Good buy! Bad buy!

Moorenko’s Ice Cream—Fabulous Flavors

What’s a summer without lots of ice cream? When the weather turns steamy, I’m always thinking about where I’m going to get my next frozen fix. If I’m lazy, that’s Ben & Jerry’s, located in convenient proximity to Whole Foods and Borders in downtown Silver Spring. I love the decadent creaminess of B&J’s, and the flavors are yummy—but at this store they never, ever seem to change. Season after season, I’ve seen the same dozen or so, and I end up ordering the same thing—cookies-and-cream, or coffee, or chocolate. I’m bored.

What to do? Put out a little extra effort and drive a few blocks down Georgia Avenue to Moorenko’s Ice Cream Café.

It’s a local company, so the store feels small-town in a good, non-corporate, owner-cares-about-the-business kind of way. Surrounded by cheery turquoise walls, a blackboard full of flavor choices hangs behind the counter. Familiar ones include the ever-popular trinity of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. Others are delightful surprises—bittersweet chocolate (deep and rich), Guinness (yes, beer), megajolt (intense coffee), peanut butter cup, peach melba, banana, honey lavender, drunken raisin (with a brandy kick), olive oil (a nod to NY trendiness), and salted caramel and praline (so to-die-for, says general manger John Landis, that it’s hard to keep in stock). They change, so if you want to try something, don’t wait. There’s a hefty list of scrumptious possibilities that may rotate into the lineup by the next time you visit. Check out their best flavors ever— http://www.moorenkosicecream.com/flavors.htm  

The store offers several cone-or-cup options. You can also get a banana split, a milk shake, a float, tea, coffee (brewed or espresso-based), hot chocolate, and as many containers as you need/want/can carry of your favorite flavor—or flavors—to take home.

There’s also a large, comfortable area with big picture windows on two sides where you can sit and savor your selection. Take your pick of traditional tables, stools at a bar, and two overstuffed living room chairs. To round out the whimsy, there’s a bubblegum machine in the corner. Put in a quarter, turn the crank, and be as blissfully happy as if you were ten again.

 

http://www.moorenkosicecream.com/

Moorenko’s Ice Cream Café

8030b Georgia Avenue

Silver Spring, MD

301-565-7804

and

703-862-6595 for “Ice Cream Emergencies” (whatever they are)

Hours:

Mon-Thurs     Noon-9PM

Fri-Sat     Noon-11PM

Sun     Noon-9PM

Half-hour free parking at the Veridian Apartments garage next  door.

Fire Station 1—Red Hot Dining

Years ago residents of Silver Spring, Maryland, used to bring their casseroles and homemade cakes to the downtown fire station for weekend potluck dinners.  Today the firefighters tend their trucks down the street in a brand-new building, but their old headquarters is still bringing the community together over good food. After a slick renovation, the 100 year-old building  opened nine weeks ago as the Fire Station 1 Restaurant & Brewing Company.

The owners, both former firefighters,  kept the original bricks and exposed wooden ceiling for ambience as they added tables and booths, a bar, a row of TV screens, and a loft with additional seating.  Outdoor tables and umbrellas by the restaurant’s big picture windows add a touch of curbside café to what looks, essentially, like a neighborhood sports bar.

This isn't  a typical burger and beer joint,  though.  “The perception of this place is that it’s going to serve dude food,” says co-owner Michael Mountain. “But we spent about two years on the menu. Everything we have is made from scratch, and we source as many things as we can locally.”

The result is food that’s surprisingly gourmet, served up by a pleasant, helpful, fast wait staff.

I ordered a Caesar salad to start—nicely tangy with rustic croutons and plenty of Parmesan cheese. My husband’s seafood soup was a creamy chowder with chunks of three different fish. And our nephew’s  5-alarm chili  was blazing.  “My face is burning red, which is how I like it,” he said. (3-alarm and rookie versions are available for less daring diners.)

The extensive menu has a seafood section, which includes  crab cakes—“one or  two 100% lump crab.” I can usually eat a boatload of the tiny ones most restaurants turn out, but our server assured us that these were huge, so I ordered only one. It was enormous, and hugely delicious—lightly seasoned with Old Bay and baked to golden perfection, accompanied by  green beans almondine and a Dairy-Queen swirl of creamy, garlicky, mashed potatoes. It’s the restaurant’s #1 selling dish, and rightly so.

My husband and nephew both ordered from the sandwich section—a Cuban,  with pork and pickles and chipotle mayonnaise, and  a crab cake on a bun that came with sensational  home fries cut in thick wedges.

