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Hope you’re staying dry and not driving around today. Between bus collisions and flooded streets, we all should have stayed in bed. If you believe the reports, we might make up our rainfall deficit for the year within this 24-hour period.

Take Back Day

I expect you all took advantage of the National “Take Back Day” to return all your expired prescription drugs. Silver Spring, of course, was directed to a dropoff point in Bethesda. A friend of mine lives over there, and someone asked her what school she was going to send her kids to (assuming a choice of private institutions). Her response: “Um, the free one? That’s why I moved to this school district. The only thing the private schools get are better drugs.” Now we know how. Plus, my guess is that the density of percocet per capita in that area in probably higher. The needs of the many, I suppose…

News from The People’s Republic

The Annual Takoma Park Street Festival is this Sunday in Old Town. And now you can even take your beer and wine home from your favorite sit-down establishment. I understand that the city was founded by Seventh Day Adventists and all, and many think that this is the first step to the downfall of The Republic. (In a matter of days, drunks will be lining the streets until all hours. Just you watch. They’re already being inundated with idiot drug dealers.) Still no action on actually allowing retail beer and wine sales. Seems to me that attitudes like that perpetuate the perception of downtown Takoma as an “abject failure.” (Not my words. Just listen to last week’s Kojo Show from Silver Spring.)

And you all are welcome to continue coming to Silver Spring to drink and buy booze. Thanks for the revenue.

From the Stage

Guitarist and Jazz Pioneer Leon Redbone will be at the Performing Arts Center of Montgomery College (at Georgia & East-West Hwy) tomorrow, October 1. Tickets ($35, $25 for students/seniors) are available at Tickets.com or 240-567-5775.

Hang up and Drive

Or at least get a hands-free device. Starting tomorrow, Maryland law makes it so. According to the Communications Traffic Safety Act of 2010:

Prohibiting a driver of a motor vehicle that is in motion from using the driver’s hands to use a handheld telephone except to initiate or terminate a wireless call or to turn on or off the handheld phone; providing that a violation of the Act may be enforced only as a secondary violation; establishing penalties of $40 for a first offense and $100 for a second offense; prohibiting a driver of a school vehicle or a holder of an instructional permit or provisional driver’s license from using a handheld phone while driving; etc.

Octoberfest is here!

It’s the first weekend in October, and you know what that means: Another excuse to drink beer. Washington Post’s Going Out Gurus have an extensive list of places to celebrate, but feel free to create your own. I know I will. And it will coincide with Alabama kicking the shit out of Florida Saturday night. Cheers!

I’ve been watching the methodical destruction of the old United Therapeutics building at Spring and Cameron Streets the last couple of days. My daughter’s comment: “It’s bigger than a dinosaur, daddy!” I think I need one of these for the backyard.

My next question: What’s going in its place? Anything? Must find master plan…

Live Blogging Kojo in Your Community

Assuming I can get a good wifi signal tonight at the civic building, I may live blog Kojo’s little shindig – complete with snarky commentary. If you can’t make it in person, tune in. Fun begins at 6:30.

Resuming its September-May schedule, the first meeting of the East Silver Spring Civic Association will come to order tonight at 7:30 at the Sligo Recreational Center at 500 Sligo Avenue (corner of Sligo & Piney Branch). I consider it the return of my one-trick-pony comedy bit. If you’ve never been to a meeting, imagine the video below, but not Japanese and without chicken. And not quite as much Star Wars kitsch.

Live tweeting, as always, will be provided by @essca.

And on the docket for tomorrow night…

Kojo in Your Community will be at the Silver Spring Civic Building at Veterans Plaza. Doors open at 5:45 and taping starts at 6:30.

I pray, for the sake of everyone involved and the reputation of Silver Spring in the Greater Washington Metropolitan Area, that certain fringe elements within the community don’t get their grimy paws on the microphone. It’ll either be a disaster or something akin to the above video.

Stay tuned.

It may not look like much, but this was my lunch today at Nando’s.

I grew up in the south and yearn for a spot around here that has good fried chicken livers. (Still haven’t found one, so if you have recommendations, do tell.) So when I saw chicken livers on the menu (fried or not), I had to try them. This bowl was once piled high with flame-grilled chicken livers in the “hot”-level sauce. After a few bites, I thought I had made the wrong decision on the spice level. Damn spicy. Ten minutes later I was picking through the sauce trying to get every last little morsel I could find. At one point, the name “Nando’s Cracki Cracki” crossed my mind.

Fries, as you can see, were mediocre, and the only other thing I tried were the spiced nuts – almonds, cashews, and macadamias. Those went home with me, and I’m munching on them as type this. Damn tasty. There was a long line and it was a short trip, but first bite was great.

