Month: December 2013

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Arts

ARTS Pick: Drivin’ N Cryin’

Southern rock heavyweight Drivin’ N Cryin’ cruises into town on its latest in a series of semi-monthly EP releases. Image: Scott Munn

Formed in the late ’80s amid the underground Atlanta rock scene, Drivin’ N Cryin’ boasts a genre-melding sound gleaned from a record collection of diverse influences that ranges from Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones to The Ramones. Guitarist and vocalist Kevin Kinney’s Midwestern roots shine through in his earnest lyrical odes to the American workforce. The hard-driving quartet returns to the road in support of a new EP,  Songs from the Psychedelic Time Clock. $15, 9pm.

Friday 12/27 The Southern Café and Music Hall, 103 S. First St. 977-5590.

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News

Rivanna Master Naturalists gear up for 2014 training

Rivanna Master Naturalist trainees explore an Albemarle County stream. The 40-hour Master Naturalist course offers instruction in a wide range of ecological and environmental topics. Photo: Ida Swenson

Starting in February, two dozen locals will give their Tuesday nights over to the study of rocks, plants, and birds—and together will pledge to devote nearly 1,000 hours annually to environmental study and education. They’ll be 2014’s class of Rivanna Master Naturalists, the newest members of a statewide corps of highly trained volunteers.

Charlottesville is the epicenter of the Commonwealth’s Master Naturalists program: The local chapter was one of the first established when the volunteer effort was founded in 2006, and the program coordinator works out of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Virginia Cooperative Extension office. Current coordinator Alycia Crall, who took the post in January, said it’s a natural fit—Charlottesville is centrally located for the 2,000-plus program volunteers around the state, and it’s home to one of the most active and fastest-growing chapters.

There’s an increasing need for volunteer manpower to aid Virginia’s natural resource agencies, Crall said, “so there’s a lot of excitement over seeing this level of growth.”

Becoming a Master Naturalist is time-intensive, explained Ida Swenson, who helped found the Rivanna chapter and sits on its board. Coursework includes 40 hours of instruction during weekly Tuesday night classes and frequent Saturday field trips. Instructors cover basic ecology and scientific principles, then dive into a range of natural subjects, always with an eye on the local environment: ornithology, geology, botany.

Swenson said the course brings together nature lovers from all walks of life.

“We have members ranging in age from 19 to people in their 70s,” she said, the majority of whom aren’t professional scientists. “We have people who never graduated from college, and people who have their doctorates. It’s really varied.”

But the classes are just the beginning. Another eight hours of instruction in a specific field comes before the newly trained naturalists dive into their volunteer work, 40 hours of which is required annually for them to stay active members.

Some devote their annual hours to eradicating invasive plants. Others help maintain the Rivanna Trail, or teach environmental education classes in schools and at the Ivy Creek Natural Area. And many Master Naturalists become citizen scientists, collecting data on everything from the quality of Virginia’s vast network of waterways to fluctuations in wildlife populations.

Those efforts are becoming increasingly important to researchers around the world, said Crall, because monitoring a changing global environment requires a lot of boots on the ground. Educated volunteers by the thousands can gather information day after day from a specific location—weather patterns, the number and kinds of birds in their backyards—“and we can use that data to do analyses and answer research questions we can’t reliably answer using traditional scientific methods.”

For the state agencies and nonprofits that fund the Master Naturalist program—the Department of Forestry, the Department of Environmental Quality, soil and water conservation districts, and others—there’s also an immediate benefit. The army of volunteers, which Crall said is growing by about 500 new members a year across the Commonwealth, helps fill in gaps at a time when budgets are stretched thin.

“There’s so much to be done that paid staff from all these agencies just don’t have the time to do,” she said. “These volunteers are just invaluable.”

Get involved:

Learn more about becoming a Virginia Master Naturalist in one of two info sessions at the Ivy Creek Natural Area, 10-11am Saturday, January 4 and 7pm Tuesday, January 7. The deadline for applications—available at www.vmn-rivanna.org—is January 10. Classes begin February 11.

Categories
Arts

Breaking down the year’s best local sets, part one

Veteran indie rock trio Yo La Tengo (including guitarist Ira Kaplan pictured) played two radically different sets in its appearance at the Jefferson in January. Image: Tom Daley

The year got off to an exciting start with an appearance by indie rock royalty Yo La Tengo at the Jefferson on January 24. The band served as its own opening act, playing a dozen acoustic songs, before taking a short break and returning with a full set of louder rock material. During the show, Yo La Tengo inter-

spersed songs from the brand-new Fade album with classics and obscurities from throughout its 30-year career. The highlight was an epic, fuzzed-out medley of “Nothing to Hide,” “Sugarcube,” and the cover of “Little Honda,” which brought the set to a close before an encore of garage covers by The Faces, The Fugs, and The Troggs.

