Midday

It’s What Ya Got Cookin'?, our occasional spotlight on traditional cooking and food preparation. Today on Midday, three great local chefs join Tom to talk about their cooking journeys, and offer ideas on how to make our 4th of July holiday gathering festive and fun.We begin with a young chef from Baltimore who is making her mark on national television. Turn on the TV any night of the week and you are bound to run across a cooking competition show. There’s plenty of excitement and lots of folks consider it a great opportunity to elevate their cooking ambitions with techniques from some of the best chefs, the best bakers, and the best grill masters from around the country. In fact, more than a few competitors come from our very own backyard right here in Baltimore.Keanu Hogan joins us. She is featured in this season’s Hell’s Kitchen: Young Guns Edition on Fox. All the contestants are in their 20’s, and they compete under the critical eye of chef Gordon Ramsey.Keanu Hogan is a private chef here in Baltimore who runs Thee Perfect Bite, LLC. She joins us on Zoom….Tom's second guest is Chef David Thomas. He is another one of our Baltimore chefs who found himself in a competitive cooking television battle in 2018. He walked away with the Grand Champion Title in the television series “Chopped.” Chef Thomas and his wife Tonya Thomas are the founders of the H3irloom Food Group. Chef David Thomas joins us on Zoom…Tom's final guest on this 4th of July Edition of Midday's What Ya Got Cookin'? series is Chef Damian Mosley, the founder of Blacksauce Kitchen. Blacksauce Kitchen is a mobile food business in Baltimore that recently opened a new storefront on 29th Street in the city's Remington neighborhood.Their signature creation is handmade biscuits. If you’ve ever had one at one of the local farmers markets, you know why the lines to get them are always significant. Damian Mosley founded Blacksauce Kitchen in 2010. You can also see Damian and his crew at the Waverly Farmers Market every other Saturday. He joins us today on Zoom…

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Tastee Towers Strawberry Shortcake Dessert Trifle

Chef Keanu Hogan mentioned this recipe on the show today. It's a sweet little dessert that's perfect for 4th of July entertaining.Ingredients:8 oz pound cake16 oz heavy cream (cold)2-4 tbsp powdered sugar1 tsp vanilla bean paste8 oz diced strawberries1 tsp honey (or sweetener of choice)zest of half a lemonInstructions:1. In a small bowl combine strawberries, honey, lemon zest and a squeeze of lemon juice. Mix thoroughly and set aside.2. Using a hand or stand mixer, whip the heavy cream for about five-ten minutes until it begins to thicken. You want the cream to be whipped to firm peaks which mean you can scoop it and it won’t fall off your spoon.3. Add vanilla paste, powdered sugar and fold carefully. Taste and adjust flavoring.4. Cut your pound cake into dice sized pieces. This doesn’t need to be perfect and the more crumbly it is, the better.5. In a glass dessert trifle jar (or mason jar) layer your pound cake in one even layer. You can then layer your whipped cream, then macerated strawberries. Continue to layer until you are out of ingredients or your jar is full. Top with mint or lemon zest and ENJOY!!!

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Today, it’s Teacher Appreciation Day on Midday. We’d love to hear from you if you’d like to give a shout-out to a teacher who is a favorite of yours or students in your household…

What will the long-term impact of the COVID crisis be on City students? What can teachers, students and staff expect when they return to full-time in-person learning in the fall?

Tom's first guests today are a married couple who juggled caring for their two young children with caring for some of your children in their virtual and in-person classrooms this year. Jessalyn Timson teaches math in the Ingenuity Project at James McHenry Elementary/Middle School, a neighborhood school a few blocks away from the B&O Railroad Museum on the West Side of Baltimore. She’s been teaching in Baltimore City for 12 years. She’s also taught at her alma mater, Poly High School and at the KIPP Ujima School.James Todaro has taught computer science and math at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute High School (Poly High) on Cold Spring Lane in north Baltimore, for 15 years. He also advises the ski and snowboard club, and the It’s Academic team...

Then, Tom talks with Diamonté Brown, the president of the Baltimore Teachers Union, about what’s on the mind of her membership as teachers and students prepare to go back to full, in-person learning in the fall. Ms. Brown, a former middle school teacher, was elected to lead the 7,000 members of the Baltimore Teachers Union in 2019.

Tom's final guest today is the 2021 Baltimore City Public Schools Teacher of the Year. Sidney Thomas teaches social studies at the Holabird Academy, a neighborhood elementary/middle school in O’Donnell Heights in Southeast Baltimore.

Comments or questions? Want to give a shout-out to your favorite Baltimore City school teacher? Call us at 410.662.8780. email [email protected], or Tweet us @MiddayWYPR. All our guests joined us today on Zoom.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

It's time for another visit with Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck, who joins Tom this week with reviews of two new streaming productions by local theater companies.

The first, from Bethesda-based Round House Theatre, is playwright Young Jean Lee's"We're Gonna Die." Directed by Paige Hernandez, is part one-woman stage play and part live-band rock concert that ponders the slings and arrows that befall us in life, and the resilience it takes to survive."We're Gonna Die" will be streaming on demand through July 11.

Single Carrot Theatre's "I Hope This Finds You..." is described by the company as "a compilation of artistic experiences" that variously reflect on the pandemic's impact on cast members' lives this past year. The virtual production is being streamed in three "chapters": the first two are available now; the third chapter will be released on July 1. Each chapter includes a mix of "short films, artful meal-kits, mock podcasts, interactive exercise class and audio walking tours." "I Hope This Finds You..." is streaming to ticketed patrons through July 31. Follow the links above for more information on both productions.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

In the 1800s, they called it “Mobtown.” In the 1970s, a PR campaign dubbed it “Charm City.” By the 90s, locals in certain parts of the city referred to it as “Bodymore, Murderland.”

