

Post-ceremony, the 250 guests were shuttled to Villa Pace, the former home of opera singer Rosa Ponselle and the current residence of the Cordish family. “I’ve always wanted to get married at home, so selecting the venue was an easy choice.” says the bride.

Wedding planner Elizabeth Bailey and florist Victoria Klausen of Romance of Flowers worked with Thompson to create the feel of an elegant garden party. “The house is a very special space to me and I wanted to incorporate the look and feel of Villa Pace into the reception,” says Thompson. Mercury glass vases, oversized urns and trellises were festooned with lush arrangements of peonies and hydrangeas, while glowing votives, lanterns and silver candelabras dotted the tables, complementing the overall color scheme of white and champagne. The gold monogram created by artist and calligrapher Karen Schoelkopf for the invitations also was used on the menu cards.

Adding to the elegant garden look, bird cages housing white doves were perched on the guest-card table. “I love bird cages, and both Ashley and I are huge lovers of animals and the outdoors, so it was wonderful to incorporate those into the decor,” says Thompson.

Signature drinks included sangria as well as Dark and Stormies, a traditional drink of Bermuda, where Ashley grew up.  The menu included an amuse-bouche of prosciutto wrapped around asparagus, followed by gazpacho. The main dish of filet mignon was topped with a corn puree with potatoes au gratin on the side. Crab cakes were served French-style for an added touch of elegance. SugarBakers of Catonsville designed the amaretto almond cake with raspberry filling. The cake topper featured the couple perched on mopeds. “Everyone drives mopeds in Bermuda, so it was another way to incorporate touches of Ashley’s heritage,” says Lucky.

A large tent-covered deck was cantilevered over the hillside at Villa Pace, to house the dinner and dancing for the evening. “I love the element of surprise at a wedding. I wanted guests to feel that with each step they were entering a new space,” says Lucky. “We tried to create that feeling with the separate dance floor and lounge area, as well as with the deck overlooking the horse paddock, which created the sensation that you were floating over Green Spring Valley,” she says.

Under the tent, sleek white sofas, mid-century modern chandeliers and backlit bars were used to create a nightclub ambiance.
The band Sound Nation performed the first set of the evening, with the couple’s first dance to Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are.” Flip-flops and sunglasses were brought out during the second set, as a nod to Bermuda’s beach culture, while the band The VIPS performed ’80s tunes.

Special keepsakes for guests included escort cards with hand-painted peonies, personalized menu cards, hand-rolled cigars and a photo booth, as well as a self-serve candy bar.

Summing it up, Thompson says, “Everything turned out better than I could have hoped. It was the most perfect day. Even my 97-year-old grandfather danced the night away.”

Resources

Bridesmaids’ dresses Amsale, http://www.amsale.com
Cake  SugarBakers, Catonsville, http://www.sugarbakerscakes.com
Catering Linwoods, Owings Mills, 410-356-3030, http://www.linwoods.com
Flowers Romance of Flowers, http://www.romanceofflowers.com
Hair Dean Krapf, Lluminaire Salon, http://www.lluminairesalon.com
Makeup Janice Kinigopoulos, http://www.bridalbabe.com
Photography David Michele Photography, 240-601-2115, http://www.davidmichele.com
Wedding planner Elizabeth Bailey Wedding & Events, 410-879-8984, http://www.elizabethbaileyweddings.com

Polly Offutt’s art deco engagement ring, which belonged to her husband’s great-grandmother, inspired her to create a vintage wedding that paid homage to their families and heritage.
The bride, 30, and her husband, Matt Offutt, 29, were introduced through mutual friends three years ago. Their first date was at an ice cream shop in Canton. “Matt had been told that I don’t like coffee,” says Offutt. “So it was a sweet first date.”

On Oct. 8, 2011, the couple wed at her family’s church, Roland Park Presbyterian, in front of 170 friends and family. The Presbyterian church, with its origins in Scotland, offered the perfect setting for Offutt’s father and brother to don their beloved kilts and reflected Offutt’s Scottish heritage, which she was eager to share. Bagpipers played at the ceremony, as well.

As an interior decorator, Offutt paid particular attention to detail. Bridesmaids wore dresses from J. Crew in Caspian blue and Offuttt had the groomsmen’s ties custom-made from the same fabric. Although heavy rains had destroyed Maryland’s dahlia crop, Offutt’s florist was able to import the bride’s flower of choice from elsewhere. The wedding invitations featured orange dahlias, and the sashes tied around the bridesmaid’s dresses were also orange, while the white flowers on the wedding cake matched the flowers on Offutt’s wedding dress. Offutt’s corgi, Issy, who played an integral part in the nuptials as the ring dog, wore a flowered collar around her neck through which the rings were strung— the collar matched the flower in Offutt’s hair.

At the reception at the Maryland Club, guests dined on a traditional Baltimore-themed menu of crabs and filet and sipped on custom drinks, a Dark and Stormy for the groom’s hometown of Annapolis, and a Southside for the bride’s hometown,
Baltimore.
 
To pay tribute to both families, the bride placed black-and-white framed photographs of her and her husband’s grandparents, great-grandparents and siblings on the cocktail tables. For favors, guests took home corgi-shaped cookies and small cartons of milk with colorful straws, inspired by one of the bride and groom’s favorite snacks. 9

Resources

Wedding gown  Betsy Robinson’s Bridal Collection, Pikesville, 410-484-4600, http://www.robinsonsbridal.com
Photography  Carol Masica Photography, 877-826- 0667, http://www.carolmasica.com
Bridesmaid’s dresses J. Crew, http://www.jcrew.com
Bridesmaid’s belts Jenny Yoo, Garnish Boutique, 1515 LaBelle Ave., Suite 3, Towson, 410-321-1406, http://www.garnishboutique.com
Flowers  Fleur de Lis, Baltimore, 410-727-3184

“After we decided not to get married in a church, we knew we wanted a beautiful outdoor scene,” says Jessica D’Argenio of her June wedding to Josh Waller. “Versailles was the most beautiful place we could think of.”

The bride attributes her obsession with Sofia Coppola’s film “Marie Antoinette” as an important factor in the decision to travel to France for an intimate ceremony surrounded by 13 family and friends. In lieu of a traditional bachelorette party, D’Argenio even rented out a theater at The Charles for a private screening of the film.

And yet, unlike a film set, the pair’s wedding at Versailles left much to chance. Although the grounds are technically a public park, the couple were unsure of how their wedding would be received by security. Also, in the summer the palace gardens are swarming with tourists, and the prospect of rain is a threat.

As it happened, it did rain— and that was a lucky thing. The weather scared away most of the crowds, yet cleared up by 5 p.m., leaving the wedding party with the grounds more or less to themselves.

The group stood in a circle and passed the rings around in a small bowl, with each person offering a blessing for the marriage. Because they were traveling so far, Jessica had chosen a lightweight ivory gown with beaded lace cap sleeves that could be easily packed. The surroundings were just as she had imagined. “The trees must have been at least three stories tall, and they were all arching in toward the center,” she says. “It felt like a cathedral.”

After the ceremony, the party adjourned to a private dining room at a nearby restaurant for a three-course French dinner. The couple later took the train to Barcelona for a five-day honeymoon.

Upon returning to the states, the couple held a garden cocktail reception at the Waller residence in Westminster, Md., the following month. An array of handmade decorations— fabric pompoms, fringed garlands and paper rosettes— served as lovely accents to the location’s rural backdrop of rolling hills and distant barns. Rather than a traditional sit-down meal, a variety of hors d’oeuvres with French and Spanish influences was passed among the 200 guests. A four-tier wedding cake, designed by Charm City Cakes, featured an array of quirky
polka dots.

Above all, Jessica and Josh wanted to create a party-like atmosphere that was informal and relaxed. The bride wore the same exquisite number she’d worn at Versailles, and music came in the form of iPod playlists. “I’ve never been a huge fan of the major, daylong, really intense weddings,” says D’Argenio. “Our weddings were a lovely experience, rather than a one-day thing.” 

Resources

Wedding gown Jenny Packham, Rizik’s, Washington, D.C., 202-223-4050, http://www.riziks.com
Catering Jamie Forsythe of b bistro, Baltimore, 410-383-8600, http://www.b-bistro.com
Wedding cake Tommy Mayer, Charm City Cakes, Baltimore, http://www.charmcitycakes.com
Flowers  Dale Klietz, J.J. Cummings, Baltimore, 410-783-1156.
Photography Lindsay Hite, Readyluck Photographers, http://www.readyluck.com

Here’s Savvy’s favorite cautionary Valentine’s Day lingerie tale: She was in Victoria’s Secret and noticed a very prominent Baltimore businessman picking up a sassy little bra and panty present. How sweet, she thought. Then she saw him pick up a second set in another size. That naughty rascal had figured out that if you get your wife and your mistress the same thing, you can’t get snagged by being spotted in a store you shouldn’t be in or confronted with a receipt you can’t cough up the goods for. Oh how clever! It was then that Savvy realized that having a taste for very special, very limited lingerie might have advantages she hadn’t considered. Polina’s Prive stocks exclusive lines like Mimi Holiday (love the retro designs and pure silk) from England, Blush from France (such great prices, even with the Euro bounding back) and Nikol Djumon (with pretty, supportive styles up to a 38E, not that Savvy has such concerns) from Latvia, none of which can be found at the mall and all guaranteed to keep your favorite CEO happy at home. Take that, tarts! Don’t miss: The pieces from Body Wrap, the sexiest shapewear Sav has ever seen. No more having to duck into the ladies room to shove your Spanx in your purse, girls! 1706 Aliceanna St., 410-276-0205

Sharing is encouraged at Bond Street Social, where a menu of “social plates” is designed to create an atmosphere of community and congeniality. Each dish is placed in the center of the table so that guests may sample the melting pot of European, Latin, Asian and Chesapeake Bay flavors. While finger foods and sliders are offered, heartier fare comes in the form of lamb meatballs, miso-glazed salmon and skillet-roasted lobster pot pie. Drinks-wise, large groups can invest in one of the 80-ounce infusion jars, a washtub-sized serving of Bond Street bourbon, grilled pineapple mojito or sangria.  Smaller parties may want to try one of the liquid nitrogen martinis. Served at -320 degrees Fahrenheit, the liquid nitrogen creates a smoky cloud that chills your drink while also gaining the attention of fellow diners. 901 S. Bond St., 443-449-6234, bondstreetsocial.com —Gina Moffa

1. The Ice Balloon: S. A. Andrée and the Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration by Alec Wilkinson. Books about polar expeditions remain hot sellers and this one by Wilkinson, a contributing editor at The New Yorker, tells the little-known story of S. A. Andrée, a Swedish aeronaut who, in 1897, attempted to fly to the North Pole in a hydrogen balloon. Andrée, unlike other fur-clad adventurers of his era, did not consider himself an explorer so much as an engineer out to prove the viability of balloons as transport. The fact that we’re not all zipping around in Zeppelins probably gives you a clue as to how his expedition turned out, but in the hands of Wilkinson, the book will undoubtedly be a good read. 

2. Trip of the Tongue: Cross-Country Travels in Search of America’s Languages by Elizabeth Little. Here’s a book that uses a different sort of road map to tell a travel story: America’s hidden pockets of unique languages. Linguist Little hits the highways to meet speakers of Basque in Nevada, Crow in Montana and Gullah in South Carolina. (We’re curious to find out if she visits Charm City to experience Baltimorese.) 

3. The Stylist’s Guide to NYC by Sibella Court. The Australian interior designer and stylemaker waxes poetic about her favorite off-the-map galleries, boutiques, markets and places to eat in the Big Apple. The book itself is beautifully photographed and is organized by “loops,” mapping out finds by subject matter, like “Jewelry & Hardware,” “Haberdashery & Handmade” and “Furniture & Interiors,” among other discoveries. It’s reportedly even a good read for residents of New York itself.

4. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed. Your mother dies a tragic death, your family scatters and your husband decides to split. What do you do? If you’re writer Cheryl Strayed, you decide to hike 1,100 miles along the Pacific Crest trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State. Alone. A pair of hiking boots is likely the only similarity to Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods,” but the award-winning Strayed (“Torch”) still mixes in humor as she battles snowstorms, rattlesnakes and heals a broken spirit.

5. Paris versus New York: A Tally of Two Cities by Vahram Muratyan. Patisserie or Pastrami? Bagels or Baguettes? This book won’t tell you where to find the best bites in New York or Paris, but for lovers of graphic design— as well as those two cosmopolitan cities— it’s a very fun browse. The book is based on jet-setting graphic designer Muratyan’s popular blog of the same name, and every page illustrates in bright colors the not-so-subtle differences between the two metropolises.

