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Volume 51

Number 2

PUBLISHER John Stefancik

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Meg Walburn Viviano

MANAGING EDITOR Chris Landers

Cruising Editor: Jody Argo Schroath Multimedia Journalist: Cheryl Costello Contributing Editor: Susan Moynihan Editors at Large: Wendy Mitman Clarke, Chris D. Dollar, Ann Levelle, John Page Williams Contributing Writers: Rafael Alvarez, Laura Boycourt, Larry Chowning, Ann Eichenmuller, Henry Hong, Marty LeGrand, Emmy Nicklin, Nancy Taylor Robson, Karen Soule

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jill BeVier Allen

Contributing Photographers: Andy Anderson, Mark L. Atwater, Skip Brown, André Chung, Dan Duffy, Jay Fleming, Austin Green, Jameson Harrington, Mark Hergan, Jill Jasuta, Vince Lupo, K.B. Moore, Will Parson, Tamzin B. Smith, Chris Witzgall

PRODUCTION MANAGER Patrick Loughrey

SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER Mike Ogar

ADVERTISING Senior Account Manager Michael Kucera • 804-543-2687 m.kucera@ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com Senior Account Manager Megan Tilley • 919-452-0833 megan@ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

Publisher Emeritus Richard J. Royer

CIRCULATION Theresa Sise • 410-263-2662 office@ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

CHESAPEAKE BAY MEDIA, LLC Chief Executive Officer, John Martino Executive Vice President, Tara Davis

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Chesapeake Bay Magazine (ISSN0045-656X) (USPS 531-470) is published by Chesapeake Bay Media, LLC, 601 Sixth Street, Annapolis, MD 21403. $25.95 per year, 12 issues annually. $7.99 per copy. Periodical postage paid at Annapolis, MD 21403 and additional offices. POSTMASTER: Please send address changes or corrections for Chesapeake Bay Magazine to 601 Sixth Street, Annapolis, MD 21403. Copyright 2021 by Chesapeake Bay Media, LLC— Printed in the U.S.A.

Annapolis Redefined

Resilient to the core, Annapolis has been redefining itself for nearly 400 years. This Navy town has a track record of rolling with the punches and emerging ever new. But don’t take our word for it. We invite you to hop in the car and drive to a place where life’s simple pleasures abound. Treat yourself to an afternoon of sailing or cruising the Chesapeake Bay. Dine and shop al fresco along centuries-old brick-lined streets. Bike or hike our miles of trails. Discover best kept secrets on a ghost or history tour before calling it a day at a historic inn or hotel. Discover Annapolis redefined.

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ON BOARD TRAINING Private instruction on your boat Docking Courses Women at the Wheel Course Basic Boat Operation Course

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CONTENTS

Features 42 The Last Watermen

JUNE 2021—Volume 51 Number 2

Workboats were once a common sight in Annapolis. The Mahoney family is keeping the tradition alive—Steve Adams.

62 Traveling While Black

Nafeesah Allen goes in search of Green Book landmarks in modern Baltimore and Annapolis.

34 Baltimore

BALTIMORE 34

ANNAPOLIS 42 WASHINGTON D.C.

Eastport

Montross, Va.

Exmore, Va.

84 Cape Charles

ST. MICHAELS

68 Gone Shrimping

24 Newport News, Va. 38

Cape Henry

Robert Gustafson heard a rumor there were shrimp in the Bay, so he set out to catch them.

Talk of the Bay Follow the art on Virginia’s Northern Neck— Ann Eichenmuller.

24 Waterspout Wisdom

Ann Eichenmuller breaks down myths about Bay-borne tornadoes.

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

50 Dining by the Bay

The best restaurants for Chesapeake fare with views to match.

DELTAVILLE

84 CAPE CHARLES

On the Cover

Catching crabs with

NORFOLK 38

Photo by Jay Fleming

JAY FLEMING

16 The Artisan Trail

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

Wild Country Seafood.

June 2021

CONTENTS

Columns 28 Chesapeake Almanac: Elizabeth River

A Hampton Roads river is a Bay success story—Capt. John Page Williams.

34 Chesapeake Chef: Crabs & Spaghetti

A messy favorite from Rafael Alvarez’s childhood.

38 On Boats: Grady-White Fisherman 257

WILL PARSON/CHESAPEAKE BAY PROGRAM

John Page Williams puts this sturdy center console to the test.

84 Wild Chesapeake: Stripers in Crisis

Capt. Chris D. Dollar is concerned about the future of rockfish on the Bay.

DEPARTMENTS

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14 From the Editor 96 Stern Lines

78 Real Estate 88 Brokerage 95 Marketplace

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FROM THE EDITOR

Seafood Summers by Meg Walburn Viviano

MARK SANDLIN/TALBOT COUNTY TOURISM

“Y

ou’re not done, are you?” Anyone who has ever sat back from a newspapercovered picnic table after picking only three or four crabs has been scolded this way. In my backyard on Cypress Creek, we wouldn’t dare get up and wash our hands while there were still crabs on the pile. With crumpled paper towels strewn about, seasoning-crusted beer cans on the table, and a growing heap of shells nearby, my family took pride in seeing those last crabs through. Why? Perhaps it was the “waste not, want not” mentality of my father, whose parents instilled Great-Depression values in him. Or maybe each of us sought to prove that we loved crabs the most. But I think the most likely reason is that nobody wanted to get stuck picking those last few crabs into a Tupperware, to freeze the meat for later. My mother was the only family member with the patience to do it. And when she did, we all benefitted come winter. She thawed the meat to make crab imperial—a special meal she served in the dining room, on the good plates. Those crabs made it a long way from soggy newspaper to fine china. Most anybody who grew up around here has family customs that revolve around Chesapeake Bay seafood. These multi-generational traditions make people feel sentimental about eating crabs, oysters, or fresh-caught rockfish.

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com 14

June 2021

These are timeless meals we fondly remember and seek to recreate. Just ask contributor Rafael Alvarez about his family’s “crabs and spaghetti” (p. 34). Even as our appetite for Bay fare stays true, the ways we get our seafood are ever-evolving. This issue of Chesapeake Bay Magazine puts a spotlight on a family of watermen who reinvented the supply chain—allowing their family business to remain viable and its patriarch to keep his title as “Last Waterman in Annapolis” (p. 42). He may be a holdout, but he’s also an innovator. A surprising new Bay seafood story is the lower Bay’s little-known shrimp harvest (p. 68). Yes, I mean the eating-sized kind you find behind the seafood counter. They’re moving further north to the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Learn how to cast a net, and you’ll be on your way to scampi. If, like me, you’ll sit down to a big pile of crabs (or shrimp) this summer, let’s raise a beer to Bay traditions old and new. May you never be the first one to leave the table. h Meg Walburn Viviano grew up boating on the Magothy River. She started as a Chesapeake Bay Magazine intern, launched the Bay Bulletin online news site in 2017, and now leads all of CBM’s media content. Reach her at meg@chesapeakebaymagazine.com.

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TALK OF THE BAY

WALL-TO-WALL ART Montross is considered the mural capital of the Northern Neck, boasting 14 larger-than-life artworks.

A Different Kind of Trail story by Ann Eichenmuller / photos by Eric Eichenmuller

COURTESY OF THE NORTHERN NECK CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

ummer is the season for trails. You can boat in the wake of John Smith on his Chesapeake National Historic Trail or sip and slurp your way across Virginia on the Wine and Oyster Trail. But if you what you crave is food for the soul, look to the Northern Neck Artisan Trail, where “water surrounds, and creativity abounds.” If you’ve never heard of the Northern Neck, you’re not alone. We sailed along its shores for years without even knowing this rural Virginia peninsula had a name. Cross the Potomac and head east, and you will find winding country roads, small towns, and a slower pace of life. But amidst all this quiet, unspoiled beauty,

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com 16

June 2021

you will also find something unexpected—a vibrant arts community, and an opportunity to experience the artists’ gifts in an unusual and intimate way. The Northern Neck Artisan Trail is a roadmap to more than two dozen personal studios and homes where, as painter Brenda Silva puts it, “You can see the artist in her natural habitat.” Here is just a taste of what you can find.

Immerse Yourself in Murals Our first stop, the little town of Montross, doesn’t just have art—it is art. The main thoroughfare is a gallery of larger-than-life murals, the work of

June 2021

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

UNDER THE SEA Van Latum’s mermaids (top) add a whimsical touch to historic downtown Montross. This iconic Chesapeake Crab (bottom) was commissioned by the nearby town of Callao and completed last fall.

Melanie Stimmel Van Latum of We Talk Chalk. She is the winner of numerous European competitions and the only woman to hold the title maestra modonnarra (master street painter) in both Italy and Germany, making her one of the world’s most decorated street painters. “Street art is unique, in that every surface is a potential canvas,” Van Latum explains. And because working outdoors draws spectators, she says, it becomes “an interactive experience.” Given her international roots, finding Van Latum in the Northern Neck is something of a surprise. She is the first to admit Montross was not on her radar. Based in We Talk Chalk’s Las Vegas gallery, she was displaying at a festival in Northern Virginia when a someone on the town’s revitalization committee saw her work. She encouraged her to bid on the Montross revitalization project. Van Latum won the commission—and fell in love with the area. “For anybody from a city, it really is an escape, just a completely different vibe from what you’re used to.” She divides her time between Las Vegas and her Montross Mural Studio, where she offers workshops and paints customized murals for East Coast clients. Van Latum’s classes are online due to the pandemic, but she plans to use her Montross studio for more immersive, retreat-style courses in what she calls a “transformative art.” “Every story can be expressed visually, and murals can transform a space while telling that story.” A walk through Montross is proof that she is right.

BENT BACK Wood must be steamed and then quickly bent to form a Windsor chair’s

Watch a Master Woodworker A mile from downtown Montross, Bill Jenkins adjusts a caliper, one in hundreds of painstaking steps to turn shapeless blocks of wood into historically accurate colonial era furniture. We are in the old smokehouse-turned-lathe shop on Locust Farm, his family’s ancestral home. It is one of many outbuildings crowded with tools, wood, and works

in progress, and with our tour we receive an education in the art of making Windsor chairs. “I let the wood air dry so it keeps its color,” he explains, gesturing to stacks of untouched maple, oak, and cherry. When asked how long that takes, he smiles. “A year per inch.” While drying is slow, Jenkins notes that other steps require speed.

After steaming a piece of wood, he has about 90 seconds to shape it—any longer, and it grows too hard to bend. Each chair takes between a week and 10 days to produce, and he produces more than a dozen designs, including armchairs, rocking chairs, and settees. While his pieces can be customized, stained and painted to order, Trail visitors can also purchase furniture from his “showroom”—the farmhouse he shares with wife Lucylin. Jenkins credits her with his second career as a woodworker. “When I retired, she asked me to make her some comfortable dining room chairs,” the former commercial pilot says with a laugh. He decided on Windsors and headed to New Hampshire and later Ohio, where he learned his craft from master woodworkers Michael Dunbar and Ernie Conover. Jenkins began selling his Locust Farm Windsors in 2003, and the quality of his work soon led to a request to produce Windsor chairs for the entire Continental Congress in the Tom Hanks-produced miniseries John Adams. As much as he loved flying, he says there is something eminently fulfilling about his second career. “As a pilot, at the end of the day someone might say, ‘Nice flight.’ With woodworking, I am creating something that will last for generations.” June 2021

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

COURTESY PHOTOS

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Barney Harris in her studio

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June 2021

Dream Through Glass Turning visions into lasting works of art is what motivates Barney Harris of Zekiah Glass. Her studio is tucked away on Morattico Creek, where inspiration can be found outside of every window. But while her own stained-glass pieces can be seen in galleries throughout the Northern Neck, it is the work of her students that she says gives her a reason to get up in the morning. “I love teaching. Lots of artists like doing their own thing, but I need the social interaction. It is just so rewarding when you help someone realize the image they have in their head.” Zekiah Glass offers a unique Artisan Trail experience: a two-night stay at Chestnut Cove, her home that doubles as a B&B, and a two-day, hands-on stained-glass course that the Washington Post has highlighted as one of their “great escapes.” Best of all, everyone leaves with their very own work of art. “That’s the number one rule,” she laughs. “You can’t leave until you’re finished.” She is quick to point out that hers is not a craft class. There are no premade patterns to follow, no precut pieces of glass. Students can send a picture of what they have in mind, come in with an idea, or start with a completely blank slate. “We bat ideas

around, and things spark. I draw what they describe, and I always say don’t worry, I have an eraser. Art is an evolving thing—you can mold it as you go.” Her class draws everyone from couples celebrating anniversaries to friends or families looking for a vacation with a takeaway. “I get guests who don’t want to just sit on a beach and do nothing. They want to relax and accomplish something.” On the day we visit, students Janet Eddy and Deborah Barr are in the early stages of their pieces. The two friends were looking for a stainedglass class they could take together and happened upon Zekiah Glass on the internet. “This is so much more fun than going to an eight-week class,” Barr stresses. “Plus, here we get to really know the artist.”

