Month: June 2007

Living

Stars & Satellites

Coran Capshaw became an investor in Satellite Ballroom roughly a year ago, in the summer of 2006, according to Chuck Adcock, the owner of the Ballroom and Michael’s Bistro. “Primarily as a financial boost,” says Adcock. “That’s when we first started working together.”

The two venue owners began to meet every few months: Adcock—who began hosting concerts in the Satellite Ballroom in 2004, after taking over the space’s lease—most often met with Capshaw at his Red Light Management office, from where Capshaw controls his multiple local venues, among them Starr Hill Music Hall. “We would make sure we weren’t butting heads [on booking choices],” says Adcock. “He came to Satellite a couple times. We talked about the sound, about improving the space.”

At a bit before 10pm on Thursday, June 28, Jamie Sisley of Red Light issued a press release with the Starr Hill and Satellite Ballroom logos on the header, announcing a “partnership” between the two venues. Following a July 7 concert by local rock act Navel, the Starr Hill venue will close.

“The ownership arrangements become a little more formal,” Adcock says. “Before, [Coran’s] was a separate investment.” Now? “Coran will actually have part of the business.”

Chuck Adcock (above), owner of the Satellite Ballroom, partners with Coran Capshaw as Starr Hill closes following a July 7 concert and shows are moved to the Ballroom.

Many of the concerts billed as “Starr Hill Presents” and slated for the Music Hall on West Main Street will move to the Ballroom’s location on the Corner; August concerts by Ben Kweller and Israel Vibration initially scheduled for Starr Hill are already posted on the Ballroom’s schedule.

The word “cooperation” is on the tip of every tongue: Danny Shea, solely responsible for the Ballroom’s booking until this point, says that he anticipates “a great spirit of cooperation and a venue better serving a wide audience,” and notes that “[his] only concern is in playing catch-up, as things have been moving very quickly here.” Shea will retain regional booking responsibilities at the Ballroom; More Music Group, which has booked concerts in town for more than 20 years, will take over national booking responsibilities.

“But it’s going to be one big cooperative effort,” Sisley repeats. “Mike Jones and Melissa Boyle [booking agents with More Music Group] did booking at Starr Hill and the Pavilion and will be helping out at Satellite. They’ve been working with Coran for a very long time.”

***

Andy Waldeck answers his cell phone at Bodo’s and asks for a moment so that he can exit the crowded restaurant before speaking about the partnership. Waldeck’s X-Porn Stars were scheduled to perform on July 20 in the Starr Hill Music Hall, but the band is nowhere to be found on the Ballroom’s schedule.

“And my guitar player, Joe Lawlor, had booked Starr Hill as a reception area after his wedding,” Waldeck says. “So that’s off.”

A good number of bands have played both venues, from nationally recognized act Junior Boys to local metal-hybrid group Under the Flood. And while “cooperation” is still the theme of the partnership, not everything can be accommodated.

“There has been a little bit of politics,” says Waldeck, giving an example from his band’s history: “XPS never wanted to be exclusive to one venue or another—we’d do Starr Hill once, and one show would invariably go to the Outback Lodge, and back and forth.”

XPS performs with up to nine members, many of whom live out of town. “It’s hard to get everyone in town on a specific day so, since everyone will be in town on July 20, we kinda have to play.”

Waldeck says that his concert will move to the Outback Lodge, and Terry Martin, Outback’s booking agent, confirms it. The partnership between the venues “is actually gonna help me,” says Martin.

“I’m probably going to pick up a lot of their Lounge gigs. Jeyon [Falsini, manager of Starr Hill’s free Cocktail Lounge gigs] came to me.” Martin adds proudly: “The thing is, we’ll definitely be Charlottesville’s longest running music venue.”

As venues, music scenes (Jam bands versus indie bands? Who’s to say?) and niches converge, what will the fans make of this partnership—this plan to, as everyone repeats, “cooperate”?

