Bethesda Magazine: May-June 2023 Digital Edition by MoCo360

MAY/JUNE 2023 | $4.95

MEET MS. MOCO | AN AFGHAN FAMILY'S HARROWING JOURNEY | YOUR SUMMER BUCKET LIST

let's do

brunch From the perfect eggs Benedict to barbecue with a side of razzle-dazzle, our picks have you covered. Bring on the bottomless mimosas!

Plus

A word with Gov. Wes Moore The fight to save a historic Black church Paddling with the ghosts

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Bal

Coming up at GEORGE HINCHLIFFE’S

UKULELE ORCHESTRA OF GREAT BRITAIN Tue, May 2 Dynamic ensemble of strummers & singers.

ANGÉLIQUE KIDJO

OCTAVIA E. BUTLER’S PARABLE OF THE SOWER

MUSIC & LYRICS BY TOSHI REAGON & BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON CO-DIRECTED BY SIGNE V. HARRIDAY & ERIC TING Wed–Sat, June 28–July 1 Afrofuturist novel on stage.

Thu, June 15 Visionary world music performer.

STRATHMORE & STEP AFRIKA! PRESENT

STEP XPLOSION Mon, June 19

Thunderous evening of rhythm and joy.

2023-2024 shows will be announced May 24! Music Center by Judy Davis, Parable of The Sower by Ehud Lazin, Angélique Kidjo by Fabrice Mabillot, Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain by Allison Burke, Step Afrika! by Jati Lindsay

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Discover AMP. ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

JO PALMER

Multi-Genre Drummer Wed, May 10 & 24

LEYLA McCALLA Innovative folk from Haiti and New Orleans Thu, May 11

THE STRING QUEENS Baroque, jazz, pop, and beyond Fri, May 12— two shows!

ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

JOSHUA JENKINS Jazz Pianist

Wed, June 14 & 28

The String Queens, Jo Palmer by Margot Schulman, Leyla McCalla by Rush Jagoe

Strathmore.org/AMP |

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On Metro’s Red Line, North Bethesda station

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Join the BSO at Strathmore this May and June for a sneak peek at Music Director Designate Jonathon Heyward, a lively evening of Latin hits, piano superstar Isata Kanneh-Mason, and the BSO’s final concert of the season. Don’t miss the opportunity to see a world-class symphony right in your backyard!

THE PATHÉTIQUE SYMPHONY SAT, MAY 20 AT 8 PM

Jonathon Heyward, conductor Xavier Foley, double bass SUPPORTING SPONSOR:

LATIN FIRE THU, JUNE 1 AT 8 PM

Enrico Lopez-Yañez, conductor José Sibaja, trumpeter Mónica Abrego, soprano SUPPORTING SPONSOR:

ISATA RETURNS SAT, JUNE 10 AT 8 PM

Kevin John Edusei, conductor Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano The appearance of Isata Kanneh-Mason is made possible through the major support of the Sidney M. Friedberg Guest Artist Fund.

TO AWAKEN THE SLEEPER SAT, JUNE 17 AT 8 PM

James Conlon, conductor Rodrick Dixon, narrator The BSO Co-Commission To Awaken the Sleeper is supported in part by The Mary desJardin Fund for New Music. Pictured from left to right: José Sibaja, Enrico Lopez-Yañez, Mónica Abrego, Jonathon Heyward, James Conlon, Xavier Foley, Isata Kanneh-Mason

BUY TICKETS AT BSOMUSIC.ORG

THE MUSIC CENTER AT STRATHMORE | 877.276.1444

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Special Advertising Section

culture watch 11th Annual Rockville Arts Festival

A VIBRANT OUTDOOR ART FESTIVAL!

VisArts Saturday, May 6th from 10 AM-5 PM and Sunday, May 7th from 10 AM-5 PM Rain or Shine East Middle Lane and Maryland Avenue in Rockville Town Square Shop and stroll at our vibrant outdoor art festival featuring original art by 130 fine artists and artisans, art demonstrations, a community art project, artisanal fare, craft beer, and wine. Meet new and returning artists creating original pieces in ceramics, digital art, drawing, fiber, glass, jewelry, metal, mixed media, painting, photography, sculpture, and wood. Spend the day with family and friends and pick up a unique work of art as a gift – or for yourself! FREE WWW.VISARTSCENTER.ORG/ROCKVILLE-ARTS-FESTIVAL (301) 315 - 8200

Jonathon Heyward Conducts

The Pathétique Symphony

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Saturday, May 20th, 8 PM at The Music Center at Strathmoree The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director Designate Jonathon Heyward returns to conduct Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique” Symphony. GraceEvangeline Mason’s ethereal piece “The Imagined Forest” will take listeners on “a fantastical journey through a space that appears to be a familiar impression of nature, but simultaneously somewhere entirely unknown”, and double bassist virtuoso Xavier Foley joins the Orchestra to perform his own Double Bass Concerto. Don’t miss your chance to see a world-class symphony right in your backyard! Tickets start at just $35

National Philharmonic

TWO GREAT SHOWS!

Cosmic Cycles National Philharmonic Saturday, May 13th at 8 PM In partnership with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, National Philharmonic presents the world premiere of the Henry Dehlinger’s Cosmic Cycles, conducted by Maestro Piotr Gajewski against a backdrop of out-of-this-worldvisualizations from NASA Goddard. Carmina Burana + Hailstork’s Fifth Symphony June 4th at 3 PM National Philharmonic presents the world premiere of Symphony No. 5 by Adolphus Hailstork and Carl Orff’s gradiose Carmina Burana, featuring the NatPhil Chorale and guest soloists soprano Danielle Talamantes, tenor Robert Baker, and baritone Brandon Hendrickson. Tickets $19-$99. All Kids. All Free. All The Time. WWW.NATIONALPHILHARMONIC.ORG | (301) 581 - 5100

WWW.BSOMUSIC.ORG | (877) 276 - 1444

Creative Voices + Cultural Happenings at CultureSpotMC.com CultureSpotMC.com is a service of the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County

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@CultureSpotMC

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Cultu

Summer Acting Workshop

SUMMER LEARNING

Amazing Theatre June 5th – 16th Amazing Theatre Company and the Odd Fellows Lodge, #6430 are holding Summer Acting Workshops for ages 8-17. Theater techniques have been shown to positively impact students’ achievements, support various learning styles, cultivate a positive learning environment, and improve social interactions. One-week sessions are available from 9-12 and/or 12:30 - 3:30 PM REGISTER AT: WWW.AMAZINGTHEATRE.ORG INFO@AMAZINGTHEATRE.ORG | (301) 503 - 3403

Summer Dance

Maryland Youth Ballet June 26th - August 11th Train with Maryland Youth Ballet this Summer! Classes, workshops, camps, and intensives for beginner, intermediate, and advanced dancers ages 2-16. Classical and contemporary ballet, modern and jazz, performance opportunities, and more. Audition required for new students ages 8+. MYB’s Summer Festival student’s will get the opportunity to perform in “The Little Mermaid” at Wolf Trap’s Children’s Theatrein-the-Woods, July 28th – 29th. INFO@MARYLANDYOUTHBALLET.ORG WWW.MARYLANDYOUTHBALLET.ORG | (301) 608 - 2232

An Enchanting Evening!

A DELIGHTFUL SHOW FOR ALL AGES!

Akhmedova Ballet Academy Saturday, June 10th, 7 PM at Montgomery College Cultural Arts Center ABA premieres the ballet “The Fairy Doll”. The story is set in a toy shop where all dolls miraculously come to life. The Fairy of all dolls invites everybody to a ball. Originally, premiered at the Vienna State Opera in 1888 as “Die Puppenfee”, this ballet is a feast for the eyes and the soul and a delight for all ages. The second part of the show consists of contemporary and character master pieces choreographed especially for our gifted students. Get your tickets online at our website, Eventbrite or box office one hour before the show. Audition for: Professional Training Program (8-18), Studio Company (18-23), Summer Intensives 2023 (8-23). FOR MORE INFORMATION: CONTACT@AKHMEDOVABALLET.ORG WWW.AKHMEDOVABALLET.ORG (301) 593 - 6262

Creative Voices + Cultural Happenings at CultureSpotMC.com CultureSpotMC.com is a service of the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County

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MAY/JUNE 2023

VOLUME

ISSUE

PAGE 120 At Joy by Seven Reasons, feast upon brunchy delights such as arepas, fried eggs and a passion fruit tequila cocktail.

THE FOOD ISSUE

120

136

Brunch is the most crowd-pleasing, versatile meal of all, and that’s why we love it. Looking for eggs Benedict, dim sum or barbecue with a side of razzle-dazzle? We’ve got you covered. BY DAVID HAGEDORN

With the fifth location f the fastcasual Indian spot Rasa, Rahul Vinod and Sahil Rahman become Montgomery County restaurateurs, just like their dads BY DAVID HAGEDORN

Let’s Do Brunch

Their Fathers’ Sons

On the cover: Queen Citrine, an emcee at All Set Restaurant & Bar COVER PHOTO BY DEB LINDSEY FOOD STYLING BY NICOLA DAVIS

COVER DESIGN IN COLLABORATION WITH FOVNDRY

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Rahul Vinod (left) and Sahil Rahman, the duo behind Rasa Photo by Laura Chase de Formigny PHOTO BY DEB LINDSEY

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PAGE 148 “Am I aspirational? Yeah, and I wear that with pride.” —Gov. Wes Moore

FEATURES

142

A World Apart After the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan turned their lives upside down, the Amini family left everything they knew in order to escape to Montgomery County BY AMY HALPERN

148 The Bethesda

Interview: Gov. Wes Moore Maryland’s leader has already earned a place in the history books. What will his record look like now that he’s getting down to work? BY GINNY BIXBY

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154

162

170

After a devastating flood, a communit unites to rebuild the historic Scotland African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Zion Church. It just took a little faith. BY MIKE UNGER

When entrepreneurs have disabilities, it may or may not be apparent on the outside. But their efforts to break down barriers can make the world more accessible for others. BY JULIE RASICOT

Ready for life alfresco? Here are 24 things to do, from peony peeping to pig races, as the days get longer and the nights get hotter. BY STEPHANIE SIEGEL BURKE

Resurrection

Blazing Trails

Your Summer Bucket List

PHOTO BY JAMES KEGLEY

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CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: PHOTO BY JOE TRAN; ILLUSTRATION BY BRIAN TAYLOR; COURTESY PHOTO

88 When generations of families choose to live under one roof

1 8 4 A celebrity chef shares his biggest mistake—and what he learned from it

DEPARTMENTS 20 20

TO OUR READERS CONTRIBUTORS

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Don’t ignore these signs of a “ministroke”

109 110

Dine

SMALL BITES

FIELD TRIP

New arrivals, discoveries and other morsels of food news

SPEED READ

SHOPPING

112

THE HOT LIST

MS. MOCO

DRIVING RANGE

114

TABLE TALK

REMOTE WORK SPOTS

TRAVELER’S NOTEBOOK

EVENTS CALENDAR

182

Business

25 26

Banter

Everything you need to know about the C&O Canal

On making new friends in the Bethesda area Where to work from “home” when you’re sick of home May and June’s big events, from concerts to comedy

The moment’s hues are a brighter shade of pale Stand-up paddleboarding at Mallows Bay A historic spa, America’s whiskey roots and more

CELEBRATIONS

High school sweethearts wed 16 years later

CULTURE COUNTER

MoCo natives doing cool things

Exploring Poolesville

NEW TRICKS

Home

Tom Simpson, dog walker extraordinaire, shows us how it’s done

ALL IN THE FAMILY

WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD

55 56

WRITE ON

Interactive journals from a Rockville family

Good Life

MADE IN MOCO

Go gourmet at a gas station; plus, Q by Peter Chang’s surprising Amish connection

182

184

Diane Keaton and the “coastal grandmother” look Building out and bringing in multiple generations

HOME SALES DATA

BUSINESS ROUNDUP

Notable news from the local biz scene

HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS

Silver Spring’s Forest Glen

Ten fresh, fizzy cock ails for ushering in the new season

WHAT I KNOW

Chef Spike Mendelsohn on the lessons he learned the hard way

Advertising Sections 41

Ask the Experts: Seniors & Aging

Long & Foster Ad Section

104

Showcase: Builders & Architects

A Bethesda couple turns moss into glorious art

16 MAY/JUNE 2023 | MOCO360.MEDIA

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MoCo360.media Where the in-depth stories of Bethesda Magazine and the breaking news of Bethesda Beat come together.

WEEKLY MoCo360 POLITICS BRIEFING

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WEEKLY MoCo360 EDUCATION NOTES

We go behind the headlines and answer your questions. Sign up at moco360.media.

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18 MAY/JUNE 2023 | MOCO360.MEDIA

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TO OUR READERS

Introducing a Fresh Approach You hold in your hands Bethesda Magazine by MoCo360. It’s the magazine you’ve long read and (hopefully) loved—now renewed and infused with more to enjoy.

NEW TOPICS: We’ve expanded our regular slate of content to include businesses, neighborhoods and artisans, even performers passing through town. Book Report has evolved into Culture Counter, featuring works in various formats. And the Reading List returns, skipping around book purveyors from edition to edition.

NEW FORMATS: You can set a timer by the two-minute format of Speed Read, a primer on a timely local topic. Field Trip takes you by the hand to guide you through a town or attraction. Thought leaders turn reflective in What I Know. In the era of Big Data, you’ll discover data visualizations throughout the issue.

NEW LOOK: The design reflects a contemporary feel and creates an experience

that’s sophisticated, accessible and streamlined. You’ll see more prominent display of photography, as well as a greater use of graphics, icons and illustrations.

FEATURED CONTRIBUTOR

GEL JAMLANG

DOWNTOWN BETHESDA BACKGROUND: Jamlang, who hails from Manila in the Philippines, is a freelance illustrator, painter and art instructor. She has taught at Artworks Fine Art Studio and was an adjunct faculty member at Maryland Institute College of Art. IN THIS ISSUE: Illustrated the new Ms. MoCo column, which answers questions about the county, from the serious to the not-so. HER OWN QUESTION FOR MS. MOCO: “Where do I fin a good seafood boil to bring home and enjoy?”

SAME HIGH-QUALITY JOURNALISM: Since 2004, Bethesda Magazine has produced

WHY? We aim to ensure that Bethesda Magazine remains essential to you and your neighbors for years to come. We want to provide a variety of formats and subjects to surprise and delight established and new readers.

We’re glad you’re with us on this journey into the future. Please share your thoughts. You can reach us at editorial@moco360.media as well as on social media. Sincerely,

ANNE TALLENT EXECUTIVE EDITOR

FEATURED CONTRIBUTOR

DAVID HAGEDORN LANIER HEIGHTS, D.C.

BACKGROUND: Hagedorn was a chef and restaurateur for 25 years. He’s been writing about and reviewing restaurants for 17 years. IN THIS ISSUE: Explored the Bethesda area’s brunch scene, dined at a gas station and chatted with renowned chef Peter Chang. WHAT HE LEARNED: “Most places that serve Sunday brunch also serve it on Saturday, which is more low-key and less crowded and frenetic. Also, you don’t need to take dollar bills to drag brunch anymore. The queens take Venmo and Cash App!”

PHOTOS COURTESY GEL JAMLANG AND DEB LINDSEY

reporting that informs, connects and inspires our neighbors, and we’re bringing that legacy forward. We’ll continue to explore difficult issues and human-interest narratives as well as present authoritative criticism and savvy recommendations.

20 MAY/JUNE 2023 | MOCO360.MEDIA

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more timee to walk m

COME HOME TO

HAPPINESS

Capital Senior Solutions—a division of Brito Associates of COMPASS— is the real estate team you can trust to advise and educate you or your loved one through a later-in-life move. Accredited by the Seniors Real Estate Institute as Certified Senior Housing Professionals™ and Certified Senior Downsizing Coaches™, our experts have been voted a Bethesda Magazine Top Producer Team year after year. Our senior-approved services—including community tours and guidance, home preparation, downsizing success plans, and more—empower you through every step of the home buying, selling, and moving process.

Visit CapitalSeniorSolutions.com to register for our FREE educational events. n Moving Mom & Dad - April 19 n Selling a Home as a Senior in 2023 May 17 n Post-Retirement Planning: Top Ideas & Considerations - May 24

Contact Our Certified Senior Housing Professionals™ Jan Brito, CSHP, SRES and Laura Quigley, CSHP, SRES

202-656-3410 | CapitalSeniorSolutions.com Powered by Brito Associates of COMPASS | 301-298-1001 office | COMPASS is a licensed real estate brokerage that abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws. Information is compiled from sources deemed reliable but not guaranteed. All measurement and square footages are approximate. This is not intended to solicit property already listed. COMPASS is licensed as a COMPASS Real Estate in DC and as COMPASS in Virginia and Maryland.

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Brito Associates 301-298-1001

4/2/23 2:32 PM

CEO & PRESIDENT Scott Copeland

EDITORIAL

VICE PRESIDENT OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

DIRECTOR OF AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT AND MARKETING

Anne Tallent Kelly Martin

MANAGING EDITOR, LONG-FORM

Kelly Kendall

SENIOR EDITOR

Amy Orndorff

“Mimosa with French toast”

SENIOR DESIGNER

Ellen Minsavage DESIGNER

Olivia Sadka

MOCO360 MANAGING EDITOR, NEWS & ENTERPRISE

Jeffrey Lyles

What’s your go-to brunch order?

MOCO360 REPORTERS

Apps Bichu, Ginny Bixby, Steve Bohnel, Em Espey, Akira Kyles RESTAURANT CRITIC

David Hagedorn

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Louis Peck, Julie Rasicot, Carole Sugarman COPY EDITORS

Elisabeth Herschbach, Steve Wilder CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Caralee Adams, Jennifer Barger, Rachel Pomerance Berl, Stephanie Siegel Burke, Margaret Engel, Christine Koubek Flynn, Dana Gerber, Amy Halpern, Kristen Schott, Jennifer Tepper, Mike Unger, Carolyn Weber PHOTOGRAPHERS & ILLUSTRATORS

“Bacon cheeseburger topped with a messy, runny sunny-side up egg”

PUBLISHING

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Skip Brown, Nicola Davis, Laura Chase de Formigny, Lisa Helfert, Gel Jamlang, James Kegley, Jon Krause, Hannele Lahti, Melanie Landsman, Deb Lindsey, Brendan McCabe, Jason Schneider, Brian Taylor, Joseph Tran, Helena Wu

Brendan Martin

“Pumpernickel bagels and lox”

Karen Singer

DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING OPERATIONS

Amélie Ward

ADVERTISING ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Arlis Dellapa, Penny Skarupa, LuAnne Spurrell BUSINESS SOLUTIONS & PARTNERSHIPS

Jeni Hansen

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT LEAD

Amanda McCloskey

ADVERTISING SALES COORDINATOR

Mel Korobkin

DIRECTOR OF ANALYTICS AND TECH OPERATION

Jack Copeland

AUDIENCE PRODUCER

Elizabeth Moseley

ENGAGEMENT & PRODUCT SPECIALIST

James Musial

MARKETING & EVENTS MANAGER

Ashley Fletcher

OFFICE EXECUTIVE ADMINISTRATOR

Rachel Collins

CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER

Onecia Ribeiro INTERNS

“Pot of breakfast tea, fresh orange juice, a spinachand-mushroom quiche, fruit salad and a basket of baked goodies. Bread pudding for dessert.”

Nathaly Osorio, Fernando Vasquez ADVERTORIAL WRITERS

Jennifer Beekman, Ann Cochran, Jim Mahaffie, Betty Siegel ADVERTORIAL PHOTOGRAPHERS

Heather Fuentes, Lisa Helfert, Tony J. Lewis, Hilary Schwab, Michael Ventura, Stephanie Williams ADVERTORIAL EDITOR

Stephanie Siegel Burke

“Eggs Benedict. Salmon on top is a bonus.”

CO-FOUNDERS

Steve and Susan Hull

Bethesda Magazine is published six times a year by MoCo360 © 2023-2024 Story ideas and letters to the editor: Please send ideas and letters (with your name, the town you live in and your daytime phone number) to editorial@MoCo360.Media. MoCo360 6116 Executive Blvd., #740, North Bethesda, MD 20852 Phone: 301-718-7787 MoCo360.Media Subscription price: $19.95 To subscribe: MoCo360.Media For customer service: Call 301-718-7787, ext. 205; or send an email to customerservice@MoCo360.Media. For advertising information: Call 301-718-7787, ext. 220; send an email to advertising@MoCo360.Media; or go to MoCo360.Media. For information on events and reprints: Call 301-718-7787, ext. 219; or send an email to marketing@MoCo360.Media.

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4/11/23 12:12 PM

The Washington Folk Festival and other hot events

This book from a local author: perfect poolside reading

SPEED READ / MS. MOCO / CULTURE COUNTER / DOG-WALKER EXTRAORDINAIRE

Bunk overnight at Lockhouse No. 10, just off the C&O Canal towpath, for a glimpse of 1930s history. PAGE 26

PHOTO COURTESY VISIT MONTGOMERY

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BANTER SPEED READ

Happy Trails

Spring is in full swing, and the C&O is beckoning. Here’s what you need to know about MoCo’s favorite pathway. BY AMY ORNDORFF

TAKE A FREE RIDE ON A CANAL BOAT. Dolly, Eva, Jen and Julie have one of the most important jobs at the park—but they aren’t rangers. The four mules work in teams to demonstrate how their predecessors would have pulled boats along the canal. You can take a mule-powered ride in a canal boat on weekends from late spring to early fall from the Great Falls Tavern Visitor Center in Potomac. SIP YOUR WAY ALONG THE C&O CANAL LIBATIONS TRAIL. MoCo is home to four of the 14 stops on the Libations Trail, which toasts breweries, distilleries and wineries near the canal. At 7 Locks Brewing (about 11 miles from the C&O), you

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Spend the night in Lockhouse No. 22 on the C&O Canal towpath.

can enjoy a Billy Goat TrAle, a session IPA that celebrates the rocky hike that runs between the towpath and the Potomac River just southeast of Great Falls Tavern Visitor Center. The beer promises to be “fullflavor, smooth, refreshing, and effortless.” We’ll drink to that. WHITE’S FERRY ISN’T SHUTTLING CARS ACROSS THE POTOMAC, BUT THE CROSSING IS STILL WORTH A VISIT. At milepost 35.5 on the towpath, pop into White’s Ferry Grill in Dickerson, where you can enjoy a pickle sub (just what it sounds like—a sammie with pickle instead of bread) and watch the river flow by. Note the flood markers on the building and try to imagine water above the second-story windows. SPEND A NIGHT IN ANOTHER ERA. Lockhouses were homes for the families of keepers who operated the locks along the canal. The houses are maintained by

the C&O Canal Trust, and five in Montgomery County are available for overnight guests starting at $110 per night. Pick where you want to bunk down based on the era depicted inside—No. 6 (1950s), No. 10 (1930s), No. 21 (1916), No. 22 (1830s) or No. 25 (1860s)—or based on which houses have air conditioning (hint: Nos. 6, 10 and 21). BRING BINOCULARS FOR BIRDWATCHING. More than 120 avian species call the park home, including the majestic bald eagle. Your best chance to see one is to look around their nest on Conn Island, visible from the Washington Aqueduct observation deck near the Great Falls Tavern Visitor Center. PREFER TAKING A TRAIN TO HIKING OR BIKING? Amtrak and the National Park Service have teamed up to present a C&O Canal-themed Trails & Rails program on the Capitol Limited train line on Saturdays from May through August. Volunteers in the lounge car share details about the canal and the areas around the river during the rides between D.C. and Cumberland.

PHOTOS COURTESY THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE; GOODLUCKSTEF PRODUCTIONS; VISIT MONTGOMERY; C&O CANAL TRUST; AND GETTY

MADE FOR MULES, ENJOYED BY PEOPLE. The C&O Canal towpath is 184.5 miles of hikeable and bikeable trail along the Potomac River, stretching from Georgetown through Montgomery County and up to Cumberland. Construction began in 1828, and in its prime, mules and horses pulled goods in boats up and down the canal. In its more recent history, the area has been a National Historical Park for more than 50 years.

Lockhouse No. 10

4/11/23 11:39 AM

Robert I. Schattner Foundation’s Gift to Montgomery College Fills Workforce Gaps

OUR COLLEGE

OUR COMMUNITY

ailed in a 2017 Washington Post article as one of “Washington’s richest people that you’ve probably never heard of,” Dr. Robert I. Schattner was a dentist and the developer of the sore-throat remedy, Chloraseptic. He was also a savvy investor.

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Dr. Schattner and his wife, Kay Ferrell, valued hard work, creativity, and initiative—traits that students in Montgomery College’s

The Robert I. Schattner Foundation’s generous gift to Montgomery College is an investment in students who train to fill critical shortages in skilled professions. Future auto technicians, certified nursing assistants, cybersecurity professionals, commercial truck drivers, laboratory workers, and HVAC technicians will receive

OUR FUTURE scholarships needed to pursue the professions they seek—and the careers our community needs. Our students, faculty, and staff acknowledge the generosity of this donation, which also provides additional assistance for certification exams, laptops, and emergency aid; career navigation; equipment for MC’s nursing labs; and individual guidance to support student success.

Join other generous donors who support Montgomery College by contacting Craig Eozzo at craig.eozzo@montgomerycollege.edu or 240-479-1300.

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4/2/23 2:39 PM

BANTER MS. MOCO

“ I TOOK IT UP ABOUT A YEAR AGO, AND I’VE MADE ABOUT 100 NEW FRIENDS.” —MICHELLE JACOBY OF BETHESDA, ON PICKLEBALL

Courting New Friends

How to find buddies in the Bethesda area, plus the best view in town. Ask Ms. MoCo. BY RACHEL POMERANCE BERL

When I was 11, at the crossroads of awkward and embarrassed, the summer my family moved from Maryland to Georgia, I authored my first advice column. It was a pity project offered by the librarian at sleepaway camp, and I invented all the questions but one. An entire cabin wrote in to complain about one sorry bunkmate, and I answered with my best advice, never realizing the girl in question was me. That became evident when I proudly shared the printed page. My next stab at offering guidance was better received—as a single 30-something in Atlanta, I doled out dating tips for a local paper, highlighting the humor and hope of it all. Since there’s nothing like writing what you know—whether it’s the particular cruelty of adolescent girls or the harrowing highs and lows of looking for love—I’m now assuming my next advisory post: Ms. MoCo.

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As a Bethesda mom with kids and stepkids (ages 3 to 18) in four schools in Montgomery County, I’m deeply ensconced in my roots (shout-out to Farmland Elementary in Rockville, ahem, “North Bethesda”) and ready to tackle your questions about life in our neighborhood. For starters … How do I make friends around here? If you’re over 50, pickleball. If you’re under 50, still pickleball. But you have more options. “I took it up about a year ago, and I’ve made about 100 new friends,” says longtime Bethesdan Michelle Jacoby, 57, who has played with people ages 12 to 92. “To me, it’s the No. 1 way to meet friends.” Jacoby owns DC Matchmaking and once ran a friend-matching service in the DMV. D.C.’s transient nature lends itself to finding friends. “You’re not an outsider when you come [to this area],” says Jacoby, who hosts a Meetup for singles 35 and older with more than 2,000 members. She recommends Meetup for its friendly culture and range of activities and the fact that most go solo. (For anyone looking for a good time, “Let’s Get Organized” meets at the Cleveland Park Library; “Geeks and Nerds” meets in Arlington, confirming what we long suspected about Virginia.) Jacoby also suggests art classes at Glen Echo, book clubs at Politics and Prose and a D.C. kickball league if you’re under 40. What’s the best view from the ground in Bethesda? If you’re not overlooking the Potomac on the Billy Goat Trail or taking in Kenwood’s canopy of heaven during cherry blossom season, you might try the corner of Chase and Wisconsin avenues. At 358 feet above sea level, it’s the highest elevation in relatively flat Bethesda, according to Montgomery County’s planning department. You could even host a Meetup there for people with a point of view. That shouldn’t be too hard to find around here. Got a question about life in Montgomery County? Ask Ms. MoCo by emailing msmoco@moco360.media.

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Dani James at Kaldi’s Social House

Three Great Places for Remote Work Alternatives for the “H” in WFH BY JACQUELINE MENDELSOHN Kaldi’s Social House

918 Silver Spring Ave., Silver Spring THE VIBE: MEETING HUB A low din of chatter fills the spacious interior of this coffeehouse, furnished with wood tables, leather-backed armchairs and ample counter seating. The smooth Latin jazz or Afrobeat tunes are kept low, if they’re even on. Customers favor espresso drinks served in white ceramic mugs, and the all-day breakfast menu is extensive, with an entire section devoted to toasts (you might find lox, avocado-andarugula or pumpkin pie). CONS: The interior is sparsely decorated in darker tones; the back half, in particular, lacks natural light.

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Takoma Bev Co.

6917 Laurel Ave., Takoma Park THE VIBE: LOCAL NEIGHBORHOOD CAFE This 30-seat all-day restaurant offers a variety of seating spread across two whitewalled rooms where colorful local art is showcased. If you’re not a fan of indie music, there’s a covered outdoor patio where you can work at picnic tables while enjoying such classics as a BLT, Cobb salad or grilled cheese. Products are sourced primarily from sustainably minded vendors, including Counter Culture Coffee and Rishi Tea & Botanicals, and you can always find 10 craft beers on tap. CONS: Electrical outlets are a little tricky to come by (though they do exist, we promise).

Tatte Bakery & Cafe

7276 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda THE VIBE: LIVELY CITY EATERY Stay abuzz from breakfast through dinner at this Boston-based cafe known for its Stumptown coffee, Israeli-inspired fare and Instagrammable—and delicious— pastries. Perch at the rustic wood counters (hint: power strips line the undersides), where sunlight shines in through floor-to-ceiling windows, slide into a chocolate leather banquette to work at a marble bistro table, or take a seat alfresco in the adjoining corridor. CONS: The near-constant banging and whistling of the espresso machine may be too distracting for some.

PHOTO BY CRAIG JAMES

4/12/23 2:50 PM

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BANTER BEST BETS

MAY/JUNE GATHERINGS Bethesda Fine Arts Festival

Paintings, photography, sculpture and jewelry by more than 100 artists from around the country are on display and on sale at this annual art fair around Woodmont Triangle. Expect live music from local bands and food for sale from Bethesda restaurants. bethesda.org

6/3-4

Strawberry Festival

All the strawberry shortcake you can eat is just one draw of the 41st Sandy Spring Museum’s Strawberry Festival. The giant party includes live music, pony rides, a petting zoo, games, food trucks and a crafts market. sandyspringmuseum.org/ programs-and-events/strawberry-festival/

6/3-4

Washington Folk Festival

Storytellers, dancers, drummers, musicians and artisans from various cultural traditions come together for this festival at Glen Echo Park. Past performances have included everything from Americana, blues and bluegrass to traditional Indian stringed instruments, Ukrainian folk music, and Latin and Caribbean rhythms. glenechopark.org/folkfestival

5/27-28

6/4

Rockville kicks off the summer with music from local bands on two stages, a Taste of Rockville food festival and fun stuff for the kids, like infla ables and lawn games. The festival, which returns to RedGate Park for a second year, is free to attend, and tickets for food and beverage samples can be purchased on-site. rockvillemd.gov/665/hometown-holidays

Bring your bib and belly up to the table for the plant-based pie-eating contest, just one of the festivities at this celebration of plant-based cuisine. Last year’s inaugural event drew more than 2,500 people, and this event is going to be even bigger and better, including a Biergarten, Canine Courtyard, giveaways and more. Dogs are welcome to the healthy hoedown at Elm Street Park. planetbethesda.com

Rockville Hometown Holidays Music Fest

5/29

Rockville Memorial Day Ceremony and Parade

Marching bands, dance troupes, drum lines, and military and community groups parade through the streets of downtown Rockville in this long-standing tradition. The day begins with a performance by the Rockville Concert Band and Chorus, followed by a ceremony to remember fallen veterans. rockvillemd.gov/2402/ memorial-day-ceremony-and-parade

Planet Bethesda Festival

6/17

Silver Spring Blues Festival

Blues veterans and newcomers take the stage at downtown Silver Spring’s daylong block party to celebrate the musical genre. The free annual event literally has people dancing in the street, featuring local groups along with bands from around the country. silverspringblues.com

A dancer at the Washington Folk Festival

THEATER 6/7-7/2

August Wilson’s Radio Golf

This Tony Award-nominated drama, the 10th and final ork in playwright August Wilson’s American Century Cycle and the third Wilson play staged by Round House Theatre, centers on a man who wants to redevelop Pittsburgh’s struggling Hill District neighborhood. Instead, he gets caught between his vision for progress and the values of the community’s history. roundhousetheatre.org

6/21-8/13

Nate the Great

Will the clues add up for kid detective Nate the Great in this musical mystery involving a cat, a dog, a couple of friends and a missing painting? Based on the children’s book series, Imagination Stage’s production is recommended for ages 5-11. imaginationstage.org

ART 6/8-7/2

Bethesda Painting Awards Exhibition

View artwork by the finalis s of the Bethesda Painting Awards, a competition that presents a $10,000 top prize to an artist from Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C. An opening reception for the exhibition is planned for 6-8 p.m. June 9 at Bethesda’s Gallery B. bethesda.org

PHOTOS COURTESY GLEN ECHO PARK PARTNERSHIP FOR ARTS AND CULTURE; KYLE GUSTAFSON; ELMAN STUDIO

5/13-14

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MUSIC 5/12

The String Queens

If TV shows like Bridgerton have you digging classical-style covers of pop songs, check out The String Queens, a trio that fiddles out versions of hits such as Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance,” at AMP by Strathmore. strathmore.org

pairs a world premiere by composer Adolphus Hailstork with the dramatic Carmina Burana at Strathmore. strathmore.org

6/24

Deniece Williams

An iconic voice of the ’80s, Williams scored a No. 1 hit with “Let’s Hear It for the Boy.” The fourtime Grammy winner makes an appearance at Bethesda Blues & Jazz Supper Club. bethesda bluesjazz.com

6/28-7/1

Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower

It’s the mid-2020s and society is dealing with climate change, social inequality and corporate greed. That’s the setting for Octavia E. Butler’s 1993 sci-fi n vel Parable of the Sower. Strathmore stages the opera version. strathmore.org

COMEDY 5/13

NatPhil: Cosmic Cycles

Visions of space accompany the world premiere of composer Henry Dehlinger’s symphonic suite, Cosmic Cycles, in this partnership between NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the National Philharmonic. The orchestra will play at Strathmore against a backdrop of celestial images. strathmore.org

5/21

Taiko: The Art of Japanese Drumming

Learn about Taiko, a form of Japanese drumming, and try it yourself at a demonstration and interactive program at the Rockville Library. mcpl.libnet.info/event/7846920

5/26

Tony! Toni! Toné!

