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Living

Small Bites: This week’s restaurant news

File photo.

Colonial locavores

If you think our country’s founding foodies are the only ones with their own shows on the Food Network, think again. Tuesday, August 28, from 6-8:30pm, head to Monticello’s West Lawn for a conversation with Dave DeWitt, author of The Founding Foodies: How Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin Revolutionized American Cuisine. For the $60 ticket price, you’ll get Virginia wine, hors d’oeuvres, a tour of Monticello and its gardens, and a chance to hear this New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum chairman talk food trends and sustainability. Visit monticello.org/site/visit/events/evening-conversation-dave-dewitt-author-founding-foodies for information and to purchase tickets.

A perfect pearing

Asia’s not the only place to grow Asian pears. The round delights, which taste like a cross between an Anjou pear and a jicama, happily grow at Saunders Brothers Orchard on Route 56W, about 35 miles south on 29. Visit on Saturday, September 1 between 9am and 5pm to sample (and stock up) on the pears and enjoy the music of Dave Miller & Friends while you’re at it.

Nice to eat you

Get to know your food and the people who grow, raise, and harvest it at the fourth annual Meet Yer Eats Farm Tour on Labor Day. From 10am to 4pm, tour as many of the 21 participating farms—from Appalachia Star to Wolf Creek—that time and travel allow. Visit meetyereats.wordpress.com/ for information on each farm and to buy the car pass that gets everyone in it all-area access to the grounds of what ends up on your table and in your body. Purchase passes before September 1 for $15, or spend $25 after that.

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News

“Smoke” could signal Virginia’s return to recruiting prominence

Virginia Beach RB Taquan Mizzell became Virginia's 18th commitment in the Class of 2013. Photo: Ross Taylor / The Virginian-Pilot.

He answers to “Smoke.”

That alone should speak to the budding legend of Taquan Mizzell, one of just 22 prep prospects in the Class of 2013 to have received five-star distinction from recruiting authority Rivals.com.

Mizzell verbally committed to UVA last Tuesday, spurning offers from a host of college football’s bluebloods — Miami, Notre Dame, and Ohio State, among the list of nearly two dozen teams. He is Virginia’s first recruit to earn five stars since offensive lineman Eugene Monroe signed a letter of intent more than seven years ago (though freshman defensive end Eli Harold received five on some recruiting ranking systems).

Dubbed “Smoke” during his freshman year at Virginia Beach’s Bayside High School because of his elusiveness — you can’t grab smoke, said an assistant coach — Mizzell’s commitment will give Virginia the elite playmaker so often employed by powerhouse programs. Just as importantly, it serves to strengthen Mike London’s presence in the talent-rich Tidewater region. Mizzell will join former Bayside teammates Tra Nicholson, Anthony Cooper, and Henry Coley at UVA — the sort of pipeline missing in recent years.

The various scouting reports read much the same: Mizzell is versatile, dynamic, and explosive. To that end, Rivals.com has rated him the top all-purpose back in the country (and the 20th-best prospect overall). The 5-10, 185-pounder ran for more than 1000 yards during his junior season, despite being hampered by a sprained ankle for much of the year. Next year, Mizzell figures to compete for playing time with  running backs Kevin Parks and Clifton Richardson, though the true freshman could see the field from a variety of positions.

He received his fifth star last Monday and accepted Virginia’s scholarship offer Tuesday, but Mizzell’s finest honor came Thursday when I sat down to lunch with my dad – a sensible man indifferent to the chaotic world of college football recruiting. In an effort to gauge the reach of Tuesday’s announcement, I asked if he had heard about UVA’s latest commitment.

Without pause, Dad smiled: “You mean Smoke?”

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Living

The littlest luncher: Packing school lunch ideas to keep kids interested

Photo by Andrea Hubbell.

Getting back to the school routine is fun for about a week and then it starts to feel like Groundhog Day. Varied meals get my foodie daughter, Maisie, and me going each morning. Breakfast is some variation of fruit, yogurt, and oats or whole grains, and dinner’s based on the season and how much time I have to prepare it. So that leaves lunch—my least favorite meal of the day, but probably Maisie’s favorite for two reasons: 1) it often involves cheese, and 2) it always involves picking, dipping, or stabbing with a toothpick.

