CALLING ALL RETRIEVERS, pugs, shih tzus, malamutes and mutts! Old Town Alexandria's Hotel Monaco and Jackson 20 are hosting "Doggie Happy Hour" every Tuesday and Thursday until October -- weather permitting.

Bring your pets out for some sunshine, snacks, and butt-sniffing in the courtyard of the hotel. From 5 to 8 p.m., your pups can feast on free gourmet treats and fresh water while you sip cocktails and enjoy appetizers prepared by Jackson 20 Chef Jeff Armstrong. The biweekly event is a great way for you and your pets to meet the neighbors.

» Jackson 20 and Hotel Monaco, 480 King St., Alexandria; 703-549-6080.

Written by Express contributor Suemedha Sood

DOPPELGANGERS Don Was and David Was, frontmen of Was (Not Was), are not really brothers. And those aren't their real names. But their music really is great and bouncy and fun.

This eccentric band plays at the Birchmere tonight.

» Birchmere, 3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria; 7:30 p.m., $35; 703-549-7500.

BACK WHEN Cafe Atlantico was the hottest spot in Penn Quarter, Christy Przystawik (then Velie) served as sous and executive chef under José Andrés. At the restaurant's peak, Przystawik dropped below the radar. But last year, she resurfaced, along with her husband, Tom, and her parents, with a new restaurant, Food Matters, in Alexandria.

"It was the culmination of several things," she said of her decision to walk away from Atlantico. One was a revelation prompted by Restaurant Nora's Nora Pouillon. "Nora asked us why we were making something with corn in January. I hadn't thought about it before," said Prystawik. "Eventually, I realized if I ever opened my own restaurant, I wanted to focus on local, seasonal ingredients."

Cameron Station is not just culinarily but physically removed from Penn Quarter — it's a tucked-away section of Alexandria. "We live in D.C. and consulted for other restaurants in D.C. and saw how hard it can be to open a place in town," said Przystawik.

Continue Reading "From the Heights to the Hood: Food Matters' Christy Przystawik" »

PAULA POUNDSTONE: comic, author, radio personality, Harry Potter wannabe.

"My children don't think in terms of travel time," she says, explaining why she's conducting a phone interview in a parking lot after picking up her kids. "If I were Mrs. Weasley and I could apparate everywhere; that would be so much easier."

Perhaps one would need magical powers to have a career as varied as Poundstone's: She got her start as a comic in the 1980s, her shtick being her spontaneous riffs on everything. She wrote political columns for Mother Jones, did voice work for the kid's show Science Court ("My knowledge of condensation is much improved"), is a panelist on the NPR news quiz "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" and more.

Though associated mostly with self-deprecating humor, cats and parenting jokes, Poundstone's oeuvre includes a hefty dose of politics.

Continue Reading "Politics & Witchcraft: Paula Poundstone Off the Top of Her Head" »

TO SUM UP: Mrs. Rabbit took a powder to the bakery, leaving Peter and his sisters, Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail to play in the forest. Peter disobeyed Mom, snuck into Mr. McGregor's garden and gorged himself on vegetables. We won't spoil the ending for you.

Every third Saturday, the Grill at Morrison House Hotel is serving Story Time Teas for children and their parents. Each reading is accompanied by book-themed tea services — the Children's Tea includes a pot of hot chocolate and finger sandwiches; the Traditional Tea offers homemade scones, brioche and curried chicken bites, and smoked salmon with chive creme fraiche on marble rye.

» The Grill at Morrison House Hotel, 116 South Alfred St., Alexandria; 703-838-8000. (King Street)

MOST HAPPY HOURS are already zoos, you say? The Smithsonian National Zoo's Great Ape House presents "Grapes With the Apes" on Thursday at 6 p.m. Join FONZ Young Professionals in tasting and learning about local wines from Virginia and Maryland wineries.

Area restaurants will provide the hors d'oeuvres and jazz/blues band Ready, Set, Go! will provide the live entertainment. All this -- plus a commemorative glass -- for $55. (FONZ members have to pay only $40.) Proceeds will benefit the zoo's conservation efforts.

