Tag: JM Stock Provisions

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Culture Food & Drink

Small bites: Provisions, pumpkins, and Peruvian

Inka Grill is bringing the flavors of Peru to the UVA Corner. Photo: Eze Amos

Proven Peruvian

After receiving rave reviews from patrons at two Inka Grill locations in Roanoke, chef Percy Rojas and his partners-in-lime are bringing their famous ceviche and traditional Peruvian dishes to a new location on the UVA Corner. We are especially excited to try the fried-rice chaufa, chef-selected seafood soups, and tuna tartare. Reservations are available on the Inka Grill website.

Bird search

Heads up (or down if you happen to be a turkey): Thanksgiving is approaching, and while there’s still plenty of time to flock to the supermarket, the best day for eating can sneak up on you. Save yourself the shopping hassle and reserve your Thanksgiving turkey ahead of time at JM Stock Provisions. The butcher shop is currently taking orders for locally sourced, whole turkeys. ShireFolk Farm, in the Palmyra foothills, is also accepting orders and offering pickup times in Charlottesville.

Stonefield piles on

New names are coming to the ever-growing list of dining spots at The Shops at Stonefield. Texas-based chain Torchy’s Tacos is opening its first Virginia location. Known for its “damn good” mantra and fresh, sustainably sourced ingredients, the restaurant also uses napkins, cups, and cutlery made from 100 percent renewable resources, and its cooking oil is recycled for auto fuel.

Also joining the Stonefield family in the near future is Organic Krush Lifestyle Eatery, a Long Island-based chain that cooks up healthy fast food. Owners Michelle Walrath and Fran Paniccia offer a menu of wraps, bowls, smoothies, baked goods, and cold-pressed juices as part of their commitment to conscientious eating that is free of pesticides, GMOs, hormones, and fake ingredients. 

Beer for bears

Beer is good for a variety of things—quenching your thirst, toasting your pals, eliminating garden slugs, making chili, and your hair (according to that shampoo from the ’80s called Body on Tap). Devils Backbone is using its beer in partnership with the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources to protect local plant species by sponsoring efforts to help eliminate an invasive species of plant called Autumn olive, so local flora and fauna will recover in the James River area. Beyond that, $1 of every keg sold for all of 2021 will be donated to the DWR or one of several other organizations that are working to keep Virginia diverse and beautiful.

HotCakes cooling it

After 35 years, HotCakes owner Lisa McEwan closed the doors of her beloved bakery/cafe and catering shop on October 30. McEwan says that COVID took a toll, but also “it’s been a long time” to be in business. One of HotCakes’ most popular items was its pumpkins muffins, which came as a head scratcher to McEwan. “It is a family recipe I was making, but I was never actually that fond of them,” she laughs. HotCakes was overwhelmed by a brisk goodbye business during its final days, as patrons lined up for last slices of Torta Rustica, Strawberries & Cream Cake, and quiche of the day. McEwan, who is extremely grateful for the outpouring of support from the Charlottesville community, says she’ll turn to something outside of the food world, but many will be pleased to learn that the concept might not be gone for good. “We are in conversation with people who have expressed interest in picking up the business and carrying it forward,” she says.

Categories
Culture Living

Small Bites: The plantain truth, turkey takeouts, and more from the market

Photo by John Robinson

South by north

Guajiros Miami Eatery is on the move from its Woodbrook location to 817 W. Main St., the former home of Parallel 38. Look forward to authentic Cuban and Latin American dishes such as pressed sandwiches, Venezuelan empanadas, and lots of plantains, plus a hearty breakfast menu that’s served all day. Order ahead at guajiros.net or call 465-2108.

Butchering with Boo

If your dream date includes butchery, cookery, and a distinct lack of tomfoolery, hold on to your hats (and knives). JM Stock Provisions on West Main recently announced the return of its pig butchering classes, where you’ll learn to break down a whole pig, and put it all on the table. Tickets, sold in pairs, cost $200 per couple. Next class is December 2.

