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

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

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

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

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

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.”

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
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
http://www.baltimorestyle.com

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)

1 pork tenderloin (between 16 and 20 ounces),
  trimmed of any fat
3 teaspoons salt
1 ½ teaspoons black pepper
1 tablespoon chopped rosemary
2 large carrots, peeled and sliced into ½-inch discs
2 Bosc pears, sliced lengthwise into eighths, seeds removed
1 celeriac (celery root) knob, peeled and cut into 8 wedges
1 small onion, peeled and quartered
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 tablespoon olive oil

Sprinkle the tenderloin evenly with 1½ teaspoons of salt, 1 teaspoon of black pepper and the chopped rosemary, and set aside. Put the carrot slices in a baking pan (I use a 13-by-9-inch Pyrex dish), and bake in a 350-degree oven. After 10 minutes, remove the carrots and toss them with the pear, celeriac, onion, garlic, the remaining 1½ teaspoons of salt, the remaining ½ teaspoon of pepper and the olive oil. Using the same baking dish in which you precooked the carrots, place the tenderloin in the center lengthwise and distribute the vegetables on either side. Bake in the 350-degree oven for 50 minutes to 1 hour. Remove the tenderloin and allow it to rest on a plate covered with tin foil for 15 minutes. While the tenderloin rests, put the vegetables back in the 350-degree oven to roast for the final 15 minutes. Slice the meat and serve with the roasted vegetables. Serves 4. 

“I’ve spent most of my life in Germany, and I have never met so many people who eat sauerkraut as I have in Baltimore,” says Frohmut Fiand, the young German woman working behind the counter at Binkert’s Meats in Rosedale, as she rings up smoked sausages for my friend Joachim and me. We are at Binkert’s buying bauernwurst, debriziner and the smoked pork chops known as kasseler rippchen because we are, as Frohmut noted, making sauerkraut. It’s not Oktoberfest or New Year’s Day or even Thanksgiving, times when many Baltimoreans cook up the brined cabbage. Instead, we are making sauerkraut as a celebration of friendship, a commemoration of two people from different continents who love to cook for our families and for each other, but have never cooked together.

Joachim and I met at The Wine Source many years ago when I was an employee, and since then he has cooked roast lamb and white asparagus for my husband, Kevin, and me, and I’ve made tarte tatin, Indian food and crab cakes for him and his girlfriend (now wife) Tricia. We always talked about preparing a meal together, but before it could happen, Joachim, an astrophysicist, accepted a position at the University of Cologne and returned to his native Germany. Five years later, he and Tricia and their children came back to Baltimore for a five-month sabbatical. A week before they returned to Germany, we decided to mark the visit by making sauerkraut, a dish we both love, and invite friends and neighbors over to sample the results. So after the trip to Binkert’s on a rainy Saturday morning, Joachim and I get to work making two kinds of sauerkraut, a meat-based one (me) and a vegetarian version (him), in the kitchen of his rented Charles Village home.

Despite my Polish heritage and the ubiquity of sauerkraut at my extended family’s wedding celebrations and holiday tables (though never at Thanksgiving), it was a long time before I gave sauerkraut a chance. “I think it was the scent,” I say as I chop bacon into small pieces. The turning point for me, I explain, as I tip the bacon into the pot to render its fat, was when I was invited to dinner at a professor’s house as an undergraduate, and his wife made sauerkraut with pineapple in it. I took some just to be polite, but I ended up loving it, especially the way the sweet pineapple tempered the sourness of the kraut. Soon afterward, I made my first batch with apple and a little beer, and I’ve made it since, tweaking as I go.

Joachim, on the other hand, has been eating sauerkraut since he was a little boy in southwest Germany. While I add hastily chopped onions to a heavy pot on the stove, Joachim sits at the kitchen table, methodically mincing shallots and peeling apples with a paring knife, and tells me about the sauerkraut his family used to make each fall. The adults would shred the cabbage with an instrument similar to a mandolin slicer then layer the cabbage with salt in a large, earthenware barrel-shaped crock. “And then the children would walk the barrel,” he says.

“Walk the barrel?” I ask. “Like, move the barrel across the floor?”

“No,” he explains, “like with grapes and wine.” It seems the barrel is large enough to hold a small child, and when Joachim and his brother were small they would take turns standing in the barrel and tamping down cabbage with their feet, marching like soldiers. It made space for more cabbage— important when you wanted to fill the barrel to full capacity, so that when you took it out of the cellar after several months of fermenting, your efforts paid off.

By late afternoon, two pots of sauerkraut are bubbling on the stove, one rustic (mine), one elegant (his), each spiked with juniper berries and copious amounts of Riesling, Germany’s classic white wine.

I go home to get Kevin and a shower, and we return to Charles Village just after 6 to a house full of company and the hearty scent of sauerkraut. I wend my way through the crowded kitchen and pull the heavy grocery bag of meat from the refrigerator. “Binkert’s!” someone yells, giving a thumbs up, and under the gaze of a dozen hungry eyes I push the pork chops and sausages down under the sauerkraut. Twenty minutes later, we’re feasting.

“I love sauerkraut,” a curly-haired neighbor murmurs as he digs in, speaking for everyone, it turns out. An informal show of hands reveals that the Baltimoreans in the group— nearly half of us— are all fans and that most of us have it on Thanksgiving as well as throughout the year.

At the end of the evening, we raise glasses of bourbon and toast Joachim and Tricia, sauerkraut and sausage, Baltimore and Germany, old friends and new. The smell of sauerkraut lingers, filling the house with a warm fog. After all those years of hating the scent as a child, I now relish it.

(Binkert’s Meats, 8805 Philadelphia Road, Baltimore, 410-687-5959, binkerts.com)

My Sauerkraut

We’ve long been fans of Sophia Para’s eponymous Polish food shop in Fells Point’s Broadway Market. But now with the market’s recent total renovation (just look at those beautiful wood-beamed ceilings!), we can
actually take a seat at Sophia’s Place and order up a bowl of red borscht or a pierogi platter and enjoy them at a counter. Para still stocks 15 varieties of Polish sausages, containers of creamed herring and worth-the-trip poncki or Polish doughnuts, filled with plum butter or rose-flavored marmalade. (Imported from New York City, they’re available only on Fridays.) But she’s added a selection of soups and sandwiches, ranging from duck pâté with hot pepper cheese, honey mustard and lettuce and tomato on pumpernickel to a Mediterranean veggie panini. Still, we’ll always return for her golabki or stuffed cabbage. As we recently overheard a woman at the counter utter breathlessly after sampling a bite: “Oh, damn, that’s good.” Open Mon.-Sat., 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

While Sav has been extra-good about cutting down on her cake/cookie consumption (when one choco-chipper equals an hour on the treadmill, time to just say no), she just can’t resist candy (Skittles count as a serving of fruit in her book). So it should be no surprise then that her BFF Lucky Thompson has opened an eponymous Harbor East ‘pop-up’ candy boutique and website, The Best of Luck, to help satiate Sav’s sugar fix. Packed with all your faves (the kids can crack out on all the sours and gummies your nerves can handle), plus nostalgic candies (Mary Janes, Pop Rocks and Whatchamacallit, anyone?), Best of Luck is the perfect spot for party goodies and creative prezzies. No assembly-line gift baskets here: Tell Lucky what kinds of sweets your sweeties are suckers for and she’ll whip up a custom candy creation with enough whirly pops, organic licorice, chocolate-covered cookie dough bites, candy sticks, malt balls and Chunky bars to keep your nearest and dearest wired for weeks. Don’t miss: Short on time? Call in your order, then ring when you’re outside. Best of Luck offers curbside delivery! Try getting that at Wegman’s… 612 E. Exeter St., 410-244-5173, http://www.thebestofluck.com

4 Seckel pears
1 teaspoon of salt
Black pepper
2 cups of baby arugula
2 cups of watercress
½ bulb of fennel, very thinly sliced
8 teaspoons of blue cheese
Maldon salt or sea salt for sprinkling

For the dressing:
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 ½ teaspoons sherry vinegar
¾ teaspoon salt

Slice pears in half lengthwise, leaving the stem attached. (I think the stem is charming!) Using a melon baller, take out the seed/core area neatly, keeping the half pear shape intact. Place them on a baking sheet cut side up, and sprinkle each half with ⅛ teaspoon of salt. Grind on some black pepper and bake in a 350-degree oven for 10 minutes. While the pears bake, mix the arugula and watercress together, along with the shaved fennel. After 10 minutes, remove the pears and spoon a teaspoon of blue cheese into the holes the melon baller created. Put the pears back into the oven for another 5 to 10 minutes, until the cheese melts. While the cheese melts, whisk together the olive oil, sherry vinegar and salt, and toss the greens with the dressing. Serve the roasted pears atop a small bed of the dressed greens. Finish with a light sprinkle of Maldon salt. Serves 4. 

1 Bartlett pear, halved and cored with a melon baller
6 ounces of bourbon (I know this seems like a lot but it’s for four people!)
6 ounces of warm water
¼ cup honey
mint
ice

Chop the cored pear into a few slices and toss into a blender. Add the bourbon and puree. In a separate container, mix the warm water with the honey and stir until it fully dissolves. Throw both the bourbon/pear mixture and the warm water/honey mixture into the fridge for at least an hour or all day. The longer it hangs out, the more its flavor develops. When you’re ready to serve, combine the bourbon mixture with the honey mixture, and pour into 4 glasses. Add plenty of ice (she’s a mighty strong cocktail!) and fresh mint leaves. Serves 4.

When Sartre said “hell is other people,” he probably had just returned from a farmers market. While Savvy loves supporting her local producers, she’s probably not the only one out of that happy, hippie mass who isn’t enchanted by tripping over strollers bearing hemp-swaddled tots every time she wants to snag some sorrel. Now her favorite folks from Clementine have created a more civilized alternative: the Green Onion Market. Head over to Harford Road (yes, it’s east of York Road, but you’ll be fine) for all-natural, local, organic and humane meats from Genuine Food, organic dairy from Prigel Family Creamery, brown eggs from Fresh McKenzie, Duroc bacon, a case with 32 cheeses (one of the biggest, outside of Whole Foods— yay!), plus all-natural, local, in-season produce. There’s even fresh stocks and soups, house-made jams and all-natural and organic dry goods like pasta, beans and flour (they’re even grinding fresh grits). In short, it’s a foodie heaven for the rest of us. Don’t miss: Clementine charcuterie like Jaegerwurst (a cured and smoked sausage), which was just nominated for an Alice Waters Good Food Award. 5500 Harford Road, http://www.greenonionmarket.net

Welcome back, Gino’s!  When I heard last year that the beloved local fast-food chain was being resurrected with a new outlet in King of Prussia, Pa., I waited for the inevitable news that a closer-to-home version would materialize. Sure enough, this past August, a second location sprang up on LaSalle Road in Towson, along with news that more were on the way. 

It had been a long time since I’d thought about Gino’s, but I do recall eating there several times as a child growing up around Hagerstown and Frederick. We were by no means a fast-food family. Home-cooked meals were traditionally taken around the dining room or kitchen table every day with everyone in attendance. Fast-food jaunts were reserved for long-distance travel or the occasional quick-fix during an extended shopping excursion. Gino’s didn’t rank terribly high in the mix; Burger Chef, Red Barn and McDonald’s probably appealed more to us back then. (And this was before our local McDonald’s had an indoor dining room; it had an outdoor walk-up counter with “to-go” service and a pair of giant golden, parabolic arches that swooped up and over the roof of the small stand.)

Kentucky Fried Chicken was considered a special treat, but that required a 20-minute car ride to Chambersburg, Pa., where we’d fetch a bucket of the golden brown, incredibly crispy delicacy and then drive back to have it at home, seated around the table on a summer Sunday afternoon after church (if my mother had determined that it was too hot to cook). And these were the days when a restaurant that served pizza was referred to as a “pizza parlor,” and many friends’ juvenile birthday parties were celebrated at Pappy’s and Shakey’s.

Gradually, though, the Gino’s name disappeared from the fast-food landscape, as other bigger, national chains moved in and absorbed smaller ones. In putting together our story on the history of Gino’s (page 86), it was great fun to hear people’s memories of the chain started by Baltimore Colts defensive end Gino Marchetti, and intriguing to see what those early branches looked like, with their neon script logos and rocket-themed signage (hello, Space-Age!). I’m also eager to bite into a Gino’s Giant, but alas, the long queues to get in have prevented me, so far. But the next time I’m driving through that side of Towson, I’m
stopping and going in— no matter how long the line is.

Brian Michael Lawrence
Editor-in-Chief
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
http://www.baltimorestyle.com

One of the great things about the Internet is that it lets you track the movement of a shipment around the country. It’s amazing. You go online and, at the click of a mouse, you can see that a 650-pound crate containing a cast-iron claw-foot bathtub is on its way from Ohio.

I was the purchaser of this tub and I was very interested in its progress. Alas, knowing where the tub was did not mean that it would ever get to my house. One morning the tub was in a town called Elysium— or maybe that was Elyria? And when I checked later in the day it was in Cleveland. I called my wife at her office and told her the tub was on its way. Then the tub went to Toledo. I believe that’s west of Cleveland but it was still swell to see progress on the information superhighway. Sometimes the traveling tub was actually reported to be at a particular exit on the interstate. We knew everything except what the driver had for lunch, and when it would arrive.

My wife was very excited. The tub was critical in the shrine to personal pampering that she was constructing in our happy home. It was to be the centerpiece of a renovated master bathroom, a room that I will never be allowed to use. And as long as we were squandering money, why hold back? We decided to fix up the third-floor bathroom, too. I will perform my ablutions there.

It was the last major renovation (ho, ho, ho) required in this Victorian barn, which has required every possible major renovation. One day, during an earlier home improvement adventure, the contractor showed me a piece of wood with a stencil on it from a lumber company in North Carolina that assured that this was No. 1 Hearts. “This is very old wood,” he noted. “You can’t get wood like this now.” The carpenters seemed genuinely moved by this discovery and we all stood around in what would eventually be my new kitchen and agreed that this was an old house and this was a very old piece of wood. And I put the relic in my office where it is available today during normal business hours for visitors to see like a piece of the true cross. You can become a little sentimental with an old house and a little crazy, too. That brings us back to my wife. These renovations were her idea.

She called from her office eight or 10 times a day to inquire after her tub. Why she could not have tracked it herself, I do not know. She said she was busy.

After a bit more than a week of travel, the tub reached the Free State and fell into the hands of a local deliverer. Then the tub somehow got itself onto the back of a truck that had no lift on it. “We got a problem,” the dispatcher advised.

The driver moseyed about for a full day making other deliveries and musing on how he would get my tub off his truck. I called the dispatcher on the hour and half-hour and my wife called at other times. This made the dispatcher irritable. The tub was in the breakdown lane of the information superhighway. The Internet noted only “scheduled for delivery.”

The first truck driver demurred and eventually went back to the warehouse. It was a weekend now (the second weekend that my tub was traveling). They did not deliver on weekends. But on Monday, on another truck— with a lift— my wife’s tub arrived.

That truck was driven by a very old man. You would think that people who deliver cast-iron claw-foot bathtubs would have considered this. Think again.

This guy favored the volunteer method. At that time I had in my regular employ two plumbers (Brent and Brent Jr.), Doug “the purely professional painter,” Nick, the general contractor, his two carpenters, Chris and Scott, Nate the electrician and his two associates, and Fred the tile man. I don’t think I have left anyone out.

Once we got the tub out of the truck and out of its crate it was slimmed down to a mere 300 pounds. You would think something made of cast iron would not be fragile but we were told this tub was as delicate as a Faberge egg. It was like moving nitroglycerin.

I would like to tell you that was the most complicated problem we had last summer during home improvement. But two days after the tub arrived the tile company in Columbia hired two recent emigrants from Nigeria to deliver about the same weight of tile to us. They got lost (driving south for two hours, not realizing that Baltimore was north of Columbia) and arrived 10 hours late. And while they were trying to figure out how to get all that tile off the truck, some landscapers who spoke only Spanish accidentally ran into the Nigerians’ truck and we narrowly avoided an international incident.

They say no jobs were added to our economy last summer but that is just simply wrong. Half my neighborhood was under construction. The other half was thinking about it. And I was doing my part, too. I have the canceled checks to prove it.

Lost City Diner, the carefully constructed side project of Club Charles owner Joy Martin, is more than your average diner. Here, you’ll find a sci-fi-inspired interior composed of fantastical, comic book-like drawings and funky light fixtures. An old-school jukebox and the waitstaff’s military uniforms add to the retro ambience. While the décor is adventuresome, the menu sticks with traditional diner offerings like burgers and sandwiches. For a more noteworthy entrée, go with the Peruvian chicken or grilled pork chops. Don’t forget to save room for dessert— the diner’s specialty sundaes and malted milkshakes steal the scene in this gastronomic galaxy. Open daily for dinner. 1730 N. Charles St., 410-547-5678

The new Thames Street Oyster House is situated along its namesake street (which we prefer to pronounce in its British derivation, “Temz”) facing the water along with the slew of longtime stalwarts (Cat’s Eye Pub, Waterfront Hotel, etc.). But rather than the typical Fells Point interior cues of dark woods and brass details, the interiors here are refreshingly bright— white tile floors, subway tiles on the bar, big mirrors and white pressed tin-style ceilings— along with the requisite bright, retro oyster cans lined up over the bar. Chef Eric Houseknecht oversees a menu of fish’n’chips, seared scallops, lobster and crab risotto, a raw bar of assorted clams, mussels, shrimp and the like, along with our personal favorite, a New England lobster roll. There’s another dining room upstairs and a delightful walled patio out back, too. Open daily for lunch and dinner. 1728 Thames St., 443-449-7726

Around 9:30 on a Saturday morning in September, the weekend rush for sandwiches at the Italian deli/grocery store Trinacria on Paca Street hasn’t yet started. I meander through stacks of canned tomatoes and racks of wine, past refrigerated cases stocked with fresh pasta and sauces, to the fresh-baked bread. I choose one with garlic and herbs and one with whole black olives, both still warm from the oven. This place is an embarrassment of culinary riches— fresh mozzarella, tapenade, roasted red peppers— and right now I’m like a kid in a candy store.

Or, to be more precise, an adult with a Groupon.

For the uninitiated, Groupon (a mashup of “group” and “coupon”) is a thrifty consumer’s dream. Every day, Groupon— and a host of other companies like it, including LivingSocial, AmazonLocal and Google Offers— sends an email or text to subscribers offering a deep discount (purportedly as high as 90 percent off) on goods, services or events in their area.

