Month: October 2011

Barbara Taylor Moore—organist, piano teacher, and volunteer firefighter—was born in Charlottesville to a family that goes back several generations in the area. If that makes her a rare bird, it also gives her a trove of ancestors and anecdotes. In true Southern style, she regales me with this oral history for a full hour before we get to her own appearance on the scene, in 1951. To hit two highlights, her great grandmother Taylor was a Lee related to Robert E. Lee, whom she always called “Cousin Bobby”; and the Taylors of Orange County include Zachary Taylor, twelfth president of the United States.

Slender and elegant, weighing less than a hundred pounds, Moore seems an unlikely firefighter. But she comes by the distinction honestly. Her father Frederick “Jimmy” Taylor was a building contractor and firefighter. He took Barbara as a young child to fires, where she stood just inside the taped-off area, beside the trucks. One of her earliest memories is riding on a ladder truck in the Dogwood Parade, wearing a majorette uniform.

Also from her earliest years, Moore wanted to play piano. She says she is “the oddball in the family,” in which all the men were builders and brick masons, and no one was a musician. At age 7, Moore began piano lessons with Mrs. Georgia Renfro. She practiced first thing in the morning (still her favorite time to practice) before going to school, which meant getting up at 6 o’clock. “My mother always sat beside me at the piano,” Moore says, “which was quite an investment, given all the other things she had to do.”

Moore attended Burnley-Moran Elementary School through seventh grade, then Lane High School for eighth grade. In 1965, when public schools were racially integrated, Moore was assigned to the Jefferson School for ninth grade. Because of crowding, all students were asked to give up one course, and Moore skipped gym class. This happy chance allowed her to take organ lessons at the First Baptist Church, then located at the northeast corner of Lee Park, a short walk from school. Mrs. Renfro, the organist at First Baptist, was again her teacher. Piano and organ lessons continued through high school, and Moore substituted on organ at church.

From 1969 to 1973, Moore attended Mary Washington College, as a music major with a minor in history. “At that time,” Moore says, “there were no auditions. At my first lesson, my college teacher, who knew nothing about me, said: ‘You learned from Renfro.’ It was a distinctive style, clean and precise.”

During those years, Moore decided against a career as a concert pianist. “I was told that my hands were not big enough. The preference, at least in America, was for strength and power.” Instead, she attended Baylor University, in Waco, Texas, and in two years earned a master’s degree in organ in 1975. She chose Baylor in part because she got a job as a teaching assistant. As required for the degree, she gave two recitals. Her parents drove to Texas to hear her play, then brought her back to Charlottesville.

“I wanted to teach in college,” Moore says, “and people suggested that I go for a PhD, but by the end of Baylor, I did not want more school.” Providentially, Donna Renfro, daughter of Georgia, left Charlottesville just as Moore returned. “I took over her piano students, stepped into her place.” Two years later in 1977, the First Baptist Church burned, and the Renfros moved away. In 1978, Moore was hired as organist by the church, which built its current home on Park Street.

In 1983, a young man named Jim Moore showed up in the First Baptist “Singles Class.” Also born and raised here, the son of a University of Virginia professor, Jim came from a musical family and played piano. Six years younger than Barbara, he courted her through a blizzard, a broken foot, and her unshakeable conviction that he was “just a friend.” She saw the light, and they married the next spring. A graduate of UVA in architecture, Jim drew a house, Barbara’s father built it for them, and they live there today, near her mother, Marjorie.

In 1987, Moore moved to University Baptist Church, where she continues to be the organist. She plays for Sunday service, weddings and funerals, and is the accompanist for Jubilate, an auditioned choir of college students. She is one of five piano teachers at the University of Virginia, and she teaches privately as well. Most of her private students are children, and most lessons are on piano. An outstanding student was Oliver Wolcott, who graduated from high school in 2009, and who now studies organ at the Eastman School of Music.

Moore is a founding member of the local chapter of the American Guild of Organists, a cofounder of the Charlottesville Music Teachers Association, and a long-time member of the Wednesday Music Club, which sponsors music scholarships for young people. Her father forbade firefighting, saying her hands were too precious, but after his death in 1994 she joined the Charlottesville squad, and was elected to his long-time office as secretary. While the gear is heavy, she points out that “I can squeeze into places those big, burly men cannot.”

On September 7, Moore performed a rare recital on organ and harpsichord at University Baptist. The program included one piece by her favorite composer, J. S. Bach, seldom heard works by Buxtehude and Bruhns, and a tour-de-force of pedal variations on a theme of Paganini, by George Talban-Ball. “I like the challenge of playing with hands and feet,” she says. “I like the range of color on an organ, and the fact that I have all the strength needed to produce a gorgeous, glorious sound.”

In social networks, the theory is that six degrees separate us, but in the food world, we’re shooting for two.

When we cook at home, we want to raise the chickens laying our eggs, and we want to pick our own fruits and veggies. We want to know the farmer growing our soybeans and then the people who make them into tofu. We want to know the artisans (and the animals) making our cheese and the winemakers, cidermakers, chai-makers and kombucha-ers fermenting our brews.

When we eat out, we want to get to know our chefs and cooks, and see what’s in their fridge. We want to watch them cook our food and we want them to use local foods whenever possible.

