Moon Maiden’s Delights – C-VILLE Weekly

By Chris Martin

Based on the astonishing number of bakers and bakeries in Charlottesville, the city appears to have a voracious appetite for carbs. A quick search on Google lists almost 30 area bakeries, cake spots, bagel makers, patisseries, and farmers’ market stands that offer a wide variety of floury treats. What follows is a sampling of a few of them.

Norkeita Goins of Caked Up Cville began baking to pass the time when she was furloughed at the beginning of the pandemic. “I started baking again, posting on Facebook, and I made an Instagram,” says Goins. “It seems like it happened overnight…it doesn’t feel like a whole year has passed already.” Goins uses abstract layers of bright buttercream, curated sprinkles, and gold details in sweets that stand out. For fall, she’s planning a pumpkin oreo cheesecake cupcake, and will incorporate Chinese five-spice powder into her bakes to accentuate the season’s flavors. Goins takes orders via cakedupcville.com, and her creations are on Instagram @cakedup_cville. Catch her at the City Market on November 6.

Drew Reynolds is one of the talented bakers who works at Bowerbird Bakeshop. With a line cook origin story, he made bread at C&O Restaurant, on top of food prep and dinner service. His penchant for pastry landed him a gig at Albemarle Baking Company, and as his time and his experience increased, so did his creativity. Reynolds’ current offerings include a spiced pear butter and marsala zabaglione eclair, an Italian-style whipped custard piped inside pâte à choux, macarons, and more. Peep him on Instagram @druhoo_98.

Mary Schwartz got her start by working in the front of house at Charlottesville’s Sweethaus cupcakery, and was baking in her spare time before she began working at the Ivy Inn a few days a week to learn more about pastry. When it became clear that breadmaking was her passion, Schwartz made the jump to Albemarle Baking Company, where she’s been developing her talents for the past four years under the mentorship of bakery owner Gerry Newman.

Schwartz says Newman has taught her to see the fruition of fermentation, and understand the daily changes in the dough. She says that “seeing the racks filled and the bread looking good,” it’s satisfying, “knowing that what we did was the right thing.” Schwartz is currently developing a pickled grape loaf by pickling local grapes with white vinegar, tarragon, and garlic, and utilizing them in the levain. Find her on Instagram @maryfschwartz.

In another realm of delicious things, Sidney Hall of Moon Maiden’s Delights creates plant-based and gluten-free pastries. She mills, soaks, and sprouts the specialty seeds, nuts, legumes, and flours she uses, and, with incredible mindfulness to nutrient density and wellness, she creates an option to indulge without compromise. “I so delight in being able to share delicious, gentle food with folks who have different dietary restrictions, as I myself have been on a healing journey for some time,” says Hall.

She says she’ll be bringing her signature turmeric black pepper coffee cake back to the IX Art Park Saturday market. She also loves to work with carob in the fall, and its complex caramel and coffee flavor might be the perfect complement to a cardamom and green apple pastry that she has in the works. Look for Hall at IX, or Moon Maiden’s Delights on Instagram @moon.maidens.delights.

Vincent Derquenne is not simply a baker, he’s one of the chef-partners behind Bizou, Luce, Bang!, The Space, and Crush Pad Wines, along with Tim Burgess. What you may not know is that Derquenne has been producing all the croissants for Bizou’s brunch for the majority of the past 10 years—by hand. Humbly, he says he’s turned over croissant production to a recently purchased sheeter, but transitioning from hand lamination is no easy feat for the French chef. Derquenne can be found all over C’ville, hopping between his restaurants, and if you’re lucky, you might hear tales of his time cooking at the Eiffel Tower. More on Derquenne at bizoudowntown.com.

Say cheese: Tilman’s helps you make the right choices

Derek Mansfield and Courtenay Tyler know that shopping for the perfect wine and cheese can be tough. They’re hoping to take the intimidation factor down a few notches, though, with Tilman’s, their cheese shop and wine bar that opened last week on the Downtown Mall.

Mansfield and Tyler met while working at Relay Foods, and as the company wound down in preparation for its merger with Door to Door Organics earlier this year, the two colleagues started talking about what it would be like to hang their own shingle here in Charlottesville. Tilman’s, named for the popular department store that occupied the building in the 1930s, is the result of those conversations and months of planning.