Groupon gets a cut of what consumers pay, usually 50 percent. That means that of the $5 I paid for the Trinacria Groupon (which entitles me to $10 worth of goodies), Groupon takes $2.50, leaving Trinacria with $2.50. That’s before I purchase anything, however. I end up adding a bottle of wine and a box of pizzelle cookies to the two bread loaves. Grand total: $13. The man at the register takes my printed-out Groupon and scans the bar code with his smartphone to mark it “used.” I fork over the $3 balance and leave, feeling like I’ve gotten a great deal.

But has Trinacria?

Daily deal services like Groupon are clearly a boon for consumers, who get both a discount and an excuse to go out for a treat. Since its launch in late 2008, Groupon has grown to 115 million subscribers worldwide, saving consumers an estimated $2 billion so far. Who’s using them? People like 30-year-old Hampden resident Abby Markoe, who jumped at the February 2011 Groupon for Corks in Federal Hill, which she used on one of her weekly dinner dates with a friend. “It makes me go out more than I probably should in terms of spending money,” says Markoe. “But then you’re getting a 50 percent discount, so why not go and try this fancy restaurant you’ve heard about on the radio?”

And people like Bonnie Bradley, a 52-year-old nurse at Johns Hopkins who is a self-described Groupon addict. One weekend, she and her husband used a Groupon to eat at downtown Italian restaurant Ciao Bella on Friday night and another Groupon at Alewife on the Westside on Saturday night. “It makes you try places that you’ve thought about but haven’t actually gone,” she says. “About every weekend we use at least one. It’s like a little date.”

But for small and medium-sized businesses, Groupon and other daily deal services are a double-edged sword. They provide cheap, instant advertising that can result in an immediate increase in traffic. The hitch is, unless Grouponers spend more money than they might normally, or become regular customers who buy full-price items, businesses don’t always come out on top.

Vince Fava, owner of Trinacria, hasn’t done the math yet on Trinacria’s two Groupons, the one I bought this year and one that ran earlier in April 2010. “I thought maybe some [of the people on Groupon’s subscriber list] didn’t know me and would come into my store to check me out,” he says. “I did get some of those, and I got some of the people who used to shop here before and forgot about me.”

Fava says some people do spend a bit more, like I did, but others spend exactly the amount of their Groupon. It’s worth noting that, even though I really like Trinacria, I hadn’t been there in a couple of years before I made the trip with my Groupon. “It brings in the people,” Fava admits, “but you have to decide whether it’s worth it or not. ... I don’t have any specific numbers, but maybe I got a little bit ahead because a few people did come in, did buy a little extra. I guess it evens itself out.” Fava says he may consider doing another promotion if he can negotiate with Groupon or a similar service to take a smaller cut of the offer price. He’s also considering a Groupon Now! offer, which confines the redemption period to just a few hours.

Of all the businesses that participate in daily deal services, restaurants generally fare the worst, according to a study by Rice University professor Utpal M. Dholakia that was released in June. Dholakia researched the performance of Groupon, LivingSocial and three other daily deal sites in 23 U.S. markets and discovered that only about 43 percent of restaurants made money on their promotion, and just under 40 percent planned to run another in the future.

Groupon, for its part, quibbles with the study, saying that because it only collected data during the three months after the promotion, it missed revenue the resturants would have earned throughout the remaining months the deal ran. Further, says Groupon director of communications Julie Mossler, Groupon doesn’t promise restaurants they’ll make money overnight. “We’re really about exposure and bringing the ‘right’ customers in— college-educated and with money to spend,” she says.

In January, Alewife ran a $20-for-$40 Groupon (as well as a $10-for-$20 lunch deal) and a $20-for-$40 dinner deal with LivingSocial, that were meant to draw customers to the recently opened bar/restaurant. Co-owner Bryan Palombo says in that sense the coupons were a success— new patrons did come, and some spent significantly more than the amount of their coupon and made return visits.

But overall, the experience was bumpy. Some customers refused to come back after they weren’t allowed to redeem their Groupon during happy hour. And Alewife had to haggle with Groupon to get its share of the deal’s revenue (which the restaurant eventually did). Alewife sold $40,000 worth of Groupons and basically broke even, Palombo says. But he’s decided the only way Alewife will do another Groupon is if the company agrees to a radically different deal: a 90/10 split, with Groupon taking only 10 percent (instead of the typical 50 percent). “I see the value of it for a new business or if you should need immediate income to get through a hard time. [But] if you’re doing well, there’s no point.”

Jay Taramani, general manager at Christopher Daniel in Timonium, echoes many of Palombo’s sentiments. “I think it’s a great deal for the consumer, but from our end, I think you need to be very careful with the way you set up your deal,” he says. Christopher Daniel offered a two-option Groupon in March— $10-for-$20 at lunch or $20-for-$40 at dinner. Unlike Alewife’s Groupon, Christopher Daniel’s didn’t specify that it wouldn’t be accepted at the bar or during Sunday brunch. Some customers have been unpleasantly surprised by that news. (It helps that Groupon allows dissatisfied buyers to return their coupon, even if it’s been used, for a refund.)

Taramani estimates that about half the Groupon users spend more than they might normally, but the other half spends only $20 (and are sometimes dismayed to find that they still have to pay tax on a $19.95 bill). In the end, he says he doubts Christopher Daniel will try Groupon again. “Does it bring business in? Yes. Does it generate a cash flow to a point? Yes. Are there other ways you could bring people in? Yes.”
In addition, the waitstaff bears the brunt of Groupon use, especially when patrons don’t know the rules. One server at Gertrude’s, who asked that her name not be used, says the problem revolves around tipping. Gertrude’s sold about 2,100 Groupons last August that were a $20-for-$45 deal at dinner. Not all the customers who came in to use them knew they should tip on the pre-discount total of their bill (or, for that matter, that they should alert servers to their Groupon before ordering). “When your total income depends on tips, it affects you and your spirit,” the server says. “I use Groupons, and I’m a server. ... I think Groupon is a great way to expand your experience in a city. [But] I wish it was something that customers understood better.”

For Tony Foreman, half of the Fore-man Wolf team that owns four acclaimed restaurants around the city, the decision is easy: “I don’t believe in any way, shape or form in discount programs.” In his opinion, discounts equal artificially inflated prices. “The entire [restaurant] experience is built up of thousands of little transactions between farmers and wine growers and merchants and cheesemakers, and me training the staff and buying linens from places all over the country, and so on and so on. Should I just mark that up so I can discount it back? I don’t think so.”

Other restaurant owners don’t want to create the expectation that there will always be a discount, or that the only time people should patronize a restaurant is when there’s a deal on offer. “From everything I’ve read, and it could have changed by now, I think you’re getting people who want a deal. ... The next place they’re going to eat is going to be the next Groupon,” says Alan Hirsch, co-owner of Donna’s Cafe, which has locations in Cross Keys, Charles Village and Columbia. So far, Donna’s has not participated in any daily deal promotions, though, Hirsch allows that, come winter when business slows a bit, he might revisit the topic. “I just don’t think discounting your product is a successful way to run a business. You get a complete meal here for $25 to $30, and it’s really good. There’s not a lot of room to discount that.”

It certainly doesn’t hurt that Donna’s has been a fixture in and around Baltimore for nearly 20 years and doesn’t have as strong a need to draw in patrons as newer joints might. For Joss Cafe and Sushi Bar, however, it’s a different story. The owners turned to LivingSocial to drive business to their new Baltimore location after finding that advertising in traditional print venues and inside their Annapolis location, which has existed for 21 years, didn’t bring in the volume of customers they’d hoped for. On Labor Day weekend, general manager Heather Lee said the $15-for-$30 LivingSocial deal, which was offered the last week of August, had already translated into significantly more traffic in the Mount Vernon location. Lee hopes word of mouth, which she says is usually the best way for sushi restaurants to draw diners, will pay off. “[The LivingSocial deal] got [customers] in here. And if they say something positive to someone else, who knows? Maybe they’ll try it.”

As for me, I’m not eager to buy any more Groupons for now— I’m a little bitter that one I bought for a kayaking expedition expired before I could use it. But I am looking forward to going back to Trinacria, and getting more of that bread.

Marianne Amoss is a local writer.

On those nights when vodka alone isn’t enough to improve Savvy’s mood, there’s always online shopping. While net-a-porter.com is a virtual repository of Valentino Valium, there are times when a girl just needs something a little… more. Thankfully, that clever boy Stiles Colwill is now available 24/7 at http://www.halcyonhouseantiques.com to solve all your problems with his brilliant choices. Need a little pick-me-up? Perhaps a Bonita fluted wood lamp will shed some new light on things. Wish you could be instantly transported elsewhere? Hang “Venetian Arcade” by Paul Kirk Middlebrook Thomas on your wall. The thought of sleeping next to you-know-who makes you want to fast-forward to tomorrow? Divorce is messy, darling— try a new faux-bamboo painted headboard first. And when you do finally shut those sleepy eyes, rest easy knowing that Stiles will be by in the morning with your American silver service. Your coffee— and your life— will seem that much better. http://www.halcyonhouseantiques.com, 11219 Greenspring Ave., Lutherville, 410-828-8889

Two beloved Federal Hill watering holes, Grumpies Pour House and the Federal Hill Lounge, have gone by the wayside; appearing in their place is Social Pub & Pie, a new casual restaurant and bar featuring coal oven-fired gourmet pizzas. Choose a 12- or 16-inch pie, a selection of 12 toppings, or one of the specialty pies, like BBQ chicken. (Best non-pie item? The very respectable Cobb salad.) Our favorite time at The Social is at night, when it really lives up to its name. It’s a gathering spot for attractive, fun-loving locals who turn it into a social spot, indeed. A DJ on weekends gets the late night crowd dancing, and the spirit of Grumpies and the Lounge lives on. Open for dinner seven nights a week and for lunch every day except Monday. 25 E. Cross St., 410-234-0376

I began making sauerkraut around 17 years ago after finding a recipe in an old Gourmet magazine. That recipe called for apple, white wine and bacon, and isn’t so different from the way I make sauerkraut today, only now I also add chicken broth (a la Julia Child’s suggestion) and make sure my wine is a decent quality dry Riesling. These additions give the sauerkraut a distinctly Alsa-tian, rather than Polish or German, flavor. I make a huge pot of sauerkraut and sausage every year for a neighborhood Christmas party. To my friends and neighbors, here is the recipe you’ve been asking for.

4 pounds sauerkraut (2 2-pound bags)
½ pound bacon, cut into small pieces
1 large onion, sliced thinly
1 clove garlic, chopped
4 tablespoons butter

Combine the following in a piece of cheesecloth and tie tightly:
1 bay leaf
several sprigs of parsley
several sprigs of fresh thyme or ½ teaspoon dried thyme
6 peppercorns
8 juniper berries

approximately ½ bottle dry Riesling
approximately 2 cups chicken broth

Drain and rinse sauerkraut to desired “sourness” (I like mine tart, and rinse minimally). Let drain.

In a large pot over medium heat, melt butter. Add bacon and cook until fat is rendered and edges start to brown. Add onion and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened. Add drained sauerkraut and stir until coated with fat. Bury cheesecloth packet of herbs and spices in the sauerkraut. Add wine and chicken broth in equal parts, enough to just cover the surface of the sauerkraut. Bring to a simmer, then reduce heat to low and partially cover pot. Cook slowly on stovetop for 1 ½ to 2 hours, adding more chicken broth or wine if sauerkraut begins to dry out.

If you plan on serving sausages or chops with your sauerkraut, nestle them in the sauerkraut 20 minutes or so before you plan on serving them. Smoked meats can be added directly into the sauerkraut. Uncooked meat should be browned first and may take longer to cook. Makes 10 servings. 

3 Bartlett pears, cut lengthwise into eighths, seeds removed
¾ teaspoon of salt
¼ cup maple syrup
5 tablespoons of salted butter, softened
¼ cup dark brown sugar
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
Vanilla ice cream

Toss pear slices in a bowl with ½ teaspoon of salt and the maple syrup. Dump the mixture into a pie dish. Using the same bowl, mix together the butter, dark brown sugar, oats and the remaining ¼ teaspoon of salt.  I use my hands to grind the sugar and oats together with the butter, creating a thick, rough paste. Crumble this on top of the pears in the pie dish, and bake in a 350-degree oven for 20 minutes. Reduce the heat to 300 degrees and bake for 40 minutes more. Easy, right? Serve hot with vanilla ice cream. Serves 4.

Last night, with candles still aglow from the evening’s meal and the new Lady Antebellum CD playing softly in the background, my girls and I sat around the dinner table enjoying the creamy chocolate pudding we’d made earlier in the day— with real Dutch cocoa, no less.

Because it was Wednesday, we were eating dessert.

Wednesday is “Dessert Night” at our house— the one night each week in which we indulge. Each weekend, my girls, 15 and 13, decide what they’d like for the upcoming Wednesday’s dessert. Sometimes it’s pudding or Nestle Toll House cookies. Sometimes it’s a fresh-baked brownie from Eddie’s or Ben & Jerry’s Mint Chocolate Chunk ice cream. Occasionally, we go extravagant with raspberry streusel bars or pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting that we make together.

We haven’t always been a once-a-week dessert family. When the girls were little, I would desperately utter that line to which many parents resort: “Eat those two broccoli spears and that little clump of rice and peas and you can have a chocolate chip cookie for dessert.” In a flash, that caught on, and I found myself fearing the dinner hour, knowing that it would end, against my will, with each girl triumphantly eating a small bowl of strawberry ice cream, a handful of M&M’s or a Chips Ahoy.

I seldom ate dessert as a kid. My mother made (still makes) an amazing chocolate sauce for ice cream that she occasionally offered us, but that was a real treat, and not something we did every night. I also teach nutrition at Towson University, so I’m keen to the health consequences of too much sugar, especially for growing youngsters. When I realized that we truly were eating a small, sweet food after every dinner, I made the unpopular decision to restrict desserts. Breaking the nightly cycle when the girls were still pretty little, I reasoned, would reinforce the belief that sweets are treats and not a daily occurrence— and, as a bonus, would reinforce my favorite rule that when dinner is over, the kitchen is closed. I told my girls that if we shifted to one dessert night each week, it would be special, like birthday cake on birthdays or pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. I made this little proclamation on a Tuesday in 2003, ending my speech with, “And the good news is, we start tomorrow! Wednesday is Dessert Night!”

“Yippee!!” they sang.

Unfortunately, our first Dessert Night was a disaster. The girls wanted doughnuts (doughnuts head my most-useless-food list), so we went to Heinz Bakery near our home and selected two. That night, sitting on my table were two large, gooey things with icing dripping down and bright sprinkles poking out. I had to leave the room while my girls ate them.

Thus I realized that even Dessert Night needed limits. Next time, it was one doughnut cut in half, and that became the rule: We can have whatever we want, just not as much as we might want. And over the past eight years, as long as I stay light on my feet, allowing for the occasional piece of leftover cake, a small bowl of Teddy Grahams after school or a baggie of yogurt-covered pretzels during a long car ride, Dessert Night has gone pretty smoothly. 

But how to distinguish between being a food-obsessed mother and a reasonable parent aspiring to raise self-governing kids who know the limits of snacks and treats when I’m not there to enforce them? For one thing, I’m not restricting foods, I’m simply putting a treat in its place. Fair to wonder why I offer the heavy hitters such as pie or half an éclair instead of smoothies, fruit, yogurt or sorbet in the first place. The simple answer is we’re already eating those foods as part of a varied and balanced diet— at dinner, our plates are made up of mostly seasonal vegetables, whole grains and lean meats or beans. But cakes, pies and cookies are also a part of life, and because we eat them (sparingly), we have an opportunity to actually talk about the ingredients, fat or sodium grams and serving sizes— all for better or worse.

Towson resident Lynne Smith, mother of four, has shifted her idea of the after-dinner treats, as well. Several years ago, Smith became aware of trans fats in processed foods and began making her own desserts, often swapping ingredients like whole wheat flour for white flour, or dark chocolate for milk chocolate in her recipes. “I try to make healthy desserts fun, something they look forward to,” says Smith. “I say, ‘OK, kids, what was in that?’” referring to the chocolate mousse she makes with avocado. “We all laugh when I tell them, but they love it.” Although she ate dessert nightly as a kid, nowadays her family only has dessert when they gather for a family dinner two or three evenings a week.

Dessert was no big deal when Catonsville Village mother of three Susan Casciani was growing up. “It was sort of random,” she says. “We never knew what the ‘dessert criteria’ was. Sometimes we had it; often we didn’t.”  One of her main “criteria” with her own kids is that they can’t “earn” dessert. She doesn’t base treats on how well they empty their plates or the fact they tried a new vegetable. In her mind, dessert is often a celebration of a successful day and not necessarily that of a successful dinner. “I have three little kids [ages 6, 5, 5] and Hostess makes those packages of three little cupcakes,” she says. “One for each, and everyone is happy, happy, happy.”

Then there are those who feel as strongly about offering dessert on a daily basis as I do about restricting it. Towson mother of four Mary Lord is a firm believer in the nightly dessert ritual. “Yesterday, we made snickerdoodles,” says Lord, whose childhood was filled with her mother’s homemade breads, muffins and crepes. Lord loves to bake cakes, ginger snaps and French custards, staying away from highly processed and refined pre-packaged snack foods. “I believe there are healthier sweets than others,” she says. “We love to bake together using ingredients that we know— none of that high fructose corn syrup.”  She also limits serving sizes. “We had one snickerdoodle each.”

“I’m a cookie monster,” admits Ann Jung, Timonium resident and mother of three elementary school kids. “I love those refrigerated slice-and-bake rolls of dough you buy.” Does she share these cookies with her kids? “The answer is a big fat yes! I admit it! We eat dessert every night, often before bed, and often it is cookies.”

Jung, who grew up in a large family where “food, food, food was a big part of every celebration,” and dessert happened nightly, allows her kids to have almost anything, but places limits on how much they eat. “No gold stars for finishing a whole plate of something,” she says. “We don’t eat the whole pie, we eat a piece.”

Recently, I overheard my daughter Nelle whining to her sister that “even on Wednesday nights we don’t always get dessert.” Perhaps we had “traded” our treat for another evening, and she’d forgotten. For example, on the rare occasion we go out to eat and the girls split a dessert, then that is our Dessert Night. If we have dinner with my folks— where dessert is almost always fresh fruit and cookies — then that’s it for the week.

