Emerson Food Truck Fridays

*** Update: A dinner truck has been added for Friday, October 5th! ***

Emerson's first Food Truck Friday on Sept. 7th was a big success, with The Taco Bar serving up 72 lunches in a 3 hour span!

That success means that plans are underway to expand Food Truck Fridays by adding evening dinner hours and perhaps more days. Stay tuned for details!

In the meantime, two more trucks have already been scheduled:

• Friday, October 5, 2018 (Lunch and Dinner): 
• Lunch (11 am - 2pm): T&J Waffles
• Dinner (5 pm - 8 pm): RB Grill
• Friday, November 2, 2018 (11 am -2 pm): Jammin' Flava Jamaican

2017 Halloween Block Party and Chili Cook-Off

Many thanks go out to Allie for hosting the 5th Annual Halloween Block Party + Chili Cook-Off + Pumpkin Carving!

The events were held this year the weekend before Halloween due to schedule conflicts, but there was still a very nice turnout from the block and even a few neighboring streets.

A dedicated crew of kids started things off with pumpkin carving in the common area on Friday evening (with some kids a little bigger than others):

2017 (Almost) Halloween Chili Cook-Off & Pumpkin Carving

This year's Chili Cook-Off and Pumpkin Carving will be a few days early because of scheduling conflicts on Halloween itself:

Dates:

• Friday Oct. 27: Pumpkin Carving (in the grassy common area behind 9832/9834)
• Saturday Oct. 28: (Almost) Halloween Chili Cook-Off & Block Party

Everyone is welcome to attend (whether you enter a chili or not)!

Allie needs RSVPs for anyone entering the Chili Cook-Off so she knows how many meat and vegetarian chilis to expect!

To sign up or for more information about the events Friday and Saturday, go to the SignUpGenius page for the event:

• 2017 Autumn Walk Halloween Chili Cook-Off

We hope to see everyone there!

Schedule of Events:

Friday 10/27 @ 5pm: 

Laurel Featured in Washington Post "Cheap Eats"

Several Laurel restaurants were featured in a preliminary article by the Washington Post's primary food critic, Tim Carman, as he began researching a "Cheap Eats" series for the Washington, DC area.

Mentioned in the article were:

• Curry Leaf (Indian, 13919 Baltimore Ave., 301-497-2017)
• More Than Java Cafe (Coffee & Sandwiches, 358 Main St., 301-490-3200) - owned by an Emerson resident
• Olive on Main (Greek and American, 504 Main St., 240-280-8560)
• Pasta Plus (Italian, 209 Gorman Ave., 301-498-5100))
• Sapphire Restaurant and Lounge (Thai-Indian, 13308 Laurel Bowie Rd., 301-490-0555)
• Sarita's Chicken and Grill (Peruvian, 15101 Baltimore Ave., 240-264-6313)
• Tampico Grill (Mexican, 42 Washington Blvd., 301-490-5200)

Article:

• The Hunt for the D.C. Area’s Best Cheap-Eats Hotbeds: Laurel (The Washington Post, 10/28/15)

(Thanks go out to Daphna for the link!)

Howard County Restaurant Weeks 7/20 - 8/3

Howard County's Summer 2015 Restaurant Weeks will run from Monday, July 20, 2015 through Monday, August 3, 2015.

As always, restaurants will offer multi-course specialty menus priced from $15 to $45, with lunch typically cheaper.

This year, a few Baltimore restaurants are also participating.

Howard County Restaurants:

Lost Ark Distilling to Open in Howard County This Fall

Lost Ark Distilling has announced plans to open the first craft distillery in Howard County by September 2015. They recently signed a lease on space in the same office park as Jailbreak Brewing on Route 1.

The owners were making home-brew beer but decided when they began exploring business opportunities that the craft beer market has become too crowded (though Jailbreak Brewing seems to be thriving!).

Production is expected to include 2500-3000 cases of rum and whiskey, with tastings later in the year.

About Lost Ark

Wine in the Woods on May 16-17 (Columbia, MD)

Each year Howard County Recreation and Parks hosts Wine in the Woods, an outdoor wine festival in Columbia's Symphony Woods next to Merriweather Post Pavilion. This year the event will be on May 16-17, 2015.

Started in 1991, Wine in the Woods now welcomes over 25,000 attendees each year with over 30 wineries from across Maryland participating.

