Manny Zabala – Baltimore Magazine

Lucky Charm

Manny Zabala — Mon, 13 Apr 2020 16:00:00 +0000

guinn

By Mike Unger
Photography by Scott Suchman

Lucky Charm

Since launching its only American brewery. Guinness finds a second home in Baltimore.

By Mike Unger
Photography by Scott Suchman

SCOTT WOLFARTH AND FIVE of his buddies are gathered around the corner of a long, bustling, stainless steel bar. In front of each sits a perfectly poured pint of Guinness.

Close your eyes and you can picture it: a glass of jet-black beer with that iconic creamy head that somehow seems to settle just above the rim without cascading over it. The six-pack of friends, mostly from New Jersey, have known each other since kindergarten, roughly 50 years ago, and for the past 20 or so, they’ve been taking an annual guys trip. The inaugural one was to Boston; this year, it’s Baltimore. Regardless of the destination, the first beer that touches their lips when they get there is always a Guinness.

Unless they decide to one day cross the pond to Ireland itself, it’s going to be hard to top this pint.

“I had been here a couple times, and I knew these guys would love it,” says Wolfarth from the tasting room at the Guinness Open Gate Brewery, the legendary Irish beer brand’s only outpost in the United States. “I love the idea of bringing beer culture to places it can be accessed so easily. I just think there’s something magical about that.”

An employee takes a break beneath the brand's iconic slogan.

It’s a dreary Saturday in January, an ideal afternoon to seek warmth in the comforts of a pub, or in this case, a brewery. As it frequently is, the taproom is filled nearly to its 250-person capacity, but not everyone sports the stout mustache often worn, wittingly or not, by drinkers of Guinness’ signature style. The contents of other glasses are decidedly blonder, or browner, which may come as a surprise to those who associate Guinness exclusively with its most famous variety. “For so many people that come visit us here, Guinness is one beer poured out of a nitro faucet, and that’s it,” says Ryan Wagner, (pictured above) the brewery ambassador, who’s in charge of training staff and spreading the Guinness gospel. “When people take the tour, they’ll look at the menu and, with no malice in their hearts, they’ll say to me, ‘Who did you guys get to brew all these other beers for you?’ This place exists in many ways to remind people that Guinness is not a beer, it’s a brewery.”

And one that has changed the face of the Maryland beer industry. More than 600,000 people (through late January) have visited the Relay campus, just south of Baltimore City, less than five miles from BWI Airport, since it opened in August 2018. What they’ve found is not a brewery that simply replicates the one founded in Dublin at the equally behemoth St. James’s Gate Brewery, but one that embraces American-style beer made by local brewers using, whenever possible, local ingredients. With the exception of a few iconic stouts, which are shipped in kegs from the motherland, all the beer poured here—porters, blondes, pilsners, ales—is made here, and most is available only on site.

“Right now, the United States has the most innovative, creative beer culture in the world,” says Wagner, a Baltimore native. “It would have been easy to select a few members of the brewing team from Dublin and say, ‘Hey guys, we’re opening a new brewing site in the U.S., can you go over there and make some beer for us?’—but they made it a point to hire an American craft brewing team. Authenticity is an important word for us around here. We want to be a legitimate brewery in this country and not just a façade with a harp on it.”

In other words, Guinness isn’t just a visitor with a green card—it has established dual citizenship.

Clockwise from top left: A bartender pours a Guinness Blonde; Flight of brews; Founder Arthur Guinness in the late 1700s; Horse-drawn Guinness messenger cart.

ARTHUR GUINNESS was making beer in his native Ireland before Washington, Jefferson, or Franklin helped create the United States. The company just celebrated its 261st anniversary. Its history in America began on October 16, 1817, when the first shipment of Guinness reached Charleston, South Carolina. But save for a short period from 1949 to 1954, when the company briefly operated a facility in Long Island City, New York, it hasn't owned a brewery here.

The place it chose to re-plant its flag in the U.S. has a spirited history of its own. The Baltimore County site first opened in 1933, right after the repeal of Prohibition, as the Maryland Distilling Company. It was soon after purchased by Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, which would help develop the region’s beloved Calvert Whiskey. Diageo, the parent company that Guinness helped create in 1997, acquired Seagram and the site in 2001.

By the time construction started on the Open Gate Brewery in February 2017, only 12 full-time employees were left. Eighteen months and $90 million later, the location looked quite different. “Four buildings remain that dominate the landscape,” says Wagner, one of about 200 full-time employees who now work at Open Gate. “All four are rick houses built in the early 1940s to age and mature barrels of whiskey. In their heyday, each held in the neighborhood of 80,000 to 90,000 barrels. If you look hard enough, you can see the vertical wear lines in the floor from the racks pressing down over the course of the decades.”

He’s standing on the lower level of the building that houses the experimental brewery, taproom, private barrel room, retail space, and the fittingly named 1817 Restaurant. It’s from here that free tours begin with a basic discussion of beer’s essential ingredients—water, malt, hops, and yeast (Guinness has largely used the same proprietary strain for at least the last 70 years). For $15, they can end with a sampling of the beloved beverage those ingredients combine to create.

Diageo is an international company that owns some of the most recognizable names in the world of spirits: Ketel One, Bulleit, Johnnie Walker, Tanqueray, Don Julio, and Captain Morgan among them. Its beer side, Guinness, which also includes fellow Irish brands Smithwick’s, Harp, and Kilkenny, brews in 49 countries and is available in more than 150. The United Kingdom is its largest market, followed by Ireland, Nigeria, and the U.S. When it decided to open its first real facility in the U.S., to provide a production home for its Guinness Blonde and to make the more experimental beers it hoped would draw visitors and increase brand awareness in America, it chose Baltimore for a multitude of reasons.

Clockwise from top left: Barrels in wait; A brew poured in the experimental brewery; Wheat malt; A full keg being rinsed before heading out.

“From a logistical standpoint, you’ve got a major international airport and major shipping port just a few miles away,” Wagner says. “There are nine million people that live in D.C., Baltimore, and the suburbs that surround them. There are 50 million people, give or take, that can have breakfast at their house, get in their car, and drive here for lunch.”

That said, “The more romantic reason is that Baltimore is an incredible town with a growing and vibrant beer scene,” says Wagner, who has a “seasonal” job as the Orioles’ public address announcer at Camden Yards. “But I readily admit that I’m biased.”

Before the new brewery could open, Diageo wanted to ensure that local residents supported the venture. In early 2017, Dwayne Kratt, the company’s senior director of government affairs for the northeast region, spoke at a community meeting at the Arbutus Town Hall.

“The room was packed, there were probably about 150 people,” says Kratt. “I quipped, ‘Wow, usually when this many people come, it’s because of a property-tax increase or Not In My Backyard.’ There was this nervous laughter. I said, ‘I just want to build a brewery.’ Everyone clapped, and half the crowd stood up. It was one of the easiest meetings I’ve ever done in my life. The enthusiasm just blew me away.”

Among Maryland’s existing breweries, the sentiment was more mixed.

Outside the main brewery.

“A lot of the industry was skeptical of a larger corporate company coming to town, but I have a lot of respect for Guinness and the niche they have carved out for themselves,” says Tom Foster, co-founder and head brewer of Diamondback Brewing Company in Locust Point. “In my opinion, anything to help move the Baltimore beer scene forward is a net positive.”

Other hurdles remained. In order for the project to be viable, Guinness needed Maryland to change its law that limited breweries to on-premise sales of 500 barrels per year. Wholesalers and retailers were nervous about increasing the cap, so quite a fight unfolded during the 2017 General Assembly session over a bill that would increase the limit to 2,000. The measure ultimately passed, and in 2019, new legislation increased the cap to 5,000.

In the summer of 2017, Guinness began making beer in Baltimore on a tiny, two-barrel system and serving it in a small taproom while its main facility was under construction. Despite little advertising, around 35,000 people visited in the first 10 months that it was open—a hint at what was to come.