“Coran didn’t come in and take over the club,” says Adcock. “We want to perpetuate that indie crowd and identity, but they”—the crowd—“can be tough. It will be interesting to see what the public perception is.”—Brendan Fitzgerald, with additional reporting by John Ruscher

Living

Raw deal

Raw foods—and I’m not talking sushi—are starting to make appearances on gourmet menus across the country, namely owing to a tremendous amount of flavor and a wide variety of health benefits. Integral Yoga is the only spot in Charlottesville with a deli case full of prepared raw delights, including soups, salads and desserts. According to staff member Jean Majewski, raw (also called living) food has not been cooked, pasteurized, or exposed to heat over 110°, but it’s not as exclusive as you might think—the dessert list in particular is extensive, and you can feel pretty excellent about it since you’re getting goodies like antioxidants and essential fatty acids.

There’s boring ol’ tea and then there’s Integral Yoga’s Strawberry Thyme Fudge Bars—we know where we’d prefer to get our antioxidants.

There’s more where Majewski’s decadent Strawberry Thyme Fudge Bar recipe comes from. You might already know that you’re killing a vast percentage of the nutrients in food by sticking it in the crock pot, but she notes that cooking also destroys enzymes that help you digest, sending you straight to the couch in a post-meal stupor. “The primary benefit of a living food diet is that your body does less work to get more nutrients,” Jean adds. Ask for her at IY.

Strawberry Thyme Fudge Bars

Chocolate Fudge Layer:
1 cup dried cherries
2 cups pitted dates
1 cup raisins
1 cup cold-pressed coconut oil
2 cups raw cocoa powder or carob powder
(or a combination)

Soak the cherries, dates and raisins in fresh water until soft (about 30 minutes), blend until smooth in a food processor. Add coconut oil and blend until smooth, then add raw cocoa powder and blend until thoroughly mixed. Spread evenly in a rectangular tray lined with plastic wrap and refrigerate until solid, about 1 hour.

Walnut Crumble Layer:
2 cups raw walnuts
1 Tbsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 Tbsp. raw agave syrup or honey

Coarsely chop walnuts in food processor, then add cinnamon, nutmeg and agave syrup and grind to a fine, crumbly texture. Press evenly into the exposed surface of the fudge, then turn it out of the pan onto another tray so that the walnut crumble layer is on the bottom.

Vanilla Cream Layer:
1 cup raw cashews
4 pitted dates
1 Tbsp. cold-pressed coconut oil
1 fresh vanilla bean or
1 Tbsp. non-alcohol vanilla extract
1 quart diced strawberries
Fresh thyme leaves

Soak the cashews in 2 cups fresh water for 30 minutes. Drain and rinse. Soak the dates in enough water to cover them until soft, about 5-10 minutes. Split the vanilla bean down the middle and scrape out the seeds with a spoon. Blend the seeds and all the other ingredients until smooth in the food processor, then spread evenly on top of the chocolate fudge. Top with diced strawberries and a sprinkle of fresh thyme leaves.

Makes 16 squares.

News

Man of mystery

Dear Ace: Who’s that guy who’s always holding book signings in front of Café
Cubano?—John Lee Booker

John: Wait, you’re telling Ace that’s not John Grisham? No wonder the dude looked unnerved when Ace said, “A Time to Kill” with a knowing wink and walked away. But no, not only is he not Grisham, the mystery man tells Ace, he never even wanted to be a writer.

According to the voice in Ralph Barnett’s head: If you write it, they will come.

The “mystery man” is Ralph Barnett, and the book he’s signing is called Spiritual e-Soup. Its introduction tells the story: Barnett was one of those guys who forwarded every lawyer joke that landed in his e-mail inbox until one day, “a small, still, but elusive, voice muttered, ‘Ralph, maybe you should not forward vulgar jokes.’ I stopped forwarding crude jokes.” Eventually, the voice commanded Barnett to stop forwarding jokes altogether (maybe it was just an annoyed friend?) and to focus instead on forwarding Christian-themed letters. How did that Jesus-mail (like G-mail? Stop groaning) become a book that Barnett’s always signing?

Barnett tells Ace that it started when he got laid off from his corporate sales job and decided to write a book about sales training. He spent two years writing it and was ready to publish, when the voice came to Barnett again (at least it wasn’t telling him that the CIA puts mind-control serum in our water supply). It told him that the book he’d written was just a warm-up and that he should use his new-found skills to write a compilation of the e-mail forwards circulating through his so-called “e-Soup Ministry.” Six months later, Barnett had a book.

