Boiled shrimp, boiled shrimp, fried shrimp, packaged shrimp...

Here's the story on the Louisiana shrimpers....Click the shrimp pic to find out more.

The event of the week...

Last night at the press club I turned to the television bank—that’s a wall with eight TV’s that are tuned to all the networks and 24 hour news channels—and on at least five of the TV’s I saw George Clooney. Clooney, along with Barack Obama and Kansas Senator Sam Brownback held a news conference in Washington on Thursday to draw attention to the genocide in Darfur. Clooney and his father had just gotten back from a trip to the region. Like many of us neophyte reporters, I questioned how long the story would last. A Thursday morning press conference is often old news by Friday morning. But it seems that this is an issue that’s only gaining momentum. On Sunday supporters to stop the genocide will rally on the national mall. I’ll have more information then, as I’ll be covering it for CurrentTV.




And yes, these are my pictures posted especially for Matt Gamewell to show his family and friends.

Food Glorious Food

One of the greatest and maybe most overlooked parts of D.C. it the plethora of good food. On Sunday I finally stopped “browsing” at Eastern Market and started “shopping.” Eastern Market—the landmark my neighborhood is named for—is a daily farmers market. On the outside farmers and artists line the perimeter with their goods. Inside, the market is like a mini Pike’s Place in Seattle where permanent vendors sell their specialty. There’s a butcher, a baker, a fishmonger, a cheese shop, etc. On Sunday I picked up some lamb and rosemary sausage, fresh tomatoes and basil and some peppers. Oddly, the most expensive part was the peppers. Then I brought everything over to Peter’s and we made this….





Little did we know the week’s culinary adventure was only beginning. On Monday I covered a story about Louisiana shrimpers. Five shrimpers from the Gulf Coast came up to DC to draw attention to the threats their industry is facing. Even before Katrina these guys were having problems. More and more shrimp is being farm raised and imported to the states. Not only does that pose a major threat to the environment, but farm-raised shrimp is much cheaper to produce. That lowers the price point for all shrimp. Add to that the price of fuel and these guys have it bad. Now they have to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Their boats are ruined, waters polluted, and infrastructure crushed. No wonder they need help.

So what was their tactic to tell their story? Give away free shrimp. They brought 1000 pounds of shrimp to give away in the middle of Dupont circle. I picked up a bag and cooked it with Phil, Laura, Peter and Rebecca on Monday night.




It took a very long time to peal all that shrimp. We didn’t end up eating until after 11pm. We cooked it in three rounds to make three dishes that kind of sound like dialogue from Forrest Gump—shrimp cocktail, shrimp salad, shrimp gumbo……but needless to say everyone had a smile by the end of the meal, including Phil’s friend Kim who told how “cute” our meal was while she was returning his bowl.

Happy Easter

Yes. I know Easter was almost a week ago but I haven't had time to post anything since then. I was planning to post on Monday but then I found this story about a group of students who are protesting for a "living wage" for all employees at the University of Virginia. To me, that was just screaming “road trip” so Matt Gamewell and I took off for Charlottesville to produce a story for CurrentTV. You’ll be hearing more about that so stay tuned. Let’s talk about Easter and the weekend in New York.





I spent Easter morning with my friend Rebecca. We spent Saturday together too. We found an “okay” brunch spot in Midtown that serves an “under $10” brunch that includes two drinks. Needless to say we drank that right up.

Rebecca mentioned that she wanted to go to church on Sunday. She’s Methodist, I’m Catholic so we compromised and ended up going to an Episcopal service—turns out that’s more Catholic than some Catholic services I’ve been to.







My morning with Rebecca was followed by an afternoon brunch at Josh’s apartment. He and Natalie made some mid-west egg bake. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any pictures of the egg bake. But there is this great close-up of Josh.




Finally, I’d like to give a shout out to Lauren. Lauren was one of my travel companions up to New York. On Saturday, we meet for drinks and dinner in the Village. We started on the roof of Rebecca’s (that’s her in the middle) very clutch apartment and then after searching through the entirety of Greenwich Village we found a delightful place just downstairs.

No that’s not Bernie Mac…

This is Mayor James Mayo of Monroe—that’s right Mayor Mayo of Monroe. He was in D.C. last week at a national conference about the disparity in health care for minorities. Here’s an interesting fact—African Americans are 7 times more likely to contract HIV-AIDS than whites. To me, that’s a disparity and finding a way to close that gap is why Mayor Mayo was in town. Click on the picture to find out more.

The Princess and the Pig

Click each photo to see which one of us is the princess and which one of us is the pig....

What you may not have noticed, but should if you look really closely, is that Phil and I are wearing the same thing--at least the exact same shirt and tie. Why? Well, it’s because my station asked for a package about pork barrel spending the same day I was assigned to be the photographer for Phil’s Cherry Blossom Princess story. So I spent my morning on camera for Phil and then edited my package in the afternoon. Since I didn't have clothes to do my stand-up, I had to borrow Phil's shirt and tie. We thought its pink hue matched both our stories perfectly...the princess and the pig.

The best moment of the day could have come straight out of Drop Dead Gorgeous. During our interview with Miss Cherry Blossom North Dakota one bystander saw a group of young flamenco dancers practicing along the basin. Her response: “Oh for cute…would you just look at that….isn’t that darling.”

Comments

I fixed the settings so that EVERYONE can leave comments--not just other bloggers. It should be working now, so give it a try.

The new camera

Who's got two thumbs, turned a package in an afternoon AND got told his question was stupid by a member of congress so went out and bought a digital camera.......



This Guy!

That's right. My very first news conference on the hill and I was told I was asking stupid questions. You see it all started with my predecessor at the station I'm working for. She did a story on a congressman who's under investigation that really wouldn't be considered "positive press" for the guy. This week he unexpectedly showed up at a press conference so I asked him how he was handling the challenges of representing his district with the on-going investigation and recent subpoena of six of his staff. His answer: "Just look at what I'm doing here, that's a stupid question."

Let's take a brief moment to talk about press strategy here. If you have no interest in that topic please just skip to the next paragraph. If he had stopped talking before calling my question out, I would have had a nice sound bite that could be used. I probably would have included my ask in anything that went to air but it still would have shown that he was on the up and up and "doing his job in this moment of unfortunate circumstance." But no, he wanted to keep talking and say bad things about me and my station.

Anyhow, after that whole experience, I decided the best way to get over my congressional anxieties was to buy myself a digital camera with my tax refund money. So that's just what I did to start my weekend of recovery.

This is Deb and Phil. We, along with the rest of the group, showed up at the press club on Friday night for some cheep beer and free tacos. I thought it would be good to break out the new camera and take some pictures. We needed to teach Deb that "camera shy" usually means the person on the other side of the camera-- not the one taking the picture....







Yesterday, after I met my friend Katie and her roommate Sara for a run in the freak nasty cold and rainy spring weather, I meet Christina for a trip to the museum of American History where we posed next to some of our favorite items of pop culture. Unfortunately, we were kicked out when we snuck into the Inaugural ball gown gallery and started trying on JFK and Jackie O formal wear--just kidding.





So that's what's happening in a nutshell. Be sure to stay tuned as some more video entries will be coming shortly. Topics to include "pigs" and "princesses."

Coffee Time

DC is one hyped up city. It seems that there's a place to refill your mug on almost every corner....

Click the picture and find out just how java jolted this city really is.

Common Occurrence

With all the dignitaries traveling around the city, it’s not that uncommon to be told to find another route. Christina and I ran into a little trouble while trying to capture the cherry blossoms yesterday.

Click the picture for our story.