Stew and Alyce Pollock wanted an architect with environmental cred, but that wasn’t the only thing that drew them to Barbara Gehrung of Energy Positive Architecture. “I liked her style too,” says Stew.
It was 2013, and the Pollocks were getting set to build a new home on a rural property in Batesville in order to be closer to their daughter and her family. Gehrung had experience with Passive House, the stringent energy-efficiency standard for buildings that originated in her native Germany. And the Pollocks felt she’d be able to deliver a home in the modern, Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired style they desired.
The first big decision was whether to pursue Passive House certification. “It’s a good aspirational goal, but you have to invest a lot to meet that standard in Virginia,” says Stew. “Net-zero”—a different designation that requires buildings produce at least as much energy in a year as they consume—“is achievable with a well-built house and solar panels.”
Aiming for that goal, the Pollocks felt they were doing the right thing for the future. “We have kids. We have grandkids,” says Alyce. “We want to build a house that will outlive us, and them, and still be a good house to live in.”
Photo: Virginia Hamrick
Passive House methods did inform the design, on which Gehrung’s business partner Mark Graham collaborated, and construction, led by Daniel Ernst of Promethean Homes. A “blanket” of rigid rockwool insulation wraps the house on the outside to minimize thermal bridging (that’s the transfer of heat through wall studs that happens in traditional construction).
Making a house airtight is one of the primary ways to boost its efficiency. And, the Pollocks say, these techniques also make for a house that’s “super quiet.” Stew adds, “It’s nice to live in a house that doesn’t have cold drafts running through it.”
While Stew was drawn to Wright’s Usonian houses and looked forward to an uncluttered environment, Alyce asked Gehrung “to not make it look like a plain concrete box.” Gehrung accomplished that by providing two covered porches that cut into the house’s basic rectangular footprint. “It makes the inside space and outside profile more interesting,” says Alyce.
“Porches in Virginia are a really integral part of a house,” says Gehrung. “This house has a warm one facing south for winter or evening use, and a cool one to the north for summer.” Alyce calls the warm porch an “auxiliary living room” and says it’s been handy for socially distanced gatherings.
Creating pleasing interior spaces meant varied ceiling heights and, in the master bedroom, timber-frame elements “to proportion the space,” Gehrung says. Clerestory windows bring in light from different directions as the sun travels through the day.
“The house is long, but not very wide,” says Alyce. “There’s a wall of windows and a wall of doors, so you can see right through the house. You are always only a couple feet from outside.”
Long, low horizontal lines define the exterior form, along with vertical posts that call to mind concrete slabs turned on end. Gehrung used a combination of Corten steel and heat-treated poplar siding for cladding.
Gehrung says that any modern architect would consider a project like this one “a dream.” Finding a balance between performance and aesthetics, she adds, was the key to the design process, and Passive House tools helped her achieve that goal.
The Pollocks say they’re more than happy on both counts. “We feel very connected to the world,” says Stew. “You think sometimes of an energy-efficient house as a block with little tiny windows. But this is a very open, airy space.”
Vast culinary traditions influence Southern food—European, Native American, African, Caribbean. But if you’re thinking individually about those traditions when you’re thinking about Southern food, you’re kind of doing it wrong, according to food historian Leni Sorensen. Those traditions hit American soil in the 1600s and immediately began to mingle, even as they traveled south, she says.
“It happened fast, and it began to happen much earlier than it is ordinarily supposed to,” says Sorensen. “In the last quarter of the 17th century is when it begins to accelerate.”
The result in the American South was a European cooking tradition—staples from Great Britain tinged with French influences—vastly transformed by the indigenous and enslaved people of the New World. Where chefs in Europe may have had luxurious ingredients, clever cooks stateside had to coax flavors out of what the land provided, using seasoning (think plenty of fat and salt) and technique (think low-and-slow transformations).
“Southern food is indigenous food,” says Ryan Hubbard, owner of Red Hub Food Co. “Southern food is not filets or T-bones or rib eyes…It captures more the cuts of meat you weren’t used to seeing.”
The history of the American South also led to a rapid alignment of Southern food into regions, Sorensen says. Just as quickly as the cuisine’s worldwide influences coalesced in the States, the influences redistributed with subtle differences into the Old South, Mid-South, Gulf Coast, and other sub-regions.
“That’s what makes it exciting,” Sorensen says. “You can go 200 or 300 miles, and you are in a different world.”
The regionalism sprung naturally from the different growing regions present across the South, says Sorensen, but it was also due to the new nation’s “immense peripatetic population.”
“Different groups and families were moving and looking for new land,” she says. “You had that tremendous exodus of the slave trade out of the Old South and eastern coastline. In one decade, 350,000 black Virginians were sold to the rest of the Southern slave states.”
