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March 11, 2026

Centreville Spy

Nonpartisan and Education-based News for Centreville

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Food Friday: Let’s Do Lunch

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My favorite meal of the day is lunch. Let’s go out for my favorite lunch, which is a BLT sandwich, with a scalding hot pile of crispy French fries. BLTs are reliably delicious and always seem celebratory.

No matter who makes the BLT, it will always spark joy. Miss Dee’s snack bar during our Washington College days offered an excellently greasy BLT, which was quite the perfect hangover cure. As I remember. Even if she was a little cheap with the potato chips. A large fountain Coke, with pearly pebbles of ice, helped cut through the extra bacon grease, as it refreshed and rehydrated. Ah, youth. Resuscitated and ready for more.

Post-grad, I would order club sandwiches when I was out for a grown up kind of luncheon, trying to signal familiarity with club life. Club sandwiches, with those extra layers of bread and turkey and fancy ruffled toothpicks, are just too baroque for purist me. I realized that club sandwiches didn’t signify sophistication, they were just unwieldy. They are not first date material. The bread would slide, mayonnaise would ooze, turkey was slimy and slippery, and where did the used toothpicks go on my plate? Simple is better.

During this summer tomato season I have been enjoying some delicious tomato sandwiches. Who doesn’t love thick slabs of tomato, carefully coated with a thick impasto of creamy mayonnaise, lightly salted with a cloud of Maldon, and a swift grind of fresh black pepper, on a raft of lightly toasted Pepperidge Farm white bread? But you know what would make a tomato sandwich even better? Of course you do. Bacon. Oooh. And some French fries. The potato chips will keep until cocktail hour.

Food52’s latest on BLTs

This is the Spy Test Kitchen’s favorite time of the year – when we pull out our annual sandwich ingredients list. Have an excellent school year!

I always loved that first day of school: new shoes, new notebooks, new pencils, and a pristine box of still-pointy, aromatic crayons. Though I always forgot about about my crippling anxiety about my locker combination. I never recalled the social implications of lunchroom seating during my leisurely summer, either. When I was a responsible parental-unit, I loved shopping for school supplies, and shoes, and new lunch boxes. It was only after the sun set on the night before school started that I confronted the horror: the woeful lack of organization in our lives.

While the young ’uns were setting out their new sneakers for the morning, and frantically paging through books that should have been read weeks before, I was peering into the fridge and taking stock of our jumble of foodstuffs. What nutritional and tempting combinations could I conjure that would actually be eaten? Once, when Mr. Sanders had been out of town for a very long business trip, we attempted to set a world’s record for eating pizza for every meal, for many days in a row. I understand that that sort of tomfoolery doesn’t set a good example nowadays with iPhones and social media.

Now all the cool kids carry cute, eco-friendly, bento box lunch boxes. There are cunning little compartments for vegetables, for fruits, for proteins. Some people cut vegetables on Sunday afternoons, and put them in the fridge for easy access on school mornings. They roll up lettuce wraps, dice carrots, prepare tuna salad, bake muffins and stack little cups of applesauce. These people also involve their children in the lunch assembly process. Loathsome creatures… The despair I often felt in those dark, early mornings racing to get lunches made before the school bus arrived no longer exists, because now those people are grown up and organized and thorough. And they use a lot of Door Dash.

While we are still leftover-dependent in this house, these folks know what to do about school lunch organization: Make Ahead Lunches
A handy guide to Sunday night preps: Make Ahead Prep And at Food52, the ever-clever Amanda always has some really fab lunch ideas. Amanda’s Clever Lunch Ideas

And now, with shameless drumroll, is the Spy Test Kitchen lunch list, which I haul out, shamelessly, every fall. Feel free to make your own spreadsheet, Google Doc or PowerPoint deck so you never have another moment of lunch ennui. The Test Kitchen came up with this flexible list of ingredients for packing school lunches a few years ago.
It is just as timely today:

Luncheon Variations

Column A
Let’s start with bread:
Ciabatta bread
Rye bread
Whole grain breads
Hard rolls
Portuguese rolls
French baguettes
Italian bread
Brioche rolls
Flour tortillas
Croissants
Bagels
Challah bread
Crostini
Cornbread
Naan bread
Focaccia bread
Pita bread
If storing overnight, layer bread with lettuce first, then add the spreads, to keep sandwich from getting soggy.

