| ARLnow.com - Part 17

Rep. Don Beyer Eats Crickets, Helps Prepare Food at La Cocina

By Heather Mongilio

Published August 11, 2015 at 11:30AM

Rep. Don Beyer eats a chocolate chip and cricket cookie.

Rep. Don Beyer with La Cocina executive director and students.

Chef instructor Alberto Vega prepares tomatoes.

Rep. Don Beyer talks with La Cocina students.

Rep. Don Beyer with a family at Arlington Mills residences.

Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) was treated to a special meal when he visited La Cocina, a bilingual culinary school for the unemployed or underemployed: crickets.

Beyer visited the Hispanic-oriented culinary school in the basement of Mount Olivet Church (1500 N. Glebe Road) near Ballston yesterday, where he learned more about the school’s mission and heard from a couple of the six current students.

“This is very exciting,” Beyer told the students.

For his visit, the students, under Chef Instructor Alberto Vega, prepared a green salad with honey-crusted crickets and gluten-free chocolate chip and cricket cookies.

Crickets add protein into the people’s diets, La Cocina Executive Director Patricia Funegra said during a presentation. Crickets are also a sustainable food and La Cocina is working to encourage healthy and sustainable food into modern diets, Funegra said.

“We have to start thinking about that [sustainable food] in a very serious way,” Funegra said.

La Cocina is both a school and a food assistance program. The students prepare meals and then deliver them to residents of local affordable housing communities in a partnership with Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing.

All meals prepared are made with healthy foods, in hopes of fighting obesity, which plagues the Hispanic community, Funegra said. Meals contain 50 percent fruit and vegetables and 50 percent lean proteins, according to La Cocina’s website.

Yesterday, the students prepared a salad and spaghetti and turkey meatballs for the residents. Beyer helped the students by ladling the meatballs. He then joined them in handing out the meals to families.

La Cocina has seen a lot of success with its program, Funegra said. The last class had 100 percent completion and job placement. The current class is the school’s third.

“To have 100 percent completion is something to be proud of,” she said.

The school teaches bilingual culinary skills, sanitation practices, English needed for culinary work and life, and employment skills, such as working in a team. The school does not charge tuition and provides all the materials for the students, including a travel stipend, Funegra said.

Students come from the entire D.C. area, with some coming as far as Germantown, Maryland.

(more…)

New Clarendon Restaurant to Resemble Australian Outback House

By Heather Mongilio

Published August 11, 2015 at 10:05AM | Updated November 18, 2016 at 2:56PM

Oz, a new Clarendon bar and restaurant with modern Australian cuisine, is planning to open its doors next month.

The restaurant, located at 2950 Clarendon Blvd., is currently under construction, but Oz’s grand opening is planned for Sept. 10 for media and invited guests.

After its grand opening, the restaurant will open to the public, said co-owner Ashley Darby, a former Miss D.C.

The restaurant’s interior is meant to feel like a house on the Australian outback and can seat 150 guests, Darby said.

The back dining area will be decorated like the inside of a house, the bar is meant to feel like a back porch of a house and the front dining area will look a front patio, she said. The restaurant will also have outdoor seating for 50 guests.

Darby said she wants the Oz to be a place that guests can come to relax with friends, enjoy a beer and taste authentic Australian food. The menu will feature dishes served in Australia, such as rissoles and eggs, a typical Australian brunch dish, and an Australian version of a s’more.

Darby’s husband and Oz co-owner, Michael, is an Australian native.

“It’ll offer a different perspective on some cuts of meat and plates we have in America,” Darby said.

The Darbys have lived in Arlington for four years, and the area’s young and diverse population made it the ideal location for the restaurant, she said.

“We just loved it so much that it seemed to be the natural thing,” Darby said.

Bar photo courtesy of Ashley Darby

Arlington Agenda: Aug. 10-16

By Heather Mongilio

Published August 10, 2015 at 4:45PM

Arlington Agenda is a listing of interesting events for the week ahead in Arlington County. If you’d like to see your event featured, fill out the event submission form.

Also, be sure to check out our event calendar.

Tuesday

Photo Exhibit, Reception, and Talk on Photographing Antarctica*
Cherrydale Branch Library (2190 Military Road)
Time: 7-8:30 p.m.

Take a trip to Antarctica through photographer Robin Kent’s lens. Kent will speak as part of an opening reception for the exhibit. The free exhibit runs from now until Nov. 2.

Drop Everything and Read Night
Buzz Bakery (818 N. Quincy Street)
Time: 6-9 p.m.