Another low-key rock legend made an appearance in town weeks later, when Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi appeared with his new group, The Evens. By D.C. punk standards, the set was extremely relaxed, while still entertaining and excellent. MacKaye’s music has aged as well as his ethos, and Random Row Bookstore was a perfect setting for the February 2 show. Charlottesville lost not only a good bookstore, but also a good music venue and a resource for the art community, when Random Row closed its doors in June.

Mountains returned to Charlottesville on February 18, playing a loud set of ambient drone music that pushed the boundaries of the tiny PA at the Tea Bazaar. Though its songs are formidably dense, they also contain great subtlety and gently overlapping textures. With a minimal stage presence, its music is as wonderful live as it is on recordings.

On March 4, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore came through town with his new quartet, Chelsea Light Moving. Though the crowd at the Southern was unaccountably thin, the group put on a great set, interspersing songs from its debut full-length with cuts from Moore’s solo records. Moore, at 55, is seemingly the oldest teenager in the world, juxtaposing self-consciously dumb classic rock energy with legitimately compelling avant-garde noise-rock riffs, and he’s worth seeing live under any circumstances. I caught half of the duo again much later in the year, collaborating with Merzbow during a surprise festival appearance, and it was equally as excellent.

Daniel Bachman, the guitarist ingénue from Fredericksburg, may have relocated to Chapel Hill, but he still managed to appear in Charlottesville in April and in November at the Tea Bazaar. Bachman is an ambitious and fleet-fingered instrumentalist, following in the footsteps of John Fahey and Jack Rose, and his work seems to improve measurably with each appearance, and we can rest assured his constant touring schedule will bring him back to town soon enough.

Brooklyn band The Men have had big success after cranking out a solid series of albums over the past few years, regularly playing 100-plus capacity venues, but the group made an exception for the Tea Bazaar on May 27. Though its albums are increasingly inflected with Neil Young-derived alt-country, its live set remains a pummeling powerhouse of post-punk, and its frenetic enthusiasm hit the audience like a physical wave.

The opener for The Men was local group Nurse Beach, an artsy noise punk trio split between Richmond and Charlottesville, that doesn’t practice or perform regularly, so it’s worth making an effort to catch a performance. The band also appeared at the Tea Bazaar in August, paired with like-minded local noisemakers Great Dads, which was consistently great, and consistently surprising, in 2013.

Originally a duo of Invisible Hand guitarist Adam Smith and virtuoso drummer Steve Snider, the Dads’ lineup distorted and expanded in weird ways with each appearance, sometimes including as many as eight members. The Dads’ framework is a loose half-hour set of experimental art rock songs that take a different direction with each show—sometimes stripping down to raw, energetic punk songs, sometimes favoring a loose psychedelic assault—and on one occasion devoting the majority of its set to a cover of the Soft Machine’s maddeningly repetitive anthem, “We Did it Again.” Whether at the Tea Bazaar or in living rooms, Great Dads’ shows are always challenging and rewarding.

The Dads appeared at the McGuffey Art Center on April 12 with Chicago-based ambient noise guitarist David Daniell and Blacksburg’s old-time group, The Black Twig Pickers as part of the Tom Tom Founders Festival. The event was something of a send-off for reliable local concert booker Matt Northrup, who moved away that weekend (and also performed with Great Dads that night).

The Black Twigs have been around for almost a decade, often sharing members with experimental groups like Pelt and Spiral Joy Band. Washboard and Banjo player Nathan Bowles struck out on a solo career this year, earning him critical acclaim and respect in the world of open-minded independent music. He appeared in Charlottesville several times this year, and is a keen musician, and a kind soul who is always a pleasure to see.

Glenn Jones is another musician who blends musical styles; he returned to Charlottesville in July, sitting on the small Tea Bazaar stage, playing original guitar and banjo compositions, and telling stories to the small audience as he re-tuned. Jones shared stories about growing up in New Jersey, about life on the road, and about caring for his dying mother, and he remains a vital and engaging performer.

For part two of Feedback’s favorite music of 2013, see next week’s paper.

What was your favorite concert in 2013?

 

 

 

 

Categories
News

Odd Dominion: A surprise legislative retirement opens up a battlefield

Who will Virginia Republicans pick to run for Frank Wolf’s soon-to-be-empty seat? Photo: Douglas Graham

Well, it looks like Virginia’s status as the most schizophrenic political state in the nation continues apace. With Republican Mark Obenshain finally conceding the Attorney General’s race to Mark Herring, Old Dominion Democrats now control all five of Virginia’s statewide elected positions for the first time in over 40 years. And yet, at the same time, Republicans outweigh Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives by an 8-3 margin, enjoy a crushing 67-33 majority in Virginia’s House of Delegates, and control exactly half of the State Senate.