We have a long way to get back to the start, but just as three square meals have become five small ones, the pyramid’s become a plate, and the food chain’s become a web, we’re changing the shape of our food industry with every turn of the soil and each lift of our forks.

Our town, so rich in agriculture, is ripe with talented people who raise it, cultivate it, kill it, source it, make it, sell it, and cook it. In these pages, we dish up some of our favorite foods, but we also connect the dots between your food and the people and places that put it on your table. Tis a tangled web we weave, but it’s a might tasty one too. 

By Chiara Canzi, Andrew Cedermark, Brendan Fitzgerald, Megan Headley, Erika Howsare, Giles Morris and Caite White

Victory, sweet victory
As the story goes, a young woman once ate 30 two-ounce cups of Splendora’s Gelato
during a chilly winter Wednesday. That’s nearly two quarts of decadent flavor combinations—chipotle chocolate and dulce de leche, salted caramel and Chinese five-spice. How long did it take her? How deft was her feat, and how delicious her triumph? The record still stands. But, every Wednesday night in January and February, the truly daring can devour all they can for a fixed price at our Downtown gelato spot. “Stuff yourself silly,” urges the store’s Facebook page. “Just don’t make yourself ill.” No—make yourself immortal.

A taste of culture
Ethan Zuckerman has a great relationship with his bacteria. Nine years ago, when a roommate in Northern California brought a batch of kombucha home, Zuckerman tried the stuff—basically, fermented, probiotic tea—and quickly took to it.

“The result that it was having in my body and those around me won me over,” says Zuckerman, a Western Albemarle High School grad who grew up in the area. “Before I knew it, I was brewing something very tasty.”

The same bacteria culture in Zuckerman’s tea nearly a decade ago is alive and well in Barefoot Bucha, his business with fiancée Kate Hallahan. “The scoby”—symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast—“that came into my life nine years ago is still the one I use,” said Zuckerman. “It’s amazing, the history that’s there.”

With kombucha, history butts against science. Brewers and fans have praised the tonic for allegedly slowing hair loss, relieving arthritis and controlling weight. Zuckerman makes no such claims, but says that Barefoot Bucha might contain organic and amino acids as well as B vitamins—in differing amounts, depending on the batches.

The fermentation process also generates ethyl alcohol, which led some retailers to pull the beverage from shelves last year once the Food and Drug Administration caught wind.

However, Zuckerman says his brew cleared the necessary hurdles with the FDA and state Department of Agriculture, and can be sold as a raw, probiotic beverage. In September, Barefoot Bucha made its way to taps at Blue Mountain Brewery, and also announced an impending partnership with local snack entrepreneurs Carpe Donut—all while keeping a super-small footprint and relying on regenerative bacteria.

Here, fishy fishy fishy
There may be other fish in the sea, but we’re loving what the local seafood scene is bringing to the table. Here, our five favorite fishy dishes.

Mussels at The Shebeen Pub & Braai. A giant pile of perfectly steamed mussels in a creamy onion-garlic sauce. Go ahead and ask for extra bread for sopping.

Tempura nori roll from Bang!. Melty cream cheese and sweet salmon meets a crispy fried exterior. Pair it with the wasabi-laced cabbage salad for an extra kick.

Crab cakes at Hamiltons’ at First & Main. This light, fresh lunch dish boasts jumbo lump crab over jasmine rice and a sauté of corn, tomato and basil.

Fish and chips at Rapture. A classic dish at a Downtown institution. Deliciously greasy Guinness-battered fish topped with a heaping mound of the spot’s signature fries.

Gambas al’ parilla at MAS. Catalan-style (that’s in the shell) jumbo shrimp served with garlic aoili and grey salt.
 

A mother grain occasion
Sacred to the Incas, who called it “mother grain,” quinoa was virtually not produced outside of Central America as recently as 20 years ago. Today you can find it at health food stores like Rebecca’s, Integral Yoga and Whole Foods.

Pronounce it “keen-wah,” be prepared to pay more than you do for rice, and feel free to stuff your face. (Though it’s a grain, this stuff’s also related to leafy greens.) Make a gluten-free quinoa cereal with it in the morning, quinoa and black bean chili for lunch and quinoa puttanesca for dinner. What can’t this mother grain do?

FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
Serves six
Raspberries & Ruminations was born out of the love of food and competition. A six-member group (including yours truly), R&R is not your typical foodie experience. Rather, it’s a complex experiment in human creativity. We set a task, shop for ingredients, get together and cook. Then, we taste each other’s food and discuss the dishes, one by one, much like on Bravo’s “Top Chef”…only more supportive.

Our first challenge involved going back to our childhood and preparing the dish that defined it. The results were astounding: a deconstructed eggplant Parmesan, risotto with saffron and sausage, ham biscuits, an oven-roasted tomato tarte and, for dessert, an impressive Pavlova.
But it gets harder. For the most recent task, each of us was assigned an ingredient picked by the rest of the team. Sweet potatoes turned into sweet potato gnocchi, carrots made for a killer carrot and habanero soup and Blue Hubbard Squash was transformed into a galette with caramelized onions. In this challenge, everyone wins.