Desserts were equally satisfying—cappuccino brownies  a la mode and Anna’s banana split, named after the 12-year-old daughter  of Jeremy Gruber, the other owner. Both were served with generous scoops of locally churned  Great Falls ice cream—“named one of America's 10 best ice creams by Bon Appetit magazine,” according to the company’s website. (http://www.greatfallsicecream.com/)

The menu is still a work in progress. The owners are tweaking it to give their customers exactly what they want, whether it’s pizza or wraps, soup or salad, beef or chicken, fish or something vegetarian. There are even special dishes for Jr. Firefighters, including a 4 oz. Angus cheese burger.

Yes, there are burgers. And beers—quite a list of them.  So it is a burger and beer joint after all. And a whole lot more.

We’ll be back soon. I want to try Ben’s lobster BLT. It’s the restaurant’s second best seller. Who’s Ben? Anna’s brother, of course.

 

Fire Station 1

Restaurant & Brewing Co.

8131 Georgia Avenue (corner of Silver Spring Avenue)

Silver Spring, MD  20910

301-585-1370

Hours:
Monday-Thursday: 11 am-10 pm
Friday-Saturday: 11 am-12 am
Sunday: 11 am-9 pm

http://firestation-1.com/

(The website has old photos of firefighters and trucks, a history of the fire station,  a copy of the menu,  and an e-store that sells T-shirts as well as pint glasses emblazoned with the restaurant logo.)

Plant Spirals—Not As Advertised

A fantasy of tidiness (above).

I’m a sucker for anything that will lighten my load of garden chores, so when I saw Rainbow Spiral Supports in a catalog, I had to try them.

Made of rust-resistant, coated steel, they come in a set of five colors—red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. At 72 inches, they looked like they’d be tall enough to prop up my biggest plants.

I  had given up on wooden stakes. They’re a pain to pound into the ground each spring, they rot, and I read somewhere that they can carry diseases. Uck. Enough already.

Tomato cages weren’t doing it for me either. The arms of the plants never seemed to use the cage for support. They’d sneak out and flop all over the ground as if I hadn’t bothered to try to help them at all.

This year I only used spirals.

First disappointment: Each one arrives in two pieces—for ease of shipping, I suppose. But it’s not so easy to insert the end of one into the socket of the other.

Then, my tomatoes refused to cooperate. They didn’t naturally insinuate themselves up the curves of the spiral. They needed to be constantly positioned as they grew. Unfortunately, I was out of town during one of their big spring spurts, so they’re now sprawling all over, as usual.

I’m hoping I can convince my cucumbers to wrap their tendrils around a few of these things and climb up to get themselves some light and air. My peppers are quite happy with a shorter version that I got at the local hardware store. Ditto the clematis plants.

The one thing I thought that I would NOT like about these things—the rainbow effect, which I imagined would turn my lovely garden into Candyland—I’m actually quite fond of. The colors really do cheer up the garden, and for that I offer two (green) thumbs up.

 

 

 The messy reality.

Fenwick Beer & Wine—Cheers!

If you’re a big beer fan (like my husband) this six-month-old store in downtown Silver Spring is heaven. And even if you’re not (like me) it’s worth a visit just for the wow factor. The array of choices is quite simply amazing.

In the beer room, familiar brands such as Guinness and Wild Goose and Yuengling are packed in beside gourmet Chimay, pink-elephant Deliriums, and beers flavored with peaches, apples, strawberries, cherries, and raspberries. There’s a gooseberry and wheat ale from Scotland called Grozet. And a heather ale called Fraøch. And Banana Bread Beer from the UK. And Green’s Amber Ale, from Belgium, which is gluten free There are brews called The Dog Father, Rastafa Rye, Fiddler’s Elbow, Old Speckled Hen, Moa (from New Zealand), Voodoo Vator, Pork Slap, and Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Beer—whose slogan is “We drink what we can. We can what we drink.” All this makes me wonder why boring old nasty Budweiser has such a huge market share.

The wine room has a similarly wide selection, mostly from the big international producers—the US, France, Italy, Germany, Argentina, Chile, South Africa, Australia. But there are also sake and plum wines from Japan, several kinds of ports, and meads, and sangrias. There are kosher wines, and organic wines, and wines from the DC area. And my favorites are there too, Moët et Chandon, Veuve Clicquot, Taittinger, and Dom Pérignon.

This is the only place in the US that my husband and I have ever seen the Dom displayed outside of a locked case. It made us feel welcome. We’ve already put Fenwick on our weekend errand route, and I may start stealing sips from my husband's pints soon. Who wouldn’t be intrigued enough to try something called Old Leg Over?