I don’t know a kid who doesn’t like cheese. Unfortunately, Maisie’s favorite is the imported and expensive Parmigiano-Reggiano. She could eat it every day and would, if I hadn’t mandated an every-other-day rule to save us from a $20/week habit.

On the blessed “cheese days,” Maisie gets a pile of chunks or shavings (I ask her which she wants each day to give her the guise of control) with either baguette (another expensive habit, as she likes the ends best), grilled multigrain tortilla, or crackers, and a rotating variety of fresh fruit and seasonal veggies.

Everything goes into little containers which all go into a tin and she helps me decide what “colors” we need each day. If there are green cucumber sticks, chickpeas, and red grape tomatoes, she might add some purple pepper strips or mini carrots.

With fruit, no matter how novel it is to eat an apple or plum whole, I’ve learned that kids eat more when it is sliced. They don’t have to work so hard and the way some fruit is grown these days, one piece is just too much.

Picking through little piles of different tastes, textures, and colors is as much about fun as it is about nutrition. And then there’s the dipping and sticking part. Make the chickpeas into hummus, mash avocado with lime juice, or add a dish of balsamic vinegar and you’ve created a healthful pool for kids to dunk everything into, including (hopefully clean) fingers. Pack a toothpick and they’ll get busy making veggie shish kabobs. And because everyone else’s food is always more appealing than one’s own, your kids may assert some positive peer pressure.

Non-cheese days mean a nut- or seed-butter sandwich (sunflower seed butter is a great alternative for kids with nut allergies or students in nut-free classrooms) plus veggies and fruit. I sometimes ditch the bread and slather almond butter onto apple slices or celery sticks with slices of dried fig on top for an updated ant-on-a-log. Of course, Maisie usually calls my bluff by requesting cheese as an afternoon snack.

The quality of school lunches improve with every initiative, but just as I value teaching Maisie to take the time to cook with fresh, wholesome ingredients, I think she ought to learn to make her own colorful, non-processed version of a Lunchable to relish and share with her friends. As long as they don’t eat too much of her cheese.

Maisie’s Roasted Red Pepper and White Bean Dip
Makes about a cup
1 15 oz. jar roasted red pepper, drained
2 tbs. tahini
1 15 oz. can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 tsp. sweet paprika
3/4 tsp. kosher salt
2 tbs. lemon juice
1 small garlic clove
Purée all ingredients in a food processor until smooth and serve with veggies, pita chips, rice crackers, or as a spread on a sandwich or wrap.

 

Categories
News

Charlottesville Obama tickets available through Tuesday

Obama ticket line
A line stretched from the local Obama campaign office on the Downtown Mall up to Market Street Sunday as supporters waited to claim free tickets to a Wednesday campaign event. Photo: Graelyn Brashear.

Hundreds lined up outside local Obama for America offices Sunday for free passes to the President’s Wednesday campaign appearance in Charlottesville, and despite the enthusiastic showing, tickets to the event at the nTelos Wireless Pavilion are still available.

The campaign will distribute tickets between noon and 8 p.m. Monday and Tuesday at the following locations

Downtown Charlottesville Field Office
407 E Main Street
Charlottesville

The Corner
1325 West Main St.

Albemarle Field Office
335 Greenbrier Drive, Suite 206
CharlottesvilleOFA-VA Fluvanna Field Office
#110 265 Turkeysag Trail
Palmyra, Fluvanna County
Luretha Dixon and her husband Ralph arrived Downtown at about 10 a.m. Sunday—two hours before the campaign office planned to start handing out the tickets. Both said they’ve been strong supporters of the President since his first campaign, and are eager for another Democratic victory in Virginia.”I like someone who sticks to his guns,” Ralph Dixon said. And Obama’s delivered what he promised: an end to the Iraq war, and a health care plan that could help a lot of people
Not everyone who showed up Sunday was from solidly blue Charlottesville. Jeremy Rose and his wife and son drove almost five hours from their Wise County home to be among the first in line for tickets. Rose, a former Republican, said it’s not something he would have done four years ago. But times have changed. The mine pump factory worker was laid off when the economy tanked, and he doesn’t trust his old party to get things right again.”
Obama inherited this,” Rose said, just as volunteers brought out stacks of tickets to start distributing them. “It’s not his fault it was spiraling out of control. Hopefully things will turn around.”
Rose’s son Andrew Hamilton, 17, isn’t going to be old enough to vote come November, but he was the one who pushed his family to come to Charlottesville twice in one week for the chance to see the President—and did most of the driving.”It’s a once in a lifetime thing,” Hamilton said. “And I believe in what he says.”
Categories
Living

