Erika Howsare

For a small Southern town, Charlottesville’s looking mighty international these days. Locals can taste chicken souvlaki, examine a Panamanian carving, sip Indian tea, and watch a weaver repair a Persian rug—all within a couple of blocks of the east end of the Downtown Mall. In fact, the area is growing into an enclave of internationally […]

There’s a truck with a trailer driving in the deep end!” says Pat Healy, looking out from a window in the clubhouse at Fry’s Spring Beach Club at the crater where a 100-meter swimming pool used to be. On this bright February day, it looks more like a giant, muddy hole, shored up with remnants […]

"Welcome to our cheese manufacturing facility," Christine Solem says pointedly. She’s standing in her cozy, well-worn kitchen north of Charlottesville, where she and John Coles have run a small goat and vegetable farm since 1973. Outside, their 24 goats wander around a large, partly wooded enclosure. Solem and Coles, in fact, make goat cheese in […]