 

http://www.fenwickbeerandwine.com/

Fenwick Beer & Wine

Boutique Wines, Craft Beers

1327 Fenwick Lane (almost opposite the main Silver Spring post office)

Silver Spring, MD  20910

301-650-5770

info@fenwickbeerandwine.com

 

Monday-Saturday 10AM – 9PM

Sunday 12PM – 6PM

Free beer and wine tastings: Friday 4PM – 7PM

ArtSpring—Gift Central

Cousins are having them. And colleagues. And friends. Babies, I mean. They seem to be popping up everywhere. My husband and I are always delighted to hear the news, of course. But then we wonder what kind of gift to send. We want it to be something the little one can use for a while and not grow out of. Something that’s safe, and that the parents approve of. And something that’s as unique as the new person.

We’ve settled on handmade quilts—cozy, eye-catching, easily shippable. And recently we’ve found a great source, the ArtSpring store in downtown Silver Spring.

When it opened two years ago in its first location on Ellsworth Drive, this retail outlet for locally made arts and crafts was interesting but not a place that we visited very often. It always seemed like a good idea, but we never found anything we wanted to buy. It was just a bit too Becky-Home-Ecky-makes-placemats-from-burlap.

Then, a year ago, the store moved to its new location on the corner of Ellsworth Drive and Georgia Avenue. SHAZAAM! Magic started to happen. The large, light-filled space is now filled with a constantly changing, and ever delightful, collection of things. Quilts for babies, quilts for grownups, patchwork pillows, aprons, jewelry, pottery, glassware, T-shirts, paintings, scarves, soaps, greeting cards, Christmas tree ornaments, reusable grocery bags, funky-chic purses, etcetera and ad infinitum, hooray. All made one by one, nothing identical to anything else. Some pieces are still very hippie-crafty, but a lot are really first-rate—beautiful, clever, intriguing, guaranteed to get a “Wow!” when the gift box opens. If you can bring yourself to give the things away, that is. Sometimes I avoid the give-or-keep question by purchasing two similar things—one for the giftee, and one for me. Happy, happy, material girl.

The people who run this place figure that 80 percent of their customers are like me, shopping for gifts. “They want something that has meaning, that someone has had their hands on,” says Annette Bilancio, one of the founding artists, whose specialty is old furniture revived with creative applications of paint.

The store also holds special events. Shopping with the kids? From 1 to 3 every Saturday afternoon, artist Mary Mallia conducts a craft session just for them ($3 per child). Need a new look? Check out the artists’ T-shirt show coming up on July 17. (Designers, get your  entries in. We’re dying to see them.)

Me? I’ll be in soon. My sister’s birthday is coming up. And maybe I’ll find a little something for me. Who knows?

 

http://www.artspringsilverspring.com/

8519 Georgia Avenue

Silver Spring, MD  20910

301-495-3425

Tues-Wed 12-6

Thurs 12-6 (winter), 12-8 (summer)

Fri 12-8

Sat 10-8

Sun 1-4

Mon closed

Garden Gloves—Wells Lamont Leather

When rubber-palmed, cotton-knit garden gloves were invented, backyard horticulturalists cheered—myself included. The fabric is light and cool, and the rubber keeps hands dry while offering protection from small prickers. Hooray!

I always keep a pair in my toolbox now, and I use them a lot. But they’re not perfect, I’ve discovered. Their main flaw, as far as I’m concerned, is the fragileness of that thin coating of rubber. Sometimes I end up cutting through it while I’m clipping grass. Or major prickly bushes stab through it. In either case, my hands end up as mincemeat. And then the gloves leak. Dirt gets in. Water gets in. Poison ivy gets in. They’ve become useless.

So I now switch out my gloves. Rubber-coated for chores that need a flexible touch, and tough leather for the nasty stuff.

Eventually, of course, even the leather ones need to be replaced. Which is what sent me to the local hardware store at the end of May.

Bad timing. I live in the Mother’s Day Zone, the area in the US where serious gardening begins on the holiday weekend that falls mid-month.

By the time I got there, gardeners had already swept through the store’s glove section like locusts. The rack held only odd-sized pairs, in odd colors, of just a few odd glove varieties.

Well, everything in Washington, DC, is competitive. Get your gloves early or go online, right? Wrong. Gardener’s Supply, my usual source for green gear, had nothing. And a global Google search wasn’t helpful either. There are SO many kinds of leather gloves.  How to choose?

Then I had an idea—I looked at the tag from my old gloves. Googled the brand, found a place that sold what I had, and ordered new pair. They were cheap, even with the shipping and handling. And they arrived fast—in time for gardening on the first weekend in June.