Yes, it does exist. I now know from personal experience.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of underground dining, I should do a little bit of explaining. Underground restaurants are usually run out of someone’s home for the purposes of skirting local (and sometimes arcane) laws around restaurant regulation or serving ingredients that are raw, illegal, or otherwise forbidden. Imagine, for a moment, someone in the People’s Republic of Takoma Park serving a dinner consisting primarily of foie gras. For me, it’s a dream come true. For the people there, it appears to be blasphemy. Unfortunately, that was not the case (both for me wanting the foie gras and the big eff you it would give to TP).

Another foray into underground dining comes from restaurants, chefs, and the food culture that follows them. In Tony Bourdain’s newest literary adventure, Medium Raw, he recounts an evening at a popular restaurant with a who’s who of food celebrities (though I can assure you Sandra Lee was not one of them). The menu consisted primarily of ortolan, a bird that is illegal to kill and eat in many countries because of its (quasi-) endangered status. Other underground dinners over the years have included whale, Beluga caviar, unpasteurized milk and cheese, and humans. (For those of you who have not seen The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, put it in your Netflix queue NOW.)

Luckily, this dinner did not venture into illicit territory. Our (residential) underground restaurant was (is) right here in Silver Spring, run by people who love to cook and love to eat. And I can promise you they are great at both. We had six people attending, drinking wine (BYOB to avoid the nasty Montgomery County Liquor Nazis) and gabbing through three (+) courses of absolutely fantastic fare. I won’t go into the details of the menu here, but suffice to say it was spectacular.

Some people might find it odd, looking from the outside in. I mean, you’re sitting in someone else’s house while they cook and serve. They’re running a “restaurant,” so they’re not sitting at the table eating with you. And there was additional help in the kitchen to make everything go smoothly (which it did). The entire experience was as comfortable as could be. In a nutshell, it was like having a wonderful dinner party where we didn’t have to cook. All we had to do was sit back and enjoy, and I have five other people who would back me up in an instant.

The price? You basically cover the cost of food, plus (perhaps) a little more for the effort (plus the cost of the inordinate amount of wine we brought – and drank). Certainly much less than the equivalent quality and service at a typical dining establishment. And I believe this is the first of many opportunities. The proprietors of this establishment are exploring the option of expanding their underground dinners to a wider audience, and from the buzz I’ve heard, this has the potential to become a “thing” on the upswing in Silver Spring.

Underground restaurants across the country (and internationally, for that matter) have moved into the world of social media for promotion, and my beloved Washington Post even made a foray into the subject earlier this year. When this operation is ready, expect to hear about it. And trust me when I tell you you’ll want to be on the short list.

Oh – maybe you can’t read the signs. Because somebody stole them.

First, let’s put aside the fact that our venerable WaPo decided to write about this six weeks after I did (more gripes about the Post in a moment). But to be fair, there’s some juicy stuff in this story. Let’s look at two items in particular:

I think someone pointed the finger at me
All of you who read this blog know the love/hate relationship I have with the East Silver Spring Civic Association. Mostly hate. Or disdain, perhaps. Reading along in the Washington Post story, I came across this:

One victim suspected a man who has posted critical comments about the neighborhood civic association on a local Internet mailing list. (He did not respond to e-mails seeking comment.)

Whoa. Are they talking about me? Can’t be. And anyway, I never got repeated requests for comment, so WaPo is either lying or talking about someone else.

Best Accusation Yet
By far, the best little bit of anonymous guessing in the story was this:

Another neighbor said his “deep, dark suspicion” is that the sign bandit is Bob Colvin, president of the East Silver Spring Civic Association, who is known to take walks late at night.

YES! Bob Colvin, the president of our very own Banana Republic, just got fingered as the sign vigilante. Classic. Of course, we all know he wouldn’t do something like that, and he says as much in the story. But the fact that someone said that it could be him – well, they deserve something. Perhaps my ESSCA membership card. Or a place on the board.

Speaking of ESSCA…

It’s that time of year again. Time to clear off your third Monday of the month for the next 9 months or so. ESSCA gets back into gear (supposedly) on Monday, September 20, with the first meeting of the 2010-2011 season. I’m going to start bringing a snare and cymbal so I can follow up my own snide remarks with rim shots. Be sure to follow @essca for all the live, twittery goodness.

Now back to the Washington Post

Let this “final” news item be another, gentle reminder that the 3rd Annual Silver Spring Zombie Walk is set for October 23. See the web site or Facebook group page for details.

Many of you may have seen a story about the University of Baltimore offering a zombie-centric English class this year. The story made the rounds of national papers (via AP), but what was interesting was the timeline of geographic publication. The story started, appropriately enough, in the Baltimore Sun. Then it went all the way out west and got picked up by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Only then, three days after that, did it actually get picked up by the Washington Post. (Thanks to all who sent the links, by the way.) Scheduling conflict? Lack of interest? Slow to pick up on popular culture right here in the backyard? It was just disappointing to see WaPo be the last in line for what is almost a local story accompanied by a great local angle with the Silver Spring Zombie Walk. That’s all’s I’m sayin’.

One last serious comment:

Go vote in the primaries today. Now. Really.

Bonus:

Nando’s Peri Peri opens tomorrow (September 15).