Wine, cheese and charcuterie are the focus at Tilman’s, which offers a variety of composed cheese and charcuterie boards available to eat at the marble-topped bar, perhaps with one of the nine wines offered by the glass or a pint of beer on tap. Customers can sample a cheese before they buy, and knowledgeable staff is happy to answer questions, make recommendations and sub different cheeses in and out if you’re not a fan of blue or goat. There are sandwiches (like the prosciutto and fig, and Italian pork) and salads, too, and desserts such as chocolate cake with merlot and chocolate ganache, and a goat cheese tartlet with roasted pistachios and honey. The shop also has a retail element offering about 40 different bottles of wine, cheese to go, boxes of crackers, baguettes, containers of Found. Market Co. shortbreads (bee sting and salted rosemary among them), Blanchard’s coffees, jars of chutney, specialty snacks and more. Taylor’s pimento cheese recipe, which Mansfield says will be familiar to Relay Foods customers, makes an appearance on the menu as well.

Mansfield says he wants Tilman’s, which is open from 11am to 9pm Monday through Saturday, and from 10am to 5pm Sundays, to be a welcoming spot, the kind of place where people can come in with a book or laptop and hang out for a few hours.

Pack lunch

Chef Curtis Shaver’s Sandwich Lab has been a bit elusive as of late. For those unfamiliar with Sandwich Lab, we’ll get you up to speed: In 2014, Shaver, executive chef at Hamiltons’ at First & Main, put together a once-a-month, one-day only, delightfully-over-the-top sandwich available for lunchtime pickup at the Downtown Mall restaurant.

Although the sandwiches regularly sold out, Sandwich Lab’s frequency has waned.

Fans of Shaver’s sammies, get ready to rejoice, because come spring 2018, Shaver will be making sandwiches for a sandwich joint-cum-bike repair shop, Peloton Station, at 114 10th St. NW, in the former Cville Classic Cars space. (In a bike race, the peloton is the main pack of riders who save energy by riding close to other riders to reduce drag.) Peloton Station, which Shaver is opening in partnership with Hamiltons’ owner Bill Hamilton and managing partner Greg Vogler, is intended as a space for cycling enthusiasts to grab a bite to eat and a beer after a ride, and even have their bike repaired while they wait.

Shaver, a former part-time bike mechanic and riding enthusiast, has long wanted to combine cooking and riding, and the timing seemed right, Vogler says. These sorts of bike cafés have popped up in European cities and in places like Asheville, North Carolina, and the Peloton Station partners think Charlottesville’s ready for one, too.

In addition to chef sandwiches and beer, Peloton Station will offer happy hour tune-ups, repair clinics, community builds and a chill atmosphere for bikers and non-bikers alike. Shaver says that some Sandwich Lab favorites will be on the Peloton Station menu, and, just in case you were wondering, no, Sandwich Lab probably isn’t gone forever.

Double or nothing

According to a post on Sugar Shack Charlottesville’s Facebook page, the reason the build-out is taking so long is that an expanded patio is being added to the 1001 W. Main St. space because this Sugar Shack location will also include owner and donut aficionado Ian Kelley’s other project: Luther Burger. It’s the second Sugar Shack to include a Luther Burger (the other is in North Chesterfield), which promises beef, turkey and veggie burgers served on buns made from Sugar Shack donut dough, and, according to the Facebook post, “the best waffle fries in your life.”

Mooning over baked goods

Vegan and gluten-free baked goods gluttons have probably already heard of Moon Maiden’s Delights, whose sprouted-grain, gluten-free and vegan cakes and pastries, such as cranberry pear rolls with carob frosting and berry garnish and salty maple-glazed coconut brownies, are sold at City Market, Rebecca’s Natural Foods and Java Java. But for those who aren’t familiar with the bakery, now you’ve been introduced, and at a most convenient time: Moon Maiden’s Delights has opened a brick-and-mortar location on the Downtown Mall, in York Place. Owner and baker Sidney Hall recently moved to town and says the bakery has helped her get to know the community.