Experience Color on Canvas That connection between art and the artist is what drew painter Brenda Silva to the Artisan Trail. She believes that artwork takes on a deeper meaning when the buyer knows the piece’s backstory. “The Artisan Trail lets people relate to artists, to see how we live and to build a relationship with the individuals they are supporting.”

Silva lives and paints out of Silver Raven Studios, a quaint fishing cottage in Reedville. Something of an adventurer, Silva spent much of her career in the Virgin Islands, and her pieces are still on display at the Mango Tango Art Gallery in St. Thomas. The influence of her Caribbean experience is showcased by Silva’s vibrant use of color and her choice of subjects: flowers, water, trees, and fields. “The beauty of nature is the most important feature in my artwork,” she says, gesturing to the canvas on her easel, a riotous display of forsythia and daffodils. Silva’s work can be seen in local galleries and in exhibitions (her “Beauty by the Bay” collection will be on display at the Reedville Fisherman’s Museum beginning May 1), but seeing her pieces in her personal space creates an intimate experience for both Trail-goers and artist alike.

Brenda Silva’s home studio is set in a classic tidewater cottage a stone’s throw from the Chesapeake Bay.

June 2021

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

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June 2021

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The A-Ibañez Museum in Kilmarnock is unique among the artisan studios on the Trail. It offers not only the opportunity to meet an artist, but an invitation to be part of a broader arts community. The brainchild of writer Denise Aileen DeVries and her artist husband, Alvaro Ibañez, the 40-acre property includes three galleries, space for outdoor gatherings, and a retreat house, all set against peaceful wooded wetlands and a short walk from the Hughlett Point Natural Area Preserve. Visitors can stay for an hour and tour the galleries or stay for a week and refuel their own creativity. “We wanted a place where people would feel they could get away and get inspired,” DeVries explains. And inspiration is everywhere. Ibañez walks guests through his galleries, where “every painting has a story,” and he delights in sharing his experiences as a Colombian immigrant and an artist. His work is bold and evocative, drawing on a range of influences from the vistas of the Arizona desert to Finnish mythology. On any warm afternoon you might find DeVries, author of the novel Sweet Tea and Vinegar Pie, listening as local writers share poems on the wide outdoor deck. The couple regularly host open houses and creative launches, showcasing writers, dancers, filmmakers, artists, and musicians. It’s all part of what DeVries says is their ultimate goal: “We came here to build a creative community, to mentor young artists, and to share what we have.” Ready to travel the Trail? Visit the Northern Neck Chamber of Commerce at northernneck.org/ northern-neck-artisan-trail. h Ann Eichenmuller is a freelance writer and the author of two nautical mystery novels. She lives along Virginia’s Rappahannock River where she and husband Eric sail Avalon, a Morgan Out Island.

Trail Mix A sampling of our favorite pit stops from the Trail’s restaurants, B&Bs, galleries, and agri-artisan sites:

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TALK OF THE BAY

Waterspout Wisdom by Ann Eichenmuller

SHUTTERSTOCK

he headboat was anchored in the Newport News you’d come home and call a friend. That’s as far as it would Middle Ground, eager fishermen with poles out, go. Now everyone carries a smartphone with a camera all the first mate chumming off the stern. He and the the time. Nothing escapes being documented.” captain had their eyes on the northwest sky, focusing That doesn’t mean it’s good idea to chase waterspouts on a build-up of heavy, dark clouds. They watched in to get the perfect shot to share. Waterspouts may be horror as a thin funnel dipped down and touched the photogenic, but they are also dangerous. surface, then began to twist its way toward them. “We’re often talking about tornadic activity associated The captain, with strong normally a gregarious thunderstorms,” Daniels soul, ran to the helm explains. “These without saying a word. supercells can produce He turned over the waterspouts, or they can engine and slammed the form tornadoes over land boat into gear as the that then move across mate scrambled to the the water without losing bow. The young mate got much of their strength.” his hands on the anchor A particularly line and pulled with all devastating example of his might as the boat the latter is the 2016 EF-3 catapulted forward. The tornado that ripped anchor came loose, and through Essex County in as he wrestled it aboard, Virginia, then crossed a he turned to see the mile-and-a-half-wide captain standing whitesection of the faced, hatchet in hand— Rappahannock River ready, if need be, to cut before moving ashore on the line. the Northern Neck, That first mate was leaving widespread my husband, and he damage in its wake. And realized then that any though storm-created weather phenomenon waterspouts that form capable of shaking a over water tend to be seasoned headboat weaker, they are often captain is one worth accompanied by high taking seriously. It’s no winds, rough seas, rain, SWIRLING SEAS wonder waterspouts are the stuff of lightning, and even hail. They can If you see a waterspout, seek safe harbor, legends. Decade ago, sightings were travel at up to 80 miles per hour, and and never try to navigate through it. considered a rarity, but today Facebook have a diameter anywhere from a and Instagram are flooded with photos foot to the size of a football field. of water-borne twisters on the Chesapeake. What has If that isn’t enough, Daniels says it is even possible for changed? According to Channel 6 Richmond’s chief waterspouts to form without any storm at all. “We call meteorologist Zach Daniels, it’s not necessarily the weather. those fair-weather waterspouts, akin to a ‘dust devil’ or a “Twenty years ago, there were very few cell phones. If ‘leafnado.’ Anytime you have cooler air above a warm, you were out on a boat and you saw a waterspout, maybe humid surface, you’ve got an atmosphere that we call

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June 2021

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buoyant. Situations like this can easily produce waterspouts in quiet conditions.” Fair-weather waterspouts tend to be short-lived, move very little, and fall apart when they touch land—but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t capsize a small boat or cause damage to a larger vessel. That is why the National Weather Service warns boaters to take precautions whenever encountering a waterspout, regardless of origin: • •

•

If you spot a waterspout, seek safe harbor immediately. Avoid the waterspout by traveling at right angles to its apparent direction of movement. If a collision is likely, take down sails, secure loose items, close hatches, and go below deck if possible.

•

Under no circumstances should a boater try to navigate through a waterspout.

And even though legend has it that firing a cannon into a waterspout’s path will break it up, this myth is unsubstantiated, so don’t fire your flare gun or launch your deck chairs toward one. In terms of waterspout myths, several local watermen say they have heard tell of it “raining fish” that were suctioned up with the water in a waterspout. Daniels points out that the funnel you see is not “sucked-up” seawater, but rather a swirling mist of condensed water vapor. However, he agrees that a tornado over water does have enough suction to carry objects—including fish. According to New York meteorologist Bill Evans in

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his book It's Raining Fish and Spiders, all sorts of creatures have in fact been reported raining down during tornadic activity, including snakes, worms, and crabs, but fish and frogs are the most common. Worldwide, he writes, such events are reported about 40 times a year. So next time you’re boating and see a waterspout, keep your distance—and just to be safe, you might want to cover your head. The first in Zach Daniels’ series of children’s weather books, Walter and the Terrible Twister, was released this month. h Ann Eichenmuller is a freelance writer and the author of two nautical mystery novels. She lives along Virginia’s Rappahannock River where she and husband Eric sail Avalon, a Morgan Out Island.

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June 2021

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

CHESAPEAKE ALMANAC

New Hope for the Elizabeth River by John Page Williams

CHESAPEAKE BAY PROGRAM

n 1983, when the Chesapeake Bay Program officially began working to restore the Bay ecosystem, the Elizabeth River was on its short list of toxic hot spots. On the south side of Hampton Roads, the Elizabeth’s main stem and branches lie cradled entirely within the busy city limits of Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, and Portsmouth. The river’s waters, its shorelines, and especially its bottom sediments have seen four centuries of heavy industry: shipyards, a key U.S. Navy base, coal piers connected to a major railroad, and a large complex of wastewater treatment plants. Bacterial contamination had closed oyster harvests. Fish and crab stocks had declined and showed signs of disease.

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

June 2021

But a well-organized group of local people managed to defeat a plan for an oil refinery on its shores. Therein lies the beginning of a hopeful story that gets better and better right up to today, with even more promise on the immediate horizon.

First, a Little Context When the Chesapeake Bay Program got going, the Clean Water Act was 11 years old and its National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) was just beginning to improve the river’s water quality. One of the most pervasive problems, especially along the Elizabeth’s Southern Branch, was chronic spills of creosote, used for a couple of centuries to treat wharf

COMEBACK STORY The Elizabeth River (seen from the South Norfolk Jordan Bridge) has a restored river bottom and ambitious future plans.

timbers and pilings against shipworms and fouling organisms. I remember spending a day aboard Baywatcher, a Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) education workboat then based in Hampton Roads. With a group of students on the Southern Branch, we pulled a trawl net along the bottom near the site of the abandoned Atlantic Wood Industries plant in Portsmouth. It came up with a handful of sickly white perch and spot, plus a strong odor of creosote. Later, I saw a study from the Virginia Institute of

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Marine Science (VIMS) detailing pervasive liver damage in several fish species from the Southern Branch. Other problems included low dissolved oxygen, algae blooms, and loss of wetland habitat to bulkheaded shorelines.

A Turning Point in the 1990s Just as local people had banded together in the 1970s to say no to the proposed oil refinery, a group of citizens formed the Elizabeth River Project (elizabethriver.org) “around a kitchen table.” “I did not want to accept a community that would abandon its home river as dead,” recalls founding Executive Director Marjorie Mayfield Jackson. “Today I am tremendously proud of how far we’ve come as a

community to bring the Elizabeth River to life.” She and others incorporated the Elizabeth River Project (ERP) in 1993 “to restore the Elizabeth River to the highest practical level of environmental quality through government, business, and community partnerships.” From the start, ERP’s watchword has been those partnerships, which have included multiple nearby universities (Old Dominion, Norfolk State, Hampton, and VIMS) and nonprofits like Wetlands Watch and CBF. “They have always been great at community-scale planning and engagement,” said Christy Everett, CBF’s Hampton Roads Executive Director, whose team has developed a strong working relationship with ERP on several projects where the two organizations’ capabilities mesh.