Grab a book and get a cup of coffee at Buzz Bakery. Bring a friend or come by yourself and enjoy a night at a cafe. Five percent of the proceeds will go to Friends of Arlington Public Library.

Friday

Iliza Shlesinger at Arlington Drafthouse and Cinema
Arlington Drafthouse and Cinema (2903 Columbia Pike)
Time: 7:30 p.m., 10 p.m.

Iliza Shlesinger, the first woman to win NBC’s “Last Comic Standing,” is coming to Arlington to perform a standup routine. Tickets are $22. If you miss the show on Friday, she’ll be performing a show at 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Saturday.

Saturday

Down in the Pond
Long Branch Nature Center (625 S. Carlin Springs Road)
Time: 2-3 p.m.

Kids can go dip-netting in the ponds at Long Branch Nature Center, where they may find water boatmen, water scorpions, backswimmers and other critters. Registration is required and costs $5.

*Denotes featured (sponsored) content

#Arlington Agenda

Arlington Man Creates ‘Recipe Box’ App

Published August 10, 2015 at 12:45PM | Updated August 11, 2015 at 9:18AM

Editor’s Note: Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow.com, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups and their founders, plus other local technology happenings. The Ground Floor, Monday’s office space for young companies in Rosslyn, is now open. The Metro-accessible space features a 5,000-square-foot common area that includes a kitchen, lounge area, collaborative meeting spaces, and a stage for formal presentations.

A Courthouse resident has created an app to help people save recipes they find online.

John Jones developed Chef’s Hat, a mobile and web app that works like an online recipe box. Users sign in through Facebook or Twitter and then start electronically clipping recipes.

All clipped recipes are saved to the app and can be accessed on phones, tablets or the computer. The app is available for free on both iTunes and Android markets.

“It’s your mom’s recipe book that always has the right recipe,” Jones said.

The idea came from personal experience, he said. Jones enjoys cooking with his wife, but he found recipe saving websites, like Pinterest, inadequate. So he decided to build an app that would make it easier to clip recipes. The app was released late in July and it has been downloaded a couple hundred times, Jones said.

The app reformats each clipped recipe with a clean font face and easy-to-read layout instead of linking to or taking a screenshot of the original recipe webpage. The app was designed with the user in mind, Jones said.

“There are so many apps in the marketplace so it drives developers to be creative and think about what their users want,” he said.

With a focus on user experience — or UX — developers are constantly focused on improving the app to fit what people want, Jones said.

“It’s always about what’s best for the users,” he said.

Thinking about user preferences is why he created a mobile and web version of the app, he said. When developing the app, he was thinking about where people browse for recipes.

Jones is already thinking about updates he will make. One idea is the ability to create an account and log in with an email address instead of using Facebook or Twitter. Another is making the sharing of recipes easier. He is also playing with the idea of creating a recommended recipe addition, where the app would recommend recipes for users to try based on the recipes they have saved.

“I think there are a lot of possibilities with this app,” he said.

Another potential addition is advertising. He prefers to use “purpose driven advertising,” instead of the “annoying” banner ads, he said.

While Jones says he will not use banner ads, he did say that he consider options for publishing promoted posts, such as partnering with a food blog or company that could promote recipes on the app. He is also considering premium features for the app, he said.

“I see this potentially as an app for cooks and amateur cooks,” Jones said.

#Startup Monday

ARLnow Weekend Discussion

By Heather Mongilio

Published August 7, 2015 at 5:35PM

It’s Friday, which means the weekend is here. National Weather Service is predicting a sunny weekend, with highs in the upper 80s for both weekends.

The Arlington County Fair will be open from until 11 p.m. tonight, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. tomorrow and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Sunday. There will be concerts throughout the weekend at the fair.

This weekend is also the tax-free holiday for Virginia. With school around the corner — school starts on Sept. 8 — it is a good weekend to get school supplies and clothing.

Feel free to talk about the county fair or any other topic of local interest.

#weekend discussion

Downed Wires on S. George Mason Close Off Road

By Heather Mongilio

Published August 7, 2015 at 5:05PM

S. George Mason Dr. is closed off starting at S. Columbus Street due to downed wires.

As of 4:30 this afternoon, multiple power lines were down, including one that stretched across S. George Mason. Residents were standing outside their homes watching crews work to restore power.

Traffic lights at S. Columbus Streets were also dark due to the power outage.

As of press time, the cause of the downed wires had not been determined. Dominion Electric is currently reporting that 50 customers are out of power in the area due to a broken pole.

The company predicts power will be restored between 7-9 p.m. tonight.

