Monthly Archives: August 2011

Capital Chefs, Food and Drink, The Features
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Capital Chefs: Will Artley of Evening Star Cafe (Part 1)

Photo courtesy of
‘Will Artley of Evening Star Cafe’
courtesy of ‘bonappetitfoodie’

Will Artley greets me with a bear-claw handshake, wearing bright Nantucket red pants and a matching hat that succinctly and accurately states, “No Farms, No Food.” After a quick cup of coffee, the executive chef of the Evening Star Cafe suggests we head out to the restaurant’s small “farm,” a gorgeous and overflowing vegetable patch about a mile away. “I put the doors on my Jeep since I knew you were coming,” he laughs. “I figured you wouldn’t want to ride on the motorcycle!” Will takes the opportunity to educate me on the “Jeep wave,” which has different protocol depending on the varying degrees of Jeep-ness.

I had met Will before at a few food events, but it quickly became clear that Will is a character in the best sense of the word. He’s incredibly friendly, but if you saw his serious face, you probably wouldn’t want to mess with him. “I like the instant gratification of cooking,” he says. “You can change people’s mood with food. They can have sat in traffic and be in a bad mood. But if you give them one taste and it changes their attitude, that’s rewarding.” Will adds that he also volunteers time each Monday at the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority teaching low-income families how to cook and eat healthy. “Cooking can change lives. If you’re in this business, you should be in it to make people happy,” he says.

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Entertainment, Essential DC, Music, The Features, We Love Music, We Love Weekends
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We Love Music: Girls Rock! DC Camper Showcase @ 930 Club

Girls Rock! DC showcase 2011

For the past week I have had the privilege of volunteering as a band coach for Girls Rock! DC camp. It has been a whirlwind, but Girls Rock! DC camp is coming to a close. The end of camp week is finally upon us. For those of you unfamiliar with GRDC, it is a week-long day camp for Washington, DC area girls, ages 8-18. It teaches girl-empowerment and community building through music. During the week girls receive small-group instruction on instruments,  turntables or digital music, form bands or DJ teams, and collaborate to write a song or DJ set which they perform in a showcase at the end of the week. The camp is completely volunteer-run. Continue reading →

The Features
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Why I Love DC: Brian Mosley

Photo courtesy of
‘Fall Equinox – Aligned – 9-15-08’
courtesy of ‘mosley.brian’

When I was asked to write this piece, my first thought was “well this could be a long article or this could be very short.” If I listed everything I love about my hometown, I’d have a multi-post series; or I could sum it up with a simple “everything.” But neither would do. So I sat down and started thinking. When is it that I say “I love this city” and mean it? I started to realize that I say that almost every time someone says “I hate this city because.” Sounds wrong right? Normally when people start complaining, everyone piles on. Not me…well, not always me. Continue reading →

Food and Drink
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DC Beer Week 2011 Starts This Sunday

Photo courtesy of
‘031199-05Crop’
courtesy of ‘furcafe’

If you notice a flurry of beer related activity in the coming week – perhaps roving bands of brewers walking the streets – the third annual DC Beer Week is likely the reason. From August 14 to 21, spots around the city will host events including tastings, meet-the-brewer nights, pairing dinners, and the breaking open of rare and special beers. The week will see the debut party for DC’s newest commercial brewery, Chocolate City, as well as the releasing of other new beers and those not often available in this area.

As Jeff Wells, the co-founder and co-organizer of the event states, “DC Beer Week is a celebration of craft beer culture in Washington, DC and the people who make it, the places that serve it and the people who drink it. [It] is a unique opportunity to discover the flavors of Craft Beer and to celebrate its role in DC’s diverse restaurant and nightlife scene.”
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We Love Weekends
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We Love Weekends – August 13th through 15th

Photo courtesy of
”
courtesy of ‘.lissa.’

As if the week didn’t usually feel long enough now we have this beautiful weather to tease us. Nobody but your boss would blame you for playing hooky tomorrow and trading Friday’s mild and sunny for the possibility of significant (but needed) rain on Sunday. If you need other ideas, well, we’ve got some…

Patrick Palafox: This is an eventful weekend of comedy. Evan Valentine and Mike James are throwing their comedy showcase “Everybody Gets Laid” Friday night over at the Velvet Lounge starting at 7:30 PM. Saturday is a great night to get some tasty food as well as tasteful comedy happening over at The Gibson. They are having the comedy showcase “Barbeque and Comedy” that is serving food at 8 and comedy at 9. It costs $22 to be able to eat as much barbeque as your body can hold and see the show. If you want to go I suggest you reserve a seat in advance.

