Chillin’
Custom flavors, on ice
 Design-your-own cone: If supermarket ice cream just doesn’t deliver what you need, try ordering custom flavors from a local kitchen. |
So your BFF has a birthday and you know her favorite treat is apple pie ice cream. You design her ice cream’s base and ingredients, name it and write a note. Then it shows up at her door, shipped in dry ice. Such is the scenario imagined by Lynsie Watkins, whose new business enterprise—Perfect Flavor, a sustainable, environmentally-conscious boutique ice cream kitchen (what will they think of next?)—is set to be in full swing by mid-December.
The idea was born when Watkins was flipping channels and saw Paula Deen make ice cream without an ice cream maker. "I was so blown away by it," she says, "that I started creating different flavors." Neighbors started calling for their own bowl of lemon-curd custard or strawberry ice cream, people started asking Watkins to cater their events, and the idea took off.
Watkins’ interest in the local food movement, fueled by a move to Charlottesville, has led her to create a business that aims to be as local and sustainable as possible. "When I was growing up in Northern Virginia, I didn’t know where my milk came from," this ice cream maven confesses. In her adult life, Watkins is trying to change that. "We use all local products for everything we can," she stresses, and she has based her kitchen in Waynesboro "because we’re closer to the suppliers that way." Get your fix—starting at $49.99 for four pints—at www.perfectflavor.com.—Lee Vanderwerff
And we all shine on
How to polish your pieces
 There’s more than one way to get the gleam. |
Hauling out that old silver tea set or those cute little sterling dessert forks for your holiday meals? You’ll have to polish more than your lingo (hint: your better families just call it "the silver"). Especially if it’s been in storage for a while, silver may be tarnished, so you’ll want to shine it up before it graces your table.
Renee Baker, who works at South Street’s home shop 2 French Hens and collects vintage jewelry, told us that she’s relied on Wright’s Silver Cream ever since she brought a tub home from her grandmother’s house. Wright’s comes with its own foam pad for scrubbing, and—along with "good old-fashioned elbow grease," says Baker—works just fine. She’s much less enthusiastic about so-called "dips," which require no scrubbing but, she says, are "too harsh. …What’s so beautiful about silver is the age and the patina, and I just think that the silver dips strip everything away."
Baker hadn’t heard of another method we’d read about: Line a bowl with aluminum foil, fill with hot water, add salt and baking soda, then submerge silver pieces until they look clean. An electrochemical reaction does the cleaning here. If you’re feeling skittish about possible damage to a family heirloom, try this method out first on something less valuable.
Oh, and one final tip: Never wear rubber gloves while polishing silver; they corrode it. Instead, go for cotton or plastic.—Erika Howsare
Farm fresh
What makes a table a farm table?
 A farm table made by John Casteen IV exemplifies the genre: sturdy and simple. |
We keep spotting heavy, rustic "farm tables" dotting kitchens and dining rooms around town—not to mention the displays of certain retailers—and got curious: First of all, what the heck is a farm table? Turns out, they’re either antique tables from country houses or reproductions of same. Local craftsman and owner of Fern Hill Furniture, John Casteen IV, weighs in: "Most older farm tables were designed to do double-duty as work surfaces and dining tables." So, Casteen says, sometimes their dimensions don’t exactly lend themselves to our purposes—ie, dinner parties rather than butchering or canning.
Still, even with contemporary reproduction pieces, "what makes it a farm table is the design, not the dimensions," Casteen says. "They tend to be free (or almost free) of the kind of jewelry furniture makers put on fancier stuff—inlay, carvings, that kind of nonsense." But, what they are is "simple and pretty, made of vernacular materials, and they’re designed to address what we now recognize as a modernist ideal: form and function are united."
To unite form and function in your own pad, check out Casteen’s own design at http://fernhillfurniture.com or browse the farm table line-up at Les Yeux du Monde or Verity blue.—L.V.
To market, to market
Finding a real home for a Charlottesville favorite
 Pining for the tomatoey days of yore? Help Market Central ensure their return. |
If you’re a devotee of the City Market, you might be fighting withdrawal since the Saturday morning fixture ended its season for the year. But there is a way to stay connected. Four years ago, a combination of vendors and customers interested in the future of Charlottesville’s farmers’ market got together and formed Market Central. They are in the midst of a membership drive, having attained nonprofit status last year, which allows them to take your money and give you a tax deduction in return.
For an annual membership fee of $10—heftier donations welcome—Market Central will keep you updated through newsletters and e-mails on their efforts to secure a permanent site, as well as plans to add amenities such as real bathrooms with running water and permanent stalls for vendors.
The market’s current open-air location on Water Street is one of the last pieces of undeveloped land Downtown and thus an unsecured base for a weekly event like the farmer’s market. Market Central’s focus is on creating a conduit for the public to influence the use of this space. Future plans include building on the market’s long-standing ties to the community through educational programs tied to cooking, healthy eating and the sustainable gardening that feeds them.
Hungry to get involved? Send e-mail inquiries to marketcentral@bnsi.net.—Cathy Clary
Lay your head here
 Anita Davis’ Pilow Mint will sing you a lullaby. |
If you’ve seen the chalkboard signs for Pillow Mint around the Glass Building lately but were unsure exactly where this mystery shop was hiding, look no further. Pillow Mint is tucked into the back side of the Glass Building, on the opposite side from the X Lounge. This two-month-old boutique offers customers a friendly bowl of complimentary, er, pillow mints, as well as walls of "contemporary fine bedding" of both the adult and kiddie variety. Also on the shelves are childrens’ books, royal-looking slippers, paper star lanterns, candles, and lots of other good-smelling stuff. "Zen" alarm clock, anyone?—L.V.
Quote:
"From the earliest human gatherings to the era of radio and television, the setting for transmitting family and cultural lore was the gathering place defined by the fireplace, chimney, and semicircle of seating."
– Anthony Lawlor, A Home for the Soul