Keep up with R&R at raspberriesandruminations.com.—C.C.

Merrily hashing along
When a group of English officers and expatriates living in the rubber jungles of Malaysia dreamt up a kind of race based on a traditional British paper chase intended to help them sweat out the weekend’s excesses, little did they know that by the turn of the century, there would be nearly 2,000 clubs on seven continents devoted to Hashing.

The original group, which still exists in Kuala Lumpur, is sometimes known as “Mother Hash” and lists in its constitution the group’s objectives, including, “To get rid of weekend hangovers,” “To acquire a good thirst and to satisfy it in beer”—rules that the Charlottesville chapter follows assiduously at its weekly races. Its slogan: “A drinking club with a running problem.”

Here’s how it works. The “harriers” wait as a “hare” lays a trail, sometimes with flour, sometimes with scraps of paper. Anything, really. And trails can be anywhere—recent hashes have passed through places like Belmont and, um, the Sam’s Club parking lot. The harriers run in pursuit of the hare, historically about five kilometers (that’s three miles to us Americans).

The group’s reward for successfully following the trail to its end? A big, icy bucket of cheap beers. Check out the Charlottesville Hash House Harriers’ website at CHHH.org.

Rise & chai
Mornings can be rough.
There’s the whole waking up business and it’s usually only in order to go to work. A warm cup of spicy, aromatic Chai can help —especially if it happens to be Karine Morgan’s locally- made Morning Glory Chai. Sold at Carpe Donut, La Taza, and The Farm C-ville, and designed to strengthen the immune system, increase energy, and improve mental—um, oh yeah—clarity, this is one brew bound to add more glory to your mornings.

Show us your fridge
When considering a fridge’s duty, if it cools, most are considered equal. However, when it comes to its contents, not all fridges are the same—especially when that fridge belongs to a professional chef. We asked for a peek inside Orzo Kitchen & Wine Bar Executive Chef/Co-Owner Charles Roumeliotes’ home fridge to see how the pros eat at home.

Spending most of his time at the restaurant, Roumeliotes tends to shop first and cook from his findings—especially easy for someone who works in Charlottesville food mecca, Main Street Market. What he always has is lots of dairy: butter, milk, half and half, parmigiano and halloumi, that incomparable squeaky cheese from Cyprus. Basics like mirepoix components (carrots, celery and onion), olives (he loves green Lucques from Provence), capers, lemons, wine, homemade chicken stock and ouzo speak to his Mediterranean heritage, but there’s also always Asian condiments for quick stirfrys and PB&J for midnight snacks.

FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
Extra cheese, please
Farmstead cheeses are proteins of place. Made by hand with milk produced on site, a farmstead cheese reflects the singular character of farmer, pasture and herd. Flavors emerge from the specific grasses and vegetation of a hillside; from the animals bred, born and raised to impart particular qualities to the milk they produce; from the aging caves purposefully maintained to bring cheeses to a specific maturity and character. Add to those ingredients the creativity and persistence of the cheesemaker and, in the end, you get one of life’s supreme pleasures. Lucky for us, Virginia boasts some of the finest examples of this craft.

Meadow Creek Grayson: Rick and Helen Feete have been building their farm and herd of Jersey cows in Galax since 1980. Grayson is made using the same (shape) molds as Italy’s famous Taleggio. The rich, raw Jersey cow milk and the ongoing rinsing of the rind during aging result in a pungent, aromatic cheese that pairs perfectly with Virginia cabernet francs and robust viogniers.

Everona Piedmont: Pat Elliot of Rapidan originally got a few sheep to give her sheep dogs something to do. Soon she needed something to do with the sheep’s milk! Voila, Everona Piedmont. Among the first and finest American artisan cheeses, this raw sheep’s milk cheese has won countless awards over the years. Reminiscent of Spain’s Manchego (but better!) in its nuttiness, we find it particularly wine-friendly (try it with Jefferson Vineyards Pinot Gris or King Family Meritage) and a terrific grating cheese.

Caromont Esmontonian: Gail Hobbs-Page and her husband Daniel, longtime foodies in Charlottesville, have brought their ample energy, vision and palates to farmstead cheese-making at Caromont Farm in Esmont. Their lovingly tended goats browse the varied landscape of their farm and provide the rich and healthy milk that is essential to great cheese. To make Esmontonian, the curd is poured into baskets and bathed with Virginia viognier and vinegar and aged for three to four months. The cheese is tangy and slightly acidic with a sweet finish. Pairs magically with Thibaut Janisson’s sparkling Blanc de Chardonnay.—Eric Gertner, owner of Feast!

Dressings we’ll dip for
Be careful—these five salad toppers might upstage the first course.

(left to right) Escafé’s honey lavender vinaigrette. This sweet sauce takes your salad from “sensible lunch” to “sinful dessert.”

Blue Ridge Country Store’s summer tomato dressing. This’ll put the “garden” in your garden salad.

C&O Restaurant’s mustard dressing. A clean, tangy topper for a simple green salad.

Eppie’s champagne dressing. A creamy sweet sauce that pairs just as well with your Daily salad as your chicken salad sandwich.