The blockbuster exhibit in Philly this season is bound to be Van Gogh Up Close at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The exhibit focuses on the work van Gogh created in the four years before he took his life in 1890. In those Paris years, the painter radically altered his style, experimenting with shifting perspectives and bringing objects “up close” in his works. Many of the paintings van Gogh created during this period are considered his most significant. Feb. 1 through May 6, 2012. Tickets, $25. 215-763-8100, http://www.philamuseum.org

Travel shows are exactly what you might expect: hundreds of tourism representatives handing out brochures and touting their destinations to the public. In the days before the Web, they were great sources of information, a one-stop clearinghouse for travelers seeking the scoop on locales both foreign and domestic. But even now, they can be a boon, as attendees can actually question real, live people about hotel recommendations in Bali or the best sailing tours of New Zealand. Most feature speakers, entertainment and “travel show only” deals— so bring your credit cards. Here’s the rundown on upcoming shows in the mid-Atlantic: 

Philadelphia Inquirer Travel Show, Jan. 14 and 15, Pennsylvania Convention Center, Center City Philadelphia. Guest speakers include Arthur Frommer, actor-cum-travel writer Andrew McCarthy and the “Travel Troubleshooter” Christopher Elliott.  http://www.inquirertravelshow.com

The New York Times Travel Show, March 2-4, Javits Convention Center, New York City. The biggest show on the circuit, with more than 500 locales represented. http://www.nyttravelshow.com

Washington, D.C. Travel and Adventure Show, March 17 and 18, Washington Convention Center, Washington, D.C. Attendees can try Scuba diving in an 18,000-gallon pool, slide down a zip line or take part in a fiery foods challenge. Guest speakers include Samantha Brown from The Travel Channel and Patricia Schultz, author of “1000 Places to See Before You Die.” http://www.adventureexpo.com

Grilled Cheese & Co. has just opened its fourth location, this one in Federal Hill, where Dangerously Delicious Pies used to be. (1036 Light St., 410-244-6333 )

In Fells Point, plans have been announced to open the Heavy Seas Ale House in the spot formerly occuped by Diablita. Look for it in early spring. (1300 Bank St.)

The building on Guilford Avenue that most recently housed Club One, and for many years prior to that, the House of Welsh, has been demolished.

Months like these make hibernation seem like not such a bad idea after all. Maybe grizzly bears are onto something. When the temperatures drop, merely leaving the house becomes a Herculean effort. 

So, when winter rears its oft-ugly head, I like to hunker down and cozy up inside. No hunkering is complete without my all-time favorite cold weather food: soup. Soups are easy to prepare, delicious to eat and, as an added bonus, seriously comforting to smell as the aromas waft throughout the house. 

There is a common formula to a soup. You need onions (at least I need onions!). You need some type of liquid (stock or water). And you need the flavor or two (or three) that turn an onion base into a real, honest-to-goodness soup. There’s no reason to get too fussy or complicated. A simple pea soup can really just be about showcasing the quintessential flavors of the pea, for example.

So here are four soups, each started the same way by sautéing a diced onion, but taken in four very different directions. For the corn chowder, I kept the soup chunky, added plenty of chowder-esque ingredients and finished it with cream. The spinach and watercress soup shows how you can take salad greens and turn them into soup— without overcooking them into a brown mess on the stove. A smooth carrot and ginger soup follows about as classic a soup formula as you can get. Finally, the beet borscht shows the technique of steeping some key ingredients in the stock to ramp up the stock’s flavor before beginning your soup.

These recipes show that winter is no match for a cook armed with a few simple tricks of the soup trade.

Corn Chowder

Spinach and Watercress Soup

Carrot and Ginger Soup

Beet Borscht

Binny McNamara most recently cooked at Woodberry Kitchen. In her spare time, she tests recipes for her blog, binnycooks.com.

When Adam and Dana Pariante decided to take the leap from New York to Baltimore, they wanted a living space that would re-create the urban atmosphere of their hometown. “We settled on Silo Point because it had that New York feel to us,” says Adam, who is originally from Brooklyn but currently runs a food distribution company in Baltimore. After touring the available condos in the building, the couple set their sights on a corner unit on the 14th floor— a 2,200-square-foot condo with two private terraces and panoramic views of the harbor.

There was one problem, however— the original kitchen was cut off from the dining room and living area. The Pariantes, who had seen a Silo model by interior designer Jay Jenkins, enlisted the designer to help them incorporate the kitchen into the rest of the space and create a more interactive environment conducive to entertaining. “Jay came in like wildfire,” says Dana. Jenkins’ first impression of the uninhabited space was how “raw” it was. “The developer had done a poor job of developing what could be a jewel in the sky,” says Jenkins.

By removing the corner walls in the kitchen, Jenkins connected the foyer to the rest of the house and opened up the main entryway. A countertop bar topped with Carrara marble overlooks the dinette and connects the kitchen to the main space, which is subtly separated into three distinct areas: dining room, living room and den.

Both Jenkins and the Pariantes shared the vision of a monochromatic neutral palette for the condo, starting with the floors, where bleached and waxed white oak, wide-board installations were placed over the original concrete. For the most part, however, the rest of the concrete in the unit was left exposed, preserving a hint of the apartment’s industrial feel.

For Adam and Dana, their new home was an important part of many new beginnings; the couple was married this past summer. After selling most of their old furniture, they purchased a variety of structured, linen-based couches and chairs with simple, square arms— all in primarily beige hues. Shying away from elaborate detailing such as skirts and trims, Jenkins selected simple silk pillows to juxtapose the matte upholstery and bring in another layer of texture. “This was truly an exercise in editing,” says Jenkins.

Throughout the condo, Jenkins aimed to create a loft-like and urban-inspired feel. In the master bedroom, this meant tearing down a narrow entryway to create an open space with an exposed closet and attached bathroom. In the master bathroom, Jenkins ran the wall tile in the shower around the adjacent wall to create consistency. “It gives a quietness to your eye and looks like part of the structure,” he says. “It’s very spa-like.”

To give the bedroom more presence amongst the clean and simple furnishings of the other rooms, the bedroom door was upholstered in quilted leather with a studded detail. The bed itself, a button-tufted interpretation of a wing chair in a gray linen and silk combination, is in sync with the rest of the Pariante home— modern and inviting.

In terms of the condo’s overall functionality, a lack of storage space seemed to be another minor setback. In the bedroom, which originally lacked a closet, a low ceiling was raised, leaving plenty of room for the three-tier exposed dressing area. The clothes, which are arranged seasonally for easy accessibility, create an eye-catching display that hangs between the floor and ceiling. To combat the storage issue in the kitchen, Jenkins installed a spacious hidden pantry.

For visiting family members and friends, the Pariantes opted to make the second bedroom a simple, cocoon-like guest room. In the powder room, Jenkins showcased the condo’s only use of wallpaper— an artistic interpretation of a stripe with damask and stencil-like qualities.

According to Adam and Dana, the condo really comes to life at night, when the intricate lighting plan and expansive floor-to-ceiling windows show off a remarkable view of the harbor. “You’re in the city, but it just feels relaxing at night,” says Adam. “It’s very calming.”

The success of the project— and the friendly relationship between the designer and clients— has almost certainly helped the couple formulate a positive attitude about their new surroundings.

“Baltimore is a more manageable, friendlier, more welcoming city,” says Adam. “People are approachable— it’s less tense.” As Dana puts it, “It feels like a breath of fresh air.” As does their elevated abode.

Resources

Interior design  Jay Jenkins, 410-727-4100, http://www.jenkinsbaer.com
Cabinetry  Erik Rink, Artisan Interiors, 410-243-1045, http://www.artisaninteriors.us
Countertops  Jeffress Stone Co., 410-488-9105, http://www.jeffresstone.com
Lighting Jones Lighting, 410-828-1010, http://www.joneslighting.com
Window treatments  Drapery Contractors, 410-727-5333, http://www.draperycontractors.com
Master bedroom door upholstery  Ibello Upholstery, 410-243-1163, http://www.ibelloupholstery.com
Floors and carpets Floors Etc., 410-484-4123, http://www.floors-etc.com
Bedding  Penny Green Ltd., 410-484-0996

8 slices bacon, cut into ½-inch pieces
1 medium onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup diced fennel bulb
8 scallions, sliced thin, whites and greens separated
3 small red potatoes, diced into ½-inch cubes
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
2 cups unsalted chicken stock
2 tablespoons minced fresh thyme
2 cups diced bell pepper (red or orange)
2 cups frozen sweet yellow corn
1 cup heavy cream

Toss the bacon into a medium saucepan over medium heat. Cook it down until the fat renders and the bacon starts to crisp, 5 to 7 minutes. Add the onions, garlic, fennel, scallion whites, potatoes, kosher salt and pepper. Stirring occasionally, cook in the rendered bacon fat until the onions are soft and translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the sherry vinegar, cook for 1 minute, and then add the chicken stock and the thyme. Bring the stock to a simmer and simmer gently until the potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes. Ten minutes before serving, add the bell pepper, corn and heavy cream. Simmer for 10 minutes, add the thinly sliced green scallion tops, and serve immediately. Serves 4.

Every Friday afternoon, Lois Feinblatt leaves her art-filled apartment in The Warrington and drives across town to the Johns Hopkins Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit (SBCU), where she joins her fellow therapists, psychiatrists and residents to confer about patients.

At 90, Feinblatt is a half-century older than most of her colleagues. She attended the talk given at Hopkins by legendary sex researchers Masters and Johnson that was the inspiration for the SBCU’s creation (the room was so crowded, she had to sit on a piano). She recalls life before The Pill. And she remembers that when she joined the SBCU in 1970, more than a few patients came with the hope of being “cured” of their homosexuality, something believed possible back then. 

From her perch in the Hopkins psychiatry department, where she still has an office and sees several patients regularly, Feinblatt has witnessed the major changes in our nation’s collective sexual and psychological life. “In the ’70s and ’80s, women became more aware of their own potential for sexual pleasure, and we started seeing men who were having new troubles because of this shift,” she says. “And, as far as gender patients, in the early days, they were a sort of flamboyant, nightclub-worker type for the most part. Now they’re college students, parents and professionals. We have one or two who come to the clinic every month.”

Feinblatt has seen a lot. But she would never say she’s seen it all.

“She has this kind of very youthful curiosity about people’s lives,” says Chris Kraft, director of clinical services at the SBCU. “She’s always shaking her head, and saying, ‘Isn’t that fascinating?’”

“I’m bored easily,” says Feinblatt, her blue eyes alert and playful. “And this is a forever fascinating profession.”

The fact that she even has a “profession” still seems like a stroke of luck to Feinblatt. She was born in 1921 into Baltimore’s Hoffberger family, known for their onetime ownership of the Orioles and National Beer as well as their ongoing philanthropic efforts. She was raised in the family compound in Forest Park where, except for one cousin, none of the women worked after marrying. Feinblatt never planned to, either. But then in 1957, she and her husband, Irving Blum, decided it would be good for their children (then aged 8, 10 and 14) if she weren’t home all the time.

“What kind of work would you want to do?” Blum asked Feinblatt.

“I’d love to be a psychiatrist,” she told him.

Since attending medical school as a housewife seemed unlikely, she put the idea out of her head and got a job with the city’s Department of Welfare, working with prospective adoptive families. She stayed there nine years and would have stayed longer. But on Feb. 2, 1966, she saw a story in The Sun headlined, “Role offered housewife in psychiatry”— and that, as they say, made all the difference. “It was so lucky that I saw that article,” says Feinblatt. “If I had to choose one thing to have in life, it would be luck.”

As the article reported, Johns Hopkins Hospital was starting a program to train housewives as mental health counselors, thus easing the shortage of mental health workers in the country. “…[W]e hope to tap the great unused reservoir of talent represented by the intelligent married women in their 40s who are becoming experts in family management just as their families are leaving home and putting them out of a job,” Joel Elkes, chief psychiatrist at Hopkins’ Phipps Clinic, said at the time.

Seven months later, in September 1966, Feinblatt, then 45, arrived at Hopkins along with seven other women chosen from an applicant pool of roughly 400 to begin a crash course in psychotherapy. The course began not in the classroom— no lectures or formal studying for these ladies— but in the clinic, where the philosophy was “learn by doing” (with close
supervision). “Right away we were given a patient, which was shocking,” says Feinblatt.

The combination of seeing patients and meeting with supervisors was so consuming that at least one woman had to drop out after her husband threatened to leave the family. But Feinblatt loved it. “It was like, ‘Open sesame,’” she says. “It was a whole new life.”

That new life offered some comfort when, in 1972, Blum passed away after a year-long illness. What also was a comfort to Feinblatt was philanthropy and public service. Along with a colleague she started an organization called Adoption Connection Exchange, which was devoted to supporting adoptive families. “We were noticing that a disproportionate number of adolescent patients we were seeing in the clinic had been adopted,” says Feinblatt. “It was still ‘in the closet’ then, and the group really helped people.”

In 1983, she married lawyer Eugene Feinblatt, and after he died in 1998, she again found comfort in public service, starting a teacher-mentoring project in Baltimore City public schools. “I was enthusiastic about mentoring because it was the way I’d learned,” says Feinblatt.