From left to right: Head brewer Hollie Stephenson testing beer; The Open Gate entrance.

TODAY, THREE FLAGS FLY from poles at the entrance to the American Guinness site, which looms over Route 185 like a giant keg of fun waiting to be tapped. Just past the Irish, American, and Maryland banners, visitors enter a massive outdoor space that can accommodate up to 4,000 people. In the warmer months, it features occasional live music, lawn games, and events such as painting nights.

Food, drink, tours, and trinkets can be found inside, where there now stands that experimental 10-barrel system that in many ways is the heart of the operation. Head brewer Hollie Stephenson is one of the people charged with crafting what emerges from its tanks. A veteran of the acclaimed Stone Brewing Company near San Diego, California, she came to Guinness from Highland Brewing Company in the beer mecca of Asheville, North Carolina.

The vast majority of the beer made in the experimental brewery is kegged and poured in the taproom. Most of the rest is canned and sold at the retail store in the building, with one or two limited releases available each month.

“A quarter [of what we make], roughly, is for R&D, and the rest of it is what we think is really fun, what we think is going to keep the list balanced and vibrant, and what the brewers want to drink,” she says.

That includes beers like the Stock Ale, which, in a nod to the site’s history as a distillery (and with a bit of corporate synergy), was aged in former Bulleit bourbon barrels. They’ve also partnered with local companies on the likes of a double coffee stout made with beans from Vent Coffee Roasters in Hampden and a specialty ale using honey from an Apex Bee Company apiary a few miles from the brewery. In total, Open Gate has made more than 100 different kinds of beer since opening.

The Over The Moon milk stout, one of the two beers made at the main 100-hectoliter production facility, was born in the experimental brewery. It’s now distributed regionally. That’s exactly the kind of innovation Diageo executives were hoping for when they named their Baltimore brewery after the 10-barrel experimental brewery of the same name on the main grounds in Ireland.

“If we are able to combine the experience we bring from Dublin with the creativity that brewers have in the west, we are going to make beautiful things together,” says Nuno Teles, president of Diageo Beer Company.

Guinness Blonde is the other beer made in the production facility. Originally launched as Guinness Blonde American Lager in 2014, then contract-brewed out of Pennsylvania, its recipe was later tweaked to modernize the flavor.

“We put the entire volume [of hops] into mosaic and citra, so it brought up the level of perceptible hoppiness in the beer,” Stephenson says, referring to popular varieties grown largely in the Pacific Northwest. “We also took some of the caramel malts out to make it lighter in color.”

The signature draughts straight from the tap.

Since July 2018, it’s been brewed exclusively at the Baltimore location. Twelve months later, sales were eight times higher than they were before the brewery opened. Baltimore is Blonde’s biggest market, accounting for 20 percent of all national sales.

The Open Gate Brewery produces about 45,000 barrels of the nationally distributed beer annually, fewer than established breweries like Stone. Still, that figure dwarfs the amount of beer made at much smaller craft breweries around the state.

“Trying to play in the local craft brewery space is tough for us—it’s just disingenuous,” Wagner says. “We’re not that. But to say that this isn’t a local story I think is equally disingenuous. On the packaging, it says Baltimore, Maryland. We’re equally proud of both parts of that equation.”

Now a member of the Brewers Association of Maryland, Guinness has made a concerted effort to assimilate to the state’s craft brewing scene, not to dominate it. It has embarked on a number of collaborative brewing projects with smaller local breweries such as Heavy Seas and Monument City. Last February, it brewed a Czech dark lager with Diamondback.

“It was a great experience for both teams,” says Diamondback’s Foster. “It was a snow day, and Guinness actually shut down, so it was just the brewers there. We shared some beers and were able to pour ourselves pints of Guinness Draught from their bar, which was a cool experience. Guinness attracts and engages a much wider audience than Diamondback and many other smaller craft brewers. I think that having an overall more engaged audience is only a good thing for the industry. The Guinness taproom serves a growing list of experimental beers that helps drive the craft beer scene forward. Their staff is made up of Maryland locals who also want the best for the industry. It’s a win-win.”

The Czech dark lager was available last winter in Guinness’ taproom, where consumers with a hankering for whatever’s new eagerly gulped it down. In its first year, less than 20 percent of beers ordered at the taproom were imported from Dublin, Teles says, meaning “consumers are really looking to drink what’s local.”

Guinness was anticipating drawing 300,000 visitors during its first year. It got 410,000, about 60 percent of whom were from throughout the region. On that raw winter Saturday in January, Station North resident Dan Haas sampled a white ale, coconut porter, and imperial pineapple ale.

“I was impressed by their selection,” he says. “The first time I came I didn’t expect a big company like Guinness to have such a wide selection. I like that they have at least 18 beers [on tap at any given time]—I’ve tried many of them.”

At the bar, Tim Frymoyer of Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, lingers over a flight that includes a brown ale, milk stout, and IPA while he waits to pick someone up from the airport. At a table near the front, Phil McDonald of Sonora, California, tries to sneak in sips while his two young nephews use him as a jungle gym. His sister heard the place was kid-friendly, so they stopped in after his plane landed. Steve Gaus, visiting from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, drinks a Blonde while he and his wife, Peggy Jo, wait for their tour. College sweethearts, they lost touch but found each other 35 years later on Facebook. The couple went to St. James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin during their first trip together abroad.

“This is a completely unique experiment,” Wagner says. “We’re adding an American chapter to a story that’s 260 years old. It’s kind of hard to know exactly what that’s going to look like." But we do know that it’s going to taste damn good.

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Culture Club

Manny Zabala — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 09:00:00 +0000

The blob-covered jar of swill looked so odd, Meaghan Carpenter (then Meaghan Harrrison) had to risk a sip. It was so sour it made her cheeks ache. And so tonic, her internal organs shouted, “thank you.” High praise for tea fungus, a fermented drink also known as kombucha. Today, 20 years since that first slurp, fermentation is Carpenter’s career and her calling. In that time, she’s learned to tone down the tart, while science has caught up with her assessment, finding that fermented foods are essential to a healthy gut—and healthy body.

No wonder ferments are finding fame. Kimchi, kraut, and kombucha bulge from supermarket shelves. Once left-coast imports, they’re increasingly brewed here in Baltimore. House-made pickles peer from the plates at Of Love & Regret. Local sauerkraut smiles from the reuben at Artifact Coffee, and kombucha glows from the cocktails at W.C. Harlan. Fermented foods—an ancient culinary tradition—are conquering Baltimore’s markets and menus, and are even recommended at local medical practices.

Hex Ferments owners Meaghan and Shane Carpenter at their Belvedere Square shop. - Photography By Christopher Myers

Back in 2000, Carpenter was a junk-food vegan who shook packs of Oreos from the vending machine. During a student trip to Ireland, she ventured that first taste of kombucha. Back home in Minneapolis, she tried brewing her own, hewing to the flavor profile she’d learned abroad: awful. Before starting grad school at MICA in 2006, she met a photographer named Shane Carpenter. Peering into his fridge, she noticed a bottle of kimchi. He liked funky ferments; she liked funky ferments. Could love, marriage, and a fermentation business be far off? The couple settled in Mt. Washington, grew vegetables at the Eric Waller Community Garden, and taught their neighbors preservation techniques. Soon friends were stuffing money in the mailbox along with pleas for refills. Carpenter remembered the advice of her director at MICA: Don’t just make art, make a meaningful life. Was she meant to ferment?

In 2011, the newlyweds took their first trip to rural Tennessee to study with self-described fermentation revivalist Sandor Katz. Four days of harvesting bok choy, inoculating rice, and bottling mead convinced Carpenter to rethink her trajectory.

House-made pickles peer from the plates at Of Love & Regret. Local sauerkraut smiles from reuben at Artifact.