Zoomsgiving

With the COVID-19 pandemic still raging, it looks like we’re going to have to get together apart for Thanksgiving this year. So who’s gonna make the gravy? Lucky for us, several area restaurants are offering prepared, take ‘n’ bake meals. Boar’s Head Inn is cooking up Thanksgiving dinners for $25 each; The Ivy Inn’s takeout turkey meal for two goes for $100; and Feast! gives you “everything but the bird” for around $75, with vegetarian alternatives available. The Catering Outfit fills its Thanksgiving food box with a heritage black turkey plus traditional favorites, feeding four for $225. The Blue Ridge Café is serving up four-courses to go, as well as in-house dinner reservations from noon-4pm on Thanksgiving Day. And Moe’s BBQ will smoke a turkey and spiral you a ham, along with other catering options, at its two locations.

Dairy buzz

Dairy Market announced several new tenants: Bee Conscious Baking Company’s Alexis and Patrick Strasser purchased their 24-acre Goochland farm in 2019, and say their first storefront will focus on sustainability and conscious eating. From The Wine Guild of Charlottesville comes Springhouse Sundries, a hub for wine, beer, and food pairings. And Little Manila food truck chef Fernando Dizon will dish up homemade Filipino specialties at Manila Street, where you can dig into spring rolls, pork belly, and pancit noodles—recipes that have been passed down through generations to find us here in Charlottesville. Dairy Market is slated to open before year’s end, with hours from 8am-9pm on weekdays, and 8am-10pm on weekends.

Categories
Knife & Fork

Don’t call it salami (because the proper name is charcuterie)

J.M. Stock Provisions charcuterie, clockwise from lower left: pepperoni, Stock ham, mortadella, Surryano ham (from Edwards Virginia Smokehouse), and paté de campagna. Photo: Morgan Salyer

Making charcuterie is an art, and the best meat artists in town can be found at J.M. Stock Provisions. “You have to receive the animal, break it down, use just the right balance of fat and lean, get the perfect matrix of textures, and chop, grind, and cook for hours,” says Alex Import, general manager. “A chef might say, ‘Why do all that when you can buy it from someone else?’ There’s nothing wrong with that mentality.” Likewise, there’s nothing wrong with JM Stock’s smoky, salty meats.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT

Pepperoni

Three parts lean beef, one part fatty pork. Coarse, medium, and fine grinds. “You have to add the meat very carefully to keep your textures somewhat separate,” Import says. “That variation, and the flecks of pork fat, are what make this look pretty.” Seasoned with coriander, black pepper, and a “secret” mix of chilis, then hickory-smoked.

Stock ham

Pork from the hind leg, brined for five to 10 days in water with salt, sugar, coriander, mustard seed, black peppercorns, bay laurel, and chilis, then hickory-smoked. “We leave on the thick pork cap,” Import says. “It melts in your mouth, and if you make a panini with it, the flavor really stands out.”

Mortadella

The masterpiece of the meat case. Lean pork ground several times, then mixed with ice to promote emulsification and a “pillowy texture.” Chunks of blanched pork-jowl fat, pistachios, garlic, mace, coriander, and other spices are added before the mixture is encased in a natural beef skin. Finished by lengthy poaching at low temperature.

Surryano ham

An “import” to JM Stock made by Edwards Virginia Smokehouse, in Surry, Virginia. Heritage pork cuts are hand-rubbed with a proprietary mix of ingredients, hickory-smoked for seven days, and aged for more than 400 days. Sliced paper thin. Delicious with blanched asparagus or sweet melon.

Paté de campagna

Import calls it “fancy meatloaf.” No bread or flour added, so it’s gluten free. Fat and lean pork hand-chopped with offal (jowl, heart, liver). Seasoned with black pepper, dried ginger, mace, nutmeg, clove, and coriander. Super-rich. Good on its own or with crostini, cornichons, and coarse mustard.