These days, Feinblatt remains interested in public education but she’s also excited about her newest philanthropic focus, serving on the board of Free State Legal Services, which offers free and reduced legal services to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. Like her work with adoptive families, this venture grew out of a need Feinblatt observed in her role as a therapist.

Between seeing patients, her public service efforts, her painting hobby and spending time with her family (she has the three aforementioned children, two stepchildren and 10 grandchildren, aged 6 to 32), Feinblatt maintains a social life that puts most younger people to shame. “I could be out every night if I wanted,” she says. “I’m addicted to people.”
And addicted to being fascinated.

¼ cup light Karo (corn) syrup
8 ounces almond paste
1 cup marshmallow crème
1-pound box confectioners’ sugar, plus more as needed

Place all ingredients in a heavy duty standing mixer, and mix until well combined forming a soft dough. Remove dough from mixer and knead by hand until smooth, adding more sugar if dough is too sticky. Dough should hold its shape and be easy to handle. Divide dough into small portions and form into fruit and vegetable shapes. Paint marzipan with appropriate food coloring. When dry, wrap each piece in plastic wrap. Yields approximately 1 pound of candy.

Is too much ever enough? Not in Savvy’s book. Amaryllis has moved around the corner to the main drag of Harbor East and that means double the room for earthy pieces by Rebecca Lankford (love the tiny precious stones strung on raw silk), sparkly black diamond pendants on diamond-cut gold chains by Zoe Chicco, artsy hand-carved Lucite and crystal bracelets by Alexis Bittar and the neat crochet necklaces by Danielle Welmond. While Savvy expected the cases and cases of gorgeous jewelry, what thrilled her most were the unexpected holiday finds like the witty notepads and trays from Ben’s Garden, the metallic leather evening envelopes from Tracey Tanner and the pretty scarves from Manyus. Just remember, girls, gifts are like cocktails: One for you, two for me…  Savvy gift pick: The French shortbread butter galettes from Goulibeur. The tin is a gift in itself and the cookies are to die.  612 S. Exeter St., 410-576-7622

Traditions run deep in Halcyon Farm’s six decades of Christmas parties. Interior designer and former Baltimore Museum of Art board chair Stiles Colwill, along with Jonathan Gargiulo, a director at New York’s John Rosselli Antiques, invite friends and family to a celebration Colwill’s parents began in the 1940s. In the years since Colwill inherited the Green Spring Valley horse farm, the trimmings have grown more creative, personal and sumptuous. “I hang the first ornament I got as a baby on the tree every year,” says Colwill of a ritual his mother timed for the Dec. 17 birthday of her brother, whom she named Colwill for. “Now, we’ve got at least 400 ornaments, each with a story we take time to remember as we hang it.”

Loving Christmas is something the pair shares and indulges year-round. Colwill, an only child, sees the holiday as an occasion to “bring together the people I got close to after my parents died.” Jonathan, accustomed to New Jersey gatherings of cousins from his mother’s 13 siblings, brings some of the Italian food and boisterous energy of gift exchanges he remembers. The art of giving to the special people in their lives motivates a continuous search for unusual and unexpected gifts. Their far-flung travels yield the most booty— but one year two litters of Jack Russell puppies born before the holidays became surprise presents for some lucky children.

Party planning involves the same attention to detail. In September, the men start forcing the flowering bulbs and loading their 24-by-60-foot greenhouse with potted plants they’ll display. “Working in New York as I do, I can stroll down Madison Avenue on Thanksgiving weekend to see what the florists are doing that’s different,” says Gargiulo. Except for filling Colwill’s father’s Hunt Cup trophy with a prince’s ransom in cut amaryllis, the live floral presentations always change from year to year. Colwill likes concentrating on the different rooms’ focal points— stargazer lilies in a favorite silver urn in the entry hall or a one-color theme for the living room. Fireplace mantels can make the best statements, especially if either man organizes a theme such as mercury glass and angels. Gargiulo will bank a sideboard or the pedestal of a sculpture with pots of poinsettias. “The first time I saw orchids, cyclamen and camellias decorating rooms for Christmas was at my Uncle John’s [Rosselli],” says Gargiulo. “I love poinsettia standards because of him.”

The dining room table delivers Christmas color to the house before the food is served. A gleaming 19th-century epergne, its glass baskets laden with candy, is a perennial centerpiece. Bohemian glass goblets pick up the tablecloth’s deep Christmas green and twinkle in the low candlelight.  The chef reprises a menu of tenderloin and roasted salmon from year to year but varies the side dishes, such as roasted peppers, for color. An eggnog Colwill’s father used to make has given way to a new favorite: Cosmopolitans with a few cranberries floating like jewels in the sugar-rimmed glasses.

“Christmas is different for everyone,” says Colwill. “Jonathan and I are lucky because we both love it.”

Hayley Muendlein is painting plums. She works meticulously, her coppery hair slipping over her shoulder and perilously close to her paintbrush saturated with inky dye. With a touch of that brush, the tray of small round domes with clefts in each center turn from dun-colored to midnight purple, no longer fondant but fruit.

It is the day after Thanksgiving, and while other families are nursing hangovers or fighting Black Friday crowds at local shopping malls, three generations of women— Hayley; her mother, Denise Meyer; her aunt, Cindy Norfolk; and her grandmother, Irene Meyer— plus Hayley’s boyfriend, Wil Connolly, are making marzipan in Denise’s Freeland kitchen.

Making marzipan is a tradition Irene started more than 50 years ago when she married John Meyer. John is of German descent; Irene’s people were Russian. When John talked about German sweets at Christmastime— stollen, lebkuchen, marzipan— and Irene saw a magazine article with instructions, she decided to learn how to make them. Her mother-in-law told her in 1959, “No German woman does this. They buy that stuff. It’s too much work. You’re crazy!” But Irene simply replied, “Well, he wants it.”

Fifty-two years later, John still loves his marzipan, as do Denise’s husband and Hayley’s boyfriend. The women, however, won’t eat it. “It’s too sweet,” says Denise, who is my dentist. Sweetness is unavoidable with a recipe that’s basically almonds and sugar, corn syrup and marshmallow crème.

Marzipan’s historical origins are murky. Some sources place its beginnings in ancient Persia where it was known as almond bread. “Larousse Gastronomique” traces the confection to the French town of Issoudun, where Ursuline nuns made something known as massepains. The name was taken from the Italian marzapane, which originally meant sweet box. My favorite marzipan creation story is the version in which the candy derives its name from St. Mark and the food he ate in the desert, marcis panes, or Mark’s bread. Marzipan as manna? Hallelujah.

Marzipan is still produced and treasured in France, Italy and England, but no one has made it the art form that the Germans have. They mold it into good luck symbols such as pigs and angels, and all manner of harvest fruits and vegetables, as illustrated by the 1960s article, “Let’s Make Marzipan for Christmas,” that Irene keeps folded in a shoebox.

The shoebox holds other essentials for the day’s work: paintbrushes and tweezers, green construction paper frills that will become strawberry and carrot tops, liquid and paste-based food coloring, and several recipes, some with dates and notes in Irene’s handwriting. “1998 very wet,” reads one revision. “Try to use less marshmallow or syrup.” The following year’s note affirms “much better than 1998.”

“I used to buy almond paste from Serio’s on Hanover Street,” explains Irene, as she observes Denise feeding Solo brand almond paste from a can, along with light corn syrup, marshmallow crème and confectioners’ sugar into the bowl of a Kitchen Aid mixer.

“And we used to grate the almond paste into the bowl,” recalls Cindy. Now the machine does the work of hands, although there is still some kneading to be done before the marzipan can be shaped and colored.

Denise transfers the dough into a large, orange plastic bowl— the same one they always use— and Wil begins kneading. “Is it sticky inside?” Irene asks. “Add more sugar.”

When the marzipan is shiny and smooth, we are each given our assignments. Hayley forms and paints the plums. Wil does lemons, rolling the balls of dough over a nutmeg grater to simulate rind. Irene makes strawberries, shaping the dough into squat conical shapes, poking seeds with the tip of a tweezer, before brushing the berries with red food coloring. When dry, she’ll roll the berries in red granulated sugar and top them with a green paper frill.
 
“We made apples last year by accident,” says Hayley. “They were supposed to be strawberries, but…”
 
“I’m really bad,” jokes Cindy, “That’s why they give me potatoes.” She makes beautiful potatoes, though, tiny, studded with eyes thanks to a poke with the end of a paintbrush, and dusty, dirty thanks to a roll in cocoa mix.
 
My task is carrots. Denise shows me how to shape inch-long pieces of marzipan to resemble tiny loaves of bread and use tweezers to press slashes, giving the carrots their characteristic scores. We plump the carrots at the top and narrow them at the bottom before brushing them with Atlas Brand “Brilliant Orange Shade R,” a paste-based dye that yields a color more vibrant than regular liquid food coloring, according to Denise.
 
As morning turns to afternoon, we paint bruises on bananas and blushes on peaches; we add chocolate stems to voluptuous pears. Irene recalls the time she “tried to go commercial” and make marzipan for a friend to sell at work. (“For weeks I was up until 3 a.m.,” she recalls.) Denise’s ancient poodle, Nutmeg, snoozes contentedly in the next room. The time goes quickly, but that’s because there are many hands.
 
“It’s not a job to do by yourself,” says Cindy.
 
“It’s something to be shared,” concurs Denise.
 
In a few hours, we have made more than a pound of marzipan, and when all the fruits and vegetables are dry, the women will wrap each piece in plastic wrap and divide the spoils amongst themselves.
 
I ask Denise if she sees any irony in a dentist making candy.
 
The answer is an adamant no. “It’s a tradition,” she says. “Traditions overcome everything.” Even cavities.

Marzipan

Note: Vintage cookbooks are great references for learning how to make fruit and vegetable shapes. For more contemporary help, see Dorie Greenspan’s “Baking With Julia” or Martha Stewart’s website, marthastewart.com.

The Bottom Drawer has now relocated to a space at the bottom of Roland Avenue, right across from Café Hon. The space is stocked with the same labels you loved in the Federal Hill location (Hanky Panky, On Gossamer, Arianne, Lucy B, Eberjey), but now you can actually find a place to park. Most of the time. Savvy gift pick: The silk knit hip-hugger boy pant with lace by Mary Green. 1001A.W. 36th St., 410-783-8998

Yes, it’s a smidge Grinchy to say, but Sav’s always felt that those who can’t gift, shop museum stores (and those who can’t shop museum stores, shop online museum stores). But it’s hard to turn up your Rudolph-red nose when the Baltimore Museum of Art asks Maryland artists to conjure up pieces exclusively for the BMA Shop for the holiday season. Submissions were sent by August and voila! “MD Made/BMA Inspired”: your favorites at the BMA revisited by Maryland artists, with an eye to the utilitarian. The sculptures in the gardens inspired silver jewelry as well as Ursula Minervini’s paper-cut kits. Hand-embroidered felt ornaments by Janet Patacca came from the Baltimore Album Quilts of the 18th century. The Matisse paintings in the Cone collection inspired creations with riotous colors such as Valerie Sanson’s Anemone necklaces with semi-precious stone and beads. Didi Salvatierra also used the Matisse colors for her fiberware: baskets and mats, made with new and recycled cotton, that are heading to Savvy’s holiday table right now. Maybe the spirit of the season is softening old Sav, but these one-of-a-kind gifts—supporting both Maryland artists and the museum— are a definite must for your holiday shopping. Savvy gift pick: Also inspired by the Cone collection, Liz Swanson’s repurposed “a lighter shade of male”—a very colorful collection of hand-painted ties. 10 Art Museum Drive, 443-573-1844

Savvy just adores pop-up shops. The “here today, gone tomorrow— no, we’re not kidding, we don’t really need to pay the rent in January” aspect allows retailers to be truly imaginative and risk-taking in their offerings. Or, well, in the case of West Elm, as throw-caution-to-the-wind as parent company Williams-Sonoma ever gets. But calling out this hipster haven for its corporate roots is being unnecessarily unkind. I mean, come on, where else are you going to find a holiday wreath made of white feathers? Sooo major.  Savvy gift pick: Scandinavian tree aprons, slate cheese boards, the dog-printed appetizer plates from Scott Lifshutz. If Savvy had more friends with cool apartments and music collections stocked with house mixes from Stéphane Pompougnac, her holiday shopping would be done, done and done. Towson Town Center, 410-832-0140

Fifty years ago, a crowd of 1,000 onlookers gathered at the corner of Lexington and Charles streets on a chilly January afternoon. A high school band played “Baltimore, Our Baltimore,” Mayor J. Harold Grady gave a signal and a 100-foot-high crane launched its wrecking ball into the side of what once was O’Neill & Co. It was 1961: the beginning of the downtown clearance for Charles Center and the end of one of Baltimore’s toniest department stores.

