The Town with the Best Crab Dish

My heart’s heavy writing this, given the recent developments in American life, but stories, as they happened, beg to be told. We never know for how long we might have this freedom to talk about them. Or how long we might have on this Earth before they are buried with us. And so ... storytelling will go on. For a bit longer. 

What do you do when you have one day to spend in Baltimore, MD? More like half a day, really, after having breakfast in DC and driving up. 

Well, we started by going to TripAdvisor and asking that very question. And what do you know?! They have lots of lists of “10 things you must do while in Baltimore” and the likes. 

We had never been to the largest city of Maryland, although we had been in smaller towns throughout the state, and had driven through the whole state en route to elsewhere. We read about the city - some sites warned that it’s the most dangerous city in America and one of the most dangerous in the world. Others advised that as long as you stick “around the harbor”, you’d be fine. The fact that we talk about the “good” and the “bad” parts of towns is a sad thing all in itself. But such is this world. 

Like I said: if you’re looking for your own list of what to do, the internet is full of ideas. Here, I’ll just tell you about our day. First off, we could not do “10 things” that TripAdvisor suggested, simply because of lack of time. Although we did fewer things, we still left with an impression. 

First, we were worried that parking might be a problem. Just like DC, we were thinking: parking must be scarce and not cheap. It was almost true. We did find parking within very close proximity to where we wanted to be quite easily and it was not very expensive, but it was hard to know how much ”time” to buy. Having not been there before, we were not sure how far anything was from anywhere (maps don’t account for visiting time, and taking pictures, and stopping to eat some crab), so it was hard to come up with a set amount of time for the meter. We kept buying 2 hours and running back to buy additional time. It was fine, in the end. 

We stopped first at the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM). I will have to tell you: this was easily one of my favorite museums ever. It is not very large, but it is gorgeous, inside and out. It is beautifully done, with original architecture, a mix of construction and art materials, and attention to every detail. Inside, the exhibits are thoughtful and insightful - two things we so desperately need more of these days. 

Among the several exhibits, these are the ones that really stuck with me are: 

• Healing and the art of compassion (or the lack thereof!) - What is compassion? How does it operate in our daily lives? What happens when our lives are devoid of it? Why are Americans so violent? What happens when the world is driven by lack of respect? - the exhibit does not so much answer these questions, as it forces us to look inside ourselves and come up with the answers. A real deep-dive into who we are and how we can be better. 

• The Axel Erlandson’s “Tree Circus” exhibit. You can see a live example of a shaped tree. A Swedish immigrant, Erlandson shaped trees in fascinating ways by making them look like gazebos, or some other kind of canopy.

• The painted screens of Baltimore - one of the things Baltimore is known for. A Czech immigrant, William Oktavec, first opened his shop here, where he made the first painted screens. They are window and door screens that are painted with nature landscapes. The museum recreates one of the row houses (another thing Baltimore is known for) with painted screens. 

• The Esther Nisenthal Krinitz exhibit. Esther was a Jewish immigrant from Poland, and Holocaust survivor. She told the story of her life, growing up in Poland, how she lost her entire family to the Holocaust, and her move to America by creating these intricate embroideries. They are half art, half storytelling and all gut-wrenching sadness mixed in with a faint sense of hope. If you go through the whole exhibit and you do not come out moved and shaken, you don’t deserve to be called human. It is, by far, one of the most emotional displays of art that I have seen in a great while. Definitely deserving of at least one visit and a deep pause. 

After the museum, we headed around the Inner Harbor, which is a short walk away. The Inner Harbor is part seaport, part tourist attraction, located on the Patapsco River. 

Pretty soon we realized that it might take us a while to get to the opposite end of the harbor from the museum - the end where it looked like “everything was” - more museums, parks, and several eateries. We were torn: should we walk? (it was a gorgeous April day!) Should we take the water taxi? Will we be back in time for our meter to just have expired? We were not sure. So, we drove and parked on the other side of the water. 

There, we walked around, taking in the busy harbor, the beautiful architecture - a mix of modern and old , lots of red bricks and lots of glass and steel, too - shooting the city skyline from various vantage points. We settled for dinner at The Phillips Crab Deck - an outdoor deck right over the water. The wait for a table was insane, but it was worth it because we got almost the best seat in the house - away from many other customers and right above the water. 

I can tell you: I have had crab in many places in my life - some of them seaside shores, and some inland. But I have never tasted a better crab dish than the ones in Maryland. The blue crab is considered the Maryland state food and they do it justice! Although the crab cake was delicious (all crab, no filling!), my favorite course was still the Maryland vegetable crab soup - it’s a tomato based chowder, filled with crab and veggies. Deliciously seafood-y and full of flavor.  