If you had the radio on in the ’90s, you heard this soul-music-inspired R&B group with charttoppers including “If I Had No Loot,” “Feels Good” and “Anniversary.” The trio revisits their hits at Bethesda Blues & Jazz Supper Club. bethesdabluesjazz.com

6/4

National Philharmonic Hailstork’s Fifth Symphony and Carmina Burana

To close its season, the National Philharmonic

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6/30

Improbable Comedy

In honor of Pride Month, Improbable Comedy, the Silver Spring-based production team that stages shows featuring underrepresented performers, brings an all-queer lineup to Gaithersburg’s Arts Barn. gaithersburgmd. gov/recreation/performing-arts/theater/ improbable-comedy

FILM 5/7

Punk the Capital

Better known for power suits than power chords, D.C. was home to an influential pun music scene in the late 1970s and early ’80s. The Wheaton Library hosts a screening of Punk the Capital, a documentary that explores it. mcpl.libnet.info/event/7944878

6/11, 14 Hairspray

Tease up your beehive, hon, for the 35th anniversary screenings of the original 1988 John Waters cult-classic musical, showing at local Regal movie theaters. In 1960s Baltimore, teenager Tracy Turnblad tries to win a spot on a TV dance show while also fighting or racial integration. fathomevents.com —Stephanie Siegel Burke

Q&A

ELEANOR BROWN A New York Times bestselling author of three novels, including her latest, Any Other Family, Eleanor Brown returns to the Gaithersburg Book Festival on May 20 at Bohrer Park. The lit fest features discussions with prize-winning authors and local writers. Get all the details at gaithersburgbookfestival.org.

Q: You’ll be discussing your latest

book, which is about an unusual family. What was your inspiration? A: My own personal story … I did what I always do, which is that I took all of the questions that I had and I didn’t know all the answers. So I gave them to imaginary people and I said, You figure it out, you answer these questions.

Q: Is there a character in Any Other Family that you most identify with?

A: All of them. That’s always the way I

think it is as a writer—you break off little pieces of yourself and you give them to all of your characters, and that’s what makes them feel real and resonant. I will say that I probably have more of me in the one who is sort of the Pinterest mom.

Q: Heading into summer, what do you consider a good beach read?

A: I want to get

sucked in and sit there with the sand in my toes and the water in front of me and disappear into a different world. I want something big and chunky that I can get lost in, but that’s not too hard on me, because I want to be able to enjoy the beach.

Q: Any recommendations? A: Elin Hilderbrand is the queen of the

beach reads. Or maybe a good epic classic like The Thorn Birds, or The Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy, one of my favorite chunksters. — S.S.B.

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BANTER MEDIA REPORT

Culture Counter

FILM

Ian Urbina has written about crime on the high seas for The New York Times, published books on the topic and hosted a podcast. Now, the Chevy Chase, D.C., journalist has created “Dispatches from The Outlaw Ocean,” a series of 10 short films c vering forced labor, murder and other atrocities he investigated on board ships from Asia to Africa and South America. See them at theoutlawocean.com.

BOOK

BY CARALEE ADAMS

Flavors of the Maghreb & Southern Italy: Recipes from the Land of the Setting Sun, (Hippocrene Books, April 2023) combines the family recipes of Alba Carbonaro Johnson, who lives near Annapolis, with the editing and testing expertise of Rockville’s Paula Miller Jacobson and Potomac’s Sheilah Kaufman. The pair tries to keep the recipe creator’s voice while tailoring the directions to cooks of every skill level.

PODCAST

I Hate Politics podcast host Sunil Dasgupta says he gets it that many people don’t want to deal with politics because of the inherent conflict. “But politics, y definition, is about esolving conflict. It s what we use in a democratic society when we disagree with each other,” says Dasgupta, who lives in Aspen Hill. His latest effort: a six-part series that examines the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. Listen at ihppod.org.

BOOK

Just in time for the summer swim season, Michelle Brafman is out with Swimming with Ghosts (Keylight Books, June 2023), a novel that takes place at a community pool where the drama intensifies the night a s orm knocks out power. “Everything is turned upside down,” says the Glen Echo author, a competitive swimmer and swim mom herself. “It forces these people to face their demons and ghosts.”

Reading List Here are the top-selling books at Loyalty Bookstores, 823 Ellsworth Drive, Silver Spring. 1

Above Ground | Clint Smith

2 Hell Bent | Leigh Bardugo

3 We Deserve Monuments | Jas Hammonds

4 Where I’m Coming From | Barbara Brandon-Croft 5 Galatea: A Short Story | Madeline Miller

6 Moonrise Over New Jessup | Jamila Minnicks 7

Full Exposure | Thien-Kim Lam

8 Kindred | Octavia E. Butler

9 The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida | Shehan

Karunatilaka

10 Before I Let Go | Kennedy Ryan (tied with)

Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution | R.F. Kuang

NONFICTION 1

ow the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the H History of Slavery Across America | Clint Smith

2 Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto | Tricia Hersey

3 How We Heal: Uncover Your Power and Set Yourself

Free | Alexandra Elle

4 The Love You Save: A Memoir | Goldie Taylor 5 All About Love: New Visions | Bell Hooks

6 Dyscalculia: A Love Story of Epic Miscalculation |

Camonghne Felix

“You Just Need to Lose Weight” and 19 Other Myths About Fat People | Aubrey Gordon

8 Black Women Writers at Work | Claudia Tate (editor) 9 Inciting Joy: Essays | Ross Gay

10 Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands | Kate Beaton

In each edition, Bethesda Magazine presents best-sellers from a local bookstore. Please reach out with store recommendations or lists at editorial@moco360.media.

COURTESY PHOTOS

FICTION

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BANTER PETS

Tom Simpson, owner of Community Happy Dogs, walks up to 10 dogs at a time.

New Tricks

Chevy Chase’s Tom Simpson left marketing to launch a dog-walking business BY DAWN KLAVON Talk about office politics.

In Tom Simpson’s work space, Babson thinks he can charm his way out of anything, Bobby will talk your ear off and Poppy seems a little shy. Happ gets along with everyone, Fenway is the group’s social butterfly and Charley just wants to fit in. Simpson, 62, works with four-legged customers as part of Community Happy Dogs, his dog-walking company. Serving Chevy Chase, Bethesda and Northwest Washington, D.C., Simpson’s thriving business transforms dogs from haphazard tree sniffers to a harmonic symphony of docile canines, gliding down posh residential streets to the steady clip-clop of nails clicking the ground, up to 10 at a time. So well-trained is his posse that even when another barking dog passes by the group, not one pup makes a sound—or a move—in response. “Tom’s refined it to a science,” says client Elizabeth Wilner of Chevy Chase, whose 2-year-old English Labrador, Happ, walks with Simpson on weekdays. “He’s somewhat of a neighborhood phenomenon.” Simpson closed shop on his previous company, Marketing Now Inc., to launch Community Happy Dogs in 2018. The Chevy

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Simpson recommends walking dogs for 30 minutes first thing in the morning.

PHOTOS BY HANNELE LAHTI

4/10/23 4:20 PM

Chase resident and his wife, who have five grown children, enjoy travel, dining and sports when off the clock. But business has exploded, so much so that he now employs three additional dog walkers—one of whom, Simpson says, earned $82,000 last year. “They are all world class,” he says. Simpson possesses strong athletic roots; he says he was once a highly competitive men’s field hockey player. He walks about 24 dogs a day, collectively about 10 miles. “Dogs thrive on it—it is their bliss,” he says. “A tired dog is a happy dog.” Simpson and his employees each walk as many as 10 dogs at a time for either a half-hour or a full hour. In a 30-minute walk, he guarantees the dogs will log at least 11/2 miles, or 3 miles in an hour. Dog owners pay $27 for a half-hour or $44 for the hourlong service. Each four-legged client is picked up at their home and driven to gather with others for efficiency’s sake. “It’s a little bit like a clown car,” Wilner says. “I don’t know how Tom does it.” Once the clock starts and the walking commences, the pups’ parents are updated via text-message reports and photos. Simpson learned the trade’s tricks from dog behaviorist Cesar Millan’s educational materials and from volunteering at the Humane Rescue Alliance in D.C. “[My program is] transformative,” Simpson says. “Dogs that have poor behaviors improve dramatically.”

How does Simpson do it? For one, the pack avoids sidewalks, favoring quiet streets and the Capital Crescent Trail to minimize distractions. He also makes it clear to his menagerie of goldendoodles, French bulldogs, Havanese and Cavapoos that he’s the alpha, and everyone walks “nose to toes,” meaning they never walk in front of Simpson, instead assuming a subordinate spot. “When we leave the house, they have to know they are safe and protected,” Simpson says. He never leaves home without his ample treat pouch, hand sanitizer, pepper spray, a flashlight and, of course, lots of little plastic bags. Simpson trains dogs to walk together, refrain from barking and stay on task during fast-paced neighborhood jaunts. “It’s really incredible what he does,” says Melissa Randolph, whose 3-year-old Doberman, Jellybean, tends to be menacing and anti-social. Randolph and her husband were walking in Bethesda, saw Simpson training another dog, and asked him to visit their home for training. “By the time he left, she was laying down at his feet,” Randolph says. “Incredible—in just one hour.” Simpson encourages owners to walk their dogs for 30 minutes first thing in the morning, which he says is good for bonding between the animals and their pet parents. “Exercise and discipline are more important to a dog than affection,” he says. “When we ascertain what’s super important to them, we’re able to achieve incredible things with the dog.”

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BANTER LOCAL LIFE

Three of the journals by the Jacobs family, aimed at nourishing various relationships in fun ways

Write On

How a Rockville family collaborated on a series of journals—and how the books have the power to strengthen your own bonds BY CARALEE ADAMS

Keeping a journal while growing up was so important for Meredith Jacobs that she wanted her daughter, Sofie, to have the same outlet early on. Tucking her in at night in their Rockville home, Meredith would ask: “What made Sofie happy today?” Meredith would write the responses, along with her own daily highlights, in a book with a bumblebee and the words “Bee Happy” on the cover. Sometimes Sofie would recall playing with Barbies. Meredith, a writer, would note having lunch with friends. Her husband, Jonathan, a lawyer, once wrote about the relief of having completed taxes. “It was just so nice for both parties to have a chance to reflect on something that made them smile that day before they went to sleep,” recalls Sofie, now 26 and studying for her MBA at Duke University. The “happy book” remains a treasured time capsule, Sofie

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says. She eventually kept her own journal. At age 9, she started writing back and forth with her mom in a notebook, broaching topics that were too embarrassing to talk about, such as how to handle her first crush. Those experiences deepened the family’s relationships and morphed into a publishing enterprise. The Jacobses have written several books with prompts to encourage parents, daughters, sons, sisters and grandparents to connect through journaling on topics from the silly to the serious. There is space in the books to analyze each other’s craziest dream, choose a superpower and draw a favorite place on earth. There are questions about fears, regrets and hopes, along with blank pages to write about sensitive issues that are, perhaps, best posed on paper and answered thoughtfully, with the benefit of time. The flagship in the series, Just Between Us: Mother & Daughter: A No-Stress, No-Rules Journal, was published in 2010. It was coauthored by Sofie, who was then in eighth grade, and Meredith, whose literary agent urged them to write it after hearing of their journaling ritual. The title sold more than a half-million copies in six languages, according to its publisher, Chronicle Books. A revised edition of the original book was slated for release in April. “We got emails and letters from mothers and daughters saying, ‘Thank you. Because of this, we are closer.’ That was just the most rewarding and unexpected thing,” says Meredith, now an executive at a nonprofit. The pair later created a journal for grandmothers and granddaughters, and another for sisters. In 2020, Meredith and her son, Jules, now 24, collaborated on a journal for mothers and sons that was prompted in part by the #MeToo movement. “It was created with the idea that increased communication about emotions and vulnerability will broaden the perceptions of ‘normalized’ masculinity in our culture,” says Jules, who lives in San Diego and serves in the U.S. Navy. Not to be left out, Jonathan and Sofie’s Just Between Us: Father & Daughter was due out in April. Although the two never formally journaled with each other, they say their letters, cards and talks over the years led them to design their journal with activities and hundreds of questions they hope young girls and dads would enjoy. “This is an opportunity, in a fun way, for a father— without being too preachy—to get across points to the daughter,” Jonathan says. “And for the daughter to let the father know, in an easier way than saying it face-to-face, things she wants to communicate.” At a time when kids are inundated with messages from social media, parents need to find creative ways to be influential, says Meredith. “Even if [your kids are] pushing you away,” she says, “your voice is still the most important.”

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Ask the Experts: Seniors & Aging

Special A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

The Carnegie at Washingtonian Center SEE PROFILE PAGE 42 M O C O 3 6 0 . M E D I A | M AY/J U N E 2 0 2 3 | 4 1

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Ask the Experts: Seniors & Aging Special A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

JEN WOOD, SENIOR SALES DIRECTOR 10200 Washingtonian Blvd. Gaithersburg, MD 20878 240-690-2734 www.lifeatthecarnegie.com

Q What makes The Carnegie different? A The Carnegie, expected to open its doors for new residents in the spring of 2024, will offer a signature experience to seniors in Gaithersburg with an expansive selection of premium amenities that curate holistic wellness. Centered around our Forbes Five-Star Travel Guide’s hospitality service and Kisco’s Signature Art of Living Well program, the premium amenities at The Carnegie are going to be like no other. There will be an aquatic center with a heated indoor saltwater pool, a curated art gallery and a lecture hall that will host our Red Carpet Speaker Series and other intellectual programming. There will be something for everyone at The Carnegie.

Q What is the Art of Living Well programming? A The Art of Living Well is a signature approach to health and wellbeing at all stages of life, encompassing the mind, body and soul. Through educationally stimulating programs, our residents will have multiple, unique opportunities

to pursue their passion and purpose, whether learning a new skill, a new language or a new favorite pastime. As part of this program, The Carnegie hosts our Red Carpet Speaker Series where we bring in keynote speakers, such as Carl Bernstein, to share their insights. An opportunity to experience life at The Carnegie before it opens is one of the reasons we started our Renaissance Priority Membership program.

Q What does it mean to be a Renaissance Priority member? A The Renaissance Priority Membership program allows those interested in making The Carnegie their home to essentially become part of the community now. Benefits include access to exclusive member-only events, priority apartment selection and VIP treatment at The Carnegie’s Red Carpet Speaker Series. This allows future residents to form friendships early with their soon-tobe neighbors, which could help pave the way for acclimating more easily once the time arrives for them to move into their new home.

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The Carnegie at Washingtonian Center

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4/12/23 2:24 PM

Ask the Experts: Seniors & Aging

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TONY J. LE WIS

Special A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

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Ask the Experts: Seniors & Aging Special A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

SAMUEL R. LISH, PRESIDENT AND CEO Recognized as a leader in the industry, Advanced Nursing + Home Support is the sole home care agency in Montgomery County to win the Best of Home Care’s Leader in Excellence award four years in a row (2020-2023) and has also been recognized as a top care provider and a top employer 15800 Crabbs Branch Way, Suite 350 Rockville, MD 20855 240-430-1500 www.advancedhomesupport.com

Q What got you interested in senior care?

A I founded Advanced Nursing + Home Support 30 years ago when my elderly father needed home care services. Years later, my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and our agency had an established “A” team of caregivers ready to jump in and provide her with competent, compassionate care. Through my experience, I knew that needs change. Therefore, using a team approach, we design unique plans of care for each client. We have a full continuum of home care services: transportation, companion care, personal care and skilled nursing services giving clients the security of knowing they will continue to receive the care they require.

Q What are some of your priorities for caregivers? A All care providers are certified,

licensed and undergo a comprehensive onboarding and orientation. Education of our care providers is a keystone to the quality of care we provide. Specialty training is offered in MS, ALS, Parkinson’s and dementia, as well as “soft skills” that include interpersonal relationships, cooking and how to communicate with the families. And for the safety of both care providers and clients, all care providers are required to be fully vaccinated for Covid-19 before they can take a case.

Q How do you measure your effectiveness? A We partner with Home Care Pulse, the industry’s leading independent satisfaction research firm. Every month, they conduct random live phone interviews with a percentage of our clients as well as our care providers. They compile the results and rank us against other providers locally and nationally.

H I L A R Y S C H WA B

Advanced Nursing + Home Support

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4/11/23 12:15 PM

Ask the Experts: Seniors & Aging

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Stein Sperling Bennett De Jong Driscoll PC F R O M L E F T: R A M A TA I B - L O P E Z , S O N D R A M . DOUGL AS, MONICA GARCIA HARMS, JULIE B . C H R I S T O P H E R , K AT H R Y N E . D E C K E R T, J O R D Y N Y. L U E K E R

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1101 Wootton Parkway, Suite 700 Rockville, MD 20852 301-340-2020 www.steinsperling.com

Q What are grandparent rights? A Recognition of grandparent rights is a fairly recent trend and a bit of a misnomer. Grandparent rights refer to the legal rights of grandparents to have access to their grandchildren, either through visitation or even custody in certain situations.

Q What circumstances can lead to grandparents seeking visitation or custody and what factors might the court consider? A Maryland’s statutes contemplate “reasonable visitation” to a grandparent if it is in the child’s best interest. Grandparents may seek visitation or custody when the parents of their grandchildren are divorced or separated, one or both of the parents are deceased or when there is evidence of abuse or neglect. Some factors that are considered include the child’s physical and emotional health, safety and welfare; wishes

of the parents, grandparents and the child, depending on maturity; as well as the relationship. Each case involving grandparents and visitation and custody is fact-specific and unique.

Q How can Stein Sperling help in the issue of grandparent rights? A While always considering the best interests of the child, our experienced family law attorneys can help grandparents understand their legal rights and legal options. They assist in navigating the legal system and provide support throughout this emotionally challenging process. It is sometimes possible to reach a settlement outside of court that satisfies both the grandparents and the child's parent(s). The family law attorneys at Stein Sperling can help negotiate a settlement agreement that protects the grandparents' visitation rights. M O C O 3 6 0 . M E D I A | M AY/J U N E 2 0 2 3 | 4 5

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Ask the Experts: Seniors & Aging Special A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

Best Senior Care

Q Why choose home care instead of a facility?

A LE X PE T UKHOV A ND SHA NNON PE T UKHOV, MD

A It has been our experience that aging

17830 New Hampshire Ave., Suite 302 Ashton, MD 20861 301-717-2212 www.bestseniorcare.us

at home can lead to a more satisfying aging process. Familiar surroundings and routines help the elderly age gracefully. Hiring caregivers through an agency gives assurance and protection. They are properly screened, trained and vetted. Our caregivers focus solely on one client. With no restrictions on who can come to visit, aging at home is the best option for an elderly individual with family in the area who does not want to be shut out by endless Covid restrictions that happen in a facility.

certain medical backgrounds. We provide them with training in common safety issues, fall prevention, understanding mental health disorders, bed mobility, incontinence care, nutrition and conflict management. We do not send out caregivers without being confident that they are equipped with all the necessary tools to respond to any sort of emergency. We are very fortunate to have such a strong team.

Q How can high-quality home care minimize emergency room visits and hospitalization?

Best Senior Care for over 20 years! We take extraordinary efforts to find multi-lingual, certified, licensed and carefully screened caregivers. We look for individuals with passion, experience, deep family ties, dependability and

emergency rooms in Maryland, Dr. Shannon Petukhov says: “Aging patients are more susceptible to falls that can have debilitating consequences. Confusion, physical ailments and degraded vision can all be to blame. Having a consistent home caregiver can dramatically reduce admission to the hospital.”

MICHAEL VENTURA

A As a physician in one of the busiest Q How do you choose your caregivers? A Many of our aides have been with

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Ask the Experts: Seniors & Aging

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Special A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

Family & Nursing Care FROM LEFT: CRYSTAL MCHARGH, ANDREA SCHOLES, REBEK AH BIANCO - BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGERS, MITCH MARKOWITZ, VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Family & Nursing Care is a leading resource for private duty home care services in the region. Since 1968, they’ve been helping older adults maintain their independence and quality of life as they age. Ninety-eight percent of surveyed clients have said they would recommend Family & Nursing Care to a

H I L A R Y S C H WA B

friend or family member. 1010 Wayne Ave., Suite 1100 Silver Spring, MD 20910 301-588-8200 www.familynursingcare.com

Q How should older patients and their families prepare for discharge from a hospital or rehab?

A After an inpatient stay, patients are at their weakest, can be confused, and are at a greater risk for a fall. It is essential that the right help is available at home, especially in the critical first 48 hours. Those who live alone or have an older spouse are at the greatest risk to be readmitted to the hospital and could benefit from additional help, especially immediately upon their return home. While recovery may continue with home-based therapy, depending on coverage (Medicare and/or insurance) it may not begin right away. Family & Nursing Care’s Hospital to Home program can arrange for a dedicated caregiver to be on hand to aid the transition home. We also have a team of liaisons available to visit with patients and their families in hospitals and rehabs

to help them understand their options for coverage and care at home. There are no long-term commitments required.

Q How does Family & Nursing Care step in to help with the transition home? A We arrange for a caregiver to help manage tasks of daily living such as errands, medication pick-up and reminders, groceries, meal preparation, bathing, dressing and support for those who may be at risk for a fall. Caregivers can also ensure the patient adheres to any special diet, practices breathing techniques and required exercises, and more. Many caregivers have used their background knowledge and training to recognize “red flag” symptoms so that post-discharge issues of note can be treated at a lower level of care and help avoid readmission.

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Ask the Experts: Seniors & Aging Special A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

S E T H O R I N G H E R , M D , FA C S M A R K D E T T E L B A C H , M D , FA C S 5454 Wisconsin Ave., Suite 1610 Chevy Chase, MD 6410 Rockledge Drive, Suite 305 Bethesda, MD 1120 19th St. NW, Suite 316 Washington, D.C. 12850 Middlebrook Road, Suite 410 Germantown, MD Feldmanhearingstudio@gmail.com www.feldmanhearingaids.com 240-235-0300

Q What do we risk by not treating hearing loss?

A Since 2017, hearing loss has been identified as the number one modifiable risk factor for the development of dementia. There is no greater way to reduce the risk of dementia than correcting hearing loss with hearing aids. Helping our hearing keeps us socially engaged and mentally stimulated.

Q Why visit the Feldman Hearing Studio? A The Feldman Hearing Studio is staffed with doctors of audiology that are backed by nine board certified ENT physicians, providing the best possible care and treatment. We offer comprehensive hearing and balance testing, hearing aid evaluations and all related services. We carry the largest selection of hearing aids of anyone around, from the most reputable manufacturers, and provide

the latest in technology. We are the most experienced providers of a new type of aid called Earlens on the East Coast.

Q What is Earlens and why is it different from traditional hearing aids? A Unlike traditional hearing aids that just make sounds louder through a speaker, Earlens offers the world’s only nonsurgical lens that moves the eardrum the way sound would. The ear tip transmits high fidelity audio signals directly to the lens, gently vibrating the eardrum across the full frequency range. This gives a richer, more natural sound than conventional hearing aids and it translates into improved sound quality and speech understanding, even with significant background noise. Most people who have used traditional hearing aids and switch to Earlens call Earlens a game changer.

H E AT H E R F U E N T E S

Feldman Hearing Studio

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4/11/23 12:16 PM

Ask the Experts: Seniors & Aging

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Special A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

Maplewood Park Place Named “Best Senior Living Community” by Bethesda Magazine readers in 2023 for the 14th consecutive year, Maplewood Park Place is a vibrant senior living community offering home ownership, an independent lifestyle and a full continuum of care – all under one roof.

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9707 Old Georgetown Road Bethesda, MD 20814 301-571-7444 301-571-7441 maplewoodparkplaceinfo.com

Q How does Maplewood Park Place offer an attractive lifestyle for seniors and make good financial sense, too?

A As a Lifecare Community, Maplewood Park Place offers residents the opportunity to own their home rather than rent, so residents can invest and preserve their wealth while enjoying it, too. Numerous services and amenities are included in the monthly fee and as homeowners, residents are free to make renovations to their apartments with Maplewood’s professional, on-site construction team standing by to help. Private bridge loans with reduced paperwork and a year-long repayment plan offer residents a simplified, stress-free option for buying at Maplewood before selling their existing home. Maplewood residents stay active and engaged with a variety of social, cultural and educational activities, including presentations by highly sought-after members of the media, politics, law,

economics, science and technology. They also enjoy concerts by world-class musicians and singers performing a diverse mix of jazz, classical, Broadway and ethnic music. Multiple fitness classes target different levels of ability. There is also a very popular pocket billiards program and bridge classes taught by certified instructors. Residents savor the outstanding five-star dining with a variety of menu choices daily. A full range of health care options is also available and as residents’ care needs change, they can move from independent living to assisted living, memory support or skilled nursing care while remaining in the same warm and familiar surroundings. In promoting mental, spiritual and physical growth, Maplewood Park Place is redefining retirement living for active adults 62-plus. Its residents continue to reap the benefits: new knowledge, new skills, new friendships and a vibrant new lifestyle.

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Ask the Experts: Seniors & Aging Special A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

The Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders The CCBD team includes Board-certified medical oncologists and hematologists Ralph V. Boccia, MD, FACP; Victor M. Priego, MD; Mark Goldstein, MD, FACP; and Bruce D. Cheson, MD, FACP, FAAAS, FASCO. 6410 Rockledge Drive, Suite 660 Bethesda, MD 20817 301-571-0019 www.CCBDMD.com

Q What are the most recent developments in cancer care? A The Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders serve patients with state-of-the-art infusion therapy, including immunotherapy.

Q What services does your practice provide to patients? A Our two offices, in Bethesda and Germantown, have in-

Q Are there standard treatments that you find the most successful for each type of cancer? A The CCBD physicians and staff take the time to get to know each patient and understand their unique needs. Treatment is customized to ensure the best possible experience throughout their care journey.

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house laboratories, a pathology department and a specialty pharmacy. Our patients have support services including nutritional advice and financial counseling.

Riderwood H E AT H E R H I C K S - M E L L O W, S A L E S C O U N S E L O R 3140 Gracefield Road Silver Spring, MD 20904 1-800-610-1560 www.Riderwood.com

Q What should seniors look for when considering a continuing care retirement community? retirement community is, like Riderwood, a place that offers independent living, plus multiple levels of on-site care, such as assisted living, long-term nursing care, respite care, memory care and home care. If a priority is to meet new people and stay active, look for a community that’s large enough to offer a variety of clubs, activities and amenities while retaining the warmth of a small town. Residents often refer to Riderwood as a “small town under one roof.” Its wealth of amenities are connected through climate-controlled walkways. Riderwood allows seniors to stay active and independent while enjoying peace of mind.

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A The first step is to understand that a continuing care

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Ask the Experts: Seniors & Aging

PR OF IL E S

Special A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

Specialty Care Services A L SIMONS, FOUNDER A ND MA N AGING MEMBER “We pride ourselves on providing customer support that is second to

Q What motivated you to be in the business of caring for seniors?

Q Do you have flexibility to meet individual needs?

A Driven by my personal experience

A Yes, we do. Regardless of a client’s

of visiting my grandmother in a nursing home, I founded Specialty Care Services in 2002 to help area seniors age comfortably and safely at home. We expanded from there.

lifestyle, age or living arrangement, whether they’re looking to maintain their independence, accelerate post-operative recovery, receive respite support or hospice care, all plans are individualized. Our pricing offers a good value, and we accept all long-term care insurance plans.

none,” says Al Simons. “Eighty percent of our referrals come from friends and family of those who have used our services and feel 100 percent comfortable leaving their friends and loved ones in our care.”

H E AT H E R F U E N T E S

8555 16th St., Suite 101 Silver Spring, MD 20910 301-585-6300 www.specialtycareservices.com

Q Do you believe home care is the best option? A Yes. Staying in your own home as you get older is called "aging in place" and many seniors choose this because of an emotional attachment to a particular home or community. Home care also gives loved ones the reassurance that their family members are being well cared for without forcing them into an unfamiliar, and possibly distressing, environment. Home care can keep mom or dad at home all the way through the end of life and can expand the range of options available, as best suits their situation.

Q Is it difficult to find good caregivers? A We hire only the best caregivers, dedicated to providing outstanding service and making life the best it can be. Our caregivers, all fully vaccinated, matched with clients based on casespecific experience and skillsets, ensuring warm, successful clientcaregiver relationships.

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Ask the Experts: Seniors & Aging Special A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

The Grandview T H E G R A N D V I E W S A L E S T E A M , L E F T T O R I G H T: T O P R O W : M I C H A E L PRICE, MEGAN CHUN, MIKE FLETCHER. BOT TOM ROW: GEORGE M I S H R A K Y, D E B B I E B R U M B A C H 6701 Democracy Blvd., Suite 150B Bethesda, MD 20817 1-888-216-3149 www.TheGrandviewSeniorLiving.com

Senior Living’s newest independent living community for active seniors 60 and over. There will be a variety of stylish one- and two-bedroom apartments on 14 floors. Amenities will include a fitness and aquatics center, salon, a park with walking paths and a great lawn for movies and concerts and more. Restaurants include a top-floor venue with a wine bar and stunning views. The on-campus medical center will have a full range of services. Construction begins this summer and the sales center has renderings of the planned community, virtual tours, and information about the timeline and pricing. The Grandview is pending approval from the Maryland Department of Aging.

COURTESY PHOTO

Q Why choose The Grandview? A Coming soon to Bethesda, The Grandview will be Erickson

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4/11/23 12:17 PM

Ask the Experts: Seniors & Aging

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Special A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

Montcordia F R O M L E F T: A N N E A R R I N G T O N ; L AT O N YA RICHARDS, RN; AND ELLE WILLIAMSON, RN Montcordia helps seniors live well by offering Concierge Companion Care and Aging Life Care Management services. Our care providers are carefully selected, highly trained and meticulously matched to provide an incomparable worry-free experience.

MICHAEL VENTURA

2 Wisconsin Circle, Suite 700 Chevy Chase, MD 20815 240-220-9627 www.montcordia.com

Q Why does someone need an Aging Life Care Manager?

A Montcordia's Aging Life Care Managers (ALCM) are champions of senior care. Our superpower is connecting seniors to the best care options based on individual lifestyles and health. We recommend eldercare professionals, coordinate care plans across healthcare specialties and offer guidance. Clients trust us to assist with day-to-day challenges, or more considerable life changes like selecting home care, assisted living, or rehabilitation centers. Our team is available 24/7, local and ready to step in. This is especially helpful if you do not have family nearby.