Now, with the AG question settled, the race to fill the senate seats of both Herring and newly elected Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam is on, which will ultimately determine who controls the chamber. (If the donkeys can hold both seats, then Northam would be able to act as a tiebreaking vote. If either or both seats flip to the elephants, then Republicans would effectively own the Assembly.)

There’s general consensus that Northram’s left-leaning Norfolk district will remain blue, but until recently most considered Herring’s district more of a tossup. Luckily for the Dems, the selection of the ultra-conservative John Whitbeck as the Republican nominee (and subsequent decision by 33rd District Delegate Joe May to run for the seat as an independent) increases the Democrats’ chances considerably.

All of which brings us to the Commonwealth’s other recent blockbuster political news: the retirement of longtime U.S. Representative Frank Wolf, who has represented Virginia’s 10th District for an impressive 17 terms. Wolf’s Loudoun County district, which also includes chunks of Fairfax and Prince William counties, leans right (it went for Mitt Romney over President Obama by around 1 percent in 2012), but it is by no means a lock for Team Red.

The question is whether or not the Republicans, after a string of high-profile losses, will be able to get their act together and nominate a winning candidate. Incredibly, even after witnessing multiple nominating convention catastrophes over the past year (Ken Cuccinelli, E.W. Jackson, and now John Whitbeck), it still seems probable that the Virginia GOP will once again eschew a primary and select its nominee for Wolf’s seat via convention.

The likely beneficiary of this increasingly fruitless strategy? State Senator Dick Black, who has already announced an exploratory committee to pave the way for his entry into the race. In case the name doesn’t ring a bell, Black has a long history of incendiary statements and actions that make Bishop Jackson seem like a model of pragmatic restraint. (He has, in his long and deranged history, likened abortion to the Holocaust, questioned the entire concept of marital rape, introduced a bill to ban gays from adopting children, and sent pink plastic fetus dolls to his fellow lawmakers as they prepared to vote on an abortion bill.)

If Black is indeed the nominee, then we feel very comfortable predicting that he will go down in flames, just as his extremist brethren did before him. But if the Virginia GOP finally wises up and decides to allow an actual popular-vote primary? Well then, maybe—just maybe—they might win a truly competitive race for a change.

Odd Dominion is an unabashedly liberal, bi-monthly op-ed column covering Virginia politics.

Categories
News

No frills: Aldi eyes Hollymead as Charlottesville grocery offerings proliferate

If the Architectural Review Board approves changes to the Hollymead site plan, an Aldi grocery store could be in our future. Photo: Lannis Waters/Zuma Press/ Newscom

First there was Trader Joe’s at Stonefield. Then came Fresh Market at Albemarle Square. Word that a Wegmans is coming to Fifth Street set foodie hearts aflutter when it was announced in 2012. In what has become a veritable parade of grocery stores marching into Charlottesville, the new ones just keep on coming.

The latest grocery chain rattling the gates is Aldi, a German grocery powerhouse and the corporate sibling of Trader Joe’s, which is eyeing Hollymead Town Center as a possible location.

With 1,200 stores in 32 states—the closest in Culpeper—Aldi may not be a household name in Charlottesville yet, but across Europe and in the U.S. markets it’s entered, it inspires customer loyalty and has earned high marks in the media.

“Trader Joe Has a Brother. He’s Even Better,” raves the headline of a December article about Aldi on Slate.com.

“The company capitalizes on the bargain hunter, who is not embarrassed to choose frugality over name brands,” explains a 2011 New York Times article, and indeed the Aldi website offers a few samples of savings: gourmet pizzas for $3.99; gourmet mustard for $1.69. In addition to food, Aldi carries various other discounted items from car floor mats to humidifiers.

Local mortgage broker Carl Garrett was a loyal Aldi shopper when he lived in Ohio in the mid-1990s, and said he hopes the store is approved for Hollymead.

“The prices were really good, and I was broke at the time so I really enjoyed that,” he said with a laugh.

But the Aldi experience isn’t for everyone, particularly those looking for luxury on their shopping expeditions.

“It was definitely that food warehouse type of feel,” said Garrett. “It’s a no frills type of place.”

Aldi stores don’t accept credit cards (although debit and EBT cards are typically welcome) and the stores also charge customers for bags, unless they’ve brought their own reusables. Carts require a small fee, refundable when shoppers return them.

If the notion of bargain groceries north of town has you grinning, don’t get too excited just yet. An Aldi spokesperson declined to comment on the Charlottesville site, and Hollymead developer Wendell Wood said the county’s Architectural Review Board must first approve changes to the site including shrinking an approved 30,000 square-foot building down to Aldi’s desired size of 17,000 square feet.