Watershed Action Plans and River Stars In 1996, ERP developed the first in a series of Watershed Action Plans. It immediately bore fruit in the design and construction of the Birdsong Wetland in the back of Norfolk’s Larchmont Library. It is a restored salt marsh dedicated to the memory of Ray Birdsong, a much-loved ichthyology (study of fish) professor at Old Dominion. That same year saw launch of the River Stars Program for industries, in which participating businesses along the main river and its branches carry out wildlife habitat restoration projects. They look for “win-win” opportunities to avoid or eliminate pollution through technical assistance from ERP staff and advisors. That assistance includes finding grants,

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pollution prevention technologies, sources for native plants, and volunteers to help, especially with planting restored wetlands. To date, 131 River Star Businesses have achieved more than 1,787 acres of wildlife habitat restored or conserved and 331 million pounds of pollution voluntarily reduced. Over one billion pounds of other materials have been recycled, reduced, or reused. Since 2011, Inside Business, the Hampton Roads business journal, has sponsored an annual River Star Hall of Fame award. For 2021, that award went to the Norfolk Southern Corp. Living Shoreline at its huge Lamberts Point coal terminal on the river’s main stem—“the thoroughbred of living shorelines.” The project also provided the Fortune 500 company with erosion protection at a significant savings over conventional shoreline armoring, while treating runoff and restoring significant habitat for oysters, crabs, fish, birds, and other critters. Not every River Star is a large corporation, however. This year’s Three Star list includes the Elizabeth River Trail Foundation, which provides kayak launches, uniquely artistic playgrounds, interactive educational signs, solar lighting, and fitness equipment along a 10.5-mile

FLOATING SCHOOL Elizabeth River Project's innovative Learning Barge stages science lessons while moored in the river.

trail through Norfolk. Another Three Star awardee is the Naval Support Activity Hampton Roads/Lafayette River Annex, whose engineers and volunteers have restored a wide range of wildlife habitat around an oysterfilled living shoreline they built. Today, ERP and its partners have completed more than 50 wetland restorations.

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Additional Watershed Action Plans followed in 2002, 2008, and 2016. While visible features like living shorelines and trails are critical to river restoration, ERP and its partners also began attacking the unseen but genuinely poisonous sediment in the river. Under the catchy slogan “The Goo Must Go!,” the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers excavated sludge from the river bottom at the Atlantic Wood Industries site, working as deep as 20 feet down. Then ERP and multiple public and private partners, including June 2021

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

SPONSORED CONTENT

Chesapeake Bay Boaters Use Argo App to Navigate and Meet Up

ran Stisher knows that you can spend a lifetime on the water and still not discover all the best spots located along the small inlets, coves and rivers of the Chesapeake Bay. In the past, a fellow boater might tip you off to a new tiki bar. Perhaps, a friend would extend an invite to a weekend meet up. Or maybe you happened upon a treasured anchorage while exploring the eastern shore. These days, Stisher counts on a more reliable source for his weekend water outings: Argo, the free boating app that helps you navigate, share and connect with the boating community. “I’ve been boating the Bay for over 20 years,” says Stisher, a 50-year-old Annapolis resident who can often be found on his 34-foot Sea Ray. “My friends and I spent almost every weekend last summer on the Bay. This summer should be no different. We use the Argo app as part of our journeys, from location to location, tiki bar to tiki bar, and meet up point to the next.” “We found a great place up off the West River where boats meet up, tie in and raft-up last year,” Stisher said. “It turns into a big party.”

Argo offers charts, auto-routing, real-time hazard reports, a captain’s log, and more. But it’s the social feed that appeals to Stisher and his friends. On a typical outing, Stisher could be heading to Kent Island for a day of festivities, but a quick check on Argo might show him that most of his buddies are hanging out at the Pirates Cove Restaurant and Dock Bar in Galesville. That’s a welcome detour to his final destination. Reviews, photos and voyages that other boaters share on Argo can also be conducive to picking the next meetup. “I can see where my friends are going on the map,” Stisher says. “We can track where we are heading. I can identify other boaters and discover new points of interest. It’s a great way to meet up along the Bay.” The Argo app is available as a free download on the App Store and Google Play Store. Learn more at argonav.io.

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ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com 32

June 2021

several major port industries, took on Money Point (so named because of the profits gained there over many years of processing wood and dumping creosote waste overboard) at the mouth of the Eastern Branch. By 2013, 36 million pounds of “goo” had gone, and a cap of clean sand lay over the site to a depth of six feet. Since then, extensive plantings have restored oyster reefs in the shallows and salt marsh along the shore. An estimated 25 species of fish have returned to the area, while liver cancer in a test species has dropped six-fold. More creosote cleanups remain in planning stages. In 2009, ERP christened an innovative, wind- and solar-powered 120' x 32' Learning Barge with live wetlands, an enclosed classroom, composting toilets, and a rainwater system to model and teach ecology, resilience, and sustainability. Since then, some 96,000 students and teachers in grades K–12 have participated. In addition, 180 local schools now participate in the River Star program through hands-on projects in their classrooms, labs, and campuses. Since the start of River Star Homes, “excited watershed residents” have committed more than 5,000 of their homes to seven practices that protect the river. In addition, neighborhoods have joined the River Stars program with multiple greening projects focused on stormwater. Oysters? Oh, yes, they have been part of the plan from the start. The Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC), CBF, and local volunteers have built reefs and planted oysters in the Lafayette River over the past 25 years, making that tributary the first in Virginia to have its reefs declared fully restored. ERP has been a partner there as well. More recently, ERP has taken the lead with VMRC in fully restoring the reefs in the Eastern Branch, with planting help from CBF. “ERP has been a fantastic partner for CBF to work with,” declares Christy Everett.

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A Resilient Next Wave So what is next for the Elizabeth River Project? Sea level is rising and land is subsiding in South Hampton Roads, while annual rainfall appears to be increasing, bringing ever more pollution from stormwater. Building resilience to climate change has become a high priority issue. Thus, ERP’s Next Wave Campaign focuses on a (literally) groundbreaking Resilience Center on Knitting Mill Creek, a tributary of the Lafayette in Norfolk. The Resilience Center will be the first urban redevelopment project in Virginia to rebuild intentionally in the floodplain, demonstrating environmental resilience to sea level rise. The designed life span is 30 to 50 years, to match sea level predictions. “It’s not just a case of trying to make [the center] more inhabitable for human beings, it’s also a case of making the land more friendly to the river,” explains ERP Board member Louis Ryan, who with his wife, Pru, donated the lead gift to the center. Named for the couple, it will include a laboratory open to the public for demonstration of emerging practices in coastal environmental resilience. It will also offer practical approaches to resilience that the average home or

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business can reasonably replicate. Many partners have been involved: the Hampton University School of Architecture, Old Dominion University, and multiple community stakeholders contributed concepts for the Resilience Lab during a fall 2019 planning charrette. Final design is underway by Work Program Architects. The Elizabeth River has come a long way since 1983, especially since the Elizabeth River Project and its remarkable array of partners banded together to restore its health. ERP has carefully quantified that progress twice—in 2014 and again last year— with publication of its State of the Elizabeth River Scorecard 2020. Visit the organization’s website, elizabethriver.org, to see for yourself. The progress is something to celebrate, but there’s more on the way. Stay tuned. h CBM Editor at Large John Page Williams is a fishing guide, educator, author, and naturalist, saving the Bay since 1973.

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11/18/2019 10:26:53 AM

CHESAPEAKE CHEF

Crabs and Spaghetti

A little-known Baltimore favorite—by Rafael Alvarez

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t makes a delicious mess—on your blouse and chin, the plate awash in red, and the tablecloth speckled crimson from end to end. And unless you were born into it— typically with a name that ends in a vowel and roots in the old Baltimore waterfront neighborhoods—chances are you’ve never tasted it. The dish is crabs and spaghetti: blue crabs simmered in homemade tomato sauce and served over pasta. And an extra Michelin star if you do like my cousin Cindi Hemelt Gallagher of Severna Park and make the spaghetti from scratch.

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com 34

June 2021

“The first story I hear about crab sauce is its unique family tradition. It differs from family to family,” said Vince Pompa, a Little Italy native and former chef at Chiapparelli’s on High Street, where he prepared the meal on “no meat” Catholic Fridays. When the meal was served at the family home, said Pompa, “There was bread for dunking along with antipasti, stuffed peppers, marinated vegetables, homemade wine, and lots of relatives.” Bottom line, said Pompa: “It’s meant to be shared.

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JENNIFER BISHOP PHOTOS

“You can’t eat it in polite society. You eat it with the people you love the most who won’t care that you look like you just took a bath in tomato sauce.”

That’s the heart of it.” “It was a treat The heart of the on Fridays in the Pompa family was summertime,” Vince’s late mother, remembered my the former Lucy father, Manuel Palmere, known as (Italian on his the Ravioli Queen of mother’s side from St. Leo’s Church in old Highlandtown), Little Italy. “Miss who prepared it Lucy” Pompa died in many times with 2015 at age 96. crabs he and a The Chesapeake tugboat buddy caught crab population has in the Wye River. declined greatly Cousin Cindi said since the late her late mother (my matriarch’s “Aunt Treesey”) made Depression-era the meal with crabs girlhood, when the caught on Back River fish market was off at the Hemelt family Pratt Street and shore home. “She’d seafood was cheap. pull open their backs The harvest, now and pretty much drop regulated, has them alive in the remained somewhat sauce,” said constant. Gallagher, noting, of Some 70 million course, that the pounds of blue crab “lungs” were scraped were caught in the off while keeping the Chesapeake and its digestive glands tributaries in 1930, known as “mustard.” according to the With the U.S. Bureau of brackish water and Fisheries. A little “juice” that seeps more than a year from freshly caught ago, that number crabs, the sauce is STEAMED SURPRISE was estimated at somewhat thinner Ralph Sapia likes to to see dinner guests’ reactions when he serves the dish. 61 million pounds, than recipes using down a bit from meat, and, with a previous years. touch of crushed red pepper and sometimes capers, piquant. The majority, of course, are steamed the Maryland As Vince Pompa said, every family with a tradition of way. A few turn into crab spaghetti: Females are dropped in crabs and spaghetti has its own approach. Here is the the soup pots, sometimes spiced with cabbage for a bit of interpretation of La Famiglia Sapia, longtime Ocean City tang. The least of each year’s haul takes a final swim in restaurateurs and owners of DaVinci’s restaurant on the tomato sauce. boardwalk at Atlantic Avenue.

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About 25 years ago or thereabouts, attorney Ralph L. Sapia, 54, inherited the recipe from his father Giacomo, who went by James. When the elder Sapia died, the resort’s Downtown Association named their annual spaghetti dinner in his honor. Crabs and spaghetti have decidedly never been on the menu of the charitable event. “We ate it when I was a kid, and when I asked Dad why we didn’t do it anymore, he said it was too messy—the messiest meal ever,” said Sapia, who recently made the dish in his Baltimore County home after work, still wearing his barrister’s bowtie. “My father said it was simple. ‘You just put the crabs in your sauce and then cook the [expletive] out of them like you do tripe.’” It’s not quite that simple, though theirs is radically different from the approach used by my father and cousin Cindi. Sapia only uses males, believing that eating the females (even though they’re already at market) is unsustainable. He steams the crabs for 8–10 minutes before stewing them for up to eight hours; until, he said, “the shells are like paper” and the taste of the crab has thoroughly permeated the sauce. Sapia makes the dish about twice a year, always inviting friends, often without telling his guests what they’ll be eating to get the thrill of their surprise. The meal became part of his repertoire when a beach friend named Jerry Greenspan—son of a Boardwalk arcade owner and Holocaust survivor named Harold—brought up the dish one day. The mother of one of the arcade employees had brought a big pan of the dish to the ocean one summer to feed her daughters and their friends. “It was enough to feed 10 people and I loved it,” said Greenspan, who, craving more, asked his buddy Sapia if he knew about it. No one else in Ocean City, said Greenspan, had heard of it. Sapia followed his father’s instructions (verbal, too simple to write down) and the pals enjoyed the meal together. “The best part of that dish is sucking the meat and the sauce out of the shells,” said Sapia. Pompa agrees. “The sweetness of the crab is absorbed by the sauce. Then you get to do what all Baltimoreans are best at—picking through the jumbo lump meat and cracking the sweet claws.” Greenspan last had the meal a quarter-century ago. He might soon be giving his buddy Sapia a call. h Rafael Alvarez is the author of the Orlo and Leini stories. He can be reached via orlo.leini@gmail.com.