Q What makes the Montcordia Aging Life Care Team so unique? A Montcordia's Aging Life Care Managers are experienced, specializing in social work, nursing and psychiatric nursing. Our

customized services offer an elevated approach to traditional senior care by meeting the unique needs of our clients, like our coveted Concierge Companion Care services. Our companions are like the friend or colleague you are excited to spend time with and would choose to welcome into your life. Our companions promote the discovery of new interests and activities like gardening, painting, finding a unique podcast or planning an outing to a museum or theater. They are always ready to chat. We work hard to alleviate the stresses of senior care so families can focus on what matters most and have peace of mind. A client’s daughter said, “Knowing our Care Manager, Anne, can meet my mother at the hospital and be both an advocate and trusted friend has been a huge support for her and for me and my siblings who live out of the area.”

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Ask the Experts: Seniors & Aging Special A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

A ARON CAMERON, C E P, F O X E X E R C I S E P H Y S I O L O G I S T JASMINE BROMFIELD, DIRECTOR OF LIFE ENRICHMENT Chevy Chase House residents love the sincere commitment to overall wellness that the Life Inspired Program brings to them in one form or another every day. It focuses on the five core dimensions of wellness: the physical, creative, the mind, passions and connections. 5420 Connecticut Ave., NW Washington, D.C. 20015 202-478-9546 www.meridiansenior.com/ chevychasehouse

Q How does Chevy Chase House help seniors thrive?

A Atmosphere is not the most important factor in living a good life, but beautiful surroundings and conveniences do enhance one’s mood. We have welldesigned and spacious apartment homes with convenient features, delicious dining and a true commitment to overall wellness with the Life Inspired Program that focuses on the five core dimensions of wellness: physical, creative, the mind, passions and connections.

Q What kinds of physical fitness services do you provide?

A Chevy Chase House and national provider FOX Rehabilitation are proud to partner together to help our residents be stronger and more mobile to improve their quality of life. As part of this unique program, The Chevy Chase House has

an exercise physiologist on staff. Aaron Cameron works one-on-one with our residents at no cost to them. He also leads several of our daily classes such as tai chi, better balance, and strength training. As a partner with the Parkinson’s Foundation of The National Capital Area; he leads a Boxing for Parkinson’s class twice a week in our state-of-the-art gym.

Q What about the other dimensions of wellness? A We’re on it! Jasmine Bromfield, our director of Life Enrichment, fills the daily calendar with diverse activities that relate to creativity, the mind, passions and connections. Our Life Inspired program is an extension of our commitment to our mission statement: to enrich the lives of our residents through extraordinary experiences.

MICHAEL VENTURA

Chevy Chase House

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Made in MoCo: A Bethesda couple turns moss into art

FIELD TRIP: POOLESVILLE

PRETTY IN PASTELS

What to do when a “ministroke” strikes

KAYAKING AMONG THE GHOSTS

The 17th hole at the golf course at Omni Bedford Springs Resort, nestled in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains PAGE 72

PHOTO COURTESY OMNI BEDFORD SPRINGS RESORT

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GOOD LIFE MADE IN MOCO

Taking Root A lot of us fell in love with air plants during the pandemic—they bring the out-

doors in, and even the blackest thumb can keep them alive with an occasional misting of water. David Lanxner and his wife, Daphne Lee, were perfectly poised to benefit from that trend. In 2017, the Bethesda couple teamed up to start Potahto Home, an Etsycentered business that offers creative air plants, stylish pots and moss wall art so tactile it practically begs you to reach out and touch it. “I think more and more people are getting into the idea of having green homes,” Lanxner says. He and Lee, both in their 50s, make that as easy as possible—air plants require at least some watering, Lee points out, but Potahto Home also offers moss

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Bethesda couple Daphne Lee and David Lanxner craft one-of-a-kind pieces of plant art BY DAWN KLAVON products that don’t, and may be better suited for those unable to keep up with plant maintenance. The company’s hanging moss art prices range from $22 to more elaborate pieces for $175. From the start, the couple hoped to fuse Lee’s business acumen with Lanxner’s creative skills. She walked away from a product research and development career in the telecom industry to plant their startup; a few years later he left his homerenovation design job so they could dig

even deeper. They create their products in their Bethesda home and in a rented space in Silver Spring. Though based mainly on Etsy, their business (found at potahto.com) also sells plants and accessories and holds air plant workshops at Locally Crafted in Gaithersburg. They aim to get into more local stores. The company name is a play on “potato,” which Lanxner and Lee figured is a simple food consumed worldwide, transcending culture and boundaries—something they hope their products will do. They say they’ve shipped orders to clients as far afield as Australia, Europe, the Middle

PHOTOS BY MELANIE LANDSMAN

4/10/23 1:09 PM

Tickets On Sale Now!

TOP: Daphne Lee and David Lanxner at the work station in their Bethesda home, where they turn succulents and moss into works of art BOTTOM: Floating Forest Art Gift with preserved mushrooms and moss, $44 at Potahto Home’s Etsy shop

East and South America, to the tune of about 2,400 products per year. Of course, many of the distinctive pots and plants stay right here. “I’m very drawn to natural decor,” says Kensington resident Stephanie Blank, who discovered Potahto Home after buying five of the couple’s plant wall works of art at Locally Crafted. “It’s so cool that every piece is so unique.” She contacted Lee, and Potahto Home ended up creating custom decor for Blank’s Delaware beach house. Potahto Home’s most popular product, the corkbark wall hanging, features several live air plants mounted on virgin cork bark. The one-of-akind products range from $36 to $76 depending on size, and have been featured in the pages of Do it Yourself, a Better Homes & Gardens magazine. For these hanging wall holders, Lanxner and Lee source cork locally, handpicking every piece. It’s all 100% renewable product harvested from cork oak trees, they say. The next step is letting the unique features of each slab of bark guide the couple in where to place the air plants. Lee arranges the air plants on the bark, and Lanxner drills holes to fasten them with wire. “The excess [wire] is stored in the back, so as the plant gets bigger over time, you can adjust the wire and make the loop a little bigger,” Lanxner says. Lee and Lanxner collaborate on the design for all of their items, aiming to create a “nature scene that’s hopefully really immersive,” Lanxner says, “so you feel like it’s a portal into the natural world.”

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GOOD LIFE HEALTH

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Stroke of Time

Treating a transient ischemic attack, or ‘ministroke,’ as an emergency may ward off a full-blown stroke BY ROBIN L. FLANIGAN Amy Hayward of Rockville was a 33-year-old new mother when she was stricken by an agonizing headache. She called her husband right away, just as the text on her computer screen began moving from side to side, and she slurred her words on the phone. Hayward drove herself to the hospital, and 30 minutes later, she landed in the emergency room. The diagnosis: a TIA, or transient ischemic attack, commonly referred to as a “ministroke.” TIAs occur when someone experiences strokelike symptoms, such as slurred speech or paralysis, for less than an hour (usually only for a few minutes). “This definitely wasn’t on my radar,” recalls Hayward, now 42 and an executive assistant. After an MRI scan at the hospital showed no obvious cause for the TIA, she followed up with a visit to a vascular surgeon and was given a clean bill of health. “It was really scary. And there wasn’t an explanation for why it happened, which was the most jarring thing for me. The term ‘ministroke’ is misleading.” Given that TIAs are a lack of blood flow to the brain, they

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shouldn’t be dismissed as small, but instead treated as emergencies, according to a recent statement from the American Heart Association. Malik Muhammad Adil, a vascular neurologist and the medical director of the stroke program at Bethesda’s Suburban Hospital, puts it this way: “ ‘Ministroke’ is a misnomer. Instead of saying ministroke, people should say, ‘I had a warning sign of a stroke.’ That represents more the urgency of the matter.” TIAs affect about 240,000 people in the United States every year, estimates the American Heart Association, and are a powerful predictor of a stroke. Research shows that the risk of a stroke in the first 90 days after a TIA can be as high as 17.8%, with almost half occurring within 48 hours. That risk is especially high in the first 24 hours. Yet a 2017 survey by the American Heart Association showed that while one-third of U.S. adults had experienced symptoms consistent with a ministroke, only 3% called 911. While some may have dodged a bullet, it’s important to know the main risk factors for TIAs. Some, unfortunately, cannot be controlled: genetics, family history of stroke or TIA, age (risk

ILLUSTRATIONS BY JASON SCHNEIDER

4/10/23 3:52 PM

increases as a person gets older, particularly after 55), Type 1 diabetes and gender (men are at higher risk). Race is also a factor: Black and Latino people are at higher risk than white people. Risk factors that can be directly managed include high blood pressure (increased risk begins with readings higher than 140/90), high cholesterol, obesity (chiefly in the abdominal area), cardiovascular disease, smoking, lack of exercise, poor nutrition, heavy alcohol use and drug abuse, according to the Mayo Clinic. To decrease your risk, eat more fruits and vegetables for antioxidants; consume potassium and folate that protect and nourish the brain; and limit cholesterol, saturated fat and trans fat to reduce plaque buildup in the arteries, recommends the Mayo Clinic. The Cleveland Clinic also recommends three or four 40-minute sessions of moderate to intense aerobic exercise per week. Anyone who has a TIA should get an MRI within 24 hours of experiencing the initial symptoms, according to the American Heart Association. Immediate treatment—doctors may recommend aspirin or anticoagulants, depending on the patient’s situation—can decrease or eliminate the risk of a stroke. Adil says he can’t stress enough the need for more awareness regarding the importance of seeking medical attention immediately after a TIA. “There needs to be a better understanding about this,” he says. “Time lost can be a brain lost.”

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GOOD LIFE FIELD TRIP

Damascus Clarksburg

Germantown

Poolesville

A sunflower field in McKee-Beshers Wildlife Management Area

Olney

Gaithersburg

Rockville

Poolesville

Aspen Hill

Potomac Bethesda

Silver Spring

This rural town in the Ag Reserve lures visitors with a hip brewery, fields f sunfl wers and wine-blending classes. BY RENEE SKLAREW The landscape magically transforms during

the 45-minute drive from Bethesda to Poolesville. On either side of the country roads are farms, orchards and fields of grain—tiny Poolesville sits near Montgomery County’s northwestern border in the Ag Reserve, where zoning rules have been designed to protect farmland and agriculture, so the scenery remains preserved in time. Poolesville played a pivotal role in the Civil War, thanks to its strategic location by the Potomac River. During Reconstruction, emancipated African Americans purchased 200 acres of farmland to establish Sugarland, a freedman’s community nearby. Sprinkled among the farms today are stables where equestrians ride and hunt. Hikers and cyclists come for the easy access to the C&O Canal Towpath. Hordes of Instagrammers descend upon the sunflower fields at McKeeBeshers Wildlife Management Area every July. This spring, Poolesville’s tradition of farming and local food expands with the opening of The Crossvines at 16601 West Willard Road. The new vineyard and event space will help supply Montgomery County wineries with grapes and educate students and local growers about the winemaking process. For a small town, Poolesville offers big fun.

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COMING UP

SpringFest, Poolesville’s annual toast to barbecue, beer and blues music, is 2-7 p.m. May 6 at Whalen Commons. Tickets are $40 per person for unlimited pours from 17 breweries ($25 after 5 p.m.). Celebrate the whole darn town on Poolesville Day, Sept. 23 at Whalen Commons. The festival includes a 5K run/walk, live music, arts and crafts, classic cars, food vendors and fun stuff for kids. poolesvillemd.gov

EAT Poolesville’s newest eatery is Locals Farm Market. Situated in a restored 1840s home, Locals is a bakery, coffee shop, market and cafe that serves exceptionally good food. Come for the all-day breakfast, veggie bowls or hearty sandwiches (we love the barbecue beef brisket sandwich and giant chocolate chip cookies). Locals hosts Friday night jam sessions and operates a gallery for DMV artists. 19929 Fisher Ave., Poolesville; localsfarmmarket.com LEARN The Historic Medley District encompasses three buildings in Poolesville, most notably the John Poole House, built in 1793. The log structure was used as a trading post and began serving as Poolesville’s first U.S. Post Office in 1810. The Old Town Hall Bank Museum, another landmark, has exhibits portraying the town’s role in the Civil War. Drive down River Road to see Seneca Schoolhouse, which opened its doors in 1866. These buildings are open by appointment only. Check the website for special events. historicmedley.org SIP Perched on a hill and surrounded by apple trees is Landmade, a brewery that serves farm-to-table food in addition to its own craft PHOTO BY RENEE SKLAREW

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beer and housemade cider. Families and groups (often with dogs) gather around firepits and communal tables. Look for fresh oysters in season and giant pretzels with beer cheese. 19130 Jerusalem Road, Poolesville; landmadebeer.com

TASTE Cross the one-lane Montevideo Road bridge and remain on the gravel path to visit Rocklands Farm Winery. Two pretty red barns are surrounded by 34 acres of farmland. Reserve a table or firepit for your group, sip Anna’s Rosé and try one of the rotating food vendors. 14531 Montevideo Road, Poolesville; rocklandsfarmmd.com BROWSE While you can find plenty

of farm tools, garden supplies and horse gear in Poolesville, the only boutique in town is The Sweet Lemon. We love the hyperlocal products, toys and holiday decor. The store has activities for families, too. 19710-C Fisher Ave., Poolesville; shopsweetlemongifts.com

DINE Locals have stopped in at Bas-

sett’s Restaurant for steak, Marylandstyle fried chicken and fancy cocktails since 1993. The new owner has added pizza, sandwiches, tacos and breakfast to the menu, which you can enjoy on the three-season patio. 19950 Fisher Ave., Poolesville; bassettsrestaurant.net

PICK If your mantra is “buy local,” then a trip to Homestead Farm is for you. In the summer, you can pick your own strawberries, blackberries and peaches. Kids love watching the frolicking baby goats. The daily farmers market features enticing pies and fresh local produce. 15604 Sugarland Road, Poolesville; homestead-farm.net ADMIRE The annual July sunflower

bloom at McKee-Beshers Wildlife Management Area is an unforgettable scene to behold. Enthusiasts come to pose for photos and paint trompe l’oeil-style, tracking the flowers’ yellow faces as they turn to follow the sun. Enjoy their beauty, but please don’t trample them while you’re getting that perfect Instagram post. 18600 River Road, Poolesville; dnr.maryland.gov

ESTATE PLANNING CONSIDERATIONS FOR MULTIGENERATIONAL HOUSEHOLDS CONSIDER A FAMILY LIMITED PARTNERSHIP It is becoming increasingly common for multiple generations of a family to live together, with older and younger family members sharing a home. It can provide many benefits, including assistance raising children, caring for elderly relatives, as well as contributing additional resources towards household expenses. But what happens from a legal perspective when the cohabitation ends? Who has a financial interest in the home, for example? What happens when one of the owners dies or divorces? Does everyone need to move out? Who is responsible for the property taxes? These questions can be answered clearly with a little planning before establishing a multigenerational household. A tool that is often utilized in such a situation is the establishment of a family limited partnership to govern the ownership, as well as overall the rights and responsibilities of the family members as circumstances change over time, and could track partner financial contributions in connection with the home. Furthermore, the agreement can address how the partners (i.e., the family members) will utilize and maintain the property. If the property needs renovations or improvements, for example, a family member with independent financial resources could provide a loan to the partnership to cover the costs and the agreement could dictate how that partner would be repaid. Alternatively, the ownership percentages could also dictate the amount the partners need to contribute for the general upkeep. Another benefit to a family limited partnership is that the governing agreement can also dictate what happens if a family member leaves the household (i.e., by death/divorce/ choice). Maybe an appraisal should be required to determine the fair market value of the leaving family member’s interest? In that case, the remaining partners could purchase the leaving partner’s interest, or they may elect to sell the home to a third-party purchaser. The agreement can also provide specific terms about who has a right of survivorship to an interest in the home. Finally, the agreement can also address the implications of a divorce. For example, the agreement could provide that upon divorce, the soon-to-be former spouse of the family member, must vacate the home with (or without) receiving any financial repayment. In practice, this serves the purpose of a prenuptial agreement, or similar arrangement, to address a particular issue, which can avoid unnecessary litigation upon a dissolution of marriage. Of course, the establishment of a limited partnership has additional advantages and disadvantages which should be considered carefully, both from a practical and tax perspective. It may not always be the proper fit for every family but should be thoughtfully considered with the assistance of an experienced estate planning attorney.

SARAH J. BRODER Senior Associate

Estate Planning

Sarah J. Broder is an estate planning attorney. She focuses her practice on all aspects of estate planning, from helping clients prepare necessary documents for wealth, asset and beneficiary protection, and succession planning, as well as charitable gift planning techniques.

Micah A. Bonaviri is an estate planning attorney. He develops comprehensive estate plans of all types, and counsels clients on asset protection, business succession planning, guardianships, the impact of incapacity and issues involving trust and estate administration.

MICAH A. BONAVIRI Principal Estate Planning

301-340-2020 www.steinsperling.com MOCO360.MEDIA | MAY/JUNE 2023 63

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GOOD LIFE SHOPPING

A BRIGHTER SHADE OF

PALE

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BY LEENIKA BELFIELD-MARTIN

$125 at Pink Dot Styles, 3734 Howard Ave., Kensington, 240-558-3474, pinkdotstyles.com

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$125 at Ibhana Creations II, 1776 E. Jefferson St. (Federal Plaza), Ste. 116, Rockville, 301-424-0906, ibhana.net

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PURPLE HAZE

$79 at Scout & Molly’s, 11882 Grand Park Ave. (Pike & Rose), North Bethesda, 301-348-5047, scoutandmollys.com

PRETTY IN PINK

$39.50 at The Shop at Strathmore, 10701 Rockville Pike, North Bethesda, 301-581-5175, shop.strathmore.org

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$325 at Evoluxxy, 11804 Grand Park Ave. (Pike & Rose), North Bethesda, 301-281-2999, evoluxxy.com

BLUE SKIES $34.99 at Target stores, target.com

MINT FOR YOU

$325 at Morley, 7112 Bethesda Lane, Bethesda, 301-664-6440, shopmorley.com

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GOOD LIFE DRIVING RANGE

ADVENTURE A STAND-UP PADDLER AMID THE MALLOWS BAY GHOST FLEET DISCOVERS KAYAKING THERE IS A BIT LESS SPOOKY B Y M E L A N I E D . G . K A P L A N

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PHOTO COURTESY THE NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION

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Kayakers explore the waters of Mallows Bay.

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GOOD LIFE DRIVING RANGE

In less than an hour I was on two-lane roads, driving under lush canopies of trees. Near the quiet town of Nanjemoy, I parked at Mallows Bay. My friend Chris, a sailor and Chesapeake Bay aficionado, had been encouraging me to check out this spot for years because of its fascinating history. I finally decided to visit for my annual birthday paddle and was perfectly content to find that I was the only one celebrating. A park ranger handed me a waterproof map. “Don’t get too close to the ships,” she said. “There’s a lot of rusty metal out there.” On the dock, I looked toward the quiet bay, sparkling in the early morning sun. The ranger appeared behind me. “Do you have a whistle?” I nodded, apprehensively. “Three times means you need help.” On the water, I unfolded the map and cruised out to the first of 16 naval attractions, the Accomac, a massive World War II ship later repurposed as a ferry and the only Mallows vessel that rises high enough above the water to still look like a boat. I paddled around it easily, but as I followed the route to other points on the map—sunken ships known as the Mallows Bay Ghost Fleet—I quickly understood why the ranger warned me about getting too close. Weathered wooden planks and twisted metal rods poked out of the water at peculiar angles, sometimes dripping with

vegetation or sprouting trees— TOP LEFT: Joe Perrie of steampunk-like creations rising from Atlantic Kayak Co. explains the depths. Paddling along the edges the history of a sunken of these ships, my imagination ran ship to a group of kayakers. wild about what might loom underwater. Each time my paddleboard TOP RIGHT: An osprey tends fin, which dipped about a foot below its nest at Mallows Baythe surface, tapped a hard object, the Potomac River National bump threw me off balance and I teeMarine Sanctuary. tered on my board. I pictured myself BOTTOM RIGHT: The toppling into an abyss of jagged, rusty sanctuary is a popular metal remnants and wondered if I destination for local fishing was up to date on my tetanus shot. enthusiasts. I slowed to a crawl and kneeled on my board, carefully maneuvering between ship debris. (Not until much later did I notice a note on the waterproof map discouraging exploration by inflatable vessels or stand-up paddleboards.) Eventually I paddled off the mapped route and into the open water of the Potomac. Just north of the bay I spied a great blue heron whose neck curved like an S-hook. As I paddled back into the bay, steering clear of the heavy metal, a poky turtle moved along an old piece of wood, and dragonflies danced on the surface

FROM LEFT: PHOTO BY MELANIE D. G. KAPLAN; PHOTOS BY MATT MCINTOSH/NOAA

HE FIRST TIME I FOUND MYSELF AMONG THE GHOSTS, I was alone. And I was afraid. Four years ago, on a summer morning that was already muggy before the sun rose, I headed south from Washington, D.C., on the Maryland side of the Potomac River with my paddleboard strapped to the roof of my car.

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of the water. Out of harm’s way, I was struck by the ethereal beauty of these burial grounds. After I pulled my stand-up paddleboard from the water, I passed a group of kayakers about to begin a tour. I vowed to return for another visit. Without a fin. Mallows Bay, about 30 miles down the Potomac from D.C., is best known as a graveyard for wooden ships from World War I. These remains have created extraordinary habitats— some call them “floating forests”—for plants and animals. In 2019, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration designated the area as Maryland’s first national marine sanctuary, jointly managed by NOAA, the state of Maryland and Charles County. The graveyard isn’t the only home to ghost boats in the mid-Atlantic—you can see them at Kiptopeke State Park and Fort Eustis, both in Virginia. But Mallows is home to the largest fleet of shipwrecks in the Western Hemisphere, more than 100 vessels. And nothing beats seeing them by kayak. So after a couple-year delay during the pandemic, I persuaded a group of friends to play hooky from work on a Friday last August. We met near the bay, signed waivers, slathered on sunscreen and gathered around Joe and Shellie Perrie, the owners of Atlantic Kayak Co. and our guides for the morning. Joe displayed a laminated map on his easel. “This little divot is Mallows Bay,” he said, pointing to the eastern side of the Potomac.

He explained that most of the sunken ships here were constructed between 1917 and 1918 as part of President Woodrow Wilson’s aggressive plan to build 1,000 wooden ships for World War I. The steam-powered vessels were built at what we’d today call “pop-up” shipyards across the country, but the war ended before any of them made it to Europe. In the following years, metal parts, including engines and propellers, were sold for scrap and the wooden shells were brought to Mallows Bay, packed in like pickles and burned to the waterline. What lingers are the remains of about 100 steamers from that era as well as some more modern barges, ferries and military vessels. After a safety briefing (and a reminder to please interrupt if anyone saw a bald eagle), Joe and Shellie led us down to the dock and we paired off in tandem kayaks. My group of D.C.-area friends— which included Chris, my surfing pal, my stand-up paddling buddy, and kayaking and swimming friends—joined another 10 paddlers. We scooted our boats into the water and pretty quickly found our paddles catching clumps of what looked like green spaghetti, which Students from J.C. Parks I’ve been told is beautiful underElementary School on a field trip water. Shellie explained that SAV— at Mallows Bay-Potomac River “submerged aquatic vegetation” National Marine Sanctuary such as celery root and hydrilla—

IF YOU GO MAP COURTESY THE NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION; PHOTO BY NICK ZACHAR/NOAA

Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary 1440 Wilson Landing Road, Nanjemoy, Maryland sanctuaries.noaa.gov/mallows-potomac/visit

Atlantic Kayak Co. (atlantickayak.com) offers 2½-hour tours through October, generally on Friday and Saturday mornings and afternoons, age 8 and older, no experience necessary. $80. Charles County (charlescountyparks.com/parks/kayaktours) offers tours (through Atlantic Kayak) on Sundays. $80 for a 2½-hour tour in the morning and $60 for a 90-minute tour in the afternoon. REI (rei.com) offers 3½-hour tours; member price is $120. The sanctuary is open from 5:30 a.m. to dusk year-round; wrecks are best viewed at low tide.

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filters the water, which is good, but makes it harder to paddle at certain times of the year, not so good. Shellie led us back to a narrow part of the bay and talked about edible plants and the Indigenous peoples who once lived there. One of our first ships was the S.S. Boone, bits of which were exposed under bushes and shrubs. I looked at the remains of this onceimpressive ship: It was launched in 1918 before 3,000 spectators and sold for scrap in 1922. We all inched forward, single file. “This is creepy,” I said, looking over the side of my kayak at the ship frame and imagining the rest of it underneath. Long metal pins stuck out every which way, like dinosaur ribs that had

Built for the U.S. Emergency Fleet Corps and launched in August 1918, only months before the end of World War I, the S.S. Boone was eventually sold for salvage and grounded at Mallows Bay in 1922. gone through a washing machine. “It’s like a skeleton.” “It’s like ScoobyDoo,” my friend Scott called out, and several of us laughed about Scooby always finding himself in spooky places. At the next sunken ship, Shellie explained that when we see bushes or what looks like a small island, that’s a ship underneath. Over time, silt and sand have filled in the hulls of these ships, creating giant flowerpots. “Birds drop seeds on the silt, and those

PHOTO COURTESY THE NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION

GOOD LIFE DRIVING RANGE

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PHOTO COURTESY THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

turn into bushes and trees and provide ecologically valuable habitats,” Shellie said. The remains of the ship—both above water and below—provide unique structures to host birds, beavers, turtles and fish. Indeed, those habitats have helped convert Mallows Bay over time from a ship dump to an ecological paradise. Every so often, a paddler called, “Bald eagle!” We passed another half-dozen ships and Joe pointed out ospreys that nest on the Accomac, where visitors often see chicks in the spring. As we neared the dock after a couple hours on the water, a helicopter flew overhead. “Another osprey,” someone called out. We looked up at the V-22 Osprey and chuckled. Marine Corps Base Quantico was just across the river. Back on solid ground, we ambled back to our cars and spoke excitedly about the post-apocalyptic display we’d toured. How nice it felt to be with friends, in nature, on a workday; we

might as well have been a group of kids on an unchaperoned field trip. Conversation soon shifted, but the ghosts remained with me. I thought of all the effort that went into building these ships and what we humans were doing today that might intrigue kayakers a century from now. I brushed some SAV off my dry bag, reached in for the last quarter of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, hopped into the car with my surfing friend and headed home.

A poster celebrating ships launched by the U.S. Emergency Fleet Corps as part of the country’s engagement in World War I

Melanie D.G. Kaplan is a freelance writer who lives in Washington, D.C., and is always looking for a new place to take her paddleboard—with plenty of clearance for the fin. Her website is melaniedgkaplan.com.

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* Citi Mortgage Relationship Pricing — A Citibank deposit account is required to receive the interest rate discount or closing cost credit. Automated monthly transfers of the mortgage payment from a Citibank Deposit Account using automated drafting will be required. Actual interest rate discount or closing cost credit will depend on Citi Eligible Balance Relationship Pricing Benefit the level of the Citi Eligible Balances, which will be verified after final loan approval. $1 – $49,999.99 $500 off closing cost Deposit Account Balances must be in the account five (5) Business Days following final loan approval and Investment Account balances must be in the account six (6) Business Days following final loan $50,000 – $199,999.99 1/8% (0.125%) off interest rate approval. Citi eligible accounts include a personal, consumer Citibank Deposit Account in which the borrower is a direct signer, Citibank IRAs, and Investments held in linked Citigroup Global Markets $200,000 – $499,999.99 1/4% (0.250%) off interest rate Inc. (“CGMI”) accounts. The borrower must be an account holder on investment accounts. IRA and annuity positions shown on linked CGMI Account statements are eligible (except tax qualified annuities $500,000 – $999,999.99 3/8% (0.375%) off interest rate under sections 401, 403, or 457 of the Internal Revenue Code). Balances from Citibank Business / Commercial accounts, ERISA accounts, Keogh accounts, Bank Collateral accounts, Foreign accounts, Fiduciary accounts, and Trust accounts where the borrower is only listed as the Beneficiary are excluded. All Custodial type accounts are excluded with the exception of Custodial IRA accounts through $1,000,000 – $1,999,999.99 1/2% (0.500%) off interest rate Citibank or Pershing LLC where the borrower(s) is the beneficiary, which are eligible unless otherwise noted. Citibank IRAs that are not linked to a Citibank Deposit Account are excluded. $2,000,000 or more 5/8% (0.625%) off interest rate The closing cost credit offer will be applied at closing and may not be used prior to closing. In Texas, the credit may not result in you receiving cash back. If you are interested in Citi’s banking account relationship offers, please contact your Home Lending Officer or Mortgage Representative. Speak to your loan officer about whether the relationship offer is best for you. Citibank Mortgage Relationship Pricing for Citibank account holders can only be applied prior to loan closing and is subject to account and balance validation. Citibank Mortgage Relationship Pricing is subject to change without notice. Glossary of terms for this offer: Business Day means Monday through Friday and does not include federal holidays; Eligible Balances means total funds showing in the account at the time we verify the balances less any funds we determine you will need for a down payment or closing costs; Deposit Account means a Citibank personal checking and/or savings account as well as certificates of deposit and money market accounts; Investment Account means IRAs and investments held in Citigroup Global Markets Inc. accounts. Terms, conditions and fees for accounts, programs, offers, products and services are subject to change without notice at any time. Offer may be modified or withdrawn at any time without notice. Offer cannot be combined with other offers, except when applied with specific Community Lending Programs. Offers are not applicable on Home Equity Loans and Lines of Credit. This is not a commitment to lend. This offer contains information about U.S. domestic financial services provided by Citibank, N.A. and is intended for use domestically in the U.S. Investment products are offered through Citigroup Global Markets Inc. (“CGMI”), Member SIPC (http://sipc.org). Citibank and CGMI are affiliated companies under the common control of Citigroup Inc. © 2023 Citibank, N.A. NMLS# 412915. Member FDIC and Equal Housing Lender. Citi, Citi and Arc Design and other marks used herein are service marks of Citigroup Inc. or its affiliates, used and registered throughout the world.

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GOOD LIFE TRAVELER’S NOTEBOOK

PHOTOS COURTESY OMNI BEDFORD SPRINGS RESORT

The indoor pool at Omni Bedford Springs Resort

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Rejuvenate Your Senses at a

Historic Wellness Retreat BY CHRISTINE KOUBEK FLYNN

Everything about Springs Eternal Spa is

softness: plush towels, soothing music, delicious seasonal teas and snuggly blankets as you sink into a plump-cushioned chaise set by the fire or overlooking the gardens. And that’s just the spa’s cozy relaxation room within Pennsylvania’s historic Omni Bedford Springs Resort. Set in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, the resort makes the frazzled feel refreshed, which may be why it has played host to 13 U.S. presidents; President James Buchanan made it his summer White House in the mid-1800s. Originally renowned for the purported healing properties of the area’s mineral springs, the 2,200-acre property today includes a golf course, tennis courts, 25 miles of hiking and biking trails, lawn

croquet, an indoor pool, an outdoor pool complex and the 30,000-square-foot spa. Renovations during the pandemic included the addition of Evitt House Coffee cafe, a fitness center, an archery range, off-road vehicle trails and Tally Ho Outfitters. Stop by Tally Ho to book yoga and Pilates classes or private sessions, guided hikes (including a meditative walk), carriage rides, horseback riding, and equipment rentals for biking and fishing. The resort’s 220 rooms and suites (some pet-friendly) come in an assortment of room types, each with high-end down comforters and sheets. Several also have balconies with rocking chairs, and some have bathrooms with soaking tubs. Dine on classic American gourmet fare in an 18th-century setting at the 1796 Room.