O’Neill’s had already been closed for business for seven years when its four adjoining buildings were razed, but it had served Baltimore’s high-end shoppers for 72 years prior to that. The Barneys of its day, O’Neill’s was known as “The Store of Specialty Shops,” a place where customers could buy Irish linens and hats, Persian lamb fur coats or hand-knit baby leggings. (In a charitable move, the store also carried habits for Catholic sisters in a department dedicated to religious institutions.) At O’Neill’s, a sorority of “Misses”— Miss Annie, Miss Mary, Miss Katie—knew customers by name. And each morning until his death in 1919, proprietor Thomas O’Neill, a giant of a man with flaming red hair and mustache, would greet customers at the store’s front door dressed in striped trousers and a long frock coat.

The business began in 1882, when O’Neill, a 32-year-old native of County Cavan, Ireland, and his partner Robert Pope opened a linen and dry goods shop on the southwest corner of Charles and Lexington. Soon after, O’Neill bought out Pope and launched O’Neill & Co., colloquially known as O’Neill’s. The business expanded into four separate buildings, including the 1900 six-story, Renaissance-styled building of Indian limestone designed by Baldwin and Pennington, the architects responsible for the Maryland Club and the Maryland State House annex. The building was restrained and discreet, and looked more like an elegant townhouse than a department store. It featured 35,000 square feet of interior space, much of it finished in quartered oak, two Otis elevators, “a handsome drinking fountain [on each floor]... a convenience always appreciated by busy shoppers,” The Sun noted— and even a “dark room” for displaying luxury fabrics used for formalwear in “evening light.”

From the start, O’Neill’s had a reputation for high quality and was interested in attracting only the city’s wealthiest shoppers. A display ad from an 1897 edition of The Sun touts both the store’s goods and its philosophy of buying and selling. “While the tendency of houses in our line is towards cheapness, we are constantly raising the standard of quality higher and higher,” ran one statement interspersed between advertisements for “best broadcloth,” “Fancy Silks for Street, Evening and Dinner dresses in light and subdued grounds ($1, $1.25, $1.50 and $2),” French dress patterns and Nottingham lace curtains ($1.25). “Goods of doubtful quality never find a place in our store, so that there can be no competition in cost, where there is no comparison in quality,” ran another.

With the high prices came a high level of service. The ladies in O’Neill’s hosiery department would mend customers’ silk stockings. At the glove counter, a clerk would sprinkle talcum powder in gloves before stretching them and allowing a customer to try them on. Towson resident Jean Dodd remembers when her mother, Helen Gilmore, worked at O’Neill’s cosmetics counter during the 1930s and ’40s, “back when you had your cosmetics prepared for you,” Dodd says. O’Neill’s sent Gilmore to New York to study with Elizabeth Arden. When Gilmore returned to the cosmetics department, she kept records of her customers’ preferences so she could blend their powder or rouge to order (although clerks were expected to know a customer’s name and address from memory). She was also responsible for selling perfume, which was sold in drams and poured from one large flagon into a small container the customer would take home with her.

The women who worked at O’Neill’s “weren’t just salespeople,” explains Dodd. They were professionals, from their black or navy blue suits with white collars or cuffs to the level of personal service they offered.

If O’Neill’s has faded from memory, the result of its limited clientele and short life compared to Baltimore’s other historic home-grown department stores, the profits of the business have left their legacy. It was said that Thomas O’Neill “cared about three things: his business, his family and the church.” When he died, he left most of his money to various Catholic organizations (he bequeathed funds to establish the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen and Good Samaritan Hospital), but left his store to his employees, who were offered stock as long as they remained employed there. Eventually, the store was bought out and became a part of Allied Stores Corp., which closed the business in 1954, telling The Sun that the ritual of negotiating leases with the different landlords who owned the four buildings that made up O’Neill’s had become too difficult.

The store closed its doors on Dec. 27, 1954, the painted O’Neill’s name, with its curve of “O” and curl of “N” remaining visible on the side of the 1900 building until the wrecking ball came in 1961.

24 ounces frozen, unsweetened red raspberries
4 cups sugar
4-5 8-ounce canning jars

Before you start, run the jam jars through the dishwasher to sterilize them. Alternatively, put the jars in a 350-degree oven for 8 minutes, and submerge the lids in boiling water for 2 minutes. Once sterilized, set the jars aside. Also, set a plate in your freezer to cool. You’ll need a cold plate for testing the jam later.

Put the raspberries in a large pot or Dutch oven, and turn the heat on medium. After a minute or 2, they’ll start to juice. Add the sugar, and stir until it completely dissolves, about 5 minutes. When it dissolves, you can stop stirring and let the mixture come to a boil (don’t let it boil until the sugar is completely dissolved). Boil for 8 minutes, stirring occasionally and skimming any scum off the top, as needed. Then turn the heat to low and spoon a dollop of jam onto your cold plate from the freezer. Put the plate back in the freezer and let it cool down for a minute or so. Test the jam by pressing your finger through it. If it wrinkles like jam, it’s ready. If it’s still runny, turn the heat back up to medium and let the mixture boil for another 2 to 3 minutes. Once your jam passes the “wrinkle test,” pour it immediately in the sterilized jars, screw on the lids and allow to cool. The jam will keep for several months in a refrigerator.

½ to 1 pound block of Valrhona or Callebaut chocolate, 60 to 70 percent cacao
Any of the following combinations of toppings:
Maldon sea salt
Black pepper
Instant espresso coffee
Chopped walnuts
Chopped almonds
Chopped peanuts
Sunflower seeds
Currants
Raisins
Cracked candy cane

Roughly chop the chocolate block into large chunks, and put them into the top of a double boiler or a large Pyrex bowl. If you’re not using a double boiler, place the bowl in a small to medium saucepan, so that the bowl can rest on the sides of the pan without touching the bottom. Put about an inch of water in the saucepan, making sure the water doesn’t come up high enough to touch the bottom of the Pyrex bowl. Put the entire assembly on low heat, and allow the water to come to a boil. Turn off the heat, and let the chocolate sit, steaming over the warm water bath, for a full 5 minutes and stir. If it’s not smoothly melted, turn the heat on low for another minute or 2. You want to melt the chocolate gently.

When you have smooth melted chocolate, pour it out onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Spread the melted chocolate with a spatula until it is about 1/4- to 1/2-inch thick. Allow it to set for 10 minutes before adding various toppings of your choice. Allow it to set completely, up to 4 hours, before cracking the bark into shards and boxing it up. Store at room temperature.

Like you, I have a lot of holiday shopping to do. Every year my gigantic family alone keeps me on my gift-giving toes, not to mention friends and co-workers and neighbors. Don’t get me wrong, I love giving presents, but I loathe shopping.

This year, I’ve decided to take a step back— way back to the 1950s, to the land of “Leave it to Beaver” and wholesome, homemade gift-giving. Everybody on my list this season is getting something I made myself. These easy recipes won’t cause me much holiday stress, and these goodies will likely mean more to the recipient. It’s a win-win, in my book.

Take garlic confit, for instance. It’s as straightforward as slow-cooking peeled garlic cloves in oil, until they’re soft but not quite falling apart. Garlic confit is basically regular garlic on steroids. It’s sweeter, more flavorful, more succulent and absolutely void of the overbearing acrid taste of garlic-in-the-raw. Consider using it in lieu of raw garlic in just about any recipe. As a bonus, the garlic confit oil is a great flavor-boosting substitute for olive or canola oil.

Another easy but delicious homemade present is preserved lemon. Like garlic confit, preserved lemon takes raw lemon and transforms it into a more complex and more flavorful ingredient. The preserving allows you to cook using the whole fruit— peel and all— which adds a certain x-factor to any dish. Use it wherever a recipe calls for regular lemon, with fish, in dressings— even in cocktails! 

I’ve also included a recipe for classic homemade jam. Before you shake and shudder at the thought of making jam, rest assured, raspberry jam is about as easy as it gets. You basically put frozen berries with sugar in a pot on medium heat, set it and forget it. It takes about 10 minutes, and you’ll have jam galore.

Last but not least, there’s the crowd pleaser, chocolate bark. People (and by “people” I mean me) go nuts about “barks.”  Peanut bark, chocolate bark, peppermint bark— you name it, people will eat it. This is a no-brainer present because it is so simple to make. Melt the chocolate, pour it out on a tray and sprinkle on goodies. Once it hardens you can crack it, bag it up and give it away. The only problem with chocolate bark, as well as these other homemade gifts, is that your recipients might keep coming back for more!

Garlic Confit

Preserved Lemon

Raspberry Jam

Chocolate Bark

Binny McNamara most recently cooked at Woodberry Kitchen. In her spare time, she tests recipes for her blog, binnycooks.com.

I recently finished slogging my way through the three-part, six-hour PBS documentary, “Prohibition,” produced by filmmaker Ken Burns. I believe I’m not alone in puzzling over how such a wrong-headed, improbable idea could have ever (albeit briefly) been the law of the land. The Draconian details of the Volstead Act and the ensuing 18th Amendment were enough to have me reaching for the cocktail shaker, in need of a strong one. Thank heavens Americans had the act repealed in 1933 (though apparently the law did little to curb the country’s taste for the strong stuff while in effect).

Welcome to the first-ever Style ‘Spirits Issue,’ in which we look at the many local facets of libations. Baltimore has always been a drinkin’ town, but the popular culture of today reflects an increased level of thoughtfulness and sophistication when it comes to what we’re quaffing. Organic ingredients, local growers and distillers, area-based microbrews, more complex flavor profiles— these things are increasingly important to today’s imbibers. Along with a new appreciation for classic cocktails and even historical ones (Brandy Flip, anyone?)

We’re not alone in observing this renewed appreciation for alcohol— I just finished reading the new issue of Saveur dedicated to drinks, and The New York Times Magazine recently added a ‘Drinks’ department. In the past few months we have seen local websites (http://www.PostProhibition.com) and Facebook pages (Forgotten Cocktail Club) crop up. (You can read about them, and other movers and shakers on the Baltimore spirits scene, beginning on page 98.) We also offer a fun roundup called “What’ll You Have?” where we asked notables around town to name their go-to cocktail. (I know you didn’t ask, but I’ll tell you mine anyway— vodka martini in summertime; Maker’s Mark Manhattan, up, in winter. Maybe a Sazerac if I’m feeling saucy.)

Believe it or not, we’ve found plenty else besides booze to entertain you with this month, but I’ll let you discover that on your own. I would point you to page 41, though, to see what our new food and recipe contributor Binny McNamara has cooked up. You may know Binny from her time on the line at Woodberry Kitchen, or from her entertaining food blog, ‘Binny Cooks.’

So, eat, drink and be merry. I wish you all a most spirited holiday season.

Brian Michael Lawrence
Editor-in-Chief
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Hampden’s 13.5% Wine Bar has a new offshoot in Locust Point. Silo.5% in the Silo Point tower shares its big brother’s affinity for upscale wine experiences at decent prices. The modern and cozy lounge caters to oenophiles downtown with more than 30 wines by the glass, as well as a selection of seasonal cocktails and beers. The bar’s 200-bottle wall of wines adds a striking visual element to this sleek space, as well. A menu of small plates— lobster tempura or crispy duck roulade, anyone?— pairs well with the wines. If you’re looking for more substantial fare, you can chose from seasonal entrées, such as black trumpet mushroom-crusted Ahi tuna or pan-roasted sea bass with bacon-braised Brussels sprouts. Open Tuesday through Sunday. 1200 Steuart St., 443-438-4044, http://www.silo.5winebar.com.  —Gina Moffa

At Federal Hill’s new Republic Noodle, chef Henry Hong, a food writer for City Paper, has created an entire menu centered around the world’s most popular food item: noodles. Here, you’ll find noodles in various forms, including udon, soba, and ramen noodles, to name a few. For dinner, choose between a variety of wok noodles, such as stir-fry and pad Thai, or broth noodles, which are accompanied by miso, chicken or vegetable broth. The restaurant promises all-natural, hormone and antibiotic free meats and poultry, as well as an emphasis on organic, sustainable and local products. For lunch, grab an $8.95 lunch bowl combo, which includes either a Vietnamese chicken roll or spring roll. Open Tuesday through Sunday. 1121 Light St., 443-263-4435, http://www.republicnoodle.com
—Gina Moffa

The line of SUVs, minivans and station wagons starts at Point Lookout Road in Great Mills and coils a distance of nearly two miles to Flat Iron Farm. Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s thumping swirl of “Wizards in Winter,” broadcast on 88.7 FM from the farm, lures the parade of cars along the winding road like a holiday Pied Piper.

Astonished children press noses against car windows, taking in the twinkling lights stretched along the property’s white wooden fences. An illuminated 6-foot-tall wire sea horse seems to float above a manicured pond; behind it, two angels grasp a banner reading “Peace on Earth.” Appropriately, the farm sits at the end of Highway to Heaven Lane.