Nevertheless, Sorensen says four ingredients anchor Southern food: corn, rice, greens, and pork. Take hush puppies, one of Red Hub’s most popular menu items. Hubbard points to the Native American influence in the corn and the deep-frying tradition of Scotland coming together to make an inexpensive, humble dish found throughout the South.
Today, Sorensen says Southern cooking is enjoying newfound respect in culinary circles. But where does Charlottesville fit in the Southern culinary tradition? According to Sorensen, central Virginia lacks a specific focus because of its many bounties.
“Part of what it was known for was its fecundity,” she says. “We were a breadbasket and an apple basket…we were really producers—food that was transported to a lot of other places.”
Southern (con)fusion
New Southern cuisine is like putting ranch dressing on pizza. Everyone’s doing it, but no one admits to it.
“When we set out to do Whiskey Jar, we specifically were not trying to be ‘new Southern,’” local restaurateur Will Richey says. “We might make some tweaks in the new Southern vein, but I still say we are classically Southern.”
So what is new Southern? The South Carolina Encyclopedia defines it as “a culinary trend that developed during the final three decades of the twentieth century in the American South [when] a new affluence provided the climate to experiment with new foods or prepare traditional fare in new ways.” The University of South Carolina-driven wiki cites grits made with milk, cream, or broth instead of water as an example.
According to Richey, new Southern is all about the extent of experimentation. Vinegar-based coleslaw instead of the traditional mayo base? Southern. Slaw with jicama and avocado? New Southern. Indeed, Richey says the easiest way to spot a new Southern dish is to look for Californian influence. Since Southern cuisine has long relied on farm-fresh produce, Cali’s 1970s-era farm-to-table movement fit right in.
So where does one find a new Southern supper in C’ville? Harrison Keevil’s Brookville was once the standard-bearer, Richey says, but since the restaurant closed in 2016, the genre has been underrepresented. “Maybe Ian Boden at The Shack, because he is so hyper-local in his sourcing,” Richey says.—Shea Gibbs
Photo: Eze Amos
Kicking up a classic
Coming soon: Mac and cheese, with a twist
What’s not to love about mac and cheese? According to Sherry Bryant, whose dream of opening a restaurant dedicated to the gooey comfort food is approaching reality: basically nothing.
Elbows, a mac and cheese-focused virtual restaurant, started back in Bryant’s childhood home, where her family prepared a lot of Southern comfort foods, and she’d help in the kitchen.
“One of my favorite dishes to eat and make was macaroni and cheese,” Bryant says. “The entire process was just so consuming and…fun. From stirring the roux and slowly adding in milk for the bechamel sauce, to experimenting with blending different cheeses to alter flavor in subtle ways, to the sound of stirring in elbow noodles to cheese sauce, and spooning cheesy heaps of goodness into a bowl. Magical.”
Cut to a trip to Manhattan, when Bryant stumbled into S’MAC in the East Village. A tiny hole-in-the-wall spot, it was dedicated to her favorite food, plus add-ins. She was smitten. She was inspired.
She’s spent the last several years—and spare moments between her full-time middle school teaching job—cultivating the concept of gourmet macaroni and cheese and pitching it to willing ears and mouths. As of this writing, she had applied for commercial kitchen space with Bread & Roses, which would allow her to partner with delivery services to get her mac bowls to customers.
But let’s get down to the nitty-gritty (ooey-gooey?): the flavors. A fan favorite so far is the Chorizo Mac—creamy Jack cheese, smoked chorizo, and chipotle adobo topped with cilantro and a squeeze of lime—and she’s currently workshopping a Cajun-influenced dished, trying to strike a balance between spicy andouille and a mellow cheese like fontina. But Bryant’s personal preference is for the Pesto Mac: wide elbows tossed in basil pesto, pecorino romano, and topped with mozzarella pearls and ripe cherry tomatoes.
“It’s just the right combination of nutty, herbaceous, and salty,” she says.
“The driving force behind Elbows is taking a dish that is so comforting and familiar and making it fresh,” she says. “That’s at the core of the sort of restaurant that Elbows will be—super approachable, but also exciting!”—Caite Hamilton
Photo: John Robinson
Southern made simple
These four spots set the standard for down-home dining ’round these parts
When you feel like all these newfangled Southern restaurants are putting the fusion in confusion, you know where to turn: the diners and lunch counters where the flattop’s been sizzling since your mama was in short pants. The standbys where the menu reads like a 1955 edition of Southern Living: collard greens, fried chicken, mashed taters, gravy, coleslaw, burgers. No gimmicks, no tricks.
“I’ve been here for 30-some years,” says Mel Walker of Mel’s Cafe on West Main Street. “The whole Charlottesville community done changed. When I first opened up, it was all Black businesses in an all-Black neighborhood.”
Thank the good lord places like Mel’s tune out the noise and stick to their roots.