“If we don’t get ARB approval, the deal won’t happen,” said Wood, who expressed optimism that the ARB will eventually vote to allow the changes.

“They seemed to like what we proposed,” he said, noting that the Aldi issue will next be considered by the ARB in February, and a final decision could still be six or eight months away.

In the meantime, those who love low prices for bulk foods and household goods are watching Stonefield, where superstore Costco is preparing to enter the market. Construction is due to begin this coming spring, and the store should open in spring 2015, according to a PR rep for the shopping center.

On the south side of town, the Wegmans grocery store is also still a go at the Fifth Street Station development, according to that project’s spokesperson, Alan Taylor of Riverbend Management firm. Beloved for its massive selection, free samples, and prepared foods, Wegmans should be underway early in 2014 and is scheduled for completion sometime in 2015, said Taylor.

The sheer number and variety of grocery stores in Charlottesville is part of a growth process that local real estate broker and blogger Jim Duncan sees as both good and bad.

“Being a five- or 10-minute drive from a grocery store is good thing,” he said. “But the negative is that I feel we are losing some of what makes Charlottesville unique as a cohesive community. When Charlottesville was smaller, people knew different parts of the county because they had to go there. Now, it’s a different environment where everything is relatively close to home, and there’s less reason to venture outside of our own area.”

Categories
News

The next food fight: Local church focuses on education instead of can drive

Cass Bailey, pastor at Trinity Episcopal Church, says food literacy is a key step in combating hunger and poor nutrition—and he wants to make his church part of the fight. Photo: Elli Williams

Canned ravioli, instant cups of soup, and microwaveable chicken dinners are a fixture in the kitchens of people who can’t afford to buy food.

They’re free from food banks and charity distribution programs, because they’re easy to prepare and don’t go bad. But they’re not the most nutritious meals, and their sugar content and preservatives can often lead to a series of long-term health and dietary problems, ranging from obesity to diabetes.

On a weekly basis, food banks and social welfare organizations in town offer low-income residents a wide array of food, from canned goods to meats, and local non-profit gardens donate thousands of pounds of fresh produce. But what’s missing in Charlottesville—according to a bevy of health, aide, and food workers—is what happens with that food once it gets home.

Cass Bailey, the pastor of Charlottesville’s Trinity Episcopal Church is out to change that.

“A lot of people just don’t know what fresh food really tastes like,” said Bailey. “The other aspect to that is, O.K., you get fresh food, but then how are you going to cook it? What ways do we need to learn and re-learn how we prepare our foods in order to get the most taste and the most nutrients from them?”

Lack of education contributes to the dual struggles of hunger and obesity in many poor communities, he said. “How do you tackle the problem of people not getting the proper nutrition that they need and at the same time have a weight problem because of what they eat?”

Partnering with dozens of health care professionals, farmers, and fellow ministers, and armed with grants and donations, Bailey is heading up a new  initiative aimed at revolutionizing Charlottesville’s food culture by teaching low-income residents how to cook unfamiliar foods, how to preserve fresh produce so it can be eaten when it goes out of season, and how to structure meals so they bring families together.

By next spring, Bailey plans to have renovated the church’s basement kitchen with new top-of-the-line equipment, along with an expanded work and storage space, in order to offer a wide array of free and low-cost cooking, canning, and dietary classes.

Using education to close Charlottesville’s food gap is not a new idea, but many who work with organizations trying to help the hungry say Trinity’s efforts will bring needed tools to a tough fight.

Karen Waters-Wicks runs the food drive program at New Beginnings church in Belmont, and in 2007 helped found an urban garden project near Friendship Court to grow and distribute produce, particularly to lower-income families. That project has grown into the Urban Agriculture Collective of Charlottesville (UACC), a nonprofit that grows more than 10,000 pounds of food a year on just over half an acre of city land.

Waters-Wicks said it’s not just the availability of fresh foods that makes the difference, it’s knowing what to do with it. Often the younger generation won’t know what to do with the five pounds of fresh chard or radishes they get.

“The 20- to 40-year-olds that have been cooking with microwaves all their lives, that’s the hardest [population] to really reach. And they are the least skilled,” said Waters-Wicks. “When we have our market day, people ask all the time what ‘greens’ are. And when we tell them, they say, ‘Well, I guess I’ll take them to my mama, she’ll know what to do with them.’”

Other local institutions have pitched in to help teach a new generation of eaters the kinds of kitchen skills that lead to better nutrition. Waters-Wicks remembers teaming up with culinary arts teacher Bob Bressan’s students at CATEC when the urban garden project was in its infancy. They prepared the chard harvest in three different ways and brought their finished meals, along with recipes, to the gardens. Chefs from the UVA Health System’s nutritional services department regularly partner with UACC to offer family cooking classes at the Friendship Court Community Center.