Charlottesville street style: Girls who wear glasses

Photo: Sean Santiago
Photo: Sean Santiago

I caught Ph.D. student LIZ on West Main Street as she was making her way Downtown to meet friends. Her H&M dress was a gift from a friend, and her watch was on loan for the day from her girlfriend. Liz cites the movie Holiday, starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, as her style inspiration. “[Hepburn] wears the most beautiful evening gown ever in that movie…from the front it looks like a Mormon nun sewed it, but from the back there’s this amazing long slit from the button at the nape of the neck all the way down to the lower back. It makes it clear that she’s not wearing any underwear underneath and it’s incredibly sexy! People don’t know how to do that anymore,” Liz said.

Photo: Sean Santiago

I saw MARY on the Downtown Mall and was intrigued by her DIY style. The visiting Richmond native works in photography and is pursuing degrees in creative writing and fashion illustration. Of her style, she said she likes “nerd things,” and tries to display her varied interests in her outfits. “I like to get things and modify them, like this vest.” Her punk ingenuity is reflected in the work and spirit of the British icons she cites as inspirations, late designer Alexander McQueen and model-turned-actress Agyness Deyn. Mary is wearing “really old” Urban Outfitters jeans and $5 sneakers, and decorated her modified Star Wars vest with pins from Rumors Boutique in Richmond.

Photo: Sean Santiago

I came across ARLEY on the Downtown Mall looking summer-chic in high-waisted shorts and a striped tank, though she said of her look, “I felt a little cheesy when I got dressed this morning because I’m wearing boat shoes and an anchor!” The nautical references don’t read too literal to casual passersby, though, who will most likely be focused on the perfect fit of her shorts—and those arms! Arley wears shorts and shoes from Urban Outfitters, a watch from Target, and jewelry borrowed from her roommates. The purse was bought at a thrift store.

Categories
Arts

“Stay Prayed Up” at the Haven

Lift your spirits with a gospel music event at the Haven on Sunday, August 26th. Traditional gospel music — from Louisa County’s Ladies of Praise, Richmond groups the Golden Jubilees and the Sons of Praise (authors of the excellently-titled song “Stay Prayed Up”), and Gum Springs, VA’s Healing Prayer — will be accentuated by gospel comedian J Smooth, the Louisa Praise Dancers, and a Charlottesville-based gospel rapper by the name of GR8FUL.

The event starts at 4:00pm, and donations are $15 (or $10 in advance), or $8 for children under 12. Proceeds will go to benefit a bus trip to South Carolina in September.

Categories
Living

A stay at home dad finds support online

Illustration by Matt Pamer.

After my first son was born some four years ago, I briefly thought about starting a blog to document staying home with him, but then dismissed the idea. I wasn’t yet ready to “come out” as a stay at home dad, but when my wife became pregnant again two years later, it was finally time to embrace the role. Plus, I was having difficulty re-
calling many of the details of life with my first boy. With another on the way, I wanted to make sure there was a record. A blog seemed like a good way to kill two birds.

So a year ago I signed onto WordPress and then the attendant Twitter, and unwittingly joined the hundreds of dads—there are tons more moms doing it—that share their experiences online. Initially I posted almost every day, about favorite places to play, day to day events, even easy recipes—and although I’ve since scaled back, it’s still therapeutic. There’s great physical and intellectual isolation in spending all day with your children, but posting about the triumphs and tribulations of fatherhood makes me feel like part of a greater whole, especially when someone writes back.

“It is definitely a great feeling when people leave you comments or tweets saying they have been there, or when people offer advice, or even just let you know they read a post, and they are thinking about you,” said John Taylor, another stay-at-home dad blogger.