When we visited the Maryland State Fair this past September, we passed a booth serving “deep-fried, chocolate-covered peanut butter balls.” This booth, of course, was next to the deep-fried Twinkie stand. As we stood there looking, I said, “Shucks, it’s too bad it’s not Wednesday.”

You can imagine my surge of pride when both girls agreed that even on a Wednesday they would pass those by.

RECIPES
Desserts don’t have to be sinful to be delicious. Towson resident Lynne Smith relies on these “healthy” desserts that her four kids love.

Chocolate Mousse with Avocado
Serves 4
 
2 avocados
1/2 cup maple syrup
4 teaspoons honey
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon agave
3 tablespoons coconut oil
1 cup raw cacao powder (available at Whole Foods)
Water for desired consistency
 
Blend first 5 ingredients together then blend coconut oil and cacao into other ingredients. Add water for desired consistency. Pour into 4 serving dishes and refrigerate until serving.

Chocolate Mousse with Tofu
Serves 4 to 6
 
1 package of silken tofu
1 12-ounce package of semi-sweet (or dark chocolate) chips, melted
1 teaspoons vanilla
1 -2 teaspoons agave (or to taste)
Water for desired consistency
 
Puree the tofu until smooth, add the other ingredients and mix well. Pour into serving dishes and chill until ready to eat. Serve with strawberries or blueberries.

The kitchen in Cindy and Jim Franzoni’s Verdant Valley farmhouse on My Lady’s Manor was altered three times in three centuries. An 18th-century fireplace for cooking got walled off in the 19th to update an adjacent room that morphed again with modern amenities in the 20th.  When the couple bought their big farm a few years ago and introduced cattle, pigs and chickens and acres of gardens and orchards, they also built a major wing across the hall from the fireplace for a new kitchen.

“I wanted a big, working kitchen because that’s where I’d be preserving the food we grow May through October,” says Cindy whose husband does his own Italian pork processing (thanks to friend Aldo Vitali of Aldo’s in Little Italy). With brother Jerry Edwards captaining Chef’s Expressions and their recent purchase of The Manor Tavern with three partners, food is very much a force in their lives. “We’re all about growing and making our own, and this kitchen is at the heart of it,” Cindy says.

At the top of Cindy’s wish list was a 6-gas burner Aga range with four different temperature ovens. Two deep sinks in porcelain and copper and a range-top pot filler accommodate Cindy’s preserving process. She devoted space to “garaging” small appliances, rack storage of tablecloths, a fireplace encased in fieldstone, a side-by-side refrigerator/freezer and furniture-style built-ins for buffet use, wine storage and beverage service. Important, too, was a style appropriate to the farm and to their Italian roots. “Exposed beams with a mix of wood grains and painted cabinets felt right for the room— I wanted it to look like it grew over time,” says Cindy. She found Joan O’Brien of Craft-Maid Kitchens in Reading, Pa., to draft the design and execute a nine-coat paint finish, rubbed for a look of wear, on the blue and yellow cabinets. Michael Rosato of Church Creek, Md., created the Venetian plaster finish. Crowning touches were oil paintings and wrought-iron chandeliers the couple found themselves. —Susan Stiles Dowell

Professional setting

With the remodeling of his kitchen, restaurateur Tony Foreman wanted to mirror the type of commercial convenience you would find behind the scenes at any one of his establishments. As a co-owner of Foreman Wolf— which counts Charleston Restaurant, Pazo and Petit Louis among its many successful operations— he certainly knows what works.

For the renovation, Foreman went to designer Patrick Sutton, with whom he has worked on various projects in his century-old Roland Park home. “Tony requested a functional kitchen designed in all stainless steel rather than a showy kitchen,” says Sutton. “My first impression was the beautiful view outside.” After replacing a series of small windows with larger ones, Sutton butted the cabinetry— all entirely in a palette of stainless steel— directly to the wall overlooking the view of the forest below. He then installed a hanging glass shelf to hold all of Foreman’s glassware while still permitting natural light to filter into the kitchen.

To contrast with these cold surfaces and bring some warmth into the room, a handmade and hand-painted tile with Moorish influences was selected for the wall behind the range. Sutton also included a rustic brick wall and fireplace behind the dinette, which features deep purple hues.

While most homeowners prioritize kitchen design and tend to neglect comfortable seating arrangements, Foreman wanted the exact opposite. He wanted to create a warm, inviting space for his guests that would maximize both their comfort and the kitchen’s efficiency. “You can easily cook dinner for 50 guests in this kitchen,” he says. “I want where I work to be smart, smooth and quick.” —Gina Moffa

DIY kitchen

Chris Whisted describes his Bolton Hill kitchen as “small but functional.” He and his wife, Melissa, get lots of use out of the 210-square-foot space. Integrative design elements, such as a pull-out spice rack and an island which houses the dishwasher, microwave and even their dogs’ bowls, allow them to maximize counter space without sacrificing the luxuries of a modern kitchen.  

The concept for the space was inspired by the large, antique iron pot rack that hangs from the center of the room, which Whisted salvaged from a bar in Federal Hill. “I sanded it down and discovered this great blue beneath the silver spray paint. That blue changed everything.” The blue shows up in the valances on the windows and the hardware on the cabinets (which Chris created with his design firm, Christopher P. Whisted and Co.). Even the Ralph Lauren paint on the walls was custom-mixed to assure that the deep azure matches the flecks of paint on the pot rack.

The rustic edge lent by the pot rack led to the creation of a French country-inspired kitchen. The exposed brick was retained, but painted white to brighten the room. The ceiling was painted too, with what Whisted calls “a wispy hint of blue,” to evoke the sky. Antique elements, such as the original hand-blown glass windows, date back to 1897, and cabinets with leaded glass fronts add to the bucolic style.

These are offset by modern appliances, such as the 48-inch Viking stove and the pot-filler located above it, which makes preparing large pots of pasta a breeze. A wine cooler is built into the lower cabinetry, and a chalkboard was added to the 36-inch Sub-Zero refrigerator so that messages and menus for meals can be scrawled there. (Currently on the menu? Beer and kisses.)

The floors are a classic black-and-white Carrara marble, with radiant heat installed underneath the marble, making for toasty feet on cool winter mornings. The marble countertops are Carrara as well.

Whisted describes the newly finished space as a perfect combination of form and function. “It’s a beautiful space, but we also use it all the time. And the best part about it is that we built it ourselves.” —Jewel Edwards

Self-made kitchen

In 1999, when David Wiesand decided to locate his home and store, McLain Wiesand, in a building on Cathedral Street that had once housed an auto repair company, he put the kitchen on the second floor, in what had once been a tire storage facility.

A self-professed “maker” of all kinds of things, Wiesand not only cleared away the tires and gutted the space, but created many of the pieces in the kitchen. He built the draw table, which serves as the centerpiece of the room, from wood that remained after the demolition. He designed the large china cabinet after being inspired by a French antique of his friend’s, which he loved so much he re-created it on a smaller scale for himself, down to the antique brass Crémone bolts. The distressed paint finish, he says, makes it “look like it had been around for a while.” It features china from the private collection of John Walters, of the Walters Art Museum, which Wiesand bought at an estate sale.

The countertops are made from cement that Wiesand poured and then sealed. These and the stainless steel backsplash and appliances, including a Jenn-Air oven with a cooktop grill, give the kitchen the nostalgic grade-school science lab feel that Wiesand wanted. “When I’m cooking something new, it feels like I’m experimenting and brings me back to that time.” Meanwhile, the exposed brick and the seeded glass and iron light fixture, which hangs from the exposed joists, add a touch of Old World flair. Circles are a motif in the kitchen, as well as throughout the entire home. “I just love rounded and curved shapes,” says Wiesand, pointing to the wall niches that display china and vases.

“As a guy who makes things for a living, I felt a lot of pressure in creating the perfect kitchen for myself,” he says. “But I like the space I have created.” —Jewel Edwards

Modern tradition

When faced with the challenge of incorporating contemporary elements into the kitchen of a 19-year-old Colonial home in Columbia, Stuart Kitchens designer Terry Mulhern needed to find a sophisticated compromise. “The owner is a contemporary person, but she lives in a traditional house, so I wanted to find a happy medium,” Mulhern says.

The owner selected a modern door style that Mulhern merged with more traditional elements like cherry wood and a deep burgundy stain— a drastic change from the kitchen’s previous bleached oak cabinets. A “tall wall” that consists of two large pantries and the stainless steel appliances— a microwave/oven combination and a side-by-side refrigerator/freezer— draws most of the weight to one side of the kitchen and opens up the room.

In addition to the tall wall, one of the kitchen’s most striking features is the stainless steel range hood, which the owner refers to as a “piece of sculpture.” The hood shows the owner’s affinity for clean, simple designs that are still eye-catching and a little unconventional. For the backsplash, Mulhern combined Listello metal to accent the hood, and porcelain Edilgres tiles in a taupe color, which also were used for the flooring.

While the kitchen’s aesthetics were of importance to the homeowner, she also requested specific features that would ensure maximum functionality, including the large sink and a hidden garbage pail. An electrical system was even installed in one of the tall pantries to hide the phone devices. “I love the way my kitchen looks,” says the owner. “But I also love the way it works.” —Gina Moffa

As a boy in Jacksonville, Fla., James Harp would sometimes be so moved while listening to opera recordings that he’d scrawl “rapturous” or “divine” in the margins of the score as he followed along. 

Almost 40 years later, when the singers Harp directs see those scores they’re reminded— not that anyone who knows Harp needs a reminder— that opera has been his lifelong passion. And that, in a sense, he has been training his entire life for his current role as artistic director of Lyric Opera Baltimore, the company that rose from the ashes of the Baltimore Opera Company and will open its first full season with “La Traviata” on Nov. 4 and 6 at the Modell Performing Arts Center at the Lyric.

Harp, who is 53, came to town in 1978 to study voice at Peabody Conservatory. But rather than focusing solely on vocal performance after graduation, he set about creating himself as a one-man opera dynamo: singer, conductor, choirmaster, composer, organist and music director. There is hardly a classical music organization in town that he hasn’t participated in or led.

And though opera is his first love, he doesn’t confine himself to high-brow music— he’s composed scores for silent films, sung “My Old Kentucky Home” on TV at the 1981 Kentucky Derby, coached Lily Tomlin when she sang arias from “Aida” on “Homicide” and camped it up onstage at the Young Vic.

Perhaps most interestingly, he adapted the Puccini opera “Gianni Schicchi,” which is set in 1299 Florence, Italy, into an opera titled “The Tale of Johnnie S. Kickey,” which is set in Florence, Ala., in 1929. “It’s a story about a man who dies and all of his heirs are trying to get his money,” says Harp. “I based all the characters on people in my family, though I’m not naming any names!” The opera debuted at Artscape in 1987 and has since been staged all over the South.

As artistic director of Lyric Opera Baltimore, Harp is finally the head opera honcho after years as opera’s MVP in town.  He was the perfect choice for the position, says Sandy Richmond, executive director and president of the Modell Performing Arts Center. “There’s no one else in the Baltimore region that is as knowledgeable, experienced and enthusiastic about opera and music in general,” says Richmond. “He’s a gem.”

Harp chooses the productions, casts singers, oversees the chorus and selects sets, costumes and directors. And he does it all with characteristic wit and passion.

“The first time I did Wagner with Baltimore Opera Company, we came in for rehearsal and saw that, as a joke, but only halfway, Jim had erected a kind of a shrine, a giant oil portrait of Wagner surrounded by flowers and candles,” says Monica Reinagel, a mezzo-soprano and 15-year veteran of the Baltimore Opera Company. “When we got to a particularly sublime moment, he would stop and turn to the portrait and say, ‘Thank you.’”

Reinagel adds that Harp enlivens the often-tedious process of learning a score in a foreign language. “He has us move around while we’re singing. It’s like he’s part gym teacher,” she says. He’s also been known to shout, “Your voice is not just a musical instrument— it’s a weapon. You must hurl it at your audience!” and “Life begins at forte,” as encouragement for singers to pump up the volume. But perhaps the most memorable of his quirks is the customer service bell he keeps on his piano, which he “dings” when someone utters a funny line during rehearsal, or when one of the choristers looks especially put-together. One night all the female members of the chorus showed up to rehearsal in evening gowns and got a lot of dings.

Armed with both passion and an encyclopedic knowledge of opera history and productions, Harp is the perfect evangelist, and in his role as artistic director, he plans to convert folks as young as 4 years old with programs such as puppet shows about putting on an opera. “The kids eat it up,” he says. “When you ask a roomful of Baltimore City third-graders who wants to be an opera singer when they grow up, everyone raises their hand.”

Though there are certainly bigger and grander opera towns in the world, Harp believes Baltimore can hold its own and he has strong evidence on his side. “Of all the companies that have collapsed in the past two years in various cities— I think there are about eight of them— Baltimore is the only one where grand opera has come back,” he says.

Additional reporting by Laura Lefavor.

“Do you want to see something neat?” the man in line in front of me asks unprompted. We are at the new Gino’s Burgers and Chicken, the resurrected namesake of former Baltimore Colt Gino Marchetti that opened in Towson in August. All around us, folks are reliving their Gino’s memories via towering chocolate shakes served in tall soda fountain glasses and red plastic baskets bearing Gino Giants. 

One video screen shows Soupy Sales hamming it up as Paul Revere (and his mother) in an old Gino’s commercial; another screen shows stills of old Colts, promotions, restaurant photos.
  
“Sure,” I tell the man, who later introduces himself as Jim Vogtman of Perry Hall.

He pulls a cellophane sleeve out of a manila envelope. “Look,” he says, as he shows me an autographed photo of Marchetti, which he turns over to reveal a small sketch of a Gino’s restaurant with the original 1950s menu, the prices printed out in neat navy ink. Hamburgers cost 15 cents, earning them the nickname Fifteen-O’s, as I later find out. French fries cost 10 cents, the same as a Coke or a coffee— but less than a 20-cent milkshake.  

The rendering of Gino’s looks nothing like the Gino’s we’re in now, a brown brick building that resembles all the other brown brick buildings in this maze of a Towson business park. Instead, the original Gino’s captured the spirit of mid-century modern, roof cocked at a sharp angle and Gino Marchetti’s full name in jaunty script above the glass front. A neon rocket takes off from a parking lot sign that reads “Gino’s 15-cent hamburgers.”

Neither design reminds me much of the Gino’s of my childhood, which sat at the corner of Perring Parkway and Joppa Road. (This turns out to be Vogtman’s “local,” too.)  Instead, I conjure up red plastic seats, a peaked roof and a birthday party with balloons for a childhood friend I can no longer remember.  

Vogtman’s reminiscences hit harder, surprising us both. Gino’s had good, cheap food, Vogtman explains, but his reasons for coming to the new restaurant go much deeper than that. Eating at the new Gino’s recalls a bygone era, and the particular people that defined that era for him. “It’s [about] everything. It’s the Colts. It’s Gino Marchetti. It’s my father-in-law [Larry Hoerl],” says Vogtman, his voice thick with emotion as he reminisces about the Colts’ games he and Hoerl shared at Memorial Stadium.  

All this from a hamburger joint?

You betcha.

For those of us who ate our first fast food in the 1970s, Gino’s was the hometown choice in a burgeoning landscape of burger options. But for folks who came of age with the late 1950s Colts and the new era of the 1960s, Gino’s was community in the broadest sense. It wasn’t just a place to get burgers. It was a place to meet your favorite hometown heroes, to hang out and meet a friend or show off a hot rod, a place to come of age.
 
Even when the first Gino’s opened in 1959 on North Point Road, the restaurant was more than just a drive-in. Gino Marchetti was already a hometown hero who’d played six seasons with the Colts (including “The Greatest Game Ever Played” at Yankee Stadium in late 1958) when he founded the restaurant. His fellow founders were teammates Alan Ameche, who’d already had success with his eponymous burger drive-in, and Joe Campanella; and friend Louis C. Fischer— with backing from Colts owner Carroll Rosenbloom. Players’ salaries were modest at that time— Marchetti made $11,000 a year— and it wasn’t unusual for athletes to work in the off-season. Marchetti worked in factories and in construction, and even tended bar, a skill he picked up from working in his father’s bar in Antioch, Calif. Still it seems utterly unimaginable today that during the restaurant’s opening months, Marchetti actually worked in the kitchen, grilling burgers, mopping up at the end of a shift and, of course, signing autographs. His co-workers made 85 cents an hour.

“I fell in love with it,” Marchetti, 85, tells me over the phone from the King of Prussia Gino’s, where he still works several days a week, cooking chicken and onion rings. “I loved the people. Like football, when you get a good team, you hate to leave the team.” 

In the first few weeks of its opening, the North Point Gino’s made $9,000 weekly, a stunning amount when you consider that most receipts came to around 80 cents. “People were coming from all over,” explains Marchetti, “because basically at that time, nobody ever heard of a 15-cent burger.” 

Other Gino’s locations followed quickly: at 5900 Pulaski Highway, the corner of North Avenue and St. Paul Street, and at 619 York Road where, in an October 1959 ad in The Sun, Marchetti invited the public to a grand opening featuring a meet-and-greet with Colts players Bill Pellington, Bert Rechichar, Don Joyce and Jim Mutscheller.

By February 1960, what was then Gino-Ameche Foods Inc. went public, offering 99,875 shares of Class A common stock in order to finance an additional dozen drive-ins in the Baltimore area, some under Ameche’s name, others under Gino’s. Despite the passing of a bill in the early ’60s allowing the city to regulate the growth of drive-ins, Gino’s flourished, expanding into Pennsylvania, New Jersey and later, Delaware. (“While this city is engaged in a life and death struggle to preserve its residential areas, a little handful of manipulators have decided that they will shower this city with a deluge of glorified hamburger joints,” The Sun reports one of the bill’s sponsors, then-Councilman Peter Angelos, D-3rd, said in July 1961.) Eventually, all Ameche’s became Gino’s, including the original Ameche’s on Reisterstown Road; the Loch Raven and Taylor Avenue Ameche’s became the corporation’s headquarters. In the ensuing years, more than 500 Gino’s would spring up along the northeast corridor of the country.  

Local Gino’s served its burgers on bread made from Baltimore’s H&S Bakery, until H&S struck a deal with a newcomer to the local hamburger scene, McDonald’s, in the mid-’60s. But Gino’s proved an able competitor. In 1965, Marchetti and his team were introduced to Col. Harland Sanders and Kentucky Fried Chicken through a mutual friend and business associate, Jim Matthews, who was using the Colonel’s famous recipe in his Tops restaurant in Washington, D.C. “We went over there and liked the product,” recalls Marchetti. “We met the Colonel, who was absolutely a wonderful person, one of the greatest guys I’ve ever met.” Gino’s bought the recipe rights for Maryland, Northern Virginia, New Jersey and Pennsylvania— making Gino’s the only place in the region to buy the chicken.  