A SCOBY - Photography by Christopher Myers

An assortment of HEX fermented goods. - Photography By Christopher Myers

Spice storage. - Photography By Christopher Myers

She spent three years brewing in a church basement by night and battling bureaucracy by day. Once she pleaded to a city licensing official: Ferments can change the world. He hung up. Hex Ferments opened in 2014. The 90-square-foot shop, formerly a hotdog stand at Belvedere Square, resembles a bookstall/apothecary/candy store. Tall bottles of kombucha—now sweet and satisfying—glow lavender, amber, and gold. One night, so late that she’d already closed the curtain on the stall, Carpenter heard someone stop to read the paint job on the cold case. “Sauerkraut?” the voice scoffed, “Good luck!”

Last year, Hex fermented 30 tons of produce in its 1,300-square-foot facility at B-more Kitchen’s Accelerator Space. Hex recently purchased its own building with double the space. The beet pickles, miso kimchi, and a variety of krauts are available at farmers’ markets and Whole Foods. Hex kombucha (in returnable bottles) is stocked at MOM’s Organic Market.

Unscrewing a squat jar of Glow Kraut (about $10) reveals vibrant yellow flakes of cabbage, brilliant disks of carrot, and black flecks of nigella seed. According to the label, it’s a certified organic, probiotic-rich, nutrient-dense, living food, made in a 100-percent wind-powered facility. Those are some crunchy bona fides. The crisp, tangy, tart condiment can punch up pizza, eggs, or, swears Carpenter, anything else.

Making kraut calls for magic—much like making art. As a painter, Carpenter once poured acrylic on Styrofoam; now she tosses salt on cabbage. The transformation—revealed over weeks, months, even years—unfurls first as scent, then sound, flavor, and finally, a sense of well-being. The process brings to mind the work of Medieval healers, or hexens (which, along with the folk art tradition hexology, inspired the company name). The job has appealed to Carpenter since her adolescent days, when her mother succumbed to cancer. She sees fermentation as part of a continuum: grow, harvest, preserve, nourish.

Pickles and daikon ready for their close-ups. - Photography By Christopher Myers

Culturing food is about as old as human culture itself. It can extend shelf-life, improve flavor, and—in the extreme—intoxicate. Of course, the heavy lifting is actually handled by bacteria—though it took humans a good while to figure that out. In the 1670s, a Dutch scientist named Antonie van Leeuwenhoek cobbled together a microscope, finally witnessing microorganisms, or as he put it, little eels-a-squirming. French chemist Louis Pasteur, in 1857, figured out what they were up to: fermentation.

Bacteria come across a snack, say, a jar of milk. They feast on the lactose, breaking it down into lactic acid, changing fresh milk into tart kefir. Fermented foods tend to be sharp (like pickles), stinky (like cheese), or salty (like sauerkraut). Also tasty. Part of their appeal, says Yi Wah Roberts, co-owner (along with his sister Caitlin) of Number 1 Sons, pickle purveyor to the JFX market, may be their echo of our ancient—pre-refrigeration—diets. When Caitlin digs into a bowl of kimchi, she considers how she, her lunch, and the microbes it sustains all evolved together. Deep thinking for a business dreamed up, in 2012, under the influence of fermented rye.

Since then, Number 1 Sons has grown. The company sells to 35 markets in Baltimore, D.C., and Virginia. Last year, it fermented 45,000 pounds of modern kimchi using ancient ingredients: salt, time, and microbes. The microbes don’t just ferment and flee. They linger in our guts. Trillions of them at a time. More of them than we have human cells. Disturbing, but true, concede experts such as Bill Sullivan, author of Pleased to Meet Me: Genes, Germs, and the Curious Forces that Make Us Who We Are. Once, these microbes were considered mere bystanders. Now science suggests that they exert control over the immune system, cardiovascular system—even behavior, personality, and mood. In other words, you really are what you eat.

Clockwise from left: Behind the scenes; the inventory, the colorful kimchi at Number 1 Sons. - Photography By Christopher Myers

Sergio Malarin learned that lesson early. Hungry after third grade at The Waldorf School of Baltimore, he found the kitchen crammed with his mother’s idea of a snack: milk congealing into yogurt, sourdough bubbling beneath its skin, sauerkraut sulking in its brine. None of the contraband he craved: Lucky Charms. Then again, too much sugar gave him that sickly sweet feeling he expressed best in Spanish: empalagoso.

Wild Kombucha ships to 900 stores in nine states, earning revenues last year of $1.1 million.

The family fixation with health food had been growing for years and eventually extended to vats of kombucha—green tea hissing through a raft of blobs, called SCOBY—a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. His mom handled the research. His stepdad tinkered with the equipment. The kids cleaned the glass bubblers. By the time they were graduating from McDonogh, in 2008, Malarin and his best friend, Sid Sharma, estimated that one in 10 batches went down sweet, like soda. Nine left an earthy, acidic aftertaste. When Malarin’s mom and stepdad moved to Peru in 2009, they needed a place to stash the brewing equipment. Malarin was crammed in a dorm room, but his stepbrother, Adam Bufano, had space at his place in Hampden. Soon Bufano took up the family hobby, applying a new technique—taking notes. Soon he had tastier kombucha—albeit too much. Bufano posted a note on Craigslist; Hopkins students stopped by at odd hours, cash in hand. What did the neighbors think he was dealing?

Clockwise from left: A glass of the goods; kombucha on tap; glass bottles ready for filling; pouring a glass of elderberry-flavored kombucha; quirky caps. - Photography By Christopher Myers

In 2014, Malarin—post-college, mid-breakup—crashed in Bufano’s attic and during weeks of brooding made some discoveries: 1) Kombucha eased his hangovers, 2) Bufano’s recipe was reliable, and 3) Brewing with his stepbrother was fun. Why not start a business together? Malarin wrote up a plan but needed a partner proficient in Excel. He called his buddy Sharma. On the upside, Sharma was finishing a graduate degree at Duke. On the downside, he remembered the high-school kombucha: nine out of 10 fails.

By February 2015, the three were leasing space from a juice bar in Hampden, brewing tea, pressing fruit, and fermenting kombucha late into the night. They took samples to yoga studios and coffee shops in the neighborhood, making their first sale to Harmony Bakery on Chestnut Avenue. Six months later, Whole Foods placed an order. All three quit their day jobs to ferment full-time.

Wild Kombucha owners Sid Sharma, Sergio Malarin, and Adam Bufano - Photography By Christopher Myers

Wild Kombucha (a nod to the wild cultures that ferment the product and the wildlife habitats the company supports) now occupies a 13,000-square-foot industrial space in Northwest Baltimore. It’s tricked out with a tap room that offers elderberry, ginger grapefruit, and mango-peach. Gleaming 1,300-gallon kettles brew tea; monster SCOBY—like some deep-sea creature, a descendant of the original family blob—bobs atop massive fermentation tanks. In keeping with a national trend that sees kombucha moving from natural-food niche to conventional grab-n-go, the company ships cases and kegs to 900 stores in nine states, earning revenues last year of $1.1 million. Twisting open a cold long-neck (about $4) is much like cracking into a beer. The first whiff is sharp vinegar. A gulp offers light fizz, sweet fruit, hint of tea. It can serve as an alternative to guzzling soda, a nonalcoholic option on tap, or cocktail mixer to the hipster set.

The partners hope their success can help their hometown nudge its image from crime scene to business hub. And they hope to spread the lessons, learned in their school days, of health through fermentation.

Like all modern fermenters, the team keeps on hand a copy of Sandor Katz’s book Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods. In it, he notes that the word ferment is related to fervor, to fervent. It means, at heart, to change.

Fermenting, in other words, can change the world.

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Q&A with Robert C. Embry Jr.

Manny Zabala — Wed, 15 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A Baltimore native and City College High School graduate, Robert Embry decided when he was in graduate school at Harvard that his talents would be best put to work in the city he called home.