With the help of Anne Louque, who designed the book’s cover and managed the publishing end, Barnett got his book printed and began his grass-roots efforts, which he admits are unconventional. On April 17 of this year, he held his first signing at the Starbucks on 29N— that’s where he’d written and edited the bulk of the book. He quickly moved on to other coffee shops, gourmet gas stations, and finally, his bread and butter, restaurants. Comparing his method to converting the “unchurched,” Ralph Barnett says his signings are an attempt to bring his message to the “unbookstored.” These days, he’ll have two to three signings a day at Downtown restaurants and various Starbucks, and Barnett says he’s sold over 400 books since April. But hey, if you want more information, just stick around Starbucks for a while. Ace is sure Barnett will show up eventually.

News

The Screaming Infidels

music

Let’s start off with the good: The highlight of the night was a two-person mosh pit that broke out during a rendition of what I believe was the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” theme song. Another memorable moment was a guy hopping up from his bar stool to accompany the Screaming Infidels’ guitarist in singing the theme song from “The Addams Family.” You may notice a trend here: It’s not typical for a punk rock show to peak with themes from TV shows.

Turtle power! The Screaming Infidels hit the Fellini’s crowd with some memorable TV theme songs during a Wednesday night set.

But the Screaming Infidels’ performance at Fellini’s #9 on Wednesday was full of atypical things. An array of barflies that appeared more in line with “Cheers” than the Dead Kennedys bobbed their heads eagerly to the trio’s dissonant clang. A band described as “punk rock” played a two-set show in a sleek Italian restaurant (and they’re regulars). A bartender attentively brought me fresh bottles of beer just as I was finishing the previous one. This is not what I’m used to at a show. I’m used to cross-armed foot-tapping hipsters, stretching on my tip-toes to see the stage, jostling to the bar to grab another drink and no TV tunes whatsoever.

I’m not against places where everyone knows your name, good service or TV themes, but not long after the Infidels began playing, I was bored. Despite the decibel level, the show dragged along and the band failed to jolt me from a few beers’ worth of grogginess. Beyond the theme songs, the night was a blur of plodding rhythms, loudness and mediocrity. I watched the passersby who gawked through the open windows and wished that, like them, I could be on my way home.

But, recognizing the chance that something amazing could happen if I left, I stuck it out to the end. Unfortunately, nothing topped the “Turtles” theme. If scheduled openers Accordion Death Squad had showed up, the variety might have made for a fun evening. Or if the vocals hadn’t been drowned out by the treble guitar, maybe the band’s lyrics would have struck me. But, as it was, I left unimpressed and happy to be set free into the summer night.

Living

Dig this

The thing about the Internet is that it keeps getting more and more ambitious. Bigger and better and more and lots more. This is what we call “progress” in cliché moments of cynicism when we are using that word to denegrate that same word. I, however, am not using the word in this way in this context. I am using this word thoroughly in earnest when I say that Digg is bigger and better and more and lots more than anything else out there on the interwebs. It’s cool. It’s iProgress. It’s one-stop browsing. It’s the Mall of America for superdorks. It’s progress.

The site describes itself as being “all about user powered content” wherein “everything is submitted and voted on by the Digg community.” That “everything” can mean, well, everything from news articles (this being a popular one since the Digg community is typically a nerdy one) to YouTube videos to online games. The more people who vote on any particular item, the higher it gets on the list; luckily, the Digg community is large and thus, by virtue of many opinions, the cream, as they say, really does rise to the top.

For example, (I’m going to bypass the news stories at the top of the list because, when I was writing this, they were all the usual suspects—John Travolta blaming the Virginia Tech massacre on anti-depressants, Jon Stewart getting courted by NBC, Sicko getting pulled from YouTube) and admit that what sucked me in were the games. In particular, one that was a cross between Sudoku and a crossword puzzle. Or maybe more like “Wheel of Fortune.” Whatever.

But perhaps the most popular feature is that you can create your own profile that brings together all the stories, videos, games, what-have-you, that you “dig” for your friends to see. If you have friends, that is, and don’t spend all your time communing with the computer.

The Editor's Desk

Quest for the Holy Grail

Struggling to be charitable in my opinion of “Beware the Cyclops” by Richard Collins [Opinionated, June 12, 2007] and, in the same issue, the letters by Al Weed [“Can’t get a tee time,” Mailbag] and Jack Marshall [“Size matters,” Mailbag], I accept the challenge to describe an alternative vision for growth, the new status quo.