Photo courtesy of
‘A pickle-back’
courtesy of ‘theCSSdiv’

Tom: Saturday is the highlight of my weekend, without question. We’re headed out to Berryville for the wedding of our good friends John and Whitney at a lovely piece of Georgian architecture. Friday night, I think it’s time we finally got out to Toki Underground, but I suspect that given their usual level of busy we may have to have a backup plan. Depending on how late Saturday goes, Sunday may well just be a day of rest, but it could be that I head out to American Ice Company for a tasty pickle back

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Monumental
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DC Residents get first look at new King memorial

Photo courtesy of
‘MLK Memorial’
courtesy of ‘nevermindtheend’

With the newest monument on the Mall slated to open at the end of the month, to crowds of “hundreds of thousands,” District residents are going to get a free sneak preview. Tickets will be available at the MLK library in DC, as well as on the city’s website starting early next week. The memorial will be open to DC residents from 8am to 8pm on August 23rd, five days ahead of its dedication.

Ahead of the dedication on the 28th, the city is urging all city residents to turn out for a DC Full Democracy day on the 27th with a rally at Freedom Plaza, and a march from the Lincoln Memorial to the King Memorial.  We’ll have more on that in the coming days.

The Daily Feed
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Gilt City DC Launches with a Musical Edge

Photo: Daniel Swartz/Revamp.com

Of all the daily deal, flash sale, and flash-local-deal sale sites that have launched in the Washington area lately, none of them can quite match up to Gilt City for sophistication or excitement. While you might expect some of the deals they have offered since their launch in DC – booklets of airline tickets, fancy dining, and high-end spa packages (not the usual half-off spray tan in Fairfax or other “deals” nobody actually wants) – they also really set themselves apart with their organizing of exclusive events or VIP treatment just for Gilt City members. Thievery Corporation and My Morning Jacket have been among the entertainment featured recently, with more curated entertainment experiences yet to come.
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Monumental
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Happy 165th, Smithsonian!

Photo courtesy of
‘Lower Invertebrates Exhibit in West Wing, Smithsonian Institution Building’
courtesy of ‘Smithsonian Institution’

You know how you have this awesome friend, but you forgot their birthday this year, and it turns out it was a big one? Yeah. That. [Update, 11:45: As it turns out, We did cover this yesterday. So, I feel a little better, but still, birthday! Yay!]

Yesterday was the Smithsonian Institution’s 165th birthday, having been finally founded on August 10th, 1846, over a decade after Congress agreed to accept the bequest.  The original gift of approximately $500,000 was incredibly controversial when it had been initially granted, and the decade of time necessary to establish the Institution.

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The Daily Feed
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Forget it, Freeman, it’s Chinatown

Photo courtesy of
‘proof.glass’
courtesy of ‘bhrome’

The violent unrest in Britain is certainly concerning, given that several of the same underlying conditions may be present in the District. Freeman Klopott of the Examiner talked with several Chinatown business owners who are concerned about a program to engage with the youth in Chinatown:

“We’ve been assured that the police department will deal with it,” said Proof owner Mark Kuller, who has decided to close the restaurant’s patio Friday night — one-third of his summer seating — rather than submit his customers to the sound and crowds he expects to come. “But it’s a mistake to have a youth engagement even in this area.”

It’s disappointing to see Klopott feeding the trolls by highlighting the overly concerned Kuller, who seems to think that the only modality of operation for young residents is rioting and violence (Please see addendum, these comments appear to be taken without context.) Given that the MPD program looks to engage with the youth to try to help defuse some of the underlying issues of disenfranchisement and alienation, it seems odd that business owners are freaking out when the police are trying to help.

When you look at the crime statistics for the area 1000 feet around the corner of 7th and G Street NW, there are six more crime incidents (an increase of 9% from 65 to 71) in the two month period from June 10th to August 9th, as compared to the same period last year.  Violent crime is up, with five incidents of assault with a dangerous (non-firearm) weapon in two months, instead of just one, but property crime remains unchanged.