Column B
Next, the spread:
Mayo
Sriracha
Ketchup
Dijon mustard
Honey mustard
Italian dressing
Russian dressing
Cranberry sauce
Pesto sauce
Hummus
Tapenade
Sour cream
Chutney
Butter
Hot sauce
Salsa
Salsa verde

Column C
Cheeses:
wiss cheese
American cheese
Mozzarella
Blue cheese
Cream cheese
Havarti cheese
Ricotta cheese
Cheddar cheese
Provolone cheese
Brie cheese
Cottage cheese
Goat cheese

Column D
The main ingredient:
Meatloaf
T
urkey
Chicken
Corned beef
Bacon
Crumbled hard-boiled eggs
Scrambled eggs
Corned beef
Salami
Italian sausage
Ham
Roast beef
Egg salad
Tuna salad
Ham salad
Crab salad
Shrimp salad
Chicken salad
Turkey salad
Lobster salad
Tofu

Column E
The decorative (and tasty) elements:
Tomatoes
Lettuce
Basil
Onion
Avocado
Cucumber
Cilantro
Shredded carrots
Jalapeños
Cole slaw
Sliced apples
Sliced red peppers
Arugula
Sprouts
Radicchio
Watercress
Sliced pears
Apricots
Pickles
Spinach
Artichoke hearts
Grapes
Strawberries
Figs

Column F
Finger foods:
Cherries
Carrots
Strawberries
Green Beans
Broccoli
Celery
Edamame
Granola
Rice cakes
Apples
Bananas
Oranges
Melon balls
Raisins
Broccoli
Radishes
Blueberries

And because we live in a time of modern miracles, there are even apps for your phone so you can plan lunches ahead of time. Ingenious! LaLa Lunchbox and Little Lunches are among many apps.

“ ‘We could take our lunch,’ said Katherine.‘What kind of sandwiches?’ said Mark. ‘Jam,’ said Martha thoughtfully, ‘and peanut-butter-and-banana, and cream-cheese-and-honey, and date-and-nut, and prune-and-marshmallow…’”

—Edward Eager

Lunch ideas

Lunch Box Ideas

Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

From Grief to Growth: Another Healing Journey at Camp New Dawn

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One of the Spy’s favorite summertime engagements is with Compass Regional Hospice’s Camp New Dawn, a grief retreat for children held annually at Camp Pecometh near Centreville. In past summers, we have attended daily activities and grief workshops but this summer we wanted to take part in the commencement that included the children and their family members. The video includes Camp New Dawn Director Rhonda Knotts, Counselor Georgia Wilkerson, Camp Coach/Mentor Jane Anthony, and Assistant Director Mark Wade, a few of those who honored the children who attended.

For 31 summers, Camp New Dawn has welcomed grieving children, teens, and families from across the Mid-Shore to a retreat where they can share loss, build coping skills, and discover they are not alone. The four-day, three-night camp, hosted by Compass Regional Hospice, has become a lifeline for families navigating the isolating experience of grief.

“Most of us don’t talk about our grief in everyday life,” said Camp Director Rhonda Knotts. “Here, you don’t have to explain why you feel the way you do. Just being with others who are grieving makes the world a little brighter.”

Each day at Camp New Dawn blends activities, workshops, and group sessions that help campers identify and express their grief. This year’s program included testimony from a 19-year-old who lost her mother at 12 and went on to publish a book of poetry about her loss. “The kids were in awe,” Knotts recalled. “Kids listen to kids.”

From there, campers joined in centering exercises with singing bowls and superhero yoga stances before breaking into groups to discuss coping skills. “You can’t expect anyone—let alone kids—to sit in a support group for 90 minutes straight,” Knotts said. “So we create variety: inspiration, movement, conversation. It’s about meeting them where they are.”

The camp’s success depends on its volunteers and the generosity of the community. Donations range from art supplies and drinks to home-cooked meals. One supporter provided pounds of homemade macaroni and cheese for a Friday night dinner, “because kids love mac and cheese,” Knotts said with a smile.

That generosity extends beyond supplies. Nearly one-third of this year’s adult “buddies”—volunteers who are paired one-on-one with a camper—were once campers themselves. Others return year after year, transformed by the experience. “Our hope is that volunteers leave wanting to shout it from the rooftops,” Knotts said.