Long History of Hall’s Hill Fire Station in Jeopardy, Residents Say

By Heather Mongilio

Published August 7, 2015 at 3:45PM | Updated August 12, 2015 at 7:40AM

Hall’s Hill Volunteer Fire Department (Courtesy of Arthur and Judy Branch)

Courtesy of Arlington County Fire Department

(Updated at 5:15 p.m.) The Hall’s Hill Volunteer Fire Department was no stranger to challenges.

The first All-African American volunteer fire department in Arlington faced segregation and limited equipment for almost 40 years, according to a history of Fire Station 8 by Arlington Public Library.

The chronological history of the station was published in the middle of a debate between local residents and county government over its proposal to relocate the station farther north to Old Dominion Drive, by Marymount University.

“My neighbors look at that fire station as the heart, the hub, the star on the tree, whatever you want to say,” community member Jim Derrig said at a July 30 meeting. “And what we’re trying to say is you can’t replace the heart with a pacemaker or a bandaid. You have to replace a heart with a heart.”

The county says relocation is necessary for the Arlington County Fire Department to meet their response time goal of four to six minutes countywide.

“We are focused on life saving. That is our mission,” former Arlington County Fire Chief Jim Schwartz said in a county-produced video.

While this would not be the first time the fire station moved, — the Hall’s Hill Volunteer Fire Department was previously housed in smaller fire stations on Lee Highway and N. Culpepper Street in the 1930s — relocation would mean that it would no longer be in the Hall’s Hill community.

Hall’s Hill is a historically African-American community, once the home of freed slaves and separated from the rest of the county by a fence. In 1918, the members of the community formed the Hall’s Hill Volunteer Fire Department with one 60-gallon chemical tank that six men would have to pull along muddy and unpaved roads, according to the library.

When Arlington County was formally established two years later, the county excluded the Hall’s Hill Volunteer Fire Department from the Arlington County Fireman’s Association and did not give the department monthly pay for professional firefighters.

The VFD, which played a central part in the community, slowly built up its fleet of fire trucks and built a station first on Lee Highway in 1927 and then 2209 N. Culpepper Street in 1934. The 1934 fire house also had a basement for a community center.

After the fire department was integrated, it moved to its current home at 4845 Lee Highway and officially opened on June 17, 1963 with 17 paid firefighters. The Hall’s Hill Volunteer Fire Department owned the deed to one of the pieces of land that went into the new station, while the county owned the others.

(more…)

Police Release Sketch of W&OD Sexual Assault Suspect

By Heather Mongilio

Published August 7, 2015 at 11:30AM

The Arlington County Police Department is looking for a man suspected of trying to sexually assault a woman on the W&OD trail last weekend.

The victim was running on the Glencarlyn Park area of the W&OD trail when the suspect allegedly grabbed her from behind and threw her to the ground. The suspect tried to cover her mouth with his hand, but she was able to scream, causing the suspect to flee, police say.

The woman worked with a sketch artist to provide a sketch of the suspect. He is described as “a dark skinned Hispanic male between 20-30 years old, approximately 5’6″ tall, weighing 140 pounds,” according to police. At the time, he was wearing long, baggy gray shorts and was not wearing a shirt.

Anyone with information can contact Detective K. Bercovicz at [email protected] or 703-228-4235. Those wishing to stay anonymous can call the Arlington County Crime Solvers at 866-411-TIPS (8477).

The attempted sexual assault on the W&OD trail was the first of two such incidents in Arlington that weekend. A woman was also grabbed and thrown to the ground while she walked home near the intersection of N. Thomas Street and N. Pershing Street in Buckingham. A sketch has not been released for the suspect.

Last week police released a sketch of a suspect in another sexual assault incident near Courthouse.

Arlington Pet of the Week: Ezra

Published August 5, 2015 at 12:15PM

This week’s Arlington Pet of the Week if Ezra, a Sheepadoodle — an Old English Sheepdog and standard poodle mix — who loves socks.

Ezra also loves to steal tomatoes from the vines and can perform a number of tricks. Here’s what his owners had to say about him:

Ezra – who usually goes by “Ezi” – is full of it: Full of tricks, full of spirit and full of mischief. His go-to trick is “sit pretty” (pictured above), which is usually very effective, but if he doesn’t get what he wants, he will automatically move into down, roll-over, high-five and back into sit pretty again. It’s quite a show. Thanks to many classes at Woofs!, Ezi is a charming, well-socialized adolescent “sheepadoodle.” That’s half Old English Sheepdog and half Standard Poodle. Ezra’s hijinks are lovingly (albeit sporadically) chronicled on Instagram at @ezrathesheepadoodle.