A resident of Lebanon, Virginia, Taylor operates under the handle of DaddyYoDude and until recently was one of the more prolific members of the online dad community. “I spent at least 40 hours a week on all the projects I worked with,” Taylor said. This not only included his personal blog, but others like Dad Revolution and Good Men Project. Then in July, he suddenly announced that he was retiring from blogging to focus more on his family.

“Time is precious, and has to be spent on priorities,” he explained. “That’s one thing that can get hard when you start seriously blogging.” I haven’t had that problem. Other than quickly composing a few hundred words each week, I spend little time on the blogosphere. I do, however, frequent Twitter, where I follow more than 100 parents, mostly dads (and am in turn followed by them).

Twitter’s also where I have actually connected with other fathers. For instance, one April afternoon, I was walking through Lee Park with my 4-year-old when he suddenly declared that he had to pee, frantically hopping up and down and clutching his crotch. I looked around to see if anyone was watching and then let him go right there behind a giant oak tree.

As he finished, I tweeted: “Can I get arrested for letting my 4-year-old son pee in a public park?” Seconds later came a reply from a dad named Zach Rosenberg, who lives in California: “I’d say probably worst case is a citation. LET ’ER RIP!”

This was not a profound exchange to be sure, but that’s not what I was looking for, just a little affirmation, and that’s what I got from the online community of dads. It’s good to know they’ve got my back.

Categories
Living

A changing of the guard in C&O’s cellar

C&O owner Dave Simpson and a team of oenophiles are making their way through the 6,000-bottle treasure trove Elaine Futhey left behind after retiring two months ago. Photo: Andrea Hubbell

No story on the C&O would be complete without mention of its wine cellar. We’ve crowned the calligraphied list Best of C-VILLE seven-plus years running and it’s won Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence every year since 1996. But regulars will notice a gaping hole in the list next time they visit—the person who (literally) wrote it for the past 30 years.

Wine buyer and sommelière Elaine Futhey was as much the face of C&O as Dave Simpson is, and these past two months since she retired have been revealing to him. Futhey preceded Simpson and, though she left for a few years, by the mid-’80s she was driving a top-rate wine program at the restaurant that launched Charlottesville’s dining scene. But limiting Futhey’s job to that would be a gross understatement. “We’ve hired two to three people to do her job. It’s a big pair of shoes that we haven’t all together filled,” said Simpson.

With an otherworldly grace and a distinctive serenity, the 70-year-old Futhey officially oversaw the restaurant’s six seating areas three nights a week. Of course, she was there much more often than that. It was what she did at 1pm on Tuesdays that built the C&O’s cellar into the 6,000-bottle treasure trove that it is. Rather than entertaining visits from wine distributors one by one, she would gather them all at once to taste their wares. “It was amazing to witness. They’d all be extraordinarily civilized for that hour,” said Simpson.

Although Simpson gave Futhey an unlimited budget, she bought wines that moved her rather than going by scores or reputations. Richard Hewitt, Keswick’s sommelier, along with F&B denizen Michael Lannutti and area oenophile Justin Stone, helped Simpson sift through the collection, which contained more breadth than depth (10 cases was the most they found of any one wine). Nothing was so old and fragile that it was in need of re-corking, but without Futhey’s categorical memory on hand, the cellar had to undergo some inventory management.

Anything in a questionable age bracket and possibly past its prime, the team sampled out to connoisseurs for assessment: 1) keep on the list, 2) cooking wine, and 3) Christmas gifts. Lannutti, who’s taken on a front-of-the-house position, is developing his own Excel spreadsheets and will cycle through much of the inventory by pouring it by the glass, giving diners an opportunity to try some older, more unusual wines.

And it’s precisely these offbeat wines—the ones that Elaine dedicated a “wines to charm and intrigue you” page to in her list —that Lannutti will buy when he begins his shopping. “We want the wine list to continue being unique and idiosyncratic,” said Lannutti, who aims to strike that balance between educating the diner who wants to learn and topping up the glass of the diner who just wants to drink. Simpson envisions the first few pages as “easy going” with the rest of the list for those who “like to put on a bow tie.”

