Category Archives: Washington D.C.

August 29, 2013 · 10:50 pm

Politics and prose, comet, bar code, Lincoln restaurant, Sam & Harry’s DC

Yesterday was a two crabmeat meal day. When in Rome (or in this case, Washington DC). First a light crabmeat salad during a work lunch at Lincoln Restaurant near Farragut North metro, where all the food served to our large group looked great. Then two superb crab cakes at Sam & Harry’s at Reagan National Airport.

Two days ago, I went to an author event at Politics and Prose, one of my favorite bookstores anywhere, now owned by an old friend. Buy a book there when you can!! The author who spoke, Rebecca Sive, wrote a new book encouraging women to run for public office, called Every Day is Election Day. (CSPAN filmed the event.)

Afterwards we ate dinner next door at Comet which had good pizza but a not so good live band that forced us to eat outdoors on a soupy summer night. I had to work all day Wednesday or I would have been on the mall listening to President Obama’s update on MLKing’s I have a Dream speech. Wish I could have been there.

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August 29, 2013 · 2:43 am

back to the newseum For civil rights and Kennedy’s

I went on a return visit (after going last year) to the Newseum to see the Civil Rights exhibit and ended up staying four hours to see that and a whole lot more. As a fan of US History from the 1960s onward, I.e. the current events roughly spanning my time on the planet, and as a sentimental former newspaper reporter, I love the newseums focus not only on recent current events but on how they were covered by the news media and how those events shaped the media. So the exhibit on now the media, for example, covered the Kennedy assassination and the civil rights movement, as well as FBI investigations into the Patty Hearst kidnapping, the Branch Davidian fiasco at Waco, the capture of the Unabomber (whose creepy Montana cabin is in the Newseum), the Oklahoma City bombing and of course 9/11, was fascinating to me.

Imagine being the photographer who captured the shot of Lee Harvey Oswald being shot and worse, the photographer who snapped a photo a split second earlier when Oswald was still alive, just missing the drama shot? Imagine being the reporters beat up by racist thugs in the 1960s south, when they were covering the brave students fighting segregation? Strange to think that almost the entire nation tuned in for JFK’s funeral and, unwittingly, for Oswald’s death live on tv.
I also enjoyed looking at the Camelot photos taken of the young Kennedy’s and their two gorgeous little kids by the photographer first hired by Joe Kennedy to help sell his son as presidential material. The Newseum also does offer fabulous views of the capital.

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August 25, 2013 · 9:40 pm

Florida Avenue Grill, Washington Harbor, towpath in Georgetown

I had one of the best breakfasts ever today at a fantastic soul food restaurant called Florida Avenue Grill, a down home place at the corner of Florida Avenue and 11th street. Everything our party of four tried was delicious…hot cakes sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, eggs, home fries, scrapple (I am not sure I want to know what this actually is but it kind of looked like a sausage patty but had a creamier consistency), grits, cooked apples, a smothered pork chop. Absolutely delicious and we loved the setting, a diner since 1944 filled with photos of celebrities who have visited, most note able African Americans, and the service was warm and efficient! I cannot wait to take friends and family there!

Later my friends and I walked for a bit along the towpath in Georgetown on a perfect sunny day and ended up in what felt more like Miami than DC, the “Washington Harbor ” area along the Potomac, within eyeshot of the Kennedy Center. A fancy yacht was parked outside a retail complex filled with women in bikinis. Really? really. Surprise. Beyond the yacht were paddle boarders, canoeists, pleasure craft. The gardens and grass along the river were full of picnickers. My only complaint is that a security guard wouldn’t let us out our feet in a fountain.

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August 25, 2013 · 2:10 pm

union market, h street, Granville Moore’s, Montmarte in d.c.

Fun day in our nation’s capital with old friends from Connecticut. On a perfect weather Saturday, we strolled around the Eastern Market and ended up eating a very good brunch at an oUtdoor table at a French restaurant, Montmarte. Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon, an omelet with lamb sausage and an open faced steak sandwich. Cheerful,service. Life is good.
We stopped later at the gelato place nearby..Pitango or some such.