And because we were in Baltimore and because it was a warm day, we had to pair our food with a National Bohemian (or the “Natty Boh”), the local lager of the city. Just like the name discloses it: it is a light lager, perfect when coldest on a hot day. 

After dinner, we took a drive around Charles Village - a residential neighborhood just outside Johns Hopkins Medical School - to take a look at the famous row houses. The neighborhood began its development in 1869 and it’s added multiple acres to the original 50 over time, and as far as I could find it continues to today. 

I like taking drives through cities just to get a feel of the vibe and the lay of the land. You can tell a lot (how vibrant or not, how safe or not, how boring or not) a city might or its life be just by driving around and taking in the architecture, the availability and mix of retail or restaurants, the presence or lack of green spaces. 

This whole adventure took us the better part of one day - maybe 6-7 hours. It was enough to sample just a slice of Baltimore and whet our appetite for a coming back trip. We hope to do that sooner rather than later. 

Outside the World Trade Center in the Inner Harbor, a piece of scrap metal from the New York World Trade Center which collapsed on 9-11-2001 lies in plain view, for permanent remembrance. 

Click the picture to view all the pictures from this trip

The Town Where Every Turn Was a Left

I reckon all people go to Beaufort, NC (pronounced “bow-fort”) to see the wild horses on Taylor Creek or on some other nearby island. That’s what Our State Magazine promised us, and that’s what we were chasing in late March, earlier this year. We didn’t really know what to expect much. I had read about the town being an old hangout of Blackbeard, the English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the Eastern coast of Britain's North American colonies. I also read about the new and somewhat high-end Beaufort Hotel for which it was impossible to make a reservation all of last year, if you can believe that much! I mean, who goes to Beaufort, NC right? But the end of March is not a popular time for Eastern North Carolina, and we did find availability this year (since we booked during the winter). For the life of me, I never understood why Eastern North Carolina is not more popular during colder months. Spring and late fall are my favorite seasons to escape to the beaches around here because the crowds retire home, inland. But then again, I am not what you call your typical beach bum! Quite the opposite: I want to be as far away as possible from the beaches when the true bums are there. How do you fill 48 hours (or less) in Beaufort, NC, you ask? Well, let me tell you. We got into town late on a Friday night, almost at closing time. We didn’t know this but lots of businesses are closed for the season in our coastal communities during winter - precisely because the beach bums are not there, I guess. The Black Sheep restaurant was the only one downtown that was open. It’s on the water, but it was almost 8PM when we got there and pitch-black outside. We sat on the patio (we always do, since the pandemic) and the breeze was strong, but it was nice and it smelt like salt and algae. We headed for a nightcap at Beaufort Hotel after that. The next day, the only full day of our trip, we first had breakfast on the upper deck of the 34° North Restaurant which is adjacent to Beaufort Hotel where we stayed. The hotel is quaint, smells new, and very nicely decorated. The only complaint is that you absolutely must do the valet parking because the self parking is across the street, in a dark alley which looks run-down and ominous at best. The breakfast was great, many choices, but the view from our table, right on Taylor Creek, was even better! The boats of locals are parked right under your table. A gentleman was selling one of the yachts that morning to some kind of big shot CEO person who came down from somewhere North with an army of legal people to buy his retirement toy, I guess ... Just part of the local crowd. Across the river from our hotel, there is a patch of land that looked like a wild refuge, but we were not sure how to get there or what it was. We looked for birds and wildlife, but it was all still. After breakfast, we headed to downtown Beaufort to visit the Maritime Museum which is actually well done. For those interested in a complete history of this area, the museum does a good job documenting it, and taking you through it. There are several rooms dedicated to the turmoiled times of Queen Anne and the piracy years, and Blackbead, the pirate, truly dominates the memory of those times. The museum library is impressive, if not by number of books, by decor alone: a fully wood-paneled room that reminded me of a log cabin, its quiet atmosphere invites you in to stay a little and learn more. We then browsed through the local shops downtown, and my husband tried the ice cream at Beaufort Creamery. After all that, we headed out of town (took every left turn Siri told us to take, and there were always left turns - I wondered how did we not end up just doing a big ol’ circle) to look for the wild horses. We headed North towards Cedar Island National Wildlife Refuge, about 45 minutes from Beaufort. We drove for what seemed forever on this skinny road right by what we found out later that it was Core Sound, parallel to the Atlantic Ocean. The landscape was pure marsh and you’d expect to see fish jumping out