The Haven, a Downtown day center for the homeless, also has offered several classes in years past, and has a rotating slot for one person at a time in its kitchen training program, offering instruction on cooking and preparing meals in a commercial fashion.

But The Haven’s efforts are aimed more at providing a healthy fresh breakfast to the area’s homeless, who most often do not have access to a kitchen or food storage. Kitchen manager Tina Stephens said she would love to expand instruction and put a special focus on nutrition-based training, because she believes it could make a real and immediate difference in peoples’ health.

“The folks we serve are basically in crisis,” said Stephens. “We’d love to see more nutrition-based training. We have a lot of folks with diabetes and a lot of them know not to eat straight sugar, but they don’t know a lot of the other stuff that goes with it.”

Educators and advocates agree: Space and resources for food education are limited, and ground-level participation from the people being served is a key ingredient. To have a fully stocked modern kitchen that is centrally located on a high-frequency bus line would be a dream come true, said Waters-Wicks.

“A community kitchen would be a tremendous asset to the food justice mission in Charlottesville, particularly if that kitchen is accessible and if there’s leadership from the population it’s intended to serve,” she said.

Bailey and the church’s advisory committee are stepping up to fill that leadership role, but for now, they’re focused on the money. Trinity Episcopal has raised more than $60,000 on its own and received a matching donation from one person for $25,000. It also raised an additional $20,000 and got a matching grant from the national Episcopal Church, which will be used to fund the programs and workshops they offer. Bailey plans to use those dollars to hold weekly classes, partnering with different churches, chefs, and educators in town to teach meal preparation and nutrition classes.

Alas, the church is about $15,000 short of the $90,000 needed to fully renovate the kitchen. Bailey is hoping the holidays will bring more attention—and support—to the program

“There are a number of meals programs at different times of the day throughout the week,” said Bailey. “But where there really is a gap is in trying to achieve some kind of systemic change, particularly from the individual perspective with the way people relate to food.”

Categories
News

2013 in numbers: A look back at how the year added up

fun. at The nTelos Wireless Pavilion. Image: Jack Looney

There are 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, 8,760 hours, and 525,600 minutes in a year. But there was a lot more to 2013 than just the sands in the hourglass, so we’ve compiled what we think are the most noteworthy stories of the last 31,536,000 seconds. Here’s the year by the numbers—from hawks spotted to books in the new Crozet Library to the number of backstage meals demanded by fun. at the Pavilion. What will 2014 bring? Start the clock and we’ll see you there.

By Graelyn Brashear, Elizabeth Derby, James Ford, Laura Ingles, Tami Keaveny, Courteney Stuart, and Caite White

The year in news…

114,191

Dollars spent by Democrats in city and county races in 2013

Election Day in 2013 led to a blue sweep in both Albemarle and Charlottesville. Democratic candidates ousted incumbents and won a special election in the county and held on to their city seats (a left-leaning Independent candidate also won in a fourth Albemarle race). Alternatively, Republicans spent $81,092 in the same races—a number that just didn’t, ahem, pay off.

3

New members on UVA’s Board of Visitors

Just over a year after the board attempted to oust University President Teresa Sullivan, John A. Griffin, Frank Genovese, and Kevin J. Fay replaced Alan A. Diamonstein, Vincent J. Mastracco Jr., and A. Macdonald Caputo, who had each served his maximum term. Those looking for institutional change starting with greater diversity in the backgrounds of board members didn’t find it in the new appointments—two investment firm presidents and a head of a public affairs firm, respectively—and the Faculty Senate’s vote of no confidence in the University’s governing body still stands.

1,340

Apartments newly built, under construction, or being planned in 2013

The high-density building boom was set in motion by changes to city zoning regulations a decade ago, but the recession led developers who had long eyed residential projects in the city to put plans on hold. As the economy thaws, the proposals have come thick and fast, especially from those looking to build student housing along West Main Street near UVA.

File photo.26,742

Hawks, eagles, osprey, and other raptors spotted

The volunteers at the Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch keep eyes on the skies on the top of Afton Mountain from August through November, totalling up the numbers of migrating birds as they pass through the Blue Ridge. The data helps biologists keep tabs on global populations.

2 million

Dollars seized from a Rugby Road bust

Police raided the tony headquarters of Alan Jones, Mark Bernardo, and Kelly McPhee in May, upon discovering the trio had manufactured thousands of fake IDs, which they mailed to underage customers at colleges around the country in a lucrative illegal business. The gang pled guilty and was sentenced Monday, December 16: Jones will serve five years, Bernardo will serve 40 months, and McPhee will serve 25 months. All will receive credit for the time they’ve already spent behind bars.

