Hunter Smith has had a busy year. As owner of Champion Brewing Company, he’s grown production capacity by more than 30 percent, added three new canned beers to his lineup and expanded into North Carolina. But we didn’t want him to get a big head, so we asked the brewmaster to tout a few of his favorite Virginia craft beers that he didn’t make—and what inedibles to pair them with.
Optimal Wit
Brewery: Port City Brewing Co. (Alexandria)
Find it: Pad Thai, Firefly, Jack Brown’s Beer & Burger Joint, Rocksalt and more
“The fruity and spicy witbier is good for drinking when in a phase of hop fatigue, or a case of Irish flu. Pair with Weezer’s Blue Album, another refreshing classic for which it’s impossible not to be in the mood.”
Bitter Valentine
Brewery: AleWerks Brewing (Williamsburg)
Find it: Whole Foods and Beer Run
“Indisputably the best Double IPA in Virginia, this big, bitter heavy- hitter is a refreshing eye-opener. Known for sporadic limited releases, I grab several bottles whenever I see it. Pair with High Country, the new heady riff-laden album from Texas metal outfit The Sword, another producer from whom I’ll always buy the freshest release.”
Vienna Lager
Brewery: Devils Backbone Brewing Company (Charlottesville)
Find it: Citizen Burger Bar, Threepenny Café, Continental Divide, Vivace and more
“One of the best-selling beers in Virginia, this malty flagship of DBB is a simple and pleasant staple that is an easy go-to. For this type of comfortable utility, I would pair this beer with the movie Goodfellas. It’s always on, and it may be familiar, but you’re in good hands.”
Chef Allie Redshaw set her sights on culinary school after a high school trip to Paris introduced her to fine food. She attended the Culinary Institute of America, where she met her now-husband Ian Redshaw (a co- owner of Lampo) and worked for a while in Red Hook, New York, before moving to Charlottesville, where she took a position in the kitchen at Pippin Hill’s Farm Table & Wine Bar. Now she’s at the helm of newly opened Timbercreek Market, an outpost of Timbercreek Farm, which has been preaching Joel Salatin’s gospel of sustainable farming since 2010. The café menu boasts everything from a classic cheesesteak to bone marrow tigelle (an Italian bread with bone marrow torchon, prosciutto and topped with shaved fennel and arugula), but Redshaw says it’s rabbit that she’s excited to work with in the colder months. “And pasta dishes, of course,” she says. “Classic fall, heavy pasta dishes, laden with butter and cheese.” We asked her to tell us a few of her other favorite things.
Always on the bar:A good round red wine, not too tannic
Special-occasion drink:Parliament from Zocalo
Energy source:Coffee (just one because I’m pregnant!)
Breakfast:Smoothies by my hubby
Lunch spot: Ace Biscuit & Barbecue
Chinese restaurant order:Bubble scallion pancake from Taste of China
Sandwich: Ol’ Dirty Biscuit with fried green tomatoes from Ace Biscuit & Barbecue
Grocery store cookie: Mission Home Bakeshop monster cookie
Dessert: Ice cream
Beer: Wine? Specifically, Caburnio, a super Tuscan that is absolutely beautiful and was introduced to me when I was working for Francesco Buitoni in Red Hook, New York.
Ice cream flavor: Strawberry
Kitchen aroma:Fresh-baked bread
Always in the home fridge:Amish hand-rolled butter
Always in the pantry: Honey
Bodo’s order: Sausage, egg and cheese on everything whole wheat
Cut of meat: Pork belly
Fish: Skate wing
Vegetable:Ramps
Midnight snack: Cinnasticks
Knife: Misono UX10
Appliance: French top range
Cookbook:On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee
Mentors: Joe Depaola and Howard “Corky” Clark of the Culinary Institute of America
Dream trip: Fiji
Food city: Paris
Cooking clothes:Scrubs pants, Bragard jackets
Kitchen shoes: Dansko
Cooking music: Leon Bridges
Food-related tattoos: None
Fall/winter menu items: I am very excited to work with the rabbits that we have coming fromthe farm. And pasta dishes, of course (classic fall, heavy pasta dishes, laden with butter and cheese).