Then we drove nearby to Union Market, an indoor hipster artesianal food emporium with various shops full of products that looked straight out of Brooklyn (and some are). Good bread, cheese, meats, dairy, flowers, spices, home furnishings…in what appeared to be a former industrial building. Next stop XM Sirius headquarters where my friends son works in sports satellite radio. Cool building full of studios catering to the preferences of a variety of listeners. oops like a fun place to work too, especially for a 23 year old recent college grad. For dinner we went to one of the many bars and restaurants that have popped up on H street in the emerging NOMa (north of Massachusetts) neighborhood, Granville Moore’s, a Belgian bar with very good pub grub, mussels, fries, meatloaf sandwich, an appetizer with charred spicy pork bits and sautéed Brussels sprouts. Very rustic cramped decor with exposed brick and concrete walls and rough hewn wood beams added to the charm. My friends stayed at Hilton Garden Inn Capitol for a very reasonable $108. Seemed a good place!

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August 22, 2013 · 11:42 pm

March on Washington 50th anniversary in DC next week!

I just realized I’ll be in Washington DC next week during lots of interesting events to mark the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington – including a speech by President Obama on Wednesday (alas, I have business meetings during that event.) I’d also give anything to go to the gospel celebration. See details below!!

The 50th anniversary of the March on Washington will bring a host of civil rights-inspired exhibits, itineraries and other experiences, including two commemorative marches, to the nation’s capital this week and next.

A commemorative rally along the same route that marchers took in 1963 will take place at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, followed by the opening of a Global Freedom Festival on the National Mall. Civil rights activists, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, Martin Luther King III and the family of Emmett Till are expected to attend.

On Aug. 28, a March for Jobs and Justice will end with a Let Freedom Ring rally on the National Mall. President Obama is expected to speak from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as part of the event.

In addition to the marches on Aug. 24 and Aug. 28, six museum exhibits are related to the anniversary.

– Changing America: The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863 and The March on Washington, 1963, is at the National Museum of American History through Sept. 15.

– Make Some Noise: Students and the Civil Rights Movement is a new permanent exhibit at the Newseum. The museum also is showing Civil Rights at 50, a three-year exhibit chronicling the struggle for civil rights from 1963-1965.

– A Day Like No Other: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington, a photography exhibit at the Library of Congress is on Aug. 28-March 1, 2014.

– American People, Black Light: Faith Ringgold’s Paintings of the 1960s at the National Museum of Women in the Arts explores race inequality in the 1960s and runs through Nov. 10.

– And One Life: Martin Luther King Jr., at the National Portrait Gallery through June 1, 2014, traces the civil rights leader’s career.

The 1963 March On Washington
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August 14, 2013 · 11:43 pm

War/photography at the Corcoran Gallery in DC

Corcoran Gallery of Art
Corcoran Gallery of Art is located in Washington, D.C.
Location: 17th St. at New York Ave., NW.

I’m going on a work trip to Washington DC later this month and if I can find some free time, I hope to get to the war photography exhibit that’s showing until Sept. 29 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Here’s more details Corcoran War Photo Exhibit

WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY brings together images by more than 200 photographers from 28 nations and covers conflicts from the past 165 years—from the Mexican-American War through present-day conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Organized not chronologically but around themes such as “The Fight,” “Refugees,” and “Remembrance,” it shows how photography has informed our understanding of conflict over time, and around the world.

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July 26, 2013 · 3:56 pm

Bolt Bus from NYC to DC?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/travel/busreview/

I am contemplating a trip from NYC to DC in August and found a handy roundup of bus options from the Washington Post. (see above) Bolt Bus looks like a good option from what I can tell. Otherwise, Amtrak although it’s pricier.

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Prevost X3-45 #0800 departs New York City
Slogan Bolt for a Buck

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June 26, 2012 · 9:05 pm

More DC/Columbia MD – Zenebech Injera/market lunch, Iron bridge Wine Co, Politics and Prose

A visit to George and Martha’s house at Mount Vernon, Va.