I agree we should have policies that promote an optimal, sustainable population. But nobody knows what that number is or will be. The writers frame the argument so opponents of population quotas appear uninformed. The writers themselves offer no figures and call for others to research the Holy Grail of growth.

In my opinion, a population is optimal when people freely come and stay, while others move away willingly. By this definition, the city appears to have an optimal population, nearly steady for four decades, and the county has population growth. The optimum population varies as free markets and free choices determine.

Collins points out there’s no mechanism in the county’s comprehensive plan to force the community to comply with the optimal population. “…what one won’t find is any operational basis for realizing a vision of the community’s future size and character…The optimum population range creates a legal, rational tool for managing growth.”

How has population control worked in the past? Are there any mistakes or dead-ends we could avoid in the future if only we knew the history? Is Collins an expert in urban planning and development? Yet, he dismisses the value of history several times. He describes the “growth machine” as an individual Cyclops with its eye in the back of the head, able only to see into the irrelevant past, where counter-arguments and cautionary tales are numerous.

Collins refers to his own history “as a professional planner for many years.” But he doesn’t mention any project he has planned where readers might be able to learn more. Is it because his experience is in urban renewal, having served as chairman of the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority? On April 4, Governor Tim Kaine signed the eminent domain reforms passed by the General Assembly. The new laws make illegal what Collins has advocated and implemented during his career.

My vision of growth is based on individual liberty, private control and accountability, not on some arbitrary number created by experts for experts.

Blair Hawkins
Charlottesville

__________________________________________________________________

River rudder

In response to a letter printed in the May 22, 2007 issue inquiring about access to the Rivanna River and various other questions [“A river runs where?” Mailbag], I encourage anyone interested in getting on the river (beginners welcome, boats provided) and seeing this beautiful natural resource to contact the Rivanna Conservation Society office at 97-RIVER or check the website at rivannariver.org for a schedule of public river trips. As the leader of these trips I love getting people out on the river, and I can also schedule additional trips and answer other questions. Thanks to C-VILLE Weekly for its coverage of the Rivanna River [“Cut the crap,” Cover Story, May 8, 2007] and environmental issues in general. Promoting public awareness and education are critical and, hopefully, lead to involvement and stewardship of our water supply and a beautiful recreational resource. The Rivanna Conservation Society welcomes citizens to become involved.

Phyllis White
Albemarle County
RCS Board of Directors

_________________________________________________________________

Biscuit Run blues

The residents of Charlottesville and Albemarle County need to take a more careful look at the proposed Biscuit Run development. This massive project of 3,100 homes will change the character of our community in ways we may not have imagined. Recent site plan improvements do not significantly alleviate the impacts on the city to the north and the rural area to the south.

What will be the costs in terms of traffic congestion, air and water pollution, and the destruction of natural habitats? Who will pay for the increased school costs, water supply, sewer treatment, fire and rescue, law enforcement, and social services? (The school costs alone are estimated to be $19 million and there are no per-household cash proffers being proposed for the Biscuit Run development to address school needs.) Recent history tells us that these developments cause incredible environmental damage and do not pay for themselves. People living in the county and city will pay most of these costs and receive very little benefit. County residents will be required to pay increased property taxes.

Others share these concerns. Over 700 local citizens have signed the Sierra Club’s petition asking the Albemarle Board of Supervisors to conduct a full analysis of the impact of the Biscuit Run development on surrounding areas before making a decision on the rezoning of this property. This is the very least we can expect from our government.

As citizens we need to develop a vision of a quality community with definite plans for the preservation of natural resources, social and economic opportunities, a clean, efficient transportation system, and cultural amenities. This cannot be achieved by chance or as a result of market forces. Just as architects draw blueprints and teachers develop specific learning objectives to achieve their goals, a community should know what it wants to become and carefully plan to make this a reality.

John A. Cruickshank,
Chair, Piedmont Group of the Sierra Club
Earlysville

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News

Limiting human population IS necessary

Post author By marlene-condon
Post date June 26, 2007
No Comments on Limiting human population IS necessary

Neil Williamson of The Free Enterprise Forum (TFEF) spoke against Advocates for a Sustainable Albemarle Population (ASAP) [“Albemarle County: Whom are you going to vote off the island?” Opinionated, May 29, 2007]. For the record, I am not affiliated with ASAP. However, I do understand the necessity of ecological preservation, something which Mr. Williamson seems to think is somehow extraneous to our lives as humans.

