By Brian Mosley
‘bridge’
courtesy of ‘maria jpeg’
Well, that weekend was most definitely too short. Another week of heat and work. Here’s hoping you’re reading this on vacation or in a typical DC August Office (ie: half staffed and doing next to nothing). If neither of those apply to you, then let’s look back on this past weekend and see what we see, to fortify us for the coming week. Continue reading
By Tom Bridge
It was a festival atmosphere in Hagerstown on Sunday afternoon as Stephen Strasburg took the mound at Municipal Stadium, with the sold-out crowd of more than 6,000 on their feet. The phenom was slated for around 2 innings on the steamy afternoon game, and threw 1 2/3 innings and 31 pitches, giving up 3 hits and a run.
The lone run came on a fastball that Jacob Realmuto, a 20-year old from Midwest City, Oklahoma, launched well over the right-center field wall at Municipal Stadium. It was Strasburg’s only mistake of the day, in the shortened start. He recorded four strikeouts and no walks against Greensboro.
After the game, Strasburg took questions from a limited number of reporters, but fortunately it was caught by MASN Sports, who’ve embedded it on Ben Goessling’s blog. Strasburg’s velocity was reported to be around his average for last season around 97mph, and he seemed to be comfortable mixing his two-seam and four-seam fastballs and his change up, and we saw at least one K due to his curve ball, which made an appearance or two. It looked like he was getting some late motion on his change up, as well, which fanned two more.
It’s not yet clear where Strasburg’s next start will be, but Friday is likely to be the day. Possible places include High A Potomac who are home against Myrtle Beach, or AA Harrisburg home against Trenton.
It’s likely Strasburg will return to the Nationals by the first week of September, completing his year-long recovery from Tommy John surgery.
More photos in our Flickr Set: Two Innings in Hagerstown
‘Haidar Karoum’s Spice-Grilled Chicken’
courtesy of ‘bonappetitfoodie’
Everybody needs a good chicken recipe now and then. And chef Haidar Karoum has just the recipe for his spice-grilled chicken with salsa loca. It involves a straight-forward but powerfully tasty marinade and the salsa adds another level to the dish. You might have even had it at Estadio before. So roll up your sleeves and fire up the grill; the full recipe is after the jump.
Continue reading
‘Haidar Karoum of Proof and Estadio’
courtesy of ‘bonappetitfoodie’
Haidar Karoum, executive chef of Estadio and Proof, is a breed of chef who always knew he belonged in the kitchen. Looking back on his childhood, he can remember being in awe of the produce and meat aisles of grocery stores and one time getting purposely lost in Harrod’s food hall when he was 9 years old. He remembers being “obsessed” with cooking shows such as Great Chefs of the West and rushing home to catch them on TV when he was 12. “I’m constantly immersed in food. My condo is littered with cookbooks. You can’t go into any room without there being a stack of them,” Haidar laughs.
After high school, the northern Virginia native attended the Culinary Institute of America and thus began his long and impressive cooking career. He externed with Michele Richard at Citronelle and much later he became chef de cuisine at Restaurant Nora in Dupont Circle. Straight out of culinary school, he worked at the now-closed Gerard’s Place. “He was like a God,” says Haidar, talking about french chef Gerard Panguard and his first job out of culinary school. “His philosophy of simplicity and his influence were important to me. It was an honor to work in his kitchen.”
Continue reading
I met up with Adam Ruben who is a local comic and author of the book My Stupid Decision to go to Grad School on an extremely sizzling Sunday over at Teaism in Dupont Circle. We each coincidentally ordered hot tea to drink as we chatted. At first I thought that ordering hot tea on hot day would equal a hot mess; however, my brain recalled from television that drinking hot things helps to cool the body down ironically. I don’t know if that is true. I’m not a scientist, but Adam is! His day job involves finding a cure for maleria. You want to know more about this guy? Well alright. Continue reading
‘kitchen @ America Eats, Washington DC’
courtesy of ‘Plantains & Kimchi’
It’s been a while since we’ve talked about what kitchen appliances and tools the Capital Chefs are chatting about these days. Click through to find out what kitchen gadgets DC chefs just can’t do without. But before you do, I must credit many websites like www.unclutterer.com, because this list is based off of them.