The outdoor pool opens in May. Daily activities for children begin Memorial Day weekend. A “Spring Into Wellness” weekend—think spa, sunrise yoga and lazing about in a hammock—is June 2-4, and the Tally Ho Outfitters’ fishing tournament is June 18. Room rates begin at $274. Omni Bedford Springs Resort, 2138 Business 220, Bedford, Pennsylvania; 814-623-8100; omnihotels.com/hotels/bedford-springs

The firepit at Omni Bedford Springs Resort Inset:The resort’s archery range

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GOOD LIFE TRAVELER’S NOTEBOOK

America’s

Whiskey Roots

Rye whiskey tasting at George Washington’s Distillery & Gristmill

200-year hiatus and multimillion-dollar reconstruction, George Washington’s Distillery & Gristmill started producing spirits again 16 years ago, using Washington’s original methods and powered in part by a 16-foot waterwheel. Tours began in 2022. Led by team members who personally distill the product, the tour provides an opportunity to learn about Washington’s expertise in whiskey production; U.S. patent No. 3, the Oliver Evans automated gristmill system; heirloom grains; and how the team produces unaged rye whiskey (just as Washington did). Tours are available through October with a George Washington’s Mount Vernon admission ticket, or a distillery-andgristmill-only ticket for $10. Better still, you can sample three spirits on a whiskey tasting and tour, held Saturdays and Sundays in May, June and September from 2 to 5 p.m. Tickets: $50 for Mount Vernon members; $60 for nonmembers. The distillery is located less than 3 miles from the Mount Vernon estate. A shuttle runs between them. The whiskeys are served at the Mount Vernon Inn restaurant and also can be purchased at whiskey.mountvernon.org. The distillery serves as a gateway to the American Whiskey Trail, a collection of sites in Virginia and beyond that tell the history of spirit production in the United States. George Washington’s Distillery & Gristmill, 5514 Mount Vernon Memorial Highway, Alexandria, Virginia; 703780-2000; mountvernon.org/ the-estate-gardens/distillery/

PHOTOS COURTESY MOUNT VERNON DISTILLERY

Did you know that when he died, our fi st president was one of the nation’s largest whiskey producers? After a nearly

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PHOTOS AT LEFT BY BRETT WOOD; PHOTOS AT RIGHT BY HAYDEN STINEBAUGH

Clockwise from left: Our Lady of the Flowers Suite; Ash Bar’s breakfast; desserts at Ash Bar; and Bloom’s lounge

Bed Down in

Charm City’s New Creative Haven

Opened in the fall of 2022 in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood,

the Ulysses hotel reflects an amalgam of the city’s notable people and creative soul with a name that references James Joyce’s mythical novel and a ship that brought Bavarian immigrants to Baltimore. Designers for parent company Ash Hotels traveled to India, Europe and Vietnam to collect furniture and art for the Ulysses, along with pieces from Maryland estate sales. American filmmaker, writer, actor, artist and Baltimore native son John Waters’ brand of counterculture served as inspiration for several campy elements, from suite themes to carved wooden flamingo side tables.

The 116 guest rooms and suites feature hand-beaded lampshades, ornate dark wood furniture, four-poster beds and handmade quilts. All-day bistro Ash Bar, inspired by steam train dining cars, serves up everything from coffee and housemade pastries to pasta, fish and veggie items. Try the popular 24 Hour Pressed Potatoes. Sip cocktails—Midori sours and old-fashioneds are favorites here—at Bloom’s, the feast-for-the-senses lounge. Room rates begin at $179. Ulysses, 2 E. Read St., Baltimore, Maryland; 443-682-8578; hotelulysses.com

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GOOD LIFE CELEBRATIONS

School’s Out

A Maryland couple’s 225-person wedding came more than a decade after their high school meet-cute. BY DANA GERBER

THE COUPLE

Ashley Burneko (maiden name Parra), 32, grew up in Germantown and hopes to soon begin work as a certified egistered nurse anesthetist. Mike Burneko, 31, also grew up in Germantown and works as a customer success manager at Flxpoint, a software startup. They graduated from Our Lady of Good Counsel High School and, after a stint in Jacksonville, Florida, are looking for a house in Montgomery County for themselves and their dog, a Shiba Inu named Rey.

HOW THEY MET

Mike asked Ashley out in May 2006 after they sat next to each other in their ninth grade physics class. For their fi st date, they saw Stick It at the AMC movie theater in Gaithersburg’s Rio development, followed by a walk around the lake before their parents picked them up. “That ended up being our date spot” throughout high school, recalls Ashley. The pair decided to part ways during their senior year “so we could go do our own thing” at different colleges, Ashley says, but they reconnected in 2015 after they graduated. “I just always felt like there was just something missing,” says Ashley. “When I started talking to Mike again, I was like, Oh, this is what I was missing.”

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PHOTO CREDIT TK

BANTER CONTENT HERE

ILLUSTRATOR NAME TK

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GOOD LIFE CELEBRATIONS

THE PROPOSAL

On an unseasonably warm day just before Christmas in 2019, Mike and Ashley went shopping for last-minute gifts at Rio, and Mike suggested they take a stroll around the water. Eventually, they sat down on their usual bench, and Mike started reflecting on their ears together. “I was like, He’s just being so sweet; what’s going on?” Ashley says. He asked her to stand up for a moment, and he got down on one knee. “It was honestly the most perfect thing, because everything came full circle,” Ashley says.

THE WEDDING

Ashley and Mike said “I do” on March 12, 2022, with 225 guests present, in a Catholic Mass ceremony underneath the marble paneling and intricate mosaics of the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C. Though it was nearly spring, the festivities fell on a snowy day. “As soon as they opened the church doors, it was just Ashley and her dad with snow flurries going behind her with the wind blowing,” recalls Mike. The reception was held around the corner at the Mayflower Hotel, where the newlyweds made their ballroom entrance on a balcony overlooking the monogrammed dance floor. “We were just full of adrenaline,” Ashley remembers.

MUSIC

A four-piece band, Lost in Paris, provided the wideranging soundtrack for the big day. The bride had only one request: No slow songs. “I just wanted everybody to go out, have a great time, and it [to] just be more an upbeat thing,” she says. After the newlyweds swayed to a high school favorite—“I’ll Be” by Edwin McCain—for their fi st dance, bangers like “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas and “Shout” by the Isley Brothers got guests onto the dance floo .

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GOOD LIFE CELEBRATIONS

DRESS

The couple originally intended to get married in 2021, so Ashley had already picked out a dress before COVID-19 forced them to reschedule. “The fact that I had an extra year made me second-guess my dress,” she says, so she visited a boutique in Jacksonville, where the couple was living at the time. There, she fell in love with a Martina Liana fit-and-fl e gown bedecked with lace and sequins. “I had my mom FaceTime me, and it was one of those instant ‘when you know, you know’ type of situations,” Ashley says. A floor-length eil and a pair of diamond earrings completed the ensemble.

FOOD AND DRINK

CEREMONIES | RECEPTIONS | ENGAGEMENT PARTIES REHEARSAL DINNERS | POST-WEDDING BRUNCHES | BRIDAL SHOWERS

During cocktail hour, guests munched on passed appetizers such as shrimp cocktail and empanadas and grazed at a charcuterie station. The plated dinner was a fig-and goat-cheese salad along with a choice of crab cakes, beer-brined chicken, grilled filet mignon or cannelloni a an entree. Dessert was a fi e-tier passion fruit-fla ored cake, and the party favors—cookies called alfajores to honor Ashley’s Peruvian heritage—served as another sweet treat. One of the pair’s signature drinks was “Kiss Me Rey Now,” a bourbon-and-ginger-beer concoction named after the pair’s dog, whose likeness also adorned the cocktail napkins. At the afterparty, the hotel bar slung late-night bites including flatb ead, fries and sliders.

DECOR

Bouquets of white hydrangeas, pink roses and lush greenery festooned the tables at the reception, alongside clusters of candles. These touches against the backdrop of the gilded ballroom helped to achieve the “timeless” vision the bride was going for.

Say Yes!

A stylish wedding begins with us.

HONEYMOON

The newlyweds’ trip to Hawaii for their honeymoon this summer will come more than a year after they said “I do,” since Ashley was finishing up her doc orate degree. They hope to make the most of the tropical getaway, with plans to soak up some rays, sip a few cocktails and maybe try surfing

VENDORS

For more information, please call our Events Team at (301) 657-6420 or reach us via email at kayla.hicks@hyatt.com. One Bethesda Metro Center Bethesda, MD 20814 (301) 657-1234

Afterparty, Edgar Bar & Kitchen; band, Lost in Paris; bridesmaid dresses, Revelry; cake, Fluffy Thoughts Cakes; catering and venue, The Mayfl wer Hotel; ceremony, the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle; dance floor w ap, Kundan Events; dress, Love, a Bridal Boutique; florist Flowers ’n’ Ferns; hotel, The Mayfl wer Hotel and Moxy Washington, D.C.; invitations, Shine Wedding Invitations; makeup, Makeup by Ana B; photography, Liz Fogarty Photography; planner, Mallory Rood with All the Dainty Details; transportation, Unlimited Charters; tuxedos, The Black Tux; videography, Claude Rob TV.

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BANNER TEAM 301.365.9090 Info@BannerTeam.com • BannerTeam.com

Front Row: Emily Moritt, Michelle Teichberg, Wendy Banner, Julia Fortin, Ilene Gordon Back Row: Gail Gordon, Ashley Vonada, Pat Karta, Jody Aucamp

AWARDS AND HONORS Over $160 Million Sold & Settled, 2022 • Top Producer, Bethesda Magazine, 2023 • Best Realtor Team, Washingtonian, 2022 • #1 Group in #1 Long & Foster Office, 2010-2022 • Top Vote Getter, Best of Bethesda Real Estate Team, 2022 • Donated More Than $136,000 to Local Charities, Pay it Forward Program, 2017-2022

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6 BR | 9 FBA, 1 HBA Contact Wendy Banner 301.365.9090

7 BR | 7 FBA, 3 HBA | Elevator | Sport Court Contact Jody Aucamp 240.778.8227

3 BR | 3 FBA, 1 HBA Contact Wendy Banner 301.365.9090 or Ilene Gordon 301.440.10607

P E N T H O U S E AT T H E D A R C Y Bethesda Rooftop Terrace $3,395,000

NEAR POTOMAC VILL AGE Elegant New Construction $3,390,000

E P I T O M E O F LU X U R Y L I V I N G Belvedere, N Potomac $2,195,000

3 BR | 2 FBA, 1 HBA Contact Wendy Banner 301.365.9090

6 BR | 7 FBA, 1 HBA | Elevator Contact: Wendy Banner 301.365.9090

4 BR | 4 FBA, 2 HBA Contact Michelle Teichberg 301.775.7263

QUINTESSENTIAL POTOMAC Potomac Falls Call for Pricing

S U N F I L L E D O P E N F LO O R P L A N Grosvenor Woods Call for Pricing

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4 BR | 4 FBA, 1 HBA | 2.1 Acres with Pool and Tennis Contact Wendy Banner 301.365.9090

4 BR | 4 FBA, 1 HBA | Close to Shopping & Metro Contact: Ilene Gordon 301.440.1060

2 BR + Den | 2 FBA, 1 HBA | 2 Car Garage Contact: Wendy Banner 301.365.9090

$1,150,000

“A Team Behind Every Transaction” Bethesda Gateway Office 301.907.7600 Readers’ Pick: Best Brokerage for Luxury Homes, Long & Foster® Real Estate

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:53 AM

F. HILL SLOWINSKI, JD m 301.452.1409 | o 301.339.4000 Hill@LNF.com | www.hillslowinski.com As a 13th generation Marylander and veteran real estate agent (DC-MD-VA), I have a deep appreciation of our community, its proximity to the city, and its way of life. Clients include non-profit and corporate executives, consultants, lawyers, trustees, conservators, and empty nesters. I have advised hundreds of clients throughout Bethesda, from Potomac to Annapolis, and Chevy Chase to Southern Maryland, a testament to my broad network, a wealth of experience, and unsurpassed level of service. Clients find my most successful and satisfying approach is as their consultant, educating and guiding rather than selling and pressuring. My values of honesty, integrity, and always doing the right thing comprise my philosophy of putting the client first and going ‘above and beyond.’ More importantly, I help people change their lives, assist them in moving forward, and make it easier for them to make good decisions. Greater Bethesda Chamber of Commerce, past VP, Executive and Real Estate Committees, and Director Consultant, Sloans & Kenyon Luxury Real Estate

BOB GRAVES

Associate Broker • 43+ years in Real Estate • Retired Educator after 34 years • Specialize in listing and selling, love to renovate a home and see it sold 301.538.9337 | Bob.Graves@LNF.com N Potomac-Rockville Office 301.975.9500

NAJAM CHAUDHRY

Realtor® • Over 12+ years in Real Estate • Licensed in Maryland and Ohio • Speaks: Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi, English • Specializes in interior design and finding economical deal for clients 301.537.3328 | Najam.Chaudhry@LNF.com

PHYLLIS PINTO

Realtor® • Over 10+ years in Real Estate • Retired from health care industry • Licensed in Maryland • Highly recommended, dedicated to client services and attentive negotiations 301.520.3758 | Phyllis.Pinto@LNF.com

Long & Foster® Real Estate, Readers’ Pick: Best Brokerage for Luxury Homes

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m 202.253.2269 | o 301.907.7600 ben.fazeli@LNF.com | www.benfazeli.com “Having lived and traveled on three continents, I have a multi-cultural background that allows me to work well with a highly diverse clientele.” Raised overseas, Ben attended boarding school in Switzerland and spent summers with his parents in the south of France. With clients from all over the world, Ben has a deep-rooted appreciation for people of all cultures. In addition to a master’s degree in international law from American University, Ben is a former bank executive who understands financing and the economy. Clients rely on him not only for buying and selling strategies, but to help them understand real estate as an investment. Ben believes that you should never take yourself too seriously, and his trademark humor brings laughter during the most difficult transactions. Affiliated with the award-winning Bethesda Gateway Office, Ben is proud to work with the best agents in the business.

“His knowledge of the market, grasp of property values, and what constitutes a good investment have always been spot on.” “His expertise in the field is commendable, his patience outstanding, and his honesty reassuring.” “His relaxed demeanor makes the entire real estate process fun, and his integrity never waivers.”

Readers’ Pick: Best Brokerage for Luxury Homes, Long & Foster® Real Estate

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Explore the “coastal grandmother” look

A peek at some of the area’s most expensive homes

WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD: FOREST GLEN / LOCAL HOME SALES BY THE NUMBERS

Andrew Gordon and his son, Franklin, share a home with Franklin’s mother and grandmother. Here’s how more people are making multigenerational living work. PAGE 88

PHOTO BY JOSEPH TRAN

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HOME HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS

BEACHY KEEN

With watery shades of blue, natural materials and a serene seaside vibe, the coastal grandmother trend isn’t about age—it’s about lifestyle. The look’s inspiration: Diane Keaton’s home in the movie Something’s Gotta Give. BY CAROLYN WEBER

SOFA CHIC The workhorse of every Hamptons-inspired interior: a crisp, classic white sofa, like this Norfolk model in a basket-weave performance fabric that never goes out of style. $6,298 to $7,898 at Serena & Lily, 7121 Bethesda Lane, Bethesda; 240-531-1839; serenaandlily.com CASUAL CUSHIONS Big, comfy pillows in natural tones exude cozy cottage charm. These 23-inch squares from designer Leanne Ford are covered in machine-washable 100% linen. $47.95 to $67.95, or $19.99 to $49.95 WOVEN (covers only) at Crate & Barrel, 4820 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.; 202-364-6100; crateandbarrel.com WONDERS Natural texture and practical storage make handwoven baskets a must have. The Aimee square arrow Hyacinth baskets come in three sizes, look stylish, and keep anything from magazines to throw blankets close at hand. $34.99 to $49.99 at World Market, 12266 Rockville Pike, Rockville; 301-816-2480; worldmarket.com

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COURTESY PHOTOS

4 BRIGHT IDEA With its scalloped edges, this Rattan Bubble Flushmount ceiling light fixture feels both nostalgic and modern. $199 at West Elm, 951 Rose Ave. (Pike & Rose), North Bethesda; 301-230-7630; westelm.com 5 ALL THE DISH Blue and white

accessories are a beach-house staple. The Italian Blue Floral 12-piece dinnerware set works for morning croissants or a dinner party. $200 at Sur La Table, 11874 Grand Park Ave. (Pike & Rose), North Bethesda; 301-230-1503; surlatable.com SWEET SHEETS Reminiscent of vintage linens, Julia Berolzheimer’s bedding line embodies the coastal grandma aesthetic via a reversible duvet and shams ($169), embroidered sheet set ($249) and scalloped pickstitch cotton quilt ($319). All at Pottery Barn, 4750 Bethesda Ave., Bethesda; 301-654-1598; potterybarn.com HOT WHEELS The quintessential beach cruiser in the perfect shade of periwinkle. $699 at Dick’s Sporting Goods, 2 Grand Corner Ave., Gaithersburg; 301-947-0200; dicksportinggoods.com

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HOME MULTIGENERATIONAL LIVING

FAMILY

BY AMY HALPERN | PHOTOS BY JOSEPH TRAN

PHOTO CREDIT TK

ALL IN THE

As multigenerational living becomes more popular and housing prices rise, many homeowners are building out to take in their grown children and grandchildren

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PHOTO CREDIT TK

Sara Gordon (right) in front of the Cabin John home she shares with her son, Franklin Gordon; mom, Nicki Wright; and husband, Andrew Gordon

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HOME MULTIGENERATIONAL LIVING

ate Mercer and Sara Gordon grew up a block apart in their eclectic Cabin John neighborhood. They celebrated birthdays

together, had sleepovers at each other’s homes, and ice-skated together on the C&O Canal when it froze over. Their moms were in the same book club and sewing circle. Now, Mercer, 34, and Gordon, 35, are moving back to the houses that their moms still live in and own. But this time, the longtime friends are bringing their husbands and kids with them. “We’re not [good at sewing],” Mercer says of herself and Gordon. “But maybe we could turn [the neighborhood sewing circle] into wine night.” Over the past year, each young woman’s childhood home has been extensively remodeled to include private “suites” for their mothers—giving them, their husbands and their kids the run of the rest of the house.

Their homecomings—along with the renovations that allow for more comfortable multigenerational living— were their moms’ ideas. “I could have sold my home after my husband died and moved into a little condo that probably would have cost what I’d have sold my house for, but I didn’t want that,” says Chris Davison, Mercer’s mom, 63. She raised all four of her now-grown children in the house; it has been part of her late husband’s family since the early 1900s. Davison hosted Mercer, her husband, Ryan, and their two young daughters for more than a year during the pandemic, after the couple sold their house in Gaithersburg and couldn’t find another house in their price range nearby. “Everything went skyrocketing,” Davison says. After 15 months, the Mercers relocated to an apartment in North Bethesda, but Davison knew that that the growing family would eventually need more space. Liv-

Andrew Gordon, Sara Gordon, son Franklin Gordon and Nicki Wright in the new brightly lit nook on their second floor

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ing under the same roof worked out so well during the pandemic that rather than risk that her daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren move out of the area to find a house they could afford, she asked them if they wanted to move back in with her, this time permanently. The couple, whose third child is due in May, said yes right away, she recalls. “Both me and Kate love to cook,” says Davison’s son-in-law Ryan Mercer, 33. “It’s not a big deal to put out another plate for ‘Neenie,’ ” the name his kids call Davison. And his mother-in-law, he says, is easy to get along with. Meanwhile, Nicki Wright—Gordon’s mom—was proposing something similar to her daughter and son-in-law. Widowed since 2016, Wright was living alone in the home that had been in her husband’s family for generations—the house where she and her husband had hosted their annual Easter egg hunt and where her daughter, an only child, was married. Wright, 73, had been watching her grandson, Franklin, full time since he was born in 2021. It was a great arrangement for all of them to have her watching the baby while they were at work, but the apartment that Gordon and her husband Andrew were renting was getting tight. She worried that they, too, might end up farther away where housing was more affordable. If they all pooled their resources, Wright figured, they could make updates to the Cabin John house—including a bumpedout suite for her—to make it comfortable for everyone to live there together. “I said, ‘What do you guys think about moving in with me and we’ll make an addition?’ ” she recalls asking Sara and Andrew, 38. “And they said, ‘Oh, yeah!’ ” Now Wright and her family are waiting for renovations to the Cabin John house to be completed. In the meantime, she has been renting an apartment near her daughter and son-in-law’s apartment in Northwest D.C.

Multigenerational living is a growing trend—and not just with adult children taking in elderly parents. Rather, as property values rise and neighborhoods in desirable public school districts become unattainable for some young families, many older folks still in their longtime

NATIONWIDE, THE NUMBER OF AMERICANS WHO LIVE IN MULTIGENERATIONAL FAMILY HOUSEHOLDS IS ABOUT

FOUR TIMES GREATER THAN IT WAS IN THE 1970s —Pew Research Center

MARYLAND IS NOW THE

SIXTHHIGHEST STATE IN THE COUNTRY FOR

MULTIGENERATIONAL LIVING —U.S. Census

MORE THAN 107,000 HOUSEHOLDS OF THREE OR MORE GENERATIONS ARE LIVING TOGETHER —U.S. Census

homes are taking in their grown children and grandchildren to live with them. The multigenerational trend is due in part to changing demographics. Recent immigrants, as well as Black, Asian and Hispanic Americans, now account for most of the overall population growth in both the county and the U.S., and these are the groups more likely to live with several generations under one roof, according to the Pew Research Center. But the increase in multigenerational living is also the byproduct of a housing crunch that hit the West Coast over two decades ago and more recently has moved eastward, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

In 2019, to help alleviate the local housing shortage, Montgomery County

amended longstanding zoning laws to make it easier for homeowners to build accessory dwelling units (ADUs) on their properties. Also known as “in-law suites,” ADUs are basically secondary residences on existing homesites—with kitchens, bedrooms, full bathrooms and their own entrances. They can be stand-alone buildings or self-contained units built over a garage, carved out of a walk-out basement, or attached to the back of the main house. ADUs give homeowners more options when it comes to supporting their grown children, grandchildren or elderly parents, say housing advocates. These units also make great rental properties, according to local builders who say ADU rentals are particularly attractive to schoolteachers and first responders who work in the county but can’t afford the rent of most large apartment complexes near their jobs. The county’s zoning changes not only make the ADU permitting process easier than before, but also allow homeowners with lots as small as 6,000 square feet to build them. Previously, ADUs were generally allowed only on lots of more than an acre. “It’s opened the opportunity for more people to come and take advantage of the new law,” says Ehsan Motazedi, deputy director for the Montgomery County Department of Permitting Services. Before the zoning changes were implemented, the county issued between 20 and 30 ADU permits most years, Motazedi estimates. Now

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HOME MULTIGENERATIONAL LIVING

MULTIGENERATIONAL TV SHOWS

TYLER PERRY’S HOUSE OF PAYNE

DALLAS

ONE DAY AT A TIME

Several generations move in and out from under one Atlanta roof, owned by patriarch Curtis Payne (LaVan Davis), on House of Payne (2006-2012). The series, created by Tyler Perry, got revived by BET in 2020.

The whole Ewing clan bunked down in homes at the family ranch, Southfork, on Dallas (1978-1991). Maybe that’s why there was always so much drama, including the “who shot J.R.?” plotline.

Three generations of a CubanAmerican family—a single mom, her teenage daughter and her old-school mother— worked things out One Day at a Time (2017-2020), based on the ’70s Norman Lear series.

“People want [ADUs],” says Sean Ruppert, president of Cabin John-based OPaL, the design-build firm that

renovated the Davison and Wright homes. But he says the cost of an ADU—which can easily top $150,000—along with the size restrictions that are still in place have so far kept many people in the county from going forward with one. ADU permitting was not required for the Wright and Davison projects because neither involved a second kitchen or a separate entrance, though Wright says she briefly considered having her own stand-alone unit. “I could have had a little house in the backyard, but I wanted…to be together,” she says. “I had a couple who was very close [to building an ADU],” adds Marty Mitchell, president of Hometown Collection, an affiliate of Rockville-based home builder Mitchell & Best. “The grandmother was basically the day care,” and the family wanted to all live under one roof, he says. “They couldn’t get over the [county’s] 1,200-square-foot

limitation [on ADUs],” so they put the plan on hold. Mitchell says that even if the size limit and cost of building an ADU is discouraging to some homeowners, he’s still seeing an uptick in buyers for home plans that include two owner’s suites—one upstairs and one on the main level—a design popular with multigenerational households. Mitchell is so confident that the ADU trend is growing that his company is about to market two different plans for stand-alone ADUs. “Going back to 50, 60, 70 years ago, [the county] chewed up the buildable land [with single-family-zoned lots] and now we still have people who [want to come], but we just can’t produce enough housing for them,” Mitchell says. “ADUs are just one more tool in the tool chest.” Other area builders are seeing not only a surge in multigenerational housing in general, but also in ADUs. This

“ I COULD HAVE HAD A LITTLE HOUSE IN THE BACKYARD, BUT I WANTED...TO BE TOGETHER.” —Nicki Wright, Cabin John resident

TV POSTERS COURTESY THEMOVIEDB.ORG

those numbers have more than tripled. According to the Department of Housing and Community Affairs (DHCA), 126 ADU permits were granted in 2022, 122 in 2021, and 110 in 2020, the first full year of the zoning change.

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MAKE YOUR HOME THE HOME OF YOUR DREAMS spring, Maryam Tabrizchi, principal architect with Chevy Chase-based Elie Ben Architecture, completed two highend ADUs for clients—including one for a Bethesda family with four young kids. “In the short term, we are going to rent the ADU to younger people…for a more affordable housing option for them and some income for us to offset some of the cost,” says the owner of the Bethesda property, who didn’t want to be identified because he didn’t want to invite scrutiny of the family’s use of the ADU. In the long term, the homeowner says by email, “our parents might need assistance...[or] we may move into the ADU and share the main house…with the family of one of our children. ...It’s all about having options.”

Teresa Frene, 66, remembers the battles she had with the county over permitting for her stand-alone ADU. In 2008, the divorced mother of three applied for a permit to build one behind the Silver Spring split-level that had been in her family for years. She wanted to live in the ADU and offer the main house to her grown son, his girlfriend at the time and the couple’s newborn baby, all of whom were living in Northeast D.C. “I was a pioneer,” she says. The county kept rejecting her plans and sending her back to the drawing board. It took about eight months to get the project approved. “Ultimately, after being a completely persistent pain in the neck to the people at the county, they gave it to me,” she says. Frene has now lived in her two-story ADU for about 13 years. It has a full kitchen, a main bedroom and a living room on the main level, and two bedrooms and a bathroom downstairs. These days, two of her eight grandchildren live with her. Her son remained in the main house after his previous relationship ended and now lives there with his wife of eight years and the couple’s twin toddler sons. When Frene’s young grandsons want to visit her, they stand on the deck— which provides entrances to her place and the main house—and yell, “Yaya! I wanna see Yaya!” she says, and she’ll

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HOME MULTIGENERATIONAL LIVING

Nicki Wright and grandson Franklin Gordon take their daily stroll around the construction.

stop whatever she’s doing to open the door and let them in. “It’s a win-win,” she says. In October, Frene fell on the stairs while taking out the trash. Her daughter-in-law, who’s a doctor, was there to confirm that she’d broken her arm, so her son immediately drove her to the emergency room. “It’s nice to have a doctor in the house,” Frene says. For Cheryl Winn, 43, multigenerational living has always been the norm. When her mother’s parents immigrated to the U.S. from Hong Kong in the 1970s, her parents—who were already living here—chipped in with her grandparents to buy a small split-level in Bethesda with the intention of everyone living together. When Winn’s mom found out she was pregnant with her, the two generations bought a slightly larger house together—a ranch-style house about a mile away—and all moved there. The plan was always that her grandparents would live with them. They helped raise Winn and her two siblings, and eventually, the younger generation

helped care for their elders, Winn says. At one point, four generations lived under one roof— including Winn’s grandmother, her parents, her husband, and their two oldest kids. She and her husband officially bought the house from her parents eight years ago, “but that didn’t change anything except on paper,” she says. Now a mother of five, Winn and her family built a second-story addition on the house about six years ago so she and her husband could have a suite upstairs and each of their children could have their own bedroom down the hall. Her parents have a “wing” of their own off the living room, complete with sitting room, bedroom and full bathroom. It was a personal choice, not a financial decision, for everyone to live together, Winn says. “I had a relationship with my grandparents that I wouldn’t trade for anything, because we lived together and we grew up with them,” she says. “And we [want] that for our kids as well.”

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HOME WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD

FOREST GLEN

Forest Glen Older homes, modern comforts BY CAROLYN WEBER

Silver Spring’s Forest Glen

neighborhood is a suburban enclave with urban amenities. It’s bounded by the Beltway to the south, Dennis Avenue to the north, Sligo Creek Parkway on the east and Capitol View Avenue on the west. Georgia Avenue (Maryland Route 97) bisects the neighborhood, and there are two ZIP codes, 20910 and 20902.

AMENITIES Forest Glen is uberconvenient thanks to easily accessible public transportation, including a Red Line Metro station within walking distance for most residents. Holy Cross Hospital is here, and Westfiel Wheaton shopping center, Costco, Aldi and Snider’s Super Foods, a local gem, are close by. VIBE Family-friendly, with sidewalks, parks, playgrounds, bike trails, Sligo Creek, a weekend farmers market in the summer, Glenwood Pool and Flora M. Singer Elementary School and Sligo Middle School. 96 MAY/JUNE 2023 | MOCO360.MEDIA

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HOUSING STOCK Mostly singlefamily homes built in the mid20th century. But there are also historic homes, townhomes and some condos and apartments. LANDMARK Forest Glen is home to St. John the Evangelist Parish, founded in 1774 by the Rev. John Carroll, the fi st archbishop of the Catholic Church in America. There is a historic cemetery on the site and a stone church dating from 1894, which is still in use. FUN FACT

WHAT’S NEW A new Metro entrance on the east side of Georgia Avenue, with an underground pedestrian passageway, is slated for 2026.

HOMES SOLD IN JANUARY

$487,000

AVERAGE SALE PRICE

AVERAGE DAYS ON MARKET

The Forest Glen station is 196 feet below ground, the deepest in the Metrorail system.