Ralphie’s Crabs & Pasta

INGREDIENTS 1/2 dozen large crabs Sauce: 1 small/medium onion 2 Tbsp garlic (fresh or minced in jar) 1 cup Italian seasoning (McCormick or Sons of Italy) 2 cans crushed tomatoes

1. Steam crabs for about 10 minutes without seasoning, to dispatch them. 2. Make the sauce: Cover the bottom of a pot with olive oil. Add onions and let simmer; once translucent, add garlic and brown (garlic cooks quickly so watch it closely). Add tomatoes and seasoning. Cook on high heat until it comes to a rolling boil—keep stirring, so the sauce doesn’t stick. Once boiling, turn the heat down to a simmer and cover. 3. Add the crabs: Leave the claws and fins on and remove the top shell. Take off face and lungs (devil) and discard. Break the crab in half (you will have two halves with claws and fins). Put crabs in sauce, making sure to add all the fat (mustard); I also include the top shell. 4. Cover and bring to a slow boil and let it cook for about an hour, stirring frequently. Turn to a low heat for about two hours. Simmer for as long as possible (best to start in the morning so you get 8 hours). Serve and eat, being careful not to wear your nicest shirt.

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ON BOATS

Grady-White Fisherman 257 by Capt. John Page Williams

hat makes a good day for a sea trial? How about 15 to 20 knots of east wind pushing against an ebb current sliding out of the Bay to meet the Atlantic at Cape Henry? That’s what Norfolk Marine President Jason Murphy ordered up for our ride on Grady-White’s Fisherman 257. We couldn’t have asked for better conditions to let this sturdy center-console fishing/family boat show off its SeaV2 hull. From Baltimore to the Virginia Capes, this is a sweet rig for folks who spend the bulk of their time on the Chesapeake’s open waters. It’s seaworthy, safe, comfortable, and well-designed for multiple assignments.

Grady-White Fisherman 257

COURTESY PHOTOS

LOA: 24′ 9″ Beam: 8′ 6″ Draft: 20″ Transom Deadrise: 20 degrees Weight: 4,300 lbs. (w/o engine) Max HP: 400 Fuel Capacity: 135 gal. Available through Tri-State Marine (tristatemarine.com), Norfolk Marine Company (norfolkmarine.com), and Taylor Marine (taylormarinecenter.com).

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The storied firm C. Raymond Hunt Associates collaborated with GradyWhite’s engineers on design of the SeaV2 hulls, a hybrid deep-V shape with bottom deadrise varying continuously from a moderate V at the transom to a very sharp V at the bow. The apex of the V is rounded from the stern almost to the bow. Complementing it are two preciselyshaped strakes on each side, and wide, also precisely-shaped chines (corners where the bottom meets the sides). Grady-White’s website offers several graphics and videos that explain the design in more detail.

In practice on test day, the hull was impressive. Most dealers in the U.S. stock the Fisherman 257 with twin Yamaha F150s or F200s, but our test boat had a single F300. The F300 showed plenty of power and acceleration with four people aboard and a full fuel tank, planing off easily at speeds below 15 knots with no bow rise. In the short, 2–3' seas we encountered at the Bay’s mouth, supplemented by some larger ocean swells, that speed was very comfortable, with spray coming aboard only when quartering into the wind. A touch of the leeward trim tab

raised the windward side to damp that out, while the flared bow, chines, and strakes provided plenty of buoyancy to rise to the seas. We throttled up as high as 30 knots without the hull coming down hard, but it was clearly an 18- to 22-knot day (3,700–4,000 rpm). According to Yamaha’s performance data, this rig tops out at about 37 knots (5,900 rpm). We slowed down to trolling speed and then drifted both into and broadside to the seas. The boat’s motion was easy, meaning it would be a comfortable platform for any job, from trolling along the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel to seabird-watching at the artificial island by the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. Running back inside Cape Henry, the hull tracked easily up the backs of the seas and down into their troughs. Again, the bow’s buoyancy and flare sent all spray out to the side. The rugged, all-

composite construction shrugged off waves without a shake or a rattle. Grady-White likes to stress its “exceptional attention to detail.” That shows not only in the hull design but all over the boat. The company listens

DOWN TO THE DETAILS Clockwise: Bow-bench seating holds insulated fix boxes; Holders for rods and fishing gear behind the helm; A split flip-up seat for two.

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to its owners, dealers, service people, and customers, refining its existing models whenever good ideas pop up. The whole point is to build safe, comfortable boats that can fish hard but also provide families with great days on the water. While many people opt for the company’s Freedom line of dualconsole models, there are family advantages to the Fisherman 257’s center-console layout. For one, it provides a large open space in the bow. That includes port and starboard cushioned bow-bench seating with forward-facing backrests that fold away when not needed. A recessed grab bar runs along each side of the gunwale. The benches each hold 120-quart insulated fish boxes with overboard drains. The port box has a removable divider for separating food and drink from fish and bait. An optional insert

between the benches converts the whole space into a casting platform with cushions removed. For picnics, ask for the optional table that fits the space. A simple sunshade for this area is also optional. The console’s placement in the center offers plenty of headroom (66"—we measured) and space inside for changing clothes or using the portable toilet (with deck pumpout). There are two large dedicated bins and an elastic net for storage inside, along with electronics access to the backside of the helm (chartplotter/fishfinder, VHF, stereo, and Yamaha engine management display). We would, however, like to see some natural light inside through a porthole, maybe on the port side, and a fan for active ventilation. The front of the console holds a cushioned seat for two, set over the two console storage bins.

The helm offers a compass on top, plenty of space for flush-mounting a couple of large electronic displays and a VHF, along with the Yamaha engine management display and a controller for the stereo. Standard steering is hydraulic, controlled by a tilting stainless wheel with knob. (Yamaha’s Helm Master EX Digital Electric Steering is optional.) The fiberglass T-top rests on a painted aluminum frame, with an integrated, scratchresistant acrylic windshield (wiper with washer included), a handrail, an overhead radio box, storage net, dome light, spreader light, four rod holders, a radar flat, and outrigger plates. The trim tab controller mounts under the steering wheel, and I bumped the single-lever engine control unintentionally while reaching for it, which my crew did not appreciate. The problem might have been my own

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inexperience with the boat or overly light tension on the lever. Both would be easily remedied, but it’s worth a new skipper’s attention. The ingenious helm seat for two includes a cushioned backrest and a split, flip-up bolster for sitting or leaning. The sides offer a pair of vertical storage compartments with nets. On the aft side are a holder for knives and pliers, tackle trays, lockable storage, and four rod holders. A 65-quart Yeti cooler beneath is an option. Each gunwale has two vertical rod holders, plus horizontal racks for three rods up to 7' beneath and a toe rail for safety. The transom bulkhead offers a well-plumbed, 32-gallon livewell to port, a 182-quart insulated fish box in the center, and a door to starboard leading to the afterdeck/ swim platform and its retractable ladder. With a single engine, the space

back there makes it easy to move around, keeping a hooked fish from fouling its line on the engine. In front of the big fish box is a cushioned folding seat for two. It flips up and over the transom for access to plumbing and wiring in the bilge. Last but definitely not least, the cockpit has four drains carefully designed to free any spray or rain quickly. Efficient, systematicallyengineered drainage is a Grady-White hallmark for safety in rough water. Fishing? Whether jigging around any Chesapeake bridge, bridge-tunnel, or underwater ledge, trolling with planer boards, chasing breaking fish around Point Lookout, running a buoy line for cobia, or bottom fishing for panfish, there’s not much open-water work in our Bay that the Fisherman 257 can’t handle. It’s built into its DNA. There’s one last detail: the Captain Grady digital boat systems and

The perfect day on the Chesapeake Bay — begins & ends with Grady-White.

operations guide for iPad & iPhone. It’s a standard feature to help owners understand all of the Fisherman 257’s operating systems. That’s one more reason why Grady-White consistently wins Customer Satisfaction Index awards, and why this boat is built well enough to serve multiple missions for several generations of family and friends. MSRP for the Fisherman 257 with Yamaha’s new F300 and its Helm Master EX Digital Electric Steering is $140,215. (standard hydraulic is $735 less). For more information, visit gradywhite.com. CBM Editor at Large, educator, guide, and author of three quintessential Chesapeake Bay books, John Page Williams was named a Maryland Admiral of the Bay in 2013.

TRI-STATE MARINE

Your Chesapeake Bay Boating Connection for 50+ Years

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Come experience the Express 330 during our in-water demonstration days, featuring Seakeeper — June 10, 11 & 12. Call 410-867-1447 to make a reservation today.

June 2021

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the last watermen

For centuries, any visit to Annapolis City Dock guaranteed two things: the sight of workboats and the opportunity to buy some of their fresh-caught seafood. Indeed, more than a dozen oystercanning and crab-picking houses, most notably the Annapolis Canning Company and the Chesapeake Seafood Company, dominated the area in the late 1800s. The Annapolis Market House at Market Space— where I fondly remember being periodically taken as a boy in the late 1980s to buy a fried fish lunch—was built in 1857. We’d eat our meal sitting right on the seawall, likely within sight of whichever workboat caught the fish. But those days are long gone. In April 2002, the city ordered Alexander “Skip” Parkinson, a crabber, to leave his permanent slip under its first-come, first-served docking policy, making him the last waterman, and his boat the last workboat, at City Dock. In many ways, Parkinson’s departure signaled that City Dock had officially become “Ego Alley”, a nickname that reflects the constant flow of sailboats, yachts, and paddleboarders on the harbor. And to many, it suggested that the centuries-old tradition of watermen in Annapolis was gone as well. One Saturday last August, I paddleboarded from Spa Creek in Annapolis to Back Creek in Eastport, landed on Cap’n Herbie Sadler Watermen’s Park (next to the Annapolis Maritime Museum), and walked barefoot across a short stretch of gravel to Wild Country Seafood. There, I met Pat Mahoney, Jr.—the “last waterman of Annapolis.” Mahoney not only owns Wild Country, along with his father, Pat Mahoney Sr., but he catches the seafood they sell and takes great pride in keeping the “last waterman” title in the family. For him, the word means more than just making a living from the Bay. “It’s about keeping a tradition alive, adapting to challenges, and loving the water,” says Mahoney.

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story by steve adams / photography by jay fleming

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there’s not much you can control when you make Crabbing is a family affair.

your living from the water....a bad year for crabs or oysters or fish means a bad year’s pay

a family tradition Born and raised in Eastport, Mahoney, now 40, developed a keen appreciation for making a living from the Chesapeake Bay’s bounty thanks to his father. A lifelong waterman himself, Pat Sr. first learned the ins and outs of the seafood business as a teen by helping steam crabs at Sadler’s Seafood Market and Marine Railway, which was opened in

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1916 by Herbie Sadler (namesake of the aforementioned Watermen’s Park.) Mahoney fondly recalls catching his first crab in Carr’s Creek as young boy, while trot-lining with Pat Sr. He decided to turn his hobby into an occupation by obtaining his commercial license at the ripe old age of 12. He crabbed and fished from his own boat—a 20-foot skiff custom-built by his uncle, Bob Mahoney, that very

memorably once actually sunk under the weight of too many fish. He soon began working every day with his father on what are now the last commercial workboats operating out of Eastport: Wild Country, a Hughes 1980 crab boat, and Baby Boy, a Deltaville Deadrise 1970 oyster boat. Selling their catch on the wholesale market seven days a week, the Mahoneys had good and bad years—and they were always unpredictable. As Mahoney explains, environmental variables including weather, temperatures, and dead zones affect supply, while bait availability and rising operating costs impact the harvest and its profitability. Plus, the whims of the market and negotiationprone middlemen keep prices fluctuating daily. “There’s not much you can control when you make your living from the water,” say Mahoney. “And you can only catch so much due to time and regulations, so a bad year for crabs or oysters or fish or anything else means a bad year’s pay.” That is why the Mahoneys decided to control—or more accurately, eliminate—the one variable that they could.

INTO THE WILD The Mahoneys are on the water by 3 a.m. during crab season.