Now, I’ve seen many a light display, but I’ve never seen anything like the blazing spectacle that is Flat Iron Farm— one of the largest holiday light shows in the state. In fact, from high above, the jolly ol’ elf himself might mistake the 200-acre complex for a small city. 

Twenty-two years ago, Bubby Knott first opened his home and farm— free of charge— to the community, fostering the spirit of the season. Since then, Flat Iron Farm has evolved into a sort of Christmas county fair enjoyed by thousands throughout the area.

As I park my car and pull my scarf tight in the chilly air, there’s already a long line forming for pony rides and pictures with Santa outside the farm’s horse stable and indoor riding center. Other families make their way to the petting zoo, where Knott’s menagerie of livestock— cattle, sheep, geese, even two ring-tailed lemurs named Bosko and Lemo— reside.

Getting a whiff of burning wood, I follow my nose to discover a group of youngsters huddled around an outdoor fire pit, roasting marshmallows as Alvin and the Chipmunks sing out their high-pitched pleads for “Christmas Not to Come Late.” Nearby, a 10-foot-tall steel grizzly bear towers in front of a rustic log cabin called the Trading Post, the farm’s candy shop. Inside, glass jars stuffed with candy canes, licorice and Swirly-Whirly Pops sit stacked on old oak cabinets.

“Are you smiling yet?” Knott greets me with a wry, rural drawl.

Like St. Nick himself, Knott is elusive, slippery with regard to his actual age, and usually answers questions with a simple “yep” or “nope”— often flashing an impish grin and a twinkle in his eye. He lets the spectacle of his farm speak for itself.

“The county’s been good to me so I’m giving it back,” he says. “I just did it so all the kids would have some place to go. Christmas is about kids, that’s what I think, so this is all for the kids.” 

In the two decades since Knott began hosting his festival, the size and scope, not to mention the electric bills, have grown considerably and continue to evolve. “Every year is different and every year has to be an adventure when they get here,” he says. On a weekend night, Knott estimates up to 1,500 vehicles visit the farm. He puts the number of lights employed at about a million.

Knott displays his eclectic collectibles as well— everything from vintage 1950s Coca-Cola machines to a sleek, white 1975 Thunderbird with red pinstripes down the side.

Several years ago, Knott acquired an FCC-licensed satellite radio frequency, with a signal radius of 2 miles, to broadcast his holiday music, which is synchronized with the myriad flashing lights splashed across his property.

“It’s just the most elaborate place,” says Suzette Shaw, who is watching her granddaughter as she circles the ring atop a small pony. She and her husband, Gary, have been bringing their two grandchildren, Lexi, 11, and Devin, 12, for the last five years. “It’s just beautiful. It’s become a family tradition. They’ve been counting down the days to come here.”

When the lights go dark on Jan. 2, Knott and his staff, a group of 25 volunteers and employees, are already scheming for next Christmas. “We never stop planning,” he says. By August, the displays come out of storage and by October, he and his crew begin setting things up again, making sure there’s some sort of new wrinkle to keep things different.

While checking out the over-the-top train garden, I meet Cathy Weiss and her husband, David, who have brought their four children to Flat Iron Farm for the first time. “You know, it’s a hassle just to put your own Christmas tree up,” she says shaking her head. “This is the spirit of Christmas. It’s funny because my kids ask me all the time if I believe in Santa Claus, and I always tell them I believe in the magic that is Santa Claus. That’s the real spirit of Christmas that we’d want ourselves to have and we’d want more people to have.”

When I catch up with Knott later, I tell him there’s a rumor going around that he’s actually the real Santa Claus. Asked for comment, he simply replies: “None,” his grin wide, a twinkle in his eye. 9

Flat Iron Farm is open to the public nightly through Jan. 1. 45840 Highway to Heaven Lane, Great Mills, Md. (about 2 hours from Baltimore), 240-925-7430, http://www.flatironfarmchristmas.com

“It’s like eating in a Sardinian home,” says Stephano Useli, 19, from behind the counter of his mother’s eponymous Hampden cafe, Daniela’s Pasta and Pastries. Everything in the tiny storefront is made in the building’s second-floor kitchen using recipes from Daniela’s grandmother and great-grandmother— from the buttery puff pastry used in pizzette, small round pastries filled with mozzarella and tomato or anchovy and capers, to the focaccia layered with thinly sliced eggplant or zucchini to the plump squares of lasagna oozing béchamel. There are only two tables, so pastas are best taken home for dinner, but stop in for an espresso and a many-layered sfogliatelle pastry or better yet, a bomboloni, the light-as-a-bubble Italian doughnut filled with lemon custard. Gaze at the mural of Cagliari, Sardinia’s capital, and dream of the Mediterranean. 900 W. 36th St., 443-759-9320. –Mary K. Zajac

Which famous writer once said, “I yield to no man in my love for Baltimore”?

If you’re thinking Edgar Allan Poe, think again. Poe spent just a few years in Baltimore. And if you’re thinking F. Scott Fitzgerald, wrong— Fitzgerald certainly didn’t love Baltimore, a city in which both he and his wife came undone.

On the other hand, Ogden Nash— who was a household name in his day, known as “America’s Comic Poet Laureate”— lived almost his entire adult life here and expressed his love for the city often in print. Yes, it was he who said, “I yield to no man in my love for Baltimore.”

In September, there was a grand celebration to mark the 40th anniversary of Nash’s death. It took place not in Baltimore, but in Rye, N.Y., where Nash was born and raised. “It was a huge event… with readings, interviews, songs, performances— the whole nine yards,” says Nash’s granddaughter, Frances Nash Smith. “They’re even thinking about naming a nearby park the Ogden Nash Memorial Park.” Meanwhile, here in Baltimore no special event marked the 40th anniversary of Nash’s death. None of the three homes where he spent his 40 years in town bears a plaque. And there’s nary a street, statue or monument to Nash’s name. Come on, Baltimore. Where’s the love?

Perhaps the lack of affection is due to the fact that Nash wrote light, popular verse, a literary style that has fallen out of fashion since the 1950s and ’60s, when Nash was at the height of his popularity. His poem “Celery,” for example, reads in full: “Celery, raw / Develops the jaw / But celery, stewed / Is more quiet- ly chewed.” Poets today tend to tackle broader themes— race, war, human suffering— a far cry from Nash’s whimsies.

“Sure, his verse was light,” says Gregg Wilhelm, executive
director of Baltimore’s CityLit Project. “But then again, other Baltimore writers pandered to popular taste. Poe wrote horror stories because it was what readers wanted and Fitzgerald went ‘Hollywood.’”

Or perhaps the lack of local popularity is tied to the fact that, unlike Poe and Fitzgerald, Nash’s work is rarely taught. That’s the opinion of Beth Alvarez, curator of literary manuscripts at the University of Maryland, College Park. “The work of Ogden Nash was never in any course I took in undergrad or graduate school,” says Alvarez. “Nor was his work in the high school American lit text. I doubt that he was ever considered to be a canonical writer.”

Jonathan Shorr, however, has a different opinion. Shorr, director of the Baltimore Literary Heritage Project, remembers that “the American poetry anthologies used in English classes contain a little Nash poem or two. But light verse is out of fashion now,” he says. “It was very tasty at the time, of course, but it’s not really long lasting, not part of today’s literary style.”

Beyond that, says Shorr, Baltimore does not seem to be especially interested in its literary history. “Dozens of wonderful writers lived here for most of their lives— Edith Hamilton, Upton Sinclair, Dashiell Hammett— and we don’t recognize them at all. The city’s always in the middle of some kind of crisis, and commemorating authors is very low on the agenda. Those who are memorialized, it’s usually because they’ve got a wealthy champion, or a nonprofit dedicated to preserving their memory.”

While Ian Brennan of the mayor’s office admits that the lack of memorial for Nash is surprising “given the plethora of statues and plaques to historic figures in Baltimore,” he says it’s not due to an “aversion” to his work. “These kinds of memorials usually come from family members or literary societies, not from the mayor,” says Brennan.

Nash’s granddaughter, Frances Nash Smith, says no one but family members have expressed interest in a memorial, so they haven’t pursued it. And, she admits to being slightly annoyed by Baltimore’s failure to acknowledge Nash as a native son. “It always irks me when they list writers from Baltimore, and you always hear the names Poe, Fitzgerald and [H.L.] Mencken, but never Ogden Nash,” says Smith, who lives in Baltimore. She thinks that may be due to a generational gap in Nash’s readership. “Americans over the age of 50 had Nash in their school textbooks and those under 35 are reading him, which I know from the number of permission requests that have been coming in. But there’s a generation that missed him, and most of them are now between ages 35 and 50.”

If not for a girl, Nash never would have come to Baltimore in the first place. After studying at Harvard University, he moved to New York City, where he worked as an advertising copywriter, laboring alongside F. Scott Fitzgerald to think up ads to be posted on streetcars. “I could have loved New York had I not loved Balti-more,” Nash once wrote. More to the point, he could have stayed in New York if he hadn’t encountered the charming and elusive Frances Rider Leonard at the Elkridge Hunt Ball in Maryland.

Leonard was a Baltimore blue blood who came by it honest. The granddaughter of Elihu Jackson, governor of Maryland from 1888 to 1892, she attended Calvert School and Roland Park Country School. Though Nash was immediately smitten with her, she managed to hold out on him until 1931, by which time he’d become a national celebrity. His poetry was appearing regularly in newspapers and magazines and his first collection, “Hard Lines,” was an instant hit, going through seven printings in the first year alone.

After marrying in June 1931 at the chapel of the Church of the Redeemer on North Charles Street, the Nashes split their time between Baltimore and New York, but by 1934, they’d decided to move permanently to Baltimore to be closer to Frances’ parents. But the move to Baltimore promised another benefit: it put Nash in close proximity to three racetracks. Gambling was a passion of his, and his visits to Pimlico inspired a poem celebrating the track’s most famous race (“The Derby is a race of aristocratic sleekness / for horses of birth to prove their worth to run in the Preakness.”) The poet made a habit of gambling on the race every year (“the Preakness is my weakness,” he admitted) before heading north with his family for the summer. And although, as Shorr explains, “he wasn’t particularly flamboyant, and he didn’t have a literary persona,” many locals nonetheless recognized Nash at the races. As a guest of Pimlico Race Course, he could be seen in a box seat (and, after the race, at lunch in the Old Clubhouse) in his rimless glasses and plaid sports coat. Whenever he spoke of his love for animals (which was often), he always added, “I especially like a nice horse at about twelve to one.”

The first address Nash moved to in Baltimore was 4205 Underwood Road, in leafy Roland Park. Here, the couple’s two daughters were born: Linell in 1932, and Isabel, in 1933. Ogden’s experiences as the father of two young daughters (“Being a father /Is quite a bother, / But I like it, rather”) provided a wealth of subject matter, evident in his 1936 collection “The Bad Parents’ Garden of Verse” and his 1938 children’s book “The Adventures of Isabel.” Within a decade, Nash was starting to be considered something of a national treasure. He appeared regularly on television and radio shows, and national newspapers followed his career and personal life. For a poet and wordsmith, he was a remarkably popular and well-loved figure.

Nash’s love for Baltimore— and Baltimore sports, in particular— was no secret. On Dec. 13, 1968, the front page of Life magazine was emblazoned with the words “My Colts: Verses and Reverses, by Ogden Nash.” Inside was a series of poems by Nash about the members of his favorite team, accompanied by full-page photographs of the players. “Colt Fever,” as one of the poems defines it, is “the disease fate holds in store / For the population of Baltimore / A disease more virulent than rabies / Felling men and women and even babies.” Life magazine described Nash as “the league-leading writer of light verse, who lives in Baltimore and loves the Colts.”

The versifier was an Orioles fan, too. When the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore for the ’54 season, he wrote a famous poem called “You Can’t Kill an Oriole.”

By all accounts, Nash led a happy and successful life. So, maybe part of the reason Baltimore neglects him is that, as a wealthy, satisfied, well-loved family man, Nash simply does not fit the romantic idea of a tragic, tormented artist. “He wasn’t the kind of man whose life sells biographies,” says Frances Nash Smith. “He was a normal, kind human being. There was nothing juicy in his life, no nasty stories.”

Or maybe it was because Nash was essentially a miniaturist, leaving behind no major canonized work— no “The Raven,” no “The Great Gatsby.” Still, says Shorr, “I love Ogden Nash. Whenever I’m depressed, I just open up his ‘Collected Works’— it always cheers me up.”

But perhaps Nash’s time is coming. His short, witty, ungrammatical verse is ideally suited to the digital age— and perfect for a 140-character post on Twitter. Maybe one day there will be a statue of him outside Pimlico Race Course or M&T Bank Stadium or Camden Yards, a concrete sign that Baltimore returns his love at long last.

