Marvelous Market founder 'loathes' pro sports, heads to museums
By: Kytja Weir
Examiner Staff Writer
November 8, 2009
Mark Furstenberg
Artisan baker, chef and founder of Marvelous Market, Breadline and the new G Street Food
Personal stats
Age: 71
Number of years in D.C.: I've been here forever. I moved here in 1961 and went away to graduate school and moved back. Then I was recruited by my friend Barney Frank to go work for the city of Boston. I did that for a while and then I moved back.
Neighborhood: Kalorama
FAVORITE NEIGHBORHOOD HANGOUT
My own kitchen.
BEST MODE OF TRANSPORTATION
I guess walking.
FAVORITE LOCAL SPORTS EVENT
I loathe professional sports. I have to tell you that I'm afraid I'm going to flunk out on that one. I think professional sports is all about money and I don't follow it anymore, although I was an avid Orioles and Colts fan as a kid and even marched in the Baltimore Colts marching band.
BEST PLACE FOR LIVE MUSIC
The Kennedy Center
BEST PLACE FOR OUT-OF-TOWN VISITORS
The Lincoln Memorial ... It's the most beautiful and impressive spot in Washington.
BEST BREAKFAST SPOT
G Street Food [1706 G St NW], of course. How can I say otherwise?
FAVORITE MUSEUM
I guess the Phillips gallery. I also like the Baltimore Museum of Art very much, though... And I love the National Gallery. I do spend time in museums. The time I'm not wasting on professional sports, I can spend in museums.
MOST ROMANTIC SPOT
I would say the Tidal Basin, particularly in the spring.
FAVORITE WAY TO SPEND A LAZY SUNDAY
I love reading the newspapers and then going to the Baltimore Farmers' Market. I don't know whether that qualifies as lazy or not but to me that qualifies as pleasant ...It's real. It's not yuppy. It's authentic. It has mixtures of vendors and mixtures of clientele. It's a much better urban market than any that we have in Washington, largely because of its heterogeneity, its heterogeneity of vendors and of customers. It's really special.
BEN'S CHILI BOWL, OLD EBBITT GRILL OR CAFE MILANO?
That's hard. I know you would think I would say Ben's Chili Bowl, but I think it's one of those icons that achieved iconic status undeservedly. I think its food is awful. Caf? Milano is so pretentious. And I guess Old Ebbitt would be my choice of the three of them, but I don't ever go there ... I would choose none of the above.
BEST OUT-OF-TOWN RETREAT
The two places I most love going are Napa Valley and small-town Vermont.
BEST INSIDE-THE-BELTWAY RETREAT
Dumbarton Oaks [research library, garden and museum, 1703 32nd Street, NW]
BEST PLACE FOR LATE-NIGHT EATS
I'm a baker. What do I know about late nights?...The bar at Citronelle [3000 M St NW].
BEST BOOKSTORE
Are you crazy? My sister owns and is the founder of Politics and Prose [5015 Connecticut Ave. NW]. But there's no bookstore remotely as good.
BEST PLACE TO PEOPLE WATCH
CityZen restaurant [1330 Maryland Ave SW] ... It attracts a lot of people from the Hill as well as other political types like lobbyists, and everyone tends to be very nicely dressed, which is important to me. And it attracts people who are earnest about food. So I like to watch people eat if they're seriously, not serious, but seriously interested in their food.
MOST 'D.C.' MOMENT
I was on the White House staff in the Kennedy administration and was standing on the South Lawn after the president's assassination when the helicopter landed and Lyndon Johnson and McGeorge Bundy and Robert McNamara got out of the helicopter and Lyndon Johnson entered the Oval Office for the first time... I've had a lot of dramatic moments in my life as most people have, but that is a moment I remember so vividly that I think about it frequently.
PROUDEST PART OF LIVING IN THE NATION'S CAPITAL
Some years after I started Marvelous Market, a woman stopped me in the parking lot of my neighborhood supermarket store, Snider's in Silver Spring, and said to me, "I just want you to know that you've made a nice little difference in our lives." And that's the way I feel about what I've done in the food business -- that I've made a nice little difference in the lives of some people.
EMBARRASSING PART OF LIVING IN D.C.
It ended with George Bush.
-- Kytja Weir