Copacabana’s avocado vinaigrette. A rich complement to delicious Brazilian cuisine.
 

Essentially equipped
A well-stocked kitchen can make even the most cooking-challenged feel like a top chef. Invest in these five essential tools and spend the rest on food and wine!

A large pot: You’ll need a vessel large enough to hold lots of water for cooking pasta and soup or blanching veggies.

Knives: Unless you plan to use your bare hands, you’ll need two good knives (a large chef’s knife and a small paring knife) to get every recipe started.

A cutting board: Position a large wooden one in between the sink and the stove so that you can go from rinsing to chopping to cooking efficiently.

A sauté pan: A 10" or 12" stainless or aluminum frying pan with sloped sides is a workhorse that handles everything from browning meat to finishing pasta dishes.

Tongs: They can stir, flip, toss and grasp, so they’re as good as a second pair of hands. 

Ass-kicking greens
In his book Eat to Live, Dr. Joel Fuhrman developed a system for measuring nutrient density in unprocessed foods, and ranked a market’s worth from zero to 1,000 points. At the top of the list? Kale.

Braise it with onion and garlic, then pile it atop rustic bread and finish with a fried egg. Or massage it with olive oil, avocado, red onion, bell pepper and lemon. For breakfast, sautéed kale with blueberries and peaches. The less processed, the more healthful. But a nutrient champion among lesser foods, all the same.

Yo, soy!
By the time you roll up to Bodo’s for your 9am bagel with Twin Oaks Tofu, the workers at the intentional community in Louisa have been awake for four-and-a-half hours, creating a slurry from a 120-gallon jug of soaked soybeans and hot water. While you’re lunching on Spicy Senegalese Peanut Tofu at Revolutionary Soup, the slurry has already been sent through a pipe and into a centrifuge, and the resulting soy milk has been mixed with nagari to make a kind of soybean curd.

And by the time you’re at C’ville Market or Whole Foods on the way home from work to pick up more tofu to cook for dinner, the curds have been poured into a box, covered with cheese cloth and mashed in a hydraulic press for 15 minutes.

Three things make any of the 10 varieties of Twin Oaks Tofu (Italian Herb, Spicy Thai, Garlic Shiitake…) worth eating three times daily. The producers use clean, crisp well water in the process, the same H2O the community’s inhabitants drink—not some big city’s municipal water. The organic, non-GMO beans are sourced from a man named Farmer Jay in Westmoreland County, who says he’ll have no problem keeping up when Twin Oaks expands its operation January 1, beyond the 12,000 pounds it produces weekly. And then there’s its biggest virtue, the firmness: Twin Oaks uses a higher bean-to-water ratio than most other tofu makers, and presses the hell out of it too, which pretty much takes away your excuse for not liking tofu (let us guess: the texture). It’s enough to fill our dreams with visions of soybeans soaking overnight.

Don’t leave home without your bottle
It’s worth a reminder that Virginia passed the “Corkage Bill” this summer, allowing us to bring our own wine to restaurants for a fee set by the restaurant. Restaurateurs view the law as a mixed blessing (they’ll lose some profit from traditionally large wine mark-ups, but they’ll gain some thrifty patrons who might not dine out otherwise), but retailers, local wineries, and, of course, us diners, see it as a coup in an economy that has yet to rebound.

The corkage fee per bottle (legally capped at $75) ranges between $15 and $35 here in town and varies based on the quality of the restaurant’s stemware and wine service. A promotional effort to waive the corkage fee on any Virginia wine brought into restaurants during Virginia Wine and Dine month in March 2012 will entice diners to enjoy local pours at our favorite spots.

Follow these etiquette tips when taking advantage of BYO, and remember that it’s a courtesy!

1. Call ahead to let the restaurant know you are bringing wine.
2. Find out the fee in advance.
3. Don’t bring cheap wine.
4. Offer a taste to your sommelier or server.
5. Consider buying a bottle for every bottle you bring.

So sushi
You could nosh on the ever-reliable California roll, or you could tempt your tastebuds with these local finds—exotic sushi rolls for every palate.

Uni at Ten: Among the shellfish and cooked seafood, this sea urchin dish hits the spot.

Ichiban roll at Sushi Love: Tuna, red snapper, salmon, yellowtail and avocado with a spicy tuna roll.

Crunch roll at Now and Zen: With tempura shrimp, avocado, crab sick covered with tempura flakes, eel sauce and spicy mayo.

Calamari roll at Miyako: Spicy fried squid is tempered by fresh cucumber.

Vegetarian’s Rainbow roll at Tokyo Rose: Red bell pepper, avocado, oshinko, mango, cucumber and mushrooms—everything but the kitchen sink.
 

Eating with the chef
As dining experiences go, Clifton Inn’s Chef’s Counter option might just be TV worthy. The lucky seven who get a spot at the table in the newly renovated kitchen (better call in advance for reservations) can experience the restaurant’s menu from seats directly in front of Clifton’s culinary team. Did we mention the privilege is the same price as the regular menu? Win-win.
 

The house that Mud built
Some people say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Certainly, there was nothing broken with the Downtown Mudhouse, but we’re thanking the java gods that owners John and Lynelle Lawrence launched a full-scale renovation this summer anyway.