Georgia Wilkerson, a longtime Compass hospice nurse, has volunteered at Camp New Dawn for more than 20 years. Today, she helps lead grief groups.

“Showing up is the hardest part,” she said. “Once they’re here, we praise their courage and then guide them through activities that give language to what they’re feeling. A tummy ache, a headache—it might be grief. We help them connect the dots.”

For some children, words aren’t enough, so counselors use art, music, and color to help them express feelings. “What color is your grief?” Wilkerson might ask. “Sometimes that opens the door.”

Since its founding in 1994, Camp New Dawn has remained central to Compass’s mission. Knotts said the organization’s leadership is committed to its future. “Not every hospice has the resources to run something like this,” she said. “But our CEO told me recently: as far as she’s concerned, we’ll do whatever it takes to make sure Camp New Dawn never dries up.”

For the hundreds who have passed through its doors, the camp offers more than activities and meals. It offers connection, resilience, and hope. As Knotts put it: “Grief is universal. But when you share it, healing becomes possible.”

For more about Compass Region Hospice, go here.

 

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday: Last Chance!

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Tempus fugit, along with all the other Latin I have forgotten from high school. I was innocently wandering through the grocery store yesterday, through the produce department and its display of fancy cantaloupes that were neatly piled in bespoke net bowling ball bags, past the deli section, and around the corner toward the Gatorade aisle, when my eye wandered over to a sale wall. I expected to see back-to-school items – it’s almost the best time of the year, isn’t it? Maybe there would be piles of granola bars, or Bluey-themed water bottles. What I saw was even more horrifying: Halloween candy. It’s a million stinking degrees outside, there are hurricanes lurking off the coast of Africa, the hydrangeas are brown and panting for rain, but corporate America has determined a new timeline for me: now I need to confront the immediate future, which is candy corn and tiny 3 Musketeers bars. Where has summer gone?

We have two and a half months to live through before Halloween. To be honest, I am always in the camp that remembers to pick up the candy for trick or treating along about October 29th or 30th. The pickings are slim by then – which is why for the last couple of years I have done our Halloween candy shopping at Aldi – the tempting P.O.P. full-size Snickers bars were $1.19 each last year (though who knows what the tariffs will be doing to chocolate prices this year) and I could afford to be a neighborhood legend for the nearly half dozen children who come to our house. I am not about to spend money on candy corn and tiny 3 Musketeers bars in AUGUST.

No sirreebob. I am going to clutch and grasp at all the summer straws I have neglected thus far. I am going to make some lemonade from scratch. I am going to sit on the back steps and spit watermelon seeds out onto the lawn. I am going to Dairy Queen for a soft serve ice cream that will melt all over my hand and down my arm, and it will drip off my sticky elbow.

I haven’t shucked enough corn this summer, have you? I need to make more cole slaw. I haven’t shelled any peas, or strung enough beans. When did I last have a piña colada? College? (Why on earth do we have a blender now if not to remember our misspent youth, when we made frozen drinks using a blender and the convenient electrical outlet found in the baseball bleachers at Washington College?)

A couple of weeks ago Mr. Sanders and I were in Boston. Oysters were slurped. Lobster rolls were inhaled. Drawn butter was splashed everywhere. Baseball and hot dogs and French fries and Italian ice. That’s summer.

The farmers’ markets are burgeoning with perfection: peaches, pears, plums, watermelons, beans, berries, sunflowers, squash, zinnias, zucchini. Carpe diem, baby.

Spiked Watermelon Lemonade – let us kill a few birds with this stone.

I don’t see how I can possibly contemplate the idea of buying Halloween candy when I have yet to melt my own fingerprints while eating a scalding hot s’mores concoction. How can I move through the seasons without having had cotton candy? Or kettle corn? (Pro tip: kettle corn is a fabulous morning treat to nibble on while circling the farmers’ market on a Saturday. Just as healthy, I suspect, as Cap’n Crunch cereal, and just as disgustingly deelish.)