After returning to Baltimore and winning a seat on the City Council in 1967 at age 30, Embry was recruited by then-Mayor Thomas J. D’Alesandro III to serve as commissioner of the Baltimore Department of Housing and Community Development. He was instrumental in the development of now-iconic Inner Harbor attractions, including the Maryland Science Center, the National Aquarium, and the convention center. His tenure also oversaw the creation of the subway system and the “Dollar House” program of the 1970s, largely credited with the revitalization of neighborhoods like Otterbein and Ridgely’s Delight.

After a term as president of the Baltimore school board, Embry was tapped as head of the Abell Foundation, which saw its holdings grow exponentially after the sale of the A.S. Abell Co. to the Times Mirror Co. in 1986.

Thirty years into overseeing the largest private foundation serving only Maryland (it has doled out more than $339 million in grants and investments since its founding), Embry’s vision remains the same: to dramatically reduce the income and health disparities that exist in the city.

You chose to return to your hometown after graduate school at Harvard. Why are you so passionate about Baltimore?

My view of America is that its most profound challenge is to remedy the ill effects of its history with African-Americans, and Baltimore is a case study of those inequities. Baltimore is the city that I was born in and know the most about, and was one of the cities most challenged by these issues. So it was the place I thought I could have the greatest impact.

What do you see as some of the most pressing challenges facing the city right now?

The most immediate one is the crime rate. And that’s caused by a whole variety of other issues, which, in the long term, are arguably more important. That is, racial discrimination, lack of education, lack of jobs, housing, and so forth. But the most immediate issue, to me, is reducing the crime rate, which is having a dramatic negative impact, primarily on the low-income population of the city.

With all of these issues that need addressing, how does the Abell Foundation determine where to invest its funds?

The foundation’s primary focus is on the poverty issues in the city, so that’s what it devotes most of its money to, as well as education, job training, health programs, and housing.

What sort of progress have you seen since joining the foundation? Do you see things improving?

No. I would say that the city is more challenged today than it was 30 years ago. There are signs of progress. There’s a lot more entrepreneurial activity in the city than there was 30 years ago, there are more foundations and philanthropic dollars than there were. Most of the foundations of any size in Baltimore are focused on the same issues, on reducing poverty in the city. But overall, the city has seen a loss of population, increased percentage of poverty, and increased segregation in the schools—not only racial segregation, but income.

What gives you the most hope right now?

There are more and more programs that are cost-effective that are addressing this problem. There are numerous job-training programs that are successful in placing city residents in jobs. Thread and CollegeBound are making a significant contribution in increasing the number of low-income Baltimore City Public School students who go to four-year colleges and stay in college, and there are a whole host of anti-poverty initiatives that exist today that didn’t when I started at the foundation.

Is there a recent recipient of Abell Foundation funding that stands out to you for the impact it is making in the city?

There are many of them. Joe Jones’ Center for Urban Families; we’ve been helping since their founding almost 30 years ago. They have a tremendous track record in moving primarily inner-city men into employment. But there are many other job-training programs that are very successful.

Where do you hope to see the city in another generation— 20 or so years in the future?

I hope to see the income disparity and the health disparity that exists in the city dramatically reduced.

Where could those resources come from to make that happen?

I think it would have to come from the federal and state government; primarily the federal government.

What message would you send to people who want to get involved in helping their city, but aren’t sure where to start?

For somebody who has the ability to do more than they’re doing, there are numerous volunteer organizations, many of which you’re touching on in the magazine. There’s no one initiative that is going to appeal to everybody. But there are so many options, it’s hard to imagine there isn’t one for everyone who wants to give back.

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Q&A with Erricka Bridgeford

Manny Zabala — Tue, 14 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In 2017, as a reaction to the city’s alarming homicide rate, Erricka Bridgeford co-created Baltimore Ceasefire weekends—three designated days during which city residents committed to putting down their weapons, with the hope of reducing violence. But even before Ceasefire, Bridgeford, who works as director of training for Community Mediation Maryland, assisted in passage of a 2015 bill to provide resources to families of homicide victims, as well as the 2013 repeal of the death penalty. Last year, the short film, SAGE, which premiered at the Maryland Film Festival, documented Bridgeford’s ritual of burning sage at the sites in the city where homicides have been committed.

How does Ceasefire work?
We’ve said from the beginning if people are given an opportunity to do something together, that if you have as many people as possible involved, it becomes peer pressure. You don’t want to be that guy who kills somebody while the whole city is having a sacred weekend to celebrate life together.

This is why outreach before the weekend is really important. We’re saying to everyone, be as peaceful as you can and think of ways you can be peaceful on purpose. When people know it’s Ceasefire weekend, they have a conversation with someone, put a flyer in their hand, put a poster in their window.

Part of the reason you started this was that your brother was killed in 2007. Tell us about that.
My brother was two and a half years younger than me. He was my first sibling, so we were very close. Losing him felt like the end of my world. I was working at Community Mediation of Maryland at the time. I found out he got killed when I was in the middle of teaching a mediation training to the Office of the Public Defender in Baltimore. I was in bad shape for about six months.

What’s your biggest success story?
Back in February 2018, the Ceasefire weekend started a stretch of 11 and a half days when nobody got killed. The city hadn’t gone that long without a murder since March of 2014. Instead of trying to guess, we went to the streets and had conversations with people in some of the most violent areas of the city. After the weekend was over, we kept saying, “Oh, my goodness, it’s day four now, it’s day five.” It became a thing and, by day seven, the media had picked it up, so people were having that conversation: “I don’t want to be the one who breaks that streak right now, Baltimore is doing good.”

How has Ceasefire grown?
There are two Ceasefire Charter schools—Creative City and Lillie May Carroll Jackson and we’re working on Frederick Douglass High School—which are used for education and training programs. We’ve trained 30 Ceasefire ambassadors, both youth and adults, who represent the movement. Right now, we’re excited about our ability to get out our branding and messages. Around the city, you’ll see Ceasefire messages on buses and subways and also billboards.

It sounds like you’re reaching a lot of people.
I thought it was going to take years to get the kind of participation and buy-in that we’ve gotten in just two years. I’m completely blown away by it. Also, research shows there’s up to 66 percent fewer shootings on those three days, and the violence doesn’t immediately spike after the Ceasefire weekend. That’s always a big question: Are people just waiting till after the Ceasefire? Even the following weekend, violence doesn’t go up.

How did people resolve differences without firearms?
When people had conflict with each other, they’d go to whoever was their leader—whether it was their gang leader or someone they respected in the neighborhood. They’d say, “Look, I have a beef with so-and-so, but I know we have this thing going in Baltimore right now and I don’t want to be that guy that messes it up.” So they would brainstorm and come up with creative ways to resolve the conflict. They’d block off a lot or an abandoned field where people could come. Whoever had this conflict, they were going to come and have a fight and after the fight was over, nobody could come back shooting, nobody could keep talking about it and antagonize the other person. Anyone who came to see it had to check their gun with someone at the gate—yes, this really happened.

People look at shooters as different from themselves. The truth of the matter is that if most people had a gun in their hand at the wrong time, many more of us would have shot somebody and never even remembered pulling the trigger. Conflict often escalates—and it’s easier to buy a gun in Baltimore than find fresh fruits and vegetables.

Does your background in mediation help with your advocacy?
Mediation skills give me the ability to understand people’s hopelessness and make sure people feel heard, but it doesn’t give me the wherewithal to keep navigating murder. What helps me with that is having faced so much murder myself and doing my own healing work around my own trauma.

I was born with one hand, so society treats me like I’m broken, and I’ve watched people treat Baltimore like it’s broken. These different things are identity markers for me: Having one hand, being Black, being a woman, growing up in poverty, having to face murder so much. These are my experiences and give me this wide-ranging emotional and spiritual wherewithal to navigate and engage with murder.

Source

2019: Year In Review

Manny Zabala — Thu, 12 Dec 2019 12:30:00 +0000

Twenty of the most pivotal events in Baltimore this year, in chronological order.

By Baltimore magazine editors
Photo illustration by Aaron Hope

News & Community

2019: Year In Review

Twenty of the most pivotal events in Baltimore this year, in chronological order.