Nash Nuggets
- “Here’s a good rule of thumb / Too clever is dumb.”
- “A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.”
- “Candy is dandy / But liquor is quicker”
- “How easy for those who do not bulge / To not overindulge!”
- “The cow is of the bovine ilk: One end is moo, the other, milk.”
- “I don’t mind Eels / Except as meals.”
- “Children aren’t happy with nothing to ignore / And that’s what parents were created for.”
- “People who work sitting down get paid more than people who work standing up.”
- “Professional men, they have no cares / Whatever happens, they get theirs.”
- “To keep your marriage brimming, / With love in the loving cup, / Whenever you’re wrong, admit it; / Whenever you’re right, shut up.”

6 heads garlic, peeled
2 cups canola oil (or just enough to cover the cloves in a small saucepan)
1 16-ounce jar with cap

The only work this recipe requires is peeling a whole truckload of garlic. To get a head start on the peeling process, put the unpeeled cloves in a metal bowl, cover the bowl with a plate, or another similar shaped bowl, and shake it vigorously. The skins will loosen or fall off. Once you get all your cloves peeled, toss them in a small saucepan and pour in the canola oil until it just covers the cloves. Put the saucepan on the absolute lowest heat your stovetop can muster (consider using a heat diffuser mat), and let it cook for 1 1/2 hours. A few champagne-like bubbles are inevitable, but avoid the rough boil. You want the garlic cloves to soften (while maintaining their shape), but not brown. Test the softness of the cloves with a spoon. When your cloves are soft, turn off the heat and allow the oil to cool. Spoon the garlic into individual jars and cover it with the garlic oil. The garlic will last in the refrigerator for months.

Waterfront Kitchen is situated at the water’s edge in Fells Point with glorious views of Baltimore’s harbor. The new restaurant was carved out of an area in the Living Classrooms building that was formerly used as a gallery and event space. Now redone by designer Patrick Sutton, the room is cozy yet sophisticated, with a neutral palette and rustic touches. The menu is culled from local farmers and producers by consulting chef Jerry Pellegrino (Levi Briggs is the chef de cuisine) and changes frequently, depending on what’s in season. This winter, expect to see options such as herbed winter vegetable soup with potato dumplings; a grilled Truck Patch Farm pork chop with red wine-braised apples and cabbage and apple cider jus; Chincoteague oyster stew and, of course, a Maryland crab cake. (We particularly love the Berkshire blue cheese lurking in the whipped Yukon Gold spuds.) The well-edited wine list is grouped by producers, rather than by varietals, and features wines selected for their hand-crafted qualities. Booking tip: for small dining groups, definitely request the intimate circular banquette in the corner. Outdoor seating available on the waterside deck in warmer months. Serving lunch and dinner, and brunch on Sunday.
1417 Thames St., 443-681-5310, http://www.waterfrontkitchen.com.

Martini. It is the drink of the American Dream. Raise the glass, sip the liquid and taste the success. For more than a century, it has symbolized triumph, toasted prosperity, indicated affluence and epitomized opulence. The mere mention of its name conjures images of tuxedos and evening gowns, sparkling conversation in the cocktail lounge or dancing to the orchestra music at the supper club.

No other drink has captured our collective consciousness. H.L. Mencken called it “the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet.” And so, I ask: Why is it so damned hard to find a good martini around Baltimore?

The martini began life as a gin drink and for our purposes here it will remain one. I know you may like vodka— I don’t care. I know you think the martini was invented at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York City around 1910 by a bartender named Martini. You are wrong… by decades. “The New and Improved Illustrated Bartender’s Manual” by Harry Johnson listed the “Martini” in 1882. In it, Johnson wrote the gin-to-vermouth ratio was a precise 1-to-1, an equal partnership in which the vermouth, a 16th-century white wine fortified with herbs, tamed the bite of the gin.

But possibly from the pouring of that first martini, did the adjusting begin. More vermouth for a wetter martini; less for a dry one. And, over the years, gin got less sweet, so less vermouth was needed to temper it.

John Astin, an Academy Award-nominated actor who lives in Baltimore and teaches acting at Johns Hopkins University, remembers the 1950s martini era especially fondly. Eisenhower was in the White House and change was in the air. “It was the era of ‘The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit,’” he says. “Suddenly people were making martinis at 3-to-1 or even 4-to-1. It was positively daring.”

Astin locked in at the two-to-one blend and has been drinking them that way ever since. His was once the common mix. But at the moment the dry martini holds sway, leaving Astin to suffer greatly in this age of reduced vermouth. “I am looked upon as an absolute oddball. When ordering I try and make it as simple as possible so it doesn’t get lost in the translation between the waitress and the bartender,” he says. “I can tell just by looking if it’s been made right or wrong.”

And it is easy to tell just by looking— the Astin martini is distinctly more yellow in color than the martini typically served in bars today. Todd Headings, bartender at One World Café, says a martini as “wet” as Astin’s is rare. “I do use vermouth, but it’s a strong flavor,” he says. “Some people don’t care how much I put in— they just like holding the glass. But true martini drinkers are very specific. They’ll tell me what they want.”

It’s that “right or wrong” attitude that convinces martini fans that once a proper balance is found, nothing else will do. Formulas are perfected and passed down through generations, like directions for roasting the Thanksgiving turkey. Mine came from local author Neil Grauer, who years earlier learned it from Marc Davis, the Walt Disney animator credited with designing Bambi and Tinker Bell. Temperature is crucial. I keep my bottle of Bombay gin in the freezer. Gin stored this way drops to 10 degrees; gin over ice gets down to maybe 40 degrees. Stir five parts gin to one part Noilly Prat dry vermouth into a cocktail shaker— just stir, don’t shake. This is because shaking a martini is a silly thing to do and doesn’t really accomplish anything. Pour into a martini glass and add not only an olive, but also a twist of lemon. Now drink it. You’ll taste the gin and the vermouth. That’s what makes it a martini.

It can’t get much simpler, but somehow these basic steps are missing from the playbooks of Charm City’s bartenders. The most obnoxious habit among our drink mixers is an attempt at flamboyance. They pour a little vermouth into a glass, swirl it around then dump it down the drain behind the bar. If you ever see someone do this, I suggest you stop them in mid-mix, thank them and leave. They were about to sell you a very expensive glass of cold gin and call it a martini. “I don’t know where they learned that,” says Mark Russell, owner of the Maryland Bartending Academy. “They certainly didn’t learn it here. We’ve taught a 5-to-1 ratio for 30 years. I think it’s a case of a bartender not knowing what he’s doing, imitating another bartender who doesn’t know what he’s doing either.”

To make matters worse, somewhere along the line it was decided to cover up bad martinis by putting them in big glasses. Check out the 1934 film classic “The Thin Man.” William Powell and Myrna Loy are having the time of their lives sipping what look to be 4-ounce cocktails. By comparison the glasses in today’s bars are enormous, weighing in at 8, 10 or even a freakish 12 ounces. “I blame McDonald’s,” says Carl Kreps, a glassware salesman for Mid-Atlantic Restaurant Supply. “They started super-sizing their meals and everything got bigger in the bars and restaurants, too. Now customers don’t care what a drink tastes like. They just want a lot for their money.”

To review: Martini perfection can only be achieved if these three criteria are met. A.) The product is the right size— i.e. not served in a glass that can hold the contents of a bottle of beer. B.) Cold, and I mean cold, from start to finish. C.) Taste. And that dry martini gag where you fill a glass with gin and then whisper the word “Vermouth” wasn’t funny when your grandfather did it either. 

The recent demise of Burke’s, Perring Place and The Valley Inn has left a gaping hole in the properly made martini scene. I hit the road looking for spiritual salvation, on a quest for the genuine libation. It was a journey filled with disappointment. One downtown hotel bar once popular with F. Scott Fitzgerald served a tepid martini with a wedge of lime stuck to the rim. If Fitzgerald weren’t dead already, that would have killed him. I also encountered a martini bar whose menu doesn’t contain an actual martini— only Lemon Drop, Chocolate and even Cheesecake “’tinis.” Just reading that drink list made me a little queasy.

But perseverance was its own reward. The following five watering holes met my unwavering standards, plus an added economic incentive— none cost more than $7. At each, I walked in, sat down and ordered a martini straight-up. And at each a chilly martini arrived, in a proper glass, with an appropriate amount of vermouth.

Seek out these bars and try them…but not all in the same night.

Pappas Bar: Just enough noise and neon. Behind the bar Craig Gallagher deftly pours a martini befitting his 17 years of experience. “I make ’em like I like ’em.” 1725 Taylor Ave., Baltimore, 410-661-4357, http://www.pappas-crabcakes.com

Johnny Dee’s: Black leather stools accent this Formica-topped throwback lounge. The place is cozy and dark, old-time Baltimore at its best. “I don’t know too much about life,” quips 16-year bartending veteran Barbara Sollenberger. “But I do know how to make drinks.” 1705 Amuskai Road, Parkville, 410-665-7000

The Peppermill: All 27 seats of this landmark bar are usually taken. Marcella Marsiglia and Chris Mattson work it like a perfectly choreographed ballet. Their 40 years of combined
experience show in every cocktail. 1301 York Road, Lutherville, 410-583-1107, pepmill.com

Tio Pepe: Clad in red jacket and black bow tie, Peruvian import Jonathan Delacruz silently stirs a martini. As he sets it upon Tio Pepe’s stunning tile bar he offers the traditional Spanish toast, “Salud.” 10 E. Franklin St., 410-539-4675

Jennings: (opening image) The martini shimmers, bathed in the red glow of this iconic Catonsville watering hole. Bartender Gretta Watson admires her creation, built on 21 years of know-how. Four olives on a toothpick top her masterpiece. 808 Frederick Road, Catonsville, 410-744-3824, http://www.jenningscafe.com

Blast from the past

If you didn’t foresee National Premium Beer ever returning to bars in your lifetime, you’re not alone. Neither did its new owner, Tim Miller. Miller, an Easton-based realtor whose previous claim to fame was selling Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti a farm on the Eastern Shore, attended an auction of old trademarks last December at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan. He passed on familiar but long-dead brands like Kiddie City, Colliers Magazine and Handi-Wrap, but when the chance to bid on National Premium came up, the beer memorabilia lover snatched it up— at a bargain price of “less than five figures,” he says.

That gave Miller the rights to the trademark and the Web domain, nationalpremiumbeer.com, but on the way back from New York, he realized he wasn’t completely sure what he was going to do with it. “I figured, hey, even if I just make and sell some T-shirts, it’ll be worth it,” he says. 

Miller has already printed (and sold out) those T-shirts, and now he’s working on the beer. If all goes according to plan, Miller hopes to have National Premium back at local watering holes by Orioles opening day.

But the logistics of resurrecting a dead beer brand has proved more difficult than Miller anticipated. Finding a local brewery to take on production has been a challenge, as microbreweries either lack the capacity or the equipment needed for pasteurizing a lager beer. Currently, he’s working with Fordham & Old Dominion Brewery in Dover,  Del., which he hopes will produce the first batch. Eventually, Miller wants to open his own brewery— back in Maryland.

Tracking down the formula for the beer was another hurdle. Miller posted inquiries on beer message boards and on the company’s website seeking help, eventually finding a brew master who worked at the National Brewing Co. plant in the mid-’70s. After consulting with other brewers, the brew master, Ray Klimovitz, was able to reconstruct the recipe. “The formula changed several times over the years, but this will hopefully be the one that most people remember,” says Miller.

At 43 years old, Miller admits he’s too young to remember the glory days of National Premium, but he hopes to solicit feedback from as many “experienced” National Premium drinkers as possible— something he likely won’t have trouble doing. “There are a lot of folks out there that promised me they remember the taste,” he says. “We’ll have a big tasting at some point. Oh, yeah, we’re going to have some fun.”
—Joe Sugarman

You must remember this…

Sloe Sling. Dainty Lady. Pigtown Punch. Absinthe Smash. Blind Tiger.
These were the drinks on offer at the first gathering of the Forgotten Cocktail Club, a pop-up event held on a Friday night in October at Maisy’s restaurant in Mount Vernon. Taking the stairs to the lower level led visitors to a bouncer decked out in pinstripes and a fedora. Ragtime jazz played and a slide show of black-and-white photos from the temperance movement flickered on the TV screens as 21st-century folks sipped early 20th-century cocktails.

The club, which will sporadically pop up in various Baltimore bars and venues for one night only, is the brainchild of Brendan Dorr, the renowned head bartender and mixologist at B&O American Brasserie whose mission is to pay homage to the pre-Prohibition era and reinvigorate the cocktail as a drink of choice. “Pre-Prohibition is a bartender’s roots,” says Dorr. “It was an ever-growing, learning, changing and expanding time, as is today.”

Dorr enlisted Jon Blair— bartender at Ryleigh’s Oyster and production manager of Blackwater Distilling— to co-host the club. Together, the men create the drink menu and preside over the bar, each wearing a white button-down and black necktie. “Creating cocktails is an art form, just like creating a dish,” says Dorr. “There is definitely a skill side to developing a cocktail, but there is also the art side— using boutique spirits and making your own ingredients… A cocktail, just like food, should look as good as it tastes.”

