Who of us can breathe in this America?
This is what happens when the highest echelons of government ignore or circumvent the rule of law. The people follow. This is what happens when the president preaches violence will be met with more violence. He promised to make America great again. He has diminished it beyond recognition.
It is time to wake up and resist . . . peacefully. Do not give this president an excuse to ramp up his violence against the American people . . . the people who supposedly elected him to lead them. He is only leading this country to his vision of an authoritarian oligarchy where the uber-wealthy get richer and the rights of the poor and disenfranchised fade and eventually disappear.
Stay strong. Stay united. Stay peaceful. Stand up for the America we all love. Don't let this small man destroy a great country.
Over 100,000 people in the USA who were alive on New Year’s Day are now
dead, victims of the COVID-19 / coronavirus pandemic. Who was it said
it was a hoax? Who was it said it would be gone by April? Well, it is not a
hoax. It is late May and it’s not gone. Far from it. Please stay safe and healthy!
Yesterday I posted a rather strongly worded Memorial Day message in which I took the President of the United States to task for his dangerous words and actions, especially during this gruesome pandemic. Over the past twelve years of this blog, while occasionally commenting on social or cultural issues, I have attempted to stay clear of overtly political topics. I have long believed that everyone is entitled to their own political opinions, whether I agree with them or not, and I certainly do not want to foist my own on anyone else. There is a time and place for political debate. This platform, I believe, is not one of these. Yet I cannot help but address a matter that some might label as "political" yet I see it as a matter of simple human decency and a manner in which we can try to preserve it in these strange times in which we live. Common decency should not be the purview of any single individual, group, or political party. We share it or we all suffer as a result. So I apologize, if you are in some way offended by what I have to say here. I am not attacking any political party or philosophy, or any person who simply holds political views different from my own. What I am attacking is the lack of common decency exhibited by the current President of the United States, a person we normally look to as a moral compass, a person of strength and sound judgement. Nothing more. Nothing less. It is my opinion that the current inhabitant of the Oval Office exhibits none of these traits.
Permit me to digress for a moment. It will become apparent why soon enough. While traveling through western Montana during the early spring of 2007 my wife and I came upon the site of a former Native American encampment and battlefield on the Big Hole River. It was there we learned the story of Hinmatóowyalahtq, popularly known today as Chief Joseph (1840-1904), the leader of a band of Wallowa Valley Nez Perce. Joseph had negotiated an agreement with the US government in 1873 to guarantee that his people could remain on their ancestral tribal lands in northeastern Oregon as specified in two land treaties signed in 1855 and 1863. Nevertheless the government forced them off their lands during the so-called Nez Perce War in late 1877. Joseph’s band and other tribal allies fled first into neighboring Idaho, and after clashing with white settlers there, finally into Montana in an attempt to seek asylum in Canada along with the Lakota after their defeat at the Battle of Little Big Horn, in 1876. Federal troops pursued and skirmished with Joseph and his band across Idaho, Wyoming, and again into Montana to the Bear Paw Mountains just shy of the Canadian border. It was there that Joseph and just over 400 surviving Nez Perce surrendered on October 5, 1877. Another 250 or so managed to escape into Canada.
Upon surrender Chief Joseph spoke through an interpreter and said that he was tired of fighting. The chiefs and tribal elders were mostly dead. Children had no food or blankets and were freezing to death with the onset of winter. It was time to put a stop to the violence and death. "Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever." What courage it must have taken to end a struggle for the better good.
I have always been struck by those memorable words. Was it really a surrender or simply a wise man refusing to allow the cruelty experienced by his band of Nez Perce to continue? A New York Times editorial published a short time after the surrender condemned the government’s actions. "On our part, the war was in its origin and motive nothing short of a gigantic blunder and a crime." For the past three years I have also been in a struggle to make sense out of what our government and its "leadership" has turned into. Failing in that effort, I began to call out the ignorance, the idiocy, the audacity, the lies, and the sheer criminality of the current White House administration. Even this has provided little self-satisfaction nor a salve for the injustice of it all.
More recently, the US media has continued to confront that man in the White House, taking him to task for his lies and disinformation only to be insulted and forced to listen to yet a new litany of lies fueled by his anger, his paranoia, and his pathological narcissism. I have questioned why the media continues to accede to this incessant bullying and less than adolescent behavior. Would they not be better off gathering and reporting the facts and the science directly from the experts without first filtering them through the bantam mind standing before them and dictating what they are permitted to reveal to the public? Now I have to ask myself. Why am I even listening to this man and trying to make sense out of something bordering on the incomprehensible?
Then I read Tom Nichols’ article, "With Each Briefing, Trump is Making Us Worse People," in the April 11, 2020 issue of The Atlantic. Nichols writes that the president "is draining the last decency from us at a time when we need it most." Nichols characterizes the 45th inhabitant of the White House as "spiritually impoverished" with an "utterly disordered personality." He is immoral, shameless, unstable, and a "malignant narcissist" incapable of reflection or remorse and unable to recognize in himself the slightest possibility that he might not know the answers to everything, nor the solution for every problem. He is devoid of any degree of contrition nor is he capable of "moments of reflection, even if only to adjust strategies for survival." He is a "spiritual black hole."