Ezi thinks every passerby exists only to give him attention. Since he looks like an adorable stuffed panda bear, he is often correct. He occasionally startles strangers, however, when he moves in for a “sheepadoodle hug” and walks straight through their legs and then turns around and weaves back again (apparently an instinctual herding trait).

His mischievous side really shines as a tomato thief. He unabashedly bounds into the backyard vegetable garden and plucks the ripest fruit right off the vine. Tomato juice and seeds on his muzzle belie any alibi he could attempt. “Sock radar” is his superpower. He can sense that a sock is present anytime, anywhere. Clean or dirty, he will find the sock. His best work was upending a perfectly packed suitcase to retrieve a pair of clean socks nestled inside shoes stowed at the very bottom. And whenever he finds a sock, he is full of pure joy.

Want your pet to be considered for the Arlington Pet of the [email protected] a 2-3 paragraph bio and at least 3-4 horizontally-oriented photos of your pet.

Each week’s winner receives a sample of dog or cat treats from our sponsor, Becky’s Pet Care, along with $100 in Becky’s Bucks. Becky’s Pet Care, the winner of three Angie’s List Super Service Awards and the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters’ 2013 Business of the Year, provides professional dog walking and pet sitting services in Arlington and Northern Virginia.

#Pet of the Week

Local Police Officer Raising Funds for Chihuahua’s Surgery

By Heather Mongilio

Published August 5, 2015 at 11:15AM | Updated August 6, 2015 at 11:52AM

A local law enforcement officer has turned to the Internet in hopes of raising money for her dog’s surgery.

The officer, whose first name is DeDe, set up a GoFundMe campaign with a goal of $800 to cover the medical expenses of veterinary knee surgery. (Ed. note: officer’s last name has removed due to safety concerns.)

Smyth, a 6-year-old Chihuahua, injured his knee while jumping off of a bed to get a toy stuffed monkey, DeDe said. The injury is common for small dogs.

Smyth can still walk, but the veterinarian recommend limiting his movement to stop him from hurting his knee more.

“Despite his injury, he continues to be a loving little dog that keeps trying to play with his brother and neighboring dogs,” says the fundraising page. “Smyth is in need of a surgery that I am unable to fund at this time to repair his patella luxation. I don’t want my little guy to suffer, while I’m trying to save up the money. Any donation help my little guy get back to his fun playful little loving self.”

The surgery, anesthesia and pre- and post-operation care total $800, she said. During the procedure, Smyth will also have to get a heart echo to determine if he has a heart murmur.

“My concern is his treatment being prolonged by trying to raise the funds,” DeDe said. She said she’s usually a private person but is going public with this in order to speed up the treatment.

A couple years ago, her other dog, a Chihuahua named Wessin, had to have a similar surgery on both knees. DeDe said has a special connection with Smyth, who can pick up her moods and try to make her feel better.

“I’d never admit this to the other one [Wessin], but he’s my favorite,” DeDe said.

Two Arlington dog daycares are also helping DeDe raise money. Wag More Dogs (2606 S. Oxford Street) and WOOFS! Dog Training Center (4160 S. Four Mile Run Drive) will hang flyers about Smyth and his surgery, DeDe said.

DeDe did not want the police agency she works for named because she’s raising funds as a private individual and not as a representative of the department.

Courtesy photo

Arlington Agenda: Aug. 4-8

By Heather Mongilio

Published August 4, 2015 at 3:30PM

Arlington Agenda is a listing of interesting events for the week ahead in Arlington County. If you’d like to see your event featured, fill out the event submission form.

Also, be sure to check out our event calendar.

Tuesday

Reading and Running Fitness Training Program
Arlington Central Library (1015 N. Quincy Street)
Time: 7-8:30 p.m.

Training for a 5K or a longer race? Prepare for it by joining the Arlington Public Library in group run/walks every Tuesday and Thursday night. The run/walks are free, but participants are required to register.

Wednesday

Arlington County Fair
Thomas Jefferson Community Center (3501 2nd Street S.)
Time: 5-10 p.m. (Wednesday and Thursday)

The annual fair kicks off on Wednesday with a parade at 6 p.m. Attractions also include multiple competitions and fair rides. The fair runs from 2-11 p.m. on Friday, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Sunday.

Thursday

Celebrity Players and Pets Fashion Show*
Mad Rose Tavern (3100 Clarendon Blvd.)
Time: 8 p.m. to midnight

Local media celebrities will join Nationals players Wilson Ramos and Craig Stammen in walking adoptable pets during a “Blackout” fashion show. All participants and guests are asked to wear only black clothing. Tickets will go on sale shortly.

*Denotes featured (sponsored) content

#Arlington Agenda