Sadly, my annual gardening ambition has not played out successfully. I am going to have to admit to defeat in growing tomatoes. We started out with four tomato plants. We are now down to three. The total harvest has been two tomatoes. Two. One tomato’s life cycle zipped from green, to rotten, overnight. The second tomato is still sitting on the kitchen window sill, readying itself to reach perfection while I am asleep one night this week. I am not enjoying much return on my investment. Another foolish summer romance. I will have to rely on the kindness of strangers, who can actually grow tomatoes, at the farmers’ market. I still aim to get my fill of summertime tomato sandwiches, with thick slices of sun-warmed tomatoes, and some tall frosty glasses of lemonade. Yumsters!

Go make some hay while the sun shines. Back-to-school and Labor Day are nearly here. Resist the siren song of Halloween candy corn. Can sweater weather and Christmas be far off?

“Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape.”
—Harper Lee

Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Going Beyond the Grant: Qlarant Foundation’s finds Novel Way to Help Its Applicants

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Leave it to Qlarant to take something as straightforward as philanthropy and find a way to make it even more impactful. Rather than stopping at annual grants of approximately $500,000 to a handful of selected charities—a small fraction of those that apply—the Foundation sought a way to offer lasting value to all applicants.

That search led Executive Director Amanda Neal to Catchafire, an online platform that connects nonprofits with a global network of more than 100,000 skilled volunteers. Through Qlarant Foundation, every organization applying for a grant now receives a full year of free access to expertise in marketing, fundraising, technology, HR, finance, and more. Since 2009, Catchafire has provided over one million hours of pro bono work—valued at more than $200 million—helping nonprofits strengthen operations, build capacity, and ensure long-term sustainability.

We invited Amanda to the Spy studio to share more about this new initiative and Qlarant Foundation’s expansion into two additional states where the organization’s presence is growing.

This video is approximately four minutes in length. For more information about the Qlarant Foundation, please go here. For Catchafire please go here.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Leaving on a Jet Plane by Laura J. Oliver

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By the time you read this, I will have flown across the Atlantic to London, then after a brief layover, on to Amsterdam to visit friends on their boat, then back to London to spend a week with my daughter and her family. 

Nine suitcases line the walls of my bedroom like the Standing Stones at Stonehenge, waiting to see which is going to be recruited for this particular trip. I wish, like Claire in Outlander, I could just fall through them into a time warp and regain consciousness in a boutique hotel overlooking a flower-lined Amsterdam canal. 

I should be excited, but if I can’t be Claire (who lands in the arms of that hot Scot, Jamie, without even packing), I’m wishing for a Star Trek transporter. Just beam me over there—I’ll accept the risk that my scattered atoms never reassemble if I don’t have to get the inevitable extra screening at Security checkpoints, eat airplane food, and use public bathrooms for the next 24 hours.

I sound ungrateful. I’m not. I just know that traveling without a tour director is stressful work until you’re there, and then it’s all worth it. “Deep breaths,” a friend suggests. But right now, that sounds suspiciously like what they told me about having a baby. “Just breathe and it’s painless!”

“You’re sure? That’s a thing?” 

“And when they put that baby in your arms, you’ll forget every excruciating hour it took to get him here!”

Wait! What??? 

Yeah, travel is like that.

Tonight, when I board the plane, I’ll still wonder where and when flight attendants sleep. I have never caught one snoozing, and yet after they put the plane to bed on these overnight flights, they just disappear. And they always look suspiciously fresh and neat in the morning. It’s like trying to catch a robin sleeping, or a squirrel. They must tuck in, but have you ever witnessed such a thing?

I have never seen a flight attendant enter or leave a restroom, either. I’m beginning to think I’m the only one who has noticed they are not technically human.

I was once walking through the airport in San Francisco and about 20 flight attendants from the United Emirates passed en masse.  I have never seen more beautiful women.  They were immaculately dressed in tan and red uniforms, and each had a gauzy strip of white fabric that fell down from one side of her cap to be pinned at one shoulder like a princess. 

The hordes of travelers flooding the concourse stepped aside to let them pass with an almost audible intake of breath, then closed behind them, staring, as if at the sudden appearance of a double rainbow or a meteor shower. You could almost hear the slogging American public mouthing to each other, “Did you see that?”

The opposite effect was had on Virgin America, where the purple interior lighting of the plane’s cabin, black uniforms, and the pulsating electronic disco music made it seem as if our first priority as passengers was not to learn where the exits were, but to get our groove on. 

But I’m flying British Airways tonight. No disco, no whimsy, and the wine will be marginal. 