Inexplicably, many people have the attitude that humans exist independently of our natural surroundings. Although we do shield ourselves from the outside world to a certain extent by spending much of our time indoors, our ability to live is still very much dependent upon a healthy environment. We require clean air to breathe, potable water for drinking, bathing, and washing our clothes and dishes, and uncontaminated soil in which to grow our food. The quality of our life is directly proportional to the availability of these basic necessities.

Yet humans have not taken care of the Earth and as a result, children are now born into a world that is badly polluted. When I was young, it was not a health risk to eat tuna and swordfish, something my Catholic family often ate on the church-mandated “meatless” Fridays. Indeed, it’s a good thing the church did away with this commandment. Such ocean fish are currently so full of mercury that people (especially pregnant women and young children) are routinely warned to avoid eating much of it.

Greed and ignorance have resulted in numerous life forms being overexploited or killed off by habitat destruction (such as the fouling of our waterways due to farm and development run-off). Many of these life forms not only served as important food sources but also as important income sources.

In the 1960s Virginia watermen harvested millions of bushels of oysters from the Chesapeake Bay but only about 30,000 bushels in 2002. Numerous fish and shellfish populations, such as river herring, shad and blue crabs are at or near record lows. As a result, most of the people employed in this seafood industry have lost their livelihoods.

Tragically, as each kind of organism dies out, the functions that it performs for the ecosystem cease, making it all but impossible to revive the system—man’s ingenuity (which is way over-rated) notwithstanding. The once-teeming-with-life Chesapeake Bay is now all but dead, the stories of its past abundance seeming to be nothing more than myths.

Additionally, as the human population overwhelms the planet, agriculture and animal farming have been intensified in ways that are unhealthful for people and inhumane to animals. We ingest pesticides, antibiotics, and growth hormones that are necessitated by the unnatural methods employed to grow plants and to factory-farm.

The source of all of our environmental problems is far too many people on a planet finite in size and resources. If the peoples of every nation don’t voluntarily control their reproduction, governments (e.g. China) will be forced to do it for them. But long before then, Mother Nature may decide who gets “voted off the island,” employing disease as a superbly effective tool to return human populations to sustainable levels.

TFEF is opposed to Albemarle County government spending $25,000, as suggested by ASAP, to study an optimal population number for our area. Yet this pro-growth group has no objection to the county spending 10 times as much for a “jobs development opportunity fund.”

A supervisor explained that the $250,000 allocated for this fund is money to help people to climb the ladder out of poverty—a well-intentioned but naïve and illogical idea. The folks at the bottom of the ladder have jobs that will always require someone to be working them so there will always be people at the bottom rung.

And, truth be told, not everyone has the ability to climb society’s ladder. To truly help lower-income people, you don’t gentrify their jobs. You gentrify their wages.

Local nature writer and photographer Marlene A. Condon is the author of The Nature-friendly Garden (Stackpole Books, 2006).

Arts

Mr. Nice Guys

It has been 15 years now that Dave Matthews came out from behind the bar at Miller’s and assembled the band that got struck by lightning. As they take to the road—their annual summer ritual—see if you remember whom the boys in the band were playing with when they formed DMB.

Probably any fan can tell you that Stefan was 16 and going to school at Tandem. Known as an extremely dedicated musician even at that age, bassist Lessard was recommended to Dave Matthews by John D’earth. Lessard left high school, and put in a short stint at VCU before deciding that DMB was too good a thing to put second.

Before they were hitched and perched on high, Dave Mathews, Boyd Tinsley, Stefan Lessard, LeRoi Moore and Carter Beauford were playing the field in the local music scene.