They were able to see a need for upgrades that our coffee-buzzed eyes just didn’t notice. The new space, designed by local architecture firm Formworks, features shorter countertops for more interaction with baristas, new flooring, new bathrooms (there are two!) and a highly navigable floor plan. The menu also got an upgrade, with new coffee brewing options and extra offerings of baked goods. In other words, job well done. We’ll take that coffee for here, thanks.

FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
Chickenomics
Why backyard hens aren’t egg-zactly free
What’s it cost to keep chickens, anyway? Here’s how it’s worked out for us. The initial outlay (get it?) for our chicken setup was surprisingly expensive. Even though we salvaged the floor, windows and roof, we spent somewhere around $200 for the materials to build a coop—much of that in hardware, such as hinges. But buying a fancy new coop can cost a pretty penny—an Eglu Cube Green Run is $1,500, for example. Living amongst predators like raccoons and fox, we wanted to protect our hens with an electric fence (not necessary for you urban types). 164′ of fence: $160. Charger: $85. Solar panel: $85. Battery: $25. A few last things completed our setup. Water dispenser: $10. Feed trough: $2. And oh yeah, five chickens: $10 apiece for laying hens (not chicks) from a local farm. These days, we’re spending around $21 per month on non-GMO feed for our girls. (You can spend less, or more, depending on your pickiness.) They need oystershell too, for calcium. We were buying five-pound bags for $6 before we discovered the 25-pounder, which lasts the better part of a year, for $10. Score! The only remaining expense is bedding to line the coop. A bale of pine shavings costs $6, and lasts us two months. (If our hens didn’t roam, and do most of their pooping in the grass, we’d go through shavings faster, as well as feed. But then, we wouldn’t have needed the fence.) So, what do we get for this $617 investment, plus $25 monthly expense? We get eggs—a dozen a week during slow times, nearly twice that when the girls are feeling perky. At $4.50 a dozen from the farmer’s market, fresh local brown eggs are kinda valuable. Plus, it’s hard to name a price for fertilization and aeration in the garden, education for our daughter and the satisfaction of cracking our own eggs in the pan.—E.H.

Take it with a grain of…
We can’t restrain ourselves around the salt bins at Whole Foods. We run our fingers along the glass jars, gawk at the spectrum of colors—pearl, ruby, dusty rose. And, when no employees are watching, we lift the lids off the bins, one by one, and take a deep sniffle-snort of each complex scent. Black truffle salt. Chipotle pepper salt. Himalayan pink salt.

“People eat much less salt than they did in previous centuries when there was no refrigeration and salt was the primary way of preserving food,” Mark Kurlansky, author of Salt: A World History, told the New York Times last year. Savory foods of yore are now “less salty because we can refrigerate them.” Which means that, nowadays, the best reason to buy colorful, fragrant salts is purely an aesthetic one.
 

Festivals of food
Every day feels like a food celebration in our eats-inspired town, but food festivals give us an extra excuse to gorge on our favorites.

African-American Festival: Twenty-two years and going strong, this late-July celebration of African-American arts and culture in Washington Park serves up plenty of ethnic favorites.
Apple Harvest Festival: A beloved apple-picking destination, Carter Mountain Orchard dedicates October weekends to live music, hayrides, cider, warm cider donuts, jams and butters.

Blackberry Harvest Festival: The dog days of summer ripen the blackberries at Hill Top Berry Farm in Nellysford by early August. Go prepared to get stained and sticky and then relax with BBQ, fruit wine and mead.

Chocolate Festival: The chocolate part of this October festival in Lee Park pretty much sells itself, but in addition to chocolate treats, there’s also a 5K and a pancake breakfast to raise money for various charities.

Heritage Harvest Festival: Organic gardening and heirloom plants are the focus of this weekend-long September festival held at Monticello, where Virginia’s “first foodie” Thomas Jefferson sowed the land.

Vegetarian Festival: Every year in late September, 6,000-plus veggie-lovers descend upon Lee Park to sample healthful foods and drinks from more than 100 vendors.

Strawberry Festival: The Stanardsville United Methodist Church in early June is the place to worship the ripe and rosy strawberry. Go for breakfast at 7am, stay for the 11am lunch, and then cap the day at 3pm with strawberry cake, pie, crepes, or shortcake and some live music, clogging, and square dancing.
   

Mystery meats
There’s a theory about how the Chinese mystery snail, a 3"-long invasive critter, found its way into American waters. They were imported for sale in California markets and then found in the San Francisco Bay. Maybe they were intentionally dumped to create a rapidly repro-
ducing food source. Maybe a few aquariums were errantly tossed. The latter might also explain how they turned up in a few local bodies of water in the last year.
There’s also a theory about how we can use the unwelcome snails to our advantage: Eat them.

“Yes, you can eat them,” blogs Jackson Landers, a locally based hunter, eater and writer whose first book, The Beginner’s Guide to Hunting Deer for Food, was picked for distribution by big-time outdoor retailer Cabelas. “I pan-seared them in garlic, butter and onions and ate them on crackers.”