PHOTO BY KELLY MARTIN

4/10/23 12:43 PM

Drapery

Reupholstery

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5414 Randolph Rd. Rockville 20852 Visit Showroom Mon-Sat 9:30am-6pm • 301-424-1900

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HOME BY THE NUMBERS

FEBRUARY’S MOST EXPENSIVE

HOME SALES

Data provided by

SALE PRICE:

A peek at one of the area’s most expensive recently sold houses

$2.4 million LIST PRICE: $2.4 million

SALE PRICE:

$17.3 million LIST PRICE: $19.5 million

Address: 3900 Nebraska Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20016 Days on Market: 43 Listing Agency: Compass Bedrooms: 7 Full/Half Baths: 6/3

Address: 3827 Albemarle St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20016 Days on Market: 84 Listing Agency: Compass Bedrooms: 6 Full/Half Baths: 4/1

SALE PRICE:

$2.3 million LIST PRICE: $2.5 million

Address: 5800 Midhill St., Bethesda 20817 Days on Market: 107 Listing Agency: Long & Foster Real Estate Bedrooms: 5 Full/Half Baths: 4/1

SALE PRICE:

LIST PRICE: $6 million

LIST PRICE: $3.8 million

LIST PRICE: $2.2 million

$3.4 million

$2.1 million

Address: 6412 Highland Drive, Chevy Chase 20815 Days on Market: 0 Listing Agency: Long & Foster Real Estate Bedrooms: 6 Full/Half Baths: 6/3

Address: 8801 Belmart Road, Potomac 20854 Days on Market: 99 Listing Agency: Compass Bedrooms: 8 Full/Half Baths: 10/1

Address: 6312 Tone Drive, Bethesda 20817 Days on Market: 8 Listing Agency: Douglas Elliman of Metro DC Bedrooms: 5 Full/Half Baths: 4/1

SALE PRICE:

LIST PRICE: $5 million

LIST PRICE: $3.3 million

LIST PRICE: $2.2 million

$4.9 million

$3.3 million

$2 million

Address: 3701 Fordham Road NW, Washington, D.C. 20016 Days on Market: 8 Listing Agency: Washington Fine Properties Bedrooms: 6 Full/Half Baths: 5/1

Address: 7505 Helmsdale Road, Bethesda 20817 Days on Market: 19 Listing Agency: RE/MAX Realty Services Bedrooms: 6 Full/Half Baths: 6/2

Address: 8509 Howell Road, Bethesda 20817 Days on Market: 1 Listing Agency: Washington Fine Properties Bedrooms: 4 Full/Half Baths: 5/0

SALE PRICE:

LIST PRICE: $4.7 million

LIST PRICE: $3 million

LIST PRICE: $1.9 million

$4.4 million Address: 9 W. Irving St., Chevy Chase 20815 Days on Market: 101 Listing Agency: TTR Sotheby’s International Realty Bedrooms: 6 Full/Half Baths: 5/2

$2.6 million Address: 6430 Bradley Blvd., Bethesda 20817 Days on Market: 86 Listing Agency: Compass Bedrooms: 7 Full/Half Baths: 8/3

$2 million Address: 3427 Porter St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20016 Days on Market: 65 Listing Agency: Coldwell Banker Realty Bedrooms: 5 Full/Half Baths: 3/2

PHOTO BY CASSANDRA MCKEVITT

$6.4 million

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KENT $6,400,000 4948 Lowell Street NW, Washington, DC Michael Rankin +1 202 271 3344

GEORGETOWN $26,500,000 3017, 3009, 3003 N Street NW, Washington, DC Jonathan Taylor +1 202 276 3344

WESLEY HEIGHTS $7,400,000 4519 Cathedral Street NW, Washington, DC Michael Rankin +1 202 271 3344

FAIRFAX $5,000,000 | 34 Acres 11101 Popes Head Road, Fairfax, VA Nickie Jordan +1 202 374 4277 Mark C. Lowham +1 703 966 6949

WESTLIGHT $6,250,000 1111 24th Street NW #93, Washington, DC Shamim Jawad +1 202 277 7322 Mark C. Lowham +1 703 966 6949

DUPONT WEST $2,850,000 1310 21st Street NW, Washington, DC Jonathan Taylor +1 202 276 3344 Maxwell Rabin +1 202 669 7406

SOMERSET CHEVY CHASE $2,595,000 4705 Falstone Avenue, Chevy Chase, MD David DeSantis +1 202 438 1542

CHEVY CHASE $2,225,000 3540 Woodbine Street, Chevy Chase, MD Kelly Basheer Garrett +1 202 258 7362

CHEVY CHASE $2,849,000 3725 Cardiff Road, Chevy Chase, MD Monica Mastal +1 202 607 4843 Tom Williams +1 202 255 3650

KENSINGTON $1,250,000 10521 Saint Paul Street, Kensington, MD Sharon Wildberger +1 703 597 0374 Heather Corey +1 703 989 1183

BEDFORD ACRES $1,600,000 7332 Old Dominion Drive, McLean, VA Nickie Jordan +1 202 374 4277 Mark C. Lowham +1 703 966 6949

CHEVY CHASE $1,895,000 7110 Beechwood Drive, Chevy Chase, MD Lauren Davis +1 202 549 8784

SYMPHONY PARK $1,350,000 10884 Symphony Park Drive, North Bethesda, MD Peg Mancuso +1 301 996 5953

HUNTINGTON TERRACE $975,851 5518 Hoover Street, Bethesda, MD Peg Mancuso +1 301 996 5953

DUPONT $799,000 1706 16th Street NW #6, Washington, DC Kirsten Williams +1 202 657 2022

T T R S I R .CO M | B R O K E R AG ES : B E T H ES DA R OW — 4 8 0 9 B E T H ES DA AV E N U E , B E T H ES DA , M D — + 1 3 0 1 5 16 1 2 1 2 CHEVY CHASE, DC • THE KENTLANDS, MD • ANNAPOLIS, MD • EASTON, MD • GEORGETOWN, DC • DOWNTOWN, DC • McLEAN, VA • ALEXANDRIA, VA • ARLINGTON, VA • THE PLAINS, VA ©2023 TTR Sotheby’s International Realty, licensed real estate broker. Sotheby’s International Realty and the Sotheby’s International Realty logo are registered service marks used with permission. Each Office Is Independently Owned And Operated. Equal housing opportunity. All information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Price and availability subject to change.

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HOME BY THE NUMBERS

BY ZIP CODE

REAL ESTATE TRENDS FEBRUARY 2022

20015 (Upper NW D.C.) Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

20814 (Bethesda) Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

20816 (Bethesda) Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

20817 (Bethesda) Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

20818 (Cabin John)

Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

15 $2.6 Mil. 5 10 2 15

12 $3.2 Mil. 24 2 9 11

Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

8 $1.4 Mil. 75 1 5 7

4 $1.1 Mil. 42 3 1 2

20815 (Chevy Chase) Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

FEBRUARY 2022

4 $1.5 Mil. 36 1 3 4

10 $1.4 Mil. 22 7 2 10

20016 (Upper NW D.C.) Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

FEBRUARY 2023

14 $1.6 Mil. 22 9 4 8

10 $2.2 Mil. 30 6 4 8

3 $1.6 Mil. 3 3 0 2

8 $1.3 Mil. 16 5 2 7

17 $2 Mil. 37 4 6 14

27 $1.6 Mil. 37 8 16 23

20832 (Olney)

1 $1.7 Mil. 7 0 1 1

0 n/a 0 0 0 0

12 $713,208 45 9 2 1

4 $728,750 65 2 2 0

20850 (Rockville)

Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

8 $972,250 28 3 5 3

20851 (Rockville)

Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

FEBRUARY 2023

15 $497,833 20 11 4 0

8 $966,250 29 2 5 3

5 $538,780 44 2 3 0

20852 (North Bethesda/Rockville)

Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

7 $780,428 5 7 0 2

20853 (Rockville)

Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

14 $616,928 25 8 4 0

14 $738,099 22 8 5 3

18 $698,591 51 5 11 1

FEBRUARY 2022

FEBRUARY 2023

19 $1.4 Mil. 21 11 5 16

12 $1.3 Mil. 38 4 6 5

6 $774,666 12 4 2 1

2 $633,000 25 1 1 0

20854 (Potomac)

Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

20855 (Rockville)

Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

20877 (Gaithersburg)

Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

7 $471,107 14 5 2 0

5 $554,780 52 1 3 0

20878 (Gaithersburg/North Potomac)

Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

30 $912,933 10 24 1 7

20879 (Gaithersburg)

Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

7 $609,087 27 5 2 0

20882 (Gaithersburg)

Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

2 $827,500 9 1 0 1

18 $972,167 41 10 4 8

2 $554,000 5 2 0 0

6 $566,500 61 0 5 0

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HOME BY THE NUMBERS

FEBRUARY 2022

20886 (Gaithersburg) Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

2 $515,000 16 1 0 0

20895 (Kensington) Number of Homes Sold Average Sold Price Average Days on Market Above Asking Price Below Asking Price Sold Over $1 Million

12 $950,033 34 8 3 5

FEBRUARY 2023

2 $572,500 34 1 1 0

11 $911,263 37 4 5 2

FEBRUARY 2022

20901 (Silver Spring)

Number of Homes Sold 13 $573,770 Average Sold Price Average Days on Market 16 10 Above Asking Price 2 Below Asking Price 0 Sold Over $1 Million

20902 (Silver Spring)

Number of Homes Sold 20 $537,340 Average Sold Price Average Days on Market 19 13 Above Asking Price Below Asking Price 5 Sold Over $1 Million 0

FEBRUARY 2023

12 $613,458 25 5 5 0

14 $533,903 48 7 6 0

FEBRUARY 2022

20906 (Silver Spring)

Number of Homes Sold 16 $506,968 Average Sold Price Average Days on Market 10 13 Above Asking Price Below Asking Price 2 0 Sold Over $1 Million

20910 (Silver Spring)

Number of Homes Sold 9 $849,088 Average Sold Price Average Days on Market 17 6 Above Asking Price 2 Below Asking Price 1 Sold Over $1 Million

FEBRUARY 2023

19 $575,368 36 6 7 0

13 $824,846 28 4 6 3

Information courtesy of Bright MLS, as of March 20, 2023. The Bright MLS real estate service area spans 40,000 square miles throughout the mid-Atlantic region, including Delaware, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. As a leading Multiple Listing Service (MLS), Bright serves approximately 85,000 real estate professionals who in turn serve more than 20 million consumers. For more information, visit brightmls.com. Note: This information includes single-family homes sold from Feb. 1, 2023, to Feb. 28, 2023, as of March 20, 2023, excluding sales where sellers have withheld permission to advertise or promote. Information should be independently verified. Reports reference data provided by ShowingTime, a showing management and market stats technology provider to the residential real estate industry. Some sale and list prices have been rounded.

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S HO W C A S E

Home: Builders & Architects

Special A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

Pinehurst Design Build 11716 Parklawn Drive, North Bethesda, MD 20852 301-383-1600 | pinehurstdb.com

BIO Tom Gilday brings his widely known excellence and experience to his new company, Pinehurst Design Build. Tom and his skilled team of architects, designers, project managers and craftsmen flawlessly execute beautifully designed renovations that reflect each client’s aesthetic and lifestyle. At Pinehurst, we think the remodeling experience should be awesomely simple and unexpectedly fun.

THE PROJECT

COURTESY PHOTOS

After many years of living abroad, our clients dreamed of a space that would showcase their memories and bring Asian influences into their new forever home. We orchestrated a gut renovation of this 1980s, twostory condo that encompassed every space and included refinishing floors, removing walls and bulkheads, and completely reconfiguring the kitchen and bathrooms. Finishing touches included customized millwork to display the clients’ artwork and other collectibles from their travels.

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Home: Builders & Architects

S HO W C A S E

Special A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

Sandy Spring Builders 4705 West Virginia Ave., Bethesda, MD 20814 301-913-5995 | www.sandyspringbuilders.com

BIO Sandy Spring Builders is the premier custom homebuilder in the area. We are an integrated, full-service team with 40 years of experience in bringing our client’s vision to life. Our well-built homes make a lasting impression, proven by our vast portfolio and myriad awards including being selected multiple times as “Best Builder” in the Bethesda Magazine Best of Bethesda Readers Poll.

MICHAEL KRESS

OUR WORK Opening the large, custom-made entry door into this magnificent home lets you know that something special awaits. You see a dramatic two-story space with a long, suspended bridge above, defining the space between the foyer and the great room/dining room. The view into the room is a spectacular 20-foot-high wall of glass in the rear looking out at the pool in the background. The home has beautiful open space with incredibly custom details. It is an unbelievable contemporary structure with a firstfl or owner’s suite, secluded second fl or guest suite, open fl or plan and a perfect home for entertaining. The lower level has a fantastic bar/ entertainment area with a glass-enclosed wine cellar, two exercise rooms, and a golf simulator. The backyard entertaining area has a screen porch with separate powder room, pool and spa area. The craftsmanship and attention to detail is evident throughout this stunning home. M O C O 3 6 0 . M E D I A | M AY/J U N E 2 0 2 3 | 1 0 5

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S HO W C A S E

Home: Builders & Architects Special A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

Chase Builders 8750 Brookville Road, Silver Spring, MD 20910 301-588-4747 | www.ChaseBuilders.com | IG: @chasebuildersinc

BIO Chase Builders Inc. is an award-winning builder in Maryland. Every Chase Builder’s home is custom designed and built with top quality, luxury features. Although they differ in style, floor plan, size and features, our unique homes have this in common — they are thoughtfully designed and well built.

A stunning new custom-built six-bedroom home in Chevy Chase has recently been completed, tailored to our client’s vision and family’s needs. Its four finished levels feature a spacious family room with vaulted ceiling, a spectacular dining room with adjacent butler’s pantry, a luxury kitchen, a fabulous home theatre, and a large wine cellar, all while attaining a comfy home feel. Additionally, the outdoor living area boasts a spacious screened porch with a fireplace, an outdoor kitchen, an oversized flagstone patio and an in-ground pool. Each home we build is uniquely customized with uncompromising quality in the tile work, exceptional trim detail, designer lighting and premium finishes. Built with the homeowner in mind, our goal with every project is to create an inviting, spectacular home where friends and family can gather for many years to come.

COURTESY PHOTOS

OUR WORK

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Home: Builders & Architects

S HO W C A S E

Special A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

GTM Architects 7735 Old Georgetown Road, Suite 700, Bethesda, MD 20814 240-333-2000 | www.gtmarchitects.com

BIO GTM Architects is an award-winning design firm with more than 30 years of experience offering architecture, planning and interior design services. Always committed to serving the needs and vision of its clients above all else, GTM’s professionals possess a wide array of finely tuned skills across vastly diverse styles and specialties.

P H O T O S B Y S TA C Y Z A R I N G O L D B E R G

OUR WORK This custom contemporary home’s exterior is a blend of natural stone, stucco, glass and wood, featuring a low-pitched metal hip roof with deep mahogany accented eaves for ample shade. When designing the new home for their clients to enjoy in their post-middle-age years, GTM placed a strong emphasis on the design of the ground floor Owner’s Suite. This strategic location on the primary living level is convenient and offers direct access to the large outdoor terrace, making it ideal for aging in place. This main level also boasts an open concept Kitchen, Dining, and Family Room that further extends to a screened porch and patio with fireplace, offering easy outdoor access and connection to the lush landscape. A double-story fireplace designed within a wall of glass creates a dramatic centerpiece for the main living area, anchoring the large space with the inviting presence of the exterior landscaping and hearth.

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S HO W C A S E

Home: Builders & Architects Special A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

Gilday Renovations 9162 Brookville Road, Silver Spring, MD 20910 301-565-4600 | www.gilday.com

BIO Led by Kevin Gilday, nationally recognized Gilday Renovations offers a highly collaborative design-build process that seamlessly blends the expertise of an award-winning team of architectural designers, interior designers and master builders. The firm excels at helping clients articulate their vision to achieve a personalized and buildable design concept.

The owners of this historic Chevy Chase Village bungalow were struggling to work from home during the pandemic. They asked Gilday Renovations to convert an under-utilized back porch into a dedicated office space. The designers specified removing a wall between the main house and the porch to open up the entire area and maximize available space. They captured additional square footage by expanding the office into the existing home, reconfiguring an under-utilized full bath to a powder room, and using foam insulation to minimize the depth of the exterior walls while achieving the required R-value. Custom-designed windows with double-pane insulating glass, preserve the existing historic profile while maintaining exterior trim to match the rest of the home. In addition to a brightly lit home office, the renovation improved the overall flow in the rooms at the rear of the house.

COURTESY PHOTOS

OUR WORK

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Avocado toast at Foxtrot is a swoonworthy snack

114

Refuel with Taiwan burgers at Amore Eats inside a Rockville gas station

TOP PHOTOS FROM LEFT: COURTESY FOXTROT; PHOTO BY BRENDAN McCABE

NEW IN TOWN / ADVICE FOR YOUR NEXT TACO TUESDAY / Q BY PETER CHANG’S AMISH LINK

The intoxicating blueberry-minty Garden Mojito from Terrain Cafe in Bethesda is among 10 fresh spring cocktails we think you’ll love. PAGE 112

PHOTO BY BRENDAN MCCABE

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DINING SMALL BITES RESTAURANT

TEMPERATURE

DISCOVERY

CHECK

What if you could combine

LUNCH LADY LAND Students from Montgomery County Public Schools got to play food critic in February at a taste test for school menus. All 20 of the entrees—even the flops—sound ay more interesting and evolved than the lukewarm pizza and wan fruit salad we grew up cramming down between classes. Still, everyone’s a critic.

KOREAN BBQ CHICKEN

Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner Ever drive by a business that clearly once served as a Pizza Hut? You won’t be getting those vibes at Isaac’s Poultry Market in Gaithersburg, where native son Rob Gresham demolished an old Hut to make room for his new scratch-made roasted chicken concept. The sleek, even urbane new spot opened in February, offering options from sandwiches to tenders, including many gluten-free choices. Sides include french fries, roasted NEW IN TOWN vegetables, mac and cheese, rice and black beans, broccoli slaw and roasted street corn salad. And since no meal is complete without dessert, Isaac’s serves up such sweet finishes as banana chocolate chip bread, s’mores fudge and housemade custard. The menu also features brews and wine, which can be purchased to enjoy at the restaurant or to take home. When the weather is nice, you can dine and sip on the 150-square-foot patio. 12163 Darnestown Road, Gaithersburg, isaacs.market —A.K.

Pinch of Wisdom:

“ IF YOU’RE USING STORE-BOUGHT TORTILLAS, WARM THEM UP IN A PAN WITH A BIT OF OIL AND CRISP THEM A LITTLE FOR SOME ADDED TEXTURE. IT MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE.” —VICTOR ALBISU, CHEF/OWNER OF TACO BAMBA

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“ONE OF THE BEST MEALS I EVER HAD”

CHICKEN AND WAFFLE SANDWICH

YES 95%

81%

“THIS IS PERFECTION”

BUFFALO CHICKEN DIP

“I DON’T MIND IT AT MY SCHOOL BECAUSE I DON’T EAT CAFETERIA FOOD”

75%

MANDARIN ORANGE CHICKEN 74% BANH MI “CARROTS ARE KIND OF WEIRD”

STREET CORN CASSEROLE “IT TASTED TOO MUCH LIKE CORN”

PLANT-BASED “CHICKEN” PRIMAVERA

“LOOKED OLD, DIDN’T LIKE TEXTURE, CHICKEN TASTED WEIRD”

69%

Do you want to see this dish at your school?

an upscale corner store with a coffee shop for your all-day caffeine and quick grocery needs? Foxtrot cafe on Bethesda Row answers that question, packing not only a cafe but a friendly little market featuring organic-forward and plant-based goods, including wine, to-go meals, drinks, pantry items and frozen meals into its 4,000 square feet of space. The Chicago-based chain, with outlets in a handful of cities, calls itself “A Better Corner Store, for Food People.” The cafe’s menu includes smoothies, lattes, tea, coffee, pastries and salads. You’ll also find th ee varieties of avocado toast: original, bacon tomato and smoked salmon. Two breakfast sandwich options include the Veggie Brekkie, a fresh-baked roll holding a frittata-style egg patty with roasted mushrooms and scallions, pimento cheese spread and arugula; and the Sausage, Egg and Cheese, made with locally sourced meat, smoky aged Grafton cheddar, and a drizzle of spicy maple syrup. (That last sammie, Foxtrot notes, is a tested and approved hangover remedy. Not that we would know.) 7262 Woodmont Ave., Bethesda, foxtrotco.com —Akira Kyles

50%

BEEF & QUESO 38% FLATBREAD “SLIMY”

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: SARAH MARIE GERRITY; JONATHAN TIMMES; COURTESY FOXTROT

4/10/23 1:37 PM

MARYLAND Chevy Chase Westwood Bradley Shopping Center Montgomery Mall Wildwood

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VIRGINIA 301-656-2453 301-652-6490 301-718-9300 301-469-9058 301-530-6266

Old Town Alexandria

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WASHINGTON, DC Connecticut Avenue Foxhall Square

202-833-9455 202-363-5087

4/2/23 2:36 PM

DINING THE HOT LIST

10 Spring Sips Move over, old-fashioneds and dirty martinis. Let’s celebrate the change in season with invigoratingly light cocktails. BY JACQUELINE MENDELSOHN 1

LA ROSA WHAT Código Rosa tequila, rose water, hibiscus, lime, agave, chili lime rim WHY The wine barrel-aged tequila adds just a hint of sweetness—the perfect complement to the housemade rose-infused tres leches cake. WHERE Cielo Rojo, 7056 Carroll Ave., Takoma Park LA VIE EN ROSE WHAT Vodka, pomegranate liqueur, lemon,

Champagne, raspberries WHY You’ll be seeing life through rose-colored glasses as soon as this bubbly coupe hits your lips. WHERE Duck Duck Goose, 7929 Norfolk Ave., Bethesda

SPICY LITTLE THINGS WHAT Tequila, grapefruit juice, lime, serrano chili syrup, grapefruit soda WHY A mildly piquant paloma with a dried-serrano garnish. WHERE Hello Betty, 940 Rose Ave. (Pike & Rose), North Bethesda

CLARIFIED PIÑA COLADA WHAT Coconut milk, pineapple, lime, rum WHY A single sniff of this luminescent tropical chiller will take you straight to the islands. WHERE Hip Flask Rooftop Bar, 7707 Woodmont Ave., Bethesda

BLACKBERRY BLOSSOM WHAT Butterfly peainfused gin, elderflower liqueur, blackberries, basil, lemon, demerara, egg whites WHY Purple eye candy in a liquid nitrogen-chilled coupe. WHERE Julii, 11915 Grand Park Ave. (Pike & Rose), North Bethesda

FROSÉ WHAT Dry rosé, vodka, strawberries, lemon, sugar WHY Who needs dessert when you can slurp a pale pink wine slushy that packs a punch? WHERE Millie’s Spring Valley, 4866 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.

GARDEN MOJITO WHAT White rum, blueberry syrup, blueberries, lime, mint, club soda WHY An effervescent highball for green thumbs to sip before browsing the curated selection of garden items for sale next door. WHERE Terrain Cafe, 7228 Woodmont Ave., Bethesda

IN THE AIR WHAT Green tea-infused shōchū, pisco, pomegranate juice, lemon, simple syrup, cherry blossom air WHY Yes, we said cherry blossom air. Dehydrated petals are frothed with a hand blender to top this crimson-tinted trompe l’oeil. WHERE Zinnia, 9201 Colesville Road, Silver Spring

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CHEVY CHASE GIN & TONIC WHAT Gin, Mediterranean tonic, rose water, orange essence, citrus, mint WHY A refreshing warm-weather botanical classic, best enjoyed on the outdoor patio. WHERE Opal, 5534 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.

THE LILA WHAT Gin, Manzanilla sherry, vermouth, butterfly

pea-infused simple syrup, lavender bitters WHY Come for the discounted tapas at sangria hour, stay for this lilac-hued take on a dry martini. WHERE Spanish Diner, 7271 Woodmont Ave., Bethesda

PHOTO BY BRENDAN McCABE

4/12/23 3:15 PM

Chadol Korean BBQ offers table-side cooking of traditional Korean specialities, while offering Korean spirits.

A COZY PLACE TO EAT AND DRINK

CHADOL KOREAN BBQ 301.968.1601 | Chadolbbq.com | Chadolbbq@gmail.com 1403 Research Blvd, Unit A-8, Rockville MD, 20850 Monday – Thursday: 11:00am – 10:00pm Friday: 11:00 am – 11:00 pm Saturday: 12:00 pm – 11:00 pm Sunday: 12:00 pm – 10:00 pm

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DINING TABLE TALK

Gas Station Gourmet At Amore Eats, a Taiwanese restaurant that opened inside the Exxon gas station at the

corner of Thompson Avenue and Rockville Pike last May, Taiwanese chef Amei Lo carefully debones two whole skin-on chicken legs, pounds them to even thickness, marinates them, dredges them in sweet potato flour (seasoned with Taiwanese black pepper) and deep-fries them until crispy and golden brown but still ultra-moist inside. The enormous portion, which fills a dinner-size paper plate, is very reasonably priced at $13.99 but a stupendous bargain considering it is part of a bendong (bento) box that includes steamed rice topped with braised minced pork and slices of house-made Taiwanese sausage, plus two vegetables of the day. (Ours are scrambled eggs and tomatoes and fried cabbage with abalone mushrooms.) It’s not so shocking anymore that excellent food can be found in gas stations and especially not at this one, where Corned Beef King operated for three years before Amore Eats. Montgomery County real estate agent Pei Hsieh, who co-owns the restaurant with Derwood resident Max Mo, fell into the project. Hsieh was looking for space for her friend, who was selling bao (filled steamed buns) at New York Mart in Rockville but had lost her lease. By the time Hsieh found the gas station spot, her friend had already located another space. “I told Mo [who is a former chef], ‘Maybe I should open a small Taiwanese restaurant. It has been my dream,’ ” Hsieh recalls. “He said, ‘That’s easy!’ so we signed a lease.”

“ THIS IS A PLACE WHERE PEOPLE WHO LOVE TO EAT COME TO EAT.” — PEI HSIEH, CO-OWNER OF AMORE EATS

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Joe and Linda Guo fuel up at Amore Eats, a Taiwanese restaurant located inside an Exxon gas station.

PHOTO BY BRENDAN McCABE

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DINING TABLE TALK

The restaurant, which seats 20, is an homage to Hsieh’s Taiwanese heritage. The menu is extensive. Among our favorite dishes are stinky (fermented firm) tofu ($9.99), crispy and puffy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, served with plum vinegar pickled cabbage; marinated pork belly stir-fried with cabbage and scallions; gua bao, steamed buns with braised pork belly, peanuts and pickles (four for $15); Taiwanese sausage with sticky rice sausage ($7.99); and beef noodle soup ($15.49). Asked why she named the restaurant Amore Eats, Hsieh responds, “I wanted a name that began with ‘a.’ ‘More’ means a lot and ‘amore’ means love, and I love to eat. So this is a place where people who love to eat come to eat.” And eat very well. Amore Eats, 1900 Rockville Pike (in the Exxon station), Rockville, 301-665-8999 —David Hagedorn

Clockwise from top left: bento box, fried chicken leg, salty pork cabbage, stinky tofu, “Taiwan burgers” (steamed buns with pork belly)

FROM OUR FAMILY, TO YOURS. 7745 TUCKERMAN LANE POTOMAC, MD 20854 P: 301.296.6168

4611-A SANGAMORE RD. BETHESDA, MD P: 301-347-6830

1428 NO. POINT VILLAGE CTR. 'RESTON, VA 20194 P: 703.689.4894

PARK POTOMAC LOCATION COMING SOON

GREGORIOSTRATTORIA.COM

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PHOTO BY BRENDAN McCABE

4/10/23 1:45 PM

Q Stands for… Amish? It may not seem obvious to diners at Q by Peter Chang, the Bethesda fla ship of the notable chef’s empire, but there is a link between many of its Szechuan dishes and an Amish farmer from New York. The soybeans sprinkled throughout a curried oxtail dish,

the shiitake mushrooms stir-fried with green peppers and cured pork belly, the ramps in the pork dumplings, and the braised eggs in Chang’s latest pork belly dish all have an Amish provenance. The connection dates to the early days of the pandemic. After being introduced by a mutual friend, Mark Lin, who co-owns Finger Lakes Tea Company in Waterloo, New York, reached out to Chang to see if he’d be interested in buying produce from Sam Peachey, an Amish farmer whose local client base cratered at the onset of COVID-19. Chang agreed to take chickens and eggs and whatever seasonal vegetables were available. “It was a good promotion to attract more customers, either for takeout or catering. We were looking to attract customers because business had fallen off so

PHOTOS BY DEB LINDSEY

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Braised shiitake with savory tomato sauce (top) and stir-fried shiitake with cured pork and green peppers. Inset: Chef Peter Chang examines shiitake mushrooms from an Amish farmer in upstate New York.

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ADVERTISING

Pholuscious

10048 Darnestown Road, Rockville | 301-762-2226 | Pholuscious.com | WE CATER! Pholuscious® offers fresh, modern, flavorful Vietnamese food along with an expansive selection of beer, wine, bubble teas, mango lassi, Cà phê trúng (Vietnamese egg coffee) and more. The menu is full of fresh ingredients, a minimal use of oil and aromatic, locallygrown vegetables and herbs, including lemongrass, Vietnamese mint, long coriander and Thai basil leaves. The restaurant’s Vietnamese chef has created a menu of wondrous textures and savory spices, including Phó (the popular noodle soup), Gỏi cuốn (summer rolls), Cá kho tộ (braised and carmelized fish), Bún bò huê (a spicy beef noodle soup) and so much more. Vietnamese food is ranked as one of the healthiest cuisines in the world [CNN Health], and Pholuscious adheres to those traditional recipes that delicately balance both ingredients and temperature. Conveniently located in the Travilah Square Shopping Center (home of Trader Joe’s), this is one gem not to be missed.

“ THE AMISH FARMING METHOD—HEAVY USE OF LABOR, RELIANCE ON FARM ANIMALS— REMINDS ME OF HOW MY MOTHER FARMED IN CHINA.”

—PETER CHANG, CHEF/OWNER AT Q

’ Nước Sốt Xào (stir fry)

Phó (noodle soup)

DR. MICHELLE SNYDER

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Gỏi cuốn (summer rolls)

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Nước Sốt Xào (stir fry)

much,” Chang explains, with his daughter and business partner Lydia translating. “The Amish farming method— heavy use of labor, reliance on farm animals—reminds me of how my mother farmed in China.” As time went on, Chang started buying more products, such as soybeans, apples, pears, garlic and chiles. In August 2020, Chang introduced Peachey to growing shiitake mushrooms, a mainstay of Chinese cooking. Soon, Chang invested in a company Lin and his brother had formed called Amish Agriculture to provide seed money for Peachey to buy inoculated shiitake logs and build greenhouses in which to grow the mushrooms. The first harvest was in February 2021. The company is now making and bottling Chang’s mushroom sauce, using his recipe. The first bottles are expected to roll off the line this spring for distribution in upstate New York. Chang visits the farm eight to 10 times a year to check out the operation. His March farm order included 60 pints of honey; 300 head-on, feet-on chickens; 180 dozen eggs; 200 pounds of soybeans; and 50 pounds of shiitakes, the latter of which Chang trained Peachey in how to ferment. Chang also instructed Peachey on how to cure pork belly per his specifications and expects to receive a couple hundred pounds of it. My next order of Chang’s famous crispy pork belly at Q may well have Amish heritage. Q by Peter Chang, 4500 East West Highway, Ste. 100, Bethesda, 240-800-3722, qbypeterchang.com —David Hagedorn

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SERVING BRUNCH, LUNCH AND DINNER

julii.com | 301.517.9090 | @juliieats Pike & Rose

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melinagreek.com | 301.818.9090 | @melinagreek Pike & Rose

4/11/23 12:28 PM

DINING CONTENT HERE

Let’s Do

Brunch Brunch is the most crowdpleasing, versatile meal of all, and that’s why we love it. There’s something to suit every taste, no matter where you fall on the sweet to savory spectrum and the breakfast-y to lunch-y one. Looking for eggs Benedict, dim sum, brunch paella or barbecue with a side of razzle-dazzle? We’ve got that covered and more. These local spots, some new to the scene and all offering weekend brunch, will satisfy any craving. BY DAVID HAGEDORN PHOTOS BY DEB LINDSEY

Left to right: Melina, Barking Mad Cafe, Wang Dynasty

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DINING CONTENT HERE

ILLUSTRATOR NAME TK

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PHOTOS BY DEB LINDSEY / FOOD STYLING BY NICOLA DAVIS

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Drag Brunch All Set Restaurant & Bar

All Set is a total drag, at least at brunch on the third Saturday of every month.

That’s when emcee Queen Citrine (pictured at left) and other members of the Haus of Stone put on a rollicking drag show featuring fabulous costumes, lip-synch performances and general merriment. “We tell guests that there may be a little adult language, but there is no age requirement to join us for drag brunch,” says Jennifer Meltzer, who opened the restaurant with her husband, chef Ed Reavis, in 2015. “We’re proud to support this form of expression.” On our January visit, the 140-seat restaurant is packed with people of all ages, including families reveling in the fun. Citrine informs the crowd of her three A’s: applause! (clap for the queens), always tip! (with cash or via app) and amen! “Just like a battery, a show needs juice to get it started,” she says. She and fellow performers Logan Stone, Vagenesis, Venus Valhalla and Echinacea Monroe have people in the palms of their hands, which are soon filled with dollars. “We don’t expect to turn the tables because it is a full two-hour show—I mean, these queens really pull out all the stops—so pace yourself,” Meltzer says. “You don’t have to rush through the meal.” To that end, it’s not a bad idea to go for the All You Can Enjoy Drinks for $48 per person (sodas; juices; coffee; tea; rail drinks; orange, pineapple or cranberry mimosas; bloody marys; house wine; and certain beers) or mimosa pitchers for $48. Food-wise, Reavis does tried-and-true brunch dishes superbly, such as blackened ribeye steak and eggs ($39), and classic, crabcake or avocado eggs Benedict ($16/$25/$17), but we curate our own brunch with his top-notch barbecue: a third of a rack of ribs ($13), a side of breakfast potatoes ($6.50), a side of scrambled eggs ($6.50) and a skillet of extra buttery cornbread ($9). Drag brunch sells out, so reserve on Tock ($10) well ahead of time. The show starts at noon, DQT (Drag Queen Time, so noonish). 8630 Fenton St., Silver Spring; 301-495-8800; allsetrestaurant.com

Brunch dishes at All Set include warm Maine lobster roll, sriracha cheddar biscuits, scrambled eggs, 1/3 rack of ribs and skillet cornbread.