Having never run across the term "malignant narcissist" before I learned that the term was coined by Dr. John Gartner, a psychologist and psychotherapist at Johns Hopkins Medical School who specializes in the treatment of borderline personality disorders. In 2017, shortly after Trump took office, Gartner collected the signatures of over 40,000 mental health professionals on a petition stating that the president was not mentally fit to discharge the duties of his office and urged that he be removed pursuant to the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution. Gartner also contributed to The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump (2017), a collection of essays by similar mental health professionals underscoring the clear and present danger represented by the president’s mental pathologies, including the perpetuation of chaos, personal harm, and suffering. Gartner believes that they "inexorably compel him to hurt and kill large numbers of people — including his own supporters." Gartner also believes that sadism and violence are central to Trump's malignant narcissism and his decision-making throughout the COVID-19 / coronavirus pandemic. Like other sadists, Gartner also believes the president exhibits a deeply dysfunctional relationship with other people, including those he was elected to protect and defend. Gartner concludes that the president is engaged in "democidal behavior," that the victims of the pandemic (almost 100,000 dead in less than three months) are not collateral damage from his policies, or lack thereof, but rather the obvious result of his inability to make educated and timely decisions on matters of life and death.
Nichols, addressing the more recent epic daily White House briefings to address the COVID-19 / coronavirus pandemic, describes how the president is a man who "lumbers to the podium and pulls us into his world: detached from reality . . . . " As we have listened to him prattle on, his "spiritual poverty increases our own, because for the duration of these performances, we are forced to live in the same agitated, immediate state that envelops him" until he concludes in "a fog of muttered slogans and paranoid sentence fragments." He "invites us to join a daily ritual, to hear lines from a scared and mean little boy’s heroic play-acting about how he bravely defeated the enemies and scapegoats who told him to do things that would hurt us. He insists that he has never been wrong and that he isn’t responsible for anything ever."
I am reminded of something Abraham Lincoln said in his second inaugural address in 1864 when this country was still in the midst of an existential crisis. "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." And now Nichols reminds us that in this time of crisis unlike any we have faced in decades, we should be seeking out these same better angels, finding what is best in ourselves. I do not consider the situation in this country hopeless although sometimes it seems we are tipping along the precipice. We will have an opportunity come November to apply the necessary corrective in order that we might once again function as a caring and compassionate nation. I have to believe that.
That said, I also believe there is no longer any practical reason for me to submit to the jabberwocky ramblings of an individual who continues his vulgar attacks on the media, the Democrats, and anyone else who refuses to take his word as gospel. Nichols is quick to point out that by this submission "all of us, angry or pleased, become more vulgar like Trump, because just like the president, we end up thinking about only Trump, instead of our families, our fellow citizens, our health-care workers, or the future of our country. We are all forced to take sides every day, and those two sides are always ‘Trump’ and ‘everyone else.’"
We must learn to step back from this void of irrational thinking and from confrontation with an individual who has no interest in what we have to say and begin to think on our own. We cannot allow the spiritual poverty of this small and insignificant person to force us to listen to the lesser angels surrounding us. " We are all living with him in the moment," Nichols writes, "and neglecting the thing that makes us human beings instead of mindless fish swimming in circles. We must recover this in ourselves, and become more decent, more reflective, and more stoic—before Trump sends us into a hole from which we might never emerge."
So I have decided to distance myself from the abyss. When Chief Joseph was faced with the simple fact that nothing he could do or say could ameliorate the situation in which he and his people found themselves, he took what action he though necessary to protect his desperate people from further harm as best he could. He saw the futility in running and he promised "I will fight no more forever." So allow me to paraphrase this brave leader and protector of his people when I look at our sad excuse for a president. It is futile to try and contend with what Alexandra Petri describes as his "factless, futureless, contextless void," as if goldfish swimming around bowl bumping into the glass. I refuse to share his bowl. I will listen to him no more forever.
As we gather with family and friends at a safe social distance or via social media to commemorate Memorial Day, it is a time not only to honor those men and women who bravely sacrificed their lives to make the United States the country it used to be. Let us also remember the nearly 100,000 people in this country who have lost their fight against COVID-19 / the coronarius over the past three months. If that number still does not register in your mind, then consider this. This is nearly twice the number of American troops who sacrificed their lives in the Vietnam conflict between 1959 and 1975 . . . a period of 16 years!! If you have experienced a sobering visit to the Vietnam Memorial here in Washington, DC, imagine a wall twice as long with twice as many names etched into its black marble.
How would you feel to learn that the entire population of Berkeley, California had been wiped out in an epidemic? Or the entire population of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Or Norman, Oklahoma. Or Erie, Pennsylvania. Or Portsmouth, Virginia. Or Green Bay, Wisconsin. Or any number of other medium size cities across the breath of this country.
As stated in the headlines of yesterday’s edition of The New York Times, this is an incalculable loss. And I venture to add that it has been an unnecessary loss. As people in this country continue to hunker down and self-quarantine themselves alienated from their families and their friends, the man responsible for this situation, the man who called it a hoax when the virus first appeared on our shores, a man who has suggested that people try cures that would put them at serious risk of death, a man who points his finger at everyone but himself to place blame for the pandemic, retreats to play golf at his private club in Virginia that most Americans would not be allowed to join or visit.
So how does this man choose to commemorate Memorial Day 2020? He will attend the traditional annual wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery as most presidents have done in the past. At present the cemetery is open only to families with relatives interred there and all visitors entering the cemetery are required to wear an appropriate face covering. But will the President of the United States? He has gone on record that they are unnecessary and has steadfastly refused to wear one at public events where they are required. He will lay a wreath and mumble of few platitudes he neither believes nor even comprehends, and that will be that.
He has also chosen to travel later in the day with the First lady to Fort McHenry, in Baltimore, "to honor the American heroes who have sacrificed their lives serving in the US Armed Forces." Had he not already done that at Arlington Cemetery? Baltimore’s Mayor Jack Young has requested that the President not come. "That President Trump is deciding to pursue non-essential travel sends the wrong message to our residents, many of whom have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 virus. I wish that the President, as our nation’s leader, would set a positive example and not travel during this holiday weekend," pointing out that young people have had to give up their proms and graduations. Families have had to postpone weddings and funerals. Why must he visit Fort McHenry? A leader should lead by example.
