The Wine’tastic Mile Is Baltimore’s Latest Attraction

The Wine'tastic Mile sign was unveiled 12/12/12.

Many cities are known for a street that has become a tourist attraction: Broadway in New York, Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, Bourbon Street in New Orleans, the Champs-Elysées in Paris. When Derrick Vaughn thought about all the fine restaurants along Baltimore’s Pratt Street, the road that runs along the Inner Harbor, he decided to take on the project of marketing the area as a wining and dining destination, giving both visitors and locals another reason to visit the downtown area of Charm City.

In June of this year, Vaughn launched the Wine’tastic Mile to promote the 1.3-mile stretch of Pratt Street from Martin Luther King Boulevard to Harbor East with a wine walk and the approval of the City of Baltimore. The organization’s activities include setting up events, such as wine tastings and food and wine pairings at participating sites for individuals and groups.

Vaughn, who has extensive experience in fine food and wine, has a vested interest in making the Wine’tastic Mile a hit. He owns and operates the charming and popular Corner Bistro and Wine Bar in Ridgely’s Delight, where the Wine’tastic Mile begins. 

Based on his success with the restaurant, things are looking good for Downtown Baltimore diners and wine lovers. I’m looking forward to swirling down Pratt Street.

There’s More to Coffee than Meets the Eye … and the Taste Buds

The Jimmy Kimmel Show recently ran a taste test to compare Starbucks’ new product that costs $7 per cup to a standard brew. There was no general consensus as to which was the higher quality cup, although most testers chose one or the other as the finer selection. One blue collar type admitted that he couldn’t tell the difference. The guy was actually right. Both samples were the same bean, and it wasn’t the fancy Starbucks variety.

Sampling the new coffee flavors. 

So why are we paying so much for coffee if there seems to be no difference? Is it the branding, or is there really a difference in coffee beans? To find out, I headed over to the Sidewalk Espresso Bar, the new coffee shop in my neighborhood, for a coffee cupping. That’s the term the pros use when referring to a formal way of evaluating coffee without a filter.  

Ronnie, an expert at Ceremony Coffee Roasters in Annapolis, Md., which supplies Sidewalk, educated us on the finer points of coffee. He explained that there are differences in coffee beans depending on where they are grown. Farm altitude, harvest time and weather conditions are some of the factors that influence the taste. Ronnie noted that all specialty coffees are picked by hand.

As a specialty roaster, Ceremony wants customers to have the finest possible experience with every cup, just as a connoisseur feels about his wine. The buyers acquire an eight-month supply of the best beans available because they lose their superior flavor if used after that point. The experts at Ceremony roast a small supply of each bean three ways, choosing the best profile to process the rest for sale.

The cupping process

Just like wine tasting, there is a method for tasting coffee. The entire process should take no longer than 15 minutes. Following are the highlights:

Step 1: Place the ground coffee in the cup, sniff it and evaluate the aroma. Is it roasty, fruity, floral, etc.?

Step 2: Pour the hot water into the cup. It should be about 200 degrees Fahrenheit. When the coffee has settled, put your head close to the cup, use a spoon to break the crust that has formed on top and push the spoon away, inhaling the aroma of the coffee.

Step 3: Scoop the remaining grounds from the top of the cup.

Step 4: Taste the coffee by taking a spoonful at a time from the top of the cup and slurp away so that the coffee covers your tongue.     

Tips for killer coffee

If you’re not a coffee connoisseur, and you just want your morning java jolt, Ronnie offers these tips to help make it tastier:

• Use a clean cup.
• Drink coffee when it’s freshly brewed, before the aromatics escape into the room.
• While water should be 200 degrees for pouring, wait a few minutes for it to cool off. If it’s too hot, you won’t be able to taste the full flavor. Scalding your tongue isn’t fun either.
• Use filtered water, not tap or distilled. Since 99.6 percent of the drink is water, using the proper type makes a huge difference.
• The type of filter you use affects the taste of the coffee. Paper filters provide more flavor and less body. A French press offers more body and less flavor.

I don’t know too many people who would be willing to pay $7 for a cup of coffee, but after the cupping, one taster said he’ll never buy generic again. I’ll drink to that.

Sweet Holiday Treat: The Union Square Cookie Tour

Like every large city, my town of Baltimore has its holiday traditions: the lighting of the Washington Monument, the Mayor’s Parade, the Santa House and the nationally acclaimed Miracle on 34th Street. This Sunday, December 9, the community of Union Square will hold its 27^th annual Holiday Cookie Tour at which guests will tour about 20 homes throughout the neighborhood, receiving a homemade cookie at each house.

Scene from the Cookie Tour

Walking through this southwest Baltimore neighborhood, which is on the National Registration of Historic Places and was once home to H.L. Mencken, is a special experience on any day. The Victorian streetscape is comprised of huge houses in Federal, Greek Revival and Italianate architecture. During the tour, visitors have the opportunity to enjoy the true creativity of homeowners, which is exemplified inside the houses. With styles ranging from traditional Victorian to ultra modern, all of them look like they are straight out of a magazine. That makes each house a must-see, even for those who aren’t in it for the cookies.