J.M. Stock Provisions, 709 W. Main St, 244-2480, stockprovisions.com

Shout out

Import says that JM Stock’s charcuterie wouldn’t be nearly as good if it weren’t made from Patterson’s Register Berkshires, heritage hogs from Autumn Olive Farms, near Waynesboro. autumnolivefarms.com

Categories
Living

Learn culinary traditions from the masters at folklife showcase

Third-generation candymakers Gene and Dave Williams of H.E. Williams Candy Company make sweets the old-fashioned way in their family’s Chesapeake factory. Gene is one of the masters featured in the Virginia Folklife Program Apprenticeship Showcase that takes place this Sunday, May 6, at James Monroe’s Highland. Photo by Pat Jarrett/Virginia Folklife Program

For those of us who prefer to eat our way through Virginia history, the Virginia Humanities Virginia Folklife Program Apprenticeship Showcase, which takes place Sunday, May 6, at James Monroe’s Highland, is a must-attend annual event. It’s a chance to see how different Virginia culinary traditions are preserved as they are passed down from master to apprentice, and this year’s lineup is pretty sweet.

Third-generation candymaker Gene Williams of H.E. Williams Candy Company is famous for his peach buds, cinnamon swirls, fancy Christmas candy and other old-fashioned delectables, which he and other family members make by hand in Chesapeake. He and his apprentice, his cousin, Lee Bagley, will be on hand to share how the colorful, glossy treats are made (and, of course, how they taste). H.E. Williams Candy Company has been in the Williams family for nearly a century, and it’s one of the last remaining family-run hard-candy factories in the country.

But wait, there’s more! There will be tastings and demonstrations from master baklava maker Sondus Assas Moussa of Harrisonburg and apprentice Sanaa Abdul Jalil; as well as soul food cooking master Tina Ingram-Murphy of Henrico County and apprentice Cheryl Maroney-Beaver. The Ingram family of Richmond will prepare and serve a soul supper and the Proclamation Stew Crew will ladle out real Brunswick stew while Frances Davis fries apple pies. As for what to do when you’re between meals, take in some of the music and craft offerings as well.

Expanded menu

City Market smoothie seller FARMacy LLC has recently revamped and expanded its offerings to include not just superfood smoothies and no-bake, gluten-free peanut butter brownies, but Mexican cuisine made with organic, locally sourced ingredients. It’s all available at the weekly market, with a food trailer coming later this year.

Taking stock of new owner

Calder Kegley is now the owner of JM Stock Provisions, the butcher shop at 709 W. Main St. focused on locally sourced, sustainably raised meats. Kegley, who doesn’t plan to change much about the shop (except for the fact that it’s now offering the tasso ham biscuit all day every day), takes over ownership from Matt Greene and James Lum III, who founded JM Stock four and a half years ago.

Another Reason to cheers

Local brewery Reason Beer, which founders Mark Fulton, Patrick Adair and Jeff Raileanu opened in Charlottesville in August 2017, has been named one of Beer Advocate’s 50 Best New Breweries of 2017. The lineup, announced in the craft brew magazine’s spring 2018 issue, was selected by the publication’s writers, subscribers and followers.

Goodbye, Greenie’s

Greenie’s, known for its vegan barbecue and collard wraps, has left The Spot at 110 Second St. NW. On Wednesday, April 25, balloons and colorful signs reading “Happy Final Day” and “Well Done Greenie’s” decorated the front of the tiny takeout window. Greenie’s owner Kathy Zentgraf says she’s accomplished what she set out to do when she opened the takeout window a few years ago, and it’s time for her to move on to something new and similarly unusual. “I [will] miss—without adequate words—so much, seeing our Spot people every day, from the guys at The Haven who stopped by to remind us to keep our tip jar inside the window, to our regulars who shared news, worries and plans.” Julie Vu’s Vu Noodles aren’t going anywhere, though, and will remain at The Spot as well as at The Jefferson School Café.

Oakhart hosts wine dinner

On Thursday, May 10, Oakhart Social will host a ticketed wine dinner featuring a four-course tasting menu with 12 wines from Flying Fox Vineyard, Early Mountain Vineyards and Lightwell Survey Wines, a raw bar and, as chef Tristan Wraight promises, “crazy snack stations.”

Firsthand farming

On Sunday, May 6, at 2pm, Doniga Markegard, California rancher and author of the book Dawn Again: Tracking the Wisdom of the Wild, will visit The Living Earth School and Farfields Farm in Afton to discuss how knowledge of the wilderness and permaculture can inform farming practices. Tickets to the event cost $10 in advance and $15 day-of.