By Tom Bridge
‘peaches’
courtesy of ‘ekelly80’
Rebecca J.: Friday it’s off to the Surfside roofdeck for margs, chips n’ queso and tacos. Afterwards, I’ll be sipping some bourbon at Kitchen 2404 in Glover Park. Saturday I’m headed to Annapolis for an afternoon boat ride on the bay and dinner at the waterfront, after which I’ll be hitting up the Annapolis bar scene with my lady friends. Hopefully, I’ll leave Annapolis early enough to miss the traffic back to DC and in time to grab a Rita’s Italian Ice on my way back.
Tom: Tonight we’ll kick off the weekend with a neighborhood Happy Hour at San Antonio in Brookland, getting some time to hang out with my neighbors and get to know faces to go with email addresses on the neighborhood listserve. Friday night there’s always Baseball on the Barn. Saturday I intend to enjoy the delicious weekendness of it all, with a trip to the Bloomingdale Farmers’ Market, before DJ lil’e hits the stage at 9:30 club. Sunday is (possibly) Strasburg’s first start at Hagerstown, so we’re trekking on up to see the Suns. Looks like a good weekend!
‘Cafe Atlantico’
courtesy of ‘needlessspaces’
Put on your elastic waistband pants, people. There’s plenty to eat and do in the city for the next few weeks. So click on through and you’ll find where you should be wining and dining this month.
Continue reading
By jordana
Raised in Potomac, where I attended private school and then a public school whose parking lot doubled as a BMW showroom (my 1990 Honda Civic fit right in), everyone I knew growing up was “going somewhere.” Something like ninety-eight percent of my classmates went on to four-year colleges—an impressive achievement, according to the Montgomery County School Board; many hoping to be doctors and lawyers like their parents, or investors like their neighbors….
And at just a thirty minute drive down the GW Parkway, DC was our “big city.” As kids, my brothers and I ate snow cones at the zoo and rode the merry-go-round on the National Mall. Older, I snuck into Fur nightclub the summer before I turned eighteen; tried hookah at the Prince Café in Georgetown over a college Spring Break; and had my first twenty-first birthday shot at Tom Tom in Adams Morgan.
So when I first moved back home after college, my thought was: capital of the free world? NBD. Continue reading
By Alexia
courtesy of Marissa Nadler.
Last Friday night Boston chanteuse Marissa Nadler entranced the audience at DC’s Red Palace with her dreamy folk songscapes. On tour with her was fellow Bostonian singer/songwriter Mike Fiore, who performs as Faces On Film. It was a low-key evening of quiet, beautiful music for a small but attentive and appreciative audience.
‘HR!’
courtesy of ‘oddlittlebird.’
A night after hitting two solo home runs in a series opening 5-3 win over the Atlanta Braves, Rick Ankiel struck an even bigger blow. His grand slam in the bottom of the fourth inning turned a 3-2 deficit into a 6-3 lead, and the Washington Nationals went on to beat Atlanta 9-3 in front of 24,326 fans at Nationals Park Tuesday night.
The grand slam was Ankiel’s only hit of the night (he finished 1-for-5), but it was the perfect capstone to a torrid homestand for the veteran pitcher-turned-center fielder. Ankiel entered Tuesday’s game with a .421 on-base percentage in 19 plate appearances during the homestand, while his two Monday night home runs goosed his slugging percentage up to .750. In the short term, Ankiel’s hot streak has been a timely contribution to Washington’s firepower while others have struggled. Most notably, Danny Espinosa has fallen off sharply from the giddy heights of, say, mid-July. The rookie second baseman’s one-out double in the bottom of the third was his first extra-base hit since July 17 (which also, coincidentally, came against the Braves). Between the next day’s 0-for-4 performance against the Houston Astros and the start of Tuesday night’s game, Espinosa –who went 2-for-5 on Tuesday night– had reached base just nine times in 57 plate appearances on four singles, four walks, and once taking first after being hit by a pitch. That worked out to a .161 on-base percentage, while striking out 17 times.