Carter Beauford, LeRoi Moore and Boyd Tinsley all grew up in the same Charlottesville neighborhood, and Beauford and Moore played together a lot prior to 1992. Drummer Beauford was 3 when his dad took him to see Buddy Rich, and played his first professional gig at the age of 9. In 1978, when he was 16, he joined Aric Van Brocklin’s group Morgan White. The band played jazz/rock a la Jeff Beck, Herbie Hancock and Stevie Wonder. They even covered the Focus tune “Hocus Pocus” with the yodeling vocal. Talk about big balls. Van Brocklin says that Beauford’s parents approached him once, just to have a talk about keeping Carter out of trouble. But, V an Brocklin says, “he didn’t need it. He was very mature.” Beauford went to The Shenandoah Conservatory in Winchester, and later played with the Richmond-based fusion band, Secrets, that Van Brocklin and many other musicians say was the best.

Guitarist and fiddle player Joe Mead took both Beauford and Moore on the road with his band The Belligerent Brothers. Mead says they asked to play with him when they heard his Christmas song, “Santa Claus is Dead.” Beauford was also a regular player in the house band on TV station BET out of D.C. Mead fondly recalls an evening when he, Carter, Dave, and Dave’s sister and mom ordered pizza and beer and watched Carter on The Ramsey Lewis Show. “It was the biggest thing ever. We thought the big time had come.”

Mead also reminisces about Moore and Beauford playing with Sal Soghoian and George Melvin in Blue Indigo. “That was the greatest jazz combo ever. They were freakin’ fabulous. LeRoi would stand down at the end of the bar at Miller’s until his solo came up.”
While LeRoi could often be found at jazz sessions in town, his own band, The Basics, with Houston Ross and Johnny Gilmore as rhythm section, played an “out funk” style, according to longtime collaborator Mike Sokolowski. The band was so good that saxophonist John Purcell, who was making a name for himself in New York City, especially with Jack DeJohnette’s band, would come down and sit in. Moore also played regularly with The Uptown Rhythm Kings, a very tight R&B outfit. And even after the formation of DMB, Moore played in a local, all-star classic rock outfit, Alma Madre, that featured Indecision alum, Aaron Evans and Doug Wanamaker, and vocalist Kristin Asbury.

As far as Boyd Tinsley, he went to CHS and played violin in the orchestra there. When I met Boyd, he and Jamie Dyer were the kitchen crew at The Garrett, upstairs on the Corner. Boyd kept a band under his own name, but for three years he also played with guitarist/songwriter Harry Faulkner. Faulkner says he was living at 2 University Cir. when he was a student, and there was a front porch that was big enough to encourage an ongoing jam session. Faulkner and Tinsley met there and started Down Boy Down. The band played blues rock and tunes by The Dead and The Band. Originally a duo, DBD played every Sunday night for three years at the Blue Ridge Brewery. They later added a rhythm section and continued to play around town until 1992, when Tinsley sat in with DMB at Miller’s and was asked to join. Faulkner says, “I think we were both getting married at the time, and we shook hands and walked away.” Tinsley continued to talk to Faulkner about band ideas as late as 1995, when DMB was literally taking off. The last time they played together, Faulkner was playing at a frat party, and Boyd jumped on stage with him. “That was really nice of him.”

In all my years here, I don’t think I’ve ever, not once, heard a single person say that the DMB guys were anything but the nicest guys in the world.

Arts

Feel the “Burn”

“Burn Notice”
Thursday 10pm, USA

Joining established USA hits “The 4400,” “The Dead Zone,” “Monk” and “Psych” is this promising show about American spy Michael Westen who, on a deadly mission, learns that he’s received a “burn notice”—in real world parlance, he’s been fired. He gets dumped in his hometown of Miami, assets frozen and put on watch by every government agency in the world. Now Westen has to use his spy training to do private eye work to pay the bills while trying to figure out why he got burned. The supporting cast rocks, with Gabrielle Anwar (continuing her comeback after “The Tudors”) as the angry ex-girlfriend; Bruce Campbell (looking a little bloaty; was Evil Dead that long ago?) as a fellow former spook; and the magnificent Sharon Gless (“Cagney & Lacey,” “Queer as Folk”) as Westen’s mom.

“Hey Paula”
Thursday 10pm, Bravo

A wise woman once asked “Do do you love me? (Do do you love me? Baby?)” And the answer is: Of course we do. She’s forever our girl. Perpetually embattled former pop star/current talent show judge Paula Abdul is getting the reality docu-series treatment, in part to promote her upcoming projects (including—shudder—a Bratz movie) and dispel the myths that she’s a dim-witted wino. It’s tough to tell how this’ll go: Bobby Brown’s show did wonders for his image, recasting the bad boy as a sweet, loving husband and clueless father; Anna Nicole and Britney’s shows just confirmed them to be the trainwrecks we imagined. But thanks to the advance clips I kind of have a new respect for Abdul and her endearing nuttiness.

