Month: March 2016

Categories
News

Clinton, Trump carry Virginia on Super Tuesday

Eleven states voted in primary elections on Super Tuesday.

Virginians went to the polls Tuesday to vote for the Democratic and Republican candidates for president in the primary election. Ten other states also voted on Super Tuesday.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won the most states for the Democratic vote (seven states, including Virginia), while Donald Trump carried the Republican vote in seven states (including Virginia).

Clinton received 64 percent of the vote in Virginia, while her opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders, received 35 percent. Sanders did carry Charlottesville, however, with 53 percent of the vote (4,474 votes) to Clinton’s 46 percent (3,888) (former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley received .3 percent of the vote).

Clinton carried Albemarle County with 54.55 percent of the vote (8,283) to Sanders’ 45.04 percent (6,838). O’Malley received .41 percent (62 votes).

The Republican race in Virginia was closer with Trump receiving 35 percent of the vote, Senator Marco Rubio 32 percent, Senator Ted Cruz 17 percent, Governor John Kasich 9 percent and Ben Carson 6 percent.

Clinton has 544 delegates and 453 superdelegates, while Sanders has 349 delegates and 284 superdelegates (2,383 delegates are needed to win).

Trump has 285 delegates (203 superdelegates); Cruz 161 delegates (144 superdelegates); Rubio 87 delegates (71 superdelegates); Kasich 25 delegates (19 superdelegates); Carson 8 delegates (3 superdelegates). The Republican candidate needs 1,237 delegates to win.

Categories
Living

Casual eatery Mezeh makes its debut in Charlottesville and more local restaurant news

Mezeh Mediterranean Grill allows you to build your own meal with options such as spicy chicken shawarma or falafel, topped with a variety of additions like Lebanese tabbouleh and hummus. Photo: Tom McGovern

Casual eatery Mezeh makes its debut in Charlottesville

Pick your base, pick your protein, pick your veggies—it’s not a new concept by any means. But Charlottesville’s selection of fresh, healthy, build-your-own rice and salad bowls just got bigger, and there’s a new cuisine in the mix: Mediterranean. Introducing Mezeh Mediterranean Grill, a fast, casual restaurant inspired by the flavors of Greece, Turkey, Lebanon and Israel that just opened across from Trader Joe’s in The Shops at Stonefield.

“We saw a need to offer people a healthy choice and flavorful foods that would be affordable and convenient,” co-owner Steve Walker says. “Studies show that the Mediterranean diet is healthy and good for you, so we saw there was an opportunity to develop a concept like this.”

Walker has been in the food biz ever since he stumbled on a back-of-the-house restaurant job in college. A Johnson & Wales University grad who’s worked in restaurants in Boston and Chicago, Walker teamed up with Saleh Mohamadi and Tai Chiao to open Mezeh’s doors for the first time in Annapolis, Maryland, three years ago. Since its inception, the eatery has made its way down the Commonwealth, with six locations now open and another half dozen on the horizon, including Richmond.

Complementing the orange and gray decor designed to be reminiscent of colorful, decorative Mediterranean tiles are shelves lined with giant glass jars filled with spices and ingredients that Walker says the kitchen takes down to use on a regular basis, plus jars of bright pink and orange pickled vegetables.

The house-pickled turnips, onions and carrots are just a few of the freshly made items available for you to pile on your rice bowl, salad, pita pocket or flatbread wrap. Alongside those veggies behind the counter are toppings such as Turkish salad (chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, green peppers, parsley and lemon juice), Israeli couscous (with peppers, onions, currents, turmeric, cumin and olive oil), Lebanese tabbouleh (with fresh parsley, mint, bulgur wheat, lemon juice, tomato and olive oil), olives and chickpeas. There are also three different types of hummus (plain, spicy and cilantro), marinated vegetables, spicy, creamy feta cheese and sweet, smoky caramelized eggplant. As for the proteins, choices include beef kefta (meatballs), spicy lamb kefta, chicken kebab, falafel and both steak and chicken shawarma.

The shawarma meats marinate all night in a concoction of yogurt and about a dozen spices, and they’re grilled on the flattop throughout the day. The menu warns that the chicken is spicier than traditional shawarma, and it’s not kidding—just like several other items on the menu (such as the spicy hummus and s’hug sauce), the chicken has a bite to it.

Walker is the first to admit that the selection of food available at Mezeh may not be exactly what you would find in restaurants overseas.

“We don’t necessarily want to be known for having the most traditional tabbouleh,” he says. “We want to create very flavorful food, and sometimes what’s most authentic is not the most flavorful.”

To wash it all down, Mezeh’s beverage line features a selection of Boylan Cane Sugar Sodas, plus house-made juices such as kale, beet and apple, lemon-lime with mint, cucumber-mint and the surprisingly mild cranberry-orange with cinnamon and jalapeño.