By Baltimore magazine editors.
Photo illustration by Aaron Hope.

The Gavel Goes Back to Nancy Pelosi

A record-breaking 100-plus women were sworn into Congress in January as the Democrats regained the majority in the House of Representatives. They included the first Muslim women, the first Native-American women, and the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. None, of course, would prove more significant than Nancy Pelosi, the now-79-year-old mother of five, grandmother of nine, and daughter of former three-term Mayor Thomas D’Alesandro Jr. from Baltimore’s Little Italy. The first female Speaker of the House in U.S. history when she first took the gavel in 2007, Pelosi is also the first speaker in six decades to regain the position. This year, she has been front and center in the impeachment of President Donald Trump. The 2020 elections—and history—will judge whether bringing articles of impeachment against Trump was a wise decision politically, but there is no doubt Pelosi will be remembered as a fiercely strong and decisive speaker, as well as a vexing figure for a president who is used to getting his way. AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

Michael Harrison Named Police Commissioner

When Michael Harrison was sworn in as the Baltimore Police Department's 41st Commissioner on March 12, he became the city’s fifth commissioner since the death of Freddie Gray in 2015 and the subsequent—and ongoing—spike in homicides. Before coming to Baltimore, Harrison served the New Orleans Police Department for nearly 28 years. How soon the beleaguered Baltimore Police Department can regain the trust of the citizenry—broken once again with the corruption revelations involving the department’s Gun Trace Task Force—remains to be seen, but Harrison came with reform experience from New Orleans. Regaining local trust is as crucial as any crime-fighting strategy Harrison may develop if the city is ever going to bend the curve on murder, which has claimed the lives of more than 300 of our fellow Baltimoreans this year. AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

Baltimore Earns National Culinary Kudos

From a culinary perspective, 2019 was the year that Maryland made it on the map. Station North’s Le Comptoir du Vin earned a spot on two lauded lists. It came in at No. 8 on Bon Appetit’s Hot 10 List of the most happening restaurants in the U.S., and No. 18 on Esquire’s list of Best New Restaurants in America. Esquire also gave a shout-out to Chelsea Gregoire as Beverage Director of the Year, and Bon Appetit named Fadensonnen, Larder, and Sophomore Coffee—all part of the Socle complex—best new restaurant finalists. As if that’s not enough to make us proud, Charleston chef Cindy Wolf was a finalist for the James Beard Award for Best Chef Mid-Atlantic for the eighth time, while Clavel’s bar program was a semi-finalist in the Outstanding Bar category. Baltimore rates—now the country knows what we’ve always known. Photography by Kate Grewal

Baltimore City Public Markets Get a Revamp

For centuries, Baltimore’s public markets have played an integral role in the city’s dining scene. And this year, two of the six remaining public markets got much-needed facelifts. Broadway Market, the 233-year-old community hub in Fells Point, was the first to debut a redesign in March—welcoming a host of new concepts while also providing fresh stalls for old standbys such as Sal’s Seafood and Vikki’s Fells Point Deli. Cross Street Market in Federal Hill took a similar approach when it began its staggered grand openings in the spring—introducing diners to a wealth of new spots and providing refurbished stalls for longtime vendors Fenwick’s Choice Meats, Steve’s Lunch, and The Sweet Shoppe. But, the public market improvements won’t stop there. Seawall Development has already begun collecting community feedback for its upcoming renovation of Lexington Market, and Scott Plank’s War Horse Cities rolled out the first phase of its Hollins Market redevelopment over the summer. Photography by Kate Grewal

Baltimore Designers Shine on Project Runway

The spotlight turned to Baltimore during the 17th season of Project Runway earlier this spring. Among the judges of the famed fashion contest was Christian Siriano—a Maryland native who won the show’s fourth season in 2008 and has since become a red carpet connoisseur. Contestant Bishme Cromartie, a designer hailing from Baltimore City, stunned viewers and judges alike and ended up in the final four. Our favorite moment? When Cromartie secured a win for the luxury streetwear design challenge with an homage to his hometown. The puffed sleeves and glistening blue fabric of the winning jacket captured the essence of Baltimore’s unique style, but seeing “Greenmount” printed beneath the collar sent us soaring. Photography by Sean Scheidt

Catherine Pugh Under Fire in Healthy Holly Book Scandal

The Healthy Holly book scandal—which first drove former Mayor Catherine Pugh to resign from office and then to plead guilty to wire fraud, conspiracy, and tax evasion charges—unfolded across the entire year. It began during the last General Assembly, when reporting by The Sun’s Luke Broadwater broke the story of University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) board members (which included Pugh) and their personal financial interests tied to UMMS contracts. After initially defending hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales to UMMS for her poorly written, self-published children’s books—and then disappearing from public view for weeks—Pugh joined Sheila Dixon and became the second Baltimore mayor forced from office because of criminal conduct in recent years. It’s not over yet, however. Pugh’s sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 27. Meanwhile, Dixon has been weighing another run for mayor. AP Photo/Steve Ruark

JHU Gets Its Own Police Force

In April, the General Assembly finally gave The Johns Hopkins University, its hospital campus, and its Peabody Institute the nod to create their own police force—a victory for those who wanted more campus safety over opponents who feared police profiling and use of excessive force. Multiple protests were held against the new private police force, led in part by Students Against Private Police and faculty members, as well as Hopkins neighbors. Supporters of the plan included billionaire Hopkins alumnus and mega-donor Michael Bloomberg and the late Democratic U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings. Efforts to create the force began after a spate of robberies in 2017. And opponents remain, including Sen. Mary Washington, a Democrat who is one of two Baltimore senators who voted against the bill. “I do fundamentally believe that policing should be a publicly controlled entity and that privatization is not the way to go,” Washington said. Courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

Ransomware Attack Hacks City Services

In early May, the city discovered that it was the victim of a ransomware attack, in which access to parts of the government’s computer systems are blocked until a ransom is paid. The cybercriminals demanded $76,000 to decrypt the affected files, but Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young and the city government refused to pay. As a result city employees were locked out of their email accounts for several weeks and citizens could not connect to essential services such as websites to pay water bills, parking tickets, and property taxes. After totaling the amount of lost or delayed revenue and the cost of restoring systems, Baltimore’s budget office estimated that the attack cost the city at least $18.2 million. Shutterstock

Mary Bubala Fired from WJZ

Last May, longtime WJZ anchor Mary Bubala was fired from the network after asking a question perceived to carry racial overtones and gender bias regarding Baltimore’s mayors. “We’ve had three female, African-American mayors in a row,” Bubala said on air to a Loyola University Maryland professor. “They were all passionate public servants. Two resigned, though. Is this a signal that a different kind of leadership is needed to move Baltimore City forward?” Within days, the longtime anchor was fired and Bubala was apologizing on Twitter. “I wanted to do an on-air apology but was not allowed,” she tweeted. “I hope that the people of Baltimore know that I would never do anything to hurt anyone.” By late September, Bubala was given a second chance when WBFF Fox 45 hired her as a reporter. Then, in mid-November, when anchor Jennifer Gilbert announced her retirement, Bubala was bumped up to the role of evening news co-anchor with Kai Jackson, with whom she once co-anchored at WJZ. Mary Bubala via Facebook

The Ronald McDonald House Charities Opens in Jonestown

The Baltimore skyline got a bright red addition this year, thanks to the Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) Maryland. The 26-foot-tall red heart marks the RMHC’s new Jonestown location, which provides a home away from home to families with seriously ill or injured children by accommodating 2,200 families annually. The 60,000-square-foot facility incorporates some of the creature comforts from the previous house on West Lexington Street, such as gift cubbies for the children and volunteer-made meals, while also providing loved ones with brand-new amenities such as a business center, classroom, and a meditation room. Photography by Matt Roth