This seems like fear-mongering of the worst sort from the Examiner, and a brand of cowardice bit of overconcern from Proof’s Mark Kuller than is more disappointing than anything else.

UPDATE, 6:15pm: Mark Kuller has responded directly (in full) to the characterization of the article, which he says was unfair:

The quote in the Examiner was out of context – an amalgam of soundbites from a seven minute conversation

In addition, Kuller lays out the timeline for being informed of the event, which happened the day before yesterday, which is short noticed giving the scheduling necessary for shuffling shifts of his service staff and the valet stand that Proof offers. In addition, Kuller lays out some significant concerns with the crowds:

this event was not properly executed – it should not be done as a popup with no input from those most critically affected and also without consideration of the potentially large logistical challenges – until our meeting with the mayor Tuesday there was no plan to even have any porta potties, which would seem prudent to me.

It seems that Klopott was concerned with cramming in the irresponsible parallel to the London riots, and then putting that opinion in the only business owner he could get to go on the record about the event, in Kuller.

Shame on us me for not getting the full story, and shame on Klopott for throwing a local source under the bus to write an inflammatory piece for the paper rag.

Music
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We Love Music: The Cool Kids @ Rock & Roll Hotel, 8/9/2011

Photo courtesy of
‘The Cool Kids | All Points West 2009’
courtesy of ‘Matt Kleinschmidt’

None of the problems at last night’s show were actually The Cool Kids’ fault. Which is not to say there were none, of course, but they mostly fell under the categories of venue issues and a terrible opening act. The headliners themselves did their best to deliver their trademark style of hip hop to an upbeat and receptive crowd.

The show did not sell out in advance, but by a bit after nine when the openers took the stage, the room was mostly full. It was a diverse group – while still heavily male, there were rather more women than I used to see at the indie-leaning hip hop shows that I frequented during college.

The kids and the newcomers may not remember, but back then, in the mid-to-late aughts, one usually had to drive to Baltimore (uphill both ways, naturally) for a show like this. There were not as many mid-sized venues in DC back then, before places like Rock & Roll Hotel came into town. As much as I want to like the Hotel for filling that void, the place rarely manages to really work for me. On this occasion, the lighting was so bright, white, and clinical on stage, that the headliners had to practically beg to have them turned down to something a bit less squint-inducing and more party-appropriate. Similarly, the sound mixing was off such that the MCs’ vocals were not completely clear and the bass fuzzed out rather than delivering the desired resonant bounce.

Nonetheless, The Cool Kids carried on. From the moment they arrived on stage the crowd was enthusiastic. Clearly, these people remembered them from their EP and earlier mixtapes because as soon as they got to an older song, people shouted the words along with them, hands and mobile phone cameras held aloft. I was actually pretty surprised at the level of excitement people seemed to bring to the club with them given the hiatus the group had been on prior to the recent release of their first full-length, When Fish Ride Bicycles. The club must have felt like a claustrophobic and abrupt switch from the massive outdoor festival they had played just 36 hours or so before, but from their second song on, they seemed to fit into a comfortable rhythm on stage.
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The Daily Feed
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All of Garrett’s up for auction

Photo courtesy of
‘Garrett’s Terrace’
courtesy of ‘Kevin H.’

If you’ve ever wanted a piece of Garrett’s Tavern in Georgetown, now’s your chance. They’ve put the entire contents of the restaurant up for auction. If you want to inspect any of the items, tomorrow is the inspection day from 10am to 4pm, so you can check out any of the items in the online catalog. I’m kinda excited for the Railroad Crossing sign, myself.  The auction requires a credit card, and will be done online. They’ll hold $100 from your credit card to make sure you’re legit, so recognize this isn’t eBay.

History, The Daily Feed
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Smithsonian Snapshot: Happy 165th!

Bison on the Mall; Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Archives | Photographer unknown

Today in 1846, the U.S. Senate passed the act organizing the Smithsonian Institution by a vote of 26 to 13. The act was then signed into law by President James K. Polk. Among its provisions the Organic Act specifies a Board of Regents, Chancellor and Secretary and a suitable building with rooms for the reception and arrangement of objects of natural history including: a chemical laboratory, a library, a gallery of art, and lecture rooms. The Act also provided the transfer to the Institution of all objects of art, natural history, etc., belonging to the United States to Washington and the deposit in the Smithsonian of one copy of all publications copyrighted under the acts of Congress. Once established, the Smithsonian became part of the process of developing an American national identity—an identity rooted in exploration, innovation, and a unique American style.

