More Winners....

Happy Maryland Day, and only nine more shopping months until Christmas

It must be the season for awards. We already covered the James Beard awards, but wait, there’s more! If you live around here (Lexington Park), you can’t help but know that Maryland Life Magazine recently came out with a “best of” list (which they cleverly called the “Free State’s Finest”) for all sorts of stuff, and the local area scored heavily. Here’s the list:

Best Historic Town - Leonardtown
Best Restaurant, Fine Dining, Appetizer and Dessert - Café des Artistes (Four!!)
Best Family Dining - Rustic River
Best Coffeehouse - Brewing Grounds
Best Crabs - Captain Leonard's Seafood
Best Ice Cream - Bruster's
Best Gallery - North End Gallery
Best Park and Ghost Tour - Point Lookout
Best Golf - Breton Bay Golf and Country Club
Best Festival - Oyster Festival
Best Fair - St. Mary's County Fair
Best Historic Attraction and Best Place to Get Married - Historic St. Mary's City
Best Music Artist - David Norris
Best Wine and Best Kept Secret - Port of Leonardtown Winery

Turns out that the awards were done on a “reader’s poll” basis, not an independent objective evaluation by the editors or something. And, the awards were sort of done by county, so there were several winners in say the “Finest Wedding Venue”, or “Finest Fine Dining”. In some of the categories there was included an Editor’s Pick. Like for instance in the Fine Dining group the editor’s pick was Bartlett Pear Inn, which you may have heard of in this column. Anyway, as far as the St. Mary’s County list above goes, all I will say is that there are a few surprises to me. Some I would agree with, others not, and we’ll stop there. Reader's polls can be a fickle thing...

If you want to go, there’s a celebration tonight (5 to 7) at the Best Kept Secret Port of Leonardtown Winery. I would guess that after you get an award for the Best Kept Secret, it isn’t so much a secret anymore. Anyway, MFO and I have another obligation tonight so we won’t be there for the festivities. If you want to see the complete list, click here.

And yet more awards, our local newspaper the Enterprise, received six awards from the Suburban Newspapers of America. The national awards were for journalism type things, best headline, best environmental coverage kinds of things. I earnestly hope there was not a category for “best photography”, because I don’t know how anybody could beat our Reid Silverman. He consistently has great shots week after week. I hope they appreciate his work. With me, it’s kind of the reverse of the old saying about Playboy: “I only read the Enterprise to look at the pictures”.

And, in the same newpaper issue they list the local restaurants that received a Gold Star award from the Board of Health. I would just caution you that if you don’t see your favorite purveyor of food, don’t be alarmed. You have to apply for the award which forces you to do certain things that cost the restaurant money, and some choose not to participate. Most of the places the discerning readers of the Bottom Feeder frequent hold themselves to the highest standard of food safety.

and just a note that in the "weekend" section of that award winning paper, the Restaurant Description is about Casey Jones in LaPlata. I keep forgetting that is indeed a fine dining opportunity that is relatively accessible. I also saw that the long time chef (Gary Fick) has moved on "to a new venture". Mild alarm going off there. I have had several very good meals there over the years..

Brunch Bunch Comment:

There has been a continuing thread since I said there isn’t anywhere in the county to have a nice Sunday brunch, with many e-mails of “how about XYZ?”. I would only add that to qualify for a Sunday Brunch, there has to be a separate menu solely for Sunday, not just the same menu used on Saturday presented on Sunday.

To Do:

My goodness, I can’t begin to list the events associated with Maryland Day that’s happening around the county this weekend. Lectures, programs, Inauguration of the SMC president, pageants, on and on. MFO is currently down (freezing her….) in Colton’s Point for the festivities down there..And tomorrow we’ll be at (award winning) Historic St. Mary’s City. Too many nothings to do…

Travel Note:

And speaking of MFO, she’s climbing in the MOMSTER on Sunday to do the spring drive to visit her Mother in Wisconsin, and of course her route includes St. Louis. What a gal..

But, even though away from home, she will most certainly

DFD