Baltimore Gains Two New Arts & Entertainment Districts

In July, the stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue from Penn North to Upton, which has long been a center of culture and creativity, was officially designated as the Pennsylvania Avenue Black Arts and Entertainment District. The new status will allow for tax breaks for artists and art spaces, and advocates for the neighborhood hope it will allow Pennsylvania Avenue development to thrive—following in the footsteps of successful efforts in neighborhoods such as Station North. The good news for area artists also goes beyond city limits. In November, it was announced that, starting in July 2020, Catonsville will be home to the first arts and entertainment district in Baltimore County. Photography by Mike Morgan

Lamar Jackson Leads Ravens into New Era

It’s almost inconceivable right now, but less than a year ago, fans were clamoring for coach John Harbaugh to take Lamar Jackson out in favor of Joe Flacco. The Ravens were playing the Chargers in the AFC Wild Card game, and Lamar was, admittedly, not having a good night. Passes were flailing, the defense was getting to him, and he looked a bit lost out there. Even though he came on stronger in the second half, the Ravens still lost the game. Fans were not happy. Oh, what a difference a year makes. Flacco is out, traded to Denver. And Lamar Jackson is the leading candidate for MVP and the most celebrated and beloved athlete in these parts since a fellow named Cal Ripken Jr. His quickness, escapability, and field vision were already in full view during last year’s rookie campaign. But he worked hard on his passing in the off season and now throws as accurate a ball (and as tight a spiral) as anyone in the league. And he’s a nightmare for opposing defenses. Cover the pass? He’ll beat with you his legs. Try to stop the run? He’ll throw the ball downfield. He’s also a natural-born leader, beloved by teammates and coaches alike. It’s almost unfair—and it’s why the Ravens are (gulp) a serious contender to go to the Super Bowl. It’s Lamar Jackson’s town. We’re just living in it. Shawn Hubbard / Baltimore Ravens

Billy Joel Performs at First-Ever Camden Yards Concert

This summer, the Piano Man rocked Camden Yards during the first standalone concert in the ballpark’s 27-year history. The rock 'n’ roll legend gave an unforgettable two-and-a-half-hour performance to the nearly 40,000 fans that packed the stands to dance along with classic hits such as “Uptown Girl”and “She’s Always a Woman.” Plus, the 70-year-old brought some much-needed excitement to the Orioles park after a record-breaking low season for the Baltimore Orioles. Shutterstock

President Trump Bashes Baltimore

We’re used to Trump insulting people on his Twitter feed. But on July 27, it hit close to home. In a feud with Congressman Cummings, he wrote: “Cumming [sic] District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.” He went on to call Baltimore a “very dangerous and filthy place.” Many Baltimoreans did not take this lightly. The Baltimore Sun wrote an editorial in response that concluded with the line: “Better to have some vermin living in your neighborhood than to be one.” Mayor Young called Trump a “disappointment to the people of Baltimore, our country, and to the world.” And, on September 12, when Trump came to Baltimore for a Republican retreat at the Marriott Waterfront Hotel in Harbor East, those who took issue with the comments were able to express their anger in person. He was greeted with sign-wielding protestors, chants, a giant inflated rat, and lusty boos from the majority of the gathered crowd, though supporters did show up to President Street as well. Photography by Lorann Cocca

The BSO Bounces Back

After a cancelled summer season, subsequent lockout, and many months of tumultuous infighting between the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra musicians and management, the BSO reached a new agreement in late September that would open the ensemble’s 104th season on time and extend their contract another year. It also guaranteed increased salaries and continued benefits for members of the ensemble, the return of summer shows, and the creation of a vision committee. But as one door opens, maestra Marin Alsop has recently expressed her own frustrations at the orchestra’s operations, according to the Sun, and hinted at the end of her tenure as conductor of the BSO. Photography by David Colwell

THE ENOCH PRATT CENTRAL LIBRARY REOPENS

After three years of top-to-bottom renovations to the Enoch Pratt Central Library, the 86-year-old institution unveiled the results of its $115-million facelift to the public in September. The restoration preserved the integrity of the library’s finer details, such as the hand-painted ceilings and grand entrance, while incorporating modern additions, including a career center, teen and young adult wing, and expanded multipurpose rooms. Since the grand reopening, the Central Library has hosted big names such as journalist Dan Rather and author Colson Whitehead for lectures and discussions. Photography by Matt Roth

Congressman Elijah Cummings Passes Away

When the news broke in the early, midweek hours of October 17 that U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings had died at 68, it came as a shock and devastating blow—both in Baltimore and beyond. Cummings had risen to chairman of the powerful House Oversight Committee and was an extraordinary advocate for civil rights in Congress, but locally, he was even more than that. Baltimoreans knew him as a soulful man of unique compassion, who never forgot where he came from and wore his heart on his sleeve every day—whether in the halls of Congress or streets of Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray. “In the House, Elijah was our North Star,” said Speaker of the House Pelosi, also a native Baltimorean. “He was a leader of towering character and integrity, whose stirring voice and steadfast values pushed the Congress and country to rise to a higher purpose.” Cummings will be remembered in history as the first African-American lawmaker to lie in state at the Capitol. His funeral service in Baltimore, which brought national leaders including former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton to New Psalmist Baptist Church, was as moving as any the city has likely seen or will see. Photography by David Colwell

Under Armour Faces Financial Woes

With its North American sales steadily struggling, Baltimore-based sportswear retailer Under Armour may have tried a little too hard to mask the trend—sparking a federal investigation into its accounting practices. Among the allegations is that it borrowed business from future quarters to hide the slowing demand for its products. Some in the industry say that’s not uncommon in retail, while others see it as flaunting the rules regarding revenue disclosure for public companies. And whither founder Kevin Plank—who stepped down as CEO of the company in the fall—in all this? The Wall Street Journal quoted an insider as saying that investigators, led by the U.S. attorney’s office in Baltimore in coordination with the SEC, are examining emails that show Plank knew about efforts to move revenue between quarters. But Plank remains steadfast, citing increasing sales in recent quarters. “We want to be clear,” he told the Journal, “Our demand is still there.” Shutterstock

Preakness Stakes Staying in Baltimore

The significance of Pimlico Race Course to the city and citizens of Baltimore goes without saying. It’s why rumblings that the Preakness Stakes was considering moving away from Park Heights were met with so much concern. But in October, The Stronach Group turned over the rights of the entire Pimlico facility to city officials, ushering in a new era for the track. Plans for a new clubhouse and to open up land for mixed-use developments are in the works as part of a proposal to inject life into the area. Though there were serious concerns that a light at the end of the tunnel wouldn’t be reached, those involved in these contentious negotiations can now breathe a sigh of relief. The Preakness is staying in Baltimore, and if all goes well with legislative approvals and subsequent construction over the next few years, it will rise better than ever. Flickr Creative Commons

Stebbins Anderson Announces Closure After 152 Years

From housewares to bird seed to garden hoses, there wasn’t much home-related stuff you couldn’t find at Stebbins-Anderson in The Shops at Kenilworth. But the writing was on the wall when they downsized in recent years from two levels to one. Located at Kenilworth since 1978, it tried to fight declining hardware, paint, and furniture sales by adding Stebbins for Her, which sold handbags, jewelry, and gift items. But the coup de grace was online sales, leading owners to to close the store, which was founded more than 150 years ago as a coal, lumber, and hardware business. The store suffered from “shrinking sales, you know, due to the internet,” Stebbins-Andersen owner Ken Knight said in a news report. “It was really difficult.” For consumers, it’ll be the little things they’ll miss—like getting your window screen fixed and a spare key made. Courtesy of Stebbins Anderson

Twenty of the most pivotal events in Baltimore this year, in chronological order.

By Baltimore magazine editors
Photo illustration by Aaron Hope

News & Community

2019: Year In Review

Twenty of the most pivotal events in Baltimore this year, in chronological order.

By Baltimore magazine editors.
Photo illustration by Aaron Hope.