Jayson Werth, who also went 2-for-5 Tuesday night has been hot as well (.440 on-base percentage and 1.011 OPS on the homestand entering the game), and it was he who scored the first run of the game in the bottom of the second inning. Werth, showing the same aggressive baserunning that’s marked his game all season, led off the inning with a single to right and took off for second with Michael Morse at the plate. Morse struck out on a full count, but David Ross’ throw sailed into center field and Werth took third base before scoring on Ian Desmond’s sacrifice fly.
That lead only lasted until the top of the third inning, when John Lannan struggled for the only significant period in his 6.2 innings. Facing the bottom third of the Atlanta order, Lannan gave up singles to Ross and Jose Constanza. After Ross was retired on a failed sacrifice by starter Derek Lowe, Michael Bourn tied the game with a double down the right field line. Lowe himself came across when the next batter, Martin Prado, grounded out to Espinosa. The Braves increased their lead to 3-1 in the top of the fourth when Alex Gonzalez singled with one out, went to second on a single by Brooks Conrad, advanced to third on a deep fly ball by Ross, and scored when Constanzo drove a single over the leaping Ryan Zimmerman and into left field.
But in the fourth, it all fell apart for Lowe, who has been a consistent disappointment for Atlanta since signing a four-year, $60 million contract with the Braves after the 2008 season. On Tuesday night, his sinker wasn’t as effective as it should have been, and the Nats finally got the measure of him. After Jonny Gomes walked with one out, Desmond pulled a sinker into left field for a single. Wilson Ramos fouled off a changeup before lining a sinker the other way to load the bases. Lannan then chopped a ground ball to first baseman Freddie Freeman, whose throw home to force Gomes was much too high and forced Ross to come well in front of the plate to make the catch. Gomes finished the job by taking out Ross’ legs with his own. It was a violent, but legal, play by Gomes and it cut the margin to 3-2. Then Ankiel watched two cutters miss high and outside before driving a sinker into the storage area behind the center field wall. It happens that quickly sometimes.
Lowe made it out of the fourth without further damage to his ERA, but he only lasted two batters into the fifth. Left with no choice but to hope that his sinker would suddenly sink, Lowe kept throwing it, and the Nationals kept hitting. Specifically, Gomes lead off the fifth by tripling down the left field line and Desmond treated another thigh-high sinker with the contempt it deserved, lining it into the first row of the left field seats to make it 8-3.
Michael Morse rounded off the home run derby in style with a long home run into the first row of the right center field balcony off Christhian Martinez to provide the final margin of victory in the bottom of the sixth. But the story once again was Ankiel, who, while he is not likely to be back with the club in 2012, has given the club some very fine service in center field (a below-average bat, perhaps, but his defense has not been close to the disaster many feared it would be). On a team that is simultaneously building toward the future and struggling to put its offense together, performances like Ankiel’s on this homestand are so often the difference between winning and losing, progress and frustration.
By Patrick Pho
Photo Stan Barouh
Before this weekend, I rarely used the word gentrify except when describing neighborhoods like Columbia Heights or H-Street NE.
“Yes I know it looks a little rough- but hey it’s gentrifying! Now let’s go hit up Wonderland Ballroom!”
This weekend brought two events that have given new meaning and significance to the word, first Washington Post columnist/grouchy old man Courtland Milloy decided to stereotype DC’s youth into hipsters out to improve property values and find great Happy Hour specials.
Second was a performance of Bruce Norris’ Clybourne Park over at Woolly Mammoth Theatre. I’m happy to report the latter had a deeper impact on my life.
Woolly Mammoth made a wise choice in restaging the production they first brought to life in the spring of 2010. Not only can DC relate to the theme of race and gentrification, but also the show is still buzzing after winning a Helen Hayes award for outstanding resident play and the Pulitzer in Drama. With local theatre taking a bit of a summer break, crowds have been beating the heat and taking advantage of this second chance to see what I think has been one of the best plays I’ve seen this year.