These gloves have a few features that I especially like. First, they’re made from leather that’s tough but supple. Second, a suede reinforcing patch has been sewn across each palm. And, finally, the drawstring at the wrist—anchored by that little red ball—allows me to snug them shut so dirt and leaves don’t get in.

Order them at Blain’s Farm and Fleet—

http://www.farmandfleet.com/products/397699-grain_cowhide_glove_style_1132.html

Wells Lamont

Grain Cowhide Glove Style 1132

$11.99

Fanta Soda—Italy’s Blood Orange Twist

After spending a day walking, walking, walking around Venice recently, my husband and I made the most marvelous discovery.

Like lots of people touring the city, we were staying in a hotel along one of the train lines that run out to the suburbs—much cheaper than canal-side lodgings.

At the end of the day, that meant a 20-minute ride from the main train terminal. It felt like commuting in the evening on the metro at home—made me wish my bed were closer to where I was spending the day.

When we arrived at the station, footsore and thirsty, we found that we had just missed a train and the next one wouldn’t come for another half an hour.

Not to worry. This was Italy, so food and drink were sold in delicious profusion just steps from the tracks.

We scanned the coolers for something refreshing. Gatorade. Coke. Ginger ale. Fanta…Fanta. That’s always a good choice in Europe. What flavors? Hard to tell. We only know a few phrases of Italian, and the one we chirp fluently—chiuso per restauro, closed for restoration—wasn’t going to help us here.

But then I saw a flavor that looked interesting—arancia rosa. Could it be blood orange? In a SODA?!

Yes, it was. And it was sensational.

My husband and I sat on a bench in front of the terminal and sipped our sodas and watched the crowds go by, and life was good—exactly how the Italians intend for it to be.

I once worked with someone who knew Italy very well. He always used to say that there was no such thing as a bad meal in Italy. I thought of him at that moment. The alchemy of the Italian cucina even extends to sodas.

The Luggage Scale—Don’t Leave Home Without It

  The littlest things can trip you up when you’re traveling. A few extra ounces in a suitcase, for instance. With airlines getting stricter about every aspect of flying, that tiny detail can turn out to be a hassle.

My husband and I usually travel with only one suitcase apiece, and we make sure to weigh what we’re taking before we leave. We don’t buy much on the road, either. We may pick up a few nice foreign nibbles, or some small gifts for relatives, but that’s about it. So, in theory, our luggage shouldn’t weigh much more on the return trip than it did on the way out.

But theory is not reality. Purchases are sneaky. They can accumulate quietly and then BAM, they tip the scales.

Consider our Hawaii tale—

We had taken a nice, long cruise from New Zealand to Honolulu.  The islands en route didn’t sell a lot of must-have stuff, and we had been to Hawaii enough times that we didn’t feel like we needed to bring home pounds and pounds of anything in particular. But in New Zealand, at the very start of our voyage, we were inspired to shop. We bought a load of manuka honey products, opossum wool gloves and socks and sweaters, cool T-shirts, interesting note cards, and—well, I don’t know what all. It added up.

We acquired so much stuff that we had to break out our auxiliary tote bags at the end of the cruise. And that’s where we stumbled. We now had our two normal cases, plus the two totes, and we could only guesstimate how much weight each was carrying.

Airlines flying out of Hawaii pay close attention to weight because their planes have to fly over so much empty ocean. Too much tonnage and everyone on board will be swimming with the fishes, not flying with the gulls.

So when our big bags weighed in a teensy bit over the limit, my husband and I were pulled out of line to repack or jettison or do what we had to do to make the weight right.

Red-faced, and dripping with sweat, we tugged at balky zippers. When we got the cases open and started to dig through our tangled things, dirty laundry spilled over the airport floor. Other passengers stared. Their eyes said, You are SOOO pathetic. Our hands shook as the minutes raced by, because we still had to get through security. Finally, we were able to shift items from the big bags into the smaller ones so that all were in compliance. We convinced the zippers to behave. Closed up everything. And then said, Never again.

We’re packing for another trip now, and we’re taking the luggage scale with us. It’s small. It’s light. And it will save us from a bit of airport aggravation on the return flight.

Dinner in Silver Spring—Ray’s vs. 8407

Not many years ago, the best you could do for dinner in downtown Silver Spring was the Quarry House Tavern (http://www.quarryhousetavern.com/), a smoky, beery, eat-in bar in a big, dark basement that made some of the best burgers on the planet.