The Gavel Goes Back to Nancy Pelosi

Michael Harrison Named Police Commissioner

Baltimore Earns National Culinary Kudos

Baltimore City Public Markets Get a Revamp

Baltimore Designers Shine on Project Runway

Catherine Pugh Under Fire in Healthy Holly Book Scandal

JHU Gets Its Own Police Force

Ransomware Attack Hacks City Services

Mary Bubala Fired from WJZ

The Ronald McDonald House Charities Opens in Jonestown

Baltimore Gains Two New Arts & Entertainment Districts

Lamar Jackson Leads Ravens into New Era

Billy Joel Performs at First-Ever Camden Yards Concert

President Trump Bashes Baltimore

The BSO Bounces Back

THE ENOCH PRATT CENTRAL LIBRARY REOPENS

Congressman Elijah Cummings Passes Away

Under Armour Faces Financial Woes

Preakness Stakes Staying in Baltimore

Stebbins Anderson Announces Closure After 152 Years

Source

Connecting People with Nature in Birdland

Manny Zabala — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Patterson Park Audubon Center (PPAC) is appropriately perched on the second floor of a brick rowhouse, just a few steps from its namesake park. The space is bright and serene. Field guides, binoculars, and taxidermied birds line the walls. An aquarium filter bubbles soothingly. But the tranquil scene indoors belies the buzz of activity that will soon occur outdoors when a school group arrives for a PPAC field program.

And that happens a lot. The nonprofit’s mission is to “conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats for the benefit of Baltimore communities and the Earth’s biological diversity.” It’s a lofty goal supported by numerous educational and community development programs offered in both English and Spanish that nearly 13,000 people participated in last year. But, for many of those participants, there’s also some therapy involved.

How can providing a habitat for wildlife make Baltimore a better place? “Studies show the correlation between green spaces, healthier communities, and lower crime,” says PPAC director Susie Creamer, pictured. “If birds aren’t your priority, there are certainly other reasons to make sure our children have green recreational spaces.”

The transformative power of nature is confirmed by the stories she tells about PPAC’s programs: the feeling of accomplishment in a fourth grader who spotted a butterfly on a flower he planted the previous year. The financially strapped Salvadoran who felt like she finally “fit in” after receiving a stoop-side container garden like those of her neighbors. The creation of a pollinator garden in a brightly painted derelict canoe that drew Latina moms together. The woman who was so moved after recognizing the same birds in Patterson Park as those she saw 20 years before in Colombia, it inspired her to found the PPAC group, Embajadores de Aves (Bird Ambassadors). Birds, Creamer says, “need what these women sought for themselves: a good, safe place to raise their young.”

The concept of birds migrating thousands of miles and enduring hardship also resonated with people in recovery from substance abuse during a recent series of workshops—a collaboration between Creamer and master gardener Precious Fraling—at Glenwood Life Counseling Center (GLCC). In the beginning of the first workshop—which most attendees did not sign up for, but only showed up to satisfy community service requirements—they were reserved and quiet. Some said later that they had wondered how Creamer’s presentation about bird conservation could relate to them. There was a little grumbling such as, “birds eating this and that and then pooping on my car.”

But before long, their eyes lit up, questions were asked, and they were all fully engaged in the discussion. During subsequent workshops, they enthusiastically planted native plants in the GLCC garden created by Fraling.

Obstacles confronted by birds during migration were viewed by one attendee as a parallel to his own journey in recovery and said it reminded him of “the guy on the corner who’s trying to hook me again.” Another commented, “Just like people think that addicts are everywhere and don’t think they have any value and don’t even notice them, birds are everywhere and they matter, too. You know how people say, ‘Oh, those junkies on the corner’ and sort of dismiss us like we’re not worthy of life.” —Vicki Dodson

Source

Tuerk House’s Task

Manny Zabala — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

If you’ve lived on the streets for any period of time, you know that substance abuse is rampant in that population. So, in many ways, Bernard Gyebi-Foster—who was homeless in New York City for a time—is a good choice for executive director of Tuerk House, founded to treat addiction.

Born in Germany, Gyebi-Foster moved to Ghana with his single mom and then 12 years later moved on to New York.

Unfortunately, things didn’t work out as they had planned and Gyebi-Foster became homeless. But he didn’t let that stop him. In the years to follow, he finished high school, raised his brother and sister, and joined the military. He then trained as a licensed clinical professional counselor, got a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology, and completed a graduate degree in professional counseling. “I’ve always wanted to help people and be part of the solution,” he says.

In 2011, he joined Tuerk House as a clinical director and in 2017 became the executive director. And, as if he didn’t have enough on his plate, in 2016 he founded a neighborhood church where he serves as the pastor. And now he’s pursuing his MBA.

Tuerk House started 50 years ago, initially treating mostly alcoholism. “At that time, the average age of patients at Tuerk House was 50, and many had been addicted for 30 to 40 years,” he says. But that landscape has changed: “In the last couple of years, we’ve seen more young people aged 18 to 25 coming for help.”

Today, with the opioid crisis, the nonprofit’s five sites treat mostly drug addiction, with programs ranging from crisis stabilization, inpatient detoxification, residential treatment, and outpatient treatment to partial hospitalization, medication-assisted treatment, and peer support.

“We treat addiction as a medical disease because drug addiction actually alters the brain,” Gyebi-Foster says. But what makes Tuerk House so successful is its open door and no-judgment policy, as well as a technique called “motivational interviewing.” It breaks down the resistance that many patients have to treatment because of the stigma of addiction. And, since many of the staff are in recovery themselves, patients and families know they understand everything about the ups and downs of addiction.

“Our goal is to give patients a lifetime recovery,” says Gyebi-Foster. “It’s all about hope.” —Alice Shapin

Source

Review: Tavern at the Admiral

Manny Zabala — Thu, 19 Sep 2019 08:30:00 +0000

ON A RECENT EVENING, we happily descended the outdoor steps to the subterranean space in Fells Point known as the Secret Bar, wondering what cocktails bartender Steve Mavronis had in store for us. In the past few months, we had sipped on a gin cooler with muddled blackberries and a Moscow mule with house-made ginger beer. Soon, we would be savoring a watermelon martini garnished with a wedge of the ruby-ripe fruit.

It’s Wednesday, so a duo is singing sea-shanty ballads during happy hour. The music suits the location in the basement of the Admiral Fell Inn, the foundation of which dates to the nautical neighborhood’s earliest days.

But while the brick pub pays homage to the past, it’s not stuck in time. You’re just as likely to be listening to classic rock or Billie Holiday, who was raised in Upper Fells Point. You also may find yourself sitting next to Millennials thirsting for Natty Bohs, or Baby Boomers relishing Old Fashioneds.

Bedecked in a white shirt, vest, and bowtie, Mavronis is a consummate craftsman, using an assortment of fresh ingredients, many grown in his garden, to concoct classic libations, while regaling customers with tales of resident ghosts, the town’s history, and his days as an oceanographer.

Ten years ago, Mavronis arrived at the Secret Bar officially called the Tavern at the Admiral (888 South Broadway, 410-522-7377) after he found himself without a job. It wasn’t a stretch. He had worked in the hospitality industry since he was a student at the Florida Institute of Technology in the ’80s.

He has since become the face of the bar, whose nickname was coined by local bartenders and servers.

But the secret may not be so hush-hush, after all. Robin Wright, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jim Belushi, Metallica, and Blake Shelton have found their way to the tiny bar. Mavronis was especially pleased when chef Cindy Wolf patronized the place. Wolf and business partner Tony Foreman opened their restaurant Savannah there in 1995. Two years later, they founded Charleston in Harbor East.

Mavronis is always appreciative when people ask, “What can you make me?” “It’s like being an artist,” he says. “I can’t wait to paint the picture you want.”

Source

By Osmosis

Manny Zabala — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 08:30:00 +0000

When Shiv Gaglani and Ryan Haynes met in anatomy class as medical students at Johns Hopkins University, they found that they had similar issues with the difficulty of their curriculum. “We realized that we were forgetting things almost as quickly as we were learning them,” Gaglani says. He and Haynes wanted to “learn and retain information more effectively,” so in 2012 they developed Osmosis, a digital health education study tool to help fellow medical students stay up-to-date with an ever-growing bank of information.