Categories
Living

The ham biscuit is named Charlottesville’s signature dish

JM Stock Provisions tops its buttermilk-and-lard biscuit with tasso ham and a drizzle of honey and hot sauce. Photo by Tom McGovern

By Sam Padgett

Considering our broad food and drink world, it’s difficult to imagine a single dish that could represent the city’s local food scene. Charlottesville, on account of its geography and demographics, has a more dynamic selection of foods compared to the seafood-obsessed southeastern part of the state and metropolitan areas of Northern Virginia. However, difficult as it might be to identify the dish of the city, a panel of four judges assembled by the Tom Tom Founders Festival made the executive decision that it is the humble ham biscuit.

Leni Sorensen, a culinary historian and the writer behind the Indigo House blog, sees ham biscuits as an inevitability of living in Charlottesville. Sorensen moved here later in life, and the ubiquity of ham biscuits made an impression on her. “They’re everywhere,” she says. “They’re a part of every cocktail party, every museum opening, every kind of festive occasion. I personally know people who would not dream of having a party without ham biscuits.”

Besides its abundance, Sorensen sees the ham biscuit as something that cuts across all spectrums of dining, from gourmet to everyday. Locally, the adaptability of the ham biscuit is extraordinarily clear.

Specialty foods store Feast! has a 2-inch li’l cutie of a slider-style ham biscuit made with local sweet potato biscuits, local ham and a dollop of Virginia spicy plum chutney.

Timberlake Drugs makes its traditional version with a fluffy white biscuit and ham, and there’s the option to add egg and cheese, too.

JM Stock Provisions tops a buttermilk-and-lard biscuit with tasso (spicy, smoky, Louisiana-style ham) and a drizzle of both honey and hot sauce.

The Ivy Inn uses Kite’s Country ham, a sugar-cured ham from Madison County, served with hickory syrup mustard.

The Whiskey Jar also uses Kite’s ham and offers the option of adding egg and cheese.

Ace Biscuit & Barbecue, Fox’s Cafe, Tip Top Restaurant, Commonwealth Restaurant & Skybar, Keevil & Keevil Grocery and Kitchen, Bluegrass Grill & Bakery and plenty of other spots that we don’t have room to name here have ’em, too.

What’s your favorite local version of the ham biscuit? Tell us at eatdrink@c-ville.com.

Is this the best IPA ever?

Luddites might want to steer clear of Champion Brewing Company’s new ML IPA, which debuted last week during the Tom Tom Founders Festival. In conjunction with local startup Metis Machine Learning (the “ML” in the name), Champion’s newest beverage was designed via computer. Using machine learning algorithms, information about the nation’s top 10 best-selling IPAs, as well as Charlottesville’s 10 worst-selling IPAs, was fed into a program that output the desired parameters for the theoretical best IPA.

While there are plenty of variables that make up the taste of the beer, they analyzed the beers’ IBUs (International Bittering Unit, a measure of bitterness), SRM (Standard Reference Method, a color system brewers use to determine finished beer and malt color) and alcohol content.

The results for each variable were 60, 6 and 6, respectively, possibly stoking more fear of a machine uprising.

Michael Prichard, founder and CEO of Metis Machine, wants to quash those fears. “All we really wanted to do was arm the brewer with some information they could work with,” he says. “It’s still a craft; we don’t want people to think we’re trying to replace the brewer.”

Hunter Smith, president and head brewer at Champion, confirms: “At the end of the day, all I was given was some parameters. After that, it was brewing as usual.”

Prichard and Smith met at a machine learning talk about a year ago, and they decided to collaborate; it seemed appropriate to have the ML IPA ready to serve during the innovation-focused Tom Tom Festival.

The ML IPA, which could stay on the menu after Tom Tom if the demand is there, is, according to Smith, a “spot-on typical IPA.”