Gino’s signature “Giant”— two burgers, three pieces of bread, lettuce, tomato, onion and that special sauce— followed in 1966. Charlie, a former employee at the Gardenville Gino’s on Belair Road in 1968 and prefers to not have his last name mentioned, remembers working the burger grill in that era’s Gino’s uniform— black pants, white shirt, black bow tie and a white paper hat. (Later years saw burgundy uniforms, including thigh-skimming mini-dresses for the women.) He’d wield a wide spatula, large enough to turn six burgers at a time, the equivalent of three Giants. Each burger received three squirts of ketchup, two of mustard and one of special sauce from a device that looked like a caulking gun.  

French fries required more effort, Charlie recalls. Gino’s made its fries in-house, and employees would put whole potatoes and a little water into a large drum with a rough interior. You’d turn it on, Charlie recalls, “and the potatoes would ricochet off the sides” scraping off the peels. There was a machine for cutting the whole potatoes into fries, and a deep vessel to soak the cut potatoes in salted water before they were fried to almost done. You’d drain the fries at that point, Charlie explains, and when someone placed an order, you’d fry them again so they would be fresh and crisp.  

“You could eat anything you wanted as long as you wrote it down,” he recalls. “And if there was anything left over at the end of the night, you could take it home.”  

The company quickly earned a reputation for generosity to both its staff and the community. A 1968 Sun classified ad outlines the benefits of working part time for Gino’s, including a starting salary of $1.25 per hour, free meals, paid vacation and a Christmas bonus. “[At Thanksgiving], we’d invite the employees to meet the players after [the Colts’] practice, and we’d have a big basket, a big turkey, a bottle of wine. You didn’t have to buy a thing for your dinner,” explains Marchetti. “Everyone got to have a basket. When we got to 10,000 employees,” he says, pausing, “well, that’s a lot of turkeys.”  

Gino’s was also generous with sponsorship. “We saw ourselves as local businessmen operating in the city of Baltimore,” says Marchetti, who used his good fortune to help with myriad local causes. The company hosted Gino’s basketball tournaments for local high schools, funded children’s clubs, often anonymously, and even sponsored a 1981 summer film festival in Hopkins Plaza. In Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, the city’s current mayor, was the first beneficiary of a Gino’s scholarship.
 
By 1971, Ameche had resigned from the day-to-day duties of Gino’s, though he remained on the board of directors.  And while Gino’s fortunes fluctuated in the recession years of the ’70s, a whole new generation discovered the pleasure of a burger, fries and a Coke, even if they didn’t necessarily remember the retired Colt player for whom the restaurant was named.

To childhood friends Laurie High and Carrie McFadden (a frequent Style contributor), a trip to the Gino’s in Towson was part of a Saturday ritual that made the pre-teens feel grown up. They would walk to Gino’s, order a burger, fries and small Coke, sitting in the same seats at the same table, left of the counter and the colorful paintings of pro athletes rendered on the wall behind it. The meal cost around 63 cents, McFadden recalls, with just enough change to buy a quarter pound of malted milk balls at Hutzler’s before heading down to Towson Plaza to shop.

To Kathy Patterson, the author of the blog, MinxEats, Gino’s Kentucky Fried Chicken was the reward for enduring the walk through the industrial area on Edison Highway between Catholic High School and the Gino’s before catching the No. 22 bus back to Highlandtown. On Saturdays, Patterson and her mother would often make a special trip to the Gino’s on Baltimore Street between a day’s shopping on Howard Street. McDonald’s was closer, Patterson explains, but “Gino’s was the hometown favorite,” she says. “It was Baltimore.” 

In 1982, Gino’s was acquired by the Marriott Corp., which quickly changed many of the Gino’s restaurants into Roy Rogers or Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets. By 1991, the last remaining Gino’s, in Pasadena, Md., closed its doors for good. Until now.

The new restaurants in King of Prussia, Pa., and in Towson have rekindled a taste for Giants and secret sauce, prompting both pilgrimages to Gino’s and the stories that accompany them. Everyone wants to share their story, says Marchetti. “People remember Gino’s as something special,” he says. “We got to be a part of their community, and it really makes me feel very, very, very good.” 

Food for Fans

Sure, very few of Baltimore’s athlete-owned restaurants received rave reviews despite the often huge portions of steaks and seafood they served. But food wasn’t really the point. Decorated with sports memorabilia, these restaurants became shrines to sports teams and star players, places where you could eat like a football player and possibly see one, too (Johnny Unitas and Bill Pellington routinely showed up at their restaurants). Here are a handful Baltimoreans remember fondly.
 
The Iron Horse
York Ridge Shopping Center
Owner: Bill Pellington, Baltimore Colt
Circa 1963 to circa 1984
Everything was large at Bill Pellington’s Iron Horse: the heavy, carved, high-backed chairs, the drinks, the portions of crab imperial, French onion soup (pronounced salty by both Sun food critics John Dorsey and Elizabeth Large on separate visits years apart) and steaks. The one exception was the “lady petite fillet mignon,” which was “just perfect for the gal at your table,” the menu advised. With a Saturday night supper club feel to it, the restaurant was kept so dark that upon entering it would take a moment for your eyes to adjust. A 1977 Sun review found “well-groomed” people taking to the dance floor to “vintage supper club songs” played on an electric organ.
 
Rustler Steakhouses
Chain restaurants
Owner: Joe Campanella,  Baltimore Colt
Dates: Circa 1971 to 1982
From its corny commercials featuring covered wagons, homesteaders and dusty cowboys with “big steak appetites” but not “big steak money,“ to its cattle brand logo, Rustler may be remembered more for its Western shtick than for any actual food. But serve food it did, offering “serve yourself salad” and steak dinners complete with baked potato and a toasted roll for family-friendly prices. A division of Gino’s, the two were often built in tandem. Where there was a Gino’s, there usually was a Rustler.
 
The Flaming Pit
Shopping center at York and Padonia roads
Owner: Ordell Braase, Baltimore Colt
Dates: Circa 1969 to 1980
Ordell Braase brought family-style dining to Cockeysville with his Flaming Pit restaurant. A large, noisy space with brick and stucco walls and beamed ceilings, the centerpiece was, of course, the charcoal (later gas) fueled flaming pit where staff would grill all cuts of meat. The restaurant was also known for its soup and salad bar, the warmers for the individual pots of coffee brought to tables after an evening meal and the treasure chest that held a small treat for each visiting child.
 
Brooks Robinson’s Gorsuch House
511 Gorsuch Avenue, off of Greenmount between 32nd and 33rd streets
Owner: Brooks Robinson, Baltimore Oriole
Dates: Robinson was a part-owner from around 1964 to 1977
Waverly’s Gorsuch House originally shared a name with another Oriole (and Robinson) before Brooks Robinson entered into partial ownership with former Orioles coach Eddie Robinson in the early 1960s. But despite the Orioles’ photographs and baseball bats that decorated the dining rooms and the “Robby’s crabcakes” on the menu, Robinson’s involvement tended to be hands-off. The menu was classic Maryland, featuring crab imperial, fried chicken, corn fritters, and, according to an Elizabeth Large review from 1974, “terrible stewed tomatoes.
 
Johnny Unitas’ Golden Arm
6354 York Road
Owner: Johnny Unitas, Baltimore Colt
Dates: Unitas owned the restaurant from the late 1960s to the early 1990s
With the exception of Gino Marchetti, perhaps no Colt spent more time in his eponymous restaurant than Johnny U. Unitas would work the dining room with a stack of photos and a pen, greeting guests and signing autographs. With its dark wood, stained glass and chandelier, the dining room was slightly more formal than other players’ restaurants, and the menu followed accordingly, featuring lobster tails, stuffed shrimp, escargot and the house specialty, fried eggplant.
  
Sportsman’s Lounge
4723 Gwynn Oak Ave.
Owner: Lenny Moore, Baltimore Colt
Dates: Circa 1965 to 1973
A bar with a limited menu, rather than a full-scale restaurant, Lenny Moore’s Sportsman’s Lounge was an important gathering place for sports and music fans alike. The bar ran buses for Colts games, installed televisions for away games, and hosted chess, backgammon and pinochle tournaments. But it was best known as a spot for live jazz where national performers like Dexter Gordon or beloved local artists like Damita Jo and Ruby Glover performed to predominantly black middle-class audiences.
 
Andy Nelson’s Barbecue
11011 York Road
Owner: Andy Nelson, Baltimore Colt
Dates: 1981 to present
Andy Nelson’s Barbecue began as a seasonal stand at neighboring Valley View Farms in 1981 before moving to its current location around 2001. The permanent buildings (there are several of them now), wood-paneled and homey, allow patrons to enjoy Nelson’s first-rate barbecue year-round. And the York Road landscape wouldn’t be the same without the giant pink pig on Nelson’s roof.
 
Boog’s Barbecue
Oriole Park at Camden Yards and Ocean City, Md.
Owner: Boog Powell, Baltimore Oriole
Dates: 1992 to present
When Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened in 1992, so did Boog’s Barbecue. From the beginning, fans stood in line for pit beef, turkey and pork, plus the chance for contact with the big man himself, as Powell tried to make an appearance at every home game. Nearly 20 years later, you can still find him at the green tent near the Eutaw Street entrance. He’s the one with hands as big as a bear’s paws and a grin that’s just as giant (and genuine).
 
Full Moon Bar-B-Que
2400 Boston St., The Can Company
Owner: Ray Lewis, Baltimore Raven
Dates: 2005 to 2009
After steakhouses, barbecue joints became the restaurants of choice for Baltimore athletes. Ray Lewis’ Full Moon Bar-B-Que didn’t have the longevity (or the chops) of Andy Nelson’s or Boog’s, but for four years, the cavernous space in Canton’s Can Company drew customers eager to see Lewis and try his brand of ribs, pulled pork and chicken. 

Pears are quintessentially fall to me. Well, pears and football. I could be totally off, but nothing screams cold-weather-on-the-horizon like a juicy pear. They’re sort of like apples’ more rustic, refined cousin, dropping into kitchens unnoticed for a brief few moments every autumn. They don’t hog the spotlight, nor do they seem to want to. And they’re the last fruit that casually comes a-callin’ before winter slam-dunks Baltimore.

So, I love pears. I mean, it’s hard not to. They’re great raw, but I really love them roasted. They keep their shape after cooking better than any other fruit I know. Serving pork tenderloin with roasted pears is a given— pork goes so well with sweet fruits. I added some of my favorite root veggies into the mix to round out the meal. Bosc pears are the heartiest pear variety, and work well together with the meat. Serve the tenderloin with spiced applesauce or chutney, if you like that sort of thing.

Might I suggest starting off your pear-themed meal with a pear and bourbon cocktail? This one is easy to make before guests arrive, and is somehow hearty and refreshing at the same time. Use Bartlett pears if you can, since they have the softest, least obtrusive skin.

The pear salad is basically a roasted Seckel pear covered with a dollop of oozing, melted blue cheese. Serve it hot on a bed of spicy greens, dressed with a sharp vinaigrette to cut the richness. It’s simple to prepare, and who doesn’t love a warm salad? Thanks to the Seckel pear’s diminutive size (they’re adorable, aren’t they?), you can serve each guest a whole pear and get away with it.

Finally, for dessert, there is nothing more delicious than a pear cobbler. Every time I make this dish, I nearly pass out at how easy it is to throw together— and how good it tastes. I guess you can’t go wrong with butter, sugar and warm fruit. Like the cocktail, I find that Bartlett pears work best with the cobbler because their delicate skins make for a delicate dessert.
 
So show some love for the underestimated pear. Your dinner guests will thank you.

Pear and Bourbon Cocktail

Roasted Seckel Pear Salad

Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Bosc Pears

Pear Cobbler

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

Did you know that Thomas Jefferson smuggled rice out of Italy in his coat pockets— a crime punishable by death at the time? Or that from the mid-1800s to the 1930s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture dispatched “plant hunters” to the far reaches of the planet to bring back seeds for persimmons, pomegranates and pistachios? Or that, thanks to the Margarine Act of 1886, citizens served hard time for “crimes against butter”?

All these tasty tidbits and more are there for the taking at “What’s Cooking, Uncle Sam?” an exhibit at the National Archives that explores the government’s effect on the American diet. In the early days, it seems the government acted as the Great Supplier, distributing seeds to farmers for free in an age before seeds were commercially available. Then the government became the Great Protector, employing a “poison squad” to rout out foreign substances in manufactured food, and eventually passed the Pure Food and Drug acts.

Then— and this is where the exhibit really shines— the government shape-shifted into the Great Propagandist, creating vintage posters that implored citizens to “Save the sugar and wheat for soldiers,” “Eat More Cottage Cheese,” “Use Leftovers”— and, most bizarrely, “Eat the Carp.” That poster features a list of 10 (not particularly convincing) reasons to sup on carp, including, “It can be cooked in such a way to remove the muddy taste.”

Alas, walking through the exhibit, you learn that in the 1890s, word was already out, thanks to renowned nutrition scientist W.O. Atwater, that Americans “eat too much fat and sweets and don’t get enough exercise.” (We can thank Atwater for introducing the word “calorie” to our vocabulary.) One wonders what he’d have thought of the 1945 USDA pie chart— a forerunner of the food pyramid— that gave butter its own food group, or of the depictions of doughnuts as a nutritious power food (because they were fortified with vitamin B1).

I got so immersed— looking at posters and letters and studying the recipes for Lyndon Johnson’s chili, JFK’s chowder and Eisenhower’s vegetable soup— that it came as a jolt when, right after a display about school lunches, the exhibit cut off abruptly. I was so surprised, in fact, that I retraced my steps to make sure I hadn’t skipped a room. No such luck. The exhibit ends before discussing the government’s role in the fascinating food issues of our current day, such as the ban on trans fats, the new spate of urban farmers or any of the food safety issues raised by books like “Fast Food Nation” and documentaries like “Food, Inc.”

What was there was great. But I was definitely hungry for more.

Luckily, just a few blocks away is America Eats Tavern, a “pop-up” restaurant that is the creation of José Andrés, a James Beard “Outstanding Chef” for 2011 and the chef/owner of ThinkFoodGroup, which owns five of D.C.’s most acclaimed restaurants. America Eats, as the menu states, is “a place where you can travel through time to find the moment when our American identity was forged in a pot, skillet and bowl.” It’s meant to be a companion to the National Archives exhibit (some of its nifty vintage posters hang on the restaurant’s walls and profits at the restaurant will be donated to the Foundation for the National Archives) and it’s a great one.

I started by sipping a few colonial beverages at the bar under the tutelage of Owen Thomson, ThinkFoodGroup’s lead bartender and the researcher/ creator of the bar’s historical cocktail menu, which includes everything from switchel (a field worker’s drink from New England) to Ben Franklin’s milk punch (light and fizzy) to grog (puts hair on your chest). Thomson and his fellow bartenders eagerly shared their knowledge, and by the time my table was ready, I’d learned a key lesson: colonial mixology was driven by a need to preserve things in an age before refrigeration.

Once at my table, I decided to indulge in the 10-course tasting menu. At $95, it’s steep, but worth every penny for the quality and beauty of the dishes— and for the uniqueness of the experience. Where else can you find abalone on the same menu as burgoo and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Thanks to the menu, which is a history and food buff’s dream, I can report that the practice of eating abalone dates to 1945, burgoo was originally made with blackbirds and squirrels in Kentucky in the 1860s and the invention of the PBJ is credited to Helen Louise Johnson, the author of a 1896 cookbook published by a manufacturer of nut grinders.

I started with grilled butter oysters, which had a smoky flavor and hint of something… well… unusual. “What was on those?” I asked my very knowledgeable server as she took away my plate. “Mace,” she said. Aha, not a spice I encounter regularly.

The abalone came to the table under a glass dome, and with its pearlescent shell, bed of delicate seaweed and puff of foam, it looked like an exquisite glass terrarium— tasted exquisite, too. Next came a round of dishes that were very tasty— she crab soup, shrimp and grits, lobster Newburg and short ribs— but didn’t taste new and different (or old and different, to be more exact), as the oysters and abalone had.

Then came the ketchup.

I had learned at the National Archives exhibit that during the early days of ketchup production the bottles often exploded in the factory, causing great harm to life and limb— and yet, despite the risk, our forefathers loved the stuff. I dipped a bite of fried chicken into each of the three ketchups brought to my table, one made from yellow tomato, one from mushrooms and one from cherries. None tasted like Heinz’s, a good thing in the case of the yellow tomato ketchup but not so much in the case of the mushroom (which tasted like dirt) or cherry ketchup (just plain odd).

Out of loyalty to my hometown, I couldn’t leave before trying the crab cake, made from a recipe published by our own Lord Baltimore Hotel, circa 1932.

What can I say? It represents us well. And it’s one for the history books. 

“What’s Cooking, Uncle Sam?” is at the National Archives until Jan. 3, 2012. Open daily 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., http://www.archives.gov.

America Eats Tavern is open daily for lunch and dinner, and brunch on weekends, until January 2012. 405 8th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 202-393-0812, http://www.americaeatstavern.com.

The lovely Hotel Monaco is walkable to both, http://www.monaco-dc.ocm.

In Canton, restaurateur brothers Marc and Bill McFaul have opened two new adjoining pubs: The Dark Horse Saloon and Finnegan’s Wake Pub. (2324 Boston St.; Dark Horse, 443-449-7075; Finnegan’s, 443-449-7064) ...

Veteran caterer Larry Schwartz has opened a new bistro in Arbutus, dubbed Larry’s 1332, serving lunch and dinner. (1332 Sulphur Spring Road, 443-304-2841) ...

Power Plant Live has welcomed two new faces to the plaza: Leinenkugel’s Beer Hall, serving more than 40 specialty brews, and Joe Squared, a second location for the popular North Avenue-based pizzeria and pub. ...

The Verandah is now open in Hampden, serving Indian/Pakistani takeout from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays. (842 W. 36th St., 410-857-3553)

Thank you for your submission! Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you for your submission! Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Kara Snyder at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

“September is Canned Food Month!” announces a Sun article from 1958 that I recently unearthed from a pile of yellowed clippings then quickly buried again. It reminded me too much of my own failure to can last summer, as I’d vowed to do. A look in my cellar, where next to a pantry shelf stacked high with cat food and 5-pound bags of flour sits half a box of empty Ball canning jars, has the same guilt-producing effect.