Now a global resource, the Brewers Hill-based web company has a catalog of more than 1,200 videos on topics ranging from vitamin B12 deficiency to tuberculosis, as well as features that allow users to create their own flashcards and interact with others on the platform. While other online study tools, such as Quizlet and Blackboard, are geared toward general learning, Osmosis is made specifically for learning medical information. Many of the videos are available on Osmosis’ YouTube channel, which has more than one million subscribers. The animated videos often include anthropomorphized organs and easy-to-follow graphics that help viewers understand complicated medical subjects.

Many of the Osmosis social media posts feature celebrities and information about their various medical conditions. “We all know a lot about Serena Williams and her sister Venus,” Gaglani says. “Adding the fact that Serena once had a pulmonary embolism or Venus has Sjogren’s syndrome, which are things that people need to learn about in health professions, is a good way to anchor that information.”

For University of Maryland, Baltimore medical student Jennifer Woodard, medical school proved initially difficult, as well. She had to repeat her first year, but once she began using Osmosis, she began to see improvement. “It really reframed the way I approached studying,” says Woodard, now a fourth-year student applying to internal medicine.

While the Osmosis team is spread across six continents, they’ve kept their O’Donnell Street headquarters, where visitors might find cartoon kidney magnets or ping-pong paddles strewn about. Gaglani works there alongside creative director Tanner Marshall, pictured, whose influence on Osmosis’ videos is so great that the font in the videos is nicknamed “Tanner script.” There’s no question that Osmosis is on the rise the platform gained 1.5 million viewers in 2018 and raised $4 million in a June investment round but the company’s goal remains simple. “What we want to do is create a more caring world,” Gaglani says, “by developing the most caring humans.”

Source

What to Expect from a Personal Training Program

Manny Zabala — Tue, 17 Sep 2019 08:30:00 +0000

Hitting the gym can be hard enough, but when your fitness regimen hits a plateau, or if you simply don’t know where to start, personal training can be the answer. But where to begin? Eric Atherton, owner of E.A. Fit Club, lets us know what to look for and expect from a personal training program.

What are the benefits of working with a trainer versus a solo gym workout?

A personal trainer will have the knowledge to help you reach your goal. They’ll keep you motivated and show you how to do certain movements with the correct form. And they can show you different ways of training, as opposed to just going to the machines, so that when it’s time to go on your own, you have your own toolbox.

When starting a personal training program, what should people look for?

Working with a personal trainer can get costly, ranging from $70-$90 an hour. You should expect to work with them two to three times a week. Talk to someone that used a particular training service before and actually saw some results. You want a trainer who’s going to give you a push, who’ll be high-energy, who will motivate you and make sure that your technique is on point to prevent you from getting injured.

What does a typical training plan look like for your clients?

We sit down, discuss goals, and set up a program [that lasts] six to eight weeks. Depending on what the goal is, we’ll do full-body circuits one day and have the next day as more of a recovery depending on how hard we hit it and how we have the program set up. I like to give clients what they want so they can be happy, but I put my little bit into the mix as well. That way they can get what they need and still enjoy the sessions.

Do you have any tips for new starters?

It all comes down to a goal. As long as you have a start and end date, you will set yourself up for success. You’ll be more determined to stick with the program. If you’re just excited to add something new into your routine, maybe you don’t need to train three or four times a week, you can cut it down to one time a week. And then you can do something else on your own, just so you stay active: Walk your dog, go for a bike ride, run, ski, hike whatever that may be.

So, what if I’m super out of shape and intimidated by hardcore workouts?

The personal trainer should be really easy and calm, pumping you up and building your confidence. And maybe you can even bring a partner with you instead of training alone. If you stick with it, you’ll definitely start seeing results, and when you start seeing results, it’s going to make you want to continue your journey.

WHAT YOU NEED:

Goal: To set up a proper training program, an overall goal is needed to help achieve measurable results.

Timeline: Having a timeframe in mind will give structure to your program and encourage accountability.

Advice: Ask around for recommendations for trainers who fit your goals and will push you physically while bringing some fun to the mix.

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Open & Shut: A Beer Garden Grows in West Baltimore; Ekiben, Chez Hugo, and Le Monade Host Pop-Ups and Collaborations

Manny Zabala — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 11:59:00 +0000

OPEN

Gangster Vegan Organics: A franchise of Gangster Vegan Organics will open in Cross Street Market on August 23. The menu will include items that are organic, unprocessed, raw, soy, and gluten-free. The spot is owned by husband-wife duo, James and Taneea Yarborough. Taneea is a survivor of ovarian cancer who switched to a plant-based diet as part of her wellness regime.

FOOD NEWS

Ekiben Pop-Up at Fadensonnen: Steve Chu and his business partner Ephrem Abibe at Ekiben are launching a new Taiwanese noodle bar pop-up at Lane Harlan’s Fadensonnen in Old Goucher every Wednesday, for the next six weeks. The new project is called Ojichan, which means grandad in Japanese. Look for handmade wheat noodles with ground pork, scallions, and soy egg. The noodles are served cold to retain their bouncy texture and served with a warm broth. “Ephrem and I had a hankering for the super bouncy noodles we had in Taiwan, but couldn’t find in America, so we decided to make them,” said Chu on his Instagram page. The announcement of the pop-up led one Instagrammer to comment, “You guys are public servants.”

New Beer Garden: A beer garden is planned for the 108-year-old American Ice Building at 2100 West Franklin Street in West Baltimore. The space will include an events area and art hub under a proposed $18.7 million project, according to the Baltimore Business Journal. “It is a diamond in the rough,” Washington D.C. developer Ilay Alter recently told the BBJ. Alter has partnered with local developer Bill Struever who has rehabbed many area industrial sites including the Woodberry-Hampden area of Baltimore, where Woodberry Kitchen is now located. Alter opened a similar such space the Dacha Beer Garden on a vacant lot in D.C.’s Adams Morgan neighborhood in 2013.

Tapas Teatro: The beloved tapas spot in Station North is undergoing a renovation. A new bar area will create more space for a communal table, larger parties, and a new look.

EPICUREAN EVENTS

7/25: La Cuchara Farm Dinner with the Maryland Farmers Market Association and Hex Ferments

La Cuchara is hosting a farmer’s market dinner in conjunction with the Maryland Farmers Market Association and Hex Ferments on Sunday, from 5-8 p.m. Dinner will include a map of the Saturday and Sunday Baltimore farmers markets showing where some of the ingredients for the meal are sourced from. Hex Ferments will provide cocktail pairings and a portion of proceeds will support the Maryland Market Money program, which provides matching dollars to low-income families who use their benefit at area farmers markets.

7/25: Col Bol Pop-Up at Grind House Juice Bar

Chef Carleen Goodridge of Le Monade will host a pop up called Col Bol, which means “cold bowl.” The event will take place this Sunday at 11 a.m. at Grind House Juice Bar on Saint Paul’s Street. Carleen is honoring her Liberian heritage with dishes like eggplant stew and cassava leaf and plantain porridge.

7/29: Chez Hugo Collaborates with Sacré Sucré

Chez Hugo Bistro will collaborate with Sacré Sucré pastry studio for a six-course tasting menu with all things sweet and savory. Each kitchen will present three courses. Look for dishes such as a blackberry crisp tuile with buckwheat cream, candied beets, and preserved summer fruit and fromage blanc and corn cheesecake with cornbread crumbs, pepper jam, fermented honey, and glazed fresh corn. The cost of the tasting menu is $50. The event runs from 7-9 p.m.

Happy Birthday to You!

Area restaurants celebrate big numbers.

City Café turns 25 on Sept. 4.

The Helmand turns 30 this fall.

Mt. Washington Tavern kicks off its 40 years in business celebration this November.

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