2

Civilian gun-related deaths in Charlottesville and Albemarle

The October 17 shooting murder of 22-year-old Jarvis Brown is the city’s only gun-related homicide in 2013. Twenty-one-year-old Tsaye Simpson is charged with first-degree murder in his death. On May 21, 10-year-old Crozet resident Maggie Hollifield died after the gun her 13-year-old brother was cleaning fired. No charges were filed, and county Commonwealth’s Attorney Denise Lunsford described it as a “tragic accident.

File photo.

3

Police-involved shootings in city and county

On March 15, Charlottesville police officer Alex Bruner shot a man outside the Elks Lodge on First Street NW, just off the Downtown Mall, after an altercation involving a gun between two men. On May 26, two Albemarle County police officers went to Birdwood Court in the city to investigate a hit-and-run. Following a struggle with resident Josue Salinas Valdez, Officer William Underwood fired his weapon, injuring Valdez.

Two weeks later, on June 8, an Albemarle County police officer responded to a call in Afton, where he encountered Gregory Allen Rosson allegedly assaulting his girlfriend. Officer James Larkin shot him after, he claimed, Rosson charged him. Rosson died at the scene.

Prosecutors ruled all three shootings were justified.

193

Accidents on Route 29 between Route 250 Bypass and Rio Road

Proponents of the controversial Western Bypass, plans for which are awaiting approval from the Federal Highway Administration, point to the accident rate along the congested stretch of Route 29 as a reason to build the new road.

File photo.45,565

Books in the new Crozet Library

According to JMRL Collections and Technology Manager David Plunkett, November circulation at the new library, opened September 3, was up by 86 percent over November 2012.

14

Sexual assaults reported to UVA police through December 2

Five of the reports meet the definition of rape under the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting System.

48

Patents issued to UVA researchers 

UVA has devoted new energy to encouraging University researchers to patent their findings—from new compounds to medical devices—since it restructured its Patent Foundation into a new department, UVA Innovation, in 2012 to steer more patent revenue toward individual inventors.

32

Students who dropped out of the class of 2013 in the city

The retention rate in Charlottesville city schools drew scrutiny this year, as reports showed graduation numbers in the city slid by 6.7 percent, bucking a statewide upward trend.

$274,950

Median price of houses sold in the area at the end of the most recent quarter

According to the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors, that’s a 22 percent increase since January 2013 (though it’s actually a slight decrease over November 2012). Other numbers to warm the hearts of those watching the housing market: New pending sales are up 10 percent over last year, and closed sales are up 12 percent.

Categories
Living

Mediterranean cuisine converges on small plates at Parallel 38

Parallel 38 owner Justin Ross has big plans for the new small plates restaurant at Stonefield. Photo: Martyn Kyle.

While The Shops at Stonefield struggle to become known for something other than a place to see a movie, a cluster of restaurants surrounding the theater may save the day. Travinia Italian kitchen, which is routinely packed, and Pasture, the bare-bones, cafeteria-style homage to locally sourced food, have lured foodies to the development. And soon, Parallel 38 will join the mix with a completely different concept.

Parallel 38 takes its name from the latitudinal position just 38 degrees north of the Earth’s equatorial plane, a parallel that happens to run through some of the world’s finest wine and food regions: the Greek Ionian Islands, Spain’s Alicante region, Calabria in Italy, the Setubal Peninsula in Portugal, and Napa Valley in California. Central Virginia also happens to be strung along the 38th Parallel, and while it may not be as renowned as Napa Valley or Cambria, the idea here, according to the owners, is to merge all those cuisines in Charlottesville.

“We want to re-create what you find along that parallel here, using as much local produce as we can,” said co-owner Justin Ross*, who plans to open Parallel 38 at the end of December with his business partner Steve Pritchard. “It’s the ideal parallel for great food and drink, and we want to introduce people to new things and educate them.”

Take quinoa, for example.

“Usually this is served soft, like rice, but we heat it in oil until it becomes crispy,” said chef Alfredo Malinis. “I can assure you, no one is doing that around here.”

The masterminds behind Parallel 38 use the word “approachable” a lot, emphasizing that while Parallel 38 will offer some exotic foods and at least 100 different wines from around the world, they want people to feel comfortable trying different things.

“We want to take the pretension out of eating this kind of food,” Malinis added. “But these are dishes you will find  in high end D.C. restaurants.”

The dishes, it should be noted, are all small plates, tapas-style. Plus the layout of the space will give guests a number of seating options—on casks while you wait for a table, stools against a wall, at the massive soapstone bar, at formal tables, or on salvaged railway flatbed cars in the bar area. There’s also a 12-person communal table and an eight-person chefs’ table.

