Topic: Raving
Kit advertises Mango & Ginger as 'a blog about loving food'. And she does love her food, providing proof in recipes, pictures, and stories about memorable meals. What I like best, though, is that much of her blog is about loving food in Baltimore, because almost all of my best memories of Baltimore involve friends and food: very literally, in some cases - there have been a number of memorable gatherings at Friends in Fells Point, which, despite tough competition from Brewer's Art and Dizzy Issie's, wins my vote for the Baltimore bar with the best food, and could almost do it on the strength of their crab dip alone.
Mmmmmmmm. Crab dip.
Sorry. Got a bit lost there for a second. The crab dip at Friends is that good. But this is not a post about crab dip (mmmmmmmmmmm). Kit's latest post reminded me of one of my favorite ways to spend a Saturday, which was to roll out of bed late and wander around the Broadway Market deciding where to get brunch. The only problem was that there are so many places at the market to choose from, it could take a long time to decide where to eat. But it was a lovely, leisurely way to start off a Saturday, and could, if the mood was right, lead to an afternoon of shopping in Fells Point and an early evening stop at Friends for a beer and crab dip. Mmmmmmmmm. Crab dip.
While Kit's marketing adventures took place in Federal Hill, which is across the harbor from Fells and is one of the Baltimore neighborhoods I didn't spend a lot of time in, basically everything she says about Federal Hill applies to Fells as well - charming, historical, a bit gentrified without having lost all its local color, tends to be overrun with sodden young professionals after work on Fridays, and even more sodden college students from Thursday afternoon onward. But Fells on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon is a lovely place to hang out, and when the colleges are out for summer and winter breaks, evenings there can be quite nice, as well.
I have yet to find a neighborhood in Melbourne that does everything that Fells Point could do. Crab dip is probably too much to hope for, but I haven't found a neighborhood here where I could reasonably spend most of an afternoon and evening doing a bit of eating, a bit of shopping, and a bit of sitting on the waterfront watching people. Some of that is, no doubt influenced by the fact that I definitely have less money, and I feel like I have less time than when I lived in Baltimore, but some credit has to go to Fells Point for getting the mix of activities right and being a good neighborhood to hang out in.