Charm City Weekend - Fells Point

The Sunday after the wedding in Baltimore, DB~ and I went with my cousin on a quick tour around Fells Point in downtown. Fells Point was its own neighborhood based on maritime endeavors until it was incorporated into Baltimore. It was named after Admiral Fell, who now has a charming little boutique hotel named after him in the form of the Admiral Fell Inn.

When I was a younger hellraiser, Fells Point was known as the South Side-esque area of Baltimore, with bars layered on top of pubs. The summer of my 21st birthday, I went down to visit my cousin and meet up with some friends from college. We partied in Fells Point one night and one of my friends from college did the most outrageous stunt I have ever seen in person. For purposes of this family blog, I'll just refer to it as the Squirrel Nut Zipper in the middle of a crowded bar named Bertha's.

I got so drunk in another establishment named the Greene Turtle that I had to be carried out and on another occasion we went down for a Halloween bar crawl to a bar that I can't remember its name. Perhaps the $10 all you can drink cover had something to do with that. Or all the naughty nurse/trashy pirate/Catholic school girl costumes. One or the other.

I also bought my first Tricky CD, Pre-Millenium Tension, in 1997 while in the midst of the Squirrel Nut Zipper bender of a night.

In short, Fells Point to me was party central and a semi-rough neighborhood with a lot of tattoo shops and proximity to drug dealers (not that I partook in that sort of thing).

But here we are in 2011 and Baltimore is cleaning up Fells Point and making it trendy. There are now establishments like a whisky bar that also serves sushi, an interesting furniture store called Su Casa, and a whole block of residential loft-style housing.

The bars are still there, but now they are augmented by Spanish tapas restaurants, Greek restaurants, and a great looking Cajun restaurant called Louisiana. And it is all a short water taxi ride away from the Inner Harbor. DB~ and I will probably go back in the near future and stay either in or around the Fells Point area.

Our little Fells Point is growing up. Sniff. Makes me so proud.

Charm City Weekend

This past weekend DB~ and I went down to Baltimore for one of my cousin's wedding. Most of my mom's side of the family moved to Baltimore from Pittsburgh in the '60's. We re-discovered that side of the family in 1984 and since then Baltimore has been like a second city to me.

Like all good cities, Baltimore is in the midst of re-vitalizing itself. The city is still rampant with drugs and crime, but they are doing a lot to rehab some neighborhoods (like Canton) and augment others (Fells Point).

One neighborhood that doesn't need any changes, though, is Little Italy in Baltimore off of Eastern Avenue. My mom's side of the family is Italian, so growing up we would go to Little Italy periodically when we would visit. Unlike Bloomfield in Pittsburgh, Baltimore's Little Italy is just Italian restaurants. And this past Saturday, every single one of them was packed to the brim. The family wedding was a smaller one, only around 85 people, so we had the entire upstairs of Chiapperelli's located on High Street.

The food was fantastic at the restaurant. This sure wasn't your typical Italian wedding at the fire hall. The appetizers were pretty good, but not spectacular, but the dinner was excellent. The salads were a light Caesar dressing with black pepper giving some bite. The dinners were family style portions of the following:
Penne in Vodka Cream Sauce
Lasagna
Meatballs
Sausage and Peppers

All were great, especially the penne and the meatballs. I'm not a huge fan of sausage and peppers typically, but I tried the sausage and was stunned by how soft it was. Sometimes you bite into a little fat pocket or the sausage is overcooked. But this sausage had none of that and the sausage was perfectly cooked and tender.

The lasagna was a touch watery, but it had excellent flavors and the ricotta cheese mixture was very smooth. The penne in vodka sauce had a yellowish-orange tint and wasn't drowned in sauce, which can be the downfall of that dish sometimes. Big thumbs up to Chiapperelli's.

Around 8 pm, I needed to get up and stretch and catch a breath of fresh air (it was a little tight seating arrangements) so I went outside to take in the scene. When I went out, I actually checked my phone to see what time it was. Sure enough it was 8 pm, but there was a car everywhere you turned and massive traffic backups when the valets would grab a vehicle to park.

After he caught his breath, I asked one of Chiapperelli's 5 (!!) valets if this was normal. He told me it was never this busy. I wandered a couple of blocks away to Vaccaro's. Vaccaro's is a famous restaurant that specializes in desserts.

Even though I go back to Baltimore at least once every other year, this trip felt different. I felt like I was going back to the beginning of things, like I was re-discovering Baltimore for the first time. Maybe that's due to DB~ and how I wanted her to see the city with me and how I feel when I'm with her. Whatever the reason, I flashed back to one of our earliest trips to Baltimore when we went to Vaccaro's after dinner. I was probably 9 or 10 and my cousin Paul practically triple-dared me into ordering the Death By Chocolate dessert. It was a massive orgy of chocolate cake, hot fudge, and chocolate gelato. If I finished it, he would give me a dollar. I did.

So this past Saturday after the wedding reception broke up and before we went to the after party, my parents and DB~ and I went to Vaccaro's for dessert. At 9 pm, the line was out the door and into the center of the street. After a few minutes wait we were ushered in by an employee who finally split the line into take-out and sit-down.