Moose’s By the Creek
With taxidermy lining the walls and offhand firearm humor, Moose’s in Belmont does its own thing and does it well. Come for the breakfast—country ham and eggs with home fries and a biscuit should suit—and stay for a Classic Creek burger with a side of mashed potatoes, green beans, potato salad, coleslaw, or mac and cheese. It’s a veritable who’s who of southern sides and savories. 1710 Monticello Rd.
Mel’s Cafe
Even if his neighborhood’s flipped upside down over the last three decades, Walker still loves what he does. “I don’t know if I’m crazy or what,” he says. “I just love the restaurant business. I’m still enjoying myself.”
The choice at Mel’s? Despite the extensive menu, it’s easy. Fried chicken. Still made the same way Walker started making it last millennium, and still delicious. “We are basically home-cooked Southern food,” Walker says. Sometimes that’s all it takes. 719 W. Main St.
Fox’s Cafe
Fox’s Cafe on Avon Street has two words and one contraction for ya: biscuits ‘n’ gravy. Biscuits as in from-scratch buttery rounds. And gravy as in homemade sausage.
Owned and operated by Diane Fox since it opened, Fox’s also does right by dinner as well, with fried bologna sandwiches, liver and onions, and hamburger steaks hot from the grill. 403 Avon St.
Croby’s Urban Viddles
Croby’s has only been slinging the Southern in C’ville since 2016, but it’s an old soul. Owned by Shannon and Rob Campbell and Mike Marcinek, Croby’s is named for the former’s dad and focused on scratch cooking family recipes.
Oh, and Croby’s ain’t afraid to mash up traditional ingredients in funky ways. Check out the Hot Mess Muffins next time you happen by—sweet cornbread topped with pulled pork and chicken, pimento cheese sauce, and a barbecue sauce drizzle. It’s all the Southern staples on a spoon. 32 Mill Creek Dr. #102—SG
Photo: Eze Amos
Excellence on a plate
The Ridley honors a UVA trailblazer with top-notch Southern fare
In 1953, the late Dr. Walter N. Ridley earned a doctorate in education from the University of Virginia—the first Black American to receive a Ph.D. from a traditional white Southern college. The Ridley, the new Black-owned restaurant at the Draftsman Hotel (1106 W. Main St.), honors Ridley’s legacy by giving traditional Southern cuisine a high-end twist.
“We really have worked hard to bring our interpretation of Southern cuisine to life,” says co-founder Warren Thompson, a Darden School grad and CEO of restaurant group Thompson Hospitality, “elevating expected offerings like shrimp and grits, deviled eggs, fried green tomatoes, and cornbread, and adding completely unexpected dishes like our fried lobster tails and duck and dumplings.”
The Ridley’s menu focuses heavily on seafood—Thompson sings the praises of the Chilean sea bass, covered with Thai broth tableside just before it’s served—and at least 5 percent of its annual profits will be donated to UVA’s Ridley Scholarship Fund.—Nathan Alderman
Photo: John Robinson
Spin doctors
Twisted Biscuits food truck offers a new take on tasty traditions
Hayley Tew and Ian Judd knew their new food truck needed some kind of twist. They hit upon the name and the concept simultaneously: Twisted Biscuits, where classic biscuit sandwiches get a fresh presentation. From breakfast standbys, to lunch offerings like the Green Gobbler or the Fig Pig, to specials like bacon-gravy poutine, Tew and Judd bring serious culinary firepower to bear on the humble biscuit.
Both Twisted Biscuit founders have been working in professional kitchens since their high school years, with a combined resume that includes The Clifton, the Ivy Inn, and BBQ Exchange. “We’d always talked about having our own business,” Tew said. “When the pandemic hit, we found ourselves with an uncertain future and a lot more down time.”
Like a boost of baking powder, this gave them the kick they needed to start their rise. In November 2020, they launched their food truck—and promptly found themselves all but buried in biscuits.
“We do 80 to 200 biscuits a day,” Tew says—that’s anywhere from five to 20 pounds of flour every day, all day, right on the truck. They often need to turn out more trays to meet demand for favorites like the pimento cheese and bacon gravy-slathered Dirty Bird, featuring their hand-breaded and brined fried chicken.
Beyond their usual offerings, the Twisted Biscuits twosome likes to experiment with playful seasonal additions, from “pupsicles” for canine customers (Tew and Judd have three dogs at home) to biscuit-crumb crab cakes on cheddar-chive Old Bay biscuits for Valentine’s Day.
While Tew says they’re open to operating a stationary location in the future, for now you’ll have to stay on the go to score their fare. You can track them on Facebook or Instagram at @twistedbiscuittruck—or just follow the aroma of fresh-baked biscuits.—NA
Want to know what to order from the new Café Frank, acclaimed chef Jose de Brito’s newest proving ground? Don’t ask acclaimed chef Jose de Brito.