There is a myth about travel— a subliminal promise that the trip will change you and your life in some way—that you will return different, transformed, with even your relationships improved. But research shows that the greatest happiness associated with travel is, in reality, looking forward to it. The minute you reach your destination, your happiness level returns to what it was before you left. (Publishing a book is much the same phenomenon.) After the rush of excitement, you’re still you, and the dog needs to be walked. 

Once in a while, we look at our lives and think…more of same and then I die. I was probably 30 the first time I thought that. Travel disguises that reality. It interrupts that slow slog with all the exciting things we are doing, and we have the boarding passes to prove it. But does it change anything?

I no longer carry that subtle illusion. I have traveled enough to know I will come back still me, with every failing and lack firmly in place. The only thing new will be the memories I carry and whatever I bought to remind me of the young driver whose father was a Moroccan shepherd, whose parents married at 14, who spent an hour trying to find me at the airport in the rain, then gave me a list of Dutch foods to try. And the hotel clerk with the shiny ponytail and Dutch accent who tried to find this non-planner museum tickets on her phone, a girl I could have adopted for her cute-factor, let alone her cheerful helpfulness.

I won’t be different, but what I will get from this trip is enough. To see more of this beautiful world and the daughter I love, my firstborn, for whom there was a time I never dreamed the sun would rise even once without her being in my world, this world, this country, possibly right down the street. But instead, she lives where when I sit down to dinner each night, it is already tomorrow. 

Maybe travel’s most significant lesson is about letting go of all you can’t control—embracing the unknown on the pure faith that you will, in fact, reach your destination sooner or later, that you are good enough as you are.

Travel enriches the time between now and then—when this trip we call life is over.
We take with us the experience that the world is full of kindness in the form of strangers, that we are all more alike than different. You would not know that if you had never crossed a border. And now it’s time to return to a place you’ve never been.

Maybe it will be like going through Passport Control—you front up, a Trusted Traveler, hand over your identification, and explain you have nothing to declare. You came with nothing, and you are leaving with nothing. 

You’re just ready to come home.

Laura J. Oliver is an award-winning developmental book editor and writing coach, who has taught writing at the University of Maryland and St. John’s College. She is the author of The Story Within (Penguin Random House). Co-creator of The Writing Intensive at St. John’s College, she is the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Fiction, an Anne Arundel County Arts Council Literary Arts Award winner, a two-time Glimmer Train Short Fiction finalist, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her website can be found here.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday: Delicious Summer Radishes

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When we can easily nosh away on zillions of packages of deelish crunchy and salty snacks, I like to remember the pure delight of radishes. They come in an assortment of colors and sizes, so they are a delight to behold. They are compact. You can fancy them up by carving them into roses (if you must) or you can enjoy them plain and unadorned.

I like to remember sitting on the back porch on summer evenings when I was a little girl, watching my father transform four uniform pink hamburger patties into the charbroiled hockey pucks of family lore on the tiny black hibachi. My brother and I would nibble on the raw, red-skinned radishes that my mother doled out to us in small Pyrex bowls, filled with bone-chilling ice water. How could anything so cold have such a spicy kick?

Cherry red, fuchsia, magenta, hot pink, carmine, crimson, scarlet, carnelian, vermilion, coral, cardinal, cerise – I could go through my art supply catalogues picking out the names of vivid reds and pinks all day long – radishes are deeply satisfying to look at, and to gobble up.

How can we resist the lure of fresh radishes? Especially when we get fancy, and doll them up with butter and a hint of Maldon salt? The butter truly tones down the peppery, hot flavor of radish and turns it into an indulgent treat. Dorie Greenspan says, “It’s a little trick the French play to bring foods into balance, and it works.” We have taken, recently, to adding paper thin coins of radishes to our homemade tacos. And then there is this Spicy Salsa, too.

For the data driven – radishes are high in fiber, riboflavin, and potassium. They are low in calories, and have lots of Vitamin C. They are a natural diuretic, and have detoxing abilities.
Radish facts
 
Though I prefer to dwell on the spicy flavor and the crunch.

