Chesapeake Home

My husband and I travel locally quite frequently with our three young children because the thought of flying frankly scares me. We have been to zoos, nature centers, and attractions up and down the East Coast from New York to Florida and

The BBQ Joint - Easton

along the way we have stopped in some pretty amazing restaurants. My husband does all the legwork for our foodie pit stops, and last week we found a great little place on the way to the Eastern Shore called The BBQ Joint on Dover Street in Easton.

Just a few short blocks off  Route 50, this heavenly haven for Southern-style barbecue is carefully crafted by Chef Andrew Evans. The atmosphere is casual yet strangely elegant, small yet accommodating, rustic yet manicured. The menu is jammed packed with delectable down home southern goodies from a barbecue tasting sampler with pulled pork, sliced brisket, and spare ribs to smoke house chili cheese fries and pan fried chocolate chip cookies. They even have a kids’ “piglet” menu with mac-n-cheese and hot dogs. The one surprising star of our entire experience was the cornbread — TO DIE FOR –worth a visit just to sample it!

Right: Mike Dietze Left: Chef Andrew Evans

Though the BBQ Joint only opened earlier this year, Chef Evans came to Easton in 1999. He purchased and fully renovated a historic 1790 mansion in the heart of downtown Easton and transformed it into a contemporary boutique hotel with four suites, three guest rooms and a 45-seat restaurant. The Inn at Easton welcomed its first guest in June 2000. Chef Evans’ culinary vision earned The Inn at Easton recognition from Food & Wine magazine, where the restaurant made the top 50-hotel restaurants list in both 2002 and 2003.

So if you are in the vicinity, check out the BBQ Joint, it was so worth the 30-minute detour from our yearly Ocean City trip.

http://www.andrewevansbbqjoint.com/

The June/July issue of ChesapeakeHome is all about summer getaways.  In my Saturday ‘At Home’ Column for The Baltimore Sun, I offer some thoughts on why we picked the houses we featured in the current issue.  Click Here to read the column, or follow the links to read the stories of each home: Weekends on the Water or Revolutionary Relic Reborn.

Tomorrow, Friday, June 4, Farmers Market season begins in D.C. at 10 am — say hello to delicious, locally-sourced, seasonal produce! To kick off the 15th season of the USDA Summer Farmers Market, Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan will stop by to celebrate the opening day and announce this year’s theme, “In Our Neighborhood.” The opening day festivities include special guest Chef Eric Ziebold, executive chef of CityZen and Sou’wester at The Mandarin Oriental Hotel.  Chef Ziebold will hold cooking demonstrations at 10:30 a.m. and 12:15 p.m. using locally-grown strawberries in a strawberry shortcake recipe and in a non-alcoholic fruit-infused cocktail.

The USDA Farmers Market, held every Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the parking lot at 12th Street and Independence Ave., S.W. (across the street from the Smithsonian Metro stop), boasts fruits, vegetables, herbs, and bakery products from Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. The first Friday of each month, the market, which attracts up to 2,000 shoppers each market day, will host a cooking demonstration led by a chef from one of D.C.’s most exciting restaurants. The market will also have live music and other special guests throughout the season, which will culminates on October 29.

Been putting of buying new appliances? Now might be a great time to stop procrastinating, because Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley announced recently that the State of Maryland’s much anticipated Appliance Rebate Program, funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will offer rebates of $100 off qualifying super-efficient clothes washers and $50 off super-efficient refrigerators, along with $300 off qualifying electric heat pump water heaters. Maryland residents can now save hundreds of dollars on the purchase of qualifying appliances and will see continued savings through reduced energy use in their homes over the life of the new appliances. These rebates are in addition to appliance rebate programs already available through each of the major electric utility service providers in Maryland, made possible through the EmPOWER Maryland Energy Efficiency Act of 2008.

“These federally-funded rebates to families who install energy efficient appliances in their homes – which supplement the rebates already available from the utilities – could save families hundreds of dollars,” noted Governor Martin O’Malley. “Rebates are awarded on a first come, first served basis, so if your family is ready to make energy efficient appliance upgrades, there’s never been a better time.”

Applications are available online through each major electric utility service provider and are also accessible from the Maryland Energy Administration’s web page at http://energy.maryland.gov/appliancerebateprogram.asp.

If you are a customer of Maryland’s municipal and cooperative utilities, MEA has a special rebate program for those customers to ensure that all Marylanders can benefit from this exciting opportunity. Customers of Choptank, A&N, and Somerset Electric Cooperatives and Hagerstown, Easton, Thurmont, Berlin and Williamsport municipal utilities can download the necessary information and rebate form from MEA’s website at the following location: http://energy.maryland.gov/documents/MEArebateform.pdf.

A couple of weeks ago, the talented photographers at Hoachlander Davis Photography in DC decided to try something new. One Friday, they opened their Adams Morgan studio to area architects and designers, hosting a workshop to teach participants the terms and techniques of digital photography and show them to digitally manipulate photos of their projects.