Market Street Wine opens

Back in February, we reported that Market Street Wineshop owner Robert Harllee had decided to retire and sell his shop at 311 E. Market St. to two longtime employees, Siân Richards and Thadd McQuade. Market Street Wineshop 2.0—now called Market Street Wine—will open this weekend, with an open house from 1 to 4pm on Saturday, April 21.—Erin O’Hare

Categories
Living

Bellair Market favorite lends inspiration

Bellair Market’s Jefferson sandwich, with turkey, cheddar cheese, lettuce, herbed mayo and cranberry relish on a French roll, served as inspiration for Charlottesville native Mason Hereford when he opened the New Orleans-based Turkey and the Wolf restaurant in July 2016. Photo by Cheryl Gerber

By C. Simon Davidson, Alexa Nash and Erin O’Hare

Bellair Market’s Jefferson sandwich—maple turkey, cranberry relish, cheddar cheese, lettuce and herb mayonnaise layered between two slices of pillowy French bread—is a lunch staple for many in town. But for Charlottesville native Mason Hereford, a quirky and imaginative chef with nostalgia for all things ’90s, it’s the sandwich that started it all (he ate two a week for a decade while he lived here). Hereford’s New Orleans sandwich shop, Turkey & The Wolf, known for its outrageously good bologna sandwiches, collard green melt, tomato sandwiches and a serious allegiance to Duke’s Mayo, was recently named the best new restaurant of 2017 by Bon Appétit magazine and landed on Food & Wine magazine’s top 10 best new restaurants of 2017 list.

Common vision

Commonwealth Restaurant & Skybar is getting a makeover, and it’s brought in a couple of industry experts to help: restaurateur Will Richey, co-founder of Ten Course Hospitality and the brains behind The Alley Light, The Bebedero, Brasserie Saison, The Pie Chest, Revolutionary Soup and The Whiskey Jar; and chef Harrison Keevil, formerly of Brookville restaurant and currently of Keevil & Keevil Grocery and Kitchen in Belmont. Richey and Keevil have assisted the Commonwealth kitchen crew in revamping the menu, while Ten Course Hospitality will assume management of the restaurant. Commonwealth’s kitchen team, led by chef Reggie Calhoun, will remain.

The result is what Richey calls “modern Virginia cuisine,” food grounded in Virginia’s culinary traditions but also drawing on cultures that have shaped what Virginia is today. A devout pork-lover, Keevil is particularly excited about the pork rinds with pork dip and the smoked trout dip. The new Commonwealth menu launched Monday, September 4.

Eater’s digest

Tilman’s, a cheese shop and wine bar, will open later this fall at 406 E. Main St. on the Downtown Mall, in the space most recently occupied by My Chocolate Shoppe. More details to come, but Tilman’s will serve cheese and charcuterie, salads, sandwiches and snacks, plus wine and beer. It’s not all eat-in, though—if you can’t pause to sit in the sunny space that extends all the way out to Water Street, you can buy food and drink for later.

Douglas Kim, the chef who helped craft the menu at Ten when the restaurant first launched, is opening his own restaurant, Jeju Noodle Bar, in New York City this fall, and it’s been named to Eater New York’s Most Anticipated Restaurants of Fall 2017 list. According to Eater, Kim, who previously cooked at Per Se and Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare, will serve casual Korean ramyun at Jeju.

Last week, Jake Busching Wines launched Orphan No. 1, an experimental bronze wine made from surplus pinot gris grapes that were treated as red wine grapes (the juice is fermented in contact with the skins). The wine is a collaboration between many wine experts in town, including Busching, Joy Ting (winemaker and head enologist at Michael Shaps Wineworks), Paul Ting (Joy’s husband, and a member of the Wine Guild of Charlottesville), Priscilla Martin (general manager and wine director at Tavola) and Will Curley (wine buyer for Ten Course Hospitality and manager at Brasserie Saison). The wine is available for purchase in select locations in town, including jakebuschingwines.com and through the Wine Guild.

Four local vineyards—Early Mountain, Stinson, Veritas and Ankida Ridge—have teamed up to create the Commonwealth Collective, a collection of winemakers with their respective vintages using grapes unique to Virginia soil.

Chopt Salad opened two weeks ago in the Barracks Road Shopping Center. The company offers keep-you-full-until-dinner salads with handmade ingredients from local artisans such as MarieBette Café & Bakery.

Ethically raised meats from Virginia are the specialty of JM Stock Provisions, which has a flagship location in Charlottesville and a store in Richmond. But according to JM Stock partner James Lum III, the company will shutter the Richmond location so it can focus on expanding its wholesale business to Charlottesville and Richmond restaurants.