Because the location varies with each meeting, the club offers the fleeting thrill of antique saloons and secret speakeasies. But thanks to the fact that we live in the age of social media, you no longer have to stand outside on a street corner hoping to overhear the password to get in. Just check out the club’s Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/forgottencocktailclub. 
—Gina Moffa 

The gypsy brewer

In 2004, Brian Strumke left behind his life as an international techno DJ and bought his grandfather’s house in a neighborhood formerly considered Highlandtown. The name had been changed, prophetically in Strumke’s case, to Brewer’s Hill.

Without music to turn to, Strumke began home brewing as his creative outlet. Four years later, a friend introduced him to New York-based beer distributor Brian Ewing, who helped Strumke take the first steps to becoming one of the world’s first, and best, gypsy brewers.

Gypsy brewing isn’t much older than Strumke’s brewing career. It is a subset of contract brewing. In contract brewing, a buyer hires a brewery to produce a beer, which the buyer then puts his label on. It’s an old and common way of making beer. Like these buyers, gypsy brewers rent industrial brewing equipment. Unlike some contract brewers, gypsy brewers exercise strong creative control of their beer, and as the name suggests, travel the world in search of places to brew.

“I wanted to be in the beer industry, I wanted to make awesome beer, but I also wanted this freedom,” says Strumke. “Now I’m constantly on tour, promoting beer. I’m back to my original lifestyle that I once missed.”

Before inking his first deal to brew his Stillwater Artisanal Ales at Pub Dog brewery in Frederick, Strumke, 35, had not worked a day in the food and beverage industry. He approaches brewing much as he did making music and views the brewery as a studio. The brewers at the breweries he works with, then, are like sound engineers who help Strumke understand the equipment. “He will bounce ideas off us from a production feasibility standpoint, but otherwise he’s in control,” says George Humbert, who owns Pub Dog. “Recipe-wise, he’s a Zen master.”

Strumke’s beers receive consistently high ratings on rating sites online, he’s been featured in The Washington Post and on NPR, and in 2011 Ratebeer.com named him one of the top new brewers in the world.

Though he is still headquartered in Baltimore, Strumke has brewed in Belgium and Denmark, and has brews planned in Germany, Sweden, Italy and the U.K. This season, some of Stillwater’s newest imports will hit the shelves: The Rauchstar is a smoke barley wine Strumke says tastes like “a barbecue in a pine forest,” while Debauched is a Scandinavian farmhouse ale. 

“Beer is finally becoming epicurean, an artisanal product, and it’s gaining respect, which is what a lot of beer aficionados have been pushing for,” Strumke says. Best of all, “it’s the affordable luxury. You can buy one of the best beers in the world for under $30 a bottle. You try to do that with wine or liquor? Not even close.”
—Michael Lee Cook

Cider house rules

Ask Rob Miller how Distillery Lane Ciderworks, Maryland’s first commercial hard cidery, came about, and he’ll tell you a story about pumpkins— not apples. In 1998, a family outing to a pumpkin patch led the financial analyst and his wife, Patty Power, to fantasize about moving their family from Montgomery County to the country. “We just thought, like everybody does, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to live here?’” says Miller. A month later, Miller and Power bought at auction a historic Civil War-era property outside of Burkittsville known as The Encampment, which is a mere five miles from the pumpkin patch. The 95-acre property already had a few established apple trees on it. Making and selling cider occurred to the couple as a way for them to create a value-added product from their investment— despite the fact that neither of them had ever farmed, brewed beer or made cider before.

In 2001, Miller and his family (including his father, now in his 80s, and 26 uncles and cousins) planted 10 acres with 1,300 custom-grafted trees, a mixture of eating and cider apples. Five years passed before the trees produced fruit, giving Miller the necessary time to apply for and be approved as a “licensed food processing facility,” since cider is considered by the state to be a food product. The eating apples Miller sold at a local roadside stand (cider apples are generally too bitter for eating out of hand). The cider apples went into sweet (non-alcoholic) cider Miller sold both to South Mountain Creamery for re-sale and to home hard cider-making enthusiasts, who visited the cidery to buy 5-gallon carboys of the juice. Tim Rose, a geologist for the Smithsonian, was one of those home cider makers before Miller asked him to be Distillery Lane’s cider maker.

Rose’s assiduous note-taking and attention to detail coupled with Miller’s growing expertise in the orchard led to their first commercial batches of hard cider in 2010: 400 cases of three kinds of cider, a dry carbonated style, a sweet carbonated and a cider fermented in oak. This year, the cidery will double production, making 800 cases of 10 blends of hard ciders, including single variety bottlings made from apples like Kingston Black. They also will produce 6,000 to 7,000 gallons of sweet cider.

Earlier this year, the Mount Vernon Ladies Auxiliary purchased 650 gallons of hard cider made from Newtown Pippins to use to make apple brandy in George Washington’s resuscitated still at Mount Vernon. Miller had planted the apples because they were Washington’s favorite, he says, not realizing that the first president didn’t grow them for eating.  “They [the apples] always tasted terrible,” Miller confides. “I wondered, ‘What the hell was he [Washington] thinking?’” Turns out he was thinking what Miller was thinking.
—Mary K. Zajac
[ Distillery Lane hosts cider tastings, orchard tours and monthly half-day hard cider workshops. Its cider is sold on the premises and at 7th Street Liquors in Frederick. Distillery Lane Ciderworks, 5533 Gapland Road, Jefferson, Md., 301-834-8920, http://www.ciderapples.com ]

Shaking it up

Josh Sullivan is attempting to do away with the saccharin, falsely flavored “tini” cocktails that are common in restaurants and bars these days.

His homemade drink recipes, which he features on his website http://www.PostProhibition.com, hearken back to a time of high quality, simple ingredients. Sullivan creates his own custom bitters, grows herbs in his backyard garden, and uses fresh seasonal juices in his cocktails. “A lot of the inspiration comes from old classics, but I put my own twist on in my recipes,” says Sullivan, 29, whose “day job” is as a bartender at The Maryland Club.

http://www.PostProhibtion.com, which Sullivan started in fall 2010, features drink recipes and video tutorials, and spotlights lesser-known liquors. Sullivan shares his knowledge of uncommon ingredients for cocktails, like fresh beet and cucumber juice, and routinely answers questions about making ingredients and drinks. Inspired by his 19th-century hero, Jeremiah Thomas, the nation’s first professional bartender, and Dale Degoff, a legendary mixologist, Sullivan wants to reintroduce Baltimore to the art of handcrafted mixed drinks.

“San Francisco, Chicago and Portland are all places where the cocktail scene is very big,” he says. “So we are trying to pick things up in Baltimore, where there isn’t really a large speakeasy presence.”

Every month Sullivan helps to host the Libation Lounge, a party held at the Gin Mill in Canton. Modeled after the speakeasies of the early 20th century, participants are encouraged to dress up in period-appropriate garb. As guests sip, retro jazz and soul music plays in the background. The 10 to 12 different cocktails served at the Libation Lounge are seasonal, and in Decembers past have featured house-made eggnog and hot buttered rum.

So what’s Sullivan’s favorite drink? “Years ago I went to New Orleans and tried my first sazerac,” he says of the drink made from sugar, a splash of water, bitters, cognac and absinthe. “That really opened my mind to the possibilities of how cocktail making can become almost art-like.”

One day soon, Sullivan hopes to open his own speakeasy-style bar. “People are expecting more from their bar experience,” he says, “and we want to give it to them, to capture that magic they had back in the day.” 
—Jewel Edwards

Maryland made

In 2008, Black Ankle Vineyards won the highest award granted in the Maryland Wineries Association’s Governor’s Cup com- petition before it even opened for business.

Three years later, the Mount Airy winery has won two more Best in Shows, added 20 new acres of vines and continued to set the bar for Maryland wine.

“We have been just delighted by the reception we have gotten,” says Sarah O’Herron, who with her husband, Ed Boyce, owns and farms Black Ankle. “People are realizing you can really make great wine in Maryland. It’s not just a fluke or good luck or a great vintage.”

Al Spoler, co-host of WYPR’s “Cellar Notes” and organizer of the Governor’s Cup, agrees. “It’s their consistency year in and year out that really impresses me,” says Spoler, who includes wines from Black Ankle in his personal wine cellar. Other Maryland wineries have made good wines in the past, he explains, but Black Ankle impressed by “making concentrated, well-extracted wines better than anything we had seen in Maryland. And they do it on a yearly basis.”

O’Herron, 39, and Boyce, 48, former management consultants based in Washington, D.C., who had no formal training in winemaking, purchased their 146-acre property in Frederick County in 2002, but their research began long before that.

The couple “read everything we could get our hands on,” says O’Herron, visited vineyards in the United States and abroad and talked endlessly with growers and winemakers. O’Herron even worked harvests as part of three mini-internships at wineries. For a year, they drove around Maryland with an infant son in tow to find “a property that would be great grape land with big hillsides, low fertility and all the things conducive to fine wine grapes, though not necessarily conducive to other farming,” explains O’Herron.

The couple plants grape varieties grown in Bordeaux— Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Malbec— as well as Syrah. They were the first in Maryland to plant white wine grapes like Gruner Veltliner, grown primarily in Austria, and Albariño, a Spanish grape. Black Ankle now has 42 acres of grapes that are farmed as close to organically as possible. (The couple hopes to be 100 percent organic in the future.)

“We are absolute maniacs for taking care of the vineyard,” says O’Herron. “We are out there hand tending every vine eight to 10 times a year, pruning vines, tying them back to the trellis, thinning fruit, pulling leaves, adjusting grapes, just trying to get the most out of these little guys.” The work is paying off in reds that are full bodied and silky, without the astringency that can sometimes crop up in local wines, and whites that boast both crispness and ripe fruit.

There are still some local wine drinkers, O’Herron admits, that hew to the perception that Maryland wine is second rate. But, she says, there are plenty of consumers who subscribe to the “eat and drink local” movement who are thrilled to find a wine grown not too far from their backyard that they can get excited about.           
—Mary K. Zajac
{ 14463 Black Ankle Road, Mt. Airy, Md., 301-829-3338, http://www.blackankle.com }

Good woods

John Gasparine is passionate about two things: wood and beer. For a time, they were separate passions.

Then, one day in 2006, he was in a truck bumping along a road in Paraguay on the way to meet contacts for his sustainable wood flooring import business. The driver of the truck shared some maté in a metal cup lined with the exotic native wood species palo santo.

When Gasparine took a sip, he realized the sandalwood and vanilla flavors in the wood had infused the maté, and the proverbial light bulb went off: If palo santo flavored the maté then perhaps it could flavor beer, too.
When he returned to Baltimore, where he’s lived since graduating from Goucher College in 2001, Gasparine contacted Sam Calagione, owner of Dogfish Head Brewery in Rehoboth, Del., who said he was game to brew a batch with palo santo. “He thought of it as a fun experiment and I thought of it as a fun experiment,” says Gasparine, 32.

A few months later, Gasparine tasted Dogfish’s first batch of Palo Santo Marron. “It was the most exquisite beer I had ever tasted,” he says. Others agreed, and Dogfish decided to build a 10,000-gallon tank from palo santo in which they would age Palo Santo Marron, and make the beer one of its regular offerings.

Since then, Gasparine’s wood flooring business has fallen victim to the recession. But the good news is he’s merged his two passions into a single mission: to spread the word about wood. An autodidact with the zeal of an evangelist, he can expound widely on the history of beer and barrel making— he’s read about it in Old English, no less— and argue convincingly that wood is the most versatile natural resource on the planet, and as yet underutilized in the food and wine industry. “There’s estimated to be more than 100,000 wood species on this planet,” says Gasparine. “It’s uncharted territory.”

For the past three years, Gasparine has been working with Steve Marsh, the cellarmaster at Heavy Seas Beer in Baltimore, to study how various woods— and various wood treatment processes— affect the flavor of beer during the brewing process (as opposed to after the brewing process, as with Dogfish’s Palo Santo Marron).

“He’s just got this enormous body of knowledge and incredible enthusiasm for the possibilities and nuances of using wood in the preparation of beverages,” says Hugh Sisson, founder of Heavy Seas Beer. “And he’s very methodical, which is good because we want to continue experimental, fun projects, but we don’t want to do them without any trial and error.”

The first result of the collaboration is Plank I, a beer based on an old ale recipe that’s been flavored with poplar wood that underwent a thermal treatment. “There’s a smoky, dry, toffee flavor that wasn’t in the beer before the poplar was introduced,” says Gasparine. He and Marsh are working on Plank II now, testing cherry, eucalyptus and poplar that have undergone the same thermal treatment. “Whatever tastes the best is what will go to market in March,” says Gasparine.

Gasparine is also spending a lot of time in a chemistry lab at his alma mater, where he and Goucher organic chemistry professor Kevin Schultz are studying the chemistry of wood and alcoholic beverages. “We are looking at what types of compounds, on a chemical level, come out of toasted poplar, when it’s subjected to alcohol, and what kind of compounds, on a chemical level, come out of Spanish cedar,” he says.