Have you tried sliced radishes on buttered bread? They will jazz up your next tea party the way cucumber sandwiches never have. Although, if you were French, you would have been eating radishes on buttered slices of brown bread for breakfast for years. Mais oui!
Radishes on Brown Bread

And if you’d rather not be chasing after runaway disks of radishes escaping from your sandwiches, try this easy peasy radish butter. Yumsters!
Radish Butter

Consider the cocktail, and how easy it is to add some sliced radishes to your favorite Bloody Mary recipe. Our friends at Food52 think radishes in Bloodies are an excellent idea.

For your next book club meeting, here is a cocktail with literary aspirations: Radish Gin Cocktail I
I haven’t been able to find the Cocchi Americano at our liquor store, though. So I have left it out, and no one seems the wiser. Nor has it been noted by my well-read blue stockings that I also used Bombay instead of the requisite Dorothy Parker gin. (For the crowd that is used to extremely cheap white wine, this is an eye-opener, just like Uncle Willy’s in The Philadelphia Story. It packs a punch.)

Here’s one for Mr. Sanders to perfect: grilled steak with grilled radishes.
Grilled Steak

It makes me sad, though, to cook a radish. There are some vegetables that are meant to be eaten gloriously simple and raw – like fresh peas, carrots, green beans and celery. Luke the wonder dog agrees.

I think I will just mosey out to the kitchen now and cut the tops off some fresh, rosy red radishes. Then I’ll slice off the root ends, pretend that I can carve the little globes into beauteous scarlet rosettes, and plop them into a small bowl of ice water. Then I will sprinkle some crunchy Maldon salt flakes over the clumsy rose petal shapes I have created, and eat one of my favorite root vegetables. Something spicy to enjoy as we await hurricane updates and anticipate the end of one spectacularly hot summer.

“We all have hometown appetites. Every other person is a bundle of longing for the simplicities of good taste once enjoyed on the farm or in the hometown left behind.”
—Clementine Paddleford

Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Check Yes or No by Laura J. Oliver

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A friend and I drove up to Lakeshore Elementary School a few months ago, pulled into the circular drive by the flagpole (still there!), and reminisced a bit about our early school days. The mysteriously-named school, which is in sight of neither a lake nor a shore, looked nearly the same except, (swear!) they somehow had shrunk the cafeteria! What had been cavernous and in memory, plastered with Fire Prevention Week posters, was now the size of my neighbor’s 3-car garage. “That’s just amazing!” I said, and we stared at each other in mutual confirmation that this strange phenomenon had in fact happened. 

My first-grade teacher was Mrs. Bush, probably in her sixties at the time, and I didn’t love her, but I did love learning, which spilled over onto her. Isn’t it funny how that works? Love of learning becomes love of teacher, serving the dependent becomes love of your babies. Proximity becomes love of the familiar? That last one is a researchable brain thing. We tend to love those we live with or see a great deal whether or not we would love them in other circumstances. Before you think about that too much (seriously, you may not want to go there), let me give you an easy example: like work families. As novelist Ocean Vuong says, there are families you are born into, found-families you create from friends, and families of circumstance, and we bond with them all. At least for a time. 

I could add here that research shows we also have a subliminal, involuntary preference for people whose names start with the same letter as our own, but I digress.

I felt very comfortable with Mrs. Bush— occasionally embarrassing myself by calling out, “Mom” when I raised my hand. But the magic began when we broke into reading groups—thinly-disguised, grossly-inaccurate estimations of our potential–Red Birds, Blue Birds, and just well, Birds. I can prove this distinction was bogus as I know several Blue Birds who grew up to be so wildly successful, they could buy and sell Red Birds a thousand times over.

Like 80 percent of American schoolchildren at the time, we were learning to read through the adventures of Dick and his sidekick, Jane. The siblings-simple also possessed the spunky Spot—and eventually added “Baby” to the family. This was the era of the Whole-Word teaching method, which later fell out of vogue—beginning with a Life Magazine article questioning how children could be inspired to read with insipid content. 

But I, for one, aspired to insipid. I envied the very symmetrical, always-smiling, banal family of four featured in our Readers. “Fun with Dick and Jane” looked fun because it was benign, because it was wholesome. All bets were off with those crazy kids in the sequel, “Dick and Jane Go, Go, Go!” 

Discredited or not, I remember the incredulity of watching letters become words. It was as magical as Helen Keller at the well when Annie Sullivan spelled w-a-t-e-r into her palm and she abruptly understood that those movements were a symbol that identified a thing–the rush of wetness spilling from the well pump she could neither hear nor see. It was like that—the moment letters became words I too could see the world. Now everything was accessible.

