Stacey Viera of Every Food Fits has an interview and photos with chef, musician, entrepreneur and Arlington resident James Main:

James Main is living the dream. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that James Main is living MY dream. He’s a small-business owner, first-time homeowner, husband, and soon-to-be father who still has time to perform with his band, Brother Shamus, in venues in the D.C. area and on the East Coast.

Main’s modest and comfortable lifestyle in South Arlington, Va., is the result of more than 20 years of toiling in kitchens, working up the ranks from dishwasher to executive chef and now at the helm of Main Course Personal Chef Service.

After moving to D.C. in 1997, he spent the next several years in kitchens such as D.C.’s Café Saint-Ex and Clarendon’s IOTA Club & Café. Main then decided to go into business for himself as a personal chef.

Click here to read more.


The sheer scale of Crystal City’s G-40: The Summit is large enough to impress at least one jet-setting local artist, who praised the exhibition while saying that he otherwise considers Crystal City to be an “upper class ghetto.”

Set in four vacant floors of an office building at 223 23rd Street, G-40 will feature more than 2,000 pieces of art from 400 artists. Each floor showcases artists from different cultural hubs: DC, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Several artists who were on hand at Monday night’s VIP and press reception said it’s the largest single-theme exhibit in the DC area in recent memory.

Much of the art, curated by Shane Pomajambo of Art Whino, is considered to be “New Brow” (formerly known as “Low Brow”), a raw, grungy, edgy genre strongly influenced by punk music, street culture and comic books. Don’t bring the kids, unless you want them to see some pretty graphic stuff.

G-40 officially opens to the public Wednesday at 5:00 p.m., with food and wine pairings by a group of local executive chefs, live painting, and music by DJ Sonny Cheeba. Attendance is free, but the food is extra.

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Arlington’s Emergency Winter Shelter has been helping homeless individuals weather this year’s brutal winter storms. Now the folks running the shelter need our help. A-SPAN, the Arlington Street People’s Assistance Network, announced on Facebook this morning that the shelter is running low on food, specifically cereal, snacks, bread and jelly.

If you have any to spare, call the shelter at 703-228-7395.