Simpson describes his foray into the wine side of C&O as “unchartered and uncertain territory” and keeps credit where it’s due, but he has had some fun on the winemaking side recently. During last year’s demoralizing harvest, Simpson would come to Michael Shaps’ and Philip Stafford’s custom crush operation (Virginia Wineworks) bearing a hot meal for the crew. His payment? Getting to muck in. “I did anything they told me to,” said Simpson, whose efforts, other than providing mere enjoyment (“I loved moving fruit around and smashing it down”), resulted in a custom crush house white and red for the C&O. The 25 cases of Viognier hit the by-the-glass list in mid-July, and within a month, only five cases remained. I drank it with a recent meal there and it was as effortlessly delightful as a night spent at the C&O. The same amount of Cab Franc will arrive just in time for the chill in the air that makes sipping a red wine alongside honest food in a place where the walls speak, ever so appealing.

The C&O’s wine, neatly stacked in old Monticello Dairy milk crates, seems quite at home in the cellar that’s just a stone’s throw from the restaurant’s bustle, even if Simpson feels out of place: “This was Elaine’s domain. I can’t give her enough recognition or gratitude. She’s an extraordinary woman—one of a kind.”

And with a foundation like the one Futhey built, the wine list’s always bound to be too.

Categories
Arts

Live Music at the Virginia Craft Brewers Fest

Photo: permission of Virginia Craft Brewers Fest

The beloved annual music festival known as The Festy Experience doesn’t get underway until October, but those who can’t wait can get an early taste can do this Saturday, August 25th as the Devils Backbone Brewing Company hosts the Virginia Craft Brewers Fest, where four Virginia bands will play while music-lovers and beer aficionados sample craft beers from over 30 brewers.

The event runs from 2pm-8pm; local country-flavored 80’s cover band Love Canon will play at 2:15, bluegrass jammers the Downbeat Project are on at 3:45; a group known as the Founding Fathers (featuring Chris Pandolfi and Andy Falco of the Infamous Stringdusters, co-founders of the Festy Experience) will play at 5:15 and Richmond’s No B.S.! Brass Band will wrap up the evening beginning at 6:45.

VIP passes are already sold out, but general admission tickets and “tasting package” passes are still available, and camping passes will be available on the day of the event. The current predicted weather is 84° and slightly cloudy, but the organizers have set a rain date for August 26th.

Categories
News

WillowTree and beyond: Charlottesville’s startup hotspot status

News desk icon
C-VILLE news wire. File photo.

When I landed back in Charlottesville this past spring after 10 years in New Jersey, the fact that the area is starting to get national attention as business and tech innovation hub was one of the first things that made me stop and really look around at what had changed in my native city since I was a kid.

The first cover story I penned for C-VILLE hit on this. It was a piece on UVA’s increased focus on tech transfer—the business of patenting and capitalizing on research—in the biotechnology field, which is boomi ng here. There are about two dozen biotech companies based here, and that number’s going up. Among the 20 companies that will be honored with the chance to present findings next month at the Mid-Atlantic Bio Conference, an industry gathering targeting a region with more than 3,600 biotech firms, are two Charlottesville startups. Maybe the city isn’t a powerhouse in the field, but it’s getting noticed.

Local tech growth isn’t limited to pharma. Mobile app developers are putting down roots here, and the best-known among them, WillowTree Apps, just made Inc. magazine’s 2012 list of the country’s 500 fastest-growing private companies.

It certainly makes sense that science and tech would take off in Charlottesville: respected public university, steady stream of bright minds looking for new niches, short drive from a major metropolitan area. But I think a lot of people still don’t know how much the startup scene is bubbling here, and there’s a lot to talk about in terms of what’s working and who’s growing.

Back in March, I sat down with Tom Tom Festival co-organizer Oliver Platts-Mills to talk innovation—one key focus of the month-long arts-and-ideas showcase—and he had an interesting theory on why Charlottesville is so appealing to tech startups: Its relatively small population and high concentration of brainpower makes it a city-sized incubator. Bell Labs, the former innovation superpower that we can thank for a huge range of technological advances, built a model around the same concept: Throw the talent together in a small space and then mingle.

We’re digging into that idea and others in the next week as we take a look at Charlottesville’s tech hub status. If you’re part of the trend—an employee, an innovator, even an iPhone user like, oh, half of us—we’d like to hear from you. Give me a shout: news@c-ville.com.