Learning to read quickly morphed to the delight of learning to print, then to write in cursive (the sole purpose of which is to let us print faster). Did you know there was a time in ancient Greece when a thriving civilization forgot how to write? For centuries? 

From 1100 BC to 800 BC, the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations deteriorated, and Greece entered its Late Bronze Age Collapse and subsequent Dark Age. Many skills, including writing, were lost because there was no longer a need for record-keeping. Humanity had to invent writing all over again like coming back from an extinction event. 

Though we would like to believe otherwise, maybe there is nothing that can’t be forgotten. 

Perhaps Lakeshore Elementary once looked over a lake, the name, now the only way we might know. 

We passed notes there in secret to classmates we thought we’d remember. 

I like you. 

Do you like me? 

Check yes or no.

Laura J. Oliver is an award-winning developmental book editor and writing coach, who has taught writing at the University of Maryland and St. John’s College. She is the author of The Story Within (Penguin Random House). Co-creator of The Writing Intensive at St. John’s College, she is the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Fiction, an Anne Arundel County Arts Council Literary Arts Award winner, a two-time Glimmer Train Short Fiction finalist, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her website can be found here.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday: Sweet Summer Corn, Redux

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This is a summer rerun – Mr. Sanders and I have deposited Luke the wonder dog at the dog spa, and we are headed for cooler climes. Happy summer!

I love the simplicity of summer cooking, but, as you know, my personal summertime philosophy is to send as much of the cooking outdoors with Mr. Sanders and his grill, as often as I possibly can, without seeming churlish. I need to figure out what dishes I can bring inside, without compromising myself. And that is why I looked into what the cast-iron frying pan can do.

Instead of wandering aimlessly around the internet, and relying on my favorite hangouts at Food52 or Bon Appétit, I thumbed through some of my actual printed cookbooks for some ideas. One of my batter-flecked, cracked-spine cookbooks provides me with hours of entertainment: The Southerner’s Cookbook: Recipes, Wisdom, and Stories From the Editors of Garden & Gun. These are well-researched recipes, which are kitchen-tested, as well as being traditional and time-tested.

I want to enjoy sweet corn for the rest of the summer, or as long as our farmers’ market sells it. Here is a great recipe from Garden & Gun for Cast-Iron Charred Corn:
8 ears of corn, husks and silk removed
1/4 cup finely diced bacon
1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 cup minced Vidalia onion
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon minced fresh chives

To removed the corn kernels, cut off the ends of each ear to make flat surfaces. One at a time, stand the ears in a wide casserole dish and carefully cut down the sides with a sharp knife. Next, hold each cob over a bowl and scrape the back edge of the knife to remove the “milk”. Discard the milked ears and set liquid aside.
Place a cast-iron skillet over medium-high eat. Add the cut corn kernels to the pan and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, tossing occasionally. Add the bacon and continue to cook until the kernels are slightly charred and the bacon begins to crisp, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and set aside.
In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the onion and cook until softened, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the corn “milk”, the charred corn and bacon mixture, and the cream. Reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring often, for 4 to 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with the chives and serve hot. And now you will never need to read the recipe again. You can add this to your summer side dish rotation, but it can also ease you into fall.

Oh, look! It’s also available online: Cast Iron Charred Corn

We’ve also got to give the Food52 city slickers their due: Food52 Fried Corn with Bacon

I like to steam corn-on-the-cob in a big pot, with just an inch of water, and a collapsible metal vegetable steamer. If we have a crowd I use the big lobster steamer pot. This is a highly theatrical production, full of drama and steamy special effects. On the other hand, Mr. Sanders prefers giving corn the outdoor treatment – he wraps the ears of corn in great sails of aluminum foil, dotted with gobs of butter, which he then tosses onto the sizzling grill. I suspect he is reliving Boy Scout camping trips. Some of the corn must be burnt and charred, just in case you wondered how to tell it was done.
Grilled Corn

I love the idea of using raw everything. I make this early in the day, and let it steep in the fridge, becoming more flavorful by the moment as we lope along toward dinner. No fuss, no muss. And it uses local produce, thus reducing my carbon footprint. This means I have been virtuous enough for one day, and now we can use the blender to whip up a few frozen cocktails before dinner.