“I am never happy with my dishes, and I usually do not taste my finished plates,” de Brito says. “I am way too scared to find out how bad I am. But it is not exactly my first rodeo, so I know pretty much what works or does not.”
The modesty is almost comical coming from de Brito, arguably C’ville’s most acclaimed chef. He began his career opening cult favorite Ciboulette in 2006, did stints at Trinity and Fleurie, and landed at The Alley Light, where he and restaurateur Wilson Richey drew accolades from the James Beard Foundation (Alley Light was one of 25 semifinalists for the coveted Outstanding Restaurant title; de Brito was a semifinalist for Best Chef Mid-Atlantic), Washington Post, and Washingtonian. After what would have been a pinnacle for many chefs, de Brito went to work cooking with Patrick O’Connell at the three-Michelin star Inn at Little Washington.
A second collaboration with Richey, Café Frank will give de Brito the chance to experiment with a seasonal menu of appetizers like meat pies, long-simmering soups, classic French salads, and entrées such as steak Diane and wagyu beef pot roast. According to de Brito, it’s all about flavor, not pretension.
“I do not have the team, time, space, and ability to make elaborate gardens on plates and play with tweezers, so my only saving grace is flavor,” he says. “I build and layer flavors like a maniac.”
Take Café Frank’s sauces. Each one starts with a base 20 years in the making—he freezes the bases and moves them from restaurant to restaurant as his career progresses. De Brito likens the strategy to the “solera” winemaking technique or the method for creating real balsamic vinegar.
“What is good about Café Frank is that I stay in my kitchen,” de Brito says. “I like dogs a lot, but I can really do without most people, so I rarely go into the dining room. I stay where I belong, talking to my shallots, listening to my sauces, getting aroused by my chicken stock, smelling my herbs. I like a perfectly silent kitchen so I can hear my ingredients.”
The food at Café Frank is classic and casual, “with a lot of TLC,” de Brito says. The new restaurant is truly an outlet for him to “get back into [his] madness.”
“Opening Café Frank was a way to fuel my obsession with making dishes. Hopefully in between I can give a few good nights out to some people. I am busy—extremely busy. I hope my wife will forgive me one day.”
There are so many pandemic woes that when a rare silver lining appears, it’s a terrific reminder that joy still exists. Myo Quinn is one of those lights, and her appearance on the Charlottesville food scene makes us all better.
Quinn admits that she wasn’t supposed to be here. But when COVID-19 surged through New York City in spring of 2020, she and her husband packed their three boys into a rental car and headed south. They stopped in Orange, Virginia, for a night. That turned into a week, then a month. Eventually Quinn says they set their sights on “the biggest, closest town” and landed in Charlottesville.
It wasn’t the first time Quinn had made a radical pivot. She quit a hedge fund career after having her second child, and went to culinary school, where she put her love of cooking and her mother’s food wisdom together for what she calls her second life.
After cooking on the line for Danny Meyer’s Gramercy Tavern and Untitled, Quinn turned to food writing and recipe development. Her contributions can be found digitally on the Food Network, Delish, and Good Housekeeping. Last fall, her friendship with Holly Hammond of Whisper Hill Farm led to the formation of Pear, an IX Art Park Farmers Market stall that offers unique baked goods.
What does a recipe developer do?
There are two approaches. First, you pitch a recipe that you want to put out there. For example, I’m Korean so it might be a Korean recipe that the Food Network is lacking. If it gets approved, you write the recipe from beginning to end. You cook it, test it. Then a big part of it is introducing it to the reader. What it is, what to keep in mind, what’s important—the tips and tricks.
A second way is that the platform might come to you and say, for instance, “We don’t have a good stuffed cabbage recipe.” So they’ll assign a recipe to you. You’ll have to research it. If it’s a flavor profile you’re not familiar with you’ll have to make it several times. Ask the right questions to the right people.
Do you have a favorite or a major success?
The platform would measure that by likes, or comments, or ratings. For me, I am proudest when it’s a recipe that is familiar to me. A recipe that comes from something that I cook frequently for my family. Most recently it was a miso-braised kale that is served over multigrain rice.
Was cooking a big part of your childhood?
Yes. My mother is a very good cook. She is also a very smart cook. I always joke that all of the things I could’ve learned in a professional kitchen I came into the professional kitchen already knowing because my mom had taught me: How to be efficient. How to be thoughtful. How to work with urgency. How to clean up as you’re working. And how to be a better eater, which means trying everything.
How did Pear come to be?
Pear is the result of a friendship between Holly of Whisper Hill Farm and me. We met at the IX farmers’ market last summer. Over this past Christmas holiday, Holly came up with the idea to make cookie boxes…I think the final count was 4,200 cookies between the two of us.
That number is representative of how Holly and I approach life. We often joke that we do everything with gusto. So, Pear is a continuation of holiday baking.