The president’s visit sends a dangerous message to local citizens in our state which is still one of the major hot spots of the coronarius pandemic, a state where there has been over 46,000 confirmed cases and almost 1,200 deaths as the numbers continue to climb (nearly a quarter of the cases and a third of the deaths are in my Maryland county alone).
Maryland’s Republican Governor Larry Hogan, who also in his capacity as the Chairman of the National Governors Association, has frequently been at odds with the President over the lack of suitable federal assistance to the states during the pandemic, as well as the premature call to open states while the virus continues to spread unchecked. Nevertheless, Governor Hogan has called it an honor for the State of Maryland that the President has decided to come to Baltimore to commemorate Memorial Day. "We are honored that the president and the first lady have chosen to spend Memorial Day at Fort McHenry. Although Marylanders are encouraged not to gather in large numbers this year - now more than ever - it's important to reflect on the American heroes who sacrificed their lives for our freedom." Hogan, interestingly enough, has chosen not to attend in order to spend the holiday with his family . . . something the President would be wise to do.
What is the sense of this ill-advised visit since the fort, a National Monument and Memorial Shrine, has been closed to the public since March 28 and until further notice? Add to this that, according to Mayor Young, the President would effectively violate the city’s stay at home law by coming to Fort McHenry. Add to this the fact that city police would be required to provide adequate security for the visit when they are desperately needed elsewhere. "Our City, Mayor Young added, "is still dealing with the loss of roughly $20 million in revenue per month." The City of Baltimore simply can’t afford to shoulder additional unnecessary expense just to mollify the President’s ego.
And what about the National Park Service employees who will need to be on hand for the visit? And what about the ceremonial military units participating in the ceremony? Why are they being put in possible harm’s way. I thought Memorial Day was to honor our military for their service, not to place them in unnecessary jeopardy.
I find it strange that the President thinks it necessary to travel to Baltimore given the fact that just last year he tweeted that the city is a "rodent infested mess" and "a dangerous & filthy place," adding "No human being would want to live there." If this is so, why is he going other than to satisfy his insatiable narcissism with a military parade? And will he wear a face mask? I bet the money in my pocket he won’t.
It has become plainly obvious to me, and to an ever growing number of Americans, that this man does not care about you or me, or the veterans both living and dead who served this country honorably, or the nearly 100,000 women, men and children who have succumbed to COVID-19 virus over the past three months during his watch. He is interested only in what serves his skewed vision of what America should be.
I am reminded of a cartoon that ran a few years ago. A young boy joins his father in a cemetery and asked his father why he came there to stand alone. His father responds that they are not alone. And he is correct. Those of us who are alive today owe our lives and the freedoms we are supposed to enjoy because of the sacrifices, in some instances that final measure of devotion, of those who have come before; our parents and grandparents and all those we never knew yet whom we can now never forget. They are not simply names on rows of tombstones, or on a black marble wall in Washington, DC, or even those names printed on the front page of The New York Times. The paper’s editors said it better than I can. "They were not simply names on a list. They were us." Let us never forget them even if our leaders have. They are us. They always have been They always will be.
My "Eating Vicariously" series is a romp through some interesting local eating establishments in the Washington, DC area . . . places I would like to be eating at right now if that were possible during the COVID-19 pandemic. I certainly plan to visit these places and others once this crisis is over and we are able to return to some degree of normalcy . . . whatever that will look like.
The Washington, DC metropolitan area is brimming with ethnic restaurants reflecting the profusion of immigrant communities who have made it their home. I am hard pressed to come up with a style of ethnic cooking that cannot be found within a hour’s drive from my home in the Maryland suburbs. And whereas most of these restaurants can be found embedded in District and suburban neighborhoods where these communities reside, there are a few more upscale locations in downtown Washington catering to the daytime lunch crowds, those staying at local hotels, and others who come into the city in the evening for the theatre or sporting events.
I discovered Haad Thai, located at the corner of New York Avenue and 11th Street, NW, when it first opened in 1995 in a space formerly occupied by the downtown Greyhound Bus terminal (built in 1940). Besides being a major transit point for soldiers and sailors during World War II, this art deco terminal was also the departure point for the "Freedom Ride 1961" to New Orleans. Sponsored by the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE), the purpose of the trip was to protest the failure to enforce the Supreme Court decision that the segregation of public buses was unconstitutional.
I first visited the terminal in the summer of 1964 as part of a school group from Asheville, North Carolina visiting the New York World’s Fair and the sites of Washington, DC. We stopped there in the wee hours of the morning for a break before continuing to New York City. It seemed like a typical bus station full of travelers and others down on their luck and no place else to go.
By the 1970s, the terminal was one more piece of the decrepit puzzle that was downtown Washington beyond the government buildings surrounding the Mall. The Greyhound terminal moved closer to Union Station in the early 1980s and it appeared that the old terminal would become another victim of the wrecking ball as New York Avenue became the focus of an urban renovation project anchored by the old Washington Convention Center constructed next door, in 1980-1982 (replaced and demolished in 2004). Thankfully at least the art deco facade of the old bus terminal was designated a National Register Historic Site in 1987, and it was incorporated as the entrance and lobby of a new office and commercial complex completed in 1991 as part of the north end of the new Penn Quarter district neighborhood.