Categories
Living

Cardamom dishes up contemporary vegetarian Asian food

Lu-Mei Chang opened Cardamom, an all-vegetarian spot in York Place that serves contemporary Asian cuisine, to show Charlottesville diners that meat-free meals can still be tasty. Photo by Tom McGovern

Lu-Mei Chang can’t stay away from the kitchen, and we’re all better off for it.

Chang, who grew up in Taipei, Taiwan, started cooking when she came to Charlottesville 28 years ago. She worked at Eastern Standard, one of Charlottesville’s first Asian restaurants (located where The Whiskey Jar is now) for years before she opened Monsoon in 1992.

She sold Monsoon (now Monsoon Siam) in 2011 with the intention of taking a few years off from cooking to rest and repair her body. During that time, Chang taught the occasional cooking class at The Happy Cook and at Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center and kept a steady blog, Cooking with Lu-Mei: Asian Cooking Adventures in Charlottesville, full of recipes for healthy Asian dishes, and tips on where to find the best ingredients for those dishes.

While she found teaching to be very rewarding, she missed cooking, and she just opened Cardamom, which dishes up contemporary vegetarian Asian food in the spot most recently occupied by Mican in York Place on the Downtown Mall.

In addition to Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar and The Spot, which both serve vegetarian and vegan cuisine, Cardamom is one of just a few vegetarian-only restaurants in the city.

For now, the menu is small, offering noodle salads and dumplings, and dishes like eggplant tofu with holy basil, deep-fried crispy eggplant and tofu with ginger-garlic sauce and holy basil served with brown rice; tofu balls with coconut-lime sauce, a deep-fried mixture of tofu, potatoes, mushrooms, spinach and holy basil, served with brown rice; and creamy leek soup with yogurt dressed with crispy mochi rice crackers and walnut oil. Dishes cost about $10, though most are less, and diners can order Vietnamese coffee and pots of tea as well.

Chang wants to show Charlottesville diners that with fresh ingredients, well-crafted sauces and the right seasonings, vegetarian food can be both delicious and exciting.

New beginnings

“I’ve always had an appreciation for things that operate on the plane that borders the absurd and the meaningful, like watching one of the original ‘Star Trek’ episodes where it’s totally camp but there’s also substance if you’re looking for it,” says restaurateur Hamooda Shami.

Shami, who owns 11 Months, the space for extended restaurant/bar pop-ups in the former Yearbook Taco location on the Downtown Mall, will walk that fine line between absurdity and meaning with the first 11 Months concept: Sorry It’s Over.

Yes, Charlottesville, for 11 months, we’ll have a restaurant/bar with a breakup theme.

“It’s a sad subject, but we’re going to have some fun with it,” Shami says.

Shami worked with Richmond branding and interior design company Campfire & Co. on the branding and remodeling of the space (and on the restaurant’s Richmond location as well). He says we can expect “tacky neon” and actual breakup letters on the walls, plus some posters of sensitive-sad icons such as Al Green and The Smiths. Chef de cuisine Johnny Jackson and John Meiklejohn of The Whiskey Jar have developed a small, contemporary new American cuisine menu that Shami says will emphasize “quality over quantity.”

Bar manager David Faina will create the cocktail menu, and Shami says they’re in talks with Three Notch’d Brewing Company’s Collab House to craft a special beer that would play off the restaurant’s theme.

11 Months Presents…Sorry It’s Over will open in early February, so keep an eye out for the pale pink sign with a cartoon heart crying three fat tears.

Good eats

Three local craft food producers and the farmers who provide them with ingredients were honored last month at the 2017 annual Good Food Awards, which are organized by California sustainable food nonprofit Seedling Projects and “celebrate the kind of food we all want to eat: tasty, authentic and reasonably produced.” Both JM Stock Provisions and Timbercreek Market took home awards in the charcuterie category, for beef tongue pastrami and duck rillette, respectively. Red Rooster Coffee Roaster, based in Floyd, was honored for its Washed Hambela coffee. The 193 winners in 14 categories were chosen from 2,059 entries submitted by top-notch food producers from all over the U.S.