Landers spent the last year putting more than 15,000 miles on his car and a few unlikely meals on his plate for Eating Aliens, his next book on locally sourced food. The book is part travel narrative and part biology, with a touch of logical (albeit surprising) flavor: Landers hunts, prepares and eats invasive species.

Which means different things in different places. In Florida, for instance, Landers caught and then cooked black spiny tailed iguana. In Eleuthera, Landers ate lionfish—a predator to native fish, with venomous spines and, according to Landers, “bright, clean flavors.” Asked whether he was resistant to any of his meals, Landers said, “Once you’ve got it butchered, and you sprinkle on your first sauce, it’s just food.”

In Central Virginia, an invasive diet might include the Chinese mystery snails, starlings, pigeons and wild pigs. And someday, those dishes might be replaced with others. The benefit of eating invasive species? There’s always plenty to go around.

After his deer hunting book, local writer and hunter Jackson Landers traveled to find and feast on invasive species for Eating Aliens. Meals included the black spiny tailed iguana and the lionfish (above).   

Dinner, drinks and a movie
The Paramount Theater and C-VILLE’s Food, Wine & Film series highlights Charlottesville’s extraordinarily rich culinary scene. In April, it was Big Night followed by an Italian feast at tavola. In June, Taste 434 was shown before an all-local dinner at Brookville. In September, a dim sum brunch at Peter Chang’s preceded Eat Drink Man Woman. On October 30, Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert—two famous chefs with two very different voices—will talk food and then sign books at Ten. Stay hungry for more events in 2012! 

FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

Better late than never
At 10pm on a Wednesday, Peking Restaurant’s lighted sign casts a neon gaze onto Fourth Street. Inside, the proprietress says hello, and shows that she remembers me. “Beer, right?” she asks. I look at the menu —17 chef specialties, 64 dinner specials, 10 types of chicken wings. I weigh dishes based on their seductive names: “Dragon and Phoenix,” or “Rainbow Beef”? Ah, that’s a tough decision. An easy one? Going to the Downtown Chinese restaurant that’s open more than 80 hours each week, ’til 11 every night.—B.F.
 

Life’s just a bowl of chili
Even if the strict “No pets allowed” rule posted on the James River Runners Great Chili Cookoff’s website evokes some horrifying mental images, its flier does not: 25 secret ingredients, one rockin’ band, 2,500 supporters, one good cause and four bloated judges (O.K., so maybe that last one’s a little horrifying).

But what makes the long-running festival, which has raised over $250,000 for the Scottsville Fire Department, truly special is what it doesn’t advertise—eating a plastic bowl of chili served by a biker dude in drag; eating chili served out of an old washing machine; or napping in a foldout chaise lounge gorging yourself with (you guessed it) more chili. This year’s winner? Smokin’ Chicken Chili, whose chefs told the Rural Virginian it was made with marinated chicken and kidney beans. 

Doctor recommended
Hospitals don’t have the best reputation when it comes to food, but that’s not really why you’re there. With help from the Local Food Hub, UVA Hospital has become a leader in the farm-to-institution movement in an effort to improve the health and taste of hospital food all while supporting the local economy. The hospital regularly incorporates locally-grown, seasonal produce into their menu and cafeteria offerings, and even offers a Farmer’s Market every Thursday and Friday throughout the summer from 11am-2:30pm. Patients, staff and visitors can stock up on fresh fruits and veggies, get information about the farms and chat with dietitians about healthy choices right there in either of the hospital’s two cafeterias. That ought to make you feel better already.
 

Got cider?
Virginians have been making hard cider since Jamestown, and Albemarle County produced Newtown Pippins so tasty that Queen Victoria dropped an import tax on them. But after World War II, heritage apple varieties and local cider-making gave way to high production orchards geared to supplying supermarkets with glossy looking produce. Spurred, in part, by a project to recreate Thomas Jefferson’s apple orchards at Monticello in the mid-1990s, heritage apples and Virginia hard cider are making a comeback in Virginia’s piedmont.

Charlottesville now has two regional cider makers—Albemarle Ciderworks, Foggy Ridge Cider and one more, Castle Hill, is set to join them—selling their wares in local wine and beer sections. This is not the stuff you used to have on hayrides. It’s a light, sophisticated drink that pairs incredibly well with food (cheese!). Try Foggy Ridge’s Serious Cider and Albemarle Ciderworks’ Jupiter’s Legacy and discover why Ashmead’s Kernel, Hewes Crab and Virginia Staymans put the old Red Delicious to shame.

Pick your way through VA
Apples
Mid-August to late November
Carter Mountain Orchard, Dickie Brothers Orchard, Drumheller’s, Mountain Cove Orchard

Peaches
July and August
AmFOG, Chiles Peach Orchard, Critzer Family Farm, Drumheller’s Orchard, Dickie Brothers Orchard

Blackberries
June through August
Hill Top Berry Farm & Winery

Blueberries
June through August
Berry Patch of Free Union

Strawberries
Mid-May to June
Critzer Family Farm, Seamans’ Orchard

Cherries
Late June to July
Hartland Orchard (in Markham), Spring Valley Orchard

Pumpkins
Mid-September through October
Belvedere Plantation, Chesterfield Berry Farm, Dickie Brothers Orchard, Seamans’ Orchard

Sweets for the sweet
“Desserts” may be “stressed” spelled backwards, but you’ll feel nothing more than warm fuzzies as these delicious morsels make their way to your tummy. Feel free to lick the plate—we don’t judge.