To be fair, I have good excuses: It was hot last summer. It’s easy to make jam and applesauce in the microwave— and even easier to buy good quality canned tomatoes. And I also have strong memories— not all positive— of steamy, all-day canning sessions in my grandmother’s Dundalk basement when I was a child.

Late summer saw my sister and me sitting at my grandmother’s black and white enamel-top table, stringing and snapping green beans from a bushel crate and tossing them into a large green basin for my mother and grandmother to pack into jars and process in the silver pressure cooker. 

In October, we helped to peel the dusky Winesap apples my grandmother cooked down to sauce on her ancient King stove. And sometime in between, my mother and grandmother tackled tomatoes, but because there were few child-friendly parts of tomato canning— all knives and boiling water— Kathleen and I were free to play outside while the adults toiled.

We got off far easier than my mother did when she was a little girl. During the 1940s, my grandmother canned everything, and the pantry under the cellar steps was testimony to her labor. There were peaches, strawberry jam and chili sauce, whole tomatoes that my grandfather ate in a dish with a spoon as his salad, and pungent chow-chow. Seckel pears, given to my grandfather by a co-worker, were a trial to peel, and lima beans, purchased from a farm on German Hill Road, took hours to shell. Blackberries had to be picked from brambly bushes that grew on the hill behind the houses on Holabird Avenue. “Because we had Concord grape vines in the backyard and because nobody wanted the grapes,” recalls my mother, “Grandma would can grape jam and grape juice, so they wouldn’t go to waste. That’s why I hate grape jelly today.”

And if that weren’t enough, each year my grandfather’s sister and mother would make a trip from Caroline County with a trunk full of strawberries.  “They would usually stay for dinner,” says my mother. They didn’t stay for jam making.

As hot as it was, Grandma’s basement kitchen was a more comfortable place to work than any of Baltimore’s commercial canneries that lined the waterfront up through the 1950s and early ’60s.

Baltimore’s canning industry dates to 1832 when Thomas Kensett, who held a patent for a process to hermetically seal cans, opened a cannery to process oysters at the foot of Federal Hill. By the late 19th century, processing plants in Baltimore and on the Eastern Shore flourished, and the 20th century saw company names that still resonate today.

Crosse and Blackwell in the 6800 block of Eastern Avenue boiled up marmalades and canned spicy date nut bread, and Southern Packing was known for its raspberry applesauce known as “appleberry.”

During World War II, plants even canned water for emergency use. But the majority of the canneries— W.H. Roberts and Co. on South Lakewood, who manufactured under the “Princess” label, or Langrell Brothers on Aliceanna, whose label was “Red Chief,” or Baltimore’s oldest vegetable cannery, Lord-Mott, in Fells Point— processed a season’s bounty beginning with spring peas and strawberries, through summer string beans and into late summer tomatoes. In 1958, Baltimore ranked second in the nation in canned tomato and tomato products, third in green beans and fifth in canned fish.

The canneries depended largely on the labor of the Polish women who lived in East Baltimore, a population, according to an article in Baltimore magazine, who “appear contented at their labors.” It’s hard to believe the workers looked that content given that, for example, tomato peelers worked more than 10 hours per day peeling by hand tomatoes that had been plunged into boiling water to loosen their skins. In the 1940s, they were paid 12 cents for each 16-quart bucket of tomatoes peeled, and most peelers produced four bucketfuls per hour.  My father’s mother worked only sporadically in the canneries as a tomato peeler (though she was a bean picker, another job held by many Polish immigrants, during the summer), but many Poles found long- and short-term employment in the packing houses.

Evergreen resident Ben Kowarski came to Baltimore from Poland at age 13, and by 1966, at 18, was a self-described “long-haired motorcycle dude” when he took a summer job in “quality control” at the Lord-Mott Cannery. Kowarski’s 12-hour day began at 5 a.m. when he would sort through a dump truck of string beans from the Eastern Shore, checking for vermin and rot, before moving on to the production line to check the cans’ vacuum seals and the weight and quality of the beans. He used his language skills to talk to the Polish ladies who worked in the steam house, where “noise and steam was constant,” says Kowarski. “They worked ridiculously long days in very tough conditions.” When he moved on at the end of summer to attend UMBC, the women stayed.

If you grew up in East Baltimore, it was impossible to ignore the canneries, which became familiar features in the Baltimore streetscape. Adam Mazurek, a librarian who is part of the effort behind the forthcoming Henryk Sienkiewicz Polonia Library at Polish National Alliance Council 21 in Fells Point, remembers mounds of string beans piled on the sidewalk in front of Roberts Cannery on Binney Street in Canton, where his mother worked, and flat-bed trucks piled high with baskets of tomatoes. Altar boys from St. Casimir’s might be tempted to take a few for lunch or for ammunition, he recalls, or for “a summer version of snowball fights.”

Manning’s Hominy was the last cannery in Baltimore. By the time it was sold in 1995, the other packing houses had long disappeared, like so many of Baltimore’s historic industries. National Canned Food Month has migrated, too, from September when it could be taken as a call to action, to February, when it allows industrious kitchen types to take pride in their own resourcefulness, and the rest of us to be grateful for the peelers and pickers who bring jam to our pantries.

I think September is the better month, though. The real heat of summer is over, taking with it its lethargy, and the tomatoes are still plentiful. And I have just the recipe for easing my guilty self into canning: a savory tomato marmalade that bridges sweet and savory, summer and fall, old-fashioned techniques and new flavors.

Tomato Marmalade

The Performance Artist
Laure Drogoul calls herself a “cultural crackpot.” Since moving to Baltimore in 1979, she has been challenging audiences with her multimedia works and performance art. She founded and still hosts events at 14 Karat Cabaret and co-organizes the Transmodern Festival, both dedicated to showcasing works and performances by artists operating out of the mainstream. This fall, Drogoul, who teaches sculpture at York College in Pennsylvania, will curate the revamped Great Big Halloween Parade of Lights and Luminaria in Patterson Park.

The thing I like about [performance art] is the utter spontaneity of it. It’s very fresh. You never know what’s going to come back at you. You give up a certain amount of control, which can be tricky, but what you get back in return is very exciting.

I’m a product of my experiences here. We all are. We’re just kind of accumulated residue of our life experiences, aren’t we?

Catholic school does give you a certain type of cynicism for the rest of your life.

I’m very boring. I’ve just been doing the same thing since I’ve been in town. I’m very focused, and my form has its earmarks. My style has expanded, but it’s really the same. I’m interested in the strange, the other, the mystery.

I’m not so sure that I’d be so inclined to sleep in a boarded-up hotel again.

A lot of Baltimore in the ’80s was quite a curious space. Now I think the psycho-geography of the city has changed. The quirky mapping of the city is different. It’s been pushed out from the center.

The lack of a commercial art market has made Baltimore a little less homogenized than other cities. 

I’ve been collecting toothpaste tubes forever.

I collected food labels for two or three years and I’d put them up on the wall. And I learned a whole lot about them. I realized that they’re predominantly red. And blood is red. And we are carnivorous animals.

I was taking photographs of roadkill for an extended period of time because I became really interested in the amount of carnage I’d see on the highways and I really thought about us being predators on the road with our vehicles and not even realizing that the automobile was really an extension of ourselves. 

Collections are just my form of sketching.

What I love about teaching is the exchanging of ideas. And I love activating somebody to create artwork, to introduce people to things I feel are interesting and to ignite them into action.

A lot of times my students will come into studio with their iPods on and I’m like, ‘Why don’t you just bring in an old-fashioned CD so we can all share what you’re listening to?’ It seems like we’ve really become what I call Pod People. Everybody is in bubbles. It’s polite culture, but you have this kind of world where you don’t have shared space, which is something I’m really interested in.

I think we all have smells in our brains.

Jackhammering nude rattles your molars. —As told to Joe Sugarman

The Actor
Deborah Hazlett has been a member of Everyman Theatre’s resident company for 12 years, playing such memorable roles as Hedda Gabler, Claire in “Proof” and Kate Keller in “All My Sons.” This fall she takes the stage again to play Amanda in Noel Coward’s “Private Lives,” Nov. 2 through Dec. 4.

When I was in the third grade my family took a trip to D.C. and we went to Ford’s Theatre and got fourth-row center seats to see ‘Godspell.’ I just was blown away and when we got back to Sumter, S.C., where we were living, I said to my mom, ‘That’s what I want to do.’ God bless her, she enrolled me in theater summer camp!

I love to paint— the creation of a painting feels similar to being in rehearsal. I have a house full of paintings, but I’ve never had the courage to do anything with them. I can get up onstage and do anything, but I can’t show my paintings!

I really want to play Lady Macbeth and I think I’m finally at the place to play her. I want to play Amanda in ‘Glass Menagerie.’ I’d still like to do Blanche in ‘Streetcar’ at Everyman ... but if I’m going to do it, we better do it! I want to respect the character— I don’t want to play a character I’m too old— or young—to play.

Theater has taught me a lot about life, and life has taught me a lot about theater. What I find in both places is the need to be vulnerable and tell the truth and not try to control the outcome.

The catharsis that can happen when there’s absolute silence and you know people are seeing it through their lens— that’s why I’ve stayed in theater.

I think increasing empathy should be one of theater’s goals. I’m not sure we always do it.

I decided to move here from New York City because my last year in the city I was paying $2,250 a month for a one-bedroom and I was never there! You don’t have to be in New York to work as an actor. D.C. is now the second largest theatrical community in the country. But the reality is you have to have a modest lifestyle. You keep your monthly nut small, as they say, so you can play your horn.

When an audience and a troupe of actors come together, there’s something that happens that’s extraordinary. It doesn’t happen in a movie theater. It doesn’t happen when (continued on page 127)  you watch TV. It’s almost like a call and response between the audience and actors.

You want to be the best actor in the room? Be the best listener and truthfully respond. That, in life, is crucial.

I never have played a character I haven’t liked.

I was buying wine at Eddie’s Liquors in Charles Village the other night and a young man was in line in front of me and he said, ‘You’re Deborah Hazlett. Can I hug you?’ I said, ‘Of course!’ It’s lovely to feel a sense of community and a sense of shared journey with people who come back to the theater again and again. —As told to Laura Wexler

The Filmmaker

On Aug. 1, Matt Porterfield began shooting his third feature film, “I Used to Be Darker,” the story of a family navigating its way through a divorce. Porterfield, the 33-year-old writer/director of the critically acclaimed films “Hamilton” and “Putty Hill” — and the recipent of the 2011 Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize— was born in the house in Hamilton that he lives in today.

It’s great to live in the house I grew up in. My films are nostalgic anyway, so there’s a palpable nostalgia I live with every day. I gutted my bedroom and built it back from scratch. But there’s a couple of skateboard stickers in weird little spots and glow-in-the dark stars on the ceiling.

After ‘Hamilton’ I felt like I was looking at the gates of the city. Somewhere after ‘Putty Hill,’ I was inside the gates. I can take meetings now with producers that people would kill for.

It still doesn’t mean it’s easy to get money. My little square peg doesn’t fit in the round hole. I don’t cast name-brand actors, and I shoot in Baltimore.

It’s harder to ask for $250,000 to make a movie than $3 million or $4 million.

I had great credit for years until I started making movies. I didn’t go too far into debt on ‘Hamilton.’ ‘Putty Hill’ pushed me way in the red. But I feel like the financial risk is an investment in my career and future. Down the road I’ll be on more solid footing. I know that will come. I believe it will.

For me, it’s a priority to portray lives I think are under-represented. A lot of my films are about family and about the working class that I know from growing up in Baltimore. I want to tell stories that reflect the diversity of experience of living in a city like Baltimore.

I’ve gotten to a point where I can cast someone based on a five-minute encounter. I see the person’s energy, style, eyes, face. For me, a lot of it has to do with the face.

I’m drawn to people that have a real inner strength. If they’re not scared of the world they’ll probably not be scared of the camera.

If I meet someone on the street I’ll usually say, ‘I know this sounds crazy, but I’m actually casting for a movie. Would you be interested in ever being in a movie?’ Sometimes they ask, ‘Is it a porno?’

I’ve learned that people can learn to do anything. I’m thinking of the cast of ‘Putty Hill,’ none of whom had ever been in front of a camera before. They improvised dialogue better than I could have written.

If you trust people and give them responsibility, they can figure things out.

The Baltimore filmmakers who are still making films owe a lot to Baltimore because it plays a big role in their films. Barry Levinson’s Baltimore films are by far my favorites of his films.

To be able to share my way of seeing the world— that’s what I like most about making films. —As told to Laura Wexler

The Ticket Seller
For more than 30 years, Elaine Barco has worked in the ticketing business. She began at the Baltimore Civic Center before coming to the Morris A. Mechanic Theatre in 1987. Barco has worked at the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center as its box office treasurer since the theater’s re-opening in 2004, and this fall, she will be handling ticket sales for “South Pacific” (Oct. 4-9), “Rain” (Oct. 21-22) and “La Cage Aux Folles” (Nov. 1-6). 

The Mechanic was a beautiful theater; it just had a lot of challenges. Our box office there had no access to any other place in the theater. If it was winter, you had to put on your coat and walk outside.

I’ve always worked with customer service. It’s really about listening to what people have to say and just trying to be sympathetic to it and help as much as you can.

I think today any job is stressful. But with this job, when many people want things yesterday, it’s a very fast-paced business. I just stand back and I really do think about the problems other people are faced with and it doesn’t seem so bad anymore.

Normally I would go to other stores and businesses and I would never say anything. But in the last 15 years or so, if I see someone going above and beyond I ask for the name and number of their superior and call and commend them. I will also ask right on the spot for a superior and complain about bad customer service.

There are many times when people come out and thank us during intermission. Sometimes I’ll get a bouquet of flowers or a box of candy the next day. Not just from subscribers, but anyone who was helped. There are a lot of good people out there.

I get to see a lot of shows that come in and I try to see as many as I can. But when I have days off, I don’t want to be at work.

When I was working at the Mechanic Theatre many years ago there were three or four performances of the Wiggles, that children’s show that used to be really popular. Mothers would come to the box office to buy tickets, and we’d have to tell them that the shows were sold out. They would start crying because they didn’t want to disappoint their children without tickets. It made me think, ‘What is the world coming to?’

When patrons wait until the last minute, they complain. It’s difficult because we have to make them happy— that’s our job. We have to convince them that this ticket is the best available and it will only get worse if they continue to wait.

Everyone wants eighth row center. —As told to Laura Lefavor

The Artistic Trustee

Murray Kappelman just turned 80, and for more than half of those years, he’s served as a volunteer board member, sometime board president and now board member emeritus at Center Stage. Kappelman, a retired pediatrician and professor and the author of six books, is looking forward to seeing “Jazz” (Jan. 4–Feb. 5, 2012) and “Into the Woods” (March 7–April 15, 2012) at Center Stage this season, and Marin Alsop conduct the oratorio “Joan of Arc at the Stake” (Nov. 17 and 18) with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, where he is also an active board member.

My mom used to take me to New York City to see theater. I remember seeing ‘Carousel.’ I remember seeing ‘Oklahoma.’ When I got older, my buddies and I would go up and stand in line for standing room tickets. I saw the original ‘South Pacific’ standing in the back of the theater.

You bring part of the story with you to the theater. You add to the dimension of what you’re seeing. That’s the excitement— you really become part of what’s happening on stage.

When I graduated from college I decided to go into medicine and make theater my avocation. If I went into theater, I couldn’t make medicine my avocation.

When you’re a doctor talking to children and their parents, you’ve got to be thoughtful and sensitive and listen for what’s not being said. Theater helped me learn how to do that.

Theater has stimulated and challenged me to write. I was so fascinated by other people’s words I thought, ‘Let me see if I have words in me.’

Baltimore was a place where a lot of shows began and went on to New York. They would try out shows here, mostly at Ford’s Theatre. I remember going to the opening night of ‘Mr. Roberts’ at Ford’s Theatre. Henry Fonda was the lead. We were sitting in the second balcony looking down. I really am bad with heights so I must have loved it!

I was a member of the first board of Center Stage. We sometimes had to go out to the audience and ask for money, or stand on stage and plea. It was a very exciting time, but a time of hard work.

Board members are important—the artistic venues would not be as rich without their boards. If the boards could have anything to do with it, Baltimore Opera would still be around.

I had a staged reading of one of my plays at Center Stage. It was very helpful. You don’t realize what you’ve written until you see it come alive.

I think Baltimore is coming into its own very clearly as a cultural venue.

I cannot imagine my life without the arts. It’s not just dessert— it’s an essential part of my life meal. I find it offers an extra layer of meaning in life. I have so much more to look forward to, especially as I get older.

‘Astonish me’— that’s what you hope the theater or symphony will do. I would love to be astonished two out of six times I go to the theater, and one-third of the times I go to symphony. You can’t like six plays. You can’t love 20 concerts. But if you get a third of them that are stunning, then you’ve had a good cultural year.

When you read a novel, the author tells you what people are thinking. In the theater, the author leaves layers of relationships out. There’s a whole layer of life that’s happening but you don’t see or hear it. You have to put it in.

I can remember taking my children to New York to see ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ and looking at their faces during ‘Sunrise, Sunset’ and I started to cry. That was a right moment in my life. —As told to Laura Wexler

Adam Kurtzman’s “Elsa Lanchester as Bride of Frankenstein

On Oct. 6, Rebecca Hoffberger will open “All Things Round: Galaxies, Eyeballs, and Karma,” her 17th show at the American Visionary Art Museum, which she founded in 1995. Hoffberger has spent her life exploring and documenting human creativity and intuition, an adventure that’s taken her to Paris to study with famed mime Marcel Marceau, to Mexico to study nontraditional medicine and to Nigeria to establish medical field hospitals.

Some of the least creative people I’ve ever met have self-identified as artists. My favorite artists don’t watch themselves be artists. My favorite spiritual people don’t watch themselves be spiritual. It just leaks out of them.

It’s kind of silly to think that when someone sits down for five minutes and puts something on a piece of paper that can hang on the wall, we automatically call it art. Why is that art when someone else who spends 40 years nurturing a garden isn’t creating ‘art’?

Humor surprisingly reveals truths we’ve always known.

Creative self-reliance and intuition are very viable ways to the heart of invention.

Creative, inventive minds are what is most interesting to me, be they scientists who come up for a cure for AIDS, musicians who compose a harmony never before heard or people who bring about a greater harmony as social visionaries.

Ninety-nine percent of Americans can’t name a work by Van Gogh but they all know he cut off his ear. There’s a real interest to connect with artists as human beings.

