Aquarium Dinner

The National Aquarium in Baltimore is hosting a series of dinners based on sustainable seafood, called The Fresh Thoughts Series. Each dinner begins with a cooking demonstration by one of the many talented chefs working in Maryland, followed by a multi-course feast featuring one sustainable seafood ingredient. This season the series kicked off with Galen Sampson, the owner/chef of The Dogwood Restaurant in Hampden. The featured ingredient was oysters, which are being farmed now by several companies around the Chesapeake. As he presented his cooking demonstration Chef Sampson told stories of growing up in Reisterstown and getting oysters with his dad from roadside vendors. They would take the oysters home and crack them open using various items from the toolbox. The menu Chef Sampson came up with was a far cry from those front-yard oyster shucking bouts, but it was very clear that the mollusks captured his imagination at a very young age. (View Full Menu)

The next dinner (Nov. 3), with Gertrude's Restaurant chef John Shields, will feature trout. (View Full Menu)

Links:
Chef Sampson used oysters from the following aquaculture farms:
The Choptank Oyster Company
Rapphannock River Oysters, LLC

National Aquarium in Baltimore

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Philippe Cousteau films a PSA in Annapolis

On August 29 I was very lucky to be able to help out on a public service announcement shoot for the United Nations Environment Programme. The goal of this PSA is to raise public awareness of the "Seal the Deal" campaign for a comprehensive world-wide climate agreement at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark this December. After you watch this video, you might want to surf over to the campaign homepage to sign the petition and get more information about this worthy cause.

Overseeing the production of the PSA were producer Michele Abbott (one of the creators of the hit Showtime drama series The L Word), writer/director Jeffery Nachmanoff (Traitor, The Day After Tomorrow) and cinematographer Jimi Whitaker (Crossing Over, King of California). The spot stars a cast of luminaries such as actor Don Cheadle, Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai, concert violinist Midori Goto, and several prominent environmentalists and conservationists including Philippe Cousteau, the Founder and CEO of EarthEcho International. Like his grandfather Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Philippe is well known to fans of nature documentaries everywhere. He happens to live in Washington DC and he recommended the beach behind the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Philip Merrill Environmental Center in Annapolis as the location for his segment of the PSA. His message, about how warming seas could cause climate change that leads to disasters like Hurricane Katrina, was recorded against the beautiful backdrop of the late-summer Chesapeake, and we filmed the final shots as the setting sun lit up the skies and clouds in dramatic colors.

The producers chose a digital SLR camera, the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, to record their images in HD video. Not only is the camera light and compact compared to dedicated video or film equipment, you can choose from dozens of Canon lenses to help you get the exact image that you want in many kinds of lighting situations.

Many thanks to Mich, Jeff, Jimi and Philippe for allowing me to record this footage during the shoot, and special thanks to audio engineer Bill Kaplan, my good friend who asked me if I wanted to tag along when he was hired for this project.

You can see the finished PSA at www.sealthedeal2009.org! A little teeny version of me appears in one of the still photos from the Cousteau shoot. The video itself will be unveiled on Friday, Sept. 18th.

If you've never been to the Philip Merrill Center, I think it's well worth a visit. There's a long stretch of pretty beach in the back, and the structure itself is an award-winning "green" building. To tour the interior though, you have to make an appointment about two weeks in advance... HometownAnnapolis.com has details on booking a tour.


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