Holly recently went back to farming so it’s just me right now. Every Thursday on Instagram we announce the menu that will be available on the following Saturday. I always try to have something with citrus, seasonal fruit, chocolate, caramel, and spice; something with a vegetable; and something with cinnamon.
Recently I had an ah-ha moment when I realized I needed to always have something for kids. Because when a kid walks up and says, “This is all grown-up stuff” and walks away, the whole family walks away.
What ingredient will never be used in your cooking?
I grew up in Asunción, Paraguay. There are so many mango trees there, and as a child you ride your bicycle on the roads and you squash the mangoes. It splashes up through your bicycle wheels and you end up smelling of ripe mango, which some people covet, but it reminds me of really hot, humid summers where you just can’t get rid of it. So, mangoes.
What are some of the local discoveries that have impressed you?
When I arrived I put out a message on a Facebook group, asking, “What is the one thing that represents Charlottesville?” and people said it was the ham biscuits. So we worked our way through the ham biscuits.
I think something Charlottesville does really well is curry. Thai curry, even compared to New York, the red curry from Chimm. Pearl Island chicken curry is phenomenal. I went out of my way to talk to [chef Sober Pierre] because I was in tears when I had it. I was like, “Wow. I didn’t realize how homesick I was.”
What do you make of Charlottesville’s food scene?
As a chef that has been cooking and eating in New York City for the past 15 years or so, the biggest challenge I’ve had is to figure out what this community is willing to eat. Just like each family has specific eating habits, each community has food preferences.
There are times when I feel very vulnerable baking here. I love that the customers will ask lots of questions and try things, then come back every week. But I’m making something completely different, and always feeling like, “Are people gonna come?”
Myo Quinn’s miso-braised kale with multigrain rice
Multigrain rice
1 cup medium-grain white rice
1/2 cup millet
1/4 cup sweet rice
1/4 cup quinoa
Braised kale
2 tbs. neutral oil, such as grapeseed or vegetable
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 scallion, finely chopped (white and green parts)
2 tbs. agave syrup (or whatever sweetener you prefer)
2 tsp. soy sauce
2 tsp. unseasoned rice wine vinegar
Cook the multigrain rice: Rinse and drain the white rice, millet, sweet rice, and quinoa. Place in a medium pot with two cups of water. Cook over high heat, uncovered, until it comes to a boil. Reduce heat to the lowest setting, cover, and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit for five minutes to finish cooking. Do not uncover! (That would release all the steam you need to make the rice fluffy.) Meanwhile, cook the kale: In a large skillet over medium-high heat, add the oil, garlic, and scallion. Cook, stirring continuously, until fragrant, about one minute. Add the kale in batches, stirring with each addition (the kale will slowly wilt, creating space for more kale). Stir in the stock, miso, agave, and soy sauce. Bring to a simmer, then cover and reduce heat to medium-low. Cook for five minutes, allowing the flavors to meld. Right before serving, drizzle with the vinegar and stir to combine. Taste and adjust the soy sauce or agave syrup if needed. To serve, divide the multigrain rice among four bowls and top each with the braised kale.
Want anything from Alaska? Local fisherman Zac Culbertson is going anyway.
Culbertson runs a small family farm just outside Charlottesville. And he also runs Cold Country Salmon, a direct-delivery and farmers’ market-based retail seafood operation. For his wares—mostly salmon, but also halibut and sablefish—Culbertson heads to Alaska once a year and fishes the waters of Elfin Cove like a barracuda after a sparkly bracelet.
Salmon season lasts only a short time, so Culbertson typically travels to southeast Alaska in June. He makes his annual catch in less than two calendar months, torridly fishing for days on end over that single, frenzied period.
Take king salmon. Culbertson landed about 11,000 pounds of the stuff last year in only a handful of days. Indeed, the king salmon catch sometimes runs only a single day. As for coho salmon, which Culbertson calls his “bread and butter,” 9,000 pounds of catch weight found its way into Cold Country Salmon’s live wells last year. And a good amount of that then went to C’ville customers.
“The Charlottesville market is one of my top markets,” Culbertson says. “I think with the pandemic…there was a lot more interest in nailing down a food pipeline. People felt like the supermarkets were running out of everything, and they wanted a local source for things.”
Even if that local source has to make a 3,600-mile run to grab the goods.
Until her winter break, Sophie Tran’s culinary expertise—as least as it pertained to ice cream—went about as far as binge-watching dessert rounds of “Chopped” competitions. But when she was gifted a Cuisinart ice cream maker for Christmas, her casual interest turned into an unexpected side hustle.
“I told myself I just wanted to do something extra this semester because I am taking less than my normal amount of credits,” says Tran, a pre-med student at UVA. “That said, I never imagined this little business magnifying to the size it did.”