of the water, or egrets and herons hovering over the reeds. But there was not a soul! Nothing but sky and sun and water and wind. We passed one of the trails (the only one we could eventually find) in Cedar Island about 4 times before we actually figured out a way to stop and explore it. After that, we made it all the way to the beach where huge driftwood trees were laid to rest forever. The beach was tomb-like, quiet and serene. Again, not a soul disturbed it. There were no people, either, just us, the ocean, the water-washed trees, and lots of shells. Nothing more. We headed back towards Beaufort and on the way back we found the Elliott Coues Nature Trail which is part of the Fort Macon State Park. Fort Macon is a restored Antebellum-era fort famous for the Battle of Fort Macon (1862) fought during the Civil War and (we didn’t know then, but we do now), the second most visited park in North Carolina. It sits right on the beach and in addition to miles of trails, it has a fully restored fort complete with cannons, fortifications and other artifacts of the real wartime days gone by. We did not visit the fort, we stuck to the nature trails. The wind was absolutely insane on the beachfront trail! Not only our hair and hats felt like they were blown away, but our entire heads felt like they were being yanked off our bodies and thrown somewhere in the high tide! It was on the Elliott Coues trail that I got the worst call I would want to get from family nowadays: that my sister’s family had Covid. This was their first time since the pandemic started and it made everything for that weekend taste just bitter-sweet from then on out. On the way back towards dinner, we stopped by Mill Whistle Brewing, one of the couple of local breweries in town. We tasted such concoctions as BoFirt Sunrise, DitDot and Radio Lot. Their tasting flight tray was a circular saw blade made of wood. Dinner was at Aqua Restaurant, a bit more inland, not with much of a view, but what an experience! Although their menu changes regularly, I cannot recommend enough the seafood curry with tuna, shrimp and lobster in a coconut milk curry soup. If Blackbeard’s ghost would have come to haunt and kill me that night, I would have died full and happy! We drove slowly along Taylor Creek away from downtown and towards our hotel (after taking a left from our parking lot and another left on Front Street - because, like I mentioned before: anything worth seeing in this town is always on the left). As our car lazed away into the dusk, we saw a pod of dolphins swimming around in the creek. You know that the iPhone had to come out and Google had to be asked: why are the dolphins in a creek and not in the ocean? “Taylor Creek” is not really a river, per se - it is very similar to a sound, because it runs parallel to the ocean. So, I guess it’s as good enough as the ocean itself. It was eerie to see them in such a narrow stretch of water, though. Unfortunately, the light was so low, the sun all but gone so we could not take any pictures that would have proven how carefree and beautiful these graceful creatures were. The next morning, we had a delicious, fresh, local breakfast at Turner Street Market Restaurant. We sat on the sidewalk and talked to the town’s puppies venturing out into another quiet, lazy, off-season, sunny, chilly March day. A family of four, parents and two little girls, armed with rubber boots and aluminum buckets were picking up trash downtown, the girls not older than 6 or 7, because this is how you ensure that the next generation does better than we ever did - you teach early, by example, and you teach that your home town is where it all starts. We could not head out of town before we visited Blackbeard’s “House” on Hammock Lane. Nicknamed “The White House” (I guess simply because it is white), or “Hammock House” (we learned that a “hammock” is actually a “fertile, raised area by a river”), the house is a couple of blocks inland from the creek, but allegedly in 1709 when it was built it was right on the water. Debris buildup moved the river away and the house more ashore. It was an inn during Blackbeard’s time, and he allegedly spent some time here, but as a guest and not an owner. There are records (like this one: https://blackbeardthepirate.com/history.htm) everywhere on the internet about it, for the curious. It is not open for visitation. I was just in awe that something this old in an area ravaged by merciless hurricanes that religiously strike the shores virtually yearly, sometimes several times a year, can possibly still be standing. But there it was - typically Southern and West Indies in its beauty, a picture speaking louder than words. And also on the way out of town, we finally did see the wild horses - they were grazing on the other side of the creek (momma and baby and all), on that brush island we saw from our hotel’s restaurant’s patio, on our first day. Having come so late into our view, and us almost having missed them, they looked like chimeras - I could not believe they were real. But I took some shots to prove it and so you all can’t tell me that the wild horses of North Carolina are pure hearsay. They were the perfect coda of this short but meaningful trip of exploring parts of our state that are mostly off the beaten path, but rich, flavorful, colorful, wild, and wildly and historically important nonetheless.

The wild horses of Taylor Creek, Beaufort, NC

Click on the picture to see the entire album from this trip