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from bay to table In what they knew was a high-risk move, the Mahoneys decided to leave the wholesale market and open Wild Country Seafood, an oldfashioned, carry-out seafood store, on June 5, 2009. “It was just something that I always wanted to do—selling direct to the consumer,” says Mahoney, who fondly recalls opening just three days after his second son, Hunter, was

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born, and making Wild Country’s first dollar (which he still has) from a sale to his father in-law, Stuart Cordish. “I felt happy and hopeful at the opening—all of the stress and nervousness was during the work phase.” Aiming to bring back memories of Sadler’s, which until closing in 1975 was located at the current site of O’Leary’s Restaurant, and Herbie’s Crab Shack, which was right on Second Street, Pat Jr. and Sr. decided

to put Wild Country right in the heart of Maritime Eastport. Equally important, they chose to forgo any frills and do one simple thing: Sell the seafood they catch year-round. For the Mahoneys, this means getting on the water by 3 a.m. during crab season (April to November) and by 5 a.m. during rockfish and perch season (January to November) and oyster season (October to March). They also harvest Patty’s Fatty’s, the aquaculture oysters they farm, 365

days a year, and staff or process the day’s catch at the store. (Wild Country’s regular operating season runs May 15–September 30.) Despite the long hours, the workload also means higher profit margins and the ability to interact with the people who eat their catch. For customers, Wild Country offers access to seafood that’s not only affordable—Mahoney tries to keep prices about 20 percent cheaper than other retailers—but also as fresh and

local as possible, sourced from within roughly 10 miles or less. And while Mahoney says that almost all customers discover the store by word of mouth, he reports that it’s enjoyed steady growth over its decade in business. He notes that roughly 80 percent of his customers are locals and 20 percent tourists, and that a good number of folks from both groups discover him after enjoying Patty’s Fatty’s at one of the two local restaurants that offer them, Boatyard

BAY TO BUSHEL The Mahoneys keep it simple: sell the seafood they catch year-round.

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hankering to buy some fresh seafood from the waterman who caught it? Wild Country Seafood is located at 124 Bay Shore Ave., Annapolis, MD 21403. Open Tuesday–Sunday, May 15 –Sept. 30, and by appointment Oct. 1 – May 15. Call 410-267-6711 or learn more at WildCountrySeafood.com.

Bar and Grill and Blackwall Hitch Annapolis. The oyster-growing venture is the most recent example of Mahoney’s resourcefulness. In 2015, he and landowner John Colhoun applied for and received a Shellfish Aquaculture Lease from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Leasing a roughly 1.1-acre area on the Rhode River within sight of Ivy Neck Farm (the historic farm that Colhoun’s family has owned since the 17th century), they began culturing Eastern Oyster spat in tanks, transplanting them into cages on the river bottom, and harvesting them after a growing period. And while there have been a few interruptions (for example, the Maryland Department of the Environment shut down shellfish operations in the Rhode River for a time in June 2017 due to E. Coli concerns), Mahoney has expanded his operation, leasing 35.4 acres of West River bottom with his father in 2017 for additional aquaculture. As Mahoney explains, “Aquaculture makes sense because it allows me to cultivate a high-quality product that’s not only harvestable year-round but also supports the sustainability of both local seafood and my own business.”

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the next generation (maybe) Leasing river bottom, along with keeping Wild Country running on all cylinders, supports the long-term goal that’s most important to Mahoney: being able to hand a successful business down to his three children (Austin, 13; Hunter, 11; and Riley, 10), whom he hopes will become the third generation of Mahoney watermen. “It’s getting harder and harder to make a living as a waterman so I don’t want to put any pressure on my kids,” says Mahoney. “But it’s pretty clear that they’re beginning to love the outdoors and the water just about as much as I do.” When not working the water or minding the store, Mahoney spends much of his free time tending to and playing on his farmstead in Dunkirk, with his wife of 12 years, Melissa, and his kids, taking them crabbing and fishing in his favorite spots—as he puts it, “wherever the crabs are swimming and the rockfish are biting.” h Steve Adams is a lifelong Annapolitan and PR guy by day who loves all aspects of the Bay, from paddleboarding on it to eating the oysters and crabs produced by it.

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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

The long-awaited return of indoor dining on the Bay by Krista Pfunder Dining on seafood and other Chesapeake fare while relaxing and enjoying views of the water is paradise for those looking to fully immerse themselves in Bay living at its finest. Whether pulling your boat up to the dock of a waterfront restaurant or strolling over from a quaint bayfront town, the Chesapeake lifestyle can be enjoyed by all. We’ve put together a list of our favorite spots in Maryland and Virginia to grab a bite and soak up a water view. No boat? No problem. You can still experience what it feels like to dock and dine. In Cecil County, Maryland, three eateries have tour boats that dock right there—

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June 2021

Chesapeake Inn Restaurant and Marina, Schaefer’s Canal House and The Wellwood. The restaurants on the following pages are as unique as the Bay itself. From a crab joint able to catch and hold blue crabs under its docks to offer fresh soft-shell crabs, to a restaurant housed on a 400-year-old historic fort, you’ll find more than just a place to satisfy your appetite. You’ll likely come away knowing a little more about the area around you. Because the restaurants on these pages pride themselves on sharing and celebrating the heritage, history and bounty of the Bay.

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Jimmy Cantler’s Riverside Inn cantlers.com

Tucked at the end of a quiet subdivision in Annapolis sits what used to be a singlefamily summer home and now serves some of the best crabs in the region. The house, which sits waterfront along Mill Creek, was converted to a bar / restaurant in the early 1940s and quickly became a local hangout for watermen and their neighbors. Cantler’s has been recognized nationally as a must visit seafood spot in the region, and was featured on The Travel Channel show Food Paradise. Local seafood on the menu includes Chesapeake blue crabs, local oysters, and rockfish. Non-seafood items such as steak, prime rib, fried chicken and hamburgers are also available. Cantler’s matches its menus to the season. In the summer, that means soft crab specials —the eatery’s soft-shell crabs come fresh from the tank on the dock at the restaurant. In fall, rockfish and oysters are menu staples. The focus is on locally sourced seafood and vegetables like Eastern Shore corn, tomatoes and asparagus. Cantler’s uses only fresh Maryland crab meat in all crab dishes— including a family recipe for crab imperial. Design production by: Mike

Cecil County, Maryland seececil.org

Cecil County in northeastern Maryland features 200 miles of shoreline featuring great restaurants. Try the crab guacamole at The Fish Whistle at the Granary, which sits along the Sassafras River or the Jazzy Jeff a combination of Chesapeake-style crab bisque and Maryland crab soup at UnWined on the Water, located along the Elk River. There’e plenty to do while enjoying seafood on the Susquehanna River at Lee’s Landing Dock Bar. The family-friendly hangout features live music and a pirate ship playground. For history buffs, dine at The Wellwood along the Northeast River. The restaurant began as a fishing and hunting club in the 1800s. Or keep it casual on the Northeast River at the NautiGoose, known for its laid-back atmosphere and crab cakes. The elegant Bayard House located in The Old Wharf Cottage, an 18th-century home and the Chesapeake Inn Restaurant and Marina featuring light fare on the deck and an upscale menu upstairs overlook the C&D Canal and are just a short stroll to unique shops. At Schaefers Restaurant and Canal Bar, dine along the C&D Canal. Schaefer’s is close to the entrance to the C&D’s 17-mile hiking and biking trails.

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Foxy’s Harbor Grille

foxysharborgrille.com Foxy’s Harbor Grille in St. Michael’s, Maryland has tripled in size, taking over the space next door to bring more island flavor to the restaurant that overlooks the harbor. The largest full-service outdoor bar in town, Foxy’s is celebrating 21 years in business with an expansion and renovations. When neighboring Lighthouse Oyster Bar closed, the owners of the St. Michael’s Marina approached Foxy’s owner about growing her business. “It was a dream come true,” says owner Terye Knapp. “We had outgrown our patio space.” The newly renovated space features a cool, island color palette, new seating areas, a gift shop and an event space. Knapp channeled her time living in the Florida Keys to bring a Caribbean decor and an island vibe to Foxy’s when she purchased it more than 10 years ago. She included a few Key West favorites on the menu, such as conch fritters, Key West smoked fish dip, Cuban sandwich and a Key lime square for dessert. The most popular items are the crab cake and orange crush likely the most famous Maryland cocktail. Speciality drinks, grilled food and live music make Foxy’s a welcoming stop on the harbor for sailors, boaters, tourists and locals.

Waterfront Dining Waterfront Dining Event Spaces Event Spaces Fresh Cocktails Fresh Cocktails Craft Beer Craft Beer Live Music Live Music

Carrol’s Creek Café

carrolscreek.com Located on the side of Spa Creek that overlooks downtown Annapolis and the U.S. Naval Academy, Carrol’s Creek is the perfect perch for sightseeing. A locally owned business, the restaurant opened in 1983 and remains in the family. Jeff Jacobs coowns the business with father Joseph Jacobs. The waterfront restaurant is named for Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a Marylander who signed the Declaration of Independence. Carroll grew up in the Carroll mansion, located down the street from the restaurant. A fine dining seafood restaurant with regional accents, Carrol’s Creek focuses on the freshest ingredients for its menu and on local items such as crab and rockfish. For anyone with nut allergies, Carrol’s Creek has eliminated nuts from the menu and is now certified 100% nut free from Kitchens with Confidence by MenuTrinfo. There are no peanuts or tree nuts in the kitchen. A few favorites include baked oysters Carrol’s Creek regional oysters topped with horseradish, house-made bacon and Cabot Vermont cheddar and Cioppino, which features fresh fish, clams, mussels, scallops and shrimp in a tomato basil broth. More than 120 outside seats and its own parking lot means there’s plenty of space to welcome diners.

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Hole in the Wall Grill

holeinthewallwaterfrontgrill.com

At the entrance to Gwynn’s Island, Virginia, sits Hole in the Wall Waterfront Grill. Named for a spot on the Bay directly off the island close to Sandy Point, Hole in the Wall says it’s named for a small, often unpretentious, out-of-the way place with great food. Views of the Bay, a nearby boat launch and a bridge you may even get to see open and close during your visit add to the relaxed, laid-back feel. The two-story restaurant features a large deck, bar and air-conditioned indoor dining room. Walls with large picture windows mean almost everyone gets a water view. Popular menu items include pimento crab dip, tacos filled with shrimp or the fish of the day and the surf and turf burger, a beef burger topped with a mini crab cake, swiss cheese and bacon. For boaters, Hole in the Wall is the only waterfront restaurant in the County to offer slips to dock and dine. If you don’t have time to stop and eat or prefer to eat on your boat Hole in The Wall will deliver food to boats at the dock.

Knoxie’s Table

baybeachclub.com Dine on regionally inspired cuisine with fresh ingredients from local farmers and watermen in a rustic setting in Stevensville, Maryland. Located in the The Inn at the Chesapeake Bay Beach Club, Knoxie’s Table changes its menu each season. The current menu includes Chesapeake crab dip, crab and corn fritters, fresh tuna poke, fried green tomatoes, Chilean sea bass, seafood risotto, salmon piccata and shrimp and grits. Knoxie’s Table was the vision of Chesapeake Bay Beach Club founder John Wilson, who wanted to create a farm-to-table restaurant sharing the hospitality of Kent Island with visitors. Diners can choose to be seated in the rustic chic indoor restaurant or the terrace, which features an outdoor bar and fireplace and overlooking The Inn’s lush gardens. Weekly specials are: locals’ night on Mondays, when two courses prime rib and other Eastern Shore-inspired dishes are offered for $24.95; patty and pint Tuesdays a burger and a beer for $18; whiskey Wednesdays featuring special whiskey cocktails and flights and wine nights on Thursdays when select bottles are half off. Live acoustic music is performed on the terrace by local acts on Thursday evenings from 5:30PM to 8:30 PM.