First food memory: A trip to France when I was in high school that actually changed my mind about my life career, to becoming a chef and devoting my life to the passions of the industry. I was completely overwhelmed and overtaken by the passion and intensity that I found in the various regions of France—from the patisserie to the poissonnière!
Best meal ever: Penne arrabiatta from Mercato in Red Hook, New York
One of Edacious podcaster Jenée Libby's favorite interviewees? Cupcake queen Laurie Chapman Blakery, who owns Pearl's Bake Shoppe. Photo: Amanda Maglione
Jenée Libby always wanted to be on the radio. As a child, she spent hours pretending—“Remember Mr. Microphone?” she asks. But Libby’s all grown up now, and she no longer has to pretend, thanks to Edacious, her twice-monthly podcast devoted to all things food.
“I initially thought [Edacious] would be a terrific way to bring people to my writing,” says the author of The Diner of Cville blog. “I don’t always write what people want to read—things like restaurant reviews and recipes bore me to tears—so my writing delves deeper, but I realize a lot of people aren’t interested in the history of canning beans in Virginia.” Turns out Libby’s podcast, which premiered last February, provides her with something even better than a larger audience: “I’m meeting all the wonderful chefs, growers and purveyors and learning their stories,” she says.
Among her favorite guests have been Pearl’s Bake Shoppe’s Laurie Chapman Blakey, whose grandmother, Pearl, grew up in Greene County “and she uses many of her recipes to make her shop’s cupcakes and other goodies,” Libby says, adding that Blakey brought her grandma’s cookbook to the interview, and the pair spent two on-air hours comparing notes on each other’s grandmother’s cakes. Other Edacious highlights include learning how Splendora’s PK Ross creates a new gelato flavor; hearing chef Melissa Close-Hart’s thoughts on being a female chef “in an industry where women aren’t always recognized as invaluable” and talking with the C&O’s Dean Maupin “about the old-school way of apprenticeship.”
“Every time I finish an interview it’s a high,” Libby says. “I’m terribly neurotic, so each interview is an exercise in fear. But I breathe through it, do my best…and [when I’m done] it’s like flying.” Asked who her dream Edacious interviewee is, she says, “One word: Tomas [Rahal, owner of Mas].”
In addition to her Edacious podcast, Jenée Libby writes The Diner of Cville blog (thedinerofcville.com), which she calls “a frenzied literary mosaic of all things food.” But as you’ll see from the list below, Libby isn’t the only area foodie to put her keyboard where her mouth is.
Brooklyn Supper, the brainchild of Elizabeth Stark and Brian Campbell, is an award-winning blog that wants to make eating seasonally simple and straightforward, courtesy of recipes aimed at home cooks of all levels (potato, leek and fennel soup, anyone?). If it’s in season, Stark and Campbell are likely to write about (and photograph) it. brooklynsupper.com
Renee Byrd’s Will Frolic for Food is filled with vegetarian recipes that are seasonal and approachable and show readers that eating a mostly plant-based diet can be “luxurious, decadent, invigorating and help you live your most vibrant life.” But Byrd’s blog isn’t exclusively food- focused, as evidenced by her recipe for The Sugar Hollow, a watermelon gin cocktail (we’ll take two, please!). willfrolicforfood.com
Roux Studio bills itself as a culinary collective, which is code for a mouthwatering collection of photographs, recipes, thoughts and “doodles” about all things food. You’ll find everything from a recipe for rye gnocchi with crispy purple scallion (aka “moving day pasta”) to the lowdown on a Peter Chang Champion Brewing Company dinner and frame-worthy drawings of pickles, pastries and caviar. roux-studio.com—S.S.
Austin Morning taco with El Jefe sauce from Brazos Tacos. Photo: Brianna LaRocco
Now that temperatures have dropped, warm up by adding some spice to your plate. Here are just a few local options to put a little hair on your chest.
5. El Jefe sauce (above)
Brazos Tacos
The spiciest item at the newest taco joint in town is the El Jefe, a thick green hot sauce found at the condiment table. Made from emulsified jalapeños, it commands attention. Owner Peter Griesar recommends pairing it with any of the breakfast tacos, particularly the Austin Morning—braised brisket, scrambled eggs, mashed potatoes, pickled onion and queso fresco.