If the stunning architecture isn’t enough, meeting the friendly folks of Union Square is a treat in itself. All the hosts are happy to welcome guests and answer questions about the history of their houses, the renovations and the neighborhood in general.   

The Cookie Tour is a major event in Union Square. Participating homeowners spend months making repairs and updates to their homes, and they bake enough cookies to serve each of their 500 guests. All of the proceeds from the tour go to the community association, which plans neighborhood beautification projects, including the recently restored fountain and community Christmas tree in the park.   

A lot of work goes into making the Cookie Tour a successful event that both the neighborhood and visitors are happy to continue, from recruiting volunteers to open their homes to printing the guidebooks to promoting the event to setting up the ticket office. Surprisingly, Chairperson Fran Rahl says that he and his committee of only about a half dozen handled it all after only one meeting.

Tickets for the Union Square are $20 per person and are available for cash or check at 1401 Hollins Street, beginning at 11:30 on the day of the tour. They are also available online at a discounted rate until Saturday. If you buy online, bring your receipt to 1401 Hollins to pick up your guidebook, which includes a map of the houses on the tour and serves as your ticket.

This event is a win-win situation. Not only do you get to spend the afternoon getting into the Christmas spirit, but you can get a pile of delicious homemade cookies without setting foot in the kitchen. Count me in.

Culture Club: Asian Pop Comes to Town

While most of the world was focused on London this weekend, there was a whole lot of activity in my neighborhood, too. With the Orioles in town, an army of orange turned out to support the team in its bid to reach the playoffs for the first time since 1997. Down the street at M &T Bank Stadium, home of the Ravens, Tottenham and Liverpool drew a more international set for their soccer match. While it wasn’t always obvious which of these events people were attending, there was no doubt about who was in town for the third big affair, the Otakon convention.

I’m not really sure what Otakon is all about, but when 31,000 teenagers in strange costumes take over the streets around the Baltimore Convention Center every year, I know it’s time for the convention. According to the Otacon website, this event is for the otaku generation, honoring anime, manga, and all facets of Asian pop culture. I don’t know what that means, but I do know that the kids are well behaved, friendly and happy to pose for pictures, so they’re alright in my book.

You have to see it to believe it, so here you go. 

Get Your Art on in Baltimore

If you’ve never been to Baltimore, your impression of the city has probably been formed by the television shows Homicide and The Wire, two gritty series about drugs, murder and corruption. After living downtown for 16 years, I can tell you that everything you see is accurate–broken families, failing schools, political corruption, gang violence, teen pregnancy, STDs and substance abuse. We’re known to many as the City that Breeds, the City that Bleeds and a few other titles that are nothing to be proud of.

John Waters has made Baltimore
famous for its quirky characters.

But there’s a lot more to Baltimore than you see on TV. There’s also the Baltimore of John Waters, creator of the hit Hairspray and several other quirky films that accurately portray the many lovable, offbeat characters with big hair and strange accents who have earned us the name Charm City.   

Art Lives Here

If you scratch off the grimy reputation, you’ll discover that Baltimore is a cultural gem. The city is filled with so many museums and other sites that feature world-class art, music, literature, history and theatre that you’ll never have time to see it all if you visit. In fact, after all these years, I still haven’t.

This weekend, Baltimore showed off its finer side by putting on Artscape, the largest free arts festival in the US. For three days every year, visitors from across town and across the country try to take in as much of Artscape as they can cover. The festival features every form of art you could think of and then some. The most popular attractions are the hundreds of booths filled with unique treasures created by local artists and at least five stages that offer music of every genre. This year’s national acts included Brian McKnight, Clutch and Rebirth Brass Band. Artscape also offers visitors the opportunity to find out about what’s new at local museums, pick up giveaways from national sponsors, enjoy street performers and take in short features by local filmmakers.

A walk down Charles Street is a surreal experience during Artscape. 

Welcome to Wonderland

Artscape’s borders have expanded to include Charles Street, which was converted into a fantasy land. In strolling the few blocks, I felt like I was living Alice’s adventures in Wonderland. I passed three stages, one of which was made of pallets; a knitted port-a-potty; a houseboat topped by a guy wrapped in a snake and a band; a rock opera performed by a cast of medieval punks; a turkey breast children’s ride; an enormous crash-test dummy; a large drawing of John Waters’ head, an art car exhibit and a fashion show. My favorite was a human exhibit that I think was supposed to be an artful interpretation of some down and out folks.

The most impressive part of the festival was that it brings together people of just about every race and economic class, and everybody gets along. Funny thing about art. It always seems to melt away the differences among people, yet it’s the first thing that gets cut when budgets are tight. Perhaps if we started replacing guns with guitars, our streets wouldn’t be littered with bullets and drug paraphernalia.

Dance more, sing more, make art more, Baltimore.

Check out more of my photos from Artscape.