To celebrate the Smithsonian’s 165th anniversary, the Institution is sharing the historic Smithsonian photograph above. It shows two American bison, also known as the American buffalo, in a paddock in the South Yard behind the Smithsonian Institution Building, now known as the Smithsonian Castle. The animals were acquired by the Department of Living Animals in 1887, which then became the National Zoological Park in 1890. This photograph was taken between 1887 and 1889.

Fun & Games, Music
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The Winning Ticket: My Morning Jacket

My Morning Jacket
‘My Morning Jacket’ by Stateside Presents/President Gator

This week we are giving away a pair of tickets to see My Morning Jacket perform at the Merriweather Post Pavilion on August 12th at 5:30pm. Known for the power of their live preformances, this Kentucky sprouted band will roll into DC with the sounds which earned them a grammy nomination.

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Food and Drink
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One Year Later: Acqua Al 2

more are and soul 003
One year later and I still want to call this fantastic Italian restaurant Acqua Al “Two,” so apparently I still need to brush up on my grasp of languages. Acqua Al 2 came to Capitol Hill a little more than one year ago thanks to DC natives Ari Gejdenson and Ralph Lee. The first location is actually in Florence, Italy and the other is located in San Diego.

Acqua Al 2 is long and narrow. You just can’t imagine how far back it goes when looking at the small front. Still, good luck trying to come here during dinner hours and not have to wait – it’s impossible. Thankfully, you have a bar to your right to hold you over (with extra seats). Or walk around looking at the plates encased in glass and signed/decorated by patrons.  

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Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: The Ramayana (2011)

Andreu Honeycutt as Lord Rama in Constellation Theatre Company's 2011 remount of The Ramayana. Photo credit: Scott Suchman.

If you were one of the many potential audience members turned away at the doors of Source last summer for The Ramayana‘s sold-out run, you’re in luck. Constellation Theatre Company has remounted its production for a limited three week engagement now through August 21, and in many ways it’s a superior show than before. Subtle changes have tightened the pacing and streamlined the focus, certainly due to director Allison Arkell Stockman, and the cast’s confidence in embodying a multiverse of the sacred and profane is noticeably stronger, with several new faces to rediscover roles.

As with last year, three elements provide the visual, aural and emotional backbone of this production – the gorgeous pageantry of Kendra Rai’s costume design, the expressive sound design of percussionist Tom Teasley, and the journey of Hanuman the monkey god. Returning with the live music performance that won him the 2011 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Sound Design, Teasley’s magical beats propel the audience into another world. His continued collaborations with Constellation really help define their particular epic theater style. Rai’s costumes also help dissolve the modern world for the audience – still simply sumptuous (and I want to steal all the accessories).

But you don’t have to be familiar with the first run to enjoy the second. Playwright Peter Oswald’s take on one of India’s most beloved and scared texts weaves essential questions of philosophy and religion through the love story of Rama and Sita as they battle the demon Ravana. Though there’s plenty of humor to be had as they enlist the help of forest creatures like the monkeys and the bears, it’s essentially a serious quest, the interplay between divinity and humanity. Continue reading →

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Chef News: Dan Giusti of 1789 Heads to Denmark

Photo courtesy of
‘Barely mixing the dough’
courtesy of ‘CathyLovesDC’

As Tim Carman and The Washington Post reported yesterday, executive chef Dan Giusti of 1789 is packing his bags for Denmark. The 27-year-old chef is heading to work at Noma, a two Michelin star restaurant in Copenhagen. The restaurant has been listed as “the best” restaurant in the world for two years in a row by Restaurant Magazine.

According to The Post, Dan spent two weeks staging at Noma in July when he was told that there might be an opening there for him to come join their team. One thing led to another and now the chef is moving to Denmark. Dan will be staying at 1789 through August 28th.

Dan was the first chef I met in DC when I started writing about food and was still green on the restaurant scene. I always liked chatting with him at events when he would indulge any of my snarky comments about food and I liked to see a fellow New Jerseyan be successful in DC. No doubt Dan’s passion for food is what’s taking him to Noma, though DC will miss him. Best of luck, chef!