Grilled banana bread with vanilla ice cream from Bizou: A twist on a classic and then some, this dessert is a complete surprise. The crunchy bite from the warm, fried slice is complemented by the pliant pleasure of the rich ice cream. A perfect combo.

Triple chocolate cake from Commonwealth Restaurant & Skybar: This is everything but your ordinary chocolate treat. Warm chocolate syrup is drizzled on a rich chocolaty bite. Chocolate lovers, search no more.

Sticky English toffee pudding from The Ivy Inn Restaurant: A diners’ favorite, the warm toffee cake is in perfect harmony with dates, pecan pralines and vanilla ice cream.

Semisweet chocolate pot de crème from Orzo: A delicate mousse topped with shaved chocolate and espresso whipped cream hits all the right spots.

Warm caramel apple crisp from Duner’s Restaurant: A simple classic gets fancy with local Crozet apples and toasted pecan streusel. This crisp is a must-try.

Maple bacon waffles with grilled peaches from Brookville Restaurant (right): Whoever said bacon doesn’t marry well with fruit has, evidently, never tried this spectacular dessert. Part breakfast, part guilty pleasure, this unusual pairing satisfies the sweet- and meat-toothed.

Will Bates didn’t grow up with soccer in his blood. Born in Chester, Virginia, in football country and raised by a father who had been a gridiron warrior at Virginia Military Institute, his success story is a classic example of the expansion of the sport in this country and of a homegrown talent’s route to the big stage.

“It was very small town soccer, which is why at 14 I kind of had to face the decision, ‘Do you move on to where there are better players, more exposure and a better league?’” Bates said.

That year, Bates decided to travel to Richmond to play for the Richmond Strikers, a powerful regional club that became part of the U.S. Soccer Development Academy system in 2007. Six months after Bates joined the Strikers, he got his first national pool call up.

Bates grew up a Major League Soccer fan and remembers David Beckham as his first soccer hero, but these days it’s all about another Manchester United icon, Wayne Rooney, with whom he has been compared. It might be the shaved head and broad shoulders…or it might be the goals.

“Similar body structures and I would like to say similar traits on the field. People like to make jokes about it. They’ve done side-by-side photos and stuff like that,” Bates said.

By his senior year at Thomas Dale High School, Bates was a prized recruit, and eventually chose UVA over the University of North Carolina and Virginia Tech. Head Coach George Gelnovatch remembers the way Bates struggled to transition to the speed of the college game as a freshman.

“He couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, to be honest with you,” Gelnovatch said. “And I’m talking about in training.”

But Bate’s competitive qualities and physical attributes were too much for the coach to resist.

“He’s big, he’s strong, he’s athletic. Great competitive spirit. The kid is a winner,” said Gelnovatch. “Raw might be overdoing it, but he needed some technical work coming in here.”

Bates broke into the UVA lineup halfway through his freshman year. He ended up scoring five game-winning goals during the Hoos national championship run in 2009 and finished the season as the team’s leading scorer, prompting Soccer America to name him National Freshman of the Year.

“I just think one of my best traits is working hard. I don’t think anything’s super natural. I’m one of the first guys out to practice every day and the last to leave,” Bates said.

Bates, who’s a junior now, was named ACC Men’s Soccer Co-Player of the Week last week after he made one goal with a neat pass then scored the game-winner against an undefeated Maryland team that came to Klockner Stadium ranked second in the country.

The 81st minute goal was an exclamation mark on an outstanding all-around performance. After working a one-two wide on the right wing, Bates drifted into the penalty area, where he anticipated a layoff pass and took advantage of a narrow window to slam the ball into the upper right corner.

“The defender left no space for me to go far post, which is probably where I would have gone, and I kind of saw the goalie in the middle goal. And I was just like, ‘If I can put this upper 90 on the near side, that’s my best chance,’” Bates said.

Bates downplayed the head-to-head competition with Maryland’s No. 10, Casey Townsend, who is projected to be a high MLS draft pick at the end of this year and like Bates is one of the top scorers in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

“For me it’s just the fact that on the night we got the job done. We were heavy underdogs coming in and more than an individual battle between me and him, I just saw it as UVA beating Maryland, which was huge for us,” Bates said.

This year’s team is a combination of veterans of the 2009 championship team and young, unproven players. They got off to a rough start with some tough out of conference losses to Liberty and Charlotte, and a slew of injuries and suspensions. After three consecutive wins, the Cavaliers dropped a 4-3 heartbreaker to Wake Forest on Friday. Bates notched a hat trick. The team sits fourth in the ACC, having already played Duke, UNC, Maryland, Clemson and Wake, and is approaching full strength for the first time since the start of the season.

“I don’t think I would put us as a frontrunner for a national championship, but then again it’s soccer and the way we’ve played the last few games it’s definitely given us some hope,” Bates said.

Bates has 13 goals so far, but he wants 20. Gelnovatch said the junior forward’s challenge is to get his technical prowess up to the level of his competitive and physical gifts, something Wayne Rooney dealt with early in his career.