Haad Thai opened its doors in this new complex in February 1995. At that time my office was located just two blocks down 11th Street and it quickly became a regular lunchtime hang-out. In my last posting I mentioned that Stoney’s, a former regular lunchtime venue a few blocks away, was a place where everyone knew my name, so too Haad Thai over time although most of the staff referred to me simply as "Mr. Thai Beer" because I always ordered a bottle or two of Singha to accompany my meal. In fact, one would arrive at my table before I had a chance to order it. And despite the lunchtime crowds of office workers and folks attending events across the street at the convention center, they managed to find a table for me. The service was always fast and friendly and I was able to return to work well fed and on time. Chatree "Charles" Kiatrungrit, the owner of Haad Thai, always made it a point to stop by my table to chat for a few moments. He, like his staff, made me feel like I was someone special. And it was not pro forma; he remembered details from past conversations. It was a perfect stress-free place to escape the office for an hour or so. Frequently I would stop in for a beer in the evening on my way to the Metro station, and on occasion I might even stay for a light dinner. Often while eating I tried to re-imagine this space decades earlier - weary travelers waiting for their buses home or to some unknown horizon.
I continued to be a regular customer until my retirement in March 2010. I still make the effort to eat at Haad Thai on my less frequent forays into the city, but I have to say that I miss the pleasant ambiance, the solicitous service, the friendly faces, but most of all, the wonderful food. And then there is that lovely mural that surrounds the dining room that brings to mind soft sea breezes and the sibilate sound of the gentle waves brushing the shoreline at sunset. The scene reminds me of photos a good friend sent me from the beaches at Phuket. The ceiling is black and studded with tiny lights reminding one of the stars that arrive after sunset over the Andaman Sea. I often think of Haad Thai even before the time of COVID-19 made a return trip for the moment impossible.
For years the dishes offered by Haad Thai have been the benchmark by which I measure the cuisine at other Thai establishments. Like anyone else, there are particular dishes I prefer over others. This is not to say that the others are not good; they are when I decide to try something new. I just
tend to eat what I enjoy best. In the case of Haad Thai, I always started out with a bowl of Tom Kha Gai, thin chicken breast medallions drowned in a rich coconut milk broth along with sliced mushrooms and spiced with fresh ginger, lime juice, basil leaves, and powdered red Thai chili. On occasion I would order the Tom Yum instead - a shrimp floating in a spicy lemon grass broth. Next came the appetizer which was normally an order of satay - wooden skewers of grilled chicken served with a spicy peanut sauce and small dish of sliced onion and cucumber with slivers of carrot in a subtle sweet sauce. Or larb, finely minced chicken and vegetables mixed with lime juice, mint and various herbs served with a lettuce wedge. Finally, the entree of choice. Frequently this
was what I consider Haad Thai’s signature dish - Ka Prow. Thin sliced chicken medallions with fresh basil leaves and slices of red bell pepper in an aromatic and tart green chili pepper and garlic sauce. Every once in awhile I would substitute roasted duck, or a seafood medley of shrimp, scallops and squid. Another standby was Ka Tiem, sliced marinated pork in a white pepper and garlic sauce. These dishes were always well spiced but never over the top. Additional heat is provided, if you request it. Each dish is served over rice with steamed yet crunchy broccoli or snow peas. Who ever had room for dessert of which Haad Thai offers several?
*****
Being a regular customer at Haad Thai during the latter half of the 1990s and into the first decade of the new century, I could not help but notice when a modest sushi restaurant - Sushi AOI - opened next door. Being a sushi afficionado I could not help but wander in one day so see what it had to offer. What struck me immediately was the ambiance I had discovered at the adjacent Haad Thai, and soon I recognized some of the same familiar and friendly faces. Much of what I liked about the ambiance of Haad Thai was in evidence here, too, and it soon became apparent why. Charles Kiatrungrit is also part owner of Sushi AOI although his partner, Sumiko Abe, was the delightful hostess who extended the same hospitality as her friendly next door neighbor. And what wonderful food and atmosphere squeezed into such a small space - a short sushi bar and just a smattering of tables. Sushi AOI quickly became my regular sushi stop, usually on my way home from work when I would enjoy the de rigeur miso soup and very reasonably priced sushi and sashimi offerings washed down with hot sake and/or a variety of Japanese beers.
A few years later Charles Kiatrungrit open the third of his establishments at the corner of New York Avenue and 11th Street, NW. Mazu was a Pan-Asian lounge, another intimate space with a long bar and a separate dining area, where I would frequently enjoy a half-priced beer or two during happy hour which also offered cheap yakitori, a Japanese version of satay, edamame, or a spicy tuna roll.
After my retirement in 2010 Charles Kiatrungrit closed Mazu in order to enlarge his adjacent Sushi AOI which had proven too small to handle diners seeking out reasonably priced sushi and sashimi in downtown Washington. The former Sushi AOI space has since been reborn as Noodles on 11, a Pan-Asian noodle house offering Thai, Chinese and Vietnamese noodle dishes. Sad to say I have not yet had an opportunity to dine here but I look forward to correcting this oversight as soon as possible. If it is good as its three predecessors at this downtown corner, I am certain I will not be disappointed.
And while I am at it, it is time to return to the more familiar Haad Thai and Sushi AOI. It has been far too long. I miss the ambiance and the friendly faces. And I can already smell and taste the Tom Kha Gai and the Kaprow.
My “Eating Vicariously” series is a romp through some interesting local eating establishments in the Washington, DC area . . . places I would like to be eating at right now if that were possible during the COVID-19 pandemic. I certainly plan to visit these places and others once this crisis is over and we are able to return to some degree of normalcy . . . whatever that will look like.