By Brian Mosley
‘National Air and Space Museum in HDR’
courtesy of ‘Matthew Straubmuller’
Let’s have the HDR Talk. Much like parents with the “Birds and the Bees Talk,” this is a talk that photographers don’t like to have. Why? Because photographers either love HDR photos or hate them with the heat of 1000 suns.
First things first, what is HDR? HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and, to put it simply, it is a way to create an image with a wide (or “dynamic”) range of lighting, much as the human eye sees different lighting. Some photographers like it because you can get amazingly colorful images that can just pop (much as we saw with this video). Other photographers also hate it because it can get overused easily, where colors become fictional and the image doesn’t look like it came from the real world. As a friends of mine likes to say: “HDR is easy. Good HDR is hard.” Don’t believe it? Look in the Flickr pool and you’ll see. Continue reading
‘Teddy Didn’t Win…’
courtesy of ‘Tony DeFilippo’
Since Rick Ankiel returned from the purgatory that his pitching career had become and made his debut as an outfielder in August of 2007, he has hit 56 home runs. Prior to Monday night’s 5-3 Washington Nationals win over the Atlanta Braves, Ankiel had hit two home runs in a game on four occasions. Facing right-hander Jair Jurrjens, Ankiel took his career home run total to an even 60, hitting two solo shots into the right field seats as the Nats notched their third win in a row against a division opponent.
Ankiel’s first home run, a solo cannon shot into the right-center field seats to lead off the bottom of the first inning, was impressive enough. But it paled in comparison to his second homer, another solo job that was blasted into the second deck down the right field line. As anyone who makes a habit of watching games at Nationals Park can tell you, those seats aren’t reached cheaply.
The pitching match-up certainly didn’t favor the home side. Jurrjens, a 25-year-old from Curacao, had not lost a start since June 14, and is surely on the watch list for the National League Cy Young Award. By contrast, Livan Hernandez had not won a start since June 26, and hadn’t even made it past the 4th inning in two of his previous three appearances. In the first inning, the Cuban looked to be continuing his poor run of form. After giving up a lead-off single to Michael Bourn on the second pitch of the game, Martin Prado turned on a curveball that missed the left field foul pole by, at most, a foot. The next pitch was scalded to Ryan Zimmerman, who snagged the line drive on the back hand and threw to first in plenty of time to double off Bourn, who was left standing at second wondering how on earth the ball hadn’t gone for extra bases.
The themes of danger and escape recurred throughout Hernandez’s six-inning, six-hit, one-run outing. In the third, he gave up a one-out single to Jose Constanza, who was promptly thrown out trying to steal second by Wilson Ramos. In the next inning, Hernandez allowed back-to-back one-out singles by Freddie Freeman and Dan Uggla before hitting Jason Heyward on the leg with a pitch to load the bases. The next batter, David Ross, grounded into a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning.
Hernandez helped his own cause considerably on two occasions. In the second inning, Hernandez gave his team a lead that they never relinquished when his two-out single to right field scored Jayson Werth to put Washington on top 2-1. But his most spectacular moment came in the fifth. After a lead-off single by Alex Gonzalez, Jurrjens (batting in the 8th spot) dropped a very well-placed bunt in front of the plate. Springing off the mound with alacrity, Hernandez spun and fired a bullet to the covering Desmond at second to start the 1-6-3 twin killing, the third double play turned by the Nats on the evening.
The only mistake Hernandez made was in the second inning, when he left a sinking fastball up in the zone for Uggla to catapult into the right-center field bleachers to tie the game 1-1. But even in this, Hernandez could commiserate with closer Drew Storen, who gave up Uggla’s second home run of the night with one out in the ninth inning. That made the score 5-3, and when Heyward followed with a single to right, nerves were jangling in the crowd of 19,940. But Storen managed to blow a full-count fastball by Ross and induce Gonzalez to ground into a 5-4 force-out to end the game.
