Month: April 2013

Yolk lore

Speaking of local food, Fardowners chef Mark Cosgrove is a die-hard locavore who has ramped up the restaurant’s locally sourced menu items to feature Timbercreek Organics beef sliders, freshly baked bread from Goodwin Creek Bakery, pork from The Rock Barn, beef hot dogs by the Best of What’s Around, and eggs from Innisfree. Cosgrove said that, since the change, he’s been met with differing views from diners: “They seem confused as to why the egg yolks in their brunch omelet are orange instead of bright yellow,” he said. The yolks are meant to be that color, he points out, instead of the bright yellow color of factory-farmed eggs. Will local wonders never cease?

Tom yum!

The Tom Tom Founders Festival is on the horizon—and the tip of everybody’s tongues. What’s the buzz about? For starters, it’ll host 16 different local food trucks and five block parties around downtown Charlottesville beginning Thursday, April 11. You’ll find Patrick Kim’s Hanu Truck, which serves up Korean-style tacos and barbeque; Mouth Wide Open, operated by a food-loving couple who traveled around the country to taste the regional foods, offering Mississippi catfish and South Carolina crab cake (among many other things); and Pantheon Pops, which makes wholesomely delicious, guilt-free popsicles. These vendors (and more!) will set up shop at the wrap-up party at the Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative on Sunday, April 14, beginning at 2pm. The weekend-long festival will be packed with food demos and talks, a craft beer symposium, and a food expo featuring local farmers discussing their trade, plus plenty of non-food-related events and activities. Visit tomtom fest.com for the full schedule.

Job security

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in 2012 that most people stay at their job an average of 4.6 years. It’s cause for celebration then that Billie Midthun and Mildred Carter, two fixtures at Timberlake’s on the Downtown Mall, recently celebrated 50 years of working at the drug store. Carter, who is in her 80s, has acted as a drug clerk and cosmetician since the 1960s, and Midthun, in her 70s, has manned the soda fountain, made sandwiches, and acted as bookkeeper. Owner John Plantz said, “We have old customers and old employees.” It’s hard to say if he was speaking of age or length of employment, but one thing is clear: With tenure like that, Timberlake’s may just be the best place to work in town.

On Fridays, we and The Charlottesville 29 feature five food finds selected by local chefs and personalities.  This week’s picks come from Ethan Zuckerman, of Barefoot Bucha, which has just released a new kambucha flavor.  “The Cherry Root,” made from dark cherries and sasparilla, is said to be reminiscent of a smooth cherry root beer.  On Thursday, April 11, Zuckerman will appear at the Blenheim Artisan Series, where he will discuss the art of fermentation.  Zuckerman’s picks:

1)  Ragu Bolognese at Bella’s. “Add the house salad, the calamari fritti, and a bottle of Italian red. You’ll definitely have leftovers.”

2)  Datil con tocino (bacon-wrapped dates) at Mas Tapas. “Sweet, savory, sizzling slow food.”

3)  Pork Gyoza at Now & Zen. “Try them with the spinach and eggplant dish and a roll or two.”

4)  Pastrami & Swiss on an Everything Bagel at Bodo’s. “Don’t hold the mustard, horseradish, and lettuce.”

5)  South Side of Heaven crepe at The Flat. “Local sausage from the awesome folks at the Rock Barn, spinach, and cheese–super filling, local ingredients, and under $10.”

The Charlottesville 29 is a publication that asks, if there were just 29 restaurants in Charlottesville, what would be the ideal 29? Follow along with regular updates on Facebook and Twitter.

Most wine drinkers are aware of the 100-point scale, whether they are familiar with Robert Parker and his recently sold Wine Advocate, or simply with the numbers on gold medallions adorning shelves of bottles. Although these numerical shelf-talkers are helpful to a lot of customers when it comes to purchasing decisions, they are often a little too helpful when it comes to the mentality people adopt when developing purchasing preferences.

The scenario we’re discussing is one where someone gets into drinking wine, and goes bargain shopping, using these points to determine “value.” What this customer doesn’t know is that the 95-point bottle they’re considering may be from a spinoff competition that decides to adopt a 100-point scale, and not the esteemed Parker scale. In the other case of a genuine Parker score, these consumers may have no idea that Parker tends to prefer big, jammy, high-alcohol New World wines. If this person’s palate is sensitive to alcohol, or prefers balanced, medium-bodied wines, he may not understand why he doesn’t like a high-rated wine, and may question his own palate. (Which is wrong!)

If this person wanted to learn about his preferences in wine, he could focus on countries, regions, varietals, and other characteristics not related to ambiguous points to determine what he likes. The world of wine is intimidating enough without these statements of quality acting as barriers to learning.

Turn to the other side of the coin in craft beer, and the points system is pretty well established too. Fortunately, these ratings come predominantly from users, and not the man behind the curtain. User review websites such as Beer Advocate and RateBeer drive the majority of beer reviews, and they have the potential to be helpful to inform other drinkers of one’s opinion of a beer. However, a lot of these reviews are full of forced writeups in which a user lists as many descriptives as possible in order to somehow display a deeper knowledge or understanding of beer drinking. It wouldn’t be an issue if someone new to craft beer could easily sniff out the snobs, with their skewed sense of self-efficacy and laughable over-analysis. But because of the abundance of such reviews, it may appear as if being able to write a paragraph each about the appearance, taste, mouthfeel, and aroma of a beer is the only way to understand what one is drinking. This is simply not the case.

This type of analysis will undeniably improve the palate and understanding of a seasoned or even intermediate drinker. In the process, however, it alienates people who are coming into craft beer in the same way that hoity-toity wine writing and scoring intimidates people who just want to enjoy wine. As someone who has worked for years in a winery’s tasting room, nothing is more disappointing to hear than a customer saying, “I don’t know anything about wine.” Says who? At what point was this person told that because they don’t understand the superfluous nuances described in a shelf-talker, that he doesn’t know how to enjoy wine? Although beer has the reputation of being the more everyman beverage of the two, elitism and nose-thumbing in craft beer pose every bit the risk of keeping potential craft drinkers in their macro or “crafty” comfort zones the same way the wine industry has to its entry-level consumers. The last thing anyone in the beer business wants to hear is a customer admitting his or her lack of knowledge preemptively.

It’s unnerving to see scores used as a marketing ploy that could pave the way for corresponding purchasing decisions. The same way that so many new wine drinkers can lose focus on varietal and region, so too could beer consumers when it comes to beer style, ingredients such as hops and malt, or the source brewery. Much of the wine industry’s marketing advice these days is to get away from old standards of analysis, and ask “which one do you like?” The beer industry (and its writers, supporters, and advocates) should learn the lesson of a neighboring industry that is only now learning to stop telling its customers how little they know.

Trust in one’s own palate and a basic understanding of styles and ingredients will go a lot further than flowery prose and a number rating. For all of us, it’s essential that people revere their own judgment first and foremost.