The popular television show “Cheers” (1982-1993) was set in a fictional neighborhood bar on Beacon Street in Boston . . . a place “where everybody knows your name” (Norm!). Of course, most of the show was filmed on a sound stage in Hollywood, but the exterior location shots were of the Bull & Finch Pub, located across Beacon Street from the Boston Public Garden. This pub quickly became a tourist mecca after it had been renamed “Cheers” to cash in on the show’s popularity (we walked pass it on a visit to Boston in 1988 and my wife and a friend had lunch there last summer).
Beginning around the same time as the show, I discovered my own neighborhood bar where the staff and many of the regulars did know my name. Stoney’s, originally located at 1307 L Street, NW in Washington, was just a hole-in-wall bar and grill when my office was located two blocks away, at 1395 K Street, from 1979 until 1984. It had originally been Herman’s, a Jewish diner owned by Herman Susser (1900-1976) until he sold it in 1966 to a fellow named Tony Parzo. He was a great cook but a lousy businessman, and two years later he sold it to Steve Papageorge and Tony Harris and the restaurant was transformed into Stoney’s. Papageorge sold out in 1973 and moved to Florida, leaving Harris the sole proprietor at the L Street address for the next 32 years.
During the time I frequented the original Stoney’s and occasionally chatted with Tony Harris, who continued to work behind the bar, as well as others who had worked there for years. I heard stories (often many times) of the early years when the place opened up at 7am and was permitted to serve booze at 8am. Reporters and others working at the former Washington Daily News (1921-1972), whose offices were just a block away in the 1000 block of 13th Street, would often come in for a nip or two after their shifts were over. And there were the firefighters from DCFD Engine Company 16 stationed at the historic firehouse in the same block who were still coming in during my time as did Metropolitan Police officers from the nearby district station. Shoulder patches representing police departments and law enforcement agencies from across the country were pinned up over the bar. The headquarters of the US Secret Service Uniformed Division was also located across L Street until it moved in 2000 to a new and larger facility on 18th Street. Off duty officers would come in for breakfast and lunch, or for a beer after work.
At the time I frequented Stoney’s in the late 1970s and into the 1980s the downtown neighborhood where my office was located was just five blocks from the White House yet it was the epicenter of Washington’s red light district with its nudie bars, bath houses, skin flick theaters, and shops selling “Doc Johnson’s Marital Aids.” Prostitutes often gathered outside the old McDonald’s across 14th Street from my office building in the evening chanting “we do it all for you” as cars cruised past checking them out. The police prohibited right turns into the block of L Street where Stoney’s was located, but it never seemed to slow down the nightly caravans. At times some of the girls would come in for a drink or two despite the preponderance of in situ law enforcement types.
This neighborhood also had an important connection with Washington’s history. A block south of the original Stoney’s is Franklin Park. An Union Army encampment during the Civil War, Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross at her home on 13th Street across from the park. Adjacent to where her house once stood is the former Franklin School from which Alexander Graham Bell transmitted his first wireless message in June 1880 using a beam of light (a precursor to our modern fiber-optics) sent to a window in a building at 1325 L Street that served as his laboratory. Almost a century later the area adjacent to the 14th Street corridor was devastated during the rioting in the wake of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination on April, 4, 1968, just a month before Stoney’s opened. The legend has it that the idea for the bar came about while Harris and Papageorge spent a night in jail having been arrested for a curfew violation during the unrest. The neighborhood was also the scene of large anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in the early 1970s.
The original Stoney’s was looking rather worn down when I discovered it in late 1979; a narrow space with a long bar counter running the length of one wall and with a few small tables along the opposite wall. Stairs in the back led upstairs to a small office and two extremely small and bare-bone restrooms. I remember there was a condom vending machine over the urinal in the men’s room upon which someone had scratched “This is the worse gum I have ever tasted.”
Stoney became my go-to place for lunch when I was not tied to my desk. It was well known for the “Super Grilled Cheese sandwich,” perhaps its signature dish, which included a generous portion of fresh tomatoes, sliced onions, and bacon. The menu also included burgers and fries, roast beef BBQ sandwiches, pizza, chili with cornbread, salads, and an open-face hot turkey sandwich served with a generous helping of stuffing that was to die for. My colleagues and I would also frequently gather on Friday evenings after work to share cheap pitchers of Budweiser while solving the problems of the world, even after our office moved a few blocks farther down 14th Street, in 1984.
My colleagues and I would still occasionally meet at Stoney’s on Friday evenings until the early 2000s. The neighborhood had long ago cast off its more notorious reputation as the older buildings were being re-purposed or replaced by new office and residential structures. The original Stoney’s held its ground for longer than many of us thought possible, but in 2005 the owner of the building sold it, and after 37 years Tony Harris was forced to close or relocate.
Harris signed a lease in 2006 for a space at 1433 P Street, NW, the largely gentrified residential Logan Circle neighborhood; more specifically in the revitalized commercial western end of the neighborhood with its restaurants, bars, art galleries and live theater. Harris brought the original outdoor sign and the collection of police patches, hoping to recapture the ambiance of the original place and bring his old customers - all those “good guys” and “good people” - with him. My colleagues and I, who were by then based at the corner of 13th Street and New York Avenue, NW, had to look for a new watering hole “closer to home.”
A few years passed before I had an opportunity to check out the “new Stoney’s” prior to theatrical productions at the nearby Studio Theatre, on 14th Street, and the Keegan Theatre, on Church Street, just a short walk away. The new space is a two-floor restaurant and bar and the times I have been there the clientele was predominantly Millenial and Gen-Z types with a few hipsters thrown into the mix. Yes, the familiar sign was out front and the collection of police department patches is now displayed under glass, but otherwise there is virtually nothing to remind those of us who remember the original Stoney’s where everyone knew your name. Business must be thriving because Stoney’s opened a second establishment five years ago at 2101 L St, NW, in the West End neighborhood between the George Washington University campus and Dupont Circle. So Stoney’s has found a way to return to L Street . . . at least in spirit.