By Brian Mosley
‘When Alien bugs attack!’
courtesy of ‘yostinator’
Here comes August! I’ve got to say, where did July go…and June for that matter? But let’s forget about the unforgiving grinding of time, and focus on what really matters this week: Shark Week. I’m not really a devotee of this particular form of clever summer programming, but I do like to say this quote: “Live every week like it’s Shark Week” (Tracy Morgan, 30 Rock). On that particular piece of questionable advice, let’s see the sights of the Flickr pool from the weekend. Enjoy! Continue reading
By Tom Bridge
‘Storen’
courtesy of ‘photopete’
As the 4pm deadline crept ever closer the questions about a potential trade with the Minnesota Twins for CF Denard Span were met with silence. No one was talking about the trade. As the clock struck four, not a positive thing had been said about the prospects of the trade for four hours. Storen would remain a National, and entered the game to an ovation from the crowd of 25,307 on hand. Leading 2-1, Storen gave up a home run to Scott Hairston, his second of the day, to blow his fourth save this season. The Nationals went into the bottom of the ninth tied at two.
By Tom Bridge
‘R.C. Beadle, A.H. Brown (LOC)’
courtesy of ‘The Library of Congress’
The trade deadline is a nebulous and crazy thing. Everyone seems to know someone who knows something about a AA prospect who heard from the trainer that he’s being traded to play at Tulsa for a guy whose name ended in A. or was it Y? Either way, sure thing.
This is the time of the baseball season where everyone can play armchair general manager, saying that the team should trade for this guy, or for that one, or for the love of God get player X off the roster, because he’s a bum. Today has been no different than the usual.
Yesterday, the Nationals made a pair of solid trades that sent Jason Marquis to the Arizona Diamondbacks for shortstop Zachery Walters, and Jerry Hairston Jr. to the Milwaukee Brewers for outfielder Erik Komatsu. Both were to be free agents at the end of this season, and neither would have granted a compensatory pick, and coupled with the fact that Arizona is assuming $2.5M of Marquis’ salary, and we got two strong minor leaguers, I’m going to call this one an unmitigated success.
By Alexia
Head over to Red Palace Friday night for an evening of sultry, dreamy indie-folk with Boston chanteuse Marissa Nadler. Her music is melancholic and lovely, at times reminiscent of Mazzy Star. She has received a good amount of buzz lately: her self-titled album was featured on NPR’s First Listen, and she was one of SPIN’s 5 best new artists in June. Her single “Baby, I Will Leave You In the Morning” from her latest album was featured on the Pitchfork Playlist. She’s wrapping up her summer tour of US and Canada with fellow Boston indie-folksters Faces on Film.
Marissa Nadler
w/ Faces on Film
@Red Palace
7/29 – 10pm – 18+
$10
By Tom Bridge
‘Curly ‘W’ flare’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’
There are about 50 hours left until the non-waiver trade deadline in Major League Baseball, and if you thought the rumor mill on the Hill was busy, the baseball rumor mill has it matched. The last two days ahead of the trade deadline are often the busiest of the season, with deals getting done well into the midnight hours. So what might we expect from the Nationals? According to Sports Illustrated, GM Mike Rizzo has said that the Nats are “buyers and sellers,” and “If we think there’s a good trade out there that helps this team, we’ll make it.”
By Alexia
courtesy of Hayes Carrl.
Hayes Carll plays country music I can get into. Last Saturday he turned the Rock & Roll Hotel into a honky tonk for the night when he and his band The Poor Choices brought their foot-stompin’ blend of country, bar-room rock & twangy folk to the stage. Texas native Carll and his gang are on US tour right now in support of his fourth studio album “KMAG, YOYO (& Other American Stories) “, released in February of this year on Lost Highway Records.
Hayes Carll packed the house, playing to a sold-out crowd of very enthusiastic Washingtonians. Cowboy boots and even a few cowboy hats were in the house (not onstage), though I wouldn’t say the audience looked particularly “country”. Country or not, they were clearly excited and into the music of the evening. Carll started off his set on a mild note with the quiet, twangy “The Letter,” from his latest album “KMAG, YOYO.” He and the band were just warming up, though. Things sped up a little for “Wild As A Turkey”, from his album “Trouble In Mind.” The song showcased his humorous, sometime self-deprecating lyrics, and warbling vocal style.
Continue reading
By 
By 
By