The real geniuses can digest ideas so thoroughly that they can be shared at a grass-roots level.

That the first museums began as ‘wonder cabinets’ makes total sense. They are still places focused on wonder when they are at their best.

Collect what you love. No one takes anything with them in the end, so surround yourself with art and nature and people that inspire.  

It’s not for nothing that during the Great Depression the sale of whoopee cushions reached an all-time high.

I realize I don’t care what people think, but I care deeply what they understand. What they really drink into themselves is what I’m interested in.

A lot of times when I’m here at the museum, I sit at the front desk or walk through the galleries and give spontaneous tours without people knowing who I am. The most important thing is the way people experience this place.

When you have a clear vision of what good can be, don’t dumb it down for anybody. —As told to Laura Wexler

The Arts Booster
Megan Hamilton has been with the Creative Alliance from its beginnings 16 years ago, when she and co-founders Margaret Footner and Dan Schiavone started the hometown arts clearinghouse and gallery above a cafe in Fells Point. Today, housed in the refurbished Patterson Theater in Highlandtown, the CA hosts readings, performances, exhibits, films, concerts, panels, parties— you name it. This fall, the Halloween Parade of Light & Luminaria returns on Sat., Oct. 29 under the direction of artist Laure Drogoul (page 123) in Patterson Park.

When I moved here, I looked at Baltimore through its history and through its built environment and got involved with the arts community and that was my lens. And if you were looking through that lens, Baltimore was an amazing place. And it still is.

When I was [in school] at Goucher, I had seen all the Vogue magazines and I had this image of myself as a very chic gal in a conservative but cool kind of suit, with high heels and nylons and a really cool briefcase, who was going to make a lot of money in advertising.

I dropped out. I went back to college 16 years later and finished when Goucher was co-ed, which was quite an adventure.

I felt like this was home and just started doing what seemed like fun, really.

The Creative Alliance was founded on the premise that Baltimore had an amazing arts community that nobody really knew about. This year it’s 16 years old. The whole idea of showcasing the
local has been a good paradigm.

When we founded it, they were shooting ‘Homicide’ down the street in Fells Point and all those guys ate at the cafe [where Creative Alliance was then located]. We owe a lot to those guys because they did a benefit for us for five years called ‘Homicide Live,’ and that really got us on the map.

We felt like there are amazing artists in Baltimore, and they’re your neighbors, and they can make work that will speak to you more profoundly often than artists from elsewhere.

I thought it was hilarious in 2008 when [Baltimore] got named ‘Best Music Scene’ in America by Rolling Stone, and all the grown-ups were like ‘What bands?’ ‘What clubs?’ That was classic. That was so classic.

I really hope people in Baltimore are aware of the cultural riches that we have, because we have a cultural scene far out of scale with the size of the city we are.

To leave the arts community out of these [political] discussions about how to create social change is overlooking a vast resource.

Back in my bartending career, I was always struck by how many people would come from D.C. because they thought Baltimore was a cool town. They felt like it was authentic, which I think is true, and they felt like it was a bargain, which I think is true, and they got it that we had these cultural resources, and I think that’s definitely true.

I think very few cities are as aware of their aesthetic identity and heritage as Baltimore. I think we’re really blessed that way.

­­­­­­­Experiencing unmediated visual or performing arts or spoken word firsthand is important for me personally. I see an insane amount of live performance, most of it local. It’s important for my soul.

That the city’s arts community has grown the way it has has been really exciting. It’s been a lot of work, but it’s been pretty good work. —As told to Brian Michael Lawrence

The Fine Artist
Ruth Pettus was born in New Zealand, grew up in London and Australia, and has been a fixture on the Baltimore art scene since moving here in 1980. You can view her large-scale, brooding canvases—many depicting faceless men in suits— and her trademark installations of cast-off shoes this fall during a Basement Shoe Café exhibit (Oct. 31) and her annual studio open house (see rpettus.com).

My mother thought I would have a future in art when I was around 9 years old. I had done some unusual drawings, portraits of her, and a copy of a Bonnard painting in which she saw artistic talent. 

I sold my first piece for $5, a small painting on Sheetrock, at a junk shop next to Club Charles many years ago. I was ecstatic.

Good writing on art and art criticism can be as energizing and inspiring as seeing good art.

One big change since I moved to Baltimore is that The Sun no longer reviews art exhibits. My first review was in The Evening Sun of an exhibit at the Cultured Pearl. John Dorsey and Glenn McNatt were both consistent reviewers at The Sun. The city has done a terrific job designating art zones, supporting art and putting substantial money into artists’ buildings. I think the arts have an important place in Baltimore and one would hope that The Sun could have some coverage. 

I used to find shoes or buy them at Goodwill or yard sales. Now people give them to me. Whenever I show them, people scratch their heads and say, ‘Hmm… I should give you my husband’s shoes or my wife’s.’  I say, ‘Put them on my front porch. At this point I have a surplus.’

Does it matter if people see my work? Well, one works many years to create work and, of course, people viewing it is part of the equation. 

My ‘creative process’ runs on consistent work and intuition.  

I’ve never had any specific goals except to continue to make artwork. —As told to Joe Sugarman

The Theater Director
Born in South Carolina, Fuzz Roark has lived all over the country and worked at various jobs in family and child ­services while acting in theater productions whenever he could. He moved to Baltimore in 1993, and became the managing director of Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre in 2004. This season, Spotlighters’ 50th, Roark directs “Tea & Sympathy” (Sept. 30-Nov. 6), a drama set in a boys’ boarding school in 1953 New England.

The nickname Fuzz has been around since I was 12 or 13. When I hit puberty I began to get fur. I had very hairy legs, a very hairy chest and the seniors called me Fuzzy Wuzzy. It was a name I utterly despised. It has its advantages. It gave me an identity.

I’m probably the only kid who grew up in the ’60s in the South that didn’t get in a fight in school, largely because I could talk myself out of a fight. ‘Ballerina boy’, ‘Toe-shoe Boy’— all these great names. I said ‘Yeah, well when did you have Mary Smith on your shoulders? Come down to rehearsal and watch.’ And there I am picking up the hottest girl in school, and putting her on my shoulders. I’m in this embracing love scene with her, and they’re freaking out!

When I was working in New York, that was probably the biggest bucket of cold water. In the Southeast, I could walk into almost any audition and get cast. And when I got to New York, I realized ‘Yeah I’m good. I’m really good, but so is everybody else.’

My background in social work, a lot of that plays into how I direct, how I help my cast create the character. Working with clients as a social worker, being able to see their character, it was an acting exercise in some ways.

I directed ‘Chess’ here in ’04, and everyone thought I was crazy for directing a cast of 36 people, a huge Tim Rice musical, and it got phenomenal reviews. That set me as part of the family at Spots. From that point forward, this was my second home.

It’s that very careful balance of knowing who the theater’s audience is, knowing who we are as a theater, what we’re about, and keeping that vision in front of us. I came on as managing director, working on both production and administration in the transition period between Audrey’s death and when Spotlighters became a nonprofit. Strangely enough, we did really well. We went from a budget of $55,000 a year to our current budget of $137,000.

You have to be confident in yourself.

I hope, as I work with high school and middle school students in our theater programs, that I’m able to help them understand that they’re unique, that their talent is unique. It may not fit every director’s ideal, but find where it fits. You can let that destroy you, or you find where it works. I’ve always had that attitude of ‘It may not be where I dreamed of, but it’s what I want.’ —As told to Alice Horner­­­­

The Classical Musician
As a percussionist for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since 2003, Brian Prechtl gets called upon to bang literally hundreds of instruments, from kettle drums to wooden blocks. The Boston native is actively involved in the BSO’s OrchKids outreach program, writes his own compositions and lives on a boat. This season, he’s looking forward to performing with percussionist Colin Currie on Jennifer Higdon’s “Percussion Concerto” (March 22-24, 2012) and Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” (June 7-10, 2012).

When I was about 15, I had one of those aha moments at a band rehearsal. We were playing a piece by Bach— ‘Fantasia in G Major’— and there’s this bass drum line and I got these chills up my spine and I thought, ‘Wow, this is fantastic! I want to feel this forever.’

Anybody who is a percussionist has to have space in a house that’s far away from everybody else. 

There are people who pooh-pooh John Williams’ music, but I tell ya, it is really fun to play and the percussion parts are fantastic.

If there’s only one instrument you like and you’re good at, you’re not going to be a very good percussionist. The best percussionists are the ones who love to play all the parts and all the instruments with passion and conviction.

It’s always better to have a little too much energy than not enough, but gonzo energy has to be tempered. If I were playing in a rock band, I’d be gonzo all the time, but playing with an orchestra, there are times you have to dial it back. [Led Zeppelin’s] John Bonham changed drumming. Period.

As a part of OrchKids, I teach bucket band. Every kid gets a 5-gallon bucket and a set of drumsticks and we play music. ... Having an instrument in their hands for these kids is like coming up to bat. They’re never going to get a hit if they don’t come up to bat. They’re never going to find their creative sides if they don’t have an instrument to play or something to paint or a place to dance.

I have a snare drum and a xylophone on the boat. It’s a groovy lifestyle. A lot of jam sessions break out. I’ve got a bag full of percussion equipment and I’ll get the snare pumping and before you know it, there’s five people with instruments out.

Of course, I still get nervous. It’s like that moment when you go up a roller coaster and you’re almost at the top and you’re feeling a little sick but really excited about what’s going to happen. And as soon as you go over the top, it’s like ‘Woooooo!’ That’s a lot what it’s like to play onstage in front of 2,000 people.

Percussionists take a lot of grief [from the rest of the orchestra]. They all joke, ‘What do you call a person that hangs out with musicians? A drummer.’ We get no respect. We’re the Rodney Dangerfields of the orchestra. 

Sometimes the stereotypes are true. Trumpet players are sort of obnoxious, overbearing people that have to be heard all the time. Drummers are a little distracted and just want to have a good time. And violinists do love the solo spotlight. Still, we have very deep relationships [at the BSO]. It’s a family. 

Yeah, I have the funniest job in the orchestra. I don’t think I even have any competition.  —As told to Joe Sugarman

­The Dancer
Maria Broom has worked in TV news, appeared in commercials and acted in the holy trinity of Baltimore-based television crime series (“The Corner,” “The Wire” and “Homicide”) among other TV shows and movies. But she’s mostly known as a dancer, something she’s been doing nearly her entire life. These days, Broom leads dance medicine workshops at Baltimore Yoga in Mount Washington and hosts school programs as “Miss Maria,” a storytelling dancer. She’ll be participating in the Creative Alliance’s Art to Dine For program on Oct. 26 and performing at the Baltimore Museum of Art on Dec. 28.

I was 6 years old and my mother took me to the Lyric Opera House to one of the last performances of ‘Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.’ It was a huge, gorgeous set, with 20,000 people on stage. I remember looking at that stage and the dancers and thinking, ‘Those are my people. That’s where I belong.’

As a black girl in Baltimore there wasn’t a whole lot of places I could go [to learn dance]. 

When I was coming up, my goal was to be an Alvin Ailey dancer. I wanted to be like Judith Jameson— a black woman with short nappy hair like mine. She was just an expressive, emotive dancer. That spoke to me.

When I was young I used to just use my hands and fingers in all sorts of weird different ways. It wasn’t until I went to UCLA during an Asian Performance Summer Arts Institute where I studied dance from India, Java, Bali that I realized, ‘Oh my gosh, this is what my fingers and arms have been doing!’

I have learned to get out of the habit of thinking when I’m on stage, of turning it over to a higher spirit— an inner spirit— and letting it come through me so it will go out to the audience. 

One of the best compliments I ever got was when I finished a performance in a school and I was backstage and these two boys, maybe 7 or 8, walked up to me and said, ‘My friend wants to know, Are you real?’ It was such a compliment because it meant that whatever I did was so magical that it looked surreal to them.

All of my life I have always had these dreams of being backstage and getting ready and I can’t find my way to the stage. 

I remember the day I was given the part of a crack addict in ‘The Corner.’ The very first day you meet with the cast and you sit around a table and read the script. Everybody said I was so good. But when I left I was upset and I called a friend crying and I said, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’ve been Miss Maria— peace and love— how am I going to get up there and play a crack addict?’ And she said, ‘Maria, that’s why it’s called acting.’

You can do ballet up to a certain point until the body says ‘That’s enough of being on tiptoes.’ 

I got called a couple times to audition for ‘Law & Order.’ You go three hours up on the train. You wait with six or seven
people in the waiting room. You go in and audition for like 45 seconds and then you ride three hours back. I said, ‘You know what? This is not fun. What is wrong with this?’

I have yet to do a [TV] role where I get to smile.  I want to play a wise woman that gets to smile.

I feel the confidence from having lived 62 years. And that didn’t come until my 50s. It’s like you are now of the grandmother generation, a woman of authority, so you can say things with grandmotherly authority. You can say things to younger people with confidence—and they listen to you. 

I see the look of being older and I like it. —As told to Joe Sugarman

The Rock ’n’ Roll Band
It’s been 10 years since guitarist Cris Jacobs and mandolinist/beatboxer Kenny Liner formed The Bridge and started playing in front of Baltimore audiences. Three well-received albums and hundreds of sweat-drenched concerts later, the band is scheduled to play its final show on Nov. 23 at Rams Head Live.

In the back of my mind I had the idealistic dream of being a musician and traveling the world and being able to play music and meet people. That was the dream. Who would have known that that would actually happen?

I started to play guitar when I was 16. I remember a specific moment when I was playing in my room and I had a sense of complete bliss and it was like nothing I had ever experienced before. Every time since then, when I pick up my guitar, I feel like this is what I should be doing.

Seeing people getting into [our music] and being happy and giving the energy right back to me is indescribable. To me, that’s what it’s all about: This spiritual connection. It’s religious in a way.

We basically just weren’t making enough to sustain ourselves. People around Baltimore are shocked when I say that. ‘You guys are huge,’ they say. Well, yeah, we play Baltimore 5, 10 percent of the year and do well, but everywhere else is not even close.  That, and the fact that the road is a bitch and that we’re not 23 anymore, drew us to the conclusion that we should take a break.
The hardest part about it is that we don’t hate each other. If we hated each other it would be great, but we love each other. We’re still having a really great time. The music wasn’t the problem— it was everything else.

It’s tough out there. It’s a grueling lifestyle. Oftentimes, it’s a thankless lifestyle. When you think about the dream of going out and playing on the road, you think it’s all wine and roses, but when you actually get out there, you realize that the actual playing constitutes maybe an hour or two of every day. And other than that, it’s driving, sitting, setting up, waiting around.

Sometimes, I’d pinch myself and go, ‘As bad as this might be, it sure as hell beats sitting in an office.’

You can get very far with a band by feeding them a good meal before the gig.

Sex drugs and rock ‘n’ roll? I won’t comment on that. There were moments of glory throughout the years where we kind of high-fived each other and said, ‘OK, we’ll enjoy being king for a day.’ But other than that, no, it’s a grind. We’re not Led Zeppelin traveling in a private jet. For some bands, it probably is sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. For us, it was work, work, work and rock ’n’ roll.

In the beginning it was jam first, write songs second. That may have hurt us. I think we were maybe too jammy for the songwriting crowd and not jammy enough for the jam crowd after a while. 

I could deal without a lot of the Midwestern states. 

The music business has opened up these days. It’s become so easy for people to either play or record or promote that everybody thinks they can do it. With the Internet, you don’t need all the connections and channels that you used to need. If you want to put on a festival, you put it on Facebook and cross your fingers.

I’m still livin’ the dream. I can’t stop and I won’t. I’m rehearsing a new group, writing some new songs and developing a different sound. I’ll be doing some solo performances—  whatever I can do to fight that day job.

If you got paid on how much fun you had, we’d be millionaires. —As told to Joe Sugarman

The Gallery Owner
In 1988, Steven Scott took a chance and opened his own art gallery on Charles Street to showcase established American artists. Twenty-three years and two moves later, more than half of the gallery’s 20 represented artists remain from that core group. At his newest location in Fells Point, he’ll be highlighting the oils and monotypes of seven of his artists in this fall’s show, “Painterly Brushwork,” Oct. 4 through Dec. 31.

I first fell in love with art in the first grade on a field trip to the National Gallery. I saw the Renoir painting ‘A Girl with a Watering Can.’ I was drawn to the dazzling light, the inspired composition, the extraordinarily rich color and the intermittent flecks of sunlight infusing the surface of the canvas. The painting truly glowed.

I didn’t always know that I wanted my own gallery. I originally thought I would be a museum curator. When I worked in the museums, I found local and regional artists that had great talent but no representation in Baltimore or D.C. After following their work for a few years, I found that I had a high-quality group of artists that were saleable and important. So I took a leap.

It’s feast or famine. The winters are slow and the summers are busy. I can tell how well the gallery is doing by looking at the stack of art magazines on my desk. If there’s a large stack and lots of e-mails, then I’m behind. If I’m caught up, we’re having a slow period.  It’s always a roller coaster ride, but it all evens out in the end.

If you have a dedicated collector base and a quality group of artists you stick with, even new galleries can make it in Baltimore.

Many people are scared because conceptual art makes them feel stupid. You should always look, read and explore. Even with a graduate degree, I still don’t understand Jackson Pollock. Or his allure, for that matter.

In ’89, a collector walked into the Charles Street gallery with a big green trash bag over her shoulder. She threw it down in the middle of the floor and out came huge ornate, purple drapes. She needed a large purple painting to match the purple drapes! I tried to discourage her from buying to match— art should blend, but you should buy it because you love it.

The most important thing an artist can do is come up with a signature style—the kind where even if there is no sign, you can look at it and know who created it.

Many of my artists are set in their ways. I have to treat some with kid gloves. But the majority have been an absolute pleasure to work with. I support them and they support me. I know their quirks after 23 years. My artists stay true and paint for themselves, not the marketplace.

Some people just buy a piece to match their sofa or walls. Homes are not museums; there are restrictions with what you can display. Art needs to blend and enhance.

A large percentage of people that come to galleries don’t know the difference between lithographs and screen prints. It’s part of my job to educate— not everyone is an aficionado. When collectors understand the technique, they appreciate the pieces so much more.

