Fill us up
Hear, hear, hungry tummies! The Shops at Stonefield is about to become foodie paradise.
In addition to the much-anticipated November opening of Trader Joe’s at 29 North’s soon-to-be hotspot, the center will also include kitchen outfitter Williams-Sonoma and home goods mecca Pottery Barn.
But beyond stocking your fridge and outfitting your dining room, places like Massachusetts-founded Burtons Grill, Greenville, South Carolina’s Travinia Italian Kitchen, and Richmond-based Pasture will help stock your belly full of fresh, high-quality cuisine.
At Burtons, expect contemporary American fare with some New England favorites like clam “chowda.” Travinia offers modern takes on Italian-American dishes from classic fettucine alfredo to Pasta Mia Nona (bowtie pasta with grilled chicken, mushrooms, and roasted tomatoes tossed in an asiago cream sauce). Jason Alley’s small Southern plates at Pasture are Virginia-sourced—local meat, cheese, and veggies appear on the menu changing with the season.
Don’t shop ’til you drop—just refuel and then get back out there!
Ciderlicious
The fear of not finishing the entire bottle of sparkling hard cider is a pitiful excuse not to open one. Even if you can’t drink the whole thing, it lends itself as a perfect cooking liquid in fall favorites. Brookville Restaurant’s Harrison Keevil uses leftover Foggy Ridge cider in many of his soups (onion, apple, and carrot, to name a few) and he braises his pork belly and pork shoulders in it. Several bottles go into his Berkshire Pig fromage de tête, or head cheese paté. Over at l’etoile, chef de cuisine Ian Renshaw makes apple cider vinegar out of leftover hard cider. Need more ideas? Add it to a pot of chili, make some sweet and savory bacon baked beans with it, or cook some sausages, apples, and onions in it for a hearty dinner alongside mashed potatoes. Just be sure to save enough to drink too.
10 for $10
There’s no such thing as a free lunch, but here are 10 of our favorite mid-day feasts for under a tenner.
1) Falafel platter at Afghan Kabob Palace
2) Turkey Caesar salad and a pomegranate seltzer at Bodo’s Bagels
3) Two bambino sandwiches and an apple at The Farm Cville
4) Lunch buffet at Himalayan Fusion
5) Three cabrito tacos and a tamarind jarrito at La Michoacana
6) Pizza of the day by the slice at Mona Lisa Pasta
7) Chay pho and salted lemonade at Moto Pho Co.
8) Bacon cheeseburger, fries, and a drink at Riverside Lunch
9) Two pork bings and a spicy peanut/celery salad at Song Song Zhou and Bing
10) Zen wrap at Tea Bazaar
Playing swapsies
Before currency existed, goods were exchanged for goods. It was called the barter system, and for all intents and purposes, it worked just fine. Have tons of bread but no jam? Well, then, trade with your jam-making neighbor. Now, every country has its currency, but very few of us have much of that left, so we are bartering what we still have loads of—talent, know-how, and the goods that come from both.
Bellair Farm offers one of the strongest CSAs in the area, providing hundreds of families produce for 22 weeks for $600 a season. It’s a very reasonable price, but manager Jamie Barrett is more than happy to discuss membership through barter. Some members trade labor, while others might exchange goods (like meat to go with all those veggies) or services (like cooking demos utilizing garlic scapes or some other edible ephemera).
It’s the same idea at Free Union Grass Farm, where Joel Slezak and Erica Hellen sell eggs, chicken, duck, and beef. Anyone willing to muck in will walk away with food to cook, and if you’ve got some produce to spare, you’ll get some meat or eggs in return.
For the domestic types, a new monthly event called Cville Swaps lets you trade your own locally grown, made, or foraged-for goods for someone else’s. Have a glut of tomato plants? Trade them for a jar of bread and butter pickles. Make a killer barbeque sauce? Swap it for some granola—and maybe a stitch of feedback about what it might be missing.
Organizer Becky Calvert describes Cville Swaps as “a way of living well without living beyond one’s means.” The next swap will be held on Sunday, November 11 from noon to 2pm at the Charlottesville Cooking School.
The best thing I ever ate
Foodies are a fickle bunch, so we asked 10 in our town what dish has stuck with them as the best thing they’ve ever eaten.
Melissa Close-Hart, Palladio Restaurant: “After a harvest 12 years ago, Luca cooked a large pot of polenta and melted in St. Andre cheese. He divided the polenta among several bowls, shaved a healthy portion of white truffles from Alba on top, and poured some Italian Barolo.”
Michael Keaveny, tavola: “Mussel soufflé at Aqua in San Francisco in 1997. Amazing!”
Luther Fedora, Horse & Hound Gastropub: “Learning to cook Spaghetti alle Vongole next to Mt. Vesuvius in Naples—pasta from scratch, clams straight from the sea, fresh-picked parsley, garlic, tomatoes, gray sea salt, and fresh ground pepper.”
Mark Gresge, l’etoile: “A piece of candy that my grandfather gave me. It was the first thing I can remember being cognizant of.”
Harrison Keevil, Brookville Restaurant: “Sweetbreads with cock’s comb, foie gras, and truffle jus at Benoit Bistro in Paris in 2009. I can still taste that dish three years later.”
Dave Kostelnik, Feast!: “A riff on carbonara at a restaurant in San Francisco—it was topped with a farm fresh egg.”
Dean Maupin, C&O Restaurant: “My wife took me to a place she worked in New York called Fauchon. There I ate a vanilla eclair, among several other things, and I have never forgotten how good it was. It was just perfect in every way.”
Jenny Peterson, Paradox Pastry: “An insalata caprese in Sorrento. It was the first time I’d had it and we went back for it five nights in a row.”
Tomas Rahal, MAS Tapas: “Pulpo gallego at a roadside vendor in Galicia.”
Charles Roumeliotes, Orzo Kitchen & Winebar: “A big plate of fried clams in New England.”