Behind the bar, a massive set of what look like bookshelves will display every bottle of wine in the place, and the bartenders will maneuver a 20′ high library ladder on wheels to access them. The space is wide open, with high ceilings, and there’s an elaborate chalk drawing of the regions along the 38th parallel by Virginia-based artist Sam Welty. Ross and his girlfriend Jackie Bright, the executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Central Blue Ridge, designed the place themselves, with a little help from local lighting designer Mark Schuyler.

Ross cut his teeth in the restaurant business at D.C.’s Zaytinya, the well-known Turkish, Greek, and Lebanese spot owned by celebrated chef and activist José Andrés, who was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time in 2012. Malinis also has an impressive resume, having been the executive chef at Level, an award-winning small plate lounge in Annapolis.

“We’re going to be authentic as we can without sticking to the book,” Malinis said. “We’ll have a comfortable approach to this kind of food. We’ll have the classics, like hummus, octopus, and calamari, but we’ll also have goat on the menu. But we’ll serve it in the form of a meatball to make people feel more at ease.”

Malinis noted that even the classics like calamari and hummus will be created with new, modern twists, with a tendency to borrow techniques from different regions and mix and match them. For example, he’s planning a Catalonian version of a French ratatouille.

Other menu items include Gambas al Maratho—a shrimp and fennel dish served with house-made chorizo, garlic, olive oil and feta cheese—a Gnocchi with squid ink labneh, confit of tomatoes, and chestnuts, and a Motsarela, which is house-made mozzarella with white balsamic vinegar, roasted garlic vinaigrette, and olive oil. And keep an eye out for the special tasting menu, which will feature specialties not offered every day.

“We’ll ask the question, ‘How can we create foods from these regions using local produce?’” said Malinis. But they’ll be importing stuff as well, like jamón serrano directly from Spain.

“The people at Stonefield want restaurants to be the anchors here,” Ross said. “And they wanted another cool concept. We’re confident this will be it.”

Ross wants guests to explore the different foods along the 38th Parallel, but don’t be shy or intimidated; he promises to make this unique food accessible.

Indeed, the debut of this exciting new concept is fast approaching—the owners are aiming for a December 30 opening day —so get ready to try something new.

Parallel 38 owner Justin Ross has big plans for the new small plates restaurant at Stonefield.

*In an earlier version of this story, Justin Ross was incorrectly identified as Justin Rose. 

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The Editor's Desk

Editor’s Note: The scoop on Christmas

Every journalist gets into the business because he likes answering questions of one kind or another. Who’s moving the money behind the scenes? What color was the getaway car? When was the last time the budget was short? Where, exactly, does the water end up? Good reporters answer a lot of questions, but the essence of the job is to accumulate facts so other people can pin them down. Your professional credibility involves a dispassionate presentation of events. You are an observer, not a detective. So while from the outside the job looks like interviewing people and telling their stories, from the inside, it feels more like baking the bricks that build the truth or driving a herd of facts from the pen to the page.

When I was a teenager, a journalist colleague of my mother’s and a close family friend sent me a gift, a novel with the inscription “Nonfiction tells you what happened; fiction tells the truth.” A decade later, the same friend told me I’d never regret becoming a small town reporter, citing his own experience as a 19-year-old cub at the Bulawayo Chronicle, and on that recommendation I headed for the Northwoods for my first full-time newspaper gig.

This year, for my son’s first Christmas, he sent a note from his home in Wales, reminding me to read Dylan Thomas to my boy, citing in particular the passage in A Child’s Christmas in Wales that concerns gifts, aunts, and wasps: “…and once I had a little crocheted nose bag from an aunt now, alas, no longer whinnying with us. And pictureless books in which small boys, though warned with quotations not to, would skate on Farmer Giles’ pond and did and drowned; and books that told me everything about the wasp, except why.”

At our little weekly newspaper, we try very hard to get the facts right, and we also try to tell a wide range of stories that reflect a more holistic picture of our community than the public record normally provides. This week’s feature is the sum of a year’s work, our version of everything about the wasp, except why.

 

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News

Education beat: CATEC looks to add pre-K, plans for the future

(Left to right) Albemarle Superintendent Pam Moran, Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center Board Chair and Albemarle County School Board Chair Steve Koleszar, and Charlottesville City Schools Superintendent Rosa Atkins evaluate potential models for CATEC. Photo: Tim Shea

In the coming years, the Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center (CATEC) might welcome students who have yet to reach high school. During a strategic plan work session Tuesday, the CATEC Board approved Director Adam Hastings’ request to conduct a feasibility study about starting a preschool teacher training program at the regional center.

“So far our strategic plan is taking shape, and one of the big things that is coming out of our conversation is vertical integration from young grades all the way through to advanced, post-secondary education,” Hastings said. “The preschool feasibility study puts all of that together, with young kids, high school-aged kids, and employers.”