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DINING CONTENT HERE

Seafood Brunch Clyde’s Tower Oaks Lodge

Brunch is spectacular at Clyde’s Tower Oaks Lodge even before tasting a morsel of food. Its setting, within a 21-acre nature preserve in Rockville, already sets it apart from other restaurants, but the decor of the 20,000-square-foot log-and-steel structure, designed to resemble a Gilded Age Great Camp in the Adirondacks, makes a meal there feel like a special occasion. The restaurant, which opened in 2002, seats a jaw-dropping 755 people in several rooms—the Tack Room, the Saranac Room, the Boathouse Bar, the Great Room—with beamed cathedral ceilings, extensive cherry and pine paneling, wooden booths, a Tiffany-esque chandelier and mounted moose heads all contributing to the rustic embrace. Clyde’s serves brunch fare one expects at an American

tavern—a great burger ($14.99), eggs Benedict (traditional, $17.99, crabcake, $25.99), challah French toast ($15.99)—but this is where we head when we hanker for seafood, settling in with a bloody mary ($10.29) and plundering their top-quality raw bar with a Saranac platter No. 2 ($29.99) of six oysters (Belle du Jour from New Brunswick; Pemaquid from Maine; Kusshi from British Columbia), two jumbo shrimp and six littleneck clams on the half shell. Clyde’s offers platters of various sizes for one to four people, ranging from $17.99 to $92.99. The restaurant also has an extensive selection of tinned seafood ($18 to $28) in olive oil (Güeyu Mar grilled Spanish sardine tails, Portuguese mackerel, Spanish anchovies, Portuguese tuna), served with crusty

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EYEPOPPERS:

The Hot Blooded Bloody Mary at Old Town Pour House This stunner is a tall glass rimmed with Tajin chili-lime seasoning salt and filled with an 18-ounce spi y bloody mary garnished with (deep breath) lemon and lime wedges, a celery stalk, a skewered green olive, a cheese curd, a housemade pickle, a pickled jalapeño slice, a wedge of hard-boiled egg and a slice of candied bacon. Fried onions gild the liquid lily ($15). Old Town Pour House, 212 Ellington Blvd. (Downtown Crown), Gaithersburg; 301-963-6281; oldtownpourhouse.com

Saranac Platter No. 3, one of several options at Clyde’s raw bar

bread, whipped butter, piquillo peppers, pickled vegetables and Maldon salt. For entrees, we’re partial to the crab omelet ($19.99). “We take 2 1/2 ounces of Venezuelan lump crabmeat and fold crème fraiche, chives and a pinch of Old Bay into it and place it on the almost-set eggs in the pan. Then it goes under the broiler for a few seconds and then gets rolled onto the plate and topped with hollandaise sauce, chives and a sprinkle of paprika,” explains executive chef Chad Medina. “It’s all about the crab.” The omelet is surrounded with little piles of frisée, radicchio and seasonal vegetable (perhaps zucchini or asparagus) salad dressed with lemon or truffle vinaigrette. 2 Preserve Parkway, Rockville; 301-294-0200; clydes.com

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Tapas Brunch

El Mercat Bar de Tapas

At El Mercat in Rockville Town Square,

married owners and Rockville residents Wanessa Alves and George Rodrigues—he’s the chef—have created a menu that seamlessly adapts quintessentially Spanish dishes to a concept that’s entirely not Spanish: brunch. Alongside traditional tapas such as tortilla Española ($9), ham croquetas ($13) and gambas al ajillo ($16) are clever offerings such as shredded duck confit and potato hash topped with poached eggs, saffron hollandaise sauce and smoked paprika ($18), and the traditionally American chicken and waffles jazzed up with truffle honey butter ($15). For the dish that wins our heart at this 60-seat charmer, Rodrigues has taken a dinner menu staple—his chicken paella montaña—and transformed it with a simple hack: crowning it with two sunny-side up eggs. The paella (small, $18; large, $32) is made by slowly cooking bomba rice with sofrito (a flavor bomb of sauteed onions, garlic and tomatoes that have been pureed and then reduced) until it forms a socarrat, the crunchy layer of rice in the bottom of the pan. A chicken leg and thigh (the bird was smeared with a puree of duck fat and herbs before roasting to render the skin ultra-crispy) are slathered with salsa verde and placed atop the rice with dollops of aioli, half a lemon and the eggs. The melding of the broken yolks, aioli, salsa and rice pushes the paella into overdrive. Start brunch at El Mercat with a bocadillo and cocktail sampler ($16), which includes three biscuits with different fillings (chorizo and manchego cheese, quail eggs and piquillo peppers, and crispy serrano ham and manchego), and three drink samplings (mimosa, bloody mary, sangria). They also offer bottomless bloody marys, sangria and mimosas (orange, pineapple and grapefruit) for $25 for two hours. 101 Gibbs St., Unit C, Rockville (Rockville Town Square); 240-403-7436; elmercatbardetapas.com

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Bottomless Mimosa Brunch Barking Mad Cafe

If there’s anything better than a mimosa during a leisurely brunch, it’s an unlimited number of mimosas. As many restaurants do, Barking Mad Cafe offers the bottomless quaff, made with cava and orange or cranberry juice ($20 per person for 90 minutes). But there’s much more to like about this Gaithersburg hangout, which Peter and Leigh Henry opened in 2016. In addition to brunch standbys such as waffles ($12), buttermilk pancakes ($10) and eggs Benedict ($14), Venezuelan chef Monica Vasquez includes plenty of Latin-inspired dishes on her menu. Morning tacos ($13.75), two flour tortillas stuffed with soft-scrambled eggs, pico de gallo, guacamole, queso fresco and arugula, and dressed in chipotle cream, are sublime. Other noteworthy options are huevos rancheros ($14) and Rancherito ($17), consisting of breakfast potatoes and flank steak carnitas topped with black beans, guacamole, queso fresco, ranchero sauce and a sunny-side up egg. Barking Mad also offers pies from its woodburning pizza oven, including pancetta, dried fig, mozzarella, blue cheese and arugula ($18); Margherita ($15); and sausage, mozzarella and scrambled egg ($13). Barking Mad Cafe seats 100 inside and 120 outside, abutting Spectrum Town Center’s Performers Park and large stage. The patio is a great place for people-watching and to let the kids frolic while the grown-ups try to find the bottom of their mimosas. 239 Spectrum Ave., Gaithersburg; 240-690-7003; barkingmadcafe.com

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EYEPOPPERS!

Giant Panko Fried Chicken Sandwich at Mosaic Cuisine Mosaic Cuisine in Rockville specializes in Belgian waffles use in a variety of ways, such as the bread for sandwiches. (“Dare to waffle?” the menu as s. Yes, we dare!) The Waffleissimo is towering clublike waffle sandwic made with crispy panko-crusted chicken cutlets, lettuce, tomatoes, crunchy ginger slaw and chipotle mayo sauce. We weren’t convinced of the waffle-as-b ead hack at fi st; now we’re all in. 186 Halpine Road (The Shops at Congressional Village), Rockville; 301-468-0682; mosaiccuisine.com

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The Joy Breakfast includes carne mechada, pork chicharrón, refried black beans, arepas, cassava bread, cachapas, fried cheese, avocado, sweet plantains, fried eggs and suero picante. The perfect accompaniment: a passion fruit-and-tequila Passion Over Perfection cocktail.

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Michelin Chef Brunch, VenezuelaStyle Joy by Seven Reasons

In 2019, Venezuelan chef Enrique Limardo took the DMV

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by storm. That’s the year Limardo, the original executive chef at Baltimore’s still-thriving Alma Cocina Latina, decamped to Washington to open (with partners) Seven Reasons, which Esquire magazine crowned the best new restaurant in the country. Limardo followed that up with Imperfecto in D.C.’s West End in 2021, and it earned a Michelin star in 2022. Last October, Limardo brought his high-powered flair to Montgomery County, taking over the former Little Beet Table space in The Collection at Chevy Chase and opening Joy by Seven Reasons. He replaced his predecessor’s beige decor palette with cheerful hues in the form of boldly patterned wallpaper, red furniture and fringed yarn panels in pastel colors of the rainbow hanging from the ceiling. Executive chef José Ignacio Useche, another Alma Cocina Latina alum, helms the kitchen. Our brunch blue ribbon goes to the Joy Breakfast ($69) for two or three. Limardo explains his inspiration for it: “In some parts of Venezuela, deep in the country where there are big farms, they serve a super massive breakfast so they can keep going through the day.” The feast includes carne mechada (slow-braised, then shredded, beef); a slab of pork chicharrón (skin-on pork belly that has been cured, cooked sous vide, then deep-fried, making the meat tender and its skin super crispy); sliced avocado; sauteed plantains; refried black beans; crispy, griddled Guayanés cheese, a soft cow’smilk cheese from Venezuela; two sunny-side up eggs cooked Latin-style with crispy edges; and suero picante, a spicy sour creamlike condiment. The meal comes with a panoply of breads: cachapas (corn pancakes), crunchy garlic-and-herb cassava bread and arepas (cornmeal cakes). The clickbait showstopper here is the “colossal” sandwich made with a 16-hour-braised and deboned short rib. It’s served on ciabatta with smoked cheddar cheese, plantain butter, lettuce, tomatoes, fried shallots and pickled onions ($65). The behemoth, so drippy with veal demi-glace that it’s served with protective gloves, is enough for three or four to share. Grab a pick-me-up from beverage director Carlos Boada’s superlative cocktail list. The Passion Over Perfection (tequila, mezcal, passion fruit, lime, rosemary and chile de arbol, $19) is divine. 5471 Wisconsin Ave., Chevy Chase (The Collection at Chevy Chase); 202-417-8968; joybysevenreasons.com

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Shrimp, crab and lobster mingle with three kinds of cheese and Cajun cream cauce to form the seafood grits, shown here with the Cab Calloway cocktail.

Brunch Every Day The Breakfast Club When chef and restaurateur Jason Miskiri set out to open a third business in Silver Spring —he owns The Angry Jerk and co-owns The Society Restaurant & Lounge—he originally planned on opening a vegan establishment. But as COVID-19 dragged on and delayed his buildout, he decided that the neighborhood lacked a nice place to have breakfast. The Chevy Chase resident opened The Breakfast Club in December at the Fenton Silver Spring apartments. Miskiri offers a wide-ranging breakfast menu Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and a more extensive brunch menu on Saturday and Sunday until 3 p.m. Certain brunch favorites are offered all day and all week, among them chicken and waffles ($23), vanilla bean French toast with cream cheese frosting ($18) and an all-American breakfast sampler of eggs, potato hash and breakfast meats ($16). Another—seafood grits ($32)— is a real standout. To make it, Miskiri sautes shrimp, onions, garlic and bell peppers with thyme, a touch of fiery Scotch bonnet pepper and his proprietary Cajun seasoning blend, then adds jumbo lump crabmeat, chunks of lobster, and cream. Once the sauce has been reduced, he pours the seafood over grits decadently enriched with butter and Gouda, cheddar and Monterey Jack cheeses. It’s the stuff of dreams. The Breakfast Club, which also serves dinner, has an excellent cocktail program. Try the Cab Calloway ($16), a delightful mix of reposado tequila, orange liqueur, lime juice, sorrel and rosé sparkling wine garnished with a brown sugar rim, a blackberry and a raspberry. At brunch, bottomless orange, pineapple or grapefruit juice mimosas are $35 (90-minute limit).

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8240 Fenton St., Silver Spring; 240-531-2133; thebreakfastclubdmv.com

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Melina’s mezze platter includes sourdough koulouri, smoked salmon, soft boiled organic eggs, tarama cream and smoked trout roe, and house pickled veggies.

EYEPOPPERS!

Apple Pie-Stuffed French Toast at Silver Diner

Greek Brunch Melina

When Montgomery County natives and power

restaurateurs Dimitri Moshovitis, Ted Xenohristos and Ike Grigoropoulos (who also own Cava, Cava Mezze and Julii) opened Melina at Pike & Rose in November 2021, chef Aris Tsekouras garnered rave reviews for his sophisticated, innovative rendition of Greek fare. It’s no surprise, then, that he hits it out of the park at brunch. Tsekouras takes a Jewish deli staple, the smoked salmon platter, and puts a Greek twist on it with a mezze platter ($25) featuring bowls of smoked salmon, soft-boiled eggs, tarama (fish roe) cream, pickled carrots and pickled cucumbers served on a gold tray. (Ask for some of the pickled red onions that accompany the fab openfaced lamb pita topped with a fried egg, $23.) On the side are two warm sesame-crusted sourdough koulouri (like bagels, but fluffier inside) right out of the oven. The platter is great for sharing as a first course, say, before indulging in a lamb burger topped with zesty roasted tomatoes, pickles, manouri cheese and a fried egg ($25), or pancakes with vanilla custard, orange compote, toasted almonds and crispy phyllo ($18). Tsekouras is a whiz at bread-making, so don’t overlook the tartine section, especially the “steak and egg” ($20) of grilled spelt sourdough toast spread with beef tartare and sous vide creamy egg yolk, and sprinkled with capers and dill sprigs. Melina’s bloody mary ($15), made with basil-infused vodka and Greek herbs, is excellent, as are the Honey Bee Bellini with prosecco, peach, cranberry, rosemary and bee pollen ($13), and the Little Vince with prosecco, spiced pear liqueur, pineapple shrub and lemon ($13).

Hats off to Ype Von Hengst, the co-founder and executive chef of Silver Diner, for creating this seasonal favorite, which has no rivals. First, Von Hengst dredges the tops of two thick slices of griddled challah French toast with cinnamon sugar and tops one of them with vanilla crème (like cream cheese frosting) and an abundance of roasted, sliced, thyme-flec ed apples. Then he puts the second slice on top (turned at a 90-degree angle from the bottom slice) and finishes th dish with more roasted apples, a sprinkling of pomegranate seeds and drizzles of salted caramel. 12276 Rockville Pike (Federal Plaza), Rockville; 301-770-2828; silverdiner.com

905 Rose Ave. (Pike & Rose), North Bethesda; 301-818-9090; melinagreek.com

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Shakshuka with split-pea fritters in place of the traditional eggs, along with tomato sauce, tahini, sumac and flatbread

Vegan Brunch Planta

How do you make an egg dish without eggs? For shakshuka ($15.75), the North African dish

of eggs poached in tomato sauce, Toronto-based chef David Lee, co-founder of the fine-dining vegan restaurant chain Planta, subs yellow split-pea fritters for the ovoids. The inspiration for the dish comes from his childhood. “Split-pea fritters are one of our national dishes in Mauritius,” he says. “There could be 20 stores selling them in a variety of ways. My mother made them all the time.” At Planta, the split peas are soaked overnight, drained, coarsely ground and mixed with cilantro, chopped scallions and chili peppers before being formed into patties. Once deep fried, the fritters are baked briefly in a small skillet of cumin-laced tomato sauce, then glazed with tahini sauce and served with a half-moon of puffy flatbread baked to order. Eight dishes comprise the weekend brunch menu at Planta as an addendum to its regular menu. Among them are a quiche ($17.25) made with spinach, cashew cheese and “bacon” fashioned from tempeh and mushrooms; banana waffles with roasted pecans ($16.50); a cinnamon bun ($10.25) and a mushroom bacon BLT ($16.95). Planta opened on Bethesda Row in February 2022. Its vibe—referred to as “Japan-meets-midcenturymodern-meets-Miami” in Bethesda Magazine’s May/June 2022 review—really lends itself to brunch, especially in good weather when the folding glass doors at the front of the space are fully open. Planta offers endless mimosas or sake sangria for $25 in addition to its strong cocktail and cold-pressed juice program. What better on the weekend than Saturday Morning Cartoons ($11), a refreshing spirit-free libation made with Seedlip Grove 42, strawberry, pineapple, coconut milk and vanilla? 4910 Elm St., Bethesda (Bethesda Row); 301-407-2447; plantarestaurants.com

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EYEPOPPERS!

Meet the Benedicts at Botanero Botanero in King Farm serves 250 to 300 diners at a busy weekend brunch with the patio open, says co-owner Ken Skidmore. About a third of them order executive chef Jaime Planas’ eggs Benedict ($15 to $17), poached eggs on toasted English muffins ser ed one of four ways: with prosciutto, smoked salmon, Maryland crabcakes, or spinach and piquillo peppers. Some also have arugula on them. All are topped with hollandaise sauce and come with home fries. Here’s what goes into preparing them.

What It Takes to Prepare Brunch’s Most Iconic Dish CLARIFYING BUTTER

Planas cooks 2 pounds of butter until its water content evaporates and its milk solids coagulate and sink to the bottom of the pot, leaving a clear golden liquid. Removing the water helps prevent the hollandaise sauce from breaking.

MAKING THE HOLLANDAISE —>

Planas whisks 32 egg yolks (pasteurized for stability), salt, pepper, fresh lemon juice and cayenne pepper together in a large stainless-steel bowl set over simmering water. When the mixture thickens into a light-yellow foam, he slowly adds clarified but er with one hand while whisking with the other. (He doubles the sauce on a busy day.)

POACHING THE EGGS —>

Planas brings a large pot of water to a simmer. He adds a few tablespoons of vinegar, which helps set the whites around the yolk instead of dispersing them. To poach, he stirs the water to create a small whirlpool and drops in an egg, which had been cracked into a ramekin. After a few minutes, when the white is set and yolk cooked to request, he removes it with a slotted spoon and blots it on a towel to prevent soggy Benedicts.

A NOTE ON PRE-POACHING —>

Poached eggs can be made ahead of time by poaching them until they are just set (but not fully cooked) and plunging them into ice water to stop the cooking process. When ready to serve, they can be reheated to desired doneness in simmering water. Planas does this during the rush so he doesn’t fall behind.

ASSEMBLING

Planas tops egg setups with hollandaise and smoked paprika and serves them with brunch potatoes.

Executive Chef Jaime Planas’ eggs Benedict with brunch potatoes

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Dim Sum Brunch Wang Dynasty

Fans of the Taiwanese and Shanghai-style

cuisine at Michael’s Noodles, which closed after a 15-year run in Rockville in 2017, were delighted when that restaurant’s team—Rockville residents Wai Wang and David Wang (not related)—opened Wang Dynasty in Bethesda in May 2019. Even more thrilling is that they revived their weekend dim sum brunch, available from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., along with the restaurant’s regular menu. Don’t expect carts here; the 90-seat restaurant is too small to navigate them. Instead, there is a small menu of about 30 items that range in price from $3.50 (baked sesame roll, jumbo fried bread stick, sweet soybean milk) to $10.95 (braised beef). For one dish, pork belly is braised for several hours until tender, then steeped in a broth flavored with onions, garlic, Shaoxing wine, star anise and dark and light soy sauces. It’s finely minced and served on top of steamed rice with chopped sour cabbage, pickled radish and a brown-hued hard-boiled egg cooked in soy sauce. For another, verdant soybeans, red peppers and chopped mustard greens are stir-fried with ginger and ribbons of bean curd. Pan-fried pork buns and flaky griddled pancakes stuffed with braised beef or pork are de rigueur. (Also order soup dumplings from the regular menu.) One cold dish, drunken chicken, is particularly intriguing: The chef intricately debones skin-on chicken legs, rolls them into cylindrical logs and poaches them in a broth flavored with Chinese rice wine. Slices of it are served bathed in wine. For a sweet ending, try Eight Treasure Sweet Rice, a molded glutinous rice pudding stuffed with red bean paste and topped with dried fruit, such as peaches, goji berries, raisins, kiwi and pineapple.

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4929 Bethesda Ave., Bethesda; 301-654-1188; wangdynastybethesda.com

A mouthwatering array of weekend dim sum options at Wang Dynasty

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THEIR FATHERS’ SONS WITH THE FIFTH LOCATION OF THE FAST-CASUAL INDIAN SPOT RASA, SAHIL RAHMAN AND RAHUL VINOD BECOME MONTGOMERY COUNTY RESTAURATEURS, JUST LIKE THEIR DADS BY DAVID HAGEDORN

It’s a cold early December evening in the Navy Yard, half a block from Washington’s temple to the great American pastime, Nationals Park. At the flagship location of their fast-casual Indian restaurant chain, Rasa, Sahil Rahman and Rahul Vinod are throwing a party to mark the business’s fifth anniversary. The second Rasa, in D.C.’s Mount Vernon Triangle, opened in July 2020, followed by two Virginia locations: National Landing (July 2021) and Fairfax’s Mosaic District (July 2022).

t At left: Rasa owners Rahul Vinod and Sahil Rahman (center left and right, respectively) with their fathers, K.N. Vinod (left) and Surfy Rahman (right)

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Rasa owners Rahul Vinod and Sahil Rahman serve customer Menish Saboo.

The 33-year-old owners, lifelong friends who grew up five miles from each other in Gaithersburg, work the room, chatting up friends, investors and family members. A three-piece experimental band called Gin con Leche performs in the middle of the space while guests chitchat, sip on tamarind gin and tonics or coconut water served in Rasa-branded coconuts, and nibble on the restaurant’s signature bowls, such as Tikka Chance on Me (chicken tikka in tomato-garlic sauce with spinach, rice and mint-cilantro chutney) and Caul Me Maybe (tofu and vegetables with peanut-sesame sauce and pumpkin seeds). There’s another cause for celebration that night. The partners had recently announced that in the spring they’d be opening Rasa’s first Montgomery County location, in Montrose Crossing shopping center. The 2,200-square-foot space would seat 50 inside and 16 outside and, like all Rasas, have a full liquor license. “We’ve been looking for the right location in Montgomery County from day one,” Sahil says. “This is a strip we’ve dreamed of being in because it’s the nexus of Bethesda, Rockville, Potomac and Gaithersburg, and there’s so much action and

development. It’s an established hub where people grab food—MOD Pizza, Cava, Honeygrow— and there’s a lot of parking.” What makes the Maryland Rasa particularly special is that it’s just three miles from Bombay Bistro, the restaurant their fathers, K.N. (Kottapurath Narayanan) Vinod, who goes by Vinod, and Surfy Rahman, have operated since 1991. “We’re standing on our fathers’ shoulders,” Sahil says. “To open in Rockville 30 years ago, they were true pioneers. They laid the path for us to come back and build on their legacy, to use food as a vehicle to bring people together.” But that wasn’t the path the fathers intended to lay. Their sons both had business degrees from the University of Maryland and nascent corporate careers. Sahil was a business analyst for Deloitte; Rahul was an investment banker for BNP Paribas. When they told their dads in 2014 that they had quit their jobs and planned to move back in with their respective families to pursue Rasa, the reaction wasn’t enthusiastic.

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“What? Are you crazy?” Vinod recalls exclaiming. “Our hearts sank!” Surfy says. “The restaurant business is hard on families and burns people out. This isn’t what we wanted for them.” But their boys’ passion to make Indian food accessible to the masses, using a create-your-own-bowl model similar to Chipotle, Cava and Sweetgreen, won them over. They invested in the business, helped develop recipes and gave operation advice. With conditions. “Dad said, ‘You can’t open a restaurant sitting in front of a computer. I’m not just going to hand you a bunch of menus. Here’s 400 pounds of onions, start slicing. Until you do that, we can’t talk,’ ” Rahul says. “That created tension because we wanted to move fast, but in hindsight he was right about building that foundation.”

A PERFECT PAIRING

The fathers know what it takes to make a partnership work, even if, on paper, they say, theirs shouldn’t have for cultural reasons. “We come from diametrically opposite families,” Surfy says. “I’m from northern India [Bihar]; he’s from southern India [Kerala]. He was born into the Hindu faith and I’m Muslim, though I grew to be agnostic. We came from very different backgrounds but work like tongue and groove.”

Vinod is 64; Surfy is 66. Both attended the Institute of Hotel Management and Catering Technology in India—Surfy in Kolkata, concentrating on front-of-house operations, and Vinod in Chennai, becoming a chef. In 1981, they met while working for the Ashok Group hotel chain in New Delhi and became friends. In 1985, serendipitously, they wound up in Washington working for a now-closed Indian restaurant chain called Tandoor and started talking about opening a place of their own, one that would showcase both northern and southern Indian dishes, a rarity in the DMV at the time. Vinod married his wife, Nisha, in 1987. Surfy and Madhavi Rahman married in 1988. Given the pair’s lack of commercial financial history, banks turned Rahman and Vinod down for loans, so they put $35,000 each—every nickel they had, plus some family loans—into the project. Knowing it was a huge risk, both couples agreed the wives would keep their jobs. (Nisha worked for Fannie Mae; Madhavi worked for CTIS Inc., a health data company.) To avoid a costly buildout, the partners looked for an existing restaurant to buy. They scoured Northern Virginia and Montgomery County, but building landlords often turned them down. “They worried that the strong smell of Indian food would put their other tenants off,” Vinod says.

Pickled radish provides the dash of pink in Aloo Need Is Love, the dish at the center of the above photo.

PHOTOS BY LAURA CHASE DE FORMIGNY

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From left: Madhavi and Surfy Rahman; Sonam Sagar; Surfy’s sister, Nandita Madan; K.N. Vinod; and thenSecretary of State Madeleine Albright at Bombay Bistro in 2000

“EXOTIC” NO MORE

When the first Bombay Bistro opened, Sahil and Rahul were toddlers. Growing up as firstgeneration kids (they both have younger sisters) in families whose lives greatly centered on Indian food traditions proved challenging. Much of what Americans knew of Indian culture were degrading pop culture tropes, Sahil explains. “Going through elementary, middle and high school, it was ‘Thank you, come again’ from [the Apu Nahasapeemapetilon character] in The Simpsons, monkey brains from Indiana Jones [and the Temple of Doom], curry smells funny and burns twice, once on the way in, once on the way out.” Sahil went to Strawberry Knoll Elementary School, Gaithersburg Middle School and Gaithersburg High School, and Rahul attended Thur-

good Marshall Elementary School, Ridgeview Middle School and Quince Orchard High School. “I was 100% embarrassed to be Indian as a kid. I wanted to be white, which is funny to say out loud,” Sahil confesses. “I remember bringing Indian food to elementary school and being picked on. I said, ‘Mom, I want Lunchables like everyone else.’ ” Rahul had a similar experience. “We didn’t want parathas; we wanted turkeyand-mayonnaise sandwiches. I wasn’t really friends with many Indians in school. We shied away from them as a way to fit in,” he says. But as they introduced their friends to Indian food in high school, it became a form of currency instead of an object of derision. “Mom would pick [me] up from soccer and there would be four white guys in the back seat shouting, ‘Chicken tikka, mak-ha-ni, mak-ha-ni!’ so she would take –—RAHUL VINOD, ON us to Bombay Bistro instead INTRODUCING FRIENDS of the house,” Sahil says. The TO INDIAN FOOD phenomenon continued in college when, after working shifts as servers and bartenders at Indique, they’d bring food back to their College Park dorms for their non-Indian roommates. “They didn’t know these flavors existed. Their minds were blown,” Rahul says. “They started seeking Indian food out and spending special occasions at Indique,” Sahil adds. “It was a really powerful reminder about how introducing people to things in a safe and welcoming way can make a big difference.”

“ THEY DIDN’T KNOW THESE FLAVORS EXISTED. THEIR MINDS WERE BLOWN.”

PHOTOS COURTESY K.N. VINOD

They bought the restaurant that formerly occupied the Bombay Bistro space for $55,000, leaving little for design, supplies and equipment. Surfy’s sister, Nandita Madan, helped with the design at that and their subsequent restaurants, as well as the various Rasa locations. Short on cash, the partners maxed out credit cards to buy groceries for the menu, which did in fact feature dishes from both the northern and southern regions of India. A favorable Washington Post review in August 1992 hailing low prices, elegant food and polished service created lines out the door of the 64-seat restaurant, and the partners never looked back. They opened a second Bombay Bistro in Fairfax in 1995, Indique in D.C.’s Cleveland Park in 2002 and Indique Heights in Friendship Heights in 2006. (They sold the Fairfax business in 2008 and closed Indique Heights in 2014. Indique remains open.)

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Just as something clicked in their nonIndian friends’ minds, it clicked in their own. “We went from being embarrassed about Indian culture to being proud of it,” Rahul says. With Rasa, they’d become ambassadors of it. (The name Rasa has a triple meaning. It translates as taste or essence in Sanskrit; references the nine rasas, or emotions, in dramatic arts; and combines the names RAhul and SAhil.) It would take just north of $1 million to open Rasa. To support themselves in the year it took to do it, the friends worked for their fathers and drove for Lyft on weekends. Banks weren’t interested in lending money to two 25-year-olds with no track record and no assets for a risky restaurant start-up, so they pitched friends, family, connections from their old jobs and investors in Bombay Bistro and Indique. Sometimes, they set up a mock Rasa line in those restaurants so potential investors could grasp the concept: Order predetermined combination bowls or customize them by choosing a base (such as basmati rice, greens, grains, rice noodles); a main (say lamb, turmeric ginger shrimp or sweet potato tikki); a sauce (perhaps tamarind chili or coconut ginger); a vegetable selection (maybe charred eggplant or chickpeas); toppings, among them masala beets, carrot slaw, lentil chips and mango salsa; and chutneys and dressings. Rasa opened in December 2017 to such buzz that they weren’t prepared for the demand and quickly had to adjust. Seven weeks later, they received a glowing 2½-star review from The Washington Post, and business boomed even more. Other accolades followed. Fundraising became easier. The company, Rasa Rising LLC, raised $1.31 million in a second round of funding in 2019 and raised a significant amount more (they prefer not to divulge how much) in a Series A round completed a year ago and spearheaded by Rellevant Partners, a food and beverage-focused growth equity firm. “Landlords and diners are now excited about Indian food instead of having to be convinced,” Sahil says proudly. “Indian food is finally having its moment.”

Dr. Gail Linn, Dr. Tricia Terlep, Dr. Lindsey Wohar, Dr. Caitlin Le • Comprehensive Hearing Exams • Accurate Real-Ear Measurements • Latest Digital Hearing Instruments • Assistive Listening Devices • In-Home Hearing Care

New office location in Frederick! 5 -Time Winner Readers’ Pick, Best Audiologist

David Hagedorn writes about dining and restaurants. He lives in Washington, D.C.