» Smithsonian's National Zoological Park, 3001 Connecticut Ave. NW; 800-551-7328. (Woodley Park-Zoo)

MARCUS MILLER GARNERS SO MUCH ACCLAIM for producing Grammy-winning albums for artists including Miles Davis, Luther Vandross, Wayne Shorter and Aretha Franklin, it's easy to forget he's a formidable bassist and bandleader.

Miller's strength as a solo artist is illustrated on his new album, "Marcus," a captivating summation of his acumen with jazz, funk, R&B and pop. Intriguing covers of Miles Davis' "Jean Pierre," Denise Williams' "Free" and Robin Thicke's "Lost Without U" nestle among noteworthy originals.

He's been leading a touring band since 1991 and skews more toward Asia, Europe, South America and Africa than the U.S., hitting venues in his home country yearly. And on those tours, D.C. proves to be one of his most popular stops.

Continue Reading "From Studio to Stage: Marcus Miller" »

ERIC NELSON WASN'T AIMING to be perhaps Washington's top chocolate entrepreneur. He just wanted a place to sell his art.

The owner of several sweet businesses in Alexandria and the District spent 15 years with the Telecommunications Industry Association, lobbying Congress and moving up to become vice president for international affairs. Overseeing a staff of half a dozen, he traveled to Beijing, Prague, Brussels, Moscow and Sao Paolo to help American companies. Eventually, the constant travel, and resulting back problems and stunted social life, wore him down.

What brought him up was working in glass. Three blocks from the office was a design studio called Mosaic Makers. "It reminded me of classical Greek and Roman art," Nelson says. Imagining ancient friezes, he crafted 3-D, 2-foot-square wall hangings.

"It was time-consuming and messy," Nelson says with a grin. After the studio closed, he tried working at home — but papier-mache, clay and grout were tough to handle, and "there were shards of glass all over the house." At $2,000 to $4,000 each, too, sales were few. Galleries were difficult to deal with even before they kept half the proceeds. What was a newfound artist to do?

Change materials and venues, to start. He found a much lighter painting surface in Mylar, the stuff of fancy balloons. "One objective of starting as an artist later in life is wanting to do something unique," explains Nelson, now 51. "The light goes through the translucent paint and bounces out, so it's bright and bold and colorful."

Continue Reading "Change Artist: Non-Starving Artist Eric Nelson" »

SOMEBODY'S EATING WELL today — at the expense of some of their poorest neighbors.

More than 1,000 pounds of canned goods were stolen from a warehouse used by a group called Alexandrians Involved Ecumenically, or Alive, which provides food to needy Alexandria families. According to The Post's Theresa Vargas, the organization isn't sure when the food was taken, but it was sometime between late February and late March. Alive provides food for an estimated 12,000 people a year.

"To lose this much food in a theft is disheartening, to say the least," Alive President Gerry Hebert told The Post. "My first thought was, 'What are we going to do for getting food to people in the short term?'"

Continue Reading "Va. Food Bank Robbed of 1,000 Pounds of Goods" »

IT'S A WEEK OF BIG DEBUTS. While Nationals Park got most of the attention over the weekend, National Harbor — the $2 billion hotel-convention complex on the banks of the Potomac River in Prince George's County — is celebrating a big week as well: it's hosting its very first convention.

The gathering's at the Gaylord National, the largest non-casino hotel and convention center on the East Coast. According to spokeswoman Amie Gorrell, the hotel's first guests — an advance team from Saturn, the company inaugurating the building's convention space — checked in on Saturday.

Gorrell said the Saturn gathering is a "soft launch" for the complex — one that's closed to the public, so no peeping through the windows. The hotel's grand opening is scheduled for Friday, April 25.

While the Gaylord National is home to 2,000 rooms, an 18-story glass atrium and a 20,000-square-foot spa and fitness center, it isn't Metrorail accessible. And that's where the city of Alexandria, across the river in Virginia, hopes to come in.

Continue Reading "National Harbor's Grand Hotel Hosts Its First Guests" »