Margarita

On Monday, April 7, 2003, MARGARITA D. MOSS; departed this life at Johns Hopkins Hospital; beloved wife of John Irving Moss; devoted mother of Malik Luis, Ana Maria, Zalrira Esther. She also leaves two grandchildren, Jaylan Carnell Hall and Antwone Davis, Jr.; and a host of aunts, uncles, cousins, and other relatives and friends. Family will receive friends at the Locust United Methodist Church, Martin & Freetown Road, Columbia, MD. on Thursday, April 10 from 6 to 8 P.M. Funeral services will be held on Friday, April 11, 2003 at the Inter-Faith Center, 10431 Twin Rivers Road, Columbia, MD at 12 noon.

Poncho N Pepe's is a party place. Even on a Wednesday evening, the bar is packed and tables are filled, often with large, laughing groups. Everybody, from the hostess to the waiter, is friendly. It's bright, festive, and most of all, fun. The Crofton restaurant opened in April in the space that housed Jasper's for more than two decades. Land and Sea Group, which owns Poncho N Pepe's along with several other area restaurants (including Buddy's on Main Street in Annapolis and Yellowfin Steak & Fish House)

When I heard about the campaign to keep tequila in the margarita cocktail, I perked up. The question of what makes a margarita legit may not be a major worry of the Western world, but it touches on the broader issues of cocktail-making tradition and cocktail purity. These are concerns that get me in a lather.The mere mention of the words gin rickey, for instance, starts me on a diatribe on how hard it is to find a bartender who knows how to make the proper version of this summer cocktail.

I don't know about you, but this weather has made me want to drink. Hoping to will sunshine and cool breezes, I've been ordering every fruity, refreshing cocktail I can get my pasty, white hands on. I yearn for a summer tan, sun dresses, surf, sand, picnics in the park. Perfect timing, then, for Miss Shirley's to answer the call with their spiked take on a summer classic: the Strawberry Margarita Spritzer•. You may be familiar with the non-alcoholic version; it's Shirley's most popular drink.

Those of us in the 200-Pound Drinking Men's Club of Maryland would like to thank House Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph F. Vallario Jr. for protecting our right to slam down six margaritas in an hour without having to fear being told to install some high-tech gadget on our cars to keep us from driving drunk again. Under legislation that passed the Maryland Senate under prodding by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, we 200-pounders would have been told by the Nanny State that we couldn't drink more than a measly three of our favorite tequila drinks in 60 minutes without the risk of being saddled with an ignition interlock device for six months.

Margarita Island, Venezuela's premier beach resort and one of the few remaining jewels in the Caribbean, has been reported ripe for plundering for years.Travel writers warn each year that bulldozers are poised at the edge of Margarita's white-on-white beaches, ready to flatten the dunes and make way for 20-story condos and hotels. Hurry up, they cry, before it's too late to enjoy this drowsy island paradise, before developers chase away the fishermen by poisoning the surrounding seas teeming with red snapper.

Tequila was consumed primarily by Mexicans until the 1970s when it began winning acceptance on the international market. Ten years later, exports constituted nearly half of annual production levels. Today, as in the past, the United States is the largest foreign customer of the brew, but sales have expanded to include more than 50 other countries, including Germany, Belgium, France, Canada, Scotland and Japan (famous for buying the best aged varieties which fetch about $60 per bottle).The invention of the margarita more than 20 years ago proved a boon for Mexico's tequila industry, and to this day it remains a big favorite with North Americans.

The pom is the bomb. The intense red pomegranate has become the summer's hipster fruit. We first found it last month in the delicious pomegranate margarita at Holy Frijoles in Hampden. This is a refreshing, not-too-sweet pink drink that perfectly complements warm summer evenings. Wondering if Holy Frijoles had a monopoly on the market, and desperate to find some more fantastic new drinks, The Sun went on a pomegranate pub crawl: nine bars in five hours, from Federal Hill to Canton to Mount Vernon.

To the untrained eye, the blood orange, which originated in 17th-century Sicily, might seem like any midsized orange or grapefruit that has passed its prime. On the contrary, the spotted crimson skin of a blood orange is perfectly normal. "Connoisseurs of citrus fruits consider these oranges to be among some of the world's finest dessert oranges," says Alan Davidson in The Penguin Companion to Food. There are three varieties of blood orange: the Moro, the Tarocco and the Sanguinello. Each orange ripens at different times of the year and is grown in immense quantities in the Mediterranean region.

The sticky evening air simmered with mariachi music, providing the perfect backdrop to enjoy the salty bite of a margarita. And that was only for starters at "Fiesta Latina 2001," a fund-raiser for Centro de la Comunidad. Many of the 200 guests browsed the buffet at Lista's Restaurant and danced up a storm to the Latin beat of Grupo Latino Continental -- both activities again requiring further margarita reinforcements for many of the participants. Among those at the party: Lilian Laszlo, event chair; Nancy Alexandrou, event committee member; Dr. Leonardo R. Ortega, Centro de la Comunidad board president; Dr. Magaly Rodriguez de Bittner, Antonio Salazar, Dr. Sonia Fierro-Luperini and Hector Torres, board members; Carmen Nieves, Centro de la Comunidad executive director; Jane Harrison, Abell Foundation senior program officer; Angelo Solera, Baltimore Health Department Hispanic community liaison; Ana Bertrando, Career Communications Group Inc. conference coordinator; Mario Armstrong, Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development IT manager; Bill Stagg, Prince George's County Hispanic Advisory Committee chair; Albert Smink, ARTEX Inc. safety manager; Vincent Talarico, retired General Electric vice president; Dr. Christos Davatzikos, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine professor of radiology; Wendy Senft and Sue Glick, English as a second language teachers; Susana Ptak, I.H. Services Inc. owner; Ruth Hernandez, David M. Lutz PA paralegal; and Ruth Crystal, Cramer.