Amagansett Corn Salad
Serves 4
8 ears of white corn
2 quarts cherry tomatoes
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 medium red onion
(Optional)
1 quart sugar snap peas
(Optional)
1 handful rough-chopped basil or flat-leaf parsley
Salt, pepper

1. Strip raw corn from ears. Yep, raw. You can use a fancy corn stripper or just run your chef’s knife down the side of each ear about 8 times.
2. Slice all cherry tomatoes in half or quarters depending on your preference.
3. Chop the red onion into a large dice.
4. If using the sugar-snap peas (they can be hard to find when the corn and tomatoes are available — their seasons barely overlap, and even then you’re likely getting corn and tomatoes from the south and sugar snaps from the North.) Anyway, if using them, cut in half or thirds to make more bite-sized. If you’re not using them, and you want a little green for visual appeal, some rough chopped basil or flat-leaf parsley will do the trick.
5. Toss all vegetables in a bowl, along with the vinegar, salt and pepper.
Add a crusty loaf of warm peasant bread, with some fresh sweet butter and a nice cold, crisp, cheap white wine. It is a perfect, light summer meal. We can use some leftover corn salad tossed with elbow macaroni and oil and vinegar for lunch the next day. Two meals, one prep — equals perfection. Yumsters!

“A light wind swept over the corn, and all nature laughed in the sunshine.”
— Anne Brontë

Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

The American Journey of Estela Ramirez

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As the Mid-Shore community continues to come to terms with the recent ICE arrest of Pastor Daniel Espinal in Easton two weeks ago, the Spy thought it was important to remind our readers of the powerful stories of so many immigrants in our area—people who risked everything to escape violence and hardship in their home countries and who, over time, have built new lives and become American citizens.

And there is no better example of this recently than Estela Ramirez.

On Saturday, April 12, 2025, Estela, a longtime staff member of ChesMRC, became a U.S. citizen. Her journey began 25 years ago, when she came to Easton from Honduras at the age of 14 with her younger brother. Raised by grandparents, it was the first time she had been with her mother since childbirth.

Despite early hardships and living undocumented, Estela thrived in high school, worked hard to support her family, and volunteered with ChesMRC before joining the staff in 2015. With DACA protections and later a green card, she pursued citizenship, which was granted this year. As the Now Health Program Manager, Estela remains a vital advocate, drawing on her own experience to serve and uplift her community.

The Spy asked Estela to stop by our studio to tell this remarkable story.

This video is approximately eight minutes in length. For more information about the 

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The Search for Answers for the Annapolis Capital Gazette Murders: A Chat with Author Thomas Marquardt

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On June 28, 2018, Jarrod Ramos attacked the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis. Armed with a shotgun and explosives, he opened fire, killing five members of the Capital’s editorial staff. It remains the deadliest workplace shooting in Maryland history.

Thomas Marquardt, the then-publisher and editor of the newspaper, remains severely traumatized to this day by this senseless act of violence. Still, unlike countless others who survive such an event, Tom’s career as a journalist provided him with unique skills and motivation to dig deeper, find better answers for this unforgivable act of terror. Years of research have finally resulted in the publication of Pressed to Kill: Inside Newspapers’ Worst Mass Murder.

Beyond the sometimes cathartic effects of writing the book to address his own lingering trauma from that tragic day,  Tom is also on a mission to use the book to put a spotlight on workplace violence and what businesses and their owners can do to help protect their employees.

The Spy spoke with Tom last week about this book in advance of his conversation with Spy publisher Dave Wheelan and For All Seasons CEO Beth Anne Dorman on August 6th, as part of the Leadership Maryland Alumni gathering at the Waterfowl Building.

This video is approximately eight minutes in length. To purchase Pressed to Kill please go here. 

Leadership Maryland Alumni Engagement Speaker Forum
August 6 at 6:30 p.m
Waterfowl Festival Building (40 S. Harrison St., Easton) 

In Conversation with author Tom Marquardt with Beth Anne Dorman, President & CEO of For All Seasons

Free and open to the public.
Register at leadershipmd.org.

Café-style seating with complimentary non-alcoholic beverages provided by Saucy Salamander Catering.
Venue sponsored by Deena Kilmon, Executive Director, Waterfowl Festival.

 

 

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.