Features (Good Living)

Article - Good Living; by Vicki L. Marsh - 8/16/12

Stretching Your Comfort Zone: Adopting a Rescue Dog

To bring Teddy home, this old dog had to learn new tricks

My pledge never to have another pet didn’t last a year. My favorite dog died of congestive heart failure last July. No more pets for me. My heart can’t stand the loss, I pledged. I still shed a tear when I remember Damien, my black Pomeranian. By February, an empty feeling invaded again. Time for another pet. This time I pledge to save a life. Never having had a rescue dog, I visited the library for books on dog ownership....

Article - Good Living; by Michelle Steel - 8/2/12

North Beach Farmers Market

A starting bell “makes for an orderly market”

Clusters of customers and a couple dozen sellers wait along Fifth Street for the bell to ring at 6 o’clock sharp. That’s the signal to start at North Beach Farmers Market. “We need a bell at a market of this volume,” says Mike Cox, a Mennonite farmer from White Oak Point Farm. “It makes for an orderly market where everybody’s on the same footing.” “This is my first night market, and it’s been a great...

Article - Good Living; by - 7/26/12

The Farmers Who Feed Us

Four Maryland farms — out of multitudes

Twenty-first century Maryland is still a farm state. About 1,400 produce, meat and dairy farms, orchards and vineyards thrive on the renewed appetites of Marylanders. We’ve rediscovered the old-fashioned taste of food grown locally, often by neighbors who’ll eagerly share their experiences as well as their results. The partnership brings us ever-increasing diversity in what we eat and how it’s raised. “The future is all about local...

Article - Good Living; by Leigh Glenn - 7/5/12

Summer's Here

Jones Station Severna Park Farmers Market celebrates 25 years

A sensory feast — colorful fruits and veggies, fresh eggs and meat, well-tended ornamental plants along with herbs and veggie plants — that’s the main reason to go to a farmers market. But education and the ability to speak directly with producers run a close second. At the Jones Station Farmers Market, education includes beekeeper and honey seller Peter Quinton’s display of what bees do to make honey and Lori Beard spinning wool roving into yarn. If...

Article - Good Living; by - 7/5/12

Crab Festivals

If the bigger the better sets your standard for crab feasts, you’ll find happiness, crabs and company at three upcoming festivals, each a Maryland tradition.

Wednesday July 18: The 36th annual J. Millard Tawes Crab and Clam Bake in Crisfield, the crab capital of the world. Devour all the steamed crabs, fried fish, clams, corn on the cob, sweet potato fries, onion rings you can. Wash it all down with endless water, soda or beer. Cap your feast with a juicy slice of watermelon. The feast honors former governor J. Millard Tawes and, during election years, brings in bushels of politicians as well as seafood. 12-4pm, Somers Cove...

Article - Good Living; by - 7/5/12

Get Crackin'

The crabs are back and the corn’s ripe, so it’s time to feast

by Sandra Olivetti Martin and Dennis Doyle with Michelle Steel The Bay is crawling with crabs. Rivers and creeks, too. That’s the good news. We had more baby crabs this winter than have ever been counted in Maryland’s 22-year history of winter crab surveying. Not so good: We’ll have to wait till fall to eat most of them. That’s when 500 million or so small crabs in our waters will reach eating size, 51⁄4 inches from point to point. ...

Article - Good Living; by Leslie Raabe - 6/28/12

Summer’s Here

Farmers markets now selling local corn and peaches

Farmers market shoppers in the know arrive at the Sunday morning Freshfarm Market in Annapolis before 10:30am, when Bob Miller of Nice Farms Creamery sells out of his famous chocolate milk. Miller is one of 12 farmers and producers who sell at the market near City Dock. Nine hail from Maryland, two from Virginia and one from West Virginia. The market requires producers be part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. They offer fruits, vegetables, fresh flowers, meats, cheese,...

Article - Good Living; by - 6/28/12

America’s “Great Anniversary Festival”

The pomp and parades of Independence Day date back to the nation’s founding

Independence Day provides us with a free day of homemade and heartfelt celebrations, ranging from small-town parades to Washington, D.C.’s capital show. Complete with cannon fire, that extravaganza of sound and light lets you imagine the bombardment that drew The Star-Spangled Banner out of Francis Scott Key’s soul. With the bicentennial of the War of 1812 upon us, it’s tempting to think that our Independence Day fireworks celebrations imitate those rockets...

Article - Good Living; by Jesse Furgurson - 6/14/12

Revving into City Dock

Corvettes on the Bay presents 60 years of iconic history

Elaine Phillips was always interested in cars. When she married a man with a ’59 Corvette C1 he’d personally restored, her interest became an obsession. Now they have three, the ’59 C1, a ’61 C1, and an ’05 Coup, and she edits the Fiberglass Flyer, the newsletter of Corvette Annapolis. For Carroll Hynson, the Corvette eased his transition out of drag racing. By his late 30s, he’d risen from street racing “around Annapolis” to...

Article - Good Living; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 5/31/12

Mermaids, Pirates, Privateers and You

When London Town throws a party, it’s a mari-good time

You don’t forget a visit to Historic London Town and Gardens. The archeological dig site and people dressed like colonials are memories children hold onto. “I thought it was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” says 19-year-old Robert Lee, of Edgewater, of his visit a decade ago to “this place hidden all the way down Londontown Road.” Adults are just as susceptible. A wedding in the garden on a June...