If you really look at the works, it should take 10 visits to see the National Gallery. —As told to Laura Lefavor

Longtime NYC favorite Two Boots Pizza has a new home in Charm City. Recently relocated to The Fitzgerald building in Mount Vernon (it had been at Power Plant Live), Two Boots offers a decidedly funky spin on pizza toppings (including eggplant, artichoke, jalapeño, capicola, crawfish, andouille, anchovies and plenty more). And the equally funky interior is a feast for the eyes, as well, with its bright colors, fun murals and vintage, mismatched furniture. As for the name, Two Boots? That’s derived from the shapes of Italy and Louisiana, the geographic influences on its eclectic menu. 1203 W. Mount Royal Ave., 410-625-2668

Three years ago, my family and I left our apartment in the heart of bustling Cambridge, Mass., because my husband took a job teaching biology at McDonogh School in Owings Mills.

I had been born and bred in Pittsburgh, spent my early adulthood in and around Cambridge, and well into my 30s had only a glimmer of this thing called “the suburbs” where, it turns out, the vast majority of Americans live.

So when we turned onto Reisterstown Road from I-695 I didn’t even bother hiding my panic. “Where are we?” I asked. A Target the size of a city block whizzed by. It was followed by plasticy-looking condos, shopping malls with names like “Festival” and the well-tended lawns that were the stuff of legends. “That house has a lawn so big it could have horses!”

“Honey,” my husband said. “That is a horse barn.”

There were lots of buildings, lots of cars and all those lawns. But where were the people? Nobody was outside. I realized quickly there was no out to be in. You might think I’m a jerk, but I started to cry.

“The school is just a few miles from here!” my husband said brightly. Reisters-town to McDonogh Road and up the winding main road to campus. I whistled in appreciation and relief as I took in the cornfields and trees, the swale and the stream. McDonogh, founded in 1873 as a farm school, sits on nearly 800 acres. “This is pretty,” I said. “I bet there are deer and hedgehogs.” 

“Hedgehogs are an English species,” my husband reminded me.

“I meant groundhogs,” I said. “Clearly the suburbs are already sucking the brain out of my ear.”

He didn’t laugh. Instead he said, “This is where we’re going to live. We’re lucky to be living on-campus. Lucky.”

Three years later, I have to agree. I am lucky. We are lucky. We’d been squeezing ourselves into a two-bedroom in Cambridge; for a nursery we used a closet. Now we have a four-bedroom apartment that’s the biggest place we’ve ever lived. The kids each have their own rooms, which I agonized over decorating, never having done it before. We have a patio. And two bathrooms. Two bathrooms! In Cambridge, that was like saying you believed in elves.

There are 18 apartments on campus and 16 single-family homes and a Fertile Crescent of children. The first day we arrived, before we’d even brought in luggage, a boy about my son’s age came over and said, “Let’s play Spider-Man!” And they were off.

Like hardy fish introduced into a new aquarium, our children, then 3 and 5, didn’t need to be in the quarantine bag very long. I, on the other hand, needed weeks and weeks. I paced the wall-to-wall carpeting like a cat. “Does it smell funny?” I asked. “I think this carpet is off-gassing.”

My children forced me out. They said, “Can we go over to so-and-so’s to play in the sprinkler?” “Mommy, up the street there is a trampoline!” And: “So-and-so’s mom wants to know if she can borrow an egg.”

To my grandmother this would have been no big deal, but for me, this was a major life event. It signified The Transition. When you live in a liberal city like Cambridge, “neighbors” and “community” are words thrown around a lot.  But they’re bloodless. City living makes a person necessarily impersonal and private. I had “neighbors” in the sense that there were people who lived next door, upstairs and downstairs and across from us. But in the five years we lived in our apartment building no “neighbor” had ever asked to borrow anything. Ever. 

I walked to my neighbor’s, upper school English teacher Beth Rheingold, Ph.D., with an egg. When I handed it to her, I heard myself say, “There’s more if you need them.”

In those first few months we were here, I’d tell my Cambridge friends the egg story, and after much eye rolling, they’d quiet down and get reverent. They were envious. And, frankly, they should be. As Dr. Rheingold (known to my children as Miss Beth) says, “Living on campus is a rare opportunity to live in a neighborhood community not unlike those of the 1950s, where kids played together, went to school together, and parents wandered into each other’s yards to chat, look out for one another’s children, bring over a pie or go on a walk or bike ride.”

My kids are in a bike posse of kids that trundle up and down the hill outside our apartment. In Cambridge, I’d fear for the seconds they were out of the sight of my maternal periscope. Now they’re older of course, and more capable, but there are 10 other Mother and Father Gooses also on the lookout. When I hear one of them reminding my son to wear his helmet, I smile. It takes a village to get kids to wear protective headgear.

I can use the school’s pool and gym, we go to plays and performances, swap baby-sitting, and if I wasn’t both allergic to and scared of horses, I could ride the school’s horses.  I can watch excellent soccer from my kitchen window (McDonogh girls were the IAAM champions last year. Go Eagles!). I walk to school now that Nathaniel’s in kindergarten, and I have a plot in a garden that is just like the community garden I waited three years to get into in Cambridge.  

And then there is what my husband and I call The Magic. McDonogh has five-day boarding, and on-campus faculty families are asked to dine “family style” with a group of boarders once a week. For us, once a week quickly turned to twice a week, then three times. Four days a week, if I don’t want to cook or do dishes, or my husband does not want to cook or do dishes, we eat in the dining hall, carefree. That’s The Magic.
The head chef cooks fried chicken that’ll make you cry it’s so delicious. On fried chicken night I bring Tupperware. Meals are boisterous affairs with high school students chatting and wolfing down food after practice, and faculty kids running around and their parents running after them. It reminds me of Thanksgiving.  

 At the dining hall they know how to celebrate. The staff puts on a white linen and live music holiday dinner around Christmas, with a visit from Santa and gifts for the kids. The kids stick to each other with the melted sugar from half-eaten candy canes. The dessert table groans. I lean back and survey the scene with satisfaction, like a fat uncle from Dylan Thomas’ “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.”

When I learned that a colleague of my husband’s, upper school environmental science and biology teacher Rob Smoot, was born on campus and lived here for 50 years, raising his three children here, I shook my head in wonderment.  Fifty years!  In this day and age, who has that kind of taproot for a life story? He knows every divot, and every tree on campus.  

“My parents were McDonogh dorm parents, so growing up, I thought of the 800 acres of campus as my backyard,” says Smoot. “It was really country out here then. There were no encroaching developments, no I-795. It was all farmland and, just as there is now, there was a group of campus kids. We had the roam of the place.” 

He stresses the importance, especially now in the increasingly virtual age, of letting kids explore the out-of-doors. Mud. Streams. Stars. And not just kids. Us, too. The adults.  He asks, “When was the last time you walked on a path uninterrupted by a road?” I admit to him that, until I moved here, never. 

These days, when a new faculty family moves onto campus, my kids bring the welcome wagon filled with banana bread and penguin stickers, since they are currently experts in the ecosystems of the South Pole. They have become links in a very old-fashioned chain of kindness, and community, the kind of community our grandmothers and great-grandmothers would have recognized.

This, I think, is what life should be like, no matter where you find yourself. Big city or suburb. On campus or off. I was not like this two years ago: warm, welcoming. Borrow an egg. Give an egg. But I am now.

Twenty-five years after losing touch, old sweethearts Steve and Bethann Heintzelman reconnected over the internet and married. Now the couple has started a new adventure: Te Amo, a tapas restaurant and bar in Canton Square featuring Spanish-inspired cuisine. Upstairs you’ll find cozy low tables and cushioned stools perfect for an evening of sharing with friends. Order a house-made sangria (the blanco comes with fresh pears!) and take a look at the menu— each item is designed for mixing and matching. The signature dish, Paella Valencia, combines fish, shrimp, clams and mussels over saffron rice. After 9, take your drinks downstairs to enjoy the lively piano bar. And if you’re looking for something more casual, grab some gourmet hot dogs across the street at the Heintzelman’s family-friendly Dog Bar. Te Amo: 2933 O’Donnell St., 410-276-0383. Dog Bar: 2938 O’Donnell St., 410-276-0383

Have you heard about the latest baby shower trend? It’s something called “gender reveal cakes” and it involves parents learning the sex of their kid by cutting into a blue- or pink-filled cake or cupcake in front of their guests. No, really. Just check out the hundreds of homemade videos on YouTube filmed at “gender cake reveal parties” across America.

Locally, the trend is gaining in popularity, says Ashley Moone, specialty cakes consultant and decorator at SugarBakers Cakes. She says the Catonsville bakery has had about a dozen requests for gender reveal cakes in the last six months. “Usually we have the mother or father drop off a sealed envelop from the doctor revealing the gender of the baby,” she says. “We know before the parents.”

SugarBakers typically ices the cake in gender-neutral colors and then colors the interior butter cream in either blue or pink. When the expectant mother or father cuts into the cake, the fun begins. At SugarBakers, 10-inch gender reveal cakes start at $38 and feed 15 to 20 guests. 410-788-9478, http://www.sugarbakerscakes.com

Fall fashion always puts Savvy in the mood for a buying trip to Paris. What doesn’t put Savvy in the mood to hop the pond? Flying coach for eight hours or paying a five-figure price tag for first-class (Sav’s looking at you, United). Imagine her delight when she discovered Open Skies. Think of it as the Southwest Airlines of first-class travel to Paris. Here’s what’s good: You roll into Dulles, check two bags (no waiting and no fees, thankyouverymuch) then whiz through the first-class security line. Savvy suggests heading over to Vino Volo for a couple of glasses of French wine and some cheese to put you in the mood, or you can duck into the British Airways lounge to send a few final je suis-outta-here e-mails. (Open Skies is owned by BA, which is more than a little comforting when it comes to issues like safety.) About 20 minutes before taking off, you meander over to the gate and, instead of battling an endless line, stroll right onto a spacious reconfigured 727-500 (nothing like flying with just 72 or so not-so-nearest friends). Then settle in to your 180-degree flat business bed and tuck in because here’s the downside: The in-flight experience. Cocktails? Hard to screw those up. Dinner? Enh. In-flight entertainment? Bring your iPad unless “Friends” reruns are your thing. Service? Somewhere between passingly efficient and utterly unengaged (memo to Open Skies: Take some lessons from that impressive crew at Vino Volo). Once you land, the fun begins again. You aren’t at de Gaulle (an airport only slightly less hellish than Heathrow) but Orly, much smaller and much closer to Paris. And here’s the other fun part. You can tell the driver to take you immediately to the Plaza Athénée. Because with airfares as low as $2,000 round trip, the next bed you sleep in doesn’t need to cost peanuts.

The collection of restaurants in the Harbor East area has grown again, with the opening of Chazz: A Bronx Original. Actor Chazz Palminteri has partnered with local restaurateurs Sergio and Alessandro Vitale of Aldo’s to open the vast new restaurant that features a classic Italian-American menu and “Bronx-style” pizza. That pizza is handmade in an open exhibition kitchen area and baked in coal-fired ovens (in all of 90 seconds!). Other menu items include various types of salumi, bruschetta and formaggi, grilled Caesar salad, veal meatballs with sausage and tomato sauce, pork osso bucco and the restaurant’s signature 20-layer lasagne. The interiors pay tribute to Palminteri’s Bronx childhood, including areas that mimic a subway station and an elevated train platform. The bar area boasts hand-crafted specialty cocktails, an extensive wine list and a snug lounge area perfect for nibbling and private tete-a-tetes. Open daily for dinner starting at 5 p.m. 1415 Aliceanna St., 410-522-5511

Shortly before the first Enoch Pratt Free Library was razed in 1931, journalists took verbal potshots at the building. The New Republic described the library as “an architectural fright reminiscent of a Victorian bathroom.” The Evening Sun’s Frank Beirne accused the Mulberry Street building of hiding “behind several old Cathedral Street dwellings as though it were ashamed of itself.” His colleague H.L. Mencken charged that the library was “so infernally hideous that it ought to be pulled down by the common hangman.”

Certainly the library looked more like a generic municipal building than a welcoming repository of books, mostly due to architect Charles Carson’s choice of Romanesque Revival, a style also known as Courthouse Romanesque due to its frequent use for halls of justice. And it’s no surprise that critics found it hard to rectify the severe marble building (arched and towered, “gloomy” and “covered with florid decoration,” as one writer put it) with the democratic, community-spirited place envisioned by its founder: “open for all, rich and poor without distinction of race or color, who, when properly accredited, can take out the books if they will handle them carefully and return them.”

And yet, in retrospect, it seems churlish to heap such scorn on Enoch Pratt’s gift to his adopted city.  When Pratt approached the City Council in 1882, the notion of a public library was still nascent, and his proposed arrangement was more than generous: Pratt donated the main building (worth approximately $250,000) and land for the library, money for four additional branches and an endowment for the city to invest at a return of $50,000 a year.

At the building’s dedication, held at the nearby Academy of Music in January 1886, Pratt urged his audience to “foster, protect and increase [the library], that its beneficent influences may be for the benefit of the present and all future generations as long as our beloved city of Baltimore shall exist.” Afterward, The Sun reported, eager potential library patrons rushed down the street to the library, only to find it locked. The library wasn’t supposed to open until the following day! Still, staff went ahead and issued 43 library cards to people who provided proof of their responsibility to borrow and return books via the signature of a “respectable citizen,” or by showing $2, the minimal amount necessary to replace a lost book.

Today’s patrons would find little familiar in the original building. Stacks were closed, so patrons had to peruse a booklist, fill out request forms and wait while an assistant fetched their choices from among the library’s 20,000 volumes. The second-floor reading room boasted 20-foot ceilings, more than 150 magazines and newspapers, and 250 seats, which were almost always filled with readers of varied ages and races lured in by the excellent ventilation as well as the reading material. Pratt himself took advantage of the reading room, reportedly walking over after dinner and settling in for hours. (Apparently the library didn’t close at 5 p.m. back then, as it does many nights in this budget-crisis era).

Initially Baltimoreans embraced the library. Lines to enter it formed each morning, and some enterprising patrons even devised ways to get cards issued in different names to check out more material. But by the 1920s, the library was in decline. Cataloging was erratic and confusing, as was the library’s filing system. Storage issues, budget shortfalls and short-sighted management coupled with a collection filled with shopworn histories and classics rather than best-sellers, did little to pique reader interest and resulted in a decrease in circulation. In 1926, the library ranked near the bottom of the country’s libraries.

In 1931, the original library and several houses were demolished for a new, larger library building on the same land (with its main entrance around the corner), which opened in 1933 and still stands today.

While Savvy aspires to be one of those smashing girls who runs around town all day in an adorable dress with her bag slung on her arm just so, her reality is that she lives in denim (and, sob, the bag ain’t Birkin). Though, humbly speaking, she does attempt to look adorable doing it. That’s why she has stacks of denim from Citizens of Humanity. And that’s why she’s now headed down to Liquid Blue Denim in Fulton (don’t worry, darlings, the GPS knows the way) to stock up on COH as well as new celeb favorite DL 1961 (Savvy just spotted them on one of her favorite starlets) plus peruse the latest from Hudson, James, Raven, William Rast (what can’t that cute Justin Timberlake do?), Vintage Revolution, AG, True Religion and Second denim (for curvier girls, up to size 42). Boys, there’s plenty here for you, too, with these brands,  shirts from Brit-import Superdry and hemp tees from Jungmaven. Before you think this is just a store for fun young things, know that store director Sarah Jones spent 10 years at Harrod’s fitting customers with figures a little closer to Camilla than Kate. Let her find you just the right brand, fit, cut, rise and wash. And with all due respect to dresses, why not give them a day off?  They’ll never make your bum look as amazing as the perfect pair of jeans will. Don’t miss: Liquid Blue does original hem and waist alterations on-site but also offers something truly unique— denim rehab. Can’t bear to give up your favorite pair? Their NYC partner can fix tears, holes, zippers, busted loops, replace buttons or rivets, even re-dye your jeans back to inky indigo perfection. Unless that detergent-faded pair are your idea of a fashion statement, of course… 8191 Maple Lawn Blvd., Fulton, 301-317-0241

The only thing sadder than summer fading into fall? Your tan fading right along with it. Yes, dears, a little color covers a multitude of sins, doesn’t it? And Savvy is simply convinced a touch of a tan makes her look about 10 pounds lighter. Her dermatologist would simply smack her if she ever went in the sun, and who has time to do all that self-tanner slathering or, even worse, wants to hit the sheets next to your significant other smelling like you’ve been embalmed? (Not that she knows, but it has to be close.) Michelle Waskey has the answer to Savvy’s pasty predicament. Give Michelle 20 minutes and she’ll airbrush you the most beautiful, believable bronze (no, you won’t look like one of those girls on “Dancing With the Stars”). Savvy tanned with Michelle all summer and there was never a streak, never a blotch— just gorgeous color that lasted for days. Ask for the three-hour formula that lets you control the color (wear it for an hour for a light sun-kiss, two or three for deeper shades) then quickly rinse off and go. No need to marinate overnight; it’s your little secret. The best part? You have a choice of hitting the salon (book her at Giuseppe’s Hair Studio, 410-665-4490) or Michelle can spray you at home, just like the celebrities do (410-808-4979). The choice to wear a rhinestone cha-cha dress later that night is entirely yours.

­­­it’s every interior designer’s dream to work for clients who truly appreciate sophisticated materials and sound detailing. And that’s precisely what Baltimore-based interior designer Patrick Sutton found in a family of four who traded a 3,000-square-foot townhouse for the chance to build their 14,000-square-foot dream home in the Green Spring Valley. “For these homeowners, design is a passion and a lifestyle,” says Sutton. “They appreciate what the world of design has to offer, so I could push the design envelope. It was no different than a chef cooking for someone who really appreciates food.”

Sutton, a trained architect, was hired midway through construction to select mouldings, lighting and all interior materials, as well as to craft and execute the interior design concept, which he describes as “contemporary classicism.” “Our goal was to create a house that was warm and comfortable yet contemporary and energizing— uplifting, not staid,” he explains.

Beyond the threshold of the formidable 9-foot-tall-by-4-foot-wide mahogany front door lies the foyer, where French limestone flooring, a metallic-gray grass cloth ceiling and white walls create a calm palette that prepares guests for the drama that unfolds in the adjoining living room.

Also referred to as the “martini room,” the living room features a simple and polished formality. A white, frosted blown-glass chandelier hangs from a ceiling painted a high-gloss shade of platinum that reflects the illumination of the chandelier. A herringbone-pattern wooden floor and white cowhide rug soften the room’s extravagance with rugged ­imperfections. “I think this is the one room in the house that called for formality,” says Sutton. “It reminds me of black tie and pearls.”

