New year brings extended calendar to downtown’s outdoor markets

By Jennifer Deseo | Jan 4, 2010
Photo: How do you like them snowy apples? From the Dec 5, 2009, farmers market in downtown Silver Spring. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Photo: How do you like them snowy apples? From the Dec 5, 2009, farmers market in downtown Silver Spring. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Resolved to eat more fruits and veggies in the new year? Silver Spring’s farmers market can hook you up starting this weekend. Want some cool tchotchkes for your crib? The Fenton Street Market hits you with that in the spring.

On Saturday, FreshFarm holds its first installation of a year-round farmers market in the Downtown Silver Spring shopping center. Expect the locally grown goods to hit Ellsworth Drive at 10:00 a.m., one hour later than usual, a market spokesperson told The Penguin.

FreshFarm considered a year-round market last summer, when it surveyed local shoppers with an informal “pin the dot” poll. Most respondents seemed to dig the idea of 12 months of markets, though a few felt cold weather would make shit out of the experience, according to The Penguin’s unofficial tally of survey results.

Some of that wintry weather already made its presence known to market patrons on Dec 5, 2009, when a relatively small snowpocalypse dropped four inches of slush on apples and greens. The weather that day drew fewer shoppers than usual onto Ellsworth, despite a concurrent crafts fair on that street. (more…)

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Zombies infect Silver Spring with scares, satire

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 31, 2009

Editor’s note: Kudos to fellow bloggers Sligo (of SilverSpringSingular.com) and Eric (of ThayerAvenue.com), who planned October’s second-annual zombie walk. Not sure how they’re going to top this year’s walk, but it should be killer.

Photo: Braaaiiins would have helped me focus this shot. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Photo: Braaaiiins would have helped me focus this shot. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

The mob outside the Quarry House Tavern on Bonifant Street got ugly Saturday night. They snarled like rabid animals. They gnawed on brain matter and “smoked” severed fingers. Hey, you would too if you got up on the wrong side of the grave like these people. Don’t judge.

Eventually the crowd for this year’s Silver Spring Zombie Walk grew to a guesstimated 500 heads (not including the disembodied ones) as they dragged themselves up Georgia Avenue to Colesville Road. Participation in the impromptu parade of undead more than doubled since the first rally last year.

“We’ve got two cop cars now,” blogger and event co-organizer Sligo quipped of the event’s security detail. “That’s a measure of our success.” (more…)

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Dogs, dopplegangers hit downtown pet fair

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 30, 2009
Photo: A girl and her dog hit Ellsworth Drive. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Photo: A girl and her dog hit Ellsworth Drive. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Editor’s note: One of the coolest (and toughest) tasks I’ve ever had as Penguin editor was to judge a people-pet lookalike contest in September. It’s harder than you think.

It wasn’t the bright sun or delirious craving for Chick-Fil-A waffle fries that had people doing double takes Sunday on Ellsworth Drive. It was the Dog Days of Downtown Silver Spring, which brought out people and their lookalike pets.

The street fair drew a steady crowd of humans and canines, and featured dog-food vendors and rescue leagues. But the highlight of that warm afternoon was the pet-people lookalike contest, during which Penguin editor Jennifer Deseo (yeah, that’s me) and two others passed vicious judgement on dogs and their dopplegangers. (more…)

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So you’ve got a civic building in the works. Now what?

By Jennifer Deseo | Oct 22, 2009

An email circulating the interwebs asks Silver Spring’s civic associations how they’d like to rock downtown’s new civic building.

“Is your group likely to want to hold your monthly meetings here? Will you want to program some of the spaces for the public? Might you hold an annual fundraising activity?” Susan Hoffmann, marketing director for the Silver Spring regional center, inquired in her email. “Get back to me with that information.”

Photo: Methinks I see a rink. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Photo: Methinks I see a rink. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Construction on the public building has been cooking with oil on the southeast corner of Fenton Street and Ellsworth Drive for more than a year. By the time this joint opens next summer (that’s Hoffmann’s prediction), there will be seven spaces available for rent: four activity rooms, an exhibit hall and “great hall”, and a courtyard for kicking it al fresco.

Rental rates haven’t been determined yet, Hoffmann wrote.

Hoffmann’s email query isn’t meant to carve room reservations in granite, she indicated. Instead, it’s “the opportunity for our staff to get a sense of what likely needs exist within the residential, not-for-profit, and private sectors” from opening day until the end of 2011, she wrote.

The building’s adjacent plaza will contain a veterans memorial, a lighted pavilion and a seasonal ice rink.

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Dining: Dama Cafe

By Jennifer Deseo | Sep 23, 2009
Photo: Do it.

Photos: Do it (top); dont do it (bottom). Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

REVIEW — Here’s the good news about that house-turned-restaurant on Roeder Road, the one tucked behind the county’s liquor depot: The cakes are amazing! Here’s the bad news: One must endure mediocre Ethiopian food before getting to dessert.

That’s just how things roll at Dama Cafe — weak, even bad wots washed down with an orgasmic zuppa inglese chaser. The dichotomy makes it downtown Silver Spring’s worst Ethiopian restaurant, and the best coffee house in the county.

First, the entrees. The cafe’s vegetarian combo ($12 at lunch, right) is a bipolar plate of sauteed cabbage and collard greens, various red and yellow stews, and fit fit (more on that later). The cabbage’s mustard-yellow tinge might lead one to expect a spicy kick, but it’s pleasantly sweet and slightly buttery. The collards are, well, collards: a little bitter, a little tough. (more…)

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Fashionistas strut stuff in Ellsworth Dr fashion show

By Jennifer Deseo | Aug 17, 2009
Photo: The audience checks out haute couture on Ellsworth Drive. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP

Photo: The audience checks out haute couture on Ellsworth Drive. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP

Hundreds of people packed Ellsworth Drive Saturday night as the Downtown Silver Spring shopping center hosted “Street Glam”, a fashion show featuring local designers. (more…)

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