For more information check out the Mezeh Charlottesville Facebook page.

Sweets spot

The Downtown Mall just got a little sweeter. Kilwins, a franchise ice cream, chocolate and fudge shop with locations across the Mid-Atlantic that boasts the tagline “Sweet in every sense since 1947,” has joined the tribe of dessert-slinging spots downtown. Next door to Splendora’s and owned by Kip and Jessica Pastermack, Kilwins opened for business last Monday.

The extensive selection of sweets includes homemade ice cream in flavors such as cappuccino chocolate chip, marshmallow s’more, toasted coconut and the top-selling salted caramel. According to Kip Pastermack, the treats on the right side of the display case (such as the mocha truffles and cashew turtles) are shipped from Petoskey, Michigan, where the original Kilwins candy-making machine still churns out the classic chocolates and distributes them to every location. The left side of the case holds the made-in-house items such as chocolate-dipped pretzels, nonpareils and a dozen different fudge flavors, which Pastermack says will rotate seasonally.

For more information, check out the Kilwins Charlottesville Facebook page.

Categories
News

Sick leave: At least 25 get ill from pop-up dinner

Now & Zen owner/chef Toshi Sato said he believes the bean sprouts or spinach were to blame for pop-up dinner customers getting sick. Photo by Elli William

A crucial part of learning to be a sushi chef is food safety. So imagine Now & Zen owner/chef Toshi Sato’s horror when he learned that people who attended a special pop-up ramen dinner February 16 at his restaurant got sick.

“All my good customers,” he says. “I was terrorized. I didn’t know what caused it. It’s a scary thing.”

Comments started appearing the next day on the restaurant’s Facebook page. “There was something wrong with the ramen last night,” says one. “Four out of five people in my dinner party got sick. I had to skip classes today because I was feeling so terrible and haven’t been able to keep anything more than half a bottle of water down.”

“My wife and I both got sick after eating these ramen last night,” says another.

Reports of “gastro-intestinal complaints” started coming into the local Virginia Department of Health office as well, says Thomas Jefferson Health District epidemiologist Kerry Morrison. No one went to the hospital, and although she can’t provide specific numbers, she says, “We believe at least 25 people became sick.”

So far, the health department doesn’t know what caused the outbreak, and it can take several weeks to investigate, says Morrison. She calls it a “single, isolated event.”

She also says it’s health department policy to not identify the business unless it’s an immediate threat to public health.

Sato has his own theory. “I think it was the vegetables,” he says, naming the bean sprouts or spinach.

He emphasizes that the dinner was a special event and sushi was not served that evening.

Morrison contacted people who became ill to understand their symptoms, when they began, what they ate and whether they’d had other contacts that could have made them sick, for example, with an unwell animal.

“The owner sent an online survey to customers,” she says, noting he was “very cooperative.”

She also collected food samples from the restaurant and requested stool samples from the stricken.

Such foodborne illness outbreaks are relatively rare in the area. The Thomas Jefferson Health District had one last year and two in 2014 that were caused by norovirus and salmonella, says Morrison.

Eric Myers is the environmental health supervisor with the department of health, and he, too, investigates outbreaks within 24 hours to make sure best practices are followed in the kitchen of a restaurant, school or anywhere else food is being served to the public.

He says risk factors include personal hygiene of food preparers, improper holding of hot and cold foods or not cooking at proper temperatures. He also checks employees’ health to make sure no one has been ill in the past week and that contaminated equipment has been properly sanitized.

And with the popularity of pop-up dining and food trucks, Myers says, “Anytime food is served to the public, it’s required a permit be posted.”

Myers says, “The owner has been very cooperative. We feel good about the control measures put in place.”

Sato canceled a second ramen pop-up on February 17, and a week after the outbreak, he still sounds shaken. He doesn’t see any more ramen nights in Now & Zen’s future. “Mentally,” he says, “I don’t think I can take it.”

Categories
News

Police seek help finding attempted abductor

Staff photo

A female victim reported to the Charlottesville Police Department that a man in a small silver extended cab pickup truck attempted to abduct her on February 27 at 12:28am in the 700 block of Rockland Avenue.

She said she was walking from her vehicle to her house when the man pulled up beside her, stopped his truck and told her to get in. When she responded with a “negative answer,” the man got out of his truck and grabbed her by her arms, according to police.

The victim fought back and the man fled the area. He is described as a white male, approximately 5’10” tall and between the ages of 45 and 55. He has white hair, cut in either a crew cut or a flat-top, a salt-and-pepper mustache and a scruffy beard. On the night of the attempted abduction, the victim says he was wearing a dark shirt, possibly black or dark blue.

His truck is described as not a full crew-cab with four doors and not brand new, but not old. The victim was unable to provide police with any license plate information.