There is little to distinguish the new spaces from the other the glass and chrome establishments popping up all over the city. But this is not to say, however, that there is nothing to commend them to their current customers, many of whom I am sure are regulars. While they do little to resurrect the ambiance of the original establishment in the 1300 block of L Street long since lost to the wrecking ball, the food and drink are worth the effort regardless and I look forward to returning and enjoying the “new” Stoney’s for what they are. Nothing wrong with that. Stoney’s remains a Washington institution regardless of its locations today. Long may it remain the “Boss of the Sauce.”
My "Eating Vicariously" series is a romp through some interesting local eating establishments in the Washington, DC area . . . places I would like to be eating at right now if that were possible during the COVID-19 pandemic. I certainly plan to visit these places and others once this crisis is over and we are able to return to some degree of normalcy . . . whatever that will look like.
One of my favorite local eating spots is Shagga Coffee and Ethiopian Restaurant located at 6040 Baltimore Avenue, in Hyattsville, Maryland. I remember back in the day when this space was occupied by a Dunkin’ Donut shop with full counter service; a place where locals could stop in the morning for a donut or two and a couple cups of coffee and to share the latest town gossip. It was sad to see it close, but I was equally excited to learn that an Ethiopian restaurant would move into the space. There is nothing fancy or ground breaking here, but how fortunate to have my favorite traditional Ethiopian dishes just five minutes from where I live. The good folks at Shagga follow recipes that have been handed down for generations. It is honest to goodness Ethiopian cuisine at its finest and I probably eat here more often than any other traditional restaurant in the area. And that is saying something right there.
I am drawn mainly to the fact that Shagga is so close and it serves two distinct versions of yebeg tibs, one of my all-time favorite dishes. The regular version consists of lean cubes pf lamb sauteed in onions, green peppers and herbed niter kibbeh. The alternative version of is fueled with the addition of tomatoes and herbed pepper awaze chile sauce. Shagga also offers yebeg wat, a lamb stew simmered in berbere sauce along with onions, spices and niter kibbeh, and yebeg alicha which is lamb simmered in a mild herbed niter kibbeh sauce with onions, garlic and ginger. And I never pass on the three versions of kitfo – the orthodox version of extra lean beef, seasoned with hot chili powder and herbed butter served raw, medium or well-done – as well as adaptations including homemade spiced cheese or onion and jalapeños peppers. They are all excellent. To top it off, the folks who run Shagga are as friendly as they can be. What more does one need?
I have missed my frequent visits to Shagga since the onset of the COVID-19 and I feared that an extended closure might prove fatal. So you can imagine my joy when the owners recently announced that they are remaining open for delivery and take-away orders. Like other restaurants in our area and elsewhere, Shagga is also offering gifts cards which is a great way to support these establishments by providing them with the cash flow they need to stay open and viable, and which can be redeemed once the pandemic is over and the restaurants are back on a more solid footing. Or just consider them as good investments.
Luckily, in the case of Shagga, I will not be forced to eat vicariously. I plan to order a take-away meal this week, and will continue this weekly practice until the pandemic is just an ugly memory. I urge you to support your favorite culinary haunts offering take-away and delivery service. And tip the staffs copiously. They are working hard to bring us the foods we love. We want these places to still be around once we are able to again roam free.
Today is Vesak, the traditional birthday celebration of Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha. Born circa 563 BCE, Vesak also celebrates the Buddha's attainment of enlightenment - nirvana -, as well as his death, or parinirvana. May peace be with my dearest sisters and brothers in every place in the world.
My "Eating Vicariously" series is a romp through some interesting local eating establishments in the Washington, DC area . . . places I would like to be eating at right now if that were possible during the COVID-19 pandemic. I certainly plan to visit these places and others once this crisis is over and we are able to return to some degree of normalcy . . . whatever that will look like.
I was first introduced to West African cuisine when sampling various take-away joints in the Hammersmith and Earl’s Court sections of London some forty years ago. Much of what I found there were dishes native to Nigeria and Ghana, two former British colonies. Since then my tastes for African food have migrated east to the cuisines of the Horn of Africa as Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Somali dishes are readily available in the Washington, DC metropolitan area (see: http://lookingtowardportugal.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-moveable-feast-in-search-of-ultimate_22.html). Once again, however, I have begun to seek out the foods of West Africa since returning home from my first trip to Africa when my flight from Johannesburg to Washington made a refueling and crew change stop in Dakar, Senegal. I thought back to those wonderful West African dishes I had first tried in London and I made a promise to myself that I would seek them out again when I returned home. Surely they could be found in the immigrant stew that is modern Washington, DC.
For me Africa has always been a place of mystery and transition and my interest in the continent goes way back. I grew up with the story that one of my distant English ancestors was a confidant of David Livingstone, the Scottish medical missionary and explorer, and I read everything I could find by and about him and his exploration of East and Southern Africa, hoping without success that I might find some reference to my kinsman. On my first visit to London, in early 1972, I visited Livingstone’s final resting place at Westminster Abbey (sans heart which is buried in the heart of Africa). Something might turn up one of these days.
In high school in the late 1960s, as much of Africa was beginning to cast aside the yoke of its colonial past, I seriously considered a career in African history. I had teachers who encouraged me in that vein and gave me books to read. "There are as many Africas as there are books about Africa," Beryl Markham wrote in her 1942 memoir West With the Night. "And as many books about it as you could read in a leisurely lifetime." I discovered how correct she was. And more books were published every year. It would be a daunting task. Despite my early interest in African history and politics, I was late to the table as far as exploring its many regional cuisines.