“We want to see him make big differences in big games,” Gelnovatch said. “The Maryland game is as good as it gets in terms of production against a quality opponent.”

But Bates’ greatest gift is his will to win and his belief in himself.
“Any coach in any sport wants that kind of guy on his team. He has those competitive intangible qualities, and trust me there’s a lot of talented guys that don’t have that and a lot of talented teams that don’t have enough of it,” Gelnovatch said.

As for imitating Wayne Rooney, Bates has the more modest goal of making a living playing the game he loves.

“I told my mom and dad I’m not going to get a real job. I’m going to play soccer the rest of my life,” Bates said.

UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs released its oral history of President George H.W. Bush last Friday. The history—one of five completed by the Miller Center—offers a rare glimpse into the 41st presidency through the words of men and women who played key roles in his administration. The Miller Center is currently working on oral histories for Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

The George H.W. Bush Oral History Project faced complications just after its launch in 1999. Many potential interviewees returned to government work when George W. Bush was elected in 2000. Others were hesitant to speak candidly given security concerns that followed the September 11 terrorist attacks. However, the project ultimately compiled 425 hours, and features roughly 50 interviews with key administration members, including former Vice President Dan Quayle, Secretary of State James Baker and CIA Director Robert Gates.

Russell Riley, chair of the Presidential Oral History Program, expressed his excitement at making the interviews public.

“Many of these interviews make wonderful reads,” said Riley. “It’s like sitting on a front porch in a rocking chair with someone who was in the room with President Bush as he tried to figure out what to do with Mikhail Gorbachev. The Berlin Wall was coming down, the Cold War was ending…” Transcripts from 30 of the interviews are available online, and Russell expects the addition of more in the coming months.

Russell notes that, in addition to themes of political history and policy, the project offers a premium personal portrait of President Bush.

“What are his habits like? What is he good at? Where were his weaknesses, if any?” asks Russell. “That kind of portraiture is very vital, because people aren’t keeping diaries or writing letters anymore.”

The interviews also provide a comprehensive view of the personality and operation of an entire presidential administration—the “nuts and bolts of the mechanics of the White House,” as Russell puts it.

“It is very much an institutional history, in the sense that we’re trying to figure out who are these people and how do they operate,” he stated.

According to Barbara Perry, senior fellow at the Miller Center, the project has a biographical and historical nature that makes it appealing even outside the political realm.

“People in the administration speak of the president and of their colleagues as if they are family members, which lends itself to the idea of sitting around the dinner table and having a conversation. That’s what it feels like,” Perry said.

Copies of the oral history will also be kept at the Bush Presidential Library in College Station and at the Miller Center’s Scripps Library.

Cal Tate, the general manager of Charlottesville Public Access Television, was once shown a room full of discarded satellite dishes by a Comcast technician. Comcast, the largest cable operator in the nation, had just acquired Adelphia Cable Communications, and when satellite subscribers made the switch to cable, they would often ask Comcast technicians to get rid of their old equipment. For Tate, this memory is a point of vocational pride: The more cable subscribers there are in the City, the healthier his CPA-TV budget.

In recent years, however, CPA-TV funds have been on the decline. From 2006 to 2009, the Charlottesville Budget Office projected $50,000 in funding for capital improvements at CPA-TV, which comes from a 35 cent monthly fee charged to each city cable subscriber. Since 2010, the projected amount has dropped to $45,000, suggesting a drop in city cable subscriptions that correlates with national trends.

The level of community involvement at CPA-TV has also stagnated in recent years. “Interest has gradually gone down for the most part,” said Tate. “We would schedule our monthly certification courses and no one would show up. So it seemed better to start offering them only four times a year. ”

The drop in involvement has been most pronounced with youth volunteers, says Tate. “The main problem is getting here, because there’s no bus service out here.” Many young volunteers also gravitate toward film workshops at Light House Studio.

But despite the drop in new volunteers, CPA-TV’s weekly programming schedule has fewer off-hours or blocks of public service announcements than ever. “There’s a lot more original programming on Channel 13 now than there was 12 years ago,” said Maurice Jones, city manager and former director of communications. “They’ve made a lot of improvements in the last decade or so.”

Tate identified 2000 as a seminal year for CPA-TV, when the station got rid of many of the barriers to producing original content. CPA-TV broadcasted its first annual open house live in 2001, which the station’s website claims “marked the beginning of a new era at CPA-TV.”

“I think we’re at what the population can bear,” said Tate. “We’ve pretty much met most people who are going to be interested.”

Between 2009 and 2010, CPA-TV made the switch from film to digital, and Channel 13’s public access programs are available for streaming on the channel’s website. CPA-TV also has a vimeo.com account, the archival postings of which include segments of “Teens with Talent,” “A Day A Minute” and “Artistic Expressions,” all volunteer-produced shows.

“All forms of television, whether it’s local news or national networks, have had to find ways to adjust to changes in how the public gets its information,” said Jones. “I think public access is going through the same type of transformation as well. You can’t simply rely on channels to get information out. You’ve got to put it online, but for us it’s a slower process because there are costs to consider.”