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From left: Marwa, Maryam, Mehran and Baktash Amini at a playground near their Silver Spring apartment

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WORLD

A P A R T After the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan turned their lives upside down, the Amini family left everything familiar to escape to Montgomery County BY AMY HALPERN

Pretty much every item in the modest Silver Spring apartment Baktash Amini shares with his wife, Maryam, and their two young kids has been donated: the table and chairs, sofas, bedroom furniture, even the television hanging from the wall. One notable exception: a white toddler-size Bentley sports car covered in stickers that sits on the floor next to one of the sofas. Maryam found it by the apartment complex’s trash dumpster and carried it up the two flights of stairs to their apartment. She knew their 3-year-old son, Mehran, would be pleased. “I say [to Mehran], ‘I buy for you,’ ” she explains in broken English. Three years ago, Baktash was a bit of a celebrity in the couple’s home country of Afghanistan. An on-air music and television presenter with Radio Free Europe, he had a loyal following and a generous salary. His brother was a well-known Afghan television news anchor; Maryam was a stay-at-home mom to Mehran and his sister, Marwa. Baktash’s parents and all five of his sisters were teachers—his mom taught at a nearby school for girls. In Afghan culture, sons live with their parents their whole lives; when a daughter marries, she moves in with her husband’s

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family. So Baktash, Maryam and their children lived in a spacious five-bedroom apartment in central Kabul, the Afghan capital, with his parents and his brother. Baktash’s sisters, all married, lived with their husbands’ families nearby. “We were so happy,” because there was peace in Afghanistan, Baktash says. “We go to school and continue our…studying. We go to university. We start our jobs…we have hopeful dreams in our minds.” Then everything changed. Today, Maryam works as a cashier at a fast-food kebab restaurant in downtown Bethesda. Baktash drives six days a week for DoorDash in a 2017 Toyota Corolla that he purchased with money lent to him by friends. His brother, like many other Afghan journalists in his home country, is dead—the circumstances shrouded in mystery. Most of the rest of Baktash and Maryam’s families remain in Afghanistan, where, under Taliban rule, women cannot work, or even leave their homes without a male escort. Their homeland is now plagued by malnutrition, a failing economy and widespread power outages, according to news reports. Baktash is hesitant to speak about his family’s lives there now, or whether there’s a possibility that they too might eventually get out. Baktash and Maryam, both 33, are among the approximately 900 Afghan refugees who have settled in and around Montgomery County since August 2021, according to U.S. State Department data. That’s when

MOST OF THE REST OF BAKTASH AND MARYAM’S FAMILIES REMAIN IN AFGHANISTAN, WHERE WOMEN CANNOT WORK, OR EVEN LEAVE THEIR HOMES WITHOUT A MALE ESCORT.

the Taliban took control of Kabul and the U.S. pulled the last of its 13,000 troops out of Afghanistan. The U.S. withdrawal left the Taliban in charge of the country for the first time since the U.S. toppled the Islamic fundamentalist regime in 2001, shortly after 9/11. Since the Taliban’s return to power, the American government has helped more than 75,000 Afghan refugees flee their country and settle in the U.S., according to the Council on Foreign Relations. It reports that California, Texas and Virginia top the list of U.S. states that have taken in the most Afghan refugees. The state department ranks Silver Spring 15th in the nation among U.S. cities where Afghan refugees have settled. The Washington, D.C., metropolitan area is a popular destination for Afghan refugees because of the substantial Afghan community already here, says Ruben Chandrasekar, director of the Silver Spring office of the International Rescue Committee (IRC). His organization partners with about a dozen local charitable groups—including Landover, Marylandbased Homes Not Borders—to provide incoming refugees with furnished apartments, access to food and medical care, cellphones, and English-language and vocational training. Some groups, like Brooklyn-based Emma’s Torch, have expanded into the D.C. area because it’s bursting with new refugees eager to learn marketable skills and start businesses. Entrepreneurship among refugees is nearly 50% higher than among people born in the U.S., according to the IRC. In August 2022, Emma’s Torch partnered with another organization to start a pilot program out of the First Baptist Church of Silver Spring. The program offers refugees a 10-week paid apprenticeship program with up to 400 hours of culinary training. Maryam completed the program in December. “There is such an amazing community trying to support people who are arriving, and we felt like hopefully we could play a role in that,” says Kerry Brodie, the organization’s founder and executive director. Now Baktash and Maryam are taking a class run by Let’s Chow, an Annapolis-based nonprofit that teaches the ins and outs of running a food-truck business. The class provides participants with a stipend of about $15 per hour and is open to all veterans, military spouses and military-connected civilians who have been granted refugee status in the U.S. Maryam and Baktash are eligible thanks to Baktash’s former job at Radio Free Europe. Three of their classmates are the spouses of interpreters and translators who assisted the Americans in Afghanistan. “Those peo-

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ple who risk their lives to serve alongside the U.S. military, they deserve all the benefits our program offers,” says Jordan Foley, a U.S. Naval officer who is Let’s Chow’s founder, CEO and head chef. The Aminis hope to soon be operating a truck of their own that specializes in foods that remind them of home: savory Kabuli pulao, ashak and mantu dumplings—and baklava and rice pudding for dessert. Let’s Chow already has helped them design their food truck’s logo: an ornate gold “MB”—their initials. “Maryam,” Baktash says, “is a very good cook.” The couple have already been hired for several catering projects, mostly for American friends they’ve made since they’ve arrived. “American people, they really, really like our food,” Baktash says. While he’s out on Door Dash deliveries, Maryam is planning the food truck’s menu and logistics, working her cashier job and honing her English, which she says is “very difficult.” She tries to keep busy, she says, so she doesn’t dwell too much on the family she left behind: her parents and five brothers, all of whom are still in Afghanistan. “When I stay at home, I am very upset,” she says. “I miss my family every day.” The Aminis’ circuitous journey to Montgomery County began nine months before the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan. In December 2020, Baktash’s brother, Fardin, died in what was first reported as “a mysterious attack” that was later amended by the Afghan government to be called a “suicide by cutting his neck with a sharp edge stone,” according to Afghanistan’s largest news agency. Fardin’s family and friends, including Baktash, believe he was murdered, though no group stepped forward to take credit for

his death. He died one day after another well-known television news anchor was gunned down and killed. Within six months of these homicides, at least seven more Afghan journalists were murdered, according to news reports. Many of the deaths were blamed on the Taliban. Fardin’s death, says Baktash, “was the start of a serial killing [of] a lot of journalists by different methods.” As a member of the media—particularly one who worked at an organization linked to the United States—Baktash was considered by the Taliban to be a spy for the Americans, he says. Shortly after Taliban rule resumed, his supervisors at Radio Free Europe offered to help him and others working for the organization obtain the visas and other documents they and their families would need to get out of Afghanistan and into Pakistan; from there they could make their way to other countries if they wished. “America was always my dream country,” Baktash says. He grew up watching Hollywood films and says, “Titanic is my favorite.” But without his employer’s connection to the U.S. government, he and his family wouldn’t have been able to escape, he says. “My parents told me, ‘Please leave Afghanistan; we don’t want to [lose] you—we have [only] one boy…alive.’ ” Baktash was instructed to pack a single suitcase for his family of four and be ready at a moment’s notice to leave the country for good. In October 2021, two months after the Taliban returned to power, he got a late-night phone call telling him to head to Kabul International Airport with his family early the next morning. The Aminis flew to Pakistan and spent a week at a military camp in Islamabad, followed by a month in a camp in Qatar, and then more than three months in a refugee camp on the grounds of FCI Fort Dix, the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ minimum security correctional facility in southern New Jersey. “Six thousand people stay in camp, and in one tent 100 people,” Maryam recalls of the New Jersey camp. There were five toilets and five showers for all 100 to share; and though partitions gave each family some degree of privacy, there was no ceiling other than the tent cover, so the noise was unbearable, she recalls. “We don’t have clothes, but one day [volunteers]

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“MY PARENTS TOLD ME, ‘PLEASE LEAVE AFGHANISTAN; WE DON’T WANT TO [LOSE] YOU— WE HAVE [ONLY] ONE BOY…ALIVE.’ ” —BAKTASH AMINI

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came and brought coat[s] and shoes. ‘If not your size or not, no problem, just wear that,’ ” the volunteers told the refugees, Maryam says. At the camp, Baktash was asked to fill out a form naming a first, second and third choice of locations in the U.S. to make his permanent home. Since he didn’t know anyone in the U.S.—nor the names of most of the states—he picked Maryland as his first choice because some of his colleagues had connections here. After one wrote on his form the address of a family member in Bethesda, Baktash wrote the same address on his form. When he learned he had gotten his first choice, his friends told him he was lucky, he says. On a Saturday evening, nearly a year after making Silver Spring their new home, Baktash has finished his DoorDash deliveries for the day and heads upstairs to his family’s apartment. Mehran—who had been practicing his hip-hop moves while watching a music video on the television—runs to the door to greet him. Marwa, the couple’s 7-year-old daughter, sits on the sofa nearby, trying one last time to get her broken Chromebook to turn on. Of all the things she had to leave behind in Afghanistan, Marwa says she misses “Stuffy” the most—the stuffed yellow bunny rabbit she got when she was a baby. Now a first grader at Rosemary Hills Elementary School, Marwa says a few other Afghan refugee kids attend the school, but she rarely speaks with them. They generally want to use the languages they spoke in Afghanistan, she says, and she wants to speak English. She’s mostly mastered it in the short time she’s lived here. “Kindergarten was a little bit hard,” she says, “but now it’s good.” Baktash takes a seat next to his daughter. Maryam is in the kitchen fixing tea for him and starting the family’s dinner. “We [moved] from a poor at-war country to a good country,” Baktash says. “A new home, a new culture, a new country, a new flag, a new people…and we [are] happy.”

2400 Research Blvd | Suite 110 Rockville, MD 20850 Office: 301.670.5505 | Fax: 301.947.947.9480 howard.perlroth@ampf.com

Journalist Amy Halpern has worked in print and television news and as the associate producer on an Emmy Award–winning documentary. She lives in Potomac.

A financial advisory practice of Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC

HOWARD PERLROTH, APMA®

Financial Advisor | Chief Operating Officer of Gartenhaus Wealth Management

A financial advisory practice of Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC

www.AmeripriseAdvisors.com/Howard.Perlroth/

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A CONVERSATION WITH

PHOTO CREDIT TK

Gov. Wes Moore

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W WITH HIS 2022 ELECTION, MARYLAND’S NEW GOVERNOR EARNED A PLACE IN THE HISTORY BOOKS BEFORE EVEN SERVING A DAY IN OFFICE. WHAT WILL HIS RECORD LOOK LIKE NOW THAT HE’S GETTING DOWN TO WORK? BY GINNY BIXBY

PHOTO CREDIT TK

PHOTO BY JAMES KEGLEY

es Moore cares less about being remembered as the first Black governor of Maryland and more about being remembered for doing something that made your life better. That’s why, he says, people voted for him. “[Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller’s] and my portraits are going to look a little different from the ones we’ve always seen in the Capitol. But that’s not the point. This journey has never been about making history. It is about marching forward,” Moore said during his inaugural address in January. Nevertheless, the Democrat’s election was certainly historic. He is one of only three Black people ever elected governor in the United States. Miller, his choice for lieutenant governor, is the first Asian American and first South Asian woman ever elected to that office in the U.S. Moore says his diverse cabinet was composed to reflect what Maryland looks like. The 44-year-old governor was born in Takoma Park. While he still feels strong ties to Montgomery County, he notes that some of his “earliest and most traumatic memories” happened here. When he was 3, Moore watched his father die in front of him from a rare but treatable condition, acute epiglottitis—because, Moore says now, his dad hadn’t gotten the health care he needed. His mother, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, moved the family to the Bronx, New York, so his grandparents could help raise Moore and his two sisters. When Moore started skipping school and getting involved in crime as a teenager, his mother sent him to military school, which changed the course of his life. Fast forward a few years, and Moore was graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hopkins University. He was activated in the Army after 9/11 and later deployed to Afghanistan. Following his military career, Moore served a stint as a White House fellow for then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, then as an investment banker. In 2010, Moore started his own television production company that created programming for the Oprah Winfrey Network, PBS, HBO and NBC. That same year, his first book, The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates, was published, about a Baltimore man of the same name and race whose life went in a very different direction. Moore recently relocated his family from Baltimore to the Governor’s Mansion in Annapolis. And—as promised to his children—they adopted a puppy. We spoke to Moore just weeks after his inauguration, where Winfrey and Chelsea Clinton joined him on stage, and Grammy Award-winning artist Maxwell serenaded the crowd during the inaugural ball. This interview has been edited and condensed.

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In your book The Other Wes Moore, you’re open about your troubled teen years. You have the story of someone who went through a lot of hardship, but then you came out of it, and now you’re the governor of Maryland. In office, how do you want to make that kind of journey possible for other Marylanders? There’s no doubt that this journey has been improbable. The thing that I am so

ABOUT WES MOORE AGE: 44 LIVES IN: Annapolis EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree in international studies from Johns Hopkins University; master’s in international relations from Oxford University PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND: Served in the U.S. Army, 1998-2014, sometimes in reserves (deployed to Afghanistan, 2005-2006); White House fellow to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, 2006-2007; investment banker at Deutsche Bank and Citibank, 20072012; founder of Omari Productions, a television production company, 2010; founder of BridgeEdU, an education services company, 2014; CEO of Robin Hood Foundation, 2017-2021 FAMILY: Wife, Dawn; daughter, Mia, 11; son, James, 9

proud of is the fact that I do believe that our story really is indicative of so many Marylanders. And my family’s journey is indicative of so many Marylanders. I want for all Marylanders to understand that there is never a room that they don’t belong in. One of my favorite poems is by Rudyard Kipling, and there’s a line, ‘Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.’ And I want Marylanders to feel that way. I also want to make sure that we’re putting together policies that can make that real. We are asking people to continue to work way too hard for way too little. That’s not how the state is going to advance. I just want for us to be a state that is going to create real pathways for people to be able to grow and advance, so that no matter where they start, no matter what their origin is, that this is a place where they can grow and succeed, and this is going to be a state that’s going to cheer for their success. You’ve tapped several Montgomery County-based politicians to be part of your team. Sometimes there’s this thought that a lot of political power is concentrated in the Baltimore region. Would you say there’s been a shift, or a greater Montgomery County influence? I take pride in the fact that I’m Montgomery County-born. When you look at the selection of people like Aruna Miller as our lieutenant governor, people like Eric Luedtke, who is our chief legislative officer—the thing that I love is that it’s not just that they are from Montgomery County. This state is so blessed to have Aruna Miller. …We’re talking about somebody who in addition to having a remarkable life story, she’s a transportation engineer by training and was one of the most respected members of the legislature. There’s so much talent here in Montgomery County. And I’m really proud that the team that we’re building is so Montgomery County strong, not just because it’s a

FROM TOP: GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY WES MOORE

Yo u ’ r e t h e f i r s t B l a c k g o v e r n o r of Maryland; you’re one of only three Black governors ever elected in the country. What’s that like? Right before I was inaugurated, we started the morning off at the Annapolis docks, one of the oldest and largest slave ports in this country. For so many people who came to this country, that was the first image that they saw. I was later inaugurated in front of a building that was built by the hands of enslaved people. When you look at our victory and you look at the margin of victory, we ended up getting more individual votes than any person who’s ever run for governor in the history of the state of Maryland. You don’t get to those numbers—1.3 million people—by simply getting the Black vote. We were able to win that way because we were able to win the veteran community, independents, people who said crime was their No. 1 issue, people who said the economy was their No. 1 issue. We were able to win Marylanders all over the state; 1.3 million people did not vote for me because they wanted me to make history. They voted for me because they thought I was the person that could make their lives better. The history-making nature of it all is powerful; it’s very, very humbling, particularly because I know the people and the sacrifices they made for me to get here. But I just want people to remember the work that we get done.

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“ I WANT FOR ALL MARYLANDERS TO UNDERSTAND THAT THERE IS NEVER A ROOM THAT THEY DON’T BELONG IN.”

PHOTO BY JAMES KEGLEY

tip of the hat to my birthplace, and not just because Montgomery County is important politically, it’s because they’re the best at what they do. You’ve had an eclectic career. Does that experience inform how you work with lots of different types of people? I never realized when I was doing those other things how much it was preparing me for this. When I was leading soldiers in combat, I never said to myself, This is going to be so helpful [in the future], because I never thought that way. I think, though, my experiences gave me the ability to see the world from a diverse set of lenses, the ability to be comfortable, no matter what room you’re in. I think all of those things have prepared me for this role, the ability to build world-class teams, and know how to manage world-class teams. These

are all things that have prepared me for the job of governor.

that money so inefficiently is not the way you’re supposed to run a government. It’s lazy. And there’s a better way to do it. The amount of vacancies that we have within the state government is so damaging. We need people to go be our nurses, our police officers and our firefighters, and it would fill these massive vacancies in our state government. Now how we’re going to pay for it— we’ve allocated $18 million into our budget. One of the first things I did in office was, by executive order, create the department and put $18 million of capital into that department. We could actually build out something that I think is going to have long-term durable impacts and also be able to leverage both private dollars and federal dollars. It’s a more targeted government, a more effective government. The budget that I proposed is actually a billion dollars less than the budget of my predecessor. We’re able to show that you can be bold, you can be ambitious, and Maryland can lead. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to be reckless. It means we’re going to be smart.

A big part of your platform is your proposed service year option for high school graduates, which would give graduates the option to work for a nonprofit for a year. What do you think the impact of this program would be, if the Serve Act is passed, and how would we pay for it? When I say service will save us, I mean that from a variety of different perspectives. It’s going to save us money. If you look at how we move now, and how we focus on the basic social fabric of the state, we are incredibly ineffective and inefficient with our resources. We literally have hundreds of millions of dollars that we spend every single year on basic functions and basic structures, and using

Several state and county leaders have been critical of how the Purple Line expansion has been handled. What can your administration do to ensure that this project gets back on the rails? This project has been horribly mismanaged. We have not hit any of the targets, either on time or on budget. We’ve blown through both. But this is an administration who cares about mass transit, an administration that actually cares about investing in transportation in a way that can move more people around in a sound, safe and environmentally friendly way. So we’re not going to have a combative relationship with our partners in this. We’re gonna have one that moves and works in partnership.

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The second thing is we believe in putting real professionals in the right seats, and I think people can see by even the selections that we’ve made thus far, like appointing [former Metro general manager and CEO] Paul Wiedefeld. He’s a true transportation professional. Aruna Miller has serious background as a transportation engineer. We’ve got the pros. Now we’ve got to focus on being able to get the Purple Line to completion on time and on budget. It’s a priority.

Following the overturn of Roe v. Wade, Maryland leaders such as Montgom-

ery County Executive Marc Elrich have talked about ensuring Maryland remains a sanctuary for people seeking abortions and reproductive health care. What do you think Maryland’s role is in ensuring abortion access? As long as I am governor, it will be [a sanctuary]. What we want to work on is making sure that it will be even when I’m no longer governor. That’s where the constitutional amendment comes in. There’s a whole lot that I can do as governor—on my first day, we released $3.5 million in previously withheld funding that went to abortion providers. That was important because those funds were crucial, but also I wanted to help set the tone for people that I take this issue seriously. Abortion is health care. The Supreme Court robbed millions of women of health

care. That’s something that we will use everything in our power to make sure it does not stand in the state of Maryland. I just want to make sure that that is permanent. [Ed. note: Legislators this session established a referendum item allowing voters to decide on enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution.] In other states, we’re seeing the passage of anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-trans laws. What do you want to do to ensure the rights of LGBTQ+ Marylanders are protected? For me, it comes back to a basic framework of what would I want for my own children. I want my children to be seen. I want them to be safe in their own skin. I want them to be respected and protected. I want that for all kids in the state.

PHOTO BY JAMES KEGLEY

You’ve talked a lot about fixing I-270 and not agreeing with [former Republican Gov.] Larry Hogan’s approach to the project, but you haven’t necessarily shared your solution. What do you specifically want to do to address congestion on that highway? We have to deal with the issue of congestion. It’s not just environmentally dangerous. It’s psychologically dangerous. And it’s not making us competitive. The challenges that I’ve had to [the Hogan plan] have been that three lenses have not been considered—the equity lens, the environmental lens and the local engagement lens. We have to be able to address these issues, and we’re going to be able to look at a whole collection of different things that we think can potentially work. How do you use the existing footprint? What is the role of reversible lanes? How do you potentially look at a mass transit option? How are we factoring in the completion of the American Legion bridge? We need to address all those things that are not part of the current plan. I’m not OK with having something that only portions of a population can benefit from [Ed. note: Transurban, the contractor for the project, announced in March that it was withdrawing.]

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“AM I ASPIRATIONAL? YEAH, AND I WEAR THAT WITH PRIDE.” And it’s just not lost on me that when you look at the data around this issue, when you look at the level of bullying, the hate crimes—80% of trans individuals have had some form of suicidal ideation. We as a state cannot hear and see that number and be OK with this. When I say leave no one behind, that means being explicit about protecting populations that oftentimes have been neglected in the past, and that includes the LGBTQ community in the state. And I think we see it not just in the bills that we’re pushing forward, not just in our funding that we have allocated, but if you look at the representation of our cabinet, we have very senior members of our administration that are very, very open members of the LGBTQ community. We know that representation matters, and we want for all Marylanders to be able to see themselves in the leadership of the state of Maryland. That’s a pledge that we made during the campaign, and I think it’s a pledge that we’re keeping with our administration.

actually shows a lack of regard for the Constitution and a lack of regard for the law. But I also know why it’s important that the history that we can teach is going to be diverse and honest. I’m a big believer in the idea that loving your country doesn’t mean lying about it. Learning about ourselves, learning about our culture, learning about our journeys, is not a way of minimizing our strength. It’s actually a way of celebrating just how far we’ve come as a state, as a culture, as a community, as a country. The reason that I wanted to start the inauguration at the Annapolis docks and walk to the statehouse was not to make people feel bad. It’s a celebration of how far we’ve come. I just think governors and lawmakers in general should be very careful—not just in terms of jurisdictional authority—about the idea of thinking that history is something that we teach to make people feel good. It’s to create critical thinkers, to add context to the world that we live in. It’s only going to make our community stronger.

There’s been a lot of debate across the country, including in our neighbor state of Virginia, about school curriculum and whether LGBTQ and Black history should be taught in school and whether certain books should be banned. What do you think the relationship between the government and the schools should be when it comes to diversity of curriculum? I think the state dictating to local jurisdictions about what books the student should be reading is not just wrongheaded, it’s unconstitutional. So I think when you’re watching governors who are shaking their fists about what can and will be taught, it

The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future— an education funding plan passed by the Maryland General Assembly in 2021— calls for school districts to employ more teachers. Nationally, we’re already facing a teacher shortage and a mass exodus of educators. What can the state do to attract and support teachers? This issue is critical because the shortage that we continue to see amongst Maryland teachers is staggering. COVID was just an accelerant for many of the challenges that we see inside the classroom. It’s part of the reason we introduced the Maryland [Educator] Shortage Act, which is allocating $15 million and is all about recruit-

ing and retaining our educators. How can we go and make sure we’re reducing the barriers to allow people to enter into the profession, but also going in and increasing the incentives for people to want to stay? Does that mean things like salary and benefits? Yes. But what it also means is, let’s create a better work environment for them. We need to increase funding, because if we don’t get that right, nothing else is going to work. The reason I made the largest investment in public school education in the history of any governor in the history of the state of Maryland is because of so many things that we’re hoping to get done. They rely on us having a world-class public education system. That begins with us being able to attract and retain top talent and topquality educators inside of the classroom. Some people may say you’re aspirational because you have a lot of big ideas. How do you plan to put them into motion? I think if there’s one thread that people can see about my life, it’s that I’m not just talk. We put some points on the board. We said we were going to build a cabinet that looks like the state of Maryland, and it’s going to be the most effective and competent cabinet. We said that we were going to build an administration that is going to focus not on patronage, or politics, but performance. Go person by person in our administration and tell me where I’ve missed. We said we’re going to build a legislative agenda that is going to get bipartisan support in order to get these things done, and we’ve had Republican support on multiple of our bills. Am I aspirational? Yeah, and I wear that with pride. G i n ny B i x by i s M o C o 3 6 0 ’s p o l i t i c s reporter. A Silver Spring resident, she previously reported for the Daily Progress in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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RESURRECTION

AFTER A DEVASTATING FLOOD, A COMMUNITY UNITES TO REBUILD SCOTLAND AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL ZION CHURCH BY MIKE UNGER | PHOTOS BY SKIP BROWN

Church services had ended hours earlier on this warm Sunday in February, but a distinctly spiritual feel drifted throughout the Potomac townhouse where dozens of people were gathered. Up for discussion: resurrecting the nearly 100-yearold Scotland African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Zion Church, which had been devastated by a 2019 flood. Regardless of their race or religion, where they worshipped or lived, what they did for a living or how much their job paid them, this disparate group of Montgomery County residents seemed to share a

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DINING CONTENT HERE

LaTisha Gasaway-Paul (back row, second from left) with congregants and supporters of Scotland A.M.E. Zion Church

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Faith in the ability of people to work together, faith in the power of their community to make change, and faith that the little white church by the side of the road, as some of its parishioners lovingly describe it, would one day stand proud again. The Rev. Dr. Evalina Huggins, Scotland AME Zion’s pastor, began the event—part info session, part fundraiser, part pep rally—with a few words. “God,” she proclaimed, “we are finding that we are more alike than we are different.” Over the course of the afternoon there were speeches and songs, history lessons and predictions about the future. Rabbi Evan Krame concluded with a prayer. “As we move forward from this day, may we all be given the strength, the courage and the wisdom to bring change to this community, to bring hope and love and caring to each other, and to see that new structure built in our days and speedily.” Already, some prayers have been answered. What in some ways began when a local billionaire saw a TV news report about the destroyed church has developed into the 2nd Century Project, an ambitious $9 million three-phase plan to restore and rejuvenate the church. “My ancestors—by hand, if you can imagine—built the original Scotland church,” says LaTisha Gasaway-Paul, a leader in the coalition of church members, Glenstone museum leaders, residents, businesses and politicians tackling the project. “They fought to have a church there so that we could have a place to go to every Sunday. This is just continuing what they did. We need to build it stronger so that in 100 years they won’t be in the same predicament that we’re in now.”

THE GLENSTONE FOUNDATION HAS PLEDGED TO MATCH EACH DONATION TO THE 2ND CENTURY PROJECT DOLLAR FOR DOLLAR, UP TO $3 MILLION.

$200,000

AACHAF

(African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund)

ADVENTIST HEALTH

$100,000

GOFUNDME

$19,898+

PRIVATE DONORS

$18–$1,000

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The story of Scotland AME Zion Church is inextricably tied to the place from which it got its

name. In 1880, Gasaway-Paul’s great-great-great-grandfather William Dove purchased 36 acres and helped to establish Scotland, a community of formerly enslaved African Americans. Work began on the church in 1915 and was completed in 1924. When it opened, it became the community’s epicenter. In the ensuing decades, baptisms, weddings, funerals as well as recovery ministry meetings and food distribution programs have been held in the modest wooden building. It was placed on the Maryland Inventory of Historic Places in 1992, according to David Buck, director of communications at the Maryland Department of Planning. In the 1960s, Scotland’s homes, to which the county had failed to provide running water and sewer service, were falling into disrepair, and many residents were selling their land to speculators. “The community was full of hard-working people,” says Bethesda resident Joyce Siegel, an honorary co-chair of the 2nd Century Project Capital Campaign Committee. “They were paying their taxes but had no water, no sewer, no trash collection. It was unreal.” Siegel formed Save Our Scotland, which became Scotland Community Development. After years of political fighting and lobbying, Scotland Community Development took control of the land and built 100 townhouses. (The 25 privately owned units and 75 rentals, which were renovated in 2018, remain today.) “We did everything in the church,” Siegel says. “We had monthly meetings. The kids were way behind, so we had tutorial programs almost every night. We had employment programs. We had county officials speak to the people there.” When the church was built, it was not in a floodplain. That changed when Seven Locks Road was expanded and raised in the ’60s. From that point, heavy rains caused runoff from the road that flooded the church’s basement. “But for the elevation of the road, you would not have these floods,” says former County Executive Ike Leggett, the 2nd Century Project Capital Campaign Committee’s other honorary co-chair. “Unfortunately, [Scotland] has not been treated with the level of support historically that the county and state and others should have provided. There’s a debt long overdue, and this is compounding many years of neglect that the community has suffered over the years.” Water damage became commonplace at Scotland AME Zion, but it did not deliver a critical blow until July 7, 2019. That day, strong storms led to flash flooding that filled the basement to its rafters. Worse, water collapsed one of the building’s walls. Longtime church choir member Chuck Williams was out of town at the time, but he saw the devastation on a video. “You would have thought that the building was in the middle of a river,” says Williams, chair of the Capital Campaign Committee. “You could see from looking at the missing wall, everyone realized that we’re not going to be back in this building for a while.” Gasaway-Paul felt as if someone had knocked the wind out of her. “Our foundation is the church,” she says. “The meetings, the events—when you take that all away, it leaves a void. I did not know what our next steps were going to be at that moment.”

PHOTOS BY AL SIEGEL/MONTGOMERY HISTORY

4/11/23 11:48 AM

“ WE DID EVERYTHING IN THE CHURCH,” SIEGEL SAYS. “WE HAD MONTHLY MEETINGS. WE HAD EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMS. WE HAD COUNTY OFFICIALS SPEAK TO THE PEOPLE THERE.” — JOYCE SIEGEL

TOP: The church in 1966; BOTTOM FROM LEFT: Youth participants in an After School Teen Exercise in 1968; Geneva Mason (left) and Joyce Siegel near the zoning reclassification sign indicating the nonp ofit commit ee, Save Our Scotland, that Siegel founded; the second groundbreaking ceremony for the housing development, held in Scotland in 1970

Mitchell Rales is the co-founder of Danaher, a science and technology conglomerate that

owns more than 20 companies around the world. In February, Forbes estimated his net worth at $5.6 billion. He and his wife, Emily, opened Glenstone, a contemporary art museum, in Potomac in 2006. Listed among its core values is the phrase “meaningful encounters begin with direct engagement.” After seeing a Channel 4 report on the damage to the church, Rales began investigating, and ultimately offered the aid of the

Glenstone Foundation. Staffers there with backgrounds in architecture, engineering, communications and construction management contributed their expertise. County Councilman Andrew Friedson has championed the project since its inception. “I’m deeply connected to the community and its history. This is about restorative justice and about righting historical wrongs,” says the Democratic representative of District 1, where the church is located. “We have the opportunity to really work together with the community to ensure that

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“YOU COULD SEE FROM LOOKING AT THE MISSING WALL, EVERYONE REALIZED THAT WE’RE NOT GOING TO BE BACK IN THIS BUILDING FOR A WHILE.” — CHUCK WILLIAMS

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this structure that is such an important part of the fabric and history of our community can stand for another 100 years.” Among the first steps taken by the church was the hiring of Washington, D.C.-based architectural firm Antunovich Associates to create a blueprint for the future. There are several aspects to the project, says Desmond Grimball, a senior associate at the firm. First, the church will be raised more than 2 feet, “just enough to align it with the road to mitigate the flooding issues that have been occurring since that road was raised,” Grimball says. In addition, the building is being stabilized to prevent further erosion of its structure, and the surrounding landscape is being regraded to reduce the risk of future flooding. During the planning, it became clear that the church’s mission had outgrown its space. So when it’s reopened, the old church will serve as a community center, and a roughly 5,000-squarefoot building to be constructed on the property will house the sanctuary and offices. “The biggest challenge of the project is the physical constraints,” Grimball says. “It’s a very long, skinny site. It’s bound on the east side by a roadway that created a drainage condition. On the west side it’s bound by a very steep, heavily vegetated hill [down which water flows] right into it. So this long, skinny property basically sits in a bathtub.” Addressing the water problem was the No. 1 priority, Grimball says. “Beyond that was just what could be developed on the

LaTisha Gasaway-Paul, a leader in the coalition of church members, Glenstone museum representatives, residents, businesses and politicians tackling the project

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Chuck Williams inside the church property while respecting the presence and living memory of the existing church,” he says. A model of the renovated church and the new building were on display during a groundbreaking ceremony on July 9, 2022, almost three years to the day after the catastrophic flood. It was an optimistic day filled with speeches and shoveling, but more setbacks were to come. In late November, the unoccupied church was vandalized by a group of people who broke doors and windows. The case remained open as of early February, according to county police spokesperson Lauren Ivey. “The saying is: You don’t kick a person when they’re already

down,” Gasaway-Paul says. “It was like, How much more can we possibly take? I know that they might not understand the nature of what they did. But when you do things like that, it’s like another dagger. We need uplifting.” Still, she refuses to be discouraged. Earlier this year the Scotland community announced an expansion of its annual Juneteenth Heritage Festival. It will begin June 17 with a musical gala at the Bethesda Blues & Jazz Supper Club and conclude on June 19 with a Freedom Day concert at the Scotland community. Highlights of the festival, which will be spread across Cabin John Regional Park, Cabin John Village and the Scotland com-

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munity, include a children’s carnival and music performance, as well as art exhibitions, food and presentations on Black history. Also on the schedule are the second annual Clarence “Pint” Isreal Juneteenth Classic hosted by Bethesda Big Train Baseball at Povich Field, a 5K run, and a classic car show. All proceeds will benefit the 2nd Century Project. “We envision this event becoming a preeminent destination for celebrating Juneteenth in the state of Maryland and the DMV,” Gasaway-Paul, the festival’s chairperson, says in a press release. Work on the church began in February, and the hope is that all three phases will be completed by 2024, in time for its centennial. Williams is confident that will happen. “The very first time that we [walked] into Scotland I was expecting that we were going to walk inside and it would be a mausoleum, cobwebs all over the place, a small handful of members trying to hold everything in place,” he says. “But it was full of people. I heard one of the best choirs that I had ever heard. I will be ever so grateful to have a building that we can perform ministries in, that we can hold rehearsals in, and that we can worship in. I’m going to be very happy to see the building, but I am going to be even more happy that we’ll be able to reunite everyone again so we can get back to the business at hand of being a stabilizing force to [the] Scotland community.” Since the flood, the congregation has held Sunday services in spaces lent by nearby churches. At one point, members were meeting at Gasaway-Paul’s former dance studio, and they’ve assembled on Zoom as well. Gasaway-Paul is grateful for every opportunity that her friends and family have to pray together, but to her, like generations of her family before, there’s only one Scotland AME Zion Church. “When you go to a family member’s house, it’s nice, you have a good time,” she says, “but eventually you want to go back home.”

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Mike Unger is a writer and editor who grew up in Montgomery County and lives in Baltimore.