Photo: Brianna LaRocco
Peri-peri chicken
Shebeen Pub & Braai
The peri-peri chicken is a Sub-Saharan African staple. Made with crushed peri-peri chili pepper, the sauce “gets really hot, but never so hot that it’s miserable,” according to owner Walter Slawski. It’s served with a side of mango chutney to cool you off a bit, but if you can’t get enough spice, order it with extra crushed peri-peri chili on the side.
Photo: Brianna LaRocco
The Shocker
Jack Brown’s Beer & Burger Joint
When it comes to chili peppers, you could remove the seeds, soak them in some pickle juice or switch them out for a bell pepper to reduce the heat, but Jack Brown’s embraces the spice. The Shocker has both jalapeños and habaneros—raw, with the seeds still in—and pepper jack cheese and shocker sauce, a tears-inducing con- diment made in-house with habaneros.
Photo: Brianna LaRocco
Pepper vinegar
Maya
While Maya chef Christian Kelly says there’s “no one dish that sets anyone’s mouth on fire” on the menu, there is one condiment that may give your taste buds a run for their money: the pepper vinegar, served with the collard greens.
“Dried chili is so complex in its flavor profile that you almost forget about the heat because there’s so much other stuff going on,” Kelly says. “Our pepper vinegar is like that.”
Photo: Brianna LaRocco
Pad Thai
Downtown Thai
The servers at Downtown Thai will ask how spicy you want your meal on a scale of one to five, but you can request a spice level of up to 50. Restaurant manager Mahila Mehtab recommends the pad Thai, which “tastes better when it’s really spicy.”
CHILI PEPPER JELLY TIME
A City Market vendor who refers to his backyard garden as Park Street Farm, Paul Carlson grows seven or eight different chili pepper varieties—including the Carolina reaper, which hits 2,200,000 on the Scoville scale and is known as the hottest chili pepper in the world—and turns them into jelly. Carlson recommends putting the scorching-hot jellies on a grilled cheese sandwich or mixing them with some vinegar for a homemade barbecue sauce. They’re only available during the fall, though, so get ’em before they’re gone.—L.I.
TO EVERYTHING THERE IS A SEASON(ING)
Inside The Spice Diva’s glass jars
The floor-to-ceiling shelves in The Spice Diva are lined with dozens of jars containing spices of every color, texture, scent and flavor imaginable. Luckily shop owner Phyllis Hunter knows the contents of each container like the back of her hand and can give you cooking tips for everything from saffron to black truffle salt to the 12 types of chili pepper she carries, making the experience of shopping in the little Main Street Market spot a lot less intimidating.
Hunter says she often doesn’t know how to answer the question “What are you supposed to use this for?” because there’s no right or wrong way to cook with spices, but she gave us a few pointers anyway.—L.I.
Bee pollen
Known as a “superfood,” this healthy stuff contains protein and amino acids.
Best uses: Mix it into a smoothie or use it to rim a cocktail glass.
Asafetida powder
Don’t follow your nose on this one—the raw powder has a pungent, bitter smell, but can be a flavorful substitute for onion and garlic.
Best uses: Indian dishes, beans and soups
Szechuan peppercorns
Also known as Chinese coriander, these little pods create a numbing sensation, oftentimes to prepare the palate for a particularly hot dish.
Best uses: Asian-inspired dishes
Asian smoked tea rub
Striking a balance between sweet and smoky, this seasoning features lapsang souchong tea, brown sugar, Saigon cinnamon, star anise, white pepper, orange peel and ginger,
Best uses: Pork and duck breast (can be a substitute for a smoker)
Cinchona bark
Native to South America, this bitter-tasting powder should be used sparingly.
Best uses: Homemade tonic, bitters and cocktails
Piment d’espelette
Cultivated in the French Basque Country, this spicy, smoky chili powder smells warm and comforting.
Best uses: Garlic aioli, fish and eggs
Too much spice? Try a little sugar.
