Devastatingly Sad News - Chef Aaron McCloud Passes Away at Age 38

[Bob Wells]

Speaking of Ashburn, my friend Warren Rojas posted this link on FB this morning. Just awful. 

[DonRocks]

36 minutes ago, Bob Wells said:

Speaking of Ashburn, my friend Warren Rojas posted this link on FB this morning. Just awful. 

Aaron has been a member of the DR community for over five years. The last time I had his cooking was at Cedar, when he prepared a special meal for me and my young dining companion - it was that meal which confirmed what I already knew: Cedar, under the jurisdiction of Chef McCloud, was one of the top restaurants in Penn Quarter.

The website will be offline from 12-1 PM today in honor of Aaron, our own "McChef."

[Jessica Strelitz]

Great sentiment but was this meant for today? It's 12:38 and the site is still up.... (maybe not meant to be inside pages?)

[DonRocks]

I apologize - I'm in Chicago, have been bouncing back-and-forth between here and Indiana (which is EST), and forgot about the time zones. We will be offline TOMORROW, Tuesday, from 12-1 PM, in honor of Chef McCloud.

Hopefully people realize the obvious: The important symbolism in being down for one hour during when people often eat lunch, is that there are NO posts during that time period on donrockwell.com - it represents the loss of a treasured member via the absence of the only reason we exist: Fifty years from now, there will have been no posts made on Tuesday, Mar, 7, 2017, between the hours of 12 and 1 PM - normally prime-time hours for this community - because Aaron McCloud is gone, and there is a void that has taken his place.

[Lori Gardner]

very sad, indeed.  I was fortunate to meet Chef McCloud a few times during his tenure at Cedar.  He was a talented chef, but also an extremely nice person.