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BLAZING TRAILS When entrepreneurs have disabilities, it may or may not be apparent on the outside. But their efforts to break down barriers often make the world more accessible for others. B Y J U L I E R A S I C O T | P H O T O S B Y J I M E L L G R E E N E

Ten years ago, Bob Mather of

the workforce can consider entrepreneurship and selfemployment, but those who pursue alternative options are “hindered by limited access to affordable start-up Chevy Chase retired from a legal career and a scarcity of supports, services and prodedicated to fighting or disability rights, capital grams tailored to their unique needs and challenges,” including decades at the U.S. Department according to an April 2022 report by the National Disability Institute, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. of Justice and a stint running his own According to that report, it’s also difficult to determine practice, which focused on employment how many people with disabilities are self-employed because disability status isn’t captured in nationwide discrimination cases. surveys about small businesses, such as the U.S. Census. “As a result, the absence of disability data renders busiBut retirement didn’t sit well with Mather. Deaf since ness owners with disabilities invisible,” the report says. birth, the lawyer and father of two deaf children says he “This creates an obstacle to building a case for developrealized there was more he could do to help increase acces- ing targeted programs for this underserved and too often sibility for people with hearing issues. In 2019, along with overlooked population.” four other deaf professionals in the U.S. and France, he coThe COVID-19 pandemic was a game changer for founded World in Sign, a company based in downtown Sil- people with disabilities, says Trish Gallalee, who chairs ver Spring that provides a one-stop shop for accessible com- the Montgomery County Commission on People with munications and telecom services, including on-demand Disabilities. That’s because the shift to telework allevideo interpretation services. viated a major barrier—finding transportation—for “I saw there was still a need for improvement in the those seeking jobs and expanded the possibilities for accessibility world, and I noticed that many, many solu- people who can’t physically work in an office for varitions were available that made services and programs ous reasons or may need care while working. “Telemore accessible for all,” says Mather, 72, who used Ameri- work really opens up a lot more avenues where can Sign Language interpreted by Josie Brown, the compa- employers may not have been so inclined to allow for ny’s director of sales and partnerships, during a Zoom call. full-time telework,” says Gallalee, a federal governMather and his fellow disabled entrement employee who has been a parapreneurs have focused on hiring workers plegic since childhood. with a hearing disability, though the com“Employment is key because that gives pany had to furlough its staff of 12 in early you the ability to get a home and to be March until “the situation becomes solvent,” part of society and to be a contributing according to Mather. “We work together as OF U.S. ADULTS member, and it means so much because a great team innovating ideas and soluthat’s where equity comes in, because HAVE A tions and possibilities to develop and test,” now you’re like everybody else,” she says. DISABILITY. he says. Montgomery County is home to a Not all employers are as committed as number of entrepreneurs with disabili—Centers for Disease World in Sign to hiring people with disties. Here are three who spoke to Bethesda Control and Prevention abilities. Disabled people who are outside Magazine about their experiences.

26%

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Karen Herson is the founder of Concepts Communications, which addresses such issues as disability inclusion, workforce development and communications access for the disabled.

“[SOMETIMES AN INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY] BECOMES A SUPERPOWER BECAUSE IT MAKES YOU HAVE TO THINK IN A DIFFERENT WAY.”

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KAREN HERSON FOUNDER OF CONCEPTS COMMUNICATIONS

Diagnosed with dyslexia at age 7, Karen Herson has learned to cope with a disability that impacts her daily, though it is invisible to most

which addresses such issues as disability inclusion, workforce development and communications access for the disabled. Over the years, the firm has won people. “I think people meet me and they have no several contracts from the U.S. Department of Labor, idea I have a disability,” she says. including for projects focusing on education awareAs a young child, she “used to do everything ness and disability employment. The firm recently backwards,” like writing and speaking. “Instead created four public service announcement videos of saying nail polish, I would say pol nailish,” says for the department’s Office of Disability Employment Herson, 54, of North Bethesda. Growing up in New Policy’s Campaign for Disability Employment. In addition to dealing with dyslexia, Jersey before it became common for students with special needs to be mainHerson was diagnosed about five years streamed with other students, Herson ago with Raynaud’s syndrome, which affects the blood flow to her hands was in classes with students who had and feet, impacting typing and other a range of physical and intellectual diswork tasks. Four years ago, she was abilities. As she moved through school, eventually graduating from George diagnosed with colon cancer. “With all Washington University, she learned to those elements, that kind of woke up my awareness process of being a discope with dyslexia by writing everyMEDIAN abled entrepreneur,” she says, noting thing in notebooks. ANNUAL “I still do it to this day, even though that she had to rely on her staff to keep EARNINGS FOR her business running while she underI have a computer, in order to prowent three months of chemotherapy. cess it and get it into my head,” she MARYLAND says. Sometimes having an intellecThough she hasn’t faced discrimiWORKERS WITH tual disability “becomes a superpower nation as a disabled entrepreneur, she AND WITHOUT A says she has found that “if people don’t because it makes you have to think in DISABILITY a different way.” know I have a disability, they someHerson says dealing with the word times find my word retention issues —Analysis of U.S. Census data from 2016 to 2020 by funny, which sometimes rubs me the retention and memory issues resultthe Department of Labor ing from her disability have helped wrong way, but I always try to use these her as an entrepreneur. “Knowing I situations as teaching moments.” had to process information in a differHerson says the goal of advocacy ent way really helped me excel for my clients,” she work like the Campaign for Disability Employment says. “I have a process in place that really helps helps raise awareness to the value of hiring people to work with my clients to clearly support their with disabilities. Still, “we do all this outreach and communications needs, but [helps] them to slow engagement, and we wonder: Does any of it make any down and create attainable goals that truly have difference? Are people hiring people with disabilities measurable impact.” because of what we’re doing?” she says. “That’s the After graduating from college, Herson worked hardest part of any kind of awareness campaign. I for several consulting firms. In 1996 she decided don’t know. I hope so. That’s why it takes someone to start her own firm, Concepts Communications, like me telling my story. It does help.”

$31,889 vs.

$46,879

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PATTY RIVAS

FOUNDER OF NURTURING HOPE COUNSELING

These days, Patty Rivas is busy working as a psychotherapist out of her Clarksburg home and also running an auto-detailing business that

Determined to become as independent as possible, she learned how to drive with hand controls and took a job working in child protective services in Prince George’s County. But she was frustrated she took over from her stepfather when he died in 2017, serving three local car dealerships. that her limited mobility prevented her from doing Twenty-eight years ago, she was facing life as a investigative work in the field. “It’s not until you’re quadriplegic after a bullet fired by her in it that you realize that I’m limited or boyfriend’s gun passed through her it’s difficult to do,” she says. “That was neck when she was driving in Arlingpretty hard, because I wanted to be able ton, Virginia, on their way home from to experience all of that.” a nightclub. A couple of years later, she left social Rivas, who was 18 at the time, says she work to help run a Latin market that her can’t recall exactly what happened that parents had opened in Derwood. After OF PEOPLE night, but believes her boyfriend’s gun six years or so, the family closed the went off when she panicked and pressed market and Rivas went to work for IdenWITH A the brake pedal after he said they were tity, the Gaithersburg nonprofit serving DISABILITY ARE being followed by someone. Rivas says Latino and other historically underEMPLOYED, served youths, for about eight years. she didn’t know the weapon was in the COMPARED car. “I don’t remember the full details,” She left Identity in 2021 to care for her she says, “but from what I gather, it ill mother and opened her own psychoWITH NEARLY wasn’t intentional for it to hit me.” therapy practice, Nurturing Hope Coun68% OF The spinal cord injury caused by the seling, offering telehealth services. PEOPLE bullet left her a quadriplegic. “It was Rivas decided to start her own busiWITHOUT ONE. definitely a difficult and challenging ness because she wanted the ability to set time for me, just emerging into adulther schedule and to be able to incorpo—U.S. Bureau of hood, and this completely changed my rate therapy and exercise into her workLabor Statistics life,” says Rivas, who was attending colday. Safety also was a major factor in her lege before she was shot. “But the type decision to work remotely from home. of person I am, I’ve always been very optimistic, I’ve “One of the things I always think about is I’m in always just tried to look ahead.” a position where I can’t necessarily protect myself,” Paralyzed from the neck down, Rivas returned to she says. “So I always think about what’s in my best her mother’s home in Rockville and got on with her interest and what’s safe. So for me right now, doing life, always buoyed during difficult times by the strong the virtual sessions is what works out for me.” support of family and friends. With “a lot of therapy,” Rivas spends about 30 hours each week seeing she eventually regained the use of her arms and legs. clients and about 10 hours handling administrative work for the auto-detailing business, Ameri“I’ve come pretty far, because when I first got can Cleaning and Detail, that she promised her injured, doctors told my parents that they really didn’t see me ever walking again. I use a walker. I stepfather she’d keep going. She relies on her opermove around pretty independently,” says Rivas, now ations staff to run the automotive business, which 46. “I drive. I go up and down the steps. For longshe hopes to expand. distance walking I still use a wheelchair.” “People have asked if I ever felt discriminated Using a manual wheelchair, she graduated from [against] in any way. From my experience, I did Trinity College (now known as Trinity Washington not have that,” she says. “I knock on wood because University) in the District, then earned a master’s I am very fortunate. I’ve come across other peodegree from the University of Maryland School of ple that have shared their story and it’s not been Social Work in Baltimore. the same.”

ABOUT 24%

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“I’VE ALWAYS JUST TRIED TO LOOK AHEAD.”

Patty Rivas founded Nurturing Hope Counseling, which offers teletherapy.

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“WHEN THEY TOLD ME NO, I WAS LIKE, I HAVE TO DO IT.”

Bob Mather is the founder of World in Sign, a company that is developing on-demand access to sign-language interpreters.

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BOB MATHER CO-FOUNDER OF WORLD IN SIGN

When Bob Mather was growing up, deaf people like him were taught how to live in a hearing world by using the oral method, which favored

tion to go to law school. I didn’t want to be a lawyer. But when they told me no, I was like, I have to do it.” Attending law school at DePaul University in Chicago presented its own challenges, says Mather, development of speech and lipreading instead of sign who notes that accommodations for disabled peolanguage to communicate. ple weren’t federally mandated at the time. He had By the time he was in high school, Mather was to hire his own interpreter, using funding from a doing well in classes by relying on reading lips, but he wasn’t happy with himself, he recalls. When he was vocational rehab program. 17, he started reading literature about After graduating, he was hired as a lawyer for the National Center for the struggles of African Americans with Law and the Deaf at Gallaudet Colidentity and their treatment by society. “I found I actually had a similar feeling lege, which became Gallaudet Univerto that literature I was reading,” says sity in 1986, in Washington, D.C., and Mather, who is white. Reading works by then moved to the U.S. Access Board for Black authors helped him realize that six years, focusing on ensuring access he needed to own his identity as a deaf to federally funded facilities. Mather UNEMPLOYMENT then worked for the Department of Jusperson. “I had a constant struggle with myself, with my identity to always be tice for more than 30 years. He helped RATE FOR a hearing person, and then I realized draft the Americans with Disabilities PEOPLE AGES that wasn’t right for me and I was proud Act, which was signed into law in 1990. 16 TO 64 WITH of who I was and who I am, and so I Since ending his retirement by colearned sign language,” says Mather. AND WITHOUT A founding World in Sign, Mather and His signing skills advanced when he the team have been working on develDISABILITY attended the National Technical Instioping and providing a variety of prod—According to the tute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute ucts, including on-demand access to Department of Labor’s of Technology in upstate New York, interpreters via smartphones for those Office of Disability where interpreters were provided in who need it, such as police officers Employment Policy January data his classes. “I had never had that expemaking traffic stops. rience in school,” he says. “So instead of As an entrepreneur, Mather says he’s missing words from the teacher and tryfound that it’s not his disability that can ing to guess what the lesson was and reading lips—if hinder efforts to build his business, but “rather the you’re reading lips, you’re guessing—finally I didn’t inaccessibility of services” from prospective clients. have to miss the words. I didn’t have to miss what “For instance, effective communication with them in people were saying.” person often requires the use of qualified interpreters,” he says. “We have to provide our own.” Mather met his wife, Sue, at RIT, and both graduThroughout his career, Mather has focused on ated with degrees in social work. During the time changing people’s perspective to understand that they were planning to marry and start a family, they discovered that they needed to earn graduate degrees everyone benefits from increasing accessibility, such as by providing on-demand interpreters. in order to become licensed social workers. Sue then “came up with a crazy idea” that Bob should go to law “The interpreter isn’t just for me; it’s for you, too,” school. “I said, ‘You have to be able to speak and be he says. “We don’t have a special need. We just able to hear. Law school?’ ” he says. have a right to have this access, the same access So Mather asked friends for opinions and “they all as others.” told me, ‘No. No. No. No. There’s no way,’ ” he says. “That enraged me. So that was my negative motivaContributing editor Julie Rasicot lives in Silver Spring.

7.5% vs.

3.8%

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ILLUSTRATOR NAME TK

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24 THINGS

to do as the days get longer and the nights get hotter ome summer, it feels like there’s more time to stop and admire the peonies. Or splish-splash in a water wonderland. Or catch a drip of ice cream just before it runs down the cone. Fall will be bringing its own joys soon enough, but until then, let’s celebrate the summer in all its sunny glory. BY STEPHANIE SIEGEL BURKE ILLUSTRATIONS BY HELENA WU

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1 Get artsy alfresco

Aug. 11-19

See pig races, enjoy funnel cakes and cotton candy, and take a spin on the Ferris wheel or Tilt-a-Whirl (but, for your stomach’s sake, maybe not in that order) There’s only one place you can do that, of course: the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair. The nine-day event, now in its 74th year, has all the attractions you’d expect at a county fair—think farm animals, demolition derbies, carnival rides and games—and even some you wouldn’t (toilet decorating contest, anyone?). mcagfair.com

4 Ongoing

Live the lake life— for a few hours, at least At Little Seneca Lake in Black Hill Park, you can rent a kayak or canoe and explore the Black Hill Water Trail, a selfguided tour of the three creeks—Little Seneca, Cabin Branch and Ten Mile—that come together to form the 505-acre lake in Boyds. Learn about the history and wildlife of the area along the way, and be ready to paddle; the full trail takes three to five hours to complete. There are also rowboats, peddle boats and stand-up paddleboards to rent for those who want a more leisurely experience on the water. montgomeryparks.org/parks-andtrails/black-hill-regional-park/ black-hill-boats-little-seneca-lake

FROM TOP: PHOTO COURTESY GLEN ECHO PARK PARTNERSHIP; PHOTO BY GETTY IMAGES; PHOTO BY KEN VISSER/MONTGOMERY COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS

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May 5, June 2, July 7, Aug. 4 The mood is pretty much permanently set to whimsical at Glen Echo Park, given its amusement park history, art deco buildings and neon signs. But on the first Friday of the month from May through August, it’s even more inspiring. That’s when the monthly Art Walk in the Park takes place, returning in May after a pandemic hiatus. You can stroll through the park and visit open art galleries and studios, where you’ll see artists demonstrating their crafts, or do a hands-on project yourself. It’s all set to the strains of the Washington Conservatory of Music, which presents a concert during each Art Walk. glenechopark.org/art-walk

July 1 and 4

See the rockets’ red glare

Catch Independence Day fireworks at your choice of locations around the county. Montgomery County Recreation hosts two events: Midtown Sparkles on July 1 at Albert Einstein High School in Kensington and Germantown Glory on July 4 at South Germantown Recreational Park in Boyds. Several municipalities also hold their own fireworks shows, including Rockville and Poolesville. Gaithersburg also blasts off early on July 1 with the annual SummerFest party at Bohrer Park.

Darcy De La Cuadra [left] and Emerald Star

FROM LEFT: PHOTO BY GETTY IMAGES; PHOTO COURTESY DENIZENS BREWING CO.

May 6-7, June 3-4

Live out your Alice in Wonderland dreams at McCrillis Gardens With its shady paths, lush trees and shrubs and colorful azaleas, rhododendrons and other blooms, the 5-acre property could be the setting for a mad tea party or a secret garden. Get a tour of the gardens followed by an English-style afternoon tea—not the mad kind—in the great room at McCrillis House with tea and dainty bites, including scones, tea sandwiches and desserts. montgomeryparks.org/events/join-us-foran-afternoon-tea-at-mccrillis-gardens

Ongoing

Try your luck at bingo The hosts are fierce and the seltzers are hard at Drag Queen Bingo Night, a monthly event at Denizens Brewing Co. in Silver Spring. Emcee Emerald Star is joined by a rotating cast of co-hosts on the fourth Wednesday of every month. When the weather is nice, the game moves outside to the beer garden’s expansive covered tent, a perfect spot for sipping a refreshing strawberry cucumber hard seltzer or a signature seasonal brew while trying your luck at winning some bingo prizes, such as Denizens gift certificates or, sometimes, tickets to sporting events. denizensbrewingco.com

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Make it a daycation at Rio Lakefront

OK, so there’s no beach, but there’s a lake with a boardwalk and lots to do. You can race the lake’s resident ducks and geese in a rental paddleboat, ride the carousel and stop by the playground. Time it right and you could catch a live performance on the boardwalk stage. And, of course, there are plenty of dining options for refreshing and refueling. Bonus: no Bay Bridge traffic! riolakefront.com

PHOTO CREDIT TK

Ongoing

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May 13, May 27, June 10, June 24, Aug. 26

Jump and jive at Glen Echo Park’s Spanish Ballroom The historic dance facility, built in the early 1930s, is noteworthy for its architecture, which incorporates elements of Spanish mission and art deco styles. Swing dances with live bands are held on select Saturdays in the Spanish Ballroom, where some of the country’s biggest swing bands performed during the World War II era. Come early for a free lesson. glenechopark.org/dances

9 Ongoing

Take yourself out to the ballgame Shirley Povich Field, the 750-seat baseball stadium in Cabin John Regional Park, is home to the Bethesda Big Train baseball team, part of the Cal Ripken Collegiate Baseball League. Top college players from around the country join the league each summer; some eventually go on to the pros. You can root, root, root for the home team (or not, if you’re partial to league rivals such as the Gaithersburg Giants, the Olney Cropdusters or the Silver Spring-Takoma Thunderbolts). There isn’t a bad seat in the house, so fans can get close to the action—don’t forget your mitt for when the fouls fly into the stands. bigtrain.org

LEFT PAGE: PHOTO BY ADAM BROCKETT; RIGHT PAGE: PHOTO COURTESY GLEN ECHO PARK PARTNERSHIP FOR ARTS AND CULTURE; PHOTO BY GETTY IMAGES

10 Ongoing

Engage in utter ice cream hedonism Not much has changed at Jimmie Cone, the Damascus ice cream stand, since it started dishing out soft serve in 1962. Splurge on the indulgent Hot Fudge Cake Boat (cream-filled chocolate cake covered with ice cream, hot fudge, whipped cream and cherries on top) or keep it old school with a classic vanilla soft serve cone (we never forget the sprinkles, known as— yep—jimmies here). Chocolate and vanilla are guaranteed every day, while orange, strawberry and black raspberry rotate on a weekly basis. jimmiecone.com

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Ongoing

Get down and dirty in the mud MudFest, an all-ages event, is a celebration of International Mud Day (yes, it’s a real thing—the official date is June 29). Jump, slip and slide, cook mud pies and create mud art as the Rickman Area of Woodstock Equestrian Special Park in Beallsville becomes one giant mud wallow. Music and food trucks round out the party. Washing and changing stations will be available on-site. montgomeryparks.org

Let’s face it: Your pup deserves some playtime and a cold treat. And frankly, so do you! May we suggest Bark Social’s Tuesday Trivia night? The menu at the North Bethesda dog park/bar features pupsicles and puppy ice cream for your four-legged friend. For humans, favorites include frosé and frozen mango margaritas. Round up your brainiest pals, because the top three teams win a $50, $30 and $10 bar tab for the night. barksocial.com/pages/bethesda

Ongoing Meet your guide at Riley’s Lock

Paddle the Potomac under the 15 full moon

in Poolesville for an introduction to your gear and a cookout-style dinner. Then launch into the water at Seneca Creek for some basic instruction before heading onto the Potomac River for a nocturnal tour with Calleva river school’s Moonlight River Experience. The full moon falls on June 3, but if you miss that one, the tour is offered on the date of each full moon through September. calleva.org/liquidadventures-kayak/ seakayaking/river-tours

LEFT PAGE: PHOTOS COURTESY MONTGOMERY PARKS, M-NCPPC; PHOTO COURTESY BARK SOCIAL; PHOTO BY GETTY IMAGES; RIGHT PAGE: PHOTO BY GETTY IMAGES; PHOTO COURTESY MONTGOMERY PARKS, M-NCPPC; PHOTO COURTESY GLENSTONE MUSEUM

June 17

Take your dog out on a date

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May 19 Don’t know a cross-body

July 28, Aug. 4, Aug. 11

Put a new spin on the old dinner-anda-movie routine

Grab a meal at your favorite downtown Bethesda eatery, then head to Woodmont Triangle at the corner of Norfolk and Auburn avenues for Bethesda Outdoor Movies. You can catch a free flick on the big inflatable screen; come early if you hope to snag a lawn chair, or bring your own. The show starts at 9 p.m. bethesda.org/bethesda/bethesda-outdoor-movies

Ongoing

Say hello to Split Rocker

Instead of dancing in the street, Salsa in the Park

lead from a New York walk? No problem! Step one: Drop in for a free lesson with a professional dance instructor on May 17 in Germantown Town Center Urban Park. Step two: Tell all your friends to join you for a great night out back in the park on the 19th for the official Salsa in the Park event with live Latin music. Step three: Meet up at the park and bust your new moves. Local vendors will have food and drinks for sale, so you can refuel, then hit the dance floor again. montgomeryparks.org

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Imagine being on a walk through a beautiful meadow of wildflowers when you spot a giant plant creature half-smiling down at you from its hilltop perch. It’s a surreal experience. And it can be yours at Glenstone museum when its meadow is in bloom and the 24,000 annuals covering the 37-foottall Jeff Koons sculpture Split-Rocker are blossoming. The museum grounds and its buildings are as spectacular as the art itself. Tickets must be reserved. glenstone.org

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Load up the car with lawn chairs, a picnic and boogie shoes

Food and drinks are usually banned from Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, but the rules change on Tuesday nights during the Summer Twilight Concert Series. The Natty Beaux, a big band/swing group, kicks off the series on June 6, followed by a different band and musical genre each week. Picnics are welcome— only on concert evenings—so bring your own or put together a meal from the on-site food trucks. montgomeryparks.org/events/summer-twilightconcert-series-natty-beaux-swing-band

PHOTO CREDIT TK

June 6, 13, 20, 27

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18 July 9

Celebrate the Bard at Brookside Gardens A magical storm is at the center of The Tempest, the show selected for this summer’s Shakespeare in the Garden performance, but here’s hoping for clear skies—last year’s show was canceled due to bad weather. As long as the forecast cooperates, plan on bringing friends and family, your picnic baskets, chairs and blankets, for an enchanting performance set against Brookside’s beautiful grounds. They are such stuff as dreams are made on. montgomeryparks.org/events/shakespearein-the-garden-the-tempest

May-June

FROM LEFT: PHOTO COURTESY MONTGOMERY PARKS, M-NCPPC; PHOTO BY MARYLAND DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES; PHOTO BY RANGER MELISSA BOYLE ACUTI

Frolic among acres of peonies

The big pink flowers usually burst into bloom at the historic Schwartz Peony Garden at Seneca Creek State Park sometime in May and remain in their full glory throughout June. Gaithersburg real estate broker Edwin P. Schwartz started the peony garden between 1915 and 1924 at his mansion, which is now Gaithersburg City Hall. By the 1940s, the Schwartzes were prominent peony dealers and they moved their garden to 5 acres in what is now the state park. While you’re there, stroll through open fields, hike wooded trails, or visit several historic sites and structures. dnr.maryland.gov/publiclands/ pages/central/seneca/historyseneca.aspx

July-August

Groove to music under the stars

PHOTO CREDIT TK

Strathmore’s outdoor summer concerts return in July and continue through August. The weekly Wednesday Live from the Lawn series spans musical genres with a lineup that includes folk groups, blues singers and world music bands, just to name a few. The performances are all family-friendly, but little ones are the target audience of the Cool Concerts for Kids, special performances on select Thursdays by Grammy-nominated family music artists, including “kindie rock” king Dan Zanes. Concerts take place at the Gudelsky Gazebo on Strathmore’s expansive lawn, and picnics are welcome. strathmore.org

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Ongoing

Get picky at an orchard

Berry season gets serious in June at Butler’s Orchard in Germantown. You can pick your own strawberries, blueberries and black raspberries this month, as well as tart cherries, English peas and sugar snap peas. Stop by the farm park and visit the goats, sheep and other farm animals. There are also giant slides and playground equipment. butlersorchard.com

Ongoing

That’s because there’s no pool at SplashPark—just fountains, sprinklers, sprayers, water slides, a 280-jet water maze, buckets that drop water and other fun ways to get wet. SplashPark is part of the South Germantown Recreational Park, where you’ll also find a jumping pillow—sort of like a bounce house without the sides and roof—and an 18-hole miniature golf course. montgomeryparks.org/parks-and-trails/splash-park-mini-golf

FROM TOP: PHOTO BY TYLER BUTLER; PHOTO BY JOHN FRITH; PHOTO COURTESY MONTGOMERY PARKS, M-NCPPC

Cool off in the water, no floaties required

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Ongoing

Go camping at your own speed If the idea of camping appeals to you, but the hassle of lugging gear and pitching a tent doesn’t, Little Bennett Campground in Clarksburg is the place for you. Options include camper-ready sites (just show up and a tent, camping chairs, propane stove and lantern are all set up, waiting for you), yurts with beds that sleep up to six happy campers, and cabins equipped with kitchens and bathrooms. There are also regular tent sites for DIY types. Just don’t forget the ingredients for s’mores. montgomeryparks. org/parks-and-trails/ little-bennett-regionalpark/little-bennettcampground

FROM TOP: PHOTO COURTESY MONTGOMERY PARKS, M-NCPPC; PHOTO BY OXLEY PHOTOGRAPHY; PHOTO BY VALERIE DYER

Stephanie Siegel Burke is a freelance writer and editor specializing in local news, arts, culture and events. She lives in Bethesda with her husband, two children and one dog.

Ongoing

Go for a hike-and-sip Spend a morning hiking Sugarloaf Mountain in Dickerson. Several trails of varying difficulty lead to the summit at 1,282 feet and a panoramic view of the farmland below. Afterward, head to nearby Sugarloaf Mountain Vineyard, located near the base of the mountain. The winery, which opens daily at noon, hosts live music and food trucks each weekend. Treat yourself to a glass of the seasonal red sangria. With all that hiking, you’ve earned it. smvwinery.com

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BUSINESS ROUNDUP

Championing the Pike District

EMERGENT BIOSOLUTIONS WINS APPROVAL FOR PRESCRIPTION-FREE NARCAN

l In fiscal 202 , the availability of generic products contributed to a 14% drop in revenue for the company’s naloxone nasal products, to about $374 million. l Fiscal 2023 revenue for Narcan is forecast to be from $290 million to $310 million, according to the company.

Launched earlier this year, the Pike District Partnership is laser focused on making North Bethesda’s Pike District the “place that people want it to be,” says Matt Herrmann, chair of the nonprofit o ganization’s interim board of directors. That includes advocating for the county’s plan for the area between Bethesda and Rockville and the infrastructure to support development—as well as keeping businesses and residents informed, and hosting community events.

The FitzWay

Rockville’s Jack Fitzgerald, So Fitzgerald turned the comwho turns 88 in September, pany over to his employees by

wanted to ensure that his auto sales empire would remain intact and continue operating “the FitzWay”—a customer service philosophy he says is grounded in honesty and respect—after he was gone. Selling Fitzgerald Auto Malls to a competitor that might abandon the philosophy or lay off some of his 1,800 employees wasn’t acceptable, he says; nor was the possibility that the business would be broken up in order to pay estate taxes.

WHAT WE’RE EARNING The average annual wage for all workers in Montgomery County was nearly $85,000 in fiscal ear 2021, a 6.6% increase over 2020, county data shows. The private sector saw the biggest increase, at 8.3%.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT STATE GOVERNMENT

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

$50,469 (+6.6%)

PRIVATE, ALL INDUSTRIES

PROFESSIONAL, TECHNICAL AND SCIENTIFIC SERVICES HEALTHCARE AND SOCIAL ASSISTANCE RETAIL

$40,758 (+7.4%)

ACCOMMODATION AND FOOD SERVICES $28,170 (+5.7%) CONSTRUCTION

Herrmann was the chair of the county’s White Flint Downtown Advisory Committee, which combined with the advocacy nonprofit The riends of White Flint to create the partnership, seeded with $300,000 in county money. After years of effort, Herrmann says it’s rewarding to see the Pike District blossom. “I feel like a lot of things are starting to come together,” he says.

$125,800 (+2%) $74,867 (-0.9%)

$80,586 (+8.3%)

$62,408 (+5.3%)

$119,925 (+4.7%)

$76,849 (+2.4%)

SOURCE: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages

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creating an employee stock ownership plan. Now all employees —from car washers to managers —receive an amount of stock taxfree annually based on what they earn. When they retire, the stock is sold back to the company. Justin Harbold, director of sales at Fitzgerald Hyundai in Rockville, says the plan will “really help people put money aside” for retirement. “It’s a great gift Mr. Fitzgerald did for us,” says Harbold, who joined the company four years ago.

FROM LEFT: UNSPLASH; JON KRAUSE; COURTESY FEDERAL REALTY

With the Food and Drug Administration’s approval in March, Gaithersburgbased Emergent BioSolutions can sell Narcan, its naloxone nasal spray, without a prescription, making it easier to obtain the emergency treatment for opioid overdoses. Narcan is the fi st naloxone nasal spray available over the counter, although other pharmaceutical companies sell generic versions via prescription.

BY JULIE RASICOT

4/10/23 1:49 PM

LAVENDER DAYS FESTIVAL

Celebrate summer among rolling hills of over 3000 lavender plants in bloom on Maryland's only waterfront lavender farm

Live Music Artisanal Market Workshops Craft Beverages Food Trucks

June 24th & 25th 11am - 6pm ADVANCED TICKETS REQUIRED

Dixon Family Farm Mechanicsville, Maryland Established 1881

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4/7/23 9:15 AM

BUSINESS WHAT I KNOW

‘My Biggest Mistake— and What I Learned From It’ Chef Spike Mendelsohn, 42, runs a restaurant empire from his Bethesda headquarters. He launched PLNT Burger in Silver Spring in 2019 and has since added 12 more locations, crafted the menu for Vim & Victor at the new St. James Bethesda fitness center, and oversees several D.C. restaurants, including Good Stuff Eatery, Santa Rosa Taqueria and We, the Pizza.

I’ve been in the kitchen since I was about 12 years old, so I’ve learned a lot. But when I was younger, I had a much more ego-driven style of management, and I think that maybe was born from training in the north of France, in a kitchen with a brigade of 60 chefs. It was an intense kitchen, with lots of yelling, and things would get thrown at you if you didn’t do something right. I kind of carried that into my own career. I used to be that chef, and it felt good to me for some awkward reason because I was getting respect. Maybe I liked the idea of having power. But it didn’t do justice to the business or the employees—it would do the opposite, and that was a big mistake.

Eventually I was able to conquer and learn from that over the course of many years. I learned our kitchen staff is like your second family and you have to treat every position with respect, whether you’re washing dishes or plating something or you’re the front-of-house manager—you have to really make an effort to make everyone feel comfortable at work. We run a vegan burger

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chain that has 13 locations, and we do a lot of culture training—we focus on it a lot.

And you know, once we decided to focus on it, we saw so much more positive performance. There’s a lot of turnover in

the restaurant business, but we started to see so much better job retention, keeping the same faces in our business, and I wish I would have done that earlier in my career. I wish I would have done that.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes, you know.

This new (planet-friendly snack) business that I’ve entered, Eat the Change, well, we had a product to develop: mushroom jerky. It was my first go-round doing that product line, and we just hit the market too soon. We really weren’t ready, both from packaging or taste point of view. But we were really hungry to get the

product out there, and we worked a little bit too fast. That came back on us a bit. We learned to make sure when you hit the market with any product that you’re really ready and that you understand what you’re doing.

An overarching lesson is that you make mistakes because most of the time you’ve taken some type of a risk. I invite risk in our

companies, and I invite people to make mistakes. You learn a lot more from your mistakes than you do from your successes. That, to me, has always been a pillar.

I’m not saying, “Hey everybody, take a bunch of risks and make a bunch of mistakes.” But when you make those mistakes, you really have to dig in and learn about them. That’s what I’ve learned about making a lot of small—and big—mistakes over my life: Don’t be so quick to just move on without studying what got you there, because that will earn you success the next time around.

“ YOU LEARN A LOT MORE FROM YOUR MISTAKES THAN YOU DO FROM YOUR SUCCESSES.”

—As told to Buzz McClain

ILLUSTRATION BY BRIAN TAYLOR

4/10/23 1:46 PM

Maryland’s #1 Acura Dealer Chevy Chase Acura is pleased to announce the 2023 North American Car of the Year is getting a Type S model.

Acura Integra Type S coming this summer! 320 Horsepower of pure pleasure.

www.ChevyChaseAcura.com or visit us in person at 7725 Wisconsin Avenue in Downtown Bethesda

Number one Acura dealer in Maryland based on AHM new Acura volume sales for 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 & 2022.

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4/2/23 2:33 PM

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4/2/23 2:38 PM