Chesapeake Eats

Your point of departure for midwinter adventures

Chesapeake eats.

That’s true every month of the year. Late January gives the phrase another meaning. By now, 2010 is novel no more. We’ve shouldered its burdens, including our optimistic resolutions, and slogged into … six more weeks of Chesapeake winter.

The holidays are behind us. We’ve given thanks, illuminated our lives and celebrated the rebirth of possibility. Now what do we do as we wait for spring?

Even Mother Nature doesn’t give us much to look at in the season when she wears mourning in grief for Persephone’s annual exile in the underworld.

Winter sports would be fine, if only we lived in a snowy clime.

So let’s eat, and let’s make the best of it.

This week Bay Weekly brings you Chesapeake Eats, our annual dining guide to gustatory adventures. In these pages, we guide you to 30 restaurants, caterers, grills, taverns and eating opportunities.

Our collection is eclectic, including roadside grills, neighborhood taverns, quick but good filing stations, family restaurants and elegant dining rooms — plus a couple just opening their doors.

We’ve used six standards: food; atmosphere; events, specials and promotions; service; news; and sustainability, like organic or locally grown food. The likely size of your bill is suggested by a range of dollar signs, ranging from $ to $$$$. It’s certainly possible to eat affordably at each of this year’s collection. $$$ and $$$$ suggest restaurants where the temptation to spend more is hard to resist.

Eating gives you a reason to embark on midwinter adventures, but you’ll have more fun if you make your Chesapeake Eating adventures more than a meal.

I tell writers that being on assignment doubles the fun of everything they do. When you’re asking, analyzing, observing and recording, you’re fully present in experience. I’m hoping you’ll make each restaurant visit your own fact-finding expedition and tell me what you found.

On your adventure, not only the destination but also the road to it and the place you find it become noteworthy. Early in my years as a reporter, I specialized in discovery road trips. I learned about neighborhoods, towns and villages, how they’d come to be where they were. I looked at architecture and landscape through the eyes of an artist, and often through her lens, as photographer Sue Eslinger was my companion in discovery. We met people who told us stores and introduced us to more people. We visited shops and museums and libraries. And eating was always part of the adventure.

So on your way, and good eating. Google or a phone call can guide you to any of these Chesapeake Eats, but don’t let it steal the thunder of your own discoveries. And don’t forget to tell them that you saw it in Bay Weekly.

from the Editor

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