Tran says to keep up with demand, she’s up at random hours or churning in the middle of classes to maximize how much ice cream she can make, given that the freezer bowl needs time to re-freeze between batches. She’s currently able to make two to three pints of one flavor every six hours.
And speaking of flavors, here’s how her menu works: Customers can choose from 10 base flavors, and add up to 13 mix-in made-from-scratch toppings (brownies, cookie dough, and raspberry preserves, for starters). But plan ahead: Turnaround time is currently one to two days, depending on what’s available.
“It takes more time to make these toppings from scratch, but I think it brings more character to my business,” Tran says. “And nothing is more therapeutic than balling up little chunks of cookie dough while learning about magnetic flux through an enclosed surface.”
After you place your order (through @yourchurn on Instagram), be sure to give it a name for a truly customized pint.
Quick: What do you want to eat every night for the next seven days? That question could leave even the stoutest-hearted foodies exhausted, even before COVID-19 barged into our lives—to say nothing of buying, prepping, and cooking all those meals. Diners weary of rehashing the same seven or so standbys for dinner every week received a lifeline last December, thanks to the C-Ville Supper Club.
Born from the brain trust behind Bang!, Bizou, Luce, and The Space Downtown—restaurant managers Laura Price and Rachel Gendreau and head chef Travis Burgess—the C-Ville Supper Club lets hungry diners pick main and side dishes for two or four from an ever-changing weekly menu.
Price, Gendreau, and Burgess had been kicking around the idea since summer 2020, but decided to jump in with both feet after a successful experiment with Thanksgiving dinners. “The community response was incredible, so much so that we borrowed a refrigerated truck to store all the dinners,” Price says. They launched the Supper Club the following week.
Order by Tuesday at noon (follow @cvillesupperclub for updated menus), and your meals are ready for pickup at Bizou—or delivery to your door, if you live within five miles of downtown—by Wednesday evening. Each week’s meal selections cater to a variety of diets and palates, from pescatarian to vegan to good ol’ omnivorous, and require little more than assembly and heating to reach diners’ plates.
According to Price, customers can’t get enough. “The majority of our clients are hooked after one order and are then weekly or bi-weekly customers,” she says. “Our customer base is definitely growing, especially now that we are offering meals portioned for families of two or four people.”
The Supper Club has embraced the challenge of devising different menus week after week. “We have asked our staff, clients, families, and friends for inspiration,” Price says. “We have scoured blogs, Pinterest boards, and Instagrams. We have sourced ideas from all of our staff, just by asking, ‘What do you cook at home when someone is coming over you want to impress?’” Favorites from their restaurants have also migrated to the Supper Club’s menu, including Bizou’s shrimp and grits, Bang!’s poke bowls, and Luce’s handmade pasta. “We always want to keep trying new things, but some dishes are such a hit that they have to reappear due to client demand,” Price says.
Even after the pandemic finally lifts, Price says the Supper Club will continue its weekly meal-invigorating missions. “We have lots of new ideas and plans up our sleeves that we can’t wait to unveil in the coming months.”
How does anyone get better at anything? They practice. That’s what these three artisan bakers have in common—they found a thing they were interested in (bread), experimented with its execution (over and over and over), and became experts. We’re just lucky enough to reap the benefits.
Risen Bread
Truth be told, says Abbey Biber, “I never intended to start a company. My extended family and friends encouraged me to consider it.”
Biber had been baking bread for her family for about five years with, she says, “countless flops” and a few loaves that turned out well. It was the good ones that encouraged her to keep at it. Eventually, she started giving away the best loaves, and that was when the recipients urged her to start Risen Bread.
Biber prides herself on never using yeast (“flour, water, and salt—that’s it,” she says) and touts the benefits of sourdough over other types of bread.
“Bread that is fermented is easier to digest because the bacteria breaks down the gluten,” she says. “Sourdough bread is also less likely to spike your blood sugar, having a lower glycemic index compared to other breads due to the fermentation process. I also think the flavor of sourdough bread is more complex and delicious.”
Her menu includes signature products like a country loaf (“great for dipping in soup or oil, for sandwiches and toast”), and other staples like a rosemary loaf, focaccia, and pizza dough. And she’s always experimenting, having tried out a short run of cinnamon/raisin bread earlier this spring, and a sourdough naan that was a hit with her husband and two kids. Biber says a seeded loaf is the most likely addition to the menu this summer.
Naturally leavened bread makes for a lengthy baking process—more than 24 hours from start to finish—so Biber bakes twice a week, every Tuesday and Wednesday, and has weekly pickup locations in Greenwood and Charlottesville. Place your order through Instagram @risenbreadva.
Lukpla’s Loaves
Lukpla Gerbert had always loved reading food blogs and watching cooking videos. But after the birth of her son and daughter, twins, she began to spend a lot more time at home. Eventually, what was once a passing fascination with from-scratch cooking became a full-on hobby.