Working hands-on, the architects and designers had the opportunity to take photos and then process and retouch them in Hoachlander Davis’ state-of-the-art digital darkrooms.

In one day, participants learned to:
•    Distinguish between different types of cameras that are used to document architecture. Learn about minimum resolution requirements and file formats best suited for web, archival storage, and everyday use.
•    Utilize high dynamic range and layering techniques and discover available plug-ins that make good exposures easy to attain.
•    Employ basic Photoshop retouching techniques, enabling you to correct perspective, replicate grass, remove an outlet, and saturate or de-saturate color.
•    Define the basic digital terms and definitions necessary to communicate with a professional photographer.

The response was resoundingly enthusiastic. “I have already been able to implement some of what you taught,” a participant in the April class testifies. “I adjusted the color and perspective on a couple of images for a project in our portfolio. Now they are presentable and look like they belong in our marketing materials.”

With such great turnout and positive feedback, Hoachlander Davis has another class in the works in May. Industry pros interested in documenting their own projects or just better understanding digital photography are invited to attend Digital Photography for Architects and Designers: Tips for Obtaining Professional Results, which will be held on Friday, May 7.

Space is limited. Cost is $175, payable by May 1. Send an email to info@hdphoto.com or call 202-364-9306 for more information.

Click For Full Photo Gallery

With temps on the rise, what could be hotter than heading out to the backyard, inviting the neighbors over, and enjoying the great outdoors?

HERE, a few of our picks for beauty, style, and durability in outdoor entertaining.

Gallery Captions & Product Information:

1. Hourglass Beverage Jar $59.95 & Hanging Beverage Jar Sign $6.95 surlatable.com or 800-243-0852

2. Cedar Grilling Planks $14.95 williams-sonoma.com or 877-812-6235

3. Wine Barrel Lazy Susan $129 (customized with inscription for $149) vivaterra.com or 800-233-6011

4. Bespoke Slatted Bench $1,998 shopterrain.com or 610-459-2400

5. Basting Sauce Pot & Brush $29.95 williams-sonoma.com or 877-812-6235

6. Curved Kebab Skewers $6.95/set of four surlatable.com or 800-243-0852

7. Gourmet Grillware Grill Tray $39.99 armetale.com or 800-553-2048

8. Saturn Fire Vessel $1,650 stoneforest.com or 888-682-2987

Our friends at Monrovia Nursery compare gardening to cooking. Sometimes you want to putter in the kitchen all day, making breads and soups from scratch and creating the perfect meal. But there are plenty of times when you just want delicious, healthy food on the table quickly. Same thing in the garden.

Spring planting is exciting, and you’re happy to spend a few weekends choosing plants and digging in mud. But a few weeks later, you just want to have a nice-looking yard, without a lot of effort. You want pretty flowers and foliage you can cut for an indoor arrangement, and a chance to relax and enjoy your outdoor room. No problem. The pros at Monrovia offer six steps to choosing plants for an easy-care garden … just “plant ‘em and forget ‘em.”

Step One – Buy Shrubs

Goshiko False Holly

There are dozens of dwarf shrubs that keep a neat appearance, and you won’t even need to do more than an occasional pruning. Here are three favorites with year-round foliage color: Goshiki False Holly has five different colors throughout the year. Dwarf Globe Blue Spruce is a true-blue gem, and for a bright pop of yellow, Sea of Gold(R) Juniper is dazzling. Barberries are a super choice for fascinating foliage colors ranging from yellow to pink and burgundy. The new Crimson Pygmy Dwarf Japanese Barberry is a deep crimson color and cold hardy to zone 4. For evergreen variegated foliage and fragrant blooms, Variegated Winter Daphne is stunning.

Step Two – Opt for Perennials

Ever seen that t-shirt that says, “Friends don’t let friends buy annuals”? Because annuals need to be replanted every season, perennials are preferred in the low-maintenance garden. Lily of the Nile is a great choice. Pretty, strappy foliage and a spray of purple or white flowers. Try Midknight Blue(R) for fabulous deep violet-blue color.

Coneflowers are bright, cheery and easy to grow. These colorful natives attract birds and butterflies and make great cut flowers. To add some complementary texture, try ornamental grass. For stunning color, Purple Fountain Grass is a great pick.

Step Three – Go for Easy Edibles

Meyer Lemon

Planning a summer vegetable garden is tempting, but it is a lot of work. Opt instead for a simple herb garden. Rosemary, Thyme, Bay, Lavender and Sage are indeed trouble-free. Or try some easy-to-grow edibles like blueberry shrubs. A few raspberry and blueberry shrubs will produce a bounty of fruit all season. Once established, fruit trees have a long life and reward you with your own organic fruits.

Pomegranates, figs, stone fruits and citrus have great ornamental value, too. Dwarf citrus, like the Meyer Lemon Improved, Nagami Kumquat or the Dancy Tangerine work well in containers, on the patio or indoors. Their fragrant blossoms are a bonus.