Once home I began to do some research and was pleased to
discover Chez Dior, a small storefront restaurant serving home-style Senegalese fare located at 5124 Baltimore Avenue in Hyattsville, Maryland just over a mile from my home. Opened in 2014, I had been driving past it for years without noticing it. How was this possible? I read Tim Carman’s May 7, 2015 review in The Washington Post and decided to try it out at my next opportunity.
I was not disappointed. It is nothing fancy to the eyes; very reminiscent of small ethnic diners catering to immigrants longing for the tastes of home. A few tables and booths up front and a small kitchen in the rear with the ubiquitous television broadcasts from Dakar. The owners are very friendly and generate teranga, the generous hospitality of Senegal. They are anxious to answer any questions or issues one might have concerning their traditional offerings. They take great pride in welcoming their dining guests.
The only difficulty was trying to decide which of the traditional dishes I would like to try as my introduction to Senegalese cuisine. There was so much to choose from. Since much of the country’s population lives along the Atlantic coastline (Dakar is the western most point of the African continent), fish is very important in Senegalese cooking. Chicken, lamb, and beef are also mainstays although pork is not due to the predominantly Muslim population in an otherwise secular state. I love just about any kind of seafood imaginable and Chez Dior offers caldou, or fish yassa. It is a whole tilapia which has been marinated in a vinegary tomato and onion sauce and then char-grilled before it is returned to the marinade to simmer until serving. It looks quite appetizing, but I have to be honest that I do not think much of tilapia when there is so much quality seafood to be had. Yes, it’s relatively inexpensive and available just about anywhere. I just find it bland and uninteresting and too reminiscent of carp, another bottom feeder. Perhaps the preparation of caldou might improve its taste, but I was not going to gamble with my introduction to Senegalese cooking. Perhaps someday.
Peanuts, the primary crop, as well as plantains, sweet potatoes, various lentils and vegetables, are frequently incorporated into most Senegalese meat offerings which are marinated with herbs and spices and served whole or in stews over couscous or white rice. Once I had perused the menu a couple of times I decided to order the poulet yassa, or poulet au yassa [chicken yassa ]. Why? The answer is very simple.
While our South African Airways jet was parked at the terminal of the Dakar airport in the wee hours of the morning, I happened to notice a food truck parked nearby advertising "Poulet Yassa. L'âme de l'Afrique de l'Ouest" [chicken yassa. The soul of West Africa]. What more did I need to make my selection? Poulet yassa originated in the Casamance region along the Gambia River in the south of Senegal (a region often at odds with the central government in Dakar). Today it is a popular "comfort food" throughout the former French West Africa as a result of symbiotic culinary influences of France, its former colonial master since the mid 17th century; a blending of the old and the new. Senegalese immigrants brought their cuisine to France and I wonder how I managed to miss out when I was traveling throughout that country in the early 1970s.
Traditional yassa incorporates chicken (or fish) which has been marinated for at least eight hours in vinegar and lemon juice mixed with garlic, clove, allspice, salt and pepper. After the meat has been removed from the marinade it can be either char-grilled or pan-fried until it is browned evenly. While the meat is cooking, the onions are removed from the marinade and cooked separately until they are translucent. The meat is eventually returned to the pot of onions along with the marinade and the mixture is brought to a boil and then allowed to simmer with additional garlic and mustard for at least an hour. The sweet-tart chicken is then served over plain white rice. Fufu (a dough-like mixture of crushed cassava and plantains) and couscous are suitable alternatives to rice. The onions are served as a side dish.
Chez Dior’s poulet yassa offers charcoal grilled marinated chicken legs with carmelized onions served on the side along with steamed white rice and an extremely piquant red pepper sauce. It would have been ideal to wash down this tasty offering with a bottle or two of Gazelle or Flag, the popular local Senegalese beer, but unfortunately alcohol consumption is not prevalent in Senegal as the population is 95% Muslim. Chez Dior is dry so I opted for bissap, a mixture of hibiscus-infused water and sugar and mint.
Just so you know . . . I have returned the Chez Dior on a few occasions to sample other dishes and I finally tried the caldou. It is still not my favorite seafood offering, but I will admit that it was moist and rather tasty; the marinade definitely took an otherwise bland piece of fish up a notch or two. Will I try it again? Probably. But the poulet yassa has become my go to dish at Chez Dior. I can’t wait to try it again.
This is the first installment of a new series I am calling "Eating Vicariously" - a romp through some interesting local eating establishments in the Washington, DC area . . . places I would like to be eating at right now if that were possible during the COVID-19 pandemic. I certainly plan to visit these places and others once this crisis is over and we are able to return to some degree of normalcy . . . whatever that will look like. This installment is a much revised essay which first appeared seven years ago in my now defunct blogspot A Flâneur in Washington, DC.
It has been almost two months since I have been able to enjoy a meal and a drink at a favorite restaurant or tavern. As such I have had to live (and eat) vicariously watching food shows on Netflix. I’m quite certain I am not the only one. There is the stable of old favorites hosted by the late Tony Bourdain; these never grow old. More recently I have discovered the two seasons of Ugly Delicious hosted by the equally irreverent David Chang. Whereas the Bourdain shows focus on the foods and customs of various countries and cities, many of which are relatively unfamiliar to the average American, Chang’s episodes are centered on a particular dish - BBQ, steak, curry, shrimp & crawfish, friend rice, etc. - showing how each has evolved over time. A New York Times review has called it "an extended television essay, in the form of free-associative, globe-trotting conversations about food and culture." That’s it in a nutshell.