Whatever you call it, for those of us who call Baltimore home, or for those who are visiting for the first time, a new book surveys the places and people who have made our town what it is. It provides richly illustrated back stories about some of those places and people, offers a convenient compendium of essential facts, and dispels a myth or two.

The book is called A History Lover’s Guide to Baltimore (The History Press/Arcadia Publishing).

Tom's guests today are the co-authors, local writers and former City Paper journalists Tom Chalkley and Brennan Jensen. They join us on Zoom.

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For months, the world’s leading science journals have been filled with the news of research trials on new drug treatments for disorders such as post-traumatic stress syndrome, clinical depression, and drug and alcohol addiction. What makes these treatments so remarkable is that they employ two powerful psychedelics, or hallucinogenic, compounds that provide patients with significant - and lasting - relief.The startling results have spring-boarded two once-taboo drugs – psilocybin and MDMA (aka "Ecstasy") – into mainstream medicine. Both psychedelics appear to be moving toward eventual FDA approval for clinical therapeutic use. Some states have already made them legal.

Today on Midday: the potential, and perils, of psychedelic psychiatry. Two of the nation’s leading researchers in this burgeoning field join Tom for the hour:

Dr. Rick Doblin is the founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. MAPS is a Boston-based non-profit research, education and advocacy organization. Dr. Doblin leads more than a hundred neuroscientists, pharmacologists and regulatory specialists on a mission to bring psychedelic psychiatry into the medical mainstream. Dr. Doblin joins us on our digital line (and Zoom) from New York City…

Dr. Roland Griffiths is a psycho-pharmacologist and professor of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He’s also a specialist in mind-altering meditation practices, and the founding director of the two year-old Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. He is the author of a landmark 2006 study showing the beneficial effects of psilocybin. Dr. Griffiths join us on Zoom.

Our guests also address listener questions and comments.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Today on Midday, it’s Midday on Foreign Affairs. Tom's next guest is Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, the president and CEO of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. She formerly served in the Obama Administration as a senior adviser at the State Department and as a policy director for Michelle Obama.

Ms. Vignarajah describes the uncertain prospects for Afghans who have been serving the US military as translators, fixers and other capacities. They are frustrated and fearful of retribution now that the United States is ending its 20-year presence in Afghanistan and beginning final troop withdrawals— even as the country's indigenous, anti-Western Taliban forces are once again ascendant. The ILRS is urging the Biden Administration to begin evacuating America's Afghan allies to safety outside the country.

Ms. Vignarajah also discusses the continuing humanitarian crisis along the US southern border, where thousands of Central American migrant families and asylum seekers endure difficult transit and detention conditions, and face uncertain prospects for safe passage into America.

Krish Vignarajah joins us on our digital line from Syracuse, New York.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Today on Midday, it’s Midday on Foreign Affairs. We begin with a perspective on what was achieved during last week’s summit in Geneva between President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Tom's guest is Melvin Goodman. He served for 42 years in government service, including positions at the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department, and the National War College. Today he’s a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University.

Melvin Goodman joins Tom on Zoom from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Tom's Newsmaker guest today is Dr. Sonja Santelises, the CEO of the Baltimore City Public Schools.

Summer school is underway in the city four days a week, and the need for many students to address learning loss that arose during this past, tumultuous academic year is great. By the end of last month, 65% of secondary students and half of elementary students were failing at least one class.

When school resumes in the fall, all students and teachers will return to their classrooms. What can they expect then? What were the lessons learned this year about incorporating on-line resources that will inform the district’s approach to teaching and learning in the future? Have the problems that many students encountered getting on-line this year been addressed?

Dr. Sonja Santelises joins us on Zoom…and addresses listener comments and questions.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

It’s Midday on Ethics, another in our regular series of conversations with Jeffrey Kahn, PhD, MPH, the director and professor of Bioethics and Public Policy at The Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.

The news about COVID-19 in Maryland continues to improve. For the second day in a row, no one has died from the disease in our state, and health officials are reporting fewer than 50 new cases. Our positivity rate is nearly 90% lower than it was in April.

About 3.2 million Marylanders have been fully vaccinated so far. More than 73% of people in our state have received at least one dose. If you have not been vaccinated yet, we urge you to discuss your reasons for not getting a jab with your doctor.

If you are you one of the nearly 150 million Americans who have been fully vaccinated against COVID 19, there’s an app for that: in Europe. The European Union has a new app that certifies that people have been vaccinated, or that they had had a prior COVID infection. Will the United States follow suit? And if so, who should develop the app, and to whom will the data about vaccinations be reported? What should the respective roles of private industry and government be?

Today on Midday on Ethics, we examine the ethics of vaccine authentication.

Dr. Jeffrey Kahn joins Tom today on Zoom.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

On June 19th, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3 in Galveston, Texas, declaring that all slaves were free, two months after Confederate General Robert E. Lee had surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Appomattox, Virginia, ending the Civil War.

Tom's guest today is the author and historian, Annette Gordon-Reed. She has written a beautiful peroration on the meaning of the holiday that marks the anniversary of that event. It is at once an homage to her home state of Texas and a wholly original and fascinating exploration of how history and legend and myth all shape what we learn when we’re young, how our understanding evolves as we grow older, and how social dynamics inform the evolution of societal understanding as well.

Professor Reed writes with erudition and grace, authority and humility, weaving a touching personal memoir into the stark reality of a harsh historical record.

The book is called On Juneteenth. The author spoke about it with Tom on June 11th. Because our conversation was recorded earlier, we can’t take any calls or comments.

Annette Gordon-Reed joined us on our digital line from her home in New York.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.