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White Dog Bistro

Dredge

dredgeirvingtonva.com

thewhitedogbistro.com At White Dog Bistro in Mathews, Virginia, dine on fine cuisine in a Georgianstyle mansion or an outdoor patio with a relaxed, Old Havana style. The mansion built in the early 1800s was once home to actress Toby Wing. Wing co-starred in films in

the 1920s and 30s. Featuring chandeliers and fireplaces, the mansion is the perfect setting to dress upor keep it casual. “Many of our guests have enjoyed an afternoon on the boat or walking through town,” says White Dog Bistro owner and chef Walter Wilkes. “A jacket and tie is fine but definitely not required.” The outdoor patio overlooks the back gardens and has a Key West or Havana feel. “I usually include some Creole dishes or pick from Asian, Spanish, French, Italian, Caribbean, Argentinian, Chilean or Australian influences,” Wilkes says. “I’ve traveled to some of these places but mostly I’ve always been a student with my nose in a cookbook or studying the history of a cuisine.” Wild game is a regular on a menu that also features seafood, filets and vegetarian options such as eggplant. The bistro now offers Saturday and Sunday brunches.

Dredge in Irvington, Virginia serves up local oysters and seafood straight from the boat. Fresh soft-shell crabs are dropped off by a local seafood provider for dishes like Dredge’s soft crab bites or soft crab tacos. “A lot of local customers are watermen who come to eat the different seafood specials that we create each week,” says owner Bryan Byrd. “We make sure we are pleasing those with the knowledge of where our seafood comes from, who caught it, and how it should be cooked.” Local strawberries freshly picked are added to the strawberry shortcake on the spring menu. Touting a boat- and farm-to-table approach, the restaurant raises its own grass-fed cattle, pigs and chickens at family owned Black Sheep Farm. Chef Byrd has more than 20 years of culinary experience. Five years spent cooking in Key West influences his style of cooking and menu choices. Besides seafood, items found on the menu at Dredge include Jerk chicken, Cuban pork, tacos, burgers with a Caribbean, Cajun and Asian influence. “We are always evolving in the kitchen and basically I come up with my specials with what is available during the season,” Byrd says.

“MATHEW’S BEST KEPT SECRET IS OUT! It’s no surprise really because this small town gem has racked up over 50 “BEST OF” awards in just a few short years. If you’re a foodie anywhere in the Eastern half of Virginia or you’re visiting the Chesapeake Bay area, this is a must try restaurant.” — Steve Cook, Tastebudz, Boomtown Radio Jackets/Ties Not Required. Reservations Recommended.

68 CHURCH ST, MATHEWS, VA 23109

•

WWW.WHITEDOGBISTRO.COM

•

804.725.7680

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Portside Grill

portsidegrillurbana.com The only waterfront restaurant in the town of Urbanna, Virginia, Portside Grill is known for a menu inspired by local history and offering fresh local seafood combined with seasonal garden items. On the menu are local Bay Dream oysters harvested from a spot where the salinity of the Bay mixes with the pristine waters of the Rappahannock River to create a unique flavor. Portside offers them served naked, roasted or rocked. The eatery’s version of Oysters Rockefeller, the oysters are grilled and then baked with parmesan and spinach bacon butter. The menu is New American cuisine. In addition to seafood, sandwiches, steaks and burgers are available. Popular items are crab tots blue crab, potatoes and spices served with remoulade crab cakes, fried green tomato stacks and sea sprouts deep-fried Brussels sprouts seasoned with salt and almonds. Portside welcomes diners coming via boat, kayak or canoe to dock their boats and dine inside or outside on the patio. The restaurant is a short walk from the historic Colonial port town of Urbanna home of Virginia’s official oyster festival. Summer plans include and an expansion of the patio area, as well adding live music on Saturday afternoons.

The Deadrise

facebook.com/thedeadriseva

You’ll likely see more than water views while dining at The Deadrise in Hampton Roads, Virginia. A classic Chesapeake Bay Fish House, The Deadrise is the place to be to spot dolphins, whales and views. Home for the The Deadrise is a 400-yearold decommissioned fort

complete with a moat. Boaters looking for a place to dine at the mouth of the James River and the Bay will appreciate a well-protected marina featuring deep water, quick access, floating slips and free docking while dining. The menu focuses on fresh, local seafood. Favorites are the big fish sandwich, seafood burrito, crab cakes and fried seafood baskets. The owners of The Deadrise — The Tidewater Restaurant Group — have brought their flair for creating unique eateries to the entire Hampton Roads area. In the nearby town of Phoebus, Fuller’s Raw Bar employs an oyster bar manager to ensure it provides fresh, properly shucked, regional oysters. El Diablo Loco Cantina and Tequila Bar also in Phoebus offers creations influenced by food cultures from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. The family of restaurants is rounded out by Kismet in Newport News. The bistro focuses on fresh, locally sourced goods and brick oven pizzas.

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Something Different somediff.com

Something Different in Urbanna, Virginia serves just that. The restaurant specializes in fine Neanderthal cuisine described as seafood with a side of meat and nuts. All items served are made from scratch; prepared daily and made to order, from buns and subs

to roasted coffees and peanuts. On the menu are pit-smoked meats, specialty sandwiches and hearty sides such as baked beans, bacon cheese fries, collard greens and macaroni and cheese. The Texas brisket is dry rubbed and tender, smoked Texas style and served with hoecakes cornmeal griddle cakes often paired with butter and molasses). The seafood combo entree allows you to pick two seafood items choose from flounder, salmon, shrimp, oysters, crab cake or soft crab and pair it with side dish. The eatery uses beef tallow for frying for flavor. For vegetarians, the restaurant offers salads. Fresh, hand-squeezed lemon and limeades are available, as are craft beer and Prosecco on tap. Famous not only for the barbecue and smoked meats, Something Different is known for freshly roasted peanuts, rubs, sauces and seasonings, as well as homemade ice cream including adult ice cream flavors that contain alcohol.

The Off ice Bistro

theofficeirvington.com In the quaint town of Irvington, Virginia, you’ll spot a house with toothbrush columns on its front porch. That house is home to The Office Bistro, which used to be the office of the town’s dentist. The restaurant chose to honor the dentist’s legacy by keeping the columns and by incorporating some of the office’s dental history inside. On the menu are appetizers, salads, flatbreads, sandwiches and more, all made from scratch using locally sourced ingredients. Fresh seafood specialties like local rockfish beurre noir browned butter, toasted pecans, peppers, roma tomato, spinach, cranberry, thyme and lemon served over sautéed rockfish on crisped roasted potato stack are available when in season. The restaurant opened in 2018 and then rebranded itself in 2019 as The Office Bistro with an updated menu, expanded outdoor dining on the patio and a newly constructed bar. A recent Italian-themed night featured stuffed shells, eggplant parmesan, chicken marsala and wild mushroom tortelloni. Thursdays are prime rib night. A 14 ounce slow-roasted prime rib alongside a one pound loaded baked potato is the daily special.

“If you do it right

you don’t need sauce”

Righteous Ribs Bodacious Butts somediff.com

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(804) 758-8000

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Open Monday-Saturday Lunch & Dinner Closed Sunday Outdoor Al Fresco Seating - Dinner Reservations Recommended

4346 Irvington Rd Irvington, VA www.TheOfficeIrvington.com 804-438-8032 June 2021

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Aw Shucks!

awshucksoysteropener.com

Most restaurants on Maine’s midcoast didn’t serve oysters until the late 90s. Why? Because using an oyster knife to open the hard shells is difficult, time consuming and dangerous. Until then, only a handful of places were offering oysters from what are considered some of the best oyster beds on the East coast. In 1996, Sherry and Larry Schneider opened King Eider’s Pub in Damariscotta, Maine. After trying out several disappointing methods of oyster shucking and oyster opening equipment for their new place, the Schneiders decided to create their own oyster shucker. Voila, the Aw Shucks oyster opener was born! The Aw Shucks machine safely and efficiently positions the oyster and the blade and then opens the tasty bivalve horizontally, with a single stroke. The machine keeps the juices in the shell and can be used to open a dozen oysters in under one minute. It’s dishwasher safe and there’s no learning curve. The oyster and clam opener the Schneiders created has been sold by the thousands around the world. It is available for both consumer and commercial use.

Butter Pat Industries

butterpatindustries.com Around the kitchen of Butter Pat Industries, the month of June means one thing: soft-shell crabs and with them, the unofficial start of Chesapeake summer. When the temperatures begin to climb, and the locust trees finally bloom along the shorelines, the owners of the Easton-based cast-iron cookware company keep their pans at the ready for this local delicacy, which can be found through early fall. Locals know that the best soft-shells also known as “peelers,” “papers,” “busters,” or, at the exact right time, “velvets” are bought from your local backroad seafood shop, often with their own shedding tanks on site. (For Butter Pat, that’s P.T. Hambleton’s in Bozman, their go-to for both fresh-caught crabs from the surrounding creeks, and a little wisdom from multigeneration watermen.) With a dozen crabs in tow, there’s little more to do than a quick dredge in flour seasoned with J.O. Spice, then a toss onto melted butter in a piping hot pan. Cook them inside over the stovetop, or outside over an open flame while you wait for the fireflies to rise. Either way, that’s where Butter Pat comes in: a Chesapeake Bay Magazine-approved essential for every kitchen particularly in summertime and the right proper tool for cooking soft-shell crabs.

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

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TRAVELING WHILE BLACK

Looking for the Green Book in the modern era BY NAFEESAH ALLEN

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June 2021

The “Green Book” came back into public consciousness after the 2018 film of the same name, just as Black Lives Matter took up the issue of “driving while Black.” Contemporary concerns are reminiscent of the fears that inspired Green to write the books in the first place. As an alternative to segregated public transport, middle-class African American families saw the advent of cars as a Godsend. Over time, prices became more accessible, but racial discrimination among dealers and lenders restricted Black car ownership. Increasingly, a car became a trophy of affluence, which only made the person behind the wheel an even bigger target for racist aggression. Being caught on an unfamiliar road, in an unfamiliar “sundown town,” could be the difference between life and death. One reader, William Smith, wrote, “It is a book badly needed among our Race since the advance of the motor age.” More than just a list of advertisements, the Green Book was a forefather to the now burgeoning Black travel movement. It facilitated safe navigation between the Black-friendly spaces across the nation that had little connectivity otherwise. Cars came with a significant amount of fear, but they also brought an unprecedented degree of freedom. Day trips to Maryland’s Black-only beaches, like Highland, Sparrow, and Carr’s, were respites from both rural and urban life. Even now, Highland Beach is well remembered for hundreds of road trippers, converging for seaside concerts with Pearl Bailey and laughs with Redd Foxx. Today, the Frederick Douglass Museum and Cultural Center in Twin Oaks serves as a living memorial to yesteryear. The house was built in 1895 for Douglass, who intended to build a Black-owned resort community in the MidAtlantic. That dream is still deferred. June 2021

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H. ARMSTRONG ROBERTS/CLASSICSTOCK/CORBIS

“W

e have no African American home open for tourism, but it’s coming in 2021. That is the Maynard-Burgess House,” Janice HayesWilliams boasted. She is a seventh generation Annapolitan and a living encyclopedia of African American history in the state capital. In a trip down memory lane, Williams explained that the African American community of Annapolis is uncharacteristically long-standing, with generations-old ties to blue collar work at the Naval Academy and longshoremen jobs in “America’s Sailing Capital.” African American labor in the maritime and hospitality industries is integral to the visitor experience of the Chesapeake Bay. During the early- to mid-1900s, it was hard to miss the thriving Black-owned boarding houses, restaurants, and social clubs. But those establishments have much older histories. In fact, the Maynard-Burgess house near City Hall was purchased in 1847 for $400. The owner, John Maynard, was a freeman whose job as a waiter (possibly at the City Hotel on Main and Conduit Streets) helped him purchase the freedom of his wife. He passed down the home to relatives, who operated it as a boarding house before selling it to Willis Burgess in 1914. The Burgess family held onto it until 1991. Within two years, ownership was transferred to the City of Annapolis. Nearly 30 years later, the Maryland Historical Trust and the City plan to open it as a tourist attraction and an exhibit space, showcasing Black life in the 19th and 20th centuries. This will be the latest in a spate of ongoing efforts by the City and the State to recognize Annapolis’s Black cultural history. Preserving African American heritage in Annapolis has taken on a sheen of cultural tourism. The city has an informal Black heritage route. One of the most visited sites is the Kunte Kinte-Alex Haley Memorial, which incorporates the Kunta Kinte plaque, the Alex Haley statue, and the Memorial Story Wall at City Dock to tell the story of enslaved Africans who transited Maryland’s ports. Other lesser visited but historically important sites also include the People’s Park in the Old Fourth Ward which honors the former residents of the city’s thriving “Black Belt,” bulldozed in the 1960s to make way for a parking garage; and the Banneker-Douglass Museum for African-American History near Church Circle. These commemorative sites are what remain of a much more vibrant and robust African American presence. Less than a century

