Baltimost is a Baltimore Fishbowl feature series that asks locals what they love about their city. The idea is to celebrate Baltimore and the people who make it so unique.
So what makes Baltimore the Baltimost to you? It could be a favorite place, a great meal, a memorable interaction or something else entirely. Email suggestions to Karen at [email protected]
Jefferson A. Russell, 53, actor
As a member of the Everyman Theatre’s resident company, I have steady work and an artistic home.
“Murder on the Orient Express,” first a popular paperback and later multiple star–studded movies, has always been fun, gorgeous nonsense. The lavish staging now at Everyman is no different, despite the inherent handicap of bringing a complex, many-character mystery to stage.
The production sparkles with high-energy performances, witty banter and beautiful sets. But keeping track of so many characters and their alibis is almost impossible, and the mystery’s solution doesn’t make much sense, as you probably already know if you’ve read the book or seen one of the movies.
Baltimost is a Baltimore Fishbowl feature series that asks locals what they love about their city. The idea is to celebrate Baltimore and the people who make it so unique.
So what makes Baltimore the Baltimost to you? It could be a favorite place, a great meal, a memorable interaction or something else entirely. Email suggestions to Karen at [email protected]
Judy Tallwing, 74, is an artist.
In her words: “Sometimes the ideas for my paintings come to me in a dream. I work with oils, so it’s not unusual for me to have five or six paintings going at once. I have a thing about starting paintings and not wanting to wait for them to dry.
Baltimost is a Baltimore Fishbowl feature series that asks locals what they love about their city. The idea is to celebrate Baltimore and the people who make it so unique.
So what makes Baltimore the Baltimost to you? It could be a favorite place, a great meal, a memorable interaction or something else entirely. Email suggestions to Karen at [email protected]
Mark Osteen, 65, is co-founder Baltimore Jazz Alliance and vice president Baltimore Chamber Jazz Society.
In his words: “When you go to a jazz performance, it’s a different show every night. Art is unfolding before your eyes in that second. It’s never going to come back again. You’re catching art on the fly. You get to see musicians and artists working together to create something bigger than they are.
Baltimost is a Baltimore Fishbowl feature series that asks locals what they love about their city. The idea is to celebrate Baltimore and the people who make it so unique.
So what makes Baltimore the Baltimost to you? It could be a favorite place, a great meal, a memorable interaction or something else entirely. Email suggestions to Karen at [email protected]
Donna Jacobs, 62, founder and director of Morton Street Dance Center, Inc.
In her words: “I’ve been dancing since I was 2 and a half. I grew up in Queens, N.Y., and went to the Bernice Johnson Dance Studio and the New York School for the Performing Arts. I started teaching when I was in high school and I’ve been doing it ever since.
Baltimost is a Baltimore Fishbowl feature series that asks locals what they love about their city. The idea is to celebrate Baltimore and the people who make it so unique.
So what makes Baltimore the Baltimost to you? It could be a favorite place, a great meal, a memorable interaction or something else entirely. Email suggestions to Karen at [email protected]
Nathan Ferrell, 35, is a Spanish teacher at Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women.
In his words:
“To teach in Baltimore, you have to have the endurance, the wit and the brilliance that the students here exhibit. They bring it every day.
Taharka Bros. Ice Cream
Sure, Taharka Bros. has a great and inspiring story. But let's forget about that for a second and talk about their flavors.
The key lime pie is so perfectly tart and sweet, with just the right crunch of crumbled pie crust, that your taste buds will savor each spoonful. Honey graham, their signature flavor, somehow takes two simple childhood pleasures and turns them into sophisticated joy.
Cardamom. Salty caramel. Coconut. Heck, even the chocolate and vanilla are crazy creamy and flavor-packed.
There's also The Cook Up, a nut-studded, spiced apple carrot cake that honors Baltimorean D. Watkins' memoir of the same name. Flavors change with the seasons, but Chocolate Love and Jazzman Blues are usually in stock.
The company teaches responsibility and entrepreneurial skills, while dishing out the city's finest ice cream. In a great 2015 documentary about the firm, "A Dream Preferred," Taharka Bros. CEO Devon Brown says the company shows that "young African-American males can run successful, responsible businesses."
More than 100 local restaurants and stores sell Taharka Bros' small-batch all-natural ice cream, and the company recently opened a scoop shop in the newly renovated Broadway Market.
Taharka Bros. is named for Taharka McCoy, a mentor to Brown who was murdered in 2002, when he was just 25.
His name lives on in a company that has become a beloved testament to all the people who keep working hard and making life more delicious, even when nobody thinks they can.
Mera Kitchen Collective
Mera Kitchen Collective has been around only a couple of years, and already it's hard to imagine Baltimore without this intrepid group of women, their incredible food and their message of belonging.
The talented chefs of Mera are all refugees. They come from Ethiopia, Cameroon, Syria, Sudan and other parts of Africa and the Middle East. Many worked as professional chefs in their home countries.
In 2017, a group of recent arrivals met at the Highlandtown Library. They knew they wanted to do something to earn money, raise awareness and become part of the fabric of Baltimore, but they weren't sure what. By the end of the meeting, they had decided food would be their bond to their new city.
"Since that day, my life has changed 180 degrees," says Chef Iman, who settled in Baltimore in 2016 after fleeing Syria. "Now I'm cooking full-time. It's my way of expression. It's my art."
Within a year, the group had formed a worker-owned collective, and began serving their delicious food from a stall at the farmers' market under the Jones Falls Expressway. Every Sunday from April to November, hungry customers line up to buy delicacies like savory stuffed grape leaves and doro wat, the richly flavorful Ethiopian chicken stew.
The group also caters events large and small, and holds cooking classes in homes and restaurants. These classes are much more than step-by-step guides to making hummus or baklava. Each chef infuses the experience with stories about her food and her life, and how the two are irrevocably entwined.
It's never been easy to leave home and move to a new country, and it's even harder these days, when our government's policies make people feel unwelcome. But these women know that food is a connector. The people they fed became their friends, and now they're sewn tight to the crazy quilt that is Baltimore.
“Miss You Like Hell” starts with a nervous mother blaring music out of her car radio to gather the courage to greet the teen daughter she hasn’t seen in years. It ends with a surprise, a heart-wrenching earworm of a title song and at least one audience member (me) fighting tears.
The hundred or so minutes in the middle of this tender and exuberant musical now at Baltimore Center Stage take the form of an action- and character-packed road trip. Flirtatious, vivacious Beatriz (Lorraine Velez) and her sullen, cynical daughter Olivia (Stephanie Gomérez) argue, cry, get in and out of trouble, make friends and eventually connect during a weeklong drive from Philadelphia to California.
Baltimost is a Baltimore Fishbowl feature series that asks locals what they love about their city. The idea is to celebrate Baltimore and the people who make it so unique.
So what makes Baltimore the Baltimost to you? It could be a favorite place, a great meal, a memorable interaction or something else entirely. Email suggestions to Karen at [email protected]
Annetta Holser, is a retired ballerina and ballet instructor.
In her words: “Dance was always something that was mine. I have the right temperament. You have to be stable. Grind out the work every day. Dancers are a special type of people. They usually don’t talk a whole lot. They have to listen.