Maple flakes
These crispy flakes of pure maple are simple and sweet.
Best uses: Granola, oatmeal and doughy cookies
Lavender sugar
Exactly what it sounds like, this delicate sweetener is simply organic cane sugar and lavendar.
A seasonal shift is an exciting change for any chef—a new menu awaits! We asked two local culinarians—Ian Boden of The Shack in Staunton and Caleb Warr of Tavola—to tell us what they’re most excited about adding to the offerings this fall and winter, respectively.
Ian Boden. Photo: Norm Shafer
IAN BODEN
The Shack (Staunton)
Ham fat confit pumpkin with fresh herbs
“I feel like people get stuck in a rut with pumpkin. They go to the classics—pumpkin pie, purées, etc., which tend to be overly sweet and have so much spice in them you can’t taste the pumpkin. I like to push pumpkin more to the savory side. How can I put pumpkin in a different context and let people taste pumpkin in a different way? This dish is pretty easy to turn into a vegetable-centric dish. For an upcoming event, I am serving it with cured egg yolk and fresh herbs, but you could add a poached or fried egg and make it super lush. Or it could be a side dish for Thanksgiving.
“In preparing and presenting the dish, you don’t want to be scared of the fat. The fat itself gives the flavor, so keep the pumpkin well-coated in it as you cook it. And you want to finish the plated dish with a little bit of the fat (not soaking in it, but a nice drizzle).”
Photo: Rammelkamp Foto
Caleb Warr. Photo: Rammelkamp Foto
CALEB WARR
Tavola
Pancetta-wrapped scallop sausage with smoked branzino collar and onion tops, served on a fennel and bay aioli
“It’s a dish in which all the ingredients are in peakseason during late autumn and early winter months.A traditional version of this technique is commonly seen where I am from, Southern Louisiana.
I learned to perfect the technique while working at The Rock Barn, and think it will present well with classic Italian pantry items. The exciting part for us comes from the fact that we will be utilizing trim that would otherwise be thrown out by most, and turning it into a delicious few bites to be enjoyed with some of [Tavola bar manager] Christian Johnston’s winter cocktails.”
Home cookin’
Want to try Bodens’s recipe at your own dinner table? Here’s how.—C.W.
Ham fat confit pumpkin
1 medium pumpkin (delicata, butternut or acorn are good options)
1 qt. lard
2 cups Edwards ham scraps
1 head garlic (halved)
2 sprigs thyme
1 sprig rosemary
2 bay leaves
In a large sauce pot, put the lard and ham scraps on medium low heat. Do not fry the ham, but allow it to slowly render. There should be little to no movement in the fat. When the ham bits become shriveled and crispy, remove them from the heat.
Slice the pumpkin into large 1″-thick chunks, removing the seeds and skin if necessary. Lay flat in a baking dish and sprinkle with kosher salt. Add the remaining ingredients and cover with the ham and lard. Cover with aluminum foil and put into an oven set to 300 degrees. Cook until tender but not falling apart (approximately 45 minutes to an hour). Allow to cool slightly before serving. Does not need to be piping hot—room temperature is perfect.
In late July, when a mysterious, creeping sugar pumpkin vine emerged from my compost pile, I started thinking about the strange fruit and how to get it from gourd to glass. The answer? Pumpkin butter.
Pumpkin butter
8 sugar pumpkins; 1 1/2 cups Dr. Pepper (or something cola-esque); 1 1/2 cups brown sugar; 2 cups table sugar; 1 tbsp. freshly grated cinnamon (or cassia); 1 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg; 1/2 tsp. whole cloves; 1/2 tsp. allspice (grind the cloves and allspice in a spice grinder)
Cut the tops off of eight sugar pumpkins and cut them in half. Remove the seeds. Roast them face down on a sheet pan at 350 degrees for one hour, or until the flesh can be easily scraped from the shell. Allow them to cool, then scrape out the flesh, yielding about 3 to 4 quarts. In a pot, add the rest of the ingredients. Bring them to a boil, then simmer for about an hour on low heat. Run the butter through a Vitamix in batches until it’s smooth.