The study will involve Hastings meeting with many of the preschool community’s stakeholders, such as the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education, Piedmont Virginia Community College, and other private preschool providers. While Hastings said it’s an exploratory step and that it’s too early to tell what form a pre-K program might take, the opportunity would serve as both a high-quality early-childhood experience and a training program for CATEC students.

Hastings said the most successful programs are the ones that offer teachers in training real-world experience, like internships and apprenticeships. “If we can give them those, we know that the career and technical education instruction for high school kids goes through the roof,” he said.

Grant Tate, who heads the Bridge, Ltd.—a Charlottesville-based consulting firm guiding the planning process—said the recent Orange Dot Project identified child care as a community need, especially among lower-income residents. The move would not be the first time CATEC housed pre-kindergarten students, as the vocational center ran an early childhood program from 1986 to 1998.

The pre-K conversation was an offshoot of the larger strategic planning meeting, during which the Board discussed overarching modernizations the center could make.

Representatives from the Bridge also briefed the board on several of the conceptual models they have developed for CATEC so far during the strategic planning process. Tom Smith, former Superintendent of Fluvanna County Public Schools, said that the models are “ideas to talk about the way things are moving,” and emphasized that elements of each could be combined or changed.

One would see students complete their last two years of high school at CATEC, and another would only offer programming in certified/registered vocational tracks. Additionally, Smith introduced a model that integrates the business community into curriculum design.

CATEC Board Chair Steve Koleszar said that whatever CATEC becomes, the school must stress making connections with employers for students. “I think that’s the critical missing piece,” Koleszar said. “We don’t make those connections, and so some people, for whatever reason, luck out, while others end up not being able to use their skills.”

Charlottesville City Schools Superintendent Rosa Atkins said that CATEC needs to prepare students with skills that will take them beyond the Charlottesville-Albemarle community, which she feared could see workforce saturation after a few years of successfully training students.

But Smith said the employers he has spoken to are predicting long-term needs. “If you think regionally, things are going to expand in other areas,” Smith said, noting that the region’s definition of the service industry is changing. “The service industry is not McDonalds. That’s not what we’re talking about. Plow & Hearth is in Madison, even if you go as far as to Richmond with Amazon and their call centers. It’s more than part-time working at [the] Gap.”

Board Member Willa Neale and Superintendent Atkins expressed concern over how the over-arching strategic plans would be put into action. “I am concerned that there are so many wonderful options here that we may get lost in the options,” Atkins said.

Tate said developing an innovative model would require an innovative process of creating that model. Albemarle Superintendent Pam Moran said the preschool feasibility study could be a way to begin taking action on the strategic plan.

Despite the concerns expressed by the board, Tate and Smith said the process is going smoothly. “They’re thinking about how to do it,” Smith said. “There’s always nervousness with ‘How I am going to take an idea, no matter how great I think it is, and implement it?’”

“The good news in all that is that they didn’t throw up roadblocks,” Tate said. “They didn’t say ‘You can’t do this because—,’ which they could do. Lots of boards do.” Tate said his team will continue to meet with employers and hone models, and will most likely meet with the CATEC Board again in January.

Peter Henning. Photo: Albemarle County Schools.
Peter Henning. Photo: Albemarle County Schools.

Meet Your Educator

Peter Henning, Assistant Principal, Jack Jouett Middle School

What has been the most challenging aspect of becoming an administrator?

Living up to the standard of excellence already established by the faculty, students, and administration at Jack Jouett. I strive daily to do all that I can to contribute to this great community and to leverage the tools we already have to keep us moving forward.

In what new ways do you support student learning?

I try my best to be an instructional partner with teachers. This year I am working with the Language Arts department to implement a reading and writing workshop. It’s exciting to engage in dialogue about the craft of teaching with passionate teachers. It’s even more exciting to see those conversations translate into deep learning experiences for students in the classroom.

What are you doing to engage the community at your school?

I try to learn the name of every student in our school by the end of each school year. With over 600 students, this is a major challenge, but it means a lot to students to receive personal attention from their administrator.

How will you respect your school’s history and culture while making the decisions necessary to educate young people for their future?

Jack Jouett Middle School has a widely diverse student body. With a large population of students who are English language learners, we work hard to ensure that our school community respects its richness of culture. Thanks to the leadership of our teachers, we are currently working on initiatives to better include ELL students academically and socially in our school community. This effort will help all of our students to become well-rounded citizens prepared to contribute to the global community.

(Left to right) Albemarle Superintendent Pam Moran, Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center Board Chair and Albemarle County School Board Chair Steve Koleszar, and Charlottesville City Schools Superintendent Rosa Atkins evaluate potential models for CATEC.