Just yesterday I watched the episode on fried chicken, part of which was filmed at the Florida Avenue Grill, at the corner of 11th Street, NW here in Washington, DC. While dining on the episode’s subject matter, Chang chatted with Psyche Williams-Forson, a professor of African-American studies at the University of Maryland in College Park (one of my alma maters) whose scholarly research includes "19th and 20th century U.S. History - specifically social and cultural history dealing with race, gender, material culture, and food." Their discussion centered on racial stereotypes engendered by certain foods and those associated with eating them. Professor Williams-Forson was quick to point out how fried chicken, long associated (incorrectly) with African-Americans, is one such dish. A pretty heavy topic, if you really want to think about it. It’s definitely "food for thought" and that is exactly what Ugly Delicious is all about.
I first ate at the Florida Avenue Grill exactly seven years ago, when I joined two friends for breakfast at this long fabled home-cooked "soul food" establishment. At that time I had been residing on the fringes of Washington for well over 30 years and I was not quite sure how it was possible that I had never crossed the Grill’s threshold. As it turned out, that very same day the place had been featured in a review by Tim Carman in The Washington Post. So it was time to try it out.
As is my want before I try a new eating or drinking establishment, I like to do a little boning up on the history of the place. So that morning I read the Carman review which I found somewhat lukewarm, at best. He and some friends had eaten there the week before just before closing. They were the sole (not soul) customers ordering "a late-ish dinner" while the cooks and wait staff were trying to clean up, close up, and get to wherever they needed to be. Carman claimed he was on a nostalgic mission . . . to see what all the fuss was about before the establishment began planned renovations to match the evolving "upscale" neighborhood surrounding it. The new owner, according to Carman, was thinking of adding salads and sandwiches to the long-standing soul food repertoire in order to insure the place’s survival with the influx of white Millennials. As if this were really necessary. It had been at the same location for almost 70 years at that time and seemed to be doing just fine. Unlike Carman, I did not go to see what the fuss was about, or to feed a nostalgia bug before what had been was no more. I was just in search of some good food outside my normal comfort zone.
My preliminary research revealed that the Florida Avenue Grill had been a mainstay along that section of Florida Avenue near Howard University, in the Cordozo neighborhood, since 1944 when it was first opened by Lacey C. Wilson, Sr. Originally just a small counter and two stools, the place had grown to a long counter facing the grill and a row of small booths lined up under a bank of windows.
The walls are covered with framed photographs of the known and unknown who have visited and eaten there over the years, including my old boss, former Attorney General Janet Reno, who frequently ate there. It was lucky to survive the riots and fires that plagued this neighborhood in the wake of the Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination in April 1968, due in large part to the elder Wilson sitting near the entrance armed with a shotgun. His son, Lacey Jr., who had been a successful nightclub owner in the city, took over the ownership and operation of the grill in 1970 until he sold it to Imar Hutchins, a local artist and the current owner, in 2005. Described in an earlier Washington Post review as a diner "as greasy as it is venerable," it is far from being what I would call your average greasy spoon. It is a soul food restaurant pure and simple. Nothing more. Nothing less. The menu is basic, but the food and ingredients are fresh and served piping hot. Known mainly for its all-day breakfast fare, it also serves lunch and dinner entrees, including pigs feet, chitterlings, fried catfish and croaker, fried pork chops, fried chicken, and half-smokes (a DC staple any time of the day).
That morning a few years ago my friends opted for breakfast, but it was close enough to lunchtime that I selected the steamed pigs feet served with generous sides of collard greens and potato salad. Our waitress gave me a rather wide-eyed stare when I placed my order, but I assured her I knew what I was getting myself into; I recalled a particular order of pigs feet BBQ I had tried several years earlier outside of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. There were lots of bones and gristle to navigate, but once you clear these obstacles, there is some succulently sweet meat to be had.
My choice was also influenced by Carman’s review. He had ordered the pigs feet, "this glaringly unglamorous pile of steamed trotters whose tangle of softened skin, fat and gelatin almost melts on my tongue while its heat provides a welcome bit of irritation."
The generous portion I was served at the Florida Grill that morning was, I will be honest, not exactly what I recalled that long ago morning outside Hattiesburg. This is not to say it was not good. It was. It just was not quite what I was expecting and it was a great deal of work with little reward. But thems the chances you take when you are adventurous with food. I’m sure there are many who think it is the bee’s knees, and they are probably right. Carman obviously thought so.
An important footnote. I had heard and read that the scrapple served at the Florida Grill was good – Andrew Zimmern had lauded it during one of his Bizarre Food America episodes, calling it a soul food "out of necessity." Who can argue with that? I have never thought of scrapple as soul food per se, but I have long been a big fan (see http://www.lookingtowardportugal.blogspot.com/2012/03/everything-but-oink.html). So I ordered a side just to see if it lived up to the hype. It did and then some! Crispy on the outside, yet soft but mushy on the inside. I could have made a meal out of it alone!
To date no salads or sandwiches (save the egg sandwiches for breakfast) have been added to the menu; the Florida Grill is still your traditional soul food restaurant. And why not? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it; an adage with which I happen to agree. If you want regular sandwiches and salads, or a beer or a glass of wine instead of juice and coffee, then the U Street corridor and all of its restaurants and bars is just three blocks to the south. Besides, Ben’s Chili Bowl, on U Street, has stuck to its original fare and look since 1958 and it is still going strong (even former President Obama and former French president Sarkozy made a special effort to dine there). So I see no reason why there is a need to change. The Florida Avenue Grill is just what it claims to be.
At the moment, the Florida Avenue Grill is closed during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. It has weather many storms and we all wish it well during these uncertain times. I look forward to dining there again very soon. There are so many dishes to choose from.