Step Four – Think Water-Wise Plants

Especially for your containers – water-wise plants will eliminate countless hours of hand watering. Yucca and Cordyline are gaining favor for their bold, architectural structure, interesting foliage colors and drought tolerance. Try the super-hardy Golden Sword Yucca with boldly striped green and yellow leaves. Festival Grass(TM) Cordyline has glossy, red-burgundy strappy leaves that look amazing contrasted with bright green plants in the garden and containers.

Step Five – Pick Improved Varieties

Monrovia grows plants that are more disease- and pest-resistant, more heat- or cold-tolerant, or have a natural tidy habit that requires less pruning. Winter Gem Boxwood is one of the hardiest Boxwood varieties. It takes on a pretty golden hue in the winter and then turns bright green in spring. If you love roses, try the super-simple Knock Out(R) shrub roses and Flower Carpet(R) groundcover roses – they don’t need dead-heading and they produce nonstop color for up to 10 months.

Final Step – Soil and Mulch

Start your plants off in good soil and mulch them with organic materials. Not only will your plants be super-healthy and beautiful without much effort, the mulch will block out most of the weeds.

For more great plants and landscape information visit monrovia.com.

A running joke among my circle of handy friends has always been to suggest: “Make sure you always use the right tool for the job,” while picking up a paper weight to pound a nail into the wall and hang a framed picture. When it comes to pruning, making sure you use the right tool is no joke, because the wrong lopper or undersized hand pruner could damage the plants in your landscape.

To help consumers understand what tools are best for different types of pruning, the pros at Corona Clipper, Inc. offer these tips:

First: Take Inventory. Do you have the right tools?

To effectively prune and trim all the plants in your landscape you should have four basic types of pruning tools: hand pruners, loppers, hedge shears, and saws.

Hand Pruners: Meant for cutting 1/2” to 1” diameter branches, there are two types of hand pruners, bypass and anvil. Bypass pruners use blades that slide by each other with a scissor-like cutting action. This lets you make clean, quick-healing cuts on healthy roses, shrubs and plants. Anvil pruners use a straight-edge blade that cuts against a soft metal anvil. They’re designed for trimming dry and woody growth.

Loppers: These tools have longer handles to provide extra reach and leverage for trimming growth as large as 3” in diameter. Like hand pruners they’re available with bypass or anvil cutting action. If you buy just one set of loppers, a 26” bypass model is a good basic choice.

Hedge Shears: For shaping bushes, shrubs, and hedges. A variety of blade and handle styles is available, including extendable models to provide extra reach. Use hedge shears on soft, young growth, NOT older, larger material where hand pruners or loppers work best.

Saws: For branches too big to cut cleanly with a lopper, saws are available in a wide variety of styles including straight and curved blades and with handles that are fixed or which fold for easy carrying.

When purchasing pruning tools, avoid so-called ‘bargain’ tools that lose their edges quickly and won’t tolerate hard use. Otherwise, you’ll wind up spending more in the long run and risk damaging your trees and shrubs.

For Tips on When and How to Prune visit www.coronaclipper.com and click on “Gardening Advice” to download the popular Principles of Pruning.

Thawing out? Every one I talk to is either recovering from damage to their homes and gardens caused by this season’s 3 blizzards or still waiting for the snow to thaw and reveal shrubs with broken limbs.  Fortunately for me, I am in the middle of a new landscaping project and most of my old shrubs and trees were removed last fall, leaving my yard a fairly clean slate.  Still much of what remained got fairly beat up by the weight of the snow.  I still can’t tell the state of my privet hedge, but a magnolia and a holly both lost big branches, an aucuba got flattened, and the branches of a newly transplanted burning bush were broken to the ground.  A group of azeleas are still buried, so we shall see.  To help sort out what steps to take next when assessing landcape damage, Homestead Gardens’ Education Coordinator Gene Sumi offers some tips and suggests what you can do to make it better.  Check out Gene’s Tips HERE!

Alexa Hampton's Truman Sofa for Hickory Chair

Upon returning from a recent trip to home furnishings Mecca, High Point, North Carolina, our friends Erin Olexia, Kim Mohr, and Wesley H. Thompson of Dream House Studios in Annapolis offered a gallery of their favorite new pieces.

One highlight of the trip was the introduction of Thom Filicia’s new line with Vanguard.  The trio really loved his modern pieces, especially the Mandana Dining Table and the Greek Peak Side Chairs in bright yellow!  Of note, Filicia introduced oak back into the design world in a fresh and clean way; he mixed it with leather and metal accents.

Another Dreamhouse favorite was Hickory Chair!  New, notable designs include the Truman Sofa, which can be made up to 120 inches long and the Grant Chair, which sports a a horseshoe shaped back and a swirl of grain mahogany that wraps around half of the chair and is trimmed with nail head trim.

We love the Truman sofa! Thanks, Dream House Studios for checking in.