Strawberry margarita Serves 1 This is my version of the margarita. It’s like a margarita got stilettos. 1 oz tequila blanco 1 oz fresh-squeezed lime juice Splash of lemon-lime simple syrup (see recipe below) 1 C strawberries and 1 C ice Combine all ingredients together in blender and blend until smooth. This recipe is a little light on the tequila, as I have some tequila horror stories I’m still living down. Feel free to ramp it up if you’re of stronger stock.

Those of us in the 200-Pound Drinking Men's Club of Maryland would like to thank House Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph F. Vallario Jr. for protecting our right to slam down six margaritas in an hour without having to fear being told to install some high-tech gadget on our cars to keep us from driving drunk again. Under legislation that passed the Maryland Senate under prodding by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, we 200-pounders would have been told by the Nanny State that we couldn't drink more than a measly three of our favorite tequila drinks in 60 minutes without the risk of being saddled with an ignition interlock device for six months.

Howard County has other places where you can get Mexican food, but a $100 margarita? I don't think so. Azul 17, Columbia's new Mexican restaurant and tequila lounge, offers more than 100 tequilas and 17 signature margaritas. It doesn't give those margaritas away, but none of them costs over $17. However, those who are feeling flush can order one of two other margaritas, which are assembled tableside: the Ultimate Margarita made with Tequila Patron Platinum for $40 or the Rockefeller Margarita made with Tequila Don Julio Real for $100.

Howard County has other places where you can get Mexican food, but a $100 margarita? I don't think so. Azul 17, Columbia's new Mexican restaurant and tequila lounge, offers more than 100 tequilas and 17 signature margaritas. It doesn't give those margaritas away, but none of them costs over $17. However, those who are feeling flush can order one of two other margaritas, which are assembled tableside: the Ultimate Margarita made with Tequila Patron Platinum for $40 or the Rockefeller Margarita made with Tequila Don Julio Real for $100.

Azul 17 (9400 Snowden River Parkway, Columbia, 410-309-9717) isn't Howard County's only Mexican restaurant, but it's certainly the one with the coolest vibe. The restaurant, which had its grand opening a couple of weeks ago, is as much a tequila lounge as eating place, with 17 signature margaritas (at what point do they stop being "signature," I wonder) and 17 signature cocktails. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Azul has a DJ playing international music. The decor is contemporary, with white leather booths, murals on the walls, and red and yellow glass light fixtures.

Ellicott City's La Palapa makes a good run of it. All at the same time, it operates as a family restaurant, a sports bar, a college-style happy-hour hangout and a few things in between. Mariachi bands stroll on Friday and Saturday nights, and folks take salsa lessons on Thursday night. I wouldn't think of it as a destination restaurant, but as a place to consider if you're in that area. The big attraction here, for my money, is the patio. There aren't too many outdoor-dining options in Ellicott City, and this is a good one. It's walled-in and set back a little from Main Street, so diners don't have to shout their conversations over traffic noise.

Last summer, 16-year-old Margarita Weintraub, a junior at Ransom Everglades High School in Miami, spent four weeks in Chile on a student exchange program conducted by the Experiment in International Living. "The whole experience was amazing," she said. She and her group of 12 toured Santiago, Chile's capital city, for a few days, then traveled to a small town where each lived with a different family. "While our brothers and sisters [the children of their host families] went to school, we went to classes.

Ellicott City's La Palapa makes a good run of it. All at the same time, it operates as a family restaurant, a sports bar, a college-style happy-hour hangout and a few things in between. Mariachi bands stroll on Friday and Saturday nights, and folks take salsa lessons on Thursday night. I wouldn't think of it as a destination restaurant, but as a place to consider if you're in that area. The big attraction here, for my money, is the patio. There aren't too many outdoor-dining options in Ellicott City, and this is a good one. It's walled-in and set back a little from Main Street, so diners don't have to shout their conversations over traffic noise.

If you just got off the train from Splitsville, you don't have to stay home on a Friday night in Fort Lauderdale. At least not last night. Christopher's, a local nightclub and restaurant, played host to what was billed as South Florida's biggest divorce party - the brainchild of divorcees Christina Rowe and Rosalind Sedacca, who have made careers of counseling others suffering in the aftermath of a marital breakup. The party, with an expected crowd of 400, was open to married people, too, but I decided to pass.

To the untrained eye, the blood orange, which originated in 17th-century Sicily, might seem like any midsized orange or grapefruit that has passed its prime. On the contrary, the spotted crimson skin of a blood orange is perfectly normal. "Connoisseurs of citrus fruits consider these oranges to be among some of the world's finest dessert oranges," says Alan Davidson in The Penguin Companion to Food. There are three varieties of blood orange: the Moro, the Tarocco and the Sanguinello. Each orange ripens at different times of the year and is grown in immense quantities in the Mediterranean region.