“I enjoyed cooking from scratch, including yeast bread with a bread machine,” she says. “From there I moved on to baking sourdough bread, doing as much as possible by hand.”
Each of the loaves, which she bakes once a month, are made with 100 percent sourdough starter, no yeast, and organic flour. Gerbert changes the menu each month, adding in new, fun options to her list of staples, like bestseller Chalapeño (cheddar and jalapeño) or sourdough pizza crust, which she can barely keep in stock.
Eventually, she says, she’d like to return to selling at the Forest Lakes Farmers Market, where she launched her business in 2019, but for now Gerbert takes orders online and makes deliveries monthly. The baker, who is a full-time stay-at-home mom to her now-kindergarteners, posts her monthly menu to the Lukpla’s Loaves’ Facebook and Instagram pages (@lukplasloaves). Send her your order, get a confirmation, pay online, and wait for your loaf to be delivered.
“Baking small batches of sourdough for neighbors is what I love,” she says. “I wouldn’t be able to bake if there were no customers to support me.”
Photo: Eze Amos
Althea Bread
Marian Bayker was finishing a degree in biology at Mary Washington University when she fell in love with the service industry. “I always looked forward to my shifts at Hyperion Espresso more than the schoolwork,” she says. That’s where she met her partner, Susan, and they eventually moved to Charlottesville, where Bayker took a job as a UVA research lab tech, and began studying cancer immunology. Working in science was fascinating, she says, but she decided to stop avoiding the pull she felt toward service work, and took a job first at Mudhouse in Crozet, and then at MarieBette. It was there that she became fascinated with bread.
“Bread seems so simple, and in a lot of ways it is, but there is a lot of complexity hiding under the surface,” Bayker says. “What is flour really made of? How does it ferment? How can we adjust the bread-making process to get what we want in the final loaf?”
Eventually, she connected with a farmer who wanted to turn his wheat into bread, and Bayker began milling flour and baking bread at home using local grain.
That’s the heart of Althea (which, in Greek, means wholesome and healing) bread.
“I’ve always thought of Althea Bread as a mill first, bakery second,” Bayker says. “We go through a lot of effort to mill the majority of our flour ourselves from local, organic grains, and to blend grains and flours together to achieve the properties we desire in each product.”
Althea is “definitely headed toward a brick-and-mortar,” Bayker says, but in the meantime, visit altheabread.com for details on how and when to get your hands on a loaf. (Bayker recommends the classic country sourdough or the red corn grit. And grab a few chocolate chip cookies for the road.)
Former governor Terry McAuliffe won big in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.
Former governor Terry McAuliffe secured the Democratic party’s 2021 gubernatorial nomination in a landslide victory on Tuesday. McAuliffe won 62 percent of primary votes, finishing 40 points ahead of his closest challenger. The longtime Dem politico will run against Republican Glenn Youngkin in the fall for a chance to reclaim the office he held from 2014 to 2018.
Locally, McAuliffe won 60 percent of votes in Albemarle County, where Jennifer Carroll Foy finished a distant second, coming in at 23 percent. In the City of Charlottesville, McAuliffe finished at 42 percent, with Carroll Foy at 33 percent and Jennifer McClellan at 21 percent.
McAuliffe’s win in Charlottesville reflects just how far ahead of the pack he ran. In recent Democratic primaries, Charlottesville has chosen progressive challengers rather than well-known centrists. Local favorite Tom Perriello hammered Ralph Northam in the city in the 2017 gubernatorial primary, winning 80-20. In the 2020 presidential primary, Bernie Sanders won the city, and Joe Biden earned just 32 percent of the vote, 10 points behind McAuliffe’s 2021 tally.
McAuliffe’s camp will feel good about his chances in the general election. Republicans haven’t won a statewide election in Virginia since 2009.
Further down the ballot, Delegate Hala Ayala, who has represented Prince William County in the House of Delegates since 2018, won a six-way lieutenant governor race by a comfortable margin. If she wins in November, Ayala will be the first woman of color elected to a statewide office in Virginia. (The Republican lieutenant governor nominee would also tick that box—former House of Delegates member Winsome Sears is a Black woman.) Ayala has served as the House whip for the last two years, helping to shepherd some of the Democrats’ most important bills through the legislature.
Delegate Sam Rasoul of Roanoke beat Ayala in both Charlottesville and Albemarle, but finished a distant second statewide, earning 24 percent of the vote to Ayala’s 38 percent. Rasoul fashioned himself as a progressive voice and out-fundraised Ayala by a large margin, but Ayala’s strong performance in her home area of northern Virginia, coupled with influential endorsements from people like Northam and House of Delegates Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, helped push her across the finish line.
McAuliffe wasn’t the only moderate Dem to beat a younger challenger. In the attorney general primary, Mark Herring, who’s running for his third term in office, beat Delegate Jay Jones 57-43.
