Washington Life Magazine: February 2004: FYIDC

FYIDC

A new pizzeria is coming to Dupont Circle. A sister restaurant of Cafe Milano, Sette Osteria will open two blocks north of Dupont Circle on the southwest corner of Connecticut and R Street N.W. Executive chef Domenico Cornacchia will focus on gourmet pizzas cooked in a wood burning oven, but the restaurant will also offer fish dishes, steaks and vegetarian fare. The restaurant will have an outdoor patio where guests can sip selections from the full-service bar or wine list while people watching.

The creation of the Harman Center for the Arts will certainly infuse more culture into old downtown D.C. The Center will be combined with the existing Shakespeare Theater (located less than 100 yards away) to create the Shakespeare Theatre Company, located on F Street N.W. directly across from the MCI arena. The $77 million, 800-seat Sidney Harman Theatre, slated to open in 2007, is named for the largest private donor, Dr. Sidney Harman (husband of Rep. Jane Harman of California). The theater was unanimously approved by the city council and the district invested $20 million in the project. The center will occupy the first five-and-a-half floors of the11-story building featuring a 3-story glass curtain wall, creating a transparent view of the orchestra and balcony levels.

A new restaurant, Palette, is just steps away from the front entrance of the Madison Hotel at the corner of 15th and M Streets. Chef Charlie Hansji comes from the Four Seasons Hotel in Austin, Texas, and has cooked in Australia, France and Canada. He will create menus combining 21st century American cuisine with North, South and Central American influences. In addition, the restaurant will feature modern art from private collectors, which will change every two to five weeks. The restaurant opened in late January for lunch Monday through Friday and seven nights for dinner.

A Negro League Legends Hall of Fame will open at Howard University to recognize more than 400 African-American legends in U.S. baseball history. The Negro League existed separate from the all-white major leagues until Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 as the first black man to play major league baseball. The museum will exhibit photographs of players, letters, contracts and other documents from the league. The Hall of Fame is slated to open in the fall of 2004.
The Memorial Hall in the museum will be named after Walter “Buck” Leonard, who played from 1933 until 1950 and was the first baseman for the Washington Homestead Grays, nine time consecutive winner of the Negro National Pennant.

Founder and Executive Director of D.C. Central Kitchen, Robert Egger, has written his first book “Begging for Change” which will be released in March. Named one of President Bush’s Thousand Points of Light, Egger has built the D.C. Central Kitchen into a vital job training organization, for-profit catering company, cooking school, drug-counseling program, support group, job bank, and an overall charitable resource for the community. In this insightful book, Egger relays personal experiences and gives suggestions to make charities more responsive and efficient, including making non-profit executives justify their ever-increasing salaries. He also stresses the importance of donors monitoring their contributions to charities as much as they do other investments. In 2002, he was named the interim executive VP of United Way of the National Capital Area, where he followed his own advice and set his own salary at half of what most United Way chapter heads make, allowing him to retain employees that would otherwise have been laid off and regain some much needed goodwill in the community.

With all the political debates staged in Washington, some Washingtonians might have missed the latest one to travel here- The Great Whiskey Debate. Over 200 residents joined Simon Brooking, master ambassador of the Dalmore, and Frederick Booker Noe III, great-grandson of legendary bourbon distiller Jim Beam at the entertaining debate over the virtues of bourbon and scotch last December at the Marriott Metro Center.
At the conclusion, the crowd was much livelier than when they came in (having sampled both scotch and whiskey) was asked to choose a winner by applauding. The debate was called a tie, despite Noe reminding Washingtonians in a thick Kentucky accent that it was their American duty to choose bourbon.

This spring, a community garden will blossom in Shaw because of some hard-working young residents. The 7th Street Urban Planners (7-UP) are planting the garden to promote sustainability in Shaw. The teens are part of EcoDesign Corps, a program run by Shaw EcoVillage Project, an organization that pairs teams of high school students with community groups and agencies to address environmental problems in neighborhoods.
The garden is designed to provide organic food, a peaceful place to visit and an act as a living classroom for sustainable agriculture. The new garden will be on the land adjacent to the Bread for the City Building in Shaw.
Shaw EcoVillage was also selected as a 2003 Catalogue for Philanthropy charity, an award given to 70 outstanding charities around the country by the Harman Family Foundation with help from the Meyer and Cafritz foundations. Shaw EcoVillage hopes to create a mainstream global model so that other communities can focus on environmental sustainability and community development. EcoDesign Corps is funded by a number of foundation, corporate and private sponsors.

Washingtonians are busy raising money for the victims of the devastating earthquake in Iran that tragically took the lives of over 40,000 people and left many more homeless. The 2000-year-old walled city and citadel, with its mote and sprawling ramparts, was the archetype of European castles and a major draw of scholars, tourists and architects to the area. Bam is a remarkable place where Christian churches and Jewish temples are found side-by-side with Zorastrian temples and Moslem Mosques.
The Many Hats Institute and The National Iranian American Council hosted a benefit at Sesto Senso Restaurant on January 22 to raise funds for the victims of this tragedy. For a complete list of organizations receiving donations go to,
www.iranianamericanpac.org or www.niacouncil.org.

The National Gallery of Art is featuring live jazz performances at its Sunday Jazz Brunches and Jazz on Ice. The Sunday brunches are held through February from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Terrace CafŽ on the East Building mezzanine level, overlooking the atrium and the National Mall. Artists performing at the brunch include Joshua Bayer, Geoff Reecer, Chris Cuzme and Jerry Gordon. Jazz on Ice, held on Thursdays from 5 p.m.to 8 p.m. through March 11th, will include a tapas-style menu and bar while music is played over the ice skating rink and patios. Some of the performers slated for Jazz on Ice are Bossalingo, the Darnell Bell Trio and the Thad Wilson trio.

For those that remember the decorative elephants and donkeys that graced the city streets during the “Party Animals” exhibition during the spring of 2002, prepare yourself for the panda bears. This spring, the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities will place150 panda sculptures throughout the city thru next fall for “Pandamania 2004”. The elephants and donkeys, symbols of the Democratic and Republican parties, highlighted over 200 mostly local artists and raised over 1.2 million dollars. A spokesperson for the Commission revealed they had decided on the panda because “it is an endearing and loveable animal- much like the residents of D.C.”

Back To The Future: Yannick Cam, Janet Cam and Mike Klein, the trio that made the restaurant Pavillon so successful in Washington 20 years ago have reunited to bring us a new restaurant Le Paradou. Chef Yannick Cam will serve his signature french contemporary cuisine, and A & D's Theo and Oliva Demetriou, designers of such interiors as Zaytinya and Zola will design the interior of the new restaurant with wood and large scale fabric panels of suede giving it a warm, soft and buttery feel. The restaurant is expected to open in late February or early March at 601 Pennsylvania Avenue (Indiana and 7th Street N.W.)