Wine education seminars are included with the admission fee, and there are also Wine Check locations where patrons can leave purchased bottles of wine so they don't have to carry them around.

The festival also includes artisans and crafters, live bands on two stages, and food vendors.

There will also be a Wine in the Woods 5K Run in Centennial Park a week prior to the festival, on Saturday, May 9th.

Tickets

Georgetown Cupcake

It's not often that we highlight a business 30 minutes away (in DC Beltway-years) -- but then not every cupcake shop has its own national cable TV show (DC Cupcakes on TLC).

Georgetown Cupcake was started in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. by two sisters who decided at the beginning of the gourmet cupcake trend to create cupcakes with a fanatical devotion to finding the finest ingredients.

A second store was opened in Bethesda, MD (not coincidentally, near Discovery Channel headquarters, the parent of TLC).

The stores have now gone national as well, selectively expanding to open single locations in New York City (Soho, with a small auxiliary outpost in Times Square), Boston, L.A., and soon, Atlanta. They also ship nationally.

There's only one more thing we can do over the Internet, and that's show you some pictures and assure you that: Yes...yes, they ARE that good.

The Bethesda shop is 30 minutes away via the DC Beltway. ;)

Dutch Country Farmer's Market (Laurel, MD)

Laurel, MD may be about 100 miles away from Amish Country, but it has one of the best Amish markets in this region -- the Dutch Country Farmer's Market on MD-198. And yes, the staff is mostly Amish.

With the motto "Fresh from PA Dutch Country," the market serves up fresh produce, baked goods, dairy products, organic meats, and candies.

Of Foodies and Food Trucks

Not so many years ago, this area's cuisine could be better described as "hearty" and "good value" than gourmet, but in recent years we've seen the arrival of some excellent restaurants as well as a burgeoning food truck scene.

(Though if you still want crab cakes with huge mounds of crab meat, we still have those in this area too!)

Bistro Lunch Box offers blackened crab cakes, spicy Sriracha lamb
sandwiches, ahi tuna fruit wraps, and cheese fondue fries

Food Trucks
Los Angeles (or as we "hipsters" would say, "L.A.") is generally credited with starting the national food truck trend, serving very good, distinctive and sometimes unusual food out of the window of a large mobile kitchen (often without a corresponding brick-and-mortar restaurant).

Winter 2015 Restaurant Weeks

Howard County's Restaurant Weeks for Winter 2015 will run the next two weeks, from Monday, January 19th to Monday, February 2nd. Prices range from $15-$45.

At this point 23 restaurants are slated to participate. When Howard County's Restaurant Weeks started in 2008, they were the only ones in Maryland outside of Baltimore City.

Participating restaurants from the Restaurant Week web site (check there directly for latest updates):

Approximate dinner price ranges: $ = $15; $$ = $25; $$$ = $35; $$$$ = $45; lunches are typically under $15

Toby's Dinner Theatre in Columbia, MD

On December 4, 1979 Toby Barbara Orenstein opened her namesake Toby's Dinner Theatre in Columbia, MD.

But in conjunction with her Columbia Center for Theatrical Arts (CCTA), Toby Orenstein is a part of the unique fabric and history of the Columbia and Howard County community, serving children as young as 3 years of age.

Serving the Community
A few years earlier she had been recruited by visionary Columbia founder Jim Rouse to establish the CCTA as a non-profit school for children in the theatrical arts, where she remains the artistic director today.

In 1979 she approached Rouse with a proposal to establish her own dinner theatre, and Toby's still stands in the woods behind Merriweather Post Pavilion next to the "South Entrance Road" exit from US-29, near the Mall in Downtown Columbia.

CCTA has produced many talented performers who have gone on to careers in the music and theater industries (including current Broadway star Caroline Bowman, a Glenelg High School graduate).

CCTA programs start with "Tot" programs for children 3 to 5 years old and go all the way through the teen years (including the Young Columbians).

A few years ago they also started programs for special needs children, including a joint program with Loyola University for children with autism.

Many Young Columbians graduate to professional roles at Toby's as they develop their skills, and a benefit for CCTA is held at Toby's Dinner Theater every couple of years.

In-The-Round
The performers at Toby's begin the evening as waiters serving customers during the dinner buffet before they begin the Broadway-style musical show.