“Kyle XY”
Monday 8pm, ABC Family

The whole mysterious-stranger shtick has been used a million times over. However, ABC Family has scored a minor hit by taking the trope and turning it into a family-friendly drama. A big draw is undoubtedly the tween-friendly cutie Matt Dallas, who plays the title character, a young man taken in by a kindly family after he wandered into their lives missing his clothes, his memory, and a belly button. In the first season, Kyle found out that he was basically a science experiment. Now, after reuniting with his creator—and watching him die—he’s on the run back to his adoptive family, but is being chased by corporate goons who want their “experiment” back, as well as his “sister,” Jessi XX, his distaff, similarly non-bellybuttoned counterpart.—Eric Rezsnyak

Living

Livin’ is easy

It was the start of summertime, and enoteca—the new Italian wine & panini bar in the old Vavino space—could not have picked a better date—June 21—to celebrate its grand opening. While the sunlight lingered on the longest day of the year, Restaurantarama guiltlessly sipped prosecco frizzante (that’s sparkling wine with just a whisper of bubbles) and munched on antipasti well past 8pm on a weeknight. Coincidence? Probably not. The solstice dovetailed nicely with the ultimate vision for the place that managers Megan Headley and Marisa Catalano told us about a few weeks ago—that of a “time portal” where patrons savor their wine and bruschetta while “letting the night take shape.”

Our night shaped up to be just as much a literary study as a viticultural one. Perusing the long list of 80-plus wines, we learned from the tasting notes that a 2001 Amarone della Valpolicella is “transcendental” and a 2005 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is “without airs.” Yikes, that’s a little intimidating—Restaurantarama’s taste buds are still struggling to understand the concept of “full-bodied.” No worries, though. The enoteca staff has been studying hard, they tell us, to guide patrons through the exhaustive menu. The wine list includes a red and a white selection from each of Italy’s wine regions from Piemonte to Sicily, one such helpful and well-trained server told us. And many of the selections are available by the bottle, by the six-ounce glass and by a convenient three-ounce tasting size.

This is definitely not the place to get a cheap buzz on or to tank up on eats before heading to a Live Arts show. This is a place to swirl and sniff and linger over your formaggi or share your bowl of Marcona almonds roasted in sea salt and thyme with newfound friends seated next to you at the long, communal tables. Just do like the Europeans do and pretend every day is the longest day of the year

Sweet parting

It is with some sadness that Restaurantarama reports that Sweet Peas Neighborhood Bistro & Pour House at Lake Monticello will indeed be sold, but not to the winner of the contest we told you about a few months ago. Owner Joanna Yoakam told us she and her husband Dean received lots of responses from all over the country to their win-a-bistro essay contest. “People went crazy with creativity” she told us—one entrant sent them a huge bouquet of sweet peas and another sent his essay in the form of a menu. Unfortunately, the Yoakams did not receive enough entry fees (of $199 each) to cover their bank loan, and so they had to sell the family bistro the conventional way. Though the sale is still pending, Yoakam says she’ll likely turn over the keys around June 30. She expects the place will be closed for a few weeks of transition, but will reopen with a similar down-home menu of steaks and pasta that her loyal customers have grown to love.

Restaurantarama is still holding out hope that the win-a-restaurant concept will catch on so that aspiring entrepreneurs with more chutzpa than money will have a chance to enter the crazy culinary world.

Quick bites

Testing our mastery of the international language of food, Restaurantarama recently stopped by for some Mexican sweets at Las Palmas Bakery in the new Woolen Mills Pointe shopping center on Carlton Road. (That’s the same outer-Belmont dining spot that has given us Pad Thai.) The new bakery is the Charlottesville outpost of the Culpeper establishment of the same name. It’s short on English but long on yummy baked treats like empanada, which Restaurantarama did not have to consult the Pocket Dictionary of Ethnic Foods to determine means “pastry stuffed with sweet goodness.”

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