Yes, Mr. Washington
1 1/2 oz. Laird’s Applejack or Bonded apple brandy; 1 tbsp. pumpkin butter; 1 oz. cider reduction (apple cider reduced to one-third volume plus a pinch of sugar); 1/4 oz. lemon juice; 1/2 oz. egg white
Dry shake without ice, shake with ice, double strain into a chilled cocktail coupe and garnish with nutmeg.
We’ve picked this poached pear dish from Red Pump Kitchen for two reasons: First, it’s pretty enough to appear on a holiday postcard. But mostly because, with Marsala wine, saffron, cocoa and hazelnut, it’s the perfect punctuation to a winter meal.
Supervisor Liz Palmer led the charge for a much smaller addition to the growth area than originally proposed. Photo: Submitted
The Albemarle Board of Supervisors snatched victory from the jaws of a 223-acre growth area expansion and approved the addition of only 35 acres south of the Interstate 64/U.S. 29 interchange to the comprehensive plan’s development area at a September 23 special meeting.
When the supes last met September 9, it looked like they were ready to add to the growth area land that Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Oregon, had allegedly expressed interest in. But when they came back to hammer out the details, the Samuel Miller District’s Liz Palmer, the most vocally opposed to the amendment, managed a “rear guard victory,” according to Scottsville District candidate Rick Randolph, and swayed three other supervisors to vote for adding the much smaller 35 acres plus 16 acres for green space instead of the 85 acres for light industrial with 138 for park and green area originally proposed.
“An engineer said it would be very, very challenging to build any type of facility on the land we approved,” says Supervisor Ken Boyd, who admits he’s “disappointed” with the way the board went and the likely loss of around 100 “good, middle-class” jobs.
“It’s truly a baby step,” he says. “We need to grow up a little if we’re going to have a vibrant economy.”
Christine Davis, who gathered signatures on a petition against the amendment, is concerned about the precedent this decision makes. “If land will be added piecemeal to the development area,” she says, the board needs to publicly acknowledge that policy.
Rio District Supervisor Brad Sheffield moved that the board not consider any other comp plan amendments until the economic development office provided an inventory of land designated light industrial in the county.
Faith McClintic, the county’s economic development director, says, “The fact that the board did anything is progress. We still have a long way to go.”
According to Boyd, following Governor Terry McAuliffe’s visit to September 14 visit to Deschutes in Bend, the company will pay another site visit to Virginia. “They’re going to Roanoke,” says Boyd, “not here.”
Debra Shipp and Sam Towler show a book of digitized, restored marriage bonds from 1780-1785, which Shipp scanned as part of a restoration project.
Debra Shipp, clerk of the Albemarle County Circuit Court, proudly displays a collection of restored marriage licenses bound in sleek, black binders, which she lined on a shelf chronologically from the 1968 all the way back to 1780.
The goal of this restoration project—which began back in June 2009—was to digitize, restore and further preserve all of the county’s marriage licenses, marriage bonds, deed books and surveyor’s books on record. With a total bill of $307,471.16, Shipp says September 28 that not a cent of that money came from the county or taxpayers, but was paid with grants from the Library of Virginia and the Jamestown Society.
Brian Spearman with Kofile Preservation in Dallas, Texas, says he preserved the documents by chemically treating them through de-acidification and further amended documents that were ripped or torn in several pieces.
Flipping through the book of marriage bonds—an actual bond that posted indicating a man’s intention to wed—from 1780-1785, he points to a record that is now in two pieces from decades of wear and tear. He has put the documents back together with fibers of thin, translucent tissue.
“This is the permanent history that’s gone,” he says while running his fingers over missing words caused by the tear in the page, “but Albemarle is very fortunate that they have all their records. …We wanted to make sure that these records would be here for future generations.”
Now that Shipp is finished with scanning and digitizing, she says her next step will be importing the documents into the court’s computer system so the public can access them that way, as well.
Her friend and volunteer Sam Towler is now working to preserve the court’s chancery files, wills, divorces and other miscellaneous records in a similar way by unfolding them and putting them in acid-free folders and boxes. He’s creating an index of the records along the way and, with no end in sight, hopes to recruit some UVA students as volunteers soon.