VISIT ANNAPOLIS

ago, the Old Fourth Ward hosted many visitors who came for Tidewater cuisine and an escape from overcrowded cities. For many Black travelers, it was through the hospitality of Black Annapolis that they came to know and love Crabtown. Today, many of those landmarks are all but forgotten, save for the state of Maryland’s geo-mapped website that takes us on a photographic tour of sites once featured in Victor Hugo Green’s “The Negro Motorist Green-Book.” The book surveyed Black-friendly businesses, which often (but not always) were also Black-owned. At the height of the Jim Crow era, the Green Book advertised safe services for African American patrons and tourists. Published from 1936 to 1966, the Green Book regularly listed about a dozen sites in Annapolis, primarily in the Old Fourth Ward. I walked the diamond-shaped path traced by Washington, Clay, Northwest, and Calvert streets in the Old Fourth Ward in search of Wright’s Hotel, Alsop’s Restaurant, Hyson’s Real Estate, and Your Cut Rate Liquor Store. Alsop’s Restaurant, owned by Mason and Martha (Peggy) Alsop, was repeatedly featured in the Green Book throughout the 1940s and later brought down to make way for the Arundel Center. Alsop’s was a victim of the 1950s urban renewal that felled many Black businesses and relocated Black families. I stopped to greet a gaggle of neighbors in their 60s and 70s, each socially-distanced on their respective front porches in the adjoined row houses across from the Old Stanton, now the Stanton Community Center. One resident said she lived in that house “forever,” as had her mother, and her grandmother before her. When I explained my search through her neighborhood, she laughed heartily, “Oh girl, that stuff’s been gone for yeeeears!” She remembered that the businesses along Washington Street had been knocked

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down when she was in middle school, replaced by the concrete-slabbed Whitmore municipal parking garage. Even before that, she said, Wright’s Hotel was destroyed in a fire. Where it once stood, there’s now low-rise public housing. Were it not for the First Baptist Church of Annapolis, and a few original homes standing cheek to jowl, there’d be no proof that a Black metropolis once flourished here.

Civil Rights Foot Soldiers Memorial, Annapolis (top); Blocks of Calvert, Clay, and Washington Streets were demolished in the 60s and 70s; Stanton School and Community Center; Your Cut Rate Liquor Store

A Vanishing Past

ROOTS The Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Memorial, located at City Dock in Annapolis

went to Baltimore on the same quest to find Green Book landmarks, but as in Annapolis, a church or a community center would lurk in the shadows, laughing at my failed attempts to turn back time. Anyone who lives in Baltimore will tell you that safety and appearance can change “block to block,” even within the same neighborhood. Yet, the Green Book seemed to highlight blocks across neighboring vicinities that today feel like very distinct communities. The 1935 Frederick Stieff city map shows that most of the Green Book sites were concentrated in what was then the lower fourth district. To be more precise, many sites were concentrated across the pentagon-shaped expanse between today’s Pennsylvania Avenue to the west, West North Avenue to the north, Jones Falls Expressway to the east, and Franklin Mulberry Expressway to the south. Upton, Druid Heights, Bolton Hill, and Midtown blended into one, as Black travelers saw attractions and accommodations generously scattered throughout. The current neighborhoods of Bolton Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue stacked the largest number of sites in the “Birthplace of the Star-Spangled Banner.” With dozens of

MARYLAND STATE ARCHIVES; PHILIP L. BROWN FAMILY COLLECTION; COURTESY PHOTO

UNCOVERING THE PAST OF ANNAPOLIS

June 2021

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

BALTIMORE, BLOCK BY BLOCK The 1935 Frederick Stieff city map shows that most of the Green Book sites were concentrated in what was then

MARYLAND STATE ARCHIVES

the lower fourth district.

entries, these two neighborhoods had more sites than most cities in Maryland, including Hagerstown, Upper Marlboro, and Salisbury, which had just one entry per city in 1949. All along today’s 1200-1600 blocks of Pennsylvania Avenue it is possible to see what once was a thoroughfare for Black commerce. Three out of four salons, six out of seven taverns, and four out of five nightclubs in the 1949 Green Book were on “The Avenue,” which is still a popular shopping district today. The New Albert hotel sat at 1226 Pennsylvania, where the Furman L. Templeton Prep Academy now stands. An internet search for the “Wagon Wheel Baltimore” returned photos of a gentlemen’s club on the outskirts of the city, instead of polaroids of the Wagon Wheel restaurant at 1638 Penn in Upton. Though books and newspapers tell old tales, it can be hard to see in today’s landscape exactly what life was like two generations ago. For example, the large brownstones and historical buildings of Bolton Hill have symbolized affluence since the area’s founding in the mid-1800s. The mix of residents today looks nothing like the demographic a hundred years ago. It was a Whites-only area for decades during the early 20th century, when the Mount Royal Improvement Association restricted Black residency. By the late 1960s, urban renewal bulldozed affordable housing and White flight left space for more Black ownership of residences and businesses. While family-owned essential service providers, like the Estep Brother’s funeral service founded in the 1940s, still exist today, many tourist sites seem to have disappeared. One large exception is in Dundalk, where the Turner Station Museum honors the African Americans who flocked to the area for shipbuilding jobs after World War I. There, the Green Book listed a drug store and a nightclub. The latter was so famous that the listing included the name “Adam’s,” with no address. Rumor had it that you’d hear the music and see the crowds, and know exactly where to go. Baltimore’s bouts with urban renewal in its fourth district parallel stories from Annapolis’s “Old Fourth Ward.” The tune of local greats like Billie Holliday has changed over time. In the wake of Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968, racial tensions led to looting and riots throughout Northern cities. Pennsylvania Avenue, especially its Whiteowned shops, were not spared. White business owners and the Black middle class never fully came back, but the sounds of music and the vibrant arts culture are ushering in a new wave of revitalization in Charm City.

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Reckoning with History

he summer of racial reckoning has brought, along with its call for public accountability, a call to support Black-owned businesses, but few national guides like Green’s exist today. Instead, there are Facebook groups, Yelp! reviews, and age-old word of mouth. As in the past, it is difficult to confirm which locations are inclusively run and which are actually Black-owned. The 2020 ABC Green Book is the most comprehensive collection, but Maryland has only 13 locations for accommodations and most are mainstream chains, like the Residence Inn at National Harbor, that don’t display their ownership profile. However, Baltimore has two iconic Black-owned venues, which could not be more different from one another. Their contrast gives us a sense of the diversity among Black-owned hospitality providers, then and now. Travelers seeking a luxury escape can visit the Ivy Hotel on 205 E. Biddle Street. It has eight suites and 10 rooms in a mansion in Mount Vernon, on North Calvert Street (familiar name from Annapolis) and Biddle Street. At $500 per night, guests can enjoy the only Relais & Chateaux property in Maryland. Opened in 2014, the hotel is co-owned (with the Azola family) by an African American family. Eddie & Sylvia Brown met at Howard University in the 1960s and have turned their love for business and Baltimore into a high-end oasis in a veritable concrete jungle.

Travelers seeking a more local experience can try Phoenix Risin’ Bed and Breakfast in Bolton Hill. Blackowned and operated since February 2000, its three themed rooms start around $110 per night. They bear exotic names like “the Serengeti” and “the Haitian room.” In true DIY fashion, the B&B has a simple website that leads travelers to book directly with the owner, Janice Orr, who is also Managing Partner at her own law firm. Social media makes finding a Black-owned business an endless digital treasure hunt. Online self-promotion draws tourists and residents alike to fan favorites like the Gallery Myrtis and Drama Mama Bookshop, which happen to be both Black and woman-owned. The idea of ownership and leadership combine in ABC Green Book, which even goes so far as to note that BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport’s Executive Director/CEO is African American. That airport welcomes an estimated 26 million visitors per year, making Baltimore and the state of Maryland a flagship for diversity and inclusion within the upper ranks of the transportation and tourism industries. While Annapolis brings in just over two million visitors per year, the Anne Arundel County directory of minorityand female-owned businesses show no African-American owners of hotels, motels, restaurants, or bars. in contrast to the days of the Green Book. As soon as COVID permits, Janice Hayes Williams will offer guided walking tours of her hometown. Her newly founded company, Old Legacy Tours, will lead scenic strolls that highlight Annapolis’ Black cultural history. She will uncover the untold stories behind the Black churches and historical landmarks that make the Chesapeake Bay an unparalleled melting pot of American history.

Rediscovering Lost Stories

ver the coming years, tourists to Maryland will have a plethora of historical sites to check off their “mustsee” lists. Given current realities, many of these experiences and exhibitions have been digitized. For example, Historic London Town & Gardens has an online repository of profiles of two dozen enslaved Africans and African Americans known to have resided in the town. Executive Director Rod Cofield says they have confirmed approximately “900 enslaved people associated with London Town over the course of the 1700s.” London Town has requested UNESCO World Heritage Site of Memory status and it will soon house commemorative markers from The Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Projects. These efforts to amplify the personal stories of the African Americans who

lived and toiled in the town during the colonial era will surely diversify the ways that slavery and colonial life are taught and considered in public consciousness. Similar efforts are underway in Havre de Grace, where there is much anticipation around the “Underground Railroad” exhibit at the local Maritime Museum. The permanent exhibit will map Harford and Cecil counties’ bouts with bondage and freedom seeking, particularly using the waterways of the Chesapeake Bay and the Susquehanna River to navigate escape. In more contemporary history, students of the Havre de Grace Colored School Foundation launched a project to recover alumni narratives from the 1930s–1950s. The school sits at 555 Alliance Street, just a stone’s throw away from the historical downtown district, which now has a self-guided digital walking tour, “the Lafayette Trail,” available on the DISTRX app. The lack of mainstream inclusion and the aging of former students has fueled the oral history project meant to showcase those soon-to-be-forgotten memories. They follow in the footsteps of the Hosanna School Museum, the first Black school in Harford County. Founded in 1867, immediately after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, it became one of 18 “colored schools” in the county. Today, it is one of a few still standing. The land was originally purchased in 1822 by a free Black man named Cupid Paca, whose son later sold a small lot to make a schoolhouse. Although there are current restrictions on in-person tours, the Museum still has online activities and is expected to host its Juneteenth celebration online in 2021. Finally, this autumn will welcome the return of Annapolis’s famed Kunta Kinte Festival on Sept. 25, 2021. Since 1987, the annual celebration has honored Kinte, one of 98 enslaved people brought from the Gambia to Annapolis aboard the Lord Ligonier in 1767. While there is dispute as to the true origins of the protagonist in Alex Haley’s Roots, the festival memorializes Africans, African Americans, and Caribbean people of African descent whose first arrival in the United States was through Maryland’s port cities. The festival acknowledges both the unsettled past and the unfolding future of the Chesapeake Bay’s African American heritage, which seem to be growing more visible to residents and more frequently visited by tourists with each passing year. h Nafeesah Allen is a writer and researcher with an interest in migration, literature, gender identity, and diaspora studies within the global South. In 2020, she launched blackhistorybookshelf.com, an online book review website highlighting global Black histories. June 2021

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

gone shrimping A changing climate brings new catch to the Bay As we drove the truck out on the neck on a summer evening, I looked to the left to catch a glimpse of the creek over the phragmites grass. Beyond the reeds I saw a young man throwing a cast net off a skiff. “He says he can catch shrimp—real shrimp—in the creek, using his net and cat food,” my well-informed son told me. At that moment, clues that had been subconsciously accumulating in my brain for a year all stitched together into a cogent thought: There are edible shrimp in the Chesapeake Bay! When the boys were little, for fun we used to run a hand-net through the eelgrass in front of our house. We would catch and release small fish and crabs, snails, the occasional seahorse, and lots of tiny, translucent grass shrimp, each an inch long. A couple of times we gathered a few spoonfuls of these tiny shrimp, flash fried them, and ate them, shell and all. They turned fiery red and tasted a bit like crunchy sticks that had been dipped in marsh mud. Ketchup much improved the experience. But I sensed something had changed in the intervening 10 years. It seems the boys had grown and so had the shrimp. A friend had mentioned “big shrimp” skipping on top of the water when he worked his oyster cages. I recalled having seen what looked like shrimp off a dock on the Bayside the previous summer. I had also read that there was now an experimental shrimp fishery off the Virginia coast. I asked a few local watermen if they had seen these shrimp. Yes, more and more over the past five years, was the collective answer. The more I asked, the more I heard about people seeing these visitors to the Bay. There was a shadowy rumor that “a guy” had caught “two basketfuls” at the head of a creek to our south.

story & photos by Robert Gustafson ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com 68

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LEARNING THE ROPES Cast nets seem daunting, but a week’s practice made it easier.