She sustained minor scratches to her arms, but did not seek medical attention. Charlottesville police ask anyone with information related to the attempted abduction to call Crime Stoppers at 977-4000 or the CPD’s main office at 970-3280.

Lieutenant Steve Upman says there are no new details.

Categories
Arts

A closer LOOK3: New director brings new approach to photo fest

LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph gears up for a full schedule in 2016, led by new executive director Mary Virginia Swanson (right). Photo: Riley Blanks

This year marks the 10th year of LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph but promises to bring a new approach to the popular programming, taking place June 13-19. The festival has continued to evolve throughout its decade of public programs to meet the interests of the field’s amateurs and professionals alike. While doing so, it has provided local community members with opportunities to view work and engage with some of the most challenging and respected photographers in the world. Though it’s still one of Charlottesville’s young festivals, LOOK3 is established and well-regarded within the worldwide photography community.

LOOK3 leadership has always reflected this high esteem as well, boasting accomplished photography consultants and practitioners on the festival’s staff and board over the years. When the executive director stepped down in 2015 to pursue other projects, an intensive search followed, resulting in the selection of Mary Virginia Swanson.

As an educator, consultant, mentor and writer, Swanson has remained deeply embedded in photography since earning her MFA in the field in the late 1970s. She was the founding director of the American Photography Institute at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and has organized special projects through Magnum Photos and education initiatives such as the Ansel Adams Workshop, among others. She is also the author of three books on the business of photography, advising aspiring and professional photographers on the ins and outs of marketing and selling work, publishing art books and other industry nitty-gritty.

In 2013, Swanson joined the education faculty for the festival, leading a program on long-term project proposals and assisting with portfolio reviews. “I found LOOK3 to be completely engaging,” she says. “It was an atmosphere where everyone mattered, no matter if you had forged a reputation in our field or not. We were all made to feel special and very welcome in Charlottesville.”

Last fall she accepted the executive director position, while remaining a dedicated teacher and mentor—she speaks to groups and reviews portfolios for the Aperture Foundation in her spare time.

As she takes the reins of the festival, Swanson’s interest in education remains strong, as does her focus on continuing the feeling of inclusivity that she experienced first-hand. “My passion for relevant education is powerful,” says Swanson. “I want LOOK3 to offer a continuing education program that serves photographers of all ages and levels of expertise. We are expanding education at the start of the week, offering one-day seminars on the technical as well as the business side of photography. With changes in digital imaging capabilities, the photography world is changing fast.”

Swanson and her small staff have already announced the 2016 LOOK3 lineup of featured photographers, including Nick Brandt, Graciela Iturbide, Yuri Kozyrev, Frans Lanting, Olivia Bee, Binh Danh, Sheila Pree Bright, Doug DuBois and Radcliffe “Ruddy” Roye.

The international representation among the artists is broad, but this year the focus is more on the subject of each photographer’s work than on the artists themselves. This move away from the celebrity-photographer to the documentarian and activist-photographer is an important part of Swanson’s issue-focused approach to the festival. “Whatever area of work they’ve championed is just as important as their name,” she says.

Iturbide is a Mexican documentary photographer who captures everyday life of indigenous communities, while Kozyrev is a Russian photojournalist covering Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, among other sites of international conflict. Pree Bright explores cultural identities and the African-American experience through her work, while DuBois focuses on American portraiture. Danh is a Vietnamese photographer best known for his chlorophyll prints that photosynthesize images directly onto a leaf or a blade of grass, with the Vietnam War recurring as a major theme through his work.

“I am inspired by artists engaged in documentary practices where we learn about our world and those who came before us, as well as those expressing themselves through historic processes,” says Swanson.

LOOK3’s unique schedule offers a full festival three out of every four years, with LOOKbetween educational programming on the off year of each cycle. This year’s full program includes educational events, artist exhibitions and talks, and the outdoor projections—a perennial crowd favorite—will return. The Sunday of the festival coincides with Father’s Day and will feature a new draw for locals: Family Photo Day. The program will offer free family portraits taken by professional photographers, plus plenty of kid-friendly activities at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.

LOOK3 passes are on sale at look3.org.

What is your favorite festival event? Tell us in the comments below.

Categories
Arts

ARTS Pick: Fall Out Boy

Despite Fall Out Boy’s edgy, devil-may-care punk leanings, the group implores that you remember them for “Centuries.” Photo: Publicity photo

Fall Out Boy has evolved into a mainstream pop band, but you can still hear the angst that emanates from its formative years in Chicago’s hardcore scene. Its sixth studio album, American Beauty/American Psycho, is studded with chart-topping singles that comment on pop culture and the trials of modern living.

Wednesday 3/2. $29.50-65, 7pm. John Paul Jones Arena, 295 Massie Rd. 888-575-8497. johnpauljonesarena.com.