That’s just one of thousands of experiments Gasparine has planned. He wants to take what he’s learned and publish it in food sciences journals. He wants to write a book. But mainly he wants to keep experimenting— and persuading others to experiment— with the effects of wood on food and drink.
—Laura Wexler

Rye is a new bar located on the site of the old Whistling Oyster Pub (reputedly one of Fells Point’s most haunted spots). Owner Ryan Perlberg, who also operates Stuggy’s Hot Dogs next door, has given the place a new look and added a lounge area in back, with comfy sofas, low tables and intimate lighting. High-end ryes and bourbons are the stars of the show, along with imported bottle beers and specialty cocktails such as the Monkton Mule, Pimm’s Cup and our fave, the Pony Express (Old Overholt rye whiskey, local honey, lemon and Prosecco). On the menu: charcuterie, flatbread pizzas, the “sausage of the moment” and best of all, late-night breakfast items like pumpkin-spiced pancakes, crab omelets, a Monte Cristo sandwich and poutine biscuits— all served until last call. Open seven nights a week until 2 a.m. 807 S. Broadway, 443-438-3296

7 lemons, plus 5 to 7 extra for juicing
4 tablespoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons thyme, picked off the stem but not chopped
2 16-ounce canning jars

Wash 7 lemons and then slice crosswise into ¼-inch rounds. Mix the salt and sugar together and toss in the lemon slices to coat. Stack them snuggly in a clean jar or small airtight container. Every 4 or 5 slices, sprinkle in some thyme, and then continue stacking and packing. Fill the jar to the brim with lemon slices, and then pour on the extra lemon juice to fill in any cracks. You want the lemon juice to come right up to the top of the jar, submerging the slices. Screw the lid on tightly.

Keep the jars stored in your fridge for 3 weeks before opening, shaking for a few seconds every 4 days. After 3 weeks, remove the slices as you need them, remembering to rinse the salt off the lemon before using. Preserved lemon will keep in the fridge for months.

They say it’s hard to get that first job these days. I believe that to be true. So I am eternally grateful that long, long ago, I stumbled into a position at a country and western radio station. It was 1970 and I was 18 and had just finished my first year at college. My friends were working as lifeguards, camp counselors, tennis instructors or selling ice cream for a guy called “The Ding Dong Man.” But I lucked into a job where I wore a coat and tie!

I wrote “rip and read” for a country and western radio station in Maine. This is the news that is read on the air by announcers, and it chiefly involved calling the police to inquire about someone who had fallen into a cement mixer. I also operated the control board for Red Sox baseball games, a near-holy pastime in New England. No mistake was tolerated. The man on the control board had to be ever vigilant for a cue that allowed us to break away from the game and insert a local commercial for the Charles E. Downing Insurance Agency or Oxford Plains Speedway.

The station (no longer in business) called itself “The Country Giant” and broadcast from spacious studios hard by a chicken processing plant outside of Augusta, the seedy state capital. It smelled pretty bad. Most people think of Maine as rock-bound coasts, lighthouses and pine forests. Augusta looked like East Berlin.

At the station I acquired a vast knowledge of “real” country music. I learned the words to “The Letter Edged in Black,” “There’s a Tear In My Beer,” “I’m Walking the Floor Over You,” “Don’t Sell Daddy Any More Whiskey” and “Don’t Come Home A’Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ On Your Mind).”  These were songs that spoke to the great American themes of death, drunkenness and cheating. If you were drinking doubles and acting single (there’s a song there), you were one of our faithful listeners back in the day when, as another song put it, country wasn’t cool.

At The Country Giant we played the tuneful offerings of Mr. Jimmie Rodgers, the singing brakeman, the father of country music. We played Hank Williams and George Jones. We loved the Statler Brothers, Johnny Cash and the Carter Family. We liked Miss Kitty Wells’ “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” and Loretta Lynn’s “You’re the Reason Our Kids are Ugly.” We liked Ernest Tubb’s “Drivin’ Nails in My Coffin.” We were driving nails in our own coffins, too. Everyone smoked. Ashtrays the size of Buick hubcaps were everywhere and they were always full.

Some of the employees at our station aspired to alcoholism. This was no mere hobby. They dedicated their waking hours to it. I think the only thing that saved them was that it would have taken a genius to figure out how to support a drinking habit on our meager wages. But many tried. Drinking on the air was forbidden but the guys on the control board at night liked to keep a “tall boy” or a “frosty” at the ready.

At our station, we looked only to the past. In fact, the official station policy was that music recorded after 1960 might be the handiwork of godless communists or even the Devil! Taylor Swift is a sweet gal and I just read where she made $45 million last year. She’s got a fine voice. But listen to her sing. And then listen to Patsy Cline do “Crazy” or “I Fall To Pieces.” I rest my case.

Our listeners were not merely fans of the war in Vietnam, they were convinced we would win. We regularly played Sgt. Barry Sadler’s “The Ballad of the Green Berets.” We also played the Lord’s Prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag, and we went off the air every night at midnight to the tune of the national anthem.

On Sunday morning we fulfilled our public service obligations with “The Bible Speaks” or pre-recorded religious programs from Wheeling, W.Va., that promised all were bound for hell. But a long pre-recorded program was heaven-sent, for it would allow the man on the control board to go across the road to Bolley’s Famous Franks for a hot dog or down to the corner store for molasses doughnuts.

As we were in the capital and not just any jerkwater town, we even had live performers— professional yodelers, a cappella singers of Christian music and a man who played the comb. I met Dick Curless (“A Tombstone Every Mile”) once. Another time I met Hank Snow. He was a tiny man dressed in a bright sequined suit. He sang “I’m Just Here To Get My Baby Out of Jail.”

Alas, the country and western life was not the life for me. I took a turn for the worse and wound up a journalist. But I still have Ernest Tubb, Patsy Cline, Kitty Wells and Jim Reeves to make me wonder, as Merle Haggard used to sing, if the good times are really over. The Statler Brothers knew that when they sang “things get complicated when you get past 18.”

Life, I’ve found, can be well explained by old time country and western music. Did not Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys tell us that “time changes everything”? 

The Wine Market in Locust Point has promoted former sous chef Andrew Weinzirl to the position of executive chef. (921 E. Fort Ave., 410-244-6166) ...

Old hometown luncheon favorite, the Woman’s Industrial Exchange, is set to reopen in its classic setting just after Thanksgiving. (333 N. Charles St.) ...

Up north in Fallston, The Mallet Restaurant and Crabhouse is now open, with a menu created by consulting chef Davide Rossi. (2403 Belair Road, 410-877-2722) ...

Celebrity chef Michael Mina has opened an outpost in town— a restaurant called Wit & Wisdom, situated in the new Four Seasons Hotel in Harbor East. (410-223-13610)

A new music venue, Baltimore Soundstage, has opened in the club space formerly called Mist.  (124 Market Place)

Grillfire, a new contemporary American Grill, has opened at The Town Center at Arundel Preserve. It’s the sixth restaurant in the New York-based George Martin Group, known for its contemporary steakhouses. The atmosphere reflects that steakhouse philosophy, with the design employing natural, masculine elements such as brick, stone and polished mahogany. In addition to steakhouse favorites, the menu features a variety of chicken and seafood dishes. Entrées include a slow-roasted maple-brined pork chop, fettucine with sea scallops and jumbo shrimp, and a crabmeat-crusted filet mignon. 7793-A Arundel Mills Blvd., Hanover, 410-799-2883

Drew Rieger can date his passion for old houses to the 1980s, when he’d ride the Hopkins shuttle bus downtown as a JHU engineering student minoring in music at The Peabody Conservatory. From the vantage point of his bus seat, he peered into the parlors of the once-grand 19th-century townhouses in and around Mount Vernon Place. “Looking in the windows, I imagined finding one down on its luck and bringing it back with all the furnishings, finishes and grandeur it deserved,” says Drew Rieger, a local designer with a background in engineering. “A few years later, I was renovating a few modest old houses, reading about period architecture and starting to collect antiques at auctions.”

By 1998, he’d purchased a rare table and sideboard made by the celebrated 19th-century Baltimore cabinetmaker John Needles and an English harpsichord he imagined one day playing in his own candlelit salon. His real estate sleuthing, however, had proven less successful. A “For Sale” ad in 2003 brought him to a huge boardinghouse near Mount Vernon Place. After he walked inside the front door and tripped over a drunk passed out on the floor, he left. A year later, he returned for lack of other prospects and this time made his way through each of the home’s 56 rooms on six floors. In two of the tiny first-floor rooms, he spotted a stunning 6-foot-wide marble mantel and an ornate ceiling medallion. “Amazing, beautiful original details were still there,” he says. “I knew I was standing in the parlor of a Greek Revival townhouse built in Baltimore before the Civil War.” 
 
Rieger paid what he considered a bargain price because the building was dilapidated and languishing on the market. The day he settled, he took a sledgehammer to the interior first-floor walls and went on to fill 14 Dumpsters the first year without removing any original material. “I was unraveling the whole house because I could see antique parts had been cut out and repurposed: banisters, newel posts and 60 pine doors, which I had to rematch to original openings,” he says. “I used auto body filler to replace chunks removed from the old casings and millwork where plumbing pipes were inserted. Some windows had original wavy glass; some windows were gone.”

By separating 20th-century drywall from original old plaster, Rieger discovered the original English Georgian configuration of the 24-by-24-foot grand, formal parlor. He also discovered that the rear section of the first floor was totally different, added around 1880 as space for a kitchen and servants. 

While Rieger reclaimed the house’s original materials, he also researched its history, discovering it had been built in 1847 by a businessman named George R. Gaither as one of a row of five houses for luxury rentals. “I traced the two marble mantels and the front windows’ three exterior cast-iron balconies to English pattern books in circulation 30 years before the construction of the house,” he says. “Gaither had an import-export business and probably sent to England for a number of fine appointments to furnish his new rowhouses.”

A photograph from the 1938 Historic American Buildings Survey identified the address as the Cathedral Hotel in the early 20th century. But Google yielded the best cache: “The Sun’s 1903 obituary for Dr. Francis Turquand Miles noted him as being laid out here, in the parlor of his home,” says Rieger. “He was the commander of infantry at Fort Sumter at the opening of the Civil War and subsequently a field surgeon who was invited after the war by the University of Maryland to be the chair of neurology and physiology. His wife, Jeannie, attended balls at the home of John Jacob Astor in New York. His son, Louis Wardlaw Miles, was a classmate of Woodrow Wilson at Hopkins, English literature professor to F. Scott Fitzgerald at Princeton, a WWI Medal of Honor recipient and headmaster at Gilman.” (After the Miles family left, the house became a hotel in the ’30s.)

After learning that illustrious residents with Southern roots had occupied the house, Rieger was even more committed to return it to the grace of bygone times. Thanks to his efforts over the past seven years, the two front rooms of the house are models of English and antebellum taste— “I discovered the duplicate of my parlor’s ceiling medallion at a plantation in Natchez,” he says— with the antiques he’s collected over the years providing a balanced, gracious framework. Smaller furnishings play to the salon culture of the 18th century, a time of enlightenment when concerts and recitations occurred in parlors.

“My collections of globes, prints and busts of famous people are part of the same tradition that informed the architects who built these houses,” says Rieger. “The core seating is scaled for modern comfort and easily movable to facilitate gatherings of five to 150 people.” His transformation of the back parlor, originally a less-formal family room, into a grand dining room suits his entertaining needs, which today involve everything from political and symphony fundraisers to his own harpsichord concerts.

The 3,000-square-foot back section of the house added in the 1880s was another story. “I took liberties with it because it was a ruin, and I needed a 21st-century kitchen,” says Rieger. Two stories high, the partially-built-from-salvage kitchen reflects his talent for new as well as recycled design. “I knew the Greek Revival style at the front of the house was based on the Doric order, but I owned columns in the Ionic order and installed them when I built new cabinets along one wall.” A failing exterior wall helped him decide to add a wing with a breakfast room behind the kitchen inspired by Monet’s blue-and-yellow dining room at Giverny.
 
In the former boardinghouse rooms upstairs, Rieger saved flooring and incorporated discarded house parts in his room-by-room reclamation. Sometimes, finding just the right salvage piece took him far afield and cost him months or years of working to, say, rejoin paneling for a library or apply just the right deep, dark colors in rooms meant to be used with candlelight. “I barred polyurethane as a finish and used shellac,” he says. “I painted with a brush, never a roller.” In time, he felt the atmosphere of the house change “from dread to a warmth I couldn’t anticipate,” he says. “I was careful not to overly restore it. There’s definitely a patina, now, that delivers the feeling of a house that was— and still is— a very special home.”

Design: Drew Rieger, Cathedral Hill Design, 443-691-6330
URL: cathedralhilldesign.com
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)