LEARN TO THROW Scan above to learn how to throw a cast net like the author.

“There has been a huge increase in Penaeid shrimp in the Chesapeake Bay,” confirms Dr. Troy Tuckey, Senior Research Scientist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS). Penaeid shrimp are also commonly called food, cocktail, or southern eating shrimp, and include the Atlantic white shrimp (Litopenaeus setiferus), which is commonly caught, both commercially and recreationally, just to our south in North Carolina. Shrimp were noted in small numbers in the Chesapeake as early as the 1880s, but Tuckey confirms that the VIMS trawl survey of Virginia waters of the Chesapeake has seen 10 times as many shrimp in the 2010s compared with the 2000s. Staff for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC) have reported a 155 percent increase in shrimp in the Bay in just the past couple of years. 70

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Scientists do not have definitive evidence as to why shrimp have come to Virginia waters in greater numbers, but climate change seems to be the smoking gun. “It’s a function of changing physical parameters that result in an adjustment by the species,” says Charles Carlson, Marine Science teacher at Broadwater Academy in Exmore, Va. “Warmer water, in addition to fresher water, is likely allowing for new species to come into the Bay and colonize.” Climate-impacted currents and winds may also be at play. “If the coastal water temperatures don’t force the shrimp to migrate further south,” says Tuckey, “they will spawn on the coastal shelf off Virginia.” The eggs hatch and eventually larvae drift with the currents into the Bay between April and June. The Bay provides excellent habitat for shrimp to grow. Small shrimp tend to seek

lower salinity portions of the Bay’s tributaries and then tend to move to higher salinity as they get larger. In autumn, cooler water drives the shrimp out of the Bay and back to the Atlantic off the Virginia coast to start the process over again. Although some shrimp may live more than 12 months, they are considered an annual crop that regenerates each year. It is unclear whether large numbers of edible shrimp will make it to the northern reaches of the Chesapeake Bay. Because larger shrimp prefer saltier water, “you might not catch them at the size you’d like to eat them” farther up the Bay, says Tuckey. But no one knows for sure. The science, habitat, and taxonomy of shrimp are fascinating, but I wanted to know how I could get some for dinner! A little research uncovered that recreational shrimpers from North Carolina to Texas use cast nets and June 2021

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

THE TASTE OF VICTORY We ate boiled shrimp, shrimp ceviche, fried shrimp, smoked shrimp, shrimp gumbo, shrimp and benne soup, and shrimp salad sandwiches. .

bait to haul in their shrimp. I had neither but was more than willing to learn. First, I looked into the legality of taking shrimp recreationally in Virginia. Recreational harvesting of shrimp in Virginia is unregulated and therefore legal, as long as you hold a saltwater fishing license or a cast net license. (You don’t need both; a fishing license allows you to cast a net.) However, I am told that VMRC is currently in the process of establishing its first-ever regulations for recreational harvest of shrimp, so check the VMRC website before gathering your own Chesapeake Bay shrimp. Cast nets had always seemed like a daunting proposition to me—they’re big, unwieldy, and I was pretty certain you had to hold some of the lead weights in your mouth to throw the net properly. My wife bought me one fifteen years ago, but I had never taken it out of the bucket it came in. So I fished it out of the rod and reel room and logged onto our spotty rural Internet to search YouTube. I quickly found out that there are about as many ways to throw a cast net as there are crab traps in the Bay. “Easy” and “foolproof” are common in titles of YouTube videos giving advice to aspiring cast-netters. None looked easy to me. I searched for a little while, then decided I should just choose one method and give it a try. I would like to be able to report that I suffered mightily, enduring character-building setbacks before ultimately persevering in mastering the secrets of throwing a cast net. But in reality, I think I just picked a good video (youtu.be/ eTSG6xz4YMQ). It was not that difficult and did not involve putting toxic lead in my mouth. I practiced throwing off my back deck into the grass. By the end of the first hour, I was getting the net to open up (mostly) on occasional throws. By the end of the week, I felt I was throwing well enough to make a trial run. The best time to net shrimp is low tide and it appears that most folks use bait to attract the shrimp (e.g., my neighbor’s cat food). The idea is that if you place food that shrimp like on the bottom, they will congregate, and you can throw the net over the top of them with some increased degree of efficiency. I am usually a do-it-yourself kind of guy, but in this instance I decided my net skills already put me at a steep disadvantage and I needed to try to even the odds. I sent away for a commercial “bait ball” product made of fish meal and powdered clay, said to be used widely in the Carolinas and the Gulf of Mexico (baitbinder.com). When you moisten some and pat it into hockey puck-sized discs, it sinks and stays together while releasing a piscine smorgasbord into the water column. My wife and I set out on a muggy Friday evening in

Chesapeake Shrimp Ceviche

ingredients 1 pound Chesapeake Bay shrimp, shelled and cut in half down the back 6 limes, juiced 1/2 red onion, sliced thin 1/2 fish pepper or other hot pepper, seeds removed and sliced very thin 1/2 bunch cilantro, rinsed and chopped fine 1 pinch salt 1 pinch ground cumin (optional)

directions 1. Place all ingredients in a Ziploc plastic bag. Shake to mix, press out air, seal, and place in refrigerator for 1 hour up to a day (longer marination makes the shrimp firmer). 2. Reposition the bag occasionally to make sure all shrimp are in contact with the marinade. The shrimp will turn from gray to bright pink. 3. Eat as-is or on tortilla chips that are not too salty. The ceviche can keep for a day in the fridge. Very fresh sliced scallops or diced, non-oily fish such as rockfish can be marinated with the shrimp.

June 2021

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This was not a grass shrimp, but a decent-sized shrimp you could boil and eat. OK, honestly it would probably be classified as “small,” but it was so much bigger than any shrimp I’d ever caught in the Bay it looked like The Kraken to me. July in our 17-foot homemade wooden skiff and fought over the sandbars at the mouth of a nearby creek at low tide. Once in the creek I stuck long poles in the muddy bottom in about six feet of water in two separate locations. I dropped a bait ball a few feet from the base of each pole. The poles served as a guide to remind me where I had placed the bait and where to cast the net. We waited for ten minutes, hoping that any nearby shrimp would find the bait irresistible and be

unlucky enough to be caught in my net. We drifted close to a pole. I cast. The net opened up, mostly, and the weights pulled the mesh to the bottom. I carefully retrieved it. Lo and behold, three silversides and one shrimp! This was not a grass shrimp, but a decent-sized shrimp you could boil and eat. OK, honestly it would probably be classified as “small,” but it was so much bigger than any shrimp I’d ever caught in the Bay it looked like The Kraken to me.

Over the next hour we drifted back and forth between the poles. I caught hundreds of small fish, dozens of crabs, and about 70 shrimp, all between the size of my index finger and my pinky. They were a pretty, light gray with big black eyes and tiny black spots, a very prominent (and sharp!) “horn” that stuck out from their foreheads, and long antennae. These were the same white shrimp being caught by the commercial boats out in the Atlantic and further down the coast.

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It was not a massive haul, but it proved the point: There are edible shrimp in the Bay and novices can catch them with a little equipment and preparation. We collected over a pound of shrimp, then motored back into the Bay and on home as the sun fell across the water. We hadn’t thought of what we’d do with shrimp if we actually caught any. They were the freshest shrimp we had ever had in the kitchen. We quickly decided their highest use was ceviche. Ceviche (recipe in the sidebar) “cooks” the shrimp without heat, using only the chemical action of lime juice, and includes red onion, cilantro, and slivers of hot pepper. I raided the garden and started shelling the shrimp. An hour later, we were eating citrusy Chesapeake Bay shrimp on crispy tortilla chips washed down

with locally-made Assateague Ale from the Cape Charles Brewery (capecharlesbrewing.com). They were tremendous—firm and sweet with a very fresh “shrimp” taste. Over the course of the summer, I baited and threw my net at various locations on the southern Eastern Shore. I cast off boats, from docks, and while standing knee-deep in saltwater in both the Bay and seaside marshes. I never failed to catch shrimp. Sometimes they were sparse. On a few rare occasions I caught several dozen per cast. The largest was nearly five inches long. I quickly learned to be discriminating. The smaller shrimp are tedious to shell and shrink considerably when they are cooked, so what looks like an easy dinner at the dock may become an imposing mountain of work in the kitchen. I

culled my catch after each cast and only kept the largest specimens, immediately returning the rest to the water to live and grow. I lack the culinary repertoire of Bubba Gump, but we ate boiled shrimp, shrimp ceviche, fried shrimp, smoked shrimp, shrimp gumbo, shrimp and benne soup, and shrimp salad sandwiches. I froze some shrimp for the winter. I wasn’t sure if the harvest would end or whether shrimp were permanent visitors to the Bay, but we were going to make the most of it! My sons informed me they were sick of me serving shrimp. I ignored them and caught more. Just before Halloween, we invited a small number of friends to a socially distanced and masked shrimp boil at our century-old clam house on the seaside. I was so confident there

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would be shrimp, I showed up with a pot, a camp stove, and my cast net. And there were! We feasted. But all good things come to an end. The weather was getting cooler. On November 1, I cast my net at the same spot that had yielded a hearty dinner for eight the previous week. I caught precisely zero shrimp in a half-hour of casting. The shrimp had moved on. I now know that the shrimp were following their natural pattern and migrating to the open Atlantic, kicking off the start of Virginia’s commercial shrimp season. The big boats with their 16' beam trawls scoop up these shrimp in the open ocean. The shrimp that escape those nets will spawn and send their progeny riding the currents into the Bay to start the cycle over again in the spring. Catching Chesapeake Bay shrimp is possible for anyone with access to a dock or boat, is great fun, and yields outstanding food. People living on the shores of the Chesapeake have created a unique cuisine based on the foodstuffs available to them, from Hayman sweet potatoes and fish peppers to terrapin and black ducks. Shrimp has now migrated onto the list of locally available ingredients. As long as they remain in the Bay, it is incumbent on us to harvest them sustainably and use them creatively in the kitchen. How the presence of shrimp in the Bay will impact the Chesapeake economy, cuisine, and environment is unknown, but I am already envisioning folding shrimp into many of our favorite local dishes—crab and shrimp boils, shrimp and oyster pie, and shrimp and crab dip. h Robert Gustafson is an Eastern shoreman by way of Chicago, Harvard, and a career on Capitol Hill. He lives near Exmore, Va., where he coaches the Broadwater Academy track and field team.

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Articles inside

Gone Shrimping

Dining by the Bay

Waterspout Wisdom

The Last Watermen

The Artisan Trail