When we settled in, I didn't realize I was going to be an idiot. Truly, I didn't. But we were telling DB~ about the Death By Chocolate and I was still kind of hungry after dinner...



Boom. There it is in the forefront. My dad's peanut butter gelato dessert is in the upper left hand corner, my mom's rum cake is the upper right, and DB~'s sensible single cream puff is to the right of the Mount Rushmore Of Chocolate. It was a huge piece of chocolate canoli cake with 5 scoops of chocolate gelato, drizzled with hot fudge.

"Don't eat so much that you get sick" was the warning from DB~. I laughed it off. I ended up finishing all but 3 bites of it. And true to DB~'s warning, I had some stomach indigestion later that night. But it was worth it, even if I didn't get a dollar this time.

Tightening the Beltway - Balt/DC/Silver Spring

DB~ was warning me for a couple of weeks to keep June 4-6 free, as we were taking a short trip within driving distance of Pittsburgh. As with most things in our relationship, there is always the air of mystery, so I didn't know until 2 days before the trip where we were going.

She had to present at Discovery on Saturday in Silver Spring, MD, so on Friday night she scheduled a side trip to see the Orioles play the Red Sox at Camden Yards. She also invited my cousin and his family (wife and 2 kids) to join us. Very cool, DB~!

The Orioles suck as much, if not more, than the Pirates, but Camden Yards is still looking good after 18 years. This park was the jump-off point for all the retro parks that came after it in the 90's through to today. The warehouse in the right-center field can't be beat by many other backdrops (of course PNC Park's is nicer!).

I sampled Boog's BBQ, of course, and chose the pork. DB~ went with the crab cake sandwich. Not a soft shell crab sandwich. :)

The next day I was on my own for most of the day, as she was in her seminar from 8 am to 2 pm. I got up with her and hit the surprisingly diverse town of Silver Spring at 8 am. The best way to explore a city is to geocache it. I found some very interesting and challenging little caches, including one at a memorial sculpture to a homeless man that was a local "character" in Silver Spring before his death.

I passed by a Greek restaurant, a Peruvian/Salvadorian restaurant, a Jamaican restaurant (one love, Tony), 3 (!!) Ethiopian restaurants, a Lebanese restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, and a Mexican restaurant all within a half-mile of each other. I never knew going into this trip how diverse it would be...I thought it would be a white-bread suburb of DC and Baltimore.

For lunch, I had the pleasure of meeting an "internet friend" face to face for the first time. It's always weird to hear a person talk after you've read their "voice" for many years. It was a very enjoyable experience and hopefully we can get together if he comes to Pittsburgh this summer.

Silver Spring is in the midst of a renaissance and growth spurt thanks to Discovery relocating its headquarters here in 2003 and being on the red line for the DC Metro. The downtown area of Silver Spring is sort of re-building radially around Discovery's headquarters. Discovery brought jobs and the rail line enables service workers and high-end workers alike to commute easily to DC (22 minutes) The Ellsworth Street area is home to many restaurants and stores designed to bring people to the area and stay for the better part of the day. A fantastic farmer's market with probably 20 vendors, at least, was in play on Saturday from 9 am to 12 noon. There were many artisan breads and cheeses, organic produce, and wild game vendors displaying their wares. Even though we had a fridge in the hotel room, I didn't buy anything to bring home...a decision I regret now.

Much like Montreal's Metro, we found the DC Metro very easy to pick up and safe to ride. Strangely, the downtown stops (at least on the red line) had VERY dimly lit stations. If I were a single girl, I would find it to be a little edgy. It was shockingly dark in these stations.

On Saturday night, we took the red line into DC and did a crash course in monument hunting and sight seeing. We checked out Ford's Theatre, which I thought was only fair considering how many times I use the phrase "....other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?" in conversation. It was disgustingly hot and humid, high 80's for each at least, so we struggled to walk to see the White House, the under-renovation Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and get halfway to the Washington Monument.

DC is like an outdoor museum with a pulse. You can't help but get caught up in some measure of patriotic spirit as you walk the streets. It gave me pause to think that Lincoln, Washington, Adams, Roosevelt, and many, many other great men walked the same paths as we did that night. I tried to envision how different things were here 200, 100, 50, and sadly even 10 years ago. Parts of DC are just off-limits to pedestrians and vehicles nowadays.

By the time we did our mini self-guided tour, it was nearly 8:30. We were both tired and very hot, so we sort of picked the first good place we found, which was an Italian place called Finemondo.

DB~ had perhaps the finest ravioli either of us has ever had. It was a butternut squash ravioli with amaretto in it, topped with a sage butter sauce. The amaretto was just the perfect compliment to the earthy butternut taste.

I had the spinach and cheese ravioli, with mine in a basil cream sauce. On any other night, it would have been fantastic. I helped clean off DB~'s plate, for sure.

It was a jam packed weekend and there were many things we would love to go back and do, but it was a fantastic sampler of our nation's capital and sister city, Baltimore (my second home with all my mom's side of family there).