Our direct flight from Washington DC’s Reagan National to Des Moines was a breeze – we were home in two hours! A few other treats to mention during our trip:

– We had good Ethiopian food, albeit in spartan environs, at Zenebech Injera Deli  on T street northwest – not far from the U Street corridor which I didn’t explore in full because it was so darned hot (100 degrees) the day I was wandering around. It apparently stretches east of 14th street a bit. (I walked on U Street between 14th and 17th.) At Zenebech, my son and I tried the sampler which was plenty to eat – assorted meat and veg dishes laid out in big clumps atop a large round piece of the spongy bread you use to eat the food with. Not a fancy place – just a half dozen plain tables and chairs, a counter, a cooler with drinks. That’s about it.

– I met a friend from Ellicott City Maryland for lunch near her house at Iron Bridge Wine Company in Columbia.  Nice place in pretty rural setting. I had a good Cesar Salad and my friend the quiche. The bellini cocktail looked great but didn’t want to drink in the middle of the day.

Eating crabcake sandwiches at D.C.’s Eastern Market

– Politics and Prose, one of my favorite bookstores, appears to be going strong under new ownership, which was very good to see. As always, I enjoyed browsing through both the upstairs fiction and nonfiction shelves and downstairs, in the children’s section where I found many classics that I wanted to buy for my new niece including one all time favorite “Ferdinand the Bull.”

– The gelato place we went to on Saturday near the Eastern market in the Capitol Hill neighborhood is Pitango. Fun fact – actor Owen Wilson was spotted at the Pitango in Chinatown on Saturday, according to the Washington Post. I wonder if he had the Crema Gelato and the Dark Chocolate Sorbet (as I did…)

– We squeezed in a trip to Mount Vernon at our kids’ request on Sunday – followed by quick stop in Alexandria for ice cream. Mount Vernon was spruced up since our last visit there maybe 12 years ago. There’s now a snazzy visitor’s center with an introductory film. The U.S. Capitol also has a new visitor’s center with a film. One more visitor’s center in DC and we’ve got ourselves “a trend!”

Wandering around the Capitol Hill neighborhood in D.C.

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June 25, 2012 · 9:31 pm

Leaving dc – intown uptown inn, redwood, sweet greens

We found a fantastic bed and breakfast on dc that was almost too good to be true. And sadly it will bson non because it is closing to the public later this week. It’s the uptown intown uptown inn in the upper northwest neighborhood north of columbia  heights. Gorgeous old mansion, red brick, with wood floors, elegant fireplaces and chandeliers, antique furniture and oil paintings. Beautiful Roos, for sleeping, sitting and eating. Delicious breakfast of double-stuffed potato  topped with scrambled eggs, homemade blue berry Danish. The inn owner sandy is gracious and welcoming, the type of person you want to have your photo taken with as you leave, even though you have known her for only an hour.mshemis renting out the entire three story inn to harvard which will make it available to its alums. Bummer for the rest of us.

We had an excellent dinner last night at redwood in Bethesda. $35 price fix for 3 courses. I had grilled shrimp served with cucumbers, red onions  and a jalapeño avocado yoghurt drizzled around the plate. Then crab cakes with grilled peaches, bok Choy and a light orange-colored peach sauce. Ice cream sundae for dessert.

Today we had a tour of the u.s. Capitol led by a fine young man who is an intern for senator Harkin. He’s also my son. That was fun. The new visitors center is a nice entryway. We loved all the wall paintings in the corridors. For lunch we had very good salads at sweet greens on a strip of restaurants behind the Capitol. It’s been a good trip.

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June 25, 2012 · 3:35 am

Eastern market, a dc treasure

What a great place to spend a sunny, no longer sweltering Saturday in june. We had a great time wandering around the market, sampling and then buying blueberries, peaches and plums at the outdoor stands and then eating crab cake sandwiches at a very popular counter inside the elegant old red brick market building. We also wandered around a flea market with some good stuff, past some interesting shops including one with great Turkish kilims And another with excellent gelato and sorbet (pitanyo?) the market is in a lovely old neighborhood just behind the Capitol with old brick row houses, some with turrets, wrought iron fences, lovely gardens, red brick walkways. I will be back!

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