Statewide, turnout in the primary was about 10 percent lower than the last Democratic gubernatorial primary in 2017, when Dems were energized in an unprecedented way by the election of Donald Trump the year before. This time around, 485,000 votes were cast, compared to 542,000 four years ago.
Closer to home
Charlottesville held a pair of local primaries on Tuesday. UVA planner Brian Pinkston and school board member Juandiego Wade won the party’s nominations for two open City Council seats in November. The odd man out was entrepreneur Carl Brown, who finished with 1,797 votes to Pinkston’s 3,601 and Wade’s 4,910. Pinkston and Wade will compete with independents Yas Washington and sitting Mayor Nikuyah Walker for two council seats in the fall.
When we spoke to both candidates ahead of the election, Wade said he hopes to work on issues like criminal justice reform, affordable housing, and public education if elected. Pinkston says his top priority will be to “inject a level of collegiality into the council.” Read our extended interviews with the candidates here.
Just like at the state level, Charlottesville’s incumbent top cop beat back a progressive challenger. Public defender Ray Szwabowski hoped to unseat Joe Platania, arguing that Platania’s office had handed out overly stringent punishments for a variety of infractions. Platania touted his work with the Virginia Progressive Prosecutors for Justice and his handling of the post-Unite the Right rally trial of James Alex Fields as reasons he should be reelected. Platania won 59-41. Read more about that race here.
Locally, the roughly 6,000 votes cast in Charlottesville in this year’s primary represents a significant drop from 2017, when more than 8,400 voters participated. Trump’s election, coupled with the presence of former 5th District representative Perriello on the ballot, may have been responsible for the historically high 2017 turnout. There was no primary in 2013, but in 2009, just 3,000 city residents participated in the primary.
General elections will be held on Tuesday, November 2.
John-Robert’s musical ascent is the stuff of dreams. Hailing from Edinburg, Virginia—a small town north of Harrisonburg—he was tapped to play Something in the Water, Pharrell’s inaugural Virginia Beach festival, before super-producer Ricky Reed offered him the opportunity of a lifetime: Come to L.A. to record. (Reed’s worked with some of pop and indie’s biggest stars, with hits like Lizzo’s breakout “Truth Hurts” on his resume.) John-Robert took the leap—he signed with Reed’s Warner Records imprint and switched coasts during the pandemic. The result is the 20-year-old’s debut EP, Healthy Baby Boy Pt. 1. The moody, slow burn of “Move It to the Side,” and the swagged-out kiss-off “USMO” (an acronym for You Should Move On) brim with pop gusto. But the EP draws its name from the standout track “Healthy Baby Boy,” which maintains the down-home heart of rural Virginia. With his voice reduced to nearly a whisper, John-Robert sings over a hushed, finger-picked guitar, “Alex died and JJ had a kid.” These details are from his life; around the time that his friend’s brother died by suicide, another friend was experiencing the birth of his first child. John-Robert brings richness and depth to this project, and he’s just getting started. (Released April 2)
Prabir Trio
Haanji
Self-released
Prabir Metha immigrated to Richmond, Virginia, from India when he was 8 years old, and he’s spent nearly two decades furthering the city’s rich art scene—from his musical output to his work with the Richmond Symphony, the Science Museum of Virginia, and the founding of Gallery 5, among other efforts. As frontman for Prabir Trio, he takes the lead on vocals and guitar, with bandmates Kelli Strawbridge on drums/vocals, Kenneka Cook on vocals, and Russell Lacy on bass. The group’s debut, Haanji, explores Prabir’s bicultural experience as an American immigrant who is just as connected to his roots in Richmond as he is to the customs of India. Sonically, Haanji reflects this duality: Tinges of American rock ’n’ roll, lo-fi garage, and British pop are interwoven with traditional Indian elements forged with sitar, tanpura, harmonium, and tablas. According to Metha, haanji in Hindi loosely translates to yes in English, and it has been a guiding principle for him in his immigration journey. (Released May 11)
The Root Cellar Remedy
The Quarantown EP
Self-released
Charlottesville quartet The Root Cellar Remedy has honed its chops on the live music scene for years. The Quarantown EP marks the band’s first official studio recording, which was produced by James McLaughlin at his newly finished studio in North Garden. As the release’s title suggests, the group was motivated by the disruption of daily life and the cultural shift that ensued during the pandemic. The track “Quarantown” encapsulates the feeling of restlessness that arose for many throughout the shutdown, while songs like “My Joy” and “Red Velvet” channel the electricity of lust and love. With an amalgamation of straight-ahead rock, folk, and alt-country, The Quarantown EP captures the spirit of The Root Cellar Remedy’s live show and packages it into a nice summer listen as we gear up for the return of musical gatherings. (Released June 5) —Desiré Moses