Town Centre at Laurel Grand Opening

The Grand Opening for Towne Centre at Laurel will be on Saturday, November 15 from 3 PM - 6 PM.

About half of the businesses are already open and here is the schedule of events over the next couple of weeks:

HoCo Restaurant Week: The Aftermath

Did anyone else take advantage of Howard County's Restaurant Week for Summer 2014?

Here are some pictures from Bistro Blanc (Glenelg), Victoria Gastro Pub (Columbia), and Highland Inn (Highland).

---

Bistro Blanc

Local Strawberry-Tomato Gazpacho
pickled nectarine + lime XVO powder + micro basil

Spiced Rabbit Gnocchi
blonde mole + bentons bacon + carrot + broccolini + cotija cheese + mint
-- paired with -- Syrah, Rosenblum Vintner's Cuvee, California '10

Gorman Farm

Tucked into a bend of Gorman Road right next to Emerson is the 58-acre family-run Gorman Farm, which operates a Farm Stand for organic crops from its fields and some other local sources.

During the Spring they have "Pick Your Own" berries, though this year's pick-your-strawberries season ended on June 9th.

They also offer a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program providing weekly "shares" of fresh produce to subscribers, varying throughout the year as the crops are rotated in the fields.

Howard County Restaurant Weeks: July 21 - August 4

Howard County's two-week Summer Restaurant Week will run from Monday, July 21 to Monday, August 4.

During this period some of the restaurants in Howard County will offer special reduced-price prix fixe menus (typically $10-$15 for lunch and $35-$45 for dinner). This is your chance to try these fine establishments at roughly 50%-60% of the normal cost!

This summer the theme will be "Love Local," emphasizing ingredients sourced from local farms.

To whet your appetite, here are pictures from a few restaurants:

Flank steak, sweet potato parmigiano hash brown, baby spinach,
poached eggs with truffle hollandaise at Bistro Blanc

Safeway BBQ Battle (DC)

One of the advantages of living halfway between Baltimore and Washington, DC is the wealth of things to do, some of them fairly unique to the area. 

This month we're highlighting the Safeway BBQ Battle, the 22nd Annual edition of which was held just a week ago on the weekend of June 21-22.

Each year Pennsylvania Avenue NW is closed between 9th Street and 14th Street in Washington, DC and turned into a combination food and music festival with a barbecue competition attached to it.

Our Newest Neighbor: Jailbreak Brewing

Last year Howard County changed its zoning laws to allow commercial ("Class 5") microbreweries producing up to 22,500 barrels of beer and the first of these new breweries, Jailbreak Brewing, opened up on Route 1 only a few miles from us with an emphasis on their own unique recipes for beer.

(Blackeyed Susan Brewing is also looking to open in Columbia, and the owners of Victoria Gastro Pub plan to start another new variation, Manor Hill Farm Brewery in Ellicott City.)

Jailbreak Brewing's industrial exterior hides a spacious, tasteful Tap Room clad in stainless steel, wood and stone, with a large plexiglass window providing a view into the brewing operations.

Laurel Main Street Festival 2014

Laurel held its annual Main Street Festival on May 10th with the parade starting at 9 AM.

Howard County: Restaurant Weeks, Tax-Free Appliances

Two events are coming up in the next month that can save you a little money:

• January 14-28, 2013: Howard County Restaurant Weeks
• February 16-18, 2013: Maryland Tax-Free Day for Energy Star Appliances

Howard County Restaurant Weeks:

Every year, Howard County has a pair of 15-day Restaurant Weeks, during which many of the better dining establishments agree to have special prix-fixe menus at greatly reduced prices for lunch and dinner (from $10.13 to $40.13, with the latter usually applying to a three-course dinner).

This is a great opportunity to sample some of the many very good restaurants that now reside in Howard County at roughly half the usual cost.

In 2013, the Winter Restaurant Week will be January 14-28 (the Summer event is usually in July).

Maryland Sales Tax Holiday for Energy Star Appliances

The State of Maryland also typically has a 6% sales tax holiday on President's Day Weekend (February 16-18) for Energy Star Rated Appliances with some surprising items on the list:

• air conditioner, furnace or heat pump
• clothes washer or dryer
• standard size refrigerator
• compact fluorescent light bulb
• dehumidifier
• programmable thermostat