Then Discovery TV and the American Film Institute moved to town, and suddenly there were lots of Chardonnay sippers searching for someplace to dine. Enter Ray’s the Classics, (http://www.raystheclassics.com/index.html) which began to serve up fabulous steaks and wines. Excellent service and crisply ironed table linens made for happy, elegant meals—though even back then I wished Ray would hire a pastry chef. The restaurant got everything else right, but to end a fancy meal with a fizzle of a dessert was just wrong.

My husband and I returned to Ray’s for a romantic Valentine’s dinner this year and found a completely different place. The linens were  gone. The rug was frayed. The service was rushed. The appetizers and salads were almost inedible. And the desserts were still a disaster. OK, Ray has downscaled a bit. But the steaks are still great and so are the wines. Why doesn’t he start offering fries and decent salads? That would turn this now tatty steakhouse into a brasserie, and we’d all be delighted to return and manger.

Whatever he does, he’d better make an effort to turn his restaurant around or he will surely get clobbered by Silver Spring's newest yupscale eatery.

8407 Kitchen Bar (http://8407kb.com/) has just opened at 8407 Ramsey Avenue, across from the transportation hub now under construction at the Metro station.

This place is chic, sunny, and inviting, with huge picture windows, walls of exposed brick, and wooden ceiling beams. And judging from what my husband and I tasted two nights ago, it appears that Chef Pedro Matamoros (formerly of the Tabard Inn in Washington, DC, and Nicaro here in Silver Spring) has put together a sensational menu.

We started with a Pimms and gin, garnished with a slice of cucumber, and a glass of French Chardonnay. (Yes, I’m one of those drinkers. Busted.)

A bread basket arrived. Properly lined with linen, it held slices of sourdough—some white, some tan, all studded with bits of cherries. The butter, in a shallow dish, was soft and spreadable.

Then glorious salads—one Caesar, with a long anchovy laid artfully atop the lettuce; one bib lettuce sprinkled with diced apple and crumbled bleu cheese and lightly candied walnuts.

The waiter's timing was spot on. My glass had one swallow of wine left when he asked if I’d like more.

Our entrées arrived—scallops with a beautifully caramelized crust and a silken interior served in a sauce that my husband insisted that I sample; and a perfectly sautéed soft-shell crab laid over squid-ink pasta.

Did we want dessert? Tricky question. I’ve had too many badly conceived and executed sweets lately (including a dense slab of chocolate goo masquerading as a torte at the Tabard Inn) and was almost inclined to save the calories. But I was curious, especially since we were eating here for the first time. My husband ordered crème brûlée, which was—hooray—made from scratch. (Yes, chefs, my mouth can tell if you use anything but fresh eggs and cream.) I devoured the most divine chocolate tart, which had a flaky crust and a dab of almond toffee ice cream on top. And then, when only crumbs and cream were left, I picked up the plate and licked it clean. Yes, I did.

Turns out, of course, THIS PLACE HAS A REAL PASTRY CHEF! Which is one of the many reasons why we’ll be back.

A Lilac for the South—the Betsy Ross

Lilacs are plants of the north. They thrive in places where summer days are never steamy and winter seizes everything in a solid freeze. They make springtime on Mackinac Island, Michigan, simply glorious. But here in Maryland, where I live, most of them struggle.  Some hang on year after year, but they’re spindly and don’t produce many blooms. Others just give up after they’ve fought through too many hot months.

I grew up in Pennsylvania, where lilacs do well. We had an enormous bush in the front yard that exploded in fragrant purple flowers at the start of warm weather. Our farm spread over 50 acres, so there were a lot of plants to love—daffodils that dotted grassy banks, hedges of wild roses that bordered the tilled fields, sun-warmed blackberries that we ate straight off the bush, holly trees that were covered in red berries come Christmas—but the lilac was always one of my favorites. I thought its smell was heavenly, and its sheer profusion seemed like a miracle after the long dark days of dead things in the garden.

As a grownup cultivating a suburban plot, I wanted to bring that symbol of childhood delight into my current world—but how? The lilac next door was so sickly that new neighbors ripped it out and sent it to the landfill as soon as they moved in.

I was discouraged. For years I planted other things and put the lilac out of my mind.

Finally, it occurred to me that maybe a hot-weather cultivar existed somewhere. I Googled. And I found inspiration.

The Betsy Ross is a hybrid specially bred for warmer climates. It was developed under the auspices of the U.S. National Arboretum—which tested it as far south as Alabama (zone  8)—and it was released for sale in 2002. 

In 2007, I planted a sprig as an experiment. Now it’s a small bush and is looking happily established in a semi-shady area of my backyard. Its blossoms are white, but they smell as lilacs should. I’m fully expecting it to live large, and to herald the arrival of spring for many more years to come.