In the dining room across the foyer, the color palette is decidedly regal, with high-gloss taupe walls and accents of eggplant, crimson and gold creating a pared-down Italian Baroque feel. The 14-seat mahogany and yew wood table, which is framed above by a pair of rock quartz chandeliers, blends with the herringbone flooring in the living room. Two cobalt blue, export-style Chinese urns stand at either end of the sideboard. “A house should showcase the best of every era and every culture,” says Sutton. “To me, that’s what makes an interesting home.” 

Sutton’s ability to bring intimacy to a room with 12-foot-high walls, such as those found in the family room, begins at the top, where he installed reclaimed antique fir beams.

“They take the seriousness out of the space,” he explains. For the center of the room, he designed a fumed-oak coffee table that can endure the beating of propped-up feet and damp glasses. “The table combines a contemporary steel base and age-worn wooden top,” says Sutton. “Those two elements together perfectly describe the style and the feel of the house.”

The master suite is a comfortable blend of feminine and masculine. A four-poster mahogany bed is draped with cream-colored velvet lined with steel-blue silk. On the bedside tables rock crystal lamps strike a sturdy pose in front of large-scale distressed antiqued mirrors. The adjoining master bath is a study in serenity, with a gray-blue stone floor bordered with dark stained bamboo and white marble mosaics that tie in with the built-in mahogany cabinetry and white marble details elsewhere. The walk-in shower has polarized glass windows that turn from translucent to clear with the flip of a switch.

The lower level of the house is dedicated to fun, housing a 12-seat theater, game room, gym and basketball court. Tucked into the north wing of the floor is an unexpected twist: a glass-walled garden room with the atmosphere of an ancient orangerie. The trim around the glass doors is coated with an Old World, plaster-like finish while the ceiling mimics the look of pressed, bronzed metal. Fig trees and rosemary plants thrive in the sunlight.

Meanwhile, upstairs in the kitchen, which is enlivened with hints of Mexican tile and pottery— a nod to the clients’ second home in the Southwest— their youngest son sits at the island and muses about his surroundings. “I’m into style,” explains the 13-year-old. “And I appreciate all the details,” he says as he points to the graphic blue Ann Sacks tile above the stove. “It makes such a huge difference in each room.”

Spoken like a true interior designer in training.

Kim Eastburn doesn’t like the word “should,” as in, a home should follow a certain style. Instead, she wants a home to be an authentic representation of the people who live in it. Take her own home, for example. Though it would thematically fall along English Country lines, she has contemporary art on the walls (including some by her son). The house has small bedrooms, but an epic kitchen and comfortable gathering places for friends. Visitors sense a calm and ordered energy in the space.

Over lunch on her expansive screened porch, Eastburn is explaining the motivation behind transforming her role as an interior designer earlier this year after nearly three decades in the business. “I was sick of what I was seeing in the design industry, that it was becoming more about the designer than the design,” she says. On top of that, the economic collapse highlighted a common misperception: “People had bought so much stuff in hopes that it would enrich their lives and it just became a burden.”

Eastburn is a longtime believer that the state of a home mirrors the state of the owner’s mind, that a person’s home is both a reflection of, and metaphor for, his or her life. But as she was looking hard at her field last winter, she realized that most people need guidance, help and gentle nudging to understand— and, more importantly, implement— that credo. So, in March Eastburn created The Interior Design Shrink blog (http://www.interiordesignshrink.com), a place where she philosophizes about how to find beauty and balance in our lives by restoring it in the home.

Throughout her career, Eastburn says, people have tended to call her when their homes just don’t feel right anymore. Digging deeper, she’d invariably find that those people were in transition— their children had moved away from home, or a spouse had died. Eastburn began to see that clients weren’t simply coming to her for new drapes and rugs. They needed someone to help sort out their lives and, conversely, for their lives to be more authentically reflected in their homes. “You can’t underestimate the impact of a physical environment on your well-being,” she says. “If it’s stagnant and stuck, chances are you are, too.” 

Homes can be rife with emotional baggage, like the ex-husband’s living room sectional left behind, or the hand-me-down antiques bestowed by a well-meaning relative that aren’t to the owner’s taste. Eastburn helps her clients unearth this baggage then–literally and physically–clears it away. “It’s using design therapeutically,” she says. As she writes in her blog, “Why do so many of us have a deathly fear of checking in to see if our surroundings, our possessions, and maybe even our beliefs, still fit our lives? Are we fearful of what we might discover about ourselves?”

Caroline Griffin, an attorney and chairwoman of the Mayor’s Anti-Animal Abuse Advisory Commission, sought out Eastburn 15 years ago when she was recently divorced and recovering from a serious illness. After talking with Griffin and presenting three vignettes, Eastburn identified the things Griffin loves: birds, for example, and colors like yellow, warm coral and earthy green.

“My life had been turned upside down and she helped me create this beautiful sanctuary,” says Griffin. “All my friends and family started calling it ‘the happy house.’”

Six years later, when Griffin remarried, she moved into her new husband’s rambling Victorian, a home he’d painstakingly designed but was not to Griffin’s taste. When Griffin asked Eastburn to help her redecorate her home office, Eastburn started moving furnishings around in the entire house.

“Kim came in and immediately understood my discomfiture in the house,” Griffin recalls. “She managed to blend together two disparate styles and make us both happy. My husband has gone from being skeptical to relying on [Eastburn] for every major decision in the house.”

Eastburn practices yoga, meditation and pilates, which perhaps hones her trademark intuition. When she first coined the idea of the Design Shrink she envisioned herself as the Tony Robbins of design with a thriving lecture schedule. She’s chosen instead to work one-on-one with select clients and families, occasionally holding workshops. The blog lets her spread the gospel to the masses, while allowing her to stay balanced in her own life.

“I don’t care if you rent a room or have a 10,000-square-foot house—it’s so critical for humans to be mindful of their physical space,” she says. “If the individual is mindful, the family is in harmony. If families are in harmony, so is the community. And so it grows.”

Forget Disney World. All my 5-year-old daughter wanted for spring break was to spend some quality time with a pig.

Somehow, the child of two city people had become obsessed with farm animals, particularly the swine variety. While other little girls loved to watch princess movies, her top picks were either “Babe” or “Charlotte’s Web.” Nearly every library book that came home had a pig in it. Same with every picture she drew in the weekly art class she attended.

So when I heard that some farms in Lancaster County offered overnight stays, my first order of business was to find one with a pig. Easier said than done. The website http://www.afarmstay.com lists dozens of places where families can channel their inner Green Acres. Only two listed pigs among their animals. Of those, only one, the Olde Fogie Farm Bed and Breakfast in Marietta, Pa., has a functioning website.

And what a site! It was decorated with pink pigs. It claimed, “Our yard pig enjoys and cherishes every bit of your attention and conversation.” It even had a room called the Pig Pen. Unlike a lot of bed and breakfasts, which merely tolerate kids if they allow them at all, Olde Fogie’s seemed to know the wee ones were their bread and butter. Their site talked of letting the kids do chores.

I called Tom and Biz Fogie— yes, that is their real last name— and booked the Pig Pen for two nights in April. But first I had a couple of questions.

“How’s the pig’s health?” I inquired.

“Fine,” she replied.

Then she issued a warning. The pig was of the pot-bellied variety, not all that friendly, and not pink.

“He’s not like Babe, if that’s what she’s expecting,” Biz said.

I told her my daughter Maya didn’t care what color he was. To her, a pig was a pig.

We sent her a deposit check for $114 (the room costs $99 for adults, plus $15 for each child). For weeks, whenever Maya’s friends announced their spring break plans, she would cheerfully announce: “Well, I’m going to get to sleep on a farm, with a pig!” Even those going to Disney seemed in awe.

When we arrived at the Fogies’ after an 80-minute drive from Baltimore, I immediately congratulated myself on my choice: The farm is beautiful— and completely organic. The Fogies raise lamb and beef, and grow all the organic feed for those animals, which includes barley, corn and oats. The couple have planted lush flower gardens all over, with too many pig planters to count. A stream runs through the 20-acre property, ending near a large fish and swimming pond. There are two patios, a gazebo and a children’s playhouse. The barns next to the main house are home to horses, sheep, goats and cows. Across the way, we spotted a chicken coop, a bunny cage and two wary llamas.

It did not go unnoticed that we did not see the pig. But we had yet to check in.

Biz welcomed us warmly. Then, she looked over my six-month pregnant belly, a bit unsure of herself.

“We had a cancellation, so I’ve given you an upgrade,” she said.

She wasn’t kidding. Biz had put us in the Hayloft, a room two flights up in the back of the main house. Where the Pig Pen and its adjacent Garden Room are small, with one bed and a shared bath, the Hayloft was more like an apartment, with a full kitchen, two sleeping rooms and a bath with a claw-foot tub but no shower.

Normally, guests in the Hayloft and the other small apartment, called the Chicken Coop, don’t get breakfast; instead, they get fresh eggs in the morning to cook on their own. But because we had booked the Pig Pen, Biz said we could still join her for breakfast in the main house. Good thing, because my husband would declare those meals of pancakes, fresh fruit and sausages to be one of the trip’s highlights.

The uphill climb to the Hayloft was a bit of a strain, but the view was great. And we appreciated the kitchen; there is a grocery store five miles away in Mount Joy to stock up on essentials.

After settling in, I got down to business with Biz. Where was that pig?

And that’s when she told me that, between the time I booked our stay and the time we arrived, Nerd the Pig had gone on to the Great Mudpile in the Sky.

We broke it to Maya straight, and she took it hard. But pretty soon we had her focused on all the other animals.

She got to gather corn cobs for the bunnies and collect the breakfast eggs. She even fed a bottle to a voracious calf— good practice for when her little sister comes. Eventually, she stopped mourning “her pig.” It helped that two other families with young children were guests the same weekend we were there. It also helped that the area is packed with fun-filled kid activities. Hersheypark and its adjacent chocolate factory, the Dutch Wonderland amusement park and the Strasburg Rail Road are all a short drive away.

The Fogies have welcomed visitors for 25 years, and their guest books are filled with happy testimonials from people who return year after year. Recently, when I called to book a return stay, Biz gave me some good news to pass on to Maya: The Fogies have two new baby pigs.

Babies? Should be pretty safe. But I learned my lesson. I won’t tell Maya until we arrive.

The Olde Fogie Farm is located at 106 Stackstown Road in Marietta, Pa. 717-426-3992, http://www.oldefogiefarm.com. For other Lancaster County farm stay options, visit http://www.afarmstay.com.

Rona Kobell writes for the Chesapeake Bay Journal.

We’re all waiting for Labor Day weekend to see the unveiling of the inaugural Baltimore Grand Prix. After more than two years of debating and planning, months and months of street closures and detours for the preparations and a scramble for sponsors, the all-important weekend is upon us.   

We’ll soon see how it all plays out (and if we look at the next four years of races as a blessing or a curse). In the meantime, we offer our own Style-ish take on the race. Meet Simona De Silvestro and Emerson Newton- John, two IndyCar drivers who will be in Baltimore for race weekend. We spent a day in July shooting some of fall’s newest looks on them, and had a great time doing it. (If Emerson’s name sounds familiar, it is— his aunt is Olivia Newton-John; his stepfather, the late Jeff Conaway.) Both drivers were great sports throughout a sometimes tough and tedious shoot.

Luckily, we had an actual Indy racecar at our disposal for the photo shoot as well, and nearly everyone (me included) took a turn squeezing into the tiny driver’s cockpit to try it out and pose for a snap. Trust me, it’s tight and uncomfortable in there— which makes it all the more amazing to think of how these drivers maintain control at speeds in excess of 200 mph for sustained periods. Thanks to our intrepid crew who pulled off this shoot (see it, beginning on page 94).

In other parts of the issue, we’re all about the kickoff of the annual fall arts scene. I personally interviewed Creative Alliance co-founder (and Style contributor) Megan Hamilton for our 14-page “life lessons” feature, where we talked to leaders in Baltimore’s arts and cultural communities about what being involved with the arts has taught them over the years. I was amazed when Megan mentioned that the CA is in its 16th year— I remember when it started upstairs in a small café in Fells Point!

Also in our arts coverage, we pay tribute to the volunteer groups who help support the arts and cultural institutions around town (page 112). I’ve personally been involved with several of these types of groups over the years— the Affiliates at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the board of Maryland Art Place and the 1844 Committee and the Francis Scott Key Society at the Maryland Historical Society. I can say from experience that participating in these groups is not only beneficial to supporting the arts in our city, it’s an extremely fulfilling and gratifying endeavor as well. I encourage you to find out more about them and their members, missions and events.

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

Several times a day someone tells me one of two things. Thing one is “no worries.” And thing two is “it’s all good.” Often the same person tells me both things. Alas, when I hear “no worries,” I worry. When I hear “it’s all good,” I know it’s not.

Living in Baltimore these days is full of worries and it is often not all good. So I find myself dipping into “The Amiable Baltimoreans” by Francis F. Beirne, a restorative tonic kept in print by Johns Hopkins University Press. You don’t meet many amiable Baltimoreans these days, but they are alive and well in the pages of Beirne’s book. Black and white, Jew and gentile. They are the people of only yesterday, as Fred Allen used to call it. It is not so much that the prose soars— both H.L. Mencken and Russell Baker are better at invoking Baltimore— but that Beirne, with his collection of charming facts, is a boon companion.

“The Amiable Baltimoreans” was published in 1951— just 60 years ago— and yet the city contained within it is as remote from our time as Carthage, and as alluring as the Seven Cities of Cibola. Here was a city that made things. Here was a city that mattered. Yes, there were terrible things then. But in the world of the amiable Baltimoreans there were no worries and it was all good.

I crack open the book at random and read a passage by Oliver Wendell Holmes, father of the celebrated Supreme Court justice, who once wrote a popular column called “The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.” I was simply browsing when I landed upon a section titled “Gastronomical Reflections.” Here, the jaw drops (and the mouth waters) as the elder Holmes hails Baltimore as the “gastronomical metropolis of the Union.”

Beirne, who long wrote for The Evening Sun under the pen name Christopher Billopp, then launches into an epicure’s reverie, recalling great meals of the past and a city that knew how to clean its plate. He recounts a legendary Christmas Day repast of the 19th century that would stagger the most dedicated trencherman today. The breakfasts alone were fit for Caligula.

This little book does not merely make me wonder where the amiable Baltimoreans have gone and if there are any about now. It makes me long for the tables they set, and lament that it is no longer possible to savor such cuisine. The newsprints while I was dipping into Beirne were in full fustian when word came that Phillips Seafood was moving from Harborplace to the Power Plant. Phillips is not closing. It’s simply taking its crab cakes round the way. This is not a catastrophe. Tourists chiefly patronized the place. Let them amble over to the Power Plant.

A scamp might argue that there is not a single good seafood restaurant in the city and that most of the great crab houses have closed. Remember Gunning’s down in Brooklyn? With the Christmas decorations up year-round? God bless its memory. And Obrycki’s is going in November! Yowza!

I did not fall off the turnip wagon. The Inner Harbor is an expensive tract of real estate and as such it will not easily bear a restaurant other than the chain variety. On the very day I was stretched on the couch dreaming of fried chicken a la Maryland, beaten biscuits and other delicacies spoken of so tenderly by Beirne, the word came that Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. was on the way to Harborplace, further signaling dining homogenization for Baltimoreans, amiable or otherwise. It destroyed my appetite.

Writing 60 years ago, Beirne bemoaned the passing of Maryland dining traditions. He lamented that terrapin was a great rarity. Ditto canvasback ducks. He decried the loss of the beaten biscuit and Maryland rye. His roll call of vanished Baltimore eateries is especially sad.

Along the way, Beirne invokes expert witnesses— a celebrated 1879 cookbook by a Mrs. Ben Howard called “Queen of the Kitchen” and a grand dame who labored in The Sun under the nom de cuisine of Aunt Priscilla— to conjure the groaning boards of yore.  Reading his book made me long for his time and the times before that, too. And it made me ravenous. I wish I were an amiable Baltimorean. Because if Mrs. Ben Howard or Aunt Priscilla told me “no worries” and “it’s all good,” I would believe them.

Here’s cheerful news: H&M has opened a location in Harborplace— no more having to hit the ’burbs for all you downtown dwellers. It’s the perfect place to mix trend pieces with your classics, for fun high/low looks (investing $1,500 in a neon orange skirt? Please). Speaking of artificial colors, It’s Sugar is also now open in Harborplace, should you have a hankering for the world’s largest gummy bear or need to stock up for your 6-year-old’s birthday bash (heaven help you). Further around the harbor, White House/Black Market has taken up residence in Inner Harbor East (810 Aliceanna St.). Savvy really doesn’t have to explain the concept, does she? And Babe has relocated to Fells Point (1716 Aliceanna St.), allowing owner Lisa Ponzoli to stock even more casual but chic pieces from names like BCBG, Ella Moss, Splendid and Hype.

I’m a sucker for savory jams, which were once part of regional food cultures, like the Amish, but fell out of favor for a while. They seem to be making a comeback in farmers markets and indie food circles, and this recipe, from a 1978 USDA publication, “How to Make Jellies, Jams, and Preserves at Home,” is pretty easy.  I love tomato marmalade on toast, but it could easily be used in place of chutney, as a condiment for meat or pork or with a really good cheddar in a grilled cheese.

3 quarts ripe tomatoes (about 5 ½ pounds)
3 oranges
2 lemons
4 sticks cinnamon
1 tablespoon whole cloves
6 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt

Plunge tomatoes into boiling water for several seconds to loosen their skin; then peel. Cut peeled tomatoes into small pieces. Drain. Slice oranges and lemons very thin and then quarter those slices. Tie cinnamon and cloves in a cheesecloth bag.

Place tomatoes in a large pot. Add sugar and salt; stir until dissolved. Add oranges, lemons and spice bag. Boil rapidly, stirring constantly until thick and clear (about 50 minutes). Remove from heat; skim.

Fill and seal jars. Process 5 minutes in boiling water bath. Yields 9 half-pint jars. 

Freshii is an eco-friendly chain boasting healthy meals and snacks— with a “manifesto” on its website to guide its greenness. On the menu are salads, wraps and rice bowls all offered in a build-your-own format. Grab a clipboard and check off your favorites— add anything from edamame and egg whites to buffalo chicken and blue cheese. The mod venues in both Charles Village and the Inner Harbor feature bold, lime green and white décor and an environmentally sustainable setting to enjoy your creation. (Just remember to throw away your biodegradables in the proper can!) Open daily for breakfast, lunch and dinner. 3113 St. Paul St., 410-467-3737, and 30 Light St., 410-244-1922, http://www.freshii.com